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My father shook his head. “He is a vampire, Anita.”
“I’m aware of that,” I said.
“I just don’t understand how you can want…to be with…him.”
Andria said, “Did you see what he looks like, Dad?”
“He’s fabulous, Anita,” Judith said, and seemed to mean it. She even wasted a smile on me like we were friends.
I nodded but had to fight to manage a smile, because Judith being friendly was just too weird. “He is fabulous,” I said.
“Not that this one isn’t a ruggedly handsome hunk,” she said, wasting a smile on Nicky. He didn’t smile back either. Let’s all besociopaths together; it was the only sane reaction to my family dynamics.
“I never thought you had it in you, Anita,” Andria said.
“Had what?” I asked, finally looking at her again.
“Dating such hunky men; you were so terrible with boys when we were growing up.”
“You mean I wasn’t popular, and you were.”
She shrugged her pink-clad shoulders. “You were always so gloomy when we were growing up. No man likes someone with that kind of attitude.”
Nicky said, “Anita’s bad attitude is what brought us together.”
The women looked up at him like a choreographed movement. They had a lot of body movements that were mirrored; the matching outfits weren’t necessary to let you know they were mother and daughter. “Really?” Andria said it like she didn’t believe him.
Nicky smiled and it looked like a real smile; it even filled his one blue eye. “Really,” he said, voice soft. I didn’t need to read his mind to know he was already beginning to think of ways to at least hurt her for real. He was reacting to my dislike of her and that she was being snide to me. I played at being a sociopath, but he was the real deal. Only my having a conscience and sharing mine with him metaphysically had tamed some of his…issues.
I wanted to sayno killing my family on this visit, but didn’t think saying it out loud would help smooth things over. He knew it, because he could literally read at least my feelings and a lot of my thoughts, and then I realized that it caused all my Brides literal pain for me to be unhappy sometimes. Damn it, I shouldn’t have brought Nicky today. He leaned over and whispered into my hair, “I’m supposed to keep you safe, I needed to be here.”
I smiled up at him, then heard my name called in a happier tone. “Anita!”
I looked past my family to find a very tall, young blond man that it took me a second to realize was my baby brother. He was in collegenow and a foot taller than the last time I’d seen him. “Josh!” I said, and went to greet him through the crowd, leaving Nicky behind with the others. He wouldn’t hurt them in front of this many witnesses. They couldn’t hurt him emotionally because his emotions didn’t work that way. Everyone was safe, or so I thought as Josh bent down so we could hug.
Then a voice with a thick accent said, “Anita Katerine, God has sent us to save your immortal soul from damnation.”
Josh stiffened and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
I turned from him to see an elderly woman who was even shorter than me walking up behind us. I said the only thing I could say. “Hi, Grandma.”
2
“Anita’s immortal soulis just fine, Grandma,” Josh said.
“She is still raising the dead, which is only for God and his saints to do.”
“She saw the video from Colorado on the news,” Josh explained.
“I found more videos on the computer,” she said.
“Grandma has her own computer now,” Josh said.
I stared at the tiny woman, who seemed to be even tinier than the last time I’d seen her, as if she’d shrunk. She didn’t look scary at all as she clutched her black purse and peered up at me with those bright blue eyes that matched the color of the button-up sweater she was wearing. The high-necked blouse underneath was as white as her hair there. There were still some streaks of faded blond, but not as many as the last time I’d seen her. She looked harmless, so why did my stomach clench and my throat feel like I was choking as if she was still huge and could tower over me? My voice sounded almost normal as I said, “I thought computers were the devil’s work.”
“Computers are tools, Anita; they can be used for good, by good people.”
“Grandma is online more than Josh is now,” Andria said as she joined us.
