Paranormal Bromance (5 page)

Relationships had been built on lesser things.

I didn’t even know why I was thinking about it. Things would never work out. I was a
vampire
. I didn’t want to hurt her.

The next night, I was back on the sofa. Ginny wasn’t able to log on tonight, so no tag teaming. I’d spend the night playtesting a bunch of pre-release games I’d been sent. Actual work. Vampires shouldn’t have to work.

The cardboard boxes around the place were arranged in a different pattern again, in their endless migration around the apartment. Boxes of toys, Lego playsets from the early nineties, Cabbage Patch knock-off dolls—super creepy. I hoped they didn’t stick around for long.

Jack came out of his room. “Guess who called?” he said, holding up his phone.

“Clarissa Carter,” I said, because he wouldn’t have announced it if it had been anyone else.

“Yeah. She asked more questions. And she wants another meeting. She asked if I could maybe get her a meeting with Rick.”

I hit pause on the game—it was boring anyway—and looked at him. “She just came out and asked for a meeting with him?”

“She wanted to know if I could set it up.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I said maybe. I asked why.”

“And?”

“She just said she wants as much information as she can get.”

Well, how could you argue with that?

Aaron wandered out of his room. We didn’t have to be talking loudly for him to overhear. Vampire superhearing. “I don’t trust her.”

I pulled over my laptop, because maybe we missed something on that first search. This time, I Googled “Clarissa Carter” and “vampires” instead of just the name. Aaron and Jack came to watch over my shoulders.

“There, there,” Aaron said, jabbing his finger at the screen. “Look at that.”

“What? I don’t see it.”

“Mercedes Cook. Carter’s done six interviews with Cook in the last two years. Mercedes Cook is a vampire.”

“All that does is establish Carter as a reporter who’s interested in vampires, and we already knew that.”

“You don’t remember, do you?” Aaron said, clearly disappointed. “When Arturo bit it and Rick took over? It was when Mercedes Cook was in town. Cook was behind that. She started the war between Arturo and Rick because she thought Arturo would win and wanted to get rid of Rick. Weren’t you guys paying any attention?”

I thought I had been, and frankly I was surprised that Aaron had apparently been paying more attention. After all, this wasn’t eBay.

“This is why we don’t hang out with the Family, so we don’t have to pay attention,” Jack said.

“Well, there was something big going on, bigger than just whether or not Arturo or Rick was in charge. And now this Carter woman who has a connection to Cook is interested in Rick?” He shook his head.

So she was targeting Rick by going after the three junior vampires in the Family? How did that work?

“Maybe it’s time to call Rick with this?” I said.

Jack pursed his lips. He had a plan. He was going to go superhero. “Let me meet with her again. See if I can get any solid information out of her.”

We gave him unconvinced looks. “You sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.

“It’ll be great.” He seemed excited about it, the poor bastard. The vampire hero. He grabbed his coat, shoved his phone in his pocket.

“Call if you need help,” I said after him, right before the door closed.

Aaron and I looked at each other. His expression was sour.

“It’s time to call Rick,” I said, and Aaron nodded.

I called, and he answered right away, which I hadn’t expected. Like he’d have more important things to do than to talk to one of his lowly minions who wasn’t even really a minion. Thumping music and a rush of voices and laughter filled the background, which meant he was probably at Psalm 23. I supposed I could have gone to talk to him in person. I
was
getting hungry again. Aaron and I would probably just order another pizza.

“Hi, Rick?” I answered his greeting. “This is Sam. I’m sorry to bother you…”

“No bother, Sam. How are you? How are the others doing?” Rick didn’t sound like an ancient vampire. He sounded like that benevolent boss at your first job, wry and sympathetic but not about to suffer fools. I’d heard stories of less fair Masters. Demanding, condescending, abusive. My life as a vampire maybe wasn’t perfect, but it could have been a whole lot worse. Having someone like Rick I could call when I needed help? It made a difference.

“We’re fine, we’re all okay. But something kind of weird has come up.”

I told him about Carter, how she approached Jack, the kind of information she was grilling us on, and her connection to Mercedes Cook.

“I don’t know much about Cook, but Aaron seems to think she’s bad news and you’d want to know,” I finished.

“Yes,” he said thoughtfully. “Definitely. Thanks for calling. Do let me know if you learn anything else.”

“Yeah, I will.”

“Any other problems?” he asked. Like some kind of camp counselor, like he knew there was something I wasn’t mentioning. I liked Rick, but I was more than a little in awe of him.

“Actually…” I didn’t even know how to start this. “There’s this girl…” I winced, because that sounded ridiculous. “I’ve met someone,” which didn’t sound much better, but I had to start somewhere. “I really like her, and if I were still mortal I’d know exactly what to do. But now, being what I am, it all seems pointless. I’m not going to be able to give her what she wants. We can’t… there’s no way we can be normal. It’s all just… wrong. But I like her.” Now I just sounded like I was whining.

“Does she know what you are?” Very calm, not at all judgmental.

“Yes. But I don’t think she understands what all it means.”

“Ah yes. That’s always this issue. You’ll have to tell her, then let her decide. And if she walks away you have to let her go.”

What he said made sense. I’d known it myself. This just put it out there. “Yeah, I know.”

“That’s the trouble with what we are,” he said gently. Sympathetically, like he’d been through all this before. Probably dozens of times, and I couldn’t even imagine that. I’d only been a vampire for fifteen years. I might as well still be twenty-five. “We can take what we want. You can make her want what you want. Some vampires would tell you it’s your right to use your abilities for that. But… I for one believe we can do better than that. I’m sure you’ll do the right thing.”

That was Rick. He wouldn’t tell you what to do, but he’d subtly give you this moral imperative not to disappoint him.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll work it out. Thank you.”

“Have a good night, Sam.”

And that was that.

Aaron was standing outside the door of his bedroom, arms crossed. “I like Rick,” he said. “I don’t want anything to happen to him.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“He’s right about the girl, you should just walk away.”

I glared at him. “And what the hell do you know about it?”

He shrugged, unconcerned. “You feel like ordering pizza?”

Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.

The boost of energy from the pizza delivery made me more jumpy, not less. Time to shoot up some virtual bad guys. When I logged on, I was surprised to find Ginny’s icon lit up.

“Hey, I thought you were going to be out all night,” I said on the headset.

She sounded amused. “The bridal shower got to be more than I could stand. They were about to start making wedding veils out of toilet paper when I left. I thought you might be logged in, and I was right.”

“What are we playing tonight?”

“How about something completely different. What have you got?”

“
Borderlands
?”

“Let’s do it.”

I felt better in seconds. Shooting bad guys with a good player at your side—even if you occasionally screwed up and shot each other instead—always made me feel better.

“So, you hear anything else from that reporter?” she asked.

“Yeah, actually. Jack’s out meeting with her again now.” In fact, it had been a few hours. I wondered if I needed to start worrying. “We’re pretty sure she’s not writing an article about the everyday vampire on the street.”

“Yeah? Then what’s she doing?”

“She’s either angling for an interview with someone more important than we are because she has the mistaken notion that we have some kind of influence, or she’s some kind of anti-vampire nutjob who’s going to try to infiltrate the Denver vampire Family and destroy us all.” Or, and worse, she was part of a rival vampire gang with designs on the Denver Family. That was what the Cook angle suggested. I was starting to freak myself out. “Or maybe I’ve been playing too many conspiracy-filled video games.”

“Are you worried?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. But I really don’t know what else we can do until she tries something or we get some clue as to what she’s really up to.”

“You want me to check her out?”

My brain skipped a beat at that, making me miss a shot I should have gotten. I hit pause. “How’re you going to do that?”

“It’s part of my job to dig up dirt on people. Find out where she’s staying, see who else she’s talking to.”

“Supernatural dirt, even?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“Ginny, you don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. I want to help.”

“But—” I sighed, took another breath, and tried again. “This isn’t your problem. I don’t want you to get in trouble. Or get hurt.”

“Yeah? Really? That’s sweet.”

“Well. I like you.”

“And not just because I’m O positive?”

“Are you? I didn’t know that. We can’t tell that, you know. It’s got more to do with, well. Hormones. It tastes different if you’re happy, stressed out, excited. You know.” It was only because I’d eaten tonight that I was able to blush.

“Huh,” she said thoughtfully.

Panic mode. I’d scared her off. Freaked her out by bringing up blood. Oh wait, she was the one who brought up blood. “I mean, I like you for more than your blood.” Wait, back up. “I mean, I haven’t even seen your blood.”

“Do you want to?” Her tone was very neutral. I couldn’t tell if she was offering or offended.

“No,” I said, after another deep breath. I was having trouble keeping enough air in my lungs to talk. Funny, before becoming a vampire I never realized how important breathing was to talking. “I don’t want to hurt you. I like you because I… like you.” This was really hard. Why was this so hard? I was supposed to have supernatural powers.

“Well. I like you to. Whether or not you’re a vampire.”

That was sufficiently… vague. I decided not to push. I could have talked a lot more. I really wanted to ask her how she really truly felt about the vampire thing—was she one of Jack’s groupies or was this an “in spite of” situation? But I needed to let it go. Just for now.

This was really hard.

“Um. I think my game just kicked me out,” I said.

“Yup, that’s what my screen’s showing.”

“You want to start over?”

It was nice, how easily we slipped back into that comfortable space. I sat back and enjoyed it. We played until well past midnight, when she had to bow out. She had to get up for work tomorrow and needed sleep. She was very sweet about it.

I had all the rest of the hours until dawn to sit up, alone.