Blood Harvest: Two Vampire Novels by D.J. Goodman Page B

don’t tell the cops I’m still going to tell my best friend
V.”
    Zoey dropped the photos to spill out over the
floor. “You can’t. The eyes are watching.”
    “Okay. Okay, I get that, or at least as much
as I can, but if I’m going to help you I can’t do it alone. I need
help. V can do that.”
    Zoey’s eyes narrowed, and it appeared to take
a lot of concentration to say what she said next. “Do you… trust
her?”
    “With my life. She was there for me at times
when no one else was. And as it is I’m already going to have to
hide you from my husband, which I honestly don’t know how we’re
going to accomplish that.”
    “Husband.” Zoey’s fingers searched through
the pile of photos on the floor and eventually came out with a
picture from their wedding. To save money at the reception they’d
put disposable cameras on each table and let the guests take the
pictures. The picture in Zoey’s hand showed Peg and Tony dancing
crazy to some song Peg couldn’t remember. “Him?”
    “Yeah, that’s him. That’s Tony. And my son’s
name is Brendan.”
    Zoey looked at the picture for a long time.
Peg didn’t say anything, just letting her process all this. When
she spoke again her voice was soft. “What year is this?”
    Peg took a deep breath, trying to ignore just
how troubling a question that was. “2013.”
    Zoey paused again to do the math in her head,
a process that seemed difficult for her. That was worrying as well,
as she’d always been the smarter of the two of them. “Eleven
years.”
    “Yes.”
    “Eleven years,” she repeated. She put the
photo back in the shoebox. She followed up with the others
carefully stacking them all, putting all the years away neatly.
“The fruit has been growing. Eleven years and now I’m ripe,
Peggy.”
    Peg almost said that she wasn’t so bad now
that she’d had her shower before it occurred to her that she wasn’t
talking about her smell at all. “You said that before, Zoey. What
is that supposed to mean?”
    Zoey shook her head. “No. No no.”
    “It’s okay. If you don’t want to say yet you
don’t have to, but I’ll have to know everything soon. Do you
understand? It’s the only way I can protect you from whoever’s
after you.”
    “The fruit is ripe,” she said softly, then,
louder and with more determination, said, “I need a mirror.”
    “I think…” Peg stood up and went over to
Tony’s things on the desk. Underneath his acrylic paints she found
the small mirror he’d bought when he’d gotten in his head that he
should try doing self-portraits. “Here.” She went behind Zoey and
held it in front of them. “I don’t know why you want it but…”
    Her sentence stopped in a gasp. She took away
the mirror, refusing to believe what she had seen. Zoey looked back
at her with sad, wide eyes.
    “Put it back. I want to see,” she said.
    Peg took a step back from her sister before
she realized what she was doing. This wasn’t right. She had to have
been seeing things. Her mind was all worked up and playing tricks
on her.
    And yet…
    The strength. The sun. The teeth .
    And now the mirror.
    “Peg,” Zoey said. “I want to see.”
    Peg almost said there was nothing to see. She
didn’t want to get close enough to Zoey again to put the mirror in
front of her. As much as she wanted to believe there was some
logical way to explain all this there was no way she could put it
together that didn’t come across as insane.
    She’s still your sister , she thought. She won’t harm you, even if she is …
    Peg stepped closer again. Much slower this
time she held the mirror up in front of Zoey at such an angle that
she could see the reflection as well.
    There was nothing wrong with the mirror.
She’d hoped for a second that it had somehow gotten warped and that
was the reason for what she’d seen. But when she angled it to look
at herself there was no problem with the image. She changed the
angle ever so slightly to look at Zoey.
    All the