Free Vampires: The Recent Undead by Paula Guran

post, but then she reminded herself that whatever remote location he was directing her to would benefit her as well.
    “He raped and killed a twelve-year-old girl,” she said, her voice gone hard and cold.
    Her captor shook his head. “He was never connected to anything.”
    “He told me he did, you moron.”
    “Don’t matter. You still had no right to kill him.”
    “I never said I did.”
    “He told me you were coming for him—called me up, told me your name, where you worked, what you looked like.”
    Apples supposed that Gage hadn’t bothered to explain that he was already dead by that point.
    “So what’s it to you?” she asked.
    “He was my brother.”
    Now, that, Apples could understand.
    - 5 -
    Who turned me? I never learned her name. She just said she liked the look of me—the inside look of me. She drained me, took me away and watched over me for the three days until I rose as a vamp. Then she cut me loose.
    Yeah, of course we talked before I went home to face the music. She filled me in on the rules and regs. I don’t mean there’s vamp police, running around handing out tickets if you do something wrong. There’s just things you can do and things you can’t and she straightened me on them. Gave me the lowdown on all the mythology. Useful stuff. She never did get into why she turned me besides what I’ve already told you, so your guess is as good as mine.
    No, I never saw her again.
    - 6 -
    “How did I kill him?”
    “What?”
    “Your brother. How am I supposed to have killed him?”
    They were on the Queensway now, the multiple lane divided highway that bisected the city from east to west. Apples kept to the speed limit—100 kilometers—but they were already passing Bayshore Shopping Centre and about to leave the city. The last few kilometers they’d ridden in silence. The surviving Gage sibling rested his gun on his thigh and stared out the front windshield. He turned to Apples.
    “That’s one of the things I need to know.”
    “Have you ever killed anybody?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “A couple of guys. Once was in the middle of a holdup, the other time in jail. I never got connected to either one.”
    “How did it feel?”
    “What the hell kind of a question is that?”
    Apples shot him a glance. “Did it feel good? Did it feel righteous? Did you feel sad? Did it give you a hard-on?”
    “How did it feel for you?”
    “Like a waste.”
    “So you did kill Randall.”
    “I never said that.”
    “Anybody looks at you, they see this sweet little kid—what are you, sixteen?”
    I was when I died, she thought. And she hadn’t aged a day since. That wasn’t causing problems yet, but it would soon. Still, she only had to wait one more year. That was when Cassie turned sixteen and she planned to turn her. The thing about vamps is, they don’t get sick. And if you’ve got something wrong with you, it’s gone once you’re turned. Goodbye leg brace and asthma. Cassie didn’t know it, but Apples planned for them to be sixteen together. Forever.
    “I’m nineteen,” she told Gage.
    He nodded. “But everybody looks at you and just sees this sweet little kid. Nobody knows the monster hiding under your skin.”
    Apples shot him another look. That was about as good a way to put it as any. How much did he know? And how many people, if any, had he told?
    “I guess you’d know all about monsters,” she said. “Seeing how your little brother grew up to be one and you’re not exactly an angel yourself.”
    Anger flickered in his eyes and the gun rose to point at her.
    “You shoot me now,” she reminded him, “and you’re killing yourself as well.”
    “Just shut up and drive.”
    “I think we’ve already played that song.”
    - 7 -
    So what are my weaknesses? You mean, beyond getting staked or beheaded? Hey, how stupid do I look? Figure it out for yourself.
    Just kidding.
    Apparently, the way it works is that whatever meant the most to you when you were alive, becomes