"Whoever did this could come back. Forget the woman. Get the hell out of there." Okay, a minute ago I'd have jumped on an excuse like that. But there was the old "Glory's a helpless female" tone in Jerry's voice and, sorry, but I'm
not
helpless.
"The alley's clear. Valdez is on guard duty. I started this, so I'll damn well finish it. I'll try her wrist." I held the phone with one hand and tuned out Jerry's rant about my wrong-headedness. I picked up the woman's wrist. It was cool, limp, lifeless. Maybe I was too late.
Now I felt really bad. If Flo or Jerry had found the body, this lady would be upstairs by now, ready for her vampire initiation. I ran my tongue over my fangs. They'd been ready for action since the first whiff of fresh blood. I bit into a sad excuse for a vein. Pitifully little action, then zilch. Her skin felt cold and I pulled back. "She's drained dry, Jerry, now what?"
"Force her to drink from you. Cut your wrist and put it to her lips. You should have learned this long ago, Gloriana."
"I don't think so. I wish I wasn't learning it now." I snatched up the knife, slashed it across my wrist and didn't even wince-thank you very much. I held the welling cut to the lady's blue lips. Blue under Mac's Lady Danger lipstick. She did have great taste. I took a second to mourn her blood-soaked suede coat with the lynx collar. That coat would have brought big bucks in my shop, Vintage Vamp's Emporium, which was steps away from us, on the ground floor of my apartment building. Maybe you're wondering how I could be so . . . detached while squatting in a pool of blood with a dying woman dangling from my wrist. Hey, I've had four hundred plus years on this planet. I could tell you stories . . . Never mind. At least I'd just done all I could do to save her. And if she didn't make it? Then I wouldn't have brought a new vampire into the world, which was a good thing actually.
"Jerry, she's not drinking." Not breathing either. Detached? Who the hell was I kidding? I couldn't just let another human
die
. Yep,
another
human. I may be an immortal with a liquid diet, but I'll never accept the fact that I'm not human too, damn it. Unfortunately, I'd made a big deal out of never wanting to turn anyone. So now it was amateur hour. Jeez, sometimes I can be so
clueless
. I should have at least learned the basics of this thing. In case of emergency. Like now.
"What else can I do?" I blinked back tears and told myself I'd have the meltdown later. The woman's neck was looking good. But with all that blood loss, she was knocking on Heaven's door and the Almighty was just about to roll out the welcome mat. Damn it, I
had
to save her.
"Force her, Glory. Pry open her lips and drip your blood down her throat. Once she swallows even a bit, she'll start to revive." Jerry's calm voice settled me down a little. Hell, of course he was calm. He wasn't here hip deep in blood with the Grim Reaper staring over his shoulder.
But I knew from experience that vamp blood is powerful stuff. I laid the phone in a dry spot on the concrete and went to work.
"Come on, honey. This is delicious high-octane vampire blood. One sip and your motor will be purring again." I glanced at Valdez. He'd pawed through the contents of her purse and stared down at a New York driver's license. "What's her name, Valdez? Maybe she'll respond to that."
He snorted and looked at me, his dark eyes gleaming in his furry face.
"You're not going to believe it, Glory. Her name's
Lucky."
Two
"Quit playing, I'm serious." Had she swallowed yet? I stroked her throat, desperate to coax down a drop.
"So am I. See for yourself."
He nosed it over to me and I glanced at it. Lucky Carver. Hmm. I'd taken her for midthirties, max, but the DMV put her at close to fifty.
"Come on, Lucky. Live up to your name. Drink and you'll be good as new. No, better." Hey, the truth. Well, in a lot of ways. I pulled open her coat. High quality red cashmere sweater. Her whole outfit cost more than a year's worth of Fangtastic, my blood substitute of choice lately. The woman obviously had her priorities.
"I don't think she's gonna make it."
Valdez pushed a tube of mascara across the concrete.
"I started this, I'll damn well finish it." I glanced at my cell phone, sure Jerry could hear me. He probably expected me to wimp out on this turning thing. He knew how against the whole concept I'd been for the last, oh, four centuries. Well, I'd fooled him recently when I'd finally developed some of my vamp powers. If I could pull this off, he'd be blown away. And blowing Jerry (hey, you know what I mean) is one of the things that keeps me going and going and . . .
"Lucky, you've got to drink or you'll miss the shoe sale at Nordstrom's. Boots half price." Aha! Her throat worked against my fingertips. Obviously I'd found the key to her will to live. A sigh, then another swallow until Lucky suddenly latched on to my wrist with both hands, sucking like my blood was liquid Godiva.
"Whoa, lady. Leave me enough to get upstairs, will you?" I pried my wrist from her grip and saw her cheeks had turned pink. Heartbeat had picked up, breathing too. Her eyelids fluttered, then I was staring down into hazel eyes with pretty flecks of gold, tattooed eyeliner setting off long dark lashes.
I could tell the moment the lady snapped to the reality of lying on cold concrete in a pool of her own blood with a dog and a blond, blue-eyed twentysomething hottie (me, of course) staring down at her. I grinned, pretty jazzed that I'd brought her back from the brink. Next thing I knew Lucky had a knife at my throat.
"Hey, I just saved your sorry butt." I used my vamp speed to jump out of reach. "How about a little gratitude, Lucky?"
"I saw your fangs. Listen, you blood-sucking bitch, you shoulda finished what you started because I'll see you staked out at high noon for this." She tried to sit up, then fell back.
"
I
didn't tear open your throat, lady. Did you hear me? I
saved
you." Lucky closed her eyes and gripped her knife. I could practically see the wheels turning when her eyes popped open again. "How do you know my name?"
I kicked her driver's license toward her. "I can read. You know, you look really good for a woman your age." Lucky gasped and tears filled her eyes. "You. Saw. My.
Age
?" She snatched up the license and stuffed it into her bra. "You tell anyone, anyone, and it'll be high noon on an anthill with a honey facial, vampire."
"Leave her here, Glory. Let her see who does what when the sun comes up."
Valdez pressed against my leg and growled.
"You should be kissing Glory's feet, lady. You were on a slippery slope toward the hereafter when we found you."
Lucky's mouth dropped open. "What kind of paranormal freak show is this? A vampire with a talking dog for a side-kick?" She finally managed to sit up. "Who did this?" She looked at the pool of blood, then down at her ruined coat. "You say you didn't-"
"No, I didn't. But some vampire did." My wrist was already healing, so I picked up her purse and stroked the supple tan leather.
"I'd say it was a clueless guy. No self-respecting female vamp would leave this treasure lying inches from blood spatter."
"You're right about that." Lucky looked around. "Where's Brittany?"
"Who?" I watched the woman slip her knife into her boot.
A knife in her boot. And the other knife still on the concrete next to her.
I brushed it with my foot. "This yours too?"
"Yeah. A lot of good it did me." She grabbed it, made a face, then wiped it on her coat. "I'd like to know where the hell Brittany is."
Brittany. Oookay. The name conjured up an image of a pop star with toothpick arms and lips that absorbed a gallon of lip gloss a week.
"We found you alone, bleeding out. Maybe your bud Brittany went somewhere to check her, um, lipstick. Unless
she's
vampire and decided to off her BFF."
"She's not my friend, she's my bodyguard. And a shifter not a vampire." Lucky bit her lip. "I trusted her. I didn't think-Aw shit." She rubbed her forehead, and a tear trickled down her cheek.
"I'm taking another look around. Just in case . . ."
Valdez took off down the alley.
"You say a vampire tried to take me out? Guess I should have been carrying a stake in my other boot." I shuddered and put a hand over my heart. The word "stake" does that to me. "You don't seem surprised by the fact that vampires and dogs with special gifts"-I looked over to where Valdez circled another parked car-"even exist. And you have a shape-shifter for a bodyguard. Who or what are
you
?" I sniffed but all I smelled was that delicious blood congealing on the concrete.
"Human and don't you forget it." She had her knife out again. "My family's done business with vampires, shifters and weres for decades." She narrowed her gaze. "Give me my purse."
"Would it kill you to say 'please'?" I dangled the bag over a puddle. Not that I'd ever desecrate a work of art like that, but, as a threat, it worked like a charm.
"I'm . . . sorry." She glanced down at her ruined coat, then ran a hand over her throat, obviously surprised when it came away without fresh blood on it. "I'm still out of it, I guess. I don't remember a thing about the attack. One minute Brit and I are here talking about a call I got. Then . . ." She sighed and plucked that pack of tissues out of the mess. She went to work on cleaning her bloodstained hands. "You healed me?" She checked me out like I'd never have the goods to do such a thing. "Or did you have help?" Now she examined Valdez, who'd trotted up to stand next to me.
"I did it. Just one of my many talents." No way was I giving the V-man credit for this. Even if he
had
saved my life more than once. His gig as my bodyguard was payback to Jerry for something neither of them would discuss. It had been too long since my own change to remember how a brand-new vampire felt, and the lady had taken a pretty hard hit what with the ripped open throat and all. So her hands were shaking when she tossed the dirty tissues aside.
"My coat is ruined. I've been attacked by one vampire and another one knows how old I am." She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I feel like shit and obviously look like it too."
I took pity and dropped her purse in her lap. "Hey, you're alive." Sort of.
"Uh, Glory. Blade's still on the phone."
Valdez never took his eyes off Lucky when she picked up her knife again. She carefully wiped it on a tissue and closed it with a snap.
"Jerry!" I grabbed the phone. "Did you hear? I did it! I saved her life."
"Damn it, Glory. What took you so long?"
"Well, excuse me, but I was busy, what with the blood and the explanations." I watched Lucky rummage through her purse. Looking for another weapon? Valdez growled a warning and showed some teeth. I gave him an ear rub.
"She's awake? How does she look?"
"Pretty good, considering. Valdez and I are finished. We were just about to leave Miss Gratitude here and head upstairs."
"Finished?" Jerry chuckled. "Honey, you've barely started. Take your new vampire upstairs with you. You know how this works."
"Fortunately, since this is a new gig for me, no, I don't." I had a queasy feeling that I really didn't want to hear this.
"You made her, now you've got to show her the ropes."
Lucky reached for her wallet and picked up her scattered credit cards. When she had all her cards in a row, she muttered about a missing gold card then looked at me like maybe
I'd
taken it.
"Ropes?" Now I was pissed. "The only rope I want to show this ungrateful bitch is a noose for her scrawny neck." I picked up a tube of Mac's Russian Red and stuck it in my coat pocket.
"She's your responsibility, sweetheart. Sorry, but you owe it to her to take her on."
"This is why I never turned anyone before." Jerry had done this for me. But we'd been heavy duty lovers back in the day. We'd needed to stay together, for the hot sex if nothing else.
"It doesn't have to be forever, Gloriana, just until she can deal with her new situation on her own." Hmm. So why did Jerry still insist on keeping tabs on me with the whole bodyguard bit? Could it be love? He said so, but then eternity loomed, and to be tied to the same sixteenth-century male . . .
"Glory, you're not going to just leave her there, are you?"
"Okay, okay. I know what I have to do." Sort of. "Call me, Jerry, when you get back to town." I hung up and put my hand on Valdez's collar when he growled again. Lucky struggled to her feet, cursing when she slipped in her own blood and stained her boots. I resisted the urge to give her a hand, sure she'd just slap it away.
She started collecting her scattered treasures. An antique hand mirror had survived without a crack. A BlackBerry and enough cosmetics to open a stall at a flea market were tossed into her bag. She stared at her cell phone for a minute, obviously still confused despite her tough talk.
"Is there anyone you want to call? Like a husband? That family of yours? Cops?" I was obviously going to be stuck with the woman. It couldn't hurt to make nice. Her fingers were bare, but that didn't mean the vamp who'd torn out her throat hadn't lifted a few baubles as a souvenir, including a wedding ring. "Anything missing besides your credit card?" She reached up and felt her earlobes. "Damn it, those were my favorite two carat studs." She looked at my David Yurman knockoffs and sniffed, "No husband this decade. I'm definitely not calling my family. And no cops. I'll get my stuff back,
my
way." She wobbled on her high-heeled boots. "I feel weird. What exactly did you do to me?" Her eyes rolled and I grabbed her before she hit the ground. Out cold.
I pulled her coat off and tossed it next to the door to collect later. Then I slung her over my shoulder and stuck her purse and my own sad-looking handbag on my other shoulder. I punched in the security code on the keypad beside the back door to my apartment building.
"Valdez, drag that coat inside, then pick up the bags of Christmas lights in your teeth and let's get upstairs. This woman's pretty small, but her purse weighs a ton." Small like in a size six to my ten, okay, twelve. I could feel muscular legs as I held on to her. She was in shape. Nice way to be stuck forever. Not like I'd been on the big V-day with my weakness for roast beef and lemon tarts. Valdez dragged the coat across the threshold, then grabbed the plastic bags and trotted inside while I held open the door. He headed up the stairs first, like he usually did, to make sure the coast was clear. I have a few enemies and seemed to be making more by the day, despite the fact that I'm really a very nice person. I have lots of friends too. Which is one reason I'm determined to stay in Austin and make a go of my vintage-clothing store. The paranormal community here is great, for the most part. I glanced over my shoulder at Lucky's pale face. Maybe somebody with a grudge had followed her here from New York. What was she doing in Texas anyway? And in the alley behind my store? It wasn't exactly on the Austin highlights tour. A woof from Valdez and I headed up. I had lots of questions and, until Lucky woke up and lost the attitude, I wasn't getting any answers. I have vamp strength and could have carried Lucky for miles and not broken a sweat. But, damn it, her bloody boot was bumping against my vintage wool yellow and white houndstooth swing coat. I prayed a dry cleaner could get the blood out. Stupid. I should have shucked the coat, locked it in the car, then picked her up.