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“Sienna, can you talk?” I lifted the edge of the cover. She peered up at me, her face swollen and covered with stings.
“Oh, God, don’t look at me. ” She jerked the quilted spread back over herself. “Bring me my pen before my throat closes. ”
“It may not. You’re a vampire now. You’re already healing. Look at the bites on your arms. Are they as bad as usual?” I sat beside her. Jerry dropped her purse next to us.
“I’m not about to go purse diving. You look for it. ” He shook his head. “How is she?”
“She looks terrible but she’s still able to talk. I think she’s already on the mend. Aren’t you, Sienna?”
She sat up, cautiously looked around, then threw back the cover. “You know, it’s a freaking miracle, but you’re right. I’d be dead if I were still a, um, mortal. ” She examined the backs of her hands which were covered with angry red dots but weren’t as swollen as they’d been even a minute ago. “I can’t believe it. ”
“You just fed. So you’re healing very fast. It helped that Jerry’s blood was ancient. ” I leaned back against him. “Your face already looks a thousand times better. ”
“Thank God. I freaked when I opened your computer mirror thing and suddenly all those bees swarmed out. ” She glared at the laptop still open on my dresser. “What the hell? Has this happened before?”
“No, of course not. ” I looked back at Jerry. “I think we had a visitor today, while no one was home. Sabotage and meant for me, of course. ”
“Who would do such a thing?” Sienna sighed and climbed off the bed. She grabbed my book and slammed it onto a stray bee that dared land next to the laptop. “Got it. ”
“Jerry has an old girlfriend who wants him back. I’m pretty sure she did this. She wants me to give him up so he’ll turn to her. ”
“You’re jumping to conclusions, Gloriana. ” Jerry sat next to me on the bed.
“Are you kidding me right now?” I felt my jaw drop. “How else do you think we suddenly have a beehive in my laptop, Jerry? Obviously, Mel got in here and planted them while Aggie was at work and I was at Ray’s. ” The very idea of that woman in my home during the day made me sick. No, terrified. If I’d been dead to the world here when she’d come in . . . All it would take is a stake to the heart.
“She doesn’t have your key or the code to security here. ” Jerry clutched my hand. I could see the implications weren’t lost on him either. “This building is supposed to be safe from intruders during the day. ”
“Are you defending her?” I jumped up. “Aggie forgets to set the security system half the time and the woman practices voodoo. I imagine she has some kind of ‘Open Sesame’ spell to crack through any defense, any place she chooses. ” I jumped up. “Oh, my God! Boogie! Here, kitty!” I fell to the floor and looked under the bed, his favorite hiding place. I managed to scoop him into my arms. “He seems to be okay. ” He purred against my chest. “When I think what could have happened . . . ” My breath hitched.
“Calm down, Gloriana. ” Jerry reached out and stroked the cat’s head. That was Boogie’s signal to leap down and race for his food bowl in the kitchen. “First, we’ll make sure Aggie never forgets again. That’s intolerable. Second, I doubt Mel is that strong. A spell like that? I’ve never seen her do anything more than make a few things disappear. Parlor tricks. ”
“You and I both have smelled the evil around her. She’s much more than a trickster. But if you saw her in Miami on business a while back, I suppose it’s possible she got hold of your keys there while you were in your death sleep and had copies made. For future use. ” I walked over to stand next to Sienna, brushing a dead bee off the laptop.
“I didn’t see her. Not like you think. ” Jerry followed me. “She tried to start up again. I shut her down. ”
“Guess she didn’t want to hear that. Maybe she hung around after sunrise and slipped past your security. Clearly she’s obsessed with you, Jer. ” I couldn’t look at him, still shaking from the idea that the woman had been in my bedroom during the day. “But why bees? Surely she knows vampires heal from stings in minutes. ”
“If Mel did this, she wanted to irritate you. Make it inconvenient for you to keep seeing me. Obviously she’s miscalculated. You and I both know this kind of nonsense isn’t going to pull us apart. ” He slipped his arms around me, actually smiling. “Seriously, Gloriana, I’ve told Mel to leave you alone. That none of her tricks will bring me back to her. This might have been her last final desperate act. ”
“You’re assuming she’s rational, Jerry. And coming here during the day isn’t nonsense. It’s a death threat. ” I glanced at Sienna. “What’s the matter? Are you all right?” She was staring into the computer screen, her eyes welling.
“You said I’d heal. But look at me. Everywhere one of those bees stung me, I have a blue dot. Blue! And they aren’t going away. ” She whirled around, her eyes wild. “Do you have any idea what this could mean to my career? How can I go out in public like this?”
“Relax, Sienna. Whatever it is, death sleep usually heals everything. Tomorrow night you should be as good as new. ” Of course I’d had some problems in the past that had managed to hang on past a good day’s sleep. When I stepped closer and took her chin in my hand I could see that the bites had turned blue. And she was covered with them. There were at least ten on each cheek and a pattern resembling the Big Dipper decorated her forehead. No way could we pass this off as a fashion statement, and it would take a dump truck full of concealer to hide them. The fact that she had more blue dots on her neck, arms and chest made it worse.
“This is nuts. And you’re right, Gloriana. Sneaking in here during the day was a death threat. ” Jerry stomped to the bedroom door. “I’m finding Mel and making her stop this vendetta against you once and for all. She’ll fix this, Sienna, or she’ll never draw another breath. ”
“Thanks, Jerry. ” Sienna brushed tears off her cheeks. They weren’t swollen now, just decorated. We winced when the front door slammed behind him. “Will he really kill her? He’s got to make her take care of this first. ”
“I have no idea. The woman has put a spell on him. He’s told her many times he’s done with her but if he gets a whiff of her blood . . . ?” I sank down on the foot of the bed. “I don’t want to think about it, but I have a feeling he drank her blood the last time he saw her. Jer hates synthetics and has always preferred mortal donors. ” I saw that I had at least three blue dots on my arms too. “He won’t admit it but he’s a sucker, pardon the pun, for her flavor. ”
“That’s kind of cheating, isn’t it?” Sienna sagged down next to me. “Maybe you should break up with him. ”
“You have no idea what we’ve been through together. I won’t let that witch tear us apart. ” I got up and rummaged in my dresser drawer, coming up with a stick concealer that had always worked wonders for me. “Let’s see if we can make you presentable enough to go downstairs. If we hide up here, Mel has won. ”
“I wouldn’t want that. ” She grabbed the concealer and started rubbing it on. “This is pretty good stuff. I’ll just have to stay away from close-ups. ” She shook her head. “Voodoo is real too?”
“Afraid so. Ghosts, were-cats, even werewolves. ”
“I feel like I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. ” Sienna kept working on her spots. “But that’s okay. I’m cool with it. As long as these blue things go away. If I’m living forever, I’ll be damned if it’s looking like a polka-dotted freak. ”
“Like I said, our death sleep usually finishes any healing we need to do. With luck, you’ll wake up tomorrow after sunset good as new. ” I left Sienna to her face painting and finally got the shower I was desperate for. It made me feel marginally better but I was furious with Mel. Not happy with Jerry either. He’d tried to make light of the woman’s behavior. More and more it seemed he was under a spell of some kind. I needed advice. And it had to come fr
om someone who knew the voodoo world. I remembered that Flo had gotten help for me once from a priestess in New Orleans. I had to call my best friend right away and get that expert’s number.
Just explaining Mel’s latest trick took a while, then Flo had to arrange to call me back after she’d dug for that number. She didn’t want to let Richard know what she was up to. He didn’t approve of the dark arts and she’d never admitted to her husband that she’d consulted a voodoo priestess when they’d been in the Crescent City.
I got dressed in a long-sleeved sweater and matching navy pants, then found Sienna in the kitchen staring at the bottles of synthetic blood I kept in the refrigerator.
“Ready to go?” I grabbed a bottle of B positive and twisted off the cap.
“In a minute. ” Sienna slammed the fridge shut without selecting anything. I doubted if she was really thirsty after drinking from Jerry. “Why’d you pick that, um, flavor?”
“It’s cheap, tastes pretty good, and I’m in a hurry. I save the negative stuff for special occasions. ” I smiled at her. “You have a tasty blood type. You don’t want to hear this, but Ray got carried away with you because you have blood that is like fine wine to us. ”
“A negative. ” Sienna looked thoughtful. “Good to know. But no excuse for Ray. I’m going to get even with him somehow. Wait and see. ”
“Oh, you should. The man deserves some serious payback. ” I finished my bottle, rinsed it out and tossed it into the recycle bin. “Be sure to put your empties in here. Save the planet. Ray’s arranging to send over some expensive stuff. You’ll like it better than what I stock. ”