The bitch inside me didn't like words like yummy or fresh. I could sense her discomfort, like a curmudgeonly old woman trying to get comfortable in a new recliner.
Hey, you picked me, lady, I thought.
Indeed, greater forces were at work as to when and how and why I was chosen to be a vampire. In the big picture, I was the perfect confluence of bloodline and reincarnated witch and, well, I was also kind of a badass in this life too. In the smaller picture, I had been set up by my angel and an old vampire for reasons unknown to me this day. Of course, that same old vampire was now dead, thanks to a silver arrow from a vampire hunter named Rand. But my angel was still around. Maybe I would ask him someday.
Either way, I had been viciously attacked and seemingly left for dead. But I hadn't died. Quite the opposite. I had lived, and, from all appearances, I would live forever. Or, rather, had the potential to live forever. A silver bolt in my own heart would readily put an end to any talk of immortality.
"And then what?" I asked. "What happens to me then? When I die?"
As I asked the question, I emptied my mind. I even locked away Elizabeth good and tight. I didn't need her influence. I needed real answers. It was time.
I wasn't sure how long I sat there in the front driver's seat, just outside the YMCA, with the occasional person walking by, sometimes accompanied by the rattle of a dog's tags on his collar, or the squeaky wheels of a stroller. I was reclining back, but not all the way. The notepad was positioned on the center console, my hand hovering lightly over it. The hovering over it part was what kept me from falling asleep, no doubt. This was midday. I should have been asleep.
More time passed and I nearly gave up on the automatic writing. Maybe it didn't work for me anymore. Maybe it had never worked. Maybe it was always just my own subconscious talking to me. Or maybe it had been Elizabeth talking to me. No, it hadn't been because previous sessions had dealt with love and forgiveness and hope. Anyone who cringed at the word yummy would flee for the hills from the word love.
I had just made the decision to sit up when my hand twitched. I knew that twitch. I'd felt that twitch in years past. I waited and focused my breathing and calmed my mind further, and, after a few minutes, my hand twitched again. Then again. And now I felt a slight pressure as the tip of the pen was guided down to the paper, and my hand went from twitching to flowing as the words came out.
I cracked my eyes open and saw two words at the top of the page, two words that flowed in beautiful penmanship. Perhaps even perfect penmanship.
"Hello, Samantha."
Chapter Nine
"Hello," I said aloud, feeling a little foolish talking to my hand.
A strong tingly sensation came over my entire arm, and I watched, with amazement, as words flowed from the pen and into my notebook. "You have some questions for me, I see."
"Questions, concerns, complaints..."
"Complaining only brings more of the same," wrote my hand, after being galvanized by what was, in essence, small electrical impulses firing upon various muscles primarily in my forearm. The sensation was not unlike when Kingsley massaged my arms, his touch surprisingly soft, considering his skillet-sized hands. Of course, Kingsley's hands didn't stay long on my arms or shoulders-or on anything that wouldn't be hidden by a bikini.
The difference here was that I could actually see the muscles in my forearms being stimulated. I watched them undulate and quiver and spasm and pulse. All while my pen flowed, seemingly with a mind all its own over the notepad.
I said, "Well, I either complain now or forever hold my peace."
"And forever is a long time for a vampire."
"And even longer for a dead vampire," I said. "First off, with whom am I speaking?"
"A good question, Sam. I go by many names."
"Well, pick one, preferably one that I can pronounce."
"Let's go with Jack."
"Jack?"
"Yes."
"Just Jack?" I asked.
"I could pick another-"
"No, Jack is fine. We'll go with that. So, Jack, what are you? An angel? My spirit guide? A highly-evolved master? Father Time?"
"Yes," wrote my hand.
I waited, but apparently, that was all I was going to get.
"Just 'yes'?"
"Yes."
I thought about the implications. "You are all of these things?"
"All of it and more."
"You are... God?" I asked, and now I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I had gone mad. Who talks to God? And through their hand, no less? Crazy people do, that's who.