I limped down the street, grabbed the first homeless guy I saw, apologized profusely, and hauled him behind a dumpster for a rejuvenating snack. As always, drinking blood felt physically wonderful, while emotionally I was disgusted with myself.
After a few seconds (it never took long), I left my smiling, sleeping blood donor asleep on a pile of cardboard. It was a warm night; he'd be okay. Unless you knew he was there, you couldn't see him.
My shoulder healed like magic before I even left the alley, and I was amazed to feel the bullet pop free of my flesh and fall into my bra.
I fished it out and stared at it, but I don't know a bullet from a dildo, so I tucked it back in and resolved to show it to Sinclair later. Or maybe Nick Barry... a cop would know all sorts of stuff about bullets. If I dared involve him in this.
I made it home just before dawn-thank goodness for late night taxis!-and realized when I tried to pay the fare that I'd left my purse in my car. So I zapped him with the old vamp mojo, ignoring the stab of guilt, and he drove off thrilled to his toes.
There was, of course, the expected uproar when I walked in. Marc and Jessica were both yelling at me at once, and while Jessica punched buttons on her cell phone, Marc nagged me into stripping off my T-shirt so he could check my wound.
"Huh," he said, poking my shoulder like I was a side of beef. "I don't see a thing."
I coughed but didn't elaborate on how I'd cured myself. "Who are you calling?" I asked Jessica.
"You know who," she said, then barked into the phone, "Betsy was attacked. She's here now."
"Aww, no, not Sinclair! That's all I need." I looked at my watch. "He probably won't have enough time to get here, anyway."
"Yeah, he's pretty helpless, that one," Marc said. He wadded up my shirt. "Might as well toss this, chickie, it's ruined. What was it like, getting shot?"
"What kind of a dumbass question is that from a guy who went to medical school? It hurt!"
"I mean, is it different for a vampire, do you think? I've seen lots of bullet wounds at the hospital, but none that healed in an hour."
"How should I know? I've never been shot before. I mean, I could see the bullets coming at me-"
"Cool, like in The Matrix?"
"No. They were like baseballs thrown hard. I could dodge them, but I really had to be on my toes."
"Thank God you're all right," Jessica said. I blushed with pleasure, and then she wrecked it by adding, "you idiot. What were you thinking?"
"Hey, don't yell at me! I was thinking of going to my car and driving home," I said. "I'm the victim. So what, exactly, is my crime?"
"I'm gonna strangle that Sinclair," she muttered. When Jess got mad she sort of did this thing where she sucked on her cheeks, which threw her cheekbones into sharp relief. She looked like a pissed-off Egyptian queen who needed a few milkshakes. "Dragging you into this... putting you in danger..."
"This wasn't part of me being bait. This was after. The..." I could barely get it out without giggling. "The Blade Warriors were waiting for me in the parking ramp."
Marc's eyebrows shot up and he and Jessica traded a glance.
"I know how it sounds," I said.
"Bad," Jessica replied.
"Real bad," Marc elaborated.
"I was talking about their name, but you're right, that's not too cool. An ambush. Huh. Look, I'm going to grab a quick shower; I feel sort of yucky. We'll talk more in a few minutes, okay?"
Annoyingly, they waited outside my bathroom while I freshened up. At least Marie wasn't here-it would have been too awful to explain the evening's occurrences to a little kid.
I stepped out of the bathroom in clean cotton shorts and a new T-shirt, and started back downstairs. Jessica and Marc didn't wait, they pelted me with questions during the long journey to the main living room.
"How did you get away? Tell me everything," Jessica ordered finally, when she noticed I was ignoring everything she and Marc were saying. "Start with, 'I went diddy-bopping out the door six hours ago like a big blond idiot,' and finish with 'and then I walked in all bloody and tired-looking'."
"Can't it wait?" I griped. "I'm just going to have to tell it all to Sinclair again. Ugh, what a night. I'll be glad when it's tomorrow. Tonight, I mean."
Just then, the front door was thrown open, hard enough to make us all jump, and lo, there was the prince of darkness.
"Are you all right?" Sinclair demanded, crossing the room in swift strides and peering at my face.
"Please, come in," I said sarcastically. "Don't forget to wipe your feet. And I'm fine. There was no need to rush over here. Where are your shoes?"
Jessica coughed. "I sort of promised him I'd keep him apprised."
I forgot about the fact that Sinclair was in a suit, a topcoat, and bare feet. "You did what?"
"Never mind that now," Sinclair said impatiently. He was running his hands over my face, my neck, my shoulders, my arms.
I slapped his hands away when he started to raise my shirt to look at my stomach. "No, let's talk about that right now." Before I could work up a good rant, I realized I was suddenly very tired. Extremely tired. I shook my head to try to throw it off, and realized that it was a lot lighter outside. "Uh-oh," I managed, just as Sinclair and the living room tipped away from me, and the carpet rushed up to my face.
"I hate that," I said, exactly fifteen hours later. I opened my eyes and was startled to see Sinclair with his jacket off, sitting in the chair beside my bed, reading. "Jesus!"
He winced. "Please don't call me that. Good evening."
"This is so bogus! How come you don't have to sleep all day?"
"I'm quite a bit older than you are. Now." He slapped the book shut. I saw it was one of Jessica's collection of antique school books. Dumbest hobby ever, except maybe for golf. "Tell me everything that happened last night."
I ignored the command. "Did you sleep at all?" I asked suspiciously. Oh, I knew him of old.
He smirked. "I did rest beside you for a few hours."
"Pervert!"
"No, but if I was such a thing, taking advantage of you would have been simplicity itself."
"Have I mentioned how much I strongly, strongly dislike you?"
"Ah!" he said, looking pleased. "We're making progress. From hate to dislike."
"Strong, strong dislike. Where are my roomies? I don't want to have to tell this story a thousand times."
"We're here," they chorused, walking into my bedroom.
"And so am I," Tina added, trailing them. "Are you all right. Majesty?"
I'd given up on trying to get her to call me by my first name. I ignored Marc's chortle and replied, "I'm fine. I only got shot once."
A muscle jumped in Sinclair's cheek. Weird. I'd never seen that before. "They shot you?" he asked with scary calm.
"My car's a lot worse off than I am, believe me. Which reminds me, we have to go get it tonight. And my purse. In all the excitement-"
"From the beginning, please."
I told them. I didn't leave anything out. And nobody interrupted, not once, which was a brand new experience.
"They knew you were a vampire," Tina said when I finished. She looked very, very troubled.
"Uh, yeah. Good point. How did they know? I mean, most vampires don't even believe it."
"And how did they know about the other vampires?" Marc asked.
"Well, it must be... I mean, maybe a vampire is siccing these guys on us?" I guessed.
"Probably a vampire," Jessica said at once. "Who else would know who's dead and who's not?"
Sinclair nodded. "And they were waiting for you." He looked cool as a cucumber, but his hands kept opening and closing into fists. "They knew you were coming."
"Apparently so." I hadn't really had time to think about how weird that was. "Quit doing that, it makes me nervous. Oh! I almost forgot!"
I jumped out of bed and practically ran over to my dresser, where I'd placed the bullet after tossing my clothes in the hamper. "I have a clue!" I said proudly, holding it up.
"That's great, Nancy Drew," Marc said with fake enthusiasm.
"Shut up. Check this out, you guys." I gave it to Sinclair, who examined it briefly and passed it to Tina.
"This is a hollow-point," she said, very surprised.
"Yikes," Jessica said. "A vampire gun expert."
"I like to keep busy," she replied mildly. "I'll take a look at it later."
"I was thinking we could show it to Nick," I said.
"Detective Nick Berry? I don't think that's wise at all," Sinclair said. "Best he stays out of our business."
"He might already be in it. He pulled me over the other day and had all sorts of questions. Don't worry," I said, because Tina and Sinclair both looked alarmed, "your mojo's holding. He didn't remember about me being dead and all."
"Still, he sought you out," Tina said, looking troubled.
"It was just a coincidence," I said uneasily. "He recognized my car and pulled me over."
There was a short silence, broken by, "You should rest," Sinclair ordered, getting up from his chair. "Spend the night in bed."
"I spent the day in bed, and that's plenty."
He ignored me, as usual. "Tina and I will put our heads together and-"
"I'm fine, how many times do I have to tell you? Stop clucking. And I have to work tonight, I can't stay in bed."
"You will not be going to work."
"The hell!" I glared up at him. "Stop trying to boss me around, when are you going to learn?"
Jessica cleared her throat. "Uh, Betsy."
I ignored her. "I never listen-"
"I have learned that."
"-and it just pisses me off."
"Bets."
"Frankly, you could do worse than listening to me," Sinclair snapped back. "This faux independence of yours is growing tiresome."
"Faux?" I cried. That meant fake, right? Probably. Stupid French! "Listen, jerkoff-"
"Betsy!" Jessica seized my arm in a grip that would have hurt like hell if I'd been alive. "Girl talk," she said to the room at large, then dragged me into the bathroom.
I extricated myself, with difficulty, from her grasp. "What? I'm in the middle of something, here. What did you have to say to me right this second?"
She lowered her voice; we were both well aware of vampire hearing. "I wanted to stop you before you said something worse."
"Girlfriend, I haven't even gotten started-"
"Okay, I know you don't like him-or you think you don't like him, I haven't figured out which-but Bets! It was the most romantic thing ever. He caught you before you did a nosedive into the carpet. I mean, you started to go down and he moved. Then he sort of scooped you up and carried you up to bed, although how he knew which room was yours is sort of a mystery, and he never left your side."
"Ew."
"No, the opposite of ew. I came up to check on you guys about lunchtime and you were both... uh... dead to the world, and he had his arm around your shoulders and you were sort of cuddled into his side."
"I was not!" I said, shocked. Was I so shameless in my undead sleep?
"Bets, you totally were. And then, when I checked on you a few hours later-"
"Jeez, couldn't stay away, could you? Not too creepy."
"Hey, it's interesting. Anyway, Eric was awake, and he asked if he could borrow one of my old books, and nice as you pleased, asked for a cup of coffee."
"You're not a waitress."
"No, but I'm a good hostess. Anyway, it was... it was kind of nice. He was really nice. And he's nice to you."
"No, he isn't!"
"I think you should treat him better," she said firmly.
Traitor! I took a deep breath, which made me dizzy. "And I think..."
But we were interrupted by a knock on the bathroom, door, so we went back out to my room. To my surprise, Sinclair and Tina were gone.
"He sort of stomped out," Marc replied in answer to my unspoken question. "And she said goodbye, very politely, and followed him." He shook his head. "Are you really going to work tonight?"
"You bet."
"It's just..." Marc looked worried, which for him was pretty rare. "Those warrior guys knew who you were. They might be tracking you."
That was a startling-and unpleasant!-thought. "I don't think so," I said after a minute's thought. "How would they know where I work?"
"They knew where you parked," he pointed out.
"I have to go. Otherwise, Finklair will think I dodged work because he said to."
"Perish the thought," Jessica said. "God forbid you should take the advice of an older, experienced, extremely intelligent man."
"I'd do anything that guy asked me," Marc said admiringly. "What a hunk! Oooh, and he's all intense and stern, but you just know that once you got him between the sheets-"
"Stop!" Jessica and I said simultaneously.
"You know it's true." He wiggled his eyebrows at me. "In fact, Betsy, didn't you find out for yourself not too long ago?"
"I don't want to talk about that," I said firmly. "He tricked me. He knew if we had sex, he'd be the king."
No, I didn't like to talk about it. But I sure thought about it a lot. Not only was it the most pleasurable sexual experience of my life, it had been so intense. Because, for a while there, while he was inside me, I was inside him. I could read his mind. And his thoughts... his thoughts had been very nice. While we were having sex, at least, he had really liked me.
Maybe loved me.
"Come on," Marc was saying in his coaxing doctor voice, "it was three months ago. And there have been compensations, right? I mean, Sinclair and Tina are cool, and it's obvious they really like you. What's so bad about that? When are you going to let it go?"
"A thousand years," I said, trying not to show how upset I was getting. Marc, who had a huge crush on Sinclair, just didn't get it. And Jessica thought I should be nice to him. Nice! "That's how long I'm stuck in this gig. Thanks to him."
"Well, I know, and I'm sorry. Don't cry about it," he said, kindly enough. "But there's worse things than nice vampires thinking you're in charge, right?"
"I don't want to talk about it anymore."
"Okay," Jessica said at once. She was glaring at Marc. "You don't have to if you don't want to. Look, why don't you get dressed for work? I'll make you some tea, and then we'll go get your car."
I sniffed. "Okay. Actually, I'll come down with you. I want tea right now... I'm dying of thirst. Don't look at me like that."
"Sorry," they said in uneasy unison.
"Oh, please. Like I'd ever bite either of you two dorks," I muttered. "I'm gonna change my clothes, and I'll be right down."
They left, and I thought I heard the front door open, but I was too annoyed to really care. More visitors-great! Well, bring it on.
I turned around to go to my dresser and nearly fell over Marie. "Jeez, don't do that!" I practically yelled. Okay, I did yell. "Sugar, would you mind clearing out? I've had a rotten evening and it's barely started. Go find your dad, or something."
"Sure," she said, staring at me with big, solemn eyes. "But I don't think you should open the door."
Yeah, yeah, whatever. She was gone when I came out of the bathroom, and I changed into a clean blouse, khaki shorts, and slipped on a pair of black sandals. I ran a brush through my hair and decided that would do, and decided to head downstairs.
I opened my bedroom door, and got the surprise of my life.