Nice Girls Don't Live Forever (31 page)

“Oh, crap.” I sighed, thinking of the box of Mr. Wainwright’s books I’d culled from my personal library all those months ago. With everything that was going on, I’d put them in my trunk and forgotten about them. I grabbed my keys and retrieved the box from Big Bertha, finally realizing how early it was when I saw the pink streaks of dawn creeping across the horizon. There was no time to make it home, and I didn’t want to leave the shop at this point, anyway. I wondered idly how sun-safe the storage room was, flipping through the book covers on my way back into the shop.

I shelved
Rituals and Love Customs of the Were
with our other copy and took
The Spectrum of Vampirism
over to the special-collections display case. When he’d given it to me, Mr. Wainwright had said it was a particularly rare volume, written by a respected Harvard academic, meaning that I felt even worse about leaving it in my trunk for so long. I carefully wiped off the cover with a soft cloth and unlocked the display case.

The sheer violent force of the blow to my back sent me crashing into the case, splintering the glass. I landed with a thump on the carpet, razor-sharp shards jutting from my arms. One of them must have hit an artery, because my blood was forming a rather large pool on the carpet.

Ow.

“So, you’ve had it the whole time?” an indignant voice above me growled.

Through the gray haze of pain, I looked up and tried to focus on Emery’s face. He sneered down at me, just as pasty as ever but not quite as sweaty. In fact, there was a subtle radiance to his pale, round face. His eyes were no longer dusty brown but a clear, liquid amber color. And his teeth were brilliant, white, and … pointy.

Shit.

I shouted, “Emery, who the hell was dumb enough to turn you into a vampire?”

I tried to push up from the floor, but the itching torment of my skin expelling thousands of tiny glass slivers left my arms weak. I glared up at him. I knew that eventually, the shock of Emery’s betrayal would catch up with me, but for now, keeping up a sarcastic, condescending front seemed for the best.

“My mistress, Jeanine, only granted me the gift a few short days ago. First, I had to prove I was worthy.” Emery sighed. “She found me. She showed me the truth about the world, about vampires. She gave me answers I’d been looking for all my life. She saved me. And she asked so little of me. And I failed!”

Emery kicked out like a preschooler having a tantrum at Wal-Mart. His foot caught me in the ribs, knocking me back against the counter. Dazed, I followed his line of sight to the book still clutched in my hand. Even through the sharp throb of pain, my brain spun. The breakin. Emery’s overzealous interest in the inventory. His need to search through every single title. He’d been looking for one specific book all this time. And I’d had it in my trunk. If I hadn’t been bleeding profusely, I might have laughed.

“You’re an evil henchman, Emery? Seriously?
You
broke into the shop while I was out of town? Why would you do that? And why the big charade with arriving weeks later all scruffy and jet-lagged? I would have given you anything you asked for. Why are you doing this?” I asked. I wasn’t sure what made this situation worse, my stupidity or the choking regret over my stupidity. I’d felt sorry for this doorknob, guilty for not being nicer to him. And he’d been working for Jeanine since the moment I’d met him. He’d deceived us all, turned on his only family to help that crazy bitch terrorize me. I felt my fangs extend over my lips as I ground my teeth together. The anger felt good. It felt clear compared with a muzzy confusion of pain and worry.

Emery smiled down at me. In a patient voice, he said, “I need that book, Jane. I need
The Spectrum of Vampirism
to restore Mistress Jeanine to her full health.”

“Anything except that,” I spat, rising to my feet. Glass tinkled to the floor from my sleeves. “Now, tell me where Andrea is.”

Emery shoved me back down onto the floor, which, given the woozy feeling in my head, was probably where I needed to be anyway. Still holding on to the book, I crawled behind the bar to the fridge. Emery followed, seemingly undisturbed by the blood trail I was leaving.

“I’m a new man, Jane. Capable of things I never dreamed of,” he intoned with a faraway expression. “Mistress Jeanine touched me with her dark wisdom. I worship at her feet. I lick the ground where she treads.”

I took three bottles of Faux Type O from the fridge and poured one after another down my throat. Wiping my mouth, I peered up at him. My vision was starting to clear. My wounds closed. I was able to flex my arms. My legs felt stronger. I was practically Popeye the freaking Sailor. I hefted myself to my feet. “Adolescence left deep, deep scars on you, didn’t it? I think you need to meet this guy I went to high school with. Name’s Adam. I think you’d get along,”

The dreamy note vanished from Emery’s face. He’d just realized his mistake, not taking the book from me immediately. Being so new, he didn’t realize how quickly we recovered with the help of an infusion. He took a menacing step toward me; my hands tightened around the cover. “I need that book. The mistress demands it. If I don’t bring it to her, she will plant her heel on my—”

“I do not want to hear about your sexcapades with Crazy Jeanine,” I told him.

“Oh, no, I am not worthy of the mistress’s attentions,” he said in a hushed, reverent tone.

“Then why do you keep calling her ‘mistress’?”

“Because she controls everything I do,” he said. “What I eat, when I sleep, how long I’m allowed to go without—”

“I get the picture, Emery. Please don’t give me details. And stop talking about her feet, it’s icking me out.”

“I’m finally coming into my own, Jane,” he growled. “Do you know what it’s like, living your whole life, waiting for it to start? Knowing that there’s something out there for you, something that will complete you, but not knowing what it is?”

“All I’m is hearing is ‘blah, blah, blah, I’m a loony tune enjoying my moment,’” I told him. “Now, tell me where Andrea is.”

“If you don’t give me that book, Jane, I’m going to have to take it,” Emery said, drawing himself up before rushing at me. Fully charged from my bloody snack, I punched him in the forehead with all the force I had. And now that he’d lost the element of surprise, Emery wasn’t that much of a fighter.

“Ow!” he cried, collapsing in a heap on the floor.

“Emery, please don’t do this. You’re Mr. Wainwright’s family. As much as I hate what you’ve done, I don’t want to—dang it.” I sighed as he charged me again, and I punched him in the forehead. Again. “Stay down, Emery.”

“Give me that book,” Emery demanded.

“Hmmm …
No
,” I roared.

“Jane, you leave me no choice.” Emery pulled a large wooden crucifix out of his jacket.

I gave him an acidic smile. “Sorry, I’m kind of at peace with the whole Christianity thing.”

“I thought you might say that.” Emery pressed the center of the crucifix, and a stake snicked out. He raised the stake and charged me again. And I punched him in the forehead. Again.

“Why aren’t you learning from this?” I grunted, staring down at Emery’s crumpled body.

I almost felt bad about the whole thing, right up until I got knocked unconscious. One minute, I was looking down at Emery, and the next, white-hot pain sliced through the back of my neck, paralyzing every muscle in my body. My legs folded under me, and I crashed to the floor, my breath wheezing out in a weak “uhhf” just before my eyelids slid shut.

And for the record, yes, my own stun gun was used to incapacitate me.

16

Change is inevitable. It’s necessary for the growth of a relationship. But most of the time, it just plain sucks.

—Love Bites: A Female Vampire’s Guide to Less
Destructive Relationships

When I came to, I was tied up in the basement of a very old home. My mouth tasted like old pennies. And the back of my neck was stinging like crazy. I sat up. But the swishing sensation in my head made me flop back to the stone floor. The ceiling above was solidly constructed and oddly familiar. I looked around, recognizing several of the old boxes and crates.

“Crap,” I groaned.

I’d been abducted and taken to River Oaks. This was just embarrassing.

I made another attempt at sitting up, wincing at the raw hemp rope binding my wrists and ankles. Double crap. I leaned against a box of old Christmas decorations and squinted toward the low, small cellar window. It was dark outside. What time was it? Had I been out all day? Where was Emery? Where was Gabriel? He had to be frantic by now.

Through the fuzzy sensations lingering in my head, I tried to remember if I kept anything down here that could cut through the ropes. I scanned the room for the outline of gardening tools or a saw. In the dark, I could make out the faint pink glow of a polyester Halloween costume.

“Andrea!” I whispered at her prone form. “Andrea, are you OK? Please, answer me. Andrea?”

Andrea was clothed, thank goodness, and lying on an old table of my grandpa’s. Her clothes were stained with old blood. She looked as if she was sleeping, but there was no breath, no pulse that I could hear. She was so pale and small. My heart caught in my throat, the edges of my vision tinged a bright, angry crimson. Something was cutting into my lip. It took me a few seconds to recognize that it was my fangs and the blood welling into my mouth was my own, stoking an already scorching hatred for Emery.

“I’m afraid our Andrea is indisposed,” Emery said fondly, emerging from a corner to sit at Andrea’s shoulders. “She’s so beautiful, like a princess in a fairy tale.” He chuckled, stroking her hair. “Only, the prince’s kiss is what put her to sleep.” Emery’s smile was sudden, sharp, and vicious. “She was delicious, your Andrea. Well, she’s my Andrea now.”

“I’m going to kill you,” I promised.

Emery’s cool, calm Lestat demeanor changed at my harsh tone. “I did it for her!” he hissed. “For my mistress! To prove that I am worthy of her dark gift.” He seemed to compose himself. “To hurt you. Oh, how she loves to hurt you.” He smiled to himself. “Andrea was my very first kill. It was so much easier than I thought it would be. After drinking that horrible bottled blood, it was a pleasure. You must know. You have to have tasted her, at least once. Giving her my own blood wasn’t as easy, though. The mistress is right, it’s quite exhausting.”

“You turned her?” The division of my feelings tore a hole through my chest, shock and horror that Andrea had been forced out of her human life, relief that she wasn’t entirely gone, grief for Dick.

“The mistress promised her to me,” he said, running his hand along her still, white cheek. He smiled up at me. “And she said I could have you, as well. I have needs, Jane, needs I’ve denied for far too long. And since I’m not worthy of the mistress’s attentions …”

“Oh, just back up the crazy truck, there, Foot Boy. There will be no
having
. Got it?”

“You have such a … unique way with words, Jane.” A soft, feminine voice chuckled in the darkness. Cindy, our latte-loving teen good-luck charm, stepped into the dim light. The green was washed out of her now-dark hair. It was drawn back into a high, Victorian style, oddly in sync with her ornately embroidered black skirt and white silk blouse. She wasn’t wearing makeup, and her black nail polish had been removed. My instinct to protect the girl I’d grown so fond of jumped ahead of my logical thinking skills.

“Cindy, get out of here!” I cried. “You could get hur—oh, for God’s sake, you’re one of them, aren’t you?”

She
tsk
ed and shook her head sympathetically. “Poor Jane.”

“I trusted you. I was nice to you. I gave you free coffee!”

She smiled and pinched my cheek. “Yes, and it gave me time to watch you, to listen to you whine and complain to your friends when you thought I was reading. It’s amazing what people will say when they think no one’s listening. It made writing those letters so much easier.”

“Wait a minute, you’re Jeanine?” I gasped. “But I saw inside your head. You’re a newborn!”

Jeanine took out a vial of rewetting drops and moistened her eyes. She dabbed delicately with a lacy handkerchief. She flashed a simpering smile my way as Emery reverently lowered a red velvet ceremonial cape onto her shoulders. “I’m a very talented actress. I could have been one of the great ladies of the theater, if Grandmama had allowed me to pursue it. But theater people were barely better than circus folk at the time, you see. Really, you were disappointingly easy to fool. I knew you’d try to read my mind, so I came up with that story about poor little Cindy, the misunderstood, lonely newborn, looking for a place to belong. I let you see that much. I knew you wouldn’t be able to turn me away. You never even suspected me. Of course, at the end of the day, I had to flush the toxins from your wretched coffee out of my system, but it was worth it. I learned so much about you, Jane, and it helped me direct Emery in how to best … instruct you.”

“Where exactly did you two meet up,
psychoticsingles.com
?”