She put her head on my shoulder. "Hon, you are a vampire."
I rubbed my temples, which were beginning to throb. "I know, and it sucks. I don't want to talk about this anymore."
Mallory sighed impatiently, but didn't say anything else about it. She pushed back into the couch cushions and tapped the cover of the guide to vampire life, still closed in my lap, with a finger. "So, you're going to read it?"
"I should probably understand the ground rules. And since I have all night . . ."
"Well, I don't have all night." She rose and stretched. "I've got to get some sleep. I've got an early meeting. Have fun with your vampire book."
"Night, Mal. Thanks for waiting up."
"No problem. I'll call U of C tomorrow and let you know what they say about reenrolling." She walked out of the room, but peeked back in, her hand wrapped around the oak doorframe. "Just to review, you're pissed about being made a vampire, and we hate this Ethan Sullivan guy, right?"
I thumbed through the Canon's thick, ancient-looking pages, scrolling through the acknowledgments and table of contents, my drifting gaze stilling when I reached the title of chapter two: "Servicing Your Lord."
"Oh, yeah," I assured her. "We hate him."
I slept on the couch, book in my hands. I'd spent the final hours of the evening, long after Mallory had dragged herself upstairs, pouring through the Canon. I was wide- awake for the review, the transition to vampire already reversing my sleep schedule, at least until the wave of exhaustion hit me at sunrise. As dawn approached, I could feel the sun creeping up, preparing to breach the horizon. As it rose, so did the weighty drowsiness. What was it that Carl Sandburg had said about fog? That it crept in like a cat? That was how the exhaustion came. It crept in, silent but assuredly there, and covered me like a heavy velvet blanket.
But where falling asleep was incremental, I woke suddenly, finding myself wrapped in an ancient musty quilt. I unraveled my limbs, and looked out to see Mallory on the love seat in jeans and a Cubs T-shirt, staring at me curiously.
"Were you trying to mummify me?"
"There are windows in the room," she pointed out, "and you were too heavy to get upstairs. I leave you exposed to the sun all day and I definitely don't get this month's rent." She rose, walked closer, and looked me over. "No burns or anything?"
I threw the blanket on the floor and surveyed my body. I was still in the slinky cocktail dress, and the parts of skin that showed looked fine, maybe better than they had before the change. And I felt a helluva lot better than I had the night before, the sluggishness having finally cleared. I was now a healthy bloodsucking vampire. Yay!
"Nah," I told her, sparing her the internal monologue. "I think I'm good. Thanks."
Mallory tapped nails against her thigh. "I think we need to spend a little time tonight, you know, checking you out. Figuring out what we're dealing with, what your needs are. Write down stuff you might need."
I lifted my brows skeptically. Mallory was brilliant, without a doubt. Case in point: She'd landed the job as an advertising executive at McGettrick-Combs right after college - literally the day after she graduated from Northwestern. Said Mallory: "Mr. McGettrick, I want to work for your firm." Said grumpy, balls-to-the-wall Alec McGettrick: "Be here at eight a.m. Monday morning."
But Mallory was an idea person, not a detail person, which was probably why she was so valuable to Alec and crew. For her to suggest that I make a list - well, that just wasn't typical Mallory.
"You feeling okay, Mal?"
She shrugged. "You're my best friend. Least I can do." Mallory cleared her throat, looked blankly at the wall. "That said, the refrigerator is now filled with blood that was delivered before you woke up, and there's an eight hundred number on the side to order more." Her mouth twitched, and I could tell she was trying not to laugh.
"Why are you chortling at my food?"
She closed her eyes. "The company that does this vampire delivery thing? It's called 'Blood4You.' Unoriginal much? I mean, they've got a captive audience, but still, take your branding seriously, for Christ's sake. They need a new name, new image, repackaging. . . ." Her eyes glazed over, probably as potential logos and mascots danced in her head to the sound track of the jingle she'd no doubt already conceptualized.
"Never mind," she finally said, shaking her head as if to clear it. "I'm not at work. In more important news, I bought a leather curtain for your bedroom. It's huge, so it completely covers the window. That should give you a safe place to crash, although it totally clashes with the decor." She looked critically around the room. "Such as it is."
When Mallory moved in, she hadn't made any changes to the brownstone beyond divvying up bedrooms, stocking the fridge, and adding electronics. So the decor, such as it was, remained Aunt Rose-ish. The woman took her name seriously, and covered virtually every free surface with flowered doilies or throw rugs. Even the wallpaper was dotted with cabbage-sized roses.
"Again, thanks."
"In case it matters, you were actually sleeping."
I grinned at her. "You checked?"
"I held a finger under your nose. I didn't know if you were breathing, or if you just kind of . . . died. Some books say vampires do that, you know, during the day."
And Mallory, being a student of the occult, would know. If she hadn't been so well- matched to her job at a Chicago ad agency, she would have dedicated her life to vampires and the like - and that was even before she knew they were real. As it was, she put in the time during her off-hours. And now she had me, her own little in-house vampire pet. Vampet?
"It felt like sleep," I confirmed, and stood, laying the book on the floor between us and realizing what I was still wearing. "I've been in this dress for twenty-four hours. I need an excruciatingly long shower and a change of clothes."
"Knock yourself out. And don't use all my conditioner, dead girl."
I snorted and walked to the stairs. "I don't know why I put up with you."
"Because someday you want to be as kick-ass cool as me."
"Please. You're a total fang hag."
Laughter issued from the living room. "We're going to have some serious fun with this."
I doubted that, too, but I'd wallowed enough, so I swallowed my doubts and padded upstairs.
I avoided looking at the bathroom mirror just in case, fearful that I'd find no reflection there, but stood beneath the showerhead until the hot water ran out, cherishing the prickles of heat, and thinking about my new . . . existence? Helen had mentioned the basics - stakes, sunlight, blood - but she'd avoided the metaphysics. Who was I? What was I? Soulless? Dead? Undead?