Thirty-five
She answered the door
at once, pale and nibbling on her lower lip. “This isn’t a good
time.”
“Tell me about it.”
He stomped past her and down the stairs to her hobbit hole. “Let’s
go, toots.”
“Toots? Really? And
why haven’t you been answering my calls? Dammit, Edward, I’ve been
worried about you!”
“Big fucking deal.”
He stopped in her living room, turned. Faced her. “I know,
Rachael.”
“What?”
“Quit it. I
know.”
“I do not have time
for this, Edward.” She snuck a glance out one of the windows. “Very
soon I’m going to have a . . . a biological dilemma. You can’t be
here when that happens.”
“What, like your time
of the month?” Suuuure. Vampires didn’t menstruate. He was pretty
sure. How dumb did she think he was?
Pretty dumb.
“Exactly. My time of
the month.” For some reason, she laughed. “Except not what you
think. Edward—”
He grabbed her.
“Rachael, listen to me. Listen.”
“Why,” she asked
mildly, “are all your fingers digging into the meat of my
arms?”
“I know, okay? I
know. And my friend Boo is coming to
kill you. You have to get away; I have to get you away. She. Will.
Kill. You.”
“What’s a boo?” She
was prying off his fingers one by one, still much more interested
in the view than anything else. “Something dreadful, probably; you
smell like cotton on fire.”
He felt like shaking
her. He let go before he did. He was so afraid he would hit her. So
afraid.
Curse those vampiric senses! “Never mind how I
smell. You gotta leave. Like, right now. Right now.”
“I can’t go anywhere
right now. In fact, you should leave. I shouldn’t have let you come
over at all. I had . . .” Another peek out the window. “I had other
things to worry about, but I was also worried about you, and
tomorrow morning we’re going to have a big wicked fight about it,
but you have to go now.”
“Will you cut the
shit? Huh? I’m telling you, we have to go. So will you pack
already?”
“No. You get out of
here.”
“I know you’re the
fucking vampire queen, Rachael! And the greatest vampire slayer in
the history of vampire slayers is probably on a flight to here
right now!”
He was expecting a
heated denial, or cold mockery. Anything but what actually
happened: she laughed so hard she fell down. Actually fell down!
And laid on the carpet holding her stomach and laughing up at
him.
“Okay.” He stared
down at her. “This isn’t going the way I planned. At
all.”
“Me! The vampire
queen! Oh . . . oh . . . oh!” She snorted and giggled. “Oh, that’s
rich! That’s wonderful! Me! One of them!” Then she sobered. “Wait.
How do you even know there’s such a thing as a vampire
queen?”
“Why d’you think?” he
snapped. “I got your stupid newsletter. It’s got your damned
address in it.”
She blinked up at
him. “Who are you?” she asked after a
long moment. “Who are you really? You’re not one of them. And
you’re not one of us. So who are you, Edward?”
“A fucking moron who
believed you actually—” No. He wouldn’t tell her that. He wasn’t
even sure why he was trying to save her. Only that he had to.
Had to.
“Look, enough with
the slinging of crap, okay? Even if you won’t admit
it—”
“I will not admit
it.” She shook her head. “Ever.”
“I can prove you’re
her.” He bent and seized her wrist and pulled. She rose like smoke
to her feet, so easily it was like she had no weight at all. Then
he started to tug her toward the door but couldn’t move her any
farther.
Puzzled, he thought,
She must have set her feet against
something. He tugged harder. Something
like a cement bookshelf ? Maybe the rolltop desk was heavier than
it looked. Except she’s not touching the desk. He was so
intent on exposing her web of lies that he didn’t ponder. “I can
prove—unf!—you’re the vampire queen. Save yourself some trouble
and—nnnf!—admit your evil plan to—nnf!—enslave babies. Or make
babies into zombies. Or zombies into babies.”
“I admit nothing.
Certainly nothing about zombie babies. You can prove
this?”
“Yes.”
“Well.” He had tugged
again and nearly fell into the doorway. Suddenly Rachael was
halfway to the door with him. “Prove it.”
He hauled her out of
the hobbit hole, past the porch, and into the yard, and they both
blinked in the late afternoon sun.
“See? See?” He
pointed at her, and had never felt triumph warring with despair so
strongly. Ever. “You’re not a pillar of
screaming, shrieking flames. See?”
“Your proof is that
I’m not on fire?” The lines he loved
(when he thought she was the coolest girl ever, as opposed to what
she was) appeared on her cute, wide Christina Ricci–esque forehead.
“I think you’ve been reading the wrong books about vampires,
because in actuality, they are incredibly vulnerable
to—”
“Just stop it. Okay?
Cut the shit.” It was the sunshine, so bright, bouncing off the
chrome and steel of their rental cars. It was his sweat glands
getting their signals crossed. He was so angry his eyes were
leaking. It was one of those things, because he was not crying. Not over the fucking vampire
queen.
“It’s not just that,”
he continued. He was tired. So tired. “You always seem to know
exactly how I feel. When my mouth says one thing and my brain
another, you always know what I’m talking about. Always. Roommates I’ve lived with for years don’t
know what I’m talking about. The day we met I thought about how
intuitive you were . . . but it’s not intuition. It’s just more
vampire bullshit. But no more.”
“Edward.”
“God, I had the clues
right in my fucking face all week and couldn’t see. Your body is
perfect, there’s not a mark on you. Of course you don’t have a mark
on you! You’re dead, you heal from everything. Everything!” He
smacked himself in the forehead, hard. “How stupid could I be?
Jesus!”
“Edward.”
He slashed his hand
at her. “It’s over, Rachael. And you will be, too, if you stay. So
you gotta go. Now.”
For a wonder, she
touched his face. It took everything . . . everything in him to jerk back from her small,
delicate fingers. “Edward, Edward. I’ve deceived you, yes,
something one accountant and Picard lover should never do to
another. But I’m not doing something strange and evil with babies .
. . or zombies . . .”
“Rachael, will you
please cut the shit?”
“Well, I’m not. And
later, I’m going to ask you why you thought that. And I’m not even
a garden-variety vampire, never mind their ruling sovereign.” She
laughed again. “I’m a nobody, really. I’m the kid in the play who
has no lines.”
This time, he was the
one to laugh. “That might have worked a couple of days ago, Rache.
Not anymore, though. I saw you. Don’t
you get it?”
“Edward, you must . .
.” She trailed off when he twisted away from her outstretched hand,
and hurt flashed into her expression like a cramp. Now he was the
one who wanted to reach out. Which just proved what a fucking fool
he was, and had been, all this time.
“Go. You have to go.
Just . . . get out of this city, this state. Don’t ever come back.
She’ll kill you if she can find you. Don’t get found. Don’t,
Rachael.”
“I’m not a vampire,
Edward.” She smiled a little and glanced to her left. Nothing over
there except another meticulously maintained mansion. And the
summer moon, which looked like an enormous silver disc, almost
looming over them. “And I can prove
that.”