Wolf at the Door - By MaryJanice Davidson Page 0,8
in my life.”
“Because it would fix everything wrong in my life.” He busily squeezed more oranges—Edward wondered why he bothered with a juicer at all. The man could flatten grapefruits with either hand. Except Gregory was beyond fastidious. Case in point... “Aaaah!” He grabbed a sponge from the sink and scrubbed off the wayward seed, hurriedly dumping it in the sink. “Have you ever seen anything more repellant?”
“You’re asking someone who’s never missed a Comic-Con.”
“I do not know what that is. Ah! Here comes the sun of my life.”
Edward, of course, couldn’t hear anything. But he wasn’t surprised when, a minute later, he heard Boo’s key in the lock and the thud of the door popping open as she kicked the bottom. Edward had never seen her turn a knob in his life.
“Darling!”
“Moron.” She was shrugging out of her leather jacket in midbitch, tossing it over the back of a kitchen chair and walking right up to Gregory for a kiss. It was a long one. Edward looked away, thinking, You’d think they hadn’t seen each other for a month.
“Hmmm, let me guess.” She leaned out of his embrace and licked her lips. “Orange juice!”
“You must be a detective or something.”
“Or something,” she agreed. She plopped into the bar stool beside Edward, squinted at him, then said, “Are you still doing the can’t-go-but-don’t-want-to-stay-but-shouldn’t-go thing?”
“It’s not a thing,” he said, offended. “It’s midlife crisis.”
“You’re twenty-three.”
“Boys mature faster than girls,” Gregory said, pouring a glass for Boo. “That’s a medical fact.”
Boo laughed and shook her hair out of her eyes. A striking woman, she had the coloring of a true albino, so pale she seemed almost to glow. Her skin was so light it appeared fragile, as if it would tear like paper. Her hair was also white, and curled under at the ends, the curls bouncing around her shoulders. Her eyes were such a pale blue she appeared blind, or jaded, as if she had seen much to blast all the color from her face and body and soul.
He called her Boo, but her street name was Ghost. She’d gotten into the slaying because not one but two vampires had tried to kill her before her twenty-first birthday. Her striking coloring was like catnip to them. Long ago, she had decided to make herself bait, the better to stake you with, my dear.
He still remembered how she’d explained because of her skin, she had to stay out of the light, too. She was treated as a freak. She preferred evenings, and her senses were heightened from long years of avoiding sunlight. There was nothing supernatural about it, or her, but try telling anyone else that. It had taken Edward almost a year to believe that about her.
“I’ve never seen an ugly vampire,” he said out of nowhere. Boo and Gregory both looked at him. “Isn’t that weird?”
“No,” they said in unison. Gregory waited, but they didn’t illuminate until he coaxed them with a “What?”
“All vampires are essentially murder victims.”
“Most,” Gregory corrected, mashing more oranges.
“Fine,” she replied. “And given a choice of murder victims, they go for the cute ones.”
“That’s like saying a rapist picks victims based on their sex appeal,” Edward protested. “It’s not about sex. And with vampires it’s not about looks, it’s about blood.”
“And beggars can’t be choosers,” Boo agreed. “But when they can, they go for the pretty ones. No offense, Greg.”
“I am fairly fabulous,” he admitted with a modest smirk.
“So: murder victims.” Boo slurped more juice, then grimaced and pushed the glass away. It made a small damp ring on the counter; Gregory gasped and wiped it up in the manner of someone getting rid of nuclear waste: get it out, get it out, get it out, out, OUT! “Agh, too much acid on an empty stomach.”
He prompted her: “They go for the pretty ones . . . still sounds dumb.”
“They die, they come back. Some return more vengeful than others, which is why I have a job. Some of them spend decades making innocent people pay for what a killer took. Then I have to kill them. So, essentially: it’s all about me, in the end.”
Edward was astounded. He had never heard her speak like this; usually Boo’s attitude was the only good vampire was a dead one, except for the one she was shacked up with.
“None of which explains your whole should-I-stay-orshould-I-go thing. You want to go? Great, sounds like a plan, drive safely and don’t forget to update your Facebook page.”
“I’m touched,” he said