"It's going to be OK. Jane wouldn't let them hurt you."
Ben shot a confused look my way, but he dropped it the moment Dr. Hudson cleared his throat to get our attention. He was a gangly man with dark blond hair who had been turned in his late thirties. I got the impression he was trying to come across as a kindly country doctor, with his plaid shirt and pleasant smile, but mostly he looked overeager and off-putting. He wasn't McDreamy. He was McDerpy.
And he was right up in my face, making an uncomfortable amount of eye contact.
"Fascinating," he said, in an almost reverential voice. "Just fascinating. I can't tell you how excited I am to take cheek swabs from you."
I shrank back in my seat, because the word "swab" made me super-uncomfortable. "Thank you?"
"What are you going to do to us?" Ben asked.
"Now, now, no reason to be alarmed," he said, patting Ben's knee, which Ben did not seem to enjoy. "We're just here to do what you might call a basic vampire physical, if vampires required such a thing. We'll use this to determine how you might be different. Now, for starters, Mrs. Jameson-Nightengale reports some anomalies in your anatomy and circadian rhythms."
"Is that a nice way of saying we're freaks?" I asked.
"Oh, I'm sure that's not the case, my dear," he assured me. "Now, could you please drop your fangs for me?"
"We haven't really learned to do that on our own yet," I said.
Ben shook his head in agreement.
"No problemo," the doctor said, grinning as he pulled what looked like a plastic-encased bloody sock out of his coat pocket. He opened the plastic bag and waved it under our noses. It smelled stale but not entirely unappetizing, which was pretty gross if I thought too hard about it. It also smelled familiar, and it looked familiar . . .
///
"Is that my sock?" I asked.
"Yes, it was entered into evidence as part of the rather fetching ensemble you were wearing when you were turned."
I wasn't sure what was creepiest, the fact that they'd kept my sock, the fact that Dr. Hudson thought it would be appetizing to me, or the fact that he thought my sock was "fetching." There were so many issues there.
But sadly enough, my fangs did drop at the scent of my then-human blood. And Ben's did, too, making him slap his hand over his mouth like a high school sophomore putting a notebook over his crotch. Dr. Hudson's cobalt-blue eyes went wide, and his grin ratcheted up a few more creep notches. He put his hands under my jaw, and I yelped at the frigid temperature of his skin.
"Sorry," he said, though he sounded anything but, as he tilted my head this way and that. "Well, looky here. Two distinct fangs on each side. Absolute beauties."
He stroked a thumb along my double canines in a manner that made me distinctly uncomfortable. He leaned closer. "And has anyone told you that your breath has an odd sulfurous quality to it? It's intriguing."
I clamped my lips shut and leaned away, even as he moved closer. "Actually, Ben mentioned that my breath smelled good right before I bit him. But Jane said that my bite mark smelled funny, like old bong water."
"Well, that wasn't very nice," he said, giving Jane an exaggerated sad-puppy face.
Dr. Hudson moved over to Ben, who still had his hand over his mouth. He tugged Ben's hand away and inspected Ben's double fangs. He leaned close enough to make Ben crane his neck away and sniffed Ben's lips.
Dr. Hudson recoiled. "Bong water, indeed," he said.
My lips twitched, but I didn't laugh, because I didn't think that would improve my already flailing relationship with Ben.
Dr. Hudson took a few steps back and stared at us both for a moment. Suddenly, he yelled, "Dr. Gennaro!"
A tall dark-haired man in a natty blue pinstriped dress shirt and a lab coat walked into the parlor. "Yes?"
"Smell young Mr. Overby's mouth," he said.
Without even questioning why he should do this, Gennaro invaded Ben's face space and sniffed. Gennaro leaned in close and immediately backed away, shaking his head. "No, no, no. One word, two syllables. AL-TOID."
"And now Miss Keene?"
"I can smell it from here. Both of you need to embrace dental hygiene. Living in Kentucky is no excuse."
"Watch it," Jane warned him.
Dr. Hudson shot his colleague a frown and shooed him out of the room.
"Does vampirism kill off verbal filters along with the digestive enzymes?" I asked Jane.
"No need to take offense," Dr. Hudson told me, patting my head. "I think we've discovered another little quirk in your physiology. Now, would you please allow me to swab you?"