“What was that about?” I asked Marge.
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “He’s been behaving so strangely for the past few weeks. I’m starting to worry about him.”
“He mentioned that you two have come to a settlement agreement?”
Marge frowned and shook her head. “Not that he’s told me. In fact, he’s stopped returning our lawyer’s calls.”
“I’m worried, Marge.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him. I’ll see you in a few days?” she asked quietly. I nodded. “Thanks, honey. You take care of yourself.”
My first instinct was to find Danny, to make sure that Les hadn’t decided to snatch him from the Pumpkin Patch Party and spirit him away to Grandpa Brainwashing Land. Zipping around the fairway at vampire speeds, it only took me a few minutes to find my son, bouncing his heart (and most likely his dinner) out in the inflatable castle with Harley. Part of me cringed, seeing my slightly undersized son bouncing around the vinyl with boys twice his height, pinging between them like a grinning ping-pong ball. But I knew he needed to be bounced around a bit. I needed to let him fall and get hurt and fail, because otherwise, he would never learn how to get back up.
That didn’t stop me from cringing when a collision with Harley sent him sprawling against the mesh walls, under the feet of two third-graders. Kerrianne called for Danny to get up before he got turned into “people jelly,” and he gamely obeyed, waving and hooting all the time.
“Hey, hon. How is your voluntary servitude?” Kerrianne asked me.
“Could you take Danny to your house tonight?” I asked. “Les was being, well, weird as hell earlier, and it made me nervous.”
My lack of greeting or response to her “servitude” jibe brought Kerrianne to attention immediately. “Of course. I’ll tell Wade we’re switching locations.”
“Thanks. I feel better knowing you’ll be somewhere unfamiliar to Les.”
“Hey, did I hear that you were planning to run for PTA president next year? Are you really planning to run?”
“Oh, hell, no. I wouldn’t touch that job with a ten-foot pole. But Chelsea doesn’t need to know that. I want her to spend the next year thinking I’m going to wrestle her power away in some bloody vampire coup.”
“Well, it’s working. Chelsea is having kittens over by the cotton candy.”
“Excellent,” I drawled, steepling my fingers together like a Simpsons villain.
“Hey, is Finn planning on showing up?” she asked.
“Decidedly not,” I said. “I’ve asked Finn for some space.”
“Because you and Wade finally did the deed?”
“No, and how did you—”
“Oh, please, you came back from that thunderstorm with obvious deed signals all over your face. Not to mention the dirt on the back of your jacket and the smudges on his jeans. Frankly, I’m a little hurt that you didn’t immediately dish with me over it. You know how I feel about Wade’s ass. I need some vicarious information. Come on, it was bone-shaking, wasn’t it? It had to be.”
“That recap is not going to happen at a children’s carnival,” I told her.
“I knew it!” Kerrianne crowed as I shushed her. “He couldn’t have a mouth like that and not know what to do with it.”
“You are not an emotionally well woman.”
“Fine,” she groaned. “At least, tell me why you’re not speaking to Finn at the moment.”
“He told me some things about why he turned me, and it was . . . upsetting,” I said carefully. “I don’t want to like him. But he has just enough charm to make him dangerous. I get all confused, and I forget who I’m dealing with.”
“You are the master of vague. Tomorrow evening, after we have washed the caramel from our kids’ hair, you and I are going to sit down with a bottle of that vampire wine, and you’re going to spill your guts.”
I gave her a dutiful curtsy. “Yes, ma’am.”
“For right now, I have to keep my daughter from conspiring with your boys to cheat at ring toss.”
“How do you cheat at ring toss?” I asked.
Kerrianne shrugged. “They have a system.”
When the last wad of cotton candy had melted into sugar goo on the last child’s cheeks and the last raffle prize had been given away, the parents of Half-Moon Hollow could not have disappeared faster if they were paid magicians. A few intrepid fathers stuck around long enough to pack up the booths and shut down the PA system, but other than that, the random debris, the game pieces and leftover prizes, and the litter were my problem—well, mine and Wade’s.
“I’ll take the huge-ass mess on the left, you take the huge-ass mess on the right,” he told me.
“You volunteered us for this, you lunatic!”
“I assumed it would be more packin’ up teddy bears and cleanin’ up smashed pumpkins. Givin’ us enough time to roll around on those hay bales back there.”
“Well, that’s what happens when you assume.” I laughed, giving him a smacking kiss. He caught me around the waist and held me there, sliding his hands up my back until they were cupping my jaw. As usual, I felt everything in Wade’s kiss. There was no artifice or holding back, just playful warmth and affection and this thing he did with his tongue that made my toes curl. Wade was laying it all on the line for me . . . and I was giving him a big whopping lie by omission.
Reluctantly, I pulled away from him, swiping my tongue over my lip. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Wade kissed the curve of my chin, the bristles of his whiskers tickling my sensitive skin. “What’s that?”
“I’ve been seeing my sire.” I closed my eyes, wincing, as if he were going to detonate at the news. When he said nothing, I opened one eye and checked to make sure he was still there.
“OK,” he said, nodding.
“I mean, I was seeing him, as in more than a mentoring relationship, though thanks to some pretty disturbing revelations on his part, that’s pretty much over, because I think I would want to hit him in the face with a folding chair if I saw him again. I haven’t slept with him, though there have been some very intense dreams—never mind. The important thing is that I need to be honest with you about it.”
“OK.”
“Please stop saying OK!”
“Well, what am I supposed to say?” he asked, laughing.
“Tell me I’m a cheater who cheats! A woman of loose character! A betrayer of trust!” I cried.
“Libby, honey, have I asked you for a commitment?” he asked. “Have I given you my fraternity pin and asked you to go steady?”
“If you have a fraternity pin, I will never trust my judgment of people again,” I told him. When he gave me a pointed look, I sighed. “You said you were going to ask me to be your girl, but no.”
“OK, then, so we’re not exactly committed yet. You haven’t broken any sort of promise to me. Of course, once we are, I’d expect you to be faithful, just like I will be to you. But I know how important sires are to vampires. Hell, Jane married hers. I’d rather you figure out now whether you want to be with him than a couple of years from now. And once you figure out how you feel about those upsetting revelations and the fact that he’ll never be as good in bed as I am, you and I will ride off into the sunset.”
I snorted. I needed him to make a joke like that at this very moment. I needed to laugh, because otherwise, I was going to cry. “So you’re going to see other people?”
“Well, I’ll put it this way. I haven’t dated more than once or twice since Harley was born. I doubt that’s going to change now.”
“Thanks, Wade.” I sighed.
“You’re still gonna be my girl,” he said, kissing my forehead.
“There are no other men like you in the world,” I told him.
He scoffed. “’Course not. When he made me, God bronzed the mold and retired it.” He kissed the tip of my nose and, closing his mouth over mine, laid a kiss on me that stole the unneeded breath from my lungs. He pulled me against him
, hands roaming to my denim-covered butt and giving it a none-too-gentle squeeze.
“What are you doing?” I asked, grinning up at him.
“Just givin’ that other guy somethin’ to live up to.”
“Nice,” I said, shaking my head.
He shrugged. “Gives me time to plan my next move.”
“OK, master manipulator, you go get your truck to haul away the prizes and stuff, and I’ll run litter patrol.”
“That’s going to take you a while,” he said.
“I’ve got it,” I told him, snagging a rake from a decorative display. (Yes, really.) As Wade disappeared into the darkness, I bolted across the schoolyard at top speed, dragging the rake behind me. I darted back and forth over the grass in tight rows, picking up the litter as I went. Eventually, I had a huge pile of it in the middle of the grass, waiting to be bagged.
“Vampire speed finally pays off!” I exclaimed. “Wade, I beat you! I’m already done! I invite you to marvel at my efficiency.” I did a little victory dance, complete with rake spins.
Unfortunately, these rake spins were witnessed by a man lurking at the edge of the schoolyard—a tall man in dark pants and sweater and a black ski mask, with a squarish head. Someone didn’t get the memo about Pumpkin Patch costumes being a kid thing. Or this was the same chupacabra creep who’d lurked all over me after the PTA meeting weeks before, which was more likely.
El Chupacabra sauntered over to me, and I put my rake on my shoulder like a baseball bat, crouched in a ready stance. Even through the mask, I could tell that he wasn’t breathing. He didn’t have a heartbeat. Which meant he was a vampire, too. There went any advantage I might have had. I had literally never been in a fight before, not even a catfight at the Laundromat, which, I will admit, was unusual given my upbringing.
I worried about Wade. Was he OK? Had El Chupacabra hurt Wade so he could corner me? The man stopped just outside of rake range, waving his hands over my face. I lifted an eyebrow. “Can I help you?”
The man tilted his head, staring at me through the ski mask with baleful black eyes. An odd, acrid smell, like old burnt coffee, hit my nostrils, and I reeled back. He held his hand closer to my face, apparently expecting some reaction, but got nothing. He even shook his hand, all jazzy and fluttery, before trying it again. But I felt nothing. Maybe this was part of my stabilizing gift? He had a power he was trying to use to subdue me but couldn’t because I was shutting him down?
Maybe my power didn’t suck so much after all.
Then it seemed that he had decided to handle things the old-fashioned way, because he produced a stake from behind his back and lunged at me.
I ducked (thank you, vampire reflexes) and yelled, “Who the hell are you, jackass?”
Danny believed I was a superhero. I could do this. I could survive a fistfight . . . in which one of the parties had a stake. Right. Mustering all the upper-body strength I had, I shoved his hands aside and whipped my head forward, smashing my forehead into his.
Ow.
Effective. But ow.
He stumbled back, but I still had to sidestep the stake and, using the rake, shoved the man aside while he was off-balance. A bit more dazed than I would expect, he side-swung again, and I blocked with the rake handle. I swung back, using the rake fan like a giant palm, slapping him back and forth across the face.
He grabbed the fan and shoved it toward me, the rounded end of the handle catching me right in the sternum. I panicked, looking down and expecting to see the handle sticking out of my heart and my body disintegrating to dust. But I was just bruised . . . in a really embarrassing location. Stumbling away and rubbing at my battered chest, I still had the presence of mind to hang on to the rake handle.
Yay for me.
My opponent, who was still a little addled from his rake-slapping, struggled to his feet and limped toward me. When he got within range, I swung the rake over my head and whacked him over the face with the handle. He grunted, swinging his leg forward and planting his foot on my chest, knocking me to the ground. I gasped, rolling out of the way as he lunged, stake down, and got his wooden weapon stuck in the dirt. I scrambled to my feet and kicked the man in the ribs, sending him sprawling across the grass.
Dropping the stake, he ran at me, hands outstretched and curled, as if he was going to strangle me. I took a few steps forward and tripped him with the rake. He’d built up so much momentum that he actually dug a furrow into the lawn, only stopping when he hit the fence near the playground.
If I survived this, I was going to hold on to this rake. It was clearly a lucky rake.
My opponent did not appreciate being splattered all over the grass via lawn tools. He bounced up onto his feet and yelled, “Crazy bitch!”
When I took exception to this, swinging the rake over my shoulder like a bat again and marching across the grass toward him, he leaped to his feet and ran off into the night.
“Rude,” I muttered.
Wade’s voice sounded behind me. “I leave you alone for five minutes, and you dig a trench in the school’s front yard?”
I turned to face him, and he shrank back at the sight of my bruised face and torn clothes.
“Honey, did ya trip over the rake?”
13
You should be just as respectful to authority figures and public servants, even if you can now drain them dry. Because your kids are watching you. Also, because it’s still illegal to drain authority figures and public servants dry.
—My Mommy Has Fangs: A Guide to Post-Vampiric Parenting
I woke up the next evening feeling oddly vulnerable. The bruises left behind by El Chupacabra were long healed, but the sensation of having a rake handle jammed into my cleavage remained.
Just after my assailant had flounced off into the woods, Wade had come rolling up in his pickup truck. Seeing me bent over at the waist and bleeding from my mouth (I wasn’t sure how that happened), Wade had hopped out of the truck and run to me. Even though I was already healing, he was furious that I’d been hurt while he was driving around gathering game booths.
He’d driven me home immediately, Pumpkin Patch equipment be damned, and helped me clean up before Kerrianne brought Danny and Harley home. As promised, we watched It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and drank hot cocoa. Well, I had blood mixed with a very strong dose of whiskey, but it made me feel nice and toasty. The kids fell asleep with their swords and throwing stars clutched against their chests. (Harley thought the Great Pumpkin was pretty sketchy and wanted a defense system.)
I should have called Jane. I should have driven directly to the shop and reported the incident. But I just wanted to get home, to see my son and try to feel normal. After I’d put Danny down for the night, Wade insisted that I send her a text, which I did after he watched me bolt every window and door in the duplex. Long, long after he watched me bolt the doors and windows . . . as in, right before I went to bed for the day. But knowing that she would come running, risking sun exposure, if I gave her too many details, I’d kept my text vague. “Incident” after the Pumpkin Patch Party. Need to discuss tomorrow night and fill out report.
I was not proud of myself, but I just couldn’t face questions and paperwork at that moment.
The next night, I ran my fingertips over my forehead, checking for a head-butt dent, as I shuffled toward the basement stairs. On the bottom step, I heard the sound of a strange male voice coming from my living room. I didn’t think my feet touched the wood on my ascent back to the basement door. I shoved the door open and skidded across the linoleum on my socked feet. At the sound of Kerrianne’s calm, measured voice, I paused to take stock of the situation.
I poked my head around the corner and peered into the living room. Kerrianne was sitting on the couch while Danny talked to a lanky man with graying blond hair in a Half-Moon Hollow Police Department uniform. I recognized Sergeant Russell Lane from two years earlier, when I’d waited outside the emergency room for news after Rob’s accident. Lane had all sorts of quest
ions about whether Rob had a drinking problem (no), if he had problems sleeping (no), whether he texted while he drove (yes, even when Danny and I were in the car with him and I begged him not to do it). He was not particularly helpful in terms of a public servant. Any comfort he offered me was in the vein of “I’m sure this wasn’t your fault, ma’am, just because he was driving home late from work and probably very tired from working overtime. I’m sure supporting his family didn’t lead to his untimely death.” (He was actually coming home from practicing with his employer’s softball team, but thanks for trying.) So really, I wasn’t very happy about the idea of him talking to my son without me.
I crept to the door, listening carefully from a position where Sergeant Lane couldn’t see me. Kerrianne noticed the movement in the hallway and opened her mouth to speak, but I pressed a finger to my mouth and shook my head. She nodded and focused on Sergeant Lane.
Danny was fascinated by all of the big-boy toys on Sergeant Lane’s police belt, poking at his Taser. “Can I play with that?”
“No,” the policeman told him. “Not until you’re at least ten.”
“OK.” Danny sighed, and then Sergeant Lane handed him his flashlight, flicking it on. “Cool.”
“Danny, how do your mom and your grandpa get along?” the policeman asked. “Are they always nice to each other, or do they fight sometimes?”
I raised my eyebrows. Had Les called the cops on me? I’d barely spoken to him the night before, and if anything, he was the one behaving in a creepy, vaguely threatening manner. Did this have something to do with the custody case? Maybe he was all smug and weird because he’d called child protective services to review my fitness as a parent. What the hell was this?
“They used to fight sometimes,” Danny said. “Papa said that I should be living with him and Mamaw, but Mom said no. That made Papa mad. And he said mean things sometimes, which made Mom mad.”