Demon Song

agreed and hadn’t even given me one of her veiled admonishments about time management or consideration for others. That meant it was pretty serious.

I was praying under my breath as I approached the guard station that the person handling the gate was anyone but Gerry.

No such luck.

He opened the door to the tiny shack and put out a hand for me to stop. I hadn’t talked to him since the whole Eirene thing. I had no doubt it was going to be awkward at best. He’d been head of security until he went berserk on me after the trial. Then he’d been demoted back to gate jockey. But maybe if we both pretended it never happened, we could eventually heal. I was at least willing to give it a try.

I rolled down the window. The sun was low enough on the horizon that it stung. I leaned my head backward as casually as possible to stay in the shade. “Afternoon, Gerry. Dr. Talbert is expecting me.”

There was a long enough pause that I was forced to look at his face. His lips were a tight line and I could swear I could hear him grinding his teeth. “Celia…” The way he said it made my discomfort rise.

“Look, Gerry. You don’t have to apologize. I understand you were being manipulated. It wasn’t—”

“Apologize?” The outrage in that one word made every nerve in my body stand at attention. “Apologize to you?” He lowered his voice to a hiss. “You’re a damned vampire. You’re undead evil and should have a stake driven through your heart right before your head gets chopped off.” My jaw dropped just like Gran’s had at the jail. “I wasn’t being manipulated. I volunteered to help put you down. I’ll do it again if I get the chance.”

Excuse me? Did I actually hear that? “Did you just threaten to murder me? I could have you arrested for that. I’m not undead. Your own security footage will convict you.”

He leered at me with a maniacal expression. “I turned off the tape.”

I opened the car door in a rush and slammed him back against the guardhouse door. Keeping the pressure on his body with my admittedly supernatural strength, I stepped out into the full sun. It made me feel a little sweaty, but the sunscreen was still doing its thing. Gerry squirmed and swore to no avail. “Do I look dead to you?” I reached out and grabbed the massive silver cross he always wore over his blue tie and clutched it tight in my bare hand. No smoke, no smell of burning flesh. For me, no pain. Gerry’s eyes went wide as I released the cross and held up my hand. “Either I’m still a human who just has a bad overbite or you’re not a true believer.…”

He couldn’t move his arms, so I reached through the guard shack’s window and pushed the button for the gate. As it swung open I got back into my car. Gerry was still remembering how to breathe as I put the car in gear. “I suggest you spend a little more time reading the Bible. Follow the Golden Rule and do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Because believe me when I say that if you try to carry through on that threat, I’ll be doing unto all over your ass.”

I wanted to bare my fangs. The approaching sunset was making me twitchy. But I had better things to do with my time than give him the satisfaction of doing exactly what he expected me to do. Instead, I stepped on the gas and the Miata shot through the opening gates when they were open barely wide enough to avoid scratching the paint.

Gwen stepped out of the administration building just as I brought the car to a stop with a squeak of the tires. She was accompanied by someone I presumed was one of the security staff. It occurred to me that without sound the security footage would make it look like I’d attacked Gerry. I was surprised there weren’t a dozen guards with rifles and crossbows leveled at my chest right now. Hell, maybe there were and I just couldn’t see them.

I was still seething, but I’d slammed a nutrition shake on the way up the long, winding drive. Hopefully, with the edge off my hunger I’d just appear frustrated and not lethal. Gwen’s arms were crossed over her chest and her brows were raised. “Would you care to explain yourself?”

I was not going to apologize. I wasn’t the bad guy here. Even better, I recognized the man with her, Jesse Garcia. He was the facility’s truthteller. He’d listen to my story—and Gerry’s—using his magical intuition and then report to the security staff about what had really happened. He was a dozen times more powerful than any lie detector. He’d know which of us was telling the truth, or what combination of facts represented the truth. “I actually thought I handled that pretty well, considering the provocation. He ought to get fired for what he said to me, or at least reprimanded. He threatened my life. I could call the D.A.”

“He threatened you?” Now Gwen’s face showed confusion, and her body language changed.

I repeated the whole conversation for her as we walked into the building. Her whole body went rigid when I got to the part about doing it again. She looked at Jesse; his brows were raised, lips pursed as though tasting the truth of my story.

After a long moment, he nodded. “I’ll be going down to the gate now, and I think there should be several armed officers with me, ma’am.”

Gwen let out a sound that was as close to a growl as a refined professional woman in charge of a large facility could allow herself. Then she turned to me in full sight and hearing of Jesse. “Celia, on behalf of the administration and the owners of Birchwoods, please accept my apology for that … serious breach of protocol. I assure you that guard will be terminated.”

The part of me that was insulted and hurt would be happy to have Gerry fired on the spot. But the other part of my brain made me let out a sigh. “You can’t stop people from being prejudiced. All you can do is make it painful for them to say out loud what they really believe. If you fire him, it’ll be all my fault and he’ll never rest until he puts me in a grave. I never did a thing to hurt Gerry and it really bugs me that being attacked and nearly killed has somehow made me his enemy. It sucks, Gwen; it really does.” That was an understatement. Gerry’s reaction brought home every emotion I’d bottled up since I was attacked. I was a vampire now. Evil. Undead.

Damn it.

Maybe she saw that when she stared into my eyes. I looked away first. “Go ahead and discipline him. Dock his pay or give him a tail chewing. But don’t fire him. Please. At least with a job he’ll be busy most of the day and won’t have as much free time to spend trying to shove a stake through my heart.”

“Damn. You’re nicer than me,” Jesse said. “I’d have knocked him on his ass and then got him fired.”

Gwen reached out and touched my shoulder. To my credit, I didn’t flinch. “Celia Graves, you have turned into an amazing young woman. You’ve taken a difficult situation and, while I might suggest avoiding physical confrontation in the future, have handled it with grace. I’ll take your advice and be very certain that Gerry knows it was only because of your plea for mercy that he still has a job.” Her eyes sparkled. There was a surprising amount of humor in her voice as she concluded, “That should keep him confused for quite a while.”

Jesse snorted. It was obvious he was on my side; I hoped he’d stay that way after he talked to Gerry. Jesse headed for the security office, probably to assemble the team he’d take down to the gate.

As Gwen and I walked down the quiet, carpeted hallway toward her office, I let out a deep breath. “So, now that I’m here, what did you need to see me about?”

“Let’s talk when we get to my office. For the moment, we’ll let our thoughts drift.”

Ah yes. I’d forgotten about the “thoughts drifting” thing. Gwen had always been big on the idea that solutions would come to us if we just allowed our minds to work, unhindered by emotion or intent. In a way, she was right. The twilight time between alertness and sleep was often when I got my best ideas or solved work problems that had confounded me for the whole day. There had been whole therapy sessions where we’d do nothing but stare at the walls, silent but touching hands or feet, to become “grounded and centered.”

I remembered one particular breakthrough that had happened during such a time. I’d been staring at a painting in Gwen’s office, a still life of a bottle next to a bowl of wax fruit. I’d blurted out a truth that still haunts me to this day: “Mom doesn’t even realize she’s hurting me, does she?”

Gwen’s response had been, “No, she doesn’t. How does that make you feel?”

I’d realized that just like Gran, I’d been enabling my mother’s behavior. I’d never told her that her drinking bothered me. I’d just stayed silently annoyed and resentful.

So I’d decided it was time to tell her.

Bad move. That was the part that still haunted me. It had been another breakthrough … of sorts.

A small part of me had hoped that once she knew, she’d turn away from the booze. I’d expected her to pick