Lust for Life Read online

  “What do you mean, this Adrian guy is the ‘real deal’?”

  “I mean, he’s a bleedin’ flower child. If Jim is Altamont, Adrian is the Summer of Love.”

  I cringe inside at the name of my stalker and the violent incident she equates him with. Jim loved the sixties for its recklessness, not its idealism. He was one of that decade’s darkest children.

  I spy Lori heading for the front exit with David, her husband and WVMP general manager. She gives me a wave and a weak smile. Poor girl.

  I wave back, then turn to Regina. “So I guess we won’t be hearing a lot of Doors or Pink Floyd from Adrian.”

  “He’s more folk-rock.” She examines the pointy end of one of her long black spikes of hair. “He’s still mad at Bob Dylan for going electric.”

  She might be kidding, but I laugh, anyway, mostly from relief, and the fervent hope that WVMP has finally left the DJ-Jim era behind. If the programming lineup can move on, so can I.

  Suddenly my laughter fades. Not because I’ve seen or heard or smelled something that stopped my breath. It’s a sense beyond senses, which in my more rational moments I don’t even believe in, because I don’t believe in much of anything.

  But now, as I turn toward the front door, where I know Shane will appear twenty minutes early, I believe.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Regina, in a tone that suggests she doesn’t care, though I know she does.

  I hand her my half-full bottle of beer. “Nothing’s wrong now.”

  Even in combat boots, my feet seem to float as I cross the room. The crowd parts a little, leaving me a path. Then it parts a lot, revealing Shane framed by the wide wooden doorway.

  I stop to drink him in as he searches for me. With his lithe form dressed from neck to toe in the black Control Enforcement uniform, he stands like a statue: a monument to badassery. Thick-soled, calf-high boots add even more height to his six-foot-five-inch frame.

  My sigh mixes desire with relief, at seeing him “alive” and well, and at the fact that they didn’t make him cut his hair. The light-brown, nape-length strands still frame his face, making the uniform look borrowed—or, better yet, stolen.

  When his pale blue eyes find mine, eight weeks of loneliness melt like snow on a sun-drenched road.

  We take a long step toward each other, but the crowd suddenly surges between us, pushed by a force at the other side of the bar.

  Stuart is shoving his way toward the stage, his tan-weathered face twisted with urgency. He speaks to Vince, who shuts off the music mid-song. The crowd goes silent and tense.

  Stuart takes the mic. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m gonna have to ask you to leave the bar calmly but quickly. Please walk to the nearest exit—do not stop for your coats—and once you’re out, get as far from the building as you can.” He pauses, jaw shifting as he mulls his next words. “Don’t panic, but a bomb threat’s been called in.”

  The fear scent of two hundred and fifty people hits me like a shot of pepper spray. I squeeze my eyes shut and stagger back. Everyone is screaming, even the guys. Terror pitches their voices into an eardrum-piercing octave.

  I slap my hands over my ears and struggle to open my eyes.

  “Ciara!”

  Shane’s voice breaks through the siren in my head. A watery glimpse shows him pushing through the crowd toward me, fighting the flow of fear and frenzy.

  I lurch forward, wanting to swipe aside the people between us like bowling pins. A woman dressed as Cher stomps on the ridge of my foot with a spiked heel.

  Shane, closer now, calls my name again. I put out my hand, but a crazed, um, person dressed as Boy George shoves me aside with the world’s pointiest elbow.

  I’m trapped by my superhuman strength, afraid to push these people for fear of shattering ribs and limbs. But instinct reminds me what’ll happen if I’m touched by fire or sun.

  I won’t scald, blister, or scar. I’ll disappear. After about ten shrieky, melty seconds, that is. If I burn like flash paper in front of all these people, the world will know vampires exist.

  “Ciara!” Shane pulls me tight to his side. “Don’t let go.”

  I let him lead me, my eyes shut against the sting of human fear. Someone to my left has literally pissed herself.

  Near the door, the panic and pressure grow as people sense that survival is close but not quite within their grasp. I focus on keeping myself and everyone around me upright. Please let the door open out instead of in.

  My foot hits something soft. I look down to see a hand, then behind me to see a body, stretched and inert. Its pale blue shirt is torn and scuffed.

  “Franklin!” I pull away from Shane and fight the crowd to stop in my tracks. It’s like trying to tread water in a rushing river.

  “Franklin, get up!” I tug at his wrist, then travel hand over hand up his arm like I’m climbing a rope, making my way to his shoulder.

  More feet stomp over his chest. I want to rip them off and leave these people bloody stumps for legs.

  Instead, I hunch over Franklin as I lift his upper body, shielding him with my less-breakable torso. His head lolls back on his neck.

  If I pick him up as easily as I can, I’ll be busted as supernatural, but I don’t care. There’s no time to ask for help just so I can pretend to be a weak human girl. I slip an arm beneath his knees and the other under his shoulders. Fighting the crowd’s own field of gravity, I stand up straight.

  Shane is there, looming in front of me. “Give him.”

  “No time. Just hold me up and push us forward.”

  The mass of flesh is thinning as the last wave of people squeezes out the door.

  A step from the threshold, it happens: a sudden shift in air pressure, lasting a millisecond, which to a vampire can seem like an eternity.

  A roar, a thrust of air, and the world begins to melt.

  2

  I Walk the Line

  “Ciara, wake up.” Shane’s voice is muffled, like he’s speaking through a wool scarf.

  A cool mist touches my cheek, and I hear the faint rush of water. I swipe it from my face, then realize I have hands with which to wipe. Hands with fully functional fingers, not melted stubs.

  I open my eyes to see the edge of a roof and, in the corner of my vision, a traffic light. A siren screams, piercing the cotton wall of my ringing ears.

  “There you are, thank God.” Shane’s face appears above me. The front of his uniform is shredded, revealing hints of unbroken flesh beneath.

  I touch his chest through one of the holes. “You’re okay?”

  “Yeah, we got thrown pretty hard, but we were lucky—the fire missed us. I carried you around the corner before the paramedics could see you.”

  “Franklin? Is he—”

  “He’ll be fine.” Shane helps me sit and lean against him. “They took him to the hospital for some bruises and burns, maybe a cracked rib, plus the concussion that knocked him out. You saved his life.”

  “Too bad he’s not in charge of payroll.” Ah, good, my quip powers are undamaged. “Did everyone else get out safe? And by ‘everyone else,’ I mean primarily our friends.”

  “The other DJs were first out the door. You know how quick vampires are, and how good at self-preservation. Regina grabbed Jeremy and his girlfriend. Some of the humans near the back where you were got burned pretty bad, but I haven’t, well, smelled any dead.”

  I look at his outfit, or what’s left of it. “I thought we weren’t supposed to wear our uniforms in public.”

  “It’s Halloween. I figured people would think it was a costume. Besides, I couldn’t wait to see you, not even long enough to change.” He leans in to kiss me.

  My phone rings, making me sigh with frustration. I pull it from my jacket pocket, marveling that it survived the impact against the concrete.

  “Ciara, thank God you’re okay!” Lori shouts. “Wait, this is Ciara, right? Not some bystander who grabbed her phone from the pile of clothes she left behind?”

  “Very
subtle, Lori.”

  “Sorry. David and I just got home. We heard it on the police scanner. For once I’m glad he’s started playing that thing every night before bed.”

  “That’s weirdly vigilant of him.” I wonder what prompted his sudden protectiveness.

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow night at the office. Wedding powwow, remember?”

  “Of course I remember! This time, don’t forget to bring the binder.”

  “Riiiight. I won’t.”

  “I’m so glad you’re all right. When I heard there was fire . . .” Lori makes a weird gulping noise. “I gotta go. Sick again. Sorry.”

  Blinking at the strobe of ambulance lights, I survey the chaos. Half a block away, flames lick the sky above the bar. Through the smoke I see police redirecting traffic, which obeys with only a few honks of protest.

  Stuart is stalking past the front of the Smoking Pig, face streaked with ash and sweat. He’s ranting at someone on his cell phone, maybe his insurance agent.

  He hangs up and strides down the street toward us. “You guys okay?” We’ve barely nodded when he erupts. “What is wrong with you people? This is the second time the Pig’s been firebombed during a WVMP gig. How can one radio station make so many enemies?”

  “Wait, Stuart.” Shane lays a hand on the bartender’s shoulder. “The bomber could’ve been after anyone at that party.”

  “They weren’t.” Stuart shrugs him off—no easy feat. “Whoever called the police to warn us said the bomber was out for revenge against WVMP.”

  “What’d we do n— I mean, we haven’t done anything.” Not in the last several months. “Did they say who they were?”

  “It was anonymous.” He catches himself and glances to both sides. “And I think I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone it was a threat against the station. So don’t spread it around until you hear the police announce it, okay?”

  I begin a mental list of enemies we’ve made. It’s a long one, but my mind latches onto the most recent addition: our former sixties DJ Jim, who was taken into Control custody after attacking and almost killing me and my sixteen-year-old cousin. Maybe he escaped, or has an ally on the outside.

  Stuart, Shane, and I watch the husk of wood and metal that was once the Smoking Pig collapse into rubble. It feels like somebody died.

  “If I ever rebuild this place again, I swear I’m changing the name.” Stuart gives a heavy sigh. “There’s the fire chief. I better go hear the bad news.” He shuffles off, a broken man.

  “You think it could be the Fortress again?” I ask Shane. “They did firebomb the Smoking Pig three Halloweens ago.” The religious cult that sprang from a schism in the Control seemed so pious on the surface, but they were secretly slaughtering vampires to “purify” themselves with undead blood.

  “It’s not their MO.” Shane rubs my back soothingly. “They threw a Molotov cocktail through the window after all the customers had gone home. That attack was a warning, but this”—he gestures to the wreckage—“this was terrorism. Whoever did this doesn’t care about the lives of vampires or humans.”

  Hmm. Jim was psychotic, but his targets were very specific. I can’t see him endangering innocent civilians in his rage.

  But who called in the warning? Was it the bomber’s accomplice, a fellow terrorist with a conscience?

  Shane breaks my sleuthy reverie. “Are you supposed to be Courtney Love?”

  I examine what’s left of my dress. “I think the bombing enhanced my costume.”

  “It’s perfect.” He lays an admiring glance on my torn stockings and combat boots, one of which was stripped of its laces. “You wore this for me?”

  I answer with a smile much too unironic for the woman I’m impersonating.

  “I love you.” Shane draws me close. “I missed you.” He kisses me with starving lips. One hand threads through my hair, his fingers lighting up the nerves all over my body.

  When we finally take a breath, he murmurs, “I’m not letting you out of my sight until we know who’s behind this attack. I know you like your independence, but—”

  “Shh.” I press my face to his neck, inhaling the mix of skin and smoke. Later I’ll be annoyed at his overprotectiveness and worry that the Control has turned him into a robot soldier. But for now I just want to be with him. Preferably naked.

  And after living without him for eight weeks—after almost going up in a whoosh of flame and fabric—independence is the last thing on my mind.

  • • •

  I lie in bed with Shane’s arms around me for the first time in two months. His sleep is light, since it’s only five a.m. My limbs are languid from lovemaking, but I don’t want to sleep. I want to imprint the feel of him upon every cell of my body and brain, dwell in this moment of gratitude.

  But his return, combined with my near death, takes me back to the night Jim attacked me, especially the moments after my maker Monroe staked him with a handful of pencils to save my life.

  Jim lay thrashing on the floor in agony. Like all vampires, he wouldn’t die until the stakes were pulled out and his body sucked itself through the wound. But we couldn’t finish the job—Jim had told me that he’d drunk my sixteen-year-old cousin Cass to the point of death. We needed him to bring her back as a vampire.

  Or so we thought. He lied about that, like so many other things. When Shane showed up a moment later, he knew Cass was nowhere near dead. He could’ve ended it all.

  But he didn’t. Halted by my misguided pleading to spare Jim’s life, Shane hesitated. That one moment of suspension was long enough for the Control agents to restrain Jim and take him away, still “alive” with a half dozen pencils through his heart.

  Jim remains in Control custody to this night (I called to confirm, eliminating him from our list of bombing suspects). No doubt they’re now studying him, a half-dead vampire, to see how much we can take without dying, studying our tolerance for pain. The thought of our former friend trapped in a Control lab hurts worse than the thought of him dead.

  I stroke the curve of Shane’s upper arm, feeling the contours of his triceps even at rest. His lashes flutter, then his pale blue eyes open, long enough to take in the room with one sweeping glance. He closes them again and pulls me closer to his chest. His hand splays over the inside of my left shoulder blade, as if to protect my heart against an assault from behind.

  Has the Control turned my easygoing grunge boy into a hypervigilant soldier? Or did Jim do that the moment he set his sights on me?

  And if it means I can survive, do I even mind?

  3

  Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows

  I’m a big fan of organization. I have to be, living with a vampire whose OCD-ness manifests itself in sorting. But the Brideosaurus rex binder is a bridge too far.

  “T minus six weeks!” Sitting beside me at her desk, Lori slaps open the lace-edged three-ring binder, then licks her finger and turns to our current to-do list. “Second fitting for your gown is scheduled for next Tuesday.” She glances at my figure. “At least we don’t have to worry about you changing weight before the wedding.”

  Lori went through all of this less than a year ago. I was her maid of honor but was fortunate enough to be away at Control orientation—Indoc, it’s officially called—for most of the final month. So I missed her bridal gown’s progressively more tearful second, third, and fourth fittings (Lori’s weight fluctuates when she’s stressed).

  When it came to the actual wedding, though . . . okay, I missed that, too, thanks to Jim killing my cousins a few minutes before we were supposed to walk down the aisle. He called a Code Black, which meant the rest of us vampires had to come help him “clean up” the evidence.

  The forsaken joys of Lori’s wedding—and the troubles our friendship endured when I was first turned—are my prime motivation for letting her micromanage my own ceremony and reception. That and the fact that she’s an excellent (and free) wedding planner.

  Sh
e pulls out another list. “These are the standard songs people usually dance to at receptions. I crossed out the father-daughter one but added an in-law dance so Shane can dance with your mom and she won’t feel left out. When he dances with his mom, you can dance with Monroe. Since your dad is . . .”

  “In federal prison. Right.” Monroe agreed to walk me down the aisle. I’m not crazy about the whole idea of being “given away” like a prize cow, but it seemed like a good maker-progeny bonding opportunity. Maybe it’ll keep me from crying over my rat-bastard father. I don’t usually miss him, but the bridal magazine father-daughter photos are getting to me.

  A knock comes at the station’s front door, which is locked from the inside to keep vampires safe. Even indirect sunlight will roast us, so we stay indoors until civil twilight, roughly half an hour after sunset and before sunrise.

  “It’s Franklin,” says someone who sounds a lot like Franklin.

  Since it’s nighttime, I open it wide. “You look like hell.”

  “Coming from you, that’s a compliment.” He winces as he climbs the last two stairs, leaning on the iron rail with the hand not holding a cup of takeout coffee. “By the way, fuck you for saving my life.”

  Coming from him, that’s a compliment. “You’re welcome. I expect a weekly donation of your best blood. Slightly chilled with a shot of vodka and a dash of Tabasco sauce. If it’s convenient.”

  He raises his middle finger as he shuffles away to his office. Lori flutters about him, concerned.

  “Franklin, you should’ve taken the whole day off. You need time to recover.”

  He eases himself into his desk chair with an audible grunt, sounding much older than his thirty-nine years. “Phoning a few advertisers isn’t exactly bricklaying.”

  She stops on the threshold to his office, where his gruffness creates a psychological barrier few dare to cross. “Couldn’t you call them from home in bed?”

  He looks past her at me. “I have other business.”

  I turn away before he can see my smile. He was checking up on me.

  “Did the FBI talk to you guys yet?” he asks us.