"The hell it is!" She realized with a shock that she was wearing her green pajama top and shorts instead of the purple ones she'd gone to bed in. Good Lord, how desperate could Phil be? "You broke into my apartment to sleep with me?"
He snorted. "I did a lot more than sleep."
"Oh my God!" She jumped out of bed.
"Oh, come on." He rose to his feet with an indignant look. "You think I would have sex with you while you were sleeping?"
"I was dead, Phil. That makes it really creepy."
He gave her an incredulous look. "How can you believe I would do that?"
She plucked at her T-shirt. "You changed my clothes."
"Well, yes. But I tried not to look." His gaze drifted south and his mouth curled up.
His attempt had obviously failed. She waved a hand to snap him out of the dreamy-eyed trance he'd fallen into. "Hey! Pervert!"
That got his attention. He stiffened and his eyes flashed with anger. "I didn't molest you, Vanda."
She pointed at the bed. "You changed my sheets."
"I had to. They were covered with...stuff."
She gasped again.
"Not mine," he growled. "Now, sit down and listen."
She remained standing so she could glare at him. When she crossed her arms over her chest, the soreness made her wince.
His annoyed expression changed into concern. "Are you all right? I checked for broken bones and you seemed okay, but I was worried you might have some cracked ribs."
Her skin chilled with goose bumps. "What happened - " A hunger pain slammed into her gut, nearly doubling her over. The room swirled around.
"Hold on." Phil scrambled across the bed and caught her by the shoulders.
"No." She pulled away and stumbled, nearly falling down. He smelled too good, with his blood coursing rapidly through his veins. Her gums tingled. "I need to eat."
Her hunger was always strongest when she first awoke. She weaved toward the foot of the bed and recognized the scent of blood. Strange blood, not human.
"Vanda." Phil grabbed her arm. "You're too weak. Lie down, and I'll bring you some breakfast."
Another hunger pain shot through her, and she wrenched herself away. "Dammit, Phil. Get away from me or you'll be my breakfast." She lunged around the end of the bed.
"Aaack!" She stumbled back.
Phil caught her from behind, clasping her upper arms.
There on the floor were her purple sheets. And in the middle was a pile of bloody cut-up snake. Her purple pajamas lay in the pile, slimy with snake guts and blood.
She struggled to breathe. Her body started to shake.
"Don't worry," Phil said behind her. "It can't hurt you anymore."
The room spun around, a room filled with snake guts and horrific imaginings. Her knees buckled, and Phil swung her up into his arms.
"Vanda?" The bedroom door swung open to reveal Cora Lee in a pale pink nightgown, holding a glass of synthetic blood. "Oh, I didn't you realize you had comp - " Her gaze dropped to the mutilated snake. "Eek!" Her glass tumbled to the floor, spilling blood as it went.
"Why on earth is everyone screaming?" Pamela barged inside. "Aack!" Her teacup fell to the floor, too.
Vanda covered her mouth as her stomach churned. She'd never experienced such an awful mixture of hunger and nausea at the same time.
"Go back into the living room," Phil ordered her friends as he carried her to the door. "Can you fix Vanda some breakfast? She's very weak."
"Of course." Pamela rushed back to the kitchen, her long blue nightgown rustling around her legs. Cora Lee followed close behind.
While they warmed up more synthetic blood in the microwave, Phil settled Vanda on the leather couch.
He sat beside her. "Are you all right?"
She shook her head. She closed her eyes, but the image of the cut-up snake was still in her head.
"Here, dear." Pamela pressed a warm mug into her trembling hands. "This will soon have you feeling up to snuff."
Vanda took a small sip of bland Type O. When it didn't threaten to come right up, she took another sip.
Cora Lee sat across from them in the blue upholstered chair and drank from her new glass of synthetic blood. "Now what in tarnation is going on?"
Vanda shuddered. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. Phil stretched an arm across the back of the couch and patted her shoulder.
"Indeed. We must be apprised of the situation forthwith." Pamela sank gracefully into the matching blue chair. As a Vamp dating back to Regency England, she preferred her blood in a dainty teacup. She took a sip and returned the cup to the saucer with a little clink. "And we must brace ourselves, ladies, for I fear whatever events occurred here were horrid. Simply horrid."
Cora Lee shivered. "That's Max the Mega Member's snake in there, isn't it?"
"Yes," Phil replied quietly.
Vanda shifted on the couch to face him. "Max tried to kill me?" His gaze met hers, and her heart melted at the tender look in his blue eyes. She had no doubt he'd saved her life. Again. He was as brave and noble as any of the fairy-tale heroes she'd read about as a child. The type of hero she'd given up on ever existing in the real world.
With a smile, he tousled her short hair. Then, he shifted his gaze to her friends. "When I woke up this morning, I realized you would be coming here for your death-sleep, and Max would have an opportunity to do Vanda some harm. I arrived just after sunrise, and the guard in the lobby was in a deep sleep, caused by vampire mind control. I knew that Max had been here."
Vanda shuddered, and Phil gave her shoulder a squeeze.
"But we never saw him," Cora Lee protested.
"I believe he was hiding with his snake in the coat closet." Phil motioned to the closet by the front door. "After you came in, and he heard you retire to your rooms, he let the snake out, cracked open Vanda's door, and teleported back to his place."
"Leaving that horrid snake to deliver the deadly vengeance he so craved," Pamela added dramatically. Her hand shook, and the teacup clattered against the saucer.
"Land sakes," Cora Lee whispered.
Phil looked at Vanda and rubbed her shoulder. "I found the snake coiling itself around your body."
"Oh God." She covered her mouth as a wave of nausea swept through her."I cut off the head first, but the rest of the snake was continuing to squeeze you, so I hacked it into pieces as fast as I could." He gave her an apologetic look. "I tried not to cut you, but I was...in a hurry and the snake was so tight against you that I nicked you a few times. And then there was all the - "
"You don't have to explain." Vanda grimaced. She'd seen the pile of guts and blood. She'd seen how awful her pajamas looked. And she knew her body had been squeezed too tightly. Even with the healing power of death-sleep, she was still sore.
"I didn't want to leave you lying in all that mess," Phil continued, "so I tried to clean you up. And the bed, too."
Vanda nodded. "I understand."
"I took the shower curtain from your bathroom and piled everything nasty on top," he said. "Then I cleaned up the carpet and the walls - "
"Walls?" Pamela asked.
Phil winced. "I was throwing the snake parts as fast as I could cut them up."
"Lord have mercy," Cora Lee whispered.
Vanda tried to shut out the terrifying images that flitted through her mind, but she couldn't.
"I was really...upset," Phil admitted with a frown, "so I took the snake's head and went in search of Max."
Vanda swallowed hard. "Did you find him?"
"He was in his apartment in his death-sleep." Phil stared into space, scowling.
Cora Lee leaned forward, her eyes wide. "What did you do to him?"
Phil took a deep breath. "I left the snake head on the pillow next to Max and turned his head so it would be the first thing he would see when he woke up. Then I wrote a note that told him if he ever came near Vanda again, I would kill him."
Cora Lee slumped with a sigh. "That's all?"
"I pinned the note to his thigh...with a knife."
Cora Lee brightened up. "Now that's more like it."
"Indeed." Pamela sipped from her teacup. "I say, old boy, good form."
Phil snorted. "I'm so glad you approve. Then I dropped by Roman's townhouse to shower and change clothes, and I made my report. Roman should be hearing about it soon, and he can make a decision on how to handle Max."
"They should lynch him," Cora Lee said, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "We should have a hanging like the good old days."
"Quite." Pamela sipped from her cup. "Now that was entertainment."
Vanda shook her head and finished her mug of blood before it turned cold. Cold-blooded like a snake. She shuddered.
"I had the door fixed, and I left three new keys on the counter." Phil motioned toward the kitchen. "I kept a key for myself so I wouldn't have to bust your door down again."
"Of course." Pamela bowed her head. "We're extremely grateful for your bravery and chivalry."
"That's for sure," Cora Lee added. "Why, if he hadn't come when he did, that snake would have crushed our poor Vanda to smithereens. Imagine waking up to find every bone in your body broken, not to mention all that nasty internal damage. And what if that snake had tried to eat her?"
"Enough!" Vanda made a face at her. "I don't want to hear about it."
Cora Lee huffed. "I'm just saying you would probably be dying in agonizing pain right this minute if Phil hadn't come to your rescue."
Vanda gritted her teeth. "I am aware of that. I can't move any part of my body without feeling some soreness."
Pamela tsked. "You poor dear. Hopefully, another round of death-sleep will have you back to feeling tip-top."
Cora Lee nodded. "And you'd better take it easy tonight. Don't worry about the club. Pamela and I can handle it."
"I'm perfectly capable of working," Vanda protested. If she did nothing all night, she'd keep imagining that horrible snake coiling around her while she lay helpless in her death-sleep.
Cora Lee was right. If Phil hadn't saved her, that snake could have remained wrapped around her all night, preventing her body from healing itself. She could have woken to find every bone in her body crushed. Or worse.
Her stomach roiled, and she quickly shoved the grisly images aside. She focused on her hands in her lap and took deep breaths. Father Andrew had taught her this exercise to help calm her anger. Hopefully, it also worked to calm horror.
"What are we going to do with the snake?" Cora Lee asked.
"I'll bag it up in a big garbage sack," Phil replied. "And I'll ask one of the Vamp guys to teleport it out. I would have taken it myself, but I didn't want to look like I was hauling a dead body out of the building. If security asked to see what was inside, it would be hard to explain."
"Yes, much better to simply teleport it away." Pamela returned her empty teacup to the kitchen.
A cell phone rang, jerking Vanda out of her deep breathing exercise.
Phil dug his phone out of his pants' pocket. "Hello...Yes, she seems to be all right." He glanced at Vanda and whispered, "It's Connor."
With her superior hearing, Vanda could make out most of what Connor was saying. Jack and Phineas had gone to Max's apartment to arrest him, but the ex-dancer was nowhere to be found. She wasn't surprised. After all, Max had woken with a note stabbed to his thigh with a knife. Even Max, with his minimum brain, could figure out this was a clue that he was in big trouble.
Connor had issued a bulletin to all the minor coven masters under Roman's jurisdiction to be on the lookout for Max. He was now a fugitive from Vamp justice.
"I'll ask her." Phil hung up and turned toward Vanda. "Roman wants to know since you're the victim, what kind of action will satisfy you once Max is captured?"
"Leave him staked outside so he'll fry to a crisp when the sun rises," Cora Lee suggested as she retrieved the dropped glass and teacup from Vanda's bedroom to take them to the kitchen.
"Off with his head," Pamela said as she washed the dishes. "Preferably with a dull axe."
"Banishment will be enough," Vanda said quietly.
"Are you kidding?" Cora Lee advanced toward the couch with an incredulous look. "That bastard tried to kill you. Aren't you angry?"
"Indeed," Pamela called over the sound of running water. "Where is your infamous anger now?"
"Banishment will get rid of him," Vanda mumbled. Max wouldn't be able to show his face or get employment anywhere in the eastern United States that fell under Roman's rule. He would have no choice but to move far away.
Phil watched her curiously. "Are you sure?"
She shook her head. "I don't want any more deaths on my conscience."
His eyes widened. "What deaths?"
She winced inwardly. Now she'd said too much. "I don't want to talk about it." She started to get up to take her empty mug to the kitchen, but a sharp pain creased her ribs. "Ouch."
"Stay put." Phil grabbed the mug from her hand and passed it to Cora Lee.
Vanda pressed a hand against her ribcage. That damned snake had done more damage than her body could heal in one day.
Phil watched her, frowning. "I want the three of you to move back into Roman's townhouse."