DEAD GIRLS DON'T DANCE MaryJanice Davidson For my children, Christina and William, who share me without complaint. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Cindy Hwang and Ethan Ellenberg, who help make my dreams come true. Thanks also to all the Betsy fans out there who have written me, wondering what the queen has been up to… this one's for you. AUTHOR'S NOTE This novella takes place just after the events of Undead and Unwed (Berkley, March 2004), and just before the events of Undead and Unemployed (Berkley, August 2004). Also, there's no such thing as vampires. Or so the United Shoe Cooperative would have you believe. Death cannot stop true love. It can only delay it for a while. Westley, The Princess Bride Nor bird nor beast Could make me wish for anything this day, Being old, but that the old alone might die, And that would be against God's Providence. Let the young wish. W. B. Yeats Prologue ^ » SHE stood on the shore of Lake Michigan and looked out at the black water. At her back, Chicago rocked and reeled; it was Saturday night, and all the colleges were back in session. It wasn't the first shore she'd stood on, nor the first body of water she'd stared at. It certainly wasn't the first evening she'd spent pacing the beach after a meal, nor the first big city she'd visited. Always a visitor, never a resident. One thing remained the same, of course: it was dark. Dawn was coming—she could feel the sun, her enemy, slipping up over the horizon. She would have to leave soon. She hadn't felt anything but artificial light on her face in a long, long time. And now, of course, if she ever did feel the sun, it would be the last thing she felt. Like that was a bad thing. There were nights when it was tempting to stay on the beach, watch the sun come up, die in fire and light and blazing agony, be done, be over, be still. Be dead… for real. At her feet, her supper gasped and thrashed and finally passed out. He was big and dark and strong—had been strong—but she'd had no trouble taking him. His kind went easy. They never thought the rabbit would turn into a fox; certainly not before their very eyes. And even a fox didn't have teeth as long and as sharp as hers. She preferred to take men. She especially preferred men who bullied women. Cut him from the herd, take him, and quiet that thirst inside her, that constant, never-ending, hellish, unbeatable thirst. Still, it was time to go. Her supper would recover and go home and not remember a thing. She would find another meal tomorrow. At least she wasn't such a mindless, insatiable newborn anymore. At least she could remember something beyond the thirst. Yes, time to go. But still she lingered, and wept dry tears, and stared out at the water, and wished she were dead. For real, this time. Chapter 1 « ^ » ANDREA sat up and coughed out a lungful of sand. The man crouched beside her scrambled up and away, as if she had—imagine it!—come to life. "Holy shit!" he cried. "I thought you were a corpse!" She coughed out more sand, cursing herself. She'd been so moody last night, instead of finding a decent alley to skulk in or a flophouse to cower in, she'd just burrowed into the beach sand like a big old worm, and waited for sunset. Except this idiot found her before she could rise. "Did—" Cough, hack. "—you call—" Hack-hack. "—anybody?" "Well, yeah," he said, sounding weirdly apologetic. "I mean, I was running down the beach here—I've just gotta get down to two-twenty-five, y'know, and lay off the Cheez E Brats—anyway, I was running and tripped over something, and I thought it was a piece of driftwood but it was your foot, so I started to unbury you and then I couldn't find a pulse so I called the cops on my cell phone. You didn't look, y'know, grody or anything. In fact, for a corpse, you looked pretty good." He's an idiot. Perfect. She finished coughing. It was amazing—even if you didn't have to breathe, sand got everywhere. Every time she moved, more of it trickled into her underpants. "How long ago did you call?" "Uh… coupla minutes… look, are you sure you're all right? The sun's just about down, and it's getting kinda chilly, even for June—" "The sun set," she said, wiping her mouth with her forearm, then grimacing at the way the sand stuck to her lips—worse than ChapStick!—"at seven fifty-six p.m. It's technically dark." "Well, uh, okay, but—" "So I have time for a snack before the authorities arrive." "Okay. Like, um, you want an Orange Julius or something? My treat." "I know." She leaned toward him—easy enough, he was hovering over her like a—heh, heh—grave robber—and grabbed him. He was wearing a tan t-shirt and green swimming trunks and beach shoes; the t-shirt shredded under her preternatural strength, the beach shoes went flying, and then she sank her fangs into his jugular. "Ow! Hey!" Outraged, his big hands came up to push her away. "That's—are you fucking biting me? That's so weird! And kinky! Now cut it out! Ahhhh. No, I mean it… stop. Don't! Don't stop!" He grabbed her head, she hung on like a leech, and they grappled in the sand for a few seconds. She could feel his throat working beneath her lips as he babbled. "Seriously, this is so bogus! I save a dead chick—sort of—and she chews on me? You just wait 'til the cops get here, chickie, they'll, like, commit you or something. Ha!" She broke away—something she had never done before; in fact, as early as a year ago, she wouldn't have been able to break off until her thirst had been satisfied—and said, trying not to whine, "Are you going to talk through this whole thing?" "What, I'm supposed to sit here and think about England?" "They usually start screaming about now, and then they faint." "Well, forget it." He jerked a thumb at himself. "Daniel Harris don't faint, baby. No matter how much you chew on him!" She stared at him. "Daniel Harris?" "Yup. And I don't scream, either, except for that one time I saw a really grody spider fall into the toilet when I was taking a whiz, talk about a shocker! I didn't know pee could—y'know—crawl back up if you were surprised, but I'm here to tell you—" "Daniel Harris, St. Olaf college?" "Uh… yeah." He peered at her. "Do I know you, Weird Babe?" She sighed. "I'm Andrea Mercer." "Andrea… Andrea…" "From Carleton College. Right across the river from St. Olaf. I transferred to Olaf my sophomore year. We were in Calc II, Psychology, and Sociology I together." "Andrea…" "You copied off my notes most of our senior year in college." "Ohhhh! Andrea!" "And," she continued, "you told me if I shaved my armpits I'd be, like, almost pretty 'n' stuff." He snapped his fingers. "Right! Andrea! Got it!" "Swell," she said dully. Unburied by Daniel "Big Cock" Harris, who of course didn't remember Andrea-the-Mouse. She'd chomped on him, drank his blood, and she was still only a minor annoyance in his life. She was surprised she hadn't recognized him earlier—it had only been seven years, and he still looked much the same. Same surfer-boy, tanned, blond good looks. A little broader through the shoulders, a little longer through the legs. His faded blue eyes—the color of old denim—were still friendly, the expression still low-key. He looked exactly like what he was: a handsome, mild, life of the party fella who never ever had trouble getting a date. She'd even asked him out once, their junior year, but… He cleared his throat. "Uh, Andrea… the reason I didn't recognize you right away—" "I know why," she said thinly, climbing to her feet and brushing sand off her jeans. "—um—aren't you supposed to be dead?" "Of course I'm dead, you idiot. But that's not why you didn't recognize me." She walked away, hearing faint sirens in the distance. Chapter 2 « ^ » "ANDREA? Andrea! Hey! Wait up!" "What?" she growled, not turning around. A chill breeze was picking up off the lake, making her hurry. Of course, she was always cold, so what did a breeze matter? "Go away." I'm still hungry. "So, you're dead and hanging around beaches and biting guys now? I thought you were an Economics major." She almost laughed. Ah, the days when her biggest problem was figuring out the effect of interest rates on capital investment flows… or was it the other way around? "I was. Then I had an accident. Now I'm here." He jogged up beside her. "Hey, listen. About before. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. Sure I remember you. You were—you were really cute." "You're an idiot," she replied. "It's all right, I'm leaving. You don't have to talk to me anymore." "Hey, it's okay," he said, completely ignoring her broad hint. "I want to. So, like, what happened to you?" She nearly tripped over her own feet. "Why in the world do you care?" "Well… doesn't look to me like you're having much fun these days." "What a tragedy," she mocked. "Well… yeah." To Daniel Harris, she realized, it probably was. The man had always been waiting for a party to happen. At college he'd been in...
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