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“Look, I don’t care. I haven’t been attacked by a vampire yet. I don’t figure you’re going to be the one to do it. I am a little hurt that you don’t come in here anymore. But I figure you have your reasons.”
“I can’t eat.”
Hector chuckled. “Well, that’s a reason. But we put that bottled-blood stuff on the menu for a reason, Jane. We don’t turn away anybody’s money here, dead or undead. You’re always welcome. But try for Wednesdays, because I want you to see Judge Frye do what he thinks is the Mexican Hat Dance.”
“Thanks, Heck.”
“Anytime,” he said, giving me a brotherly punch on the arm. “And the reunion, think about it, OK?”
“I will.” I laughed and bopped his bicep lightly.
“Ow,” he said, rubbing his arm dramatically. “You didn’t hit so hard in high school.”
“People change,” I told him, giggling as I walked out the front entrance.
Andrea and I were backed up on several days’ worth of deliveries that we hadn’t had a chance to open. So, we sat at the coffee bar, pretending it was Christmas.
“I think that’s the cookbooks I ordered,” I said, taking a load of packing peanuts to the trash as Andrea picked up an Amazon.com box. “Apparently, some chef in New York was turned and is doing amazing things with drinkable sauces that are tasty and won’t make vampires vomit. So I got a dozen of them.”
Andrea bounced the package gently. “It seems kind of light for a dozen books. I think it’s probably that unnatural number of Jason Statham DVDs you ordered.”
“He has to have filmed a nude scene at some point in his career. I don’t care how many shoot-’em-up action movies I have to watch, I will find it,” I said solemnly. “Oh, yes, I will find it.”
Andrea rolled her eyes as she pressed the brass athame Mr. Wainwright used as a letter opener to the packing tape. “I know money isn’t really that much of a concern for you anymore, but have you ever stopped to examine some of your odder spending habits?”
“I’m comfortable with the balance I— Do you smell something?” The back of my throat itched as Andrea sliced through the tape. She squealed when the box hissed and then spattered her face with a sheer silvery mist. I tried to call out to her, but my throat wasn’t working right.
I screamed noiselessly as smoke rose from my arms. My skin crackled and burned. I think I made a very undignified, strangled screeching noise as I smacked the box off the counter to the floor.
Dick emerged from the back room, coughing.
I heard Andrea screaming, “What is it? What is it?” while I dropped to my knees and gave hoarse, choking, rattling coughs. My throat was closing up. I didn’t have to breathe, but the inability to draw in air was even more painful than the slow flames of pain licking at my face. I was going to die. For real this time, I could feel it. My strength was ebbing out of my limbs, and I could feel my body shutting down.
Gabriel. I would never fix things with Gabriel. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized I had expected that I would. As the edges of my vision began to darken and blur, I struggled to tell Andrea to find Gabriel, to tell him how sorry I was.
“Get it out of here!” Dick yelled as he swooped behind the counter. “Keep the door open.”
Andrea, still wiping frantically at her cheeks, tossed the box out through the front door. Dick propped me up against his chest and dragged a fingernail across his wrist. “Come on, sweetheart. Come on, Jane, please, calm down and drink.” Dick coughed slightly as he pressed his wrist to my mouth. He hissed in pain as my mouth touched his skin. The flesh against my lips sizzled and turned black as his skin reacted to the silver on my face. He murmured soothing words as I struggled to swallow. “Good, good. You need this. It will help. There’s a girl. Long, slow sips.”
Despite the fact that our organs are no longer functioning, vampire cells actually reproduce at a rapid rate. When we’re injured, tendrils of tissue and muscle reach out to each other to replicate the previous alignment, which is why we don’t gain weight or age. Drinking the blood of another vampire, particularly an older one, speeds the process along. The blood pouring down my throat was a balm. The comfort was almost instantaneous. My skin stopped smoking; the burning subsided. My throat relaxed, allowing Dick’s blood to soothe and heal.
And laced through it all, like a gold ribbon streaking through the pain, I felt love. Dick really did love me, in a sweet, brotherly manner that sent his thoughts scattered in a million directions. Images whizzed by without rhyme or reason. Our meeting in the parking lot at the Cellar. Dick coming to River Oaks and realizing that Gabriel was my sire. Me introducing him to Andrea. Dick bickering with Gabriel while I refereed. His trailer exploding. Dick spending time with Zeb. Andrea and Dick dancing at Zeb’s wedding. Sitting with Andrea at her kitchen table. All of these little scenes were tenuously connected to his knowing me. He saw his life as being better after he met me. He didn’t want to lose that.
Aww.
I broke away from him and let him wrap his arms around me, hugging me close. “Don’t ever do that to me again, do you understand?” Dick demanded, his voice rough. I nodded, squeezing his shoulders, before he released me and checked the damage to my face. I didn’t mention the visions, even though we both knew what I’d seen. Dick wasn’t much for big emotional displays.
Gently, he leaned me against the cabinet. I pressed tentative fingers against the raw, ravaged skin of my cheeks as Dick rummaged for a wet rag. “What. The. Hell. Was. That?” I wheezed.
Rubbing his wrist as the flesh reformed and healed, Dick said, “You were having the vampire version of a bad allergic reaction. Can you explain to me how you managed to release aerosol silver directly into your own face? What’s next for you, stake juggling?”
And with that, Dick had recovered from his fit of fraternal devotion.
“Why are we assuming that I did this to myself?” I growled, my voice still hoarse. Dick gave me a flat stare. “It was worth a shot,” I said, swiping the rag across my cheeks. “Andrea! Andrea opened the box. Is she OK?”
“I’m fine,” she said, peering over the counter, rubbing her own face with a dust rag. “It doesn’t even hurt. I’m sorry I screamed. It just freaked me out.”
“Eh, just promise you’ll let me have the panic attack next time we’re accosted by the mail.”
