Love Bites Then it Sucks by Julie Steimle (best self help books to read .TXT) 📕

“Fine.” I agreed finally, just to get them off my back.

It was a service the blood drive also did. They always tested blood before people donated. It was a safety precaution.

We all went out together to the trucks. They were parked in the front lot where I thought I felt a heavy presence. Heading to the nearest mini blood bank on wheels with Mandy, we greeted the technician who was performing the blood collection.

Mandy said with a flirtatious smile, “My friend here is a first time blood donor. She says she can’t give blood because her blood is toxic. Can you prove to her it isn’t?”

The technician took one look at me, then stared harder. I always got this on first encounters. Though I was wearing brown contacts in my eyes to mask the natural orange, I was still extremely pale with contrasting hair. If I did not smile to reveal my sharp canines, most people just shook it off and pretended that I did not look like a vampire. But this man stared a lot. I wondered briefly if he had had any encounters with a vampires before. Blood banks were easy alternatives when vampires don’t want to make victims.

“Just do the prick test for her so I can go,” I said to him.

He nodded warily and went in for the kit.

“Your blood is not toxic,” Mandy said to me while my other coworkers lined up at other trucks. There were three servicing the company that day.

I rolled my eyes and looked back over to where I was still feeling that ominous presence. For a second, I thought I saw a biker in leather standing near one of the cars. He was familiar. But as I turned to really look at him, he seemed to slip from my sight.

The blood technician came back and requested one of my fingers. He gingerly turned over the hand I offered him, feeling how cold I was under his touch. He stared at me, then glanced at the sun as if to make sure it was there. His imps were screaming for him to jump into the van and drive off.

“I know, right?” Mandy said, snickering. “She does look it, doesn’t she?”

The phlebotomist nodded, pricking my finger.

I flinched.

The smell of my own blood oozing from that tiny hole had, what I could describe as, an acidic quality to it. It was unlike the smell of most human blood which had the sweet aroma of salt, sugar, and iron, among other things. By nature, I had a highly sensitive nose for this sort of thing. A person tended to smell a bit like the things they ate. A Coke drinker had that caffeine odor to them. Someone who ate donuts smelled sticky sweet. A healthy, earthy, granola eater had a tendency to smell a bit like nuts and seeds. But shaking off that thought, I refocused on the phlebotomist who smelled like coffee and nicotine. His heart was beating a little faster than normal as he applied my blood drop to places on the card in hand. I think he knew I was not quite human. Phlebotomists must really see a lot of this kind of thing.

I felt a sudden movement to my right.

I turned.

Walking right up to me was that biker. He had a full gnarly beard, tattoos on both biceps, sunglasses, and a sleeveless leather jacket with a fiery wheel insignia with a set of wings around it on his right pocket. He was wearing jeans and cowboy boots and was chewing on a toothpick at the side of his mouth. He looked like the kind of guy my mother would have told me to stay far away from.

“What do you want?” I asked.

Mandy looked but could not see him. Damn. This was not good.

He ginned at me. Once Mandy turned to look at the card, faster than I could follow, the biker tapped me on the shoulder. Immediately my wings popped out, and I went immaterial. It was like he had pushed a button and turned my imp self on.

“Hey!” I shouted.

He laughed, stepping back from me just out of arms reach.

Mandy turned around to say something to me, but of course she could not see me. When I was immaterial, I was also invisible. Mandy’s eyes searched around, raking over the parking lot. “Hey! Eve! Where’d ya go?”

I flew at the biker, pulling my wings out wider to swipe at him, but he seemed to move as if on lightening. Angrily, I stepped behind the truck to retract my wings and go visible again—only they didn’t. I tried harder, straining to get them back in. But I couldn’t pull them into my back. I could feel it, my wings were permanently stuck out.

Panic flooded over me. I screamed at the biker, “Who are you? What did you do to me? Put it back the way it was!”

“Nuh uh,” the biker said now from on top of the blood truck, sitting on it and peering down “You need to listen.”

“Eve?” Mandy searched around for me. I dodged when she ran toward me, making sure she did not bump into invisible me.

“Good instinct,” the biker on the truck said. “So, you know they can still feel you in that state, huh?”

I growled at him, flapping my wings and lifting off the ground. I had all my imp abilities still. I could make myself lighter than air, and my wings could still expand. They just could not pull into my back anymore. “Why did you do that? Fix it!”

But he just sat back, crossing his legs. “Nope. You need to listen.”

“If you wanted to talk to me, all you had to do was say ‘excuse me, can I speak with you for a minute?’!” I shouted. “You didn’t have to do that! Put my wings back the way they were! Unstick them!”

He shook his head. “Nope. I need your undivided attention, and you ain’t goin’ back to that life.”

I paled. “What? No! I don’t know who you are? But you can’t do that to people!”

“Actually I can,” he said, smirking at me. “I was commissioned to pick you up. You have been chosen for redemption, and your mortal life is over.”

I felt sick. Looking around him, I realized he had no imps so I could not tell if he was lying or not. No heartbeat either. Landing atop the truck, I glared down at him, clenching my teeth. “What do you mean by that? Who chose me for redemption? Who in the hell are you?”

“I think you mean who in Heaven am I?” He smiled.

Shaking my head, I stepped back from him. “No, no, no.  I am not dead.”

He nodded. “Course not. You are undead.”

“I am not undead!” I moaned.

Mandy was calling out my name one last time end then muttered apologetically the phlebotomist that I must have run off, too scared of blood. She then explained that I always removed myself and covered my nose whenever anyone had a papercut or scrape, which was true. She had interpreted it that I was queasy around blood. But to be honest it just made me salivate, and I did not want to be tempted by the smell of it. Near fresh blood, I was like an alcoholic smelling wine. The temptation was excruciating in those moments.

“Well, technically, not in a vampire sense, no,” the biker said to me. “But in the fact that you are no longer mortal—yes, you are undead.”

He then pointed at me with his toothpick as the phlebotomist below stared at the results of the prick test, showing Mandy that my blood was indeed toxic. The PH was off the charts. My blood also had so many antigens that it would have killed anyone who had taken transfusion from me. He then asked Mandy how long she had known me, hinting that I was not what she thought I was.

“Put me back right,” I ordered, now shaking. “Tonight was my engagement party. I am getting married this week.”

“Not anymore,” the biker replied.

I lost it. Charging at him to rip that smug look off his face, my claws extended. I slashed out.

Any mortal, vampire or demon would have been dead quicker than a heartbeat. But he was gone in a snap. Like a shot of lightning, he sprang off the truck and through the air on wings of smoke before I could even reach him. I could see their shapes as he hovered over the parking lot, though I was not sure those wings were keeping him aloft. “You are going to have to get used to it chickie. This is your new life now.” 

I charged after him, mustering up speed.

He dodged easily. It was like he was ten times faster than me—faster than any imp. I knew what he was too. A death angel—a grim reaper. I remembered now where I had seen him before. Back in my hometown of Cliffcoast, I had seen him briefly when a friend of mine—Deidre Johnson—had been dealing with the ghosts in the Bale’s house so it could get sold. It had only been a moment when I had seen him then, but I knew him.

But why had he targeted me? What did I do to deserve this? I was playing by the rules. I had not killed anyone since my freshman year of college—and he had been a serial killer who had turned himself into a demon so it was not bad thing what I had done. I had lived my life circumspectly. If anything, I deserved a break.

“Give it up, buttercup,” the biker said, chuckling. “This is your new life. And you are to report to the top of the Ordway Building tonight for further instructions.”

“What? No! You can’t do this!” I screamed at him.

But he whisked off.

I tried to make chase, but he was gone gone gone.

What could I do? I could not follow him, not unless he was intending to go to the Ordway Building.

I dropped back down to the ground and went back to the office building. I tried to pull my wings in. I could only get them imp size and no smaller, which was about as big as my hand-span. Also noticed that the imps who had been around me since as long as I could see imps were gone. I could still see all imps, and they could see me, but somehow I was no longer of interest to them.

I grabbed one to make sure.

“Leggo!” he snapped at me. “What’s the matter with you? I ain’t dead. Deal with the dead and leave me alone.”

Shaking, I let the imp go. I was right. They all could see me still, but they were treating me as if I were dead.

I pulled out my cellphone from my pocket. It got no signal. But as I held it, I realized that it too was immaterial. I felt over my purse and my wallet. They also were as invisible and immaterial as I. My fingers shaking, I dropped my wallet.

As it left my fingers, I saw it become material again. Solid.

It hit the ground.

Mandy turned at the sound of it. Her eyes set right on it. Walking over to it as I backed up, Mandy picked up my wallet and opened it. “Oh.”

She then looked around, even to the sky to see if a bird had dropped it. Mandy did not see me at all.

“Mandy,” I said, risking revealing what I was to her. I was desperate. “Mandy. I’m over here.”

But she did not respond or react. She had not heard me at all.

This was different than my imp situation. Before, whenever I spoke while invisible, it would give me away. The fact that she had not heard me shout at the biker was total proof. It was like I had become a ghost.

I looked to my cellphone again. I turned it on, put in the passcode and opened it. All the apps showed up, but it showed no connection to