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He was not exactly what Grandma Ruthie would call a “reputable person.” If you needed it, Dick could find it. But you shouldn’t ask where he got it. I’m not talking about your typical illegal-fireworks transactions. A werewolf once tried to stake Dick instead of paying him for a pistol that shot silver bullets. It was rumored that the werewolf was now a fur rug in Dick ’s badly decorated living room. It’s a moot point to ask why the werewolf didn’t shoot Dick with the silver-bullet gun. Werewolves are sort of the crazy cousins of the supernatural world, Andrea explained, not great at making decisions.
Eager for a quiet night in, I dutifully read the chapters on finding blood sources and emergency sun protection from The Guide for the Newly Undead. The descriptions of spontaneous vampire combustion were going to give me nightmares for weeks.
But now I knew not to trust a T-shirt pulled over my head to keep me from bursting into flames. (Coats, heavy-duty trash bags, and high-quality aluminum foil would do in a pinch.)
I nuked a bottle of Faux Type O and pored over my personal library for something that would settle me. As usual, I came back to my dear Jane. Whenever I get restless or stressed, I revisit Mansfield Park. Because I know that no matter how rough my life gets, at least I don’t have to wear a corset and live with a stone-cold witch like Mrs. Norris.
I propped my feet on the arm of my porch swing and settled in. I’d barely begun a proper scratching of Fitz’s ears when a set of brass knuckles came flying at me. I caught it a few centimeters from my forehead.
“That’s so cool,” I marveled. I turned to see Dick Cheney—the vampire, not the former vice president—climbing up onto my front porch. Fitz lifted his head as Dick sauntered past but dropped back into the scratching position without so much as a bark.
“I figured you might want them the next time you get into a bar fight, ” he said. “I didn’t want to say anything last night, but you hit like a girl, Stretch.”
I gave him my best “don’t underestimate me” look and muttered, “A vampire girl.”
He sauntered over to the swing and made himself comfy, despite my objections when he stretched my legs over his ancient jeans. Not bothering to adjust the “I Know Tricks” T-shirt that rode over some impressive abs, he took particular pleasure in examining my brand-new cotton-candy-pink pedicure. “I do admire a woman who pays attention to her toes. So, what do you have planned for the evening? And where is that tasty friend of yours?”
I tossed the brass knuckles into his lap, drawing a wince from him. “She’s not here, and she won’t date you.”
He grinned, splitting the rugged planes of his face with brilliant white fangs. “She might if she knew me.”
“She does know you, and that’s why she won’t date you.”
He gave me his best panty-dropping smile. “I guess I’ll have to settle for you, then.”
Unable to decide whether that was an insult, I ignored him.
“There’s something familiar about you,” he said. “I can’t quite place it. But you’re different.”
“It’s my shampoo,” I said, a smidge too loudly. “It smells like mangoes, very memorable.”
“No, that’s not it,” he said, then squinted at me and gave up. He poked my side, instinctively aiming at my most ticklish places. “How come we haven’t met before? How old are you? What do you do when you’re not losing fights and quipping me half to death?”
“I grew up around here,” I said, slapping his hand away. “I was just turned last week. I’m a librarian.”
He stilled, as if I’d just told him I was the inventor of the tube top. “I watched a movie about a librarian once. Well, she was a librarian by day, a call girl by—”
I stopped him with a quick lift of an eyebrow. “If you finish that sentence, we cannot be friends.”
“You don’t talk like a librarian,” he said.
“I know,” I admitted. “I’m proof that just enough education can be dangerous. In the right setting, I can argue Faulkner and James Joyce with the best of them. But I think it’s going to take a couple of centuries to polish the Hollow off me. My sire’s pretty urbane. Maybe he can send me to vampire charm school or something.”>“That’s no way to talk to me, Walter,” Rich said, grabbing Walter by the scruff of his neck as the broken limb dangled.
“You’ve been warned about robbing the Cellar. Norm’s been given permission to dust your hide with silver shot. He just doesn’t have the heart to do it, ’cause you don’t have the sense to duck.”
I protested that all this bone-breaking wasn’t necessary. I was fine, no harm done. And thanks to Walter, I was more than alert enough to drive home safely. Walter called me some very creative names and repeated his anatomically impossible instructions to Rich. Rich paused and watched Walter’s arm set itself, then he wrenched it again.
“Oh, come on, man,” Walter whined.
“I can keep breaking it,” Rich told him. “Now, do you have something to say to this lady?”
Even I was disturbed at the display of testosterone. “Really, this is just—oh, come on. What’s next? Screaming ‘Mercy is for the weak’?”
Rich actually shushed me, saying, “There’s a principle here.”
Walter mumbled something close to “I’m sorry.”
“What was that?” Rich combined the pain of a crooked arm with the indignity of a flicked ear. I could only hope the situation didn’t escalate to the dreaded purple nurple.
