“Are you wearing contacts?” I ask her, leaning close to get a look at her. Minnie usually has watery blue eyes that look more gray than anything. Now they’re dark brown. She’s lined her eyes with dark kohl and shaped them to resemble mine. Fake lashes, deep contour, overlined lips, carving and what looks like a spray tan round it out. I’m surprised she didn’t fucking dye her hair.
I laugh. “You are, aren’t you?”
Minnie jerks back like I’ve slapped her. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about your new eye color, you freak. What’s the matter? Billy can’t get it up for you anymore?”
She crosses her arms and steps in front of me. She’s my height but she’s skinnier. If it comes down to a fight I’m going to throw her through the wall the way I’m feeling.
“You shut the fuck up about myfiancé,” she says and makes a show of flashing her ring. It’s a nice ring. An heirloom from Ireland that Billy used to swear would be mine.
“Okay, then tell him to stop coming by my house.”
“He-” Minnie looks around and shakes her bony finger at me, “he hasn’t been by your house. You’re a liar.”
“Well, he’s been by my house but he didn’t stay for long. He saved that for Liz.”
She goes pale when I mention Liz. The woman might be dead but she was absolutely fucking Billy. “What do you know about Liz? I-I know something happened this week. He hasn’t been acting right.”
“I know he was sleeping with her. Don’t feel bad though, he’s got this thing with cheating. Happens to everyone,” I tell her and start to walk past her. Ben is by the back door with a glare on his face. He’s waiting for now but I don’t think he’s keen on waiting much longer while I have a Mean Girls run in with Minnie.
“Think you’re fancy just because you got married and cleared your name in town?”
I stop and look at her. We’re shoulder to shoulder now. I give her a pitying look. “Oh, Minnie. I didn’t need either of those things to know I’m better than you.” I shoulder past her and meet up with Ben at the back door.
“You two about done with your bull?”
I glare at him. “Shut the fuck up and take me to your vampire brother.”
Ben looks surprised that I’ve said it directly but he doesn’t say a word and stalks out of the bar and onto the patio. There’sa couple of people out there drinking beers. They go silent when they see us, but Ben and I don’t pay them any attention. He keeps walking and so do I. We head out of the patio and round the corner towards the docks. We walk for a minute before he stops and looks over his shoulder at me.
“You think you’re so fucking smart, but a real smart woman wouldn’t have drank that drink.”
I’m already reaching into my bag for my gun when two others step out of the alleyway to the left. I pull the water bottle of holy water out and pull my gun on them. They don’t move as slow as Ben does, they’re lightning quick and at his side in a second. Great. Three vampires. Lucky me. I look the vampires over. More of Brian’s loser buddies–a man and a woman. Definitely tracks with what the newspaper staff told me. There’s only three here and there should be eight. Where are the other five?
I look around, making sure there’s no one behind me. “Well, a smarter vampire would have realized I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, and he would have wondered why I still drank it.” I uncap the bottle and cock the gun.
Ben looks from my bottle to my gun and laughs. “What the fuck is this combo?”
“Shut the fuck up and tell me which one of you threw the car through my window.”
Ben laughs, well and truly throws his head back and laughs. “I heard you had some balls on you, but this is something else.” He steps back and motions for the two vampires at his side to move. “Get this bitch, and remember what mother said. She wants her alive.”
Fuck their mother.
I don’t even wait for them to move. The second I’ve processed they’re taking me somewhere I fire two shots off, hitting the male vampire in the chest before I throw the water in my bottle at them all. There’s a scream when the holy water lands on thewoman’s face. She staggers to her knees and covers her face while steam rises from it. The other vampire is frozen in place and stares at her in horror.
“Get up,” Ben yells at her.
“It burns!” She screams, clawing at her face. “I can’t see. Oh my god, you said we would be invincible!”
Ben tears at his hair and kicks the female vampire in the side. “You are! Now get up!”
It’s right about then that I start to feel the effects of whatever he put in my drink. “Oh fuck,” I whisper and hold out a hand to steady myself. The male vampire gets to his feet slowly. He holds a hand over the gaping chest wound I gave him.
“I didn’t sign up for this shit, Ben,” he growls. “This bitch is a killer. Brian told you what she did to him.”
Ben crosses his arms and jerks his chin at me when I stagger to the side. “Look at her. Does she look like a fucking killer now? I roofied her. She’ll be down in a minute and then we’ll have our fun with her.”
