Vampires Need Not...Apply?

Book 4: Accidentally Yours

by Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

Genres: Humor & Satire; Contemporary Romance; Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

This is book 4 in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Accidentally Yours paranormal romance series.

Meet Dr. Antonio Acero. Heir to Spain's wealthiest family, world-renowned physicist, and dedicated bachelor. While on vacation in southern Mexico, Antonio discovers an ancient Mayan tablet. Local legends say it contains magical properties, properties that could put his stalling research on the map.

But is this really his lucky break?

When Antonio attempts to put the tablet to use, he'll discover that Fate has other plans. Her name is Ixtab, and she's quite possibly the deadliest deity who ever lived.

Release date: September 3, 2013

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 400

Sample

New Year’s Day. New York City

“Save me. Please save me.”

“Dammit. Where are you?” Thirty-four-year-old Antonio Acero frantically searched the dark, empty, cavernous room, helplessly listening to the woman’s cries.

“Time is running out. You must work faster,” she wailed.

“I am doing everything I can,” he called out, his voice bouncing off the bare, smooth walls. “But I can’t get to you. If you just tell me…” Two catlike eyes punched through the darkness, sucking the words from his mind. He wanted to see more of her, to touch her. He felt like he might become the one who needed saving if he did not.

“Save me. Please save me,” the woman repeated. “Time is running out. I have the answers you need, but you must work faster. Destiny—”

Antonio catapulted from his deep slumber, dripping in cold sweat. “Puta madre,” he whispered and flipped on his stainless steel reading lamp. It had been the same damned nightmare every night for the last month. Ever since he’d found that fucking tablet in Mexico. Or had it found him?

Doesn’t matter. It’s what you were looking for, the answer to your prayers.

“Everything all right, baby?” A silky arm slipped out from beneath the steel-gray satin sheets and rubbed his bare thigh.

“Uh… yeah. Sure.” He looked down at the mop of brown hair. Her face was as obscure as her name.

Mierda. What was he doing? It didn’t matter how many women he brought home, he couldn’t wash her—the woman in his dreams—from his mind.

He slid from bed and plucked his discarded tee and boxer briefs from the floor. On his way to the kitchen, he slipped them on and tried not to punch something.

Dammit. The dreams were only getting worse, more vivid, more frantic with every passing night.

He yanked open the fridge, pushed past the Odwallas and beer, and grabbed the soy milk. He knew this madness didn’t make sense, but what the hell did that matter? The dreams kept coming. Scotch—the good stuff—sex, hypnosis didn’t matter. Every night she came. Every night he woke. Every day he worked and didn’t stop until his mind reached exhaustion. And even then, he couldn’t stop thinking about the tablet.

Or her…

Shit. What was happening to him?

He went to his lab, a room at the back of his sparsely decorated apartment, and flipped on the phosphorescent lights, stopping briefly to remove the black stone tablet from a rat-filled cage. He carefully unwrapped it from the plastic sleeve and shook his head. The damned thing was like a goddamned Mayan Rubik’s Cube.

“You think you can win, don’t you?” No fucking chance, pinche jodida tablet. He laid it down and stroked its rough surface. “You and I, we finish this tonight.”

Yes. He was close to unlocking its secrets. And when he did… then what? Would she be there? The woman with the haunting eyes? The woman he knew in his soul he was destined to meet?

Goddammit, he fucking hoped so.

He placed a welder’s mask on his face and leaned over the tablet, a pair of long tweezers in hand. He reached up and adjusted the overhead light, focusing the powerful beam on the corner of the object. This had to be it, his last test to prove out his theory.

“Steady hand, coño. Steady hand.” He carefully scraped off a tiny particle and placed it on a glass slide. He removed the mask and wiped his brow.

“Coming back to bed, baby?” a silken voice purred from behind. A soft pair of arms reached around his waist and a set of full breasts pushed against his back.

Is she still here? Doesn’t she have her own bed to sleep in? He placed the slide under his microscope. “Yeah. Be right there.”

Yes. Just as he suspected. The black jade had again transformed. He’d left it encased for ten hours with his two most aggressive rats. The day before that, he’d exposed it to his goldenzelle orchid. The day before that, frogs. Each life-form, plant or animal, rearranged the configuration of the microscopic crystals and the hieroglyphs.

“It’s like the damned thing is alive,” he muttered to himself. And now he knew for certain his hypothesis held water. Subjecting the tablet to the right combination of elements would unlock its power and, hopefully, open the portal. A portal that could access any dimension at any point in time.

“I’m alive, baby. And if you come back to bed, I’ll show you how much,” Betsy—or was she Brenda?—whined. He hated whiny women. They were so… whiny.

“Look, Bre—Señorita.” He turned and stared down at the attractive brunette wearing too much mascara and his favorite polo shirt. “I have work to do. If you need to cuddle, my cat Simon is around somewhere.”

Fury flickered in her brown eyes, and she stomped off, mumbling some profanity about Don Juans. “And my name is Belinda!” she screamed from somewhere inside the spacious apartment.

“Mujeres!” He shook his head. Why did women always behave that way? So damned irrational and needy. It wasn’t as if he hid his true colors, either. In fact, he made it a rule to be transparent. “I don’t date anyone but my work, and she and I are happy together. Alone,” he’d say.

Couldn’t get much clearer than that. Yet they always came home with him. They always wanted more. They always left angry.

Well, too damned bad. He knew what mattered: cracking this code, saving his brother from a terrible fate, and if he were lucky…? He would finally meet this woman.

An image of her flashed in his mind. He saw himself in a dimly lit bedroom, the light from a fireplace flickering over the walls as he thrust himself between her thighs and stared at her obscured face.

A loud crackle suddenly came from the microscope. What the…?

He bent his head and looked through the lens. The molecules shifted again, but this time they moved with such fluidity that he could swear it was a liquid, not solid. “Qué diablos?”

The black crystals swirled on the plate and a tiny black hole opened up as if the center had disintegrated completely.

“Caray. It’s amazing,” he mumbled as an earsplitting snap cracked through the air. The tablet vibrated on the table and jumped as if hooked up to a lowrider suspension system.

“Coño!” He lunged as it reached the edge and fell to the floor with a crash. An explosion threw him across the room, the wall breaking his momentum.

Antonio felt his body slide down the wall, the air sucked from his lungs. The room flickered from bright white to red to darkness. But he wasn’t unconscious. No. Not at all. The pain he felt was not a dream.

And he could not see.



January 3. Time: 6:00 p.m. Rec Room of Valley Hills Elementary, Sedona, Arizona

“Hi, everyone. I’m Ixtab. My friends call me… well, I don’t really have any friends, so it’s just Ixtab, I guess.”

“Hi, Ixtab,” said the middle-aged group of twelve men and women sitting on foldout chairs in a circle.

Ixtab stared through her black veil, down at her feet. “And it’s been twenty-two days since I caused the death of an innocent mortal.”

Applause.

“Thank you.” She took a deep breath. That had been easier than she’d thought. Normally, she wouldn’t stop to join in a wishy-washy human gathering, but she’d happened to be in the neighborhood on a job and suddenly felt the urge to share.

Of course, it was normal for Ixtab to go with the flow; that’s how the Universe directed her toward the humans most in need. Though sharing like this was a definite first, and she enjoyed it in some weird way, even though she’d compelled them all.

Ixtab sat and took a sip from her foam cup. The coffee was bitter and cold. Good. She didn’t deserve anything warm and comforting. “It hasn’t been easy steering clear of accident-prone men; though, I have been improving. But even with the extra effort, I still can’t avoid them completely. Last month, for example, I went to the fabric store—spring is coming, so I thought I’d make a new dress—pink linen or pale yellow cotton with white daisies.”

The crowd stared with perplexed faces.

Ixtab looked down at her shapeless, flowing black dress through her black lace veil. “Oh. I like to wear summery things underneath.” Why? That was a very long, emotional detour of a story.

The group nodded and murmured a collective “Aha.”

Ixtab sighed and then placed the cup at her flip-flop-clad feet. “Even though I waited until just before closing time, and I swear there was no one left in the store besides the clerk, boom!” She clapped her hands together. “I rounded the corner near the pattern section, and the man ran right into me.”

What came next was always the hard part: watching them die after they touched her. Why? Simple. She was poison. Dark, bitter poison—most of the time, anyway.

“Go on,” urged one of the women wearing a red sweater and name tag that said Anne. She had a bright, soothing smile. “What happened next?”

Ixtab held back the urge to cry. “Before you could say ‘Singer’ he shoved an entire McCall’s M6466—a really nice off-the-shoulder dress pattern—right down his throat.” She shook her head and sighed. “Such a shame. Such a shame. He was so good-looking, too. The accidental kills always are. Always hot. Always men. Why do you think that is?” she asked the group.

The crowd shook their heads. They didn’t have a clue, either.

“It’s not right. Why do I have to be so… deadly?” Ixtab reached under her veil and whisked away a tear. “Is it too much to ask? To touch a handsome man without killing him? I mean, really. Just once. Just one damned time, I’d like to bump into a nonevil guy and have him smile at me, maybe give me his number. But noooo. Their eyes haze over like a week-old fish, and then they find the nearest deadly object.”

Anne reached for Ixtab’s shoulder to comfort her, but then snapped her hand back. “It’s not your fault, Ixtab. And remember our first rule? Acceptance. We must accept the things we cannot change. And sometimes we can’t change the fate of others. Sometimes, their time is simply up.”

Ixtab shrank on the inside. That’s what Francisco used to tell her. Don’t think about him. Don’t think about him. You promised yourself you wouldn’t do this anymore. Surely two hundred years of suffering for accidentally causing the death of one’s soul mate had to be long enough. Wasn’t it?

Ixtab didn’t know, but she desperately wanted to move on. It was time. Maybe that’s why she was here tonight, trying to take a step forward.

Or maybe she was there for another reason: justice.

Ixtab cleared her throat. “The only thing that really keeps me going is that in between the accidents, I really do save lives.” With the right amount of concentration and a little help from the Universe, she had the ability to extract the darkness from a good soul. “Just this afternoon, for example, the Universe led me to a very sad girl—sweet as a bag of kettle corn. She’d obviously been feeling down lately—lots of bad energy buildup around her heart—and thought it would be fun to try these pills her boyfriend gave her.” Ixtab opened her hand and showed everyone the pills. “She would’ve died and not gone on to fulfill her destiny of being a pediatric surgeon.”

Murmurs of approval erupted.

“See, Ixtab. There’s always a ray of sunshine to be found in every situation,” said the other woman to her left named Jess.

Ixtab smiled appreciatively at the two young ladies. “Yunno, I’m really glad I found you guys. It’s nice to have someone to talk to for once. And, yes. You’re right. There’s always a silver lining.” Ixtab got up, walked across the circle, and stood before a shabby looking man in his early thirties. His head was too small for his body and his bulging brown eyes matched the stain on his wrinkled T-shirt.

“What the hell are you looking at, freak?” he said.

“Jerry, right?” Ixtab’s heart tingled with giddiness.

He shifted in his chair. “Yeah. That’s right. Jerry’s the name.”

Ixtab slid off her veil.

The man jerked his head back and then flashed a lusty grin. “But hey, baby, you can call me anything you want.”

Ixtab leaned down, putting them at a breath’s distance, and stared into his pupils. Ah, the eyes. They never lie. Sometimes they showed an image of what one might become later in life, but this guy? Nada. The only thing to gaze upon was his bleak soul and the reflection of her own turquoise eyes.

“Baby, huh? Aren’t you sweet?” She smiled and placed her index finger on the tip of his chin. The man’s mouth dropped open and she popped the pills inside. He instantly convulsed and frothed from the mouth.

“How about I call you dead?” she seethed.

The man leaned forward, pulled a knife from his boot, and stabbed himself in the heart. He dropped to the floor.

“That’ll teach you to sell drugs to children, you shit.” Ixtab turned toward the crowd who sat motionless in their chairs. “Wow. I really do feel better! Thanks for letting me crash your Road Ragers Anonymous meeting. Same time next week?”

The group nodded.

“Excellent.” Ixtab turned to leave. “Oh. Everyone will be kind to their fellow drivers from now on. You’ll also forget you ever saw me. And Jerry there? He flipped out and ended his life after taking his own smack. ’Kay?”

The crowd nodded with an absent gaze.

Yes, being the Goddess of Suicide wasn’t all shits and giggles—it was mostly shits—but it did have its moments.



An Hour Later. Kinich’s Estate

Ixtab looked at her pastel yellow watch and frowned. Dammit. She was ten minutes late to the gods’ summit meeting and would be left with cleanup duty. Again. She only hoped her brother Belch, God of Intoxication and Wine, hadn’t brought his keg this time. Or the donkey with the sombrero. And that he’d remembered to wear pants.

As Ixtab hurried through the modern, southwestern-style estate toward the summit room, she wondered what would become of the place. With its large skylights, indoor cactus gardens, and warm desert colors, Kinich, her brother, would likely want to move. But where would he go? He’d always loved the desert and the tropics.

Ixtab shivered imagining him living in a gloomy, depressing vampire lair, which made her wonder, How can humans like vampires so much? They’re so… icky—except for Kinich, of course. Poor guy. But surely if humans knew how horribly morbid vampires were, they’d come to their senses! Maybe she should start a list and publish it.

Vampires are icky, reason number one: they hate sunshine.

Reason number two: they’re not really alive.

Reason number three: they drink blood.

Yes, but many creatures live on blood: mosquitos, flees, Cimil’s unicorn…

Okay, skip that reason.

New reason number three: vampires are violent.

Speaking of violent, she paused outside the hand-carved double doors adorned with the Mayan sun on one side and the Mayan calendar on the other. Phew, no screaming. Not yet, anyway. Her brethren were such an unruly lot.

Ixtab pushed open the doors of the giant Mayan-esque meeting chamber decorated with hieroglyphs, a big screen TV, and fourteen thrones seated around a large stone slab table. Eight frowns immediately greeted her, the only smile coming from Penelope who, like usual, wore a plain tee and a pair of jeans with her dark hair pulled back into a sleek bun. “Hey, Suicide. We’re just getting started.”

“Ixtab. The name is Ixtab.” She curled her fists and took the throne baring her Mayan glyph toward the middle of the table. Damn, she hated this chair. It depicted her with giant, pointy nipples, a noose around her neck, and decaying cheeks.

Stupid Mayans, nooses are so last baktun. “And my nipples are cute and perky,” she grumbled.

“Um. Thanks for sharing?” Penelope looked around the room. “Anyone else like to share a description of their nipples before we get started?” Penelope shot a glance toward the end of the table. “It’s a rhetorical question, Belch. Put your hand down.”

He slowly removed his greasy palm from the air and wiped it down the front of his green Puma sweatshirt. As usual, he had his dark brown hair styled with a nonflattering bedhead look. “I wore pantsss today,” he slurred proudly.

“Actually,” Ixtab pointed out, “those are called underwear. And they’re not even men’s underwear.”

“But they are spectacular,” Mistress of Bees added. “Who knew they made thongsss in transparent plastic?”

As usual, Bees wore a large living hive atop her head and something beeish. Today, it was a tight yellow bodysuit that hugged the curves of her tall, athletic body.

Belch glanced around the chamber. “When did I leavvve the costume party?” He shrugged and then took a swig from his supersized Playboy tankard.

“Okeydokey, then.” Penelope picked up her official Ruler of the House of Gods writing tablet—now an iPad instead of stone since she’d insisted the gods start upgrading their technology—and took roll call. Present were Acan, God of Intoxication and Wine (aka Belch); Ah-Ciliz, God of Solar Eclipses (aka A.C.); Akna, Goddess of Fertility; Camaxtli, Goddess of the Hunt (aka Fate); Colel Cab, Mistress of Bees; K’ak and Zac Cimi, who had yet to find their special gifts, but were quite powerful physically and very popular with the ladies; and last but not least, the Goddess of Forgetfulness. Sadly, no one ever remembered her name and Penelope forgot to count her, as usual.

Missing were Chaam, the God of Male Virility; Kinich, ex–God of the Sun and recently turned vampire; Votan, God of Death and War (aka Guy); Cimil, the ex–Goddess of the Underworld; and the One No One Spoke Of, more affectionately referred to as Máax, which meant “Who?” in Mayan. Ixtab really missed the stubborn bastard, but what was done was done.

Penelope then moved to setting the agenda. Unanimous votes passed to discuss the news of this mysterious tablet and some physicist named Antonio Acero. The topic of Emma’s evil Maaskab grandmother would be postponed until later; her survival after Penelope’s Maaskab BBQ special was uncertain.

“I wish to discuss the fate of Kinich,” Zac said acrimoniously.

Penelope glared at him. “What’s to discuss?”

Ixtab felt the negative energy spike through the thinning ozone. Here we go. Everyone knew that Zac loved Penelope, and though she tried to hide it—no doubt because of her deep love for Kinich—Penelope felt some attraction for Zac, too. Like the other gods, Zac was tall, recklessly handsome (by mortal standards, not Ixtab standards), well built, and quite sharp. His only shortcoming was that he hadn’t discovered his gift. Yet. Although Ixtab and the others suspected he was the God of Love.

Lucky bastard.

“He attacked you—our leader,” Zac said. “This is an offense punishable by death or permanent banishment in the case of a deity.”

Penelope gasped, and the other gods protested vehemently. Point being, Kinich was no longer a deity so that meant death.

Zac’s icy blue-green eyes swept the room. “Are you denying Kinich has broken the law? Or that he is a danger to Penelope?” He looked straight at Ixtab. “What say you, sister?”

That’s an easy one, you lame ass. “We should discuss Kinich,” Ixtab replied. “But how to help, not how to punish him.”

Zac scowled and took his seat while voting concluded. Death or punishment of any sort would be off the table, but Kinich’s fate would be reviewed.

“All right.” Penelope clicked her pen and flashed an annoyed look at Zac. “I bring the first topic to order: Dr. Antonio Acero and the tablet.”

An Uchben soldier entered the room and passed a folder to Penelope. She nodded and placed it on the table. “Thank you.”

“What is that?” Zac asked.

Penelope shook her head but wouldn’t make eye contact. “We’ll discuss it in a minute. And stop stepping out of protocol.”

Zac’s eyes narrowed at Penelope. “Is this the response you would give to Kinich? If he were here, that is, instead of our jail for trying to murder you?”

Ixtab sighed. This situation was a ticking love triangle waiting to explode. She wished a male would love her enough to behave like a complete ass. Or not die when she touched him by accident. Either-or.

Ixtab mentally right hooked herself. Dammit! Get over it. But that was easier said than done. Perhaps because time hadn’t dulled the effects of murdering her soul mate.

You don’t know that Francisco was your soul mate. And you promised not to think about him anymore. It’s a new baktun, it’s a new you…

“Where was I?” Penelope said. “Oh yeah. The Maaskab tablet discovered by Helena and her vampires. Has anyone heard of it?”

Fate was the first to speak. “The Mayan had many sacred tablets. They recorded their most valuable secrets on them.”

Penelope pulled out copies of several ancient texts from a folder on the table. “Well, supposedly this one is made from black jade and had more than just secrets. I’ve been researching our records; it’s believed to have the power to open a portal to any dimension. If that’s true, then we could free Votan, Niccolo, and our men.”

Interesting… How had this tablet existed without the gods’ knowledge? Ixtab wondered.

“You are not getting anywhere near it,” Zac stated coldly. “So do not think of proposing to do so.”

Pen glared at him and then looked at Ixtab. “That’s where you come in.”

Me? They need me? Ixtab felt her spine straighten a little. “How?”

Penelope threw down the file. “Meet Dr. Antonio Acero. World-renowned physicist from MIT, heir to Spain’s wealthiest family, current owner of the tablet, and the only being on the planet capable of unlocking it. That we know of.”

“Why does he possessss the tablet?” Bees asked, blowing kisses to a tiny bee on the tip of her finger.

Penelope’s mouth twisted with disgust as she watched. “We don’t know how he got it, but we think he’s trying to make a name for himself in the scientific community. Unfortunately, he refuses to work with us and money won’t entice him. Neither will threats. Everyone who’s attempted contact says he’s stubborn, arrogant, and rude. Anyway, Helena and her vampires have been keeping close tabs on him. They were about to resort to glamouring him, but something happened during an experiment and he triggered an explosion. The good news is he’ll live. Bad news is he lost his sight.”

All heads swiveled toward Ixtab.

“Why are you looking at me? I can’t cure blindness,” she said.

“Mr. Acero’s physician,” Penelope explained, “is one of our undercover Uchben. She suspects his condition has something to do with the tablet’s dark energy and may be reversible. In the meantime, he’s extremely… unhappy and refusing to continue his work.”

“So you want me to fix him?” Ixtab asked, wondering if he deserved saving. Accident aside, he didn’t sound like a very nice person. In fact, he sounded like a snobby, rich playboy who might deserve the hand he’d gotten.

“Can you do it, Ixtab?” Penelope asked.

Ixtab scratched her forehead through the itchy veil. She hated toying with anything Maaskab. Their power was based on dark energy, which was highly unstable and unpredictable. Yet absorbing bad juju and saving humans was her gift. Yes, yes, she also dished the bad juju, but curing those in need was always her first priority.

“Ixtab? Can you?” Penelope asked again.

“Of course, she cannn! She’sss like a giant rrrechargeable battery,” Belch slurred.

“Ixtab, if you’d like my two cents”—Fate spoke with a casualness that insinuated some sort of authority—“it is too dangerous. And we all know you are not brave or useful in situations of peril. You should not risk it.”

Ixtab glared at Fate. Even her outfit—a little white pleated dress and white knee-high moccasins—was annoyingly prissy. Damned goody-goody, always trying to put everyone down.

Ixtab lifted her chin. “I’m game.”

“So am I. Wanna see?” Belch stood and stretched his seven feet of inebriated male mass, showing everyone his thong, which now looked like a little transparent tent. He was clearly having a special, special moment with himself.

“You’re disgustin. . .