Adventures of a Vegan Vamp: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery (5 page)

I
was
gonna hunt down the vile vampire rat who’d bitten me…just as soon as I could get out of bed. I’d made it home in my spiffy new car—and then my energy level had crashed. Maybe I should have tried to eat? Or maybe I should have drunk another gallon of water? Or even orange juice? And I didn’t sleep-drink this time, because I forgot to fill the pitcher next to my bed before collapsing.

When I woke, the sun was up—so I’d slept at least twelve hours. Given my past experiences, it was likely longer. And as I lay there, my regrets were piling up. I felt horrendous, and getting out of bed seemed impossible. The achiness was back. The coma-like sleep, back. The raging thirst, back. I had graduated from the crusty goo that had accumulated in my eyes before—so a bonus there. That was my last thought before I drifted off a second time, too weak to make a bathroom or kitchen run for emergency hydration.

* * *

M
y stomach felt empty
, but I rolled over and slept. It nagged, made my sleep restless. It hurt, made me toss and turn. It burned. Angry. Demanding.

I woke to piercing, gut-churning pain.

My lips cracked when I opened my mouth to moan. Curled in on myself and clutching my stomach, I couldn’t see how this could get worse.

No one was coming to check on me. My phone wasn’t near. And I hurt like crazy. Maybe this was it. Maybe a day was all I’d had. Nuts. I should be terrified, but I just felt pathetic. I was that alone, that isolated. No one would miss me.

I concentrated on breathing. Even, slow breaths. It worked for a few seconds, then a wave of hungry pain washed through me.

A few breaths, and I rolled to the edge of the bed.

A few more breaths, and I rolled off the bed.

The jarring pain as I hit the floor was nothing compared to the spasms in my gut. The sting cleared my head, and I began to crawl—foot by foot—to the bathroom.

Water. Maybe it would help. Or maybe this was it, and nothing I did could help me. I waited for the crushing weight of despair…but I was just too tired to feel that much.

After a few minutes of waiting, I realized that I wasn’t
that
tired. Dying was bad. Super bad. Dead-not-waking-up bad. I couldn’t just curl up and let it happen. I had to try. So I crawled, inch by inch, to the bathroom.

The tile felt cold under my thigh, my hip, my cheek. I didn’t feel hot—but the floor was icy.

I couldn’t stand. The tub faucet was so close—I pulled at the knob and water splashed…too far to drink.

* * *

W
hen I woke
, I was hungry. Pit-of-my-stomach-gnawing hunger. But I didn’t hurt. Even the flu-like ache was gone. I cracked my eyes open but quickly clenched them tightly shut again when the light stung them. I lifted my hand reflexively, but when it touched my face, it was wet.

Cautiously this time, I opened my eyes again. I was in my bathtub. The tub was almost full. So full, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t drowned.

I remembered turning the water on…but that was it. Getting in the tub, turning the water off—that was all a blank.

I hadn’t stripped, since I still wore the tennis skirt and T-shirt I’d put on—how many days ago? Good lord. There was no way I still had a job.

Standing was difficult, but I managed to prop myself against the wall. As I stood, water sloshed over the edge of the tub. I truly didn’t know how I’d gotten into the tub given the state I was in, or how I’d avoided drowning myself in the full tub while comatose.

I stepped out and stripped. I was still pretty drained, and wearing a bunch of wet clothes wasn’t helping. As I turned to leave the bathroom, I caught my profile in the mirror. “Ack!”

Frozen in front of the mirror, an emaciated version of my former self stared back. Where I’d thought my face gaunt before, it was clear it had merely been sharply defined.
This
was gaunt. The hollows under my cheeks had deepened. My face was all eyes, cheekbones, nose, and chin, with no flesh to round it out. It was grotesque.
I
was grotesque.

Because the sight had startled me, it took a moment for me to see that my lips were not just chapped and cracked. I had two very distinct cuts on my bottom lip, both equal distances from the corner of my mouth. My breath quickened and I stepped closer to the mirror—to the stranger in the mirror.

I opened my mouth…

Relief welled up inside me and escaped as a single, choked laugh. No fangs. No oddly sharp teeth. Just my teeth. That, at least, hadn’t changed.

I turned away from the image in the mirror and marched to the kitchen. Time to do a little digging and some eating. Because I could hardly deny that starvation was just around the corner. That—and I was hungry enough to eat cardboard.

I grabbed my laptop on the way. Online research was definitely my next step.

Laptop open on the kitchen table, I reached for my first experiment. Orange juice. I’d tried it and puked it before—but had it been the orange juice or the peanut butter or the bread that had triggered my puking fit? That was the question.

I gulped down some OJ, then belatedly realized I should have measured it. Measuring cup in hand, it occurred to me that I should also be timing this little gastro-experiment. I set the timer to fifteen minutes, because I was pretty sure my adverse reaction had asserted itself within that time frame. Which sparked my next brilliant idea: a handy metal bowl. Portable and dishwasher safe—the perfect repository should one of my experiments fail.

While I waited for the contents to settle—or not—I pulled up what I could find on the constituent components of human blood. And what supported good blood health.

And my stomach kept reminding me—
I’m hungry, wench. Feed me
.

So I didn’t quite make it to fifteen minutes. At five, I decided OJ by itself had qualified as a winner, and I finished off the carton. I set the timer for another five minutes—because that was apparently my max tolerance for intense hunger while standing in a kitchen not quite devoid of food.

I dug around in the fridge and found squat, so I shifted my attention to the cupboard. Dried apricots, maybe. Almonds sounded delish. Coffee beans. Yum. I started a kettle of boiling water.

The timer dinged my five-minute reprieve, and I stuffed an apricot in my mouth. Now was as good a time as any for the odd bits in my fridge to go, so I pulled out the squishy tomato and chucked it in the bin. Immediately thereafter, with an accuracy I wish I could claim as intentional, I threw up in that same bin.

I suspected the apricot—but I couldn’t be sure. That was when I discovered the flaw in my less-than-well-prepared plan. Was it the OJ and a delayed reaction? Or the apricot and an immediate one? Was it a combination of both?

The singing of my kettle interrupted my self-flagellation. I dithered for a spare minute—then decided that I might as well give coffee a whirl.

Thirty minutes later, I hugged the bag of coffee beans close to my chest and danced a little jig. Then I might possibly have run a few laps in my small apartment, yelled, “Hallelujah,” and then ordered fifty pounds of coffee online. Possibly. To be delivered immediately. I might have done that.

S
tep
one in moving my life forward required me to have a life. The kind where my heart continued to beat and my lungs filled with air. I didn’t really believe I was going to die. First, I didn’t feel
that
bad. And second, death was big. Huge. And I was thirty-nine. I wasn’t ready to die, so I couldn’t be dying. Denial? Definitely. But if it got me out of bed, I’d take it.

And now that I was not only out of bed, but had also discovered my vampiric drug of choice (coffee), and had found a few tidbits that I could eat…or drink, I was ready to find my life, wherever it might lurk.

I flipped the plain cream-colored card over. To call Anton, the sneaky rat who couldn’t be bothered to explain what I was, how I was supposed to live, and why this had happened to me. Hm. Or to call the mysterious ER.

The obnoxious and heartless unknown or the mysterious and even more unknown.

I considered for about a tenth of a second and dialed the number for ER. Anton could stick it.

After two rings, a man answered. “Where are you?”

His abruptness caught me off guard, and I said, “At home. Where are you?”

I held the phone away from my face, winced over my idiocy, then put the phone back next to my ear.

I’d clearly missed something, because there was silence. “Hello? Sorry—I missed that?”

“What is your emergency?” The guy sounded more than a little put out.

“Are you kidding me? I’m a…a…you know, with the blood and the bats and the crosses.”

“I’m tracing this call. We have a zero-tolerance policy for crank callers.”

Good grief. Maybe Anton would have been better. “I’m not a crank caller. I’m a…”

A sigh came across the line. “A vampire?”

“Yes!” I hadn’t realized how hard it would be to say that out loud. Especially over the phone, to someone who would likely think I was a crazy lady.

“What is the nature of your emergency?”

He was clearly losing his patience, but he wasn’t the only one.

“I just told you. I’m a vampire. That is the nature of my emergency.”

“Are you experiencing an uncontrolled bloodlust?”

I threw up a little in my mouth. “No, definitely not.”

“Are you experiencing the onset of a murderous rage?”

I stopped and considered that one. I hadn’t been. I might be now. “No, although you might push me over the edge.”

“Look, lady. I’m on a date—with a very hot woman I’ve been trying to get to go out with me for a long time. You’ve interrupted my extremely hot date with your emergency call. If you can’t tell me what the nature of your emergency is, I’m hanging up.”

“I’m a recently turned vampire who can’t eat blood, is about two steps away from starving, and no one gives a rat’s rear about it. On top of that, some vile fanged guy bit and infected me, and I’m not supposed to call the cops because it’s all hush-hush with the paranormal freaky stuff. But even if I wanted to call the po-po, no luck there, because I haven’t a clue who stuck their tiny, cowardly, inadequate fangs in me. But wait—when I finally call someone I think might be able to help me, a horny teenager who can’t be bothered to give me the time of day answers.” I took a giant breath. “My
life
is an emergency.”

Silence.

“Hellooo?”

“Give the horny teenager a break. That was a mouthful to digest.” He sounded slightly less annoyed with me. “Where did you get this number?”

I growled. “Mr. Clean passed the card to my doctor, who then passed it to me.”

The horny teen responded with a deep chuckle. Maybe not a teenager after all. “That sounds like Anton. We must have been short-handed, or you have some terrible luck, lady. What’s your name?”

Finally—a reasonable question. “Mallory. And I am sorry to interrupt your date.”

“Yeah, well, you and me both—but I’m on call, so it’s not completely unexpected. Are you in any immediate danger?”

“About that—every time I fall asleep, I wake up significantly diminished. In size. As in, I’m losing weight really fast.”

“Yeah. If you can’t consume blood and you’re going through the transformation… Ah, you said you went to the doctor and that’s where you met Anton?”

“Right. But my doctor was clueless. Other than telling me to try drinking lots of water and wishing me luck, she couldn’t get me gone fast enough. Oh, and telling me I’m probably toast. Sorry—not long for this earth. Not in so many words, but basically. Although other than being really hungry—no bloodlust, just really hungry—I feel fine. And the coffee has really helped.”

A choking noise sounded on the line. “Don’t drink coffee.”

“What? It makes me feel great. And it’s one of the few things I can get down.”

“Yeah, well, coffee makes most vamps a little nutty, so be cautious.” Some background noise cut through, then I heard muffled voices—probably speaking to his smoking date. “If you think you can hang on till morning, I can swing by, pick you up, and take you in to see one of the Society vamps. If it helps, most vampires seem to drink whatever they want, but I’ve not seen one consume solids. So maybe give some other liquids besides coffee a try.”

“Sure thing. Thank you. Oh, and good luck on your date.”

“Cheers.”

“Oh, wait a second. Hello?”

“Still here.”

“Don’t you need my address?”

“No joke about the crank-calling policy. I’ve got your address.”

“Right. Got it.” Because that wasn’t creepy at all. “Thanks again!”

But he’d already hung up.

Now, to get through the night. No problem. Coffee didn’t seem to make
me
nutty, so I’d just drink coffee all night. That way, I wouldn’t fall asleep, and all the creepy transformation stuff that happened in my sleep couldn’t happen.

* * *

F
ive hours
later I was seeing music, hearing colors, and talking to my dead Great-Auntie Lula.

Can’t drive. Can’t call my mother. Noooooo. Definitely can’t call Mother
. Looking like a skeleton, talking like a crazy lady, I’d end up in an institution for sure.

I paced. Chugged some water. Paced.

Maybe some more coffee would be good. Noooo! No. More. Coffee. Bad me. Bad.

I paced some more. And then brilliance struck. “Shakes!” I looked at the fading figure of Great-Auntie Lula and waved as she faded away. “Thank you!”

Because Great-Auntie Lula had practically lived on this one particular brand of vegan nutrition supplement shakes the last few years of her life. I’d even tried them, and they weren’t half bad.

“Now, where does an emaciated vamp strung out on caffeine go to get her vegan shake fix? Ha!” I knew right away. There was only one place where I wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb. One place that welcomed all comers at all hours.

I called a cab. I was going to Walmart.