18
Your childe will be tempted to approach people from his or her former life, perhaps to seek vengeance for a perceived or actual wrong. Do your best to keep your childe distracted from this. Hunting, special treats, board games, hobbling—whatever it takes.
—Siring for the Stupid:
A Beginner’s Guide to Raising Newborn Vampires
Ray McElray had had some hard days since he’d gotten out of prison. He had the same dark, curling hair, although it had been cut short from his former mullet. The same dark brown eyes, but there were now dark circles under them, and deep lines creased around his mouth. His face was a little heavier, puffed up from starchy jailhouse food.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, ma’am,” he said, his voice polite and even. “But I’d appreciate it if you turned around real slow.”
Sighing again, I cracked my neck and removed my veil. “You can leave now, unhurt, or you can stay, and you will not walk away happy.”
He reached into the body bag and pulled out what looked like a potato gun loaded with dozens of pencils. “I think I’ve got a better-than-average shot at it.”
Dozens of freshly sharpened pencils were aimed straight at my chest. That did even things out a bit.
“Let me ask you something. When you set about to make something like that, what exactly goes through your head?”
He shrugged. “Mostly, ‘boobs, beer, this will be cool, boobs, beer.’ “
I bit my lip, because laughing didn’t seem appropriate at the moment. “Well, you’re honest.”
“I don’t want to ruin that pretty dress, ma’am, but I need you for something important that I have planned for your man. So I’d appreciate it if you would hold still.”
“I’m bait again. Why am I always bait?” I groaned. At the very least, he was the most polite kidnapper I’d had so far.
“Kind of poetic, isn’t it?” Ray asked, smiling almost proudly. “A bride goes missing on her wedding day. The groom runs to her rescue, only to be cut down himself. That’s the sort of thing they used to write country songs about. Before country got all … sparkly.”
“I don’t know what you’ve been told about vampires, but I’m not going to just—”
He stepped closer, moving slowly and carefully. “Now, now, this has nothing to do with the fact that you’re undead. Hell, I respect you as a predator. But I also know that a good predator can’t be separated from its mate.”
“I’m a vampire, not a timber wolf.”
He pulled a capped hypodermic needle from his pocket. “Well, your fella killed my brother, and I got a bone to pick with him about it. If I have you, your Gabriel will come out into the open, without all your friends or those damn vampire ninjas you have hanging outside your house.”
He stepped within an arm’s reach, pressing the pencil gun right over my heart.
“Please, don’t do this,” I pleaded.
“Tilt your head, if you would, ma’am,” Ray said, sliding that needle toward my jugular. “I’m about to stick you with a shitload of horse tranquilizers. And I don’t want to splatter any arterial spray on that pretty dress.”
“I really can’t talk you out of this?” I asked, wincing as the needle pierced my skin.
He shook his head and tsked sadly. ” ‘Fraid not.”
My skin flushed hot as the drugs moved through my system with alarming speed. The edges of my vision blurred. And my eyes rolled up as my knees went out from under me. I felt Ray’s hands catch me before I hit the ground, and the canvas bag moved over my face.
I hated being the damsel in distress.
For one thing, I was really bad at it. I was always antagonizing my captors. I would say something smart-assed and end up making them try to kill me ahead of schedule. Inevitably, I ended up with a head injury, and there are only so many concussions you can get without it affecting you long-term.
With this in mind, I woke up slowly, stretching each of my fingers, then my arms and legs. This was weird in itself, because I normally woke up with my arms tied behind my back. But it seemed that Ray was a consummate captor-host. I opened my eyes to find that I was in a squat, dirty little room, on a camp bed. My wrists and ankles were tied with bungee cords. At first, I thought that the cords were padded so they wouldn’t chafe my arms, but I saw that the pads were wrapped in cheap-looking silver chains. If I squirmed or moved, the chains would tighten, slip around the padding, and burn the ever-loving hell out of my arms.
I cleared my dry throat. I squinted and looked around the bare room. I thought I might be in an old hunting shack. Deer hunters built these little shanties in the middle of the woods so they could sleep outdoors in relative comfort, then just walk outside to hunt without having to drive. Mostly, it was an excuse to get away from their families so they could go out into the wilderness to drink and belch competitively.
This particular bit of paradise looked as if it hadn’t been used in quite a while. The walls were bare planks with corrugated metal protecting the exterior. There was a single darkened window on the opposite wall. The floor was covered in those sample carpet squares that flooring stores used as display, duct-taped together like a weird patchwork rug. And there was a calendar on the wall featuring Hooters’s Hottest Waitresses from 1998. Charming.
The door opened, and Ray walked through. He’d shed the overalls and was wearing a pair of camo cutoffs and a T-shirt advertising the benefits of spring break in Daytona Beach. He had a pair of sparkly boxing gloves in his hands, which seemed … unlikely.
“Damn, I thought you’d still be asleep,” he said, frowning. “Y’all must break down horse tranqs a lot faster than we do.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. Why is my face sore?” I asked, stretching out my jaw and wincing at the pain.
“Well, I had you in the bag, and I was in a hurry to get you out of the house before your family noticed. And my shoulder slipped while I was carrying you down the stairs, and …”
“You dropped me down the stairs?” I cried.
“Well, you’re heavier than you look!” he exclaimed.
“How is that supposed to make me feel better?” I grumbled. “How did people not notice that?”
“I told them you were soiled linens,” he said. I balked, and he quickly added, “Look, I’m really sorry about this.” He adjusted my bungee cords, being careful to stay outside of my lunging distance.
“How did you even track Gabriel down?” I asked. “How did you know he killed Bud?”
He pulled a camp chair near the bed. “As soon as I got out of jail, I went out to Bud’s deer stand. I’d read the newspaper story about him dying, saw the coroner’s report. I don’t care what the coroner says, there’s no way that kind of damage could occur from a tree just falling over on somebody. Bud and I picked that tree out ourselves when we built the deer stand. There was no rot, no weak spots. There was no way it was going to just fall over. There was obviously some sort of supernatural force at work. So, I wondered, who could be strong enough to push over a tree? At first, I thought it might be Bigfoot. But plenty of people have tried to hunt that bastard down, and it involves a lot of tracking equipment that just wasn’t in my budget. It was smarter to work with monsters I could locate and eliminate them as suspects.”
“I think that offends me on a couple of levels.”
He ignored me. “So I went to the Cellar. I knew that it was a place where vampires hung out, so I spent a couple of nights there, kept my ears open. And before you knew it, I heard this story about some asshole vamp who pushed a tree on top of a drunk hunter.” He smiled, the expression a bitter mockery of mirth. “I guess for y’all, that’s right up there with flowers and chocolates, huh?”
“You don’t understand—”
“I don’t have to understand!” he yelled, standing so quickly that the chair toppled back. “Your boyfriend killed my brother for you, so you’re going to watch him die. As he crumbles into dust, he’s going to look in your eyes and know that all his vampire eternal-life bullshit has just evaporated into nothing. That you’re going to live on forever without him and probably start banging some other vamp within a few months …” He looked down as he saw how horrified I was. “I’m sorry for my language, ma’am.”
“Well, I’m sorry we blew up your bus,” I said. “Though I’m pretty sure you set that up yourself.”
“Don’t worry about it. I abandoned that place as soon as your guys followed me from the dude strip bar. I started living here at Bud’s hunting shack.”
“You hoped that we would see the body, accidentally blow it up, and assume that you were dead?” I asked.
“Yes, ma’am. I took the body from the hospital morgue. You’d be amazed what people will let you do when you’re wearing scrubs.”
“And now I’m thankful I have no further need of the health care system.” I sighed. “You know, you’re holding me hostage, you might as well call me Jane. All of the other arch-villains do.”
“Jane, then.”
“And for the record, I won’t be ‘banging’ some other vampire anytime soon,” I told him. “I have a feeling that if you force me to watch Gabriel die, I would probably spend the next few months hunting you down and staging your death via deer stand.”
“I won’t hold it against you,” he promised.
“I don’t get it. I don’t get how you can be so resigned to lifelong grudges. You seem like a reasonably intelligent person. What makes you think it’s OK to do this?”
“Because if I don’t, I’m just like everybody else. You have no idea what it’s like growing up the way I did. A McElray, a charity case, a loser. My mama and daddy both went to jail before I even started school. No one expected anything good of me. Hell, the only time anybody ever treated me like I was something special was when I was playing football. But Bud was always there. When people whispered when we walked by at the grocery store, he kept his hand on my shoulder. Every single game I played, he was in the stands. And yeah, I realize that he wasn’t perfect. He was a drunk and a gambler, and he hadn’t held a steady job in no one knew how long. But if I let what your boyfriend did stand, then that means I gave up on him, just like everybody else did.”
“Look, I know you think you’re doing the right thing by Bud, but you have to understand—”
“No more talking,” he growled suddenly. He pulled another syringe out of his pocket and jabbed it into my neck. I yelped as he forced the drugs into my vein, sending a burning sensation blazing under my skin.
“Asshole,” I muttered as I slid under the surface of unconsciousness.
My eyes fluttered open. Gabriel was standing over me, untying my hands, his expression grim.
“Hey there, sweetie. I’m glad to see you,” I slurred. “No, wait, you’re not supposed to see me in my dress … s’bad luck.”
“I dare you to try to find worse luck than ours, Jane.”
“Good point,” I muttered. I looked around the dingy little room. “Where’s Ray?”
“Waiting for me outside. He said it would hurt me more if I had the chance to say … Did he hurt you?”
I shook my head and immediately regretted it. My head hurt, a lot. “Not intentionally. He’s pretty polite for a kidnapper. Hates your ass, though. He thinks my dress is pretty.”
“It’s gorgeous, sweetheart,” he assured me, pushing my mussed hair back from my face.
“Take me home.”
“Right now,” he promised.
“How did you even find me?”
He frowned. “Ray left me a very helpful note on your vanity. It said you were dead unless I met him at these GPS coordinates within an hour.”
“You walked right into a trap? Isn’t that my job?”
“It wasn’t exactly a trap,” he said as I sat up. It felt like swimming to the surface of a dark pool, my brain clearing the last few inches of murkiness and finally coming into focus. “And he did leave a sizable lock of your hair behind as an incentive.”
“How sizable?” I asked, feeling the back of my head and finding a golf-ball-sized spot shorn to the scalp. “Damn it, Ray!”
Gabriel pulled me to my feet and steadied my elbows when I bobbled. I felt a low, heavy tug on my skirt and heard a rip. I moaned. My hem caught on a nail in the floor.
“Oh, come on!” I cried.
I turned, trying to dislodge my skirt, and gasped as the material split even wider, leaving a gap that nearly reached my cleavage. I looked up, horrified at what I’d done to the replacement dress. I doubted that I could talk Jolene’s aunts into making a second one.
“We can—”
I grabbed his face between my palms and kissed him deeply. “No. No postponements. No delays. I think we both knew this was how our wedding was going to turn out, one way or the other. I just really want to marry you.”
He chuckled and kissed me. “I love you. And when you step outside, I want you to go to Dick just as fast as you can move. Zeb slowed him down a bit, but he should be here any minute. He’s going to get you home. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can.”
I eyed him speculatively. “Do you really think I’m going to buy that and just toddle off home to wait on you like some Scarlett O’Hara wannabe?”
“Well, the dress is appropriate.”
“Don’t try to distract me with your intentional historical inaccuracies,” I insisted. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“Ray wants to kill me.”
“All right, so what’s the plan?”
“I don’t have one,” he confessed. “This is a person who wants me dead. He wants you to watch as he kills me. And he’s not going to stop until that happens. He’s going to keep coming after you. I can’t let that happen—”
“So your plan is to let Ray kill you?”
“Unless I manage to kill him in hand-to-hand combat, yes. And given his impressive array of improvised weaponry, I think he has an above-average chance.”
I scoffed. “This is the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard. Zeb could come up with a better plan than this.”
“Jane, I’m only trying to prepare you—”
“No! I do not accept this. No!” I yelled. I shoved past him, my ruined dress trailing behind me as I kicked open the hunting-shack door. Ray was waiting outside, his pencil gun strapped to his leg. When he saw Gabriel and me emerge, he cocked the shotgun he was holding and aimed it at my throat as I stomped toward him.
“Ray, what the hell are you doing?” I demanded.
“Jane, I know you’re upset, but if you step any closer, I’ll blow your head off.”
“You’re going to need more than that shotgun, Ray,” I growled.
“It’s loaded with silver shot,” Gabriel murmured.
“Well, I guess that means we can’t be friends anymore,” I said. “Look, I know you’re upset about Bud—”
“Upset? Nightengale killed my brother!” Ray yelled, turning on Gabriel. “Don’t even try to deny it.”
“You’re right,” Gabriel said, gently nudging me out of the way. “I won’t try to deny it. I killed him. But do you know what your brother did?”
“It doesn’t matter! It’s a matter of honor.”
Gabriel cleared his throat, pushing me aside even farther with a bump of his hips. “I’ll try to put this in terms you understand. He killed my woman.”
Ray looked to me, as if to confirm it. I nodded my head.
“Liar. You’re a damned liar!” he shouted, his gun barrel bobbing precariously close to Gabriel’s face. “Bud was a lot of things, but he wouldn’t hurt a woman. He wasn’t the type.”
“No, but he was the type to get rip-roaring drunk and then do something stupid, right?” Gabriel countered. “He shot her. He was drunk. He thought she was a deer. And he shot her. And then he just drove away and left her for dead. He just left her, like an animal, to die alone in the dark.”
“You’re lyin’!” he roared. “He wouldn’t do that … well, he might. Aw, who the hell cares! The point is, you killed my brother. And now I’m gonna kill you!”
“Oh, come on, Ray!” I cried.
Ray was advancing on Gabriel. I stepped in the way, placing a restraining hand on his chest. The other hand was busy pushing Gabriel back.
“Jane, get out of the way.”
“Gabriel, cut it out. He’s too stupid to kill!” I yelled.
“Hey!” Ray said, his tone hurt as he scrambled against my grip.
“Ray, I’m trying to help you out here,” I hissed, shoving both of them back a few steps. “Look, I’m not defending what Gabriel did to Bud. In fact, when I found out about it, I beat the absolute tar out of him.”
Ray arched an eyebrow and bent sideways so he could smirk at Gabriel. “You let your woman beat on you?”
Gabriel rolled his eyes. “Have you met my fiancee?”
I cleared my throat pointedly, and their attention refocused on me. “It took me a long time to get over my part in Bud’s death. I felt responsible. Please don’t make me responsible for your death, too. Because he will kill you. No matter what you throw at him. No matter what you do. If you put me in danger, he’s going to kill you. I get the feeling that you would do the same. Don’t put more blood on my hands. Please. You don’t have the stomach for this.”
“How would you know?”
“Because the kind of man who would want to protect a girl’s wedding dress isn’t going to murder someone in cold blood. You could have killed me at the house and left a little pile of ash for Gabriel to find. Hell, even when you shot him with an arrow, you missed your mark. You’ve had chance after chance to kill us, Ray. Your heart, it’s not in this. I’m sorry you lost someone you loved. Gabriel did what he did because Bud hurt me, because he thought he was protecting the people Bud could hurt. And really, you tried to run me down, hit a kid, and I had to turn him into a vampire. We’re practically even.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The old sedan that hit Jamie Lanier in front of my shop. You were behind the wheel.”
Ray looked insulted. “Never happened.”
“I have a hard time believing that.”
“I don’t give a shit what you believe,” he retorted. “Nightengale killed the only family I have left. It’s a blood debt, and it has to be paid.”
I sighed. “Well, if that’s true, then you might as well kill me, too. Because I’ll just have to come after you. And on and on until everyone we love is just collateral damage to this grudge. Let it end with us, please.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t handle another fight to the death. We seem to have them once a year lately, and it’s not a tradition I want to continue.”
“I can’t just drop it now. I’ve tried to kill you … a bunch of times.”
“Contrary to what the movies would have you believe, it’s actually pretty hard to do,” I told him, somewhat sympathetically.
“Yeah, well, I can’t take that back. I can’t just forget about it. What kind of brother would that make me? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I just walked away. And it’s not like vampires are known for their all-forgiving ways. Damn it, Nightengale, I kidnapped your woman. On her wedding day. Hell, even if you let me live, she’ll probably kill me for that alone.”
As Gabriel argued with him over my lack of desire for the usual avenues of womanly vengeance, Zeb and Dick burst into the clearing.
“Jane, would you like to know what you’re getting for Christmas this year?” Dick asked as Zeb huffed and puffed beside him. “We’re going to put one of those LoJack chips under your skin, like they do for dogs. It will cut down on our search time.”
“I would find that insulting, but clearly, it’s deserved,” I grumbled. “Where are Andrea and Jolene?”
“At your place, restraining your mother,” Zeb said. “We convinced them that it was the most logical use of their strength and not at all a sexist thing.”
“That’s Ray McElray?” Dick asked, incredulously.
“You know him?” I asked.
“Oh, sure, I see him down at the Cellar all the time. Calls himself Scooter,” he said. “Heck of a pool player, but he sucks at darts.”
“So, you’ve spent a lot of time with this guy recently?”
He shrugged. “Sure. I’ve mostly gone legit, since Andrea, but I still like going out for a beer and visiting Norm once in a while.”
“Let me ask you something, Dick. In the course of these manly bonding activities, did you ever drink a little bit?”
“Sure,” Dick said.
“Ever drink enough to tell tales about your friends?” I asked, as realization dawned on his face. “Maybe talk about this sickeningly happy couple you know who won’t stop talking about the fact that the first time they had sex resulted from an argument they had about the guy pushing a tree on top of a drunk redneck?”
Dick’s face went pale and almost cheesy green. “I will never drink again,” he promised. “Janie, I swear, I didn’t know. I wouldn’t do anything to screw up my friendship with you two. You and Andrea and Spazzy McGee over there are my family. And I haven’t had that in a very long time.”
“I know,” I said, squeezing his hand. “Now we just have to convince Gabriel.”
Dick cleared his throat and stepped between Gabriel and Ray as they argued over how best to settle their debt. “How about dueling pistols?” he suggested.
I stared at him. “What?”
“You’re right, Jane,” Zeb conceded. “Not quite fair, what with Gabe being able to survive gunshots and all. Knife fight? Nah, still not sporting.”
“How is this helping?” I demanded. “You are the worst best man ever!”
“Defusing the situation,” Dick muttered, before he said louder, “You’re right, Jane, a duel to the death wouldn’t be fair, no matter what weapon they used. Gabriel would have the clear advantage. He’s faster, stronger. Even with your pencil gun, Ray—which is awesome, by the way—you wouldn’t stand a chance. So, we let you beat on each other for a couple of hours. Gabriel feels like he’s suffered for what he’s done. Ray defends his family honor. Everybody walks away in time for Gabriel and Jane to get hitched. Hell, the boys will probably be bonded for life by the time the fight’s over. Fisticuffs have a way of doing that.”
“Why are we friends?” I asked him, only to have him give me that maddening grin.
“I’m in,” Ray said. “Your friend’s right, it’s the most honorable way to go about it.”
Gabriel lifted a brow. “Really?”
“Really?” I echoed. “We went from blood debt to fist-fight?”
Ray nodded. “I know I probably don’t have a chance in hell of beating you. And I can’t guarantee that I won’t try to stake you. But I think hitting you in that pretty face over and over will make me feel better.”
Gabriel shrugged. “All right, then.”
“Boys are so stupid.” I sighed.
Gabriel pushed to his feet. I took his hands in mine. His mouth was pressed into a thin line.
“I really can’t talk you out of this?” I asked. “I mean, we were supposed to be married, oh, about an hour ago.”
“I think this is the only thing that will resolve the situation.”
“Well, I’ll be over here,” I muttered, leaning gingerly against a nearby tree. “Trying to solve the enigma of the male ego and how it can be cured.”
“No biting,” Dick said, standing between the two of them like Mills Lane on Celebrity Deathmatch. “No unfair use of claws or fangs. No gouging. No hidden wooden objects. You fight until somebody says uncle.”
Face, meet my palm.
Ray and Gabriel circled each other, cracking their necks in that weird, masculine chicken fashion that’s meant either to stretch the vertebrae or to intimidate your opponent into thinking you’ll throw a kiss on him without warning. They tried to be impressive, to show each other up with acrobatics and fancy combinations. Ray had obviously spent a little time at the prison gym and had built up some impressive upper-body strength. But it was still no match for Gabriel’s speed and agility.
At one point, Gabriel knocked him back onto the ground, where Ray smacked his head on a rock. Gabriel made to help him up, and Ray used the gap in concentration to stab at Gabriel’s chest with a broken tree branch. I shrieked in warning.
For the record, when someone is fighting, screaming his name and distracting him is not a good idea.
The branch missed its mark, sinking a few inches below Gabriel’s collarbone. He yowled and dug it out and whacked Ray across the face. And then Ray kicked Gabriel off of him. Finally, they broke down to just punching each other in the face back and forth. I got bored and started trying to fix the rip in my dress.
Gabriel tossed Ray into a nearby tree trunk. “Hey!” I exclaimed. “Keep it sporting, he’s only human.”
Gabriel protested, “He kicked me in the—”
“That was an accident!” Ray wheezed, bending over and panting to catch his breath. “You shoved me, and my foot slipped.”
“Seriously, guys, can we wrap this up? I’d like to get married tonight,” I demanded. “Ray, do you feel like your family honor has been avenged?”
“Hold on a minute,” Ray said, blowing out one last hard breath. He pivoted and kicked out at Gabriel, nailing him in the crotch. Gabriel grunted and fell to his knees.
“That’s going to interfere with the honeymoon plans,” Zeb said, shaking his head. I glared at him. He threw up his hands in defense. “Well, it is!”
“That time was on purpose,” Ray told Gabriel as he helped him to his feet. “I feel better now.”
“I’m so glad.” Gabriel groaned, propping his hands on his knees to stay upright.
“And I’ve decided that we’re even,” Ray said. Gabriel’s expression of hope was dashed when Ray added, “If you turn me.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“I want to be a vampire,” Ray said. “I thought about it before. But after seeing what y’all can do, how you move, how fast you are, I want in. I don’t have any family left, no reason to stay human. I want to be what you are. I figure you owe me this.”
“Wow, this sounds like a great way for the Council to get really pissed at us,” I said.
Dick said, “Actually, as long as Ray is entering into it voluntarily and behaves himself after he’s turned, the Council shouldn’t have a problem with it.”
“Look at it this way, it’s a life for a life,” Ray implored. “You took my brother’s life. You’re giving me one in return.”
“Your brother took Jane’s life,” Gabriel countered.
“Which you returned when you turned her,” Ray said. “Do the same for me. Balance everything out.”
“I’ve already got a teenager running around my house. I don’t think I can handle a redneck renegade, too,” I said.
“I’ll do it,” Dick piped up. We all turned to him in surprise. “Ray finding you, that was my fault. I couldn’t keep my big mouth shut. Gabe, you know I would never do anything to put you and Jane in danger.” Gabriel quirked a disbelieving eyebrow at him. “OK, fine, you know I would never do anything to put Jane in danger. But let me do this. Let me make up for my mistake. I can’t handle you being pissed at me for another hundred years. You’ve got your hands full with Jamie, and I think I would be a better fit for Ray’s sire, anyway.”
“He has a point,” I said. “If anyone could be more devious than Ray, it’s Dick.”
“Is this really the only way you’ll consider us even?” Gabriel asked.
Ray considered it for a moment. “Yes. It’s kind of poetic. I like it. And Bud would probably think it was funny as hell.”
“Dick, are you sure about this?” I asked. “This is a long-term commitment. I don’t want you to feel obligated because of me.”
“It’s the least I can do,” Dick said. “And I’ll keep my promise. I’ll stop drinking … as much. No more bars. No more shady dealings with shady people.”
“Dick, we wouldn’t want you to do that. Shady dealings with shady people, that’s who you are. We don’t want to change that. Just maybe avoid talking about our sex life with random drunks at the Cellar. That would be a step in the right direction. And maybe conduct your ‘side businesses’ at a coffee shop or some other location where there are sober people. The Council likes using the Cracker Barrel.”
“So, when are you doing this?” Zeb asked.
“Now,” Ray said. “I don’t want to put this off. I might lose my nerve.”
“We kind of have a thing to get to,” I said, jerking my head in the direction of River Oaks.
Dick patted my arm, trying to reassure me but failing miserably. “Actually, I can turn him now, drop him off at home to wait out the change, and then be at River Oaks by the time you’re cleaned up and have your face back in order.”
Over my shoulder, I saw Zeb and Gabriel waving their arms frantically and shaking their heads. I turned on them. “What do you mean?”