Jane Bites Back (6 page)

Jane, with great relief, saw Sherman approaching with a drink in each hand. When he noticed Miranda, his face visibly stiffened. Then, just as quickly, a smile returned.

“Ladies,” he said, “I have arrived with refreshments.”

He handed a glass of wine to each of them. Miranda, as if she’d assumed all along that Sherman had gone to get her a drink, accepted her glass without comment. Sherman, now without his own glass, sat beside her. Jane almost offered him her wine, but she knew he wouldn’t accept it.
He’s too much of a gentleman
, she thought.
And Miranda is too much of a boor
.

“Jane and I were just discussing whether or not Austen would appreciate her landscape being overrun by the undead,” Miranda told Sherman.

“Ah, the zombie book,” Sherman said. “A rollicking good read.”

Jane stifled a laugh. Miranda frowned.

“Mind you, I prefer the original,” Sherman continued. “But there’s nothing at all wrong with giving the classics a bit of a tweaking. I gave that book to my nephew’s youngest. What would that make her, my great-niece? No, grandniece. At any rate, she’s twelve. She loved it. Now she’s reading all of Austen. So there you are.” He looked at Miranda as if this were the last word on the subject.

“Miranda fears that vampires will be next,” Jane said, unable to resist.
“Sense and Sensibility and Dracula
, perhaps.”

“I’m partial to werewolves, myself,” Sherman said. “I think Emma would make a fine lycanthrope.”

Miranda sipped her wine. “Well, if they’re going to bastardize anyone, I’m not surprised that it’s Austen,” she said icily.

Jane bristled. Miranda was a Brontëite, and like most of them, she not-so-secretly resented the fact that Jane’s books regularly outsold those of the beloved sisters.

“Austen
is
our most popular author,” Jane parried.

Miranda reacted to Jane’s maneuver without flinching. “I suppose keeping your doors open requires appealing to the public’s tastes,” she remarked.

She’d do very well in a drawing-room battle
, Jane thought, admiring Miranda despite her personal distaste for the woman.
One would never quite know what she was saying, or on which side of her opinion one fell
.

All of a sudden a sharp twinge stabbed through her side. She
almost cried out. She placed her hand on the site of the pain. Again the feeling came, this time more intensely. It was followed by a flash of cold fire behind her eyes.

No, no, no
, she thought.
Not now. Not here
.

She needed to feed.

“Everybody having a good time?”

Jane looked up to see a smiling Walter standing before her. “Wonderful,” she said as the cramps hit her again.

“That’s what I like to hear,” said Walter. “So, what were you all talking about?”

Jane winced as the pain returned and made it impossible to speak. She needed to get out of here before it got any worse. But how could she excuse herself without seeming rude or, worse, letting Miranda think she was giving up the battle?

Thinking quickly, she jostled Miranda’s arm, causing Miranda’s glass to tip precipitously. Wine poured onto her lap, staining her dress. Miranda let out a little shriek.

“I’m so sorry!” Jane exclaimed.

“It’s going to stain,” said Miranda angrily.

“Not if we blot it with seltzer,” Jane said. “Come with me.”

She stood and, gripping Miranda’s wrist, pulled the woman to her feet. Miranda let out another surprised squeal, no doubt shocked by Jane’s strength.

“You’ll excuse us, gentlemen,” Jane said to Walter and Sherman.

“Of course,” Walter said. “But make sure you’re back in time for the countdown.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jane assured him.

She hurried through the crowd, pulling Miranda behind her. Seeing that the door to the hallway bathroom was closed, she detoured into Walter’s bedroom. She bypassed the bed, covered in
coats, and dragged Miranda into the en suite bathroom. Closing the door behind them, she turned to Miranda.

“Now then,” she said. “Let’s take care of you.”

“But we didn’t get any seltzer,” Miranda objected. She turned the water on in the sink and started wetting a hand towel. “It’s going to set.”

“First things first,” said Jane. She spoke in a low voice, concentrating on clouding Miranda’s mind. Glamoring was one of the few vampiric tricks Jane had at her disposal. She very rarely used it, saving it for times such as this. Now she concentrated on manipulating Miranda’s thoughts.

Miranda hesitated, the towel in the stream of water. Slowly she let it fall into the sink, then turned and looked at Jane. “First things first,” she said softly.

Keeping her eyes on Miranda’s, Jane put her hand on the back of the woman’s neck. “Relax,” she said. “This will take just a minute.”

She bit into the soft skin beneath Miranda’s left ear, where her long hair would cover the bite marks until they could heal. Miranda slumped against Jane as she lost consciousness. Blood slipped into Jane’s mouth.

As she drank, the cramps subsided. Miranda’s blood was bitter, which surprised Jane not at all given the woman’s literary preferences. But it did the trick and, more important perhaps, prevented Jane from drinking more than she needed. When the pain in her had abated, she released Miranda, who slumped to the floor. Wiping her hand across her mouth, Jane giddily murmured, “Austen one, Brontë zero.”

Opening the door a crack, Jane peered into the bedroom. It was empty. Lifting Miranda in her arms, she carried her to the bed and placed her on it. Then she arranged the coats around her, not covering
her but obscuring her enough that anyone taking a casual glance into the room would not immediately notice her.
And if they do
, she thought,
they’ll just assume she’s sleeping off her wine
.

When she returned to the living room, she found Sherman on the sofa exactly where she had left him. Smiling broadly, she sat beside him. “Here I am,” she said. “As promised.”

“I trust Miss Fleck has been taken care of?” Sherman said.

Jane nodded. “Yes, but I’m afraid she’s decided to abandon our company for more agreeable friends,” she said.

“Pity,” Sherman replied. Jane noticed that in her absence he had gotten himself a new drink. She also noticed that Walter was missing.

“Walter was called away by his duties as host,” Sherman said, as if reading her mind. “I’m so glad you’re back. It’s been dreadfully dull.”

“Well then, let’s make up for lost time,” Jane said. “Tell me everything you know about everyone here.”

In short order Jane learned that both Mr. and Mrs. Primsley were having an affair with the high school debate coach; that Miranda Fleck’s dissertation was late not because of her need to research more primary sources but because her original work had been found to be not at all original; and that a surprising number of the party guests had at one time or another been arrested for shoplifting, driving under the influence, indecent exposure, or a combination of all three.

“Next you’ll tell me that Walter has a sordid past,” Jane remarked.

Sherman waved one hand and laughed. “Walter has no past,” he said. “I don’t think he’s had even one date since his wife died.”

“His wife?” Jane coughed, choking on her wine. “I didn’t know he’d been married.”

Sherman nodded. “Evelyn,” he said. “She died, oh, it must be almost fifteen years ago now. It was quite a tragedy. They’d been married only a few years.”

“How did she—What happened to her?” asked Jane.

Sherman sighed deeply. “She drowned,” he said. “On the Fourth of July. There was a picnic at the lake. She went swimming. No one knows exactly what happened. One minute she was waving to us, and the next we couldn’t see her. By the time anyone realized something was wrong she was dead.”

“How terrible,” said Jane. “Poor Walter.”

“He was devastated,” Sherman told her. “We worried about him for a long time.”

“He’s never mentioned it to me,” Jane said.

“I’m not surprised,” said Sherman. “He never speaks of her. I don’t think there are even any pictures of her in the house. It’s as if she never existed.”

Jane searched the room for Walter and found him talking to the head of the Historical Society. He was smiling and laughing and waving his hands emphatically.
You would never know he’d suffered such a tragedy
, she thought. Her heart ached for him. She suddenly wanted to go to him and tell him that everything would be all right.

“Ten!” someone shouted, causing Jane to jump.

“Nine!”

Jane glanced at her watch. It was almost midnight.

“Eight!”

“Seven!”

All around her people stood up and began counting down the New Year. They donned hats and held up noisemakers in anticipation.

“Six!”

“Five!”

Jane was hauled to her feet by Sherman, who placed a pointy cardboard hat on her head and handed her a small plastic horn.

“Four!”

“Three!”

Suddenly Walter was in front of Jane. “You didn’t think I’d let you ring the year in alone, did you?” he asked, grinning.

“Two!”

“One!”

Walter took Jane in his arms and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “I’m glad you made it back.”

“Happy New Year!”

All around them people cheered and tooted on their horns and kissed one another. Walter released Jane and cheered along with them. “Happy New Year,” Jane said, but the celebration drowned out the sound of her voice.

Chapter 7

T
AKING THE TRAIN WAS NOT NEARLY AS INTERESTING AS IT HAD
been a hundred years ago. But it was faster, and that was something. As Jane sat and watched the dreary winter landscape pass by, her spirits were buoyed by the knowledge that she would be in New York City in a matter of hours. She could have flown, but she still wasn’t entirely trusting of airplanes. No matter how many times the principle was explained to her she just couldn’t quite believe that something as large as a plane could stay aloft.

It had been difficult to focus on running the bookstore the past few days. The prospect of meeting her new editor in person was thrilling. At the same time she was relieved to be leaving Brakeston.
It had begun to feel claustrophobic. Her chat with Sherman had reminded her that too many people knew too much about each other’s business.

Then there was the small matter of Walter’s dead wife. Jane didn’t know why, but the fact that Walter had never mentioned Evelyn to her was upsetting. And it bothered her that it bothered her. Why should she care if he’d been married?

“I don’t,” she said firmly. “I don’t care at all.”

Across the aisle a boy of about eight turned and looked at her. He’d gotten on at Utica along with an older woman whom Jane assumed to be his grandmother. Ever since, he had been playing some kind of handheld video game that emitted a continuous stream of beeps and chirps that sounded to Jane like electronic crickets. Now the grandmother was asleep.

“Don’t care,” the boy said, mimicking Jane. “I don’t care.” He repeated the phrase over and over as he continued to play his game. Maddeningly, the sound of the game provided a musical background to his chanting. “I don’t care.”
Bleep-bleep-bleep
. “I don’t care.”
Bleep-bleep-bleep
. “I don’t care.”
Bleep-bleep-bleep
.

Jane glared at him. He turned his head and grinned at her. “I don’t care,” he chorused.

Jane bared her fangs at him and watched as the expression on his face changed from smugness to horror. He gasped, dropping his game. He fumbled beneath the seat for it, and when he came up Jane smiled at him. He turned his face away and sat very still, like a small bird in the presence of a cat.

Maybe she
should
give Walter a chance, Jane mused while looking out the window again. When she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she did like Walter very much. He was precisely the kind of man she allowed her heroines to fall in love with—strong-minded but willing to let her be herself, thoughtful
and curious without being condescending, talented but without vanity. Yet if she allowed herself to be with him, she would risk wounding Walter deeply. She was especially wary now that she knew of his tragic past. A dead wife was no small thing.
How would he ever accept an undead one?
she thought.

It was all rather maddening, and no matter how she looked at it she could not come up with a satisfactory ending for the story. Walter would die and she would continue to live. Or he would ask her to make him a vampire, which she would refuse to do.

She thought for a long time, coming to no conclusions, and was relieved when a voice announced their imminent arrival at Pennsylvania Station. She busied herself with putting her coat on and gathering up her things. Then she sat and watched as the train crawled slowly through the long dark tunnels, until finally they came to a stop at a platform and the doors opened.