“Thank you. I noticed,” he groans.
“What do I do?” Blood’s oozing down the front of his white dress shirt and turning to a gray dust that floats away.
“Pull it out,” he whimpers.
“But won’t that make it bleed more?” I inspect the arrow. “It’s really deep in there.”
“It’s poisoned. You have to remove it. Hurry.”
I know nothing about how to save vampires. My training is in killing them. “Okay. On the count of three. One. Two. Three. Four. Five—crap. I can’t do it.”
He gives me a pained but confused look.
“I’m sorry. It’s just, I know it’s going to hurt you and leave a massive hole.”
“Do it. You must.”
“Okay…” I grab hold, close my eyes, and pull.
He cries out, “Miriam!”
I hold the arrow in my hand and grin. “Well, at least I finally got you to say my name.” If I’d known that shooting him with an arrow was all it took, I would have been all over that.
I’m about to tell him so, in order to distract him from the pain, when he passes out.
“Michael?” I slap his cheek. “Michael?” He doesn’t respond.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I leave Michael behind the taqueria dumpster and find an ATM to withdraw three hundred cash. Whoever is after us already knows our general whereabouts, so now it’s a question of falling off the radar. Fast. No credit cards. As for our rental cars, I hope Michael was right when he said the assassin was using our cellphones to find us.
But who is this human? Why are they after me?
Mystery?
Not now!
I return to Michael behind Ta Bueno Tacos, carry him to his SUV some six blocks away, and head north, praying I find a motel better than the last one.
But when I pull up to a stoplight and glance at my vampire king in the backseat, his skin’s getting grayer, and there’s a huge bright red stain on the front of his white dress shirt.
“Crap!” He needs blood. I know he does. But with an injury like his, we’re not talking about a sippy cup or snack bag. From what I know about vampires, Michael is going to need a full meal.
I pull off the main road and park behind the first strip mall I see. This one has a computer screen repair place, a donut shop, a seedy sports bar named Buuubies, and a pawnshop, which means I have, at best, a forty percent chance of finding a spicy meal for Michael. Spicy being a person who might deserve to die. But how does a vampire really know if the human is good or bad until they’ve sunk their fangs in?
It’s not like everyone who goes to a pawnshop next to a boobie bar is evil. Sure, the probability goes up a little, but it’s not necessarily an indicator of being vampire food. Legal vampire food. And what if that food deserves a second chance at redemption? Theoretically, people can change, can’t they?
My merciful thoughts make me realize how little I’m prepared to be a vampire. Vampires eat people. It’s just what they do. But for me, it’s a moral dilemma. Not only the “meal” selection process, but the entire immortal quagmire.
On one hand, Stella is still growing, and who knows what lies ahead? I need to be there until she doesn’t need me. I want to be there well beyond that, which requires being immortal, or at the very least, living longer than a human. On the other hand, I always believed that what makes life special is how it isn’t endless. You can’t just run to the store and buy another year like you can a gallon of milk. Life is precious.
I glance over my shoulder at Michael—the man I once loved more than my books, the man who gave me the most beautiful creation on the planet. Stella.
I sigh with exasperation. His skin grows paler by the second, and his breathing is shallow. I know he’ll die if I don’t hunt down a big dinner.
I hate this. I’ve been scraping by on “baggies” donated by members of my local coven, the Arizona Society of Sunshine Love. Such a ridiculous cover name. It’s embarrassing. Either way, because of their generosity, I’ve never actually had to kill a person. Tonight, that ends. I have to choose between someone who maybe doesn’t deserve to live so I can save someone who does.
I’ll never get used to being the judge, jury, and executioner. I chuckle bitterly, realizing that Michael has been filling this role for a very, very long time. He once told me how killing burdened his soul. I thought I understood. Now I’m imagining the weight of deciding if someone lives or dies, and doing it over and over again for four hundred years.
This night alone will haunt me for the rest of my life no matter what I do, because there is no win-win. I either let Michael die, or I kill a human being. Well, Michael, I guess I get to walk in your shoes for once, don’t I?
I roll down my car window and sit patiently for over ten minutes, watching several people exit out the back of the bar. Two guys with white aprons take a smoke break.
Two for one? Nah, they’re working in the kitchen of a dive bar. That can’t be easy or fun.
Then a woman in high heels and bootie shorts steps out for two minutes to scream at some guy on her cell. Apparently, it’s her kid’s father, and he’s late on child-support payments. Again. She doesn’t know how she’ll make ends meet this month, so now she has to take more shifts.
Can’t kill her. She’s terrified and doesn’t smell the least bit evil. Plus, she has children. It would take a lot to justify ending a mother’s life.
Finally, a husky man with black hair, well over six feet, staggers outside to piss on the side of the building.
What
