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I never told my friends what I was, but they knew where I stood on relationships—and children. And anyone with eyes could tell that Eli was fae enough to need to father a kid or two. The one man I wouldn’t mind keeping around for a while wasalsothe one man I shouldn’t want. It made me surly—and then Eli and I argued. Rinse. Repeat. I knew better.
I also knew that Eli was the only person who could have my back in a fight, and with my magic being unpredictable, I needed the help. It was a case of the proverbial fucked every direction dilemma I seemed to excel at finding.
So, I wasn’t going to tell my friends that Eli had helped me with the Chaddock case. Avoid. Ignore. It was one of my favorite solutions when bash-and-behead wasn’t an option.
I was at the counter at Tomes and Tea, and Jesse was tucked away upstairs watching me on his security cameras. Sometimes I thought Jesse would love to have had magic or something just to be able to keep me safer, but I was grateful that he was wholly human.
I glanced up at the camera and smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring way when thedraugrstrolled in.
The ones old enough to be semi-sentient evoked the kind of aversion I usually reserved for weddings and lectures. Tall, dark, and dead came through the door of the bookstore like he thought he was alive. I was expecting him, of course, but no amount of expectation quelled my disgust when the infected ones approached me.
“This store is off-limits todraugrunder the age of twenty,” I said. “You fed on a customer.”
“Hello,” he said.
“I will not allow you to eat people,” I stressed.
Somehow the big-assed sword on the counter wasn’t a clue. I mean, no one really thinks of me and says “oh, she’ssubtle.” At least after tonight I could claim that someone—or something—thought I was understated because my combo of sword and “off-limits” still earned me a friendly look.
He smiled in what I guessed he thought was an alluring manner. He had all his teeth plus the two shiny extra teeth that dead things grew, and if you could overlook the icy skin and vague scent of death, maybe adraugrcould be attractive.
Somewhere in his malfunctioning mind,hethought he was sexy.
I mean, okay, more than a few living humans seemed to enjoy banging the dead. I just couldn’t grasp it. Maybe if my heart wasn’t thumping in irritation and agitation, I would be the sort of woman who thought blood-breath was an aphrodisiac. My mother certainly had.
Sadly, for him, I hadn’t inherited her perverse streak—just her temper.
“You are not welcome here,” I added in a louder voice.
He nodded and then took another step. This one had to be trying to live off a blood-bank diet. No one much discussed it, but dead blood diets seemed to makedraugrlittle better than Hollywood zombies. Faster, of course, than the shambling zombies on screen, but not much for thinking.
“This store doesn’t serve the recently dead,” I explained calmly.
He nodded again, as if he understood, but he wasn’t retreating.
“You know there are laws, right? And youbita customer.” I reached under the counter, hand searching for the button that would summon the police. Protocol. Every public encounter with an aggressivedraugroutside a registered graveyard or cemeteryhad to be reported. Stores and streetlamps had alarms mounted in reach. All a human had to do was press an alarm so the police could be aware of attacks, potential attacks, and self-defense events. It was all recorded, charted, mapped.
Most of the time, pushing that button was the last act of a person’s life. Me? I might have the record for successful post-button life.
Button depressed, I said, “The online stores will ship to—”
“You aren’t like them.”
I reassessed its age to closer to fifteen. It spoke clearly, but with obvious effort. Someone had been babysitting this one for it to live this long.
“You smell,” it said as it sniffed so hard it looked like a feral pig. No tusks, mind you, but definite pig snout face.
I grabbed the gun under the counter. I preferred the up-close reliability of steel, but some nights I was impatient. Pointing out that I seemed not-quite-human brought my foul streak out faster than anything other than blind-dates.
“I would like you to leave and not return.” I pulled a little grave dust magic to my surface and into my skin. It was like cocking a gun—primed but not yet engaged. I just wanted to be ready if it was old enough to be faster than my aim. Freshly awakened ones were predictable. I knew how old they were. On the street or in a store, it was a guessing game. It felt closer to fifteen, but I couldn’t be certain.
It lunged at me, grabbing for my arm and stretching over the counter.
I lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger, aiming to the left of where it stood and hoping I guessed correctly. Just in case, I fired a second shot to the right as quickly as I could. More and more I felt which way they were about to flow before they did. Those were the good nights.
This was a good night.
The round I’d fired on the left hit the thing. The stench of old death was instantaneous. Congealed blood started to ooze from the hole that was trying and failing to seal. Heart shot. Now that the thing wasn’t able to flow into the speed that it relied on to escape, I emptied three more rounds into it. Eye. Eye. Throat. Four hits, one loss, and one spare in the chamber in case it had a friend.
