The Fertile Vampire (8 page)

I could be charming when I tried. Really, I could.
 

“What’s the best thing about being a vet?” I asked Opie once we were seated.
 

Kenisha had returned to the table, but was studiously avoiding looking at me.
 

She smiled. “Helping people as well as pets. I know every time I help an animal, I’m also helping the owner. We had a ninety year old woman with a sick cat. She couldn’t afford to pay us, but we treated her cat anyway. When the cat got well you could see the change in her owner, too. That cat was all she had left in the world.”
 

“What’s the worst part?” Meng asked.
 

“People carrying their cats in instead of them being in crates. People who insist on answering their cell phones while I’m talking to them. People who don’t want to pay for tests then cop an attitude when I don’t know what’s wrong with Fido. People with aggressive dogs who don’t seem to know it. They call the dog ‘spirited’. That one always gets me.”
 

Who knew? Ophelia, the saint, had human tendencies, after all. I was beginning to like the woman more and more.
 

I asked Meng about his prospects for work, only to be informed that a great many vampires chose to go on Disability. The ADA had been revised to include those with illnesses of a blood sucking kind.
 

“But I’m writing apps,” he said. “On the side. My brother sells them for me.”
 

I’d seen enough white collar crime that my antennae started vibrating. Habits die hard.
 

Opie was continuing with her veterinary practice. “It’s thriving, actually. Most of my pet parents are very grateful I’m open all night. They don’t have to take off work to bring their pets in.”
 

How many of her pet parents knew she was a card carrying vampire?
 

Felipe was on extended sick leave. Everyone at his accounting firm thought he was on a death watch. How was he going to explain when he looked hale and hearty in a few months?
 

We weren’t accepting as a society. We said we were. We said we embraced our cultural differences, but it was conditional. As long as vampires weren’t our neighbors, we could accept them. As long as we didn’t do business with a vampire, they were fine. Live and let live, in a manner of speaking.
 

The only place vampires had a fighting chance at equality was in the dating scene. The men were absolutely mesmerizing and that might be taken literally. Or maybe it was only certain men, because Meng and Felipe were nice guys, but they weren’t hunks, hotties, or a fangy - a term indicating any guy, vampire or not, was worth getting bit.
 

Doug had been great in bed, but he wasn’t worth getting bit.
 

The image of Il Duce popped into my brain unannounced. I ushered it to the door with severe instructions not to visit again.
 

I didn’t ask Kenisha about her plans for the future, but Meng did. Her eyes flashed fire. I almost flinched but stopped myself. Still, she was one woman I wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.
 

“Why do you want to know?” she asked, pushing her plate away with one finger.
 

Conversation, sharing, communication - all those things I’d missed for two weeks. I was wise enough, however, to keep my mouth shut.
 

“I was wondering if you were going back to being a cop.”
 

What? My eyes flew to her. Kenisha whatever-her-last-name-was was a cop?
 

“Are there vampire cops?”
 

She turned her laser gaze on me.
 

“Why wouldn’t there be?”
 

I managed to shrug. “No reason.”
 

“I can work the graveyard shift.”
 

No pun intended, I wanted to say, but I wasn’t opening my mouth.
 

Was she a uniform? A detective? Did she work in Homicide? Drugs? The gang unit? A dozen questions popped into my mind and I wouldn’t have hesitated asking anyone else at the table. Kenisha, however, kept me silent with a look.

“Does everyone have to go to Orientation?” I asked, desperate for a topic of conversation that didn’t have Kenisha glaring at me. “My mentor says it’s mandatory for me.”
 

“Your mentor?”
 

I nodded then noticed that I was the object of several stares. “Niccolo Maddock.”
 

Opie leaned forward. “Niccolo Maddock is your mentor?”
 

I nodded.
 

“He’s a Master.”
 

“No one else has a mentor,” Meng said.
 

Opie nodded. “We were told where to go by one of the Council interns.”
 

“What’s a Master?”
 

“A member of the Council,” Felipe said. “In Maddock’s case, the highest ranking member.”
 

I knew, from the Green Book, that Councils ruled the vampire world. Twelve members comprised each Council. Since there were only twelve Councils in the entire world, their geographic boundaries were large.
 

The San Antonio Council was responsible for the western half of the United States, with the Mississippi River being the dividing line. The Trenton Council handled everything east of that.
 

If Niccolo Maddock was a Master, he evidently possessed a lot of power.
 

“Why are you so special you have a mentor?” Kenisha asked. “And a Master at that?”
 

I shook my head. One more question to add to the pile I’d already accumulated.
 

Kenisha didn’t look satisfied. Mentally, she was probably pulling out her notebook and listing me as a suspect for something.
 

When the dinner was over, Opie handed me my sweater. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your lending it to me.”
 

“Keep it,” I said. “Wear it home. You can give it back to me tomorrow night in class.”
 

“Are you sure?”
 

I nodded. She was trembling so hard her teeth were clenched.
 

She put it back on, zipped the front and tucked her glorious red hair beneath the hood.
 

At the door, I excused myself, mumbling something about feeding a neighbor and went to the bakery section. I ordered some pralines, a few empanadas, and a bag of
marranitos
- spicy little gingerbread pigs. Just to tide me over until morning, you understand. I’d given up dinner, but there was no way I was going to sacrifice Mexican pastries from The Smiling Senorita.
 

At the door, I shivered, regretting my generosity for a second, then told myself I was a big girl. I could make it to my car without freezing.
 

Felipe and Meng were ahead of me, but I didn’t see any sign of Kenisha.
 

Twenty steps away from the restaurant, the blaring mariachis finally silenced, I heard a shriek of tires on pavement. Someone had a few too many beers and Kenisha would probably arrest them.
 

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a large black pickup speeding through the parking lot, its headlights glowing like a predator’s eyes. It rocked over something, braked, then backed up and did it again.

Someone screamed.
 

The two men started to run. I threw my bag of pastries into my purse and raced after them, wishing I’d worn my jeans and sneakers instead of opting for the corporate look. I couldn’t run well in pumps, even if they were only two inches high.

The truck barreled out of the parking lot as I came to the end of a row of cars.
 

Becoming a vampire might be classified as traumatic, but it didn’t come close to the sight of Ophelia stretched out face down on the parking lot. Felipe knelt beside her. Meng turned, stared at me, white-faced, then ran behind a car. I heard the sound of retching and after glancing at Opie again, I couldn’t blame him.
 

My sweater was drenched in blood turned black by the bluish parking lot lights. The hood, where Opie’s head should have been, was curiously misshapen. Felipe reached out but stopped himself from touching her.
 

"Is she dead?" I asked, my voice sounding strangled.
 

Felipe nodded, then sat back, his hands splayed on his thighs.
 

"They didn't stop," I said, staring at the parking lot exit.
 

Felipe turned to look at me.
 

“It wasn’t a hit and run,” Kenisha said from behind me.
 

I turned. Her shoulders blocking out the light behind her. “This was deliberate. Someone killed Opie on purpose.”
 

She spread her legs, looking at me like I was a cockroach she was going to stomp to death.
 

I wisely kept my mouth shut.

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

Things that howl in the night

I don’t like Death. I’ve always thought of it as an enemy, something stalking me from the day I was born. To me the Grim Reaper is the perfect picture of Death, wrapped in a brownish gray monk’s robe complete with a bony finger beckoning me closer.
 

Whenever anyone close to me died I could almost hear Death cackling and making a mark on an invisible chalkboard. Death - 1, Marcie - 0.
 

Maybe that’s why I chose to become a vampire, a darling of the dead, a nobkin of the night, a fanganista. (I have to come up with a better name one of these days.) I didn’t want Death to win again.
 

But Death was breathing down the back of my neck right now, chortling in the shadows, giggling maniacally as I answered the questions put to me by the police.
 

Detective Joe Halston was a heavyset man with jowls like a bulldog and surprisingly kind eyes. Gray hair turned bluish in the parking lot lights fell over his forehead. A crease in his left cheek made me wonder if he’d been sleeping before coming here. The black windbreaker he wore didn’t look thick enough to hold off the cold.

His voice growled as he asked me questions he’d probably already asked the others.
 

Did I see the license plate? No, I hadn’t been close enough. Nor had I even thought to look, which is probably a clue to my naiveté .

Did I know the make of the pickup? I don’t know anything about trucks. One of them looks the same as the next. All I knew was it was big, bigger than the average size pickup truck and black.

Did I know of anyone who would want to hurt Ophelia Richardson? I hadn’t even known her last name. Wasn’t that a clue to how much a stranger she was?
 

She would have hated dying, especially since she’d planned her transition so carefully. She would have hated dying the way she had, with her skull crushed and her face… Well, her face had been unrecognizable.
 

Poor Meng had gotten sick every time he’d glanced over at the body. Felipe was a rock, however, becoming almost paternal toward me.
 

I let him.
 

If he wanted to put his arm around me when I started to shake, that was okay. If he wanted to give me his jacket, I was fine with that, too. If he wanted to run interference between me and Kenisha the Cop, that was even better.
 

Where was Il Duce when I needed him? Maybe I should call him. I gave the thought about five seconds before dismissing it.
 

Felipe finally moved away and I was left standing by the parking lot light, the pose reminding me of the musical, Cats. I’m sure I’d be placed in a mobile padded cell if I started to sing about withered leaves, moaning wind, and memories.
 

“You’ve had an eventful night,” Il Duce said from behind me.
 

I whirled, startled. I hadn’t heard him arrive. For that matter, I hadn’t seen his car. Had he flown in?
 

“Can you change to a bat?”
 

“Pardon?”
 

“Do you have the power to turn into a bat?” I asked, enunciating each word.
 

He frowned at me, an expression that might have kept me silent any other night.
 

“No, I do not have the ability to change into a bat.”
 

“Where did that rumor get started?”
 

“Did someone tell you I changed into a bat?”
 

I shook my head, unwilling to go into the whole Hollywood/book mythology at the moment.
 

“Why are you here?”
 

“I am your mentor,” he said. “It is my duty to attend to you when you are having difficulties.”
 

“Nobody else has a mentor. Why do I?”
 

He didn’t answer.