Wanted: Undead or Alive

Another Shirt Bites The Dust

"You're very pretty, too." When he swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. "And your tears taste like..."

I waited, but he never finished his sentence. He stood and held out his hands, and when I took them, he helped me to my feet. Rather than release my hands, he turned them palm up, studied them, and then brushed his thumbs over the tiny scrapes and cuts. They vanished. He swallowed so hard I heard it. "You are not qualified to do this work," he said. "You haven't been trained or educated. Your only skills appear to be good instincts and fantastic luck. This concerns me, but you're in this now."

He met my gaze with his fantastic, electric eyes. "You have proven yourself worthy."

My mouth opened up to say something because it was used to moving a bit faster than my brain, but Nick stopped me.

"Come." Holding my hand, he walked up the ramp with me and into the dim twilight before the dawn. He opened the door of my Chevy, still waiting in the Walmart parking lot, and tucked me inside. "Go home and rest. When you're ready, come back and we'll brief you."

With my gritty, post-sobfest eyes, I watched him stroll back inside and then I sat there with my hands on the steering wheel, staring out the windshield. Every detail of the world took on sharp edges. A dog barked, blocks away, and a motorcycle engine screamed. The faint tang of marijuana hung in the air, carried on the wind from the nearby apartment buildings. My heart pounded in my chest, not frantic, but slow and steady and fierce.

When I turned the key, the car hesitated for a moment, but it started. Following the speed limit exactly, I arrived at the coffee shop just as the first pink of the sunrise touched the horizon. Lights glowed in the upstairs windows. Any minute, Drake would come downstairs and start the morning shift.

I parked across the street, not in front of the fire hydrant. No reason to draw unnecessary police attention. The green wooden door between the edge of the shop's glass windows and the yoga studio's wall was never locked. I opened it, climbed the steps, and knocked on the apartment door.

Drake answered with wet hair dangling around his shoulders and a towel around his waist.

"Livie? What's wrong?"

"I need..." What did I need? I looked back toward the lower exit. I thought of demons exploding into dust, and snarling vampire heads snapping their teeth in my direction, and Nick's naked torso, and I tried again. "I need..."

A lazy smile that had knocked the panties off more than one woman spread across Drake's face. He nodded. "I've got the cure for that. Come on in, darlin'."

One step inside the door, he divested me of my shirt and bra.

I yanked the towel off him and pushed him back into a kitchen chair. My shoes and jeans went flying, and then I took what I needed.

Half an hour later, Drake was not getting ready to open the restaurant. He was lying on the living room floor, covered in sweat, and grinning from ear to ear. "Not that I'm complaining, mind. I understand you had needs and I'm nothing if not a willing, helpful guy, but aren't you supposed to be at work?"

"Shoot!" I jumped up and started looking for what was left of my clothes. My shirt was in two pieces. The clasp on my bra had broken. This was par for the course after a tryst with Mandrake. He was a boob man, through and through. I'd never figured out why he was so fascinated by my chest. Having been raised by hippies who routinely lounged about the yard nakedand invited their friends to do the same, I knew for a fact he'd grown up seeing boobs far more interesting than mine. "Can I borrow a shirt?"

He gestured to the bedroom, and I ran and snatched whatever was on top of the pile.

"That's some next-level needing, to just walk out on your job like that," he said.

"There's more to the story." I hopped around, trying to get both legs all the way into my jeans. The envelope Nick had given me fell from the pocket. Twenties spilled across the carpet.

Drake sat up and gave a low whistle. "So much more, I'm thinking. You rob a bank or something?"

I snatched one sneaker out from under the coffee table and went in search of the other. "It's complicated."

"Right." He stood and sauntered over to the dining room table to get my other shoe and hand it to me. "You should come back this afternoon. Tell me about it. Let me make sure your need doesn't build up like that again."

With my shoes on, I scooped my money up and kissed him on the cheek. "Thanks for being my friend, Drake."

He grabbed me and kissed me on the mouth until I almost forgot I was supposed to be hurrying. My legs got a bit wobbly. Funny little warm spots unfurled in my belly and lower. Then he pulled back and said, "I am so much more than a friend."

I staggered away from him, ran out to my car, and raced through the early morning traffic toward the hotel.

My manager's car was parked in my usual spot.

Well, this is not good.