Broken Heart Tails (12 page)

He drove past the darkened windows of an abandoned gas station called the Thrifty Sip. A few minutes later, he was coasting through downtown. It had a certain charm with its brick sidewalks and old-fashioned storefronts, most of which were empty. Only the sign of the Old Sass Café blinked neon.

The two-story house on Sanderson Street wasn’t very difficult to find, even with his GPS still insisting he go back to Tulsa. He pulled into the driveway behind the mini-van, gathered his briefcase and got out of the car. He strode across the driveway, preparing both his smile and his introduction.

“Uuuuhhh.”

Meyer stopped, his gaze riveted to the man shambling across the front yard. He was obviously homeless given his stained and torn attire, bad hair, and terrible skin condition. His eyes were a milky blue and his mouth gaped at an odd angle. Good Lord. The poor soul hadn’t seen a toothbrush in a long while.

“Uuuuhhh.”

Meyer was unsure what to do, and his confused hesitation was stupefying. Quick, efficient decisions were his forte. The homeless man shuffled faster, obviously heading in his direction. A shiver ran up his spine. He had the strange urge to run to the front door and pound on it like a screeching horror movie heroine about to get her innards ripped out. He was so shocked by his desire to turn into a sobbing wimp that he stood his ground and waited for the man to arrive. Meyer resisted the urge to cover his nose; his nostrils flared in a vain attempt to prevent breathing in the man’s considerable stench.

“May I help you?” Meyer inquired pleasantly.

“Uuuuhhh.”

“Yes. Well. I don’t actually live in this house, you see,” said Meyer. His legs wanted to scramble backward. His lungs wanted to scream. He clenched the briefcase and held on to his self-control. “I’m only here for a visit myself.”

As the man came within arm’s length, Meyer had a more horrifying thought.
I made a mistake. It’s the wrong house.
“Do you live here? I thought this was the home of Jessica Matthews.” One meaty, gray hand thunked onto his shoulder. He gulped. “Sir?”

“Uuuuhhh.”

Meyer realized several things at once, none of which were particularly helpful. The first was that this poor creature had long since ceased being a living man. The next was that he exuded such a noxious odor that Meyer was having difficulty keeping down his late-afternoon hamburger. There were other details, too, things that were rather unimportant—such as the unfortunate gap in the dead man’s trousers and the sad fact that one of his eyeballs was loosening from its cavity. Meyer’s last coherent thought, though, was that he had never, not once, considered the idea he would meet his end as dinner for a zombie.

“I beg your pardon,” said Meyer. Then he smashed the briefcase into the zombie’s chest as hard as he could. The creature stumbled back. Meyer swung the case again, this time connecting with its massive shoulder. It staggered sideways.

The case still clutched in his sweaty hand, Meyer ran to the porch and proceeded to pound on the front door. “Hello? I need some help please!”

No one answered.

Then he felt two hands crush his upper arms, and the terrible sting of teeth digging into his shoulder.

Meyer screeched, louder and higher-pitched than all the horror-movie heroines before him, and swung the case backward into the zombie’s crotch. It lurched away, falling onto the porch. Meyer stumbled to it and kicked it very, very hard in the head. He heard a sickening crack and the zombie lay still.

Meyer straightened his suit, firmed his grasp on the briefcase, and returned to the door, giving three smart knocks. When it opened and revealed the annoyed countenance of a large man with impossibly silver eyes, he smiled.

And promptly passed out.

* * * * *

“I went through his wallet. He’s an IRS agent,” said an amused female voice. “I mean, he’s a zombie already, right?”

“No, IRS agents are just dead on the inside,” countered another female, her honeyed voice rich with laughter.

“Ha ha,” whispered Meyer as he opened his eyes.

“He liiiiiiives,” said the attractive brunette sitting at the end of the bed. She grinned and wiggled her fingers at him. “Hey zombie boy.”

“It was real then.” He looked up at the woman sitting next to him. Her long red curls drifted past her shoulders, and her eyes were green flecked with gold. She wore a white loose-fitting top and a crinkled black skirt with calf-length boots. “Who are you?”

“Lenette Stinson,” she said softly. “And that’s Jessica.”

“That thing,” he said. “Is it …” He realized “dead” was an ineffectual term. He sat up, leaning against the headboard. He glanced around the room with its soothing blue walls and simple white furniture. The pleasant scent of jasmine tickled his senses. His gaze flicked to the woman so close to him, and he realized it was her perfume. Her eyes were filled with warmth, and there was something else, too. Interest. He blinked. It had been a long time since a woman had looked at him with anything other than ire. His occupation often precluded dating.

“Don’t worry,” said Jessica. “As soon as my husband brought you into the guest bedroom, he disposed of the zombie. Occasionally they still pop up. Most of the time we catch them before they actually chomp on someone.”

“You sound as though this was a common occurrence.” He tore his gaze from Lenette and looked at Jessica. Ah, Jessica Matthews. Excellent. He’d gotten the right house after all.

“Broken Heart isn’t your usual kind of town,” she said. “You’ll like it, though.”

“I’ll like it?” He shook his head. “I’m not moving here. I came here because you have not filed your taxes in two years, Mrs. Matthews. We need to discuss how—”

Her peals of laughter flummoxed him.

“I don’t find this situation merits joking,” he said stiffly.

Lenette laid a comforting hand on his thigh, and Meyer was immediately distracted by the intimate touch. “I’m afraid Jessica’s tax issues are no longer yours to worry about. It seems that the zombie bite has … infected you. You’re not quite human anymore.” She shot a look at Jessica who had her lips pinned together. Meyer realized the other woman was refraining from spouting more IRS jokes.

All right then. Bitten by a zombie, and now he was … something else. Meyer had no time to work his way through denial or put forth entreaties about the impossibility of his current situation. He was a practical man. “Will I turn into a zombie like the one who bit me?”

“Nah,” said Jessica. “Lenette’s a kick-ass Wiccan. She saved your butt with her magic. Dr. Michaels took some blood samples, but he seems to think that even though you’re sorta zombie, you’re not dead.” She patted his foot. Then she smiled, and he saw her fangs. “All this talk of blood is making me hungry. I’ll see you guys later.”

After Jessica left the room, Meyer turned a shocked gaze to Lenette. “Blood?”

“She’s a vampire, honey,” she said. “I’m a witch who practices white magic. And you are an almost zombie.”

“This morning, I was an IRS agent.”

“I think,” said Lenette, chuckling, “that zombies are better liked.”

Her lips glistened with some kind of gloss that he very much wanted to taste. She wore very little make-up, but she didn’t need it. He’d never been so enamored of a woman before. Decisive as always, Meyer leaned forward and kissed her, a brief tender invasion that made his heart skip a beat. He drew back, just a little, and gauged her reaction.

Lenette smiled, and cupped his cheek. “Hmm. Not bad for a zombie. But maybe you should give it another try, just to make sure I like it.”

So, he did.

Note from the Author:
Meyer and Lenette show up in some of the Broken Heart books, including Book 9,
Only Lycans Need Apply
.

Deleted Scene from
Don’t Talk Back to Your Vampire

Ta-da! I interrupt this masterpiece to bring you Jessica’s point-of-view. Heh. Heh. I learned how to glamour mortals so don’t blame our historian; she’s staring at the laptop with drool hanging off her lip. When she awakes, she won’t remember this little insertion into the book. Don’t mess with the Jess, people!

Yeah, I know,
I know
. It’s shitty of me to butt in right when Eva gets knocked out and … oh, sorry. You’ll have to read Chapter 8.

Can you believe that Eva and Lorcan sooooo totally have the hots for each other? I mean, c’mon, the librarian and the monk? That’s perfect. I think they rock as a couple and hey, if I have to … um,
encourage
them (i.e. push them together at every freaking opportunity), I damned sure will.

Sometimes, people falling in love (or lust, whatever) fight and fight and fight their attraction. I know this from my own experience and when I finally admitted I loved Patrick, it was like being able to eat chocolate again. Wait. Let me think about that for a moment. Ooooooooooooooh.

Er … what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, the librarian and the monk.

Aren’t they cu-
ute
together?

Gak! The historian is starting to twitch. Maybe I don’t have this glamouring thing down as well as I thought.

Okay, okay, I’m going. Sheesh. Oh! One more thing! The next person in the outside world who calls
me
a bad mother is gonna wake up with fangs in her (or his) neck.
I’m The Vampire, That’s Why
was like, y’know, a month out of my life. That’s it—a whole flippin’ month. And
you’re
gonna give
me
crap about my undead parenting skills? Puh-lease.

Yikes! I
really
gotta go.

Pretend I was never here, okay?

*  *  *  *  *

“Mom,” said my fifteen-year-old daughter as she watched me pull on my well-used Nikes, “you’re a
vampire
.”

              “I am?” I rounded my eyes in exaggerated horror. “And all this time I thought I was allergic to sunlight.”

              “Ha. Ha.
Ha.
”

Grinning, I lifted my left eyebrow and said in a bad Dracula voice, “I vant to suck your blood.”

              “Oh my gawd.” Tamara slapped a hand to her forehead and shut her eyes. “Swear on your undead soul to never do that again.”

              I laughed and finished lacing my shoes. “I don’t run for the exercise.”

Before I was—as my daughter put it—“vampified,” I ran two miles every day. As a vampire, I didn’t need exercise. In fact, getting killed had rid me of cellulite, acne scars, and crow’s feet. But I wanted to remain connected to my previous life. So much else had been taken away— sunrise and road trips and ice cream (oh the lamentable joy of a Ben & Jerry’s pint).

We sat on the rickety front porch stairs of our three-story house. The place was in major disrepair, but I couldn’t afford to fix it. The smells of dust and mold were still prevalent despite a hefty investment in Glade candles and two Ionic Breeze machines.

I was Broken Heart’s librarian, a job my paternal grandmother had held until her death a year ago. We shared the same name—Evangeline Louise LeRoy—but that was our only link. My father died when I was two-years-old; my mother had lost touch with the LeRoys long ago. Inheriting the job and the mansion/library had been a lucky break for me and Tamara. We needed a fresh start.

Becoming a vampire wasn’t what I had in mind.

The light from a sliver of moon shone down on us. When I was pregnant with Tamara, every kind of life cycle fascinated me (for obvious reasons). I studied the moon phases most fervently because I was
way
into symbolism and the whole “light in the darkness” thing appealed to me. That’s why I knew tonight’s lunar phase was called “waning crescent.” Lord-a-mercy, I knew all kinds of useless information. Ask me how much water a new toilet flushed and I could tell you it was 1.6 gallons. Ask me how to get to the Thrifty Sip, Broken Heart’s only convenience store, and I’d get you lost in nothing flat.

As it neared the end of August, summer still clutched Oklahoma in a lover’s embrace.  The air felt humid and hot, even now, when the sun had been down for hours. A breeze offered some respite and brought with it the sweet scent of honeysuckle, a flower that bloomed nearly everywhere in town.

I was dressed in a green sports bra and matching running shorts, my red hair pulled into a ponytail. Tamara, as usual, was dressed in unrelenting black. She eschewed the term “Goth,” though she kohled her eyes, wore blood-red lipstick, and brought the word “sullen” to whole new level of meaning. Her hair was cut chin-length and colored raven-black except for the two cherry-red stripes on either side of her face. She also had one eyebrow and her belly button pierced with silver rings—and that was the
compromise
. My darling daughter had wanted her tongue pierced and a coiling snake tattooed on her ankle.