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  Sanguini’s is the vampire-themed Italian restaurant that Quince inherited from her late parents. It’s closed for New Year’s Day. Last night’s party sold out at a thousand dollars a head (75 percent of which was donated to a local food kitchen). It attracted a country-and-western superstar, the latest Heisman Trophy winner, and several NASA astronauts.

  Last night I walked her home at 3 A.M. I don’t normally get to stay out so late. We’re out of school for winter break. It’s weird for Zach not to leave with her, too. It’s his holy mission, watching over Quince.

  I’m being too hard on him. It’s not like he won’t tell her about Mitch.

  He’s waiting for the right moment. I get that.

  The microwave dings, and I take out her mug.

  Not every guy would be as accepting of my girlfriend’s liquid diet. But since I’m part Wolf, the smell of pig’s blood makes my canines itch, too.

  We join Zach in the dining room.

  “Cold Italian pasta salad,” Quince announces, setting down the bowl, “with prosciutto, chopped red pepper, chopped red onions, and cannellini beans. Nora let it sit in the fridge overnight.”

  Nora also left a pot of black-eyed peas on the stove. She’s Sanguini’s famed and acclaimed chef. Nora, Zach, and their pal Freddy rent out rooms in Quince’s 1930s home.

  It’s not your typical household arrangement. Quince’s mom and mine had been best friends since before we were born. My folks are Quince’s legal guardians. But last fall, Nora offered to pitch in as an extra supervisory grown-up.

  It’s better for everyone. It was a nightmare for Quince, trying to pass as human in front of my parents. Meanwhile, my folks didn’t want two love-struck, hormonally charged teenagers living under the same roof.

  I distribute dinner plates. Zach ducks into the kitchen for silverware and napkins. Tonight, it’s just the three of us. Nora went out for sushi with her son, who’s visiting from Boston. Freddy is on a date with some Australian guy he met through the rowing club.

  They come and go, whereas Zach is a constant fixture. Not that I mind. Usually.

  If he were a full-status angel, he’d be invisible. Watching over Quince 24-7. Being slipped, he’s corporeal all the time. That makes the logistics of “watching over” more complicated. Among other things, it’s seriously cramping my love life.

  Don’t get me wrong. Zach’s a great guy. An angel — literally. Don’t think that revelation didn’t knock this good Catholic boy off his boots.

  But Quince and I need our alone time.

  We settle around the antique table. Quince says grace and announces, “We’re taking down the Sanguini’s holiday decorations before reopening tomorrow. Enough with the fangs and mistletoe. I’ve had it with The Nightmare Before Christmas —”

  “Until next year?” I finish.

  She blows me a kiss. I laugh. Quince adores the holidays.

  She takes a tiny experimental bite of the pasta salad. “Delicious, but I don’t know. It says to me, ‘corporate picnic,’ ‘Tarrytown baby shower.’ Not ‘Sanguini’s.’”

  “What about taking out the prosciutto?” I suggest. “You could market it as a prey dish?” Sanguini’s menu is divided into two sections — one for customers who call themselves “predator” and one for those who call themselves “prey.”

  It’s partly a matter of carnivore versus vegetarian. It’s partly sexual posturing.

  “You’re quiet,” Quince says to the angel. “You’re not eating. Are you feeling okay? You’re not sick, are you? Can you get sick?”

  “It’s my job to keep an eye on you,” he replies, “not vice versa.”

  Waiting, I take a sip of sweet tea. Tonight, it’s living up to the “friend” part of boyfriend that’s my job. When she needs me, I’ll be here.

  “Zachary,” she prompts, “would you mind picking out the prosciutto and letting me know how it tastes?” For my restaurateur girlfriend, one of the toughest things about being undead is that it’s a struggle for her to keep food down. She’s still building up her tolerance for anything heartier than gelatin or whipped cauliflower. “Zachary?”

  He covers her hand with his own. “You heard about the boy found dead on the lakefront.” The angel takes a deep breath. “Well, I found Mitch on the hike-and-bike trail last night after work. It was him. I mean, he —”

  “I know what you mean,” Quince says, pulling away. “So you —”

  “I didn’t strike him down against his will,” Zach assures her. “Mitch offered his soul up to the Big Boss. He said he was resolved.”

  “Good.” Quince pushes her chair back and stands. “Good for him. We’re supposed to be happy for him, right? Isn’t that the drill?”

  Zach winces. “There’s no one way that you’re supposed to feel. You —”

  At preternatural speed, she bolts out of the room, upstairs and slams her bedroom door behind her. I’ll be surprised if the hinges held.

  “Should we go after her?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “After dinner, I’ll go up.”

  We polish off the pasta salad. Then we head to the back porch to grill up a couple of T-bones. Split a six pack. Dissect U.T. football.

  Zach and I have a lot in common. As an earthbound guardian angel and a hybrid werewolf, we’re both different from everyone we know. He’s been cast out of heaven. I’m no longer welcome at the training pack. We both have big appetites. And we both — or so we’re constantly told — have great hair. Plus, we love Quince. In different ways, but she’s as precious to him as my little sis is to me.

  Then there are our vampire girlfriends.

  Quince had her uncertain days. Her blood-starved nights. In the end, though, she became stronger. More confident. Even in undeath, the true Quince thrives.

  “When Miranda was upset, she’d run and hide,” says Zach. “Mostly in girls’ bathrooms.”

  “Quince isn’t hiding,” I explain at the picnic table. “She just wants to be alone.”

  I wish Zach wouldn’t compare Quince to Miranda. From what Freddy tells me, Miranda kept a stable of human victims in her castle dungeon. She left drained bodies strewn across the alleys of Chicago. She ordered the tongues cut out of gossiping servants.

  Zach pops the tab of a beer. “I never understood my girl like you do Quincie.”

  I’ve had a lifetime to get to know Quince. But he’d watched over Miranda from day one. “You mentioned before that you’re a young angel. What does that mean?”

  He hesitates before answering. “We new angels were created after the first atomic blast in 1945.”

  “And Miranda was . . . not a senior citizen?”

  He laughs. “No, she’s not much older than you. She . . .” He pauses. “What?”

  I’m not sure how to phrase this. Zach may be my buddy, but he’s still a holy being. “Aren’t you kind of old for her?”

  I’ve traced Brad, the vamp who cursed Quince, to the early twentieth century. He’d hit the preternatural scene by at least the 1920s. He used his experience, his worldliness, to try to seduce her. Just thinking about it makes me want to snarl. So maybe I’m oversensitive about the subject. But I need to know where heaven stands on much older guys going after teenage girls. I want to hear that my faith is justified.

  Zach puts down his knife and fork. “You know dog years?”

  “Is this a werewolf joke?” I like a good werewolf joke. But I want my answer.

  “No. I mean, you know how dogs — how different species — reach maturity at different rates? How they have different life expectancies?”

  I nod. Werebirds, for example, mature much faster than weremammals. Life cycles vary. On average, Wolves die fifteen years earlier than humans.

  It’s unclear what that’ll mean for me, a hybrid. But odds are, Quince and Zach will be here years, even centuries, after I’m gone. It makes his answer to my question that much more important. I know that angels can slip, fall. So how good of a guy is he?

  Zach yawns again. �
��In angel years, I’m about the age I look. I was born this way, fully grown. I’ll look this way forever. But I’m the human equivalent of twenty or so.”

  Great to know. On the other hand . . . Suddenly, I can’t help thinking that guardian angels start working awfully young. On-the-job training? It’s comforting that Zach’s not a letch.

  Except . . . how qualified is he to guard Quince? It’s a dangerous world. With a more dangerous underworld. Given that Zach’s slipped already, it’s lucky that he hasn’t stumbled across anyone more diabolical than his own girlfriend.

  Get the rest of the story in Diabolical, available in

  hardcover and e-book formats.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2008 by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  First appeared in Immortal: Love Stories with Bite, published by BenBella Books.

  Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  Excerpt from Diabolical copyright © 2012 by Cynthia Leitich Smith

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2011

  ISBN 978-0-7636-6047-5 (electronic)

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  visit us at www.candlewick.com

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Miranda

  Zachary

  Kieren

  Copyright