Author: Molly Harper

Gabriel leveled me with his serious, paternal gaze. “Jane, do you want to have sex with Zeb?”

My eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. “Lord, no.”

“So, this couldn’t be your fault. The voice in your head? That’s just a blood thought.” Gabriel laughed and cupped my face between his palms. “It’s the vampire brain’s response to live fresh blood, a physiological attempt to keep the vampire as well fed as possible for as long as possible. We never know when our next meal will be. So the receptors in your brain that interpret pleasure all start firing at once. You get overloaded with endorphins, and you start having thoughts … well, thoughts I’d rather you didn’t describe to me. But it’s perfectly natural, particularly for those who rarely feed on live blood. Your brain was just overcompensating for time lost.”

“So I don’t really have dark, hungry feelings for Zeb?”

“In a universe that is decent and good, no.” He shook his head.

“Thank you,” I breathed, leaning against him. “I thought I was having some sort of bizarre psychic reaction to the wedding. Or maybe an aneurysm. I was hoping for aneurysm.”

Gabriel’s voice tightened. “That does, however, mean that I must have a talk with Zeb about appropriate behavior for engaged men, particularly engaged men who expect to continue to spend time with you and retain the use of their limbs.”

I snorted. “And if that doesn’t work, what’s next? A paid chaperone?”

“If necessary. I’m sure Dick could use some extra cash,” Gabriel muttered, tensing when I shot him a warning look. “I am very fond of Zeb. He’s a fine young man, and I enjoy spending time with him. But if he thinks he can make advances toward you because of a misguided case of cold feet, he is sorely mistaken.”

“I’m pretty sure I got that point across when I made his nose bleed,” I told him.

“You hit him?” he asked, grinning. “That’s my girl.”

“I don’t think he even realized he was doing it. He had this odd, glazed-over look in his eyes, and he just leaned in. We were both pretty mortified once we got his nose mopped up. Is it possible his brain was just overreacting to being bitten? I mean, Andrea’s reaction when I fed from her was sort of … happy. But she didn’t try to make out with me.”

“It’s possible,” he conceded. When he saw the relief flood my face, he groaned. “This is one of those issues you’re going to insist on handling yourself, isn’t it?” I nodded. “If he does it again—”

“If he does it again, you have my permission to break his legs and arms and make him believe he’s a rodeo clown from Walla Walla,” I promised. “We can make him call himself Slappy the Wonder Clown.”

“Fine. On to less disturbing subjects; can I see what you’ve found so far?”

I turned my laptop to show Gabriel the sad little “No records found” screen. “I can’t find him registered in the state’s database of the undead. According to this, he died almost fifteen years ago, so why wouldn’t he register? He’s an old vampire, hardly threatening. What’s he afraid of?”

“Maybe he’s not a vampire,” Gabriel said.

“But what else could he be?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he admitted.

“Well, you’re no help,” I grumbled. “I’ve tried reading his thoughts, but he must be one of those people I can’t get through to. Because I got nothing.”

“You can’t just go around thumbing through people’s brains when it suits you, Jane.”

“Oh, you’ve wiped my parents’ memories like Windex, and now suddenly there’s a boundary?”

Gabriel gently pried the laptop out of my hands and put it on the coffee table. “I can only guess that Wilbur is a lonely being, either natural or supernatural, and he genuinely enjoys your grandmother’s company.”

“No, that can’t be it,” I muttered, grabbing the laptop and clicking into another search engine. I typed in Wilbur’s name. “Does this seem like a lot of results in the wedding license section?”

I scanned the folder. The name Wilbur, Will, Bernie, or Gus Goosen showed up six times over the last fifteen years. “Each wife died within a year of their marriage.”

“Can you tell what they died of?” he asked, intrigued.

“I’m going to do something slightly illegal, so you might want to turn your head,” I told him. Gabriel, unfazed, merely smirked. I gave an exaggerated sigh. “You have been warned.”

I clicked on an online database that was supposed to be limited to licensed medical examiners. It said so right at the top of the screen, in big red letters. I entered a valid user name and password, prompting Gabriel’s jaw to drop. I explained, “Jolene has a cousin working in the county coroner’s office. He can be bought with summer sausage.”

Gabriel sighed. “Well, of course she does.”

“OK, first up, first wife, Dulcie, had a stroke in 1991, age seventy, nothing suspicious,” I said, poring over the digitized paperwork. “Here’s a death certificate for Wilbur, dated 1993. Cause of death listed as natural.”

“Natural what?” Gabriel asked.

I clicked and scanned. “Just ‘natural.’ There was no autopsy. The coroner wrote that the death was unremarkable and likely connected to the deceased’s chronic heart condition.”

Gabriel scrunched his nose. “So, the cause of death was ‘he was old’?”

“According to this, his body was released to Aaronson’s Funeral Home a day later. Next of kin listed as Jerry Goosen, Wilbur’s son, a resident of Ashton, Oklahoma. I can only hope that Jerry chose the cheapest funeral home in the state because he picked the first one he saw in the yellow pages. Is it normal for vampires to get a death certificate?”

Gabriel, fully vested in my little Nancy Drew investigation now, nodded. “It can happen if a just-turned fledgling is found by humans before he or she can rise. Since autopsies and embalming involve removing organs and most of the blood from the body, vampires don’t tend to fare well. They turn out wrong somehow, weaker, diluted. When was his next marriage certificate dated?”

I chewed my lip, switching back to the vital-statistics database. “In 1994, a Bernie Goosen married Ms. Ethel Brown. She died a year later as the result of anaphylactic shock from multiple bee stings. She’d been gardening. Coroner ruled it accidental. Then in 1996, a Will Goosen to Mrs. DeeDee Wilkins-Reed. Her death certificate is dated six months later. Cause of death: blunt trauma to the head. A leg of the shower stool she was sitting on collapsed, and she was thrown to the floor, hitting her head on the tile. Coroner ruled it accidental. In 1998, Gus Goosen married Mrs. Judy Wooten. She choked on a piece of peanut brittle. Coroner ruled it, all together now—”

“Accidental.”

I sifted through the online files. “I’ll grant you that the first one was natural, and maybe even the second one was an accident, but after that, I think Wilbur figured out how much fun marriage for profit could be. What are the odds that Wilbur isn’t bumping his wives off Bluebeard style?”

“It could just be a coincidence, you know.” I stared at him. He jerked his shoulders. “It’s not likely, but it could be a coincidence.”

“I think my grandma may have finally met her match,” I marveled.

“You are very good at this,” he said, adding, “Stay away from my tax records.”

“Too late,” I told him absently. He jumped, but that was probably because I suddenly started waving my hands. “Wait, wait, wait.”

“Is that an ‘I’m thinking’ gesture or an ‘I have a headache’ gesture?” he asked.

“Thinking. Weakened old vampire. Diluted. I read something like this.”

I ran upstairs and snatched my copy of Spectrum of Vampirism off my nightstand. As I sprinted down the steps, I called out, “Normally, it doesn’t take me this long to finish a book. This thing reads like stereo assembly instructions, in Korean. But listen to this:

“ ‘Of the many shades of vampirism, the most weakened and diluted state is that of so-called ghouls, vampires who have been embalmed. Because some vampire fledglings are believed to have been murdered or attacked by animals, they are embalmed and treated for burial. Despite the blood being drained, the vampire will survive the process if the heart and brain are left intact, which sometimes happens with lazy or inept embalmers.

“ ‘Reports of this phenomenon can be found as early as ancient Egypt. The nightmare of cursed mummies rising from their sarcophagi was born of priests skipping steps in the mummification process on newborn vampires. Embalmed vampires rise on the third day, deprived of the vampiric blood that turned them. They are able to withstand serious injuries, though they heal more slowly than full-fledged vampires. They also lack the strength and agility of vampires. They can withstand weak sunlight and require only small amounts of blood to survive.’ “

I looked at him expectantly. He shrugged.

“He’s a ghoul. I knew it!” I yelled.

Gabriel laughed. “No, you didn’t.”

I grunted in frustration. “I know. What should I worry about first? Him hurting her as a human or biting her and trying to turn her? Because I do not want to think about an eternity with Grandma Ruthie in it.”

“Actually, ghouls aren’t that dangerous,” Gabriel said. “They’re only interested in dead blood. It’s the only thing they can digest. So they don’t go around biting people. And they can’t turn a human into a vampire. They can only create other ghouls. The question is, what do you do with this information?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I could warn her,” I said. “Or I could let it play out for my own personal amusement.”

Gabriel tsked and lifted my chin. “The Jane I know and love wouldn’t let her grandmother suffer for her own personal amusement.”

“Oh, baby doll.” I snickered and kissed the tip of his nose. “I don’t think you know me as well as you think you do. So, what are we up to this evening? You want to go see another movie? Or we could just hang out here.”

Gabriel’s face tensed, all of the breezy charm of the last few minutes melted away. “Actually, I can’t stay. I should have mentioned I was just dropping by on my way to the airport. There’s a quarterly staff meeting at my hotel that I can’t afford to miss again. I like to put in an appearance every couple of months; it tends to keep the humans honest. I’m flying out to Atlanta tonight. It’s just for a few days. I’m sorry I forgot to mention it.”

“I could come with you,” I offered. “I love Atlanta. Well, I’ve never been there, but I’m a big fan. You know, Gone with the Wind, the Braves, the Turner Broadcasting System.”

I was really grasping with that last one.

“It wouldn’t be any fun for you, Jane. I’ll be in meetings all night. I’d hate for you to wander around alone. Who knows what sort of trouble you could get into?” He meant for it to be a joke, but there was a brittle, too-bright quality to his voice.

“I really don’t mind,” I said, acting oblivious to his hasty refusal. “I’d like to see the hotel. I feel I only know the Hollow version of Gabriel. I’d like to see what you’re doing when you’re out in the world.”

Gabriel seemed to grasp the double meaning. We stared at each other for a long time. I was practically daring him to make another lame excuse, another lie. I was done letting him off the hook. He could keep making up stupid stories if he wanted to, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Gabriel’s mouth set in a thin, cool smile.