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"No The ox lady waved her hands around, and all of a sudden this silver light was there, all over reat Here cood, not again! "Hey, you, ? She&039;s burnt off half ofI&039;ve ever heard," Terri told Patsy "You have the best parties!
"It&039;s all in the planning," Patsy said, prodding uy just saw er to the side I think it&039;s because the lady tried to hide my head behind her, andit up He&039;s yelling at her She&039;s pointing to the oxen in the field, but he looks really pissed Yeah, you tell her,if she can&039;t handle her cows"
My heart wept at as cohtfully "I wonder if we could write a screenplay We could uy hasat her Whoops Chunk of hair ca down the hill Guy and lady are chasing it Hee hee hee OK, that&039;s really funny in a horrible sort of way Ah Good for you, sir He caughtthe ox lady with hiet out of the dreaood The scene was deterain? " Terri asked, her eyes wide
Panic flooded me "No, he justholy shit! I want out of here! Take me out of this dream or whatever it is! Wakevoice "The ies you see are in the past, and cannot haruy do? " Terri asked
"I want to wake up! Right now!" I said, clawing the couch to sit up
"Very well I&039; to count backwards to one, and when I reach that nu refreshed and quite serene Five, four, three, two, one Welcoasping,at the memory of what I&039;d witnessed
"Yeah I think so"
"What happened at the end? " Terri asked "You looked scared to death"
"You&039;d be scared, too, if you saw a vampire kill soasping and blinking as the dream memory faded and I realized I was safe, in reen-eyed, dark-haired monster who had killed a woainst the pilloondering why I kept drea the awful past-life scene again and again Why were the drea in frequency? Why was I dooain, the sense of dread and horror so great I could taste it on ue?
Sleep, I knew froot to et rid of the taste of o sit with a book until I was too nuer
And I&039;d pray that the green-eyed vampire stayed out of my dreaoing to rise to the top, you have to work for it That goes for sex as well as anything else&039; Well, you kno he is, Cora - he&039;s such a joker, and of course, I was on top at that moment, but I&039;m sure you don&039;t want to hear about that"
"Why on earth would you think I didn&039;t want to hear about you and ritted my teeth at both the conversation and the ruts that riddled the long dirt drive up to the Astley house
The car bounced on a particularly bad one, causingairily, didn&039;t see state of the drive "It&039;s not like it&039;s so you haven&039;t done before, unless Dee never asked you to play Cowgirl and the One-legged Itinerant Rodeo Clown, and given how much he loves that, I&039;m positive he did But that&039;s neither here nor there, really, is it?"
"No, it isn&039;t," I said,despitery with , are you, Corazon? Is it Dee? Is it because we didn&039;t ask you to the wedding? Dee thought it was best we didn&039;t have a big ceremony, since your porce had just becoas"
"No," I said on a sigh "It&039;s not the wedding, and it&039;s not anything you&039;ve done, including e was over before you ca to bare my soul to her I wanted soself, her perfect blond hair, her svelte figure, her h the real estate ranks froent while I still slaved away as a lowly assistant-cum-secretarybut unfortunately, I couldn&039;t hate her, couldn&039;t despise her, couldn&039;t even work up soeye of Dermott, my ex-husband of three years, fixed firmly on herself, charmed everyone she came in contact with, and had a sunny disposition that si her
"Lonely?" she asked with a perception that made me uncomfortable
"I just miss my sister," I said, but we both kneas a laton, we used to talk almost every day"
"Didn&039;t she ri on the roof of the car Diamond didn&039;t need to know just what type of a Scot Jacintha&039;s new husband really was Or the truth about Jas herself, for thather so far away You don&039;t have any men friends?"
For soreen-eyed murderer I would have to be dead not to have noticed that a bloodsucking fiend he ht be, but he was also extremely easy on the eyes "No No boyfriend"
"That stinks"
I gave up all pretense of dignity "It really does I can&039;t tell you how hard it is to find a man these days They&039;re all soI don&039;t know, shallow They&039;re just into themselves, or their jobs, and none of them seem to have any real depth Is it so much to ask that a man be comfortable with himself? That he be able to look beyond his own needs and desires once in a while? All I ever find are guys with agendas"
"Have you tried one of those online dating places?" Dia drive, past a wildly unkely alder trees "I have a friend who had great luck with one"
"Tried theri out the ith an Eeyore sense of satisfaction at my misery
"I&039;ll have to put my mind to it," Diamond said after another irl, Corazon You deserve to be happy"
I sighed reeh without that
"I think you should take Dee&039;s advice," she added
"What advice would that be?" I asked, faintly startled at the idea of taking , let alone -to-the-top business This job, now," she said, nodding toward the looers into the sunny California sky, "this is a perfect exaht, it could do big things for you"
"I&039;ent," she said, with a decisive little nod "I think it would be a good thing for you to get out fro people I see lots of lanced at the house, unable to keep fro to myself "I appreciate the offer, Diamond, I really do, but I just don&039;t think that so to want either this house or me"
"You don&039;t know until you try I&039;ll tell Dee that you&039;re going to handle the sale of this house It&039;ll do you good, and he won&039;t roaned tohow desperate I was for a man in my life Still, it was a nice offer, and I didn&039;t want to hurt Dia it down "I&039;ll think about it"
"You&039;ll do more than think about it - you&039;ll make this your debut into the fabulous world of real estate And, of course, hed and pulled ital cae on the battery to take a good four or five dozen pictures "It&039;s just a derelict house that&039;s been tied up in so to work miracles either for my career or love life"
"You&039;d be surprised what it could do," she said with a little slanced at me as we bounced our way to a halt at the side of the monstrous old Victorian house Once, perhaps, it had been the honate Noas falling down, its eathered andpaint, the s boarded over, bits of shingles frorounds
"Don&039;t believe me?" Diamond asked
"Fraid not"
Her blue eyes narrowed on me "You&039;re not one of those skeptics, are you? The people who don&039;t believe in anything supernatural?"
I cla hysterically Part of me, what my mother used to call my little devil, wanted to tell her that anyone who had a shape-shifting sister married to a vampire could hardly be a skeptic I squelched ood I know I should be more tolerant, but really, how people can close their randmother once told me that a closed ht? The only time I closed my ot out of the car, wondering if I had heard her correctly "Youdied?" I asked, getting out, as well
"Yes I got in trouble with - " She shot ot in trouble, and I paid the price for it Although the near-death experience was very interesting, I learned my lesson, and ever since then, I&039;ve keptand everyone, hu and pulled out her caled a set of keys "My, this is a big one, isn&039;t it? There should be four floors How about you shoot the basement and first floor, and I&039;ll do the second and attic?"
"That&039;s fine Er" I followed after her as she tripped lightly up the front steps to the big double doors I pickedthe half-rotted boards of the steps and porch to hold up under s, you wouldn&039;t happen to include vampires in that, would you? Or, what do they call themer?"
"Dark Ones? " She unlocked the door, pausing on the threshold to close her eyes and breathe deeply "I always try to attune ives me a better idea of what sort of family would be perfect within its walls How very odd This house feels like sooH me an amused look over her shoulder "Of course I believe in Dark Ones I haven&039;t met one, but that doesn&039;t mean they don&039;t exist Are you interested in thee, blond, extremely deadly ht of his bigger, ht of the dark-haired murderer of hed and waved me forward into the house "I don&039;t bla, aren&039;t they? Much more so than movies and books lead you to believe Dark Ones areooh, so s Sexy Mysterious Sensuous You know about Beloveds, don&039;t you? How there&039;s only one woh seven steps to save hiether forever and ever?"
"Yes," I said,me to do more than smile "I know about Beloveds"
"Isn&039;t it just theever? I wonder what it would be like to have one as your lover Wouldn&039;t you think they would be intense? Kind of overwhelood way?"
I remembered how Avery seemed wholly absorbed in Jas "I think &039;intense&039; is a good description"
"And then there&039;s the bad-boy ie Who doesn&039;t love a bad boy? Who doesn&039;t want to redeeain, show theled and pokedover vaers with a sparkle fetish! Mysterious and romantic they et started?"
My nose wrinkled as I looked around the entry hall Directly across frolooht their way in through the boards on the s not doing e rooth of the house, the dark, stained wallpaperodd patterns that seemed almost to move when seen peripherally To the left was a narrow hall with several doors, no doubt leading to smaller roo but a few torn shreds of ancient newspaper and bits of twine lying in desolation on age-stained wood floors to ainst the ss
"Probably, but it doesn&039;t sated lastalive in here but us At least" She paused at the foot of the stairs, her face tight for ahere but us I iveloo on her caet several different angles of each rooether each room&039;s photos into a panorama if possible Buyers love panoramas"
"Anyone would have to be insane to want to buy this monstrosity," I muttered to myself as I twitcheda massive cobweb that drifted down froine what a barrel of laughs the baseine it all fixed up, filled with people and laughter," Diaht
"If one single mouse so much as sticks his nose out of the wall at !" I bellowed up the stairs
A faint sound of her tinkling laughter was hed nicer than htness while mine came out throaty, as if I were a five-pack-a-day smoker
"My life sucks," I said to no one as I sto each roo toward the door Diamond had indicated led to the basement "Everyone has hooked up but me And what do I have, house? Huh? What do I have? I&039;ll tell you what I have," I said in a loud voice as I grabbed the doorknob "I have a job that&039;s going nowhere, a deranged vain&039;-lutely no ive tothrough the baseht intobackward, the brick wall falling with ether painfully My camera fell to the floor, and the tinkle of coins and the slass warned that the contents of my purse had spilled out under the force of the impact
It tookhead, but that gave s time to reinflate after the brick wall - which I was amazed to see turned out to be a e, stopping hirab my hand and yank me to my feet "I&039;m sorry, I didn&039;t know you were there Get out"
"Huh? " I said, rubbing ainst his "Who are you? What are you doing here? We were told the house was elance over his shoulder to where a narrow stairway descended into the yawning blackness of the basement "Get out now! He knows I found the exit that led to this place!"
"Who knows you&039;re here? Oh, nored theto scoop up the small collection of coins, my now broken coray-striped flat round stone edged in gold, with a gold dragon embossed on one side "What on earth is this? Hey, mister, this ed from the blackness of the basement, but instinctively I knew this was no nor off his tothe pain of the coins and broken coe as his attention was momentarily directed my way I froze, unable to breathe, but was instantly dis one hand as he bellowed out a word
"Desino! "
Autolish - halt - and for a second, it see seemed to hold its breath Time just stopped dead as I stared in horrified wonder at the man A sudden dizziness overtook me as the air in the house was suddenly contracted, then exploded outith the velocity and voluround, roaned I was going to die right then and there, without even finding soned my soul to heaven