Page 38 of Redeemed
“He was this shady customer and he said he was looking for a vampire.”
I try to imagine what this naked wolf person would consider shady and come up blank. “Did you get his name?”
“Said it was Winston Churchill and offered me $100 and his phone number, said I should text him if I met someone named Trajan Gall.”
Fuck.
“He said you’d be big and dumb and Italian,” she begins slowly. “I coulda just said, yeah, the dude you want is up the road a bit, hiding in a cave.”
“But you didn’t?”
“I didn’t.” She shakes his head as if she can’t believe it herself. “Even when he flashed me a C-note, I didn’t.”
“Nice of you.” I hope she can’t see I’m twitching like a cat in a strange room. “Looks like I owe you one.”
She scratches at her belly. “Maybe. Maybe not. I could still text the guy.”
I bite back the first three things I want to say;Not if you’re deadtops the list. “What’d this Winston Churchill look like?”
“Not tall. My height, or thereabouts. And kinda dreamy, you know, like one of those romantic poets my high school English teacher thought we should read. High cheekbones, permanent bedhead, a silk shirt that probably cost more than my rent.”
“I imagine.” She hasn’t described David, which reassures me, but there are at least three of Jacques’ scions who fit the romantic poet description, including Levy.
Jacques has a type, but he only discovered it after me.
“So you came up here and slept in the doorway to, what? Keep out anyone who might be looking for me?”
“No, sir, I stayed up here so I’d see you when you rose.”
“Why?” I blink at her in confusion, and she stands naked with no self-consciousness at all.
“Because even though you’re a vamp, you smell like pack, and I want to know why.”
“I…what?” Shock puts a pause between the words, and since she raised the issue, I inhale deeply. She still smells like wolf, but only one wolf, not a bakers’ dozen like this morning.
“Like pack. Like wolf pack. Who the hell are you?”
“Name’s Trajan Gall. Who are you?”
“Heathercliffe Mountbatten.” Her lips twist into something close to a grin. “Mom lovedWuthering Heightsbut I turned out to be a girl.”
“Do you go by Heather or—”
“Cliffe. With an e.”
“Why don’t you put some clothes on, Cliffe with an e, and we can talk.”
“Okay vampire Gall, see ya in a minute.”
She pivots and heads for the cave’s entrance. There’s still enough light left to cast the smudge of a shadow on the cave floor. She grabs a bag from the pile of rocks and by the time she’s dressed, the sun has set.
Her tee shirt has costume characters that I don’t recognize and her Doc Martens’ are unlaced and somehow that makes me feel old. “Come on,” she says. “We can go over to Chuckie’s. It won’t be crowded this early.”
“Chuckie’s is a bar?”
“Restaurant. Sells pizza and Indian food.”
“Do they have tequila?”
