I wanted to beg him to stay, but I couldn’t blame the guy for wanting to get home after a storm like this one. “Please don’t let us stop you. I’m so sorry you waited for us. We forgot our cell phone.”

“No, no problem. If you’re happy to pay, I’m happy to stay!”

“Seriously?” I brightened.

He waved a mitten dismissively. “I’ve seen worse storms. Besides, it’s your birthday,” he said to Sebastian. “You should do something nice. I know how it is; my birthday is on Thanksgiving. Do you even know how sick of turkey I am?”

We all laughed.

Then, to Sebastian I asked, “Are you up for it? Really? I’d understand if you just wanted to go home, too.”

Sebastian smiled. “Let’s stay. I’m starving.”

Though my dress had claw marks down the back, we had wine and pasta by candlelight and the place to ourselves. The cook pampered us with special sauces, fresh breadsticks and garlic butter, and tiramisu for two. Sebastian’s kisses tasted of fresh whipped cream and chocolate.

We walked to my apartment in the quiet, peaceful snow, hand in hand. At home, I gave him his birthday present—ironically, a part for his antique car that he’d been searching for—and a lot more.

“Still think you’re cursed?” I asked him, after.

Sebastian thought for a moment. “Let’s see, today we had our car break down, met some kind of storm demon who tried to kill us, and had fantastic pasta. Yes, I’m cursed,” he said. When I was about to protest, he put a finger on my lips. “But I also have you. That makes the whole thing bearable.”

And then he called me incorrigible again, and we laughed and kissed until dawn.

Vampire Hours

Elaine Viets

Elaine Viets is the author of two mystery series. Murder with Reservations is her sixth Dead-End Job novel. Her third Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper book, Accessory to Murder, will be out this fall. Elaine has won both the Anthony and Agatha Awards for her short stories. “Vampire Hours” is her first vampire story. She lives in Fort Lauderdale, across the water from a condo whose occupants were the inspiration for this story.

“It’s three o’clock in the morning, Katherine. Go to sleep.”

My husband, the surgeon. Eric barked orders even in the middle of the night.

“I can’t sleep,” I said.

“I have to be at the hospital in three hours. Turn off the light. And go see a doctor, will you? You’re a pain in the ass.”

Eric rolled away from me and pulled the pillow over his face.

I turned off the light. I felt like a disobedient child in my own home, as I listened to my husband of twenty-five years snore into his pillow. Eric could fall asleep anywhere, any time. Especially when he was in bed with me.

If I pushed his face into the pillow, could I smother him?

Probably not. Years of late-night emergency calls had given Eric an instant, unnatural alertness.

I lay alone on my side of the vast bed, stiff as a corpse in a coffin. My white negligee seemed more like a shroud than sexy sleepwear. My marriage to Eric was dead, and I knew it. I wanted him to love me, and hated myself for wanting a man so cold.

He wasn’t like that when we were first married. Then, he’d ripped off so many of my nightgowns, he’d bought me a thousand-dollar gift certificate at Victoria’s Secret. I’d model the latest addition and he’d rip it off again. Back then, he didn’t care if he had early surgery. We’d had wild, all-night sex.

A tear slipped down my cheek, and I cursed it. Tears came too easily these days, ever since menopause. “The change,” my mother had called it. Once, before I knew what those changes were, I’d looked forward to menopause. I wanted the monthly flow of blood to stop. I was tired of the bloat, the cramps, and the pain.

But the change was infinitely worse. Oh, the blood stopped, as promised. But nobody told me what would start: the weight gain, no matter how hard I dieted. How could I get fat on rice cakes and lettuce?

The change brought other changes. My skin started to sag along the jaw. The lines from my nose to my lips deepened into trenches. My neck looked like it belonged on a stewing hen.

And my husband, the old rooster, was chasing young chicks. I knew it, but I didn’t dare confront him. I’d seen what happened to my friends when they’d faced down their rich, powerful husbands. Elizabeth, courageous, I-won’t-stand-for-this Elizabeth, had been destroyed. She’d caught Zack, her husband of thirty years, groping some not-so-sweet young thing in the dim lights of the local bar. Elizabeth had fearlessly confronted Zack on the spot. She’d embarrassed him in front of his backslapping cronies.

Good old Zack hired a pinstriped shark—one of his bar buddies. Now the elegant Elizabeth lived in a cramped hotbox of an apartment, with a cat and a rattling air conditioner. She worked as a checker at the supermarket and barely made the rent. Elizabeth was on her feet all day and had the varicose veins to prove it.

I’d taken her out to a dreary lunch last month. I’d wanted to do something nice. We went to the club, where we’d always lunched in the old days, when she was still a member. Some of our friends didn’t recognize her. Poor Elizabeth, with her home-permed hair and unwaxed eyebrows, looked older than her mother. She was so exhausted, she could hardly keep up a conversation.

That same fate awaited me. I had to stall as long as I could, until I could figure out what to do with my life. If Eric dumped me now, I’d be at the supermarket asking my former friends, “Would you like paper or plastic?”

I’d be one more useless, used-up, middle-aged woman.

I was already. In seven days, I’ll be fifty-five years old. My future had never looked bleaker. I had no money and no job skills. My husband didn’t love me anymore. Happy birthday, Katherine.

“Lie still,” Eric snarled. “Quit twitching.”

I didn’t think I’d moved. Maybe Eric felt my inner restlessness. Maybe we were still connected enough for that.

But I couldn’t lie there another moment. Not even to save myself. I slid out of bed.

“Now what? Where are you going at this hour?” Eric demanded.

“I thought I’d get some fresh air. I’m going for a walk.”

Eric sat straight up, his gray hair wild, his long surgeon’s hands clutching the sheet to his hairy chest. “Are you crazy? You want to go outside in the middle of the night? After that woman was murdered two streets away?”

“People get murdered all the time in Fort Lauderdale,” I said.

“Not like that. Some freak drained her blood. They didn’t put that little detail in the papers. The city commission wants to avoid scaring the tourists. Dave at the medical examiner’s office told me. That woman hardly had a drop of blood left in her. She went for a walk at three in the morning and turned up drained dry. For Chrissakes, use your head.”

“All right,” I said. “I’ll sit on the balcony. I didn’t want to wake you.”

I put on my peignoir and padded into the living room. I never tired of the view from our condo. To the east was the dark, endless expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, lit by ancient stars. Straight down were the black waters of the Intracoastal. Across the little canal that ran alongside our building were the Dark Harbor condos. Those places started at three million dollars. But it wasn’t the money that fascinated me. Florida had lots of expensive condos. There was something about Dark Harbor. Something mysterious. Exciting. Exotic. Even at three in the morning.

I slid open the glass doors, careful not to make a sound. The warm night air caressed my cheek. I loved the night. Always had. Moon glow was kinder than the harsh Florida sun. I could hear the water softly lapping at the pilings on the dock, seven stories below.

Laughter drifted across the water, and the faint sounds of a chanteuse singing something in French. It was an old Édith Piaf song of love and loss.