Biting Nixie (32 page)

Just before the door opened to the tourists, I saw the snot-ball lying on the floor. With a swift kick, I sent it under a table. But some stuck to my shoe. Eww. I shook my leg frantically. Slime-ball sprayed all over the floor. Shit. The tourists would think someone had barfed. Oh well. At least things couldn't get worse.

Then I saw my mother swooping down on Julian and me.

Apparently things could
always
get worse.

“Mr. Emerson! Julian! It's so wonderful to see you again!
Such
a delight!” It was all Julian this and Julian that. Mom was so effusive I thought Julian might go into a diabetic coma. If vampires went into those sorts of things.

“Good evening, Mrs. Schmeling,” Julian replied, kissing both her cheeks. Whoa. I guess two could play at the gigasugar thing. Or maybe his Old World courtesy ramped up when greeting his future mother-in-law…oh, I did
not
just think that.

My mother got a load of what Julian was wearing and jerked visibly. I palmed my aching forehead, knowing what she was seeing. Black leather jacket, naked chest, black leather pants, naked chest, black leather boots…and of course, naked chest.

But all she said was, “What a nice earring, Julian. Is that new?”

Ye gods. I was doomed.

Sure, not a word about the naked chest, so I should have relaxed, right? But my mother was cagey. Like “have you stopped beating your wife”, her question posed all kinds of danger.

Because what could Julian say that would not get us both burned at the maternal stake?

He could say, “Yes, Nixie bought the earring for me.” Then my mother would think, ahah! A diamond, so an
engagement
present. And if not an engagement diamond, what the hell was I doing spending that kind of money on a man? Moreover, what crime had I committed to get that kind of money?

Julian could say, “No, the earring's not new,” but then my mother would think he was a closet punk. Since in my mother's mind punks committed all sorts of atrocities, maybe Julian had been—gasp—lying about other things. Like being a lawyer. Strangely, I thought the small omitted fact of his being a vampire wouldn't bother her half as much as finding out he'd lied about being a lawyer. There's a reason Gainfully Employed is number one on the Mother Test.

Julian could also answer, “Yes, I bought the earring for myself.” That was just admitting he was a girly-man. Because what other kind of guy buys jewelry for himself, especially a one-carat diamond earring? Yes, I know that's
baka
, but that's how my mother thinks.

I signaled frantically, doing the round Obi-Wan gesture. When Julian ignored that, I began to flail in my best
Team America
manner. Still nothing. The man was a total pop culture moron.

I had forgotten that Julian, while he hadn't seen any movies in this century, had quite a lot of experience with human nature. He smiled blindingly, said, “Why, thank you, Mrs. Schmeling. I'm glad you like it,” and left it at that.

Hit with Julian's best twenty-four carat smile, my mother blinked several times. “Oh, yes. Nice weather we're having.” She seemed to have forgotten that she ever asked a question. It probably didn't hurt that his nipples winked at her.

Imminent disaster averted, I took the opportunity to scope out the cheese ball damage.

The Ladies were working clockwise from the door, putting out atomic bombs…er, cheese balls. They looked like lopsided toy basketballs—the cheese balls, that is, not the Ladies. As they put out their ticking bombs, they pushed the gourmet (i.e. edible) balls back out of reach.

Dirk's mom was working twice as fast as everyone else. So I started with her. “Mrs. Ruffles?”

“Hello, Dietlinde, how are you? I heard you are running the festival. Do you like that? Who is that lovely young man you're with? Does he play music? My Dirk plays music, you know. He plays a big brass flute. Do you still play the black flute?” She was laying out balls as fast as she was talking.

With all the LLAMAs watching, I couldn't simply make the bad balls disappear. I could only do like Sleeping Beauty's third good fairy godmother and cast a mitigating spell. As quietly as possible, I pulled the good, tasty,
normal
cheese balls back in front. “I'm fine,” I said, answering the only question I remembered.

“That's good,” Mrs. Ruffles said. “Oh, hello.”

The last wasn't to me. I looked up to see two rich-looking old ladies approaching. As they came they dipped into aged cheddar and wine with almonds, brie with chives and cashews, and Wensleydale with walnuts. They also dropped twenties in the donation buckets like monsoon season.

Yay! Donors. And generous donors. We might win against Ruth-ass-ven yet.

Mrs. Ruffles chose that moment to set a pusball down right in front of them.

I stared for a moment in stunned horror. At best, the little old moneybags would nibble a bit of pus and run out screaming, plucking up their twenties on the way.

At worst, they would keel over dead from instant food poisoning.

I didn't have time to think. I simply acted. I snatched up a good cheese ball and threw it, aiming between the old ladies and death.

My aim wasn't so good. The ball smacked Mrs. Ruffles in the back of the head. She lost her balance, went flailing. She tried to catch herself on the table, put her hand
splat
into her cheese ball.

Okay, not what I intended. But it worked. Got rid of the pusball
and
took Mrs. Ruffles out of the balling race. And I'd only lost one good ball.

Before I could congratulate myself too much, Mrs. Ruffles tried to get rid of the glop—by shaking her hand like a wet dog. Gobs of pusball went everywhere, over walls, over the tables, over me. Pusball spatter hit the little old ladies in the face like bugs on a windshield.

The two little old moneybags stood frozen like corpses in rigor. Cheese pus slithered down their cheeks and jowls, dripped off them onto the floor. One took off her glasses and, without seeming to notice what she was doing, polished them on a pus-covered sleeve.

Mrs. Ruffles held her hands to her mouth to stifle a gasp. “I'm so sorry! I'll get you cleaned up in a jiffy!”

“No!” I cried. Ruffles genes and LLAMA pusballs—duck.

Mrs. Ruffles swept up the first clean cloth she saw to wipe pus spit off the old ladies.

It happened to be the tablecloth. Cheese balls went flying. Good
and
bad. Plop, plop, plop went cheddar and Wensleydale.
Splooshhh
went pus. The brie stuck to the ceiling.

Shit. Maybe I could rescue the good cheese. Five-second rule, right? Just scoop up the slightly flattened gourmet balls and put them back on the table. We'd call them baroque cheese balls. Baroque, get it? Like “broke”, only baroque also means squashed pearl and these balls certainly qualified…okay, not funny. But I was under pressure.

Anyway, like a birthday wish spoken out loud, the five-second rule doesn't apply in public. With witnesses watching, I couldn't pick up the good cheese balls. We were now out three more gourmet cheese balls (with nuts) and only one more pusball. The odds were getting worse.

Mrs. Ruffles panicked, running around like Daisy Chicken with her head cut off. Her foot hit the ball of pus and she went skidding.
Slam
! she went, into another table, sending more cheese balls flying.

Then
I
panicked, because most of these were the good balls. Without those cheese balls, we were
ruined
. I flung myself onto the ground. Maybe if they landed on me at least it wouldn't be the floor. Does the five second rule apply to skin?

I had forgotten Julian's supernatural reflexes. Even before I landed I felt a breeze, heard tiny sonic booms. Maybe not real sonic booms, but when I got to my elbows and opened my eyes, there sat the cheese balls on the last standing table, nice as you please.

There was a collective silence as we took in the damage. Mrs. Ruffles and I were on the floor, both of us ass-deep in pus and mayonnaise. Two tables were overturned. The floor was littered with bits of cheese, pus, and nuts. Little bits of pusball clung to one old lady. The other one had died and was now a ghost. No, that was only the tablecloth covering her.

Julian reached up and snagged the brie off the ceiling. My mother went for the overturned money buckets. Mrs. Ruffles tried to get up to help her. I tackled Ruffles harder than a Cowboy fullback. I'd found out things
could
get worse. If I let Mrs. Ruffles up, who knew what more damage she could do? Like mother, like son. Except, thinking of my mother, what did that make me?

It wasn't worth worrying over. Anyway, I had my hands full, holding Mrs. Ruffles down until Julian and my mom came. As my mother led Mrs. Ruffles out, I rose with a sigh of relief.

Until I remembered the rich old pus-covered ladies.

“Well,” said one ex-donor. I cringed.

“Well,” said the other, kind of muffled.

The first one drew the tablecloth off her. Her hat was skewed and her brillo hair stuck up in clumps. She said, “That was…interesting.”

The first one slowly smiled. “That was the most fun I've had in years!”

The second one clapped her hands. “Me, too. It makes me feel so alive!”

“Let's go get drunk at the beer tent,” suggested the first, tossing a handful of twenties on the table.

“Wonderful idea,” said the second, tossing on another. “Maybe we can meet some handsome men and get laid.”

I gaped at them as they left. “She didn't say that. Please tell me that little old lady didn't say what I thought she did.”

Julian came up behind me and rubbed my shoulder. “Isn't it nice to know life doesn't stop at fifty?”

“Eighty, and I didn't think
life
stopped. Just…ew.”

“I'm over a thousand,” he said, starting to purr just a little.

“Don't get creepy, Emerson.” We needed to get rid of the pusballs, without the Ladies Aux noticing. An idea struck me. “Hey, Julian. You can move faster than the speed of sound. Can you move faster than the speed of light? Or at least the speed of sight?”

Chapter Twenty-five

Before leaving the Deli Delight, I phoned Elena to ask about the Blood Center. I breathed a sigh of relief when she told me Bo had sent Stark there. Stark could keep an eye on things until either the Ancient One's ringers came to relieve him or we figured out how Ruthie thought he was getting the blood out. Then, because none of us could guess why the Ruthiettes wanted to be opening band, Julian and I decided we might as well finish our rounds. Five of Ruthven's lieutenants were accounted for. But that left a whole lot of Nosferatu's hench mutants to cause trouble.

We got to the beer tent, where we met yet another disaster.

People were weaving around the tent, glasses, bottles, and cans in hand. Already drinking. I gaped in horror. “The festival's not open until four thirty!”

“Apparently they don't know that,” Julian said.

“We've got to stop them!”

A tourist, carrying a tray laden with two pitchers of beer and six glasses, passed. Julian tried to pluck the tray from him. Despite Julian's lightning-fast vampire reflexes, the tourist was faster, jerking away and running. He growled as he escaped, a hunter protecting his kill.

Julian shook his head. “I don't think we're going to be able to stop them by ourselves. We'll need help. Who's the protector assigned to the beer tent?”

“One of the fill-in fangs.” Like the cheese tasting, this was one of the events guarded by a ringer. Sent by the “Ancient One”, whoever that was. Someone in Iowa, which left out George Carlin. Yes, I knew he was dead. That was the whole point to being a vampire, right?

“They won't be here until sunset. Four thirty, at the earliest. Who's the chairperson?”

“Daisy Mae Sattel. But this isn't her work.” My mouth set in a grim line, and I put hands on hips. Knuckles smacked skin; I was wearing superlow skinny jeans with spike heels and spangled sports bra.

“No?”

“No. Donner and Blitz, Meiers Corners's town crunks, have been at it again.”

“I don't believe I've had the pleasure,” Julian said. Not “I've never met them” or “whozat”. Which just shows you can sleep with a man/vampire for literally days and still be surprised by him. Who said a marriage has to be boring?

No, no,
no
. I did
not
just think that.

“Nixie? Why are you hitting yourself on the head?”

“Uh, no reason. Look, we've got to find them. Can you do your supernatural senses thing? Sniff them out?”

“I'm not sure locating those two would be the best solution, if crunk means sloppy drunk. Far from being helpful, wouldn't they cause more trouble?”

“Oh, no. If ever there were such a thing as gentlemen drunks, Donner and Blitz are it. They're
responsible
drunks.” At Julian's frankly skeptical stare, I added, “No, really. I can prove it. The bartender at Nieman's didn't want to serve me beer with the rest of the Common Council after meetings. But they talked him into it.”

“How old were you?”

“Well…fifteen. But I suffered through those meetings, same as the grownups. It was only fair.”

“You don't know everything at fifteen.” Julian shook his head, obviously not agreeing with me that this nominated Donner and Blitz for responsibility. “What do they look like?”

“Like a perfectly matched carriage set. Donner's the horse and Blitz is the carriage. As polite as eighteenth century vicars—and a touch more mellow.”

“Well, I don't see—Nixie, look out!”

I hit defensive stance, expecting fangs and claws. I also expected Julian getting all pushing-me-behind-him overprotective. But to my surprise he just stood there. That stunned me so much that I didn't see the kid until he bear-hugged me, picking me up and twirling me until I almost puked.