Chapter 3 #2
“Just listen, will you?” Barry sped up, looking to get the entire spiel out before she lost interest—or took offense. “He circled around to the offer again; he’ll pay just to meet you. Your record means that even if you’re not exactly what he’s after, he’d still like to talk—”
“Barry.” Simone heard the bitchy little warning note to her own voice, and for once didn’t feel bad about it. “You really shouldn’t be bragging to this rich nutjob about your friend Jane and her vampirism infection.”
“We both know Jane’s not your real name.
” Barry dead-eyed the camera, probably fancying his expression a variety of fearsome glare.
He looked about as dangerous as a narcoleptic prairie dog.
“And your, again, unique set of skills means you’ve cleared more bounties alone than most pro teams do without fifty percent casualties at best. But since you’re asking, I’ve kept several of your personal details out of it because I’m not a sleaze, for fucksake. ”
“No, you’re a real prince.” Simone mulled over whether prairie dogs could indeed be considered dangerous—they were rodents, so the biting had to be taken into consideration. It was the kind of question the internet had been created to answer.
How the world had changed since her childhood. She might look younger, but inside she was creaky and dusty as an abandoned farmhouse.
“The guy’ll put down serious cash just for a meet,” Barry persisted. “That’s all, an hour of your time, anywhere in the continental US. He’s legit, and he’s looking for a cure.”
For a moment Simone couldn’t believe her new super-sharp, tinnitus-free ears had just relayed something so nonsensical. “What, he got bit too?”
“No, no, not like that. He’s a literal billionaire, man.
” His bloodshot eyes lit up—he’d probably been waiting for her call-in, poor guy, knowing she was on the trail of at least one active infestation somewhere west of the Mississippi.
“Got a whole lab up in the Rockies near Aspen, hush-hush, and could be government involved.”
That sounds like a conspiracy theory. Or a really bad B movie, take your pick. Simone shook her head, hair sliding over her shoulders; getting out of her work ponytail was a wonderful event each evening. “If he’s got all this juice and government help, why isn’t there a cure yet?”
“Well, most va—ah, most bloodsuckers seem to be really into it, you know? But for those, you know, like you…”
The Simone on her screen now had narrowed eyes, and she was glad her resting bitchface was holding up.
In fact, it seemed to have gotten a lot better since infection, which was a blessing since she looked so much younger now.
“What gave you the idea I wasn’t into being a bloodsucking monster, Barry? ”
Not that she was, but so much of surviving in this line of work was putting up a fuck-you front. Showing any weakness was a no-no, even to so inoffensive a male specimen as this.
“Come on, Jane.” Barry was flat-out wheedling now. Plenty of his job was dealing with touchy male hunter egos, and it showed. “Just meet the guy, show him you’re the real deal. That’s all he’s asking.”
More than I’m willing to give for free. “And I suppose he’s paying after thirty days?”
“Nope.” A shit-eating grin stretched his lips now. And it was official, Barry Jessup looked like a cat with a tummy stuffed full of canary. “Up front, once you commit to time and place.”
“How much?” Another thing good girls weren’t supposed to do—drive a hard bargain.
But being middle-aged on the inside was a goddamn blessing, Simone thought; it gave a woman that most valuable twofer, experience and perspective.
Almost a shame the magic only happened once men started finding you invisible or unfuckable.
He gave a number, and Simone laughed.
In fact, she damn near howled. A cascade of chuckles almost shook her out of the bench, the entire RV rocking a bit, candleflames shivering on their wicks.
“Nice one,” she finally managed, wiping theatrically at her smooth, bone-dry cheeks.
“Oh, Jesus. You really had me going for a second, Barry. Whew.”
“I’m not joking.” Now it was his turn to scowl—the canary had attempted an escape from digestion, maybe. “That’s after my commission, by the way.”
Oh, Lord. Simone’s smile stayed fixed, though she wasn’t feeling very humorous at the moment. “Yeah, and if you believe that—”
“A vampire is gonna lecture me about believability?” The scowl was back; Barry’s forehead puckered like a piece of cloth run the wrong way through a cheap sewing machine.
“I fucking checked this motherfucker out from tits to balls, Janie. He’s for real, and he just wants to meet you.
Maybe he gets off on talking to monsters, I dunno. ”
A low blow, but she probably deserved it. And Barry hardly ever called her Janie; neither of them liked to be anything but businesslike.
It was just better that way.
“Maybe he does,” she agreed, before the silence could get awkward. “I’ll think about it, once the bounty for this most recent escapade hits my account. Clock’s ticking, my man.” And she hung up without further niceties or polite little fictions.
A dick move? Maybe. But also incredibly liberating.
Closing the laptop afterward was anticlimactic.
So was heading to the step for what she still thought of as a smoke break, despite shedding any and all nicotine habit when she left college—along with drive-in movie dates and reading a book per week.
She ought to get back into that last one. If vampires lived as long as folklore said, she’d have plenty of time to absorb all the literature Curt always sneered at, plus any romance novel or spy thriller which caught her fancy as well.
All she had to do was decide. Maybe even audiobooks, since plenty of her time was spent driving.
It was a beautiful night. The stars no longer looked quite so menacing and the wind was full of subtle beauty, its fingers playfully combing long grass in seawave ripples before touching her loose, messy hair.
This was her very favorite part of the working day, never mind that she’d probably never see the sun again.
Not unless she started to go murder-crazy, that was. Would she have the strength of will to off herself before she was a danger to others?
“Fuck,” she said, drawing out the word long and soft. The night listened, as if it cared what she thought about anything; the feeling was immediate, not quite unwelcome, and downright unnerving.
What if there was a cure? Examining the idea from several different angles returned the depressing verdict that the government would probably suppress news of that miracle even if they didn’t start trying to make vampire soldiers, just like they suppressed news reports about the monsters preying on humanity.
One argument in the online forums was that regular people didn’t want to know, and the interests of public peace required not peeling up the carpet to see the bloodstain squirming with maggots underneath.
Others thought the governing bodies themselves were either full of monsters or beholden to them, which was either paranoia par excellance or par for the course.
Either way, Simone had decided, it amounted to the same thing.
A difference which made no difference, so to speak.
Game it out a little more. Subtracting government from the equation left a rich man—always one of the worst monsters in history, needing no help from any myth or folklore.
This shady billionaire was probably looking for a way to weaponize the whole bloodsucking deal, not to mention seeing if the vamp-blood cure for shot knees, tinnitus, astigmatism, or several other run-of-the-mill medical annoyances could be made to turn a profit.
Wouldn’t one of the bloodsuckers have figured out a way to reverse vampirism by now, if it were possible? But they all seemed to go psycho instead.
Why didn’t she? Or was she just living on borrowed time? Still, if she attended the meet carefully, after receiving even half the number Barry had given…
“Might be a good idea,” she told herself. “No harm in trying, I suppose.”
The dirty yellow taste of a lie lingered in her mouth.
Any pleasure in watching the sky and listening to the wind’s low wandering song was soured by her own conscience as well as that persistent, unsettling sense of being watched.
Her sharp vampire senses caught nothing wrong, not a hair out of place in the vast panorama of sky, grass sea, and distant dark mountains; the sensation was atavistic, not to mention creepifying.
Maybe she really was beginning to go down Psycho Lane. There was no way to confirm just yet.
She barely needed the clock in her bones to announce dawn wasn’t far off.
The metallic note of deepest darkness had leached from the wind’s back, and now moving air held the subtle promise of another late-summer day creeping for the horizon.
At least she was relatively safe during sunlight hours, with very little danger of a nosy sheriff wandering by.
Finding good parking was an art she was well-practiced in by now.
Fuck it. She bounced to her feet, climbed back into her approximation of a home—better than the cushy ranch-style she’d shared with Curt, since it was completely hers, no matter how tacky—and embarked on the familiar ritual of getting ready for bed.
It wasn’t as soothing as usual, but that was to be expected.