Chapter 19
When I get home, Liv is still asleep. I try to sleep as well, but after my night with Nick, I’m way too wound up. So after tossing and turning for a bit, I decide to burn off some excess energy by going for a run.
I pull open my bottom dresser drawer and start to reach for a long-sleeved tee, but then I stop myself. I just saw the incapacitated state of a vampire during the daytime hours with my own eyes. Clearly I’m not in any danger of discovery by my undead enemies. Not until dusk anyway.
But more than that, after being with Nick, I don’t feel like such a stranger in my own body anymore. I feel like I’ve taken ownership of this new shape, like it’s… me . And honestly? If I want Hollywood to stop expecting me to look a certain way, I really need to accept myself as I am, however I am.
I grab a pair of running shorts and a tank and put them on.
***
As I walk down Rose Avenue toward the beach, I feel the delicious warmth of the sun directly on my arms and legs for the first time in days. It makes me realize how much I’ve missed it, and I have to wonder if Nick misses it too. Does the fact that he’s living an eternal life make up for it being a strictly nocturnal one?
It dawns on me then—no pun intended—that Nick and I can never be together in the sunshine. But if we can be together at all? And share more nights like last night? The no-day-dating thing seems like a small concession to make.
With an undeniable bounce in my step, I pass the CVS and peer up at the Ballerina Clown sculpture suspended above it. I look at the sad-clown head perched atop its tutu-clad body, and I want to tell it to cheer up. If I managed to find this kind of happiness despite my dual nature, dammit, you can too.
I get to the beach path and start to stretch. My muscles are still a little sore from last night’s… activities , but I’m certainly not complaining. After a quick warm-up, I decide to head south into Venice.
Taking it easy at first, I follow the path along the Venice beachfront walk. It’s pretty early on a Sunday morning, so aside from a few bikers, power walkers, and runners like me, the normally bustling venue is mostly quiet. The funky boutiques, T-shirt shops, and CBD purveyors are still closed, their graffiti-covered metal doors pulled down and locked tightly over their storefronts.
I jog by a lone smoothie stand that’s open for business, then by a café where the workers are hosing off the outdoor dining area and setting up the tables and chairs.
Picking up my pace a little, I see a woman laying out macramé jewelry, displaying her handmade wares on a blanket spread out at the edge of the concrete walk. A few strides away, there’s a caricature artist also setting up for the day.
Pushing a little harder, I approach the Muscle Beach outdoor gym. Like the Ballerina Clown , it’s a true Venice landmark. For more than half a century, tourists have flocked to this open-air workout facility to watch some of the best bodybuilders in the world train.
At this early hour, there are no tourists. The metal bleachers around the gated gym are deserted. But the gym itself is buzzing with activity as a number of the facility’s muscular members put the weight lifting equipment to good use.
As I get a little closer, I notice that several of these bodybuilders are women.
Intrigued, I slow down. Then I watch from outside the gate, a little in awe, as one woman bench-presses what looks like an astronomical amount of weight while another woman spots her. The weight lifter’s muscles bulge, her tendons strain, and her skin glistens with sweat at the exertion. There’s a real beauty to this show of strength, a beauty I guess I’d never really considered before. At least not in connection with my own gender.
My gaze sweeps across the gym, surveying some of the other female weight lifters. I’m filled with admiration, but I also feel a twinge of guilt. After all, these women came by their muscles honestly. They earned them through hard work and discipline. On the other hand, I just woke up with mine.
“Are you looking for a trainer?”
I turn in the direction of the voice. One of the women, the weight lifter who just pressed all that weight, has come over to the gate where I’m standing. Probably in her early thirties, she has short-cropped dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Her black sports bra and boy shorts reveal acres of tanned skin stretched taut over sculpted muscles.
Sculpted by training.
Feeling like a giant impostor, I aimlessly kick the toe of my running shoe against the ground.
“No,” I say. “I can’t really afford a gym membership.”
I start to go.
“I’m not talking about that kind of training,” she says to my back.
I stop, turn around again. Her penetrating eyes meet mine.
And suddenly, I know . I know this is the slayer who’s been watching me, who took flight that night after observing Nick and me together on the beach.
“I’m Jenn,” she says, extending her hand to me over the gate. “Jenn Muldoon.”
“Carrie,” I say. “Carrie Adams.”
I shake her hand, and my head floods with question after question after question. Since the morning I woke up with inexplicable muscles and the uncanny ability to produce a flaming sword, I’ve been in the dark about, well, pretty much everything . But here, now, is someone who can shed a little light on things. Here, finally , is someone like me. Someone who can help me understand exactly what I am. And maybe give me some real tips for controlling it.
“Would you maybe have time to get a coffee or something?” I ask. “And talk?”
***
My new acquaintance and I hit the open smoothie stand and get a couple of protein shakes. Then we grab some seats in the empty bleachers overlooking the Muscle Beach gym.
“So…Jenn,” I say once we’re settled. “I guess you’re also a…you know…”
“Vampire slayer,” she confirms.
“Right. Vampire slayer.” I nod and take a sip of my drink. “And are there others like us?”
“There are others out there, for sure,” she says. “But I don’t know how many. I’ve only ever encountered one besides you. My mentor, James.”
“Is James here?” I ask, looking around. “Can I meet him too?”
Jenn’s expression turns grim. “No,” she says. “He made the ultimate sacrifice.”
It takes me a moment to get her meaning. “He died?”
She nods.
“I–I’m sorry,” I say.
Jenn shrugs. “It’s the risk we all live with.”
I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. This slay-or-be-slain thing really is no joke.
But I don’t want to dwell on that, not while I have a source of actual, honest-to-God information. I give her loss a few respectful beats of silence. Then I indicate the bodybuilders—some male, some female—still working out in the gym. “So none of them are slayers?”
Jenn shakes her head. “No,” she says. “They’re all just human.”
This touches on a subject that’s been bothering me for a while. “What about us?” I ask. “Are we still human too?”
She frowns, thinking. “Yes and no,” she says. “We’re not immortal, not like them .”
The way she says them , with such complete and utter contempt, makes me flinch a little. It must be her inner slayer breaking through. I drop a pin, figuring I’ll come back to that later.
“Slayers aren’t immune to aging or disease,” she continues to explain. “We have a normal human life span. But we’re not normal humans, obviously. I guess you could say we’re superhuman.”
Superhuman.
I take another draw on my straw and consider this.
“But you train here,” I say. “Is that because we need to work out to maintain our…uh…” Superhumanness? “Muscles?” I finally land on.
Jenn shakes her head again. “No. We could lie around and eat ice cream all day, and we’d still be just as strong, just as powerful.”
Her words give me pause. As someone who’s been carefully counting calories and measuring servings to be a certain body type, the thought of not having to ever do that to maintain this kind of a physique is pretty mind-blowing.
“But I like the challenge of working out,” says Jenn. “And the bodybuilding gives me a cover story. You know, a way to explain my muscles.” She raises her brows at me and gives me an intent look. “How are you explaining yours?”
I shrug. “Mostly, I hide them under baggy clothes.”
“But not today,” she says.
“No,” I say. I recall my night with Nick, remembering how wonderful it felt to have him look at my body, muscles and all. I can’t help but smile. “Not today.”
“Good,” says Jenn with a nod of approval. “Then you’re getting more comfortable with who you are.”
“I guess I am,” I say, still smiling.
“You’re embracing your power.”
I think about the way I stood up to my agent, to my ex. “I am,” I say. “I really am.” I take another sip of my protein shake.
“So you’ll be slaying your vampire soon,” she says.
I almost choke on my shake. I cough so hard it makes my eyes water.
Oh my God. Is she talking about killing Nick?
Just the thought has always been abhorrent to me, even before I got to know him. But now? After last night? It’s positively unthinkable.
It’s some time until I get the hacking under control and I’m able to breathe normally again.
“You okay?” asks Jenn.
I nod as I brush a stray tear away. “Yeah, I’m okay,” I say. I decide it’s time to revisit that pin I dropped. “But you kind of caught me off guard when you said that thing about my vampire. That was just your slayer talking, right?”
She gives me a confused look. “My slayer?”
“You know,” I say. “The voices in your head, the fire in your gut. Your slayer.”
“I don’t have a slayer,” she says slowly. “I am a slayer.”
Uh-oh. I’m not getting a good feeling about this.
“You don’t try to fight it?” I ask.
“Why would I?” She sits up straighter. “I save my fight for the ones who deserve it.”
All I can see in my head is Nick. “But what if they don’t deserve it?”
She peers at me, studying me for a bit. I watch as understanding dawns in her eyes. “Oh, I get it,” she says. “The first kill is the hardest.”
I gulp. First kill? As in more than one?
Am I sitting here casually drinking strawberry-banana smoothies with a multiple murderer?
“There won’t be a body, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she assures me.
I gape at her. “Excuse me?”
“There won’t be any evidence to connect you to a crime. Not that killing something that’s already dead is a crime. If your sword touches any part of them, they just dissolve into a pile of ash that you can sweep up and chuck in the dumpster. The universe has our backs.”
Oh. My. God.
I think about the past few nights with Nick, about how close I’ve probably come to reducing him to the ash that Jenn has just so callously described. I feel the blood drain from my face, and I can’t quite suppress my shudder.
“Jeez,” says Jenn, eyeing me. “You really are a squeamish one, aren’t you?”
Okay, so I guess I shouldn’t really be so shocked. I mean, we are vampire slayers after all. And that pretty much sums it up: we’re supposed to slay vampires. Plus, I know how compelling the impulses are. I know that once the fire of blind hatred starts to burn, it’s almost impossible to contain it.
Except it is possible to contain it. I know that too.
I try to pull myself together. “I just want to live my own life,” I tell her. “Not one that’s been forced on me.”
She shrugs. “You get used to it.”
“You get used to being a vampire-killing machine?” I demand.
She blinks, a little taken aback.
“You must’ve had a life before all this,” I say, pressing her. “Don’t you want to find a way back to it?”
I see something flash in her eyes then, and it’s not slayer rage. It comes and goes so quickly that it’s almost like it wasn’t there at all. But it was there. I know it was. And I’m pretty sure it was regret.
“I can’t go back,” says Jenn.
But honestly? I think there’s a part of her that wishes she could.
So I resist my impulse to get the hell away from her. Maybe we can help each other. I can show her how I’ve been resisting my slayer, and she can fill me in on what else she knows.
Unfortunately, as she goes on talking, the wisdom she shares with me doesn’t seem all that wise. “I have a new life now, and so do you,” she insists. “And we both have an important job to do.”
I frown doubtfully.
“If you find your courage wavering,” she adds, “just remind yourself why you hate him.”
“What?”
“Your vampire,” she says. “You hated him before he became a soulless bloodsucker, right? Otherwise, you wouldn’t have become his chosen slayer.”
At least that confirms what Nick told me about the vampire-slayer connection.
I take a deep breath. “We had some issues,” I say carefully. I’m thinking I should be prudent with what I reveal to her about our relationship.
“Well, now you don’t just have issues ,” she shoots back, taking on the tone of a true believer. “You have a solemn duty to protect the world from undead scum. Starting with him .”
She sounds exactly like my inner slayer now. She’s spouting the same kind of hateful crap that I hear echoing inside my head.
I don’t know about other vampires, but I do know about my vampire. I know that the slayer party line simply doesn’t apply to Nick. Not to the Nick I’ve come to know and… like ?
Maybe even more than like?
There was a time when I avoided confrontation, but now I know I have to speak up. For Nick’s sake but for Jenn’s too.
“What if he’s not undead scum?” I ask.
“What?”
“You’re talking like we’re the Avengers or something, saving the world from evil,” I say. “But if my vampire isn’t hurting anyone, why should I hurt him?”
Jenn leans back and pegs me with that intense blue-eyed gaze of hers. “What exactly was going on down at the beach the other night?” she asks me.
I swallow. “What do you mean?”
“It almost looked like the two of you were about to kiss.”
Her statement hangs suspended in the warm salt air between us. But before I can figure out how to respond, Jenn starts to laugh.
“What?” I ask, a little thrown. “What’s so funny?”
“You,” says Jenn. “You think this vampire of yours isn’t a threat. But I’ve got news for you. He’s a much bigger threat than you think.”
I look at her blankly. “I don’t understand.”
“It’s just like James warned me,” she says.
“Warned you about what?” I ask.
“I’ll bet your vampire is really turning on the old charm, right?” she says. “Running every play in the romance playbook. Pulling out all the stops to get you to fall for him?”
I freeze.
What she just said is kind of true, but I’m not going to admit that to her. So I don’t say anything.
Still, I have the horrible feeling that my happiness is like a speeding car headed straight for a brick wall, and it’s about to be totaled beyond recognition. I hold my breath, bracing for impact.
“He’s trying to neutralize you,” says Jenn. “Your vampire is trying to save himself and the rest of the bloodsuckers by taking away your power.”
I crinkle my brow at her. “I still don’t understand.”
“According to James, the bond between a vampire and a slayer is forged by hate but broken by love.” Jenn says it almost reverently, like she’s reciting something sacred. “Don’t you get it? Your vampire is manipulating you. He’s deliberately trying to make you fall in love with him.” She gives me a meaningful look. “Because if a slayer falls in love with a vampire, the slayer loses their power.”