Deal With the Devil Read online

  I had Jude to thank and I wished I could get him on the phone but it was still daylight outside so he was probably asleep. We hadn’t talked much in the week preceding our first appointment but he’d left several thoughtful little messages on my phone, letting me know he was thinking of me and looking forward to seeing me again. It was nice the way he was interested but unobtrusive while I was busy. I was beginning to think that if he wasn’t a vampire I would have felt like I’d stumbled onto the perfect man. But of course he was a vampire, which meant there was no use in thinking like that.

  Since Jude wasn’t available for at least another hour, I decided to call home. Stupid, I know, but I just felt so high, so incredibly invincible that I grabbed my phone and started dialing the moment I got out into the sunlight.

  The heat of the late August afternoon actually felt good after the chilly air-conditioned courthouse where I’d taken the Bar. I felt good—confident and happy for the first time in a long time. Then my mom picked up the phone.

  “Luz, how are you? We don’t hear from you too often anymore,” she said, after I identified myself.

  “I know, Mom. I’ve been busy with work.” It was my standard excuse and she accepted it as always—nobody really wants a non-shifter around no matter what they say. “Listen, I’ve got some great news,” I told her. “Wonderful news.”

  “Really, you do?” There was a spark of excitement in her voice that had been lacking for years—ever since I hit puberty and failed to change with the full moon. “Did you finally make the change, sweetheart? Did you finally shift?”

  Abruptly, I felt deflated. Of course I shouldn’t be surprised. Where else would her mind go when I told her I had wonderful news?

  “Uh, not exactly, Mom,” I said, still trying to sound upbeat. “But I passed my test—the Bar exam. You know, the one I’ve been trying to pass for so long?”

  “Oh, really? Well, that’s…that’s great, honey. Really great. So you got the news in the mail that you passed?”

  “Well, no…” I could feel myself getting lower and lower as I spoke. Suddenly the heat from the sun, which sat on the edge of the horizon like a ball of fire, seemed oppressive again. “I just… I took it again and this time I didn’t get upset. I was able to finish with no problems,” I said, realizing as I did how weak the words sounded.

  “Well, that’s great. I’m sure you passed and you’ll find out for sure real soon.” Her voice was flat again, my wonderful surprise nothing more than wishful thinking.

  My joy was almost gone as I trudged along the sidewalk, trying to find the lot where I’d parked my car. “Is Diego there?” I asked desperately. My little brother was the only one in my family who still treated me the same. When we were kids he’d idolized me and somehow, despite my non-shifter status, he’d never stopped. He was in his early twenties now but I was still his wonderful big sister and I knew he would be excited about my news even if nobody else at my parents’ house was.

  “Sure.” My mom sounded relieved to get off the phone. “I’ll get him.”

  In a moment my little brother’s voice filled my ear. “Hey, hermana! Haven’t heard from you in a wolf’s age. How’s it going?”

  “Hey, hermano,” I returned. Though the rest of my immediate family had somehow lost their Hispanic heritage in the ever-increasing quest to climb the social ladder, Diego had stubbornly clung to his. He’d taken Spanish all through high school and had even spent a semester abroad in Spain. Of course, the Castilian Spanish spoken there was a far cry from the fast-paced Cuban-influenced dialect more common in Tampa but Diego was fairly fluent and every time we talked he tried to teach me new words.

  I decided to get right to the point. “I took the Bar exam again today,” I told him, finally finding my car and slipping my key in the lock. It was like an oven inside and I winced as I jammed the key in the ignition and twisted it before turning the AC on full blast.

  “Hey, cool. So how’d you do?” Diego’s words were casual but I knew he was just trying to be careful of my feelings. He, more than anyone else in my family, understood my struggle during important tests.

  “It went well this time.” I felt my joy bubbling back to the surface. “Really well, in fact. I’m sure I passed.”

  “You did? Awesome! That’s great, Luz—I knew you could do it.” His immediate affirmation was like a balm to my wounded soul. I had to blink tears out of my eyes before I could back out of the parking lot.

  “Thanks, little brother. That means a lot.”

  “Aw, don’t get all mushy on me.” Like most males, Diego was uncomfortable around emotional females so I made an effort to butch up.

  “Sorry. It’s just…nobody else understands. I’ve been working for this for so long.”

  “You sure as hell have. So what was different this time? You didn’t feel nervous?”

  Nervous was an understatement as anyone who’s ever had a full-fledged panic attack can attest to, but I was willing to let it slide. “No, I wasn’t,” I told my brother. “I met someone who helped me.”

  “What—like a therapist?”

  “Not exactly…” I hesitated. No one in my family would approve of what I had done—what I was in the process of doing, really, since I still had to see Jude again at least twice more. But I wanted so badly to share my joy that I decided to take a chance. “He’s a vampire,” I said and waited for a minute to let it sink in.

  “A what?” Diego’s voice sounded as horrified as though I’d told him I had found a friendly talking rattlesnake to help me pass the Bar.

  “A vampire,” I said, determined not to let his reaction throw me. “His name is Jude Jacobson. You’d like him.” I said this with a little less conviction. But then again, who could help liking Jude? He was so kind and gentle and polite—well, to me anyway. Even my brother, alpha wolf that he was, would like a vampire like Jude.

  But Diego was making sputtering sounds at the other end of the phone. At last I realized he was so upset he could barely get the words out. “Jude Jacobson?” he managed to spit out at last. “The Jude Jacobson?”

  “What do you mean, the Jude Jacobson? How many can there be?” I demanded.

  “Jude Jacobson who runs half the Tampa Bay area and has the other half in his pocket? Jude Jacobson even other vampires are afraid of because he’s such a ruthless bastard?”

  “That’s crazy,” I said dismissively, honking my horn at the guy in front of me who was stopped at a green light fumbling with his cell phone. “That must be someone else. My Jude isn’t like that.”

  “Listen to you—your Jude,” Diego sneered.

  “Well, he’s not.” I felt put on the defensive and wished I hadn’t said anything at all. “There must be two different vampire Judes because what you’re describing isn’t anything like him.” Well, not when he’s with me, anyway, I thought, remembering the menacing darkness I’d seen peeking out from his polite outer façade when he’d been pissed off at Banner that first night.

  “Trust me, there’s only one of this guy. If there were two we’d all be fucked.” My little brother took a deep breath that sounded like static on my end of the line. “Big guy—six four or five? Blond hair, shoulders like a linebacker?”

  “Well…yes,” I said slowly. “But listen, Diego, he’s a nice guy and he really helped me out.”

  “What—by helping you study? Showing you flashcards—that kind of shit?”

  “Not exactly,” I hedged.

  “Then how?”

  I didn’t really want to say at this point but I knew Diego would never let it drop until I confessed. “I-I drank some of his blood. It helped me concentrate—kept me from getting all panicky and blowing the test. Okay?”

  “No—not okay. Not okay at all. You actually drank his blood?” The disgust in my little brother’s voice was the same as if I’d said I drank a bottle of the vampire’s sweat or some other, even more unmentionable substance.

  “Not a lot of it,” I protested, angry at having to defend