Sunshine

I could hear some of Mom’s charms moving around in the glove compartment. Once a charm has been given someone’s name, if that someone doesn’t snap it and let it go live, it may pop itself, and try to come after you. When I opened the glove compartment to put a new one in now, half a dozen of the old ones tried to climb up my arm. They were probably all totally cracked from driving around in a car though.

It had been dark for two hours. The moon was rising. I thought about trying to talk Charlie into keeping the coffeehouse open twentyfour hours, drive those inferior Prime Time brownies right out of town. Then I could never leave the coffeehouse again, for the rest of my life. Pat and Jesse would be disappointed, of course, and we’d have to gear hard after the insomniac market, to keep the customer flow up, all night long, since you can’t ward a restaurant. But these were mere practical problems. The thing that really bothered me was that I’d have to tell everyone why.

That there was a vampire—a master vampire, and his gang—after me. Specifically the ones I’d got away from two months ago, and it turns out suckers are poor losers. And persistent bastards.

That maybe I was the first bad-magic wuss in history. The lab-coat brigade would probably want to do exhaustive research on my mother’s child-rearing techniques as well as on my blood chemistry. Academic prunes would write papers. If they knew.

If I lost it and they found out.

There was a light on in Yolande’s part of the house, spilling across the porch and toward the drive. I still went up my own stairs in the dark; there was a hall light, but electric light in that narrow window-less way made me feel claustrophobic. When I got upstairs, and bolted the door behind me, I still didn’t turn the light on. I had another cup of chamomile tea on the dark balcony. Moonlight was beginning to glimmer through the trees at the edge of the garden. And I turned off thinking. I sat there, listening to the almost-silence. There were tiny rustling noises, the hoot of an owl, the soft stirring of the wind through leaves. External leaves. Internal leaves.

A tree? It shouldn’t be a tree. My immaterial mentor should be one of those things in one of my brothers’ combox games that you zapped on sight, all teeth and turpitude.

And nothing at all like you, Sunshine…we need you.

I was so tired. At least tonight I had the option to go to bed early. I put my cup in the sink, put my nightgown on. Like last night, I was out as soon as I lay down.

But I woke again only a few hours later, knowing he was there. I lay curled up, facing the wall; the window, and the rest of the room, were behind me. I didn’t hear him, of course. But I knew he was there.

I turned over. There was a bright rectangle of moonlight on the floor, and a dark shape sitting motionless in the chair beyond it. He raised his head a little, in acknowledgment, I think, of my waking. He’d been watching me.

I thought about being in the same room with a vampire. I thought about the fact that he’d come in, however he’d come in, through some charmed and warded door (or window). I thought about the fact that I had, of course, invited him in, when he had brought me home, two months ago. I hadn’t thought about inviting him in, but I’d been beyond that kind of thinking then anyway, and he’d been doing me the small service of saving my life at the time. I shouldn’t now object to the idea that once I’d invited him over my threshold the welcome was, apparently, permanent.

You can kind of feel the barrier your wards are making for you, feel if there are any big drafts flowing through any big holes. There weren’t any drafts. None of my wards were reacting to his presence.

I assumed the invitation was particular to him. That I hadn’t thrown the way open for vampires in general. Not a nice thought.

Maybe I’d invited him over my threshold a second time when I stood on the edge of the darkness two nights ago and said, What do I do now?

There were things I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten the wrongness. What was new was the fact that, despite my heart doing its fight-or-flight, help-we’re-prey-and-HEY-STUPID-THAT’S-A-VAMPIRE number, I was glad to see him. Ridiculous but true. Scary but true.

The one person—creature—whatever of my acquaintance who wouldn’t be in any danger if I snapped. Even a criminally deranged almost-human berserker is no match for a vampire.

The one whatever of my acquaintance who probably would still make me look virtuous and morally upstanding if I did snap.

I didn’t find this very comforting.

“You came,” I said.

“I was here last night,” he said. “But you slept deeply, and I did not wish to disturb you.”

I’d also forgotten how uncanny his voice was. Sinister. Not human.

“That was nice of you,” I said, listening to myself and thinking you pathetic numbskull. “I had three hours of sleep last night and it— it’s been a long couple of days.”

“Yes,” he said.