Lust for Life (8 page)

“Here they are.” Deirdre finds what she’s looking for: a pack of cigarettes and a
lighter. “So—hey!”

She protests as Shane’s hand zips out, faster than a snake, tearing the lighter away
from her.

“You’re too young to use fire,” he says.

“Jim used to let me light my own.” When Shane holds out his hand, she reluctantly
gives him the cigarette. He lights it for her and hands it back, grimacing at the
taste.

Smoking itself isn’t dangerous for vampires of any age: we can’t get cancer or other
diseases. But the act of lighting up, combined with carelessness or a stray breeze,
can instantly turn us youngsters into a pile of nothing. We should all wear T-shirts
that say
WARNING: FLAMMABLE
.

“When did Jim turn you?” Shane asks.

She blows out the smoke and rubs her nose. “Last December. Just in time for Christmas,
the prick.”

I try to point out the bright side. “At least it was a dark time of year. Not much
daylight in—”

“I lost my kid!” Deirdre flails her hand at the stairs behind her. “I had to give
him to my ex-husband. That asshole has full custody now, and my poor baby thinks I
don’t . . . that I don’t love him.” She starts to cry. “When
I do see my son, I can barely hug him for two seconds, and then I have to push him
away so I don’t bite. He smells so good,” she finishes in a whisper.

Shane lowers his head. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how hard that is.”

“No, you can’t.” She gulps a couple of breaths to stop crying. “What good is living
forever when you lose everything worth living for?”

The microwave beeps. Quietly I fetch the last clean wineglass and pour Deirdre a drink
of blood. My foot brushes a stuffed blue dog her kid must have left behind.

“Come on.” He puts a gentle hand on the back of her shoulder. “Let’s sit and talk.”

Deirdre leans into him as we walk downstairs into the living room. A large window
looms over us. No way would its torn shade block all the sunlight.

“That’s where I sleep.” She points her cigarette at the storage room under the stairs.
“Only safe place in the house.”

I peek inside. Despite the utility-type remnants, like a toolbox and vinyl shelves,
it looks like a decent fallout shelter bedroom. A thick towel hangs over the knob—probably
to stuff into the crack beneath the door to block every photon of sunlight.

“It was an accident.” Deirdre sinks onto the couch and taps her cigarette into the
ashtray. “I don’t know if that makes it worse or better.”

“Jim drank you too deep?” Shane sits beside her, but not close enough to touch.

“Jim always drank me too deep. He wasn’t careful like you.” She shrugs. “At first
I loved that about him.
I always had a thing for bad boys. Like my ex.” Deirdre gives Shane a look of longing.
“You were the exception to my rule. My one white knight.”

I clear my throat. “Did Jim take care of you after he made you a vampire?”

“For a few weeks he was great, then he got bored, I guess. I almost starved to death
a couple times.”

The longest I’ve been without blood was twelve hours, and it was hell. The physical
symptoms—thirst, weakness, bone-creaking chills—aren’t even the worst. It’s the way
our minds change. Suddenly it seems okay to kill.

And all that soul-shriveling misery can be swept away with one slurp of a blood-filled
sippy cup.

“I’m so sorry,” Shane tells Deirdre again. “If I hadn’t—” He cuts himself off before
he can say what we’re all thinking: if he hadn’t traded Deirdre to Jim, she’d still
be alive.

It was her choice to stay with Jim, of course. But vampires are as addictive as any
drug, and no one as abusive as Jim would ever be easy to leave, even if one wanted
to.

To my relief, Deirdre shakes her head. “It’s not your fault, Shane. You trading me
to Jim was the right thing for all of us—at the time, at least. You had no idea he’d
go crazy.” She takes a long gulp of blood, closing her eyes with relief, then a drag
on her cigarette. “Where’s he been, anyway?”

“In Control custody.”

“Oh my God!” She coughs on her smoke. “Why?”

“ ‘Why’?”
My voice twists. “Because he was a psychopath. He should’ve been locked up a lot
sooner.”

Shane’s tone stays gentle. “He attacked Ciara, among other things.”

“He almost killed my sixteen-year-old cousin,” I tell her. “And he tore my throat
to shreds.”

Deirdre hunches in on herself, crossing her arms and closing her legs. “I’m not surprised.
Nothing was ever totally against my will, but sometimes it came really close to the
line.”

I nod. Jeremy told me back in April that Jim had come up with some new donor game
that made him really uncomfortable.
He’s developing a taste for fear,
he said.

“So now what?” Deirdre makes a weak attempt at a grand two-handed gesture. “What’s
to become of my glamorous immortal life?”

“You’re one of us.” I hear the words after they’ve left my mouth.

Shane looks surprised.

“She is,” I tell him, “as much as I am. Jim made her, and he was one of us, just like
Monroe.” I turn back to Deirdre. “We’ll make sure you get enough to drink. Did Jim
teach you how to bite?”

Her gaze thunks to the floor. “Not safely.”

Oh God. She’s hurt a human. No wonder she’s hiding out here.

“I can’t train you, Deirdre,” Shane says. “It would be, you know—”

“Too sexy?” she says with a sneer. “Jim says there are no rules and no barriers when
it comes to vampires. Everyone does everyone and everything.”

“Remember when we said Jim is a psychopath?” I snapped.

“Ciara and I are engaged.” Shane points to my left hand. “So I won’t be doing anything
without her.”

“I don’t mind if she comes along, remember?” She reaches for Shane. “You can teach
both of us together.”

He stands up, out of arm’s length. “No.”

That seductive longing in her eyes is ten times as strong as it was when she was a
human. I can see it now as clearly as if it were yesterday: Deirdre spread-eagled
on her bed, begging Shane to fuck her, withholding the blood he needed until he agreed
(which he wouldn’t). We weren’t even dating then, but it was awkward with me sitting
across the room. Really awkward.

“I don’t know the other vampire DJs.” Deirdre seems to shrink into herself again.
“Jim never introduced us. Maybe he was ashamed of me.”

“I’m sure it was nothing personal,” I tell her. “You were the twenty-fourth vampire
he made. If he brought all of his offspring to every party, it’d be really crowded.”

She stares at me. “Twenty-four?”

“He was going to turn my cousin. He said she would’ve been his twenty-fifth.”

“He was going to turn a child into a vampire? Who does he think he is, Lestat?”

“He was doing it to coerce me, but yeah, he probably would’ve changed her, no matter
what I did.” Deirdre’s anger encourages me. Maybe it’ll be a rope to help her climb
out of her sorrow.

“So the Control busted in and saved the day?” she asks.

“Monroe staked him with a handful of pencils.”

“Staked? But you said he was in custody.” Deirdre puts a hand to her own chest. “Besides,
Jim told me I’d
be in agony if he died.” Her face turns stormy. “Or did he just say that to keep me
from killing him?”

“He’s not dead.” Shane rubs his forehead with the side of his hand. “The Control agents
got there before we could pull out the stake—pencils, whatever. They took him.”

Her jaw drops. “They wouldn’t put him out of his misery?”

“They said they could give him something for the pain,” I tell her.

“That’s crazy.” She turns to Shane. “Were you there when this happened? Why didn’t
you pull out the stakes?”

“I was ordered not to.”

“Since when do you take orders from anyone?”

“Since we joined the Control. It wasn’t voluntary.” Shane lifts his gaze to mine.
“But I’m not sorry.”

“I
thought
you looked different.” Deirdre stands and faces him straight on, examining him from
head to toe. “More confident, less . . . slackerish.”

Shane’s eyebrows twitch, like she’s insulted him but he doesn’t want to show it. “It’s
temporary.”

“It better be.” She sighs and turns to the dark fireplace. “I’d like to keep living
here, if it’s okay.”

“Good,” he says, “because there’s no room at the station, and you’re not living at
our apartment.”

“I get that.” She heads for the stairs—to show us out, I guess. “You and I have a
past. It’d be awkward.” Deirdre emphasizes the last word of each sentence as if to
mock them.

Shane rolls his eyes at me, then follows her. “I’ll talk to the other vampires about
taking you on as an apprentice.”

I head up after them. “Noah’d be a good match, don’t you think, Shane?”

“Ooh, Noah!” Her step takes on a bounce. “I saw him at a show once. He’s cute.”

Noah’s Rasta pacifism is just what Deirdre needs to balance her own wild tendencies.
She was reckless to begin with, and with Jim’s blood in her now, she could be a powder
keg without the steadying influence of a straight-edged mentor like Noah.

In the kitchen, Deirdre tries to hug Shane. He accepts it, but with stiff arms.

I point to the fridge. “There’s a day’s worth of blood in there, so drink half of
each container every three hours.” I turn the knob on the front door and swing it
open. “We’ll bring more tomorrow and—”

Everything freezes.

Standing on the porch, mouth agape, fist raised to knock on the door, is Jim.

8

Paint It Black

Our eyes meet, and for one tick of the wall clock, I know that I am dead. Dead for
good.

Something blurs between us. I leap back. Jim surges forward. As he rushes past me,
I see his eyes go wide with—could it be fear? Not predatory fervor or a victorious
gloat?

Shane smashes him against the wall next to the coatrack. Jim’s hands bounce against
the coats, then rise, reaching for Shane’s throat.

A second blur and he stops. A third blur and he sinks to the floor as Shane steps
back, right hand up in a defensive posture and left hand—

Oh.

In Shane’s left hand, a wooden stake drips blood.

“No . . . time,” Jim gasps, rolling over on his back, grasping for anything. A white
faux fur coat falls across his lap. Within a few seconds, it’s soaked in a flood of
scarlet.

Deirdre pulls in a squeaky breath, then another, making pre-scream noises. I shove
the front door shut a second
before she looses a caterwaul of grief and horror. The sound crawls up my spine and
wants to burst out the top of my head.

Jim writhes under his fountain of blood, mouth opening and closing. He reaches toward
me, pleading, just as he did the night Monroe staked him to save my life. I shake
off my shock and prepare for another attack. If Shane’s blow missed, Jim will heal
and be on us in a flash.

Shane stands over him, ready to strike again. His face is the cold stone of a professional
assassin. Except this was no hit job. This was a split-second, kill-or-be-killed-along-with-your-fiancée
situation.

Jim’s body goes limp.

“No!” Deirdre lurches forward, hands outstretched. Shane stops her.

“It’s not safe,” he says. “Get behind me. Both of you.”

But when he lets go of her, she drops to her knees next to Jim.

“Let her say good-bye,” I tell Shane.

“But if he’s not—”

“It’s her choice.”

Deirdre keens and wails against Jim’s chest, one hand in his dark-brown curls. His
white linen shirt, drenched in blood, rides up to expose his pale belly. I look down
to see red drops splashed on my jeans, the kitchen wall, and the stuffed blue dog
in the corner.

As long as Jim’s bleeding, he’s still “alive.” The moment he starts to die—
if
he starts to die—it’ll run backward into the wound, along with the rest of him.

I don’t know what to do or what to feel. It’s like I’m in a movie, and the director
just shouted “Action!” but I
don’t know my lines. I don’t even know which character I’m playing. I wish someone
would yell “Cut!”

“What do I do?” I ask Shane.

“Just wait.” His voice drops to a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

I’m not sure who he’s talking to: me, Deirdre, or Jim. Or all three of us.

The bleeding just stopped. I think.

I hold my breath.

For a long moment, the blood on Jim’s chest and the floor beneath him becomes a still
pond.

Then the pool begins to shrink. My breath sucks back into my lungs, mimicking the
action of the blood. It’s begun.

Shane slowly gets to his knees, crosses himself, and closes his eyes.

“What’s happening?” Deirdre whispers.

She’s never seen a vampire die. Did it have to be her own maker? “Deirdre, come with
me.” I look at Shane. “I’ll take care of her.”

He nods, never taking his eyes from Jim. Once, years ago, they were friends.

Jim’s flesh begins to crawl, sliding toward the hole in his chest.

“NOOOOOO!” Deirdre’s scream of horror is cut off when her own breath stops. She falls
back, flailing. I catch her before her head can hit the wall.

With some difficulty, I pick her up, carry her into the dining room, and lay her gently
on the floor, away from breakable objects.

The moment I put her down, she starts writhing, clawing the air and the carpet beneath
her. With one hand I clutch her wrist, and with the other I pull out my
phone and call Jeremy. To survive this, she needs fresh blood.

When he answers, I say in a preternaturally calm voice, “We need you to save a vampire.”

“What? Who? I’m on the air.”

I look at the clock. It’s almost 5:30 already. Morning twilight is in forty-five minutes.
I have no desire to spend the day in the house where Shane killed Jim. “We’ll bring
her to you.”

“‘Her’?” His voice pitches up in panic. “Is Regina—”

“Not Regina. Just get ready.” I hang up. “We have to take her to the station so Jeremy
can save her.” Shane responds with only a nod.