Always the Vampire (2 page)

Good thing I was leaving, because the perimeter alarm—the one Sam of Sam’s Security Systems was supposed to be fixing—suddenly blared to life yet again. With my vampire hyper-hearing, the darn thing shrieked in my skull, rattled my teeth, and threatened to deafen me.

A streak of white tore past my feet on a beeline for the laundry room. Snowball—Saber’s cat—taking cover in the dirty-clothes basket.

Me? I tore out the front door, slammed it on the worst of the noise, and tapped a sneakered foot on the cobblestone patio.

“Saber,” I yelled to my ex-slayer sweetheart, who was “supervising” Sam’s fix-it job.

Instead of Saber answering, Neil Benson popped his head around the corner of my carriage-house-cum-cottage.

“What?” Neil bellowed back.

“Turn. That. Volume. Down.”

“Shut. The. Door.”

“It
is
shut.”

Neil, Maggie’s fiancé and my surfing buddy, trotted past my Polynesian-style bar with its tiki carvings, moved me aside, and eyed my door.

“Hunh. That is loud.”

“You think? Didn’t Saber tell Sam to fix the volume?”

“Sam did kill the outside alarm.”

“I noticed that. Otherwise Mr. Lister would be out here with a shotgun.”

Hugh Lister was our over-the-jasmine-hedge next-door neighbor. He didn’t seem to like us in general, but when the outdoor siren had whooped, Lister had charged through the hedge, swearing the September afternoon blue.

My system wasn’t even supposed to
have
an outside siren.

“So where are Sam and Saber now?”

Neil shrugged. “Sam adjusted the volume inside our place, then he and Saber made a run to the hardware store.”

“Wait. Your place?” I whipped my head to glance across the lawn where Maggie’s home fronted the property. “Why are you running the alarm to the big house?”

“Remember the sniper? Shooting at you from the oak tree out front? Waking up the neighborhood?”

I recalled too well being shot at while Jo-Jo the Jester gave me a flying lesson in the shadows of our shared yard.

“Point taken. Is the noise window-shattering loud at your place, too?”

“No, but we don’t have to wake the dead.”

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m underdead, Neil, and I’m going to do something evil to you one of these days.”

“Right, Fresca,” he said with a cuff on my arm.

Yes, Neil calls me Fresca. Having a soft-drink nickname is better than being called Cesspool, which is what Neil used to call me. At least Fresca rhymes with Cesca, short for my real name. My usually darling Deke Saber has another name for me. Which reminded me . . .

“Neil, will you please, please, please tell Saber to disconnect the siren when he gets back? And leave it off until Sam’s ready to do a final test.”

“Will do. Oh, and remember that when your alarm is set, so is ours. Having it on in the daytime is no problem. We’re gone most of the time anyway, but turn that thing off if you’ll be coming and going late at night.”

“You got it.”

He gestured at the binder in my arms. “You off to help Maggie with the wedding mail?”

“And to go over plans for the bachelorette weekend. Do you have the valet parking under control? And the music? You remembered a Victorian wedding should feature classical music, right?”

“Stop nagging. I’ve got it covered. Oh, but I think Maggie’s having second thoughts about those poofy things for the bridesmaid dresses.”

“Poofy things?” I gulped. “The bustles?”

He smirked as he trotted away.

Hell’s freaking wedding bells.

Sure I owed Maggie more than I could ever repay. If not for Maggie buying and restoring the house she and Neil now shared, I’d still be buried in the long-forgotten half basement underneath this very property. Maggie had unearthed me, taken me under her wing, and was now including me in the biggest day of her life.

But if her big day included big bustles on the bridesmaid gowns? No, I’d just have to change her mind again.

I sped across the lawn to Maggie’s back door, calling to her as I passed through the mudroom and into the kitchen.

“I’m in here,” Maggie yelled back. “Walk softly, or you’ll topple my piles.”

She looked up as I entered, and we shared a grin. We’d both dressed for the September heat, me wearing aqua shorts and a tank top with my hair in a frizzy ponytail, Maggie wearing green shorts and a white T-shirt. With the humidity high enough to drain a body faster than a starving vamp, thank goodness for arctic-level air-conditioning.

Maggie’s grin turned rueful as she gestured at the dining table littered with stacks of replies, lists, and the bulging wedding-planner binder that matched mine. The few cards resting in the cardboard Regrets box didn’t cover the bottom of it. The piles in the Accepts box were ten inches high, and more haphazard stacks of unopened envelopes rested at Maggie’s fingertips.

I carefully pulled out the chair on her right to prevent a paper slide.

“You think I can cram ten more tables and a hundred more chairs in the backyard?” she asked on a sigh.

“You have that many yeses for the reception? What happened to only half of the people you invited accepting?”

She snorted. “Obviously I underestimated.”

“Maggie, you’re an interior design guru, and Neil’s a state anthropologist. With all the contacts between you, I’m not surprised at the responses. Don’t worry; we’ll deal,” I added, patting her hand. “The rental guy is holding double of everything for us, and we’ll order more food when we meet with the caterer again tomorrow.”

Maggie turned her hand to grip mine. “What if we don’t have enough food? What do I do then?”

“First, you’ll have plenty of food. The caterer swears people eat less when the service is buffet style.”

“And if she’s wrong?”

“Then I’ll put out the call to the Jag Queens and my bridge group. Daphne Dupree is doing your cakes anyway, and the rest of the gang will be happy to help with some last-minute hors d’oeuvres. Now, come on,” I said, extracting my hand. “Let’s open the new batch of RSVPs and get them recorded. Maybe they’ll all be regrets.”

Maggie rolled her eyes, but we set to work. She read names while I checked them off the master list. The acceptances were accompanied by quiet groans, the regrets with little whoops, and the pile dwindled. Neil walked by, headed to the kitchen, and shook his head as Maggie slit open another envelope and chuckled.

“You won’t believe this, but Jo-Jo’s coming.” She waved the small rectangle at me. “And he’s offered to entertain.”

“Damn it to hell,” Neil swore, frozen at the kitchen threshold. “Tell me you did not invite that lame vampire comic.”

Jo-Jo had taken refuge with me in early August, escaping his Master in Atlanta so he could dive into showbiz. No matter that his jokes had been beyond bad to begin with, he’d quickly put a decent act together and caught the attention of a vacationing talent agent. The rest was history in the making.

“Jo-Jo’s earning a mint in Vegas and doing a movie, Neil,” Maggie said on a laugh, “so he can’t be that lame. Not anymore.”

“But you won’t let him do his act at the reception, right? If he juggles, I’m giving DennyK orders to stake him.”

“Your best man won’t need a stake. Jo-Jo will just be attending.”

“And on the upside, he won’t be munching at the buffet,” I added.

“Long as he doesn’t munch on a guest,” Neil muttered.

The fridge opened and closed, bottles clinked—beer bottles most likely—then we heard the back door slam. If Neil had grabbed beers, I hoped that meant Saber and Sam were back on the job.

“Poor Neil,” Maggie said, laughing as she pushed back from the table. “I don’t know if he’s nervous or just impatient to have the wedding over with.”

“And at nineteen days and counting, you don’t have a teeny touch of nerves?” I teased, following her into the kitchen.

“Only about the reception.” She pulled a gallon of sweet tea from the fridge. “Southern women are bred to feed the masses, but I’ve never hosted that many parties.”

“The housewarming party came off with food left over.”

“Yes, but we had fewer tables, fewer guests, and I wasn’t wearing a wedding gown. What if I knock over a whole table of food with my bustle?”

I hid a smile, grabbed two ruby-colored glasses from the cabinet, and set them on the counter. “All the more reason for your two bridesmaids
not
to have bustles, but don’t worry. I’ll tell the caterers to make extra-wide aisles, and you’ll be fine. The wedding will come off without a hitch.”

“Mmm.” She plunked ice cubes in the glasses and poured the tea, then turned serious. “Speaking of hitches, how is Saber? Still grouchy?”

I plopped into a kitchen chair. “He’s moody, edgy, and positively grim. And he’s hovered 24-7 since he got home Friday. It’s driving me insane.”

“You can’t get him to tell you what’s wrong?”

“No. He’s paranoid about my safety, but he won’t say why.”

“He’s always been concerned for your safety.”

“True,” I conceded as I stared at the crackling ice cubes in my tea.

Saber had insisted I have the security of the president and the pope combined—well, except for Secret Service agents and Swiss Guards. Even my cottage windows are UV reflective and impact resistant. Saber had wanted bulletproof windows, too, but those didn’t come with UV protection.

As for the perimeter alarm, in theory it was brilliant. Since my home sat near the back corner of the yard, weight-sensitive and supposedly weatherproof disks were buried in a series of halo-like rings around the sides and front of the cottage. Smaller creatures could scamper through the yard, but a weight of fifty pounds or more on a disk triggered the siren inside my house and at the monitored security offices. I’d dive into a hidey-hole through the escape hatch in my bedroom walk-in closet and wait for the all clear via a phone system in the safe room. And when I expected company or was out late, I simply disarmed the system. Good plan, imperfect execution. At least it had been the first time around.

Of course, now that Sam was “fixing” the system, the darn siren went off at the drop of an acorn. If he didn’t get the bugs worked out, I’d be ripping the alarm box off the wall.

“Hey,” Maggie said, bringing me back to the moment. “Maybe Saber knows something about your stalker, and that’s what’s bugging him.”

“I doubt it. I haven’t seen Victor Gorman in weeks. No, I think this has something to do with the sixteen days Saber was gone.”

“On the assignment to shut down vampire nests for the Vampire Protection Agency?”

“Yes, but he phoned me every day, and never mentioned any major problems.”

Of course, not all the vamps wanted to abandon the nest system, or even transition from nests to corporate entities. Gotta love capitalism, but apparently some vampires were more resistant to change. Maybe Saber hadn’t mentioned big problems because he didn’t want me to worry.

“Whatever it is that’s eating him, wring it out of him soon, will you?” Maggie rose and patted my shoulder. “He spooked the caterer when he did his bodyguard thing on Saturday.”

“It wasn’t me and my terrifying vampire gaze?”

She snorted just as footsteps stomped in the mudroom. We turned to find Neil all smiles, Saber scowling.

Maggie was so right. I needed to find out what was bugging my man.

But even with that forbidding expression on his face, my stomach did the dipsy-do it always does when I see Deke Saber. Drool gathered in my mouth, too, because Saber looked extra yummy with his bright white polo shirt and brown cargo shorts showing off his bronze tan. Hubba!

My body might automatically respond every time I looked at Saber, but I gave him my stern face instead of my sunny smile. “Is the volume adjusted now?”

“Down to a dull roar, and the outside siren is permanently cut.”

“Saber here threatened to feed Sam to a hungry vampire if the system failed again, so I think we’re good.” Neil sidled up to Maggie and put an arm around her waist. “You have anything to hail the conquering heroes?”

Maggie wiggled closer. “You’ve had a beer. What more do you want?”

Neil gave her an exaggerated leer, and Saber cleared his throat.

“Come on, Cesca. We have an appointment to keep.”

“We do?” I frowned at him. “But Maggie and I haven’t finished with the mail yet. Or talked about the girl’s weekend.”

“I’ll manage the mail,” Maggie jumped in, “and I know you have everything under control for this weekend. You go ahead.”

Go manage your man
, her narrowed-eyed look plainly said.

In seconds flat, Neil shoved my binder into my arms, and Saber all but dragged me out the back door and across the yard.

“Since when do we have an appointment?”

“Since yesterday.”

“And when were you planning to tell me about it?”

“When I got around to it,” Saber said without so much as a glance at me.

I ground my teeth but held my tongue until we were in my cozy living room. That’s when I dropped the wedding binder on my computer desk with a
whap
and turned to eye Saber closely. Signs of strain bracketed his beautiful mouth, and lines I hadn’t noticed now furrowed his forehead.

I took his hand and tugged him to the plush coffee-colored leather sofa.

“Come talk to me.”

Saber pulled away. “We don’t have time, Cesca. You need to change clothes, and I need to make a call.”

Fists on my hips, I stared into his cobalt blue eyes. “Not until you tell me why you’ve been as snappy as a starving gator in a feeding frenzy.”

“I haven’t been that bad.”

“Trust me, you have. For five long days, and that’s not like you.” I threw myself onto the couch cushions. “I’m not moving until you spill.”

He paced away from me, raking his fingers through his military-short black hair. When his shoulders slumped on a soul-deep sigh, I knew I had him.