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“I don’t think using Dick as a character witness is going to help you.” Gabriel said.
Dick considered that for a moment and nodded.
“She didn’t do anything, Gabe,” Dick said. “She was just trying to keep Norm from getting hurt. Even the Council will be able to see that.”
“Council?” I squeaked. But neither of them noticed, what with all the seething and male posturing.
“As your sire, I have to take you before the local council to answer some questions,” Gabriel told me. “I would suggest you put on some more suitable clothes.”
I looked down at my clothes. Apparently, pajama pants imprinted with little cupcakes were not suitable.
I ran inside to change into khakis and a respectable blouse, reluctant to leave Dick and Gabriel alone for fear they might say something interesting in my absence. When I came back out, it appeared that they hadn’t said anything at all. Gabriel was leaning against the porch railing, arms crossed and eyes narrowed at his old friend. Dick was stretched out on my swing, scratching my adoring dog. Fitz had roused himself enough to sit up and place his head on Dick’s knee.
“You’ll be fine, Stretch,” Dick assured me with a wink. “See you later.”
Gabriel glowered at Dick as he opened the door to his car, a rather sedate Volvo sedan. It was disappointing, despite the total destruction of every preconceived vampire notion I’d had in the last week. The car smelled of old leather and not much else. It was a refreshing change from my car, which smelled faintly of bacon cheeseburgers.
Dick didn’t bother leaving before we pulled away. He stayed stretched across my porch swing with my dog’s head on his knee. He even blew me a little kiss as I left. I’m sure it was meant to make Gabriel wonder whether he would still be there when I returned. I bounced between being annoyed and being somewhat flattered that he was using me to irritate Gabriel. I settled on annoyed.
I had no idea what awaited me at the council hearing. After the initial Coming Out chaos subsided, the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead appointed national and state-level commissions to look into suspicious vampire deaths and record the newly turned. Those state councils had local representatives to settle minor squabbles and determine what matters were worth the higher-ups’ attention. They were also granted authority to carry out sentences for the Council.
Gabriel drove in seething silence until we reached the edge of town. As we pulled to a stop on Gates Street, he tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and spat. “I can smell him on you.”
“Who?”
“You know who,” he snarled.
“Is this about Dick?” I finally asked.
He growled.
I crossed my arms, as much to put a barrier between our bodies as to communicate my exasperation. “So, it’s about Dick.”
Not to be obvious, but wasn’t it always?
He pulled me to face him in my seat, his face dangerously close to mine. “I need to make something very clear. I’m not your friend, Jane. I’m not Zeb. I can’t spend time with you if you’re going to be with someone else.”
“I want you to really, really listen to me, because I say this with all sincerity,” I whispered, pressing his hands between mine.
“You are not a well man.”
“Don’t make a joke out of this,” he growled.
“I’m not kidding,” I growled back. “What the hell do you mean, you’re not my friend? And I haven’t been with anyone, thank you very much. You’d know that if you really paid attention with that nose of yours.
“Look, Dick was actually really helpful last night. He probably kept Walter from cracking my skull. And he came over tonight to make sure I was OK,” I told him. “That’s it. Nothing happened. I mean, he touched me, but not in the way you ’re thinking. And smelling me to determine whom I have and haven’t been around is not an appropriate use of vampire powers. In fact, it’s kind of pathetic. Your light’s green.”
Gabriel finally noticed the changed traffic signal and punched the gas. He smoldered for a few beats before he burst out with,
“You know he lost his family’s house in a card game, yes?”
“Dick lost his house to you in a card game.” I sighed.
Andrea had acquainted me with this interesting tidbit. Before they were turned, Gabriel and Dick spent much of their time bouncing between the card table (Dick’s hobby) and the horse auctions (Gabriel’s hobby). One night after several hands of poker and too much of Dick’s brandy, Dick wagered his family home against Gabriel’s prize stallion. Dick was too drunk to realize he was holding two eights, a seven, a jack, and a two, not a straight. Though Gabriel tried to give the house back, Dick was too proud to take it. This was fortuitous, as the Cheney manse was where Gabriel ran when his brothers staked him out.
Between the humiliation of Dick’s loss and Gabriel’s new “nights only” policy, let’s just say they were no longer BFFs. Petty grievances and snarky exchanges compiled until they went from not being able to stand each other to open hostility. Dick ’s propensity for penis-related quips and juvenile pranks didn’t help. In the late 1960s, he peppered Gabriel’s entire house with silver filings. For more than a decade, Gabriel couldn’t sit without minor burns to his behind.
So, despite living within a ten-mile radius of each other for more than a century, they didn’t speak unless they had to. By the way, before you start making assumptions, Dick was not turned by the same woman who turned Gabriel. According to Andrea, Dick was turned ten years after Gabriel, after a particularly bad card game. The winner, a vampire from New Orleans named Scat, wanted to make sure Dick’s debt was paid off and figured giving him an extra few hundred years would help. Notice a gambling pattern here?
