Charlaine Harris: Many Bloody Returns

“My wife has been dead for many years. I live alone.”

“I have many friends. We enjoy the night.”

“You may be one of us.”

Michael had told me what he was, if I had listened carefully. Did I want to be one of his beautiful friends? Could I kill other people?

Depends, I thought. I could kill lawyers like Jack, doctors like my husband, and that little bitch who waltzed into my house and claimed my husband like a piece of lost luggage.

I wondered about the other woman who’d been drained dry. Who was she? Did she deserve to die? I didn’t have her name, but I knew the date she’d died and the street where she was found—Forty-seventh, off of Bayview.

A quick Internet search found the story in the Sun-Sentinel. The dead woman was forty-five, divorced, an IRS auditor. Another deserving victim. Another bloodsucker. Eric and I’d been audited one long, hot summer. The IRS found one small error, but the accountant and lawyer bills to defend ourselves were tremendous. We would have had more rights if we’d been accused of murder instead of cheating on our income tax.

Yes, I could kill an IRS auditor. I could hand out justice to the unjust. In my new life, I would punish the wicked. I would be super-woman—invisible by day, fearless by night. That beat being a divorced librarian living in a garden apartment.

I hardly tasted my dinner, I was so excited by my new life. Not that my dinner had much flavor: four ounces of boneless, skinless, joyless chicken and romaine with fat-free dressing.

For dessert, I treated myself to two ounces of dark chocolate and a delicious daydream of Michael. It had been a long time since any man had wanted me. And this man had so much to give me.

I watched the full moon rise and paced my condo. Eric didn’t come home that night. I didn’t expect him to. I was glad. I was in no mood to confront him.

I dug out my favorite black Armani dress. It was specially designed to cover my flaws. The high neck hid the crepe under my chin. The short sleeves disguised the unsightly wings under my arms that no workouts could eliminate. The short hem showed my legs at their best. I put on sexy high-heeled sandals. They were dangerous on the docks, but I was living dangerously these days.

Michael was waiting for me outside my condo. He’d come to me this time. His hair was black as a midnight ocean. His luminous skin was like moonlight on snow. He kissed me, and his lips were soft and surprisingly warm.

“You know who we are, don’t you?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “I want to be like you.”

“You must be sure. You must have no illusions before you adopt our way of life. You must ask me any questions tonight.”

“Are you immortal?” I said.

“Almost,” he said. “We can be killed by fire, by sunlight, and by wooden stakes through the heart. All natural elements.”

“What about crosses and holy water?”

He laughed. “There were vampires long before there were Christians.”

“What will happen to me? How will I become one of you?”

“I will make you a vampire by giving you my blood. I will take yours. Don’t be frightened. It’s not painful. You’ll find it quite exhilarating. Once the transference is complete, you must make your first kill.”

“Will I change? Will I look different?”

“You’ll look like yourself, only more beautiful. Any wrinkles will vanish. Any physical flaws will disappear. You’ll quickly attain your ideal weight. Our people are never fat.”

Vampirism—the ultimate low-fat diet. I wanted to smile. But suddenly, I couldn’t joke. The changes were profound, and frightening. “I’ll never be able to eat food again.” I felt a sudden desperate pain at what I would have to give up.

“Do you eat now?” Michael said.

The question seemed ridiculous. “Of course,” I said.

“But do you like what you eat? Do you actually hunger for carrot sticks? Do you long for steamed broccoli and romaine with diet dressing?” He put his warm lips next to my ear and whispered, “When was the last time you had food you really wanted?”

I thought of the meals of my youth, when I could eat anything: fried chicken and cheeseburgers, crispy French fries lightly sprinkled with salt, hot fudge sundaes with warm whipped cream, crusty bread and butter.

“You haven’t had any of those in years, have you?” Michael said.

He could read my mind. I knew that now.

“You’ll never experience the pain of dieting again,” he said. “You will have no need for ordinary food. You will drink the food of the gods. Blood is offered to them as a sacrifice. You will take it for your own pleasure. It is a thrill you cannot imagine. You will still hunger, but now you will be satisfied. You are hungry, aren’t you? Even now, after your supper of skinless chicken.”

“Yes.” The pale, pathetic hunk of bird nearly turned my stomach. “I can do good, too,” I said. “I can feed on those who deserve to die.”

His eyes were suddenly darker, and I realized he was angry. “No! You must embrace the dark side like a lover. Any good you do will be accidental.”

“But Jack—” I began.

“When Rosette killed that bloodsucking lawyer, she made a lot of scorned wives happy. But Jack will be mourned by his daughter. Randall killed the IRS agent because she’d been auditing his books. She nearly drove him crazy, and he was innocent. But she was the sole support of her elderly mother. And, irritating though she was, the agent was an honest woman.

“You cannot fool yourself into believing that you will only feed on serial killers or child molesters. That is romantic nonsense.

“You are evil and you must choose it. Your killing will not make the world a better place. We kill for revenge, for sport, for reasons that are impossibly petty. Marissa once killed a dress shop clerk on Las Olas because she wouldn’t wait on her.”

“So you’ve killed more people in Fort Lauderdale than Jack and the IRS agent?” I said.

“Many more,” Michael said. “The details about the other bodies being exsanguinated did not make the papers. The police try to hide that information. When it becomes public, then it’s time for us to leave. That’s why we’re going tomorrow night.”

“What happened to the other bodies?”

Michael said nothing. He didn’t have to. I realized we were looking at the wide black ocean.

“Where will you go when you leave?” I said.

“The south of France,” he said. “I have a cottage by the sea. The air smells of lavender and the sound of the waves is wonderfully soothing.”

A small sigh escaped me. He was offering me such a beautiful life.

“Why me?” I asked. “There are millions of women like me, a little past our prime, abandoned by our husbands.”

“Do you define yourself only by your husband?” he asked. “I don’t think so. Americans have such boring ideas about age. Older cultures celebrate all aspects of a woman’s life. Americans only want youth, which can be the dullest time. I prefer a woman who has lived.

“And you are not like the others. You are strong. You have resisted the lemminglike urge for plastic surgery. It’s became a national obsession, but you fought it, even though it cost you your marriage and your comfortable life. You knew it wasn’t the right choice for you. That takes courage. You know who you are. Do you know what you are?”

For the first time, I knew I was someone special.

He took my hand. “I’d like you to join us,” he said. “I want you. Now that you know, you have only two choices: join us or die.”

“May I have twenty-four hours? I have some loose ends to tie up.”

“Yes. But, remember, no one will believe you if you go to the police. And we will be gone before they can get a search warrant.”