Adventures of a Vegan Vamp: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery by Cate Lawley Read Free Book Online

to my chest and danced a little jig. Then I might possibly have run a few laps in my small apartment, yelled, “Hallelujah,” and then ordered fifty pounds of coffee online. Possibly. To be delivered immediately. I might have done that.

7
    Getting a Life
    S tep one in moving my life forward required me to have a life. The kind where my heart continued to beat and my lungs filled with air. I didn’t really believe I was going to die. First, I didn’t feel that bad. And second, death was big. Huge. And I was thirty-nine. I wasn’t ready to die, so I couldn’t be dying. Denial? Definitely. But if it got me out of bed, I’d take it.
    And now that I was not only out of bed, but had also discovered my vampiric drug of choice (coffee), and had found a few tidbits that I could eat…or drink, I was ready to find my life, wherever it might lurk.
    I flipped the plain cream-colored card over. To call Anton, the sneaky rat who couldn’t be bothered to explain what I was, how I was supposed to live, and why this had happened to me. Hm. Or to call the mysterious ER.
    The obnoxious and heartless unknown or the mysterious and even more unknown.
    I considered for about a tenth of a second and dialed the number for ER. Anton could stick it.
    After two rings, a man answered. “Where are you?”
    His abruptness caught me off guard, and I said, “At home. Where are you?”
    I held the phone away from my face, winced over my idiocy, then put the phone back next to my ear.
    I’d clearly missed something, because there was silence. “Hello? Sorry—I missed that?”
    “What is your emergency?” The guy sounded more than a little put out.
    “Are you kidding me? I’m a…a…you know, with the blood and the bats and the crosses.”
    “I’m tracing this call. We have a zero-tolerance policy for crank callers.”
    Good grief. Maybe Anton would have been better. “I’m not a crank caller. I’m a…”
    A sigh came across the line. “A vampire?”
    “Yes!” I hadn’t realized how hard it would be to say that out loud. Especially over the phone, to someone who would likely think I was a crazy lady.
    “What is the nature of your emergency?”
    He was clearly losing his patience, but he wasn’t the only one.
    “I just told you. I’m a vampire. That is the nature of my emergency.”
    “Are you experiencing an uncontrolled bloodlust?”
    I threw up a little in my mouth. “No, definitely not.”
    “Are you experiencing the onset of a murderous rage?”
    I stopped and considered that one. I hadn’t been. I might be now. “No, although you might push me over the edge.”
    “Look, lady. I’m on a date—with a very hot woman I’ve been trying to get to go out with me for a long time. You’ve interrupted my extremely hot date with your emergency call. If you can’t tell me what the nature of your emergency is, I’m hanging up.”
    “I’m a recently turned vampire who can’t eat blood, is about two steps away from starving, and no one gives a rat’s rear about it. On top of that, some vile fanged guy bit and infected me, and I’m not supposed to call the cops because it’s all hush-hush with the paranormal freaky stuff. But even if I wanted to call the po-po, no luck there, because I haven’t a clue who stuck their tiny, cowardly, inadequate fangs in me. But wait—when I finally call someone I think might be able to help me, a horny teenager who can’t be bothered to give me the time of day answers.” I took a giant breath. “My life is an emergency.”
    Silence.
    “Hellooo?”
    “Give the horny teenager a break. That was a mouthful to digest.” He sounded slightly less annoyed with me. “Where did you get this number?”
    I growled. “Mr. Clean passed the card to my doctor, who then passed it to me.”
    The horny teen responded with a deep chuckle. Maybe not a teenager after all. “That sounds like Anton. We must have been short-handed, or you have some terrible luck, lady. What’s your name?”
    Finally—a