“Look, Dick was actually really helpful last night. He probably kept Walter from cracking my skull. And he came over tonight to make sure I was OK,” I told him. “That’s it. Nothing happened. I mean, he touched me, but not in the way you ’re thinking. And smelling me to determine whom I have and haven’t been around is not an appropriate use of vampire powers. In fact, it’s kind of pathetic. Your light’s green.”
Gabriel finally noticed the changed traffic signal and punched the gas. He smoldered for a few beats before he burst out with,
“You know he lost his family’s house in a card game, yes?”
“Dick lost his house to you in a card game.” I sighed.
Andrea had acquainted me with this interesting tidbit. Before they were turned, Gabriel and Dick spent much of their time bouncing between the card table (Dick’s hobby) and the horse auctions (Gabriel’s hobby). One night after several hands of poker and too much of Dick’s brandy, Dick wagered his family home against Gabriel’s prize stallion. Dick was too drunk to realize he was holding two eights, a seven, a jack, and a two, not a straight. Though Gabriel tried to give the house back, Dick was too proud to take it. This was fortuitous, as the Cheney manse was where Gabriel ran when his brothers staked him out.
Between the humiliation of Dick’s loss and Gabriel’s new “nights only” policy, let’s just say they were no longer BFFs. Petty grievances and snarky exchanges compiled until they went from not being able to stand each other to open hostility. Dick ’s propensity for penis-related quips and juvenile pranks didn’t help. In the late 1960s, he peppered Gabriel’s entire house with silver filings. For more than a decade, Gabriel couldn’t sit without minor burns to his behind.
So, despite living within a ten-mile radius of each other for more than a century, they didn’t speak unless they had to. By the way, before you start making assumptions, Dick was not turned by the same woman who turned Gabriel. According to Andrea, Dick was turned ten years after Gabriel, after a particularly bad card game. The winner, a vampire from New Orleans named Scat, wanted to make sure Dick’s debt was paid off and figured giving him an extra few hundred years would help. Notice a gambling pattern here?
“You—you should not spend time with Dick Cheney.”
I nodded. “Especially if he’s holding a hunting rifle.”
He tipped his head back and roared in “I’m seriously reconsidering my ‘I don’t hit girls’ policy” frustration.
“Feel better now?” I asked.
“No!” Gabriel yelled as he turned into the Hollow’s mall area. Most of the city’s large-chain restaurants and businesses were clustered here, circling the wagons against cranky local merchants and customers who didn’t understand why any store would have a returns policy that required a receipt instead of just trusting the customer’s word. The neon signs seemed so bright it hurt to look directly at them, their aggressive reds and greens leaving little spots against my closed eyelids. We passed the full parking lot at Shenanigans, and I was struck by how different I was since the last time I’d driven down this road. The Jane who mourned a lost job and a half-lived life at that bar seemed happier, even in her misery, because she didn’t have to deal with angry sires and blood and a murder rap.
“How much trouble am I in?” I asked, finally breaking the quiet.
“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I’ve never heard of one vampire killing another so soon after rising.”
“Do you honestly believe that I could do something like this? Why would I set fire to someone I hardly knew?”
“As opposed to someone you know well?” He snorted.
“I’ll take care of the sarcasm here, thank you,” I told him. “Honestly, do you believe I could do something like this?”
He waited for a distressing amount of time before saying “No.”
“Then why are you hauling me into court?” I demanded, ashamed of the whine that was creeping into my voice. “I thought vampires had this whole lawless-unholy-rebel thing going.”
“Some feel that way,” he said. “Others, like me, believe that if you’re going to assimilate into the modern world, you have to have some accountability for what you do.”
Well, that made me feel horrible.
He stared at the parking lot ahead, unable even to glance in my direction. “Just be respectful. Don’t talk back. Don’t volunteer any extra information. Don’t demonstrate your unique brand of humor.”
“Basically, don’t be me,” I grumbled. “If I wasn’t paralyzed by fear, I’d be offended by that.”
10
The World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead was created to protect the rights and interests of vampires of all ages. If you are summoned by a council official, it is in your best interest to respond promptly and answer all questions honestly. Hiding from the council will only work against you.
—From The Guide for the Newly Undead
I expected the local council to be a cross between the Lions Club and a Scorsese-esque panel of mafiosi. How mafiosi would end up in Kentucky, well, I hadn’t really thought that through.
Any self-respecting mafioso wouldn’t be caught dead at Cracker Barrel at nine on a weeknight. Yes, the council, the grand overseers of justice and decorum among the vampires of Region 813, held their secret meetings under an old metal sign advertising Lux soap. Generally, you don’t find vampires in well-lit places surrounded by unpleasant human food smells and an aggressively homey atmosphere. Gabriel explained that meeting in such a neutral, crowded environment was the only way to ensure that nothing would be overheard. Humans tend to be pretty focused when it comes to comfort food. The panel ordered Mama ’s Pancake Breakfasts and pushed the food around their plates. They were no different from any other customers, except for leaving healthy tips.
Gabriel found the council members at their usual table. The panel consisted of: Peter Crown, pale, gaunt, dyspeptic. It was clearly communicated that he did not like me. Or Gabriel, or the other panel members, or the people eating pecan waffles at the next table. I think someone turned him into a vampire as a punitive measure.
They wanted him to be pissy for all eternity.
A Colonel Sanders lookalike improbably named Waco Marchand. He didn’t speak to Gabriel but greeted me with a polite kiss just over my wrist. My hand smelled like peppermint and hair tonic for the rest of the night.
A blond lady with a slight British accent, who went by Sophie. Just Sophie. That was as close to Cher as we got in the Hollow. She was turned in her mid -forties. Her face was unlined and unpainted, leaving a plastic sheen to her skin that was beguiling and disquieting at the same time. She was confident enough not to wear any accessories with her rather fabulous black pantsuit.
Ophelia Lambert, a willowy brunette, was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and a locket that was probably three hundred years old.
Ophelia could have been three hundred years old, but she appeared to be about sixteen. Her dewy, youthful looks conflicted with the imposing presence, a sort of “Yes, I look as if I read Tiger Beat, but I can remove your spleen without blinking” attitude. She was almost as scary as some of the girls from my high school.
Council members were assigned to their precincts regardless of origin, so Ophelia and Sophie ’s “Continental” presence wasn’t all that strange. I did, however, believe I recognized Mr. Marchand from a Confederate memorial statue downtown.
Ophelia, who was apparently the head of the panel, motioned for us to sit at the crayon -scarred round table. A brown-aproned waitress named Betty arrived promptly to take our orders—Mama’s Pancake Breakfasts all around—and we wouldn’t see her for another forty-five minutes.
Despite the gravity of the situation, I couldn ’t concentrate on the members of the council. Sitting in a crowded human environment was an assault on the senses. Conversation from other tables hovered around us in needling mosquito clouds. And the bacon, which I had loved so much in life, kind of smelled like baby vomit. I concentrated on my silverware, shredding the paper napkin ring into tiny strips and twisting them into long coils.
“Do you know why you’re here?” Ophelia finally asked, her eyes as flat and still as a shark’s as she spoke to me.
I hesitated. If there was ever a time for me to cure my chronic babbling, this was it. “I was told that you have some questions for me.”
Gabriel inclined his head slightly, as if to tell me I was off to a good start. We ’d agreed that if I was being inappropriate or started to jabber, he would tap me with his foot under the table. Head nodding was a sign that I ’d said or done something appropriate. It was demeaning, but I didn’t want to dwell on it. The council stared me down, clearly expecting more.
“I’m told that a vampire was killed last night,” I said.
“A vampire you attacked just hours before he was locked in his trunk and set on fire,” Sophie pointed out.
“I contend that it’s possible Walter did that to himself.”
No response from the panel beyond quirked lips from Ophelia. Gabriel kicked me under the table.
“Now, why was a nice young lady like you tussling with some no-account like that?” Mr. Marchand asked, shaking his head in fatherly distaste.
“I objected to the way he was holding Norm, the human bartender, upside down and shaking him like a piggy bank,” I said with as little irritation as possible. “Walter and I disagreed. Dick Cheney intervened. Walter drove away. I drove home. Andrea Byrne, whom I believe is well known in the vampire community, stayed on my couch, and …she can’t tell you much because she was essentially passed out drunk during the fight.
“I need to find a new way to tell stories,” I added lamely.
“Listening to the words in your head before you say them might help,” Sophie suggested kindly. She stretched out her hand. I felt compelled to take it. As soon as I was within range, she clutched my wrist and dragged me close, wrenching me against the table.