Молли Харпер: Nice Girls Dont' Live Forever

With a mad cry, Jeanine sparked the stun gun and moved it to the hem of her cloak. “I’ll end it now. I’ll take you all with me.”

“You won’t do it. You’re terrified of death,” I told her. I thought reminding her of the immediate dusty consequences would make her drop the stun gun, but Jeanine seemed to take my words as a challenge. She sneered and pressed it down, the arc of electrical energy combusting the lamp-oilsoaked cloth with a bright orange glow. Within seconds, her clothes were engulfed. Gabriel threw me behind him. But Jeanine stood perfectly still, a shocked look freezing her face in a mask of horrified regret, as if she couldn’t believe what she had done in a toddler’s fit of temper. Her panicked hands beat at the flames as they licked up her clothes, toward her face. There was a horrible scream as Jeanine’s body seemed to disintegrate before our eyes. Her face turned gray, then black, then crumbled into dust. The flaming cloak crumpled to the floor.

I watched as the puddle of oil caught, the fire inching toward the piles of boxes and wooden crates. The flames speared higher and higher, until I thought they might be brushing against the ceiling. We would be trapped. River Oaks would burn. The cellar was going to catch like a Roman candle ifI shrieked as a blue-white cloud exploded in my face. Dick was standing over Jeanine’s remains with the fire extinguisher I kept near the cellar steps. With tears streaking down his deadened, inanimate face, he sprayed foam over the remaining hot spots, dropped the red tank with a clang, and shuffled back to Andrea without a word.

The cold blast from the fire extinguisher seemed to revive Emery, who slowly pushed himself up from the floor. Gabriel sprang to his feet, putting himself between Emery and me.

“Mistress?” Emery mumbled. His dull, unfocused eyes caught sight of the pile of ashes and the red cape, absorbing what it meant. He howled, “No!No!”

Emery scanned the room for signs of Jeanine, for an explanation of what had happened. Seeing Dick crouched over Andrea, Emery cried, “That is my mate!” When he advanced on them, Dick looked up with what can only be called a predatory snarl and roared. Even I jumped back.

Gabriel’s grip tightened around my arm.

“Emery, I think you should back away and sit still until the Council gets here,” Gabriel seethed.

Emery’s brow furrowed, even as he circled Andrea, trying to find a weakness in Dick’s defenses.

“What council?”

“The Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead. The governing body of vampires who are going to lower the boom on you after what you’ve done,” I said.

Emery snorted derisively. “We’re vampires, Jane. We’re above the law, the constraints of human society. There are no rules for us anymore. It’s why I wanted to be a vampire in the first place.”

“Actually, there’s a whole butt-load of rules, Emery. The Council has rules for everything, especially when it comes to abducting and forcibly turning humans. It’s bad for our public image.

All those months at the bookshop, and you never bothered reading anything, did you? You bought into Jeanine’s promise of a ‘dark gift’ without even thinking about it. And now, you’re going to get the Trial.”

“What’s the Trial?” Emery asked, his bravado suddenly gone.

“What you’ve done to Andrea is going to pale in comparison.”

As if on cue, Ophelia arrived at the top of the cellar with her Council posse: gaunt and grumpy Peter Crown, a Colonel Sanders lookalike improbably named Waco Marchand, and cool blond Sophie. I was never so glad to see bureaucrats in all my life. It was like a pale, elegant cavalry.

Emery had lost all nerve at this point and was cowering behind a junk pile.

Ophelia, a 300-year-old teenager who was wearing skinny dark-wash jeans and a Jonas Brothers T-shirt, took in the sight of Andrea’s crumpled body, the pile of ashes on the floor, and my bloodied, chainsaw-massacre-survivor look.

“What did you do this time, Jane?” she demanded, rolling her eyes.

“This time, it really wasn’t me,” I protested.

“You always say that,” she pointed out.

“It was this newborn, Emery Mueller,” Gabriel said, dragging Emery up by the collar and pushing him toward Peter. “He kidnapped Andrea Byrne and turned her against her will. Under the direction of his sire, Jeanine, he also attempted to kill Jane with aerosol silver weeks ago, then assaulted and kidnapped her tonight.”

“That’s quite the rap sheet for a newborn,” Ophelia said, nudging Jeanine’s remains with her toe.

Gabriel cleared his throat. “When Dick … when he’s able to speak, he will corroborate my story.”

“I see,” she said, mulling that over as she scraped the ashes from her hot-pink Converse sneakers. “And I take it this is Jeanine?” Gabriel nodded curtly. “When I told you to take care of the matter, Gabriel, I didn’t mean to set her on fire.”

I raised my hand for permission to speak. “Actually, she did that to herself.”

“You’ve said that before, too,” Ophelia noted. I groaned, hoping Ophelia wasn’t going to sic Sophie on me. I’d just gotten over Sophie’s brain-scraping brand of interrogation from our last encounter at a Cracker Barrel.

Mr. Marchand nudged her with his elbow. “She’s never lied to us before, Ophelia. She’s no good at it.”

Ophelia sighed, “Fine. Emery Mueller, I hereby take you into the custody of this tribunal on the charge of forcibly creating a vampire. Your Trial is scheduled in two days.”

“Like a hearing?” Emery whispered. He seemed caught between being terrified of Ophelia and wanting to kissherfeet.

Peter smiled nastily. “No.”

Emery whimpered as Peter and Sophie dragged him away.

“I’d like to say I hope I don’t see you for a while, Jane, but somehow, I don’t think it will work out that way,” Ophelia said.

“That seems fair,” I grumbled.

Ophelia cast a long glance at Dick, a puzzled expression marring her beautiful face. “Let me know if you need … help over the next few days.”

With that, the Council swept out of the room in silence. I honestly didn’t care whether I ever saw Emery or Ophelia again. Gabriel and I slowly approached Dick. I laid a hand on his shoulder.

Dick inhaled sharply, but he didn’t snap at us when we gently pried Andrea away from him. Dick allowed Gabriel to carry Andrea upstairs to one of the guest rooms. I washed her neck and face, trying to remove any traces that Emery might have left behind. When she woke, I didn’t want her to smell him. I cut the bloodied costume from her body and slipped a soft cotton nightgown over her head. Even though I knew I would be talking to her, laughing with her again soon, it still felt like funeral preparations.

I went downstairs and found Dick and Gabriel in my kitchen, an open bottle of Faux Type O between them. I had to try to swallow the lump in my throat twice before I could manage, “Dick, I’m sorry. It’s my fault. If I’d just—I didn’t even suspect Emery. I was so self-centered. I thought Jeanine was focused on me. It didn’t occur to me that she would go after my friends like this.”

Dick’s voice was raw, a harsh whisper between sips. “You couldn’t have guessed, Jane. None of us did. We’re going to lay blame at Emery’s feet, where it belongs.”

“Um, I was dead drunk when I was turned,” Dick said quietly, staring into his glass. “I can’t remember a thing. I just woke up, and there I was—no pulse, no breath. I, um, I need to know, Jane, does it hurt? To die, I mean? Does it hurt? Did she suffer?”

His eyes pinned me, tears slipping down his cheeks.

“No, it’s just like falling asleep,” I told him, tucking his hair behind his ear and giving him a sisterly kiss on the cheek. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”