Author’s Note
The events of this story take place in February of 2006, following the events of Undead and Unreturnable.
Also, I have changed Chicago’s Chinatown to suit my needs. It’s a wonderful city, but I just couldn’t leave it alone. That’s a failing in me, not the city of Chicago.
I did the same thing, again, with Summit Avenue in St. Paul. A lovely city. Just couldn’t leave it be. Sorry. “We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman.”
—Colley Cibber, Love’s Last Shift, Act 2
“Like a fiend in a cloud
With howling woe, After night I do crowd, And with night will go.“
—William Blake, from Poetical Sketches
“Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.”
—Billie Holiday
Prologue
Bev Jones took a deep breath and stepped out onto the roof. She’d snuck to Chicago’s Chinatown on her lunch break because she wanted to die with the smell of fresh potstickers in her nose.
She walked slowly to the edge of the roof and peeked over. The winter wind ruffled her short, dark hair, but for a miracle, it was almost a nice day—nice for Chicago, anyway.
It was a typically busy Friday afternoon… the Friday before Valentine’s Day, in fact. And if she had to spend one more Valentine’s Day alone—or worse, with only the company of her psychiatrist—she would kill herself.
People said that a lot, but Bev never said anything she didn’t mean. And so here she was.
She put her hands flat on the ledge and got ready to boost herself up. Given that she was wearing snow pants and a down-stuffed parka, it might take a while—say, her entire lunch break. Ah, well. If nothing else, she was mildly curious to find out if there was an afterlife. Would there be potstickers and noodle nests in the afterlife? She didn’t—
“Bev! Hey! Wait up!”
She started—the last thing she’d expected on a rooftop was to hear someone calling her name—and turned around. And instantly assumed she’d gone crazy: there was a woman running toward her, a woman who—whoop!—just jumped over the Chinese arch separating the two buildings. And now—was she?—she was! She was hurrying right over to Bev.
“Thanks for waiting,” the strange woman who could jump like a grasshopper said. “I was running a little behind this morning and was worried I’d miss you.”
“Miss me?” Bev gasped. Holy crow, it was like Touched by an Angel! “You mean you’re here to—to save me?”
The woman—a tall, lean brunette with striking dark eyes and the palest, softest-looking skin—blinked in surprise. Bev had never seen such skin before; maybe the grasshopper/angel was also an Irish milkmaid.
Then she laughed. It wasn’t, Bev thought a little sullenly, a very nice laugh.
“Save you? Save you?” Again, the laugh. The woman actually leaned on the ledge so she wouldn’t fall down. “Honey, you’re such a dope you actually showed up for work the day you planned to kill yourself.”
“How did you—?”
“I mean, of all days to call in sick to your dreary, hated job, don’t you think today’s the day? And you know damn well the fall won’t kill you. What is it, like two stories? If you really wanted to ice yourself, why not use the shotgun you keep in your closet? Or one of those Japanese sushi knifes you saved up six months for, really do the job right?”
“I—I—”
“No, you have this stupid idea in your head that swarms of people will gather on the street below, and some good-looking Chicago P.D. monkey will coax you down and fall in love with you. Among other things, you watch too much television.”
Bev stared. She was mad, and getting madder, but the grasshopper/angel/demon had said nothing that wasn’t true. Hearing it out loud made her feel like a real pigeon turd. It was more than attention, right? Wasn’t it?
“Save you! You don’t want to be saved! You want a date for next week! Ha!”
“That’s it,” Bev snapped. “I’m jumping.”
“Oh, stop it, you are not.” The brunette pulled her away from the edge with a casual strength that nearly sent Bev sprawling onto the blacktop.
“I am, too!” She managed to wrench her arm free, nearly dislocated her own shoulder in the process. The stranger was fiendishly strong. “I—I’m clinically depressed, and I can’t take it anymore.”
“You’re mad about not getting the promotion, not having a date, and your mom forgetting your birthday.”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Antonia. And the reason I’m here is to tell you the fall won’t kill you. In fact, it’ll break your neck and you’ll be a quad in a monkey hospital for the rest of your life. It’ll wreck your mom—her insurance company won’t cover you because you’ve been out of the house too long, and your insurance sucks. She’ll spend the rest of her life in debt and visiting you, and you think you’ll be able to get a date from a Shriner’s bed? Bottom line, you think your life is in the shitter now? Go ahead and jump. You’ll see the shit fly.”
“But how do you know?” Not, “that isn’t true” or “you’re on drugs.” Antonia had the creepy ring of truth in everything she said. Even weirder, Bev had never met someone as obnoxious as she was beautiful. She was like the swimsuit ad model from the ninth gate of hell. “How did you know to come here?”
“I just did.”
“And why do you keep saying ‘monkey’?”
“Because,” Antonia sniffed, “you’re descended from apes.”
“Well, you are, too!”
“No, I’m descended from canis lupus. A much more impressive mammal to have in your family tree, in case you didn’t know. Which none of you seem to.”
“But you’re not here to save me?” Bev was having a little trouble following the conversation. She tried to give herself some credit; it had been a surreal five minutes.
“Shit, no! What do I care if another monkey offs herself? There’s too many of you anyway. Go ahead and jump, ruin your mother’s life, I don’t give a shit.”
“Then why were you running across rooftops to stop me?”
“None of your damned business,” she snapped.
“There has to be a reason.”
“Look, are you going to jump or not?”
“That depends. Are you going to tell me why you came?”
The brunette rubbed her temples. “Okay, okay. Anything to shorten this conversation. I see the future, all right?”
“Like a psychic?” Bev gasped.
“Nothing that lame. I see what’s going to happen. And, file this away, I’m never wrong. But the thing is, when people don’t do what I tell them, when they ignore my advice and sort of plunge ahead on their own, I get the worst migraines.”
“So you’re here… to stop yourself from getting a headache.”
“Hey,” Antonia said defensively. “They’re really bad headaches.”
“And you’re descended from canis—from wolves?”
“Duh, yes! Do we have to have this talk all over again?”
“So you’re, like—” It was stupid, but Bev made herself say it anyway. “A werewolf?”
“You’ve heard this before, right? ”Duh, yes.“ ”
“But—but you just sort of blurted it out! You can’t go around just telling monk—people that you’re a werewolf.”
“Why not?”
“Well—you just can’t is why not.”
She shrugged. “Who are you going to tell? Who’d even believe you?”
Bev pictured herself explaining that she didn’t jump because a woman claiming to be a werewolf told her the future (after jumping over a roof) and saw Antonia had a point.
“Nobody’d believe me, either,” she added, almost as if (ludicrous thought!) she was trying to make Bev feel better.
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t Change.”
“You mean you don’t—” Bev groped in the air, trying to find the words. “You don’t get furry and howl at the moon and steal babies?”
“Babies! Monkey babies? Ugh! Do you have any idea how awful you guys taste? I’d rather eat shit than an omnivore.”
Bev, stuck in a job she hated, was nevertheless finding her background in social work quite handy about now. There was a pattern to Antonia’s outbursts. In fact, the snarkier and louder she got, the more painful the subject under discussion was.
She tried again. “So what you’re saying is, you never turn into a wolf. Never. But you’re a werewolf.”
Antonia’s lips nearly disappeared, she was pressing them together so tightly. “Yss,” she mumbled. “Tht’s trr.”
“But then… how do you know you’re—”
“Because my mom’s a werewolf, okay? And her dam, and her dam, and her dam, going back about eighty generations, okay? I’m a right line descendant of the She Wolf Rayet, and my dad being a monkey doesn’t change that. I am so a werewolf, I am, I am, I am!” She smacked her fist on the ledge for emphasis, and Bev was astounded to see a chunk of concrete fly off in the distance.
“Well, okay,” she said, trying to soothe the younger woman. “Nobody said you weren’t, all right?”
“You did,” she sniffled.
“No, I just questioned the logic of running around blurting it out to monkeys. Dammit! Now you’ve got me using that odious word.”
“Sorry,” she said, but she seemed to be cheering up. “It’s a sore spot, I admit. There are lots of hybrids in the pack—my alpha sired one, for Rayet’s sake. They can all Change. Everybody can Change but me. And monkeys.”
“So did they—did your friends kick—ask you to leave? Because you don’t, uh, do the Change?”
“You mean, did my pack boot my ass because I’m a freak?” She smiled a little. “No. I came west because I—I saw something.”
“Was it me?” Bev asked eagerly.
“No, it wasn’t you, greedy monkey. The whole world doesn’t revolve around you. Giving you the 4-1-1 was sort of a side trip. I’m really on my way to Minneapolis.”
“What’s in Minneapolis?”
“That’s enough sharing with strangers for one day,” she said, kindly enough. “Because we both know you aren’t going to jump, why don’t you come down?”
“I’ll come down after you tell me why we’re going to Minneapolis.”
“We’re?”
“Sure! I’ll be your cool sidekick. We’ll have adventures and—”
“Stop. Go ahead and jump.”
“Awwwww, come on, Antonia,” she whined. “It’s just the thing I need.”
“It’s the last thing I need. And I don’t bargain with monkeys on Chicago rooftops, okay?”
“Okay, okay, calm down. Just tell me why you’re going and then I’ll climb down. Otherwise, if you leave, you don’t know if I’ll jump or not.”
“You won’t—”
“Just think, you could be minding your own business—”
“It’s what I should have done this morning, by Rayet!”
“—when bam! Giant killer migraine. All because you didn’t hang around and finish a conversation.” Bev slowly shook her head. “Tsk, tsk.”
Antonia scowled down at her. Bev pushed her reddish blond bangs out of her eyes so she could see if the woman was going to dart off over the rooftops to avoid communicating.
“Okay,” she said at last. “I’ll tell you why I’m going and then you climb down and go back to your life and stop with the goofing around on rooftops.”
“Deal,” she said promptly. “So why are you going to Minnesota?”
“Well… the pack lets me hang around because I’m full of useful little tidbits, you know?”
“I can imagine,” Bev said, impressed.
“But the problem is, I think some of them are, um, scared of me. And the ones who aren’t scared don’t like me.”
“I can imag—uh, go on.”
“So there’s the mate thing.”
“You mean, finding a husband?”
“Yeah. It’s a real drive among us, because compared to you guys, there aren’t hardly any of us. And the thing is, nobody wants to be my mate. They don’t know if their children will, um, be like me. And it’s not like I haven’t tried to be nice to guys, right? Even though, if I fooled a guy into mating with me I wouldn’t have much respect for him. But still. It doesn’t matter if I’m nice or awful. Nobody wants to take a chance on a deformed cub.”
“Oh.” Bev’s heart broke a little for the beautiful woman leaning against the ledge. If someone that thin and that pretty can’t get married, there’s no hope for the rest of us, she thought grimly. “So maybe you’ll meet someone in Minneapolis?”
“Well, all my—my visions, I guess you’d call them. All my pictures of the future—and it really is like there’s some sort of divine camera in my head, and the pictures she takes are never wrong—anyway, they were always about somebody else. Michael, your future wife is going to be on the third floor of your building on such and such a day. Derik, you have to go save the world. Mom, if you go out driving in this weather you won’t come back. But they’re never about me, you know?”
“Sure.”
“So, I’m twenty-five, right? That’s old to be an unmated female. And there isn’t a werewolf in Massachusetts—maybe the whole world—who wants me to bear his cubs. So I sat down last week and thought and thought. I was trying to make a vision happen, which I’d never tried before.”
“And it worked?”
“Duh, it worked. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Oh, you’re back,” Bev said. “Good; it’s harder when I feel sorry for you.”
“Save your pity, monkey. Anyway, this thought pops into my head: If you help the queen, you’ll get what you need.”
“And?”
“And that’s it. Well, almost it… an address popped into my head right after. So off I go.”
“To help the queen and get what you need,” Bev repeated thoughtfully.
“Yup.”
“Why aren’t you flying? Or is it so you can occasionally stop and help a monkey stop doing something silly?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. Fly? Stick myself in a tin can that hurtles through space at a zillion miles an hour, a thousand miles up on the air? Breathing recycled monkey farts and choking down peanuts?” Antonia shuddered. “No no no no no no no.”
“Werewolves are claustrophic?” Bev guessed.
“And the monkey gets a prize!” Antonia patted her, mussing her short red curls. “Good, good monkey!”
Bev knocked her hand away. “Stop that. I can’t help not being as evolved as you are.”
“That’s true,” Antonia said cheerfully. “You can’t.”
“Is that your big problem with humans? We can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound?”
“Not hardly. Although, that’s a good one.”
“So what else?”
“This wasn’t part of our deal.”
“Yes, but…” Bev smiled at her, and Antonia actually blanched. “You’re dying to tell me. You can’t wait to tell me. So… tell me.”
“Okay, you asked for it. Not only are you not evolved— which, granted, you can’t help—but you’re the most rapacious, bloodthirsty species the planet has ever seen. You go to war over money, religion, land, and drugs. If there isn’t a war on, you make up a reason to have one. You kill when you’re not hungry, and you kill when you’re fat and don’t need it. And you stink.”
“We stink?”
“You reek. It’s awful! You don’t take enough showers, and when you do shower, you slop nine kinds of perfumed soap, body powders, scented shampoos, and aftershave or perfume all over yourselves. I had to take the subway once in Boston— never again! I had to get off after one stop—after I threw up.”
“I don’t think all of us stink,” Bev said carefully. “I think your sense of smell is developed to such a high degree that it seems like—”
“No. You all stink.”
“Oh. Well, sorry about that. Thanks for answering my questions.”
“Thanks for not jumping—I’m almost out of Advil.”
“It was nice meeting you.” Bev stuck out her hand. After an awkward moment, Antonia shook it, and Bev tried not to wince at the bone-crushing power in the woman’s grip. “Good luck with the queen.”
“Good luck with your life. You might try ratting your boss out to the IRS. He hasn’t paid taxes in five years. That could put a little excitement in your life—he’s a big fish and the feds would love to get him on that, if nothing else.”
Her boss? Which boss? She couldn’t mean… not the big guy. He had fingers in too many pies for her to count. Besides, she was just a worker bee in one of many hives.
“This is Chicago,” she explained to the werewolf. “Things are different here.”
“But you could change that,” Antonia said, climbing up on the ledge. She balanced easily for a moment, her long coat flapping in the wind. “And they have programs, the police do. They could give you a new name, a new life. Something more interesting than contemplating rooftops, anyway.”
“Yes,” she said dryly, “but there’s always the chance that he could have me killed.”
“Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?” Antonia said, and jumped. She landed on her feet in a perfect little crouch; Bev was instantly jealous. More than jealous. Sure, it was easy for the gorgeous werewolf to give career advice. It was slightly more difficult for the little people, thanks very much.
But the niggling thought
(sounds exciting, doesn’t it?)
wouldn’t go away.
Chapter 1
Antonia paused and then knocked at the door of 607 Summit Avenue. Mansions, of course, were nothing she wasn’t used to, but she had never seen an entire street of them. And this one—across from the governor’s mansion, no less—was nearly the grandest of them all.
It was white, except for enormous black shutters. Three floors that she could see from the front. Wraparound porch deep enough for couches and several rocking chairs. A detached garage as big as most people’s starter homes.
Well, a queen lives here, she reminded herself. Of course it’s going to be grand. What did you expect, a tent?
Still, it was weird. She had no idea American monkeys had started electing royals.
She didn’t bother to knock again; she could hear someone coming. The door was pulled open—the small, skinny woman had to struggle with it—and then Antonia was face-to-face with a beautiful woman (yawn… they were a dime a dozen on the Cape) with skin the color of good coffee. Her eyes were also dark and tip-tilted at the ends, giving her a regal (daresay queenlike?) air. She had cheekbones you could cut yourself on.
“Are you the queen?” Antonia asked. Dumb question; of course she was the queen, who else could be? The woman was born to be on the one dollar bill.
At least this one didn’t stink too badly—she’d had a shower that night and, even better, hadn’t drowned herself in nine kinds of powders, soaps, perfumes, and deodorants.
“I’m here to help you,” she continued when the woman didn’t say anything. “I’m Antonia Wolfton, from the Cape Cod Pack.”
The queen blinked at her, a slow-lidded, thoughtful blink, and then said, “You’d better come with me.” She turned, and Antonia followed her through an enormous entryway, down several hallways (the place smelled strongly of old wood, old wool, and Pledge), and into the largest kitchen she’d ever seen. Several people were sitting on stools, which were grouped around a long, industrial counter, bar-style.
“Guys,” the queen announced, “this is Antonia Wolfton, from the Cape Cod Pack. Hold onto your panties: She’s here to help us.”
One of them, a leggy blonde dressed in linen pants and a sleeveless white blouse, looked up from her tea. Actually, they all looked up. But it was the blonde Antonia couldn’t look away from.
And there was something going on here, wasn’t there? It wasn’t just the group, almost unnaturally still. And it wasn’t their smell—though they’d obviously gone easy on the fake scents and heavy on good, old-fashioned showers—their scents, that was it, she almost had it, could almost taste the problem, the—
She heard someone coming down the stairs and then the door about fifteen feet away swung open and a man walked in.
Well. Not walked. Loped, really. He was tall and lean, with a swimmer’s build—narrow hips and broad shoulders. Shirtless, with a fine fuzz of dark hair starting at the top of his ribs and disappearing into his jeans. He had shoulder-length, golden brown hair—sunny hair, as her pack leader’s daughter would have said—and mud-colored eyes. When he looked at her with those eyes, she had the distinct sensation of falling.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said faintly. Those eyes… they weren’t intelligent. They were just this side of savage. Oh, she liked those eyes. She just needed to fatten him up some; he was far too thin. “How’s it going, Garrett?”
“What?” the blonde said, spilling her tea. “What did you say?”
“Garrett Shea, right?” Antonia asked. “I—saw a picture of you.”
“What?” someone else said, someone with a profound bass voice, someone not to be ignored, but she couldn’t stop looking at Garrett.
Which was a good thing, because Garrett Shea picked that moment to leap at her. Really leap, too. He covered the distance between them in half a heartbeat, tackling her so hard she slammed back into the wall.
He was sitting on her chest, ignoring the pandemonium that had just erupted. His long hair swung down into his face, almost touching hers. His hands were on her shoulders.
And… he didn’t smell! He had no scent at all. Not “he recently showered and took it easy on the Mennen”—no scent. Zero scent. He smelled like a piece of paper. She had never, in her quarter-century of life, ever smelled a person who—
That’s how he got the drop on her! He could get the drop on any werewolf, and what the hell was he, anyway?
“You’re not pack,” she told him, trying to get a breath.
“Garrett Shea?” he asked.
“Right,” she groaned. “Get off.” He was leaning in, his upper lip curling back from his teeth, and she didn’t know whether to be alarmed, afraid, pissed, or aroused. It was so damned confusing she just laid on the tile like a squashed bug.
“Shea?” he said again, almost into her neck.
“Now. Get off now.”
“George!” someone shrieked, a drilling sound like a bad visit to the dentist. “Get the hell off her right this minute!”
“—swear I didn’t know, she just said she was here to help and I thought you guys would get a kick out of—”
“Sir, if you’ll grab a hand, and I’ll grab a hand—”
“We’ll be too slow.”
“Shea?” Garrett asked her again. His befuddled expression had entirely disappeared, leaving a look of sharp concern in its place.
Too bad; she had her legs up now, her feet resting on his belly, and she kicked out, hard, and was extremely satisfied to see him sail over the counter and crash into the tiles behind it.
She flipped to her feet, making the dark-skinned woman flinch, and grinned as Shea slowly pulled himself up behind the counter.
“Are we going to do this now, or should we put it on our schedules for later? Because either way works for me. Actually, right now works for me.”
“Jesus,” the blonde said, making everyone but the dark-skinned woman flinch. “How many teeth do you have?”
Oh. Her smile. Monkey etiquette, monkey etiquette! Her palm shot up, covering her mouth. “Enough to get the job done, I’s‘pose. Who are you?”
“Introductions,” the bass voice said, and it belonged to a terrifying-looking man, tall and dark, a man who did not suffer fools lightly, a man who would just as soon eat you as listen to you whine. Oh, she could like this man. “They are long overdue.”
Chapter 2
The tall dark man was the king of the vampires: Sinclair. The tall blond woman was the queen: Betsy (har!). The black woman was their monkey-servant/friend/ watcher-type: Jessica. Garrett was a “Fiend” named “George.” The shorter brunette woman was an ordinary vampire, their servant, like a beta werewolf back home: Tina. They all lived together along with a monkey named Marc, who was currently “on shift.” It made much sense to Antonia; Michael and Jean-nie, her alphas, surrounded themselves with betas. They lived together like a family.
One in which she had no part.
She shoved that thought away and it went, as she was practiced at ridding herself of that particular thought. Instead, she pondered the most fascinating thing about these oddballs: The king, the queen, and Garrett had no scent at all.
She had heard of vampires, of course, but she had never seen one. Nor did she know anyone who had ever met one—or, at least, who admitted to it. According to lore, vampires were territorial to a degree that they had convinced themselves werewolves didn’t exist. Which was perfectly fine with the werewolves.
“Well, here I am, then,” Antonia said, feeling peevish that she’d assumed the servant was the mistress. “Put me to work.”
“If you’ll give us a moment, Antonia,” the king said pleasantly, in the way leaders pretended like they were asking. “We need to ‘catch up,” as it were. You say you’re a werewolf?“
“Yes.”
“Mm-hmm. And you left your pack to serve our queen? The queen of the vampires?”
“I didn’t know she was the queen of the vampires,” Antonia explained. “That part wasn’t in the picture.”
“But you believe us? That we’re vampires?” the queen asked.
Antonia shrugged. “Sure.”
Sinclair continued. “And you get these, ah, pictures of the future? Do you have a camera of sorts?”
“Yes, my brain,” she snapped. “Which is overtaxed right now having to go through this again.”
“Do not speak that way to the king,” the tiny brunette, Tina, warned her.
“Why not? He’s not my king.”
“This is how you serve the queen?” Sinclair asked silkily. Antonia, who hardly ever noticed such things, noticed his suit: black, immaculate, and obviously made for him.
“I’m here to help the queen, not kiss your ass. I think ‘serve’ might be an exaggeration. I’m not a walking TGI Friday’s.”
The queen burst into helpless laughter, which almost made Antonia smile. Certainly, everyone else in the room was looking sour.
“That’s great,” the queen said between giggles, “but I already have more help than I can shake a stick at. I mean… well, look.” She gestured to the kitchen. “I’ve been trying to get rid of some of these bums for almost a year.”
“Some of us,” Jessica piped up, “her whole life.”
“Well, too bad. I have to help you to—to get something I want, so here I am.”
Tina leaned over and murmured something in the king’s ear. Idiots. When she said she was a werewolf, did she say she was hard of hearing, too?
“I don’t know who Dr. Spangler is, but don’t call him. There’s too many people for me to deal with as it is.”
Tina looked startled, and Jessica, who had only seen Tina’s lips move, jumped, and then said, “Well, uh, I think—we think—you might be. Uh. Crazy.”
“No no no,” Sinclair said smoothly. “That’s a harsh word, I think.”
“Confused,” Tina suggested.
“Oh, come on,” the queen said. “Give her a break. She came all the way from Maryland—”
“Massachusetts.”
“—right. And she knew George’s real name! I mean, hel-looooooo? Am I the only one who thinks that’s a really good trick? So why can’t you give her a break on this?”
“Because werewolves don’t exist,” Sinclair explained.
A short silence followed that and then Jessica said cautiously, “But you’re a vampire.”
“The existence of one does not ensure the existence of the other,” the king almost snapped. “And I can assure you, in all my long life, I’ve never seen one.”
Antonia snickered. “So that’s why we don’t exist? Because you’ve never seen one? Too bad; I thought you were smart.”
He blinked and said nothing.
“Well,” the queen said, and Antonia almost—almost— liked her. The woman was obviously pulling for her. She must be used to strangers popping up out of nowhere and making declarations. “When’s the full moon? She can, you know, get furry and make believers out of us.”
“It’s in six days,” Antonia said with a sinking feeling. “But the thing is, I can’t Change. Into a wolf, I mean.”
“Oh?” Sinclair asked with a truly diabolical smile.
“Yeah, yeah, I know how it sounds. My father was a— anyway, the pack thinks that instead of Changing, I get visions. All the disadvantages of being a werewolf, and none of the advantages,” she joked. “I might as well be a m—be a regular person.”
“Boy oh boy, you’re not making it easy for me to stick up for you,” the queen commented.
“Sorry,” Antonia said, and almost meant it.
“She isn’t,” Garrett said from his corner, and they all jumped.
“Cripes, George! I forgot you were there, you were so quiet.”
“Why are you calling him George?”
“Well, he doesn’t—uh, didn’t—talk, and ‘hey you’ got old.”
“His name’s really Garrett Shea?” Jessica asked, leaning forward. “How did you know that?”
Antonia shrugged. She wasn’t about to go into the whole “sometimes in addition to pictures, a whole fact will appear in my head, indistinguishable from something I read” thing.
As it was, they were probably about ready to toss her on her finely toned ass. She was pretty sure. It was so hard to read them! Except for Jessica, who smelled hopeful and interested, an altogether pleasing scent. But the others… nothing. It was maddening, and cool.
“Garrett,” Garrett said, nodding.
Tina and Sinclair looked at each other and then back at Antonia. “We really aren’t in the habit of letting strangers just, ah, insinuate themselves into our lives…”
The queen buried her face in her hands. She’d painted her claws lavender, a monkey habit Antonia found completely ridiculous. At least she didn’t bite them. “Oh my God, I can’t believe you’ve even got the nerve to say that.”
“That was entirely different, my love. As I was saying, this is not our normal habit, but you seem to possess information we can find useful.”
“Aw,” Antonia said. “Stop it or I’m gonna cry.”
They all looked at Jessica, for some reason, who said, “Hey, there’s plenty of room for her and then some. She’s welcome to hang.”
“Jessica owns the house,” the queen explained.
“Oh,” Antonia replied, mystified.
“And I’m sorry, you probably said your name earlier, but I didn’t catch it.”
“It’s Antonia Wolfton.”
For some reason, this made the queen blanch. “No. That’s not really your name, is it? Antonia?”
“What the hell’s wrong with you? If possible, you just went pale.” The woman did look ghastly… practically unattractive, which was a good trick for a good-looking, green-eyed leggy blonde.
“Nothing. Uh, nothing.”
“I mean, you’re the queen, your name is Betsy, and you’ve got a problem with my name?”
“No, not at all, it’s a great name. Um, can I call you Toni?”
“No,” Antonia said. “You can’t.”
Chapter 3
Okay, so here’s your room while you want to stay with us, and the bathroom’s right here…“ The queen stepped back out through the doorway, pointed to her left, and then stepped back into the room, a largish bedroom with green and gold-flecked wallpaper. Antonia liked it at once; the walls were the color of the forest in mid-afternoon. ”Sorry it’s not attached, but it’s your own private bathroom so you won’t have to share it with anybody. And, uh, I guess that’s it. Agh!“
Antonia spun around. Garrett had followed them up. “That’s going to get real fucking annoying,” she warned him.
He smiled at her in response.
“Bad George! How many times do I have to tell you not to creep around like that? You’ll give everybody heart attacks. Bad, bad Fiend!”
“Why are you talking to him like a dog that pissed on the rug?” she demanded.
“Uh…” Betsy (the queen… har!) looked flustered. “You’re right, I’m sorry. It’s just that we’re so used to him being more like an animal than a person. Up until a couple months ago, he never talked at all. Not a single word, nothing. Heck, he didn’t even walk! Then he said something—”
“What?”
“ ‘Red, please.” He’s into crafts. Long story. Actually, it’s a short story: He likes to knit and crochet, and he was out of yarn. So anyway, he says this, right, and we all freak out. Right? Then, nothing. Then you show up, and you’re all, hidey ho, how’s it hanging, Garrett? And he freaks out and jumps you! You gotta understand, in addition to not talking, he’s never done that before, either, unless he was bringing down prey or protecting me. He’s like a lion with a gazelle when it comes to rapists. I dunno, it’s weird. Anyway—“
“Not having to take a breath,” Antonia commented, “must come in really handy for you.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe. Anyway, you can understand why we’re all a little freaked out.”
“Sure, I guess.” She was still mystified. At home, when a stranger showed up, you let them stay as long as they liked, no questions asked. She reminded herself that vampires and monkeys were different. Duh. And Garrett, even for a vampire, was the most different of all. Interesting.
“Antonia,” Garrett said. They both waited, but that was apparently all he had on his mind. She took another look at him. Brought down rapists, did he? Not much of a talker?
Mmmmm.
“You’ve got great hair,” she told him. “A girl could fall in love.”
He smiled at her again.
“Agh, don’t do that,” Betsy said. “I swear, his grin is as creepy as yours.”
“He’s got a nice smile,” Antonia said defensively. “It’s just right: friendly, but not aggressive.”
“Uh-huh, sure. Well, I’ll let you get settled, and—”
“I don’t need to get settled. I need to help you. What are you doing now?”
Betsy looked startled. “Now now?”
“Yeah, now now. Because I’m stuck to you like a squashed bug until—until whenever.”
She shrugged. “You know, a year ago, this would have seemed incredibly bizarre to me, but no longer. Now I take it all in stride, bay-bee! You want to help? Come on. Not you, Geor—Garrett. You’ll just make a mess of things.”
Garrett ignored her, which Antonia thought was just adorable.
Chapter 4
Oh no no no,“ Antonia groaned. ”Isn’t there a bullet I can take for you or a knife in the ribs or something?“
“Hey, you wanted to help, so you’re helping.”
“I don’t think so,” Jessica said, looking her up and down critically. “The blue makes her look washed out. Which, we can all agree, is not a problem I myself have. But it’s not so good on your model.”
“Go back and change into the yellow one,” Betsy said.
“Fuck this shit,” Antonia snapped. “I seriously doubt this is what the gods or whoever had in mind when they sent me a vision of helping you.”
“Sez you. Go change.”
She stomped back into the small sitting room, ripped the ice blue bridesmaid gown off, and struggled into the piss-yellow one. This, this was her punishment for every bad thought, word, and deed she had ever thought, said, and committed. Fucking bridesmaid gowns!
She slouched out into the larger room, and both women immediately said, “No.”
“Why’d they even send that one over, anyway?” Betsy asked. “It’s awful. Nobody can wear that color.”
“Because they want a big fat commission, so better to send too many instead of not enough. Why don’t you try the black one?” Jessica suggested.
“Why don’t I make a rope out of this one and hang myself?”
“Quit bitching,” the queen ordered, “and go change. And hurry it up; we don’t have all night.”
Jessica laughed. “Actually, we do.”
“Well, that’s true, but never mind. Change, please.” At Antonia’s poisonous glare, she added, “I meant dresses. That wasn’t some kind of werewolf put-down.”
“Better not have been,” she muttered and stomped back to the sitting room.
“So, uh.” Jessica was speaking with forced casualness, which smelled like oranges on fire. “When did you figure out that you weren’t, uh, going to turn into a wolf ever? I mean, you’re pretty young.”
She had to laugh at that one. “I’m old for an unmated werewolf.”
“Oh. Because I was thinking, maybe you just haven’t had a, uh, chance to, you know. Change.”
“It happens with puberty.”
“Puberty?” Betsy echoed.
Antonia was wrestling with the zipper. “Yeah, you know. Hair in new places, things get bigger, and suddenly you’re thinking about boys. Don’t worry, it’ll happen for you soon.”
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to be a jerk about it.”
“Yes she does,” Jessica whispered, having no idea that Antonia could hear her perfectly well.
“So you were a teenager and you never Changed?”
“Not once.” At last! The thing was on. Hmm, not to bad. She studied herself in the mirror; she looked like one of those old pictures of a Greek stature. The dress was simple; no ruffles or fluffs. Straight across the boobs, falling to her hips, and then falling to the floor. And the deepest black, so black it made her skin glow.
“This one isn’t horrible,” she said, stepping out.
“No!” Betsy cried. “Black bridesmaid dresses at a vampire wedding? How cliched can you get? I mean, it looks great on you, Toni—”
“Stop trying that, it won’t work. An-TONE-ee-uh.”
“—but I just can’t do it.”
“Why are you even getting married? You’re already the king and queen, right?”
“It’s a long, horrible story,” Betsy said, “and I don’t have any alcohol, so I’m not telling it.”
“Maybe that dress in a different color?” Jessica suggested.
“Maybe.” Betsy got up and started circling Antonia, which she thought (but didn’t say) was extremely rude in her culture. “It does look great on her. And it helps, frankly, that all my bridesmaids are fabulous-looking.”
“Well, that’s true,” Jessica said modestly. “But Tina and I are short.”
“Andrea’s tall, though.”
“Yeah, but still. Tina and I won’t look as, uh, what’s the word? Stately. With this cut of gown, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” Betsy said, prowling around Antonia like a panther. “It’s a great dress. Good cut, good lines. Probably look good on everybody.”
“I thought we agreed that no dress looks good on everybody. You’ve got a short skinny black gal, a short brunette, and a tall blonde walking down the aisle in front of you.”
“You are really thin,” Antonia informed her. “Where I’m from, they’d hunt for you and be sure you ate everything brought to you.”
“Thanks for that,” Jessica snapped. “I can’t help my metabolism any more than Oprah can help hers, so hush up.”
“Hey, I was being nice!”
“That’s nice for you? Jesus.”
“What colors do you think we should try the dress in?” Betsy said, jumping in. Too bad. Antonia was hungry for a fight, but a catfight would have been a fine substitute. “Emerald green? Royal blue? Red? No, that’s another cliche. I have to say, Antonia,” she added, looking her up and down, “you’re one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something around here.”
She shrugged. This was nothing new, and it was inevitably followed by “too bad you’re such a grump” or “it’s so unfortunate you’re not a complete woman” or “at least you’ve got your looks.”
“Too bad you’re such a grouch,” Jessica added.
Antonia rolled her eyes. “Can I get dressed now?”
“Yeah, I think we’re done.”
“Don’t tease,” she warned.
“What a baby!” Jessica hooted. “We’ve been at this barely two hours.”
“We’ve? You haven’t done shit, just stood around running your gums. I’ve been doing all the work.”
“In return for free room and board, which is not such a bad deal, I might add.”
Antonia snorted but had no comeback for that, so instead she said, “We’re really done? You’re not just yanking my chain?”
The queen looked shocked. “Not about wedding matters. Never!”
When she went back to the sitting room, Garrett was waiting for her.
Chapter 5
She blinked at him. There was one door to the sitting d^^»i^ room, and he would have had to get past the three of them to get in. She had no idea how he’d slipped by. That lack of scent was maddening, not to mention a real asset.
“Antonia,” he said.
“Shhhh,” she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. “They’re right in the next room, I’m sorry to say.” She started wriggling out of the dress. “This is so completely not what I had in mind by helping the queen, I can tell you that right fucking now. I assumed she’d be attacked and I’d save her with my superior—” She realized she was standing in her underwear and he was staring at her.
Stupid monkey customs! Apparently it even bothered dead monkeys, the whole no-clothes thing. Although, strange, she hadn’t thought of Garrett as a monkey before. But of course he was. Right? A dead monkey was still—
Well, that wasn’t true at all, and she knew it well. He was stronger, faster, quicker. He didn’t babble until she felt like ripping out her own throat, he didn’t fret, he didn’t want to talk about her feelings, he didn’t make war to get more money and then pretend it was to help people. He was just… Garrett.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, reaching for her shirt. “I forgot that—look, where I come from—which admittedly isn’t here— nobody really cares about nudity. But I’ll try to remember in the future—”
“Pretty,” Garrett said and grabbed her arm, which startled her into dropping her shirt. She hadn’t even seen him start to move. Now, why was that thrilling instead of frightening?
“Thanks,” she said, “but really, I get that all the time.”
“So?” he asked and pulled again. Now she was in his arms, and his cool mouth was on hers, and his hands were moving in her hair, restlessly, almost tugging.
“Yeah,” she said into his mouth. “That’ll work.”
“What’s taking so long in there?” Betsy hollered.
“And when you’re done kissing me,” she said, pulling back and looking into his eyes, which struck her now as more chocolate-colored than mud-colored,“could you drive that hanger into my ear until I can’t hear her anymore?”
“No,” he said and kissed her again. Which she privately thought made the whole stupid trip worthwhile.
Chapter 6
There was a polite rap at the door; she could smell a
single youngish man, blood, and vomit. It was six
o’clock in the morning; everyone had gone to bed (to coffin?)
but her. Jessica, she had since learned, adjusted her sleeping
schedule to the vampires‘, and Betsy usually went to bed early.
With her charge out of commission until dawn, Antonia found herself putzing about in her room with absolutely nothing to do. She cursed herself for not stocking up on magazines before she came to the house.
There was another knock, interrupting her thoughts. “Come,” she called.
The door swung open, and a twenty-something dark-haired man of average height (wasn’t Minnesota supposed to be the land of blondes? What was with all the brunettes?), wearing pea-green hospital scrubs and scuffed tennis shoes, stood framed in the doorway. Interestingly, his stethoscope was still around his neck.
“You smell like puke,” she informed him.
“You must be Antonia,” he replied, grinning. He held out his hand, and she reluctantly shook it. “I’m Marc Spangler. Dr. Spangler, which is why I reek. I swear, I thought the nurse was going to grab the emesis basin in time, but, as so often in my life, I was sadly wrong.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “That’s too bad. So you spend your days getting puked on?”
“And peed on, and shat on, and bled on,” he said cheerfully. “But hey, the pay sucks and the hours are horrible, so it all works out. Luckily, my rent is low.”
She laughed again. “What can I do for you, doctor?”
“Oooooh, almost polite and everything! That’s funny, I was warned about you.”
“Pussies,” she scoffed.
“Mmm. Well, today I gotta earn my keep—Sinclair asked me to take a look at you. So if you don’t mind.” He didn’t trail off, as people usually did when they said such a thing. And she realized that, in his laid-back way, he wasn’t really asking.
“I’m not crazy,” she said. “And you’re not a shrink, I bet.”
“No, just a garden-variety E.R. rez. But what the hell, it’ll make the big guy feel better, right?”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. Get on with it.”
He took her pulse and blood pressure and listened to her heart and lungs. He chatted with her about this and that, and she wasn’t supposed to notice that he was checking for depression, schizophrenia, paranoia, or delusional thinking.
“Look, I’m flunking your little mental health checklist,” she told him, rolling her sleeve back down, “because I do believe things most people don’t, I do think people are out to get me, and I’m really bummed about my life, which is why I’m here.”
“Yeah, but on the bright side, your vitals are all textbook perfect. You’ve got the heart and lungs of a track star.”
“Well,” she said, shrugging modestly. “Superior life form and all that.”
“Descended from wolves, is that right?”
She rolled her eyes and didn’t answer.
“Uh-huh. But of all the werewolves—and there aren’t very many—but of all of them, only you don’t turn into a wolf during the full moon. Instead, you can see the future.”
She sighed. “I know how it sounds.”
“It sounds like you’re loony tunes,” he told her gleefully, “but who am I to judge? I live with vampires.”
She smiled at him. She liked him, and on short acquaintance, too! Unheard of. “That’s true,” she replied. “So what are you telling the king?”
“That you’re the picture of health, but I have no idea if you’re crazy or not. For what it’s worth, you don’t seem like a drooling psychopath.”
“Aw.”
“Time will tell,” he went on perkily. “Just when I thought it was getting dull around here, too. I mean, how many times can Betsy obsess over her bouquet?”
She didn’t answer him; she was looking at the picture that had popped into her head. “Dr. Spangler,” she said after a few seconds.
“Hon, call me Marc. Dr. Spangler is—no one I know, actually, but it’s weird, anyway.”
She reached out and touched his arm, gently, she thought, but he ow’ed and pulled away. “Youch! Hon, you don’t know your own strength.”
“Call security before you treat your first patient. Have them check his coat pockets. Understand? Because if you don’t…” She was rubbing her temples in anticipation of the headache to follow if he ignored her, not to mention the aggravation of funeral arrangements and Betsy’s hysterics. “If you don’t, your first patient will be your last—stop that!”
He had whipped the stethoscope out and was listening to her heart. She pulled away. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Yup. Did you know your pulse goes way, way up when you’re having one of those visions or whatever?”
“Yes,” she said and escorted him out. “Remember what I said!” she yelled at him and shut the door before he could bug her with more questions.
Chapter 7
And the guy had not one, ladies and gents, but two guns on him! And every other word was the ‘MF’ word. It was like a bad episode of Deadwood.“
It was the wee hours of the next morning, an hour or so away from dawn. Jessica and Betsy were listening, slack-jawed. Tina and Sinclair were hiding their emotions a little better but couldn’t conceal their interest. Antonia yawned, bored.
“A thirty-eight and a forty-five, for the love of Pete! And I’ll tell you what, the minute I’dve tried to Foley him, he would have blown my brains all over the wall. Which would have improved the color scheme, but that’s about it.”
“And Antonia told you this would happen?” Sinclair asked carefully.
“Yes!”
“No,” Antonia said. “I told you to have security check your first patient’s coat. That’s what I saw: them checking his coat. For all I knew, they would have found a pack of Chiclets.”
“You saved him,” Betsy breathed.
“They were only guns.” Oh, wait. Guns were taken a little more seriously by the regulars. “Hmm, maybe I did.” She waited. They all waited. Finally, she said, “But I don’t feel any better. I mean, I don’t feel like I got what I wanted.”
“Is it an instant kind of thing?” Betsy wondered. “Boom, you’re satisfied and you go home?”
“What do you want?” Tina asked.
She shrugged, partly because she wasn’t one hundred percent certain, partly because it was nobody’s damned business, and partly because the truth—if it was the truth—was embarrassing. How do you tell strangers you want to belong, you want friends and a family who weren’t afraid of you?
“Well, saving Marc certainly helped me out,” Betsy said. “Thanks.”
“No,” Sinclair said.
“Oh, that’s nice,” Marc sniped.
“Don’t misunderstand, Dr. Spangler, but I fail to see how saving your life directly helps Elizabeth.”
“That’s a lot better,” Antonia told her. “You should use that instead of Betsy. Betsy’s lame.”
“Oh, shut up,” Betsy told her. “And Sinclair, what are you talking about?”
“I guess he’s right,” Marc said reluctantly. “Me being dead might have bummed you out, but you would have gone on.”
“And on, and on, and on,” Betsy said glumly.
“So saving Marc was a bonus? You’re really here to do something else?” Jessica asked.
Antonia shrugged.
“Fascinating,” Sinclair commented.
“Honey, as soon as the bars open tonight, I’m buying.”
“I don’t drink,” Antonia told him. “And you’re nuts if you do. You do know alcohol is a poison, right? Aren’t you supposed to be a physician?”
“Oh, good,” Jessica said. “A sanctimonious soothsayer. Those are the best kind.”
“See if I ever warn you of mortal danger.”
“You do know I’m the only thing between you and another gown fitting, right, Fuzzy?”
She smiled; she couldn’t help it. It was the first time she could recall joking about not warning someone about impending doom, and the someone in question taking it the way she meant it: as a joke.
The pack honestly worried she would see someone’s death and not warn them out of spite. This both puzzled and upset her—she might not be Little Miss Sunshine, but she would never, ever keep such an awful secret. How could her own pack so misunderstand her motives and actions? She’d grown up with them. And what could she do about it? She was too old to
Change.
“Fine,” Marc was saying. “Virgin daiquiris all around.” “Strawberry?” Sinclair asked hopefully, and Betsy laughed
and got up and brought out multiple blenders.
Chapter 8
You make him sleep in the basement?“ Antonia practically roared.
“We don’t make him do anything,” Betsy explained patiently. “He’s definitely his own Fiend. Guy. Whatever.”
“Oh.” Slightly mollified, Antonia calmed down.
“Besides, if he’s out and about when the sun comes up… poof. At least in the basement, I don’t have to worry that he’s lost track of time. I mean, does he even tell time?”
“Try giving him a watch.”
“I guess. In the past, he’d nibble on whatever we gave him… books, magazines, clothes. He’s way ahead of the other Fiends now, though.”
“What is a Fiend?”
They were strolling along Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, as far away from the police station as they could get and still be in the neighborhood. Bait. The queen of the vampires, interestingly, had a thing about drinking blood: she only did it in response to attempted assault.
“Well, the guy in charge before Sinclair and I took over was a real psycho.” Betsy was tripping along daintily in ludicrous shoes for city-walking: buttercup yellow pumps with black stripes along the sides. “And he was into experimenting on his subjects, like any psycho. And apparently how you make a Fiend is—it’s so awful that I know this—you take a newly risen vampire, and you don’t let them feed for a few years. And—and they go crazy, I guess. They turn feral. Forget how to walk, forget how to talk—”
Antonia wrinkled her nose; the three punks following them had too much garlic on their pizza. And their guns hadn’t been cleaned in forever; they stank of old oil and powder. “But George can talk and walk. Well, he talks a little.”
“Yeah, now. See, for whatever reason, George wouldn’t stay with the other Fiends. We had them sort of penned up on Nostro’s grounds.”
“He agreed to this when you took over?” she asked, startled. Vampires were weird!
“He didn’t agree to shit; he’s dead.”
“Oh.” Appeased, Antonia hurried her gait, pretending to be nervous. The jerks quickened their pace, whispering to each other. “So Garrett wouldn’t stay with the other Fiends… ?”
“Right, he kept getting off the grounds. And one night he followed me home. And I let him feed off me—yuck!”
“Yuck,” she mused.
“And he started to get better. And then my sister Laura let him feed off her, and he got really better—that’s when he talked.”
“Oh, your sister’s a vampire?”
“No,” Betsy said shortly, and Antonia knew that was all to be said on that subject. “Anyway, he was always different from the others. And now he’s really really different. And then you came.”
“And then I came.” She whirled, picked up one of the thugs, and tossed him. He skidded to an abrupt halt, courtesy of the unlit streetlight.
“Antonia!” Betsy shrilled. “You’re supposed to wait until he attacks us!”
“He was just about to,” she said defensively. She smacked the gun out of the other’s hand, almost smiling when she heard the metacarpals break.
The third, predictably, took to his heels.
“Well, there you go,” she said, gesturing to the two moaning, crying attackers. “Take your pick.”
“I don’t think this is how you’re supposed to help me, either,” Betsy snapped, mincing over to the one by the streetlight.
“You’re right, this was a freebie. Bon appetit.”
“Go over there,” she grumbled.
“You mean in the corner that smells like piss?”
“I can’t do it in front of you,” the queen of the vampires whined.
“Are you kidding me? You’re kidding me, right?” Antonia paused. “You’re not kidding.”
Betsy pointed. “The quicker you go over there and don’t look, the quicker we can get out of here.”
“I think it’s fair to say nobody’s ever sent me to the corner before.”
Betsy snickered. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Monkey culture.”
The guy by the streetlight groaned and flopped over like a landed trout. The one with the broken hand had passed out from the pain. “I guess I’ll be in the corner, then.”
“This is quite a life I’ve made for myself,” Betsy muttered and stomped over to the streetlight.
Antonia yawned and ignored the groans and slurping. When the queen was finished, Antonia walked back to her. “Ready to go?”
Interestingly, Betsy looked… what was it? Mortified. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“You sent me to the corner,” she reminded her. “I only heard.”
“Yeah, but… it’s gross. It’s so, so gross.” She covered her eyes for a moment and then looked up. “Except…”
“When it’s with Sinclair,” she guessed.
“Yeah. Yeah! How’d you know?”
Antonia tapped the side of her nose.
“Yuck. I mean, great! Wait a minute. I thought you couldn’t smell us.”
“I can just barely smell your blood. Which was on him, last night. Don’t worry. What do I care? You’re vampires, for crying out loud, why wouldn’t you share blood?”
“We’re not going to talk about this,” Betsy declared and went clicking off down the street in her silly shoes.
Antonia hurried to catch up. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. It’s your nature now. I mean, I like my steaks raw, and you don’t see me apologizing.”
“Different thing.”
“Totally the same thing.”
“And already, you’ve been hanging around me too long. You said totally!”
“I totally did not.” She reached out and touched Betsy’s chin. “You missed a spot.”
Betsy flinched back, newly self-conscious, and then forced a smile. “Thanks.”
They walked in silence for a minute and then Betsy asked, “You really weren’t grossed out?”
“Are you kidding? My high school graduation was gorier than that.”
Antonia was amused to see Betsy could skip in high heels.
Chapter 9
They returned a couple hours before dawn, about the time Jessica brought out a large bag full of yarn skeins.
“I’ll take them down,” Antonia offered.
“That’s all right, I’ll do it.”
She yanked the bag out of Jessica’s hands, nearly sending the smaller woman sprawling. “I insist. Besides, it’s another way to earn my keep.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Jessica grumped, rubbing her elbow. “I hope you trip on the stairs and die.”
“Thanks for that.”
The funny thing was, she was in such a hurry to get to the basement and see Garrett, she almost did trip.
For nothing: He wasn’t there.
She looked everywhere, listening as hard as she could, frustrated because her sense of smell was useless. It was a big basement—it ran the length of the house and had lots of little rooms and nooks and crannies—and searching it took a long time.
Finally, she gave up, left the yarn bag on one of the tables, and trudged up to her room.
To find Garrett crouched on her desk, his toes on the very edge, perfectly balanced like a vulture, his arms clasped across his knees, his gaze nailed to the doorway.
“There,” he said comfortably, as she shut the door and tried not to wet her pants in surprise.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, dope! If they knew you were out of your little basement cell, they would fucking freak out, get me?”
“Get you,” he said and soared off the desk at her. She ducked, and he slammed into the door and slid to the carpet.
“Ha!” she crowed, slipping out of her coat and dancing around his prone form. “I’m not that kind of girl. Serves you right.”
He bounded to his feet in one smooth motion and pounced on her again. Shrieking with laughter, she let herself be borne back on the bed. “Oh, what the hell,” she said, putting her arms around him. “I am that kind of girl.”
He nuzzled her neck and, though she was expecting it, she was still surprised when he bit her. She was also surprised at how terrific it felt. Always before she’d had contempt for prey, for bottoms, for victims. But letting herself be taken, letting him get what he needed from her—it was exciting in a completely different way. Always before she’d been the wolf; now she was the rabbit, and it was very fine.
She buried her fingers in his long hair, marveling at the feel of it, the silky texture, and he snuggled her closer to him. His teeth were sharp, but his arms around her were gentle, almost careful.
“Wait,” she said, but he ignored her and kept drinking.
“Okay,” she said, “but I have a limited number of underpants, so don’t—shit!” She heard the tell-tale rrrrrrip and, out of spite (and, okay, some lust… okay, a lot of lust) ripped through his blue jeans in exactly the same way. “If you have any money at all,” she informed him, wriggling beneath him so they could match up, “you’re buying me new clothes.”
She reached down and felt him, cool and hard, which was startling and sexy at the same time. He hummed against her neck, and his grip shifted, from gentle to urgent, and then he was pushing against her, shoving, and she wrapped her legs around his waist to help him, to help herself. They groaned in unison and then she felt him slide all the way home, and that was worth the stupid trip, too.
He arched above her, her blood running down his chin, and she jerked his head down, licked it away, and met him thrust for thrust. He kissed her bite mark, and she heard him mutter, “Pretty.”
“Back atcha,” she gasped back, her orgasm very close, shockingly close, and then she was clutching at him so hard she heard something snap and realized with dim horror that she’d dislocated his shoulder. Then she realized that he hadn’t noticed, or cared, because his thrusts had sped up and his hands were hurting her, bruising her, and she didn’t much care, either. Then they were arching together and shuddering at the same moment, and then they were done.
After a minute in which she caught her breath and he popped his shoulder back in without so much as a change of expression, she groaned, “I’m so sorry about that.”
“Why?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. That badly, I mean.”
“So?”
She looked at him, and he looked back at her, two night creatures who could see each other perfectly well in the dark.
She smiled. “Boy, you’re just the perfect man, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And so modest!”
“No.”
“Want to go again?”
“Yes.”
She grinned. “I’ll bet. Listen, Betsy said you followed her home… you saved her a couple times. It’s no big deal, I’m just curious…”
“Lie.”
“Okay, okay, don’t nag. Yes, it’s a big deal. Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
So. That was that. The perfect man was in love with someone else. Of course. And the queen, of course, thought of him as a highly evolved dog. Of course. And she… she was fucked.
Chapter 10
They spent the night together, trying to hurt each other in various ways, to the extreme satisfaction of both. Antonia, who had been warned again and again
(never with monkeys; they’re fragile)
found vampires to be fragile, but they healed so quickly it hardly mattered.
And just when she was wondering what to do about the filmy curtains on her east-facing windows, Garrett yawned, showing long, catlike fangs, and crawled beneath her bed.
“I guess that’s that,” she said. “Hey—there really is a monster under the bed!”
There was no answer, so she got up, showered, dressed in her last outfit (she’d have to shop today—ugh—or borrow something), and went downstairs.
Sinclair was still up, reading the Wall Street Journal of all the tremendously dull things. She’d read a shampoo bottle before she’d even look at that paper.
“Good morning, Antonia.”
“Hey.” She fixed herself a glass of chocolate milk, stirred through the other papers on the counter, and finally picked the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
He said, without looking at her, “That’s a nasty bite.”
“MYOB, king who isn’t my king.”
“It was just an observation,” he said mildly. “But you should know, Tina isn’t in, ah, things for the, ah, long haul.”
“What?”
“You are a stunning woman, but the very fact that your presence here is a temporary one would be, ah, attractive to her. I hope my candor hasn’t offended you.”
She sipped her milk dispassionately and thought about what fun could be had if she let him keep his silly idea. Then she compared it to the fun of telling him the truth.
“I didn’t spend the night with Tina, numb nuts. I spent it with Garrett. That’s all so fascinating about Tina not being able to commit, Mr. Nosy, but I don’t swing that way.”
“Oh.” The paper rattled. Score! He hadn’t seen that one coming at all. Har! “Well. That’s. Well.”
“Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Right.”
“Because it’s not.”
“Yes.”
“The only reason I’m even telling you is because you were nice enough to give me some advice. Totally unasked for advice, but never mind.”
He looked started. “Did you just say totally?”
“No.”
They sat in silence for a while, Antonia wondering about blood sharing and the nature of Fiends. If Betsy’s blood had helped him, and Laura—whoever she was—had helped him, what might werewolf blood do? Anything? Nothing?
She jumped when Sinclair broke the silence. “To answer your question—”
“I didn’t say anything,” she said, startled.
“—I have no idea what your blood would do to Garrett. Or not do.”
“That’s really annoying,” she snapped. “I wasn’t talking to you. I was just sitting here minding my own business. Your problem is, everybody’s so busy kissing your ass, they don’t tell you to cut the shit.”
“On the contrary,” he said, completely unruffled—dammit! She was longing for a fight. “My charming bride-to-be tells me to cut the shit on a near-constant basis. My question for you, Antonia, is why you’re even wondering about it.”
“Why?” She was startled and then angry she didn’t see the question coming. “Why? Well, I don’t know… as long as I’m in town, you know. Couldn’t hurt, right?”
He smiled at her. It was a perfectly nice smile, not at all the rich promise of lust he’d given Betsy the night before, but she still felt a stab. Lower. “Do unto others, as we monkeys like to say?”
“You’re not monkeys,” she said, shocked. “Well. Jessica and Marc—I mean, I’m sorry.” She was flustered, and even a little shamed… she had obviously been overusing the rude word. “I don’t even think of you as—look, can we get off this? If I offended you, I’m sorry.”
“You’re clueless,” he said, picking up the paper with a rattle, “not sorry. You poor thing.”
She fumed through the rest of her breakfast and bolted as soon as she could.
Chapter 11
“Stop staring.”
“I wasn’t,” Jessica whined.
“Yes, you were.”
“Well, I heard you had a bite mark. But I don’t see a thing.” “Superior life form,” she reminded them. “It’s long gone.” It was the next night, and they were going through Betsy’s
closet, looking for clothes Antonia might borrow. It was all so
girlfriend-ish she thought she might puke. But the alternative—
shopping—was ever so much worse.
“This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen,” she said,
peering into Betsy’s closet and counting at least a hundred pairs of shoes. “Those look expensive. You walk through dog shit in those things?”
“Why do you think she needs so many of them?” Jess asked brightly. She put a rainbow-colored stack of T-shirts on the bed. “Those should work.”
“I’ve got a bunch of leggings and stuff you can borrow, too,” Betsy said, muffled from the closet, “but I draw the line at lending you my panties.”
“I’ll go to Wal-Mart or something later.”
Jessica, who was both rich and a snob, was unable to conceal her shudder.
“Knock it off, Jessica. You’re in no position to look down on anybody. Not if you can’t run a mile in less than a minute.”
“I could if I wanted,” Betsy bragged from the closet. “I just don’t want to.”
“You can’t do shit in those shoes,” Antonia snapped back.
“Hey, there’s a perfectly nice Super 8 over on Grand, if ever you feel the need to, you know, get the hell out.”
“Would that I could,” she grumped, but she was secretly pleased. It was like—like they were friends or something. They were grateful she’d helped Marc. They didn’t pry (much) into her sex life. Nobody was worried about her having a defective cub. Nobody cared that she was running out of clothes and needed to borrow. It was—er, what was the word? Nice.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask,” Jessica said. “Let me see if I’ve got this straight, calling one of us a ‘monkey’ is like using the ‘N’ word?”
“Sure,” Antonia said. “Another way to look at it is, if I’m doing it, chances are, it’s socially unacceptable. Seriously. I am not the role model for any of you.”
“The ‘N’ word, huh?” Jessica mused.
“I don’t think we should be talking about this,” Betsy said nervously, emerging from the closet with an armful of slacks on hangers.
“Relax, white girl. I’m curious, is all.”
“Look, it’s really really rude, and I’m trying to cut down, okay?”
Betsy was too curious to drop the subject. “So compared to you guys, we’re slow, and not too bright, and we can’t smell at all, and we stink, and we’re really wimpy.”
Antonia noticed Betsy said “you guys” in reference to herself as well. Interesting. “Well… yeah. But, uh, we know you guys can’t help it.”
“So it’s like being born blind?” Jessica asked dryly. “Poor things, blah-blah, better luck next life?”
“Pretty much.”
“But where do you fit in? A werewolf who’s never a wolf?”
“I don’t know,” Antonia said and then shocked herself as much as anyone when she burst into tears.
“Oh my God!” Betsy almost screamed. “I’m so sorry! Don’t cry. Please please don’t cry.”
“I’m not crying,” Antonia sobbed. “I never cry.”
Jessica leaned across the bed and awkwardly patted her on the back. “There, there, honey. It’s gonna be fine.”
“Totally fine!” Betsy endorsed. “Totally, totally! Please don’t do that!”
“I’m not,” she said, crying harder.
“Okay, so you’re not crying.” Jessica held up a navy blue tank top. “What do you think of this one?”
“I hate it,” she sobbed.
“Not into blue, eh?”
“Jessica, can’t you see she’s really upset?”
“Can’t you see she doesn’t want to talk about it?”
“Why did he have to fall in love with you?”
“What?” the women said in unison.
“I said, why did you have to show me anything blue?”
“Well, jeez, we didn’t think you’d get so upset,” Betsy said. “A tough honey like you?”
“Did George hurt you? Is that why you’re mad?”
“Of course he hurt me. We hurt each other. That’s what— never mind.”
“Oh, sorry.” Jessica looked away. “It’s none of our business.”
“I don’t have human hang-ups about fucking,” she reminded them. “I’ll draw sketches, if you like. It’s not that. It’s something else.”
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
And that was that.
Chapter 12
Then they came back down to the kitchen, to her surprise, Garrett was sitting at the counter with a weirded-out Sinclair. Waiting.
For her, she was surprised to see. He came to her at once, nuzzled her neck, and then retreated to his stool.
“You forgot your yarn,” Jessica said after a long moment in which it appeared someone had to break the silence.
“Not in the mood,” he replied.
Betsy started poking through the mail, squealing with glee when she saw the red Netflix envelopes. She ripped them open, and Jessica groaned when she showed them the discs.
“Why did you get Cone With the Wind again, dumb-ass? You own the damned movie!”
“Yes, but this is the new special edition with two new deleted scenes.”
“There’s one born every minute,” Sinclair commented.
“You hush up. Where’s Tina? She might want to watch it with me.”
“She’s out.”
“Oh.”
“Don’t you have to do some hunting, too?” Antonia asked her.
“No.”
“Elizabeth is unique among us.” Sinclair was giving the queen a look that was positively sappy. “Among other things, she doesn’t have to feed as often.”
“Like you,” Betsy told her. “Unique among the fuzzies.”
Antonia groaned. “Please don’t call us that.”
Jessica had been looking at Garrett during most of the conversation, then back at Antonia, then at Garrett. Antonia could smell the woman was stressed and waited for her to say something.
Finally: “Garrett, do you remember, uh, how you became a vampire?”
“Yes.”
They all waited. Betsy, also obviously curious, asked, “Do you mind telling us how?”
Garrett shrugged.
Antonia said sharply, “He doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t think he cares either way,” Sinclair replied, looking Garrett up and down with a critical eye.
“Forget it, Garr. You don’t have to say shit.”
Sinclair raised a knowing eyebrow. “Protective little thing, aren’t you?”
“You wanna go, king of the dead guys? Because we’ll go.”
“Don’t fight,” Betsy snapped. “Let’s just drop the whole—”
“I was acting. An actor. For Tarzan.”
An enthralled silence, broken by Jessica’s breathless “ Annnnnnnd? ”
Garrett tugged his long hair. “Grew it out. For Tarzan. Picture folded. Felt bad.”
“So you got fired, okay, and then what?”
“Producer tried to cheer me up. Had to get haircut… couldn’t walk around like that.”
“With long hair?” Antonia asked, mystified.
“Took me to barber. Late. After sets closed. Producer was Nostro. Had barber cut my throat and drank.”
“Jesus Christ!” Betsy practically screamed.
Antonia was on her feet. She didn’t remember getting up from the stool, and who cared? “Where’s the barber? Is he around here? I’m going to pull his lungs out and eat them while he watches.”
“Who was making the movie?” Sinclair asked sharply.
Garrett pointed to the Gone With the Wind disc.
“You mean… Warner Brothers?”
Antonia had an awful thought, so awful she could hardly get it out; it was clogging her throat like vomit. “That’s—that’s an old movie.”
“Nineteen thirty-nine,” Betsy said quietly.
“Tarzan lost funding,” Garrett confirmed. “Made that movie instead.”
Betsy shrieked again and kicked over her stool. The thing flew across the kitchen and crunched into the wall; plaster rained down on the (previously) spotless floor. “You’ve been a vampire for almost seventy years?”
Garrett shrugged.
“What a pity,” Sinclair commented, “that we already killed Nostro.” But he was looking at Garrett in a new way: intrigued and even a little alarmed. Antonia wondered how old Sinclair was.
“Sing it, sweetheart! God, what I wouldn’t give to have him in this kitchen right now. Torturing poor George and the others for more than half a century, that piece of shit! That son of a bitch!”
“Garrett,” Garrett corrected her.
“Right, right, sorry.”
Of all of them, Antonia noticed, Garrett seemed the least upset. She asked him about it, and he shrugged.
“Long time ago.”
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it,” she said doubtfully.
“Things are different now.”
Yeah, she thought bitterly. You’ve been redeemed by love. Loving someone else, that is. Fuck.
Chapter 13
I’m glad you didn’t cut it,“ she said later, after making love. She stroked the long, silky strands. ”I like it long.“
“Now, yes. Then, no.”
“I suppose. That’ll teach you to conform to society,” she teased.
He made a sound like gravel rolling down a hill, and after a minute, she realized he was laughing.
She supposed she should tell him; he might wonder, tomorrow night, where she had gone. “Just a heads up, I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because… because I haven’t been able to figure out how to help the queen. And I can’t stay here while you—I can’t stick around, let’s just leave it like that.”
“But if you don’t help… you don’t get what you want.”
“So I don’t get what I want. My life will remain completely unchanged.” She thought she said it with no bitterness. And dammit all, she was about to cry again. But not in front of Garrett. No way.
“Don’t go,” he said.
Okay, now she was crying. “Well, I am, so shut up about it. What do you care? You love Betsy, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So that’s all you need.”
“No.”
“What’s the matter with you? Why do you even care? You’ve got everything you need right here.”
“Now.”
“Look, Garrett. I guess… you don’t really love me.”
“Wrong.”
“What?” Outraged, she sat up. “You just said you loved Betsy.”
He yanked her back down. “Love Betsy… like the sun. Powerful, can’t control it. Don’t know what will happen.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.”
“Love you like… air. Need it. Betsy is queen… belongs to everybody. Like money. You… belong to me. You’re… only for me.”
She went still as stone for a long time, wondering if her ears were defective, wondering if she dared believe what he’d said. But why not believe him? When had he lied?
“If this is your way of trying out telling jokes,” she said through a shuddering breath, “I will dislocate both your shoulders, and your legs.”
“Doit, if you’ll stay.”
“I’ll stay.”
“Then okay,” he said comfortably.
“I’m not sleeping in the basement, though.”
“Okay.”
“They can give us good curtains, or we can board up the windows in this room.”
“Okay.”
“I love you, jerk.”
He looked surprised. “Of course.”
She groaned and punched him, which led to other things. Nicer things.
Chapter 14
“You’re moving in?”
Antonia nodded with a mouthful of breakfast. “As of right now,” she added, spraying the queen with scrambled eggs.
“Oh. Okay. You’re moving in? Okay. I thought you were going to leave. We all—I mean, we didn’t want you to go but didn’t feel like we could make you stay. Ugh, don’t smile like that! Especially not with your mouth full.”
She swallowed but couldn’t help grinning. “Better get used to it.” They had wanted her to stay? Had talked about convincing her? How charming!
She scooped more eggs onto her plate. Damn, that Sinclair could cook! Where’d he gotten to, anyway? Oh, who cared?
“Don’t you have to call your boss, or leader, or whatever?” Betsy asked, sitting across from her and picking eggs out of her hair.
“Did it last night.”
“So it’s all taken care of.”
“Umm-hmm.” Michael had sounded almost insultingly relieved at the news that she wasn’t coming back. If she hadn’t had Garrett, she might have been devastated. But as it was…
“I have a new family now. Don’t look scared, I’m only going to get sentimental for a minute.”
“I wasn’t scared,” Betsy said defensively. “Just surprised, is all. You have to admit, you kind of pulled a one-eighty in the last twenty-four hours.”
“Yeah, well, this is where I’m supposed to be. My lover’s here, he lets me be as rough as I want—”
Betsy put her hands over her ears. “Overshare!”
“—you guys don’t seem to care if I can see the future or shit nickels.”
“I think I liked the gruff, unsentimental side of you a lot better.”
“So I’m staying.”
“Well, that’s great. A werewolf who can see the future will probably come in handy.” She gestured to the cavernous kitchen. “And it’s not like we don’t have the room.”
“Yeah, having me around all the time will be a help, get it?”
“Uh, no.”
“And by hanging out here, I get what I want.” Lover. Love. Family. Acceptance.
“Oh! So—”
“I switched it around by accident. Or maybe I just wasn’t paying attention. Bottom line: I get what I want. Then I help you by moving in. Or I move in with you. Then I get what I want. Either way, I was right. Again. I just don’t have enough faith in myself, that’s the problem.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem.” Betsy looked mystified. “I don’t get it.”
“If you were as smart as me,” Antonia assured her, “you would.”
“Oh, goody. Someone else who has zero respect for me. Because there aren’t enough of them hanging out in this mausoleum.”
Garrett picked that moment to bound in, give Antonia’s hair a friendly yank, and bound back out.
Betsy watched him go. “How, uh, sweet.”
“Wow! I didn’t even hear him come in that time! God, what a man.” Antonia sighed and shoveled more eggs in her mouth. “Isn’t that just the sexiest, coolest thing you’ve ever seen?”
“Urn. Let me get you a napkin. Possibly five.”
“Bitch.”
The queen laughed at her. “Sez you.”