Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,42

here since he usually comes home straight from work. Well, usually came home straight from work, but that was when he had to be here for me. Who knows what his schedule is like now? Maybe he heads to the bar or a friend’s house or wherever else people go who don’t have somewhere to be. We might have hours to kill.

Headlights glare through the window. Tires crunch gravel on the drive.

Then again, we might not.

“You’re sure?” Seanan asks as the car door slams.

Slow, steady footsteps outside. Patient footsteps rat-tatting a worry-free rhythm up the front stairs.

My heart doesn’t beat anymore, but I can feel its presence, a great hunk of gristly meat behind a cage of bone. How will I know when I’m scared or excited if my heart can’t skip a beat? The doorknob turns and a sharp, bright something shivers through me. I’m cold. No more blood pumping to keep the limbs warm. No more sunshine to knock away the chill, not for now. Maybe warmth is overrated. Cold can be bracing, invigorating. Cold can awaken or numb. Cold is the temperature of preservation.

At a certain point, cold can burn.

The door swings wide.

“Hello, Daddy.”

When he faints, the crack of skull on hardwood is not unlike that of frozen tree limbs snapping outside a snow-dark window.

* * *

He comes to as soon as Seanan leans close, his caveman brain recognizing the danger she represents even from the depths of unconsciousness. His arms flail in their attempt to push away from her, but she just calmly backs toward me. He shoots a frantic glance at the open door.

“Absolutely not,” I say. “Not that you’d get far anyway.”

“You’re dead,” he says. He manages to sit himself up against the wall, legs bent toward his chest, as though that will protect him.

“More or less, yeah.” My voice is level, purposefully casual. I make sure to lay my hands flat on my lap, fingernails safely away from skin.

“You’re dead,” he says again. “You’re dead. I know you’re dead, I ki—” He snaps his mouth shut so hard he bites his cheek. I know because I can smell the blood. Strange, but the tang smells familiar and uniquely him. Maybe my memory stored the scent from shallow cuts and nosebleeds over the years without my noticing.

“You what, Dad? Finish that sentence. What did you do?”

Seanan hovers between us, guarding me from him, or him from me, I’m not sure. Where her expression was all gentleness under the faint starlight filtered through bare branches, now she looks every bit the predator. Dad’s attention turns to her, too. An easier conundrum to cope with, I guess.

“You’re that loner girl from church,” he says, pointing like she’s some circus animal smashing into his house unannounced. “The one with no parents. Who are you?”

“Oh, I have parents,” she says, laying her Irish accent on thick as gravy on biscuits. “It’s just they died back in 1768, you see.”

I can practically see his mind trying to understand what’s happening. He’s not frightened so much as woefully confused. Like maybe he’s sleeping. Or concussed from hitting his head when he fainted. I want him present, grounded in the terrible reality of this moment, not drifting where his mind might save him with dreams of hallucinations and easy outs.

“Seanan,” I say, eyes still on my father. His beard is growing out. He usually shaves daily to avoid even the suggestion of a five o’clock shadow. The hair is patchy. I wonder why he’s stopped shaving. Some strange display of mourning? Guilt? Or maybe he just wants a concrete reminder that he’s alive, still moving forward in time.

Seanan raises a brow. The angle of that arch says, Whatever you need. I hope she can read me as well as I think I can read her.

“Are you hungry, Seanan?”

Slowly, she shrugs. “I could eat.”

I spread my arms. The gesture is so much more expansive than I could have managed in life, my arms lifting off the armrest and swinging wide from the shoulder. It feels wrong. “What kind of host would Grant here be if he didn’t offer you some refreshment?”

She stares at me hard for a moment, and I can hear her voice from earlier: You’re sure?

I glance at my outstretched wrist once. Wrist for sampling. She nods, then moves so fast even I can hardly track her.

Dad screams as soon as Seanan’s teeth break skin. The sound claws up and down my spine. I’ve never heard him scream like this.