Vampires Need Not…Apply? (Accidentally Yours #4)(56)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Never in a million years would she have seen this coming.

Doesn’t matter now, it came. She looked at her watch. And it’s showtime. Antonio is depending on you.

Ixtab stood and smoothed down the front of her bulky black dress. Gods, when this was all over, she was going to burn these wretched clothes. That is, if she ever made it back to this realm.

* * *

“I’m glad you came,” said Francisco in a scratchy voice. “I knew you would.”

Ixtab walked over to the bed and pulled up a chair next to him. The room smelled of decay, death, and evil.

“Did you now?” Ixtab responded coyly and pulled the dark green blanket up over his chest while crinkling her nose underneath her veil.

He coughed. Drool trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Ick. Just… ick.

“Of course. You cannot fight fate.” He wheezed his words.

“I fight with her all the time.” Ixtab reached over and fluffed the enormous pile of pillows under his neck and head. “Once we were on a pig farm, and I pushed her into a huge pile of poop. It was really funny, actually—but that’s beside the point. I’m not here because I’ve decided to be with you. Yet. I am here to ask questions, and the only way this will work is if you tell me the truth.”

“Ask away and the truth shall be yours,” he replied.

Grrr… “You just lied again, didn’t you?”

He made an evil snicker that faded into a cough.

“Can you at least try to tell the truth?” she asked.

“Perhaps.”

Finally! A straight answer. “Good enough. So after you die, you’ll take your son’s body. Then what?”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I mean, how do you expect us to be happy if Antonio is always going to be hunting you? He hates your guts, you know. And he’ll hate you even more after you take his brother from him.”

“Who says that I will?” the demon questioned.

Huh? “You are taking Franco’s body, aren’t you?” That’s what Antonio had said to her in the garden—“vampires need not apply”—and that Franco would become the next host.

The demon wiggled his head from side to side and puckered his grayish-pink lips in a noncommittal sort of way.

“Aren’t you?” she asked again.

“I admit that had been my original plan, but I believe Antonio will be the better choice. Now that I’ve learned you are able to touch him and he is immortal—I think I may have found a permanent host.”

What? What? Oh. Come on! Why does everything have to be like this? Hate you, Universe! This was horrible. She needed the demon to want to kill Antonio—that was part of her plan. What plan? Well… the one she’d frigging made up somewhere between discovering the ex-love of her life was actually killed by an incubus and that she’d sacrifice anything to save that incubus’s son, Antonio—who she actually loved.

“But he’s a vampire,” she protested.

“That shouldn’t matter.”

“He seems to think it does,” she replied.

“Perhaps he’s been misled by a certain… demon?” the demon snickered.

Oh no.

“I do, however”—hack, hack—“believe the transfer may take a little extra help this time,” he added.

“Help? What, like a shoehorn or something?” She needed him to talk, to share his plan so she could effectively divert.

He lifted his gaunt hand off the bed and wagged his scraggly finger. “Uh-uh. I’m not telling. You’ll simply have to wait and see.”

“Don’t you trust me, Francisco? After all I suffered because of you? Don’t you know how many years I wanted to crawl into a hole and die because I missed you?” And now I want to do the same, but because you’re alive.

The demon’s thin lips formed a hard line. “You do not want to help my son?”

“If you know anything about me, then you know I can’t stand vampires. I find them repugnant—I even started a list: They hate sunshine. They drink blood. Oh, I especially can’t stand how disloyal they are. For example, your son has figured out how to open the portal, and he thinks I’m here luring you to go to him so he can throw you in. He’d never do such a thing if he weren’t a leechy monster.”

He studied her. “And you are telling me this because?”

She shrugged. “I’m a goddess who despises weakness, which is why I think your son is a vile bag of useless vampire giblets. You should be ashamed to be related.”

He nodded his head slowly. “Yes. He is a disgrace to my bloodline—so much…kindness and loyalty—but I still plan to take his body.” The demon licked his sticky, putrid lips. “I can’t wait to have you in my bed.”

Do not vomit. Whatever you do, do not vomit. “That’s the problem. You won’t have me. Do you honestly think I’d let a vampire touch me, even if he had you inside him? Haven’t you learned anything spying on me all these years?”

There was a long pause. Clearly the demon hadn’t thought his plan through. “What are you proposing?”

That you buy this giant, stinky bridge made of pure bull crap I’m about to sell you? “Haven’t you asked yourself why I can touch him? It’s obviously because your genes have evolved—must be whatever dark magic you used to create your little mini-Franciscos. I touched your other son, too,” she lied. “No problem. I bet if I touched you, it would be the same.”

The demon blinked. She did not. Not that he could see her, but not blinking was the key to rock solid bluff. “Watch…”

He jerked away, but there was only so far he could go considering his limited mobility.

Ixtab willed her cells to open to his darkness and take his energy in so he’d believe the lie. Please work, please work, please… Teen uk’al k’iinam. Teen uk’al yah.

The most vile, horrid, sticky energy poured into her. And though it was only for a brief instant, she had to keep herself from falling over and retching violently on the floor. Only the thought of Antonio’s happiness kept her strong.

“Ha! See!” She forced the cheeriness into her voice.

The demon looked confused for several moments, and then a crescent moon grin stretched across his face.

Oh, boy. And to think, all those crusty, yellow teeth could be mine.

“This is truly wonderful. How?” he asked.