Biting Nixie (21 page)

“Well…there
is
the employee discount.”

“What's that?”

“It's a great benefit.” The morose voice warmed for the first time. “Not many companies have it. Employees get a fifty percent discount on all products. We have an opening, you know. In records administration.”

“Records?” I could hope he meant vinyl.

“File Clerk I. You'd have to commit to a full year. But it would reduce the insurance for your festival to”—clink clunk whirr—“forty thousand dollars.”

Forty thousand. Still high. But at least it wouldn't wipe out my
entire
budget.

But I would have to work at an insurance company to do it. Just rip out my heart and donate my brain to science. “Well…I…I'll have to think about it.”

Think about it, right. What other choice was there? I tried to console myself that it was only a year. I could be responsible for a year, couldn't I? For 365 days…or 366 if next year was a leap year. Rip out my heart? Tear out all my organs and sell them on the black market. Bend me over and poke me repeatedly with a fish fork.

But the stakes had risen. It wasn't just the band getting a juicy gig out of this. Meiers Corners needed this money to keep vampires out. And according to half the world, I was the only one who could run the festival. The mayor believed in me, the city believed in me.

And, as the final nail in the coffin, my mother was
proud
of me.

Unless a miracle intervened, I'd have to do it.

I hung up the phone and cried.

Chapter Sixteen

With a one o'clock meeting, I couldn't shake my blues in the usual ways. No time for an hour strumming my boyfriend Oscar, or even ten minutes with my vibrator Viggo. So I decided on the next best thing: a fantasy starring me and Julian.

As I walked to City Hall, I remembered the limo ride earlier. Julian's supernaturally hot hands running over my naked flesh. Breath like fire, a dragon snacking on my pussy. A thick, sleek cock, pistoning between my clenched fingers, hammering into me. If Julian could package body parts, he'd outsell Mattel.

And that mist thing! Oh, the possibilities! I imagined lying in bed, stripped bare. I imagined Julian's mist, flowing over my skin. Cool, smooth, leaving goosebumps of need in its flowing wake. Julian's mist running like water over my belly. Pouring down my vulva. Pooling between my thighs. Ooh.

And his fangs,
mmm
. Sliding between inner and outer lip, a smooth, hard finger. Perfect counterpoint to hot, soft breath. And when Julian bit my mons…oh, yeah. Even the memory of the sharp need lancing through me made my nipples erect.

At one o'clock I stood at the head of the council conference table, in a much better mood. Almost too good a mood. While I squared my notes on the small tabletop podium in front of me, I had to furtively clench my overheated thighs. I hoped my nipples weren't visible. For the first time I wished my bra was padded. I wanted my secret fantasies to stay totally secret.

After discreetly checking my chest (nipples thankfully down) I cleared my throat. “Thank you all for coming today.”

People kept jabbering all around the table. I barely heard myself above the conversational din. Ah, yes. The Meiers Corners Common Council, just as I remembered it. Argue, don't decide anything, and go out for drinks.

“Please, let me speak.” No effect. My fantasies faded. “I want to start the meeting.” Yak-yak-yak. My good mood evaporated. “Come to order!” If anything, they got louder.

I was going to have to sell body and soul to an insurance company for this festival, and I couldn't even get some basic respect. Fuck that.

“
This meeting will come to order
!” I didn't have a gavel (which made me think of Julian's gavel, which made me hot) so I pounded my fist on the podium. It cracked in two. All around me startled faces blinked in sudden silence. Though I hadn't meant to break the podium, it worked, so okay. I wasn't as surprised as they were. I'm small, but I pack a mean punch.

Plus, it made me feel even better. The Lestats and the Coterie and insurance might be totally out of control. But I could still run this meeting.

I picked up my notes. “Let's get started. As you know, the festival begins Friday. That's four days from now. You each have in front of you a list of events, who's running what, where, and when.”

“Then everything's done!” Dieter Donner said brightly. He smiled like Donkey, wide and toothy. “Let's go drink!”

There was a general murmur of assent. People started rising.

“Sit down!” I glared at the assemblage one by one. Josiah Moss, the somber partner in Stark and Moss Mortuary. Kurt Weiss, the curly-haired, nervous manager of the Allrighty-Allnighty convenience store. Gretchen Johnson, Elena's younger sister. Buddy, the bartender at Nieman's Bar. Dieter Donner and his partner Franz Blitz, the horse and carriage of the bar. And Brunhilde Butt, Granny to Bruno Braun and a wilted Gypsy Rose Lee to the rest of the city. The Meiers Corners Common Council. “Ladies and gentlemen. We are nowhere
near
done.”

“We aren't?” Josiah Moss asked in a mellow, non-sectarian voice. Considering where he worked, I guessed sounding vanilla-bland was an asset.

“No we aren't,” I barked, very non-vanilla. “Except for Buddy, who's running the Sheepshead Tournament, none of you have duties.”

“And we thank you for that, Miss Schmeling.” Blitz rose and bowed. “Shall we adjourn for a drink, as we used to when you were a student member of the…?”

“None of you has duties—yet,” I broke in frantically. “I'm going to take care of that right now.”

“Surely you don't need us. Not if all the events have chairpersons. You don't need us.” Kurt was so anxious, he almost yipped it. Kurt played MMO games. His nom de guerre was Poodle Boy, and it fit.

“I want to be absolutely sure everything goes off as smoothly as possible. So I want all the events double-teamed.”

“I don't understand. You want us to run things?” Granny Butt reached into her blouse and adjusted a bra strap. I got a whole eyeful of yellowed, stretched-out elastic.

I rubbed my eyes. Nope. Didn't scrub the sight away. “Each event already has someone to run it. I want you to help that person. Like a producer in a movie. It's your job to see that everything they need is there, that things go off on time…stuff like that.” I passed out another paper. “Here are your assignments. You'll see some of you have two. Mrs. Butt will be helping out with the cheese ball tasting and the cheese contest at the Deli Delight. Brunhilde, please note we're opening the cheese ball tasting before the official festival opening time. It's the only one scheduled before 4:30.”

“Why is that?” Granny asked.

“We're going to try to give people a buffer for the beer. Now, Josiah Moss will be handling both the bands and—”

A duck-like muddy rasp interrupted me. “Hi, Nixie, sorry I'm late! But I had a shoelace break and when I went to the store to buy a replacement I saw Mayor Meier—oh, he says ‘hi' and thanks again for running the First Annual Meiers Corners International Fun Fair, Sheepshead Tournament, and Polka Festival and—” It was Dirk Ruffles, the most male person I knew (because he had exclamation points and commas, but he never had a period).

Josiah Moss went an odd shade of ashen gray. In a choked voice he said, “What…what is
he
doing here?”

Dirk perked up at the voice. “Mr. Moss! Fancy seeing you here! Are you helping with the festival?” He started over with his lumbering stride, his hand stuck out for a shake.

Moss half-rose from his chair and started backing away. “No…no…keep away!”

Like the Battery Bunny, Dirk just kept on going. “Mr. Moss, what's wrong? Why are you bent over that way? Does your tummy hurt? Can I help?”

“No!” Moss spun on his heel to run.

“But I know just what cures a tummy-ache, Mr. Moss! My mother always said a nice pink pill will settle you, and I have one here—although I didn't used to carry medicine, but since the time that vam-peer guy in the cape had pinkeye, I put pinkeye medicine in my fanny pack and I thought what the heck, I'll put in the other medicines too! All my mother's remedies are here—Mr. Moss?”

Dirk was clumsy but long-legged, and before Moss could take even a couple steps, Dirk caught him by the wrist. Moss flailed at him, mouth agape in fear. Dirk, who wouldn't know fear if it ran cold fingers down his spine or even shoved ice up his butt, simply popped a small pill into Moss's open mouth.

Moss gasped, coughed, and gulped. There was a moment of pure terror on his face when he realized he had swallowed Dirk's pill. “What—” Moss croaked. “What…was that?”

“Just a tummy pill, Mr. Moss. See, I have a whole fanny pack full of medicine. Well, it's not really a fanny pack because I wear it over my stomach, so I guess that makes it a stomach pack—”

“
What was that pill
!?” Moss shouted, no longer gray and somber, but red and very upset.

Dirk pulled the mouth of his pack wide. “You can see. Drops for pinkeye and lozenges for sore throats. White pills for headaches and pink pills for tummy-aches and blue pills for…oh-oh.”

Moss went white. “Oh-oh? What do you mean, oh-oh? What, oh-oh!?”

“I put in three of each color pill. Three white pills and three pink pills and three blue pills.” Dirk sounded mildly annoyed.

“But…?”

“Well, now there's still three white pills and three pink pills. But there's only two blue pills. Huh. I must have gotten it wrong. I must have put in three white pills and four pink pills and—”

Two blue pills instead of the expected three. I had a horrible suspicion. “Dirk?” I interrupted. “What are the blue pills?”

“Huh?” He blinked muddy eyes at me.

“The blue pills. What are they for?”

“Constipation, of course. Really good, too. My mother would give me one of these and within minutes I was like a brown geyser—”

Moss turned green. Then blue, then pink, then red. Then, without another word, he raced from the room.

“Well,” I said, watching him go.

“Well,” Dirk said, for once at a loss for words.

I picked up my notes. “I guess
now
we're done. Let's go get those beers.”

 

 

 

I blamed the fourth beer for what happened next.

The Common Council meeting had started at one. We made our way to Nieman's bar at one fifteen. I had four beers in four hours, which according to St. Bart should have meant the alcohol was out of my system when I left at five.

Except three
of those beers were after four, when Granny Butt started stripping. When I was a high-schooler, Granny's skin had fit her like elephant socks, and she hadn't gotten any firmer over the years. I
had
to drink, or dig my eyeballs out with teaspoons.

So I was traipsing down the sidewalk a little crookedly when the streetlights flared to life. I stopped. Stared. Checked my watch. The big hand was on the nine and the little hand was almost on the five. I was a bit fogged on what time that was. But I was crystal clear that I would soon have company.

“Just what are you doing here? Out,
alone
, at night?”

I knew that grouchy voice anywhere. My favorite vampire had come to protect me. Beer bubbled happily in my blood. “I thought you had negoatee—negushiat—negotiations.” As I said, three beers in one hour. My tongue was pleasantly numb.

Julian was anything but pleasant, or numb. He grabbed me by the arms and turned me. “I thought I told you to stay…have you been drinking?”

“Got it in one, Feeny Todd. Blood alcohol level at least .11. Hey—does that mean if you bite me now you'll get drunk?” I smiled up at him (and up), trying to picture a drunk Julian. Drunk sex was usually sloppy wet sex, but I had a hard time imaging Julian's sex even more sloppy and wet. Or maybe not. It would be slidey, slippy, in-out gushy. Water slide tangly.

Julian's beautiful nostrils flared. No doubt he smelled my red carpet being rolled out. But he just grabbed my elbow and pulled. “Come on. I'm taking you home. And it's Sweeney Todd.”

“Not with you feening about me missing curfew. So what happened to the negushee—negolly—meeting?”

Julian shot me an annoyed look. “Negotiations…broke down.”

“Why?”

“You don't want to know.”

I
did
want to know. I tried to stop him. No go. I tried to break away from him. I had as much success as if I'd been superglued to a bullet train. So I did the next best thing. I launched myself at him, catching my arms around his neck and wrapping my legs around his lean waist. “Why?” I asked again, dropping little kisses on his smooth, good-smelling jaw.

“Nixie—” Julian said dangerously.

Oooh! It was my favorite growly voice. “Why did the nego…they break down?” I slipped my tongue into the corner of his mouth. Pumped my hips lightly against his waist. His hands slid over my butt, fingers clamped tight. He turned his mouth into mine, tongue first. To take me in a soul-searing kiss, I was sure. But I wanted answers, not oblivion. I turned my face away. “Why?”

“You are the most frustrating…infuriating…” He pulled my hips into his. Whoa. That was some hard-shell briefcase.

I wriggled against it. Bright little sparks zapped between us. “You might as well tell me. I'll find out anyway, from Elena.”

“Damn it, Nixie. Nosferatu was angry at me and negotiations broke down. That's it.” He rubbed himself against me, playing the hardest part of Mr. Briefcase right down the center, where I was hottest and wettest. “Satisfied?”

“Not nearly.” My hips pumped in rhythm. “Why was he angry?”

Julian's tongue came out, swirled up my neck to my ear. Between gentle sucks on the lobe he said, “Because he was. Drop it, Nixie.”