“Do not.”
“You need a woman, my friend.”
“Tell me about it.” Problem number thirteen: the only women he met were off-limit coworkers and psychotic vampires. On the occasion he met a perfectly nice, good-looking, intelligent woman, his lifestyle freaked them out. Frankly, if it didn’t freak them out, it would have freaked him out. And to be fair, he hadn’t been trying terribly hard to hook up. Chalk it up to more of his ennui. Or sheer laziness.
“Where’s Boo Bear?”
“Dare you.” Gregory stopped chugging his orange juice long enough to point at him. “I
dare
you to call her that to her face.”
“It would sure solve a lot of problems,” he said glumly. He slipped into one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter and propped his chin up on his elbows. “What, is she out on recon?”
“Stop that. I loathe pop culture gibberish. And yes, she is researching Amanda Darryn for me.”
“The Black Widow.” Like the villain played by Joan Cusack in
Addams Family Values
. Except this one had been getting married, vacuuming bank accounts, and killing her husbands for a hundred fifty years.
“Soon to be The Staked Widow.” Gregory had disliked being murdered and returning from the dead. He coped by honing his routines and tracking down really, really bad vampires. As a former cop, his contacts and data access were inspiring. He had hired Boo to slay a local vampire who specialized in murdering third graders. Boo had been pissed, then intrigued, then horny. Cue the happily ever after theme. “Would you like to come? Perhaps you merely need to get out of the house.”
“So there’s another vampire to kill next week. A flood of the undead.”
Gregory snorted. “That’s the spirit. And I stand by what I said: you need a woman.”
“You say that about everything wrong in my life.”
“Because it would fix everything wrong in my life.” He busily squeezed more oranges—Edward wondered why he bothered with a juicer at all. The man could flatten grapefruits with either hand. Except Gregory was beyond fastidious. Case in point... “Aaaah!” He grabbed a sponge from the sink and scrubbed off the wayward seed, hurriedly dumping it in the sink. “Have you ever seen anything more repellant?”
“You’re asking someone who’s never missed a Comic-Con.”
“I do not know what that is. Ah! Here comes the sun of my life.”
Edward, of course, couldn’t hear anything. But he wasn’t surprised when, a minute later, he heard Boo’s key in the lock and the thud of the door popping open as she kicked the bottom. Edward had never seen her turn a knob in his life.
“Darling!”
“Moron.” She was shrugging out of her leather jacket in midbitch, tossing it over the back of a kitchen chair and walking right up to Gregory for a kiss. It was a long one. Edward looked away, thinking,
You’d think they hadn’t seen each other for a month.
“Hmmm, let me guess.” She leaned out of his embrace and licked her lips. “Orange juice!”
“You must be a detective or something.”
“Or something,” she agreed. She plopped into the bar stool beside Edward, squinted at him, then said, “Are you still doing the can’t-go-but-don’t-want-to-stay-but-shouldn’t-go thing?”
“It’s not a
thing
,” he said, offended. “It’s midlife crisis.”
“You’re twenty-three.”
“Boys mature faster than girls,” Gregory said, pouring a glass for Boo. “That’s a medical fact.”
Boo laughed and shook her hair out of her eyes. A striking woman, she had the coloring of a true albino, so pale she seemed almost to glow. Her skin was so light it appeared fragile, as if it would tear like paper. Her hair was also white, and curled under at the ends, the curls bouncing around her shoulders. Her eyes were such a pale blue she appeared blind, or jaded, as if she had seen much to blast all the color from her face and body and soul.
He called her Boo, but her street name was Ghost. She’d gotten into the slaying because not one but two vampires had tried to kill her before her twenty-first birthday. Her striking coloring was like catnip to them. Long ago, she had decided to make herself bait, the better to stake you with, my dear.
He still remembered how she’d explained because of her skin, she had to stay out of the light, too. She was treated as a freak. She preferred evenings, and her senses were heightened from long years of avoiding sunlight. There was nothing supernatural about it, or her, but try telling anyone else that. It had taken Edward almost a year to believe that about her.
“I’ve never seen an ugly vampire,” he said out of nowhere. Boo and Gregory both looked at him. “Isn’t that weird?”
“No,” they said in unison. Gregory waited, but they didn’t illuminate until he coaxed them with a “What?”
“All vampires are essentially murder victims.”
“Most,” Gregory corrected, mashing more oranges.
“Fine,” she replied. “And given a choice of murder victims, they go for the cute ones.”
“That’s like saying a rapist picks victims based on their sex appeal,” Edward protested. “It’s not about sex. And with vampires it’s not about looks, it’s about blood.”
“And beggars can’t be choosers,” Boo agreed. “But when they can, they go for the pretty ones. No offense, Greg.”
“I
am
fairly fabulous,” he admitted with a modest smirk.
“So: murder victims.” Boo slurped more juice, then grimaced and pushed the glass away. It made a small damp ring on the counter; Gregory gasped and wiped it up in the manner of someone getting rid of nuclear waste: get it out, get it out, get it out,
out, OUT
! “Agh, too much acid on an empty stomach.”
He prompted her: “They go for the pretty ones . . . still sounds dumb.”
“They die, they come back. Some return more vengeful than others, which is why I have a job. Some of them spend decades making innocent people pay for what a killer took. Then I have to kill them. So, essentially: it’s all about me, in the end.”
Edward was astounded. He had never heard her speak like this; usually Boo’s attitude was the only good vampire was a dead one, except for the one she was shacked up with.
“None of which explains your whole should-I-stay-orshould-I-go thing. You want to go? Great, sounds like a plan, drive safely and don’t forget to update your Facebook page.”
“I’m touched,” he said dryly. “But I’d never do that to either one of you. You’re not up to the emotional devastation that’ll be caused by my moving out.” She snorted, but he affected not to hear it. “Besides, what would you do without me? Your lives would be as drab and lifeless as a
Jersey Shore
rerun.”
“That’s not quite—” Gregory began.
“The Team Supreme with its own laugh track shall go on!” he declared. “I would never leave either of you.”
“And here we go with the threats,” Boo observed.
“Nothing would induce me to leave this teeming coastal area infested with the undead and leave you defenseless. Nothing!”
Then he looked at the mail.
Four
“Well.” Rachael squinted as she took in the situation. “No matter how many times I look, it’s always the same. Minnesota is . . . just . . . awful. I don’t know why anybody comes here unless they’ve lost a bet.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” the head of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce said politely. “Permit me to suggest it might grow on you.”
“Like a fungus, Mrs. Cain?”
East Coast snob,
she chided herself.
Yet, Minnesota sucks,
she reminded herself. “Wait: I know a Cain from the Cape. I do her parents’ taxes, if that’s them.” Given how teeny the werewolf community was on the planet, never mind the 413 square miles of Cape Cod, she fully expected the answer to be yes. She’d made a bad first impression and felt guilty enough to engage in polite small talk, but not quite guilty enough to apologize for being an ass. Yet. “Are you related?”
“It’s a family name; she’s my cousin.”
“Cane as in candy?”
My God, I’m bored already.
“Cain as in . . .”
What friggin’ difference does it make?
“Cain as in the first murderer.”
“Uh.” Rachael’s theology was a little rusty. “What?”
“From the Bible. You know: ‘What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.’ ”
“Ohhhh.
That
Cain. Thanks for clearing it up.”
“Not a problem . . . may I ask what specific aspect of the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes disagrees with you?”
“The fact that there are eleven thousand eight hundred forty-two lakes, to begin with. Every license plate is wrong. And it’s freezing, no one can tolerate these temperatures and live.”
“It’s sixty-eight degrees.”
“It’s August!”
Rachael shifted her weight from foot to foot. It was rude to stand there, almost looming over the wide red oak desk and its occupant, a heavy-set woman with skin so deeply black her red earrings played up her mahogany highlights and queenly cheekbones. In fact, the woman was so zaftig and beautifully dressed, Rachael wondered what she was doing there: the woman could have made big bucks in front of any camera.
The president of the chamber or, as Rachael thought of her,
el Diablo
, cleared her throat, which drew attention to the crisp cream-colored blouse and deep V neckline of the moss green suit.
“We’re having a cold snap.”
One that’s lasted ten thousand years,
she thought but did not say. She took the newsletter out of the purse sack and smoothed it out with her palms. “Listen, I’m aware it’s a stereotype to come to the Northern Hemisphere and complain about the weather. I’m sorry I made an appointment to come shit all over your home state. I really am.” She wasn’t, but it wasn’t the other woman’s fault. Rachael resented having to be there at all;
there
could have been Honolulu. “I just wanted to let you know I was in town on Pack business—”
“Yes, about that—”
“—and have no idea when I’ll be leaving, except I’ll keep you updated. And I’m guessing that since you knew I was coming, you’ve already set up a place for me to live. Thanks in advance.”
“I think you’ll really like Summit Avenue. Did you know it was voted one of Ten Great Streets by the American Planning Association? And there are mansions that were built back in the early days of the city? Several of the homes were built between 1890 and 1920.”
“I did not know that.”
“See?” She looked triumphant. “That’s just
one
of the fascinating bits of history to be found in St. Paul. There’s all sorts of things you’ll be better able to explore on your own, things like the governor’s mansion being right there and the fact that three of the homes are on National Historic Landmarks.”
Wow. “I will, uh, try to get right on that.” The woman sounded
just
like a Frommer’s. She’d either been working there too long and ended up sounding like a poster on a travel agent’s wall, or had always talked like that and therefore was born to run a chamber of commerce, any chamber of commerce. “That all sounds swell. So, I’ll head over there next, get settled in . . . What is it, an apartment?” Cain nodded. “And I’d better figure out a good time to meet their . . .” Rachael rolled her eyes. “Vampire queen, gah, it sounds way too Comic-Con to me.” Though just knowing when to reference geeks at Comic-Con probably meant she spent too much time at Comic-Con.
“We use Pack as a personal noun, and our Pack leader (can you hear the capital letter?) lives in a mansion anyone can just drive right up to. And we occasionally allow fights to the death to determine the status of the males, which they normally don’t do on Election Day around here.”
“Glass house. Got it.” She was even in one, sort of . . . the chamber of commerce building was sizeable and chock-full of windows. She could see why the woman chose to work in the modern building, full of sharp angles and shiny metals. One entire side was almost all windows, a big half-moon of windows.
“Have you ever met her?” Rachael asked. She took out the newsletter, which showed the creases from being read many, many times, from her purse bag. This one was a deep cream, with the Burberry logo and font in black lettering. “Even in passing?”
“I have not. There was never a strong enough reason.” Meaning as an envoy from the Pack leader, or seeking vengeance for a blood debt, or being a welcome wagon rep, everyday things like that. “I suppose I didn’t need one so much as I was (and still am) a little vague on the protocol, so . . .” She shrugged.
“She puts her address and phone number on a newsletter with a circulation of six figures, and you were worried about protocol.”
Mrs. Cain mulled that over, then laughed. “Well, yes, if you put it that way . . .”
“So, I’ll go see her.” She folded up the newsletter and caught a flash from one of the stories: “Top Ten Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Pull Some Lame Vampire Crap from the Movies.” Interesting topic. Not for the first time, Rachael wondered if the newsletter was a satire. “Like I said, I just wanted to drop by.”