Fangs for the Memories (3 page)

This was doing nothing for my confusion.

I sank back down into the warm water, feeling for the tub plug with my toes. Maybe I should start hanging out with more werewolves.

As the water drained, my coral-frosted toes peeked up from the surface. Nope, no werewolves—I liked my pinkie toes too much.

3

While it's important to shake things up, set new routines, and break free from destructive patterns, there are some habits that you should hold on to—like going to work, paying taxes, and performing basic hygiene.

—Surviving the Undead Breakup: A Human's Guide to Healing

I
needed space. I needed normal. I needed some daylight, because my pale skin had gone, well, beyond the pale. I was reaching creepy, transparent cavefish levels. So, the next morning, I did what any reasonable person did when they needed human interaction and vitamin D: I went to work.

Riverfront Gifts wasn't exactly the jewel box of the downtown scene. But it was a nice, comfortable, circa 1913 brick building with pressed tin ceilings and oversized plaster medallions above the door. The owner, Margie McClintock, was a mostly reasonable employer who tried to balance the stock between the more refined tastes of the tourists who came into town on riverboat tours (snow globes, blown-glass sculptures made by local artists, handmade lap quilts) with items locals would buy year-round (“I'm with Stupid” T-shirts, “I'm with Stupid” keychains, “I'm with Stupid” aprons—we had a whole “I'm with Stupid” corner). Margie knew about my evening hours but maintained a strict “don't ask, don't tell” policy—other than telling me to wear a scarf over any tell-tale bite marks on my neck, because customers didn't want to think about blood swapping when they were focusing on making vacation memories, of course.

Sorting through the various “I'm with Stupid” products, the Half-Moon Hollow commemorative spoons, and the tiny replicas of the Civil War memorial statue on the park square was soothing. I didn't have to think about Jane and how much she missed Mr. Wainwright. I didn't have to think about Dick and how his mouth felt against mine. I just had to count and fold and tell a mother of three that, sure, a commemorative Half-Moon Hollow shot glass could be considered a “tiny educational juice glass” appropriate for her children's souvenir collections.

Margie dollied a case of little snow globes in from the storeroom as I bade the shot-glass mom good-bye.

“I know I shouldn't judge your sales tactics, but sometimes it's a little freaky that you can do that with a smile on your face,” she said, smoothing her braids back from her heart-shaped face.

Margie had smooth, teak-colored skin, wide brown eyes, and cheekbones I would've killed for. She was currently smarting from her recent ejection from the Half-Moon Hollow Chamber of Commerce. And while it was rumored that her being shown the door was related to her being African American, it had more to do with her age and the demerits she had been assigned for wearing the wrong shoes with her off-the-rack pantsuit. The Chamber of Commerce had suffered some sort of sorority coup and was run by a bunch of evil, pink-worshipping women, all named Courtney. Margie read the demerits for what they were—writing on the wall reading:
You're over forty. Get out.

“Well, if you want to have a conscience, you probably shouldn't pay me based on commission,” I told her.

“That's a good point,” she admitted. “I hear Jane's having a hard time.”

“She really got close to Mr. Wainwright while she was working with him, sort of a surrogate granddaughter,” I said.

“Well, I'm glad Gilbert had someone toward the end of his life,” Margie said. “He was a really lovely man. He never had much of a family—just that creepy nephew of his, Emery.”

“You've actually met Mr. Wainwright's elusive nephew? I thought he was at some missionary center in South America.”

“He still is.” Margie shuddered. “I only met him once, a few years ago, when Gilbert had some minor surgery. You know I volunteer in the hospital gift shop on weekends. Gilbert went in to have his gall bladder removed, and in swans Emery, acting like he owned the place. He was already talking about living wills and not prolonging his uncle's suffering. Gilbert didn't even have any complications! He came through the surgery just fine, but his nephew already had his hand on the plug.”

“Poor Mr. Wainwright!” I exclaimed. “Did Emery really hate him so much?”

“No,” Margie said, shrugging as she carefully lifted the little snow globe boxes from their crate and stacked them on the register counter. “But Emery is Gilbert's only heir, and he wanted to make sure that he got his hands on his inheritance as soon as possible. He claimed that he wanted to donate it to the church, where it could do the most good, but I just didn't trust him. There was something about him that made my skin crawl. I mean, who stays that pasty when you live in the jungle?”

“Inheritance?” My jaw dropped.

“Of everything I just said, that was the word you picked up on?” She snorted.

I protested, “But I thought Mr. Wainwright was basically broke. His shop is a decrepit old mess. And he lived above that decrepit old mess.”

Margie shook her head. “He has—or had—a big old Victorian house on the outskirts of town. He owned the shop building. And the contents of the shop . . . there are a lot of rare, weird old books in that shop. Who knows how much they're worth?”

“It's next to an adult bookstore!” I exclaimed.

“And that adult bookstore used to be a really nice furniture shop,” Margie said. “Turns out there's more money in porn.”

“They should put that on the Chamber of Commerce sign,” I muttered, making Margie snicker. “So basically, Jane will be fired, again, when this nephew rolls into town?”

“Probably.”

“Don't suppose you're looking for another salesclerk?”

“You probably shouldn't have framed that as Jane being fired ‘again' before you asked,” she said.

“She wasn't fired from the library for performance reasons. You've met Mrs. Stubblefield. She's incompetent
and
petty as hell. And after Mrs. Stubblefield fired her, Jane was almost immediately mistaken for a deer, shot, and turned into a vampire. Hasn't she suffered enough?”

“I barely have enough business to justify your salary,” Margie said. “But I'll keep my ears open.”

“Justify my salary,” I harrumphed, tossing the empty box behind the sales counter. “See if I sell any more of your tiny educational juice glasses.”

Several hours and an alarming
number of “I'm with Stupid” potholder sales later, I arrived home to my apartment and considered another contemplative bath. It was long after sunset, and my living room was dark when I locked the front door behind me. I had a few hours before I had to be dressed and ready for an appointment with Sophie, a local Council member who needed me to help a reluctant newborn through her first live feeding.

Shy biters were always a little tricky. They could panic, clamp down too hard, and drain too much. Or they could overcome their aversion too quickly and drink too much. I only took the appointment because Sophie was a high-ranking Council official and had the influence to keep my business safe and profitable for years to come. And I liked to think that someone who had the nerve to go by only one name decades before Cher tried it would have the strength to control a newborn vampire if things got out of hand. I walked into my kitchen to down some iron supplements and eat a little something so I would be prepared.

“Do you always walk around your apartment in the dark?” a rough voice asked from the direction of my couch. “That's not safe.”

“Holy hell!” I yelped, turning and flinging the heavy round paperweight from my hall table toward the voice.

“What the— Why did you just throw that at my head?”

I flicked the lights on and found Dick Cheney sitting on my couch, holding the glass paperweight centimeters from his face.

“How did you get inside my house?” I demanded, determined not to notice the languid, casual grace with which he was draped across my sofa. I stared at the window behind him with great determination. Great. Determination.

Dick lifted the glass orb to eye level, and I had to switch my determination to not noticing how much he resembled a redneck David Bowie in a backwoods version of
Labyrinth
.

Maybe it was time for me to get back in touch with my therapist.

“Why did you throw this at my face?” he asked again.

“How did you get into my house?” I asked again, dropping my purse on the table.

“Do you really want to know?” he asked.

I shook my head. “No. I honestly don't want to know what you're capable of. Please, just don't do it again. And if you do, don't sit on my couch in the dark, waiting for me to come home. It's creepy.”

Dick wiped his hands on his jeans and stood. He was wearing a T-shirt that said, “Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky,” which—compared with the rest of his collection—was very sedate and dignified. “I wanted to apologize for last night.”

“Whatever do you mean?” I asked, smiling blithely, though my hands shook as I took a glass down from the cabinet.

“The kissin' thing,” he said. I could hear every measured footstep as he approached me from behind. I busied myself with pouring a tall glass of filtered water. “I was pissed at myself, and it splashed out on you. And I'm sorry about that.”

“I thought we'd agreed not to talk about this.”

“I never agreed to any such thing,” he protested.

“OK, maybe that was just me.” I turned, and he was standing right in front of me, not quite pinning me against the counter but not giving me a lot of maneuvering room, either. And despite the inches between us, I could still feel him like a crackle of energy brushing over my skin, raising goose bumps.

Dick gave me a lopsided smile. “I'm not sayin' I regret kissin' you, but I—I wanted the first time I kissed you to be different. I just wanted to explain why I was in such a weird place last night.”

“Everybody's upset over Mr. Wainwright dying, Dick.” The smile fell from his face, which only added to my confusion. But I continued, “You seem to be taking it awfully personally, though.”

Dick took a step back, and I immediately felt his absence. “Dick?”

He ran his hand through his hair and let his palm rest against the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. You see, Mr. Wainwright—Gilbert—he was my family, my great-great-great-great-grandson. He was the last of my family—the last in the Cheney line—with the exception of Emery, who I'm considerin' testing for Cheney DNA.”

I stared at him, speechless. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I know it's not nice to make fun of your own grandkids, but honestly, the boy's got all the personality of a dish sponge. I figure it's possible his mama slept aroun—”

“No, no. I mean how is it possible—biologically—that you have grandchildren?” I asked him. “I thought vampires didn't have working—”

I glanced down toward his crotch. I couldn't help it. You try thinking about the functionality of vampire reproductive organs without glancing downward. Honestly.

“My eyes are up here, Byrne,” Dick muttered.

“Sorry,” I said, though I couldn't help but giggle a little bit. I clamped my bottom lip between my teeth to prevent undignified grinning.

Dick sighed. “Back before I was turned, I had a, let's say, ‘fondness' for the family laundress. Eugenia was a sweet girl and very pretty. My father would have called her ‘comely.' We enjoyed each other in a tender but vigorous—”

“Please don't go into details.”

“Well, I guess you've figured that part out. She got in the family way. But she told my father, instead of telling me, and he sent her away before I found out. She had my son, and then, well, she fell on hard times—single mother with a ruined reputation raising a baby. Back in those days, that meant more and made life more difficult, and she got desperate. She jumped in the river, and the baby was sent to an orphanage.”

“Wh-what?” I sputtered. “What are you telling me?”

Dick threw up his hands. “I never even knew about the baby until after I was turned. I was too late to help Eugenia, but I could help Albert. I was able to watch my son grow up from far away. By then, I'd made more than a few, well, I don't like to use the term ‘enemies'—”

“People you screwed over in business dealings?” I supplied.

He nodded. “I left money for Albert when I could, tried to make his life easier. I watched him make all of the same mistakes I did—marry, have a son, not stick around to raise him. So I became a sort of benevolent long-lost uncle to the bloodline, dropping in when they needed something and finding a way to get it to them.

“When Gilbert was born, I could already tell there was something different about him. He was kinder, smarter, and just better than any of us ever tried to be. When he needed schoolbooks, he got them. When he needed glasses, he got them. When he needed college tuition, well—I don't want to tell you what I had to do to get that for him.”