Sunshine

The fact that the wound on my breast, for the past four days, since he’d told me it was poisoned, was burning like the ‘fo had set a match to my skin, was almost by the way. It was as if now that I had the diagnosis I didn’t care what the diagnosis was: knowing was enough. For a few days. It was seeping so badly I not only had to keep it bandaged, I had to change the gauze pad at least once a day. I didn’t care. I did it and didn’t think about it. The heavy, permanent sense of tiredness made this easier than it might have been if I’d been sharp and alert. The only problem was finding places to put the adhesive tape that weren’t already sore from having adhesive tape there too often already. I could have bought the surgical tape that doesn’t take your skin off with it, but that would have been admitting there was a problem. I wasn’t admitting anything. So the area around the slash looked peeled.

The thing that really wasn’t all right was that he’d said he’d be back, and he wasn’t.

Things are getting bad if I was worried about a vampire. Well, they were bad, and I was worried. I didn’t see him as the stand-you-up kind. If you could apply human guidelines to a vampire, which you couldn’t.

But if he’d said he’d be back, he’d be back. I was sure. And he wasn’t.

I had the rest of the day off after I finished the morning baking. Paulie, still hoarse but no longer sneezing, came in and started on Lemon Lechery and marbled brown sugar cake, and I went home to comb every globenet account I could find on vampire activity. Because of my peculiar hobby I paid for a line into the cosworld better than most home users bothered with, so I didn’t have to go to the library every time I wanted the hottest new reportage on the Others. If there was anything to find I should be able to find it. When some big vampire feud came to a head there was usually more than enough mayhem to alert even the dimmest of the news media. And maybe this was only a tiny, local feud, but our media aren’t among the dimmest. I couldn’t believe that, this time, knowing what he knew, he wouldn’t sell himself dearly, if Bo had caught him again.

If, that is, he hadn’t come back because he’d been prevented. If I hadn’t been stood up like a teenager going to the prom with a known loser. One might almost say a deadbeat. Ha ha.

I couldn’t find anything. After I looked through all the local stuff I started on the national, and then the international. The nearest report of anything like what I thought I might be looking for was happening in Macedonia. I didn’t think it would happen in Macedonia.

I wanted to start looking up glyphs, to see if I could translate mine, but I couldn’t make myself be interested enough. I cleaned the apartment instead. I rearranged the piles of books to be read immediately. Altar of Darkness went on the bottom, although I dusted it first. I mopped floors. I scrubbed sinks. I baking-soda’d the tea stains out of the teapot and my favorite mugs. I vacuumed. I folded laundry. I even cleaned a few windows. I hate cleaning windows. I was too tired to work this hard but I couldn’t sit still. And it was overcast outdoors: not a day that insisted I go out and lie in it.

By evening I was exhausted and slightly queasy.

I had an egg-and-Romaine sandwich on two slabs of my pumpernickel bread at six, and went to bed at seven. I gave up. I wore the nightgown I’d been wearing four nights ago, and got between the sheets. I had a little trouble going to sleep, but it was as if my thoughts were spinning so fast—or maybe it was effect of the poison winning at last—eventually I got dizzy and fell over into unconsciousness.

When I woke up three hours later he was there. Darkness, sitting in my bedroom chair. Darkness, I noticed, barefoot. I couldn’t remember if he’d been barefoot the other night or not.

I sat up. I was too sleepy and too relieved not tell the truth. “I’ve been worrying about you.”

I’d figured out last time that vampires don’t move when they’re startled, they go stiller. He did that different-kind-of-stillness thing.

“You know,” I said. “Concern. Unease. Anxiety. You said you’d come back two nights ago. You didn’t. There’s this little threat of annihilation going on too, you know? I thought maybe you’d got into trouble.”

“The preparations took longer than I anticipated,” he said. “That is all. Nothing to…worry you.”

“Nothing to worry me,” I said, warming to my theme. “Sure. The annihilation threat includes me and I’m wearing a poisoned wound that is slowly killing me. I wouldn’t dream of worrying about anything.”

“Good,” he said. “Worry is useless.”

“Oh—” I began. “I—” I stopped. “Okay. You win. Worry is useless.”

He stood up. I tried not to clutch the bedclothes into a knot. He pulled his shirt off and dropped it on the floor.

Eeeeek.