Lotus-Tom was sitting in a chair across the room. She was used to having two Toms around by now, and scarcely noticed him. “So, back to the business at hand. I love you. And you love me.”
“Yes,” he said, sounding—could it be? Happy? Well, she’d fix that in a hurry. “I love you and you love me.”
“So. You have to go.”
“No.”
“Yes. Tom, you have to. There’s—there’s no hope for us. I’m stuck here and you have a life, and if you stay, I’ll walk into the ocean and never come back.”
“I can’t leave you.”
“You better. Because I’m not going to have your death on my conscience, Skinny.”
“And what kind of a life am I going back to? Being at the beck and call of crackpots?”
“They’re not all crackpots,” she said quietly. “Some of them need your help. For some of them, you’re the only one who can help them. You can’t turn your back on your life’s work for me.”
“It’s my father’s life’s work,” he said bitterly, “and just watch me.”
“Tom. Isn’t it bad enough that I’m in limbo? You have to be, too?”
“I won’t let you send me away.”
“Yes, you will. You know why. I didn’t get a chance to say good-bye once, and it’s cast a shadow over my life—and death. You have to let me go, just like I have to let you go. That’s what all this is. There’s a lesson to be learned, and I’m by God going to learn it this time, you know?”
“No,” he said again. He sounded fine, but she could see tears trickling down his cheeks; how they shone in the moonlight! He squeezed her, held her, hugged her hard. “No, no, no.”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“Tomorrow.”
“No. A week,” he begged. “Another month.”
“You think this will be easier in a month?” To keep him company, she was crying, too. “It’ll never be easier than it is tomorrow—only harder. You have to go. You have to let me go. And I have to let you go. It’s the only way we’ll be free.”
“Freedom is fucking overrated,” he said, almost shouted.
“Don’t lie to me, Tom. I can spot one a mile away. Now ask me why.”
He groaned. “I know why.”
“Now ask me how I can let you go.”
He picked up her hand, kissed the knuckles. “I know that, too.”
They held each other all night and Nikki thought she had never cried so long or so hard, or seen a man cry at all.
And she thought: your heart can still break when you’re dead, oh yes.
Chapter 16
She waited until he fell asleep, and left. She couldn’t watch him leave. If she did, she would weaken, beg him to stay, happily watch as he indifferently starved himself to death, had a heart attack from potassium deficiency, toppled over in bed, and suffocated because he had no one to watch his body. Whatever, just die and be with me. Except there were no guarantees that he would be with her. And just because her life had been cut short, why should his?
No, she wanted him to live for a hundred years, five hundred, just like she wanted Cathy and Jack and their baby to live for a hundred years. A hundred years at least.
She was going over the same ground again and again (literally; she was on the south side of the island again) and tried to think of something else. Anything else.
She closed her eyes and thought of Tom. His smile, his rare beautiful smile. His long fingers. His eyes, so wounded and so bright. His skinny legs and bony arms; God, he was scrawny. In her heart’s eye, she loved it all, even the way he nibbled on his hangnails when he was distracted.
Tom. You’d better be drinking a milkshake right now. You’d better be—well, if not happy, at least resigned. Happiness will come. It’s got to. It—
She opened her eyes.
And managed to just stop herself from screaming in surprise.
The beach was gone. The ocean was gone. She was in someone’s living room.
She looked around wildly. Yes, the beach was gone. Yes: couch, coffee table, end tables, chairs…this was a living room. She walked over to the window and looked out: traffic streamed by below. And—she knew this place. This was Commonwealth Avenue. Boston, Massachusetts.
Boston? But that was where—
She heard keys jingling, locks clacking, and turned around in time to see the door swing open and Tom walk inside, white-faced with fatigue.
Their eyes locked. They spoke in less than romantic unison: “What the hell are you doing here?”
“This is my apartment,” he said, dropping his bag. On his foot, she noticed, but he didn’t notice. “This is where you told me to go.”
“But—but—but—but—” She had made him go. She had insisted he set them free. And now she was free. Free to go where she wanted.
What had he said, what had his unique vision of the afterlife been?
He slammed the door, curled into Lotus-Tom right there in the living room.
(It’s whatever you can imagine.)
Jumped out of Lotus-Tom, raced to her. Kissed her until she thought they’d both topple through the window.
(If you see harps and angels, that’s where you go. If you see hell, that’s where you go. If you think you have unfinished business, you stay here.)
“I love you, I love you,” he was saying, raining kisses on her face, “I love you, but I’m going to choke you for sending me away, I love you.”
(The afterlife—it can be anything. Anything at all.)
“I’ve got some bad news for you,” she said, kissing him back.
He held her at arm’s length. “What?”
“Well, you have to eat more.”
“Done. What’s the bad news?”
“Your apartment’s haunted. You’re my afterlife.”
“Oh, that,” he said. “Luckily, I happen to be a psychic.” And kissed her some more.
Driftwood
This story is, yawningly,
for Cindy Hwang, again, who asked me,
and Ethan Ellenberg, again, who made it happen,
and my kids, who stayed out of the way, mostly.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Stories may pop full-blown into a writer’s head, but there’s a helluva lot more to making a book than that, or me, the author. There’s the editor, who calls you up and asks if you want the project. There’s the agent, who wades through the eight-point-font paperwork and looks out for you and points out what’s good and what’s not so good and why you can’t write that story for this guy, but you could write the other story for this guy. There are the copyeditors (who think I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer) and proofers (who think same, and are right) and PR staff (I don’t know what they think), the sales guys and gals (ditto), the booksellers (they seem fond of me!), and finally, the readers (it’s a toss-up). Pull any one of those people out of the equation and…no book. Worse, no royalties!
So thanks, thanks, thanks to the unsung heroes of publishing. Since my name is on the front cover, I get most of the attention and the credit, and the blame if something goes wrong, which is only fair, because it’s always my mistake in the first place. But, as above, without the whole gang, there’s no book, typos and all.
What would I do without all of you?
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This story takes place after the events in Derik’s Bane and Undead and Unpopular. Also, in the real world, in our world, there are no such things as werewolves, but about vampires, I’m reserving judgment.
Also, the opinions (“I hate kids.”) of the characters in this story do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author, the editor, Berkley Sensation, or Penguin Putnam.
Finally, you are required to let the air out of your tires before driving out on a Cape Cod beach, and the people who don’t do that? Deserve whatever happens to their tires.
Who does the wolf love?
—SHAKESPEARE, CORIOLANUS, ACT II, SCENE I
He is mad that
trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.
—SHAKESPEARE, KING LEAR, ACT III, SCENE VI
A lawful kiss is never worth a stolen one.
—MAUPASSANT
Don’t mess with the dead, boy, they have eerie powers.
—HOMER SIMPSON
Chapter 1
Burke Wolftauer, the Clam Cop, dusted his hands on his cutoffs and observed the black SUV tearing out onto Chapin Beach at low tide. Crammed with half-naked sweaty semi-inebriated humans, the Lexus roared down the beach, narrowly missing a gamboling golden retriever. It roared to a halt in a spume of sand and mud, and all four doors popped open to let a spill of drunken humanity onto the (previously) calm beach.
All of which meant nothing to him, because the full moon was only half an hour away.
Burke dug up one more clam for supper, popped it open with his fingernails, and slurped it down while watching the monkeys. Okay—not nice. Not politically correct. Boss Man wouldn’t approve (though Boss Lady probably wouldn’t care). But never did they look closer to their evolutionary cousins than when they’d been drinking. Homo sapiens blotto. They were practically scratching their armpits and picking nits out of their fur. A six-pack of Bud and a thermos of Cosmos and suddenly they were all miming sex and drink like Koko the monkey.
All of which meant nothing to him, because the full moon was only half an hour away.
Now look: not a one of them of drinking age, and not a one of them sober. Parked too far up the beach for this time of the day, and of course they hadn’t let any air out of their tires. They’d been on the beach thirty seconds and Burke counted an arrestable offense, two fines, and a speeding ticket.
He licked the brine from both halves of the clam shell, savoring the salty taste, “the sea made flesh,” as Pat Conroy had once written. Clever fellow, that Conroy. Good sense of humor. Probably fun to hang out with. Probably not too apelike when he knocked a few back. Guy could probably cook like a son of a bitch, too.
Burke popped the now-empty clam in his mouth and crunched up the shell. Calcium: good for his bones. And at his age (a doddering thirty-eight) he needed all the help he could get.
Then he stood, brushed the sand off his shorts, and sauntered over to the now-abandoned Lexus. He could see the teens running ahead, horsing around and tickling and squealing. And none of them looked back, of course.
He dropped to one knee by the left rear wheel, bristling with disapproval at the sight of the plump tires—tires that would tear up the beach in no time at all. He leaned forward and took a chomp. There was a soft fffwwaaaaaaahhhh as the tire instantly deflated and the SUV leaned over on the left side. Burke chewed thoughtfully. Mmmm…Michelins…
He did the same to the other three, unworried about witnesses—this time of year and day, the beach was nearly deserted, and besides, who’d expect him to do what he just did?
He walked back up the beach to retrieve his bucket and rake, using an old razor clamshell to pick the rubber out of his teeth. He belched against the back of his hand and reminded himself he wasn’t a kid anymore—he was looking at half a night of indigestion.
Worth it. Yup.
Chapter 2
Serena Crull heard someone come close to her hole and went still and silent as…well, the grave.
This was an improvement over what she had said twelve hours earlier, upon tumbling ass over forehead into the eighteen-foot-deep pit: “Son of a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii…ooommpph!”
This had been followed by: “Shit!”
And: “Son of a bitch!”
And: “Ow.”
Which had been followed by roughly twelve hours of sulking silence. She had tried climbing out: no good. She’d just pulled more slippery sand down onto herself. She hadn’t bothered to try jumping: she wasn’t a damned frog. She’d once jumped down, but it was only a story or so and, frankly, it had hurt like hell. Not to mention she hadn’t stuck the landing. Jumping up? Maybe in another fifty years.
Then the sun had come up, and she’d really been screwed. She scuttled into a corner (or whatever you call the edge of a hole that gives shelter), pulled some sand over herself, and waited for the killing sun to fall into the ocean one more time. What she would do after that, she had no idea.
And she was starving.
She was dying and she was starving.
Okay: She was dead and she was starving.
From above: “Hey.”
She said nothing.
“Hey. Down there.” Pause. “In the hole.”
She couldn’t resist, could not physically prevent her jaw from opening and the nagging voice from bursting forth, it was just so exquisitely stupid, that question: “What, down the hole? Where else would I be? Dumb shit.”
Longer pause. “I’ll, uh, get help.”
“Don’t do that. I’ll be fine.”
“Someone’ll have some rope in their truck.”
“Why don’t you have rope in your truck?” she couldn’t resist asking.
“Don’t need it.”
It was amazing: the man (nice voice—deep, calm, almost bored) sounded as indifferent as a…a—she couldn’t think of what.
“I don’t, either.”
“Don’t either what?”
Nice voice: not too bright. “Don’t need a rope. I do not need a rope. No rope!” No, indeed! A rescue right now would be disastrous. She could picture it with awful clarity: heave and heave, and here she is, thank goodness she’s safe, and what the hell? She’s on—She’s on fire!
As her hero, Homer Simpson, would have said: “D’oh!”
“How did you even fall in there?” her would-be rescuer was asking. “It’s impossible for there to be a deep hole on the beach. The sand would fill it up.”
“I’m not a marine biologist, okay?” she snapped.
“Geologist,” he suggested. “You’re not a geologist.”
It was amazing: she’d spent the day alone, in hours of silence, terrified of the sunlight, hoping she wouldn’t face an ugly death, and now she wanted her rescuer to get the hell lost.
“Get the hell lost.”
Pause. “Did you hit your head on the way down?”
“On what?”
“You seem,” he added, “kind of unpleasant.”
“I’m in a hole.”
“Well. I can’t just leave you there.”
“Oh, sure you can,” she encouraged. “Just…keep going to wherever you were going.”
“I didn’t really have anywhere to go.”
“Oh, boo friggin’ hoo. Is this the part where I go all dewy between my legs and talk about how I’m secretly lonely, too, and how it was meant to be, me falling on my ass and you hauling me out? And then we Do It?”
“Did someone push you down there?”
“Shut up and go away. I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe the fire department?” he mused aloud.
“No. No. No no no no no no.”
“Well. You can’t exactly stop me.”
She gasped. “You wouldn’t dare.”
“Even if you are crazy. I can’t just not help you.”
“Go away, Boy Scout.”
“It’s just that I can’t hang around too much longer.”
“Great. Fine. Have a good time, wherever you’re going. See ya.”
“I have this thing.”
“Okeydokey!” she said brightly, her inner Minnesotan coming out, which was an improvement over her inner cannibal, which wanted to choke and eat this mystery man, claw strips of flesh from his bones and strangle him with them, then poke a hole in his jugular and drink him down like a blue raspberry Slushee Pup. “Bye-bye then!”
“But I could maybe keep you company until it’s time to…for me to go.” Another pause, then, in a lower voice: “Although that might not work, either.”
“Aw, no,” she almost groaned. “You’re going to talk down my hole, then go away?”
“Yeah, you’re right. That won’t
work.”
“For more reasons than you can figure, Boy Scout.”
“I don’t have a cell phone, is the thing.”
“Me neither. Aw, that’s so sweet, look how much we have in common; too bad we’re not having sex right this second.”
Pause. “You keep bringing up sex.”
“Yeah, well. It’s been a long fargin’ day.”
“Fargin’?”
“Shut up, Boy Scout.”
“It’s just that you don’t have to worry.”
“That’s a humungous load off my mind, Boy Scout.”
“Because the thing is, I can’t…you don’t have…it’s that I’m not attracted to you at all.”
She clutched her head. “This. Is. Not. Happening.”
“I don’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
Insanely, he had. “Hey up there! For all you know, I’m an anorexic blonde with huge tits, skin the color of milk, and a case of raging nymphomania.”
Another of those maddening pauses. “Anyway, that’s not really the problem. The problem—”
“Bud. I so don’t need you to tell me what the problem is. Please get lost.”
She heard a sudden intake of breath, as if he’d come to a quick, difficult decision, and then there was a whoosh and a thud, and he was standing next to her.
Chapter 3
Five minutes later she was still screaming at him. Right at him. The hole was only about three feet in diameter. They were chest to chest. And she was loud. Really loud.
“…left your brains up there, Boy Scout, not that you ever were that heavy in the smarts department in the first place!”
“It just seemed like a good idea, is all.”
“Seemed like a good idea?”