Suck It Up and Die (24 page)

Morning waited, knowing DeThanatos wasn’t finished.

“Birnam got one thing right. This Leaguer thing has been a game changer. And yet, it’s a Millennial’s duty to slay vampires who betray our sacred traditions. I could destroy all Leaguers, one by one, but it would be so tedious. I have a far more satisfying plan.” He raised his hands. “Why be a serial killer when genocide beckons?”

Morning shut the door, not wanting to hear any more. What was the point? He knew DeThanatos was too devious to ever reveal more than he wanted to.

Friday dawned. Morning’s alarm sounded. He banged it off. The ceiling swam into focus and the day’s first thought dropped into his mind.
Was it all a dream? From Birnam telling me about
pneumabrotus
to DeThanatos calling me a re-mort?

He pulled down the covers and took in the two hairs jutting from his chest. “Hey, gents. Sorry about the loss of musketeer number three, but if I keep re-mortalizing, reinforcements are on the way.” He rolled out of bed. “Yeow!” He’d forgotten the laceration on his left shoulder.

He grabbed his cell phone and called Portia. She answered, but she was in a hurry to get in the shower. He asked her to take a walk with him later that afternoon on the Williamsburg Bridge so he could tell her some “big news.” She explained that she and Cody were prepping for a film thing that night, and they had to finish a hidden camera Cody was working on.

“So let gizmo geek earn his death by doing the camera thing while you give me an hour.”

Portia laughed at his cockiness. “Okay, but I don’t have time for the bridge. How ’bout we meet for gelato at seven in the Village?”

Morning figured the exact location where he blew her away with his news and asked her to the End Is Upon Us Ball was less important than doing it before someone else did, like Cody. “Okay, seven at L’Arte del Gelato.”

“Got it,” she confirmed. “Then you’re not going to believe what I’m doing after that.”

“Try me.”

“Zoë got a date with a Leaguer at a secret bloodlust club. Me and Cody are going with her.”

“What?” he practically shouted. “I get Zoë, but why are you and Cody going?”

“If his hidden camera works, and Zoë practices what she preaches, we’re gonna get a consensual bloodlust hookup on film.”

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So now you’re into blood pornography?”

“It’s not pornography,” Portia fired back. “It’s documenting what people have heard about but never seen.”

“Portia, she’s your best friend!”

“Believe me, I tried to talk her out of it, but she’s got her heart set on it, and best friends let best friends follow their dreams.”

Morning got her subtext: his disapproval was slamming
her
dream. He also knew arguing would ruin the news bomb he was about to drop on her. He kept his objection to a sigh and said he would see her at seven.

As he got dressed, he pulled something out of his closet
he had hoped to never wear again: his Epidex. Someone had to be there to make sure Zoë’s vampire date didn’t pop his deuce, lose control, and overserve himself. Morning knew a thing or two about the dangers of diving into the forbidden well of bloodlust, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to let anyone flow all the way with Zoë.

That evening, Morning got to the gelato shop fifteen minutes early, knowing that 7:00 meant 6:55 to Portia. He was feeling light as a feather for several reasons. He was about to win his eternal beloved back, he’d had another demerit-free day at the academy, and his body had produced something nonaging vampires never got: a pimple. However, since the tiny bump on his forehead might telegraph his meganews, he had covered it with makeup.

While his original plan had involved wearing a button-down shirt with the top button open so Portia might discover the new musketeers swashbuckling on his chest, the plan had to be scrapped when his chest had been covered with his Epidex. His new plan was as good, if not better. After getting gelato, they would walk up to the High Line and go to the spot where they had shared an incredible summer night’s kiss. The kiss had started when they were standing nose to nose to see who was tallest. At the time, Portia had him by a quarter inch. If Zoë’s doorframe measurement was right, and he was now a half inch taller, and Portia had reached her full height, in their next nose-to-nose he would edge her out, and she would realize he was growing and melt in his arms.

Portia showed up right on time. A few minutes later they left L’Arte del Gelato with a Mokaccino for Portia and
a Plasmania for Morning. The Plasmania wasn’t as delicious as he remembered it, but he wasn’t going to tip his hand by bringing it up.

As they climbed the stairs to the High Line, Portia’s phone meeped with a text. She handed Morning her cone so she could read it. Morning bottled his irritation as she thumbed a quick text back. He wasn’t going to let one text ruin the incredible moment they were about to share: the first moment of the rest of their lives together.

They reached the spot on the High Line where two buildings and a suspended walkway framed the river and the Statue of Liberty.

After Morning made some small talk about how Lady Liberty was holding up her favorite gelato flavor, Torch of Freedom, Portia turned to him. “So this must be some big news you wanna tell me if you brought me to the spot where we gave each other tonsillectomies this summer.”

Morning almost snorted his last bite of Plasmania. He was thrilled she remembered. “Yeah,” he said, tossing his cone in a nearby trash can. “But I didn’t bring you up here to ask for my tonsils back.” As she laughed, he pretended to see something on her cheek. “Don’t move, found an eyelash.” He moved in closer and mimed taking the imaginary lash in his fingers. “You get to make a wish.” He didn’t retreat, waiting for her to notice his new height advantage. But her eyes didn’t fill with the confusion and surprise he had hoped for. Instead, they darted over his shoulder and she stepped back.

“Whoa,” she said, “made my wish just in time.”

The good news was Morning didn’t have to lie about the breeze blowing away the nonexistent eyelash; the bad news sounded behind him.

“Hey, Porsche,” someone shouted, “check it out!”

Morning turned to see Cody and Zoë coming toward them. He realized that was who Portia had texted, telling them where she was. He turned back to her, unable to cork his irritation. “What are
they
doing here?”

Her face bunched with contrition. “Sorry. They were clothes shopping for Zoë’s date. I thought they’d take longer.”

As Cody and Zoë reached them, Zoë spun to show off her date-with-destiny look. She was head-to-toe black leather—jacket, jeans, high-heeled pointy boots—with a ruffly white blouse. She wore dark sunglasses, and her hair was pulled up in a topknot to show off the ruby-colored scarf around her neck. “What do you think, A.M.? Do I look fang-alicious?”

Morning frowned. “To someone, I’m sure.”

“It’s a fashion mash-up,” Cody announced. “It’s Cate Blanchett doing Bob Dylan doing a pipette of blood.”

Zoë jammed her hands on her hips. “Are you saying I’m built like a pipette?”

“ZZ,” Cody retorted, “the guy’s not gonna be into your body, he’s gonna be into your blood type.”

Morning was tempted to tell him vampires were just as interested in girls’ bodies as Lifers, especially with all the extra nerve endings vampires had in their fingers, but Portia beat him to it. “Zo, you look totally hot,” she said, before turning to Cody. “Why don’t you stop talking about things you don’t know about and talk about things you do? Show Morning your new camera.”

Cody grinned. “I call it the sweat-cam.”

Morning feigned interest, hoping that after Cody’s show-and-tell, he and Zoë would leave. “A sweat-cam?”

“Yeah,” Cody explained, “ ’cause it’s built into my sweatshirt. I’m shooting you right now.” He pointed to the Yankees logo in the middle of his sweatshirt. It featured a baseball and a baseball bat wearing an Uncle Sam hat. “Inside the logo is a tiny digital camera and a mike. It’s very
Iron Man
, without the electrical generator. It runs on batteries.” Cody flipped up his sweatshirt and showed the battery pack sewn to the inside of it. It also gave him the opportunity to flash his six-pack abs. “Cool, huh?”

“Or totally hot.” Zoë giggled.

Portia eye-rolled as she pulled a makeup compact from her pocket. “Drop the hood, Cody, and get back to kickin’ the tires.”

He dropped his sweatshirt. “The awesome part—it’s a hands-free device.” He flexed his left pec muscle; it jumped under his sweatshirt. “I just turned the camera off. Flex the right pec”—his right pec jerked—“and I just turned it on.”

“Great,” Morning said flatly. “Pec on, pec off.”

“Yeah.” Cody beamed and whacked Morning in the chest. “But you gotta have pecs to work it. Not that it—”

“Hey!” Zoë cut Cody off before he blew his promise not to reveal that he knew about Morning and Portia breaking up. “How ’bout mouth off and pec on to show Morning how the rest of it works?”

Portia shot Zoë a look but sidelined her suspicions; she was in work mode. She opened the compact in her hand and showed it to Morning. “Here’s where we view the shot.” In place of the mirror was a tiny screen filled with a live shot of Portia showing him the compact. “With this I can tell Cody where to point the sweat-cam, ’cause he’ll be shooting blind.”

“So what’s the plan?” Morning asked. “You’re gonna
go to some club and shoot Zoë being a recreational blood donor?”

“Go ahead, A.M.,” Zoë teased, “try to suck the romance out of it. But you can’t ’cause I am dressed and ready for”—she threw her head back, exposing her ruby-scarved neck—“the ecstasy of exsanguination!”

“Yeah,” Cody jumped in, “and I’m dressed to get the glory shot, but to be totally safe I gotta pick up some extra batteries.”

Portia checked her watch. “Then we’re already running late. Let’s go.”

Morning took her arm and walked her away. “Right, let’s go.”

As Zoë and Cody followed, Cody protested, “Morning’s not part of the plan.”

“Oh, don’t sweat on your sweat-cam,” Portia tossed back. “We’ve only got three invitations. He won’t get past security.”

Morning gave her a haughty look. “I have my ways.”

“If you sneak in,” she warned him, “you gotta promise you won’t get in the way or do anything stupid.”

Zoë zipped around in front of him. “Yeah, A.M., promise, or”—she poked the middle of his chest—“I might havta—”

“Don’t worry!” He jumped in before her threat raised Portia’s suspicions. “I’ll be good.”

Morning, Portia, Cody, and Zoë piled into a cab, which took them up Tenth Avenue and dropped them in Hell’s Kitchen. Cody and Zoë disappeared into a Duane Reade to buy backup batteries. Morning and Portia waited outside.

“So,” she said, “what’s the big news you’re gonna tell me?”

He wanted to tell her, but the moment had been ruined. What could’ve been a super-romantic moment on the High Line had been knocked to a noisy stretch of Tenth Avenue choked with Lincoln Tunnel traffic. He answered with a shrug. “It can wait.”

“Sorry, Morn,” she said, sensing his disappointment. “It’s still nice to have a moment alone.”

He tried to look on the bright side. “Yeah, just like old times.” She dipped her head to his shoulder. Morning felt her hair brush across his shirt. He closed his eyes, shutting
out the street and the exhaust fumes, and inhaled the green-apple scent of her hair.

When she lifted her head and glanced at him, she spotted the tiny profile of something rising from his forehead. “Ohmigod, is that a pimple?”

“No,” he said nonchalantly.

She kept staring. “Then why is there makeup on it?”

“It’s embarrassing, okay?”

“Embarrassing? I didn’t know vampires got pimples.”

“They don’t—I mean, they do,” he stammered as he groped for a lie. “It’s a nerves thing. When we’re really stressed over something we can get stress pimples.”

Her face rubbered with compassion. “You mean you got a pimple about us breaking up?”