The Fertile Vampire (17 page)

He stood, looked at my purse as if considering a cookie raid then finally moved away, the idea evidently discarded.
 

I watched him go, thinking of all those moments when I was a kid.
 

“Why can’t I have a dog?” It had become a refrain from my earliest memories.
 

“Because I work all day and you’re at school.”
 

That excuse had given way to: “They’re too much work. You wouldn’t take care of one.”
 

“Yes, I would.” I could hear my childish voice now.
 

“I don’t want one, Marcie. Enough about a damn dog.”
 

I’d taken care of my friends’ dogs, dog sat when I could. Why, though, had I never gotten a dog as an adult?
 

As an adult, I’d been fast tracked at college, then concerned about my career. My first big promotion came two years after I was hired at a national company. The second big advancement had been when I went to my current, make that ex, employer. I’d managed a division, responsible not only for its day-to-day operation but the tricky cases, the ones requiring a second look.
 

I’d traveled three days out of the week, which wouldn’t have been fair for a dog.
 

I watched him disappear into the growth of trees, hoping he found his way back to where he belonged. Hoping, most of all, that he belonged somewhere.
 

Everybody should belong somewhere, even a vampire who was beginning to re-think her decision about being a vampire.
 

Maybe I’d made the wrong damn choice.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

Just the facts, ma’am

“Marcie?”
 

I heard my name being called. The first thing I thought was I’d been found. The second, after a panicked pause, was I knew that voice.
 

Huddled next to the trunk, I waited, hearing the crunch of footsteps on the road.
 

“Marcie?”
 

I peeked out from behind the tree to see Dan standing in the beam of his headlights. Something felt like a spider running over my hand and I jerked back, enough of a movement he turned and looked straight at me.
 

“Marcie?” He took a few steps toward me, hesitating on the other side of the tree.
 

Be nice to the nutso vampire, the one who runs into the night like a loon.
 

“Are you all right?”
 

I was so far from being all right it was laughable, but I nodded before realizing he probably couldn’t see me. Unless, of course, he had night vision.
 

Did vampires have night vision? Was that just one more vampire ability I didn’t have?
 

“I’m fine,” I said. A lie if I ever said one.
 

“You took off,” he said as I stood. I didn’t come around the tree, but I did stand and step to the side.
 

“I have that reaction when people are trying to kill me.”
 

He was barely four feet away, close enough he could catch me if I ran. The events of the night had made me cautious. Oh, who was I kidding? I hadn’t been feeling comfy since waking up in the VRC.
 

“You’re scared,” he said, in the same tone I’d used with the dog a little while ago.
 

“Hell, yes, I’m scared. Are you telling me I shouldn’t be?”
 

“You’re a vamp,” he said. “Most vamps aren’t afraid of anything.”
 

Well, I had news for him. I was afraid of almost everything at this point, including myself. I hadn’t the slightest idea what I was. Add the ability to call people to me without benefit of a telephone and I was just this side of whacked out weird.
 

“They busted up your car pretty bad. Why?”
 

“Because I’m a vamp?” I asked, using his term. It made me think of a slinky black dress and a sultry voice, not someone with glistening fangs.
 

“There’s a law about going after vamps,” he said. “Course, that doesn’t mean everybody obeys it, but the law is pretty strict.”
 

I nodded. Attorney General Pellam made it very clear vampires were the new underclass and, as such, would not face discrimination. He’d even announced that Mexican vampires would be granted asylum status, something not sitting well in Texas. But Mexico was still a very Catholic nation and they didn’t look on vampires with favor. Coming to the United States beat getting your head chopped off.
 

“You need a ride?”

I nodded again.
 

“You want to come along with me now?”
 

He was still talking to me slowly, his drawl more noticeable. He extended his hand to me, palm up, the same way he would to a skittish mare.
 

“Are they gone?”
 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “Never came back after the first volley.”
 

So, the car I’d heard had been his.
 

“If Il Duce thinks I’m going back to school, he’s nuts.”
 

He frowned, then the expression vanished as a smile curved his lips. “Mr. Maddock, you mean? Don’t guess he likes the name much.”
 

“He doesn’t,” I said, bending down and grabbing my purse.
 

Suddenly, I was tired. More than tired, I was exhausted. I wanted to be in my bed with my head under the covers.
 

“Would you mind taking me home?” I asked. “I’ll deal with my car later.”
 

“I can take care of it for you if you want,” he said.
 

“I have to call my insurance agent,” I said.
 

I still had insurance with the company I’d worked for - one of those niggling changes I hadn’t yet made. I was not going to pay the people who’d laid me off.
 

“I can do that.”
 

I decided the siren call to a single woman wasn’t an offer of money. Nor was it great sex, although it was certainly way up on the list. No, the most alluring thing a man could say to a single woman was offering to fix something for her or take out her garbage.
 

“Yes, please,” I said, before my feminist gene roused from being sucker punched and protested. Attempted murder will make Southern Belles out of the fiercest of us.
 

 
He held my arm with a soft touch, one encouraging rather than insisting. I went with him, staring down at the shadowed ground and picking my way to the street.
 

Of course his truck would be one of those huge honkin’ things. The wheels were so tall it required experience in mountain climbing to get to the seat. I sighed and pulled myself up, again glad I’d worn jeans.
 

Once he got in and closed the door, I wondered what brand of aftershave he wore. The interior smelled of sandalwood, pine and something faintly sweet. I took a deep breath, wondering if my olfactory senses had expanded. The scent went straight to the pleasure center in my brain.
 

I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, my thoughts carefully channeled somewhere between being the target of another attempt to murder me and Dan’s smell.
 

Maybe I could have overlooked Opie’s death. Maybe I could have chalked it up to a drunk hit and run. Maybe I could have even pretended the poor woman had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 

But tonight? What did I call tonight? It would be a little difficult to consider this a case of mistaken identity. Or a drunk driver.
 

Nope, someone had been aiming for me.
 

I could retreat to my townhouse, barricade the door and hide, which meant no more groceries or fast food deliveries. No contact with the outside world. But if someone wanted to get to me bad enough, they could always toss a bomb in one of the windows.
 

Great, now I had that image.
 

“You have to talk to the police,” Dan said.
 

I didn’t open my eyes.
 

“They’re waiting.”
 

“Then we shouldn’t let them wait,” I said, turning my head and looking at him.
 

Yes, I had definitely underestimated Dan the Driver’s appearance. In addition to smelling good, he had a smile to die for.
 

Bad choice of words, perhaps.
 

He drove a little ways until he found a spot on the road wide enough to turn around.
 

I clenched my hands together.
 

Evidently, in my attempt to emulate a greyhound, I’d run into the woods, away from the entrance to the school. All I can remember is needing to escape. My hind brain, or whatever it was controlling the fight/flight response, had been reacting to stimuli. I was no more conscious of my surroundings than a gazelle confronted with a starving lion: run, run, run.

Now the gazelle was being driven back to where the lion was waiting.
 

The orientation building was cordoned off, the area as brightly lit as a sub-division during a Christmas decorating contest. I didn’t want Dan to slow. I didn’t want him to pull up beside a police car and turn to me with a reassuring smile, one painted red and blue from the bar lights on top of at least three cars.
 

“Do they react this way to every drive by?” I asked. “Or is this because of the Vampire Academy?”
 

Dan shrugged, leaving me to interpret that any way I wanted.
 

I slid down from the truck, pulled my top back into position and stood there feeling nauseous.
 

San Antonio occasionally had the aura of a sleepy little town, but in the last few years we had to fight the incursion of gangs, not to mention activity from the Mexican drug cartels. Our police force was one of the highest paid in the nation and I suspected they earned every cent.

Someone was walking toward me, his face a granite block. I sighed, recognizing the homicide detective from the restaurant. I couldn’t remember his name, though, but he remembered mine.
 

“Ms. Montgomery,” he said, stopping a few feet from Dan’s truck.
 

“Hello.” I mean, was I a brilliant conversationalist, or what?
 

“I understand it’s your car,” he said, making a sideways motion with his head toward my Kia.
 

“What’s left of it,” I said. I counted at least a dozen holes in my car.

“Seems someone doesn’t like you,” he said.
 

“Evidently not.”
 

I had the greatest respect for the police. I wasn’t a Badge Bunny, but I knew they had, for the most part, a thankless job.

I’d thought his eyes were kind the first time I met him. Now they weren’t. Instead, they were filled with contempt. What I didn’t know was if it was reserved solely for me, or if it was directed toward all the Kindred.
 

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?” he asked.
 

I shook my head. “Why are you here?” I asked. “I thought homicide detectives only appeared on the scene when someone died.”
 

“You’re a witness to a hit and run. I found it odd someone would attempt to kill you.”
 

The word was a common one used in everyday speech. We said it all the time. Kill the switch. Curiosity killed the cat. Kill the pests in your house with Bug Begone! But said that baldly and with the blue and red lights flashing, it took on another meaning, one essentially evil.
 

Kill. Someone wanted to kill me. Marcie Montgomery succumbs to Second Death. News at eleven.
 

If Opie hadn’t been able to be survive her injuries, I doubt I would have been able to regenerate after being struck by a fusillade of bullets.
 

I shook my head again, feeling like a bobble head doll.
 

At the moment I was thinking about fainting which would stop the questions and my fear. You didn’t feel much when you were unconscious. But unfortunately I was made of sturdier stuff. I remained conscious and on my feet.
 

We were going to stonewall each other. If I knew anything, which I didn’t, I wasn’t going to be in a hurry to confide in him. Conversely, I’d be willing to bet the detective wasn’t going to go out of his way to enlighten me about anything.
 

“Marcie?”
 

I turned to find myself enveloped in a choking hug. I’m not a hugger, normally. I give people their personal space. Even with family I’m a little awkward when it comes to gestures of affection.
 

In this instance I didn’t have a choice but to pat Meng on the back. I forced a smile to my face, hopping he stopped hugging me sometime soon.