The Awesome (25 page)

And I killed him good.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

M
AX’S BODY FELL
to the floor with a meaty thwack. Staking him was not the great fix-it you’d expect. There were sucky things left to handle, namely Mom’s health. She was out like a light, and I knew enough about concussions to say if she was unconscious this long, it could mean major brain bleeding. That would result in a case of the dead if we didn’t get her to the hospital. Of course, it might not be a concussion at all, but by the way her head hit the wall, I wouldn’t rule it out.

I was about to tell Jeff to call an ambulance, but he was too busy looking across the room to pay me any mind. I followed his gaze. Sometime during Max’s staking, Lauren had gotten the upper hand on Lubov, and was presently straddling her on the floor with one hand on her neck, the other pinning her arms to her chest. Lubov didn’t struggle. Considering the lady swung couches around like Superwoman on crack not two minutes ago, it was hard to believe she’d give up like that.

“What’s going on?”

“She lost her power when Max died,” Jeff said, crouching beside her. “She has no strength.” He dismissed Lauren with a flick of his wrist, offering Lubov a blood-smeared hand. She ignored it and climbed to her knees, attention focused on the decimated body of her former master. She let out a low whimper and rubbed her eyes with her fists, looking like an over-tired three-year-old who didn’t want to go to bed. A monstrously huge three-year-old who didn’t want to go to bed, but still.

“We have a problem.” Jeff spoke directly to my mind again. I scratched at my head like that’d exorcise his voice but it didn’t help. For all that having a telepathic connection to someone was cool, I could now see his point about it being invasive. He hadn’t tapped gently to come into my head; he’d barged in, grabbed himself a beer, and settled onto Maggie’s brain couch. He was a squatter taking up space that wasn’t his. Sure, I’d done it to him earlier, but that was me and thus okay.

Hypocritical? You bet.

“Yeah, like Mom. We need to get her to a doctor.”

“And you should have your shoulder looked at, but first what do we do about Lubov? I have my opinions, but I don’t want to further upset you. I think I’m going to have to—” His shoulders sagged. For all that he was a mother-humping bloodsucker with a propensity for hoarding secrets, he seemed like he earnestly didn’t want to kill my Russian nemesis. Okay, Lubov wasn’t my nemesis, but calling her that made me feel like a total bad-ass. James Bond had at least three Russian nemeses, and Rocky and Bullwinkle had Natasha and Boris. That was some elite company right there.

“—she was loyal to him, and if she talks about this to his other followers, it will make more trouble for all of us,” Jeff finished.

“No,” I said, though I must have said it aloud because Lauren jerked her eyes to me.

“‘No’ what?”

“Nothing. Dial 911 and get an ambulance here, please?” I flung my burner phone at her and it whacked her on the boob. Obscene strength, yes. Catlike reflexes, no. She walked to the foyer with the phone attached to her ear, pawing through Max’s mail to find his address.

Lubov lifted her face to me. Blue makeup smeared her temples, and there were tracks of mascara under her eyes making her look like a hosed-down clown. It was the most pathetic thing I’d seen in a long time.

“Mental, Margaret. This is between you and I.”

“Oh, don’t you start. It’s Maggie. For Christ’s sake. If you call me Margaret again I will punch you in the nuts, Jeff. I swear.”

“Maggie. Fine. Focus, please.”

“Focus this. Anyway, don’t kill her. She was nice to me during Max’s crap and she didn’t have to be. Can’t you ghoul her?” He looked at me like I’d suggested he bleach his butt crack, but that didn’t deter me from pleading my case anyway. “She’ll be forced into loyalty and you’re not stupid enough to leave a loophole if you tell her to keep quiet. She knows all the rules of ghouling, too. That’s gotta be a better alternative than sending her to the Big Kremlin in the Sky.”

“I won’t make that choice for her. I won’t force it on people.”

“So ask her if she’s down with it so we can get out of here and help Mom,” I said aloud, making Jeff’s frown deepen. I peered at Lubov, trying to ignore the fact that she appeared to be melting. If it disintegrated any further, she’d give the Wicked Witch a run for her money. “Lubov, if Jeff lets you go, you’re a big pain in the ass for us. You’ve got a few options, but I’ll be honest, they all suck. I can call the DoPR on you and you’ll be taken into custody pending trial. We can kill you, which seems pretty crappy, or Jeff can ghoul you. I’d lean towards the last one. At least you and I would be the Olsen twins of creepy vampire slavery.”

Jeff snorted. “Margar... Maggie. You’re not my slave.”

“
Focus
, Jeff,” I said, using his words. Because I’m a dildo like that. “What do you say, Lubov?”

She looked from me to Jeff and then to Max’s body, her eyes pinchy at the edges like she wanted to bawl. “I served
bratishka
for many years. He made mistakes, yes, but he did good things, too. He took me from a bad home. For this, I honor him.” She bumped the side of her fist against her heart and bowed her head. On one hand it was cool that she did the respect thing—maybe this was her version of pouring a forty out for a lost homey—but on the other hand I wanted her to hurry up so we could concentrate on Mom. I heard Lauren talking to a dispatcher, so I knew the ambulance was en route.

Jeff didn’t seem too keen on wasting any more time either. “What do you want to do, Lubov?”

It took her a moment to find her feet, but when she managed, she made her way to Jeff, dropping to a single knee before him. Her hand went to her heart like she made a most solemn vow. “I know only to serve. I will do as you say.” There was a formality to her words that made me feel like my ghouling had been ghetto. She did this up with pomp and circumstance, like there was pride in the promised bond. I’d been more of a ‘do you want fries with that’ kinda occasion, but then, I think I was more of a drive-through ghouling girl anyway.

Jeff didn’t appear to care one way or the other. He rolled up his other sleeve— the arm I hadn’t gnawed on hours ago—and I left them to it, making my way to Mom to check her vitals. The pulse was stronger, and her breathing was less shallow, which had to be good. Lauren hung up the call and huddled in beside me.

“Is he... what’s he going to do with Lubov?” she asked.

“Ghoul her.”

“Oh. Like the blood sucking thing at the house?”

“Yep.”

“Ick.”

I sank to my butt to stroke Mom’s pink hair, accidentally brushing off her ball cap. I wedged it onto my head, my eyes flicking to the elevator every few seconds like I could make the EMTs arrive faster by will alone.

“Your shoulder’s all bloody,” Lauren said, her voice quiet. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll be all right,” I said, giving her a dry, humorless smile. “And thanks for everything. You’ve been awesome.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s everything. You rock.”

“Thanks, Maggie. I’m glad I could help.”

O
UR MERRY BAND
of freaks got Mom to the hospital at two in the morning. I rode in the ambulance with her, Jeff drove everyone else in the truck. Up to that point, I’d been so amped on adrenaline I hadn’t processed the hideous crap we’d been through, nor had I acknowledged the pain wracking my body. Watching the doctors swing shut behind Mom’s gurney shattered that. I promptly ran to the bathroom to lose my shit. I’d have to get my injuries attended to, but not yet. Not until I felt like I could stand in front of a doctor without blasting weepy snoogers at him.

I specifically chose the single stall handicapped bathroom so I could have the room to myself while I sniveled. And snivel I did, burying my face into my bicep and letting every ounce of angst come pouring out. Gurgling whines, snotty nose, bulging, red-rimmed eyes—I had it all. Lauren knocked on the door at one point to make sure I wasn’t trying to hang myself with toilet paper and I assured her I was okay, but I wasn’t. Not only was my mom in some serious danger, I’d killed two people tonight. I’d ended lives. Bad lives, yes, though Max was easier on my conscience than Ahmad. Ahmad had protected his boyfriend. If someone had threatened Ian, would I have been able to stand by with my thumb up my butt? Or would I attack, too? Of course, Ian wasn’t a villainous scumbag vampire dickhole, so maybe Ahmad should have chosen better company.

Justification. I needed to justify those four bullets I put into that ghoul and I couldn’t do it alone.

I dialed. I knew I shouldn’t have—it was the middle of the night—but I called Ian because I wanted to hear that I wasn’t a bad person, that I’d done the right thing and that I wouldn’t become Satan’s footstool when I died. I wasn’t exactly a religious person per se, but I believed something happened in the great hereafter involving judgment. I’d seen how magic worked in our world, how karmic balance tended to play out when left to its own devices, and I had to believe some of that magic existed when we went tits up to our final maker. I didn’t want to burn in Hell. I would for being a foul-mouthed, slutty, well-meaning murderess, but I didn’t want to.

Ian picked up the phone with a raspy, sleep-ridden voice. I was so glad to hear him, I cried louder, likely blasting my Maggie-wails right into his ear. I could hear him saying my name over and over, but I wasn’t capable of answering. Actual conversation was so beyond me, it was like I’d regressed to being eight months old. If I myself again, it was all over.

“Mags, what’s up? Hey, hey, babe. C’mon. You’re worrying me. ’Sup?”

“M-Mom got hurt,” I managed.

“Oh, man. She okay?”

“D-don’t know. Sorry to call so late. I... I...” I stammered ‘I’ thirty more times and took a deep breath, trying to regain my composure. “She hit her head and they’re trying to see if her brain’s bleeding or whatever.”

He took a long, deep breath, then promptly exhaled it right into the receiver of the phone. It hurt my ear, but I wouldn’t complain. “Do you want me to come? I can. I gotta ask my ’rents about the car, but...”

“No. I’ll be okay. There’s no point ’til I know more. I wanted to talk to you.” That made me sound so lame, but at least I wasn’t professing my love or writing my initials next to his in a heart on the bathroom stall wall. I had my dignity. Sort of. “Sorry I woke you.”

“It’s okay. That’s... man, that sucks so bad.”

“I know. And I killed someone tonight. Two people.” I had to hope my less-than-graceful announcement didn’t go over like a fart in a spacesuit. I kept thinking aspects of my strange lifestyle would be the straw that broke the camel’s back and Ian would run from me, but so far he’d hung in there like a champ. What were one or two deaths on top of my laundry-list of my other bizarro quirks? “A vampire and his ghoul. I feel weird about it.”

I told him the rest of the story, talking about how Ahmad hurt Mom, and how Max hurt me because of it. While I talked, I flicked flakes of dried blood off of the back of my hand. Whether it was mine or Max’s, I didn’t know. The nurses and doctors had taken a look at me and Jeff when we walked into the emergency room and assumed I was in danger. They’d tried to cart me out back, but I showed them my hunting credentials and assured them that my mom was the patient, that the blood on me belonged to a dead vampire. Of course, I’d lied, and now that everything shifted back into focus, I realized I had to get off the phone and get myself stitched. I felt woozy.

“Anyway,” I said, wrapping up my explanation. “I don’t know how to feel about it.” It was too much to hope that Ian would exonerate me, and as the silence stretched between us, I worried that once again I’d gone one step too far.

Then he spoke.

“He hurt your mom. He could have killed you both. You survived. I’m sorry you feel like crap, but you did good. Well. Whatever. You saved everyone. I’m glad you’re okay.”

It was the right thing to say. My self-doubts faded, relief and pride taking their place. Ian was right; I’d only done what I had to do. I may have saved everyone. Of course, this led to the train of thought that I was so much more amazing than I had given myself credit for. People should thank me for the privilege of standing in the room with me and breathing my air. I deserved a medal for my overly-inflated chest.

“Thank you, Ian,” I said. “I needed to hear that. Like, you have no idea. Thanks.”

“No sweat. Hey, call me when you hear something, yeah? And good luck. Take care of yourself. Hope Janice is okay.”

“Yeah, I will. G’night.”

“G’night.”

I hung up the phone, pushed myself to standing, and headed for the nurse’s station.

T
EN HOURS, TWENTY-THREE
butterfly stitches, and a nap in a very uncomfortable chair later, we had Janice’s diagnosis. She had a hairline fracture in an upper vertebrae. It wasn’t enough to be considered a broken neck, but it was enough to cause her so much pain her body shut down. Somehow, luck be praised, she’d avoided a massive concussion.