I closed the drapes to keep out the light come daytime. Not that sunlight fries me. It doesn’t, and my naturally olive skin provides some protection, too. But UV overexposure will make me break out in lesions similar to what lupus patients experience. I wear super sunblock when I’m outside in the daytime, of course, but I don’t wear it to bed. So for my bedroom I made blackout drapery panels that, when closed, look like surfboards stacked against the wall. I’d also sprung to have wonder windows installed that are both UV reflective and impact resistant.
Yes, Saber had wanted bulletproof windows to protect me from the vigilante vampire hunters, but the expense was astronomical, and they didn’t come with UV protection. Instead, I had a perimeter alarm that was triggered by weight. If the siren sounded, I hit the floor and crawled to the secret escape hatch in the walk-in closet.
I also built an alcove in the living area to house a computer cabinet. It served as my study and office space, and, dressed in my penguin-on-the-beach sleep shirt, that’s where I headed to run a computer search for Marco. Sure, I knew Marco Sánchez was dead. Jo-Jo’s Marco was a whole ’nother creep, a whole ’nother set of fangs. On the other hand, the vamp knew my formal title. Peace of mind is priceless.
I reset the security code and alarm system while the computer booted, then zipped to the Vampire Protection Agency website and their version of America’s Most Wanted. The pages listed the names of vampires who’d been declared Rampants, along with their aliases, descriptions, and notations of “at large” or “terminated.” This list dated back to 1997, when vampires were first designated a protected species, but Saber had accessed older archives for me, and I’d memorized his codes. Okay, it was a little sneaky, but for a good cause.
A click on this button, a password and verification code in that box, and I was in. I typed M-A-R-C-O, waited only seconds, and had ten hits. There, just as I remembered when Saber showed me. The next to last entry on the page read: Marco, surname uncertain, approximately two centuries old, of Spanish descent, black hair, dark brown eyes, five feet eight inches. He’d been killed three years before the VPA was launched.
If the villagers hadn’t killed Marco, and if someone else hadn’t squashed him like a stinkbug before vampire hunters kept good records, then this was the proof I needed. No new daymares for me. Ding-dong, Marco was dead. My lingering doubts lifted. I cruised the VPA site awhile longer, found the five-year rule, and read the history of the Vampire Protection Act and Agency. May as well read up now before I talked with Maggie.
I learned that a crime reporter had stumbled on the scene of a slayer disposing of a vamp body in the early 1990s. With conspiracy theories and Pulitzer visions merrily dancing, he’d broken the sensational story. Vampires Among Us. Film at eleven. Disbelief, confusion, and terror summed up the initial human reaction to the news that vampires walked the earth. Governments of the world couldn’t pooh-pooh the story, because a select conclave of vamps flew out of the closet to prove they were real. Course, that’s when the scientists injected themselves into the picture.
With the help of some not-so-scrupulous slayers, vamps were captured for scientific study. One biologist with terminal cancer insisted on being turned so results could be verified. His cancer disappeared, and his DNA proved altered. Conclusion: vampires were Homo sapiens with DNA and other markers just different enough to be classified as a unique species. Enter the ACLU to argue for vamp citizenship rights. Enter the government to tax its new citizens. Enter commerce to create new products. Shock and fear passed, free enterprise and regulations reigned.
Made me want to sing “from sea to shining sea.”
On the downside, the Covenant had formed. The anti-vamp version of the KKK left their sheets at home but cornered vamps using crosses and silver, crossbows and stakes. Some vampires were killed outright. Others defended themselves, only to be branded as dangerous and legally executed.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen my Covenant stalker, Victor Gorman, in, gosh, close to a month. He must be on vacation because, in spite of a restraining order against him, he consistently tailed my tour groups. He’d never pulled a weapon on me, so I dealt with the harassment by adopting a policy to polite him to death.
I closed the VPA site and spent the next few hours catching up on my Psychology of Color homework. Yep, I had passed my GED test, held my high school equivalency now, and was officially enrolled in the art institute online. Could I find work as an interior designer someday? Why not? Designers consulted with clients in the late afternoons and evenings. I was up by then. I tiptoed back to my bedroom and kissed Saber awake at six thirty. Since we did ever so much more than kiss, it was an hour later before we were out of the shower and dressed.
While Saber poured himself orange juice—Florida orange juice, of course—I filled a bowl with his favorite cereal, Frosted MiniWheats. He settled at my turquoise and chrome retro table, splashed soy milk in the bowl, and dug in. I plucked a dry wheat square, heavy on the frosting, from the box.
“What’s on your agenda today?” I asked, feeling very Sunday-morning domestic.
He grinned. “I’m serving a search warrant on Ike’s club in Daytona Beach.”