“No. My name is—”
“Well, why not? Can’t you see I’m starving here?”
Rachael believed her. The woman didn’t have an ounce of spare flesh that hadn’t been diverted to her gestating belly. Her hair was skinned back so tightly her eyebrows arched in permanent surprise. And Rachael could actually see the woman’s blue T-shirt shifting as the gestating spawn moved and kicked.
“I can absolutely see you’re starving here. Perhaps you should sit down.” She knew nothing about how humans procreated, and this one looked ready to burst into labor on the half second. “Maybe I—”
“Oh, you might as well come in.” The woman stretched up to peer over Rachael’s shoulder, doubtless seeking the grocery truck. “My name’s Jessica.” Hunger. Irritation.
“I’m Rachael Velvela. I come from my cousin, Michael Wyndham, who is my Pack—”
“Dammit! Delivery the same business day, my black ass.” She scanned the street once more, then sighed and stepped back to let Rachael come in. She slammed the door hard enough to muss Rachael’s hair. “Heads are gonna roll.”
“I believe you.” Gestating humans, she had decided, were somewhat terrifying. This small dark-skinned woman looked capable of any violence. And who would dare hit her back, risking injury to the infant? “I’m here to—”
“Well, finally.”
Rachael turned to look. A tall, good-looking blonde with shoulder-length hair (and red lowlights) was galloping down the eight-foot-wide sweeping staircase. The front hall was easily as big as the average living room; these living quarters were perfectly suited for royalty. Since she was related to some, she ought to know.
“About time you got here.”
“It is? About time?” Rachael asked.
The blonde on the stairs snorted. “Duh, yes. We’ve had her stuff boxed for weeks.”
“Antonia’s stuff?” Rachael guessed.
“Duh, yes.”
They think I’m here to collect the late Pack member’s possessions. Is that good for me, or bad for me?
“You are the vampire queen?”
The blonde, who looked to be in her late twenties, grimaced. “Ugh, yes, and it’s Betsy, okay? Do not call me that other thing. Once you pick it up, it’s, like, impossible to quit.”
“Your Majesty—”
“See? You heard that, right?” Betsy pointed to the one who had spoken, a small woman with long blond curls who didn’t look a day over seventeen. She had appeared from nowhere and was hurrying toward the small group. The mansion was doubtless a warren of long hallways and secret entrances and many, many staircases. “She’s never gonna get out of the habit. I’ve been trying for years, and it’s still ‘Your Majesty’ this and ‘Your Majesty’ that.”
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“Your Majesty—”
“See?”
“—forgive my intrusion but I’ve been going over the monthly—oh. Hello. I thought I heard someone at the door.” The teenager squinted at Rachael. “You are not human.” Nothing. Nothing.
“Not since the operation.”
Silence. Stares.
Ouch, tough room. “Uh, no, I’m Pack. I apologize for not calling ahead, but time is not on our side. I was sent here to—”
“She’s here to get Antonia’s stuff.” Hunger, hunger, hunger!
Rachael tried again. “Not really, but—”
“Oh! Yes, it’s all packed. You must relay our sympathies once again to your king.” The teenager looked as distracted as she sounded; clearly she had other things on her mind. “We’re running out of freezer space. So I suggest we purchase a chest freezer to be kept off the kitchen in that little nook no one uses.”
“We wouldn’t need a freezer or a nook to put it in if you didn’t buy eighty flavors of vodka.” Nothing. Nothing.
The teenager blinked slowly at the queen, like an owl. She was wearing khaki knee-length shorts and a red polo shirt; an unbuttoned red cardigan was thrown over her shoulders. Sockless, her tiny feet were pale and perfect. “Yes, well. I do buy eighty flavors of vodka, thus we do need the space.” Nothing.
Rachael immediately remembered what she, and every other Pack member she’d discussed this with, tried so hard to forget. The most disconcerting thing about vampires wasn’t how indestructible they were. And it wasn’t that they had their own rules of behavior. It wasn’t even that they were technically dead meat walking. No, the scariest, awfulest thing about vampires was only this: they had no scent. No scent.
At least, they had no scent the Pack could detect. Which was unnerving, to say the least. Rachael was used to reading scents almost unconsciously, the way humans read facial expressions. But with vampires, there was no way, no way at all, to guess what they were thinking, or what they would do next.
Unnerving? No. Frightening.
The small pregnant woman was starving and angry—most likely the former because of the demands of pregnancy, and the latter because of hormonal influences.
But the two vampires? Were they angry? Hungry? Bored? Irritated? Sexually aroused? Indifferent? Murderous? Amused?
No way. No way at all to know until they acted.
No wonder you forgot. They’re terrifying! That’s what they call a psychological block, and small wonder.
“This,” Betsy said, once again noticing Rachael, who was frozen in the entry hall with no idea of what to do. “This is what I have to put up with! Dead girls swilling vodka shots. Werewolves dropping by to pick up clothes for other dead girls.” She was wearing a dark rose linen shirtdress, belted at the waist, and the prettiest gold strappy sandals Rachael had ever seen. And she, too, was wearing a heavy sweater over everything.
Rachael belatedly realized it was warm . . . almost hot . . . in the mansion. Of course. Their blood doesn’t flow like ours. They’re likely cold all the time, poor creatures.
“You’re a werewolf, right?” the queen was asking. She snuggled deeper into her sweater. “That’s what Pack means, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“There is also the matter of all the fruit we keep frozen,” the teenager added sharply, “to satisfy your cravings for smooth—”
“Irrelevant, Tina, you nag from hell!” Again, to Rachael: “See? See?”
“Perhaps,” Rachael began, “this is a bad—”
“We’d better not be out of fruit again,” the scrawny gestating woman said, growing (Rachael wouldn’t have thought it possible) more hungry and alarmed. “Are we fucking out of fruit again? There was a ton of it last night!”
“The driver will be here soon, Jessica, so fret not,” the teenager, Tina, soothed. She had a slight southern accent and put across confidence and calm with her voice and gestures. Probably not a teenager, then. She could be a hundred years old for all you know. “Then you may gorge on all the fruit and steaks and Pop-Tarts you like.”
“Ohhhh . . . don’t talk about the food I can’t have right now because the cupboard’s bare . . .” Jessica actually clutched her stomach and moaned. “Sooo hungry . . .”
“This is definitely a bad time,” Rachael decided aloud.
The blonde snorted again. “Ya think?”
“I shall return.”
“Okey-dokey.” For an undead monarch, the queen was quite laid back. “Don’t let the door slam you upside the head on the way out.”
Hostility . . . why? I’ve done nothing. Or do they resent the reason for my presence? Their perceived reason: that I am here to put their friend to rest, the final act to wipe Antonia off their radars?
Or is it something else?
How will I ever tell?
By coming back, she decided. As often as was necessary. She certainly wasn’t going to warn any of them about the murders. Not until she thought about what she had just now seen. Rachael disliked acting on impulse. In this, she was very different from Pack. Before now she hadn’t realized it could be a tactical advantage.
“Sorry to have troubled you.”
“
Are you kidding? This was the least troubling part of my whole day!” The vampire queen laughed, and Rachael found herself warming to the young woman. The laugh, she decided. Fun and carefree. It made her want to—
Rachael got out of there. Fast. Some people, she knew, could make you like them. It was a knack, like being able to raise one eyebrow. She imagined the queen’s charisma came in handy more than once. So it was past time to go.
“Next time, maybe you could bring some Pop-Tarts?” Jessica called as Rachael hit the porch.
Next time, I’ll bring some howitzers.
Twenty-three
At 5:59 P.M. central standard time, a blue Prius with rental plates pulled into the alley beside the Victorian. Rachael knew this because she had been sitting on the sherbet porch, chatting with her landlords and thinking about vampires.
From the little she’d seen, that was not a mansion filled with terrified minions. Or any minions, possibly. And the queen had seemed more annoyed by their antics than by a werewolf just dropping by. It was perfect camouflage. Or the queen really was that stupid and shortsighted. Not to mention easily distracted.
No, it was an act. Had to be. Because the alternative did not bear pondering. The alternative—
“That last cupcake won’t eat itself,” one of her landlords reminded her, so she (ever mindful of being a good houseguest) complied.
She liked Call Me Jim and his wife, Please Call Me Martha. They weren’t intrusive but did welcome questions about their own lives. They were both outstanding bakers—apparently they were retired, and their son (Turret Boy, whom she was cordially jealous of because of where he got to sleep) ran their business now.
Retirement did not keep them from baking pies and lemon bars and brownies. It did not prevent them from baking snickerdoodles and peanut butter cookies and coconut macaroons. It was no impediment to the baking of croissants and strudel and sticky buns and apple turnovers. Nothing stopped them from whipping up chocolate donuts and maple Long Johns and fried cinnamon rolls. Certainly nothing got in the way of their creating strawberry tarts and Svenska tortes and Boston cream pie (which they had made the day she moved in, in her honor!).
Because they were so busy ripping through pounds of flour every day, Rachael felt it was only the barest politeness to eat whatever they wished to offer her. She was merely being a good guest. A very good ravenous guest with an enormous capacity for pie.
Which is why Call Me Jim and Please Call Me Martha were sitting with her on the porch, watching with satisfaction as she sucked down the last of the devil’s food cupcakes they’d brought her.
“Young lady, damned if I know where you put it,” Call Me Jim observed. Amusement. Admiration.
“I used to be able to put it away like that, but then I had kids. Never have kids, Rachael.” Resigned. Amusement.
“Mmmph ggmmph unnph,” she replied. Umm. Homemade buttercream frosting, surely a gift from the gods.
“You stop that, Martha, you know you wanted kids more’n I did.” Call Me Jim was as weathered as a saddlebag but much friendlier and more talkative. He was slouching in his usual outfit of ancient jeans and a faded flannel shirt, long sleeves, black dress socks, and sneakers. Like the vampires, Call Me Jim was always chilly. “There wa’ant no shuttin’ you up ’til you caught preggers.”
“Says the guy who didn’t have seven months of morning sickness, not to mention eighteen hours of drug-free labor.” Irritation. Amusement.
“Good God, woman, it was thirty years ago! Let it go.”
“Twenty-nine and six months.”
“Nnnph gmmph,” Rachael added, feeling she ought to contribute to the conversation. And that was when Edward roared up. Well. Pulled up, though his little sewing machine car engine made it sound more impressive than it was.
“Hi!” he called, bounding out. Happiness. Happiness. He was carrying a large grocery bag stuffed . . . with what, Rachael could not guess. “Am I late?” Anxiety. Happiness.
She managed to swallow the last of the buttercream, and gurgled, “Not at all. You’re a minute early.”
“Traffic,” he said, and shrugged.
“These are my landlords. This is—”
“Call me Jim.”
“Please call me Martha.”
“Hi. Edward Batley.” He beamed and wrung their large wrinkled hands. Then winced as the bakers, made tremendously strong from years of slinging dough, wrung his back. “Ah. Ah! Oooh, that smarts. I won’t lie. Eesh.” He gingerly took his hand back and flexed the fingers.
She grinned to read his shirt: “I Appreciate the Muppets on a Much Deeper Level Than You.”
“What the hell is a muppet?” Call Me Jim asked, eyeing Edward’s proud logo.
“Oh, you know. That puppet show from the late seventies.”
“I didn’t watch puppet shows in the late seventies.”
“Well, if you did,” his wife reminded him helpfully, “you’d know what the boy’s shirt meant.”
“Hope you weren’t waiting long, Rachael.”
For twenty-nine minutes, actually. But it wasn’t Ed’s fault she got tired of waiting inside. Besides, she had told herself, he might get lost. I should be available in case he needs directions. He might drive right past and never realize.
Sure.
“It was too nice to wait inside,” she said, as likely an explanation as any. Too bad it was a lie. “Want to come in?”
“Sure!” He almost tripped coming up the porch steps but caught himself at the last minute. “Ah, man. I hate when that happens.”
“Boy’s got it bad,” Call Me Jim observed, and Rachael couldn’t help but laugh when Ed reddened.
He smiled and shrugged. “So? It’s the truth.”
Charmed, Rachael forgot all about vampires, baked goods, retired bakers, and the murders.
Too bad.
Twenty-four
“It’s your very own hobbit hole!” Edward exclaimed, delighted. He had prowled through the small apartment after dumping his grocery bag on the kitchen counter. “It’s so cool and cute!”
“Thank you.” He was correct. It was cool and cute. She was pleased he thought so . . . and wondered why she was pleased. What was Edward, exactly? A diversion? A possible boyfriend? Pack members weren’t known for dating. They tended to hook up—and stay hooked—early. The drive to create a stable environment for cubs was strong. Always, always they remembered how vastly the humans had them outnumbered. “I liked it the minute I saw it.”
“It’s got everything . . . you can even see out the windows.”
“Yes.”
“So.” He looked around again, then looked at her. “What d’you want to do? I brought some stuff . . .”
“Oh?” She stalked him toward the kitchen. He was backing up, and she was certain he didn’t realize it.
“Yeah . . . I thought . . . a picnic . . . on the bluffs?” Lust. Anxiety. Happiness.
She had him backed into the corner between the fridge and the counter. “A picnic?”
“Yeah. I . . . brought some . . . stuff.” Anxiety. Lust.
“Stuff, hmm?”
“Yeah . . . uh . . . are you all right? You look a little . . .”
Horny?
“. . . crazed. Like, with bloodlust. Believe it or not, I actually know exactly what that looks like—yeeek!”
“We should have sex more,” she told him, fingers busy with his belt, “and talk less.”
“Can’t we do both?” he gasped. Lust. Lust. Lust. (Concern.)
“I don’t know.” The belt buckle came free, and she whipped it out of the belt loops. “Can we?”
Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust. Lust. (Concern.)
(Concern.)
“Wait!” He reached behind them, found the grocery bag, groped, then seized and brought out... “Read this.”
Annoyed . . . her own lust had climbed quite high by now, something about his scent, that delicious clean-cotton-muskymale scent he had going on worked on her like a hormone shot . . .
but now she forced her hands to be still so she could focus. She had no time for, or interest in . . . “This is a lab report.”
“Yeah.”
“Why have you brought a lab report?”
“Read it,” he insisted. “Just read it and—aaaggh! Hands! Hands in naughty places!”
She snatched the paper away, probably faster than he could track. Calm yourself, you horny tart. Pay attention. The lab report is, God knows why, important to him.
“This says . . . it says you are disease free.”
“Right. Like I told you. Remember?”
Vaguely. Before they’d gotten naked in the hotel room, he’d assured her he was disease free. Which she already knew. He had also apologized for not having condoms. Which she also knew . . . and didn’t need. She wasn’t in season and so could not get pregnant. And she had no diseases he could catch, and never would. But rather than explain the blood chemistry of the average Pack member, she’d fucked him silly. And had assumed that awkward part of the mating dance as applied to non-Pack members had been permanently set aside.
Not silly to him. He doesn’t KNOW you won’t give him a disease. And he thinks YOU don’t know. So he’s brought proof. It’s a NICE THING, you horny bitch! Show some gratitude!
“This is a nice thing.”
“Uh.” He was backed up into the tiny kitchen corner. “What?”
“This.” She waved the paper at him. “This is a nice thing. Thank you. For this nice thing you have done.”
“Sometimes I get the feeling you’re some kind of cyborg.”
“Thank you.”
“It, um, wasn’t a compliment.”
“All right. Although this wasn’t necessary; I believed you earlier. I knew you were rudely healthy. There was no need to get a lab involved.”
He grinned. “Rudely?”
“Oh, yes. I, however, do not have a lab test to show you. I can only ask you to believe that I am disease free, and in fact, before the other night, had not had sex for at least—”
“Don’t tell me that again. It’s just too depressing. When a hottie of your extreme caliber can’t get laid any day of the week she wants, there’s something really, really wrong with the world.”