Romancing the Dead

Tate Hallaway




1.Sun The masculine principle, husband, or men in general Could I really see myself married to a ... vampire? The diamond ring on my finger sparkled in the early morning light. My bicycle nearly ended up in the ditch more than once as my eyes kept straying to the golden band. Married? Me? It wasnt that I didn't love Sebastian. It had been easy to say yes, and Id meant it. But Sebastian was a vampire, and, well, neither of our lives was terribly conducive to marriage. I had a tendency to pick up and run in the middle of the night, although usually that was because I was being chased by Vatican assassins or the FBI or Voodoo Queens or because the Goddess I harbored in my belly had gone all destructo-wacko on somebody. Things had been calm for a few months now. In fact, Id started negotiations with the owner of the occult bookstore I manage, Mercury Crossing, to buy him out with whatever loans and spare change I could patch together. I guess that must have gotten Sebastian thinking about settling. Settling! Did I mention he's a vampire? My mind continued to try to wrap itself around the idea of the white dress when some kind of wild dog jumped out of the ditch. Okay, actually, it was just sitting there on the side of the road, munching on the road-killed remains of Bambi's mom, but seeing it made me nearly fall off the seat of my bike. At first I thought it had to be a wolf, except the animal was too mangy and too leggy. As it hunched over the deer carcass, its chin dripped with blood. Our eyes met and I had that freakish feeling of a keen intelligence behind the glittering alien, inhuman gaze.So I did what any Witch who harbored the dark Goddess Lilith within her would do; I shrieked like a girl.Argh! Go away, you big, scary thing! Run! Scat! I pedaled like a maniac, waved my arms, and tried to think bigger, threatening animal thoughts, instead of I-could-totally-be-eaten ones.The wolf, or whatever it was, cocked its head at me as though it thought I was the biggest dork in central Wisconsin. Then it padded into the cornfield.At least my close encounter with the wild kingdom got me thinking about something other than Sebastian for at least two or three minutes. But once my heart rate had settled to normal, it shot back up again.Are there wolves in Wisconsin? Maybe, but was I really ready for marriage?The sun beat down on the concrete mercilessly, and it wasnt even eight a.m. yet. Sweat slicked my arms and my legs. Hopping off my bike, I leaned it against the cast-iron fencing around a scrub oak, not bothering to lock it.Im sure there are plenty of bike thieves in Madison, Wisconsin, but State Street, where my bookstore Mercury Crossing is located, has a kind of hippy sensibility. Id actually had my bike stolen once . . . and returned. I only knew it had been taken because the lock was broken and very carefully replaced.Having my bike borrowed was one of the reasons I loved Madison. That and the fact that no one even gave me more than a cursory glance in my bright bloodred mini and black, sparkling halter top. I wore spiderweb tights and black Converse high-tops. My hair was a mess of short, dyed-black spikes. I passed a guy in a suit, maybe even a politician, on his way up to the capitol building, and he gave me the nod of stranger-small-town greeting.I loved this town.Could I see myself living here as a married woman? I chewed on my lip. Id think about that later. Right now I had a shop to run.Hey, William said with a bright smile. Raise your right hand!I slowly raised my hand, confused. Id been shelving the discounted remaindered Wiccan books in the used section when William bounded up.William had been my friend since I started work at Mercury Crossing. Hed recovered nicely from having been possessed by his former girlfriend, the Voodoo Queen. Youd think William might have considered giving up on his constant search for true religion, given that several of the ones hed found jumped up and bit him in the butt. But, like our friendship, William was remarkably resilient. In fact, our friendship hardly faltered despite the fact that he had tried to kill me; and William went on to try an online UFO cult the very next day.Speaking of which, I couldnt tell what religion William was into today; he looked fairly normal. His mouse-brown hair hung in lanky curls to his shoulders and his round John Lennon glasses perched on the end of his nose. He wore a basic brown shirt, slacks . .