Tantalize

  “It sounds like you’ve been there,” I observed. “What happened?”

  He took my hand in his, and we headed toward the door. “She’s dead.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “Does it hurt?” I asked. “I mean, like it did at first?”

  “If anyone threatened someone I loved with that kind of pain,” Brad replied, “I swear I’d kill them myself.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That’s lame, I know —”

  “It’s not lame,” Brad replied. “It means a lot. Any other costuming ideas?”

  It seemed considerate to let him change the subject, and I gave the question some thought. It was Saturday afternoon, and most shops would be closing in another hour or so. Plus, the U.T. game would be over soon, spilling burnt orange onto the streets.

  Was Kieren there with Meghan and his dad? They always ordered season tickets, and his mama usually worked on Saturdays. Kieren hadn’t mentioned football in ages.

  These days, attending a college game was probably too normal for him.

  He’d never wanted to be normal, I realized. Go to U.T. and study whatever, then get a regular job and marry a girl like me who did something as common as restaurant management. He talked about his inner Wolf, how dangerous it could be. Needing a pack so he wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially me. So he wouldn’t have to worry all the time. I believed that was part of it.

  But big picture, Kieren had always wanted a different life, a special life. He’d earned it with his werestudies. He’d been born to it on his mama’s side. He’d become the Wolf pack scholar, mated to some bitch he hadn’t even met yet.

  Would Kieren miss me the way Brad missed his first love?

  Did Kieren even think of me that way? I’d been so sure, on and off, but now . . .

  Brad’s hand in mine felt cool, reassuring. Like we walked this way all the time.

  On the way out, I brightened. “There’s this one place, Second Chances, on Burnet. They might have a black trench coat —”

  “Trench coats,” Brad said, escorting me to The Banana, “are for gumshoes, perverts, and rainy days.”

  Uncle D had taken off tonight with Ruby, saying he’d be home before 1 A.M. His good deed for the day: letting Travis off early. Mine: helping Brad clean the kitchen, which had gone faster than we’d expected. We didn’t usually work on Sundays, but with the reopening next weekend, there was so much to do.

  Yawning, I shuffled upstairs in the dark, holding fast to the handrail. I loved the house, what had been my parents’ house. It wasn’t big, two stories, built in the 1930s, very art deco, expanded in the ’60s and again when I was five. The furnishings were a combination of pieces passed down from both sides of the family, including souvenirs from my parents’ many jaunts to Central and South America. Mostly of the basket, rug, and figurine variety. Mama had been particular about wanting things just so, and that’s pretty much how we’d left them. Except for her indoor trees and the hanging ferns that had died off over the years, the place hadn’t much changed.

  Turning into my darkened bedroom, though, something stank to high heaven. My first thought was sewage leak; my second, decomposing animal. I’d never seen a mouse, or anything but tiny milky lizards. But maybe a squirrel had burrowed into the attic. Still, that didn’t explain the wafting garlic scent mixed in with the ick.

  One step. Another. Reaching for the light switch, I tripped over a body and, flailing, landed with an oomph on a huge hard-shell animal, which hopped three feet into the air, knocking me off, back onto the still body. Screaming, I scrambled against the door, which slammed behind me. It, it . . .

  The animal was a shifter. It had to be. It was too damn big not to be. But werepeople were of the furred persuasion, occasionally feathered or scaled. Not hard.

  As for whoever on the floor, I had no idea.

  Steeling myself, I hit the lights, illuminating the dead-looking body of Clyde — a spray bottle in one hand, something pink in the other — and a five-and-a-half foot werearmadillo. No blood, but pungent fluids of a yellow-and-brown nature on the floor, close to the ’dillo. Even more disgusting, some of the sticky residue was on me.

  Kieren had once told me that shifter transformations varied in pain, mess, ease, and smell from wereperson to wereperson and species to species. This guy’s odor was like months-old sweaty gym socks. And the ’dillo himself? He looked like a cross between a huge gecko and a huge hog. Cowering with his head pulled into his shell, tail curling to meet it. Poor thing looked scared to death. Of me.

  It was hard to tell, but I thought the ’dillo was Travis.

  A squat beige candle was burning on my nightstand. Garlic scented.

  “Quincie, it’s you!” Clyde sat up to look at me. “We just heard you come in, and we kind of panicked —”

  “Kind of.” I stayed where I was, back to the door, fighting to calm myself.

  “He shifted,” Clyde continued. “I cut the lights, and —”

  “Played dead?” I raised my chin. Kieren often said dominance was the foundation of most exchanges between mammals. The higher up the food chain, the more complicated the game. In my own bedroom, having been scared out of my wits, I was not feeling inclined to defer.

  “We thought you were him!” Clyde went on.

  It took me a minute to process that. “My uncle?”

  “The vampire!”

  I should’ve guessed. “And what are you again?”

  Clyde shut his eyes like he was about to go catatonic, so I took on the kind of voice a vet might use while administering annual shots. “Easy.” The words felt idiotic, but . . . “Some of my best friends are werepeople.” My best friend. “You can tell me.”

  “’Poss, ’possum,” Clyde replied, rising. “I’m a wereopossum. I can play dead in human or ’possum form. That’s . . .” He pointed. “Travis. He’s a werearmadillo.”

  I’d figured that much out. “Kieren sent you.”

  Travis uncurled and bobbed his bulky head.

  “We’re supposed to vampire-proof your house,” Clyde explained. “We started here, in your bedroom, and thought we’d work our way out. We would’ve asked first, but nobody was home and Kieren said it was an emergency, so —”

  “How did you get in?”

  Clyde shrugged. “The front door was unlocked, which isn’t very safe. Vampires have to be invited in, but there are all kinds of other —”

  “Yeah, I know.” What was with Uncle D? I wondered, not for the first time. Didn’t he have the good sense to be afraid?

  Sidestepping the stinky, sticky fluids, I paced the floor of my bedroom. My nice, normal, sensible bedroom, the one I hadn’t bothered to redecorate since I was about twelve. A full-size canopy bed with a calico-print bedspread, matching nightstand and dresser in an eggshell ivory, moth-chewed Oriental rug that clashed with the bedspread, a rattan chair. And Travis . . . God, I’d never seen a wereperson in animal form before.

  Something occurred to me. “Vampire-proof it how?”

  Holding up the spray bottle, Clyde answered, “Holy water for the window panes, and in the bag, we’ve got —”

  “What’s in your other hand?” I asked.

  “Uh.”

  “Are those my panties?”

  “Well,” Clyde replied, “we might have gotten a little distracted.”

  Oh my God. “And where the hell is Kieren?”

  “Investigating something at school that will just blow —”

  “You,” I said to Clyde. “Put. My underwear. Down.

  “And you,” I told Travis, grimacing at the yuck on my hands, “fix yourself.”

  Glancing down, I noticed the shredded boy-clothes, recognized them as remnants of what he’d worn to work. “No, wait,” I said. “I’m going to grab some of my uncle’s things and bring them back here. Then I’m going downstairs so you can do whatever you need to do to become a fully clothed, boy-shaped sophomore again.” I pointed at the bag on the floor, the one with a Celtic cross half falling out of
it. “Take that with you.”

  After Travis and Clyde collected their antivamp kit and left, I blew out the garlic-scented candle, cracked my windows, cleaned the floor, showered, scrubbed the tub, and then decided I’d feel better with some protection handy.

  But the gun I’d inherited from Grampa Crimi? Gone. I’d always kept it in my chest at the foot of my bed, beneath the Mexican blankets. I double-checked between the folds to be sure.

  Kieren had warned me against carrying it, bringing it to work. Because the gun couldn’t protect me, he’d said. Because it could be taken away.

  Kieren’s truck pulled up alongside me as I was walking to school the next morning. I’d gone the long way, through the residential neighborhood, to think.

  “Hey,” he called from the driver’s seat, “get in.”

  I kept walking. I hadn’t called or e-mailed him last night, hadn’t counted on seeing him until I got to school, hadn’t figured out yet what I wanted to say.

  “You’re mad?”

  I didn’t slow down.

  “Yeah, Clyde called me when he got home. I’m sorry, Quince.” He stopped and leaned over to open the passenger side door. “I’m trying to apologize.”

  I didn’t get in. “They were in my bedroom!”

  “They weren’t supposed to do that, just go into your house like that.”

  “Clyde was rummaging through my underwear!”

  Kieren’s expression became dangerous, possessive. It was clear Clyde hadn’t bothered to mention that tidbit.

  I pressed. “I want my grandfather’s gun back.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “The gun?”

  “Don’t play dumb,” I replied, lowering my voice as a jogger sped past. “You knew where I kept it, you sent in your little friends, and now it’s gone.”

  “Quince, please get in the truck.”

  “No.”

  He killed the ignition, got out, and joined me on the sidewalk. “Did you see them take it?”

  “No. But they had a bag with them. It was probably in the bag.”

  Kieren put his hands on my shoulders. “I did not take the gun. I swear to you I didn’t. I didn’t ask Clyde or Travis to take it either, but believe me, I’m going to talk to them this morning about a few things.”

  I shrugged him off, tired of touching that only went so far.

  “We’re going to be late for school,” Kieren said.

  “I’m not going.”

  “But —”

  I turned around, started walking. “I’m going to work instead.”

  “What about the gun?” Kieren called.

  As if he didn’t know.

  When I stormed into Sanguini’s kitchen, Brad was seated at the island reading A Taste of Transylvania from The Eclectic Ethnics Series. “Something wrong?” he asked.

  I stopped in the middle of the room, realized I was standing exactly where I’d . . . where Kieren had first discovered Vaggio’s body, and jumped back. “Men suck.”

  Brad seemed to consider this. “Not all men, just the really good ones.”

  I folded my arms, unappreciative.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Brad asked, so solid, secure, there.

  I took the stool next to his. “Why does everything have to change?”

  “Not everything does,” he replied. “Some things are forever.”

  I mulled over how Kieren was going to leave me, how I wasn’t sure I could trust him anymore. “Not in my life.”

  “Maybe,” the chef said, “it’s your life that’s the problem.”

  I thought again about Kieren, how long I’d pined for him.

  Maybe Brad was right.

  I had to give Brad directions to Barton Creek Square Mall, just south of downtown, off MoPac, the gateway to the western suburbs. It was our latest expedition in search of a vampire chef ensemble. Neither of us spoke from the back door of Sanguini’s until we reached the primo parking space near the movie theater.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you probably think I’m neurotic, but let’s just go.”

  “Something wrong?” Brad asked from the driver’s seat, his hand on the key.

  Inside waited a Nordstrom, a JCPenney, a Sears, two Dillard’s. An Abercrombie & Fitch, Eddie Bauer, and untold shoppers.

  It was possible that we might be able to find something Brad could wear at one of the various retail outlets. But it would be mass-produced, easily copied, and potentially familiar to any Tom, Dick, and Hernando who strolled through the door.

  Like minestrone, not special enough.

  “Too risky,” I said. “We can’t have some random customer show up looking like your twin.” I upped the air-conditioning. “You know, I hate to say this, but I’m starting to think a vampire restaurant in Austin makes no sense. Why would a vampire want to live here anyway?”

  “Your uncle was brainstorming that with me the other day,” Brad replied, turning the radio on to an old Lyle Lovett song. “For media interviews. You know, PR for the restaurant. The way we figure it, because sunshine weakens vampires, most masters have avoided the Southwest. That means it’s a power vacuum, a growth opportunity. Plus, humans have been moving to this region in big numbers, and hunters tend to follow the herds. Not to mention the live music, a thriving downtown, bats.”

  I fought a smile. “You said only really old vampires could turn into bats.”

  “But that’s the thing about vampires,” he said. “Eventually they will get old enough, and the natural bats would make swell camouflage. Besides, vampires are a fringe population, and Austin is a tolerant place. Think about those people here who’re campaigning for undead rights. That wouldn’t happen in most Texas cities. In College Station or Amarillo, locals would come after any known vampires with blowtorches.” Brad shifted the SUV into reverse. “Where to now?”

  “Um.” With only three days left, I was running out of options. Fast.

  A moment later, turning onto the frontage road, Brad suggested, “Why don’t we stop by my place? I’d love to show you what Ian and Jerome have done with the remodel. We could share a bottle of wine, celebrate the breakthrough in the case.”

  “The case?”

  “The murder investigation,” he clarified. “Didn’t you hear? APD announced today that they were close to making an arrest.”

  It was news to me. I’d had drinks late last night with Brad, skipped school this morning, and hadn’t talked to Kieren since yesterday when we’d fought about Grampa Crimi’s gun. Kieren. . . . I hadn’t checked my cell for messages every five minutes, hadn’t checked my e-mail every fifteen. But God, how I’d wanted to.

  “Quincie, aren’t you pleased?” Brad asked, looping around to Highway One North. “That nightmare will be over soon.”

  “It’s a lot to take in,” I replied, trying to sound calm. Were the police planning to arrest Kieren? I wondered. No matter what, I’d loved him so long.

  “How about my invitation then?” Brad countered. “It’s a beautiful old house. Not as beautiful as you, but I think you’ll like it.”

  Clearly, Brad was hoping we’d do more than check out the carpentry. It dawned on me again that he was technically a grown-up and I wasn’t quite one, though our age difference was no more than that between, say, a freshman and a senior.

  Still, Uncle D seemed to approve. And I’d never bonded with anyone so fast, maybe because . . . Lately, life had been so uncertain, and Brad shared my love for Sanguini’s. With Vaggio gone and Kieren going — which maybe was for the best — Brad was inviting me in. I said, “I’ll take a rain check.”

  For the last couple of days before the debut party, I blew off school to help with last-minute whatever. But Brad had pushed me aside as taste tester in favor of Uncle D, and they got psycho secretive about the new menu, hushing whenever I peeked into the kitchen. It was so annoying.

  “Oh, come on,” I’d begged. “Tell me. Let me try something.” Uncle D was the boss, but didn’t both of them need my opinion? It was like
they thought I was only there to run errands, answer phones. “Just a little bite.”

  They’d laughed like it was the funniest thing I’d ever said. Uncle D had poured me a placating glass of Cabernet, and Brad had offered to serve me a sampling from the final menu tonight, September 12. The suspense was killing me.

  I ran into Uncle D and Ruby coming out of the front door.

  “How’s it going?” I asked, my shopping bag in hand.

  Uncle D shook his head. “It’s too late to do the two or three days of run-throughs with the staff. They’ll pick up menus and ingredient lists at 9 A.M. tomorrow and try to memorize them by sunset.”

  Ruby trailed her long nails down my arm. “How’s your vampire chef coming along?”

  Witch. I jiggled the bag and tried to look optimistic. “Under control, but it’s not like we need someone to play vampire, do we?”

  “I’d hate to cut the midnight toast,” Uncle D said. “It’s the crowning moment.”

  I just couldn’t win. “Well, have fun.” I pecked his cheek, taking a giant step back when Ruby leaned toward me. Then, waving bye-bye, they left.

  At my fave booth, I admitted to myself that, whether I liked it or not, Ruby was Uncle D’s only choice to play the head vampire.

  Brad strolled in from the kitchen, fangs glistening, eyes glowing red, receding hair still pale blond — he’d refused to consider dying it. He was sporting his standard business casual. Geek chic, like he’d just stumbled out of a tech office on a casual Friday. Brad was tall, too, I realized. I’d noticed before of course, but tonight he wasn’t slouching. Shoulders straight, he had to top 6 feet 4 inches.

  “Hi!” I handed him the bag. “This is going to look stupid on you, but try it anyway. I’m desperate.”

  He humored me. The traditional chef’s hat — white, pleats — made him look too stretchy overall and he’d never clear the hallway ceiling.