“Yes!” she hissed, dropping the box. “I’ve been waiting for this forever!” Nina slid
off three sheets of bubble wrap and pointed some bizarre-looking electronic gun at
me.
I ducked.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s a label maker, silly.” She had the thing on now and was furiously tapping the
tiny keyboard. She grinned when a glossy strip of white tape pooped out the muzzle
end, the name
SOPHIE LAWSON
in heavy black ink. She slapped me with the tape.
“Thank you. I always wondered why we never wore name tags at home.”
Nina continued her tapping on the keyboard. “This is going to make everything so handy.
I figured as long as I’m stuck here at home, the least I can do is get organized.
Getting organized has been my New Year’s resolution every year since 1937.”
“What happened in 1937?”
She rolled her eyes and slapped a C
HA
C
HA
name tag on the dog. “Let’s just say I know exactly where Amelia Earhart landed.
She was such a troublemaker,” she grunted.
“And on that incredibly awkward note, what is all this about?” I gestured toward the
boxes.
“I told you, I’m getting organized.”
I raised my eyebrows and Nina frowned, her lower lip popping out. “It’s either this
or sit in this apartment, staring at the walls and going bat-shit crazy. And don’t
tell me I can go out at night. You know what goes on at night? Nothing. Nothing! A
woman can only slink through Poe’s so many times before all the stupid brooding vamp-men
start looking the same.”
“And a rollicking good day to you, too,” Vlad said, pushing through the front door
with a laundry basket on his hip. He shimmied through the two-foot gap Nina’s boxes
allowed and I gaped at his threadbare T-shirt, at the baggy cargo shorts that exposed
his marble-white legs.
Then I clapped a hand over my mouth and tried not to laugh.
“I didn’t know the Vampire Empowerment Movement allowed shorts. Aren’t they distinctly
non-vampire?”
Vlad glared. “Bite me.” He flopped down on the couch with his laundry basket and began
plucking out socks. I didn’t know what was more shocking: Vlad without his stupid
ascot or Vlad doing laundry.
“Ooh!” Nina clapped her small hands and snatched up the label maker once again. “I’m
going to go label my clothes by decade!”
She disappeared into her bedroom-slash-clothing showroom and I flopped onto the couch,
upsetting Vlad’s laundry basket and blowing out a long sigh.
He folded a pair of Christmas-print boxer shorts and cut his eyes to me. “Everything
all right?”
“No,” I moaned.
“Do you burst into flames when you go outside?”
“No.” I picked at an errant piece of chocolate on my pants. “It’s just that—it’s just
that I want to help Sampson, but I feel like such a failure. I tried to get information
today and you know what I got?”
Vlad raised his brows while he rolled his socks.
“Squat. I got squat. I feel like I can’t do anything right. My crime-fighting career
is over before it started.” I was trying to make light of the situation, but what
I really want to say weighed in my gut like a fat black stone. What really concerned
me is that I had begged Sampson to stay and in doing so, I’d practically signed his
death warrant.
“Hey.” Vlad chucked me on the shoulder, his cold fist feeling good against my hot
skin. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Things are going to be okay. And your crime-fighting
career isn’t total crap. Remember? You caught the bad guy last time.”
“After accusing you and the entire Vampire Empowerment Movement.”
Vlad’s gaze was surprisingly sympathetic. “But you caught the bad guy eventually.”
“By shooting him in the ass.”
“So you need a little weapons work.”
I crossed my arms and shoved my bottom lip out. “I need a lot of work.”
Vlad pushed his laundry basket aside. “You know what I hate? People who feel sorry
for themselves. People who can leave the house on a sunny day and not toast up like
a charcoal briquette. People who have all the resources they need right in front of
them yet systematically refuse to take advantage of them.” He crossed the living room
and began rifling through the hall closet.
“What are you talking about?” I said, kicking off my shoes. “Oh my God!” I was on
my feet the second Vlad turned around, brandishing the largest sword I’d ever seen.
I threw my hands up. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry! I won’t complain!” I felt myself stepping
backward, then felt the back of my calves clunking against the couch. “Don’t kill
me!”
Vlad’s expression was staid. “I’m not going to kill you, I’m going to help you.”
I crawled up on the couch, eyes wide, heart so used to thunderous pounds I was certain
it would never go back to normal. “What are you talking about?”
Vlad jumped into a prissy-looking fighting stance and brandished the sword. “I’m going
to teach you how not to shoot an assailant in the ass.”
I straightened up. “You’re going to teach me to shoot with a sword? Even I know that’s
not going to work.”
Vlad’s sword dropped and he pushed out an exasperated sigh. “Do you want to learn
or not?”
My eyes traveled the cool steel length of the sword. “Really?”
“Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you.”
I stepped up and met Vlad in the center of the room, reaching for the sword. He handed
it to me, then went back to the coat closet and pulled one out for himself. I pointed
with the sword. “Do we really keep these in there? Because it doesn’t seem like such
a good idea.”
“I’ll be sure to have Auntie Nina re-label the contents of the coat closet to include
swords.”
I glanced at the razor-thin edge of my sword. “And a warning.”
Chapter Six
Vlad leaned up against me and the chilled wisp that came off his undead body gave
me gooseflesh. “Hold it like this,” he said, clamping his hands over mine.
I grinned and looked over my shoulder at Vlad.
This is what it must be like to have a brother
, I thought.
He narrowed his eyes, the top of his lip turning up into a snarl. “Stop looking at
me like that. It’s gross.”
Yep, exactly like a brother.
Once Vlad approved my grip—something between holding a golf club and swinging a softball
bat—he stepped away and plucked up his own sword.
I swooshed my sword swashbuckler style and tried out a few pirate “Walk the plank,
mateys!” and “Arggghs!” for good measure. “This is fun!”
He just shrugged, ignoring me, feeling the weight of the sword he held, tossing the
jeweled handle from hand to hand. “This’ll do.” He pushed himself up and smiled at
me. A kindly, affectionate smile. “Let’s spar,” he said.
I felt my eyebrows rise and my bladder fill. “What? Spar? In case you haven’t noticed,
Vlad, these are real weapons. Really
big
real weapons.”
Vlad ran a pale finger up the length of his blade and I watched in horror as the sword
sliced his skin neatly. What blood he did have—he had just sucked down two pints evidenced
by the bags he was apparently incapable of throwing away—bubbled along the cut line.
He licked it away and watched the wound close in on itself, the new skin regenerating
immediately.
“I’m out,” I said, dropping my sword. “I can’t do that.” I pointed at his now-perfect
skin.
Vlad rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to stab you, Sophie. Or even gut you. I’m going
to spar with you. How do you expect to ever learn if you won’t wield a sword?”
“Accidents happen,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “Accidents happen
and limbs are lost and
not
regenerated.”
“It takes a lot of blood for us to regenerate a limb.” He jumped into fighting stance,
sword standing royally in his grip. “I’ll go super easy on you.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“I promise not to cut anything off of you.”
He swished the blade across our filled-with-crap coffee table and a single leaf—cleanly
sliced from my plant—fluttered gently to the fake veneer. “Come on,” he taunted.
“Promise not to cut anything off, or almost off, or slightly through? ’Cuz I’m a bleeder.”
Vlad’s eyes flashed and I pointed at him. “And if you eat from my sliced-up bloody
body, I will haunt the shit out of you until you stake yourself.”
“Are we going to spar or what?”
I sucked in a breath and picked up my sword. “Okay. But I do the swishy stuff and
you just stand there.”
“No assailant with a sword is just going to stand there, Sophie.”
“Okay.” I mimicked his wide-legged, bent-knee stance and raised my blade. “Maybe just
try blocking me.”
“Okay. But no limbs.”
“’Kay,” I said, doing a twinkle-toes-style boxing dance. I waggled the blade in front
of me, liking the weight of it in my hands. I thrust the sword toward Vlad. He did
a
Matrix
-style back bend and avoided my blade. I lunged for his exposed left side. He sidestepped
around me.
“You’re pretty decent at this,” he said, impressed.
I shifted my weight. “Maybe I’ve found my niche.”
I tried a few more jabs and Vlad explained how he avoided them. “Okay,” he said, “I
want you to aim for my blade. Since swords tend to be the same length, your best bet
is knocking your opponent’s weapon from his hand, and then going in for the kill.”
Usually talk of killing made my stomach roil, but now, with the sword in my hand,
the idea of beating an opponent exhilarated me. I thrust and Vlad blocked me, our
blades clanking together. I was starting to sweat, but Vlad’s only indication of exertion
was the flop of dark hair that had loosened from his usually manicured and shellacked
hair helmet.
“Try it again,” he said.
I did, and he did.
“See what I did there?” he said, indicating the way he angled his sword to block mine
from nearing his body.
“Yeah,” I said, my breath coming in short bursts. “Show me how you did that?”
Vlad grinned and raked a hand through his hair, pushing it back over his forehead.
His grin was sweet and boyish, his black eyes reflecting a spark of life I hadn’t
seen before. It was heartwarming, even with the sharp angle of his fangs pressed over
his bottom lip. He repositioned himself and swung his blade in a graceful arc.
“See? If I come at you like this”—he jabbed—“you block like this.”
I mimicked his smooth arc, feeling my own smile press up my cheeks. “Like this?”
“Perfect.”
“What are you two doing?” Nina stood in the doorway, her label gun at the ready.
“Vlad’s teaching me to sword fight.”
Nina pursed her lips together and nodded. “That’s good. I always say when someone
is horrible with a non-lethal weapon like you are with the Taser, you should give
them a lethal one.”
“Actually,” Vlad said, “she’s really got the hang of it. She’s quite good.”
As we continued sparring, Nina crossed the room and tore open another box, pulling
out a mammoth wheel of glossy label stickers. “I’m halfway through 1910,” she said
by way of explanation. Then she put her hands on her hips and stared at us, her sour
expression lightening to a small smile. “Wow, you are pretty good.”
“Okay, now let’s practice that blocking. I’ll go after you, you block me.”
My palms suddenly seemed sweaty on the grip. “Um, shouldn’t I be wearing some sort
of protective gear? Like a sword-proof vest or something?”
Vlad shrugged. “You didn’t think I should when it was the other way around.”
“Yeah, but you’re way more immortal than I am.”
Vlad grinned. “Then let’s hope you were paying attention.”
He jabbed, and I jumped. He thrust, and I blocked. On a lunge, our swords struck each
other with so much fury that ChaCha barked at the loud clang and yelped when a tiny
spark crowned the clash. I was grinning, dancing wildly, growing confident in my ability.
I was
Sophie Lawson: Sword Fighter
. I finally really did have a chance to strut my stuff in those leather pants and
tight bustiers, and people would no long throw a fit when they saw me toting a sword
that never got mentioned again!
“En garde!”
I growled with a deep French accent as I jumped onto the arm of the couch.
“En garde!”
Vlad repeated, using one hand to twirl his imaginary moustache as he mounted the
couch.
Our blades met again and Vlad lunged toward me. “Remember, it’s not all about blocking.
It’s about being aware and moving your body, too.”
Sophie Lawson: Sword Fighter
was born to do this. It ran in her veins. Her fire-red hair trailed down her back
like the blood of so many who had challenged her—and failed . . . is what I was thinking
when I took that poorly calculated leap onto the coffee table.
Which broke.
I was so enamored by the sexy clang of metal on metal that the sound of pressboard
furniture at decent prices splintering and cracking whooshed right by me. I lost my
grip on the sword as I went down. I saw the edge of it fly past me, the blade catching
on the light as it spun end over end.
“Knock, knock!”
“No!” Everything dropped into painstakingly slow motion. I lurched forward somehow
thinking I could still catch the jeweled handle as it sailed over the chair. I drew
my howl out as though the power of my voice alone could slow the weapon’s trajectory
as it raced toward Alex’s head.
And then I heard the sickening sound of the blade stopping, lodging itself deep.
Nina clucked her tongue. “We are so never getting our security deposit back.”
I chanced a look up, the tension in my body coiled to the point of physical pain.
“Oh, thank God!”
The sword was stuck deep, all right—about a half inch up from the peephole on our
front door. A full two inches of the blade poked out of the door’s hall-side, and
an inch from that? Alex’s throat. He looked at me with wide eyes—their cornflower
blue was clouded with a twinge of terror, and overcome with anger.
“I brought you a peace offering because I felt bad about today,” he said between gritted
teeth. “I guess I should have brought dessert, too.”
Nina and I spread out Alex’s Chinese spoils—Nina keeping her distance from the garlic
pork, of course—while Vlad and Alex did their best to dislodge Excalibur from the
door.
“On the plus side,” Alex said, “you do have a hell of a throwing arm, Lawson.”
I felt a burgeoning sense of pride.
Hey, it was
something
.
“I thought you were pretty clear on the ‘don’t throw your weapon’ thing after the
last incident, though.”
My sense of pride was eaten by a flame of annoyance. “Oh. Did you mean I’m not supposed
to throw any of my weapons? Silly me, I must have misunderstood. So hard to keep all
these big, important rules in this pretty little head of mine.”
I waggled my head and Nina hid a smile behind a cupped hand. Alex just shot me an
unamused glare while Vlad gripped the sword handle, steadied a foot on the door, and
gave a herculean yank. When the sword didn’t budge, Vlad skulked to the closet, fished
around a bit, and finally emerged.
He hung a dusty Christmas wreath on the speared sword.
“Done and done,” he said, wiping his hands on his pants.
We sat down at the table, Alex and me across from each other, Nina and Vlad working
on their dinner blood bags at either end.
“So,” Nina started, her cheeks going hollow as she sucked down her dinner, “are there
any updates in the heinous murder case?”
I tried to flash Alex a look—saying what, I’m not entirely sure—but he was elbow deep
in egg rolls and chow mein and avoided me.
“No, nothing new.”
Nina shuddered. “Having some crazed killer on the loose like that just gives me the
heebie-jeebies.”
“And it’s a total waste often pints.”
I stabbed a hunk of sweet and sour pork and grimaced at Vlad. He gave me a tiny half-snarl
that suggested he remembered the human empathy training I shoved down his throat and
backpedaled. “And it’s a huge tragedy for those chicks, too.”
“So you guys are pretty convinced it’s a murderer, then?” Alex asked, his eyes trailing
from Nina to Vlad.
“As opposed to what?”
“A demon. Or you know”—Alex wiggled his fingers, offering the universal sign for oogedy-boogedies—“other
stuff.”
Vlad tossed his empty blood bag and leaned back in his chair with an ineffectual shrug.
“Doubt it.”
There was a beat of chow-mein-chewing silence until Nina poked me. “Anything interesting
happening at UDA?”
I thought of my useless meeting with Feng. “Um, no, not exactly,” then crunched into
an eggroll. “Oh, you know what? Dixon came in to see me.”
Nina visibly brightened, her chest swelling. “Really?” she asked, a single eyebrow
cocked seductively, her I-knew-it smile tacked in place. “Did he ask about me? It’s
nice that he worries, but he should know by now that he has absolutely no chance with
me anymore. No way, that ship has sailed. But”—she brushed her glossy black hair over
her shoulder—“I really can’t blame him for carrying the proverbial torch.” She flashed
a bloodstained grin and my egg roll turned into a steel fist in the pit of my stomach.
“Actually, no, Neens, he didn’t ask about you.”
Her lip curled into a disgusted glower. “Whatever. So what did he want?”
“A vampire was murdered.”
Everyone at the table—except me—sucked in a collective breath and I suddenly found
myself very interested in my food.
“I can’t believe you’re just telling us this now, Sophie.”
“Who was it?” Vlad wanted to know. “Did Dixon tell you what happened?”
I looked up and directly into Alex’s eyes. They were fixed on me—not accusing, but
not pleased, either. “Um, I forgot. Well, I didn’t
forget
forget, it just kind of slipped my mind.”
“So what happened?” Vlad repeated.
“Do you know Octavia?”
“Ugh. I hate her,” Nina groaned. “She’s all prim and proper and ‘oh, I’m Victorian,
you should be prop-ah’ and crap. It’s like seriously? Get an afterlife. In this century.”
“It was Octavia who was killed.”
Nina’s coal-black eyes went wide and even darker than normal. “Oh. That’s awful. That
poor woman!”
“Uh, question?” Alex raised his chopsticks. “Aren’t vampires—you know, you guys”—he
used his sticks to motion to Nina and Vlad—“immortal?”
“No one is truly immortal, Alex,” I said on a sigh, stealing Dixon’s quote.
He cocked his head. “Well, actually . . .”
“But you’re dead. You’re, like, super dead. Heavenly dead,” I explained.
“So are they!” The chopsticks waggled between Nina and Vlad again, launching a hunk
of combination fried rice across the table.
“What the hell is heavenly dead?” Vlad wanted to know.
Nina groaned. “Can we not argue who amongst us is dead or more dead or the absolute
deadest or,” she paused, scrunching her nose, “heavenly dead, whatever that is, and
just get on with it? What happened to Octavia? How was she killed? Does Dixon know
anything?”
I picked up a napkin, began peeling off strips and rolling them into little balls.
“She . . . was beheaded.”
“Beheaded?” Nina breathed.
“Holy crap, is that even possible?” Alex asked.