“Maggie, listen. I’m sorry. Ian, sit down? Have a cookie or... shit me. I’ll explain, I promise. Jeff, bring her this way?”
Wait, what? I was held by a
vampire?
My panic-stricken brain latched onto that like a wood tick on a labradoodle. Flashbacks of my interlude with Ahmad and Lubov made me scream aloud, though this time not in pain. This was fury that a rotter manhandled mer for a second time in two days. This wasn’t acceptable; I didn’t want to be touched. He needed to get his dirty, stinking corpse hands off of me or so help me, I’d sever them off at the wrists.
“LET GO OF ME, YOU FANGED FREAK.”
He didn’t let go, not when I kicked my sneaker back at his knee to take out his legs. I could hear Ian shouting something at my mother and her shouting back, but I was in such a fit trying to get away from Jeff I couldn’t follow their conversation. My feet made contact with Jeff’s leg again and again, a picture perfect execution of Janice’s ‘what to do when you’ve been grabbed’ lessons. He sighed, moving me back towards the kitchen, making sure he pointed my flailing in such a way that I wouldn’t destroy my house. I forced my eyes open despite feeling like I’d been shot in the face with lightning. Everything was hazy and blurry, the light on the ceiling looking more like a sun than a halogen bulb.
“M-Mom, make him... Mom!”
“I’m here. Set her down and let her go. I’m here. I swear she’ll be fine, Ian. It’s okay.” Jeff deposited me into a chair and those tight, strong arms moved away from me. I forced myself to relax, no longer frenzying that vampire-boyfriend had his mitts on me. I breathed so heavily I sounded like I hyperventilated, but it helped keep the panic at bay, it helped keep me centered. I blinked to bring the room into the focus, but the colors around me bled together, like I looked at the world through a Monet painting, or maybe a kaleidoscope. I touched my face to feel if I was maimed as surely something that burned that much had to have ruined me for life. My skin was warm to the touch and covered with tear tracks, but it felt whole and unscarred.
“Maggie.” Mom moved closer to me, a human-shaped blob of pinks and peaches and blues. Her hands found mine, and she squeezed my fingers. “I’m sorry I hurt you, but it’s important.”
“Why? Why’d you do that?” I asked, my voice cracking halfway through. It finally registered that Ian had watched this whole thing, had seen me freaking out like a swearing, spitting lunatic girl. I’d calmed, could think straight again, but that didn’t make it better. “I... Ian, I’m sorry. Oh, God.”
“It’s okay,” Ian said. “Are you okay? Is she okay? She’s red. Should we take her to the hospital?”
“No. She’ll be okay. It’s holy water. Maggie, listen to me. You’ve been ghouled.”
It would have been kinder to run me over with the van. I felt like all the air had been knocked out of me, like she’d clobbered me so hard I saw stars. There was no way I could be a ghoul. Lubov and Ahmed were Max’s ghouls, and they’d had super speed and super strength because of it. I couldn’t do anything cool. I’d been paintballing all night, and not once did I get super reflexes or killer hearing. The only weird thing going on was the insomnia and sniffing thing, and if those were ghoul perks, they were crappy ones. Besides, Max hadn’t done anything to me. We’d talked, and he’d warned me off of telling Mom, but that was it. Ghouling someone
had
to take more than witnessing bad yoga moves and sitting on a couch. It had to.
“No. You’re wrong.”
Mom kept talking like she hadn’t heard me. “When were you taken? Was it at night? Or during the day when I was at work? It was what, two days ago?”
Answering questions was instinctual, especially when it was your mother asking, so I tried to explain. Next thing I knew, the whole throbbing-face-thing was joined by horrible retching noises erupting from the back of my throat. I grabbed my neck and wheezed, squeezing my eyes closed as I fought for air. Of course, I couldn’t tell her, because that went against Max’s rules. Gagging fits were my friendly reminder of Max’s rules.
“She can’t say,” I heard Jeff say. “If she was told not to tell anyone, ghouls can’t betray a master’s command. It’s the nature of the bond.”
“She can’t say anything? Breathe, Maggie. Breathe.”
“No.”
“Can she nod yes or no answers?”
“Probably not.”
“Not a...” I rasped through attempts to swallow air. “M’fine.”
“No, you’re not fine. You’re not sleeping or eating, and you sniffed out Lauren. The holy water burned you. You’re ghouled, Margaret. I’m sorry.” Mom released me. I saw her reaching across the table. There was a snap and a chewing noise a moment later, and I knew she mowed down on nicotine gum. If there’d been a pack of cigarettes around, she’d have been smoking them one after another despite being butt-free for the better part of five years. “She’s not contagious or anything, Ian. You can come over. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“Uhh. All right?”
“Let him go home,” I said, silently adding
so he can never call me again
. There was no way he’d be okay with this one. Hell, I wasn’t okay with this. Me, Maggie Cunningham, a hunter AND a ghoul. How could this happen? This had to be karma in action. Some god somewhere was mad I’d worn the Snooki bras and saw fit to punish me for my fashion offenses.
“It’s okay, Mags. I’ll stay. Is there anything I can do?”
“Get her a bottle of water.”
Blurs and slashes of colors passed me by, everyone moving around the kitchen in a nervous dance. I squinted. My eyes watered so much it probably looked like I’d never stopped crying, but the pain was more tolerable. Agony had become hurt, hurt had become discomfort. Maybe in a few minutes discomfort would downgrade to annoyance.
“It has to be related to the Plasma kill,” Mom said, though she seemed to be talking to herself more than me. “Retribution for that fledgling. I hate vampire politics. It’s a bunch of juvenile bullshit. Stupid fangers. No insult intended.”
Jeff chuckled from somewhere behind me. “None taken. If it’s any consolation, a singular dose will wear off, though it can take some time if the vampire’s old.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I demanded, not bothering with the whole ‘be nice to Mommy’s dead boyfriend’ thing.
“What’s a dose?” Ian asked at the same time.
“Blood. A blood dose.”
I wanted to point at Jeff and say, “Ha, I didn’t drink his blood so I couldn’t be ghouled!” I hadn’t sucked on his neck or chewed on his finger. But then I remembered Lubov pouring me the Coke in that funky glass. I’d looked at the bottom of it and I’d seen nothing, but the upper half had been all of those pretty colors. If they’d planned ahead of time, if they figured I’d be suspicious of them and they needed to keep me quiet, they could have laced it before I’d arrived. They could have smeared his blood...
Oh gross. Just
gross
.
Ian plunked down in the chair across from me, a bottle of water in hand. He slid it across the table, his fingers brushing over mine for a stolen second. I tried to smile, but my face was so swollen it probably made me look I had to fart. “I’m sorry. Again. I didn’t know,” I said.
“No, it’s... man. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It doesn’t hurt that much anymore.”
Mom paced back and forth between the fridge and the stove, murmuring under her breath and slapping the countertop every couple seconds. By her growls and twitches, I could tell she was close to a Terminator-With-Tatas rampage. Considering me and Ian were human, I was pretty sure we were safe from misdirected anger. The vampire and the zombie, though, well...
They might have it rough.
“Tomorrow that scientist is coming from DoPR about Lauren, so I can’t do anything until
that’s
over. Some asshole messes with my kid and she can’t tell me who, and I can’t go snooping around until what, Thursday? Friday if this zombie thing goes long? By then it could be too late. By then...”
“It’s all right, Janice,” Jeff interjected. He moved across the kitchen to wrap his arms around her from behind. Seeing it, or quasi-seeing it as the case may be, made me flinch. “You’ll find them. It’s not like you have to rush. Vampires are too arrogant to run away from a human, regardless of her station.” He nuzzled at her ear, and she slipped her hand back over her shoulder to touch his cheek.
That was all I could take of
that
. The ghouling thing was bad enough. Watching them be all grabby sweet was the poop frosting on my turd cake.
I stood up so fast the kitchen chair skittered across the floor tiles behind me. “Are you done throwing shit at me? If so, I’d like to go upstairs and be pissy now.”
“You’re off the hook,” Mom said. “Sorry about the holy water. I’m so pissed off right now I can’t think straight.” She looked over at Ian, casting him a tight, pained smile. “I swear I’m not the world’s worst mother. I just look like it sometimes. A lot lately. I’m sorry. Again.”
“No. No, I didn’t think... “ He didn’t finish the sentence because I took his hand and yanked him towards the stairs. I knew Mom was having another one of those ‘feel bad about being a weirdo Mom’ moments, but I was in no condition to feel sorry for her right now. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself, and Ian was there for me, not her. She’d have to be content with her vampire hump boy’s reassurances.
If that wasn’t enough for her, too bad.
W
E GOT HALFWAY
up the steps before I remembered the disaster that was my bedroom. It looked like a tornado hit it, complete with clothes hanging from drawers, sheets and blankets everywhere, and stacks of clutter covering my desk and vanity. That wasn’t taking into account the arsenal lying around: knives, stakes, guns. I had one of every dangerous thing in existence somewhere on my floor. All I needed was a T-Rex and my death trap was complete.
“So my room’s a mess,” I said. “Don’t touch anything and watch where you step. I’ll... yeah. I need to move the machete.”
“The what?”
“Nothing.”
I opened the door and pretended living in near-quarantined conditions was no big deal. Ian followed me, picking his way around the various piles of crap to claim a corner of the bed. I did a cursory sweep, making sure all firearms and pointies got put into the closet before they blew off feet or faces. I picked up laundry, too, stuffing it into the hamper.
“You don’t have to clean up for me. It’s cool.”
“I don’t...” I sighed and turned to smile at him. “I don’t think I care that it’s dirty. I don’t know what to do right now, you know? Trying to distract myself.” I moved over to the mirror to inspect my face, confirming my earlier assertion that I was not, in fact, sporting burns or scars. I looked pink and sweaty, but otherwise fine.
“Can I ask you something?”
I glanced at him in our reflection. “Sure.”
“If I hadn’t passed out the other night, would this have happened to you?”
I turned around to stare at him, like in the span of a single sentence he’d gone from Ian-my-date to Ian-the-carnival-freak. He couldn’t blame himself for this. He couldn’t. That was way too... nice? Aware? Hell, I hadn’t thought of it, and I was the one magically tethered to some vampire in Boston. I
should
be looking for people to blame, and Ian’s tangential part in things never occurred to me.
“No!”
“Your mom said it was related to the Plasma thing, which only happened because you’re a virgin.” He looked down at his hands. “And I mean, you wouldn’t be if...”
“Ian, no. No, no, no.” I sat beside him on the bed. He wouldn’t look at me, so I grabbed his chin to turn his face my way.
It’s okay, he didn’t need that neck. He’d grow another one
.
“Look, shit happens, and it happened at the party. We’ve been good since then, though, right? I think you’re crazy for sticking around, but I’m happy you do. And I don’t expect you to, like, slip me the dong out of duty. Rather you wanted to than felt you had to.”
“Oh, I want to.”
He put so much emphasis on the ‘want’ that my face went hot again, but this time it had nothing to do with the holy water. He cleared his throat. “I wanted to, you know, make it up to you after the party. This whole thing has been strained ’cause you need to do it for work but I didn’t want you to think that’s all I’m around for. I have fun. Tonight was fun. You do cool stuff, and I like hearing you talk about your job. It’s... you’re not dead, right? Ghouls aren’t dead?”
I smiled like an idiot because he said so many good things, so many right things. My stomach flopped around, my chest tightened. I crushed so hard on him right then that I completely missed his question about the dead thing until he repeated it a minute later. Twice.
“Dead? No. No!”
“Oh. I don’t know what a ghoul is, so I wasn’t sure.”
“I’m human. I’m alive.” I wanted to say more, to explain so everything made sense to him, but I was so fearful of another gagging fit, I stopped myself. I couldn’t tell him I was someone’s magical pet. I couldn’t say that even though it was a temporary condition, I felt dirty, like I should scrub my skin raw to get the vamp cooties off. Maybe it was for the best. Ian’d seen enough bizarro-world already. I worried I’d lose him if I heaped much more onto his pile. Too many details could break his brain and make him give up for good.
He lugged me into his side, pressing his nose into my hair. I slumped against him, taking his hand and pulling it into my lap. We didn’t say anything for a few minutes, letting the silence speak to all of the things we couldn’t or didn’t want to give voice to, but after a while he lifted my chin and kissed me. It wasn’t anything sexy, not like The Sex kisses from the party, but it was nice all the same. I nudged at his lips with mine, toying with the hair at his nape. He looked at me, I looked at him, and before I knew better, I climbed over his lap, my knees dropping to the outsides of his thighs.
Screw it. Game face on.
“Let’s do it. Not because of work, but ’cause we can.”
“You’re sure?” He ran his hands down my sides, sending a shiver rippling down my spine. “I don’t want you to think... “
“Less thinky. More fucky,” I said, my fingers fumbling with the buttons on my shirt. He kissed me again, this time harder and more insistent, his tongue flicking at mine before pulling away. I groaned in protest, wanting to demand that he cut the crap and do proper make-outs like
a real man
, but then he grinned against my mouth.