Road Trip with a Vampire

One

Updated Excerpt from The Annals of Vampyric Lore, Seventeenth Edition, pages 1123-24

Watson, Grizelda (b. ~1625, approximate; England): Little is known about Grizelda Watson's earliest life. She first rose to prominence in the late eighteenth century due to her then-unrivaled flair for the dramatic and her penchant for outlandish practical jokes. Her infamy grew exponentially in the last quarter of the nineteenth century when she adopted the nickname Grizelda the Terrible. She allegedly committed a series of crimes involving arson in what is now the American Pacific Northwest and in Chicago during the early twentieth century. "I like to watch things burn," she once told a confidant.

Ms. Watson made few public appearances in the earliest part of the twenty-first century. Unsubstantiated rumors suggest that Ms. Watson now goes by the name Zelda Turret and runs a popular yoga studio in Northern California.

Before her disappearance, Ms. Watson was famously quoted as saying she "laughs hard, lives hard, and plays hard." She briefly had groupies in the final decades of the twentieth century, shortly before her disappearance, many of whom adopted this quote as their mantra. T-shirts with this saying can still be found on Etsy.

Once upon a time, I was a bad bitch. Or more accurately, a bad witch.

People used to cower when they heard my name. Vampires especially. Sure, my reputation for sowing chaos had been only partly earned from things I actually did, but that had never bothered me. It was almost funny, what people thought and what they'd believe based on nothing but rumor and hearsay. One of my favorite things to do in the bad old days had been to start rumors about myself just to see how far they'd fly. I'd even made a sport of it.

Until one day, it wasn't fun anymore, and I walked away from all of it.

Anyway, all that had been a decade and a lifetime ago.

Now, in my very different new life-dressed in my workout gear in the alley behind my yoga studio, my hair pulled back into a messy ponytail-all I had to do was to pick up a large cardboard box of trash and chuck it into the dumpster in front of me.

Without magic.

How quickly my life had changed.

I reminded myself I could do this. If I could set fire to half of Europe with nothing but the wind at my back-or so the legends about me used to go-surely I could do this.

I took a deep breath and bent at the knees as I slid my hands beneath the bottom of the box. It wasn't heavy, but it was large and unwieldy, nearly coming up to my waist. I was as small as I had once been fearsome, barely five foot two and with short arms to match. Using magic to dispose of this trash would have been much easier, but that was out of the question.

Unfortunately, I hadn't done my nightly ritual before coming outside. A stupid oversight. So on top of my body being about twenty-five percent too small to adequately handle this job, now my hands were shaking. No sooner had I lifted the box a few inches off the ground than it slipped from my arms. Much of its contents-mostly yoga mats and leotards that had been ruined when our roof had leaked during a freak rainstorm last week-spilled out onto the pavement.

Fuck.

It had taken me forever to lug that thing out here. Now I'd have to spend another ten minutes picking everything up and starting all over again.

I was just about to get to it when I straightened and saw something that pushed all thoughts of ruined leotards and overlarge boxes out of my head.

Or rather-someone.

It was past ten, and the only light to see by came from the moon, partially obscured by clouds. But even if I didn't have such preternaturally good night vision that I could spot a falcon a hundred yards away in the middle of a dark forest, it still would have been impossible to miss the giant man who stepped into the alley and directly into my line of sight.

This man was-no exaggeration-the most gorgeous hunk of handsome I'd seen since moving to my new community. He had the kind of broad-shouldered build I'd only seen a handful of times outside romance novels and wore a snug-fitting black T-shirt that did him all kinds of favors. When he crossed his arms across his chest, it pulled the sleeves of his shirt taut, showing off well-defined biceps that suggested he spent more time in a gym than anyone really ought to.

His wavy dark brown hair looked purposely unkempt and curled up just enough at the nape to suggest it had been a while since his last haircut. I bet it would be soft as hell were someone to reach up and give his locks a tug.

Not that I was imagining doing exactly that as I stared at him.

He cleared his throat. It broke the spell. Too late, I realized we were all alone in a dark alley and he had at least a foot on me. Back in the day, if this man had wanted to hurt me, it would have taken less than a thimbleful of my power to send him running. But things were different now.

In my new life, I used as little magic as I could get away with. To someone in the mood for violence, I looked like an easy target.

"Hi," he said. He didn't come any closer. A point in the he probably isn't here to hurt me column. Past experience had shown me that people aiming to maim and kill rarely kept their distance.

What did he want, though? He was just standing there, staring at me. It was getting awkward.

"Can I, uh . . . help you with something?" I asked.

He nodded at the box on the ground. Its spilled contents. "I was about to ask you the same thing."

His voice was deep and rich, with the barest hint of a Midwestern accent that shouldn't have made him sound even sexier but somehow did. I bet his voice would sound like sin no matter what he was saying. Whether he was offering to help with your trash or telling you he planned to dismember you slowly, piece by piece, there was something about a voice like his that made me want to do bad things.

He had to be new here. Maybe a tourist. This town wasn't big. I'd have remembered seeing a guy like this before if he'd been around awhile.

"I don't need help," I lied. He was a stranger. An incredibly sexy stranger, yes-but I didn't want to give him the idea that I needed his help with anything.

He frowned, looking unconvinced. "It would be no trouble."

It was the telltale tingling in my fingertips that made my mind up for me. I had to get home, sooner rather than later.

"Fine," I relented. I pointed at the box and at everything that had fallen out of it. "Can you pick up this stuff and throw it away for me?"

He was at my side half a heartbeat later, moving with an effortless kind of speed I hadn't seen from anyone in a very long time. As I watched, the man scooped up the junk on the ground in one fluid movement. Then he hefted the box into his arms like it weighed nothing at all and chucked everything into the dumpster. I had to force myself not to gape at the flex of corded muscle in his forearms while he moved.

Maybe this guy was a runway model, I thought dazedly, watching him brush his hands off on the front of his jeans. He certainly looked like one. Or maybe he was some other kind of celebrity, someone who'd fled to the Northern California coast to escape the nonsense that the beautiful and famous often faced in LA. This area was full of people like that, folks who'd wanted to relocate somewhere coastal and remote to get away from unpleasantness in their old lives.

Like me, I supposed.

"Is there anything else I can help you with?" The man stepped close enough that I could smell his cologne, a hint of something dark and spicy. His dark brown eyes caught the reflection of the moon, and he smiled a little, tentatively, not showing his teeth. Despite his apparent keen interest in helping strangers like me, I got the impression he was shy.

"I'm all set," I said. There were more boxes of ruined things in the studio, but those could wait until Lindsay and Becky, my friends and Yoga Magic co-owners, showed up in the morning. "Thanks, Mr. . . ."

"Peter."

"Mr. Peter?"

"Just Peter." A corner of his mouth quirked up into a half smile, throwing a small scar above his upper lip into sharp relief. I wondered if he'd just given me a fake name. Not that I'd blame him if he had; we were strangers, after all. Gods, his mouth was gorgeous. It took all my restraint not to stare at it as his smile grew into something warm and genuine. "And you are?"

I gave him the name I gave everyone. "Zelda," I said. Not my real name, either. But close enough.

"Zelda," he repeated. In his deep, seductive voice, my new nickname sounded like music. "It's nice to meet you."

He made to turn and head back in the direction he'd come from. But some long-dormant flirtatious instinct recoiled at the idea of letting this beautiful man walk away so soon after meeting him.

"Are you new here?" I blurted before I could talk myself out of saying something stupid like . . . that. My flirtatious instincts should have stayed dormant. I was terrible at this. "Sorry if that's a weird thing to ask. It's just this town is microscopic. If I've never seen someone before, they're either a tourist or new to town."

"I'm not a tourist," he said. "I'm new here. At least, I think I am."

Huh. That was a weird answer. I decided to breeze past it. "And how are you finding it here?"

"Hot."

I laughed. "It's not usually quite this hot." Which was true. We were in the middle of a rare October heat wave. California's famously temperate climate had been one of the main reasons I'd relocated here, but we hadn't seen her in weeks.

"No?"

I shook my head. "This string of ninety-plus-degree days is unusual."

He considered that. "Is it normally quite this sunny?"

"It rained the other day." I pointed at the dumpster. "That box is full of stuff that got ruined when our roof leaked. But yes, most of the time it's very sunny. It's wonderful, isn't it?"

"No," he said emphatically.

My eyebrows rose. "No?"

"I can understand why others might enjoy a nice sunny day. It's just that I get . . ." He trailed off, frowning. "Overheated."

I took in his fair complexion. Considered the Midwest accent. Most of my visits to the Midwest had been in deep winter, under thick and low-hanging cloud cover. He likely just wasn't used to hot weather. "Is that why you're out for a walk late at night? To avoid the sun?"

The corner of his mouth ticked upward again. "Something like that."

An awkward quiet settled between us after that. If I were smart, I would thank this stranger for the help and go home. The pinprick tingles in my fingertips were now spreading up through my arms. I couldn't ignore them for much longer.

But I didn't want to say good night. Maybe it was just because it had been so long since I'd encountered someone so attractive, but there was something about this man that compelled me.

I wanted to keep him there. Keep him talking.

"So, Peter," I began. "What do you do when you're not either helping strangers with their trash or avoiding the sun?"

He slid his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels as he considered the question. "You could say I'm engaging in a . . . How did I hear someone put it the other day?" He pursed his lips, searching for the right words. "A journey of self-discovery."

He said it like he was speaking an unfamiliar language. I laughed. "Sounds like something a person around here would say."

"Really?"

"Yes. It could have even been someone who takes classes at my studio."

"Your studio?"

I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, in the direction of Yoga Magic. "We hold yoga classes six days a week. Pilates, too, on Tuesdays. All ability levels." The smile I gave him was one part sales pitch, one part my continued weak attempt at flirting. "If you're engaging in a journey of self-discovery, yoga could be just the thing."

He frowned. "How so?"

How much truth should I offer this guy? Some partial truths would probably be all right. "I'm not sure where I'd be today without yoga. My students share similar stories with me all the time."

He considered that. "Do you think someone like me, who, as far as I can recall, has no yoga experience, might benefit?"

"Definitely," I said. "First class is free if you want to try it."

"I do appreciate free." Then he added, so quietly I didn't know whether I was meant to hear, "Right now I'll try anything."

There was pain in his expression, in the way his brows knit together for just a whisper of a moment. When a car horn blared some distance away, it seemed to bring him back to the present. He shook his head slightly, as if to shake off an errant thought. "Thank you for the invitation." His voice was back to the warm neutrality it had held before. "I'll think about it."

"I hope you do," I said.

Silence again. I needed to get started on my bedtime routine to have any chance of sleeping that night, but Peter was still watching me like I was a puzzle he was determined to solve.

I couldn't look away.

Would it be a bad idea to ask for his number? To invite him up to my apartment? Probably. But it had been ages since my last hookup. I didn't do real romantic entanglements with anyone with a normal human lifespan, but perhaps spending one night with this guy was just what I needed to blow off some steam.

I closed my eyes for the span of a handful of heartbeats, gathering the nerve to ask if he'd like to join me upstairs for a cup of coffee.

When I opened them again, he was gone.