It turned out, the Eastern Empire District Court was wrapped up in some sort of trial of the century, a vampire kingpin who’d slipped out of court custody several times before. James Morton refused to meet until the following week, and then he told us he could only spare half an hour.
Becs agreed. Half an hour was better than none.
That left me with a week of fretting.
I should be preparing for the Midsummer Eve inspection. Frankly, though, that felt like an insurmountable barrier. I mean, what sort of examining board would approve an institution run by a witch with no powers, where valuable drugs disappeared without a clue, and banshees and hellhounds roamed the premises?
I was doomed. But Nick was doing his best to make me forget my imminent demise. And keeping me from getting to work on the resumés I should be distributing far and wide to human hospitals.
“What do you do for fun?” he asked me on Friday night, a couple of hours after I learned James Morton was placing us in a holding pattern.
“Fun?”
“Maybe we could go out to dinner? Play gin rummy? Fu—, er, screw like rabid mongeese?”
I laughed. “Isn’t that mongooses?”
“So just to be clear—you don’t have a problem with the concept, just the vocabulary?”
“Um, let’s start with dinner.”
“And then?” he pressed.
“Then we’ll see. Dinner first. I don’t want you thinking I’m that type of girl.”
“I’d give my right nut for that type of girl.”
“Watch it, buddy. I know how to handle a scalpel.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Dinner first. I just thought you might want to build up an appetite before…”
I let him win the argument. For the record, rabid mongeese can count to four. Five, if you count a reprise just before dawn.
The next night, he took me to the movies. The film he chose was a black-and-white documentary, in German, with subtitles, and it covered the history of agriculture in the Alsace-Lorraine region.
We sat in the back row and necked like teenagers. It helped that the leather-covered reclining seats were bigger than the bed in my attic room. As the titles ran, I finally thought to ask him why he’d chosen the movie, especially when we hadn’t watched a scene. Without batting an eye, he said, “Its running time was three hours and twenty-one minutes.”
I suggested that next time we try a double-feature.
On Sunday, he finally let me visit his apartment. It was in an old brownstone, a few blocks too far east to be in a trendy neighborhood.
He’d told me to wear casual clothes; he’d even suggested I stick with hospital scrubs. I stumbled over the reason the moment I stepped inside his front door. Four cans of paint were stacked in the foyer, along with rollers, drop cloths, and a six-pack of blue painters’ tape.
“I figure it’s worth it to paint over the windows, even if the landlord doesn’t give me back my deposit,” he said. “I’m tired of sneaking out of your room like a college kid doing the walk of shame, and the vampire ward’s getting a little old. Your staff’ll be happy to see me gone, too. One less bed to make up every evening.”
His words struck me like a blow, even though they were perfectly logical. “I—” I stopped to clear my throat. “I just thought you’d stay around a while longer.”
He picked up a small paper bag that had slipped between the paint cans. “I tested this. It works, front and back.”
When I held out my hand, he tipped a brass key onto my palm.
“Make yourself at home,” he said. “Don’t bother knocking if you come during the day. I hear the guy who lives here sleeps like the dead.”
I wasn’t sure why I was crying as I threw my arms around his neck.
It turned out, I was better at placing the painter’s tape than he was. He was faster at covering the glass. Together, we secured the place in a few hours.
I called first dibs on the shower. He suggested we conserve water, and he made a pretty convincing argument, even if he smeared fresh paint along my collarbone when he did it.
While he was retrieving an extra towel from the linen closet in the hallway, I glanced at his nightstand. There was a lamp, of course, and an alarm clock with glowing red numbers. A stack of papers threatened to fall to the floor.
Even across the room, I could make out the Eastern Empire flag surrounded by a spray of golden stars. The logo was completely out of place, like a Russian word stamped across a headline in The Washington Post. We imperials were trained to keep all Empire documents under lock and key, safely hidden from curious mundane eyes.
Compelled, I crossed the room and reached for the navy blue folder.
“Here you go,” Nick said. I jumped like a scalded cat, barely biting off a shriek of surprise. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Y— You didn’t. I was just looking at those.”
Nick barely glanced at the stack of papers. “I shouldn’t leave them out, should I?”
“What are they?”
He laughed. “Welcome the Night? Ring a bell?”
Of course I recognized the name of the program I’d championed at the hospital. But I knew I’d never placed my documents in an Eastern Empire binder.
“That folder,” I said, reaching past him.
“Oh,” he said, looking uncomfortable. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
“No one’s going to be in trouble,” I said.
“I asked one of the nurses for something so I could keep all my papers together.”
“Who?” None of my staff should be handing out blue folders with the Empire logo.
“I’d rather not say.” Nick’s tone was stiff.
“You don’t get to make that decision.”
He stared me down for a full minute. Then he said, “Is this really what our first fight is going to be about?”
My fists were curled, my shoulders stiff. I was biting my lip, determined not to back down.
But it was stupid to get worked up over a single embossed folder. In this city of embassies and foreign nationals, no mundane would pay an unfamiliar flag a second glance.
Still… “Can you put it some place safe?” I asked.
Without hesitation, he crossed the room and shoved the offending folder into the drawer of his nightstand. “Okay?” he asked.
I laughed unsteadily. “Fine.”
He frowned and ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he said after a long pause. “Just when I think I’m getting a handle on all this, I screw up something major.”
“It’s not major,” I protested, even though it sort of was. I didn’t want him to feel bad.
“I should have thought things through,” he said.
“It’s okay,” I said. He still looked chagrined. “Really. We should make the rules clearer. I’ll make sure something gets added to the handouts. And I’ll talk to my staff, remind them about the rules.” Then, because the worried look on his face was breaking my heart, I tossed my hair over my shoulder and said, “When are we taking care of that water-saving exercise?”
“Exercise?” he asked, his lips finally curling into a smile. “That’s an excellent idea.”
We used up all the hot water and had to huddle under the covers on his bed to warm up.
I spent the better part of Monday dealing with disasters at the hospital.
With all those elective procedures canceled after the shuck’s appearance, we had a surplus of empty beds. That translated to too much food in the kitchen and too many linens from our laundry service. It took over an hour to trim all the necessary orders, submitting paperwork through countless online portals.
At least it was a good time to review the stocking of basic supplies, with so few patients occupying rooms. Alas, in my efforts to be fiscally responsible, I’d already sent extra staff home. My familiar, though, wasn’t doing a damn thing, because I hadn’t worked a spell for months.
“Musker,” I said, poking my head into the bathroom. “I need your help.”
His yawning mouth gaped like the Grand Canyon, but he picked up the checklist I dropped on his chest. “Every room?” he asked.
“All of them.”
“By when?”
“Tomorrow,” I said.
His eyes rolled. “That’s not going to happen.”
“We need time to fix any problems before Midsummer Eve.”
He shuffled out of the bathroom. If he didn’t pick up his pace, he wouldn’t make it to the third floor by Samhain. I resolved to read him the riot act later, when I had a longer fuse.
My afternoon was filled with a new financial disaster. Most of our suppliers had heard about the Vitriol theft, the banshee, and the hellhound. They were getting antsy about being paid. In a series of phone calls, I repeatedly pointed out that Empire General hadn’t bounced a check in the eleven months I’d been at the helm, and I resented being treated like a derelict.
In the end, I won every case, but I had a pounding headache no painkiller could touch.
“I wondered if I’d find your here.”
I looked up to see Nick standing in the doorway of my office. He wore black leather pants and a matching jacket, and he carried a sleek motorcycle helmet.
“I thought we could head out to Skyline Drive,” he said. “Look up at the sky and see if we could catch a falling star.”
I smiled wearily. “Can I get a raincheck?”
The concern on his face was immediate. “Of course. Is everything okay?”
“Any chance you know a headache banishing spell?”
He shook his head. “Nope. But I’ve been told I give a pretty good backrub.”
I knew exactly where that would lead. Too tired to dissemble, I said. “Not tonight.”
“Hey!” He sounded hurt. “I wasn’t speaking in code. I promise—one backrub, nothing more. Unless you’d like some hot buttered toast and a cup of tea.”
“With you, everything sounds like a double entendre.”
“Scout’s honor,” he said.
I didn’t have anything to lose.
The toast was perfect, hot and crunchy and dripping with butter. Chamomile tea smelled like spring. He led me upstairs, and his fingers found the perfect spot to release all the tension in my shoulders.
He kissed my forehead before he left my room. I almost thought about calling him back, but I fell asleep before I could say the words.
I got my raincheck on Tuesday.
I’d never ridden a motorcycle before. I’d always thought people who rode those two-wheeled death-traps were insane, or at least majorly suicidal.
But with my arms clamped around Nick’s waist and the bike thrumming beneath my thighs, with the wind blowing my hair into the sweet summer night, I realized how much I’d been missing.
Nick parked the bike at a scenic overlook. We lay in the grass and stared up at the sky, and he pointed out constellations I’d only read about in books. When the dew rose on the grass, he pulled me on top of him, and we stared at the velvet sky until we saw a red-gold streak, long and low against the horizon.
I shouted with glee, but Nick twined his fingers with mine. “Quick,” he said. “Make a wish.”
I did. I wished that everything could continue, exactly the way it was.
Wednesday night, he told me about his father.
That wasn’t the plan. The plan was to go for a walk around the night monuments, starting at the Lincoln Memorial, then heading over to the Jefferson and the Washington Monument.
But the night started out muggy—the first hint of DC’s famous summer humidity— and an unexpected thunderstorm rolled through around nine, sending us scurrying inside the massive Greek temple that honored our sixteenth president. Dwarfed beneath the massive statue of Lincoln, Nick shook his head. “My father came here every time he visited DC.”
“You didn’t grow up here?” I asked.
“Nope. I’m South Carolina born and bred, from a little town halfway between Greenville and Spartanburg.”
“You don’t sound like you’re from South Carolina.”
“I worked hard to drop the accent.”
“So you don’t miss it?”
“Not one damn second.” He answered so quickly he almost swallowed his words.
“Why not?”
“Plummer has one traffic light, and half the time it’s blinking.” He sounded grim. “My father was the town cop. He spent most of his time writing traffic tickets for city folks who didn’t believe the speed limit really dropped to 25 in front of the feed store. On Saturday nights, he made sure the drunks got home safe.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad life.”
“It was a boring one. Too boring for my mother.” His already dry voice downshifted into something harder than the marble columns around us. “She left town with a traveling preacher when I was five. Sent cards on Christmas and my birthday till I turned fifteen, but she never set foot in Plummer again.”
I hadn’t seen Nick in this mood before. He wouldn’t meet my eyes. He was staring down his past instead, working through pain that had taken hold decades ago.
“So where does Mr. Lincoln fit in?” I finally asked.
He glanced up at the mammoth statue. “My father loved him, read every book about him he could find. The day I graduated high school, we drove all the way up from Plummer. We got here after dark, hungry and thirsty and needing to piss. But Dad just marched me up those steps. We stood right here, and he said, ‘Son, there wasn’t anyone to take a bullet for him in that goddamn theater. But if Lincoln had run Reconstruction, little ol’ Plummer might’ve turned into something.’”
And if Plummer had been something, Nick’s mother might have stayed. He didn’t say it. He didn’t have to. I studied his face as I connected the dots. “So you joined the Secret Service.”
“I never considered anything else.”
We stared at the statue a while longer. The rain stopped. A couple of tourists climbed the steps and joined us, taking an incredible number of selfies to prove they’d been there.
“What about you?” Nick finally asked.
“Me? I never thought about joining the Secret Service.”
He dug at my side with his elbow. “Come on,” he said. “Tell me about your father.”
I shrugged. “I never knew him. He and my mother divorced when I was a year old. She said I cried too much, and he couldn’t stand to stick around.”
“Ouch,” Nick said.
“Now you know my mother.”
“Tell me more.”
I shook my head. It was my turn to be caught by a dark mood. “Not tonight. Not here.”
He tangled his fingers in the hair at the nape of my neck, but he didn’t press me to talk. We stayed at the Memorial until a busload of overtired high school students arrived. Then we walked back to the hospital in companionable silence, our footsteps punctuated by raindrops falling from overhead trees.
Nick asked again on Thursday. We were sitting on the couch in his living room, watching the titles play over a rerun of Law and Order. We’d missed the entire order part of the show, having diverted ourselves with a session of heavy petting. I was laughing and pushing my hair out of my face when he said. “Tell me about your mother.”
Now I understood how deer felt on midnight highways, pinned down by unexpected headlights. “What about her?”
“She sounds pretty unstable.”
A muscle twitched beside my eye. “She’s a witch.”
“You know, when most people say that, it’s a figure of speech.”
I sighed and dropped my head against his arm. It was easier talking to the ceiling than watching emotions cross his face. I already knew what I’d see if I told the truth: Pity. Anger. A hint of disbelief.
I decided to give him the five-cent version. “My mother was a powerful woman in the Washington Coven. She was a strong witch who had a special touch with crystals.”
“Was?”
“She was forty-two when I was born. She called me her oops baby.”
“Did you have any brothers or sisters?”
“Nope. Just me.”
He waited patiently. I had to fill in the rest of the story. It was only fair—he’d told me about his folks.
“Sometimes, when a witch is pregnant, hormones change her abilities. My mother lost her power over crystals. She was blocked from them completely.”
“And she blamed you.” His voice was even.
“Not at first.” I sighed. It was all so complicated, but I cut to the chase. “As long as I followed in her footsteps, my mother was perfectly proud of me. I focused on crystals at the magicarium and took a first in my class. I led rituals for the Coven before I ever graduated. Everyone told Mother how proud she must be of me. Everyone told her I was the daughter every witch dreamed of having.”
“Except…”
There was always an except. “Except I wanted to go to college. Real college, like mundane girls.”
“Don’t witches go to college?” I understood the confusion in his voice. I’d felt it myself, when I was only a child.
“A lot of us do. Of all the imperials, witches are most likely to pass in mundane society. We look like everyone else. We don’t have to worry about phases of the moon or, you know, staying out of the sun.”
He inclined his head, acknowledging the truth behind my words.
“But every once in a while, a witch is born with so much power that she’s…taken out of circulation. She goes to a magicarium, but she doesn’t go to college. She certainly never dreams of going to medical school. Her job is to serve the coven, to help her magic sisters. She’s a Helpmeet.”
“And what does she get in exchange?”
“Fame?” Even now, I wasn’t sure. “The knowledge that she’s better than everyone else? Um, love?” All these years, and I only knew one essential truth: “I rebelled against my mother’s wishes. She’d lost everything for me—her powers, my father, the prestige she would have had from presenting the coven with a Helpmeet.”
I thought I’d accepted the fact that my mother had never loved me. I thought I’d learned to live with the notion that I’d failed her, failed the coven, failed everyone who mattered. But my voice caught on my last words, on the crux of my story: “And she hasn’t forgiven me yet.”
I didn’t mean to cry. I didn’t want Nick to see me this way. I wanted to be breezy and sexy and fun.
But he leaned down and wiped the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. He kissed my eyelids, tender and kind. He pulled me close, and when I couldn’t stop crying, he picked me up in his vampire arms and carried me up the stairs as if I weighed no more than a doll.
He lay me on his bed. His fingers were gentle as they worked my shirt’s buttons. He slid down the zipper on my jeans, tooth by jagged tooth. And slowly, carefully, he made love to me, whispering the entire time, drowning out the lies that circled in my head. I fell asleep believing the new truth that he alone could speak.