Many Bloody Returns Part 44

She made plans to get a restraining order and told me to change the locks. Of course, I would tragically disappear before I could carry out her instructions.

It was after noon when I left the lawyer's office, my least favorite time of day in Florida. The parking lot was baking in the harsh

sun. It showed all the cracks in the buildings and the sidewalks-and in my lips and skin. I won't miss this, I thought. Not one bit.

I wanted to treat myself to a special dress for this evening, my coming out. I strolled along Las Olas Boulevard, where all the smart shops were. The windows glowed with dresses in dramatic black and fabulous colors.

Black, I thought. Black was the right choice when you're going to the dark side.

I entered a cool shop. A young saleswoman, who looked like a thinner version of Dawn, was talking to another clerk. They didn't

look up when I came in. They didn't notice me.

"Excuse me," I said. "May I have some help?"

The two young women smirked and rolled their eyes, and I understood why Marissa had killed her salesclerk. If I had more time

in Lauderdale, I'd come back for this one.

But I didn't. I bought the first dress I tried on. It didn't fit quite right. I could see my drooping back in the mirror, the little rolls of fat at my waist. But they would be gone soon. In my new life, this dress would be spectacular.

As I left, I knew I'd made the right decision. Not about the dress. About my life. I would be invisible, but it would be my choice.

I would be powerful.

I would be beautiful forever.

I would get the blood back. It would flow again. It would flow into me, and I would feel the ecstasy. I would not be young, but I didn't want to be young. The young were vulnerable, trusting, hurting. I never wanted to feel that way again.

I sat in my condo and thought about the rest of the night and the beginning of my new life.

When the sky began to bleed red, I walked once more through my condo, saying good-bye to all my things. It would be easy to give them up. I sat on the balcony until the sun set and the sky turned dark velvet. Then I dressed for my final night.

At midnight, I met Michael down by the docks. He was frighteningly beautiful.

"Have you made your choice?" he said.

"I choose you," I said.

He kissed me. "I'm so glad," he whispered. "Everyone is waiting for you. Who will be your first kill?"

"Dawn, Eric's office manager. The police will find her bloodless body outside his clinic."

"What about your husband?"

"I'll let him live. It will be fun to see how he explains his drained and dead girlfriend and his missing wife. I'll be gone, but I won't

take anything with me-no money from our bank account, no stocks, not even my jewelry. I'll follow the trial on the Internet from the south of France."

Michael smiled. "I'm sure we'll all be entertained by the drama," he said. "Happy birthday, Katherine."

How Stella Got Her Grave Back Toni L. P. Kelner Toni L. P. Kelner is the author of the Laura Fleming Southern mystery series and the forthcoming Where Are They Now? series about a freelance entertainment writer who specializes in articles about the formerly famous. She has won the Agatha Award for best short story and the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award, and has been nominated for the Anthony, the Macavity and the Romantic Times Reviewers' Choice awards. She lives in Ma.s.sachusetts with her husband, fellow author Stephen P. Kelner Jr., and two daughters. Though she's a longtime fan of vampire fiction, this is her first vampire story.

They stared at the tombstone. Or rather, Mark stared. Stella glared.

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Mark asked.

"Of course I'm sure!" she snapped.

"It's been a while since you've been here, right? And the circ.u.mstances that night were pretty much tailor-made for making you

forget the exact location."

"I'm sure," she said. "A person doesn't just forget something like that!" She continued to glare at the tombstone, as if waiting for its current inhabitant to rise and answer her questions. "What I want to know is, who the h.e.l.l is buried in my grave?"

"I told you this was morbid."

Almost exactly an hour earlier, Mark had asked, "Don't you think this is kind of morbid?"

"We're vampires," Stella replied. "It doesn't get much more morbid than that."

"Still, visiting your grave on your birthday? That kind of goes beyond the pale." He snickered. "Beyond the pale! That's good-I mean, we're nothing if not pale."

"It's not bad," Stella admitted. "Not that you're all that pale yet."

"True." He'd been a vampire for less than a year, so as long as he applied generous amounts of SPF 45, he could still go outside

in the daylight, and his tan hadn't faded.

They drove down the North Carolina highway in silence for a few minutes, Stella handling the maroon Cadillac with the ease only decades of practice can bring, and the caution for which vampires were infamous. While they could walk away from most

accidents, reckless driving could lead to overly curious medical personnel or jail cells with uncurtained windows, so vampires tended to obey the rules of the road. Mark hadn't had time to absorb that yet, which was why she was driving.

He asked, "Is this your actual birthday or the anniversary of your death?"

"Both," she said.

"You died on your birthday? That's harsh. How old were you?"

"You tell me."

"No way! I know better than to try to guess a woman's age."

"We vampires are proud of our age."

"Yeah, right. If I said you looked thirty-five when you stopped aging at twenty-five, I'd be walking home."

"You think I look thirty-five?"

"What I think is that you are a timeless beauty." There was something about becoming a vampire that enhanced a person's best

traits, but Mark suspected Stella had been gorgeous even before death. Her hair was glossy chestnut, her eyes chocolate brown, her skin like porcelain, and her figure lush. "In fact, I think you've become even more beautiful since I've known you."

She smiled. "I'll accept that. But, for the record, I was eighteen."

"Really? I would have guessed thirty-five."

"b.a.s.t.a.r.d," she said, still smiling.

They pa.s.sed a few more exits before Mark went back to his original point. "Other vampires don't go to their graves on their birthdays, do they?"

"Other vampires don't put dirt into their beds, either."

"That's not fair! Ramon swore that I'd lose vitality if I didn't sleep in the earth of my homeland."

"I wonder how long you'd have kept doing it if I hadn't smelled it on your pillow."

"No telling," he said. "He bugs me about it every time he sees me, too."

"He tells everybody he sees about it."

"d.a.m.n it! How long will it take me to live that down? Die that down. Whatever."

"Until he plays the same trick on somebody else."

"Yeah, like he's going to find a sap as big as me anytime soon," he said glumly, looking out into the darkness of the countryside as

they approached Allenville. "What counts as the dirt of my homeland anyway? Does it have to be from the town where I died or

the town I was born in? Or buried in, for that matter? Or just the county? The state? The country?"

Stella flipped on her signal and turned off of the highway. "Well, the dirt in Allenville would have done the job nicely. I was born here, died here, and buried here."

"On your birthday. That sucks!" He resisted any number of potential vampire/sucking jokes, having been threatened with being locked inside a tanning booth the last time he made one.

"Are you kidding?" Stella said. "It was the best birthday ever!"

"I see you celebrated birthdays differently in your youth."

She flashed him a look. "Look around the town."

"Just let me know when we get there."

"We are there."

Mark looked out the window. The interstate had been better lit than the street they were driving down, which had just enough light for him to see the WELCOME TO ALLENVILLE sign put up by the local Jaycees. The existence of a few scattered houses was betrayed only by the flickering blue glow of TV screens. "Not exactly a happening place, is it?"