Freddy presses the intercom button next to the door. “Who is it?” he says in a stern “Michael” voice.
“Who do ya think?” replies a shrill female.
“It’s Lula.” I groan. I’ve been ignoring her, and that’s not the way to deal with things. “Let her in.” She will find out about the cure in a few hours anyway. Perhaps she might want to take the antidote and serve as a spokesperson, another example of success. “But remember to stay in character. Lula cannot be trusted.”
Freddy nods and pops the lock. Lula strolls in wearing a poufy white dress, with Alex in tow. He’s about my height, with shaggy brown hair and cold eyes, but he is nowhere near as handsome or as dangerous as me.
“What’s he doing here?” I growl, then remember I’m supposed to be Freddy. “I mean—my brother hates him. Not cool to bring him here.” Alex and I used to be very close friends during the Great War. That friendship ended when he threw me under the bus and almost had me executed. I understand he did it to keep in good graces with my enemies, all part of his and Lula’s plan to undermine the Uprising, but he could have trusted me and revealed what they were up to. Instead, they made choices for “the greater good” at my expense, after I’d risked my neck for him a thousand times on the battlefield.
“Alex and I got married,” Lula says to Freddy, “which you’d freakin’ know if you bothered to answer your phone.” Lula looks down at the naked, pasty baby lying next to a pair of orange overalls. “There’s a baby on the floor,” she says matter-of-factly.
“Yes. We are aware,” says Freddy, pretending to be me.
Lula’s gaze moves to the slumbering librarian. “Why is Miriam on that gurney, looking like she just had one hell of a face-lift?”
Freddy sets Stella on her feet. “Be a good girl, little one,” he says dryly, “and go sit over there in the corner and play with some scalpels while I speak to Lula. You’ll find some nice frogs to dissect in the fridge.”
“Oh. Fun.” Stella skips to one of the small fridges.
“Lula,” says Freddy, playing his role magnificently, “we have very good news, which we are about to announce. I have found the cure for vampirism. Miriam is our first successful patient.”
“Get the hell out.” Lula laughs.
Alex walks over to the gurney and takes a whiff of Miriam. “She’s human.”
“No.” Lula joins him and pokes Miriam’s face. “Wow. Wow. Wow! She is human.”
“Yes,” Freddy says. “And we would appreciate it if you’d help spread the word that the cure will be offered to anyone who wishes to take it.”
I go to pick up Baby Nice, who’s still sleeping like a…well, you know. “Sir, I think we might want to tweak the dosage first?” I say submissively. “Just a suggestion, of course.” I offer everyone a glance of exhibit A.
Lula stares at the bundle of evil in my arms. “So…what’s with the baby again?”
“Seems the cure has some, shall we say, anti-aging effects,” says Freddy.
“Who’s the unlucky vampire who had the clock turned back to diaperville?” asks Alex.
“That would be Mr. Nice,” Freddy says. “He decided to help himself to fifty doses of the serum.”
Lula’s jaw drops. She looks at Alex and then back at Freddy before laughing hysterically. “Oh my god!” She points at Baby Nice. “Karma is the best! Can I have him? Can I? I’m going to make his life a living hell! Starting with some good old-fashioned spanking.”
We all cringe.
“Lula,” Freddy says, “no one is spanking Baby Nice. That’s too cruel. Even for a vampire.”
“Tell that to a woman who didn’t have to sleep with him and play hide the rubber ducky.”
Our cringing turns to appalment.
“Lula, why are you here?” Freddy asks while I rock my hips back and forth in a soothing parental manner, holding Baby Nice. I stop the moment I notice I’m doing it, and Alex is trying not to laugh.
“You tell me,” she says to Freddy. “You haven’t been answering any of my damned texts, and then I finally got one last night, telling us to meet you here to talk. It said: Stop texting me, you moron. Meet me at seven in the morning, in the secret lab downstairs next to the jail at HQ.”
Huh?
“First off, the lab is a secret,” says Freddy, “so why would I tell you where it is? And second, I sent no such—”
As a gentleman, I do not believe in cussing as a rule. Then there are those moments in life when simple words cannot express one’s emotions. This is one of those moments. “Fuck.” I fell for it again. “Everybody run! It’s a trap.” Tucking Baby Nice under my arm like a football, I dash to grab Stella before whatever trap this is explodes.
“Uh…who are you?” Lula’s worried voice echoes in the room.
I look over my shoulder, and there, blocking the doorway, is an old woman with gray hair tied up into a sloppy bun. She has thick reading glasses strung around her neck, and she’s wearing a beige threadbare sweater with a knee-length skirt. I’ve never seen her before, yet everything about her is familiar—right down to the big brown eyes and determined pucker on her lips. That crossbow pointed at Freddy also rings a bell.
“You must be the assassin who has been hunting our king,” I say, staying in character. Then it dawns on me how I know the woman. When I was manning Miriam’s library, during those years that Nice held her captive, this woman came by the library a few times asking for Miriam. She even invited me to some Fanged Love reading group parties. At the time, she had dark hair and wore large sunglasses and a muumuu, but I’m sure it was her. Must’ve been a disguise. And now that I can see her face clearly, she looks like a much
