Many Bloody Returns Part 24

Bradford's type of torture, but still cruel.

"James sent me," I said, keeping my voice soft. "Please don't be afraid."

She'd frozen in place and I wasn't sure she understood.

I repeated myself and she finally nodded.

"Where is he?" she demanded, matching my soft tone.

"He's with G.o.d." It seemed best to keep things as simple as possible. "Everything that man told you was a lie. You know that

now, don't you?"

She nodded again, the jerky movement very similar to Abby's mannerism. "Please, let me speak to James."

"He knows already. He said to tell you it wasn't your fault. There's nothing to forgive. It was just his time to go, that's all. Not

your fault."

"But it was."

"Nope." I raised my right hand. "Swear to G.o.d. And I should know."

That had her nonplussed. "What...who are you?"

"Just a friend."

"That cologne, it's his."

"So you'd know he sent me. Flora, he loves you and knows you love him. But this is not the way to honor his memory. He wants

you to give it up before it destroys you. He's dead and you're alive. There's a reason you're here."

"What? Tell me!"

"Doesn't work like that, you have to find out for yourself. You won't find answers in a Ouija board, though."

Flora had tentatively moved closer to me. "You look real."

"Thanks, I try my best. I can't stay long. Not allowed. I have to make sure you're clear-headed on this. No more guilt-it wasn't your fault-get rid of this junk and live your life. James wants you to be happy again. If not now, then someday."

"That's all?"

"Flora...that's a lifetime. A good one if you choose it."

"I'll...all right. Would you tell James-"

"He knows. Now get some sleep. New day in the morning. Enjoy it." I was set to gradually vanish again, then remembered-

"One last thing, Flora. James's wedding band." I held my hand out.

"Oh, no, I couldn't."

"Yes, you can. It belongs with him and you know it. Come on."

Fresh tears ran down her face, but maybe this time there would be healing for her. She had his ring on a gold chain around her

neck and reluctantly took it off. She read the inscription one more time, kissed the ring, and gave it over.

"Everything will be fine," I said. "This is from James." I didn't think he'd mind. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, very lightly, and vanished before she could open her eyes.

For the next few hours I drove around Chicago, feeling like a prize idiot and hoping I'd not done even worse damage to Flora than Alistair Bradford. I didn't think so, but the worry stuck.

Eventually I found my way back to that big cemetery and got myself inside, walking quickly along the path to the fancy mausoleum and the grave behind it.

I was d.a.m.ned tired, but had one last job to do to earn Abby Saeger's five bucks.

Pinching the ring in my fingers as Flora had done at the seance, I extended my arm and disappeared once more, this time sinking into the earth. It was the most unpleasant sensation, pus.h.i.+ng down through the broken soil, pus.h.i.+ng until what had been my hand found a greater resistance.

That would be James Weisinger's coffin.

I'd never attempted anything like this before but was reasonably sure it was possible. This was a h.e.l.l of a way to find out for certain.

Pus.h.i.+ng just a little more against the resistance, it suddenly ceased to be there. Carefully not thinking what that meant, I focused my concentration on getting just my hand to go solid.

It must have worked, because it hurt like a Fury, felt like my hand was being sawed away at the wrist. Just before the pain got to be too much I felt the gold ring slip from my grasp.

One instant I was six feet under with my hand in a coffin and the next I was stumbling in the snow, clutching my wrist and trying not to yell too much.

My hand was still attached. That was good news. I worked the fingers until they stopped looking so clawlike, then sagged against a tree.

What a night.

I got back in my car just as the sleet began ticking against the windows, trying to get in. It was creepy. I wanted some sound to mask it but hesitated turning on the radio, apprehensive that "Gloomy Sunday" might be playing again.

What the h.e.l.l. Music was company, proof that there were other people awake somewhere. I could always change the station.

When it warmed up, Bing Crosby sang "Pennies from Heaven." Someone at the radio station had noticed the weather, perhaps, and was having his little joke.

I felt that twinge again, but now it raised a smile.

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life Rachel Caine Rachel Caine is known for the bestselling Weather Warden series, as well as her hot new young adult series, The Morganville Vampires. She's also written novels for the Silhouette Bombsh.e.l.l line, and has numerous other books and short stories to her credit. Visit her website at www.rachelcaine.com for news and updates.

Eighteenth birthdays in Morganville are usually celebrated one of two ways: getting totally wasted with your friends or making a terrifying life-or-death decision about your continued survival.

Not that there can't be some combination of the two.

My eighteenth birthday party was held in the back of a rust-colored '70s-era Good Times van, and the select guest list included some of Morganville's Least Wanted. Me, for instance-Eve Rosser. Number of people who'd signed my yearbook: five. Two of them had scrawled C YA LOSER. (Number of people I'd wanted to sign my yearbook? Zero. But that was just me.) And then there was my best friend, Jane, and her sister, Miranda. I'd invited Jane, not Miranda. Jane was okay-kind of dull, but seriously, with a name like Jane? Cursed from birth. She did like some cool things, other than me of course. Wicked '80s make-out music, for instance. BPAL-Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab-perfume, particularly from the Dark Elements line, although I personally preferred the Funereal Oils. Jane wasn't Goth-more Preppy Nerd Girl than anything else-but she had some style.

Miranda, the uninvited one, was a kid. Well, Miranda was a weird kid who'd convinced a lot of people she was some kind of psychic. I didn't invite her to the party, because I didn't think she'd be loads of fun, and also she wasn't likely to bring beer. Her BPAL preferences were unknown, mainly because she didn't live on Planet Earth.

Which left Guy and Trent, my two excellent beer-buying buddies. They were my buddies mostly because Guy had a fake ID that he'd made in art cla.s.s, and Trent owned the party bus in which we were ensconced. Other than that, I didn't know either one of them that well, but they were smart-a.s.s, funny, and safe to get drunk with. Guy and Trent were the only gay couple I actually knew, gaydom being sort of frowned upon in the Heartland of Texas that was Morganville.

We were all about the ironic family values.

The evening went pretty much the way such things are supposed to go: guys buy cheap-a.s.s beer, distribute to underage females, drive to a deserted location (in this case, the creepy-cool high school parking lot) to play loud headbanger music and generally act like idiots. The only thing missing was the make-out sessions, which was okay by me; most of the guys of Morganville were gag worthy, anyway. There were one or two I would have gladly crawled over barbwire to date, but Shane Collins had left town, and Michael Gla.s.s...well, I hadn't seen Michael in a while. n.o.body had.

Jane brought me a birthday present, which was kind of sweet, especially since it was a brand-new mix CD of songs about dead people. Jane knows what I like.

I was still a mystery to Guy and Trent, though. Granted, Morganville's a small town, and all us loser outcast freaks had a nodding acquaintance. The pecking order goes something like this: geeks, freaks, nerds, druggies, gays, and Goths. Goths were on the bottom because the undead think wannabes are disgusting if they're serious about it, or dangerously smart-a.s.sed if they aren't. Which I wasn't. Mostly.

Oh, I forgot to mention: vampires. Town's run by them. Full of them. Humans live here on sufferance, heavy on the "suffer."

See what I mean about the ironic family values?

I could tell that Guy had been trying to think of a way to ask me all night, but thanks to consuming over half a case of beer with his Significantly Wasted Other, he finally just blurted out the question of the day. "So, are you signing or what?" he asked. Yelled, actually, over whatever song was currently making my head hurt. "I mean, tomorrow?"

Was I signing? That was the Big Question, the one all of us faced at eighteen. I looked down at my wrist, because I was still wearing my leather bracelet. The symbol on it wasn't anything people outside of Morganville would recognize, but it identified the vampire who was the official Protector for my family. However, as of that morning, I was no longer in that select little club of people who had to kiss Brandon's a.s.s to continue to draw breath.

I also would no longer have any kind of deal or Protection from any vampire in Morganville.

What Guy was asking was whether or not I intended to pick myself a Protector of my very own. It was traditional to sign with your family's hereditary patron, but no way in h.e.l.l was I letting Brandon have power over me. So I could either shop around to see if any other vampire could-or would-take me, or go bare...live without a contract.

Which was attractive but seriously risky. See, Morganville vampires don't generally kill off their own humans, because that would make life difficult for everybody, but free-range, unProtected humans? n.o.body worries much what happens to them, because usually they're alone, and they're poor, and they disappear without a trace.

Just another job opening at the Chicken Shack fry machine.

They were all looking at me now. Jane, Miranda, Guy, and Trent, all waiting to hear what Eve Rosser, Professional Rebel, was going to do.

I didn't disappoint them. I tipped back the beer, belched, and said, "h.e.l.l, no, I'm not signing. Bareback all the way, baby! Let's live fast and die young!"

Guy and I did drunken high fives. Trent rolled his eyes and clicked beer bottles with Jane. "They all say that," he said. "Right up until the AIDS test comes back. Then there's the wailing and the weeping...."

"Jesus, Trent, you're the laugh of the party."

"That's life of the party, honey bunches. Oh, wait, you're right. Not in Morganville, it isn't." G.o.d, Trent was hyper, which was weird for a guy consuming as many brews as he had. Maybe he was just naturally that way. Maybe his Ritalin had worn off. Anyway, it was bugging me.

"Boo-ha-ha. Is that funny at all in other vans in town?" Jane asked. "Because it's not so funny in here, a.s.s pirate."

"You should know, princess; you've been on your back in every van in town," Trent shot back.

"Hey, b.i.t.c.h!" Jane tossed an empty bottle at him; Trent caught it and threw it in the plastic bin in the corner. Which, I had to admit, meant that despite the jittering, Trent could hold his liquor, because he led the field in ounces consumed by a wide margin. "Seriously, Eve-what are you going to do?"

I hadn't thought about it. Or, actually, I had, but in that what if kind of way that was really just bulls.h.i.+t bravado...but now it was down to do-or-don't, or it would be when the sun came up in the morning. I was going to have to choose, and that choice would rule the rest of my life.

Maybe I shouldn't have gotten quite so trashed, given the circ.u.mstances.

"Well, I'm not signing with Brandon," I said slowly. "Maybe I'll shop around for another patron."

"You really think anybody else is going to stand up and volunteer if Brandon's got you marked?" Guy asked. "Girl, you got

yourself a death wish."

"Yeah, like that's news," Jane said. "Look how she dresses!"

Nothing wrong with how I was dressed. A skull T-s.h.i.+rt, a spiked belt low on my hips, bike shorts, fishnets, black and red Mary

Janes. Oh, maybe she was talking about my makeup. I'd done the Full-On Goth today-white face powder, big black rings around my eyes, blue lips. It was sort of a joke.

And also, sort of not.

"It doesn't matter," said a small, quiet voice that somehow cut right through the music.