Biting Nixie (39 page)

And I would go back to being my own punk and lonely Nixie.

The pain of that made me suddenly want to do something, anything, to make him stay. To be
my
Julian. To be
his
Nixie, maybe forever.

Oh, fuck. I
was
in love with the jerk.

“Nixie?” Elena's voice, from the front door. “Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I told her wearily, turning away from the beguiling, silky warmth of Julian's skin. “As is the Blood Center.”

Hitching her SMAW on her shoulder, Elena came through the door. Behind her hovered her husband Bo, fanged and ready. “What's going on?” he asked. “I only got part of the story.”

Julian released me. “Ruthven's lieutenants were going to highjack the shipment of blood through a tunnel. They must have been here for some time, digging from the Roller-Blayd warehouse into the Blood Center.”

I said, “But the festival put a crimp in their plans. Especially having all those people listening to bands in the Roller-Blayd factory.”

“That's why they wanted to play first,” Julian said. “To drive everyone from the warehouse.”

“So no one would see them bringing up the blood,” Elena said.

“Exactly. When we foiled that, they tried to blow up the evidence. Nixie saved the day.”

“Nixie?” Elena looked startled.

“My Nixie.” Julian pulled me tight.

“
Your
Nixie?”

“His Nixie,” Logan said helpfully.

“Well,” said Bo to no one in particular. “That explains the state of the limo.”

I blushed. “Okay, okay!” I pulled away from Julian's possessive arms. “But we've got a festival to protect, people! Let's get organized. Ruthie's minions are taken care of, but they're not the only Lestats in Meiers Corners! And Ruthie's not the only member of the Coterie interested in us. Because while we've been dealing with the Ruthiettes—”

Behind me, Julian sucked in his breath. I have to say, the boy is quick on the uptake. “Nosferatu.”

“Exactly. So let's get going, guys and gals. Logan—you keep the ringers here to guard the blood. Elena, Bo, Julian…let's hope it's not as bad as I think it'll be.”

While we were dealing with the Ruthiettes, Nosy's Lestats had free run. I bolted out of the Blood Center, afraid of the havoc they might already have wreaked.

“Oh, shit, there's a couple vampires.” Bo pointed to the Deli Delight. “Four more.” In front of the Fudgy Delight.

We ran down Fifth. “Three over there.” Julian indicated Nieman's Bar. “And I smell at least half a dozen in the beer tent.”

Nosy's lieutenants were everywhere. Like cockroaches. Spread out all over the four blocks of the festival.

How would we stop them? Especially, how could we stop them without scaring away the tourists?

Rounding a corner, we saw Cutter and his three leathercoats—headed directly for us.

Well. Stop these four, first. Worry about scaring tourists later.

Bo and Julian tensed, eyes going fighting violet. Elena unhooked her SMAW. She looked discreetly around her, realized she couldn't blow up Lestats without torching a couple handfuls of tourists. Put the SMAW back with a grimace.

Cutter and his gang were fangy and snarling. Red-eyed and clawed.

But people passed them fearlessly. Some of the tourists even waved and called out good-natured ribald comments. Huh. Maybe they thought fangs and claws were festival costumes.

As the Lestats got closer, though, I realized something odd.

That wasn't snarling.

They were
singing
. Poorly and off-key, but singing nonetheless. They sounded amazingly like the drunken teenage geeks.

And as the Nosy Quartet reeled up, a smell of beer and brats washed over me. “Hello, pretty lady,” Cutter called to me. “Hello, pretty lady with the bazooka,” he said to Elena, a goofy smile on his face. He actually sloshed over to Julian and tried to embrace him. “Julian! My very good bestest friend in the world!”

“You're smashed,” Julian said, holding Cutter firmly away.

Cutter's eyes widened. “I am?”

“He can't be,” another Lestat said. He was young and fresh-faced, sort of like I thought Bart was before I found out Bart was a puke. “He didn't have any beer. Or liquor or Red Specials or antying…anthying…
any
thing.”

“What have you all been doing?” Elena asked suspiciously.

“I don't remember.” Cutter blinked. The other Lestats echoed him.

“Do you remember anything?” Bo asked the fresh-faced Lestat.

“Nothing much,” the vampire said. “We were supposed to cause trouble. So we bit a few people.” When Bo growled, the young vampire added, “Not much! Not to hurt them or anything. Just to scare them a little.”

“Oh, no,” I said, a giggle bubbling up.

“This is hardly a laughing matter, Nixie,” Bo said.

“No, of course it isn't.” I was trying to control myself and failing utterly. “So you bit a few people?” I asked the Lestat.

“Just a little,” he admitted, eying Bo warily.

“Which people?”

“Well…” He waved his hand vaguely around him. “People. Tourists,” he added, as if he'd just thought of the word and was proud of himself.

“Tourists. On the streets?”

All four vampires nodded.

I pursed my lips. “Hmm. Tourists…at the festival events?” They nodded harder. “At Nieman's bar?” They nodded like spring-loaded goony birds. “In the beer tent?” They nodded so hard Bludgeon threw up.

Both Elena and Julian were laughing by this time. Even Bo was starting to smile a little. “Tourists with a blood alcohol level well into intoxication,” I said. “Do you suppose a vampire could get crunk on alcohol-laced blood?”

Julian and Elena were laughing too hard to answer. Bo said, “We learn something new every day. In fact—”

He was interrupted by a loud bray. “Mr. and Mrs. Strongwell! Mr. and Mrs. Emerson! Nixie, nice to see you and your little hubby!”

Julian took one look at Lew Kaufman, bearing down on us, and turned heel to run. He was stopped by Bo's and Elena's wide-open mouths. “Mr. and Mrs.
Emerson
?” Bo gasped, starting to laugh. “Oh, now that is rich.”

I blushed. Elena clapped an arm around my shoulders. “Congratulations, Nixie! You got yourself a keeper.” At that I flushed hot. I couldn't look at Julian.

“Mr. Kaufman!” one of the Lestats called, distracting me from my embarrassment. “Mr. Kaufman, remember us?”

“'Course I do, m'boy!” Lew said. “I always remember a customer!”

“Customer?” I echoed, more to turn the subject from me and my little “hubby” than anything.

“I was at the Deli Delight and couldn't believe it,” Lew said. “Someone packed all those perfectly good cheese balls away in back!”

“Cheese balls?” I asked faintly. “Which cheese balls?”

“The LLA's, of course! Well, we couldn't have that, could we?”

“We couldn't…? Oh no. Lew, what did you do?”

“I sold them!” Lew chortled gleefully.

“Sold…them?” I asked in horror.

“Sure. Well, the head cheese and blood sausage ones.” He shook hands with all four Lestats. Gestured toward the other vampires reeling around. “My new best cheese ball customers.”

I looked around me with fresh eyes. Sure enough, several people were bent over like they were sick. Only now I knew they weren't people.

They were vamps with tummy aches.

“Here's the money, Nixie.” He handed me an envelope. “Well, got to run. Got to make sure the regular cheese ball shipment is good for tomorrow.”

 

 

 

Monday morning we sat in Bo's kitchen, Elena and me, Julian and Bo. Counting money. “Four hundred ninety thousand, four hundred ninety-one thousand.”

“Here's another three thousand,” Elena said, pushing a stack of money over.

“And the bank just called. We got a thousand in change.”

“Four hundred ninety-five thousand.” Bo stared at the money. “That's not enough.”

“Damn.” I'd failed. Tears gathered in my eyes. I had worked so hard. But I had failed.

“It's okay, Nixie.” Julian put an arm around me.

“No it's not!” I wiped my eyes. “Fuck. I didn't want to run this. Why did the mayor put me in charge? I know about organizing, not fundraising and shit. Did he
want
us to bomb?”

“We're not beaten yet.” Elena squeezed my hand. “We'll get the other five thousand somehow.”

“How?” I said bitterly. “Raise taxes? Ask for a donation from Chicago? Put on a relief telethon for Needy Attorneys?”

“Nixie.” Julian rubbed gently between my shoulder blades. “We'll figure out something.” The soothing hand moved down. Rubbed my spine, the small of my back. Tickled my hair further down. Slid into my low-cut jeans…stopped suddenly.

“What's this?” Julian pulled out an envelope, held it in front of my face.

I took it from his fingers. “Oh, just the money from Lew. For selling those god-awful cheese balls.” I tossed it onto the pile, unopened.

“But how much is it?” Elena asked.

“Come on, Elena. We're talking LLAMA pusballs. We'll be lucky if it's not a class-action lawsuit.”

“You should at least open it,” Julian said.

“Forget it. You open it. I'm done with this being-responsible shit.”

“Pouting doesn't become you, little girl,” Julian said softly.

“Who cares?” I groused back.

“Aren't you even curious?” Bo asked. “I know I am.”

“Then you open it.”

“I think I will.” Extending claws, Bo slit the envelope. Pulled out a sheaf of bills.

Two Ben Franklins were on the outside. I snorted. “A Kansas City bankroll.” Lew was a salesman to the end.

Bo fanned it open. “No. Looks like turtles all the way down.”

“What?” Sure enough, even from across the table I could see every bill in the pack was a Franklin. “Fuck. How many?” My heart beat faster.

“Well, let's see, shall we? One hundred.” Bo laid down a bill. “Two.” Another. He made ever so sure the edges of the two bills were square.

“Stop that.” Elena smacked her husband in the shoulder. “Just count the damn things.”

Bo looked across at Julian. “No sense of drama.”

“It's the shorter life span. Always in a hurry.”

“Ah.”

“I'll give you drama,” Elena said, eyes narrowing.

“How's that?” Bo peeled off another $100, set it carefully on top of the other two.

“No sex,” Elena said distinctly.

“Well, that's different, isn't it?” Bo began to count quickly.

Fifty Franklins later, I was ready to kiss Lew Kaufman. “We did it,” I said, hardly believing it. “We made five hundred thousand dollars!”

“Ironic, isn't it?” Bo slipped the stack of hundreds back into their envelope. “That the funds that put us over the top were contributed by Nosferatu's own gang?”

“I'd say justice,” Julian said.

And so Meiers Corners had a happy ending.

But not me. I tried to be grateful. Truly I did. Meiers Corners was safe from the bad guys. The public had won. And Guns and Polkas would get their shot at stardom.

But at an astronomical personal cost. My baby was gone.

Oscar had died nobly, saving my life. But I was a little lost without him. It felt like part of myself was missing. I'd bought Oscar with the first money I ever earned. He was with me most of my life. I loved him more than many people.

I missed Oscar, terribly.

I had a feeling I'd miss my snarky lawboy more.

Chapter Thirty-one

I hoofed out from Bo and Elena's alone. No need for Julian to chaperone me. Vampy guys were all dug into snug graves nursing their hangovers. Or wherever v-guys slept when out of town. Was there a vampire motel chain? The Vampada Inn? The No-Tell Motel? Swan-necked Sylvia's Bed-and-Breakfast?

Even without the threat of gang guys, Bo pressed me to use the limo. I nearly took him up on it, thinking I'd get farewell sex.

But Julian said he had to pack.

I hung around a bit before going. I thought maybe Julian would try to get me to visit Boston again. Even invite me to leave with him tonight. But Julian had phone calls to make.

And he had to pack.

So I left Julian to his packing. I wondered if he would even come say goodbye after sunset. Or if he was eager to just get the hell out of Dodge.

Maybe I should suck it up and visit him on my own. He'd asked once, after all. Visit him in his blue-blood, country-club Boston environs, where I'd see the Stuffius Lawyeranous in its natural habitat. Where both of us would see how painfully I did not fit in. I could go home and we could both move on.

I wiped my strangely wet cheeks. Hell. Maybe I could go to Boston but just hide out in Julian's bedroom. After all, we fit there well enough. And on the sidewalk. And in limousines…double hell. How would I get along without him? And why hadn't he at least tried one more time to get me to come?

As I passed each of the festival's venues the sense of loss deepened. There was Nieman's Bar, where Logan Steel had tromped everyone at sheepshead. Good Shepherd Church, where Thor and Gretchen “just said no” to a couple vampires and made it stick. The Fudgy Delight where Rocky Hrbek won the beauty contest and Elena got the crown. The Roller-Blayd factory where the music—

Where the music was still going.

I couldn't quite hear details. Curious, I tried the door.

A saxophone was playing “Take Five”.

“Dirk?” I ran in. “Dirk, it's Nixie! Oh, Dirk! You can stop now.”

On stage, Dirk Ruffles took his sax from a mouth so swollen it looked like a collagen implant gone wrong. He was wringing wet, sweat and spit both. He tottered to the edge of the stage where he didn't so much sit as collapse.