tucked the rifle under my arm, and jogged back to the minivan.
Despite Ex's best efforts, I had two bullets made for killing riders. It was a thin victory, but I took pride in it. I drove back to the house with a growing sense of possibility.
When I got there, I swept up the ruined dishes. I cleaned the coffee stain off with a rag and warm water while Midian sat on the couch, watching me with silent, dead eyes. I stood back, considering the wall. After a little scrubbing, the biggest problem was that the cleaned bit now looked brighter than the rest of the wall. I looked around, suddenly aware of all the little ways that the house had fallen into disrepair during the time I'd been in it.
"Well," I said. "Okay."
"Okay?" Midian asked.
I looked at him, then went to the kitchen and came back with a carving knife in hand. The yellow eyes tracked me uncertainly.
"If I let you go, are we going to be cool?" I asked.
"You're serious?" he asked. "I'm a fucking vampire, you know."
"Eric was willing to work with you," I said. "And besides, I kind of like you. So are we going to be cool or not?"
"As long as we want the same thing. After that, we'll have to see how it plays out," he said. And then, "Hey, kid. At least I'm not bullshitting you, right?"
I answered by cutting the rope around his wrists. He rubbed the desiccated, time-dark flesh and looked up at me.
"For someone who's totally fucked, you're looking pretty chipper," he said.
"Yeah, well," I said. "I'm going to clean the place. You want to whip us up some dinner?"
The vampire shrugged, then stood up.
"I'm on it," he said.
I dug a vacuum cleaner out of a closet and set to getting all the coffee cup fragments out of the carpet. I threw out the tray Midian had been using for his dead cigarettes, gathered up all the dirty glasses and dishes that had found their way to the flat surfaces of the house, and brought them home to the dishwasher. The bright spot on the wall kept bothering me. There was only one thing, I decided, to be done about it. I got my laptop out from the bedroom, hooked it up to Eric's modest stereo speakers, and cranked up some music. China Forbes sang an old Carmen Miranda tune, and I started washing down all the walls in the living room while I danced to it. About twenty minutes and two walls later, Chogyi Jake came out from the back, surprised to see something happening that wasn't about ruining the flatware.
"I'm not cleaning the main bathroom. I've been using my own," I said over the section of "Dosvedanya Mio Bambino" that they lifted from "The Happy Wanderer." "All that mess in there is you guys."
Chogyi Jake tilted his head in obeisance, just on the friction point between mocking and sincere. I went back to the walls and saw him a few minutes later, heading from the kitchen to the back bathroom with a bucket and a sponge. If Midian's return to freedom was an issue, he didn't bring it up.
The music went from the Cuban-dance-band-meets-chamber-orchestra of Pink Martini to a mix CD I burned from my first-semester dorm mate's music. The old familiar Goth-punk songs didn't depress me the way they usually did. A scent equal parts butter, beef, and wine wafted out of the kitchen. When I finished with the walls, I went back and stripped the sheets off all the beds and gathered up my own old laundry. On my way through the kitchen toward the laundry room, I stopped to admire Midian's upcoming feast.
"It's all tapas," Midian said. "For one thing, we're down to not enough groceries for anything big. And for another, you need new plates."
"Check. New plates," I said with a nod. "I'm on it."
He shook his head in apparent disgust.
"I think mood swings run in your family, kid," Midian said, but he smiled when he said it.
We ate dinner early, the sun still high in the late summer sky. I'd found a bottle of red wine that went pretty well with Midian's spread. Cheese and tomatoes, strips of fried beef, toasted French bread with a spread of garlic and olives. The three of us sat around the kitchen table. Outside, the day was blisteringly hot.
"So," Midian said, looking at me through the red swirl of wine in his glass, "you want to tell me