Teeth_ Vampire Tales - Ellen Datlow [55]
He licked his front teeth, which had a strange feel, like too much. His stomach churned briefly. “I thought you didn’t want to . . . turn . . .”
She sniffed. “Of course not. Who needs another teenaged vampire? But dead young bodies raise questions, and Crystal already left one lying around out by the airport. Besides, with her gone I have a job opening. Your selection of this”—she carefully set the little bike on the table at her elbow—“shows an educable eye, at least. With coaching, I suppose you can be made into a passable member of the Quality.”
Coaching? He might as well have gone back to school!
She stood, smoothing down her skirt, and picked up his canvas tote from the floor at her feet. “I found this in your locker. The sweatshirt is yours, isn’t it? Take off that T-shirt and put this on. It’s none too clean, but you can’t walk around looking like a gory movie zombie. Then you must leave a note for your family. Say you’ve gone to seek your fortune.”
Thoughts lit up like silent sheet lightning in his mind while he worked the blood-crusted T-shirt off over his head. His life, his friends, his home—all that was over, and she’d just been trying to get rid of him when she’d said, before, about killing his parents. But there was no going back. The upside was, he would be getting out of here at last, traveling with Odette out into the real world.
Was that why he felt high, instead of all bleak and tortured about waking up undead?
Then it hit him: undead? He was finally going to get to live.
He punched the air and whooped. “Look out, Colin Meloy! Josh Burnham’s songs are coming down!”
Pawing around inquisitively in the tote bag, Odette glanced up. “Forget about your songs, Josh. You died. The undead do not create: not babies, not art, not music, not even recipes or dress designs. I’m sorry, but that’s our reality.”
“You don’t get it!” he crowed. “Listen, I’m still a beginner, but I’m good—I know I am. Now I have years—centuries even—to turn myself into the best damn singer-songwriter ever! So what if I never mature past where I am now, like you said about Crystal? Staying young is success in the music business! I can use the Eye to get top players to work with me, to teach me—”
“You can learn skills,” she said with forced patience. “You can imitate. But you can’t create, not even if you used to have the genius of a budding Sondheim, which you did not. According to Crystal, your lyrical gift was . . . let’s say, minor. I hope you’re not going to be tiresome about this, Josh.”
“Crystal’s just jealous!” Buoyed by the exhilaration of getting some payback at last for his weeks of helpless servitude, he shouted, “You’re jealous! She told me about you, how you made jewelry for rich people—”
Odette snapped, “That’s someone else. I designed tapestries. As a new made, you’re entitled to a little rudeness, but at least take the trouble to get the facts right.”
“But the thing is, you were already old—your talent was all used up by the time you got turned, wasn’t it? So now you can’t stand to admit that anybody else still has it!”
“My talent,” she said icily, “which was not just considerable but still unfolding, was extinguished completely and forever—just like yours—when I became what you are now.” She fixed him with a dragon glare and hissed, “Stupid boy, why do you think I collect?”
He almost laughed: What was this, some weird horror-movie version of fighting with his mother? Fine, he was stoked. “It’s different for me! I’m just getting started, and now I can go on getting better and better forever!”
With a shrug, she turned back to the contents of the tote bag. “You can try; who knows, you might even have some commercial success—”
She stopped, holding up a fantasy-style chalice he’d made in ceramics class at the arts center. It was a sagging blob that couldn’t even stand solidly on its crooked foot.
“What’s this?”
“You should know,” he muttered, embarrassed. “You’re