Wolf at the Door

chapter Thirty-five



She answered the door at once, pale and nibbling on her lower lip. “This isn’t a good time.”

“Tell me about it.” He stomped past her and down the stairs to her hobbit hole. “Let’s go, toots.”

“Toots? Really? And why haven’t you been answering my calls? Dammit, Edward, I’ve been worried about you!”

“Big f*cking deal.” He stopped in her living room, turned. Faced her. “I know, Rachael.”

“What?”

“Quit it. I know.”

“I do not have time for this, Edward.” She snuck a glance out one of the windows. “Very soon I’m going to have a . . . a biological dilemma. You can’t be here when that happens.”

“What, like your time of the month?” Suuuure. Vampires didn’t menstruate. He was pretty sure. How dumb did she think he was?

Pretty dumb.

“Exactly. My time of the month.” For some reason, she laughed. “Except not what you think. Edward—”

He grabbed her. “Rachael, listen to me. Listen.”

“Why,” she asked mildly, “are all your fingers digging into the meat of my arms?”

“I know, okay? I know. And my friend Boo is coming to kill you. You have to get away; I have to get you away. She. Will. Kill. You.”

“What’s a boo?” She was prying off his fingers one by one, still much more interested in the view than anything else. “Something dreadful, probably; you smell like cotton on fire.”

He felt like shaking her. He let go before he did. He was so afraid he would hit her. So afraid.

Curse those vampiric senses! “Never mind how I smell. You gotta leave. Like, right now. Right now.”

“I can’t go anywhere right now. In fact, you should leave. I shouldn’t have let you come over at all. I had . . .” Another peek out the window. “I had other things to worry about, but I was also worried about you, and tomorrow morning we’re going to have a big wicked fight about it, but you have to go now.”

“Will you cut the shit? Huh? I’m telling you, we have to go. So will you pack already?”

“No. You get out of here.”

“I know you’re the f*cking vampire queen, Rachael! And the greatest vampire slayer in the history of vampire slayers is probably on a flight to here right now!”

He was expecting a heated denial, or cold mockery. Anything but what actually happened: she laughed so hard she fell down. Actually fell down! And laid on the carpet holding her stomach and laughing up at him.

“Okay.” He stared down at her. “This isn’t going the way I planned. At all.”

“Me! The vampire queen! Oh . . . oh . . . oh!” She snorted and giggled. “Oh, that’s rich! That’s wonderful! Me! One of them!” Then she sobered. “Wait. How do you even know there’s such a thing as a vampire queen?”

“Why d’you think?” he snapped. “I got your stupid newsletter. It’s got your damned address in it.”

She blinked up at him. “Who are you?” she asked after a long moment. “Who are you really? You’re not one of them. And you’re not one of us. So who are you, Edward?”

“A f*cking moron who believed you actually—” No. He wouldn’t tell her that. He wasn’t even sure why he was trying to save her. Only that he had to. Had to.

“Look, enough with the slinging of crap, okay? Even if you won’t admit it—”

“I will not admit it.” She shook her head. “Ever.”

“I can prove you’re her.” He bent and seized her wrist and pulled. She rose like smoke to her feet, so easily it was like she had no weight at all. Then he started to tug her toward the door but couldn’t move her any farther.

Puzzled, he thought, She must have set her feet against something. He tugged harder. Something like a cement bookshelf ? Maybe the rolltop desk was heavier than it looked. Except she’s not touching the desk. He was so intent on exposing her web of lies that he didn’t ponder. “I can prove—unf!—you’re the vampire queen. Save yourself some trouble and—nnnf!—admit your evil plan to—nnf!—enslave babies. Or make babies into zombies. Or zombies into babies.”

“I admit nothing. Certainly nothing about zombie babies. You can prove this?”

“Yes.”

“Well.” He had tugged again and nearly fell into the doorway. Suddenly Rachael was halfway to the door with him. “Prove it.”

He hauled her out of the hobbit hole, past the porch, and into the yard, and they both blinked in the late afternoon sun.

“See? See?” He pointed at her, and had never felt triumph warring with despair so strongly. Ever. “You’re not a pillar of screaming, shrieking flames. See?”

“Your proof is that I’m not on fire?” The lines he loved (when he thought she was the coolest girl ever, as opposed to what she was) appeared on her cute, wide Christina Ricci–esque forehead. “I think you’ve been reading the wrong books about vampires, because in actuality, they are incredibly vulnerable to—”

“Just stop it. Okay? Cut the shit.” It was the sunshine, so bright, bouncing off the chrome and steel of their rental cars. It was his sweat glands getting their signals crossed. He was so angry his eyes were leaking. It was one of those things, because he was not crying. Not over the f*cking vampire queen.

“It’s not just that,” he continued. He was tired. So tired. “You always seem to know exactly how I feel. When my mouth says one thing and my brain another, you always know what I’m talking about. Always. Roommates I’ve lived with for years don’t know what I’m talking about. The day we met I thought about how intuitive you were . . . but it’s not intuition. It’s just more vampire bullshit. But no more.”

“Edward.”

“God, I had the clues right in my f*cking face all week and couldn’t see. Your body is perfect, there’s not a mark on you. Of course you don’t have a mark on you! You’re dead, you heal from everything. Everything!” He smacked himself in the forehead, hard. “How stupid could I be? Jesus!”

“Edward.”

He slashed his hand at her. “It’s over, Rachael. And you will be, too, if you stay. So you gotta go. Now.”

For a wonder, she touched his face. It took everything . . . everything in him to jerk back from her small, delicate fingers. “Edward, Edward. I’ve deceived you, yes, something one accountant and Picard lover should never do to another. But I’m not doing something strange and evil with babies . . . or zombies . . .”

“Rachael, will you please cut the shit?”

“Well, I’m not. And later, I’m going to ask you why you thought that. And I’m not even a garden-variety vampire, never mind their ruling sovereign.” She laughed again. “I’m a nobody, really. I’m the kid in the play who has no lines.”

This time, he was the one to laugh. “That might have worked a couple of days ago, Rache. Not anymore, though. I saw you. Don’t you get it?”

“Edward, you must . . .” She trailed off when he twisted away from her outstretched hand, and hurt flashed into her expression like a cramp. Now he was the one who wanted to reach out. Which just proved what a f*cking fool he was, and had been, all this time.

“Go. You have to go. Just . . . get out of this city, this state. Don’t ever come back. She’ll kill you if she can find you. Don’t get found. Don’t, Rachael.”

“I’m not a vampire, Edward.” She smiled a little and glanced to her left. Nothing over there except another meticulously maintained mansion. And the summer moon, which looked like an enormous silver disc, almost looming over them. “And I can prove that.”