And still, I was dying of thirst. My online sire had agreed to leave me in a shallow grave with synthetic blood waiting in a Coleman cooler by the nearby Marchand Memorial Fountain. The blood-drinking aspect of vampirism had been the main obstacle in talking myself into this whole plan. I didn’t want to feed off people, period. The very idea of drinking directly from the source made me a little ill. I would become the vampire version of a vegan: bottled synthetic only, thank you very much.
I hopped to my feet, thrilling at the ease with which I was able to spring up from the ground. After months of having little to no energy, hobbling around like an old woman, it was a lovely change of pace.
“It will take a couple of days to get used to that.”
At the sound of the strange feminine voice, I dropped into a defensive stance. A sharp sensation ripped through my mouth, making me wince even as I bared my new fangs and hissed like an angry cat.
Ow. Badass, but ow.
Near the tree line stood a brunette in a pretty purple print dress and a rakish-looking man in faded jeans and a T-shirt that read “What Happens in Possum Trot Stays in Possum Trot.”
The brunette looked vaguely familiar, but my brain was running too fast for me to recognize my own mother, much less a passing acquaintance. They were both pale, with dark circles under their eyes, and considering that it was eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night and they were strolling around all casual-like in a remote, badly lit location, I could only conclude that they were also vampires.
The brunette smiled, strolling over to shake my hand, while the man lingered near the trees. The woman handed me a warm bottle of Faux Type O, Extra Iron. “I’m Jane Jameson-Nightengale, representative of the local office of the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead. I was a couple of years ahead of you at Half-Moon Hollow High, so you probably don’t remember me. And this is my associate, Dick Cheney, also a Council representative.”
The man offered me an awkward little wave. I nodded, tamping down the instinctual zip of panic up my spine. I’d known that at some point, I was probably going to attract the wrath of the Council, the governing body for vampires since they’d burst from the coffin a decade or so before. In the early days, when humans were lashing out against the existence of creatures that had existed under our collective nose for centuries without posing a direct threat to us, the Council stood as a protective force against the people who were staking and burning vampires by the dozens. Now they kept vampires in line by any means necessary. And despite the fact that I remembered Jane as the nice girl who used to tutor kids in my grade in literature and now owned a funky occult bookshop downtown, I doubted my first meeting with them was going to involve a Welcome Wagon basket.
But surely they would understand, right? I could make them understand, if I just explained about being sick and my son and—
Wait a second.
“I’m sorry, did you say Dick Cheney?” I asked, my words muddled by my fangs. I drew my bottom lip across the sharp edge of my left canine. My mouth filled with the coppery tang of my own blood, and I hissed. “Ouch. How do you make these things go back in?”
“Just give it a minute,” Jane said, nodding toward the bottle. “The blood will help. And yes, I did say Dick Cheney. You can hear Dick’s tragic name-related backstory some other time. Because right now, you are in a pant-load of trouble, sweetie.”
“How so?” I asked, my voice the very bell-like tone of innocence. Hoping to quell the burning in my throat, I took a long, deep pull from the bottle of Faux Type O. It was . . . not terrible. Sort of saccharine, like diet soda. You knew you weren’t getting the real thing, but it slaked your thirst temporarily. I could live on this, I supposed. I could drink fake blood every day if it meant I could be with Danny.
“Dumb is not your color, Mrs. Stratton,” the unfortunately named Dick Cheney chided. He was a handsome man, in a sly, can’t-take-me-home-to-Mama kind of way. His expression was guilty, somehow, and apologetic. And given his choice of outfits, I got the impression he didn’t take his position on the Council too seriously. How had someone like him been appointed to oversee all vampire dealings in western Kentucky?
“Please don’t call me that.” I sighed. “Please call me Libby.”
“Libby, then,” he said, his tone gentle. “Would you care to explain to us why you thought it was a good idea to advertise online for a ‘sire for hire,’ agree to meet a complete stranger at the Lucky Clover Motel, and let him turn you and bury you in a public park?”
I grimaced, feeling grateful that Dick had omitted the details. Thanks to the magic of modern pharmaceuticals, the mechanics of being turned were a little hazy for me. And yes, I did see now that this was a tactical error in terms of personal safety.