The Awesome (22 page)

“Sure it is, but if I’m going to take blood from you, I deserve the CliffsNotes version. I’m not getting your crazy vampire funk on me without some info, Homes.”

By the confused expression on his face, I wasn’t sure he understood my slang, but he explained anyway. “Three years ago, she tried to tag me for the DoPR. I was on that list of yours. I knew why she followed me, but instead of escalating it to violence, I asked her politely to leave me alone. The consideration surprised her—most of my kind would have threatened or manipulated to get their way. She was kind enough to acquiesce on the condition I help her locate a rogue vampire on her list. I agreed, we formed a partnership of sorts, and it blossomed from there. She continued to contact me when she needed help with some of her cases, and in return she let me have my freedoms. Over time, we spent time together that wasn’t work related.”

It wasn’t a full explanation, but at least I had an idea of how their weird bang-on began. If we got out of this—no, when we got out of this—someone was sitting me down and fleshing out the rest of the ugly details. Well, not all of the details; I didn’t need to know exactly when they started playing Sir Humps-A-Lot meets Lady Buck-N-Ride.

Resignation settled in my stomach like a brick. Living as a ghoul was less-than-fun with the meat-eating fetish and the sniffing and the insomnia, but what other choice was there? I wasn’t a good enough ass-kicker to tackle Max. He’d already dicked me over once by kidnapping me and ghouling me without my knowledge. If there was another way for me to top him, I was clearly too dumb to figure it out. “Ugh. Fine. If you screw me over, I swear to God I’ll give you a holy water enema, Jeff. Seriously. Tubes up the butt, the whole shebang.”

“You’re certain?”

“About the enema? Yes. The other thing, no. But I’m going to do it anyway because I’m stupid.” He smiled faintly and rolled up his sleeve. I looked at his pale, bare arm and frowned, my lip curling in distaste. “Should I get a Coke for you to mix it with?”

“It’s more powerful undiluted. Max is old. So it’s better if it comes straight from...”

I closed the gap between us with a visible shudder. “Ugh. Shut up and gimme a hit. This is so friggin’ nasty.”

I
NEVITABLY,
L
AUREN WALKED
into the living room at the worst possible time. I slurped on Jeff’s wrist like he’d given me a cherry slushy, my lips sticky and warm with vampire blood. She paused in the doorway, her shirt pulled out from her body to hold the filled water balloons. She stared at me, stared at Jeff, and took an inadvertent step back. Somehow, we’d managed to creep out the living dead chick. That was an accomplishment somewhere.

“I can come back if you two need... erm... private time.”

I glanced at Jeff to see if I’d had enough. I didn’t feel trembly or quakey or any different than I had before, but he nodded at me and tugged his wrist away. Long rivulets of blood curled around his forearm, staining his arm hair and drizzling into the crease of his elbow. The gash below his palm where I’d fed mended before my eyes.

“I’ll be in the washroom a moment to clean up. You may want to...” He motioned around his lips and pointed at me. I headed to the kitchen to wash the blood off my face. Drinking straight from him should have bugged me out a lot more than it did. Maybe Max’s tag meant that blood had become less of a big deal. Maybe part of the magic of ghouling granted the drinker a taste for the old red.

Lauren licked her lips and shuffled her feet, clearly uncomfortable with what she’d witnessed. “A-are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m all right.”

“But you’re drinking vampire blood. Would Janice be okay with that?”

If Janice was okay with me drinking alcohol until I blacked out, stabbing pixies to death with cold iron shards, and boffing my boyfriend in her house, I was pretty sure she’d be fine with this. I did what I had to do to save her. To save us. Nothing more, nothing less. Besides, I was already a ghoul. What was another couple weeks of vampire servitude? “She’ll understand. Jeff’s helping me out.”

“By feeding you blood? Are you going to be a vampire now?”

“No. It’s fine. I swear.” I splashed my face one last time, using the polished steel on the front of the refrigerator to check my reflection. Blood free, I snagged a few of the balloons from Lauren’s shirt, stuffing them under my sweatshirt. She watched me fidgeting and dancing around the kitchen as I socked the balloons away, slightly horrified that I manhandled my boobs.

“What are you doing?”

“Did you ever stuff your bra when you were thirteen?” I asked. I was nervous about holy water that close to my skin—the last time I’d been hit I saw Jesus—but it was a risk I had to take. They were excellent vampire repellant. At least Lauren only half-filling them meant they were harder to break.

Lauren looked more confused than she had a minute ago. “No. Well, one time. But that was with tissues because I was going to a dance.”

“Then get comfortable with a couple water balloons. Best place to sock ’em away is next to the fun bags. They look natural, and give you a nice full boost.” I hefted my boobs to illustrate the point. She boggled at me but did as I said, rolling her stash onto the counter and wedging two balloons into each of her bra cups. I gave her a once over, trying not to stare at her chest too long because scoping out a zombie was wrong on every single level imaginable.

“Got quadra-boob on the right, but other than that you’re good.”

I socked a couple more balloons into the pouch of my hoody sweatshirt. Jeff was rolling his sleeve down and buttoning it by the door when Lauren and I emerged from the kitchen. He gave me a long, assessing look. “How do you feel?”

“All right. Am I going to get different abilities than I had before? Or am I stuck with never sleeping again. It’s a pretty crappy perk, if I’m being honest.”

“Every vampire gives something different to their ghouls. Unfortunately we won’t know what your talents are until they manifest, and that can take a bit of time. Time we don’t have. I don’t want Max pawing at your mother’s brain.” I nodded and headed outside, expecting Jeff’s car to be there. Unfortunately, the driveway was empty save for Mom’s truck and motorcycle. I glanced at the curb, thinking maybe he’d parked on the street again, but there was a distinct lack of vehicles.

“Uhh. How’d you get here?”

“Oh. That. I’m adept with mist. I flew here. You’ll have to drive.”

That’d account for why he looked so tired when I opened the front door—he’d misted his way from Boston. I rolled my eyes up to the night sky, wondering if anything would ever be easy for me. Everything I touched lately turned into a steaming crap sandwich. “I’m a minor, Jeff. I can’t drive at night.”

For some reason that amused him, and he flashed me two rows of glinting teeth. “Old enough to kill, not old enough to drive. How strange.”

“Yeah, cute. Profound, even. You have to drive Mom’s truck.” I dashed back inside to get her spare keys, flinging them at his head after I locked the house. The three of us crammed into the front seat, Lauren sitting bitch between us, her elbows drawn close to her body like she feared touching either one of us for too long.

As soon as we hit the highway, something Jeff said earlier wormed its way into my thoughts. When he convinced me to let him ghoul me, he said he could “take care of Max”. Max was a prince, and you didn’t get to be a prince unless you were old and powerful. Weak princes were eaten alive by their own people.

“Hey, did you mean what you said about being able to handle Max? The moment he figures out you bogarted his ghoul he’s gonna be pissed. And he’s, like, a prince.” Jeff hesitated for a moment, but then he nodded. It was clear he didn’t want to get into it, but I wasn’t about to let this one go. Not to be a cliché douchebag, but it was a matter of life or death. “Okay, so what, you’re older?”

Another tight, curt nod.

“By how much?”

He gave me a look from the corner of his eye that wasn’t all together friendly. “Enough. I am old enough.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

C
ONSIDERING HOW EERILY
quiet the car ride was, I got to mull the ‘old enough’ thing all the way to Boston. Old enough for what? A vampire tricycle? Graham crackers and a glass of warm blood before his afternoon nap? Or was it the other end of the spectrum, like if he’d been made magically human he’d shrivel up into a pile of bleached bones and hair tufts? I’d seen that in an Indiana Jones movie once, where the guy went from a regular, normal dude to a withered-out husk because he drank from the false Holy Grail. Maybe before his vamping, Jeff had been the knuckle-dragging ancestor everyone referred to as the missing link. He did have a pretty prominent forehead underneath all that blond hair.

‘Old enough.’ What a crappy answer.

When Jeff pulled off of the highway to navigate the streets of Chinatown, I squirmed in my seat because my body felt off—all hot and tingly and wrong. Not hot like how Ian made me hot, but more like a baked potato left in the microwave too long. I’d felt nothing when I first drank Jeff’s blood, but something was definitely happening then. My blood surged through my veins. My body temperature spiked, sweat oozing over my skin beneath my clothes.

Great. Mom was in trouble and all I could think about was showering to rid myself of swass—Janice’s oh-so-poetic term to describe swampy, sweaty ass.

I tried to keep quiet about it, shifting and breathing heavier to cool myself off. I turned on the air conditioning in what I thought was a subtle attempt at fixing my problem, but Jeff sensed something was awry. He pulled into the parking lot of a Chinese grocery store. There were weird squid-like things hanging in the front window, and I focused on those instead of the tumultuous changes occurring inside my body. They looked like baby Cthulhus dangling from a hook.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.” I wanted to tell him to shove it out his own butt, but that whole annoying ghouling thing reared its ugly head and I was stuck doing what he said. Had I realized becoming his servant would rid me of my ability to be a jerk to him, I might have turned him down after all. What if he abused his powers and told me to clean my room and be respectful of Janice? That’d be the worst thing ever.

“I’m hot all over. Sweaty too.”

“Shaking?”

I lifted my hand and my fingers trembled. Great. One drink of Jeff’s blood and I was broken. “Yeah.”

Jeff fished around in his pocket and handed Lauren a five dollar bill. “Go into the store and get her a bottle of water?” Lauren peered at him, then at the giant squid creatures hanging in the window. I could tell by her expression she didn’t want to go in, probably because she expected them to sell her one of those monsters. I’d have made some comment about ‘beware the tentacles,’ but I was pretty sure that wouldn’t be very helpful, plus I felt like I boiled to death inside my skin.

Lauren removed her seat belt and sighed, trudging towards the store with a sour puss. Jeff tried laying his hand against my forehead, like my Mom would when I was little, but I batted at him with a growl.

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. Not yet anyway.”

“This didn’t happen when Max did his thing. What are you, a mutant vampire?”

Jeff smiled faintly, revealing the tips of his fangs. “That’s because you took a lot more from me, and I’m... well. I’m older.”

“About that...”

“No, Maggie.” He shook his head. “I don’t like talking about it, so please don’t push me on this. As it stands, I’m not thrilled about dealing with Max. It draws attention to me and I’ve been content keeping to myself.” I frowned, letting him know what I thought about his great vampire mystery. I wouldn’t argue because...

I convulsed. My vision splintered in a blaze of white stars as my eyes rolled up into my head. The heat in my body became a pounding, burning pulse. I gurgled wetly, my legs kicking out as the cursed blood attacked my system. Jeff pinned my shoulders to the truck’s seat, holding me down when I foamed at the mouth. It was like I’d gone full-throttle rabid raccoon. All I needed was to eat some garbage before a cop shot me and put me out of my misery.

“You’ll be all right. Don’t fight it and you’ll be fine.”

Fight it? Fight what? I didn’t fight anything. I felt like molten lava ripped through my veins, that’s all.
No worries here, Jeff, I was okeddy dokeddy, dickbag
. My tongue felt fat and heavy in my mouth, like a piece of wet leather. I rolled my eyes to Jeff and whimpered. He checked my temperature with the back of his hand. I probably felt slimy with sweat, like cheese left on the counter too long.

“If anything feels different, let me know. Beyond the fever.”

I didn’t register Lauren coming back, or the water being forced into my mouth. I remember spitting some of it in Jeff’s face and finding that funny because I hadn’t meant to do it, but beyond that, everything was a blur. Time passed too fast: lights streamed by, car horns honked, my heart pounded in my ears. And then, as quickly as it came, it stopped.

I looked at Jeff and then at Lauren, both of whom stared at me like I’d morphed into an alien creature. “Yo!”