4

Find ways to fill your time and meet new people. Join a club. Attend local support group meetings. Avoid rom-coms and ice cream.

—Surviving the Undead Breakup: A Human’s Guide to Healing

I didn’t really trust Dick not to follow me to my appointment, so I followed him back to his trailer—the new trailer to replace the one recently blown up by his crazy supervillain-with-benefits, Missy, the murderous Realtor—and made sure he had intentions to stay there. Because that was normal behavior, right?

I drove to the Lucky Clover Motel, where Sophie and her friend were waiting for me in room 140. Consisting of one squat story of battered, white cinder block, the Lucky Clover wasn’t quite a rent-by-the-hour flophouse . . . because city ordinances banned innkeepers from renting their accommodations by the hour. The neon sign sputtered to spell “L__ky _lover.” The parking lot was dark and occupied by a handful of beat-up cars. And I would not touch the worn-thin Kelly-green comforters on a dare.

But Sophie had wanted to meet on neutral ground, away from the Council offices, because the Council didn’t want bite-for-hire transactions to occur on the premises. Not because they were trying to protect me from other vampires who might be provoked by the scent of my blood but because no liability insurance carrier would touch them otherwise.

That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

The vampires were waiting for me when I arrived. Sophie was standing precisely in the middle of the dingy room’s even dingier once-beige carpet, where she was least likely to touch any furnishings. Tall, platinum blond, and the owner of an inordinate number of black pantsuits, Sophie exuded a sort of European elegance that set her apart from the vast majority of Half-Moon Hollow’s population.

“Sophie,” I said, nodding in deference.

I didn’t know much about her. Nobody did. Even those who’d worked with her for years didn’t know her last name. She was beautiful in that overtly perfect, plastic manner that made her ethereal and timeless and sort of creepy. In other words, she immediately made me feel inadequate, frumpy, and shabby when I walked into the motel room.

A tiny, mousy blonde in an embroidered pink cardigan sat on the corner of the bed, which was enough to make me question her judgment. She refused to look at me as I crossed the room and set my handbag on the table. And she was wearing thick-framed pink glasses, a weird affectation when you considered that when she had been turned, her vision had automatically become twenty-twenty. Given her strange, hunched posture, I thought maybe the eyeglasses were like a security blanket—perhaps the pane of fake prescription glass made her feel protected from the world.

“Andrea, how lovely. Thank you for joining us,” Sophie purred.

“Sorry I’m late. It was unavoidable.” Opening my purse, I tucked a small leatherette toiletry bag under my arm. I took a deep breath, trying to center myself for “surrogate mode.”

“I’m sure it must’ve been very important for you to have delayed your arrival,” Sophie said, shaking her head. I chose the better part of valor, which was keeping my mouth shut. “Andrea, this is Darla. Darla, this is Andrea, a fully qualified blood surrogate on retainer with the Council to assist in special situations like yours.”

Darla glanced up and gave me a barely audible greeting, then immediately returned her gaze to the hands twisting in her lap.

“Hello, Darla. It’s nice to meet you.”

From what I’d read in the file Sophie sent me, Darla was a brand-new vampire, barely a month turned. As a human, she’d worked at the local Property Valuation Administrator’s office, attended services at the Half-Moon Hollow Baptist Church, and volunteered at the local animal shelter. She’d been turned by her boyfriend, who had apparently wanted more of a three-week thing rather than eternity. He’d dumped her, leaving her high and dry and in the care of Sophie, her Council-assigned foster sire. The trauma of her abandonment had left her with a severe drinking disorder. She shied away from live feeding because she couldn’t stand the sensation of her fangs sinking through skin. A few failed experiments left her unable to drink donor blood. She could drink bottled blood but only certain brands, and only tolerated those brands for a few days at a time before her body rejected that, too. So, basically, Darla was a colicky newborn vampire.

I wasn’t sure what Sophie had done to deserve such a delightful foster assignment, but I would milk every single contact I had at the local Council office to find out.

“I don’t want to do this. I’m fine with bottled blood, really. Surely there have to be people who survive on bottled blood only.”

“Yes, there are, and we make fun of them at the meetings. Now, stretch your fangs,” Sophie told her sternly.

“So, Darla.” I gave her a reassuring smile and sat next to her on the bed. I would burn my slacks later, I promised myself. “I understand that you’re having some trouble with feeding?”

“I just can’t,” Darla whispered in her high, tinny voice with its thick bluegrass accent. “I hate it. I don’t like the biting. I don’t like the way the blood fills my mouth. Everything tastes like pennies. I just can’t do it.”

It was rare for a vampire to completely reject their feeding instincts, but it did happen, especially in cases where the vampire had an extremely passive personality as a human. That type of vampire attempted to rise above their thirst, ignoring their natures, which was the worst way to handle it, because eventually those vampires got pushed beyond their control and went on blood-soaked rampages that ended up on the evening news. Sophie was trying to avoid a PR nightmare by offering Darla the training-wheels version of feeding.

This was what I liked about my job—helping people. And yes, I considered vampires people. Despite my experience with Mathias, I knew that vampires were as good or as bad as regular human beings. It was a matter of choice and morality, not pulse.

“Well, I’m going to try to help you through all that,” I told Darla, rolling up my sleeves. “Let’s work on one issue at a time. If we skipped the first step—the biting—do you think you might be able to relax enough to drink?”

Darla shrugged. “I suppose so. I get so tense thinking about that weird, squishing feeling of my fangs going through skin that I can’t swallow, and I get all choked up.”

“OK, so we’ll start there,” I said, opening the kit. I took a pre-packaged sanitizing wet wipe from my purse and swiped it along my wrists. I withdrew a small scalpel and uncapped it. With practiced care, I made a short incision a safe distance from my major veins.

As the blood welled up from the wound, I heard the telltale snick of Darla’s fangs dropping. She was shaking her head so fast that her glasses slipped down her button nose. “No, I don’t think I can. The smell. The smell is freaking me out.”

“It didn’t hurt,” I assured her, which was a lie because cutting that delicate skin stung like a bitch. “Now, all you have to do is raise my arm to your lips. Let’s try for three swallows. You’ll feel better after you do, less shaky. And I’ve been told that my blood is delicious, like melted Godiva chocolate. Just give it a try.”

Darla whimpered.

Sophie huffed and tapped her Prada-shod foot on the carpet. “Darla.”

The little blonde shuddered. Meanwhile, my blood was running over my wrist and dripping onto the carpet. Frankly, I didn’t think the future guests would notice.

“Darla,” Sophie said, what little motherly patience she’d shown before having evaporated from her voice.

Darla slid her hands under my wrist and slowly raised it toward her face. She sniffed delicately. “Smells OK.”

“Thank you,” I said, laughing lightly.

She pressed my wrist to her mouth and, grimacing terribly, wrapped her lips around the wound. She yanked her face away and blanched, as if my blood tasted like battery acid and kale. But after a glare from Sophie, she put her mouth back on my arm and took one weak pull from the wound.

She raised her head, licking at her lips. “It’s not so bad. It’s not rushing into my mouth like the others.”

“See?” I asked brightly. “Give it another try.”

Darla nodded and lifted my arm to her mouth, latching on properly this time. She took a good, strong pull from the wound, so strong that it actually hurt a little. I fought the urge to gasp in pain, because I didn’t want to scare Darla. I watched her throat work as she swallowed several mouthfuls. She cradled my arm against her slight body like a favorite teddy bear. She moaned as she took one long gulp of my blood, lasting a full ten seconds.

The usual euphoric feelings I experienced during feedings, the warm flush of happiness and endorphins, were notably absent. I didn’t trust Darla’s responses. She’d gone from reluctant and skittish to snuggling my arm far too quickly. She wasn’t in control of herself, which meant that I had to be focused enough for both of us.

By my estimates, Darla had taken almost a half-pint, which was well within acceptable loss ranges. And if I had to pry her off my arm, I was going to need to start pulling away before she got too close to the limit of safe blood loss.

“OK, Darla, I think that’s enough for now,” I said gently, sweeping her golden hair back over her shoulder with my spare hand. I meant it to be a motherly gesture, to snap her out of her violent fugue. But she shrugged me off, pulling my wrist tight against her. She raised her head, dropping her lower jaw and letting her fangs extend fully before snapping them back around my wrist.

“Hey!” I yelped, looking to Sophie, whose only reaction was to raise her eyebrows.

I yanked my arm toward me, but Darla held on. Her small frame contained full vampire strength, which she used to shove at my chest and pin me back against the bed. Darla hovered over me, lips stained red, and sniffed at my neck before striking, sinking her fangs deep into my jugular. I let loose a strangled scream. Through the pounding in my ears, I could hear pounding on the walls and someone yelling at us to keep it down. I could hear Sophie dispassionately telling Darla, “That’s enough, now, Darla.”

But all of Darla’s repressed instincts had risen to the surface, and she was in a full feeding frenzy. She dragged me up the length of the bed, pulling me against her and drinking down my blood as fast as she could—as if she could sense that her “treat” was about to be snatched away from her.

“Sophie!” I rasped around the head wedged against my throat.

“Darla, that’s enough!” Sophie insisted, but I noticed through fluttering eyelids that she didn’t actually move to help me. I threw my hand up, swatting off the little vampire’s unnecessary glasses.

“Darla,” I wheezed, but Darla was busy gulping down my blood. I could feel the life ebbing from my body, cold spreading through my chest and taking my breath away. My fingers felt numb and useless, and my lips tingled. She was going to drain me completely. I was going to die in this grubby motel room on this disgusting bed because Sophie didn’t want to rumple her suit long enough to save me.

Summoning all of my upper-body strength—which I admit wasn’t a lot even when I wasn’t fighting off a vampire attack—I yanked my left arm up and managed to jam my thumb into her eye. It was more of a glancing blow, but it was enough to make Darla disengage from my neck. I swung my arm up a second time and swatted her eyelid again.

“Ow!” she cried, now loosening her hold on me and letting me slide down the bed.

Even vampires are less predatory after being slapped in the eye.

An expression of pure horror slid over Darla’s face. At vampire speed, she scrambled back across the bedspread, wiping the blood from her mouth with the backs of her hands while gibbering and whimpering.

I tried to sit up, but the moment I lifted my head, the room tilted at an alarming angle. My snobbery over body contact with the bedspread had evaporated. Everything was swirly, and not in the fun, “recreational pharmaceuticals” fashion. It was all I could do not to vomit all over everything.

“Well, I see we’ve gotten past some of our sensory issues,” Sophie drawled. “Well done, Darla. Now we just have to work on your control . . . and stain removal.”

Yes, hilarious, because my blood was spattered all over Darla’s adorable pink cardigan. But at least I’d learned something about Sophie. Sophie was a bitch.

Normally, I would be able to come up with more descriptive insults, but I was pretty sure I’d just lost forty percent of my total blood volume. Most of my brain function was devoted to keeping the rest of my blood pumping through my organs.

Right now, the best I could produce was “Everything hurts. I hate everybody.”

“Are you all right, Andrea?” Sophie asked, while checking the polish on her nails.

Despite the fact that I was dizzy and nauseated and I was pretty sure that if I stood up I would collapse like a balsa wood weight bench, I nodded. (The nodding hurt.) I didn’t want to scare Darla, who was already cowering against the headboard with her arms thrown over her face, muttering “I’m sorry” over and over.

“I’m just a little light-headed,” I said, sliding toward the foot of the bed while still on my back. “Can I have a glass of water?”

“Yes.” Sophie managed to sound solicitous and annoyed at the same time. She walked toward the bathroom and picked up a drinking glass that wasn’t wrapped in protective plastic and had lip prints on the rim.

“Never mind,” I told her. “Never mind. I’m OK.”

Shivering, I scooted down the bed until I felt my feet hit the floor. I pushed up from the mattress with my eyes closed so I couldn’t see the room spinning. It took a few tries, but I managed to unfold myself into a standing position. “See?” I said.

“Yes, you stood up, good for you,” Sophie said, handing me my purse.

I sank back down on the bed but raised my arm long enough to flash her a thumbs-up. Sophie hauled me up from the mattress by the elbows. “I’ll drive you home. Darla, you will stay here. Do not leave this room for any reason. If you do, there will be consequences from which you will not recover.”

Oh, sure, pinning me down and snacking on me wasn’t a punishable offense, but leave a gross motel room and Sophie would go all Fugitive on her. I tried not to let that hurt my feelings.

Darla nodded, still looking ashamed of herself. “Of course. I’m so sorry, Andrea.”

I waved my hand dismissively, as if the effort to move my arm wasn’t Herculean. “Don’t worry, Darla. I’ll be fine. Don’t let this scare you off live feeding, OK? Once you adjust to it, it won’t be as dramatic.”

This was a difficult speech to deliver while Sophie was basically controlling me by my elbow like a puppet.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Sophie asked as she loaded me into her Mercedes. And by “loaded” I mean she had to open the door and then physically lift me into the seat. I managed to buckle my own seatbelt . . . after four tries. I noticed that Sophie shut the door before I could answer.

“I’m fine,” I assured her as she slid into the driver’s seat and checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror. Being a high-maintenance blood surrogate meant that you got fewer assignments from the Council. Being involved in an incident that required one of the Council leaders to fill out copious amounts of paperwork was a certain way to become an unemployed blood surrogate. Also, the Hollow was a tiny, semirural job market where I rented a very expensive apartment. I liked my heavily padded savings account too much to endanger it, thank you very much.

“I just need to get hydrated and get some sleep. I’ll be right as rain in the morning,” I told Sophie, even as her face doubled and swam before my eyes.

She smiled at me, although, much like the rest of her, there was no warmth in it. “That’s the spirit.”

Teeth chattering from full-body shivers, I drifted in and out of consciousness as Sophie drove me to my apartment. She waited for me to unlock my front door before she whipped her car back out of my driveway. I was wobbling as I stumbled into the house, lost in that strange floating sensation where I knew I was about to pass out but couldn’t seem to communicate to the rest of my body to get to some soft location for landing.

I just needed to make it to the couch. If I could make it to the couch, the room would stop spinning and I could collect myself long enough to avoid throwing up on my nice, clean carpet. I should call Jane. She’d know what to do, and if she didn’t, she’d Google it until I was on the road to recovery. Digging through my purse, I closed my cold, trembling fingers around my phone before I dropped the bag on the floor.

I flopped face-first onto my sofa, muttering an “ouch” when my forehead collided with a remote control. Vertigo had my head spinning again. Shivering, I pulled a chenille throw from the back of the sofa and dragged it over my body. I prayed for some warmth from the thin material to seep into my skin.

I held the phone in front of my face, struggling to remember how to open my contacts and dial Jane’s number. My eyelids were so heavy it was difficult to focus on the lit screen in front of my face.

Suddenly, a loud ping sounded from the phone. I winced at the noise and squinted at the text scrolling across my screen from Dick.

Hey, Red, just checking in. Jane gave me your # for emergencies.

I frowned. I definitely wasn’t going to tell Dick about my current predicament. He would only use it against me in the argument against my profession. Jane would do the same thing, but she’d be gracious enough not to be smug about it.

Everything is fine. Or at least, that’s what I thought I typed. I couldn’t seem to move my thumbs to the right buttons.

I squinted at the screen. It appeared that I had typed Ensrygtuhn so eufd.

What? Dick replied. You drunk, Red?

Mp, I typed. Jisr q litwwe dixxo.

Where was autocorrect when I needed it? I tried to backspace, undo the message, and explain that I was just a little dizzy, but I ended up hitting send.

Great. Now Dick thought I was some sort of wino. I would have blamed this on autocorrect if I could have seen the stupid screen.

Seriously, you OK?

I wiped at my eyes and forced myself to focus on the phone. The texts were so blurry. The outer edges of the screen were blurry, too, and dark. Getting darker.

The last thing I remembered was my phone ringing—the sound barely rippling across the murky depths of my head. My whole body collapsed like a marionette cut loose from its strings. I felt my hand slap against the side of the couch and heard the clatter of my phone hitting the leg of my coffee table. I couldn’t muster the strength to reach down and pick it up. My head was heavy, and I couldn’t seem to get a deep enough breath. Was this death? After years with vampires, was I going to get taken down by some newborn in a pink cardigan?

A spike of fear flared through my chest. I couldn’t fall asleep. If I fell asleep, I might not wake up . . . I might not . . .