The Eternal Kiss: Vampire Tales of Blood and Desire

I was wrong. She really was crazy.

For about fifty years in Morganville, none of the vampires had been able to create new ones—except Amelie, who’d turned Michael to save his life. Now … well. Things had changed, humans had more rights, and the rules weren’t so clear anymore. Why did people want to be vampires? I didn’t see the appeal.

Miranda obviously did. And she was going about it in a typically sideways Miranda-ish way. With my boyfriend.

I wheeled on Michael. “Why didn’t you just say no?”

He glanced over at the football guys. The defensive line was between us and the door, kicked back with a new case of beer but still looking like they’d love the chance to do a little vamp hand-to-hand.

Idiots. He’d absolutely destroy them.

“I was trying to,” he said. “She isn’t listening. I didn’t want to hurt anybody, and I couldn’t walk away and leave her like this. She needs to understand that what she’s asking … isn’t possible.”

“I know what I’m asking,” Miranda said. “Everybody thinks I’m stupid because I’m just a kid, but I’m not. I need to be a vampire. Charles promised me I’d be one.” That last line came out like the petulant cry of a first grader who’d had her crayons taken away. I was willing to bet her vampire Protector (in name only—more like vampire Predator) had promised her a lot of things to get what he wanted. It made me feel even more sick.

“Mir, you’re what, fifteen? There are rules about this kind of thing. Michael can’t do it, even if he wanted to. No vamps under the age of eighteen. Town rules. You know that.”

Miranda’s chin set into a stubborn square. She would have done well in Claire’s fairy costume. Fairies, as Claire had explained to me in the car, weren’t kindly little sprites at all. Right now, Miranda looked like a fey come straight from the old scary stories.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Somebody’s going to do it. I’m going to make sure they do. My friends will make sure.”

“Miranda, they can’t make me do anything,” Michael said, and it sounded like an old argument already. “The only reason I haven’t blown out of here already is because of you.”

“Because I’m so screwed up?” Miranda’s voice was dark and bitter. As she moved, I saw scars on her forearms, marching in railroad tracks up toward her elbow. She was a cutter. I wasn’t surprised. “Because I’m so pathetic?”

“No, because you’re a kid, and I’m not leaving you here. Not with them.” Michael didn’t even look at the jocks, but they got the point. I saw their beery good humor start to evaporate. Some set down bottles. “You think they’re doing this because they like you, Mir? What do you think they want out of it?”

For a second, she looked honestly surprised, and then she slipped her armor back on. “They got what they wanted already,” she said. “They got their money.”

“Yeah, drunk, bored football types are always fair like that,” I said. “So tell me guys, was this going to be a party night? You and her?”

They didn’t answer me. They weren’t drunk enough to be quite that cold about it. One finally said, “She told us she’d make it worth our while if we got her a vampire.”

“Well, she’s fifteen. Her definition of worth your while is probably a whole lot different from yours, you asshole.” Man, I was angry. Angry at Miranda, for getting herself and us into this. Angry at the boys. Angry at Michael, for not already walking away. Okay, I understood now why he hadn’t. He’d already known he’d be throwing her to the wolves (and the bats) if he did.

I was angry at the world.

“We’re leaving,” I declared. I grabbed Miranda by a skinny, scabbed wrist and pulled her to her feet. Her Cleopatra head-dress slipped sideways, and she slapped her other hand up to hold it in place even as she decided to pull back from me. I didn’t let her. I had pounds and muscle on her, and I wasn’t about to let her stay here and throw her own vamptastic pity party, complete with dangerous clowns.

Up to that point, Miranda had been all talk, but I saw the look that came across her face and settled in her eyes when I grabbed onto her. Blank, yet focused. I knew that expression. It meant she was Seeing—as in, seeing the future, or at least something the rest of us couldn’t see.

The hair shivered on the nape of my neck under my Catwoman cowl.

“It’s too late,” she said, in a numbed, dead sort of voice. I drew in my breath and looked at the door. “Oh dear.”

The door slammed open, bowling over a couple of football players along the way, and three vampires stood there. One of them was the vague Mr. Ransom.

Another was a particularly unpleasant bit of work named Mr. Vargas, who had the looks of one of those silent film stars and the temperament of a rabid weasel. He’d always been one of the dregs of vampire society. Oliver kept him around, I didn’t know why, but Vargas was one of those you had to watch for, even if you were legally off the menu. He was known to bite first, pay the fine later.

The last one, though, was the one who really scared me. Mr. Pennywell. Pennywell had come to town with Amelie’s father, the scary Mr. Bishop, and he’d stuck around. I knew he’d sworn all those promises to Amelie, but I didn’t believe for a second he really meant them. He was old. Really old. And he looked like some androgynous mannequin, with no emotion to him at all.

Pennywell’s cold eyes looked around, dismissed the jocks, and focused in on three things:

Miranda, Michael, and me.

“The boys are yours,” he said to Ransom and Vargas.

Vargas’s teeth flashed in a white grin. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, and stepped aside, out of the door. “Run, mijos. Run while you can.”

The jocks weren’t stupid. They knew the odds had shifted. They were severely in trouble. Not one of them was willing to stand up for Miranda, or for us, and that didn’t shock me at all. What shocked me was that they didn’t take their beer with them when they broke for the door and stampeded out into the night.

Vargas watched them go, and counted it off. “Twenty yard line. Thirty. Forty. Ah, they’ve reached mid-field. Time for the opposing team to enter the game, I think.”

He moved in a blur, gone. I resisted the urge to yell a warning to the football guys. It wouldn’t do any good.

Pennywell said, “You, girl. I hear you want to be turned.” He was looking at Miranda.

“No, she doesn’t,” I said, before my friend could say something idiotic. “Mir, let’s get you home, okay?”

Faced with the alien chill that was Pennywell, even Miranda’s great romantic love of dying had a moment of clarity. She gulped, and instead of pulling free from my grip, she put her hand in mine. “Okay,” she said faintly. I wondered exactly what her vision had shown her. Nothing that she wanted to pursue, clearly. “Home’s good.”

“Not quite yet, I think,” Pennywell said, and shut the door to the field house. “First, I think there is a tax to be paid. For my inconvenience, yes?”

“You can’t feed on her,” I said. “She’s underage.”

“And undernourished from the look of her. Not only that, I can smell the witch on her from here.” He sniffed, long nose wrinkling, and his eyes sparked red. He focused on me. “You, however … you’re of age. And fresh.”

That drew a growl out of Michael. “Not happening.”

Pennywell barely glanced his way. “A barking puppy. How charming. Don’t make me kick you, puppy. I might break your teeth.”

Michael wasn’t one to be baited into an attack, not like Shane. He just got calmly in Pennywell’s way, blocking the other vampire’s access to me and Miranda.

Pennywell looked him over carefully, head to toe. “I’m not bending any of your precious rules,” he said. “I won’t bite the child. I won’t even swive her.”

Leaving aside what that meant (although I had a nasty suspicion), he wasn’t exempting me from the whole biting thing. Or, come to think of it, from the other thing, either. His eyes had taken on a really unpleasant red cast—worse than Michael’s ever got. It was like looking into the surface of the sun.

Miranda’s hand tightened on mine. “You really need to go,” she whispered.

“No kidding.”