"I don't want her to remember me with my face covered with blood, fangs down like that, before I have a chance to explain things."
"I'm sure it was a pretty horrifying sight to a mortal who has no clue we really exist." I sighed. "And there's no need to explain any of this tonight. Give yourself a break. One thing at a time. You can tell her you're moving in with me. That I have a great location, a cheap room to rent and you decided you were tired of living alone." I looked around her place. "Surely you won't be sad to leave this behind."
"Hey, it's not that bad. Though I admit I don't keep it as clean as I could. Jenny and I never could share a room at home. She's a neatnik." Penny sighed and sat her sister up, arranging her like she would a pretty, life-size doll.
"I'm not a neatnik, but you will have to keep your mess confined to your bedroom at my place." I frowned at her computer station. "Guess I'll concede my dining table to you, though. We don't need it for a meal, that's for sure."
"Thanks, Glory. And my parents will be tickled at the news. They've been living in fear that I'll get another guy in here. As it was, they never told Gramps that I had Albert as a roommate for a while."
"Gramps the preacher. I can see where that would cause a stir at prayer meetings." I sat in Josh's abandoned chair and got a visit from Booger. The cat was growing on me. He licked my hand with a sandpapery tongue and I stroked between his ears.
"A stir? Me living in sin would have called for a candlelight vigil." Penny sighed. "Jenny would never disappoint Gramps by shacking up with a guy before marriage." She looked at me. "She's the one who always gets the smiling pictures and features in the local paper. Of course she was homecoming queen, head cheerleader."
"But you're the one who has grants and degrees." I looked from one twin to the other. Hard to believe they'd popped out during the same birth. They were so different. Yet there was a slight similarity to the tilt of the chin and the curve of the brow. Of course Penny's eyebrows were dark and hadn't been properly shaped.
"Whatever. We don't compete. We accept our differences and love each other for them." Penny put her arm around Jenny. "No way am I letting her grow old and die when I won't."
"You may not have a choice in that." I felt the cat purring in my lap. "It will be Jenny's decision when the time comes. And it's way too soon for you to ask her to make it."
"Why? I'm stuck in this nineteen-year-old body." Penny looked down. "Not the one I might have wished for, but look at hers. It's perfect. Who wouldn't want to be stuck like that?"
I had to admit she was right. Jenny could have posed for a magazine ad. She was the size six the demons had tried to tempt me with but taller than I was by a few inches.
"You have to give yourself time to get used to your new life. I'm not allowing you to tell Jenny anything about vampires until I get to know her better and see what kind of risk we'd be running telling her about us. That is nonnegotiable." I gave Penny my sternest look. "If you want to keep seeing Jenny on a regular basis, it's going to have to be playing Penny as usual, no vampire vibe visible at all. Got it?"
"That's never going to work." Penny gave me a venomous look. "I get that my bloodlust is a problem, but otherwise . . . Come on, Glory, she's my twin. We don't keep huge secrets like this."
"You do now. You're the brain around here. Quit arguing and start doing. Erase her memory of the scene she walked into and wake her up. Introduce us. Tell her about the new living arrangement. Your new life starts now." I sat back, cat in my lap and waited.
"I hate you." Penny stood, her hands fisted by her sides.
"I can live with that. Just do it." I ran my hand across Booger's back while Penny told her sister she had just walked up to the door, had felt dizzy because she'd skipped dinner and Penny had caught her when she'd passed out. Then she told her to