The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,143

of faint voices shouting with disappointment.

“I tried once,” he said. “But an artist is only as good as his materials. I thought for sure the humiliation I inflicted on you three years ago would make you kill yourself, but you couldn’t even do that right.”

“Make it stop,” Patricia said. “Just make it all stop. I can’t do this anymore. My son hates me. For the rest of his life I’ll be the crazy woman who tried to kill herself, the one he found convulsing on the kitchen floor. I put my daughter in a mental hospital. I have ruined my family. I couldn’t protect them from you.”

She sat, hunched over, spitting her words at the floor, her hands were claws digging into her knees, her voice scouring her ears like acid.

“I thought you were filth. I thought you were an animal,” she said. “But I’m worse. I’m nothing. I was a good nurse, I really was, and I walked away from the one thing I loved because I wanted to be a bride. I wanted to get married because I was terrified of being alone. I wanted to be a good wife and a good mother, and I gave everything I had, and it wasn’t enough. I’m not enough!”

She shouted the last words, then looked up at James Harris, her face a grotesque mask of streaked makeup.

“My husband has no more consideration for me than a dog,” she said. “He goes off and screws little girls with the other men and we sit home like good little women and wash their shirts and pack their bags for their sex trips. We keep their houses warm and clean for when they’re ready to come home and shower off some other woman’s perfume before tucking their children into bed. For years I’ve pretended I don’t know where he goes, or who those girls are on the phone, but every time he comes home, I lie there in bed beside my husband, who doesn’t touch me, who doesn’t talk to me, who doesn’t love me, and I pretend I can’t smell some twenty-year-old’s body on him. Our children hate us. Look at mine. It would have been better if a dog raised them.”

She hooked her fingers into claws and pulled them through her hair, harrowing it into a crazed haystack, jutting out in every direction.

“So here I am,” she said. “Giving you the last thing I have of value and begging you to spare my daughter. Take me. Take my body. Use me until you throw me away, but leave Korey alone. Please. Please.”

“You think you can bargain with me?” he asked. “This is some kind of sad seduction, trading your body for your daughter’s?”

She nodded, meek and small.

“Yes.”

She sat, a long runnel of snot dangling from her nose, dripping onto her dress. And finally, James Harris said:

“Come.”

She pushed herself up, and walked to him on shaky legs.

“Kneel,” he said, pointing to the floor.

Patricia lowered herself onto the floor at his feet. He leaned forward and took her jaw in one big hand.

“Three years ago you tried to make a fool of me,” he said. “You don’t get any more dignity. We’re going to finally be honest with each other. First, I’m going to replace Carter in your life. Is that what you want?”

She nodded, then realized he needed more. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Your son loves me already,” he said. “And your daughter belongs to me. I’ll take you now, but she’s next. Will you do that? Will you give me your body to buy her another year?”

“Yes,” Patricia said.

“One day it will be Blue’s turn,” he said. “But for now, I’m the family friend who helps put your life back together after your husband dies. Everyone will think that we just naturally felt a powerful attraction, but you’ll know the truth: you gave up your pathetic, miserable, broken failure of a life to accept your place at my feet. I’m not some doctor, or lawyer, or rich mommy’s boy trying to impress you. I am singular in this world. I am what you people make legends from. And now I’ve