An Apple for the Creature

“The docs think that he just, you know, gets her about every two or three weeks. They say the venom substance is persistent, but seems to wear off a little with time, so he has to hit her again every once in a while to keep her under control.” Norma winced. “Unless she gets knocked up.”

“Her department health records say she’s on the pill,” interjected Ben.

“Let’s hope she stays on ’em. She must be willing, though. To keep the relationship active.”

“Trust me,” said George. “She is. The way she reacted when she saw the other girl. . . . I was kinda gettin’ to like her,” he said. “She’s not all bad, you know?”

“Bright, ambitious, and a good cop,” said Ben. “Until Ernesto got hold of her.”

“You tell her about that coed who died in her own bed? The unexplained death she covered?”

“Yep.”

“And . . . ?”

“Well, I’m just not sure,” announced George, after a moment. “She seemed genuinely surprised, okay? But, God, she had to at least suspect, after she got involved with Ernesto. Don’t you think?”

After another silence, George asked the question that had been bothering him all the way back from Iowa City. “You think, like, she got put in some sort of rehab unit, she might, you know . . . ?”

“Completely recover?”

“Yeah, Norma. Completely.”

Norma shook her head. “They tell me that it’s progressive. Nonreversible. It can slow way down, but it’s always eating. They’re not really sure how long it takes in the absence of the vampire, but they suspect she’d go into a coma and die within five or six years.”

“And still head over heels for Ernesto?”

“Apparently so.”

George toyed absently with his food for several seconds, and then became aware he was doing so.

“Oh, sorry. It’s just a shame, though. Ya know?”

“It is,” said Norma. “She’s pretty much dead and doesn’t know it. We’ve either lost her already, or are going to lose her soon, regardless how you cut it. Not that I’m not compassionate, but look on the bright side. She’s going to be planting some false information in Ernesto’s head for us. At least we can get some use out of her this way. Before she crawls off and dies.” She looked at both men, who were silent. “There, that’s settled. Can you pass the rolls?”

Sympathy for the Bones MARJORIE M. LIU

Marjorie M. Liu is an attorney and a New York Times bestselling author of paranormal romances and urban fantasy. She also writes for Marvel Comics. For more information, please visit her website at www.marjoriemliu.com or follow her on Twitter @marjoriemliu.

The funeral was in a bad place, but Martha Bromes never did much care about such things, and so she put her husband into a hole at Cutter’s, and we as her family had to march up the long stone track into the hills to find the damn spot, because the only decent bits of earth in all that place were far deep in the forest, high into the darkness. Rock, everywhere else, and cairns were no good for the dead. The animals were too smart. Might find a piece of human flesh in the yard by the pump with sloppiness like that. I’d seen it myself, years past. No good at all.

The leaves had gone yellow and the air bit cold, whining shrill like the brats left behind the dead, trudging slow beside their weeping mother. Little turds, little nothings. Just blood and bone, passed on from a father who was a cutter, a stone lover, mixing his juice inside a womb that was cold and sly. I did not like Martha. I did not like her husband, either. Edward Bromes was a hard man to enjoy, in any fashion. I cried no tears that he died.

Later that night, I burned the doll that killed him.

—

Next morning, frost; first kiss of winter. I added layers of wool, and laced my feet and legs into boots lined with rabbit; gathered my satchels, took up a tin can I hung from the hook at my belt, and marched from the rotten timber shack into a silver forest, glittering, spiked with light and a chill.

Persimmons had fallen overnight and the deer had not got to them. Quick business, but careful; those thin orange skins split open at the hint of a tense finger, and I ruined more than I cared to admit. Popped them in my mouth to hide the evidence. Spit out the seeds into my palm, and tucked them into the satchel where I kept the needle and thread. The rest, what was perfect and frostbit, I carried in the can for old Ruth.

She was knitting when I came upon her, sitting on her slanting porch as though the cold was nothing to withered flesh. Crooked broken teeth, crooked smile that might have been pretty but for the long scar pulling her bottom lip.

“Clora, you brought me sweets,” she cooed, setting aside her yarn. “Enough for pudding?”

I placed the tin can into her hands, which were scarred with needle pricks. “Not yet. Maybe tomorrow.”