“You will be coming to work with me at the Council office,” Jane said. “This is a congratulations potluck!”
Ben and I both made disappointed noises, and Dick was doubled over laughing. But the good news was that this new development in employment was enough to distract me from how wonderful Zeb’s blood smelled.
“Like a Take Your Daughter to Work Day thing? We’re going to sit in your break room and color until it’s time to come home?” I asked.
“No, doing actual work, so you will earn college credit for your trouble, which will keep you both from losing whatever classes you aren’t able to take online,” Dick said. “So, Ben, we know you’re basically Bill Gates without the scary glasses. You can help with the database project. If you’re comfortable with that.”
Ben shrugged. “Er, sure. I can do that.”
“And you, Meagan, what were you studying at school?” Jane asked.
“I was—I am. I am an English major.”
“An English major,” Jane said, frowning. “What were you planning to do with that? Teach?”
“I really don’t like kids that much,” I told her. “I thought maybe grad school, teaching at a college level.”
“Hmmm.”
“I know, I was not preparing myself for life postvampire or postgraduation,” I admitted.
“How would you feel about being my personal assistant?” she asked.
“Woefully underqualified.”
She waved my concerns away with a flick of her hand. “It’s not that complicated. You manage my schedule, protect me from seeing people I don’t want to see, answer some phones. I only ask because my last secretary, Margaret, was disturbingly loyal to Ophelia. And she’d been sabotaging my schedule, not reporting phone calls, not sending my expense reports to the finance department. I had to fire her in a way that involved the human and vampire police . . . and animal control. I need someone I can trust.”
“And that person is me?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes,” Jane said, smiling and patting my shoulder. “I think you’ll do great.”
The corners of my mouth pulled back into a frown.
Jane sighed. “And as a signing bonus, I’ll let you video chat with your friends. I know how hard you’ve been trying. You deserve to be rewarded.”
“That is sort of manipulative.”
She nodded. “Yes, it is. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it.”
She patted my back. “Of course, if you screw up, I’ll make you work in the mail room.”
I shuddered. I’d heard about some of the mail room employees. They were not my people.
“Are we finished with this touching moment? Because I’m starving,” Jane said.
The other vampires in the room cheered.
We gathered around Jane’s dining-room table, where Jane ladled cups of blood from pots into fancy crystal punch cups. Jane raised her glass to our new jobs, which made that hesitant expression return to Ben’s face. I didn’t know what Andrea did to the blood, but it was one of my favorite things I’d tried since being turned, deep and fruity without being too sweet. Meanwhile, Jolene ate her weight in ribs, while Zeb ate . . . less than his weight in ribs. But smiled at Jolene like seeing his wife’s face smeared with barbecue sauce was the most adorable thing ever.
Despite the fact that the group was relatively huge, even I could see the obvious, loving connections among them all, the ease in the way they spoke to one another. They were family, the kind of family people chose to be with, instead of hoping for “unavoidable” overtime on holidays.
I wondered if I was going to have enough time here to feel like a part of it.
The very next sunset, Jane made good on her promise to let me video chat with Morgan and Keagan. She did insist that the conversation take place in her study, where she could supervise it, but I was so excited to talk to my friends I barely registered the invasion of privacy.
Jane’s study was a bit more weirdo-quirky than the rest of the house. There were floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining the room, every shelf stuffed with leather-bound first editions, mass-market paperbacks, softcover trades. And where there weren’t books, there were strange ceremonial bowls, a Ravenclaw mug with rusty-looking residue near the rim, Funko Pop! versions of Sansa Stark and Oberyn Martell, candles inscribed with symbols from Supernatural, a little framed quote from Persuasion, and, oddly enough, little pewter fairy statues, which she’d put in a glass case labeled with a small brass sign that said, “Unsellable Case of Shame.”
“You must do a lot of shopping on Etsy,” I said. I couldn’t help but notice that the space behind the desk, the area that would be visible to the laptop’s webcam, was blank wall space and a window covered with blackout curtains. Morgan and Keagan would be given no clues to where I was. And since they couldn’t see out the blocked window, they couldn’t even use the angle of the moon to triangulate my position, like they did on CSI. Not that Morgan and Keagan were that good at trigonometry, but I liked to think they could have pulled it off with help from the right Web site.
“I like to mix and match my fandoms.” Clearly excited by my heretofore unknown enthusiasm for something, Jane opened her laptop with a flourish. The Skype logo appeared. The familiar dink-dank-donk sounded as the computer attempted a connection. Ophelia’s pale, elfin face appeared on the screen, her features exaggerated by the very close company she was keeping with the camera.
“Ophelia!” I cried. “Sit back! You look like an old Busta Rhymes video.”
Ophelia rolled her eyes but moved away from the webcam. “Better?”
“Yes! How are you? I miss you!”
Ophelia gave me a pleased little smile, but she didn’t return the sentiment, because that wasn’t her thing. “I’m fine, other than straining my upper-body strength trying to hold back your friends so I can talk to you first.”
In the background, I heard Keagan squeal. “She’s so strong!”
“How are you adjusting?” Ophelia asked casually, as if she wasn’t restraining my friends.
“I’m sort of in control of my thirst, and I can outrun Fitz now without embarrassing myself. I’m living with Georgie, and she completely terrifies me but in a fun way.”
Ophelia’s brows rose. “That is a lot of information. Well, I have some people here who are yanking my arms off so they can talk to you.”
Ophelia stepped out of view so Morgan and Keagan could tumble in front of the camera like a couple of overeager puppies. Morgan yelped when Keagan knocked her aside. Keagan’s rounded cheeks nearly covered her baby-doll blue eyes as she grinned, waving both hands.
“Meagan!” Keagan shrieked. “Are you OK? We were so worried!”
“Back away from the mic, Keagan, you’re going to burst my eardrums,” I said.
“Sorry,” she said, moving away from the camera. “Are you OK?” she repeated.
“I’m OK,” I told her. “It’s not ideal, but it could be a lot worse.”
“Where did you go?” Morgan asked.
I raised my eyebrows. I hadn’t expected Ophelia to obey Jane’s order that she keep my location a secret. I was even more surprised that a little part of me appreciated it. I doubted very much that the Council would react in a nice, nonviolent way if the girls came busting into Half-Moon Hollow on a rescue mission. Sure, Jane was in charge of the region, but she could only spin a headline like “Coeds Torch Council Building in Freak Taser Incident” so far.
“I can’t tell you,” I said as Jane shook her head from behind the laptop screen. “I’m sorry. It’s all part of the agreement with the Council. I agree not to tell anyone where I am, they agree not to kill me in my sleep.”
“What agreement with the Council?” Morgan demanded.
“Morgan, I know you’re worried about me, but I don’t want to waste our chat
time going over questions I can’t answer. All you need to know is that I’m OK. I’m safe. I’m adjusting to the whole vampire thing, and I’m trying to get back to campus as quick as I can. So what’s been going on with you two? What’s the campus gossip? What have I missed?”
“It’s been pretty quiet, really,” Keagan told me. “You know the drill. Now that everybody’s stopped freaking out over the first couple of weeks, it’s mostly frat parties, football games, and avoiding group projects.”
“You are now approaching an urban legend,” Morgan told me. “There’s a rumor that your turning didn’t take and you are now haunting the second floor. If girls see your reflection in the mirror, it means they won’t date again until they graduate.”
“Why would I be haunting the second floor? I lived on the fourth. Also, ouch, my legend sounds super-mean.”
“Urban legends are not known for accurate details,” she said with a shrug. “But you might be included on the haunted-campus tour they do to frighten freshmen! That’s exciting.”
I groaned. “They’re going to mash my story up with the ‘Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?’ girl, aren’t they?”
Morgan nodded. “Probably.”
“Well, your story’s way more interesting than Ben Overby’s,” Keagan chimed in. “You know, that boy you danced with at the party? Right after you were turned, he dropped out of school and joined the Peace Corps. It was weird.”
“Really?” I asked, lifting my brow in Jane’s direction. “The Peace Corps? Does anyone join the Peace Corps anymore?”
Jane shrugged.
“Yeah, something about using his computer geekery to create safe groundwater systems in Africa,” Morgan said.
“But how would he even . . .” I asked as Jane shook her head again, clearly discouraging my inconvenient curiosity. “Never mind.”
“I think it’s kind of romantic.” Keagan sighed. “He couldn’t stay in school, where he met you, after he watched you die. He was so clearly into you.”
“Yep, that’s a definite sign of someone being into you, throwing away their education and running away to a third world country,” Morgan muttered.
“You’re so pale,” Keagan said. “Gorgeous, don’t get me wrong. I mean, it looks like RuPaul’s Drag Race Understated Glam Squad got ahold of you. But pale. And you have circles under your eyes that kind of look like eyeliner but more shadowy. Aren’t you sleeping?”
“Yeah, just not when you’re sleeping.”
Morgan frowned. “But you’re OK? You’re not having foster-home flashbacks? Do they make vampire antianxiety meds? Should we airlift some to you? I mean, we would have to know where you are, but that could be arranged, right?”
Keagan elbowed Morgan on-screen. “Subtle, girl, come on.”
“I’m fine,” I promised, eyeing Jane carefully. “It’s different from when I was a kid.”
“Well, we miss you,” Keagan said. “Going for cheese fries at two A.M. isn’t the same without you!”
“Well, it definitely wouldn’t be the same if I did go, because I would throw up the cheese fries.”
“Good point,” Keagan said, grimacing.
“Also, we have to write our own essays now. It’s terrible. I’m failing Public Speaking. Do you know how embarrassing it is to fail Public Speaking?” Morgan grumbled.
I burst out laughing. “How am I responsible for you failing Public Speaking?”
“Because I have to spend the time I would spend practicing my speeches writing my own essays for Russian Literature.”
“Well, who told you to take Russian Literature?” I asked.
“Professor Romanov is so hot.” Morgan groaned. “It clouded my judgment.”
I snorted. “I’m sorry I’m not there to help you commit academic fraud.”
“Well, you should be.”
“I miss you guys.” I sighed.
“When are you coming home?” Morgan demanded.
“I don’t know,” I said. “It all depends on whether I can pass remedial vampire classes.”
Jane glanced at her watch and made a wrap it up gesture. I glanced at the clock at the bottom of the screen. Ben’s time slot to talk to his parents was coming up soon, and I knew Jane wanted to talk with him one last time about the reasons for not telling his parents where he was before he got on the video chat.
“I’ve got to go,” I told them, prompting a chorus of “Noooo!” from the other side of the screen. “But if I’m very good, I can call . . .”
I paused to glance at Jane, who whispered, “Next week.”
“I can call next week.”
“OK,” Keagan muttered, all pouty.
Jane whispered, “Your friend can e-mail you her essay at the Council address if I can screen the e-mail. AND the essay.”
I grinned. “And Morgan, e-mail me your essays so I can read them over and revise them. Not write them for you. Revise. I’ll send you the e-mail address.”
“Yay for academic semifraud!” Morgan cheered.
“Bye,” I said, shaking my head.
They yelled, “We love you!”
“I love you guys,” I said, throwing them a kiss. They waved at me, and I reluctantly clicked to end the call. I wiped at the eyes I hadn’t even realized were growing wet.
“You OK?” Jane asked.
I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. “I really needed to talk to them.”
“I know,” Jane assured me. I stood up, and she put her hand on my shoulder, gave it a squeeze. “I know you think I’ve been a little bit of a bitch through this whole process.”
“Because I’ve actually thought, Wow, Jane’s being a little bit of a bitch right now,’ and you read my mind?”
“Yes, and in some ways you’ve been right. I’ve had to be a bitch. I don’t like it. But that’s part of my job with the Council. I’m doing what I can to make life easier for vampires without committing overt acts of evil, as was the Council’s usual way. And if I have to be kind of mean to keep you safe, so be it. But I do understand what it’s like to have friends who mean more to you than family could. And I hope that someday you start to include some of us in that little circle.”
I nodded. “I’m trying.”
“You know, I happen to know a Russian guy who could probably help your friend out with that Russian Literature problem.”
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. “This is the third class Morgan has registered for based on professorial hotness. She’s never going to learn until she hits rock bottom.”
“You’re a good friend.”
I’d never worked in an office before. I mean, I’d watched plenty of episodes of The Office, but I doubted very much that qualified me for the Undead American Workplace. However, I had spent a lot of time in nondescript government waiting rooms, which made me quite comfortable in the Council offices.
I knew exactly how to adjust to the gray carpet, gray walls, gray sofas, and gray laminate everything else as Jane escorted Ben and me from the elevator to the subterranean HR office. The good news was that being wards of the Council meant that we didn’t need to fill out the usual first-day forms or liability releases. We’d already been thoroughly documented. (And cheek-swabbed.) I mean, honestly, we were already vampires. What more could happen to us on the job?
Our orientation consisted of Jane telling us, “Do what you’re told. Don’t lie. Don’t take anything in the fridge that doesn’t belong to you. Don’t go below the third subfloor.” Short, sweet, to the point.
It did make me wonder what was located on the fourth subfloor, though.
I tugged at the collar of my sensible black cardigan as we waited in Jane’s office to be escorted to our posts. Ben sat to my left, his knee jiggling so hard the couch was vibrating. I wanted to reach out to steady his leg, to try to tell him that this was going to be OK.
But he hadn’t welcomed much in the way of sire-ly advice from me so far. Also, the vibrations weren’t entirely unpleasant.
So, instead, I fussed with my cardigan. The Council office dress code was surprisingly strict. Jane had gone online and ordered me several sweater sets, pencil skirts, and flats in dark blue, black, and red. Yes, it was boring as hell, but . . . I was really having a hard time coming up with a bright side to a buttload of cardigans.
Poor Ben was stuck looking like his mom dressed him for school picture day in khakis and a navy-blue polo shirt. He grumbled, “I look like I’m about to be hazed at a private boarding school.”
I snorted. “You’re going to be sold for French clove cigarettes.”
Ben laughed, which made me give him a surprised side-eye. My shoulders jerked in quiet giggles while Ben laughed harder.
“It’s not that bad!” Jane said. “We had some complaints about the last batch of interns and their funny nerd T-shirts and rainbow-colored hair. Some departments tried to dress the same way . . . and there was some misunderstanding about the limits of appropriate humor. There are some really filthy T-shirts available on the Internet.”
Ben and I kept laughing, until he looked over and realized that we were laughing together, and it sort of trailed off into nothing.
Back to staring aimlessly around the room, then.
Just like her home, Jane’s office showed a bit more of her personality. And just like her home, most of the space was filled with bookshelves, which made her huge, ornately carved oak desk all the more classy. Her walls were studded with photos in frames of every size and color. Gabriel and Dick and Andrea and a little old man with two pairs of glasses propped on top of his head. I spotted Ben in a big group picture at what looked like a Halloween party. He had his arm around a pretty brunette with big blue eyes and a gorgeous smile. And he was beaming at her like she hung the moon. This must have been Gigi, the ex. I kind of hated her.
Dick didn’t have an office. From what I could gather from the conversations I’d heard over the last couple of weeks, they’d tried to give him one, but he rarely used it. He preferred to be “on the streets,” with his ear to the ground, searching for potential problems in the vampire community. And when he was in the office, some of what Jane called his “business contacts” in this weird, harsh voice came to visit and usually stole something. Gabriel said the Council lost a fortune in office supplies in the first month.