Haunted Honeymoon (32 page)

nineteen
Fly Me to the Loon

Wil had woken up nine days after being shrouded, and I hoped I had that much time before the Poindexters returned to this plane of existence.

I packed away most of my belongings and put them in a long-term storage locker. I rented a security deposit box for the gifts from Ian … except for the disco ball earrings, which I tucked into my makeup bag.

I found an old three-bedroom bungalow for lease near the desolate desert town of La Basura. The house was on a side road, miles away from other houses, and I figured that strange greenish inhabitants could go unnoticed there for some time.

I rented my loft to Juanita, the leader of My Dive’s house band. Then I said
hasta la vista
to my Stitching & Bitching group, one of whom was happy to adopt a striped cat; she also took my unfinished knitting project, the blue-gray scarf and yarn.

I told Nancy I was going on a long-term writing sabbatical, which she thought was loony and said so. “It sounds too serious
for you. I give you a month max before you realize that a life without nonsense is not worth living.”

“It’s good to have ideals like that,” I said. “You’d have to be doubly silly on my behalf until I return.”

At dusk, on my last day at my loft, I gazed out the windows. Ever since I met the vampires, this seemed like a special time, the time to gather and talk, to share our days and our affection,
espirítu de los cocteles.

My life with Oswald at Casa Dracula had been like a favorite novel I’d read when I was young, and now that I read it again, I had a more mature perspective on the characters and themes. My friends had been right all along, but my journey back to Oswald was one that I needed to take.

Mercedes came by with Cuban ham sandwiches and strawberry Nehis. We stood at the wobbly kitchen table, the only piece of furniture left, and ate silently. When she had crumpled up the wax paper wrappers and put them in the paper bag, she said, “I heard an interesting rumor from Los Hackeros.”

“Does it involve alien abduction?”

“No, but it’s right there with other conspiracy theories. Word is that a notorious military contracting firm has just folded because their computers suffered a massive attack that spread to their main data center and all their international locations.”

“Really?” I said, cheered.

“Los Hackeros say that only a genius could have had the espionage skills needed to infiltrate that organization and design such a comprehensively malicious worm.”

I grinned. “Sounds like another one of those urban myths, like vampires and werewolves and Elvis sightings.”

My friend smiled back at me and then said, “There’s got to be another way. You can’t just leave forever.”

“It’s not forever. It’s just until Ford and Cricket wake up and
figure out what they want to do … and what they can do. Ford’s pretty easygoing, at least he was when he was alive, but I expect some truculence from Cricket. She liked the high life, and society’s not too keen on zombie socialites.”

“She should be grateful to be alive. Where are they anyway?”

“In the truckasaurus. I got a locked cover for the bed and put them there with a note, some magazines, and bottled water and fruit in case they wake up early.”

“There’s got to be another way,” Mercedes repeated.

“It won’t be bad. I need to finish this fauxoir, and if
Don
Pedro gets another book deal, he’ll want to hire me again. I’ve got several Tolstoy books, and I imagine Ford and Cricket will take up a lot of my time.”

“I’ll visit when I can.”

“You better.” I looked at my friend and said, “You know that to me you are everything that is good, don’t you? You are honest, and brave, and brilliant, and you bring beauty and music into this world, and I love you. I wish I could have given you half of what you’ve given me.”

“What are you talking about?” she said. “You introduced me to Pepper and the Grants. If not for you, I wouldn’t have the sandwich shop, or half the bands that I’ve signed, or all the crazy energy you give me, or my business partner.”

“Ian. You can say his name.” I hugged Mercedes and tried not to be sad, but then she began crying and I couldn’t stop myself.

“You’ll need a place to stay when you come back. You can stay with me and Rosemary.”

I laughed and said, “I know. Your casa has always been my casa.”

We hugged several times before Mercedes actually left. The loft seemed as sad and empty as it had the first time Oswald had shown it to me, a thing stuck in the past.

I had the small pile of items I hadn’t already packed in the truck: the sports bag, my chic green zebra-print suitcase, the Tolstoy novels, books about desert horticulture, and my backpack.

I crawled into a sleeping bag on the floor and tried to think positively about the future. It wasn’t what I had planned, but it could be fabulous if I just made up my mind to be happy.

When I awoke, it was dark and I knew someone was watching me. I turned my head and saw Ian sitting on the zebra-print suitcase.

He was dressed casually, in a fine-gauge graphite gray sweater, dark jeans, and black boots. Something had happened while I had amnesia, because he
still
looked like the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen.

Ian smiled sadly and said, “Hello, darling.”

I was tangled in my long T-shirt, so I sat up rather ungracefully and brushed my hair out of my face. My heart was pounding from the shock of being awakened, from being near him. “Hello, Ian.”

“I came to talk to you in my capacity as a member of the Council.”

“You could have knocked.”

“I thought you might not open the door. You haven’t called me since you’ve recovered your memory.” He took a key and set it on the floor. “I won’t do it again.”

“That’s good, because I won’t be here,” I said. “Did Mercedes tell you I was leaving?”

“Yes. She broke her rule about keeping out of our relationship,” he said. “The Council has cleared you of all charges in Wilcox Spiggott’s death and we would like to thank you for helping to apprehend his murderer.”

“Sure, anytime. I apologize for accusing you of killing him.”

Ian shrugged and I thought of the powerful shoulders moving beneath the soft fabric.

“It was a reasonable suspicion. I certainly considered it,” he said. “I understand that you have accomplished what Professor Poindexter did not—you are able to raise the dead. Well, I have always found your presence uplifting.”

“Ha, ha, and ha, Ian,” I said, and when he smiled it made me feel … wonderful. Ian always made me feel wonderful. “You bought that house so you could meet Ford and, through him, his father.”

“Yes. I’d heard through various acquaintances that Poindexter had been contracted to reanimate corpses for warfare.”

“You weren’t skeptical about such a story?”

“When there is profit enough, man achieves things that seem impossible,” he said. “I hadn’t counted on Cricket’s too-avid interest in me. I tried to channel her behavior, but you see how badly that turned out.”

“Of course, it doesn’t answer
why
you wanted to befriend a man misusing his genius to create a zombie army.”

“I didn’t want to befriend him. I wanted to find him and stop him.”

“You found the facility and set the explosives.”

“I expected to use a more subtle approach, but I let my emotions get the best of me. I believed you were safe at the ranch with Oswald.”

“I thought you were still with Ilena. Perhaps we should coordinate efforts in the future.”

We sat quietly for a minute and then I said, “You were right about me. I killed a guard to escape Poindexter’s compound, and I killed Professor Poindexter when I saw him because … because the absence of any good can be evil. He was evil.”

“I take no satisfaction in being right.” Ian sighed. “I am entirely at fault for putting you in harm’s way so many times.”

“A large cast played out this particular tragedy. We chose our roles. We can’t go back and change things,” I said. “I tried to. I think Wil was my trial amnesia, my effort to return to the sort of girl I was
before
… And after I killed the guard, I didn’t want to be myself anymore.”

“So you went back to Oswald.”

“Lily thinks I went back to Edna. I felt safe there. The ranch represented something to me, too: a home, family, love.”

“Do you still plan on marrying Oswald?”

“Why does it matter to you?” I molted from the sleeping bag and crossed my arms over my chest. “You already told me that you never wanted to see me again. You described your passion for the woman you love, but you’ve never told me
who
you love.”

“I was talking about the most exciting, beautiful, amusing, infuriating, irresistible woman in the world, the only woman I’ve ever loved.” He stood and came close to me. “I was speaking of my coy mistress.”

“Why don’t you just tell me directly, Ian?”

“I was waiting for you to tell me first.”

“The classic Mexican-vampire standoff,” I said, and took a step back. “You had Cricket and you still have Ilena, and you blew up a building.”

“If I’d wanted Cricket, I would have had her and the situation would have been so much easier because no one would have known.
You
wouldn’t have known. But I don’t want anyone but you,” he said. “As for those who died at the facility, I have no pity for merchants of death.”

I wanted to believe Ian. I did believe him. “You have too many secrets.”

“I would tell you my secrets if I trusted that you would not run away.”

“I’m not running away. I’m taking responsibility for the innocents who got caught in the trap you set for Poindexter.”

“Milagro, what if I could provide an alternative safekeeping for Ford and Cricket, so that you do not have to exile yourself like a succulent missionary nun, abstaining from all of life’s pleasures to act as a caretaker?”

When Ian took my hand in his firm, sturdy hand, a pleasurable fizz ran through me as quickly as an electric shock. He said, “Tell me that you love me.”

I looked into his dark eyes and said, “From the first moment I saw you. My heart knew, but my brain’s wiring is a little off. I interpreted the signal as sex, sex, sex. But my heart meant love, love, love.”

Ian bent to kiss my neck and must have felt my pulse racing. “I love you, Milagro de Los Santos. Tell me that you’ll marry me and never leave me.”

“You can’t have any more secrets from me, and I’ll fight you if I think you’re doing something wrong, and I won’t share you with anyone, ever.”

“Anything, everything, whatever you want,” he said as he put his arms around me. “No other men for you, either. No running back to Oswald, or tormenting me with liaisons.”

“What about flirting?”

“That’s like asking, what about breathing?” His teeth nipped my skin and my blood rose up, wanting release, wanting him.

“Yes, Ian Ducharme, I’ll marry you.”

I put my arms around him and smelled his skin, warm and spicy, and felt the heat of his breath on my ear as he whispered, “I shall tell you everything, such extraordinary things, my own girl.”

He pulled me down to the sleeping bag with him, and I
looked into his face and asked, “Do you remember the first time we made love?”

“Vividly. You were a revelation.”

I pulled off his sweater, and thought,
He is mine
, thrilling at his broad chest, the dark hair that ran down to his belly button and farther.

“You were so delectable.” His hands went to the hem of my shirt, and he lifted it over my head. He grazed my collarbone with his fingers, making me ache with want.

I took his hand and brought it to my mouth, biting until my teeth broke his skin. The rich, salty, intoxicating blood that flowed into my mouth made me shudder with pleasure, and while my mouth was on him, Ian was kissing my shoulder, my arm, my breast.

When I released his hand from my mouth, I gasped, “I’ve never liked that kitchen table.”

He was strong and I was strong.

twenty
Get Me to the Club on Time

A great playwright once said that if you introduce a Margaritanator 3000 in the first act, there will be strawberry margaritas by the third act. And so it was that my frozen drink maker was commissioned by the My Dive bartenders to augment their own equipment on my wedding day.

Mercedes, dressed in a simple navy suit, seemed unusually nervous as she paced in the lobby of her nightclub.

“Chillax, cutie,” I said, although I was fidgeting with the bouquet of ivory roses from my garden at Casa Dracula.

“I can’t. I keep thinking of all the trouble you’ll cause here now that you’re going to have part ownership.”

“Oh, my God, I hadn’t thought of that! Now do you regret asking Ian to stop me from leaving?”

“A little,” she said with a smile. “But I’m selfish. I couldn’t stand the idea of you inflicting your craziness on other people.”

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Pepper, resplendent in a navy blazer, kilt, and biker boots, came in the lobby and said, “You ready?”

Mercedes and I looked at each other and I said to her, “Am I doing the right thing?”

“Do you love him?”

“Completely, utterly. From the moment I met him.”

“I’m crazy about him, too, Milagro. He’s got his quirks. What guy doesn’t?” Mercedes glanced fondly at Pepper.

“He’s a righteous dude,” Pepper said, with a nod that sent the tiny metal skull beads on his beard dancing.

I took a breath and smiled. “Okay, Pepper, we’re ready.”

Juanita was at the piano and when her trumpeter played the first pure notes of “At Last,” our guests in the club fell silent. Juanita joined in next, singing, and then the rest of the Rat Dogs began playing.

Mercedes went down the aisle between the small cocktail tables and took her place onstage. I followed, wearing her grandmother’s scarlet satin cocktail dress, ruby drop earrings, and an antique gold and ruby tiara.

As I walked through the crowd, I saw the Grant family, Nancy, Mercedes’s family, the Stitching & Bitching crowd, the bikers, the heiress, the tabloid writer, my masseuse friend, the foxy shapeshifter, and Ian’s family and his other friends. They all smiled at me and I felt so lucky to have them in my life.