"Hey, being a brain is a big whoop. And lay off the freak thing. Being a vampire isn't all bad. Trust me on that." I sat on the couch. "Now what is it you want from me? I'm going to be your mentor. I'll do what I can to help you adjust to your new life." I smiled and gestured at the chair across from me.
Penny sat, then leaned forward. Her eyes were a golden brown and they shone with an intelligence that saw too much. I put up a block. If Penny had already figured out how to block her thoughts, she was probably already reading other's too.
"There's just one thing that will make me happy right now, Glory. Damian said that's your name, right?"
"Yes, it's Gloriana St. Clair. I'm a four-hundred-plus-year-old vampire, Penny. I've had a few centuries to learn the ropes. So if there's something you need, something you want to learn, I'm your gal." I kept smiling, feeling all motherly, even though to look at me, I'm only twenty-two to Penny's nineteen. Mortals would think we were sisters. Maybe I'd even introduce her in the shop as my sister from out of town. Yes, that would work. I realized Penny was waiting for me to focus on her, to give her my full attention. I finally did.
"Okay, Penny, what do you need?"
"Help me kill my sister."
Two
"Excuse me?" I hadn't heard correctly. Couldn't have.
"I said you have to help me kill my sister. I have a twin." Penny jumped up and pulled a picture from the side pocket of her backpack. "This is Jenny."
"Whoa. Never would have guessed-" I shut up. Penny had probably grown up hating to be compared to the blond angel in the cheerleading outfit who smiled into the camera.
"We're fraternal twins. Obviously." Penny smiled down at the picture. "I got the brains, she got the beauty."
I waited for the snark. Teenagers. Sisters, at that. I'd watched those reality shows on TV. There was bound to be some sibling rivalry, bitterness.
"So now you want to break in your fangs by killing her? Isn't that a little radical?" I was ready for the explosion. Some kind of meltdown. What I got was Penny looking at me with a shimmer of tears.
"No, you don't get it. Look at her. She's beautiful, perfect. She's smart too, just not the phenom I was. How can I let her grow old when I never will? We can turn her, Glory, and she'll be like that forever." Penny rushed me and grabbed my hands. "You've got to help me do this. Jenny's my best friend. I can't just leave her to be human when I'm"-big sniff-"not."
"Are you kidding me? Did you hear what Damian was saying when you were standing in the hall?" I knew she had vamp hearing and was sure she'd eavesdropped. Who wouldn't?
"He was persuading you to take me on. Obviously he got the job done." Penny sat on the couch. She laid the picture on my cluttered coffee table, right on top of my copy of InStyle magazine. I bet it was Jenny's bible. Penny probably used it as a coaster.
"Yes, he talked me into it, because I'm about to be kicked out of Austin. I'm hanging by a thread here." I sat across from her. "You also heard him say the guy who made you vampire isn't around anymore. You know what he meant by that?"
"Guess he was asked to leave too. That bastard deserved to have his nuts cracked." Penny heaved a sigh and stared at her sister's picture again. "I didn't ask for this, though the living forever thing has me stoked."
I leaped over the table and landed beside her. That finally got her full attention. "Listen to me, Penny. That bastard may have gotten his nuts cracked, but it was right before he got a stake through his heart. He's dead, girl, dead for what he did to you. The Austin council doesn't want anyone turned vampire around here. It's rogue behavior. Only tolerated when it's done to save a mortal's life. A last-ditch effort."
"They killed him?" Penny bit her bottom lip and I glimpsed her new fangs. "Wow. That's so Gothic."
"Yeah, well, vampires like to keep a low profile, not easy with all the vamp books, movies and TV shows out there now. People pay attention when weird things happen."
"Would it be so bad for vampires to come out of the closet? I think this is kind of cool. So will Jenny." Penny was fixated on the picture of her sister again and I wanted to shake her.
"Really? Will Jenny like missing cheerleading practice in the mornings? Or hitting the drive-thru at McDonald's?"
Penny frowned. "The cheerleading, sure. But she gave up Big Macs years ago. Way too busy counting calories. Not like me." Her eyes filled. "No more of those fries? Ever?" She bit her lip again, then gasped when her new fangs popped through her skin. "Ouch!"
"At least you got to taste one." I made a face. "I drive by those places, inhale, and just fantasize." We both sighed. "Anyway, face facts, Penny. And for every vamp groupie, there will be a vamp hunter who sees you as a demon from hell and is eager to exterminate you." I shook my head. Was I getting through to her? Didn't think so. She was obviously still figuring out how to convince her sister that the trade-offs for immortality were worth it.
"Maybe we could arrange some kind of accident." Penny smiled at me. "Then we would have to turn Jenny. The council couldn't object to that."
"You think they wouldn't see through that? The council is fairly new and trying to establish control. To prove that zero tolerance means exactly that. It's bad enough that Austin has a Bat Festival every year and puts ‘Keep Austin Weird' on T-shirts. We don't need to become known as the vampire capital of Texas." I put my hand on hers. "I'm sorry about your sister, but running her over with your car might not be her idea of a good time." I squeezed her fingers. "You haven't told her what happened to you, have you?"
"No, not yet. I wasn't sure how." Penny's eyes filled again. "Jenny's just a sophomore, in a sorority and doing all the normal college things that I never did." Penny sighed. "I figured my news would just bring her down."
I let her go. "Yes, finding out your twin's a vampire might put a damper on date night."
Penny frowned at me. "You don't get it, Glory. I think it's great that Jenny's having fun. I was always too busy studying, being the whiz kid, to do the things Jen does. So I'm getting a vicarious thrill from her life now." She glanced down. "And then there's the way I look. I'm not exactly cheerleading material."
"Don't put yourself down. I've seen those competitions on TV. Cheerleaders come in all shapes and sizes. With the right hair, makeup and wardrobe, you could fit in with that crowd, pre-fangs of course. And the way those people hop around, you would have trimmed down in no time." I wondered why Jenny hadn't helped her sister do just that.
"It's no big deal. Jen and I don't compete." Penny still blocked her thoughts and I wondered if her relationship with her sister was as easy as she claimed.
"Obviously, who could with your three degrees? I guess you proved that whiz kid thing." I patted her shoulder.
"Yeah, well. I enjoy the academic stuff." She shrugged. "Sue me, I'm an unrepentant egghead. That's what Jen calls me." A tear ran down her cheek. "God, how can I just show her my f-f-fangs and tell her what happened? She's so happy now. She just made the cheerleading squad for next fall and even has a new boyfriend. This will just bring her down."
"You're a good sister." I was getting a little misty-eyed myself. I don't know if I could have been so generous. Screw vicarious. There's no substitute for doing things yourself. I made up my mind then and there that Penny would have a great start as a vampire. Adventures. Rafe could help me there. I wished for my buddy Florence too. How long before she got back from her honeymoon?
"Jen and I don't always agree on things. In fact, we had a giant fight the night I ended up a vampire." Penny grimaced. "Turns out I should have listened to her. But just once I wanted to see . . . Never mind." She tried for a shrug but I could see her hands plucking nervously at her gray sweatpants. "I've texted her a few times since then. Let her know I was okay, just snowed under with school stuff. But I bet she's wondering what's up. We usually talk or see each other at least once a day." Penny sniffled. "We'll never do the morning coffee-and-donut run again now, will we?"
I pulled her against me when she finally broke down and sobbed. Who wouldn't? The realization that you can never eat or drink like a human again is hard to take. Hey, I still mourned my hot chocolate and the Cheetos I'd impulsively tasted once, to my regret. I gulped back sympathetic tears.
"Enough of this." Penny pulled back and dug a tissue out of her pocket. "What now, Glory?"
"You can't tell your sister you're a vampire." There, I'd said it and I got the reaction I knew I would. Penny was up and at the door in a blur.
"Try to stop me. We don't keep secrets from each other." She snarled at me-me!-showing fangs when I grabbed her shoulders. "Damn it, Glory, I have to tell her. I'll put a positive spin on it."
"Chill and put your fangs away, fledgling. A positive spin?" I leaned against the door, making damned sure Penny wasn't getting past me. "I can hear that conversation now. ‘Hey, sis, I was killed the other night but, not to worry, a vampire gave me my own pair of fangs and now I'm here to take you down too. Say bye-bye, pom-poms, and hello, blood bank.'"