There was something so damn sweet about that, it made me want to cry. Again. I swallowed the impulse. “You don’t know the half of it,” I said.
This time, when he looked up, his gaze actually made it to my face. And stayed there. “I’m guessing that means bad.”
“Oh, whole new definitions of bad. But you don’t want to hear about that.”
“You’d tell me if I was a friend, right? And not just some guy whose door you randomly knocked on in the middle of the night?”
I thought about Jane, poor sweet Jane, my best and only real friend. Trent and Guy, who probably had been destined for nothing but still had been, for tonight at least, my buds. “I’m not so good for my friends,” I said. “Maybe we ought to just call you a really nice stranger.” I took a deep breath. “I lost three people tonight, and it was my fault.”
He kept looking at me. Really looking. It was a little bit hot, and a little bit disconcerting. “Then would you talk to a really nice stranger about it? For—” He checked his watch. “Forty minutes? I need to leave, but I want you to be okay before I do.”
It only took thirty minutes to tell him about the Life and Times of Me, actually. Michael didn’t say very much, and I felt so tired afterward that I hardly knew it when he got up and went into the kitchen. I must have dozed off a little, because when I woke up, he was kneeling next to my chair, and he had a chocolate brownie on a plate. With a semimelted pink candle sputtering away on top.
“It’s a leftover,” he warned me. “It was crap in the first place, so I don’t know how good it is. But happy birthday, anyway. I promise you, things will get better.”
I had news for him. They just had.
When the sun came up, I’d have a whole new set of problems. Not the least of which would be finding a workplace not afraid to hire a girl with serious vampire relations issues and a wardrobe that leaned toward the macabre.
But for now?
I took a bite of brownie, smiled at my new housemate, and celebrated my freedom.
The Witch and the Wicked
Jeanne C. Stein
Jeanne C. Stein is the author of the Anna Strong series, the first of which, The Becoming, was released in December 2006. The second book, Blood Drive, was published in July. She lives in Colorado, where, when not working on her novels, she edits a newsletter for a beer importer and takes kickboxing classes to stay in shape. She can be reached through her website, www.jeannestein.com.
The idea came to Sophie during Jonathon Deveraux’s one hundred fiftieth birthday party.
She was not there as a guest, of course. Witches are seldom invited to vampire functions, their magics dismissed as parlor tricks to amuse the masses. No, she was catering the event. Her business, Weird and Wonderful Catering (voted number one in the latest Supernatural Hot Ticket poll as the caterer for that special event), made her the only choice for a party of this scope and magnitude. For the moment, at least, her questionable heritage as a witch was forgotten.
Sophie blew on the tip of her finger and muttered, “Extinguishé.”
The small lick of flame sputtered and died. She waved her hand in the air in a vaguely distracted way, looking down at the cake and its many candles.
“Damn vamps,” she said to no one in particular. Well, to no one at all, really, since she was alone in the room. Still, that didn’t stop her from rambling on. “Why did I agree to this? I almost burned my finger off lighting all those damned candles.”
She turned from the table with a rustle of silk, her long burgundy skirt swirling around her legs. She wasn’t an old witch, as witches go. Only eighty years. Her back was still straight, her dark hair barely touched with gray. She didn’t look a day over forty, really. Good genes. And even better cosmetics, most of her own making.
She blew again on her smarting fingertip. She ought to pursue that—marketing her own line of fine cosmetics—instead of this thankless occupation. Caterers were underpaid, overworked, and generally ignored. Unless something went wrong. Then they became the center of unwanted and often perilous attention.
Especially with her unique clientele.
The door to the kitchen swung open. “Are you ready with the cake, Sophie?”
The question was asked in an eager, breathless way by a woman who looked twenty but whom Sophie suspected might be a little older, though certainly not by much. With vampires it was hard to tell. The woman standing in front of Sophie was confident, beautiful, and wife to a distinguished vampire. She was dressed to the nines in a designer gown with jewels that flashed at her neck and ears. Rumor had it that Mr. Deveraux turned her on their wedding night, and that was only six months ago. Now here she was, acting every bit the mistress of the manor.
Sophie swallowed a wave of envy and said, “Yes, ma’am. Would you like me to bring it in?”
“Oh, I want to do it.” The woman’s face glowed with anticipation. “Jonathon will be so surprised.”
Sophie frowned. “You must be careful, Mrs. Deveraux,” she said. “There are one hundred fifty burning candles on this cake. If your dress brushes against even one of them—”
Her concern was flicked away with the back of a bejeweled hand. “Don’t worry. I know how to be careful around fire. This is my surprise and I want to deliver it.”
Sophie stepped back from the table. “As you wish.”
The woman took her place behind a tea cart bearing the huge tower of a cake. Sophie held open the door, careful to keep her own dress and hair out of the path of the blazing birthday tribute. The air fairly shimmered from the heat and glare of the candles. Why a vampire, especially such an old one, wanted candles on his cake was a mystery to her. One spark and he would burst into flame like an old Christmas tree.
Sophie hadn’t met Jonathon Deveraux, tonight’s guest of honor, but she had seen a picture of him, a portrait hanging over the fireplace, when she came to finalize the party arrangements. He was a tall, good-looking man who must have been turned in his thirties because his face was unlined, his hair dark and thick. That it was a contemporary portrait was borne out by his clothing, a casual shirt and linen slacks, and a backdrop of the stables here on the property. It was just an impression, the feeling that this was not a man who would have indulged in such a pretentious birthday display as one hundred fifty burning candles. No, Sophie thought, this must have been the idea of his vacuous new wife, too recently turned to know the danger.
Oh, well. Sophie looked at the mountain of cake pans and utensils stacked in the sink. Not her problem. Time to clean up.
She waved a hand. “Lavàto.”
The dishes arranged and rearranged themselves, moving from a sink of soapy water to another of clear running water and then onto a rack to be dried by a gentle stream of warm air. From the rack, they floated to the proper shelves in the cupboard or into silverware drawers. All done in the whisk of a cat’s tail.
For the first time this evening, Sophie could relax. The cake was done, the kitchen in order. She had nothing to do now but wait for the festivities to be over. In reality, a vampire party was the easiest of all supernatural functions to cater. Vampires didn’t require food. But they did like to impress each other with flashy displays, like the birthday cake. She found her biggest challenge for a vampire party was coming up with novel ways to serve blood. Like real Bloody Marys (finding thirty women named Mary to donate blood was no easy feat!). Tonight she had gone to great lengths to find something really special—a case of vintage Rothschild taken from actual Rothschilds. She hoped the guest of honor appreciated the effort, since he was paying for it. But like most rich vampires, and their condescending wives, he would most likely take the gesture for granted along with the witch who provided it.