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The range of choices was overwhelming. Fake blood, protein additives, vitamin solutions, iron supplements. The companies couldn’t seem to figure out what sort of packaging would attract undead attention. Skinny Victorian glass bottles with filigreed labels. Round, vaguely Japanese pop-art jars in candy colors. Opaque plastic coffins with cartoon Bela Lugosi faces etched into the front. The combination was jarring and left me a little disoriented.
A vampire female who was turned in her late twenties passed by on my left. She seemed to be moving in slow motion, her long blue-black hair swishing behind her in a shining curtain. She made capri pants and Crocs, a combination which I think should be outlawed in the state of Kentucky, look good. She was so…put together. She seemed comfortable as a vampire. Carefree, like someone you’d see in a nonthreatening shampoo commercial.
I found myself following her, tossing one of everything that she chose into my cart. Fang -Brite Fluoride Wash, Undying Health Vitamin Solution, Basic Red, Razor Wire Floss. I followed her all the way down the aisle until she reached the mega -dose SPF 500 sunscreen. I waited in agony for her to decide between Face Paste and Solar Shield ( “Tested on astronauts, to be used in emergency daylight situations” versus “Guaranteed protection against reasonable sun exposure for up to thirty minutes”) and finally realized I was behaving in a rather creepy manner.
I backed away, narrowly avoiding bumping into the ointment guy. But I did grab some of that sunscreen, because you never know.
As I headed toward the checkout, I was struck by a gnawing anxiety. The cashier was going to see my purchases and know that I was a vampire. It felt like the first (and last) time I bought my own condoms at the drugstore near my dorm. No matter how much other random stuff I threw into the cart to distract her, that cashier knew exactly what I (and the colorful assortment of latex I was purchasing) would be up to later. What if the Wal -Mart cashier knew my mama or recognized me from the library? Any anonymity I had would be shot as soon as the cashier woke up from her postmidnight-shift stupor and started making phone calls to the kitchen-and-beauty-parlor gossip circuit.
Aw, hell. I had to do it sometime. Besides, I was going to get pretty hungry without faux blood at home, and that could put me in a precarious moral position with my whole “no forcible feeding” stance.
Fortunately, I underestimated the apathy of employees forced to work the midnight shift. The cashier didn’t bother looking up at me, much less pay any attention to what she was halfheartedly dragging across the scanner. The closest thing to communication I got was when she grunted and pointed to the total on her register screen.
Grocery shopping at two-thirty A.M. is the only way to go.
I lugged my lone bag of groceries up the front steps, only to find a slender redhead in a black sundress sitting on my front porch swing. I stopped in my tracks. I stared at her. She stared back. I tried to cast out my senses to pick up any evil tendencies.
Nothing.
She rose on her mile-long legs and spoke in a voice utterly without accent. “Hello, I’m Andrea.”
She smelled human, normal. In fact, she smelled great. Earthy and fresh, like something just baked. She had a face made for another century, for high-waisted lace gowns and hairstyles involving ringlets. Yet, here she was, standing on my porch like a nocturnal Mary Kay lady.
It seemed to be my turn to talk. “Can I help you?”
“Gabriel sent me.”
“For…?” If Gabriel sent someone to give me an after-undeath Goth makeover, I was going to be seriously pissed. Andrea stood and unknotted the silk scarf at her throat. Even in the dark, I could make out the healing bite marks, the purpling bruises.
“Wait, are you a pet?”
More important, was she Gabriel’s pet?
She laughed, a soft, silky whisper that made me feel frizzled and oafish. “I’m a freelance blood surrogate. I have friends in the vampire community. Friends who enjoy my company and my discretion.”
I remained silent. How exactly was that different?
“I’m AB negative, so I’m a popular selection,” she added.
“That’s a rare blood type. Only one percent of the population has it, ” I blurted. “Bet you’re popular down at the Red Cross.”
“Yes, I’m sort of a delicacy,” she said, smiling. “How did you know that?”
“The brain may die, but my compulsion for useless trivia lives on,” I said, ignoring the frown that marred her alabaster brow.
Andrea was clearly unaccustomed to not being jumped the second a vampire spied her snowy swanlike neck. “Gabriel said you were nervous about feeding from a human. So he sent me over to help you through it. I think he ’s worried about you, to be honest. It’s kind of sweet.”
I rattled my keys not so subtly and motioned toward my front door. “I’d really rather not.”
Andrea was even less accustomed to being turned down flat. Suddenly awkward, she strode toward me, her gait unsteady.
“It’s OK, I want you to. I enjoy it.”
I heaved my groceries onto the hall table and closed the door. Even without my ghost aunt lurking about, I didn ’t want this conversation happening anywhere near my home. It was just unseemly. If I could have found a polite way to heave this woman off my porch, I would have. Damn Mama and her hereditary devotion to hospitality. “Look, Andrea, I haven’t completely decided where I stand on the feeding-on-humans issue. What’s the vampire equivalent of a vegan?”
“There isn’t one,” she insisted. “What can I do to make this more comfortable for you?”
“Get a tourniquet and a glass, and take your neck out of the equation?”
