“Love, if I’m correctly interpreting your drunken ravings, you wish to bring your grandmother to Sang and have me blud her, yes?”
I nodded viciously and almost fell over as I stepped into the box.
“And you actually believe there’s a possibility that Hepzibah told you the truth regarding how this charm works?”
I slipped on the locket and arranged the nightgown around my legs. “I do.”
“And you don’t anticipate any sort of trouble arising from this brash action?”
I grabbed his ponytail and yanked his face to mine, kissing him ferociously, with the fire of bourbon still hot on my tongue. “Trouble doesn’t matter,” I said, releasing him and closing the top of the box. “I have to save my Nana.”
“But, Letitia—”
I popped the top off the bottle and poured its contents into my mouth. The liquid was red and viscous, like blood mixed with metal filings and harsh herbs. I knew well enough, after my first time smuggling liquids between worlds, that the bottle wouldn’t translate. I had to keep it in my mouth and not swallow, no matter what. A sprinkle of powder later, and I was asleep before I even had time to take Criminy’s warning to heart.
And then I woke on Nana’s couch, groggy and disoriented and panicked. I almost swallowed the bottle’s contents, but I still had enough self-control to lurch into Nana’s room. She was splayed against the pillows beside a little yellow dribble of vomit, all acid and liquor.
“Sugar, you okay? Look like you’re about to puke up my good bourbon, and I already had enough of that today.”
I shook my head and made calm-down motions with my hands. I couldn’t speak, thanks to the potion in my mouth, but it’s not like any explanation I could offer would make her understand that I was here to answer her prayers. Maybe I wasn’t a seven-foot-tall ex-Viking vampire, but I could get her to Criminy, which was the next-best thing.
She didn’t shrink back or struggle when I laced my fingers with hers, both hands, making a complete circle. She didn’t flinch when I brought my face to hers. Even when my lips touched her withered ones, she didn’t react at all. But she didn’t open her mouth, either. Already formulating my apology for later, I pinched her nose closed, and when she opened her mouth to holler at me, I set my lips against hers and let the magic liquid rush out between us, just as the witch had ordered, snatching her hand back up to make the circle complete.
3
Everything went dark and thick, like it does in dreams, and the only thing I could feel was Nana where my hands and mouth touched her. It was like falling for just a moment, and then I slammed onto my back, crushed under what felt like a ten-speed bicycle. Opening my eyes, I found Nana flopped on top of me in her long pink housecoat, Criminy’s face staring down at us over her shoulder through the glass of the box.
Nana moved against me and muttered, “What was in that bourbon? I’m a married lady. Not you again. None of that funny business, now.”
When Criminy got the box unlocked, he gently lifted Nana off me, and wherever she was in her head and her drugs, she didn’t question being cradled against the waistcoat of a vampire version of Mr. Darcy in the Victorianesque parlor of a carnival wagon.
“Hello, Nana,” he said cheerfully.
She blinked at him like an irritated baby bird and said, “Hello, Vampire Bill.”
Criminy raised his eyebrows at me over her shoulder, and I said, “Nana, this isn’t True Blood. Meet Criminy Stain.”
“Your boyfriend?” She reached for glasses that weren’t there and pushed herself away to inspect him. He delivered her to his bed, our bed, and placed her gently on the silk quilt. “The one who thinks he can beat me at chess?”
“I’m her husband, actually. Nice and legal. We’re so sorry you couldn’t attend the ceremony, but you were regrettably in another world at the time.”
“You’re better-looking than Vampire Bill, at least.”
He stepped back, and she squinted around the room. I climbed from the box, still in my night shift and stockings, and came over to check Nana’s pulse. It was racing, but she was alive enough to smack my hand.
“It’s my dream. Don’t you medicine at me, young lady.”
“It’s not a dream, Nana. This is . . . well . . .” I looked to Criminy, who merely grinned and shrugged. Smug bastard was always amused when I was at a loss for words. “This is the world of Sang. When you said you’d rather get turned into a vampire than die on Earth, I brought you over here. Criminy’s a Bludman.” I tilted my head at him, and he obliged by opening his mouth to show shiny fangs. “He’s not undead, though. Here Bludmen are simply predators. If you don’t mind drinking blood for the rest of your life, you can probably live another two hundred years without pain. Right?”