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Maybe he was trying to intimidate me so I wouldn’t go to the police.
That was an awful lot of maybes. And I doubted that Bud had that many gossipy contacts to spread vicious lies within the vampire world.
Moving on.
Fact: This could be some elaborate plot on Jenny’s part to get rid of me and move into River Oaks.
Far-fetched? Sure. Jenny didn’t have any contacts in the vampire world, as far as I knew. But she was always doing that sales-party/social-networking stuff. There was no telling whom she ’d come into contact with. And the woman idolized Martha Stewart. God only knew what she was capable of.
But if she was going to paint “BLOODSUCKING WHORE” on my car, Jenny would have probably used a whimsical font and subdued matte craft paint.
Fact: I didn’t know anything about Andrea Byrne beyond what she had told me.
As much as I hated to suspect a new friend, it was Andrea who suggested going to the Cellar in the first place. Did I really keep track of how much she drank that night? Was the snuggly -drunk routine an act? Gabriel said vampires kept pets. Could Andrea be an operative planted by a vampire to torment me? If I could control my stupid mind-reading powers, I would know.
The question was what vampire would want to torment me.
Fact: Gabriel could have turned me just so he could play creepy James Spader mind-games with me.
I chose not to explore that last one.
Mama was master of the “psychological reset.” It went something like this: We’d have an argument. I’d hurt her feelings (or I’d disobey a direct order, pretty much the same thing). She’d sulk for a while and refuse to speak to me until I apologized. Eventually, she’d realize that I was not going to apologize. Then she’d just breeze back into my life as if the disagreement never happened. And we’d be right back where we started.
It was infuriating. It was toxic. It was evil. But damned if it wasn ’t extremely effective. How do you continue an argument with someone who claims to have no memory of the argument ever happening? That was why I could not comfortably watch Gaslight.
So, I wasn’t exactly surprised the next Monday night when Mama breezed into my kitchen just before dusk, all smiles and sweetness. She didn’t bother to knock, but why would she? It was only my house. She and Grandma Ruthie had this whole thing about the “doors of River Oaks never being closed to an Early.”
I had to get some thicker doors.
Fortunately, I had woken up insanely early when Fitz howled at the approach of some Jehovah’s Witnesses. That avoided the “Why are you sleeping through the afternoon?” questions. In the unfortunate column, I was experimenting with a synthetic-blood breakfast smoothie. I had a combination of Faux Type O, protein powder, Undying Health vitamin solution, iron supplements, a frozen pink-lemonade mixer, and orange juice in my blender. I was putting the blood back into the fridge when she walked in. I snapped the door shut and dropped a dish towel over my copy of the Guide for the Newly Undead.
“Hi, Mama. What—what are you doing here?”
“Do I need a reason to drop by?” Mama asked, peering into the blender. “What are you making?”
“It’s a health shake,” I said, hitting the frappe button before she noticed the streaks of red. The resulting mixture was a garish vermillion that practically screamed, “There’s fake blood in here!”
Mama pinched my cheek as the blender whirred. “Honey, you might want to think about a new shade of makeup. This one makes you look awfully pale. You know, your cousin Junie just started doing Mary Kay. She could come over and show you how to make yourself up properly. She’s been looking for someone to practice her at-home demonstrations on.”
“I don’t think I want makeup tips from a day-shift dancer at the Booby Hatch.” I shook my head as I let the blender grind to halt. “But thanks.”
Mama ignored me in her special way as I poured some smoothie into a glass. “Your daddy mentioned you turned down pizza the other night. You’re not going on some weird vegetarian diet, are you? I don’t want you going anemic on me. It would explain why you’re so pasty.”
I laughed. “No, I’m definitely not a vegetarian. This is very good for me. Lots of vitamins, minerals, see? ” I took a big sip.
“Mmmm.”
Mama arched a brow and took the glass and sniffed.
“Mama, I wouldn’t—”
Before I could stop her, she’d brought the glass to her lips and taken a sip. All right, I probably could have stopped her with my lightning-fast reflexes. But I kind of wanted to see if she would actually do it. There was nothing in there that could hurt her.
Fine, fine, I let my mother drink fake blood. I was going to hell.
“Oh, my, that’s awful!” she said, gagging as she swallowed.
“There’s a lot of iron in it,” I said, taking the glass back and draining its contents. “It takes a while to get used to it.”
