Blood is Magic
A Vampire Romance
by Alix Adale
Chapter 1: I Need a Gun
DEAD eyes made of glass stared down from the head of a bighorn ram.
Why are you here? it asked, one fallen sheep to another. Other heads lined the walls: mule deer, pronghorn antelope, even a black bear, its snarl frozen in time through the magic of taxidermy.
Good question. Why was I here?
Shotguns, hunting rifles, and semiautomatics hung on racks behind glass. Boxes of ammo filled the shelves like so many packages of laundry detergent. Fishing poles, tents, and racks of clothing filled the shop with normalcy. But what’s normal about needing a gun?
A thirty-something woman came out of the stockroom, retail smile on her face. She was my size, five-foot-five or so, trim with a touch of pudge here and there. We could’ve traded clothes no problem and the way she curled and lightened her hair, we might be using the same salon.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
Could she help me? I wished she could. I wished she could put a glass dome over my house, my car, over me. I wished she could make it all stop. “My name is Rowan Sparks and I need a gun.”
“You’re in the right place!” she said, still peppy. “Going hunting?”
I shook my head.
“Target practice?”
Another shake.
Her smile faded, voice lost some pep. “Self-defense?”
“Yeah.” My throat felt tight, not wanting to betray the rawness, the tremor.
“Come over to my office and let’s chat,” she said, stepping behind a counter.
I followed her over, glancing down at the stock. Beneath the glass lay forty or fifty different revolvers and semiautomatic pistols: angular, rounded; some black, chrome, or gun-metal gray. A cool shiver touched my shoulders, the wrongness here. I didn’t belong.
How did it come to this? I watched Dr. Who and lived with the World’s Handsomest Cat. My idea of fun was Boardgame Night at Jill’s house. Guns did not belong in my world.
But I didn’t want to die.
I pointed at the only gun with any pink on it, wanting to get this over with. “For us?”
“The Calendar Arms Pink Princess? It’s marketed at women, yes.”
“Pink Princess?” I asked in disbelief. “It sounds like a vibrator.”
“Doesn’t it?” We shared a smile, but it faded fast. I couldn’t escape what brought me here. How could he do this to me—assuming it was him. But of course it was. Who else could it be?
“A lot of experts recommend a small, snub-nosed revolver for women,” she said, “but even the Pink Princess has a heavier trigger pull than some of the semiautomatics. Plus, the smaller the gun, the bigger kick. Ease of reloading, shot radius, there’s a lot to consider. I recommend a nine millimeter for newbies.”
Her words went in one ear and out the other. “I’ve never owned a gun.”
“Didn’t think so. You got that deer-in-the-crosshairs look.”
I blinked.
She smiled. “Gun shop humor. Let me give you my usual spiel. Buying a gun is like buying a car. You have to have a license. There’s a waiting period and a background check. Do you have an F.S.C.?”
“No,” I said, spirit sinking. “What’s that?”
“A Firearm Safety Certificate. Before I can even submit a purchase application, you have to take California’s written test. Don’t worry, it’s not hard and we have classes available through the store.” She started giving me pamphlets, talking about the residency requirements, felony convictions, and certified firearms instructors.
It dawned on me that like the divorce, this would be an ordeal. Paperwork. Waiting periods. Tedious, bureaucratic gibberish. The sinking feeling increased, my life vanishing into quicksand.
“Would it be easier if I drove up to Roseland and bought one there?”
She shook her head. “Walk into an Oregon dealer with a California license and they’ll laugh you out the door.”
“I didn’t know this would be so complicated.” I tucked the pamphlets into my purse. “I have to go show a house. I’ll get back to you.”
“Are you okay? You look pale.”
“I’m fine.” My voice sounded hollow.
“Hon, is someone bothering you?” She licked her lips, frowned. “Ex-husband, ex-boyfriend, something like that?”
“Maybe, I don’t know.” I didn’t want to talk about it.
“Have you thought about a dog?” she asked. “They’re cuddlier than guns.”
A dog? I loved Pookie, but an orange tabby couldn’t scare off anything more dangerous than a roof rat. “I’ll think about it. Thanks.”
The shop bell tinkled as I stepped into a chill northern California morning, the sun bright despite a wall of gray clouds. In the parking lot, I stopped dead in my tracks. My car sat low on the left rear tire. One clean, triangular hole punctured the tread. The Mysterious Enemy had struck again.
Is there a God? I don’t know. Is there any hope for the human species? I used to think so, but no longer knew. We might be just so many bighorn sheep, waiting for that bullet from afar, for that distant, impersonal hand of death that comes without rhyme or reason, that scythe from another world.
I got in the front seat, locked the doors, and called a tow truck. This time, my hand didn’t even shake as I dialed.
Love is forever, the song claimed, all else fades away.
“Bullshit,” I told my car radio. “Nothing’s certain but death and taxes.”
The local tow-truck guy drove right out with a new tire. He didn’t joke about being a repeat customer this time. It was the third tire in two weeks. He knew the score.
“Do you know who’s doing it?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Should I call the cops?”
I shook my head again, signed the receipt on his clipboard. Calling the cops, waiting for an officer to show up and take an ineffectual report, would only make me late for my showing.
I suspected my ex-husband, but suspicion didn’t prove anything. After the first few incidents, a sheriff’s deputy had spoken to him. Burke denied everything and presented a convincing enough alibi that the deputy came back and asked me for more leads.
Leads. What am I, a detective? I had no other enemies, but I couldn’t rule out anyone, even a stranger, even another woman.
I headed to my house showing, turning right on Lotomaw Drive and angling up the shady, tree-lined street. As if on cue, the phone rang, cutting out the radio. I now dreaded my own ringtone. Any call might be the Mysterious Enemy.
I steeled myself and activated the hands-free headset. “This is Rowan.”
“Hey, girl.” It was Jill, my boss. “How did the showing go?”
“Give me a chance to show it first.” I didn’t mean to snap and regretted it at once.
Typical alpha manager, she didn’t like it either. “Your showing was at ten,” she said, voice dripping acid. “It’s a quarter to eleven.”
“I had car trouble.”
“Again?”
“Flat tire. Do you want to see the receipt? I have it right here. Big Selkie Tire Service, 49.99.”
“Chillax, girlfriend. Did you get in touch with your clients?”
“Yeah, they’re fine. I’m pulling up right now.”
“Okay. And Rowan?”
“Yeah?”
“Nobody expects you to sell that house. But your sales board looks pathetic.”
“I know.”
“You know my policy. Empty boards mean empty desks.”
Thanks for being there, Jill. I almost told her about the Mysterious Enemy. I almost did. But I couldn’t break down right before a showing. Maybe I’d tell her later. But that might be all the excuse she needed to cut me loose. She wasn’t Miss Sympathetic.
An even darker thought struck me. It could be Jill harassing me. It might be her, or Burke, a real estate client, even a mysterious stranger. Not knowing made it worse.
“I’ve got some stuff going on now,” I said. “I’m sorry. Things will turn around.”
“I’m sure they will,” she said. “I’m sending positive waves your way. Remember our training. Deep breaths and visualize the power of thinking. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
My clients had left a note on the real-estate lockbox. A simple Post-It, it said they’d looked around but didn’t like the ‘creepy house’ because it made ‘weird sounds.’ They might get in touch later. In other words, don’t call us, we’ll call you. No sale. Do not pass Go, do not collect a commission.
I sat down on the front steps of the porch, alone, crumpling the Post-It into a tight wad before uncrumpling it again and tearing it into a dozen pieces. For a fleeting moment, I wished for one of the guns, even the Pink Princess, but I didn’t know why.
Maybe I did need a dog. I needed a big, lovable protector to come bounding through the woods right now. He’d run right up and lick my face. He’d have to get along with Pookie, though. They’d have to be best friends, ready to form on a cat-dog rescue team if anything happened to me. For a second, I indulged in the childish fantasy of superhero animals before dismissing it as ludicrous. My Concordance Trainer called these ‘stress fantasies.’ I needed to visualize a positive reality instead.
The woods around 213 Lotomaw stayed silent, empty of adoptable dogs. The foliage looked thick enough to conceal any number of stalkers. My eye moved to the Honda, parked at the end of this long, tree-lined private driveway. If someone followed me here in a car, he’d be exposed. There’d be nowhere to park out of view. He’d have to come on foot, parking around the corner or down the block. I searched the trees for lurking figures. Sunlight shifted through the shadows along the winding drive. Birdsong and emptiness prevailed.
Nobody expects you to sell that house. Thanks Jill. That was the one positive in this utter wreck of a morning. Nobody wanted a murder house. It looked like shit too, half its windows boarded up. The local teenagers broke in and partied inside, leaving a mess for the Jill Thorman Real Estate Agency to clean up, like we were the town’s moms or something. No surprise this lemon had languished on the market for three years. It was luckless and unlovable. Now it was stuck with me. What’s the opposite of irony? We deserved each other.
A real estate agent—as Jill reminded us during Morning Pep—is one of life’s little cheerleaders. She’s upbeat and supportive of nerve-wracked clients facing one of the biggest decisions of their lives. Clients don’t trust nervous women wearing all black. Crowds liked cheerleaders, not the Goth chicks sitting behind the bleachers, smoking cigarettes. Jill framed life as high school drama writ large.
“Peppy colors,” Jill would say, tying a rainbow scarf around my neck. “Dress like a tropical parrot. You may feel silly and your clients might laugh, but smiles are keys that open doors.”
I didn’t smile anymore. It’d been months since my last commission. Burke never paid his spousal support. Never. Not that he could afford it anyway. What would I do when I lost this job? Go back to waitressing, but even working tables you have to smile for tips.
A door slammed inside the house. The shuddering wood reverberated through the morning stillness.
I jumped, heart in my throat. Nobody should be inside. Had my clients stuck around? I didn’t see a car. Had some drifters or kids broken in and spent the night? That happened more often than you think. A lot of real estate agents carried mace or bear-repellant. Jill owned an electric stun-gun. I only had my phone.
Maybe I’d imagined it. My frayed nerves, still jittery from the tire-slashing, treated everything like a threat. My overwrought fight-or-flight reflexes transformed every tree shifting in the wind to a knife-wielding stalker. I stood on edge, shaking, like someone cranked up on too much caffeine. Accumulated stress was wearing out my heart.
I raised my voice: “Is someone there?”
Another door slammed inside the house, ringing out like a shot. It was followed by more footsteps: a heavy, deliberate tread across the floorboards.
“Hello?” I called out.
Something dark and nebulous flitted by the front window, no more than a blurry shadow. For a brief instant, it looked at me.
In outline, it held a vague, bipedal shape with a gelatinous texture, inhuman and indistinct. It turned its featureless head, showing its face. It lacked a nose, ears, or anything resembling human features. A bottomless black hole gaped where the mouth should be. Two hollow, red cylinders jutted out of its eye-sockets, the interiors lost in shadows. This thing was impossible, it could not be.
I screamed. The phone slipped from my fingers.
The thing vanished in a blur. The front door creaked.
I scrambled to my feet and ran for the Honda.