Blood Kiss Read online

  “Mikey! So good to see you.” She was wearing a neat blue dress that matched the faded blue of her eyes behind her old-fashioned glasses. The diamond rings I saw glittering on her fingers were too large and vulgar to be anything but real. “And your, uh…friend too,” she added, giving me a very disapproving once-over. “But, Mikey, bubela, what happened to you?”

  I suddenly realized what we must look like to her. Michael was bare-chested, wearing only his tattered and dirty scrub pants and a pair of sneakers. I had on my slaying suit which looked kinky at the best of times because it’s tight, black, form-fitting vinyl. And it was a lot worse for the wear at the moment.

  “It’s kind of a long story.” Michael looked at her appealingly. “But we don’t have much time. This is Kate, by the way. She’s my, uh, friend.”

  Mrs. Lebowitz eyed me again. “Well, any friend of Mikey’s…”

  “Thanks,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “Well come in, come in.” She ushered us into the cool dim interior of the house which appeared to be decorated entirely in early America crochet. Michael sat down on a lumpy brown sofa that was covered with a garish orange, yellow, and red throw that was obviously handmade. I sat gingerly beside him.

  “Now what seems to be the problem?” Mrs. Lebowitz settled herself in a chair opposite us that had a fat pink and purple cushion on its seat. A huge Persian cat with a flat, smashed in face and orange fur jumped into her lap immediately and began a rusty purr. The cat was so big and the woman was so small, she almost had to look up over its back to speak to us.

  “Well—” Michael began but she interrupted him almost at once.

  “Did you have your teeth done, Mikey?” She gestured at her own teeth which were obviously dentures. “They look so bright and…well, so sharp.”

  “Uh…” Michael put a hand to his mouth but before he could answer she was talking again.

  “Tea. We need some tea. Or would you rather have coffee?” She glanced at me uncertainly.

  “Mrs. Lebowitz, we really don’t have much time,” Michael began.

  “Coffee,” I said to her. “Strong and black. Please.”

  “Be right back.” She pushed at the huge cat which didn’t want to be dislodged from her lap. “Bad pussy!” she scolded. “Get off me now—you’re shedding everywhere. Bad, hairy pussy!’

  I saw Michael hiding a grin and I couldn’t help smothering a laugh myself as Mrs. Lebowitz bustled out of the room. As soon as she was safely gone, I leaned over and whispered to Michael,

  “What are we doing at your neighbor’s house?”

  “Finding out if anyone has been in my house,” he said, nodding through the picture window behind the couch to the tidy bungalow across the street. “Believe me, if anyone has, Mrs. Lebowitz will know it. She has nothing to do all day but crochet and watch the neighbors. She knows everything that happens on this entire block.”

  “So how did you get so close to her, Mikey?” I asked. “Was she a friend of your parents or something?”

  He shook his head. “No, my parents left me the house but they were long gone by the time she came to the neighborhood. She and her husband retired down here from New York a couple of years ago and he died almost immediately. Sad.”

  “So you keep her company?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

  He shrugged. “She’s nosy but she’s sweet. Kinda reminds me of my grandma, you know? So I try to come over here if I have any spare time and help her out. Paint the house, clean the gutters.” He grinned. “Rescue pussy when she climbs up a tree.”

  “I bet,” I said dryly but inside I was thinking that he was a genuinely nice guy. Just the kind of guy my Uncle Harry always wanted me to meet. Too bad he was a vampire. But even if he hadn’t been, I wasn’t exactly nice-guy-girlfriend material—I’m a little too rough around the edges for that.

  “Here we go.” Mrs. Lebowitz bustled back into the living room with a steaming pot of black coffee in a genuine sterling silver tea service. There was a silver bowl full of sugar cubes with some little silver tongs to pick them up, a little silver cream pot, and even a big silver tray to serve it all off of. At least the cups were china. She set the tray down in front of us and began to pour while the big orange cat twined itself around her ankles.

  “Bad pussy,” she scolded, setting the first cup in front of me. “You’re going to make me fall. Get out from between my legs!”

  I saw Michael smother another smile. He was reaching for the silver tongs that went with the sugar bowl.

  “Michael,” I started, but he had already picked them up. Well, maybe he could stand silver too. If he could walk in the sunlight, that wouldn’t be any big surprise.

  “Ouch!” Michael dropped the tongs on the somewhat cat-hairy carpet as though he’d been burned. And in fact, he had. I grabbed his hand and looked at it, watching as what looked like a third degree burn in the shape of the sugar tongs’ handle slowly faded from his skin. So much for that theory.

  “Oh dear!” Mrs. Lebowitz looked concerned. “Did you hurt yourself, Mikey?”

  “Uh, yeah.” He started to reach for the tongs, remembered that he couldn’t and looked at me appealingly. I reached over him and grabbed the tongs, putting them back on the tray. I could see a long wisp of cat hair clinging to their pointy ends and I was glad I liked my coffee black with no sugar.

  “What happened?” she demanded, peering at his hand.

  “Nothing.” He pulled it back quickly and hid it behind his other arm. “I, uh, pinched myself with your tongs. You know, I really don’t think I want to drink coffee right now—I’m trying to cut down on my caffeine intake. But could I have a glass of water? I’m really thirsty.”

  “Of course, of course.” Mrs. Lebowitz went for the water at once, like a woman on a mission.

  “What happened to me?” Michael demanded the minute she was gone.

  I examined the hairy tongs for a moment before replacing them. “Must be a high silver content in this tea service. You’re a vamp—you had a severe allergic reaction to it.”

  “But those cuffs you had on me were silver—weren’t they? Why didn’t those burn?”

  I shrugged. “Because they weren’t as pure—silver mixed with steel. Sterling silver can’t be used for weapons and restraints because even though it’s pure, it’s too soft. You need a harder base metal to temper it with.”

  He frowned at me. “So now I can’t touch silver?”

  I raised an eyebrow at him. “This is a big problem for you? Do you have a lot of silver body piercings or something?”

  “No.” He sighed. “It’s just…weird.”

  “Get used to it,” I advised him. “Remember the way you were able to lift that dumpster over your head?”

  He nodded.

  “Well this is the flip side of the coin,” I told him. “You get the strength but you also get the weaknesses.” I didn’t want to speculate on what other weaknesses he might have. Just then Mrs. Lebowitz came in with a big glass of ice water.

  “Thanks.” Michael took it from her gratefully and gulped thirstily. “That really hit the spot.”

  “Now.” Mrs. Lebowitz settled herself in her chair again and poured herself a cup of coffee. I was relived to see she didn’t use the tongs. “What seems to be the problem, Mikey? And how did you get in such a state?” She gestured at his ragged pants and bare chest and I saw her eyes flick disapprovingly at me too. I sighed. I might as well have ‘bad girl’ stamped on my forehead as far as Michael’s nice elderly neighbor was concerned.

  “I had a run in with some guys at church,” Michael said, truthfully enough.

  “Oh my, at church?” She put a hand to her heart and leaned forward. “Oy—how terrible.”

  “It was.” He nodded. “It really was. But Mrs. Lebowitz, here’s the thing—I think they might have been after something—a, uh, emerald ring my mother left me.”

  “Gracious!” Mrs. Lebowitz caressed her own diamond rings which ranged over her ar