"That's right," she choked. "It doesn't matter."
"You thought, or she thought, being a vampire would be a fine thing. Friends forever. And your sire—the one who made you—
he obliged. He didn't tell you—what? Did he not perform all the rituals? Did he do it wrong out of spite, or to keep his pack's numbers down?"
"He didn't tell me, and I only found out later, that being a vampire… it's like the measles. It's something you catch. Or don't catch. You could get bit by the same vampire a hundred times, and ninety-nine of those times, nothing would happen. Or he'd drink too much and you'd die. But that one time, the hundredth time, you'd come back. I thought—I didn't know it was a fargin'
virus. I didn't know it was a damned head cold. And he didn't tell me. Didn't warn us."
"Your friend didn't come back."
"My friend." She took a shuddering breath and obviously wasn't used to it, because she almost tilted off her chair and onto the floor. "My friend died screaming. And I let it happen."
"And this was…"
"Nineteen sixty-five." She smiled. It was a wobbly smile, but it was there. "Free love, you know."
"Why… now?"
"I finally found him, that's why now. There's a new regime in place, and the king helped me track him down."
He blinked, processing this. "The king."
"King Sinclair. The king of the vampires. He made the Minneapolis librarian track Peter down for me."
"Peter?"
"Innocuous name for such a scum-sucking son of a bitch, isn't it? Anyway, the old boss didn't give two shits for problems like mine. I knew better than to even ask—we all just kept out of his way. It was a bad time for most of us. But then—"
"Things changed."
"I heard the new king and queen—"
"There was a coup for power? The old leader lost? Was killed?"
"Yeah. So I let things settle down a bit and then I went to St. Paul and—Never mind all that, point is, I got an address, I even got the name of the restaurant he runs."
"Your leaders—they know what you'll do when you find Peter?"
She nibbled on her lower lip. "The king does. He understands this kind of stuff. I got the feeling—I think he keeps the queen out of a lot of the bloodier stuff, you know? She's kind of new to the game."
"Ah." He knew about new mates, having seen (from a distance) Jeannie's struggles to fit in with the pack. He didn't blame this Sinclair fellow at all for keeping his woman out of the boring bloody details.
"That's it? 'Ah'?"
"There is nothing else, right?"
"Yeah, but… that's it? You got nothin'?"
"Do you know what my mother told me every night before I went to bed?"
"Uh… stop being such a chowderhead?"
"No. She repeated the family motto: Kill or be eaten."
"Swell."
"Isn't that your situation, as a vampire?"
She shifted in her chair. "I—I don't think of myself—I mean, I don't think I've ever killed anyone. It's a myth that vampires have to kill you to feed. Half a pint and we're good for the night. Sure, we're a little bit nuts in the beginning—a brand-new vampire is pretty much out of her mind for a few years. But you get ahold. It's like anything—you deal."
He touched his neck, which had entirely healed, and smiled at her. "Good to know."
"But it sounds like being a werewolf is really, really stressful. No wonder you live away from it all."
"That's not why I live away from it all," he said, and got up to put the milk away, and they both knew the discussion was over.
Chapter Nine
Before she realized it, the night had disappeared and the killing dawn was lurking around the corner. Serena could hardly believe it. They'd spent the entire night in the kitchen, plotting.
Born and bred on the Cape, Burke knew the local geography and tourist traps, and recognized the name of Pete's restaurant, Eat Me Raw. He told her it was "up Cape" in "P-town," whatever the hell that meant. Not for the first time, she thought it wasn't so crazy, hooking up with the Boy Scout.
"We could drive there now," he said, looking at her doubtfully, "but you'd have to ride in the trunk. And stay in the trunk until the sun goes down."
"Tempting offer, but no thanks. Let's just crash here and we'll hit the road first thing tonight. You've got a whole day," she teased, "to come to your senses."
Without a word, he got up and escorted her to the basement of his small, pleasantly untidy house. It was a finished basement, cool and dark, partly used for storage. Part of the basement had been made into a bedroom, with one small south-facing window, which he efficiently taped a dark beach towel over.
"All rightey then," she said, looking at the neatly made double bed. The room screamed "guest room"; there was no personality to it at all. In fact, Burke's entire house (well, the parts she had seen) had very little personality, as if occupied by a ghost, or someone who didn't care much one way or the other. "Good night."
"Good night." He stood very close to her for a moment and then (she thought—hoped?) reluctantly moved away. "Call me if you need anything."
"Oh yeah. You betcha." She cursed her Minnesotaisms, which surfaced in moments of stress.
The door shut. She was alone in the sterile guest room. Which was too bad, because she hadn't been laid in about twenty years (the thirst tended to take over everything, including the sex drive and the need for manicures) and Burke would obviously be a—
But that was no way to think. That way was trouble, pure and simple. She had a mission to complete and when Pete was dead, when his lying head had been cut off and she'd kicked it into the ocean, when Maggie had at long last been avenged, then…
then…
Well. She didn't know. But that was for later. For now, she climbed between clean sheets and, when the sun came up (she couldn't see it, but she could sure feel it, feel it the way bats felt it, the way blind worms in the dirt felt it), she slept.
And dreamed.
This was delightful, as it hadn't happened often. She hadn't known vampires could dream at all until it started happening to her about five years ago.
In her dream (wonderful dream, delightful dream) she and Maggie (Maggie!) were walking around in Dinky town, just a few blocks away from the apartment they'd shared as college students. It was the fifties, and they both wore black capris and white men's shirts tied around their twenty-year-old midriffs. Maggie wore ballet flats on her little delicate feet (oh, how she'd envied Maggie her feet) and Serena wore saddle shoes, which were the slightest bit too tight, but who cared? The sun was shining and oh, it was good to be young and alive and eating ice cream cones and welcoming the admiring glances from the fellows on the sidewalk in June, in Minnesota, in summer, in life.
"Place has twenty flavors of homemade ice cream, glorious hand-cranked ice cream like Grandma makes, and you always pick vanilla." Serena took another bite of coconut chip and tried not to look smug.
"Never mind my choices, let's talk about yours. You've given up happiness for how many decades, and for what? To avenge me? For what? Because you feel guilty?"
The ice cream suddenly tasted like ashes, and Serena had to fight the urge to spit out the bite. "I don't want to talk about that now. This is supposed to be a nice damned dream."
"Tough noogies, chowderhead." Maggie brushed her bangs out of her eyes and Serena noticed the ragged bite marks—chew marks—all around her friend's neck. Something had been at her, and hadn't been nice about it, either. "You managed to literally stumble into some happiness, and what? Did you jump on him and try to make a baby?"
"I can't have—"
"Or did you drag him down into your sick old shit?"
"Maggie, he has to pay!"
They both knew the "he" Serena was talking about. "Sure he does. But do you?"
"I don't know what you—"
"You never did, honey. That's why I'm the scholarship student, and you're running around dead on Cape Cod. No lover, no home, no nothing. Just your bad old self. And for what?"
"Maggie, I can hear you screaming in my sleep. Vampires don't even dream and most of the time I dream about that."
"That's on you, honeygirl." Her friend looked at her with terrible affection, the vanilla melting in her fist, the blood running down her blouse front. "You didn't want to spend eternity alone; who would? So here we are, both dead. But now you've got another chance—and you're wrecking that one, too. The first time was piss-ignorance. Not your fault. But this? Willful."
"It's not—"
"Well, you always were the stubborn one." Her friend grinned, all teeth and gums and blood. "And I was the pretty one."
"Maggie—"
"See you 'round, honeygirl."
Maggie vanished. The stores vanished. The old-fashioned (at least, to her twenty-first-century eyes) cars vanished. The sidewalk patrons vanished. There was only her, and her stupid coconut chip ice cream cone, and her too-tight saddle shoes, and—
—the guest bedroom.
It was night again and the thirst was on her; her mouth felt like dust, her mouth felt dead. Dead. Like Maggie, long dirt and bones in her lonely grave. The grave Serena had helped put her in. Had led her to.
She shoved back the blanket and was on her feet, then up the stairs and headed for the door. She had to drink before she could think, and she certainly wasn't going to chomp Burke again, poor boy. She had enough guilt on her shoulders without—
"Where are you going?"
"Don't sneak up on me, Boy Scout," she said without turning around. "Bad habit."