Moonshifted(8)

When I emerged, pink and dewy, I became aware of a vortex of cold air rushing in from beneath the door, trumping my bathroom’s jungly shower clime. Plus—I heard Grandfather talking to himself again outside, sounding extremely displeased. It was December, and I knew I hadn’t left any windows open—

Old Edie would have naively walked out into her living room, wondering what’d happened. New Edie sashed her robe tight, grabbed the toilet plunger to hold it like a club, and listened at the bathroom door before opening it.





CHAPTER FIVE





My apartment was small. My bathroom was across from my bedroom—I opened the door quietly, and peeked into the dark room, before hearing someone talking in my living room.

“Really now, the things you say,” said a female voice. The German invectives continued.

I ran down the hall and leapt into my living room, the plunger held high. “Who’s there?”

By the dim light of my reading lamp, I could see a young blond girl kneeling beside my couch. It took me a second to recognize her—Anna looked much older than when we’d last seen each other, ten days ago. Sweet sixteen was what the songs said, but what sixteen-year-old had ever thought that about themselves? She was playing tug-of-war with Minnie, using a piece of ribbon. She looked from the plunger to me and smiled, showing tiny triangles of fang.

She looked almost human, because she was. Kind of. Anna was a living vampire, the child of two daytimer parents, a vampire freak of nature, the girl whose life I’d helped to save.

Even though she was a vampire, I couldn’t help it—I was damn happy to see her. I went in for a hug.

“Put the stake down!” said a male voice from my kitchen.

“What?” I heard the sound of a gun being cocked.

“Gideon!” Anna chastised sharply. “It’s okay.”

“It’s okay? There’s a man in my kitchen with a gun.” I stood there, mid-lunge, holding my toilet plunger like a wizard’s wand.

“I’m sorry, Edie—” Anna waved at the man. “Gideon, please.”

The man, who was dressed so darkly I could barely differentiate him from my cabinets, let the gun slide release, tilting the gun’s barrel down.

“Thank you,” Anna said, nodding to him before looking back to me. Our huggy moment was gone. I set the plunger down.

“How’d you get in?”

“You invited me.”

Back when she had looked nine, yes, I had. “But the door was locked.”

“Gideon has many talents.”

“You couldn’t wait outside? Call? Knock?”

“We did knock. You didn’t hear us. Well, that German-speaking thing you keep did.”

“I was in the shower.” Grandfather was quiet now—but I felt slightly safer with him still on my kitchen counter, between Gideon and me. Grandfather would say something if that guy came any closer. I closed the neck of my robe tighter and sat on the far end of my couch. “When did you get all old?”

She smiled. “Once they started to feed me decently. I can control it, some.”

Anna looked like a student from a goth boarding school. A black clip held back her frizzy blond bangs, tamed for the first time since I’d met her, and she had a maroon turtleneck on, a pocket watch strung on a gold chain around her neck. A thick black felt skirt went down to her knees, where maroon tights began, sinking into warm winter boots. Most of the times I’d seen her before this, she’d been angry, wearing a ratty nightgown that had been spattered with other people’s blood.

“You look good,” I said, with a nod.

“I’m staying with Sike. She lets me borrow clothing.” Sike was a model acquaintance of us both. She was a daytimer, the servant of a vampire both Anna and I knew, and she’d be as comfortable stabbing someone with a stiletto as with a shiv.

Anna rose up to sit beside me and crinkled her nose. “You’re clean, but your house smells like blood and werewolf.”

No point in lying. “There’s a reason for that, but I can’t tell you about it. Patient privacy, et cetera.” I looked over at the stranger in my kitchen. How about some nurse privacy too? “Why’s he here?”

“Gideon’s my driver.”

“Oh.” I didn’t want to know why Anna needed a driver with a gun. Or rather, I did, but … Charles had had a point this afternoon. I wanted to ask her how she was, what had happened to her since she’d been gone, the sort of things you’d ask your friends if you hadn’t seen them for a little while. But most people’s friends weren’t vampires. I had already bought her a Christmas gift, though, just in case—