I was almost sorry I’d volunteered to help by the time we were done scrubbing all the blood off of the floors and walls of what we’d taken to calling the “meeting room.”
“More like a slaughter room, if you ask me,” Dom muttered. He was crouched over the last of the blood stains, scrubbing at it with a bleach-soaked sponge.
When we were finished, we changed clothes in the van. All of our blood- and bleach-soaked clothing went into one of Nick’s ubiquitous black gym bags and I realized why he had insisted that I bring a change of clothes.
“I’ll send these through the incinerator at the shop,” he said. The shop again. This time I didn’t ask.
I almost balked at the thought of stripping down in front of four men I didn’t know very well, but I finally decided I was too tired to care. I’ve never been terribly modest, anyway, and surely killing a bunch of vampires together counted for something in the “ways to bond with new people” category.
“Okay, Dixieland,” Nick said, turning around to face me as John pulled away from the curb. “I’ve changed my mind. I want to know where you got the info. Time to talk.”
I told him everything: sneaking into the law offices, printing out the files, getting caught by Greg, finding the bloody t-shirt, breaking up with my undead ex. Seeing him in the meeting room tonight. All of it. It didn’t take as long in the telling as I had anticipated, and no one interrupted. When I was done, Nick looked off into space over my head for a long time.
“So Pearson’s got a guy on the inside,” he finally said.
“Apparently. But I’m not sure about Greg’s reliability, Nick.”
“Me either. He’s a vampire. You can’t trust vampires. Alec should know that by now.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“You’re not going to do anything yet. I need to think about this some more, check a few things out. Hold tight; if I need your help, I’ll let you know.”
“What about us?” Dom asked.
“I’ll let you know, too,” Nick said, his voice sounding distracted.
I felt better for having told him. I was glad to let someone else take over for a while.
“You didn’t tell this Malcolm guy anything about the vampires?” Nick asked me.
“No. I thought he might be safer if he didn’t know.”
He nodded. “You were right—the fewer people who know, the better.” He chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “You think he’s got any connection to the vamps?”
“I really don’t think so, but I could be wrong.”
Nick nodded again and stared out the window thoughtfully.
By the time we pulled up in front of my building and Nick sent John to walk me up to my apartment, I was wiped out, completely exhausted from the night’s events. I fell into bed and was asleep almost instantly.
* * *
A dull ache in my shoulder woke me up the next morning. I got up and took some Advil. Then I took a shower, changed my bandage, made a pot of strong coffee, and considered the shape of my life as I sat on my couch and blew across the top of the cup to cool the hot coffee. I do that a lot in the morning. It’s not the same as staring blankly at a wall until I wake up. Really.
At nine o’clock, I called a vet and made an appointment to take my cat in to get her shots.
Okay, I know it sounds odd: kill some vampires, inoculate a cat. But more than anything, I wanted to try to keep at least some aspects of my life as normal as possible. And continuing to be the sort of Responsible Pet Owner that all the brochures in the vet’s office advertised meant getting Millie’s vaccinations.
So the next two days were perfectly normal. I worked to make them that way. Actually, to be entirely honest, it wasn’t all that hard. I was still floating in some sort of post-killing rush. I felt light, like some enormous weight had been lifted off me. It hadn’t, of course. But I felt better for having enlisted Nick’s help. I went to my classes on Friday. I felt almost normal.
Then Jenna pulled me aside after class. “Hey,” she said. “We’re all going out tonight. Want to come? I think it would be good for you. And we’ve missed you.”
I stared at her blankly for a second before realizing that she didn’t know not to go out at night. My feeling of normalcy fled and I frowned.
“No thanks,” I finally said. “Maybe some other time.” I tried to think of some way to warn her, but couldn’t.
Jenna stared after me worriedly as I walked away, toward the library.
Still, it wasn’t until day three that I really began to droop. It was one thing to pretend I had a perfectly normal life. It was another thing to spend that life scurrying home before dark just in case the vampires came out in search of me. I suppose I should have felt safer after killing five vampires all on my own. But the first time I had been out of my mind with rage. And I’d had backup on vamps two through five. I wasn’t entirely certain that I could actually take out a vampire all on my own—especially if that vampire happened to take me by surprise.
So I continued to spend my evenings at home alone. Millie pouted for a while about her shots, then resumed her habit of curling up on my lap to sleep.
But even though I adored Millie, she wasn’t quite enough in the way of company. Cats aren’t strong conversationalists. I finally had to admit to myself that I missed Malcolm.
Still, I had broken up with him, at least inasmuch as it’s possible to break up with someone you’re not dating. I knew it wouldn’t be fair to call him, so I resisted the urge.
That lasted all of about twelve hours. And I spent a lot of that time picking the phone up, dialing, and hanging up before the number went through.
I didn’t even get an E for effort.
I finally gave in and let the call go through, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t think much of it when I first heard his voicemail click on. For all I knew he was on campus working and had his ringer off. But then an electronic voice came on the line and told me that his message box was full. That’s when I started to worry. I called Nick and left a message on his cell phone. Apparently no one was answering tonight.
I was still fretting at midnight when I finally got ready for bed. I had tried to call Malcolm every few minutes, but he had never answered.
I decided that I would spend the next day asking around the math department to see if anyone had heard from him recently. Hard as I tried, though, I couldn’t think of anything useful to do that night. So I put a DVD in and settled into my bed, hoping that a light comedy would take my mind off Malcolm.
It did. Instead of thinking about Malcolm, I thought about the last time I had watched this movie with Greg, before his Big Vampiric Career move. I heaved a sigh and turned off the television. Maybe a book would help me fall asleep. I pulled Jane Austen’s Emma off my shelf and crawled into bed with it.
I had just snuggled down under the covers when an abrupt rap on my window made me jump. And scream. Not a big scream—more of a loud squeak. Apparently I don’t scream when I’m surprised. Or scared.
I wanted to ignore it, but the rapping continued. I felt like the guy in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven.” If I opened the curtain and saw a bird on my fire escape, I was going to scream for real.
It wasn’t a raven. It was worse. It was Greg.
As if my thoughts had summoned him, there he was, sitting on the fire escape outside my window, knocking on the glass. I was suddenly glad Nick and his guys had installed window grates.
“Let me in, Elle.” Greg said. He wasn’t yelling, but I could hear his voice clearly through the glass, just as if he were already in the room. Another vampire trick, I guessed.
“No.”
“Then open the window.”
“No. Go away.”
“Look. I can’t come in unless you invite me. Just open the window and let me talk to you.”
“You’re doing fine through the window.”
“It’s harder this way, though. Come on, Elle. I promise not to hurt you.”
“And I’m supposed to believe that?”
“I promise. Look, if I’d wanted to hurt you, I could have done it at the office. Or at the armory. I don’t want to hurt you. I just want to talk.”
I finally gave in and walked to the window. I couldn’t figure out how to get him to go away without talking to him. And I couldn’t see myself going to sleep with Greg lurking right outside my window. For that matter, I wasn’t entirely certain that I would ever be able to sleep again now that Greg knew where I lived.
I did, however, pick up the big wooden crucifix Nick had given me.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“Put the cross down, Elle. Believe me, you want to hear what I have to say.”
I set the cross down on the bed next to me but kept my hand on it. I opened the window just a crack. “Is that good enough?”
“I guess.”
“How did you find me?”
“Magic vampire senses.”
I sighed. I never could get a straight answer out of him, even when he was human. “Fine, Greg. Talk.”
He smiled at me, a slow, malevolent smile, and I involuntarily stepped away from the window. I could see his fangs.
“I know where your boyfriend is,” he said.
I froze. “What boyfriend?”
“The one who helped you break into my office. You got my files, didn’t you? That’s how you and your army buddies knew where to find us.”
“They’re not in the army,” I said absently. “You know where Malcolm is?”
“Yes. And if you’re very, very nice, I might even take you to him.”
“You bastard. What have you done to him? Tell me where he is.”
Greg made a tsk-ing noise and shook his finger at me. “That’s not very nice, Elle. Keep calling me names and I won’t tell you anything else.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “Okay, Greg. What do I have to do to get you to tell me where he is?”
“Marry me.”
I must have looked as shocked as I felt, because he laughed so hard tears came out of his eyes.
I didn’t say anything, just waited for his laughing fit to pass.
“I’m kidding,” he finally said, wiping the last of the tears away. “Just give me that list you stole from my office.”
I’m just no good at bluffing; my face always gives me away. But I continued trying anyway. “What list?”
“The one you and your little thug platoon used to find our meeting hall the other night.”
“And if I give it to you, you’ll tell me where Malcolm is?”
“Absolutely.”
“Is he in danger?”
“I’m not telling you anything until I have the paper.”
“You at least have to tell me if he’s alive—and I mean really alive, not vampire-alive—or I’m ending this conversation.” I knew that challenging him that way was a risky move; it could just as easily backfire and cause him to quit talking to me altogether. But I wasn’t about to go somewhere with Greg just to see Malcolm’s corpse. Even the thought of it nearly made my heart stop. I didn’t think I could bear it if I had foolishly gotten Malcolm killed.
“To the very best of my knowledge, he is still alive, still human.”
“But that might change?” I asked.
“The files.”
“And then you’ll tell me?”
“Everything. I promise.”
I started to get up to go for the list. It didn’t matter if I gave it to him; Nick already had the information. But I stopped, suddenly realizing that there was a good chance Greg had some trick up his sleeve.
“If he’s in danger, will you let him go?” I asked.
“Not my call.” He smirked in a way I had always found irritating, even when I had liked him.
“Will you take me to him?”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t in the contract.”
“We don’t have a contract yet; I haven’t agreed to anything. We’re still in negotiations.”
“Hmm. Well, then, I guess that would be okay. Yeah. You give me the file and I’ll take you to him.”
“Will you guarantee my safety?”
“Why should I guarantee your safety? Will you guarantee the safety of any vampires you come across in the process? You’re the big bad vampire killer, after all. Seems to me that they have more to fear from you than you do from them.” He actually sounded bitter as he said this. As if he had any right to be bitter at all. I was the injured party here.
I thought for a moment. He was right. I did know how to kill vampires. Besides, I planned to call Nick in for backup.
“Okay. Fine. But I’m taking all my gear,” I finally said. “And I’m carrying the crucifix. You don’t bite me. You don’t touch me. You don’t even stand too close to me.”
“Agreed,” he said.
I felt like maybe I had just lost that round of negotiations somehow. If Greg the Vampire was anything like Greg the Lawyer—and I was realizing more and more that there was little difference between the two—then he had thought of every contingency and had figured out some way to twist every possible situation to serve his purpose. Whatever that might be.
That was the question of the moment: why was Greg doing this? What could he possibly gain from it?
I didn’t have the answer to that question. What I did have was a friend who was missing and quite possibly in very real danger. I had no other choice, really.
“Okay, then,” I said. “Give me fifteen minutes, then meet me in front of the building. I’ll show you the files, but I get to hang on to them until I see Malcolm. Then I’ll hand them to you. Good enough?”
“Good enough.”
I turned to gather up all the vampire-killing equipment I had in the apartment, expecting Greg to head down to the front of the building. As I straightened from pulling a gym bag out of the closet, however, I saw that he had settled himself on the fire escape. He sat on the top step and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. His hands dangled down in between his legs and he stared across the open courtyard behind the building.
“What are you doing, Greg?”
“Waiting for you.”
“Why don’t you just go ahead and go downstairs; I’ll be down in a minute.”
“Nope. I want to stay right here and watch you get ready. And I think you should know that it’s a bad idea to call your military buddies before we leave.”
I didn’t like the idea of him watching me pull all of my stakes out from their various hiding places, but I didn’t know how I could possibly get rid of him.
I sighed. “Fine. Stay there. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.” I shut the window and moved the crucifix to the windowsill. Just try to get in past that, I thought.
He could sit there if he wanted to, and he could even watch me pull all my weapons out, but I wasn’t about to let him watch me as I changed clothes. Besides, I wasn’t going to let him know where in my clothing I hid all my little vampire-killing sticks; the only way he was going to discover that was if I pulled one out and staked him with it.
I put on an outfit similar to the one I had worn to the armory: black stretchy pants, t-shirt, light jacket. This time, though, I wore tall black boots with flat heels and soft soles. The sneakers might be better for running, but boots were better for hiding stakes.
I ended up strapping on every weapon I could find. There weren’t all that many, really. I had two stakes down each boot, two chopsticks taped to each arm under my jacket, another chopstick taped to my stomach. I had a third stake under my waistband, nestled in the small of my back.
I carried a stake in my hand, too. I didn’t know where we were going, but I did know that I was going out into the night with a vampire. I wasn’t taking any more chances than absolutely necessary.
“I’m ready to go,” I announced. Greg nodded at me through the window and I picked up the crucifix. Stake in one hand, crucifix in the other. I was loaded for vampire.
At the last minute, I grabbed my cell phone from its place on the desk beside the computer. I hoped that Greg was gone, but I didn’t turn around to check; I just tried to angle my body to keep him from seeing what I was doing.
I jammed the cross and the stake into my jacket pockets, then shut the front door of my apartment behind me. With one hand I locked the door. With the other, I scrolled through the electronic phone book and hit Nick’s number.
He didn’t answer. Dammit.
I left another message telling Nick what had happened, probably mostly garbled—I was trying to give him the pertinent information, but I didn’t want Greg to wonder what was taking so long. I ended by saying, “I think I might need help. Please try to find me. I’ll call later if I can.” I turned the ringer to “vibrate.”
I dropped the phone into a jacket pocket, pulled my weapons back out, and headed down the stairs to meet my undead ex so that he could take me to my probably-still-alive sort-of-ex.