Night Shift(70)

“You ruined my fucking car,” she snarled. She pulled the stake out and sank it in again. “Asshole!”

“She’s very dead,” Lemuel said, feeling much more optimistic. “Olivia, can you give me a hand? And not one of Christine’s, please.”

Olivia turned to look at him for the first time. “Oh my God,” she said. “Lemuel!” She eased him off the hood of the car and held him up while he wrapped his right arm around her neck. They staggered over to Lemuel’s sports car.

“Go back,” he said. “Open the doors of the truck and turn it off. Cover your fingers. No prints.”

She ran back to the truck, which was still running, and did those things. “The woman is dead,” she said. “The man is still breathing.”

“Time for us to skedaddle,” he said, and they climbed into Lemuel’s sports car and eased carefully out of the back of the Cartoon Saloon parking lot, onto a side street where all the businesses were closed.

Olivia drove like a dream, never exceeding the speed limit and braking with such gentleness that it seemed surprising when the car actually stopped. She was trying to prevent jolting Lemuel.

“You followed me,” he said, and closed his eyes to concentrate on his healing.

“Not quickly enough. But aren’t you glad I did? I was almost to Marthasville when you called.” He could hear the muscles in her neck as her head turned. He had never been so attuned to someone before.

“Why?”

“Why’d I follow you? I sat behind the counter for five minutes, and every minute I sat I grew more worried. I didn’t trust that bitch. She looked at you with snake eyes. She was too resentful and too hungry.”

“You should have . . .” But Lemuel couldn’t finish the sentence. Sharp stabs of pain accompanied the healing, and his body jerked in response.

He felt her worry like a cloud filling the car. “I should have what?” she said tartly. “Should have killed her earlier? Should have remarked on how hungry she was? I figured you, as a vampire, should already know. Should have told you what a treacherous bitch she was?”

Lemuel managed to nod.

“Like you would have listened.” Olivia said nothing else, which was a blessing.

“You left the shop closed,” Lemuel scolded weakly, when she parked his car behind the store.

“Sue me.” She ran around to his side of the car to help him out.

“I can walk,” he said, and began moving carefully in a straight course for the side door. He walked slowly, but steadily.

Olivia ran ahead of him to unlock the door, and they paused for a moment on the landing while she relocked. Then they went down the steps as quietly as they could, hoping they wouldn’t wake Bobo on the top floor. Lemuel’s apartment was open, as he’d left it, and he felt his way inside without turning on a light. He knew Olivia was hovering in the doorway of the bedroom.

“Come in here, if you please,” Lemuel said. He’d taken off his clothes, which were probably ruined, and now he lay down on his bed. The worst of his wounds were healed, but he was exhausted. He wanted her closeness.

“Let me feed you,” Olivia whispered.

Lemuel felt her hand patting to determine where he was. Then she was on the bed beside him, her warm neck pressed to his cold mouth.

Lemuel bit, and felt her shiver, and then his mouth was filled with the most divine taste. Her flavor was bold and brave and bright, like Olivia. He was always mindful of the need for self-control with her, and he stopped just before he would have had to chide himself. He healed the ragged marks in her neck, and she shuddered again.

“Olivia,” he whispered. Everywhere his body touched hers, he could feel the heat of her. “I admire you just as you are. But if you are ever weary of this life, I would gladly make you like me.”

“I thought you’d never ask,” she whispered back. “Let me think on it, Lemuel. Would we be able to stay together?”

“I am not like most vampires, as you know. We’d be able to, as long as it suited us. I know there are disadvantages to being both energy and blood fueled. But there are some good things about it, too.”

“Disadvantages?”

Olivia already sounded sleepy. He put his arm around her. Possibly he could get her closer. “I can’t hide what I am,” he said. “Everyone who looks at me knows I am not human. And I’m not beautiful, like so many of the blood vampires.”

“You were changed by someone who loved you,” she murmured. “That has to make a difference.”

Lemuel had never thought of that. He did now, lying with Olivia in his arms, both of them on the verge of sleep.