Necromancing Nim (10 page)

“I’m sorry,” he said, and they were gone, leaving me to wonder what exactly he was sorry about. And why he was touching me. And why I kind of liked it.

I finished my breakfast, then went in to work. Colin wasn’t there. Kim informed me he’d called in sick. Of course, I already knew he wasn’t going to be in, but I put on a worried face for verisimilitude.

“Do vampires even get sick?” Kim asked me tentatively, as if she were afraid she shouldn’t be asking the question.

I couldn’t remember a day when Colin hadn’t been there, hovering over me, being annoying, bitching at me for not doing my job right or for not wearing the right clothes or whatever else he could pull out of his ass to bitch at me about. I was looking forward to his absence, to be honest. Especially given all the weirdness that had gone on with him at my house so far. His being nice to me was even more disconcerting than his telling me how to do my job.

“No idea,” I said, “but if he said he was sick, I guess something must be wrong.” Very many things were wrong, in fact, but I couldn’t tell Kim that. In any case, it was good Colin had decided to stay home and use my computer, since work wasn’t the best place to stay out of the way of the police.

In fact, it was about the worst place to stay out of the way of the police, since they showed up just as I got settled in at my desk. I peered through my office door, watching as Kim, obviously freaked out by the entourage of broad, uniform-clad shoulders, hunched in her chair. Maybe she was trying to get out of their line of sight.

I knew better than to be freaked out by the local law enforcement. Especially since one of them was Eric, wandering by to harass me once again.

“Hi, Eric,” I called. Kim’s eyes went wide, like she was scandalized that I’d called a cop by his first name.

Eric was nonplused. He nodded politely. “Nim.”

Heading out of my tiny office to join the conversation, I made a face. “You know, I think even when we were dating, I asked you not to call me that.”

He moved toward me, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, fingers draped over the butt of his gun. Still trying to intimidate. Still failing miserably. “We never dated.”

My eyebrows rose. “We went out four times, and you put your hand in my shirt. I think that qualifies as dating.”

Eric stopped in his tracks, his jaw tightening. This was less in response to my comment than it was a reaction to the sniggering coming from his partner, who was leaning against the wall next to Kim’s desk, watching, while Kim sat quiet and pale, as if she expected Eric to pull his gun out and shoot me. Which he might, actually. And who could blame him? I was really being a bitch.

I grinned at him, and he clenched his teeth. “Where’s your boss?” he asked.

“He called in sick.”

“Vampires get sick?”

“I dunno. Maybe he accidentally ate a piece of garlic bread or something.” At his blatant skepticism, I added, “Hey. It happens.”

“He did call in sick,” Kim added, her voice as pale as her face.

“Maybe you should check his house,” I offered. “He’s probably at home throwing up.”

“We already checked his house.” This came from Eric’s partner, who had sobered but still seemed amused at my inappropriateness. “Nobody there.”

Well, duh. They were at my house. And they’d better not be downloading porn and infecting my computer with viruses. I’d forgotten to mention that to them. “Huh,” I said, figuring an attempt at anything polysyllabic was a bad idea.

Eric’s partner scowled. “So you have no idea where he is?”

“Not a clue. He’s my boss, not my boyfriend.”

“You might want to take this a little more seriously,” Eric said tightly.

“Apologies.” I almost meant it. Almost. Eric probably had a point, but I still found it hard to take him seriously when I knew his favorite date movie was
Pretty in Pink
. “I really don’t know where he’s gotten off to.”

“I don’t either.” Kim’s voice came out so high probably even dogs couldn’t quite hear her.

“All right.” Eric knew I didn’t care all that much for Colin and so was predisposed to believe me. His partner narrowed his eyes at me but relented when Eric added, “You know who to call if you see him or hear anything from him.”

“Yep.”

He nodded to his partner, and they both retreated, maintaining that cool cop swagger all the way out the door. I watched. Hey, they both had nice asses. Sue me.

Kim took a shuddery breath when the door finally closed behind them, and for a frightening moment, I thought she was going to burst into tears. But before I could find out, my cell phone rang.

I nearly jumped out of my skin. I know the thing is always there in my pocket, but it always startles me when it starts buzzing and wailing out “Smoke on the Water”. Maybe it’s not the best choice of ring tone.

I fished it out and glanced at the number. I didn’t recognize it. The voice that responded when I flipped it open was familiar, though.

“Are those goddamn cops gone yet?”

Colin. “How did you even know they were here?” I asked, then belatedly thought I should have dissembled a bit more in front of Kim. Kim had grabbed a lunch bag from her desk drawer, though, and was busily breathing into it to keep from passing out, so maybe she’d missed my blunder.

“Lucky guess,” Colin grated back. “I need you at the house.”

“My house?” I said lamely.

“No, my house. Hurry up.”

The connection clicked off. Nice. He was so good with people.

I sighed. Regardless of his lack of social skills, I probably should go help him out. “I gotta run, Kim.”

Her eyes widened over the paper bag. “Why?”

“That was my sister. Rufus is having a puke fest. Probably ate something he shouldn’t have in the backyard.” My superstitious side didn’t like using Rufus as an excuse, but it was the first thing that popped into my head. “Call me on my cell if you need anything.”

Beautiful executive homes on large, private lots. Professional landscaping. Covenants enforced. Not zoned for vampires.
—Real estate ad,
Denver Post

Chapter Seven

I’d never actually been to Colin’s house. I didn’t even know where he lived, aside from “big honking house in Lakewood”. I had to dig his address out of his desk drawer, then run a map search online to get directions. According to the website, it was a twenty-minute drive, so it would likely take me fifteen. Unaccountably edgy, I took my printout of the directions and started off, leaving Kim still huffing into her paper bag.

I was used to driving in the dark—going to unfamiliar and often dangerous areas of town and finding places I’d never been before. It didn’t intimidate me. I’d been doing it for a long time, and I was so hard-core I didn’t even use a GPS. I was used to being prepared for danger, and I was used to navigating by the seat of my pants.

This, driving in the dark and a growing smatter of rain to a decidedly not bad or dangerous part of town where my large, attractive, undead boss lived and slept and presumably entertained female company, had me about as nervous as I’d ever been. I traded the nervousness for annoyance. What the hell was he doing there, anyway? He and Sebastian were supposed to be hiding out at my place, where nobody would expect them to be. This whole vampire-sitting thing was turning into a real pain in my ass.

Chewing my lip, trying to concentrate on my driving, I flipped the interior lights on to reread the directions, then had to do it again two minutes later. It was supposed to be a relatively short drive—it seemed to be taking forever.

The tension wasn’t relieved a bit when my phone rang—again—and I nearly drove off the road on a wave of adrenaline when the stupid song again made me nearly wet myself. Definitely time for a new ring tone. Brahms, maybe.

I grabbed the phone out of my pocket and snapped into it without reading the Caller ID. “What?”

I was expecting to hear Colin’s voice, so it took me a minute to realize I was hearing Gwen rather than some helium-enhanced version of my boss’s much deeper voice. “Hey,” she said. “Why so snippy?”

I took a deep breath and eased the car onto the shoulder. My heart was still pounding like crazy, and it seemed prudent to pause while I talked, to let the adrenaline rush fade a bit. “Bad night, that’s all. What’s going on?”

“What do I do with your stupid dog?”

I blinked. “Um…nothing?”

“He got into the trash again,” Gwen explained, testy. “He ate a bunch of trash, and now he’s puking. And I need to get to the airport.”

I sighed. Idiot dog. “Clean it up and put him outside. I’ll be home as soon as I can. If he’s still puking, I’ll call the vet.” If he followed his usual pattern, he’d be done puking by the time I got home and be ready to dive into a big bowl of Eukanuba. Hopefully. Either way, he’d be fine outside for a while, even in the rain. He had a doghouse, after all, although he seemed to be too damned dumb to ever use it.

Also? Next time I needed to fake an excuse to Kim, I was not going to use Rufus, not if he was going to insist on making my fake excuses into reality.

“Okay,” Gwen said hurriedly. “Gotta go.”

Gwen hung up before I could add anything else. I stared at the phone a moment, then shoved it back into my pocket and continued on my way.

I wasn’t sure what I’d expected regarding Colin’s house. Maybe a big Victorian mansion on a hill, a faux castle, or anything on the palatial scale, with pretentious turrets or flying buttresses. As it turned out, Colin lived in a gated community—pretentious, to be sure, but not in the way I’d expected. His house was set back, alone at the end of a cul-de-sac, isolated by the beginning curve of the foothills. A large sweep of yard separated the noticeably big honkin’ house from the road, and the nearest neighbors on either side appeared to be at least a quarter of a mile away. It was a good-size lot for a house that wasn’t in the mountains. I pulled into the long driveway and parked.

It was dead dark outside. I’d expected a security light to click on when I’d pulled up, but I supposed vampires really didn’t need such things. The rain had increased from a sprinkle to a spatter, almost a full-blown rainfall, and clouds obscured the moon. A distant rumble of thunder mingled with the sound of barking dogs, and as I closed the car door behind me, I felt like I’d landed in the middle of a horror movie.

I pulled my flashlight out of the glove compartment and headed for the house.

It’s just Colin, I told myself angrily. I wondered if I’d be feeling this way if I hadn’t awakened this morning with him sprawled out in my bed, and that sent an equally unwelcome shiver through me. A shiver of memory at the thoughts that had barreled unbidden through my head when I’d seen him there.

More images had layered on top of those as the day had passed. They’d involved wondering if he was as pushy in bed as he was under normal circumstances. And then thinking that might not be so bad. Then I might have thought briefly about tying him up and having my way with him, which thought might have involved honey and/or chocolate syrup and a certain amount of licking and wondering what vampire skin tasted like.

“Bleh,” I muttered. That was uncharted territory I had no desire to chart. Or so I kept telling myself. I half jogged to the front door, afraid to move too fast in the dark, even with my trusty little flashlight. The beam bounced erratically, reflecting off the raindrops. In the dark, my foot caught on the first step of his porch, and I lost my balance. For a moment, I wavered on the edge of falling, then steadied myself.

The near-fall ratcheted my adrenaline to an almost unbearable level; my heart slammed in the back of my throat, and my tongue suddenly tasted like it was made of metal. At least nobody had seen me—

“Hurry up.” Colin’s voice came from the door. I might have made an undignified screech. He stood in the open doorway with no light on. I could barely make out his silhouette.

“Jeez,” I snapped, angry and embarrassed. “You couldn’t turn on a damn light? We can’t all see in the dark, you know.”

“Oh.” He sounded genuinely chagrined—sort of. It was hard to tell in the dark. He might have just been amused. “Sorry.” He reached to one side, and a light flared on. Unfortunately, it was more blinding than helpful. I stood there, blinking.

“Well?” he said, irritated again. “Come on.”

“Right.” I managed to blink most of the glaring afterimages out of my eyes and stalked up the last few steps. He stood right in the doorway; I shoved him aside with a hand to his chest. “You’re an ass.”

He stepped back and said mildly, “So I’ve been told.”

I turned off my flashlight and shed my rain-dampened coat. He took it and dumped it on an elegant, curvy coat tree, then headed down the entrance hallway toward the rear part of the house, still without turning on any lights. I took note of a small bathroom on the left and wondered absently if he ever used it. I didn’t actually know if vampires did bathroom-related things. Maybe it was just for company. Or maybe he just liked to sit in there to read
Vampire Sports Leagues Weekly
.

Sighing, I trudged after him. “Is Sebastian here?”

Colin nodded. “Where else would he be?”

“Well, I don’t know where either of you have been. You were supposed to be at my place. The cops said they checked your house, and you weren’t here.”