Chapter 43 The Vampires Can’t Tell Time Trope
Wayne Jarvis’s threat to destroy the house “as soon as possible” stretched longer than he’d likely intended. As it happened, the crane operator the city contracted with happened to be occupied on a job in a nearby town.
ASAP turned into the following week. Then, when he got back from knocking down someone else’s dreams in whereverville, Wayne caught a vile cold and couldn’t knock down the inn.
Radiance would live for at least another week, probably longer because his cold was about to extend into the holidays and it’s not like he was going to work on Christmas.
“Could it be a Chrithmas miracle?” I wondered aloud.
Vlad looked around the house with a judgmental eye. “It’s still getting knocked down, so maybe.”
I gasped in horror. “Vlad!”
“Just kidding. I’ve grown quite attached to this place, but don’t delude yourself. It’s possible to live for years on death row, one mundane paperwork delay after another.”
Heaven walked in wearing a pair of painting overalls smattered in black paint. If anyone was in denial, it was Heaven. She’d thrown herself into a series of feverish home repairs that were bound to conclude on the eve of destruction. She flashed a big smile.
“Being a vampire suits you,” Vlad complimented her.
“It does, doesn’t it?” She did a turn and flounced her hair. She’d taken out her pink and gold braids and was wearing it in an afro. “I feel so alive.”
The irony. She might not be talking about sunrise as much as before, but the light was still bursting forth from her soul. Her spirit was too strong.
“Death isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it’d be.”
“Give it a hundred years,” Vlad quipped.
Ignoring him, she said, “Now, I need you two to move your lazy asses or pick up a paintbrush.”
“Why do you persist with renovations?” I asked. “All of your improvements will be destroyed as soon as the crane operator gets back to work.”
“I’m a maker. I’m making things. Making this room beautiful, making content.
If it only lasts for a few days, oh well.
” She swiped a thick line of glossy black paint down the wall.
And then a few more, bringing to mind my Zen garden at Plasma4Life, except better.
Raking sand was one thing, but at the end of this project, I could be entombed in the blackness of my own living room.
“As a vampire, I think you would understand how an end makes something even more beautiful,” she said.
She had me there. “Fine.” I picked up a paintbrush.
Several days later, she had made a time-lapse video of all the home repairs.
In three short minutes, I watched as we (mostly she) painted the whole house, reupholstered some furniture, and rolled a piano into the living room. Bob installed wall sconces.
It was a short ’n’ sweet transformation of a decrepit inn into a home that fit a vampire: sumptuous, sensual, dark.