"It's official," Marc announced. "We've got termites."
"Jeez, let me take my shoes off, willya?" I tossed my keys on the hall table and kicked off my heels. "Good morning to you, too."
"Sorry. I got the report this afternoon while you were snoozing, but I had to leave for the hospital before I could talk to you about it."
I followed him into the kitchen. He was wearing his scrubs, and had probably only beaten me home by about half an hour. He was letting his hair grow out, I noticed. It wasn't quite so brutally short. And he was gaining weight, thank goodness.
When I first met Dr. Marc Spangler, he was on a ledge ready to splatter himself all over Seventh Avenue. I talked him down and bullied him into moving in with me. He decided that living with a vampire was a small improvement over some cop scooping him up in a bucket.
He had my tea all set up for me. I'd never had a roommate before, and I sure liked it. It was really convenient living with someone who could answer the phone during the day while I was sleeping the unholy sleep of the undead. And it worked for Marc, too. I refused to charge rent, so he paid the utilities and ran my errands when he was off-shift. I had always figured doctors made more money than secretaries. I was wrong.
"Termites, huh?" He tried to show me an odious yellow paper, but I waved it away and sat down at the table. "I didn't think people got termites anymore. I thought that was, like, a '50s thing."
"Actually, they cause more damage than all other natural disasters combined."
"Somebody's been spending too much time on the Web again."
"I didn't feel like downloading more porn." He grinned, which made his green eyes sparkle. That, along with the goatee, made him look like a friendly demon.
That was probably why I liked him from the start. I only knew two people who had green eyes, true green eyes, not the lame hazel color like I had. One of them was my mom.
"Get rid of the bugs, but the house is wrecked. It's gonna cost big bucks to repair."
"Well, shit."
"Right."
"There must be something we can-did you bat your pretty eyes at the bug guy?"
"Like Scarlett O'Hara. Believe me, it was my pleasure... the guy was built. But alas, he was mostly immune to my charms. Wouldn't budge on the quote, or the bad news. Got a date Saturday, though."
"Are we sure they're termites? I thought those little bugs flying around were ants."
"Nope. Insecta Termitidae. In other words, we be fucked."
I sipped my tea and drummed my fingers on the table. Maybe it was time for a change, and God had visited upon me Insecta-whatever to get the message across.
"Maybe Jessica-"
"Shhhh!" I hissed.
"Maybe Jessica what?" the lady said, walking into the kitchen.
"Forget it," I said. "What, did I miss a memo? Are we having a meeting?"
"Actually, yeah." She yawned and grabbed the bread, then dropped two slices into the toaster. She was wearing her usual workday uniform-blue jeans, a T-shirt, and sandals. Her coarse black hair was skinned so tightly back from her skull, her eyebrows were forced up in a look of perpetual surprise. "Pretty inconvenient, too. I hate setting my alarm for two a.m."
"Cry me a river. You don't think I miss feeling the sun on my face once in a while?"
"Oh, bitch, bitch, bitch," she replied good-naturedly.
"We got the report, and it's like your guy thought," Marc said.
"Wait a minute. 'Your guy'?"
"Jess paid for the exterminator consult," Marc explained.
I let my head drop into my hands. "Marc, we can't depend on Jessica to bail us out every time we have money problems."
"We can't?"
"Marc!"
"Yeah, but..." He shrugged. "She doesn't care. She's got more money than she could spend in thirty lifetimes. So why should we care if she wants to help us out? It's not like she'll miss it."
"Uh, guys? I'm right here. In the room."
"Well, she's not paying to fix the house," I declared, wiping tea off my chin, "and that's that."
"Well, what do you want to do? We can't sell the house until the termites are kaput. I guess we could get an apartment..."
"Or a suite at the Minneapolis Marquette," I muttered. The smell of sweetly toasting bread was making me nuts. Item Number 267 that sucked about being a vampire: food still smelled great, but one bite and I'd puke. I was strictly a liquid diet girl now.
"What was that?" Jess asked, fishing her toast out of the toaster, juggling them over to the table, and sitting down.
"Guess who came to work tonight to order me to quit and move into the Marquette with him?"
"Eric Sinclair?" They said this in identical, dreamy tones. My best friend and my roommate had a severe crush. Then Jessica giggled. "Eric came to Macy's? Did he burst into flames the moment he passed the first cash register?"
"I wish. He tried to hypnotize my boss into firing me."
"Did you kill him?" Marc asked.
"I wish. Then I had to work overtime, and then I had to... well, never mind..."
"Suck blood from a would-be mugger?"
"Would-be rapist, but never mind, I said. I swear, the bad guys in this city are such idiots. When they see me throw their buddy ten feet, why do they assume I can't do the same thing to them? Anyway. Then I came home to the termite report."
"It's probably just as well," Jessica said with a mouthful of toast. I shook crumbs out of my eyes as she continued, "It's not like you were in love with this house. Maybe it's time for some new digs."
I didn't say anything, but I gave it some thought. I'd had the house for years... since I flunked out of college. My dad consoled me with a check for twenty thousand dollars, and I used it to put a hefty down payment on my little three-bedroom cottage. I'd outgrown the place years ago, but was too lazy to go through the work of selling and upgrading.
"I've got some thoughts about that," she continued, taking a swallow of my tea. "You own the house free and clear, right?"
"You know I do," I replied, exasperated. "You're the one who paid off the mortgage when I died."
"Right, slipped my mind."
"Sure it did."
"Well, I vote we get my bug fella to spray. Then we list the house for pretty cheap. In this economy, in this suburb-"
"Oh, here goes your anti-Apple Valley rant."
"I'm sorry, I just think towns without a personality are lame," she said with the full snobbery of a twenty-nine-year-old billionaire. "It doesn't even have a real downtown. It exists because of Minneapolis. Bo-ring."
"Snot." I liked Apple Valley. If I wanted to go to the grocery store and the movie theater and get a hair cut and have a pancake breakfast and grab the latest J. D. Robb, I could do it all within the same half mile... and most of it in the same strip mall. "Big-city snot."
She tipped her fingers at me-the nails were painted lime green, I noticed with a shudder-in a mock salute. "Anyway, I figure we could get one-fifty for it, easy. Even with termite damage. And we turn around and use it to put a down payment on something more fitting for our needs."
"Our needs?"
"I'm getting rid of my apartment. Marc and I talked about it, and we agreed I should move in, too."
"Did I miss another memo?"
"No, just a meeting. We had it during the daytime."
"I wish you'd stop doing that," I grumbled. I thought about protesting, but Jess was over here so often, she'd practically moved in, anyway. I figured I knew why, too. My death had really shaken her up. She didn't like letting me out of her sight anymore.
And what did I care? The more the merrier. Ever since I found out monsters really do exist, I hadn't been crazy about coming home to an empty house.
"So we're agreed? We'll fumigate, list the house, and find something a little bigger. Don't worry about a thing, Bets. Marc and I will house-hunt during the day."
I drank my tea.
"Bets?"
"What, you want my approval? I'm just the figurehead."
"Well, that's true."
"But you're sure cute," Marc teased. "Even if your Macy's name tag is upside down."
A few nights later, I woke up to a world of sky blue. I had a moment of total confusion-had I fallen asleep outside? Then I realized Marc had written a note on a Post-It and stuck it to my forehead while I slept. Bastard.
Supervamp: We accepted the offer on the house, and Jessica's found us a new place. Meet us at 607 Summit Ave, 10:00 p.m. to check out the new digs.
Oh, Lord, what did she do? I crumpled the note in my fist. Summit Avenue? I did not like the sound of that.
I looked around my room. There were six empty boxes stacked neatly in the corner. An unsubtle hint to pack.
I showered, changed clothes, and brushed my teeth. I had no idea if other vampires still brushed their teeth, and I didn't care. Think of the morning breath of someone who drank blood for supper! I flossed, too. And used mouthwash, although the sharp medicine-mint smell was enough to make me gag.
I was getting ready to walk out the door (after tripping over the boxes in the living room), when I heard a tentative tap and opened it to see Tina standing on the step.
"Thank you so much for siccing Sinclair on me," I said by way of greeting. "He came to my work!"
"He did?" she asked innocently. She was dressed like a crime-about-to-happen in a red pleated miniskirt, short-sleeved white sweater, black tights, and black flats with silver buckles. Her light blond hair was caught back from her face with a red headband. She looked about sixteen years old. "Now that I think about it..." She pursed her red lips thoughtfully. "He mentioned he might go to the mall to see you."
"Nice try, but I'm not buying it. He doesn't take a dump without running it by you first."
"Actually, it's been several decades since either of us had to-"
"You look really cute, by the way." She was sly, but she had great taste in clothes.
She smiled, then shrugged. "I have to go out later."
"Do not tell me." Tina had a trio of devoted blood donors, but occasionally she liked to get something different off the menu. "I absolutely don't want to hear it."
"I won't. Also, here is your memo." She handed me a thick manila envelope.
"This feels like a lot of pages," I said suspiciously, weighing the stiff packet in my hand.
"I summed it up as best I could. There are photographs as well."
"Well, I'll read it when I-"
"Tina?"
"Yaagghh!" I dropped the envelope. It hit the floor with a flat thump. A second head had appeared around the door-another blond cutie-but I hadn't heard a thing. It was pretty hard to sneak up on me.
Nobody alive could do it, but old vampires could.
"I'm so sorry," the cutie said. Her eyes were big. "I beg your pardon, your Majesty. I did not mean to startle you."
"Don't call me that. And you didn't startle me, you scared the shit out of me. How old are you?"
This wouldn't be very nice under normal circumstances, but vampires loved to show off how decrepit they were.
This one was no different. She straightened proudly, and good posture did wonderful things for her. She was tall-almost as tall as me, and a good head taller than Tina-with shoulder-length hair so blond it was really almost silver, and eyes as blue as the sky on Easter Sunday. She was pale, of course, but on her it looked good. Her coloring was so fair, it demanded pale skin. She was wearing khaki shorts, a dark pink shirt buttoned at the throat, and leather sandals. She smiled tentatively.
"I'm seventy-eight, Majesty."
"Riiiiight. Well, you don't look a day over twenty-two. And don't call me that. Who are you?"
"This is Monique Silver," Tina said quickly. "She came to pay her respects to Nostro, and found a new regime in charge. There's another vampire in town, but"-Tina glanced over her shoulder-"she wouldn't come in. In fact, she's walking back to the hotel."
"She's shy," Monique said helpfully.
Tina snorted, but didn't elaborate. "Anyway, Monique's staying with us at the Marquette."
I smiled, but I didn't like that one bit. Tina staying with Sinclair was no big deal. They were practically brother and sister, and Tina didn't swing that way anyway. But I didn't care for the idea of this Penthouse centerfold sharing a bathroom with Eric Sinclair.
"Nice to meet you. Hope you weren't fond of ole Notso." I said this with some anxiety-what if she had been?
Her warm smile put me at ease. "Indeed, no. In fact, I'm grateful to you. We all are... Betsy?" Her eyebrows-so pale and fine they were almost invisible, which made her face look like a sexy egg-arched.
"Betsy," I said firmly. "No Majesty. Thank God you catch on quicker than Tina."
They both flinched at "God" and Monique actually fell back a step. Well, she better get used to it.
"I'd invite you guys in, but I have to be-"
"Going somewhere?" Tina tilted her head. "Don't you need to feed?"
"Later, maybe."
"You haven't fed yet? And don't plan to?" Monique's eyes were big with surprise.
"I try to put it off as long as I can."
"Oh, now, surely you're not still reticent about-"
"Want to come with?" I asked abruptly, to forestall the lecture. Tina and Sinclair thought it was exquisitely stupid that I hadn't embraced my inner vampire. "I'm checking out the new house Jess picked out for us."
"You're moving?" Monique asked as I locked my house and trotted toward the car.
"Have to. Termites. And I would appreciate it if that little piece of info didn't fall into Sinclair's shell-like ears," I told Tina. "It's none of his damned business."
"Of course, Majesty."
"Quit it."
"Of course, Majesty."
"I hate you," I sighed, opening the door for Monique.
"No you don't," Tina replied, barely suppressed laughter in her tone, "Majesty."