Min's Vampire (55 page)

Dante and Micah exchanged a smile as
Dante nodded. “You might just be the right girl for this job after
all.”

Chapter 12

LUCY sat in the dim light that shone
from the small wall lamp over the stove. It had red roosters on its
shade. Her coffee had turned cold long ago, yet she still held the
cup in her hand. Her arm lay limply against the waxy plastic of the
tablecloth covering her grandmother’s kitchen table. Too many
things drifted and raced and throbbed in her head. Each thought
sizzled with its own heat, pulled at her with its own
weight.

There was the kiss: the feel, the
taste and scent of that memory, when Gabriel had held her and
kissed her in front of his entire family. It hadn’t felt like just
part of the act, the game. But it was connected to the little
spectacle in the alley. How she’d almost been killed. How his real
lady love had nearly strangled her to death. Maybe she was even
going to tear her throat out? That’s what vampires did, wasn’t
it?

And Lucy couldn’t blame her. She
wasn’t really anything to Gabriel, not anything real, and she felt
jealousy flaring hot and unwanted in her soul, in her heart—all for
a man she really didn’t know. No, she couldn’t blame the vampire
for her reaction.

She actually smelt Lucy on Gabriel,
and the other way around—and she’d been able to smell their want,
their lust for each other.

Creepy!

Lucy shook her head, sitting there in
the dim warmth of the kitchen. She felt so safe in her
grandmother’s kitchen. She wanted her to be there with her, more
than anything, so she could tell her about the crazy, horrific
things that had been happening to her. But she couldn’t.

For one thing how could she tell her
sainted grandmother there were such things as werewolves and
vampires… and who knew what else?

Gram
would lock me up for sure.

But then a really terrifying
thought crossed Lucy’s mind, sending a chill up her spine and
making her stomach sink to her buttery Italian leather
heels:
I’d have to tell her that the
werewolf was my fiancé…

Hell no!
Lucy would rather face a battalion of love scorned vampires
than have to tell her grandmother that she had been engaged for the
last month… and hiding it, and lying about it… and that she was
being paid to do so.

Nope. Gram would kill me
for sure. Repeatedly.

She finally got up and poured the cold
coffee out into the sink, washed the mug and set it on the
drain-board to dry. She dried her hands on a dishtowel and then
noticed she was still wearing the red silk dress. There was
amazingly little damage from her violent encounter with the
vampire. A smudge here, a beveling in the threading there, but
overall the dress could be mended, and after dry cleaning it would
be as good as new. But did she really want to wear it again? It had
seemed so beautiful and romantic looking, and she’d felt so
wonderful in it, like she was in a chic, modern-day fairytale. But
after what had happened to her while she was wearing it, she wasn’t
so sure anymore—the monsters in the fairytale being real made the
tale less alluring.

She had to smile
though.
This has to be the most expensive
dress anyone’s ever washed dishes in.

~*~

The next morning Lucy was yanked out
of a perfectly lovely, if not erotic, dream about Gabriel… and the
blond vampire Vin… awoken by her grandmother’s angry
voice.

“
Lucinda Marie Hart! Why is
there the scent of a vampire on your dirty clothes?” She was
holding the dress Lucy had been wearing the night before. Lucy
silently thanked god that her grandmother hadn’t asked how she’d
paid for the dress—but then she realized her
grandmother
was interrogating her
about there being vampire scent on her clothes.

Gram wrinkled her nose and held the
dress even farther away from her. “And werewolf?”

Oh crap!
Lucy hadn’t devised a plan for getting through this. Her
grandmother was going to kill her. And when gram told her mother,
Lila was going to hit the roof
. I’ll be
grounded for eternity.

But you’re eighteen,
a voice said. But just then something momentous
dawned on her.

“
Gram, how can you smell
that on my clothes?”

Gram suddenly got this look on her
face of complete shock, as if now she was the one in trouble. Yet
just as abruptly her grandmother’s expression changed and the two
women fixed each other with the same hard stare. For sixty long
seconds they glared at each other.

Gram finally spoke.

“
Your mother’s gone already,
and Seth is gulping down his breakfast as we speak. So if you take
a long shower,” she held the dirty clothing out from her as far as
she could as she turned to leave, “then we can talk.”

Lucy just sat there on her
bed, staring opened mouth at the open door to her room.
What the hell?
Then she
gave herself a cursory sniff.
Did she
really just tell me I stink?

~*~

After a long hot shower,
Lucy changed into a pair of jeans and cute little pink tank top
with lips drawn in red glitter across it. Taking a reinforcing
breath she headed down stairs to have it out with her grandmother.
She still couldn’t get over her grandmother being able to smell
vampires and werewolves.
And how does she
know about vampires and werewolves, either?

Gram poured Lucy a cup of coffee and
already had a plate filled with eggs, sausage, and fried potatoes.
Lucy wasn’t going to eat it, but she really was starving, so she
grudgingly sat down and took a few hasty bites, and washed them
down with the coffee her grandmother had just handed
her.

Then she started.

“
How the hell can you smell
vampires and werewolves? I was up close and personal with them and
didn’t smell a thing.” Lucy’s grandmother took a breath, about to
speak, but Lucy cut across her. “No, no! What I really want to know
is how do you even know they exist?”

Gram stared her down, and Lucy could
feel herself losing ground in the conversation fast.

“
What I’d like to know,
before I tell you anything, young lady, is why you were in their
company in the first place?”

“
Oh, um…” Lucy hadn’t
thought up a good excuse for that yet. She gulped and then
nervously took another sip of her coffee.
What’s a good reason to be in the company of monsters?
By the time she said, “I just ran into them last
night,” her grandmother already had a look of total disbelief on
her face.

“
Okay, I knew the werewolf
from before...” she hesitated, trying to think of a better, more
benign excuse, but this wasn’t one of her back stabbing acolytes
back in San Bernardino. This was her grandmother, who was the only
person in her entire family who truly loved her. She couldn’t just
lie to her. And Lucy was getting the distinct impression that her
grandmother knew a hell of a lot more about this new and exciting
world of monsters than she was letting on.

Lucy was in over her head, and since
she knew nothing of these things before last night, she decided the
truth would not only be the easiest path, but would yield the most
gain. Gram could help her... maybe.

“
I’ve known the werewolf for
four weeks,”

“
Is he your
boyfriend?”

Lucy shook her head. Her words came in
a fast, furious wave. “We’re engaged, and no, it’s not a for real
kind of thing, it’s just a business arrangement, and I didn’t know
he was a... and then there was this blonde bitch, she’s the...
vampire.”—it still felt weird saying the words vampire and werewolf
out loud— “Turns out she’s the one he should be engaged to, but
since they’re different species, their families wouldn’t take it
too well. I really just thought he was gay or something, and needed
me to be his beard. That was until the vampire tried killing me. I
knew she was one, you know, a vampire, right off. And then Gabe
came out of the restaurant and wolfed-out and stopped
her.”

Lucy halted. The scene from the alley
flashed before her eyes, and with it the rollercoaster ride her
emotions had taken her on—one moment feeling like she was falling
for Gabe, the next moment she was terrified the blonde vampire
chick was going to kill her, then confusion and fear as Gabe came
to her rescue and she saw him change into his wolf form. It was
just too much to sort through.

And then there was the way he was with
psycho Delia. How could he be in love with a nut-job monster like
her?

Monsters of a
feather,
her bitchy inner voice
jibed.

Her grandmother just sat there
staring.

“
Oh, and we were at the
engagement party when all this happened. Not in the restaurant, but
in the alley behind it.”

Gram cleared her throat and then very
calmly asked “Engagement?”

“
It’s just for show, though
no one can know that it’s all fake and all.” The way Gram was
staring at her, Lucy just couldn’t stop the heedless stream of
words from coming out of her mouth. “I’m getting paid a lot of
money to be his fake fiancée. A ton, actually. Enough that I’ll be
able to go to any college I want.”

Gram just stared at her, her
expression unwavering.

“
So I can get my future
back!” Lucy almost screamed.

Gram rolled her eyes, picked up her
coffee cup and took a long, leisurely drink, seeming to savor the
taste of her coffee as she contemplated everything Lucy had just
confessed.

“
You’re telling me, then,
that you entered into a fabricated engagement, to supplement your
life style,”—she didn’t miss much, did she?—“and to ensure your
future education. And now you’ve found yourself not only in league
with werewolves, but a vampire wants you dead?”

“
Yep, that’s about it.” Lucy
tried to smile away how much trouble that sounded like.

“
And if it weren’t for your
fake fiancé, you’d be dead?”

“
Yeah… okay, that sounds
really bad but it’s not as bad as…” Her grandmother was giving her
the “cut the crap” look. Lucy lowered her head in defeat. “Yes…
probably.”

Gram shook her head and was
about to speak, but Lucy said, “I mean, Gabe pulled her away, and
they fought it out, but
...” How can I say
this and not sound completely crazy? But then again, vampires and
werewolves being real was pretty crazy to start with.
“I think I kind of forced her to let me go. I
mean, I just told her to let me go. Actually I couldn’t even talk!
I thought for her to let me go, and then suddenly she just
did.”

“
She let go of you?” Gram
suddenly looked very interested.

“
Yeah… she looked as shocked
about it as I was.” Lucy looked away as she replayed what had
happened. “It was like something… some force coming out of me was
holding her back. It really did a number on me. I’m still
beat.”

Lucy’s grandmother smiled.

“
Do you know what this all
means?” Lucy asked, feeling apprehensive because her grandmother
was smiling like a maniacal Cheshire cat.

“
I think I do,” she said,
standing up and retrieving her purse, her prescription sunglasses,
and her car keys. “But I think we need to road test it
first.”

Lucy frowned as she followed her
grandmother out the back door. “Road test what?”

~*~

Gram drives like a
snail,
Lucy thought. It was the second time
she’d driven with her grandmother, but she had been in a crying
mini-coma the last time, covered in special sauce, and teetering on
the edge of disaster. She didn’t remember her grandmother driving
so slowly, and the way she kept looking over to the side of the
road… Lucy wondered if her grandmother could see any more. Was she
looking for an exit?

If Lucy had known her grandmother
drove like this on the interstate, she would’ve insisted she had
driven—maybe she would’ve surprised her grandmother with the red
convertible?

Suddenly Gram swerved over to the
shoulder of the road and stopped. She’d kicked up a cloud of dust
and made the brakes squeal as she brought the huge old car to a
lurching halt.

“
We’re here,” she chimed and
fixed her sunglasses in the rearview mirror.

Lucy looked around her, peering
through the windshield and the windows with confusion. “This is the
side of a highway.”

“
Indeed,” Gram said, “the
perfect place for a little experiment.”

Lucy didn’t like the way her
grandmother said “experiment.” “Do I have to pick up litter or
something… some kind of punishment for keeping things from
you?”

“
No, dear,
this
isn’t your
punishment.”

Okay, that didn’t sound
good.

“
I just want to see what
happens.” She turned and smiled encouragingly at Lucy. “Just get
out and stand there for a minute.”