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“There’s a car coming,” he said. He crossed to the window and cursed in what sounded like Greek. Really dirty Greek. “It’s a Council vehicle!”
I shot to my feet and peered out the window. I couldn’t see anything but the faint light of headlights at the end of my winding driveway. “Are you sure?” He gave me a withering look. “Well, I don’t have superhuman hearing!”
“Don’t panic. It will be fine.”
I whirled toward him. “Don’t panic? I went from having no vampires in my house to having one in the basement and an unknown number in the driveway, and you don’t want me to panic? Why can’t you just talk to them now?”
“Because I’m just as weak and sick as I appear to be. And if the one who poisoned me is among the Council officials, I might as well paint a target on my back.”
I sighed. I was so close to just waving the approaching Council members into the house and letting them cart his blood-spewing butt home. Cal flustered me. And he insulted me, regularly, with laser precision. But he honestly seemed frightened, and I could tell that was not a comfortable emotion for him. So I nodded slowly, my mouth set in a grim line.
His fingers wrapped around my arm, squeezing it gently. “I’m going downstairs. I’ll wait there until they leave. I doubt they’ll search the house. They probably just want to ask you a few questions. Answer them honestly, and don’t try to make up an elaborate story. You’ll be fine.”
“Won’t they be able to smell you in here?” I asked.
He considered it for a moment. “Take them to the garden. Offer them lemonade and iced tea.”
I exclaimed, “They don’t drink lemonade or iced tea!”
“But they’ll appreciate the ‘humanity’ of the gesture. And people with guilty consciences generally don’t take the time for beverage service.”
“I don’t have a guilty conscience. Other than taking you in, I haven’t done anything extraordinarily evil or stupid lately,” I hissed as he headed for the basement door. “And don’t go back downstairs; go upstairs to the alcove. You’ll be able to hear what’s being said if you crack the window. I don’t want to have to relate the conversation to you later.”
He shrugged and changed directions, heading toward the stairs. I opened up the junk drawer and rummaged around for the old clipping shears with the green plastic handles. Cal paused to watch.
“Why are you looking through old takeout menus and batteries?” he asked.
“I’m going to go out there and prune a bunch of geraniums,” I said, brandishing the shears.
He stepped out of range, hands raised. “I know I told you to be a nice hostess, but I don’t think this is the time for flower arranging.”
“Geraniums are chock-full of essential oils that stink to high heaven. If I go out there and stir a bunch of it up, maybe they won’t smell you.”
“Good idea.” His hands dropped, and his posture changed. He relaxed, as if he was so surprised by my saying something sensible that he forgot about the doom on wheels rolling up my driveway.
I exclaimed, “I don’t need your sarcasm right now!”
“No, really, it’s a sound strategy.”
“Well, then, I’m not sure how to respond to that,” I said, running my hands under the tap and scrubbing off the traces of his scent.
“The customary response to a compliment is ‘thank you.’ ”
I grumbled, “I’m working up to it.”
5
Vampires do not share emotions readily. Questions to avoid: “Why?” “Why not?” And “No, really, why?”
—The Care and Feeding of Stray Vampires
By the time the Council reps unloaded themselves from Ophelia’s black SUV, I’d scrubbed my hands and face again, snagged a clean shirt from the laundry basket at the foot of the stairs, and clipped dead ends from a half-dozen geranium plants hanging from baskets on the porch. I crushed the leaves and flowers between my fingers, sending as much of the bitter green scent into the air as possible.
Offering a guileless smile, I waved like a polite little country girl. I’d only interacted with the Council members at the office. They were intimidating individually, but faced with them en masse on my home turf, I was practically twitching with nerves.
The first out of the car was a blond lady with a slight British accent, who went by Sophie. Despite the fact that even the most ancient vampires had adopted some form of last name to put on government paperwork, she just went by Sophie. She had a Barbie-doll type of beauty, unlined and unpainted, with a weird plastic sheen to her skin.
Sophie was a walking truth serum. If she was touching bare skin, she could yank the truth out of you like a loose tooth. I’d spent several unpleasant hours in her company during the Council’s screening process for humans who planned to work with vampires. That’s when I learned that you don’t refer to Buffy, the Winchesters, or even the Frog Brothers from The Lost Boys in front of Council officials. They do not have a sense of humor about that sort of entertainment.
