The Fertile Vampire (31 page)

Everything else paled in comparison

Something croaked too close to my ear.
 

I couldn’t move in the sucking mud. Planting both hands in the muck, I finally pulled myself free, collapsing on the bank.
 

I lay back, looking up to see Dan’s upside down face grinning at me.
 

“It’s not funny.”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
 

“How did you know I was here?”
 

“I saw you,” he said. “I was getting a cup of coffee from Maria when she began to scream about a chupacabra crawling down the wall of the hacinda. You weren’t hard to follow.”
 

At least it had been Dan and not his employer.
 

He stood on the edge of the creek and stretched out his hand.
 

“I am not going back there.”
 

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Okay.”
 

“What are you doing here?”
 

“I came in this morning to quit.”
 

“Oh.”
 

He wiggled his hand at me. “Come on, we’ve got to get going.”
 

“If you could take me home, I’d be very grateful,” I said, grabbing his hand.
 

He hauled me up like I was a hundred pound halibut. Frankly, I felt a little fishy at the moment, being coated in mud and dripping.
 

“What were you doing there?”
 

I didn’t want to talk about it.
 

“Why did you leave like that? Down the…” His voice trailed off.
 

Down the wall? Over the balcony?
 

I didn’t want to talk about that, either. “Can you take me home?”
 

“No,” he said, leading me to his truck.
 

“I have to,” I said. “I have to get some clothes.” I looked down at myself. I was without panties, the sweatpants cleaving wetly to my nether regions.

I was miserable, tired, soggy and scared. I was also angry. I wanted my life back. My boring, endlessly same life. I wanted to go into work every morning and talk to my assistant about her boyfriend and mother. I wanted to talk to my friends about books. I wanted to date sporadically if not smartly, agonize over the possibility of falling in love. I wanted all of this and more and I was never going to have it.
 

“I’m going home,” I said, when he closed the door and got behind the wheel.
 

“He’ll find you.”
 

I knew that. I didn’t have any other place to go.
 

“Come and stay with me.”
 

I glanced over at him.
 

I didn’t know Dan. All I did know was he wasn’t a vampire. Right now that was a good enough recommendation.
 

“I have to go home and get my clothes,” I said. “And my dog.”
 

“Your dog?”
 

I nodded. “Love me, love my dog.”
 

“Since when do you have a dog?”
 

“Since the other day.”
 

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”
 

“I adopted a dog.”
 

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Not the dog. Maddock.”
 

“No.” I couldn’t.
 

As far as I was concerned, nobody was ever going to find out about last night. Shame didn’t even begin to describe it. I was more than ashamed. I was humiliated to the point even my bones wanted to curl up and hide.
 

“Where were you last night?” I asked.
 

“Maddock pulled me off, said he had someone else who would shadow you.”
 

I nodded. Just as I’d suspected.
 

“Is that why you quit?”
 

He didn’t say anything for a minute. “Maybe part of it.”
 

I wanted to ask if he suspected something, if he’d wanted to ride to my defense like a knight in shining armor. Instead, I kept quiet and blinked back my tears.
 

“It’s okay, Marcie.”
 

“I know,” I said, more to thank him for the thought than because I agreed. Nothing was right and I had to get it right soon.
 

I had to call Kenisha and let her know what I knew. Hera might have been responsible for one of the attempts on my life but not the other.
 

I thought the police should look through all of Maddock’s vehicles for traces of gunpowder residue. How long did it last? Up until this point in my life it hadn’t been one of those important things I needed to know. If things kept going the way they were, I should take an online course in criminology.
 

I could see Maddock’s mistress using a gun that night at the school. I could see her trying to eliminate me as competition, not because I was good looking or excessively charming. I had a womb, one Maddock had visions of filling. She didn’t want anything, or anyone, to mess with what she had.
 

But she hadn’t known about the sweater.
 

Dan swerved to avoid something in the road. Either a rabbit or a were-rabbit. Nothing looked the way it had before. Nothing in my life was remotely normal.
 

“Why did you quit?”
 

He sent me a quick look, then focused on the road.
 

“It was time.”

“Can you quit being a vampire?” I asked, staring out my window. If so, sign me up.
 

Maybe not. I wasn’t ready to die yet. I didn’t want to die before I’d fixed a couple of things about my life. But I wasn’t about to become a breeding receptacle for Maddock. If given the choice, I’d do myself in. Thanks to Vampire Orientation, I knew how to do it efficiently. I wouldn’t cut off an arm or a leg. I’d give myself a virus.
 

Dan didn’t say anything, leaving me to stare out the windshield, my mind going into a calm, almost contemplative state.
 

San Antonio has lush patches of green and hints of the desert. Right now we were heading through one of the cactus parts. I’d thought I was only about five miles from home but I had underestimated the distance.
 

“They’re not the mafia,” he said. “Vampires. They pay well, but they don’t expect loyalty. I think they look on humans as necessary evils.”
 

I nodded.
 

“Sorry,” he said, a moment later. “I keep forgetting you are one.”
 

I nodded again. “Yep. I am one.” I was kinda/sorta a vampire. I had fangs that didn’t work very well, but no special abilities to speak of other than being a Mind Whisperer. Oh, and I could exist in the sun without screaming, “I’m burning! I’m burning!”
 

Big whoop.
 

Okay, so being able to walk in the sun made it possible for me to escape Maddock’s clutches, but for how long?
 

I wasn’t an impulsive person, per se. Dating Doug had been the most impulsive thing I’d ever done. Now I knew I’d been an assignment for Doug, something on his To Do list that needed to be checked off. What an idiot I’d been about Doug.
 

I’d been an idiot about Meng, too. If I hadn’t let my compassion get in the way of my good sense, I wouldn’t be in this predicament. My thoughts stopped in mid-whine. Yes, I would be, because maybe what happened wouldn’t have occurred last night. But it would have happened sooner or later.
 

I kept glancing in the side view mirror of Dan’s truck, but I didn’t see any cars chasing us.
 

I had to do something. I couldn’t wait for Maddock to find me and haul me back to his hacienda. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice and I’m a card carrying loon.
 

In my work life I’d been methodical, intense, focused and probably dogmatic. If I had something to do, I broke it down to its functions, accomplishing one thing at a time.
 

I needed to do that with this situation, too.
 

Maddock wanted me for my ability to bear children. I hadn’t told him about my two miscarriages. But at least I had the ability to get pregnant which none of the other female vampires did. Up until this point, I had no idea male vampires could produce sperm. It wasn’t a question I went around asking.
 

Hi, I’m Marcie, are you shooting blanks?
If I didn’t get staked I’d probably get a set of fangs to the carotid.
 

At the very least, I should go on birth control pills.
 

Carrying a derringer wouldn’t be a bad idea, either, for those encounters of the penis kind. I could always shove it down Maddock’s shorts, pull the trigger and see if his regenerative powers extended to his dick.
 

I was not going to sit around and be a vessel waiting to be filled. I wasn’t a helpless woman-child all fluttery and female about a male.
 

My hormones didn’t die in my transition to becoming a vampire but evidently my determination had. Until now, that is.
 

“You’ve got the most ungodly look on your face,” Dan said.
 

I glanced at him.

“Like you want to kill something.”
 

“You’re not far off.”
 

“The duke?” He didn’t look at me, but concentrated on the road. His hands clenched on the wheel, his knuckles white. “He raped you, didn’t he?”
 

I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to lie to Dan, but it hadn’t been rape. Coercion, maybe, enhanced by whatever drug Maddock had given me. I hated the fact I’d participated even being drugged. I hated the fact I’d been so damn eager and even now remembered the acute bliss.
 

No wonder vampires got whatever they wanted in life. Unbelievable sex will convince even the most reluctant person to give in. Hell, not give in - participate wholly and completely.
 

 
“I’m okay,” I said.

“You’re not okay. You’re in shock. You’re shaking. You’re pale and the color of flour.”
 

“That’s my natural vampiric complexion.”
 

“I cry bull,” he said, reaching out and grabbing my hand.

Until he mentioned it, I hadn’t known I was trembling.
 

“You’re cold.”
 

“I’m tired.”
 

I didn’t look at him as I spoke. I was afraid he’d see the tears in my eyes. I couldn’t talk about it now. But I could take responsibility for my part in it.
 

Looking back I know I should have demanded to leave immediately. I should have listened to the tingles on the back of my neck when Meng abruptly left me. I should have taken off my heels and started running for the highway.
 

I might not have escaped but at least I should have tried.
 

According to Doug, and he was my go-to guy when it came to vampire sex, they had years to practice. A man’s ego wasn’t tied up in his car or his weapons, he’d once told me. Instead, it was the number of women who were happy with his lovemaking.
 

I thought Doug had done what he did because he was either a.) overcome with passion or b.) didn’t give a rat’s ass.
 

Now I knew it wasn’t either of those reasons. He’d been instructed to turn me. The betrayal implicit in that realization was buried beneath another thought. No wonder MEDOC was working on a one stop pill for HIV. With the number of partners a male vampire had, he was a prime candidate for AIDS.
 

“Marcie.”
 

Dan placed his hand on my shoulder and a current of warmth traveled from him to me. Humanity, for lack of a better word.
 

I should have told him to remove his hand but I didn’t. I desperately needed the touch of someone who wasn’t like me, someone who was more human than me.
 

“My house is safe,” he said. “He can’t get to you there.”
 

I bowed my head, took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I was afraid no place was safe from Maddock. Nor was I eager to involve someone else in the mess of my life.
 

“I’m so tired,” I said.
 

I hadn’t slept for a day, but it was more than that. My fatigue was bone deep. Maybe part of it was being in the sun, but I suspected I was finally coming to grips with being different. Not the Marcie I’d thought myself all along, but something foreign and strange. I was a creature whose existence was the stuff of myth.
 

“I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
 

I opened my eyes and smiled at him. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
 

“You haven’t seen my house.”
 

“All right,” I said, not because he was being gentlemanly and kind or because I was tired. I agreed because I had no where else to go.
 

“I think Maddock’s girlfriend was the one who shot at me in the parking lot,” I said, leaning back against the headrest.
 

When he didn’t say anything, I turned my head and looked at him. “She sees me as a threat. I wouldn’t put it past her.”
 

“Are you going to tell the police?” he asked calmly. One thing I’d noticed about Dan. He had the ability to remain cool in a crisis. Was it the Ranger training?
 

“Yes,” I said.
 

He only nodded, hit the turn signal and pulled into my complex.
 

My evening purse was back at Maddock’s house, along with my house key. At least the rental car key was separate. But I didn’t have a spare house key hidden anywhere. I’d never given my neighbors a key so we had a choice: to wait until the complex office opened in two hours or break in to my own apartment.

I was a little appalled at the ease with which Dan jimmied the office window and entered. The cute little townhouse where I’d always felt so safe no longer felt like home. Between getting the spookies and the ease of breaking in, I was re-thinking my living arrangements.