Necromancing Nim (20 page)

“The proverbial whammy,” Sebastian put in, fastening the top button of his shirt. “It must be a side effect of the stone and the holy water. Or the bite. Or possibly all three.”

“So what does that mean?” I knew what they were talking about, in theory, but the whole thing had happened too fast, too much coming at me all at once.

“It means I’ll have to work a lot harder to get you into bed,” Colin offered.

His smirk was the last straw. “Oh, good God. Bite me, you asshole.”

I stormed out, into my bedroom, leaving Colin chuckling behind me.

Unfortunately, we weren’t done with surprises for the evening. I had just finished a small, bland dinner and was hoping the inability to eat anything but plain pasta, oatmeal and the occasional scrambled egg wasn’t a permanent side effect of my recent trauma when a key turned in the lock of my front door.

Colin and Sebastian went into immediate alert, heads swiveling toward the door simultaneously. I sighed. Evil vampires wouldn’t bother unlocking the door, and I, as far as I knew, only one person besides me had a key anyway.

“It’s Gwen,” I said tiredly, just as she pushed the door open.

“Oh,” said Colin. “I guess we won’t kill her, then.”

“Wow, you’re an ass,” Gwen said, then turned to me as she closed the door behind her. “Gee. The vampires are still here. I’m so happy.” Her voice was a dead monotone.

“Yeah, I’m pleased about it too.” I leaned back in the comfy upholstery of my favorite chair and resisted the temptation to close my eyes. “So, where did you go this time?”

“Rio de Janeiro.” She took her coat off and hung it in the front closet, then headed for the kitchen, watching Colin and Sebastian out of the corners of her eyes as if afraid they might attack her or flash her or something equally inappropriate.

“How was it?” I asked, more to make conversation than because I cared.

“Too damn hot.” She opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. “How long are they staying?”

“Until we’re done,” said Colin flatly.

Gwen briefly acknowledged his presence. “Done with what?”

“Yeah,” I said, because I wasn’t sure what he meant, either. “Done with what?”

He semi-glared at me, eyes narrowing. “With what we need to get done before we do the next thing.”

I rolled my eyes at him, amused to see Sebastian doing the same thing. “Nice to know we have a plan.”

Colin’s mouth tightened. “We’re not doing anything until we’re sure you’re better. That’s the plan.”

Okay, maybe I was being a little too bitchy. Maybe he actually cared. I felt guilty for a split second; then he went on.

“Otherwise you might gimp out on us and fuck everything up.”

I sighed again. Sebastian regarded Colin narrowly, then shook his head again.

“You’re charming,” I told Colin, then went to join Gwen. “So. Tell me about Rio.”

She swirled her beer can. “No. You first. Were you sick?”

Good God, it was going to be a long night.

Vampires represent a distinct danger in any neighborhood where they have settled. Statistics support this position. We simply do not want vampires in our neighborhoods, endangering our children.
—Transcript, notes from community meeting, Cherry Creek, Colorado, 1975

Chapter Thirteen

Later, I lay on my back in bed with Rufus on my feet, staring up at the ceiling while outside the sun rose. I’d slept during the day for so long that the growing light made me drowsy, as growing darkness would for normal, diurnal folks. But today I was finding it hard to sleep. Gwen had had no such issues. She’d hustled off to bed about two hours after she’d arrived, probably more to get away from the vampires than anything else. Her time-zone independent system usually allowed her to drop off whenever there was an opportunity—or whenever she felt the need to remove herself from undesirable social situations—so she did. I, on the other hand, was still fretting over the almost-got-turned-into-a-vampire-zombie-and-now-I-smell-funny thing.

I didn’t feel any different. I was immune to vampiric persuasion or glamour, and apparently I smelled different, but I felt just like my normal self. Would the changes have seemed less disturbing if I did feel different somehow? Or if I could see something had changed? Would I be less freaked out if my hair had turned purple or I’d grown an extra belly button?

Maybe. Or maybe not. At least if I felt different, maybe I wouldn’t have this lingering fear that whammy-immunity wasn’t the only thing about me that was suddenly different. Maybe I wouldn’t be so afraid that I wasn’t myself anymore.

Finally, I decided to accept that fact that I wasn’t going to be sleeping any time soon and slipped out of bed. Rufus made a huffing sound and shifted so his head was on my pillow. My bed is big enough for two people—it is not big enough for me and Rufus.

Once up, I didn’t know what to do with myself. My default “I don’t know what to do with myself” setting had become making coffee, but since my eventual goal was to get some sleep, that wasn’t a good option at the moment. I wondered what Colin and Sebastian were up to. Maybe they’d let me join them in watching some pointless TV. With that goal in mind, I headed out into the hallway.

There were strange noises coming from the living room. I paused, wondering what the hell might be going on. The sounds resolved into mostly just lowered voices, though, so I continued down the hallway.

My couch faces the hall, so I could see what they were up to a few steps before I actually entered the living room. They had piled pillows on the couch to compensate for the areas where Pieter and his dipshit minions had eviscerated the cushions, and were arranged on top of them, draped in blankets. And also draped in each other. Right now they were just talking, but I got the distinct impression they’d been making out only a few minutes before. They certainly seemed cozy right now. I thought about Colin kissing me in the kitchen and felt very weird. But Sebastian had said vamps were flexible. I guess I needed to get over my own less elastic approach.

Sebastian glanced in my direction as I took another step into the room. I felt suddenly tiny and embarrassed, like a little girl tiptoeing into Mommy and Daddy’s room after a nightmare when she’s been told repeatedly she’s too old for that.

“Everything okay?” Sebastian asked. Colin just watched me. I wondered if he was feeling like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Or on Sebastian’s nutbag. Same difference.

“I…” I started to say
yeah, everything’s fine, please return to your naked funtimes
, but instead I heard myself say, “I’m not sure. I don’t… I don’t know.”

Sebastian sat up straighter, making Colin shift his position as well. Sebastian held out a hand. “Come here.”

“I… I don’t want to…” My face went hot. Seriously, I could have fried an egg on my forehead. “You know. Interrupt.” I made a vague gesture that in no way conveyed sexual shenanigans.

“You could always join us,” Colin put in, and Sebastian smacked him.

“Quit being an asshole,” he snapped.

For some reason, the exchange broke the tension. I took a few more steps toward the couch. “It’s okay. I know it’s his default setting.”

Colin looked aggrieved but didn’t argue. He and Sebastian both shifted so I could slide in between them on the couch. It wasn’t until we were all sitting in a snuggly row, blankets pulled up to our chins like teenage girls at a slumber party, that I registered they were both naked.

Good grief.

I tensed up again. They didn’t seem concerned, awkward as the situation was for me. Finally I said, “You guys are not warm. Seriously, this is like cuddling with two really not-warm things.” Whoops. I probably shouldn’t have used the word “cuddling”.

Colin moved a little closer, laying the chill line of his thigh along mine. “We’ll warm up if you stay here long enough.”

I shifted away, but that just put me closer to Sebastian. Who was also not warm. “Right. Like I’m going to let you leach off all my body heat. I don’t think so.” I curled a little closer into my blankets, trying to protect said body heat. It was a losing proposition.

Sebastian slipped an arm around me. I flinched, more surprised than anything, but relaxed into it when he started fiddling with my hair. “What’s wrong?”

“I’m just thinking too much.”

“What about?”

I glanced at Colin on the other side of me. He was letting Sebastian run the conversation, but he seemed concerned. I hunched my shoulders. I didn’t know how to explain. And I really wanted both of them to hold me, lack of body heat notwithstanding.

“I’m…different. The glamour thing and…well, Colin says I smell weird.” Wow, that sounded pathetic.

“I said you smelled different. Not weird.”

“Whatever.” I swallowed and stared straight ahead. Our cozy tableau was reflected in the surface of the flatscreen TV, hung on the wall where once upon a time there’d been a fireplace. Somebody who’d owned the house before I had had removed it and filled the space with a plain wall. Tonight, sandwiched between not-warm vampires, I felt nostalgia for the fireplace, even though I’d never met it.

“I just…” I went on, struggling for words. “What else might be different?”

“There’s no way to know yet.” Colin’s matter-of-fact demeanor was comforting in its way. At least I knew he wasn’t hedging or trying to hide things from me.

“It’s quite likely that what happened to you has never happened before,” Sebastian elaborated. “To anyone. So there’s no way to know what other issues might develop or if any will develop at all.”

“Great,” I muttered. “So I’m a guinea pig.”

“Sort of,” Sebastian conceded. His fingers felt good playing in my hair. I wondered if Colin might be jealous. Cutting a glance in his direction, though, I could only see dour contemplation.

“When I was turned…” Colin said after a moment, and I shifted toward him, surprised. Colin never told stories about himself. As far as I knew, he’d sprouted in all his vampire glory out of a giant vampire egg. “When I was turned, there wasn’t anyone around to help me. The vampire who changed me did it as an act of revenge. Against my father.” He added the last almost as if he’d been asked to clarify, though neither Sebastian nor I had said anything. I, for one, was half holding my breath, afraid he might clam up if I moved the wrong way. Next to me, Sebastian had tensed just enough that I could sense it. I got the distinct feeling he’d never heard this story before either.

“I didn’t know what had happened. Didn’t understand what had changed in my body or how to even take care of myself. I had to pick it up a bit at a time. I nearly went mad, was almost killed by the family priest. Almost killed myself out of fear and despair and…” He broke off. I was staring at him, wide-eyed. The way he’d just exposed himself made me even more uncomfortable than the stretch of his bare skin against the cotton of my pajamas. “I found someone, finally. Or she found me. My point is, you have someone. Two someones. We don’t know what else might change, but we will help you, whatever it is. All right?”

I swallowed. I felt so much more at home with Colin when he was being a dick. This just felt…not so much wrong in a wrong-like way, as if it were bad, but wrong like I’d woken up one day and the sky was mauve. Not unpleasant but totally different in a way that changed how I interpreted the whole world.

“Thank you,” I said finally, the words sounding tiny and hollow. I curled into myself, trying to make myself physically as small as I felt.

“Would you like us to stay with you tonight?” Sebastian’s voice caught me off guard; he hadn’t spoken since Colin had begun his story. I turned, almost reluctant to detach my gaze from Colin’s.

“You mean…with me? Like in my room?”

“Only if you want.”

“Both of you?”

Sebastian’s small smile reminded me of the careful tolerance of an adult dealing with a particularly dimwitted dog. Like, say, Rufus. “Only if you want.”

Colin let out a snort, half amused, half disgusted. “He’s not proposing an orgy, for God’s sake. Just company. You know, so you don’t lay there staring at the ceiling and freaking out.”

“I do not freak out,” I protested, although I’d totally been freaking out. Colin poked me. With a finger, fortunately.

“Come on,” he said. “We’ll tuck you in.”

“Okay,” I conceded, then remembered something as I started to rise from the couch. “Maybe some pants?” Otherwise the whole orgy thing might actually develop, and I wasn’t quite ready for that. Just feeling like I could consider it was difficult enough for me right now.

Colin chuckled. “If you insist.”

They tucked me into bed and crawled in after me, one on either side, both wearing pants. Daylight was creeping in, and they lay curled up, both facing me, Colin with his hands folded under his face, Sebastian with one arm draped across my stomach. It was strange, awkward and weirdly comforting. I felt safe for the first time since I’d been bitten.

I did lie there staring at the ceiling, but I wasn’t freaking out. Not too badly, anyway. These men had taken care of me so far—I had no reason to believe they wouldn’t continue to watch out for me, no matter what kind of changes occurred. It was the kind of comfort that made me feel like I could let go. I’d never felt like that before. In previous relationships, brief as they’d been, I’d never felt like anybody had my back. Which was why they’d been brief.