“I know.”
“Closed casket. It’s in the will. Nobody needs to see me looking like a damn shrunken head on a pencil. You invite folks here after. Food’s already in the freezer.”
“The food . . . is in the freezer?”
She nodded fiercely. “I know you can’t cook for shit, and I wasn’t sure if Ella Bird would die first and be able to make the right spread, so it’s all in labeled Tupperware. Table’s already pulled out, you see.”
I stood, wobbly after the bourbon on my empty stomach, and headed for her kitchen. I’d been so busy focusing on Nana that I hadn’t paid attention to keeping house; it must have been weeks ago, when she still had enough strength to heft a casserole. Hell, maybe she’d done it before I’d come back to take care of her. The table’s leaf was in, making it big enough for twelve people, and the freezer was packed solid with foil-wrapped blocks labeled in Nana’s scratchy writing.
“When the hell did you do all this?” I asked, sliding back onto the bed.
“While back. Food’ll keep six months, and I knew I wouldn’t have that much.”
I hadn’t even noticed, and it broke me. “Oh, Nana. I’m so sorry there’s nothing I can do for you.” I clutched her hand hard enough to make her wince and pull away. “I only know how to help people die. I can’t fix anything.”
“Some things, nobody can fix ’em. Except that Eric Northman. Mm-hmm. Wish he’d come to Georgia instead of Louisiana.”
“Wait. What did you just say?” My head rolled over to stare at her, and I was surprised by the dreamy smile on her lips. She winked at me.
“You stay in bed for a few years unable to sleep, and see if some tall, handsome vampire on TV doesn’t start to look pretty good. I never got why Sookie wouldn’t become a vampire. Fool girl.”
“You watch True Blood?”
“I did up till I couldn’t lift the damn remote.”
Guilt shot through me as I noticed it half-buried in her blankets, just out of reach. I instinctively turned it over and slid it under her hand, but she shoved it off the bed and grinned, all sly, when it broke on the parquet floor.
“Nana.” I paused, drunkenly considering how to phrase it. “Are you saying that if a vampire would show up and offer you his blood, you’d take it?”
The old lady snorted. “Hell, yes, I would. You look death in the face for a while, and see if being young and healthy forever wouldn’t look mighty fine. Teeth’re better than needles, ain’t they? It’s not like I get to see the sun much these days, anyway.”
I jerked to my feet and pointed a finger at her chest. “Can you stay alive for five more minutes?”
She shrugged. “I reckon. Maybe. If you bring me more bourbon.”
I couldn’t bring Criminy’s sleeping powder with me to Earth, but Nana had a buttload of sleep aids in her cabinet. Desperate times called for desperate measures, so I dry-swallowed an Ambien and lay down on the couch, willing my frantic mind and body to still. It took entirely too long for me to fall asleep, and the moment my eyes were open, I sat up and bonked my head on the thick glass. It took even longer to unlock the box, considering the alcohol and excitement in my system, and I dropped the locket onto the velvet and jumped out, quick and clumsy.
As I frantically hunted through Criminy’s cavernous pigeonhole desk, he appeared as if summoned. Which, after all these years, further confirmed that he’d put an intruder-alert charm on the cabinet that held much of his magic in its multitude of drawers—or at least had his clockwork monkey guarding it most of the time.
“Looting for something in particular, love?” he said, a possessive hand on the scarred wood. “Mind that drawer—things tend to disappear in there. And come back dead.”
I softly burped bourbon. “Shh. Looting.” I switched drawers, found what I wanted, and held it up for him to see. “Hepzibah’s potion.”
His smirk turned into a stern frown. “Whatever you’re doing with that, darling, it looks terribly rash. And although I’m generally in favor of you doing terribly rash, sexy things, this exercise does carry the peculiar stink of liquor and permanence.”
He tried to snatch the potion bottle from me, but I held on to it for dear life and hurried back to the box, talking in a slur I could hear but not stop. “I traded my cute butt to that witch for this dumb bottle, and now I’m going to use it. Nana said she wanted to be a vampire, and you’ll make her a vampire, right? I mean, blood’s blood, right? Because there’s not much time. I need to get back. You will, won’t you?”