Молли Харпер - Nice Girls Don't Have Fangs

“You’ll be fine, Stretch,” Dick assured me with a wink. “See you later.”

Gabriel glowered at Dick as he opened the door to his car, a rather sedate Volvo sedan. It was disappointing, despite the total destruction of every preconceived vampire notion I’d had in the last week. The car smelled of old leather and not much else. It was a refreshing change from my car, which smelled faintly of bacon cheeseburgers.

Dick didn’t bother leaving before we pulled away. He stayed stretched across my porch swing with my dog’s head on his knee. He even blew me a little kiss as I left. I’m sure it was meant to make Gabriel wonder whether he would still be there when I returned. I bounced between being annoyed and being somewhat flattered that he was using me to irritate Gabriel. I settled on annoyed.

I had no idea what awaited me at the council hearing. After the initial Coming Out chaos subsided, the World Council for the Equal Treatment of the Undead appointed national and state-level commissions to look into suspicious vampire deaths and record the newly turned. Those state councils had local representatives to settle minor squabbles and determine what matters were worth the higher-ups’ attention. They were also granted authority to carry out sentences for the Council.

Gabriel drove in seething silence until we reached the edge of town. As we pulled to a stop on Gates Street, he tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and spat. “I can smell him on you.”

“Who?”

“You know who,” he snarled.

“Is this about Dick?” I finally asked.

He growled.

I crossed my arms, as much to put a barrier between our bodies as to communicate my exasperation. “So, it’s about Dick.”

Not to be obvious, but wasn’t it always?

He pulled me to face him in my seat, his face dangerously close to mine. “I need to make something very clear. I’m not your friend, Jane. I’m not Zeb. I can’t spend time with you if you’re going to be with someone else.”

“I want you to really, really listen to me, because I say this with all sincerity,” I whispered, pressing his hands between mine. “You are not a well man.”

“Don’t make a joke out of this,” he growled.

“I’m not kidding,” I growled back. “What the hell do you mean, you’re not my friend? And I haven’t been with anyone, thank you very much. You’d know that if you really paid attention with that nose of yours.

“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.”

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.