Tempt the Stars

extend out quite this far. A potted fern’s fronds rustled slightly in the breeze from an air conditioner vent. A chicken caught inside a security guard’s uniform stopped struggling to stare at me out of the neck hole. And a trio of women by one of the elevators exchanged glances.
    The elevator dinged and the doors opened. I got on. One of the women started to say something, but I held up a hand. It had taco sauce on it. “Next time,” I rasped, “try calling.”
    “Calling?”
    “I’m in the book,” I told her savagely.
    And then the doors shut and I was gone.

Chapter Thirteen
    So good. Oh God, so freaking—
    There was a knock on the door. I looked up from the feast that was spread out on my bedspread, and glared at it. But, apparently, my mood did not communicate itself through the foam-core, because a moment later, the door opened.
    A vampire looked in.
    I hid my food as best I could, and snarled at him.
    He backed up slightly, hands raised. “Jeez. I mean . . . Jeez,” he said, gray eyes wide.
    “Go. Away,” I warned, and shoved another nacho in my face.
    “Yeah, uh, yeah. Only Marco said to ask you—” He broke off, looking at something. “Hey, is that mole—”
    “Get out!” And he suddenly disappeared.
    Not left,
disappeared
.
    I panicked for a second, but then I saw him, not mentally the way I had when I’d shifted someone once before, but running in a panic past the open door. For a second, I wondered if I’d actually shifted him at all. Vamps could move fast enough to make it
look
—
    But no. The power drain hit a second later, forcing out a groan. Damn, I felt like crap.
    No big surprise. The real shock was that I wasn’t dead. Almost constant time shifts for a week, barely pausing for food and sleep before going out again, stopping time—a massive power drain right there—and then shifting somebody . . . no wonder he hadn’t gone but a few feet. I was surprised he’d gone anywhere at all. And now I felt nauseated.
    I drank margarita out of a classy foam cup and told my stomach to deal with it. A moment later, another vamp appeared in the doorway.
    This one was smarter. This one didn’t come in. This one just looked at me, all crossed arms and big-brotherly disapproval, although whether at my appearance, at my eating in bed, or at my scaring poor Fred, I didn’t know.
    “Is it safe to come in?” he asked, after a minute.
    “Are you going to eat my food?”
    Marco lifted a bushy black eyebrow. “Is that from the heartburn shack downstairs?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Then it’s sacred, I assure you.”
    “Then you can come in,” I said, as if I had a choice. Marco went wherever he damned well pleased.
    At the moment, he was pleased to occupy one of the delicate little princess chairs the designer had chosen to grace my bedroom. They always looked like they were going to crack under the strain, but somehow they never did.
    “You were gone a long time,” he finally said.
    “I fell asleep.”
    “In a pine grove?” He picked something out of my hair.
    Damn it, I thought I’d got them all.
    “That was after I woke up.”
    He looked at me. I looked back. And then I ate another nacho.
    He sighed. “You’ve been acting weird all week.”
    “I thought I always act weird, according to you.”
    “Weirder, then.” He contemplated my scratched, dirty, and habanero-splattered self. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
    And suddenly, there was. There really, really was. I didn’t know if he was doing the vampire thing and manipulating my emotions, but I doubted it. Marco didn’t usually go in for that kind of stuff. It’s why we’d developed a sort of bond over the weeks we’d both been trapped here.
    I knew that Marco didn’t like babysitting any more than I liked being babysat. But it was his job to guard me and my job to be guarded, at least in the current everybody-wants-to-kill-me era. And we both did our jobs. It was to Marco’s credit that he did his with a little bit of grace, and made this place as welcoming for me as any gilded cage stuffed full of vampires could be.
    Maybe that’s why I had a sudden, insane urge to spill my guts. I wanted to tell him exactly what I’d been doing. I’d wanted to tell
somebody
all week. The pressure, the fear, the gnawing, gut-churning anxiety, had all been building until I’d started to feel like I wanted to scream.
    And look how that had turned out, I thought grimly.
    “No,” I said, and chewed