Wicked Game
Author: Jeri Smith-Ready
Date: 2008-05-13 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Urban Fantasy; Vampires; Paranormal; Fantasy; Romance; Paranormal Romance; Adult; Fiction; Supernatural; Music
Description: LATE NIGHT RADIO YOU CAN SINK YOUR TEETH INTO Recovering con artist Ciara Griffin is trying to live the straight life, even if it means finding a (shudder!) real job. She takes an internship at a local radio station, whose late-night time-warp format features 1940s blues, '60s psychedelia, '80s goth, and more, all with an uncannily authentic flair. Ciara soon discovers just how the DJs maintain their cred: they're vampires, stuck forever in the eras in which they were turned. Ciara's first instinct, as always, is to cut and run. But communications giant Skywave wants to buy WVMP and turn it in
Publisher: Pocket Books
Rights: All rights reserved

Contents

1. Adrian Phoenix - Rush of Wings

2. J. F. Lewis - Staked

3. Jeri Smith-Ready - Wicked Game

Praise for Adrian Phoenix and
A Rush of Wings

“Phoenix slings the reader into an intense world of dizzying passion, tremendous heart, and arresting originality. Sharp, wicked, and hot as sin.”

—New York Times bestselling author Marjorie M. Liu

“This one pulled me in from the first page. Heather and Dante are among those rare characters readers so often look for and seldom find.”

—Barb Hendee, bestselling coauthor of Traitor to the Blood

“For far too long, Adrian Phoenix has been one of fantastic literature’s best kept secrets. Finally, she has fulfilled all the promise of her brilliant but infrequent short stories with A Rush of Wings. The novel is a fast-paced ride, its New Orleans setting appropriately rich and gothic, its characters both real and surprising. If you read only one debut novel this season, make it this one.”

—New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch

“A goth urban fantasy that moves as fast as its otherworldly characters. A bit like The Crow crossed with The Silence of the Lambs crossed with a voice that is Phoenix’s own, A Rush of Wings is decadent, glittering fun, wrapped up in leather and latex.”

—Justine Musk, author of BloodAngel

“A Rush of Wings is a dark, rich, sensual treat, where heroes and villains alike are fascinating and three-dimensional. Adrian Phoenix uses a perfect blend of suspense, romance, and lyrical prose to keep readers up until late, late at night turning pages. I can’t wait to read more about Dante and about the complex, multifaceted world in which he lives.”

—Jenna Black, author of Secrets in the Shadows

“A Rush of Wings grabs you from the first sentence and doesn’t let go…Adrian Phoenix is one of the best new talents I have seen coming into literature in decades.”

—New York Times bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith

“If vampires didn’t exist, we’d have to invent them. To do that deed, I’d recommend Adrian Phoenix.”

—Gerald M. Weinberg, author of The Aremac Project

Pocket Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Adrian Nikolas Phoenix

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Designed by Carla Jayne Little

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Phoenix, Adrian.

A rush of wings / Adrian Phoenix.—1st Pocket Books trade pbk. ed.

p. cm.

1. Vampires—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3616.H6R87 2008

813’.6—dc22 2007023302

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-8476-6
ISBN-10:1-4165-8476-5

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-8476-6
eISBN-13: 978-1-4516-5215-4

Visit us on the World Wide Web:

http://www.SimonSays.com

DEDICATED TO SEAN PRESCOTT

DUUUDE.

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to: Kris Rusch and Dean Smith for their friendship, guidance and support; to my agent, Matt Bialer, and to my editor, Jen Heddle, for believing in me—this has been a fun, kick-ass journey.

Thanks to: My son Matt Jensen, and his lovely partner, Sherri Lyons; to my son Sebastian Phoenix, and his equally lovely partner, Jen Phoenix; and to my own sweet Kylah; thanks to Rose Prescott, Karen Abrahamson, Louisa Swann (for crying), Jamie Whittaker, Tawnia Seward, Joe Cummings, and the rest of the OWN gang for all the support and encouragement.

Thanks also to: Lynn Adams, D.T. Steiner, Marty and Sharon Embertson, and Hunter Kennedy for always being there.

And last, but not least, thanks to: New Orleans, my soul-city; to Dark Cloud 9 of Portland, and Trent Reznor, for all the work and sweat and love he pours into his music and kick-ass live NIN shows, providing music that is both a source of inspiration and an emotional soundscape.

And thanks to you, the reader, for picking this book up and plunging into my world. Merci beaucoup!

1

Voice for the Dead

THE SWEET, CLOYING ODOR of blood and honeysuckle hung in the rain-misted courtyard like rancid smoke. A nude figure was curled against the courtyard’s ivy-draped stone wall, his bound hands tucked beneath his face like those of a sleeping child, a stark counterpoint to his swollen and battered face. A dark mesh shirt was twisted around his throat and night-blackened blood pooled around his body. Gleamed upon skin and stone.

And on the wall above scrawled in blood—

Wake Up

HEATHER WALLACE’S MUSCLES, KNOTTED from her long flight from Seattle, kinked even tighter. The message was a disturbing addition if this was the work of the Cross-Country Killer. A warning? A command? A dark, ironic joke aimed at his dying victim?

Drawing in a careful breath, Heather stepped from the back door of DaVinci’s Pizza and walked into the shadowed court-yard. She skirted the numbered evidence placards dotting the old stone floor.

“Daniel Spurrell, age nineteen,” Detective Collins said from the doorway. “From Lafayette. LSU student. Disappeared three days ago. Discovered in the courtyard about noon by an employee.”

Tortured somewhere else, then dumped, Heather thought. Why here?

Old-fashioned gaslit lanterns cast pale, flickering light across the courtyard. Beneath the blood stink, Heather caught a whiff of jasmine and ivy, thick and wintergreen, a white-flowered bouquet unable to mask the smell of death.

Three years she’d been tracking the CCK. And dealing with his victims never got any easier.

She knelt beside all that remained of Daniel Spurrell. Tortured. Raped. Slaughtered. Posed. Latest victim of a wandering sexual sadist.

A deep, thudding vibration emanated from next door, snaked up her spine. “What’s on the other side of the wall?” she said, her gaze on Daniel’s bruised face.

“Club Hell,” Collins answered. “Music venue. Bar.” He paused, then added, “And a vampire hangout. Pretend, y’know?”

“Do you mean Goths? Or gamers?”

Collins chuckled. “Shit, you tell me. Sounds like you’re more in the know.”

“My sister fronted a band,” Heather said. “I met all kinds at her gigs.”

Long, midnight-blue hair veiled the boy’s face. NightGlo, Heather mused. A hair color Annie’d often used when she and WMD hit the stage in all their hard-edged punk glory. Before Annie’d flamed out in a spectacular bipolar meltdown and sliced her wrists onstage.

Heather focused on a mark on the boy’s chest—something cut or scorched into the flesh. She leaned in closer. Blackened skin. Blistered. A series of circles—burned with a car lighter?

The anarchy symbol.

Cold frosted Heather’s veins. The symbol was also new. Like the blood message. If this was the work of the Cross-Country Killer, then his signature, his reason, his drive for the kill had changed from an insular intimacy, his victim’s final desperate moments his and his alone, to an overt act inviting attention. Impossible. Theoretically. But if it had changed, what then?

Then she needed to find out why.

Heather studied Daniel’s face, the midnight-blue hair, the twist of cloth embedded into his throat, knotted around it. Breathed in the lingering smell of death and tasted it.

Why you? Chosen? Or wrong place, wrong time? Why here?

She heard her father’s voice, deep and low, his tone reverential: The dead speak only through evidence. Through evidence alone are you a voice for the dead.

Heather stood. S.A. James William Wallace—the Bureau’s leading forensic specialist and world’s lousiest father.

The dead aren’t the only ones seeking a voice, Dad.

Ah, Pumpkin, they found their voices the moment they picked up a gun, a knife, a rope, or a baseball bat, the moment they killed. Through evidence you will silence them.

Heather turned away from Daniel’s curled body. She pushed rain-damp strands of hair back from her face, listened to the pounding bass beat coming from Club Hell.

Daniel’s killer spoke loud and clear. He was an organized killer, deliberate. So it was no accident that he chose the wall next to the club. Had Daniel met his killer in there? So why leave his body here and not in the club’s courtyard, on the other side of the wall?

And if this was the work of a copycat?

Then the Cross-Country Killer was still out there, enjoying his little jaunt across the States, casually selecting victims—male and female—like a Bermuda shorts–wearing tourist picking out postcards.

Still out there. Still needing to be silenced.

As Heather crossed the courtyard, a familiar truth burned bright in her mind: She’d never allow a case to go cold to protect the reputation of a loved one; never bury evidence no matter how much it hurt.

Unlike the famous James William Wallace.

Heather joined Collins at the threshold leading into DaVinci’s. She read the unasked question in the detective’s eyes: Is the Cross-Country Killer in New Orleans?

“Signature’s different,” she said. “The message…I’ll know more once we have the autopsy report and the DNA workup.”

“What’s your gut say?”

Heather glanced at the body. Huddled. Praying hands. Naked in the rain. Stabbed over and over. Strangled. Young and pretty, once.

Heather looked at Collins. Six one, she judged, and lean. Midthirties. She noted the tension in his shoulders, his jaw. “How deep in the shit did you get buried for calling in a fed?”

A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes. “They made you special agent for a reason. Neck deep and it’s still piling up.”

“I’ll do what I can to dig you out,” Heather said. “I appreciate your call.”

Collins regarded her for a long moment, his hazel eyes weighing, considering. He nodded. “Thanks. But I’ll dig myself out.”

“Fair enough.” Heather met his gaze. “My gut tells me this is the CCK’s work. But that’s off the record.”

A faint smile touched Collins’s lips. “Fair enough.”

“He’s probably long gone.”

Collins nodded, face bleak. “Traveling man.”

Shrieks of laughter and sharp jazz riffs drifted in from the street. And underneath it all, the steady thump-thump-thump of music from Club Hell.

“Mardi Gras,” Collins said. “Well, almost. Still three days out and it’s crazy.” He shook his head. “Y’ever been?”

“No, this is my first trip to New Orleans.”

“Let me thank your gut by treating you to a N’awlins-style dinner.” Collins pushed away from the doorway. His clean, spicy cologne cut through the courtyard’s thickening smell of death and blood.

“Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check. I want to look into a few things, maybe catch a little sleep.” Heather offered her hand. “I appreciate your time and help, Detective.”

Collins grasped her hand and shook it. Strong grip. An honest man. “Call me Trent. Or Collins, if you’re old-school. I’ll contact you soon as I hear anything.”

“Sounds good, Trent.”

Releasing Collins’s hand, Heather walked back into the pizzeria, headed for the front door. A thought circled around the anarchy symbol burning in her mind.

The pattern has changed. He’s communicating. But with whom, and why now?

SITTING AT THE SMALL, lacquered desk in her room, Heather connected her laptop to the hotel’s Internet service. She tabbed open a can of Dr Pepper and took a long swallow of the cold, sweet plum–flavored soda. It hit her empty stomach like a chunk of ice.

WAKE UP.

A challenge? To law enforcement? The Bureau? Her? None of the above?

Drunken laughter and shouts—“Dude! Wanna get a bite? Duuuude!”—boomed past her door and down the corridor, fading as the revelers found their rooms.

Heather worked her iPod’s headphones into her ears and thumbed the volume down low so she’d hear it if anyone called. Knocking back another long swallow of Dr Pepper, she typed in an online search of Club Hell.

The Leigh Stanz bootleg she’d downloaded into her iPod curled into her ears and focused her thoughts. Low and intense, accompanied by acoustic guitar, Stanz’s voice was husky and worn, like the voice of a man emptying his heart out for the last time.

I long to drift like an empty boat on a calm sea / I don’t need light / I don’t fear darkness…

Checking the links pulled up on her search page, Heather learned that the very hip Club Hell had opened nearly four years earlier and was frequented by a Goth/punk/wannabevampires crowd. The kind of place Annie would’ve gigged at with WMD.

A lot of local bands and underground acts performed at the club, especially Inferno, an industrial/Goth band fronted by a young man rumored to also be the owner of Club Hell. He appeared to be known only as Dante.

Heather shook her head. Dante’s Inferno. Cute. Good for marketing, no doubt. Hoping to find out more about the club’s possible owner, she Googled Inferno and received a trillion hits. Scrolling down to the band’s official Web site, she clicked on tour dates—none in the last year; albums—two, with the third due to be released in a few days; photos. She paused, studying the captured images.

Three men in their early to midtwenties—dreads, faux hawks, hard bodies pierced and tattooed—stood in one of New Orleans’s cities of the dead, each of them looking in a different direction. Behind them stood a fourth figure in black jeans and baggy sweatshirt, hood pulled up. Head bowed, fingers holding the hood’s edges, his face unseen, he seemed to be contemplating the seashell and gravel path beneath his boots.

But what caught Heather’s attention was the pendant hanging at his throat. The anarchy symbol. She sat up straighter and enlarged the photo. Stared at a circled letter A fashioned out of what looked like barbed wire and strung on a black cord.

Heart pounding, Heather checked the photo’s caption. The figure was Dante. She clicked on the next photo. Dante’s back was to the camera. No visible anarchy symbol. In the next photo, she caught a glimpse of the barbed-wire pendant dangling like a charm from a twist of wire around his wrist.

Heather scrutinized each photo. The anarchy symbol wasn’t always present or visible. But she did notice one thing: Inferno’s front man was never the focus of the photos. Dante stood behind the other members or off to the side or knelt in front, head bowed. Not once did she see his face. A flash of black hair in one, a pale cheek in another, but that was all.

Another marketing ploy? The oh-so-mysterious front man? Or genuine reluctance to be front and center—except when on-stage?

Heather scrolled through online band interviews and wasn’t surprised to discover nearly all were conducted with the other members of Inferno. “In the studio” was the usual reason given for Dante’s absence.

Heather finished her can of Dr Pepper, then lined down to the last article and opened it. This time, Dante wasn’t “in the studio”; he sat, alone, for the interview. Clunking the empty can onto the desk, Heather leaned forward to read.

Dante spoke intelligently about music and the state of the music industry, French or Cajun words spicing his comments, his tone often dark and humorous.

DANTE:

It’s time to return to the days of the guillotine. If you don’t have passion for music, if you don’t have le coeur, and you’re only in it for the money, the fame, or the chicks, then off with your head.

AP: | | Are you serious?
DANTE: | | Yeah. At least that’d be honest entertainment. You need to bleed for your audience one way or another.
AP: | | Why don’t you give more interviews?
DANTE: | | I want the focus to be on the music. Not me.
AP: | | But people want to know more about you. You are the music. Why did you open Club Hell?
DANTE: | | (Tense) To showcase musicians, new talent.
AP: | | How do you address the rumors that you’re a vampire?
DANTE: | | (Standing) Wrong focus. We’re done.

VAMPIRE? WAS THAT A joke? More marketing? Heather suddenly remembered Collins saying: And a vampire hangout. Pretend, y’know?

Using Bureau ID codes, Heather tapped into city records and looked up all pertinent info on Club Hell. The owner was listed as one Lucien De Noir, a French entrepreneur. All licenses and deeds were in his name, but based on that last interview and her own gut feeling, Heather believed De Noir was only the money man. Club Hell was Dante’s baby.

Heather plugged into the NOPD’s system with her guest security code and searched for Dante, though with no last name, she didn’t hold a lot of hope for a hit. The search spat up a list of Dantes as first names and last names and she worked her way through them quickly. She came to a halt on Dante Prejean. No social security number. No driver’s license. Age estimated to be twenty-one. Refused to give a birth date. No legal surname. Prejean was a name tacked on from the family who’d fostered him as a kid in Lafayette.

Lafayette. Daniel Spurrell’s hometown. Connections clicked and whirled through her mind like a slot machine. The bars all snapped to a stop in a line.

Anarchy symbol. Lafayette. Club Hell.

Heather skimmed Dante Prejean’s file—criminal mischief, vandalism, trespassing, loitering—all misdemeanors. She scanned for a mug shot, but didn’t find one posted. Frowning, she scrolled through case notes and arrest records. Camera malfunction was usually listed as the reason for no mug shot being taken, but one officer had jotted a different reason altogether:

Little shit won’t hold still. He moves so goddamned fast, every time we snap his picture, he’s fucking gone. This happens every freaking time with this asshole. This is the only picture he’s ever stood still for.

HEATHER CLICKED ON THE photo. A bowed, hooded head. And a hand in front of the hidden face, middle finger extended. Defiant, even under arrest, playing games. She stared at the photo for a long time. The only mug shot Dante ever stood still for? Were the arresting officers plain inept?

Let me go, bro, let me go…

Leigh Stanz’s hoarse voice and sad, yearning words ended. In the ensuing silence the unasked question in Collins’s eyes looped through Heather’s thoughts: Is the Cross-Country Killer in New Orleans?

And is he…what?…identifying with Dante Prejean?

Now? Suddenly? After three years?

An instant message from her SAC, Craig Stearns, blipped onto the laptop’s screen: Wallace, consultation progress?

Heather typed: Consultation continuing. Looks like the CCK, but not positive. She stopped, fingers poised over the keyboard.

Should she mention the records glitch she’d run into on the flight from Seattle? The inability to access ViCAP and NCAVC files on the CCK’s victims? A problem she’d never experienced before in working this case?

Heather rubbed her face. She glanced at the window. Rain poured outside, streaking the glass with ribbons of neon-lit color. Maybe she was being paranoid. Human error. Server malfunction. Shit happens. Maybe she needed to upgrade her computer.

And yet. A change in the CCK’s pattern. A computer glitch.

Heather returned her gaze to the monitor and the blipping cursor. A knot of unease nestled in her belly.

And if the glitch was deliberate? Could it have been Stearns?

She shook her head. Her SAC was a stand-up guy, hard but honest. He’d even helped her with Annie when Dad refused. That kind of deception wasn’t Stearns’s way.

Heather’s fingers dropped onto the keys: Checking leads. Nearly finished. Will contact you tomorrow. She hit send.

Scooting her chair back from the desk, she shut the laptop down and switched off her iPod. Heather shrugged on her trenchcoat. Scooping her Colt .38 up from the desk, she slipped it into the trench’s specially designed inside breast pocket.

Time to go to Hell.

2

Club Hell

“FUCK YOUR MONEY . Go to the back of the line.”

Heather squeezed free of a knot of people clustered in the crowded, narrow street and, grabbing hold of one of the brass horse head hitching posts, pulled herself up onto the teeming sidewalk.

She glanced at the speaker. He stood at the club’s entrance behind a velvet and barbed-wire rope barrier, eyes hidden behind shades. Reflections of neon light winked and edged the dark lenses and lit up the silver crescent moon inked below his right eye. Tall and lean, he wore jeans, road-weathered leather chaps, and a leather jacket marked with nomad colors, which surprised her. She’d never seen a member of one of the family-oriented gypsy-style clans working before, let alone for in-town squatters. At least, not at something legal. Long dark hair tied back, a mustache framing his mouth, he grinned at the fetish-dressed-but-slumming tourist slinking to the back of the line.

Heather paused. Had she seen fangs when the bouncer grinned? Maybe so. She’d learned at one of Annie’s gigs that for a few thousand dollars a person could get customized fangs implanted.

And given that this was Club Hell…

People fought their way onto the sidewalk, elbows and shoulders jostling Heather. A sharp jab to the ribs made her pull her arms in tight against her sides. She locked one hand around the purse strap looped over her shoulder. Her gaze skipped along the swollen line of people waiting to gain admittance.

The majority were Goth—dyed black hair, pale makeup, black lipstick and eyeliner, male and female. Some of the young men seemed to think they were Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise in that old vampire movie: long hair, lace ruffled shirts, velvet jackets, and silver-headed canes. The young women squeezed into form-fitting rubber or latex dresses, or dark velvet minis with tights and fishnet stockings.

Splashing the line with odd bits of color were kids in torn jeans and Ts, their hair buzz-cut or knotted into dreads. Some, like the admonished tourist, were simply curious.

Looking up the three-storied, black iron balconied building, Heather saw curtains fluttering in the night breeze from opened French windows on the third floor. Light flickered inside, like from a candle, and beckoned, like a curved finger.

Heather edged her way through the crowd, slipping between partiers reeking of beer and patchouli and sweat, to the bouncer. She glanced at the unmarked door beyond him—nothing identified the club.

The rain shifted into a cool drizzle, beading on Heather’s face, in her hair, and on her trench. Like Seattle, she mused. She reached into her purse and palmed her badge.

A punk queen in plaid trousers with bondage straps and a torn, black EATS YOUR DEAD tee safety-pinned up the sides submitted to the bouncer’s search. His skimming, fight-scarred hands paused at the cuff of her left trouser. Reaching under and into her boot, he slipped free a secreted switchblade.

“Naughty, naughty,” the bouncer said, one eyebrow arched. He held the gleaming blade like a pro, spinning it between his fingers before sliding it into a pocket of his leather jacket.

The punk queen smacked her forehead with a tattooed hand. A sheepish smile touched her lips. “Fuck, Von. Forgot.”

“I’ll bet,” he said. “You can have it back when you leave. Go in.”

Heather noted the name. She stood on the sidewalk, maybe a yard from him. She knew he was aware of her presence; saw it in the deceptive ease of his body, the deliberate refusal to look her way. That was fine. For now, she was content to observe.

After a couple of minutes, the bouncer turned and, head tilted to one side, regarded Heather for a long moment. “Okay, little girl,” he said, flashing another fanged grin. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Special Agent Wallace,” Heather said, stepping beside him. She flipped open her badge so only he could see it. “I’m investigating the murder next door.”

The bouncer shook his head. “Cops already been here, darlin’.”

Palming her badge, Heather looked up into the nomad’s shaded eyes. Her twinned reflection looked back: face wet, hair pulled back, rain glistening on her black trench. “I’m looking for Dante Prejean.”

Shrugging, the bouncer shifted his attention to the Goth princess swinging her weight from one foot to the next, a pout on her red-lipsticked lips. “Might be in, might not,” he said. “No tellin’.”

His hands skimmed the Goth princess’s velvet-clad curves. “Go on in, darlin’,” he said to the girl. He glanced at Heather. “You, too. Doubt it’s your kinda scene, but—”

“What’s your last name, Von?”

Arching an eyebrow, he murmured, “Sharp ears.” He shrugged again. “Smith. Or maybe Jones. Mama lost track. But if you get it figured out, doll,” he said, looking at Heather from over the tops of his shades. His green eyes seemed to glow. “Call me.”

“Count on it,” Heather said.

VON WATCHED THE FED disappear into the club.

<Law coming in. Pretty trenchcoat with no-nonsense eyes.>

As always, Lucien’s mind felt busy, structured, somehow alien. But receptive. Von felt the activity pause, then his thought was allowed in. <She wants Dante.>

Lucien’s thought arrowed into Von’s mind with an intensity that sometimes unnerved him, especially when he reflected on the fact that Lucien’s reply was gentle.

<She’ll have to settle for me.>

Good enough. Two surprises so far and the night was young. The fed had been numero dos. A nightkind stranger—a bearded black dude wearing jeans, untucked pearl-buttoned blue shirt and snakeskin boots, and trailed by a geeky-looking mortal—had been numero uno.

An honor, llygad, the stranger had said as Von patted him down. But his rigid body language had totally disagreed with that statement.

As had his mortal buddy’s amused grin.

Von’s attention returned to the line. He smiled at two pretty young things clutching each other, laughing and peering at him with drug-dilated pupils. He smelled them—sandalwood, vanilla, and chemical tang. He listened to the blood pulsing through their veins.

With a half bow, he unhooked the rope barrier and gestured them through. The first one, honey-haired and dark-eyed, grasped his hand, then kissed it. Her soft lips lingered, warm against Von’s skin. Her kiss tingled up his arm and down the length of his spine.

She looked at him with adoring eyes. “Nightkind,” she sighed, blowing him a kiss as her giggling girlfriend grabbed her hand and led her into the club.

Hunger unwound within Von. The honey-haired mortal’s warm vanilla scent tugged at him. Sucking in a deep breath, he slid his hands over the next person in line. He scanned the bobbing crowd, looking and sensing for someone else who was out of place. Feds rarely worked alone. He tamped down his hunger. He had to stay sharp. Tonight was not a night to dream of warm flesh and hot blood and sexy giggles. Not with a fed inside.

And a nightkind stranger.

GINA’S HEAD RESTED AGAINST Dante’s shoulder as he bit into her pale throat. Blood, hot, rich, and laced with cocaine, trickled into his mouth. He drank her in carefully, in measured swallows. He slid his hand into her unlaced bodice, caressing and cupping her firm, warm breast. Her nipple stiffened against his palm. She moaned, then gasped. Dante slipped his arm around her waist, holding her even tighter.

Gina arched her hips, and Dante glanced down the length of her reclining body to where Jay, kneeling on the floor at the edge of the bed, eased his hands under Gina’s bare ass and buried his face between her thighs.

Dante felt himself stir, harden. He closed his eyes and drank. Gina’s moans increased in frequency and urgency. He listened to the rasp of her thigh-high stockings against the chenille bedspread, listened to Jay’s muffled breathing, listened to Gina’s pounding heart, listened to the creak of his own leather pants as he shifted on the bed.

A soundless voice—a wordless song—touched his burning thoughts, rousing him from the heady flavor of Gina’s cocaine-laden blood. Concern whispered into his mind.

Dante opened his eyes and stared into the candle-and-neon-lit room.

<Lucien?>

<Stay put, child. Feed. Play with your tayeaux.>

Dante lifted his head from Gina’s throat. She glanced up at him, her heavy-lidded eyes puzzled. Then she gasped as Jay slid a finger inside of her. Her eyes closed again.

<What’s wrong?>

<Nothing,> Lucien sent. <Just business.>

Sudden pain needled Dante’s left temple. His breath caught in his throat as the pain intensified, then faded. Muscles knotted, he held Gina tight, closing his eyes and listening to her uneven breathing as Jay brought her ever closer to climax. He listened to Gina and ignored everything else.

Including the whispers left behind in the pain’s wake.

HEATHER WALKED DOWN A crowded hall with black-painted walls scrawled with graffiti in fluorescent paint. Her gaze skipped over a few of the messages: INFERNO RULES! and RANDY SUKS DIK and WE DIE YOUNG.

People lined either side of the passageway, holding drinks, smoking—embers glowing as they breathed in—kissing, feeling each other up. The sweet odors of clove, pot, and wine mingled uneasily with the smells of vomit and warring perfumes.

Black lights glowed purple from bared male torsos and from nude, glitter-dusted breasts; shimmered from nipple piercings, NightGlo tattoos, and fluorescent body paint.

Music pounded like a sledgehammer and Heather regretted leaving her earplugs at home in Seattle. Didn’t think I’d be clubbing.

Looking from face to face and wondering if a killer was among them, Heather worked her way through the crowd to the entrance proper. A glowing red neon sign hung above the entrance.

Burn

HEATHER PAUSED BENEATH THE flickering sign as dry ice mist swirled around her legs. What if she was wrong? What if DaVinci’s courtyard being chosen, that particular wall being written on, had been coincidence?

Heather didn’t believe in coincidence. She passed the sign and stepped into Hell.

STANDING BEHIND DANTE’S STONE bat-winged throne, Lucien shifted his gaze from the black, bearded nightkind stranger at the bar and his sallow-skinned mortal companion, to keep a watch on the entrance.

Silver and Simone sat on the stairs leading to the throne, their heads close together, talking and laughing. The crowd beyond them bobbed and jumped, dancing to the music blasting from the Cage.

Why was the law asking for Dante again? They’d already been here regarding the murder next door. His hands curled over the top edge of the throne, the stone gritty beneath his fingers.

Even more disturbing was the piercing pain he’d felt from Dante a few minutes ago. But there was no time to go to him now. No time to cool the hurt away—even temporarily.

Stone dust fell from beneath Lucien’s fingers, powdering the black velvet cushion. He yanked his hands away from the throne. As he did, his gaze locked onto a woman standing in the entrance, one hand holding onto the strap of the purse looped over her shoulder. Lucien noticed that one side of her trench-coat hung just a little lower than the other. Gun, he mused.

Pretty trenchcoat with no-nonsense eyes. Apt description. Lucien took in her rain-darkened auburn hair, her petite frame, her confident posture. Apt, indeed.

Now to get her out of here.

Lucien stepped from around the throne and started down the stairs.

THE DANCING, THRASHING CROWD filling the dance floor held Heather’s attention. A band played inside a steel-barred cage while the audience stalked them, seeking ways inside. Some climbed the cage, reaching in as they did, trying to grab a sleeve, a lock of hair. Without missing a note, the band kept playing as they dodged and skipped out of reach.

A young woman standing on the mesh top of the cage held out her arms, threw back her head and stepped off. The crowd caught her. As she was passed from one set of arms to another, hands slipped under her dress, inside her top, feeling her up as she was passed to safety.

Heather forced her tensed muscles to relax. She looked away from the thrashing dancers. Small circular tables lit by candles dotted the other side of the club. Immediately to her left was a long polished bar and directly in front of her a…throne.

The bat-winged throne stood on a dais reached by four stairs. A couple perched on the uppermost stair. They both suddenly looked her way, fixing on her as though synchronized.

The boy was pretty, punked out, and way too young to be in the club. A half-empty glass of wine rested beside him on the step. Sixteen? Heather wondered. The woman wrapped her arms around her upraised knees. Her long, spiraled hair gleamed like gold against her black tights. Both her eyes and the boy’s seemed to catch and reflect the club’s low light.

Movement above them caught Heather’s eye. A tall, broad-shouldered man in a white long-sleeved shirt and black trousers stepped out from behind the throne and took the steps in two strides. Light winked from a pendant or chain at his throat. As he walked through the crowd, people parted for him without prompting, following his progress across the floor with gazes that Heather could only describe as awed.

Heather stepped aside from the entrance and waited for him, certain he was Lucien De Noir. As he drew nearer, she realized he was unusually tall. Six seven? Six eight? She straightened, determined to make every inch of her five feet four count.

“Good evening,” he said, stopping before her. “I’m Lucien De Noir, club owner. May I help you?”

Heather met his gaze. His black hair was tied back, his clothing neat and crisp. A sterling-silver, rough-edged X on a black cord hung just below the hollow of his throat. He radiated power, oozed strength. A slight smile curved his lips. A handsome man, she realized, one, no doubt, who knew when to turn on the charm.

Flipping open her badge for De Noir, Heather returned his smile. “I’m Special Agent Wallace. I’d like to see Dante Prejean. I understood this was his club.”

De Noir scrutinized her badge for a long moment before motioning for her to put it away. “His name is simply Dante,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “And I’m afraid your information is mistaken. But, in any case, Dante isn’t here tonight.” De Noir’s smile widened, warmed. Gold glinted in the depths of his eyes. “Perhaps I can help you.”

“Do you know anything about the murder next door? Or the victim?”

De Noir shook his head. “Only what I’ve heard from the police and on the street.” The gold lights in his eyes vanished. “And I’d imagine that Dante would know even less. He doesn’t keep up with the news.”

“It looks like it hasn’t hurt business, anyway,” Heather said, offering another smile. “Is there somewhere quieter we can talk?”

“The courtyard outside,” De Noir said, turning away and stepping into the crowd. His tied-back hair, black and gleaming, reached to his waist.

Knowing there had to be an office on either the second or third floor of the building, Heather wondered why she was being ushered out the back. So to speak. But, for once, she didn’t have a problem with that; she wanted to see the courtyard that adjoined DaVinci’s.

Slipping her badge back into her purse, Heather followed De Noir onto the dance floor and through the parting crowd.

DANTE EASED OUT FROM behind Gina and slid to the edge of the rumpled bed. The black lace curtains framing the opened French windows twisted in the cool night breeze. The smell of rain and Mississippi mud filled the room. Dante trailed his fingers through his hair.

Still kneeling beside the bed, his hands resting on Gina’s thighs, Jay watched him with interest.

“What’s wrong, sugar?” Gina said, sitting up.

Dante didn’t have to look at Gina to see the pout on her lips. “I’ve gotta go,” he said. Candlelight flickered orange across the shadowed walls, across his leather pants, his boots. Pain flickered in his mind.

Gina’s fingers wrapped around Dante’s belt. She tugged. “Looks to me like you’re all hot and bothered. Looks to me like you need to stay,” she murmured. “Just lie down and we’ll—”

Gently plucking Gina’s fingers free from his belt, Dante stood. He shook his head. “Later. Play without me for now.”

“Dante, mon cher…” Jay’s hand slid from Gina’s thigh, reached for Dante.

Dante pushed away Jay’s hand, then seized a handful of the mortal’s blond hair and yanked his head back. Jay’s breathing became rough, uneven. Bending down, Dante kissed him deeply. The honey, musk, and salt taste of Gina on Jay’s tongue and lips damn near changed Dante’s mind. But a familiar, dangerous restlessness burned within him. He couldn’t stay.

Finishing the kiss, Dante released Jay’s hair and trailed a finger along his jawline, then straightened and strode from the room. He heard Gina advising Jay to let him be.

Out in the hallway, Dante leaned against the wall. Eyes closed, he thumped his head lightly against the plaster. He waited for his hard-on to subside, wishing the dark, writhing things inside would subside as well. But knew they wouldn’t. Pain prickled at his temple.

Fuck! Focus, dammit. Something’s troubling Lucien. Zero in on that.

But Lucien’s shields were up and he couldn’t get through. In fact, it almost seemed as though Lucien was keeping him out deliberately. Dante opened his eyes and shoved himself away from the wall.

HEATHER GLANCED AT THE people sitting on the stairs as she weaved through the crowd behind De Noir. They watched her progress with something close to envy or maybe disbelief on their powder-pale faces. De Noir edged past them, seemingly oblivious to the shining gazes, the half-parted lips, and the whispers:

“Lucien. Will he see us?”

“Is he coming down?”

“Lucien Nightbringer. Lucien…”

Earnest, desperate, hungry.

Heather stepped past their outstretched fingers, disturbed by De Noir’s silence. She wondered why he didn’t say anything, why he didn’t even glance at them.

De Noir stood aside and opened the door to the courtyard, gestured for Heather to enter. She looked into the ivy-draped clearing. Protected within gargoyle sconces, candles cast eerie windblown shadows across the stone walls. Her gaze was drawn to the wall where a killer’s message had been smeared in blood on the other side. For a moment, she saw the blood seeping through the stone, letters forming in reverse. Her gut told her: Not by chance or coincidence. This wall had been chosen.

She was about to step out of the club when a sudden whisper rushed through the crowd like wind through tall grass. She stopped as the yearning voices abruptly fell silent. The air seemed to thicken, to crackle with anticipation.

She glanced at De Noir. His face was still, his eyes unreadable. But tension tightened his muscles. He met her gaze, seemed to be willing her into the courtyard. Slowly, Heather turned and looked back the way she’d come.

Someone walked down the stairs, stepping out of the shadows on the second-floor landing. It seemed to Heather as though every single person in the club sucked in a breath at the same time.

Then the figure crossed into the light and glanced with gleaming eyes over the heads of the crowd at Heather or maybe past her to De Noir, she couldn’t be sure. She stood frozen, unable to move or breathe, then the collective pent-up breath in the club released. Voices clamored:

“Dante! Dante! Mon ange!”

“Yeah! Fuckin’ hope he gets in the Cage tonight!”

Heather stared, dizzied and stunned, as he descended, overwhelmed by what she’d seen in the moment he’d looked her way—

Dark, light-filled eyes looking into her, drawing her in—

Slender, hard body, five nine or five ten, moving with dangerous and unself-conscious grace, all coiled muscles and knife-sharp reflexes—

Tousled black hair spilling past his shoulders, dressed in mesh and leather and steel-ringed bondage collar, a sexuality that scorched—

She wrenched her gaze from him and watched the faces of those who called his name, witnessed their smiles and tears as he stroked a jawline there, touched a cheek here, kissed a pair of lips there.

Then…he stepped into the crowd and out of sight, and Heather gasped for air, able to breathe again.

If that was Dante Prejean, then he was literally breathtaking. She’d never seen anyone so gorgeous. It also meant that De Noir had lied about Dante’s not being here tonight. She turned to face De Noir and caught him rubbing the bridge of his nose, gaze on the floor. He looked like a man who’d suddenly felt the pain of Murphy’s Law kicking him in the ass.

“Strange, I was sure you’d said that Dante wasn’t here,” Heather said. “Must’ve just arrived, then.”

Dropping his hand, De Noir said, “So it would seem.” Lifting his eyes, he met Heather’s gaze. “The police have already spoken to him, Agent Wallace. I see no need to—”

“I’m sorry,” Heather interrupted. “But I do.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Dante climbed the steps leading to the cheesy Kingdom-of-Hell themed throne. Kneeling between the pretty underage punk and the earthy blonde, Dante stroked the boy’s purple spiked hair. He leaned in close to the blonde, seemed to speak into her ear. Several Goth princesses at the foot of the steps bounced and squealed.

Why was De Noir so protective of Dante Prejean? What was he hiding?

Heather spun away from De Noir’s strange black, gold-edged eyes and slipped into the crowd. She intended to find out.

3

Without a Word

DANTE GLANCED OVER HIS shoulder. He didn’t see the red-haired, trenchcoated woman who’d been standing beside Lucien, but he felt her pushing through the crowd, resolve and authority radiating from her like sunshine; bright, piercing, and deadly.

<What’s going on, mon ami?>

Dante returned his attention to Simone. “Dunno.” He slid his fingers along the silky length of her hair, pushed it behind her ear. “But I’m gonna find out soon. Whether I wanna or not.” He smiled.

Simone watched him carefully, searched his eyes. He shook his head.

She sighed. “If you’re sure.”

Lowering his head, he kissed her, drinking in her magnolias and blood scent. “Merci beaucoup, chérie,” he whispered against her lips.

Simone sighed again. She glanced past him to Silver. “Come, petit.” She stretched a hand to Silver and wriggled her fingers. The boy took her hand and pulled her to her feet. They headed down the few steps to the dance floor.

Dante rose to his feet and climbed onto the dais. Under Pressure slammed and raged in the Cage, their music a fist—punching, punching, knockout. Dante closed his eyes. Every chord, every screamed word, every drum strike vibrated into him, thrummed along his spine.

A gentle nudge from Lucien opened the link between them. <She’s FBI. Tried to get rid of her.>

Dante smiled at the chiding tone. <Yeah, yeah. I didn’t stay put. I know. Merci.>

Opening his eyes, Dante spun around. The crowd howled. Several of his tayeaux squeezed from the crowd to curl on the steps below. The tiny bat tattoos at the hollows of their throats shimmered in the overheads, visible only to nightkind, marking them off-limits. Dark emotions oozed from the crowd at the sight of them—envy, bitterness, resentment—and lapped against the edges of Dante’s consciousness. He looked into each pale face, each set of kohl-rimmed eyes, curving his lips into a smile but thinking, as always, What do they want from me?

Pain flickered and Dante shook his head, one hand to his temple. Drawing in a deep breath of the clove, cinnamon, and sweat scented air, he turned his thoughts outward.

Silver and Simone danced and shimmied on the floor, beautiful and graceful, nearly luminous with inner light—moon-blooded and hungry. Mortal watchers circled them. Hoping to be chosen, dreaming of a smooth, cool hand locking around a wrist and pulling them into the dance.

Beyond them, the crowd parted for Lucien, murmuring as he passed.

The FBI agent stepped out of the crowd and onto the first step leading to the dais, Lucien right behind her. He looked up at Dante, a warning in his eyes. Dante shrugged. He studied the woman climbing the steps. Slender in a black trenchcoat and slacks, trendy black Skechers, dark red hair twisted back in a French braid, stray wisps curling beside her smooth cheeks and forehead, generous lips. Her blue eyes burned with intelligence and determination.

<Cute,> Dante sent.

Lucien’s warning darkened to a glare as he stepped past the woman to stand behind the throne. <Dangerous,> he arrowed back.

Dante grinned.

The agent stepped onto the dais. “Dante?” she shouted.

Despite the music, Dante heard her just fine, but was content to let her shout. He nodded. She reached into her purse, withdrew a slim wallet, and flipped it open.

“Special Agent Wallace,” she shouted. “FBI.”

Leaning closer, Dante touched the badge, looked from the photo ID to the agent’s solemn face, back to the photo, back to her. She smelled clean and sharp, like sage, like the city after a hard rain.

“Good picture.” Releasing the badge, he shifted his gaze back to her face. “I’ve already talked to the cops, though.”

Agent Wallace dropped the badge back into her purse. “I realize that. This is a separate inquiry,” she shouted. “I find it—”

Under Pressure ended their set with a long feedback squeal and a final tribal-style pounding on the drums, then the club plunged into darkness so the band could slip unnoticed from the Cage. The noise from the packed club—squeals, shouts, the buzz of a hundred conversations—swelled in the darkness. The low-wattage house lights switched back on to reveal an empty Cage.

Agent Wallace resumed speaking in a more normal tone of voice. “I find it curious that Mister De Noir led me to believe you weren’t here.” Her gaze held his.

Dante shrugged. “I’m hard to keep track of. I come and go a lot.”

“Is there some place more private where we can talk?”

“Probably,” Dante said. “But I don’t want to, so, no.”

One eyebrow arched up. “Is there a problem?” she asked, voice low, taut.

“You mean aside from you being here?” Dante said. “No.”

<Caution, child. This is a game you should not play.>

Dante ignored Lucien, ignored the heat of his gaze, focused on the flash of anger in Agent Wallace’s blue eyes. His pulse raced.

“This is a murder investigation,” Agent Wallace said, stepping in close, too close. “I don’t understand why you’re refusing to cooperate.”

“Yeah, that whole cooperation with the law thing? Just ain’t me,” Dante said, standing his ground, refusing to step back after she’d thought he would by invading his personal space.

He listened to the rapid beat of the fed’s heart, heard the rush of blood through her veins, smelled it, rich and sweet.

“I won’t take much of your time. I just need to verify a few things.”

Dante ran his fingers through his hair. “Everything I had to say is in the police report.” He sprawled onto the throne, stretched his legs out before him. “Read it.”

“I’ll do that,” Wallace said, meeting Dante’s gaze. “But I’d like your permission to look around the premises, the courtyard in particular.”

“Not without a warrant,” Dante said, voice low.

<Child…>

She looked at him for a long moment, head tilted, her gaze considering. “Look, we don’t have to do this the hard way.”

“It’s the only way I know,” Dante said.

“Did you know the victim was from Lafayette?” Wallace asked, voice tight.

Drawing his legs in, Dante sat up. Lafayette. Pain strobed, spasmed. He touched his fingers to his left temple and rubbed until the pain faded. “Fuck,” he whispered.

“Is something wrong?” Wallace said.

“Yes,” Lucien rumbled from behind the throne. “He suffers from migraines. I’m afraid you’ll have to resume your questions at another time.”

<Trouble,> Von sent. <Étienne’s on his way in.>

“No, I—” Wallace’s words ended abruptly as excited whispers buzzed and echoed throughout the club.

Dante watched as Étienne’s Armani-clad form sliced through the crowd. His chicory-and-cream-colored skin seemed lit from within; he bristled with hate. A step behind, Von strode along the now silent path Étienne had cut.

Étienne stopped at the bottom of the steps. A fringe of cobalt-beaded braids framed his cold, chiseled face. Von stood to the visiting vampire’s right, taking up his duties as llygad on the floor instead of on the dais at Dante’s side.

Dante sat forward, hands on the throne’s armrests, muscles coiled.

“You’ve been ordered to present yourself before Guy Mauvais,” Étienne said.

“You’re fucking kidding,” Dante said, half laughing.

Étienne tensed. “The Council is conducting an inquiry.”

“The Council has no authority over Dante,” Lucien said.

“Je regrette, Nightbringer,” Étienne said, inclining his head respectfully. “But this doesn’t concern the Fallen.”

“Willing to stake your life on that?” Lucien’s deep voice rang through the club.

FBI investigations. Council inquiries. Goody. “Nothing like being popular,” Dante murmured. To Étienne, he said, “If this is about the fire again, tell ’em not to waste their time. Sa vaut pas la peine. I don’t know—”

Étienne flew up the steps, only stopping on the third when Von, in a nightkind blur of speed, leapt behind him and seized his arm.

“Arrogant lying prick!” Étienne hissed, his narrowed gaze dark and seething. “You need to be leashed! Brought to your knees!”

Cool air fluttered Dante’s hair as Lucien rushed from behind the throne. Dante flung out an arm, blocking his passage. “You calling me out, Étienne?” he asked quietly.

Étienne yanked free of Von’s grasp and smoothed the front of his suit. He touched fingers to the carved ivory rose cuff link at each Armani-sleeved wrist. “No,” he said, his hands knotting into fists. “Not yet.”

“Too bad.” Dante lowered his arm.

“But one night,” Étienne added, a smile stretching his lips, “I’ll be waiting.”

Dante stood. “Bring it on,” he said.

“I delivered the order,” Étienne said. “I hope you ignore it, marmot.” Whirling, he stalked into the silent, staring crowd, Von on his heels. The mortals melted away from him as though he were on fire.

Dante sank down onto the throne. Pain throbbed at his temples and behind his eyes. His stomach knotted. He gripped the armrest with white-knuckled fingers.

“What was that all about?”

Dante looked up to see Agent Wallace down on one knee beside him. She scanned his face. He had the feeling she missed very little. “Nothing much,” he sighed. “Ass-kissing denied. Harsh punishment threatened. The usual.”

“Funny,” Wallace murmured, her tone sounding as though he was anything but. “De Noir told the truth about the headaches, didn’t he?”

“Indeed, Agent Wallace,” Lucien said dryly. “I am right here.”

Wallace’s gaze flicked from Dante to Lucien, then back. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low, no longer official. “My sister suffers from migraines, too.”

Dante glanced at her. The FBI mask had slipped from her face. She met his gaze, her expression open and her blue eyes steady. For a moment, he thought he saw into the heart of her, warm and compassionate and tough, edged in flame and steel.

“Yeah?” he said.

Wallace nodded. “Dante, listen, I can save us both a lot of time and trouble. Just give me your permission—”

“No,” Dante said. Her mask was back in place. Maybe that was all there was to her; maybe what he’d thought he’d seen within her was an illusion. White light edged his vision. Hurt his eyes.

Wallace’s smile faded. She stared at him in frustration. Standing, she said, “This is pointless. I can get a search warrant in an hour.”

Unhooking his shades from his belt, Dante slipped them on. “Get it. I’ll be waiting.”

“I’ll do that,” Wallace said. She strode down the steps and into the crowd.

Wallace’s clean, fresh rain scent lingered, as did the heated aroma of her blood. But her spiky rays of authority receded with every step she took, and Dante found himself breathing a little easier. She was strong, persistent, and gorgeous. Too bad she was a fucking cop.

A hand, cool and soothing, brushed against the hair at Dante’s temple, icing the pain for a moment. He closed his eyes.

<Don’t make me sleep.>

<You need rest. You need blood.> Lucien’s thought curled past the pain. <I’ll take you home before the pain gets worse.>

“No.” Dante pushed Lucien’s hand from his temple. “I’m gonna get in the Cage.”

Lucien stepped around in front of him. Dante looked up into golden eyes. “Not tonight,” Lucien said. “You’re in no shape—”

“I’m in exactly the right shape,” Dante cut in.

“Hey, sugar.”

Lucien turned, and Dante saw Gina and Jay standing on the step behind him, holding hands, satiated smiles on their lips. Gina’s bodice was still unlaced. The cleavage created by her corset, fragrant with black cherry perfume, reawakened his hunger and twisted around the pain, braiding the two together.

Releasing Jay’s hand, Gina stepped past Lucien and settled herself in Dante’s lap. She cupped his face, bent her head, and kissed him. He tasted Jay on her lips and tongue; tasted her, too—pungent and rich. He bit her lip, sucked at the blood oozing from the wound. She gasped, then moaned.

Burning. Restless. Dangerous.

<Child…>

Trembling, Dante ended the kiss. He licked her lower lip until the bleeding stopped and the wound healed. Gina looked at him with half-lidded eyes. Sleepy. Happy. He caressed her jaw-line with shaking fingers. Sweat trickled along his temple.

Gina touched a finger to his lips. “We gotta go, sexy,” she whispered, sliding from his lap. “Tomorrow night?”

The pain was an ice pick through his brain and his control was slipping. He released her without a word. Jay leaned over and kissed him.

“Tomorrow,” Jay murmured. Grasping Gina’s hand, he led her down the steps. Gina waved, an impish smile on her lips.

Tomorrow night.

Dante watched them walk away.

4

Still Falling

BOURBON SPLASHED INTO THOMAS Ronin’s shot glass, dark amber under the low lights. The bartender swiped the debit spike Ronin had left on the counter, then sauntered on to the next customer bellied up to the long, polished bar. Ronin picked up his glass and turned around.

“Looks like you fucked up,” E drawled. Shaking a cigarette from the partially crumpled pack of Marlboro, he stuck it between his lips and lit it with a silver Zippo.

Ronin plucked E’s cigarette from between his fingers, and dropped it onto the floor. Twisted out the embers with the toe of his snakeskin boot. “Amuse me,” he said. “Tell me how.”

E glanced at Ronin, his eyes hidden behind shades, a stretched-out grin on his face. He shook another cigarette from the pack, jammed it between his lips, then lit it. He exhaled gray smoke into Ronin’s face. “Think you know everything, dontcha, Tommy-boy?”

Ronin nodded, sipped his bourbon. “Most things.”

“Yeah?” E’s grin widened. “Didcha know the chick talking to Dante is Special Agent Heather Wallace?”

Ronin’s hand hesitated in the act of fanning away the cigarette smoke. Lifting his shades, he stared at the trenchcoated woman on the dais. Yes, it was her—the profiler working the Cross-Country Killer case.

“Even changing MO and signature and shit didn’t fool her,” E said, his gin-scented words smug. “I knew it wouldn’t. Heather’s in the house.”

The admiring tone in E’s voice drew Ronin’s gaze. E stared at Wallace, his face lit with love. Or what passed for love in a twisted and stunted thing like E.

Ronin finished his bourbon. It burned through his veins, awakening another kind of hunger. He watched Dante and the woman. The boy was exquisite. His assessment went beyond Dante’s stunning exterior. Ronin had read the files. He knew what the boy was and what he could be.

De Noir stood behind the cheesy throne like one of the statues guarding the mausoleums in St. Louis No. 3. And what was De Noir? Not vampire, no. Something else entirely. Something Ronin suspected to be far older and far darker.

Her lovely face composed despite the anger tightening her movements, Wallace whirled and trotted down the steps to the dance floor. She disappeared into the crowd.

Ronin turned to face the bar again. Nudged the bartender with a gentle flick from his mind. The bartender refilled Ronin’s glass. Ronin’s pulse quickened. In all my centuries. I’ve never seen or felt anyone like Dante. Not once. He tossed back the bourbon. It burned, untasted, down his throat to his gut.

E remembers his past. Dante doesn’t. Why is that? Was Johanna harder on Dante because of his bloodline? Did she push him over edges a mortal could never endure?

Ronin watched as Dante dropped back onto his throne, fingers at his temple, caressing his pale skin.

Or maybe he hasn’t endured, after all. Maybe he fell further than anyone else. And is falling still.

Ronin turned to face his companion. “Anyone catch your fancy yet?”

“Maybe the purple-haired kid or the blonde vamp with him.” E continued to look straight ahead, scanning the crowd. Red telltales shone from the edges of his shades. Infra, thermal, name it, E most likely had it installed.

Ronin shook his head. “Too much for you to handle.”

“I’ve got an idea,” E said, voice cheerful. He turned to look at Ronin. “What about Dante? He’s fucking gorgeous and fucking dangerous. I bet he’d be a shitload of fun.” The grin vanished from E’s face. “Whaddaya say? Can I play with Dante?”

Metal whispered against denim as E slipped free one of his shivs, smuggled in past the llygad who’d let them into the club. Ronin’s hand snapped out and seized E’s wrist, locking it at hip level. He squeezed. Sweat beaded E’s forehead. Ronin twisted. E grimaced, baring his teeth. The smell of his pain, hot and bitter like bile, rushed into Ronin’s nostrils. The shiv tink-tunked onto the mist-shrouded floor.

“You do and I’ll feed you your own guts,” Ronin snapped. “Touch him before it’s time and see if I don’t.”

E stared at him, his eyes hidden behind his shades, but his hatred shimmered in the dim light like radiation from a leaking nuke. Ronin twisted E’s wrist a little more, then released him.

“Have you forgotten what he is?”

“No, asshole, I haven’t. Fucking bloodsuckers.” E rubbed his wrist.

He bent and scooped his shiv from the floor. Then, like a magician at a cheap Las Vegas dinner show, he made it disappear. Jaw clenched, he turned and stabbed a finger at the bartender, then down at his glass in case the bartender was an idiot.

“Are we clear?” Ronin said.

E spun around. “Like a two-way mirror,” he muttered.

A pretty dark-haired girl plopped down onto Dante’s lap, while a blond youth in lace, velvet, and black eyeliner stood on the steps, watching as they kissed.

“Keep our goal in mind,” Ronin murmured. “Remember who truly deserves your…artistic…touch.”

Hand in hand, the dark-haired girl and the blond youth walked down the steps and into the crowd.

“Tag. They’re it.” Tossing back the last of his gin and tonic, E slammed the glass onto the bar. A smile crawled onto his lips. He glanced at Ronin. “See ya later, Tom-Tom.” He shoved away from the bar and into the crowd.

“Have fun,” Ronin said, voice dry. When he couldn’t see E any longer, he shifted his attention back to the dais.

E didn’t seem to get that Dante was more than just a “bloodsucker.” He’d been born vampire—a rare True Blood. A fact even Dante seemed unaware of; an ignorance Ronin hoped to use to his advantage.

Ronin watched as De Noir brushed his fingers against Dante’s temples. The boy closed his eyes, but only for a moment. Twisting free of De Noir’s caress, he stood. Strode down the steps and disappeared into the sweating, adoring, grasping crowd. The house lights dimmed twice, then went out.

Ronin worked his earplugs back into his ears. The crowd buzzed and chattered. He shivered as the crowd’s sense of anticipation splashed over him like a wave of warm seawater. He stared through the darkness and into the Cage. Stark-white bone, red feather, and leather fetishes hung from its steel bars.

“Dante! Beautiful angel!” a pining female voice cried out.

“Mon beau diable,” a male shouted.

A low growl rumbled through the crowd as voices took up the chant of: “Inferno! Inferno! Inferno!”

The fetishes swung and twisted as heat-radiating bodies climbed into the Cage. An aura of bluish-silver light surrounded one slender figure.

True Blood. Ronin drew in a deep breath of the club’s reeking, heady air. When our paths join, only one of us shall walk away into the night.

The lights switched back on. The crowd roared.

“Can’t believe I wanted it,” Dante whispered into the microphone, dark eyes hidden behind shades. His hands cupped the mike like a lover’s face. “Needed it. Tied to the bed. Unable to reach myself.”

The overhead lights sparked silver fire from the rings on Dante’s fingers and thumbs and glinted from the rows of hoops piercing each ear. Dante rocked the microphone back and forth, leaning it over, straddling it, then stepping back and jerking it up again. Ronin noticed Dante’s fingers trembling as he yanked the mike free of the stand, caught the gleam of sweat at his temples.

He’s hurting, Ronin thought, sipping at his bourbon. And he’s using it.

Behind Dante, the rest of Inferno flailed and slammed at their instruments—braids, dreads, and ’hawks swinging through the air, their frenzied movement a blur of tattoos, piercings, leather, steel, and races—almond eyes; toffee-colored skin; strong noses; and hard, wiry muscles.

Kicking the mike stand to the floor of the Cage, Dante turned his back to the screaming crowd. “Your promises squirm like worms in my soul…sweet parasite…” Spinning around, he dropped to one knee and crossed his arms over his face. The mike dangled seemingly forgotten from one white-knuckled fist. “I want more…more…”

Several people had climbed the Cage to its steel-meshed top and had lain facedown, spread-eagled, offerings to their dark, beautiful god. They screamed his name, slicing at their wrists and forearms, even nicking their throats with quick flicks of razors and box knives. Blood dripped down, spattering the Cage’s floor and Dante’s pale face.

Hands reached through the bars, grasping, fingers flexed, poised to grab clothing, flesh, hair, anything within reach. The other three members of Inferno sidestepped and kicked, and kept pounding their instruments without missing a beat.

Dante, however, was precariously close to the bars and the greedy hands.

Had he positioned himself deliberately? Ronin wondered. Punishment? Or distraction?

“I want more…” Dante half sang, half growled, his voice low and strained, simmering with rage. He stood. And Ronin witnessed pain blossoming full flower as Dante suddenly stumbled. Eyes squeezed shut, head thrown back, neck muscles corded, he screamed, “More of your fucking lies!”

Hands seized him, yanked him against the Cage’s steel bars. Dante hit hard, shoulder first, his back to the surging crowd. The microphone tumbled from his fingers, thudding onto the floor with a piercing feedback squeal. The crowd screamed, wild, hungry. Fingers latched around Dante, grabbing his arms, his hands, his thighs; clutched at his clothing, yanked at his hair. Imprisoned him within manacles of flesh.

Knocked loose, Dante’s shades bounced onto the floor and under the boots of the keyboard player. Dark bits of plastic and glass scattered across the Cage. The other members of Inferno kept playing, frenzied and thrashing, the music hard and angry.

Ronin leaned forward, muscles coiled, shades lowered below the bridge of his nose. Why was Dante allowing them to hold him? Was he that lost to the pain? A blur of movement captured Ronin’s attention. De Noir rushed from the dais to the Cage with a speed that Ronin doubted any mortal eye could perceive.

Drinking in Dante’s rage and anguish, the crowd pulsed like a huge tribal heart, its fierce and primal rhythm beating against Ronin, drumming up his own hunger.

His need sliced into him like one of E’s shivs. He stepped into the crowd. Hot, sweaty bodies moshed against him, blood thundering through their veins, hearts jackhammering. Not here. He’d feed in some dank back alley, feasting on the forgotten and unwanted. As a stranger in a claimed city, Ronin had no desire to draw attention to himself. Sliding through the crowd, he stepped outside into the cool, rain-misted night.

The llygad nodded at him, his shaded eyes no doubt observing every detail, his body language wary. Ronin nodded in return. Another marvel. Why had an llygad abandoned his impartiality and aligned himself to one House? And worked as a fucking bouncer?

“Dante,” Ronin whispered. True Blood.

Strolling along the wet cobblestone streets, Ronin headed for Canal Street. With every wasted soul he fed on this night, he’d be sure to thank Dante for rousing an intensity of hunger that had slumbered for years.

5

The Hard Way

HEATHER SIPPED AT HER café au lait, the Styrofoam cup finally cool enough to hold. Dawn edged the gray horizon with orange and peach and gilded the undersides of the clouds. She yawned and rubbed at her face. The search warrant fluttered on the rented Subaru Legacy’s dashboard vents. She switched off the heat. The car’s engine clicked and tinked as it cooled.

She was parked across the street from Dante’s plantation house, some miles from New Orleans. Old river rock and black iron walls surrounded the house. On paper the house belonged to Lucien De Noir, but Heather suspected that, as with the club, the house was actually Dante’s. Thick greenery and fragrant flowers twisted along the walls. Huge oak trees shaded the property. The black iron gate hung open. In the circular drive a black van, a chopped Harley, and a little black MG were parked.

Heather glanced at her watch. Six thirty. About an hour ago, she’d seen the van pull into the drive, followed by Von on the Harley. The blonde and the pretty punk boy had climbed out of the van. De Noir had carried Dante in his arms like a child. Drunk? Migraine sick? They’d all gone inside the house. The door had closed. Nothing had stirred since.

A twinge of guilt pricked Heather. Migraines. She remembered Annie’s pain-dilated eyes, her desperation. Shaking her head, she looked down at the coffee cup in her hand, then glanced out the window. Dante was not Annie and it couldn’t be helped. He’d given her no other choice.

There was something strange about the relationship between De Noir and Dante. Could they be lovers? She replayed the events at Club Hell through her mind, looking for clues. Remembered De Noir lying about Dante’s presence, remembered De Noir flying from behind that ridiculous throne when Armani Suit had charged up the steps. Remembered De Noir saying, He suffers from migraines, heard the sheltering tone in his deep voice.

No, Heather finally decided. Not lovers. De Noir had been protective and caring, but she hadn’t felt any underlying sexual tension or erotic chemistry between the two. Instead, they’d seemed comfortable with each other. Old friends, then.

Heather sighed, then took a long sip of her rapidly cooling coffee. No, there was something else between De Noir and Dante. Unrequited love? Something like that, hidden and secret, but only on De Noir’s part. He’d watched Dante every moment they were together. At least, he had last night.

Finishing her coffee, Heather tossed the cup onto the passenger-side floor. It had cost her a lot of time and considerable charm to convince a judge to agree to a search warrant. In truth, she believed Detective Collins had had more to do with it than any amount of personal charm. Despite all that, the warrant was for the courtyard only.

Heather looked at the silent plantation house. Dark curtains blinded every window. Must be sound asleep by now. Time to serve the warrant. Dante wanted to be difficult, fine. Gravel crunched beneath her Skechers as she got out of the car and crossed the road to the yawning gate.

Heather followed the broken, tree-root-uplifted path alongside the house to the front porch. The steps creaked under her weight as she climbed onto the wide porch. Grabbing the black iron gargoyle knocker bolted to the door’s center, she thunked it repeatedly against the solid oak. The sound echoed throughout the silent house.

Wrapping her fingers around the cold iron knocker again, Heather pounded it against the door three more times. The sound rippled through the plantation house, then faded into silence.

Heather was reaching for the knocker again when the door’s inside locks clicked and the door cracked open. De Noir looked down at Heather, his face cold. Still dressed in his clothes from last night. Not asleep yet, then, she mused. The rough-edged X pendant around his throat caught rosy light from the rising sun.

“What can I do for you?” De Noir said, his deep voice level and controlled.

Heather held up the search warrant. “Get Dante up.”

De Noir frowned. “Can’t your warrant be served at a more convenient time? In the evening, perhaps?”

“No.”

Golden light sparked to life in De Noir’s narrowed eyes. He slammed the door shut. Twisted the locks.

Smiling, Heather relaxed against the door frame. She glanced at her watch. She’d give him fifteen minutes to rouse Dante, then put the gargoyle knocker back to use. She’d wake up everyone in the goddamned house, if necessary.

Look, we don’t have to do this the hard way.

It’s the only way I know.

His choice. Heather tucked the search warrant into her purse. His words.

Fifteen minutes passed and Heather thumped the gargoyle against the door. In another fifteen minutes, she’d give another twenty whacks, she thought as she leaned back against the door frame once more. The sky brightened, turned the dew-laden grass into a sea of jeweled fire.

Just as Heather was about to grab the gargoyle again, the locks clicked and the door opened. Dante slipped out of the house and onto the porch, still fastening his belt. Definitely dragged out of bed.

Heather stared, suddenly breathless, her gaze lingering on his pale face—dark eyes, last night’s eyeliner smudged underneath, high cheekbones, full lower lip…. She was disgusted with herself for being sucker punched by good looks.

“Lucien doesn’t think very much of you,” Dante said, walking past her and down the front steps. He pulled up the gray hood of a sweatshirt worn under his leather jacket, shadowing his face.

Heather followed him onto the buckled flagstones. “Sorry to hear that. Good morning, by the way,” she said. “Got that search warrant.”

Dante raised a gloved hand; his index finger circled whoop-de-do. He kept walking.

“My car’s across the street,” Heather said.

Dante strode through the wrought-iron gate.

Heather shook her head, bemused. Even at this hour, Dante looked as though he’d dressed for a Goth convention: stylish shades, leather gloves, leather pants, and black long-sleeved mesh shirt under a black T, both shirts only half-tucked, and black, silver-buckled biker boots. The back of his leather jacket read MAD EDGAR, the safety-pinned letters looking like they’d been cut out of magazines: a walking ransom note.

Lengthening her stride, she passed Dante, crossing the street to the Subaru. She unlocked both doors, then waited until Dante had slouched into the passenger seat before seating herself.

“Seat belt,” she said, strapping her own shut.

“Got a warrant for that too?”

“No,” Heather said, voice low. “Is this how it’s going to be with you?”

“Most likely.”

Heather stared at him for a long moment. Opened her mouth. Shut it again. Pick your battles. This one isn’t worth it.

“Good to know,” she said finally.

Keying on the ignition, Heather slammed the gearshift into drive and peeled out onto the street, the Subaru’s tires spitting gravel. Dante pulled the sun visor down.

Heather drove in silence until her anger and irritation were under control. He’s tired. I’m tired. Cranky is the word for the day. She loosened her grip on the steering wheel. She eased the Subaru onto the interstate and aimed it for New Orleans.

She wrinkled her nose, puzzled by the buttery, suntan oil kind of odor filling the car. “Is that sunscreen I smell?”

“Mmm.”

Heather glanced at her passenger. “You playing up those vampire rumors?”

“Not playing,” Dante murmured.

“Right.”

Heather stared straight ahead, attention focused on the road. She had a feeling Dante wasn’t kidding. His sleepy voice had sounded sincere.

She’d dealt with this type at the psychiatric hospital outside Boise where she’d done volunteer work in an effort to better understand the difference between mentally ill and sociopath. And in hopes of better understanding Annie. Goth, wannabe undead. Yearning to be special. He probably had dental implants and kept bagged blood in his refrigerator, all part of the delusion.

Heather glanced at Dante. He slept, his head back against the seat and turned to one side, the hoodie hiding his face, gloved hands relaxed and open on his thighs.

“Hey, Dante, wake up!” He didn’t stir. Seemed dead to the world. Keeping her gaze on the road, she smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “C’mon, wake up.”

“Tais toi,” Dante murmured, turning his face away and folding his arms against his chest, snuggled up tight for sleep.

And he speaks French. Or was it Cajun? He was from Lafayette, Cajun territory, had a bit of an accent.

Rain began to spatter the windshield, nothing serious, just a dawn sprinkle. Heather switched on the wipers. What was it with this city? Vampires. Voodoo. Cities of the dead. She glanced at Dante. He was still curled up, his breathing low, hard to perceive.

“Do you actually believe you’re a vampire?”

To her surprise, Dante stirred, sat up. He tugged the hood’s edges farther over his face. “Nightkind,” he said, yawning. “Belief’s got nothing to do with it. Are you mortal just because you believe you are?”

“Mortal? Of course not,” Heather said, looking at him, trying to see his hidden face. “I was born human. Just like everyone else.”

Slouched down in the seat again, arms folded across his chest, Dante turned his hooded head to look out the passenger window. “Mmm. Glad you cleared that up.”

Heather lapsed into silence. She was failing with him. Maybe he really believed the vampire stuff or maybe he wanted her to see through it. And maybe, just maybe, it was all a rocker prank, a mindfuck for the fun of it and nothing to get worked up over.

She was tired, and it was affecting her judgment. A quick look at Dante revealed that he slept again—or pretended to, at least.

Once in the city, Heather steered the car to Canal Street, then from Canal down Royal, finally turning onto St. Peter. Bits and pieces from last night were strewn across the rain-dampened cobblestones: bright paper, beads, empty plastic cups, a black bra. After the madness and frenzy of the night before, the Quarter looked desolate and abandoned.

Heather parked in front of the club. She leaned over and was about to shake Dante’s shoulder when he suddenly sat up, his shaded gaze on one of the upper floors. Scrunching down, Heather looked through the passenger window to see what had drawn his attention. On the third floor, an open pair of French windows.

Heather remembered curtains dancing in the night breeze, the orange flicker of candlelight. “Something wrong?”

“Hope not.” Dante yanked at the door handle.

Heather blinked. Dante stood on the sidewalk, gaze on the windows. She hadn’t seen him actually open the door or even get out. All she’d seen was his gloved fingers pulling the door latch and then she’d heard the thunk as the door closed after him.

What the hell? Heather rubbed at her eyes. Had she dozed off for a second? Was she that tired? She joined Dante on the sidewalk and followed his gaze up. The curtains hung limp.

“Who was up there last night?”

“I was,” Dante replied—but his voice was further away.

Looking down, Heather realized that Dante was already at the club entrance, working keys in the locks.

Wake up, Wallace, Jesus Christ. She hurried to join him as he pulled open the heavy door and stepped inside.

The stale smell of smoke, old beer, and sex lingered in the dark hallway. Dante stood next to the security panel of the club’s alarm system. Red light from the BURN sign down the hall flickered across the back of his hood. Frowning, he pushed the hood back and slid his shades to the top of his head. Green telltales glowed on the security panel. He no longer looked sleepy.

“What’s wrong?” Heather asked, stepping up beside him.

“The alarm’s not on,” he said. He glanced back over his shoulder at the buzzing neon sign. Red light jittered across his pale face. “I don’t think Lucien woulda forgot.”

Heather straightened, adrenaline pumping into her bloodstream. Her heart beat faster. Reaching into the trench’s inside pocket, she pulled free her .38.

“Stay here,” she said.

“Fuck that,” Dante said. Then he was gone.

“Dante, no!” she hissed into the red-lit darkness, but he was long gone. How had he moved so fast? Reflex boost? Enhancement?

Sliding the .38’s safety off, Heather ran the length of the hall, her back close to the wall, and into the club. Across an eerie red-lit wasteland of tables, chairs, Cage, and throne, she saw Dante on the staircase, rounding the corner onto the third-floor landing.

Easing her way between tables, her gaze flicking from shadow to shadow, she hurried to the stairs. The icy sense of wrongness that had seized her at the security panel hadn’t diminished. Something was very wrong. And Dante was about to walk right into it. Walk, hell. Teleport was more like it. But he was a civilian in her custody; her responsibility.

Heather started up the stairs, her back to the wall, her .38 held in a two-handed grip. Her own dim shadow scouted ahead of her, and she winced every time a stair creaked beneath her foot. Stepping onto the second-floor landing, she brought her gun up as she dropped down into a crouch, checking right, then left, before straightening again. She listened. The old building creaked around her. Soft footsteps pattered above her on the third floor, then stopped.

She climbed the next flight of stairs, her gaze shifting from the dark third-floor landing to the red-lit club beyond and beneath the wrought-iron railings. Nothing moved in the shadows below.

On the landing, she dropped into a crouch and cleared right, then turned to the left. Dante stood in a doorway, one gloved hand braced against the threshold. Heather straightened. Gargoyle candle sconces guarded the framed art lining the walls. An old-fashioned Oriental hall carpet cushioned her footsteps. Dante didn’t move, did nothing to indicate that he heard her or knew she was there.

A thick, coppery smell filled Heather’s nostrils, a smell she knew all too well. Her gut knotted. The steady plop-plop of dripping became more distinct as she drew nearer. She stepped beside Dante, gun still held in both hands, and looked into the room.

It was worse than she could’ve imagined.

Much worse.

6

Magic and Mystery

JOHANNA MOORE STOOD AT her office window, watching the snow fall. Snow always made her think of Christmas and of her youth; she remembered the magic and mystery of the tiny glittered windows of the Advent calendar and the surprises they revealed when opened. February in D.C. lacked magic or mystery and held only ice-slicked sidewalks and stark tree limbs.

“E is in New Orleans,” she said finally.

“A coincidence,” Gifford replied.

“I don’t think so,” Johanna said. “And I don’t like it one bit.” She turned away from the window and the snow and her memories.

Gifford sat in the plush leather chair in front of Johanna’s cherrywood desk, a frown on his face as he thumbed through the thick file in his lap. He reached a hand into his suit jacket’s inside pocket and withdrew a slim brown cigarillo.

He shook his head, his gaze still on the file. “He can’t possibly know about S. Or Bad Seed.” Flicking open his lighter, he touched flame to the cigarillo.

Johanna heard the crackle of the tobacco as it withered and burned. A sweet cherry-vanilla scent curled into the air.

“I wonder,” she said, crossing to her desk. Several more files and CDs were scattered across its polished surface, all marked: TOP SECRET and RESEARCH—SPECIAL OPS ONLY.

“The last victim had met S.” Johanna sat on the edge of her desk and fixed her gaze on Gifford. “And was slaughtered in the courtyard next to the club.”

He looked up, gray eyes thoughtful. “Again, coincidence.”

“And, again, I don’t think so. E burned S’s logo into the victim’s chest.” Reaching over, Johanna plucked the cigarillo from between Gifford’s fingers. Brought it up to her lips. Inhaled.

Amusement lit Gifford’s eyes. “Maybe E is a music lover,” he said. “Hell, maybe he’s a fan of Inferno. Even serial killers have their favorite bands.”

Johanna blew out a stream of scented smoke, savoring its tobacco-and-vanilla taste. She shook her head. “No. He’s communicating.”

She extended the cigarillo to Gifford. He took it back from her, his fingers lingering for a moment against hers, warm and smooth.

“It scares the crap out of me to think he might actually have an agenda.”

“Communicating?” Gifford asked. He glanced down at the file in his lap again. His brows knitted together as he flipped through several pages. “With who?”

“I don’t know,” Johanna said quietly. “S, maybe.”

“If that’s the case, we don’t have to worry,” Gifford said. Paper rustled. “S doesn’t know shit, right?”

“Not after the way his memory was torn apart. No.” Standing, Johanna brushed past Gifford’s knees and returned to the window.

The snow continued to fall. The sky lightened from dark gray to light gray as the dawn deepened into a winter morning. A thick white silence, like the one insulating her heart, encased the world beyond her window.

The sound of flipping paper suddenly stopped. “Blocked and fragmented,” Gifford said. “According to the history.”

Johanna heard Gifford’s finger sliding from line to line in the report. “I was there, Dan, from start to finish,” she said. “Torn apart is far more accurate.”

An image slipped past her guard, her silent white barricade:

A slender twelve-year-old boy in a blood-spattered straitjacket suspended upside down from the ceiling, chains wrapped around his ankles. Long black hair streams past his face except for a few sweat-and-blood-dampened tendrils clinging to his forehead, his pale cheeks. He hangs motionless, the fight, rage, and grief drained from him like blood from a corpse.

His punishment ended, no one wants to bring him down—the blood-sprayed walls and the bodies crumpled on the cement floor keep them on the safe side of the steel door.

Johanna enters alone and alone stabs a hypo full of tranks into the boy’s neck. Alone, she eases the boy’s chains from the butcher’s hook and lowers him to the floor. Doped and dreaming, this beautiful vampire child, lost to the madness of puberty.

Gathering him into her arms, she carries him to another cell. She trembles, magic and mystery pulsing once again through her veins, glittering like Christmas in her mind. The boy’s psyche is, for her, an Advent calendar; with each compartment she opens or twists or triggers, a wonderful surprise is revealed.

Johanna ran her fingers through her short-cropped hair, glancing at her faint reflection in the window. Attractive, early thirties, blonde and blue-eyed Nordic, tall and fit. The very opposite of her père de sang in physical appearance. But she and Ronin shared a deep hunger for knowledge. In that they were very much alike.

Weariness surged through her. She needed blood, then Sleep. She was pushing the pills’ limits too far. She could only postpone Sleep so long.

“What was done to S’s memory isn’t the problem,” she said, turning to face Gifford. “E’s cross-country killing spree and the Bureau’s involvement in the case is the problem. I don’t know how, but E’s led them, more or less, straight to S.”

“Do you want E stopped?”

Johanna shook her head. “I’d like to keep studying his progress. But it’s making me nervous that the Bureau’s so close.”

“I see,” Gifford said. He leaned forward in the chair. His composed gaze met and held Johanna’s. “What do you want done?”

LUCIEN SAT IN THE darkened living room, back straight, eyes closed as he guarded those who Slept in the rooms upstairs. Slept deeply. Except for one. Dante’s Sleep-addled thoughts brushed against Lucien’s mind. He felt Dante’s struggle to remain conscious, alert. Damned woman and her damned search warrant. Lucien’s fingers flexed and gripped the easy chair’s armrests. He drew in a deep breath and carefully lifted his fingers. Calm.

He knew how difficult and contrary Dante could be—the child had often tested his own considerable patience—and Wallace had simply reacted to Dante’s refusal to cooperate.

But…why did Wallace even wish to search the courtyard? What did she hope to find? And what did any of it have to do with Dante?

Lucien opened his eyes and stared into the curtained gloom. Shadows draped the sofa, bookcases, and standing lamps, hiding all color. Outside, birds twittered and sang, busy with morning tasks.

For a moment, Lucien longed to take to the air, to feel the dawn warm against his face, to warble his wybrcathl into the golden sunrise, to await the answering aria of another of the Elohim.

But his wybrcathl needed to remain unvoiced. The child he guarded needed to remain hidden from the Elohim, undiscovered. Lucien touched the pendant hanging at his throat. Ran his fingers along the edges of the X, the metal smooth and warm.

The rune for partnership—given to him four years before by Dante, a warm and unexpected token of their friendship. Lucien’s fingers tightened around the pendant. The rough edges bit into his flesh. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. Remembered the wild, rough anhrefncathl he’d answered five years before…remembered landing on a wharf beside the Mississippi River.

A youth in worn leather pants, scuffed-up boots, and a T-shirt sits cross-legged on the wharf’s warped and weathered wood, something wriggling between his hands caught in a bluish glow.

Lucien lands lightly on the wharf, his wings expanding in a last flutter of air before folding behind him. Water laps and splashes against the wharf pilings. The strong odor of fish, muddy water, and rank mud layers the air.

The youth doesn’t look up. Black hair hides his face, his head bowed as he concentrates on the thing squirming in his hands.

Lucien steps forward, the wood still sun-warm against his bare feet. Pain and power radiate from the youth, sharp and spiky and fevered. Blood drips from his nose and splashes onto the back of his hand.

The blue light glowing from the youth’s hands, the chaos song swirling up from him, anguished and yearning and heartbroken—draw Lucien closer. His muscles tighten; fire burns through his veins. The last time he saw that blue glow or heard an anhrefncathl was thousands of years ago from a creawdwr now long dead.

Has another finally been born? Hidden in the mortal world?

Lucien’s wings tuck into their pouches on his back as he crouches in front of the youth. Pain pierces him. Drawing his shields tight, Lucien flexes away the youth’s unwanted agony.

“Child.”

The night-haired youth doesn’t respond. His hands open, trembling, and the blue glow fades, then vanishes, like a snuffed flame. The thing he held scampers away, bright black eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

A wharf rat, Lucien realizes in surprise. Or, at least what used to be a wharf rat. The former rat scurries to the edge of the wharf and off. Its many pairs of translucent and delicate dragonfly-like wings lift it uncertainly into the night. It flies away.

Forever altered by a creawdwr’s touch.

“Child,” Lucien says again, and tips the youth’s face up with a taloned finger.

He is too stunned by recognition—the dark, intelligent eyes, the cheekbones, the curve of the lips—to even fend the boy off as he uncoils from the wharf. Lucien falls back as the boy wraps strong, slender arms around him and sinks his fangs into Lucien’s throat.

Heat radiates from the boy as he gulps down Lucien’s blood, heat and hunger and a deep, deep grief. Lucien holds him for a moment, allowing him to feed, allowing the youth to pin him to the wharf’s old wood with a leather-clad thigh. He smells of smoky autumn fires and November frost, sharp and clean and intoxicating. The youth’s pain and near madness batters at Lucien’s shields like an unrelenting sledgehammer.

He looks just like her.

Not possible.

Her son…

Gently, Lucien breaks the boy’s steel-muscled grip and rests a hand against his fevered temple. He pours healing energy into the boy, dousing the fire ravaging his mind and easing him into sleep. The youth slumps against Lucien, his bloodied face smearing a red trail along Lucien’s shoulder and chest.

Lucien pushes aside the tangled black hair and gazes into the boy’s white face. He stares in wonder. Trails a finger along the boy’s jawline. Pushes his lip up and looks at the slender fangs. Cold seeps into Lucien.

Where is his mother?

Genevieve…

Lucien opened his eyes, fingers still locked around his pendant. So much unknown and unsaid. He should’ve told Dante the truth when they met. Now he feared it was too late. The moment had long passed. Sighing, Lucien released the pendant with a final caress.

He listened to the still house—the tick-tock of the pendulum clock in the hall, the creak of old wood and old foundations, the sunny buzz of life beyond the shaded windows.

Lucien relaxed into the easy chair, allowing himself to doze/ meditate. Several minutes passed. A half hour. The rosy light of dawn faded to gray. The curtains darkened. Rain clicked against the roof tiles, spattered the stone walk.

A prickle of rage, the deep ache of an old hurt reopened, roused Lucien. His head lifted. Apprehension twisted like barbed wire around the length of his spine.

His child no longer struggled with Sleep. He was wide-awake.

7

Closer than She’d
Ever Been

HER NUDE BODY LAY face-up on the rumpled bed, her hands cuffed to the bedposts, legs spread, a black stocking wrapped and knotted around her throat. Stab wounds punctured her breasts and stomach. Long dark hair partially veiled her face, which was turned toward the door. Blood and foam flecked her lips and her tongue protruded slightly. Mascara and eyeliner and dried tears streaked her face. Her half-lidded gaze seemed to stare straight at Heather.

Carved into each milky-white inner thigh was the anarchy symbol.

Blood dripped onto the carpet. Heather’s gaze followed the blood up to the soaked sheets, then up blood-streaked forearms to the vertically slit wrists. Her vision narrowed down to the falling drops of blood. Just died. Minutes? A half hour—tops?

On the wall behind the bed, a message had been scrawled in blood, the uneven, slanting letters smeared across most of the wall.

Wake Up S

“Gina,” Dante whispered.

Heather looked at him sharply. “You knew her?”

Dante nodded, disbelief, shock, and something Heather couldn’t quite name shadowing his face. He fumbled for the sunglasses on top of his head, slipped them on.

Shifting her .38 to her left hand, Heather retrieved her cell phone from her purse and thumbed in the number for the Eighth District. “Agent Wallace,” she said into the phone. “There’s been a homicide at 666 St. Peter. Club Hell.”

Switching off the phone, Heather slid it back into her purse, her gaze fixed on the rain-damp curtains beside the open French windows.

Maybe the killer had left as they’d entered the club. Or—

Heather shoved Dante against the door frame. “Stay there.”

Or maybe he’d never had the chance.

.38 extended in both hands, Heather crossed the room, edging past the bed, to the French windows. Stepping out onto the balcony, she slid low and to the left, gun aimed at the opposite end of the rain-slick balcony. Empty. She leaned against the black iron railing, gun lowered.

She looked down into the street below. A few pre–Mardi Gras revelers staggered along the wet sidewalk. Laughter drifted up like smoke.

Wiping rain from her face, Heather closed her eyes for a moment. Two deaths in one location. Another broken pattern. The violence was escalating. Why now? And why here?

The sound of a car engine opened Heather’s eyes. Two squad cars raced down the narrow street, followed by a blue-light blinking unmarked. All three screeched to a halt in front of the club. As the uniforms climbed out of the squad cars, Heather waved.

“Upstairs,” she called. “Door’s open.”

Looking up, one of the cops waved back.

Heather pushed aside the curtains and stepped back into the room. Dante hadn’t stayed put. He sat on the blood-soaked bed beside the girl’s body, his leather jacket spread over the victim’s—Gina, he said her name was Gina— body.

Heather couldn’t see Dante’s face; his attention was fixed on the victim’s slashed wrists. His hands knotted into fists. The blood stench, the lingering echoes of violence and fear, the girl’s stark, glazing stare; none of it frightened Dante. Most people wouldn’t be able to stay in the same room with a friend’s body, let alone sit beside it on a blood-soaked bed.

But Dante had put aside whatever he was feeling in order to cover her, to give her back some dignity.

“She’s still warm,” he said.

Squatting beside the bed, Heather touched Dante’s arm. “I know this is hard,” she said. “I know. But you have to remove the jacket. I need to secure the scene—”

Dante turned to look at her, his gaze hidden behind his shades. “He took everything from her,” he said, voice low and harsh. “The jacket stays.”

“I understand,” Heather said. Had anyone done the same for her mother? Or even wanted to? “And I wish I could leave it with her. But you might be destroying evidence.”

From the hall, she heard New Orleans’s finest pounding their way up the stairs. Dante stood. Heather reached over and plucked his jacket from the body.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Dante took the jacket from her. “Y’know, I believe you are.”

Heather touched his elbow. “Let’s talk out in the hall,” she said, voice level and, she hoped, soothing. “You can’t be in here and I have some questions to ask.”

She wished he’d take off the shades. Unable to read his eyes, his expression was lost to her. But his tight jaw and tense, agitated body language spoke volumes. She didn’t want to force him out of the room, but would, if necessary.

With a curt nod, Dante stepped out into the hall. He glanced down the hall toward the stairs. Breathing in relief, Heather followed.

“What questions?”

“When did you see Gina last?”

“Last night.”

Heather stared at Dante, feeling as though someone had just dumped a bucket of ice over her head. “Last night? You sure?”

Another broken pattern. The CCK—if it was the CCK—always kept his victims for several days. Intuition whispered, It’s him, all right.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Dante said. “We were even in this room.”

No coincidence. Dante was meant to find her. Heather glanced at the blood-smeared wall behind the bed. WAKE UP S. Last time, it had simply read Wake Up. What did the S stand for?

Could an obsession with Dante be the reason for the broken pattern? The messages meant for him? Lafayette. The cigarette-lighter-burned symbol on Daniel Spurrell’s chest. The images of a hooded Dante wearing the anarchy symbol around his throat, then around his wrist. If he’d been meant to find the body…her pulse raced.

He’s communicating. With Dante.

She was close to the killer. Closer than she’d ever been.

“Does ‘Wake Up S’ mean anything—”

Heather turned as two uniformed officers rounded the corner from the landing. “Special Agent Wallace, FBI,” she said. “I’m reaching for my identification.” As she slid a hand into her purse, the first cop, flushed with excitement and adrenaline, zeroed in on Dante and dropped a hand to his holster.

“You!” he barked at Dante. “On the floor! Now!”

“Tell your partner to back off,” Heather said, displaying her badge to the second officer, a man older, thicker, and more certain than the one yapping like a terrier at Dante. “He’s the club owner. He knows the victim.”

“Jefferson,” the cop sighed. “Enough. Leave off.” Shaking his head, he stopped in front of Heather. “Manning,” he said. Nodded toward his partner. “Rookie and still green as a gator’s hind end.”

Heather smiled. “No kidding.”

She glanced at Dante. He stood at ease, pretending to ignore the now-silenced rookie. He even yawned. She wasn’t fooled, however; she read the tension in his shoulders and noted the wound-up-ready-to-spring tautness of his muscles.

“Oh, Jesus.”

Heather looked over at Jefferson. He stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the bound body, the message on the wall, his mouth open as he sucked in the reek of blood and death and shit. Jefferson blanched. Swallowed hard.

“Don’t puke in here, asshole.”

Two men stepped from the landing and into the hall. The speaker pushed past Jefferson and walked into the room. His low-voiced rebuke, rumpled suit, and easy, confident stride told Heather the newcomer was a detective, as was the man following him. Partners, no doubt. His bored gaze scanned the scene, his lids shuttering like a camera lens, capturing every detail, etching every shadow and blood trail into memory.

His partner nodded at Heather, an unlit cigarette between his lips, a camera in his hands. He stepped into the room, stopping just inside the door. The camera whined as he snapped shots of the scene.

Manning and his rookie partner stood at either side of the door, guarding the scene. Jefferson’s complexion was greenish and he kept his gaze on the floor.

“You must be the fed Collins told me about,” the first detective said.

“That’s right,” Heather said. She walked into the room, edging past the cameraman. “Special Agent Heather Wallace. And you are…?”

“LaRousse,” he said, turning to face Heather. “Homicide.” He tilted his head in the direction of his partner. “That’s Davis, over there.”

“Hey,” Davis said, tucking the cigarette behind his ear. He slipped the camera strap around his neck. Reaching inside his jacket, he withdrew a notepad with a pen clipped to it. He began taking notes, his pen scratching across the pad.

LaRousse’s gaze slid the length of Heather’s body, his lids shuttering several times. “Collins never mentioned that you were a looker.” He winked. “Guess he was keeping that info to himself.” Smiling, he shook his head, brown hair falling over his eyes in an aw-shucks kind of way.

“Must be the professional in him,” Heather said, voice level. “Could be he’s a little more interested in collaring bad guys than hooking up.”

LaRousse’s smile vanished. He jerked a thumb in Dante’s direction. “Is the rock god over there good for it?”

Heather glanced at Dante. He stood in the doorway, jacket hanging from one hand, his shaded gaze on her and LaRousse. Could he have killed the girl before De Noir had brought him home in the van? Could that be the reason De Noir had lied about his presence in the club?

She’s still warm.

Blood dripping onto carpet.

The stunned look on his pale, pale face.

Too much time had passed between Dante’s arrival at the plantation house and their return to the club. The windows had been left open. Cold air would’ve chilled the body; the blood would’ve congealed in the hours between. No, Gina’d been killed as Heather drove Dante into New Orleans.

Heather’s gaze shifted to LaRousse and his wintry eyes. All his down-home friendliness had frozen over, his gaze pale-blue ice. “No,” she said. “But I do want a statement from him.”

Digging out a microrecorder from her purse, Heather clipped it to the collar of her trench. “Dante, why don’t you wait downstairs? I want—”

“Let’s go one better,” LaRousse interrupted, jabbing a finger at Dante. “Manning, run Prejean to headquarters. I think we can dig up a couple of old warrants.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Heather stared at LaRousse in disbelief.

“Criminal mischief. Vandalism,” LaRousse said, gaze fixed on Dante. A hard smile twisted his lips. “Spray paints that damned anarchy symbol everywhere.”

Dante dropped his jacket. It hit the carpet with a muffled jingle. “Nothing like having your priorities straight,” he said. His gloved hands curled into fists.

“Hold on a minute—” Heather began, but LaRousse nodded at Manning. The uniformed cop unhooked the cuffs from his belt and reached for Dante.

Dante moved.

At least, Heather had a glimpse of movement; then Manning flew across the room and slammed into the wall. His head cracked against the plaster, denting it. The handcuffs tumbled from his grasp. Expression pained, dazed, Manning pawed at his holstered pistol.

Dante stood in the doorway, one hand still lifted, body tensed.

“Freeze, motherfucker!” Jefferson screamed, swinging his pistol up.

Dante’s shaded gaze locked on Jefferson. He lowered his hand, then knotted both into fists. His head ducked down just slightly. Heather’d seen enough street fights to know he was going to rush the rookie.

Stretching out a hand, Heather cried, “No! Wait!” Not sure if she spoke to Jefferson, Dante, or both.

She hurtled forward, but everything slowed down. Her vision narrowed into a long, dark tunnel ending in Jefferson’s gun. His finger spasmed against the trigger. Pulled it back. Catching peripheral movement—Davis and LaRousse helping? hindering?—Heather lunged for the gun.

She knew the moment she did that she’d never make it.

Jefferson fired.

E TOOK ANOTHER SIP of whiskey, then set the chilled glass down on the nightstand beside the half-empty bottle of Canadian Hunter. Ice clinked. He stretched out on the bed, worrying his head and shoulders against the piled pillows until he’d made a comfortable hollow.

E crossed his ankles and picked up his bloodstained book of poetry, Inside the Monster’s Heart and Other Poems by Juan Alejandro Navarro, and resumed reading. He read the same stanzas over and over without taking anything in. After a few more minutes of staring at the page without turning it, E slammed the book shut and tossed it onto the bed.

He needed sleep, but couldn’t. He was too wired. He burned to create. He kept hearing her voice, begging him to keep reading to her, and he had. In a gentle voice.

…frost-scorched and time-withered, this heart
its black edges curling in
like a dead spider’s legs…

AND STILL SHE’D SOBBED.

E reached into the pocket of his cords and slipped out his latest souvenir. Closing his eyes, he rubbed the silky black stocking against his face. It whispered against the beard stubble on his face. He smelled her, cherries and musky sweat. He opened his eyes and stared into a world tinted black.

Had she begged him to keep reading just to prevent him from reaching into his satchel full of sharp tricks? Or had she truly wanted the sound of his voice, the music of the written word?

Please, no, no, read to me, please…keep reading.

Staring into the black-smudged light, E heard her whispers again; he listened to her voice—low and shaky and seductive.

Read to me, please…please…

For a moment, as he’d read to Gina, he’d felt a sudden warmth in his chest. Looking up from the page, he’d seen a golden bond stretching from her heart to his own. The golden bond had shivered and shifted into a pale mist of light spilling between them, pouring like heated honey between Gina’s lips. When she’d opened her eyes again, they were golden.

Please…read to me…

Be my god…

Okay, maybe she’d never said that last part. All the same, he’d seen it in her transformed eyes.

Setting the book aside, unmarked, E kneels beside the bed, and kisses her bare shoulder. She shudders, her breath hitching. And, looking in, he sees a hard, crafty smile beneath the golden light, falsely curving those honeyed lips and dimming the radiance of her gaze.

Ice hardens in his belly, frosts his guts, and quenches the fire raging in his veins.

“Name the one you love,” he says, sitting back on his heels to watch her face.

Her eyes flick back and forth, searching his face for clues. He goes still and gives her nothing.

“He’ll come for me,” she finally breathes. “He’s nightkind.”

E slides a shaking hand into his satchel; cold steel sticks to his icy skin. Wraps his fingers around the shiv’s hilt.

“Say his name.”

She sobs. Closes her eyes. Knows, maybe, that he can look in and see her lies. Her betrayal. “He’ll come—”

“For you?” E finishes. “No, he won’t.” He lifts the shiv out of the satchel; dawn light sparks along the blade. “Dante doesn’t care about you. Why would he? You’re just a piece of ass.”

Her eyes fly open at the sound of the name she hadn’t spoken. At the same moment, E plunges the knife into her belly.

E rolled over onto his side, Gina’s stocking locked within his hand, a rosary for meditating upon the mysteries of lying bitches.

She’d offered him love with her golden gaze, tempted him with adoration in the shape of her pleas. But he’d been smarter and stronger. He’d seen the lies squirming beneath her smooth skin. And beneath her black cherry scent, he’d smelled deceit, ripe and rank.

He could’ve given her so much. He could’ve been her god.

Which brought up an interesting point—being a god, why would he need a fucking bloodsucker like Ronin to guide him…control him?

He’d awaken S all by himself.

THE BULLET EXPLODED FROM the gun’s muzzle, the sharp retort cracking through the air, rebounding from the walls and shattering the narrow tunnel obstructing Heather’s vision. Her heart stopped for a split second, then everything zoomed forward in a blinding rush of speed.

She slammed Jefferson into the wall with a body block. She seized his wrist and jerked his gun hand up. Davis wrenched the pistol from Jefferson’s fingers.

“Holy shit, asshole,” he said, voice harsh. “You wanna fuck us all?”

“Nothing to worry about,” LaRousse said. “He missed the bastard.”

Heather looked at the doorway. Dante wasn’t there. In-stead, he stood in the center of the room. As she watched, he walked back to the doorway, bracing his gloved hands against either side. He looked ready to launch himself at Jefferson. Again.

Heather felt herself unknot. She drew in a deep breath, then slowly released it as relief leeched her strength and left her weak-limbed.

She caught Dante’s shaded gaze, or thought she did, anyway, and shook her head. Don’t move. No more stupidity. He remained braced in the doorway, body coiled. She could almost smell the adrenaline and fury that radiated from him. And testosterone. Don’t forget that. With all the males in the room, the air crackled with it.

Heather turned to Jefferson. “What the hell were you doing?”

Jefferson met her gaze, opened his mouth, then shut it again. He looked down.

“Protecting his partner, Agent Wallace,” LaRousse cut in. “Or don’t y’all do that in the Bureau? Here, we do whatever’s necessary.”

Heather closed her eyes for a second, then turned. LaRousse knelt beside Manning, one hand on the cop’s shoulder.

“Prejean was unarmed,” she said, voice tight. “There was no need for deadly force. And you know it.”

LaRousse snorted. Shook his head. He helped Manning to his feet.

“Take him to the emergency room,” LaRousse said to Jefferson. “And write a detailed report.”

“I’m fine,” Manning said, face flushed. “Christ!”

Jefferson slipped an arm around his partner and walked the protesting Manning to the doorway. Dante still stood there, hands braced. A wry smile tilted up one corner of Dante’s mouth. Lowering his hands, he stepped inside the room.

“Je va te voir plus tard,” he said to Jefferson.

All color drained from Jefferson’s face. “I don’t know none of that Cajun talk,” he stammered. Pushing Manning through the doorway, Jefferson hurried into the hall.

Heather blew loose strands of her hair from her face and glared at Dante. “You weren’t kidding about that problem with cooperation, were you?”

“He told Jefferson he’d see him later,” LaRousse said. “Sounds like a threat.”

“No threat,” Dante said. “Just bound to happen.”

Swiveling to face LaRousse, Heather said, “Prejean is not a player. I think he needs to be placed in protective custody.”

“No thanks,” Dante said. “And my name ain’t Prejean.”

“Shut up,” Heather said. “You’re not helping.”

“Oh, he’ll be placed in protective custody, all right,” LaRousse said, a tight smile thinning his lips. “In jail. For assaulting an officer and resisting arrest.”

“Let’s get things straight right now, LaRousse,” Heather said, stepping closer to the detective, muscles tight, hands clenched. “I’m in charge of this investigation—”

LaRousse leaned in and met her head-on. “That’s where you’re wrong, Agent Wallace,” he said. “You’re not in charge. You’re consulting. Hell, you haven’t told us whether or not the damned Cross-Country Killer is even here.”

LaRousse’s words hit Heather like an open-handed slap. Her cheeks burned, but she didn’t look away or back down. Her nails dug into her palms.

“I’m waiting for DNA confirmation,” she said, keeping her voice level.

“Even if he is here and you’re put in charge, I wouldn’t give a flying fuck,” LaRousse said. “That prick”—he stabbed a finger in Dante’s direction—“assaulted one of my officers.”

Still holding Heather’s gaze, LaRousse called, “Davis, cuff that piece of street trash and hand him over to the uniforms downstairs.”

“We’re not finished,” Heather said, voice low, and turned around.

Davis approached Dante cautiously, handcuffs held loose in one hand. “Take it easy,” he murmured, a man gentling a growling dog. “Don’t have to be hard. We can do this easy.”

Dante’s wary face and coiled body spelled hard in a big way.

Look, we don’t have to do this the hard way.

It’s the only way I know.

“Wait. Back off,” Heather said. “I’ll cuff him.”

Hands lifted in a gesture of surrender, his gaze still locked on Dante, Davis said, “Fine. He’s all yours.”

Well aware that LaRousse watched her every move, Heather took the handcuffs from Davis’s outstretched hand and crossed the carpeted floor. Dante watched her, expression guarded, hands clenched at his sides.

“What’d you do?” Heather murmured as she stopped in front of him. “Stand LaRousse up at the prom? What a hard-ass.”

A smile quirked up the corners of Dante’s mouth. His hands unclenched, relaxed. But his gloved fingers curled in slightly, on the verge of closing into fists again.

Heather realized in that moment that it had been need she’d seen on Dante’s face as he’d looked at Gina’s body, need mingled with the shock and disbelief.

The room reeked of blood, the bed drenched in it. He believed he was a vampire…. Had it been a vampire’s need she’d seen? Or something darker yet?

“Just relax, okay?” Heather said. “Trust me. I’ll get this all straightened out.”

Sweat trickled along Dante’s temple and his jaw was clenched. Migraine? Annie had often looked the same just before a headache.

“I’ve never trusted a cop,” Dante said, voice husky.

“I’m not asking you to trust a cop,” Heather said. “I’m asking you to trust me.”

Dante looked at her for a long moment. Sudden dizziness swirled through Heather, spinning from her head to the base of her spine. Just as panic touched her, the sensation vanished.

Without another word, Dante tugged off his gloves, tossing them into the easy chair. Then he turned around, hands behind his back.

8

The Unmaker

WITH SHARP METALLIC CLICKS , the cuffs ratcheted shut around Dante’s wrists. Old demons he couldn’t even name awakened. Hot, arid whispers seared his thoughts. Break the cuffs. Snuff them. All of them. You’ll be out the window long before their blood finishes splashing the floor. Wantitneeditdoitwantitneed—

Muscles knotted, Dante bowed his head, struggling not to listen.

Beneath the thick smell of Gina’s blood, he caught a whiff of gasoline and charred flesh. Heard the crackle of flames. But not here. Another time. Another place. He shuddered. Pain unfurled. His vision blurred.

“Hey,” Wallace said. “Breathe. Just breathe. C’mon, in. Out. In.”

Listening to the smooth, calming tone of Wallace’s lowered voice, Dante reached for Lucien, and touched his waiting mind through their link.

<Gina’s dead. Bail me out after the others wake.>

“Breathe, Dante. Do you have any medication?”

<Bail you out…? Child, why allow yourself to be arrested?>

<Wantitneeditdoitwantitneeditwantitburnit—> escaped before he could stop it.

<Shhhhh…>

Cool light suddenly bathed Dante’s mind, icing his pain and silencing the voices. He jumped when Wallace reached up and gently lowered his shades. He turned his head away, dazed by the gray morning light. She gripped his chin, turned his head around to face her.

“Medication? Do you take any?”

“Morphine. Opium sometimes,” he said, looking through his lashes into her eyes. Twilight blue, he thought, just as the stars come out.

She held his gaze, brows knitted. Wisps of red hair framed her face and curled against her temples. “Couldn’t you name something legal, at least?” she whispered, shoving the shades back onto the bridge of his nose. “Christ.”

Dante shrugged. “You asked. I don’t lie.”

“Maybe you should.” Wallace shook her head.

“Take him in,” Dickhead—LaRousse—said. “Lock him up. He’ll be asleep in no time, I guarantee.”

Dante glanced over his shoulder. Dickhead winked.

He knows I’m nightkind.

“Hold on.” Wallace pulled Dante’s hood up, tugged the edges past his face. “Don’t want you bursting into flames or anything,” she whispered. A quick smile curved her lips.

“Merci beaucoup,” he murmured.

Wallace’s actions surprised Dante. Hell, bewildered him. She didn’t act like a cop—at least, not all the time—even when she was busy rousting nightkind from Sleep with search warrants. He saw nothing cynical or mocking in her gaze. He watched as she turned away and crossed the room to the bed.

The cool morning breeze ruffled Gina’s hair, fluttered the stocking knotted around her throat. Dante looked at her for the last time.

We gotta go, sexy. Tomorrow night?

He hadn’t said a word. Now it was a little late. “Yeah,” he whispered. “Tomorrow night.”

He followed Sidekick out into the hall and down the stairs. Ice melted and pain sparked anew. Sweat beaded his forehead.

We…

Where was Jay?

THE NEED TO SLEEP rolled through Dante, a need that put him on the nod despite his determination to stay awake. He sat knees up in a corner of the holding cell, drifting as he listened to his fellow lawbreakers.

“So this hoodoo lady sez, watch out, ya know—” said Geeky-Sweaty Dude sitting on the bench across the cell, his voice fast and high; a caffeinated Ping-Pong ball.

“Shut the fuck up,” growled Unfriendly Dude hunched on the bench beside him.

And the drunk Bayou Boy clutching the toilet puked…again…retching hard enough to earn a grunt of semi-sympathy from Unfriendly Dude. Geeky Dude gagged at the violent splashing sound echoing from the bowl and the sour, vile smell wafting through the cell.

Since his shades and hoodie had been confiscated along with his belt and jewelry, Dante was grateful that the cell was windowless, though a little fresh air would’ve been welcome. His eyes closed and his head nodded.

Dante thumped his head back against the wall, forced his eyes open. He squinted against the fluorescent lighting. Stay awake!

Geeky Dude, undeterred by the interruptions from Bayou Boy and Unfriendly Dude, picked up right where he’d left off. “For the reshaper, the unmaker, she sez.”

“Who gives a fuck, shithead?”

A little brown cockroach scuttled from a crack in the wall, hauling ass for the shadow cast by Dante’s knees. Snatching it up from the floor, he cupped it between his hands. The cockroach’s delicate legs and antennae brushed against his palms.

Concentrate. C’mon…stay awake.

A faint blue glow emanated from his palms and, despite his effort, his eyes closed. A song lured him in: the cockroach’s genetic song, an undulating wave, backed by DNA rhythm. Dante plucked at the rhythm’s strings and altered the song. Sleep still beckoned. For a moment, he drifted and the strings went slack, then knotted, and another song entirely blasted through his mind—chaos rhythms of nightmare and rage.

An image flashed through his mind; a little girl, a plushie orca—black and white and red-spotted…deep red…

Gone.

Renewed pain snaked through Dante’s mind. So much he didn’t remember. Each time he tried, a fucking migraine laid him out.

Opening his eyes, Dante lowered his cupped hands between his boots. Blue light gleamed against his bootstraps and buckles and glittered on the hard, black surface of the thing he released from trembling hands. What used to be a cockroach slithered away from its maker, mewling.

Dante thumped his head against the wall once, twice. Did it all fucking wrong. He squeezed his eyes shut. Hand shaking, he touched his temple. Sweat slicked his fingers.

“What the hell is that?!”

“Gah! Kill it!”

The pounding vibration of several pairs of stomping feet jackhammered up Dante’s spine to his skull. Pain flared like a supernova—white-hot and vast. Sleep sucker punched him and shoved him down into inner night.

“SO…DEATH BY STRANGULATION?” HEATHER asked.

“Unofficially, yes,” Adams said. “I’ll know for certain after the autopsy.” He slid Gina’s sheet-covered body back into the cold storage body bank. The door closed with a solid ka-chunk that echoed throughout the room.

Heather noticed fatigue shadowing the medical examiner’s eyes and lining the corners of his mouth. Tension corded his neck muscles. A busy week in the Big Easy for the coroner’s office, what with Mardi Gras and a serial killer. She didn’t envy the man.

“When will you have the results on the semen samples?” Heather said, shifting her attention to the square steel door Gina rested beyond.

The CCK is edging ever closer to Dante. Why is he playing games?

“Midweek, most likely. I’ll keep you informed.” Adams’s voice was low and strained, heated.

Heather jerked her gaze up. Adams’s brows were furrowed, his jaw tight. “Which is a sight more courtesy than you showed us,” he continued.

“Pardon me?” Heather regarded the M.E. warily, caught off guard by the hostility in his gaze.

“Why didn’t you let us know? We could’ve issued alerts, warnings. A serial killer is in New Orleans, Agent Wallace,” Adams said. “You knew it. And said nothing.”

Weariness swept through Heather. “I apologize. But I have to be certain.”

“Tell her that,” Adams said, nodding at the body bank. He crossed the tile floor, then stepped out into the hall, the door swinging shut behind him.

Heather stood alone in the morgue, surrounded by the voice-less dead. She touched a hand to the cold metal door. Pictured Gina beneath the sheet. Remembered Dante saying: He took everything from her.

Heather’s throat tightened. True. Everything. But once she nailed this bastard, Gina would have one last opportunity to speak.

Small comfort.

After three long years, she finally had a link to the Cross-Country Killer: Dante.

But at what cost?

Dropping her hand from the cold storage door, Heather walked across the room, cold pinching the nape of her neck. She refused to look back. She slipped out the morgue’s door, pausing as the door clicked shut behind her.

Forgive me, Gina.

LUCIEN STOOD IN THE center of the living room, gaze directed at the ceiling. The old floorboards creaked as a foot touched them. His fists opened. His talons pulled free of his palms, the wounds already healing as he did so. He hurried to the front door and wrenched it open. Fading gray light spilled into the room. The day was dying.

Lucien arrowed a message to the waking minds above, sending, in a single thought/image, news of Gina’s murder and Dante’s arrest. The replies slammed against Lucien’s shield, stunned, perplexed. He shut them all out and strode into the rose-and-rain scented evening.

RONIN’S EYES OPENED. COLOR—ORANGE and violet—bled into the room from beneath the curtained window. Sunset.

A sharp beep ruined the silence and drew Ronin’s gaze to the nightstand beside the bed. A yellow message light glowed on his cell phone. Rolling onto his side, he grabbed the cell, flipped it open, and thumbed up the text message. It was from his contact in the department.

PREJEAN HELD AT 8th PRECINCT.

Ronin smiled.

A SOUND PULLED DANTE from Sleep. He opened his eyes and pushed his hair back from his face. A cop whapped the holding cell’s bars with his nightstick. The steel sang.

“Yo, sleeping beauty,” the cop drawled. “Your bail’s been posted.”

“Groovy.” Dante stretched, muscles unkinking, then eased to his feet. Hunger awakened and uncurled within him. He needed to feed.

Bayou Boy and Unfriendly Dude were gone, long sprung, but Geeky Dude squatted on the bench, his feet tucked under him. He eyed the floor nervously. “Down there somewhere…watch out—”

“Shut up, Wilson,” the cop said, shaking his head. “Ain’t you slept it off yet, fer chrissakes?” He keyed open the cell.

Geeky Dude—Wilson—glanced up at Dante. His eyes widened. He wrapped his arms around himself, hugging tight like he could make himself smaller; a little garden gnome perched on a steel bench. “The reshaper is here. The unmaker.”

Dante halted, his gaze locking on Wilson. “What are you talking about?”

The cell door slid open with a loud clang.

Wilson peered at Dante from between his arm and his knees. “Beautiful.”

“Looks like you got a fan there, rock boy,” the cop said with a malicious grin.

“Unmaker,” Wilson repeated.

Shaking his head, Dante stepped out of the cell. The door clanged shut. He followed the cop down the hall, Wilson’s words chilling his blood.

“WHERE IS HE?” HEATHER halted in front of LaRousse’s cluttered desk.

“His bail was posted,” LaRousse said. He kept typing on the keyboard, his attention on the monitor. “We had to release him.”

Heather leaned across the desk and pressed her hand onto the keyboard. The computer made several odd sounds. LaRousse looked up, eyes flashing. She held his gaze, hoped hers made him pause. This went beyond the usual passive-aggressive bullshit she put up with when stepping into an ongoing homicide investigation; it even went beyond the bristling-alpha-male-refusing-to-submit-to-female-authority thing. This was between her and LaRousse—as individuals.

“I wanted a statement from him,” Heather said. “You knew that.”

“So call him at home and make a date.”

“Asshole.” Heather lifted her hand from the keyboard. “Did you even bother to interview him? He knew the victim.”

The chatter stopped in the other cubicles. The clicking of fingers across keyboards slowed.

“We tried to get a statement from him,” LaRousse said, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet on the desk. “All we got was an hour’s worth of ‘Fuck off.’”

“As charming as you are?” Heather snorted, crossing her arms over her chest.

“LaRousse? Charming?”

Heather glanced toward the speaker. Collins stood in the squad room doorway, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in each hand. Just coming on duty, then. She nodded. “Trent.”

“Agent Wallace was just leaving,” LaRousse said, dropping his feet to the floor and sitting up. He switched off his computer, looked at Collins. “Unless you want your pet fed to keep you company.”

“Like I said, charming.” Collins sauntered over to stand beside Heather. A deep vertical line creased the skin on his forehead—what Heather’s mother used to call the thinking deep line. “What’s up?”

“I have reason to believe Dante Prejean is the CCK’s next target,” Heather said.

“Yeah?” LaRousse said. “Well, he can have Prejean, far as I’m concerned.”

“Why Prejean?” Collins questioned. He handed Heather one of the cups.

Heather accepted the coffee, smiling. The sharp, fresh-brewed aroma cleared her head. “Well, the last two victims have had contact with Prejean, one intimately. The first was from Lafayette—same as Prejean.”

Collins nodded. “Just heard about this morning’s call.”

Heather paused to take a sip of the coffee. “The CCK—if it’s the CCK—has added Prejean’s anarchy logo to his signature. One vic was killed next to Club Hell, the other in Club Hell. I think the killer’s circling in, closer and closer. Sooner or later, he’ll decide to take Prejean.”

LaRousse said, “You sure it ain’t Prejean himself?”

“I was watching his house during the time frame of the last victim’s death,” Heather said. Gina. Her name was Gina. She was breathing just a few hours ago.

“Positive he was there?” LaRousse said, a slight smirk on his lips.

“Yeah,” Heather said, voice even. “I saw him arrive and go inside. And he came out when I served the warrant.”

“You must enjoy watching him, Wallace,” LaRousse said, leaning back in his chair again. “A good-looking rock star like that.”

“Kinda sounds like you’re the one hung up on him, and he’s not a rock star,” Heather replied. “He’s an underground cult figure. And yeah, he’s good-looking, so what?”

“Good-looking street trash, y’mean,” LaRousse muttered. “Wouldn’t know an honest day’s work if it kicked him in the ass.”

Collins groaned. “Spare us, Reverend.”

Heather couldn’t believe her ears. The bastard was envious of Dante. Whether LaRousse wanted the so-called fame, the so-called money, or the groupies; whether he wanted Dante’s looks, his life, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was that he had refused to offer protection to a killer’s potential victim, had allowed Dante to walk.

Pulse pounding in her temples, Heather grabbed the arms of LaRousse’s chair and swung it around so he faced her. “Hear this,” she said. “I’ll hold you accountable if anything happens to him.”

LaRousse met her gaze, dark seething emotions shadowing his face. After a moment, he looked away, lips thinned into a white line.

Heather released the chair, then turned her back on the detective. Collins met her gaze, eyebrow arched, vertical crease smoothed away. A warning glimmered in his eyes. Careful. Very thin ice.

“I know,” Heather murmured. “I need you to contact the Prejeans and the Spurrells in Lafayette, see if the families had any connections.”

“Will do. Where you headed?”

“To find Prejean.”

9

Unwalked Paths

THE BLONDE WITH THE long spiraled hair answered the door. “Oui?” she said, scanning the dark yard behind Heather before focusing on her face. A slight smile brushed across her lips.

“I need to speak to Dante,” Heather said.

The blonde shook her head and Heather caught a whiff of flowers—roses, maybe magnolias. “Dante’s not at home,” she said, starting to close the door.

Heather stopped the door with her hand. “I intend to wait,” she said, holding her badge up at eye level.

The blonde regarded the badge with thoughtful brown eyes, then she stepped back, opening the door wide. “S’il te plaît,” she said, gesturing Heather inside with a graceful wave of her hand.

“Thank you.”

The blonde led Heather to the front room. “Make yourself at home,” she said, stopping beside a sofa.

Heather sat, perching on the edge, muscles knotted. She needed sleep, a meal. She glanced at her hands. They trembled ever so slightly. She curled her hands into fists. The last twenty-four hours—not to mention all the damned coffee—were catching up with her.

“Are you all right, M’selle Wallace?”

Heather looked up. The blonde studied her, expression neutral, but her brown eyes sharp. “I’m sorry,” Heather said, managing a smile. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Simone,” she answered, returning Heather’s smile. “You look tired. Would you like some coffee?”

“Oh, yeah, that’d be great.” Heather unknotted her hands and pressed her fingers flat against her slacks.

Nodding, Simone walked across the room. She paused at the archway and looked back at Heather, her long blonde hair swinging against her denim-skirted hips. “I’ll be right back,” she said.

Heather smiled in acknowledgment of her statement and what was implied: Don’t go anywhere.

Once Simone had left the room, Heather slumped back into the sofa and closed her eyes. The last thing she needed was more caffeine, but she was afraid she’d fall asleep without it. Kind of difficult to protect someone while snoozing on their sofa.

She shook her head. She was losing focus. And she hadn’t checked in with Stearns…oh…since seven o’clock last night and it was now—Opening her eyes, she peered at her watch. Eight fourteen p.m. Sunday. She sighed.

Well, she was the one who decided to forego sleep so she could serve her warrant to Dante at the most inconvenient moment possible.

But she gut-knew that the man who’d murdered Gina was the same one she’d been pursuing for the last three years.

His first known kill had been in Seattle. Serial killers always started where they were the most comfortable, and then expanded outward from that point as they grew more confident.

So, did Dante have any ties to Seattle?

“Not really,” a low voice said. “Just some music contacts.”

“What?” Heather looked up sharply. She straightened, her gaze lighting on the speaker—the wine-drinking minor from the club. Had she been thinking out loud?

He leaned against the wall just inside the archway, purple hair gelled into a disheveled rock star/bedhead look. His startling silver eyes seemed lit from within, his face pensive as he chewed on his lower lip. He looked no older than sixteen.

“I’m sorry,” Heather said. “What did you say?”

He wore black jeans studded with metal, zippered and looped with chains. A wide, low-slung belt circled his narrow hips and his slashed and faded black SINENGINE T was so tight it looked like it’d been airbrushed on over his lean torso.

Simone stepped into the room. She glanced at the boy for a moment, then shifted her gaze to Heather. “This is Silver,” she said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder. “Silver, this is Agent Wallace.”

Heather noted Simone’s emphasis on the word agent. Silver had just been warned or perhaps reminded. Why?

“The coffee will be ready in a few minutes,” Simone said, releasing Silver’s shoulder. “Would you like to freshen up?” Without a backward glance, the boy slipped from the room.

Heather met Simone’s gaze and smiled. “I’d like that, thank you.”

Simone led her into a narrow hall lined with framed artwork and old-fashioned candleholders. A dark brown carpet etched with leaves in gold and scarlet stretched the length of the hall. Heather caught a glimpse of stairs spiraling up at the hall’s opposite end. Faint blue light edged beneath a partially opened door beside the stairs.

Simone gestured toward the bathroom and began to walk away. Heather said, “Did you know Gina?”

Simone halted. “Oui, she was Dante’s friend.”

“Do you know of anyone who’d want to harm her?” Heather said. “Maybe something you heard?”

Simone shook her head. “No.”

“What about Étienne?” Heather asked. “He was pretty pissed off at Dante last night at the club. Do you think he might be capable of—”

“Having Gina murdered?” Simone finished. “Capable, oui.” Her gaze drifted past Heather and up. “What do you think, llygad?”

Heather stiffened as she realized someone stood behind her. Worse, she had a feeling he’d been standing there for a while. Turning, she put her back to the wall and glanced to the right.

The nomad bouncer stood at the foot of the stairs, dressed in faded jeans and a button-down black shirt, his deep brown hair brushing his shoulders. His green eyes, no longer hidden behind shades, seemed to look beyond Heather. He stroked the sides of his mustache thoughtfully.

“Nah,” he said finally. “Not Étienne’s style. He’d hurt Dante, sure. But not through a mortal—not unless he could make Dante watch.”

Heather glanced from Von to Simone. Their gazes held for a heartbeat longer, then Simone glanced down, a smile on her lips.

Grinning wolfishly, fangs showing, Von strode down the hall in long-legged, confident strides. He winked at Heather as he passed. His scent was frosty and clear, the first chilly breath of autumn. He brushed the backs of his fingers against Simone’s pale cheek as he passed. Then he was gone.

“There it was again,” Heather said. “That word. Mortals. Dante believes he’s a vampire. Von has fangs. What about you?”

Simone regarded her for a long moment, all amusement gone from her dark eyes. “What you need to remember, m’selle, is that Dante never tells or forgives a lie.” Swiveling around, Simone walked away, hips swinging. “I’ll fetch your coffee.”

“Everyone lies,” Heather said under her breath. That was the universal truth of detective work, one she’d had drilled into her since before her days at the Academy. Everyone lies. Guilty people lie. Innocent people lie. Cops lie. Bad guys definitely lie. The reasons differ—to hide, to protect another, to cover up—but everyone lies.

Heather stepped into the bathroom and shut the door. She regarded her weary reflection in the mirror. Tendrils of hair clung to her face and neck. Shadows smudged her eyes. She turned on the faucet, splashed cold water onto her face.

So…Dante had a reputation for not lying.

Heather patted her face dry with a plush blue towel, then looked into the mirror again. All that meant was that Dante believed he was a vampire. If his friends, hell, even his enemies encouraged his delusional thinking, then to him, he spoke the truth.

Reaching behind her head, Heather unpinned and unwound her French braid. Her hair, frizzy with humidity, tumbled past her shoulders.

What if he was a vampire? What if everyone in this house were exactly what they pretended to be—sun-shunning vampires? What was the word Dante had used? Nightkind.

Heather fumbled her brush and makeup bag out of her purse and onto the counter.

But she’d picked Dante up shortly after dawn.

It was overcast. He wore sunscreen and shades and gloves. He hid his face within a hood.

His mind-dazzling speed. Jackson pulled the trigger. No way that bullet could’ve missed Dante. But it had.

The need on his face. The blood, still dripping, the air reeking with it.

Then why had he allowed himself to be arrested? Weren’t vampires strong enough to snap handcuffs?

Heather tugged the brush through her hair. She didn’t like the path her thoughts were taking, but it was a path she needed to walk. She’d learned over the years to examine every angle, no matter how absurd.

What about the scene at the club? Étienne and his dark promises?

Leaning against the counter, Heather touched up her lipstick. She conceded it could’ve all been a game. Some live-action roleplayers took their games very seriously, especially the vampire and werewolf groups. She’d seen it in Seattle more than once.

But what if it hadn’t been a game?

What had Étienne said to De Noir?

This doesn’t concern the Fallen.

Suddenly cold, Heather tucked her lipstick back into her makeup bag, then dropped it back into her purse. She stared into the mirror; her reflection stared back, eyes dilated and nearly black in the low light, rimmed with cornflower blue.

She dropped her gaze to her hands. They trembled once again. Fallen. As in angels? Nightbringer. Everything about De Noir seemed unearthly: his powerful presence, the gleam of gold in his black eyes, his speed as he rushed toward Étienne.

Heather shrugged out of her trench, then draped it over her arm so that she had easy access to her .38. She smoothed her sweater. Opening the door, she stepped out into the empty hall. The front door opened as she walked into the front room. De Noir stepped through, closing the door behind him.

Apprehension iced her spine. “Where’s Dante?” she asked.

SAC CRAIG STEARNS SIPPED at his coffee, his zillionth of the day, as he looked out his office window into the rainy Seattle night. He’d been trying to reach Wallace since morning, without luck. She hadn’t responded to his e-mail messages or to his calls.

Wallace had never gone this long without checking in. Her last message had stated that she was checking leads and would contact him today.

Returning to his desk, he sank into his chair. He flipped through some of the field reports stacked on his desk. He’d already read each several times.

If anything had…happened…to Wallace, he would’ve heard by now. Unless it was the kind of happened no one knew about yet.

Stearns swallowed the last of his coffee. He’d call that detective Wallace was consulting with in New Orleans—Collins. As he reached for the phone, it rang and he jerked his hand back, heart pounding. Chagrined, he switched on the speaker and tabbed on the vid-mon. Maybe he should cut down on the caffeine.

But the face that took shape on the monitor reassured him that his instincts were as sharp as ever: Blonde hair stylishly razor-cut, almond-shaped blue eyes, and a deceptively warm smile. He knew from experience that if a heart beat within her curvaceous chest, it’d been carved from glacial ice.

“I knew I’d find you at the office, Craig,” ADIC Johanna Moore said.

“What’s shaking, Moore?”

“Good news, I hope,” she said, her smile widening. “We’ve got a dead perp in Pensacola that we’ve reason to believe is the Cross-Country Killer.”

“What makes you think that?”

“You name it, we got it. We’re waiting on DNA results, but, really, that’s just a formality.” Moore shook her head. “It’s finally over, Craig. Call your agent home.”

Stearns smiled despite the sudden cold icing his bones. Something was way hinky here. “How’d it happen?”

“One of my agents caught the perp in action. Made a good kill.” Moore’s smile faded. “Unfortunately, the perp’s victim didn’t make it.”

“A shame,” Stearns said. “I think I’ll send my agent on to Pensacola to get those DNA results. Since this isn’t exactly your department.” Especially for the ADIC of Special Ops and Research, an ADIC rumored to have ties to the “non-existant” shadow branch.

“Not necessary,” Moore replied, another warm smile on her lips. “I’ve got an agent there now.”

“Well, hell, then I’ll tell my agent to hang out and enjoy Mardi Gras.”

“Recall Wallace,” Moore said, smile gone.

“So that’s it.” Stearns’s mind raced, flipping through possible courses of action. “What are you hiding in New Orleans?”

“You’re fencing with the wrong person. Get your agent out.”

“One of your projects must be down there. That it?”

A rueful smile brushed over Moore’s lips. “You know better than to ask that, Craig, you of all people.”

It hit Stearns, then, like a fist to the gut. One of Moore’s projects and the CCK were one and the same. Why had Moore even allowed them to work the case? Maybe it hadn’t mattered before because they were never close, but now they were. Wallace was on the bad guy’s ass. Closing in.

“Wallace had better be all right,” he said, voice tight.

“Bring her in,” Moore said softly, “and she will be.” She switched off, the vid-mon going slate-gray with static.

Stearns jumped to his feet, kicked his chair. It rolled across the polished hardwood floor and thunked into the wall. He paced from the rain-misted window to the door and back again. Think! Wallace would never buy it if he just called her in. She’d want to go to Pensacola, check the evidence for herself. Moore probably expected that.

Let Wallace know that the case was officially closed. The CCK was dead. End of story.

Bracing his hands on either side of the window, Stearns stared out into the black night. His stomach churned. Neon flashed on the streets below; car headlights streaked along the wet pavement. Moore’s request was simple.

All he had to do was bring an agent in. And let a killer walk. Again.

10

Unforeseen

RONIN PULLED HIS CAMARO over to the curb and switched off the engine. He glanced at the handheld GPS receiver. Dante’s movement had stopped, then resumed, but at a much slower pace. So…the boy was now on foot.

Getting out of his car, Ronin stepped onto the sidewalk and tabbed his debit spike into the parking meter, then set it for two hours. He checked the GPS receiver, then started walking down neon-lit Canal Street, toward the Mississippi. Even here tourists and vendors crowded the sidewalks, and the four lanes of traffic gleamed with headlights. Horns honked as drivers warned strolling pedestrians as they hung rights or lefts across crosswalks.

Ronin kept his pace at a deliberate mortal-paced stride. He walked with a small herd of pedestrians, not wishing to call attention to himself. Blend, meld, become ordinary and therefore invisible. He didn’t want Dante to see him. At least, not yet. The GPS receiver marked the young vampire just a few blocks ahead of him.

Another thing E didn’t know—microchip-size GPS transmitters had been implanted at the base of the skull of each Bad Seed subject. Johanna had wanted to keep tabs on her experiments once they’d been unleashed.

Of course, most of the subjects—all ignorant of each other and Bad Seed’s existence, let alone their own participation—were now dead or entombed in prisons. E and Dante were the only two still roaming free.

Ronin looked up and over the heads of some of the people encircling him. He saw Dante a block ahead of him, stopped in front of the light-filled and glittering Harrah’s, next to the black iron fence near the entrance.

Muscles tightening in anticipation, Ronin slowed his pace, allowing his camouflage group to trundle across the street without him. A vendor sat on a metal folding chair next to a street-light, his wares—colorful MARDI GRAS! T-shirts, plastic beads, and other bits of cheap jewelry—displayed on a sheet spread out on the sidewalk.

Ronin stopped and looked over the vendor’s goods, pretending a mild interest. What was Dante doing? he wondered, his gaze skipping from DRUNK ON BOURBON STREET Ts to ’gator charm bracelets. Meeting someone? Planning to play the slots?

“This one be real pop’lar,” the vendor, a black man in his midtwenties, said eagerly. He held up a shirt reading SHOW ME YOUR TITTIES! “Fresh batch. I keep sellin’ out of ’em.”

“Ah,” Ronin murmured. “No doubt.” He glanced up the street.

Dante leaned against the fence, his hands gripping the railing behind him. He stood near the double-globed streetlight, but not directly beneath it, his face hood-hidden. Light danced across his leather pants and winked from his rings and hoops and bracelets. His head was bowed, his shaded gaze on the sidewalk.

People flowing in, out, and past Harrah’s glanced at him. More than a few paused and stared until nudged into motion by a less-dazzled companion.

“Maybe this one’s more to your liking? Sir?”

Ronin forced his gaze away from Dante. The vendor held up a shirt proclaiming LAISSEZ LES BONS TEMPS ROULLER. Let the good times roll. Ronin nodded.

“That one. How much?”

“Ten, sir. Cash only.”

As Ronin tugged his wallet free of his hip pocket, he darted another glance up the street. Two men in jeans and Saints sweatshirts paused near Dante. They leaned in close to one another, hands gesturing, their conversation intense. One pointed across Canal street toward the French Quarter. The other shook his head, then looked toward the casino.

Dante lifted his head, his pale hands pushing his hood back. He slid his shades off and looped them through his studded belt. The mortal froze, mouth open. A smile tilted Dante’s lips, wicked and oh-so-inviting. The man gripped his friend’s forearm and squeezed. Swinging his head around, the friend looked and went still also, mesmerized by the moonlit slice of sexual fantasy leaning against the fence.

Ronin looked away. Excitement shook his hands as he slid a ten out of his wallet and handed it to the vendor.

Dante was hunting.

Snatching the T-shirt from the vendor’s hands, Ronin tucked one end of it into his hip pocket and started up the sidewalk. He forced himself to walk slowly. He still couldn’t afford to call attention to himself, especially near a hyper-alert and, undoubtedly, territorial vampire on the hunt.

Both mortals had recovered enough from their first glimpse of Dante’s breath-stealing beauty to sidle in on either side of him, their bodies nearly touching. Their hungry, somewhat predatory, stance amused Ronin. They spoke to Dante, smiling, their gestures friendly. One displayed a wad of cash.

Ronin paused at a store window. He was close enough now that Dante would feel his presence if he wasn’t careful. He tamped his aura down tight, stilled his questing mind. Blood surged through his veins electrified, adrenalized. For a moment, his thoughts spun, and he shook his head, perplexed. What had come over him? He prized control—the essence of strength and self-rule.

Dante. True Blood. Vampire aristocracy.

He looked up the street again. Dante walked away with the mortals, one still on either side of him. The men glanced at each other. Winked. One squeezed a hand into a fist. Ronin watched as the threesome turned the corner onto Tchopitoulas Street. The mortals no doubt planned bad things for the young Goth hustler walking between them; planned to use him, then hurt him. And not necessarily in that order.

Ronin now knew why Dante had lifted his head and allowed those two to look at him and fall under his spell.

He’d smelled their filthy little hearts jittering away inside their chests. Had heard their fevered whispers. Seen their twisted thoughts.

Ronin grinned. Dante hunted the evil-doer. Or, at the very least, he preyed on predators. Ironic? Yes. Fascinating? Yes. Something Johanna and her squad of behavioral scientists had foreseen? Hell, no.

Ronin paused at another store window, allowing Dante and his new friends time to get ahead. One thing troubled him—S.A. Heather Wallace. Why was she investigating Dante? Was it possible she’d understood what Dante hadn’t so far? That the messages were for him?

Ronin glanced at the GPS receiver. Dante had stopped. Looking up the street, he realized that Dante and the two Saints fans were no longer in view. Ronin dropped the mortal pretense and moved. He breezed through the sidewalk throngs with the ease of a man walking a deserted street. He touched no one and perhaps only a few mortals felt a cool rush of air as he passed.

The receiver showed Dante halfway down an alley just ahead and to the right. Ronin slowed to a walk. His heart pounded hard in his chest. He felt Dante, felt his hunger sharp as a double-edged sword. But underneath that he felt rage, unvoiced and wordless; a red-hot torrent rushing through Dante’s veins.

Shielding himself with steel thought and glass illusion—No one here. Look past. No one here. Look past—Ronin dared a glance down the shadow-filled alley.

One Saints fan stood in front of Dante, pressing a pocket-knife against his pale throat while his buddy handcuffed Dante’s hands behind his back. A dark smile crossed Dante’s lips as the knife nicked his throat. Blood oozed from the tiny cut, trickling down his white skin and onto the collar of his mesh shirt.

Ronin breathed in the blood’s fragrance, sucked it down into his lungs: rich and thick with pheromones and ripe-berry sweet. Hunger seized him. He hugged the building’s edge, his fingers curling around weather-worn brick, and watched.

“Viens ici,” Dante said to the mortal holding the knife to his throat. “J’ai faim.”

The Saints fan narrowed his eyes, his smile turning brittle. “What the hell did you just say?”

His buddy grasped Dante’s hips and pressed hard against him. “Who gives a fuck what he said? Talking isn’t on the menu.”

“Can you take as good as you give?” Dante murmured.

He leaned forward and nuzzled the mortal’s throat, licked the flesh over the fast-pulsing artery. The pocketknife slid away from Dante’s throat, blood trailing from its point. The mortal closed his eyes. Dante sank his fangs into the man’s throat.

Groaning, the Saints fan stumbled back into the wall. The knife tumbled from his fingers and hit the concrete with a sharp ting. Dante pressed against him, snugging one leather-clad leg between his, pinning him.

The other mortal had moved with them, one hand still clutching Dante’s hip, the other wriggling between his buddy and Dante in an effort to unbuckle Dante’s belt.

Ronin’s muscles tightened, his breath coming hard and fast. His lips parted. He felt the whisker-stubbled flesh beneath his lips, tasted the hot blood gushing into his mouth. He closed his eyes. Listened to his own thundering heart.

True Blood. Destiny.

Opening his eyes, Ronin smiled, then hunkered down. Let’s see how the True Blood, child that he is, gets himself out of this alley…alone.

The mortal Dante feasted on suddenly started to struggle. His eyes flew open. He lifted a trembling hand, seized Dante’s shoulder, and shoved. But Dante didn’t budge.

“Andy,” he slurred, his voice thick and panicked. “Help me. Andy…”

With a casual shrug, Dante snapped the handcuffs. Metal tinked off brick and stone. His hands latched onto the mortal’s shoulders and held him still, burrowing his face deeper into the mortal’s throat, ripping into the flesh.

The other mortal, Andy, jumped back when Dante snapped the handcuffs, astonishment on his face. “What the…”

Dante released the Saints fan, who slumped to the ground in a boneless heap, his eyes already glazing. Licking the blood from his lips, Dante swiveled around and looked at Andy. He lifted his arms and glanced pointedly at the handcuff bracelets on his wrists.

With a tiny shriek, Andy whirled around, and ran—

Right into Dante.

Ronin shook his head, marveling at Dante’s speed. He wondered if the boy had any other surprises.

Dante embraced Andy, locking his arms around him as his fangs pierced his throat. Andy’s legs gave out and they both went down, the mortal sprawling on the rain-puddled alley floor. Dante straddled him, sitting on his belly and pinning his arms to the concrete. Dante fed, swallowing mouthful after mouthful of hot blood.

Ronin realized he’d stood at some point and had moved into the alley without being aware of it, his gaze locked on Dante’s slender coiled form, his thoughts hunger-fevered, craving only the blood burning through Dante’s veins.

Sliding to a sudden halt, dirt gritted beneath Ronin’s snake-skin boots. He held his breath hoping the boy hadn’t heard—

But he had. Dante looked up, his dark-eyed gaze locking onto Ronin. Wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, he uncurled from the mortal’s body and stood. Behind him, Andy twitched, then lay still.

Ronin held Dante’s gleaming, hostile gaze for a single time-stretching moment, then the boy moved.

Ronin danced aside using a change-body technique, sucking in as he whirled. Dante passed so close mesh whispered against denim, and heat radiated against Ronin’s night-cooled flesh. Dante’s scent swirled through the night air—blood and deep, dark earth, heady and sharp. And dangerous. Ronin forced himself to focus. His aikido-trained muscles relaxed, ready for Dante’s next charge.

“Hey,” said a low, husky voice to Ronin’s right.

Turning, Ronin met Dante’s dark gaze again. The boy stood not five feet from him at the alley mouth’s other edge. He watched Ronin through his lashes, his hands curled into fists, his muscles taut. He had a street fighter’s posture; deceptively still. His fighting style would be down, dirty, and vicious, but easy to handle with the calm focus of aikido.

“Who the fuck are you?” Dante tilted his head and sudden knowledge lit his eyes. “You were in the club last night—you’re the one Lucien and Von told me about.”

Ronin smiled and nodded his head in acknowledgment. “That I was.”

“Where’s your mortal buddy?”

“My assistant, you mean?” Ronin asked. Dante’s fists hadn’t relaxed. “I gave him the evening off.”

“Assistant?” A half smile tilted Dante’s lips. “That’s a new one.”

“I’m a journalist,” Ronin said. “Crime journalist, actually.”

Tugging his wallet free, he looked up into Dante’s dark, red-streaked eyes. He now stood only a foot away. Ronin hadn’t heard him move, hadn’t felt him. He slid a black card from his wallet, extended it to Dante between two fingers.

Dante plucked it free and read its silver-lettered surface. “Thomas Ronin,” he murmured. “So, what are you doing here, Peeping Tom?” He flicked the card into the rain-filled gutter.

Ronin watched the sodden card float to a sewer grate not half a block down. He met Dante’s sardonic gaze and held it. In that moment, he had one regret—that Johanna had discovered this child, born of unwilling vampire mother, and he hadn’t.

How he could’ve shaped him.

Was it too late? Possibility raged through his mind with hurricane force.

“Yo, Peeping Tom, you awake?” Dante’s voice now came from behind.

Ronin swiveled around. Still only a foot away, Dante studied him, dark eyes missing little.

“Sorry,” Ronin said, shaking his head. “I’ve been working the Cross-Country Killer case. And I’ve wanted to talk to you since the body was discovered in the pizza parlor’s courtyard and now—”

“How’d you find me here?” Dante said, voice flat.

“Pure coincidence,” Ronin said. “I went to the club, but it was closed. I decided to check out Harrah’s for fun and I happened to see you.” Ronin spread his arms out in a half shrug, palms open. “What the fuck, you know? I decided to follow.”

Dante’s hands remained knotted at his sides, his gaze wary. “You wasted your time, M’sieu Peeping Tom,” he said. He glanced away for a moment, but before he did, Ronin saw something flash in his eyes—hurt, grief, maybe both.

“I know we’re not off to the best start,” Ronin said. “And I completely understand you not wanting to talk to me…now. But in a day or two, you may feel differently. I really want to see this son of a bitch nailed.”

“We’re not off to any start,” Dante said. “And I’m not gonna talk to you in a day or two or five or ever.” He backed up, half turned, his gaze still on Ronin. “Foute ton quant d’ici.”

“You running me out of town?” Ronin asked, eyebrow arched, voice hard.

Dante laughed. “Fuck, no! Go where you want. You can even go to Hell. But stay away from me.”

Ronin took several long-legged strides after him, then stopped. “Need a ride home?” he called. “No strings attached, I promise.”

Dante turned completely and walked up the sidewalk. He didn’t answer. When he reached the corner, he stopped, then about-faced.

“Hey, what mag you writing for?”

“Freelance. But I’ll probably let Rolling Stone have first shot at the story.”

Dante laughed again, then rounded the corner.

Ronin waited for a few moments, listening to the city’s pulse, the traffic noise, the streetcar clacking along the rails, chattering tourists—all bound to an earth-deep rhythm that lured musicians from around the world.

Dante was gone.

The entire encounter had gone south with breathtaking speed.

Ronin glanced down the alley. The first Saints fan still lay sprawled on the concrete, his body heat dissipating into the night. Andy, however—Andy was pulling himself by his finger-nails down the alley.

Closing his eyes, Ronin remembered the smell of Dante’s blood, felt him hot and restless; saw again his mocking smile and smoldering dark eyes.

Ronin opened his eyes and strode down the alley. He seized the mortal by the scruff of his neck and lifted him up. Sank his fangs into the wounds left by Dante’s sharp teeth. Andy sobbed and kicked weakly. Ronin drank what remained of him down, savoring every hot spurt, every last drop.

With a squeeze of his hand, Ronin crushed what remained of Andy’s throat. He dropped the lifeless body and stretched as new blood coursed through his veins. He pulled from his hip pocket the T-shirt he’d bought from the street vendor and dropped it onto the cooling corpse. It draped across the mortal’s face.

Let the good times roll.

E SAT UP STRAIGHT when the yellow cab pulled to a stop at the plantation house’s gates. A black-clad, hooded figure slid out of the backseat, shut the door, and walked to the gates with a lithe, graceful motion E found arousing. Dante. And minus Tom-Tom. The cab drove away, taillights glowing red in the night.

E grinned. Things must not have gone according to plan for ol’ Tommy, then. E was pretty sure Ronin had said he’d come back with Dante, their friendship off to a solid beginning. E’s grin widened.

Gosh. Guess not.

Dante slipped through the partially opened gates and disappeared into the night-drenched yard. The only light illuminating the overgrown grounds was the pale yellow light spilling from several windows.

Touching the rim of his shades, E toggled from night-view to infrared. Bluish-silver light outlined Dante as he pushed open the front door and stepped inside the house.

E flipped the shades back to night-view. He drummed his fingers against the Jeep’s steering wheel. Why was it that he saw bluish-silver light around only Dante? The other bloodsuckers usually showed up yellow/orange or vibrant red, depending on how long since they’d fed. Ronin showed up gold and E had a feeling that had more to do with Tom-Tom’s age than anything else.

But Dante…that boy gleamed like the winter moon on snow—sparkling blue-silver edged with purple. Kinda funny, considering how damned hot he looked.

Even for a bloodsucker.

Pulling the keys from the ignition, E hopped out of the Jeep. Gravel crunched beneath his Nikes. Pocketing the keys, he leaned against the Jeep for a moment, scanning the quiet yard across the road.

Vampires. Whatta fucking revelation. When Ronin had showed up at his kill site in New York, E had stabbed him to death. But the bastard hadn’t dropped. Blood had spread across his fancy shirt in a deep red stain, then…

The bastard grins.

Something loosens inside E at the sight of those curving white fangs, something that curdles in his belly and freezes his thoughts. He catches a whiff of something rank, like maybe he’d stepped in dogshit somewhere along the line. But the heavy warmth in his drawers reveals the truth: E has crapped his pants. And then he’s attacking the grinning black bastard with his shivs again—

And finds himself sprawled on the floor, his shivs no longer in his hands, but in the vampire’s, whirling between his long fingers like sharpened shards of moonlight.

Yep. A revelation. Once E had calmed down and cleaned himself of his own stink, he and the vampire had a very long talk.

E shoved away from the Jeep and ambled toward the road. Vampires walk among us. Hell, they always have and, according to Tommy-boy, they always will. And they’ll keep feeding on us until the end of time. Amen.

E loped across the dark road. He edged up carefully to the black iron gate, then ghosted through, sidling along the stone wall to the back of the house. He stepped carefully, avoiding any fallen leaves, gravel paths, or old gnarled roots. His heart raced a little, excited. He loved night-crawling. He paused beside a twisted old oak, sliding his hand along the rough bark.

Ronin had explained to him just how special he truly was—something E had known all along, that he had a special purpose; he hadn’t been born just to mill among the sheep. He’d been born to cull them.

Hunching, E scurried across the untended yard to the nearest light-filled window, then squatted alongside it.

Tommy-boy had also told him that he’d been programmed; programmed, charted, graphed, and predicted, then turned loose.

E’s jaw clenched. Predicted? Programmed? Fuck, no! Tommy-boy had then offered him the opportunity to return to the one who’d been stupid enough to think she controlled him. The opportunity to stand before her, shivs in hand.

The opportunity to say, I’m home. Did you fucking foresee that?

Stretching up, E turned his head and looked in the window. Glowing blue light from a thin monitor shimmered upon the face of a figure reclining in a black leather chair, goggled eyes aimed at the ceiling. Information flashed across the monitor with mind-numbing speed. Metal-capped fingers flicked and danced through the air. Data blurred across the monitor. The figure’s waist-length dreads nearly brushed the floor, twisting like tentacles with his motion. A thin cable extended from the computer to the base of his skull, the jack hidden beneath his dreads.

Holy shit! Dante not only had a web-runner, he had a vampire web-runner. With his reflexes and—according to Tom-Tom, but E still wasn’t convinced—superior brain power, this bloodsucker could rule the fucking world. Or burn out computers at an astonishing rate. E voted for the latter.

The blonde vamp from the club slipped in through the partially opened door and crouched beside the web-runner’s chair. Her mini-skirt hugged her ass and black tights stretched along her legs. She touched the web-runner’s arm and spoke, her words indistinct, although E could hear enough to know she spoke in French or Cajun or some goddamned thing. The only thing he heard clearly was the web-runner’s name: Trey.

Trey continued to ignore the blonde, his fingers flickering through the air. Exasperation highlighted the blonde’s face.

E pulled away from the window, then dropped down to the grass on his belly. Pretty stupid of ol’ Trey to ignore such a hot chick. With her lovely, pale face and slender curves, she was a shiny in a world of dull. He collected shinies. Gina was shiny. Or had been. E pressed his hot face into the night-dewed grass, his heart pounding against his ribs so hard he half expected worms to vibrate up out of the soil.

With the scent of wild mint and wet grass in his nostrils, E bellied through the grass toward the next patch of yellow light, hoping to catch a glimpse of the single human in a houseful of bloodsuckers—his lovely Heather, the brightest of the sheep.

Tucking up against the house again, his back against the wood, E stretched up and peeked in the window. And lo, there she was, sitting at a kitchen table, hands wrapped around a coffee mug, gaze lost in the coffee’s depths. Her red hair coiled past her shoulders. Her skin seemed almost luminous in the dim light, her lips flushed with deep color. Her violet sweater clung to her curves and her fitted black slacks revealed her trim, athletic figure.

E touched a finger to the window for a split second, then pulled it away. Was she thinking of him? Did he haunt her dreams? Did he lurk faceless in the ragged edges of nightmare, shivs gleaming? Did he make her pulse race?

Did she, like E, hope the chase would never end?

The kitchen door swung open and Dante stepped into the kitchen. Heather lifted her head and looked at him. He paused for a moment, meeting her gaze. She said something, her voice a low murmur. He answered, his voice also low and indistinct, then opened a cupboard and pulled down a black mug. As he poured coffee into it, Heather leaned forward against the table, speaking to him in an urgent but level voice.

Dante set the coffeepot back on its hot plate, then stood still, his head cocked as though listening.

E couldn’t make out everything Heather said, but he did catch the words “danger,” “stalked,” and “serial killer.” Proof that she was, indeed, thinking of him; a fact that would normally slather a sloppy grin across his face.

But not this time. E ducked down from the window, plastering himself against the house. His heart banged away in a frantic, disjointed rhythm. An image seared itself into his mind, an image that scorched and blackened his self-control:

Heather looks up, her gaze sliding the length of the fucking bloodsucker’s lean, hard body, lingering for a long moment on his pale face. A smile curves her lips. She seems lit from within, vibrant, alive—then she composes her face, dims the light, and becomes Ms. FBI again.

Heather had fucking fallen for a goddamned bloodsucker.

E’s muscles tightened. His knuckles rapped against his thighs. He stared into the night. A shadow suddenly divided the puddle of light on the grass, and E held his breath.

He just knew Dante stood at the window. Knew that he’d sensed something raging outside, right under his fucking nose.

The shadow vanished.

E sprang to his feet and ran. Thighs pumping. Breath burning. Adrenaline flooding. Heart hammering. The stone wall jittered closer with every step across the dew-slick grass.

Then a tree stepped into his path and E slammed into it. Pain grated his consciousness like cheese. The world whirled. His vision grayed. His legs, suddenly boneless, dumped him onto the ground. Nausea clutched his belly.

A deep voice rumbled, “He knew you’d spotted him.” Ah. The big guy. Also the unexpected tree.

“I felt him,” said a low voice—Dante. “I didn’t see him.”

From further away, Heather’s voice, sharp and clear and protective. “Get away from him,” she called. “He might be armed.”

“Peeping Tom’s assistant,” Dante murmured. “So this is how he spends his evenings off. Figures.”

Fingers brushed over his face. Little electric bursts sparked beneath his skin; sizzled blue and cool along his spine. The world whirled even faster. His vision darkened.

Hands patted him down—De Noir’s, he thought. Fingers plucked. Once. Twice. Three times. Nah, nah. Didn’t find ’em all.

“Are knives required equipment for a journalist’s assistant?” De Noir rumbled.

“Depends on the journalist,” Dante said.

The cheese-grating-world-spinning-nausea-lurching-head-aching suddenly torqued. E spun off the world into a starless void.

11

A Breathing
Connection

LUCIEN DUMPED THE UNCONSCIOUS assistant onto the sofa in the front room. A huge purple and blue lump had knotted up on the man’s forehead. Dante knelt beside the sofa and searched through the man’s pockets, his hands sure and fast.

Done this before, Heather mused. Looks like more than once.

Dante tossed a small ring of keys to the floor, along with a cell phone, several coins, and a tinfoil-wrapped stick of gum. Another sharp knife tunked onto the pile.

De Noir sucked in his breath. Heather glanced at him. He shook his head, jaw tight, clearly angry that he’d missed the weapon.

When she returned her attention to Dante, he held a slim black wallet in his hand. Flipping it open, he pulled up several credit spikes and a few bills.

“Elroy Jordan,” Dante said. “According to his ID, anyway.”

“Where from?” Heather said, kneeling beside him to read over his shoulder.

“New York.”

Dante scooped up the assistant’s cell phone. “Let’s see who Elroy spoke to last,” he said, punching the redial button.

Heather scanned Jordan’s photo. Thinning hair, loopy grin—classic DMV shot.

Dante held up a finger, then a grin lit his face. “If it ain’t Peeping Tom,” he said into the cell. “I met your assistant, Elroy the Perv.” Dante listened a moment, his grin widening.

Heather stared at his fangs, which she told herself had to be implants. Didn’t they?

“I don’t think so,” Dante said, grin vanishing. “He’s a little unconscious right now. Since he had the night off, he must be a voyeur on his own time, huh?”

Dante listened again, running a hand through his hair. He glanced at Heather and smiled. Then he laughed, a low, smooth sound full of dark humor.

“Don’t worry. I’ll turn him loose when he wakes up.” Dante thumbed the end button. He tossed the cell back onto Jordan’s pile of stuff.

“What’s the journalist’s name?” Heather asked.

“Ronin. Thomas Ronin.”

Heather stared at Dante. “Ronin? That bastard’s here?”

“Apparently you weren’t impressed by his cool black business card either,” Dante said, a smile tugging up one corner of his mouth. “What gives?”

“He turns up at crime scenes before we even have a chance to process them,” Heather said, voice hard. “He takes pictures of the victims and sells them to tabloid rags or Internet death-porn sites. He’s a good writer, I’ll give him that, but he’s always accusing the police and the Bureau of being incompetent. Or worse, claiming that we plant evidence and arrest the innocent. His articles always end with him knowing who the ‘real’ killer is.”

Heather stood, brushing off the knees of her slacks. “Where’d you run into him?”

“On the street,” Dante said, easing to his feet with a fluid, unconscious grace. “Said he wanted to interview me.”

He slipped the driver’s license from the wallet and tucked it into his back pocket. He tossed the wallet onto the pile of stuff on the floor.

“You didn’t agree to that, did you?” Heather asked.

“Fuck, no,” Dante snorted. Striding across the room, he pushed open the kitchen door and stepped inside.

Heather sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. Great. Insult the man.

A small crowd had gathered around them in the front room. Silver sprawled in the easy chair beside the sofa, his legs draped over the arm of the chair. Simone stood near the hall entrance beside a man with waist-length dreads, goggles pushed on top of his head. Simone nodded at Heather. “My brother, Trey,” she said touching his arm.

“Trey,” Heather murmured.

“Would someone be willing to keep an eye on this creep while I talk to Dante?” Her gaze skipped from Simone to De Noir.

“I will,” De Noir said. “Just keep it short, Agent Wallace.”

“Let me know the instant this guy comes to,” Heather said. She walked from the room.

Dante sat at the kitchen table, coffee mug and a bottle of brandy in front of him.

“Look,” Heather said. “I know you don’t give a lot of interviews to the music mags and I didn’t mean to question your integrity, I—”

“Forget it,” Dante said, shrugging. “I have.”

Heather sat at the table across from him. Steam curled up from her cup and she suspected that Dante might’ve reheated her coffee in the microwave. She smiled.

“So…you said that I’m being stalked by a…serial killer?” Dante splashed brandy into his coffee cup. He glanced at Heather and lifted the bottle.

She shook her head. “I believe so. Somewhere along the line he fixated on you. Maybe he’s a fan.”

Heather took a sip of the cream-and-sugared chicory coffee. She studied Dante as he stirred brandy into his mug, noting the tension in his shoulders. He seemed very aware that she was watching him and his expression was guarded.

“Did you know Daniel Spurrell?” she asked. “The victim from the pizza parlor’s courtyard,” she clarified when Dante frowned.

“That his name? Daniel?” Dante shook his head. “I’d seen him at the club and he’d talked to me about Inferno’s last album, but I didn’t know him.”

“How long had you known Gina?”

Dante looked away. His fingers squeezed the coffee cup. “Had known? I can’t get used to thinking of her in past tense.”

“I know this is difficult, but I have to ask.”

Trailing his fingers through his hair, Dante leaned back in his chair, tipping it. “We’d been hanging out for…oh…maybe six months or so.” He glanced up. “I suck at dates and times. Always have.”

“So…you and Gina were an item? A couple?”

Dante took a long swallow of the brandy-laced coffee. “No. We were friends. She has…had—fuck!—a boyfriend.”

“Does the phrase ‘Wake Up S’ mean anything to you?”

Dante’s muscles tensed and his hands locked around his cup. He shut his eyes. “No,” he whispered.

Heather set her coffee cup on the table. She hated this part, poking and prodding the grief, stirring up the pain. She knew just how much it hurt when you realized a loved one had been murdered. Hadn’t died in their sleep or even in a tragic car accident. They’d been murdered, their life deliberately stolen, and they were never, ever coming back.

Just like her mother.

She reached across the table for Dante’s hand. He glanced up and she froze, her breath caught in her throat. She felt drawn into his dark eyes like blood into a needle. Heart fluttering hummingbird fast, Heather wrenched her gaze away and pulled her hand back to her coffee cup, wrapped her shaking fingers around it.

What was it about him? He was gorgeous, sure, but she was no schoolgirl; in fact, she was pretty sure she was a handful of years older than him. Why the hell did he leave her tongue-tied and flustered?

Heather reached for the brandy. Dante handed it to her. His fingers brushed against hers and an electric tingle zipped from Heather’s hand to her belly. She nearly dropped the bottle.

“You mentioned that Gina had a boyfriend,” Heather said, carefully pouring a little brandy into her coffee. “Do you think he…what’s his name?…could’ve—”

“Fuck, no! Jay loves…loved her.”

Heather looked up from her cup and set the bottle of brandy down on the table. Dante’s expression remained guarded and his body language—averted gaze, white-knuckled grip on his mug—revealed his tension.

Softening her voice, Heather continued, “Maybe out of jealousy? You were spending time with his girlfriend.”

“Nothing to be jealous of.” Dante met Heather’s gaze. “He was always included.”

“In everything?”

“Everything. Yeah.”

Scooting back his chair, Dante stood. He walked to the counter, gripped the edge.

Heather swiveled in her chair. “Where can I find Jay? What’s his last name?”

“As far as I know Jay’s missing,” Dante said. He turned around, his back to the counter, arms crossed over his chest. “He left with Gina last night. I plan to look for him. As soon as we’re done here.”

“He left with her? How do you know he’s not dead? Or even the killer? Do you need me to spell this out for you?” Heather said, finger stabbing the table for emphasis. “A killer is studying you. He knows who is close to you. Give me Jay’s last name.”

Dante held her gaze, but said nothing. Heather sighed. Good-looking, sexy, but pigheaded. “You can’t go looking for him. Let me help. I can get cops—”

“Fuck the cops.”

“I’ve tracked this psycho for three years,” she said, voice low, “and you’re my only breathing connection to him.”

Dante stepped beside the table. He reached for the brandy. As his fingers wrapped around the brandy bottle’s neck, Heather locked a hand around his wrist. His skin was velvet-smooth and warm. “I want to keep you that way,” she said. “So you’re stuck with me for the time being.”

Dante looked at her, his face less guarded, his eyes thoughtful, serious.

“You trusted me at the club this morning,” she said. “What’s different now?”

Dante gently pulled free of her hold. Bottle in hand, he leaned against the counter. Light sparked from the hoops in his ears. “Shit, I don’t know. Everything. Nothing. What do I call you, anyway? Special Agent Wallace? Lady Law? Mistress? What?”

Scooting her chair back on the linoleum, Heather stood and joined him at the counter, hands braced behind her. “I have a feeling you’re not half the asshole you pretend to be.”

A brief smile touched Dante’s lips. “How accurate are your feelings?” He took another quick drink from the brandy bottle.

“Good enough,” Heather replied. “Let’s do first names, since that’s the only name I have for you. Mine’s Heather.”

“Fair enough. Heather.”

“You know, I can’t find any legal surname for you,” she said, holding Dante’s gaze. “Just one tacked on from your foster family in Lafayette—Prejean. Daniel Spurrell was from Lafayette, too.”

Dante remained silent, expression wary, muscles tight.

“You have a local rap sheet,” Heather continued. She knew she was pushing him, but maybe the reason for the messages rested in Dante’s unrecorded past. “Aside from a sealed juvenile record, I can’t find anything on you—no driver’s license, no social security number, no credit history—nothing. Why is that?”

Dante winced and touched a hand to his temple. Sweat suddenly beaded his forehead. Heather touched his shoulder, alarmed. Another migraine? Triggered by her questions? How was that possible?

“Hey. You okay?”

Dante stumbled away from her, then leaned against the refrigerator, his body tensed, almost shaking with strain. “If your psycho wants me,” he said, voice ragged, “let him have me.”

“Are you nuts?” Heather stepped toward him. “You need to be placed in protective custody.”

“Fuck that. Bait the hook, okay? Bait the hook. I’m night-kind, remember?”

The bottle of brandy slipped from Dante’s fingers and shattered on the floor. Amber liquid sprayed the cabinets and Heather’s feet. Dante dropped to his knees, one hand still at his temple, the other braced against the refrigerator. Racing around in front of him, Heather knelt and grabbed his shoulders. Blood trickled from his nose. His eyes rolled up white.

The kitchen door whanged open, hitting the wall and punching a hole in the plaster as De Noir flew into the room.

Dante slumped in Heather’s grasp, head lolling. She sat down hard on the linoleum, holding him tight, her pulse roaring in her ears. Blood streamed from his nose and spattered on her arms, her hands, her trousers.

De Noir reached for Dante, something close to fear on his face.

12

An Unremembered Past

DANTE IN HIS ARMS , De Noir walked with innate grace across the darkened bedroom, stepping around and over the CD cases, clothes and books cluttering the floor. The bed, a futon, was unmade and rumpled, the bedding and sheets all black—or maybe dark blue, Heather thought, following De Noir into the room.

He knelt beside the bed and eased Dante onto the sheets, then tipped Dante’s head back against the pillows and wiped at the blood trickling from his nose with a dish towel he’d scooped up in the kitchen. Moonlight softened De Noir’s angular features, changed his grim expression to one of sorrow.

Heather tilted her head, studying De Noir as he tended to Dante, watched his large hand skim delicately against Dante’s hair, brushing it back from his face. What was it between them?

“Is he going to be all right?” she asked. “Does he have medication for his headaches? A doctor?”

“All he needs is rest,” De Noir said.

“Didcha ask him about his past?” a voice said from the doorway. “That’s usually when he gets ’em real bad like this.”

Heather glanced over at Silver. He leaned in the doorway, one foot braced on the threshold behind him, his silver eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

“I only asked a few basic questions,” Heather said.

“Dante was raised by the State of Louisiana, Agent Wallace,” De Noir murmured. He held out the bloodied dish towel.

“Yeah, yeah,” Silver muttered. Uncoiling from the doorway, he slouched into the room and took the dish towel. Then he was gone.

Heather blinked, startled. Superhuman speed seemed to be a common thing in this household. Taking a deep breath, she refocused on De Noir.

“Yes, I know,” she said. “He was raised in a foster home by the Prejeans.”

Lucien shook his head. “That was only the last one. He was shuffled from foster home to foster home for years.”

Heather went still. De Noir had just given her information that hadn’t been in Dante’s file. Why had only the last foster home been listed?

“The past is something Dante does not remember well,” De Noir said quietly. “And perhaps it’s best that way.” He held out his hand.

A cool rush of air blew past Heather, fluttering her hair. Silver appeared in front of her and placed the dampened dish towel in De Noir’s waiting hand. With a quick, sharp-toothed grin, the boy disappeared again.

“Maybe he needs to remember,” Heather said. “Maybe that’s what causes the migraines.”

“No,” De Noir whispered. He daubed at the slowing trickle of blood beneath Dante’s nose with the damp towel. “No.”

A sudden pang of sympathy sliced through Heather’s weariness and she realized in that moment that De Noir loved Dante, and that it was regret that shadowed his face and roughened his voice.

Regret. For what? An unremembered past that needed to remain unremembered? No matter the cost?

“Dante told me he was a vampire,” she said.

De Noir closed his eyes. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Do you believe vampires exist, Agent Wallace?”

“No. But I’ve got a feeling Dante does.”

De Noir’s eyes opened. Gold light flecked his eyes. “Indeed,” he murmured. He unbuckled Dante’s boots, then tugged them off his feet. Each hit the floor with a dull thud.

“He thinks he’s invulnerable and that’s gonna get him killed,” Heather said, crossing to the futon.

De Noir said nothing. The hand at Dante’s temple trailed back through his tousled black hair, then away. De Noir unfolded from the floor and stood.

“I won’t let that happen,” De Noir said. He turned away from her.

She stared at him, stunned by his dismissive attitude. Stepping forward, she seized De Noir’s forearm. It felt hard and cool as marble beneath her fingers. But fire flared within her, tightening her muscles.

“There’s a man out there who wants…who’s looking forward to torturing him,” she said, voice low and hard. “Rape. Mutilate. Kill. It’s not a thing you can control. You don’t have a say in it.” She released his arm.

De Noir stood still for a long moment, tendrils of his long hair snaking into the air. Barely visible blue light sparked around his body. Heather’s skin tingled. The sharp smell of ozone cut through the air. Dante stirred on the futon, suddenly restless, pale face troubled. Silver straightened in the doorway, gleaming eyes wary.

Then, like a sudden clap of thunder or an implosion sucking all the air from the room, it was gone. No blue light. No snaky hair. Just a tall man standing motionless beside a bed. Étienne’s voice whispered through Heather’s memory: Fallen.

“I won’t let it happen,” De Noir said again. Bending, he pulled the blankets up over Dante, then sat on the futon’s edge. He touched a hand to Dante’s temple.

“Good night, Agent Wallace,” De Noir rumbled.

Heather stalked from the room, brushing past Silver, her body as tight as her fists. She’d told Dante she’d stick with him. She meant it. De Noir could cram his good night up his ass. She trotted down the stairs, one hand gliding along the polished wood banister.

When Heather walked into the front room, Simone looked up from the easy chair, a book in her lap. Jordan was still sprawled on the sofa, one hand dangling on the floor, his mouth slightly open.

“Thank you for keeping an eye on him,” Heather said.

Simone closed her book, then stood. “I’ve been looking for time to read,” she said with a shrug. “How’s Dante?”

Heather shook her head. “He’s out cold, but at least the nose-bleed stopped. De Noir seems to think all he needs is rest.”

“Ah,” Simone breathed. Concern tightened her face. “It’s not rest he needs,” she murmured. She walked toward the hall.

“How long have you known Dante?” Heather asked.

“Three, four years.”

“Are his headaches getting worse?”

Simone paused at the threshold. “Oui. Why do you ask?” She glanced over her shoulder, her face watchful and closed.

“He needs help—”

“We will help him,” Simone said. “You can’t. He told you true, m’selle. He’s nightkind.” Simone walked from the room.

Sighing, Heather sank into the chair opposite the sofa and buried her face in her hands. They were all mad. Delusional.

Or they were all vampires. How would she even write that up on a report?

The subject refuses to submit to protective custody because he’s a vampire. When I informed the subject that serial killers are quite capable of pounding a stake through his heart, he laughed. “Bait the hook,” he said.

Heather’s hands dropped from her face. She stared at the floor, pulse racing. Bait the hook. Vampire or not—and she wasn’t ready to admit to anything but the possibility—would it work? After three years, could she lure the bastard in? Reel him in and net him? If it worked…

And if it didn’t work? If her perp wiggled through the net with Dante in his jaws? She rose to her feet and headed for the kitchen. She pushed the door open, then paused, her gaze on the brandy-and-blood spattered floor. Dante’s strained voice curled through her memory: Let him have me.

What if her bad guy believed Dante was a vampire?

Most of Inferno’s fan sites seemed to adhere to that belief. Interviewers asked and Dante walked away, the question unanswered.

Wake up. Wake up S.

What did he want Dante to wake up to? And what was S—the first letter of Dante’s true surname? Did he think it time Dante lived up to his vampiric reputation? Did he want the answer the interviewers never received?

Edging around the blood stains out of habit, Heather hurried to the table and her purse. She pulled out her cell phone. As she returned to the living room, she flipped the cell open. No bars. And her charger was at the hotel. Maybe someone here had a charger she could use—

Her gaze fell on the snoozing Jordan’s cell phone on the floor beside his wallet. Crossing to it, she bent and scooped the cell phone up. Four bars. She plopped back into the chair and tapped in Collins’s number.

Collins picked up on the second ring. “Collins,” he said, voice curt. “Who’s this?” Heather realized that his phone would’ve IDed the incoming call as Elroy Jordan.

“Collins, it’s Wallace. I had to borrow a phone.”

“Goddamn, Wallace,” he replied, relief evident in his voice. “I’ve been trying to reach you—”

“Listen,” Heather bulldozed right over the detective’s words, eager to share her discoveries. “I found Dante Prejean and I’m staying close to him in case our perp puts in an appearance.”

“But—”

“No, listen, did you go to Lafayette and talk to the Prejeans—get some history on Dante? Did the Prejeans and the Spurrells ever come into contact with each other?”

“Didn’t need to,” Collins said. “Our perp won’t be targeting anyone ever again.”

“What?” Heather sat up straight.

“I take it you haven’t talked to your supervisor,” Collins said. “The bastard was nailed in Pensacola.”

“Pensacola?” Heather repeated. “That’s impossible. He’s here. At least he was this morning when he murdered—”

“Traveling man, Wallace,” Collins said. “That’s why he was called the Cross-Country Killer, right?”

“Right, right. You said he’d been nailed. Do you mean as in dead?”

“Yeah. Another agent happened to catch him in the act.” Collins paused a moment, paper rustled in the background. “Victim didn’t make it, though.”

“Was there another message?”

More paper rustling. “No, but he never finished, ya know?”

Dead. And in Florida. How could she have been so wrong? Her thoughts spun—Lafayette, anarchy, Club Hell, Dante—all of the connections felt true.

“Are they positive it’s him? I mean, they wouldn’t have the all the lab work back yet and—”

“I’m flying to Pensacola in the morning,” Collins said. “I figured you’d want to go too, so I reserved a seat for you.”

Heather smiled. “Good man,” she murmured. “I’ll meet you at the airport. What time?”

“Eight in the a.m., sunshine,” Collins said. “See you there.” He ended the call.

Heather thumbed the cell off, then switched it back on. Punching in more numbers, she called Stearns. No answer. Just voice mail. Maybe the damned caller ID had screwed her again. “It’s Wallace, sir,” she said after the beep. “I’m heading to Pensacola in the morning to check out the dead suspect and look over their evidence. I’ll be in touch soon after.”

Heather slumped down in the chair, placing the cell on the armrest. She ran a hand through her hair. She wanted to tell Dante the turn of events. She also wanted to have a little chat with Mr. Jordan about the dangers of window-peeping for prime tabloid shots.

She closed her eyes. Weariness weighed her down like concrete overshoes. Pensacola. After murdering Gina shortly before dawn? Killing another woman the same day?

Jack the Ripper had done two in one night—a double event—not even an hour apart. Jack had never been caught—at least officially.

She strongly suspected that the Cross-Country Killer hadn’t been caught either. Officially or otherwise.

Heather sank into a black ocean, her concrete overshoes dragging her to the bottom. Somewhere in the darkness, Leigh Stanz sang, his husky voice rippling beneath the waves.

I long to drift like an empty boat on a calm sea / I don’t need light / I don’t fear darkness…

You should, Heather thought, sinking and sinking and sinking—

She staggers along the highway’s edge, thumb out, peering into the darkness. Her car won’t start and she’s left it in the tavern parking lot. She really has to get home. She only stopped in for a few drinks while out on errands. The kids were at soccer practice or guitar lessons or Scouts and she had a few moments to herself.

The next thing she knows, it’s dark and the moon’s high in the sky. Her new friends try to talk her into staying and, for a moment, she considers it. But she pulls free of her friends’ beseeching hands and escapes into the chilly October night. She can’t find her cell phone. Did she leave it at work? In the tavern?

She abandons the car and decides to thumb a ride home. She stumbles, her heel catching on the asphalt’s ragged edge. She giggles. Good thing she isn’t driving. Point in her favor. She licks the tip of a finger and strokes an imaginary line in the air. Sliding off her shoe, she peers at the heel.

Headlights pierce the night. She sticks out her shoe instead of her thumb, cocking her weight onto one hip and smiling. The car pulls over, tires crunching on gravel, the muffler streaming a plume of exhaust, the heady smell of gasoline in the air.

She wobbles as she tries to put her shoe back on. She hops backward before sprawling onto her ass. She throws her head back and laughs. Good thing she isn’t walking the line for a cop. Another point in her favor. She draws another imaginary line in the air. Slipping off her other shoe, she climbs to her feet, stumbling only a little. She’s brushing the dirt off her hind end when the driver’s door opens.

A man slips out of the purring car. Something gleams in his hand.

Dante stood in the doorway, hands braced against either side of the threshold. Wallace—Heather—slept slumped in the easy chair, her head turned to the left. Her red hair tumbled across her cheek, edged her half-parted lips. Her breathing was slow and easy. Candlelight flickered orange and gold across her face.

Beautiful, he thought. Easy to forget she was a cop.

He padded barefoot into the front room. Scooping a folded blanket up from the back of the empty sofa, he shook it out, then spread it over her. His bracelets clinked against each other with the movement, but she didn’t stir.

Dante sat cross-legged in front of the chair. She’d stood up for him—in front of other cops. Had even tackled the chicken-shit bastard with the gun. Why would she stand up for me? What gives? He breathed in her fresh rain scent, detecting a hint of lilac and sage laced beneath. He listened to the deep, steady beat of her heart.

Asleep, she looked even younger than the twenty-eight or thirty years he pegged her at. Asleep, curled and warm, she wasn’t a cop or an FBI agent, but a woman with heart; a woman with steel for a spine. A woman, so far, true to her word.

Trust me. I’m asking you to trust me.

How many times had he heard those words? Spoken by mortals and nightkind alike, the words empty, void: Trust me.

But not with Heather. He’d looked into her and she’d met his gaze, her own open and steady, hiding nothing. For a moment, as he’d looked into her blue eyes, the voices raging inside had hushed.

And so he’d put his hands behind his back and let her handcuff him.

The ceiling creaked. Lucien stirred on his rooftop perch, watching the night. Listening to a rhythm that Dante heard at times, felt it pulsing in sync with the blood in his veins.

Heather shifted in the chair, a slight frown on her lips. Her heart rate picked up speed. Bad dream? Rising to his knees, Dante leaned in and brushed her hair back from her face. Adrenaline spiked her scent. Her brows drew together, face troubled, maybe scared. Beads of sweat sprang up along her hairline.

“Heather.” Dante gently shook her shoulder. “Heather, wake up.”

She jerked awake, eyes wide. She sat bolt upright, knocking Dante’s hand aside, the blanket sliding from her lap and puddling on the floor. She brought up both hands together as though she held her gun.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Don’t get in the car….”

“Hey,” Dante said. “It’s okay.”

At the sound of his voice, Heather shuddered, then leaned forward, elbows to knees, head to hands. She drew in a long breath. The frantic pounding of her heart gradually slowed.

After a moment, she lowered her hands. Her face was night-kind-white, her eyes dilated and rimmed with brilliant blue.

“T’est blême comme un mort.” Dante said. “Nightmare?”

Heather glanced at him. Her heart double-thumped. Her breath caught in her throat. Dante tensed, his fingers curving in toward his palms. He almost looked away, not wanting to see the frustrating mix of adoration, lust, and wonder that lit the eyes of most who looked at him. But she held his gaze, her heart calming, her breathing evening out. She looked in.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Nightmare.”

“I know about nightmares.”

Heather tilted her head and looked at him intently. “I bet you do,” she said. “How’s your head?” She touched a finger to her own temple.

“I’m good,” he murmured, shrugging.

Heather glanced about the room, her gaze stopping at the sofa. “Where is he?” she said, jumping to her feet.

“Peeping Tom’s perv assistant?” Dante asked, looking up at her. She nodded. “He was gone when I came downstairs.”

“So are his things,” she said. “The stuff you took from his pockets.”

Heather searched the chair she’d been sleeping in, sliding her hands between the cushion and the chair, kneeling to look underneath. “So’s his cell phone,” she said, pushing her hair back from her face. Color flushed her cheeks. “I had it on the arm of the chair.”

Dante caught her meaning. “So he stood over you while you slept.”

Lips pressed together, Heather nodded. Frustration and renewed weariness tightened her face. “I was going to recommend that he find a less sleazy boss, but…”

“Bon à rien, both of ’em,” Dante said, standing. “A perfect match.”

Heather smiled, then it faded from her lips. Her mind was unshielded, wide open, and he could go in and snag every single thought—if he wanted.

But if someone were to go into his mind unwelcomed—force their way in or seduce their way in—and take what they wanted…he tensed. He had no desire to look into Heather’s unguarded mind.

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “Can we go somewhere private?”

Dante nodded. “Sure.”

“Looks like you’re recovering from that cooperation problem.”

He snorted. “Keep thinking that.”

She smiled again.

Dante led Heather out of the front room and down the hall to his studio. Just as he opened the door, Trey rushed out of the web room, goggles swinging from his hand. He stopped in front of Dante, reeking of adrenaline.

Sudden fear spiked into Dante when he saw the look on Trey’s face.

“Bad news, mon ami,” Trey said, his voice even more Cajun-spiced than his sister’s. “They pulled Jay from the river. Throat slit.”

Dante leaned against the wall, stunned. “Fuck,” he whispered.

“That’s not all,” Trey said. He hesitated, his gaze on Dante, his mind fluttering against Dante’s shields.

“I’m okay,” Dante said.

Trey nodded, but he looked unhappy. He swallowed. “The cops think you’re good for both murders.”

HEATHER STEPPED BACK WHEN Dante, dark eyes blazing, whirled and punched his fist through the wall. Plaster and dry-wall tumbled to the floor in chunks and ragged pieces.

“Did you hack into the NOPD’s system?” she asked Trey.

He shrugged, then nodded. “Oui.”

Like she’d been conjured, Simone suddenly appeared beside her brother, her troubled gaze on Dante. Above them all, the ceiling creaked and groaned, then fell silent. Heather heard what sounded like the powerful rush of wings. Very large wings.

She looked at Dante. He stood motionless, every muscle taut, his fist still inside the hole he’d punched, his other hand braced against the wall. Head bowed, face veiled by his black hair, he seemed to vibrate with rage.

“I’m sorry about Jay.” Heather touched his shoulder. “They’ve got nothing. You didn’t do it. And they know it. That’s what I want to talk to you about.”

A blizzard of plaster fell to the floor when Dante pulled his fist free of the wall. Lifting his head and tossing back his hair, he looked at her. Fury and anguish mingled within his dark eyes. His muscles flexed beneath her fingers. She stared into his eyes, unable to look away, drawn in and sucked down, caught in a whirlpool of emotion.

Dante looked into her, his dark gleaming gaze as warm as a wanted caress. Releasing him, she looked down, face burning.

“Then talk to me,” he said.

The front door opened, then clicked shut. De Noir. “Alone,” Heather said, stepping into the room he’d led her to. Dante followed, closing the door behind him.

Heather’s gaze skipped around the room—studio, she amended. Several different keyboards, a synthesizer, a mixing board, amps, computer, and monitor crowded the space. A black guitar was propped in one corner. A half-empty bottle of French absinthe stood on the computer table surrounded by headphones, scattered papers, and lyric sheets.

Her gaze fixed on the opposite wall. Spray-painted on the wall in the color of dried blood was the anarchy symbol.

The image of the symbol scorched into Daniel Spurrell’s flesh flared to life in Heather’s mind. The killer—whether it was the CCK or not—was trying to prove that he and Dante were kindred souls sharing the same beliefs. But instead of painting the symbol on walls, buildings or squad cars, the killer etched it into unwilling flesh.

Gina’s murder was meant as a slap in the face to Dante. A challenge. Look how far I’m willing to go. Can you top this? Have you got the guts to live up to that symbol? If the killer now felt superior to Dante, if he felt like he was in control, then it meant he’d also feel comfortable enough—strong enough—to claim Dante and make him his own.

But, if he was dead…then, no threat. Wrenching her gaze away from the wall, Heather glanced at her watch. 4:34 a.m. Pushing her hair back from her face, she turned to face Dante.

“I found out a few hours ago that our suspect’s been killed in Pensacola,” she said. “I don’t understand it, but—”

“You don’t think it’s him, do you?”

“I’m on my way to Florida to find out.”

Dante stepped past Heather, his body brushing against hers. “You don’t know what he looks like,” Dante said, picking up a pair of shades from the computer console. He slid them on. “How will—”

“I’ve studied his…work…for three years,” she said. “I’ll know.”

Dante stepped closer. “Is that what you dream of?”

Caught off guard, Heather looked away. Too close. Way too close. Lifting her head, she met Dante’s shaded gaze. “What does that anarchy symbol mean to you?”

Dante shrugged. “Besides a general ‘fuck you’ to society?”

Heather shook her head. “You can do better than that.”

Dante lifted his shades. Streaks of red slashed his dark irises. His gaze, intense, direct, and dead serious, locked with hers. “Okay then. Rage. Firestorm. Truth.”

“Truth?”

“Yeah. Freedom is the result of rage.”

Heather stared at him, throat tight. Spoken like a true survivor of any state-run foster home system. Spoken with intelligence and conviction. And that planted a seed of doubt in her belly.

What had created that rage? Fueled it?

Dante lowered the shades back over his eyes. “So now what?”

She sighed, trailing a hand through her hair. “I want you to play it safe until you hear from me.”

A smile quirked up one corner of Dante’s mouth. “That’d be a first.”

“Try,” Heather said. “I’d like you to keep breathing.” Her gaze shifted to the anarchy symbol behind him. For one heartbeat, he was a part of the symbol—a sharp black dagger piercing the heart of chaos, night-wrapped and unpredictable.

No way the killer would’ve left New Orleans without Dante dead or beside him. Whoever lay on that tray in the Pensacola morgue wasn’t her perp. But she had to be sure. Collins would be expecting her at the airport and she still had to stop at her hotel.

“Walk with me,” she said, turning and opening the studio door.

She felt Dante behind her in the hall; his silence unnerved her, even with bare feet and carpet, he should’ve made some sound.

“What happens if it ain’t your guy in Pensacola?”

“Then I’ll be back.”

HEATHER UNLOCKED THE SUBARU, then slid inside. Starting the engine, she turned the defroster and heater up to high. Dante stood beside the open driver’s side window, barefoot in the late-February chill, sunglasses perched on top his head.

He’s got to be cold. Heather thought. I know I’d be freezing.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know something,” she said.

Dante bent down and held out a piece of paper. Heather took it, pulling it free from between his fingers. She glanced at it. Phone numbers. Written with a lefty’s slant; one marked CLUB, one marked HOME. She looked up at him.

Arms folded over his chest, Dante shrugged. “In case,” he said. His gaze skipped past her. “That’s my jacket.”

“Huh?” Heather shifted in her seat and glanced in the direction he was looking. Dante’s leather jacket was crumpled in the passenger seat. “Oh! Yes.” She picked up the jacket, then passed it through the window to Dante. “I’ve been holding it since you were arrested.”

Dante shrugged on the jacket. Metal jingled. “Merci,” he said. “Did you go through the pockets?”

Heather smiled. “What do you think?”

“I think…” He paused and looked at her for a moment. “Yeah. I know I would.”

Heather’s smile widened. “You seem pretty experienced in rifling pockets.”

He grinned, and Heather caught a flash of slender, curving canines. He was either delusional or undead, so why did he make her feel like a teenager swooning over her first sullen and leather-jacketed bad boy?

“Look, when this is over…”

“Yeah?” Dante leaned in even closer. Faint green light from the dash streaked the steel ring on his bondage collar.

She could smell him, crisp autumn leaves and dark earth—a warm bed, the scent of sex. Her cheeks burned as heat fluttered through her belly. “Uh…I’ll call you as soon as I know anything.” Forcing a smile onto her lips, she rolled up the window.

He straightened, then backed up a pace as she stepped on the gas.

She followed the curving driveway carefully, passing the van and the MG. The Harley was gone. I was going to ask if I could see him again. So much for objectivity. So much for professionalism. She glanced into the rearview mirror. Dante still stood in the driveway, watching as she drove away. A breeze blew strands of hair across his night-shadowed face.

A figure suddenly appeared beside Dante. Heather hit the brakes. The Subaru screeched to a stop. The red glow from her taillights wasn’t enough to see well by, and she was on the verge of throwing the car into reverse or stepping out and drawing her .38, when Dante slipped his arm around the other figure’s shoulders.

A cloud drifted free of the moon. Southern-winter moonlight frosted the trees, the iron gates, the looming mansion, and Silver’s gel-spiked hair and shining silver eyes. Moonlight gilded the boy’s smile. He snugged an arm around Dante’s waist.

Releasing her breath, Heather wrenched her gaze away from the rearview. Too much adrenaline and too little sleep had left her feeling shaky and weak-limbed. She stepped on the gas and drove through the opened gates.

Maybe she’d baited the hook simply by leaving.

In that bleak moment, she truly wished Dante was a vampire.

Maybe then he’d have a chance of surviving if the killer took the bait.

13

Keepsakes

RONIN UNLOCKED THE PADLOCK looped through the metal door’s hasp. The door screeched when he yanked it open, the sound reverberating through the empty warehouse. He flicked on the light switch beside the door and stepped inside.

Huddled on the cot, arms wrapped around his legs, the shivering youth looked up, blinking in the sudden harsh light. The fluorescent overheads buzzed, marring the silence. At the sight of Ronin, the youth scooted into the corner, his back to the wall.

Smiling, Ronin shook his head. “It’s not me you need to fear,” he said. “It’s my companion—the one who brought you here. Do you remember him?”

The boy shook his head, kept his eyeliner-smudged gaze on Ronin. He pressed himself harder against the wall, like he could seep into it and vanish. Ronin’s smile widened. The boy’s gaze locked onto his revealed fangs. He went still.

Ronin sat on the edge of the cot. The youth’s fast-pounding heart intrigued him. He smelled the adrenaline-laden blood pulsing hot through his veins. He glanced at the youth’s lace-edged throat. An iridescent bat tattoo nestled at its hollow. How often had Dante kissed that white flesh? Pierced it with his fangs? Drank the dark blood that poured through those veins?

Leaning over, Ronin brushed a strand of blond hair from the boy’s face. The boy’s muscles—knotted and tensed—trembled. His green eyes never left Ronin’s face.

“I hear your every thought, boy,” Ronin said. “You might as well speak them.”

The youth closed his eyes for a moment. He drew in a deep breath, trying to calm himself and order his mind, but he remained pressed up against the concrete wall, his heart hammering against his ribs.

“Let me help you,” Ronin said. “Gina’s dead. Yes, I know you have Dante’s mark. And you will die at the hands of a serial killer—if I leave you here.”

The boy turned his face to one side as though sucker punched by the blunt words.

“Oh, and as for why all this is happening, call it destiny.”

“I don’t believe you,” the youth said, voice low and strained. Opening his eyes, he turned to face Ronin. “Gina’s not dead. Dante’d find her, he—”

“He did find her,” Ronin said, pleased by the sudden spark of fire lighting the boy’s eyes. “After my companion had finished with her.”

The youth blinked away unshed tears. Swallowed. “You’re full of shit.”

Seizing the boy’s slender throat with one hand, Ronin jerked him away from the wall and against himself. “Am I?” he whispered. “Dante’s looking for you, now. It’s up to you whether he finds you before my companion returns or after.”

The youth struggled to get free, pulling at Ronin’s wrist with one hand while shoving against Ronin’s chest with the other. Eyes half-closed, Ronin listened to the youth’s triple-timing heart. Smelled anger, fear, and desperation in equal measures. His blood would be a heady brew of natural pheromones.

“Before or after,” Ronin said. He looked into the boy’s emotion-dilated green eyes. “It’s up to you.”

The youth stopped struggling. He went still once again, kneeling on the cot. His gaze turned inward. For a moment, Ronin couldn’t hear him. Not a whisper of thought, not a word or image. A barrier had dropped between them, and the only sound disturbing the silence was the pulsing of their hearts.

With a shudder, the boy met Ronin’s gaze. “Before,” he said.

“Wise choice.”

Grasping a handful of blond hair, Ronin tugged the boy’s head back and sank his fangs into his throat.

E STEPPED INTO THE darkened house, closing and locking the door behind him. He glanced around the room. A bottle of Wild Turkey bourbon stood on the side table beside the La-Z-Boy, a tumbler beside it. The ashtray held a single cigarette butt. E sniffed. Grimaced. The air reeked of that towelhead crap Ronin liked to smoke.

The Camaro was gone. And so was Tommy-boy.

Just as well. He was in no mood to put up with the bloodsucker’s anal-retentive bullshit. He touched the knot on his forehead. Pain radiated out from beneath his finger and E jerked his hand away. His grin faded. If the Big Guy wasn’t made of stone, he might as well be. Kee-rist!

E crossed the room, then shuffled down the hall to his bedroom. Maybe some Vicodin and a little whiskey would ease the pain. Pushing open the door, he stepped into his room. He plunked down on the edge of the unmade bed. His head throbbed. His stomach clenched in uneasy sympathy.

E pulled open the nightstand drawer and rummaged through the contents—several red and white packages of Marlboros, a lighter, a nudie pen—tip her upside down and watch her strip!—until his fingers latched around the Baggie of pills.

E unzipped it, his hands shaking a little, and poured the pills onto the nightstand. Peach, old-lady blue, and yellow, the pills bounced and tumbled across the wood.

E tossed five or six of them down his throat. He picked up the whiskey bottle from the nightstand and chased the pills down with a long swallow of gut-burning Canadian Hunter. Nausea rolled through him. Shaking again, E set the bottle on the floor beside the bed, then stretched out on the mattress. He stared into the darkness, waiting for the pills to kick in.

Closing his eyes, E snuggled his face into the pillow. He smelled Gina, dark cherries and sweet sex. He’d hidden her stocking inside the pillowcase. He loved keepsakes, little things that said, Remember when? He touched his right front jeans pocket, his fingers tracing the smooth rectangular shape of his newest keepsake.

He wakes in a vampire’s house, sprawled on a vampire’s sofa. He slits his eyes open. Candlelight flickers, etching wavering shadows on the wall. Only the steady tick-tock of a pendulum clock disturbs the silence.

Head aching, he rolls onto his side. His gaze falls on the figure curled into an easy chair across from him.

He wonders if she’s faking, playing with him, watching him from beneath long, black lashes. But her deep, even breathing convinces him that she’s asleep. He’s never been this close to her—not even when peeking through windows.

If he touches her, what’ll happen?

His lovely Heather, his very own stalker, sleeps in his presence. Allowing herself to be vulnerable before a god.

He watches her for several minutes, drinking in the color of her hair, the curve of her cheek, the parted lips.

Above him, the ceiling creaks once. He suddenly remembers where he is—in a house full of bloodsuckers. The warm, golden godlike feeling evaporates.

Rolling to his feet, he crosses the short distance to the easy chair, practically on tiptoe, his gaze locked on Heather—his beacon. He tries not to think of what else walks soundlessly through the house.

He bends over Heather until his breath ruffles her hair. He touches a strand and it slides like silk between his fingers. He picks up his cell phone from the arm of the chair. Tilting his head, he regards Heather for a moment. What message is she trying to send him by setting his phone out?

The ceiling creaks again. He backs away from the chair, from the woman nestled between its arms. Reluctant, he turns away. Piled on the floor beside the sofa are his wallet and shivs and every little thing he kept in his pockets.

He squats and gathers up his belongings. When he stands again, he finds himself walking into the kitchen. A voice in his mind tells him he’s a fucking idiot, get out, get out, get out!, but it’s too late, really, he’s already claiming keepsakes.

Heather’s purse and trenchcoat are draped over the back of a chair. He searches both until he finds what he wants, then he takes it. His gaze skips around the kitchen, looking for some trace of Dante—some reminder of the hot, hot, hot little vampire who’d earned looks of lust from his Heather. A token from his Bad Seed bro.

Finally, he seizes the black coffee mug and slips out of the kitchen.

He pauses beside the easy chair, a shiv sliding without thought into his hand. Heart pounding, he forces himself away from her. Forces himself to the door. Forces himself to open it. Outside. Ease the door shut. Run like a motherfucker.

E smiled and opened his eyes. He pulled his keepsake out of his pocket. The magazine for a Colt .38 gleamed in his palm.

DANTE KNELT BESIDE TREY’S recliner. Computer light and images flickered across the web-head’s composed face, danced across the cables connected to his neck and to the tips of his fingers.

“Can you get into the morgue’s system?” Dante asked.

Images and pages winked across the monitor’s screen. Trey’s fingers blurred in the air. Dante listened to the electronic crackle and hum. He wondered if data burned like fire through Trey’s veins, ever-changing and molten.

A page locked onto the monitor. MORGUE—INTAKE.

Dante squeezed Trey’s biceps. “Très bien, mon ami.”

A smile flickered at the corners of Trey’s mouth, then vanished. Dante tugged affectionately on one of his dreads.

Scanning through the intake photos, Trey stopped on the most recent—a young man, throat slit. Dante leaned forward, studying the photo. The hair might’ve been blond, but wet, it was hard to tell. Eyes closed. Face and lips drained of all color. A gaping bloodless wound stretched across the throat.

Dante sat back on his heels, relief flooding through him like hot, fresh blood. Whoever the cops had pulled from the Mississippi, it wasn’t Jay.

That meant whoever murdered Gina still had him.

“Who IDed this body as Jay’s?”

<Detective LaRousse,> Trey sent. His eyelids shuttered to half mast.

Dante felt it, too, spiraling through his veins. Sleep.

“Ferret out his evidence, his connections, mon ami,” Dante said. Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out Elroy the Perv’s driver’s license. He flipped it onto the desk, in front of the monitor.

Trey glanced at it, then nodded.

<Check him, too. And Thomas Ronin.>

<After Sleep.> Trey yanked the cables from his body, unplugged from the web.

Simone walked into the room, half-asleep, to guide her brother to his bed. Bending over, she kissed Dante’s cheek, her soft lips cool against his skin.

“Sweet dreams,” she whispered.

“Et toi.” He trailed a finger along one fragrant lock of hair.

Simone straightened, and her hair slipped from his grasp. She eased Trey to his feet. Arms around each other, they half walked, half staggered out of the room.

Sleep swept through Dante, slowing his heart. Gripping the arm of Trey’s recliner, he fought the drowsiness claiming him.

Jay was still out there, waiting for rescue. Dante hoped with all his heart that Jay wasn’t waiting in pain, cut and sliced like Gina. Fury blasted through him and, for a second, Sleep receded. Dante rose to his feet.

Gina’s voice whispered, her words reverberating through him, mind and heart: Tomorrow night?

Pain prickled behind Dante’s eyes. Stabbed his temples. But Sleep crept back in, leaving him as drugged and drowsy as a hype of morphine. He swayed.

Hands touched his temples, cooling the pain in his head. He stumbled back against Lucien. Lucien seemed to fold himself around Dante, solid and protective. A voiceless, wordless song vibrated up from the core of Lucien into Dante. And something within him sang in wordless response.

Dante half dreamed of wings. Of flying.

<Stop struggling, child, and Sleep. Stop stirring up the pain.>

Shaking himself, Dante wrapped a hand around Lucien’s muscled wrist. < I appreciate what you’re doing, mon ami. But, please—> Something Dante couldn’t name clenched around his heart. His breath caught in his throat at its intensity; an inner hurt that felt strangely familiar. <I want this.>

Pushing at Lucien’s hands, Dante stepped away from him. But all the rage and hurt in the world couldn’t keep him awake.

He felt Lucien’s arms wrap around him as he fell.

THE CAB DROVE AWAY, exhaust puffing up white smoke into the gray predawn sky. Stearns stepped carefully onto the snow-shoveled sidewalk. Overnight ice glimmered on its concrete surface. He shifted his briefcase from one hand to the other.

From Seattle rain to D.C. snow and ice. How come a black bag job never led to Hawaii or Florida?

Stearns moved around to the back of the elegant and, no doubt, expensive townhouse. Each step onto the ice-encrusted snow crunched, the sound sharp in the dying night. Stearns gritted his teeth and hoped the neighbors were either heavy sleepers or thought it was only the paperboy making his rounds.

Stearns paused, glanced around the small yard, his gaze skipping from the townhouse behind and the ones to either side. Yellow light glowed from a few windows as people began to waken. He listened, his breath pluming white, his fingers tingling within his gloves.

He’d called the Bureau to check on Johanna’s whereabouts. In the past, she’d taken specially designed pills that kept her awake during the day, effectively neutralizing the narcotic effect of Sleep. Of course, she could only do that for so long before she paid a price. Stearns had gambled that she was downing the pills so she could keep on top of things in New Orleans. He’d learned that Johanna had pulled an all-nighter—not uncommon for her—and had yet shown no inclination of calling it a day.

Crunching across the yard to the steps leading to the back door, Stearns could only hope that Johanna hadn’t yet reached her limit for the pills. Even so, she might get caught in traffic, buying him a little more time.

Setting his briefcase down on the top step, Stearns studied the door’s lock. A red telltale gleamed in the fading darkness. It scrolled sideways, reading LOCKED. Stearns nodded. Pretty much what he’d expected. The tricky part would be any security or secondary systems.

Stearns knelt and flipped open the briefcase latches. Picking up the goggles, he slid them on. He palmed the em-pulse mini-bomb from the papers lining the briefcase. Using wire cutters, he stripped the insulation from the mini’s wires. He pried the case from the lock’s keypad and scanned the wires looped within the box. The goggles revealed blue lines criss-crossing the wires. Secondary system.

A sniper is climbing to the roof behind you and as soon as he scopes you in, you’re dead. Get busy and get inside. Move! Move! Move!

No longer feeling the cold, no longer pondering the best move, Stearns let his adrenaline-fueled instincts kick in. His hands, steady and quick, picked the wires to nick with the cutters. He twisted the mini’s exposed wires to the lock system’s. That was for the secondary system.

He imagined the sniper going belly down on the roof. He snipped the primary system’s lead wire and, turning his face away, set off the mini at the same time.

When Stearns looked again a heartbeat later—sniper’s lining you up—the LOCKED readout was gone, the screen black and blank. No frantic electronic bleating from the secondary system. Stearns turned the knob. The door opened. Scooping up his briefcase, Stearns dove in through the door.

He imagined the high-velocity bullet whinging into the brick where his head had been a split second before.

Stearns closed the door. Locked it the old-fashioned way, pushing down the button in the center of the knob.

He was in.

14

Lost in the System

HEATHER GLANCED AT THE Clock. One fifteen p.m. Sucking in an irritated breath, she walked to the glassed-in records area where two busy clerks ignored her. She rapped on the glass shield with one knuckle.

The rapid clacking of fingers across a keyboard stopped. The male clerk looked at Heather, one eyebrow raised, expression unhappy.

“You positive Doctor Anzalone knows I’m here?” Heather asked. “I’ve been waiting nearly two hours.”

Heather noted the clerk’s bedhead-gelled hair and the ubergeek short-sleeved white shirt he wore paired with a skinny black tie. Retro. And wishing I’d give up or vanish or wither and die.

“Yes, ma’am, she knows,” he said, his voice muffled by the thick shield. “But she’s very busy.”

“So am I. Check with her again.”

Heather returned to the ass-numbing bench she’d been sitting on and perched on the edge. Let’s see if Collins is faring any better. Pulling her cell from her purse, she punched in the detective’s number. He answered on the second ring.

“Hey, Wallace,” he said, his voice tight.

“Hey, Collins. Is that police report ready yet?”

“Get this. It’s lost in the system. They can’t fucking find it.”

Warning prickled along Heather’s spine. She lowered her voice. “Lost…I see. And the officer’s handwritten report?”

“Funny you should ask. Misplaced. They’re looking, but…”

“Ah. And the officer himself?”

“Left this morning on vacation. Accrual. Had to use it up—”

“Or lose it,” Heather finished. The warning prickles intensified. “Things aren’t much better here. I’ve been on physical hold ever since I arrived.”

“I’ll keep poking around with a sharp stick. See what turns up.”

“Ditto.” Heather thumbed the off button, then slid the cell back into her purse.

What the hell is going on? Heather rubbed her forehead. She scrolled her thoughts back, trying to pick out other off-kilter details, to discern a pattern.

Denial of access to the CCK files; ViCAP and NCAVC.

Blood messages left at two crime scenes. The anarchy symbol.

A dead perp—supposedly the CCK himself, and caught in the act.

Missing reports, misplaced evidence, a vacationing cop.

Her inability to connect with her SAC. Her calls unreturned.

But the puzzle kept shifting every time she tried to put a piece in place. Face in hands, Heather closed her eyes. She needed sleep. The few hours caught in a chair at Dante’s house hadn’t been enough. Her thoughts lagged and her reflexes were sluggish.

“Agent Wallace?”

Heather dropped her hands and straightened. The ubergeek clerk stood before her. A nervous smile twitched across his lips.

“Doctor Anzalone asked that you wait in her office,” he said.

Heather stood. “Great.”

The clerk led her down a hall, past the metal double doors leading to the autopsy theater, to an office marked CORONER. Opening the door, the clerk stepped aside as Heather walked into the office.

“Thanks,” Heather said smiling. With a quick nod, the clerk hurried away.

Ignoring the chairs positioned in front of the desk, Heather returned to the doorway. Looked down the quiet hall to the autopsy theater.

Given that Anzalone doesn’t seem to be real big on courtesy or protocol…Heather walked out of the office and down the hall, her stride brisk and, she hoped, silent. I’ll return the favor.

She shoved through the autopsy theater’s doors. A startled, lab-coated assistant looked up from the body he was suturing.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, disbelief on his face. “You can’t be in here!”

Heather smiled. “I’m the lead investigator in the Cross-Country Killer case,” she said, pulling her badge from her purse and flipping it open. “Doctor Anzalone expects me.”

“She didn’t say anything to me,” the assistant said. “Really, you can’t be in here.” Placing the suture needle on the corpse’s belly, he hurried across the room. He stopped in front of Heather, his gaze on her badge. He frowned. “I don’t think—”

“That the vic? Rosa Baker?” Heather nodded at the body.

“Yeah, it is. But seriously—”

“Where’s the perp’s body?” Heather stepped past the assistant, walking to the body-laden table. She paused beside a tray of bloody instruments positioned near the head of the table.

“The perp’s body?” the assistant repeated, voice unsure. “Uh…you’d have to ask Doctor Anzalone for sure, but I think it was sent to the funeral home.”

Heather froze. No way she’d heard right. No way. She whirled around to face the assistant. She met his gaze, took in his tight-muscled stance, the anxious way he rubbed his hands together.

“Did you say funeral home?”

“Uh…yeah. The body might’ve been sent there. Accidentally.”

Lost. Misplaced. Missing. The assistant shifted his weight from one hip to the other. Glanced away. Heather felt a tight smile curve her lips. Holy hell, there’s more.

“Don’t tell me,” Heather said, voice flat. “He was cremated. Accidentally.”

Without looking at her, the assistant nodded. “Might’ve been.”

“You’d better fetch Doctor Anzalone.”

Swallowing hard, the assistant turned, the soles of his sneakers squeaking against the tile floor. He pushed through the double doors.

Heather breathed in deep and slow. Rage knotted her muscles, but blurred her thoughts. Deep and slow. After a few moments, she looked the body over: middle-aged woman, a little heavy, ash-blonde hair, her eyes half-open and reflecting nothing. Stab wounds, bruises at throat and thighs.

Heather’s gaze dropped to the threaded suture needle. Given the Y-incision the assistant was closing, the autopsy had already been performed. The interrupted sutures stopped just below the belly button.

A day ago, Rosa Baker had been a living, breathing woman: washing her face, folding her laundry, planning lunch. Now…Heather shifted her attention back to Rosa’s lax, pale face and empty eyes. Now nothing remained of Rosa Baker. And nothing remained to her but the grave or the fire.

Could I have prevented this death?

One killer would always replace another and she’d always stand beside a metal table bearing the slashed/shot/bludgeoned/ strangled remains of yet another victim.

For some, their brutal death would be the most attention they’d ever receive. In dying, in being murdered, they were noticed for the first time, then just as quickly forgotten.

But she remembered. Each and every one. Carried their images in her mind: a mental photo album of the dead, a yearbook of ended lives.

Empty promises. Silent victims.

She yearned to be a finger pointed at a murderer; to be the mouth through which they could speak one last time: It was him. He killed me.

Heather looked up at the ceiling, at the bright overheads, the microphone dangling down. One victim wasn’t dead yet. He still breathed in New Orleans and—she glanced at her watch—slept. She could keep her promise to Dante. But first she needed to find out why the situation here reeked of cover-up.

Rolling back her shoulders and swiping stray wisps of hair from her forehead, Heather walked the room until she found the transcribing station that the microphone connected to, recording the M.E.’s comments and observations. Heather clicked it on, typed in MOST RECENT, then walked back to the table.

The medical examiner’s impassionate voice ended the silence.

“The victim is a well-nourished female Caucasian in her mid-to-late forties….”

Heather kept her gaze on Rosa’s face as Anzalone spelled out what Heather already suspected: wrong victim type, wrong M.O., wrong killing site. She grew colder with each word.

JOHANNA KEYED IN HER code and opened the door. Closing it, she reset the lock. The keypad beeped. UNAVAILABLE scrolled in red across its tiny window. She stared at the word, trying to make sense of it. She must’ve punched in the wrong numbers. Frowning, she carefully punched the code in again.

The keypad beeped. UNAVAILABLE.

Johanna went still. Listened. The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. Water dripped from the bathroom faucet. Outside, car tires crunched on the snow and ice-layered street.

Nothing breathed in the house but her. No heart beat but her own.

Still…delayed Sleep had stolen her edge, numbed her senses.

Johanna turned away from the door. She scanned the empty room: plush sofa, leather easy chairs, dark fireplace, photos and small treasures on the polished wood mantel; lamps on low. No footprints on the carpet.

Johanna set her purse down on the side table and withdrew her Glock 36. She kicked off her shoes and moved silently across the carpet, gun in a two-handed grip. Ghosting down the hall, she paused when she noticed footprints in the carpet. Too large to be her own.

A burglar? Expensive neighborhood. Fancy toys. Possible.

She swung into the bathroom, flicking on the light, and clearing right, then left. Empty. No shadows behind the beveled-glass shower door. The medicine cabinet was closed. No smudges. Untouched.

Not looking for drugs, then.

Leaving the light on, Johanna stepped back out into the hall and pressed her back up against the wall. The footprints trailed on down the hall.

What if E had come home? What if he’d brought S with him?

Johanna froze, heart hammering against her ribs. Blood rushed in a frenzy through her veins, yet she was cold, colder than the layers of ice outside on the concrete.

She stepped into the spare bedroom, flicking on the light. Nothing.

If E or S were here, bullets would help only where E was concerned. It would take more than bullets to keep her True Blood child down.

Whoever had broken into her home, violated it with their uninvited presence, was long gone. She felt nothing but her own panic.

Johanna strode out of the guest bedroom and into the hall, gun held at her side. She stepped into her office and flicked on the light. She crouched in front of the black file cabinet, pulled on the handle. The drawer slid open.

It had been locked when she’d left the house.

Rising to her feet, calmer despite the knot in her stomach, she circled around to her desk and opened the drawers. All had been locked—just like the file cabinet. She searched the contents of the deep bottom drawer—all files seemed to be in place, all disks and CDs accounted for. But that didn’t mean files hadn’t been photographed. Or disks copied.

Nothing jimmied. Nothing damaged. She’d been black-bagged by a pro.

Which meant FBI or CIA or DOD.

She ran a hand through her hair. Who and why? Who’d have the balls? And for what? Whirling, she walked back to the living room and fished her cell phone from her purse. She speed-dialed Gifford’s cell, her adrenaline rush already fading. He answered on the first ring, but said nothing, waiting for her to speak first.

“I’ve been black-bagged,” she said, voice thick with Sleep. “Call security. Have them check the office. Then go there yourself.”

“Consider it done.” His voice was steady, unruffled.

She thumbed the off button. The Glock slipped from her fingers and thudded onto the carpet. Sleep. She’d waited too long.

Johanna staggered from the room and into the hall. She pulled herself along the wall, her gaze locked on her bedroom doorway. It seemed she never got any closer. Her head thumped against the wall and her eyes flew open. She was on the floor.

She curled up in the hallway, lips parting, drinking in Sleep like blood. Just before conscious thought winked out, she realized what had been missing. What she’d been reviewing—for pleasure—at home. The file on S and the CD documenting his experiences as a member of Bad Seed.

DR. ANZALONE SLAMMED THROUGH the double doors into the autopsy theater. Heather spared her a quick glance, then pulled the sheet over Rosa Baker. The playback ended abruptly as the M.E. hit the stop button on the transcriber.

“You have no right to barge in here,” Anzalone said. “I don’t care if you’re FBI—”

“Who requested that the forensics be altered in this case?” Turning from the table, Heather locked gazes with the medical examiner. “Altered to match the Cross-Country Killer’s M.O.?”

Hazel eyes, curly brunette hair, a little on the heavy side—like Rosa—Anzalone’s brows knitted together, her hands jammed into her lab coat pockets. Defensive.

“How dare you imply—”

“My perp is left-handed,” Heather said, crossing the floor. “These stab wounds were inflicted by a right-hander.” She stopped in front of the tight-jawed medical examiner. “But the transcription I just listened to indicated that the killer was left-handed.”

Anzalone stiffened. “Before you make any accusations, you’d better check with your superiors.” She spun around and strode from the autopsy theater.

Heather stared after her as the doors swung closed. Check with your superiors.

Dante was still being stalked.

And she’d been lured away.

Was Stearns part of it?

Half walking, half running out of the theater, Heather yanked her cell from her purse and called Collins. “We need to get back to New Orleans right away. Stay there. I’ll pick you up.”

Shoving through the front entrance, Heather raced for the rental, punching Dante’s home number on her cell. The phone rang and rang. She unlocked the Stratus and slid inside. C’mon! Answer! She glanced at her watch. Almost four, Pensacola time, which made it almost three in New Orleans. Maybe Dante was still sleeping.

Starting the car, Heather threw it into reverse and hit the gas pedal. The tires screeched as she whipped the car out of the slot, spinning the wheel one-handed into a quick reverse-to-drive L. She wished she had her Trans Am with its get-up-and-go.

The ringing stopped. De Noir’s deep voice said, “Agent Wallace.”

“I need to speak to Dante.” Heather stepped on the gas. The Stratus arrowed out into traffic. “It’s urgent.”

“He’s sleeping.”

“Dammit, De Noir! Wake him!”

“Not possible. But I will take a message for him.”

“I don’t fucking believe you.” Throat tight, lightheaded with anger, Heather pressed harder on the gas pedal.

She glanced over her shoulder as she switched lanes, smoothly merging with the heavy traffic. “He’s still in danger. The killer isn’t dead. Don’t let Dante leave the house and don’t leave him alone.”

“Dante does as he wishes,” De Noir said, voice amused. “But I will tell him your concerns. When he awakens.”

“Great,” Heather snarled. She threw the phone down onto the passenger seat.

Either De Noir didn’t get it or he didn’t believe her or he thought he could keep Dante safe. Any of those reasons would be enough to get Dante killed.

Keeping her gaze on the traffic, Heather fumbled for the cell phone, then tapped in Stearns’s number.

“Wallace,” he said, answering on the first ring.

Heather didn’t know whether to feel relief or concern. “Sir. I’m leaving Pensacola right now. We’ve been deliberately misled. The M.E. falsified—”

“The case is closed,” Stearns said. “The investigation’s over.”

Someone honked and Heather realized the light had turned green. She stepped on the gas. Her heart thudded against her chest. “Who closed the case, sir?” she finally managed to say.

“That’s not the issue, Wallace.”

Stearns’s voice was flat. Stoic. Was her mentor repeating words he had no wish to say? Or was he a willing party? Heather felt sick.

“I think it is. The CCK is not dead, sir. Who’d want to protect him?”

“The investigation’s over.” Stearns’s voice sounded weary, drained. “Get back to Seattle ASAP.”

“He has another victim targeted.”

“Forget Dante Prejean, Wallace. He’s not what he appears to be.”

At Dante’s name, Heather’s blood ran cold. “What do you mean?”

“He’s no longer your concern.”

“With all due respect, sir, are you a part of the cover-up?”

“Heather, listen carefully.” Desperation weighted Stearns’s voice. “Stay out of New Orleans. Your safety depends upon it. You are not among friends.”

“Apparently that’s nothing new, is it, Craig?” She hung up.

What had happened? Was the CCK the son of a government star? The brother of a diplomat? And why was the investigation being halted now?

Something to do with Dante. Think. Someone wanted him dead. Why not just shoot him in his sleep? Could it be something to do with the past he didn’t remember?

A bloodred anarchy symbol caught Heather’s attention. She stared, breath caught in her throat, heart pounding. A sign in the window of a music store.

Above the anarchy symbol: Just in! The latest release from New Orleans’s INFERNO! Deliberately Set. And below it: Wake up and smell the fire!

WAKE UP written in blood at two different crime scenes. A past Dante doesn’t remember. Heather hung a right, then pulled to a stop in front of the precinct house. Collins waited on the steps.

Dante didn’t remember, no. But someone wanted him to remember.

“We’ve got trouble,” Heather said as Collins scrunched into the car. She hit the gas before he’d closed the door.

Unruffled, the detective strapped on his seat belt. He glanced at Heather. “The bastard’s not dead, is he?”

“They made you detective for a reason,” Heather murmured, goosing the Stratus through two high-speed lane changes. “It gets worse. It’s a deliberate cover-up.”

“Shit.” Collins stared straight ahead, jaw tight, face grim.

15

Whirling into Motion

ECREPT DOWN THE hall to Tom-Tom’s room. He pressed himself against the closed door. Was Tommy-boy still asleep? The sun hadn’t set yet, the gray afternoon lingered, sullen sky pissing rain.

E listened. Nuthin’. Not even snoring. Did vampires snore? Was he even in there? What if he stood behind E? Watching? Grinning? E whirled, heart hurdling into his throat, shivs in hand.

Nuthin’.

E stood motionless, staring down the empty hall to the dirty light streaming in through the front window. His heart gradually slowed. With a flick of both wrists, he slid his shivs back into their wrist sheaths.

E swiveled around to face the closed door once again. Still no snoring. If he was in there, he’d be sound asleep. If not, then E didn’t have to worry about noise. His fingers closed around the cool brass doorknob, and turned.

Ronin lay on the bed like a dead man. Fully dressed. Not breathing. Hands at his sides. His eyes were half-open, but all that showed were the whites. E twitched. His skin felt creepy-crawly, like he’d stepped into an anthill. He fought the urge to slap and brush at himself.

He narrowed his eyes. He subtracted the not-breathing assessment. Fucker was, indeed, breathing. Just barely.

E stepped into the bedroom, his gaze locked on Ronin’s stretched-out form, and held his breath. Nuthin’. He stepped further into the room.

E circled the bed. Tilted his head. Mourner viewing corpse. Circled again. A knife across the throat would do it. Maybe not kill the bastard, but all that blood pouring out would have to be a major inconvenience.

Why hadn’t Ronin locked the door? Did he think so little of E’s abilities, his work, that he felt safe? Thought he could handle ol’ E even asleep?

Muscles knotting, belly burning, E popped his shivs into his hands. He inched closer to the bed. Ronin’s face looked almost as smooth as a kid’s, even though he was supposedly centuries old.

How long would it take to kill him? Flat-out flesh-to-skeleton-to-ashes kill him?

He leaned over Ronin, angling a shiv for the soft throat when he remembered the files. E hesitated, tensed, longing to slash. The files—his and Dante’s—he needed those. Needed to know where to find the Bad Seed Mama-Bitch. Needed to know her name. Needed to know why.

He needed to know more about Dante, too—Bad Seed little brother, kindred spirit—more than the shit Tom-Tom spoon-fed him. E summoned Dante’s image, but saw instead Heather’s hunger as her gaze slid along Dante’s body. E shivered, shiv extended, aching, blood boiling, wanting them both. But willing to claim only one.

E forced himself away from Ronin. Straightened and tucked away his shivs. Daylight was burning. Circling to the other side of the bed, E searched the nightstand, carefully pulling open the drawers. Nuthin’.

Crossing to the dresser, he opened one drawer after another. Folded clothes, undies—hmmm, silk—rolled pairs of socks, but no files. Blowing air between his teeth, E leaned against the dresser. He’d seen the files briefly in New York, thick with reports, photos, and CDs. Tommy-boy’d also had a case full of special things—special things for Dante—in case he needed to be restrained.

E headed for the closet, but catching a glimpse of gold out of the corner of his eye, he halted. Crouching, he looked under the bed. Dante’s pretty Goth boy was curled up on the hardwood floor, tucked in with the shadows and the dust bunnies, eyes closed, face white. Wrists handcuffed. One ankle cuffed to a leg of the bed.

E grinned. Tommy’d raided the cupboard and grabbed himself a toy. A snack and a toy. Did Tom-Tom intend to dangle Goth-boy like a bag of blood in front of Dante’s nose? Or was he going to send E out to collect another?

E crawled to the closet, dazzled by Goth-boy’s golden hair, imagining it spun like golden thread, a glimmering coil seeking the warmth of his hands.

E opened the closet. Worn-edged cardboard boxes nestled on the floor among Tom-Tom’s boots and expensive loafers. A zippered black bag sat next to the boxes.

E dug through the boxes, hands trembling, mouth dry, until he found the file marked E and the one marked S. Tucking them under his arm, he scooped up the black bag, then closed the closet door. He swiveled on his knees, expecting to see gold, but all he saw was a lank strand of blond hair.

Let Tom-Tom have him, he thought, elevatoring to his feet. Less likely to notice anything’s missing if he’s busy playing.

E walked from the room and oh-so-carefully closed the door. He strode down the hall and out through the front door into the dying afternoon.

He had a lot of research to do.

WASPS CRAWLED OVER DANTE’S body, heavy abdomens curving as stingers needled venom into his flesh. Paralyzed by Sleep, caught in a nightmare-woven net, he couldn’t move, couldn’t leap to his feet, brushing and slapping at the thousands of busy wasps. Poison snaked beneath his skin, wormed into his veins, burrowed into his heart.

Behind the high-pitched wasp drone, a voice called, Dante-angel? You okay?

He burned.

A wasp wriggled into his nostril. Another jimmied open his lips, scraped down his throat. Stingers pricked his eyelids, but he kept quiet. Screaming equaled straitjacket and restraints. Screaming equaled sunlight slanting across a wooden floor.

His eyelids puffed and swelled. His heart thudded hard against his chest. His throat closed. Air thinned to a trickle. His lungs burned.

He kept silent.

Windows surrounded him. Some he could barely make out, their shape distorted, the glass warped. He looked away, heart pounding—don’tlookdon’tlookdon’tlook. A few of the windows rippled like water beneath the wind and he looked, even though he knew it’d be bad.

A burning house.

A laughing little girl with red hair, holding a stuffed orca.

A metal examination table loaded down with restraints.

A smiling woman, fangs revealed, reaching for him.

Dante tried to move, but venom and Sleep kept him motionless. Sweat trickled down his temples.

Dante-angel?

The voice, childish and low and familiar, lingered, the words squeezing his heart. Pain blazed through his mind, torched his thoughts. If he kept quiet, she’d live. Then kicking the ass of that thought was another: If he didn’t move, she’d die.

The fresh scent of rain and sage glided across his consciousness and, for a moment, he forgot the pain, forgot his impending, irreversible loss.

For a moment, she’d never died.

For a moment, he’d never killed her.

Then truth doused him in gasoline and tossed a match.

He screamed.

RONIN WALKED DOWN THE hall to the front room. Starry night gleamed beyond the window. He picked up his cell phone and tapped in the number for his New Orleans police contact.

“LaRousse.”

“Thomas Ronin. I watched an interesting exchange of words last night between a vampire named Étienne and Dante Prejean. I believe Étienne has a grudge or two against Dante.”

“You could say that,” LaRousse said. “His home was torched one morning. Burned down to the ground. A handful of Étienne’s nearest and dearest died in the fire and he believes Prejean’s the one who set it.”

“Ah. Why does he believe that?”

“Couldn’t say and don’t care.”

“Can you get in touch with Étienne?”

“I can. What’s this about?”

“Let’s just say an opportunity for payback. Give him my number, Detective. I appreciate your help in this matter.”

Ronin touched the end button. Shaking a slim, black cigarette from the pack on the coffee table, he slipped it between his lips and lit it with a match. He inhaled the sweet-smelling smoke, savoring the rich tobacco taste on his tongue.

Cell in hand, he walked back down the hall to E’s room and pushed open the door. An empty, rumpled bed, but that was no surprise. Although E’s woodworm-bitter scent lingered in the air, Ronin had known upon awakening he was gone. No prickly aura. No wary tension.

Streetlight slanted in through the partially opened blinds, crosshatching the bedroom with lines of light. The room’s darkness felt thick and close and stale, shut off from the untamed night outside.

The instant E had climbed out of his Jeep and walked across the street to Dante’s house, he’d become a liability. Dante’s phone call had made Ronin realize the truth. Peeping Tom and his assistant, Elroy the Perv. A smile flickered across Ronin’s lips. Boy had a way with words—quick-witted and sardonic.

We’ll see how quick-witted he is tonight.

Ronin drew on his cigarette. The gray smoke curled up and away, hazing the room’s still air. E had fucked up, no two ways about it. Ronin wasn’t sure how much longer he could control him and wondered if he ever really had.

A sociopath. A serial killer. A sexual sadist. How pleased Johanna must be. All her hard work coming to bloody and clever fruition. But what was she saving Dante for? Why had he been allowed to slumber? How had he survived all that she’d done to him?

Then again, he was True Blood. Johanna would have centuries to guide him, twist him, trigger him with programming subliminals and implants. Dante was a mere twenty-three years old. He was a child. His gifts, the full extent of his abilities, probably wouldn’t be revealed for decades, perhaps centuries.

What would it take to awaken him? To spring Dante like a hidden trap on his fille de sang, the woman who’d dared to corrupt and twist a True Blood.

The medical and psychological procedures Johanna and the mortal Doctor Wells had performed on Dante’s mind and brain had been conspicuously missing from the Bad Seed files an anonymous donor had sent him. So, in truth, he was experimenting. Ronin had expected Dante’s subconscious to react to the messages, but so far—zip. Maybe a more direct approach—using Dante’s unexpected sentimentality for mortals—would work like a crowbar upside his lovely head.

Ronin stepped inside the room. Sheets and blankets lumped the unmade bed. A book, an ashtray, and an empty glass rested on the nightstand.

Stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray, Ronin sat on the edge of the bed. Glanced at the book—Inside the Monster’s Heart and Other Poems. The faint scent of whiskey drifted up from the glass. From the bed, he caught a whiff of dark cherries. He followed the faint scent down to the pillow. Reaching inside the pillowcase, he pulled out a black length of nylon. Gina’s stocking, a dream catcher for her killer, tucked close to the monster’s heart. Ronin dropped the pillow back onto the bed.

The cell phone rang. Ronin tapped the on button. “Yes?”

“This is Étienne. I am listening.”

16

Blood Sworn

DANTE OPENED HIS EYES . Candlelight flickered white and gold on the ceiling. Shadows shimmied. He smelled vanilla-scented wax and tasted blood at the back of his throat. His head throbbed, but the pain was distant as though numbed by morphine or eased by Lucien’s cool hands.

It hurt to swallow. The blood he tasted was his own. Another headache? Another nosebleed? What night was it? He tried to think back, to remember what he’d been doing before Sleep, but hit a big blank wall.

Sudden vivid images swirled through his thoughts—a wasp, chains dangling from a meat hook, a bloodied baseball bat—morphing his consciousness into waking nightmare.

Barbed-wire thorns bit. Wasps droned. Dante shook his head. He felt Trey nudging gently at his shields. Sucking in a deep breath, Dante let him in.

<A message for you on club e-mail.>

<Oui.>

<“I know where your pretty plaything’s been stashed. He’s alive and mostly well. Play nice and he’ll stay that way. I’ll leave word for you at the club.” Traced the message back to a net café. Blind credit. Dead end.>

Pulse racing, Dante sat up. Blood pounded in his temples.

“Agent Wallace phoned while you were Sleeping,” Lucien said, stepping into the room. “The killer is not dead and she advised you to stay home.”

“So, she was right,” Dante said. “But I ain’t staying. I got a promise to keep.”

<You trust this information?>

“Fuck, no. But it’s all I got right now.” Dante threw aside the sheets and stood.

I’m coming for you, Jay. Keep breathing. Keep fighting.

HEATHER SUCKED IN A deep breath of Hell’s patchouli-, clove-, and sweat-reeking air and plunged into the crowd. As she weaved and pushed between hot and sweaty bodies, she kept her gaze on Dante.

He sat on the edge of his bat-winged throne, muscles tensed, body coiled. He wore leather pants and a metal-strapped latex shirt. Light flashed from the rings on his fingers and from the ring on his bondage collar. A black-haired Goth princess nestled against his leg, her fishnet-covered arms wrapped around his calf, a smile on her bloodred lips.

Dante’s fingers stroked the Goth chick’s hair, the gesture absentminded but gentle, his dark gaze on Heather. His pale face revealed nothing. No hint of welcome. Just watchful.

Music battered and rib-kicked the moshing crowd. The heavy bass beat vibrated the walls and mist-shrouded floor, the sound like a defibrillator to the heart.

Not bad. Heather thought, raising a forearm to fend off a crowd surfer. Reminds me of Annie’s old band. Hands shoved and bounced the surfer off to Heather’s left. She lowered her arm. She’d half turned to shoulder in when she realized someone had stepped directly in front of her, blocking her path. Frowning, hands knotting into fists, Heather looked up—and her heart skipped a beat.

“You know how to handle yourself,” Dante said. A half smile tilted his lips.

“Yeah, well, my sister used to front a band,” Heather shouted. Looking at him now, she saw welcome in his dark eyes, and some of her tension unraveled.

“Which band?”

“WMD.”

A circle cleared around them as the crowd suddenly realized who stood among them. Hunger of all kinds dilated their eyes. Voices whispered. Trembling fingers reached. Heather’s gaze jumped from one person to the next, wondering if a killer moshed among them. She jerked when a hand gripped her shoulder. Dante leaned in, his lips beside her ear.

“You don’t need to shout,” he whispered. “I can hear you fine. And WMD were among the fucking best.” He straightened, his fingers lingering on her shoulder for a moment.

“They were.” Heather held Dante’s gaze, only half-aware of the whispers buzzing and droning around them like flies.

A thin young man in dreads and camo shoved an Inferno CD—the new one, Deliberately Set—and a Sharpie at Dante.

“Dudeifyoucouldit’dbetotallyawesome,” he blurted, eyes wide.

Dante handed the signed CD and the Sharpie back to Camoboy.

He blinked. “Uh…thanks.”

Heather hadn’t seen Dante take the CD and sign it either. She’d caught a blur of movement, his hands, maybe, but nothing else. Dante glanced at her. Held out his hand. She took it, wrapping her fingers around his warm palm.

Dante led her through the crowd. A path opened before them and Dante’s name rippled through the moshers, every murmur another tossed stone. Yearning glances followed him. Fingers brushed against him. Pleading. One honey-haired young man in an old-fashioned frock coat was bold enough to step in front of Dante. He closed his kohl-lined eyes, spread his arms wide, and offered up his lips.

Dante stopped, surprising Heather. Still holding her hand, he stepped forward until he was face-to-face with the young man, until just a breath of air separated their bodies, and kissed the offered lips.

A pining sigh gusted through the watchers. Heather stepped beside Dante, scanning each sweating, painted face near him. A few wept, tears black with eyeliner and mascara streaking their faces.

They adore him. Utterly. Is it his looks? Who he is?

Or what he’s supposed to be?

The kiss ended. The honey-haired young man staggered back, then bowed, sweeping one arm across his waist while extending one leg. An elegant gesture unmarred by his trembling hands.

“Merci beaucoup, mon ange de sang.” He glanced up, face flushed, dazed. “You honor me.”

“Pour quoi? Sa fini pas.”

Heather heard strain in Dante’s voice. He hasn’t had time to grieve, she thought. So much has happened in the last couple of days.

Still bowing, the young man stepped out of Dante’s path. The sighs and murmurs intensified. Dante resumed walking, his fingers locked around Heather’s hand. The path merged behind him and disappeared. When they reached the steps to the dais, Dante squeezed Heather’s hand, then released it.

She followed him up the steps, past the Goth lords and Goth princesses curled on the steps like contented cats. The black-haired lap kitty who’d been snugged against Dante’s leg earlier perched on the edge of the dais, her hungry gaze fixed on his face. Behind the throne, De Noir stood in a crimson shirt, the X-rune pendant glittering at his throat, his face impassive.

Dante knelt on one knee beside the waiting Goth chick. Skimming his fingers along her jaw, he bent and spoke into her ear.

Heather noticed how black Dante’s hair was in the club’s low lights, black as the deepest part of night; natural and glossy—not flat like the dyed hair of the girl listening to his whispered words.

The Goth princess lowered her eyes; her lower lip quivered. Dante tipped her face up and kissed her. She laced her arms around his waist.

Most people shake hands. Dante kisses. Could get real interesting at a company picnic. Heather folded her arms over her chest.

When the kiss ended, the fishnet queen reluctantly released Dante, her hands sliding over his hips as she did. Smiling, she smoothed her thumbs over his lips, wiping away the lipstick. She glared at Heather as she scooted down a step, her disdainful gaze sweeping her from head to toe.

Heather smiled and stepped past her.

Dante sat cross-legged on the dais in front of the throne, motioning for Heather to do the same. She did, slipping her purse strap over her head and around her opposite shoulder so she didn’t have to worry about it disappearing.

Music pounded and throbbed. It pulsed up Heather’s spine and into the back of her skull. Someone in the Cage howled in pain. Feedback squealed through the amps. Heather winced. Her gaze flicked to the fetish-hung Cage. The band kicked and pried at the hands clutching the downed front man. Fingers waved in the air, blood-streaked, holding aloft torn pieces of material and long strands of red hair.

Finally the band freed their front man, who scooped up the mike, rolled to his feet, and resumed singing, blood trickling down his face.

“Dark Cloud 9 from Portland,” Dante said, leaning forward to speak into her ear.

“He isn’t dead,” she said.

“Lucien told me. You were right. Whatcha gonna do now?”

“Guard you.”

An amused smile quirked up the corners of Dante’s mouth.

“Oh, you don’t think you need it? Mister Indestructible Vampire?”

“I never said I was indestructible.”

“You must believe it, though,” Heather said, locking gazes with him. “You didn’t stay home. What the hell are you doing here?”

Dante’s smile faded. “I have a promise to keep.”

“A promise? How about promising to play it safe?”

“Fuck, Heather,” Dante muttered. “I never promised you anything. But I did promise Jay I’d protect him and I mean to do it.”

“Jay’s dead, Dante, it’s too late,” Heather said, touching his knee.

“No, he’s not. The body they fished outta the river wasn’t his. I checked.” Fire gleamed in Dante’s dark eyes. “I got a message tonight. Someone knows where Jay’s stashed. Said they’d leave word for me here. I’m waiting.”

Heather stared at him, speechless. What had Dante said last night? Bait the hook? But there was a difference between that and tossing the bait into the shark’s jaws. And wasn’t it interesting that the message wasn’t sent until after she’d left New Orleans?

“The only one who could possibly know where—”

Dante held up a hand and glanced across the bobbing crowd toward the entrance. Heather fell silent. Following Dante’s gaze, she looked across the room.

“Peeping Tom’s here,” Dante said. He uncoiled and stood, the sudden movement graceful and fluid. “And he wants a moment of my time.”

Heather eased to her feet, apprehension curling in her belly. The moshing crowd parted like an amoeba as two figures strode from the entryway onto the dance floor. Von led the way in loose, long-legged strides, fight-scarred hands at his sides. His leather jacket bulged slightly, and she realized he wore a double shoulder holster underneath.

Her gaze skipped behind Von to the man following in his wake. Thomas Ronin. She’d seen pictures of him online and on book jackets, but this was the first time she’d seen him in the flesh. She’d expected a striking man—tall, athletic stride, skin just a shade lighter than night under the house lights, short-cropped hair, trimmed beard—but she hadn’t expected his presence. Even from across the room, he commanded attention, drew the eye.

The journalist’s gaze flickered over Heather. Surprise flashed across his face. Surprise and recognition. He knows who I am, she thought. And he didn’t expect me to be here. She nodded. A tight smile skimmed Ronin’s lips, then vanished.

Von climbed the steps to the dais. He paused in front of Dante. The crescent moon tattoo under the nomad’s eye seemed to vibrate beneath the dim lights.

“C’est bon,” Dante said. “Gètte le.”

With a quick nod, Von stepped past Dante, then stood at his right hand, but at a slight angle as though he needed to watch everyone.

Ronin stepped onto the dais. Turning, he half bowed to Von. “An honor to be escorted by you, llygad.”

Von didn’t react to the journalist’s words. He stood motionless, legs apart, hands at his sides.

Apparently, Ronin hadn’t expected a reply, because he turned to face Dante without waiting for one. His gaze slid past Dante to De Noir standing behind the throne, then back.

“I’m surprised to see you still here, Agent Wallace,” Ronin said, voice smooth.

“And why is that?”

Ronin shrugged. “I read in the paper that the CCK had been nailed in Pensacola. The Bureau and local authorities say the case is closed.”

“So why aren’t you in Pensacola following up like a good journalist?” Heather thumped her hand against her temple. “Oh. I forgot. You’re not a good journalist.”

Ronin smiled, arched an eyebrow, and said, “Ouch.”

“You got your moment, Peeping Tom,” Dante said.

“Tell me if this means anything or if it’s just bullshit.” Ronin reached a hand into the inside pocket of his denim jacket.

The hair prickled on the back of Heather’s neck. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw De Noir now standing just behind Dante, his gaze locked on Ronin.

Dark Cloud 9’s wall of industrial sound revved down to drums and bass, the beat tribal and hypnotic, punctuated by the front man’s growled refrain, repeated over and over: One step closer to the end / one step closer / one step closer to the end…

Ronin tugged a folded piece of paper out of his pocket. He extended it to Dante. “I found this in my newspaper this evening.”

Dante tugged the paper free of Ronin’s fingers, then flipped it open and scanned it. Heather leaned in and read over his shoulder.

jay mcgregor sends his regards, ask dante why. ask dante how much blood will it take to wake him up. how many? write the truth. tell dante to look in his car.

DRUMS POUNDED, BASS THROBBED, pulsing beat. One step closer to the end / one step closer / one / step / closer / to the end…

Dante tucked the slip of paper into his back pocket. “Merci,” he said, voice low. “But this doesn’t change anything.”

Ronin shook his head, stepped closer. “What are you afraid of…True Blood?”

Heather’s hair fluttered in a rush of air at the same moment she caught a peripheral glimpse of Dante moving. He’d reacted to Ronin’s invasion of his personal space by moving in even closer; a handspan separated the two. The journalist’s dark skin contrasted so sharply with Dante’s pale complexion—midnight and winter white—that the image of the yin-yang symbol burned within her mind.

“Not you, Peeping Tom.” Dante’s hands curled into fists. “What the fuck do you mean by ‘True Blood’?”

“Nothing,” De Noir said. He stepped past Heather and beside Dante. “Absolutely nothing.” His gaze locked on Ronin. “He’s playing games.”

Heather glanced at Von. An eyebrow arched above his shades at De Noir’s remark. Looks like the nomad isn’t so sure about that. Interesting.

Dante suddenly shuddered and closed his eyes. “T’es sûr de sa?” he whispered.

Concern flickered across De Noir’s face, his brows knitted. “Time for you to leave, M’sieu Ronin.”

“Not yet.” Ronin’s hands swung up, reaching for Dante’s shoulders.

Eyes still closed, Dante parried the journalist’s grab, his own hands flashing up and out with heart-stopping speed. His fingers curled around Ronin’s wrists. His eyes opened. Ronin stared at him, lips parted, unmoving.

Not surprised by Dante’s speed, Heather realized, but caught off guard by his actions. How long had Ronin and his creepy assistant been watching Dante?

Shoving Ronin’s wrists away, Dante reached up, cupped the journalist’s bearded face, and brushed his lips against his mouth.

Shock blanked Ronin’s face as Dante stepped back, hands at his sides. Ronin’s head turned to the side, gaze down. A muscle jumped in his jaw. His hands fisted, then relaxed.

Dante stopped beside Heather, glanced at her. A half smile tilted his lips, but red streaked his dark irises.

“Be careful,” she said. “You’re playing with fire here.”

“I like fire.” His gaze shifted back to Ronin.

“Why didn’t you turn the note over to the cops, Ronin?” Heather asked. “What do you want?”

Lifting his gaze, Ronin swung his head around to face Heather. He smiled, but something dark and sardonic wriggled in his eyes just long enough for her to see. “All I want is the story,” he said.

“Liar,” Dante said.

Amusement danced in Ronin’s eyes. “I hang out. I chronicle everything that’s going down.”

“Why wouldn’t we give your note to the cops?”

Lifting an eyebrow, Ronin glanced at Dante. “We?” He shook his head. “Even if you call in the cops, Agent Wallace, I still get the story.”

The bass dropped down to a steady throb, the drums pulsed, the front man’s growl intensified, accelerated into a scream:

One step closer to the end / One fucking step closer…

“I’ll tell you what I meant by ‘True Blood,’” Ronin said.

Dante shrugged. “Who says I want to know?”

Ronin grinned. “I do.”

Heather stared at the journalist’s fangs. Cold snaked into her, icing her blood. Am I the only fucking person in the world who doesn’t have fangs or imagines she’s a vampire?

She glanced at Dante. Breathtaking. Creative. Inhuman speed. Was he?

De Noir reached for Ronin’s elbow, apparently preparing to escort the journalist off the dais, when he stopped, hand still in midair, gaze turned inward.

The music stopped. The house lights dimmed, then went out.

“Do you hear that?” Dante said, his voice full of wonder. “I feel a rhythm…like fire, like your song, Lucien, like—”

Heather stepped toward the sound of Dante’s voice. In the darkness, anything could happen. A killer could close in. One quick slice across the throat…Small comfort that the killer would prefer Dante alive…for a while. Reaching out a hand, she fumbled for his arm. Her fingers slid across latex and squeezed around Dante’s forearm.

“Listen to me very carefully,” De Noir said, his voice tight and urgent.

Dante hissed in pain.

“What?” Heather said, body tensing. “What’s wrong?”

The lights switched back on.

Ronin stood motionless at the edge of the dais, his brows drawn down, his gaze intense as he watched Dante and De Noir. De Noir’s hand was locked around Dante’s shoulder and, it seemed to Heather, his fingernails pierced Dante’s shirt. Dante met De Noir’s gaze, his expression dazed.

Heather released her grip on Dante’s arm. “What’s wrong?” she repeated.

“Listen to me,” De Noir said. “Shield yourself. Shut it out.” He tipped Dante’s chin up with a taloned finger. “I must leave. Promise me you won’t follow.”

Dante held De Noir’s now glowing golden gaze and even though he didn’t say a word, Heather had the feeling much was passing between the two.

“Let me help,” Dante whispered, frustration shadowing his face.

“Promise me.”

Jerking free of the finger beneath his chin, Dante looked away, jaw clenched. Then he reached up and slid two fingers in under the neck of his shirt beside the thumb talon piercing him. He pulled his fingers out, blood-slicked, and pressed them against De Noir’s lips.

“I promise.”

“Blood sworn,” Ronin breathed. His dark eyes gleamed.

With Dante’s blood still on his lips, De Noir strode down the steps and into the watching crowd.

Dante watched him go, arms wrapped around himself, pale face troubled.

“What was that about?” Heather asked.

“I don’t know,” Dante said, voice husky. “He wouldn’t tell me.” His gaze shifted above the crowd, and Heather followed it.

De Noir was already climbing the stairs to the third-floor landing. He peeled off his crimson shirt. Powerful muscles flexed. The shirt fluttered down the stairs like a rose petal dropped from a lover’s bouquet.

A silhouetted figure scurried up the stairs after De Noir had rounded the corner and vanished from view. A red-haired Goth princess in black crinoline and fishnet scooped up the abandoned shirt. She pressed it against her cheek as she trotted back down the stairs.

“Is De Noir a vampire…nightkind…too?” Heather turned to look at Dante.

Dropping his arms to his sides, Dante shook his head. “No. He’s Fallen.”

Talons. Golden eyes. Blue fire. “As in angels?”

This doesn’t concern the Fallen.

Dante shrugged. “That’s one of the stories.”

“So that’s it,” Ronin murmured.

“Time for you to go, Peeping Tom,” Dante said. “We’re done here.”

“Okay.” Ronin held up his hands. “I didn’t come here to make enemies.”

A smile quirked up one corner of Dante’s mouth. “Liar.”

A flicker of movement out of the comer of Heather’s eye, the sudden scent of smoke and frost on a gust of air, and then Von stood beside Ronin. The two men—vampires?—were the same height, and looked eye to eye.

“I walked you in,” Von drawled. “I’ll walk you out.”

“Again, llygad, I’m honored.”

The nomad walked past Ronin and down the steps. Ronin met Dante’s dark gaze. “True Blood,” he said. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

Turning, he followed Von down the steps. Heather watched until she saw him stride into the entrance hall, the nomad in his wake.

“True Blood?”

Dante shook his head. “He’s full of shit.”

“But what does it mean?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dante said. “The note mentions my car. I’m gonna look.”

Heather stepped in close, inhaling his warm, earthy scent. “Not alone. Too dangerous.”

“I ain’t asking permission,” Dante said. “I’m not gonna sit on my ass and let someone else I care about die.”

“Of course not. But I’m coming with you.”

Surprise flashed in Dante’s eyes. “As a friend or as a cop?”

“Both,” Heather said, voice low. “I’m both.”

“Yeah?” A smile curved Dante’s lips.

“Yeah. You’re gonna need a friend and some luck—”

Dante cupped Heather’s face, his hands warm against her skin. “For luck,” he murmured against her lips, then he kissed her.

Her eyes closed. His lips, soft and firm against hers, stoked the fire simmering in her veins, stirred the embers glowing in her belly.

Too soon the kiss ended and Dante’s hands slid from Heather’s face. She opened her eyes. She didn’t see amusement in his expression, or a smirk on his lips. He just looked at her, completely open.

Her spinning thoughts slowed. Heat flushed her cheeks when she realized she’d been so stunned by the kiss that she hadn’t touched him, had stood there with her hands hanging at her sides. Like she’d never kissed before.

Sure beats a handshake, though.

“Let’s go,” Dante said. He held out his hand.

Heather grabbed it and followed him down the steps. Faces and scents blurred past her—dreads, mohawks, golden Claudia curls, acrid tobacco, clove, patchouli. She flew, weightless, Dante’s warm hand in hers.

Suddenly outside, Heather’s weight returned and Dante released her hand. She followed him through the narrow alley between the pizza parlor and Club Hell to the back street behind the club.

Dante stopped beside the MG parked at the curb. Heather paused on the passenger side. “You don’t have a driver’s license,” she said.

“True.” He opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. “That a problem?”

Heather pulled the passenger door open, then bent down and peered inside. “You don’t lock your car?”

Dante didn’t answer. He stared at something tied to the steering wheel, face stricken. He untied it with trembling fingers. It unfurled from the steering wheel. A sheer black stocking.

Just like the one left knotted around Gina’s throat.

17

Born Sociopath

BLOODSLICKED E’s FINGERS. He gritted his teeth and dug his shiv in a little deeper. The tip scraped across something, stuck. He paused, waiting for the pain. Nuthin’. Reaching back with his other hand, he slid his fingers across the wound at the base of his skull. Gingerly touched the thing his shiv had nicked. Soft edges. No sensation.

Laughter poured from E’s throat, the sound low and strained and pissed.

So that’s how he found me in New York. How long had the fucker been tracking me? Interesting that he never mentioned the bugs.

E tugged. His fingers slipped and he lost his grip on the implant. Blood trickled inside the back of his collar, warm against his icy skin. Shifting the bloodied shiv to his other hand, E wiped his sweaty palm off on his jeans. Switched hands again. Tightened his grip and went back to work.

E gripped the implant’s edge. Pried with his shiv. Wormed with his fingers. Here he was, at one of the cheap motels he despised, straddling a wobbly kitchenette chair, digging a satellite chip out of his fucking flesh with one of his own fucking shivs.

Thanks, Tom-Tom.

Blinking sweat out of his eyes, E levered the tip of his shiv under the implant. Flipped it. A sudden sharp pain, poking fire all the way down his spine, then the bug popped free.

Cold and shaking despite the fire raging at the base of his skull, E lowered his hands to the table. The bloody shiv tunked onto its cheap, laminated surface. His other hand cupped the tiny, blood-smeared transmitter. He poked it with his index finger. Nuthin’.

E’s fist closed around the implant. He swiveled in the chair and looked at the file contents strewn across the stained bedspread, at the image on the cheap laptop monitor: Dante, thirteen or fourteen years old, tearing open his foster father’s throat with his fingertips, blood spraying his pale, gorgeous face. Mrs. Prejean was already dead, crumpled on the dining room floor, her head little more than bits of white bone, hanks of hair, and oozing brains.

Fuckin’ beautiful! Go, little bro, go!

Foster parents, E snorted. Yeah, right. If you consider pimps parental figures.

Of course, Bad Seed Mommy and Daddy knew all about the Prejeans, knew how they used the kids the state handed over to them. Knew how they’d piss themselves with delight when Dante was placed in their home.

The Prejeans had made a lot of moolah off Dante. Course, even with their ward properly restrained, a few of their clients had taken serious injuries. Something about a dick bitten off, or nearly, anyway.

E grinned. He stood, then walked into the john. Standing over the toilet, he opened his hand and dropped the implant into the bowl. Thin swirls of blood tinted the water red. He flushed.

Let Tom-Tom track him now.

Let Johanna Moore sweat.

Mommy, I’m coming home and I ain’t coming alone.

Walking back into the other room, E knelt beside the bed. He popped the CD out of the laptop. Folded the monitor down. He shuffled the documents, reports, and photos back into the manila folders.

One photo caught his eye and he pulled it free from the pile. A small boy, two or three years old, a tuft of sandy hair sticking up at the back of his head, grinned at the camera. Behind him, a man and woman slumped on a vine-patterned sofa, blood smearing the cushions. A dark hole gaped in the man’s—Daddy’s—temple, and in the woman’s—Momma’s—forehead. A gun was on the floor just beneath the man’s dangling hand.

E couldn’t remember if he’d seen his father ice his mom, then himself in the standard murder-suicide thing. If he had, it must not’ve bothered him much. He couldn’t remember the incident and he’d never been troubled by nightmares.

Well, not about his parents, anyway.

E tucked the photo back in with the papers and shoved them all into the folder. So, his parents had died when he was almost three, and Bad Seed had directed his life from that moment on. Dante’s mother had been taken by Bad Seed while pregnant, then slaughtered once she’d given birth.

E shook his head. Born a bloodsucker. Who woulda thought?

Back at the kitchen table, E mixed himself another gin and tonic. He took a long, cool swallow and washed the day’s flat taste out of his mouth.

Created sociopath. So Bad Seed named him.

Born sociopath. So Bad Seed named Dante.

But they were wrong. He tossed back the rest of his drink, the gin’s clean taste clearing his head. Very wrong. He set the glass down and walked into the bathroom. The fluorescent light buzzed. The mirror reflected his shaded gaze, his blood-streaked neck. He grinned. Switched off the light. Switched it back on. Grinned again.

Wetting a hand towel at the tap, E wiped at the blood on his neck. Dante wasn’t the only true blood. Bad Seed hadn’t created E from little grinning Elroy. E had already existed and had been busy nudging little grinning Elroy outta the picture.

E rinsed the towel in the sink. Bloody water swirled down the drain. He patted the towel against the implant site and sucked in a breath through his teeth. Damn if it didn’t sting like a motherfucker.

E’s little sister hadn’t died of SIDS. He’d suffocated her. Had pushed her blankie against her face until she’d quit squirming and gone still. He remembered that as one of his earliest memories. Odd he didn’t remember his folks, but, hey, that’s the way it goes. Maybe if he’d been the one to snuff ’em, he’d’ve remembered.

Draping the bloodstained towel over the edge of the sink, E turned off the faucet. He’d have to buy some Band-Aids. He wondered if Dante’d need bandaging after he dug the implant out of him. Vampires were supposed to heal fast and shit, so maybe not.

Bad Seed had fucked up. They didn’t have just one born sociopath, they had two, true bloods—vampire and human—and they’d just lost all control of their little project.

E gathered up the file box and the black bag he’d borrowed from Tom-Tom’s closet, opening the motel room door with one cramped hand and a kick from his Nikes. He strode across the semideserted parking lot, gravel gritting beneath his sneakers. Balancing the box and bag on his uplifted thigh, E managed to unlock the Jeep and wrestle the door open. He shoved the box onto the backseat, then tossed the bag in beside it.

The black bag was full of all kinds of goodies to subdue a bloodsucker. Drugs—only drugs derived from natural shit or designed for bloodsucker systems worked on ’em; handcuffs—oh, not your ordinary, for-humans kinda cuffs, oh no; and a strait-jacket, a special straitjacket.

At first, E had thought he’d pay Ronin a surprise visit during daylight hours and try some of the goodies out on his black bloodsucker ass. But then he’d gotten another idea.

A better idea.

He was gonna play possum. Go back to the rental. Put all the goodies away. Pretend he still didn’t know shit. Until the right moment…the moment Tom-Tom managed to bring Dante home or the moment Dante decided to crawl in through Ronin’s window to take care of business.

In either case, E would be ready.

E slid into the driver’s seat and keyed on the ignition. The Jeep started up right away, the pungent smell of gasoline and exhaust puffing white into the chilly air. He glanced at the newspaper lying beside him on the seat, and reread the headline.

CROSS-COUNTRY KILLER DEAD IN FLORIDA.

Really?

A scraping, steam-roller-over-rocks sound filled the Jeep’s interior. E forced his jaw open. The sound stopped. Pissed enough to grind his teeth. Either some idiot had dared to copy his work and had been fucking nailed in the act…

Or someone wanted to lure the Bureau away…lure Heather away from him. That someone would have to be Bad Seed momma, Johanna.

If he continued to cull, it’d be obvious he wasn’t dead, unless Bad Seed planned to make sure he never killed again.

Sweat popped up along E’s hairline. Did they think they were smarter than he was? Did they think they knew more about death than a true-blue sociopath, one born, not created?

E fetched his satchel of tricks from the Jeep’s floorboards and took inventory: a length of rope, coiled wire, pliers, latex gloves, duct tape, a small cutting torch. The only thing missing was his book of Navarro’s poetry. He’d pick that up when he dropped Ronin’s goodies off.

Tonight he’d assert his independence. Tonight he’d look for that special someone. Someone who’d appreciate both his skills and his poetry…

With a little coaxing.

SLEEP RELEASED JOHANNA AND her dreams dissipated like night mist caught in sunlight. Fat bumblebees buzzed, the sound vibrating in through her fingertips. She opened her eyes. No bumblebees. No sunlight. Just carpet under her cheek and a buzzing phone.

She pushed herself up to her knees. How long had she been Sleeping? Hours? Days? The pills threw her natural rhythms out of sync. With each use, it took longer and longer to regain the flow.

Scooping her cell phone up from the floor, she flipped it open. “Yes?”

“I checked all incoming flights for the last twenty-four hours,” Gifford said. “Craig Stearns arrived at Dulles at five-thirty this morning.”

“When did he leave?”

“Seven p.m. For New Orleans.”

Johanna raked her fingers through her hair. She’d underestimated Stearns or, more accurately, his attachment to Wallace. “Call your people in New Orleans,” she said. “Give them Stearns and Wallace. Extreme prejudice.”

“Understood.”

Johanna folded the cell phone shut. In truth, she’d made more than one mistake with Stearns. She should’ve killed him the day he discovered Bad Seed. But she’d thought his own black past and her knowledge of it would keep him silent.

She’d been right about that—his silence.

She’d simply forgotten Stearns was a man of action, not words.

18

All of this for You

PULSE ROARING IN HIS ears, Dante held the sheer black stocking in both hands. A yellow sticky note clung to the delicate fabric. He plucked it off.

1616 St Charles

DANTE LIFTED THE STOCKING to his nose. Sniffed. Nothing of Gina remained. No trace of her black-cherries scent. Instead he caught the clean odor of soap and the rubber tang of latex gloves. He lowered the stocking, throat tight. Every bit of her was gone.

His fingers clenched around the stocking. His eyes squeezed shut. Fire burned through his veins; rage ignited his thoughts, his heart. In the distance, wasps droned.

Was Jay still alive?

Wasps burrowed beneath Dante’s skin. Crawled into his mind. His body reverberated with their deep droning. His head ached with it.

Dante-angel? Did she trust you? Did she believe in you?

’Fraid so, princess.

She knows better now, huh, Dante-angel?

A hand seized his chin, forced his head around. Dante opened his eyes. Heather stared at him, into him, held his gaze. He heard her heart pounding hard and fast.

“Breathe, Dante,” she urged, releasing him. “Are you all right?”

Dante held up the stocking. “How the fuck am I supposed to wake up?”

Understanding lit Heather’s blue eyes, but something else shadowed her face. She tugged the stocking from his grasp, the fabric whispering against his palm. He sucked in his breath when he saw the runs and tears. He glanced down at his hands, his nails. Closed his hands into fists. A wasp’s swollen abdomen disappeared beneath his knuckles—glistening and wet and Gigeresque. He shuddered.

“—and he’s not only hooked you, he’s reeling you in.”

Dante glanced at Heather. He realized she’d been talking for a while before he’d heard her. The droning faded.

“Let him have me.”

Heather’s brows knitted. “That again,” she muttered. “He knows what you don’t—your past. He knows how to play you. I wish I knew why.”

“I don’t give a fuck.” Dante keyed on the MG’s ignition and stepped on the gas. The car roared to life. He grabbed the gearshift.

Heather’s hand wrapped around his, warm and strong. He looked at her. “He’s got the advantage,” she said.

“Yeah, maybe so,” Dante said. “But he’s the one you’ve been tracking for three years. Gonna let him walk?”

Dante held her gaze, listening to the steady beat of her heart. She smelled clean and sweet, like the air after a storm, and, for a moment, the droning stopped as he looked into her eyes.

Heather released his hand and pushed her hair back from her face. She drew in a long, deep breath. “We’re on our own,” she said, strapping her seat belt shut. “The case has been closed. I can’t call for backup.”

“Me neither.”

Dante touched his link to Lucien. It was closed. A burr of dread hooked into his stomach. The sudden alarm in Lucien’s dark eyes had rattled Dante; had shaken him free of the unknown song lacing through the night and pulsing in time with his blood.

What could frighten Lucien? That question left Dante cold.

Shifting the car into first gear, Dante nosed the MG out into traffic. Partiers crowded the street, unknotting reluctantly when the MG nudged against them.

“Can knives hurt you?” Heather asked. “Bullets?”

Dante glanced at Heather, surprised. “Sure, anything can hurt. A bullet to the head or the heart would put me down for a while…so I’ve been told.” He shifted his attention back to the street. “Never taken a bullet before.”

“You’re fast. Can you take him?”

“Yeah, if he’s mortal. If he ain’t, maybe,” he said, swinging the steering wheel to the right and tapping the horn. A partier staggered backward, a drunken smile plastered across his face, and extended his middle finger.

“All DNA has been human.”

“Should be no problem then.”

Dante maneuvered the MG through the people-clotted street, his reflexes steering the car around pedestrians and cops on horses, goosing the gas every time a gap opened.

“What did Ronin mean by True Blood?”

Dante glanced at her. “Is my friend asking or is a cop asking?” He shifted the MG into second as he pulled out onto Canal.

“I’m both, Dante. That hasn’t changed.”

Dante nodded. Picking up speed, he shifted into third. Neon light danced along the windshield. Headlights hit his eyes like runway spotlights. Pain prickled like thorns within his aching head. He winced. Spots of color floated in front of his eyes.

He unhooked his shades from his belt, then slid them on. Oncoming headlights muted, the pain faded. Dante drew in a deep breath, tried to ease the tension from his shoulders, but his muscles refused to relax.

Heather still waited for an answer. She said nothing, but he felt her anticipation.

Fourth gear. Still picking up speed. Lights blurred.

“A True Blood is a born vampire.”

“Born? That’s possible?”

“So I’ve been told.”

“Why would he call you that?” Heather’s tone was soft, perplexed. “If you’re a vampire—and I’m willing to admit to the possibility—then someone made you, right? Who made you? And when?”

Pain shafted Dante’s temple. And, below, behind his thoughts, something shattered like glass. His hand locked onto the steering wheel. White light squiggled at the edges of his vision. He clenched his jaw, willing the pain away. Not now. Not fucking now!

Horns blared and tired screeched as Dante missiled the MG through a red light. Streetlights, shadow-darkened old oaks, and gleaming streetcar rails merged into one continuous image.

“Jesus Christ!”

Dante heard vinyl creak as Heather latched her hands onto the dashboard. “Slow down,” she said, her voice even. Coaxing. “Maybe you’ll survive an accident at this speed, but I won’t.”

Wasps droned. Venom burned through Dante’s veins. Warm fingers wrapped around his on the gearshift.

“Please, Dante. Slow down.”

Heather’s calm voice was like a waterfall dousing the fire consuming him, tumbling wasps back into the shattered depths within. He drew in a shuddering breath and eased his foot up off the gas pedal. Downshifted to third. Lights and colors shifted from streamers to distinct images: houses, trees, cars. Sweat trickled along his temple.

“Listen,” Heather said, her hand still grasping his. “A trap’s been set for you. You know this. I know this. You plan to walk right into it. Then what?”

Dante glanced at her. Shadow and light flickered across her face. Streetlight burnished her hair. He shrugged. “No plan. I’ll play it as it comes. But I’ll walk out with Jay.”

Heather sighed, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “Uh huh.”

Shifting his attention back to the road, Dante scanned for building addresses.

“I think he believes you’re nightkind,” Heather said. “So he’ll be planning for that. But he isn’t planning for me. Even Ronin thought I’d be in Pensacola.”

1500. They were close. Dante reduced speed. His gaze swept from one dimly lit warehouse to the next. Another block. A stone building on the right with a weather-faded sign reading CUSTOM MEATS. Boarded-up windows. Vacant. His gaze flicked back to the sign. CUSTOM MEATS. Unease twisted through him.

“Go past,” Heather murmured.

Dante drove several blocks farther, then hooked a left, swinging the MG to the next parallel street. Arrowing in against the curb, he downshifted to a stop and switched off the engine. Pocketing the keys, he yanked open the door. A hand grabbed his arm, fingers latched around his forearm.

One twitch and he’d walk away.

Would he be leaving behind his friend or the cop?

He eased back against the seat. Looked at Heather. He’d be leaving both.

“I’ll follow,” she said. Adrenaline sharpened her scent, warmed her blood. “I’m your backup.” Sudden intensity lit her blue eyes. She radiated a dark, desperate, almost violent emotion—one Dante couldn’t name. “Promise me you’ll play it safe.”

He held her gaze, breathing in her adrenalized odor, listened to the steady beat of her heart. He brushed the backs of his fingers against her cheek. Her skin felt feverish.

“No.”

Heather nodded, jaw tight. She released him.

He slid out of the car.

Does she trust you too, Dante-angel?

’Fraid so, princess.

He ran.

RONIN EASED THE CAMARO along the curb, then switched off the engine and glanced at the GPS receiver. Dante was on the move, running, judging by his speed; aimed for CUSTOM MEATS like a wrecking ball.

Hope Étienne is ready.

Ronin opened the driver’s side door, uncurled from the seat, and walked across the street. Of course, Étienne really had no clue. He was so blinded by his rage and his grief, by his desire to make Dante feel a little of the same, that he hadn’t recognized True Blood. Hadn’t recognized death coiled into a slender five-nine form, hadn’t recognized danger in a beautiful, pale face.

Had Dante put the torch to Étienne’s household? If so, it wouldn’t be the first time he’d played arsonist. Or had someone else done the dirty work and left Dante to take the blame? Who knew? All that mattered was that Étienne believed Dante responsible and would do anything to punish him.

GPS receiver in hand, Ronin moved, gusting like a night breeze along the empty street. He watched for Agent Wallace. Her presence at the club had caught him completely off guard. Blue eyes watchful, she’d stood beside Dante on that dais like she belonged there.

Like an equal. A mortal.

He’d underestimated her. She’d understood the messages when Dante hadn’t; she hadn’t bought Johanna’s desperate cover-up—which begged the question, How much longer did Wallace have to live?

Ronin knew his fille de sang—Wallace’s return to New Orleans was a death sentence. E would miss her, but then, he didn’t have much longer to live, either.

It bothered Ronin that he hadn’t seen E recently. Was he out proving the papers wrong? Pouting? The fact that he hadn’t been able to track the jittery psycho on the GPS had left Ronin cold. Had Johanna already switched him off, so to speak? Or had E discovered a truth Ronin had hidden from him?

Ronin slipped into the shadows between buildings, shades on to keep his lambent eyes from giving him away. A movement above caught his peripheral vision. He froze. Looked up.

Dante climbed onto the roof of CUSTOM MEATS, moonlight gleaming on leather and metal. He prowled along the roof’s edge, lithe and quick, his shaded attention focused on the concrete beneath his feet.

Ronin drew his shields in tight. Stilled his questing mind. Dante seemed like a slice of the night itself, black hair and moonlit face stalking the edge of dreams, an elemental of old.

He remembered the feel of Dante’s lips against his, the unexpected warmth of his hands against his face. Remembered the smell of him, smoke and musk and frost.

Remembered what Dante had murmured against his lips.

You’ll never taste my blood.

Ronin’s hands pressed against the wall behind him, his palms scraping across brick and rough mortar. We’ll see, child, we’ll see.

Dante stopped. Tilted his head, listening. He crossed to the roof’s center, paused, then took one more step. He vanished. The sound of shattering glass echoed throughout the sleeping street.

A smile touched Ronin’s lips. Hard boy to predict.

Dante’d just dropped through the skylight.

WITH THE TOUCH OF his fingers still lingering on her face, Heather watched Dante run across the street, blurring, moving too fast for sight. He vanished into the night. Or merged with it.

She stared at the empty sidewalk. The MG’s engine ticked and clinked as it cooled. Apprehension lodged in her belly, twisted tendrils of doubt around her spine. She opened the passenger door.

She thought about calling Collins, but realized she’d be asking him to risk his career. He’d probably do it, too.

Heather got out of the car and quietly closed the door. Nothing moved across the street. Shadows stretched away from buzzing streetlights. Most houses were dark, as were the little neighborhood businesses. Mom and Pop market. Used-book store. Antiques.

She trotted across the street, her rubber-soled Skechers nearly silent against the pavement. Her purse bumped against her hip, and she paused; but it was too late to run it back to the MG. Swinging the body of it behind her, she loped down the gravel alley between the antiques store and the used-book place.

Where was Dante? Inside, already?

Promise me you’ll play it safe.

No.

His voice, low and firm, had brushed against her heart just like his fingers had against her face. Anger surged through her, stoked a fire in her belly. Gorgeous, sexy, but pigheaded. Loyal to a fault.

Simone’s voice whispered into her thoughts: What you need to remember, m’selle, is that Dante never tells a lie.

So how could he promise when playing it safe might cost Jay his life? And if Jay was already dead? She pushed away the thought.

Heather stepped out of the alley and into the shadows clustered along the sidewalk. Across the street was the front of CUSTOM MEATS, windows boarded, red paint weathered to a faded-out rust color.

The sharp sound of breaking glass shattered the silence. Heather yanked her .38 from the trench’s inside pocket. Even as she raced across the street, she realized the gun’s weight was all wrong. It wasn’t loaded. As she glanced down at the .38, sudden motion in front of her yanked her gaze back up.

She dropped to the damp pavement, then rolled to her left. She swung the empty .38 up in both hands, aiming between her upraised knees at the darkness rushing toward her with heart-stopping speed. She squeezed the trigger. The .38 fired, fracturing the night, the bullet twipping into flesh. Heather released the breath she held. No magazine, but a round had still been in the chamber.

Thomas Ronin stood about a foot from her, a hand pressed to his side. Blood leaked between his fingers. He frowned, his gaze on the wound.

“Fuck.”

Heather rolled to her feet, swinging the .38 up again. She had another magazine in her pocket, but no time to grab it and slam it home.

“Don’t move.” She aimed the empty .38 at the journalist’s forehead, hoping he’d buy her bluff. “A bullet to the brain will put you down for a little bit.”

Ronin glanced at her. A smile curved his lips. “Naughty Dante. Telling trade secrets. Even more amazing, you believe him.” He shook his head. His hand dropped from his wound. Something slipped from his fingers and tinked against the concrete.

“Did he tell you that it hurts? A lot?”

Sweat slicked Heather’s palms. “If you don’t want it to hurt a lot again, stay right there.”

Wiping his bloodied fingers against his jeans, Ronin chuckled. “You’ve got brass.”

“You here for the story?” Heather asked, keeping careful aim on the journalist’s forehead and hoping he couldn’t hear her thundering pulse. “Or did you set us up?”

Ronin tilted his head. “There it is again…us. I set Dante up. I can’t help it if you’re along for the ride.” He moved.

Something slammed against Heather’s temple. Blue light flickered through her vision. She staggered. The .38 was ripped from her grasp, tearing the fingernail on her trigger finger down to the quick. Pain arced up to her elbow. A gleaming pin-wheel spun through the air. The .38 clattered onto the roof of CUSTOM MEATS. Rough hands spun her around, an arm slid around her throat. Squeezed.

“Time for Dante to wake up,” Ronin said, his voice smooth, affable. “And time to bid you good night.”

Heather’s vision darkened. She drove an elbow back, hoping to connect with Ronin’s wounded side, and slammed her foot down on his at the same time.

He squeezed harder.

She gasped for air. Her fingernails tore into his arm.

Darkness swallowed her whole.

IN A JAGGED SHOWER of glass, Dante landed in a half crouch on the concrete below. An old stench of spilled blood and terror permeated the building, clung to it like a starving leech. He straightened, bits of glass dropping from his shoulders and hair and scattering across the stained and dusty floor. Thick curved hooks and dangling chains gleamed in the darkness. No power. No lights. Only a little bit of moonlight leaked in from the broken skylight. But that was all the light he needed, and more.

An image flickered: blood spraying across white walls, blank faces, a window. A voice, asking, What’s he saying?

The image vanished, but Dante’s unease deepened. Pushing his shades to the top of his head, he listened. Two hearts. One slow, a little erratic; the other deep and steady. One mortal. One nightkind. Adrenaline burned through Dante’s muscles. Drawing in a deep breath of tainted air, he ran.

Chains clinked in Dante’s wake, and memory clawed at him with cold fingers. Pain prickled behind his eyes. He ignored it. Just as he reached the cavernous building’s far end, a door scraped open, metal shrieking against concrete. Nightkind scent. Clean and spicy, blood-fed and warm. Familiar.

Flickering light spilled from the opened freezer door—candle-light—and a form hurtled out with nightkind speed. Black braids, café au lait skin, eyes black as burned coffee and just as bitter.

Étienne.

Dante headed straight for him, going low and fast. Étienne swerved at the last moment before impact, but Dante spun with him, slamming a forearm across his face.

Blood spurted from Étienne’s broken nose. He hit the floor hard with Dante on top of him. Air exploded from his lungs. Grabbing a handful of blue-beaded braids, Dante slammed Étienne’s head against the concrete over and over. Something cracked—floor, skull, Dante wasn’t sure. A deep ache radiated through his right side. Glancing down, he realized Étienne was hammering a fist against his ribs.

Dante smashed his fist against Étienne’s swollen nose. The vampire’s eyes rolled up white and he went limp. Dante paused, blood-smeared fist still lifted, braids still clutched in his other hand. He listened. The hair on the back of his neck prickled.

Too easy. Too fucking easy.

Heather was wrong. Either someone—Étienne?—was copycatting her killer or her killer wasn’t working alone. Mortal DNA, she’d said.

Glass crunched beneath boots. Dante let go of Étienne’s braids and lowered his fist. Another heartbeat. Another familiar scent. Nightkind. His muscles coiled. He slid off Étienne’s motionless body and straightened. His hair fluttered as the newcomer rushed past him. Dante breathed in the smells of dark tobacco, ink, and desert sand. His hands knotted into fists.

How about a nightkind journalist with a pervy mortal assistant who liked to sneak peeks?

Dante swiveled around to face the open freezer door. Ronin leaned against the wall beside it, one leg braced behind him, a cold smile stretching his lips. His eyes gleamed. Shades dangled from his hand.

“Lying motherfucker,” Dante spat.

Ronin spread his hands. “You should know. You’ve been living a lie.” He tapped a finger against his temple. “Wake up, S. Time to wake up. All of this is for you.” He stepped into the freezer, stepped toward the source of the irregular mortal pulse.

Jay.

Dante launched himself, diving across the threshold and into quivering orange light. Rolling to his feet, he looked up. And froze.

A figure hung by the ankles from a metal hook, wrapped and hoisted in dull chains, strapped into the white cocoon of a straitjacket. Blond hair swept against the floor. Pale face. Nearly white lips. Closed eyes.

Images flashed and whirled through Dante’s mind. A glimpse of red hair. The reek of clotting blood. The cold gleam of chains. Pain blasted through his mind, dropping him to his knees like a sucker punch to the temple. His vision whited out.

Dante-angel?

What’s the little psycho saying?

“You can still save him, True Blood. All you have to do is wake up.”

Wasps droned, crawled angrily beneath Dante’s skin. Staggering to his feet, dizzy with pain, he threw himself at Ronin.

The journalist sidestepped Dante’s rush, shoving as he passed. Off-balanced by Ronin’s push and his own momentum, Dante slammed shoulder first into the wall. As he twisted around, a hand latched onto his throat and bulldozed him into the wall. Dante’s head snapped back against the concrete. Color fractured his vision.

The fingers around his throat squeezed. Struggling to breathe, Dante locked one hand around Ronin’s steel-corded wrist. Energy pushed at Dante’s shields. Sweat trickled down his temples, stinging his eyes. His shields rippled, faltered. Gasping for air, he hammered his other fist into Ronin’s gut again and again.

Ronin doubled over, his fingers sliding away from Dante’s throat. Sucking in a throat-burning gulp of air, Dante hooked his hands on either side of the journalist’s head and rammed Peeping Tom’s smug, lying face into his upraised knee.

Bone crunched. Blood sprayed.

Dante shoved Ronin away from him, tossing him completely across the freezer. The journalist stumbled, struggling to retain his balance.

Blood slid down Dante’s throat. He wiped a hand under his nose. Blood, gleaming almost black in the candlelight, smeared the back of his hand. Wincing in the light, he reached for his shades and realized he’d lost them in his fight with Étienne.

Nausea twisted through Dante’s gut. The migraine pierced his mind with blinding shards of white light, hacked at his thoughts. But one thought persevered—Jay.

Dante shoved the pain below. Pushing himself away from the wall, he went to the center of the freezer. Jay’s eyes opened. Relief flickered in their green depths. A smile ghosted across his lips.

“Mon ami,” he breathed. “I’m so sorry—”

“Shhh. Je suis ici.”

Dante circled Jay’s bound and dangling body, his eyes on Ronin. The journalist straightened, his dark eyes calm above his blood-smeared face. Gaze never leaving Ronin, Dante slipped his arms around Jay, lifting him up and off the hook. As he crouched, easing Jay onto the concrete floor, Ronin grinned. Then he moved.

Uncoiling upward, Dante placed his feet on either side of Jay’s body and braced himself for Ronin’s attack. Denim slid across latex. As Dante ducked and swiveled, something caught his hair and yanked his head back. Pain rippled through his scalp.

“Caught you, marmot.” Étienne, up from concrete floor and joining the fight.

A flurry of fingertip jabs hit Dante in quick succession, stone-edged and quick; then Ronin whirled away. Minefields of pain exploded with each jab. Base of throat. Sternum. Gut. Crotch. Dante gasped for air, but gagged instead as his burning insides tried to turn themselves inside out. He spat blood onto the floor. His vision blurred.

Ronin wheeled around for another pass. Dante swung his arms up, blocking the first two blows. The last two knifed into his ribs on either side. Pain stole his breath.

Send it below or fucking use it.

“Your pretty little FBI agent won’t be joining you,” Ronin said. He knelt beside Jay. “A shame, really. Might’ve been amusing.”

Heather. The thought hurt, a jagged splinter of glass. Light pinwheeled through Dante’s vision. His head ached. Pain pounded at his temples. Jay.

Send it below or fucking use it.

Dante leaned back into Étienne’s warm body, then stepped forward and kept moving. Pain tore through his scalp as ten-drils of hair ripped loose, still wrapped around Étienne’s fingers. Blood trickled down his neck, sticky and warm.

“Wake up, S,” Ronin murmured. His forefinger slipped across Jay’s throat.

Blood sprayed across the grimy floor and spattered Ronin’s face, the white straitjacket. Jay choked.

“No!” Dante dropped to his knees beside Jay and bit into his own wrist. Blood welled up, dark and rich and full of life.

Jay looked at him, eyes dilated, scared. And dying.

Arms locked like steel bands around Dante. Yanked him onto his ass. He struggled to break free, twisting, and driving an elbow back into Étienne’s ribs. The vampire’s breath exploded from him in a pained whoof. Dante scrambled to get his feet under him. Etienne dug in his fingernails, piercing latex and skin. Dante hissed.

The blood flowing from Jay’s slit throat had already slowed. It spread in an ever-widening pool around Jay, staining his hair red. Jay’s half-lidded gaze fixed on Dante.

“Hang on,” Dante said. “Hang on.”

A smile flickered across Jay’s pale lips.

Throwing himself forward with every bit of adrenaline-fueled strength he had, Dante dragged Étienne with him across the floor as he crawled to Jay. Sweat trickled into his eyes. Pain needled his temples. He sank his teeth into his healing wrist. Blood welled up again.

I knew you’d come for me.

Jay’s thought penetrated the pain snaking through Dante’s mind, silenced the voices whispering from below.

I knew you’d come.

More weight dropped on Dante, flattened him against the concrete floor. Another set of hands pulled at him, yanking him back up onto his knees. Straitjacketed him with steel arms. Thighs pinned him. A hand closed on his throat, around the collar.

I knew.

Dante strained to pull free of the limbs holding him, strained to lower his mouth to his wrist. Strained to haul all three of them across the floor. He slid maybe a foot forward before his strength gave out.

A sigh escaped Jay’s lips. His heart stopped. The light winked out of his eyes.

A hand brushed Dante’s hair aside. Warm lips touched his ear.

“How does it feel, marmot?”

Dante screamed.

19

Elohim

WINGS SLASHING THROUGH THE night air, Lucien flew, eyes closed, listening to the complicated aria vibrating through his heart and mind and weaving a dark refrain of information into his consciousness. He now knew the singer, how far he had traveled. And why.

So Lucien kept silent, his own wybrcathl unvoiced. He refused to share anything with the one warbling into the lush New Orleans night.

Cool, moist air rushed past him, beading his face with moonlit drops of dew. Lucien still tasted Dante’s blood, dark and sweet, on his lips. Still felt his reluctance and frustration. Smelled his hurt, sharp and bitter.

You’ve always been there for me. Whatever’s wrong, let me be there for you.

No. Close your mind. Shield it. Promise me.

Fuck you.

Promise me.

Opening his eyes, Lucien pushed all thought of Dante out of his mind. His song wasn’t the only thing he refused to share. His wings swept through the night, kiting him to the ground as he descended into St. Louis No. 3. Dead leaves swirled along the cemetery path, caught in his wing gust. Lucien touched bare feet to the cold stone walk.

An aingeal was perched on a mist-shrouded tomb marked BARONNE, his black, leathery wings encircling his body and sheltering him from view—except for his taloned feet. Silver markings, visible only in starlight, etched his wings. His scent, ozone and fallow earth and night-chilled dew, perfumed the city of the dead.

Sudden, unexpected longing burned through Lucien’s veins and tightened his throat. His pulse pounded in time with the wybrcathl’s haunting rhythm. Loneliness snaked around his heart. It had been so long. Ah, but by his own choice.

“Hail, Loki. Well sung,” Lucien said. “Your invitation has been received.”

The wybrcathl ended abruptly and thick silence, absent even of insect song, wound through the cemetery.

“But not answered in kind. Most intriguing, brother.” The aingeal’s wings curved back to reveal his bowed head.

Silver markings looped and whorled along the entire right side of Loki’s nude body, across his throat, torso, and taloned hand. Gold-lace bracers encircled both corded wrists and his right biceps. A thick gold torc twisted around his throat. Long red hair veiled his face. Several strands fluttered in the breeze.

Loki lifted his head. Golden eyes glowed in the darkness. “Expecting to be challenged for your aerie?”

“A challenge?” Lucien snorted, folding his arms across his chest. “From you?” His wings arched up behind him. “Are you trying to kill me with laughter, brother?”

Folding his wings behind him, Loki glanced up at the moon, a long-suffering expression on his face. “Phaaugh! Same old Samael. No sense of humor.”

“At least I have more than Lilith.” Even after a thousand years or more, he still felt a twinge when speaking her name.

“Spoken like a true former lover.”

Stepping forward, Lucien reached up and seized Loki’s ankle. Yanked. Expression startled, wings fluttering, Loki tumbled from his perch.

“Has she forgiven you that ‘Angel Moroni’ stunt yet?” Lucien asked.

“Well, more or less,” Loki muttered. Kneeling on the mist-shrouded ground, he glared at Lucien. “Was that necessary?”

“Absolutely. Tell me, does she still rule Gehenna?” An image of flowing black hair, dark eyes, and creamy skin flashed into Lucien’s mind. He went cold as he realized how much Genevieve had looked like her. Had?

Still kneeling, Loki plucked several yellow carnations from the vase in front of the tomb’s padlocked iron fence. “I’m surprised you care after all these centuries tucked away in the mortal world,” he murmured. “But, yes. And Gabriel has joined forces with the Morningstar to mount yet another campaign against her.”

Lucien crouched in front of Loki. “And you, naturally, are playing both sides.”

Loki breathed in the carnations’ sweet scent, his eyes closing in pleasure. Mist snaked around his nude form. Clung to his wings in wisps. “Mmmm. Naturally. But that’s not why I’m here.”

Lucien touched a talon to the X-rune pendant at his throat. The breeze whipped strands of hair across his face. “No, it’s not. You seek a branch of the Elohim that no longer exists, a branch that died with Yahweh.”

Opening his eyes, Loki regarded him speculatively. “No longer exists? Please. We both know there’s a Maker here.” He nibbled at the yellow petals with sharp teeth. “I’ve heard his anhrefncathl, brother—wild, young, masculine. He’s powerful. But you must’ve heard his chaos song, too.”

Lucien held the aingeal’s gaze and said nothing. He’d believed—he’d hoped—that since the Elohim had withdrawn from the mortal world so long ago, that Dante’s song would remain unheard; that the first creawdwr born since Yahweh—and the first mixed-blood Maker ever—would remain undiscovered.

A foolish hope. A desperate belief.

Loki lowered the carnations and looked at Lucien for a long moment. “I never expected to find you, though. You’re still spoken of in whispers.”

Lucien shook his head, disgust knotting his muscles. Spoken of in whispers. Because he’d tried to defend a tormented creawdwr. The sound of Yahweh’s anguished words still echoed through his mind after all this time.

Let them have me.

His thoughts strobed back to Dante. A fist clenched around his heart. He met Loki’s careful gaze. The aingeal plucked a petal from a carnation and slipped it into his mouth. Starlight glimmered along his tribal markings.

“Together we could bind this creawdwr,” Loki said. “Keep him safe from insanity. Bind him and train him. We could unite the Elohim and you could rule Gehenna once again.”

“Rule,” Lucien spat. “Think twice before you insult me again.” He stood, hands knotted at his sides. “I’ll never allow this creawdwr to be chained to Elohim will. Mark me well, I will kill him first.”

All expression vanished from Loki’s face. He shifted his attention to the graveyard bouquet in his hand. “You can’t keep him from going mad, brother. Not alone,” he said, his voice thoughtful. “If you won’t bind him, perhaps death would be best.”

“I can’t bind him alone.” Bitterness edged Lucien’s voice, a bitterness that surprised him. He glanced away.

“You need me.”

Lucien laughed. “I’ve gotten along just fine until now.” He looked at Loki, met his golden gaze. “Leave it to you to throw the truth in my face.”

Loki brushed pollen from his lips, trying to hide his smile. “Our secret,” he said. “Lilith and the Morningstar will never know. None of them will. You can trust me in this.” False sincerity lit his eyes. “I swear, Samael. Upon my name.”

“Ah.” Lucien lifted his palms and examined the blood welling in the wounds left by his talons.

“I’m intrigued by your pendant,” Loki said through a another mouthful of carnation. “The rune for partnership. A gift?”

“Yes. From my son. A very special child.”

Loki choked, coughed, then smiled. “A son? Congratulations—”

Lucien lowered his bleeding hands over Loki’s head. Pale, ethereal light curled away from his palms, mingling with the mist. Blood dripped onto the aingeal’s red mane, then onto the shrouded earth. Bound.

Loki’s eyes widened in horrified realization. “Special…? The creawdwr!” Unable to move from where he squatted, he curved his wings forward protectively. The pale mist roped around the hunched aingeal, weaving a solid web.

“By earth, blood, air, and the power of your true name, Drwg of the Elohim, I hold you to your vow and seal you to stone,” Lucien said, his deep voice carrying into the night. “No voice, no sight, no breath until I break the seal and restore you to flesh. Upon my name, it is done.”

Weariness burning behind his eyes, Lucien dropped to one knee and painted a blood glyph on Loki’s stone forehead. He gazed at the crouched statue. Wings curved forward, mouth open in an endless scream, partially devoured flowers clutched in one taloned hand, Loki guarded the iron-gated tomb behind him—an unwilling gargoyle.

“Now I trust you, brother.”

Lucien’s wings lifted him into the night. He spiraled up above the glittering city and the wide, light-slicked river stretching into the distance. He drew in a deep breath of icy air. But dread, black and hard as a stone, lodged in his belly.

Dante’s anhrefncathl—a creawdwr’s unique song—had breached the thin wall between Gehenna and the mortal world.

Had only Loki heard Dante’s song? Had he come on his own? Or been sent?

Far above Lucien, a plane soared through the night, lights strobing through the darkness. The dragon roar of its passage gradually faded.

How much longer could he hide his child from the Elohim? How could he keep Dante from using his creawdwr gifts? Gifts? Since when was madness a gift? The last creawdwr had remade his face into a searing pillar of light. Had torched bushes with a single glance.

I am.

Old sorrow tightened Lucien’s throat. He’d been unable to protect Yahweh from Elohim court intrigue. Or from his own disintegrating mind.

Yahweh had called him friend, too.

Lucien’s fingers closed around the wind-chilled pendant at his throat. Time to tell Dante the truth; time to give Dante his name. His thoughts slipped back to Genevieve, to the beautiful young mortal he’d loved for a brief time. Dante was True Blood, born vampire. Which meant Genevieve had been turned during her pregnancy.

Lucien released the pendant. Where was Genevieve now? Nightkind or mortal, she never would have abandoned their son. Not while she still breathed.

A dark certainty roosted in Lucien’s heart. Genevieve, the laughing, questioning little Ursuline Academy graduate, no longer drew breath. He remembered the honeysuckle fragrance of her black hair, the warmth of her embrace, the questions in her dark eyes.

If you exist, then God must, also.

Yahweh died, little one. Mortals must become their own gods.

The Church wants to be God. But it’s empty. I felt that the first time I knelt at a pew. Love is real, though. Love and faith.

Faith in a dead god?

No, mon chéri. In each other.

Cold wind stung Lucien’s eyes and iced the moisture on his face. Dante would never forgive him. For not speaking. For lying. For not knowing he existed. Would that be penance enough, my Genevieve? If I gain our son’s hatred, but keep him alive and sane, would that be enough?

I always intended to return to you….

Lucien unblocked his link with Dante and opened it with a flick of energy. Sharp-edged, crystalline pain blasted through his mind. Rage, heartbroken and primal, howled through his very essence. Dante’s inner shields had shattered and fallen.

Stunned, overwhelmed by the cacaphony, Lucien tumbled and plummeted toward the glittering city.

20

The Darkest Heart

“Beneath still waters I lie / my mother’s fingers anchoring my hair / to the porcelain bottom / she ripples above me / a goddess / not a woman / seeking to wash taint from blood / beneath still waters I lie / my mother, my anchor / I close my eyes / and breathe / beneath still waters…”

E read the poem aloud, speaking over the gurgling, wheezing sounds issuing up from the sofa. He closed the book and slipped it back into his satchel.

“I fucking love Navarro’s work,” he said to the gasping thing on the blood-soaked sofa. “He speaks to the darkest heart.”

Leaning back in the easy chair, E tilted his head and regarded his latest creation. Thing was apt. He’d removed everything that made Keith male and placed them artistically around the room. On the coffee table beside a candle. On the bookshelf nestled next to a framed photo of Keith and someone…lover…sibling…who gave a rat’s ass?

He grinned. Well, Keith probably gave a rat’s ass.

The gurgling, wheezing sounds continued. E smoothed his latex-gloved hands down the front of the blood-spattered butcher’s apron he wore. Buck-ass naked underneath. Kept his clothes clean and was, frankly, liberating. He leaned forward and dug in his satchel until his fingers found the shape he sought. He pulled out a cordless drill. Tapped the on button. It whirred to high-speed life. He pulled down the welding goggles parked on top of his head and walked to the sofa.

Dead, was he?

Case closed, was it?

The wet gasping sounds became faster and more frantic.

“Time to recite a poem for me,” E murmured, lowering the drill.

21

Descent from Grace

LUCIEN FELL. THE WORLD spun beneath him. The city blurred into a single point of dazzling light. Cold air whistled past, frosting his cheeks and icing his hair, his wings.

Dante’s barriers had been smashed. Fragmented memories crept out of the depths and slithered across his consciousness. Pain devoured Dante from the inside out, pain strong enough to knock Lucien from the sky.

Chaos song, dark and twisted and pulsing, flowed into Lucien’s scorched mind. Maker. Unmaker. Unguided and abandoned.

He knew in that moment he’d failed his son. Just as he’d failed Genevieve. Just as he’d failed Yahweh.

The tall spires of a church loomed up beneath him; weathered black steeples filled his vision. He crashed through the ancient wood, plummeting through attic and ceiling and thick wood beams, body spinning with each blow. His bones broke. Fractured wood punctured his wings. Pain enveloped him in a red-hot web.

Like a star, Lucien fell into a gleaming chamber. Above him the words SANCTUS SANCTUS SANCTUS DOMINUS DEUS SABAOTH curved across the high arched ceiling.

His pain backwashed into the link. Dante’s song faltered, and then stopped.

<Lucien?>

Using the last of his strength, Lucien closed the link between them. Then he smashed into the thick wood pews. Pain wracked his body as splintered slabs of polished wood flew up into the candle-perfumed air of St. Louis Cathedral. He hit the floor.

The golden ceiling whirled. SANCTUSSANCTUSSANCTUS blurred into a streak of amber paint.

Lucien fell into darkness.

HEATHER DRIFTED UP FROM the dreamless dark. Her head ached. She opened her eyes and stared into a cloud-smudged night sky. She was on the ground—hard, damp gravel judging by the way her back felt. Her thoughts spun backward.

A rush of wind. Exploding glass.

Time for Dante to wake up.

Ronin’s voice echoed through Heather’s throbbing head. She sat up, or tried to. Something jerked hard on her right wrist, clunking, and she slid onto her side. She sucked in the smell of wet dirt, oil, and moldering trash. She glanced at her right wrist. Metal gleamed. She was handcuffed to a drainpipe in the alley.

How long had she been out? Was Dante still inside? And Ronin?

Heather scooted toward the drainpipe. Putting her back to the building, she sat up. She examined the cuffs. Probably her own. She reached for her purse, but it was gone. She finally spotted it at the other end of the alley, the contents strewn like confetti all along the packed-gravel lane. She thumped her head against the building.

And her .38?

A quick look around confirmed it was nowhere in sight.

“Shit. Shit. Shit!”

Memory sparked. A pinwheel of metal whirling through the night. She looked up at the roof of CUSTOM MEATS. All right. Had to be a way up. A full clip in her pocket…Heather grabbed at the trench, feeling for the magazine beneath the fabric. Her hand closed over a rectangular shape.

Exhaling in relief, she looked at the building’s side entrance. The door stood partially open, spilling shadows into the narrow alley. She listened, but heard nothing. Her gaze skipped across the debris from her emptied purse: Makeup bag, badge, wallet, keys, spearmint gum, fingernail clippers, cell phone, nail file, mini-flashlight.

Heather’s gaze whipped back to the nail file. If she could reach it, maybe she could dig the bracket loose; dig and chip and pry.

Leaning over as far as her cuffed wrist would allow, she reached for the file, her fingers wriggling through the gravel. She stretched, cuff scraping her wrist, bruising the bone. Her fingers scrabbled, dirt working up under her nails.

Breath rasping in a throat gone tight, wrist throbbing, Heather pushed herself back against the building. Too far. If she had something she could snag it with, pull it in…

Easing down on her side, cuffed arm extended behind her, she felt around in the gravel with her feet, scooping with her shoes, kicking pebbles, little bits of shells and glass, cigarette butts, and petrified wads of chewing gum up toward her hand.

Her fingertips glided over metal. She looked down into the gravel. The dirt-stained file rested next to her hand. She curled her fingers around it, clutched it tight against her palm.

Scooting back into a sitting position, Heather twisted the file around and, grasping it like a knife, worked it under one edge of the bracket and pried. The file chipped paint from the drainpipe and its bracket. Gritting her teeth, she twisted the file under the bracket. Give, damn you!

One edge of the bracket abruptly pulled away from the building. The file sliced through the air and Heather fell back onto her elbow. Dropping the file, she worked the cuff down and off the drainpipe.

She scrambled to her feet and ran to the back of the building. She jumped up, caught the bottom rung of the fire escape ladder, and pulled. The ladder slid down, the clanging metal loud as a falling Dumpster lid at four in the morning. She grabbed the cold rungs with both hands and climbed, dangling handcuff tinking against the rail.

As she stepped from the ladder onto the roof, shards of star-lit glass caught Heather’s attention. She saw a broken skylight at the roof’s midpoint.

Exploding glass. Dante.

Heather paused every few steps to break up the rhythm. Didn’t want Ronin to know she’d escaped. If he was still here. She crouched down and scanned for a gleam of metal, for the .38 Colt’s familiar shape. Then she saw it among the broken glass near the skylight.

She stood, forcing herself to continue the step-step-pause step-pause unrhythm. Slipping her hand into the trench’s pocket, she pulled out the magazine. She knelt, careful not to crunch any of the spilled glass, and picked up the .38. Slammed the cartridge-filled clip into it.

A scream sliced through the silence, desperate and raw with denial. She froze, pulse pounding. The sound died away after several time-stretching seconds, fading into a low growl of long-simmering rage.

Dante.

Heart pounding, Heather jumped to her feet and ran for the ladder. She flung herself onto it and half climbed, half jumped to the ground. She rounded the back corner and pelted up the alley to the side door, then slipped inside CUSTOM MEATS.

DANTE’S ANGUISHED HOWL LIFTED the hair on the back of Ronin’s neck, iced his blood. He almost released the boy. Almost. More than a little madness and blood rage edged that echoing cry. Even Étienne’s mouth snapped shut—gloating whispers silenced.

Ronin tumbled into Dante’s mind as the shields he pushed against crumpled inward, pain swarming against his intrusion like a disturbed hive of wasps. Images whirled, broken and fragmented, through Dante’s mind—images Ronin had difficulty deciphering.

An anarchy symbol cut into a pale torso…

A falling drop of blood forms into a metallic-looking wasp and flies away…

A shattered window, but one that stretches across the horizon…

Dizzied, Ronin withdrew from Dante’s mind. Johanna had done her job well. The boy was more fucked up than he’d imagined. Disappointment curled through him. Dante’s shields had fallen, but memory still hid, disguising itself with symbols. He’d awakened, but saw only in tarot card pictures—powerful, but confusing. True memory lurked within his subconscious.

Maybe a little more incentive?

Hooking his fingers in Dante’s silken hair, he yanked his head back, pulled his throat taut. The boy struggled against Ronin’s and Étienne’s tight hold, muscles straining.

You’ll never taste my blood.

Ronin sank his fangs into Dante’s throat, just above the bondage collar. Hot blood tasting of dark, sun-warmed grapes and spiced with adrenaline and rage spurted into his mouth. Ronin swallowed mouthful after heady mouthful. True Blood, oh yes. And more. Electric energy surged through Ronin’s veins. He wrapped his arms ever tighter around the struggling young vampire, pressed his lips ever closer against his fevered flesh. Dante’s strong heartbeat pulsed through his consciousness.

Ronin hears a rush of wings.

No longer able to separate his heartbeat from Dante’s, Ronin wrenched his mouth from the boy’s throat. The taste of Dante’s blood lingered on his tongue, simmered in his veins, blazed like holy fire in his mind.

“You were wrong, boy,” Ronin said. “I’ve had more than a taste.”

“Let me up, chien, and we’ll see how long you keep it,” Dante said, voice low and strained.

True Blood and…? The memory of Lucien De Noir’s dark and earthy scent quickened Ronin’s thoughts. And Fallen? Intriguing possibility. If so, it was information Johanna’d lacked. She’d never known or cared who had fathered Dante. Careless and a mistake.

Heart slowing, Ronin unwrapped his fingers from Dante’s hair. Slid his hand once again across the leather collar circling the child’s throat. His fingers tightened.

“All of this for you. See?” Grasping Dante’s chin with his other hand, Ronin aimed the boy’s face at the mortal’s straitjacketed body. “For you.”

Dante’s fury battered against his shields like a jackhammer. Ronin’s fingers squeezed until the boy, gasping for air, slumped against him. Étienne slammed a fist into Dante’s damaged ribs. A rib cracked. The boy hissed in pain.

“I’m gonna burn your household and make you watch, marmot,” Étienne said. “I’m gonna drink dry…” His words trailed off. He glanced at Ronin, face puzzled. “What’s that?”

A faint bluish light glowed from Dante’s palms. Ronin tensed. Inner alarms sounded, flooding his system with adrenaline. What, indeed? Power surged from the youth, chaotic and uncontrolled.

And definitely not vampiric.

Dante twisted in his embrace, struggled to bring those glowing hands up. As Ronin released the boy, flinging his arms wide, three things happened simultaneously:

Étienne said, “You’re not going anywhere, marmot.”

Dante’s skin brushed against the last two fingers of Ronin’s left hand.

Étienne’s head snapped forward, then back, braids flying, as a gunshot cracked through the building.

Ronin leapt to his feet. Chaotic energy scrabbled through his hand. Plucking. Unraveling. Unmaking. Sweat beaded his forehead. Grasping his wrist, he glanced down. The last two fingers of his left hand were gone. As in, no longer existed. His hand had reshaped itself as though it’d always possessed only two fingers and a thumb.

He stared, heart thudding hard against his chest. The pain ebbed. His mind refused to accept what it was seeing. A flash of motion caught his attention and he looked up.

Dante stood and swiveled with mind-numbing speed to face Ronin. Even blood-spattered and bruised, Dante’s beauty mesmerized. Rage smoldered in the boy’s suddenly gold-streaked eyes, a sharp-edged rage honed for twenty-three years. But beneath that—old grief, renewed.

Gold-streaked eyes. A Fallen attribute? Or was S awakening?

“Her name was Chloe,” Ronin said. “And you killed her.”

Dante froze. Pain flickered in his eyes.

Ronin moved.

Heather squeezed the .38’s trigger again. The shot tore through empty space, the sound exploding in the room. She whirled, trying to track Ronin, and caught him hitting Dante with a flurry of blows, pummeling him down to all fours on the concrete floor. Before she could even blink, Ronin landed a vicious kick into Dante’s ribs, knocking him halfway across the room.

Heather fired two more rounds. A pained grunt told her that at least one bullet hit the mark. She circled the room, .38 clasped in her white-knuckled hands. Edged ever closer to Dante.

Dante coughed, then spat.

Silence.

Heather lowered the .38. Ronin was gone. Drawing in a deep breath of blood- and candle-wax-scented air, she stepped over to Étienne’s Raggedy Andy–sprawled body.

“Dante,” she called over her shoulder. “You okay?” She realized how inane that sounded—of course he wasn’t okay; his friend was dead and he’d had the crap beaten out of him—but she needed to hear his voice, to gauge how much he’d been hurt.

“Lucien…no!” he said, voice husky, alarmed.

Lucien? De Noir was nowhere in sight. But Dante had told her what she needed to know. He was hurt. Maybe bad. Heather crouched beside Étienne. She risked a quick glance over her shoulder at Dante. He knelt on the floor, head bowed, black hair hiding his face. His fingers touched the floor on either side of him as though for balance.

“Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.” He swayed.

“Hold on,” she said. “Hear me? We’re walking out of here together.”

A healing hole marred Étienne’s pale forehead. Blood streaked his face, trickled from one nostril. His eyes were half-lidded. Heather touched a hand to the vampire’s throat. Blood pulsed beneath her fingers. Guess he has a heart after all.

She shoved the .38’s muzzle against Étienne’s chest, right above that theoretical heart. This is an execution. You do this, you might as well leave that badge and all it stands for in the dirt outside.

Sweat trickled along her temples, between her breasts. Her muscles trembled. And how would I bring this bastard before a court? He’s a vampire, she thought, realizing she finally believed it. He’s a killer.

So is Dante.

That’s the way of it, Pumpkin. Some you bring to justice. Some you silence. Some you let walk away.

No and no and no. Her finger tightened on the trigger. Her breath rasped in her throat.

“Mine.”

Startled, Heather yanked the .38 away from Étienne’s chest, her finger easing off the trigger. She looked up into Dante’s dark, pain-dilated eyes. No glimmer of recognition lit his face.

He doesn’t know who I am. That the realization stung so sharply surprised her. Like Annie, when she was lost to migraine pain, booze, and madness: Who the fuck are you? Like Annie—pissed. Hurting. Feeling.

Heather rose to her feet, her gaze on Dante. He was definitely feeling. It burned in his eyes, fevered his pale face, coiled through his taut-muscled body. He straddled the head-shot vampire, twisted a handful of Étienne’s blood-spattered shirt around his fingers, and jerked his torso up.

“Let this go,” she said. “Dante, you’re hurt. Let me help you.”

But Dante didn’t reply and Heather wasn’t sure he’d even heard her.

Étienne’s head hung limp, his braids sweeping the floor, beads clicking against the concrete. She caught a glimpse of Dante’s fangs as he bit into Étienne’s arched throat. Saw the vampire’s body convulse and his eyes fly open. Heard him hiss. Dante ripped into Étienne’s throat. Blood sprayed.

Heather stared, pulse pounding hard through her veins. Her fingers tightened around the .38’s grip. Dante wasn’t feeding, no, this was something else. Primal. Pissed and hurting. Every instinct she’d honed during her years with the Bureau screamed at her to swing up the .38 and stop the slaughter happening right in front of her.

But—did she have a right to interfere? Dante wasn’t human, she knew that now; neither was Étienne. Did human laws apply here? Was there nightkind law? Nightkind courts?

Or was nightkind justice dispensed like this—one to one, savage and bloody and personal? Was Dante within his rights? Was Étienne?

Heather’s shoes squelched in something. She looked down. She stood in the pool of blood circling the straitjacketed body—no, Jay, his name is Jay—circling Jay. She had backed up unaware.

She swiveled around and gazed into Jay’s empty green eyes. Crouching, she brushed her fingers against his still warm cheek. Had he been killed as Dante watched? She remembered the heartbroken sound of Dante’s scream and her throat tightened. She should’ve never let him go in alone.

We’re on our own. The case has been closed. I can’t call for backup.

Me neither.

I’m your backup.

She slid her hand from Jay’s face, clenching her fingers into a fist. Some backup. When Dante’d needed her, she wasn’t there. Didn’t matter that she hadn’t counted on being sidelined by a vampire. What mattered was she’d failed Dante and the friend he’d tried to save.

Ronin and Étienne had kidnapped and murdered Jay. And Gina too? Could she have been wrong about the CCK’s involvement? The perp she’d followed for three years was human. Human DNA.

Then it all clicked into place.

Ronin’s assistant—Elroy Jordan.

A pair of killers. A tag team? It was a possibility she’d never seriously entertained. The Hillside Strangler had been two men, cousins. Were Ronin and Elroy Jordan together the CCK? Or just playing at it? She wasn’t sure how Étienne fit into the picture; maybe he’d just tagged along, lugging his hatred for Dante.

So…where was Elroy Jordan?

Something thudded against the concrete. Heather swiveled around on the balls of her feet.

Wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his wrist, Dante stood. Étienne’s head dangled from his other hand, braids wrapped around his fingers. He dropped the head onto Étienne’s chest. The braids jittered with each beat of the heart. The eyes blinked.

Stepping over the still living body, Dante picked up a candle from the crate beside the door, and carried it back to Étienne. The head’s eyes rolled, wild, white. Dante touched flame to the black braids and to the expensive shirt and designer slacks. Smoke curled into the air. Hair and clothing burst into flame.

Dante stood, the movement swift and smooth. The stench of burning hair and roasting flesh closed Heather’s throat. With a last glance at Jay, she rose and stepped out of the sticky pool of blood.

Dante watched Étienne burn.

“Hey,” Heather said, voice low. She reached for him, but he spun abruptly, knocking her hand away and grabbing her, his fingers clamping around her upper arms. He yanked her in close. Lowered his head.

Heather shoved the .38 against his ribs, heart hammering. In his eyes she’d seen loneliness and loss. Yearning. He burned against her, his body raging with an inner fire to rival the one consuming Étienne’s body.

Dante nuzzled her throat, his lips brushing against her skin and she stiffened, even though fire flared within her at his touch. She wrapped her finger tighter around the .38’s trigger. Dante lifted his head. Sweat-damp tendrils of hair clung to his face and blood trickled from his nose. He closed his eyes. The muscle in his jaw twitched. His wire-taut muscles trembled as he struggled for control.

Heather’s arms tingled, her fingers cold, as Dante’s tight grip cut off the circulation. She wondered if he was aware of the gun against his ribs. She wondered if he cared. Desperation knotted around her heart.

“Dante, don’t do this.”

His eyes opened. Pupils dilated and rimmed with red-flecked brown, he looked into her. He released her, then touched her face with shaking fingers, brushing stray strands of hair back from her face.

“Heather,” he breathed.

Pain prickled through Heather’s arms as the blood resumed flowing. She lowered the .38 to her side. The relief, the wonder, in Dante’s voice told her that he’d believed her dead. She could just imagine what Ronin had told him: Caught the fed outside. Her neck snapped real easy.

The question was, why hadn’t he killed her?

Heather touched cold fingers to Dante’s face. “You’re hurt,” she said. “Let’s—” She felt smooth, fevered skin beneath her fingertips, then air.

“Run as far from me as you can.” His voice was strained, edged with pain.

She spun toward the sound. Dante stood in the doorway, hands braced on either side. She opened her mouth to argue, but it was pointless.

Dante was gone.

22

Ange De Sang

LUCIEN’S SONG SMOLDERED WITHIN Dante, its rhythm faint and faltering, dying embers of a fire that had burned hot and steady for hundreds—no, thousands—of years. He rushed up the cathedral’s steps to the locked double doors. He looked up. Shutters blinded the windows.

The image of an arched chamber—SANCTUSSANCTUSSANCTUS—strobed within Dante’s mind, then flared into a golden burst of color. He touched his link to Lucien, but it was closed. He pushed. The seal held.

Voices whispered and droned. Wasps crawled.

Lucien, mon cher ami—

Jay’s green eyes, steady and full of trust, even as the light went out of them, filled Dante’s mind.

I knew you’d come for me.

Would he fail Lucien, too? Would he watch the life ebb from his eyes?

White light etched mysterious glyphs at the edges of Dante’s vision. Blood dripped onto the concrete beneath his feet. Voices shouted and shrieked and murmured behind him, none of them making any sense. He grasped the door handles and pushed.

Dante didn’t have to look behind him to know that mortals circled the MG parked at the foot of the cathedral’s steps; he smelled them, blood and sweat, booze and desperation. He heard their hearts, pounding and hammering and pulsing; a disjointed rhythm threading through the night beneath the buzz of their voices.

With an echoing snap, the locks broke. Dante swung the heavy doors open and stepped into the golden chamber he’d seen in his mind before pain, white hot and not his own, had stolen his breath and his song.

A gold cherub stood in the aisle near the dark, gleaming pews. The smell of incense and candle wax, sharp and fragrant—sandalwood, rose oil, and sorrow—drifted through the cathedral. Silence as thick as cotton muffled the sounds from outside, but amplified the beat of Dante’s heart.

Dante glanced up. Painted in amber across an arched ceiling beam were the words SANCTUS SANCTUS SANCTUS. A jagged hole marred the gold ceiling, destroying one of the painted oval images of Christ or Mary or some fucking saint. He dropped his gaze to the shattered pews on the left side of the aisle. The tip of one black wing poked up beyond them like a distant sail.

Dante ran up the black-and-white-tiled aisle to the cathedral’s center, then slid to a stop beside the ruined pews. Sprawled on his side across part of a broken pew, one tattered wing against the floor, long black hair veiling his face, Lucien lay motionless.

Dante’s breath caught in his throat. A splintered shaft of wood impaled Lucien—in through his lower back and out through his sternum. Blood stained the shaft’s tip. It quivered with each slow beat of Lucien’s heart. Light gleamed on the X-rune pendant at Lucien’s throat.

Dante dashed up the wood-and-plaster-littered aisle and knelt beside Lucien’s unmoving form. He stretched out his hand to brush his friend’s hair aside. His fingers trembled. His hand shook. Jaw clenched, he reached—and images exploded in his mind, vivid and searing—

Gina, black stocking knotted around her slender throat, her glazing eyes fixed on the empty doorway: Tomorrow night?

Jay, blood spreading like dark wings beside him: I knew you’d come for me.

Chloe, choking on her own blood, hand reaching for Orem, her plushie orca: My Dante-angel. Pain shafted through his mind and that brief image-memory shattered and vanished.

Dante’s vision cleared. He sat on the debris-littered floor, his hand frozen over Lucien’s hidden face, heart hammering, head aching.

Promise me you won’t follow.

“Fuck you,” Dante whispered, and brushed Lucien’s hair aside.

Blood trickled from several small cuts on Lucien’s face and from a gash along his throat. Dante touched fingers to his cheek, surprised his hand held steady. The skin felt hot beneath his fingers.

Leaning over, Dante pressed his lips against Lucien’s, tasted tears and blood.

<I won’t lose you.> The thought bounced back, unheard. “I won’t.”

Dante rose to his knees. Seizing the bloodstained spear of wood, he yanked. The broken length of wood slid free and blood gushed from the wound, so dark it looked black. Dante tossed the wood shaft aside. It clunked against a pew, the sound echoing through the cathedral.

Dante wrapped his arms around Lucien, gathered him close. He’d expected his friend to be heavier and he nearly tipped them both over onto the debris-strewn floor. Then he remembered how effortlessly the angel would launch himself from the balcony into the night sky, black wings unfurling.

Lucien cradled in his lap, Dante pressed his hands against the chest wound. Blood seeped hot and sticky between his fingers. Lucien’s heartbeat slowed. The dying embers of his song cooled, the fire of its rhythm dimming.

Dante brought his arm to his mouth, bit into his wrist, then lowered it over Lucien. Blood spattered against Lucien’s lips, spilled untasted and unswallowed from the corners of his mouth.

“Drink, damn you. Don’t you dare—” The words withered in Dante’s throat. Pain jabbed his temples. He squeezed his eyes shut. His chest hurt, like he’d taken a brass-knuckled punch to the sternum. Pain hooked around his heart.

I’m not gonna sit on my ass and watch someone else I care about die.

But he had.

I knew you’d come for me.

Dante opened his eyes, raised his healing wrist to his mouth again, slashed it with his fangs. Drank in his own blood until it filled his mouth. Bending over Lucien, he kissed him, parting the angel’s cool lips with his tongue. His blood poured like mulled winter wine into Lucien’s mouth.

Dante breathed into Lucien, fanning the embers of his song into red-hot life again. His own song flowed into Lucien, dark and wild and pissed, twisting through the angel’s veins, his nervous system, flooding him with pale blue light.

He remembered Lucien’s wings, black and velvet smooth, a hint of dark purple underneath. Remembered the strength of his bones. The thickness of his talons. He remade Lucien as he remembered him; wove blue light into the fabric of his being, pulled loose threads and braided them together.

Remembered that first night on the wharf—sinking his fangs into the winged stranger’s throat, his pain fading—then waking up in Lucien’s arms as he flew through the night.

You will never be alone again, child.

Pain twisted like a screwdriver behind Dante’s left eye. His song blazed and he burned with it. Flesh knitted itself whole. Bones snapped back into place, unmarred; holes vanished in wing membranes.

Healed? Remade? Dante didn’t know.

He ended the kiss, drained and shaking. As he lifted his head, Lucien opened his eyes. Wonder lit his black eyes.

“Genevieve.”

A name Dante had never heard before, but it didn’t matter; Lucien’s heart beat strong and slow, life sparked golden in his dark eyes.

“Mon ami,” Dante whispered.

“You look so much like her,” Lucien murmured dreamily, trailing a finger along a strand of Dante’s hair.

“Like who?” Dante stared at Lucien, suddenly cold, his joy clotting up like old blood.

“Your mother.”

HEATHER GOT OUT OF the cab on the corner of Royal and St. Peter. She pushed through the crowd jam-packed in the street, breathing in the odors of sweat, beer, and Dentyne as she forced her way through the revelers.

The door to the club swung open. The faint bass beat exploded into full-on screaming sound. Von strode out, Simone beside him, her face tight with concern. Von stopped, his shaded gaze seeming to lock onto Heather. He lifted his hand. No wolfish grin this time, just a crooked c’mere finger.

Heather angled across the street to the sidewalk, her hope that Dante had returned fading with each step. It scared the shit out of her to think of him cruising the streets alone looking for Ronin, pissed and hurting and out of his head. She’d promised to stick with him, to be his backup, and she’d failed him.

Dante hadn’t walked out of CUSTOM MEATS with Jay and she hadn’t walked out with Dante.

Run as far from me as you can.

She had a feeling Dante had been running all his life.

Heather stepped onto the sidewalk beside the tall nomad. Light flickered and flashed across his shades, his leather jacket. It glimmered on the crescent moon tattoo below his eye. Simone nodded in greeting, but Heather noticed her tension, her half-clenched fists.

“Dante’s not here, is he,” Heather said.

Von’s eyebrows drew down together. “Fuck. I was afraid you were gonna say that. Me and the others, we’ve been feeling some bad shit.” He tapped a finger against his temple. “Then…nothing. What happened?”

Disappointment sliced into Heather and her remaining strength bled out. She bit her lip, looked away. “Ronin set him up,” she said finally. “Jay’s dead. Dante—”

“Mon Dieu,” Simone whispered.

“That sonuvabitch!” Von spat. “He fucking lied in front of me.” His muscles flexed, then coiled, snake tight. Fury and contempt radiated from him.

Von was much more than a bouncer, more than a strapped nomad vampire—and that alone was enough to spin Heather’s thoughts. What had the others called him? Lew god? What was his role in nightkind society?

An honor to be escorted by you, llygad.

“Where’d Dante go?”

Heather shook her head. “He killed Étienne.” The nomad and Simone exchanged glances at that name. “Then he took off. I don’t know where. He was half out of his mind…Jay…” Her words trailed away as a pang of regret pierced her.

She’d walked out of CUSTOM MEATS and left Jay lying on the concrete floor in a pool of his own congealing blood, still locked inside the blood-spattered straitjacket. She’d walked into the alley and searched it until she’d found her cell phone.

She stares at the cell. She needs to call the bodies in. But she can’t wait for the cops. Can’t wait around to make a report. She needs to find Dante. Nightkind or not, he was in no shape to take on Ronin.

The air reeks of Étienne’s torched body, his burned dreads. The stench clings to her like rank incense, settling into her trench, her hair.

Caught in the moonlight, her badge sparkles like mica in the dirt. Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity. Her throat tightens. She punches in Collins’s number. When he answers, she reminds herself he doesn’t deserve to be dragged through the shit. Her finger hovers over the end button.

“Wallace?”

“There’s been a murder at 1616 St. Charles, inside the Custom Meats building. Two bodies.”

“Okay, hang on. I’ll get some units there—”

“I can’t wait. I can’t prove it…yet, but one vic was killed by Thomas Ronin.”

“Whoa! Ronin…the journalist? That Ronin? Evidence? Witnesses?”

“Yes. A witness, but I’ve got to go find him before Ronin does.”

“Don’t tell me. Prejean.”

“I think the CCK is a tag team—Ronin and Elroy Jordan.”

“Wallace, hold on. You said two bodies.”

“Right.”

“Is Ronin good for that one, too?”

“No…parties unknown. I’ll catch up with you later.” Her finger touches the end button, then switches off the ringer. She slides the cell into her purse.

She’s surprised that it was so easy. Her heart isn’t pounding. Her palms aren’t sweaty. Her head is clear.

She walks down the alley to her badge, bends over and picks it up. She brushes the dirt from it, shakes the gravel from the holder. Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity. She wraps her fingers around her badge.

She remembers the raw sound of Dante’s scream.

Something stings Heather’s eyes. She blinks until the sensation is gone. Dropping her badge into her pocket, she walks from the alley. She has a promise to keep.

A hand squeezed Heather’s shoulder. She tensed, startled, and looked up into summer green eyes. Von peered at her from over the tops of his shades.

“Did you hear me?”

She shook her head. “Sorry. No.”

The nomad released her. “Did Dante say anything?” he asked.

Yes. Run from me as far as you can.

“He mentioned De Noir, but I don’t know why.”

Simone sucked in her breath. A muscle flexed in Von’s jaw. “We’ve lost contact with Lucien,” he said, face grim.

“He also said sanctus several times,” Heather said. “I think it’s Latin for holy, but I don’t know why he said it. He was dazed, hurt.”

Von glanced down the street, a finger stroking his mustache. He tilted his head as though listening. After a long moment, he said, “Dante asked Trey to do a search on lying Mister Ronin and his creepy friend.” He fixed his attention on Simone. She met his shaded gaze, her pale face still, listening.

They’re communicating somehow. Heather looked from one to the other, feeling cut off, out of the loop. And alone.

Simone nodded. She shifted her gaze to Heather, and smiled. “We should go to the house and speak to mon frère. He’ll know where Dante went.”

“Can’t you call him?” Heather said. “Or speak to him?” She tapped her temple.

Simone laughed. “You’ve changed since we last spoke. No. He doesn’t listen when he’s online. Come.”

“Shit.” Heather rubbed her face, weariness blurring her concentration. “Okay. But we’re gonna get Ronin’s address, right? And go after the bastard?”

Fire flickered in Simone’s dark eyes. Her lips parted, revealing the tips of her fangs. “Oh, yes,” she said.

“YOU KNEW MY MOTHER?”

Dazed by the creawdwr energy still prickling through his body, Lucien looked into Dante’s disbelieving, gold-flecked eyes and realized he’d spoken aloud, that he hadn’t been dreaming when he’d opened his eyes and seen his son’s beautiful face.

Dante shook free of his hand and, sliding out from under him, rose to his feet. Blood trickled from his nose. His muscles trembled. Fury spiked his aura; exhaustion smudged it nearly black.

“Child, listen, I was—”

“You knew her all this time? And you never said anything?”

Lucien struggled to his knees, his wings fluttering behind him. His healed—or remade—flesh was tender. He tasted Dante’s blood in his mouth, sweet and dark, intoxicating.

Child, how much of yourself have you poured into me?

“I was waiting for the right time,” Lucien said.

“How ’bout the night we met?” Dante said, voice husky, edged with rage. “Huh? Why not then?” His gaze dropped to the pendant hanging at Lucien’s throat. “Fuck!” He looked away, his jaw muscle jumping. He wiped absently at his nose, smearing blood across his face and the back of his hand.

Wings flapping, Lucien stood. Cool night air, caught by his wings, breezed through the chamber. The thick smells of incense and beeswax faded for a moment.

Lucien remembered the pain that had blasted through his mind and dropped him from the skies; remembered the rage and grief that had poured in through the link. And remembered with heart-stopping clarity: Dante’s shields had been breached.

But how? Had it been some one or some thing?

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”

“You were dealing with so much at the time,” Lucien said, voice low, soothing. “I didn’t want to add to your concerns.”

Dante squeezed his eyes shut, shuddered.

“Let me take you home,” Lucien said, stepping toward him. Wood snapped beneath his feet. “You’re hurting, exhausted. Dante, s’il te plaît.”

Dante looked at him then, his eyes blazing, pale face cold. He backed up the aisle. “What was her name? Genevieve…what?”

“Later, after you’ve Slept. I don’t think you know how much you’ve been hurt.”

“No!” Dante shouted. “Tell me, damn you! What’s my name?”

Lucien sighed. “Baptiste.”

“Baptiste,” Dante repeated. The fire ebbed from his eyes. He swayed, then grabbed the back of a pew. “Genevieve Baptiste.”

“Let me take you home.” Taking another step forward, Lucien held out his hand.

Dante looked at him, and Lucien’s heart constricted. He saw the hungry, hurting stranger from the wharf; the beautiful and deadly boy, ready to drain him of every drop of blood without a second thought.

His friend, his child, his companion was gone. The X-rune pendant burned against his skin like ice.

“Did you know my father, too?”

“Dante…enough. Not now.”

A rush of rain-damp air, smelling of clove and old leather, whirled into the cathedral. Von suddenly stood next to Dante. The nomad looked up at the hole in the cathedral’s ceiling and whistled.

“Holy shit! Someone sure ain’t gonna be happy about the new ventilation.”

Von’s gaze skipped from the shattered ceiling to the blood-speckled pews, then to Lucien. He stroked the sides of his mustache thoughtfully. He held Lucien’s gaze for a long moment, and Lucien had no doubt that the llygad sensed and smelled the tension between him and Dante. Questions glimmered in the nomad’s eyes, questions he didn’t voice.

Von glanced at Dante. “You okay?”

Dante shook his head. “Je sais pas.”

“I heard about that lying bastard Ronin,” Von said. “And Jay. I’m sorry, man.”

Dante glanced away, jaw tight, body coiled, practically vibrating with checked rage. Blood trickled from his nose.

Lucien straightened, startled by the nomad’s words. What had happened since he’d winged down into St. Louis No. 3 and dealt with Loki? Had Ronin breached Dante’s shields? Awakened Dante’s memories?

Brow furrowed, Von touched a hand to Dante’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”

“I could burn forever, llygad, and it wouldn’t be enough.”

Lucien felt Von reach for Dante’s unshielded mind. “No!” he cried.

Von jerked his hand from Dante’s face and stumbled back a step. Sweat beaded his forehead. He touched a trembling hand to his temple. He stared at Dante, face stricken.

Dante met his gaze. Mingled streaks of gold and red slashed his dark irises. Stepping forward, he squeezed the llygad’s shoulder with a blood-smeared hand.

“Later, mon ami.”

To Lucien, he said nothing.

Dropping his hand, Dante turned and walked down the aisle. As he strode toward the wide-open double doors, he stretched his arms out to either side and trailed his fingers over the tops of the pews.

Lucien watched, throat tight. Dante’s wintry, unrecognizable gaze had iced his heart. Unforgiven, he wouldn’t be able to teach Dante how to use his creawdwr gifts. Unforgiven, he wouldn’t even be able to teach his son to hide those gifts. He’d hoped for more time. Or, more exactly, the right time. But Loki’s appearance meant that time had run out. But even forsaken and unforgiven, he’d still do everything possible to protect and hide Dante from Elohim eyes.

Von whirled and started after Dante.

“Wait,” Lucien said. “Let him go. He needs to be alone.”

“Are you kidding? He’s all fucked up.”

Lucien clamped a hand onto the nomad’s shoulder. Pressed with his talons. And stared. His talons seemed thicker, and shot through with deep blue. He looked up as Dante reached the doors and the crowd gathered at the threshold.

Fervent mortal voices whispered, “L’ange de sang. L’ange de sang.”

“Let him release his rage,” Lucien murmured. “Then go after him. Take him home and to Sleep.”

Dante slipped through the mortals crowding the doorway as though they were insubstantial, the last tattered dream before waking. The mortals watched him as he descended the steps and climbed into his MG. They watched, perplexed, but awed. He’d walked through them like a true immortal. Like True Blood.

And they loved him for it.

Von twisted free of Lucien’s hand, leaving strips of leather clinging to his talons. He looked at Lucien, green eyes wondering. Candlelight and shadows flickered across his face. He glanced at the yawning hole in the vaulted ceiling again.

“Musta been a hell of a fall,” he said.

Lucien’s fingers curled around the X-rune pendant. He nodded. “It was.”

The nomad nodded as well, then turned and strode down the aisle to the doors. He breezed through the crowd—who stared in wide-eyed wonder at the black-winged creature standing beneath the cathedral’s shattered ceiling—then disappeared from view.

Lucien’s fingers gripped the smooth curving back of a pew. He could find Dante through the link, whether the boy responded to him or not. He’d told Von the truth: Dante needed to be alone. He needed to unleash his rage. But now was also the time when he needed someone most—to guide him through his rage, to help him survive it.

But it wouldn’t be Lucien. Maybe never again.

With a sharp echoing crack, the pew splintered beneath Lucien’s hand.

23

Firestorm

She stands beside him, little fingers clasped around his hand, stuffed orca tucked under her other arm. Her blue eyes are too direct for an eight-year-old. Red hair tumbles beside her freckled face.

I’ll send them to hell, Chloe. Promise.

And you? What about you?

I’m already burning.

Chloe’s body wavers, her image fades. Her warm fingers slip from his grasp.

That’s not enough, Dante-angel.

“I know,” Dante whispered, shifting the MG into fourth gear. His foot smashed the gas pedal to the floorboards. The engine whined. Headlights blurred, blue-white streamers streaking the night.

He didn’t remember getting in the car. Didn’t remember keying it on. Didn’t know where he was going. Didn’t recognize the road. But he knew one thing:

The voices no longer whispered.

You can still save him, True Blood.

Mon ami, I’m so sorry…

How does it feel, marmot?

He wondered if he could travel faster than sound.

A horn blared, a long, angry wail. Beyond the windshield, a double yellow line disappeared beneath the MG. Light circled ahead, expanding, brighter than a UFO. Another horn bleated. Dante yanked the steering wheel to the right, swerving back into his own lane.

Sweat trickled down his temples. The night blurred past the MG. The gearshift vibrated against Dante’s palm. He tasted blood.

You look so much like her.

A fist clenched around Dante’s heart. His breath rasped in a throat suddenly too tight. He pushed away the image of Lucien’s face. Tried to forget the sight of him sprawled and broken on the cathedral floor.

Good thing he’s restrained…fuck! What’s he screamin’?

The yellow lines dividing the highway blurred then doubled. Eyes burning, Dante blinked. A blue neon rectangle shimmered against the windshield. Fractured. Twinned. Letters and characters squiggled within the rectangles, but Dante couldn’t make any sense out of them.

He’s making a very loud, very clear, demand.

“Kill me.”

Dante squinted, trying to make out the wriggling letters inside the expanding blue rectangle. Words. A sign.

So do it. He’s too dangerous. Little fucking psycho.

The blue rectangle morphed into a neon roadside sign proclaiming: TAVERN.

Say that again and I’ll give you to that little fucking psycho.

Swinging the steering wheel to the right, Dante downshifted the screaming MG into the tavern’s parking lot. Gravel and dust sprayed out from beneath the tires. A couple of pickups, gear-laden nomad bikes, and an old flame-painted Chevy huddled in front of the weathered building.

AS THE CROW FLIES flickered in red over a flapping neon crow.

Dante parked the MG across from the other cars, skidding in sideways. He switched off the engine. Pocketed the keys. For a moment, all he heard was his pounding heart. For a moment, he thought he could board up the broken window, nail it shut with rage and blood. For a moment, he thought his heart was caged and guarded with fetishes.

I knew you’d come for me.

You look so much like her.

For a moment.

Then the boards rotted and the nails shifted into wasps. The cage crumpled, the fetishes false.

Shhh. Je suis ici.

Blood dripped on his hand, trickled down his throat. His head ached. Squiggles of white light bordered his vision.

The pain needed to be more.

I’m already burning.

That’s not enough, Dante-angel.

Scooping a pair of shades out of the glove box, Dante slipped them on, then stepped out of the MG. A drink. Need a drink. Gravel crunched beneath his boots. As he walked toward the tavern’s front door, it opened, spilling light into the parking lot.

Two nomads stepped out wearing dusty road leathers and disgusted expressions. Laughter and bouncing zydeco music followed them out into the night.

“Motherfucking squatters,” the horse-maned male muttered, then spat into the dirt. Silver gleamed at his eyebrow, his ears, his throat. A black bird-shaped V was tattooed on his right cheek.

Clan Raven, Dante thought, remembering what Von had taught him. Ravens and Nightwolves often traveled together, guarding each other’s flanks.

The dreadlocked female, bird V inked on her right cheek, glanced at him. She looked him over, head to toe, then back again. A smile curved her lips. Light sparked in her eyes.

“Not your kind of place, nightwalker,” she said, stepping off the porch. Her smile vanished as she got a closer look at him. “You hurt?”

Dante caught the door before it closed. Warmth and booze and tobacco and sweat-laden air curled against him. His head throbbed.

“Maybe,” Dante said. Then he stepped inside. The door swung shut behind him. A moment later, he heard the deep, throaty roar of the bikes as the nomads tore out of the parking lot, flinging gravel behind them.

“Terry, look at that, wouldcha! Do ya think he’s lost?”

“Kee-rist! First nomads, now Bourbon Street gutter trash. What the hell’s this place comin’ to?”

Dante glanced at the speakers, two mortals in baseball caps and work-stained T-shirts hunkered at a table toward the rear of the bar. A haze of cigarette smoke hung motionless over the table. One of the mortals leaned back in his chair and met Dante’s eyes, his tight smile daring him to say anything.

Two other mortals stood at a pool table, cue sticks in hand as they stared at Dante, game interrupted. One had a beer gut and the other was muscled like an athlete. Brutal energy spiked with an overdose of testosterone rippled around the athlete.

“Look at the collar, will ya?” Athlete said to Beer Gut. “Don’t see no leash. Musta gotten away. Better call the pound.” He laughed, pleased with his wittiness, and nudged Beer Gut. “Call the pound. Get it?”

Dante looked away and weaved past empty tables to the bar. The bartender looked up as he approached, a mixture of concern and wariness on her face. She was pure New Orleans with her brown skin, green almond-shaped eyes, and curly black hair. Haitian, Spanish, French, Chinese, whatever. The true heart of Louisiana.

The bartender touched a hand to the bar rag slung over her shoulder. Bottles of booze lined the shelves behind her, fancy labels and fascinating colors.

Dante stopped at the counter, gaze flicking over the bottles.

“Can I help you?” the bartender said. The badge on her black AS THE CROW FLIES t-shirt read: Maria.

“Tequila. Bourbon. Whatever’s closest.” Dante reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a wad of crumpled-up old bills, tossed them onto the bar.

“You all right? Your nose is bleeding.”

“Got a place to wash up?”

“Sure.” Maria pointed to a short hall on the right.

Pushing himself away from the bar, Dante followed the arrow sign reading RESTROOMS to a grungy men’s room featuring stained porcelain, graffiti-etched walls, and the reek of old piss.

A small window sat high above the urinals, too small to squeeze out on your tab or your bad-ass date. Dante stepped over to the chipped sink and turned on the faucet. He slipped off his shades, tucked them into the front of his shirt. He rubbed his hands together under the stream of water, then bent over the sink and splashed water on his face.

He burned. He half expected the water to hiss and turn to steam when it touched him. Instead, it was so cold it stole his breath. Dante gripped the sides of the sink, as bloodstained water swirled down the rusty drain.

Dante? I’m cold. Can I get in bed with you?

C’mere, princess. Snuggle close. I’d hold you, but…

How come Papa Prejean handcuffs you at bedtime?

Cuz I don’t sleep at night. The prick thinks I’ll murder everyone in their beds.

Wouldcha?

Yeah. Probably.

Dante-angel, if I found the key and let you go, wouldcha take me with you?

A spreading pool of blood surrounds Chloe’s pale face like a halo. Her half-open eyes stare sightlessly at the orca just beyond her reach.

I’d never leave without you, princess. Just you and me—

Meat hook, chain-wrapped ankles, bare feet. Light flashes from the hook.

Forever and ever.

Water splashed into the sink, spattering against Dante’s knuckles. His muscles coiled. He stared into the sink.

She trusted you, kid. I’d say she got what she deserved.

Pain torched him. He lifted his head and looked in the mirror. He didn’t recognize his reflection; the pale face and smeared eyeliner and damp, tousled hair were his, sure, but the expression was cold and distant and unforgiving, eyes red-streaked with fury.

Is this what Lucien just saw?

He dropped his head, shaken. No, the pain stabbing his temples wasn’t nearly enough. Not by a long shot. But like he’d promised, he wouldn’t burn alone. Peeping Tom, among others, would join him in the flames. Étienne was already ash.

He wiped his face dry with a brown paper towel, then slid on his shades and walked out of the men’s room. As he approached the bar, he caught a familiar scent, Brut and soap, and yet another—smelling of dry cleaner’s chemicals and deep, dark secrets. He slowed. Remembered a lazy smile and a wink.

Take him in. Lock him up. He’ll be asleep in no time. I guarantee.

What the hell are they doing here? No coincidence. No fucking way.

Dante walked past without glancing at either detective. He stopped at the counter. Maria poured something golden into a shot glass.

“Y’all left nearly eighty bucks on the bar.”

“Keep twenty for yourself,” Dante said, picking up the shot glass. “Let me know when I’ve drunk up the rest.”

“Sure thing, sugar.” Maria tapped a finger under her nose, looked meaningfully at Dante, then handed him a napkin.

He took the napkin from her, pressed it against his nose. It came away red.

“Fuck.” He tossed back the shot. Tequila. It burned down his throat, cleared out the lingering blood. He felt sweat trickle along his temple.

Dante-angel?

Forever and ever, princess. Forever and ever and ever—

A smooth voice drawled, “Abita for me and Davis, darlin’. And lookee here! If it ain’t a small fuckin’ world.”

Dante set the empty shot glass on the bar.

“How’s it hangin’, rock god? Comment Ça va, eh?”

As Maria poured Dante another shot, he glanced to his right. Perched on a stool, Dickhead LaRousse leaned against the bar, a smirk tilting his lips. He held what looked suspiciously like an arrest warrant in one hand.

“Talk about luck,” Dickhead said. “We were on our way back from your place. Seems you weren’t there. Then we saw your car in the parking lot.” He slapped the warrant down on the counter. “You here all by your lonesome?”

Dante lifted his hand and flipped him off. Shifting his attention to the refilled shot glass, he picked it up, tossed it back.

“Dirtier than original sin, this boy, believe you me,” Dick-head said to his partner, loud enough for everyone in the bar to hear. “The shit I found in his juvie records. No wonder they sealed ’em.”

Dante carefully set down the empty shot glass. He grasped the edge of the bar to keep his hands from trembling. Even he didn’t know what was in those records. His memory only tracked back a handful of years and even then there were gaps. Hell, he didn’t even know how old he was.

“Christ,” Maria said, a hint of anger in her voice. “If y’all are going to arrest him, do it outside.”

“A word to the wise, sugar,” Dickhead said, his voice all Southern charm. “Mind your own fuckin’ business.”

Maria glanced at Dante from beneath her lashes as she filled a stein at the tap. He met her gaze and shook his head.

“Sixty foster homes, two stints in the loony bin,” LaRousse said, his tone conversational, his voice on the verge of a chuckle. “Words like schizophrenia and homicidal tossed around. A missing little girl and…oh, yeah!…the last foster home burns to the ground with the foster parents still inside. That’d be the Prejeans.”

Turning his head, Dante met LaRousse’s gaze. The detective stared at him, handsome face hard, cold light glinting in his eyes.

“You’re a fucking liar,” Dante said. His hammering heart said maybe not.

“That right?” Dickhead leaned in closer. “So tell me, does that good-looking FBI bitch know she’s balling a stone-cold psycho?”

Dante slammed his fist into LaRousse’s nose.

“WHO MADE YOU?”

Simone glanced at Heather, her pale face tinted green by the van’s dashboard lights, then returned her attention to the road in front of them.

“Nightkind, oui? That’s what you’re asking?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m asking.”

Heather had never imagined having this conversation, never imagined vampires existed outside of horror movies or outside of Goth clubs. Never imagined the undead lived, worked, and fed alongside those who weren’t.

But after watching Dante, after shooting Ronin, after witnessing parts of Étienne’s body try to escape the flames consuming him, her skepticism, her doubts, had ended and her understanding of the world altered. She didn’t want to look out the passenger window into the night. Didn’t want to know what might look back from deep within the shadows alongside the road, eyes full of moonlight, mouth full of sharp teeth.

Simone sighed. “A friend of the family turned me, just after Papa’s funeral.”

“Was it something you wanted?”

The blonde shook her head. “No. But she didn’t offer me a choice.”

Shadows flickered across Simone’s face. Her hands were relaxed on the steering wheel. No bitterness edged her voice. If a family friend had done the same to her, Heather would’ve tracked her down and…what? Killed her? Forced her to take it back? Maybe Simone had had time to come to terms with the situation.

How did one come to terms with being made into a vampire? How did a mortal adjust to immortality?

“And your brother?”

“He was all the family left to me,” Simone said, her voice low, taut. “I gave him a choice. If he’d a said no, I probably woulda set myself on fire.”

“You turned your own brother?” Heather asked, surprised.

“I couldn’t bear the thought of watching him grow old and die.”

Heather thought of Kevin, of Annie. Could she have done the same to them? Siphoned off their humanity? Or let them age? Bury them one after the other next to Mom? Her throat constricted.

“So, how does this undead stuff work? Dante’s skin is warm. He has a pulse. He’s intensely alive.”

The corners of Simone’s mouth quirked up in a smile. “Oui, Dante’s intensely everything.”

Heather stared at her, shoulders tight. Remembered Dante leaning over Simone on the dais steps, whispering in her ear, and touching her hair. She had a strong suspicion they’d been more than just friends once. Were they still?

“We’re not undead,” Simone said. “We’re a separate species. We’ve always lived alongside mortals.” She looked at Heather and smiled.

“And Dante? Do you know who made him?”

Simone’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “No. He’s never said.” She glanced at Heather. “I don’t think he knows. Maybe it’s lost to him.” Sorrow sharpened the planes of her face.

“Like so much else,” Heather said. “Hidden behind his headaches.” Or was he what Ronin had called him—True Blood? Born vampire?

Her name was Chloe and you killed her.

Ronin’s smooth, commanding voice wormed through Heather’s thoughts. What if Dante didn’t remember his past because he’d done terrible things? Things he couldn’t bear to remember?

Were Ronin’s attempts to awaken Dante a desire to trigger him, to wind him up and turn him loose? But if Dante could be triggered, wouldn’t that mean he’d been programmed? And wouldn’t that mean his memory had been deliberately crippled? Would certain questions trigger protective subliminals like migraines? Unconsciousness? Madness?

Heather’s heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the sound of the road rushing beneath the van’s wheels, beating cadence for the thoughts pulsing through her mind—black ops ran mind experiments, had for decades. Government funded and Bureau protected.

She heard Stearns’s voice: He’s no longer your concern. But that meant he was someone’s concern. Whose? And which agency? How deep did this go?

Heather looked out the passenger window. Her reflection, pale, pensive, and weary, hid the night beyond. The shadows and what they might contain no longer seemed so scary. Not compared to the place her suspicions had brought her—a place both very dark and very real.

And Dante was caught in the middle—lost, maybe. Heather’s hands knotted in her lap. Not if she could help it.

And her investigation? If Ronin and Jordan together were the Cross-Country Killer, the evidence would nail them, give a clear voice to their victims. The dead would finally speak.

Link the DNA evidence. Nail Jordan. Prove the CCK hadn’t died in Pensacola. But what about Ronin? Could a human court even touch him? If she suggested he was vampire, the case would be thrown out of court and her career’d be over.

Would nightkind care if one of their own butchered mortals? Dante cared, but was he an exception?

Maybe she’d have to settle for Elroy Jordan.

The van slowed and Heather opened her eyes. Simone parked in the gravel drive curving in front of the house. Heather glanced at the dark windows. “Is your brother home?” she asked, pulling the door latch.

“Oui.” Simone opened the driver’s door and slipped out of the van. “He just doesn’t need light.”

Heather climbed out of the van and into the chilly, humid night. The air was sweet with the scent of wild roses and cherry blossoms and moss.

“Wallace.”

Heather froze. She recognized the voice. She’d listened to it for years. Been guided by it. The fact that he was in New Orleans was enough to ice her blood. The fact that he was at Dante’s house scared the shit out of her. She slid her right hand into her trench. Reached for her .38.

“I wouldn’t.”

Heather turned around, pebbles from the path crunching beneath her shoes. Stearns stood beside the van’s driver’s side door, a silencer-equipped pistol pressed to Simone’s left temple. He held the vampire’s arm in a tight-fingered grip.

“We need to talk,” he said.

DICKHEAD’S NOSE FLATTENED. He fell off the stool, mingled pain and surprise flickering in his eyes. He hit the floor, blood spurting from his nostrils.

His sidekick, Davis, blinked, his mouth half-open. He reached inside his jacket, but Dante stepped forward and back-fisted him with his blood-smeared left hand. Seizing the stunned detective by the back of the neck, he pounded Davis’s face against the bar’s polished surface. The detective crumpled to the floor.

Standing between the two downed mortals, Dante glanced up to see Maria pressed up against the bottle-lined shelves, eyes wide, a hand to her mouth. Movement on the floor caught Dante’s attention.

LaRousse struggled to his knees, eyes watering, nose swelling. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a gun—looked like a nine mil.

“You ain’t walkin’ from this—” LaRousse’s words, blood-thick and harsh, ended abruptly when Dante kicked the nine mil out of his hand. The detective’s wrist snapped, bent at an unnatural angle. He screamed through gritted teeth.

Dante crouched in front of LaRousse. Pain prickled along his temples, behind his eyes. His vision blurred. Latching onto the detective’s shoulder, he forced LaRousse’s head up and to the side with a hand to his chin. Blood pulsed fast and frantic within the mortal’s arched throat.

Baring his fangs, Dante lowered his face to LaRousse’s warm, reeking flesh.

“I work for Guy Mauvais. I have his protection,” Dickhead said, his voice a strained whisper.

Dante let go of LaRousse’s shoulder and tore at his tie and shirt buttons. A button flew through the air. The shirt ripped. There, glimmering in the hollow of the detective’s throat, iridescent, was a rose; visible only to the eyes of nightkind.

“Hey! Asshole! What the fuck you think you’re doin’?”

Dante glanced at the speaker. The athlete from the pool table charged toward him, face tight and glowering, pool cue reversed and brandished like a baseball bat. Dante shoved LaRousse away hard. The detective slid across the hardwood floor and slammed against the wall.

Dante straightened from his crouch, hands intercepting and seizing the pool cue as Athlete swung it down. Dante stepped past Athlete in a rush of air and wrenched the pool cue from his grasp. Athlete’s expression shifted from righteous rage to confusion. He stared at his empty hands.

How does it feel, marmot?

Whirling, jaw clenched, Dante whacked the pool cue across Athlete’s back. Athlete stumbled forward, body arched. A quick stride stood Dante in front of the off-balance pool player. He smashed the pool cue against Athlete’s temple, canting his head to one side. The cue snapped in half. One splintered end pinwheeled through the air and crashed against the wall phone behind the bar, knocking it from the wall. It exploded against the floor, dinging once.

As Athlete slumped to the floor, Dante swiveled and looked at Maria. She’d turned her face away from the flying spear of wood, shielding herself with one hand, the other still outstretched toward the now useless phone.

A raw-throated scream of rage spun Dante around again, the other half of the pool cue still clenched in his hand. Good Ol’ Boy Terry lunged at him, fingers wrapped around the hilt of a hunting knife. Beer Gut followed, red-faced and sweating, hot on Terry’s heels, cue stick clutched in both hands.

“C’mon, Ernie! Let’s take out the motherfuckin’ trash!”

But Terry rushed forward alone. Dante noticed Good Ol’ Boy Ernie had stopped to scoop something up from the floor.

Dante swung one arm up to grab Terry’s knife hand as he slammed the broken pool cue across Beer Gut’s belly. Beer Gut’s breath whoofed out from his lungs and he fell to his knees. His cue stick dropped from his hands, clattering against the floor.

An image of Lucien slumped on his side across broken pews, plaster and gold flecks of paint dusting his hair, a length of splintered wood impaling him, flickered through Dante’s mind.

Mon ami—

You look so much like her.

Sudden searing pain fractured Dante’s thoughts, scattering the fragmented images and half memories. Terry’s hunting knife plunged through his palm and out the back of his hand. Wasps droned. Stung. Venom poured through Dante’s veins. Snarling, he yanked his arm back, jerking the knife hilt from Terry’s grasp.

“Yeah!” Terry crowed. “Take that, mother—”

Dante swiped the back of his impaled hand across Terry’s work-grimed throat. Blood sprayed Dante’s face and shades, hot and fragrant. He licked it from his lips. He tugged the knife from his hand and dropped it on the floor.

The frenzied drumming of Terry’s dying heart sucked Dante in and, unable to resist the pungent blood scent, he wrapped his arms around the man, pressed his parted lips against the gashed throat. Blood poured into his mouth. Together, Terry and Dante dropped to their knees.

You were wrong, boy. I’ve had more than a taste.

You can still save him, True Blood.

As Dante drank the diminishing flow, he heard whispers, whispers not from within. “Aim for the head and don’t…fuck in’…miss.”

Dante moved—diving to the floor and then rolling to his feet—as fire flashed from a gun’s muzzle. The bullets slammed into Terry’s still crumpling body—one, two, three.

“Shit!” Davis cried.

Dante scooped up the broken pool cue half and hurled it at Davis, hitting him in the temple as he pulled the trigger again. The shot went wild, hitting—

“Wayne!” Ernie screamed.

Dante slammed his fist into Davis’s chin, snapping his head back. At the same moment, he seized the cop’s gun hand and wrenched the pistol from it, tossed it away. He punched the cop again. Stumbling, spitting blood and teeth, Davis grabbed at a table for balance, but missed. As he went down, the back of his skull connected with the edge of a chair with a loud crunch. He slumped onto the floor, eyes half-closed. The smell of blood and shit curled into the air like smoke.

Dante winced as a hoarse scream behind him pierced his ears, his aching head. It was followed by klik-klik-klik-klik. He turned.

Ernie held Dickhead’s nine mil in a white-knuckled, two-handed grip, his eyes squeezed shut. On the floor at his feet, Beer Gut—Wayne—had toppled, a bullet hole in his temple.

Dante jerked the gun out of Ernie’s trembling grasp and saw that the safety was on. He looked up from the nine mil, caught a glimpse of his reflection in Ernie’s ever-widening eyes. Then both eyes rolled up to the back of Ernie’s head as he crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

Tucking LaRousse’s gun into the back of his pants, Dante swiveled in time to see the detective scuttling along behind the bar, headed for the restroom hallway. Dante started after the detective, but a low, harsh sob stopped him at the bar’s edge.

He vaulted over the bar, landing in a crouch in front of the black-haired bartender. She’d huddled down against the counter. Terror rippled across her face when she saw Dante and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Gaze locked on him, she groped for the baseball bat propped against the counter. Dante swatted it out of her reach. It tunked to the floor, then rolled away.

“Mother Mary, Papa Legba, protect me from this angry loa,” she whispered.

She smelled of jasmine and deep water, but fear edged her scent, stealing the sweetness from it. Dante lifted his shades to the top of his head. Tears spilled over her dark lashes. He leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. He wiped away one of her tears with his thumb, smearing blood across her dark cheek.

He thought of red hair and cornflower-blue eyes and creamy skin. Remembered a friend saying, I’m your backup.

Dante pulled back. Stood. Lowered the shades over his eyes again.

Dante walked past the counter and down the hall. He paused at the men’s room door and listened. Dripping water. Crossing the hall, he walked into the women’s room. No urinals, but just as graffiti-etched and grungy as the men’s room. Dante strode across the stained floor.

Dickhead stood beneath the no-escape window, smoothing his sweat-damp hair back with his hands. Bruises darkened the skin around the detective’s eyes and across the bridge of his smashed nose. He watched Dante warily, but made no move to run.

“Wallace’s boss is looking for her. He called.”

Dante seized LaRousse by the lapels of his jacket and jerked him close. Only an inch separated their faces. Reeking of blood and beer, LaRousse stared at him, fresh sweat beading his forehead.

“Whatcha tell him?”

“To look for you.” A sardonic gleam lit LaRousse’s eyes. “That you had her all hot and bothered. That’s what you do, right? Stir people up. Suck them dry.”

The detective stank of envy and frustration.

Prick thinks I’ll murder everyone in their beds.

“Who you working for?” Dante asked, voice low. “Besides fucking Mauvais?”

“Look, I can spy for you, if you want. I—”

Fingers still latched onto the detective’s lapels, Dante shook him. “Who else?”

Wouldcha?

Yeah. Probably.

All color drained from Dickhead’s face. “The writer, Ronin.”

“Whatcha do for him?”

“I helped him contact Étienne—”

Vision blurring, Dante flung LaRousse into one of the stalls. The door whanged against the metal side. The detective landed on the toilet, his head and shoulders thumping against the tiled wall. Pain contorted his face.

Is the rock god over there good for it?

We gotta go, sexy. Tomorrow night?

Shhhh. Je suis ici.

You can still save him, True Blood. All you have to do is—

“Wake up,” Dante whispered. The drone of the wasps died.

Walking into the stall, Dante pinned LaRousse with a hand to one shoulder and a knee snugged against his crotch. He forced the detective’s head to one side, baring his throat. The rose tattoo sparkled under the fluorescents.

“You never cared who killed Gina,” Dante said, lowering his head, listening to LaRousse’s galloping heart. “You only wanted to nail me.”

“I have Mauvais’s protection—”

“Not from me, you fuck. Not. From. Me.”

Dante tore into the detective’s throat. LaRousse screamed.

HEATHER WRAPPED HER FINGERS around the .38 in her pocket. Stearns’s tousled hair and shadowed eyes told her he hadn’t slept in a while and his steady hand told her he’d pull the Glock’s trigger without hesitation.

“Let go of her,” Heather said. “If you want to talk to me, fine. Since when do you need hostages?”

“I don’t think you understand the situation,” Stearns said. His gaze flicked to Simone. “Or what you’ve allied—”

Simone twisted and ducked with mind-boggling speed. The silenced Glock went off with a hushed thffft at the same moment she seized Stearns’s gun hand and wrenched it back. The Glock dropped into the dew-glistening grass.

“Down. Or I snap it,” Simone said.

Eyes squeezed shut, hissing in pain, Stearns dropped to his knees. The blonde eased up on his wrist, but kept it in a firm grip.

Heather scooped the Glock up from the grass and pocketed it. She pulled her .38 free of the trench and aimed it at Stearns. “What are you doing here?”

He opened his eyes. A wry smile stretched his lips. “Rescuing you.”

“Are you involved in the cover-up?” Heather asked. Her aim didn’t waver. “The Pensacola murders?”

“No. But I know who is. And I know what they’re protecting.”

She stared hard at the man who’d guided her career, who’d attended her Academy graduation, and who’d helped her with Annie when her father refused. Stearns held her gaze, hazel eyes steady. Stubble darkened his face. Unshaved. Sleep-smudged. Wired. A man on the run?

All through my career, he’s had my back.

Would that change if the Bureau asked it of him?

Heather lowered her .38. If so, I’d already be dead. She nodded at Simone. With a dry tsk and a toss of her head, Simone released him. He stood, wiping at the wet, grass-stained knees of his trousers.

“Where’s Dante Prejean?” he asked.

Heather stared at him. “Why? What does he have to do with this?”

Stearns looked at her for a long moment, a muscle jumping in his jaw, then he glanced away. “He’s not what you think he is.”

“And what do I think he is…sir?”

“Human.”

“I know what he is,” Heather said quietly. She lifted the .38 again. “Nightkind. Maybe True Blood.”

“True Blood…?” Simone whispered.

Stearns stared at Heather, his hands motionless at his side. She thought she saw a sudden spark of fear in his eyes, then it was gone, swallowed by the shadows.

“He’s also an experiment,” Stearns said finally. “I have a file in the car and a CD that you need to see. Then you’ll know exactly what Dante Prejean is.”

“His name’s not Prejean,” Heather murmured.

Simone circled Stearns. “I’ll never let you near him,” she said. Moonlight gleamed in her narrowed eyes and from her revealed fangs.

The whoosh of massive wings drew Heather’s attention to the house.

Moonlight shimmered along De Noir’s huge black wings as he landed on the roof above Dante’s bedroom. His long black hair spilled unbound to his waist. Pale blue light flickered around his shirtless form and glimmered from the pendant at his throat.

He dropped into a crouch, wings folding behind him. A breeze stirred his hair, but otherwise he was motionless. Twin points of golden light starred the night as he stared into the darkness.

Heather’s breath caught in her throat. Fallen. Étienne’s voice slid through her thoughts: Nightbringer.

“Good God,” Stearns whispered.

“You see, sir,” Heather said. “I know exactly who I’ve allied myself with.” She turned. Looking into Stearns’s stunned eyes, she added, “Right now, I trust them more than I trust you.”

RONIN WATCHED AS A female face, pale and stark with fear, bolted from the tavern. She ran full-out for the flame-painted Chevy, fumbling keys out of her pocket. Unlike terrorized females in movies, she didn’t trip, didn’t fall down, and her Chevy roared to life the first time she turned the key. Throwing it into reverse, she nearly backed into the black MG parked at a slant across from her. She stomped on the brakes, slammed the gearshift into first and peeled out of the parking lot.

Interesting. What mischief is my little True Blood up to? Although True Blood is no longer accurate, is it? Born vampire, fathered by one of the Fallen.

Excitement curled through Ronin. To pit himself against a True Blood/Fallen hybrid…what greater test of his abilities existed? Especially after he trained the child?

Leaving the engine running, Ronin slid out of the Camaro. He kept his shields tight and his own energy tamped down. The last thing he wanted was for Dante to sense him—to come for him before he was ready.

Ronin glanced at his reshaped left hand. Definitely not in the boy’s file. After he’d split from CUSTOM MEATS, he’d sat down and followed the fading wormhole created by Dante’s touch. His fingers weren’t merely gone, they’d been plucked from his genetic code.

The best part? Johanna had no idea that Dante had managed to keep a secret from her. A world-altering secret.

The tavern door flew open and a mortal in a baseball hat, grubby T-shirt, and jeans rushed into the parking lot. Nearly tripping over his own two feet, he skidded across the gravel to one of the pickups. He yanked the door open, then spotted Ronin.

“Mister!” he cried. “Don’t go in there! There’s a vampire inside! An honest-to-God fucking vampire.”

Ronin smiled.

The mortal shrieked, eyes wider than a cat’s, and practically threw himself into the pickup. He started the engine, but it died. The pungent smell of gasoline wafted through the air. Flooded. Throwing anxious glances over his shoulder, the mortal tried to start the pickup again. The engine caught, sputtered, then evened out into a low chug-chug.

Ronin stood in the parking lot, arms crossed over his chest, wondering if the mortal would give it too much gas again when he backed up.

Grinding gears as he shifted into reverse, the mortal slammed the gas pedal. The pickup lurched backward a couple of yards, then sputtered and died.

Ronin was considering putting the mortal out of his misery when the driver’s side door flew open and the mortal jumped out. He ran across the parking lot, through the bushes and weeds at the edge of the road and onto the highway. He pelted away into the night, his work boots clumping against the pavement.

Shaking his head, Ronin walked to the tavern’s front door. He curled his fingers around the handle, then listened. Silence. He eased the door open. Peeked inside. Bodies littered the blood-smeared floor. He counted four.

Dante’s been a busy boy. Or maybe I should say S.

A throat-scraping scream sliced through the silence, then stopped abruptly. Ronin adjusted the body count to five. He wondered how many bodies Dante had left on the floor of CUSTOM MEATS. Wondered if Agent Wallace still breathed.

Ronin closed the door. He’d seen enough. He returned to the Camaro. Time to get things ready for Dante’s homecoming.

Flipping open his cell, he speed-dialed E’s number. Instead of the voice mail message he’d been receiving all night, Ronin heard the sullen mortal’s voice.

“Yeah?”

“Where have you been?”

“Out. What are you? My daddy?”

“It’s time. Trade the Jeep in for a van. Remember the specifications?”

“Duh. Got Dante, huh?”

Ronin remembered the scream he’d heard inside the tavern. “Oh, yes.”

DANTE’S BLOOD-GRIMED HAND LOCKED around the handle of the gas can sitting in the back of the pickup. Voices clamored and screeched. Renewed pain burned through his mind. He walked back into the silent tavern. Splashed gasoline on the tables, pool table, and bar. The heady smell went straight to his head, dizzied him. He poured a trail of gasoline down the hall and to the women’s room.

He’s quiet now. The drugs must be working. I’ll take him down.

He saw a quick glimpse of a pale face framed by short blonde hair, then pain shattered the image. Dante staggered against the restroom door, hand to his temple. He struggled to remain upright. This pain he couldn’t transcend or use. This pain devoured.

Sucking in a deep breath of gasoline-laden air, Dante and his gas can strolled back through the tavern. He pulled a bottle of tequila from the booze-lined shelves behind the bar. He paused at the table where the Good Ol’ Boys had parked their dusty butts and picked up a pack of smokes and a book of matches.

Still sloshing gasoline behind him, he stepped out through the door and onto the porch. He tossed the empty can into the tavern. It hit the floor with an echoing clang.

Shaking out a cigarette from the pack, Dante stuck it between his lips, then lit it. He smoked a while, enjoying the tobacco, trying not to listen to the voices inside.

And…oh, yeah!…the last foster home burns to the ground….

Liar.

White light dazzled Dante’s vision. Pain pulsed. He flicked the half-smoked cigarette inside the gasoline-doused tavern. It lit with a whoommf sound that sent shivers down his spine. Flames licked up into the air.

Tell me, what does that anarchy symbol mean to you?

Heather’s face filled his vision. Her hair flickered like fire. Pain needled his heart. She’s gone. Safe.

Do you still love me, Dante-angel?

Never stopped, princess. Just forgot for a time.

Dante walked to the MG. Leaned against the trunk, tequila bottle in hand. He watched the blazing tavern, his insides all knotted up and twisted like barbed wire, but his heart, uncaged and unprotected, soared.

Tell me, what does that anarchy symbol mean to you?

Rage. Firestorm. Truth.

“Freedom,” Dante whispered.

24

Broken Trust

LUCIENCLOSED HIS EYES . From his perch on the roof, he caught the smell of the Mississippi—cold water, moss, and mud. He listened, waiting for Dante’s touch through their link, a touch that might never be felt again. The link was closed, but not severed. At least, not yet. The child might not realize that severing the link would harm them both.

Despite Lucien’s shields, Dante’s blood-frenzied rage and euphoria tugged at him through their bond. Sang to him in chaos song, like that first time on the wharf. He gripped the roof’s edge, his talons puncturing the tiles. His talons—stronger and thicker. Shot through with creawdwr imaginings.

Lucien’s muscles rippled beneath his skin. His remade flesh ached. His hair fluttered behind him in the winter breeze. What else had Dante changed, trying to save him?

Yet another strand to the bonds inextricably linking them: father and son; friend and companion; creator and created.

Was it possible to regain trust, once lost?

Sudden pain, sharp as broken glass, scraped through the bond and sliced at his shields. Lucien flexed the pain away. His child passed out finally, freeing them both.

A lingering image haunted Lucien’s mind like a retinal ghost after a brilliant flash—a concrete stall, flickering light, dripping water; an image he passed along.

<Llygad>

<Got it.>

Lucien fought the desire to launch himself into the sky, wrestled with the need to go to Dante, gather him into his arms and carry him home. His wings flared and flapped, but he remained perched on the roof like a night-chained gargoyle, listening.

Waiting.

HEATHER RATCHETED THE SECOND cuff shut around the chair leg. The other cuff encircled Stearns’s right wrist. She straightened, brushing the hair out of her eyes.

“This isn’t necessary,” Stearns said. “I just want to talk to you.”

“Coffee?” she asked, crossing to the kitchen counter and the coffeepot. The coffee’s aroma, strong and dark, filled the kitchen.

As she poured fresh-brewed coffee into the same cup she’d used last night, her throat tightened. Twenty-four hours plus since she and Dante’d sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and brandy. Talking about the serial killer stalking him.

And who’d found him.

Her muscles knotted as she thought of Elroy Jordan stretched on the sofa in the front room, most likely the killer she’d been hunting for three years. Thought of him standing over her as she slept. Thought of him claiming his cell phone and leaving her and everyone else untouched.

“Go to my car, get the file and take a look; you’ll see Dante for the monster he is.”

Heather turned, hands grasping the counter behind her. Stearns scooted his chair around so he could see her. His face went blank at what he saw in her eyes.

“Monster? I saw monsters tonight,” she said, voice husky, strained. “Two of them.” The memory of Jay lying in a pool of his own blood burned bright in her mind. “Dante may not be human, but he’s no monster.” She locked gazes with Stearns. “I’d stake my life on that.”

“You already have,” Stearns said. “You just don’t know it.” He glanced away. “I came here for you, Heather.”

“For me? Or for Dante?”

Stearns looked back at her, his beard-shadowed face open, weary. “For you. You’ve been marked for termination. Me too.”

Even though she’d expected something bad, real bad, ever since learning about the cover-up, hearing it stated was like a slap to the face. Picking up her cup, she walked back to the table and sat across from Stearns. “Because someone wants to protect the CCK? Or because the investigation led me to Dante?” She spooned sugar into her coffee with a steady hand even though she felt like she’d been gutted.

Marked for termination.

“Both. Dante’s part of the same project that produced the CCK.”

Heather sucked in a sharp breath. Gut-punched again. WAKE UP S. The pieces tumbled into place and the forming picture scared the hell out of her. “His project name,” she murmured. “Who heads the project?”

“Johanna Moore.”

“Doctor Moore? Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. She’s been creating sociopaths for years. To study.”

Heather felt like she’d flipped into an alternate reality: everything looked the same, but underneath, everything and everyone were dark, tweaked opposites of their counterparts in her reality—negative images.

That or she’d fallen asleep and plunged headlong into darkest nightmare.

No such luck.

Stirring her coffee, Heather thought back to her days at the Academy and dredged up memories of Dr. Moore—tall, blonde, charismatic, and brilliant. Her courses in forensic psychology had always intrigued. Her grasp of the sociopathic personality had been uncanny. Her profiles had never missed.

But to create sociopaths?

“She was behind the Pensacola ruse,” Stearns said. “You were getting too close.”

Heather met Stearns’s gaze. Cold certainty cascaded through her, an icy river that chilled her to the bone. He spoke the truth. “How high up does this go?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Stearns replied, shaking his head. “But I think it’s best to behave as though it goes to the top.”

Heather took a sip of coffee, her thoughts whirling. Elroy Jordan and Thomas Ronin—together creating the Cross-Country Killer. And Dante? Why would one part of the project be stalking another? Was Dante a failed experiment? One marked for termination, like herself? Like Stearns?

But what if he was exactly what he was supposed to be—a sociopathic killer?

Pushing her chair back from the table, Heather stood. Fatigue washed through her and her vision darkened. She grabbed the table’s edge for balance.

“We’ll discuss this later,” she murmured as her vision cleared. “I’ve gotta find Dante.”

“Take five minutes,” Stearns said, voice urgent. “Get the file. Look at it.” Reaching into his coat pocket with his uncuffed left hand, he tossed a set of keys onto the table. “Heather, please.”

She stared at the keys, wondering if the file would contain the secrets of Dante’s hidden past. And if so, could he be freed of migraines and nosebleeds? Would the truth have saved Annie from slashed wrists, meds, and institutions?

Maybe, Heather thought, scooping up the keys. She slid them into her pants pocket. Maybe it still would. Stearns opened his mouth, but she shook her head. “Not another word, Craig.”

Heather walked from the silent kitchen and into the hallway. Her overnight bag and laptop rested against the wall. Further down, a faint blue light spilled onto the autumn-etched carpet from a door near the stairway. She heard the faint murmur of Simone’s voice as she spoke to her brother in rapid, musical Cajun.

Heather remembered Dante standing in the locker’s doorway at CUSTOM MEATS, hands braced against the threshold, his dark eyes streaked with deep red; remembered the strain in his voice: Run as far from me as you can.

As she walked down the hall toward the spill of blue light, Heather also remembered Étienne’s head dangling from Dante’s blood-smeared hand; remembered the hot touch of Dante’s lips against her throat, twisting fear and fire through her guts; remembered the wonder in his voice as he spoke her name.

Even if everything Stearns said was true, Dante struggled against whatever had been programmed into his fractured mind. He loved others, something a sociopath was incapable of. Dante’s willingness to sacrifice himself for Jay was all the proof she needed.

But Ronin’s voice snaked through her thoughts.

Her name was Chloe. And you killed her.

Dante struggled now, but had he always?

She shoved the doubt away, knowing she’d examine it closer at another time. For now, she was Dante’s partner, his backup, and she wouldn’t leave him to face Ronin alone.

Pushing open the door to the computer room, Heather looked at Simone kneeling beside her plugged-in and connected brother. Trey reclined in a lounger, his goggled gaze on the ceiling, his capped fingers moving data through the blue-lit air as he searched for the information she’d requested: A search for Elroy Jordan’s movements over the last three years.

Dante-angel?

Chloe tugs on the handcuffs, the chain tunk-tunk-tunking against the bedpost. Wake up! Papa took the curtain away. Dante-angel, wakeupwakeupwakeup—

Dante opened one eye. Light shafted in, piercing his already aching head. He shut his eye again. In the MG. Easing his head back against the headrest, he massaged his temples. The car’s interior stank of blood, gasoline, and tequila.

“Fuck.”

Something hard pressed into the small of Dante’s back. Wincing in the fluorescent light, he leaned forward and reached back to the waistband of his leather pants. His fingers wrapped around a smooth, cylindrical shape and tugged it free.

Dante stared at the gun—nine mil, a voice whispered—in his bloodstained hand. His breath caught in his throat as images strobed through his bruised mind. The sudden rush of violence—vivid, stark, intoxicating—slammed his heart into overdrive.

“The tavern…” he whispered.

Another dizzying montage of images: A broken pool cue spinning through the air; a knife plunging through his hand; a black-haired woman crouched behind the bar, terror on her face; an iridescent rose tattoo.

The taste of LaRousse’s bitter blood.

The gun tumbled from his fingers to the floorboards. Dante squeezed his eyes shut. Touched his fingers to his temple. Shaking, muscles taut, he pushed past the pain, but the images whited out. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t stop the flood of broken memories; couldn’t control them, couldn’t even hold onto them.

Dante opened his eyes. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. He breathed in the smell of wet concrete and mildew and soap. But beneath that, he caught the stench of old slaughterhouse blood.

Pain ice-picked his mind. CUSTOM MEATS. Ronin and Étienne. Jay, bound and hanging from a meat hook. Ronin’s fangs piercing his throat. Heather kneeling beside Étienne, her gun pressed against his chest.

I knew you’d come.

You can still save him, True Blood.

Liar. Liar.

“Liar!” Dante screamed. He screamed until he was scraped raw inside, until his mind was empty and no more sound would come. He slumped back against the seat, drained, but still burning.

“Hey, little brother.”

Dante glanced at the now opened driver’s side door. Von knelt on the concrete, one knee in a rainbowed puddle of oil and water. He cupped a road-rough hand against Dante’s face, pushed his hair back with long fingers.

“It’s good to get that shit out,” Von said, voice low. “Festers if you leave it inside.”

“Yeah?” Dante whispered, looking into the nomad’s green eyes. “How come I ain’t never heard you screaming?”

Von snorted. “Nothing inside, man. I travel light.”

“Bullshit.”

Von’s hand dropped from Dante’s face to his chest. He pressed his fingers against the latex shirt. “You got a good heart, little brother. That’s why I stay. No regrets.”

“How can you know that when I don’t?”

Von touched a finger beneath the crescent moon tattoo under his eye. Tapped it. Arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, yeah, llygad. Got it.”

Von lifted his hand from Dante’s chest, but Dante caught it and folded his fingers between Von’s. Dante leaned forward and kissed him. The nomad tasted of smoke and road dust. He listened to the steady thump of Von’s heart and his mind flashed back to Lucien, to the taste of his blood, to the sound of the song thrumming through him—Dante tried to block all thought of Lucien, but it was too late.

You look so much like her.

Rage rekindled, bonded with the fire burning deep inside.

You knew all this time? And you never said anything?

Sliding his hand from Von’s, Dante eased out of the MG. He took in his surroundings, realizing for the first time he stood in a car wash. Glancing down at his blood-caked clothing, the location suddenly made sense.

“Gotta clean up.”

“Good idea,” Von said. “That hot little FBI darlin’ is at the house. She sees you like this, she’s gonna think you shower in blood.”

Dante went still. “Heather’s at the house? Is she…okay?”

“Fuck, yeah. She’s wiped out, like you, but fine. Sleep’ll do you both good.”

Dante nodded, then shrugged out of his leather jacket. He tossed it, metal jingling, into the MG. Spotting his shades on the passenger seat, he grabbed them, then slid them on. The fluores-cent glare dimmed. His headache toned down a shade. He unstrapped his latex shirt, then walked to the car wash controls.

Patting his pockets—an image of dollar bills wadded up on the tavern’s counter popped into his mind—Dante glanced at Von. “Got any money?”

“Yeah,” the nomad said, digging in his jacket pocket. He looked at Dante as he pulled a spike free, lifted his eyebrow. “So what was your plan? Wait for someone to overlook your sorry-ass state and load your palms up with quarters?”

“Fuck you. Twice.” Dante pulled the wand from its metal sleeve.

Grinning, Von slid the swipe through the price slot. “Choose your poison.”

Dante clicked the dial over to light rinse and pressed the on button. Water sprayed from the wand. Turning the wand around until the high-pressure stream hit his torso, Dante edged it up and down, washing blood from his clothes and skin. The cold water stung.

“Listen to me,” Von said, stepping out of spray range. “You’re exhausted. You’re fevered. You need Sleep.”

“Ronin’s waiting for me.”

“Let him wait. Dawn’s a few hours away. He’s gotta Sleep, too.”

Sudden weariness coiled through Dante and he leaned a shoulder against the smooth concrete wall. Bloody water swirled into the grated drain in the stall’s center. His temples throbbed with dull pain. He scrubbed at a stubborn stain on his leather pants, the water sluicing past his fingers. Setting the wand on the floor, he peeled off his latex shirt. Tossed it onto the MG’s hood.

A small voice whispered his name—

Dante-angel.

Shutting his eyes, he leaned a bare shoulder against the wall. His right hand pressed against the concrete, the touch tentative, seeking…what?

Behind his closed eyes, a corona of light surrounded a key, puzzle-fractured and spider-webbed with black lines.

Is this the right one? Will it work on the handcuffs?

“Hey, Dante.” The sharp sound of snapping fingers. “Hey, little brother.”

Dante opened his eyes and looked up into Von’s concerned gaze.

“You okay?”

Nodding, heart pounding, Dante picked up the still spraying wand and started washing himself again.

“What happened between you and Lucien, man?”

Dante looked at Von for a long moment, then resumed washing. “Are you asking as mon ami or llygad?” He suddenly thought of Heather—her gorgeous face half-shadowed in the club as she said, I’m both, Dante. Friend and cop.

“Friend.”

“He lied to me.” The spray slowed to a trickle, stopped. Dante straightened, shaking his wet hair back from his face. He slid the wand back into the sleeve.

Von whistled, then reached into the MG and grabbed Dante’s jacket. Tossed it to him. “If Lucien lied to you, there musta been—”

“He knew my mother. All this time. He never said one word. Never said shit.” Dante tugged the jacket on over his wet skin, leather creaking, metal clinking.

Memory flared one more time, Lucien’s face, dark wonder in his golden eyes, his finger reaching up to stroke Dante’s hair.

Genevieve…

The world spun suddenly—cathedral, car wash, slaughterhouse, gleaming pews, wet concrete walls, swaying hooks—and Dante grabbed the open car door to keep from falling. Pain spiked behind his eyes. His vision grayed out for a moment, then cleared.

He realized that Von had latched a hand around his biceps, steadying him. Dante glanced at the nomad. Von returned his regard, face troubled.

“Merci,” Dante said.

Von released his hold, his posture tense, reluctant. “Go home, little brother. Sleep. Ronin’ll still be waiting for you come evening. Go home. Please.”

But Dante heard the thought behind Von’s words, saw it in his eyes: You’re scaring me.

“I plan on it, mon ami,” Dante said, climbing into the MG. “I need to talk to Heather.” Need to make sure she’s all right. He keyed the engine on. It rumbled to life, the sound echoing against the concrete walls.

A smile quirked up one corner of Von’s mouth. “So he can see reason.” With a gentle push of his fingertips, he swung the driver’s side door shut, then strode away.

Dante shook his head, amused, and shifted the MG into first. His amusement faded as darker thoughts circled through his mind. Why the hell don’t I remember my past? And why has that never bothered me?

And darker still: What if it’s never bothered me because it ain’t supposed to?

Darkest: What if it’s never bothered me because I don’t want to remember?

Again he heard Ronin’s knowing voice: What are you afraid of, True Blood?

Fingers clamped around the steering wheel, Dante drove the MG out of the stall. Not you, Peeping Tom. Or what you know. But he wondered just how Peeping Tom had come by his knowledge.

Troubled, Dante hit the gas, shifting into second, then third. He was missing something, forgetting something important, but the memory—like so many others—refused to come.

25

Devil in the Details

HEATHERSAT CROSS-LEGGED on the hardwood floor, examining the printout Trey had provided. Her exhaustion vanished in a buzz of excitement. Elroy Jordan was from New York, but before that he’d lived in Seattle—born and raised—during the time of the first two murders. He’d even lived close to the first victim, Karen Stilman. Credit receipts pegged him in Portland, Oregon, and Boise, Idaho during the times of the murders in those cities. In fact, Elroy Jordan could be placed at each kill site.

Paper rustled as Heather flipped to the page on Ronin. Nothing placed the journalist in Seattle until after the second murder. Ditto for the murders in Portland, Boise, Salt Lake City, and Helena. She frowned, scanning the data for parallels, for inconsistencies. She was positive Jordan and Ronin were working as a team. But, so far, the evidence dusted that theory.

After the Helena, Montana murder, Ronin’s receipts and rental history placed him in New York—before the estimated date of Byron Hedge’s death. Not after.

If what Stearns had said was true, that Moore had created sociopaths to study, then was Ronin working with her? How else would he know how to trigger Dante? Why would he want to? What would he gain? Or was Ronin working against Moore? If so, why? Again, what would he have to gain?

Heather glanced at the sheet again, flipped back to the page on Jordan. The two couldn’t be connected during the murders in Omaha, Chicago, or Detroit—Ronin didn’t show in those cities until after the murders. But he was in New York prior to Hedge’s murder. Shortly afterward, Ronin and Jordan had arrived in New Orleans together.

The next murder? Daniel Spurrell’s.

For some reason, Ronin had intercepted Jordan, interrupting Moore’s study of her wandering sociopath, and led him to New Orleans. To Dante.

So…maybe Elroy Jordan alone was the Cross-Country Killer. What was Ronin’s role? Either he or Étienne had killed Jay. Jordan hadn’t even been present.

Heather rubbed her face with one hand, her buzz fading. Nothing was making sense. She needed sleep, but she needed to find Dante first.

Leather creaked as Simone’s brother shifted in his recliner. His fingers darted through the air, rearranging data and flipping it back into the net. The smell of hot circuits and ginger mingled uneasily in the room’s close air.

“Thanks for your help, Trey,” Heather said, easing to her feet.

Silence but for the creak of leather as the vampire’s capped fingers blurred through the air. His dreads brushed the floor. Heather doubted that he’d even heard her. She wondered if Trey, in his own way, was just as lost as Annie. Maybe turning him hadn’t worked out as well as Simone had hoped. Heather stepped out into the hall and quietly closed the door behind her.

Stearns’s keys jingled in Heather’s pocket as she walked and she thought of him cuffed in the kitchen; thought of the file in his car. What’re you gonna do, Wallace, keep him prisoner? For how long?

She folded the printout in half. He wants Dante. He thinks he’s a monster. Stopping in the kitchen doorway, she caught Stearns dozing, chin to chest, eyes closed.

What if he’s right?

“I’m going to get the file,” Heather said.

Stearns lifted his head, met her gaze, clear-eyed. Pretending, then. “Good.”

“And after I do,” she said, walking into the kitchen, “I want you out of here.”

“Call me when you’ve read the file.”

“No promises.” She set the folded printout on the table.

Heather stepped to her chair and the trenchcoat flung over it, digging in the pocket for her Colt Super. Her fingers slipped past the cool shape of Stearns’s Glock and locked around her .38. She pulled it free, tucked it into the waistband of her slacks; felt its hard, reassuring shape against the small of her back. She smoothed her sweater over the gun.

“Back in a minute,” she said.

At the front door, as Heather grasped the doorknob, a hand touched her shoulder. She glanced into Simone’s dark eyes.

“I’ll walk with you,” she said. A deep-red latex minidress hugged her curves, pale flesh visible through the side laces. Her long golden curls spilled down her back.

“Thanks, but I don’t need a bodyguard.”

Simone shrugged. “I could use the fresh air.”

Nodding, Heather opened the door and stepped into the humid, rose-scented night. Rain misted against her face, beading on the front of her sweater. Walking the broken-stone path to the gate, she felt Simone just behind her, but the only footsteps she heard were her own.

When Heather reached the gate, she paused and looked back at the house. De Noir hadn’t moved. He still hunched on the roof, rain-glistening wings folded along his back.

“Did you get what you needed?” Simone asked.

“Yes,” Heather said. “I have an address for Ronin in Metairie. Nothing for Jordan, but I imagine they’re together. Custom Meats is owned by a real estate firm—”

Simone held up a finger, her gaze flicking inward. After a moment, a smile curved her lips. “Von found Dante. They’re on their way home.”

“Is he all right?”

“Mostly.”

Relief curled through Heather, unknotting kinked muscles and pushing away her fatigue. She decided not to dwell on “mostly.” Dante had been found and was on his way home. That was all that mattered. She slipped through the partially opened gate, walking with Simone to the road.

“You said you’d known Dante three or four years,” Heather said, keeping her voice light.

“Oui. He is mon cher ami.”

“Have you been friends the entire time?”

Simone looked at her, oak shadows twisting across her pale face. She opened her mouth to speak, but the sound of a car pulling up behind them on the gravel-edged road closed it again. She turned, lifting a hand against the glare of headlights.

Heather swiveled around, as well, reaching back with her right hand and sliding her fingers around the .38. A car idled in front of the gate.

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said from the passenger side. “Could you help us with directions?”

“Oui.” Simone stepped over to the car. She bent down to look in through the lowered window. A point of red light appeared on her forehead.

Heather swung her .38 around, yelling, “Simone! Down!” She pulled the trigger and heard two shots crack through the night.

Simone dove for the ground, but hit hard, sprawling in the gravel and gasping in pain. She’s been hit, Heather thought. The .38’s bullet starred the car’s windshield on the passenger side. The driver gunned the engine.

Heather dropped down to one knee and opened fire, pulling the trigger until she emptied the clip. “Stay down, Simone!” she yelled, hoping the vampire hadn’t taken a shot to the head or the heart.

The car lurched toward her. Heather rolled toward the concrete and black iron-topped fence, then back up to her feet. Wishing she’d worn her trenchcoat, she sprinted for the dark bulk of Stearns’s rental car, pulling the keys from her pocket as she ran.

Thoughts burned crystal clear in her mind: Find Stearns’s backup. Failing that, start the car and ram it into those motherfuckers. Adrenaline fueled her muscles. Her heart triple-timed and the air burned in her throat.

She slid to a stop beside the Crown Victoria, gravel skittering beneath her shoes. Behind her, the sound of the car’s engine deepened, picked up speed. She fumbled through the keys, their edges sharp against her fingers, until she found the alarm control.

The doors unlocked. Heather yanked open the passenger side door and lunged inside. Patting beneath the seat for any backup pistol Stearns might’ve planted, she squinted out the rear window into the blue-white glare of the headlights.

A form leapt onto the car. Simone stretched across the roof and reached in through the window for the driver. Brakes screeched. Tires squealed. The smell of burning rubber scorched the air. The car slid sideways and slammed into the Crown Victoria.

The impact knocked Heather shoulder-first into the dashboard. Pain lanced through her shoulder and down her right side. She bit her lip. The glove box flew open and several maps and a gun tumbled to the floor.

Bingo! Heather grabbed the gun and slid out of the car. Steam plumed into the air from under the hood of the car accordioned against the Crown Victoria. Flicking off the gun’s safety, she cautiously approached her pursuer.

The female shooter was slumped to one side, a dark hole in her forehead. Simone lay across the car’s roof, one hand latched onto the struggling driver’s shoulder, the other twisting his hair. She’d pulled him halfway out the window. Blood trickled down his face.

Heather stepped around the rear of the car and walked up to the driver’s side, the gun held in both hands. The driver squirmed in Simone’s grasp, his grunts panicked, wild.

“Let him go,” she called. “I’ve got him in my sights.”

Simone yanked the driver the rest of the way out of the window. He skidded across the pavement, sliding to a stop next to the yellow dividing lines.

“Stay there,” Heather said, stepping toward him. “Hands behind your head.”

Cool air gusted through her rain-damp hair as powerful wings whooshed through the sky above her. A shadow darkened the road.

De Noir swooped over the driver, seizing him by the collar, and soared up into the sky. The driver’s shriek, rising in terror and pitch, cut through the night.

“No!” Heather shouted. “Bring him back! De Noir!”

The shrieking ended abruptly. Something hit the pavement with a splat, something that steamed in the chilly air.

Heather’s stomach lurched. She swallowed hard, tasting blood. She leaned against the car and lowered the gun. “Shit.”

A figure blurred through the gate and raced up the road, dreads and cables snaking through the air behind him. Moonlight glinted from his fingertips. Trey stopped beside the car, his goggled gaze on his sister, panic etched into his face.

The car wobbled as Simone slid off of it. Blood glistened on her pale flesh. A hole marred her dress’s left shoulder, just below the collarbone. Trey touched the spot with a net-capped finger.

Wincing, Simone said, “I’m okay.” She lifted Trey’s finger and kissed it before releasing it. She laced an arm around his waist, leaned against him.

A rush of wings drew Heather’s attention. De Noir touched bare feet to the road, the driver’s torso in one taloned hand, the man’s lower half in the other. He walked to the car. Heather felt her gorge rise and jumped aside, not wanting a good look at De Noir’s burden. He stuffed the remains in through the window.

“Why the hell did you kill him?” she asked. “I wanted to question him.”

“He and his partner intended to kill you, Agent Wallace,” De Noir replied. “And anyone near you.” He stepped next to Simone and touched her face with one taloned finger. Simone’s eyes closed. “Could you have trusted any information he might’ve given you?” De Noir’s gaze flicked up to meet Heather’s.

“Probably not. But I still could’ve asked.” Shoving the gun into the waistband of her slacks, she marched back to the Crown Victoria.

After she tucked the gun back into the glove box, Heather discovered the locked briefcase on the floor behind the front seat. She tried a small key on the keyring, and the briefcase unlocked. She flipped the latches and looked inside. A computer CD, photos—her heart jumped into her throat when she recognized Dante’s face—and manila folders. Shutting the briefcase, she eased out of the car.

De Noir waited for her, shadows and moonlight slanting across his body, his wings. “Go inside,” he said. “I’ll take care of things out here.”

Heather nodded, deciding against asking for details and turned away. She trudged up the road to the house, heavy-limbed and weary. She’d burned off all the adrenaline and now she was almost dizzy with exhaustion.

She walked through the empty front room and into the kitchen. “I got the file and—”

Trey and Simone sat at the kitchen table. Silver stood at the sink, wetting a cloth. Stearns’s chair was turned on its side. Empty.

“Where is he?” Heather asked.

Simone shook her head. “He was gone when we came in.”

Heather sank into the trench-draped chair, setting the briefcase on the floor. She checked the trench’s pockets; Stearns’s Glock was gone. A glance at the table confirmed the printout was missing, as well.

Elbows on the table, Heather buried her face in her hands. “Shit.”

26

Sanctified

WITH THE DELICATE TWIST of a talon, De Noir worked the bullet out of Simone’s shoulder. The compressed chunk of metal fell to the floor. Silver handed De Noir a wet towel, then bent to scoop up the dented and ruined bullet. He glanced at Heather. “Do you need this? For evidence or something?”

Heather shook her head. “Not now.”

“Cool.” Silver tucked the bullet into his jeans pocket. He looked at Simone. “Did it hurt?”

“Oui, a lot,” Simone murmured. “I don’t want to get shot again, petit.” Trey, sitting beside her, squeezed her hand.

De Noir wiped away the last of the blood from Simone’s pale flesh, then straightened. He tilted his head and a moment later Heather heard the rumble of engines out front.

Dante, she thought, sitting up, suddenly wide awake. She combed her fingers through her hair. Her pulse raced.

Smiling, Simone dropped the bloodstained towel she’d used to cover her breasts and pulled up her dress straps.

The front door opened. Heather heard the creak of leather and the clink of small chains, but not one footstep. Dante walked into the kitchen, Von a pace behind.

Heather’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of Dante—when will I get used to seeing him? He glanced at her, a question burning in his dark eyes, the irises no longer streaked with red or gold.

Then Simone stood and Dante went to her, wrapping his arms around her. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth.

“You okay, doll?” Von asked, joining the pair, embracing them both.

Heather, throat tight, looked away. He is mon cher ami. And more, apparently. The excited beat of her heart altered to a furious tempo. Blood pounded in her temples. Scraping her chair back, she stood and strode from the kitchen.

She can have him. He doesn’t need me for backup.

Heather raced down the hallway, fists clenched, not sure where she was going, just away. She stopped at the stairs, fingers hooking around the polished wood banister.

She closed her eyes. What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she told Dante she was a friend, as well as a cop? Wasn’t it her job to see him safe? Well, he was—home safe, at least. She needed sleep. Food. Time to think.

“Hey,” a low voice said, sending shivers up her spine.

“Yes?” she said, opening her eyes. Her fingers white-knuckled the banister. She wouldn’t turn around. Wouldn’t come undone at the sight of him.

She tensed as Dante stopped beside her. His scent—falling leaves and dark earth, warm and close—enveloped her. His fingers brushed her hair from her face.

“Heather, look at me.”

Heather released the banister and swiveled to face him, met his dark gaze.

“What the hell are you still doing here?” he said, voice strained. “I told you to run. I meant it. You’re not safe here and I’m—”

“You’re the one who’s not safe here,” she interrupted, cut by his words, his unexpected anger. “I know you’re nightkind, but that doesn’t matter. You’re still in danger and you can’t keep running off on your own. Maybe you need to be saved from yourself.”

“I don’t need to be saved,” Dante said. “Don’t wanna be saved.” A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Pigheaded,” she muttered. “Y’know what? Don’t worry about it. You want me gone, fine.” Whirling, she strode away.

As Heather paused to pick up her overnight bag and laptop, fingers latched onto her shoulders and spun her around. She dropped the bag and swung her fist up, but Dante caught it and held it captive against his bare chest. Her left fist shot up, but he caught that one too.

“Dammit! Let go!” Heather said, body tensed, eyes burning. “What the hell do you want from me?” She tried to jerk free, but Dante’s steel-fingered hands circled her wrists like handcuffs. Pulled her close. Pulled her into him.

“Let me fucking finish, d’accord?” Dante said, voice a near whisper. “I don’t want you here because I’m scared of what might happen to you. Of what I might…what I…could do—”

“Shhhh.” Heather shook her head. Scared. For her. Of himself. She looked into his unguarded eyes, shaken, throat tight. She realized in that moment that it wasn’t sleep she needed. Or food. Or time to think.

Dante released her wrists and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight. His heart pounded hard and fast. His heat baked into her.

Sliding a hand up his pale, hard-muscled chest, Heather hooked a finger through the ring of his bondage collar. Tugged. But he was already lowering his face to hers. He kissed her and the touch of his lips, his tongue, ignited her, set her ablaze.

Yearning burned through her as the kiss deepened and a whisper of betrayal, hurt, and loneliness echoed in her heart; all the things she’d seen in his dark eyes when he’d breathed her name at the slaughterhouse.

I won’t walk away from you, she thought, hoping he’d hear her.

Dante’s breath caught in his throat. He slipped a hand under her sweater, his fingers trailing along her skin to the curve of her breast.

She shoved the jacket from his shoulders. It hit the floor with a thud. Her hands glided over his hips, to his ass, then up along the hard contours of his back. His skin felt like sun-warmed silk draped over steel. Dante shivered as she touched him. She opened her eyes to watch pleasure steal across his beautiful face.

Fire flared in Heather’s belly, flamed through her veins as Dante reached up to cup her breast through her sweater. She moaned into their kiss, her hands slipping back to his ass, pulling him closer still. Dante was hard beneath the wet leather. Hard against her belly. Her breathing quickened. She closed her eyes.

“Holy shit, you two, the pheromones!” An amused voice—Von’s?—said. “Take it upstairs unless you seriously want an audience.”

The hand caressing Heather’s breast dropped away. Through half-opened eyes, she watched as Dante flipped off the nomad.

Von laughed. “Dawn’s coming, man. Coupla hours.”

Ending the kiss, Dante lifted his head and smoothed Heather’s sweater down. He scooped her up into his arms. “What happens when dawn comes?” she murmured, lacing her arms around his neck.

“I Sleep.”

Heather heard the capital S in his voice and her thoughts shifted back to that first morning—was it only two days ago?—and Dante’s drowsiness, snoozing in the car until danger had awakened him.

Heather kissed his cheek, his mouth, his ear. A low sound vibrated up from Dante’s throat. “Get going, gorgeous,” she whispered. “No time to waste.”

Dante moved, carrying Heather up the stairs like she weighed nothing. His strength amazed her—slim and wiry, five nine—until she remembered what he was: nightkind. She kissed his throat, wrapped up in the power of his arms, the heat of his body. Dante’s hair brushed against her linked fingers, soft and damp, and framed his face with black, wavy tendrils.

Upstairs, Dante carried her into the first door on the left—his room. Kicking the door shut behind him, he crossed the littered floor with the surefootedness of a cat, then eased her down onto the unmade futon.

Heather unlinked her hands from around his neck and cupped his face. She kissed him again. She murmured against his lips, “Light some candles. I want to see you.”

Dante walked to the bureau, picked up a lighter, then blurred around the room; candles winked alight like evening stars in his wake. Returning to the futon, he sat beside Heather. He looked at her, into her, candlelight sparking orange from his rings, along the hoops in his ears, in his eyes. He caressed her cheek with the backs of his fingers, his rings cool against her skin.

Grabbing his upper arms, she pulled Dante down on top of her. Rolled him over onto the slithering silk sheets and straddled him. His hands slid up her thighs.

“It’s quiet when I’m with you,” Dante said, voice low, husky. “The noise stops.”

Heather thought of him kneeling in the slaughterhouse, dazed, whispering sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. She thought of the photo she’d glimpsed in Stearns’s briefcase.

“I’ll help you stop it forever,” she whispered.

She pulled off her sweater, unhooked her bra. Flung them on the floor. Dante’s flame-lit gaze swept over her.

“Très belle,” he breathed.

Smiling, she trailed her fingers across his chest, traced the small bat tattoo above his heart. Then she bent over, flicked her tongue over his hardened nipples. Dante’s breath hissed through his teeth. His fingers threaded through her hair as she kissed her way down his flat belly to the top of his leather pants. Heather unbuckled his belt, her fingers fumbling with the snap and zipper on his pants; wanting to tear them off with her teeth.

Finally she grasped him. Hard. Hot. Pale as milk. Satin-smooth. She traced his length first with her fingers, then the tip of her tongue. A low moan escaped him, and the sound of it stirred the fire smoldering within her. He shivered, muscles flexing, as she stroked him. His fingers twisted free of her hair and brushed against her cheek, drew her gaze up.

“My turn,” Dante said, voice a low purr. His fingers slid around her arms and pulled her up. Rolled her over onto the sheets. Heather arched up against him, pressing against him, skin to skin.

Dante plucked off her shoes, then removed her trousers, her panties, Heather lifting her hips as he slid them off. He kissed her inner thighs, his lips burning against her skin. She moaned.

A gust of air blew across Heather. She heard two dull thuds. She glanced at the floor. Two unstrapped boots. Leather pants. Then Dante stretched over her, naked except for the collar around his throat, pale skin gleaming in the candlelight.

“You cheated,” she whispered, gliding a hand over his chest, across his belly and down, exploring his smooth white skin and hard muscles.

A wicked smile played across his lips. “You can cheat next time.”

He kissed her, biting her lower lip. She sucked in a breath, but the sting faded as soon as it began. His hand caressed her breast, brushed over her hip, tucked in between her legs. Heather gasped. Pleasure shuddered through her.

Dante shifted, his lips closed around her nipple—kissing, sucking. He trailed kisses from her breasts, across her belly and down, his hair sliding like black silk across her skin, tickling and raising goosebumps. He licked her, and she arched her back as his lips and tongue set her ablaze, his fingers stoking the fire.

Burning up from the inside out. Dreaming.

For a moment, a doubt wormed into her dream: He’s not human.

But she remembered the pounding of his heart, the sound of his grief, the prickly raw smell of his pain. Remembered him spreading his jacket over Gina. Remembered the devastation on his face as he looked at Jay.

If that’s not human, what is?

Time stretched, endless, ever-dusk. Her body vibrated at Dante’s touch, spasming in pleasure, burning with every flick of his tongue. She shuddered as she came, the orgasm’s intensity stealing her voice and leaving her breathless.

Dante kissed his way back up Heather’s body, blue flame glowing wherever he pressed his lips. He kissed her and she tasted herself on his tongue. As they kissed, she guided him inside of her, her fingers stroking, directing. He moaned as he entered her.

Sweat slicked their bodies as they began to thrust together, rocking, pounding. She smelled him, deep dark earth and burning leaves. His scent intoxicated her. Blue light flickered in her mind.

Wrapping her legs around Dante’s waist, Heather pulled him closer still. His breathing quickened. Sweat-damp hair curled beside his face as he looked into her eyes, his own pleasure-dilated and flecked with gold.

Pinning her right hand to the mattress beside her head, Dante intertwined his fingers with hers. He lowered his head to her throat and kissed it.

Heather felt a brief sting as Dante’s fangs pierced the skin at her throat, the pain vanishing almost before she registered it. An image of Dante in CUSTOM MEATS tearing Étienne apart flashed through her mind—Run as far from me as you can—but pleasure racked her and erased all fear, all thought. She moaned as he suckled at her throat.

She dreamed a wordless song; heard the rush of wings.

Time stretched again, minutes spinning away, lost to twilight. Dante lifted his head from her throat and disentangled his hand from hers. Sliding his hands beneath her, Dante lifted her up, still upon him, then down as he knelt on the futon. Hands on her hips, he kissed her. Heather tasted blood on Dante’s lips, in his mouth—her blood. A strange thrill curled through her: he has part of me inside of him.

Heather rocked down as Dante thrust up, pumping, creating a tempo of their own; a rhythm of heat and sweat and ragged breath. As Dante’s lips caught her nipple, sucking it into the warmth of his mouth, Heather was certain nothing existed beyond this moment and that nothing ever would. Just Dante burning inside her, fitting against her like no other; the air thick with the smell of musk and candle wax and the sound of flesh slapping against flesh.

Sensation built within her, ring after ring spiraling up and up and up, until it toppled, plunging her into a depthless pool and sluicing away all thought. She gasped as she came, the orgasm’s intensity rushing through her like a river, increasing with every ripple instead of fading.

Dante moaned, as though he felt it too. He shivered, but never paused in his pounding rhythm. Blue light filled Heather’s vision. Her muscles quivered, taut. She clutched Dante, her fingernails digging into his shoulders, her face pressed against his head, buried in the autumn fragrance of his hair.

One hand on the small of Heather’s back, the other still on her hip, Dante lowered her onto the futon. His tempo altered; he drove faster, harder. His eyes closed. His lips parted. Pleasure seemed to light him from within. Wrapping her legs around his waist again, she held him tight and released herself to his rhythm.

Just as dawn grayed the room, Dante opened his eyes and looked into Heather with gold-streaked eyes. His breath caught in his throat, held there, the sound a near sob. Orgasm surged through her again as he came and she cried out as he shuddered in her arms. Dante’s movement gradually slowed, then stopped. Heather held him close, her heart hammering against her ribs.

Beyond the curtains covering the French windows, night shifted into morning. Dante eased off of Heather and she snuggled against him, head against his shoulder, his arm around her. His heart thumped strong and steady beneath her cheek, not thudding fast like her heart.

“Do you have any idea how many rules I’ve just broken?” she said, draping a leg across his.

“Mmm…all of ’em, I hope.”

“Now I know two things you’re talented at.”

Dante snorted.

Heather tipped her head and looked at Dante. His dark eyes were absent of gold flecks, his expression relaxed.

“Simone said someone’s gunning for you,” Dante said. “Do you know who?”

“Someone high up, I think,” Heather replied. “At least, that’s what I’ve been told. Because I won’t drop the investigation.”

“I’m gonna find Peeping Tom and Elroy the Perv. And whoever’s hunting you.”

The quiet intensity on Dante’s face, the whisper of barely restrained violence in his voice disturbed Heather. She squeezed his hand.

“You know he’s waiting for you, right? Don’t go to him this time.” She touched her fingers to his face, drew his gaze down. “We can bring both of them in for questioning, DNA samples, whatever,” she said. “The evidence will link Jordan to the killings. You’re a witness to Jay’s murder…We’ll buy time.”

“You’ll never bring Ronin in,” Dante said, “ ’cause he’s gonna burn first.”

“Too dangerous.”

“Ain’t asking permission.”

“Pigheaded.”

“It’s still quiet,” Dante said, voice sleepy, fading. “Stay here, chérie.”

“I will.” Rising up on her elbow, she kissed him. His eyes closed, and she knew he was gone then, lost to Sleep. “Good morning and sweet dreams,” she whispered, pulling up the blankets and tucking herself back into his embrace.

Heather closed her eyes and tumbled into welcome darkness.

27

Penance

“I ’VE LOST CONTACT WITH my people in New Orleans,” Gifford said quietly. “I’m afraid they may have failed.”

Johanna’s fingers tightened around the phone. “Finish it yourself. If you find Stearns and Wallace together, make it a murder-suicide.” She glanced at the bedroom window. Dawn glimmered behind the curtains. Sleep pressed down upon her.

“Of course. Anything else?”

“Since E’s gone off the grid, I think we need to conclude his part of the project.” Johanna’s head nodded. She jerked it up. Forced her eyes open.

“And S?”

“Let him be. For now.”

HEATHER AWAKENED, HEART POUNDING, mouth dry. She stared at the shadowed ceiling as the nightmare’s stark images faded: the recurring dream about her mother’s last stumbling walk, and the ride she’d accepted. Or at least the way she imagined it might’ve been.

Suddenly aware of the arm around her shoulder, the body nestled against hers, Heather turned her head. Dante slept, lashes dark against his skin, black hair tousled, his breathing so low she slid her hand over his heart. After a moment, she felt a reassuring thump against her palm. She trailed her fingers up past the bondage collar, past his lips, to his smooth cheek.

No whiskers, she mused. Can’t be just a nightkind thing, Von has a mustache and Ronin a beard.

Heather traced her hand down his chest, the skin cool beneath her fingers, to his flat belly. She longed for twilight, longed to awaken him with kisses, with her hands, her mouth.

Sighing, Heather glanced at her watch. 2 p.m. She had work to do. Bad guys to catch—without Bureau help or blessing. A file to read. And if it was bad? A knot formed in her stomach and she pushed the thought away. She climbed over Dante, pausing to kiss his cool lips.

“Très belle, yourself,” she murmured before easing off the futon.

The floor creaked beneath her feet as she pulled the blankets up and over Dante. He didn’t stir. Heather had a feeling she didn’t need to worry about being quiet. He’d sleep no matter what.

Must be nice, she thought, half stepping and half skipping over the CD cases and clothes on the floor on her way to the adjoining bathroom.

She flipped on the light. The room was painted black and lavender. Several things cluttered the counter: eyeliner tubes and pencils, black lipstick, a brush, toothpaste, soap, an MP3 player.

Toothpaste? Weren’t vampires immune to cavities?

Clean, plush towels hung from the rack, and shampoo and conditioner stood on a shelf in the shower. And beneath the towels, her overnight bag.

Who…? Then she realized it must have been De Noir. The others would’ve been sleeping like Dante, hibernating in the daylight.

Turning on the water in the shower, Heather let it warm up while she looked at herself in the mirror. She glanced at her throat, touching the spot where Dante had bitten her. No visible mark, no tenderness. Fire flared within her again, kindled in her belly, as she thought of him drinking in a part of her. She closed her eyes.

Playtime’s over. Focus on the case. Focus on keeping alive—if you’re dead, who will speak for Jay and all the others?

Unbidden and unexpected, an answer disrupted her thoughts: Dante would. Somehow that felt right to her—heart-true.

Opening her eyes, Heather stepped into the shower and closed the door. As hot water sluiced across her neck and shoulders, she realized Dante had become the case, that in her struggle to keep him alive, she hadn’t noticed that the game had changed; she no longer knew if the Ronin-Jordan team wanted Dante dead or wanted him to join them.

Her name was Chloe. And you killed her.

She’s been creating sociopaths for years.

It’s quiet when I’m with you.

Turning around, Heather braced her hands against the water-slick tiles and tipped her face up to the shower spray. She hoped the water would ease the sudden kinks out of her shoulders, would loosen the tightness constricting her breathing, melt away the fear frosting her guts.

She remembered the thought she’d shouted at Dante: I won’t walk away from you.

Her breath caught, ragged, a sob. A fist closed around her heart. Her chest ached. She realized she was scared, scared of what she’d discover in the file, scared of what she might be forced to do.

DRESSED IN A ROYAL blue blouse and khaki slacks, Heather walked down the stairs, shoes in hand. The house was silent, hushed. Feeling like she was in a church, she resisted the impulse to tiptoe. Dante’s whispered words circled through her mind: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.

Treading down the hall, she paused beside the computer room. The recliner was empty, the computer off. Coiled cables rested on the table beside Trey’s goggles. She suddenly thought of Annie, drugged and peaceful as she slept in a hospital bed, her restraints removed and curled up on the night-stand.

Shaking the image from her head, Heather continued down the hall, walking into the kitchen. She sat at the table and, bending, laced on her shoes. The briefcase still stood beside the chair; her purse and Stearns’s keys rested on the cobalt-blue tablecloth.

She grabbed her purse, dug out her cell phone. She flipped through the caller log, noting several calls from Collins. She felt a pang of guilt. She’d left him pretty much out in the cold, no word, no explanation. Could she trust him? She didn’t know where she stood anymore, and a few hours of sleep hadn’t made the situation any clearer.

Rogue agents, Bureau-ordered hits, mad-scientist experiments in psychopathology, vampires and fallen angels and a slicing-dicing serial killer: the world and her understanding of it had spun one-eighty degrees in a few days time. The only thing she was certain of was her promise to the CCK’s victims, the slaughtered dead—a voice and justice.

And her promise to Dante? Pain clenched around her heart again. She still felt him against her, inside of her, remembered the feel of him, hard muscle and hot skin, saw herself reflected in his dark eyes.

It’s still quiet. Stay here, cherie.

I won’t walk away from you.

Promises were made to be kept, not broken. She’d believed that as a kid and she believed it now. Nothing had changed. She’d do everything possible for Dante, keep him close and alive. And if the file proved Stearns right? If Dante was a voice needing to be silenced?

Was it even that simple anymore? She’d stepped into a world colored in shades of gray—a twilight world more layered and complex than she’d ever imagined.

You’ll see him for the monster he is.

She knew that was a statement she’d have to examine and soon. But first, she had a pair of monsters—one nightkind, the other mortal—that she needed to stop before they killed someone else, someone Dante loved.

Highlighting one of Collins’s missed calls, Heather hit send. He answered on the first ring. “Wallace, where the hell have you been?” Strain edged his words.

“Tied up. Look, I’m sorry. I know I should’ve gotten back to you—”

“We need to talk. In person. All kinds of shit’s coming down.”

Apprehension curled around Heather’s guts. “What kinda shit?”

“In person. Didn’t you say there were two bodies at that slaughterhouse?”

“Yeah.”

“We only found one. The kid in the straitjacket.”

Heather went still. She’d watched Étienne burn. “Can you pick me up?” she said. She gave Collins the address.

“ ’Kay.” He paused, then asked, “Is this Prejean’s address?”

“When will you get here?”

“Twenty, thirty minutes.”

“See ya then.”

How could Étienne’s body be gone? Unless nightkind had auto-recall in case of death, it meant someone had come for his remains or he’d walked away. Either proposition was unpleasant.

Heather pulled her .38 out of the trenchcoat’s pocket and, despite the fact that she’d reloaded it last night, checked to be sure the clip was still in place. It was. She didn’t know who’d emptied it before—Jordan, probably, after he’d awakened on the sofa.

Slipping on her trenchcoat, Heather slid the .38 back into the pocket. She slung her purse over her shoulder and, after a moment’s hesitation, dropped Stearns’s keys into her purse. She picked up the briefcase and walked into the front room.

“Anything you wish me to tell Dante?” a deep voice said.

Startled, Heather whirled. De Noir sat in the easy chair, back straight, eyes closed, his body language alert and attentive. The X-rune pendant gleamed at his throat.

“I thought everyone was asleep.”

“And so they are,” De Noir said, opening his eyes. His gaze shifted to the briefcase, then back to her face.

“I left a message for him,” Heather said. “Can you keep him here?”

Gold glinted in the depths of De Noir’s black eyes. “As I said before, Dante does as he wishes.”

“Then ask him to wait for me.”

“Patience is not his strong suit, but I’ll ask.”

“I appreciate it.”

Heather crossed to the door, pulled it open and stepped outside into afternoon sunshine, the briefcase in her hand a black-barred shadow across her thoughts.

E STOWED THE LAST of his gear into the new van, tucking his satchel o’ tricks beside the narrow air bed installed in the back. Humming, he knelt and made the bed, smoothing a long section of plastic over the sheets. Should keep the worst of the blood off the sheets. He folded the blankets at the foot of the bed. One pillow or two? E opted for one and placed it at the head of the bed. Sitting on his heels, he glanced at the black-tinted, UV-protected windows. Totally groovy. Hope Dante appreciates the effort. All for you, bro.

E strode into the house, sliding the van’s keys into his jeans pocket. He closed the door and locked it. He walked through the curtained gloom, heart jittering, thoughts ping-ping-pinging through his skull. He grinned. He couldn’t help it.

Tom-Tom still slept, the day not yet dead. E paused outside the bloodsucker’s room. Golden light flared around his body, spiked the hall with his radiance. He touched the knob, twisted. Locked.

E’s grin widened. Could it be that Tommy-boy was afraid? Of a god seeking retribution for the desecration of his altar?

That stocking was fucking mine.

Locked door. No problem. A god was always prepared. E tugged his lock-picking kit from his back pocket and opened it. Selecting a bobby pin, he inserted it into the knob’s hole and pushed. The push-in button on the opposite side of the knob popped out. E’s grin widened. Returning the bobby pin to the kit, he zipped it shut and tucked it into his back pocket.

E turned the knob, then stepped into the bloodsucker’s darkened bedroom. Golden tentacles of light whipped through the room, illuminating Tom-Tom stretched out on his bed, hands at his sides, eyes closed.

E dropped into a squat and peered under the bed. No pretty blond toy curled among the dust bunnies. All gone. Except for the dust bunnies. Sighing, he rose to his feet, walked to the closet, and opened the door. The cardboard boxes and zippered black bag were missing.

E’s heart thudded against his chest. Whirling, shivs sliding into his hands, he faced the bed. Tom-Tom slept, his position unchanged. E wiped at the sweat beading his forehead.

Motherfucker knows.

E’s golden light ebbed to a dim glow. His fingers touched the Band-Aid on his neck. He couldn’t track me. Of course he knows.

E circled the bed, wondering where Tommy-boy’d hidden the goodies. He studied the bloodsucker’s snoozing form, his gaze stopping on the jeans. Keys. The Camaro. E bent over the bed and touched Ronin’s left front pocket. His fingers slid across denim. Empty. Walking around to the other side of the bed, E bent again, his fingers groping the right pocket.

Score! A hard shape took form beneath his fingers. E wriggled a couple of fingers into Tom-Tom’s pocket—Don’t mind me. Oops. Is that it? Guess I shoulda called you Tiny Tom.—snagged the keys, and pulled them free. Golden light once again flooded E’s veins as he straightened, keys in hand; he glowed, incandescent.

Time to say bye-bye.

A voice inside insisted—No! Not yet! Make sure, first—but E reminded it that a god didn’t need permission. Bending over Tom-Tom, he slashed a shiv across his throat.

The bloodsucker’s eyes opened.

HEATHER NEARLY CHOKED on the last bite of her Cajun-blackened burger. “Dead?” she managed to say after swallowing the spicy mouthful. “LaRousse?”

“And his partner, Davis,” Collins said. He looked worn and tired.

Heather and the detective sat at a picnic table set up beneath an aluminum awning beside a drive-up food place, the HERE ’N GO. They were alone, the other picnic tables empty. The aroma of hot grease and frying meat filled the air.

“What the hell happened?” Heather asked, dipping fries in ketchup.

Collins shook his head. “A fire—arson—at a tavern. There were three other bodies besides those of LaRousse and Davis.”

“I’m sorry, Trent. I didn’t like LaRousse, but the man didn’t deserve to die hard.”

A wry smile lit Collins’s face. “Yeah, he was an asshole, but man, did he clear cases. He was a good detective. And he was one of ours.”

“What do you know so far?”

“Not much,” Collins said, running a hand through his hair. “The question is, was it something simple, like a robbery that went outta whack, or was it planned?”

“People lose their tempers. People panic,” Heather said. “Shit spins out of control. Have the state cops checked employees and regulars?”

“See who didn’t burn last night and why?”

She nodded. “Was LaRousse on or off duty?”

“On.” Collins paused a beat before continuing. “In fact, they’d been out to Prejean’s with an arrest warrant, but…” he shrugged. “Not home.”

Heather pushed the remains of her meal away, appetite lost. “Arrest warrant? What the hell for?”

Collins held up a placating hand. “To bring Prejean in for DNA samples. LaRousse still thought he was good for the girl’s murder.”

“Gina,” Heather said, voice level. “Her name was Gina Russo. LaRousse knew Dante had nothing to do with her death; I’d already vouched for him.”

“I don’t know what LaRousse’s beef with Prejean was,” Collins said. “I’m just laying out the facts.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“There’s more,” Collins murmured. He wadded up his burger wrapper and tossed it into the dark-plastic-draped trash can behind the picnic tables. “There’s been another murder.” He glanced at Heather. “Bad.”

The detective’s haunted expression surprised her. She leaned across the picnic table and touched his hand. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just a long fucking day.”

Heather squeezed his hand, then released it. “So tell me, how bad?”

“Victim had been cut apart. The killer placed parts of him throughout the room.” Collins paused, swallowed. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“Go on,” Heather said, voice soft. She tensed. Waited for the guillotine to drop.

“I’m pretty sure it was the CCK,” Collins said. “No anarchy symbol…fuck…mean, there could’ve been but we just didn’t recognize…I’ve never seen…” He looked away. “There was a message. On the wall. In blood.”

The day’s warmth slipped away with the sinking sun.

“What did it say?”

“Does it matter?” Collins replied, looking at Heather. Anger burned the hollow look from his eyes. “That investigation’s officially closed. Word from headquarters is ‘copycat.’ No contact with you is allowed.”

“Trent, what did the message say?”

“‘S is mine.’”

Heather fumbled her cell phone from her purse. She punched in Dante’s number. The phone rang and rang.

Not recruitment, no. S is mine. Dante had been claimed.

SLAMMING THE MOTEL ROOM door open, Gifford lunged into the room, swinging his gun right, then left. The room was empty. He did the Bureau-standard enter and sweep: closet, bathroom, flipped on lights. Stearns was gone.

Gifford lowered the .45 to his side. He glanced around the room. Suitcase on the chair. Laptop on the desk. Bottle of scotch and a glass on the night table. Stearns intended to come back, given all he’d left behind. Wait for him?

A wastebasket beside the bed caught his attention. He dumped the wadded-up papers onto the rumpled bedspread and smoothed the first sheet. The name ELROY JORDAN appeared. Scanning the sheet, he recognized the dates and places for what they were—CCK murder dates and scenes.

When he unfolded the second sheet, his mind shifted into overdrive. THOMAS RONIN. What was Johanna’s père de sang doing in New Orleans? At the same time as E? Glancing at the address on the printout, Gifford decided not to wait for Stearns.

Gifford gathered up the papers and rushed out the door. He got inside his Hertz rental and punched the Metairie address into the car’s mapping system.

Johanna had been right from the beginning. No coincidence.

Throwing the car into reverse, Gifford peeled out of the motel parking lot.

BLOOD SPRAYED HOT AGAINST E’s face, spattered his shades. Tom-Tom’s hand locked around his wrist; something snapped and pain shotgunned up to his shoulder. A shiv dropped into E’s other hand.

Fucker broke my wrist!

That thought ended in colored bursts of light—blue, green, and purple—as a sledgehammer smacked into E’s temple. He flew off the bed and slammed against the wall. Pieces of plaster rained onto E and the carpet. Vision graying, E glanced at his hand. The shiv was gone.

Done scared me shivless.

Dizziness spun through his mind. Tweaked his gut. But adrenaline kicked his pain, kicked his ass, and kicked him up onto his feet again. Bracing a shoulder against the wall, E tugged another shiv from the sheath at his calf under his jeans. Blinking his vision clear, he looked at the bed.

Rivulets of blood poured from the bed and pooled on the carpet. The room stank of blood. Tommy-boy choked on the shit, spasming on the bed, hands at his throat, attempting to stem the flow. Grinning, E staggered to the bed. The bloodsucker’s gleaming gaze fixed on him, killing him a hundred different ways.

But not today. Today, E was a god, golden and powerful. The truest killer who’d ever walked the earth.

E raised the shiv into the thickened air. Air like honey. Like amber. The shiv plunged into Ronin’s beating heart.

“Plans have changed, asshole.”

LUCIEN CLIMBED THE STAIRS, Dante’s pain flickering like a candle in his mind. His child still Slept, but fire and shadows had fractured his dreams, stolen his peace. Lucien stepped into Dante’s bedroom. The mingled smells of sex and fading pheromones lingered in the air.

He knelt beside the futon and rested a hand upon Dante’s forehead. Heat baked into his palm. Blood trickled from one of the boy’s nostrils. Lucien closed his eyes and poured energy into Dante, icing his pain and strengthening his partially restored shields.

He is remembering. His past has set him on fire. Consumes him.

Dante stirred beneath his hand, pale face troubled. The bleeding slowed, then stopped. The fever faded. Smoothing Dante’s hair back, Lucien bent and kissed his forehead.

Let him hate me. I will keep him alive and hidden.

And sane?

The muscles in his chest tightened. He stood. I will do what I must.

He crossed the floor to the French windows and drew the curtains aside. The last glimmer of sunset lit the room deep red; spilled blood. Lucien stood at the windows, listening to the others awakening in the rooms down the hall, listening to the night’s primeval pulse, and listening to the rhythm of his own dark heart.

On the futon behind him, Lucien heard his child drawing in a deep breath of air. Heard the anhrefncathl—a Maker’s chaos song—awakening within his son’s soul.

Without looking, he knew when Dante opened his eyes.

“We’ve some things to discuss,” Lucien said.

DANTE STRETCHED, SILK SHEETS sliding beneath him, muscles uncoiling. Tattered dreams slipped past his recall. Before-Sleep images sparked in his mind—Heather beneath him, lips parted, face lit with pleasure; the tavern ablaze, LaRousse’s sardonic smile; Jay—

Opening his eyes, Dante sat up, heart pounding. Reddish light poured in through the French windows, illuminating Lucien’s tall form.

“We’ve some things to discuss,” Lucien said.

Dante caught his breath as memory whirled through him—the cathedral, Lucien impaled, his whispered words: You look so much like her.

Untangling himself from the sheets, he rose to his feet. “No, we don’t,” he said. “Not ever again.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, child.”

Lucien unlatched the French windows and pushed them open. He stepped out onto the wrought-iron balcony. The deepening twilight shadowed his face.

Scooping up a pair of black jeans from the floor, Dante tugged them on and zipped up the fly. He strode out onto the balcony. Lucien’s gaze was fixed on the last shimmer of light on the horizon.

“You can’t go after Ronin,” Lucien said.

“Can’t? You’re telling me I can’t? Fuck you.” Dante’s fingers curled around the cold metal railing.

“Ronin will awaken your past. It will break you,” Lucien said, turning his face to meet Dante’s gaze. “Find another way to do penance for Gina and Jay.”

“You no longer have any say in what I do.”

“Did I ever? Does anyone? You’re headstrong, child.”

“I listened to you,” Dante said, throat tight, aching. “You, more than anybody.”

An image strobed into his mind: a little girl huddled in a corner, plushie orca hugged to her chest, her face tear-streaked and scared.

Dante-angel?

He staggered as pain lanced through his head. Chloe. Penance for Chloe. Strong arms wrapped around him. Supported him. “Let go,” he murmured, pushing at Lucien’s arms. “Leave me the fuck alone.”

Stumbling into the bedroom, Dante made his way into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. He sank to the floor, head in his hands, eyes closed. He struggled to keep the images of Chloe in his mind, but they slipped away from him.

He saw her huddled and scared, then lying in a pool of blood, but he never saw what happened in-between. The unseen in-between left him shaken.

Her name was Chloe. And you killed her.

Sweat trickled down his temples. He slid his hands up from his face and through his hair. Thumped his head back against the wall. The pain receded. Didn’t leave, no, but backed off enough to think.

A thought pressed against his shields, a thought belonging to Simone. He opened to her touch. <Heather is on the phone. She wants to talk to you.>

<D’accord, chérie. I’m on my way.>

Rising to his feet, Dante turned around and twisted on the sink’s cold water faucet. He looked into the mirror. In the twilight gloom, he recognized letters smeared across its surface.

WAIT FOR ME. In black lipstick.

Dante smiled and touched a finger to the message. Heather’s scent clung to him—lilac and sage—and he didn’t want to wash it away. Not yet. After splashing his face with cold water, he opened the bathroom door.

Lucien waited for him, golden eyes glittering in the dusk. “Are you going after Ronin?”

“None of your business,” Dante said, walking past him.

Dante caught a glimpse of peripheral movement and sidestepped, too late. Lucien seized his shoulders, talons piercing his skin—the pain needle-sharp. He felt the warm trickle of blood down his back. He hissed, but Lucien refused to release him.

“It is my business,” Lucien said, steel edging his voice. “It will always be my business. You are my son.”

Dante stared at Lucien, stunned, mind reeling. His son? “Let go.”

Lucien lifted his hands. Blood glistened on the tips of his talons. “I should’ve told you from the start—”

“Yeah, but you didn’t,” Dante said, voice husky. “And now it’s too late.” He whirled and strode from the room.

Dante sprinted down the stairs, muscles taut, heart pounding against his ribs. He struggled for air. He needed blood. He needed truth.

Penance. Maybe everything he knew and everyone he loved would be stripped away until he paid what was owed.

He found Simone in the front room, curled up on the sofa beside Von. Her eyes widened and the llygad straightened, brows knitted.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, handing him the phone.

Dante shook his head. Tried to calm his breathing. “Oui, chérie?” he said into the phone.

“Wait for me,” Heather said. Static crackled across her voice. “I’ll be there soon.”

Would she be stripped from him as well?

“Don’t. I won’t be here,” he said. His thumb slid across the end button. The phone slipped from his hand, hitting the carpet with a muffled thud.

In the sudden silence, Dante heard the whoosh of wings, then the ceiling creaked as Lucien perched on the roof. His father. Fallen.

What are you afraid of, True Blood?

Rage burned through Dante, poured white-hot through his veins. “Not you, Peeping Tom,” he whispered. “Not you.”

28

Convergence

“SHIT!” HEATHER STARED at the cell phone in frustration. “Pigheaded…” She glanced at Collins. “We need to move it. Dante’s heading over there without us.”

The car surged forward as Collins floored it. “Hope you’re right about the probable cause. If we take Jordan in for questioning, I don’t want him getting off on a technicality.”

“My research placed Jordan at each kill site,” Heather said. “If we get a DNA sample from him, it’ll match the evidence in every single case.” She dropped the cell phone back into her purse.

The fire that’d been smoldering within her since she’d awakened beside Dante had flared to life at the sound of his voice. Oui, chérie? She could almost smell him—warm, earthy, and inviting. But underneath Dante’s words, his voice had been strained. Migraine? she wondered. Or was it something else?

It’s quiet when I’m with you. The noise stops.

I’ll help you stop it forever.

Heather knew qualified hypnotherapists in Seattle who might be able to coax Dante’s subconscious into relenting, and help ease his past up from dark depths without pain. She trailed a hand through her hair. With humans, yes. But nightkind? Nocturnal blood-fed predators? The psychology wouldn’t—couldn’t—be the same. She sighed.

She looked at the briefcase on the seat beside her. Dante’s past. Everything he couldn’t or didn’t want to remember contained in a slim black briefcase. Dante’s past. He should see it first. The fist around her heart unclenched and she drew in an easy breath.

After they’d dealt with Elroy Jordan, she’d give the briefcase to Dante, tell him what Stearns had said, and then stay with him as he delved into the contents.

And if Dante was a monster?

Heather glanced out the passenger’s side window, hands knotted in her lap. The road blurred past, black and endless. She remembered the taste of Dante’s lips, the desolation in his voice at the slaughterhouse. Remembered her promises.

I won’t walk away from you.

I’ll help you stop it forever.

I’ll never bury evidence no matter how much it hurts.

STEARNS PISSED INTO an empty orange juice bottle, his attention never wavering from the house Thomas Ronin had rented. When he’d finished, he screwed the lid back onto the bottle and set it carefully on the passenger’s side floor. He cracked his window for fresh air.

The tidy house was a block up and on the opposite side of the street. Stearns had watched it since noon. He’d watched as a man in his midthirties with thinning brown hair left the house in a Jeep, returning an hour later in a white van with black-tinted UV-protected windows. Elroy Jordan. According to the printout he’d swiped from Prejean’s kitchen, Jordan was Wallace’s prime suspect for the CCK murders. He was also one of Moore’s projects.

No sign of Thomas Ronin, but a sleek Camaro parked in the driveway suggested that the journalist was inside the house. Stearns still wasn’t sure where Ronin fit into the picture. An exclusive story deal? With a freaking serial killer?

And why not? Stearns had witnessed and participated in stranger, darker things.

Someone stepped out the front door. Jordan again, but something was spattered on his face and clothes. Hard to make out what in the deepening twilight. Then as Jordan tried several keys in the Camaro’s trunk, Stearns realized the spatter was blood.

Whatever Jordan had going with the journalist seemed to have ended. In a messy but inevitable way. Playing with serial killers was pretty much like running with scissors; sooner or later you’re gonna get skewered.

The trunk finally opened and Jordan rummaged around in its interior. After a moment, he straightened, then slammed the trunk lid down. He kicked the Camaro several times, then hammered one fist against the trunk.

Through the cracked window, Stearns heard Jordan scream, “Fuck!”

Stearns touched the Glock on the seat beside him. Doesn’t handle disappointment well. Jordan stomped up the drive to the front door, then stopped. He paced back and forth as though uncertain. Afraid to go back in? Stearns wondered. After a minute, Jordan stopped pacing, squared his shoulders, and marched inside the house.

Glock in hand, Stearns slid out of the Buick LeSabre.

GIFFORD DREW ON HIS cigarillo, savoring the dark, vanilla-spiced tobacco taste, his gaze locked on the Buick LeSabre parked on the opposite side of the street three blocks down. He blew smoke toward his cracked window.

Stearns exited the LeSabre, his right arm down, his gun a black silhouette against his leg. He crossed the street, aimed for the house E had disappeared into. Gifford stubbed the half-smoked cigarillo out in the car’s ashtray. Without Wallace he couldn’t stage the murder-suicide gig, but he’d learned to improvise during his years with Johanna.

Gathering up a paper-stuffed grocery bag, Gifford climbed out of his Taurus. He strolled along the sidewalk, “groceries” crooked in his left arm. He reached inside his jacket with his right, fingers grasping the .45’s grip.

Let Stearns take down E. I’ll mop up what’s left.

E THUMPED THE HEEL of his hand against his forehead. Idiot! Shoulda waited. Where could the bloodsucker have hidden the shit? Not under his bed. Not in his closet. Not in his car.

E walked toward the hall, heart pounding, knowing the goodies had to be in the house. Fucker’d been expecting Dante and woulda been ready for him. Striding down the hall, E paused by Tom-Tom’s door and glanced inside. Blood everywhere. Even on the ceiling. But the bed was empty.

Heart hammering, E jumped past the doorway and ran to the hall closet. Yanked it open. Rummaged through the towels and sheets, flinging them to the floor as he did. E froze. Had he heard something shuffling? Lurching up the dark hall like a gore-oozing zombie? E whirled, shiv in hand.

He stood alone in the darkened hall.

Pulse racing, mouth dry, E returned to Ronin’s bedroom doorway. The thick stink of blood rushed to his head—Ah, smells like sex. He stepped into the bedroom. As he did, he became aware of a scraping sound.

From the floor on the far side of the bed, dark, bloodstained fingers clawed for purchase on the wall. Bloodied gouges marred the paint.

E stared, heart leaping in his chest like it wanted out, thinking: It’s Dawn of the Dead time. The dead won’t stay down. Don’t wanna be torn apart and gobbled up by a zombie!

A mewling sound drowned out the scraping finger noise. E clamped a hand over his mouth and the mewling stopped.

Shut the hell up. That’s no zombie, just a blood-drained bloodsucker refusing to die. You’re a god. Get a fucking grip.

E nodded. A god. He lowered his hand from his mouth and walked over to the dresser. Jerked open the top drawer. Gold light shimmered and an angelic chorus voiced a triumphant song. Nestled in the folds of silk underwear and pricey socks were the files. E scooped them up, then pulled open the next drawer. Nuthin’. He found the zippered black bag in the last drawer and grabbed it.

Nails scratched along the wall. E split, running up the hall, through the front room, and out the door.

When he reached the van, E climbed inside and stashed the bag and files beside his satchel o’ tricks. Now all he needed was Dante. Where was the GPS receiver? E unzipped the black bag and searched its contents—vials of sedatives, trank gun, hypos, handcuffs—all designed with the fun-lovin’ bloodsucker in mind, but no GPS receiver. How the hell would he track Dante without it?

E thumped his fists against his temples. Pain screamed up from his broken wrist. His stomach clenched. Idiotidiotidiot! Swallowing hard, he lowered his injured arm. Purple, almost black, bruises mottled his swollen wrist. He’d have to make a sling for it later. For the moment, he needed to find the GPS receiver.

E scrambled out of the van, then froze. A hard-looking man in a jacket stood in front of him, a serious fucking gun in his hand. The muzzle leveled with E’s chest. E dropped to the concrete and rolled under the van. Stop-drop-’n’-roll. Something tunked against the side of the van. Bullet?

E glanced past his view of the man’s polished black shoes, aware of a sound like an engine at high speed, redlining. On the street, a small black car jolted up and onto the sidewalk, peeled across the lawn, aimed straight for the house.

E narrowed his eyes against the glare of headlights. The car slammed into the front step. Bashed grill against threshold. The house shook.

Dante’d arrived.

STEARNS THREW HIMSELF AGAINST Elroy Jordan’s new van as the sports car jumped the curb, tore across the yard and smashed against the house. Steam hissed into the air from the crumpled front end.

For a moment, Stearns hesitated, then pushed away from the side of the van. An accident? Deliberate? Then a slender figure in black slipped out of the car through the driver’s side window and his heart kicked against his ribs.

Beautiful white face. Black hair. Leather jacket and chain-strapped black jeans. He jumped with ease over the car’s buckled front end to the house’s warped threshold, surrounded by spikes of blue/white light. Pale hands braced against the wood.

Stepping forward, Stearns lifted the Glock. “Dante!” he called.

He fired as the young vampire swiveled.

THE BULLET CAUGHT DANTE in the temple, the impact snapping his head to one side. He crumpled across the threshold.

“Stop the car!” Heather cried. Collins hit the brakes. She threw the door open and hit the ground running, yanking her .38 from the trench’s pocket.

Stearns glanced up. Looked at her, then strode toward the MG. Toward Dante.

“Drop your gun,” Heather yelled, .38 in a two-handed grip. She aimed it at Stearns. “Drop it! Don’t make me do this!”

Stearns hesitated, then stepped forward, lifting the Glock. Heather fired. Stearns stumbled, dropping to one knee in the grass beside the MG. She ran from the sidewalk to the tire-ravaged yard, gun aimed at her former mentor.

“Drop it,” she said.

The Glock tumbled from Stearns’s fingers. Blood stained the shoulder of his jacket. Wincing, he linked his hands together behind his head.

“Let me finish him,” Stearns said. “If you’ve read the file—”

“Shut up,” Heather said, gun leveled with his forehead.

She glanced toward the house. Dante hadn’t moved. He was sprawled across the threshold, haloed by the headlights, black hair spilled like wine across the carpet. A line of blood trickled from his temple across his face.

Heather looked away. Her breath rasped in a throat gone too tight. Not dead, she reminded herself, not dead. She sucked in cold air, pulled her handcuffs from her pocket. Kneeling behind Stearns, she ratcheted a cuff around one wrist, securing it.

Collins trotted past Heather to the doorway. “I’ll check Prejean,” he said.

“Heather, listen, you don’t understand—”

“I understand that you shot an unarmed man,” she said, voice low, tight. “Now shut the fuck up.”

As Heather swung Stearns’s arms down so she could finish cuffing him, a man carrying a bag of groceries stopped in the drive.

“Sir, please move on—”

The man dropped his groceries. Wads of paper tumbled onto the sidewalk as he drew a gun. Stearns jerked his uncuffed arm free from Heather’s grasp and lunged for his Glock.

Heart triple-timing, Heather lifted her .38. “Trent! Look out!”

All three fired.

LUCIEN FLEW, THE WIND of his passage cold against his face. A different kind of cold rimmed his soul with ice. Through Dante, he’d experienced a brief moment of pain; then his child’s consciousness had winked out. A faint thread of life force still pulsed through their bond, so he knew Dante wasn’t dead. Injured, perhaps critically, but alive.

On the ground beneath Lucien, skewed headlights pierced the sky. Figures ran. Blood hunger, savage and blind and ancient, stabbed out into the night from the house below. Lucien spiraled down toward the house and its raging occupant.

Thomas Ronin would never be a threat to Dante again.

Lucien glided to the ground, bare feet touching wet grass as he landed. His wings folded behind him, then compressed down into their pouches. He strode across the lightless backyard and wrenched the screen door—metal screeching—off its hinges. Tossing it aside, Lucien battered the rear door inward with one fist and stepped inside.

FROM UNDERNEATH THE VAN, E watched as Heather knelt behind the motherfucker who’d tried to kill him, the hard-looking man who’d gunned down his Bad Seed bro instead. Then someone else joined the game. Suddenly, everyone was yelling, shooting, and leaping.

E rolled out from the other side of the van and, keeping low, crept around the front end; the sight of Dante slumped across the threshold drew him like a perv to porn.

He wished the best for his lovely Heather and hoped she wouldn’t mind his taking advantage of her nasty situation. He preferred to think it was him she fought to protect and not Dante, since she’d come for him, after all, and not the party-crashing little bloodsucker.

But, hey, at least now he didn’t have to worry about finding the GPS receiver.

E paused at the van’s front end, gaze on the plainclothes cop hunkered down near Dante’s body. He’d twisted around at Heather’s warning and drawn his gun, but before he could fire a single shot, dark bloodstained fingers grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him inside the house.

A creepy-crawly anthill feeling shuddered down the length of E’s body. Tom-Tom had gained his feet. Just beyond the threshold, shadows jerked and jittered.

Bloodsucker or the restless dead?

E scuttled forward, hunched low, his gaze locked on Dante’s pale face. In the yard, people screamed. Guns fired. Crossing mental fingers for Heather’s survival—the game wouldn’t be the same without her—E sidled up the side of the concrete step. Fluids leaked from the MG’s ruined front end. Steam hissed and spat.

E reached a shaking hand for Dante’s arm. Snagged him. Pulled. Dead weight. Sweating, panting, E dragged Dante down off the step. He hit the ground with a thud, metal jingling. He shifted his grip from Dante’s arm to the collar of his jacket. Dante’s pretty head lolled. Blood trickled from his right ear, streaking the side of his face.

Tugging and grunting and burning adrenaline, E pulled his bloodsucker bro to the front of the van. The side doors were still open.

Something flew out of the house. Heather yelled, “Shit!” More gunfire.

E partially pushed Dante into the van, then hopped inside and dragged him in the rest of the way. Rolled him away from the doors and eased them shut. Fetching the handcuffs from the black bag, he latched them around Dante’s wrists. He didn’t know how long Dante’d be unconscious, but best not to take any chances.

He hauled Dante’s body to the rear of the van, lifted his arms, and slid the handcuff chain over a hook installed for that very purpose. The bloodsucker looked damned fine in handcuffs. A natural.

Grinning, E crawled one-handed to the driver’s seat. He worked the keys out of his pocket. And waited.

HEATHER FIRED THE .38 as she threw herself to the side. Something whizzed past her cheek, stinging. Glock in hand, Stearns rolled across the lawn and to his feet. He opened fire. The dark-haired man—unknown subject—staggered back, then fired again.

Stearns fell to his knees, his face blank.

Aiming for the unsub’s head, Heather squeezed off a round just as the man ducked down behind the van. “Trent,” she shouted. “Head him off!”

Heather lunged for the MG, diving behind it. She glanced at the house and her heart jumped into her throat. A blood-drenched figure bent over Collins. The detective’s hands hung limp at his sides; his entire body seemed boneless. Thomas Ronin lifted his face from what remained of Collins’s throat.

Heather swiveled and opened fire on the vampire. Grimacing, fangs bared, Ronin tossed the detective’s body at her.

“Shit!”

The body hit, knocking the air from her lungs and taking her to the ground. Heather’s head bounced against the wet grass. Flickers of light sparked through her vision. Trapped beneath Collins’s weight, she struggled to breathe. She pushed at the body, sucking in the smells of sweat, blood, and shit; of death. Images of his shredded throat and lax face filled her mind. She shoved, frantic and gasping for air. Finally with one last thrust, she wriggled free of the body. She sucked in air, half sobbing.

Ronin now held the dark-haired unsub, his face buried in the man’s throat. The unsub kicked, pounded, and squirmed. He emptied his gun into the vampire’s gut. Ronin quivered with each bullet, snarling as he fed. Blood dribbled onto the concrete.

Climbing to her knees, Heather aimed at Ronin’s head. She caught peripheral movement from the house and swung around, gun in both hands. De Noir, shirtless and shoeless, stepped out of the house, crossed the yard in two quick strides, and seized Ronin by the neck with one hand.

The unsub spilled to the drive, his body loose in a way that turned Heather’s stomach. Ronin twisted in De Noir’s grasp and slashed him across the chest with his fingers. Blood spilled, then…stopped. The gashes faded. Vanished. De Noir’s wings unfurled. He carried Ronin into the sky.

The van started up. Reversed. Bumped up and over the unsub’s body. Skidded out into the street. Heather jumped to her feet, heart pounding. Jordan! She raised her .38. Jordan puckered his lips, lifted his hand, and blew her a kiss. She fired. The bullet starred the passenger window. She squeezed off another round, but the gun clicked, the magazine empty.

Jordan hit the gas. The van accelerated down the street and into the night.

Heather tipped her head back and screamed, “Fuck!”

Jordan was gone. Dante shot…Dante…She whirled. The threshold was empty.

De Noir must’ve moved him or—She ran out into the street. The van was gone.

S is mine.

LUCIEN TWISTED IN THE sky, talons buried in Ronin’s shoulders. The vampire sank his fangs into Lucien’s chest, sucking in healing, life-sustaining blood. Lucien pummeled Ronin’s head with his fist, distorting the skull and popping its fangs from his flesh.

The skull rippled, returned to its original shape. Ronin locked gazes with Lucien. “That taste,” he said. “Like Dante’s blood—unique.”

“I hope you enjoyed it. It was your last.”

Lucien gripped the vampire at shoulder and hip, then wrenched. Blood sprayed into the night as flesh and bones tore, separated. Torqued. Ronin screamed, eyes shut, his fangs moonlit. His nails gouged furrows down Lucien’s chest.

Lucien pulled Ronin apart at the waist. Organs dropped to the earth, a shower of gore. Below, the Mississippi snaked, glimmering beneath the stars, a black river crossing a black land. Lucien released the vampire’s lower portion. Legs spasming, it fell into the river.

Winging through the night, Lucien slapped away Ronin’s clawing, punching hands, fended off his snapping jaws. He hovered above a riverside factory smokestack. Sparks flitted into the sky from its dark mouth.

“I would lay the world to waste for my son,” Lucien said and pulled his talons free of Ronin’s flesh.

As the vampire fell, he grabbed the X-rune pendant. The chain snapped. Smiling, Ronin plummeted into the smokestack, the chain wrapped around his fingers. A shower of sparks flew into the air.

Lucien stared into the night, hand at his throat.

The pendant was gone.

29

All Things S

DARKNESS.

Music pounded, his own. Inferno.

Smelled blood, sour sweat, engine exhaust.

Tasted blood in his mouth, his own.

Something jabbed against his neck. Stung. Cold chemicals flooded his veins. Dulled the pain in his head.

“Mine,” a voice whispered. Unfamiliar. Fading. Fingers touched his face. “I’ll be your god and you’ll love me.”

Darkness. Drug rush. Dante fell, dreaming.

HEATHER SAT IN THE grass beside Stearns’s body, her hand frozen above his motionless chest, longing to touch the man who’d been more of a father to her than James William Wallace, yearned to say good-bye. But she couldn’t force her hand any lower.

He shot Dante in cold blood. And now—

A rush of cold air fluttered Heather’s hair, drew her gaze up. De Noir’s black wings cut through the sky, flapping as he landed. His golden-eyed gaze skipped around the yard. Desperation shadowed his face.

Sirens pierced the silence.

“Where is he?”

“Jordan has him,” she said. “In the van.” S is mine. Her eyes stung.

“I can’t feel him,” De Noir said, voice strained. “Something has obscured our link. Feels like…static.” Fanning his wings, he lifted into the air.

“Wait!” Heather climbed to her feet. She looked around the yard turned killing ground. All dead. A pang of regret pierced her as her gaze fell upon Collins’s body. She remembered their earlier conversation about LaRousse: The man didn’t deserve to die hard.

Neither did you, Trent, she thought, throat tight.

If she stayed, she’d be busy making statements and doing debriefings for hours, possibly days. The CCK had Dante. Dante was nightkind, true. But Elroy Jordan was a sexual sadist who now possessed a victim who healed. One he could “kill” over and over again. She couldn’t afford to lose time.

“Take me with you,” she said.

De Noir hovered in the air, face cold and unreadable.

“I know Jordan’s patterns, I can help. Please.”

De Noir’s taloned hands curled into fists. He dropped to the ground again. The sirens drew closer. Heather ran across the street to Collins’s car, threw open the door and stretched across the seat. Grabbing the briefcase, she ran back to the yard and De Noir.

“Hold on,” he said, wrapping an arm around her waist.

Heather draped an arm around De Noir’s neck, heart kicking against her ribs. His wings flared, air gusted, and they rose into the sky. She looked down. Squad cars screeched to a slanting halt in the street before Ronin’s house. Blue lights strobed across the houses, cars, bodies. A block down the street, an ambulance waited, lights flashing, for the all-clear signal from the cops.

The wind of De Noir’s passage blew cold against Heather’s face, frosting her hair, her lashes. Shivering, she shut her eyes. De Noir closed his other arm around her, held her tight and without effort. His heat radiated into her, melting away the cold. She tucked her face into his neck. His warm, earthy smell turned her thoughts to Dante.

Heart aching, muscles knotted, Heather shouted her thought into the night, hoping, somehow, that Dante would hear her.

I’m coming for you.

DARKNESS.

Pain throbbed in his head. His neck. Burned in his shoulders. Muscles twisted. He tried to lower his arms. Metal bit into his wrists. Clunked against more metal.

Handcuffed.

Dante opened his eyes. Red laced his vision. He lay on his side, arms stretched above his head. He smelled cheap tobacco and plastic and the sharp scent of his own blood. A mortal knelt behind him. Gripped his shoulder. Pain wormed and worried into his neck, the base of his skull. Blood trickled hot down his neck and under his shirt.

Papa Prejean’s basement.

Dante jerked down with all his strength. Pain bit into his shoulders again. Clunk-tunk. The cuffs held.

The hand on Dante’s shoulder pinched. Hard.

“Hold still,” an unfamiliar voice said. “You do that again, no telling where this shiv’ll end up.”

Dante squeezed his eyes shut as the shiv dug and scraped. More hot blood flowed down his neck.

“Got it! Hot damn!”

The digging stopped. Dante released the breath he’d been holding and sucked in a lungful of stale air laced with the mortal’s old smoke-and-bile stink; a stink he recognized, but couldn’t name. Like an ice pick jabbing behind his eyes, migraine pain stabbed his thoughts, chipped away at his concentration.

The mortal wiped at his neck. Paper rustled. Then he slapped something across the wound. “Gotcha Batman Band-Aids. Thought you’d like that.”

A fingertip shove to Dante’s shoulder rolled him onto his back. His handcuffs clinked. And, beneath him, plastic crinkled. Dante opened his eyes and winced. A small covered light burned above him in the ceiling. Not a basement, no. A car? No sensation of movement. No engine hum. Not moving.

A shadow shuffled past, silhouetted against the light. Kinda looks like Peeping Tom’s assist—

Elroy the Perv knelt beside Dante, a grin stretching his lips. A sling cradled his left arm against his chest. In his right hand, pinched between two fingers, he displayed a bloodied sliver of plastic. “See this?” he said. “A bug implanted at birth. So you could always be followed. Studied. Et cetera, et cetera. I had to dig mine out by myself.”

Pain slammed through Dante’s skull. Bugs? Implants? An image flickered behind the pain—a woman, short blonde hair, blue eyes, fangs—murmuring, They’re afraid of you, my little True Blood. Pain shattered the image.

Ronin’s low voice: What are you afraid of, True Blood?

A needle pricked the skin on his throat.

“Your nose is bleeding,” Elroy said. “That’s kinda sexy.”

The Perv’s lips, hot and tasting of tobacco, pressed against Dante’s mouth; his kiss as gentle as a fist. As Elroy’s hand glided over Dante’s body, the drugs tumbled him back into the darkness of Papa Prejean’s basement.

Dante-angel?

Let me burn, princess.

HEATHER OPENED HER EYES as De Noir descended, gliding, onto the wrought-iron balcony outside Dante’s bedroom. She slipped her arms from around his neck and stepped down onto the concrete. Her hand felt frozen to the briefcase’s handle. A quick glance revealed bright red fingers, cold, but not iced.

She walked into the unlit bedroom through the opened French windows. The air smelled of candle wax and crisp autumn leaves, smelled of Dante. The sight of the unmade futon, the rumpled sheets, twisted her heart. She closed her eyes.

Focus on finding Jordan. Focus on finding him fast—before he goes to work on Dante and learns he never has to stop.

Heather opened her eyes and strode across the room. As she rounded the corner into the hall, she saw Simone on the stairs, her pale face anxious.

“Lucien told us what happened,” Simone said, stepping onto the landing. “What do you need Trey to do?” Her dark gaze shifted past Heather and up.

De Noir stepped past Heather, buttoning on a black shirt.

Lucien told us what happened. Of course. Heather swallowed back the words she’d planned to say, hard words—Dante took a bullet to the head and now a serial killer has him, just as he said he would, just as he promised, in innocent blood.

Heather said, “I need your brother to do another search for any kind of rentals or purchases recently made by either Ronin or Jordan. Have him do a vehicle search too.”

“D’accord.” Turning, Simone trotted down the stairs.

De Noir glanced at the briefcase. “What’s inside?”

Heather looked up and met his gaze. “Dante’s past.”

“Where did you get it?”

“From my boss,” she said, voice low. “The man who shot Dante.”

De Noir’s jaw tightened. His gaze shifted to a point above and beyond Heather. Tendrils of his black hair snaked up into the now electrified air. The smell of ozone spiked the air. Heather’s hair lifted. Her skin tingled. Lightning strike.

“Have you looked at what’s in that case?”

“No. I’d hoped to give it to Dante.”

De Noir’s gaze dropped and swept over Heather. She saw nothing she recognized in his eyes, human or otherwise. After a moment, he nodded.

“Then we shall look at it together,” he said.

ARM THROBBING, E STEERED the van into a rest stop off I-59. Needed a pick-me-up. He shut off the engine, glanced in the rearview mirror. Dante slept, head turned to one side, handcuffed wrists stretched above him.

E opened the door, slid partway out, then froze. Maybe Dante wasn’t sleeping. Maybe he was faking it and planned some kind of kicking, yelling, rescue-me-bullshit. Better make sure. Climbing back into the van, E crawled past the front seats to the back, and scooted to the air bed.

Dante’s breathing was slow and easy. Strands of black hair partially covered his face. E poked him in the ribs. Nuthin’. Doped and flying sky-high. He grabbed his shoulder, shook him. Nuthin’.

E’s gaze scrolled down the bloodsucker’s hard, yummy body—bondage collar; vintage black NIN T-shirt, rucked up a little, a line of flat belly exposed; chain-strapped black jeans, metal-studded belt, the belt and jeans unfastened at the moment.

E bent over Dante, a shiv sliding into his good right hand. He punched the shiv into Dante’s chest. The bloodsucker’s body spasmed. His breath caught, rattled, then released hard and fast. Blood bubbled up on his lips. But his eyes didn’t open. Out cold.

Damned good drugs, E mused. Wonder if he can heal with the shiv in his chest?

Rummaging through his satchel, E dry-swallowed a handful of pills, then made his way up front again. He hopped out of the van and sauntered to the free-coffee stand. The image of Dante sleeping with the shiv buried in his flesh burned itself into his mind and left him trembling.

HEATHER SAT AT THE kitchen table, the briefcase open on the cobalt-blue tablecloth, and switched on her laptop. De Noir drew up a chair and sat beside her, frowning. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the folder from the briefcase, set it on the table and opened it.

Photos spilled out: some current, taken surreptitiously, Dante unaware; others showed Dante as a teenager, a child, a toddler; the boy’s wary gaze, the toddler’s fanged half smile, the teen’s smirk and raised middle finger.

She handed each photo to De Noir. He studied every image for long moments, jaw tensing, wordless. One photo captured her attention: Dante laughing, his arms around a grinning girl with freckles and long red hair, her face half turned to him. Dante appeared to be twelve, maybe thirteen, the girl eight or nine.

Her name was Chloe. And you killed her.

Heather stared at the picture, at Dante’s happy face, the only photo of him laughing—big brother and guardian angel for another child lost in the system of foster homes and state programs. Handing De Noir the photo, she slid the CD into the laptop’s drive. When a menu popped up, she lined down to the section marked S AND CHLOE and clicked it open. Surreptitiously filmed footage filled the monitor:

In faded jeans and a gray tee, Dante sits cross-legged on the floor, his back against a neatly made bed, his attention focused on the book in his lap. Chloe sits on the bed in lavender cords and pink Pooh sweater, watching him, her sneakered feet kicking idly against the bed frame. A plushie orca is tucked under one arm.

“Sound it out,” she says, twirling a strand of red hair around her finger.

“Kum…for…kumfor…tay…bull…kumfortaybull. Comfortable.”

“You got it!”

“Yeah?” A pleased smile lights Dante’s face.

“Yup,” Chloe confirms. “Now finish the sentence.”

“Pooh’s bed was comfortable and…warm.”

“You learn fast,” Chloe says. “I bet if you didn’t sleep during the day and could go to school, you’d get straight As.”

Dante snorts, then glances back at her from over his shoulder. “I’d have all Fs.”

“For…?” Chloe coaxes, gathering his hair into a ponytail and smoothing its black length between her hands. “What starts with F?”

“Fuck school.”

She giggles, covering her mouth with her hand. “Dante-angel!”

A blur of motion, then Dante is suddenly up from the floor and tickling Chloe. She shrieks with laughter, rolling on the bed, her sneakers thumping the mattress. Laughing, he tucks an arm against his side and tries to protect his ribs from her retaliatory fingers.

He tugs free the plushie orca from under Chloe’s arm and swims the toy through the air past her grabbing hands. He stops it at her nose. Leans it forward. “Mmm-wah !” A big sloppy orca kiss.

“Can I brush your hair while you practice printing the alphabet?” Chloe asks.

“Sure,” Dante says, handing the orca back to her.

“Boy, you need to get your ass down to the basement and now,” a man’s voice—bayou-bred and deep—says from off-camera. “Gotta visitor comin’ and gotta cuff you up. You don’t need none of dat school shit for the work you do, petit . Waste o’ time.” The speaker laughs, a cigarette-raspy sound ending in a cough.

“Fuck you,” Dante says. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Chloe’s smile vanishes and she sits up, the plushie held tight againsther pink sweater. “Leave him alone,” she says, her voice sharp, her brows slanting down—defiant and pale.

“Hush, you. Or I’ll put my hand upside your head.”

Dante’s hand squeezes Chloe’s knee. She closes her mouth. He looks at the speaker, all expression gone from his face, but fire burns in his dark eyes, a fire the speaker must feel, see.

“You’re gonna need more than handcuffs to hold me if you touch her,” Dante says, his voice low and flat.

Another cigarette-raspy laugh. “Full of attitude, aintcha, boy. Move your ass or I’ll just send little m’selle feisty in your place—”

Dante turns and kisses Chloe’s forehead, smoothes her long hair back from her face. “Night-night, princess. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Worry shadows Chloe’s face. “Dante-angel…”

He shakes his head. “Shhh. Je suis ici. Don’t come down. Not tonight.”

She nods, unhappy. Dante blows her a kiss and walks from the room.

The footage ended. Heather paused a moment—how old was he? Twelve?—then she forced her fingertips from her palms, and clicked on the next section.

Later, eyes burning, she understood why De Noir had said that Dante’s past was something better left unremembered. She understood it would break his heart. And she understood why Stearns had called him a monster.

CHOKING ON BLOOD, DANTE awakened. Darkness. Engine noise. Pain raked his chest. Blood filled his mouth. Turning onto his side, the handcuffs clunk-tunking as he moved, he spat blood on the floor until he could suck in a breath of air.

Dizzied, he listened to the engine’s soothing, steady sound. He glanced down. A knife’s hilt protruded from his chest.

“We’ve entered Alabama,” Elroy said. “Don’t it feel good?”

Dante caught Elroy’s shaded gaze in the rearview mirror. The Perv grinned.

“Never mind the shiv,” he said. “Couldn’t resist. How does it feel?”

Dante coughed, spat, then said, “Fuck you. Take these cuffs off and I’ll show you.” He jerked his arms, rattling the cuffs.

Elroy laughed. “That’s my Bad Seed bro.”

Dante drifted off again as the miles rolled past, not really asleep, but caught in a twilight-zone haze created by drugs and pain. He opened his eyes as the van slowed down, then stopped.

The Perv keyed off the engine and stretched. He slipped between the seats, pausing to close a curtain between the front of the van and the back. He crab-walked over to Dante’s side of the van. Grabbing a battered black satchel, he opened it and pulled out a file folder thick with paper.

“Time for you to learn a few things.” Elroy dropped onto his knees and bent over Dante. “Like who and what you are.” Grabbing the shiv hilt, he yanked the blade out of Dante’s chest.

Refusing to touch his bond with Lucien, Dante tried his links to Von and Simone instead. Pain buzzed through his head as each attempt rebounded, unheard. Whatever the Perv was pumping into his veins had muffled his mind like a thick layer of gauze.

Elroy played with the shiv, twirling the blade up, over and around. Wet with blood, the knife glistened beneath the covered light. On his last over-and-under pass, he drove the blade into Dante’s stomach.

Dante squeezed his eyes shut. Pain stole his voice. Another punch and the pain seared his chest, sucked away his air. He coughed up blood.

“Time to teach you all things S,” Elroy murmured. “Open your eyes.”

Fingers fluttered across Dante’s eyelids. Whispered across his lips. He smelled blood on Elroy’s fingers—his own. He opened his eyes and looked into Elroy’s sweating face. The grin had vanished. His fingers still held the second shiv in Dante’s chest. He pressed down on it. Leaned into it and twisted.

Pain corkscrewed through Dante’s chest and black spots speckled his vision. He bit his lip, determined not to scream, determined not to give the sick little fuck the satisfaction.

Dante-angel?

Shhh. Not now, princess. Gotta wake up. Gotta quit dreaming.

“Listen to me,” Elroy said.

Dante blinked until his vision cleared. Spat blood. Coughed. The handles of two shivs stuck up from his body, one in the belly and one in the chest.

The Perv held up photos. Dante stared. They were of him, but when he was younger, from the years he couldn’t remember. Pain pricked behind his eyes, jabbed his temples.

“You’re part of a project called Bad Seed,” Elroy said. “Me too. In fact, we’re the last surviving members. They got me when I was two or three after my parents did the ol’ you-kill-me-I’ll-kill-you routine.” He held up a photo of a grinning toddler. “Wasn’t I a cutie?”

Elroy picked up a folder, flipped through the contents. “Now you, you they had shortly after conception. They nursed your mama through a difficult pregnancy, then whacked her after you were born. Being a bloodsucker and all, they cut off her head and torched her body.”

Heart pounding, struggling for air, Dante tried to make sense of Elroy’s words. Pain scoured away his thoughts. He coughed. His mother…

Genevieve.

You look so much like her.

Wasps droned and his vision blurred. From a great distance, he heard the Perv say: “She named you before she died. And it amused Mommy-Bitch Moore to let you keep the name. Dante.”

Something smacked hard across Dante’s face, rocking his head to the side. His teeth sliced into his lower lip again. White light sparked and flared at the edges of his vision. Narrowing his gaze against the light, he focused on Elroy’s sallow face.

“I was losin’ ya,” Elroy said. “Your nose is bleeding again, by the way.”

Dante coughed, a lung-tearing spasm that brought up gouts of bright blood. Elroy scooted back out of gouting/spitting range.

“Take out the fucking knives,” Dante whispered after the spasm had passed. “Then go on. Read it to me. Hit me if I pass out. But read it to me.”

The Perv lifted his shades and stared at Dante, hazel eyes full of wonder. “Read to you?” Crawling back over, he grabbed the hilt of the shiv planted in Dante’s chest and pulled it out. Traced it across Dante’s belly, blood trailing in its wake. “My pleasure.”

Dropping his shades back over his eyes, Elroy read to Dante, pushing down on the shiv in his belly or backhanding him or both whenever the migraine threatened to drag him under.

Foster parents informed that subject has an illness that requires special attention and special nutrition, therefore earning them an increased payment….

DANTE REMEMBERED LAROUSSE AT the tavern, saying: Sixty foster homes, two stints in the loony bin. Light pinwheeled and fractured his vision. His head throbbed. His heart raced. He listened.

S’s favorite “blankie” taken from him and burned. S forced to watch and informed the “blankie” was burned because he’d been “bad.”

Foster parents #10 punished S for defiance. They removed the curtains in a room full of windows and lockedhim in. He stayed in shadowed corners avoiding the sunlight until there were no more shadows….

SUNLIGHT SLANTING ACROSS THE carpet and hurting his eyes, dust motes whirling in the air, fear creeping up his spine—memory yawned wide and Dante fell. Sunlight blistered and crisped his skin. The burned-meat smell curdled in his belly.

Dante sucked in air and coughed up blood. Pain scattered the memory, swept it away. One little piece of knowledge clung for a few moments: Loony bin stay numéro un had happened right after that bit of punishment.

Foster mother #12 has developed a fondness for S and is forming a bond with him. S appears to enjoy her company. He will be removed from her care….

S increasingly defiant. His favorite toy, a plastic alligator on wheels, is taken from him and thrown away. He retaliates by throwing away the foster parents’ cigarettes and beer. S beaten…

S found or stole a guitar and is teaching himself to play it. He has an amazing ear and learns rapidly. Shows true musical talent…

S drugged and brought into the clinic for examination and study. Dr. Wells curious, as am I, to learn just how much a born-vampire can endure physically. The experiments will commence tomorrow….

FRAGMENTS OF MEMORY BUZZED up from below, carried on the wings of Gigeresque wasps: A cold, steel table. Restraints. Needles. Saws. A bloodied baseball bat held by a tech in a face shield and blood-spattered lab coat. White-hot pain wiped the images away. He wasn’t remembering. He was experiencing. Elroy’s fist slammed Dante back into the here and now.

“Read to me,” Dante whispered.

The Perv stared at him for a long moment, licked his lips, then continued reading.

Experiments shall be repeated once S reaches puberty…if vampires have a process like puberty. Shall be fascinating…

S has developed affection for another foster child in his household, a girl named Chloe Basescu. He looks after her. She calls him “Dante-angel” for some reason, perhaps because he protects her from their foster father. S and Chloe often sleep together, but in a nonsexual manner.

S showing signs of what I believe to be vampire puberty: night prowling, sexual promiscuity within his own age group, biting, fascination with blood, no longer satisfied with his daily dose of “medicinal” blood. He yearns to hunt. He seems to be both excited and confused by his feelings. Overwhelmed by his desires. He confides in Chloe. This troubles me….

Time to take Chloe away from S.

Dante backs Chloe into the corner. “Get down,” he whispers. “I won’t let them have you.”

As Chloe crouches, Orem the orca clutched to her chest, Dante stands in front of her. He hisses. Three men in black suits—bad fucking men like Wells, like Papa Prejean, like all the groping assholes who walk down the basement steps—spread out in the white padded room.

Hunger/want/need burns through Dante and their pounding hearts draw him. Their sweaty, hopped-up smell dizzy him. All three rush him and Dante drops low, spinning, slashing with his nails. Blood spurts hot across his face. Someone gurgles. Someone else gets behind him. Dante moves. Punching, kicking, biting. Whirls. The blood smell coils through him; he’s lost to it. Drops to his knees and sinks his teeth into warm flesh. Blood pumps into his mouth, sweeter than licorice, headier than sneaked whiskey, and he can’t get enough. He drinks until nothing’s left.

On his knees, Dante looks around. All three bad-ass men sprawl on the bloodied floor. He swivels, wiping his mouth and reaching for Chloe. His hand freezes at his mouth. His heart thumps hard and fast; breaking.

Chloe…

Dante’s princess, his little sister, his heart. He screamed as the in-between memory rammed past the pain. He screamed, yanking on the handcuffs, coughing up blood, choking. Something sharp jabbed his neck—stung. Cold curled through his veins.

As Dante slid down into drugged darkness, Chloe’s image already fading from his mind—No! Let me keep her!—an answer to a question stood clear in his mind:

What are you afraid of, True Blood?

Not you, Peeping Tom. Not you.

Me.

Someone laughed and Dante didn’t know if it was himself or Elroy. But whoever it was laughed and laughed and laughed.

HEATHER POPPED THE CD out of the laptop. Elbows on the table, she buried her face in her hands, weary and heartsick. Dante had been so caught up in the fight, in his rage and blood-hunger, that he’d struck out at everyone near him—including Chloe. She tried to blank out the images she’d watched, tried to forget the sounds she’d heard—too late. The stricken expression on Dante’s face as he looked at Chloe’s body, the desolate sound torn from his throat, would haunt her forever.

Like the scream in the slaughterhouse.

A chair scraped back. De Noir. Heather lowered her hands and looked up. He gathered up the reports, stuffing them back into the folder.

“I’ll burn these,” he said, his voice level.

“No.” She sat up. “Dante needs to know…he needs to see…”

“This?” De Noir waved the folder. “No. He doesn’t. No.” He picked up the CD and closed his fist around it. Plastic cracked. Crumbled.

“What are you doing?” she cried, leaping to her feet. “We need that—”

“For what?” De Noir flung the CD pieces to the floor. “To hurt my child? To tear him apart again? The past cannot be changed.”

Heather stared at De Noir. My child? It clicked then, the relationship between De Noir and Dante—watchful, sheltering, hidden. The sudden gold flecks in Dante’s dark eyes. “Does he know?”

De Noir nodded, then looked away. “I told him tonight. I’d hoped—” He closed his mouth. Shook his head. He touched a finger to the hollow of his throat.

The X-rune pendant was gone. Heather sank back down into her chair. “No wonder he didn’t wait when I asked,” she murmured. “He was running from you.”

“No,” De Noir said. His gaze locked with Heather’s, flared with gold light. “He thought he needed to do penance for Gina and Jay…for the girl he can’t remember.”

Penance. Everything Dante cared about had been taken from him since he’d been a baby. If he cared, someone or something suffered. Heather trailed a hand through her hair. He went to face Ronin alone so no one else would die. Or suffer in his place.

“I need this file to find Dante,” she said. “Elroy Jordan has claimed him. The reason why might be in there.”

“To torture him—just like you told me,” De Noir said. “You warned me that I couldn’t stop it. I refused to listen.”

The regret in De Noir’s gaze tugged at Heather. She shook her head. “Don’t,” she said. “You thought you could protect him.”

She stood up, crossed to the counter. The faint smell of coffee lingered in the kitchen. Dumping out the old grounds into the trash, she rinsed the filter in the sink, then spooned in fresh coffee.

Elroy Jordan was the Cross-Country Killer. Maybe Ronin had been a part of that, or maybe he’d just pointed Jordan in Dante’s direction. Ronin had known that both Jordan and Dante were part of Johanna Moore’s sociopathology experiment. How?

She poured water into the coffeemaker, set the carafe on the burner, and tapped the on button. What had happened to Ronin? She glanced at De Noir. He stood motionless beside the table, folder clutched in one hand, head bowed. His black hair veiled his face. He appeared to be listening, his body almost quivering with effort.

“Dante,” he breathed. “Ah, hush, child. I will find you.” Lifting his head, De Noir looked at Heather. “I felt him…heard him…for a moment. He’s…” De Noir swallowed whatever else he’d intended to say.

De Noir’s expression told Heather that whatever he’d heard or felt from Dante was far from good. Cold twisted around her heart. “Ronin,” she said. “What happened?”

“Dead.”

So whatever Ronin had planned, exposé or blackmail, had died with him. How much had he told Elroy about Bad Seed? Enough, she figured, just enough to control him. Enough to whet his appetite for the whole story.

Heather listened to the coffee as it trickled into the carafe. So what was Jordan’s plan? S is mine. One certainty iced her thoughts: No matter what, Jordan meant to possess Dante. Forever. And from Seattle to New York, graveyards sheltered the remains of all those Jordan had possessed in the past.

Where was he going? Where was he taking Dante? S is mine. Who had those words been aimed at? Ronin? The cops?

As the rich, roasted smell of fresh coffee filled the kitchen, the final piece of the puzzle locked into place.

Johanna Moore. The words had been meant for Johanna Moore.

Jordan intended to confront her with Dante—S—at his side and under his control.

Heart racing, Heather rushed to De Noir and grabbed the folder’s edge. “I think I know where they’re going,” she said.

JOHANNA RETURNED TO THE hearth with a cup of brandied eggnog and sat down. Burning wood snapped, releasing the smell of pine into the room. Sipping at her eggnog, she flipped open her cell and speed-dialed Gifford again. His continued silence worried her.

On the third ring the call was answered, but Johanna didn’t recognize the voice saying, “Hello? Hello? This is Detective Fiske. Hello?”

“Doctor Johanna Moore, FBI. How is it that you have Agent Gifford’s phone, Detective?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor Moore, but Agent Gifford is dead.”

The black, empty night seeped into Johanna, stilled her heart. “How?”

“We’re still not clear on the particulars. We have several bodies at the scene,” Fiske said. “Why was your man here?”

“Surveillance.” The fire snapped the scent of pumpkin and cinnamon into the air. “Are the other dead identified? Perhaps our suspect is among them.”

“Special Agent Craig Stearns and one of ours, Detective Trent Collins.” Emotion laced Fiske’s voice.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Detective,” Johanna said. “Please keep me posted.”

“Who were your people watching?”

“Thomas Ronin.”

“House was rented under that name. I’ll call you if I have any other questions.”

“Fine, Detective. Thank you.” Johanna ended the call.

She gazed at the fire, the dancing flames calming her, ordering her thoughts. She walked from the living room to her office and stepped behind her desk. She glanced at the GPS receiver. No signal. Like E, S was now offline. Were they together? Was Ronin with them?

Johanna walked to the window and pushed aside the curtain. Touching the pane of glass between her and the winter sky, she closed her eyes. She wished for snow.

Stearns and Wallace had cost her a good man, one she’d miss for years to come. What had happened in New Orleans?

Opening her eyes, Johanna turned from the window. She needed to find her beautiful True Blood child before Ronin corrupted him, twisted him. And if her père de sang was bringing E and S home?

Then she’d need strength. Johanna pulled on her coat and tugged gloves over her hands—a habit left over from her mortal life. She walked out into the night, her breath a pale plume in the air, and hunted.

DUCKING FROM THE COLD, damp wind, Heather pressed her face against Von’s leather-jacketed back as the nomad gunned his Harley up the interstate toward Louis Armstrong International. She kept her arms wrapped tight around the nomad’s waist, grateful for the gloves and helmet Simone had lent her. The wind blew through Von’s hair, whipping its length from side to side.

Von steered the bike through traffic, swooping in, out, and between cars and semis with heart-stopping speed. The night blurred past, streaked with red and silver.

After Trey ferreted out Johanna Moore’s address on the net, Heather had booked a seat on the next flight to D.C. She was gambling on the chance that Elroy Jordan was heading “home” to Moore, but it felt right.

De Noir had refused a seat on the plane, said: I’ll get there my own way.

She wondered if he winged overhead even now, hair and lashes white with frost.

Trey had also discovered a purchase made by a C. K. Cross a few days earlier. A white Chevy van with customized windows and some interior alterations. The dealership had provided the temporary license plate number, but Heather hadn’t passed the number on to the police. If Jordan was pulled over by cops, more people would die. Like Collins.

And Dante…Heather couldn’t be sure of his reaction. She remembered the nightmare scene captured on the CD, remembered the cold fury on Dante’s face as he’d murdered the Prejeans.

Dante sits cross-legged in a corner of the dining room, flipping through a music mag—Metal Scene, maybe—headphones in his ears. In his own world, but tensed, coiled, ready for hell in a moment’s notice.

Dante removes his headphones when any of the other four foster kids in the house approach him, speaking Cajun with a couple, English with another; a quick, tilted smile. One teen, about the same age, maybe thirteen or fourteen, sits beside Dante for a time, putting his head on Dante’s shoulder. Dante loops an arm around the boy and they sit on the floor together, looking at the mag.

Then, a heartbeat later, hell yawns open. Adelaide “Mama” Prejean smacks a blonde girl setting the table, telling her she’s “doing it ass-backwards.” Cecil “Papa” Prejean, with an irritated grunt, backhands the girl and knocks her to the floor.

Dante rises so fast, even the camera can’t capture his movement. The other boy sitting on the floor holds the fluttering mag, mouth open. Dante punches Mama Prejean, knocking her three feet across the room. He leaps on her, taking her to the floor. He pounds her head against the hardwood until the skull splits, blood and brains splashing across the grain, across Dante’s hands.

Dante swivels, stands, and moves again. He pins a stunned PapaPrejean against the wall and tears into his throat with his fingernails, ripping it wide open. Blood sprays onto Dante’s ecstatic face. He licks it from his lips, his fingers.

Once Papa Prejean’s done spurting, Dante lets go and the body slumps to the floor. Dante gathers the other kids and tells them they need to get out. He searches the bodies for credit spikes, cash, anything of value. Ransacks Mama Prejean’s purse. He divvies everything up between the other four kids, keeping nothing for himself.

Once the others have gone, Dante sprinkles lighter fluid from the barbecue throughout the house, then fetches gasoline from the garage. Pours it over the bodies. He lights a match. Whoomf! He lingers a moment before leaving the Prejean house for the last time.

Dante watches the blaze from the street. Caught in the flickering shadows, his beautiful bloodstained face is rapt.

Heather remembered Dante standing in front of the anarchy symbol, saying: Freedom is the result of rage.

He’d won freedom for only four that night. Project Bad Seed had picked him up, then proceeded to fragment and bury his memory. Again. Wound him up, then turned him loose.

Dante had survived the streets. But would he survive his past?

Von swung the bike onto an exit ramp, downshifted. “Almost there,” he shouted.

Stearns had called Dante a monster; but the real monsters were the people behind Project Bad Seed—Dr. Johanna Moore and Dr. Robert Wells. No wonder Moore had been so knowledgeable at the Academy, her profiles eerily accurate. She’d helped create the killers the Bureau profiled.

Had Bad Seed failed or succeeded with Dante? The murder of the Prejeans disturbed Heather, but knowing the torture he’d endured at their hands and at the hands of fifty-nine other pairs of foster parents—the worst Louisiana had to offer—understandable. Although she’d always believed there were no excuses for murder, there were reasons.

And in this case—a boy pushed to the brink and beyond—all she saw were shades of gray, even though she’d been trained to see only black and white; the law was either upheld or the law was broken. Simple. But was it?

Could Dante have just run away? Abandoning the other kids to their fate? If the project had been successful, Dante would’ve thought only of himself and used the others to his own gain. Never would have put himself in harm’s way for a little girl. Never would have wept for her. Never would have walked alone into a slaughterhouse for a friend, willing to sacrifice himself.

I have a promise to keep.

But if the project had failed, he never would have murdered.

The bright lights of the airport glimmered ahead in the cold air. Heather looked over Von’s shoulder as he opened the bike up again. Her thoughts shifted back to her conversation with Collins. Five bodies in a tavern. A fire. Arson. LaRousse and Davis, dead.

In fact, they’d been out to Prejean’s with an arrest warrant….

Shit spins out of control.

Bad blood between Dante and LaRousse.

Heather’s muscles knotted. Her thoughts led her to a path she didn’t want to walk. What if Jay’s death and Dante’s inability to protect him, his failure to keep him alive, had triggered the same impulses that’d followed Chloe’s death? What if the project had succeeded, and Ronin had spun the right stressors into action?

What if Dante had been at the tavern? What if he’d taken his first step on the serial-killing trail? A trail he planned to keep walking?

Heather tightened her arms around Von’s middle. For once, she hoped her intuition was wrong, her instincts false.

He murdered the Prejeans and torched their house.

Von eased up on the throttle and downshifted as he steered the Harley into the departure/arrivals lane. The bike rumbled, the sound rolling back like thunder from the buildings. A few people glanced up, startled by the noise. Von eased the Harley up against the curb, then lowered the kickstand.

Heather swung off the bike. She unstrapped the helmet and handed it to the nomad. Von’s windblown hair fell into place, gleamed like dark silk beneath the lights.

“I’ll come with you,” Von said, lifting his shades to the top of his head. “You need a bodyguard, darlin’, and I’m willing.”

Heather looked into the nomad’s green eyes. The crescent moon tattoo glittered like ice in the light.

“De Noir’s gonna be there. But thanks.”

“Nothing against Lucien, but your safety ain’t gonna be his prime concern.”

Heather lifted an eyebrow. “And it would be with you?”

“For Dante, man,” Von said. “I know he cares about you.”

Heather swallowed. “He matters to me, too,” she said. “But dawn’s coming. You’ll be Sleeping soon.”

“Look, every time I doze off, just punch me. Hard.”

“I’ve got enough to worry about without hauling your sleepy ass around D.C.,” Heather said with a quick smile. “Thanks again, but I’ve been taking care of myself most of my life. I know what I’m doing.”

Von flashed a wicked grin. “No doubt, darlin’. No doubt at all.” He lowered his shades, settled them back into place.

“And we need someone here in case I’m wrong about Jordan.”

“But you know you ain’t,” Von said, nudging the kickstand up and twisting the throttle. The Harley’s rumble revved into a roar. “Good flight,” he said. “And even better hunting. Bring him back, darlin’.” Kicking the bike into gear, the nomad gunned it into the through lane.

Heather walked into the terminal, purse looped over her shoulder. Von’s words circled through her mind—I know he cares about you. And she knew in that moment that Dante needed a voice—one that would deliver justice for his lost years and stolen, brutalized childhood, and for his murdered and discarded mother.

Dante’s life had never been his own.

Dante had spoken when he’d killed the Prejeans; spoken to the monsters hiding in the shadows, watching and recording. Had Dante been a voice for Chloe?

And had Dante spoken again in the tavern, dazed, heartbroken, and lost to the past; spoken for Jay? Had he followed programming implanted by Moore? Or simply given in to his own dark nature?

Heather strode to the security desk to pick up a law enforcement permit for her .38. Pulling her badge from her pocket, she handed it to the bored guard.

Dante’s mind had been damaged, but his heart was strong, compassionate. Having laid beside him, wrapped in his arms, Heather knew Dante could never be like Elroy Jordan, killing for pleasure, for power.

Oh? And when he fed? When he hunted for blood?

How about when he tore open Cecil Prejean’s throat?

Would she have to speak for his victims? Could she speak for his victims?

Heather felt hollow inside, riddled with doubt. She’d tumbled head over heels for a guy who wasn’t even human, and a killer. Yet, how could he be expected to answer for actions he couldn’t even remember? She’d deal with that soon enough.

After she found him; after she saved him.

AS E STEERED THE VAN through Georgia, his gaze kept sliding up to the rearview mirror, sneaking peeks at the unconscious bloodsucker—drugged and handcuffed. A shiv still poked up from his belly. An electric tingle shot through E at the sight. He rubbed himself through his jeans. Soon, he promised himself.

When Dante’d started screaming while he read to him from his file, E’d stared, more than a little freaked. The handcuffs had clinked and clunked and the van had rocked and shuddered until E’d been scared that Dante’d pull it apart. That was when he’d dropped the file and grabbed another syringe, filling it to the max with bloodsucker dope and jabbing it into Dante’s neck.

Then Dante’d started laughing.

Dante laughs, the sound of it—low and dark and uncontained, broken somehow. Finally, E laughs with him, because it is pretty funny, accidentally offing the person you’re trying to protect…hilarious! Hysterical, even, and this thought sends E into another round of doubled-over-tears-in-the-eyes laughter.

Dante’s eyes close, tears sliding from the corners, as the drugs go to work. Laughed himself to tears too, E thinks, enjoying their camaraderie. His Bad Seed bro lapses into silence.

A blaring horn snapped E to the present. Headlights loomed in the rearview mirror. Busy eyeing Dante, E’d slowed to an old-lady dawdle in the fast lane. Although his first instinct was to slam on the brakes, then shiv the tailgating bastard, E slid the van into the slow lane. Last thing he wanted was the law on his tail.

The tailgating bastard blew past and E gritted his teeth as the bastard leaned on the horn one more time. E memorized the license number for future reference. He grinned. His gaze flicked back to the rear view, to Dante.

Read to me.

Those words from Dante’s bloodstained lips had sent shivers down E’s spine. Still did. E squirmed in the driver’s seat, restless, aching. Hungry. Dawn was a couple of hours away and Dante’d Sleep with a capital S for the rest of the day. E’d catch a few winks then. Maybe a bite to eat.

And his Bad Seed bro? Would he need a bite, too? Could be fun, rounding up a tasty meal for Dante.

E squirmed. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t wait anymore.

He pulled the van into the next rest stop, parking as far from the other cars and semis as possible. He shut off the engine. Keyed it to AC and popped in Inferno’s latest CD. Punched up the volume to mask the screams. The music pounded and shredded while Dante’s sexy voice growled and whispered:

You try to kiss away my feelings / you need to change me / want to suck me dry…

E crawled into the back, yanking the curtain closed behind him. His broken wrist throbbed, but that didn’t matter. He’d down some pills when he was done with Dante.

E knelt beside the air bed and brushed the hair back from Dante’s face. His gaze lingered on the blood smeared under his nose and across his lips.

“Like an angel,” E whispered, but the angel he pictured had black feathered wings and dark fuck-me eyes.

I only trust my rage / you mean nothing / maybe you never did / and that scares me…

Wrapping his fingers around the handle of the shiv in Dante’s belly, he pulled it out. Blood oozed onto the bloodsucker’s white skin. He slipped his hand under Dante’s T-shirt, sliding it along his fevered, blood-sticky chest. The wounds in his chest were almost healed.

Golden fire filled E, set his body alight. His heart galloped, shaking his body with the intensity of its rhythm. He trailed his hand down across Dante’s flat belly, past his unbuckled belt and into his unfastened jeans. The god indulged himself in another round of exploration.

Breathing fast, E pulled his hand out of Dante’s jeans. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again golden cords connected him to his Bad Seed bro at the forehead, belly button and crotch.

E picked up Navarro’s book of poetry and, sitting back on his heels, read to Dante.

I feel her there
in the dark
waiting to feed
upon my dreams
her tail, iridescent, coils
holds me prisoner
she sucks my breath
drinks me in

I burn beneath her
within her
a dying star

THE TASTE OF HONEY, sweet and thick, touched E’s tongue. He closed the bloodstained book and set it on the floor. Knee-walking to the air bed, he straddled Dante. He leaned over and pressed his lips against Dante’s. “I’m your god. I control every breath you take.”

Dante’s eyes opened, pupils dilated, ringed with brown.

“Name the one you love.”

“It ain’t you,” Dante whispered, words drug-thick.

A flick of his wrist and a shiv dropped into E’s right hand. He drew in a deep breath, savoring the smell of blood. Underneath, he caught a whiff of something sweeter. He frowned. A familiar scent. Leaning in, he sniffed Dante’s throat. Pushed up his T-shirt. Smelled his chest. Blood and the faint scent of…lilac.

E’s thoughts whirled back to the bloodsucker’s house and the sofa he’d awakened on after plowing into the Big Guy. Whirled back to the woman nestled in the chair across from the sofa, tendrils of red hair across her lovely sleeping face. Whirled back to standing over her, shivs in hand, a benevolent god before a supplicant. Whirled back to bending over her and drinking in her scent. Warm and sweet—lilac. Like the scent that clung to Dante.

E straightened. Bitter truth wiped the honey taste from his tongue, boiled and bubbled in his belly like fresh tar. E’d never been closer to his Heather than at that moment, hunched over her, smelling her, and he hadn’t laid a hand on her—but Dante had, the back-stabbing little bloodsucker.

“You were with Heather,” E said, voice low and full of righteous wrath. “She’s mine. She’s always been mine. She follows me.”

“She’s not following you. She’s hunting you. She ain’t yours.”

“Name the one you love,” E snarled.

“No.”

“She’s mine!”

E plunged the shiv into Dante’s chest, then yanked it free and punched it back in. Blood flew and spattered. The golden cords linking E to Dante snapped, unraveled, spraying golden light into the air.

Stabbing and slicing, E went to work. Dante turned his face away, eyes closed in pain, blood foaming on his lips. He twisted, trying to dump E off, but E just grinned and squeezed with his thighs, enjoying the ride.

Had Dante fucked Heather? Drank her blood? Had she asked for more?

Breathing hard and fast, he parked the shiv between Dante’s ribs, then grabbed his chin with bloodied fingers. E wished he had two good hands to lock around Dante’s pale throat. As he forced Dante to face him, the bloodsucker’s eyes opened. Gold and red flecked the thin ring of iris, glimmered in the depths of his dilated pupils.

“Enough,” Dante said, voice bubbling with blood.

Pain shafted E’s head, skewered his eyeballs, and lanced his ears. His hand flew up to his temple. He squeezed his eyes shut. Pain scorched his brain.

E screamed.

30

Awake

SNOW FELL IN WASHINGTON, D.C. Big flakes swirled down from low-hanging gray clouds, hushing the city. Lucien flew through the predawn sky, hair iced behind him, snow clinging to his lashes and riming his wings. He listened, but static filled his bond with Dante, buzzed and whispered—psionic white noise.

He hadn’t felt anything from his child since that fleeting moment in the kitchen when Dante’s anguish had pierced the static and Lucien’s heart. Madness had undulated in that cry, heartbroken and burning.

Loki’s voice whispered: You can’t keep him from going mad, brother. Not alone.

How could he keep Dante’s past from driving him mad? Let alone his creawdwr gifts? The child was strong-willed, but he’d been tortured since birth.

Genevieve…

The images from Wallace’s CD burned behind Lucien’s eyes, images he’d carry forever. His beautiful little Genevieve, pale and weak from blood loss, struggling to touch the son she’d just birthed, hers and Lucien’s. But strapped to the blood-smeared metal table, she couldn’t reach the black-haired, white-skinned, preternaturally silent baby.

“Let me hold him.” Genevieve says. The scrubs-clad medical team bustle around the sterile, empty room like ghosts unable to hear her. “Let me hold him!” she screams.

The ghosts never pause. They wash blood from the newborn. The infant watches, golden eyes aware, awake. Vampire and Fallen.

And in that moment, damned.

“Dante.” she whispers. “My Dante. Never give in. Make hell your own. Fight.”

Genevieve closes her eyes. A tear slips out from beneath her dark lashes. “Pourquoi tu nous as abandonnes? Je ne sais pas ce que j’ai fait pour vous faire partir. je t’en supplie, sauve ton fils,” she prays. Her hands clench into fists. “Éloigné le d’ici. Mets-le l’abri. Il est ma lumière et mon coeur—comme tu as pu l’être. Lucien, mon ange, s’il te plaît, écoute-moi.”

Genevieve’s words, her unanswered prayer, wrapped around Lucien’s soul and burned, incandescent; a votive forever lit within him.

The report stated that Genevieve had been killed after they’d analyzed the milk contents of her breasts. No photos or filmed images of her death were included in the file. She’d become insignificant.

Gray shreds of moisture-laden clouds parted before Lucien. Snow shrouded the land below. Grief shrouded his heart. If only…He shifted his thoughts away from paths unwalked and unregarded. Even with eternity stretched before him, he’d learned there was still such a thing as too late and never again.

He could only focus on what was—and what might be.

Lucien tipped his right wing and spiraled down toward the awakening city. He’d agreed to meet Wallace at the airport. With or without her, he’d find his wounded child. With or without her, he’d take his vengeance on the woman who’d had Genevieve killed and who’d put his son through a hell beyond imagination.

A song pulsed within Lucien suddenly, chaotic and powerful. Dante’s anhrefncathl, complicated and dark, crescendoed through Lucien’s heart and mind. And chilled him to his core. Chaotic, Dante’s song. Powerful. And mad.

Lucien closed his eyes. He heard Yahweh’s weary voice: Let them have me.

Never.

Thousands of years ago he’d killed the friend of his heart—his calon-cyfaill—to keep the Elohim high-bloods from chaining the maddened creawdwr to their will and channeling his power to their own self-serving ends—including altering the mortal world. Yet again.

And if the Elohim knew another Maker—unbound and untrained and painfully young—walked the earth, they’d do the same to him.

But, without the balance he’d gain from psionic bonds, Dante would slip into madness, the fate of all unbound creawdwrs. And, unbound and insane, he could unmake the world.

You can’t bind him alone, Brother.

Lucien swerved away from the snow-covered city below, angling upward, his wings slicing through the sky. He veered west. Dante’s black aria wavered. Vanished. Lucien suspected his child had poured the last of his strength into that song.

Time to gamble. Time to transmute whispers into words and rumors into facts. Time to answer his Genevieve’s prayer. Past time. He’d deal with the consequences as they came.

I would lay the world to waste for my son.

Wings flapping, Lucien hovered in the gray sky, snow melting against his heated skin. Blue light radiated out from his body. He burned like a star. Dawn faltered. Faded. Stars winked alight again in the renewed dusk.

Nightbringer.

Lucien voiced his wybrcathl, heart beating in time with his song, threading the music around his memory of Dante’s chaos song; brilliant and pure, altering his aria into a duet of chaos and order. It rang, sharp and clear, through the returning night.

The Fallen in Dante would answer.

So would any Elohim within song range. Just as they’d answer Dante’s anhrefncathl. Brief as it’d been, perhaps none of the Elohim had heard. Brief, true, but powerful.

A race, then.

THE PERV STRADDLED DANTE, his weight forcing the air out of Dante’s lungs. A knife gleamed in Elroy’s right hand. Fury contorted his face. He stank of tobacco and sweat and bitter lust.

Drugs still flowed through Dante’s veins and his thoughts ebbed, low tide. His body thrummed, almost floated, but the handcuffs and the Perv’s weight kept him anchored to the blood-spattered air bed.

“Name the one you love.”

Dante met Elroy’s narrowed gaze. “No.”

Heather’s face, flushed and beautiful, flashed into his mind. A fractured image of Chloe sparked behind his eyes, then vanished, snuffed, the image of Jay’s pale face and lightless eyes overlaying it.

“She’s mine!”

Elroy punctuated his words with his knife, stabbing it into Dante over and over and over. Punched. Slashed. Pain twisted into him, tearing him apart. Devoured him. He choked on blood. Drowned in it. It bubbled up from his lungs, trickled from his nose, gushed up from his stomach. White light flashed and strobed at the edges of his vision. Squeezing his eyes shut, Dante turned his face away. Pain ripped apart his mind.

Send it below or fucking use it.

The air reeked of blood and the Perv’s sweat-sour odor. His thoughts echoed in Dante’s mind; mental shivs: Had Dante fucked Heather? Drank her blood? Had she asked for more?

Send it below or fucking use it.

The shiv slipped between Dante’s ribs and stayed. Fingers grabbed his chin, forced his face around. Pain torched him. Dante stopped resisting and jumped into the raging flames. White-hot, melting, flesh burning, bubbling—shadows seared onto basement walls, a smoldering plushie orca—it consumed him. Ashed his control.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

Here, hold my hand, princess. We’ll go together. Forever and ever.

A song vibrated within him, chaotic, a strumming dark refrain. The melody blazed with rage. Hunger pounded out the tempo. Burned.

A shadowed figure uncurled from the ashes. Fire smoldered in his veins. He lifted his head. S opened his eyes. “Enough,” he said.

Reaching into Elroy’s mind, S funneled the pain the warped little fuck had dispensed with his shiv back into him; force-fed him his own shit.

Here. Have some. How does it fucking feel?

Elroy’s hand flew up to his temple. Eyes squeezed shut, he screamed, the sound sweet to S’s ears. The Perv tumbled off of S and crawled around on the van’s carpeted floor, clutching his head and squealing.

Inferno’s music poured from the speakers: I’m waiting for you / I’ve watched and I’ve watched / I know your every secret.

Coughing up blood, gasping for air, S yanked with his arms. The cuffs clunked against the van’s metal back end. Sucking in a blood-choked breath, he yanked again. Poured what little strength he had remaining into his arms. Metal rended. Something popped. Black spots flickered through his vision. S lowered his handcuffed wrists past his head, wondering at the hook dangling from the chain.

The cuffs were nightkind-proof, but the hook welded to the van wasn’t.

S moved his cuffed hands to the shiv in his side and tugged it free. Dropped it on the bed. He struggled to sit up. The van spun around him. His vision darkened. He lowered his head and waited for the dizziness to pass.

Voices whispered, clutched at his thoughts. Sweat beaded his forehead. Hunger spiked through him. He needed blood. He pulled his mental fingers out of Elroy’s mind. The squealing stopped.

S slid off the air bed and crawled to Elroy. He shoved the Perv’s head aside and sank his fangs into the mortal’s sweaty throat.

I’ve stood in every room / of your house / and dreamed of you / wanting me.

Blood, hot and berry-sweet, spurted into S’s mouth. He gulped mouthful after mouthful. Elroy’s frantic heartbeat pulsed blood into his mouth almost faster than he could swallow. The Perv struggled. S slammed a knee between his legs. The squirming stopped. Fear and adrenaline spiced the blood pouring into S’s mouth.

Musky pheromones and the pungent smell of blood—S’s blood—laced the air. Elroy the Perv was hot and bothered and hard, even now, with S’s fangs in his throat.

Like all that shiv-work and blood had been foreplay.

Something cold and dark curled around S’s heart.

Très joli, dis one, like an angel. Play with him all you want, but don’t put nuthin’ in his mouth. Boy bites.

S ripped his fangs deeper into Papa’s throat. The bastard squirmed again. Stank of desperation. Fucker sliced up Chloe. Did he torture her like he did me?

The image of a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman flashed behind S’s eyes. Gina. The scent of black cherries wrenched him forward—Elroy the Perv and…Gina. Not Papa. Not Chloe. White light strobed at the edge of his vision.

Where am I? When am I?

A song vibrated through S, gleamed like moonrise. He pulled his mouth from Elroy’s flesh and tilted his head, listening. He closed his eyes. The rhythm of his heart shifted to match the music resonating within his mind—Lucien’s song.

Nightbringer. Friend. Father. Liar.

The tempo swirled through S, hooked his soul. Chaos and order. Compassion and fire. He shivered, and answered. S plucked dark chords, anger and longing and loss twisting through the refrain in equal measures. The song stabbed out from his heart like one of Elroy’s shivs.

His own voice, low, snaked from the speakers: I’ve watched you as you slept / I know you’ve watched me too / I’ve seen your footprints / beneath my window.

Not mine. Dante’s voice. Before he gave himself to the fire. I am after the fire.

<No, child, no.> Lucien’s thought blasted through the drug-static blocking their bond.

Pain tore through S’s mind. Blurred his vision. Darkness grabbed at him.

<You are Dante Baptiste, son of Lucien and Genevieve. Not S. Not the child of monsters.>

Wrong, S thought, head aching. I’m S. Hafta be. Isn’t that why Gina and Jay died? Isn’t that how I’ll keep Heather alive?

Lucien’s song ended with one last resonant chord, a promise ringing clear and full moon-bright across the sky: I am coming for you.

<Don’t. I won’t be here.> S’s thought rebounded, blocked again by static, pain and blood loss.

S pushed himself away from Elroy’s warm, huddled body. Hunger still gripped him. He glanced at the Perv. Imagined drinking him dry. Imagined ripping open his chest and squeezing his black, stunted heart until it pulped.

For you, Chloe.

“I can help you!” someone shouted. “You fuckin’ need me! Dante!”

S’s vision cleared. He sat on top of Elroy, straddled him, the mortal’s chest bared, his shirt torn open. Bloody furrows scored the flesh above the Perv’s thudding heart. Blood trickled along Elroy’s throat, the skin punctured, torn.

The heady smell of adrenaline and fear filled the van. Sweat beaded Elroy’s forehead, but his face was blank. Still.

S grabbed the Perv’s shades and tossed them across the van. Hazel eyes met his. Something at-the-bottom-of-the-cave-dark flickered in those eyes. “You fuckin’ need me,” he repeated.

Do you know my every secret? Dante whispered from the speakers.

S leaned over the Perv, placed his lips a whisper away from Elroy’s whisker-stubbled face. “No, I don’t.”

“I know shit you don’t,” Elroy said, his voice as empty as his face. “I know shit that’s not in those files. Bad Seed made us brothers. You ain’t in this alone. I want my pound or two of flesh—just like you.”

S laughed.

Elroy swallowed hard. Looked away.

S pushed Elroy’s head to the side with his cuffed hands and sank his fangs back into the mortal’s wounded throat. Sucked down adrenaline-spiced blood. Listened to the frantic pounding of the Perv’s heart.

Locks won’t keep me out / words won’t turn me away / I’ve long dreamed of this moment.

“I wasn’t there when Ronin iced your boyfriend,” Elroy said, his voice vibrating against S’s lips. The Perv’s heart rate slowed. Steadied. “But I was there for Gina. I know what happened, what Ronin did to her. I know her last words.”

S froze. Remembered a black stocking washed free of every trace of Gina. Remembered another stocking knotted around her throat. Remembered her walking away with only silence as a farewell.

S lifted his mouth from Elroy’s throat. Sat up and stared down into the Perv’s muddy gaze. Her last words. A chance for Gina to live another moment. Pain sparked behind his eyes.

“I know what happened to Ronin, too.”

“What’s to stop me from ripping all that from your mind?”

“I’ll make sure I die before you can get it.” Elroy’s gaze held steady.

“That’s my Bad Seed bro.”

Elroy’s expression blanked again. “The Big Guy got Ronin.”

S looked away, muscles knotting. Bastard was mine.

“Fucker was going for Heather too.”

Heather. S shifted his gaze back to Elroy. “Is she—”

“Fine,” the Perv said. “She even blew me a kiss as we hit the street. Well, okay, shot at me, but really, ain’t it the same thing?” He grinned.

Relief trickled though S, unwinding the knots in his muscles. He slid off Elroy and crawled to the air bed. Dizziness spun through him. Spots flecked his vision. He leaned against the mattress.

“Looks like you need some of those Batman Band-Aids,” S said, nodding at the blood-smeared tear in Elroy’s throat. S’s saliva would heal the wound, a few licks and it’d close. But…fuck ’im.

Elroy sat up and clapped a hand over the wound.

“Take these off,” S said. He held up his cuffed wrists. The hook still hung from the chain like an urban legend—and they found a hook in the roof of the car!

The Perv wiped at his nose with the back of his hand. “We cool?” he asked, lifting his gaze to S’s. “Still gonna kill me?”

S smiled. Elroy stared, mouth open, transfixed. After a moment, Elroy dropped his gaze. He glanced toward the front of the van. S heard his sly little mind planning to make a break for it, wondering if he could outrun his weakened plaything.

“Try it.”

Elroy looked at him, then tilted his head to one side. Licked his lips. “Who are you?”

“You should know. You woke me up.”

The Perv nodded. Wiped at his nose again. “Then you know we both got beefs to settle with Mommy-Bitch, right? Both of us.”

“A pound or two or three of flesh, right?” S glanced at his cuffed wrists. “Take these off.”

“Will you kill me?”

“Yeah. But not till after we settle the score.”

Elroy the Perv sat back on his heels and considered. He trailed his hand through his hair. After a moment, he rose to his knees and wormed his hand into his front jeans pocket. Pulled out a key.

Scooting over to S, Elroy wriggled the key into the cuffs. He looked at S. “Not till after, right?”

“Oui.”

Elroy nodded and unlocked the cuffs. S shook them off his raw and bloodied wrists. The cuffs thudded against the carpet. He pulled up the bottom of his T-shirt and wiped blood off his face.

“Can we still play?” the Perv asked. Hunger edged his voice. He slid a hand up S’s thigh.

Slapping Elroy’s hand aside, S looked at him, fire smoldering behind his eyes. He smoothed a trembling hand over his slashed and bloodied T-shirt, over the wounds aching underneath. A memory nudged at his mind, a basement, then vanished. Pain coiled, waiting.

I am what you made me / no matter where you hide / where you run / I will find you…

S’s hands dropped to the fly of his jeans. Zipped them up. Buckled his belt. “Touch me again and nothing will fucking save you.”

Elroy looked away, jaw tight, hand clenched. S bent, scooped up the handcuffs. Rattled them. The Perv glanced at him, hand still knotted. Without a word, S snatched his fisted hand and snapped the cuff around it.

“Hey, I thought we was cool,” Elroy protested as S locked the other cuff around metal framework.

“Sleep’s coming,” S said. “And I don’t trust you.”

Elroy slouched against the wall. “Yeah, well. Same here.” Pointing at the pillow, he lifted an eyebrow.

“You wanna get comfy?” S picked up the bloodied shiv. Lifted his gaze to Elroy’s. Plunged the shiv into the Perv’s thigh. “Fuck you.”

Elroy sucked air in through his teeth, pain etched into his face. A vein throbbed at his temple. “Your ass is mine,” he muttered.

“Yeah?” S said, climbing to the front of the van. “Don’t think so.” As he parted the curtain, he glanced back at Elroy. Easy meal. Hunger surged through him. He ached with it. But the thought of every drop of the Perv’s bitter blood pouring into his veins, pumping into his heart and lighting his mind, left him cold. And if he really holds Gina’s last words?

S slipped through the parted curtains, eased down into the front seat, then opened the door. He hopped out onto the concrete, the night cool against his face. Closing the door, he sucked in the night’s smells: wet grass, diesel fuel and hot rubber, wild roses. An interstate rest area.

He half walked, half staggered toward a semi truck, his boots soundless against the pavement. Hunger drained what little strength he still had; the drugs fucked up his system, blurred his thoughts. Dawn brushed gray against the horizon and drowsiness seeped into him, like blood into dirt. He had to feed, then get back to the van.

S stepped up onto the running board of the semi. Checked the door. Locked. He crashed a fist through the window; shattered glass rained onto the pavement and into the cab. Then grasping the window frame, he slid into the cab, his movement so quick, the startled driver was still blinking sleep from his eyes when S dropped on top of him.

Pinned him. Tore into his warm throat. And fed.

31

Words Spill Out
Like Fire

JOHANNA STRODE DOWN THE empty hall, buoyed and buzzing on her stay-awake pills. Her heels clicked against gleaming tile. What happened at dawn? The thought whirled through her mind and she stopped, heart pounding.

Snow falls, silencing the awakening world beyond her window. The sky lightens, illuminating thick flakes against the gray dawn, then…

Johanna resumed walking.

Then the light flickers, like a candle caught in a sudden breeze, gutters and goes out. Darkness sweeps across the horizon. The day reverses. Power reverberates through the air. Power so intense, so strong, that even inside her townhouse, as she stands stunned at the kitchen window, it surges through her, leaving her weak-kneed and clutching the counter. Words form in her mind, blaze within her consciousness. They are words she doesn’t recognize—like symbols, like ancient glyphs—and they spill like fire from her mouth. With a sudden inward rush of air, the power vanishes, clearing her mind and dropping her to the linoleum. Dawn returns. The sky lightens once again.

Johanna punched her code into the keypad beside the door to her office, then tipped her face down for the retinal security scan. A thin bar of light skimmed her face. She blinked, vision dazzled. The door clicked open. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

What happened this morning? Why did she think it had something to do with Ronin and her missing experiments? No, correct that, she thought as she sat behind her desk. With S. And thought had nothing to do with it. It was a feeling, liquid and intuitive and impossible to analyze.

Johanna switched on the vid-phone, keyed in a number. Music. Something to do with music. She thought of S perched on the edge of a kitchen chair, guitar across his thighs, cradled next to his body, his long fingers slipping sure and fast across the strings, his pale face rapt. Just as it would be when he tore into his first throat. As it would be when he torched the Prejean house.

“Johanna, what a surprise,” said a deep, familiar voice.

Startled, she glanced at the monitor and into Bob Wells’s smiling face. Curving her lips into a smile, Johanna shook her head. “Not a pleasant surprise, I’m afraid,” she said. Wells’s smile faltered. “I’m sorry, but I have bad news.”

Wells rubbed a hand along his chin. He glanced away for a moment. When he returned his gaze to the monitor, his brown eyes were emptied of all feeling. He looked at her, expression neutral, waiting.

“Both E and S are offline and together. I suspect they’ve been interfered with, fed information.”

“By who?”

“Thomas Ronin.”

Wells lifted an eyebrow. “Your père de sang? You’ve been careless.”

Johanna stiffened. She leaned forward in her chair, the leather creaking beneath her. “I called to warn you,” she said. “I believe they’re coming here, given Ronin’s involvement. But I think S will want you, as well.”

“It’s you he’ll remember,” Wells said. “And all the attention you lavished upon him. You never told me, Johanna—but, how did his blood taste?”

“Don’t play this game with me, Bob,” Johanna said. She smoothed all expression from her face, but her hands clenched into fists, unseen, on her lap. “You loved him, too. I’d be worried about the day he remembers that love. And you.”

A smile touched Wells’s lips. He inclined his head. “Touché.”

Interesting reaction, Johanna mused. But wrong. She severed the connection. Bob Wells’s image winked out. Had that been amusement lighting his eyes? She glanced out the window. Snow fell, thick and fast, the sky white.

Had Wells given the project information to Ronin? If so, why? To test her abilities? Or S’s?

Johanna shifted her gaze to the chair in front of her desk. For a moment, the smell of dark tobacco and vanilla filled her nostrils. For a moment, Dan Gifford sat in the chair, his gray-eyed gaze calm, attentive. He leaned forward, fingers steepled together and said: I see. What do you want done?

Turn back time.

She had no regrets, save one—sending Gifford to New Orleans. She wished she’d kept him at her side and had sent lesser men to deal with Stearns and Wallace.

The phone buzzed. Johanna pressed the intercom button. “Yes?”

“Wallace’s plane will land in a few minutes.”

“Pick her up. Bring her to the lab.”

“Understood.”

Johanna ended the call. Time to prepare. The thought of leaving D.C. crossed her mind. More than once. Catch a flight anywhere. Why stay? By the time Ronin and the others found her again, she’d’ve had time to plan. To set things into motion.

But the thought of her little True Blood in Ronin’s hands for any length of time knotted her stomach. She needed to reclaim him. And if he’d been awakened? His memories resurrected? Then she’d need to bury them again and lull him back to sleep.

Johanna rose to her feet and crossed the snow-lit room to a cherrywood file cabinet. She unlocked the top drawer, removed an unlabeled CD, then relocked the file cabinet. She returned to her desk and slipped the CD into a padded mailer. Sealed it. Addressed it to Dante Prejean.

If things went wrong, Johanna wanted to be certain Wells didn’t walk away untouched. And if things went right, well, maybe Wells still needed to worry. But not about S. Perhaps he should worry about an unexpected visit from Johanna.

HEATHER WALKED THROUGH THE crowded terminal, listening to voices over the audio system announcing flights cancelled due to the storm. She scanned the faces of the people around her, of those waiting at the baggage carousel, of those hanging out in front of the coffee kiosks and souvenir shops.

Heather’s stomach rumbled at the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and frying bacon. Realizing that she hadn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon, she joined the line at Sunny’s Breakfast ’n’ More.

As the line moved forward, Heather’s gaze skipped around the terminal, looking for suits with that authoritative FBI stride. Looked for a hand cupping an ear. Looked for comsets. Looked for De Noir. Watched for others looking, too.

Her gaze stopped. A man in a suit and parka spoke to a woman in a tan trenchcoat. Heather tensed. The man scanned the crowd behind the woman as they spoke and, Heather was certain, the woman scanned the crowd behind him. Moore’s people? Airport security?

“Next.”

Heather ordered a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich to go and paid with cash. She’d told De Noir she’d meet him at the car rental counter. Maybe he was already there. Heather tucked her wrapped and steaming sandwich in her pocket and merged with the crowd. Her heart rate picked up speed. She unbelted and unfastened her trench.

Whoever Parka and Trenchcoat worked for, they wouldn’t be stupid enough to start something inside the terminal. No, they’d wait for Heather to leave. Inside the terminal, she was safe.

Heather angled through the crowd, edging her way to the car rental kiosk. Several people stood at the counter, but none of them were six eight or possessed waist-length black hair. Where was De Noir? Had something happened to him? He’d assured her he’d be at the terminal by the time she arrived.

Unless…

Nothing against Lucien, but your safety ain’t gonna be his prime concern.

Had De Noir finally reached Dante through their link? Before Sleep?

Hope sparked within Heather. If so, no need to confront Moore. Instead, she could build a case against Moore with the file, have her arrested. Blow the whistle? If she did that, if she took her evidence to the media, her career in the FBI would be over.

But wasn’t it already over? Dead as Stearns? And what about Dante? Would he want his past—including his crimes—to be headline news and tabloid fodder?

Heather stepped up to the counter. A clerk smiled. “May I help you, ma’am?”

“Yes. I have a reservation. Wallace.”

Heather turned, put her back to the counter. Beyond the terminal’s windows, a blizzard raged, the falling snow a solid, slanting sheet. Cars and taxis huddled against the curb, barely visible dark smudges in a white swirling world.

Could De Noir have been caught in the storm?

She’d wait for a while, then call the house to see if Simone or Von had heard from him. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her still-warm sandwich and partially unwrapped it.

Suddenly feeling a presence behind her, Heather tensed. As she swiveled, a hand locked around her biceps. She looked up into Parka’s clean-shaven face and blue eyes.

“Agent Wallace,” he said.

“Take your hand off me,” she said, voice level. Her gaze shifted, searching for his trenchcoated partner.

“No need to make a scene.”

“I disagree.” Dropping her sandwich, Heather swiveled into Parka and plucked his fingers from her arm. She locked his hand in an aikido defensive move—fingers to wrist, thumb to back of hand—forcing it down and back, driving Parka to his knees. He winced, pain etching his face.

Glancing up, Heather caught a glimpse of Trenchcoat pushing through the crowd. No time to wait for De Noir or search a parking lot for her rental car. Time maybe to catch a cab.

As Heather released Parka’s trapped hand, she shoved him hard. He slid across the tiled floor. Whirling, she ran for the glassed-in front doors. Slipped her hand into her trench’s gun pocket, wrapped her fingers around the .38’s grip. Not yet. Too many civilians.

A shocked gasp rippled through the crowd. Shit! Someone’s pulled a gun, Heather thought, diving for the floor. Something stung her back, low, as she rolled. Hit? Shrapnel from a near miss? She sprang to her feet, heart pounding, gaze focused on the main entrance doors and the taxis beyond. She’d lose them in the snow.

Something tingled through her veins. Burned. The automatic doors slid apart. She ran out into the storm. The cold bit into her, sucked air from her lungs. Her thoughts spun. Light-headed, she arrowed her suddenly rubber-limbed body to the nearest taxi. Drugged, she realized.

Slipping in the snow, Heather slammed against the taxi. She grabbed for the door handle to keep from falling, but her hand wouldn’t work, just flopped at her side. She fell, the world spinning white-white-white. The brightness hurt her eyes. A man leaned over her, his face concerned.

“Miss, are you okay?”

From behind her, she heard a woman say, “Don’t worry. She’s fine. Just had a little too much to drink. Afraid to fly.”

Snowflakes stuck to Heather’s eyelashes, melting into her eyes. She tried to speak, but her tongue didn’t work. Tried to shake her head no to the taxi driver, but her head wouldn’t move.

Hands lifted her. Her head lolled. The white sky merged with the snow-covered concrete. “Relax,” a masculine voice said. “Don’t fight it.

“We’re taking you to Doctor Moore.”

Cold whirled into Heather’s mind, icing it, shutting it down.

PAIN THROBBED, A GLOWING fireplace poker against the bone. E opened his eyes. His stomach lurched. Swallowing hard—need my pills—he looked around the van. The blood-smeared air bed was empty, the unused pillow a sudden reminder of the shiv in his thigh.

E glanced down. His leg burned beneath the blade. A rim of dried blood on his jeans surrounded the shiv. Motherfucking bloodsucker bastard! Something dark and excited coiled into him, lurking beneath his rage. The memory of the shivs buried in Dante’s pale flesh sent tingles down E’s spine.

A quick look over his shoulder revealed Dante sprawled on the floor. E scooted around to get a better look. The pretty little bloodsucker was belly down on the carpet, on the safe side of the curtains and the daylight burning beyond.

Head turned to one side, hair across his face, one arm under him and the other up, crooked at the elbow, Dante—oops! Make that S—looked like he’d dropped in his tracks. Or had taken another head shot.

E’s gaze crawled over Dante, drinking in every detail. He wished S hadn’t awakened until after he’d finished playing. Kinda wished he hadn’t awakened at all. Really wished he had the key to the cuffs.

Teeth clenched, E eased his swollen and bruise-blackened wrist from the sling. Pain and nausea double-clutched his guts. Sweat popped up on his forehead. He swallowed back bile. Leaning his head against the side of the van, E rested and pondered the shiv. He doubted he could tug it free, not and remain conscious, anyway.

He glanced at Dante. Boy was down for the count. He could make all the noise he wanted—Dante wouldn’t stir. Or S. E shuddered suddenly, remembered Dante throwing his own words back at him, all hard and cold, like the bloodsucker’s voice.

That’s my Bad Seed bro.

In that moment, E’d been sure he was going to die. Bad. Hard. Ugly.

But Dante wanted Gina’s last words and only E possessed them. So the moment had passed and his heart still beat on and on and on. Would beat long after Dante’s had stopped.

E’s gaze skipped to the black bag and his satchel o’ tricks beside it. Pills for the pain in one. Dope for Dante in the other. Just what the doctor ordered for both of them.

Moving carefully, E reached for the satchel. Grasped the edge. A lightning bolt of pain jolted up his arm to his shoulder and he screamed before he could stop it. But he’d been right about Dante—the bloodsucker slept on, undisturbed. Black spots flecked E’s vision as he plucked at the Baggie of pills and slid a swollen finger along the bag’s seam. It opened. Sweat trickled down his temples.

E’s fingers scooped up pills, tucking them into his palm. Several spilled onto the carpet, bouncing and rolling every which way but toward him. Lowering his shaking hand, he dropped the pills he’d snagged into his mouth. Swallowed. His stomach felt tight as a fist. He leaned against the van. Breathed. In. Out. In. The nausea faded.

E closed his eyes. Wished he had his shades. Wished he had a smoke. Thought maybe Dante should be handcuffed and hurting and wishing for all manner of things while E snoozed. Like wishing he’d never been born. Fucker. Drank his blood.

Did it glow within Dante even now? If E opened his eyes, would he see his own golden light radiating from the Sleep-drugged vampire? E’s heart skipped a beat, then resumed with a chest-vibrating thud. He opened his eyes.

Golden honeyed light slipped from between Dante’s lips, streamed from his nostrils; starred out from around his slender body. Snaked around him in golden coils.

Bound him. Connected him to the handcuffed god.

E grinned. Mine. Once the pills went to work, easing the pain in his throbbing arm, he’d sneak a syringe and a vial of bloodsucker dope out of the black bag. Tuck them into his sling. Then bide his time with godlike patience.

And wait for the backstabbing little shit to turn his back.

LUCIEN LANDED, TOUCHING BARE feet to snow-tipped grass. His wings flared once, flinging droplets of ice and snow into the air, then folded behind him. Gray clouds hid the sun. Beyond the rest stop, cars rushed by on the interstate, tires hissing through the snow and slush. Two vehicles remained in the parking lot: a white van with Alabama license plates and a semi. The semi’s shattered passenger’s side window told Lucien that his child had fed—although his forced entry spoke of desperate need.

Wings tucking into their pouches, Lucien strode to the van. He’d followed Dante’s chaos song until it’d faded, but the song’s rage and hurt and madness hadn’t faded; it burned still within Lucien’s heart.

Dante was lost within his own wounded mind.

An hour or so ago, the static blocking their bond had vanished and Lucien had followed it like an ethereal rope to his Sleeping child.

Lucien’s fingers curled around the door’s cold handle. Locked. Pressing his hand flat against the door, he flicked energy into the lock. Blue sparks showered to the pavement, melting tiny holes in the snow. He grasped the handle and opened the door.

Air reeking of blood and violence, sweat and stale cigarettes rolled out of the van like black smoke from a fire. Lucien caught his breath, for underneath, like coals beneath a pile of ash, smoldered the scorched and bitter stink of twisted lust, of evil.

Lucien listened to the slow, steady beat of Dante’s heart. The sound soothed him. I have found my son. Climbing into the van, he parted the curtain and slid through, careful not to let the weak winter sunlight touch his child.

Lucien looked at Dante Sleeping on the van’s floor. That burning-in-the-sunlight scream, that heart-wrenching sound of a child’s agony—his child’s—echoed within Dante’s fragmented dreams. Reminded Lucien of what he’d felt…what he’d heard while standing in the kitchen with Wallace.

Chloe. My princess. My heart.

I won’t let them have you.

Kneeling, Lucien gathered his son into his arms. Dante’s heat baked into him. Heat when he should be Sleep-cool. Blood trickled from one nostril, streaking his lips.

Ah, little one, they took her anyway. There was nothing you could’ve done. Nothing. You were only a child, too.

Lucien brushed the hair back from Dante’s face, touched the cool silver hoops in his ear.

His past devours him.

Lucien’s gaze dropped. His heart constricted as he stared at the slashes in Dante’s T-shirt. The blood smell—Dante’s. He pushed up the blood-stiff material. Countless healing wounds crisscrossed his chest and abdomen. Cuts. Punctures. Knife wounds.

Are knives required equipment for a journalist’s assistant?

Lucien finally gave his attention to the sleeping mortal handcuffed to the van. A bitten and purpled throat. One arm in a sling, the fingers swollen. A knife hilt stuck up from his thigh. Lucien’s gaze flickered down to the boy cradled in his arms, paused, then returned to Jordan.

Across from Jordan was a mattress spattered and smeared with blood. Dante’s blood. Blood also flecked the wall and the ceiling above. A book—poetry?—and scattered papers and photos littered the carpet beside the bed.

Lucien tensed. He recognized the photos. The same ones he’d looked at with Wallace. So, Dante’s past had been given to him with blood and knives. Given without mercy by a dead-eyed mortal.

And yet somehow Dante had freed himself. So why was Jordan still breathing?

Had the wretch bargained for his life? Lucien’s gaze shifted back to the papers and reports scattered on the floor. With what?

His first impulse was to gather Dante into his arms and fly home. Once his child was safe, he’d return. Then Jordan and Moore would endure a final reckoning, an Elohim judgment and an Old Testament–style death.

But daylight burned outside. He needed to wait until dusk to carry Dante home. Lucien bent and pressed his lips against Dante’s, breathing energy into him, just as he’d done when Wallace had served her warrant. Urged his child up from Sleep. Up from the ashes he curled in, his arms around a little girl.

Pain slammed against Lucien’s shields. Inhaling, he flexed it away. He touched his fingertips to Dante’s temple. Poured cool light into his child’s pain-ravaged mind and fevered body.

Dante drew in a deep breath. His eyes opened. He looked at Lucien, but no recognition sparked within the dark depths of his eyes. Shoving free of Lucien’s hold, Dante rolled to his knees. Body coiled, muscles taut, he hissed.

Fear trailed a cold hand down Lucien’s spine. Was Dante lost to madness? A creawdwr unbound and insane? Or was it simply Sleep refusing to release him? There was always a risk in awakening a Sleeper.

Lucien held up a placating hand. “Dante, child, you are safe. Hush.”

“Not Dante,” a low voice said. Jordan. “That’s S.”

“S doesn’t exist,” Lucien said. “Only Dante. S is a part of you, child. The rage you deny, the pain you ignore.”

“He ain’t exactly been denying rage lately,” Jordan muttered.

Never taking his eyes off Dante, Lucien pointed a finger and snapped a whip of energy across the mortal. Jordan yelped. The smell of ozone cut through the air.

Lucien met Dante’s red-streaked and simmering gaze. He saw it now. Sleep lingered in his son’s eyes. “She can’t rise with you. I’m sorry, but you must leave her behind and let her sleep.”

“No.” Dante’s hands knotted into fists. Pain and Sleep shadowed his eyes. “I promised forever.”

“Child, you’ve given her forever,” Lucien said, voice husky. “She’s always with you. But she doesn’t need to be here. You are in a van with Elroy Jordan. He stole you. Tortured you. Dante, awaken.”

Dante winced, his pale face drawn. He touched a trembling hand to his temple. “Chloe,” he whispered. “I can still save her.”

“It’s too late, Dante.”

Dante looked at Lucien, Sleep fading from his eyes. He swallowed hard. Looked away. After a moment, he nodded.

Lucien cupped Dante’s face. “You are my son,” he said. “You can hate me all you want, but that truth remains—you are the child of Lucien and Genevieve.”

Dante jerked his head away from Lucien’s touch and pushed fever-hot hands against his bare chest, preparing to shove away, then stopped. A single clear note rang through Lucien, reverberating through his flesh and back into Dante’s palms. Wonder lit Dante’s face. Gold gleamed in his eyes. Energy played back and forth between them; a creawdwr drawn by his creation, an aingeal captivated by his Maker.

Dante yanked his hands from Lucien’s chest. Lucien saw the questions in his eyes as the golden gleam faded: What was that? What just happened?

“There are things I must teach you,” Lucien said. “Before it’s too late.”

Dante shook his head, his hands clenching into fists against his thighs.

Lucien wanted to shake reason into his headstrong child even as he wanted to embrace him, hold him close and safe. “Yes, whether you like it or not.”

“The Big Guy’s your fucking daddy? Holy shit!” Jordan laughed.

Blue flames arced around Lucien, burned through his veins with a cool, cleansing fire. He turned. His hand closed around the mortal’s purpled throat and squeezed. Jordan’s eyes bulged. His tongue protruded. He kicked, but Lucien blocked each slow-moving blow with his arm. A shame. This would be an easy death compared to what he’d imagined for him.

“No!” Dante’s fingers locked around Lucien’s wrist.

“What bargain did he strike with you?” Lucien said, voice low. Jordan thrashed, eyes rolling up white. Spittle flecked his lips. “Dante, what?”

“He’ll give me Gina’s last words.”

“In exchange for what?”

“A few more hours,” Dante said. “I…S…” Confusion flickered across his face. “I…agreed not to kill him until after Moore.”

“Ah, child,” Lucien sighed. He relaxed his hold, but didn’t release Jordan. His gaze shifted to Dante. “Her last words won’t change anything. How do you know he’s not lying to you?”

“I don’t,” Dante said. “But I’ll know Gina’s words from any he’d make up.” Pain and loss shadowed his face.

Fragile, Lucien realized. Dante’s endured too much. He needs Sleep. Blood. Quiet.

“There’s nothing you can do for those already gone,” Lucien said. “But Heather searches for you in D.C. She needs you. Not the dead. Their needs are over.”

“Heather, oui,” Dante breathed. His fingers slipped from Lucien’s wrist. “Is she safe? Who’s with her?”

Jealousy spiked from Jordan, black and bitter and sharp.

“She’s alone,” Lucien said, fixing his gaze on Jordan. Leaning in, he whispered into the mortal’s ear, “She yearns to return to Dante’s bed, his embrace. She’s forgotten you.”

Lucien released him. The mortal slumped, gasping and retching, supported only by his handcuffed wrist. Hatred poured out of him, hot and greasy, shimmering around him like oil on water. Lucien smiled.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Dante said. Exasperation and anger edged his voice. He ran a hand through his hair. “This ain’t the time for games. Someone’s trying to kill Heather and she’s alone. I gotta get to D.C.”

Lucien shook his head. “When the sun sets, I’ll take you home—”

“No. I’m gonna finish this.” Dante’s eyes dilated suddenly. His body tensed. “Do whatever the fuck you want, but I’m going to D.C.”

Pain whispered against Lucien’s shields, pain and droning voices. Why won’t the past release him? He reached for Dante. Lucien felt it as memory yawned open and swallowed Dante. Shook him. Lucien held him tight, heart hammering. His child’s eyes rolled up white. His body arched. Convulsed.

Memory seizure.

Dante wasn’t remembering. No, Lucien thought, that was too kind of a word for what his child experienced…relived…endured. A moment from Dante’s past rippled, like the land during a quake, edging up, then sheering away into darkness. Gone.

Dante endured, yes. Lucien’s throat tightened as he held his son’s trembling body, brushed the hair back from his pale face. But for how much longer? He could hide Dante from the Elohim, protect him from nightkind and every other creature walking the earth—but he couldn’t protect him from his past or from his own mind.

Dante needs to confront the past my absence condemned him to. Needs to confront Johanna Moore. Then, perhaps, he will heal.

Forgive me, my Genevieve. I failed to keep our son safe.

But I stand beside him now and will guard him forevermore.

“Sa fini pas,” Dante whispered. His eyes opened. Exhaustion shadowed his gaze, smudged the skin blue beneath his lashes.

“Shhh,” Lucien murmured, touching Dante’s temple. “It will end. I’ll drive the van while you Sleep. We’ll be in D.C. by nightfall.”

Dante’s eyes closed as Sleep took him.

Lucien eased his Sleeping child onto the bloodstained carpet. His gaze fell on the handcuffed mortal. Jordan glared at him with hate and jealousy.

Lucien moved beside him. Wrapped a hand around the knife hilt sticking up from his thigh, looked into Jordan’s seething gaze, and yanked. The mortal sucked air in through his teeth.

Lucien tilted his head, listening. “A god? I’ve known gods. You’re just rotting flesh needing to be buried.”

A grin stretched Jordan’s lips. “Yeah? Well, guess what? I’ve got Dante’s protection.” His gaze flicked to Dante’s Sleeping form. “Ain’t that an ass-kicker?”

The smell of pungent lust curled into the air. Lucien grasped Jordan’s chin, forced his gaze away from Dante. “Touch him again and I’ll peel that rotting flesh from your bones while you watch with lidless eyes.”

Jordan jerked free of Lucien’s hand. “I’ve got something he wants.”

Lucien shrugged. “Your bargain is with Dante, not me. Remember that.”

Jordan looked away. A muscle twitched in his jaw.

Half an hour later, Lucien pulled the van back onto I-75 and into Tennessee. Jordan sat in the front passenger seat, his right wrist handcuffed to the molded emergency grip above the passenger window. He stared straight ahead, face sullen.

Dante Slept behind the curtain on the rear seat Lucien’d unfolded, a blanket draped over him, head to toe. The bloodied air bed and protective sheet of plastic had been tossed into a Dumpster. Using the mortal’s Zippo, Lucien burned the file on S, but kept the photos of Dante.

Snow drifted down from the gray late-morning sky. Lucien listened for trilling wybrcathls, but the sky remained silent. None of the Elohim winged overhead in answer to his wybrcathl, seeking the creawdwr who’d sang a powerful, chaotic response.

Yet.

32

A Rising Storm

VOICES PENETRATED THE DARKNESS —quiet voices, terse.

“Traffic’s finally moving,” a man said. “We’ll be there in fifteen.”

A radio crackled. A car, then. A heater purred warmth into the air. A lurching forward motion.

“This is some storm,” a woman said. “I hope we don’t get snowed in.”

“Check Wallace.”

Fabric rustled. Vinyl creaked. A whiff of sweet melon. Perfume?

“Still out.”

Heather’s heart double-timed as memory awakened. Parka and Trenchcoat. The airport. Falling. Snow cold against her face.

We’re taking you to Dr. Moore.

Images flashed through Heather’s mind, stark and vivid—Dante slipping out the window of his smashed MG; Dante sprawled across the threshold of Ronin’s house, blood trickling along his temple; Jordan grinning as he drove away in the van—and her heart sank.

Have I failed again?

Heather felt herself sliding toward darkness once more. She bit the inside of her cheek. Tasted blood. The gray morning light and bright swirling snow hurt her eyes, lanced pain into her head. She shifted her gaze to the seat in front of her, focused on the beige vinyl. Ignored the hypnotic whoosh-shoosh of the windshield wipers. Her entire body tingled, like she’d taken a massive shot of Novocain.

Glancing down, Heather saw her purse on the floor behind the front passenger seat. No doubt she’d been patted down and her .38 confiscated. She tried to move her hands. The index finger on her right hand twitched. A quick look confirmed that her hands were cuffed in front. Easier to slide her onto the backseat with her hands in front instead of behind?

Heather closed her eyes in case Trench checked on her again. She struggled to keep her breathing even without slipping into the comforting embrace of sleep. Why did Moore want her? Did she suspect that Jordan and Dante were on their way to D.C.? If she’d tried to have Heather killed in New Orleans, why not now? What had changed?

If Moore wanted her dead, like Stearns had said, why weren’t these two taking her to the woods or a field and putting a bullet in her skull?

Had someone intervened? Spoken for her? Her father, perhaps?

She suddenly flashed back to her recurring dream of the shadow-faced driver slipping out of the idling car, hammer gleaming in his hand.

No. She shoved the memories and images away. Focus on now. Vinyl creaked and she kept her eyes closed, counting to a thousand before she risked a glance through her lashes. Trench’s blonde head faced the windshield.

The tingling intensified, shifted into a prickling vibration. Heather’s hands clenched into fists. Hope ignited within her. She relaxed her hands. The tingling and prickling faded to a pins-and-needles sensation. She lifted her cuffed hands, her gaze fixed on Trench’s blonde head, and edged her awakening fingers toward her purse.

The wipers tick-tocked across the windshield. The snow-chained tires crunched through the snow, the sound thick and muffled. Heather’s fingers slipped inside her purse. Her pulse thundered in her ears.

Her fingers fumbled through the purse’s contents, tracing shapes, seeking a slim edge, seeking the feel of metal, the grit of alley dirt. Her heart thudded hard against her chest as Trench moved her head, then glanced out the passenger window. Heather yanked her hands out of her purse and returned to her original position. Closed her eyes. Breathed in and out, slow.

“It’s really coming down,” Trench said.

“The commute home’s gonna be a bitch.”

“If you get to go home.”

“I’m getting out of there if I have to snowshoe home,” Parka said, voice low, tense. “Have you read any of those reports? Do you know what S is?”

Heather listened, eyes closed, her fingers inching back to her purse. So Moore does know. But how?

“I know,” Trench murmured. “I’ll admit, I’m curious. I kinda want to see him in the flesh, y’know?”

Heather’s hands dove into her purse. Her fingers plunged to the bottom.

Parka snorted. “You know what they say about curiosity and the cat.”

“Yeah, yeah. When did you get to be such an old maid?”

“I don’t plan on being psycho bait,” Parka said.

A finger tapped against a sharp point. Cool metal touched her palm. Heart hammering, Heather slipped the nail file out of her purse.

“Me neither,” Trench said. “Maybe that’s what she’s for.”

Parka grunted.

Heather froze. Moore couldn’t know about her relationship with Dante. Unless…Dante was still being monitored, hidden cameras watching his every move at home and at the club. If so, it explained why she wasn’t dead and buried beneath the snow.

And De Noir? Had he abandoned her to search for Dante? Intuition told her yes. The memory of De Noir’s stricken face burned bright in her memory. Hush, child. I will find you.

Eyes burning behind closed lids, Heather wished it so—funneled every bit of awakening energy, every future birthday wish, into the image of Dante safe beneath De Noir’s black wings.

In the meantime, she didn’t need intuition to tell her she was alone and without backup. Her fingers curled around the nail file. She lifted her hands, raised them to her chest. Dropped the file inside her blouse. Tucked it inside her bra.

Saved my ass in the alley.

She hoped it would again. She dropped her hands, lay still. A moment later, vinyl creaked and she caught another whiff of Trench’s sweet melon perfume.

The car slowed, then stopped. Cold air blew into the car as Parka rolled down a window. “Hey, Morris,” he said. “Where is everyone?”

“Doctor Moore sent most everybody home ’cause of the storm,” a gravelly voice answered. Security check? “I’m surprised you’re coming in.”

“Me too,” Parka grumbled as he rolled up the window, sealing off the flow of frigid air. The car moved forward, snow crunching beneath the tires.

A moment later, it stopped again. Parka switched off the engine. Heather opened her eyes. Glancing up, she caught Parka’s blue-eyed gaze in the rearview mirror. Caught the lift of his eyebrow. Heather tensed. Parka knew. While she’d been watching Trench, he’d been watching her.

“Looks like our passenger’s awake,” Parka said. He opened his door and stepped out. Cold air and snow whirled into the car before he shut the door.

Trench swiveled in her seat, looked at Heather. “Let’s do this easy. Okay?”

Heather nodded. She pushed herself up into a sitting position with her elbows. White specks whirled through her vision like snow. She lowered her head until the dizziness passed. Another blast of cold air followed by a solid thunk told her Trench had gotten out of the car.

The passenger’s side door opened. Parka reached in, grasped Heather’s upper arm. Snow blew into the car. Heather looked at him. He held her gaze for a long moment, then helped her out of the car and into the storm.

The cold bit through Heather’s trench, iced her fingers, stung her cheeks. She stared at the building ahead of them, at the sign half hidden by the blowing snow.

The Bush Center for Psychological
Research

WHAT HEATHER HAD SEEN in Parka’s eyes stunned her. He knew she’d taken the file, but kept silent.

Trench gripped Heather’s other arm. They crossed the parking lot hunched against a whirlwind of stinging snow and ice.

JOHANNA WATCHED ON THE security monitor as Bennington and Garth escorted Wallace into No. 5 and stripped her of her trenchcoat and shoes.

“Tell Moore I want to talk to her,” Wallace said, her voice surprisingly strong and level for a woman recovering from a dose of Down-in-Three.

Garth exited the room without a word, Wallace’s black trench draped over her arm, her shoes in hand. Bennington paused at the door, and then looked back.

“Might as well relax,” he said. “It could be a while.”

“Do you know why I’m being held?”

Bennington shook his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I don’t.” He walked from the room, closing the door behind him. Red light scrolled across the door panel as it locked.

Wallace walked the padded room’s circumference, her sharp gaze flicking up to the ceiling. No fool, Johanna mused. After one circuit of the room, Wallace sat, her back against the north wall. Wrapping her arms around her drawn-up knees, she lowered her head. Red hair swung forward to veil her face.

Headache and lingering sleepiness—two aftereffects of the trank. Johanna swiveled her chair away from the monitor. She glanced at the file on the polished surface of her desk. Wallace’s record was exemplary. She’d done well in the Academy, graduating at the top of her class at age twenty-five. In the six years since, Wallace had proven to be a dedicated, talented and intelligent agent.

And, if Johanna remembered right, intuitive and compassionate and tough.

Memory sparked. A test given to the recruits to determine their motives for wanting to join the FBI; the simplest question the most revealing.

Why do you want to be an agent of the FBI?

Most answers had been along the lines of to get the bad guys off the streets or to help protect my country or to make a difference or even to have a career in law enforcement with decent wages.

But Wallace’s answer was the one Johanna remembered: I want to be a voice for the victims. To be a voice for the dead, a voice of justice. She wondered if Wallace still believed in justice, still yearned to be a voice for the dead. Or had the last six years in the real world sucked her spirit dry?

Johanna combed her fingers through her hair. She hated losing an agent of Wallace’s caliber and potential. She’d been sharp enough to question the Pensacola M.E. on the autopsy findings and had been ballsy enough to challenge Anzalone to her face, then had returned to New Orleans to seek the true CCK.

A sudden thought flared to life. She didn’t have to lose Wallace. Could she turn her? Convince her to be a voice for justice—not for just a couple of decades, but for centuries? Millennia?

A better question: Was Johanna ready to be a mère de sang? Her first attempt had been during a vacation in New Orleans. In truth, she’d only meant to feast upon Genevieve. Not until she’d nearly drained the dark-haired beauty had Johanna heard the second tiny heartbeat. The mortal hadn’t even known she was pregnant. Burning with curiosity, she’d forced her blood past Genevieve’s pale lips.

What would happen to an embryo when the mother was turned?

The result was on his way home, guided by Johanna’s père de sang, S’s grandfather, in a way.

Unless—was Ronin on his way with E and S? Her heart said yes, disaster runs behind the storm, blood-borne. Did her True Blood Sleep within Ronin’s embrace even now?

Did he whisper lies into S’s ears?

Or worse, the truth?

Johanna turned to the monitor. Wallace still sat against the wall, arms around her knees, head down. Red hair hid her lovely face. Red hair.

Johanna stared at Wallace’s image. Chloe. Could she use Wallace as a lure for her little True Blood? Get him away from Ronin? Turn him against Ronin?

Let Wallace mull her fate for a few hours. Then Johanna would offer her a choice.

HEATHER DOZED, HEAD CUSHIONED upon her arms. Dreams and images pulsed in the darkness behind her eyes like the pain throbbing in her head.

Pulse: Pleasure lights Dante’s face, gleams golden in his eyes as he enters her. She smells him—burning leaves and frost.

Pulse: She tucks her face against De Noir’s neck as he carries her through the cold night sky.

Pulse: Elroy Jordan stands over her as she sleeps, a knife glinting in his hand. He touches a finger to her hair.

Pulse: Stearns fires. Dante falls and falls and falls…

Heart pounding hard and fast, a cry caught in her throat, Heather grabbed for Dante. Her hand seized his; his pale fingers closed around her wrist. And they fell. Dante wrapped his arms around her, hugged her tight against him as they plunged through a starless night. He kissed her, and the touch of his lips set her ablaze.

She burned as they plummeted, entwined, a falling star. The wind of their passage streaked her fiery hair across the sky. Dante’s black tresses coiled around her flickering strands.

A song pulsed into her, vibrating through her, into her, dark and intense and pounding; it burned within her heart, her soul—Dante’s song.

I’m coming for you, chérie.

I’ll be here, Dante. Right here.

Shhh. Je suis ici.

She heard the rush of wings.

Heather’s eyes flew open. Her heart bashed against her ribs. Leaning back against the wall, she sucked in a deep breath of air. Her head still ached.

I’m coming for you, chérie.

Heather folded those words into her heart, kept them safe. Dante’d spoken to her. She didn’t know how, maybe because he’d drank her blood and that linked them, maybe because she’d dozed in an altered state created by the drugs in her system. But her intuition, her gut instinct, told her Dante was on his way.

Closing her eyes, she smiled. Hope kindled warm and bright within her. Her headache lessened. Her exhaustion faded. If Dante was on his way, then he’d gotten away from Jordan. Maybe De Noir had found him.

A buzzing at the door opened her eyes. The door swung open and a tall blonde woman stepped in. Dr. Johanna Moore. She wore a Euro-stylish tweed skirt suit dyed a deep red, her blouse as white as the walls of the room. She held a gun pointed at the floor in her right hand.

“I remember you from the Academy,” Moore said, her voice light and conversational, as though she was at a business luncheon instead of in a padded room. “I was impressed by your empathy for victims.”

Heather stood. The throbbing in her head increased with the movement. “Really? I’m surprised you recognized it.” She pushed her hair back from her face and met Moore’s gaze. “Are you here to do your own dirty work?” she said, nodding at the pistol.

Moore’s smile tilted. Her gaze seemed to turn inward for a moment. “If it comes to that,” she said, voice soft. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll regret it.” She stood in the center of the room, a rose petal in snow.

“Not even a little bit,” Heather said. “Do you regret Rosa Baker’s death? How about all the other victims of the Cross-Country Killer—Elroy Jordan?”

Moore’s blue eyes brightened. “Sounds like you still long to be a voice for the dead. I’d wondered.”

“That’s never changed.”

“For most, it does.”

“What do you care?” Heather glanced at the door, estimated the distance. Wondered how many seconds she’d have before Moore spun and fired.

“I can give you E,” Moore said.

Heather’s heart thumped hard against her chest. She looked at Moore. Studied her pale face. Sincerity glimmered in her eyes, but Heather had a feeling she only saw the shallows; in the blue depths, dark things lurked.

“You can finally speak for his dead. Give justice to the families of his victims. All you have to do is say yes.”

“Ah. The catch. Yes to what?”

Moore parted her lips. Heather stared at the revealed fangs, thoughts spinning, blood cold.

“To me,” Moore said.

33

Homecoming

I’ll be right here, Dante. Right here.

Dante drew in a deep breath and awakened. Behind his closed eyes, his vision of Heather fell away, her hair streaking the night with flames. Waiting for him. He still felt the soft, warm touch of her lips, tasted her on his tongue.

Dante opened his eyes. Darkness, warm and close. His heart jumped within his chest. Adrenaline surged through his veins. Before-Sleep images, fractured and random, strobed through his mind.

A knife hilt sticks up from his chest.

Someone calls his name. He turns.

The Perv reads to him, voice low, coiled with excitement.

A blood-grimed hand gropes along his body, unbuckles his belt.

Lucien looks down at him, gold flecks in his black eyes. My son.

“I’m still here,” Lucien said. His voice rumbled from in front of Dante.

Dante reached up and pushed away the darkness. A blanket. Sitting up, he shook his hair back from his face. Still in the van, he thought, taking in his surroundings. But the air bed was gone and the Perv—

Dante touched a hand to his slashed and blood-stiff T-shirt. Felt the healed, still tender flesh underneath. His muscles tensed beneath his fingers. He remembered the shiv punching into him again and again.

Dante parted the curtain. Night smudged the sky. Lucien drove the van, his gaze fixed on the snow-covered road, on the glowing red taillights of the traffic in front of him. Dante glanced at Elroy, at his wrist cuffed to the grip above the passenger window. Breathed in his ripe odor of old sweat, blood, and bitterness. The smell stirred the embers of Dante’s rage to life.

“Where are we?” Dante asked, his attention still focused on Elroy.

“D.C.”

Elroy glanced at Dante. “Oh, goody. You’re awake.” Shadows cast by signs and streetlights flitted across the Perv’s face.

Dante remembered the adrenaline-sharp taste of his blood. Hunger stirred.

“J’ai faim,” he said, his gaze lingering on the Perv’s bruised throat.

“Feast, then,” Lucien said. “He has no other use.”

Elroy went still. Dante caught the heady smell of fear.

“I’ve got Gina’s last words,” the Perv said. He pressed himself against the passenger door, his gaze fixed on Dante. “You promised. Not till after.”

“S promised,” Lucien said. “Not Dante.”

“Hey, you said there was no S,” Elroy protested. “No S, just Dante.”

Lucien shrugged. “Believe everything you hear?”

Voices echoed, like words spoken across a chasm. Dante closed his eyes.

We cool?

A pound or two or three of flesh, right?

Still gonna kill me?

“Oui,” Dante said. He opened his eyes. Elroy stared at him. “But not till after.”

The Perv nodded. “Yeah. That’s right.”

Dante pulled his gaze away from Elroy, tried to shut out the sound of the blood rushing through his veins. Wind buffeted the van, slanting snow across the windshield.

<I dreamed of Heather,> Dante sent to Lucien. <I’m pretty sure Moore has her.>

<Do you know where?>

Dante sent an image of a white padded room. His heart double-timed. Wasps droned. But memory skittered away from his grasp.

<Ah. The research center, no doubt.>

The city looked emptied and desolate. Traffic signals swung in the wind, flashing red, yellow, and green lights across the snow drifts. Icicles dangled from stark tree limbs, sparkled from the edges of buildings.

The van crawled along the street, tires scrunching across the snow. Dante glanced at the green-lit map screen on the van’s console. Almost there.

<Hang on,> he sent, not sure Heather could still hear him, their link blood-forged and temporary. <I’m coming for you.> He’d said the same words to Jay. Would he fail Heather, too?

Penance.

Dante-angel?

Hush, princess. Go on back to sleep. I ain’t gonna fail her like I failed you.

Promise?

“Promise,” he whispered as Chloe slipped through the cracks in his memory and disappeared. He tried to summon her image, tried to remember her face. He hit a wall at light speed. Pain pierced his temples. He sniffed and tasted blood at the back of his throat. Watched it drip onto his hand.

Fuck. Not now!

Dante tipped his head back against the seat. As the minutes stretched past, his pain eased, edged into the background behind his thoughts. The van stopped. A hand grasped his knee.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Why did you stop?”

“We’re there.”

Dante lifted his head and looked past Lucien to the window. Snow fell hard and fast. He made out a building hunched in the darkness beyond the snow. Light spilled from the windows.

Reaching into his jeans pocket, he tugged free the handcuffs key. He climbed up between the front seats and stretched across Elroy to unlock the cuff. He heard the Perv’s heart rate pick up speed. Felt him shiver. Dante turned the key.

The cuff dropped free of the emergency grip. “I’ll give you Gina’s words when we’re inside the building,” Elroy said, lowering his arm. “Then may the best Bad Seed bad-ass win.”

“This ain’t a fucking contest.” Dante slid across the rest of the way and opened the door. Icy air and snow gusted into the van as he hopped to the ground. The snow-covered pavement felt slick under his boots.

Elroy shivered again, this time from the cold.

Dante tucked the key back into his pocket. “Get out. You run, I’ll catch you. I catch you, I’ll kill you.”

Elroy’s jaw tightened. His brows slanted down. He looked away, but before he did, Dante saw the mask slip; saw the grinning monster, his eyes bottomless pits that sucked in every scream, memorized every etched line of pain, captured each second of fear and despair.

It was the face Dante had seen as the shiv had punched into him, over and over and over. Red flashed through his vision. Grabbing Elroy by his shirt collar, Dante yanked him out of the van and into the snow.

Elroy hit the snow-covered pavement on his shoulder. Grunted in pain.

Dante bent, locked a hand around the Perv’s arm and hauled him to his feet. Wind whipped through Dante’s hair, iced his skin, his face. He felt Lucien’s heat-radiating presence beside him.

Dante remembered Heather saying that her killer was mortal, all DNA evidence human. Remembered Elroy’s hands sliding along his body, groping, fondling; remembered the stab wounds on Gina’s body; remembered the anarchy symbols cut inside her thighs.

“I fucked up,” Dante said. “You lied to me. You killed Gina. Not Ronin.”

“I still have her last words,” Elroy managed through chattering teeth.

“Not anymore.”

Dante shoved Elroy down into the snow and sat on him. Twisting the Perv’s head aside, he bent and sank his fangs into the monster’s bruised throat. Blood pulsed hot into his mouth. Elroy shrieked.

Dante plunged into his mind.

The Perv’s thoughts and memories rushed into Dante’s mind like a dark and dirty flood—corpse-ridden, sexed-up, spiked with sharp shivs and hard dicks. Diving deep, Dante searched for Gina.

Thunder boomed through the night. Thunder or a shotgun.

“I OFFER YOU A rare and priceless gift,” Johanna Moore said. “Just think of what you could do with it. The justice you could render.”

Heather kept her back to the wall and her eyes on Moore. “And if I say no, you’ll give me the not-so-rare gift of a bullet to the head.”

Moore’s shoulder lifted in an apologetic half shrug. “I’ll have no choice.”

“Is that how you justify what you do?” Heather said. Again she measured the distance to the door. “Do you think you’re aiding society by murdering mothers and twisting their children into killers?”

“Ah. Stearns gave you the file, after all.” Regret flickered in Moore’s eyes. “So you know what S is.”

“I know Dante’s willing to risk his life for his friends,” Heather said. “I know you failed with him.”

Amusement lit Moore’s face. “Failed? I don’t think so.”

Heather tensed, preparing to run. Better to die trying than not to try at all. “You’re a vampire. How could you do what—” An image spun into Heather’s mind, slamming aside her thoughts. She saw Dante’s face and words rang like crystal through her mind: Hang on.

The image vanished and she stumbled, dazed, heart pounding. Dante was close. She looked up into Moore’s wide blue eyes, watched as comprehension took root.

“You didn’t go back to New Orleans for E,” Moore said slowly. “You went back for S…for Dante. You slept with him. He drank your blood, didn’t he?”

Heather grabbed for the Glock, but even stunned and musing, Moore moved, yanking her gun hand out of reach and closing her free hand around Heather’s throat, knocking her back into the padded wall. Gasping for air, Heather pulled at the fingers clamping into her throat and cutting off her air. Moore’s fingers felt like steel. Spots flecked her vision.

“And now he’s coming for you. Not me.” Disappointment edged Moore’s voice.

Moore’s hand dropped away. Heather slid down the wall to a sitting position. She sucked in air, coughing. Tears blurred her vision.

“Should I let him have you?” Moore murmured. “Should I take you from him? Should he do it himself?”

“He’s no longer a little boy,” Heather said, throat aching, voice hoarse. “He won’t fall for your tricks. He’ll see through them.”

“Will he?” Moore whispered. “I don’t think so.”

A voice issued from a speaker near the ceiling: “Doctor Moore. We’ve got guests in the parking lot.”

“I’ll be right there.”

Moore hooked a hand under Heather’s arm and hauled her to her feet. A smile twisted her lips. “I guess you have a little time to mull things over. Consider this—say yes and I’ll give you back to Dante.”

Heather jerked free of Moore’s grip. “He won’t listen to you.”

Moore laughed. “He never did.” She strode from the room, the door shutting behind her. A red telltale lit up. LOCKED.

THUNDER BOOMED AND ROLLED across the sky.

Suddenly, Dante’s weight was gone and E gasped in a breath of cold air. Rolling to his feet, he risked a glance over his shoulder. The Big Guy held Dante by the collar of his leather jacket. Directed his attention away from E—thanks, Big Fella! But it won’t save you—and toward the figures approaching. One figure lifted a long, dark thing. Fire erupted. Thunder rolled again.

Shotgun.

E ran.

JOHANNA HURRIED DOWN THE corridor to the security room, her heels clicking against the tiled floor. Her heart fluttered against her ribs like a wild bird in a cage.

My père de sang and my beautiful True Blood have arrived. And E.

I have long dreaded this night. Long looked forward to it.

Wallace and S. Johanna shook her head, amazed that she’d overlooked something so obvious. With Wallace’s red hair, it was inevitable that S would want her. Did he think he actually cared for Wallace? He wants to save her.

And if he does?

Ah, but what if he doesn’t?

She swiped her card through the security room’s lock, yanked open the door, and stepped inside. Garth and Bennington, trapped by the storm, both glanced up from a monitor. Only two guards remained on-site, also trapped by the storm. Noting their absence, Johanna guessed they’d gone outside to confront the unauthorized guests. She sighed. Ronin would kill them, of course.

“Let me see,” Johanna said, stepping past the two agents. She perched in the chair before the monitor. It showed the front parking lot. A van was parked in the center of the snow-buried lot. Three figures stood near the van, but the heavy snow and wind obscured Johanna’s view. One stood much taller than the other two and all seemed to be Caucasian. She frowned.

“Where’s Ronin?”

“Haven’t seen him,” Garth said. “Only those three.”

As Johanna watched, one figure shoved another into the snow, then sat on him. As the figure’s head dipped, the wind stopped for a moment. Gleam of leather and chains, long black hair, white skin; her beautiful child. And it looked like he was feasting on E.

A smile touched Johanna’s lips. Seems like I can’t give Wallace E, after all.

Then she realized who the tall third figure was—Lucien De Noir, S’s wealthy friend and companion. No shirt. Must be vampire as well.

Two figures in hooded parkas entered the parking lot. McCutcheon and Ramm. Johanna tensed. Just what were they planning on doing? Issuing a parking citation? Shooing them off the property?

“What—” Johanna’s mouth snapped shut when one of the guards raised a rifle, no, shotgun, and fired. She stared at the screen, pulse roaring in her ears.

De Noir grabbed S by his jacket collar and pulled him off E, shielded the child with his own body. The shot went wide. Missed.

“Call them off,” Johanna said through clenched teeth. “Call those idiots off before they get killed.”

The door hissed as Bennington left. Johanna stared at the screen. E rolled to his feet, then staggered away into the storm, one arm in a sling, the other hand pressed against his bleeding throat.

Another shotgun blast. Johanna gritted her teeth. S ducked low, then moved. She gasped, astonished by his speed. Was it the True Blood? De Noir moved, as well, his speed equally astonishing. Then S stood over the body of one of the guards, hands clenched into fists at his sides. A puddle of blood, bright red and steaming, melted the snow. Johanna blinked. She hadn’t even seen S kill the guard. And the other? De Noir dropped the second guard’s broken body into the snow.

Apprehension rippled into Johanna. “We’ll direct them,” she said. “Lock down parts of the building and leave other areas open. We’ll have the advantage.”

Black wings flared behind De Noir. Johanna froze, mouth open, mind empty of rational thought. De Noir wrapped an arm around S and lifted him into the air. Into the storm.

Fallen. One of the Fallen walks at S’s side. Guides him. And I feared Ronin?

Johanna pushed away from the monitor, looked up into Garth’s stricken face. “Okay. Okay. I want you to shut down—”

An explosion echoed through the corridors. The power went out. The building plunged into darkness.

Johanna felt the icy touch of real fear.

LUCIEN DROPPED THE GUARD’S lifeless body into the snow. His wings untucked and fanned out into the wind. Before Dante could take off on his own, Lucien locked an arm around the boy’s waist and lifted them both into the air.

“What are you doing?” Dante automatically slipped an arm around Lucien’s neck.

“Looking for their power source.” The wind buffeted them. Ice edged Lucien’s wings. He scanned the power poles, listened to the frozen land. Captured electricity thrummed. Lucien smiled. He flapped down to the building’s rear. Touched bare feet to the snow-covered pavement and released Dante.

Dante saw the door marked FIRE EXIT and loped toward it.

<After I shut the power down, wait for me.>

<No.>

Lucien spiraled up into the savage sky, watching his son as he stood in front of the exit door, black hair whipping in the wind, his hand poised to grab the handle.

As he flew toward a transformer, Lucien wondered where Jordan had gone, wondered if the mortal would freeze to death and hoped he wouldn’t. Lucien had a different death in mind for him, one that involved his own knives and his own skin.

Hovering beside the transformer, Lucien arced blue flame across the sky.

A LOUD EXPLOSION VIBRATED in from outside. The light went out. Staring into the darkness, Heather reached inside her bra, felt beneath the warm curve of her breast for the nail file, and pulled it free.

She padded to the door. No red LOCKED light. Any secondary systems? If so, she’d better move before they switched on. She pushed. The door swung open. Pulse racing, Heather slipped out of the padded room and into the dark corridor. She pressed up against the wall. Listened. Allowed her eyes time to adjust.

Red lights flickered to life and bathed the corridor in an eerie glow. Nail file in hand, Heather made her way down the corridor. She wondered who had arrived. Jordan? Dante? De Noir had to be with Dante. Was Jordan still alive?

She remembered Dante’s words: I’m coming for you, chérie.

I’m here, Heather “shouted.” I’m here.

An image of Dante poured into Heather’s mind, washing away all thought, all worry. Dizziness whirled through her and she stumbled. Grabbing at the wall, she caught herself before she fell. She closed her eyes, breathing fast, fire searing her veins.

Dante’d heard and answered.

He was on his way.

E SHIVERED CONVULSIVELY. His hands and feet were numb, but his heart blazed, an inferno. An inferno he was dying to unleash on his betraying Bad Seed bro. He grinned, or tried to anyway, but his face was also numb. Maybe a grin was plastered across his face, frozen for all time.

Hunkered down behind a shrubsicle, E watched as De Noir—wow. Wings. Holy fucking shit!—rose into the sky, Dante clutched to his side. Something else Ronin had neglected to mention. Fucker.

E tasted bile at the back of his throat and swallowed. Thought of the hypo hidden in his sling. Thought about the sweet smell of dark cherries and Gina’s last words. He knew Dante wouldn’t leave without them.

Bam!

Heart thudding against his ribs, E glanced over his shoulder. The research center went dark. Swinging around, he ran for the door and the warmth beyond. Ran knowing Dante was stepping inside at the same moment.

A contest, fuck yeah. May the best Bad Seed bad-ass win.

E grabbed the ice-slicked door handle and, yanking it open, darted inside.

DANTE THREW THE DOOR open and ran inside, then stopped. Uneasiness curled through him, snaked around his spine. He breathed in the scent of pine antiseptic and ammonia. Memory prickled.

A woman, blue eyes almost black with wonder as she slides a knife into his side—

No, that was the Perv—or—

Wasps droned, needled venom beneath his skin. I’ve been here. Many times. Dante pushed the thought away, tried to refuse the memory, but it pushed back. Hard. Fragmented images whirled through his mind: Restraints strapped tight and biting into his wrists, his ankles, his chest; a liquid bead hanging from a needle tip; white walls smeared and streaked with blood.

The droning faded and Dante shuddered. Heather. Focus on Heather, dammit. Don’t fucking fall apart. Pain throbbed at his temples and behind his eyes; he shoved it below.

Red lights winked on. A fiery glow lit the corridor.

Heather’s voice whispered into his mind: I’m here. I’m here.

Dante listened for her heart, her steady, quiet rhythm. There. White light strobed at the edges of his vision.

Dante ran.

JOHANNA STRODE OUT INTO the corridor. The emergency backups powered on, flooding the building with red light. Garth stepped out behind her, gun in hand.

“Don’t shoot S,” Johanna said. “I have tranks for him.”

“What am I supposed to do if he comes at me in the meantime?” Garth asked, one eyebrow arched. “Throw my gun at him? Offer my fucking throat?”

“You wanted to see him. Well, here he is. Just stay out of his way.”

“Great. What about the guy with wings?”

Good question. “I’d advise staying out of his way, as well.” Johanna moved, leaving Garth alone. And cursing.

Her little True Blood walked corridors he hadn’t walked in six years. He’d been seventeen the last time she’d had him drugged and picked up. Of course, he had no memory of that, just another blank spot in his mind.

But this time, S walked these halls because he chose to. Because he meant to rescue Wallace. Because he meant to confront Johanna. Her heart jumped when she remembered his speed.

Confront? No, he means to kill. That’s what he knows. It’s in the blood.

HEATHER GLANCED DOWN THE empty red-lit corridor. She still felt the heat of Dante’s mental touch; his image-voice circled through her mind—On my way.

Pushing away from the wall, she ran down the corridor in her stocking feet, the green-cool glow of the EXIT signs her guide. She couldn’t stay put and wait for Dante to find her. Couldn’t risk Moore finding her first. Couldn’t risk Dante sacrificing himself for her. Because she knew he would.

Shhh. Je suis ici.

Pain bit into the undersides of the fingers on Heather’s right hand. She glanced down. Her hand, white-knuckled and stinging, was clenched around the nail file. As she forced her fingers to relax, she heard a soft padding behind her, moving fast—

“Freeze, Wallace. Hold it right there.”

Heather heard the unmistakable sound of a round being chambered and smelled the faint scent of sweet melon. Trench. Parka’s partner.

“I’m not the one you need to worry about,” Heather said, tucking her fingers over the nail file. “He’s coming for me.”

“Psycho bait. I know. Turn around. Slow.”

“Walk away,” Heather said. She measured the distance to the corridor’s bend. If she was needed as bait, would Trench risk killing her?

“Don’t. I’ll put one into your knee.”

Heather stared straight ahead. Shifted her sweat-damp grip on the nail file. Slid the point between her fingers. Heard Moore saying: Should I let him have you?

Not for you to decide. Heather whirled to the left, her hand arcing up and over for a file-toothed shoulder punch. Then she froze.

Elroy Jordan jerked a syringe from Trench’s neck. The agent gasped, her eyes rolling up white. Her gun dropped from her fingers and clattered against the tiled floor. His gaze met Heather’s. Abyss-eyed. A shark’s unemotional regard.

“Looks like I’m the one she needed to worry about,” he said as Trench collapsed, limbs twitching against the floor tiles. He shook his head. “That was supposed to be for my Bad Seed bro.”

Trench went still, eyes wide. Silent. The pungent smell of piss filled the corridor.

“Oops,” Jordan said. He grinned.

Heather lowered her hand, tightened her fingers around the nail file. Her heart hammered against her ribs. Jordan, alive. But a little worse for wear—bruised and bitten throat, arm in a sling, disheveled.

Jordan’s gaze dropped to the gun on the floor between them. “Faithful Heather,” he murmured. “I knew you’d come for me.” He looked up. “But S is still mine.”

“Wrong,” Heather said. And lunged for the gun.

Jordan dropped at the same moment. As his fingers wrapped around the pistol’s grip, Heather stabbed the nail file into the back of his hand. Jordan screamed. She yanked the bloodstained file from Jordan’s hand. Lifted it again.

But Jordan spun on his knees and slid the pistol down the corridor behind him. The gun skittered across the gleaming tile into darkness.

Jordan sprang to his feet. “Whoever finds Dante first can keep him.” He locked gazes with Heather. The abyss kaleidoscoped open within each eye, endless and hungry. “Race ya,” he said.

Heather ran.

JOHANNA REACHED THE MED unit. Her fingers curled around the door handle. A scream echoed through the center and she paused. Male—Bennington? E? A shadow jittered on the wall at the corridor’s end. She yanked open the door and slipped inside. As she eased the door shut, she tried to calm her frantic heart. She sneaked a peek out the door’s window.

Johanna felt him before she saw him—mingled pain and rage spiked against her shields. And desperation. He struggled for control. He burned.

She carefully removed her shoes, then stepped backward to the drug cabinets. S’s shadow stopped, twitched against the wall in the red light. Sweat trickled between Johanna’s breasts, along her temples.

As Johanna unlatched the cabinet, the door flew open and slammed against the wall, denting the plaster. She brought up the Glock. S stepped into the room and she couldn’t breathe for a moment, dazzled, as always, by his beauty.

“Welcome home,” she said.

S stopped, dark eyes perplexed. He winced, touched a hand to his head. Blood trickled from his nose.

“Dante!”

S spun. The red-haired agent grabbed the doorway’s threshold as she slid across the tile in her stocking feet. She looked past S to Johanna.

He wants to save Wallace.

Ah, but what if he doesn’t?

“Shit,” Wallace said.

Johanna fired.

A GUNSHOT CRACKED DOWN the corridor. E’s heart leapt into his throat. He edged around the corner. Hugged it. Dante knelt on the floor, his Heather cradled in his arms. She touched a shaking hand to the backstabber’s pretty face. E tensed.

Had her eyes gleamed golden? For Dante? For his cheating/ lying/backstabbing Bad Seed bro?

Looks like Heather won the race. Fire charred E’s heart. He reached into his sling, his fingers finding the syringe. He regretted emptying the vial into the ponytailed blonde, wished he’d saved just enough for Dante. Hand shaking with cold, with rage, he pulled the syringe free.

Something on the floor glinted in the red light. A gift to an angry god?

The bad-ass bloodsucker bent his head and kissed Heather’s lips.

E’s cindered heart crumpled to ash. Does she taste of honey? I bet she does. Syringe full o’ eye-pricking pain in hand, he stepped forward, back still pressed against the red-lit walls.

A dart suddenly sprouted from Dante’s neck. The bloodsucker shivered, but continued to kiss Heather. Or was he giving mouth-to-mouth? No, his Heather’s fingers were wrapped in Dante’s black hair.

Where had the dart come from?

E went still and watched. Johanna Moore stepped from the room behind Dante, leaned over him and plucked the dart free. Stroked his hair.

“You failed,” she whispered. “Again.”

Another shudder snaked the length of Dante’s spine, then he slumped to the side, Heather still in his arms, her fingers still entwined in his hair.

Together.

A strange wailing noise filled the corridor, rising and falling, like a siren. E became aware that he was running, the syringe raised in his bad hand like a shiv, when Bitch-Mommy’s head jerked up. Looked at him.

“Ffffuuuucccckkkkkk yyyyooooouuuuuuu!”

E scooped up the shining gift from the floor with his good hand. Metal, sharp and slender. A nail file.

Bitch-Mommy Moore lifted the Glock. Fired. Pain flowered in E’s chest, hot and full of thorns. Grinning, he kept running. Bitch-Mommy fired again. Another pain-flower blossomed in E’s belly. He launched himself. He flew, a golden arrow, a god of death, pure and terrible. Golden light starred from his body, piercing, white-hot, and unerring.

The god slammed into Johanna Moore, knocking her back into the room. The syringe broke off in her throat. The nail file punctured her gut. Choking, she shoved the god to the floor. The god’s stomach heaved blood up into his mouth. The god grinned. Bitch-Mommy clutched at the broken syringe in her throat and pulled it out. Then she lifted her eyes up and up and up.

So she finally sees me, the god thought.

Bitch-Mommy’s face turned fifty shades of white.

Pleased, the god closed his eyes.

SOMETHING HOT AND WET spread across the front of Heather’s blouse. She glanced down. Blood, bright red. Arterial. Dante caught her as she fell, gathered her into his strong arms. She looked at him and tried to say, I’m sorry, but couldn’t find her voice.

Cradling her against his chest, Dante dropped to his knees. She touched a shaking hand to his beautiful, devastated face and smoothed her thumb beneath his left eye.

“Not for me, Dante,” Heather whispered, showing him the moisture on her thumb. “No tears for me. Not your fault.”

Dante pulled her closer. His heat radiated into her. “I won’t lose you.” He lifted his wrist to his mouth and bit it. Dark blood welled up on his pale skin. He pressed the wound against her lips. “Drink,” he urged. “S’il te plait.”

Dante’s blood smeared across Heather’s lips as she turned her head away. It smelled of dark sun-warmed grapes and tasted like Dante’s kisses, heady and tempting. Her throat tightened.

“No,” she whispered. Her vision swam. “No. I want to stay what…I…am…” She shivered, suddenly cold. Sleepy.

Gold fire lit Dante’s eyes. Lowering his head, he kissed her.

DANTE’S SONG STIRRED WITHIN him, layering chord upon chord. Bending his head, he kissed Heather’s bloodstained lips and breathed his song into her. He filled her with his essence, kindling blue fire at her core. He imagined her whole, healed, and wove blue-lit thread through her wound. Heather’s fingers twisted around his hair. Her faltering heart beat strong and fast.

Something stung Dante’s neck.

“You failed,” a familiar voice said. “Again.”

Dante shivered as cold spread through him, crackling like ice through his veins. His song faltered.

“Not true,” Heather murmured against his lips.

He tasted the salt of her tears. Fire flared for a moment, and he breathed it into her before they sank together beneath the ice, plunging through starless night.

PAIN AND GRIEF SLAPPED against Lucien’s shields like twin tsunamis, receding to return in ever stronger waves, deadlier surges. He ran, following his bond to Dante. Loss reverberated within Lucien like a broken song. Power swirled into the air, buoyed by a creawdwr’s energy. Then, Dante lapsed into unconsciousness.

As Lucien rounded the corner, he saw Jordan fling himself at Johanna Moore, a syringe in one fist, a bit of metal in the other. He saw Moore shoot Jordan twice before the mortal tackled her. They both hit the floor hard. Her gun skittered across the tiles, coming to a stop against Dante’s back.

Dante lay in the corridor, his arms wrapped around Wallace. Fading blue flames sparked and danced around them. Lucien heard Dante’s slow, measured heartbeat, smelled the chemicals flowing in his blood. Wallace’s heart pulsed, as well, a rapid patter.

In one long stride, Lucien stood beside his drugged child and the woman he cared for—cared for enough to sacrifice his own safety to ensure hers—but hadn’t that always been his way?

It was one of the things Lucien loved and treasured most in Dante—his compassionate heart. All the things Moore had subjected his child to hadn’t stolen that compassion or broken his spirit. He was wounded, yes, and some of the wounds might never heal, yes. But he’d survive. And he’d love.

Lucien saw Genevieve in every act of love Dante performed, in every kindness he showed. In those moments, Lucien saw his laughing, dark-haired little Genevieve.

But, as for the woman who’d killed her…

Lucien swiveled and watched as Johanna Moore pushed herself free of Jordan’s body. Her hand reached up, grabbing the broken syringe in her throat. She yanked it out, blood trickling from the puncture, then froze, her gaze traveling up the length of Lucien’s body.

Johanna Moore paled. Her fingers froze around the sliver of steel in her belly.

Jordan’s blood-frothed lips curved into a smile. His eyes closed.

“Do you remember Genevieve Baptiste?” Lucien asked, kneeling beside Dante. “My son’s mother?” He picked up Moore’s gun and tossed it down the darkened hall.

Shock blanched Johanna’s face. Widened her eyes. “Your…son?” she whispered.

“Oui, mon fils,” Lucien said. He glanced at Heather; she opened her eyes. “But, I believe my question was—do you remember Genevieve Baptiste?”

Lucien slipped an arm around Heather and eased her up, helping her to sit against the wall. Her gaze remained on Dante, reluctant to leave him. Lucien touched a talon beneath her chin. Heather regarded him with shock-dilated eyes.

“It’s all right,” he promised.

Heather drew in a deep breath, then winced. Lucien brushed her hair back from her face. Her wound no longer bled, but she needed medical attention. The drugs had kept Dante from finishing whatever it was he’d started.

“I’m waiting,” Lucien said.

“Yes, I remember her,” Moore stammered, voice rough. She yanked the file from her flesh. It hit the floor with a sharp tink.

Lucien drew a talon across his wrist. Blood welled up. He looked at Moore from beneath his brows. “Say her name.”

“Genevieve Baptiste,” Moore breathed. “I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have—”

“Be silent,” Lucien said, gathering Dante into his arms.

Moore closed her mouth.

Lucien pressed his bleeding wrist against Dante’s lips. The blood smell roused Dante’s nightkind instinct and he sucked at the wound, swallowing the healing blood. Lucien knew it wouldn’t cleanse all of the drug’s effects, but it would lessen them.

Looking back at Moore, Lucien said, “I’ve read the file. I’ve seen the CD. I know what you’ve done to Dante. To him and to his mother, my love.”

Moore looked away. She trailed a shaking hand through her blonde hair.

Why have you abandoned us?

Lucien tasted the ashes of bitter regret. He deserved Dante’s hate, perhaps.

My Genevieve, I am with our son. He is safe at last.

Lucien pulled his wrist away from Dante’s mouth, then bent and kissed him, breathing energy in between his lips. Urged his son up to consciousness.

Awaken, child. Time to take your revenge.

Time to free yourself from the past.

Dante’s eyes opened, revealing dilated gold-rimmed pupils.

“AVENGE YOUR MOTHER,” LUCIEN whispered. “And yourself.”

Pushing Lucien’s arms aside, Dante sat up. The corridor spun. Colored flecks starred his vision. His head ached, but a different kind of pain knifed his heart.

Heather.

He looked for her, saw her resting against the wall, a smile on her pale lips. Rising to his feet, he crossed the floor and, kneeling, touched a hand to her face.

He breathed a little easier knowing she’d live. He’d flooded energy and song into her, seeking what was broken. He wasn’t sure what he’d done, but it had worked. He hadn’t lost her.

Heather laid her hand over his, her skin cool. Wonder lit her face. “I hear a song. It’s dark and furious and heartbreaking. So beautiful. Is it coming from you?”

Dante nodded. Leaning in, he kissed her. Her fingers inter-laced with his. “Don’t listen,” he said against her lips. “Shut it out. D’accord?”

“Let it go. I can build a case against Moore,” Heather said. “Let it go, Dante.”

Dante leaned back. “No.” He squeezed her hand, then released it. He stood.

Heather closed her eyes. “Pigheaded,” she whispered.

Dante spun on his heel and strode across the corridor, past Lucien, Heather’s fear pressed like a rose against his heart. For him. She was scared for him.

<Guard her.>

<Of course.>

Elroy the Perv’s body stretched across the doorway, his shirt bloodied, his eyes empty, his heart silent. Dissipating heat shimmered up from the body. Dante’s hands curled into fists. Gina. Elroy had taken the last little bit of her to the grave.

“Name the one you love,” Dante whispered, stepping over the Perv.

Tomorrow night?

Always, ma petite.

Dante walked into a room rank with buried memories and the smell of old blood and medicine. He looked at the woman standing at the opposite wall—tall, blonde, nightkind. Never taking her eyes from him, she reached for a dart gun on the counter beside her.

Images sparked: She looks down at him, smiling. He smells Chloe’s blood congealing on the floor, on the straitjacket wrapped around him. “You’ve done well, little one. You failed to protect her, but you protected yourself. No one can ever be used against you if you’re willing to kill them yourself.”

Sparked: She tightens his restraints, smooths a hand through his hair, then, smiling, steps back as a man in a white lab coat and a clear mask walks into the room, a baseball bat clenched in his hand. And goes to work.

Wasps droned. Pain whispered through Dante’s mind. White light squiggled at the edges of his vision. He watched her hand slide to the dart gun; he let her curl her fingers around it.

She’s the one, Dante-angel.

I know, princess.

“My True Blood,” she said. A smile brushed her lips. “Do you remember me?”

“Oui,” Dante said, voice low. “I remember you.”

Dante moved and caught her wrist as she raised the dart gun, then slammed her against the wall. The dart gun tumbled from her fingers and tunked against the tile. Moore twisted, but Dante held her against the wall, his hands locked around her wrists, his body pressing against hers, his thigh between her legs.

Dante smelled the blood flowing through her veins, listened to the hard pounding of her heart, smelled her—cinnamon and cloves and cold, cold ice.

Smelled lust, smoldering and pheromone-rich.

Moore stopped struggling. She looked into Dante’s eyes. Her breath caught in her throat and another memory-fragment tore through his mind: Moore curled naked and warm beside him, reeking of blood and sex, her fangs in his throat, her fingers in his hair.

Rage coiled through muscles already taut. “What makes you different from him?” Dante nodded his head toward Jordan’s body behind him.

“I know what’s best for you.”

“Yeah, he thought so, too.”

“No one knows you like I do,” Moore said, voice husky. “I’ve explored your mind. Mapped your psyche. But it’s only a beginning. There are secrets, S—”

“Ain’t S.”

Music twisted through Dante: an aria, thorned and dark, prickling around his heart, rising, pounding, a crescendo of fury and chaos and loss. Chords strummed; chaos rhythm pulsed discordant and raw.

His song burned. Incandescent.

“Did my mother ask to be turned?” Dante asked. “Did she choose?”

“Yes. But, she changed her mind later, when it was too late. I couldn’t undo—”

“Liar,” Dante whispered.

“What’s that glow?” Moore breathed as he lifted his hands and cupped her face.

Chaos rhythm plucked at vibrating strands of DNA, breaking, compressing, erasing. Unmaking. Johanna Moore screamed, a long undulating sound that pierced Dante’s aching head. His song pulled her apart—divided her into elements, played an arpeggio with her core. Spilled her essence. Separated flesh and bone and blood.

Johanna Moore puddled on the floor, her scream ending with a wet gurgle.

Blue spikes of energy whipped around Dante, flamed from his hands. He shivered, caught in the song, the rhythms of chaos, the tempo of creation. Closed his eyes. He saw stars. Heard a rush of wings.

<Silence the song, child. You’ve avenged your mother.>

Dante opened his eyes. The song faded into silence. Pain scraped through his head. He tasted blood. He looked down at the moist strands that used to be Johanna Moore. Kicked them apart. Then he turned.

Lucien stared at him, eyes golden, wings arched behind him, his face both rapt and…scared? Dante wondered. Lucien, scared?

<Creawdwr.>

Dante walked to the doorway. He knelt beside Elroy’s cooling body. Could he pull Gina from a dead mind?

“Too late,” Lucien said. “You’ve chosen the living over the dead.”

Looking up, Dante saw Heather sitting across the hall, face stark, eyes dark and troubled. “Oui. The living over the dead.”

Forgive me, Gina.

Standing, Dante stepped over the Perv’s body one last time. He gathered Heather into his arms and carried her down the corridor. His muscles tightened as he smelled fear on her, fear of him. He held her close, his heart pounding hard.

A man in a snow-dusted parka stepped into the corridor, his hands out and open; Look, nothing hidden here! “I can call an ambulance,” he said.

“You can trust him,” Heather murmured. “He helped me.”

“Okay,” Dante said. “Call one.” He breathed in Heather’s scent—rain and sage and blood, drew it deep into his lungs. Scared it was the last time.

34

All that
Could’ve Been

“HEY.”

Heather looked up toward the doorway. Dante leaned there in leather and latex, one hand braced against the threshold. Fluorescent light winked from the ring in his collar and from the rings on his fingers. A half smile tilted his lips, lit his pale, gorgeous face. He raised his shades to the top of his head.

He still stole her breath away. She suspected that he always would.

Beyond him, in the corridor, nurses and CNAs stared, wondering who paid hospital visits wearing leather and bondage collars, wondering just what had wandered in from the frozen night.

“Hey,” Heather said.

She pressed her hands against the mattress, meaning to ease up, but then Dante was there, arms around her, helping her, his hands hot against her skin. Pain rippled through her and she caught her breath.

“What’s wrong?” Dante asked. “Do you need—”

“No. It’s okay.”

Dante looked at her for a long moment, his dark eyes searching her face. Then he inhaled deeply. He pulled the chair close to the bed and sat. He waited. Heather was pretty sure he knew what she was going to say—or, at least, suspected.

Reaching a hand over the bed railing, she grasped Dante’s hand. A smile ghosted across his lips. He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. She glanced out the window, at the room reflected in the black sky beyond, and the two people in that room, holding hands and keeping silent.

Heather thought of the mystified surgeons: the worst of the damage to her aorta and her left lung healed or closed off, or miraculously cauterized. She should’ve bled to death in minutes. She remembered the taste of Dante’s lips, the amaretto taste of his blood; remembered the cool fire he’d breathed into her.

None of which Heather could tell the surgeons. Or the investigators from the Bureau dispatched to take her statement, debrief her and uncover the truth. Or at least an official version of the truth. She knew better than to mention Bad Seed; she only discussed her hunt for a serial killer and how she’d finally found him.

One thing she knew for certain—her career with the Bureau was over. Her decision, one she hadn’t voiced yet. The powers that be would be happy to file her away at a desk in an obscure city; would, in fact, prefer it.

Heather kept Dante from all of them. He’d saved her life. Even without that, she’d never hand him over to federal wolves. Hadn’t Johanna Moore been wolf enough?

Johanna Moore. What Dante had done…Heather couldn’t wrap her mind around it. What had he done?

Dante cups Moore’s face. His hands tremble. Glow with blue light. Blue flame. His hair snakes up into the air. Energy crackles. Heather’s skin goose bumps. Her hair lifts. She smells ozone.

Blue light shafts into Moore’s body, explodes from her eyes, her screaming mouth. She…separates…into strands, wet and glistening, mingled blue and red. Dante unthreads her, separates every single part of her.

Johanna Moore spills to the tiled floor.

Energy continues to whip from Dante, blue tentacles snapping into the air and altering everything they touch. A counter twists into dark, heaving vines thick with blue thorns. The dart gun slithers into the shadows.

Dante’s beautiful face is ecstatic—like it had been when he’d torched the Prejean house.

In that moment, Heather had been terrified of Dante. Of what he could do. His potential. Yet…had Dante been a voice for his mother? For all of Johanna Moore’s victims?

“Talk to me,” Dante said.

Heather shifted her gaze from the window. Smiling, she squeezed his hand. He burned against her palm. Felt fevered. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“Ça va bien. I’m good.” Dante held her gaze, his own open and unwavering. “Talk to me, Heather.”

She nodded. Talk might help. “What you did to Moore…what…how…?”

“Dunno,” Dante said. He trailed a hand through his hair. “I’ve never done…that…before. The song you said you heard? It’s tied to that. I feel it inside.” He touched their linked hands against his chest, above his heart. “It’s like fingering the strings on my guitar, like composing on my keyboards.”

“Is it a nightkind or a Fallen ability?”

Dante stared at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

“Your father told me,” Heather said.

Dante nodded, then looked away. A muscle flexed in his jaw. After a moment, he said, “I’m pretty sure it’s a Fallen thing. I used to think it was nightkind, but…” He shrugged.

“Can you control it?”

“Not always. No.” Dante looked at her, reflected light gleaming in his eyes.

“Were you controlling it then?”

“More or less.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I didn’t have an outcome in mind,” he said, voice low. “But I wanted to finish it—end her fucked-up game.” His thumb once again rubbed back and forth across the back of her hand, a soothing gesture—for them both, she had a feeling.

Dante was nightkind and Fallen, and a killer. More than enough to send most women—sane women, anyway—screaming into the night. But there was so much more to him—a boy wishing his princess night-night, then walking into a basement alone; a man struggling with his emotions as he spreads his jacket over a friend’s body and sits beside her so she won’t be alone; a lover fitting against a woman like no other ever has—body and heart—asking her to stay.

It’s quiet when I’m with you. The noise stops.

Run from me.

Did either of those statements reflect Dante’s true center? Or did both? Had his life ever been his own? Heather scanned his dark eyes, his beautiful face. In spite of all he was or, maybe, because of it, he’d somehow captured her heart. Not knowing which scared the hell out of her. She needed answers. She needed a chance to catch her breath.

“Where is this going?” Dante said, watching her. His thumb was motionless on her hand. “Heather?”

“I want you to go home,” she said quietly. “I’m heading back to Seattle as soon as I’m released. There’s gonna be a ton of shit to deal with.”

“You don’t hafta deal with it alone.”

“Yes, I do.” Heather slipped her hand from his, grasped the cool metal railing. “Dante, I do. I’ve got things to think about—to sort through. I need a little distance. A little time. Nothing’s what I thought—what I believed it was.”

A half-smile tilted his lips. “Nothing and no one. Believe me, I understand.”

Heather cupped a hand against his face. “I bet you do.”

Closing his eyes, Dante leaned into her touch and closed his hand over hers.

“You need time, too,” she murmured. “You more than anyone.”

“Don’t tell me what I need.” Dante’s voice was rough, raw.

“Pigheaded,” she whispered.

Despite his denial, his life, his world, had been ripped apart—his hidden past, revealed. Did he know any of it yet? Would De Noir tell him? Should she?

“Has your father said anything about Bad Seed?” She slid her hand from his face.

Dante’s eyes opened. Something flickered in those dark depths—pain, maybe grief, maybe rage—then vanished. “No. Elroy told me. But I can’t hold onto it.” He shook his head. “No matter how hard I try.”

Jordan. That hurt. “Oh, Dante, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” A smile brushed his lips. He pulled his shades from the top of his head, slid them on. “Not your fault.” Standing, he bent over her and brushed his lips against hers.

“This doesn’t need to be good-bye,” Heather said against his warm lips. “I care about you, you know that, don’t you?”

“I care about you, too,” he whispered, tracing a finger along the edge of her jaw.

Heather closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Dante was gone. But the feel of his lips lingered upon hers; his scent hung in the room. She pictured him walking out into the snow-covered night, alone.

She had a feeling he didn’t expect to see her again. She’d known his leaving would hurt, just not how much. And it did, heart-deep—sharp and unrelenting. Tears slipped hot down her cheeks, into her ears. Folding her arms across her eyes, she wept.

For all the voiceless dead Elroy Jordan had left behind.

For justice unrendered.

For Dante.

She thought of all that could’ve been—traveling between New Orleans and Seattle; Dante creating music, touring, putting his past together. She might become a victim’s advocate, a PI, something to help those who could no longer speak for themselves, and—together—she and Dante could work to heal his wounded mind and help him find the redemption he sought.

Could still be. Nothing’s written in stone.

Penance.

Could he be redeemed? She believed he was worth the chance. She just needed to find out if she was strong enough to give him that chance. And herself.

I won’t walk away from you.

A song wisp suddenly curled through Heather and, for a moment, she thought she heard Dante’s voice, smoky and low, burning like a flame in her heart: Shhh. Je suis ici. Always.

Glossary

TO MAKE THINGS as simple as possible, I’ve listed not only words but phrases used in the story. Please keep in mind that Cajun is different from Parisian French and the French generally spoken in Europe. Different grammatically and even, sometimes, different in pronunciation and spelling.

For the Irish and Welsh words—including the ones I’ve created—pronunciation is provided.

One final thing: Prejean is pronounced PRAY-zhawn.

Aingeal (AIN-gyahl), angel. Fallen/Elohim word.

Ami, (m) friend, (f) amie. Mon ami, my friend.

Ange, (m) angel. Mon ange, my angel. L’ange, the angel.

Ange de sang, angel of blood; blood angel. Mon ange de sang, my angel of blood.

Anhrefncathl (ann-HREVN-cathl), chaos song; the song of a Maker. Fallen/Elohim word.

Beau diable, mon, (m) my beautiful devil.

Bonne nuit, good night.

Bon á rien, good for nothing.

Calon-cyfaill (KAL-on kuv-EYE-luh), friend of the heart, usually bonded. Fallen/Elohim word.

Ça va bien, fine. I’m fine/okay. It’s going well.

C’est bon, that’s good.

C’est vrai, that’s true.

Cher, dear, beloved. Mon cher, (m) my dear or my beloved.

Cher ami, mon, (m) my dearest friend, my best friend; intimate, implying a special relationship.

Chéri, (m) dearest, darling, (f) chérie.

Chien, (m) dog.

Comment ça va, how is it going?

Creawdwr (KRAY-OW-dooer), creator; maker/unmaker; an extremely rare branch of the Elohim believed to be extinct. Last known creawdwr was Yahweh.

D’accord, okay.

Elohim, (s and pl) the Fallen; the beings mythologized as fallen angels.

Enchanté, delighted, pleased, enchanted.

Et toi, and you.

Fallen, see Elohim.

Fille de sang, (f) blood daughter; “turned” female offspring of a vampire.

Fils de sang, (m) blood son; “turned” male offspring of a vampire.

Foute ton quant d’ici, get away from here.

Frère, (m) brother. Mon frère, my brother.

Gètte le, keep an eye on him.

J’ai faim, I’m hungry.

Je comprend pas, I don’t understand.

Je sais pas, I don’t know.

Je regrette, I’m sorry.

Je regrette, mes amis, I’m sorry, my friends.

Je suis ici, I’m here.

Je va te voir plus tard, I’ll see you later.

Laissez les bons temps rouller, let the good times roll.

Le coeur, the heart.

Llygad (THLOO-gad), (s) eye; a watcher; keeper of immortal history; story-shaper. A Fallen/Elohim word originally.

Llygaid (THLOO-guide), (pl)

Loa, (Haitian) spirit; associated with voodoo.

Marmot, (m) brat.

Merci, thank you. Merci beaucoup, thanks a lot. Merci bien, thanks very much.

Mère de sang, (f) blood mother; female vampire who has turned another and become their “parent.”

Mon Dieu, (m) my God.

M’selle, (f) abbreviated spoken form of mademoiselle, Miss, young lady.

M’sieu, (m) abbreviated spoken form of monsieur, Mr., sir, gentleman.

Nightbringer, a name/title given to Lucien De Noir.

Nightkind, (s and pl) vampire; Dante’s term for vampires.

Numéro un, number one. (Cajun)

Oui, yes.

Père, (m) father. Mon père, my father.

Père de sang, (m) blood father; male vampire who has turned another and become their “parent.”

Petit, mon, (m) my little one, (f) petite, ma. (Generally affectionate.)

Pour quoi, why.

Sa fait pas rien, it doesn’t matter.

Sa fini pas, it never ends.

Sa vaut pas la peine, it’s not worth it.

S’il te plaît, please (informal).

Tais toi, shut up.

Tayeau, (s) hound. Tayeaux, (pl) hounds.

T’es sûr de sa, are you sure about that?

T’est blême comme un mort, you’re as pale as a ghost.

Très belle, (f) very beautiful.

Très bien, very good, very well.

Très joli, (m) very pretty.

True Blood, born vampire, rare and powerful.

Viens ici, come here.

Vous êtes très aimable, you are very kind.

Wybrcathl (OOEEBR-cathl), sky song. Fallen/Elohim word.

Genevieve’s Prayer

POURQUOI TU NOUS ASabandonnes? Je ne sais pas ce que j’ai fait pour vous faire partir, je t’en supplie, sauve ton fils. éloigné le d’ici. Mets-le l’abri. Il est ma lumière et mon coeur—comme tu as pu l’être. Lucien, mon ange, s’il te plaît, écoute-moi.

WHY HAVE YOU ABANDONED us? I don’t know what I did to send you away, but I beg of you, save your son. Take him away from here. Keep him safe. He is my light and my heart—just as you once were. Lucien, my angel, please hear me.

Pocket Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Jeremy F. Lewis

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lewis, J. F.
Staked/J. F. Lewis.—1st Pocket Books trade pbk. ed.
p. cm.
1. Vampires—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3612.E9648S73 2008
813'.6—dc22               2007032930

ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-6553-6
ISBN-10: 1-4165-6553-1
eISBN-13: 978-1-4516-5215-4

Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com

The book is dedicated to four very special women:
My mom, Martha
My wife, Janet
My mother-in-law, Virginia
and
My good friend, Mary Ann

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author would like to acknowledge every single person who made this book possible, but he’s quite certain he left someone out. If it was you…oops.

With that said, I’d like to thank my writing group, WTF (Write the Fantastic): Janet, Rob, Mary Ann, Dan, Karen, and Virginia. Thank you for the many Tuesdays you’ve sacrificed on my behalf and for letting me go out of order every single time I was up against a deadline. Mom and Dad, thanks for the child care that made those editing sessions possible. Sandra and Rachel, I know you aren’t technically in the group, but for your feedback and general ability to put up with me, I thank you. Rich and Shea, I know editing’s not your thing, but thanks for your support during the whole process. Having friends helps.

Thank you to my agent, Shawna McCarthy, for rescuing me from the slush pile and letting me know what genre I was actually writing. Your advice was invaluable.

Thanks to my editor, Jennifer Heddle, not just for buyingStaked but for going above and beyond the call, sanding the rough edges, and making the novel shine.

Thanks also to my copyeditor, Chris Fuller, for his detailed character sketches, time line, and especially fine attention to detail.

And thanks to you, the reader, for picking up this book. I hope you enjoy it. (Buy two!)

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Chapter 1: ERIC: THE ALLEY

Chapter 2: ERIC: DEMON HEART

Chapter 3: ERIC: EVENING AFTER

Chapter 4: TABITHA: MIDWIFE

Chapter 5: ERIC: DEAD CAR

Chapter 6: TABITHA: VAMPIRE 101

Chapter 7: ERIC: LITTLE SISTER

Chapter 8: ERIC: PRICE TAGS

Chapter 9: ERIC: DAMAGE REPORT

Chapter 10: TABITHA: RELATIONSHIP ISSUES

Chapter 11: ERIC: THE VOID CITY HOWLERS

Chapter 12: ERIC: BISCUIT IN THE BASKET

Chapter 13: TABITHA: HIDDEN DEPTHS

Chapter 14: TABITHA: THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Chapter 15: ERIC: SPIKED

Chapter 16: ERIC: BUYING A CLUE

Chapter 17: TABITHA: FINDING FROGGY

Chapter 18: TABITHA: AN AUDIENCE WITH INFAMY

Chapter 19: ERIC: GRETA

Chapter 20: ERIC: EYE OF THE…?

Chapter 21: TABITHA: WAYS AND MEANS

Chapter 22: TABITHA: CAT FIGHT

Chapter 23: ERIC: NO GOOD NEWS

Chapter 24: ERIC: THE OTHER SHOE

Chapter 25: ERIC: THIRD EYE OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS

Chapter 26: ERIC: AGORANAUT

Chapter 27: ERIC: POWERHOUSE

Chapter 28: TABITHA: PMS

Chapter 29: ERIC: PICTURE PERFECT

Chapter 30: ERIC: ORCHARD DAM ROAD

Chapter 31: TABITHA: BAT GIRL

Chapter 32: ERIC: ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Chapter 33: TABITHA: TIDYING UP

Chapter 34: ERIC: UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Staked

1

ERIC:

THE ALLEY

Somewhere in the middle of my rant it occurred to me that I’d killed whoever it was I’d been yelling at, so arguing was no longer important. I looked down at my victim’s broken headless body and winced at the unnatural odor of rapidly rotting flesh. It never smells right to me when a vampire dies. I’ve always chalked it up to bowels. If you don’t eat, you don’t shit, and death just doesn’t smell right without it.

Whoever this guy was, he’d obviously been a Master vampire, because Drones and Soldiers don’t get the quick rot treatment. They turn to dust and blow away…which smells even less natural. And if he’d been a Vlad like me, he’d still be kicking.

I glanced around the dingy back alley where we’d been arguing and couldn’t remember exactly where I was, what we’d been fighting about, or what I’d done with the guy’s head. From the way the neck muscles had been ripped, I was guessing I’d torn it off. If he’d been human, I would have been soaked in blood, but vampires don’t bleed easily; my fingers were barely damp.

Out of curiosity, I went looking for What’s His Name’s head and found it lying next to the Dumpster at the back of the alley. I figured I ought to see if I recognized him. In spite of the unnaturally rapid decay, he looked vaguely familiar, like I might have seen him around town. Other than that his face didn’t ring any bells.

A homeless man was curled up against the wall of the alley, shaking like a leaf and staring at me. I tucked Dead Guy’s head under my arm and slipped the bum a twenty, mostly to screw with his mind, but also because I was sorry he’d seen whatever it was he’d seen. Besides, the homeless guy kind of looked like Alex Trebek andJeopardy! is a damned good show.

“Do you want me to tell the police somethin’ in particular?” asked the bum.

“Don’t talk to me, you dirty little fucker,” I snarled. I flashed my fangs at him and let my eyes do the whole glowing red bit. “I’m not paying you to do anything. The body will burn up when the sun hits it. Tell the cops whatever you want. If they believe you at all, they’re well paid to do the right thing. This is Void City, sweetheart.”

Norms don’t notice the supernatural here unless they aren’t really normal. The spell that hangs over this city doesn’t work on crazies, though. In this case I suspected the bum might remember what actually happened rather than thinking he’d seen a mugging or a gang fight or something.

I can’t see magic, but I know that’s how the spell is supposed to work. Your average Joe or Jane will forget the undead, the werewolves, even the demons that roam Void City and call it home…or sometimes they remember it wrong, their memories haphazardly replaced or jumbled by the spell. To see vampires and remember it later, you have to be crazy, be supernatural yourself, or be part of the scene, focused on being “in” with the undead crowd.

The cops all work for some high society fang I’ve never met and have no interest in meeting. I forget his name. If the police in his pocket have to cover up your crimes, you get a bill in the mail or a demand via phone from Captain Stacey with the VCPD. Everybody calls it the fang fee, because vampires get hit with the most of them. It’s just one of the extra headaches of being a vampire, right alongside having to drink blood, staying away from holy objects, avoiding sunlight….

Sunlight. I looked at my watch and cursed angrily. You’d think a vampire could remember to be in by sunrise, but my time sense has always sucked. Dropping the vamp’s head and ignoring the bum, I dashed for my car only to see the driver’s side door already glowing cheerily with the first lovely rays of dawn. I stopped for a moment in the shade of the alley to watch the sun’s reflection in my Hummer’s windshield. I used to love the sun. I still do, but now she doesn’t like me so much. Which makes her not that much different from any number of women I dated back during my living years.

I strolled back down the alley and glared disapprovingly at the bum. In the increasing illumination I could see him much better, and he didn’t look a damn thing like Alex Trebek. “You could have told me how close to sunrise it was,” I complained.

The bum smiled, and began to grow fur.

It rippled across his body, fingertips first, in a wave so fast the brown hair breaking the skin made little musical tinkling sounds like a giant rainstick. In the movies, the transformation always looks painful, but the bum’s eyes rolled back in his head, eyelids fluttering in what looked more like pleasure than pain.

“If I’d have done that, it would’ve been a fair fight, dead boy.” He growled, his skeleton distending with a sound like a hundred knuckles popping all in order, smallest to largest. The human teeth fell out of his muzzle as it lengthened, replaced by a mouthful of sharp pointy teeth. The better to blah blah blah me with.

“If you put those under your pillow, does the tooth fairy still pony up?” I asked.

“She pays more for vampire fangs,” he retorted.

What a pistol, that guy! I was laughing even as I picked up the Dumpster and emptied its contents over his head. Two more dead vamps rolled out to join No-Name. Their bodies weren’t like Headless Guy’s. They were little more than skeletons, the quick rotting flesh having bubbled away, leaving only a thin layer of gray scum. The bones had been gnawed on; the rib cages were splintered, gaping open where their hearts had been ripped out. They stunk even worse than Headless Guy did.

Normal animals won’t touch vampire remains, which left Werewolf Bum the obvious culprit. I’d have guessed even a low-level Master to be equal to one werewolf, so either this guy’d had help or he was really something special.

The werewolf launched himself from beneath the garbage, sending gouts of filth into the air and scattering refuse everywhere. The dead vamps’ peculiar odor problem ceased to be an issue. Now the whole alley smelled like human waste of all types, foreign and domestic. I smiled, though. After all, Wolfy had to have a much more acute sense of smell than me. Heh.

“Damn it!” he roared, then sneezed pathetically and swatted at his nose.

I’ve always had trouble taking werewolves seriously. They all look like one of Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion creature effects to me; you know, fake looking. I keep expecting Sinbad to show up and pretend to duel with them, like he did with the skeletons inSinbad and the Eye of the Tiger . Normally I could probably take on four or five of them. This guy had no chance. I was still thinking that when Wolfy sank his fangs into my shoulder. The Dumpster fell backward out of my hands. He should have bitten my head or my neck; he wouldn’t get another shot.

Time seemed to slow as I reached up and grabbed the werewolf’s jaws, forcing them apart until I felt the joint give. Then I let go and rolled backward, coming up beneath the falling Dumpster, and catching it before it landed. It always makes me feel like a superhero when my vampire speed kicks in. Some vamps are able to use that speed all the time, but mine has always been sporadic for some reason.

I knew that I should kill Wolfy, but I really wasn’t interested. Werewolves tend to stick together. Kill one and you might wind up fighting the whole pack, or worse. Besides, I didn’t care about the other two vamps he’d killed. Wolf Bum was just doing what came naturally to him, so if I could, I’d let him go with a warning. I swung the Dumpster in an arc and knocked him into the air with it.

Time sped up again. I watched the blood spurt from his jaws, splattering when he hit the wall of the alley with a wet cracking noise. Bones had broken when he landed. Some of them sounded important. My twenty-dollar bill hit the ground and I dropped the Dumpster to pick it up, the crash of metal on concrete reverberating in my ears.

Wolfy was still breathing, but he was down for the count. With a grimace, I walked over and tucked the cash into his hand, then added another twenty to it. His jaw was really going to hurt if it healed that way and had to be re-broken. Adding a third twenty, I shook my head.

“Walk away,” I told him. “You gave it a good try.”

At least the buildings on either side of me were tall enough to keep most of the alley safe from the sun, but not for long. I had to get out of here somehow. I ripped off the lid of the Dumpster and dropped the bin down over myself. “God, this stinks,” I complained.

The front page of theVoid City Echo was stuck to one wall of the Dumpster. I could make out a headline about the decrease in crime, the record drop in the murder rate on East Side. It was bullshit, of course. There’s a reason the paper is called theEcho . It’s a fang rag, heavily influenced by vampires who want to keep Void City’s human populace fat and happy. On the plus side, the captions jogged my Swiss cheese memory and I suddenly remembered where I was, and for that matter, which alley I was in. My club wasn’t far from here.

I put my hands on the brownish sludge caking the walls of the Dumpster and felt it squish between my fingers as I began to push my makeshift sunblock toward the end of the alley.

Tabitha was going to find me so appealing when I got back to the club. The thought of her pretty little nose turned up in disgust brought a smile to my lips. A wet clump of refuse fell from the Dumpster’s upturned bottom, slapping me messily across my hairline. “Shit!” If it wasn’t, it certainly smelled like it. I wiped whatever it was from my face, leaving a trail of brown sludge in its place.

I put my hands back on the Dumpster wall and began to push, leaving long scratches in the road as I went. The sound of metal on asphalt was earsplitting, but I picked up speed anyway. The strip club was only three blocks away and all I could think about was washing this shit off and making Tabitha help. Tabitha was one of a long line of human girlfriends I’d had. There were always girls willing to do anything a vampire might want as long as they thought there was a chance they might get immortality out of it.

My Dumpster-pushing progress came to a sudden halt as I slammed into my Hummer. It was new; only a couple of weeks old. My car alarm started going off. It was the last straw. The next thing I knew, I was punching holes through the Dumpster with my bare hands. It came apart like tissue paper. It was all very satisfying until I caught fire. Note to self: The big burning ball of gas in the sky is the sun.

I walked back into the alley, rolled on the ground, and beat my head against the wall to put out the remaining flames. Then I checked on Wolfy. He was still unconscious, so I pulled out my cell phone and called my club.

Roger answered the phone. “How refreshing! Did you actually remember the phone number or did you have to look it up?” He sounded tired and angry, as if he’d answered the phone only because he’d recognized the name on the caller ID. I decided to let it slide. After all, Roger needed more sleep than I do and he was my best friend. I also needed a ride.

“Remembered,” I said.

“Thank heavens!” Roger’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “It’s Eric,” he called to someone else on the other end. “Safe and sound, our lost little lamb. We were all so worried about you.” In the background I heard a woman let out one scornful “Ha!” I ignored it.

“I’m three blocks away, in the alley at Thirteenth Street and Fifth Avenue. Bring the party van around to pick me up.”

“Sun’s up, pal. I can’t come get you,” he said more seriously. “I’ll send Candice over.”

Candice is the kind of golden-hearted stripper other strippers pretend to be. She’s working on her nursing degree, and if I were still human I’d be all over her. As it is, I just pay for her college and watch her dance naked in the club. And, okay, sometimes I pretend I’m with her when I’m with Tabitha. It’s just better for all involved.

“I smell pretty bad. Is Lillian still around?” I asked. Lillian had come in late three days in a row, just in time for the evening rush. If she thought early afternoons were shit duty, I’d show her shit duty.

“Yes,” Roger answered, laughing. “Don’t want to smell bad in front of your little groupie?”

“Lillian’s more deserving,” I said. “Send her over, then tell Talbot he’s going to need to get the van cleaned up after we’re done with it.”

Roger hung up and I waited for the van, admiring my handiwork on the Hummer. From the damage, I must have really picked up some speed before impact. I took a perverse joy in having demolished the shiny new SUV. Roger had talked me into buying it, but to be honest, I hated the thing. I’m only comfortable in my Mustang. It’s old, but so am I, and we both have plenty of miles left in us.

A few minutes later, the party van rounded the corner, screeching to a halt just inches into the shade. Lillian glared at me through the windshield, bleary-eyed through her half-removed makeup. She looked really pissed. As I walked toward the van, I found out the hard way that the werewolf had been playing possum for the last few minutes. I’d never known what it was like to be picked up by the ankles and slammed face-first into a brick wall. The experience isn’t much to write home about.

He swung me back around to repeat the process and I felt time begin to slow down once more. I was giving Wolfy too many chances to kill me. I’m pretty damn hard to wipe out, but I supposed he could get lucky. After all, he’d killed those other two vamps somehow.

I bent backward at an angle usually reserved for circus acrobats and grabbed his jaw. He would have whimpered if he’d had the time. The jaw had healed broken; each portion pointed in opposite directions at odd angles. I re-broke it for him and slammed it shut on his lolling tongue.

As time shifted back to normal, he screamed. It was part pain, part fear; a real little-girl scream. He dropped me, and I rolled to the ground and came up facing him. Wolfy smelled scared. I guess he finally realized the first round hadn’t been a fluke and the little five-foot-ten bastard he was up against actually could kick his ass up and down the alley. He held up both paws and backed away from me. My twenties had scattered across the alley, mixing like dried leaves with the trash. For some reason, it pissed me off.

The edges of my vision began to blur. It happens sometimes when I get really angry. The werewolf tried to say something despite his mangled tongue, but I couldn’t quite make it out. It was too late for talk; I was too far gone to rein the anger in.

The next thing I knew, I was knee-deep in werewolf, shoving bloody twenty-dollar bills into my jeans. His chest had been cracked open like an oyster and gutted. I was standing where his organs ought to have been, but they were scattered about the alley like mismatched socks. I never remember what happens when I’m really mad. I black out.

I couldn’t decide whether the scene would be more or less disturbing when the sun rose high enough to fill that portion of the alley and his corpse turned human. A dead werewolf reverts to human form in the light of day. Too bad it doesn’t do the same to live lycanthropes. Part of his stomach was under my left shoe, the bile already staining it beyond recognition. At least the blood had washed some of the garbage off. Lillian, her face contorted in disgust, climbed out of the van, opened the back, and threw me a towel.

Sometimes being a vampire is truly fucked up. If you don’t believe me, ask the poor vamp I’d killed in the alley earlier. I couldn’t remember why the hell I’d killed him, much less why we’d been arguing. For all I knew, it was about football. Definitely fucked up.

2

ERIC:

DEMON HEART

My strip club, the Demon Heart, is in downtown Void City in a district lovingly referred to as East Side. I couldn’t tell you why, because it’s actually on the south side of town. The club sits on the corner of Thirteenth Street and Eighth Avenue, across from the old Pollux Theater. The Pollux is a beautiful art nouveau popcorn palace that dates back to the days when there was a cartoon and a sing-along before the movie and a nosebleed section for the folks white people didn’t want to see.

I bought both buildings cheap since hardly anybody gives a damn about East Side anymore. Roger says Sable Oaks is where all the high society vamps want to build. If you ask me, it’s too far from Void City. I’m not commuting an hour into town to hunt.

The Demon Heart kept me close to people nobody would miss and the Pollux gave me a place to be by myself. Besides, I hate society vamps. We have a nonaggression pact. If I don’t see them and they don’t see me, then there’s no need for aggression.

I considered buying a pizza parlor once, but I decided I would go crazy from the smell. I love pizza. If I smell pizza, I have to stop and take a good whiff; I have to look at it, see what kind it is, and watch a lucky bastard take a few bites. Chicago pizza, Italian pizza, brick-oven pizza, anchovies, pepperoni, olives, mushrooms, peppers, kiwi, it doesn’t matter to me, so long as it’s pizza. I think I miss pizza more than I miss the sun.

I smelled pizza the instant Lillian smuggled my lightly toasted, stinking, quilt-covered ass in through the back entrance of the Demon Heart. The tangy Sicilian aroma made my mouth water, by which I mean blood filled my mouth, a poor imitation of saliva. It’s Mother Nature’s way of reminding me that I’m a walking corpse that hasn’t fallen down yet. Thanks, Mom. Shower forgotten, I followed the smell of the pizza down the hall to the girls’ dressing room behind the stage.

I opened the door and found Candice eating a slice of pepperoni. She was mostly naked, and when she saw me, she began ostentatiously licking the side of the pizza to remove the excess cheese. My fangs came out and a certain lower portion of my anatomy paid attention, too. If she had been wearing her glasses or her contacts I think she would’ve had a harder time keeping up the act. Even so, when the smell hit her, the revulsion was hard for her to mask. “Good Lord, Eric. What have you been doing?”

“Eat your pizza,” I snapped. It was all I could do not to jump on her, so I left the room and headed for my shower. Maybe I’d been rude to Candice, but it was better that way. If she was smart, she’d quit in a huff and go start a normal life somewhere the hell away from me. In the end, a friendship between a vampire and a human is like a friendship between a dog and a chicken nugget. Sooner or later, the nugget is going to get eaten; the only real question is how many bites it will take.

On my way down the hallway, I caught Tabitha’s scent. Fresh out of the shower, she smelled like fizzy citrus-scented soap. She opened the door of our bedroom wearing nothing but a bathrobe. I don’t know if she was on her way across the hall to borrow some lotion or to see if she could score a slice of pizza, but it didn’t matter since she wasn’t going to do either.

I kissed her, filled with the need for sex and blood. She didn’t even mention the smell, answering the urgency of my kisses with her own, pushing me out into the hall, pressing my back against the wall. When we kissed, her heat washed over me all at once. Her robe came open, revealing the smooth surface of her sex. She’d just waxed.

“Are you okay, baby?” She asked the question between kisses, but I didn’t answer. She didn’t ask again, didn’t complain or wrinkle her nose as I left trails of blood and grime along her breasts. I would have had sex with her right there, but I was afraid the gunk from the Dumpster might make her sick. I carried her into the bathroom, the tile still slick with moisture, mirror still cloudy, and got into the shower.

Tabitha was the only kind of girlfriend I let myself have anymore. She had a great body, a bad attitude, and extremely low self-esteem. She wasn’t dumb, but she wasn’t smart, and she thought that she wanted to be a vampire when she grew up. I knew she had a sister named Rachel whose photo she carried in her billfold, and I guessed she had parents, but they never seemed to be around. In short, if I broke her by accident I wouldn’t feel too bad about it and no one would really miss her. It’s cruel, I know, but I am a vampire, remember?

I meant to have sex, but that’s not what happened. We made love instead. It was passionate, tender. It was a mistake. When we got out of the shower, Tabitha wore that stupid look she gets when she thinks she’s being sly. I turned away and rolled my eyes; my memory, for once, clear as crystal.

It was like a formula with her. Before she even opened her mouth I knew the basic ploy. She would compliment me on the act, even though I’d know she was faking it for my benefit. Even when she wasn’t, she always put on a big show. I guess the whole preternatural senses thing hadn’t clued her in to the fact that I could tell. I didn’t blame her for faking it a little; unless blood turns you on, having it stand in for all the normal bodily fluids can get a little nasty, especially during sex.

After the compliments, I predicted she’d snuggle for a minute and then ask me how old I am. I’d answer and she’d pretend like she’d forgotten. She’d tell me how cool it is to be immortal, how wonderful it must be to know that no matter what happens to the rest of the world, you will go on, forever. I’d attempt to disabuse her of the notion. She would tell me that she heard one of any number of a recycled little list of activities is much better when it’s between two vampires. She’d insist it would make us feel so much closer, claim we’d be able to read each other’s minds. I’d disagree.

She’d say it would be different with us because we’re in love. I’d point out that I don’t love her and then I’d wait to see if she cried or started yelling. If she cried, I’d leave. If she yelled, I’d leave. So predictable.

“You are so good at that, you know,” she started up. I sighed. She walked across the room still damp from the shower and I thought about taking her again to see if she would take another shower and leave me alone when we were done. I let her rub up against me.

Tabitha was an extremely attractive woman; she was big where she was supposed to be big and narrow where narrow is good. Her long and luxurious hair was the same dark black I dyed mine, only hers wasn’t a dye job. Cutting it would have been a crime. She had the sexiest green eyes I’d ever seen, though she claimed she wished they were blue like mine. Tabitha’s smiles took complete advantage of her full red lips. Other girls had to use makeup to achieve the qualities she already possessed.

Tabitha would go to great lengths to vary her soaps and perfumes, to wear just enough that I would notice, but little enough that it rarely annoyed me. She even got a tattoo at the base of her spine where I once mentioned one might look sexy. I designed it for her: a multicolored butterfly. She’d be a great woman if she didn’t act so dumb.

“…and I mean my legs were so totally shaking.” Oops, I missed part of it. It sounded like we were still in the “what a sex god” section, though. She hugged me from behind and I felt her breasts against my back. Her warmth overwhelmed me again. Vampires don’t generate any body heat so we’re always cold unless we’ve just fed. Even then, humans feel warm by comparison.

Despite her flaws, she was soalive . Maybe it was that I could still smell pizza in the distance, or maybe it was her perfume, but I began to feel a knot of panic in my chest.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“I’m not even a hundred, Tabitha,” I told her halfheartedly. “You know that.”

She kissed my neck tenderly. It wasn’t a sexual kiss, more a touch of possessiveness. Oh, shit.

“I always forget. You seem so much older. God, it must be so cool to be immortal. Time wears down mountains and changes the flow of mighty rivers, but not you. To be changeless, forever…”

I felt caught, trapped. It was like a snare closing in around me. What the fuck was wrong with me? This crap didn’t work on me. I’d heard it a thousand times. It was all bullshit. I didn’t believe a damn word of it. I knew she didn’t believe it either. Then I realized that this morning had been different. I could hear her breath, her heartbeat. She’d meant it all, and it was too late to do a damn thing about it.

“Maybe,” I said finally. There is nothing more terrifying than the heartbeat of a woman in love. It complicates everything.

I could hear the muscles in her face draw her lips into a smile. Her heartbeat sped up and I felt it as if it were pounding in my own chest. Her breath was a little faster, too. She knew something was different. Was it the way she helped clean me up after the fight?

She hadn’t looked disgusted once. Not when I’d walked in covered with blood and filth, not when I’d pulled her close before we’d even made it to the shower and not when the act was complete and my blood swirled down the drain. She was into it. It hadn’t been fake this time. If it wasn’t love, it was a close cousin. I was so fucked.

“I want us to be together, Eric. I’ve heard that—”

She was so alive, so warm, and I was so dead, so cold.

“Shut up,” I said softly.

“What?” I felt her heart skip a beat.

It won’t be what you’re expecting, I wanted to say. If I make you a vampire, you won’t be warm anymore; you won’t smell like you anymore. Before long, you won’t even act like you. Just looking at you will be a painful reminder of what I am and what you used to be. And then you’ll have to leave.

Instead, even more softly, I said, “I’ll do it.”

When women truly fall in love with me, I can’t say no. It’s like a sickness.

She hugged me so tightly her entire body seemed pressed against mine, squealing as she did so. I smelled her excitement for almost the last time. I was so stupid. I was dumber than she was. I knew better. I’d seen what happens. The transformation changes people. Even when they turn out just the way you want, there are problems. Like with Greta…

“Can we do it right here, in the bed?” she asked.

“Hell, no.” I scowled. “I don’t want your crap all over everything.” I shook free of her and picked her up in my arms like a damned newlywed, as though the act could make murdering someone romantic rather than monstrous. “We do it in the bathroom, on the pot, so there’s less to clean up.”

My inner voice told me exactly what I needed to hear. I didn’t love this woman. I only cared about her because she was a moist warm tightness with the appropriate attachments. She wouldn’t be the same. She’d be a dead thing like me, a walking would-be body bag occupant.

I wouldn’t be able to live vicariously through her. I wouldn’t be able to feel and smell the sun’s heat on her skin when she came in from outdoors. No more making her eat the food I craved just so I could watch her eat it. I wouldn’t even be able to listen to her breathe while she slept because she wouldn’t breathe autonomously anymore. I tried to think of everything she’d be giving up, all the things I’d miss, and none of it mattered because she loved me. How twisted is that?

I should have just broken her neck and found a new girlfriend, but I didn’t have the balls to do it. Somebody should have put a stake in me, or better yet, gotten a good strong muzzle…one of those masks like Hannibal Lecter wore in the movies. It was all wrong, but that morning I no longer cared enough not to do it, or perhaps I cared too much, wanted both of us to live her crazy fantasy, though I knew damn well giving her undeath wouldn’t just shatter those illusions, it would grind them into the dirt.

3

ERIC:

EVENING AFTER

I usually wake early. In fact, as far as I can tell, I barely sleep more than an hour or two each day. Even then it’s easy to wake me. I rolled over and was momentarily surprised to find Tabitha beside me. I was even more surprised to see the time display on my alarm clock—18:43…after six o’clock. I never sleep until six. I knew why I’d overslept today, though. The reason was still lying next to me.

She was pale, a little thinner than she’d been, but not unattractively so. The sudden additional slenderness made her breasts look bigger than they actually were and the skin and muscle all over her body had tightened a bit as the transformation took hold. She looked better than she ever had in life. I could picture how pleased she would be when she woke up. I smelled a strong odor from the bathroom and rolled out of bed. There was blood caked to my lips, trailing down my face, across my neck, and down my chest. It had dried there during the day.

I opened the bathroom and retched at the stink. The transformation flushes the body clean. That’s twenty-five feet of intestines with five to ten pounds of solid waste. The process isn’t pleasant or comfortable, either; I had a vague memory of Tabitha screaming. The toilet clogged when I flushed. Hastily grabbing the plunger, I took care of it before the putrid brown water poured out onto the floor.

A narrow trail of fluids led from the toilet to the sink, but I left it alone for the moment and opened the shower door. My clothes from earlier were already piled in there. I must have rinsed them out before I went to bed. I didn’t remember doing it, but I was glad that I had. Most of them looked recoverable.

When I’m in top form, I can usually shapeshift into an animal, and then use a little of the residual transformation mojo to fix my clothes when I change back, but it can be very draining. The worse the damage is to the clothes, the greater the drain. This morning it had been worth the possible loss of the clothes to save that energy, to make sure I only woke up hungry, not starving. I had no desire to go on a feeding frenzy after the blood-and-energy-intensive cost of turning Tabitha.

I turned the shower on hot and washed myself, scratching at the dried blood with my fingernails to get it all off, and as the water turned scalding, I started to feel better.

I got out of the shower and squared away the rest of the room using the cleaning supplies Marilyn kept under the sink. Marilyn and I had been lovers before…when I’d been alive. We’d come within three weeks of getting married.

My wallet sat on the edge of the sink; I checked it quickly to make sure it hadn’t gotten wet. When I opened it, Marilyn’s picture smiled up at me. She wore a leather biker’s jacket and sat with casual disdain on Roger’s motorcycle, a 1964 Harley-Davidson Duo-Glide. In shades of sepia, the photo didn’t show her red hair, but it captured her look, smoldering like Cyd Charisse, a Marlboro at the corner of her lips.

Forty-three years doesn’t seem like a long time for a vampire, until you look at one of your living contemporaries. My Marilyn was more like my nanny now.

I laughed, imagining Marilyn’s reaction to the whole Tabitha thing. At least it would get a rise out of her, and that was always fun.

I wasn’t looking forward to telling the others, though. Candice’s feelings would probably be hurt and Talbot wouldn’t say a word; he’d just glare at me. Roger, on the other hand…Roger would probably never let me hear the end of it. He still gave me shit about turning Irene some twenty years ago.

Greta would probably take it all in stride, if she ever found out about it. Greta’s my daughter. There was a picture of her in my wallet, too, but I kept it behind Marilyn’s. Once I’d decided to make my own little vampire children: a girl and a boy. Greta and Kyle. It hadn’t worked out. Greta took to vampirism just fine, I guess because I’d raised her, more or less, from the time she was nine, but I’d only known Kyle for a year or two when I’d turned them both. After the change Kyle wasn’t the same anymore: the jaunty step he’d had in life disappeared, leaving him a shadow of his former self, a Drone, so hard to look at that I eventually sent them both away. Thinking of Greta and wondering how she was doing, I looked at the bathroom mirror and wiped off the condensation with a towel.

Nope, still no reflection.

A longing in the back of my throat told me I was hungry. It was followed quickly by a fiery pain in my gut. Turning someone takes a lot out of you even if they don’t drink very much. The wound you feed them with can grow dark and inflamed; sometimes they even scar.

It takes a lot out of me to make a vampire. In the movies, it’s simple: you just drain a human and then have her drink your blood. If it really worked that way, I had no doubt that Tabitha would have saved up some of my blood, slit her wrists, and turned herself a long time ago. For starters, draining the human is just common sense, not a requirement. Drinking their blood first gives you more blood to spare, but the change, making the human become a vampire, requires an act of will. It doesn’t happen by accident.

I left Sleeping Beauty on the bed and walked out into the hallway before I realized I was naked. Back in my room I pulled on jeans and one of my favorite T-shirts. A few years back the Void City Music Festival swapped suppliers; instead ofWelcome to the Void City Music Festival all ten thousand T-shirts saidWelcome to the Void in white letters on black material. The misprint was so popular they claimed it was intentional and kept right on printing them that way every year. I have dozens of them.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, I tugged on a pair of dark socks and my work boots. My favorite belt was still lying in the shower so I went without one even though it irks me. It’s a hang-up I have. Maybe I got pantsed once too often as a child. I don’t know. After a little searching, I found my watch under my nightstand and slipped it on my wrist.

I checked the backstage dressing room on my way down the hall. Sheena and Desiree both gave me polite smiles. Sheena was dressed for work, ready to go onstage in a perky cheerleader uniform complete with pom-poms. Desiree, having finished her set, was slipping into a slinky French maid’s outfit to wear while selling drinks and lap dances. I gave them a half smile in return and walked back out into the hall, then out into the club itself. Often the sounds and lights make me feel better. Even though the music usually hurts my ears, it excites everyone else and the more alive they feel the more I can leech off of their excitement.

I didn’t see Marilyn, which only vaguely concerned me. Maybe she was at another doctor’s visit. Old people get sick a lot, and Marilyn had grown old. We’d known each other since we were kids. We’d been friends, lovers, fiancées. I’ve been told that when I rose as a vampire, she was there, standing over my grave crying. I don’t remember any of it, but it must be true, ‘cause she’s been with me ever since.

She’s the one woman I’ve ever really wanted to turn, but she’s always said no. Something about her immortal soul, which is odd, since she claims to be an atheist. The real reason is probably a secret. All Marilyn’s secrets are safe from me. I can’t even make her tell me what she’s getting me for Christmas. When she dies, I’m pretty sure I’ll go crazy, but only time will tell.

I looked around the room, soaking up the atmosphere. Sarah was doing an uninspired bit of stripping while Kelly and Lillian worked the tables. Talbot stood off to the right of the stage. There were a lot of people in the club for a Wednesday. I glanced at my watch and realized it was Saturday. Damn. My sense of time was getting worse. I think that’s why Marilyn bought me a watch that displayed the time, date, and day of the week. Talbot headed my way and I headed back the way I’d come, straight toward the nearest exit. Talbot was big, black, bald, and too well dressed to be a bouncer in a place like mine.

The Demon Heart was no dump, but it didn’t pretend to be anything it wasn’t. Clean but faded, it was the kind of club that looks better in dim light. The outside still looked like a department store, which is what it had been, I guess, back when the Pollux was open across the street. I’d had the interior redone in red, black, and chrome. It reminded me of a 1950s burger joint gone wrong.

Talbot sped up to catch me and I let him. It would look a little silly to run away from my own employee, wouldn’t it? Even if that was exactly what I wanted to do? I was ashamed of what I’d let happen and I didn’t want to face it yet, not until I’d eaten, maybe not even then.

He reached me just as I started down the hall toward the back door. “Tabitha didn’t come up to help open the club,” he said abruptly.

I turned to look at him and couldn’t say it. “Hire someone else,” I snapped, instead. “Get one of the other girls to fill in for now.”

He waited for an explanation and I just stared at him. Figure it out, damn it! Talbot has been with me for close to twenty years. By now, I expected him to know when the boss has fucked up. Then I saw it in his eyes. The bastard knew exactly what had happened. He just wanted to make me say it, to watch me be uncomfortable, the bastard.

“I fucking turned her last night, okay? And I’m too hungry to snack on anyone here. I’d drain them down too far and I don’t want to have to deal with a dead body in the club tonight, so get back there and keep an eye on her for me. If she wakes up before I get back, you can damn well feed her yourself!”

His brown eyes turned green for a moment and his pupils narrowed into slits. Cats’ eyes. He took a couple of breaths and his eyes turned back to normal. I usually knew not to goad him like that, but I was fucking up so consistently that I didn’t want to interrupt my streak.

“I can do that, sir,” he rumbled. Then he smiled, regaining his composure. “I was just talking to Roger about a rumor he heard…supposedly a vampire killed a werewolf three blocks from here…around dawn…down at Thirteenth and Eleventh Avenue.”

“Good for him,” I growled.

“He said that was where Lillian picked you up last night. Is that so?” Talbot asked.

I didn’t remember. It sounded right. “Maybe.” I sighed.

“Rumor also has it that the dead wolf was important to his pack,” Talbot added.

I looked away for a moment and rubbed my eyes. I could feel the beginnings of a nice happy migraine coming on. “How important?”

He pursed his lips and made a whistling noise. “Pretty darn.”

“Yeah, well, that’s just wonderful! With my luck, it was the fucking Alpha.”

He laughed. “Actually, it was William’s eldest son.”

“William’s the Alpha?”

He nodded.

“Shit.”

Enjoying my dismay, Talbot continued, “The van cleaned up well, but the Hummer will be in the shop for a while.”

“Sell it for scrap,” I said harshly. “I don’t even know why I let Roger talk me into buying it.”

Talbot has one of those infectious laughs that can make anyone laugh in return. It didn’t work this time, maybe because I felt he was laughing at me, at the mess I’d made. When I didn’t share in his amusement, Talbot grimaced. “What else are you not telling me, Eric?”

I waved him off and walked out the door. My Mustang was waiting for me. Even though Ford didn’t make a distinction between the 1965 and the 19641/2, I could tell. I’d bought it new in late April 1964, and had it loaded with options. I don’t know if it was the first vehicle with a power convertible top, but for fifty-four dollars and ten cents, I’d said hell, yes. That Mustang was the first car I ever owned that had an air conditioner.

I ran my hand along the long blunt hood and grinned from ear to ear, picturing the 271 horsepower V-8 engine underneath. I understood why Roger wanted me to get used to a new car. The Mustang couldn’t last forever, but I wouldn’t let it go yet. Marilyn’s first time was in that car. They don’t make cars like that anymore.

“Hey, asshole,” Roger shouted from the club’s rear door. That I hadn’t sensed him only slightly surprised me. The first and second tier of vampires can sense each other when they come into range. Roger’s second tier, a Master. I’m a Vlad and a Vlad trumps a Master. My not sensing him meant that he’d been within my range before I woke up. Technically, I must have sensed him in my sleep, but since it was Roger, it hadn’t woken me.

He was dressed better than me, as usual, but he looked harried, every hair out of place. “I just heard that guy who owns the Demon Heart turned another one of his girlfriends last night….”

“What a prick,” I said dryly. If Roger was trying to cheer me up, he was going about it the wrong way.

“Tell me about it.” He walked over to the car, thoroughly enjoying pissing in my Cheerios. “I hear he crashed his new Humvee, too.”

“Sounds like a real fuckup. What do you want, Roger? I’m hungry.”

“I hear he’s eating out tonight.”

“I figure I’m on a roll…”

“…so why not let it ride?” he said, finishing my sentence. The last time I could remember Roger being all buddy-buddy like this was in Vegas. We’d hit it big, or I had, and I’d taken care of his losses, paid for the whole damn trip, actually. Roger’s always happier when he’s spending someone else’s money.

“You want to come with?” I asked.

He shook his head no, the prospect unthinkable. “Look, buddy, I know it’s not my place to say—”

“But you’re going to anyway.” That drew a smile, but not the friendly one for which I’d hoped.

“Why don’t you go ahead and end Tabitha? Spare yourself a little heartache and get it over with, huh? She’s not worth it.” It was Roger’s same old song and dance. He was right, of course, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hear it.

“Speaking of girlfriends,” I said, “are you still fucking Froggy?” It was nasty and I shouldn’t have said it, but I wanted him to go away. If he didn’t want to be teased about having a girlfriend vamp who could only turn into a frog, he should know better than to start poking at me and mine.

Besides, I needed to eat. No vampire is hungry and nice. Nice and hungry, sure, but…

“Look, just hunt away from the club tonight, okay?” he said.

“I was planning to.”

“Oh, you were planning?” Roger smirked. “Where were you planning on going then, if I might ask?” He emphasizedplanning like it had air quotes around it. Still, I’d asked for it, by mentioning Froggy.

“North Side,” I blurted.

“Any particular spot?”

“I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

“Right, ‘cause you’re so good at winging it. Why don’t you come inside and drink some blood from the fridge, just to take the edge off? The way you look, you might go all Black Out Boy any minute and—”

“‘Bye,” I said brusquely. I slid into my Mustang and started her up, gunning the V-8 before peeling out toward North Side. I don’t normally hunt over there, but I craved a change of pace and it was the first place that had come to mind when Roger asked.

A vampire can get tired of eating the same old people. Tonight I wanted to eat someone upscale who worked out every day and smelled like expensive perfume. By the time I reached the tony neighborhood, my head had cleared a little. I parked my car on the street and began prowling the specialty coffee shops.

I passed up two college students and a cop before I started to get desperate. I had to pick a victim soon or I might not have much of a choice—sheer need would make me grab whoever was closest. Just then a woman in a Jag pulled up and parked in front of the hydrant across from Starbucks, then got out of the car. Her perfume smelled like heaven, and her skin looked soft and supple. Finally. The street was empty for a moment and I dashed out from my spot in the shadows.

Everything dropped into slow motion. I was glad now that I’d decided to hunt away from my normal territory. Basically all vampires are monsters and I’m no exception. I’m not proud of it, and I try to keep myself well fed so that most of the time my prey are spared the worst of it, but bad nights do happen. Feeding was going to be bad tonight and I knew it. Roger might have known it, too. Maybe he’d been trying to help in his own weird passive-aggressive way. I was too hungry to hunt carefully.

She barely knew what hit her. I had her back in the alley and on the ground in the twinkling of an eye. The perfume was expensive stuff: delicate, but arousing. She’d even dabbed a little down below, on the nape of her neck, and between her breasts. Someone called a woman’s name, so I leapt to the fire escape, dragging her up to the roof in spite of her struggles. She bit me, which always pisses me off (I’m the biter, not the bitee), so I slapped her. I didn’t want to, but it happened. The worse the hunger is, the less time there is for thinking, and the more primal those few thoughts become. The slap dazed her, but she still tried to scream when she saw my fangs. Fingernails clawed at my face, hard and lacquered. I threw her down on the roof and unwrapped her like a Christmas present, shreds of fabric scattering as I ripped and tore.

Her lingerie told me I was screwing up someone else’s evening. It was a lacy purple number, expensive and luxurious. She’d shaved her legs for someone who would never know. Some vampires like the jugular, but I prefer the vein at the inner thigh when I’m drinking a woman. Another hunger stirred and I fought it like a drowning man.No , I told myself.Finish it .

Normally I would have broken her neck first, but right now I wanted the blood hot and alive. She screamed so loud my eyes crossed. I wish I could say she tasted special, but the truth is all blood tastes the same. She bled out in little under a minute. When I was sated, I ripped her head off to make sure she wouldn’t rise as a wampyre.

My memory’s not great, but I did remember reading about wampyres—they’re what happens when a human dies from a vampire bite. Wampyres are mindless rotting corpses that drink blood. They’re kind of the black sheep of the undead family, just above zombies.

I dropped her body down a city drain and left her car illegally parked. It wasn’t smart, but then again this wasn’t my week for smart. In the end, all I’d done was kill her. I’d roughed her up some, too, but as hungry as I’d been, not doing more was a victory. A hungry vampire is capable of anything.

I was willing to forgive myself a little carelessness. Besides, in a town like Void City, you can get away with being careless if you’ve got the money. Despite the enchantment over the city, most of us take additional precautions. Various flesh-eating types can be brought in for corpse disposal. Some pay to have the norms’ memories professionally rearranged, just in case. We can even get a mage or shaman to come in and move along any angry spirits we leave behind. It’s a hassle and it costs more than I like to think about. In my case, it would also result in a few hours of listening to Roger bitch and moan about the expense.

No wonder I prefer to eat in.

On the way home, my cell phone rang and I nearly wrecked the Mustang trying to find the damn thing. It was in the car charger. As I answered it, it occurred to me that it would have really pissed me off to wreck the Mustang.

“What?” I spat into the phone.

“Hey, buddy,” Roger oozed.

“Yeah?”

“Did Brian tell you where he was headed last night?” He sounded concerned and more than a little weird.

“Fuck Brian,” I snarled. “I don’t even know why you keep bringing him out with us. If he doesn’t learn to keep his mouth shut about the Void City Howlers I’m going to wind up shutting it for“—oh, shit. That was how I knew the headless vampire in the alley’s face. It was fucking Brian. Damn it!—“him.”

I swerved around on the road for a minute and slammed my fist into the console.

Roger’s voice sounded even more distant, and I could hear faint music in the background. “Okay, well, just let me know if you hear from him. He was supposed to meet me here at the Artiste Unknown.”

“Fine.”

“What?” he asked incredulously. “You wanted to come?”

How the hell had Roger gotten that from “fine”?

“Um, have I even heard of that place?” I asked, trying to figure out how the hell I was going to tell Roger that I’d offed his buddy.

“It’s Ebon Winter’s club, very exclusive. Vampires have to bring a human date.” He paused. “The only place more exclusive than the Irons Club?”

Have I mentioned that my memory is shit? “Doesn’t ring a bell, but you and Brian have fun.”

“I was supposed to meet him at eight. It is now eight thirty.”

“Then I guess he’s late.” In the corner of my mind, an alarm was going off. I eyed the spotless white truck behind me, but didn’t see anything strange about it. I checked all my mirrors, but still saw nothing suspicious. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up anyway and a cold shiver went down my spine. My body thinks it knows better than me whether I’m in trouble or not. It’s usually right.

“I don’t think so,” Roger said, sounding pissed. “You’re the only one who ever keeps me waiting.”

“Get over yourself.” I laughed. Roger certainly had an ego. If I hadn’t known him from my living days, there was no way I would have put up with his crap.

I’ve always thought it was kind of weird that we both became vampires at about the same time. Roger’s never given me a good answer about it either. If we’d had the same sire it would have been less confusing to me, but Roger’s sire was from Atlanta and we have no idea who sired me. He told me not to worry about it, but I do. Marilyn tried to explain it away once. She had this whole sob story about Roger being distraught over my death and arranging his own; she seemed to believe it, but I didn’t.

In my rearview mirror, the same spotless white truck was pacing me. A red truck pulled up beside it. Same make, same model, same year…my alarm kept going off. I shifted my attention from Roger’s past to the present. “Look, he’s probably just running late. I’m sure he’ll show up. Why don’t you go on in and have a good time. I’ve gotta go.”

“Why? Have some other important werewolves to piss off tonight? Watch out for William, by the way. I hear he’s not your average fare.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant while keeping an eye on the trucks in my rearview mirror.

“He’s supposed to be a real badass, one heck of an Alpha.” Roger covered the phone for three or four seconds and then continued talking. “He’s probably as hard to kill as you are. You’ll have to use blessed silver, the whole nine yards.”

I told him to go screw himself and hung up before I meant to, but he deserved it. This wasn’t really my fault. If the werewolf from last night was so damn important then he should have been wearing a doggie collar and a tag. And he should have been warned not to hunt vampires so close to my club.

Before I could decide what to do about my suspicious tailgaters, my cell phone rang again. As soon as I said, “Hello?” the shit hit the fan. Another truck, a black one, pulled off of a side street and swerved to a sideways halt in front of me. The other two trucks sped up and rammed me from behind, knocking my Mustang into a skid.

I spun sideways, smashing into the truck in front of me. My Mustang flipped up and over. Metal scraped on concrete as it cartwheeled down the street. Loud music was coming from the cell phone. As the car rolled, I was dumped unceremoniously onto the concrete (seat belt anyone?) and the cell phone flew out of my hand. Through the crunching death knell of my Mustang, I still managed to hear Sheena’s whiny voice. “Boss, did Veruca say anything to you about coming in late, or taking the night off? Oh, and Talbot said to warn you…”

4

TABITHA:

MIDWIFE

When I awoke in Eric’s bed, the first thing I felt was hunger. I was also cold, colder than I’d ever been. Nothing felt right. Noises were too loud, my skin felt too tight, and there was a really strong odor. It smelled like crotch. I realized Talbot was standing over in the corner. I snarled at him without meaning to, and suddenly my gums felt like they were on fire. The sensation was a cutting, jabbing, tearing feeling. I fell off the bed and smacked my head against the floor. That hurt, too.

I was on my feet again in an instant. The pain left, but my mouth still felt strange. Frightened, but excited, I ran my fingers along the inside of my mouth and there they were—fangs! Oh my God! He had really done it. I was a vampire! I looked back in Talbot’s direction; he was still there, silently watching.

Low, thumping, and filled with what I needed, Talbot’s heart called to me. All other sounds faded into the background, a distant buzz. Talbot’s features blurred until I recognized him only by his scent. I’d always thought Talbot was human, but no human could have a scent like his, tangy and wild. His skin grew semitranslucent and I don’t know if it was an illusion or not, but I seemed to be able to see the blood coursing through his body. It wanted out. I wanted in.

So I charged him. Surely Eric wouldn’t mind if I ate Talbot. Eric loved me and I was hungry. Thoughts that were not mine warred in my brain. Thinking rationally hurt. I didn’t need to think, I needed to feed.

I can’t eat Talbot,I told myself unconvincingly.

Of course you can,I disagreed.He’s food.

No…he’s…I wasn’t even sure it really was Talbot now; his scent was gone, replaced with an odor that I couldn’t describe. It was what food smells like, what blood smells like.

Talbot lashed out with his right hand and knocked me to the floor. I reacted instinctively, trying to scratch him, bite him, anything that would draw blood. He just laughed. God, how that pissed me off! Faster than I could understand, he was on top of me, straddling my thighs. One hand was on my throat and the other was on my chest pushing me down. He was so warm. My emotions went wild. Images passed through my head that would have made me retch the night before. I wanted him. I wanted him inside me and at the same time I wanted to rip his throat out. I wondered if I could have both if I was on top.

I don’t know how long it took me to recognize the sound of my own name, but from the look on Talbot’s face he’d been using it for a while. I opened my eyes, not realizing that I had closed them, and saw fresh scratches on his face. He was holding both of my wrists in one hand above my head while he squeezed my throat with the other. I was writhing and bucking under him trying to get free. He was surprisingly strong. I could smell his excitement; the scent mingled with that of the blood pumping through his veins…so close, just under the skin. I think I started screaming then, because he tightened his grip on my throat and told me to stop.

“One more scream out of you, Tabitha, and I don’t care how put out Eric will be, I’ll abort this little experiment. Now please try to be quiet. My hearing is better than yours and you’re hurting my head. I’m going to feed you.”

I went still, but I was keening. I think that’s the word for what I was doing. I couldn’t help it. I was so hungry. “I need it,” I gasped. It was hard to speak with him choking me.

“I know you do.” He sounded almost sympathetic. “But you have to be a good girl, or I really will kill you.”

Staring at the slight trickle of blood running down his cheek, I strained to try and reach it with my tongue, even though his face was a foot or more from mine. I was vaguely conscious of a stream of babble coming from somewhere, as I stared at the blood. Someone was offering to perform a string of sexual acts ranging from simple to wild to outright depraved. Then I realized I was doing the offering. I would do anything for blood, or at least promise anything. I made myself stop. I hadn’t expected it to be like this.

Talbot’s light brown eyes turned green; the pupils became slits again. I remembered walking outside the lion cages at the zoo, the smell of the great cats. That was the smell of him. Shock flooded me at the realization he wasn’t human, but then I was overcome by new images, dead lions, me crawling naked in their blood, lapping it up on all fours.

I shuddered in revulsion. “What’s happening to me?”

“You’re a vampire, princess, just like you wanted. You ever read ‘The Monkey’s Paw’?”

I shook my head. My books were about vampires, not monkeys. My sister had been the bookish type, not me.

“Why am I not surprised?” He laughed. I kept expecting his eyes to change back. They didn’t. Instead, I watched fangs grow in his mouth, uppers and lowers, different than Eric’s and mine. Ours were uppers only. Talbot’s fangs looked like an animal’s teeth had grown in, replacing his canines. It was hard not to keep staring at the blood on his cheek.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Talbot said. “I’m not going to release you until I can trust you not to go into a feeding frenzy….”

His voice faded away as I turned my attention to the door. Outside I could smell more blood. I could hear it calling me. There was a heartbeat to go with it and another smell, a bathroom smell that was dreadful. It reminded me of the women’s restroom when I’d worked retail. Those women had been real skanks, but this smell was worse. My nostrils flared and I curled my upper lip. Another delicious heartbeat joined the first, but it brought with it even more yucky smells: age, smoke, and something else, something that reminded me of a hospital…some kind of sickness.

Talbot slapped me. I tried to bite him, but his hand was off my throat and back on it before I could react.

“Smell bad?” he purred. I nodded. I started keening again in spite of myself. So hungry. “I bet I smell pretty good, don’t I?” I nodded again. I was having thoughts about Talbot that I’d never had before. If I could have put those thoughts on film I was pretty sure a whole lot of horny guys would have ordered it on pay-per-view. Talbot shifted his grip from my throat to the top of my head and slammed it into the floor two quick hard times. I saw stars, but I tried to bite him anyway, so he did it again. Dazed, I simply lay back and waited for what would happen next. I’d be damned before I let myself cry in front of him.

“It’s simple, Tabitha. Marilyn and Desiree are each outside with a pint of blood. They are going to come in one at a time and feed it to you. It will be cold.”

I began to shake my head violently. “No. Hot! I need it hot! I want it from the vein. Let me rip their throats open. We can share. I can drink them and you can fuck them—or me if you want. You can take me from behind and—”

“Shut! Up!” Talbot screamed and I tried to cover my ears. It was as if a gun had been fired next to my head. My ears rang. I thought he’d deafened me. I realized I was crying. The tears came rushing out and I couldn’t stop them. As I cried, I could smell more blood, and I knew it was coming from me.

“Where’s Eric?” I whined. “I want Eric! He’d feed me. He wouldn’t let you do this to me. Let me go! When he finds out what you’re doing—”

Talbot shouted again and all I could do was cry harder. Bastard. Didn’t he know how it hurt? Couldn’t he feel how I needed warmth as badly as I needed blood?

“Eric knows what I’m doing. He sent me in here to feed you because all it would take is one slipup from him and you’d be one short-lived little vampire. You get two pints of blood and you get them cold because if you had it warm you’d lose control of yourself and I might have to kill you in self-defense. Two pints ought to dull the pain and clear your head. Then I can educate you a little and answer your questions, but here’s the thing. You have to keep the blood down and you have to drink both pints. Once the hunger starts to fade you’re going to want to stop drinking, but you can’t. I need you to have both pints in you so that you’ll have a little self-control. Okay?”

I nodded. Two pints? God! Give me three pints. Give me a gallon! Let me drink the whole bar, every patron. Two pints. Ha!

Talbot called for Desiree and she came in. The smell of her grew stronger. She really did smell like a bathroom stall that needed cleaning. I realized that she must have just finished a set, because a sickening sweet smell of sweat and deodorant rolled off of her in waves, but as she drew near, the scent of the blood overwhelmed all of that. It wasn’t that it smelled good or bad, it was just blood and blood was what I needed more than any junkie has ever needed any drug. My muscles strained as I tried to pull free of Talbot to get to the blood.

Desiree kept walking. In her hands, she held a blood bag. It moved back and forth, almost hypnotizing me as it bounced gently from side to side with the rocking motion of her strides. Talbot must have been giving her instructions, but I couldn’t hear them. Everything, my entire being, was centered on that pint of fluid. She knelt next to Talbot and opened one end of the bag before placing it over my open, eager mouth. I barely even tasted it. It didn’t matter that it was cold or what type it was, all that mattered was that I needed it.

Before I knew it, I was finished with the bag and Marilyn was walking in while Desiree was hurrying out the door past her. Marilyn looked even more fragile than she had when I had last seen her. Her skin was wrinkled, her gray hair was unkempt, and she was wearing the same old-woman clothes she always wore. Her glasses made her eyes look huge and I could hear her labored breathing and the not quite steady beat of her heart. She smelled like smoke and I coughed as she came near. She gave me a disapproving look.

“You were so afraid of dying that you had him do this to you?” She shook her head, then attached one end of some IV tubing to the blood bag. Unlike Desiree, Marilyn seemed practiced at this. She knelt next to me and gently slid the tube between my lips like a drinking straw. She wasn’t afraid at all, but I did notice that she was careful to keep her fingers out of reach. As I sucked greedily at the tube, she took a handkerchief from her pocket and began to wipe the bloody tears from my face. “Are you in love with him?”

A growing calm spread out from the center of my body, slowly moving through each limb, filling me, sating my thirst. It had nothing to do with Marilyn’s words and everything to do with the blood. My senses seemed to dim slightly. Smells were still strong, but more bearable. I could still hear the beating of Talbot’s heart, but it was a faint rhythm, reassuring in its presence.

Slowly, I began to notice the taste and texture of the blood. Before, I’d needed it and it wouldn’t have mattered if it had tasted like battery acid. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good, either; it reminded me of milk, but with a strong copper taste, sort of like sucking on a penny—a cold penny. It certainly wasn’t the grossest thing I’d ever put in my mouth, and it definitely wasn’t my first taste of the stuff. Vampire boyfriend, remember? I kept drinking and Talbot smiled at me from behind friendly brown eyes. Whatever he’d been expecting, I’d proved him wrong.

When I was done, Marilyn stood back. Talbot was still on top of me and I finally noticed that I was naked, on the floor, being straddled by a large man who was noticeably excited. Oh my God. I tried to cover myself and Talbot laughed as he let me up. “Oh, so now we’re modest,” he said jovially. “After all the things you were just offering to do to me?”

I expected myself to blush, but nothing happened. I rushed over to the closet, grabbed one of Eric’s shirts, and ran into the bathroom. I looked into the mirror and saw nothing. I gasped. I should have expected this; I knew it would happen. But somehow it’s different when it’s you.

Marilyn opened the door behind me, carrying my underwear and one of my dresses. “You look better than ever, Tabitha,” she said sadly. “You’ll just never be able to look in the mirror for reassurance. You might find your clothes are a little loose.”

I got dressed under her watchful eye. The silence was uncomfortable. “I’ll just have to watch Eric’s reaction to see how good I look now, I guess. It won’t be so bad.”

Marilyn shook her head and left the room. Dressed but shoeless, I followed her. “What? Is there something I don’t know? Did something happen to him?”

Marilyn ignored me, walking out of the bedroom and shutting the door behind her. Talbot was leaning against the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. “What’s her problem?” I asked him.

“One thing you need to know about Eric, Tabitha. I’ve known him a long time and I know you think that this is going to be some wonderful eternal love thing, but I’ve seen this happen before and odds are—”

“Odds are?” I asked.

He let out a long breath before continuing. “Odds are he’ll ask you to leave.”

What? That wasn’t possible. Talbot was playing some sort of sick game with me. My fangs came out and so did his. They didn’t hurt as much the second time. The sensation was more of an uncomfortable distension combined with a jaw-popping feeling that was nowhere near my jaw.

“I love him,” I said. “I would do anything for him. I did this for him, so that we could be together.”

Talbot’s voice was calm and steady like a judge delivering a death sentence. “I’ve only ever known Eric to love one woman, Tabitha, and she just walked out that door.”

“Marilyn? But he can’t even sleep with her,” I argued. “She’s old! She’s nothing. I’m forever young. Look at me. I’ve got the body of a goddess. I can do things to him now that no human woman could ever imagine.”

Talbot just stared at me. I tried to convince myself that he was lying, but there was a look in his eyes that wounded me. It wasn’t sadness, but a look of familiarity, like he’d heard it all before and some of it twice.

“Did Eric ever say he loved you?” Talbot asked finally.

“No,” I whispered.

“What did he tell you when you asked?”

“He…he would…” I could feel my lower lip begin to tremble. Whether it was rage, sadness, or despair, I didn’t know. Maybe all three. “He would say I was a moist warm tightness with all the necessary parts.” I was crying again. Talbot turned away.

“One thing about Eric, he doesn’t hide his feelings. If he loved you, he’d have told you.” As he opened the door, Talbot looked back. “I’ll be right outside when you’re ready to learn the ropes.”

He left me alone and all I felt was the cold.

5

ERIC:

DEAD CAR

They’d killed my Mustang. It lay on its back in the road, a dead metal cockroach leaking oil and antifreeze onto the asphalt. One of the wheel covers rolled across the road, the three-pronged center of the simulated knockoff hub blurring like a propeller until it hit the base of a streetlight with an insulting clang.

The trucks skidded into a circle around the Mustang, completely blocking off the intersection. Two men stepped out of each truck. As I watched, long lupine claws pushed out through their fingernails and their human teeth dropped to the ground. The werewolves’ muzzles flowed forward, fangs bared. I’m sure they meant the display to be impressive, but it still looked to me more like bad special effects. At least they weren’t all the same generic brown as Wolfy from the alley. These six must have come out of the variety pack; there were two gray, two black, and two that looked more like werehuskies than werewolves.

“So which two are the Cool Ranch?” I asked. They charged at me, and I fought for control. The red tinge to my vision faded even as I popped my fangs. This was important. I wanted to remember killing the bastards that had murdered my Mustang.

The two gray wolves were a little faster than the others, so they reached me first. I caught one by the muzzle, flinging him across the intersection and through the glass front of an antique shop. The shop’s burglar alarm sounded as the other guy sank his fangs into my shoulder. I wondered if there was a little werewolf handbook that insisted the shoulder was the best place to bite a vampire. It hurt like an old wound, a remembered pain.

The werewolf I’d thrown into the storefront recovered quickly and raced back to help his partner. When he ripped my belly open I definitely felt it, but I know what it’s like to be engulfed in flame and staked through the heart. In comparison, this was nothing. Pain is fleeting for the undead. Our nerve endings don’t work the same as those of the living. The initial damage registers, but unless the weapons are blessed or something, the ache doesn’t last.

As the fight went on, I gained a little more respect for their methods. They worked well together, a real team. It made me miss fighting alongside Greta.

“You assholes know you can’t kill me, right?” I tightened my grip on the muzzle of the gray that had gutted me and listened to his teeth crack. He kept right on tearing into me with his claws and his buddy kept chewing on my shoulder.

They wanted me to scream or beg for mercy, but it wasn’t going to happen. The injuries didn’t annoy me that much. Vlads heal quickly and I heal quicker than most, but healing is hungry work and it did mean that I would need to feed again before dawn.

I planted a foot on each of the grays’ chests, but before I could try to push off, the two black werewolves joined the fray and grabbed my legs. Still, I was winning, not the fight against the werewolves, but the fight against myself. The more I reined in my anger, bit it back, choked on it, the more I realized that I needed to talk to these guys, to see if I could stop this before it got even more out of hand and I was facing down twenty or thirty of them.

Just then two more werewolves showed up in another matching truck. The werewolves that got out of it were brown. “You two must be the corn chips,” I told the newcomers. They didn’t get the joke, but one of the huskies hovering on the sidelines chuckled. I guess the huskies were the Cool Ranch.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, vampire?” asked one of the black-furred pair.

I considered trying to bite the gray to get him off of my shoulder, but I answered the question instead. “Yeah, take me to your leader.” Once again only the huskies seemed to get the joke. Maybe my humor was too old. “Seriously, I want to talk to your Alpha…Willard or whatever his name is.” I sighed. “Why else do you think I’m not turning to mist right now?”

Actually the real reason I wasn’t turning to mist is that I couldn’t, didn’t know anyone who could. Animals, yes. Mist, no. I’d tried it once and instead of turning into a cloud, I’d gone translucent blue like Obi-Wan Kenobi inThe Empire Strikes Back . It had felt like dying, all the life-force draining out of me, the world changing colors, blurring. Turning back had been hard, too. It had taken the better part of an hour, and once my body finally re-formed, I promised myself never to screw around with it again.

Roger was the only one who’d seen me do it and we’d both agreed that I shouldn’t try it again. “It looked like you almost died, Eric,” Roger had told me. “I’d be scared of getting stuck that way.”

I shuddered at the memory and came back to the present. Eight pairs of eyes stared at me from unconvincing giant Harryhausen-esque wolf heads.

I tried talking again, but this time I spoke slowly and clearly. “Will you take me to your Alpha? Maybe we can work something out.” I felt a sharp blow to the back of my head.

“What the hell are you doing back there?” I asked angrily.

Two more whacks and my vision blurred; out of the corner of my eye, I saw the stake. It wasn’t one of those fancy things with a real weapon grip like proper vampire hunters use. A long jagged splinter jutted out from a mahogany spindle with a dark finish, like someone had snapped the stretcher off of an old rocking chair. Either these guys didn’t usually hunt vampires, or they weren’t used to taking prisoners. As the stake arced toward my chest, I tried to transform.

I didn’t care what I turned into: bat, cat, snake, rat, frog, wolf, or raven. I can do them all, which is unusual. I even managed a flea once. The problem is that changing into anything takes concentration, and I didn’t have any to spare.

My other option was to just give in to my anger and let myself go berserk. But going berserk would mean more dead werewolves and I needed to keep the body count down if I was going to find a way to make peace with the Alpha.

Before I could think up Plan C, someone hit me again. My vision stretched and the lights went out as I felt the stake slide home. You learn something new every day. My lesson for today was: If you knock a vampire out before you stake him, you can drag him around in the back of your new pickup truck and he won’t know what’s happening.

Even in my unconscious state, letting them beat me grated on my nerves. I should have been able to take them. It’s not like there was a full moon or anything. I know myths and legends talk about werewolves going crazy and eating people during the full moon, but as far as I can tell all the full moon does is make them bigger and meaner. I can’t ever remember which one is waxing or waning, but the moon looked like a sideways grin, so I figured these boys were at about half power.

I decided to enjoy the nap. My night was fucked anyway. I’d already lost my Mustang. I didn’t want to lose anything else. Fighting werewolves isn’t like dealing with vampires. They travel in packs. The idea of two dozen werewolves tearing through the Demon Heart wasn’t pretty. If they had me, then they’d leave the club alone; they’d leave Marilyn and Roger and Tabitha alone.

If I was lucky, they’d do what I was hoping and actually take me to their Alpha. Maybe we could work this out. I’d probably killed his son; he’d definitely killed my Mustang. It was an even trade from my perspective.

I don’t know how long I was out, but my world came back in a sudden rush of pain. I swear stakes hurt worse coming out than they do going in. I was in a bag that smelled kind of like feathers, but there was flannel and something synthetic there, too. A sleeping bag. Cute. A ragged hole gaped in the bag over my chest where someone, one of my captors, I guessed, had ripped it open to remove the stake. I wasn’t on fire, which meant it was either still night out or I was in a covered area someplace.

I fumbled with my watch, finally managing to hit the right button. A soft blue glow showed the time as 03:03, just after three in the morning. Still dark.

Fangs and claws at the ready, I ripped my way out of the sleeping bag and looked around. Pickup truck. Parking lot. Woods. The smell of water filled my nostrils. It smelled clean…untainted…no chlorine. There was no sign of whoever had unstaked me.

It was extremely dark…a real look-out-behind-you kind of dark, perfect for vampire vision. I took a few minutes to explore my surroundings. Crickets chirped loudly, a distant frog splashed down into lake water, and somewhere out in the night an owl hooted. The gravel lot was almost full of cars and trucks. A small building off to one side smelled like it contained a couple of poorly maintained restrooms. A concrete boat launch sloped gently down to the lake, and a set of concrete steps led down to a little marina where thirty or forty boat slips served as a waterside parking lot. There were only a few boats parked at the moment: a couple of pontoon boats, a speedboat, and a rickety-looking fishing boat made of aluminum.

Dense woods covered the lakeshore opposite the marina and I could only make out one house, old but in good repair, its short wooden dock poking out into the lake, a moored pontoon boat bobbing gently with the natural rise and fall of the water.

I remembered this place. It was called Orchard Lake. My family used to come out here when I was a kid. It was part of the county water supply, not exactly a state park, but a public lake. The homes were only accessible from the water; the absence of boats at the marina meant most of the residents were home.

Far to the left of the marina, Orchard Dam kept the lake fat and happy. It also kept all that water from destroying the expensive developments that had sprung up downstream. Below the dam, only a little creek tumbled away through the woods, while the lake itself ran some fifteen miles in the other direction.

Orchard Lake was old, a sprawling gem tucked away in a pocket of forest and mountains, slowly being encroached upon by overpriced suburbia. Sable Oaks, Greymont, and Harvest Estates bordered the Orchard Lake area, but none of them came within a mile of the lake itself. The lake homes were older houses, passed down through the families of blue collar workers, real salt of the earth folks.

Back when we were alive, every time we’d get a little plastered, Roger would talk about how he was going to be rich one day and buy up Orchard Lake. He wanted to turn it into a hoity-toity community for rich old farts and politicians. A lot of people had the same idea. Over the years, countless developers had tried to purchase the land, but nobody would sell. The news always seemed to show the same old guy claiming, “My grandpa built this house with his own two hands,” and refusing to give in even at outlandish prices.

I shook my head to clear it, wondering where the werewolf variety pack had gone. It was three in the morning. I’d been out for six hours or more, and Orchard Lake was only an hour or so from town.

“Hello?” I called out. Silence.

Why go through all the trouble of ambushing me only to unstake me in an abandoned marina and run away? Clearly, I did not understand the modern werewolf. All four trucks could be accounted for amid the other vehicles. Gravel crunching under my feet, I scouted the place a little more.

As I followed the drive down to the boat launch, the scent of gunpowder and blood drifted over to me from the nearby woods. Werewolf blood. I followed the smell up and over the half of the mountain that the parking lot hadn’t claimed and found the werewolves easily enough.

They’d been cut to ribbons, dead for at least an hour. It was worse than what I’d done to the werewolf in the alley the night before. I was pretty sure there were enough pieces to make most of eight werewolves.

Just to check, I sifted through the bodies, stacking the heads in a neat little row. Two of them had obvious bullet holes. One shot had been close range to the temple; the fur was badly powder burned. Not the most pleasant of smells. The second one had been shot through the back of the head, and I didn’t see an exit wound.

Morbid curiosity got the better of me and I cracked the skull open. The bullet wasn’t hard to find; I just followed the trail of blackened gray matter from the back of the skull to where the bullet had lodged in the side of the frontal bone, above the nasal cavity and between the eyes.

I’m not a big gun person, but the bullet looked weird even to me. OnCSI when they pull the bullet out of a dead guy it looks like a little metal rock, but this one looked whole, casing included.

My brain was fuzzy and my head hurt.Concentrate , I told myself. Each werewolf’s body had long jagged claw marks, and one had had his heart ripped out. Aside from the bullet wounds, the werewolves looked like they’d been torn apart by a vampire. It would look even more gruesome in daylight, when the remains reverted from wolf form to human.

I leaned in closer, examining the wounds. They looked familiar. Damn. Resting my hand atop one of the ragged cuts, I extended my claws. They weren’t quite a match, but they were close, and now the whole area probably smelled like me, too.

If not for the bullet holes, someone might have convinced me that I’d blacked out and done it, but I don’t own a pistol and these boys hadn’t been killed with vampire claws. Now that I was suspicious, I could find bullet holes in several other body parts. No more bullets, though.

I’d been framed.

Unable to discern anything more from the bodies, I walked back down to the boat launch. Brains and blood washed off of the single silver bullet I’d retrieved, leaving it looking bright and new. It was warm to the touch even after I cleaned it off in the cool lake water. Little markings glowed faintly in the dark.

Magic bullet. Bodies cut up to look like I did it…. But why go through all the trouble to dig out the other bullets and leave this one behind—unless I was supposed to find it? I put the bullet in the pocket of my jeans and knelt by the water.Somebody doesn’t want me and the Alpha werewolf to kiss and make up, but they don’t have the nerve to kill me themselves.

It didn’t particularly bother me that the variety pack had been killed, but something in the back of my head (my brain, maybe) was telling me that I’d been outsmarted. Someone had figured out that I would go with them to try to see Willard or Wilbur, or whatever his name was, and had arranged this mess to ensure that didn’t happen, taking a fucked-up set of circumstances and boosting them to a whole new level of suckage.

That meant it was political and possibly out of my league. But I did know a guy who might know a guy. Roger knew all the bigwigs in town, the annoying seedy little assholes who pretended to be royalty.

I reached for my cell phone before I remembered it was littering the street back in Void City. By my watch, I’d wasted forty minutes wandering around the parking lot. For once, I remembered the sun. I did not want to be caught hiding in the restrooms here if the pack managed to locate their buddies, and it was over an hour’s drive back to Void City.

There were no keys in the truck and I’ve never learned how to hot-wire a vehicle. Unless I absolutely had to do it, I didn’t relish the idea of breaking into one of the lake homes; too many windows, no basements. There had to be a gas station around here somewhere. I might be able to make it to a pay phone. Maybe Talbot could drive out here and pick me up before dawn. It wasn’t a good plan, but it was the best I had.

I made it halfway up the mountain before I realized I’d make better time flying than I would on foot. Orchard Dam Road was a winding curving thing and the shortest distance between two points…I concentrated on what it was like to be a bat. To the observer, it’s pretty quick, but to the vampire doing it, transforming into something that small is painful. It’s like having cold-water shrinkage so bad your testicles retract, taking refuge in the pelvis.

Some vampires leave their clothes behind when they change. My daughter is one of them. I’m not. My clothes folded in with me as I sprouted leathery wings and launched skyward.

Bat radar gives me headaches, so I rely mostly on my bat vision. Bats have good eyesight at long distances, so it wasn’t too bad. I felt very cold, though. A smaller body meant the cold went to my core faster, and even though it was a sultry summer evening at ground level, it’s always colder in the air.

The trees stretched out below me as I flew, heading south to avoid crossing too close to Sable Oaks. County Road 58 was hard to miss, but every time I tried to cross it, something interfered with my senses, making everything hazy and wavering. I don’t know if it was residual heat from the asphalt or what, but it was bad enough that I stuck to the forest edge.

A few miles down the road, I had a thought, and if I’d had a human throat, I’d have cursed. As it was, I made a little squeaky irate bat sound. Who the hell had unstaked me and where had he gone? How had he gotten far enough away to escape my notice in the time it took me to rip my way out of a sleeping bag? It didn’t seem to make sense.

6

TABITHA:

VAMPIRE101

Halfway through the lesson, I was having a hard time listening to Talbot. We were over in the Pollux Theater across from the club, alone. I loved every inch of its elaborately detailed elegance, from the real velvet of the curtains to the leather-covered seats to the sweeping balconies and carved balustrades.

There was no orchestra pit. I sat in the front row only a few feet from the wooden stage, a massive structure that appeared to be about three feet high, though I knew there was a whole basement underneath, still filled with props and pieces of scenery, and a little room where the pipe organ was stored when it wasn’t onstage.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to know how the whole vampire thing worked; it was more that I couldn’t get a handle on Talbot and it was driving me crazy. I’m a focused girl. I set a goal for myself, a man I want or a dress or whatever, and I go out and do what it takes to get it.

Talbot was driving me nuts by refusing to do one simple thing. He was leaning casually against the stage in front of me, and I knew he must have had a good view from there, but no matter what I did, I could not get him to stare at my breasts. I’d never tried when I was alive because I didn’t want to lead him on, but now that I was a vampire, it was like my brain had been restructured. My thoughts were still mine, I hadn’t exactly stopped being me, but there was a predatory urge coloring everything.

I’d assumed it would be hard getting used to people as food, but it wasn’t. The best way I can describe it is that it’s like dreaming. You’re in the center of a little make-believe universe. Everything around you is for your amusement, pleasure, or dismay. Nothing you do in a dream has any real consequences. For me, that was how being undead felt.

The red tones in the Pollux’s velvet curtains were vibrant even though I knew there was a layer of dust covering them. The wind blew through the air ducts with a musical tone so distinct that I would recognize it anywhere. Talbot droned on, but his words weren’t important. I watched his eyes, his skin, his pulse, and inhaled his scent.

Finally, he stopped trying to explain whatever it was he had been talking about, stalked up to my seat, and put his big hands right over my breasts. “If I stare at these will it make you pay attention to what I’m saying?” He jiggled them briefly as he spoke and then let go.

I was mortified. Had I really been that obvious? “Because,” he continued, “I could do that, but I want you to know right now that neither you nor any other human is of any interest to me in that way.”

So he was a pervert, a real pervert. I wondered what exactly he did like. Sheep? “Wait a minute,” I protested. “You were really excited back in the bedroom. That wasn’t fake. I could smell it, not to mention the way you were poking me with that thing.”

Talbot laughed. It wasn’t a mean laugh, more like he’d just heard a hilarious joke, but it felt mean anyway. I don’t like to be laughed at. My fangs came out. It was only the third time, but it already felt natural. There was the same stretching jaw-popping feeling, but it was a good sort of hurt. I hissed at him, and he grinned crookedly at me. “Let’s just say that it’s a dominance thing. You were trying to get away and you couldn’t. I like that. It’s perfectly natural for one of my kind.”

“Are you a were-something?” I asked. It was hard to believe he wasn’t human. Then again, it wasn’t like I paid close attention to any of the guys here, other than Eric.

“No,” he answered. “Now listen; we aren’t here to learn about me. We are here to learn about your new lifestyle. Your unlifestyle. You with me?”

I nodded. I knew that I could get him to tell me what he was eventually, or maybe get Eric to tell me. It was simply a matter of time.

“What,” asked Talbot, “is the last thing you remember?”

“You told me about the whole mirror thing, which I’d pretty much figured out. You said I should stay out of sunlight, which I already knew. You covered the garlic thing and holy symbols, blessed weapons, and not getting my heart or head ripped out, off, destroyed, or whatever. That pretty much covers what I heard. I don’t remember what was last. It all ran together.”

“Okay,” Talbot said. He slipped back into lecture mode, and I tried to pay attention this time. “The number one thing to remember about being a vampire is that the biggest threat that you have is yourself. When you feed, try not to kill anyone. The best way to do that is to eat before you get too hungry. The more ravenous you are, the harder it will be for you to control yourself. If you don’t want to act like you did earlier, when you were totally out of control, don’t skip meals.

“If you do kill someone, then remove the head or the heart to keep them from rising as bloodsucking zombies. Eric calls them wampyres because he’s read too much crap on the Internet, but they’re just zombies.

“Don’t get sloppy. When you kill a human, you have to dispose of the body or have it done for you. It costs twice as much if the city has to take care of it.”

“Costs more?”

“Void City is vampire owned and operated. The Council of High Magic makes them use guild mages for most disposal services, so they get a nice tidy kickback every month. It drives the prices up.

“What else? Oh, if one of your snacks comes back as a ghost, tell me or Eric about it. We’ll get Magbidion to move them along. He’s cheaper than a guild mage and he’s pretty good at keeping under their radar. In addition, ghosts are less likely if you destroy the corpse completely. Don’t get caught and don’t leave any evidence behind.

“Eric does a piss-poor job of getting rid of bodies, which is one of the reasons that he likes to eat in and one of the reasons he keeps Magbidion around. Eric tends to eat a little bit from several different people and he tends to prefer his employees. You already know that, but what you don’t know is that once you start feeding directly from the vein, it gets hard not to drink it all at once.

“Blood bags are good, if you don’t mind it being cold or room temp. Eric usually feeds that way once or twice a week. Most vampires loathe cold blood. Eric doesn’t and you don’t seem to have that issue either, which puts you one up on a lot of them.

“You can even try animal blood. Eric can’t drink it, his body rejects it rather violently, but most vampires can and some do so exclusively. If you choose to feed by killing people, Eric will be likely to make you leave sooner than he might otherwise. You may notice that he breaks his own rules. I wouldn’t suggest pointing the double standard out to him. He already knows.

“For the first few months you may feel like you have to go to the bathroom. Don’t. The phantom sensations will fade more quickly if you don’t indulge them. Some vampires do continue those functions because it makes them feel more normal, but all that comes out is blood and it’s better not to waste it that way. You may also have bouts of panic when you feel like you’re suffocating. You don’t have to breathe anymore, but your mind can and will play tricks on you. After all, you’re used to breathing automatically and it can be disquieting once it sinks in that you only breathe when you consciously think about it.”

Feeling a little bit like I was back in high school, I raised my hand. “When do you get to the powers part?” I asked when he acknowledged me. “I mean, I know I still need to know all this other stuff, but I should be able to do cool stuff, too. What can I do?”

I don’t know how to describe Talbot’s look. He clearly disapproved, but there was something else in his eyes that made me feel there was more to it. “That kind of attitude can get you killed, but to answer your question: I don’t know. Eric has a lot of powers, real Dracula-type stuff. He’s a Vlad.”

“Vlad?”

“Vamps come in four flavors: Drones, Soldiers, Masters, and Vlads. They used to be called Serfs, Knights, Barons, and Kings.” He hopped up onto the stage, pacing back and forth along the very edge. “Remind you of anything?”

“Should it?”

“It should remind you of the feudal system. Vampire society is slow to change, but as time goes by the names get updated by the new recruits.”

“So Eric is like a king?”

“It’s not literal. It’s a classification of power levels. Vlads have all the powers in the book and tend to keep coming back no matter what you do to them, just like Dracula.”

I knew my Eric was special…and as the offspring of a King, I should be special, too. “So that makes me a Queen, right?”

“It has nothing to do with bloodline, and everything to do with personality, the strength of an individual’s character. I’ve always thought of it as a supernatural Rorschach test.”

“Then what am I?”

“I don’t know,” Talbot said, hopping off the stage and landing adroitly on his feet in front of me. “You’ll find out, in time, through experimentation. Roger could tell you for sure. He’s a Master.”

“A master of what?” I smirked.

“A Master vampire. Masters and Vlads can sense each other, tell who is who. Vlads can also announce themselves to other vampires, kind of like a psychic challenge, but it’s rude, so even if you are a Vlad, you don’t want to go around announcing yourself.”

“Can’t Eric just tell me what I am when he gets back?”

“You’d think so,” Talbot said, “but a sire can’t usually sense his offspring’s power level.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t make the rules. What I know mostly comes from what I’ve observed with Eric. In some areas, I’m just as uninformed as he is. Thralls are a good example. I know very little about them other than that they are humans that serve vampires and that Eric refuses to make one or to allow his offspring to make them. For now, though, let’s only worry about the basics.”

I looked him in the eye to show I was paying attention, but I think he took it the wrong way.

“Don’t try to mesmerize me either. Vampires can’t entrance c—my kind.”

“I wasn’t,” I protested.

“No harm done, but be careful looking other vampires in the eyes unless you trust them. As Melville said, ‘The eyes are the gateway to the soul.’ With vampires, he wasn’t kidding.”

“So I can take over people’s minds?” I giggled.

“You can,” Talbot replied, “but a human with strong will can resist you and a vampire with a stronger will than yours can take you over instead.”

I yawned. I didn’t care about Talbot, didn’t want to be with him, didn’t need to know this stuff. I wanted Eric. I did try to listen as Talbot began to lecture on what he called “the second biggest threat to vampires,” but visions of Eric filled my mind. Despite what Talbot and Marilyn had told me, I had to see him. Even more so, I needed him to see me.

Marilyn had been right about my clothes feeling loose. After I’d been fed the cold blood and Talbot had left the bedroom, I had wound up borrowing clothes out of Amanda’s trunk. Amanda was a charity case who’d overdosed on crack about a week before I’d moved in with Eric, and no one had ever come to claim her things.

She’d had this whole black leather temptress thing going on and she’d been frighteningly thin. I dug through her outfits and put together an ensemble I thought Eric would go for. It wasn’t all that revealing, but it was what I call a highlighter outfit. What it didn’t show, it highlighted and underlined. I was wearing it now. Since it was made for the stage, it came off in sections and I could barely wait to see which parts Eric would want to take off and which ones he would want to leave on. Kelly and Desiree had both assured me I looked sexy beyond belief. They had also helped me with my hair and makeup; I already missed mirrors.

Even the thought of Eric made me tremble in a way I hadn’t been sure that I would be able to as an undead. I ached for him. He could say all of the terrible things he wanted about me and claim I was nothing more to him than a sex toy, but I knew the passion he showed when we were together, the way he needed me, the way he sometimes just held me close for hours.

If Eric didn’t love me, then why was I the only one he took into his bed? Candice wanted him and I knew he wanted her, but he had never been with her. He was faithful. Sure, sometimes he would have me dress up as other women, now and then even call me by their names, but that was just his way of spicing up the bedroom.

All guys have fantasies, and Eric held none of them back from me. He trusted me with all of his darkest urges and most of them I was happy to fulfill, even if a few of them were a little nasty. Eric loved me, he had to love me, and what he’d said didn’t matter.

“Anyone who says otherwise is a liar!”

It dawned on me that I had spoken that last sentence aloud. Color was slowly bleeding back into my vision, replacing the red tint that I hadn’t even noticed until it started to fade. My fangs were out and as I looked down at my hands, I could see that my fingernails were longer than they had been. They were sharp and a little curved at the ends, like claws or talons. My skin had grown even paler than before, virtually a true white. Someone was growling. It was me. A rapid drumbeat pounded in my ears, throbbing.

Talbot clapped. “Well, now we know that you have claws, you can make your eyes glow red, and you haven’t been listening to a word I’ve been saying unless you really do agree so vehemently about the third biggest threat to vampires.”

I nodded. “Yes…I mean, no, I wasn’t listening.” As I calmed down, I noticed that I was standing up and that the pounding in my head was Talbot’s heartbeat. My claws retracted into fingernails again. It felt much weirder than the fangs had, the physical equivalent of the sound fingernails make on a chalkboard. My vision returned to normal, too, although my skin tone didn’t. Interesting. “I’m sorry, Talbot. It’s just that I want to see him. I need him.”

“I know you do,” he said softly.

“He does love me,” I insisted.

“I hope you’re right, little girl.” In an unexpected move, Talbot put his arms around me and gave me a hug. The warmth of him encompassed me as if his heart beat inside my own chest. I fought the urge to sink my teeth into his flesh, but it was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. The hug must have lasted less than a second, but when he stepped away I was trembling. He looked into my eyes and I saw what I thought was compassion.

“Very good. You pass.”

“Pass?” I asked, confused.

“Do I look like a touchy-feely guy to you?” His eyes went slit-pupiled again and he roared at me, his bestial fangs looming large and dangerous between his jaws. This time he flashed claws, too, curved feline things, sharper than mine, with needle-thin points. His other smell resurfaced, too: jungle cat musk. “If you’d bitten me, I’d have ended you and told Eric you were too stupid to keep around.”

“I’d like to see you try,” I shot back with more defiance than confidence.

“I’d succeed.” He chuckled and let his features become human again. “I don’t know why I’m trying to impress you. I’ve been humanoid too long.” He sighed abruptly. “We’ll pick this up a little later. Why don’t we see if we can round you up another couple pints of blood and then you can experiment with your powers.”

I nodded and followed him back across the street to the club. Powers. I’d show him powers.

7

ERIC:

LITTLE SISTER

Dawn was beautiful. The fiery tendrils of morning crimson bathed me in their warm glow. The sun, with typical brilliance, cast its loving gaze in my direction. Had I been alive, I would have turned to face it with joy, or more likely put on my shades to prevent my usual hangover from getting worse. Either way, I wouldn’t have fallen out of the sky and into the woods on account of it. I told you my time sense sucked. Admittedly, being ignited two mornings in a row was a bit unusual for me. It wasn’t my record—there had been a really strange week in El Segundo—but it was unusual.

Flailing my fiery bat wings wasn’t helping the situation, so I turned human again as I fell. Strictly speaking, I suppose I should have been naked since I’d certainly been a naked bat, but it never works that way for me. I re-formed with all my clothes on just before I hit the root system of an oak tree. Fortunately for me, the trees would keep me shaded from the sun until it rose higher…a couple of hours, at least. My eyes started to close and I shook myself awake.

Shit like this never seemed to happen to vampires in the movies. Where were my vampire groupies, my loyal henchlings? Where was fucking Renfield? I didn’t want to break into anyone’s house, but I didn’t want to be burned to ash, either.

There were other options. I could hide under a car, or in a doghouse, or in a mailbox. I could dig a hole and bury myself, technically, but what I really wanted was for Talbot to somehow sense that I needed him and to come pick my burnt ass up and take me home.

I walked through the woods, grateful that I lived in the South, where civilization and forest intermingle from the mountains to the beach. Lots of subdivisions extended right into the woods. Through the trees up ahead, I could see a long line of houses, the leading edge of suburbia.

It had recently become highly fashionable to cut down as few trees as possible; in some areas, contractors built sidewalks and even porches right around existing trees. This subdivision was older, but at least the contractor had let the trees run right up to the property line of the houses, especially where the natural slope of the terrain made building a little more difficult.

One guy was starting his car on my side of the street in the shadows while a woman was doing the same thing on the other side of the street in full sunlight. There were people in the houses. I could sense them. Some were asleep and others were waking, showering, getting ready, brushing their teeth. There were two people still in the nearest house, the one the man had just left. Both of them sounded female, one younger than the other: a mother and daughter.

I moved from house to house along the shady side of the street, concealed by the trees. The houses were all two stories, most with vinyl siding, and each house had somebody home.

I looked at my watch. It was 6:50 on a nice Sunday morning. Didn’t any of these assholes go to church? Back when I was alive, it had seemed like I was the only one who didn’t go to church on Sunday. How long had this been going on? What time did church service start now? Eight o’clock? Nine? I couldn’t wait that long; the sun would be really most sincerely up and this whole stupid subdivision would be bathed in light.

I started toward the closest house, even though it had a family of four inside, but the same strange vibe I’d gotten last night, the odd discomfort that kept me from flying across the county road, repulsed me. It wasn’t the same feeling a blessed house gives off, it was something else, and it almost had a smell, like badly burned toast. It could have been anything, an amateur mage, a botched breakfast attempt…I was too tired to figure it out.

Through the haze, one of the houses suddenly looked perfect. It smelled like freshly baked cinnamon rolls, and the aroma drew me closer nearly against my will. I’d never liked cinnamon rolls in life, but this was intoxicating, almost as much as pizza. If I’d been a cartoon, the scent might have lifted me off of my feet and carried me along.

The wooden privacy fence was short enough to jump and there was an obliging shade tree that completely bridged the gap from fence to garage; only one person was home, plus the house had blacked-out windows in one of the second-story rooms. An amateur photographer would have just the sort of room I could use as shelter until Talbot could come pick me up.

The door to the garage was locked. Rather than force it, I turned into a mouse and crawled under the space between the garage door and the concrete. I turned human again on the other side and looked around for a light switch. The garage smelled of old gasoline and bagged grass. Despite the noxiousness of the smell, I felt a twinge in the back of my throat. I was getting hungry. In the warmth and humidity of the garage, I caught myself falling asleep again. Being exposed to the sun by a goofball with a garage-door opener didn’t sound like fun to me, though, so I shook myself awake again.

I usually go to sleep a few hours after dawn, but I can make it to early afternoon if necessary. Once or twice I’d managed to stay up all day, but each time, I’d passed out at sunset and slept clear through to the next one.

The bulb blew when I tried to turn the lights on. I had almost been expecting it. It was the way things had been going since Friday night: one big fuckup after another. The inside door was locked. My foot did a pretty good job of opening it before I remembered that I was trying to be sneaky. Upstairs I heard a girl sit up in bed. It sounded like she was grabbing something off of the floor. “Mom?” she cried out. “Dad?”

“Nope,” I said under my breath. “Not quite.”

I heard footsteps. Hungry though I was, I didn’t want to eat this teenage kid, home alone on a Sunday morning. Wasn’t she supposed to be watching cartoons? Or was that Saturday? The door from the garage opened up into a little eating space adjoining the kitchen. I sped across the linoleum and into a sitting room that had been converted into a home office. Hanging blinds over the bay window were all that stood between me and an instant sunburn. A small stream of sunlight scorched my leg where one of the blinds was askew.

Where to hide? I considered my options quickly, racing the footsteps overhead. There were no good hiding places. I could smell her now. Her scent was familiar, somehow, and afraid. She also smelled a little excited, which got me a little excited, too, but if I wasn’t going to kill her, it was unlikely that I was going to force myself on her either.

I’d always thought vampires turned into black cats, but it never seemed to work that way for me. Slowly but surely she came down the stairs. A white long-furred kitty waited for her. Of the various creatures I could turn into, it was usually a good bet that the cat would get the most sympathetic reaction. She came around the corner, saw me, and shrieked. Now, what kind of person is afraid of cats?

She was a beautiful girl, dark haired, with smooth skin and bright green eyes. She looked like a younger, more attractive Tabitha. She was wearing a white tank top and panties. Despite the baseball bat in her hands, I was noticing things that I shouldn’t have been. And then I recognized her. She was the girl in the battered photo Tabitha carried in her purse. I cursed in whatever language it is that cats speak and turned into myself again.

She froze, midscream. “So,” I said casually, “you must be Rachel.”

She cocked her head to one side and began slowly backing away from me. “I’m Eric,” I offered lamely. “Your sister’s boyfriend?”

She stopped and looked at me. Her fear was subsiding and I smelled something that it would have been better if I hadn’t. Was Tabitha’s whole family a big mob of vampire junkies? I wondered what would happen if I got Tabitha, Rachel, and their mother all in a room together. It was yet another image to be added to my internal wall of shame. Did all men have thoughts like these? If so, why wasn’t I smart enough to keep them to my subconscious?

Roger had once told me that all I had to do if I wanted to rule the world was keep my mouth shut, my pants on, and my temper under control. “What about sunlight?” I’d asked him. He’d laughed at me and said that if I was strong enough to rein in the first three things, he was pretty sure even sunlight wouldn’t be a problem for me.

“Holy shit! And you really are a vampire? What are you doing here? Is Tab with you?” Rachel asked. She’d gotten closer to me in the brief moment I’d been lost in thought. I shook my head, backing toward the door.

She continued to walk toward me and I considered running out the front door and into the sunlight. She had the same look in her eye that Tabitha had had when she’d first approached me at the club. Maybe one of the other houses had a pack of werewolves in it or a few vampire hunters…something safe. Anything but this. My eyes were glowing against my will and my fangs had dropped down in full-on vampire munch mode. She should have been running away at this point. Instead, she was taking off her tank top. She was certainly pierced in interesting places.

Closing my eyes, I fought back either a yawn or a snarl. I could not eat, sleep with, or otherwise enact upon Tabitha’s sister. Even though I couldn’t see her anymore, her scent still plagued me. There hadn’t been any cinnamon rolls in the oven when I’d passed, yet their tantalizing aroma mingled with hers. What was I doing here?

With supreme effort, I mustered enough concentration to turn back into a cat. Lower to the ground, I struggled to keep my gaze on her ankles. A low rumbling echoed from my chest. I was purring at her. Damn it.

Sunlight was beginning to reach the side windows of the house, so I darted past her and up the stairs. She yelped as I brushed by her in transit, and if cats could smile, I would have. Now all I had to do was figure out a way to call Talbot and explain my situation without being the jumper or the jumpee with regard to Rachel.

My memory really sucks, but even so, I knew that I had never encountered this kind of problem in my living years. What was it about vampires that attracted these women? Surely they couldn’t all be necrophiliacs. When I’d died I had been in my thirties. I didn’t remember much, but I did recall that I hadn’t been particularly handsome. I wasn’t Quasimodo either, but…

Focus, Eric.Drowsiness was making me punchy. I skidded on the hardwood flooring at the top of the stairs and slid into the wall. Rachel sprinted up the stairs behind me. A phone and a door, that’s what I needed.

Mom must have been a great housekeeper, because I couldn’t smell anyone but Rachel. Everything else smelled new. Maybe they’d just redecorated?

Photographs of Rachel, Tabitha, and their parents lined the hallway in cheap frames, plastic that was meant to imitate wood. I passed the bathroom in my mad feline dash down the hall. There were two bedrooms upstairs, one with a “No cats!” warning symbol and the other with a two-drink-minimum sign.

I surmised that the second room might have been Tabitha’s and darted toward it. Changing back to human form felt like coughing up the world’s largest hairball, but without thumbs, I couldn’t turn the doorknob. I vaguely remembered Tabitha having told me once that she spray-painted her windows black when she was a teenager. They must have been the windows I’d noticed from outside.

“Thanks for not scraping the paint off the windows, Mom,” I muttered. Rachel reached the top of the stairs as I closed the door behind me and locked the dead bolt. I hoped she didn’t have the key. Why had Tabitha needed a dead bolt on her bedroom door? Rachel slapped the door with a perturbed grunt, then her footsteps disappeared back in the direction of the stairs.

Tabitha’s room was done in black and crimson. No wonder she liked the color scheme at the Demon Heart. She had crosses mounted to the walls and a blacklight bulb hung in the overhead lamp. Little Goth dolls lined a shelf on her wall where I still laughably expected a teenage girl to have wooden horses, old Barbies, and pretty glass knickknacks.

It looked like Tabitha had cleared out all of the stuff she really wanted and left the junk she didn’t want for her parents to throw away. That sounded like the Tabitha I knew. When I saw her queen-size bed, piled with fluffy black pillows, I almost went to sleep on it. Instead, I slapped myself a few times. I heard Rachel’s footsteps pounding back up the stairs. Either she was quicker than I thought, or I’d just spent a minute or two staring into space.

Phone! There didn’t seem to be a phone. In one corner, I saw a huge pile of books and an empty cordless phone charger. All the books appeared to be about vampires. That explained a lot. I heard a key in the exterior lock on the dead bolt and leapt for the door. It was impossible that Rachel could have been fast enough to open it before I could reach her, but it happened anyway. There was probably a fancy psychological term for it, but the only way she could have been faster than me was if I subconsciously wanted her to be faster. Then again, maybe it was just sleep slowing me down.

She was still topless and determined. I tried to ignore her body heat. The warmth of her as she entered the room called to me almost as much as the blood coursing through her veins. I had just healed from major injuries and I needed blood. I needed a phone. I needed Talbot. He could make things simple. He could handle things. That was his job. I needed Marilyn to slap my face for me and tell me to control myself, to act like the man she’d agreed to marry. Every time she told me that I wasn’t a monster, for a few minutes, a few hours, I wouldn’t be.

I grabbed Rachel by both arms and pulled her against me. She was afraid, but willing, just like her sister. I threw her down on the bed and straddled her thighs. Shifting my grip, I trapped her arms above her head. She leaned up and we kissed. Her tongue was pierced. Roger once told me that it’s always the younger sister that you have to watch out for. He must have been talking about girls like Rachel.

“I need…” I struggled to find the words.

“I need you too, baby. It’s okay. I want you.” It was her turn to purr.

I pictured Rachel lying cold and dead on her sister’s bed or worse, rising the next night, like her sister had, only eighteen instead of twenty-three. It was enough.

“What I need is a telephone,” I managed.

“After,” she whispered. She turned her head to one side. “Drink first. I want to feel it. I want to feel the pleasure and the pain.”

“I need to use the telephone. I need to call the Demon Heart and have someone come pick me up.” I was proud of myself. Total control was mine. I could resist the young woman underneath me. She started kissing me again. Her breath smelled like those cinnamon buns they sell in the mall. Her heartbeat filled my ears and then I did the only thing that I could think of that would keep me from doing exactly what she wanted me to do. I fell asleep.

8

ERIC:

PRICE TAGS

When I woke up, I was in the back of the party van. The party van had two seats up front and two benches along the sides in the back, with heavy shutters separating the driver from the people in back. It had originally been a paddy wagon, but I’d bought it a few years ago and had it fixed up to suit my needs.

The shutters were adorned with crosses. It wasn’t anything that would keep a vampire at bay for long, more of an attention-getter to help jar me back to my senses in case I was ever out of control. Talbot had also replaced the rear doors with windowless ones. The other additions we’d made included a good air conditioner and a stereo system.

I realized belatedly that I was not alone. Rachel was in the back with me; my head was resting on her lap. I don’t know what it is about the hour or two of sleep that I get each day, but I wake up hungry, much hungrier than I am after twenty some-odd waking hours. Combined with the hunger from before, I didn’t stand a chance against it. Rachel was going to get bitten whether I wanted it or not.

Faster than humanly possible, she found herself on the floor of the van as I spread her legs and bit into her femoral artery. As soon as I started drinking, I was trying to stop. Rachel’s fear was real. It made things harder to control. It was obvious to the thinking part of me that she had expected it to feel good. Why anyone would expect puncture wounds to feel good is beyond me, but I’d been around long enough to know that the pain often takes humans by surprise.

Fighting the hunger is like being in a wrestling match with a bigger, badder version of yourself; like getting a starving man to slowly sip broth a little bit at a time, only the starving man is ten times stronger than you and at least twice as mean.

I tried to hear Marilyn’s voice in my head.You are not a monster. You are the strongest man I know. When you rose for the first time, I was standing right there and you didn’t touch me. Roger himself told you that a newly risen vampire has no self-control. If you could control yourself then, you can control yourself at any time. Over and over, I repeated it in my head like a mantra.

I still don’t remember rising. Marilyn has told me the story, but I don’t remember doing any of it. According to her, I rose in full daylight. She was standing over my grave, but I did not attack her. I stood there for a minute in the sunlight, thick black smoke pouring off my exposed skin. Then, I took refuge in the cemetery’s chapel. When she followed me inside, I supposedly said, “Am I late for something?” and passed out.

My memory has been like Swiss cheese ever since. I’ve always blamed it on having been embalmed. Sometimes I forget what happened yesterday, or five minutes ago, but just then, for a moment, I remembered what it was like to control myself. I remembered the calm and ease of my early days as a vampire. I remembered a different me, just long enough to take my teeth out of Rachel and hold her close.

“That was so fucking incredible,” she gasped weakly, “and it hurt so fucking much! Holy shit!” She laughed as I held her. The danger was lost on her. She wouldn’t believe how close she had come to death, or maybe she didn’t care. I shouldn’t have cared, but I did. I knew Rachel. I had a connection to her, through our kisses, through her sister. If I murdered her, she wouldn’t be a faceless woman who died in the night, soon forgotten. Knowing the victim makes it more real, makes it harder to forget, and I damn sure don’t want to remember.

By the time we got to the club, Rachel was sleeping. Talbot gave me the hairy eyeball as I carried her out of the van, under the awning into the club’s rear entrance. Marilyn met me at the door. She looked and smelled old, but if I half closed my eyes, let my vision blur, I could almost see her like she used to be, the red-haired vixen on the motorcycle.

My Marilyn stared at me from behind a mask of age, her hair cut short and grown gray, the once luscious lips dry and stern. Her eyes were the same, though, blue as an ocean and every bit as tempest tossed. Old as she had become, I still wanted her as badly as I had on the day I’d died, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with me, not like that, not since my death, not once.

She studied the girl I was carrying. Rachel looked like a trollop in her hip huggers and white tank top. There was a bloody rip where I’d bitten through her jeans. The blood was making the material stick to her leg. “Who is that?” Marilyn asked.

“It’s Tabitha’s little sister,” I said, handing her to Talbot. That was all I got out before Marilyn slapped me hard across the face. “She…” I let my voice trail off as she slapped me again.

“For heaven’s sake, what is the matter with you?” she yelled. The pain was nice. It was nice to receive any physical sensation from Marilyn. Not only had she refused to sleep with me since I’d become a vampire, she rarely touched me. A psychologist could have probably written volumes regarding what that said about my getting into trouble. They’d say I was like a child who did bad things to get my mama’s attention. Maybe they’d be right.

I caught Marilyn’s arm when she tried to slap me a third time. It was something I’d never done before. “The third slap is foreplay, M,” I said. It didn’t even sound like me. It was half growl, half scorn. “Unless you’re up for it, I suggest you leave it to the younger ones.” I let go of her arm. She winced.

Talbot stepped between us and inwardly I thanked some higher power for small favors. “Where’s Tabitha?” I asked.

“She’s in your bedroom,” Talbot answered. “She’s a late riser. Most vamps rise early on their first night and she didn’t get up until eight. She went to bed a full hour before sunrise. She’s looking at maybe eight or nine hours of wakefulness a night; more if she manages to break schedule.”

My short daytime sleep requirement often got me twenty hours or more out of a day-and-night cycle. Maybe I could put up with her for eight hours a night. Maybe not. I checked my watch. It was nine in the morning. I walked back toward the rear entrance and gestured with my head for Talbot to follow me. As we moved past Marilyn again, I could feel anger coming off of her in waves. No fear, though, just anger. When I knew she couldn’t see my face, I grinned. “That’s my girl,” I whispered.

“We’re going to spend the day over at the Pollux,” I told no one in particular. “Have someone bring Rachel orange juice and a big breakfast.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Talbot said gruffly. As he fell into step behind me, carrying Rachel, he mumbled something else under his breath. “In for a penny…”

No shit, I told myself. No shit.

If Tabitha was going to sleep until eight this evening then I had eleven hours to figure out what to do about Rachel, not to mention the damn werewolves. The notion that I was forgetting something rolled around in my head. Talbot helped me get Rachel back into the van and across to the Pollux without incident.

Of the two movie palaces that had once been in Void City, the Pollux was the only one still standing. The Freemont may have been a little more stylish, but it had been turned into a parking deck twenty years ago, so I guess the Pollux won. The projector still works and I own a large collection of old films.

I’d kept the original glass entryway, even the old-fashioned central ticket booth, but beyond that, the new doors were reinforced steel, well-decorated, but secure. Beyond the doors, the foyer was still brightly lit by the original crystal chandelier, its glow magnified by the mirrors lining both walls. Rachel took in my absence of reflection without comment, paying more attention to the chandelier.

I’d moved several of the couches and tables from the downstairs lounges to the lobby, creating a sitting area for guests. Rachel plopped down on a burgundy velvet sofa and stared up at the painted art nouveau ceiling. A grand marble stair led up to the mezzanine and my offices. There were more offices and some dressing rooms behind the stage, but I only used them for storage.

“You like it?” I asked.

She nodded. “It’s awesome. How do you afford it?”

“I get by,” I told her gruffly. “Guys like nudity and I don’t waste much money on groceries.” How long would it take Talbot to get breakfast? If he went to Jackie’s on the corner, he could be back in ten minutes. I didn’t want to be alone with Rachel for much longer than that.

“If you’re thirsty, the soda fountain still works. I only keep the Coke and the lemonade refilled, though. Everything else will get you water. I tried to put in a blood dispenser, but it clogs the machine.”

Rachel watched me with smug contentment. She had just opened her mouth to speak when my rescue arrived. I could smell the food before Talbot opened the door. He was early. I don’t pay him enough.

Muscling past the steel doors, Talbot backed into the foyer, carrying two covered breakfast plates. The scent pulled at my stomach. I craved breakfast only slightly less than pizza. One plate had scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and a side of hash browns. The other had two fried eggs (sunny-side up), link sausage, and cheese grits.

“Rachel, isn’t it? Do you like your eggs scrambled or fried?” Talbot asked.

“Which does he like?” She asked the question with purpose. To a vampire, that question is a signal, a sign that the woman he’s with knows a little about vampires. Talbot remained valiantly smirkless, but he noticed.

“You’ll want this plate.” Talbot sat the tray before her, poured some orange juice in a glass, and laid a straw across the top. “I think I’ll take my breakfast at the club,” he said, walking right back out the door with the other tray of food.Bon apéritif .

Bon apéritif.Happy before-dinner drink. Fucking Talbot. I pay him too much. I wanted to protest, but the words stuck in my throat. In the split second I’d been distracted by Talbot, Rachel had taken the lid off of her tray, picked up one of the sausage links and commenced licking the grease off of the underside. For lack of a better word, she nearly fellated it.

“Less sexual, more sensual,” I corrected. A rookie mistake most women make is equating eating to sex. For a living, breathing man, that would be correct, but for vampires it isn’t about sex, it’s about the food…about what we can’t have and watching someone else have it. In polite circles, they call it voyeuristic dining, but food porn is more honest.

Criticism made her nervous. Each bite came a bit too quickly and hermmmms andahs sounded forced. She had raw talent, though, and unlike Tabitha, she didn’t forget that I was watching her. She purposefully let little beads of egg yolk gather at the corner of her mouth, then asked me to wipe it away. When I did, she seized my wrist, sucking the egg yolk from my finger, peering up into my eyes for approval. Long after the yolk was gone, her tongue danced along the bottom of my index finger, the curious stud on her tongue providing an erotic counterpoint to the softness of her flesh. It felt strange and wonderful. I approved.

After breakfast, Talbot sauntered back in and cleared away the dishes. For me, the next quarter hour passed like time-lapse photography. I didn’t think there’d been cinnamon in any of the food, but I certainly smelled it. Maybe it was a breath mint or a new perfume. Talbot and Rachel blurred around me, politely avoiding each other in an elaborate dance, while I sat perfectly still, trying to remember whatever it was I’d forgotten. The image of Rachel sucking a little drop of golden egg yolk from my finger haunted my thoughts, making it harder than usual to think straight.

“I killed Brian,” I said suddenly.

“What?” Talbot and Rachel spoke in unison.

“Brian. You know; the guy Roger met through that real estate thing, the one who was always talking crap about the Void City Howlers, trying to start a fight. I don’t remember exactly what happened, but I think I ripped his head off.”

“Rage blackout, huh?” Rachel asked.

Talbot and I both looked at her funny. “How the hell do you know about my rage blackouts?” I asked.

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Sorry. I guess everyone who knows anything about vampires in this city knows about your rage blackouts.” Her pulse quickened, but I couldn’t decide whether she was lying or nervous.

“She’s got you there.” Talbot walked over to the door. “I just want to know how you’re going to break it to Roger. He and Brian seemed pretty tight.”

“Yeah, well, Roger isn’t renowned for his choice of acquaintances,” I said, “present company included.”

“Depends on what you’re looking for in a friend,” Talbot countered. “He certainly attracts the powerful, wealthy, and influential. Present company included.” He added that last bit with a mocking nod. Talbot had a smirk on his lips and he cut his eyes toward Rachel as he left. “I’ll be across the street. Call me if you need anything.”

Rachel squirmed under his gaze. As the door closed, she seemed comfortable again. Too comfortable. “What are you going to do about the werewolves?” She slunk toward me and the vibe was suddenly very different than it had been with Tabitha. This wasn’t about sex. I could smell that sex was an option, but this was something different. She was teasing me, flirting with me, manipulating me.

“So…you know about the rage blackouts and the werewolf fiasco. You’re pretty well informed.”

“I’m just lucky.” She moved close to me. I couldn’t help but notice that her breasts were nearly touching my chest. “I heard some of your employees talking about it.” She closed the gap between us. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

It was more than okay, but more because of how she was touching me than the answers she was giving. She could read me better than Tabitha ever could and we’d known each other less than a day. She was extremely dangerous, a very good liar. She hadn’t heard my employees talking about the werewolves; she couldn’t have. I reminded myself to be careful.

“You’re standing a little closer than I think your sister would approve.” I took a step back, mentally applauding my fortitude.

She put a hand on my chest and I found myself staring down her tank top.

“You like it,” she said, following my gaze.

“She wouldn’t.” I pushed her hand away.

“No, Tab would be mortified. If she even knows what mortified means,” Rachel said.

“Look, what’s going on between me and your sister is complicated and I’m not sure I want to complicate it any further than it—”

“I know,” she said, “you’re trying to be a good boy, but if you want a girl who really gets the whole vampire thing, who can give a vampire everything he wants and make him go all weak and kitteny…”

“That would be you?”

She nodded again.

“Not interested.” Now I was lying. I decided to give Rachel the benefit of the doubt. We all lie sometimes. Maybe if I were a eunuch, I mused, things would be easier.

I left the seating area, passing the old refreshment stand as I crossed the lobby. At the top of the stairs, to the left of the mezzanine access, a long hall led to a row of offices. She followed me to the stairs. I held out a hand behind me to stop her. “No one comes up to my offices uninvited.”

“Can I send somebody home to get my clothes?” Rachel asked. “Do you have any movies?”

“Why don’t I just get Talbot to take you home, period?” That was my first good idea of the night. “Won’t your parents be looking for you?”

She laughed. “Not likely.”

I turned to face her. “If I were your dad, I’d be worried sick.”

Rachel moved in close, too close, and kissed me. “Don’t stress over it.” I wasn’t supposed to be kissing her back, but I was. Maybe it was the perfume she was wearing. Something about the cinnamon smell made me want to keep her around. Sure that was it. It was the cinnamon. It had nothing to do with my desire to throw her on the ground and tear her clothes off.

“Let me worry about my parents,” she said, pulling away briefly and rubbing at her thigh where I’d bitten her. “I’m still kind of sore. You should at least let me hang out for the rest of the day.”

“Fine,” I said. “Get one of the girls to take you shopping. Tell Talbot I said it was okay. I don’t care what you spend. I just don’t want one of my employees having to explain to your dad why they need to pick up a change of clothes.”

She squealed; I turned into a bat and flew up the stairs. I was showing off for her. It was not a good sign.

9

ERIC:

DAMAGE REPORT

Sitting at my desk with a small stack of notes, I looked at the bricked-up windows and shook my head. The first two notes were from Talbot. One said that Carl needed to know what to do about the Mustang. He hadn’t done a complete assessment yet, but most of the interior looked salvageable. The rest of the car was a mess and Carl’s best guess was that repairing it wasn’t worth the effort or the money. Talbot noted that he’d told Carl to protect the interior of the car, and to start looking for replacement parts, but to do nothing further without calling first.

His second note was attached to a clipping from that morning’sVoid City Echo . The headline read “Local News Anchor Found Dead in Sewer.” Iwould have had to drop my victim down a drain someone was going to start working on in the morning. Her name had been Evelyn Courtney-Barnes. Lots of people were going to miss her, blah blah blah.

The third note was from Roger telling me that he’d given Veruca the night off again and asking me to get Tabitha to cover. Veruca. Veruca. It took me a moment to recognize the name, because I always called her Froggy. She was Roger’s girlfriend. She could only transform into one creature: a frog. Her other vampire powers were fine, but it seemed to piss her off that all she could change into was an amphibian. According to Roger’s note, she might need the next several nights off. I wondered if this was some kind of payback for me having turned Tabitha…making my vampire girlfriend work so his wouldn’t have to.

The last note was an invitation to a hockey game, though, also from Roger. For the last decade or so Roger and I hadn’t exactly been bosom buddies. We didn’t hang out much anymore, and when we did, he almost always brought some new friend or other along. Lately, it’d been Brian.

Our business relationship hadn’t been much better. Roger had been big in real estate when he was alive. Now that he had more time, I think he aspired to be an undead Donald Trump. Roger always picked what stocks we would buy and how much of each we needed. He’d made us both rich men. He had also been the one who’d figured out how to transfer our wealth back to ourselves once we’d officially died.

But time changes things, and it had certainly changed Roger. I knew he didn’t like the way I was running the club, though I’d noticed it didn’t stop him from taking payouts from the register whenever he needed petty cash. My guess was that the whole operation made him look bad to his high society buddies. I kind of missed the way things had been between us. Maybe he did, too. On the other hand, I’d just whacked his buddy Brian…and it was probably Brian’s ticket to the hockey game that Roger was offering me.

Stacking the notes to one side of my desk, I looked around my office. Except for the modern conveniences, it looked like it had jumped fully formed out ofThe Maltese Falcon . The door in the outer office had my name stenciled on it in nice black letters. The secretary’s desk was vacant. Sometimes when I was working I’d have Tabitha come up and sit at that desk. I’d have her run errands for me to and from the Demon Heart. I could have used the telephone, or even e-mail, but I liked the illusion that it created. For a time it let me pretend that the world was still the same place where I’d once walked in sunshine, a world in which area codes were new and there were some numbers that you just couldn’t dial without operator assistance.

“What the hell am I going to do?” I asked the room. I put my head down on my desk like I was a little boy in school and the teacher was mad at me. I wasted an hour or more that way before I noticed the burning sensation in my pocket and remembered the bullet.

“Son of a bitch.” I picked up the phone and the number for the Demon Heart went right out of my head. I could remember the first three digits, but the last four…well, I knew it had a six in it. One quick flip through the phone book later, I called over to the Demon Heart.

Roger answered, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to him. Having ripped his friend’s head off and lied to him about it made me a little uncomfortable.

“Get Marilyn on the phone,” I said brusquely.

“She’s kinda busy, Eric,” Roger snapped. Why was he being so bitchy lately? Was all this really over the damn Froggy crack? Was this my fault? Maybe I should go to the hockey game after all.

“Look, just get her on the phone,” I answered.

“She’s not here because you broke her arm, tough guy.” He sounded so smug about it that if he hadn’t just invited me to a hockey game, I’d have walked across the street and wiped the accompanying look off of his face. “She’s old and fragile. You can’t just push her around like that. She didn’t want you to know, but she’s gone to the emergency room.”

Cursing, I hung up on Roger. Sometimes it seemed like Roger was closer to Marilyn than I was. Then again, maybe that was a good thing. Why did she even stay around a guy like me? Couldn’t she see I was dangerous? I told myself that what happened was her fault, that she shouldn’t have slapped me. I was lying to myself again. I wondered if I’d ever get any better at it.

If I concentrated, I could hear Rachel talking to Sally downstairs, their words vibrating along the air ducts and the building’s central vacuum system. I went downstairs and found them in one of the dressing rooms behind the stage.

Tabitha had a tendency to dress like a sex doll. Her sister had better taste. She was wearing a floor-length backless evening gown. The green set off her eyes beautifully. Her hair was up and she’d replaced her nose ring with a small silver stud that was barely noticeable. Even her makeup was right. Have I mentioned how dangerous I thought she was? I had no idea where she had gotten the dress, but it was beautiful. She was beautiful.

“Goldman’s opens at ten and it’s not that far from here,” she explained. “Sally went down with me and we picked up a few options.” Rachel twirled and the dress rose off the floor a little, enough for me to see her matching shoes and a glimpse of ankle. Sally looked proud of herself. I was proud of her, too.

“We spent almost five thousand dollars,” Sally told me.

“Why the hell did you buy a prom dress?”

“Because we all know what happens after prom,” Rachel whispered.

“Yeah.” Sally giggled with amusement. “You kids have fun.” She winked at me on her way out the door. What the hell had Rachel told her?

Rachel smiled. I checked my fucked-o-meter. The gauge was set firmly on “Seven ways from Sunday.” That seemed about right.

Rachel pulled up her dress and showed me her thigh. The wound was gone.

“It’s already healed,” she said.

“Mine always do,” I told her. “I don’t know why. Roger’s bites don’t heal like mine. Talbot tells me it’s an unusual ability for a vampire.”

She looked at me quizzically, dropping her dress back into place. “Talbot tells me that about most of my abilities, though,” I added.

She walked over to me casually. “Have you asked him about it?”

“No,” I answered. She was leaning close to me again. Her smell was different, less musky, and I couldn’t smell cinnamon anymore. I decided it wasn’t a perfume that she’d been wearing; it was something else, something that came and went. I didn’t ask, for the same reason I didn’t ask a lot of things. I was afraid that she might tell me, or worse, lift up her dress and show me.

“Why not?”

“Because I was worried that he might tell me.” I backed away from her, pausing at the doorway.

“You want to know about that bullet, don’t you?” She was just full of surprises.

“What bullet?” I asked.

“The magic one you’re holding in your hand.” Rachel pointed. “Or is it just a party favor?”

I looked down and sighed. The bullet glowed even more brightly now, like it was charging back up, replenishing itself.

“I was going to call Magbidion. He’s kind of my mage on retainer.”

“Can I see it?” She held out her hand. Since I had no reason other than blatant paranoia not to hand it over, I gave her the bullet. She held it up to her eye and put a hand on my shoulder. We both got popped by static electricity. “Ow. Yep, it’s magic. I’m no expert on magic bullets, but it’s made of silver. My guess is that it’s enchanted to kill lycanthropes. One of those swirly symbols kind of looks like a rune I’ve seen used to represent them.”

“How do you know all this?”

There was mischief in her eyes. “Because, unlike some people, I ask questions.”

“Yeah, but I’m a vampire. How come you know more about it than me?”

“I don’t jump blindly into anything. I do research. There’s a place called the Irons Club. It’s really exclusive and a lot of vampire thralls meet down there and play golf when their Masters are asleep.”

“And they just told you all this stuff?”

“It took a little doing,” she said, leaning in close to nuzzle my neck, “but you know how persuasive I can be and how curious I am.”

“Remember what curiosity did to the cat.”

“I’m not a cat,” she answered. “I hate cats.”

“I’d noticed. You know, your sister is going to wake up about an hour after sunset. I should talk to her about things.” Rachel opened her mouth, but I shushed her. “Not about us, if there is an us…which there isn’t.” Shit. “I need to explain. I have to break up with her. She’s dead now and I don’t date corpses. I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.”

“She talked you into it, huh? What an idiot. There is no quicker way to lose your undead boyfriend than turning off the body heat.” Rachel turned her back to me and looked over her shoulder in my direction. “Unzip me? I want to change out of this before I get it dirty.” Reluctantly, I did as she asked. She was wearing a strange-looking bra underneath it.

“What is that?”

She looked down. “A backless bra,” she said with a smirk. “I can’t go braless all the time, silly. I’d sag.”

“What was I just talking about?” I sighed.

“My sister,” Rachel answered. She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully and then stepped out of the dress. I watched her put it on a hanger and pull a plastic bag over it. I was still staring at her when she took off her shoes. She had a small frog tattoo just above her ankle. It was cute and dainty and I seemed to remember it from somewhere, as if I had previously seen one just like it.

“You like frogs?” I asked.

“Better than cats,” she answered mysteriously. She glanced at me as if waiting to see if I had any other questions, then pulled on a new pair of jeans and a silk blouse.

“You were talking about my sister,” she repeated. “She’s going to be really pissed off when you dump her. Does she have any idea that it’s coming?”

“It’s what happened to the one before her,” I answered defensively. “Look, I think she knows, but either way I’m sure Talbot will have told her that it’s likely.”

Rachel shook her head as she pulled a pair of socks out of a shopping bag. They were followed by a pair of new tennis shoes. “So in other words, she’s probably in denial. You’re not one of those guys who tosses ‘I love you’ grenades around, are you?”

“I told her she was a moist warm tightness with the right attachments.”

Rachel looked exceedingly amused. “Holy shit! You did not tell my sister that.” She stopped laughing and looked up at me. “You did tell her that? Oh my God!” She sat down on the dressing chair and tried to catch her breath. Amusement was not the reaction I had been expecting. Anger would have been my bet, maybe a little dash of outrage, but not this. It was a clear sign that I did not understand the modern teenager.

“What does she expect?” Rachel continued. “You’re a fucking vampire. You eat people.” Her comments weren’t accusations. I might have felt better about it if they had been.

“I have to go across to the club and talk to Roger,” I said, changing the subject. I needed to ask him about the hockey game, maybe find some way to mention Brian. I also wanted to be there whenever Tabitha woke up. “Look, just hang out here. Watch a movie, listen to CDs, just…whatever. I’ll be back.” Applauding my mental fortitude, I left, walking up the stairs, out through the lobby, and across to the Demon Heart without a backward glance.

Since it was a few minutes before noon, I caught fire again on the way. Catching fire always reminds me of that one horrible week in California, a week full of demons and hellfire. “Fricking El Segundo,” I griped.

10

TABITHA:

RELATIONSHIP ISSUES

When I awoke, I was in Eric’s bed again and he was standing over me. “You’re up early,” he remarked.

“Hello to you too,” I said with a smile. I expected him to kiss me. Instead he pointed at the shower. “You smell,” he said bluntly. “Go take a shower.”

There was an odor in the air, like natural gas or methane mixed with pee. I sniffed my forearm. “That’s me?”

Eric pulled me off of the bed by my arm and dragged me to the shower. Too stunned to react, I just lay there while he turned the shower on and pushed me inside. I was still wearing my leather outfit. He didn’t notice. Instead, he stripped off his shoes and stepped into the shower. The cold water slowly became warmer as he removed my clothing. I closed my eyes and imagined him delicately unsnapping each snap and kissing the soft white flesh underneath.

“My darling,” my imaginary Eric said. “I love you. Now we can be together, creatures of the night, unstoppable, unquenchable; the world is ours.”

I opened my eyes and looked at the real Eric as he roughly undressed me.

He met my gaze. “These clothes are ruined. You won’t be able to get the smell out.”

I closed my eyes again and resumed my fantasy. In my mind, we made love passionately, more passionately than ever before and as we reached climax, Eric said he loved me again and again. He whispered it in my ear and then we both sank our fangs into each other, our minds touched, we were one.

In reality, I could feel him rubbing a bar of soap over me. It might have been sensuous except that his touch was coarse and businesslike. His hands did not linger and no gentle kisses were forthcoming. He washed my hair three times and I began to smell blood. I’d started crying without realizing it. I was getting tired of crying.

“Stop crying,” Eric ordered. Out of reflex, I did. “It’s called corpse sweat,” he continued. “Did it happen last night? I mean, last day…” Frustration filled his voice. “I mean when you woke up last night did you stink?”

At first I didn’t answer. Talbot’s voice was playing in my head repeating all the things he had said the night before and I didn’t like what he was saying. I must have started moving my head from side to side, because Eric took it as a response and continued talking.

“Good. Then it might not happen again. You were probably playing with your powers. Most vampires only get the sweats when they discover new talents. Some get them every night. I don’t get them at all. Anybody I’ve ever heard of that had corpse sweat on the first night has to deal with it every night. Still, it’s too early to tell. You probably ought to sleep naked on a plastic sheet or get one of the girls to move you once you fall asleep. Otherwise you might get corpse sweat on your sheets and whatever you’re wearing.”

He picked me up in his arms and carried me to the bed. Thankfully, someone had already changed the sheets. The Eric behind my closed eyelids made love to me again on that bed and promised to never leave me. In reality, though, I felt myself being toweled off and opened my eyes. The look on Eric’s face said everything I needed to know. There I was, naked, in all my glory. According to the other girls, I looked better than I ever had, and he looked at me like I was a chore. There was no hunger there at all. He turned away from me and dropped the towel on the floor, then began to remove his shirt, peeling the wet cloth from his body. I guess that was a chore too.

Rage came over me. He’d treated me and the shirt with equal disdain, as if I were no more than an article of clothing to be tossed away and forgotten. Nobody forgets me! I leapt at him, my vision tinting red, claws and fangs at the ready.

One moment he was there and the next he wasn’t. I had no idea where he had gone until I felt him behind me. Both his arms went underneath mine and he locked his fingers behind my neck. Smiling, I popped my claws and scratched his face, opening four short furrows in his cheek. He released me more out of shock than surprise and I snarled at him.

The wounds on his cheek healed as he began to do his little fast-moving trick, only this time I did it too. He was still faster than me, but I was quick enough to keep him from getting a good grip.

“You do look nice,” he told me.

“What?”

“You look very pretty.” He looked deep into my eyes, and suddenly I couldn’t move; I couldn’t react. I was frozen, staring into his eyes, mesmerized like any number of Dracula’s victims in the movies. Had Talbot told me vampires could do that? I couldn’t remember. I pushed back, tried to grab Eric the way he had me, but either I was too inexperienced or he was too strong. Those beautiful blue eyes sucked at my mind, pulling me deeper. They seemed to glow and flash, not a red glow, but a strange warm blue overwhelming color. I struggled, but his hold on me felt like a vise. He moved with casual menace and the look was back…that look that said I was no more important than ruined bedsheets, possibly less.

He wrapped his hands around my throat and squeezed. I couldn’t move. He forced me down onto the clean silk sheets, never breaking eye contact. Inside I was screaming at myself, trying to move a finger, a toe, anything.

“In case you have forgotten,” he began in a calm and steady voice far more frightening than any time he’d ever yelled, “I am the biggest, baddest motherfucking vampire that you will ever meet. Nothing has changed just because you have claws. Any stupid crap you think up has already been tried. I created you. I made you undead and I can make you ‘dead’ dead, too. I am your vampiric father or sire or whatever lame-ass little tagline you wannabes use. Any vampire power you can think of, I have it and I either use it better than you or I don’t need to use it because I have a better way of doing the same thing. Do you understand me?”

At first I couldn’t speak, and then it was like a ghostly force had relaxed its hold on my body, but just enough for me to answer the question. “Let me go, you…you bastard!”

“Say, ‘Yes, Eric.’ “

“Yes, Eric.” I replied. What was I doing? I felt my jaws lock again, but I tried to scream anyway. Nothing happened.

“Now I want you to pay attention to what I’m going to tell you.” His words trailed off; sadness suddenly filled his eyes. As quickly as he had evaded my claws, he was on the other side of the room. He leaned up against the dresser, cursing. After testing myself gingerly to make sure I could move, I sat up slowly, confused.

“This is not how I want to do this, Tabitha.”

I got up and walked toward him. He tensed, but I kept coming. When I reached him, he glared at me.

“Look, Tabitha, just back off.”

“You’re standing between me and my underwear, Eric. Do I have to be naked the whole time I listen to you? If I am, will this end differently?” I tried to keep calm, but I was certain he could hear the anger in my voice. That sorry son of a bitch was going to dump me. What the hell was wrong with him? Hadn’t I performed every sick act that his dirty little mind could think of? Did I do too much, too little? It was beyond me. The idea of it was too much for me to wrap my brain around. I felt like this all had to be happening to another person.

Eric slid away from the dresser and I opened the top drawer, my panty drawer. The smell of lilacs hit me as I opened it. I kept lilac-scented sachets in my underwear drawers to keep my underwear smelling nice. With my heightened senses most of them now smelled too strongly of lilacs for me to put on.

I stopped, taking a good look at the open drawer. It was filled with panties that were exactly what a man would like to see me wear. None of them were comfortable. They were lingerie, not real underwear. Digging through them, I found one pair of white panties that weren’t crotchless, lacy, or a thong. I put them on. The next drawer down had my bras in it. It was like déjà vu. I had the same problem with the bras. They all seemed to have snap-off cups, too much lace, or no support whatsoever. A little digging revealed one plain beige bra. I put that on too.

“Your underwear doesn’t match.”

I glared at Eric; my expression must have spoken volumes because he literally flinched. “What the hell did you just say?”

He flinched again and walked to the far side of the room. I suddenly realized this was no different from all the times he’d insisted he wouldn’t turn me, sworn that he didn’t make vampires anymore. I knew exactly how to handle him. I grabbed a see-through bra out of the second drawer and threw it on the bed. I grabbed the matching pair of panties out of the top drawer and threw them on the bed too. I added a pair of black high-heeled shoes and a little leather choker the same color. “Is that what you want me to put on? What you’d like to see me in? Is that what you want?”

Eric shrugged.

“Because all you have to do is say it. You don’t even have to tell me you’re sorry. You just have to tell me what to do!”

I started crying again, this time on purpose, though the smell made me hungry. Streaks of red ran down my face and onto the bra. I took it off and threw it down on the floor. His eyes went involuntarily to my breasts. Poor Eric.

“Tell me you want me to wear something sexy tonight! Tell me you want to screw me, to sink your fangs into my jugular and drink my blood when you come. Tell me why we can’t do that anymore. The only thing that’s changed is I’m like you now. I’m a vampire. I’m not warm and alive, but I am still here. If you want a living girl to join us so that there will be some body heat, tell me and I’ll go out and find one. You can pick one, it doesn’t matter…just tell me…”

I threw myself into his arms, half worried he would push me away, but some emotion, some feeling of shame or guilt, possibly even some strange version of love kept him from doing so. He closed his arms around me.

His chest was damp and cold against my skin, but I didn’t care. The world was a cold place anyway now that I was a vampire. I had thought it would be the other way around despite what Eric had always said, that I’d feel hot because I was at room temperature, but it definitely didn’t work that way and I didn’t know or care why. After a long moment, he kissed me on the forehead.

“Wear the lacy black set with fishnet stockings and a garter belt. Wear white over the top of it. I know it will show through; that’s okay. Wear those strappy high-heeled shoes you have and that little white jacket thing with the short sleeves. Roger and I are going out tonight. You can’t come. It’s a guy thing, so don’t freak out on me.”

I didn’t smile, because he might have thought I was laughing at him, at the way he’d given in, but I was definitely smiling on the inside. Talbot could say whatever he wanted, but Eric loved me. He just needed to talk tough, make demands, and be in control…typical male.

“You may be asleep again before I get back, but if so,” he paused, “if so you’ll wake up next to me tomorrow.”

Eric could be as macho as he wanted, but when it came down to it, he’d give in. He wanted to give in; he was just afraid…and he loved me. I wanted him to say it, but I knew he wouldn’t. Not yet. He kissed me again. This time he kissed my cheeks where the blood had begun to dry.

“I want you to help Talbot keep an eye on things tonight. I broke Marilyn’s arm earlier and I need you to help out. You might have to dance tonight because Roger’s happy ass keeps giving Froggy the night off. Can you handle that?”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure if I could or not, but for him I would try almost anything that might give him time to realize what I already knew. It might take longer than it had to convince him to turn me, but I had time, buckets of time. When I was human, time had been the enemy; now, time was on my side.

He held my arms and pushed me slowly away from him, as far as he could without letting go. “Maybe this will work out, Tabitha. It probably won’t. It never has before, but…but I suppose that it might be possible. We can try a human in the bed with us, but it will have to be a girl. I don’t like to feed on guys.”

“Fine,” I agreed eagerly. I’m not afraid of other women; the only girl who ever managed to steal a boyfriend from me was my sister Rachel, before she got sick. I felt a pang of grief when I thought of her. If only I’d been a vampire then, I could have brought her over, but it had taken too long.

“And I get to feed off of the girl. You will have to eat before or after.”

“Okay,” I said. If he needed to feel like he was in control that was okay with me. He began taking off his wet things and I toweled him off with the driest parts of the towel he’d used on me. “And you don’t get to bite me,” he added. “Ever. Not unless I explicitly say so. I don’t like to be bitten.”

I helped Eric dress in jeans and one of thoseWelcome to the Void T-shirts he usually wore; then he kissed me one more time. “Don’t leave the room until you’ve eaten.”

I nodded. As the door closed behind him, I could hear him muttering, “I bet Dracula never had to put up with this shit.”

I laughed. “Dracula had three wives, honey,” I whispered. “It was probably much worse.”

11

ERIC:

THE VOID CITY HOWLERS

My to-do list was a mile long. I needed to look up Magbidion’s number and get him to take a look at the silver bullet I’d dug out of the werewolf skull over at Orchard Lake. Roger might appreciate it if I found a way to tell him I’d accidentally whacked his buddy Brian. Werewolves were apparently out for my blood. If I had half a brain, I would be out there now, looking for a way to get them off my ass.

With that same half a brain, I should have turned around, walked back into my bedroom, and told Tabitha that it was over. Since I apparently wasn’t going to do that, I needed to put Rachel in a cab and send her home. Yes, there were a lot of things I should have been doing.

Instead, I was going to a hockey game. C’mon—front row, center ice. Who could turn that down? Believe me when I say that, up to the last minute, I tried.

“I can’t go to the game, Roger.”

“What are you even talking about? You know you’re going. Brian already stood me up. I’m not getting stood up by you too.”

Ah, guilt. “Yeah, sorry about Brian.”

“It’s not your fault the guy turned out to be a flake,” Roger spat. “Screw him.”

He trailed after me from the front door of the Demon Heart to the Pollux. Rachel was waiting just inside the door. She’d changed into hip huggers and a crop top. When I was born, seeing a girl in her bloomers was indecent. Now, my girlfriend and most of the women I knew were strippers. You might say that I’ve changed with the times. Even so, I stared at Rachel’s pelvic bone. A hint of her thong peeked out over her hip huggers and the only thing that stopped me from attacking her on the spot was Roger’s hand on my shoulder.

“If she’s why you can’t go to the hockey game, you have my blessing,” Roger whispered.

“Hockey?” Rachel perked up. “I love hockey.”

Roger bit his lip. “Brian’s a no-show, so we do have an extra ticket.” He’d bought one for Brian and one for me, so he wasn’t just giving me Brian’s unused seat. I suddenly felt better about having accepted.

“I thought you liked high society gals,” I teased.

“Just because you like orchids,” Roger said, taking Rachel’s hand, “doesn’t mean you ignore the wildflowers.” She blushed when he kissed her hand. The light in the room took on a crimson tinge and Roger backed off.

“Don’t go all flashy-eyes at me, buddy.” He held up both hands in supplication. “I was just being friendly.”

I counted to ten in my head and reminded myself that Roger was my best friend. Slowly, the red receded. Rachel looked on with a bemused pout. I didn’t like the look of accomplishment that I saw blazing in her eyes. At least with Roger, we’d have a chaperone along.

Ishould have sent Rachel home and invited Tabitha to the hockey game, but there just wasn’t time. We’d miss the whole first half arguing. So I went to the hockey game with Roger and Rachel.

The Void City Howlers weren’t all that good, but they were the home team and they could usually be counted on for a fight. They didn’t win very often, but when they took to the ice someone always got hurt, and that’s all I wanted to see anyway. My favorite player was Sparky Parker, the Howlers’ power forward. Without fail, he always started a fight in the last seven minutes of the game. He used to do it at five minutes until the NHL screwed it up with all those crappy penalties. Even so, he was the king of the Gordie Howe hat trick, pulling off the goal, assist, fight trio in most matches to the exclusion of all else, even winning.

Roger led us down to the front row, where the cold from the rink seeps up through the floor. Rachel was already freezing when we got to our seats, and the souvenir jersey that I’d bought her wasn’t helping much. I took off the jacket I always wore to hockey games and hung it on her shoulders.

“Thanks.” She touched my hand and the world went black, white, and red. It can happen when the bloodlust gets bad. Thing is, I didn’t think I was hungry enough to justify it. Before I had time to give it much thought, Rachel whispered, “Later,” in my ear and snuggled up under my arm, a warm little cinnamon-scented angel. Her proximity, the sheer physical closeness, should have made things worse, but color slowly bled back into my vision. That was weird.

“How did you—” I began to ask, but Roger cut me off.

“So, does Tabitha know about your new girlfriend yet?” asked Roger.

“No.” I looked down at Rachel. “She’s not my…look, just drop it.”

Roger just smiled and scanned the crowd.

“Looking for someone?” I asked.

“Something like that.” He waved at a blond guy who was dressed to the nines. He couldn’t have been much older than twenty. The blond came over, carrying two boxes carefully in his arms. He handed the boxes to Roger with a curt nod.

“With Lady Gabriella’s compliments, Lord Roger.”

“New boyfriend?” I asked Roger.

“Yeah, yeah. Go screw yourself.” Roger slipped him five one-hundred-dollar bills, holding on to his hand when the boy accepted. Five hundred dollars and Roger didn’t even flinch. Must not have been his own money. I wondered if I checked the receipts back at work, whether I’d find a five-hundred-dollar payout with Roger’s name on it. “And, Dennis, the other thing?”

“It’s been arranged, Lord Roger,” Dennis responded. “If there will be nothing else?”

Roger barely noticed him. He had released Dennis’s hand and was busy opening one of the boxes. “Huh? Oh, yeah, we’re good. Run on.”

“Seriously,” I continued, “you pitching or catching, Rodge? I bet you’re catching.”

“Shut up.” Roger pulled a dark bottle out of the box and handed it to me. It saidHorace Gibson—1922—AB negative on the label. “If you keep giving me the business, I won’t share.”

“Giving you the business? Who the hell says that anymore?”

“I’m serious, Eric.”

“Fine.” I handed the bottle back. “I can get my own blood. I don’t need to have it delivered.”

“Yeah, but can you ferment yours?” He broke the seal and popped the cork.

“What?”

“Blood booze.” He took a swig from the bottle, shuddered, and then coughed. “Smooth.”

“How does it taste?” I asked.

“Like blood,” he admitted, “but with a serious kick.”

“Can I try it?” asked Rachel.

Roger agreed and I disagreed in unison.

“She doesn’t need to start drinking blood, Roger.”

“Oh, like that won’t be part of this evening’s festivities for you two.” Roger handed the bottle back to me. “Blood is the only bodily fluid we’ve got.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Eric. What do you think it tastes like when I kiss you?”

“Fine.” I handed her the bottle. She took two small sips and passed it back to me.

“Not bad,” Roger told her, “but save the rest for the vampires, if you please. It cost me more than you know. They don’t just sell this stuff at the local liquor store.”

“Where’d your boyfriend get it?” I asked. Roger’s eyes lit up from within, a dull orange pinpoint encompassed by his pupils. The fading brown pigment in his irises set it off nicely. He normally wore contacts to conceal the fade. Plenty of vamps do. Vamp irises typically lose their hue with age, resulting in a washed-out shade of the original color.

Talbot once told me that truly ancient vampires have red irises, and sometimes even the whites of their eyes go permanently crimson. Mine hadn’t faded at all, but most Vlads have weird traits that set them apart, like my ability to turn into a white cat instead of a black one. My guess was that my blue eyes were like that. I once heard a rumor about a Vlad who can eat hamburgers. I’d have rather had the hamburgers and worn contacts.

“Well?” asked Roger.

“I drifted off there for a second,” I told him. “I was thinking about hamburgers.”

He tossed his head back and laughed. “You could drive a saint to murder, you know that?”

“Game’s starting,” I answered. “Are we going to fight or watch the game?”

The row behind us was enthralled by our conversation. I looked at the fat guy behind me and bared my fangs. “Don’t mind us,” I told him. “We’re vampires.”

“My son plays that game,” he replied. “Aren’t you guys a little old?”

I turned my attention to the start of the game without answering him. Halfway through the first period I took a swig of the fermented blood. My taste buds couldn’t tell the difference. Maybe they had all died, or perhaps my palate is unrefined. I enjoyed the kick, though. It burned going down my throat and every swallow sent a dagger of heat into my heart, like heartburn would feel if it involved real fire.

“Good?” Roger asked.

“It’s different,” I shrugged. “Anything different…” I yawned. “When are they going to start playing?” I asked.

“They are playing,” said Roger.

“Not that I can see.”

“It’s not that bad,” Roger said.

“Which game are you watching?” I took another pull off of the bottle and realized that it was empty. Roger opened the other box and handed me a second bottle.

“This is total crap. Sparky hasn’t even cross-checked anybody.”

“You can tell him about it after the game.” Roger smirked. “I have a friend who knows the owner. We’ve got permission to go and talk with the team.”

“Cool.” I offered Roger a drink from bottle number two. It had a red label on it withUnidentified Female—1982—O positive written on it in bold black letters. If anything, the burn was worse with the second bottle, but there was a taste to it, acidic and bitter.

Sparky Parker played like he was more intent on ice skating than cross-checking anybody. In the second period, Fordman, the Howlers’ left winger, had about as much chance of scoring as a hippo in a full-body condom. They weren’t even trying. Halfway through the third period, I finished the bottle.

“Let’s just go,” I told Roger.

“What about meeting the team?”

“Screw ‘em.” My tongue felt heavy and things were a little blurry. I was completely wasted.

“Please, can we stay and meet the team?” Rachel asked.

“Fine.” I cupped her breast. She didn’t seem to mind. “Anything you want.” We kissed and time rolled away. She moved onto my lap, grinding against me. Some parts of my body became more engorged with blood than others. The little voice in my head that normally would have thought twice and worried about consequences had passed out in the middle of that first bottle of blood booze. In his place was a horny little voice that I hadn’t heard since college. He didn’t care if we got caught or if security threw us out. All that mattered to him was getting inside Rachel’s jeans.

The world blurred around us like time-lapse photography. Only Rachel and I were still, cocooned in cinnamon bliss. I wondered if it was some kind of magic or just the booze, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

“Guys?” Roger whistled in my ear, then thumped me in the forehead.

The game was over, the crowd all gone. It was just the three of us. Rachel got to her feet, blushing sweetly as she straightened her outfit. What the hell had happened? Without her to hold on to, I fell backward and began sliding off the bleachers. Maybe blood booze had been a bad idea. Roger pulled me to my feet.

“Jesus, you are totally crocked,” Roger told me. “Let’s go meet the team.”

Resting one arm on Rachel and the other on Roger, I stumbled in the direction that they led me. “You’re my best friend, Roger,” I slurred. He didn’t answer.

12

ERIC:

BISCUIT IN THE BASKET

Arm in arm, Roger, Rachel, and I stumbled down a long hallway behind the bleachers. I vaguely remember singing at one point. Then, suddenly we were in the locker room, meeting the Void City Howlers.

My vision cleared long enough for me to see Sparky Parker, my former hero, the king of the ten-minute penalty, transform into a werewolf. A snarl started at the base of his toes and ran up his entire body, leaving hair, fur, and muscle in its wake. The only signs of his human form were the green and white Howlers jersey he was wearing and the hockey stick gripped tightly in his left paw.

You’d think I’d have put it all together. After all, the team was called the Void City Howlers. In my own defense, though, the Mighty Ducks had never turned into mallards on ice. So the deductive reasoning wasn’t as intuitive as it might seem. Plus, I was totally wasted for the first time in forty years.

Autograph book in hand, I looked around the room. It was just me, Sparky, and the other Howlers…no sign of Roger or Rachel. “Where did they go?” I asked.

“Your friends just ditched you, vampire,” Sparky growled. “They ran.”

“That’s good.” I blinked. “Did I run away too?”

“You shouldn’t have done it, vamp,” he growled.

“You’ve got spots.” He did have spots. Wolf Sparky looked sillier than any werewolf I’d ever seen. Coarse white fur covered most of his body, but it was speckled with dark black spots. He blurred. A large Dalmatian-spotted blob hit me in the face with something long and thin with a curved end: a hockey stick. I was grateful, because when the world stopped spinning everything was a little clearer.

He grabbed me by the face, palming my head like a basketball, and tossed me through the double doors that led out to the rink.

Other blobs expanded. They were angry fuzzy blobs with white and green middles, kind of cute, really. My vision cleared a little and a very wavery Wolf Sparky loomed over me. A long trail of drool dangled from his muzzle and pooled on the souvenir jersey I was wearing. I wondered if it was the one I’d bought for Rachel, and if so, how I’d ended up in it.

“You have a droopy ear,” I observed. “Did you know that you had…have a droopy ear? I think your mom got a little drunk one night and…oof.”

That time he grabbed my leg and tossed me out onto the ice. I felt kind of bad about mentioning the whole parentage thing. I’m kind of a happy chatty drunk and my mouth gets away from me. Cold hard ice broke my fall and I slid along the freshly resurfaced rink. The top layer hadn’t quite refrozen and the glacial water soaked into my clothes.

No crowd cheered the Howlers when they took to the ice this time, but I was impressed. “You guys just skate around me, okay?” I told them. “I don’t think I can get up.”

I don’t know who took the next several shots at me, but they must have been pissed off about something, or maybe…“I’m starting to think you guys don’t like me,” I complained.

“He’s totally hosed,” growled a dark black one with a bobbed tail and brown highlights like a Doberman’s. “Just stake him and get it over with.”

Trying to roll over, I lost my balance and fell to the ground with a loud crack.

“Lookit. One of his eyes is blinking.” Strobelike red light flashed rapidly on and off, upsetting my stomach.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said to no one in particular.

“He’s gonna yack,” one of them said, gliding past me.

“Vampires can’t yack,” called number 45 from one side. Each of them moved as easily on the ice bare-pawed as they had with skates, but in wolf form their strides were more confident, their reflexes better.

“You guys ought to skate like this all the time,” I said. “Then you might win a game or two.” That didn’t come out the way I had meant it.

A sharp pain in my side sent me spinning along the ice quickly. Sparky was driving me down the rink, a human-size hockey puck, across the blue line, straight through center ice, and toward the goal.

“Yeah, Sparky!” someone shouted.

Two of the other Howlers, Fordman and Hartaff judging by the jerseys, skated in to try and steal me from Sparky with more resounding thuds. One of my arms gave way with a crack and pain lanced up to my shoulder; my blood was smeared all over the ice.

“Okay, fellas,” I said. “That’s enough.”

Sparky brought me in, shoving me across the goal line and into the boards. About that time, I realized they weren’t just playing, they were fighting. My growl was louder than Sparky’s.

“Stake him!” Fordman shouted. Sparky’s custom stick plunged into my back and out through the front of my souvenir jersey. I didn’t want to think about how much strength it took to jam a blunt handle completely through a man’s torso. Red illumination flashed on the boards in spurts. Off. On. Off. On. Blood wine erupted violently from my throat. It ran down the stick and onto the ice. The glow from my eyes blinked twice more and stayed on.

“Biscuit in the basket, baby!” several of them roared.

“Get the cooler.” The hockey stick wasn’t made of real wood, but I was still moving far too slowly. Two of them ran off of the ice and then came back toward me with a cooler.

“This ain’t football,” I complained. “What the hell are you guys—” They dumped the cooler over my head. It burned like acid. Holy water. I think they thought it would kill me. It was a good try. It would have worked on a Soldier, or possibly on a Master, but as I keep trying to remind everyone, I’m a Vlad and we are damn near indestructible.

“I am so fucking killing you guys,” I said as my skin peeled away and caught fire. Holy water is powerful stuff. It ate right through my clothes, my skin, through the bone, mixing with my liquid remains and flowing out onto the ice like gruesome pancake batter.

The blood wine I’d spewed mixed with the puddle of water and with, well, me, turning the mixture into a bubbling red mess, with smoke pouring off the top as I sizzled and popped like a fried egg. I knew I was going to survive, but a vampire who has been melted is in bad shape even if it doesn’t send him to the great beyond. We need blood to re-form. Fortunately for me, I was lying in a puddle of it.

As the holy water boiled away, the smoke stopped and bit by bit the grotesque liquefied mass developed solid chunks, drawing in on itself. I floated above the ice, looking down on my body, detached and clearheaded, glowing that same ghostly blue I’d been the one time I tried to turn to mist.

Being melted was pretty damn low on my list of sobriety quick fixes, but it did the job. My bones re-formed first. One of the werewolves rammed another hockey stick through my ribs where my heart was going to be. I guess he thought the stick was made of wood, but it was some high-tech plastic. Plastic doesn’t do dick.

My body lay naked on the ice and I found myself drawn back into it, momentarily disoriented, but regaining my senses just fast enough to pull the stick out of my chest before my clothes came back.

It’s good to be a badass. Using my anger as a focus, I turned into a bat. It took longer than usual and felt different, like when your dick falls asleep because your underwear is too tight and there is that long agonizing wait followed by a pins and needles sensation exactly where you never want one. I flew out over the rink and landed in the stands. When I changed shape again, my clothes were back. I’d instinctively regenerated my usual outfit, but at the high price of what felt like every last drop of blood in my body.

I missed the Howlers jersey, but it was okay. I was over them. Now these assholes had it coming. They’d lured me back to the locker room with Roger’s unwitting help, used me as a hockey puck, and been the first group of people to ever melt me down with holy water. Worst of all, they’d made me sit through a piss-poor game of hockey. There is no excuse for bad hockey.

They’d make it up to me though. I was hungry.

This time, I wouldn’t make the mistake of holding back like I had with the guys who’d wrecked my Mustang. I was tired of talking, and at this point the hunger wouldn’t have let me hold back anyway. I felt the blackout coming, bitter and cold like winter rain. Yep, these jerks had it coming. They had it coming Dracula style.

As my vision started to blur, I hovered at the edge of awareness just long enough to make one last taunt. “So are you motherfuckers going to come and get me or do I have to hang a steak around my neck?”

13

TABITHA:

HIDDEN DEPTHS

The whole no-reflection thing was really starting to grate on my nerves. I needed mirrors. There is only so much a girl can tell about how she looks by craning her neck and bending over backward. The other girls were busy, so I did the best I could on my own and then called up front to ask Talbot if he had a few minutes to come to the back.

“Why?”

“I need someone to check my makeup and stuff; the other girls were busy, so I tried to do it myself, but—”

“Ten minutes.” He laughed and hung up.

While I waited, I finished up the second pint of blood he’d brought me earlier. It tasted a little funny, but I didn’t want to have to argue with Talbot over it when he came back to check me out. I was tired of being cooped up in the club and I wanted to go outside for a while after my set. After I finished the blood, I still had five minutes to wait, so I practiced popping my claws and making my eyes glow. It was cool and all, but I wanted to know more about what I could do. I wondered what would happen if I used a power that I didn’t know how to undo. What if I turned into a bat and got stuck that way?

When Talbot came into the bedroom, I retracted my claws and let my eyes turn back to normal.

His smell wasn’t human and it was thrilling to be near him, to not know what he was. He looked me up and down and I studied him in return.

“You look fine,” he said. He turned and started to leave again.

“Wait. Talbot, do you have a few minutes?”

He looked at me over his shoulder. “Why?”

“I wanted to try and figure out what other powers I have.” I walked over to the dresser and fiddled with my hairbrush. He showed up clearly in the mirror even though my reflection would have been blocking his.

He closed the door and turned back to me. “You don’t need me to do that.”

I looked down at the brush in my hand. It was silver. For a moment, I was lost in the shiny surface. My grandmother had left it to me when she’d died. She had always intended it for Rachel, but cancer had taken my sister away from us earlier than anyone could have expected. She was so angry at the end, she blamed me for not finding a way to save her.

“I’m afraid,” I admitted.

Talbot came closer, put his hand near my shoulder, and then pulled it away. I could feel the heat of him behind me. It was like standing with my back to the fire on a cold winter day. I leaned into him involuntarily and closed my eyes. “You feel so warm.”

Gentle, but firm, he pushed me away from him. I was off balance and I almost didn’t catch myself. Something was wrong. “You don’t want to play the kind of games I like, Tabitha,” he told me softly.

How embarrassing! Did I have to throw myself at every warm-bodied man that crossed my path? I shivered. “I’m sorry. It just feels so cold.”

“You’ll get used to it.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and I realized that it was the first time that I had ever seen Talbot sit down. He was always leaning on things, but never actually sitting.

“So how do I do it?” I asked.

“Do what?”

I put down the brush and threw my hands up in the air. “Do anything! I’ve read lots of books, but it isn’t something that Eric ever talked about. I could ask Roger, but—”

“You don’t want Eric to get jealous.” He nodded. “I get you. Which do you like best: bats, cats, fleas, wolves, frogs, or do you want to try for something funky, like a virus?”

I turned around and leaned up against the dresser. “What?”

“You don’t know yet how powerful you are. If you’re a Soldier or a Drone, you might only be able to do the first one you try, or you might not be able to do any of them. You might not get a choice, but if you do get a choice and you can only do one…” He shrugged. “Well, they say that’s what happened to Froggy.”

“So, it’d better be one that I like,” I mused. “Okay. Wait, a virus?”

He laughed. When he did, I could tell that even with his fangs retracted, his canines were a little longer than normal. “It’s been done. I guess it was a good way to avoid hunters back in the day, but it sounds kind of gross to me.”

“Can I try something else weird? Is there a bird, like a raven or something?”

“Try it and see,” he urged.

“Do I need to take my clothes off?”

“Some do, but why don’t you just go ahead and try it with clothes for now.” He got up and walked around the room, arms outstretched like a big kid playing airplanes. “Close your eyes and think of yourself as a bird. See yourself flying over the city, like in a helicopter ride only the wind is underneath your wings. You aren’t in some metal cockpit. There is no glass between you and the air, no metal. It’s you, just you.”

I spread my arms like he had done. At first I felt silly, but gradually, I really could see it. My body tightened, wrenching painfully in on itself, my skin an overfilled balloon that might pop any second, and then the wind was beneath my wings; I was free! It was so sudden that I screamed in surprise, but no human sound escaped my lips. It was a bird’s cry. I had done it! Of course, I didn’t know how to fly, so I fluttered to the ground. When I landed, I felt dizzy and confused, sick to my stomach. Talbot pounced, catching me between his hands and eyeing me closely with his fangs out and his cat eyes flashing. “Gotcha!”

Willing myself back to human size didn’t work. I flapped my wings ineffectually and started pecking at his fingers with my beak. If I’d had fangs I would have bitten him. As it was, I tried for his eyes, but he was too far away.

“If you’re a Master vampire,” he gloated, “you’ll be able to turn back even though I have you trapped. Just concentrate. Think about being humanoid. Picture yourself biting my hand or something.”

It didn’t work. I couldn’t focus.

“Try it. Picture yourself dancing onstage.”

Nope.

“All right,” he said as he set me down on the bed. “Try it now.”

Instantly, I was myself again. “You bastard!”

“The test isn’t definitive, but you’re probably a Soldier.” He stood up and grinned. “Care to try for a mouse?”

I did not care to try for a mouse. Instead I tried for a cat. I pictured myself as a large gray kitty I’d had as a little girl. I loved that cat more than anybody in my family. I used to sit and pet him for hours and listen to him purr. He was the only thing that was mine and mine alone. He never let anyone else touch him, especially not Rachel. It was almost as if Mr. Fuzzy Bottom had some kind of never-ending feud with her. Cats in general didn’t like her; maybe they knew something I didn’t.

The change was not as sudden as before; quick, but not instant, like a slow collapse into a nice warm ball of fur. It was a relief to be warm again. Talbot took a step away from the bed, his eyes wider than usual and his mouth open. I looked down at my paws. They were gray, just like Mr. Fuzzy Bottom’s. I preened myself at Talbot and gazed at him haughtily.

“Okay, so maybe you are a Master vampire,” he allowed. “You could have been too panicked to make the change before.”

Master vampire or not, I could turn into a bird and I could turn into a cat. My chest felt funny, though. It sort of vibrated. “Meow,” I told Talbot. “My chest feels funny,” is what I had meant to say. My heart was beating! I was breathing! I stumbled and accidentally sat down.

“I’ll just bet it does,” Talbot whispered. He reached over and grabbed me, holding up my kitty-cat self to the mirror so that I could see my reflection.

I could see my reflection!

“Meow!” I said, meaning “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit, indeed,” he said as he put me down on the dresser, in front of the mirror. I put a paw against the mirror and stared at myself. Even though it wasn’t the human me, just being able to show up in a mirror, to see a reflection that belonged to me, made me feel safe and warm inside. I rubbed up against the mirror and purred at myself.

“Meow,” I said to myself, meaning “Hello, me.”

Veruca opened the door and glanced around the room. Her makeup was sloppy and her shoes didn’t go with her dress. I could tell that she wasn’t happy.

“What’s a cat doing in here?” Veruca asked. Talbot just looked at her. Veruca’s lip curled. “Tell Tabitha not to get too full of herself, Talbot. Just because she’s been turned, she’s nothing special. She’s supposed to go on in half an hour. Then it’s serving drinks and doing lap dances just like everybody else. I’m taking the night off.”

“A little hard on your new sister in undeath, aren’t you?” Talbot asked. “As a matter of fact, since you’re here, she doesn’t have to go onstage at all….”

Veruca flipped Talbot off and pulled up her shirt. Claw marks crisscrossed her stomach and from the look of them, they went around to the back.

“What happened?” I meowed.

“What happened?” Talbot repeated for me. Interesting. Talbot understood cat speak and Veruca didn’t. Was he a werecat? A weretiger? What else could he be?

“None of your business, asshole!” Veruca slammed the door and stalked off down the hall. The sound echoed in my head. My vision blurred and for a moment there were two furry “me”s in the mirror.

“Meow?” I said, and I had no idea what I meant. Something was definitely wrong.

I rolled over on my back and swatted at the pretty rainbows and the colored lights that had appeared in the air. There was that same funny taste in my mouth, like the second pint of blood. In the distance I heard Talbot’s voice calling my name.

The rainbows started moving faster and I tried harder to catch them. Then, I heard someone barfing. I wondered if it was me. At some point, I fell off of the dresser. Talbot caught me. The psychedelic swirling stopped, replaced by a vibration deep in my skull. There was a sound like when a monitor blinks out. My skin went numb all at once and little sparks danced in front of my eyes. Talbot blurred in hazy motion lines, faded, and then was gone completely.

14

TABITHA:

THE SHOW MUST GO ON

When I woke up, Talbot was snapping his fingers in front of my eyes and calling my name. I was wet and I was still a cat. The lights were too bright and my heart was beating in my ears. Was I drunk? Did vampires get drunk? Did cats get drunk? For that matter, why was my heart beating? I was breathing too fast and my skin was all tingly.

“C’mon, Tabitha. Get up!” Talbot told me. I sneezed a pitiful cat sneeze at him and it made my head pound.

“Meow,” I said, meaning, “God, I feel awful.”

“It’s probably just transformation sickness,” Talbot explained. “Try turning back to normal and see if that helps.”

It was hard to concentrate with my head pounding, but I managed it. It was even slower than before, my body chilling and expanding like a balloon slowly being filled with cold water. After a few minutes, I was myself again, panting on the floor. I even had clothes on. The dull ache in my head eased up and the world stopped spinning in circles.

I blinked a few times, steadied myself, and stood up. “Okay. That was both awesome and shitty at the same time. So, what? I can turn into a cat, but only if I want to start tripping and then barf?”

Talbot looked at my eyes closely. “Your eyes are dilated.” He held my right eye open with his fingers. “Okay, better. They’re normal now.”

I started to rub my eye, but stopped myself when I remembered my eye shadow. I touched my cheek and looked reflexively to the mirror to check my makeup. No reflection. An inexplicable rage welled up inside of me and I turned on Talbot.

“You better not have fucked up my makeup, asshole!” My claws were out before I even thought about extending them. I wanted to tear him apart, drink his blood, drain him dry, and then tear the pieces up when I was done. I knew my reaction was over the top, but I couldn’t explain what was happening. Talbot seemed just as surprised as I was, even more so because I had actually slashed his forearm with my claws, moving too fast for even Talbot to avoid. We both looked down at the blood.

“I—” I didn’t know what I was going to say, but I opened my mouth to say it. Talbot wasn’t interesting in listening.

“Your makeup is fine. Get your ass out there and do your job.” He walked into the bathroom and began washing the cuts out with soap and water.

“Talbot?” I followed him into the bathroom, reaching out to him.

“Just go, Tabitha!” he yelled. Closing his eyes, he let out a sigh. “Just go out and dance. We’ll talk about this later. I probably pushed you too hard.”

Of course it was his fault, I cursed inwardly. Talbot was the one with experience. Talbot was supposed to know better, to teach me. I left the room and headed toward the stage. “Dumb, fucking asshole,” I said aloud.

My emotions were a mess. Edginess does not even begin to describe what I was feeling. Imagine that someone ran over your cat, and then backed into your new car trying to get away. Imagine that when the police came, the officer laughed and told you to buy a new cat. Picture how angry that would make you. I was that mad at everyone and everything, and I could not understand why.

In the dressing room behind the stage, Candice and Sharon were getting ready to go serve drinks and sell lap dances. Sharon said hello and I flipped her off in response. She shrugged it off, but I could smell her anger.

Candice looked up at me with that stupid innocent look she always gave to Eric. “Did somebody wake up on the wrong side of the grave this morning?”

I don’t even remember hitting her. She just seemed to lift up out of her chair and fly backward through the air of her own accord. One of the mirrors shattered as she hit it and there was a blinding flash as the lights around it exploded. Bouncing off of the wall, she landed facedown on the floor. Shards of glass landed all around and over her, like glittery sprinkles. It was pretty in a violent, deadly sort of way. It was too much trouble to get to her throat with all the glass in the floor, so I leapt over her and landed on the steps leading up to the stage.

I smiled back at Sharon and she froze, evidently hoping that if she stayed still, I’d leave her alone. “One word and I’ll put you right fucking next to her.” She was used to being around vampires and it probably saved her life. I’m sure she was terrified, but she knew better than to show it. It was one of the first things Eric told new girls. I’d been with him long enough to know how true it was: Fear was like a good marinade to a vampire. Running could get you killed. Hold still, submit, and you might have a chance.

A weird taste played across my tongue, bitter and sweet at the same time. I knew I had tasted it before, but I couldn’t think clearly enough to figure out where. By the time I hit the stage I had all but forgotten about Candice. Jasmine was out there doing her Little Red Riding Hood routine, managing to look innocent and sexy all at once. Her long brown hair trailed behind her, down over the hood and cape. The light creamy texture of her skin stood out in perfect contrast to the bright red cape, a thin layer of baby oil glistening on her skin, her pink nipples hard and erect.

I decided to play the Big Bad Wolf. When I walked out from behind the stage, I could hear the emcee asking Marilyn what was going on. I couldn’t remember what his name was; only that he was a pig who always tried to get us to suck him off. Tonight, I decided, he would get his wish.

I hit the stage and Jasmine looked back at me, pretty brown eyes wide in surprise. She was down to her G-string and the little red cape. I strutted up to her and pulled the G-string off. It was what the guys really wanted to see anyway. Jasmine protested, but I was having fun. Excitement emanated from the audience. The scent filled my nostrils and made it even harder to think. I showed my fangs to the crowd and they cheered. As far as they knew, this was all part of the show. Jasmine’s scent was the most thrilling of all: fear and uncertainty, combined with sweat and a hint of sex.

It woke the inner predator in me. I began a routine of my own. I danced around her, stripping; Jasmine relaxed and started to dance with me, closer than I would have normally found comfortable. When the tips started rolling in, she whispered her thanks into my ear.

But Jasmine’s terror started to return when she realized that I wasn’t going to let her leave the stage. By the time I was down to my own G-string, we had collected more money than I normally did in an entire night, but I didn’t want money. Talbot had made his way to the edge of the stage and was whispering just loudly enough for me to hear him.

“Let her off the stage, Tabitha! Let Jasmine go backstage and then follow her. Something is very wrong here and we’ll figure it out. Just don’t hurt her.”

I wanted, no, needed, Jasmine to run, but she wouldn’t do it; she’d been trained too well. Like Sharon, she knew running from a vampire would get you killed for sure. If you didn’t run, then you had a chance. I pulled her close to me, pressing her back to my chest, and whispered in her ear, “Let me taste you and you can leave.”

She nodded slightly and I sank my teeth into her neck. Fresh blood touched my tongue and it felt hot enough to burn. It was more than a taste. The liquid warmth ran down my throat, into my core, spreading like traces of fire along my veins. She sagged in my arms, another trick, designed to cue a vampire that she’d had enough. The audience went wild.

Somehow, I let her go. She stumbled toward the rear of the stage and into someone’s waiting arms. I didn’t care who. That one taste of fresh blood unleashed a monster inside me. I hesitated momentarily in the calm before the storm. Sounds grew even louder than before. I could hear people all around the club, both voices I knew and those I did not know.

“Didn’t I tell you this was an awesome club?”

“Fake blood, you can tell by the way…”

“Lap dance…”

“What the hell is she doing, Marilyn…”

“Get off the stage, Tabitha.”

“Don’t know, boss. I haven’t seen him, but his ex is going nuts…”

Music flickered brightly above the speakers, wave after wave of electric blue. I heard rather than felt the terror of those around me, high-pitched and frantic like a mad guitar solo. Sensory confusion. In a detached way, I realized I was tripping again.

One sound flashed red, more enticing than the others, a sensual pulse: a summons, pulsing faster. Heartbeats. I was the monster and the monster was me. It felt like I was gaining control over myself, like I was winning. All sense of right and wrong flowed away to be replaced by the new morality: drinking blood, good; not drinking blood, bad.

I remember shoving Talbot to one side, leaping for the emcee. People screamed as I bit through the emcee’s pants into his femoral artery.

“How’s that for a suck job, asshole?”

Claws raked down my back and I kicked in my vampire speed without having to concentrate, fluidly, as easy as sneezing. I remember laughing, long purple streams of laughter rising over my shoulder. Power over life and death was mine. Killing led to drinking blood. Not killing led to not drinking blood. Killing became a virtuous act.

Even Talbot was too slow to stop me. I moved like a whirlwind, dancing through the crowd. His attempts to stop me were like cheap scares in a haunted house. He could jump out at me, growl at me, but he couldn’t touch me any more than a dancing plastic skeleton with glowing eyes could. A series of bleeding lines on backs, faces, necks, and chests slid beneath my claws and it was fun, like finger-painting.

I felt warm inside and out. These stupid perverts didn’t need their lives. I did. I needed all that they had to give and more. I deserved it. They were cattle, little more than fast-food wrappers. And I…I faltered. The new morality flickered, replaced by my former sense of right and wrong. I saw what I had done and it sickened me. I staggered backward.

Twang.

Pain lanced through my chest as I fell to the floor. In the distance, across the club, I saw Marilyn. She had taken her arm out of its sling so she’d have both hands for the crossbow. Beyond her, people were pounding on the doors, but they wouldn’t open. Talbot was beside me, picking me up, charging through the crowd to get me out of there.

“Use the crystal, Marilyn!” he yelled behind him, and instantly there was silence. Then, I heard the unmistakable sound of bodies hitting the floor.

I blacked out, not comprehending exactly what had happened.

When I came to, I couldn’t see. Someone had closed my eyes, but I could hear voices. It sounded like they were in another room. Unable to move, I listened carefully. Bugs skittered inside the walls and what sounded like a larger thing, a mouse, probably, thumped its leg against the floor as it scratched at a flea. There were birds on the roof. A man was chanting over the speaker system in the main club. His words were nonsense mixed with what might have been Latin. I also heard Marilyn.

“I want you to have Magbidion check her out as soon as he’s done with the mind job on the customers, Talbot. I want him to check her and everything she’s touched. She’s a stupid girl, but I looked into her eyes after she’d turned. She’s still too human inside to do something like that.”

Liquid splashed against the sides of a mug. I couldn’t smell what it was. They were too far away. “Thanks,” said Marilyn.

“Look, he’s just going to have to put her down,” Veruca said. “There is something wrong with him. Whenever he turns a new slut, she winds up defective.”

“No,” Marilyn disagreed. “It isn’t that. Something happened to her.” She stopped talking abruptly.

Talbot paced back and forth across the floor. It sounded like he was walking on wood. They had to be in the office, since I doubted they were on the stage. “Do you think it was a spell?” he asked. “You know Eric pissed off the local Alpha. I wouldn’t think a religious type like William would stoop to this, though.”

Marilyn sipped her drink carefully. The aroma of coffee, strong and bitter, reached my nostrils.

“I couldn’t say, Talbot, but you tell Magbidion that I’m not paying his fee until he finds out what on God’s green earth happened.” She fiddled with a package that crackled and when she next spoke she sounded like she had a cigarette in her mouth. “Could you?”

A mechanical lighter clicked and Marilyn inhaled deeply. “Thanks,” she told him.

“I think I’ll spare myself the secondhand smoke, Marilyn.” Talbot coughed. “I’ll get back to you when Magbidion has more information.”

I heard the door open and close and then open again.

“Talbot,” Marilyn called down the hallway.

“Yes?”

“She didn’t drink a junkie or anything tonight, did she?”

“No,” he answered. “I brought her some of Eric’s stash from the fridge in the break room. I meant to ask you to check your ledger and see whose turn it is to give more this week so that I could replace it.”

“Not from here in the office?” Marilyn asked.

“No,” Talbot answered. “According to Veruca, Roger pitched a shit fit when you fed Tabitha some of his stock last night, said for us to stay out of the office fridge…”

“Like he ever drinks cold blood,” Marilyn snapped.

“And that Tabitha should have to hunt, like Veruca,” Talbot finished.

“Well,” Veruca interjected defensively, “that’s what he said.”

“The stash in the break room is all Eric’s, though,” Talbot continued, “so I thought that’d be okay.”

Marilyn took a long drag off her cigarette and blew smoke into the hallway. “Have Magbidion check the blood. All of it.”

“Will do,” Talbot replied.

I knew that blood had tasted funny.

15

ERIC:

SPIKED

It was a warm August night so I didn’t mind flying home. Roger had been right to get Rachel out of there, but I was still a little pissed that he hadn’t come back to give me a ride. He did know I was going to win, right?

It didn’t take as long as I thought it would for me to fly back to the Pollux. I landed on the old theater’s roof. Across the street, the Demon Heart’s large neon sign was off and aClosed sign hung on the front doors. My watch had stopped, but I didn’t think it was closing time yet.

The scent of blood hit me before I had made it halfway across the street. The smell wasn’t quite as strong at the back door, but when I walked in I had to pause, allow myself to adjust. Whatever had happened, I was relatively certain that going into a feeding frenzy wouldn’t help. Down the hall, in the business office, Marilyn and Talbot were talking. They looked my way when I opened the door.

Marilyn looked stressed, puffing away at a cigarette, her arm in a sling. Talbot was pretty well banged up. His shirt was shredded, and I could see scratches on his arms, chest, and back. The ones on his back looked particularly deep. The sorcerer Magbidion was with them. Sometimes I call him Mag because it gets on his nerves. He wasn’t with the local mages’ guild, so he was free to work for vampires; I’d used him before. In fact, I’d been meaning to call him. I made a mental note to have Mag look at the silver bullet while he was here.

“I was just telling them they did the right thing when they used the Somnolence Crystal,” Magbidion told me. “I was able to fix all the humans out there, but you’ll need a new Somnolence Crystal. I can have it ready tomorrow for fifteen grand.”

“Fifteen thousand?” I asked incredulously. I seemed to recall the last one costing less than that.

“Pay it,” Marilyn snapped. “And I don’t want to hear any complaints about the fifty thousand we owe him for cleaning up the mess tonight. It was worth every penny.”

“What the hell happened?” I walked past them into the office and slid the company checkbook out of the drawer. The carbon copy above the check I was writing caught my attention.

“Who the fuck is Fergus Jenkins and why did we write him a check for thirty thousand dollars?”

Talbot shrugged. Marilyn’s eyes narrowed, but her mouth stayed firmly shut. “Anyone?” I asked again.

“Who wrote the check?” Veruca asked innocently.

I looked closely at the signature. Roger had signed my name. He never dots hisi’ s. He also he made thee inEric look more like ac and connected it to ther . When I write my name thee stands alone.

“Roger,” I said flatly, “I’ll ask him about it.” I sniffed the air. It was hard to tell over the carnage, but I didn’t smell him. “Isn’t he back yet?”

Veruca shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m headed out, though. If I see him, I’ll ask him to call you.”

“Fine.” Someone was going to have to explain this to me eventually, but in the meantime I wrote Magbidion a check. He reached for it, but I held back.

“What am I paying sixty-five thousand dollars for?” I asked.

“Fifteen thousand for the new crystal. I could do it for five, but then it wouldn’t put paranormals to sleep. It costs ten to cover werewolves, ogres, those kinds of things, and another five to make sure that it doesn’t put any of the Demon Heart staff to sleep along with the riffraff. I have to key them in individually.”

“I know that. I mean the rest of it.”

“Ask them.” Mag pointed at Talbot and Marilyn. “You don’t want to pay me to explain it to you.” I held the check back out to him. He took it, shook my hand, and started to leave. “You know,” he called over his shoulder, “you’d save a lot of money if you just agreed to be my champion.”

Ever since Mag had seen me fight that demon in El Segundo he’d been after me to champion his cause when the time came. Magbidion hadn’t been born with magic; he’d cut a deal to get it. He was going to lose his soul unless he had a champion who could kill whatever demon it was that he’d made the deal with. Mag lived in fear of repo day, and I wanted no part of it.

“Let’s keep it cash and carry for now,” I told him. He headed for the exit and then I remembered the silver bullet in my pocket.

“Mag,” I said, following him out to the hallway, “Let me ask you something.”

He stopped and peered at me from beneath bushy brown eyebrows. As far as I knew, it was the only hair on his body and that was why he let them grow a little wild. “What is it?” Mag asked.

“I found this bullet out at Orchard Lake in the skull of a werewolf. You ever see anything like it?” I handed him the bullet. He promptly dropped it.

“You can’t just hand somebody a thing like that!” Mag wiped his hands off on his pants. “It’s a soul stealer.”

I knelt next to it. “I’ve been carrying it around in my pocket.”

“You can hold it safely.” He emphasized theyou . “You’re a dead thing.”

“Sorry.” I picked it up and held it out in my palm. He bent over to examine it more closely. Lines of blue shone on his face, cast by the runes carved into the bullet. “If death wasn’t enough to pull your soul out of your body,” Magbidion continued, “then this won’t be a problem for you.”

He took a ratty-looking pair of wire-framed reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on. Magbidion traced his finger over one of the symbols, the same symbol Rachel had recognized. “It only kills werewolves.” He sighed. “You want to be careful, though. It’s not made to kill vampires, but it shape-locks anything supernatural that it hits. You get hit with one of these and there’ll be no turning to a bat and flying back to the crypt until you get the bullet out. The silver would probably set you on fire too. Hell, I didn’t have anything to worry about.”

“Then you hold it.” I handed it to him. The way I dumped the bullet into his hand made me remember having handed it to Rachel. Good thing it only worked on werewolves.

“It has souls inside of it, too.” He crossed his eyes. “Two, four, six…hold still…eight…nine…Lot of ‘em in there. Fella could make some impressive wards with these guys.”

“Wards?”

“Are you kidding me?” Magbidion tapped the bullet. “Werewolf souls are perfect for wards. They’re supernatural and mundane at the same time…. Human, yet not human. Perfect for keeping normals and paranormals at bay. I hear it took about thirty to erect the wards over at the Highland Towers and they’re damn near impregnable.”

He made a series of motions in the air.

“Looks like you’re trying to adjust the focus on an invisible camera,” I told him.

“I am.” Mag paused. “Well, kind of.”

He kept motioning and my stomach turned. The sound of fingernails on a chalkboard rose from the bullet. “It’s a tricky artifact,” Mag explained. “I nearly missed it, but this bullet is linked to something…some things. More bullets, maybe? I could tell for sure if I saw the gun.”

With each adjustment he made, the sound got worse until with a final twist it stopped. Seven little blue cables of light extended three feet from the bullet’s base. Magbidion touched one of them and bit his lip. “It’s no good. Someone would have to follow the trail and you don’t have enough money to pay me to do that.” He perked up. “Unless, of course, you want to be my champion.”

“I’ll think about it.” I took the bullet back. “For now, why don’t you tell me what you can.”

“This bullet is connected…it has five little brother bullets, and all of them are tied to one another and more importantly, to one hell of a gun.” He took off his glasses and put them away. “It’s powerful magic. I couldn’t make something like that. Whoever made it is either real bad juju or had a demon to help them.”

“Now I just have to find a tracker, right?” I put the bullet back in my pocket. “How much do I owe you for the info?”

“I’ll put it on your tab.”

“I’d rather write you another check.”

“Just let me know if you decide to make any wards with that stuff. I’ve always wanted to work with the real thing.”

“It’s a deal,” I agreed.

He started to leave, then stopped himself. “Can I park my RV in the Pollux parking deck tonight? The first floor is tall enough.”

“Anytime,” I told him, meaning it. I followed him out the back door and watched as he walked over to a ragtag RV with what looked like a decade’s worth of dust and grime on it. He unlocked it and looked over his shoulder at me.

“You know Talbot could probably follow the bullet’s trail back to the gun if he knew to look for it.” He tapped his temple. “Cat’s eyes.” He climbed in and the vehicular behemoth came to life, spewing a cloud of black smoke from the tailpipe.

I walked back inside and returned to the office. Marilyn hopped out of my chair as I approached, moving to a folding chair across the room. Talbot loomed near the door as usual. They gave me a rundown on what had happened and it didn’t make me the happiest boy in the world to find out that my newly turned girlfriend had gone batshit and tried to kill every human in my club. “How’s Candice?”

“They’re keeping her overnight for observation,” Talbot said matter-of-factly. “Broken clavicle, cracked sternum, a pretty good concussion, and a fair assortment of cuts and bruises; I wouldn’t expect her to work for a while even if she does decide to come back. We had six girls working when it happened. Jasmine will be okay in a day or two. She’s weak from the blood loss. Kaylee got off with bumps and bruises, and Sharon and Desiree were just scared half to death. Lil’s dead, though, and that emcee you were trying out, Rick…we’ll need to find a replacement. He’s dead too.”

“Fuck! That stupid bitch!” I stood up, brushing past Talbot to stick my head out into the hall. Tabitha’s new scent drifted toward me from the dressing room.

“It wasn’t her fault, Eric.” Marilyn sighed. I turned to look at her, my hand still on the door. “Magbidion was surprised that she lasted as long as she did before exploding.”

The question I was about to ask must have been betrayed by my expression, because Talbot answered it. “I fed her cold blood again tonight. I got it out of your emergency stash in the break room fridge because I didn’t have much time.”

“And?”

“And Magbidion said somebody spiked your blood,” he concluded. “Not the blood in the office fridge that you and Roger share. Just the stuff in the break room…just yours.”

“It’s easier to get to,” I said. “Anybody can get into that break room.

“Call the girls and tell them that the Demon Heart is closed until I get this all sorted out. Everyone still gets paid,” I told Marilyn.

It’s not like I need the money anyway, which I’ve tried to explain to Roger more than once. It doesn’t matter if we turn a profit. The Demon Heart’s all about food supply, not money. Managed properly, the club could lose twenty grand a month and we’d still be fine. As it was, we usually made money anyway, assuming we didn’t have to shell out for a lot of high-priced magical stuff. Maybe it would have been cheaper to be Magbidion’s champion. I just didn’t know exactly what it entailed, aside from killing the demon, and as usual, I didn’t want to know.

“Damn werewolves,” I griped. “Do you think they could be behind this? I mean I get the attack at the hockey game, but—”

“You got attacked at a hockey game?” Marilyn wheezed. She’d walked around behind the desk and started dialing, receiver in hand.

“Yeah. I killed the Void City Howlers.” I shrugged. “They were werewolves. Didn’t Roger and Rachel tell you about it?”

“Veruca told you they aren’t back yet,” Talbot reminded me.

“Shit. They left first. They really should have gotten back first.” Marilyn hung up the phone and the three of us walked back to the fridge in the break room. Talbot slid past me and opened it. I kept five pints of blood in there for emergencies and weekends, in addition to the supply Roger and I share in the office mini-fridge. There was generally at least one night each week when I wound up drinking blood out of the fridge, usually when all the girls were busy and I just didn’t feel like going out. There were two left, pushed to the back behind various salad dressings, bottled water, diet sodas, and the remains of Candice’s pizza; Magbidion had marked both bags with a big redX . Marilyn reached past me for a bottle of water with a largeM etched into the cap.

I picked up one of the blood bags and shook it at Talbot. “What the hell did he say is in these things?”

Marilyn set her water on top of the fridge, took the bag from me, put it back in the fridge, and closed the door. She stood facing me, but her eyes were on the floor. “Someone tried to slip you the be-all-end-all of Mickey Finns, Eric. Magbidion did two thousand dollars worth of mojo over it and said it was something mixed with werewolf blood. He took one with him to study it, but we already know it makes the vampire who drinks it go berserk. He thinks that at the beginning it gives the victim a mild euphoria and erodes their self-control, but when the drinker next tastes human blood, warm blood, from the source—”

“They go apeshit,” Talbot concluded. “We’re just lucky that it wasn’t you.”

“I’d have killed everyone,” I said softly. “Is there any way to know who did it?”

“No.” Marilyn shook her head. “All of the girls use this room, and our security’s not all that tight to start with.” She grabbed her water bottle and took a drink. There was a bruise on her right arm, like it had been grabbed too hard, but it was her left arm in the sling. I thought back to the slap. Had I grabbed both arms? I didn’t think so, not that I could ask. “Hey, did I do that, too?” seemed a little insensitive.

Talbot seemed to be considering something.

“Spit it out,” I said.

“Well, Veruca was back here even though she had the night off. That struck me as a little odd.”

“I think that blood’s been in there all week. Could have been anyone. Go make your calls, and if you get any leads from the girls, let me know,” I told Marilyn. “I’ll check on Tabitha.” Pushing past both of them, I headed down the hall toward the dressing room. Tabitha was inside lying on the floor. A crossbow bolt protruded from the side of her left breast. Dried blood covered her from knee to earlobe. Combined with the unnatural pallor, she looked like a murder victim.

I sniffed. Most of the blood was human, though some of it smelled like Talbot’s. She was also naked except for a G-string. The whole scene reminded me of a little kid looking at his favorite toy broken on the floor, but I knew that Tabitha was more than a plaything, whether I wanted to believe it or not.

Scooping her up, I carried her into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind me. I sat down on the bed and held her tight against me. She was limp, cold, and lifeless, but not “dead” dead. A piece of wood through the heart kills Drones, Soldiers, and some of the wimpier Masters, but it only paralyzes the rest of us.

I kissed her forehead and silently thanked anybody that was listening for letting her be powerful enough to survive. For a few more minutes I just sat there with her, holding her, then I laid her on the bed and straddled her. Her eyes were closed. I pushed them open so that I could see them.

Any vampire can use telepathy if they have eye-to-eye contact with someone, but it opens you up to being mesmerized by the other vampire…unless you’re their sire, or have a stronger psychic fortitude than they do. Using my power over her as her sire, I reached into her mind. She was awake and aware. She could feel everything, hear everything, but she couldn’t move.

I’m going to pull the bolt out,I thought to her.If you can’t keep control of yourself, I’ll have to put it back in.

Okay, she thought at me, weakly.

I tried pulling the bolt out backward, tearing muscle, but in the end, I rolled her up on her side and slowly pushed the bolt through far enough to snap off the bloodied head. I let her fall back, locking eyes with her again, and extracted the bolt, a foot-long shaft of thin wood covered in blood.

She cried out and grabbed my shoulders. “Ow! Fuck!” She clutched at the gaping hole in her chest. “That really hurts! Shit!”

She seemed fine. The wound was already closing; her healing worked about as quickly as mine, which was a good thing. I tossed the bolt aside and kissed her, happy she was alive, undestroyed, whatever. I wanted to lick the blood from her breasts, but stopped myself, afraid it might be tainted with whatever had drugged her. It was then, as I leaned down, tongue hovering over Tabitha’s breast, that Marilyn walked in.

“I’ve called all the girls,” she said in a disapproving tone. “If you’re going to lick that blood off, let me reload the crossbow first, just in case.”

Why did I feel like my wife had walked in on me and the other woman? “No, that’s okay,” I told her. “We’d both better get cleaned up.”

Tabitha and I headed into the bathroom and two minutes later, Marilyn joined us with the crossbow. “Just in case.”

16

ERIC:

BUYING A CLUE

Talbot, Marilyn, and Tabitha sat across the table from me back in Marilyn’s office. The tableau reminded me of a bunch of escaped prisoners trying to decide how to get out of the country. Everyone expected me to have the answers, but my think tank was running low.

“Okay, so we’ve got Willard’s werewolf pack,” I said.

Talbot coughed. “William.”

“What?”

“William, not Willard. I found out a little more about him, too. He’s trouble.”

“So am I.”

“I know, but not this kind of trouble. He’s not just any werewolf.”

“Yeah, Roger told me. He’s an Alpha. It takes blessed silver to kill him.”

“Roger said that?” Talbot cracked his knuckles. “Did he tell you that silver doesn’t always work? You might need a specific type of blessed silver, something that’s also magic, or maybe inherited. In rare cases, silver doesn’t work at all and you have to make them drink mercury.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” said Tabitha. “How is he supposed to find out something like that?”

I tossed the bullet to Talbot. He sniffed it gently, then popped it in his mouth and rolled it around. A few seconds later, he spat it back into his hand and studied it with all the intensity that a cat might give a mouse.

“Blessed, magic, and silver,” Talbot said. He held it next to my hand. “Hold still.”

His pupils changed from round to oblong. He whistled appreciatively. “Your auras are similar. It might even be inherited.”

“My aura and the bullet’s?”

“Yes,” he said, serious despite my incredulous tone. I wanted to throw a flag on that play and give him a fifteen-yard bullshit penalty, but Talbot doesn’t lie about things like that.

“One of my ancestors owned a magic gun custom-made for killing werewolves? You’d think Dad would have mentioned something.”

“Like you even remember your father’s name,” Marilyn muttered under her breath.

“Sure, I do.” I paused. “It was…Dad.”

Marilyn laughed.

“John Albert Courtney,” she said in bittersweet tones. “It’s okay, Eric, that’s why you have me.” I wanted to kiss her for that, but I knew she wouldn’t let me. She’d made that abundantly clear, time and again.

Talbot leaned forward, breaking the uncomfortable silence as Marilyn and I looked at each other. “It’s news to me too.”

“It’s almost like somebody wants me in a fight with Willard. I mean William,” I said. “Who would want me to kill him?”

“Why do you say that?” Tabitha asked.

“I don’t know.” I ran my hand along the desk and stared at my lack of reflection in the computer monitor. “I…I think…the day they murdered my Mustang…I was out hunting and I didn’t stumble on one werewolf or two, I got jumped by eight of them while I was hunting in a part of town I don’t even usually go to.” I felt close to figuring it out and then it tumbled away from me, a lost thought.

“Who would want William dead?” I asked again.

“Who wouldn’t?” Tabitha tossed up her hands. “He’s a werewolf.”

“Most werewolves have learned to stay out of the public eye,” Talbot told her. “They form large packs, stick together in groups or communities. Some of them hunt vampires or humans, but those are mostly outcasts. William’s group is a little different.”

“How so?”

“Well…his pack believes they have been given lycanthropy for a reason.”

“What reason is that?”

“Whatever William tells them it is, but basically it’s to defeat the servants of Satan. Fight fire with fire. Use their unnatural powers for good.”

“Oh, give me a break,” I put in.

“William himself is a fanatic, or so I’ve heard,” Talbot assured me. “His wolves tend to pick off lone vamps and leave groups alone, but when you get him on the warpath, everything turns into a crusade. He also has connections to the Lycan Diocese.”

I held my head. See, this is why you leave werewolves alone.

“Diocese?” Tabitha snorted with laughter. “What, like the Furry Roman Catholic Church or something?” The laughter died on her lips when no one joined in.

“If by Rome, you mean Rome, Georgia,” Talbot answered, “then yes. They aren’t part of any human church, though; they don’t exactly report to the pope.”

“Why spike my blood?” I asked. “If William’s a real in-your-face kind of guy and he has access to heavy hitters like the Lycan Diocese—”

“If the Diocese pissed off the high society vamps they might run the risk of starting a turf war. Maybe they wanted to make you look out of control…so that no one would take it badly if they vanished you,” Talbot said. That made sense. “Or maybe the blood spiking was done by someone else entirely.”

“I don’t like it being someone else,” I said.

“Why?” Talbot held the silver bullet out to me, but I didn’t accept it.

“Because it complicates things.” According to the clock, it was just past midnight, meaning today was technically tomorrow…a Monday. “How do I find this Will guy?”

“I can ask around, but if you’re thinking about buying him off, I doubt you’ll get anywhere. Last time I heard, he had ninety werewolves running with him, but it could be more. And like I said, he’s a real power, not just in the city, but in the whole state, Eric. He could be a problem even for you…and he has no reason to make a deal.”

“Okay. Talbot, I want you to get out there and try to find the magic gun that belongs to that.” I pointed at the bullet. “Magbidion says the bullet will lead you to the gun and the other bullets. They’re connected. Tabitha, I want you to back him up in case he runs into any vamps that have issues with…his kind.”

Talbot nodded and Tabitha’s eyes widened.

“Marilyn, I want you to forward the calls from here to your apartment in case Mag calls back with any information.” She nodded. I like it when everyone agrees with me.

“What are you going to do?” asked Tabitha.

“I’m going to see if I can’t clear up the damn werewolf mess. See if I can set up a meeting with Wilbur…I mean William. Maybe we can just get a tape measure and settle it. I’m also going to try to look up Greta to see if she’ll help hold down the fort for a few nights.”

The only one of them who didn’t seem to immediately dislike that idea was Tabitha. I guessed that was only because she didn’t know who Greta was.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, boss,” Talbot said.

Marilyn shook her head. It didn’t take vampiric senses to feel her anger. “You just keep reeling her back into this, don’t you?” She snatched up her purse and headed toward the hall. At the door she stopped and looked back at me. Her arm was still in a sling, but she looked fierce, not frail, challenging me with what I had done to her. I tended to forget how long it takes humans to heal. I tried not to look at it. My avoidance amused her. “You can’t tell her to stay away from you and then expect her to come running whenever you need her.” Head held high, Marilyn stalked out of the room.

“Who’s Greta?” Tabitha asked.

“Vampirically speaking,” I told her, “she’s your older sister. She and her brother are the only children I’ve made that I haven’t…that are still with us.”

“So your old girlfriend and boyfriend?” Tabitha looked scandalized. “I had no idea you were so broad-minded.”

“No, it’s not like that. They’re my son and daughter. I tried to start a family. It didn’t work, or maybe it worked too well.”

“What went wrong?” she asked.

“See,” I said to Talbot. “This is why it’s better just to kill them. It saves on aggravation.” I regretted it immediately. “I didn’t mean that,” I said hastily to Tabitha, “or I did, but not about you.”

“How many have you killed?” she asked quietly.

“More than you’d like to know about.” Tabitha looked a little sickened by that, but she pushed it down deep and plastered on a smile even I could tell she didn’t feel inside.

I looked over at Talbot. His body language was tight and coiled underneath a stony exterior. As he headed for the door, I said, “Before you go, is there a way to check my cell phone voice mail on a regular phone? I want to know if Roger left a message.”

Talbot walked over to Marilyn’s desk and grabbed a blank piece of computer paper out of her printer. He wrote the instructions down and left them on the desk. “Anything else?”

I shook my head. “Head on out. You know what I need you to do.” There was more that I wanted to tell Tabitha, but it wasn’t the time, especially not with the possibility that she might still be experiencing a few side effects from the blood. Hell, it was probably a bad idea to send her with Talbot, but I definitely didn’t want her there with me. Besides, I wasn’t ready to tell her about Rachel, and I couldn’t risk Tabitha popping over to the Pollux and finding her.

Tabitha nodded and left with Talbot, but the look on his face let me know that I’d be hearing about this later. He didn’t like Greta or Kyle, he never had, but he also knew what they meant to me.

Maybe I knew too. I had their damn pictures in my wallet, right behind Marilyn’s: family photos from the night I’d turned them; their last moments among the living. It was almost like carrying around an ultrasound in an odd sort of way. After all, you can’t take pictures of a vampire, not without more magical assistance than I could easily pay for, and carrying around an artist’s representation just didn’t seem right. I picked up Talbot’s calling instructions, folded them and put them in my pocket.

Feeling conflicted, I walked over to the Pollux. Rachel was waiting for me in a white bustier with lacy white panties, stockings, garters, and high heels. She wore a little black choker with a cameo on it. Dressed that way, she looked even more like Tabitha. Rachel pouted when she saw me, beckoning me with one finger.

I knew why I wanted her. She was young and alive. I could only guess about her desire for me. Maybe it was an adrenaline rush, the thrill of near-death, the danger that I might lose control. Maybe she just liked pain and knew from her sister’s experiences that a relationship with me was a good way to get hurt. Either way, her passion and eagerness rubbed off on me. Vampires are like that.

Her excitement fed mine as we kissed. It was a bad idea.

My kisses moved from her lips across her jaw and down the side of her neck. She tensed slightly when I kissed her throat, afraid perhaps that I was going to dispense with the pleasantries and feed. She needn’t have worried; I knew it wasn’t time for the fangs yet. It hadn’t taken me long to discover that women like it best if I feed right as they climax. The pleasure deadens the pain and the pain enhances the pleasure. Sex with a vampire is a monumentally bad idea, but I try to make sure it has its benefits.

Of course, having sex with Rachel was somewhere around a nine out of ten on the stupid scale, which was actually surprisingly low for me based on the evening’s events.

Maybe, if I had actually broken up with Tabitha, I would have felt better about it, less guilty. I wondered if I really loved Tabitha. If I loved her, then wouldn’t I be faithful? Yet, there I was….

My jacket fell to the floor and I grinned as Rachel tugged at my shirt. Grabbing her by the shoulders, I pushed her down onto the rich red-and-gold carpet of the Pollux and knelt between her legs.

We kissed again, nipping at each other playfully and not so playfully, before she tore my shirt off and ran her hands over my chest. I had been in good shape when I died; I supposed I would remain that way until I died again. Just as she knew I could smell the scent of her excitement, I knew she could feel mine. She undid my belt while I kicked my shoes off onto the floor behind me. For an awkward moment, I was off balance and thought I might fall on top of her, but it didn’t happen. I regained my center, but not my composure, and rolled the top of her bra down. Her piercings were simple but fascinating, two golden hoops. I couldn’t help but think how painful they must have been. Even so, the effect was quite appealing and I lingered there in my affections before continuing downward.

A single diamond stud pierced her belly button, and she giggled involuntarily when I kissed it. “I’m sorry,” she laughed, “but that tickles.”

I moved lower, removing barriers and discovering yet another piercing. There were no giggles accompanying my kisses there. “Does that tickle?” I asked.

“Don’t stop,” was her answer, “that’s amazing.”

Of course it was; I had been doing this for over fifty years. The difference in our ages surfaced briefly in my mind and I did my best to put it aside. Her heartbeat sped up; oddly it did not encourage my bite, but rekindled a lower passion instead.

She rolled me over on my back and straddled me. I could smell her blood; it surprised me that I didn’t feel its pull as strongly as usual. Her body heat flowed over me, strong and vibrant, but it didn’t call to me the way it usually did. I wasn’t ungrateful for the extra restraint, but at the same time, it felt controlled, artificial. Why couldn’t I stop this? It almost felt like magic.

I chalked it up to all the fresh blood I’d been drinking over the last few days, but that didn’t fully explain it. Rachel crawled backward over my legs, pulling my pants with her and forcing me to lift my hips to accommodate her motion.

“Socks, off or on?” she asked.

“Off.”

She pulled them off and kissed her way up my legs. I don’t know why women get their tongues pierced, but why men like it became self-evident. Before I had a chance to think, I was on top of her, our movements urgent and impassioned. I’m not necessarily quiet in bed, but Rachel was very vocal. As we moved together she began a steady stream of soft little nonsense words, a rhythmic chant that sounded almost like another language, and dug her fingernails into my back, drawing blood. Our pace increased and she put both hands on the sides of my head turning it to face hers. We locked eyes and the smell of cinnamon filled my nostrils.

“Bite me!” she commanded. “Bite me, now!”

We both climaxed as I bit into her neck. For the first time in my unlife, the blood had a taste beyond that monotonous sameness to which I had become accustomed. Sweet and bitter all at once, it burned my throat as I swallowed. With each mouthful, the sensation grew. My mind was on fire and my skin was awash with heat. I felt the sun on my face, but there was no sun.

Then, all at once, I was full, completely sated even though I couldn’t have had more than a few ounces of her blood. Inside my chest, my heart stirred once, twice, three times before growing cold and still once more. Collapsing on top of her, I panted like a human, as if I actually had to catch my breath.

“What…what was that? How?” Sex had never been that way for me before, and neither had feeding. I’d never experienced the easy fullness, the beating heart, such complete satisfaction.

Rachel kissed my forehead and rolled me onto my back before resting her head on my chest. My heart beat one last time and I could see her smile. “How many times did it beat?”

“Four,” I answered. My panting slowed and my skin began to cool.

Laughing, Rachel bent her neck back and kissed me once more. “How long has it been since you felt your heartbeat?”

“The day I died,” I said softly.

“I can’t believe Tabitha hasn’t done that for you, baby.” Her voice held a note of reproach in it, but she didn’t say anything else. Instead, she laid her head back on my chest and sighed. “You wore me out.”

“How did you do that?” I asked again.

“It’s easy,” she said sleepily. “It’s a thrall thing. The thralls at the Irons Club told me. If I was your thrall…”

I didn’t know how to make a thrall. I only vaguely understood what they were, and from Roger’s explanation, it sounded too much like slavery to me. I used humans for a little while and let them go. Okay, so sometimes I killed them, but I didn’tenslave them, had no interest in even knowing how to do so. In my opinion, thralldom was more high society vampire bullcrap to make the wannabe Dracula types feel like kings and queens of the universe. I pictured Rachel eating insects like Renfield in the movies and shuddered. “No.”

“Maybe I can do better next time, but I’ve never actually done it before and it took more out of me than I thought it would. Can we try again in the morning?”

“Maybe. Let’s get you to bed.”

She muttered a soft assent and slowly started to get up. I stood more quickly, swept her off her feet and carried her into the next room. I’d had the office next to mine converted into a bedroom for when I wanted to spend time away from the club and my employees. It wasn’t much, but the windows had been bricked up and the sound system was excellent. There was no bathroom, but there was a sink in the corner with a towel rack next to it. I laid Rachel down on the bed and walked over to the sink. She fell asleep the second her head hit the pillow.

It took a while for the water to heat up, but once it was warm I wet a washcloth and went over to the bed. There was blood caked on her thighs and I gently wiped it away before drying her off with the towel that had been hanging next to the sink. She didn’t stir.

“What have you gotten yourself into, Eric?” I asked myself aloud.

I watched her sleep for a while then climbed into bed next to her, feeling like one of those old kings in the Bible who’d been given young girls to warm their beds, except that I was making love to my human bed warmer and drinking her blood.

Guilt wasn’t what I was feeling. It was more a sense of profound stupidity. There was more to Rachel than there appeared to be, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I wanted to bite her again, to taste anything other than the coppery taste of blood, to feel my heart beating, to feel alive for even a matter of seconds.

It was selfish and dumb and any number of things, but none of that mattered. I needed her. She made me feel like I was in control, or at least in control of being out of control.

And yet, if I was very still, I could sense an inner conflict. Deep down, I knew that being with Rachel was aloss of control, even if it did seem to bring momentary calming of my inner storm.

A little voice inside me told me otherwise. It argued that if I could maintain control of my emotions, even if I lost control to Rachel in the process, then I had an advantage. That didn’t make any sense, but the harder I tried to think about it, to analyze it, the murkier it became, as if my thoughts were being deliberately clouded.

The only reason I could come up with for the werewolves spiking the blood supply in the Demon Heart was that they wanted me out of my mind, needed me to go berserk.

If I wanted to stop them, then I not only had to maintain control, I also needed the help of a human who could handle herself when it came to the supernatural, someone who could walk around in the sunshine. Rachel certainly seemed like the best woman for the job. I was going to have to be careful not to feed off of her for the next few days, though. I normally had a once-a-week rule for feeding on my girls, to help them stave off anemia, and I’d already violated that with Rachel.

Before I let myself fall asleep, I checked the time on the wall clock. It was a quarter to four. I shook my head and rolled out of bed. Time was getting away from me and I hadn’t even checked my messages yet.

I went into my office, took the paper out of my pocket, and followed Talbot’s instructions. I had five voice mails. The first was from Talbot and dealt with the Mustang. There was a message from Carl that told me how long fixing the Mustang would take and how much it would cost. He wanted me to call him on Monday and let him know what to do. I fast-forwarded through the details. The cost didn’t matter. Fixing the Mustang was imperative.

Message number three was from Roger. “Hey, pal. Sorry about ditching you back at the game, but I’m betting you had it handled. I dropped Rachel off at the Pollux, but listen: a pack of werewolves jumped Veruca and she’s all freaked out. I’m going over there now to see if she’s okay. She’s a slow healer, so I’m going to give her another few nights off. She can’t dance with claw marks all over her. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

The last two messages took me by surprise. I listened to them one after the other and then sat down at my desk and listened to them again. The first one was from Kyle.

“No one answered at the club, Pops, so I guess something is going down. Just had a weird feeling and thought I should check in. You didn’t close the club, did you? I think Greta would have let me know, but you know how she is when she’s mad, so if it happened, you know, recently or something, then I understand why she wouldn’t tell me, because you know, she’s busy and everything, being mad and all, but if it isn’t that maybe you could call me back, because I’ve been getting these freaky phone calls from a guy named William. He said he’s coming for me and I kinda want to know what it’s about because—”

Crashing sounds and shattering glass interrupted him; I could hear a scuffle and growling. Werewolves. Kyle never screamed, but I heard him die. It was a whooshing rush of air. Drones always turn to dust when they die. It sounds just like that. Soldiers usually turn to dust as well, but beyond that it’s all based on power level, as if a vamp’s extra power bought better special effects. Kyle had been a Drone; no special effects for him.

As I listened to the recording, I could tell when one of the werewolves picked up the phone. “You and your vampire whore have a lot to answer for, dead boy,” he said. “You killed my son. You and your bitch killed eight more out at the lake. Did you think I wouldn’t be able to smell your stench through hers? I was willing to negotiate, but you don’t get that chance anymore. I’m coming for you. I’m going to tear down your unholy family and wipe your allies from the face of the earth. You, your unholy spawn, your den of immorality, even the humans that you’ve tainted with your presence will be wiped clean. Amen.” Damn werewolves.

The last message was from Greta wanting to know why she’d just had to kill three werewolves. She gave me her new cell number and asked me to call her soon. Greta was a Vlad, like me. Three werewolves were no problem for her.

Kyle’s death was more of a relief than anything else. Just because I hadn’t killed him myself didn’t mean that I was a big fan. He had just been too stupid to bother killing. What irked me was the part about my “bitch” killing people out at the lake. It couldn’t have been Greta because she’d said three werewolves, not eight; and anyway, she’d have let me out of the sleeping bag. It couldn’t have been Tabitha, because she had been with Talbot, and, well, the werewolves would’ve won that fight.

I slapped my palm into my forehead. “I am so fucking stupid!”

Froggy. Veruca didn’t have an alibi for last night or for the night before. She had constant access to the break room fridge, and could easily have spiked my blood supply. Veruca wouldn’t have been fast enough to unstake me and run, but—an image of a frog hopping away from the driver’s side door of the truck flashed up in my mind’s eye—she was definitely fast enough to unstake me, turn into a frog, and slowly hop away while I wandered around like a jackass trying to figure out what the hell was going on. It had to be her, but how had she managed to kill eight werewolves by herself?

The silver bullets. They certainly would have evened the odds. If Magbidion had been right (and I had no reason to doubt him) all it took was a single bullet to kill a normal werewolf, to steal its soul. With six bullets, she could have killed six werewolves and only had to fight the other two. I may make fun of her for only being able to turn into a frog, but she’s a mean little fighter. She’s fast for a Soldier, and she has claws. She could believably have taken on two werewolves.

She’d covered up her scent or maybe I’d missed it, but werewolves have a better sense of smell than vampires. William’s phone call meant that he hadn’t been fooled, which put him one up on me. The only thing that bothered me was why she’d left one of the bullets behind for me to find. Had she been in a hurry? Had trouble finding the last bullet? It didn’t seem that way. It felt purposeful.

I picked up the phone and called Talbot on his cell. When I told him about Veruca, he agreed that it was possible, even likely. I told him about Kyle, too.

“Sure sounds like he’s dead,” Talbot allowed.

“Par for the course, I guess.”

“Are you going to call Roger?” Talbot asked the question carefully, not wanting to imply anything. He knew how long we’d been friends. Just because Roger’s girlfriend was mixed up in all this didn’t mean Roger’d been in on it too. He’d been with me at the hockey rink when the werewolves had attacked. Sure, he had run away, but he’d just been taking care of Rachel. I still hadn’t told him about Brian…how was I going to tell him my suspicions about Froggy?

“Not yet. Look, I gotta go. Be careful, Talbot.”

Grunting his assent, he hung up.

I still needed to call Greta, but couldn’t think of what to say. She hadn’t done anything wrong, exactly, but I had sent her away. It had seemed like the right thing to do at the time, even though she thought of me as her father. She also called me Dad; one more reason I had come to find her presence disturbing. Greta looked up to me and genuinely cared about me, which always makes me want to push people away. There was also her eating problem. Compulsive eaters make bad vampires.

I played back her message and scribbled the number down on a piece of paper. The number stared at me. I stared back. My finger finally punched in the digits and to my relief, my call went straight to voice mail. “This is…this is Dad. Head over to the Pollux. I’ll explain about the werewolves and then we can go kill their boss…or talk things over with him…or whatever. Oh, and you may know about your brother already, but they got him. Fuck. I don’t know. Just come to the Pollux.” I carried the handset into the bedroom and set it on the floor by the bed before climbing under the covers and snuggling up with Rachel.

Maybe Tabitha and Talbot would end Froggy, tell Roger about Brian, and make peace with William while I slept. That would be nice.

17

TABITHA:

FINDING FROGGY

Moving on four legs had been uncomfortable at first, but now that I was getting used to it, the warmth and the heartbeat were addictive. I changed into a cat as soon as we got into Talbot’s Jag XKR and stayed that way for the whole trip to West Side.

West Side is all high-end apartment buildings and high-rise businesses. Roger’s apartment was in the Highland Towers. You couldn’t even get near the parking garage without an ID and a pass card. Talbot parked on the street and I forced myself to get out of the car, abandoning the comfort of the soft leather seats.

“This is it,” Talbot said. “The trail leads right to the front door.”

“How can you tell?” I meowed.

“The eyes of a cat see things the eyes of a human can’t,” he answered mysteriously. “Can’t you see it? It’ll be easier to spot when we get closer.”

With Talbot leading the way, we walked over to the security gate. Actually, I sauntered. If I squinted and held my head just right, I could see the thin blue line from the bullet, brighter now that we were close to the source.

The Highland Towers loomed before us. I’d never been to the high-rise before, never even driven past it. Close up, it looked huge and imposing, a building that would have been more at home in Gotham City, very noir.

“Somebody’s compensating,” I meowed.

“Most of these people don’t need to compensate. It’s a status symbol to live here. That’s probably one of the reasons Roger picked this place. Roger is conscious of appearances; it’s why he keeps trying to get Eric to close the Demon Heart. His pals in the upper crust probably bust his balls on a regular basis about being a partner in a strip club.”

I could smell the security guard even before we reached his booth. A few steps later, I paused in the street. Three faces leapt into my brain, and I yowled, hackles rising. No one had warned me about seeing things in my head. At least, I think they were in my head. They hovered like phantoms, or effects in a 3-D movie, right in front of my nose, but when I swatted at the images, my paw passed through them.

There were two men and a woman. The woman was gorgeous, blond hair hanging down to the middle of her back. Her body was soft and curvy like Marilyn Monroe’s. She dressed like one of those old-school movie starlets and she felt old, lots older than me, like she’d seen the passing of centuries, even though we appeared to be physically the same age. She noticed me, and I got the feeling that my presence irked her. I knew why, too. She was less powerful than me. I can’t describe how I knew; I could just feel it in my gut.

As my attention shifted, the woman vanished and the first man came into better focus. He was good-looking, but he was dressed more than a decade out of style. It looked good on him, but still, his friends ought to tell him to update his wardrobe. He was old, vampirically, but not as ancient as the actress. I was more powerful than him, too. He seemed startled by my age and power. I actually caught a glimpse of myself in his mind. He saw me as a cat and he couldn’t quite tell whether I was a boy or a girl. It unnerved him, and he seemed relieved when my attention moved on to the third and final image.

The other man was short, fat, and balding. He felt just as powerful as me. Physically, I guessed he had been in his fifties when he had been turned, but he hadn’t been a vampire very long—maybe thirty years or so. He smiled at me when I sensed him, spread his arms and gave a short bow. “A pleasure,” he whispered in my mind and then vanished from the air as the others had, but before I was done examining him. It was less like I had dismissed him and more like he’d dismissed me.

I blinked rapidly, clearing my head. I was still standing in my cat form in the middle of the street. Looking up, I saw Talbot, arms outstretched, blocking traffic, so I darted up onto the sidewalk. He followed me and the cars moved on, their drivers cursing angrily.

“Next time, I might let you get run over,” Talbot muttered.

“What the hell was that?” I meowed. “Who were those people? What where they doing in my head? What was I doing in their heads?”

I turned human and grabbed Talbot by his jacket. “Talbot, what the hell is going on here?”

“What people in your head?” he asked. “Tell me exactly what happened.” Concern filled his voice, but he looked more amused than worried.

“I saw three people: two men and a woman. They were floating right in front of my face, Talbot, like holograms or something!” I shook him once and then let go of him. “Sorry. I…It’s just…I could feel how old they were and whether they were more or less powerful than me…”

Talbot looked down his nose at me. “Less powerful?”

“Well, yes. Two of them were less powerful and one of them was the same as me.” That stopped him for a second and then he grinned. I liked the way his teeth seemed to shine in the dark. It wasn’t anything supernatural, just the contrast between his oh-so-white teeth and his dark skin.

Both of us were too distracted to notice the approaching guard until he announced himself. I didn’t like him. He was too plain. Even though he was a vampire, he had a semivacant look, like he wasn’t awake.

Talbot turned to respond, but I brushed past him. “What?” I said icily.

He recoiled from my question like it had been a slap. I wondered if he would rub his cheek. He didn’t, but he did take a step back. Outraged. I wasoutraged that he had dared to speak to me. That wasn’t like me. Was it spiked blood again? Or transformation sickness? Was I about to lose it? I didn’t feel like I was losing it….

Talbot started to speak again but I gestured for him to be quiet. “You wanted something,” I said to the guard. “I know you did, because you walked over in the middle of my conversation.” My voice came out louder than I’d meant it to. “So now that you’ve interrupted me, you might as well tell me what you wanted! What is it?”

He bowed. “My deepest apologies, Lady Bathory. Lord Phillip wishes to invite you and your servant to join him for a drink, if it pleases you. If you are not inclined to join him, then I am to tell you that it is his great hope that you will accept his offer at a later date. I am to await a response.” The words were nice enough, but his delivery was off. He might as well have been reading from a cue card.

“Why did he call me Lady Bathory?” I asked Talbot.

“It’s a polite name older vampires use for the female equivalent of a Vlad. Nowadays most vamps use Vlad, regardless of gender, but you might still run into a few vamps who will call you a queen vampire, or Lady Bathory.”

“Holy shit!” I looked at the security goober. He was waiting patiently, eyes looking at the sidewalk. “Holy shit.” Leaning in closer to Talbot, I whispered, “But I thought you said I was a Soldier or at best a Master.”

“I thought you were,” he answered softly. “It’s not an exact science.”

“How does this guy know when you didn’t?”

“I’m not a vampire.” Talbot touched my arm and the contact surprised me, my skin oversensitive to his. “Phillip is a very influential Vlad.”

“How influential is very?”

“This is his city.”

“So, with a capital ‘V’ then.”

“All caps,” Talbot confirmed.

“Right.” The guard was still waiting patiently, gaze politely averted. “Which one is Lord Phillip?” I asked the guard.

“I’m sorry, Mistress, but I don’t know how to answer that.”

I sighed. “Is he the tall good-looking one or the little balding fat one?”

That time I got an incredulous look from the guard, but he covered it up quickly. “What Lord Phillip lacks in height, he makes up for in stature. He is—”

Talbot took two steps backward.

“Impressed that you made the effort, Hollister, but it isn’t strictly necessary.” The light tenor voice seemed to come from all directions at once. Mist flowed through the security gate and the little man who had bowed to me in my mind coalesced before us. “I am indeed the little balding fat one.”

“I amso sorry about that,” I told him.

“Think nothing of it, Lady—?”

“Tabitha,” I answered. He took my hand and brought it to his lips.

“A beautiful name; it has its roots in Hebrew, meaning gazelle. How appropriate.” He released my hand and offered me his arm. I placed my hand on the crook of his elbow so that I wouldn’t have to stoop. Hollister opened the gates for us as Phillip led me toward the building.

“My name is actually Phillipus,” he continued. “It means friend of horses, though I’ve never much liked them. In recent days, it has behooved me to accept the name Phillip, which both shortens my name and also strengthens, by meaning, my relationship with horses…from friend to lover.”

“I guess it had to happen eventually,” I offered, not quite knowing what to say.

Phillip looked at me questioningly. “Well, you know,” I continued, “sometimes when you’ve been friends with someone for a long time, it’s only natural for the relationship to blossom…”

“Yes, exactly,” my host said with a chuckle, “exactly so.”

Two glass doors slid open before us. A tingle spread across my skin as I crossed the threshold. Turning my head, I watched Talbot step through the field without incident. “Pay no attention to that annoying ward,” Phillip explained with mild embarrassment. “The less supernaturally adept tenants insist on it for protection. It’s paranoia, if you ask me, but then again, most are not as capable of defending themselves as we are. Are they, my dear?”

I said something that I hoped didn’t sound impolite, but it was hard to concentrate on what Phillip was saying. I didn’t have the words to describe what I was seeing. The building was beautiful, all stone, marble, wood, and stained glass. I can’t tell Frank Lloyd Wright from Andrew Lloyd Webber, but this place was perfect. Paintings hung on the walls in just the right light, while sculptures graced the alcoves and hallways.

The elevator was manned by a human attendant, who smiled and spoke to us as if we were royalty. He knew Phillip on sight and pressed an elevator button marked with a strange symbol. “Don’t forget that sunrise will be at six eighteen, Lord Phillip,” the young man said cheerfully.

“Thank you, Dennis,” Phillip answered. “This charming young woman is Lady Tabitha. I’d like you to treat her and her escort as my guests.” His lip curled briefly as he saidescort ; he’d come close to being less polite. As he continued, I wondered what he’d almost said. “They are welcome without chaperone in the common areas, the lounge, the elevator, on the roof, and of course, in the waiting area outside my own quarters. See to it and let me know immediately upon completion.”

“Of course, sir.” Dennis smiled at Talbot and me. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Tabitha. Could I trouble you for a drop of blood?”

“It’s for the security system only, I assure you,” Phillip explained. I held out my finger and Dennis produced a tiny golden needle with a small crystal on one end. He pricked my finger and the crystal turned red. It flashed once then faded to white again. Dennis repeated the procedure for Talbot. As the crystal turned white for the second time, the doors opened and Dennis ushered us politely out of the elevator.

“It shouldn’t be longer than ten minutes, Lord Phillip,” Dennis called after us.

When the elevator closed, Phillip led us toward a large wooden door. The wood looked like it had been stained purple. Outside the door was a large sitting area that I mistook for a library at first. To one side of the elevator stood a midsize wine rack filled with bottles labeled with dates, ethnicities, and blood types. Phillip must have noticed my interest.

“Oh, this is my waiting area. I’m an erratic sleeper, so one can never be sure if I’ll be receiving guests or snoring the morning, evening, or afternoon away. This is just my little way of apologizing to guests for the inconvenience. Of course, Dennis can arrange for food to be brought up to the more broad-dieted, the humans, werewolves, and what-not”—he glanced at Talbot as he said the last—“but since I understand firsthand how quickly the thirst can come upon our kind, I like to keep a wide selection of appropriate vintages at hand.”

The grand door opened as we approached it and Phillip welcomed us inside. “Enter of your own free will.”

“Isn’t that what Dracula says?” I asked, pausing in the doorway.

“My apologies,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought I was being clever. Please, do come in. I promise my intentions are not malevolent.”

“It’s okay,” Talbot said softly.

I went in. There were even more books inside than in the waiting area. Lovely oak bookshelves lined the walls and wrapped around the oddly shaped room. The interior of Phillip’s apartment was humongous; he seemed to have the floor to himself. Glass cases contained displays that ranged from a suit of samurai armor to an actual vampire with a wooden stake through his heart. Startled, I backed away from the glass case and bumped into Talbot.

“Talbot, that’s—”

“You mustn’t mind Percy.” Phillip ran his hand along the glass as he passed, without ever actually touching it. “He’s being punished.”

For what?I thought. Percy was supported by a metal stand extending up from the bottom of the case and passing concealed under the rear of his jacket. He wore a tweed suit, gold-rimmed spectacles with round lenses, and a thin little mustache. The expression on his face reminded me of the Mona Lisa, a smirk perhaps, or bemused disapproval.

Age hadn’t worn away his good looks; in fact, vampirism had frozen him at the magic moment before men stop looking distinguished and become simply old. He was the first vampire I’d seen with eyes so thoroughly faded, the irises gone from whatever color they had once been to the slightly gray off-white of recycled paper. He was trapped in there, frozen by the stake that had entered at an angle, piercing his tie neatly through the middle several inches above a diamond tie tack. I gave myself a quick mental biology lesson—the stake had pierced Percy’s heart.

The plaque at his feet read “My dear Percy, who serves as a remembrance to all that I do not bluff, I do not make empty threats, and there are indeed worse fates than death.”

“He was such a naughty vampire.” Phillip chuckled.

“He’s dead, then? Or he’s a Soldier or whatever?” I couldn’t imagine him being anything less than a Vlad or a Master, but I hadn’t sensed him. “I thought a stake would dust a Soldier.”

“Oh, no, my dear,” Phillip answered merrily. “Percy’s no mere Knight. The stake masks his presence. He can see everything, hear, feel, smell, but he cannot move. He cannot reach beyond his body, even if you stare him in the eye.”

I shuddered. Phillip raised a finger in a just-a-moment gesture and vanished around a corner of the room. I wandered about, admiring his collection of miniature antique statues, vases, and expensive knickknacks until he returned with two glasses and a bottle of what looked like wine.

“Care to join me?” he asked.

“Yes,” I answered, smiling.

18

TABITHA:

AN AUDIENCE WITH INFAMY

It kind of bothered me that Phillip hadn’t offered Talbot anything, but once I tasted the “wine” I knew why. It wasn’t exactly wine. The texture, taste, and smell of it were like wine, but my body knew that it was blood. Surely if Eric knew about this, he would have had some at the club; especially with all the bitching he did about not being able to taste anything.

“This is nice,” I told Phillip. “Is it a family secret? Because I’ve never heard of it before.”

“Begging your pardon, Lady Tabitha, but youwere born yesterday.”

I must have blushed because he almost dropped his wineglass and I felt a familiar warmth in my checks.

“Extraordinary! A blush response. You have no idea what a priceless jewel you are.”

My cheeks grew warmer and I looked away. Part of it was real and the other part was a test. I wanted to know how he would react. He touched my cheek briefly and then withdrew his hand.

“To answer your question, it is not a family secret, at least, not my family. Most of my stock is made up of gifts from other creatures, tokens of respect or appreciation…an occasional peace offering. What we’re drinking, for example, was made from the blood of Carmella Goshaunt’s late lover, Emil. She interfered with my most recent attempt at ascension. The poor dear failed, obviously, but her machinations did prove a distinct inconvenience….”

“Ascension?” I asked, taking another sip of the blood wine.

“Of course, my dear…from Master to King, or Vlad, if you prefer.”

Talbot pretended not to react, but I could see him stiffen.

“I didn’t know that you could do that.”

“One can do many things with the correct ingredients. Why, I was commenting on a similar subject some months ago to a young Master vampire who has rather amusing ideas regarding werewolf souls. I think perhaps you may know him.” Phillip smiled a genteel smile and put the cork back in the bottle. He hurried off again and Talbot and I shared a look.

“Roger?” I mouthed.

Talbot nodded, but before he could say anything Phillip returned with a small black container roughly the size and shape of a cigar box, made of some kind of stone. “Volcanic glass,” he informed me. “Percy made it for me when we were…on better terms.”

He offered me the box and I handed my wineglass to Talbot. The box itself felt warm to the touch, but it wasn’t real heat. It felt more like what I imagined magic might feel like. Inside the box, six items were carefully arranged on black velvet: a thumbnail-size red crystal, possibly a ruby, with a crack in it; a silver ring molded in the shape of a snake; a golden amulet; a pair of yellowish dice; and a small black stone.

“Each of these items was a part of a ritual or ceremony that allowed me to become a vampire or to grow in power.”

“Become a vampire? Didn’t you have a sire?”

“Not everyone travels an identical path to immortality,” Phillip explained. “Vampires have always been reluctant to embrace wizards. As I could locate none to aid me willingly, I was forced to improvise.” Trapped by a memory or an old thought, he looked off into space, sighing wistfully before his attention returned to the box.

“The Stone of Aeternum is the only one I haven’t used, but it requires a vampire so rare that even ahelluo librorum , a bookworm, such as myself has read of only a few. It’s not as if one meets such a creature every day.”

He held his hand out for the box and I handed it back to him. He looked fondly at its contents and then shut the lid. “It’s of no true consequence, however; I must wait at least another seventy years before I can attempt an additional ascension. And I’d have to contact the right demons….”

He walked off around the corner of his room again and called back over his shoulder. “That is a lesson worth remembering, my dear. Never try to ascend more than once a century or you may undo the work you’ve done. None of those soul-thirsty power brokers will tell you that either, so take my word for it.”

He returned quickly, his glass in one hand and a necklace case in the other. “Now, this,” he said with a smile, “you will appreciate.”

He handed the case to me and took a sip of his wine. “Open it,” he said eagerly. “It won’t bite.”

I did as he requested. Inside was a diamond necklace. I could tell it was real just by the way it sparkled in the light. A double ring of round-cut diamonds set in platinum formed the base of the necklace and alternating strands of one or two smaller pear-cut diamonds dangled like priceless tear-drops at regular intervals. Queen Elizabeth might have worn such a necklace, or maybe the real Lady Bathory, but I had never seen anything like it, not up close.

“Try it on,” he said. Suddenly self-conscious, I looked down at my clothes. I’d changed into a sequined black tank top, a pair of black knit leggings, and running shoes after Eric had unstaked me back at the club. I’d worn it to be comfortable, but it didn’t go with a necklace like this. This necklace deserved to be worn with a gown.

“Do try it on,” he urged. “It will look gorgeous on you.”

“Okay.” Just holding the necklace in my hand made me feel beautiful and extravagant. Trying it on was better and worse at the same time. From the look on Phillip’s face, I knew that it must have looked wonderful, but not being able to see it for myself was unbearable.

“Oh, you simply must look at yourself. It’s astonishing!” He toddled off again, mumbling to himself, then glanced back at me. “Oh, by all means, follow me. I never move the mirror, it’s too delicate.”

Around the corner he’d so frequently darted past was a large ornate desk with a gold reading lamp shaped like a dragon. Light poured out of the dragon’s open mouth, illuminating an old book with pretty little pictures around the words. A leather case containing an assortment of pens lay open on the desk and a slim silver laptop rested in an over-stuffed reading chair directly across from the desk.

Phillip brushed past the desk and over to a pair of doors set back between two bookcases. He opened them to reveal a full-length mirror held by a crystal frame that was decorated with fanciful flowers and artful designs. In the mirror I could see not just Phillip’s reflection, but my own. I looked better than I ever had in life.

Everything about being a vampire rushed in on me at once—the rampage in the Demon Heart, the blood, Eric, Lillian’s terrified face as I struck her down, all of it, my mind seared like bacon in a hot frying pan.

Then, almost as if the mirror had a will of its own, I sensed that it wasn’t satisfied with what it had made me feel. I guess I hadn’t been dead long enough to truly horrify myself with what I had done, so the mirror rummaged through my life for ammunition. The last conversation I’d had with Rachel had been a fight. Our words rang out in my ears. Each mistake I’d made, each humiliation I’d ever endured, the mirror latched onto, multiplied, and distilled. All the times I’d ever been hurt, by Rachel, by my parents, by Eric, crashed back on me as one exaggerated assault.

You want to see how pretty you look?the mirror’s whispering not-quite voice wheedled in my thoughts.I’ll show you what you look like on the outside, but only if you can endure what you are on the inside.

Turning into a vampire had made my emotions more volatile than they’d been when I was alive. I’d been crying right and left since the change, like having PMS all the time. I was easy prey for the mirror: the tears came quickly, pouring red down my cheeks, a deluge of self-loathing, self-pity, and remorse. I turned away.

Doors clicked shut behind me as Phillip covered the glass. The mirror’s taunting voice slowly faded, but having once peered into it, I could feel it there, behind the thin paneled doors, watching me, waiting for me to take another look.

Talbot rushed to my side, but I waved him away. I didn’t want to be comforted; I was too busy being mad at myself for crying. I was tired of crying. I hadn’t cried when my grandmother had passed away or when Rachel had died, and the mirror had exploited that, thrown it back at me in a horrible way. Phillip offered me his handkerchief and I took it, soaking the red silk with my blood as I tried to stop the tears.

“Damn it,” I said between sobs.

“It’s my fault,” Phillip said, sounding genuinely angry with himself. “The mirror allows a vampire to see his reflection, but it takes its toll in other ways. We who gaze within that mirror must face the things we’ve done as vampires, our hidden sins, the things that would make us cringe and weep were we still human. I’m so used to it that I had forgotten the effect it can have. I shan’t show it to you again without giving you time to prepare.”

“Is it alive?” I asked.

“There is a demon trapped inside to power it,” Phillip answered, “if that’s what you mean. It’s only a small one.”

Talbot took my arm and we walked out of Phillip’s study and back into the main room of his chambers. “If there is anything I can do to make it up to you,” Phillip offered, “I would be most pleased if you would tell me. You may keep the necklace, of course. I knew at once that you should have it.”

“No, I can’t, it’s too much.”

“Bah,” Phillip protested. “It was a gift from so long ago that I no longer remember who gave it to me. It’s yours whether you take it or leave it, though I’d rather you took it. I have collected so many things over the years that I could give half of it away and never notice.”

I smiled, and my tears began to subside. “How long have you been alive—I mean, how old are you? You seemed—that is, you felt kind of young, you know, outside.”

“Oh, not quite a thousand…each time I ascend it makes other vampires sense me as though I were younger, but my mind has not forgotten the truth that the magic conceals.”

“And you really used those things in the box to become a vampire—to ascend?”

“You will, in time, learn not to question my veracity, my dear.” Phillip’s eyes hardened briefly before softening once again. “But you are new and I can’t bring myself to hold it against you, so yes. Oh, yes. Vampires have always been reluctant to grant immortality to wizards, are strictly forbidden to do so now, unless it is done via a thralldom, which is a capricious immortality at best. So, yes, I had to find alternatives.

“I used those ‘things in the box’ along with rituals, demons, and of course, vampires of the required power level…. Does it concern you? I’m already a Vlad; you have nothing to worry about from me on that account. I’ve no further need for sacrifices from those of our rank; my final ascension will be much more difficult to arrange. Besides, I’ve made it a habit to expend only those I found distasteful, and I find you anything but.” He waved a hand. “Enough talk of me, though, I am still waiting to know how to make it up to you—my faux pas with the mirror.”

“But the necklace—”

“The necklace is a gift, my dear, not an apology. I gave it to you because I wanted you to have it.” He gestured around the room. “Excepting the Stone of Aeturnum and my own existence, you may choose from anything I have. Even Percy. Please, take your pick. I insist.”

His eyes sparkled mischievously. “I could dispel the enchantment on the city. I used a Veil of Scrythax, you know. Have you seen one? Oh, they’re ghastly-looking things, but incredibly effective and oh, so delicate. There are nights when I’m gripped with the urge to rush to the vault, seize the hideous thing and smash it to pieces, to let the humans see us for what we really are and remember all the things I’ve hidden from them. Think of the panic! It would be impossible for the Council of High Magic to contain it. Another war with the humans would be such…fun. It’s always so interesting to see how the human rulers choose to conceal it from their constituents.”

Uh…no. There was nothing that I saw in Phillip’s house that I really wanted and a war was not my idea of fun. There were plenty of things that it might be nice to have, but…I wondered what Percy had done and whether I ought to ask for him and let him go. Then Talbot mouthedwerewolves at me and I remembered that I was supposed to be finding out about the magic gun thing.

I held my hand out to Talbot and he handed me the silver bullet. Phillip’s eyes lit up when I showed it to him. He delicately took it from my outstretched palm and held it up to one eye.

“A bullet fromEl Alma Perdida , meaning in Spanish ‘the Lost Soul.’ I wonder where he found it.”

“I was…we were looking for the rest of it, the other bullets, and the gun. Talbot tracked it here for me.”

“Ah,” Phillip said excitedly, “information, the most valuable gift of all! Do you realize how rare it is for one of my new acquaintances to ask me for information? They all ask for money or power—”

A knock at the door interrupted him. “That should be Dennis,” Phillip said as he walked to the door. “He is one of my applicants, you know. An intern…as it were.” Phillip looked through a small eyehole, midway up the door and smiled. “It is he.”

He opened the door and invited Dennis inside, but the man declined. “I just wanted to let you know that the lady and her companion have been added to the ward matrix, sir. I apologize for taking so long, but Mistress Gabriella was quite interested in your new guest.”

“What did you tell her?” Phillip asked eagerly. He seemed giddy, childlike in his delight.

“As per your standard request, sir, I told her only that the lady and her companion were your guests and that they were to be given access to all of the common areas.”

“Was she vexed?”

“Quite vexed,” Dennis replied.

“Excellent as always, Dennis,” said Phillip. “You may go.”

He closed the door and walked back over to me. “Please, excuse the interruption. Gabriella has been a bit wroth with me for the last few decades. She recently relocated from Atlanta in hopes that she might be the agent of my eventual demise. How quickly my offspring turn against me. But you wanted to know aboutEl Alma Perdida ; you thought you might find it here?”

“Yes. We think a female vampire, a Soldier, has it and we think she’s in the building. Her name is Veruca.”

“Meaning wart…such an unpleasant name for a lady.”

I’d been taking one last sip of blood wine when he said that and it shot out my nose as I tried to stifle my laughter. I caught the blood with the handkerchief I was still holding, but I continued to cough and sputter. My nose and sinuses started burning and I would have dropped to my knees if Talbot hadn’t caught me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, coughing, “that’s just too funny. Her name means wart? Eric calls her Froggy.”

More blood tears formed in the corners of my eyes and even Phillip chuckled. “That is indeed an unfortunate nickname for one whose name comes from the Latinverruca, meaning wart. At least he doesn’t call heracuminata. Verruca accuminata would be just too terrible….”

Only Phillip laughed that time. He quickly controlled himself and sat down in one of the armchairs. They were slightly undersize for a person of average height, but they suited Phillip quite well. He smiled in my direction and motioned for me to sit. Instead, I walked over and knelt next to him. It let us look at each other eye-to-eye and I was tired of looming over him.

“And you believe her to be in possession ofEl Alma Perdida ?” he asked.

“I do.”

He caressed the air about the bullet with his fingertips, but his eyes did not leave mine. “No one by the name of Veruca lives here, I’m afraid, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t staying here with someone else. Did she have any other acquaintances who might have a residence here?”

I nodded. “Her boyfriend, Roger.”

“Ah, yes, Germanic, meaning quiet…or famous spearman. And this Roger, would he be a Master vampire?”

I nodded again.

“I spoke with him several months ago,” Phillip said as he stroked his chin with his left hand. “Utterly ignorable. He tried to engage me in no less than three business transactions. He wanted to buy the Stone of Aeternum from me. I didn’t sell it to him, of course. You don’t sell those sorts of things; they are given or sought. I am not in retail. I think I suggested that he talk to one of the local demons, though. It’s in my log.” He raised both hands in a dismissive gesture. “I can always check it later.”

“Do you remember the other transactions?” I asked.

“Oh, he had some foolish notion about my backing him in the Orchard Lake acquisition. Naturally, I declined. Vampires like him will be the ruin of us.” He trailed off and his eyes focused on someplace far away and probably long ago. Eric has that look sometimes. “Let’s see if your Wart is sleeping over, shall we?” He walked over to an old-fashioned wall phone, lifted the earpiece, and held it at arm’s length. “Dennis?”

I could hear Dennis easily, one of the benefits of being a vampire. “Yes, my lord?”

“I want you to check on a Master vampire named Roger. See what suite he is in and find out whether or not he has another vampire by the name of Veruca visiting him. Ring me back as soon as you know anything, would you?”

“Of course, sir,” Dennis answered.

A barely audible click signaled the end of the connection on Dennis’s end.

“He’s going to find out and get back to us,” Phillip explained. “He’s such a clever boy; he’s the current leader amongst the male applicants.”

“Applicants?” I asked.

He laughed. “I do hope you will excuse me for not explaining earlier. Every decade I have a contest to determine my next two children: one boy and one girl. It keeps me busy, and some of them make wonderfully entertaining opponents after a few centuries.

“But enough of that. Dennis should be back soon and I don’t like to let them hear too much about who is in the lead. It makes them insufferable. While we wait, could I get you another glass of wine? Perhaps your mouser is hungry? I’m certain Dennis could scrounge up a rodent or two.”

I stared at him blankly. “I’m fine, Lady Tabitha,” Talbot told me.

“He’s fine, thank you,” I said with a puzzled look on my face.

Phillip nodded absentmindedly, then snapped his fingers. “I could play the violin for you. I’ve only been playing for a century, though, so I haven’t mastered it yet.”

Talbot cleared his throat. “Maybe you could tell Lady Tabitha about the Lost Soul? What’s it for?”

Phillip set the bullet down on a table and dashed off. It sounded like he was wrestling with a box of Christmas lights. When he returned, it was with a beautifully crafted violin case. “Perhaps I shall do both?”

I nodded and he opened the case.

19

ERIC:

GRETA

I woke to a cacophonous mix of werewolf howls and trucks revving their engines outside the Demon Heart. I was getting tired of fucking around with these stupid werewolves. The door to my bedroom in the Pollux swung open and Greta stepped inside. She’d cut her hair. It was short now, but still blonde. Dressed in running shoes, jogging shorts, and a sports top, she looked none the worse for wear. The only sign of her recent conflict with the werewolves outside was the remains of a tiny media player still clipped to her shorts; there wasn’t much left of it.

“Up and at ‘em, Dad. There are werewo—” She paused in midsentence as she spotted Rachel. “So that’s Tabitha,” she said awkwardly. “She’s certainly…um, pierced, isn’t she? Those cannot have felt good.”

“Her name’s Rachel,” I muttered as I rolled out of bed. “I turned Tabitha. This is her little sister.”

“Jesus, Dad,” Greta complained. “That’s screwed up even for you.” Greta blanched at her own sentence, worried that she’d criticized me too harshly, that I might have taken her seriously, missed the teasing tone in her voice. She looked purposefully away from Rachel’s nakedness and cocked a thumb toward the door, hiding her dismay behind a jaunty smile. “Let’s kill the werewolves across the street and then you can tell me all about it.” She looked back at Rachel and sighed. “Or better yet, you could just not.”

I rolled my eyes and headed for the door. “Did you have a nice trip?”

“Oh, yes,” Greta quipped. “It’s been great. Those werewolves have been chasing me all night. I probably could take them, except they’ve got crosses and stuff. How’s Mom?”

We headed out of my room and down the stairs.

“I think she suspects that the Demon Heart is really a strip joint,” I joked.

Greta jumped over the rail and landed next to the door. Why hadn’t I thought of that? “That whole ‘interpretive dance school for nudists’ story couldn’t hold up forever,” she tossed back at me.

That, in a nutshell, was my problem with Greta. I liked her too much and we got along too well. She fell into the father-daughter role easily and could make it seem so normal when it definitely isn’t. She accepted me. Even when she snarked about my lifestyle, her complaints were usually voiced as lighthearted teasing.

If we were a real family, when I grew old, Greta would have never sent me to an old folks’ home; she would have kept me close and taken care of me. That kind of devotion was scary, especially coming from a cold-blooded killer even more amoral than me. Greta viewed me as a hero growing up, justified my every mistake, and lionized my flaws. She took my dislike of other vampires to another level, too; sometimes, she even hunted them.

Greta opened the front door and one of those fake-looking werewolves was there waiting for us. His hair could have been badly dyed rabbit fur glued over latex rubber skin, and his smooth tan teeth reminded me of a botched resin model kit. He snarled, snapping at Greta.

“Bad dog!” she admonished. “No biscuit!” Greta caught him by the muzzle, snapping his jaws shut with a pop and giggling when he whined. “Can I keep him, Dad?”

Roger likes to tell me I don’t think before I act. Compared to Greta, I’m well-reasoned, insightful, and reserved. The werewolf swiped at Greta with his claws and she laughed, popping him twice in the forehead with her right fist. While he was stunned, she grabbed his neck and pulled the beast down into a headlock.

“Well, can I?” Greta asked insistently.

“I don’t care if he did follow you home,” I said as I grabbed either side of his head and twisted. “You’re not keeping him.” The wolf’s neck broke and Greta let him drop to the floor. He wasn’t dead, but the broken neck would keep him out of the fight.

Behind him, I could see about a dozen of his companions strutting across the street like some kind of inner-city gang, clearly confident that we’d be no problem for them. The four in the middle of the pack seemed to be the ones in charge. Two of those wore cross-studded collars around their hulking necks, their fur a uniform dark brown. The third was larger than the rest, a mottled gray werewolf with a pug-nose muzzle more befitting a bulldog than any wolf I’d ever seen. He hefted a large wooden cross made from two interlocking railroad ties. Next to him, a black wolf with a priest’s collar stared directly at me, rosary beads wrapped around his right paw.

“William?” I asked.

“The flock calls me Reverend.” His voice was light and airy, a complete contrast to the wolf’s hulking black form. The sound didn’t even synch up with his lips, like a badly dubbed kung fu movie or spaghetti western. Maybe he was using some big magic mojo to translate snarls and growls into English for the wolf-speech-impaired. Quite possibly I should have been impressed, but it only served to enhance the goofy unreality that I experience whenever I run into a werewolf.

I glanced at Greta. She had a hungry look in her eyes. I imagined it was the same look that I had in mine when I woke up each morning, ready for my next drink of the red stuff. That’s the other problem with Greta. She’s always hungry.

“What about one of these?” she asked with mock sincerity.

We walked out into the street side by side. I stopped to lock the door behind me, casually, as if there was no rush.

“Sorry, honey. You know the rules. No pets.”

We were both smiling; it seemed to confuse the werewolves. They outnumbered us five to one and they expected trepidation at the least, outright terror at the most. Cocksure bravado was not in their list of likely prey responses. Unfortunately for them, we weren’t prey.

A wave of holy power hit me as they crossed the center lane. The four in the middle were true believers; no wonder they felt confident. I realized immediately why Greta hadn’t wanted to fight them on her own. She doesn’t heal from holy wounds easily. The more powerful the vampire, the more quirks he or she has. That was one of hers.

The true believers were going to be the real problem. Most werewolves just charge in without thinking, but these guys held back, waiting, I supposed, on the good reverend’s word.

“Let’s not do this, Reverend,” I said. “I’m not a bad guy. Ask Jackie, down at the—”

Reverend made the sign of the cross with his rosary-clad paw and spoke Latin:“In nòmine Patris, et Fìlii, et Spìritus Sancti.”

“Amen,” the other werewolves said in unison. My teeth went numb, my fangs retracted, and I took two involuntary steps backward. You only feel power like that every once in a while, and generally not from locals. These guys were from the Lycan Diocese, or the one with the rosary was; he had to be. What the Inquisition was to witches the Lycan Diocese is to vampires and other things that might threaten the therianthropic flock. Your average skinchanger can’t go to them for help, but William obviously had some pull.

This was exactly the sort of attention I’d wanted to avoid.

“William was right to call us,” said the big one with the giant cross. He unlimbered the heavy thing as he spoke and swung it like a giant hammer. Greta screamed, but I couldn’t move, as if a spell were fixing me in place. The cross hit me midchest, igniting the front of myWelcome to the Void T-shirt and hurling me back into the brick next to theCasablanca poster at the side of the Pollux’s main entrance.

“I was kind of disappointed when Deacon sent you instead of coming himself. I see that I was wrong,” one of the other werewolves told him. Three werewolves on the left teamed up on Greta, grabbing her as the one called Reverend advanced. He placed his rosary-wrapped paw at her throat. The sizzle and pop of her flesh was all I could hear, the smell of the rosary charring her flesh.

She screamed out one word, “Daddy,” and then, suddenly, I was free. I could move again.

Speed. Most vampires have it all the time. Mine comes and goes. Sometimes I can control it, but usually it just kicks in and out. This time, it kicked in. Each sizzling pop of Greta’s flesh resounded like a gunshot. My whole body began to vibrate. I felt like I was going to lose control, go into one of my rage blackouts, but then, somehow, I didn’t. In a wave of remembered cinnamon scents, my proximity to Rachel, even asleep upstairs in the Pollux, gave me reins for my rage. I took a deep breath and charged.

In an instant I was on the three werewolves holding Greta, bypassing the two werewolves with the cross-studded collars that were headed toward me. I cocked my hands back and plunged my claws through the backs of two of Greta’s captors. My hands closed around their hearts and I let them each beat a single time before I tore them out.

It must have broken Reverend’s concentration or something, because suddenly Greta could move, too. Greta’s claws were out and I couldn’t stifle my laughter when she gave Reverend a knuckle-deep two-finger eye poke, Three Stooges style, accompanied by an imitation of Curly’s famous “Nyuk nyuk.”

I tossed the two hearts I was holding down onto the pavement. The remaining werewolf with a grip on Greta let her go and threw up. Weak stomach, I guessed.

Reverend drew back howling, clutching at his ruined eyes, blood matting the fur around them. The sight distracted me, and the two collared werewolves took the opportunity to sink their fangs into either shoulder. The shoulder bite I’d gotten on Friday had hurt; two hurt more than twice as bad. The added sizzle of their collars against my cheeks didn’t help either. I grabbed them both by the scruffs of their necks like oversize puppies and flung them across the street. The movement didn’t do my shoulders any good, but I didn’t have much choice.

“Don’t fucking bite me,” I snarled furiously. “I’m the vampire! I bite you. You do not get to fucking bite me!”

I pointed my finger at the remaining combatants. “You can claw me. You can hit me. Hell, run me over with a truck, but no biting or I’m going to stop dicking around here and you won’t even have time to run away.”

Everybody stopped.

“And another thing, your fight is with me and me alone. You touch my little girl again and when I’m done with you, I’ll get your scent from the pieces, I’ll track it back to your home and I’ll bring the fight to your kids, your family. Does that sound fucking fair to you, assholes?”

They seemed to suddenly shrink before me, or maybe I was expanding. I could feel a familiar burning in my chest. I wasn’t just standing on the brink of a blackout, I had jumped off the cliff and now everyone was waiting to see if I would catch the rope dangling behind me.

“Oh, great!” Greta sighed. “You guys went and pissed him off! Now he’s going to go all uber vamp and I’m not going to get to play anymore.”

“Okay,” Reverend said softly, his paws still pressed to his eyes.

“Okay what?”

“Just let us leave. We heard what happened to the Howlers, but we assumed you’d had help. Lots of help. We couldn’t believe that you’d done it alone. I can see we were wrong. So just let us take Jim and leave.”

“Who the hell is Jim?” I asked.

He pointed blindly in the direction of the werewolf with the broken neck.

“Okay, Reverend.” I smiled. “You have a deal. You grab your boy Jim and get the hell out of here. Anybody that wants to go can go, but if I see you around here again, you die. Oh, and I want you to tell your boss something for me.”

“You can’t do that, Reverend!” one of the collar-wearing fuzzies protested. “They’ve killed Bruce and Annie. We can’t just walk away. They are unholy monsters. We have to kill them, now!” One of them had been a girl? I glanced down at the bodies, but they were too furry for me to tell. Dead werewolves do change back to human form, but only when the sun hits them.

The Reverend seemed to think it over before answering his packmate. He didn’t take long. “I’m sorry, Paul, but William is going to have to come out here with us if he’s going to send us up against something like this. That isn’t a normal vampire. It can’t be. A normal vampire could not have broken free of my spell like that. You can stay here if you want, but the rest of us are going.” Eyes still covered, he turned blindly back toward me. “What is it you wanted me to tell William?”

“Tell him I know who killed the werewolves out at the lake and it wasn’t me or any of my people. I’ll admit to having killed his son, but he killed my son, not to mention my car, so I’m willing to call it even and let things blow over. If Willy Boy won’t go for that, then I’m even willing to find the ones responsible for what happened out at the lake and gift wrap them for your boss. You got all that?”

Reverend nodded.

“One more thing. Tell him I’ll need an answer by tomorrow night.” I pulled Greta back to the sidewalk, trying not to pay attention to how badly burned her neck had gotten.

I shouldn’t have spent so much time talking. Reverend pulled his hands away from freshly healed peepers, a bit bloodshot but clearly functional. This time my speed didn’t kick in. Damn it. Before I could react, the two werewolves next to him grabbed me, one furry bastard on each arm. Reverend reached up and put the paw with the rosary over my eyes. An eye for an eye. It was even less fun than El Segundo, but this time I had Greta at my side. I heard the slight jingle of werewolf collars as they ran for her, but she was already in motion.

I heard the swoosh of Pug Nose’s big hammer-cross thing, and felt the displacement of air brush past my face as it just missed me, connecting with Reverend instead. His skull caved in with the sound of a smashing watermelon, music to my ears.

“You missed,” Greta taunted.

Two sets of claws I couldn’t see tore into my belly, spilling my guts onto the concrete about the same time I heard the sickening tear of a werewolf’s head being torn from his neck.

“Grow that back, Rev.” Greta laughed again, but the laugh turned into a shriek and a sizzle. Damn it. Not sure of what to do, I jumped backward, carrying my two captors with me, shattering the glass doors at the front of the Pollux and landing with a crash in what used to be the ticket booth.

The werewolf on my left arm relaxed his grip and I used the moment to tear free of him; then I pulled in the one on my right and sank my fangs into his throat. Werewolf blood doesn’t taste much different than human blood. The tricky part is not getting any fur stuck in your teeth.

I didn’t have time for a prolonged snack, just enough to speed my healing. Blood is both food and medicine for us. I tore out enough of his throat to put him out of the fight, and rubbed my eyes against the wound. Gross, but effective. My vision returned, but it was still cloudy, like viewing the world through a sheet of wax paper. Lucky for me, werewolf silhouettes are easy to recognize.

I turned on the second werewolf just in time to get a claw slash to the chest as he extricated himself from the ruined ticket booth. Cuts and scrapes from the glass dotted his hide. Behind him, I could see Greta going toe to toe with pug-face and the others in the middle of the street.

A minivan sped by, swerving to avoid the melee, and I could only imagine what the driver would remember. Greta used the distraction to snatch the railroad-tie cross away from Bulldog and concuss him with it, her hands igniting even as she touched the wood. She sank her flaming claws into Bulldog, using his blood to extinguish the flames, and then latched onto his neck with her fangs.

I pulled myself upright and boxed my opponent’s ears. He howled in pain and I did it again. The second time, I heard the pops I was waiting for and he dropped to his knees.

I saw that Greta was now on her own against the collared werewolves that had been helping Bulldog, so I simply wrenched my opponent’s jaws apart, taking the top half of his skull with me as I turned away, hastily stuffing guts into my rapidly healing torso.

I charged toward Greta only to get pulled off my feet by Jim, the werewolf with the no-longer-broken neck. He had the same fighting style as the wolf from the alleyway, and I had terrible déjà vu as he battered my head first into the concrete, then the brick, then the bench in front of the Pollux.

I caught afwoosh of flame out of the corner of my eye as Wolfboy kept swinging, applying the tiger by the tail principle. One of the werewolves had removed his collar and strapped it around Greta’s neck. He and his companions were holding her down as she burned.

So much for keeping my temper. My vision blurred, and then everything went dark, but I could still hear the screaming. Usually, a rage blackout was a hole in time that I could never get back, but this time was different. I heard flesh rending and tearing. I heard bones break and smelled fur charring. Underneath it all, there was another noise, like wings flapping in the night. Finally, when everything was silent, I could see again. Greta was in my arms and the fuzzies were scattered in piles across the street. One of them was impaled on the massive railroad-tie cross, his ribs splayed open by the massive wooden center beam protruding from his chest. The rosary beads and cross-studded collars were nowhere to be seen. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to know what had happened to them.

I took Greta inside the Pollux and called Tiko. He’s an oni—sort of a Japanese ogre. His kind are body-disposal specialists. They eat them. Sometimes they play with them first. I don’t ask any questions as long as the corpses go away and don’t show up again.

“I need you to get out here,” I said when he answered. “I’ve got a bunch of dead werewolves for you…and the good news is that some of them had shiny new trucks.”

Tiko said he’d get there as quickly as he could, but that he was going to have to charge extra. “I have a few cousins over in Georgia who could help,” he offered, “if you’re going to keep killing off werewolves left and right. We can only eat so much.”

“Yeah. Call ‘em,” I said, sighing. “There may be seventy more where those came from and who knows what else.”

I hung up before he said anything else and carried Greta up to my office. She was pretty badly burned. There would be no talking to William now. Son for son, I was willing to accept. I was even close to overlooking the Mustang. But now he’d fucked with my little girl and there was going to be hell to pay.

20

ERIC:

EYE OF THE…?

One of the things Roger taught me was that a sire, if he or she is powerful enough, can heal their offspring with their blood. Not that he’d meant to teach me on purpose, but near the end of the whole El Segundo thing, the only way we found to heal the cross-shaped burns Roger received was to take him home to mommy. He, like Greta, had difficulty healing wounds inflicted with holy implements. I’d thought the burns were pretty darn funny, myself. Anyway, we’d looked up Roger’s sire in Atlanta and she had taken care of his wounds.

I didn’t get to meet her; Roger made me wait outside. For weeks afterward, I had to hear how she’d had this whole ritual that I thought was her way of making sure Roger knew what a pain in the ass it was to do the healing for him. Roger had been impressed, but I was pretty sure that it was little more than the strategically placed flour women get on their faces in the movies. You know, so the audience can tell they’ve been toiling for hours to bake those instant cookies?

As far as I could tell, the ritual was like that, all pomp and circumstance, and highly unnecessary. Fortunately for Greta, she had me for a sire; trust me, I’m powerful enough, and I have no use for ritualistic ass kissing.

I tore my wrist open with my fangs and bled directly onto her ruined face, working the blood into the remaining skin, smearing it across bare bone where necessary. Skin bubbled back into place, like burning in reverse. Greta’s hair grew back long and blonde, the same as when I had embraced her. My blood bubbled like thick red hydrogen peroxide over the marks on her neck, only when the bubbling was over, the wounds weren’t just disinfected, they were gone.

I moved on to her injured hands, withered stick fingers crackling as I doused them liberally with blood. It started to work immediately. The claw marks on her side and a nasty bite she had taken to the left calf healed just as quickly after a similar treatment.

When I was done with the front, I rolled her over and checked her back. There were a few claw marks, but they had already started healing, so I left them alone. My own wounds were gone by the time I finished with hers, but I didn’t feel the hunger I thought I should. Between my own healing and bleeding all over Greta, I should have been ravenous. Instead, I felt nothing.

I washed myself off using the sink in my Pollux bedroom and changed into jeans, tennis shoes, and a freshWelcome to the Void T-shirt. By the time I was done Greta was waking up. The clock in my office read four o’clock. That meant I’d slept for a good hour before the fight, maybe more. I should have been feeling the daily hunger as well, but I wasn’t. True, I’d ingested a little werewolf blood, but that didn’t account for everything.

“Dad?”

Greta stood up, covered in blood, and looked down at what was left of her clothes. The running shoes were okay and her panties had survived (they were soaked with blood, but technically intact); the rest was in a desperate state. “Okay, either you healed me or you thought it would be fun to blood wrestle your unconscious naked daughter.”

I averted my eyes. My first thought was to send her down to the dressing room Rachel had appropriated, but Greta was taller than Rachel and more endowed. “You can probably find some clothes across the street in the club, but if Tiko is out there, I’m going to want to walk over with you. Oni have two favorite pastimes: eating people and raping them. Tiko is a good guy as far as oni go, but—”

“Seeing me naked and covered in blood might stretch his self-control a little?”

“Yeah, something like that. And you can’t kill him…. I need him right now.”

She walked out and I waited, listening. I heard her footsteps on the stairs, the door opening and closing, but I didn’t hear her go outside. I couldn’t hear Tiko working, but I assumed that was why she had stopped. Finally her footsteps echoed on the stairs again, then down the hall to my office door.

“Is he out there?”

“Yep.”

“So you came back to get me.” She nodded and I headed out with her. “Good girl.”

“Dad?” she asked on the stairs.

“Yes?”

“Is there something wrong?” She bit her lip nervously. “Did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me?”

“What? Where the hell did that come from?” We stopped midway down the stairs and she put a hand on my shoulder. She looked genuinely concerned.

“No, nothing, it’s okay, it’s just, you know, your eyes…”

I didn’t know. “No. What about my eyes?”

“They’re still…doing the thing.”

The thing? I held a hand up in front of my eyes, but there was no red light shining on them. “What thing?”

She exhaled and I was a little taken back. Greta never breathed unless she was talking; even then, she took only the necessary breaths. Breathing was like pacing for her; she only did it when she got nervous. “You know…your angry eyes.”

“My angry eyes? Am I supposed to be Mr. Potato Head all of a sudden? They aren’t glowing red. I just checked.”

She looked away and removed her hand from my shoulder. “I’m sorry. It’s nothing. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“No,” I said quickly. “It’s okay; I just don’t know what you’re talking about. Seems like everyone mentions it but no one will talk about it. You act like I’m going to chomp you or something. Can we please talk about it?”

“Okay,” she said, “but let me shower and dress first. This blood is starting to congeal on me.”

I took off my shirt, right there on the stairs and slipped it over her head. Why hadn’t I thought of that before? The hem of the T-shirt only came down to mid-hip on her, but it concealed most of her nudity. We crossed the street to the club uneventfully. Tiko stared at her, hunger in his eye, but looked away when he realized I was with her.

Greta showered and dressed quickly. The clothes came from a stash Marilyn had been keeping for her, but hiding from me. She walked straight to Marilyn’s office and pulled them out of a small travel bag stored in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. I wondered absently what other secrets Marilyn was keeping from me.

When she was finished, Greta met me back in Marilyn’s office. She was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt that readWelcome to the Void . It was similar to mine, only hers showed a fair amount of midriff and had pink lettering.

“Are they still doing it?” I asked.

“Your eyes?”

“Yes, my eyes.”

She sighed. “Yes, Dad, they’re still doing it.”

“Describe it to me.”

She got up and crossed the room, knelt in front of me and rested her arms across my lap as she stared into my face. One thing that I find unnerving about other vamps is the lack of heartbeat. If she had been human, there would have been all sorts of signs to give me insight into what she was feeling, whether she was scared and trying to look calm, or vice versa.

“I’ve never gotten a good close look like this before,” she said, sounding fascinated, “but it’s actually kind of cool. The whites have turned black and the veins in your eyes…from a distance I couldn’t see it, but up close they’re dark, dark purple. Your irises are purple too, but sort of crimson at the same time. They’re shifting back and forth slowly from one color to the other, with a kind of subtle glow. When you get totally furious they glow more and more brightly until there are actual beams of light shining out of them. I’ve only seen that once, but I didn’t stick around. I’ve never been too sure about how safe you are when you’re like that.”

“Like what? Angry?” I asked. Greta scooted back away from me across the floor and climbed backward up into her chair.

“No, Dad,” she said quietly. “I mean when you go all uber vamp, with the wings and all.”

I stood up so quickly my feet nearly left the floor. “What do you mean ‘wings’?”

21

TABITHA:

WAYS AND MEANS

Phillip’s violin was made of a beautiful dark-colored wood and so was his bow. I could tell it was old and probably expensive. The light dimmed as he began to play, and underneath the music, outside the range of human hearing, disembodied voices moaned along with the song. I didn’t like classical music; pissed-off girl rock was more my style. But Phillip’s music, indescribably beautiful and sad, captured even my attention, although it was still a little too loud for my enhanced hearing.

Talbot listened with rapt attention. His eyes were half lidded and subtle movements of his chest and head suggested that he was in full-blown musical bliss. Finally, Phillip put down his bow and bowed to us. Talbot and I clapped with an appreciation that wasn’t feigned on my part. I was glad that Phillip wanted to spend time with me. It was very flattering, and I had to admit that the whole violin playing deal was pretty romantic.

“That was beautiful,” I told him.

“Too shrill for your ears, though, I fear,” Phillip said sadly. “I forget how sound-sensitive newborns can be.”

I blushed again. “I’m sorry, Phillip. It truly was beautiful, my ears just aren’t”—I struggled to find the right word—“refined enough to really appreciate it yet.”

“The fault is mine,” he said as he put his instrument away. Even the case was lovely. It also looked expensive. Everything around Phillip looked expensive.

Phillip glanced at the wall clock and frowned. “It’s after four and I promised to tell you aboutEl Alma Perdida .” The fire in the fireplace turned blue, then green, and the lights dimmed even further. Phillip either had the coolest dynamic lighting setup I’d ever heard of, or he was using magic.

“The Lost Soul is the Colt Peacemaker used by John Paul Courtney in his misguided quest not only to kill werewolves, but to save their souls. Oh, it’s such a remarkable story. No one knows how Courtney came by the weapon, but many know its description.El Alma Perdida is a pearl-handled six-shooter with silver crosses worked into the grip to help ensure that his enemies, vampires and werewolves, could not use it against him.”

Phillip flicked his wrist and a translucent image of the gun appeared in front of him. It just looked like any old gun to me, but Talbot leaned in closely. Must be a guy thing. “Made in 1873, it was lost when Courtney died in 1925 at the ripe old age of one hundred and two. Few knew he was that old. You wouldn’t have suspected that he was a day over fifty.” Phillip’s expression became dark and mysterious. “Some say his soul was bound to his weapon and resides there to this day.” He smiled. “If one is inclined to believe in ghost stories.”

Another gesture from Phillip caused the gun to transform into the shape of a man. He wasn’t handsome, but something about his eyes, the confidence there, reminded me of a lion. They were a startling shade of blue. “He looks familiar.”

“You might find he resembles your sire. I tried to turn Courtney,” Phillip mentioned casually. “Do you know his blood actually burned my mouth? I had to snap his neck—twice. Such a waste. He would have made a most interesting foil for those long boring nights. I had such hopes….” Phillip must have noticed my confusion, because he smiled sweetly. “You’re so young, Lady Tabitha, but trust this wizened old vampire when I tell you that eternity, after a time, begins to wear on one’s nerves.”

“What would a vampire want with his gun, though?” I asked.

“Guns are generally used for two purposes: one is display, the other killing. It’s the motive that always interests me. How did you come by the bullet?”

“It was found.”

“By whom?”

“Eric.”

“Eric. Hmmm. Scandinavian, I think, meaning kingly, honorable ruler, or even ever-powerful. How interesting. Did you know that in the hands of Eric, your sire, this gun could be used to kill nearly any werewolf?”

“Because its bullets are blessed—” I started.

“Magical, silver, and, in his case, inherited,” Phillip completed. “It’s made for lycanthropes, but it will work on any type of therianthrope that walks this mortal earth excepting one.”

“Which one?”

“Snakes,” Talbot answered too quickly. “Reptilian skinchangers are vulnerable to gold, not silver.”

Phillip wrinkled his nose. “Yes, snakes. These bullets would still hurt them, though, lock their form.”

“Magbidion already told us about that part.” I clapped my hands over my mouth. Lord Phillip didn’t appreciate interruptions and Talbot and I had both managed to cut him short, back to back.

“Then I won’t bore you further.” Phillip snapped his fingers and the room brightened so swiftly that spots danced in front of my eyes. “Surely Dennis won’t be much longer,” he added.

I looked at the clock and suppressed a yawn. It was only 04:17 and I was already starting to feel tired. Shit! What was going to happen to me when the sun came up? Would I just pass out? I gave Talbot a concerned look, but he gave a slight shake of his head. Did he mean I shouldn’t mention it or that it was okay and he’d take care of everything? I stared at him for a few more seconds until he finally nodded toward Phillip. Not knowing what to do, I turned my attention back to the elder vampire.

“So,” I began, “based on what you said earlier, you’re kind of your own sire? How does that work?”

Phillip stiffened for a moment, but then chuckled and relaxed. “After a fashion, you could say that, yes. I was a wizard during my human days, but as I grew older, I became obsessed with immortality. The prospect of what lay waiting for me in the great beyond was a bit too chilling. At first, I sought out a true immortal, one of those lucky souls who walk the earth born to immortality: human, but unending. I spent decades searching, but never found one. I had a ritual, you see, that would have allowed me to steal his immortality. Along the way, I made certain discoveries about vampirism and as time grew shorter for me, I decided that vampiric immortality was better than none at all and so, here I am.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. I stilled another yawn as I stretched.

“How about you?” Phillip asked gently. “I assume you were sired in the more conventional manner?”

“Yes, by Eric,” I answered.

“Oh, yes. If I’m not being too bold, are the two of you involved?”

“I’m in love with him,” I blurted. I hadn’t meant to say that, but it came out anyway.

Phillip didn’t look surprised. He smiled warmly and closed his eyes. He stood and waltzed himself in a little circle. “Ah, young love.” He put his hand to his heart. “I hope it lasts. Lady Gabriella and I were in love once. Now we are waging a merry little war of intrigue against each other.”

There was a knock at the door and Phillip rushed over to it. “That should be Dennis,” he pronounced. Checking the little peephole, he clapped his hands together excitedly. “It is!”

He opened the door and invited the man in. As he had the last time, Dennis declined.

“What do you have for me?” Phillip asked.

“It seems that the Gryphon Suite houses a Master vampire named Roger. According to security, Master Roger hasn’t been home since Friday, but his girlfriend, who answers to the name Veruca, has been in and out of the apartment at odd hours for several days.”

“How interesting,” Phillip said gleefully.

“She returned Friday in the early evening with an assortment of bites and scratches that prompted the security guard to ask if she needed help. According to his report she responded with a rude gesture. She went out again on Saturday. On both days she carried a pistol Master Roger had registered with security.”

Outrage washed over me. That bitch! She was a part of it. And Roger…what an asshole! How could he do something like this to his best friend?

“And why, may I ask, did security not alert me to the presence ofEl Alma Perdida ?” Phillip asked.

“Greed, milord.”

“Greed?” I asked.

“He was bribed,” Dennis explained.

“His name wasn’t Fergus Jenkins, by any chance?” Talbot asked.

“No, sir. Salvadore Belino,” the man replied. Shifting his attention back to Lord Phillip, Dennis smiled. “He awaits your pleasure in the lower galleries, milord. I’ve also taken the liberty of sending a car around to collect his family.”

Thinking about Veruca, the spiked blood, and the way I’d had to cover her set made me really mad. My eyes flashed red, but I shut them down quickly. Dennis was a little taken aback, but Phillip just laughed it off. “Ah, the impetuousness of the young.”

“I’m sorry; it’s Veruca…not you.” I looked at Dennis. “Did she come back here?”

Dennis looked questioningly at Phillip before answering my question. When Phillip nodded, he proceeded. “She returned just after dawn looking much worse for the wear. More scratches, I’m told, and some burns.”

“Is she still here?” I asked.

The same series of looks was exchanged between man and vampire, and then Dennis hesitantly answered my question. I guess he didn’t want to ruin his chances of being Phillip’s newest son. “As a matter of fact, she is still here. She hasn’t left Master Roger’s apartments since she returned this…that is, yesterday morning.”

“How do I get to the Gryphon Suite?”

“Not so fast, milady,” Phillip said, holding up his hand. “Everything in its own time.” He walked around to his desk, opened a drawer and came back holding five one-hundred-dollar bills. He folded them carefully and handed them to Dennis. “Thank you, Dennis; that will be all.”

Phillip closed the door, turned and leaned against it with a tired look on his face. “I’m afraid I can’t allow you to go rampaging through my building, knocking down doors and dragging people from their apartments, my dear. Neither you nor your mouser will be allowed to behave that way within these walls without earning my most sincere reproach, as did my dear friend Percy.” He gestured to the vampire in the glass case, the one with the stake through his heart.

“Then why even bother to tell us she’s here?” I complained, stomping my foot. “God, that’s infuriating!”

Phillip clasped his hands. “Anyone who has been granted access to the common areas of the Highland Towers may call upon any resident by simply approaching their rooms, wings, apartments, or floors, whichever is appropriate, and knocking upon the door in a polite manner.

“It is forbidden for one of my guests to physically assault a resident.” He acted like I was supposed to be going “A-ha!” From his tone, I knew he was trying to give me a hint, but I sure as hell didn’t know what it was.

Talbot walked over to me and put his hands on my shoulders. “We’ve taken enough of Lord Phillip’s time, milady. Perhaps you could assure him that we wouldn’t dream of physically assaulting any residents of the Highland Towers, but would be quite happy to pay a call on a good friend of ours by the name of Veruca. Perhaps we’ll find we see eye-to-eye on a few things.”

Talbot stressed the wordresidents and the phraseeye-to-eye when he spoke, but I still didn’t get it. Still, Phillip seemed to understand and he carefully explained how to go about getting an elevator to the Gryphon Suite. I gave Phillip a kiss on the cheek and, by virtue of our comparative heights, a really good look down my top, and walked out wearing the diamond necklace he had given me. As the door closed, I stifled a yawn and started to ask Talbot what was going on, but he shushed me and walked over to the elevators. We waited a few seconds for the doors to open. Dennis was not inside. Talbot pressed the correct button and when the doors closed he winked at me.

“Not bad, Tab. I think he wants to go steady.”

“Whatever!” I liked Phillip, but I wasn’t going to date a balding little short dude no matter how much money he had, not unless I was in love with him; and since I was currently in love with an attractive, not to mention quite wealthy in his own right, vampire, things didn’t look good for Phillip.

“He told you everything you need to know to get Veruca out of this place and wherever you want her.”

The elevator slowed and we walked out into one of the building’s elegant waiting rooms, crossed to a set of elevators that served the correct floors, and waited for another elevator to show up. After the doors closed and the button was pushed, I asked Talbot what the hell he was talking about.

“You’re a Vlad and she’s a Soldier. All you have to do is lock eyes with her and you can make her leave with us.”

“Oh. If you wanted to make me feel stupid, you succeeded,” I told him.

Now all I had to do was get Veruca to answer the door, lock eyes with her, get her into the car, and restrain her somehow before I passed out from vampiric sleep deprivation. Great.

So there I was, a few minutes later, in front of Roger’s door, doing my impersonation of Mr. Fuzzy Bottom. It was a silly plan, but I didn’t have a better one. If Veruca hadn’t eaten, then a cat might seem like a tasty treat to take the edge off. On the other hand, if she didn’t want to eat a cat, she might want to cuddle with one and enjoy the body heat. Heck, she might even like cats for all I knew. It was worth a shot.

Talbot was waiting down the hall next to the television playing in Roger’s waiting area. Which, incidentally, was nothing compared to Phillip’s. There were no comfy chairs, no stashes of bottled blood. It looked like a waiting room in a doctor’s office, right down to the magazines that nobody interesting would want to read. They were all about money, or people who have money, or what was happening to other people’s money. Even the station the television was turned to was all about money. I wondered what Eric’s waiting room would have looked like if he’d decided to live here. Lots of strippers, maybe, or a giant neon sign that said,Go away!

Stifling a yawn, I meowed at the door and rubbed up against it. Pacing in little circles, I rubbed against the door eight or nine times, meowing, before the sounds of someone stirring in the apartment reached the doorway. Footsteps started for the door, followed by cursing and the sound of something clattering down to tile and shattering. Yet more cursing and then the handle on the door began to turn. I stopped and sat in front of the door flipping my tail back and forth. No wonder cats do that; it’s fun. The doorknob stopped turning.

“Meow,” I complained, by which I meant, “Open the door, you stupid bitch!”

Veruca stood on the other side of the door and waited. “I know it’s you, Tabitha,” she gloated. “And tell Talbot that I can smell him, too.”

I turned human and looked incredulously at Talbot. “Any other bright ideas, Sensei?”

“Just one. She’s not really a resident.” He grinned and walked closer to the door. “Here, Froggy, Froggy, Froggy. Here, Froggy!”

“Stop it, Talbot!” Veruca snarled.

“I’ve got a hundred-dollar bill out here if you’ll give me a lap dance, Froggy. Here, Froggy, Froggy, Froggy!” With each “Froggy” Talbot grew incrementally louder.

“I’m serious, Talbot,” Veruca shouted. “I’ll call security.”

“You know, Froggy,” Talbot continued. “I was just talking to Lord Phillip about you. Did you know Veruca means wart? I thought warts were what you got from frogs and toads, not—”

That did it. She charged out at us in a rage.

22

TABITHA:

CAT FIGHT

I expected Talbot to do all of the fighting, so I hung back, watching as he and Veruca tore at each other. Talbot’s claws popped right out of the tips of his fingers like a cat’s. Veruca’s were scarier; her fingers curved and hardened, like talons. Talbot tore a chunk out of her side and smoke billowed up from the wounds. He tried to pull her in close, using the leverage to bite her, but she spun free, slashing open his forehead.

“What the hell?” Veruca yelled. She fell back into a crouch, gripping her side. “You burned me!”

“My claws are holy.” Talbot took a step closer. “I’m a noble hunter, a sacred guardian. You’re just a damn vampire.”

“Hey, watch it,” I blurted, slightly offended. “I’m just a damn vampire, too.”

“It’s just an expre—” His attention left his opponent for only a second, eyes flickering in my direction, but Veruca took advantage. She dove between his legs, rolling to her feet on the other side and flaying open his back with her claws. Talbot stumbled forward away from the door, cursing loudly. I stood in front of Veruca, hands out in front of me to ward her off.

“Stop her,” Talbot ordered. “Don’t let her back in the apartment.”

“Look, uh…Froggy—” I shouldn’t have said that. It slipped out. Naturally, it pissed her off even more.

“You think it’s fucking funny, huh? That you can do a kitty cat and I can’t?” She barreled into me, face contorted with rage, literally tackling me through the apartment door.

“Look out, damn it!” Talbot reached for my arm, but we fell, entangled, into the apartment and down on a throw rug in the center of what seemed to be a sitting room, with tacky chairs and a coffee table. Veruca kicked the door shut with her foot.

“Lock!” she shouted, and the door flashed blue for an instant. Talbot hit it from the outside and the wall shook, but it didn’t give. “Tabitha! The rooms are warded; I can’t get in.”

“Unlock! Unlock!” I shouted at the door, but it didn’t want to take orders from me.

“Talbot may be too much for me to handle,” Veruca snarled, baring her fangs, “but I can still end you!” Time slowed as she stalked toward me, claws at the ready. I slid across the floor, got to my feet and tried to force the door from the inside. It wouldn’t budge.

“It won’t open!” I yelled.

“Not until she or Roger opens it.” Talbot’s voice sounded like he was leaning against the door. “Just fight.”

I turned in time to see Veruca’s claws slashing my way again. I dodged in the nick of time, but only because I don’t think she expected me to have time to react. Her claws slashed the door, leaving large furrows in the dark wood.

Veruca growled, then spun with terrible speed and lunged at me again. Her claws were larger than mine and the tips were hooked. Brawling wasn’t my thing; I misjudged her range. Both sets struck home. Getting hurt felt weird: an initial shock of pain that immediately faded, as though the nerve endings registered it once, then forgot about it.

“Get off of me,” I screamed. My own claws came out and I used them as best I could, scratching at her eyes with one hand and her neck with the other. She might know how to kill, but I knew how to hurt a woman like her. She’d always been vain and petty. If she didn’t have her looks, then, at least as far as she was concerned, she had nothing. Flesh ripped away from her face in jagged ribbons.

Veruca rolled away from me as we both howled in agony. Vampires aren’t supposed to bleed much, but the chunks of flesh she ripped from my sides as her claws pulled free sent a shower of bloody spray across the living room, dappling the ceiling and the walls. This time the pain was jagged, raw and angry, pulsing.

“My face!” she screamed, launching herself back at me.

I moved with vampiric alacrity. Heartbeats faster than she could strike, I rolled backward and to my feet with a grace I hadn’t had since ballet class, pressing my back against the door.

“Your claws may be bigger, but the wounds mine make don’t heal,” I lied. “When I’m done with you, you’ll be lucky if you can pay a man to look at you, much less touch you.”

I took a step forward, claws raised to strike. She reared back, feinting with her right hand. I dodged to the left to avoid her deadly claws, and fell right into her trap. As I moved, she dropped into a low crouch, knocking my feet out from under me with a leg sweep. She got in two more slashes before I landed. The first slash caught me in the belly and wasn’t too deep, but the second dug into my left breast and I heard her claws scratching against my breastbone.

I hit the floor right on top of the broken vase and then rolled up into a ball, clutching my breast. Veruca slashed at my back, cutting easily through my sequined top and flaying me open to the spine. I knew Eric could take injuries like this and laugh them off, but I wasn’t Eric and it hurt more than anything I had ever felt.

“How do you like that, pussycat?” Veruca taunted.

I didn’t like it at all, not that I could have replied anyway. Pain was my world and I wallowed in it. Veruca continued to slash at my exposed back, but the more she hurt me, the more I began to drift away from the pain. It was there, but it was being replaced with another feeling. Outrage, maybe? I was a queen, after all, and she was merely a Soldier.

Then a funny new sensation rose in my chest, the outrage mixed with something else: disdain. Before, when I had lashed out verbally at the Drone, I had felt the same thing. I lashed out with it again, now, but not verbally; more than voice and yet less. My mental voice screamed, not in terror, but in utter fury that a lesser vampire would dare to treat me this way. Me—her better!I may be only two days old, my mental voice proclaimed,but a queen is still a queen!

She paused for three seconds and three seconds only, but three seconds can be an eternity when you’re fighting a vampire. It was more than enough time for me to roll over and lock eyes with her. “Who’s the badass now?” I shouted.

My vision tinged with red and I knew my eyes were glowing. I pushed my will right in through her eyes and down into her little brain, just like Eric had done to me the night before. In my mind’s eye, tiny invisible strings affixed themselves to her arms, legs, and head. She fought back, but she had no depth. There was hardly anything to fight.

We stayed there, eyes locked, while my wounds healed. I don’t know how long it took, a minute, two minutes, five, but once I felt whole again, I stood slowly, making sure to keep eye contact with Veruca the entire time. I grabbed the sides of her head and pulled her to her feet, willing her to stand. I walked us over to a large framed photograph of a marina that hung on one wall, feeling like a puppeteer working a life-size marionette.

Talbot was saying something outside, but I didn’t have time to answer. I could feel Veruca fighting me, trying to buy a second or two of freedom so she could tear out my throat. Smashing the picture with my left hand, I snapped the bottom of the wooden frame loose and thrust it through Veruca’s heart to immobilize her. Or at least, that was the plan.

It didn’t work like in the movies, though, and my first thrust hadn’t been hard enough to penetrate all the way to her heart. I glanced down at the stake, remembering Percy and mentally checking biology. I’d rammed it against her sternum, splintering the shard of wood and deflecting it into the side of her breast. I instantly realized my mistake. Stake jutting through the ripped front of her shirt, Veruca head-butted me and shoved me away from her. I grabbed for her shirt to steady myself, but it ripped, coming free in my hand, and I landed on my ass.

“You are so dead, bitch!” Veruca yelled. She kicked at my face and I twisted away, catching a glancing blow to my cheek. I threw her tattered shirt back in her face as she stumbled, put off balance by the kick. I got a good look at the cute little frog tattoo she had above her pelvis when I grabbed her leg and hurled her across the room.

Vampire strength is fun for the whole family. She flew over the coffee table and crashed through a pressed-wood closet door, bringing coats and jackets down on top of her. I glanced around the room for something wood, something sturdier than the picture frame. The coffee table was glass and the chair legs looked like metal. Damn it.

In the closet, Veruca roared, clawing at the jackets as she got to her feet. Her head bumped the top shelf in the closet, sending a shoe box tumbling and spilling its contents—a pair of leather gloves with scorched palms and an unmistakable pearl-handled six-shooter—onto the floor.

Veruca grabbed for the gun, wincing as the crosses on the butt smoked against her skin. I launched myself over the coffee table at her, grabbing for the stake, but she pulled away from me and it popped free of her chest.

She fired once, twice, missing both times either because the pain in her hands threw off her aim, or because I was moving too quickly. I darted in low, under the gun, thrusting the stake in at an angle under her ribs. The gun barked again, pain lanced through my shoulder, and she froze, hands flaming asEl Alma Perdida tumbled from her limp fingers. The little frog tattoo flashed bright white and vanished. I was afraid that she might do the same. Her skin began to melt away, followed by the muscle underneath. Her skull opened its mouth in a silent scream and then her entire skeleton exploded into ashes with a loudfwoosh . I’d killed her. I felt sick to my stomach.

At least I’d found the gun. Eric would be pleased with me. Smoke poured out of a nice neat hole in my shoulder where the third bullet had passed clean through. Talbot and I were going to have to dig three bullets out of the wall.

Dropping the stake, I walked over to the door. “Unlock?” I asked it tentatively, wondering how the hell we were going to get the door open if Veruca’s death hadn’t reset it. I guessed killing her had broken the spell, or maybe it was that I still had her dust on my hands, but when I touched the doorknob, the door pulsed blue and opened easily.

Talbot stepped inside and looked at the pile of ash, the broken bit of picture frame, and the blood covering the floor. Finally he looked at me, my clothes in shreds and covered in blood, most of it mine.

“A stake through the heart kills Soldiers and Drones,” he observed. “Bet she wishes she’d made Master.”

“Yeah,” I agreed numbly. I kept expecting her to re-form like Dracula did in the movies, and while I knew that was possible for me, since I was a Vlad, for herpoof seemed to pretty much meanpoof . “I wonder when security’s going to get here.”

“They won’t.” Talbot smirked. “Veruca swung first, and she’s not a resident.” He picked upEl Alma Perdida . “Eric will be glad to see this.” Gun in hand, he walked across the room and dug three perfectly preserved bullets, casings and all, out of the wall. “That’s just weird,” he said after reloading the gun and returning it to the shoe box.

I sat down in one of the chairs, the bullet wound still throbbing. It was healing very slowly, not like the other wounds, where I could literally feel them closing. Talbot looked down at me, his eyes softening. “You did good. Are you hungry?”

I noticed his heart speeding up as he asked me. Sexual excitement rolled off of him in waves. Talbot ripped open his already ruined shirt, exposing his muscular, chocolate-colored chest. Watching me intently, he popped a claw, drawing it lazily down his body, blood welling up along the wound.

His blood smelled strong and powerful, but more importantly, it was warm and so was he. My hunger awoke with a need almost as overwhelming as when I’d first risen. “I thought I didn’t have anything you were interested in,” I said coyly.

Three magic words left his mouth, almost as strong and powerful asI love you . “I was wrong.”

The need for blood permeates everything when you’re hungry, gets confused with other hungers. At that moment there was no difference between the hunger for blood and the hunger for sex. I leapt on him with animal glee, licking the long line of blood off his chest. He shivered and his excitement ignited mine. I wanted him inside me and he didn’t resist as I fumbled with his belt, lapping at his bloody chest while I pushed down his pants.

He slipped off my pants and panties, awkwardly because I wouldn’t lift my lips from his chest. I dove for the artery pulsing in his thigh, but he caught my head and forced me up to his neck. I pushed him back onto the coffee table, following him down, and it shattered, but I didn’t care. Talbot began to protest, but I sank down onto him and he snarled with pleasure.

His hands cupped my breasts and he seemed only slightly startled when I sank my fangs into his neck, penetrating him in my own way.

When he tired, I made him keep going and he did everything I asked and more, like a dying man following the orders of the one person who can give him water. Sex with a warm, breathing person was more than I could have explained. No wonder Eric liked to sleep with the living. They are so alive, so hot, and so full of blood. When I was finally sated, I lay sprawled on his chest, wearing nothing but my diamond necklace, and listened to him breathe, wondering when we’d left the remains of the glass table and found our way to Roger’s bed. Tiny wisps of smoke rose from the little scratches Talbot had given me.

“I bet you’ve never done that with Eric,” I teased.

“Definitely not,” he laughed. “He’s even less my type than I thought you were.”

“Why do you stay with him?” I asked.

Talbot’s beautifully massive chest rose and fell deeply. “He’s a unique individual—worth protecting. You could say he awakens in me an infinite curiosity.”

“And me?”

He blinked and smiled, showing me his fangs. “You’re unique, too. I find you almost as curious as I find Eric.”

“I still love Eric, you know,” I told him seriously.

His eyes flashed and the pupils became slits. “I’m glad. If you fell in love with me, it would end badly for one of us. Eric would kill me or perhaps eventually you would kill me. After all, my kind is incapable of the kind of love you more human types feel for each other. Our bonds are based on dominance, mutual need, and, at most, a deep and abiding fondness.”

I still didn’t understand what Talbot was, but I felt I understood him. Maybe he was some strange cat-human hybrid, or perhaps he had lied about not being a lycanthrope. The romantic in me liked to think it was a spell. Anything was possible. I’d met a wizard, become a vampire. Perhaps Lord Phillip himself had trapped Talbot in the body of a man, as punishment, like with Percy. No, that didn’t sound right. Talbot had described himself as a sacred guardian, a noble hunter. To me, that said: cat. Obviously not a normal cat, but a magic one. I wondered absently if it counted as bestiality if you had sex with an animal that had been turned humanoid.

I lay there, trying to bask in his warmth, in the afterglow of our intimacy, but the moment was gone. A final curl of smoke drifted up from the shallow scratches around my breasts and my pale skin was whole once more, as if the act itself had not taken place, leaving me empty and restless. Talbot had been a nice substitute, but I craved Eric.

I got up, found Roger’s shower and washed the last traces of combat from my body. Once I was dry, I started going through Veruca’s clothes. She’d been smaller than me, in every way, and her clothes tended to be one size too small for her already. Not having to breathe enhances a vampire’s ability to dress for effect, but it also meant that there wasn’t anything in her closet that fit me. Which left me my panties, my shoes, and my diamond necklace. The pants had long rents in them and I didn’t want to put back on what was left of the sequined top.

“What the hell am I supposed to wear?” I asked, holding the remains of my clothes and shaking them in Talbot’s general direction.

“I think that outfit suits you just fine,” Talbot murmured throatily from where he was sprawled on the bed.

I rolled my eyes and changed into a cat.

“That suits you even more.” He wasn’t teasing.

I changed back, in further exasperation.Poof …clothes. Yay me! The clothes I’d been wearing were new again and I wasn’t holding them in my hands anymore, I was wearing them. The magic that had repaired them left them feeling right-out-of-the-dryer warm.

“Now, that’s something I’ve seen only Eric do.” Talbot rolled out of the bed, naked. He stretched and yawned, his fangs and claws popping out midway through and retracting at the end. He flexed at me and I admired him openly. He was taller than Eric and more heavily muscled. His dark skin was sleek, almost glossy, and stood out in perfect contrast to the red satin sheets. The picture he made was incredibly alluring, and I considered taking off my newly created clothes. Just because I was in love with Eric didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy a little companionship from the living. What was good for the goose…

“How does it work?” I asked softly, placing my hand on Talbot’s shoulder.

“With Eric it seems to work automatically,” he told me. “When he changes shape, unless he’s paying close attention, it changes whatever he was wearing into the same jeans and T-shirt outfit he prefers. I mentioned it to him in El Segundo, but I’m sure he’s forgotten by now. Not that it matters much since he wears the same damn thing every day.”

“I think he looks nice,” I said defensively.

Talbot laughed at that, and I couldn’t help but join in.

23

ERIC:

NO GOOD NEWS

With no music playing in the Demon Heart, no crowd, not even Marilyn or one of the girls getting ready to open the club or shut it down, the silence ate at my nerves. I needed something to block out the sound of the oni out front jabbering back and forth at each other in Japanese in between mouthfuls of dead werewolf.

I thought about ordering a pizza—Italian sausage, black olives, mushrooms, and daikon—just so I could smell it, look at it, feel the warmth of the box.

I don’t know what daikon tastes like, but I’m fond of the smell and I’m curious. Few things are more annoying than a curious vampire. If the smell of a particular food entices us, we want to make people eat it, so they can describe the taste to us. The best description I’d gotten of daikon was “kind of like a pickle, but not.” How can something that looks like a big white carrot taste like a pickle, but not? Did they do something to it first? The question vexed me.

Greta sat across Marilyn’s desk from me, playing with a staple remover, pretending it was a shark or a vampire, something with fangs. The phone rang in my office across the street and Rachel stirred in her sleep, but didn’t wake. On the third ring, Greta heard it too.

“Phone’s ringing,” she told me.

“I know.”

“You want me to go and—”

“No,” I said too quickly. “Just wait a minute.” My brain wouldn’t process what she’d told me about my “uber vamp” form. How could I have been turning into a giant, black-skinned, leather-winged beast thing off and on since 1965 and not know it, not even have had an inkling beyond the understanding that I blacked out when I got really mad? It was like Bruce Banner not knowing about the Hulk.

I didn’t want to think about who was setting me up, either. If I’d known where the investigation had been likely to lead, I never would have looked into it. I would have taken on the werewolves without question. A wise man once said “Ignorance is bliss,” and he was right. I wanted Veruca to be behind everything, needed it. I wanted to forget about the check I’d seen where Roger had forged my name. I wished Roger had dotted his damni’ s.

So I concentrated on the pizza. If I gave up on the daikon, I could call one of the big pizza chains, but if I wanted the daikon, I had to wait until Jackie’s opened at six. I could get Jackie to put anything I wanted on a pizza, even if he had to run down to the Asian market. Jackie knows about vampires, and if you let him know that your order is for eating in front of one of us, he tacks on an extra 50 percent surcharge and makes it look like it does in the pictures on the menu.

I remembered sitting in his diner with Roger watching Froggy, still Veruca then, eat a Reuben. It’s a big deal for vampires to share their food porn like that, proof of our long friendship.

The phone rang in Marilyn’s office and I jumped, startled. It wasn’t supposed to do that. I glanced at it suspiciously. For all I knew the phone was undergoing a demonic transformation. It certainly seemed like the week for it. It rang a second and a third time before I answered it. It was Talbot; I recognized his breathing.

“How did you get through to this phone?” I asked. “Didn’t Marilyn transfer the calls to her home number?”

“Star six eight,” he answered.

“Huh?”

“It forwards the call, but only if the number dialed is busy or there’s no answer…. Look, don’t worry about it. I tried you at the Pollux first.”

He sounded upset. Tough shit, it wasn’t all blow jobs and balloons for me either. “Did you know that I turn into some sort of rampaging berserker flying vampire thing when I lose my temper?”

Talbot scoffed. “Of course.”

“Even Talbot knows! Am I the only fucking person around who doesn’t know I’ve got go-go gadget bat wings?” I yelled, holding the receiver about a foot from my face. I hung up the phone and threw up my hands.

Greta acted sympathetic, but I could tell that she was trying to hold back her laughter.

“Who else knows?” I asked her. Before she could respond, the phone rang again. It was Talbot. “Does Marilyn know?” I asked him.

“I…I think so,” Talbot answered. I hung up on him again and cast a disparaging look at Greta.

“Even Marilyn knows! Why does nobody tell me these things?” Greta watched me as I paced the room angrily. Small snorts of nasal laughter escaped despite her best attempts to hold them back. “It’s not funny, damn it!”

Greta couldn’t even speak. Tears of blood rolled down the sides of her face and she burst out laughing. Loud obnoxious guffaws filled the room punctuated by a periodic “I’m so sorry” or “I know it’s not funny.” She clutched her sides, sliding farther down in her chair, leaving me staring at her in impotent rage and disbelief.

The phone rang and I picked it up before the first ring finished. “I swear to God, Talbot, if Tabitha knows, I am going to fucking kill somebody!”

“I don’t think she d—” Talbot began.

I hung up the phone again and put my hands on my hips. “Well, at least there is one person who is as clueless as me. Of course it’s frickin’ Tabitha.”

More laughter erupted from Greta and she began to gasp for air in a way that looked absolutely human.

“It’s not that funny!” I yelled, standing over her.

She nodded her head. “Yes, it is,” she gasped. “Hello, Talbot? Blah blah blah. Click.”

I didn’t get it. Maybe that was funny in a women-are-from-Venus way, but here on Mars, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. The phone rang again and I picked it up. “Talbot, I think Greta has gone loopy. She’s over here laughing her head off like it’s some big joke. I’ve been a vampire for over forty years and nobody bothered to—”

“You have a collect call from ‘Talbot,’” interrupted a mechanical voice. “Will you accept the charges?”

“Yes,” I answered. Why was Talbot calling collect?

“Talbot?” I asked.

“Yes,” he answered, drawing out the word. He sounded pretty ticked off.

“Why the hell are you calling collect?”

“Because, if you’ll pardon my language, some asshole keeps hanging up on me and I thought that if you had to listen to the operator first, you might actually stop and pay attention!”

Talbot didn’t usually yell. Greta stopped laughing and climbed back into her chair. Her chest was still heaving a little, but she had control of herself. I breathed in and out deeply a few times to calm myself. I don’t need oxygen, but the act of breathing triggered a physical memory, giving it much the same effect. “Okay, sorry. I’m ready to pay attention now; it’s just a big shock to find out something like that.”

“I’m sure it was,” he interrupted, enunciating slowly and clearly. “I’m sorry none of us knew how to tell you, but I need you to listen right now. Okay?”

“Sure.”

“If you hang up on me again, I’m going to come over there while you’re asleep and put a big ‘jackass’ tattoo on your forehead. Do you understand?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes.”

“Okay. Good. The good news is that we found the gun.”

I slapped Marilyn’s desk. “Hot damn!”

“Veruca had it.”

“What did she have to say for herself?”

“Not much, but it’s pretty clear she’s the one who shot the werewolves you found at Orchard Lake.”

“Did you get her to tell you why she left one of the bullets behind?”

“No, and I don’t quite know how to tell you this, Eric, but we found her at Roger’s place.”

“Was he all right?” I asked.

“He wasn’t there,” Talbot answered. “But you have to consider the possibility that he is wrapped up in all of this.”

“That’s crap, Talbot,” I said, determined to deny it.

“He’s been covering for her,” Talbot said patiently. “He took you to a hockey game, got you drunk, and let eighteen werewolves try to kill you.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Eric,” Talbot said. “Where is he right now? Did you call him?”

“No, I haven’t called him yet. Greta and I ran into some werewolves here at the club. Real Lycan Diocese types that William called in.”

“You both okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, no problems here. Tiko and some of his cousins are taking care of the bodies for us.”

“Good. Now listen. I want you to go back to the alley where you fought the Alpha’s son. He was killed at Thirteenth Street and Eleventh Avenue. I want you to go there and see if you recognize it.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t trust Roger, damn it!” he snapped. I heard him take a deep breath and his next words were calmer. “He gave Veruca that night off and she had the gun with her. We can’t ask Lillian where she picked you up, because Tabitha killed her when she went loco.”

“Talbot, I did kill a werewolf in an alley.”

“I believe you, boss.” He sighed. “I just want to make sure you killed the werewolf that you think you killed.”

“Ask Froggy,” I said. “Make her tell you.”

“I would if I could, Eric, but Tabitha put a stake through her heart.”

“Poof, huh?”

“Poof,” he confirmed. “We found the gun before Tabitha fell asleep. It looks like Veruca was wearing leather gloves in order to fire it. They’re scorched through on the palms. The silver crosses on the grip must have burned her even through the leather.”

“It can happen,” I said noncommittally.

“I think I’ll hole up here with Tabitha until she wakes up tomorrow.”

“And what if Roger comes home?”

“I don’t think he will,” Talbot said. “The sun will be up too soon. Roger takes a lot more sleep than you do and he’d never cut it this close. Wherever he is, I think he’ll stay there until sunset. Besides, he hasn’t been here since Friday. I don’t think he’s going to come back until this whole thing is over.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s setting you up. Veruca was the fall guy in case anything went wrong.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said flatly.

“If you don’t believe it, then check the alley.”

“I—”

“Eric, please. Will you check the damn alley?”

No, Talbot, I can’t, I wanted to say. I don’t want to look in the damn alley. If Roger set me up, I don’t want to frickin’ know about it.

“Fine,” I answered, “and thanks.”

Greta and I walked back across to the Pollux. The bodies and trucks were all gone. Tiko and his crew had worked fast. “So, who else knows?” I asked her as we walked.

“About the alley?”

“No,” I said. “About the super vamp thing.”

“Dad, I don’t know.” She put her arm around my shoulders, emphasizing the fact that she was over two inches taller than me. “But look on the bright side. Most of the people who knew got killed before they could tell anyone. I’ll bet Roger doesn’t even know, with the way he runs away from fights so fast.”

Reminded of Roger, I plopped down onto the sofa in the Pollux’s lobby and punched buttons on my cell phone until it decided to dial his number for me.

“Hello?” The voice on the other end sounded strange, like he was whispering into the receiver from the bottom of a giant tin bucket.

“Roger?”

“Yeah. Dude. I’ve been trying to call you. Why the hell did you close the club? Marilyn says you sent everyone home with pay.”

“You talked to Marilyn?”

“I’m at her place now. She needed a little help. Seems some asshole broke her arm.”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. It was a classic Roger deflection. Question: Roger, why are you trying to put my club out of bussiness? Answer: Hey, do you remember that time you broke Marilyn’s arm?

“Same asshole killed Brian,” I blurted.

“What?” he demanded. “You killed Brian? Why?”

Why? What an interesting question. I didn’t know why. Another good question was why Roger didn’t seem more upset about it.

“Because he annoyed me, I guess,” I said vaguely. “I don’t remember.”

“It’s all right, man. He was always picking fights with you and it wasn’t like he hadn’t been warned.”

“He was your friend, though. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Roger assured me. “He was just a Soldier.”

Huh. I wonder if he would’ve responded the same way if he’d known Tabitha had killed Froggy. Besides, Brian hadn’t been a Soldier, he’d been a Master. What the fuck?

I tried another tack. “Do you know anything about a check for thirty thousand dollars to some guy named Fergus?” I asked.

“I’d been meaning to ask you about it,” Roger countered. “You can’t just spend money like that without clearing it first. We’re flush and it’s not a problem this time, but what if I hadn’t had enough money in that account to cover it? The money moves around, man. I gotta keep it working for us, not just sitting in an account in case you overspend.”

You fucking liar,I wanted to scream,you’re behind everything! Then, again, this was Roger and he could have been covering up for something else, maybe just some run-of-the-mill embezzlement. If that was the case, I didn’t care. He’d always taken a little without asking. When an investment deal paid off later, he’d slip it back in and tell me I’d okayed everything. It usually worked out.

“Yeah,” I whispered, “my mistake.”Please just be embezzling money, I thought at him.

“Gotta let you go, pal,” he said. “I want to hunt before I turn in.”

“Which gives you what,” I said, checking the clock, “fifteen minutes?” Roger had to be lying to me. He always hunts first thing. “You’re going to hunt and make it back to your place in fifteen minutes from Marilyn’s?” I willed him to say yes. If he said yes then—

“No,” he answered. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I have a place nearby. Look, don’t worry about it, Mom. I’ll be fine, but I’ve got to go if I’m going to hunt. Like you said, fifteen minutes.”

“How close by?” I asked, but he was already off the line.

Rachel was up and moving; I could hear her rummaging around downstairs in the dressing room she’d confiscated. “Sounds like the Pierced Princess is awake,” Greta said snidely.

I shushed her and walked upstairs to my office, opened my desk drawer, and pulled out a pair of sunglasses to conceal my eyes, since I didn’t want to scare anyone without meaning to do so. Eyes safely covered, I went back down to the dressing room and checked on Rachel.

She was naked except for a pair of lacy white panties. Her scent filled my nostrils and I pulled her into my arms. God, she was warm. She kissed me and I caught a faint hint of cinnamon.

“You smell nice,” I told her. “I keep smelling cinnamon around you, but only sometimes.”

“It’s a special trick for girls with vampire boyfriends.”

I let her step back and playfully tugged one of her piercings. “More fun facts from the Irons Club?”

She let out a little sigh followed by a wicked grin. “Do we have any plans or do we get to play all day?”

It was tempting, but I walked away from her, toward the door. “As much as I’d like to, I need you to take me for a walk.”

“Does it have to be right now?” Rachel ran her hands suggestively over her breasts.

“Yes,” I insisted, ignoring the part of my anatomy that disagreed. “You can get a shower over at the Demon Heart if you need one.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Do I?”

I shook my head. “No, but I thought I’d offer.”

She smiled. “Are we taking a cab?”

“It’s only three blocks,” I answered. “Get dressed and bring your purse.”

I walked out past Greta, who was leaning against the wall in the hallway.

“Do I need a shower, Dad? Can I use the one over at the Demon Heart? Can I? Please?”

Ignoring her as best I could, I went back to my office to wait for Rachel. Soon I heard a loud thump, the sound a body makes when it hits the floor. “Sun’s up,” I muttered to myself. Out in the hall, Greta lay in a heap. Dawn always hits her hard and like me, she never seems to remember that it’s coming. I don’t know if she does it on purpose to be more like me or not, but I find it endearing in a dysfunctional sire sort of way. Unlike me, she’s impossible to wake up during the day. At least when she wakes each evening she’s cheerful and well rested. Some days I envy her. I picked her up in my arms and carried her back to my Pollux bedroom, tucked her in, and kissed her on the forehead.

“You ready?” Rachel called from the doorway. “How am I walking with you somewhere, anyway? You’re not going to turn into a virus and infect me are you?” Her heart rate sped up. “I mean, it’s okay if you are, I guess. It’s just that…”

I turned into a mouse and back again, the rapid transition feeling only slightly more comfortable than a shot to the nuts. I really needed to stop showing off for this girl. “I want you to jog up to the intersection of Thirteenth Street and Eleventh Avenue with me in your purse.”

She knelt down and opened her purse on the floor. It was smaller than I was happy with, but it was leather and I doubted enough sun would get through the material to be a problem. I admired the view down Rachel’s top before transforming. Rachel zipped me up in her purse and away we went.

I really wanted Talbot to be wrong, but in the back of my furry little undead mind, I already knew that he wasn’t. Roger had betrayed me. Froggy was too stupid to come up with a plan so complex on her own. I don’t know if he wanted me dead—I hoped he didn’t—but he definitely wanted me at odds with William. Maybe that’s all there was to it. Maybe he wanted me to kill William and knew that I wouldn’t do it just for shits and giggles, so he’d arranged for William to come after me, knowing that I’d be able to defend myself.

But why?

Deep down, it didn’t matter why he’d done what he’d done. He’d betrayed me and I’d found out about it. I silently hated him for not being clever enough to slip it all past me.Dot your damn i’s,I thought again. If only he’d done a better job of forging the check. If only he hadn’t lied about it. If only we could go back to being best friends, like none of this had ever happened….

24

ERIC:

THE OTHER SHOE

Checking out the alley took about an hour, but only because I made Rachel investigate all four intersections that were three blocks from the club. If Talbot’s suspicions were correct, then two werewolves had been killed three blocks from the Demon Heart at the same time. I’d killed one and Froggy had killed the other.

We found the place where I’d killed Brian first. I knew it was the right alley because long scratches in the concrete showed where I’d dragged the Dumpster to the sidewalk. I examined the scene from the safety of the shadows. That alley, at Thirteenth Street and Fifth Avenue, had been completely cleaned. The Dumpster wasn’t there anymore, but the wall still bore a scorch mark from where I’d beat my head out when I’d caught fire.

We checked Thirteenth Street and Eleventh Avenue last. The odor of gunpowder and werewolf permeated the site. It wasn’t the scent of the werewolf I’d killed. This one smelled stronger, more primal. I smelled Veruca in the alley, too, and sex. What pissed me off the most, though, was the smell of my own blood. Someone had siphoned some off of me and sprayed it on the walls. Werewolves have a better sense of smell than vampires; I wondered momentarily if William thought I’d slept with Froggy there, rolling around in his son’s remains.

“Son of a bitch,” I said, standing in a shadow. “Talbot was right. Roger played me. Why the fuck would he do that?”

“Maybe it isn’t what it looks like,” Rachel offered. “Maybe he didn’t know what to do. Maybe he knew that the werewolves were after his girlfriend. He could have been scared.”

“So he set them on my trail because he knew they couldn’t kill me?” I asked.

“Maybe,” Rachel said with a shrug.

“Nah, I don’t think so. He sent Veruca out here to kill Willie Junior so that Willie Senior would come after me. He sent Veruca to kill the werewolves at Orchard Lake because he wanted to make sure I didn’t talk it over with William and make peace. He’s behind everything. I wonder if he’s still over at Marilyn’s.”

Cars whizzed past dangerously on Eleventh Street heading for the interstate on-ramp one block down. I stood along the edge of the shadows and watched the people inside. Were any of their best friends trying to screw them over? Fucking their spouses, cheating on them, framing them for murder? What would Roger say if I confronted him? And why did the thought of him having a place close to Marilyn’s apartment suddenly make me queasy?She’ll be fine , I told myself. Besides, like a lot of vampires, Roger slept all day, every day.

I was going to ask Rachel to drive me over there when horns honked on the street outside the mouth of the alley and two identical trucks, one black and the other blue, peeled past on the wrong side of the road, within ten feet of me. In the back of one of the trucks, I saw a big metal box studded with crosses, secured to the bed of the truck with elastic cords. I thought I heard a scream.

Instinctively, I took off after them, running right out of the shadows into the sun.

“Shit!” I jumped back into the shadows, on fire again. “Fuck!”

“We need to get back to the Pollux,” I growled after I’d dropped and rolled to put out the flames. “Run.”

The Pollux felt wrong. I knew it the moment Rachel panted across the threshold and let me out of her purse. Old buildings have moods, especially those full of personality, like the Pollux. She had once been a grand affair, a celebrated showplace, and the center of attention. Now she had been reduced to a quaint old memory of better days. She was distressed about something; a palpable sense of anxiety resonated through her. Something was out of place. Something was wrong. Rachel seemed to feel it too. It was as if, while we were away, the proverbial other shoe had dropped.

“Greta,” I said under my breath. Rachel and I both hit the stairs running, but I was in full-on combat mode and had already thrown open the door to my bedroom by the time Rachel was clearing the fifth step. My bed had been made and the sink had been cleaned. It even looked like my towel had been washed and dried. Maybe Greta had woken up early and headed out, but it wasn’t like her to clean stuff up and she’d only been asleep for an hour, tops. She had to have been taken.

I went into my office, and noticed some stuff had been moved around. The light on my answering machine was blinking. I pushedPLAY as Rachel walked in and closed the door behind her.

“I have your whore,” growled a voice. It was the same voice I’d heard on the answering machine when Kyle died: William. “Your Jezebel is with me. Is it true that you make her call you Daddy? How can you compare this twisted unholy family you have created to the son you stole from me? The brethren you killed? Their souls cry out for vengeance. ‘Vengeance is mine,’ sayeth the Lord, but I am his instrument. Through me you will be returned unto the dust from which you came.

“This time you will come to me, vampire. You will walk into the sunlight and face us in a place of our own choosing. Come for your so-called daughter to Bald Mountain State Park, Campground B. If you are not here by five p.m., I will end her miserable sinful existence once and for all, freeing her soul from its cage so that God may judge her and she may receive her eternal damnation.”

Rachel hugged me from behind and cinnamon filled the air. I didn’t even feel angry, just empty. She whispered her sweet nonsense words into my ear and told me everything was going to be okay. I turned to her and before I knew it we were kissing. My daughter needed me. I didn’t have time for this, but I couldn’t stop myself. Rachel helped me out of my clothes, undressing herself in the process. I was lost in her warmth, her need, and the beating of her heart. Her own natural smell blended with the cinnamon on her breath and I couldn’t stop myself.

As we neared climax, writhing on top of my desk, she put both hands on my chest to support herself and looked deep into my eyes. “Bite me, Eric. I need it and you need it.”

I held back. She seemed okay, but I had never fed on the same person so many times in succession, not even Tabitha. “It’ll be okay, baby,” she said. She ran her left hand across the top of my head. “You’ll know when to stop.” Her hand moved over my forehead. “I trust you.” She touched my throat. Her hands wandered lower, touching lightly over my heart and on my belly. She reached between us to cup the base of my testicles.

It wasn’t right. It felt completely wrong. A line of heat shot through my body from the crown of my head to my groin where she still moved, grinding against me. Internal alarms were going off in my head, but I couldn’t interpret them properly. She kept moving on top of me, but slowed her rhythm, prolonging the inevitable. “Please,” she whispered. The smell of cinnamon replaced everything; it was the only odor in the room, overwhelming all else. I bit into her neck, white pinpricks of light searing my vision. My teeth went numb, fangs retracting, and my taste buds awoke, assaulted by stimuli to all their receptors, as if I’d bitten into a jalapeño rather than an eighteen-year-old girl.

My heart spurred to life, beating as if it might burst from my chest. I couldn’t breathe properly; each breath came fast and furious, too short and too quick. Heat spread across my body from the core outward. I stopped drinking and we both cried out in unison, reaching completion.

In Rachel’s eyes, I could see a vague reflection of myself. Hazy, but me. I didn’t want to look at myself, not in her eyes, not in a mirror. Purple light flickered from my eyes and the reflection faded. An urge to hurl her against the wall, to break her in half, to fight her, fight something, came out of nowhere, but I suppressed it. Cinnamon was replaced by the smell of sweat and sex. She looked down at me, her wide eyes torn between terror and exhilaration.

“Are you going to eat me, baby?” she cooed.

“What are you doing to me?” I asked breathlessly.

“Making you feel alive,” she said as she collapsed on my chest. Her heart was racing too. Mine began to slow to a stop. “It’s what I’m supposed to do. I want to be your thrall. A thrall does her best to make her master forget the things he has lost in order to gain immortality. A good thrall is supposed to train several replacements and then join the master in unlife, but I don’t want to be a vampire, Eric. I just want to be yours.”

“Bullshit,” I mouthed.

We lay there for a while without moving and I felt my body grow cold once more. The clock said 09:43. We had wasted over an hour, basking in the aftermath of my inability to resist Rachel’s advances. This wasn’t like me and I knew it.

Well,inappropriate sex was all me, but usually, when things need killing or my friends are in danger, sex takes a backseat. I told myself that I had hours to spare and that was why I went ahead with it, but I was lying to myself.

My little cinnamon girl was more than she appeared to be and the whole “it’s a thrall thing” excuse was wearing thin. If all thralls could do what Rachel could do, then Roger would have had one. Hell, it had been Roger who’d told me that thralls were little more than slaves, that any human who became a thrall descended into madness, like Renfield. I wondered if he’d lied, and why.

“Thralls.” I gently pushed her up and she rolled off of me. “Is there a way to tell who is a thrall and who isn’t?”

“Sure,” Rachel answered, surprised. “You should be able to tell just by looking at them and thinking about it.”

I started putting my clothes back on and Rachel did the same. “Really? How? Do they have big glowing signs over their heads that say ‘I belong to X,’ or what?”

Rachel looked puzzled as she slipped her bra back on. She put it on backward, fastened up the hooks, and then slid them around to the back. She flipped the cups up to cover her breasts and put her arms through the straps before pulling them up onto her shoulders. I’d never paid attention to how women got dressed. I wondered if Tabitha did it the same way. I’d probably seen her get dressed a thousand times and I didn’t know how she did it.

“I think it’s supposed to be similar to the way Vlads and Masters sense each other, except that even Soldiers can have thralls. Only Drones can’t.”

Which was not what Roger had told me. “I thought only Vlads could make thralls.”

“Who told you that?” She looked like it was the dumbest thing she’d ever heard.

“Roger.” Rachel’s heart skipped a beat when I answered. She continued getting dressed, but I stood there in my underwear, watching her. “So I should get a sense of age and power, but it would be the thrall’s master I was sensing?”

“Yes, you should get a sense of the vampire, probably a mental image of the master overlaid on an image of the thrall.”

For forty years, I’d gotten all that I knew about vampires from talking to Roger. Big mistake. “So do a lot of high society vampires have thralls?”

“Sure,” she said. “They’re a status symbol. Who has the most attractive, the most talented, that sort of thing.”

So Roger would have known. He hadn’t just been mistaken; his had been a deliberate deception.

“You’ve really never sensed a thrall before?” Rachel asked.

My attitude toward other vampires meant that I didn’t know many of them, but Roger knew all the most important ones around. I had steered clear of vampire society…or had Roger steered me clear of it? I had trouble remembering which way it had been. But how had I never sensed even one thrall before? “No, I haven’t. Not that I’ve noticed.”

She shrugged and slipped her blouse on. “Maybe you have to make one before you can sense them.”

“No,” I said immediately, stepping into my jeans.

“No what?” she asked innocently.

“I’m not making you my thrall. You seem to be doing just fine with what you’ve learned from those friends of yours at the Irons Club.” I looked around for my shirt, found it in the wastebin next to my desk. I shook the little bits of paper off of it and slid it over my head.

“You need me, Eric,” she said as she put a hand on my chest. I brushed her hand away and finished pulling my shirt on. She took a step away, but I could still feel the warmth where she’d touched me. “What if it would help you find Greta? You might be able to sense vampires better, too…those that are yours, anyway.”

“How does that follow?”

“You know how sires don’t sense their children?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, that’s not strictly true. When you sense another vampire, you don’t sense them all the time, right?”

“Just until you’ve acknowledged each other,” I agreed.

“Yep, and then when you get out of each other’s range and come back into contact…”

“You sense each other again.”

“Well, the reason sire and offspring don’t sense each other is that they’re always linked.”

“But if that’s true, then I should be able to sense something, shouldn’t I? Because I can’t sense Greta or Tabitha.”

“You need to practice. Which is why you need to make me your thrall. Thralls help focus a vampire’s mental abilities. In time, the most powerful vampires can learn to see, hear, and in rare occasions even taste through their thralls.”

“No,” I insisted. She sat down on the edge of my desk, crestfallen.

“Not even if it can help you find Greta?”

“I know where Greta is! She’s in Bald Mountain State Park, Campground B, like the man said.”

“He could have been lying,” Rachel argued. “What werewolves always tell the truth? What if Greta is already dead and—”

I put my hand over her mouth. “Be quiet and let me think.”

She nodded, eyes wide.

Rachel had been right about everything so far and she seemed to genuinely want to help, but no one dates a vampire unless they want something. It was possible she was just in it for the danger and the thrill, but I doubted it. She had to have an ulterior motive. Or was I just being paranoid? It wouldn’t be the first time.

And yet—when we’d had sex, why had I suddenly viewed her as a threat? And what was that feeling that made me want her incessantly? It was something more than lust, but much less natural than love. It probably had something to do with cinnamon.

Still—I didn’t see how it could hurt to bind her to me. And, most importantly, I’d do anything for Greta. Even this.

I took my hand away from her mouth. “Okay.”

Rachel let out an exhilarated yip and began bouncing up and down. If it was an act, it was a good one. She seemed genuinely excited. Then again, bouncing up and down like she was doing would accelerate her heart rate. I looked at Rachel in a whole new light and waited to smell cinnamon. “Can we do it now?” she said, rushing into my arms.

“How do we do it?” I kissed her neck. “Does it involve sex?” I tugged at her blouse and she removed it with a laugh. Still no cinnamon.

“No, but I’m ready any time you are, lover.” Damn.

I lifted her off the desk and kissed her breasts through her bra. She wrapped her legs around me and I smelled her desire. Double damn. “How do we do it?” I asked again.

“You smear your blood on my head and over my heart, then put a single drop on my tongue and we kiss. You look into my eyes and push your mind into mine, like when you control other vampires. We’ll both feel it when it happens. I’ve been told that it hurts a little for you and a lot for me, but when we’re done, I’ll be able to do even more for you.”

She pulled at my shirt. “Of course, there’s no reason we can’t do it while we have sex.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe I should just—”

“Oh, please, baby.” Still no cinnamon. Maybe Iwas being paranoid.

“Fine,” I relented, telling myself it was for Greta. “Let’s do it.”

25

ERIC:

THIRD EYE OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS

Rachel hadn’t been kidding. It hurt like a motherfucker, but when it was done, I could feel her with my mind. Without looking, I could sense where she was and how she was doing. It wasn’t telepathy, in that her thoughts were closed to me, but her general mood was clear.

She wasn’t the only new presence in my mind, either. I felt them all, my “children,” including three who were supposed to be dead. To be honest, it was kind of nice to see them.

I don’t stay mad long. Usually, I’d rather wish someone a long happy life the hell away from me. It’s just that so often, they won’t oblige. I’d staked the first two and left them to greet the dawn. I’d taken care of Irene in El Segundo; her survival proved she really was a heartless bitch.

They felt me too.

My oldest, Lisa, squirmed in her sleep, long blonde hair cascading over her breasts. She’d fallen asleep with her jeans on, the flared bottoms finally back in style. Lisa had been my rebound girl, once I’d given up on Marilyn ever taking me back. It felt like she was in the back of a plane. Someone was playing acoustic guitar softly in the background; they stopped and I felt a presence near her, a human. He wanted to know if she was okay.

Nancy was Lisa’s replacement. She was sleeping not far away, no farther than Sable Oaks. She still slept in a coffin with dirt in the bottom, the interior lit with blacklight bulbs. She’d always been superstitious. Nancy wore a white silk teddy, her supple chestnut-colored skin standing out in sensuous contrast.

In the quasiviolet light, her eyes flashed open briefly, the once-black irises now faded close to gray, flaring red before she surrendered again to the sleep of the dead. Nancy and I had had a falling out over Greta. Nancy believed that teenage girls shouldn’t talk back to vampires. I didn’t disagree, but held an even firmer conviction that nobody got to slap my little girl around.

Irene was awake, smiling, and in the act. She still got me hot. Irene had been wild, too wild, and she’d dyed her hair red, really red, like a Porsche. She climbed off of her lover and gripped his member, smiling at me. “It’s longer,” she mouthed, before beginning to fellate the lucky bastard. Irene was the farthest away of all, miles and miles across the ocean.

I gestured to Rachel. “She’s younger,” I mouthed, but Irene was gone, replaced by Tabitha, asleep in a bed in the Highland Towers. Talbot was curled up next to her on the bed, in his natural form, a little black ball of fur, purring. He’d never curled up to me that way.

Last came Greta. She was immobilized, but not by a stake. A metal box enclosed her, the sides lined with little crosses. Even if she’d been one of the chosen few who can turn to mist, the box was airtight. She twisted and turned, trying to position herself so that the crosses no longer burned her skin. Each time she found a moment’s peace, sleep claimed her, and she fell back against the sizzling signs of faith.

I waited to feel angry, but the most I could manage was irritation. The werewolves were dead either way, but it would be trickier if I couldn’t go berserk on them. Just hours ago, seeing Greta in agony had been enough to send me directly over the edge. I was in control, but I shouldn’t have been. I should have been a raging black-winged terror, tearing ass across the country to save my little girl.

“Shit.” I rolled off of Rachel and sat on the edge of the bed. We’d moved the whole thing to the bedroom because she’d asked nicely and I hadn’t cared.

“Are you okay?” she asked. There was a slight tremor in her voice. “Did something go wrong? It’s supposed to hurt me more.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “Just some unfinished business. A few of my children, ones I thought I’d disposed of, are still around. It worked; I can sense them.”

I walked over to the sink and started sponging off, thinking about Irene, Lisa, and Nancy.

Irene might try to start a fight eventually, but none of this current mess was hers. She wasn’t very subtle. She would have just blown up the Demon Heart with me in it. Lisa wasn’t a threat; she was big, beautiful, and about as smart as Kyle had been. Roger had assured me once that she wasn’t a Drone, but she certainly acted like one. Nancy could have come up with a plan like this, but she never would have been able to execute it. Besides, she would have been up in my face gloating by now.

Tabitha was safe, but asleep. Greta was my only real concern.

I went back into my office and dialed Marilyn’s number.

“Hello?” she answered.

“Any messages?” I asked.

“I got a call from our friend Captain Stacey with the VCPD. He says that he hopes you can afford to keep paying for the cover-up. He wanted to make sure you knew that you have had him, two folks in dispatch, and six other officers working double duty to cover up your—and I’m quoting—’bullshit shenanigans’ this weekend.”

“Can I afford it?” I asked.

“For a while.” Marilyn sounded like she was speaking to a delinquent teenager. Rachel walked in wearing tennis shoes, short shorts, and a baby-doll T-shirt that saidBoy Toy . She approached the desk, pointing happily to a new necklace she was wearing; it was a black choker with a tiny golden padlock.

“I’ve also been meaning to talk to you about the money that you’ve been spending on clothes. I assume that Sally told me the truth about your little shopping spree?” Marilyn choked out the words.

“She did.”

“Were those clothes for your new little trollop? Will I be meeting that one again or do you already have a different one?”

I wanted to tell her she was wrong about me, but I didn’t know whether that was true anymore. There had been a line that I had been trying not to cross, the line between being a man who was monstrous and an actual monster. Now I couldn’t even see the line. I had passed it without realizing it some time ago.

“I have a couple of things to do tonight,” I said, ignoring her questions and my own guilt. “So I might be late. I have to go rescue Greta. Then I might have to kill Roger.”

“Serves him right.” Her voice was acid.

That took me by surprise. “Is he still over there? Stake him for me.”

“No, he wouldn’t be that stupid, although I imagine he isn’t far. I’m sorry I can’t stake him for you.”

“I was kidding.” I wasn’t kidding.

“Me, too.” And the funniest thing was that for the first time in the half century or so I’d known Marilyn, I could tell that she was lying to me.

“No,” I said in stunned amazement. “You weren’t.”

“Leave it alone, Eric. Please.”

“Marilyn, if something’s going on—”

“It’s nothing. I’m just tired. You said something happened to Greta?” She sounded more concerned about Greta than she usually did about me. “What happened?”

“Werewolf trouble. I’m going to take care of it now.”

“But it isn’t even noon, yet. What about the sun?”

I played with the lock on Rachel’s necklace. “Hey,” I spoke into the phone. “This is Greta we’re talking about here. Fuck the sun. Me and my new thrall are going to get creative.”

I hung up the phone and Rachel put her arms around me. She was nervous and curious at the same time. “Creative?”

“Yeah,” I told her as I walked back to the bedroom. “Creative.”

I emerged from the bedroom a few minutes later with my clothes on. “How do my eyes look?”

“They’re back to normal,” she said. “I guess a little blood was all you needed.”

“I need you to go shopping for me,” I told her. “I need a jumpsuit that covers up as much skin as possible and a full-face motorcycle helmet with one of those little thingies that covers up the neck. Get the helmet visor as dark as you can. I have boots, but I need a pair of gloves in my size. Call a cab. Get the stuff and meet me back here by two o’clock. I want to be up on Bald Mountain by four.”

“Okay,” Rachel said. “What’s the rest of the plan?”

“Leave that to me.” I kissed her. “Oh, and buy a bigger purse, it might need to hold two.”

I gave her the money from the safe and she laughed at the amount. “When I get back from Vegas, will you still love me?”

“You head anywhere near Vegas,” I said, tapping my temple, “and I’ll know, remember?”

“Only if you think to check,” she teased.

We kissed a long, lingering kiss. She let her hands wander across my chest and lower still. It was then that I smelled the cinnamon. I was ready for it this time. Thoughts and feelings that were not quite mine danced gently through my brain like little puffs of cotton candy. “Trust Rachel,” a sweet tender voice ordered my mind. “Love Rachel. Need Rachel.” Riding the wave of sensation, I let my hands drift across her breasts and down her back. I grabbed her butt and started kissing her harder. She pushed gently away from me and I didn’t let her go, kissing my way down her neck instead.

“Not that I’m complaining, Eric, but if you want me to get everything done in time to leave…”

I let her go reluctantly.

I had Magbidion’s phone number written down on a blue sticky note stuck to the bottom of my desk drawer. It came free easily and I stuck it on the desk. Did I care if Rachel was trying to use magic on me to enhance our sex, to calm me down, to make my heart beat? The sad and sorry answer is that I didn’t.

Roger was in the same category as Rachel. I didn’t really care that he had set me up. I wanted to know why he’d done it and if we could resolve things, but basically, he was my best friend. Sure, he was an asshole, but so was I. He was also the only person still around, other than Marilyn, that I’d known when I was alive. Like my Mustang, I wouldn’t give up on him unless I had no choice.

So what if Roger had sicced some werewolves on me. I could kill the werewolves. I would rescue Greta. Hell, if he wanted the Demon Heart shut down bad enough to spike my blood supply, maybe I ought to just shut it down. I knew that it embarrassed him, that he was afraid his upper-crust pals would look down on him. What if this all could have been avoided by my buying out his interest in the Demon Heart? I hate questions like that—what-ifs. They can drive you crazy.

I wasn’t proud of it, but it all boiled down to the bliss of ignorance. If I knew for sure what was going on with Rachel, or with Roger, then I might have to take action and the truth was that I just didn’t want to do that. Why would I? Let’s say your spouse is good to you, treats you right, and you have a long happy life together. Do you really want to find out fifty years down the road that she hated your guts the whole time or that for thirty of those years she’d been banging the milkman every Monday and Wednesday? If it were me, I wouldn’t. Does that make me a bad person?

A little voice in my head told me that I was a bad person regardless. Everything else was just a bonus.

26

ERIC:

AGORANAUT

Bald Mountain wasn’t much of a mountain compared to the Rockies or the Smokies, but it was big enough to count. Oak, dogwood, and pine trees made up most of the surrounding forest. The bulk of the land had been designated a state park in the late thirties or early forties. For two dollars, anyone could get a day pass to visit the park from about seven a.m. until sunset. They also had overnight passes for campers and areas set aside for RV parking. I hadn’t been out to Bald Mountain since Marilyn and I had been dating. The picnic area was different and there was a conservation center, but the park itself looked surprisingly familiar.

Rachel looked beautiful in the light that poured between the trees and in through the windshield. If I squinted just right, I could pretend she was Marilyn. It took me back to my last picnic. Roger, Marilyn, and I had gone to the park in my Mustang, top down, the wind blowing through our hair. Marilyn drove that day and I’d let Roger ride up front. The ice chest sat next to me on the bench seat. Back then, the grilling stations in the picnic area had been new. All we had to supply was the food, the charcoal, and the fire.

The fire. I’d caught Marilyn looking at me in the rearview mirror. I’d forgotten it on purpose, that look…a sad look with I-don’t-know-how-to-tell-you eyes. I buried it again.

Rachel looked over at me, the way you look at an angry dog who’s cornered you. Her hand touched my leg tentatively. “Is there something wrong?”

“Why?”

“You just…um, the link, it goes both ways a little and, I don’t know, you felt lost.”

I turned my head. Outside the window, the leaves were rich and green. “Only for the last forty-three years,” I whispered.

It had never occurred to me before, but I’d now been undead longer than I’d been alive. My vampiric existence had eclipsed my human life, and it seemed like each year beyond that balance eroded me more. Forty-three years of undeath. It seemed longer. My watch was still broken. “What month is it?” I asked.

“It’s August, Eric,” Rachel told me.

The leather outfit she’d brought me would have looked more natural on a rock star like Marilyn Manson. It did cover my whole body, though, and it was real leather, so it could probably take a beating. The mask had zippers where I thought it ought to have holes, but it wasn’t noticeable with the helmet on. Over the suit’s gloves, I wore a pair of work gloves secured with duct tape. I had the legs of the jumpsuit tucked into a pair of steel-toed work boots, secured like the gloves. Between the tinted goggles and the tinted visor, the sun didn’t hurt my eyes that much, but my vision was restricted to whatever was directly in front of me.

“What day?” I asked.

“Monday,” she answered.

“Monday the what?”

“Monday the ninth,” she answered, looking over at me. “Why so interested?”

I watched the trees go by, noting each hiking trail we passed. Rachel was doing a good job playing chauffeur. After I’d hung up with Magbidion, I’d had Carl drive a loaner out to me. It was a rusted-out hunk of junk with no air conditioner, but that just showed Carl’s intelligence.

It was always a crapshoot when it came to me and loaners. He knew that I would pay for damages, but we both felt better about it if he loaned me cheap cars…just in case. No sense in throwing money away. The heat didn’t bother me, but Rachel was covered in a thin sheen of sweat and her deodorant wasn’t keeping pace with demand.

“Roger will have something big planned for tomorrow. Something drastic…probably his big finale.”

She looked confused. “How do you figure that?”

“It’s my birthday,” I told her.

“That’s great! How old will you be?”

My sense of Greta grew stronger as we passed a turn and then started to grow fainter. “Turn around and go back,” I ordered. “She’s down that road.” Rachel made a three-point turn and headed down the road I had indicated.

“This way?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, we’re getting close.”

“How old are you going to be?” she asked again.

“I don’t remember,” I said distractedly. I was turning forty again. I turn forty every year, but it never sticks.

Greta was screaming in a metal box. Rage reached up into my chest. I could see the box clearly. Men—werewolves in human form—were taking turns rolling the box over and shaking it back and forth. Greta’s cries were louder than my thoughts. Something inside me roared, but made no sound.

“Sweet Jesus!” Rachel swore. I guessed she’d felt that one along our link.

“Stop the car,” I commanded.

Brakes squealed as Rachel slammed her foot to the floor and the car turned sideways, sliding as it went. We came to a halt at the edge of a drainage ditch that directed the camping area’s runoff under the road as it ran downhill. The car had rotated one hundred and eighty degrees from where we had started, facing back down the way we’d come. I stepped out of the car and looked back at Rachel. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes, go home.”

I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I ran down the slope into the drainage ditch and started scrambling up the rise in front of me. Greta was on the other side of the hill.

My mental picture of the campground grew clearer and clearer the closer I got. As I topped the hill, I saw the first werewolf, a lookout. He looked human, but even through the visor of my helmet, I could smell him. He’d been a wolf recently. We both froze, momentarily stunned. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen, an inexperienced fighter, so it was no surprise that I recovered first. I put my fist through his chest and it came out on the other side holding his heart. Young or old, these werewolves were my enemies and anyone who wanted to live had better change sides quickly.

His body rolled halfway down the hill and stopped when it hit the base of a pine tree. His pack would smell the blood soon. I broke into a run and hit the campsite as soon as I cleared the tree line. A group of tents was arranged in a circle around one large tent. Garlic cloves hung on ropes over the entrances and each tent had a cross painted on all four sides. It was definitely not a vampire-friendly zone.

On the far side of the camping area, RVs with out-of-state tags were parked in double rows. Not a good sign. I’d already seen the kind of help William was rounding up and I didn’t want to get in a fight with more fun-loving representatives of the Lycan Diocese.

Two men—werewolves—saw me walk into the camp. I staggered like I’d been injured and they rushed toward me. Before they reached me, the taller one slowed down, his eyes widening. “Chuck, no! It’s a—” I grabbed Chuck by the shoulder blades, hooking my fingers into his collarbone for leverage, and tore him open at the chest, his sternum popping, ribs gaping apart. His buddy staggered away from me.

It was probably the sunlight that confused him. Even though I was expected, vampires are creatures of the night. The werewolves were used to hunting us inside houses, sewers, crypts, or apartments during the day. Was it possible that I was more frightening in the light? I wiped my visor with the back of Chuck’s shirt and charged his pal.

“Vampire!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. We ran at each other full tilt. He transformed as he ran, shedding teeth. He swiped at me with his claws and the blow caught me just right, turning my leaping dodge into an out-of-control tumble through the air. I cannonballed into one of the tents, crumpling it, tent poles snapping. The fabric wrapped around me completely, blocking my vision of all but bright blue tent flap. I’d landed within a few feet of the metal box; I could feel Greta inside.

I struggled out from under the tent as the werewolf landed next to me. Reaching out, I grabbed him by the muzzle and threw him hard and high into the bough of a nearby oak.

The box. I spun quickly, searching, and saw it. They had welded the box shut, and it looked like a professional job. I also found the folks who had been rolling it around. Six men and two women were gathered around the metal container, taking turns rocking it from side to side. A handful of children stopped playing and ran for the big tent. The adults started to change and more werewolves began pouring out of the other tents and the RVs. I counted at least forty. There was no way I could outfight them all, not in the daytime. I grabbed a little boy and a little girl by the scruffs of their necks and I felt like scum when I did it.

They both screamed for their mommy and one of the female werewolves turned human again. “Please, no!” It was a standoff. The males started circling, but kept their distance as I walked toward the box. The females who were still in werewolf mode backed slowly away from me, but the one in human form stayed put. I heard the tent flaps flutter behind me and I spun around.

“Don’t make me hurt them!” I shouted.

I hoped they would buy it, because I already knew I wouldn’t do anything to the kids. The little boy might have been as old as eight, and the little girl was only four or five. I couldn’t have killed either of them.

A tall man stepped out of the tent. He was six foot five and had dusty blond hair. I couldn’t tell the color of his eyes, but he looked like a real mountain man. A foot-long wooden cross hung from his belt, the base sharpened to a point. A smaller metal cross hung from his neck over a flannel shirt.

“What in God’s name is going on here?” he spat.

“You called,” I said acidly. “I came.”

William didn’t look fake when he transformed. No weird latex-looking skin, no fur turned all the wrong way, and when he moved, it was smooth, not the jerky stop-motion effect I’d seen so often. That alone would have earned him the Alpha title in my book. Pure white fur covered him from head to toe, and he stared at me angrily from behind ice-blue eyes. “How dare you threaten children?” The voice rang more in my head than in my ears and it was angry.

“Fuck you, pal,” I shouted back. “You see, believe it or not, I haven’t done a damn thing to you. Your son got lured into an alleyway by a vampire stripper and, as weird as it sounds, she used a magic gun to kill him. I wound up playing the scapegoat. I think her boss wants me to kill you, but I’m still working on why.

“As for the stripper who killed your son, not to mention your packmates out at Orchard Lake—she’s dead now. I had my girlfriend track her down and kill her. If you want, you can have her ashes. All I want is my daughter back and for you guys to back off.”

“Liar!” William’s huge clawed hands shook with rage as he bared his fangs at me. “My son was pure. He would never consort with some vampire whore.”

“Have you ever gotten a blow job from a woman who doesn’t have to breathe? Trust me, he’d consort.”

“No more of your lies, vampire. I know what you want and we will never surrender our land to one of your kind. No matter how many dead you lay on our doorstep, we will not give in.”

“Land? What do you think this is, the Louisiana fucking Purchase? Let’s try it this way. I don’t want to kill you. I didn’t even bring any silver with me. Hell, I didn’t even bring the magic gun with me.” Which, by the way, I was already regretting. “I just want to be left alone. If you can’t do that, then we have a problem and if we have a problem, I’m going to have to put you and your little wolf pack down.”

“Those two children you hold in your hands are sinless, vampire. If you kill them, we shall not be sad, but shall rejoice. They will fly to their Heavenly Father and join him forever in paradise. We, unlike you, are living, breathing creatures of God. We worship in many ways, but we all worship, and he will send us more soldiers to fill our ranks and more pups to fill our hearts.” He looked meaningfully at his pack when he spoke, trying, I thought, more to convince them than to persuade me.

I saw grim commitment in the eyes of the gathering pack, some of them wearing crosses, some clutching crucifixes, even a few wielding Stars of David. They didn’t like it, but most of them would do whatever he told them.

“Kill it,” he shouted.

I mouthed an obscenity as he struck. I wouldn’t have had time to break the children’s necks even if I’d been willing to do it. He was faster than anything I’d ever seen, faster than me, faster than Talbot. His huge white paws smacked my helmet with lightning speed and it shattered. The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun” played through my mind. Now I had definitely beaten El Segundo.

27

ERIC:

POWERHOUSE

I’d been on fire before and it usually made me feel like an idiot. Often, when I ignited, it was a result of forgetting what time it was or watching an impending sunrise just a little too long. This time it made me angry. Claws tore at my clothes, and as each strip of fabric fell away, new pain erupted. But hey, at least I was warm.

Part of me wondered if it wasn’t better this way, to die on Bald Mountain, in the sun on a breezy day in August. The other part of me told the suicidal part to shut the fuck up and fight.

It only took a few seconds for the flames to completely engulf me. I wondered if I looked anything like the Human Torch or if it was more like one of those movie stuntmen. Several werewolves were laughing and the mama werewolf was fussing over her children. I was just as glad as she was that they were safe. Then I heard a single word that changed everything.

“Daddy!” It was Greta. She could feel me burning, even through her own pain. People say that monsters only come out at night. Mine came out right then. Rage doesn’t even begin to cover it. Steel bands snapped inside my chest and chains pulled free of their wall mounts.

Suddenly, I could see. The flames were out and everyone looked a little shorter. Tendrils of smoke rose off dark black skin that I didn’t recognize as mine. It didn’t look charred. It was smooth and sizzled softly in the sun. I tried to move, but couldn’t. My whole body had gone numb and useless, as if I’d been staked through the heart, but then it started moving of its own accord. I could see and hear, but something else was in the driver’s seat.

The thing I had become held up its arm and high-pitched squealing filled the air, joined by the sound of a few thousand wings. Clouds of bats and birds swarmed overhead, blocking out the sun. My opponents looked on in silence as the sky turned black. My new skin stopped sizzling. William looked up at me and crossed himself. Several of the others presented their holy symbols and began to pray in Latin, Hebrew, Spanish, and English. The super vamp I had become roared and started toward them.

No! Wait!I started yelling inside my head.Get Greta, jackass!

There was no response from Ericzilla. It was more like watching the demo for a first-person shooter video game than actually being me. Two werewolves jumped at me in slow motion. Uber vamp speed was unbelievable. I darted forward, plucking both werewolves from the air and tearing them into quarters, not just killing them, but mangling them with a purpose. If this was what happened when I blacked out, then I wished I would black out again, because I really didn’t want to see this.

Blood jetted in lazy streams from the werewolves’ remains as I struggled with all my might to regain control. If I could even just turn my head toward Greta…Instead, I was forced into the skies as the uber Eric darted down at another unlucky werewolf, pulling it up into the air and tearing off its head with talon-tipped fingers.

There was no doubt that I could destroy the entire pack this way, but if I did that and then suddenly found myself back at the wheel, standing over the bodies, the living curtain of wings would probably disperse, and Greta and I would both be fried. My death would have been fast, and right now I almost welcomed it, but hers would be prolonged and torturous. I couldn’t abide that.

Stop screwing with the werewolves and get Greta out of the box, you dumb fucker!I yelled at Ericzilla.She’s going to die in there if you blow this! If you can even pick up a single thought, you cave-brained bastard, then open the damn box!

Another werewolf entered the shredding zone and went from living thing to flesh-chunk confetti with bright red liquid streamers. Either I had slowed or the pack was speeding up. They were doing their best to fight against me, and so was I. Then, the two little kids wolfed out and my uber vamp body turned on them. I tried with every bit of mental strength to stay the death that awaited those children;They’re just kids , I shouted mentally.We are here to get Greta, shit-for-brains! So get Greta and get us the fuck out of here!

I pictured myself standing in front of the uber Eric, blocking the children and pointing at the box. My mental image head-butted the black-skinned beast and kicked it in the groin. When that didn’t work, I fought dirty. I showed him the night I’d first found Greta, lying bruised and bloody in her foster father’s bed. She’d been nine. The uber vamp howled.You remember that? I shouted.You want to be like that, like the human so evil I wouldn’t even bite him?

Greta is in that damn metal box right over there and she needs me! Comprendez?I had my mental image walk over to the box and rip it open. Greta was inside and I imagined myself ripping open a vein and spraying blood like my arm was a fire hose to heal her wounds.

Uber Eric paused and time returned to normal. Ten werewolves piled onto me, clawing and biting like mad to take my uber vamp body down. Had I gotten through? Did it, whatever was driving, understand? I began to suspect that it had, because it slowly turned, ignoring the wounds and the werewolves, looking for the box. Black blood flowed down one of my arms from a multitude of cuts and bites. I couldn’t feel it, but it looked painful.

Uber me turned its head to look at the blood, swatting the werewolves away on autopilot, using both wings and the less-injured arm. Then, I got a look at the box with Greta inside and heard my own voice say, “Hold tight, sweetheart. We’re getting the hell out of Dodge!”

I still wasn’t in control, but that certainly sounded like a step in the right direction. The uber vamp grabbed the box and leapt into the air.

Gunshots sounded from below and the twang of arrows filled the air. The arrows made me laugh on the inside, but Supervamp must not have thought it was funny. Real wooden arrows are much more useful than bullets against a vampire, and William’s werewolves knew it.

I wanted to see how many werewolves were down there, but uber me wasn’t interested. A mass of bats poured out of the sky, diving toward the werewolves, and the uber vamp’s black skin began to sizzle again in the now imperfect screen created by the remaining bats above.

I spotted Rachel in the loaner car. My uber vamp body made a beeline for the vehicle, landing a few feet from the front bumper. Rachel screamed, but she didn’t hit the gas.

Crouching low over the box, shielding it with tenebrous wings as if afraid an arrow or stray beam of sunlight might strike Greta, the uber vamp and I punched through the seam of the metal box with one black talon. Metal screeched as the weld gave way, little curlicue strands falling to the grass as we peeled back the top. Tilting the box to the side, we let Greta roll out onto the ground. She looked pretty bad, like charred hamburger, but she was still with us.

As soon as I saw my girl, the whole transformation happened in reverse. My nerve endings woke up. It would have been just fine with me if they had waited a while. I had multiple gunshot wounds, cuts, scratches, bites, and two or three arrows in me. One of the arrows was close enough to my heart that I was afraid to move too quickly lest it wiggle those last few centimeters and leave me paralyzed midrescue.

“Rachel!” I shouted. “Get over here and pull these arrows out!”

She stared at me motionlessly for a moment before springing into action. “How did you do that?” she asked.

“Arrows. Out. Now!”

Rachel grabbed the first arrow and jerked it out of my shoulder with a loud grunt. It came free, red blood mixing with the black blood already covering the shaft. She grabbed the next and pulled with all her might. I gritted my teeth against the pain as the shaft came free. Rather than pulling out the arrow in my left side, she thrust it the rest of the way through. My legs buckled and I fell to one knee. But when she grabbed the last arrow I couldn’t stand it anymore. It was too deep.

“Leave it,” I said.

“I’ve almost got it.” Rachel put her knee in my back for more leverage and I shouted as the arrow twisted in my chest.

“Just leave the damn thing in and start the car!”

More spots of sunlight appeared on the grass as she dove straight through the open window of the car and into the driver’s seat. Overhead and back near the camp, the mass of winged minions was beginning to disperse. A core group of gray bats struggled to maintain formation, but was losing the battle. As Rachel kicked open the passenger’s side door, dozens of werewolves, no longer blinded by the horde of bats, howled a battle cry and began loping toward us.

I gashed my wrist open with my fangs and bled into Greta’s eyes. When they flickered open I pushed my thoughts into her head. “Turn into a mouse.”

“Can’t, Dad,” she replied. “Too tired.”

I latched hold of her thoughts, but they were hazy, jumbled, and confused. So were mine. I tried to block out the sound of the approaching werewolves and pushed harder, so hard she screamed. She managed the change, then went limp again.

She was a sad, burnt-looking mouse. Talbot would have thought her an hors d’oeuvre gone wrong, but she was still my Greta and she was still undead, which was all that mattered to me. I jumped into the car, holding her carefully in my fist, and yowled as sunlight hit the exposed flesh on my back where claws, bullets, and arrows had torn through the leather. Rachel gunned the engine and started pulling away.

As the first wolf cleared the hill I tucked Greta into Rachel’s purse, turned into a mouse, and jumped in after her. Rachel reached over, closed the purse flap, and drove hell-bent toward the park exit. Inside the bag, I cuddled against Greta and hoped William’s pack didn’t catch up with us.

I had no idea how the whole uber vamp thing actually worked, but I knew it was tied to my anger. If I got angry enough to have a rage blackout, then I did my own little version of the Incredible Hulk or Super Dracula, whatever you wanted to call it. Freud would have said that it was pure id, unleashed and given form, not unlike Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but that was a little too easy an answer for me. No one was lining up to explain why I’d been aware this time either, why I’d heard and seen what happened, though I’d never remembered any of it before.

Could it be that making Rachel my thrall had been responsible? If it allowed me to sense my offspring, and to supposedly recognize the thralls created by other vampires…who knew if it helped control the part of me that went berserk? Was it a good thing or a bad thing? I couldn’t decide.

I’d been a vampire for over forty years, and all along I’d been turning into this thing right, left, and sideways, whenever people pissed me off. Why had nobody said anything? Talbot said he hadn’t told me because he thought I knew. I believed that. How do you not know you turn into a giant vampire blender and puree things when you’re mad? Maybe Marilyn had never seen it. No one ever had to tell me that I turned into a bat, a cat, or anything else. Why would they assume I didn’t know? But Roger knew me better than that.

In fact, I’d bet Roger knew the most about it, and I couldn’t ask him about it. Not right now. What if we’d already had that discussion before, or after one of my blackouts, and I’d forgotten? What if I’d “figured it out” any number of times, but, unable to control it, had forgotten?

What’s your father’s name?Marilyn’s question from earlier rose, a disturbing specter in my thoughts. I’d already forgotten what she’d said. The last name started with a C, I thought.

Take it from me: If you’re going to die in a car crash and miraculously rise as one of the living dead, don’t let them embalm you. I was starting to think maybe it had screwed with my head. As I lay puzzling out the complexity of my life, the thrum of the motor and the exertion of the day lulled me gently to sleep.

28

TABITHA:

PMS

Void City was quiet and brooding that Monday night. Every traffic light glared bright red before allowing Talbot’s Jaguar to weave its way homeward. Halfway there, the two of us realized that it was Eric’s birthday, or at least, it would be after midnight, so we went shopping.

Talbot bought him a new cell phone and I made do with a selection from Victoria’s Secret, Frederick’s of Hollywood, and Sahid’s Adult Books and Novelties. I spent too much money, but I felt guilty about sleeping with Talbot. Eric would have slept with a human and not called it cheating. Maybe he already had. I hoped he had. It would make me feel better about what I’d done.

I stood up on all fours, turned in a circle, and sat back down on the seat fitfully. I liked being a cat, feeling warm, having a heartbeat, breathing autonomically, things that my human body no longer provided. Even as a cat, though, I was increasingly on edge. “Damn him, that man has me wrapped around his little finger!” I hissed.

“I would hesitate to refute that,” Talbot said as he glanced down at me.

“I have never cheated on him, not once! There is no telling how many times he’s screwed around on me, but I’m the one who feels guilty.”

Streetlamps and skyscrapers passed by the windows and Talbot did not comment. “Well?” I meowed.

“Well what?” he answered. Eyes on the road, he reached down and silenced the classical music on the radio. I hadn’t even noticed there had been music until he turned it off. “Eric never made any pretense at being faithful. You did. Maybe you took pride in it? It kept you in the right as the long-suffering faithful member of the relationship. Now you’re not the martyr anymore and it’s eating away at you.”

Turning human, I crossed my arms and stared out the side window. “That is so totally screwed up! I don’t even know how you said it with a straight face.”

“Oh, so now you’re mad at me?” he said with a grin.

“I was vulnerable and hungry, and I’m still new to this. You’re used to dealing with newborn vamps.” I kept my eyes focused on the window, staring out at the city. “You should have stopped me. I wasn’t in control of myself.”

“Buckle your seat belt,” he ordered. Outside the window, a little boy in dirty jeans and a ratty T-shirt stood on the street corner. He smiled at someone across the street. I rolled down the window as we passed. Wind hit my face, tousling my hair. Craning my neck out of the window, I watched the woman the boy was smiling at cross the street. “What happened to your jeans?” she asked him.

The rest was lost to me as we sped past. Remorse struck me by surprise and I blinked back tears. “I can never have kids.”

“And this didn’t occur to you before you decided you wanted to be a vampire?”

“It did. I thought I didn’t want kids, but now that I can’t have them…”

“Buckle your seat belt if you’re going to be in human form,” he said patiently. “I don’t want to have to pay my way out of a ticket.”

“What do you mean? Couldn’t you just flash your fangs or go all cat-eyed so they’d let you go?”

“And then I’d have to pay for the ticket in cash later when one of Lord Phil’s cronies called me up to talk about the fang fee.”

“Fang fee.”

“Hey,” Talbot said more cheerfully. “Now that you know Lord Phil, maybe you can get him to fix my tickets.”

“What are you even talking about?” Rushing in on the end of my thoughts about children, I thought about my last sunset. Shouldn’t I have looked at the sun one last time, to say good-bye?

“I’m talking about you buckling your seat belt so that I don’t get a ticket. Void City cops love to pull people over, particularly if they think you’re undead.”

Drops of blood flew off of my cheeks when I jerked around to face him. “I don’t want to wear a fucking seat belt!” Fingernails elongated into claws at the end of my hands and my jaw popped to accommodate the fangs that slid out of their sheaths in my gums. Refusing to flinch, Talbot remained blasé.

“Turn back into a cat if you don’t want to wear a seat belt. There is a cop up ahead.”

“Would you shut up about the damn cop?” I yelled, not sure why I was reacting this way. “If he pulls us over I’ll rip his fucking head off, okay? Just forget about it! I’m not wearing a damn seat belt, you stupid motherfucker, and you can’t make me! I’m the boss here! I’m the vampire, not you. I’m a Lady Bathory and you’re just some…some…mouser, whatever that is. A cat, or a human that used to be a cat, or whatever the fuck you are. You’re not even human. You probably don’t even have a soul. You probably never had one…and…and you raped me, you bastard!”

The officer in question eyed us warily as we passed, saw my fangs, and mouthed “Fuck that” to himself. Smarter than the rest of us, he knew when to mind his own business.

A twinge of pain squeezed my chest. With it came other thoughts, emotions, a flood of regret. If Rachel hadn’t died, I’d never have become so obsessed with death. I never would have gotten wrapped up in the vampire scene. I’d have stayed in college like my parents had wanted instead of rebelling and deciding life was too short to waste.

I wouldn’t have even met Eric, I wouldn’t be in love with him, and I wouldn’t have spent the last two years praying that he loved me back. I’d probably have been off somewhere, hopelessly in love with some asshole who just wanted my body, but he would have been a human asshole. Maybe I’d even be pregnant.

The tight ragged pain spread out from my chest, up into my skull, and down my arms and legs. My insides felt tight and shrunken. At the back of my eyes, the pain and pressure increased, as if my eyes were going to jerk through the sockets and become recessed in my braincase.

“It hurts,” I yelled.

“What?” Talbot asked.

“It hurts!”

I grabbed the sides of my head with full vampiric acceleration. My elbow touched the window with what would have been a light bump, but the increased velocity magnified the force of the blow, shattering the passenger’s side window. Glass cut into my elbow and I started to scream. I needed to get out of the car, to run; I felt trapped, as if the car were attacking me, or keeping me prisoner, or both. I attacked back.

Brakes squealed and the Jaguar swerved into an alley. The driver’s side door flew open, and I lost sight of Talbot as I lashed out at the upholstery, leather shredding easily under my claws. Something was wrong with me again and it was worse than the drugged blood. Euphoric anger had detached me from my actions in the Demon Heart, but this was real.

Pain lanced through my hand as I punched through the dash and into the glove compartment. Metal and plastic cut me, but I jerked my hand free, leaving blood and skin behind, before kicking away from the dash, breaking my seat, and flailing into the back of the car, my claws tearing at the ceiling and smashing out the rear window.

Suddenly my lungs started working and went into over-drive, pumping air in and out with such urgency it might have been trying to atone for all the breaths it had missed over the last couple of nights.

Once, in high school biology class, we’d had to dissect a frog. I had been so afraid I’d hyperventilated and passed out. This felt a lot like that. Rapid, shuddering booms shook my chest and I realized my heart was beating. Not only was it beating, it was beating far too fast. Gritting my teeth, I managed to stop actually screaming, but a high keening sound escaped my throat.

Talbot rounded the car, put his hand on the passenger’s side door, and I hit it from the inside with both feet, ripping the door loose of its hinges and sending Talbot and the door flying into the concrete wall of the building. He was still holding on to the door when he hit the ground. “Get away from me,” I screamed through chattering teeth. “Don’t touch me!”

Color leached out of my vision, the world sliding to black and white, to grayscale, and then to shades of red. Waves of heat rushed over me and my entire body began to vibrate. Staggering out of the Jag, I pressed my head against the cool metal on the roof. Beating loudly in my ears, the sound of my heartbeat was joined by another sound, a loudwhooshing sound; I realized it was the blood rushing through my veins once more. The pain left my chest, the inner tightening faded as blood flowed. Color vision came back, but the colors were too bright, blindingly kaleidoscopic. “What’s happening to me?” I demanded.

“Turn back into a cat,” Talbot choked out as he shoved the door off onto the sidewalk.

I tried. Desperately. I couldn’t.

Panic continued to swell inside me. I felt like my heart was about to tear itself out of my chest like a baby alien from that space movie with Sigourney Weaver.

He got to his feet and took a deep breath. “It’s probably autonomic function return brought on by postmortem stress, maybe even a panic attack. It’s rarely this bad, but I’ve seen it before.”

None of that made sense to me. My body was too loud. At the end of my fingers, claws extended and retracted, rhythmically gouging holes into the roof. “Don’t touch me,” I panted. “Get away from me.” Bottom fangs pushed their way into my mouth from between the teeth in my lower jaw, blood filling my mouth as the gums ripped open, a long searing pain. I shouldn’t even have bottom fangs. What was happening to me? “Your blood must have done this to me,” I spat out, shaking so hard I could barely talk. “It’s poisonous or something.”

“It’s not my blood, Tabitha, it’s you. Your body is reacting to stress the only way it remembers how. Turn back into a cat,” he urged, “and it will stop. You have a pulse as a cat. Your body will remember what it’s supposed to be doing.” He didn’t sound mad at all, but there was a tone in his voice that I didn’t recognize, a tinge of concern or wonder. “Trust me, Tabitha. Turn into a cat.”

Hugging my arms tightly around myself and closing my eyes, I finally managed to turn into a cat. The panic and anxiety were still there, but my body was calm and controlled. Normal heartbeat. Normal breath. Normal blood flow. Everything felt right, natural, as it should be.

Talbot leaned in through the passenger’s side door, turned off the engine, and pulled his keys out of the ignition. Leaning up against his poor Jaguar, he asked, “Better now?”

I nodded.

He looked down at the keys in his hand and mumbled, “Ninety-three thousand dollars. Damn, you’re high maintenance.”

Angry, sad, and terrified all at once, I curled up into a ball of fur, pressing myself against the brick wall of the alley, not knowing what to say, what to do, or how to react. Why had I let Eric do this to me? No more sun. No more mirrors. No food but blood. How could I have wanted this? Liquid diets had never worked for me, and now I was on the ultimate liquid diet. Not just for six to eight months, either. No, I had signed up for the infinity plan. Immortality was all fun and games until you read the fine print.

“What’s happening to me?” I meowed.

“PMS,” he said, stone-faced.

I glared at him.

“Postmortem stress,” he continued. “It happens to the newly undead. There comes a point when you stop thinking of yourself as human and accept your new self. You let go of who you were and become what you are. When it happens, your body freaks out. Your mind freaks out. So essentially, you’re freaking out,” he answered. “Eric is the only vampire I know of who never did it. I meant to tell you about it first thing. I guess it slipped my mind.” It hadn’t, though; I could tell from the smug cat grin on his face. He’d worn the same self-satisfied expression when he’d held me down at the Demon Heart while Marilyn and Desiree fed me cold blood.

“Bullshit,” I meowed. “You guess it slipped your mind? You wanted to see me freak. You got off on it.”

“Told you I wasn’t human,” Talbot said without remorse or shame.

I rose to all fours, pacing back and forth, my tail twitching furiously. “PMS when I’m alive and PMS when I’m dead. Retaining water may have made my ankles swell, but it never made me rip a sports car apart.”

I turned human again and it no longer felt strange or otherworldly. The change was as natural as stepping out of one dress and into another: a momentary vulnerability, followed by comfort in my new outfit. My body was still warm and my heartbeat was steady. I was still breathing. Blood pumped through my veins, but the sound was muted. Now that I expected it, none of it was so alarming.

“One in a mill—” Talbot reached for my cheek and I slapped him so hard it knocked him across the alley. When he landed, I was there, claws out and waiting. It was a cheap shot and it left him too dazed to react.

“I told you not to touch me, Talbot!” I sank my right-hand claws into his chest, just above the heart. Crouched on his chest, the claws of my left hand at his throat, I said, “I’m very grateful for all your help. I needed it. I needed your knowledge and experience. I really, really did, but I swear to God that if you ever touch me again I will rip your heart out with my bare hands, throw it in the street and back over it with Eric’s Mustang! Do you understand?”

Fur puffed up under my fingertips as Talbot’s ears slid upward and extended, pointed, like a cat’s. I made a move to claw him with my left hand, as a threat rather than to rip his throat out, but he caught it with a hand covered in sable fur. His voice echoed in my head, his jaws unmoving as he spoke.

Tabitha, you do not want me as your enemy.Cat’s eyes glared at me from his handsome face as his nose broadened and whiskers erupted from his cheeks. The first three buttons on his shirt popped loose as his chest expanded, the material drawing tight and ripping where my claws pierced it.I can make your life a living hell.

“Too late!” I spat. “Don’t you understand that? Everything is totally fucked up now. Eric will never want me now that I’ve been with you and you should have known better, Talbot. You should have fucking stopped me. You’re supposed to be my damn babysitter!”

“It had been a long time for me, Tabitha. A very long time, and if I took advantage of you, if you think I did, then I’m sorry.” He took hold of my right hand and gently pulled my claws from his chest. I let him. Even with my hand poised to hurt him, possibly kill him, I was afraid. His claws were holy. He was some kind of sacred hunter. I was just a vampire, a queen, sure, but…

His expression softened as my claws came free, the fur subsiding, his pantherlike features not quite melting into human ones, but fading, like an illusion. He stared at me with human eyes that were too cute, too endearing, and I let him up.

“My kind does not apologize, Tabitha. We don’t have to, because we are never wrong….” I bared my fangs, arms crossed, standing against the brick, away from him, as he continued, “Or we claim we aren’t. I’m different.” He straightened his clothes, brushing at the dirt, and the rips disappeared. I wondered if they were really gone or if it was an illusion. Did he really look human at all or did everyone simply see what he wanted them to see?

“I am willing to admit that it is remotely possible that I share part of the blame, but not all of it.” He leaned in close, his lips a breath away from mine. Despite myself I wanted to kiss him. “You did not smell out of control,” he continued. His left hand traced the outline of my body, almost, but not quite touching me. “You smelled like you knew exactly what was going on and I trusted that.”

He looked me straight in the eyes, dared me to make contact, to pit my will against his.

“Now I’m going to smell like you,” I said, looking away.

“Most people only get one chance with me, Tabitha. You’ve already had two; this makes it three. I let it go the first time you jumped me, because you didn’t know any better. I let the second one go because you were drugged. I’m going to let this one go because of the postmortem stress and the extenuating circumstances, but don’t try for a fourth chance. I’ll tear you apart and swallow all the pieces. Unless you’ve made a pact with a demon that I don’t know about, you won’t be coming back from that.”

Angry with myself and with Talbot, I brushed past him, stopping near the car. Little dots of light reflected up at me from the Jag’s passenger’s side mirror, which lay cracked in the alley. I picked it up and looked at my reflection. I was a mess. My new blouse was ruined; grime and blood spotted it in multiple places and there was even a small rip where glass had cut it. My hair—

I don’t think I could have been more surprised if I went to my folks’ house and Rachel answered the door. I dropped the mirror, stumbling away from it in denial. “My reflection. How…”

After a moment, I picked the mirror up again. I did look beautiful, even with the grime and dirt. Then, my image slowly faded, along with the body heat and my other renewed bodily functions. It was more depressing than the ruined blouse, like dying all over again, without the promise of immortality.

“Damn.” I shivered, cold again, as my fingertips caressed the glass. “Come back.” With unbearable slowness, my face reappeared in the glass. “How is this possible?” I whispered.

“I suspected it when you first turned into a cat, and appeared to be alive,” Talbot said from across the alley. “Eric seems to draw vamps that defy the norm. Every one he creates comes prepackaged with pain and wonder. Maybe one in ten thousand, possibly one in a hundred thousand vampires can turn their bodies back on, choose to cast a reflection in animal form or human form. The number of vamps who can do both? I couldn’t even begin to calculate. Maybe one in a million? My guess? No more than five and possibly just you.”

“What?” I asked. I’d heard what he said, but it wasn’t sinking in.

“They’re called Dolls. They are vampires that can seem completely lifelike. You can stop worrying about whether he’ll want you or not. He’ll probably fall head over heels for you. You’re immortal, you’re beautiful, and you will never change. You can have body heat, a heartbeat…even blood coursing through your veins. You can even cast a reflection when you wish. You’ll probably even be able to have saliva and, um, other appropriate fluids after a little practice.” He let out a long breath again.

“But I tried that earlier and it didn’t work—”

“The first time you tried to transform into a bird it didn’t work either. It takes practice, like anything else.” Talbot reached out as if to touch my cheek again, but checked the impulse before I swatted him, though I don’t think I would have.

“If you think Veruca was angry that you could turn into a cat,” he continued, “you should know that there will be plenty of vampires that will hate you for what you can do. Just stop worrying about your boyfriend. The only way another girl could compete with you now is with magical breasts and an enchanted crotch. He’s yours for the taking, if you still want him.”

I smiled. “Oh, no; he’ll have to earn it.” If he wanted this Snow White, then first he was going to have to kiss my cold dead lips. I didn’t want him to want me because I could be warm and lifelike, his precious little doll. First he had to want me for me.

And then…I forced blood to run through my veins, watched as my pale perfect skin grew pink and pretty. Mine for the taking. I liked the sound of that.

29

ERIC:

PICTURE PERFECT

Have you ever slept through an entire day and woken up at night thinking it was still the same day? That’s kind of what happened to me. I woke in my own bed at the Pollux, with Rachel paying me some not unwanted attention below the waist. Disorienting—but nice. I don’t know how it is for girls, but for guys, when something like that happens, you go with it. Everything else is immaterial. For instance, the rainbow wig completely escaped my attention at first. As did theHappy Birthday banner hung on the wall opposite the bed and the balloons tied to the bedposts.

“Are you wearing clown makeup?” I asked.

Rachel looked up. Though bereft of white paint, she wore thick black mascara mixed with blue, strategically smudged at the corners of her eyes. The big red clown nose was obscene in contrast to her nakedness and the black choker around her neck. I wondered if the tiny gold padlock held some special meaning.

“Happy birthday!” Rachel straddled me and doffed the wig and nose, going from clown to Goth as easy as smiling. While I’d been asleep, she’d apparently highlighted her dark hair with streaks of reds and blondes.

I don’t like clowns. I’m not afraid of them, but I’ve never found them amusing. This, the Goth thing, was more my style. We kissed, smearing her black lipstick. My heart began beating in time with our rhythm. As birthday surprises go, this was near the top of the chart.

It isn’t hard to get up there though; my birthdays are usually a disaster. Or at least as far as I can remember. Ninety percent of the women who have ever dumped me chose my birthday as the magical day. When I was alive, two of the three wrecks I’d been in were birthday related. My mom died of a heart attack on my nineteenth birthday. You get the idea.

Maybe, I thought, maybe this will be one of the good ones. The knob on the bedroom door began turning, almost in slow motion. Have you ever had your girlfriend walk in on you while you were screwing her sister on your birthday? Yeah, I thought not.

Tabitha wore a midnight-blue dress that clung to her curves. A diamond necklace sparkled at her throat in the partial light from the hallway. The necklace accentuated her cleavage even more than the dress’s plunging neckline. Her skin took on a golden tone, little bits of glitter catching the light. She was beautiful. She looked almost human. Her expression was exactly the sort of complex blend of shock and embarrassment I might expect her to have worn if she’d walked in on her parents having sex.

A package rested in the crook of her arm. It tumbled to the ground as she turned and ran. A gun I supposed to beEl Alma Perdida was visible for a microsecond, flipping through the air.

It was a single-action pistol. They call them single-action because you cock the hammer back manually and all the trigger does is let the hammer fall. It can go off accidentally if the hammer strikes the round in the chamber hard enough to discharge the bullet. In the Old West, most folks would only put five rounds in the gun to keep accidents from happening. Tabitha must have put in all six.

I don’t get shot very often. All the vampire hunters I’d ever met used arrows, holy water, and crosses. Bullets hurt, but they don’t generally give any vamp but a Drone much trouble. The bullet went through the side of the mattress at an angle, lodging itself in my right butt cheek. It sizzled like fire. I yowled in pain. Rachel rolled off of me. I know I’m not a werewolf, but the bullet clearly did not like me.

“Get it out!” I shouted. “It’s magic.”

Just when I thought things couldn’t get worse, my ass caught fire. Flames literally jetted out of the bullet hole in my butt. Rachel laughed uncontrollably while I fumbled with the sink. She laughed even harder when I sat in it. Cracks formed in the plaster around the corners. My ass still stung, but the lack of fire made things more bearable.

I tried to pop my claws to dig the bullet out, but nothing happened. Shapeshifting didn’t work either. I even tried misting. I was that desperate, but I couldn’t change. Rachel ran out of the room and came back with a letter opener. She dug the bullet out, periodically splashing water on the wound to keep it from reigniting. Several agonizing minutes later she handed me a perfect little bullet with no signs of damage, just like the one I’d found out at the lake.

“It’s not funny.” I dropped the bullet on the bed. She didn’t stop laughing and I realized I wanted to snap her neck. The anger was so sudden, so visceral that had I been another vampire, one who had the speed all the time, who didn’t have to hope it kicked in when he needed it, I think she would have been lying broken on the floor without my ever consciously deciding to act.

“Oh, it’s funny all right,” she said, sobering slightly. She was going to get herself killed acting that way around me. At least that’s how I justified it in my head when I grabbed her left arm.

“If you thought that was funny, you’re gonna love this.”

“What are you doing?” she asked, a tinge of fear in her tone. Her heartbeat sped up.Don’t be mad, said a voice in my head that wasn’t mine.Forgive Rachel. Love Rachel. The smell of cinnamon hit me, enough to make blood tears well up around my eyes. I wasn’t mad anymore; but I was still mean.

“Feeding,” I answered. I sank my fangs into her inner elbow, hitting the ulnar artery. It’s inefficient and painful for the donor, but it works. Rachel cried in short gasping sobs, but she didn’t fight me. Instead, she wiggled her feet nervously.

“I’m sorry,” she said. Taste hit my tongue, sweet and bitter like before.Leave, damn it, I thought at her.Don’t you understand, this is what I am? I’m a monster. You don’t want this.

“Yes, I do,” Rachel whispered. “Yes, I do.”

I let her go. She cupped her hand over the wound and her teeth dug into her bottom lip. Good one, Eric, I thought. Just beat the crap out of her next time, you fucking moron.

“Did you get enough?” she asked. “Do you need the other one?” She let go of the wound and held out her uninjured arm.

“No.” My voice cracked when I spoke. “That was…Look, I’m sorry. Do you need a doctor?”

“I’m a thrall now,” she said through gritted teeth and indicated the choker and the golden padlock with her uninjured arm. “I can take care of it. Just give me ten or fifteen minutes and I’ll be good as new.”

“Right.” I pushed open the bedroom door and slunk away, grabbing my jeans off the floor as I went. I slipped them on in the hallway and rested my head against the door. You’d think there was a monster inside me, a creature that wanted to hurt people, a creature to whom violence was the most favorable answer to all of unlife’s problems. Oh, right—a vampire!

But to be honest, I don’t think just any vampire would have felt guilty about what I’d done, would have recognized the monstrosity. I did, and it didn’t feel much different than it might have felt when I was alive. You do what you have to do to get by. You try to stay out of trouble, but when life or unlife throws you lemons, you don’t make lemonade, you warm up your pitching arm and you throw them right back.

There were presents lined up along the concession counter, each wrapped in different paper and bows. It looked more like Christmas than a birthday. I looked down over the rail to see Tabitha waiting for me in the sitting area below. I’d half expected to find her sitting there with blood running down her cheeks, ruining her makeup, but her cheeks were dry. She was upset, but she wasn’t crying. She was almost smiling, her lips pressed against each other in a thin severe line. I walked down the stairs, and sat down on the coffee table, my knees on either side of her.

“Sorry you walked in on that,” I told her.

“It’s your birthday,” she said matter-of-factly. “Besides, I told you that you could sleep with whoever you wanted. I was just…surprised, that’s all.”

“I noticed that you found the gun.” I leaned closer, resting my hand on her knee. She was wearing too much perfume and her skin smelled like two or three different types of soap. She was covering up an odor she didn’t want me to notice. Probably corpse sweat again. She needn’t have worried.

“I hope it didn’t hit the girl when it went off.” Tabitha’s words were faint, less than whispers. She hadn’t recognized Rachel. Thank God!

“Nah, it hit me in the ass.” I laughed. “It was pretty funny.”

“It didn’t sound funny.”

“It wasn’t funny when it happened, but it’s funny now.”

“Oh.” She looked left and right, anywhere but at me. “Do you want to open your presents?”

“If you want.” I walked over to the concession stand with Tabitha in tow.

“You don’t have to,” she whispered. “I did tell you that I’d try, you know, it, with a human and you. We could go upstairs.”

“No,” I said too quickly. “No, let’s…do you know what I really want to do?”

“What?” She had calmed down a bit, her body language more relaxed, more like the Tabitha I knew.

“I want to get Greta and go kill those fucking werewolves.” I pulled her close. “Wanna come?”

“You’re joking.” Her face lit up like New Year’s Eve. “Can I?”

“You’ll want to change clothes first, but I can help you with that.” We exchanged a quick kiss. Her cold dead lips couldn’t match her sister’s heat, but I still cared for her.

“Sounds like a plan,” she agreed with a slow smile.

“You run across to the Demon Heart and get changed,” I said. “I’ll find out where Greta went off to.”

“I thought you were going to help me change clothes,” Tabitha pouted.

“I will,” I promised. “Just let me round up Greta and I’ll be right over.”

Her eyes lingered on the stairs. “Okay,” she said slowly.

Upstairs, Rachel was curled under the covers. She didn’t say anything when I walked in or when I slipped on the rest of my clothes. The silence was a relief.

Without thinking, I picked upEl Alma Perdida . It didn’t burn my hand. I took the barrel in my left hand and touched the cross on the grip to my forearm, and it didn’t burn that either. It was hot, but not hot enough to burn. The bullets didn’t like me, but the gun seemed to think I was okay. Weird. I put it back in the box and tucked the box under my arm.

“I’ll be back later,” I said.

“Okay.” Rachel sounded tired and hurt. I fought the impulse to say anything else. Anything I said would have just made things worse. I’d never had a woman like her. She didn’t want to be a vampire and she liked being hurt, wanted it. I was going to have to get used to that.

Thanks to the new thrall sense, I could feel Greta nearby, in the parking deck attached to the Pollux. When I reached her, she was sitting on the hood of a Pinto looking up at the moon. Dried blood clung to her chin and throat and the matted tangle of her hair was plastered to the side of her head. Two half-naked teenagers lay in the backseat; their disembodied heads stared with sightless eyes from the roof of the car.

“I was really hungry, Dad,” Greta offered apologetically.

A cat, two pigeons, and a rat lay on the concrete next to the car. Greta’s eating problem in a nutshell.

“It’s fine. No lectures tonight.” I took off my shirt and wiped gently at the blood on her neck. “It’s my birthday.”

“The girl was supposed to be your present,” Greta sulked.

The blood wouldn’t come off. She needed a shower and a change of clothes. “Why don’t you get cleaned up and then as part of my present you can help me do something important.”

“Really?” Her expression was a mirror of Tabitha’s. Why do so many beautiful women think so highly of me? It’s like a kind of brain damage.

“Yeah.” I dropped the shirt on the car hood and put an arm around her. “I want to go kill those werewolves and put an end to this whole mess. It’ll be just the three of us: me, you, and your new mom.”

“Okay.” Greta got up slowly, uncertainly. “Where are the werewolves? I wouldn’t think they’d still be hanging around the park.”

They wouldn’t? No, I guessed not. The campground at the State Park couldn’t have been a long-term living arrangement. They probably went there just to set up the confrontation with me.

“Why do you think they picked the park?” I asked myself aloud.

“Because they like the woods?” Greta offered.

“No,” I said, still rolling the idea around in my head. “Because it’s not the city. It’s exposed. A vampire could take cover from the sun, but not the same way he might in the city. There are no sewers to hide in, no people to hide among, no way to diffuse the scent.”

We will never surrender our land to one of your kind.That’s what William had said.No matter how many dead you lay on our doorstep, we will not give in.

Our doorstep…the only place…no, damn it; I couldn’t remember. It was somewhere…somewhere…I’d been out there. I found the bullet that went in the magic gun, the one that led to the Highland Towers…Yesterday I knew, I’d remembered it, known it.

“Son of a bitch,” I shouted. “What the hell do you call it, the place with the big lake…” I barely noticed the smell of cinnamon and then I remembered. “Orchard Lake. William said I left dead werewolves at his doorstep. If he was talking about the ones Froggy killed, then he meant Orchard Lake. That’s where they are,” I finished triumphantly.

“Will there be fish?” Greta asked.

Will there be fish? What the hell kind of question was that? “Yes, sweetheart,” I assured her. “There will be fish, but we’ll be there for the wolves.”

30

ERIC:

ORCHARD DAM ROAD

The drive out to Orchard Lake can take anywhere from an hour to ninety minutes, depending on traffic. The trip takes you from interstate to highway to County Road 58 where you wind through Keener and Tartarus, cutting through broad areas of wooded acreage and low mountains punctuated by small townships and the occasional empty strip mall.

I pulled off of 58 onto Orchard Dam Road and parked in the driveway of an abandoned house. I was still driving Carl’s loaner. The car’s rear bumper was somewhere back at Bald Mountain State Park, or maybe the werewolves kept it as a trophy.

There was a farm across the road, boasting a small herd of cattle and horses, a hobby farm by the looks of it. The entrance to Sable Oaks was just beyond, a broad stone arch lit by ground lights so that it blazed formidably. Two vampires dressed like Secret Service men, in earpieces and black suits, stood on either side of the entrance to the gated community. I’d flown south when I’d left Orchard Lake the other night, partially to avoid the place. Sable Oaks was for high society fangs, not me.

I’d half expected to find two werewolves on this side, standing guard over Orchard Dam Road from the empty house where we’d parked. A weathered piece of cardboard announced that the house was for sale, but the number had been washed away by rain or bleached out by the sun. If it had really been for sale, then the same vampires who owned Sable Oaks would have undoubtedly snapped it up. I could easily imagine the reason the werewolf community had abandoned it. Too close to the undead.

I waved cheerily at the two vampires, but they stared straight ahead, ignoring me.

Greta unfolded out of the backseat and stretched her arms. “God, it’s nice to be out of there,” she said.

“You could have traveled as something smaller.” I stepped out and closed the door, slamming it so it would catch. It bounced back open and fell off. Vampire strength: gotta love it.

“No thanks,” Greta said. “I’ll leave the shapeshifting to you.”

“Why?” asked Tabitha. She still looked happy to have been invited. She’d even dressed appropriately. Her jeans, tennis shoes, and old T-shirt weren’t as glamorous or sexy as the clothes she usually wore, but were much more sensible for fighting werewolves. I wondered if she would still be happy once the killing started. So far, she had killed only when under the influence of the doped blood Froggy had slipped into my reserve at the Demon Heart. As far as I knew, she hadn’t ever killed to feed.

“I’m not an animal,” Greta answered.

“So?” Tabitha walked around the car and stood next to me, her hand tucked possessively into the back pocket of my jeans.

“So, I don’t like being anything I’m not,” said Greta. “It feels weird.” She rubbed her left arm, taking in her surroundings.

“Being a cat feels awesome,” Tabitha said.

“Not to me.”

“Are you two done?” I asked. “It’s half past one and sunrise is at six eighteen.”

“You checked?” Greta’s hands flew to her cheeks in exaggerated shock.

“Ha. Ha,” I replied dryly. “Yes, I checked.”El Alma Perdida was in the glove compartment. I leaned across the interior of the car, flipped open the compartment, and pulled out the gun, measuring its heft in my hand. The gun hummed, its grip warm, but the crosses still didn’t bother me.

“That is so odd,” said Tabitha. “I barely touched the thing and it burned the crap out of me. Why doesn’t it hurt you?”

“Talbot told me that my aura and the gun’s looked the same, that the gun might be inherited. Did you find anything else out about it?” I asked.

“Just that it was used by a guy named John Paul Courtney back in the Wild West.”

Greta laughed.

“What’s so funny?” asked Tabitha.

“That’s Dad’s real last name, Mom,” Greta told her.

“Could you not do that? Call me Tabitha.”

Greta shook her head. “I can’t do that, Mom. That would just be too weird.”

Tabitha looked at me for assistance, but I couldn’t help on this one. Anytime I turned a girlfriend, Greta started calling her “Mom” until we broke up. The only exception was Marilyn. She had always called her “Mom” or “old Mom.” Maybe in Greta’s head, even though we’d never married, Marilyn counted as my first wife and that made her Greta’s real mother. Marilyn had certainly helped raise her, taken her to school, made her lunches, and picked her up at the end of the day.

Marilyn had been furious when I turned Greta at twenty-one, but I’d had my reasons. Most humans don’t know what they’re getting into if they become a vampire, but Greta had known better than most. She’d spent twelve years with a vampire for a dad, watching what I did, how I was.

I kept very little hidden from her, hoping that if she saw everything, if I took away the mystique, she’d change her mind. I’d expected her to grow to hate me, but she didn’t. To Greta, I’d always be her knight in shining armor, the hero who came in through the window one night and killed the bad guy. She didn’t care that if she’d been older, I might have also killed her.

“I thought your last name was Jones,” said Tabitha, snapping me out of my fugue.

“Alias,” I said. “Roger says we have to roll everything into a new identity every three or four decades so that no one at the federal level gets suspicious.”

Courtney sounded familiar, but a lifetime away. “I used to be a Courtney, I guess. Marilyn would know.”

What’s your father’s name?Marilyn asked again in my head. The truth was, I didn’t want to remember. I knew Marilyn’s name, though: Marilyn Amanda Robinson. It should have been Marilyn Robinson Courtney…

“How can you not remember your last name?” asked Tabitha in amazement. Her hand was no longer in my pocket. She stood beside me, gesturing as she spoke.

“I haven’t used it in forty years,” I replied defensively. I didn’t have time for this conversation. Talking about the past wakes up all the ghosts in my head. My brother, my parents—they were all better half remembered. I hadn’t made them proud when I’d been alive, hadn’t been what they wanted me to be. Even if I still had nieces and nephews out there, I didn’t want to know about them and they didn’t need to know about me. We weren’t part of the same world anymore.

I began to walk up the road toward the marina. Greta fell in step beside me, but Tabitha blocked my path, hand on my chest. “But it’s your name,” she insisted.

“So?” I stepped around her.

“What do you mean ‘so’?” Tabitha moved to intercept me again. Her white T-shirt looked red in the sudden light from my eyes.

“Why is it important to you that I remember it?” Now that I was away from Rachel, I felt more like my old self, my anger closer to the surface, harder to control. Tabitha couldn’t possibly understand the difference, but now that she had no heartbeat, it was difficult for me not to think of her as a thing, not a person, not a woman. She’d gone through the change, and she wasn’t my Tabitha anymore, just a convincing fake. The urge to crush that impostor, to tear it apart, brought my claws out. But then a look of surprise in her eyes that reminded me of the Tabitha I had given in to pushed that urge away and dimmed the red light in my own eyes.

“It just is,” Tabitha said. “You can’t forget who you really are.” But she already had. She didn’t realize it, but she had. The Tabitha I knew would have screamed at me when she walked in on the birthday sex at the Pollux, or fled the room in tears.

“Are you hunting werewolves?” I asked, exasperated. “Because Greta and I are hunting werewolves.”

“Yes, but—”

“Good,” I interrupted. “Everyone who’s hunting werewolves is walking this way.” I pointed at the rough paved road that ran up the hill and down the other side to the marina.

Tabitha moved to my right side and walked with us in silence. The night was quiet, any sound absorbed by the stands of oak and pine that flanked the road. A half mile from the intersection, the road turned twice. I stopped next to the yellow sign warning drivers of the sharp curve and looked down the hill at the creek forty feet below.

“You okay?” Tabitha asked.

“No,” I answered. I’d been thinking about Brian, the vampire I’d decapitated, wondering why we’d both been in the alleyway. If Roger was behind this, then it meant he’d talked Brian into it. Or had he scammed Brian too, knowing that we couldn’t get along, that my losing my temper in a fatal way was inevitable? “But it doesn’t matter.”

We walked about another mile, the road continuing up a steep climb and then angling down at an equally steep incline toward the parking lot.

We walked carefully along the downward slope and stopped about fifty yards from the parking lot, where the pavement turned into an uncertain mixture of gravel and dirt. A large blue Dumpster hulked in the corner of the lot, obscuring the sight of us from the small brick utility building that housed the restrooms. The werewolves had posted a guard outside the building. I smelled him on the wind as it blew both his scent and that of the Dumpster our way.

Trucks, RVs, and all manner of off-road vehicles filled the parking lot, many more than when I’d last been here. The werewolves had regrouped.

I setEl Alma Perdida on the lid of the Dumpster for safekeeping and turned into a white cat, then picked my way along the gravel quietly until I got a better look at the guard. He was sitting in a lawn chair on the sidewalk that ran across the water side of the parking lot, near the steps that led down to the long bridge connecting the marina’s floating docks to the shore. His back was to the utility building, his eyes gazing out over the parking lot to the hillside where Froggy had left the bodies of the werewolves she’d killed. Hard rock classics played on a small portable radio, Pink Floyd’s “Hey You” suggesting ironically that the guard not give up without a fight.

A small gray cat settled next to me. “What do we do?” Tabitha meowed.

I looked back to where Greta crouched low and ready next to the Dumpster and gave her a nod. She darted across the parking lot, little more than a blur. The werewolf barely had time to blink before Greta picked him up by the feet and slammed his head against the wall of the utility building.

She was back at my side before he hit the ground, blood and brain matter splattering. Tabitha and I morphed back to our human bodies and I stepped out onto the concrete, looking down the long set of steps to the boat slips below. I couldn’t smell or sense anyone down there. If anyone else was keeping watch, they were doing it from one of the lake houses.

“We’re not allowed to eat until we find the werewolves,” said Greta. She looked pointedly at Tabitha when she said it. “Then we can eat anyone we want. Dad just doesn’t want us getting carried away.”

“Oh, God.” Tabitha sounded like she might be ill. I guess she’d never seen brains on brick before.

“Do you need to wait in the car?” I asked quietly.

“No,” she forced out past clenched teeth.

“Try to remember what it feels like when you’re hungry,” I advised. “Think of them as food, just blood sources, not people.”

“That makes it worse.” Huh. Maybe there was more Tabitha still in there than I wanted to believe. What if I didn’twant her to be Tabitha, wanted her to be a monster like me, because that made it easier not to feel guilty about being with Rachel?

“Then go back to the car,” I said sharply. The Tabitha I knew was squeamish about killing a mouse in a trap. She’d killed Veruca, yes, but that had been self-defense more than anything else. A straightforward werewolf slaughter was another matter.

“It’ll be all right, Mom.” Greta tried to put her arm around Tabitha, but Tabitha pulled away. “Dad and I can handle it. We don’t need you.”

“I can do this,” Tabitha insisted.

“Then stop acting like a prissy little bitch,” I said as I walked back to the Dumpster and retrievedEl Alma Perdida . I hadn’t meant to say that, it just jumped out there.

“I said I can do it!”

“Fine.”If you can, then you really aren’t my Tabitha anymore, I thought. I tucked the gun into the back of my pants and tried to turn into a bat, but nothing happened except an angry hum fromEl Alma Perdida . The Lost Soul didn’t seem to like vampire games. I couldn’t leave it behind; I was going to need it if I had to kill William. Only in my hands was the gun blessed, magical, silver, and inherited. As a bonus, I liked the idea of trapping William’s soul inside one of the bullets. For all I knew, death didn’t hold anything scary for him and I certainly didn’t wish him a happy afterlife.

“You want to be helpful?” I asked Tabitha.

“Yes. I said I could do this and I—”

“Can you turn into a bat or a bird, mist, maybe?”

“Yes.”

“Which?” I asked with a slightly impatient sigh.

“I can do a bird. I can probably do a bat.”

“Good, then turn into a bat and go find the werewolves,” I said. “Don’t fight them, just find them and come back.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Just do it,” I said.

She shifted into a bat just fine, but fluttered to the ground and flapped weakly. Greta giggled, but I kept a straight face. It isn’t easy to fly the first time out. Tabitha got the hang of it after the radio played through two more songs and finally took off over the gentle waves of Orchard Lake, three bars into “Magic Carpet Ride.”

I waited until I knew she was out of earshot, but still spoke quietly. “There are some kids with the werewolves.”

“Kids or puppies?” Greta asked.

“They’re werewolves, too.”

She kissed me fondly on the cheek. “You old softy. Don’t worry, Daddy; I’ll kill them for you.” I let the music from the portable radio fill in the silence. I told you that there are other reasons Greta makes me uncomfortable.

I don’t like hurting children. Hell, even though this whole outing had been my idea, I would have preferred not to have to killany werewolves. I much preferred just beating them up enough so that they knew they couldn’t take me and then letting them go. Unless I went into a rage blackout, of course.

Even the werewolf I had killed in the alley when all this crap started might have survived if I hadn’t been trapped by the sun. Killing werewolves tended to be more trouble than it was worth. As the last few days had shown, once you start killing werewolves, your wolf problems multiply. The pack gets angry. The pack comes after you. There’s more killing. The pack calls in reinforcements, maybe from the Lycan Diocese, maybe from one of the other freaky-ass skinchanger cults out there, but either way there’s even more killing. If you leave the cubs alive, then all you’ve done is buy yourself a brief respite, because cubs grow up and when they do, they remember the vampire who slaughtered their pack and the process starts all over again.

I picked up the guard’s lawn chair that lay half-folded on its side. Underneath it on the concrete was a sheet of paper, a list of names, all checked off. The lake houses didn’t have addresses per se. Mail was delivered in a drop box at the utility building. The local paper got left in an old vending machine with a note on it that said “For Subscribers Only.”

On the sheet, each werewolf residence was recorded by family name and dock number. It looked like the guard had tracked who had come and gone and the license plates of the vehicles that had been driven in or out of the lot. For some of them, he’d listed their driver’s license number too.

William’s name wasn’t on the list, but I was pretty sure that if I started killing whole families of werewolves, he was bound to show up sooner or later.

31

TABITHA:

BAT GIRL

Prissy little bitch,huh? Well excuse me for not being used to seeing some guy’s brains splattered on the wall! I should have told him about Talbot and me. I should have turned on the bodyworks and shown him what I could do, that I could have body heat, a heartbeat, even a reflection. I bet that would have wiped the smile off of his face.Prissy little bitch would turn intohoney, baby, sweetie pie pretty damn quick then. At this point I didn’t know why I’d been so excited to come out to Orchard Lake in the first place.

Most of the houses I saw looked run-down or cobbled together, built along the slanted lakeside with boat docks sticking out into the lake, and irregular steps leading from the docks to the houses. I flew a quick loop around the inlet closest to the marina. There were three houses there, one on the same side of the water as the marina, the other two staring at it across the inlet.

There were no numbers on the docks and I wondered how they got their mail. I saw power lines but no phone lines, and the only air conditioners were window units. At the far side of the lake, where it narrowed, continuing in a wide ribbon upstream, two fishermen sat on an old wooden dock, kept afloat by what looked like white plastic barrels under the water. They each dangled their feet off the edge of the dock, beer and fishing poles close at hand.

One of them let a flashlight shine out over the lake. It cut a blue-green swath through the water and the fish went crazy, striking at the light. The two guys thought that was hilarious; then one of them sniffed the air. “You smell something?”

The one with the light turned it off. “No.”

An old wooden ramp rose from the dock to cinder-block steps leading up a steep incline to an even older house. The smell of coffee carried on the breeze. Two older women and two teenagers sat on the porch playing some game with lots of little multicolored plastic pyramids.

One of the women got up and walked halfway down the steps. “We’re about to turn in, Lucas,” said the woman. “How long are you boys going to sit out there playing with that flashlight?”

“William said to keep an extra eye out tonight just in case,” one of the men, evidently Lucas, replied.

“And then I suppose you’ll sleep all day?”

“No,” said Lucas. “No, then I’m going to drive into town and work first shift. One sleepless night isn’t going to kill me.”

These were the werewolves? They were just like normal people. Okay, normal hicks, but normal just the same. I’d expected monsters who went crazy under the light of the full moon…not real people. I flew farther down the lake, finding similar scenes. At one house, a couple lay asleep on a futon set out on the middle of their screened porch. A mother sat in a rocking chair in a different house nursing a baby who kept restlessly shifting from puppy to human. “Bert,” she called over her shoulder. “Did you find that teething medicine?”

“No, I must have left it in the truck,” Bert’s voice replied. “Let me get some clothes on and I’ll take the boat back and get it.”

I flew back to the marina. Eric and Greta were out on the pier untying a canoe. I landed in the center and resumed my human shape, the canoe wobbling as I did. “Are you sure these are the right people?” I whispered.

“Yes,” said Eric, climbing into the canoe.

“But they seem…normal.”

“They are normal.” They each took a paddle and we began moving quietly toward the shore. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t werewolves. Look, I’ll try talking to them, but they’re not going to listen. We’ll have to fight them sooner or later…and the only way to keep you and Greta safe is to opt for sooner.”

“And we have to kill all of them?”

“No, Mom,” Greta said. “You can go home. Dad and I will handle it.”

Again with the “Mom” thing. “No, I can deal, but some of them are only teenagers.”

“And some of them are younger,” said Eric. “But I didn’t start this; they did. I tried to make peace. It didn’t work.”

“Do I need to take care of the teenagers, too, Dad?” Greta asked.

“Not exclusively, just the little guys.”

“Little guys?” I asked, a chill running up my spine.

“The children.” Eric shipped his paddle and bowed his head, letting us drift upstream on his momentum. He looked defeated and annoyed. “We can’t just kill their parents and leave them. They don’t stay small and cute, you know. They grow up into big bad werewolves who want revenge for what happened to their pack. If you don’t like it, go home.”

“I’m just trying to understand.” I didn’t buy the whole we’ll-try-talking-first thing, and killing, not for food, but just flat-out murdering these people, werewolves or not…there was no difference between that and…I don’t know. It seemed monstrous.

“Well, stop trying!” Eric threw down his paddle. “Just stop. It’s harder if you think about it. God, you make everything so damned difficult. Part of being a vampire is turning off the piece of you that gives a damn. You do whatever it takes to feed and care for yourself or you go crazy. Tonight it means that I have to murder a whole bunch of people who might just have more right than I do to be walking the planet in the first place, but I can’t worry about that. It’s you or them. Who would you pick?”

I wanted to say “them” to disagree, but the words lodged in my throat. Deep inside, the same part of my brain that was offended by Drones, that became angry when lesser vampires spoke to me without permission, reared its ugly head. It would kill any of them if survival required it. The vampire within twitched inside my head and peeked out from behind my eyes. “Me,” I said quietly. “I’d pick me.”

“That’s what I thought,” Eric said. “Don’t try to pretend otherwise. It just makes things…shit!”

A mini spotlight hit Eric, lighting him up bright enough for anyone to see. Greta rolled noiselessly over the side into the water the instant before the light would have given her away. She didn’t even make a splash. I turned into a cat. Eric pulled his sunglasses off of his T-shirt collar and slid them on. The light came from the same two men I’d seen on the dock. Now Lucas held a crossbow and the other guy held the flashlight.

Eric picked up his paddle and began to row toward the dock. “Either of you rednecks know a guy named William?” he asked as the canoe came closer to their little wooden dock.

“Who wants to know?” asked Lucas.

Eric smiled, his fangs preternaturally white against the darkness. “I’m Roger Malcolm.” He spoke with easy confidence, though he was easing the magic gun out of his pants with his right hand. Eric slid it onto the bottom of the canoe. “I just wanted to stop by one more time and talk to William.”

“William already told you that we aren’t selling,” said Flashlight Man.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I meowed.

Greta’s head broke the surface in the water beneath their dock, her eyes watching them predatorily through the gaps in the boards.

“You just get on out of here, mister.” The man gestured back to the marina with his light. “William will be here soon enough if you don’t. We’re not selling, to you or anyone else.”

“So that’s what this is about.” Eric nodded to Greta. “Now!”

I ducked back under the lip of the canoe.

“Hi.” Greta sounded perky and upbeat when she grabbed their dangling legs. “Whatcha doing?”

They vanished from the dock, the flashlight clattering momentarily on the wood before falling into the water. Shadows moved frantically beneath the surface of the lake and Eric paddled to the dock as quickly as he could, stepping out of the canoe withEl Alma Perdida in his hand.

“Lucas? Henry?” On the porch, one of the old women gripped the porch rail. “Vampire!”

Darkness came over the canoe. I poked my head back out. Eric leveled the gun at the old woman. “Get William,” he said evenly.

“Jimmy, Lisa, run for help!” someone shouted from the porch. The teen wolves charged off howling into the night.

A large black werewolf broke the water behind Eric, as if he’d been fired from an underwater cannon.

“Lucas!” the old woman yelled triumphantly as she too began to change. Eric spun and caught Lucas, slamming him against the dock and latching onto his back.El Alma Perdida skidded out of Eric’s hand toward the water, but I leapt out of the canoe and onto the dock, trapping it by the barrel with my paws.

Lucas struggled with Eric on his back biting into his shoulder. “How do you like it?” Eric yelled between bites. “How do you like it when I sink my teeth into your fucking shoulder?”

“Better’n a stick in the eye.” Lucas shrugged him off and leapt from the dock. I couldn’t see the churning underwater battle between Greta and her opponent, but Lucas must have thought his friend needed help. Eric caught him in midleap and smashed him back first onto the wooden dock. Boards cracked, but the dock held.

Greta bobbed up out of the water, clinging to the body of a large brown werewolf who floated facedown. She swam for the dock and pulled herself up out of the water with one hand.

Eric delivered a double-fisted blow to Lucas’s temple and the werewolf went still.

Both women from the porch charged down the hill, but only one of them had transformed into a wolf. The other woman was human. I could smell it. Greta met the werewolf halfway and they rolled around together on the hillside. Greta’s laughter echoed out over the water. She was having too much fun.

The old woman swung her open hand at Eric. He caught it with no effort at all and tossed her over his shoulder into the lake. She landed with a splash.

“Help! Vampires! Help!” The teenagers’ voices carried clear out over the water. I dove back down into the boat. None of this was happening like it was supposed to happen. Now there were humans here, too?

“Grandma,” Greta said, gripping the werewolf’s upper and lower jaws and forcing them open too wide. “What big teeth you have.”

“Just kill her,” Eric said impatiently.

Greta frowned, but did as she was told.

I leapt back up onto the dock and resumed my human shape, complete with jeans and T-shirt. “Both of you, stop this,” I cried.

“Go home, Tabitha.” Eric grabbed me by the chin, squeezing my cheeks. “Just go the fuck home. I’m sorry I asked you here.” He pushed me away. “I never should have turned you. I knew it wouldn’t work out. You can’t handle this.”

“I can do anything I need to do! But this doesn’t need to be done. It’s stupid. It’s murder, not self-defense, not feeding.”

“Looks like you got another dud, Dad,” Greta said, walking up to the porch of the house.

The woman Eric had thrown in the water floated in the darkness, watching us. Eric pointed at her. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Swim off to the marina or something.”

He watched her swim away, looking relieved that he didn’t need to kill her. “What do you want from me, Tabitha?”

“I want…”I want you not to push me away, I thought.I want you to understand that I’m still me, and then I want to show you what I can do, that I can be like a live girl for you, that I can be warm and sexy and still hunt with you. I want you to be the same reluctant romantic that you always were, the man who isn’t always in the right, but tries.

“Do you want me to be all sexy and dangerous?” He sniffed the air, checking for werewolves. “Am I supposed to be Tom Cruise?”

“No. I…” Did he really want me to leave? Was he pushing me away on purpose?

“Am I supposed to go fight crime with you? Open a detective agency? Look for a cure? Because it’s not happening. You wanted a monster and you got one!” Waving his gun around as he spoke, Eric came toward me, his intemperate footsteps causing the dock to creak in protest. One of the white plastic barrels supporting it floated out from underneath, dropping the dock closer to the water’s surface on one side.

“You’re not a monster!” I shouted.

“I’m not?” His voice cracked as he asked.El Alma Perdida hummed angrily, but Eric’s eyes blazed brightly just the same. His claws came out, and with them, the fangs. He snarled at me, doing everything he could to be less than what he was.

“No. Not really. You’re the man I love.”

“Oh, please,” Eric said, his features becoming human once again. “Maybe you loved me when you were alive, but now you’re dead. You don’t even smell like you anymore.”

“But I—” But I can, I tried to say. Eric cut me off.

“Just shut up, Tabitha,” he yelled in a voice so loud that my ears rang. “Listen,” he snapped, grabbing me by the shoulder. “Do you hear that?” Howl after howl rang out into the night. “Do you see those?” He pointed out over the water to werewolves in pontoon boats heading our way, some swimming in the lake. “I do not have time to talk about this right now. Some things are more important than how you feel.”

And he was right. He was right. This wasn’t the time or place. In truth, it was way past time for this discussion, but he hadn’t been ready for it, and probably never would be. He didn’t like to think about things too hard, especially not emotional things. He didn’t want to admit that he loved me, but I knew that he did. He had to.

But I had to rethink my tactics. Chasing him wasn’t working. Rolling over and letting him act however he wanted just made things worse. He had to realize that he loved me, had to be willing to admit it to me and to himself. And he couldn’t do that with me giving in to him over and over again.

Which left only one way to get his attention.

“I hate you!” My claws raked down his face, leaving behind furrows of ravaged white flesh. He didn’t react, didn’t yell or scream. He just stood there, an inhuman statue.

“That makes two of us,” he spat.

“If you love me, come find me. Otherwise…we’re finished,” I said. I turned into a bat and flew off into the night. I could pick up my things at the Demon Heart and make it to the Highland Towers by morning.

Phillip would take care of me. I knew he would. He knew how to treat a lady. He was nice and sweet…and short, fat, and bald, but he would do for starters. If Eric couldn’t get a grip on his feelings for me, refused to acknowledge them, never came to get me…then a vampire queen deserved better. I deserved better.

32

ERIC:

ILL MET BY MOONLIGHT

Greta and I waited for William on the front porch. We didn’t talk about Tabitha. Out in the dark, pawfalls sounded on the damp evening soil. A small armada of pontoon boats and speedboats floated in the middle of the lake, biding their time. Smart puppies. They wanted me surrounded before attacking. Overhead, the crescent moon watched our little war games. I pretended not to hear the rustle of seventy-plus werewolves panting in the night. Greta found an old transistor radio and turned it on.

“I forget,” I asked Greta, “is it waxing or waning that’s bad news for them, good news for us?” She shrugged.

The same classic rock station popped and hissed to life, treating us all to a little Led Zeppelin.

A wolf, white as snow and large as a lion, rounded the corner of the house.

“Waning is good for you,” he snarled. “Tonight’s moon is waxing crescent.” Huh. Even the moon was out to screw me.

“What kept you?” I asked.

“A meeting.”

“It would have saved you three packmates and a guard if you’d been at the marina.”

“They are with the Lord now, just as you will soon be with your master the devil.”

“Has anybody ever told you how cool it is that you guys talk in wolf form? I wish I could speak English when I change, but it all comes out like animal talk.”

“You think this is funny.”

“Not really.” I pulled the pistol out of the back of my jeans and scratched my temple with the barrel. “I think us fighting each other is pretty damn stupid though. You might be able to hurt me, but I haveEl Alma Perdida .”

If he didn’t know whatEl Alma Perdida was, then I was screwed and the rest of my night was going to be like the bloodbath at the docks. Tabitha was right about killing them being murder, but wrong about it being needless. Murder can be necessary. If I looked weak to the wolves, like I wouldn’t carry out any threat I made, there was no way William would listen.

William didn’t blink. “If I shoot you with this,” I warned, “you don’t go to your reward. You get trapped by the gun. You don’t want to spend eternity in a bullet, William. I know you don’t.”

The other werewolves began to close in, jumping out of boats and onto the embankment. Others came out of the woods.

“You killed my son!” William bellowed.

“No, but you did kill mine,” I replied calmly. “I’m still willing to overlook that.”

“Dad!” Greta crossed her arms with a loudhumph. “Can’t we just kill them all? They tortured me and they killed Kyle.”

“Not yet, sweetheart.” My eyes never left William’s. “I killed a bunch of werewolves for that already.”

William blurred, a mass of growling angry white fur charging at me, going for my throat. If I hadn’t had the gun out, I’d never have managed to bring it to bear.

His jaws touched my throat and the barrel of the gun touched his forehead. It charred his fur slightly and he drew back. I had almost been too slow.

“How?” said William. “A vampire can’t hold—”

“They can if they wear gloves and don’t mind it burning the crap out of them.”

“You aren’t wearing gloves.”

“I’m an exception,” I said. “I have it on good authority that John Paul Courtney was my great, great, great-granddad or granduncle…or something like that.

“You see, someone has been trying pretty damn hard to maneuver us into this position. At first, I thought it was because I killed your son, but actually I didn’t. I don’t know who I killed. He was dressed like a bum, had already killed two other vamps, and jumped me in an alley.”

“Fergus.” William spat the name out like it tasted bad. “No wonder I couldn’t get in touch with him. He’s no packmate of ours. He’s an outcast and a murderer. He’ll do anything for money.”

“Greta,” I called over my shoulder to her. “I’m supposed to remember that name, for some reason. Do you—” Then it clicked. The check! Thirty thousand dollars written to a Fergus…something…a check on which Roger forged my name. Bastard. “Well, that explains that. So Roger hired Fergus to jump me in the alley. He got Brian to maneuver me into position and…Where was I?”

“You didn’t do it,” Greta answered from the porch.

“Right. I…Do you mind backing up a few steps?” I asked William. “Your breath smells like Alpo.”

William withdrew slightly, growling low, ears flattened against his head. “You cannot escape.”

“I know, I know,” I said. “You and your pack will call up more goons from the Lycan Diocese to hunt me down. Blah blah blah.”

“Do not mock me, vampire.”

“Sorry,” I said. I cleared my throat. “Okay, so then I thought that I was being used as a fall guy, that the boyfriend of the vampire who killed your son had framed me to protect his girlfriend, the theory being that I would probably kill you and even if I didn’t…well, once you killed me you would think the whole deal was over and move on with your life.

“But then I found out aboutEl Alma Perdida .” I leaned against the wall. It was hard to read William’s expression, but since he was listening I kept on talking. “How likely is it that I just happened to stumble into a mess involving an Alpha werewolf, one that I might need all different sorts of silver to kill—blessed, magic, inherited, cherry-flavored, the whole bit, and then wind up with all of it neatly packaged in one gun?

“Now…I happen to believe the whole John Paul Courtney thing. I kind of like the idea that I’m related to a badass cowboy werewolf hunter. But that someone would just happen to be using his special gun, that they would just happen to leave a bullet behind so that I could find that gun? It’s just too much coincidence.”

“You have another explanation?” he growled.

“Yeah, yeah, I do. You know a vampire named Roger, right?”

William growled low in his throat. “Roger Malcolm. He dared to come here, to ask us to sell him our land. He—”

I cut him off. “That’s the guy. I think the whole reason I’m down here is because Roger wants me to kill you and enough of your pack that he can bring in some hired muscle and dispose of the rest, snatch the property out from under any relatives you might have, and build his little fancy-schmantsy vampire lake resort.”

“And are you here because you wish to protect this ‘friend’? Because he is also the one who told us where we could find you the other night.”

“Me?” I asked. “Hell, no! Yes, I was planning to kill you, but that’s only because after the stunts you’ve pulled trying to get back at me, I didn’t think we’d be able to talk things over. I expected to kill you with the magic gun and then to have to kill your pack so that they’d leave me alone.” He bristled at that.

“Now that we’re talking, though, we’ve got options. I figure we can do this one of two ways. Way one I call ‘the bad plan.’ You don’t believe me and I see how many of you I can kill before you take me down. Then, being a Vlad, I keep coming back over and over again. You get the idea.

“Way two, which I must say I prefer, I call ‘the give the bastard what he deserves plan.’ About forty of your pack members keep Greta as collateral, unharmed, and the rest of us go pay Roger a little visit.”

“Dad,” Greta protested. “You can’t trust them. They’ll try to eat me.”

“Not if he promises they won’t,” I told her.

“Dad, no.”

“Do it and I’ll let you move back into the Pollux,” I said cajolingly. “You can have one of the dressing rooms all to yourself.”

Greta bit her lip, considering it. With Kyle gone, if I let her move in, she knew I’d let her stay. “And I get to hunt for a whole week, however I want, and you won’t complain or be mad about how much I eat.”

“Deal,” I told her. I inclined my head slightly toward William. “What do you say?”

William resumed his human form. I’d seen other werewolves change back before, the fangs receding and new teeth growing in to fill the bloody holes. In contrast, William’s reversion seemed painless. The fur around his eyes lit up from within, spreading outward across his body until the only thing not illuminated were those fierce eyes, the glow obscuring the rest of him. The outline changed, became that of a man. The glow receded and he stood before me in jeans and a white T-shirt, wearing loafers without socks. Very cool. “Assuming I agree to this, what happens after?”

“You let Greta go, deliver her safely to the Pollux—at night,” I emphasized, “and agree to stay out of my way in exchange for me staying out of yours.”

“In other words, a return to the status quo.”

“Yes.”

“I can’t speak for the Lycan Diocese,” William replied, “but I can attempt to explain. I can call off my pack, but you killed Reverend. He was a member of Deacon’s pack. Even if the Lycan Diocese decides to forgive you…”

“I’ll burn that bridge when I come to it,” I told him.

“William,” one of the others snarled in protest. “He killed Lucas and—”

“Silence,” William snapped. “He will pay for his sins. All we do here is agree to let the Lord handle his punishment. If what he says is true, then we attacked him mistakenly.”

They argued for twenty minutes, but eventually he convinced them. He convinced me that he could be trusted, too, especially when the packmates he picked to keep an eye on Greta were all wolves who had raised their voices in support of his plan.

The werewolves ferried us to the marina in a pontoon boat, then William let me ride in the back of his pickup, intending to drop me off at my car. We had to make new plans when we got to the abandoned house, though. It seemed Tabitha had decided to take the car with her when she left.

I waved again at the security guards still standing in front of Sable Oaks. This time I got a reaction. They stared openmouthed and called for backup. I think they thought we were invading. With a mutual laugh shared between me and my temporary allies, we drove on.

Which left me with one last problem: Did I really want to help these werewolves kill Roger?

33

TABITHA:

TIDYING UP

No one was supposed to be at the Demon Heart, but when I pulled around back to park, I saw Marilyn’s old Buick in its usual spot, second closest to the door. She always saved the first spot for Eric. I pulled into his parking place and wondered how the fight was going. Had Eric and Greta slaughtered all the werewolves yet? I couldn’t imagine the werewolves winning.

Inside the club, all the lights were off except for a narrow band shining out from underneath the door in the main office. The weak thud of Marilyn’s heartbeat thumped in my ears, the acrid smell of her cigarette assaulting my nostrils. The door to Eric’s bedroom was open. The light snapped on at a touch and I started unpacking my things from Eric’s chest of drawers.

I pulled my suitcase from his closet, but I knew everything wouldn’t fit. I’d accumulated too much stuff. He’d been so free with money that I now had six times the number of outfits I’d moved in with. My lingerie alone could have filled the suitcase. Packing up my favorites and my jewelry seemed the best way to go. I set aside the blue dress that I’d worn for Eric’s birthday and the diamond necklace. I wanted to be wearing them when I saw Phillip.

I went into the bathroom and willed myself to seem alive, my heart to beat, my blood to flow, and most of all for my reflection to appear in the mirror. Doing so diminished my other senses, the sound of my own heart and the blood rushing through my veins drowning out external sounds to near-human levels.

I stripped out of my clothes and studied the figure in the glass. No fat. No cellulite. My breasts were firm and full, and, unlike some dancers, completely natural. The slight sag that gravity normally gave them had been banished by vampirism. My tummy was flat, my muscles toned, and looking over my shoulder verified that my butt was tight and heart-shaped. My long black hair was healthy; it had body and bounce. What was not to love?

I didn’t hear her come into the room, but I smelled the smoke.

“That’s not the problem,” Marilyn said. Her cigarette was out, but the scent clung to her, a cloud of stench.

“Don’t you knock?” I reached down for my panties, embarrassed by her presence even though I’d shown my body to thousands of perfect strangers.

“When I feel like it,” she said, cackling. “I’m old. People overlook things when you’re old.”

“Well, I don’t. I—”

“You decided to leave him?” she asked, pointing to the suitcase. Her eyes loomed large behind her glasses. She wasn’t wearing her false teeth, and it changed the timbre of her voice.

“Yes.” Not for long, though, I thought. He’ll come after me. I walked past her and retrieved my blue dress.

“He won’t.” Marilyn sat on the edge of the bed, a withered old woman, a witch reading my mind. She smiled a pursed-lip toothless smile at my surprise.

“How did you—”

“I know him better than anybody,” Marilyn told me, crossing her arms. There was no sling, no cast. “Better than Roger ever suspected.” A cough took her, a series of long wracking painful rasps. “I know you, too, because you’re a woman who loves him. We have that in common.” She stood up, slow and creaking. “So I feel I should tell you this. He won’t chase you, but he does love you.”

We had that in common?

“But you hate him,” I protested, forgetting the dress in my hand as I gestured with it. “He disgusts you.”

“You don’t know me,” Marilyn said. She started folding some of my things, putting them neatly into the suitcase. “And you don’t know him, either.

“Do you know what his hopes and dreams were when he was alive? Did you see him come back from the Second World War, a man who hadn’t believed in killing, but who had believed in doing what was right? We were just friends, then. He was too stupid to realize that when I said I was saving myself for marriage, what I really meant was saving myself for him.”

She didn’t cry; as emotional as her words were, she snapped them off bitterly. “Did you ever hear him play the piano? Did you even know he could? Did you hold his head in your lap on the day you were supposed to be married to him and cry because he’d been ruined, too?”

“You know I haven’t. I wasn’t even born then.”

“I know.” Marilyn’s head sagged. “You’re young and you’re stupid and you think you can treat an eighty-two-year-old man like a teenager. You expect him to run after you, but he can’t.”

“I don’t know what else to do,” I shouted. “It’s like he wants me to leave, but I know he still cares about me. I’ve seen him decide to be cruel on purpose and push me away—”

Marilyn slapped me and I slapped her back, the blow spinning her all the way around before she dropped to the ground like a sack of old laundry. Her glasses landed on the bed and I thought that I had killed her.

“Oh my God. Marilyn.” I touched her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I—” And then she slapped me again, her laugh sharp and abrasive, cawing crowlike laughter. I reeled away from her and she grinned, her fierce eyes challenging me. My fingernails had cut her skin when I’d struck her, but the wounds weren’t bleeding, they were creeping closed.

“You have to stay and fight for him and you have to win. You have to get Greta on your side and you have to protect him, like I tried to do, but you have to succeed.”

“Protect him from what? Himself?” I asked.

Marilyn pulled herself up and reached for the top of her blouse. I thought she was hiding a cross, that she was going to use it on me, but instead, she opened the top button, baring part of a wrinkled, drooping breast, upon which she had a small tattoo of a frog. “Do you see?” she asked. “Talbot told me you killed Veruca. You might have seen, when she died.”

“She turned to dust, Marilyn.”

“Never mind.” Marilyn closed her blouse, deflated, as she spoke. “I can’t…he won’t let me say more.”

“Who won’t?” I asked. As if in answer to my question, Roger popped up in my mind, seemingly holographic like the vampires at the Highland Towers. He was less powerful than me and had been a vampire for forty-three years. He was shocked to see me, but not as shocked as I was to see his companion. He was walking down Thirteenth Street talking to a young woman who was the spitting image of Rachel. They were arguing and he seemed nervous, almost afraid.

“Nice tits,” he said to me and I broke the contact.

“I’ve gotta go,” I told Marilyn. I slipped the blue dress over my head and darted barefooted out the front door.

They’d reached the front of the Pollux by the time I got there. The girl who looked like Rachel wore tight black hip huggers and a midriff top. A small gold padlock hung from her choker and she wore a jade bracelet on her left wrist. Except for the hair, which had been highlighted in blondes and reds, she was Rachel’s twin. She smirked when she saw me.

“Hi, slut,” she said. “Where ya been?”

Even her voice was Rachel’s. But I’d seen her open casket. I’d watched them lower her into the ground.

“Rachel?” I whispered. “But…but you died.”

“Anyone can get a second chance aboveground, Tab. You just have to be willing to do absolutely anything to get it. Third chances are harder. But I died human, so my path didn’t require any special ingredients that I didn’t have with me. It’s not easy to close the deal when your soul is already hellbound and on-site, but it can be done.”

“Rachel wouldn’t have gone to hell,” I told the look-alike. “She was just a kid.”

The smile on her lips was in that uncertain territory between sweet and malicious. “That’s cute, Tab. I’m flattered.” She turned to Roger. “She gets to leave.”

“Like you could stop me anyway,” I snapped.

“Kill her,” Roger suggested.

I honestly don’t know whether he was talking to her or to me, but the Rachel look-alike answered him. “If I do, he’ll know I did it, because you insisted that I link with him, make him think he’d made me his thrall. I’m not like your wrinkled-up old fuck puppet, Roger. I’m a witch and you’re just a frickin’ Master vampire. You can’t control me.”

Roger opened his mouth to reply, but I beat him to it. “So that’s how you look like my sister? You used magic?” I popped my claws. “Well, stay back, witch, because I’m not just a ‘frickin’ Master.’ I’m a Vlad.”

The witch laughed like a wicked child, eyes sparkling as if she enjoyed a challenge. “Don’t tempt me, sis.”

“Do it,” Roger urged her. He reached out to her, but drew his hand back before he made contact. He feared her. She sensed it and her nostrils flared. He stammered, “I didn’t—”

Her eyes narrowed. “Watch it, dead boy. I’m only helpingyou out because it will help pay my debt. My real boss got me out of hell. You did squat. He said to help you with Eric. Tabitha is not part of the deal.”

“You guys are going to try and take Eric on?” I asked incredulously. “The two of you?”

“Roger thinks he is,” the woman who claimed to be Rachel answered. “Which is a total joke. I mean, let’s be serious. In a fight, even you would kick Roger’s ass.”

“That’s why you’re here,” Roger said angrily. “You have to help me.”

“Not in a fight. Your contract for assistance specifies non-combat. If you want more, you’ll have to work it out with my boss.” The witch tapped Roger on the nose with her index finger like he was a particularly dumb child. “If he was really just a Vlad, then I might’ve helped you out. My magic would have had him wrapped around my little finger in under a minute.” She ran her hand along Roger’s shoulder and he relaxed visibly. The scent of freshly baked cinnamon rolls washed over me, but I couldn’t tell where it came from. “But as it is, I have to go all out to influence him even a little bit. I could barely keep him from flying to the other side of the interstate after that mess at the lake. He nearly didn’t make it to the right house. So, I’m sorry, but you’re on your own.”

“Which,” the woman turned her attention to me and began massaging Roger’s shoulders as she spoke, “is why Roger, here, is going to get his undead ass handed to him tonight.”

“He won’t kill me,” Roger objected, shoving her away with some difficulty, trying to regain his composure.

“Oh yes, he will,” the witch countered. “Because you refuse to believe that Eric is an Emperor, not a Vlad. I get why. Accepting what he is means you have to accept that you helped Eric become more powerful than you will ever be, even though you didn’t mean to do it.”

Emperor, my ass.“You’re both nuts,” I said finally. “And you,” I added, pointing at the Rachel look-alike. “I don’t know who you are, witch, or what spell you’re using, but you are definitely not my sister.”

I stormed back into the Demon Heart and locked the door. Marilyn sat behind the bar, my packed suitcase propped up on top of it next to a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Lord Phillip’s diamond necklace sparkled on top of the suitcase. The shoes that went with my dress were sitting on a bar stool.

“You’d better go,” Marilyn said after she took a shot of Jack.

“Who is that girl?” I asked.

“I don’t know for sure,” Marilyn replied, “but she’s bad business and that’s all I can say. I’m only able to say this much to you because he’s careless with the details.”

“Who is?” I wondered if she was being infuriating on purpose.

Marilyn cursed under her breath. I know she thought I was stupid, the look in her eyes told me as much, but there was another emotion there that I couldn’t read: not fear, but frustration, perhaps? “Don’t let her touch you, and stay away from Roger. If you try to hurt him, I’ll have to defend him.”

“What? Why? Defend Roger? You’re just as nuts as they are. You’re all in on it!”

“Just go.” Marilyn sighed. “Go to Eric. He might not figure it out either, but he can protect you, as he has me.”

“I’m not going to Eric!” I shouted. “He’s coming to me!”

Marilyn made a hand-washing motion and reached into her purse for a pack of cigarettes. “Do what you want then, Tabitha. I hope you’re right about him. I truly do.”

Rachel, or the thing that looked like Rachel, knocked on the door. “You still in there, slut?”

Marilyn tore a match out of a Demon Heart matchbook, lit her cigarette and coughed on the smoke. “I hate these things,” she told me, “but if you smoke enough of them they can kill you.”

“Stop talking to her, Marilyn,” Roger shouted from the other side of the door. As if by magic, Marilyn’s mouth snapped shut. Her eyes spoke volumes and I finally got it. Somehow Roger was controlling Marilyn. But really, what did that have to do with me? I was leaving.

I slipped on my shoes, put on my necklace, and glared at Marilyn, suitcase in hand. If…no,when Eric came after me, I’d tell him about all the weird shit that had been going on behind his back, but until then, he was on his own.

I heard Roger fumble with his keys, followed by the metallic click of the lock. I waited until they stepped through the front door.

“Give Eric a message for me?” I asked, looking from Roger to the witch and back to Marilyn. “Whichever one of you is in charge?”

“I’m not giving him any mess—,” Roger said. Rachel shut him down with an elbow to the side.

“What’s the message?” she asked.

“Tell him I’m going to Lord Phillip’s at the Highland Towers.”

Roger’s lip twitched, but he didn’t say anything.

“Fine,” Rachel told me.

I nodded and headed out the back way, to Eric’s loaner, smiling as I loaded my suitcase into the trunk. Marilyn thought Eric wouldn’t come for me, but she didn’t know him like I did. She’d only really known him when he’d been alive. My knowledge was more recent. Death had changed him, changed both of us. It might take him a while, but he’d made me immortal. I had nothing but time.

Even when the loaner broke down four blocks from the Demon Heart, it didn’t put a dent in my good mood. Carrying my suitcase, I headed toward the Highland Towers, a strong, single, attractive vampire queen. My only thought was how jealous Eric would be when he found out where I’d gone.

34

ERIC:

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

I had William drop me off a few blocks from the Demon Heart and I walked them slowly. Roger and I sensed each other half a block away. He popped into my head and I into his, but we acknowledged each other too fast to allow the other to gain much insight into our emotions. We both had things to hide.

Roger was waiting for me at the Pollux. He sat on a wrought-iron bench to the left of the door in front of the marquee. TheCasablanca title was clearly visible on the poster above his head.

When I was sixteen, I sawCasablanca at the Pollux. Rick said good-bye to Ilsa in the end, even though he loved her. He didn’t know that he was just a character. He didn’t know that Bogart would be in other movies and that on one of those movie sets, Humphrey Bogart would meet Lauren Bacall and fall in love, real love, not celluloid make-believe.

By leaving me, Tabitha had proved herself. Even as a vampire, she loved me, or she wouldn’t have been so angry when she stormed off. She was better off without me. If I went after her, I’d regret it. If not today or tomorrow, then soon, and for the rest of my unlife.

“You look like shit.” Roger blew a smoke ring from one of his expensive cigars. He offered me one and I shook my head.

“I can’t taste them,” I told him.

“Neither can I, but I still enjoy the aroma.” He put the extra back into the inside pocket of his suit. Roger’s lips pursed together, the hazy fragrant smoke flowing lazily from his nostrils. He looked so cocky, so self-assured, daring me to call him on what he’d been doing, to accuse him.

“How’d it go with the werewolves?” Roger took another longer pull on his cigar and held it.

“They’re dead,” I lied casually. We looked at each other. I stared him in the eye, but his attention was focused on my eyebrows, my chin, somewhere over my shoulder, my shoes, and lastly the concrete.

“Tabitha?” he asked, the words pushing the smoke back out of his lungs.

“Dumped me. It seems that I’m a murderer and an asshole. I pull the wings off flies and glue them back on upside down…the whole nine yards.”

The ember at the end of his cigar glowed brighter as he took a long steady draw. “That sucks.”

I laughed bitterly. “Yeah, it sucks.”

“What about the wildflower…what’s her name?” He looked up, still careful to avoid my gaze.

“Rachel? She’s still around. It’ll probably take me a month or two to screw that up.” I sat next to him on the bench. He suppressed the urge to flinch, thought I didn’t notice it, but I did.

“I’m still sorry about Brian.” He smirked when I said the name. “I killed him the same night you framed me.”

“You were meant to. That’s why I befriended him.” Another series of smoke rings slipped from his lips, perfect, each inside the other, the way only years of practice can achieve. Damn! And the Cold-Blooded Bastard Award goes to Roger Malcolm.

“So how much is it going to cost me to buy into this Orchard Lake thing?” I asked, trying to make it sound like a real interest. Here was a man I thought I’d known, a man I’d calledfriend since 1937. I wanted to know how long he’d been playing me false. After he became a vampire? Before?

“I underestimated you.” He said it thoughtfully and with a complete lack of shame. No remorse at all.

“Maybe you just overestimated the werewolves,” I said, trying to match his tone, his total lack of emotion. It was easier, because I could feel Rachel nearby and her influence crept in. Aware of it this time, having been outside her field of influence, I noticed how my control came back in some areas, fled in others: much of my anger was replaced with a desire for her.

Moving the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, Roger closed his eyes. “Maybe you were just lucky.”

“Could be,” I allowed. “I always have been.”

Roger threw the cigar to the ground. The cherry, still lit, rolled free and lay burning on the concrete. We both watched it burn. “That’s something I’ve always hated about you.” He slapped his hands on his knees and rose to his feet. “You get everything you want. You didn’t even care about being a vampire.” He made an effort to stop himself, to bottle up whatever it was that had been boiling up inside him, but it bubbled out anyway, the rant making him look more alive than he’d been in years. “God, I mean, do you even understand how hard I worked to find just the right sire for myself, to arrange things carefully, to slowly win her trust and work my way in?”

“I bet she really made you work, too,” I said, remembering the rituals he had told me about, the ones she made him go through before she would bleed on his cross-inflicted wounds and heal him. “You must have had it rough. Poor Roger.” Sarcasm bled into my voice. I couldn’t keep up the act anymore. Neither, apparently, could Roger.

“Damn it!” he shouted at me, fists clenched, eyes burning with a light matching the dying ember from his discarded cigar. “I’m a Master vampire. A Master fucking vampire! Sure it’s not the top. Not the same as being a Vlad. But it’s still the big time. And you, you die in a goddamn car accident…and…and…destiny says screw it! Eric is important. I like Eric. Eric can’t be dead. Let’s make him a Vlad! He’s a good boy! He deserves it!”

“It could have been anybody, one of the ambulance drivers, a passing bum,” I offered. “What does it matter? What does that have to do with anything?”

“There was no ambulance, you dumb shit. No hospital. I watched you lie there bleeding for a damn hour before you stopped breathing and then I watched you for another hour just to be sure. And when I was certain you were good and dead, I bribed the cops, paid the fang fee to have you taken directly to the mortician, and had your ass embalmed so that there would be no doubt, because I was tired of you being so much better than me and you getting everything I ever wanted!”

Cold. Icy cold is how I felt—too astonished or appalled to be mad. “Roger? What the hell, man?” I felt sore and tired. I pushed myself up off of the bench like an old man. “That’s what this was all about? You’re jealous?”

“Oh. It’s funny to you, huh? Poor jealous Roger.” I had never seen him like this. Not ever in all our fights had he looked at me with such hatred. It was like walking in on your mother-in-law in the bathroom and realizing she’s a guy in drag. It just didn’t fit. What had I ever done to Roger? Who cared if he was a Master and I was a Vlad? “You won’t think it’s funny for long.”

“Look,” I said soothingly. “Maybe we should get you a vampire therapist or something and just move on.”

“God! You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you?” He took two agitated steps away from me and spun back around, flailing his arms. “You’d just forget all about it. I bet that if I told you I was sorry you’d forgive me. Inside a month you probably wouldn’t remember it ever even happened.”

“Pretty much,” I answered truthfully. My words hit him hard and it was clear from the insane look in his eyes that he couldn’t quite grasp how that could be possible. I didn’t want our friendship to be over. I was willing to believe that he was going through some kind of vampiric midlife crisis, that what he was saying about watching me die was bullshit or that he’d been in shock. I wanted him to have a reason, any reason, other than stupid jealousy.C’mon, Roger, I thought at him,just make something the fuck up!

I didn’t see him move. The stake ripped through my T-shirt and lodged in my heart, a familiar feeling for me. Every time it feels exactly the same. Some vampires say it hurts, but to me, it only hurts on the way in and out. While the stake is in there, I just have an overwhelming urge to burp.

“You thought I’d share it with you, that I’d let you buy into the project? After all the shit I’ve put up with, do you really think I’d let you in? When Orchard Lake becomes Midnight Lake it’s going to be the next Highland Towers, Eric, and I can’t have you fucking it up. I’m going to be the next big thing! The big kahuna!” Drops of blood stood out on Roger’s brow, rivulets of vampire sweat.

Nope, I thought at him, overwhelmed more with apathy than sadness, what you get to be is dinner.

He heard the first howl and staggered away from me. The wolves romped in like the Magnificent Seven and the Seven Samurai all rolled up into one big bad case of old-school whoop ass. All wore their human forms, but with lupine grins. William strolled out of the entrance to the Pollux parking deck holdingEl Alma Perdida .

Roger backed away slowly, not running. Was he expecting backup? Ten more of the pack walked out of the deck behind him and another ten stalked from around the corner of the Pollux, all dressed in exactly what they’d worn at their Orchard Lake homes, everything from sweatpants to jeans.

William yanked the stake out of my chest and pressed the gun into my hands. He grinned at Roger. “Hello again, Mr. Malcolm.”

“You can’t kill me, Eric. I’ve got connections.” Roger stepped into the road, fighting off panic, keeping all of the werewolves in his field of vision. “And I may not be able to kill you, but now I know what you are and I’m going to take that, too—”

I firedEl Alma Perdida . The bullet struck him in the shoulder and the wound began to sizzle.

“I’ve been waiting all night to shoot somebody with this gun, Roger,” I said. “And there’s just nobody I’d rather shoot with it than you.”

“I—” Roger tried to speak, but I shot him twice more, the reports ringing out sharp, clear, and satisfying. You see, I’ve never liked vampires, not even myself. I’ve never made any bones about that. While I thought Roger was my friend, I’d made exceptions, but now…that made him just one more high society vamp in my territory, on my front fucking doorstep. The impact spun him around and he hit the asphalt. His arms flapped up and down as if he were a bat. “Can’t change…”

“Same thing happened to me earlier,” I explained, not the least bit sympathetic as I walked over to him. “Magbidion explained it to me.”

“The bullets fromEl Alma Perdida shape-lock anyone they strike,” William said. “It kept any werewolves Courtney killed from reverting to human form when the sun hit them.”

“He made sure to leave one bullet in the werewolf until the local law enforcement showed up. He’d let them see the monster, and then dig the last bullet out so they could watch it change back into a human with their own eyes,” I explained. “That way he could get hailed as a monster killer, not hanged as a murderer.” Flames licked out of Roger’s wound, and I kept talking as he swatted frantically at the fire. “It was a nice touch when you had Froggy leave one bullet behind to make it look likeEl Alma Perdida was back in Courtney’s hands. Too bad the bullets are all linked. Talbot and Tabitha followed the trail right to your bedroom door. Oh, and it’s official…Froggy was a Soldier. When Tabitha staked her:Poof .”

Roger tried to speak. “I have a hos—” Tongues of fire climbed up his chest and his words were choked off by cries of pain. Once the flames began to spread, they quickly engulfed him, and the pack, now in werewolf forms, descended on him, heedless of the fire, tearing still-smoking chunks of flesh free with their teeth. Does getting eaten by werewolves count as total destruction? I assumed so. He didn’t stop screaming even when he no longer had a throat, the sound echoing out of the empty space at his neck where his throat had been.

Absent the meat, Roger’s skeleton writhed on the ground. Several of the werewolves drew back, but William and his core followers devoured even the bones. Roger’s cries finally ceased when William crushed his skull between those massive jaws and started chewing. I guess he couldn’t have tasted too bad, because they didn’t leave anything behind. Note to self: That is not the way I want to go out.

William’s pack loped away to their trucks, leaving William alone with me. He laughed when I put the barrel ofEl Alma Perdida against his furry chest. “Now, about Greta.”

“Your spawn will be returned to you unharmed,” he replied. “I am as good as my word.”

“Fair enough.” I lowered the gun. “I’m sorry about—”

“Don’t come back to Orchard Lake.”

So much for apologies. “Keep your pack away from Void City and you’ve got a deal.”

“What would you have done if I hadn’t listened to you back at the lake and your magic gun didn’t kill me?” he asked.

“I’ve got an old mercury thermometer in my back pocket,” I lied.

William smiled. “And if that failed you?”

“I’d have figured something out,” I assured him. “Don’t you worry about that.”

“I believe you,” William said, nodding. “Out at the park, when you commanded the bats to block out the sun, I was afraid you would destroy us all.”

“Nah, I only wanted my little girl back.”

“She’s a monster,” he protested.

“Now you’re just being mean. Besides, she’s no worse than I am.”

“I beg to differ,” William said. “I didn’t see it until I watched you gun down your friend.”

“Friend?”

“Fellow vampire, then,” he amended. “The look in your eye was the same look I see in the eyes of my pack when they exterminate a vampire. You know they are monsters.”

“It’s kind of a no-brainer.”

“So you say, Eric of the revenant’s eyes.”

“Huh?” I asked, startled. “Revenant’s eyes?”

“When you grow angry, angry enough to grow wings of hate and a skin black with rage, the purple eyes from which you stare are not the eyes of a vampire, but of a revenant, a murdered soul.”

“Murdered?” I echoed, not wanting to think about it too closely.

“I only tell you what I saw, Eric.”

“All right, so maybe I was murdered, but I’m a vampire, not a frickin’ revenant, okay?”

“As you say, vampire. May the Lord have mercy on your soul.” I watched him lope off into the distance.

Not a bad birthday, all in all. The werewolves weren’t after me anymore, my best friend who really hadn’t been my best friend was dead, and I could go back into the Pollux and have my way with Rachel guilt-free, more or less.

“Revenant’s eyes,” I scoffed and sat down on the bench where old what’s-his-name had admitted his betrayal. Roger. Forget him, I told myself. Just let him go. But my memories of Roger were too tangled up with memories of Marilyn. I couldn’t let go of one without sacrificing the other.

Her familiar heart beat across the street at the Demon Heart, a weary skittish beat in comparison to the steady rhythmic thump of Rachel’s. I let them both serenade me, Rachel upstairs in my bed at the Pollux and Marily—What was Marilyn doing at the Demon Heart this early?

I crossed the street at a trot and unlocked the front door of the club. She was probably getting things ready for our grand reopening. We could open back up tomorrow, I thought.

Serves me right for being optimistic.

The hair on the back on my neck stood up. Cold white light from the street illuminated Marilyn, tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Blood trickled down her arms and legs where piano wire had cut into her wrinkled flesh. A large band of duct tape covered her mouth. It was frayed along the bottom, tucked under and stuck to itself on the upper right corner. All the little details.

Her eyes screamed at me to run, but I didn’t. I’m stupid like that. I never know when to run or when to leave someone behind. That I do, on occasion, manage to do one or the other just goes to prove the age-old adage: “The sun even shines on a dog’s ass some days.”

Stuck to her chest was a Post-It note with the words:Happy Birthday, you stupid fuck! It was signedHugs and kisses—Roger. My vampire speed kicked in and I think I might have made it if Roger hadn’t been the one who’d set the trap for me. He’d known me too well.

My claws raked through the piano wire, severing it on both sides simultaneously. I clutched Marilyn close, the smell of stale cigarettes and old age filling my nostrils. The intro music from the oldSuperman radio show flashed through my head. I heard an electronic whine that didn’t sound like the alarm system. I rolled away from it, hoping to shield Marilyn from the blast. More than one bomb went off.

I’d never moved with such urgent speed before. We shot past the first explosion as it happened, outrunning it like in the movies, dodging over the runway and into the dressing room. The next explosion went off in there, my every move anticipated, creating a circle of fire, shaped charges designed to hit me from all angles. It wasn’t normal fire, either; the way it burned and pierced was a sensation I associate only with crucifixes and holy water.

He’d paid someone to bless the damn explosives. Even so, I lasted longer than Marilyn, watched her burn away. The only thing that eased the pain was knowing that I got Roger first. He was a Master, easy to kill. I’m not.

We Vlads keep coming back unless you find that one special way that will take us out forever. It didn’t feel like Roger’s method was it for me, but it felt damn close. My body was completely gone; not even a speck of ash remained. I’d been melted before, but there, in the goop, I’d still had a body, just an icky liquid one. Now, I was totally disconnected, a floating ghost.

I hate ghosts.

I hovered over the burning ruins of the Demon Heart, pleasantly surprised to see that the explosion hadn’t harmed the Pollux Theater across the street, waiting for my body to re-form and wondering how long it would take. And waiting. And waiting. You know, when I get my self back together, I’m going to find the guy who thought up blessed C-4 and kick his ass.

Happy fucking birthday to me.

Praise for Jeri Smith-Ready and

WICKED GAME

A nominee for the American Library Association Alex Award

“Smith-Ready’s musical references are spot-on, as is her take on corporate radio’s creeping hegemony. Add in the irrepressible Ciara, who grew up in a family of grifters, and the results rock.”

—Publishers Weekly

“This truly clever take on vampires is fresh and original. The characters have secrets and questionable backgrounds, which makes them intriguing. The use of music as the touchstone for life is sharp and witty. Smith-Ready proves that no matter what the genre, she has what it takes.”

—Romantic Times

“A colorful premise and engaging characters . . . a fun read.”

—Library Journal

“Just when I think the vampire genre must be exhausted, just when I think if I read another clone I’ll quit writing vampires myself, I read a book that refreshed my flagging interest. . . . Jeri Smith-Ready’s Wicked Game was consistently surprising and original . . . I highly recommend it.”

—A “Book of the Week” pick by Charlaine Harris at charlaineharris.com

“An addictive page-turner revving with red-hot sex, truly cool vampires, and rock ’n’ roll soul. Jeri Smith-Ready is a major new talent on the urban fantasy scene.”

—Kresley Cole, New York Times bestselling author of Kiss of a Demon King

“Wicked Game is clever, funny, creative, and way too much fun. . . . A surefire winner.”

—The Green Man Review

“Jeri Smith-Ready has created a set of strikingly original, fascinating characters, rich with as much style and rhythm as the music her vampires love. Lyrical and uncompromising, Wicked Game is a winner I’ll be reading again.”

—Rachel Caine, bestselling author of Thin Air

“Jeri Smith-Ready’s Wicked Game is a wicked delight. Peopled with fantastic characters from across almost a century of American music, this is urban fantasy that makes an irresistible playlist and an irresistible read. I await the next book with growing impatience!”

—C. E. Murphy, bestselling author of Urban Shaman

“Sharp and smart and definitely not flavor of the month, Wicked Game is wicked good. Jeri Smith-Ready will exceed your expectations.”

—Laura Anne Gilman, bestselling author of Free Fall

“Jeri Smith-Ready’s vampire volume Wicked Game will make your corpuscles coagulate with corpulent incredulity. It’s for young bloods and old jugulars alike. Whether you devour it on ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ or just before ‘Dinner With Drac,’ simply turn off the 50-inch plasma, lay back, and ‘Let It Bleed.’”

—Weasel, WTGB 94.7 The Globe, Washington, D.C.

“Once in a while someone writes a book that surpasses genre conventions and expectations, turning established ideas into something fresh and new. . . . Wicked Game is original and unique . . . it’s also a fantastically good read.”

—Love Vampires

“Smith-Ready weaves an imaginative tale that adds new dimension and limitations on the otherwise long-lived lives of vampires. . . . This is a fun escape in a world that readers will look forward to visiting again.”

—Darque Reviews

“With meticulous detail to character and plot development, Jeri Smith-Ready has created a unique and lyrically entertaining story. . . . Beyond the excellent dialogue, skillfully crafted characters, and unique plot, Ms. Smith-Ready has achieved the almost impossible—she made me fall for each and every dysfunctional member of the WVMP family. This is my first novel by Ms. Smith-Ready, but it certainly won’t be my last.”

—Romance Reviews Today

“Wicked Game starts out strong and just keeps going . . . There’s humor and pathos, evil and not so evil, love and betrayal, and friendship and loyalty—plus a really solid story to hold it all together.”

—SFRevu

“A fun novel . . . it definitely stands out from the crowd of Anne Rice wannabes.”

—Pagan Book Reviews

Pocket Books
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2008 by Jeri Smith-Ready

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

First Pocket Books paperback edition April 2009

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Cover design by Melody Cassen
Cover photograph by Sydney Shaffer/Getty Images

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-0134-6
ISBN-10: 1-4391-0134-5
eISBN-13: 978-1-4516-5215-4

To Donna and Ted, my first rock ’n’ roll gurus.

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to my family, for encouraging my love of music despite my almost preternatural lack of talent.

Thanks to Rob Staeger, Cecilia Ready, Tricia Schwaab, Barbara Karmazin, Rob Usdin; William Parris, President, Radio Broadcast, Inc.; and Gerard W. Weiss, Lt. Col., U.S. Army (Ret.); for their story comments and research assistance. Any remaining errors are mine, and probably due to a momentary lapse of caffeine.

To the hardworking folks at Pocket Books for bringing this novel to life: Louise Burke, John Paul Jones, Josh Karpf, Lisa Litwack, Jean Anne Rose, Erica Feldon, Don Sipley, and Anthony Ziccardi.

Much thanks to my editor Jennifer Heddle, for her extraordinary vision and brilliant insights (and forbearance in overlooking the muscle shirt); and to my intrepid agent Ginger Clark, for believing in this series from the get-go. You both rock.

Most of all, thanks to my own guitar man Christian Ready, for his love and support, and for proving that some things don’t burn out or fade away.

Playlist

“I’ll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive,” John Lee Hooker

“Read My Mind,” The Killers

“About a Girl,” Nirvana

“Flower,” Liz Phair

“Hard to Handle,” The Black Crowes

“Eight Miles High,” The Byrds

“Blue Suede Shoes,” Carl Perkins

“Helter Skelter,” The Beatles

“Uncle John’s Band,” Grateful Dead

“I’m So Glad,” Skip James

“Baby Please Don’t Go,” Big Joe Williams

“Gallows Pole,” Lead Belly

“Dreadlocks in Moonlight,” Lee “Scratch” Perry

“Three Little Birds,” Bob Marley and the Wailers

“Ciara,” Luka Bloom

“Two Hearts,” Chris Isaak

“Drain You,” Nirvana

“The Rain Song,” Led Zeppelin

“Isis,” Bob Dylan

“Fearless Heart,” Steve Earle

“The Old Main Drag,” The Pogues

“Rock ’n’ Roll Lifestyle,” Cake

“More Human Than Human,” White Zombie

“God Given,” Nine Inch Nails

“Melt!,” Siouxsie & the Banshees

“She’s a Rebel,” Green Day

“Norwegian Wood,” The Beatles

“10:15 Saturday Night,” The Cure

“Running Dry: Requiem for the Rockets,” Neil Young and Crazy Horse

“I’m No Angel,” Greg Allman

“Girlfriend,” Matthew Sweet

“Low,” Cracker

“Human Touch,” Bruce Springsteen

“A Thousand Kisses Deep,” Leonard Cohen

“Sleep to Dream,” Fiona Apple

“Mean Woman Blues,” Elvis Presley

“(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville,” R.E.M.

“Crazy Love,” Van Morrison

“Burning for You,” Blue Öyster Cult

“It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll (But I Like It),” The Rolling Stones

If a lie is told often enough, even the teller comes to believe it.

—J. R. “Yellow Kid” Weil, con artist

Wicked Game

1
It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll (But I Like It)

Family curses never die, they just mutate. In Greek mythology, the curse of the House of Atreus began with some smart-ass making soup du jour for the gods out of his own son’s meaty bits. Things went downhill from there. These days, though, the curse probably just makes the Atreus family forget to send each other birthday cards.

The curse of the House of Griffin, whatever sinister form it may have taken in the Old World, has left me with a gift for the persuasive arts. In the straight world, this means sales and marketing—or as I like to call it, S&M.

The slim, thirtyish dude across the desk scans my skimpy resume. Short dark hair flops over his forehead as he nods along with the blues squawking from a wall speaker. His fingers tap the wooden surface between us in unconscious synchronicity.

The tiny office’s clutter of memorabilia would shame the Hard Rock Cafe. Near one boarded-up window, a life-size cardboard John Lennon peers into my soul; near the other, Jerry Lee Lewis peers through my blouse.

“So, Ciara...” David slips me an earnest glance. “Why do you—”

“It’s keer-ah, not see-air-ah.” I rattle off the pronunciation as politely as I can. “Not like the mountains.”

“Sorry. I bet you get that all the time.” He flips my resume to look at the other side. Blank. He lifts my portfolio folder, probably searching for another page. “Where’s the rest of your job experience?”

I give him a wide-open smile. “In the future, I hope.”

He blinks, then looks back at the resume. His eyebrows pop up. “Well, it’s very readable.”

Due, no doubt, to the sixteen-point font I used to fill up the page.

He inspects it again, green eyes flitting back and forth in a desperate search for an interview kickoff. “Ciara. Interesting spelling.”

“It’s Irish. It means ‘dark and mysterious.’” I point to my tawny hair and studiously guileless eyes. “Even though I’m neither.”

David’s lips twitch up briefly, then he puts the resume aside and opens my portfolio. While he examines it, his thumb pumps the plunger on his ballpoint, creating a staccato of clicks that wears my nerves down to the nub. I resist the urge to wipe my clammy hands on my only interview suit.

The air-conditioning clunks on. Above my head, backstage passes begin to flutter in the breeze, hanging like Christmas decorations from the antlers of a peeved-eyed deer.

“This first project’s dated six years ago,” David says. “I take it you go to Sherwood College part-time?”

My shoulders tense. “I take sabbaticals.” Oops, this was supposed to be an exercise in honesty. “I mean, I take breaks so I can earn tuition.”

He nods in sympathy. “It’s expensive. I gave the army four years of my life in exchange for a degree.”

“The army, wow. Did you kill anyone?”

His gaze sharpens, and I wince at my nerve-induced idiocy. Usually when I botch an interview, it’s on purpose. The fact that I actually want this job makes my stomach ache.

David’s mouth relaxes into a smirk. “Shouldn’t I be asking you questions?”

“Sorry. Ask anything.” As long as it’s not about me.

“Why do you want to work at WMMP?”

I knew that one was coming, and I’ve been working on a convincing answer ever since David found me through my college’s job-match program.

“I love rock ’n’ roll.” Damn, that was cheesy. I rub my nose and look away. “I wasn’t allowed to listen to it growing up, but I did anyway. I’d lie under the covers at night with my Walkman, listening to tapes I’d stolen—I mean, borrowed—uh, stolen.” This truth thing is harder than I expected. “Anyway, I figured a radio station might suck my soul less than a corporation would. Plus it’s already June tomorrow, and I’m desperate. I can’t graduate without a summer internship, and if I don’t get out of this town soon, I’ll—” My mouth shuts, about three sentences too late.

David blinks, and blinks, until I wonder if the air-conditioning has dried out his contact lenses. He sighs through his nose, making a sound that says, Why am I wasting my time with this girl? I scramble for something else to discuss.

On the desk between us, a photo of a beribboned Chihuahua sits next to a calendar of 365 Oscar Wilde quotes. I squint to read, I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

I glance up at David, then back to the photo and calendar. “Cute dog.”

“Oh. This isn’t my desk.” He pushes his chair back a few inches. “This is Frank’s desk, the sales and marketing director.” He shifts the Chihuahua photo’s heart-shaped frame. “I’m not, you know . . .”

I think the word he’s looking for is “gay.”

“Are you the owner?”

“I’m the general manager. The owner is—” David glances past my shoulder at a closed office door. “—absent.”

I wait for him to elaborate, but he just tugs the cuffs of his sport coat and changes the subject.

“I’m also the program director. As I’m sure you’re aware, WMMP broadcasts syndicated talk shows and paid programming during the day. But at night—” He gazes at the wall speaker like it’s a holy relic. “That’s when WMMP comes alive.”

Huh. “Will Frank interview me, too?”

“I make all the personnel decisions. Frank would have joined us, but he hates the—” David’s glance flicks to the stairway behind me. “He hates to work at night.”

I check the wooden mantel clock above the bricked-up fireplace. 9:30. “Why interview me so late?”

“I wanted any potential intern to meet the DJs. This is the only time they’re all... here.”

Hmmm. My first act as marketing intern would be to suggest playing music when people are actually awake to hear it.

He shuffles my resume and portfolio, rapping their edges against the desk. The motion has a finality about it, as if he’s about to thank me for stopping by.

Panic jump-starts my mouth. “I know my resume is a little thin, but I can explain.”

“No need.” He folds his hands, steepling his fingers and tapping his thumbs together. “Do you know why I called you for this job?”

I’ve been afraid to ask, and I hesitate to guess.

David continues. “Your history indicates that you’re sympathetic to—how shall I put this—the outsider’s point of view.”

My gut plummets. He did a background check.

“What kind of outsider?” I ask innocently.

“The kind with a lack of regard for—” He spreads his thumbs. “—conventional morality.”

I sit back in my chair, moving slowly, as if from a poisonous snake. “I’ve never been charged with anything.”

“I know you haven’t.” David extends his hands palm down, as if to hold me in my seat. “My point is—”

“Thanks for your time.” I stand and grab my purse from the back of the chair. “I’ve really enjoyed our chat, but I think another opportunity would fit me better.” I head for the exit.

“Wait.” He intercepts me, placing his hand on the door before I can open it. “What I’m saying is, I don’t care about your past. Neither would anyone else here.”

My mind calculates how much he could know. A legal background check wouldn’t reveal anything too incriminating. My juvey record cleared when I turned eighteen, and in the six years since I’ve never been caught. Sort of.

“We couldn’t pay you a lot, I’m afraid.” He gestures toward my resume. “But judging by your address, you don’t need much.”

Did he just insult my neighborhood? Doesn’t he realize I live above the best pawnshop in town?

“You’d work over there.” He points to a smaller desk next to the fireplace, on the opposite wall from Frank’s. Beyond it sits a copier so old I expect it to have a hand crank.

“Come.” David moves past me so suddenly it makes me jump.

He descends a creaky wooden staircase between the two closed office doors. I follow him, trying not to get my hopes up. Maybe his hiring talk was hypothetical, as in, you’d work at that desk if all the other intern candidates got eaten by a giant cockroach. I force my mind away from the things I’ll have to do if I don’t get a summer job. Things I can’t put on a resume.

At the bottom of the stairs, David rests his hand on the knob of a closed door. He takes in a quick, deep breath as if to say something momentous. The words don’t make it out before he shakes his head.

“Probably best if you meet them without preconceptions. If they like you, the job’s yours.”

I nod. No pressure or anything.

David opens the door to let me pass into a small, dim lounge. A pervasive cloud of cigarette smoke gathers over the halogen lamp in the far left corner, muting the room’s lurid shadows.

My stinging eyes take a moment to adjust. I strain to see a group of—

Freaks.

Exquisite freaks, to be sure, so soul-shatteringly beautiful, it’s a tragedy that radio is for ears only. But they each look like they stepped out of a different time machine.

David squeezes past me through the doorway, where my feet have stopped. “Ciara Griffin, meet the pride of WMMP.”

Three men and a woman are playing poker around a table scattered with plastic chips and open bottles. They examine me with a palpable distrust. Maybe it’s the interview suit: navy blue makes me look like a fed.

“Spencer, Jim, Noah, Regina.” David points from left to right. “And back there is Shane.”

On the love seat at the foot of the lamp, a young man in faded ripped jeans appears to sleep, right arm draped over his face. One leg is bent, foot resting on the cushion, and the other stretches beyond the end of the sofa.

David touches my elbow to urge me forward a few steps. “I’m hoping Ciara will be our new intern.”

The hostility fades from the faces of the four awake DJs, replaced with a patronizing politeness. I attempt a smile, encouraged by the slight thaw.

“Spencer does our fifties show,” David says. “Birth of rock ’n’ roll and all that.”

A man in a white dress shirt and black pants stands to greet me, unfurling endless legs from under the table. His dark red hair is slicked back into a ducktail. He squeezes the hand I offer.

“Hey, baby, what’s shakin’?” Spencer’s southern drawl and impeccable clothes give him a gentlemanly facade, which doesn’t quite gel with the feral look in his eyes.

“Not much, Daddy-o.” It just comes out. Rather than take offense, Spencer smiles and nods approvingly.

The next guy springs out of his chair, and I force myself not to retreat from his approach.

“This is Jim,” David says.

“Man, I really dug your portfolio.” Jim hugs me. His long brown curls and tie-dyed shirt reek of marijuana and patchouli. “I used to go to art school, too.”

“Thanks, but I’m not an artist.” Is he sniffing me?

Jim pulls back and regards me at arm’s length. “Then how’d you get all those layouts to look so groovy?”

“For my class projects? I used the computer, of course.”

His eyes crinkle with confusion. “The . . . ?”

David clears his throat loudly enough for my bullshit alert system to creep into Code Yellow. What the hell’s going on?

Comprehension crosses Jim’s face, and he snaps his fingers. “Right. Back in my day, we had to do it all by hand.”

I squint at him. He looks just a few years older than I am. They all do.

“Back in your day?”

The third man scrapes his chair against the floor as he rises. I turn to him, relieved to slide out of Jim’s personal space, which seems to lack boundaries.

“I am Noah.” The man’s voice rolls over me like a warm Jamaican breeze. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sweet lady.” He reaches across the table, takes my hand, and draws it to his full lips. My eyes go all moony and un-professional under his gaze, which is softened by a pair of dark-rimmed glasses lying low on the bridge of his nose. Noah’s green, gold, and red knit cap perches atop a fetching set of chest-length dreadlocks. I’m relieved the seventies are represented by reggae instead of disco.

“Oh, please. Get the fuck off her, you wanker.” Despite the Briticism, the punk/Goth woman—Regina, I presume—has a flat midwestern accent. Beneath a shower of spiky black hair, her face is a study in monochrome, with black eyeliner and lipstick setting off her skin’s porcelain perfection.

Regina gives me a chin tilt and a “yo,” before turning to Shane. “You can pretend to wake up now.”

He slides his flannel-shirted arm from his face, then turns his head. I take my first full breath of the evening. His warm eyes and crooked smile make me feel like I’m really here and not just a stain someone left on the rug.

“Hey.” Shane drags his battered Doc Martens off the couch and stands up slowly. Even with the grunge-cool slouch, he’s taller than the others. As he approaches, he flicks his head to sweep a tangle of nape-length, pale brown hair out of his eyes.

When our hands touch, he starts as if I’ve shocked him. He pronounces my name perfectly, and so softly I wonder if someone else in the room is still sleeping. Then his gaze cools, and he half-turns away, hands in his pockets.

Aw, he’s shy. How lovable, huggable, stuff-in-a-bag-and-take-home-able.

Or not, as I look at Regina, whose eyes are slicing me in half. Shane must be her boy. She could probably weap-onize any of those six facial piercings in seconds.

An enormous stack of chips sits in front of her next to an open bottle of tequila. “Who’s winning?” I ask, in an effort to get on her good side.

“I have two hundred ninety-two dollars,” Regina says. “Jim has forty-six, Noah one hundred sixty-seven, and Spencer, ninety-eight. No, wait—ninety-nine.”

“Shane bombed early,” Jim says, “not that he had much to start with.”

The flannel-clad man in question turns to David. “She’ll be fine. Can I go now?”

“Sure. Thanks for coming in.”

Jim fishes a set of keys from his pocket and tosses them to Shane. “Happy hunting. And remember, none of that low-octane shit this time.”

Shane heads for the door, sparing me a cool glance of acknowledgment. My eyes shift to follow him, but not my head. I congratulate myself on my restraint.

“What do the rest of you guys think?” David says. “Should we hire her?”

They examine me like I’m a cow at a 4-H auction. I try not to moo.

The four DJs exchange looks, then nod, more or less in unison. David rubs his hands together and starts to make a declaration.

“Wait,” Spencer says. “What about Monroe?”

David shifts his weight from foot to foot, then shakes his head. “I don’t want to interrupt his program.”

“Who’s Monroe?” I ask David.

He points to a closed door in the corner with a glowing ON THE AIR sign above it. “He plays the Midnight Blues show.”

“But it’s only 9:30.”

“It starts at nine, ends at midnight. That’s when Spencer takes over, then Jim from three to six, on alternating nights. The other nights feature Noah, Regina, and Shane, same schedule.”

The DJs make a point of picking up their cards again, dismissing us. David beckons me to the bottom of the stairs.

He shuts the door behind us and jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Do you know what they are?” he whispers.

It seems like a trick question, so I shake my head.

“A revolution.” David’s eyes are googly with fanaticism. “They each dwell in a time when a new sound embodied the zeitgeist of a generation and knocked the world on its ass.”

Code Yellow again. “When you say they dwell in that time—”

“Musically.”

“So what’s with the costumes? Was that for my benefit, or are they on their way to a cliche convention?”

David sends me a sly smile that says he thinks his name should mean “dark and mysterious.”

“All will become clear.” He trots up the stairs. “What’s important is that you understand the music they live for and the history behind it.”

I hurry up after him, my hand flaking white paint off the banister as I go. “I’m not exactly a rockologist, but—”

“Don’t worry. Ignorance is the world’s most curable affliction.” He turns right at the top of the stairs and opens the door of a tiny corner office. A light flickers on.

When I join him, David is running his hands over a wall-size bookshelf. He yanks out one tome after another and stacks them on a small round table until the pile stands as high as my head.

“Oh.” He puts his hand on the stack. “You never said yes. To the job.”

I can’t afford to suspect why they want to hire me after such a perfunctory interview. But the weirdness begs one question.

“What about the future?” I point to the framed handbill of a ’69 Dead concert at the Fillmore West. “This place is like a museum. What about now? What about tomorrow?”

David sighs. “Have you listened to the radio lately? Honestly.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

I shrug. “Too many commercials.”

“And?”

“The music is boring.” I pull my MP3 player from my purse. “At least with this, I know I’ll hear something good.”

“Exactly. All the music sounds the same, because big corporations take over stations and make everyone play the same vanilla-flavored crap.” He leans forward, voice low and calm. “You won’t find crap of any flavor at WMMP. Here the DJs play what they want, not what some CEO or record promoter tells them to play. Do you know how rare that is?”

“I’ll take a guess: extremely?”

He slides the top book from the stack—The Rock Snob’s Dictionary—and caresses the worn edge of the spine. “This place is a gift to people who love music. I don’t take credit for it. It’s all them.” He points to the floor. “But people don’t know about them—yet. The owner just spent a fortune boosting our signal strength to reach listening areas in D.C., Baltimore, and Harrisburg.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Maybe not.” He taps the spine of the book against the table. “She did it to make the station more attractive to buyers. A communications conglomerate called Skywave has spent the last decade gobbling up hundreds of radio stations.”

“And WMMP is next.”

He nods. “Our owner says if ad revenue doesn’t quadruple by Labor Day, she’ll sell to Skywave. And we’ll all be out of work.” He tosses the book back on the stack. “Frank needs another set of legs for our last-ditch marketing campaign. Based on your course work, your portfolio, and your energy, I think you’d be perfect.”

Again, no pressure. I glance at the books. “Those are for me?”

“You have to know your product.” He says the last word with a twist of his lips. It must pain him to speak of music as a commodity.

“You never answered my question about the future.”

He looks away, face pinched. “If Skywave is the future, maybe we’re all better off in the past.”

Dubious but desperate, I reach for the stack of books. “Get the door.”

“Wait.” He holds out his hand. I reach for it to seal the deal, but he brushes my hand aside. “Uh-uh. Give me that.” He points to the MP3 player protruding from my purse.

“Are you kidding?”

“Spend two weeks listening to the radio instead. With your first paycheck I’ll give you a bigger player, with more memory and more songs, courtesy of the station.”

I hand it over. “One with video would be great.”

He laughs and slides the player into an empty slot on the bookshelf. “See you at eight-thirty tomorrow morning.”

I lug the books out to the parking lot, trying not to stagger too much.

“And lose the suit,” David calls after me. “This is a radio station, not a savings and loan.”

I send him a grateful grin as he waves and shuts the door.

The parking lot’s tiny pebbles crunch under my feet, loud in the summer-night stillness. No traffic noise reaches me, since the station lies ten minutes outside the small town of Sherwood, Maryland, separated from the highway by a quarter mile of dense woods.

I balance the books against the fender of my worn-out car and fish for my keys. My purse feels light and roomy without the player, which I already miss. Maybe I could borrow my friend Lori’s—

Footsteps scrape the gravel behind me. David with more books, no doubt.

“Honestly,” I tell him as I turn around, “this is more than—”

The word enough dies in my throat.

No one’s there. The only light bleeds from an orange porch lamp near the station’s front door, turning my half of the parking lot a dull amber. The radio tower looms above, its winking red eye too high to provide illumination.

The other side of the parking lot lies in shadow, and that’s where I look—muscles frozen, eyes darting, like a baby rabbit hoping the predator won’t see me if I just stand still.

Yeah, right. Anyone stalking me might think I’ve been replaced by a mannequin. Good strategy.

Since there are no other buildings within yelling distance, I should either drive away or run back into the station. The thought of whimpering to my new boss about a scratchy noise in the parking lot makes my decision easy.

Without turning toward the car, I fumble for the trunk lock, then insert the key. The trunk pops, and I shove the books inside before slamming it shut. My feet stumble backward to the driver’s-side door.

A breath at my ear, too cold for a summer breeze. I spin to face—

Nothing again.

I stifle a squeak, open the car, and slip inside with a quick check of the backseat. My elbow mashes down the door lock as I start the car and slam it into reverse. Gravel spins from under my tires and clatters against the undercarriage.

The driveway forms a long, headlight-bright tunnel in the leafy darkness, and it’s not until I reach the main road that my lungs release their pent-up breath.

No wonder Frank hates working at night.

My hands have stopped shaking by the time I arrive in downtown Sherwood. After checking my side street for suspicious characters—more than the usual, anyway—I grab half of David’s books from my trunk and head up to my apartment, over Dean’s Pawn Shop. It really is the best in town, as evidenced by the large red-and-white sign in the window: NO STOLEN GOODS. Dean might as well have written WINK WINK at the bottom of the sign.

I enter through a double-locked, street-level door next to the shop, then clomp up a dark stairwell—I’ve been bugging Dean for weeks to change the unreachable lightbulb—to another door, also double-locked, leading to my apartment.

The stale hot air chokes me. I hurry three steps down the hall to the bedroom, where my only air conditioner perches in the window. Soon my suit lies crumpled in the corner and I’m standing before the AC in my underwear, letting the frigid breeze dry every drop of fear-infused sweat.

Once cooled to the point of shivering, I switch on my computer and connect to the Internet, then run to the kitchen to avoid the modem’s eviscerated-android screech.

I open the fridge to see one lonely beer looking for company. It finds its ideal mate in a piece of leftover pizza.

Back in my bedroom, my e-mail has finished downloading. At the top of my in-box sits a message from David, sent a few minutes ago:

ARE YOU LISTENING?

“Yeah yeah yeah.” I switch my alarm clock to the radio function and search for WMMP’s frequency. (Do they know that their call letters sort of spell wimp’?) I scan the dial until a harmonica purrs from the tiny speaker.

Returning to my e-mail, I notice that one of the in-box’s subfolders is bolded. It looks like this: “M (1),” which means I have one message from a person who gets filtered into her own subfolder “M.” She must have convinced the guards to give her computer access again.

The message crouches safely behind a wall of mouse clicks. After a few moments of stomach-churning hesitation, I leave it there.

Just before midnight, I send my last “I finally got a Job!” e-mail, this one to my former foster parents. Stretching to crack my vertebrae over the back of the chair, I notice the radio’s gone silent. Did the signal die? I grab my beer and cross the room to make sure the plug hasn’t slipped out of the ancient, fire-code-violating outlet.

Then a voice, soft and low, says, “I’ll never . . . never get out of these blues alive.” For a moment I wonder if the voice belongs to Monroe the DJ—I haven’t paid enough attention to know what he sounds like. Then a guitar eases in, followed by light applause. The words must have been the name of the song.

A slow, insistent drumbeat joins the hushed guitar, mesmerizing me even before I hear the first lyrics. I sit on the bed, gingerly, as if an abrupt movement could break the spell.

His voice sweeps over me, crooning of black coffee, cigarettes, and the futility of trying to sleep in the face of heartache.

An impassioned piano joins in, defying the lyrics’ doom. I close my eyes and I’m there, in a dim, smoky bar where loners sway, heavy-lidded, wrapped in thoughts of those they’ve lost. I swallow the last warm sip of beer and wish I had another.

The song ends. Applause erupts. I click off the radio before another voice can take the singer’s place. His contagious restlessness prickles my skin and shatters my sleepiness. I can’t lie down. Even the soft cool sheets would scour my nerves.

I draw up the shade and peer out my window. The quiet streets of Sherwood beckon, begging me to make one last run before this normal life tightens like a strait-jacket.

I tap my nails against the wooden sill in a quickening rhythm and wait for someone, anyone. But in a small town at this hour, the sidewalks and alleys are empty of prey.

Besides, I always hunt far from home.

2
Won’t Get Fooled Again

My office desk is empty, inside and out. I shouldn’t expect too much from my first day of work, but how can I achieve the American dream of enhanced productivity without a computer or, say, a pen?

David seemed relieved to see me when I showed up a few minutes ago, but then he had to run back downstairs to the studio to switch a program, leaving me aimless and penless.

A metal cabinet sits on the other side of my desk, supporting the antique fax machine and a box-framed fretboard from a busted Pete Townsend guitar. I head for the cabinet, my sandals slapping against the rough hardwood floor.

The cabinet door creaks open to reveal shelves full of supplies. Score. It’s like shopping without paying.

As I paw through empty boxes, my enthusiasm dims. Now it’s like shopping in Soviet Russia.

Footsteps trudge up the stairs behind me. “You can have any color pen,” says a languid voice, “as long as it’s black.”

I swing the cabinet door aside to see a pale, pudgy blond man approach the other desk. He tears off the top page of the Oscar Wilde calendar and reads today’s quote. “Hmph.” Apparently not one of Oscar’s funnier bon mots.

“You must be Frank.” I walk over to him as businesslike as I can, considering the sandal-slapping, and extend my hand.

The corners of his mouth turn down, which looks like their natural configuration. “It’s Franklin, actually.” He sets down the calendar. “Everyone calls me Frank, even though I don’t want them to.”

“I have the same problem.”

He looks at me directly for the first time. “Everyone calls you Frank?”

His delivery is so deadpan, the joke thuds through the floor and into the basement before I remember to laugh.

“I mean, they say my name wrong.”

Frank(lin) scans my resume, which David must have left on the desk. “What’s so confusing about ‘Ciara’?”

He says it right: keer-ah. We’re going to be great friends.

Franklin finally shakes my hand. He’s taller and younger than I first thought; the slump threw off my perception. He’s about six feet, in his midthirties at most. His clothes are sharp enough—a business-standard dress shirt and gray jacket with a blue-and-black tie—but they lie listlessly on his form, as if he came to inhabit them by accident. Maybe he just needs caffeine.

“Can I get you a cup of coffee?”

He sighs and rolls his eyes. “Sit down.” He gestures to the chair in which I was interviewed last night, then sinks into the seat behind his desk.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“Fine, don’t sit.” He looks up at me with gray eyes that combine a basic benevolence with a soul-deep ennui. “Ciara, you’re here to learn about marketing and sales, and help this station avoid oblivion. You’re not here to serve anyone.” His slight drawl pegs him as a local. “You fetch coffee for no one but yourself, you make copies and send faxes for no one but yourself. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“If one of those disc jockeys—” He points to the floor as if they live under the building. “—asks you to so much as loan them a pen, let me know. After you tell them to fuck off, of course.”

I sit in the chair and scoot it closer to Franklin’s desk. “So what’s their deal? Do they dress like that all the time?”

He leans forward to reply, then clamps his mouth shut. “Did you read the books David gave you?”

“No, I just got them last night.”

Franklin studies my face for a few moments, drumming his fingers slowly on the arm of his chair.

“Hang on.” He gets up, then shuffles down the stairs, managing to look both perturbed and apathetic.

I barely have time to snicker at today’s Oscar Wilde quote (To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable) before David bounces up the stairs.

“Ciara.” He nearly turns my name into three syllables before covering his mistake with a quick chin scratch. “Have you at least skimmed the materials?”

Right now the books are lying in my hallway where I dumped them last night. “Why is it so important?”

He crosses his arms and shifts his feet. “You need to understand what we are—I mean, who we are, and the challenges we face in today’s, er, business climate.” He rubs the side of his neck. “So you can be one of us.”

I’m not one of them. I’m an intern. But I’ll agree to anything to make him stop twitching.

“Which book, which page? I’ll look it up when I get home tonight.”

“Now.” He nods at my empty desk. “Your computer won’t get here until Monday, so go home and start reading. Call me when you find out—when you finish.”

I picture the three-foot stack of text. “Finish all of them?”

“You’ll know when.”

Even David’s cryptic comments won’t make me turn down a paid day at the pool.

I’m halfway out the door when I remember something I wanted to ask him. “David, who does that song, ‘I’ll Never Get Out of These Blues Alive’?”

He turns a proud-papa smile on me. “John Lee Hooker. Monroe plays it last thing every night. You like it?”

I shrug. “It’s all right.”

David’s smirk says he sees through my understatement. “You’ll love your job.”

I love my job. I’ve never been able to say that before, but now, lounging by the pool at my best friend Lori’s apartment complex and sipping a peach iced tea, I love my job.

My timer beeps, and I flip onto my stomach and reset it with an extra ten minutes, since my back always tans more slowly than my front. At least I don’t turn red and freckly like most Gaelic girls. My dad once said I have Gypsy blood, but there’s no reason why that one statement out of all his others would have been true.

I slide the next book in my stack across the concrete. “The Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll?”

“How are you supposed to read an encyclopedia?” Lori asks from the next lounge chair.

“He said to skim.” I thumb the pages as fast as a flip book. “I’m skimming.”

“Ow.” Lori sits up and rubs the back of her neck. “I think I’m getting burned.”

“Slop on more of that SPF 40. You keep forgetting you’re Nordic.”

“Finnish.”

“But I’ve barely started.”

She groans and squirts her squeeze bottle at me. I jerk a corner of my towel to protect the Encyclopedia from flying iced tea. “Hey, watch out.”

“Puns make you a legally justifiable target.”

I turn back to the book, but the sun’s glare against the white page tightens the corners of my eyes. I lower my face into the darkness of my crossed hands.

To keep myself awake, I ask Lori, “How’s the ghost tracking?”

“SPIT’s going to help raise funds for the Battle of Sherwood monument. The town officially thinks we’re nuts, but they’re happy to take our money. Besides, if we find out that Sherwood is haunted, it’ll bring in more tourists. Everybody wins.”

“Except the ghosts. Maybe they’d rather be left alone.”

She laughs. “Don’t patronize me, Skeptical Girl.” She says it like it’s the name of a supervillain.

Despite the constant urge to roll my eyes, I support Lori’s obsession with Civil War ghosts—after all, she has to do something with that history degree. Besides, it’s kept my best friend in town two years after graduation, here with me and SPIT, the Sherwood Paranormal Investigation Team, who really need a new name.

I remember my encounter in the parking lot last night. It feels silly in the bright afternoon light, but I have to ask. “Let’s say there really are ghosts in Sherwood.”

“There really are ghosts in Sherwood.”

“Okay. But what would one feel like?”

Lori shades her eyes at me. “Is this a joke?”

As I tell her about the cold presence, her mouth falls open like her jaw has lost all muscle tone.

“I am so jealous.” She picks up her iced tea as if to fire it at me again. “You don’t even believe, and you get an apparitional experience. The most I’ve ever felt is a tingly elbow, and that turned out to be nerve damage.”

“Come on. There must be an explanation. If you were investigating, what other causes would you rule out?”

She taps the tip of her squeeze bottle against her chin. “With the trees around it, the parking lot might have natural temperature fluctuations, which would explain the cold spot. That whisper could have been the wind in the leaves. And everyone knows radio towers are massive electromagnetic sources. Sounds like a perfect recipe for false creepiness.”

“Good.”

“I could get SPIT to check it out for you.”

“No no. I don’t want my boss to think I’m crazy.” I don’t want myself to think I’m crazy.

Lori picks up her watch and whimpers. “Time for work.” She stands and folds her towel. It’s good she’s getting out of the sun—her face is the red of a marathoner who just crossed the finish line. “Stop by the bar later?”

“Definitely. Thanks for the ghostly insights.”

“You will belieeeeve.” She hums the XFiles theme music as she flip-flops away.

I skim the mega-lopedia’s highlighted entries. No unusual facts yet, nothing that clues me in to the grand purpose of Wimp-FM.

My beach bag bulges with unread volumes—two books on the history of radio, one on women in rock ’n’ roll, and a battered coffee-table book on American roots music.

The last one has a lump, something stuck inside the front cover, something almost big enough to be a book of its own.

I pull it out, a thick pamphlet. The back is yellowed and contains nothing but the copyright date of 1954. I flip it over.

“Oh, that’s cute.”

The title reads, in poorly typeset block letters, The Truth about Vampires. It looks like a public service brochure, part of a government-sponsored scaremongering series including titles such as Marihuana: Stepping-Stone to Despair and It’s Not Just Big Dandruff: How to Spot Head Lice.

It contains thirty pages of thin sheets, gathered into short chapters. I lean back on the lounge chair to read it. Not part of David’s curriculum, I’m sure, but it’ll take me ten minutes, tops.

Yeah yeah, feed on blood, okay, can’t go out during the day, yada yada yada, super-seductive, whatever. Sounds like rehashed cliches to me, warmed-over Anne Rice, but hey, I scarf those trendy vampire novels like they were heroin-soaked potato chips, so I’ll play along for entertainment’s sake.

I page ahead, looking for the big bad “Truth about Vampires.” Given the period, the “truth” probably means Communist infiltration of blood banks. This thing reeks of McCarthyism.

One heading says, “Temporal Adhesions.” Hmm, that’s a new phrase. I reach for my iced tea.

Which never gets to my mouth, because all my muscles have frozen. The words reverberate through my head in a documentary-style voiceover.

Vampires become “stuck” in the cultural period in which they died, what they refer to as their “Life Time.” To maintain cognitive comfort, a vampire will continue to dress and speak in the conventions of his or her Life Time. For example, a female vampire from the 1920s will often display “flappers-style clothing and claim that “makin’ whoopee” with multiple partners is “copacetic.”

As modern life intrudes on a vampire’s carefully constructed reality, he or she may rebel against these feelings of powerlessness. A benign response may take the form of obsessive-compulsive behaviors, which grant the illusion of control.

Every effort should be made to provide the law-abiding vampire with a means to connect simultaneously with the past and present, thus extending their lives and preventing potentially disastrous unrest. Many vampires of a certain age utilize our network of protective custody homes, where they can “fade” without posing a threat to themselves or others.

Typed in red ink, on a sidebar:

NOTE: Vampires with certain characteristics— including mental instability as a human, extreme youth or old age at the time of “turning,” as well as several unknown factors—are likely to react to their changing world in a violent manner. Since an agent’s primary duty is the protection of human life, he should take all precautions, including preemptive action (see Field Manual Chapter Sixteen, “Disposal”).

Huh?

This must be what David wanted me to read. He thinks the DJs are vampires. They think they’re vampires.

No, nobody’s that delusional outside a mental hospital. It must be an act. A joke. A joke without the funny.

I examine the pamphlet again. The paper doesn’t just look old—it feels brittle and smells musty as an attic. So they used old paper—and a typewriter, since these sheets would disintegrate in a printer or copier.

Why so much trouble just to trick the new girl? Did they put on this farce for the other candidates?

My fist clenches, crumpling the booklet. Maybe there were no other candidates. David called me for the interview, not the other way around. Why? Because of my past, he said. But how much can he really know about my past?

And what the fuck does it all have to do with vampires?

Doesn’t matter. If it smells like a fish, swims like a fish, quacks like a—well, it’s just really damn fishy. We’ve skipped Code Orange and gone straight to stoplight Red.

I retrieve my cell phone and dial David, whose name and number are neatly printed inside the book’s cover.

No answer. Easier that way.

“David, I’m sorry to leave this message on your voice mail, but I’ve found an employment opportunity elsewhere.” Here’s where I should say something nice. “Thank you for your consideration.” Ugh. Try again. “I mean, thanks for the offer. I think it would’ve been fun.”

I slap the phone shut before my voice reveals my ambivalence. Time to check the want ads again.

On the way out of the pool area, I stuff The Truth about Vampires into the trash where it belongs.

3
Run Like Hell

The Smoking Pig is filled with the usual Friday night bar crowd—mostly college kids who stuck around town to take summer classes or avoid their parents. The Pig is made out of pieces of old mills, which apparently used to dot the local countryside like spots on a Dalmatian. To add ambience, rusty machinery parts lie wedged in the dark wooden ceiling beams.

After an afternoon perusing the Help Wanted section (flipping burgers versus driving a cement mixer), I need a drink. I squeeze through the crowd to the brass rail and wave to Lori at the cash register. She holds up a finger, her lips reciting the drink order to herself as she rings it in. Then she trots over, pale ponytail bobbing.

“Your tan looks amazing,” she shouts over the din of the crowd and the blare of the latest Killers song. She lifts her bangs and tilts her chin toward the light. “Can you tell I was wearing sunglasses?”

“A little.” Her face looks like a negative version of the Hamburglar. I shouldn’t let her go out during the day. The thought reminds me of vampires, so I shove it aside.

Lori slides a napkin across the polished wood surface of the bar. “What can I getcha?”

“Something strong and straight up.”

She scrutinizes my eyes, which I know are bloodshot from too many job ads. “Strong, yeah, but definitely not straight. You need more than booze.” She grabs bottles of Kahlua and vanilla vodka. “Chocolate martini’ll cheer you up.”

“How’d you know I need cheering up?”

“Bartender’s sixth sense.” Her hands trickle over the bottles in front of her before pulling out Grand Marnier, Frangelico, and Bailey’s Irish Cream.

“Looks expensive.”

“My boss is out sick, so it’s free. But it means we’re short-handed, so I’m totally in the weeds tonight. It’s crazy—two bachelorette parties.” She shakes the martini, then pours it into a glass in front of me. “After the crowd thins out, you can tell me what’s wrong.” She winks and hurries away.

I scan the crowd for anyone I know—or anyone I’d like to know. A familiar face appears in my peripheral vision at the end of the bar. Before I can get a better look, a brawny brunette in a wedding veil lurches into view.

“Oh. My God. Ciara Griffin?”

And I thought my day couldn’t get worse. I force a smile and snap my fingers, pretending to search for my old hallmate’s name. “Joanne, right?”

She slaps my shoulder. “It’s Jolene! How can you forget? We only had like every business class together.” She snickers. “When you were there, I mean.”

I rub my shoulder and remember how during sophomore year she and her sorority sisters would shove Kmart sales fliers under my door every Sunday to show their opinion of my clothes. In return, I would soak their towels in the toilet while they were in the shower. “So how are you?”

“Awesome! I just got promoted and assigned to a huge market research project. Plus I’m getting married.” She points her chest at me, and I see that her white tank top has BRIDE IB stenciled in black letters.

“I’m so ... happy for you.” Her designer shoes and tight leatherette pants make me feel like a schlub in my knockoffs and last year’s miniskirt.

“What are you doing now?” she asks me.

“I’m—” Still in college, six years later. Unemployed and unemployable. No fiance, boyfriend, or so much as a hamster to keep me company two nights in a row.

One of Bride 2B’s gold half-hoop earrings catches in her veil. As she tilts her head to release it, the familiar face reappears.

Shane.

Suddenly I have an answer. “I work with him.”

She peeks and gives a low whistle. “He’s cute. Mysterious.”

It’s true—Shane seems to sit alone inside an orb of silence. The woman on the next bar stool rolls her shoulders and preens in his direction, but he ignores her until she gives up and turns back to her friend.

My former classmate examines Shane’s appearance. His charmingly disheveled hair gleams almost blond in the overhead bar light. He wears a similar getup as last night, but with a different flannel shirt over a different T-shirt.

Jolene turns back to me. “So you work for a logging company?”

I pretend not to get her joke. “Radio station. He’s a DJ at WMMP, where I’m the head of marketing.”

Her bleary drunken look is replaced by a sly grin. “Introduce me.”

“I thought you were engaged.”

“And this is my bachelorette party. I’m entitled.” With a deliberate gesture, she twists her engagement ring to face her palm.

“I think he has a girlfriend.”

“Is she here?”

The thought of Regina hanging out at the hopelessly bourgeois Smoking Pig makes me smile. “I doubt it.”

“Neither is my fiance. How conveeeeenient.”

The Bride lets out a braying laugh and drags me toward the end of the bar. Her marquise-cut ring digs into the tender webbing between my fingers. She’s stronger than she looks, and she looks like she could bench-press a Buick.

Just before we reach Shane, Jolene holds out her index finger and pinky in a salute to her bridesmaids across the bar. The women hurl a group catcall worthy of the skankiest strip joint.

“Hi there!” she says to Shane’s left shoulder. It tenses at the sound, but he makes no other movement. She fans her face with his bar napkin. “Woo! Is it hot in here, or is it just you?”

Still no response. She reaches to touch him, but at the last inch her hand jerks back, as if disobeying a direct order from her brain. Smart hand.

Finally she turns and shoves her lip out at me in a pout.

I frown back at her. “Just leave him alone.”

At the sound of my voice, Shane’s head turns, pivoting like a praying mantis’s. With his hands together on his beer bottle and elbows propped on the railing, the resemblance to the insect is uncanny. I step back.

A moment after his eyes meet mine, they soften, losing the leave-me-the-fuck-alone aspect. “Ciara.”

“Wow, you do know each other.” The bride-osaurus smooths her veil. I wonder why she hid her ring if she’s still got that thing on her head. “I’m Jolene. And you are?”

Shane gives me a quick scan, then shifts on the bar stool to face us. Face me, really. He hasn’t looked at Jolene yet.

I give him an apologetic smile. “Sorry to bother you, Shane.”

“Shane!” Jolene tries to plop her formidable ass on his lap. “Great name. Do you want to party, Shane?”

He glances at the cleavage she shoves toward him. His eyebrow twitches, and his gaze sticks there for a moment. I suddenly long to wrap Jolene’s veil around her throat and pull until she passes out.

“We’ve got a limo and a hotel room in the city,” she says—not to me, naturally. “There’s plenty of room.”

To my dismay, he stands and edges closer to Jolene, letting her press against his chest. I wish Regina would walk in and knock this girl’s teeth out her ears.

Shane mouths Help to me over Jolene’s head.

“Come dancing with us!” She gyrates unsteadily against his hip. “My friends would love you. I promise we won’t take too many pictures.” She finds this last statement hilarious.

I take a final loving sip of my martini and wait for a guy passing on the right to walk behind me. When he does, I step hard on his toe. He howls and pushes me forward, sending my drink—and all its chocolaty goodness— cascading over Jolene’s fresh white tank top.

She shrieks. “Clumsy bitch! My maid of honor stenciled this for me.”

“I’m so sorry.” I wipe at her top, pressing the liquid into the material. “Go to the ladies’ room and I’ll come help you clean up.”

“You better.” She stumbles off toward the restrooms, shaking drops of martini out of her veil. “Hurry!”

The moment she’s out of sight, I grab Shane’s hand. “Let’s go.”

We duck out a side exit, which leads to a long hallway. I drag him halfway down at a trot, then realize we’re running from a drunken bachelorette, not the Mafia.

When I try to let go of his hand, Shane takes my wrist and pulls me to a stop. “Thanks,” he says. “I owe you.”

I try not to look at the place where our skin is touching. “It was the least I could do.”

“Is she your friend?”

“More like arch-nemesis. But I feel bad for the guy I stepped on.”

“Collateral damage,” he says.

“I didn’t know how else to get rid of her. She didn’t care that you were ignoring her.”

“I considered glaring her away, but I have to be careful.” He shifts his glance above my shoulder. “It sounds wacked, but some people get a little out of control when I look directly at them.”

“Oh.” I have just enough martini in me to say, “Because you’re a vampire.”

He drops my wrist and leans back against the wall. “So you know.”

“I read the brochure.”

“What do you think?”

“I quit.”

“Oh.” He nods, then turns and saunters down the hall toward the exit, his gait suggesting a contained swiftness, like a greyhound on a leash. I accompany him to see his reaction, and because the only other way out is through the bar.

After a few steps he says, “Did you quit because you don’t want to work with vampires or because you don’t want to work with crazy people?”

“You’re not vampires, and you’re not crazy. It’s a good joke. I just found a better job, that’s all.”

“Doing what?”

“Working for an account exec at a PR firm in D.C.”

“That’s a commute from hell, but congrats, anyway.” Shane opens the glass door at the end of the hallway, which leads to a painfully bright liquor store. He heads to the beer fridge. “Do you want to get something to go?”

“Go where?”

He opens the refrigerator, then looks at me through the door. His breath fogs a circle on the cold, clear glass. “Your place?”

Normally with someone who looks and moves the way he does, I’d purr, “The sooner the better.” But even I have my taboos. Men who belong to psychos, for instance.

“What’s the deal with you and Regina?”

Shane shuts the refrigerator and leans against a pyramid of twelve-packs. “Regina and I have a special connection.”

“Does this connection include sex?”

Shane glances at the gangly guy behind the counter, who watches us without embarrassment, then turns back to me. “Not anymore.”

“How long anymore?”

He squints at the ceiling as if the answer is written there. “Maybe two years.”

He’s telling the truth. I’ve learned a thing or ten about spotting a liar.

I don’t trust him enough to bring him home, however. Not yet.

I step forward and open the refrigerator. “Let’s take a walk.”

We stroll down Main Street, in the general but not specific direction of my apartment. Sherwood’s downtown measures only four blocks by three blocks, so we’ll have to double back soon.

The night swelters and the popcorn we bought at the store parches my tongue. I’m dying to break out the beers, but every so often a cop car cruises by, slow and predatory as a shark. Aside from domestic disturbances and drunken students, the police don’t have much to do here, so their presence is more annoying than comforting.

“So what were you before you became a vampire DJ?”

“Something much more monstrous. I was a wedding DJ.” He pulls his wallet from his jeans, then hands me a tattered business card.

MCALLISTER MUSIC, YOUNGSTOWN, OHIO. Aha—I thought I heard a hint of that distinctive Pittsburgh-northeast Ohio dialect.

“Do you still hear ‘The Electric Slide’ in your sleep?”

“Actually, I had a reputation as the DJ for cool couples. They knew I’d play what they wanted, not what their parents wanted.”

I turn over the card. Small block letters read, NO CHICKEN DANCE.

“Problem was,” he continues, “the parents usually paid for the weddings, so I also got a rep for being difficult.”

“I can’t imagine you in a tux.”

“Neither could I, which didn’t help.”

We stop to sit on a bench in front of the library, where hedges and trees curve around pebblestone paths to form a little park. During the day homeless people hang out here while the shelter is closed, but right now the park is empty.

“So what is it with bachelorette parties?” Shane asks.

“You mean why do otherwise decent women turn into complete ho-bags? Because it’s their last chance to be bad, and for some it’s their first chance.”

He makes a skeptical noise. “I’ve seen bridal narcissism from every angle. My sister made our dad take out a third mortgage to give her the same kind of wedding all her rich college friends had. It was bizarre, because otherwise she was so down-to-earth.”

I catch the verb tense. “Was down-to-earth? Is she— still around?”

“She’s alive, if that’s what you mean.” He creases the fold of the liquor store’s paper bag. “I just don’t see her anymore.”

I give him a moment to elaborate, which he doesn’t. “Is your family in Youngstown?”

“As far as I know.”

“But you don’t talk to them.”

He rests his elbow on the back of the bench, in a studiously casual pose. “I could explain, but you’d laugh.”

“The vampire thing again?”

He sets down the bag and shifts to face me. The tree beside us casts him in shadow, but his pale blue eyes seem to burn into mine. I recall the alleged power of a vampire’s gaze.

Glancing away would make me superstitious, so I don’t. I narrow my eyes, challenging him. He just keeps staring.

“I don’t know what you think you’re ...” My voice fades. I forget what I was going to say. It doesn’t matter. Slowly my face goes slack and my vision blurs, but I can’t stop it. I don’t want to stop it. I want to sit here forever.

Shane leans forward and dips his head close to mine. My skin heats, and my hand reaches for the edge of his shirt to pull him closer.

“Someone’s coming,” he whispers.

“There she is!” screeches a voice behind me.

I blink hard, then turn to see Jolene and a posse of Bridesmaids 2B. They stalk down the middle of the empty street, almost in formation, like Sharks preying on a lone Jet.

Swiftly and without a sound, Shane moves to stand between me and the small-town gangsta-ettes.

I scramble off the bench. “I can defend myself.”

“Against nine of them?”

“What could they possibly—holy crap!”

Jolene wields a serrated knife, which I recognize as the one Lori uses to slice bar fruit. Chocolate still stains her wet tank top.

I turn to Shane. “Let me do the talking instead of your testosterone. I don’t want to start anything that’ll involve blood and prison bars.”

He crosses his arms and stands with feet apart. “I’m here if you need me.”

They stop in front of us. The bridesmaids copy Shane’s defensive stance. I wonder if they’re also packing bar-accessory weapons, like ice tongs or double jiggers. I wouldn’t want to get whapped with a cocktail strainer.

Jolene gestures with the knife. “You ruined my bach-elorette party. You’re going to pay, all of you.”

“I said I was sorry. What do you want from me?”

“I want your shirt.”

My favorite red top? Fuck that. “It won’t fit,” I tell her.

She advances on me. “What do you mean, it won’t fit?”

“It won’t fit you because I’m too—” Dissimilar to a heifer. “—flat-chested.”

Jolene examines my figure, doubt tingeing her eyes. “Give it to me anyway!” She brandishes the knife again, with less conviction.

“Give me yours. We’ll trade.”

She clutches the hem of her tank top. “But my best friend made this for me.”

“I’ll mail it back to you tomorrow.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“You know where I work.” I hope Shane isn’t blowing my cover with a questioning look. “Besides, why would I want to keep a Bride 2B shirt? I’m not engaged. It’d be like a Red Sox fan stealing a Yankees cap.”

My argument makes just enough sense for drunk logic. Jolene nods slowly, her eyes vulnerable. “Promise you’ll mail it?”

“Yeah, express. Can we get out of the street now? Someone might want to use it for driving.”

We move into the library’s little park. I point to two groups of shrubbery, one on either side of the path. “We can change behind those. Shane’s the go-between.”

Jolene brightens at the idea of him seeing her half-naked. She hustles behind the bush on the right. I collect the beer and popcorn from the bench and retreat behind the other hedge to wait. The bride-goons keep watch.

A few minutes later, Shane appears with the white shirt.

“What took so long?” I ask him.

“There were conditions.” He turns toward the street as a car approaches. “Cops.”

Sure enough, a bright light sweeps over the library’s brick facade, then halts. A car door creaks open.

I snatch the bags and dash around the library toward the parking lot. Though I can’t hear his footsteps over the pulse in my ears, I know Shane is right behind me. His shadow keeps pace with my steps.

The pebbly sidewalk curves downhill around the building. I almost topple over a waist-high barrier that keeps skateboarders from speeding out in front of departing cars. Shane leaps the barrier with an Olympic hurdler’s ease.

“Which way?” he asks.

I guess he’s going home with me. I’m about to wave him to follow when I notice what he’s still holding.

From the other side of the building, Jolene shrieks my name in a parade of profanities, culminating in, “Cheap-ass, double-crossing, shirt-stealing bitch!”

4
Just What I Needed

“We should let these beers rest.” I stuff the six-pack in my fridge. “They got shaken up when we ran from the police.”

Shane hands me Jolene’s shirt, glancing around my apartment with the caution of a trespasser. I plug the kitchen sink and turn on the cold faucet.

“I hope she didn’t already try warm water. That’ll set the stain.” I soak the shirt and gently rub the brown blotches. “This top’s big for me, but I could sleep in it.”

“You said you’d mail it back to her.”

“I never got her address. Hey, what do you think she meant when she said, ‘You’ll pay, all of you’?”

Shane emits the vocal equivalent of a shrug.

I smooth my hair back off my neck, then let it drop behind my shoulders. “Sorry it’s so hot in here. Only the bedroom’s air-conditioned.” I wonder if he thinks that’s a come-on. I wonder if it is a come-on.

He doesn’t seem to hear me as he scours my walls with a nervous gaze.

“I live alone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Shane offers a sheepish half smile. “I was, uh, never mind.”

“What were you looking for?”

He scratches his shadow of light brown stubble. “Crosses?”

I laugh. “Don’t worry,” I say in a stage whisper. “No crosses here.”

He spots my bulging photo album on the coffee table. “Can I look?” he asks with a little kid’s eagerness.

“Sure.” No guy’s ever wanted to see my photos before. I turn on a lamp and join him on the couch. He whips open the album as if it contains the secrets of life.

“Whose dogs are these?”

“Not mine. I volunteer with a mutt rescue group. I’ve sponsored these dogs, paid for them to stay at a local kennel. Gets them out of the pound where they might be put to sleep.” I point to a photo of a giant white blur. “That’s Banjo. Last week he went to his forever home.”

Shane’s eyes widened. “He died?”

“No, he got adopted. On Saturdays I’d go to the kennel and try to teach him manners so he’d be more appealing. These days it’s not enough just to be cute.”

He flashes me a look of amusement, and I wonder who he thinks I was referring to. “That’s really noble.”

“No.” I let go of the album. “I only do it to convince myself I’m a good person.”

“Bullshit. By the look of this place, you can barely feed yourself, much less a bunch of dogs.”

“I always get what I need to survive.”

This time his gaze is steady. “Working for a hotshot PR firm in D.C.”

His X-ray eyes propel me off the couch and toward the fridge. “Those beers have probably settled.”

I hear him flip through several pages of dogs while I pop the tops of two bottles. One of them fizzes over, but I catch most of it with my mouth. “You want a glass?”

No answer. I glance over the counter to see Shane lingering on a page of photos.

“Are these sunrises or sunsets?” he asks.

“Some of both.” I move back to the couch and put the beers on the table, using two unopened pieces of mail as coasters. “My bedroom faces north, so in the summer I see the sun rise over campus.”

“So you’re a morning person.”

“I’m a morning person and a night person. So I have to be a nap person, or else I’m a tired person.” Great, now I’m rambling. That’s the second time I’ve mentioned my bedroom with no reaction from Shane.

He doesn’t pick up his beer, just stares at the sunrises. I take the opportunity to study his profile, at least the parts I can see beneath his hair. His jaw is sharp and defined, and his nose is like a ski jump—perfectly sloped with a little curve up at the end. If my nose were a ski jump, the skiers would all plunge to a tragic death.

I clear my throat. “If you stay here late enough, you can see it yourself.”

He looks at me then, brows drawn together. “I can’t stay until sunrise.”

His show, of course. “You go to work at three, right?”

“Right. Work.” He scans the living room. “Where’s your music?”

This time I say it with all the casualness I can muster. “In my bedroom.”

“Oh.” He focuses on the photo album again, but his fingers are twitching, and as he turns the pages, he doesn’t react to the pictures.

Here goes.

“Do you want to see what I have?”

He looks up.

“Music-wise,” I add.

He studies my face for a long moment, as if he’s not sure what he’ll find. Something about me bothers him, but maybe in a good way.

His hand brushes mine, and a tingling spreads through me. I let out a breath that sounds half-cough, half-hiccup. Very attractive.

I stand and head for the hall. “This way,” I say, as businesslike as a tour guide.

I move through the dark bedroom to turn on a soft bedside lamp, rather than expose my squalor to the harsh overhead light.

“No crosses in here either,” I say with a nervous laugh.

He sits on the floor in front of my CD shelves and contemplates their contents. “Your collection’s pretty kickin’.”

I wince at the outdated slang, then step out of my shoes and stretch prone across the foot of the bed, my head near the spot where Shane sits.

“They’re out of order.” He grabs a wide handful of CDs.

“What are you doing?”

“Fixing it.” He starts sorting them into stacks on the floor. “Alphabetical okay?”

“Really, you don’t have to—”

“I’ll start with alphabetical. Maybe later we can subgroup by genres.”

Shane must have read the section of the Truth about Vampires pamphlet that said they’re obsessive-compulsive. He’s putting on a show for me, which would explain his use of the word “kickin’.”

Suddenly he stops and holds up a CD. Foo Fighters.

I try to be helpful. “That goes under F.”

“Dave Grohl’s new band,” he whispers.

“Not really new.” Shouldn’t he know that? “At all.”

“He was the drummer for Nirvana.”

“I know. I was alive in the nineties.”

“So was I,” he says with a touch of bitterness.

“Do you want to listen to that now?”

“No.” He sets it aside like it might poison him.

“Put something else in, then. Something soothing.” What I mean is, something seductive. Despite his idiosyncrasies, I can’t stop watching him, wondering what he looks like from certain other angles.

He puts in Nirvana’s Unplugged concert. After a moment of applause, the opening acoustic chords of “About a Girl” pulse through my bedroom. Shane listens for a moment, then reduces the volume.

“You think I’m crazy,” he says quietly, not looking at me.

“No, I think you’re funny. But honestly, the joke is getting a little old.”

“I don’t blame you for not believing I’m a vampire.” The last word comes out stilted, the way someone might pronounce a foreign phrase. “It sounds insane.”

“Hey, I know: I’ll tie you to my bedpost until sunrise. If you burst into flames, it’ll prove you’re not kidding.”

He jerks his head toward me, and I swear for a moment I see genuine fear. Then he blinks and turns back to the CDs. “Give me a hand here?”

I sigh and slide off the bed. “Sure, what better way to spend a Friday night?”

“There’s four stacks.” He taps each one in turn. “A through G, H through N, O through T, and the rest.”

“Is that a statistical thing based on the probability of band names, so that the piles end up exactly even?”

He looks at me with awe. “No, but that’s a great idea.”

I take a handful and start sorting. “So what system is it? It can’t be the same number of letters, because four doesn’t go evenly into twenty-six.”

He hesitates. “It’s stupid.”

“Tell me.”

“No, you’ll laugh.”

“I promise I won’t.”

He straightens out the CDs I just tossed onto the H-N pile so that their edges line up. “When I was a kid I had a magnetic play desk, Fisher-Price or some shit like that. The letters were in four rows, in different colors. I still see the alphabet in my head that way.” He looks at me. “In case you had any doubt I was a freak.”

Actually, it makes him seem more human. I hold up a CD. “What color was M?”

“Red.” He nods at my choice. “Mudhoney. Nice.”

Basking in the approval of a rock snob, I hide my smile and lean across him to put the CD in pile number two.

As I pull back, my arm brushes his knee—accidentally, of course. His sorting slows for a moment, then resumes.

Sitting together, our heights are closer, which means he’s mostly legs. Long as they are, he crosses them easily beneath him. I like a man with flexibility.

I also gather from the way he handles the CDs that he’s left-handed. Probably right-brained, then, maybe a creative type. But odd that he’d fixate on letters, which is a left-brained thing. Makes me more suspicious.

“It’s weird,” he says. “I’m a big fan of the other DJs’ music, but they don’t get mine. It’s like they can’t hear it.”

I attempt a light laugh. “Must be lonely, living among dinosaurs.”

He doesn’t smile. “I’m turning into one, too. Every time I flip on the radio—not our station, but one of the regular ones—I feel lost in the present.” He frowns at my Limp Bizkit CD. “It doesn’t even sound like music.”

I take The White Stripes’ latest release off the U-Z pile. “Let me play you something good. Then you can see—”

I catch myself. I’m playing right into his game, acting like his reality is the truth.

“Wait a second,” I tell him. “If you’re stuck in the past, how do you know it’s the past? Isn’t it like crazy people don’t know they’re crazy, and if they do, they’re not really crazy?”

He leans back against the side of the bed and contemplates. “You know, you’re right.”

I grin. “See, I told you—”

“As long as it bothers me, I can’t be too far gone.” His voice is still serious. “The rest of them are so lost, they don’t even know it anymore.”

I sigh. “That wasn’t what I meant.” I lean past him for more CDs. This time I brush against him on purpose, and not just my arm. I risk a glance at his face.

Shane looks at me, then at the CDs, then at me again, and so on. Something’s stuck. I keep watching him. The rhythm of his breath turns uneven.

“Let me help you choose.” I seize his shirt collar and pull him to kiss me.

Our mouths meet, and his shyness dissolves. His arms snap me tight against him like a trap. The combination of his hands, lips, and tongue sends an urgent heat rippling through me, obliterating all thoughts but must have and now.

Shane presses me against the side of the bed while his hands roam down to my hips. With no effort, he lifts me onto the bed, where I’m crushed beneath his body. Our breath comes loud and fast against each other’s mouths. The crowd on the CD applauds again.

His hand in my hair, he pulls my head to the side. His mouth moves to my neck, and I stiffen. How far will he take this vampire fantasy? His teeth slide against my skin, making me shiver, then travel down my shoulder.

I slip my hands under his shirts and peel them both over his head. He tosses them away, then unbuttons my top quickly, without fumbling. I stare up into his eyes, which have darkened in the low light. The confusion in them has vanished.

I pull him close. His flesh presses cool against mine, like an evening breeze. The music pulses around us, and I feel each pluck of guitar strings as if they were my own nerves.

Shane draws back a few inches and watches me closely as he runs a finger down over my rib cage, toward the top of my skirt.

“Ciara.” From his lips my name sounds like a hiss. “Tell me what you want.”

I slide my fingers through his soft hair and cup his jaw in both hands. “I want you to make me scream.”

The rest of my clothes disappear, with maneuvers so deft they seem to slip off of their own will. I hold my breath and watch his mouth descend on me.

No teasing, no tempting, no taunting—he knows what I need and that I need it yesterday. As I ride one crescendo after another, my voice hits notes I thought were beyond my register. I yank the sheets loose from the mattress and wish for some other anchor to grab on this endless roller coaster, and then—

Pain.

My scream cuts off as my breath stops. Something bit me. My first thought, which lasts about a quarter of a second, is that someone put a scorpion into my bed. My next thought—another third of a second—is that I should warn Shane.

The pain spikes deeper into my thigh. I try to pull away, but his hand is holding me hard to his mouth, and that’s when I realize—

“No!”

My free foot kicks him hard in the head. As he jumps away, his teeth tear at my flesh.

I slide back toward the wall and feel a thick, warm liquid on my thigh. “What did you do?”

Shane’s face looms in the lamplight. Blood drips from his lips, which part to reveal a set of fangs that—

Fangs.

All my muscles seize into stillness. My mouth opens but emits no sound.

“Let me drink you,” he growls, eyes glazing like a junkie’s. “No one will see the mark there.”

A second wave of pain turns my fear into blind, invincible wrath. “That fucking hurt! Get out!”

“Please ...” Shane crawls up the bed over my legs. “It’s so good, the way you taste when you—”

“No!” I whack him hard across the face.

In a pounce faster than I can see, he grabs my arms and pins me to the bed beneath him.

His face hovers an inch from mine, jaw trembling and nostrils flaring. “That. Doesn’t. Help.”

Stupid, stupid—I just provoked a wild animal. My brain flails for the rules of dealing with aggressive dogs. It’s the only reference I have, but my life depends on it.

I force my body to stop struggling. My gaze goes beyond him, breaking eye contact.

I am not prey, I tell myself. I am not prey.

Shane’s breath rasps against my skin. His hair drapes in tangles over his eyes, but I can feel them burn into me. His hands shake as they tighten on my arms.

I stare through the ceiling and try to will my heartbeat to slow. A drop of something warm hits my upper lip, and I hold back a whimper as I smell my own blood on his breath.

Finally Shane’s grip loosens. He gives a long, slow exhale, then rests his forehead on my chin. “That helps. Thank you.” He rolls off me with what seems like a mixture of reluctance and relief. His fangs have disappeared.

I start to shake. The air conditioner feels like it’s pouring thousands of tiny ice cubes over my skin. I get up, slowly, to search for my clothes, keeping an eye on Shane without looking directly at him. He sits on the other edge of the bed, one hand holding his head as the other blots the blood on his mouth with a tissue. I eschew the tank top and pull a sweatshirt from my closet.

“Well.” I swallow, to wet the desert in my throat. “It’s not like I wasn’t warned.”

“I’m so sorry I hurt you,” he says in a hoarse voice.

“You need to leave now.” Before I pass out.

“I can’t believe I did that.” His breath comes fast. “I lost control. I swear it won’t happen again.”

“No. It won’t.”

With shaky hands, he pulls on his T-shirt. “Let me at least help you clean it up, get you a bandage.”

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” I say carefully, though I want to scream, “Are you fucking kidding me?!”

He stands, then snatches his flannel shirt from the floor. He hesitates next to the piles of CDs, as if he can’t leave them like that.

“Just go,” I say through gritted teeth, opening the bedroom door wider to hurry him. God knows what happens to people who faint in front of vampires.

As he passes me, he stops, and I wonder with horror if he’s going to ask for a good-night kiss. Instead he pulls a clean tissue out of his pocket and gently wipes the space between my nose and mouth. I see a spot of blood on the tissue before he crumples it in his fist. Our eyes meet, and an unwelcome shiver runs up one edge of my spine, then down the other.

“Forgive me,” he says.

I open my mouth to reply, but he cuts me off.

“Not now.” He shoves the tissue in his pocket. “Later, when I deserve it.”

As he turns to leave, he glances at my left leg, and the sight propels him faster out my front door.

I shut off the music (the concert has arrived at the un-nervingly appropriate “Dumb”), then limp to the bathroom across the hall. A rivulet of blood runs from thigh to ankle. I swipe it with a scrap of toilet paper before it hits the floor. The wound looks bad, more from the tearing than from the punctures, which means that if I hadn’t shoved him away, I’d be in better shape. But with less blood. Possibly none.

I grab some gauze from underneath the sink, then press it against the wound to stop the bleeding. Once it slows to a trickle, I clean the gash, accompanying myself with a string of “Ow”s.

Maybe I should get stitches, but how to explain my injury? I can barely convince myself it really happened. Even now my mind is forming a wall of denial.

Shane’s fangs were fake. Not plastic, of course, but maybe porcelain. Very sharp porcelain.

I close my eyes and shake my head. The fangs were one thing, but his strength and speed, and the magnetic pull of his eyes—entirely inhuman.

No no no. Not. Possible. Except it is.

I quit that stupid job because I thought they were nuts, or making fun of me, or both. But everything in the booklet was true. The DJs aren’t insane, they’re “just” vampires.

I bandage the wound, then return to my room, afraid of what I’ll see. My bed looks like a murder scene, which it almost was.

Or was it? Shane didn’t seem like he wanted to kill me—he could have done it easily enough. Maybe he thought I’d be a willing “source.” My body quakes at the thought, the sudden movement delivering new jolts of pain.

I carry my sheets at arm’s length to the bathroom and place them in the tub, which I fill with cold water. Soon the water turns pink to match the tile. I feel like crying, but I don’t. They’re just sheets, after all, and my head is so... so...

I clutch the sink to keep from pitching onto the floor. My vision turns blurry and liquid. I ease myself down to lie on the fuzzy bath mat, then carefully place my feet on the toilet, wincing at the pain in my left leg.

The booklet didn’t say vampire bites were poisonous, so this dizziness must be shock. I draw the other end of the bath mat over me for warmth, even though it smells like feet. Closing my eyes just makes the room spin, so I stare at the stucco ceiling and try to calm the whirlpool of my thoughts.

Calling me a skeptic is like calling a polar bear white. But this is huge. Huger than an alien invasion and the return of Elvis put together. If vampires exist, maybe anything could.

No. Must not go off deep end of Crackpot Canyon. Must cling to what’s left of brain.

When the light-headedness subsides, I drain and refill the tub to let the covers soak, then drag my winter comforter from the hall closet and retreat to the living room for the night. I can’t face the disaster that took place in my bedroom. Plus it’s my only set of sheets.

As I lie bundled on the couch, memories of pleasure and pain slosh through my fogged-up mind. I hope my subconscious doesn’t get the two mixed up. I’m not that kind of girl.

5
Crossroad Blues

I’m suffocating to death, but it’s okay, because judging by the bright light I somehow made it into heaven. I never thought it would be so humid.

“Ciara?”

“Hi, God.” Frankly, I’m disappointed He’s really a man. I figured being perfect would preclude that.

He shakes my shoulder, an inelegant gesture for a deity. “Ciara, wake up.”

“Hot up here. Can I have a Popsicle?”

Heavy sigh, very ungodlike. My mind starts to climb out of the quicksand that must be sleep.

But if I’m not dead—

I sit up and throw off the blanket, smacking into something solid that grunts.

David.

“What the hell?” I blink at him in the bright morning light while he grimaces and shakes his hand hard. A snap of knuckle signals his finger unjamming.

“Your doors were unlocked,” he says. “You’re not as smart as I thought you were.”

His distracted glance tells me I’m also not wearing as much pants as he thought I was. I jerk the blanket back over my bare legs, one of which throbs with pain. “Sorry I hit you. I’m usually nice to men who wander into my apartment while I sleep.”

“Shane said you needed help.”

I should be angry at this invasion of privacy, but all I feel is hot and miserable in my sweatshirt. I tug at the collar. “I need to change.”

“I should look at your bite first.” He holds up a hand as I gape at him. “If it makes you feel better, I’m trained as an EMT.” He opens a red vinyl bag on the coffee table to reveal a complete wound care set: bandages, antiseptic, gauze, flexi tape. I don’t want to think what the tweezers are for.

The thought of the gash in my thigh makes my head sloshy again. I slump back against the pillow. “At least get me a clean T-shirt from my bureau. Top drawer.”

He heads into my bedroom. A few moments later he appears with a T-shirt from last year’s Warped Tour. He hands it to me, then steps into the hallway out of sight. “I’m sorry you got hurt. I didn’t want you to find out the hard way.”

“Technically I found out through the handy-dandy pamphlet you gave me.” My sweatshirt sticks to my back as I struggle out of it. “I just didn’t believe it.”

“I know. I got your message.”

I pull the clean T-shirt over my head, wishing I could wash first. “A glass of water would be great.”

David crosses through the living room into the kitchen. He pulls a glass out of the dish drainer and fills it from the faucet. “So what happened?”

“Met vampire in bar. Brought vampire home. Lost some blood. Oh, and I think I got someone arrested.”

He brings me the glass.

“Thanks.” I take a sip of water, which has that sitting-in-the-pipes-all-night taste. “Why didn’t you just tell me the truth?”

“You wouldn’t have believed me. You didn’t believe the primer.”

“Primer?”

“What you called the pamphlet. It’s just a reference guide, not the full field manual. You should read that next, now that you believe.”

I hold the cool glass against my face. “Hard to stay skeptical after a demonstration like … ”

Hey, wait a minute.

Suddenly the day doesn’t seem so hot anymore. In fact, it feels like ice cubes are surfing through my blood vessels.

“You sent Shane in as the convincer, didn’t you?” My voice rises. “This was all planned!”

He holds his hands up. “Plan B, yes. But I didn’t think he’d bite you. Obviously things got—” He gestures to my wound. “—out of control.”

Anger pulses through me, and I want to get up to punch him, or at least shove him out the door. But the slightest movement brings a stab of pain, and I collapse back on the pillow.

“I’m so sorry.” David puts his hands in the pockets of his khakis and stands there for a few uncomfortable moments. “I really should take a look.”

“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“And you’ll explain it how?”

“Dog bite.”

“What was a dog doing down there?”

My jaw clenches as I contemplate tough questions in a small town—not to mention my total lack of health insurance.

I pull back the blanket to reveal the bandage on my thigh. Grimacing, I tug the tape from my skin and peel the bandage off the wound.

David bends over and hisses in a breath. “Oh my God.”

“Are you this professional with all your patients?”

“I was expecting a couple of puncture wounds, but he really tore you.”

“He pulled away when I kicked him in the head.”

David straightens and turns away quickly, no doubt disturbed by the visual I just gave him. “I’ll go wash my hands.” He leaves without waiting for my reply.

In a few minutes he’s back at my side, with a clean cloth, soap, and a mixing bowl for a basin. He slips on a pair of squeaky latex gloves and hands me a flashlight to shine on the wound.

I have to ask, “Will I turn into a vampire?”

“For that he’d have to drain you to the point of death, and then you’d have to drink his blood in return.”

“I’m pretty sure I didn’t do that.”

“It’s all in the primer.” He kneels next to the sofa. “I thought you read it.”

“Yeah, but there could have been advances in vampire technology in the last fifty years.”

“Some things never change. Now hold still.”

It hurts when he cleans it, almost as much as the original injury. I can’t hold back a whine.

“I’m really sorry,” he says.

“It’s not you. I have a low pain threshold. I need sedation just to go to the hairdresser.”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry he hurt you.”

“You said that already.”

“They can be very persuasive.”

I start to protest that it was my idea to come back to my apartment, but then I remember it was Shane who first proposed it, in the liquor store. “His breath is warm,” I tell David, recalling the way the refrigerator door fogged up when Shane spoke to me through it. “I thought vampires didn’t have body heat.”

“He’s young, still has the side effects of humanity. Life and undeath, it’s not either-or, it’s more of a continuum.”

“When did he, you know—”

“Die? April 1995. Regina made him.”

I snort. Special connection, all right.

David plops the washcloth in the bowl, pats my wound dry with a soft clean towel, then gently applies an antibiotic ointment. My angry humiliation quenches any possible attraction to him. Ever.

“You need stitches,” he says, and embarrassment becomes the least of my problems.

“No no no. I hate sharp things. Why do you think I kicked Shane’s head away?”

“You won’t feel it.” He unwraps a syringe and pokes it into a little vial. “Lidocaine.”

I try to scoot away, but I’m at the end of the couch, and my leg hurts worse than ever. “Is this standard issue for an EMT?”

“It’s not the first time I’ve had to clean up after my employees.”

Fear of the syringe has finally woken me up. “Time out. You owe me answers.”

“Which I’ll be happy to give while the lidocaine takes effect.”

I cover my eyes with my arm. “Get it over with.”

The needle slips under my skin. I bite the edge of the throw pillow until it’s over.

I uncover my face. David puts the syringe in a red plastic biohazard bottle, then opens a suture kit. The sight of all that stainless steel sharpness makes my stomach pitch like I’m on a capsizing boat.

“Talk to me so I don’t throw up.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

Not vampires. “Did you learn medic stuff in the army?”

“Technically the term is ‘combat lifesaver,’ not ‘medic.’” He takes off the gloves and smooths the front of his blue polo shirt. “And technically I wasn’t in the army.” He sits on the edge of the sofa cushion. “I was in a paramilitary group called the International Agency for the Control and Management of Undead Corporeal Entities. The Control, for short.”

Right, because “IACMUCE” doesn’t have much of a ring.

“You said, ‘International.’ So they’re not affiliated with the U.S. government?”

He waves his hand dismissively. “Much older. Around for millennia, although it wasn’t always called the Control. Its original name is in an unpronounceable dead language.” He puts on a new set of gloves and starts arranging the torture implements on a clean towel. I’m going to trust a vampire hunter to stitch my leg? I check to see if the phone is within reach. Nope.

“Anyway,” he continues, “those at the top levels of national governments are aware of them and even coordinate operations with them when it suits their needs.”

“Does the Control kill vampires?”

“Originally, yes.” David picks up a scalpel and looks at my wound. He changes his mind and puts it back in the kit, allowing my heart to start beating again. “But about a hundred years ago, their focus changed to management. Sign of the times, I guess, with the worldwide rise of bureaucracy. Besides, like wolves or bears, the vast majority of vampires don’t kill.”

I’m not surprised, given that Shane let me go. “Then they’re not evil?”

“Like humans, some vampires are bad, some are good, most are in-between. Granted, having so much power and beauty does turn some of them into monsters.” David’s jaw tightens for a moment, then he seems to will himself to smile. “On the other hand, to protect themselves, they have to be model citizens.”

“Why?”

“Police stations have windows.”

I draw in a sharp breath. “Sunlight, of course. So where do they get their blood? Butcher shops?”

“No, it has to be human blood. They either get it from blood banks or from donors who like to be bitten.”

“What kind of freak would want to be bitten?”

He looks away quickly, a spot of red flushing each cheek.

Oh. Ew.

He picks up the sickle-shaped needle. “You should be numb by now.”

He has me lie down, then arranges the blanket to provide a semblance of modesty and keep me from seeing what he’s doing. When the needle enters, it feels like it’s poking someone else’s skin. No pain.

I let out a deep sigh of relief. “Will I have a scar?”

“Not a bad one, if I can help it.” His face is the portrait of concentration; you’d never know he’s operating a few inches from my crotch.

“So back to the Control,” I say to ease the tension.

“By the time I joined, disposal was the exception. We only eliminated a few vampires, the ones who went crazy and posed a threat to civilians.”

“You mean when they started to lose touch with their Life Time, like the brochure said.”

“Right. The primer and the field manual are for Control agents.”

“Which you’re not anymore?”

He pauses before answering. “I left to start the radio station with our owner.”

“And the owner, is he—”

“She. Elizabeth.” A muscle twitches near his left eye. “A vampire.”

“Why would she sell the station? Won’t her fellow vamps lose their jobs?”

“And their home, and probably their sanity.”

My neck jerks. “Sanity?”

He stops stitching and looks me in the eye. “They’d lose what is, for their kind, a unique opportunity to function in this world in spite of—or rather, because of—their temporal peculiarity.”

“The whole ‘stuck in time’ thing? Yeah, I guess Grace-land only needs so many nighttime tour guides.” I pretend I don’t care about the answer to this question: “Will they die if the station’s sold?”

“Not right away.” He turns back to the operation. “Theoretically they could live forever, getting physically stronger. But psychologically, they start to decay.”

“Can you tell by looking at them?”

“Not at first. If you compared, say, Shane or Regina to other vampires their age, you wouldn’t see much difference.” He carefully shifts my knee to spread my thighs farther apart. “But once they’re twenty-five or thirty in vampire years, like Jim or Noah, they become … vacant.”

“So how does the station keep that from happening to—” I almost say “our vampires” “—to your vampires?”

“The music links them with their past, and the news and weather reports they have to read link them with the present.” He tilts his head. “At least on the surface.”

“So where are all these other decaying vampires?”

“All over.” He pulls a tiny pair of scissors from the suture kit. “But as far as I know, our six are the only ones in Sherwood.”

I catch his use of “our.” “Do they usually hang out in groups like the DJs do?”

“Some are loners, but most try to find a community of like minds.” David makes a quick snip with the scissors. “There’s a big group out in the hills about an hour from here, but they’re pretty fanatical about keeping to themselves.” He smooths an adhesive bandage over the wound. “All done.” He hands me a tube of goop and a foil pack of antibiotics. “Start these, and keep the wound dry for at least a day.”

I read the directions on the packages. “I’m an idiot. I didn’t even think about infection last night.”

“Shock makes people temporarily stupid. But don’t worry—vampires are technically dead, so their saliva has no germs.” He looks at my grimy couch. “Though it might have gotten infected overnight. Any questions or problems, my office door is—well, it’s usually closed, but just yell.”

I scoff. “I’m not coming back to the station.”

“Yes, you are.” He latches the red bag. “It’s either that or go back to conning old ladies out of their nest eggs.”

The freeze starts at my spine and goes upward and outward. How could he know … ?

The Control. A group like that would have access to more than an everyday background check and credit report.

I stare at him and wish words would come out of my mouth.

“But I think you’re over that, Ciara. I think you’re ready to put your talents to more legitimate use.”

My voice is low. “I never stole from old ladies. Not once.”

“All predators pick on the weak.” David collects the gloves, bowl, and bloody washcloths as casually as if we were discussing the Orioles game. “Why should you be any different?”

I tug the blankets over me again, up to my shoulders. “Who else knows?”

“Just the owner and me.” He carries the supplies to the kitchen sink. “So far.”

I hold back a shiver. “So you’re blackmailing me into working for you.”

He looks up then, startled. “No. It’s your choice. But you need a real job, and we need someone who can sell.”

“Who can trick.”

“Whatever.” He turns on the water and scrubs his hands. “The point is, our interests coincide.”

The “old ladies” comment ricochets around my brain, stinging me with each bounce.

“You think you know all about me.” My voice stays as cold as my skin feels. “You have no idea.”

“Maybe. But I never will, if you chicken out.” He turns off the water, then towels his hands dry. “We’ll call today sick leave, with pay, even though it’s Saturday. It’s the least I can do.”

“The least you can do is leave.”

“Before I do, can I fix you something to eat?” He opens the refrigerator. “Oh.” His voice echoes in the emptiness. “Maybe I should get us some bagels.”

My stomach growls without my permission, and I stuff the blanket against it. After the things he said, after what he’s trying to manipulate me into—damn it, I’m hungry.

“Egg and cheese on sesame seed.”

He rubs his hands together. “Good. Be right back.”

“Cheddar cheese. And sausage. Sun-dried tomato if they don’t have sesame seed. If they do, I’ll take one of each. And a large coffee, three sugars. The Kenyan blend, if they have it.”

I hear David murmur, “Students,” under his breath as he leaves.

The moment he’s out the front door, I limp to the hall closet. I yank my suitcase from beneath a fallen coat and unzip the flap.

“Shit on a stick.”

Time was, I had a bag packed with all the essentials so I could skedaddle in five minutes flat. I was Ready. The Department of Homeland Security would have held me up as the paragon of preparedness.

The suitcase still contains my important papers, of which a person like me has very few. But over the last year I’ve raided it for underwear, shirts, and crackers when I’ve run low on laundry and groceries.

Comfort begets contentment. Contentment begets complacency. Complacency begets carelessness. My folks taught me that family tree even before King David through Jesus. But the crowds only heard me recite the latter.

I haul the nearly empty suitcase into my room. A handful of clothes from each drawer should cover it. A trip to the bathroom with a wrinkled shopping bag gives me a month’s worth of toiletries. I dash back to the bedroom, fast as the pain will allow. As my feet slip into my kindest pair of jeans, I’m suddenly glad there are no pets to leave behind.

My CDs lie scattered on the shabby rug, where Shane left them last night.

I remember the look on his face as he organized them, like something else had a hold of him. It wasn’t his choice to put Peter Gabriel before Godsmack. He was in the grip of something that was carrying him farther and farther from this world.

I turn away from the stereo. Why should I care?

Car keys lie on my desk next to the computer monitor. As I grab them, something snags my memory. A small thing that shackles my feet.

If I leave now, I’ll never get it back.

Without sitting down, I slam the space bar to wake the computer out of standby. The monitor blurts to life to show my e-mail reader, where the M folder stands in bold with a “1” after it. I click.

Ciara honey,

I told you they’d let me have Internet access again if I was a good girl. If there’s one thing I excel at, it’s being a good girl. I trust the same can still be said of you.

Did I tell you about the picture I have of you?Ikeep it wedged into my cellmate’s box spring so I can see it last thing before lights-out.

In the picture you’re seven or eight—when your hair was so blonde, it made a halo when you stood in the sunlight. You’re wearing your pink Easter dress, showing off your new Bible. You remember the white one with your name in gold letters, the one with all the tho’us and thees in it? Back then, proper people still ‘used the King James.

My body grows heavy, but I don’t sit down.

The picture’s not square, because I had to tear out the legs of people walking by in the background. People ready for miracles.

I miss the miracles, Ciara. We don’t get many of them in here.

Let me know if your father contacts you. Let me know if he doesn’t. Phase just let me know anything. That you’re still okay, even though I know it’s silly to worry. You always take care of yourself, don’t you, Sweet Pea?

Hope you’re enjoying lots of fresh air this summer.

Hugs and kisses and more hugs,

Mama

* * *

I sink into the chair and close my eyes. My con artist’s caution is prodding me to run, protect myself, wrap my ass in anonymity. But that path is theirs, not mine. Not anymore.

The last ten minutes move in reverse, so that when David returns, my suitcase is back in the closet, empty. I’m sitting on the sofa in same place as before, but he seems to know something’s different, besides the fact that I’m wearing pants.

He sets the bag of bagels and cups on the coffee table next to me. “I meant to ask, when was your last tetanus shot?”

“I had to get one for school.” My voice rings hollow in my head. “Six years ago.”

He opens his red bag and looks at me apologetically. “I have bad news for your needle-phobia.”

I roll my sleeve above my left shoulder and look away, wondering how many other vampire victims he’s treated this year. The needle drives liquid fire into my muscle.

Bitten, stitched, and pierced, all in less than twelve hours. Welcome to the straight life.

He picks up his bag and his own cup of coffee. “Are you going to be okay?”

His words remind me of my mother’s, bringing a bitter smile to my lips. “I’m always okay.” I finally look up at him. “I’ll see you Monday.”

6
That’ll Be the Day

The phone jolts me out of my nap, late in the afternoon, judging by the sun’s angle through the living room window.

Groggy-minded, I heave myself off the couch, limp to the phone, and pick it up.

“Tell me everything.” Lori emphasizes the last word. “Starting from the chocolatini you threw down her shirt.”

I hesitate. “That’s pretty much where it ends. Nothing to tell after that.”

“I’ll buy you dinner and drinks.”

“See you in an hour.”

It turns out that dinner and drinks aren’t just payment for my juicy story. My friend has tricked me into helping her sort costumes for some Civil War reenactment thingy.

“That guy you left with?” Lori hands me a musty uniform. “I’ve never seen him before.”

I thump the blue woolen coat, raising a cloud of dust. I use my ensuing coughing fit as an excuse not to talk about Shane. “Can we open a window?”

Lori clomps across the wooden floor of the antique-shop attic. She pulls on the sill of the window at one end, but it’s stuck. “Sorry. We’re almost done.”

In the light of a bare bulb, I regard the pile of old clothes, nearly as tall as we are. It looks like we’ve just started.

I wipe the sweat from the back of my neck and sigh at the dust covering my shirt. “Any restaurant we go to tonight better have a no-skank policy.”

She gives me a sheepish smile. “I’ll buy you Chinese takeout, a six-pack, and any DVD you want to rent.” Her grin widens on the bottom, showing all her teeth. “Pal o’ mine?”

I pick up a stack of hangers. “I needed to get out, anyway.”

She hands me a long green-and-white dress. “So you don’t want to talk about Mystery Man. Tell me about your radio station. Sounds cool.”

“In the same way autopsies are cool. My immediate boss is like Eeyore in a man-suit, and the station manager is a fanatic. The DJs are—” I cut myself off. How to describe them without using the word “vampire”?

Lori folds a bonnet and stuffs it in a zippie bag. “They’re what, party animals?”

“It’s not that.” I pin the bag to the dress. “Do you know any obsessive-compulsives?”

Lori drops a box of medals, which go skittering across the floor. “Damn it!” She scrambles after them. “Why do you ask?”

I kneel to help her scoop up the medals, biting my lip at the pain in my leg. “I think I know someone with it.”

“Me, too. My mom.” She lays the medals carefully in the box without looking at me. “It started when I was six. She would go around the house at bedtime and make sure all the doors were locked.”

“So?”

“So then she started checking windows, even in the middle of the winter when they hadn’t been opened in weeks.” She sits cross-legged on the floor, oblivious to the layer of dust and dead bugs. “Then all the smoke detectors had to be tested.”

“Every night?”

Lori nods. “Over the years, she kept adding more, and she had to do everything in order. If you interrupted her, she’d start all over.” She wipes her wrist across her forehead. “By the time she got help, her bedtime routine would start at three in the afternoon.”

“What kind of help?”

“Medicine, therapy. At first they told us just to play along with her ‘truth,’ as they called it. We were already good at that. Then little by little, we helped her find a new truth.” She smiles. “I know, it sounds all mystic and existential. But it worked, and we got her back. Mostly.”

“I’m glad.” I squeeze her shoulder. “How come you never told me?”

Lori tugs at the collar of her shirt. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.” When I don’t let her off the hook, she says, “I felt bad complaining about my mom when yours is, you know … ”

“Yeah.” I look away, blinking hard. She probably thinks it’s tears, but really it’s just the dust.

She clears her throat. “Have you heard from your foster parents lately?”

“Just a few days ago.” I smile at the memory of the two normal years of my life. “They just got another new kid, which makes it eighteen total.”

“Which one were you?”

“Number thirteen.”

She laughs. “But you weren’t unlucky to get them.”

“I don’t believe in luck.”

“You don’t believe in anything.”

“Not true.” I angle my head. “I believe, for instance, that you’re sitting on a cockroach.”

Lori squeals and leaps to her feet, frantically brushing her butt. She looks at the floor and sees nothing larger than a ladybug.

“Just kidding.”

She smacks my arm. “Just for that, you’re buying tonight.”

“You’d make a poor little orphan girl buy her own dinner? Heartless wench.” We get back to work, laughing.

Like all my friends, Lori thinks that when I was sixteen, my real parents died, when in fact they just took a ten- to fifteen-year hiatus from my life. I never thought I’d have friends long enough for Mom and Dad to inconveniently reappear, but the possibility looms.

Because there’s always parole.

It’s after sunset when Lori and I finally stumble from the sidewalk into my dark stairwell.

“Sorry the light is still burned out.” I shift the Chinese takeout bag into the crook of my arm so I can hold the banister on my way up.

At the top of the stairs I unlock the door and push it open. The light in my bedroom is on.

I never leave it on.

I freeze. Lori runs into me from behind. “Ciara, what the hell?”

“Someone’s here,” I whisper, though it’s too late for stealth.

“Oh my God, are you sure?”

From my bedroom comes a familiar rattle of plastic, along with the faint thrum of a Liz Phair tune.

“You have got to be kidding me.” I stalk down the hall.

Shane sits cross-legged on my bedroom floor, an island in a sea of CDs. He brightens when he sees me. “Hey, Ciara.”

I smack down my unwanted delight and try to replace it with indignation. “How did you get in here?”

His innocent head-cock is almost convincing. “You invited me.”

“No, I—” I stop, realizing he means I invited him in a general sense, in a vampire sense.

I turn to Lori, who just crept up beside me. “Give us a minute.”

She eyes Shane with surprise. “Hey, it’s the guy from the bar last night.” She scowls at him. “Why did you break into her apartment?”

“Lori, it’s okay. It’s just a misunderstanding.” I hand her the food. “Chopsticks are in the silverware drawer.”

She takes the hint. “Yell if you need anything.”

I step into the bedroom and slam the door. “How did you really get in?”

“I picked your lock.” Shane points to his head. “Sensitive ears hear the tumblers click.”

“Fascinating. I don’t want you here.”

A skeptical look flashes across his face, then he glances at my thigh. “How are you feeling?”

“I had to get stitches and a tetanus shot. It hurts to walk.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Why are you here?” I fight to keep my voice down to avoid alarming Lori. “You only came to the Pig last night because David sent you.”

He nods. “Usually I hang out at O’Leary’s. Less pretentious, no students.”

“You ran away from Jolene with me, came home with me, made out with me, just to prove that vampires exist.” Indignation masks the hurt in my voice. “You set me up.”

“That’s not the only reason I came home with you.” He stands and takes a step toward me. “As for why I’m here now, I had to finish what I started last night.”

A stab of fear makes me reach for the doorknob before I realize he’s talking about the CDs. “I can do it myself. I know the alphabet.”

“What’s the fourth letter after M?”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s Q,” he says. “I don’t even have to sing the alphabet song to myself to figure it out. I know it the way I know the back of my own teeth.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?”

He takes another step. “I couldn’t sleep today, thinking about it.”

“Oh, poor you. I’ll have nightmares the rest of my life, not to mention a scar that’ll be hard to explain to future visitors. But you lost a day’s sleep over some out-of-order CDs.”

He gives me a steady look. “I wasn’t talking about the CDs.”

My breath catches and quickens under his gaze, and he’s not even using his mesmer-eyes on me.

I’m about to order him out of my apartment when I realize he might refuse. Then what? Lori and I together probably don’t match half his strength.

“Wait here.” I back out of my room, shut the door, then dash for the kitchen.

Lori’s on the sofa, trying to work the TV remote. “Everything okay?”

“Fine, fine.” I rummage through the fridge’s vegetable bin, shoving aside a month-old bag of liquid scallions. Nope, not there. I open one of the cabinets and climb onto the counter to peer into the top shelf.

“Sure you don’t need help?” Lori calls.

“Yep. Set up the movie.”

Finally I find what I’m looking for, behind an unopened container of fennel seed. I climb off the counter, clutching the little plastic jar.

“Be right back,” I tell Lori as I blur past her.

In my room I shut the door and advance on Shane, who’s sitting among the CDs again.

“Get out!” I twist off the red cap and hurl the contents of the jar at him.

He sputters and spits, then wipes his mouth. “What the—salt? I’m a vampire, not a slug.”

“Keep your voice down. It’s garlic salt.”

“It is?” He brushes the stuff out of his hair and sniffs his sleeve. “How old is that jar?”

I glance at the bottom, which bears a faded price tag (89c) instead of a UPC code. “Maybe a decade, or two. It came with the apartment.”

“I’d say it’s past its peak freshness.” Shane rubs his arm. “Although I am a little itchy.” He stands up, and I step back. He holds up his hands. “Relax, I won’t hurt you. If you wanted me to leave, all you had to do was ask.”

“I’m pretty sure I did.”

He points to a stack of CDs between us. “Here’s A through Bowie, in order. That was as far as I got before you started throwing condiments.”

I put the empty garlic salt jar in my pocket. “I was afraid if I told you to leave, you might try to hurt Lori.”

“No, you weren’t.” He smirks. “You were afraid I’d convince you to let me stay.”

His cockiness provokes my foot to reach out and kick A through Bowie, scattering them across the rug. Shane blanches, a breath hissing through his teeth as if I’ve rammed a cross of pure sunlight into his temple. I remember what Lori said about her mother, and immediately I regret my action. A little.

He heads for the stairs without looking back. I follow him down and out the front door.

He turns and glances over my head as I stand in the doorway. “Hope I didn’t upset your friend.”

“Please don’t break into my apartment again, even if I can’t stop you.”

“I won’t, I swear. If you promise to do one thing for me.”

“I’ll put the CDs in order tomorrow. You want me to take a picture to prove it?”

He brightens. “That’d be great. Thank you.”

Before I can react, he grasps my face in both hands and kisses me quickly, as if in gratitude.

“Night.” He turns and saunters into the shadows.

I double-lock the door, then climb the stairs to join Lori. She’ll convince me I’m an idiot for even considering the possibility of maybe not totally despising that monster.

Hopefully before it’s too late.

7
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere

“Heard you got bit.”

Franklin wastes no time with Monday morning niceties.

I refuse to glance down at my thigh as I cross the office to dump my purse on my desk. “Had nothing better to do on a Friday night.”

“Tell me about it. This town is no place for the living.” He seems more relaxed now that we share the station’s Big Secret. “Ready to do actual work?”

“When you put it that way, how can I resist?” I sit across from him, carefully, keeping my knees together, since crossing my legs would be agony.

“Today’s prospect,” he says, “is a Sherwood boutique called Waxing Nostalgic.”

“The candle place where people sniff the merchandise and never buy it?”

Franklin nods and stuffs a pencil into his electric sharpener. When the buzzing fades, he says, “Bernita Johnson wants to cut back her ads from five thirty-second spots a week to two.” He gives me a level look. “This is bad.”

“So we pay her a visit, threaten to flatten her kneecaps.”

“Something like that.” He sharpens another pencil. “That’s just to get your feet wet dealing with clients. This afternoon we start baiting the hook for bigger fish. Now that our signal is reaching urban markets, we can get clients with deeper pockets.”

“Cool.” I check out today’s Wilde quote: A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

Franklin sharpens a third pencil, and I notice that he has a cupful of about two dozen on his desk.

“What’s with all the pencils?”

“Protection.” He drops another sharp one into the cup. “You should make your own cache.”

“A cache? As in, a collection of weapons?”

“I made a holster. See?” He stuffs a sharpened pencil into a receptacle hanging from his belt loop. “I’ve got boxes of them stashed in every room of this building, in case you need to defend yourself.”

“Have the vampires ever threatened you?”

“No, but it’s good to be prepared.”

“If you don’t like them, why do you work here?”

“Marketing jobs are scarce in Sherwood.”

“Why not work in the city?”

“I hate commuting.”

“Then why not live in the city?”

Franklin glares at me. “If you must know, my boyfriend teaches at Sherwood College.”

“Oh.” I hide my surprise. Not that I don’t think Franklin’s boyfriendable. He’s actually fairly cute. He just seems awfully grumpy for someone in a steady relationship. “So where would I leave something for one of the DJs?”

Franklin shakes his head slowly, as if he’s just heard of my tragic death.

“If I’m going to market this station,” I remind him, “I have to get acquainted with its lifeblood. So to speak.”

He sighs. “Mailboxes are in the lounge downstairs.”

I go to my purse and grab a red greeting-card envelope. “If I’m not back in five, send the Salvation Army.”

The lounge downstairs is empty, and silent except for the whine of a Rush Limbaugh wannabe bitching about illegal immigrants. The speaker sits mounted on the ceiling in the corner. When I turn to glare at it, I see the row of putty-colored metal mailbox slots. I make my delivery.

On my way back to the stairs, I pass the door to the studio. The ON THE AIR light is off, so I quietly turn the knob.

I find myself in a narrow hallway. The studio sits behind a thick glass window. It’s like a museum exhibit of twentieth-century-radio history: reel-to-reel decks and turntables sit beside CD players and a computer monitor with glowing green numbers.

No one’s inside, since a syndicated show is playing, but I wonder why the vampires can’t broadcast during the day. They’d be protected from sunshine down here. Then again, this is their sleepy time. Asking them to work during the day would be worse than asking a human to work the night shift.

At the end of the corridor to my right, a thick metal door reads DANGER: KEEP OUT in red block letters.

I step up to it and place my palm on its surface, just below the sign. It’s cold and smooth, like a restaurant’s walk-in freezer. The handle is heavy, a lever rather than a knob. It would take some effort to open it, which, being smarter than your average horror movie victim, I decline to do. But I notice that the door’s bottom edge is made of rubber, creating a seal against the linoleum floor.

My hand whips off the stainless steel surface.

KEEP OUT is cold storage for the station’s most valuable assets.

I back away, rubbing my hand against the rough fabric of my denim miniskirt. The chill takes a few moments to subside.

As I stare at the door, an idea awakens, twisting and groping for freedom like a moth trying to pop out of a cocoon a few days early.

I look at the studio.

Nah.

Then the door.

Maybe.

And back at the studio.

Why the hell not?

Waxing Nostalgic is the kind of store that makes you wish you’d been born without a nose.

Franklin and I stop halfway through the door, slammed by ten thousand scents that don’t get along. Thick pillar candles, grouped by color family, line the wall shelves of the claustrophobic shop.

I urge my feet forward against their will, toward a front table Fourth of July display. Founding Fathers with wicks coming out of their heads seem to beg us to buy them, burn them, release them from their waxy hell.

Franklin lets the door shut behind us, jangling a cowbell tied to the handle. A brown terrier lies on a mat near the register to our right. It blinks at us, and nothing more. No doubt its brain is fried from the olfactory assault.

“Be right out!” A shrill voice emerges from behind the curtain of a back room.

Franklin turns to me and says, “Don’t act surprised. Just play along.” He hastens to straighten his tie and his posture.

I nod, more bemused than confused. I work at a radio station with vampire DJs. What could possibly surprise me?

“Bernita!” Franklin swishes over to the woman who just came out from the back room. “Hey, girlfriend, it’s been a million years.” He gives her an expansive hug, complete with fluttery back-pat.

She beams, then pinches his cheek like an aunt. “Frankie, how are you?”

“I’m fabulous, thanks for asking.” His voice is an octave higher than I’ve ever heard it. I struggle not to gape. “And you—” He holds her at arm’s length, tilting his head. “—you look spectacular! Have you lost weight?”

She preens at the attention and pats her formidable girth. “Two hundred pounds the moment I got divorced.”

“You are too rotten!” Franklin squeezes her arm and stamps his foot. His breezy manner makes him look fifty pounds lighter himself. Suddenly his clothes appear perfectly tailored, no longer drooping over his body like wet washcloths on a towel rack.

“Oh, just look at our little Reginald.” He leans over to koochie-koo the dog. “I tell you, I could eat him up with a spoon.”

I think a little piece of Franklin died as he uttered the last word with a lisp.

Bernita sweeps her arm toward the merchandise. “Need some candles? I have a few.” She’s smiling, but her eyes plead for business. Convincing her to give us more money won’t be easy.

Franklin grins at me. “Ciara needs some for her bedroom.”

“Ahhh … ” The nearly round woman sidles over. “Expecting an evening with a special young man?”

I send my boss an arsenic-laced smile, then turn to Bernita. “Do you have garlic-scented candles?”

She brightens. “I do have pizza candles. Only eleven ninety-nine.”

I follow her to a food-related display, hoping WMMP will extend me an expense account. She hands me, with an inordinate amount of pride, a glass container filled with red, white, and green-striped wax.

“Oh, I couldn’t,” I tell her. “It’s too pretty to burn.”

She fluffs her helmet of mahogany-dyed hair. “That’s why you need two—one to burn and one to look at.”

“Fabu,” Franklin says. “She’ll take three so she won’t have to make another trip.”

Great. Instead of buying food, I’ll just buy objects that smell like food. Maybe my pancreas won’t know the difference.

“Let me check in the back.” Bernita sashays toward the curtain. “I think we have one with pepperoni scent.”

As soon as she disappears, I turn to stare at Franklin.

“What?” he says.

I cock my head at him. “Paging Dr. Jekyll?”

“Oh, that.” His voice flattens back to normal. “A good salesman fulfills expectations. This is a small town, where people lack exposure to nonstereotypical images of homosexuals. So if I queer it up a little here and there—”

“A little?”

“—and act like those assholes on TV, then people are charmed rather than challenged. I make them feel open-minded because they have a ‘gay friend.’ People who feel good spend money.” Franklin spreads his hands in a gesture of resignation. “I faced the truth long ago: with my real personality, I couldn’t sell a bucket of water to a man on fire.”

As I’m marveling at the discovery of a kindred spirit, Bernita returns and clonks two more pizza candles on the counter.

“No pepperoni, but sausage will do, right?” She rings them up without waiting for my answer.

Franklin leans on the counter. “You know what would bring in even more business?” He flutters a sweep of blond eyelashes. “Advertising.”

Her glee fades as she becomes the sellee instead of the seller. “Times are tough. I’ve got to cut back on something.”

I pull the glass lid off the pizza candle and inhale the ghastly aroma of artificial garlic.

Franklin presses on, smooth as milk. “But Bernita, it’s during tough times that you need to get the word out more than ever.” His eyes actually twinkle. “If more people knew about this amazing place, you’d be flooded with customers.”

Bernita blushes, then stands up straight, as if she just remembered she has a spine. “I need to check my budget. I’ll think about it and call you.”

I reseal the candle. It’d sure keep Shane away, along with the rest of the world.

Wait a minute …

“There’s no time to think about it,” I blurt.

They turn to me with quizzical looks.

“That is,” I add, “rates will be going up soon. Now’s a perfect time to lock in the current prices.”

“Why are rates going up?” Bernita asks Franklin.

“Ciara, why don’t you explain?” he says pointedly.

“I wish I could, but it’s a secret.” I lean over the counter and give her my best conspiratorial whisper. “We’re beginning a new marketing campaign that will blow the socks off this entire region. Everyone will be listening.”

Bernita glances at Franklin, who smiles and nods in an Oscar-worthy performance. She doesn’t look convinced.

“Forgive my ignorance,” she says, “but how can a marketing campaign make that much of a difference?”

“We’re going to make a significant announcement about the nature of WMMP.”

Her eyes widen. “What is it?”

I bite my lip. “If I told you, it would ruin the surprise. All I can say is that it will show the world how unique the station really is.” At least, I hope it’s unique in that respect.

Bernita taps her polka-dotted fingernails against the counter as she thinks. Finally she drops the down-home facade. “You’d better not be bullshitting me, girl.”

“I assure you, she’s not.” With the flair of a magician, Franklin snaps open his briefcase and whips out the current rate sheet. “We hired Ciara because she’s the best at what she does.”

Bernita clicks on her adding machine and taps out some numbers, using a pencil eraser instead of her fingers. “I suppose I could do my usual five thirty-second spots a week for four weeks. When will the rates go up and by how much?”

Franklin clears his throat. “Well, that depends on—”

“They’ll triple by the end of the month,” I tell her. “After that, depending on demand, they could rise again.”

She taps the pencil on the counter a few times. “I’ll take eight weeks, then.”

I peruse the merchandise while Bernita and Franklin draw up a contract. The many clearance items include holiday candles with candy facsimiles embedded in the outer surfaces. A two-inch-long wax Easter bunny stares at me, trapped like Han Solo in carbonite.

“You have a tremendous day now, ‘kay?” Franklin calls to Bernita as he walks toward the door. She gives me a bewildered wave, which I recognize as a sign to retreat before she can think too hard about what just happened.

Once we’re outside, a few shops down and out of Bernita’s sight, Franklin’s fingers wrap around my elbow.

“This idea of yours had better be good,” he growls, “or I’ll have your head in a chafing dish.”

8
Get Up Stand Up

The vampires—all but Monroe, whose Midnight Blues show pipes in over the speaker—file into the lounge and gather around the poker table. I stand next to an overhead projector, pretending to put my transparencies in order, though I’ve gone over them so many times I could do this presentation in a coma. Franklin helped me put it together, but he declined to join us this evening because of his “allergies.” Coward.

David stands beside me and addresses the skeptical-eyed DJs. “You all remember Ciara, our new sales and marketing intern. I hired her to help us turn things around. She has a big idea, but we need your approval and cooperation.”

As David covers some old business, Shane pulls a familiar red envelope from his shirt pocket. He jigs the envelope on the table and gives me a secretive smile.

I look around to gauge the other vampires’ moods. Regina studies her nails as if they contain a long-lost Dead Sea scroll. Noah looks like his mind is paging through a list of all the other places he’d rather be. Jim rotates his ‘69 Charger key chain—a miniature replica of his own blue sweetheart—over and over in his hands. Spencer listens attentively to David while using a Crazy Straw to sip from a bottle of cranapple juice. He sees me looking at him and grins, his gums a rich red.

Oh. It’s not cranapple juice. The butterflies in my stomach vomit on each other’s wings.

“And with that,” David says, “it’s on to new business. Ciara?”

I take a deep breath and try not to imagine my audience in their underwear.

“Today’s commercial radio is a musical wasteland. Modern disc jockeys play what the suits tell them to play. The less they know about music, the better, because every second they spend enlightening their listeners is a second the corporation isn’t making money off ads or promoters’ payments.”

Relishing their attention, I expand my gestures and let the words flow. “But you’re more than a bunch of trained poodles. You each offer something unique—an intimate understanding of your Life Time and the music it gave birth to. You know that. I know that.” I point to the walls. “But the world doesn’t know that. And even if we told them, ‘Hey, we’ve got the experts right here every night,’ they wouldn’t care. Unless we told them why.” Insert dramatic pause, my mental note tells me.

They glance at each other, then Noah takes the bait. “Why what?”

“Why you are experts.” I nod to David, who switches off the overhead lights. My first transparency is carefully positioned on the projector. I turn it on.

WVMP—THE LIFEBLOOD OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL.

Above the slogan appears the new logo: an electric guitar with two bleeding fang wounds.

The vampires examine the image on the wall without comment, their eyes holding a guarded curiosity.

“Is that supposed to be us?” Jim asks finally.

I regard them one at a time, with more confidence than I feel. “We’re going to tell the world that you are all vampires. That’s why you know your era so well—because you were born and raised in it, because you live it. We’re going to tell the truth.”

I continue before they can interrupt. “You’ve spent your whole lives—your whole unlives—trying to blend in. But the only place you’d blend in is a Halloween parade. You dress differently, you speak differently, you have the facial structures of gods on Earth. I say, let’s not hide it. Let’s flaunt it.”

“Wait a second, honey,” Spencer drawls. “You want us to go on the air and tell everyone we’re vampires? That’s kooky.”

“Not just on the air. Live. In public. Show the world your magnificence. They won’t believe you’re vampires, because that’s insane, but they’ll believe you’re special. They’ll believe you have something they want.”

After a brief pause to let it sink in, I slap up the next transparency. “Let me tell you how they’ll get it.”

I detail the marketing plan, from the live gigs to the media interviews to the podcasts (the last one requires a lot of patient explanation and a certain amount of “trust me on this”). At the end, out of breath, I flip the original transparency—the one with the logo—onto the projector.

“If this campaign works,” I remind them, “ratings and ad revenue will go up, the station won’t get sold to Skywave, and you all get to keep your jobs. How does that sound?”

They stare at me a few moments longer, then everyone but Shane looks to Regina to begin. She clears her throat.

“So we could be like rock stars?”

“Exactly like rock stars,” I tell her, feeding off the eagerness of her ego.

“Why would anyone come to see us?” Jim asks.

“Have you looked in the mirror lately? Wait—can you look in the mirror?”

“Of course we can.” Noah strokes his smooth brown jaw. “How else would we look so good?”

Regina snorts. “Yeah, if you can see us, why can’t a mirror? Is it because we have no soooooul?” She rolls her eyes and basks in the derisive laughter of the other vampires— Shane excepted. He still wears the stony, pensive look that claimed his face the moment I unveiled the original slide.

I focus on the other vampires as their laughter fades. “I’m sure you have questions, all of which will be useful if and when we go ahead with the campaign.” I lean both hands on the table. “But you need to tell me, is it an ‘if or a ‘when’?”

Another long, silent moment.

Finally Spencer shifts in his chair and toasts me with his Big Bloody Gulp. “I think the sunnyside’s got something here.”

“Yeah.” Jim taps his car on the table and bobs the top half of his body. “Sounds like a trip.”

Noah agrees reluctantly. “Anything that helps us survive, we should try.”

Regina regards them all, then nods. “We like it.”

I let out a breath and give David a triumphant look.

“I don’t like it.” Shane straightens up from his trademark slouch. “We’re not rock stars. We’re DJs. Most importantly, we’re vampires.”

“Wow, thanks, Senor Grasping the Obvious,” Regina snaps. “Will you write my resume for me?”

“This campaign is dangerous,” he says. “We’ve always kept the truth hidden. Now you want to announce it to the world?”

“No one will believe it,” I point out. “Sometimes the best way to hide the truth is to tell it.”

He shakes his head. “There are people out there wacked enough to believe it, and they’d come after us. We’d be in danger for the same reasons we’d be popular. People would want to get close to us.”

“And they can, by buying our merchandise.” I reach into a bag at my feet and with a grand gesture unfold a black T-shirt featuring the logo. On the back it says, FEED THE NEED. A chorus of oohs and ahhs greets the unveiling, with one exception.

“This crap trivializes what we do,” Shane says. “Haven’t we always resisted commercialization?”

David moves next to me. “Like it or not,” he says to Shane, “the recording industry has always been about money, and money comes from images and marketing.”

“That’s bullshit.” Shane glares at David. “It’s not what we’re about. We’re one of the few places left that’s still about the music.” He gestures to the T-shirt, and me in the process. “This corrupts our mission.”

Regina croaks a laugh. “Our mission is to stay alive.”

“Yeah, Shane, it’s easy for you to be idealistic,” Jim says. “You’re young. You can find other work. Hell, you still look human.” He twists the last word into an insult.

“But I’m not human.” Shane glances at me, then focuses on the other vampires. “None of us are. If we spend too much time in public, someone’ll figure out the truth. Next thing you know, late one night we’ll find ourselves delayed on the way home. Then it’s ‘Good Day Sunshine,’ and they’ll be sweeping us into a dustpan.”

I squirm at the image. Spencer sees my reaction and tilts his head. “What do you care, honey? Why wouldn’t you be just as happy to see us go poof?”

They all turn to me. I put down the T-shirt. It takes a moment to decide how much to tell them.

“It may be hard to believe, but I’m not all that different from you. I suspect that’s why David hired me.”

He nods with half a smile.

“I used to prey on people, too, for money instead of blood. It’s how I was raised.” I’ve never said this out loud. “I liked it. I was good at it. I’ve made a career out of it for the last six years.” I look at them, each in the eyes. “So I can’t judge you for taking what you need to survive.”

“If you’re just as predatory as us,” Regina says, “why should we trust you?”

“Because I said so.” David steps forward, his posture straight and sure. “I’ve always protected you guys, and I always will.”

Shane groans and runs his hands over his scalp. “You’re not omnipotent, David, even with the Control at your back. And have you even thought about how other vampires will react? Some of them already think we mingle too much with humans.”

“It’s none of their fucking business,” Regina says. “We do our thing, they do theirs, we keep to ourselves. That’s the way it’s always been.”

“This is not keeping to ourselves.” Shane points to the logo projected on the wall. “This changes everything.”

Spencer taps his cup on the table. “Shane, I don’t see as we have much choice. It’s either this or we end up homeless and out of work.”

“Exactly,” David says. “So do we have your support?”

“No.” Shane looks at me. “Sorry.”

Regina eyes him with disgust. “Then stay out of it and let the rest of us have our fun.”

He meets her gaze. “I hope you live long enough to hear me say, ‘I told you so.’”

“It’s settled.” David rubs his hands together. “Ciara and Frank and I will draw up more specific plans and let each of you know where you fit in. Meeting adjourned.”

I turn back to the projector to gather the transparencies. Several of the slippery little bastards slide onto the floor, scattering out of order. Augh. Why can’t this place use an LCD projector like the rest of the universe?

“I got it.” A deep, soft voice at my shoulder startles me. Shane kneels and sweeps up the fallen transparencies.

“Thanks.” Most guys would just stand back and watch me try to bend over in a miniskirt.

He stands and hands me the transparencies, then holds up the red envelope, the one containing a photo of my CD shelves. “I should be thanking you,” Shane says.

I shrug. “It’s pure alphabetical for now. Maybe later I’ll subgroup them by genre. I hear that’s fun.”

He sits on the table and rests a foot on a chair. “Look, it was nothing personal, what I said about your campaign.”

“You’re entitled to your integrity. It’ll enhance your mystique.” I start sorting the transparencies. “By the time you come to your senses and join us, the masses will be rabid for the broody, reclusive Vampire Shane.”

“It’s frightening the way your mind works. And yet I cannot look away.”

David walks up and hands Shane a three-page list of call letters and frequencies. “I thought you might protest, so I made a list of stations Skywave has bought in the last ten years.”

Shane’s eyes widen at the size of the list. He rubs his face as he scans the pages, probably alphabetizing the call letters in his head.

“Listen to their Webcasts,” David says. “Ciara can help you find them on the Internet.”

“I can do it myself.” Shane sounds less than certain. “But why?”

I gesture to the list. “So you can hear what this station could become. Let’s say Skywave hires you to do a nighttime show. Which they probably won’t because it’s cheaper just to pipe in someone else’s show from, say, Cincinnati, add a local weather report, and pretend it’s a hometown broadcast. But if they do hire you, you’ll have to play whatever they tell you. You’ll be a human jukebox.”

“This isn’t about me,” Shane says. “It’s about the music.”

“Exactly.” David taps the papers. “Listen for a week, then tell me if those stations are about the music.” He pats Shane’s shoulder, then heads over to talk to Regina.

Shane rubs his eyes, which, I just realized, are looking kind of sunken. “You want to get a drink?” he asks me.

“Not really.”

“Of alcohol, I mean. In public.”

Seems safe, at least in the physical jeopardy realm. “One condition. You answer all my vampire questions. Honestly.”

“Didn’t David give you the field manual?”

“It’s written in bureaucratese. Besides, I get the feeling most of it is propaganda.”

He considers the ceiling for a moment. “I’ll answer general questions, but reserve the right to protect my personal privacy.”

“Deal. Meet me at the Pig in half an hour.”

When all the vampires are gone, David comes over to help me clean up. “Four out of five. Not bad.”

“Four out of six. Don’t forget Monroe.” I take a last admiring look at the T-shirt before folding it. “Monroe does exist, right? He’s not just a recording?”

“Of course he exists. But he won’t talk to you.”

“Why not?”

“Think about it. In his day in Mississippi a black man could be lynched for having a conversation with a white woman that wasn’t bookended by ‘Yes, ma’am.’”

“But that was then.” I switch off the projector’s fan. “I’m not saying racism is dead, but—”

“It’s still ‘then’ in his mind, Ciara. He’s old. Fossilized.”

“And he can’t change?”

“None of them can.”

I look at the chair where Shane sat a minute ago.

“Including him,” David says.

“I refuse to believe that.” I stuff the transparencies in the folder. “You saw the looks in their eyes just now. They want to do more than survive, they want to have fun. Does a fossil crave fun?”

He shakes his head. “Remember, they’re not human.”

“I’m not only remembering it.” I grab my bag and head out the door. “I’m milking it for all it’s worth.”

The Smoking Pig is nearly deserted, which makes the music seem louder than usual. Shane is already waiting at the bar, chatting with Lori.

“Ciara, look who’s here.” Lori grins as if she personally dug him up for me.

“It’s just a business meeting.” I point to the brown ale he’s drinking. “Give me one of those.”

“Our very own microbrew.” Lori reaches for a pint glass. “One of my boss’s basement experiments, but I swear it’s safe. This batch didn’t explode hardly at all.”

I climb onto the bar stool. “Hey, Lori—Shane and I have a secret.”

“Cool! What is it?”

Shane turns to me. “You’re kidding, right?”

I pat his arm, which feels cold through his shirtsleeve. “Don’t worry, everyone’ll find out in a couple weeks. But Lori should get the best-friend scoop.”

“Scoop on what?” Her brows pop up as she fills my glass at the tap.

“Shane, along with all the other DJs at WMMP, is a vampire.”

She gives a little laugh and flicks her glance between us. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s our new marketing campaign. You know how each of them has a radio show based on a certain time period? The idea is, each of them actually lived in that time. That’s how they know the music so well.”

Lori sets my beer in front of me. “Cool idea.”

“It gets better. Have you ever heard of the 27 Club?”

“Isn’t that the weird thing where all these famous singers died when they were twenty-seven? Like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin?”

“And Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain—”

“Robert Johnson, the Stones’ Brian Jones, Al Wilson from Canned Heat,” Shane adds, his voice low and reluctant. “Pigpen of the Grateful Dead, Badfinger’s Pete Ham, Wallace Yohn from Chase, Uriah Heep’s Gary Thain, Helmut Koellen of Triumverat, Jimmy McCulloch from Wings, the Minutemen’s Dennes Boon, Mia Zapata of the Gits, and Hole’s Kristin Pfaff.”

“Wow.” Lori seems impressed and a little disturbed at his knowledge. She steps away and picks up a rag to wipe the sink. “So what about it?” she asks me.

“Get this: each of these DJs died and became a vampire when they were twenty-seven.”

“Huh.” She looks at Shane. “So how old are you supposed to be?”

He tries to smile. “I’m thirty-nine.”

“It was my idea.” I execute a pitch-perfect hair flip. “We even have T-shirts.”

“That’s brilliant. People will love that.” She gasps and whaps the rag against the bar. “We should have a kickoff party here at the Pig. We’ll dress up all Gothy and serve blood-red beer. It’ll be like Halloween in June!”

I gesture to her and look at Shane. “Can you tell why she’s my best friend?”

She high-fives me across the bar, then heads for the phone near the cash register. “I’ll call Stuart and see if he’ll go for it. It is his bar, after all.”

When she’s out of earshot, I turn back to Shane. “See? Everyone will think it’s a gimmick.”

He pushes his pint glass slowly against mine, gliding it toward the edge of the bar. “This is one of those moments when I ask myself why I like you.”

I catch my glass just before it topples. “Do you have an answer for yourself?”

“Still looking, with hope.” He slides off the stool and heads for the cozy corner table.

I join him with a basket of popcorn, which I place on the table between us. “You all live in the basement of the studio, right? Past the ‘Keep Out’ door?”

He nods. “That door leads to our underground apartment. It has a bedroom for each of us, plus a living room and a kitchen. Not exactly a Park Avenue penthouse, but it’s free. Not to mention safe.”

“Safe from what?”

“Fire, for one thing. Probably a comet impact. Definitely a nuclear blast.” He tugs on the white threads fraying his sleeve. “But the sun is what we worry about most. That’s why the station’s front door is always locked and the windows boarded up.”

“Curtains wouldn’t be enough?”

“Even a little daylight bleeding in around the edges can hurt. So we use civil twilight times instead of sunrise and sunset.”

I read about that in the primer, but my head is a jumble of facts. “Civil twilight is what again?”

“It’s when the sun is six degrees below the horizon. Basically, when humans need artificial light to see. The extra half hour makes a big difference.”

“What happens if you get caught in daylight?”

He thumbs the rim of his glass as he considers. “You ever get a splinter jammed under your fingernail?”

I wince. “Ow, yeah.”

“It’s nothing like that.”

I give him the appreciative ha-ha that he was seeking, but refuse to change the subject. “Don’t vague out on me. What happens when you’re touched by sunlight?”

“The same thing that happens when we’re touched by fire.”

His gaze unfocuses suddenly, and he wipes his hand over his forehead.

I have to prompt him. “What happens?”

He jerks his attention back to me. “We burn.”

“But everyone burns in fire.”

He shakes his head. “Humans burn like wood, vampires burn like paper. We can heal from brief contact with sunlight or fire, and we can survive more of it as we get older. You wouldn’t believe how many fingertips Regina and Jim have had to regrow because of their smoking habits.”

“Yikes.” I grab a handful of popcorn, which I notice Shane hasn’t touched. “Do you eat?”

“If I have to, to fit in. But solid food’s pretty bland when you’re dead. Everything tastes British.” He holds up his beer. “Liquids are good, though, if the flavor is intense, like a rich ale or a dry wine or strong coffee, and the drugs in them still affect us, just not as much as they do humans.”

“So what’s the deal with vampires and garlic?”

“Our sense of smell is really acute, so any food that gets into people’s breath and pores can drive us nuts. You can’t get blood without going through sweat.” He sips his beer. “I don’t mind garlic too much. Asparagus, though ...” He makes a yuck face.

“What about blood from banks? No sweat there, so how does that taste?”

“Stale, like three-day-old pizza. It’s also not as healthy. But that’s just for when we’re lazy or desperate.”

I munch another handful of popcorn and ponder last resorts. “Do you ever bite men?”

“Sure.”

“Is that after—I mean, when you bit me, we were . ..”

He looks away like he’s scrambling for a nonanswer.

“You promised you’d be honest.”

He takes another long sip of beer, then wipes his mouth. “Blood tastes better during an orgasm. Theirs, not mine.”

“Oh.” My neck warms. I pull my hair forward to cover it. “And the guys you drink, do you—”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On the circumstances. On the guy. Some, I can barely stand to put my mouth on their necks, much less—” He draws his glass across the table like he’s outlining a battlefield. “All things equal, I prefer women. But we can’t afford to be picky. A totally straight or totally gay vampire will end up a totally undernourished vampire.”

“How long can you go without drinking?”

He sinks back in his chair, looking like he has a headache with my name on it. “Old ones can go weeks. Brand-new vampires need it at least twice a night.”

“What about you?”

He doesn’t answer, just rubs the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, grimacing.

“You don’t look so hot tonight,” I tell him, then realize it sounds like an insult. “I mean, you look—” Hot as ever. “—like you don’t feel well.”

“I’m just thirsty.”

“Okay, I’ll get the next round.” I raise my hand to signal Lori.

Shane grabs my wrist and pulls it back to the table. “No, I mean I’m thirsty”

“Oh.” I yank my hand out of his grip. “In that case, I’m not getting the next round.”

He opens his cell phone. “Sorry, I need to leave.”

A Lois Lane-size curiosity (and possible stupidity) surges within me. “Can I come with you?”

He looks up at me from the phone. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Afraid I’ll be jealous?”

“No, I hope you’ll be jealous. But you could also be repulsed.”

“I’ll take my chances in the name of research. And we’ll drive separately, so if I freak out, I can go home.”

“There’s one a few blocks away.” He presses a button, then puts the phone to his ear. “One who likes to be watched.”

A kinky thrill courses through me, along with a vague fear—or maybe it’s a kinky fear and a vague thrill. Please let this donor be a guy.

“Hey, it’s me,” he says into the phone. “Can I come over? Yeah, now, if you’re sure you have enough.” His cryptic words remind me of a drug deal.

“I’m bringing someone,” he tells the phone person. “No, never.” Shane smiles. “Well, I don’t think she’d like that word. Red is good, yeah. See you in a few.” He folds up the phone.

“What word wouldn’t I like?”

He downs the rest of his beer in one gulp, then slides his glass to clink against mine. “Virgin.”

9
People Are Strange

“Don’t say anything,” Shane tells me on the short walk to our destination. “If you need to leave, do it quietly.”

“Are you going to—”

“Please, Ciara, no more questions.” He rubs a knuckle over the corner of his mouth. “I feel self-conscious as it is.”

We turn up the walkway of a brick town house. The porch light illuminates a yard with cheery, tasteful landscaping.

He opens the screen door and knocks softly on the wooden one, even though a doorbell sits to the right.

“Why not just ring—”

“Shh.” He wipes his hands against the sides of his jeans. “Not a word, unless she speaks to you.”

She. Damn it. I’m about to back out of the deal when the door opens. A pretty brunette in her thirties stands there in a very red dress. Its tiny straps show plenty of skin, and its hem swishes just above her knees. I would look so cute in that thing. She wears no jewelry or shoes.

“Shane,” she whispers. “It’s good to see you.”

By the way he’s looking at her dress, I can tell the feeling is mutual. She sends me such a genuine smile that I can’t help but return it.

She beckons us into her tidy kitchen, which is dark except for a light above the sparkling white stove. “Can I offer you something to drink?”

Um, isn’t that why we’re here?

Then I realize she’s talking to me, not Shane. “Thanks, uh, ice water?”

She gets me my drink, then signals us to follow her. At the edge of the dining room, she says, “I just had the carpets shampooed, so take off your shoes and walk on the papers.”

We do as we’re told, stepping from one white sheet to the next, like stones across a stream. The air holds a hint of soap. Shane covers his nose. His enhanced sense of smell must make chemical cleaning products intolerable.

Luckily, the stairs and upper level seem to be dry already. We pass a darkened room with a door slightly ajar, then enter a large bedroom at the end of the hall.

What I see there makes me sigh with longing. A high, queen-size bed with an oak frame sits under a vaulted ceiling, which is painted a slightly darker shade of peach than the rest of the room. The tall floor lamp casts a soft glow from one of those expensive full-spectrum bulbs.

“Sit.” She motions to the green velvet window seat. I obey and set my glass on a delicate wrought-iron table. Feeling conspicuous, I avert my eyes to check out the backyard. A vague structure sits in a corner near the flower garden, which is outlined by white stones.

“Are you going to watch or not?”

The woman’s voice brings my attention back to the room. Her gaze on me sharpens. I sit back against the wall and stretch my legs out on the cushion. She smiles again.

“Just be comfortable. And quiet.”

I suddenly wish this were all over.

She moves across the room to Shane, skirt lapping against her thighs. “Do the neck.”

“No.” His fingertips trace a line from her ear to her shoulder, making her shiver. “It’s summertime. You can’t cover it up. Better here.” He runs his hand over her waist, to a spot above her left hip bone.

“Whatever you think is best.” She moves to her night-stand. “I trust you.”

With a flick of her finger she turns on a small CD player, releasing a sultry instrumental tune, heavy on the baritone sax.

Shane looks at me for a long moment, as if he’s trying to store me in his memory, then turns back to the woman. Will he try to forget my presence, or will he revel in it, the way she clearly does?

Her eyes grow hooded as he approaches her next to the bed. He runs his hands over the fabric of her dress, up and down her back and her waist, inhaling the scent at the base of her neck. She moans and molds herself against him.

Shane slides down her body and pushes her skirt above her hip on one side. Without further ceremony, he presses his mouth to her bare waist.

She looks down. “What are you doing?”

He stops without raising his head. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Already?” She slips out of his grip and sits on the bed. “No preliminaries?”

Shane stands to face her, fingers twitching. “I’m thirsty.” He seems to be trying not to look at me.

“I’ve seen you thirstier.” She leans back on her elbows and runs a bare toe up the inside of his thigh. “Fuck me first.”

Oh, shit.

He stares at the woman. “What about your fiance?”

“We broke up.”

Shane glances at me. “Not in front of her.”

“You have nothing to be ashamed of.” Her toes slip under his crotch. “Think of it as free advertising.”

“No,” he says, even as he spreads her legs and moves between them. “Just give me what I came for.”

“I know you can steal my blood if you want. But you won’t, with her here.” She tilts her head in my direction. “Wouldn’t want her to think you’re a monster.”

He looms over her, hands planted on either side of her body. “I’m not a monster.”

Shane kisses her then, so softly I catch my breath. I jam my fist against my mouth and try to pretend I’m watching a movie.

The woman peels his shirt over his head and tosses it on the floor. He looks at it, then at me.

She yanks him down on top of her, then slides her long nails up his back, hard enough to leave red marks in their wake. His body seizes and he kisses her again, harder.

Her legs curl around his bare waist, making her skirt fall above her hips. I try not to watch myself watching, fingertips between my teeth, and just watch. Forget what he might mean to me, forget what he did to me last Friday night. Forget the future and the past and just dwell in the pornographic present.

Shane breaks the kiss and grits his teeth. “No.”

“No what?” she says sharply.

“I can’t do this.” He pushes himself out of her embrace. “I mean, I won’t.” He unwraps her legs from his body. His face is contorted in what looks like pain.

“Because of her?” Frustration peaks her voice. She kicks out, and he catches her heel just before it connects with his balls.

“Don’t get violent,” he says.

She lets out a harsh sigh. “Girl, tell him you’re okay with it.”

I am, but I really don’t want to get involved. “Uh ...”

Shane cuts me off. “I’m not okay with it.”

She laughs. “It’s eleven o’clock on a Wednesday. Who else are you going to get at this hour?” She sits up and trails her fingers down his bare chest. “You’re getting colder.” She lilts the words like a taunting child.

He breathes hard, shaking his voice. “I can drink bank blood.”

“Tonight, maybe. But maybe next time you call I won’t be such a flexible donor.”

He jerks away from her. “You call this flexible? Demanding sex, then threatening me?” He yanks his shirt off the floor. “I’m not your gigolo.”

“Don’t you dare make it sound cheap,” she snaps. “You never used to say no.”

I can’t take it anymore. “Stop it, both of you. I’ll leave.” I get off the window seat and head for the door.

“I’m coming with you,” Shane says.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Looking back at him, I open the door. “You need to drink. I’m just in the way—ack!”

I grab the doorjamb to avoid trampling a little boy. He stands just outside the bedroom, clutching a stuffed blue dog around its neck.

I look down into his wide dark eyes. “Uh, hi.”

“Oh, dear,” says the woman. The music shuts off. She comes over, straightening her dress and smoothing her hair. “Sweetie, Mommy has some friends over. We’re just playing a game.”

“I can’t sleep.” He looks at me. “Can I play?”

I lean back against the doorjamb and focus on the ceiling. It’d be really rude to barf on her freshly shampooed carpet.

The woman leads the child down the hall. After a moment’s hesitation, I go back into the bedroom and shut the door behind me. Shane is sitting on the bed now, holding his shirt in his lap, a mixture of guilt and frustration on his face. We look at each other, then away, quickly.

Muffled noises of love and comfort come from outside the door, along with a short stretch of water running in the hall bathroom.

Shane and I say nothing. I sit on the window seat and look outside. Now that my eyes have adjusted, I realize that the structure I saw before is a swing set.

The woman reenters the bedroom and locks the door. She turns to Shane and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Maybe you should just bite me.”

He looks relieved. “Yeah. Good. Okay.”

Thank God. A quick chomp and we’re out of here, then I can go home and scour my frontal lobe to forget that kid—

Shane pounces on her so fast, I emit a little squeak, echoed by the woman. He slides down her body until his knees slam the carpet. She runs her hands through his hair, sweeping it back from his face.

As he pushes her dress above her waist, his eyes open and fix on me. My muscles lock into baby-bunny mode again. His triumphant smile skewers me a moment before his fangs pierce her creamy skin.

She cries out, and her hands tighten in his hair, as if to pull him away. Then they drop to the top of his shoulders, where her nails dig into his flesh as she hisses through her teeth.

His eyelashes flutter as he draws the first swallow. He groans, and the sound sends a hot, dizzy feeling creeping over my scalp from nape to forehead. A single drop of blood escapes to trickle down her waist. Mesmerized, I watch it disappear beneath the red silk of her bikini panty.

It lasts much longer than I expected. Pins and needles prick my feet, but I don’t dare move. The atmosphere in the bedroom feels fragile, every object connected by sticky, weblike strands of energy. If I move an inch or even breathe too hard, the balance between his survival and hers could tip.

Her legs buckle. Shane lowers her to the floor in a smooth, controlled maneuver that looks all too practiced. Her hair splays on the carpet like a dark halo.

Shane’s hair covers his face now, but I hear him breathe deep and long through his nose as he drinks. Though her body lies limp in his arms, Shane looks like the helpless one. His right hand clutches her thigh, knuckles pulsing in a kneading motion. He begins to rock back and forth to a rhythm only he can hear. Is it her heartbeat? Is it slowing?

Suddenly the woman’s body bucks and stiffens against him. Her nails rake over his bare shoulders, drawing eight thin trails of blood, red as any human’s.

With a thud, her legs and arms fall limp against the floor. A moment later, Shane rolls onto the carpet, panting and staring through the ceiling. Blood stains his gums, setting off the white of his fangs, which recede in the span of a few seconds. With their pupils constricted to dots, his eyes shine brightest blue.

Lying on her back, the woman stretches like a cat waking from a nap. She draws a finger down his chest in a lazy motion. “Good?”

Between gasps, he manages an “Uh-huh.”

“Good.” Under her eyes lie dark semicircles, accentuated by the new paleness of her skin.

Shane closes his eyes and groans deep in his throat, a noise that embodies sex and death. His back arches, and his fingers rake the carpet as if to pull it up like grass.

“Yes,” the woman whispers. “It’s all yours now.”

Slowly his body relaxes as he returns to our plane of existence. He looks at me, blinks hard, and sits up.

“Hang on,” he whispers.

He rises to his feet in a fluid motion and grabs a box of gauze pads from the dresser. Eyes glazed, he tears two pads open, then kneels and presses them to the wound on the woman’s waist.

She sighs and places her fingers over the cotton squares. “I’ve got it. Thanks.”

Shane glances at me again and wipes his mouth. “Let me clean up, then we’ll go.” He heads into the master bathroom. The door shuts, and soon I hear the mundane sound of toothbrushing.

The woman lets out a deep sigh. She seems content to remain on the floor.

“Can I get you anything?” I ask her.

She smiles dreamily up at me. “Smokes. By the window.”

I fetch her a cigarette. She puts it in her mouth and motions for me to light it. Her first exhale sounds ecstatic.

“You look like you could use one, too,” she says. “Help yourself.”

“I don’t smoke anymore.” My hands are trembling. “But I think I’ll make an exception.”

She flicks her long fingernails in the direction of the bathroom. “What’s he to you?”

I light the cigarette, then take a shaky drag. “I don’t know yet.”

“Shane’s a good man. Almost too good. I bet when he was alive he was one of those guys whose female friends complained to him about their jerky boyfriends but never noticed he was right there waiting to make them happy.”

I consider introducing myself, but decide I don’t really want to know her name. The opportunity passes as she falls asleep. I snatch the cigarette out of her hand before it burns a hole in the carpet.

Shane opens the bathroom door and gives me an apologetic look. “I hate to ask, but—I can’t reach.” He motions behind him. I set the smokes in an ashtray and join him.

He hands me a moist washcloth, which I draw slowly over the cuts on his back. With the blood wiped away, his skin is perfect again. If anything, it looks more luminous than ever, like he’s had a full-body seaweed wrap.

“Thanks.” He takes the washcloth and rinses it in the sink. “I’m running out of shirts without bloodstains.”

“Nice.”

He wipes his face and body dry with a towel. “We’ll talk in a few minutes. I need to make sure she’s okay.”

The woman moans when he picks her up—as easily as I could lift a kitten—and lays her in bed. With tender motions, he dabs iodine on the wound and covers it with a butterfly bandage.

As he draws the sheets over her, she mumbles, “Get my purse. On the dresser.”

I grab it, but when I turn back to hand it to her, Shane signals me to stop. Too late. She takes it and wakes up enough to rummage through her wallet.

“Don’t,” he says.

“Let me pay you.”

“I’ve told you, no. No fucking way.” He picks up his shirt and jams his arms through the sleeves. “This is the last time you offer, or you’ll never hear from me again.”

The thought seems to frighten her, and she looks to me for help. If she hands me the cash, I’m keeping it as emotional restitution.

“Just go to sleep.” The softness returns to Shane’s voice. He kisses her forehead and smooths the hair from her face. “Remember, extra iron for the next few days.”

“Eat my spinach. Promise.”

He holds her hand and looks into her eyes. “Thank you. Again.”

Outside, the night’s humidity has dropped a notch, and a tepid breeze stirs the leaves of the small trees that line the sidewalk.

I wait to vent until we reach the main road. “Why didn’t you tell me she had a kid?”

“He never woke up when I was there before.” Shane clears his throat. “I’m sorry about what happened. Not just the boy, but before. If I’d known she would insist on sex this time, I would have called someone else.” He rubs his stomach and winces, as if he has a cramp. “She thought I would do anything for the blood.”

“How do you find these weirdos?”

“Anymore, it’s easy, thanks to the Internet. Type ‘mortals seeking vampires’ into any search engine, and you’ll see what I mean.” He glances back at the street we just left. “This one moved from Baltimore to Sherwood to be closer to me. That and the better school system.”

“But these mortals on the Internet, are they actually seeking real vampires?”

“Most of them, no. They think it’s a fantasy, and they’re bummed when we show up without capes.”

“What happens when they find out you’re real?”

Shane slows his pace, scuffing his Chuck Taylors against the sidewalk. “I’ve always been careful. Too careful, the others say. If I think a potential donor won’t play along, I get out before things get—” He comes to a full stop. “If they don’t want to be bitten, if they scream and fight back, it triggers our . . . instincts.”

My face goes cold as the blood drains from it. I sit down hard on the curb before my knees give out. He sits next to me, a few feet away.

“What happens to them?” I ask without looking at him.

His voice flattens. “Usually they die.”

I don’t know why this shocks me. I slide my hands through my hair and hold my head. “Oh, God.”

“I’ve never killed anyone,” he says. “I swear.”

“What about the others? Regina, Noah, all of them?”

“Not as careful.”

I close my eyes. I’ve made it my mission to protect a bunch of rabid beasts. Does that make me an accomplice?

I stretch my scalp back and forth over my skull to ease the pounding inside. “David said you guys don’t kill.”

“It’s rare someone dies,” he says. “When it happens, we don’t tell him. We call a Code Black and help each other cover it up, make it look like a suicide or accident.” He moves closer and touches my arm. His skin is warm, as warm as mine. “Ciara, I need to tell you something.”

“You’ve been telling me plenty, thanks. Stop any time.”

“Last week, with you, was the closest I’ve ever come to killing.” His words echo in my head, muffled by my internal screams. “David only wanted me to show you my fangs to convince you. I never planned to bite. But I got... distracted. I wanted you, in the human way. So I figured we’d just fool around.”

Fool being the operative word, and me being the one operated on.

“Then you smelled so good.” Pain infuses his whisper. “You tasted so good. And the way you screamed when you came, like a rabbit in the jaws of a wolf.”

I jerk my arm away from him. “So it’s my fault for being scrumptious? Didn’t they have date rape back in your day?”

He pulls his hands back to his lap. “I’m not making excuses, just trying to explain. What happened was my fault, and I’m sorry.”

There are few sarcastic comebacks for a sincere apology. “Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Because you were smart. You stopped struggling, stopped acting like prey. It gave me a chance to remember who I am.” He pauses, waiting for my reply, which doesn’t come. “I promise I’ll never bite you again unless you ask me to.”

“Why should I believe you? How do I know you won’t go all grrr again and rip out my throat?”

“You don’t know that, and you’d be stupid to trust me now. I’ll earn that trust, if you give me a chance.”

I scoff. “You just told me you almost killed me. Now you want to, what—date me? I don’t even want to be alone with you.”

He looks around. “There’s no one else here.”

“We’re on a well-lit street corner in the middle of Sherwood. You can’t bite me in public, or even semipub-lic. If I scream, you’re discovered—and all your friends, too.” I jab the air with an imaginary stake.

“Thanks for the image.” He stands and stretches. I can almost hear his muscles singing with new strength. “Let me walk you home.”

“It’s not that far.”

“It is when the streets are full of monsters.”

“David said you six were the only vampires in Sherwood.” I get to my feet and stride down the sidewalk toward my apartment.

He catches up to me. “We are, but there are those from out of town who like to keep an eye on us. They think we interact with daytimers too much as it is.”

“Daytimers. Sunnysides. What do you call us behind our backs?”

“Dinner.”

This shuts me up until we reach my door.

I pull out my keys. “Well, thanks for defending my fluids, if not my innocence.”

“You called me human.”

“What?”

“You said if I worked for Skywave I’d be a human jukebox.”

“Oh. Sorry. I guess human is an insult for your kind.”

“Not to me.” He pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket—the list of stations. “I’ll do what you and David asked, listen to Skywave’s garbage. But you have to do something for me.”

I step back. “Will it require medical intervention?”

“Listen to my show tonight.”

“You want me to wake up at three a.m.?”

“Five forty-five. Just for the last few minutes.”

I flutter my hand against my heart in exaggerated coyness. “Why, Mister McAllister, are you going to dedicate a song to me?”

“That would be unprofessional.” He takes a step toward me. “Just know that the last song I play every night will be for you.”

He takes my hand and draws it to his lips, closing his eyes as he kisses the gap between the first knuckles of my middle and ring fingers. Something wakes and squirms inside me.

He lowers my hand but doesn’t let go. The barest tug moves me closer. My chin tilts up, and the kiss is sweet, promising rather than insisting. His mouth tastes like mint, with a faint coppery undertone.

The kiss ends when it should. We say nothing more, and I enter my home and go to bed, alone.

I’m awake long before 5:45. In fact, I’m awake at 3 a.m., listening to Shane’s Whatever radio show. To my surprise, it’s not just grunge—though that’s heavily represented—but includes samples of cerebral indie/college rock, buoyant pop-punk, and even a little alt-country. The common denominator seems to be an almost pretentious lack of pretension.

When Shane speaks, I close my eyes and imagine him lying here behind me, murmuring softly. Not words of dark seduction, just whatever’s on his mind, some fascinating fact about Nick Drake or the Hammond B3. His breath moves my hair, tickling my earlobe, but I don’t brush my hand between us because it’s tucked inside his. Our entwined arms lie on top of the covers.

I open my eyes. Yecch, boyfriend thoughts, the kind I haven’t had since I was a teenager. It’s one thing to imagine Shane naked and slathered in olive oil, but another animal entirely to picture us cuddling.

I roll over and tell the ceiling, “He’s not human.” The ceiling stares back, dingy and unresponsive.

5:54 a.m. arrives. I expect him to finish the show with a tune lambasting modern bourgeois society, with a particular dig at the commercialism I so ruthlessly represent.

“Time for me to crawl back in my hole,” he says, “so I’ll leave you with one last song to start your day—or end it, as the case may be. A lot of people don’t know that Otis Redding wrote this. The Dead covered it, but this is the best-known version, and, I think, the most kick-ass. Good morning, and good night.”

After a brief drum intro, a bass guitar joins a piano in a ballsy, bluesey series of notes.

I laugh and pull the pillow over my head, wondering whether The Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle” is meant to describe me or Shane.

Probably both, which could be the most fun of all.

10
Just a Girl

June 7

We embark on our mission to rock the world. I write press releases, contract a new Web-site designer, and order WVMP merchandise. Franklin divides our duties into sales (him) and marketing/promotions (me). I’m thrilled; marketing puts me at arm’s length from my targets and feels less like a con job than sales. Besides, Mr. Hyde is the master in that department.

The sutures in my thigh itch like crazy, requiring several trips to the bathroom to indulge in unrepentant scratching.

June 12

David takes out my stitches and buys me more bagels.

June 13

I fire our Web-site designer.

June 14

I create fliers and hire a new Web designer, one who doesn’t think spinning logos and cheesy Flash animations are still cutting edge. If I hadn’t met the first one during the daytime, I would swear she was a vampire.

June 15

Friday night I wander into the lounge, where I find Shane, Regina, Spencer, and Noah playing poker. I gesture to the empty chair, currently occupied by Shane’s feet. “Mind if I join you?”

They all gape at me, even Shane. Regina turns to him, on her left. “Did you invite her?”

He smiles and pushes the chair out with his heels. “I am now.”

“I hardly ever play,” I say as I sit. “You’ll have to remind me how.”

Their laughter has the force of an air horn.

Regina tosses down her cards. “Why don’t we just write you a check and get it over with?”

I wave off her concern. “Not all con artists are good poker players. Don’t believe everything you see in The Sting.”

They all look at Spencer. His shadowed gaze pierces me, but not long enough. He nods. “I don’t see any harm in letting the little girl play. Everyone knows ladies are bad at poker.”

“Sod right off,” Regina says.

“Not you.” Noah kisses the air in her direction. “Jah have mercy on the man who dare to call you a ‘lady.’”

Spencer’s knuckles rap the table. “Back to the game, boys and girls.”

They finish the hand, and I pretend not to watch their patterns.

Regina gathers up the cards to deal. She eyes me as she shuffles. “Which games do you know?”

I tick them off on my fingers. “Draw, stud, hold ‘em— but I’m a little foggy on the rules, so I might need help.” I toss this last word to Spencer.

She taps the deck against her chin. “Okay, seven-card stud, follow the queen, low Chicago matches the pot.”

Everyone groans. I play dumb. “What’s that mean?”

“It means we’re not playing,” Spencer says. “Regina, you know the rules. No wild cards, no random factors, none of that garbage. Don’t turn it into a game of luck.” He shifts in his chair. “I don’t trust luck.”

“Luck is our only chance against her.” She jerks her chin in my direction. Receiving no sympathy, she sighs and deals the cards. “Fine. Seven-card stud. Period.”

Faking cluelessness is easy; faking a clueless person faking a clue requires more finesse. The key is to ask dumb questions that aren’t too dumb, and knit one’s brows at the appropriate times.

I bet aggressively at the beginning of the first hand, but fold before it’s time to show my cards. This bizarre behavior puzzles the guys, but Regina just scoffs.

“Nice attempt at incompetence, but you don’t fool me.” She lights a long brown cigarette and pulls a French inhale as she examines me. “What’s your middle name?”

“Marjorie. Why?”

“Marjorie?” She snorts. “And you think we’re in the wrong decade?”

“It’s my mom’s name. I like it.”

Her eyes shift to a distant focus for several moments. “Hmm. You’re a one.”

“A what?”

“In numerology. And your soul urge number is five. Figures.” She shakes her head at Shane. “Don’t bother trying to tie this one down.”

He ignores her and starts to deal. We play the next few hands in silence, and I fold early in each. I sense their frustration as they learn nothing about my style.

Finally I get a decent hand—a low straight—and decide to overplay it. On the next betting round, I raise by three dollars.

Everyone folds. I pout. “Doesn’t anybody want to see my cards?”

“Sure, honey,” Spencer says, “let’s have a look.”

I display the straight on the table like a kindergartner with her first finger painting.

“I folded a flush,” Noah says. “The way you bet, I thought you had a full boat.”

“But a straight beats a flush,” I tell him.

“No, it doesn’t,” Regina says, then catches herself. “Come on, you knew that.”

“It’s statistically harder to get a straight than a flush.”

“That’s backward,” she says. “In seven-card stud the odds of getting a flush are one-in-thirty-three versus one-in-twenty-two for a straight.”

Shane pushes the chips in my direction. “You know, it does seem like it ought to be the other way around.”

She turns on him. “You’re already whipped, and you haven’t even fucked her yet.”

Spencer clears his throat. “Ciara, would you like me to make you a list of the hand rankings?”

One down, three to go. “Would you?” I ask sweetly. “And I could use a drink, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“I’ll get it,” Shane says.

“Of course you will.” Regina sends him a glare, which he ignores.

The two nice vampires depart, leaving me with Regina and Noah, who look at me like I’m made of garlic. Trying to forget what Shane told me about their killer instincts, I turn to Noah. “David tells me you’re from Kingston. What’s that like?”

He folds his arms across his chest, resting his thumbs on his biceps. “We don’t care you’re a con artist.” His dialect turns the I into an EE so it comes out “artiste.”

“Actually, we kind of like it,” Regina adds. “But don’t ever think of turning your talents on us.”

“I’ve given all that up.” I hold up my left hand to swear.

“Why?” asks Noah.

“Yeah, you said you were raised to cheat.” Regina leans forward. “Are you from a family of cons?”

“Sort of.” I run my fingernail over the table’s rubber edge. “I’d rather just forget about them.”

“Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? Pretend our folks never existed, that we all create ourselves just the way we want to be.” She tugs on a strand of black hair that dips over her forehead. “Sometimes I think rebellion gives them more power than they deserve.”

“You should not deny them,” Noah says to me. “When you deny your roots, you deny your soul. For example.” He gestures to himself with a shrug. “I was Rasta in my life. Becoming a vampire did not change that.”

“I thought Rastafarians weren’t supposed to eat meat. Wouldn’t blood be not, uh, kosher?”

“‘Ital’ is the word. You are right, but God want me to be a vampire, so I must drink blood.”

“But he won’t drink blood bank leftovers,” Regina says, “because it’s processed.”

Noah nods once. “I do my best. It’s all He require of us.”

“Why do you think God wants you to be a vampire?” I ask him.

“Because it’s what I am. It’s how I bring light into the world. How I fight Babylon.”

Contemplating his circular logic, I glance at Regina, who regards Noah with a warmth and admiration I’ve never seen her give Shane.

I remember that “Babylon” is the Rasta word for the oppressive economic and political system. “Skywave is part of Babylon,” I tell him.

“I know this. Why do you think I help you beat them?”

“Because it’s fun.”

His chuckle is melodic. “That, too.”

Shane and Spencer return, the former with a cold beer and a brief brush of fingertips against my shoulder.

Spencer hands me an index card. “I’m afraid my handwriting isn’t the world’s neatest. Can you read this all right?”

I look at the list of poker hand ranks, then pull it closer to make sure it isn’t typed. His print is meticulous and precise, each letter the same size, in perfect formation across the unlined card. A chill zings down my spine.

The other vamps look away in discomfort. They must be aware of each other’s compulsions.

“It’s lovely,” I tell Spencer, who pulls his chair closer and settles in beside me.

Shortly before midnight, Jim bounces in, singing “Eight Miles High” so off-key I barely recognize it. He dumps himself on the sofa and waves at me like my presence is nothing out of the ordinary.

“Deal you in next hand?” Spencer asks him.

“Nah.” Jim accompanies himself on air guitar. “Can’t concentrate.”

I recognize his glow as that of a well-fed vampire. My tension should ease, since his state makes me less tasty, but it creeps me out to picture Jim and an unknown donor locked in the same embrace as Shane and the Mommy in Red.

“How’s Janis?” Shane asks him.

Jim groans and runs a hand through his long brown curls. “Cranky bitch. Need to drain her before she starts making noise.”

I stare at him, then at Shane, who can’t keep a straight face. “Janis is his car,” he informs me.

I swallow hard. “I knew that.”

At midnight, Spencer leaves to do his show, so the rest of us take a break. As I watch Noah carefully avoid stepping on the seams in the rug, my chair suddenly slides to the right. I look down to see Shane’s boot tucked under its rung, pulling me closer to him.

“Since we’re both almost broke,” he whispers into my shoulder, “why don’t we get out of here?”

I answer his left ear, careful not to be sucked into his seductive gaze. “Are you coming to the launch party at the Smoking Pig?”

“Not if it’s going to be all about the vampire schtick.”

“It’ll be about the music. Speaking of which, are you doing your homework, listening to Skywave’s Festival of Crap?”

His lip curls. “It’s been one of the most depressing weeks of my life. What passes for music anymore ...” He swipes his hand over his face. “I just sounded like a fuddy-duddy, didn’t I?”

“Not until you used the word ‘fuddy-duddy.’ Look, all the other DJs are coming to the party at the Pig—even Monroe, according to Spencer. You don’t have to play. Just show up.”

He glances at Regina, lounging on the couch, her head propped against Jim’s shoulder and her legs draped over Noah’s lap. They don’t even pretend they’re not listening.

“If I show up to watch,” Shane says to me, “you’ll all drag me onstage and turn me into a spectacle.”

“So you’re not coming.”

“I told you, I haven’t decided yet.”

I set down my beer with a bang. “Shane, you’ve heard what this station could become. Maybe you’ve imagined playing the same fifty songs over and over until your brain turns to oatmeal. If you’re supposedly so young and human, then why can’t you see what the rest of them see? You won’t survive if you hide.”

“So what do you care?” he says in a tight voice.

“It’s my job.”

“You’re awfully dedicated for a summer intern.”

“That’s because for the first time I’m helping people, not hurting them.”

“We’re not people, Ciara.” He slides his hand over mine. “No matter how much some of us might try, it’s too late.”

He leans over and gives my temple a brief, cool kiss. A few moments later, he’s out the door, no doubt on his way to a long, warm drink.

“It’ll never work,” Regina says, tossing her lighter in the air and catching it. “Shane Evan McAllister has an expression number of three, with a soul urge of nine.”

As if I needed more proof they weren’t human.

11
The Revolution Starts ... Now

Lori would kill me if I told her that under her white makeup, tight black leather, and silver chains, she still looks like a Scandinavian pixie. Right now she’s applying the same white pancake makeup to my face as we sit in the back office of the Smoking Pig. Strains of industrial Goth rock float from the bar. Between the music’s driving beat and my anxiety over the party, I can barely hold still for her.

“Which accessory do you want?” she asks me.

On the desk lie a cross, an ankh, and a feather, all in heavy silver. I snatch the ankh. It goes well with my black leather miniskirt and green satin tieback bustier.

“So what’s up with you and Shane?” she asks me.

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t talk.” She dabs and smears. The makeup smells like paste. “Are the other DJs as hot as him? Blink once for yes, twice for no.”

“Lori, there’s something you need to know about them.”

“Shh. They’re vampires, I know.” Dab. “Your brows need waxing, by the way.”

“No, you don’t know. They’re vampires.”

“I know.” Smear. “It’s the secret. You told me.”

I push her hand away and look her in the eye. “There’s a secret behind the secret. Don’t be alone with them. Don’t even look them in the eye.”

Her eyes widen, innocent even within their painted black triangles. “Why not?”

“Because they really are vampires.”

Her face contorts. “Don’t make me laugh—it’ll crack the makeup.”

“Lori, I’m not kidding.”

“I always knew you were crazy.”

“This from the woman saving her pennies to start a Sherwood ghost tour business.”

She shakes her head. “There’s a metaphysical basis for ghosts. See, when someone dies—”

“He bit me.”

“Who, Shane?” She brushes my hair from my neck. “I don’t see any marks.”

“Not there.” I stand and lift my skirt. The fading scar features two purple punctures along the gash.

Lori leans forward and angles the hood of the banker’s lamp on the desk to illuminate the wound. “Wow.” She sits back in her chair. “Your brows aren’t all that need waxing.”

My fist clenches. “You’ll understand when you see the older vampires. Deep in your gut, you’ll know I’m telling the truth.”

“The truth about what?” growls a voice behind me.

Regina shadows the doorway. She’s magnificent. Her teased hair forms a black corona around her luminous face. A studded black leather mini dress slides like a second skin over a torn fishnet bodysuit, which has holes cut for her long, silver-ringed fingers. The only color lies on her lips, a deep, drinkable burgundy.

I turn back to Lori, whose mouth hangs open.

With the power of an opera diva crossing the stage, Re-gina glides forward on silver-buckled combat boots. Lori stands up suddenly, spilling the makeup on the floor.

“What the hell’s wrong with her?” Regina asks me.

“I told her you’re a vampire.”

“So?”

“I mean, I told her you’re a vampire.”

“Aw, for fuck’s sake, Ciara.”

“She’s my best friend. I won’t tell anyone else, and neither will she.”

“Damn right she won’t.” Fangs out, Regina advances on Lori, who squeaks and backs up against the filing cabinet. Regina traces a sharp black fingernail down Lori’s cheek, then neck, then lower, no doubt following a major blood vessel. “They’ll be the last words she ever says. Isn’t that right, little bit?”

Lori jerks her head back and forth. “I won’t tell, I swear.”

Regina peers into her eyes. “Whose grave do you swear on?”

“That’s enough.” I only let it go on this long because Lori needs to be scared. Scared, not abused. “Let her go.”

Without turning, Regina grabs the strap of my top and yanks me to her face. “I don’t take orders from you.”

“I bet you’ll take orders from this.” I snatch the silver cross from the desk and thrust it toward her nose. A flicker of fear dances in her eyes, then she laughs.

“That has no power wielded by an unbeliever. You might as well come after me with a spatula.”

“Maybe I will.” I realize that makes no sense and try to recover. “David doesn’t want you harassing civilians.”

Regina scoffs but lets us go, her fangs retracting. “I came to tell you I nicked some of Shane’s CDs.” Her foot nudges the backpack she dropped on the way in. “That way if he shows up, maybe one of you posers can convince him to spin a few tunes.”

“Or maybe you can,” I say.

“I can’t play that shit. It’s not as bad as some, but—”

“No, I mean, maybe you can convince him.”

Her eyes lock on mine. “I don’t have that kind of influence on him anymore,” she says, more softly than I’ve ever heard her speak. “I bollocksed that one up a long time ago.”

She slips out of the office without a sound, despite her heavy boots.

Lori grabs my arm with a cold hand. “She—she’s—”

“A bitch and a half, I know. But one hell of a DJ.”

Lori starts to hyperventilate. I sit her in the chair and push her head down between her knees.

“You were right.” She sounds like she’s trying not to cry. “I could feel it down in my blood.” She looks up at me suddenly. “What do we do?”

“Do?”

“We can’t let them mingle with the crowd. Someone might get hurt.”

“They know how to handle themselves around humans. If they rampaged through every public gathering, you think they’d have survived this long?” I help her to her feet. “But don’t hook up with any of them unless you want to get bitten.”

She rubs her arms. “Why would anyone want that?”

“It’s supposed to feel good—after the pain, that is.”

Lori looks at my thigh. “Did it?”

“I never got past the pain. You know me.”

She squats to gather the spilled makeup. “Shane didn’t creep me out the same way that one did. He seems so normal.”

“He’s younger, so he’s less of a freak.” I pick up a runaway tube of black lipstick. “Plus, Regina just likes scaring people.”

Lori takes a deep breath. “So you’re going out with a vampire who bit you? That’s pretty messed up.”

“We’re just friends.” I consider the good-night kiss and the string of 5:54 a.m. songs. “With potential.”

The packed bar is decked out like a Goth club, with metal— or a plastic facsimile thereof—covering wood wherever possible. The ceiling is covered with black balloons, which bop around in the air-conditioning breeze.

“I’m impressed,” I yell over the music to Lori’s boss Stuart, whose black cape subtracts years from his forty-something age. His dark blond hair is slicked back with at least two handfuls of gel.

“Thanks,” he says. “Too bad I couldn’t finish the bondage parlor in the game room. The cuffs kept falling off the foosball table.”

I look past him at the tiny raised stage in a dark corner of the bar, where Spencer, Jim, and Noah are conferring. They’re each dressed in their usual charmingly outdated— and distinctively nonghoulish—outfits.

“Have you met the vamps?” I ask Stuart with an ironic twist on the last word.

“I’m serving them free liquor, which makes me their temporary best friend. They laughed at my cape, though.”

I withhold comment and turn to the table holding our WVMP merchandise, which Franklin is hawking in fine barker fashion.

“Ciara?”

I look up to see David approach. He stops and does a doubletake at my outfit. I return the gesture. He’s dressed all in black—jeans, boots, and a tight T-shirt covered with a leather jacket.

“Hel-lo.” He scratches his head after hearing the inflection of the word. “I mean, hi. Spencer says Monroe’s coming by when he gets off work at midnight.” He pauses, no doubt waiting for me to ask about Shane. “No word from the other one. I’ll try again.” He pulls out his cell phone and steps into the kitchen.

I join an uncostumed Franklin behind the sales table, since a line of excited customers is starting to form. People actually want to pay for the privilege of advertising our business. Most radio stations have to give away T-shirts and bumper stickers; but most radio stations don’t have vampire DJs (again, I’m assuming).

As Franklin delivers the goods, I take people’s money and give them change. From the corner of his eye, he watches me handle the cash, probably making sure none of it finds its way into my pockets.

When the next customer walks away, T-shirt in hand, I lean over to Franklin. “Relax. Con artists don’t steal. We take.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Why go to the trouble of robbing someone’s money when they’re perfectly willing to give it to you?” I unzip the cash pouch and pull out a ten-dollar bill. “For instance, if I took this and turned it into twenty, with Stuart’s help, that wouldn’t be stealing.”

Franklin frowns at the ten. “How do you turn that into a twenty?”

“I’ll show you.” I start to approach the bar, then stop, gesturing to the six-person-deep crowd. “He’s too busy now. We’ll just practice here.” I step to the other side of the table. “Hey, mister, I’d like to buy one of those swell ‘Feed the Need’ buttons.”

He hesitates. “That’ll be a dollar.”

I hand him the ten, and he gives me nine dollars in change. “Oh wait.” I look at the cash pouch. “This won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t have enough ones to do the whole trick.” I dig into my pocket and bring out a wad of dollar bills. “Here, let me give you ten ones for that, and we can start over.”

“Okay.” He gives me the ten.

I count out some ones. “Why do people come to bars with big bills? It drives Lori batshit.” I place the ten he just gave me on the bottom of the pile of nine ones, which I hand back to him.

Franklin recounts the money, eyeing me suspiciously. I wave my bare arms to show I have nothing up my sleeves.

“Hang on.” He holds up the stack of bills. “You gave me too much. There’s nineteen dollars here.”

“Crap.” I grit my teeth. “I’m so out of practice it’s pathetic.” I sigh and pull out another dollar bill. “Here, let me just give you one more and you give me a twenty to even it out.”

“Thought you could outsmart me, heh?” He takes the bill and pulls a twenty out of his pile.

I smile sheepishly. “I wanted to impress you. You are the master, after all.”

He slaps the bill into my palm. “Better luck next time.”

I pick up my negative-nineteen-dollar button. “Buy you a drink?”

I decide not to add, “sucker.”

The Goth music fades as a light comes up on the stage. Spencer steps up to the microphone, the light glinting off his slicked-back auburn hair. The crowd hushes to murmur level as he surveys them with dark, hypnotic eyes.

“Thank you all for coming out to hear our little show.” He holds the mike in one hand and shifts the stand in a gesture of false bashfulness. “Along with playing some tunes to get you moving, we’ve been asked to tell our stories tonight. Stories of how we became vampires.” The crowd emits scattered snickers, but Spencer’s face bears such an earnest look of wild innocence that most people just stare.

“Some of us wanted to live forever,” he says. “Some of us just wanted to live.” His Adam’s apple bobs once, and his eyes go far away for a moment so brief I’d have missed it if I’d blinked.

“But for all of us,” he continues, “it was about the music. The music turned us as much as the blood.”

At the last word, the crowd buzzes, titillated.

“Lotta people say rock ’n’ roll is about goin’ all the way, seeing as that was the original meaning of the term.” From beneath his long, dark lashes, he sends the women to his left a look that says, I wouldn’t know anything about that, but maybe you could show me.

“Rock ’n’ roll is really about immortality,” he continues. “Thanks to Mister Edison’s invention, your great-great grandchildren can hear Elvis and Jerry Lee like they were sitting right there with them in that Memphis studio. That’s living forever, folks.

“But immortality isn’t just about not dying—it’s about never growing old, never growing up, never wanting to grow up.” He tosses off another self-effacing smile, as if surprised by his own conclusion. “You might say being vampires has given us the ultimate rock ’n’ roll lifestyle.”

He hits a switch on the turntable, launching into “Blue Suede Shoes”—the Carl Perkins version. Within moments the crowd is bopping and twisting and whatever else-ing the music inspires their bodies to do. Spencer eyes the line of adoring women again. I watch him for signs of bloodthirst, but instead of rubbing his face, he just runs a hand through his hair and smooths the front of his white T-shirt in a classic cool preening gesture.

“What do you think?” says a familiar voice in my ear.

I turn to see David. “I think Spencer slinked out of telling his story. Do you know it?”

He nods. “But it’s not for me to tell.”

“What about yours?”

“What about what?” He leans toward me, pushing the top of his earlobe forward.

“What’s your story?” I yell.

He shakes his head, taps his ear, and shrugs, like he can’t hear me over the music. “Got a reporter to talk to,” he says, and walks toward the bar. He moves differently in this getup than his work clothes, like he’s finally wearing his own skin.

At the bar, David displaces a tall brunette who turns away with her friend. They each hold a pint of blood-red beer, the heads of which spill onto their meticulously manicured fingers. The brunette scowls and turns back to grab a bar napkin, her face illuminated by the overhead light.

Jolene.

My first instinct is to look for the closest red EXIT sign. But I have a job to do.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell Franklin.

Jolene and her attendant move to the far wall, in front of the silver-on-black cemetery tapestry. They sullenly sip and watch the show. As I approach from an oblique angle, Jolene’s redheaded friend starts to groove a little to the music, nodding her head and tapping her finger on the outside of the pint glass. Jolene notices and jabs an elbow into her companion’s rib, spilling more beer.

With a deep breath, I tap Jolene on the shoulder and speak her name. She looks at me without recognition, probably because of the makeup.

“It’s me. Ciara. Bane of your existence.”

“You bitch!” She takes one hand off her glass as if to slap me, then stops herself. “I got arrested because of you. Public indecency.”

“Plus drunken disorderliness and resisting arrest,” her friend chimes in.

“Shut up, Kendra.”

“That’s not my fault,” I tell Jolene. “If you’d explained to the cop—”

“I did.”

“—in words he could repeat to his own mother—”

“I can’t ever get that night back,” she says.

I gesture to the wedding ring on her finger. “You still got married.”

Kendra laughs. “Yeah, who knows, Jolene? If you hadn’t gone to jail that night, you might’ve shagged some dude and given Jeff gonorrhea for a wedding gift.”

Before Jolene can assault her friend with another sharp body part, I hold up a hand. “Just give me your address so I can send back your shirt.”

Jolene opens her mouth, then gets a crafty look. “Send it to my office.” She whips out a business card like a weapon and shoves it a few inches below my nose.

Jolene Scoglio

Marketing Associate

Skywave Communications, Inc.

So that’s what she meant when she said we’d all pay.

Crap.

“That’s right, Miss Griffin.” Jolene flips her hair. “Soon you’ll be working for me. For the two minutes it takes to clean out your desk.”

I flick her card with my fingernail. “You don’t have that power.”

“It won’t be up to me to fire you, but that’s how these things work. You’ll all be let go after the buyout. The weak succumb to the strong.”

“‘Succumb’? Did you learn that whopper on your Word-a-Day toilet paper?”

“At least I’m smart enough to get a job with a company that’s on the way up. Even this retarded vampire gimmick can’t save your station.”

“How much do you want to bet?”

A strong hand lands on my arm. I expect to see David telling me to get back to work.

It’s Shane.

“Can we talk?” His expression is inscrutable in the low light, but his voice is dead serious.

“Hello, Shane,” Jolene says. “Shirt thief.”

He turns to her. “Leave us alone.”

She shrinks back like he’s radioactive. He walks toward the kitchen. I steel myself and follow him.

Out of the frying pan and into the crematorium.

12
What’d I Say

“Thanks for the rescue.” I beam up at Shane, which must look ridiculous with the undead makeup in the kitchen’s fluorescent lights. “What do you think of the party?”

“Congratulations.” He holds up a headstone-tipped cocktail stirrer. “You’ve turned us into a farce.”

“The decorations were Stuart’s idea. At least I kept him from calling it a ‘spooktacular’ celebration.”

He points to the kitchen door. “No one out there cares about the music. They only care about blood punch, and blood beer, and blood salsa.”

“I know the party trimmings are dorky, but they’re a means to an end—namely, saving your asses from unemployment.”

“If you change us, there’ll be nothing left to save.”

“How am I changing you?”

Shane glances at Jorge the chef, who doubles as a dishwasher since the Smoking Pig doesn’t do much edible business. He ignores us as he bastes buffalo wings—or “bat wings,” as we’re calling them tonight—and bobs his head to the blaring kitchen radio.

Shane turns and heads for Stuart’s office at the back of the kitchen. I follow him, though I should get back to work. But if I could convince Shane to play, that would be worth a lot more than a few peddled bumper stickers.

As soon as I enter the office, he turns on me. “Do you know how many taboos you violated by asking for stories of how we got made?”

“What’s the big deal?”

He groans and rubs his forehead, where deep vertical creases have appeared. “That story, Ciara, is one of the few things that truly belong to us. A vampire only shares it with someone he trusts. Rattling it off in public cheapens everything we are.”

“Spencer didn’t do it, and maybe the others won’t either.”

“That’s not the point.” He brushes past me and shuts the office door. “Just asking was an insult.”

“I’m sorry.” A flush of shame creeps up my neck, which pisses me off. “I didn’t know.”

“That’s the problem. You met us what, three weeks ago? And you think you can understand us and expose our secrets.”

“They’re not secrets if no one believes them. They’re fairy tales.”

“It doesn’t matter!” He moves toward me, slapping aside the hanging ribbon of a black balloon. Suddenly he stops. “What’s that smell?” He wrinkles his nose in my direction. “Did you fall into a vat of chemicals?”

I bring a lock of hair to my nose. “I touched up my highlights. You know, because I’m a big shallow phony.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You don’t have to. Look, I know I have a lot to learn about you guys. But while I’m ramping up on the subject, Skywave is planning to put you out of work. Maybe you can find another job to keep yourself from fading. But what about your friends?”

“I don’t want them boiled down to a bag of cliches.”

Suppressing a sigh of frustration, I turn away to regroup. The office chair is full of papers now, so I sit on the edge of the desk.

Perhaps a softer approach is in order. “Shane, I understand you want to be free of commercialism. You want to be pure. I admire you for it. But outside of monasteries, this is how the world works.”

“I know, but we should be better than that.” He frowns. “We used to be better than that.”

“Until I ruined everything.”

“You didn’t—” Shane lets out a harsh sigh. “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Making it personal, so I can’t attack the campaign without attacking you. Which I would never do.”

“Why not? This was all my idea. Except the ‘Bite Me, I’m O-Positive’ buttons. That was Franklin.”

“I don’t want this campaign to come between us.”

A high-pitched “Us?” pops out before I can stop myself from sounding like an eighth grader. “There’s an ‘us’?”

“I’d like there to be.” He looks at me—really looks at me—for the first time tonight. His gaze drops to my thigh, sparking a flame at the base of my spine. He clears his throat. “How’s your leg now?”

I wait for him to look me in the eye again before saying, “It’s better.”

He swallows. “All better?”

I shift on the desk, keeping my legs crossed but now at the ankle instead of the knee. “All better.”

The office seems to shrink as Shane takes another step toward me. “In spite of the spectacle, I was looking forward to seeing you tonight.” He moves close enough to touch, his smile turning ironic in the green light from the banker’s lamp. “But this makeup, it’s not you.”

“I look more like a clown than a vampire, don’t I? Just say it.”

He leans in and inhales, his face close to mine. “It covers your scent.”

Plus it itches like a poison ivy facial. I tilt up my chin. “Then take it off.”

He peels off his short-sleeved T-shirt, the brown one he’s wearing over a white T-shirt with long, frayed sleeves.

“Let’s start with this.” He wipes the shirt across my lips, slowly. I close my eyes. He wipes again.

“Is it working?”

“No,” he whispers. “Too dry.”

His mouth brushes mine, just the barest edge. His tongue flicks over my upper lip, tasting, moistening. A little moan escapes my throat. He does the same to my lower lip. My ankles uncross.

He pulls away a few inches and draws the shirt across my mouth. “There. Red is better.” He leans in to kiss me again.

“We really should get out to the bar.” This definitely no longer counts as a work-related activity. “I told Franklin I’d be right back.”

“We can leave if you want.” His thumb grazes my shoulder, then slips under the thin black strap of my top. My skin comes alive, every nerve begging for another touch.

“Then again, I’ve been working all day.” I slide my arms around his neck. “I think there’s some OSHA rule that says I get a break every eight hours.”

“Wouldn’t want to get David in trouble with the feds.” His eyes turn serious again as they stare into mine. “I know you’re not what you seem. You’ve probably got a hundred different layers under there.” His fingertips glide across my makeup-caked cheek, then into my hair. “I want to peel them all back until I find the real Ciara.” He insinuates his body between my thighs. “I want to get inside you.”

The heat of his skin radiates against me, so much warmer than the last time I held him. I need to feel it within me.

I lock my legs around his. He gives a low growl and brings his mouth to mine.

The velvet shock of his tongue makes my back arch. I pull him tight against me with all my limbs, though it feels like it can’t be close enough. As our kiss deepens and our bodies strain against each other, I hear only the rasp of our breaths, the creak of my leather skirt, and the roar of my own blood.

“Lock the door,” I manage to gasp.

“Uh-uh.” He scrapes his human teeth over my neck. “I want you to feel safe from me.”

I get it: he bites, I scream, him and all his friends— dusted. “Then hurry.”

His hand slides under my skirt. He breathes hard when he discovers I’m already ready for him. With one arm he lifts me off the desk while the other hand slips under the string of my thong and pulls it down.

As I reach for the button of his jeans, I’m slammed with the thought that thwarts. “Do you have any condoms?”

“We don’t need them. I can’t carry disease or get you pregnant.” He wipes the side of his face, which is smeared with my makeup. “Remember, I’m dead.”

He smiles like it’s a joke, but a chill rips through me. My mind suddenly returns to rational-thought mode.

“Wait.” I put a hand between us. “Won’t that be kind of messy? I have to work the rest of the night.”

“Don’t worry. When I have an orgasm, I feel the sensations, but I don’t, you know, produce anything.” He goes to kiss me again, but I plant my palm against his chest.

“When you say,’I don’t produce anything’—”

“Not me personally.” He takes my hand and shifts it lower. “Vampires.”

My mouth goes suddenly sour, and my stomach twists into a knot, the kind only sailors and Eagle Scouts can untie.

I’m about to fuck a vampire.

A vampire’s about to fuck me.

Uh-uh.

This is Shane, my brain reminds my body. He’s a good guy. More human than half the men you’ve bonked. Now de-quease yourself and unbutton his pants.

My gut wrenches again.

“What’s wrong?” Shane says.

“I just remembered—I need to—I should get back to work.” I push past him and move for the door, hoping I make it to the bathroom in time. I’ll come back for my underwear.

My foot catches on Regina’s backpack. Ah, subject change to the rescue.

I pick up the bag and flash him a weak smile. “Hey, Regina brought some of your music. Maybe you can play after all?”

“Why are you so nervous now?” He takes a step toward me. The memory of his blood-drenched mouth flashes in my mind.

“Nothing!” I back away fast, bruising my spine against the doorknob. “I mean, I’m having—I think I’m coming down with the flu.” That and a severe case of being an asshole.

His eyes widen, and hurt creeps in around the edges. “You’re scared of me again.”

“No, of course not.” My voice pitches up, a sure sign of deception. What good is honesty when I can’t lie to save his feelings? “Shane ...”

“You are scared.” His brows lower into a scowl. “You’re looking at me like I’m a monster.”

“It’s not you, I swear. It’s me.”

“Damn right it is.” He snatches the backpack from my hand, which luckily lets go before he can tear my arm off. “I’m not a monster. I’ve never hurt anyone. That’s more than I can say for you.”

My throat tightens. “What?”

“Your con artist days aren’t exactly in the distant past, are they? David told me you were arrested for swindling just a few months ago.”

A flush of heat runs up the back of my neck. “He did?”

“He said the guy—what do you call it—”

“The mark.”

“Yeah, the mark was too embarrassed to press charges.” He steps forward again, well inside my personal space.

“They usually are.” I put my hands up. “Stop looming so I can explain.”

“So you can lie?”

“No!” If he’s so quick to suspect me, maybe he doesn’t deserve an explanation. “First of all, I wasn’t arrested, I was brought in for questioning. Second of all, it’s not true you’ve never hurt anyone. You hurt me.”

“I said I was sorry. Is that ever going to be enough?”

“Not when you judge me like you’re some kind of saint. You drink blood. The way I see it, better an empty wallet than an empty vein.”

His voice lowers to a rumble. “My donors give me what I need of their own free will.”

“You tell yourself that, that your donors are happy to do it, that they’re not hypnotized by the magic in your eyes, the way my victims were fooled by pretty promises.”

“I do what I do to survive.”

“So did I. But a part of me loved it, the way you love having the power of life and death.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t compare us.”

“The one person I don’t lie to is myself. I know what I was, and I know how far I have to go to be something better. That’s why I took this job.”

“So we’re your little redemption project?”

“Maybe.” His sarcasm inspires my own. “Or maybe I just need to pay the rent. Who can know with me? Like you said, I have so many layers.” I smear the makeup on my cheeks. “What would you find if you peeled them all away? Maybe nothing at all.”

“Don’t say that.” He drops the backpack and pulls my hands from my face. “There’s something more than nothing there.”

My stomach flops like a hooked fish. I break his knife-sharp gaze to keep from puking.

He releases my hands. “Let me know when you figure out what it is.”

Before I can summon a reply, he’s gone, out the restaurant’s back door.

A half-jar of cold cream later, my skin is makeup free. I stare at my reflection in Lori’s compact, but the mirror’s too small to see more than half of my face. I hold it at arm’s length for perspective, but the reflection shakes and blurs.

I slap the lid shut on the disquieting metaphor and stuff it back in the bag.

13
I Forgot to Remember to Forget

By the time I drag myself out to the bar, Spencer has left the stage and Jim is playing the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter.” The crowd has switched from bopping to writhing. I’d join in if my body didn’t feel so heavy and dull.

Lori approaches with a tray of empty glasses. “What’s wrong? What happened to your makeup?”

I rub my eyes, which feel puffy, and give her the condensed version of what just occurred, leaving out the part where I’m a criminal.

She gives my elbow a squeeze. “I don’t get it. You told me to stay away from them. You said they were dangerous.”

“Shane’s different.” I take the tray from her and move over to the bar, where we start unloading it. “But if I could unmeet him somehow, make all this unhappen, I would.” Lori raises her eyebrows. “Or maybe not,” I admit.

“He does feel different. And even the rest of them, they seem decent—except Regina.” Lori sends a darting glance over her shoulder. “She keeps looking at me.”

“She’s just messing with your head. Best not to show fear.”

“Right.” Lori wipes the tray with a damp cloth. “No fear.”

Regina pokes her head between us. “Hi.”

Lori squeaks and knocks her tray into the row of dirty glasses. With one hand, Regina grabs them before they fall.

“Careful now,” she purrs to Lori.

“Um, thanks.” Lori keeps her face turned from the vampire. “Gotta go.” She scurries off.

“What happened to your makeup?” Regina asks me, then sniffs my shoulder. “Ah, yes, Shane likes his humans to have a more natural look.” She tweaks my hair. “Someday he’ll tell you to stop highlighting. He’ll say it’s the smell of the dye he hates.”

“Get away from me.”

She clicks her tongue. “Testy for someone who just got laid, aren’t we?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but we didn’t.”

Her eyes go wide in mock surprise. “Well, that explains why you smell so horny.”

“Fuck off.” I tell her, unfortunately just as the music fades. Half the crowd casts curious glances at us.

“Ladies.” David appears on my other side. “What happened to your makeup?” he asks me.

I rub my eye again. “It itched.”

“You have an itch all right,” Regina mutters.

David stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets and looks around with pride. “Great party. Frank is schmoozing clients, so Ciara, we need you to peddle the paraphernalia.”

Relieved at the distraction, I stride over to the WVMP table, grab a size small T-shirt, and yank it over my head. The soft black cotton covers the top half of my Let’s-Play-Vampire getup. My too-bare skin sighs with relief.

Work: the all-American cure for heartache.

I shill and hawk for two hours, until all the merchandise is sold except two broken buttons and one extra extra extra large T-shirt. I consider bestowing this latter item on Jolene, but she and her sidekick seem to have vanished.

I find David and Franklin near the bar and hold out the cash pouch. Franklin snatches it.

“You robbed me, you little witch,” he says with a touch of admiration.

“Huh?”

“That trick you showed me earlier, the one you screwed up. You used ten of our dollars to demonstrate and never gave it back.”

I put a hand to my mouth. “My God, you’re right.” I slip him a ten-dollar bill. “Thanks for keeping me honest.”

David pulls out a bar stool. “Sit. Take the rest of the night off.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly.” I climb onto the stool, and my tired feet shriek with joy. “On second thought, buy me a drink.”

David sits to my right, signaling to Stuart, who plops a red beer in front of each of us. I reach for it, but my belly says no.

Franklin spies another client by the hors d’oeuvres table and shifts into his sales waltz without sparing us a glance.

David takes a long sip of beer, then sighs with satisfaction. “So how are you?”

“You mean, how am I after finding out you told Shane I was arrested?”

He blinks. “I never said you were arrested. I said they questioned you.”

“Why did you say anything at all?”

“Because you both need eyes wide open going into this relationship.”

“What we need is for you and Regina to mind your own businesses.”

“It is my business when two of my employees are involved with each other. And believe me, you do not want to fall in love with a vampire.”

“Who said anything about love?” I realize what he just implied. “Wait—are you speaking from experience?”

He glances away and doesn’t answer.

“Not Regina, I hope.”

David scoffs. “I value my life, if not my sanity.”

He suddenly looks past me, then touches my arm. I turn toward the front door.

The crowd hushes in the middle of the Grateful Dead tune flowing from the speakers. All eyes stare in the same direction. Their stupor is caused by the fact that Monroe Jefferson is, by my best estimate, the most stunning man ever to walk the earth.

I imagined him old, simply because he is old. But he has the face and body of a young man, even as his eyes hold nearly a century of heartache.

The sly way Monroe regards the crowd from under the brim of his white fedora sends a shiver up our collective spine. He wears an immaculate white suit and tie, which contrast with the battered black guitar case swinging at his side. He steps up onto the stage like he was born and raised there.

David speaks in a hushed voice over my shoulder. “Ci-ara, this is unprecedented. You’ve done something here.”

“I never even talked to him.”

Monroe sits, then flips open his guitar case while Jim lowers the microphone.

“But your idea,” David says, “bringing them out into the light. It gave him the chance to perform again.”

With no warm-up, Monroe starts playing, with such speed and confidence I could swear it was more than one person. He sings the first line of “I’m So Glad,” and the ancient voice bears as little resemblance to his baby face as a butterfly to a caterpillar. One hand flies over the fret board while his picking fingers form a blur. On the second verse, his voice soars up another octave as naturally as a bird taking flight.

I grip the bar’s brass railing. Though I’m totally sober, the music puts me under a spell as strong as any drug.

The song is short, and when the last note shimmers away, the audience members finish the breaths they were working on before exploding in applause.

Monroe tips his hat. “How y’all doing tonight?” More applause. “That’s just fine, fine.” He tunes his guitar as he speaks. “Name’s Monroe Jefferson, some call me Mississippi Monroe, since that’s where I hail from, Natchez to be exact, but you can call me Monroe if it suits you. I was born in 1913.” He smiles and strokes his smooth ebony chin. “I look good for my age.” Applause and laughter. His smile fades. “That’s because in 1940 I met a man changed my life.”

I gasp and turn to David. “He’s going to tell it?”

David puts a finger to his lips. On the other side of the bar, Regina and Noah confer with worried faces.

“Lotta people know about Robert Johnson, how he’s supposed to met the devil at the crossroads at midnight, sold his soul to master the blues. Anyone who knew him, like I did, knows that ain’t true. It was Tommy Johnson— no relation—who said he himself had done it. He’s the one gave me directions.”

Pluck. Strum. “I’d been playing the juke joints, oh about ten year. Little bit of money in it, kept me in whiskey and cigarettes, but not enough to buy me a ticket to Chicago or New York, places where bluesmen made it big. I was good—you can tell that right now,” he says without a trace of false humility, “but not good enough.

“So one night I go to the crossroads—not the one at Highways 61 and 49, that’s a lie. The real crossroads is a secret, and no, I ain’t telling.” He strokes the strings like they were the hair of a woman on the next pillow over. “I went on a Tuesday, so I wouldn’t have to stand in line.”

I look at David, who reflects my smile.

“ ‘Round about midnight, a man walks up, a tall man, a white man. Just like Tommy said the devil would be. Long hair so black, look like a river of blood in the moonlight. He come up to me and says, ‘Son, you’re not here to catch a bus, are you?’ I shake my head no. ‘Well, I reckon we got business, then,’ he says. By this time I’m scared as a whipped puppy, but I ain’t about to leave, so I pull out a cigarette and try to light up.” He pauses while he does just that. The brief flame casts shadows over his face, giving his deep-set eyes an even more haunted look. “Problem is, my hands shaking so hard I can’t hold the match. Then the man flicks his fingertips and there he is, holding fire in his hand. Cigarette falls out of my mouth, but he catches it and lights it himself. He takes a puff—” As Monroe does. “—and hands it back to me. I put it in my mouth and—” He holds the cigarette between his lips while he plays a few more notes. When he’s done, the silence is deafening. “—it tastes like blood.”

I steal a glance across the bar at Regina. She stares at Monroe, frozen, her own cigarette holding a two-inch ash.

“Didn’t surprise me none. After all, I thought he’s the devil. But then he opens his long black coat, and I see he’s dressed like a preacher man. ‘I’m not here to take your soul,’ he says, ‘I’m here to save it.’ I get mad, I tell him, ‘Saving is the last thing in this world I want, so if you aim to save me, you well’s to kill me.’”

He puffs for a bit while he plucks a different tune.

When the notes fade into the air, Monroe says, “The man took my word. He took my blood, he took my life. He made me what you see here, and if I walk this earth a thousand year, I’ll never master the blues.” He takes a long drag and grins through the smoke. “But it’ll master me forever, so I reckon that’s something.”

He launches into “Baby Please Don’t Go,” and the crowd applauds slowly and reverently.

I turn to David. “Shane said they never tell their stories.”

He lifts his glass in a toast toward the stage. “Anything to please the crowd.”

I wonder if Monroe’s telling the truth. How could a vampire hold fire in his hand? Maybe he was a super-ancient one. But didn’t I also read somewhere that it wasn’t the soul-buying devil that blues players went to see, but a hoodoo trickster spirit?

Anyway, it makes a great yarn, and that’s all that matters.

We listen to the next few songs without speaking. The weight of the music, made of pure emotion, sinks my mood into the cellar. I take a few forlorn sips of my beer. Finally David holds up two fingers to Stuart.

“Jack Daniel’s,” he says. “Leave the bottle.” Stuart raises his eyebrows but obeys without comment, plonking the half-empty bottle in front of us, along with a pair of two-ounce shot glasses.

“That’s more like it.” I pour us shots and settle in for a long night of commiseration.

At the end of the next song, I say to David, “It’s sad, huh?”

“Yeah, even the happy blues songs have that effect.”

“I mean Monroe’s story. Did any of them want to be vampires?”

He wags his finger at me. “No, you don’t. It’s not up to me to tell their tales.”

“And no one else can tell yours.” I tip the whiskey bottle into his empty glass and dribble out the amber liquid.

David just rotates the shot glass, fingertips on the rim. Monroe strums and croons, weaving his misty magic with “Gallows Pole.”

Finally David gets tired of staring at the Jack and downs it. He wipes his mouth, then takes off his leather jacket. A trio of nearby women join me in admiring the contoured biceps revealed by his sleeveless black T-shirt, but he’s oblivious to the attention.

“My father died suddenly when I was a college senior.” He drapes his jacket over the back of the bar chair. “I was away at school and didn’t get home to see him in time.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, because I’m supposed to.

He nods. “He was Control. Growing up, I hated all the secrecy and the moving around. I just wanted a normal life.”

“I know the feeling,” I mutter.

“I majored in broadcasting and was managing the college radio station when I was only twenty years old. But after Dad died, there was no question what I would do. I signed up for the Control as soon as I graduated. On my first day I met Elizabeth.” He falls silent after saying her name, confirming my suspicion.

I pour him another shot for strength. “So she was human at the time.”

“Human, all right. We were in love.” He slams back the whiskey. “She’ll never admit it now.” He takes a long sip of beer, then swishes the glass in the condensation puddle left behind. “When she was turned, she—”

Applause and hollering erupt as Monroe leaves the stage. Rather than stay for drinks and adulation, he grabs his guitar case and heads out the front door without a word for anyone.

Noah takes the stage and slides his smile over the audience, clearly relishing the whispers of female admiration. “I am Noah. N-O is ‘no,’ and A-H mean ‘pain,’ so Noah mean no pain. When I bite, you don’t feel a thing but happiness.”

“It’s true,” David says. “I don’t know how he does it.”

The crowd rises and falls to Scratch Perry’s “Dreadlocks in Moonlight.” I guess Noah’s not telling his story, at least not yet.

Despite the change in music and my compulsive foot-tapping, the mood at the bar stays dark. “So Elizabeth was turned ...” I remind David.

He frowns. “It happened on a raid in the Ozarks. A cadre of older vampires had gone rogue and started preying on a little town in the tail of southern Missouri. We went in, captured a few of them. But we were underdeployed.” He leans his head on his fist and forces out the next sentence. “The lead vampire’s name was Antoine. Some say he was a century old, but he looked maybe fifteen or sixteen. I think Elizabeth was fooled by his apparent youth, couldn’t bring herself to neutralize what appeared to be a kid. He dragged her off.” He clutches the empty shot glass. “She showed up at my place the next night.” He closes his eyes for a long time.

“She bit you.”

“She was so strong. I thought I was going to die, and after a while I didn’t care, because it felt—” He glances at me. “Well, you know how it feels.”

“Only the stabbing pain part.” I lean closer, knowing the liquor is loosening his tongue. “What’s the rest like?”

His eyes unfocus. “Like the far side of an orgasm. You feel complete, like you found something you never knew you needed.”

I wonder what kind of power it would give someone who could make you feel that way. “So then what happened?”

“When I was almost unconscious, she tossed me aside and told me that was the only way she’d ever touch me again.” David’s lip curls into an expression I’ve never seen on him before. “Revenge was the only thought that kept me alive. I went against orders and hunted Antoine, alone. One night in a Memphis alleyway, I staked the fucker.” He puts his head in his hands. “I never meant to hurt her.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you kill a vampire’s maker, you kill a part of them. She came to me that night in agony. She said it was like someone had ripped out her heart and stuck it back in upside down.”

“Did you confess?” I ask him.

“Eventually. She looked at me like she was the one I’d staked.”

“But she’d bitten you. She hurt you.”

“It wasn’t her fault. Brand-new vampires can’t control themselves. She should’ve been better supervised.”

“No, David,” says a low, female voice that makes my neck hairs stand on end. “I should’ve ripped out your throat.”

We turn slowly to see a woman in a long black silk dress. She looks maybe a few years older than me, but much taller. Blonder. Everything-er.

“Elizabeth,” David says in a hoarse voice. “I didn’t—I didn’t know—”

“I was here?” Her blue eyes flare with a controlled rage. “Didn’t know I was listening to you tell my story to a stranger?” She doesn’t even look at me—not that I want her to.

He clears his throat and meets her gaze. “It’s my story, not yours.”

“Antoine is mine.” Her fingers slip around his forearm. “Not yours. Not ever.”

“I wanted to make Ciara understand.” His voice has steadied. “She deserves the truth. She’s one of us now.”

At the moment, I’m not sure I want to be one of them. In fact, I’d like to be one of the people walking out the door. Not that anyone is leaving.

“Pleased to meet you.” I hold out my hand so she’ll have to take hers off David’s arm or be incredibly rude. “Ciara Griffin, marketing intern.”

She looks at my hand like she thinks I just wiped my nose with it. “This is your party?”

“It’s the station’s party. What do you think of it?”

Without turning her head, she glances around at the humans dancing, drinking, and falling over each other. “I worry about the vampires losing control around so much fresh blood.”

I pull my hand back. “What about you?”

She twitches a thin, arched eyebrow. “I always keep my thirst in check with blood bank leftovers.”

David gives a harsh laugh and pries her hand off his arm. “Then why are you so cold right now?”

“The ratings are bound to go up,” I say, trying to turn the conversation in a more professional direction. “David did interviews with all the major local media tonight.”

He gives me a grateful glance, then turns back to her. “And on July first,” he says, “we’ll start replaying the DJs’ shows during the day in place of some of those annoying paid programming bits whose contracts are up.”

I nod vigorously. “Because who wants to wake up at three a.m. to listen to music?” Besides me, of course.

Elizabeth stays silent for a few more moments, then extends her hand to me. “Good luck,” she says without smiling.

I try not to grimace at her icy grip. “Join us for a drink?”

“Not right now.” She tilts down her chin and widens her eyes at David in what looks like a questioning, almost pleading gaze. He juts out his jaw and turns his head away from her, glaring at the floor behind the bar with narrowed eyes. She doesn’t move, and I suddenly feel like I’m eavesdropping on an intimate negotiation.

Finally David rubs his chin and gives a jerky nod without looking at her. She lets out a deep breath and appears relieved.

“Now if you’ll excuse me,” she says, “I have to confer.”

She glides away and approaches a broad-chested man standing against the wall observing the crowd. He’s dressed casual like everyone else, but straightens into an official bearing when he sees Elizabeth. They converse, nodding and watching the partiers with wary eyes.

I turn to ask David who that guy is, but he’s not even watching Elizabeth, he’s just staring into his whiskey again, lips tight and brows pinched. The overhead bar light casts shadows on his cheeks in the shape of his long, thick lashes.

I touch his arm, and he looks up quickly. Disappointment crosses his face when he sees it’s only me.

“Who’s Elizabeth talking to?” I ask him.

He glances over. “Control goon.”

“But—wait a minute. She still works for them?”

“As one of their contractors. She gives the Control information in exchange for money and protection.”

A vampire rat. Glad she has a sense of honor.

The Control ogre bends to speak in Elizabeth’s ear, and I notice a bulge in his black leather vest.

“Is he armed?” I ask David.

“Not with anything that hurts humans.”

I watch them monitor Noah, who’s lounging against the wall by the stage, chatting up a group of hotties. “So I take it you quit the Control after the Antoine incident,” I ask David.

“They kicked me out with a general discharge. But I didn’t care, because I finally had a chance to follow my dream.”

“Running a radio station?”

He nods. “And in the process, helping a few vampires avoid the Control. Elizabeth and I gathered half a dozen DJs and musicians and gave them a chance to stay in the present and in their Life Times simultaneously.” He gestures to our surroundings, by which I think he means Sherwood. “We gave them a safe, quiet place to achieve self-actualization.” His whiskey-numbed lips struggle with the seven-syllable word. “A place where they wouldn’t end up like Antoine.”

I fill our shot glasses and lift mine in a toast. “To redemption quests.”

We clink and drink. From the speaker, Bob Marley assures us that every little thing’s gonna be all right, but somehow, deep down, I wonder.

14
Bad Company

When I arrive at the office Monday morning, Franklin punches the hold button on his phone. The other line is ringing.

“Get that, would you?” he says. “It’s probably an advertiser.”

“Advertisers are calling us? Did I come to the right office?”

“Put your smart-ass in a sling and answer the phone.”

The caller is a local Italian restaurant I’ve been able to afford exactly zero times. They want to buy ad spots, and I find sadistic pleasure in telling them we’ll try to squeeze them into our crowded lineup.

When we’re both off the phone, Franklin holds up the Washington Post and the Baltimore Sun’s Sunday style sections, one in each hand. “Page four and page two, respectively.”

“Nice work, Mister Hyde.”

“You know what I realized in the shower yesterday morning?” His phone rings, and he points at me as he reaches for it. “You conned me out of nine bucks.”

“Consider it overtime pay.” I turn back to my computer and pull up a spreadsheet of WVMP merchandise. We need to order more before the next gig this Friday.

Regina clomps up the stairs and snatches the papers from Franklin’s desk. He manages to scowl at her even as his voice lilts over the phone.

She comes to my desk and sits on the edge while she examines the article and the accompanying photo. “I looked good, didn’t I?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Maybe more of the red-on-black T-shirts this time.

Regina flips through the newspaper’s pages. From the corner of my eye I see her perusing the comics.

She grunts. “I swear I read the same fucking Mary Worth strip twenty years ago.”

I look up at her. “Did you want me for something? Ridicule? Harassment?”

“Oh.” She chews the inside of her cheek as she runs a black-lacquered fingernail over the edge of my desk. “I wanted to tell you, I thought the other night was pretty cool.”

“And what’s the punch line?”

“I’ve spent too many years cooped up in that little studio. Having us all play live in one place—it felt like I was doing the clubs again.” She sniffs. “Complete with some preppie wanker bugging me to play ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead.’”

“It’s the only Bauhaus song the average person knows.” Which made me an average person before I started listening to Regina’s show.

“The weird thing was, people liked me. Even though I glared at them.” Her dark eyes—cosmetic free for the first time since I’ve known her—glance away almost shyly. “I’m not used to that.”

“Really? I’d think you’d be popular in any circle.” I open a box of paper clips and a file folder of merchandise receipts.

She ignores my sarcasm. “We have something else in common besides shagging Shane.”

“I told you, I’m not—”

“People mispronounce my name, too.”

I squint at her, confused not only at how anyone could mispronounce “Regina,” but also by the vampire’s awkward attempt at nice-making.

“I grew up in Saskatchewan,” she explains, pronouncing the province with three syllables.

“You’re Canadian?”

Regina scowls. “What, I’m not nice enough to be Canadian? What is with that stereotype?” She tempers her voice again. “Anyway, do you know what the capital of Saskatchewan is?”

I sort and clip receipts as I think, the Jeopardy! theme song playing in my head. “Saskatoon?”

“Ignorant Yanks.” She heaves a sigh. “No, the capital of Saskatchewan is Regina.” She pronounces it to rhyme with “vagina.” “So living there, everyone thought my name was pronounced like the city, but it’s not.”

“And that’s why you moved?”

“I moved because it blew chunks. Imagine North Dakota, but colder.”

“Yikes. Where did you go?”

“London, of course. Then New York, then L.A.”

“I’ve never been to any of those places. Except North Dakota.”

As I close the folder, its corner knocks over the box of paper clips, spilling them across the floor. I bend over to pick them up, but Regina knocks me out of the way.

“I’ll get it!” She scrambles for the paper clips, counting them under her breath as she collects them in her palm. I look at Franklin, who spares the vampire an impassive glance.

When she’s finished, Regina stands and cups the paper clips back into their box, which she sets on my desk with shaky hands. “Fifty-three.”

I look at the box, then at her.

Her eyes pinch into a glare. “One crack about Sesame Street and I’ll snap your neck like a twig.”

My phone rings, saving me. “WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Can I help you?”

A short pause, then a smooth male voice. “I attended your party Friday night.”

“Wonderful.” Give us money. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“No, I’m afraid I did not enjoy myself. In fact, I think it is the beginning of the end for our vampire friends.”

I give a nervous laugh. “Seriously. What did you think?”

“It was an abomination.”

An icy fist closes over my spleen, despite my sense that it’s a prank. “But a rockin’ fun abomination, right?”

I look at the others. Franklin is still on his call. Regina is angrily scanning Rex Morgan, M.D.

“Anonymity brings safety,” the voice says. “Exposure brings danger.”

“What kind of danger?”

Regina looks up at me.

“If you don’t end this campaign,” the voice replies, “sooner or later someone will get hurt. We’ll make sure it’s sooner.”

“Hold, please.” I mute the call just as Franklin finishes his conversation. “Someone’s threatening the station,” I tell them.

“Who?” Franklin asks.

I sigh. “He neglected to state his name. Shall I ask?”

“I’ll handle it.” Franklin picks up the phone and taps the line. “Franklin Morris, manager of sales.”

“Did the guy sound old?” Regina whispers to me.

“No, his voice was young.”

“Spencer’s voice is young, and he’s in his seventies.”

“Oh, you mean vampire old.” I shake my head. “My bet’s on Skywave. Jolene probably put him up to it.”

Regina frowns. We turn to watch Franklin jot notes on a legal pad. He nods and mmm-hmms again and again. Finally he gets a chance to speak.

“Well, I’m terribly sorry, sir, but I’m afraid you’ve reached the one person here who absolutely, positively doesn’t give a shit. Ciao!” He hangs up and turns to me. “We’ve got problems.”

David reads Franklin’s notes from the phone conversation, then sets the page on his desk.

“That’s quite a list,” he says.

Franklin crosses his arms and leans against the doorway. “You think they’ll do one of those things to each vampire, or all of them to just one vampire?”

“Bugger off.” Regina paces the worn gray rug in front of David’s desk.

Franklin sighs. “Alas, not during business hours.”

“Who do you think it is?” I ask David, stepping quickly through Regina’s path before she treads on me.

“Gotta be Gideon,” she says. “Sounds like his isolationist bullshit.”

David shakes his head. “Gideon and his people just want to be left alone.”

I raise my hand. “Uh, who’s Gideon?”

“Old fart vampire living out in the boonies.” Regina glares at me. “He thinks your kind shouldn’t interact with us except as food.” She points to the list on David’s desk. “Only a vampire would know all the ways to kill us. Them or the Control, and Elizabeth’s supposed to protect us from those brownshirts.”

“Hey, I was one of them once,” David says. “We wore black shirts.” He looks at me. “I agree with Ciara—it’s probably Skywave. This list includes things that don’t kill vampires. Like silver, and running water. Those are myths.”

“So what do we do?” I ask. “Go to the police?”

“No!” they all say in unison.

“We can’t have the cops sniffing around the station,” David says. “What if they look downstairs and find a fridge full of blood?”

I grimace at the thought. “We’re not dropping the campaign, are we?”

“Hell, no,” Franklin says, together with Regina’s “Fuck that.” They share a frown, clearly unaccustomed to agreeing with each other.

David plants his palms on the desk. “No matter who it is, we won’t cave. I’ll talk to Elizabeth. She can ask the Control to deploy a security detail to the station.”

“You think they’ll do it?” I ask him.

“Over one phone call? Probably not.” He folds the list in half and tucks it into his top desk drawer. “So everyone be careful.”

June 29

Early polling results knock us on our asses; based on call volume and surveys, our listenership has increased by tenfold less than a week after the party at the Smoking Pig. David takes me and Franklin out for happy hour, and for an hour even Franklin exhibits something close to happiness. As I warned Bernita the Candle Lady, our ad rates have tripled.

I snag some more gigs for the older vamps at a few clubs in Baltimore. The mystique surrounding the reclusive Vampire Shane is beginning to build, just as I’d hoped. I can relate to the public on that one, because I haven’t seen him since the night of the Pig party.

So far, no more threats. Maybe that call was just a practical joke, or Jolene’s lame attempt at intimidation. But I remember the cold feeling of being watched the night of my interview, and I never walk alone after dark.

15
Just Like Heaven

The phone wakes me too early on Fourth of July morning. Grumbling, I flop over in bed to answer it.

“What are you doing tonight?” Shane says, turning my crankiness into confusion.

I sink back onto the pillow, wanting to tell him about my elaborate plans for the evening with all my cool friends, except I don’t have any. Plans, that is.

“Lori’s still up in Gettysburg for the battle anniversary, so I’m going to bed early. It’s my first day off since I started this job.”

“You can sleep during the day. I do it all the time.”

The thought of him in bed spreads a warmth through the bottom of my belly. “Why are you asking?”

“Let me make everything up to you.”

“Huh? What everything? I started our fight.”

“And I called you a liar. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry you called me a liar, or sorry you think I am one?”

He sighs. “You’re not making this easy, are you?”

I stretch and sit up, knowing I’ll never get back to sleep after this call. “What did you have in mind for tonight?”

“Fireworks. Food.”

I wait for him to add anything else that begins with F. “I can get those in Sherwood.”

“You can’t get in Sherwood what I’m going to show you tonight. Trust me.”

“Trust you?” I let out a little laugh. “That’s a work in progress.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Just after dark, Shane’s knock comes from the bottom of my stairs. Nice that he didn’t barge in this time.

I start to pull open the door to the sidewalk when he catches it, trapping me inside.

He holds out his other hand. “Give me your car keys.”

“Why?”

“I have stuff to load in the trunk. Surprise stuff. It’s good to see you, by the way.” He keeps his firm grip on the door, which I can’t open any farther.

I hand him the keys. “If we need my car, how did you get here?”

“Jim dropped me off on the way to his gig. Stay there.” He backs away, holding up a warning finger.

A few minutes later, we’re driving out of town, making small talk. Every time Shane speaks, my foot presses the accelerator.

A pause in the polite bullshit gives me a chance to set things straight. “I’m sorry I freaked the night of the party, after we—I mean, before we—you know.”

“I can’t blame you, considering you saw me at my worst the last time we hooked up.” He shifts his legs, as if the fact that they don’t quite fit under my dashboard has just now made him uncomfortable. “If you’re afraid of me, why are you here now?”

“To prove I’m not afraid.” I smile at him. “Plus, a college student never turns down free food.”

“I remember.”

“Where’d you go to school?”

“Ohio U for music theory.” He points up to the left. “Turn there. And before you ask, no, I didn’t graduate.”

I turn onto a poorly paved country lane. “What would you have done with a bachelor’s in music theory?”

“Enjoyed it.” He looks over at me. “It’s been two decades since I asked someone this question. What’s your major?”

“Business, with a concentration in marketing.”

He nods without comment. Nothing like total educational incompatibility to stall a conversation.

“Where are we going?” I ask him.

He shifts his legs again and sighs. “Hell if I know, Ciara. I hoped we’d figure it out if we spent some time together, like normal people.”

“No, I mean geographically, where are we going? How can we see fireworks this far out of Sherwood?”

“It’s a different display.”

I take my foot off the gas. “These better not be metaphorical fireworks.”

“These are the realest fireworks of all,” he assures me.

The car lurches as the road turns to dirt. We come out of the woods next to a huge wheat field. The stalks sway under the lingering twilight and undulate in the breeze like sheets on a clothesline. A few fireflies dot the landscape.

“Pull over at the top of the hill,” he says.

I ease the car to the side of the lane and turn off the ignition. “We’re alone.”

“I wasn’t sure we would be. It’s a popular spot for fireworks.” He eyes me with regret. “We just won’t touch each other. That way we won’t do anything that will lead to screaming and piercing.”

“You already promised you wouldn’t bite me.”

“But you don’t really believe it yet. Pop the trunk and stay here.”

As he busies himself with his grand setup, I check the surroundings for complications: cops, angry farmers, a posse of thirsty vampires. Everything appears copacetic, so I start to relax.

Shane knocks on my window, and I nearly hit my head on the ceiling. Guess I’m not that relaxed after all. He beckons me out of the car into the humid summer evening.

A large blanket lies spread on the grass, anchored at each corner with a jar candle. One half is covered with food and drink: barbecued chicken, a bread-and-cheese plate, tomato salad, chocolate-covered strawberries, and a bottle of wine.

He bows, motioning for me to sit.

“Shane ...” I kneel on the blanket next to the brimming containers. “You’re feeding me. No one ever feeds me.”

His foot taps the other side of the blanket. “Sit over here.”

“Why?”

“It’s part of the show.”

I do as he asks, putting my back to the wheat field. He opens the wine—red, of course—and sets it aside to breathe, then heaps a plate high with food and hands it to me.

“You’re not eating?” I ask him.

“It won’t taste good. Besides, I have something more important to do.” He pours two glasses of wine, then takes a long sip of one. “Soon as I get up the nerve.”

I’m intrigued. But also hungry, so I start eating.

He goes back to the open trunk and pulls out something long and dark. As he comes closer I realize it’s a guitar case.

“Surprise.” He lifts the instrument out of the case and sits cross-legged with it in his lap.

I’d guessed he played, since the fingernails of his right hand—the one that holds the strings on the fret board— are trimmed much shorter than those on the left. But instead of telling him that, I send him a smile of genuine excitement.

His gaze goes distant as he tunes the guitar, testing each string with the pick.

“Okay.” He clears his throat. “I’ll start with a song by this Irish guy named Luka Bloom. You’ve probably never heard—”

“Luka Bloom, are you kidding? He opened for the Violent Femmes at my first concert.”

“Wow, cool. My first concert was Night Ranger and .38 Special, but don’t tell the other DJs. They think it was Black Flag.”

“Ooh, Shane McAllister’s darkest secret, revealed at last.”

He puts a finger to his mouth with a playful warning glare. “When you saw Luka, did he play your song?”

“My what?”

“You’d know if you’d heard it.” He takes a deep breath and blows it out slowly. “I apologize ahead of time for fucking it up.”

I set aside my food. When the first slow, tentative chords come, they transform the field into an arena. Instead of absorbing the sound, the landscape echoes and releases it back, as if reserving it just for me.

Shane starts to sing, with a voice I didn’t know he had but feels like his true voice: soft, deep, and slightly tortured. His tongue curls around the R’s to create a faint Irish brogue. He doesn’t look at me; when he’s not watching his fingers on the fret board, his eyes are closed.

I barely notice the words until he reaches the first chorus.

It’s my name.

My gasp is audible even over his voice, which reaches higher and sweeter now. With a name like Ciara, I never hoped to have a song of my own. As always, the sound of my name from Shane’s lips sends a warm sensation up my neck and over my ears.

I listen closely to the lyrics of the second verse and realize I’m nothing like that Ciara. She’s virtuous, unreach-able. An “angel.”

My eyes grow hot around the edges, and my chest feels like it’s in a vise. I cross my arms on my knees and bury my face in them. As the tears well up through my sinuses, I pinch the tender insides of my elbows to distract my mind.

The song builds to what sounds like a final chorus, pairing my name with the word “angel.” As the last few chords march toward silence, I gulp deep breaths, struggling for control.

Too late. The last note cuts off when Shane sees me. “Was it that bad?”

I try to say, “No,” but it comes out as a strangled “Nyuh.” The effort to speak chokes out the first tears, and it’s all over.

“What’s wrong? Ciara, what happened?” With blurred vision I see Shane reach for me, then change his mind. The No Contact Rule, keeping us safe and sane.

I shake my head, but can’t speak. My breath heaves in a series of humiliating high-pitched sobs.

“No hurry.” He tunes the instrument some more, while my tears slow to a steady drizzle.

Finally my lungs give me a break. “My father used to call me ‘Angel.’“ Sniffle. “Some joke, huh?”

“I’m sure it wasn’t a joke.” Shane hands me a paper napkin. It’s the soft kind, the kind you buy for fancy parties.

“It is now.” I try to laugh as I dry my face. “You should play in bars. Drive everyone to drink more.”

He’s silent for a moment. “Where’s your father now?”

“In prison. With my mom. Not with my mom, obviously—they’re in separate places, but for the same thing.”

“What thing?”

“Guess.”

“I’d rather not.”

I sigh. “They were ‘faith healers.’“ I make the requisite air quotes. “They traveled all over the Midwest, turning believers into chumps. People threw money at them, money they couldn’t afford.”

The corners of Shane’s eyes turn down. “They taught you.”

“I played along with their routines. Sometimes I was a crippled child miraculously healed by them. Sometimes I was a shill, shouting out ‘Amen!’ or ‘Thank ya, Jesus!’ at just the right moment.”

“You were a kid,” he whispers. “They used you.”

“It was fun. Besides, I thought we were—” My voice cuts out. We both sit and wait a moment for it to come back. “Mom and Dad told me the scams were all part of doing God’s work.”

He draws in a breath. “Holy shit.”

“I believed it. My folks didn’t smoke or drink or dance— and as far as I knew, never had sex except on their anniversary. So I thought they were good. The fakery was just a way for us to spread our goodness.” I fiddle with the toe of my sandal, where the sole is coming loose. “One day when I was fourteen—not cute anymore, just gawky—I came late to the revival tent. My parents had already started. I walked up from the side and saw the people watching, how happy they were, how much they believed.” My lips press together. “I saw them for what they were. Suckers. Clueless as cows on the way to the slaughterhouse.”

“How’d your parents end up in jail?”

“They were arrested for fraud when I was sixteen. I testified.” I put my face in my hands. “I betrayed them.”

Shane is silent for a few moments. Then he says, “Hey, don’t feel bad. Every teenager dreams of sending their parents to jail. My dad could’ve been convicted as a first-degree jagoff.”

I snort—not quite laughter, but further from crying.

“I’m sorry I judged you.” He hands me another napkin. “Can I do anything?”

I blow my nose. “Play a happy song.”

A long pause. “That was the happy song.”

I laugh, and then I can’t stop laughing, even when my belly and cheeks start to ache.

“What’s so funny?” he says.

“You. I like you. I like being with you.”

“Yeah, that’s hilarious.” He points behind me. “Dry your eyes and turn around.”

“The fireworks?” I spin on the blanket and search the skies. “I don’t see—oh my God.”

The field is ablaze.

Dancing, flashing fireflies cover the landscape as far as I can see. Half of them loiter within the wheat while the others swoop and dart above, creating a 3-D display, like a mile-wide Christmas tree. The field sparkles in every hue of green, from aquamarine to chartreuse.

“It’s boy meets girl times a thousand,” Shane says. “Or ten thousand.”

“How do they know when they’ve found the right one? Or do they just pick the first firefly they see?”

“If it were that spontaneous, it’d all be over in five minutes. They each look for a specific signal that tells them, this could be the one.”

“I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.” I hear the goopy sincerity in my voice. “Much better than Sousa and gunpowder, at least.”

“I thought you’d like it. Which means I’m not completely wrong about you.”

The guitar is in his lap, but it’d be so easy to crawl around it and kiss him, to remove it so I can pin him to the ground and press every inch of my body onto his. The look in his eyes says he wouldn’t stop me.

“Play a song for the fireflies.” I sweep my hand toward the field. “Something to get them in the mood.”

He watches me closely for a second, probably rewinding my words to check for a double meaning, then turns back to the guitar. “I think ‘Two Hearts’ by Chris Isaak would be appropriate.”

“Never heard that one. But Chris Isaak? A little straightforward for your tastes.”

“You’re not the only one with layers.”

The song starts off slow and sad, lamenting the struggle to find love in the dark night. Then it pauses, and he gives me a mischievous glance. A moment later, it bounces into a jaunty, hopeful tune about life’s burdens being too much for just one person (or insect) to carry. He hits an admirable falsetto on the chorus, and I start to realize how damn good a singer he is.

My feet start tapping of their own will. During the brief solo, Shane gestures with his chin for me to get up and dance. I kick off my shoes and hop onto the cool, soft grass. Then it’s me and the fireflies, jamming, falling in love with the summer night.

I look back to see Shane watching me. He misses the high note and breaks into laughter without losing the rhythm. He starts the last chorus again when it comes around on the guitar.

When it ends, he applauds, and I bow, then clap for him with outstretched arms like a prima donna thanking her conductor.

Shane raises his wine. “To the fireflies.” He empties the glass and tosses it aside. “Here’s one for the mosquitoes.”

He slams into Nirvana’s “Drain You,” squashing the sentimentality like a rolled-up newspaper on a—well, a mosquito. The harsh, growly parts of his voice take center stage to sing of a love based in disease and craving. I return to sit on the blanket.

Shane looks at home in his body as he returns to the music of his soul. With every strum, his pale brown hair swings against the sharp bones of his cheeks and jaw. I watch his fingers fly over the fret board and grow warm imagining them on my skin.

The solo alternates between a low, steady thrumming and wild bursts of intensity. As it builds to a crescendo, he glances at the landscape around us, probably deciding whether or not to do the scream.

Just when I think he’s going to cop out to save his voice, he lets loose with a feral howl that sends a hot electric blast to the tips of my fingers and toes. It’s all I can do not to run away, or rip off my clothes.

He shifts to the chords of the third-verse-same-as-the-first, snarling the lyrics like it’s a personal anthem. His voice and the guitar build a noise that could tear the leaves off the trees.

The last chord soaks into the thick, humid evening. Shane sends me a feral gaze through a curtain of tangled hair. For the first time tonight, he looks like a vampire.

I clap slowly, though the gesture feels shallow in the face of such power. “I didn’t know that song could be done acoustically. Those years of music theory really paid off.”

“Not years. Months.” He refills his wineglass without looking at me.

Clearly his abbreviated college career bothers him. I change the subject. “I have a new nickname for your kind. Mosquitoes.”

“Nice.” He takes a long sip.

“When was the last time you drank?”

He holds up his glass.

“I don’t mean wine.”

“I know.” He stares into the red liquid depths. “I’m not an animal. I can control it.”

“But you’d rather not.”

“I’d rather do whatever it takes to get you and keep you.” He puts down the glass and focuses on the guitar. “That’s what I’d rather do.”

The evening progresses, through Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan and Steve Earle and The Pogues and some people I’ve never heard of. Though I started the night nursing one glass of wine, the music, food, and absence of vampire attacks have relaxed me enough to have a second, then a third.

The fireflies wink out one by one, as they either find their mates or give up for the night. I realize that if I were one of those bugs in the field, I would have turned off my blinky butt the moment Shane struck the first chord of “Ciara.”

Finally Shane sets the guitar back in its case and shakes out his stiff fingers. He frowns at the empty wine bottle. “How are you going to drive us home?”

“You could drive.”

He looks away. “My other dark secret is that I can’t drive stick.”

“Then I’ll teach you.”

“I can’t learn new things the way a human can.”

“Don’t listen to that Control propaganda. You learned the ‘Ciara’ song, didn’t you? You didn’t just happen to have it in your repertoire when we met.”

“True.” He sighs and pulls the guitar out of its case. “One last tune, a eulogy for your transmission. How about ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It’?”

“No, play my song again. Please? I promise not to cry.”

He shrugs. “Cry all you want. As long as I know I’m not the cause.”

He plays “Ciara” again, his voice softer, fatigued from so many songs. It strains to hit the chorus’s higher notes, giving it a plaintive sound, as if he’ll never reach that angelic Ciara, but he’ll keep trying.

This time, I don’t need to cry.

16
Twilight Zone

I wake at 3 a.m. Friday morning to Cake’s irony-laced “Rock ’n’ Roll Lifestyle” and decide I’m too restless to listen to Shane’s program alone.

Soon I pull into the radio station lot, parking less than ten feet from the front door. Before getting out of the car, I check my surroundings—nothing but shifting shadows of trees and the hesitant chirps of a few early cicadas.

I step out of the vehicle. Immediately a cold presence permeates the humid night. Its gaze on my body feels like a hand with too many fingers. As I stride toward the building—not running, no matter how much I want to—I almost wish I could wield a cross with conviction.

Once inside, I shut and relock the front door behind me, then hurry downstairs.

Sitting around the poker table, Regina, Jim, Noah, and Spencer greet me with varied amounts of enthusiasm.

“Happy to take your money, honey.” Spencer pulls out a chair for me to sit in.

Regina shakes her head at him. “Sucker.”

I don’t sit. “Gideon lives an hour from here, right?”

They share nervous glances. “Yeah, out in the mountains,” Regina says. “Why?”

“Twice I’ve felt something watch me in the parking lot.” I rub my arms at the lingering chill. “Something cold.”

“I knew it!” Regina slams the deck against the table. “Skywave didn’t make that threatening phone call after the party. It was Gideon, the skeevy son-of-a-bitch.”

“Or one of his flunkies,” Jim adds.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Spencer says. “He’s always kept to himself.”

“Who else is old enough to have that kind of aura?” Regina stands and stalks over to me. “When did this happen?”

“The night I interviewed for the job, and again just now.”

“Then he could still be outside.” She turns to the door. “If Monroe were here, the five of us could take Gideon.”

“Wait.” Noah turns to me. “You said this happened the first time you come here.” I nod. “Then it cannot be Gideon. Before your campaign, we kept our secret. He had no reason to stalk you, or the station.”

Regina huffs out a breath. “Then there’s another vampire besides Gideon after us?”

“Maybe it’s Gideon now,” Jim offers, “but a different one that other night.”

“If there’s more than one,” Spencer says, “then we don’t know what’s out there right now. We could be out-powered and outnumbered.”

I scratch my neck to subdue the prickling. “What’s to keep them from coming inside?”

“Besides the locks on the doors? Nothing.” Regina paces, looking ready to bite the head off a chipmunk. “The Control won’t give us extra security based on one phone threat, and they won’t change their minds over an intern’s goose bumps.”

“You don’t have any weapons?” I ask them. “Stakes and stuff?”

They look aghast at the mere suggestion. I guess it’s no different than humans who won’t keep a gun in the house.

“Not unless you count Franklin’s pencil stash.” Regina crosses to the credenza next to the sofa, opens the top drawer, and pulls out a white box. “You might stop one of us with a handful of these, but they wouldn’t even make Gideon sneeze.”

I suddenly wish I’d stayed in bed. “So what do we do?”

Regina puts the pencils back. “We know he’s there, but he doesn’t know we know.”

“That’s our advantage, then.” I sit in one of the empty chairs. “We know we can’t beat him by confronting him, so we act normal and wait for him to slip up.”

Regina gives me an icy look. “That’s what I was about to say.” She comes back to her seat and picks up the cards.

I pull my chair closer to the table. “Tell me more about Gideon.”

Regina deftly shuffles the cards without looking at them. “He and all the other geezers live out in the sticks where no one’ll confuse them.”

“Confuse them?”

“When we get old, we get freaky,” Jim says. “Gideon runs a kinda sanctuary.”

“How long can a vampire live?”

Noah answers this time. “Most live about eighty years after our turning.” He straightens his pile of chips. “But a lucky one can live centuries.”

Regina says, “I hear there are a couple two-hundred-fifty-year-olds working down in Colonial Williamsburg.”

“That’s a myth.” Spencer points to the cards. “Let’s go.”

They deal me in, and my chips start to trickle away. We don’t speak much, even between hands, each of us listening for signs of encroachment from outside. To distract myself, I focus on learning the vampires’ various styles of play.

Noah is as conservative as they come, while Jim is at the other extreme, betting expansively and impulsively. I’m coming to realize his hippie veneer is just that; beneath the serene trappings of peace, love, and happiness lies a wild animal. Of the five, he probably has the highest body count. The fact that I can even speculate on such a topic gives me the chilly willies.

Regina plays according to the numbers, calculating the odds of each hand with the speed of a supercomputer. Spencer is a poker genius, surprising me with flashes of superhuman intuition. Sometimes his eyes go eerily vacant, like a shut-down robot, but maybe he’s accessing some kind of collective card-player unconscious.

After an hour without incident, Regina goes to their apartment and returns with three beers. She hands one to Spencer and one to me.

“If you’re such a good con artist,” she says, “how come you’re so poor? Did you ship all the scam money to Switzerland for your retirement?”

“No one uses Switzerland anymore—too strict.” I shuffle the cards, ineptly. “New Zealand is the hot new place for offshore accounts.”

“Is that where your money is?” Jim asks.

“What money? I’m small-time. I only use scores to pay off student loans.” I set the shuffled deck in front of Regina to cut. “I’m allergic to debt.”

“Smart,” Noah says. “Debt is a kind of slavery.”

“It’s a commitment.” Regina taps the deck in an offhand show of trust. “Con artists are afraid of commitment, aren’t they?”

Instead of answering the question, I start dealing five-card stud, which automatically cuts off conversation, per Spencer’s rules. The cards feel crisp and slick; I bet they use a new deck every night.

After the hand, I change the subject. “How are your podcasts coming?” In response to their blank looks, “That’s the thing where I record you yammering for fifteen minutes, then people can download it onto their computers and listen to it anywhere in the world.”

Regina recovers first. “I thought I’d talk about Sunday matinees at CBGB, the big hardcore scene and the fights that broke out with the pigs in uniform.”

“I’m gonna do rock trivia,” Jim announces. Everyone else rolls their eyes.

“Of course you are,” Noah says.

Jim’s head hoards useless knowledge like a hamster’s cheeks hoard granola. He pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Ciara, you’re a typical civilian, I’ll test my trivia on you. If you know the answer, the question’s too easy.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“First category, real names. Ready? Robert Zimmerman.”

I snap my fingers. “Bob Dylan.”

“Just a warm-up. McKinley Morganfield.”

“Um—”

“Muddy Waters,” he says without giving me a chance to think. “Famous quotes category: Who called rock ‘n’ roll ‘the most brutal, ugly, degenerate, vicious form of expression it has been my displeasure to hear’?”

I shrug.

Jim arches one brown eyebrow. “Frank Sinatra.”

“Hoser,” Regina adds.

Jim flips the paper over. “Bonus question: What Flint, Michigan, band generated the original members of Grand Funk Railroad?”

Noah and Regina groan. Spencer furrows his brow.

Jim looks at the other DJs. “Terry Knight and the Pack. You guys didn’t know that?”

“No one gives a shit about Grand Funk Railroad.” Regina fake-spits on the floor.

“That’s the point. The more obscure the trivia, the better.”

“You need a mix of easy questions,” I tell him. “You can’t talk down to people if you want them to tune in again.”

“Excuse me.” Regina slaps the bottom of her cigarette pack against the heel of her hand. “How long have you been a DJ?”

“That’s not the point.”

“You think you know everything because you’re from the so-called present, but you can’t even get your boyfriend to join you there.”

“Shane’s not my boyfriend.”

“Does he know that?” We lock eyes as Regina pulls a cigarette from the pack with her teeth and lights it. I hear the others shift in their seats. Finally Regina looks at them. “Leave us.”

Spencer looks at his watch. “Almost bedtime, anyway.” He and Noah stand up.

Jim stays seated, gathering the cards. “I want to see them fight.”

Noah gives Jim’s hair a yank. “You heard Regina.”

“Ow. Douche bag.” He gets up and slouches after them, rubbing his head. They enter the hallway and leave the door open behind them.

I turn back to Regina. “Shane said you broke it off years ago, so what do you care?”

“We stopped screwing, but he’ll always be my progeny, however freakishly oedipal that sounds.” She puffs smoke in my direction. “Either start taking him seriously or end it now.”

“I do take Shane seriously.” I inhale her cloud of smoke without wrinkling my nose. “I would never hurt him.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you knew how easy it is to do.” Her eyes turn sad around the edges. “It’s like saying you won’t step on ants.”

The music fades from the speaker over our heads, and Shane’s voice comes on.

“WVMP 94.3, five fifty-four on a Friday. Weatherman says it’s another hot one, high of ninety-five and humid, so wear as little as you can get away with today.” His words reach thousands, but I feel like he’s speaking to me. “If you aren’t awake by now, a little White Zombie’ll fix that. Good morning, and good night.”

The first throbbing chords of “More Human than Human” strain the ceiling speakers.

Regina looks toward the stairs. “It’s light out by now. Safe for you to leave.”

Sounds like a hint. “I’ve got work to do. Think I’ll just head to my desk.”

She folds her arms and leans back in her chair. “Be careful.”

“I will.” I know she’s not talking about my safety. I put my feet up on the next chair and sip my beer, which tastes odd considering it’s almost six in the morning.

Regina finally sighs, shoves her chair back from the table, and slinks through the doorway to the hall.

When her footsteps fade, I walk to the door and peer around the corner into the studio. Shane is inside the control room jamming to the schlock-metal riffs as he programs the system to play an hour of paid programming after his broadcast. He’s facing the other direction, so he doesn’t see me watching.

I pull back and shut the door, then turn for the stairs.

Figures. I’ve finally convinced myself he won’t hurt me, and now I have a bigger, more realistic worry.

That I’ll hurt him.

17
Waiting for the Miracle

“We’ll start with the bands you liked when you were alive.”

I lower my voice at the end of the sentence. Probably not necessary, given the volume of the new Nine Inch Nails CD grinding out of the store’s speakers. Record & Tape Traders is holding a midnight madness sale, thus allowing me to bring Shane here for an after-dark lesson.

His gaze wanders over the selection of T-shirts and posters on the store’s wall. He won’t look at the CDs in the bin next to us. The major bands are in alphabetical order, but the miscellaneous ones at the beginning of each letter are all mixed up.

I guide him over to the G’s. “You remember Green Day, right?” I hold up their first major release, [i]Dookie,[/i] feeling like a remedial math teacher with a flash card.

“One of my favorites. 1994.” He takes the CD case and caresses it like a Ming vase.

“In 2000 they came out with Warning, which got critical acclaim, though some of their fans thought it wasn’t punk enough. But everyone’s got to grow up sometime, right? Except you, of course.”

The notion makes Shane smile a little, as I figured it might. Staying young and surly is probably the only thing he truly loves about being a vampire. He doesn’t reach for Warning, though.

“But the big one,” I continue, “was American Idiot in September 2004.” I display the CD, which features a hand grenade in the shape of a bleeding human heart. “One of the most important releases of this millennium.”

Shane hesitates before reaching for the CD. “Why?”

“First of all, the music is amazing. It’s a rock opera.”

“Hmm.” He turns it over and smooths the plastic wrapper—carefully, as if it might be covered in anthrax.

“But its influence was more than musical. It was released right before the elections. Green Day was part of this movement in pop music trying to mobilize young people to vote. And it worked. College kids lined up at the polls on Election Day—at your old school, some waited as long as eight hours in the rain.”

Shane continues the blank look he began around the middle of my speech. “Is Bill Clinton still president?”

I stare at him, the severity of his fossilization finally slamming my gut. Then the corner of his mouth twitches.

I huff in relief. “You son of a bitch.”

“Psych,” he says. “I’m not that dead. Yet.” He taps the CD against his palm. “Also, I heard Green Day did a rock opera but never bothered to check it out. I’ll try this, but don’t expect miracles.”

I beckon him down the aisle, past a group of multiply pierced teenage boys arguing over whether AFI is a true emo band.

Shane shoots past me, toward the P’s, and picks up Prince’s Purple Rain CD. “I used to have this on vinyl. That movie inspired me to learn the guitar.” He gazes through the far wall. “I took my first girlfriend to see it.”

His faint smile makes me wonder what Prince’s royal hotness inspired Shane’s girlfriend to do that night. I pick up another copy and check the issue date—1984. I was still in diapers.

Back to the nineties. I lead him to the M’s. “I’ve heard you play Morphine on your show.”

His face lights up. “You like them?”

“Baritone sax, two-string bass, and a drum. Their sound is detached and ironic yet somehow sensual.” Ew, I sound like a rock critic. “1993’s Cure For Pain is some of the smokiest, sexiest music I’ve ever heard.” I pull out one of their newer CDs, and this time Shane grabs it, handing me the others to hold.

“Are they still together?”

“The lead singer died in ninety-nine.”

Shane looks at me, stricken. “Mark Sandman died?”

“Heart attack during a concert in Rome.”

“That sucks.” He frowns as he examines the track list. “I liked him.”

I inch closer. “Why does it bother you that he died?”

Shane scrunches his face at me. “Shouldn’t it bother everyone when someone dies?”

“Last night a car crash killed four people outside of town. Does that bother you as much?”

He shakes his head. “I didn’t know those people.”

“You didn’t know Mark Sandman.”

“It’s different.” He runs his thumb over the corners of the CD. “I felt like I knew him from his music.”

“What else bothers you about it?”

Shane scratches his neck and looks away. “The world lost something when he died.”

I point to the Morphine sign in the bin. “We haven’t lost him. We can listen to him any time we want.”

“We can’t hear the stuff he hasn’t written yet. Everything he never did, it all died with him.”

“Yes!” I clasp Shane’s hand. “Listen to what you just said. You’re thinking about all the Morphine albums that will never happen. As if you could learn to care about new music. As if you could learn, period.”

He curls his thumb around my hand. “Why do you care so much about what I care about?”

“I don’t want you to live like this forever, stuck in 1995. You’re not happy now, and as time goes on you’ll be less happy.” I tighten my grip. “I don’t want you to fade.”

Even under the fluorescent light his pale blue eyes seem to glow when he looks at me that way. The music growls above us as he leans over to kiss me.

For some reason, I keep thinking the kisses will become routine, that each one couldn’t possibly be better or different than its predecessors.

I am wrong.

I like being wrong.

I thread my hand through Shane’s hair and pull him into a deeper kiss. One of the teens behind me murmurs, “Yeah, dude, hit that.” We ignore him.

An adult voice beside us says, “Please tell me you’re off the clock.”

We break apart to see Elizabeth. I almost don’t recognize her in casual wear, though even in jeans and a V-neck T-shirt, her body could make a moldy cadaver sit up and beg.

“I’m tutoring Shane on new music.”

“He looks like an attentive student.” She winks at me, which I take as a positive sign.

“Good sale, huh?” I tilt my head to read the CDs in her hand. The top one is a collection of Rodgers and Hammerstein show tunes. “Franklin and I are about to close a cross-promotional deal with the store. They just have to work it out with headquarters to make sure they can align with more than one station.”

Shane and Elizabeth, instead of listening to my fascinating speech on radio business, are giving each other flat, steady glares, like enemy cats separated by a window.

I try to make nice. “So, Elizabeth, thanks for giving the va—the DJs a chance to survive.”

Her eyes narrow, still locked on Shane’s. “They’d survive without the station. Someone will always take care of them. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Make sure we rest easy in the arms of the Control?” Shane looks like he wants to rinse his mouth after the last two words.

She waits for a pair of magenta-haired college girls to pass. “Many humans would long for such a comfortable retirement.”

“Comfort? In one of their prisons, feeding off blood bank leftovers until they’re so weak they can barely walk?”

“They’re not prisons, they’re refuges.”

“What kind of refuge locks its residents inside?” He smacks his forehead in mock surprise. “Oh, wait, I forgot. The doors unlock during the day in case anyone wants to shuffle off their immortal coil.”

She glares at him and speaks in a tight, hushed voice. “Without the Control’s retirement program, where would all those poor old vampires go when the world is too much for them?”

“Please. Save it for someone who doesn’t know better. And this Skywave takeover threat had better be about money, not about finding an excuse to ‘retire’ the six of us.”

“Of course. It’s just business.”

“So when the station turns a profit,” Shane says, “you’ll leave us alone.”

She laughs and runs her fingers through her shaggy, Jennifer-Aniston-second-season-of-Fn’ewA hair. “We’re so far in the red, it would take a miracle to bring it back by the end of the decade, much less the end of the summer.”

“A miracle, huh?” Shane takes the CDs from me and loops an arm over my shoulder. “Guess we’d better get to work on that.”

On the drive back to the station, Shane doesn’t speak, just stares out the window, turning his new CDs over in his hands. Even in a stack of three, they’re in alphabetical order.

His silence gives me a chance to ponder our encounter with Elizabeth. Shane said that a steady diet of bank blood weakens a vampire, but Elizabeth seems awfully vibrant for someone who claims to follow the Red Cross Plan.

As we pull onto the long gravel driveway, I finally break the silence. “How do you know so much about the vampire retirement homes?”

“I lived in one for two years,” he says without turning from the window. “Maybe ‘lived’ isn’t the right word. I existed there, in a special rehab ward for young vampires who aren’t too crazy about their new way of life. That ward’s locked twenty-four seven.” He gives me a little smirk. “Which was why I learned to pick locks.”

“And it explains how you got out.”

“But not why I left at night.”

“Why?”

“I wanted a life. A purpose. The music gave me that. This place—” He gestures to the ramshackle building appearing ahead of us. “—gave me that.”

We pull into the parking lot and get out of the car. The air feels warm and stalker free.

Shane stands with me next to the car and takes my hand. “Tell me what I can do to save the station.”

I gasp. “You mean it? You want me to exploit you for the greater good?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t put it that way, but yeah.”

“Thank you!” I can’t resist hugging him. “Your public is dying to meet the mystery vampire. You should see all the speculation on the blogs.”

“On the what?”

“You’ve gotten more press than the other five put together, and you haven’t even shown your face.”

Shane tries to look like he doesn’t care. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Guys hate pressure. They want to believe everything they do is their idea.”

“This is my idea, to ... go along with your idea.”

“The problem is, I’m not sure Elizabeth wants to sell the station to make money or retire the six of you. I bet she wants to get away from David.”

Shane sighs and looks off into the woods. I can tell he wants to share gossip.

“She still bites him, doesn’t she?” I ask.

He hesitates. “He’s the only human she’s ever tasted.”

“Then no wonder she wants to cut ties. I’d hate to be so dependent on an ex-boyfriend. It’s just not healthy. And why would David let her bite him when she makes him miserable?”

“You’ve obviously never been in an addictive relationship.”

I put up my hands. “Ugh, no. Not into the whole needing thing. But if this is all about Elizabeth and David, it might not matter how many ads we sell or how much the ratings increase.” Shane doesn’t reply, just keeps staring into the woods, so I answer myself. “Then again, maybe it’s only one factor in her decision.”

Shane opens the driver’s-side door. “Get back in the car,” he says quietly.

“Why?”

“Casually. Now.”

Once we’re in the front seats, he says, “Someone’s watching us.”

I glance out the back windshield but see nothing. “Twice I’ve felt like I was being stalked in the parking lot. Regina said it was an old vampire named Gideon.”

“I smell human.” He rolls down the window. “A human who smokes Marlboro Light Menthols.”

“You can tell all that with one whiff?”

“I’m kidding about the brand, but the rest, yeah. It’s on his breath and in his pores.”

“Where is he?”

“In the woods, I think. The wind makes it hard to tell until he gets closer.” He pats his leg. “Put your head in my lap.”

“Huh?”

“If he thinks I’m distracted he might get bold.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Go on.”

I lean over and rest my cheek on his thigh. At first it seems like a nice place to be, except, “The emergency brake is in my stomach.”

He slides his hand between the brake and my waist, creating a cushion. “Better?”

“Yes, thank you. Hear anything?”

“Just you talking.”

I clamp my mouth shut. His other hand strokes my hair, soothing and stimulating at the same time. I understand now why dogs like having their heads petted.

Shane looks suddenly to the right. He adjusts the side-view mirror with the manual control knob on the door. “He’s behind us, but not close enough that I need to start faking an orgasm.”

I can feel Shane’s nerves on alert. He focuses on the side mirror, leg muscles tensing. His hand slides down the armrest toward the door handle.

He lunges forward. “Move.”

I sit up. Shane opens the door and jumps out of the car. I lean out to see him race across the parking lot and into the woods near the radio tower. A few moments later, the high-pitched rev of a small engine shatters the night’s silence, then recedes quickly into the distance.

Shane reappears from the back of the building and returns to my car’s open passenger door. “Son of a bitch had an ATV hidden back there. Almost got him.”

“Did you get a good look?”

“Dark hair, mustache. Nothing special.”

“But you didn’t recognize him.”

“Why would I?” He props his arms on the roof and peers in at me. “Could be one of your old boyfriends.”

“I’d never date a smoker. Especially not menthols, yuck.”

He chuckles. “Hypocrite. You had a cigarette with Deirdre.”

“Who?”

“My donor, the one we visited.”

“Great. Now I know her name. Now if I see her in the produce aisle, I can say, ‘Hi Deirdre, how’s your torso? Any new holes?’”

“You sound jealous.” Shane sits in the passenger’s seat and tugs me into his lap without a struggle. “You sound like a girlfriend.” He strokes my cheek with the back of his hand. “I’d like you to be my girlfriend.”

My stomach flips, but I remember Regina’s warning about hurting him. “That’s sweet, Shane, but can’t we just enjoy each other? Going steady is so old-fashioned.”

He sighs. “I hate the new millennium.”

“Now who’s the hypocrite? You put your hands all over those women you bite, yet you expect me to sit at home in a sackcloth.”

“It’s different. I have to drink, you don’t have to see other guys.” He runs a finger down the side seam of my camisole. “Besides, you’d look damn sexy in a sackcloth.”

I push him away, a few inches. “It’s not different. You would have slept with Deirdre that night if I weren’t there. In fact, drinking blood is probably a great excuse to get laid, not the other way around.”

“What if I stopped drinking women? I could make some trades with the other vampires. Would that change your mind?”

“You’d do that for me?”

“I already did.” He brushes the hair out of my eyes. “The last woman was Deirdre, the night you came with me to visit her.”

My chest constricts, and I wipe my hand over my forehead. “Shane, I can’t be your girlfriend.”

His face falls. “Why not? I thought we were over the whole Beauty and the Beast issue.”

“Not when I’m still a beast.”

“I don’t get it.”

“You want the truth? It’s not pretty.”

“It usually isn’t.”

I move clumsily out of his embrace, back into the driver’s seat. “You remember that guy, the one David told you about? The one who wouldn’t press charges after I conned him?”

“Mark, right?”

“That wasn’t his name. That was his function.”

“Whatever.”

“It’s not whatever.” I take a deep breath. “He was my boyfriend.”

He blinks hard. “You conned your last boyfriend? Out of how much?”

“He only thought he was my boyfriend.” I run my hands over the steering wheel. “Okay, rewind. I’ve always scraped by on short cons, the kind that take a few minutes or a couple hours. Bar bets, card tricks, pool hustling. Sometimes I’d join up with another con to do pigeon drops or the badger game.” I pause, waiting for him to ask what those are. He doesn’t. “But I was tired of scraping by. I thought if I did one long con, I could take off the rest of the year, live like a normal person.”

His voice hardens. “Ciara, how much?”

“Thirty thousand.”

“Thirty thousand dollars?”

“A year’s tuition, plus living expenses.”

“Holy shit.” He takes several moments to digest this fact. “How’d you do it?”

“I convinced him to invest in a get-rich-quick land deal. I made out like it wasn’t quite legal, so he’d give me cash and so there was no way he could check up on it. They say you can’t cheat an honest man.”

“But why would he trust you?”

“Lust can make a fool out of anyone. He would’ve bought the Brooklyn Bridge from me.” My face heats. “I did things his wife wouldn’t do.”

“His wife? Did you know he was married?”

“That’s why I chose him, because I knew he wouldn’t jeopardize his marriage by pressing charges and making it all public.” I can’t look at Shane, so I focus on the nicks in the steering column. “I was right. He told her he lost the money at the craps tables in Atlantic City. He had a gambling problem, so she believed it.” My throat tightens around the rest of the truth. “I didn’t know he had kids.”

Shane pulls in a sharp breath. “Did his wife ever find out?”

“Not that I know of. I took his money and disappeared. He called the cops, but dropped the charges when he found out he’d have to testify against me.”

“Did you give the money back?”

“I couldn’t, not without his wife knowing he’d lied. And technically I didn’t break any laws. I never used the postal system, so they couldn’t charge me with mail fraud. Everything was in person. They couldn’t prove the money wasn’t just a gift from a lover. His loss, my gain. Of course, most of my gain was re-gifted to my attorney, so I still had to take out a loan for school last year.”

“This is bullshit,” Shane says suddenly.

“No, I’m telling the truth.”

“And you’re right, it’s not pretty. But what does it have to do with me? I have no money to steal. You’re with me because you like me.”

“Yes. I like you too much to see you get hurt.”

“How do you know you’ll hurt me?”

“I betrayed my parents. I betrayed—” I still can’t say his name. “—that guy. Someday I’ll betray you. I don’t know how or when, but it’s in my nature.”

“Again, bullshit. You’re using this as an excuse to keep us apart.”

“Why would I do that?” I take his hand, against my better judgment. “I want to be with you, more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. When I’m with you, I feel... decent.”

His eyebrow twitches. “Decent. Not a goal for most guys.”

“And indecent, too.” Again ignoring my inner voice of reason, I lean forward and give him a deep, passionate kiss. He pulls me as close as he can, given that the emergency brake is still between us.

It all seems so simple, at moments like this, as if nothing else matters but the heat between us and the perfection of the kiss. But moments like this last only as long as a pop song, and bear just as much truth.

Which is to say, none at all.

I lie in bed later listening to the end of Regina’s radio show, Drastic Plastic. Sleep tugs at me, but I want to hear Shane’s intro.

The Siouxsie and the Banshees song fades, replaced by Regina’s voice. “94.3 WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock ’n’ Roll. It’s two fifty-nine on a very special night for all you vamps and vamp lovers. One of our own is finally coming out of the closet.”

“Thanks for spoiling the surprise,” Shane says.

“What surprise? Like VMP would let a ninety-eight-point-sixer have his own show.”

His warm laugh makes me curl into a ball around my spare pillow.

“So what changed your mind, Shane?”

“A couple of blondes.”

“Two at a time now? You’re such a dog.”

“No, it’s not like that. See, one represents the past, and the other, the future.”

“Ooh, how mystical. You haven’t been dropping acid with Jim again, have you?”

“I always keep an eye on my drink around him, after that last time.”

“Yeah, after that last eight times.”

“Anyway, where was I?”

“Blondes,” she says with exaggerated distaste.

“Right. So I’ve started thinking about the future, for the first time since, you know—”

“Since I turned you into a glorious beast.”

He scoffs. “Whatever. I realized that I need to move on, get over the past. Time to take a few risks, and one of them is admitting to the world that, uh—”

“Repeat after me. ‘I’m ...’”

“I’m a vampire.”

“You did it.” Regina applauds softly. “That was totally brill.”

“And I’m going to start playing gigs like the rest of you.”

“The babes will ooze off their chairs when you break out that guitar.”

“And now for the big news: I’m announcing a change in format to the first hour of my show, as of tonight.”

She hesitates. “What kind of change?”

“I’m going to play new music.”

I sit up straight in bed and stare at the radio. Regina obviously shares my shock, because she allows four or five seconds of dead air (so to speak) to pass before she reacts.

“Why?”

“There are a lot of good bands out there that don’t get enough airplay in today’s radio wasteland, and some of them have inherited the spirit of the nineties. Also, some bands that got their start during my Life Time have gotten better.”

“Like who?” Her voice drips with disbelief.

“Like Green Day, for instance.”

“Green Day? Bunch of bleedin’ posers! They wouldn’t know real punk if it crawled up their arses and burst out their colons.”

“Are we allowed to say ‘arse’ on the air?”

“It’s three o’ clock in the effing morning, I can say anything I want.”

“‘Arse’ is one of those cute British profanities, so I guess it doesn’t count. Anyway, Green Day is a different kind of punk. They’re not trying to be the Sex Pistols or the Stooges. They’re pop-punk, like the Buzzcocks.”

“They’re crap is what they are,” she says.

“Because they can actually play their instruments, they’re crap. Whatever. This song’s for you, Regina, to keep you from slitting my throat. Friends, wish me luck.”

A quick, stabbing chord introduces Green Day’s “She’s a Rebel,” off the very same American Idiot CD he bought five hours ago. Though I should be sleeping, I throw off the covers, stand on the bed, and jam at the top of my lungs for two solid minutes of triumph.

18
One Way or Another

July 11

Shane goes “on the road,” playing his first gig as an acknowledged vampire DJ at a Sherwood coffee bar called Legal Grounds, next to the county courthouse.

Curious onlookers flow out of the cafe, past the outdoor tables, and onto the sidewalk. I make a note to investigate the price of a private security detail. Before leaving the “stage,” Shane plays a short set on the guitar, ending with “Ciara.”

July 12

Though perhaps only a hundred people can fit into Legal Grounds, today on the blogs approximately two thousand people claim to have seen Shane’s first show, making it proportionally the most inflated gathering since Woodstock.

Some reviews complain about his “eclectic” tastes, how they didn’t know what to expect from one song to the next. One reviewer was pissed that Shane didn’t look enough like a vampire or a grunge-head, as if they expected him to show up in a full-length flannel cape.

July 15

We begin podcasting. Each DJ will do a weekly fifteen-minute interview about the music and culture of their Life Time, supplying anecdotes known only to those who lived in the Way Back.

To keep the casual listener’s interest, we’ll include a few details about life as a vampire—a small fraction of which are actually true.

July 22

The week two WVMP podcasts briefly appear on today’s Top 100 Most Downloaded list on one popular site. The T-shirts go back for a third, quadruple-size printing. Our Web site crashes under the load of too many visitors.

I get a whopping four hours of sleep in one night, the most I’ve had all month. I consider taking a sledgehammer to my alarm clock, if only I had time to buy a sledgehammer and the strength to lift it.

July 23

David notices my preternatural paleness. He orders me to spend tomorrow outside before I come down with a case of rickets.

July 24

I become one with the sun.

Lying on a lounge chair beside Lori’s pool, I inhale motes of light and beams of heat. Sweat tickles my back as I convince each muscle in my body to forget about my job.

Lori creates a soothing background noise, telling me about SPIT’s efforts to help raise funds for the town to erect a Battle of Sherwood monument.

The battle’s details are a little fuzzy to me, but the basic gist is this: Some Union guy with a magnificent mustache led a charge against some Southern guy with a magnificent beard. The beard guy had the skinny on Union troop movements, but because of the scuffle in Sherwood, he didn’t get to Gettysburg in time to deliver the intelligence, so the Confederates didn’t know what they were getting into. And that’s why Martin Sheen lost the Civil War.

Or something like that.

“So what do you think?”

I realize she requires words from me. “Huh?”

“You’re not even listening, are you?”

“Sorry. I was thinking about the battle. Sad, all those guys dying.”

“It was two soldiers. Just two.”

“Oh. Good, then.”

“I was saying it would be cool if we could find one of their ghosts.” I hear her tear the wrapper of a bag of chips. “Or if we could make one.”

“Make a ghost?” I sit up and squint at her just as my cell phone rings. I open it to see an unfamiliar number on the caller ID. I slap it shut again, hushing the sound, and turn back to Lori. “You mean kill someone?”

“No, we get a vampire from Civil War times to pretend to be a ghost. Then when investigators ask them questions only someone from that time would know, it’ll make it more believable.” She waves her scarlet barbecue chip. “So what do you think? Can you make it happen?”

I think it’s the nuttiest idea I’ve ever heard. Luckily I have a better reason for saying no. “None of our vamps are even close to that age.”

“What about others around here?”

I shake my head. “Even Gideon isn’t that old, and he wouldn’t cooperate, anyway. Besides, wouldn’t that be fraud?”

“Only in the short term.” She licks the red salt off her fingers. “It’d be like telling a lie to create a greater truth.”

“Do I know you?”

“It’s no different than what you’re doing with the vampires.”

I shake my head. “Lori, you should know by now not to use me as a role model.”

“Why not?”

The phone rings again. Needing to escape the conversation, I answer it.

“Hello, Ciara,” says Elizabeth. She pronounces it with three syllables—kee-ahr-ah—as if I’m Italian. “I wanted you to be the first to know. Due to the station’s recent success, I feel disinclined to sell it.”

“Really?” A surge of pride—or possibly heartburn— erupts beneath my ribs. “You’re giving Skywave the blow-off?”

Lori’s eyes widen, and she raises her arms in a silent Score!

“Not exactly,” Elizabeth says. “The company has become more aggressive in their buyout efforts. They’re offering me a tempting amount of money, but they want my decision sooner.”

“How soon?”

“I meet with them next Friday.”

I’m confused. “So what are you going to tell them?”

“It depends. Remember those end-of-August ad revenue goals I established?”

“Of course.” I’ve only built my entire summer around those numbers. “We’re right on target to reach them.”

“Not anymore. If you can reach those goals before my meeting, I won’t sell the station. Otherwise, I’m afraid I’ll have no choice. Their offer’s too good to turn down.”

She can’t mean what I think she means. “You want us to meet the end-of-August goals by next Friday?”

“Yes.”

“In ten days.”

“Yes.”

“That’s not fair.”

Elizabeth clicks her tongue. “Grow up, Ciara. It’s business. I have a very long future to think of.”

I sink back against the lounge chair, heat pounding my temples. “So we might have done all this work just so you can make more money?”

“Don’t worry. If I sell, I’ll make sure it trickles down to your friends. Some sort of pension arrangement should set them up nicely for a few years.”

“A few years? They’re immortal!” I check my surroundings to make sure no one heard that last part except Lori. “They need the station to keep from fading.”

“Then you make sure they don’t lose it.” She hangs up.

I slap the phone shut so hard, it flies out of my hand and skitters across the concrete.

Lori clears her throat. “That didn’t sound good.”

I stare at the clear blue sky as I bang my head against the back of the chair. I’ll give Franklin a few more minutes’ peace before I tell him we have to cram six weeks’ worth of work into ten days.

So much for being one with the sun.

19
Steal My Sunshine

“I’m considering violence,” I tell Shane as we wait in line at Legal Grounds. The crappy mandolin trio in the next room makes enough noise that no one will overhear us. “A tag team of Regina and Jim could scare the Skywave executives out of buying the station. A corpse-a-day-till-they-go-away campaign.” I hop a little on my toes. “What do you think?”

“I think you need sleep.”

“I need coffee.” I crane my neck to see the cash register. “What’s taking so long? Anyone who waits until they get to the counter to pick what they want should be sent to the end of the line.”

A gaggle of college-age girls drifts by. “Hi Shane!” they coo in unison. He offers them a friendly wave and smile. I sway enough to stumble into him.

“Sorry, so clumsy tonight. And tired.” I rest my head on his biceps until the girls have passed. Not that I feel possessive or anything.

“Like I said, you need sleep.”

“Not until the sales goals are met. Elizabeth’s meeting is in less than a week, and we’re not even halfway there. If she sells the station, Skywave’s juggernaut of soul-suckery will trample everything you and the other DJs have worked for.”

“Don’t worry.” He rubs the stiff part of my shoulder. “Sometimes just when things look hopeless, that’s when everything works out.”

“That doesn’t sound like something you’d say.”

“No, normally I’d say that when things seem hopeless, it just means you have no idea how much worse they’re about to get. But I’m trying to calm you down.” He rotates me toward the counter. “I recommend chamomile tea.”

I stagger forward and give the barista a shaky smile. “Gigante mocha, organic two-percent milk, one-and-a-half shots of coconut, no whipped cream. Please.” The last word comes out like Oliver Twist asking for more gruel.

Shane gets a black-no-sugar coffee, then I let him drive us back to the station so I can gulp my drink more quickly. He shifts gears like a natural, never racing the engine or coming close to a stall.

“After this is all over,” he says as we pull into the parking lot, “I want to take you out to dinner. Like a real date.”

“I hear people do those things.”

We get out of the car. “Maybe even a movie,” he says. “I hear they made a sequel to Wayne’s World.”

I laugh, not caring whether he means it as a joke. “Wait, you left your coffee.” I bend over inside the car to reach it.

When I straighten up and turn around, Shane is looming over me, fangs bared. His hand covers my mouth, cutting short my shriek.

A cold presence seeps across my skin, making me shiver. Oh God, all along it was Shane.

I squeeze the coffee cups in fear, sending hot liquid down the front of my shirt.

Then I realize he’s looking over my head into the woods. His nostrils flare and his jaw trembles. “Something’s out there,” he whispers, dropping his hand from my mouth.

“It’s what I felt before.”

Suddenly Shane jerks his head to look behind him, a moment before a spark of white light flashes from the other end of the parking lot, followed by a very human-sounding profanity.

A beastly growl rumbles deep in Shane’s throat. Footsteps pound away toward the back of the building. Shane takes off in swift and silent pursuit.

As I follow them, I hear the muffled sounds of a struggle, topped off by a metallic bang. Then Shane calls, “I got him.”

I tiptoe around the corner of the building and see Shane crouched next to the Dumpster, poring through a leather wallet. A dark-haired young man with a mustache lies crooked and motionless on the gravel beside him.

I step back. “You killed him.”

Shane glances at me. “Of course not. He hit his head. When he comes around, I want to know more about him than he knows about us.” He hands me the man’s digital camera. “See what pictures he has. I can’t make it work.”

I flip to the last image, which causes me to almost drop the camera. He must have taken it just before Shane grabbed him, because there’s my dude, frozen in his fanged glory, reaching toward the lens with a red rage.

“You take a scary candid.” I delete it. The next few shots are of the station, time-stamped earlier this evening. “Who is this guy?”

“Name’s Travis Tucker, according to his driver’s license.” Shane stuffs it back into the wallet and rifles through the other cards. “He belongs to Triple A, the Olive Garden frequent diner club, and a fan club for—who the hell is Jeff Gordon?”

“This Travis Tucker’s been spying on the station for weeks.” I flip faster through the old photos. “Hey, that’s not a bad shot of me in my car. I’d keep it if it didn’t give me the heebie-jeebies.”

“I think I know why he’s spying on us.” Shane hands me an official-looking card. “Because it’s his job.”

The card features the colorful insignia of the State of Maryland, right above the words “Private Investigator.”

“Son of a bitch.” I squint at the fine print. “Probably shady. His license expired years ago.” I kneel beside Travis Tucker—if that is his real name—and sift through his jacket pockets, turning up a pair of sunglasses and a cell phone.

“Business cards.” Shane drops the wallet on the ground to shuffle through the stack. “Maybe one is his client.”

“Does he have any money?” Not that I would steal it.

Shane opens the billfold. “Thirteen bucks and a check.”

I try to access the cell phone’s contact list, but it’s password-protected.

“Uh-oh.” Shane hands me the check. “We’d better call the others.”

“Skywave is spying on us?”

Regina’s hair stands on end even more than usual. All the DJs except Monroe, who’s on the air, are gathered in the lounge to hear what happened.

“Where is this detective now?” Noah asks from the middle of the sofa, where he sits, arms crossed.

“In the Dumpster,” I say as I pace past him for the third time, “with a rock on the lid no human could move. We gagged him so he can’t scream when he wakes up.”

“Which should be any minute.” From his position near the door, Shane gives the clock a worried glance. “I hope.”

At the table, Regina exchanges pensive looks with Jim and Spencer. “It’s better if he doesn’t wake up,” she says quietly. “Or if he does, that he goes back to sleep forever.”

I turn to her, positive I heard wrong. “You want to kill him? In cold blood?”

“I bet it’ll be pretty warm.” Jim tilts back his chair, his bare feet propped against the edge of the card table. “Unless you already did him in.”

“We didn’t,” Shane snaps. “So let’s quit jaggin’ around and figure out what we’re really going to do about Travis.”

Regina shoves back her chair and stands up. “We have to get rid of him. It’s better that way.”

“Better for who?” Shane and I ask in unison. I’m glad he thinks they’re just as cracked as I do.

“Better for the station,” Regina replies, “better for all of us, but especially better for you.” She glares at Shane. “You could be charged with assault.”

“Assault is one thing,” I point out, “but first-degree murder is a whole other ball game.”

“Don’t worry.” Regina stretches her shoulders and neck. “You won’t have to watch. I’ll take care of it.”

“I want to help.” Jim gets up to join her. “I never killed someone on purpose before. Sounds like a trip.”

“‘A trip’?” My hands form useless fists. “You people are sick!”

“Honey, we’re not people.” Spencer follows Jim and Regina toward the door. “You keep forgetting that.”

Shane blocks their exit. “Don’t do it.”

“You think that little leech,” Regina points back at me, “cares what happens to you? She’ll get off with a slap on the wrist as an accessory, and you’ll go to jail. A jail with windows.”

For perhaps the first time, Shane pulls himself up to his full height, towering over his maker. “What did you call her?”

Regina wavers under his simmering stare. “I’m trying to protect you. That’s a hell of a lot more than she’ll do.”

“This isn’t about me.” I step forward and hold up Jolene’s business card, the one Shane found in Travis’s wallet. “I have a better idea, one that doesn’t involve bloodshed.”

“As if that’s a plus,” Regina says. “Come on, Noah.”

“Can’t we at least discuss it?” I fight to keep the panic out of my voice.

“If we let him go,” says Noah, who hasn’t moved from the couch, “Skywave will know the truth about us.” He folds his arms tighter and hunches his shoulders. “But to kill him, it’s wrong.”

“It’s not even necessary.” I hold up Travis’s camera. “I can delete the pictures.”

“There could be others,” Spencer points out.

“None of it is proof you guys are really vampires. We could say Shane put on plastic fangs for fun.”

“It doesn’t explain why he’s so fast and strong,” Jim says, “or why he had to knock this guy out to hide fake fangs.”

Shane bristles. “So I overreacted. You would’ve done the same thing.”

Jim shrugs. “No, I would’ve just killed him.”

“Right.” Regina shoves Shane aside with astounding ease. “Time to finish your half-assed job.” She reaches for the door.

I open the credenza drawer and grab Franklin’s box of sharpened pencils. I rip open the box and advance on Regina.

Before the others leap to defend her unlife, I fling the pencils, dozens of them, onto the floor. They spin and scatter across the rug and under the furniture.

Regina freezes. She stares at the pencils, then at me, with more hostility than I thought a Canadian could possess. A strangled cry escapes her throat as she fights the compulsion. Her hand tightens on the doorknob, then lets it go with a jerk.

She falls to her knees and crawls across the floor, gathering pencils and counting under her breath. Noah looks on, immobilized with indecision. Spencer and Jim shake their heads in sympathy and move toward the door.

“Don’t you dare go without me!” Regina clutches the pencils so hard, most of them snap in two. “Bugger all! Where was I? Twenty-seven or twenty-six?” Her hands shake with rage as she drops the broken pencils and sifts through them again.

I turn to the others. “Listen. If we play our cards right, we can use this guy Travis to our advantage.”

“Stop talking!” Regina is almost in tears. “I can’t concentrate.”

“If we can outwit Skywave,” Shane says, “beat them at their own game, I say let’s do it.”

The others eye him, then Regina, as if trying to determine who’s in charge.

Finally Jim shakes his head. “Too big an ‘if.’ Let’s waste the bastard.”

“Not without me!” Regina crawls under the table to retrieve the rest of the pencils. “Thirty-three, thirty-four— I’m almost done. Thirty-five—”

Jim opens the door. “What the hell?”

The detective is slumped on the bottom stairs, his head against the banister.

I step back. “It’s Travis.”

Regina blurs past me and pounces, grabbing the detective by the front of his shirt. Without waiting for him to scream or beg, she plunges her fangs into his throat. Shane moves to stop her, but before he gets there, she hurls Travis to the floor and starts to gag and cough like a cat with a hairball.

“He’s already dead.” She swabs the inside of her mouth with her finger. “Yecch. It’s like biting Jell-O.”

“No way.” Shane kneels beside Travis. “He hasn’t had time to get cold, unless he was—” He turns Travis on his side, revealing two other puncture wounds in his neck. “—drained.”

“You said you didn’t kill him,” Spencer says.

“I didn’t. I definitely didn’t bite him.” Shane looks at me. “You were there.”

True. But in the dark I might not have seen Travis’s wound.

Shane catches my dubious expression and stands to face me. “Ciara, I couldn’t have done this. There wasn’t time, and besides, I don’t kill people.”

I back away, hands out, trying to speak in a soothing voice. “You felt threatened. He fought back, right?”

“How can you believe I’d do this and then lie to you about it? Don’t you know me better than that?”

“Guys? He’s not dead.” Jim is examining Travis’s face. “Unless we stick an ‘un’ in front of it.”

He turns the man’s head to reveal a mouth full of blood. The teeth and gums are stained red like in a denture commercial.

I take a step closer. “Couldn’t that just be from—”

Travis’s eyes pop open. We all jump, but I’m the only one who screams when his fangs appear.

He starts to twitch and flop, shrieking with what sounds like pain. Jim tightens his hold on his shoulders. “Shh, don’t freak out, man. We’re here to help.”

Travis breaks out of Jim’s grip with the ease of a bat from a spiderweb. He leaps at me. I have time for one step backward before he knocks me to the ground.

“No!” My heels pedal the thin rug as I try to scramble out of his hands, one of which tightens around my waist while the other flattens my shoulder against the hard floor. Quick as a snake, his mouth slashes forward. I use my last breath to scream.

Shane’s face appears above us, his arm looped around Travis’s neck, barely holding him off me. I shove against the detective’s chest, but Shane and I together can’t match the strength of such a desperate hunger. In Travis’s watery green eyes I see that it’s a struggle for his survival against mine.

“Someone help me!” Shane shouts, but no one responds. “For fuck’s sake, she’s our friend!”

“And he’s one of us now.” Regina appears in my field of vision, arms crossed. “He needs blood.”

“He’ll kill her!” Shane’s face is red from the strain. Travis is drooling now, bloody saliva dripping onto my neck.

“Maybe not,” Spencer says. “And he’ll die if he doesn’t drink.”

“Man, that is not cool,” Jim observes, “turning someone, then leaving them to starve.”

I hurl pleading gibberish through a gurgle of tears.

“I swear,” Shane gasps, “if one of you doesn’t pull him off right now, I’ll—”

Suddenly Travis is jerked away from me. I hear a crash against the far wall, then lift my head to see Travis collapsed on the sofa, stunned.

Monroe stands next to us, looking down at Shane. He puts his hands in his pockets. “You’ll what?”

Travis lunges again, but Monroe grabs him with a deft gesture and suspends him off the ground, feet kicking. For the first time, WVMP’s oldest DJ looks straight at me.

“Run.”

I stumble to my feet and launch myself up the stairs.

At the top, I freeze, staring at the front door. Whatever killed Travis is out there.

I lock the door, grab another stash of sharpened pencils from Franklin’s desk, then scramble into David’s office.

The lock’s not enough. I slide two chairs and the small table against the door, then huddle beneath the desk.

For a minute or maybe longer, I hear nothing but my own unsteady breath. I clutch the pencils and take a few practice stabs at the air.

Footsteps approach the door. I hold my breath.

“Ciara?”

Shane. My voice sticks in my throat. He’s one of them.

“Ciara, I know you’re in there. I followed your scent. I’m alone, I swear.”

“Where is he?”

“They took him to our apartment to give him some bank blood, just to take the edge off. Then they’ll go visit a donor, one of the experienced ones.”

“Brilliant idea.” I spit out my words through the tears clogging my throat. “Why didn’t they think of that before, instead of waiting for him to eat me like he was their pet python?”

“I don’t know.” He hesitates. “But I think they feel bad about it now.”

A scoff is all I have to say about that.

“Can I come in?”

I shrink farther under the desk. “I don’t think I like vampires anymore.”

“Yeah, me neither.”

He waits in silence, though he could easily pick the lock and shove aside the furniture to get to me.

Finally I go to the door and listen hard against its wooden surface for other presences. Nothing. I pull back the table and chairs and open the door.

Shane moves slowly, as if I’ll spook and run away again, then puts his arms around me. I tremble, teeth chattering so hard it brings on an instant headache. The feeling reminds me of our first night together, when he nearly took my life. I should push him away, go home, pack my bags, and drive far out of the range of his perky, super-sensitive nose. Instead I pull him closer and let what little warmth he has seep into my skin and soothe the shivers.

We stay like that for a long time, saying nothing, until I state the obvious. “You saved my life.”

“Monroe saved your life. And Noah, who went to get him.”

“But you started it.”

“Then I guess you owe me.”

My knees go weak, literally. The adrenaline of the attack has worn off, and so has the triple mocha with organic two percent milk and a pump-and-a-half of coconut syrup. I need to lie down, but. ..

“Come home with me,” I tell Shane.

He eases me out of his embrace far enough to look into my eyes. “You don’t owe me that much.”

“I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

He lets out a deep sigh, then brushes the hair from my forehead to kiss it. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been so sure of anything. But then again, I’m suffering from shock and sleep deprivation.” I blink at him. “Which actually shrinks the list of things I’m sure of, so this seems like a safe bet.”

“It is safe. I promise.”

He takes my hand and leads me home.

20
Fragile

By the time we arrive at my apartment door, my mind has cleverly locked away the terror of the recent past to focus on that of the immediate future, on what awaits us at the top of these stairs.

I avoid Shane’s eyes as we ascend side by side. Sex was probably implied in my invitation, but after what just happened, I’m not sure I’m ready. I wish I had wine, but one drink would snag my last scrap of consciousness. Even now it’s just nervous energy keeping me awake.

I stop outside my room and turn to Shane. “Why don’t you get something to drink while I—I mean, not drink. Yes, drink—from the fridge. I’ll have iced tea.” I step back into my bedroom, trying to muster a seductive gaze. “Give me a minute to put on something a little less Almost Got Killed In.” I start to close the door.

“Ciara?”

“Yes?”

He rubs his face and hesitates a moment. “Nothing red, okay?”

Ah. I see. Deirdre wore red the night he drank from her. He told her on the phone, Red is good. Good, as in, thirst-inducing.

I shut the door.

Damn his feral instincts, I look hot in red. I sift through my lingerie drawer. Tiger stripes? Leopard spots? Definitely not—should probably downplay the wild-animal aspects considering I was almost eaten alive less than a half hour ago. If only I’d had a bridal shower—without a wedding, of course—I’d have a collection of demure yet alluring white teddies.

My mind and my eye arrive together at the solution. I slip into said solution, then light a few candles and turn off the lamp before lying on the bed. When Shane knocks, I invite him in.

He opens the door and sees me. The force of his laughter sends him halfway out into the hall.

“Thanks,” I tell him. “That really sets the mood.”

He approaches, all caution and tension gone, and sits next to me on the bed. “You’re like a warrior, wearing the mantle of her fallen enemy.”

“Jolene’s far from fallen.”

“You’ll take care of that soon.” He traces the edge of the letters on the white tank top. “I can’t imagine you as anyone’s ‘Bride 2B.’”

“Because I’d look ridiculous in virginal white?”

He takes his hand away and sets my tea on the night-stand. “Because you don’t like to be tied down.”

I’m too tired for that discussion. “But hey, if I ever do get engaged, I’ll already have the shirt. They say that’s half the battle.” I rest my increasingly heavy head on the pillow. “Come here.”

He stretches out on his side facing me. “I’ve dreamed of this, your hair spread across a pillow.” He strokes it, making my scalp tingle. “I wish I could see it in the sun-light.”

“I’ll get you a picture. You can put it next to the one of my alphabetized CD shelves. Have your very own Ciara Griffin gallery.”

This remark seems to spark a thought. “Is Griffin your real last name?”

“You think I made it up? Playing on the word ‘grift’ to laugh at the world?”

“Did you?”

“Pretty much. Hold still.” I reach out and ski-jump my finger off the end of his nose. “I’ve been dying to do that ever since we met.”

He snorts. “You’re a very kinky girl.”

“I’m a very tired girl.”

“So what’s your real last name?”

My goofy smile fades. “It’s not important. I’m not that person anymore.”

“It’s exhausting, isn’t it? Trying to outrun the past?”

I don’t answer, hoping this thought will lead to his story of how he became a vampire. Yet I’m not sure how long I could stay awake listening to his soothing voice.

When he doesn’t continue, I say, “What were you like when you were alive?”

“Probably not your ideal mate.” His fingers trickle down my neck to my shoulder. “I had depression. Pretty bad at times.”

“Did it go away when you turned?”

“It’s part of who I am, so not entirely. Becoming a vampire doesn’t give you a personality transplant. But it helped the chemical part. It ended the medical causes, the same way it would cure me if I’d had diabetes or a drug addiction.” His voice stays nonchalant. “Which I did.”

“Wow. That’s rough.”

“The way I treated myself, it was a miracle I made it to twenty-seven with all my extremities intact.” He gives a wry smile. “If I hadn’t died, I would’ve died by now.”

“I’m glad you didn’t die. I mean, I’m glad you did. I mean, I’m glad you’re here.” I touch his chest. “Really glad.”

“I think we’re done talking.” He draws his finger down the neckline of the tank top, between my breasts. I close my eyes to savor the sensation, and suddenly feel like I’m plummeting, then tipping over like at the bottom of a carnival ride.

I jerk my eyelids apart. “Do you want some music?”

He shakes his head. “All I want to hear is you.”

Aww, he’s so roman—

The next sound I hear is that of my own snoring. I rub my eyes and see Shane lying on his back next to me.

“God, I’m so sorry. How long was I asleep?”

“About three minutes. Plenty of time to have my way with you. You liked it, judging by the way you flopped around.”

I giggle like a drunk girl. “Can we try this again?”

“Maybe tomorrow.” He tugs at the sheets, sliding them out from under my body, then pulls them over me. “Tonight, just sleep.”

“Don’t go.”

“Nothing but the sun will make me leave.”

“Set the clock so you don’t catch fire,” I mumble.

“I did, plus the alarm on my cell phone as a backup.”

I hear him blow out the candles, then take off his jeans and shirt. I want to open my eyes to see him, but exhaustion has glued my lids together.

Shane slides under the sheets and pulls me close. The feel of his skin against mine should start my blood racing, should yank me into instant horniness. But instead it just makes me think how right and safe it feels to have him in my bed, and makes me think how much I love him.

Wait...

Oh, crap.

My alarm cries out, echoed by a beeping across the room. Darkness shrouds the bedroom window. An arm reaches over me and silences the clock. I close my eyes again, hoping sleep won’t let go.

It doesn’t. The last thing I feel is a kiss on my bare shoulder, then the emptiness of an unshared bed.

My eyes open to a yellow glow around my window. The reawakened alarm clock says 7:30. I smack the snooze button and turn over, where my arm flops onto the other pillow and hits a piece of paper.

Lying on the indentation from his head is a note from Shane:

Ciara,

I set your coffee to start brewing at 7:20, so it should be ready by now. I put three sugars in the bottom of the mug, so just pour and stir. I know you like it strong and sweet.

Shane

P.S.: The Dave Matthews Band should be filed under D, not M. Til fix it tonight.

The smell of fresh-brewed coffee drags me out of bed by the nostrils. Though the seven hours of slumber barely made the minimum payment on my sleep debt, I’m refreshed and alert enough to walk in a straight line toward the kitchen. I realize with no small shred of astonishment that I slept better last night next to a vampire than I have in years.

My feet stop. I stare across the room at the coffee-maker, whose orange light glows with pride to signal the brewing of another satisfying pot. But I’m not looking at the coffee. I’m remembering my last thought before I fell asleep in Shane’s arms.

That I love him.

The coffeemaker plops one last drop into the carafe, to accentuate my epiphany.

It’s a delusion, an emotional mirage, a by-product of exhaustion and gratitude. He did save my life, after all.

My feet unfreeze and take me to the pot. Three sugars sit at the bottom of the beagle mug. I reach for the pot and realize I’m still holding his note. Instead of throwing it away, I transfer it to my left hand, which, against orders, clutches it like a sacred relic. I stare down in annoyance.

The phrase “Bride 2B” mocks me from my chest.

Hmm . . .

Jolene.

Travis.

As I pour the coffee, I realize that the man who tried to kill me could end up saving us all.

Franklin greets me at the office door with a stack of plates and forks. “It’s about time. I’ve had to sit here smelling that thing for fifteen minutes.” He sees the thermos in my hand. “Good, you brought some decent coffee.”

“I need to talk to you and David right away.” I glance past him at my desk. On it sits an object with a large clear, plastic lid. “What the hell is that?”

“An olive branch, apparently. Hopefully a chocolate-flavored, butter-cream-icing olive branch.”

I go to my desk, expecting the strange item to explode any moment. It’s a large sheet cake with white icing and a label from a local all-night supermarket. Scrawled across the surface in green decorating-tube frosting is one word: SORRY. Four initials, T, S, J, and R, appear at the bottom, penned with a thinner decorating tube. Off to the side is a roughly drawn frowny face with tiny fangs.

I can barely lift my jaw to speak. “They stood there last night while I almost got eaten, and to make up for it, they buy me a cake!”

“Can we eat it now? I didn’t have breakfast.” Franklin pops the lid. “Do you want a corner piece?”

“I don’t want any piece! I don’t want anything from them.”

David opens his office door. “What’s going on? Ooh, cake.”

“You won’t believe what’s going on.” I relate last night’s harrowing events.

Franklin displays his typical lack of wonder. “I told you those pencils would come in handy.”

David shakes himself out of shock. “Why didn’t you call me when it happened?”

“Hey, I was too busy trying not to be ground into human hamburger meat, okay?”

My phone rings, from the basement line. Shane’s checking in on me—how sweet. I pick up the receiver. “My hero!”

“It’s just a twenty-dollar cake,” Regina says. “You did get it, right?”

“You—” Every profanity in my arsenal strives to be the first out of my mouth, leaving me speechless.

“Shane said I should apologize directly instead of through baked goods.”

“How could you—”

“So I’m sorry for almost watching you die. I got caught up in the moment. The way you were screaming—”

“Stop—”

“—you’re lucky we didn’t all fall down and take a slurp.”

“After all I’ve done for you, you would’ve let that thing tear out my throat. I thought you were my friends!”

“We are,” she says calmly. “We’re also vampires. We look out for each other.”

“What did you do with—” I can’t say my almost-killer’s name. “—with him?”

“He’s here, under our care. Poor kid’s tired and cranky, like a baby switching from breast milk to formula.”

“Pardon my lack of giving a shit. Put him on the phone.” I don’t want to talk to him now or ever, but I need answers about Jolene and Skywave.

“He’s not ready to interact with people. Monroe and Spencer and Jim are taking him to find his maker tonight.”

“Let me guess: Gideon?” I give David a pointed look.

“Yep, the scuzzbag,” Regina says. “This was the first shot from his camp. They want us to stop the campaign.”

“If he’s so dangerous, why take Travis to see him?”

“They belong together, at least while Travis is young. It’s a vampire thing. But more importantly, it’s time to negotiate. Gideon told Travis to tell us that next time, he’ll leave a dead body where the police can trace it back to us.”

“Won’t that defeat Gideon’s goal of keeping vampires a secret?”

“It would defeat everything, but us first. Reminds me of the Cold War. We’ve got to lower tensions without totally capitulating.” A moaning comes in the background. “I better go take care of Travis. Tell Elizabeth to meet the guys at Gideon’s place tonight.”

“For what?”

Regina sighs. “For detente.”

21
Bigmouth Strikes Again

I’ve never ridden in a Mercedes before, not even an old one like this. Even the tan vinyl of the backseat feels elegant. I try not to stroke it too much.

“Our file on Gideon is pretty slim,” Elizabeth says to David, who sits in the passenger’s seat. “We know he’s well over a hundred, probably American, and that he runs a compound out in the Catoctin Mountains, not far from Camp David. It’s sort of a sanctuary for old vampires who can’t hack reality anymore. Until now he’s been content to leave the rest of the world alone. In fact, he seems fanatical about keeping his vampires free of human influence.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Notions of purity, I suppose. Superiority.”

“What about you? Do you think vampires are better than humans?”

“Certainly not.” She looks at David. “Really, I don’t.” I lean forward. “Let me make sure I have these factions straight: The Control protects humans from vampires, right?”

“When necessary,” Elizabeth says. “But we also protect vampires from themselves.”

“Sometimes at the cost of their freedom.”

“Only when—”

“Let me finish my thought. Gideon’s gang also wants to protect vampires, but they want more than just to survive. They want isolation and absolute freedom, and they’re willing to kill humans like Travis to get it.”

She frowns at me in the rearview mirror. “So it would appear.”

A faint queasiness spreads through my gut. We’re about to enter the domain of a vampire survivalist, escorted by the embodiment of everything he hates.

It starts to rain as we take the exit for Thurmont, Maryland. As we enter a valley between the mountains, WVMP’s signal and Noah’s reggae tunes crackle and fade to static. Elizabeth switches off the radio.

“I’ve been thinking about this all day,” she says, “and I’ve come to a decision.” She pauses and looks at each of us, clearly relishing our curiosity.

Finally David says, “A decision about what?”

“I’m not going to sell the station.”

I don’t dare believe my ears. David gasps and says, “Why not?”

“It’s exactly what Gideon would want. I sell VMP, the campaign ends, and he wins.” Her hands tighten on the steering wheel. “I can’t have that. We’re going to make it the best damn radio station ever—with vampires.”

“What if he comes after us again?” David asks her.

“Now that he’s made a move, the Control will dispatch a security team to protect the station until he’s—until the threat has been neutralized.”

I scoff. “So someone had to die before the Control would protect us? Travis could’ve killed me, you know.”

“I’m sorry.” She shakes her head. “But no law enforcement agency sets up round-the-clock guard just because of a threatening phone call. Look at all the battered women killed after a lot more warning than Gideon gave us. There aren’t enough resources to make the world safe for everyone.”

“Hey, Ciara?” David turns in his seat to face me. “Congratulations. You did it.”

“No, Gideon did it.”

“Not entirely,” Elizabeth says. “I wouldn’t keep the station just to spite Gideon. If it were still hemorrhaging money, I’d sell it in a heartbeat.”

“Oh. Good. I guess.” I’m glad no one mentions that without the campaign, Gideon would still be a happy hermit, and there’d be one less dead detective. “Whatever the reason, thank you.”

David’s gratitude—and abject adoration—requires no words as he gazes at Elizabeth. I wonder what her change of heart means for their twisted relationship.

She slows the car and peers through the wet windshield at a group of mailboxes, the only ones in sight on this dark and wooded road. Elizabeth glances at a sheet of paper taped to the dashboard. “This is it, according to our files.”

We bumble up the steeply sloping lane, which becomes gravel, then dirt, as it enters a thicker patch of woods. I see nothing but trees blurred by sheets of rain.

We come to a gate in a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Elizabeth pulls up to a small white box. She rolls down her window and pushes a button under a round speaker. “We’re here to see Gideon.”

After a moment of static, a raspy male voice says, “Front door.” It’s hard to tell from only two words, but I don’t think it’s the same guy as the threatening caller.

The gate swings open, and we continue down the lane, which ends in front of a long white rancher. On the porch sits a single empty rocking chair, nodding in the blustery wind. The yard is about two acres large, with what looks like a playground toward the back.

Several antique and classic cars, including Jim’s blue Charger, gather on the grassy hillside to the left of the house. We pull in among them.

Elizabeth leans over and opens the glove compartment. In the process, her arm slides against David’s knee. His face goes all blissy. Yuck, just when I thought he was over her, she reels him back in. But at least he still has a job.

She sits up and offers two wooden stakes. David takes one.

“I’d rather go unarmed,” I tell her, “than carry something I don’t know how to use. Besides, they’re bound to search us.”

“That’s the point,” Elizabeth says. “I want them to know we mean business.” She pulls my wrist forward and slaps the blunt end of the stake into my palm. “It’s not complicated. One hard jab to the heart.”

“I know, I know.” I want to drop the thing, but her hand surrounds mine.

“That’s only half of it. You have to pull the stake out again.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where—” Elizabeth turns her head. “Tell her, David.”

He looks away, out the window. “That’s where their life flows out.”

“Don’t whitewash it.” Her voice is sharper than the thing I’ve got in my hand.

“After the stake is pulled out,” David says, “their bodies go through the hole.”

“Where?” I ask.

Elizabeth titters. “That’s the eternal question for all of us, isn’t it? Heaven? Hell? The never-ending void?”

“No, I mean, do they go through the hole and splatter all over the room, or do they just disappear?”

David and Elizabeth look at each other. His face is etched with guilt; hers, with bitterness.

“Something in-between,” he tells me. “Pray you never have to see it.”

The music hits us even with the door closed. Standing on the porch, we can hear the thumping of a swing rhythm and the high calling of trumpets. Through a bay window to our right, thin curtains show shadows dipping and swaying with acrobats’ ease.

Elizabeth knocks hard. A wind gust drenches us with rain and scoots the rocking chair across the porch.

The door opens to reveal a tall dark man, powerfully built enough to make his magenta zoot suit look macho.

“I am Lawrence,” he says in a voice as deep as a foghorn. I notice that it doesn’t match the one on the phone or the security gate. Apparently Gideon likes to spread out his flunky work.

He tips back the brim of his felt hat and examines us. “Us” meaning Elizabeth. The look he gives me and David is the kind you give dog shit to avoid stepping in it.

Finally, after submitting her to a gaze more penetrating than an MRI scan, he nods at Elizabeth. His large, dark palm unfolds. “Give up the tree bits.”

I pull the stake out from under my shirt and hand it over with relief. I’d be more comfortable packing an Uzi.

The living room just inside the front door is larger than I expected; the wall between it and the adjoining dining room must have been knocked down to create one huge space. A space filled with vampires.

Some bop and jump to the wild, pulsing music; others stroll the perimeter with drinks of wine or blood, smoking cigarettes through long, silver-tipped holders. Judging by their dress, all are at least as old as Monroe. The epochs mix and mingle: a bob-haired woman in a red flapper outfit fox-trots with a man in a dirt-brown bowler hat and morning suit.

“Excuse me.” A plump young woman with curly red hair nearly steps on my foot. She brushes past in her cigarette girl outfit and edges around the room with her tray, delivering smokes and drinks. I’m pretty sure she’s human, judging by the way she wobbles in her high-heeled pumps.

Despite the vampires’ aura of cool, they all look faded. They glance at us with empty eyes, moving, dancing, and speaking as if they’re going through the motions of an endlessly repetitive existence, the meaning or purpose for which they’ve long forgotten. I hate the thought of the VMP vamps getting those cold, dead eyes. Better to be weird than catatonic.

“They’re waiting for you downstairs,” Lawrence tells us as he opens one of the doors in the hallway to our left.

The stairway is so dimly lit, I can’t even see to the bottom. Elizabeth steps in front of me and starts to descend. I grope for the banister and follow, willing my knees to keep their strength. David comes up behind me, with Lawrence bringing up the rear.

At the bottom of the stairs lies what looks like a typical basement family room. The only light comes from a large TV in the corner with a tiny black-and-white screen. My eyes adjust to see Spencer, Monroe, and Jim lounging in a set of armchairs.

Someone’s pacing behind the love seat with shaky steps. He sees me, and his hands fly to his mouth.

Travis.

For one moment, as I look into the eyes of the creature who tried to kill me, I wish I had that stake back in my hand. But his trembling fingers and tight face tell me that like most wild animals, he’s more afraid of me than I am of him.

Jim stands and takes Travis’s arm. “Go on now,” he says, “tell her you’re sorry.”

“No time for this jive,” growls Lawrence. “Gideon is waiting.”

Travis jolts at his maker’s name. His expression changes to rapture, like someone about to meet a celebrity. I notice he’s lost the mustache—for easier slurping, I suppose. He looks younger and halfway cute now.

I look around, expecting to see Gideon in another corner, but we’re led to yet another staircase, beneath the one we just descended, and I realize this is no ordinary house.

We descend the stairs to the next level. Though the basement above held a musty smell, this second one feels dry and clean. I peer down the hallways lined with closed doors. The recessed ceiling lights provide an almost human amount of illumination.

Before turning to descend the next flight of stairs, Jim and Elizabeth stop on the landing and sniff. Her eyes narrow in anger, while Jim looks intrigued. I tap Elizabeth’s elbow.

“It’s the farm,” she whispers to me and David. “Just like we suspected.”

Odd, it doesn’t smell like a farm—no animal manure or straw or ...

Oh. They don’t keep animals here.

“Disgusting,” she mutters.

“But convenient,” Jim points out as we continue down the stairs toward the next level. “It’s like having room service instead of eating out.”

“You want to live here?” she snaps. “Go ahead.”

“I’m too young for this place.” He lowers his voice. “It’s full of squares.”

I glance at David beside me to see if we should worry about turning into livestock. He looks pissed rather than frightened, so maybe these people are volunteers. Food and shelter in exchange for blood might be a good tradeoff if a person came from rough circumstances. But it feels like prison, a reverse image of the Control’s vampire retirement homes. I have a strong desire to be somewhere altogether else.

Behind us, Travis mumbles to himself like a toddler. “Ice train. Slowly and carefully. No, I don’t want chicken.” At least I think that’s what he says.

At the bottom of this longest staircase, our guide leads us to the right. This looks like the bottom floor—not that I can see much in the nearly nonexistent light.

We head down a narrow stone corridor, past open bedrooms containing writhing, moaning figures in candlelit shadows. Even my limited human nose smells blood. My pace slows until Travis bumps into me from behind. He gasps and leaps back.

Someone takes my hand. David. I sigh in relief and squeeze hard. His skin is warm with life that comes from eating hamburgers and salads and Nutty Buddys, and that’s all that matters.

Ahead to the right, near the end of the corridor, firelight dances against the wall. Our guide ushers us through a door on the left, which is flanked by two beefy guards who look like sewer rats on steroids.

A massive man sits cross-legged in the corner behind a campfire, his back to the wall. His face is hidden under the rim of a battered light gray fedora. The flames illuminate what must have once been a high-fashion morning suit and waistcoat. His posture is slumped but so perfectly motionless it gives the impression of rigidity and control.

Lawrence shuts the door behind us, blotting out all sound but the crackling logs and Travis’s shaky wheezing.

The man raises his head. David and I step back. The chills skipping among my vertebrae make my first reaction to Monroe seem like one long yawn.

His wide, ink-black eyes wield a movie-star magnetism beneath low, brooding brows. The look reminds me of Orson Welles in Macbeth, with just as much sanity. His dark hair, slicked back, sets off the flawless ivory of his skin, the color of piano keys in candlelight.

“Welcome,” he says, without a trace of it in his voice.

At the sound, Travis flings himself on the dirt next to the man who must be Gideon. Oblivious to the fire a few inches away, the detective presses his forehead to the ground next to his maker’s knee and utters a rapid, incoherent plea.

In response, Gideon pats him on the head, causing Travis to shudder and moan. Then the older vampire gives what seems to be, from his end, a light shove. This small effort sends Travis tumbling across the room to crash into the opposite wall. The other vamps gasp and hiss.

“Bastard,” Elizabeth snarls to Gideon. So much for detente. “First you turn him and leave him without food, then you reject him? What kind of vampire are you?”

“If I don’t conform to your code,” Gideon says evenly, “it’s for a good reason.”

“And what might that be?”

“He’s an example, a demonstration, if you will.” Gideon extends his arm toward Travis and crooks his finger once. Travis scuttles to him like a broken-legged crab. When he gets close, Gideon flattens his palm in a stop gesture. Travis freezes, staring at his maker with pleading eyes. I want to look away, for fear that Gideon will order Travis to stick his head in the fire. The detective would do it, happily—their connection is that palpable.

“Very nice,” Elizabeth says. “A demonstration of your sadism, like we needed further proof.”

“A demonstration of my power.” Gideon keeps his unblinking gaze locked with Travis’s. “And of what will happen again if the chicanery doesn’t stop.”

A corner of my stomach begins a cold burn.

“This WVMP foolishness,” he continues, “telling the truth disguised as a lie. Duping people with their own skepticism. The slickest grift is no grift at all.” He shifts his eyes to me. “Isn’t that right, Ciara?”

I stammer, my throat pinned shut. It feels like he’s inhaling me with every breath.

“It must end before someone gets hurt,” he says.

“With all respect, sir,” Spencer says as he kneels beside the trembling Travis, “somebody already got hurt.”

“Then help him if you feel charitable.” Gideon waves them away. “The life of any one vampire is not my concern. My duty lies with us all.” He regards David, Elizabeth, and me. “Some humans won’t be fooled by your gimmick. They’ll come to understand that vampires truly exist. Then we’ll have a war.” He spreads his hands. “Or a curious person might want to see what happens if one of your friends meets the rising sun, or gets a taste of fire.” He lifts a log out of the flames and waves the burning end at the vampires, who jump back. “Just to jazz up a Saturday night.”

Maybe he has a point. Maybe this campaign has put them in mortal danger. Maybe things were better before. Safer.

Then I think of Shane’s transformation over the last month, the way he’s learned to love new music, learned to drive a stick shift—the way he’s learned to learn again. How he looks happy to exist in this crazy, wide-open, scary-as-shit world of Today. The Today that makes him look forward to Tomorrow.

“You’re right,” I say.

Gideon’s eyebrows pop up, then scrunch together, as if he’s surprised and confused to be addressed by a mere human.

“All of that could happen,” I continue, “despite our precautions. They could all go poof, either by accident or design. But a vampire’s life—a human’s life, for that matter— is always a precarious thing.” I look at the walls of his cave. “Better to hide in the light than hide in the dark.”

“This is not a hideout,” Gideon says. “This is a fortress.”

I keep my voice soft. “And what’s a fortress for? Keeping out the things that scare you.”

“The things that threaten us.” His eyes narrow on Elizabeth’s face. “I’ve seen what they do”—his voice shakes with rage—”those Control humans and their vampire whores.”

Elizabeth maintains a stony demeanor. “The Control protects vampires.”

“By keeping us in line,” he says with a snarl, “by serving the goals of humans. We have a right to live in peace.”

“You call this peace?” She points at the ceiling. “Holding humans captive?”

“Our guests choose to be here,” he says.

“Because you’ve turned yourself into a cult leader, like Jim Jones or David Koresh.” She stops and shakes her head. “You have no idea who those men are. You have no idea how backward this all is, because you’re still stuck in World War One. Which is why you and every other vampire need the Control.”

This undead Crossfire episode is getting us nowhere. I step forward, closer to the flames than any of the vampires will dare, and speak to Gideon again. “If you’ve been spying on us, you know how happy the DJs have been this summer. They’re truly in the world. They’re living.”

“Perhaps living at the price of survival,” he says.

“Isn’t that their choice to make? You talk about freedom from the Control, but you’ll never be free if you let fear make all your choices.” I can hear my mom and dad speak through me, and in my mind the tiny room turns into a crowded tent full of lights and music and hallelujahs. “I saw people who couldn’t walk because they were afraid to fall. I saw them rise out of their wheelchairs, throw away their crutches, and dance a jig, the moment they let go of that fear.”

“Your mind tricks may work on weak humans,” Gideon rumbles, “but vampires are not human.”

“You’re wrong.” I point at the three DJs. “Humans still live inside them, whether they admit it or not.”

Gideon looks amused. “And how long have you known them?”

“Long enough to know they believe in things. They believe in the music with every scrap of their souls. They believe in finding a balance between today and yesterday. Hell, they even believe I’m a crappy poker player.”

“Why should that impress me?”

“Because believing is what being alive is all about.” Daddy would’ve liked that one. I move in for the close. “Gideon, just let go of that fear, tell it to pull its poisonous claws out of you.” I gesture to the fire. “It’s fear keeping you crammed into that corner because you don’t trust anyone with your back. Fear made your neighbors in Camp David build bombs so that they have to hide underground like moles from a hawk. And it’s fear, in the end, that’ll kill us all.”

Imaginary amens reverberate in my mind as I turn to Elizabeth. She nods slowly and smiles. I step to her side to create a united front. Yeah, sistah.

After a long moment, Gideon speaks. “You think you know all about fear, little girl?”

He holds out his hand to Lawrence, who slaps a stake into his palm. Gideon keeps his focus on me as his arm flicks back, then forward. The stake blurs through the air.

I look down to see my shirt dripping with blood. Holy shit, did he just stake me? I wish I’d answered my mom’s e-mail.

My knees turn to gelatin as cries of dismay echo from a distance. Someone sobs the word “no” again and again.

My hands grab at my chest to pull out the stake, which, I realize, isn’t there. The drops of blood all point from the same direction.

Elizabeth.

22
Darkness on the Edge of Town

I turn to see her crumpled on the floor, head and shoulders in David’s lap, legs skewed to the side. The bottom half of the stake protrudes from her chest, which is blanketed in blood. She clutches David’s shirt.

“P-pull it out. Please.” She coughs a spurt of blood over her chin. “It hurts, it hurts so bad.”

David’s face is soaked in tears. “I can’t.”

“Please.” Her voice pitches up to a spine-grating octave. “Pull it out, oh God, make it stop, David.”

He leans over her and grips the stake. The muscles of his arm tighten, then release. “I can’t do that.” He lowers his head. “Not to you.”

I kneel next to them and wrap my hands around the stake, covering his.

His grip tightens as he stares at me. “You don’t understand.”

“David!” Elizabeth lets loose a gurgling scream. She tries to cough again, but only pulls more blood into her lungs. Her eyes roll up to show pure white, and her hands flail at us, nails scratching my bare arms.

“David, she’s in pain. We can stop it.” I plant my feet under myself for better leverage. “On three, okay?”

His gaze meets mine with agony, then returns to her face.

“One,” I whisper. She’s looking at me instead of him. “Two.” Come on, Elizabeth, give him one last look. Don’t waste your final sight on my silly mug.

Her eyes close, and when they open again, they focus on David.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“Three!”

I fall backward, the stake clutched in my fists. One of Gideon’s door guards snatches the weapon from me. I sit up to see David cradling Elizabeth in his lap, stroking her hair. Blood gushes from the wound, but nothing else happens. Maybe Gideon missed her heart, or maybe she never was a vampire. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen her fangs.

Suddenly she begins to tremble, but it’s not like any spasm I’ve ever seen. It’s like every atom is vibrating, ready to trade places with another one at the opposite edge of her body. David lays her gently on the floor and backs away. He puts an arm around my shoulders and covers my eyes with the other palm. “Ciara, don’t look.”

I swipe his hand from my face but don’t push him away. The others, except for Travis and Gideon, have already turned their heads. I clutch David’s arm with both hands and watch.

The blood runs back into the hole, trickling like rain down a windshield. Maybe the wound is healing itself, the way the scratches on Shane’s back disappeared.

But now her flesh is being drawn toward the hole, flesh from her chest, her stomach—oh God, from everywhere, muscles stretching, bones creaking and snapping, all moving toward that single two-inch circle in her heart. The speed of the disintegration builds, but not fast enough to keep me from seeing her face stretch and tear, pulled downward as if it’s melting off her skull.

I don’t know if Elizabeth’s collapse makes a noise, because I can’t hear anything over the siren of my own shrieks. David clamps my mouth shut, and only then do I remember not to scream around vampires.

Elizabeth’s not screaming, because her throat is slipping into the void, followed by her teeth, then her nose, then her eyes, staring into nothingness with what I hope is relief. Her hair rasps as it slides against her blouse and into the hole. Finally, limbs flop and flail against the dirt floor, fingers scraping trails in the dust as they’re dragged toward the vacuum.

When it’s over, a soft pop, then silence. David lets me go, and I crawl to the other corner, stomach heaving.

Someone far stronger than David grabs me and closes my mouth. “There’ll be no vomiting on Gideon’s floor, understand? Swallow it or choke on it. Your choice.”

Tears squeeze from my eyes as I nod. One of the rat-faced guards lets me go, and I gulp the smoky air, hacking and belching.

“That,” Gideon points to the place Elizabeth died, “never happens to a human. Plane-crash victims might be pulverized to almost nothing, but if you look hard enough, you can always find a tooth, a smear of entrails. Their bodies exist somewhere, even if they’re fused with a hundred other bodies, or with concrete and steel. But Elizabeth is nowhere. She’s nothing.”

I stare at the pile of clothing and jewelry left behind, and suddenly notice they bear no stains. I examine my own clothes—clean. A minute ago they were spattered in blood. Even my hands bear no trace of Elizabeth’s fluids.

“Nothing,” Gideon repeats. He leans forward. “Now do you understand fear, Ciara?”

I clutch my knees, feeling a cold sweat trickle down my back. Shane’s fangs, Regina’s glare, even Travis’s re-animation were one thing, but this—this is a whole other realm of wrongness.

Something can’t just turn into nothing. Can’t. Happen. But it just did. What else could happen? There are no rules, no boundaries, nothing for me to cling to. For a moment I feel like the panic will shatter me, and what’s left of my body will soak into the soil a hundred feet below the ground.

“You may all go now,” Gideon says to David, then turns to me. “Except you.”

My heart goes cold. I whimper a wordless protest. I don’t want to be livestock.

“No,” David says in a hoarse voice. “We won’t leave her behind for you to drink.”

“I won’t drink her.” He keeps his gaze on my neck as he says, “Not if you bring me proof that the campaign is over. At sunset tomorrow.” He regards Travis like an artist with a finished canvas. “Or I’ll do more than drink her.”

I start to tremble all over. As much as I don’t want to be livestock, I want even less to be a vampire.

“Absolutely not.” David crosses his arms over his chest, looking a lot less pathetic than he did a minute ago. “I’ll stay instead.”

“You have important work to do back at the station,” Gideon says. “Besides, in your state, you’d be inclined to foolishness toward me. Just the girl.”

Jim pushes past David to stand next to me. “I’ll stay with her.” He reaches down, takes my elbow, and helps me to my feet. I look at him, amazed and a little confused.

A smile slides over Gideon’s face. “Yes, I think you could be useful.”

Lawrence jerks his chin toward the door. “Upstairs.”

I follow him and Jim into the hallway, then take a last look back at David’s tearstained face. “Have Spencer drive you home,” I tell him. “You don’t look so good.”

“Ciara—”

“I won’t do anything stupid.” I consider the events of the last ten minutes. “Anything else stupid.”

Jim and I are being held in an empty “guest” room, the furnishings of which consist of a full-size bed with yellow-white posts and a matching nightstand. One wall is paneled with laminated wood and the rest painted a dusty pink.

Jim is sprawled across the bed, staring at the ceiling and tapping his fingers in a slow rhythm against his chest. I’m huddled on the floor in the far corner, every muscle taut. It’s been ten minutes since Lawrence locked us in here, and we have yet to speak.

Jim starts humming a familiar tune. After a few bars, I realize it’s “Norwegian Wood” by The Beatles.

“Get it?” he says finally. “There are no chairs in this room, like in the song.”

“Ha.” I stare at the white wooden door, as if I can hold it shut with my eyes.

“I wouldn’t have let that chick laugh at me.”

“Who?”

“In the song. She leads him on and laughs at him.”

“Oh.” I blink for what feels like the first time in minutes. “I thought she was throwing herself at him and he turned her down.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because he sits on the rug instead of on the bed with her.”

“She’s not on the bed, she’s on the rug.”

“But she doesn’t have any chairs because she wants him on the bed.”

“She doesn’t have chairs because she lives in a cruddy flat with cheap pine board.” His voice drips with scorn. “That’s what Norwegian wood is.”

“Oh.” I can’t believe I’m having this conversation right now. “So it’s just a song about a guy who didn’t get laid? My version’s more interesting.”

He scoffs. “Tell that to John Lennon.”

“John Lennon’s dead,” I state, with emphasis. “You know that, right?”

Jim lets out a long sigh through his nose. “Yes. I know that.” He sits up suddenly. “You know what’s interesting? What’s interesting is why you interpreted the song that way, what it says about you.” He tilts his head. “Have you scared a lot of men with your sexuality, Ciara?”

“No.” I look away and rub my cold hands together. “Define ‘a lot.’”

From the corner of my eye I see him staring at me. “Gideon can probably hear your heartbeat from all the way down in his cave.”

“Great. Thanks for the info.”

“What I mean is,” he digs in his jeans pocket, “you need to calm down. And I’ve got just the thing.” He unfolds a plastic Baggie containing a pair of rolled joints.

“No thanks.” God only knows what those things are laced with. “I’d like to keep my wits about me.”

“So you can do what, make a break for it?” He lights one of the joints and takes a hit. “Sometimes, Ciara, one must accept when one has no control over a situation. This is one of those times.”

The door opens, and Gideon enters, as if to prove Jim’s point. A chill breeze seems to precede him. Lawrence and the other two lackeys follow, one lugging an old-fashioned Baroque-looking radio, the kind that sat in everyone’s living room back in the early fifties.

Without looking at Jim, Gideon crosses the room toward me, soft and deliberate as a lion. He takes my arm and leads me to the bed. His touch is cold, and though his fingers are well fleshed, I can feel the bones through them, as if they were talons. He sits on the edge of the bed with me and nods to his radio-carrying minion.

The guard sets the contraption on the floor with a thud. He adjusts one of the knobs until we hear the haunting strains of an early Cure song. The radio’s single speaker turns the notes flat and hollow, making our surroundings feel more alien than ever.

“Whoa,” Jim says. “The station’s signal is a lot stronger than it used to be.”

Plus we’re on top of a hill, I realize but don’t say out loud. Gideon’s touch makes my throat too tight to speak.

I hate this guy. Not just for killing Elizabeth; he may have had his own reasons for doing that. I hate him for killing Elizabeth as an answer to my words. If I had just kept my mouth shut, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.

The song fades, and rather than Regina, it’s Shane who comes on the air. “94.3 WVMP. Twenty minutes past midnight. Evening, Drastic Plastic listeners. Regina’s gone on a bit of a bender, so I’m taking over early for her tonight. Letters of complaint can be sent—hold on, where, Regina? Oh, right. Up your own ass.”

I admire his ability to hold it together on the air. It’s like an act of defiance. I want to reach out and touch the speaker, connect with him through the low vibration of radio waves.

“Anyway,” he continues, “it appears that some people out there, and you know who you are, are taking this vampire gimmick too seriously. Our situation’s gotten a little ‘stalky’ as the kids today might say. At least I think they might. So for everyone out there listening: once and for all, we’re not—” He clears his throat, which I’ve never heard him do on the air. “We’re not vampires. Okay? Moving on. This first song isn’t from my time, but it’s by a guy many call the ‘godfather of grunge.’ It was a favorite of a friend of ours who is no longer with us.”

The first quiet strains of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Running Dry” trickle over the airwaves.

“Great song,” Jim says. “Bet it was David’s request.”

I speak to Gideon without looking at him. “We can go now, right? He’s made the announcement.”

“It’s a promising start. But I need proof of a more permanent commitment.” He finally lets go of me and stands up. “I’ll return before sunrise. I suggest you sleep.” His fingertips graze my chin, bringing ice to my veins. “Tomorrow night might be a long one for you.”

Gideon and the three guards exit, leaving the radio on.

Neil Young’s slow, reverberating guitar mourns with a keening violin. They hold each other up like siblings at a funeral.

I used to think that this song’s subtitle, “Requiem for the Rockets,” was for people who had died. But Shane told me the Rockets were the band that eventually became Crazy Horse. Their “Requiem” meant abandoning what they used to be and moving on to a new beginning.

Which means that there’s more than one kind of death in this world.

I try to take Gideon’s advice, but I can’t sleep. Despite having consumed both joints, Jim is anything but calm. He paces the floor, rubbing his cheeks and eyes and mouth, a sure symptom of bloodthirst. He glances over at me, lying in bed.

Great. He’s got the munchies.

“Don’t even think about it,” I warn him. The secondhand marijuana smoke is the only thing keeping me from a fear-induced aneurism.

“I can smell them.” He points to the air-conditioning vent in the ceiling. “The others are drinking, everywhere. But not me.” He rubs his hands on the sides of his jeans. “It’s like that time before I died, when I tried to go vegetarian to impress a girl, and all my friends were still eating burgers and steaks.”

The doorknob rattles, then turns. The door opens to reveal Lawrence standing next to a short plump redhead. I recognize her as the cigarette girl from the party upstairs.

She beams up at Jim. “Room service?”

“Thank you,” he groans in Lawrence’s direction. He yanks the woman into the room and drags her to the bed.

“Hey!” I leap out of the way of their bodies and retreat to my original corner. Lawrence sends me a grin on his way out.

The room fills with moans of pain and pleasure. I crawl to the radio and turn up the volume, then lie on the floor beside it, folding my arm into a hard pillow.

Shane’s voice is the lifeline I cling to as the scents and sounds of sex and bloodshed surround me. He must know I can hear him, because he plays every one of my “last songs” in order, starting with “Hard to Handle” and going through the summer, twenty-some tunes from the late eighties and early nineties. “I’m No Angel” by Greg Allman, Matthew Sweet’s “Girlfriend,” Cracker’s “Low.”

In the middle of Springsteen’s “Human Touch,” the room goes quiet. The door opens. I yank my mind out of my musical sanctuary.

Lawrence comes in and lifts the semiconscious girl from the bed. As he exits, Gideon enters, alone.

I stand and move behind the bed, as if Jim—naked, stoned, and satiated—can somehow protect me.

Gideon shuts the door. “Sit.”

His will is like a hand reaching out. I sit on the bed and cover Jim’s, uh, self with the bloodstained sheet. He stirs and shifts, then his eyes move behind his lids in REM sleep. So much for my knight in tie-dyed armor.

Gideon sits at the end of the bed, for once not trying to overwhelm me with his physical presence. I rub my arms to ward off the chill.

“Admit it,” he says. “We fascinate you.”

I can’t speak and look at him at the same time, and right now his shadow-eyed face glues my gaze.

He grunts and continues. “You wouldn’t be working at the station if we held no attraction. Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like to be one of us?” He holds up one finger. “Before you answer, you should know I can read a lie even better than you can.”

Of course. He can hear my heartbeat, probably feel my body temperature rise and fall.

I clear my throat and look away. “Of course I’ve wondered. Everyone does, even people who don’t believe in vampires.” With an effort, I speak to his face, though not his eyes. “But I don’t envy you. I like sunshine, I like food. Plus, I wouldn’t want to outlive all my friends and family.”

“Family?” His dark gaze sharpens. “You’re close to your family?”

“Not now. But maybe someday. If I were a vampire, I’d have to leave them behind forever.”

“No.” He stands and begins to pace, slowly. “My father was a vampire. Rather than abandon his children, he turned each of us at the age of thirty-three. For me it was 1918.” He smooths his brown, pinstriped waistcoat, regarding it like a window to the past. “Later that year I did the same to my son. He took ill with the Spanish flu and within a day was at death’s door. It was an easy choice. He was only fifteen, with his whole life before him.”

“Is your son here with you?”

Gideon slides his hands into his trouser pockets and regards the floor. “He was always intractable, especially after death. I tried to teach him to keep out of humans’ way, and for several decades he stayed at my side, though never satisfied. Ten years ago he left me, headed west, and began hunting people indiscriminately, like a rabid animal.”

Gideon turns the radio volume down to near silence. “The Control and I came to an agreement, that upon his capture, they would bring him here, where I would deal with him. In exchange I allowed them to inspect my compound to ensure I wasn’t harming humans.”

His hands form fists inside his pockets. “Naturally the traitorous worms double-crossed me. One of their agents staked Antoine in Memphis.”

Antoine? My heart gives a sudden pound. Memphis? David said Elizabeth’s maker was a teenager in human years. It couldn’t be ...

Gideon pauses, examining me, then begins to pace again. “They claimed it was a rogue agent going against orders, but they wouldn’t give up the man’s name, so I could never confirm their story. I had no choice but to believe it a sanctioned assassination.” He stops and looks at me. “Now you know why I staked Elizabeth, why I lured her here in the first place.”

He knows who she was. He staked his own—what, granddaughter?

I try to stay calm, keep bluffing. “I thought you brought us here to threaten the station into anonymity.” Fear makes my lips flub the last word, so that it comes out “anemone.”

“That as well. I’ve ended your silly and dangerous campaign, and avenged Antoine’s death. You could say I’ve killed two birds with one stake.”

I lower my gaze, my mind racing. So he murdered Elizabeth because she was a Control agent, not because of her relationship to his son, which he doesn’t seem to know about.

But he could find out. I have to warn David. He and Elizabeth wouldn’t have come here if they’d known Gideon was her maker’s maker. Someone in the Control’s upper ranks got careless or arrogant or both.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Gideon says softly.

I shiver, but keep staring at the floor at my feet. “I was just thinking, I didn’t know vampire lives could be so dramatic. It’s terrible what happened to Anthony.”

“Antoine.”

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

Gideon’s silence seems to consume all the air in the room. He moves toward me, closer and closer, until his shoes enter my line of sight, less than a foot away.

When he speaks, his voice is low and soft. “Today you will learn that with a few exceptions, we are not so monstrous. Perhaps you will decide to stay.” When I don’t respond, he turns for the door. “And Ciara. Should you entertain any thoughts of escape, know this: If I don’t find you in your room at sunset, your gentleman friend here will be staked. Slowly. Have a pleasant day.”

As soon as the door shuts and locks, Jim sits straight up in bed.

I yelp and nearly choke on my own breath. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I was faking it to maintain the element of surprise.”

“It worked. On me.”

“Besides, that girl was so coked up, I may never sleep again.” He runs shaky hands through his curls. “We’re in deep shit, aren’t we?”

“Do you think Gideon knows who killed his son?”

“No, but the fact that your pulse skyrocketed when he said Antoine’s name probably made him suspicious.”

“I couldn’t help it. What are we going to do?”

He looks around. “First we’re going to find my pants.”

I retrieve them from the corner and turn away to look for his shirt while he puts them on. I find it under the bed—a VMP Lifeblood of Rock ’n’ Roll T-shirt.

“We’ll have to stop selling these.” I hand it back to Jim as he zips up his jeans. “T-shirts, bumper stickers. It’s all over.”

“But now that Elizabeth’s dead, at least she can’t sell to Skywave.” Jim pulls the shirt over his head. “Right?”

My stomach plummets to the vicinity of my knees. “Elizabeth told us she decided not to sell.”

“Did she tell Skywave?”

“I doubt she had the chance yet. It sounded like she’d just decided tonight.” I sink onto the bed and put my head in my hands. “If she’s dead, with no next of kin, then the business will be liquidated and its assets auctioned off.”

Shane’s voice returns to the radio. “It’s five fifty-four on a Tuesday. Thanks to everyone who called in to express support—”

“Liquidated?” Jim says to me. “You mean it would be—”

“Turned into cash. Hold on, I want to hear this.” I go to the radio and turn up the volume.

“—asked about VMP merchandise,” Shane continues. “Sorry, but we won’t be selling any more, so hang on to what you have. You got yourselves some sweet collector’s items.”

Jim seizes my shoulder. “The station’ll be sold for parts? Like a broken-down car?”

“Pretty much.”

He curses and starts to pace. I lean closer to hear Shane over Jim’s muttering.

“—official press release later today detailing the disturbing incident that made us decide to end the campaign. So look for our pretty faces on the evening news.”

“All these years I put in,” Jim huffs. “I’m not a fucking asset!”

I turn to glare at him. “You’re less than an asset, you’re an employee. Now would you shut up for two seconds?”

Jim’s rant grows louder. I press one ear against the speaker and plug the other with my finger.

“This last song goes out to those of you who greet this morning wondering if this could be your last sunrise. I’ve been there, many times. Parents, preachers, and politicians think rock music is the source of young people’s despair. They don’t understand it’s just a reflection. They also forget that music can be a source of hope, a reason to live.”

“I gotta get out of this place.” Jim rattles the knob, then pounds on the solid wood. “Hey! Open the goddamn door!”

I press my ear against the speaker. What if it’s my last “last song”? I think about falling asleep in Shane’s arms last night, and a ball of anger forms inside me. If I die and miss out on sex with my hottest boyfriend ever, I’m going to be so pissed.

Jim slams the door again and again with his shoulder. I close my eyes and soak in the voice from afar.

“—music still has any power left in the world, I hope it can bring you strength. Good morning, and good—”

Jim picks up the radio, yanking the cord out of the outlet, and hurls it against the door. The radio shatters, but the door stands solid.

I stare at the silent, splintered pieces of what used to be my lifeline. “You are such an asshole.”

Jim cracks his knuckles and nods, his breath slowing. “But I’m an asshole who feels better now.”

“You couldn’t wait ten more seconds?”

“Sorry.” He sighs and sits heavily on the bed. “It’s not so bad, you know. Being a vampire. It’s actually pretty far out.”

“Did you do it on purpose?”

He stares at the ceiling. “Hard to say. It just kind of happened, and I went with the flow, you know?”

“How much do you remember?”

“I remember the Doors were playing onstage. It took the whole set for me to die. They took their time with me. They took turns.”

“The Doors?” I had no idea.

“No, the vampires.”

I hold my wrists in my hands, feeling both pulses. “What’s it like to die?”

“For me it was really psychedelic. But it’s probably like any trip—you get out of it what you put into it. Spiritually, I mean.” Jim regards me with an inscrutable expression. “If it happens, I’ll make sure you don’t get hurt.”

I give a bitter laugh. “Not hurt. Just killed.” He seems dismayed, so I add, “Thanks for staying with me.”

He waves off my gratitude. “What you said down there to Gideon, about all of us being people—did you mean that, or was it just a speech?”

“I meant it, but after what happened to Elizabeth I don’t know what’s true anymore. Maybe I was talking out my ass.”

The idiom seems to confuse him. “Anyway, thanks for sticking up for us.” He thinks for a moment, then furrows his brow. “So you’re not really a crappy poker player?”

23
You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had

“Welcome to Gideon’s Lair! You must be Ciara. I’m Ned, Ned Amberson. Welcome to Gideon’s Lair. Did I say that already? That’s because you’re welcome.”

The bald young man with sapphire eyes is still shaking my hand. His grip is warm, self-assured, and definitely human. Lawrence stands with him outside my room.

“Tour time!” Ned gestures for me to precede him down the hallway. Lawrence casually shoves Jim back through the door like a bouncer with an insufficiently cool patron, then locks it, muffling the younger vampire’s protests.

Ned continues chattering as we pass a series of closed doors. “I’ve heard so much about you. I really think you’ll fit in. So what did you do before you came here?”

He speaks as if my joining the cult is a done deal. Typical sales talk: act like the customer’s already bought the product—and had a choice in the first place. I glance back at Lawrence, who follows several paces behind.

“Oh, don’t worry,” Ned says. “He won’t be able to come all the way up with us. It’s well past sunrise. Here, you probably could use one of these.” He leads me to a door with a familiar sign: LADIES. I rush in, grateful.

When I come out, Ned begins the tour, walking backward as he speaks. “On this level, as you know, we have our guest rooms. Singles on the west end—” He points behind him. “—couples and families to the east.”

“Families?”

“Children are welcome, as are pets, as long as they don’t cause trouble.”

“The pets or the children?”

Without answering my question, he opens a door on my left. “By earning points, guests can work their way up to better living quarters.”

I peer in to see what looks like a tastefully decorated hotel suite, four-star accommodations compared to the rattrap I share with Jim. “What do you mean, earn points?”

“For the nourishment we provide, as well as other services, such as laundry, groundskeeping, child care.”

“Sounds like a commune.” Or a prison. I wonder which “guests” get to make license plates.

Ned nods as if I’ve said something profound. “Very much like a commune. The guests help each other and help the vampires in exchange for a place to stay and a meaningful life.”

I step back into the hallway. “Can a guest lose points?”

Ned’s serene composure flickers for a moment. “Of course,” he says. “Some need carrots, others need sticks.”

I wonder what happens when one’s points dip below zero, but decide not to ask. If I can keep this Ned guy on my side, he’ll reveal more information—maybe something I can use to get us out of this mess.

We reach the staircase. To my relief, we go up instead of down, but Lawrence still follows us.

“Where do the vampires sleep during the day?” I ask Ned.

“On the bottom level. That’s not part of the tour.”

The wide-open basement appears at the top of the stairs. On the love seat, a man about my age lounges in the arms of an older woman with heavy red lipstick.

“We’ll move on,” Ned says. “Someone’s having a bedtime snack.”

The woman dips her head to the man’s neck, and I realize it’s not lipstick darkening her mouth. Rather than cry out, the man just sits there watching Regis and Kelly on the black-and-white TV He might as well be donating blood at the Red Cross.

As we climb the next staircase, Lawrence stays behind. The last thing I see is him stalking toward the love seat, fangs out.

Ned hurries me to the top. Just before the door shuts, a pair of screams ring out from the family room below.

My skin jumps. “What was that?”

Ned shrugs. “That was rank having its privileges. Want some breakfast? Might as well eat food while you can still enjoy it.”

My stomach lurches, telling me I’ve already had my last enjoyable meal.

He leads me into a bright kitchen, where a thirtyish woman and a teenage boy sit at the breakfast bar. They stare at me apprehensively, then grab their plates and head for the back porch.

“Don’t worry, people will be more polite once you’re here for good. Not that they’ll have much choice.” Ned opens the refrigerator with a flourish. I haven’t seen a fridge so crammed with food since the turn of the century—the last Thanksgiving at my foster parents’. “We grow most of our own food,” Ned says, “to minimize trips to the all-night supermarket down in Frederick. The vampires escort us whenever we go off-site.” He sidles to the counter and whips a cloth napkin off a plate. “We even bake our own bread.”

On the plate sits a foot-high stack of bagels. Ned grabs one and starts tearing it in half crosswise with his fingers. No knives here, apparently. I wonder if it’s to prevent suicide or homicide or both. Ned’s blue polo shirt covers the waistband of his khakis, so I can’t tell if belts are disallowed.

He examines me as he rips. “I sense a lack of enthusiasm on your part. Tell me your concerns.”

“Well... there’s the whole becoming a vampire thing. Not my wish.”

“Not yet.” He stuffs the bagel halves in the toaster. Their ragged edges prevent them from slipping in, so he crams them down with a wooden spoon. “It’s a privilege to be made by Gideon.”

“I saw the last vampire he made. Gideon left him to starve, tossed him away like a used tissue.”

“His three bodyguards,” Ned continues, as if he hasn’t heard me, “Lawrence, Wallace, and Jacob. All his progeny.”

“So?”

“You saw what happened downstairs a minute ago. They can take whomever they want, whenever they want, as long as it’s within the rules.”

“The vampires have rules, too?”

“If they didn’t, they’d run out of food very quickly.” He counts off on his fingers. “First, to keep us healthy, the same guest can’t be drunk more than once every two weeks. For those two weeks, we wear something to keep them away.” He pulls a gold cross from under his shirt collar. “The Jews wear a Star of David, the Muslims a crescent moon. The Wiccans—we have a lot of those— wear pentagrams.”

“What about nonreligious people?”

He laughs. “Haven’t you heard the saying, ‘There are no atheists in foxholes’?” He goes back to counting the rules. “Second, after those two weeks, if a guest still doesn’t feel up to it, they can request an extension, reviewable on a case-by-case basis. One of the vampires used to be a doctor.”

“But if you don’t let them drink you, you lose points.”

A buzzing comes from the toaster—the bagel is stuck. Ned leans over and jiggles the handle until the bread pops out, singed around the edges.

“As I was saying, you’ve been given a real honor. Many of us dream of becoming vampires.” He puts the bagel on a small plate and opens the refrigerator. “Takes a long time to build up that many points. In the five years I’ve lived here, no one’s ever done it.”

“Can the guests leave whenever they want?”

“Regular or chive and onion?”

“Huh?”

“Cream cheese.” Ned’s head pokes up from behind the fridge door. “For your bagel.”

“I don’t want a bagel.”

“But I made it for you. Why didn’t you tell me you didn’t want one?”

“I thought you were making it for yourself.”

He looks insulted. “That would have been incredibly rude.”

“Can the guests leave when they want?”

“Of course.” He closes the refrigerator door. “But no one ever wants to.” He smacks the counter. “I know. How about some coffee? We have a fantastic Nicaraguan blend.”

“I don’t want anything.”

“Oh, I get it.” Ned grabs a mug and pours himself a cup. “You think it might be poisoned.” He takes a long sip and smacks his lips. “Mmm. Bottled water makes all the difference. Especially out here in the boonies—you never know what’s in the wells.”

I peek out the sliding door to the back porch. I can almost taste the sunshine.

“Let’s go outside.” Ned carries his cup to the door. “Could be your last chance.” He grabs a Chicago White Sox baseball cap from a peg. “The thing I’d like most about being a vampire is not having to worry about skin cancer of the scalp.” He slides the cap over his head and opens the door.

The morning’s mugginess blankets us as we cross the small wooden porch. The woman and teenager from the kitchen are sitting at a round white wrought-iron table. They avoid my eyes, but I can feel their gazes burn into me as I step off the porch into the large backyard.

“Ellie’s friendlier.” Ned gestures to the playground, where a young woman is helping a small boy navigate the monkey bars.

Ellie waves to us, then claps wildly as the child reaches the end of the row of bars. “You did it!” She sweeps him into a hug, then lowers him to the ground. His orange T-shirt hikes up over his waist as he slides against her, and I can’t help but check for bite marks. “Now go play in the sandbox while Mommy talks to Neddy. Try not to get sand down your pants this time.”

Ned introduces us. Ellie shakes my hand. “New recruit?”

“Of Gideon’s,” Ned says to Ellie, with emphasis on the vampire’s name. He turns to me. “Ask her anything.”

I search for a diplomatic yet productive question. “How did you come to be here?”

“I was on welfare.” She tucks a blonde curl back into her elastic ponytail holder. “Actually, I was about to get kicked off welfare, but I couldn’t find a job. I was selling my blood plasma for grocery money. That’s where Gideon’s folks found me.” She grins at her surroundings. “Now I get room and board, a safe place to raise my kid, and a purpose in life. Plus free hepatitis shots.”

“A purpose in life? Feeding vampires?”

“Being part of a community. Contributing.”

Ned sips his coffee. “Ellie teaches our homeschool.” My mind spins. “You have a homeschool here?”

“We can’t let these kids grow up like animals,” Ellie says with a laugh. “Though they’d have more fun that way.” She looks over at her boy. “Trevor’s still too young, but we have six other children, ranging from seven to fourteen.”

“What happens when they grow up?” I ask her. “Do they become .. . guests?” I look at Ned, suddenly tired of hiding my hostility. “Or does Gideon even wait that long to start drinking them?”

Ned folds his hands around his coffee mug in a prayer-like posture. “Gideon has great respect for family.” He bows his head slightly. “He said he told you about his son Antoine.”

I notice he hasn’t answered my question. “What’s that got to do with these kids?”

“Ciara.” Ellie sticks her thumbs in her belt loops and gives me a benign regard. “It’s in Gideon’s best interest to keep us happy and healthy.”

“Because you taste better that way. Like organic chicken.”

They don’t even blink. They just keep smiling, though now their grins are tinged with pity.

“You’ll come to understand,” Ned says.

I turn away before another insult can leave my lips.

The woman and teenager have left the porch, but a tall thin man stands just inside the sliding door. He turns quickly and disappears into the shadows of the house, allowing me to glimpse nothing more than a head of thick white hair.

I turn back to Ned. “Who was that?”

He looks past me, then shrugs. “I didn’t see anyone.”

“Me neither,” Ellie adds in a tight voice. “Could be one of the ghosts.” She laughs. “Don’t worry, they don’t bother anyone, especially not the vampires.”

I stare back at the door. Ghost or not—and my money’s on not—this one bothers me.

* * *

After lunch—which I didn’t eat—and the world’s most surreal game of badminton—which I didn’t play—Ned deposits me back in my room.

I find Jim sleeping on the edge of the bed facing out, leaving me plenty of space on the other side. I should suspect this sudden courtesy, but fear has exhausted me. I’ll just rest a few minutes, then move back to the floor.

I lie on my back and feel my limbs sink into the soft mattress. My eyelids sag. Maybe if I doze for a bit, I’ll be more alert later when I need to—

I jerk awake to see Jim staring at me. He’s lying on his side with his head on his hand, elbow crooked. I suppress a yelp.

“What do you want?” I say in as steady a voice as I can manage.

“I was thinking.” He runs his fingers and thumb over a fold in the bedspread between us, his eyes never wavering from mine. “If you have to become a vampire, I could make you. Right now.”

I force my muscles to hold still. “That’s okay, really.”

His dark eyebrows pinch together. “You’d choose Gideon over me?”

“No.” Probably not. “I’d choose life, hokey as that sounds.”

“But what if David doesn’t come through with the proof, or what if Gideon doesn’t accept it?”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“Okay.” He drops his gaze for a second, but before I can look away, he lifts it to meet mine again, mesmerizing me. “I’ve done it before.”

“How many?”

“More than I can count.”

I fight to keep my breath steady and deep. “Were they all voluntary?”

He glances at a spot of blood on his pillow. “Sometimes when I drink,” he whispers, “I get a little ... greedy.” He pauses to let that one sink into my horrified mind. “Then I have a choice—I can either turn them, or I can let them die.”

“How do you decide?”

“Whatever feels right.” Jim takes my arm and turns it over to reveal its pale underside. I want to rip it out of his grip, but I remember from Shane what fighting back will get me.

“Don’t do that.”

The firmness of my voice seems to surprise him. He lets go but doesn’t apologize.

Without taking my eyes off him, I slowly slip out of bed.

“What’s wrong?” he says.

“I’m afraid.”

He stretches one bent leg into the space I left behind. “Afraid of me?”

He wears a veneer of innocent surprise. I think of how he became a vampire while Jim Morrison sang onstage. Now he seems to be channeling the Lizard King himself.

The door swings open. I’ve never been so glad to see Lawrence.

“Six o’clock news,” he says.

He marches me and Jim quickly down the hall, then up the stairs to the basement level. The television is in commercials when we get there. Ned waves to me from the other side of the room. I look for the white-haired man I saw behind the porch screen this morning, but as far as I can tell, Ned and I are the only humans among the dozen or so beings gathered around the TV. In addition to Lawrence, there’s the woman who drank from the man on the love seat this morning, as well as Jacob and Wallace, Gideon’s two other bodyguards.

But where’s—

“Good evening.”

I jump. Gideon’s standing right behind me. He must have followed us up.

“I trust you are well rested,” he says.

I try not to shrink as I step away from him. Jim loops a protective arm around my shoulders, an almost brotherly gesture. A few minutes ago I would’ve queased at his touch, but compared to the rest of them (even Ned), Jim seems quite human.

The commercial ends, and the news anchors turn from their phony camaraderie to face the audience. I squint at the tiny screen to see the blonde on the left—Monica something or other—deliver the latest:

“They said they were vampires, but now they’re changing their tune. Last month a local radio station brought a unique twist to the airwaves. WVMP, the Lifeblood of Rock V Roll.” Footage of Spencer playing at the Smoking Pig party appears as she continues. “The disc jockeys, who each host a show from a different era, claimed to be real vampires. Michelle Sims is live in Sherwood.”

An establishing shot of VMP’s radio tower puts a lump in my throat. The camera pans down to show the news correspondent standing outside the station with David. “Thanks, Monica. I’m here with WVMP general manager David Fetter. Mister Fetter, you’ve decided to end the vampire promotional scheme at the peak of its popularity. Why?”

David focuses on the correspondent. “We had a few fans that took the endeavor a bit too seriously. We appreciate their enthusiasm, but when they started stalking our DJs and shaking stakes at them, we felt it was time to stop. Safety is paramount.” Despite his ironic smile, his voice sounds hollow, and not just from the TV’s ancient speaker. Less than a day ago, he pulled a stake out of the woman he loved.

The correspondent points at the bright sky.

“Can you prove they’re not really vampires?” She flashes an impish grin at the camera. “Can you bring one outside to interview?”

David shakes his head. “Right now they’re busy with production work. There’s a lot more to being a DJ than talking on the radio for a few hours.”

“This’ll only take a minute. Let’s bring one out.” She beckons the camera operator to follow her toward the front door.

David’s gaze goes sharp, then sly. “Wait.” When Michelle turns back to him, he tilts his head as if to tell her a secret. “Do you want to know the truth? The real truth?”

“Of course,” she says, eyes gleaming.

“We’re not being threatened by stake-toting slayer wannabes. The real menace is a rival gang of vampires who live in a bunker near Camp David. They think our promotion threatens the anonymity vampires need to survive.”

My jaw drops to form a capital O, as in, O Holy Shit. I don’t dare look at Gideon.

The correspondent blinks at David for a moment, then chortles. “Fascinating.” She mugs for the camera. “Tell us more.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” David says, “not without endangering us all. Believe me, you do not want to mess with these folks.”

He steps away to end the interview. Michelle catches his sleeve.

“Wait, what about—”

“No more vampire talk. It’s been fun, but now it’s time for them to go back in the coffin.” He gives her a smirk and what looks like a wink.

She laughs as she turns back to the camera. “There you have it: a vampire Mafia headquartered near Camp David. In Sherwood, I’m Michelle Sims.”

“Thanks, Michelle.” The anchorwoman raises her eyebrows at her cohost. “So would that be the jurisdiction of the FBI or the Secret Service?”

“More like the National Enquirer” he says. They share a lively laugh. “Now for the weather, let’s see what—”

Ned switches off the television. All eyes turn to Gideon. He strokes his chin, staring at the blank gray screen as if he expects it to give him more answers.

I clear my throat and start to sidle away. “Well, that was good for a laugh.”

Fast as a cobra, Gideon snatches the back of my neck and yanks me close. Jim reaches out to stop him, but Wallace and Jacob seize his arms.

Gideon lifts me until I’m standing on my tippy toes near his pale, perfect face. My knees turn to water, and only my state of total dehydration keeps me from losing bladder control.

He places a smooth finger against my lips. “Don’t speak,” he whispers. “I’m thinking.”

He begins to pace, dragging me along. I fight not to stumble, for fear he’ll jerk me up and snap my spine in the process.

“It’s either stupid or brilliant,” Gideon mutters. “But which? Perhaps both. They laughed, they all laughed. But they were already laughing, and even if ninety-nine people laugh, the hundredth person might wonder, might come looking . . .”

None of his henchmen speak up with advice or insights. He’s surrounded himself with yes-men. If he turns me, will I be another blind disciple?

He continues to mumble, his grip on my neck pulsing. I can feel the anger building in him with every step, every incoherent word. His movements get jerkier, his pace faster as he hauls me with him, until I have to run to keep my head attached to my body.

He stops suddenly and looks at me. No, not at me— inside me. His black gaze starts at my temple and slides down my neck to my heart, the way Regina’s fingernail traced Lori’s blood vessel. My veins seem to constrict under his cold glare, as if they know they’re under assault.

I am prey.

Gideon sways a little to the rhythm of my pulse. Slowly he pulls me closer, his huge hand tilting my head, fingers threading through my hair and exposing my neck. My dry lips emit a soft, “No.”

“Shh.” When he speaks, I can see his fangs. “It hurts less if you don’t struggle.”

His lips graze the skin just below my ear. Instinct takes over, and I push against him, but it’s like trying to shove a Clydesdale. Gideon’s other hand slides up my waist and tightens around my lower rib cage.

“Be still,” he whispers again.

My body obeys, even as my mind screams a thousand protests. I’m going to die now. I think of Shane, and my parents, and Lori. A tear slips out of each eye.

“Don’t!” Jim shouts, and I hear a struggle behind me.

“Another move,” Lawrence growls at him, “and you’re staked.”

Gideon’s tongue flicks over my neck, like a snake smelling its food. Halfway down, it stops. The heat of his breath and the heat of my blood strain for each other, burning my flesh between them. Against my skin I feel his mouth open wide.

“Uh, sir?” comes a small, clear voice behind me.

Gideon’s grip tightens on the back of my neck. “Yes, Ned?” he hisses.

“Feel free to correct me, but it might help to consider the big picture here. Keep our eyes on the prize, as they say.”

Gideon goes still as a stone. “Explain. Carefully.”

“Think about what’s most important to you, how you plan to accomplish it, and how killing the girl might complicate those means and, ultimately, hinder those ends.”

Gideon’s fingers twitch and tremble, squeezing me tighter. I wince as my flesh bruises between our bones. My ribs feel ready to snap.

He gives a feral grunt and shoves me to the floor. My hands barely rise in time to keep my face from hitting the rug. I scramble to crawl away, even though there’s nowhere to go.

Someone grabs me. My hand lashes out, but Jim catches it. He helps me to my feet and puts himself between me and the other vampires.

Gideon advances on Ned, who, instead of backing down, beams at the vampire’s approach as if it’s a visit from the pope.

“Get me another,” Gideon growls. “Now.”

Ned reaches inside his shirt and pulls out his cross. Gideon pauses. Ned yanks the cross’s chain to break it. Gideon nods, then seizes his shoulder and drags him toward the stairs.

Before he descends, the vampire turns to me. “You think you want answers.” He gives me a blood-freezing glare. “You don’t want these answers.”

As Ned’s taken away, a beatific look on his face, he tosses the cross in my direction. On reflex, I reach forward and grab it before it hits Jim.

After a few moments, the others follow Ned and Gideon, except for Lawrence, who sits on the couch and opens an old edition of Life magazine.

“Why did Gideon let me go?” I ask him, my mouth drier than ever.

“You heard what he said.” Lawrence flips a page. “Better not to know some truths.”

I can believe that, and I’m not about to look this gift life in the mouth. I open my hand to see Ned’s gold cross with its broken chain. Should I keep it? Maybe it would be rude not to. The man did save my life.

I think back to the moment I almost died, and everything that passed through my mind. The people I loved, the things I never got to do.

Jim heaves a relieved sigh and moves for the closest chair. I tread behind him and hold out the cross like a weapon. When he turns to sit down, he starts a little at the sight of the symbol, then relaxes.

“Man, you scared me there for a second.” With a nervous laugh, he takes my wrist and draws my outstretched hand to the hollow of his neck, where the T-shirt ends. The cross presses his skin with no effect.

I drop the necklace on a bookshelf, realizing there was one thing that never joined the memories and regrets in my panicky, verge-of-death brain.

A prayer.

24
At Last

Franklin, of all people, picks me up. Lawrence waves goodbye to me and Jim from the porch, with a subtle smile that says he’ll be seeing us again sooner than we’d like.

“I’m going back to the station.” Jim gestures to his car. “Got a show at three.” He fumbles in his jeans pocket for his keys.

“Thanks for staying with me,” I tell him. “I think.”

Jim shrugs, then turns and slouches back to his Charger. He glides his hand over Janis’s roof, as if to reassure her that everything’s okay, Daddy’s home now.

Franklin watches him leave, then turns to me. “You all right?”

I shake my head. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Good, because I don’t want to hear about it.” He opens the truck door and points to a plastic shopping bag on the floor of the passenger’s seat. “Thought you might be hungry and thirsty.”

I tear open the bag and find two bottles of water, a turkey sandwich, and half a convenience-store aisle’s worth of snacks.

Let no one speak evil of Franklin in front of me. Ever.

He places a short call to David to let him know I’m out of danger, yet not quite ready for a full debriefing. After several miles and several minutes’ worth of face stuffing, my mind finally turns from the trauma of the recent past to the dread of the near future.

“What’s going to happen to the station?”

Franklin frowns. “Elizabeth didn’t have a will in her office. Tomorrow night David wants to search her apartment in Rockville.”

“Why not during the day?”

“If there’s a safe, he’ll need Shane to crack it. Hopefully it’ll contain papers that’ll help us keep the station in the event of her death.”

“But she was already dead.”

“It wasn’t so long ago that she had to get a new identity. As far as the IRS is concerned, she’s still alive. Sooner or later, some business contact or creditor—someone other than us, in other words—will report her missing.”

“Then come the cops.”

“The first place they’ll look for her is the station.”

“Including the vampires’ apartment.” I wipe my hand over my face. “And we can’t report her missing without losing the station. It’ll be sold for parts, like Jim said.”

Thinking of Jim reminds me of Gideon’s visit to our room. I suck in a sharp breath, almost choking on a corn chip.

“I need to call David back. Now.”

Franklin flips open his cell phone, hits a speed-dial number, and hands it to me.

Halfway through David’s hello, I blurt, “Antoine was Gideon’s son.”

Franklin curses, swerving the truck almost across the broken yellow highway line.

David, on the other hand, is silent. I pull the phone away from my ear to check the reception. Three out of four bars. “David, you there?”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Not just his son. His progeny, too.”

Another long silence. “I don’t believe this.”

“I don’t think he knows you killed Antoine, or that Elizabeth was connected to him.”

“He wouldn’t have staked her if he’d known. They don’t hurt their own blood.”

“He didn’t mind hurting Travis.”

David ignores this point. “What else did Gideon say about Antoine?”

I repeat everything the ancient vampire told me, about Antoine’s spaz attacks and the Control’s double cross.

“They knew.” David’s voice goes cold. “The Control knew all along who Gideon was and didn’t tell us.” He breathes hard. “If we’d known, we wouldn’t have gone there, and Elizabeth would still exist.”

I have no response except, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“If I hadn’t mouthed off—”

“He wanted an excuse to kill her, to declare war against the Control. So what else happened?”

I tell him about my almost-death at the fangs of Gideon, and the calmness of my voice shocks me. It’s like it happened to someone else.

“Sorry about the interview,” he says. “I panicked when that reporter wanted to bring the DJs out into the sun.”

“You do need some thinking-on-your-feet lessons, but Gideon’s so irrational, he might have bitten me no matter what you said.” We enter another valley. The connection crackles. “David, we’re about to get cut off. Call Shane and tell him I’m okay.”

The phone goes dead. I hand it back to Franklin.

He gives me a bitter grin. “I can’t wait to see how this could get worse.”

It’s past ten thirty when Franklin drops me off at my apartment. I grab my convenience-store feast, wave good-bye, and turn toward my door.

Shit. I left my purse—with my keys and phone—in Elizabeth’s car two nights ago.

“Wait!” I run down the block after Franklin’s truck, flailing my arms. But it’s too late.

Groaning, I turn back to my apartment. Maybe by some miracle I left the door unlocked, or maybe my landlord is working late at the pawnshop.

Someone opens my door from the inside and steps onto the sidewalk.

“Ciara.”

Shane says it softly, perfectly.

I drop my precious cargo and sprint down the block into his arms. He lifts me off my feet and holds me tight, and for a long time we say nothing.

Finally he whispers, “I thought I’d never see you again.”

I pull back to take in his face in the glow of the streetlight. “You will.”

Without putting me down, he opens my door and slides inside, then locks it behind us. He carries me up the dark stairwell.

I tighten my arms around his neck. “I know this sounds incredibly dorky, but I missed you.”

“Then you should’ve sent a postcard.”

It feels good to laugh. It feels good to hold him. It feels good to—

To do anything we’re about to do.

Shane brings me into my bedroom, where one soft lamp is lit and my stereo plays disc two of The Essential Leonard Cohen, an album whose apocalyptic melancholy usually shreds my soul, but tonight feels right somehow.

He lays me on the bed and stretches out beside me. His hand strokes my neck and arm, then passes over my waist and hip, his gaze following it like he can’t believe I’m really here.

Finally his hand and eyes return to my face, which he studies for several moments. I wait for him to ask if I’m too tired or scared or traumatized, but he seems to find the answer he’s looking for.

He grasps my face and kisses me, and it’s my turn to reach and touch all of him, everything I thought I’d lost.

I unbutton his shirt. Beneath it the smooth flesh of his chest is hot. I try not to speculate which donor he visited tonight.

“I raided our fridge,” he whispers, “if you’re wondering why I’m warm.”

I smile against his skin. “I hadn’t noticed.” The muscles of his stomach tense when my lips pass over them. No surprise that he’s ticklish.

We undress each other as slowly as we can stand it.Naked, Shane looks and smells and sounds and tastes like a man. Like a human.

Limbs tangling and twining, we lie on the bed together as the room fills with notes of doubt and longing. I trace the spot on his chest that covers his heart. A vision of Elizabeth’s death crashes my mind like an unwanted party guest.

I push Shane onto his back and crawl on top of him, shielding him from all the world’s bad guys. They’ll have to go through me first.

He slides his hands through my hair and lets it cascade over his face and neck. “I’ve dreamed of this, too, your hair falling down as you lie on top of me.”

“What else did you dream about? Besides my hair.”

“This.” One of his hands cups my ass, fingertips venturing around and between my legs. “And this.” His other hand fills with my breast, bringing it to his mouth.

I moan at the electric shock of his tongue. Before my mind can blur too far for speech, I say, “But you’d seen it all before. You got me naked that first night, remember?”

He lays his head back on the bed. “I saw you, but it was through a red haze of bloodlust.” His thumb traces my nipple. “Now I see you clearly.”

My muscles tense. I want to tell him that no one ever does, that if he did see past my layers, he wouldn’t want me. But he knows what I was, knows what I did, and he doesn’t care.

Or maybe he just doesn’t want to care. Maybe he’s lying to himself. He’s never really seen that part of me, after all, the part that reduces everyone to a playing piece, a token to move however I need to win.

The bliss drops from his eyes. “What’s wrong? And don’t say ‘nothing.’“

“Nothing’s wrong.” I tilt my hips to guide just the barest tip of him inside me. His chin lifts and his mouth opens in anticipation. I take his lower lip between my teeth, pause for one moment, then take him deep within.

His breath catches so hard, for a second I worry that the whole thing is about to end. But then he arches his back and plunges farther inside me, making us both cry out. My control shatters, and I grind against him, greedily, as his hips roll under me in perfect rhythm. For the first time since I’ve known him, Shane breaks a sweat.

Suddenly he turns his head to the side, covering his mouth with his arm. But it’s too late.

“Don’t hide them.” I put a hand to his cheek and coax his mouth open with a thumb. “I want to see, up close.”

“Careful.” He breathes hard. “They’re sharp.”

His two fangs curve like rapiers, ending in thin, sharp points. “They’re not what I imagined. They’re not like dog fangs.”

“I’m not a werewolf.”

“Are there such things?”

He smirks and squeezes my thighs. “Now you’re being silly.”

“They’re more like cat fangs.” I run my thumb over the front edge of the left one. “That makes sense. Dogs take their prey by tearing it apart. Cats puncture the spinal cord nice and neat.”

“Wow, Ms. Discovery Channel, you sure know how to talk sexy.” He sways his hips against mine, studying my face to find just the right spot that will send me over the edge.

“Shh. Hold very still.” I lean close and kiss the left fang, then the right.

He pulls in a long, slow breath, then lets it out, never breaking our gaze. “Now what?”

I know suddenly what I need to feel safe. “Shane, I don’t want you to bite me. Ever.”

“I know that.”

“But, if you can, if it’s not too much—I want you to pretend.”

“Pretend to bite you?” His pupils dilate so quickly they wipe out most of the blue. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

His muscles coil, and he flips me onto my back so fast it knocks my breath out. He seizes my wrists, pinning them above my head, and drives himself deep inside me. His eyes are pure animal now, dark and fierce.

Instinct makes my body buck, frantic to fight him off, but he takes my desperate rhythm and makes it his own. Holding both wrists in one hand, he reaches back and seizes my leg behind the knee, then pulls it forward into the crook of his elbow.

Shane has complete control. He could break my bones, bleed me dry, like Gideon almost did. I slam my mind shut on the memory, close my eyes against the image of Shane’s savage face.

His head pushes mine aside to burrow into my neck. His mouth brushes my throat. Instead of growing cold with fear, my skin heats so fast it feels like I could singe him. I hear myself hiss the word, “Yes.”

He pulls away suddenly, and I wonder if I’ve taken the game too far, if he has to flee to keep from biting me. But his eyes hold no fear.

Shane flips me onto my stomach, lifts my hips, and enters me with one long thrust.

I scream.

I didn’t mean to scream.

He plunges deeper, and I scream again. I squirm and writhe beneath him, exactly like prey, but I can’t help it. Every sound and motion releases the waves of energy slamming through my body. To be still and quiet would rip me in two.

When Shane’s teeth touch the back of my neck, I know he wants to sink them through my flesh. But he won’t, and this feeling of safety turns me on more than any danger ever could. I move with him, surrendering to the terrifying trust.

The music ends. No sounds now but our ragged moans and the shifting of skin against skin.

Shane’s hands find mine, clutching the edge of the mattress. He slides his palms over them, interweaving our fingers. “I’ll never hurt you. Ciara . . .”

Before I can return the promise—which I can’t—he quickens his rhythm, carrying me with him up and over the last, highest peak. His groan lengthens into a feral howl, and my final scream is a vague approximation of his name.

He collapses on the bed beside me. I turn my head to see him gasping for breath, face damp with sweat. His eyes squeeze shut, and his body, like mine, shudders with the aftershocks. When he opens his eyes to look at me, I realize where I’ve seen that expression of happy gratitude: after he drank Deirdre.

No, that’s not fair. There’s something deeper in his gaze now, more than a hunger satisfied. I wouldn’t dare call it love, but maybe he would.

Lacking the breath to speak, we say nothing, just stare at each other from our respective pillows. Finally Shane reaches out and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, then lets his hand drop onto my shoulder. “Was that what you had in mind?”

“Pretty much exactly.” I roll from my stomach onto my side. The motion makes his hand slip off me. I put mine over it so it doesn’t seem like I’m pulling away. “Was it hard not to bite?”

His other hand wipes the damp hair off his cheek. “I had other things to think about besides blood.”

“But isn’t there some vampire equivalent to blue balls?”

He laughs. “It’s called thirst. But I told you, I drank before I came here.”

“Your fangs still came out.”

“Sometimes they have a mind of their own.” He runs his tongue over his now human teeth. “But it’s no harder for a vampire not to bite someone than it is for a man not to force himself on a woman. It’s not something a decent vampire would even consider.”

“And you’re a decent vampire.”

“No. I’m a damn fucking good vampire.” He reaches over and drags me into his arms. I let him, even though it’s too hot. His eyes turn serious. “David told me you almost died.”

“If it weren’t for that flack Ned Amberson I’d be dead or undead right now. I don’t understand what he meant by the big picture and what it has to do with me. Gideon said I didn’t want to know.”

His arms tighten around me. “I’ll kill him if I ever get the chance.”

“Have you ever seen a vampire die?”

“No.”

“You don’t want to. I wish I could forget I ever saw it.” My gaze hops over his shoulder to the far nightstand. “Hey, that might help.”

Shane rolls on his back and grabs the bottle of red wine. “I brought it because I thought you might need to relax.”

I let out a long sigh. “My limbs are pretty much jelly now, thanks to you, but the wine’ll finish me off nice.”

He kisses me and heads for the kitchen with the bottle. It turns out, the sight of him walking away is just as nice without jeans.

I get up to put in a new CD, deciding to expand Shane’s horizons with a little Fiona Apple. As I place the Leonard Cohen disc back in its case, a wicked curiosity creeps through me. I insert the disc in the wrong place on the shelf, after Counting Crows, then slip off to the bathroom.

When I come back, Shane is lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, with his hands behind his head and the sheet pulled up to his waist. The lamp is off, and candles on either side of the bed are lit (sandalwood, not sausage pizza). As I return to bed, I glance at the CD shelf.

Leonard Cohen’s back where he belongs, between Chumbawamba and Coldplay. The shame and sorrow make me stumble. I slip under the sheets, wanting to pull them over my head.

“Did you do that on purpose?” Shane says without looking at me.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Why am I sorry?”

He pauses. “Okay, we’ll start with that and work our way back to the other ‘why.’“

“I shouldn’t test you. You’re not a lab rat.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“To see if you had changed. You learn new things, and you have hope for the future.”

“Because of you.” Now he looks at me. “But you can’t cure everything overnight. Some things you may never cure. It doesn’t work that way.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Mental illness.”

The sound of the words from his mouth make my eyes hot. “Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. I know a lot of vampires have weird obsessive-compulsive behaviors. The world changes faster than we can understand, so we find something to control, some way to put things in order.” He laughs softly. “It’s the only way to feel sane.”

I touch his arm, but he pulls it away to reach for the glasses of wine. “Don’t pity me, Ciara. That’s one thing I can’t stand.”

“What are the other things? Just so I know.”

“I’m not giving you a list.” He hands me a glass, and I sit up to take it. “That’s one of the joys of relationships, finding out what drives the other person batshit.” He clinks his glass against mine. “Tell me one thing you can’t stand, and we’ll be even.”

“Licorice.”

“Two things.”

“Licorice and religion.”

“Religion, because of your parents?”

“Yes. No. That makes it sound like they’re responsible for everything I am. I’ve thought about religion, even studied it in school, and come to the conclusion that it’s pointless and dangerous. I don’t get why people need it to give their lives meaning. Isn’t life enough?”

“You’re asking a dead guy?”

I take a sip of wine. “This is all just my opinion, of course. What about you? Before you were a vampire—”

“I was a Catholic.”

“Oh.” I wonder if now is the time to ask him about his story. “But when you become a vampire, you end your life. Isn’t that kind of a no-no in Catholicism? Suicide?”

His face goes sad, sending a stake of regret through my heart. I feel like I’m about to meet Elizabeth’s fate, inverting and twisting into a hole that will swallow me up. “You don’t have to talk about it,” I say. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Yes, you should have.” He lays his hand over mine. “And no, I don’t.”

He continues to drink the wine. I wait for him to continue. After the first minute I sit back and take a few sips, waiting. After five minutes I realize there’s no winning the waiting game with an immortal creature.

“You don’t what?” I ask.

“Have to talk about it.”

He doesn’t look mad, but he doesn’t look happy either. He just sits and drinks, as if I’ve left the room. Great. First I play games with his brain, then I accuse him of being a bad Catholic. How else can I demean him today?

A change of venue might break my streak of asininity. “Hey, you know what I could go for? Ice cream.”

This snaps him out of his meditative state. He looks at me, smirks, then sings the first line to “Mean Woman Blues.”

I cover my face. “I forgot you can’t taste food. Never mind.”

“It’s okay.” He sets his empty wineglass on the night-stand. “You’ve had a bad day, you deserve ice cream.”

We dress in silence on opposite sides of the bed, though we might as well be on two sides of a wall. I remember how I opened myself completely to him, let him do whatever he wanted with my body and my life. What do I have to do to get that kind of trust in return?

Besides not being a total shitheel, I mean.

“My car’s at the station, so we’ll have to walk.” I sift through my jeans pockets for change. “And my purse is in Elizabeth’s car, so you’ll have to buy. Sorry.”

He looks up at me from the bed, where he’s tying his shoes. “Come here.”

I sidle over to him. “You want to extract payment in advance?”

“No.” He takes me in his arms and kisses me softly. “Ciara, I promise one day I’ll tell you my story. But I don’t want to ruin this night.”

My dread dares to thaw around the edges. I attempt a nod and a smile, and we head out for ice cream.

I know there are other reasons why he won’t tell me. Some are about me, and some are about him. To get past all the reasons at the same time could take careful choreography, an endless emotional negotiation.

This is why I don’t do boyfriends. Too much work.

The diner glows purple, inside and out. The Baltimore Ravens are in town for summer training camp, so every business drapes themselves in the team colors to draw in tourists. It might be fun one afternoon to go see the team practice, get some autographs. I turn to Shane to suggest it, then remember we can’t ever have a daytime date. Oh well. He’s a Steelers fan, anyway—or “Stillers,” as he would pronounce it.

We stand in the lobby holding hands, just like any normal couple out for a postcoital midnight breakfast, in search of caffeine and carbs to keep the energy up.

A young waitress with a drooping brown ponytail shows us to our booth. Shane sits across from me as she dumps the menus on the table. We order black coffees and a banana split.

When she walks away, Shane props his feet on my bench, one on either side of me. I sit back and rest my elbows on the toes of his boots. The diner’s harsh fluorescent and neon lights accent the feeling of oth-erworldliness about this evening, the sense of time out of time. Tomorrow—later today, I mean—we’ll have plenty of problems to sort out. Right now, I sign a truce with life.

I run a thumb over Shane’s left sole. “Are your feet ticklish, too?”

The corner of his mouth twitches. “No.”

“Liar. I’m going to play with them when we get back in bed.”

“Only if I can do the same to you.”

I shrug. “I’m not ticklish at all.”

“That’s because nothing ever surprises you.”

Was that a dig at my conniving nature? “‘Surprise’ is just another word for disappointment.”

The waitress arrives with our order. I nudge aside the maraschino cherry and dig in. “They use real whipped cream here, not that canned stuff.” I lick my spoon and mentally catalog the places on Shane’s body I’d like to apply the condiment. Maybe I can get some to go. “Please, try it.”

He nabs half a spoonful of mint chocolate chip, takes a tentative bite, then shoves the spoon back into the bowl. “Tastes like Maalox.”

“Darn, I guess it’s all mine.” I pull the split to my side of the table and keep eating. “My parents used to buy me ice cream after a revival show. I’d always get as exotic a flavor as I could, because I knew the next town might only have chocolate and vanilla.”

“So it wasn’t all bad, then, your childhood.”

“Not at the time.”

He pulls his feet off my bench and leans forward. “What were some of the other things you liked about it?”

I eye him carefully. “I don’t want to go there right now.”

He slides the banana split toward him, out of my reach, then picks up his spoon. “For each good thing you can remember, you get one bite.”

“It’ll melt.”

“Then you’d better hurry.”

“Passing out fliers.”

He hesitates, holding back the spoon. “Explain.”

“In little towns I’d stand on street corners, or go from shop to shop, telling people about the revival. Sometimes the shop owners would give me candy or a flower or a bag of chips, because I was so cute and holy.”

“Good.” He feeds me a large spoonful, consisting of banana, chocolate almond ice cream, and whipped cream. “Next?”

“The carnival atmosphere.”

“Good. You get a bite for each detail.”

“The barkers, selling Bibles and tambourines and prayer books.” Another bite, this one from the mint chip side. “The roadies and the local guys working together to put up the big tent.” Ditto, this time a bit of each ice cream. He’s got the hang of it now. “People from the town setting up booths to sell lemonade or homemade crafts or funnel cakes.”

“I remember funnel cakes.” His mouth opens, moist inside, as he spoons me another bite. “Add that to the list of things I miss tasting. Go on, what else?”

“Testimonies.”

“What’s that?”

“People would stand up and talk about how they were healed, or how they used to be sinners until they discovered grace and shit.” I take another bite. “Some of them were shills, but some were believers.”

“What’s a shill exactly?”

“It’s the grifter partner who plays the bystander. In a game of three-card monte, it’d be the guy you see winning. It makes the mark feel more secure. The herd instinct. Do I get a free bite for my lesson?”

He sighs and scoops another spoonful. “Only because of my undying love for you,” he mumbles.

“What?”

He looks up. “What?”

“Your un-whatting what?”

“Huh?”

My eyes narrow at him. “What did you just say?”

“When?” He holds out the spoon. “Come on, it’s dripping.”

I accept his offering, my whole body running hot and cold. My memory flits back to his remark that nothing ever surprises me.

“So what else?” He digs the spoon into the bowl. “We’ve still got half a banana split here.”

I collect myself in a hurry. “I remember ...” What else? Counting stacks of money at the end of the night? Watching the dupes return to their ramshackle homes with empty wallets? “The hope in people’s eyes.”

“Sounds big. Give me more.”

“They’d come to the revival so beaten down, by the bad crops or the factory closings. After a couple hours of listening to my parents shout and sing, and watching their neighbors be healed onstage, they’d go home believing anything was possible.”

Shane feeds me. “Your folks, they were something, huh?”

“My dad, he was the best in the business. Charming, fast-talking, great-looking. He worked like a magician, full of misdirection and illusion. But he would’ve been nothing without my mom. They were like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Like two halves of the same person.”

When the next spoonful comes, I turn my head away. “But maybe even their marriage was just part of the show. He hasn’t called or written her in two years.” My stomach tightens around the last bite of ice cream. “He’s never called or written me. Fucking asshole creep pig-weasel.”

Shane puts the spoon back in the dish. “Are you sure he’s still alive?”

“They would’ve told us if he died, as his next of kin. They would’ve told me if he were paroled. I testified against him, after all.”

“They think he might come after you for revenge?”

“I would if I were him.”

Shane moves to join me on my side of the booth, bringing the bowl of ice cream. “Here, you’ve earned it.” He sits close to me and sips his coffee while I consume the banana split with renewed urgency.

To distract myself from thoughts of my parents, I turn to a slightly less odious topic. “The station is screwed.”

“Yeah. Our only hope is to find a will that says Elizabeth left everything to David. But then we’d have to prove she died, which is hard to do without a corpse.”

I grit my teeth at the unfairness. “She was going to make it work. If Gideon hadn’t staked her, she could have canceled the deal with Skywave.”

He frowns into his mug. “When she doesn’t show up for that meeting on Friday, they’ll know something’s up. Sooner or later there’ll be an investigation. We should start looking for a new home.”

“We can probably postpone the meeting, but that’ll just be a temporary—” Breath stops in my throat. My spoon clatters to the table, then the floor.

Shane picks up his own spoon and holds it out to me, but my hand is frozen. All of me is frozen but my mind, which spins like a gyroscope.

“Ciara, you okay?”

I grab Shane’s wrist, spilling his coffee. “I know how to save the station.”

25
I’m Not Like Everybody Else

When devising a long con, the first revelation comes as a spark, a firecracker of an idea. The rest takes time and planning to perfect the entire game. Every player must learn his or her part, every loophole must be tightened, and every possible setback must be accounted for. This process often takes weeks.

I don’t have weeks. I have until the day after tomorrow.

David and I sit in Elizabeth’s office, searching for scraps of information about Friday morning’s phone meeting between her and Skywave. Luckily, her files are well organized, and her ancient computer has no security, since she was using Windows 95 as an operating system.

“Let’s see if we can buy some time.” I hand David a piece of paper with a name and number on it. “Call Sky-wave and ask if we can postpone Friday’s conference call until next week. Tell this guy’s assistant that Elizabeth is ill.”

I sit back in the chair while David navigates the labyrinthine phone tree to reach the Skywave head office.

After a short conversation, he punches the hold button. “The soonest they can reschedule is in a month. But by then someone else might figure out she’s missing, and this charade won’t play.”

“Then tell them never mind.”

He puts the phone back to his ear. “Rather than postpone, Ms. Vasser would prefer to keep the meeting as scheduled.” He listens for several moments, then his eyes widen. “Oh, no. I mean, no, I’m afraid that won’t work.”

“What won’t?” I whisper.

He shakes his head vigorously.

I lean forward. “What won’t work?”

He holds up a finger. “One moment, please,” he says into the phone. He puts them on hold. “They want to meet in person,” he tells me. “They have something they want to show Elizabeth. Obviously we can’t do it.”

“Why not?”

His jaw drops, then his head shakes slowly. “No, Cia-ra. We can’t do what you’re thinking.”

“Maybe we can. Tell them we’ll call back.”

As soon as he’s off the phone, I grab it and dial the vampires’ extension, which rings several times.

Shane picks up with a groggy tone. “Yeah?”

“Hi.”

“Hey.” He lets out a sigh like the one I heard as I fell asleep with him curled around me. “How are you?”

“Overcaffeinated. Is Travis there?”

He hesitates. “You called to talk to Travis?”

“I’ll explain in a minute. Stay by the phone.”

“Here he is.”

“Yes, ma’am?” Travis’s voice is steadier and warmer than I expected.

“It’s Ciara.” I congratulate myself for not adding, “The woman you tried to kill.”

“What can I do ya for?”

“Lots. First, I need to know if any Skywave execs ever met Elizabeth face-to-face.”

“Not that I know of, but it’s hard to prove something didn’t happen.”

“Those photos in your camera, were they the only ones you took?”

“I downloaded a bunch to my laptop, but I haven’t shown them to Skywave yet. I was just about to give them a report when I was, well, butchered.” His voice dips for a moment, then picks back up. “Do you still have my camera? I want it back.”

“Feel like taking a trip to Rockville?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Afterward, we’ll stop by your office and collect everything you need. I see no reason why you can’t stay a detective just because you’re a vampire.”

“I was hoping to be a DJ. I could start a new country music program, call it—”

“We’ll discuss that later.” During intermission of an ice hockey game in hell, if David has any say in the matter. “Can you put Shane back on, please, and give him some privacy?”

Travis chuckles suggestively and hands the phone over. Shane says, “So what’s next?”

“Can we trust Travis?”

“I think so. We took care of him in his first few hours of death, fed him and gave him a home. The transition period is really rough, and we were there for him. It’s like when baby ducks take after the first person they see, what’s that called?”

“Imprinting.”

“Yeah. We’re his mom and dads now, especially after Gideon rejected him. But what does he have to do with your plan?”

I outline a quick rundown of the updates, most of which come to mind as I speak. David stands in the middle of the office, jaw slackening as he listens.

After I finish, Shane lets out a low whistle. “Remind me never to piss you off.”

“We’ll meet you here after sunset. Sleep tight.”

“The sleep of the dead.”

I set down the phone. David plants his hands on the other side of the desk, looming.

“We can’t do this,” he says. “It’s one thing to impersonate her over the phone. You’re talking about identity theft.”

“Why not? As a vampire, Elizabeth made sure there were no photos of her in the press. She wouldn’t even talk to the reporters at the Smoking Pig party.”

“I don’t understand why we can’t just decline the buyout with a phone call or an e-mail.”

“Because they’ll get suspicious and pushy. They’ll think we’re holding out for more money. Unless Elizabeth looks them in the eye and tells them she absolutely won’t sell, they’ll never stop until they get what they want.”

His shoulders droop as he realizes I’m right. He sighs and heads for the door. “I’ll double-check the Internet and my old press files, make sure there are no pictures of her anywhere.” He slides his hand over the wall on his way out, as if it still bears her essence.

I sit back in her leather chair, feeling like an empress on a throne. Its soft surface reminds me of her Mercedes.

I pick up her keys from the desk. The car will be lonely without her.

Shane sings R.E.M.’s “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville” as I drive Elizabeth’s car into the sprawling suburban city. David sits in the passenger’s seat, with Travis behind him.

“Do you think Gideon is biting the children in his compound?” David asks me.

“I didn’t see any evidence of that. But then again, I didn’t see anything they didn’t want me to see. Their smiley representatives made everything seem tightly controlled. Like Disney World.” A memory sparks. “Except there was one guy I don’t think I was supposed to see.”

“Who?”

“Some human with white hair, too far away for me to see his face. The others said he was a ghost.”

“A ghost? Hmm. Maybe the spirit of someone Gideon killed.”

“Now you sound like Lori.”

“So you believe in vampires but not ghosts?”

“I’ve seen vampires.” I meet Shane’s eyes in the rearview mirror and mentally add gloriously naked. “Now that we know Gideon was the cold presence in the parking lot, I’m even less inclined to believe in ghosts.”

David silently ponders. “Something about that bothers me. Why was Gideon stalking you that first night? We hadn’t even started the campaign.”

“Noah made the same point. Maybe there was another vampire senior citizen following me.”

Shane stops singing. “Let ’em try to touch you. I’ll kick their ancient asses.” He returns to the third verse.

I glance at him, then lower my voice to David. “Something odd about Gideon and the other vampires. They didn’t seem to have compulsions like ours do.”

“Their environment is so regimented, they probably don’t need those sort of coping mechanisms.”

“It’s not like they were normal. They were really faded, kind of robotic. But not, you know—”

“Bonkers,” Shane says. He shifts into a version of Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love.”

I pull up in front of Elizabeth’s swanky apartment complex. David grabs a few empty duffel bags from his trunk. As we walk to the door, Shane keeps himself between the humans and the jittery Travis, who watches us like an Atkins dieter with a stack of pancakes. But without the strength of desperate hunger, he’s no match for Shane, so I feel safe around him, if not particularly happy.

Elizabeth’s basement condo looks like that of any other up-and-coming venture capitalist: leather furniture, stainless steel kitchen appliances, and hardwood floors begging for a good game of sock hockey.

“Wow,” David says. “She never made enough working for the Control as a human to afford a place like this.”

A thud comes from the kitchen, making us all jump. A large white cat struts into the living room and says prrrow.

David breathes a sigh of relief. “I didn’t know she had a pet.”

Shane squats down and makes little puss-puss noises to get the cat to approach him. He picks it up and checks the tag.

“What’s its name?” David says.

“There’s no name. It’s just a rabies tag.” He quickly slides the blue collar and tag off the cat, avoiding David’s eyes.

“Let me see the kitty,” Travis says.

Shane turns away. “No, you’ll bite him.”

“I will not.”

“Believe me, I was your age not too long ago. You’ll bite anything that bleeds. Speaking of which.” He nods at the insulated canteen on Travis’s hip. “Meal time.”

“Oh. Yeah, thanks.” Travis pulls a fast-food straw from his shirt pocket and yanks off the wrapper.

“Give me the cat.” David eases the beast out of Shane’s arms. “I’ll take him home with me. First let’s get him some food.”

I flip through a pile of mail on the dining room table. “Travis, what are we looking for?”

He jolts a little at being spoken to, especially in the middle of a drink. He bobs the straw in the canteen and wipes his mouth with a napkin. I look away from the red smear on the white paper.

“Uh.” He smooths down the front of his shirt. “She probably keeps her important documents in a fireproof safe. Let’s try the closets.”

We open the coat closet across from the kitchen, where David and Shane are searching for cat food. I hold the flashlight for Travis, who seems calmer now that he’s had a snack.

“Should we be wearing gloves?” I ask him.

“Naw, no one’ll dust for prints in here. It’s not a crime scene.”

I look behind me into the kitchen. “It will be if David and Shane don’t leave that thing alone and come help us.”

Travis snickers. “You don’t like puddy-tats?”

“I’m more of a dog person. But I admire cats and their ability to take so much while giving so little.”

“I had a dog. Ex-wife took him, and the house.”

“Is that why you like country music?”

He eases himself out of the closet. “Huh?”

“Just a joke. Sorry about your dog.”

“Yeah, well—” He scratches his stomach. “—don’t suppose I’ll get another one any time soon. Let’s try the bedroom.”

Shane overhears and joins us. “Nothing personal, Travis, but we don’t leave new vampires alone with humans.”

The detective just sighs and sips his breakfast.

Elizabeth’s walk-in closet would make most women swoon. I, however, could really give a shit how many pairs of—

“Oh my God.” I kneel before the hottest pair of red pumps. “These would look so amazing on me.” I check the brand. “Ferragamos! I always wanted a pair of—fuck, they’re the wrong size.” I hurl the shoe on the floor. It bounces under a row of skirts and hits something metallic.

Shane shoves apart the skirts to reveal a foot-high combination safe. “Excellent.”

Before he pulls it out, he eyes me clutching the other red pump. I toss it aside, chagrined at my estrogen outburst.

“You didn’t see that.”

Shane drags the safe out of the closet and carries it to the bed. While Travis and I watch, he kneels beside the safe and pulls a pencil and a sheet of graph paper from his back pocket.

“What’s that for? “I ask him.

“I’ll show you when I’m done.” He looks at his unwelcome audience. “It’s tedious and takes forever. Go do something else, quietly.”

We obey. In the living room, David is inspecting the bookshelf under the long, high window, which is covered in heavy room-darkening curtains. He pulls out a few volumes that look like Control manuals. “In case the police come,” he tells us as he stuffs them in a duffel bag.

I approach a large wall-mounted cabinet on the far side of the dining room. I fish Elizabeth’s keys from my purse and unlock it. “Whoa.”

The cabinet contains an arsenal of anti-vampire weaponry: crosses, sharpened stakes, a long sword, a crossbow.

And at the bottom, a gun shaped like a prop from a 1940s alien invasion flick.

Travis approaches, giving the stakes a wary eye. “I never saw a piece like that before.” He picks up the gun. “What kind of—”

“Don’t touch that!” David shouts.

Travis drops the gun. I leap back, expecting it to go off. Instead of a heavy thud, it makes a hollow whap! against the floor. I bend down and pick it up.

David stalks over to me. “It doesn’t fire bullets.”

“It’s plastic.” I heft it in my hand. “Like a water pistol.”

“It is a water pistol.”

I look at the two bottles of holy water in the cabinet.A box of latex gloves sits next to them, presumably for Elizabeth’s safe handling.

I scrape the gun’s rough surface with my nail to reveal bright pink. “Aren’t there laws against painting water pistols black?”

“They need to be camouflaged for night ops,” David says. “And a Control agent would never carry a pink-and-yellow weapon. It’s a macho thing.”

“Can someone kill a vampire with this?” I point the gun at Travis. “Like the vampire who tried to rip out my throat the other night?”

The detective puts his hands up, paling. “I said I was sorry.”

“Actually, I don’t think you did.”

David steps between us. “It won’t kill him, but it would burn him badly.”

“It’s empty.” I flip the gun to David, sending Travis a wicked grin. “Besides, sacred weapons don’t work in my hands.”

“Holy water’s different from crosses.” David checks the pistol, then picks up one of the empty duffel bags he left on the table. “It’s intrinsically powerful because it’s been blessed. Most crosses, on the other hand, are just profane pieces of jewelry made in a factory. They have no power unless they’re wielded in faith.” He crams the gun, the holy water, and a small funnel into the outside pocket of the duffel bag. “Also, a vampire never completely heals from a holy water burn. It leaves permanent scars.”

“Then I won’t use it to give Shane a sponge bath.” I lift the sword from the cabinet and unsheathe its long curved blade. “Ooh, nice machete.”

“It’s a katana.” David takes it from me, reverentially, both hands on the hilt. He steps into the open area between the dining room table and the living room sofa. “Considered by many to be the perfect fighting weapon.” He assumes a defensive stance, eyes narrowed, ready to strike an unseen foe. “It provides range, control—” He swings it in a whistling arc. “—and power.”

“What’s it for? “I ask him.

He blinks himself back into our world and lowers the sword. “Beheading vampires.”

We look at Travis, who’s turned even paler. He waves his thumb at the hallway. “I better go help Shane with . . . stuff.”

When he leaves, David resheathes the sword and places it carefully in the duffel bag. It’s too long, so the hilt hangs out of the opening.

“Do you miss it?” I hand him as many stakes as I can hold. “The slayage?”

“No,” he says, too quickly. “I like what I do now. I want to keep doing it.”

Last come the crossbow and quiver of arrows. “Why would she keep these weapons here, when they could be used against her?”

David takes the crossbow. “She wanted to make the world safe from vampires, not the other way around.”

“So why would a self-hating vampire start a radio station?”

David stops, still holding the crossbow. “Because I wanted it,” he says without looking at me. “She felt bad for almost ending my life.” He runs his finger over the trigger. “It was complicated.”

“Yeah!” comes a voice from the bedroom.

David stuffs the weapon in the bag. We hurry to the bedroom as Shane opens the door. He shakes the graph paper, which is full of lines and circles.

“Jackpot,” he says and makes a grand gesture to the bed, where the safe sits wide open.

Travis is sifting through a pile of papers. He smiles and hands them to me. “Birth certificate, Social Security card, PIN numbers, passwords. Everything you need to become Elizabeth Vasser.” He looks at David. “Didn’t find a will, but maybe Ciara can get a copy from Elizabeth’s attorney. Just in case, I’ll check the other room.” He heads into the hall.

“Nice work.” I notice Shane’s holding a small black jewelry box. “What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s just—” He hands it to David. “Sorry.”

David opens the box. His face goes slack. “She kept it.” He sinks onto the bed. “I can’t believe she kept it.”

“You two were engaged?” I ask him.

“For about a week.” His thumb curves around the corner of the box. “Before she turned.”

“You must have meant something to her if she kept it.” I sit beside him. “I think she’d want you to have it.”

He takes the ring out of the box and holds it up to the light, which sparks like fire off the diamond and rubies. “What would I do with it?”

“I could get you a good deal at Dean’s.”

He looks at me as if I’ve drowned the cat. “You want me to pawn her engagement ring?”

“Be practical. You could be out of a job.” I hold up the documents. “Elizabeth’s going to help the station from beyond the grave. Let her help you, too.”

David examines the ring in his palm. “I haven’t been able to afford a vacation in years. Even just to Florida to see my mom would be nice.” He shakes his head hard. “What am I saying? If Elizabeth wanted me to have the ring, she would’ve given it to me.” David puts it back in the box, which he tosses in the safe. He slams the door shut and turns the lock, then stalks out.

Shane carefully sets the safe back in the closet and arranges the row of skirts to hide it.

I follow him in and point to the graph paper in his hand. “What’s all that mean?”

He unfolds the paper. “It’s complicated, but each number of the combination corresponds to a wheel in the mechanism. This one has three. After finding the contact points—”

“By listening?”

“Right, like in the movies.” He explains the process, showing me the click points on the graph paper. I don’t catch most of it, but I notice the three numbers: 12, 43, and 61. He’s crossed out the first two permutations, leaving four others.

“Fascinating. You’ll have to teach me more some time, and I’ll show you how to do a pigeon drop.” I sift through the closet. “They’ll never believe I’m Elizabeth in my Kmart cast-offs.” I pull out an ice-blue suit and hold it up in front of me. “Flattering?”

“Very.” He nods approvingly at the short hemline of the skirt. “You’re going to steal it, aren’t you?”

“I’m borrowing it for the meeting. First I have to try it on.”

“I’m not talking about the suit.” He holds up the graph paper. “I could just tell you the combination, or I could open it for you if you want the ring that bad.”

Foiled. I give him an indignant glare. “Why would I steal the ring? I’m not a thief.”

He brushes his hand against my arm. “I get it, okay? Running a con makes you feel more alive than anything. You feel powerful, smart, superior.”

“That’s not—”

“If you want to go back to grifting, I won’t stand in your way.” He steps back. “But don’t ever lie to me, Ciara. Don’t play me.”

He leaves the closet and shuts the door behind him.

I mull his words as I whip off my clothes. I can run a con and still be a good person, right? I’m pulling this scam because I’m a good person. How dare Shane get all judgmental when it’s his ass I’m trying to save. He needs a home, he needs his music, he needs a purpose in life.

And David needs a vacation, I tell myself as I open the safe.

After I’m dressed—minus the shoes, tragically—I find the men in Elizabeth’s office examining a wall map of the United States.

Shane looks at me. “And you thought I was weird.”

Each state has a silver coin taped to it. “So she collected state quarters. Lots of people do that.” I feel sad that she only made it to Idaho before getting staked.

David hands me a Polaroid photo. It’s a nighttime flash shot of a U-Haul truck. On the side of the truck is a picture of racehorses under the word “Kentucky.” Scribbled underneath in neat Magic Marker are the date and location of the sighting.

I look up to see rows of U-Haul state design photos pinned to the wall next to the map.

“Okay, that’s weird.”

The doorbell rings. We all gape at each other for a long second, flatlining from panic. The cat leaps out of David’s arms and scampers down the hall.

“The weapons.” I dash for the dining room in my bare feet. The jingle of keys comes from the other side of the door. I grab the duffel bag from the table just as the knob turns.

The door swings open to reveal a tall, well-built bald guy in a black uniform. He looks unsurprised to find me here. “Evening, ma’am.” He turns and nods to someone behind him in the hallway.

Through the door steps the white-haired man from Gideon’s complex. He gives me a wide smile.

“There you are, Pumpkin.”

My vision clouds, and I feel my face crumple. My throat, tight as a fist, can squeak only one word.

“Daddy?”

26
Crucify

He holds his hands toward me, palm up. “Look at you, all grown up. In a suit, no less.”

All I can do is clutch the straps of David’s heavy duffel bag. Instinct tells me to keep the table between myself and this—impersonator.

As if reading my mind, he says, “It’s really me. The prodigal father.”

I back up, still holding the bag. When it slides off the table, its weight tears it out of my hands and sends it crashing to the floor, wood and metal clattering.

I rub the pulled muscle in my forearm. “Dad, what are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story. Can I get a hug first?”

David and Shane come up next to me, one on each side.

“Major Lanham?” David says to the first man, the one who’s not my freaking father.

“It’s Lieutenant Colonel now,” the man replies, pointing to something silver on his shoulder. “Good to see you, Fetter.”

I turn to David. “You knew about this?”

“No.” He holds up his hands. “Okay, I knew we had to hire you as a favor to someone in the Control. I didn’t know who or why.”

“Ciara.”

At the sound of my father’s voice, I turn to him.

“Is that all you have to say after eight years?” He opens his arms. “I missed you, Angel.”

My throat clogs up. I don’t want to move toward him, but I can’t help it. His red-gold hair has faded to a shocking white, but the glint in his wide blue eyes is the same one he always had, reading me a bedtime story or gazing at my mom across a crowded revival tent.

He meets me halfway and takes me in his arms. His cozy plumpness is gone, and I can feel his collarbone and shoulder blades through his soft cotton shirt.

I start to sob. None of the questions or accusations matter right now. They feel like they might never matter again.

He passes soothing strokes over my back. “It’s all right,” he says, “we’re here now. No one’s going to send me away this time.”

I cling to him even after his arms slacken to signal the hug’s impending conclusion. Finally he draws me away and wipes the tears from my cheeks with his thumbs. “Don’t cry, honey. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“But—but, why?”

Colonel Lanham gestures to the living room. “Perhaps we should all sit down.”

On numb legs I walk to the center of the couch. After I sit, my father joins me on my right. To my relief, Shane sits on my other side. He extends his hand across me.

“Shane McAllister.” His tone is cordial but chilly.

“Ronan O’Riley.” Dad shakes his hand and beams at him. “You’re a vampire, aren’t you? I haven’t seen many as young as you. You pass very well.”

Shane gives him a nod of acknowledgment. When he sets his hand on the cushion beside me, I place mine over it. Just so things are clear from the start.

The touch of his skin returns my equilibrium. I shift away from my father, ostensibly so that I can see him better. “Start from the beginning.”

He opens his mouth, but Colonel Lanham speaks instead.

“Your father has been working undercover with the Control at Gideon’s compound for two years.” He sits on the edge of the recliner, ramrod straight, as if balancing plates on his head. “We offered him parole from federal prison in exchange for information and his help in this project.”

“It was either that or the Witness Protection Program.” Dad nudges me with his elbow and winks. “This seemed like more fun, no?”

“What information?” I ask him.

His smile fades, and he lets out a heavy sigh. “I never told you much about my family. That was for your protection. You’ve heard of the Travellers?”

“Aren’t they like gypsies or something?”

He shakes his head emphatically. “They hate that word, ‘gypsy.’ They’re Irish itinerants, folk who travel from place to place in the South and Midwest, selling their wares.”

“They’re crooks, aren’t they?”

“Most of them, no. But my family was one of the best.” He looks at Lanham, who frowns. “One of the worst, I mean. I left them when I met your mother. But I kept in touch with them over the years, sent money when they needed it, on the condition that they leave you and your mom alone, which they were happy to do, since you were outsiders—’country folk,’ as they’d say.”

As he speaks, I notice the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes and mouth, and the way his hands quaver as they illustrate a point. More than his hair has changed in eight years. But not his inherent swagger.

“Anyway,” he continues, “I knew enough about my family’s activities and whereabouts to help the feds win a racketeering case against them.”

Colonel Lanham clears his throat. “We thought this opportunity would appeal to your father, since it gave him a chance to be near you and the possibility of contacting you in the course of the operation.”

“And here I am.” Dad spreads his hands in one of his trademark expansive gestures, flicking his fingertips upward as if he’s conjured himself out of nothing.

“What about Mom?” I ask him.

“What about her?”

“She’s still in prison, right?”

“Of course. I always shielded her from any knowledge of my family, so she had no information to offer the FBI.”

“But why couldn’t you bring her with you?”

A corner of his eye twitches, and he glances at Lanham. “We’ll talk about that later.”

“Hmm.” David is leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “Mister O’Riley, how—”

“Please, call me Ronan.”

“Ronan. How did you escape Gideon’s compound?”

“We extracted him,” says Colonel Lanham. “Earlier today.”

A rush of heat runs up the sides of my neck. “If you could get him out, why not me? I almost died.”

Without moving his head, Lanham gives the impression of a nod. “Your father’s extraction was a coordinated, covert operation planned in advance. In a cult situation such as Gideon’s, a surprise raid to rescue you could have triggered a mass murder or suicide. We didn’t want another Waco on our hands.”

I consider this, wondering what would happen to Gideon’s guests—especially the children—if the Control stormed the compound.

“We can explain more later.” Colonel Lanham rises with a sharp exhalation. “Once we get you to the safe house.”

“What?” I think of all I have to do for Friday’s meeting. “I can’t go to a safe house. I have to work.”

“Just for a couple nights, Sweet Pea.” Dad squeezes my hand. “They’ll take you to the station in the morning, make sure it’s safe. Besides, this way we can catch up in private.”

The flood of questions comes surging back. “First I need to talk to David and Shane.” Without looking at my father, I get to my feet and head for the bedroom. Shane walks with me.

Behind me I hear David say to Lanham, “Watch this one. He’s new.”

In response, Travis mumbles, “No respect.”

David joins us in the bedroom. He shoves his hands in his pockets and gives me a rueful look. “I swear I didn’t know your father was involved.”

He doesn’t seem to be lying. “But this Lanham guy, can I trust him?”

Shane scoffs. “I wouldn’t. He’s Control.”

“He won’t hurt you,” David says, “but don’t think for a minute he has your interests in mind. Everything’s a means to an end with these people.”

“Then my dad’s found kindred spirits.”

David frowns, then touches my shoulder. “You’ve been given a second chance with your father. Don’t waste it.” He leaves and shuts the door.

I turn to Shane. “So that’s my dad.”

“The guy who last night you called a ‘fucking asshole creep pig-weasel,’ if I remember correctly.”

“Because I thought he’d abandoned us.”

“And now?”

“He looks so old.” I stare at the floor. “I did that to him.”

“He just seems old because you haven’t seen him in so long. Humans age.”

“Not like that. Not unless they’re in prison, or a vampire farm.” I rub my face. “If they’ve drunk him every two weeks for two years, that’s fifty-two times. No wonder he’s so thin. You think he’s sick?”

“He doesn’t smell sick.”

“You can smell it?”

“Of course, just like an animal can. It used to help vampires find easy prey. Anymore, we use it to avoid fatal bites.” He reaches for my hands, but I pull away. “What?”

“Nothing, it’s just—now would be a nice time for you to be normal.” I wince as soon as I hear my words. “Sorry.”

Shane puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me to face him. “I’m not one for giving advice, but here I’ll make an exception.” His eyes are cold blue and serious. “Just because someone gives you life doesn’t mean you have to give it back.”

I nod, wondering if he learned that from his own parents, or Regina, or both.

We head back down the hall. David is in the kitchen, gathering cat supplies. My dad stands in the dining room, examining the tag on the collar Shane left on the table. The white beast rubs against his ankles. Dad looks down and smiles.

“Hey there, Antoine. How’s a kitty?”

David drops the bag of cat food on the kitchen floor. It bursts open, scattering kibble across the stone tile. He steps forward, crunching. “She named him Antoine?” He glares at the collar, then at Shane. “You knew. You said it was a rabies tag.”

“I didn’t want to upset you,” Shane says in a low voice, glancing at Lanham and my father. “Besides, I thought you might not want him if you knew his name. The cat needs a home, and he wouldn’t last a day at our place.”

Impressed as I am by Shane’s conniving compassion, I keep my attention on my father. He’s squatting down petting the cat, but his eyes are on David, evaluating him.

I know that look. It seeks weakness.

Dad’s gaze trips between the animal and David, and I can almost hear the calculations running through his head. He must know who Antoine is to Gideon. But does he know who Antoine is to David? How long will it take him to figure it out? It might not matter, but I can’t take that chance.

“Ready, Daddy?” I pipe up to distract his thoughts.

His eyes light up in my direction. He straightens with a grunt and offers his arm in a gallant gesture. “Let’s go, Pumpkin.”

He always was a sucker for the “Daddy” thing.

Due to Colonel Lanham’s presence, my father and I keep the conversation casual on the way to the safe house. I tell him about school, the basics of my job, and he tells me about life in a minimum security federal prison. It sounds a lot like Gideon’s lair, minus the bloodletting.

We pull up to a split-level home on a tree-lined street in Silver Spring, a suburb that is neither silver nor springy. The garage door opens as we approach.

I admit, I’m a little disappointed that the “safe house” isn’t surrounded by armed guards with radioactive Rottweilers. I hope it’s more secure than it looks.

Lanham opens the car door for me. “The bedroom on the top floor should have everything you need.”

I pass through a family room, then up a short stairway to the cozy, inviting kitchen. Another turn brings me to another staircase. I grab the railing and bounce up, buoyed by the novelty. The only house I ever lived in was my foster parents’. Before that was mostly motels; after that was dorms and apartments.

On the top level is a large, neat room with homey-looking furniture. The bed is wide and low and bears a faded patchwork quilt. The air’s a bit stuffy, so I switch on the wicker ceiling fan, then exchange Elizabeth’s suit for a T-shirt and pair of jeans I find in the closet.

As I head downstairs, a man in a black shirt and pants slides back into the shadows of one of the bedrooms. I wave to him.

“Evening, ma’am.” His clipped voice says he doesn’t want to chat.

I grab a soda and an egg salad sandwich from the fridge and go down to the family room, where my dad is watching Jay Leno and eating a bowl of cereal.

He beams at my casual clothes. “Now you look like the Ciara I knew.” He pats the sofa next to him.

Instead I sit in a chair across the room. I need distance for what I’m about to ask. “You said you’d tell me why you didn’t take Mom.”

His head jerks back in surprise. “What did we teach you about small talk? When did you get so direct?”

“Just tell me.” I try a smile. “Please.”

He scoops the last of his cereal into his mouth, then wipes his face with a paper napkin and sets the bowl on a side table. “First, you should know that this place is bugged.”

I take a bite of my sandwich, pretending the surveillance doesn’t bother me.

“But don’t worry,” he says. “The Control already knows everything I’m about to tell you.” He mutes the television, then sits back on the cushion with a sigh. “I couldn’t take your mother into Witness Protection because she’s not my wife.”

The sandwich goes dry in my mouth. “You got divorced?”

He puts a hand to his chest, as if my words are more shocking than his. “Divorced? No. My goodness, no. We were never married.”

“What?” I brandish my sandwich at him, still chewing. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

His eyes widen. “Language, Ciara.”

I struggle to swallow. “Am I really your daughter? Am I Mom’s daughter?”

“Of course you are.” He holds up both index fingers. “Let me explain. When I was eighteen, I married another Traveller. It was an arranged thing, the way marriages often are among my people. She was only fifteen.”

“Yuck.”

He ignores this. “Your mom and I met when we were twenty-two. Her grandmother was a, er, customer of mine.”

“A mark, you mean.”

“The usual scam.” He dramatizes the process with almost hypnotic hand gestures. “Go to an old person’s house, convince them their roof desperately needs fixing, offer to do the job, then disappear with their cash deposit.” He grins. “Your mom tracked me down on my way out of town and ... well...”

“Kicked your ass?”

“In a sense. A week later, I left everything to be with her—my family, my religion, my home.” He gives a sly smile and flicks up his fingertips. “After I fixed her grandmother’s roof.”

“Why didn’t you just divorce your first wife?”

“Even if I’d asked, she would have refused. The Travellers are strict Catholics.” He heaves a sigh. “It’s the way we were brought up. Divorce is a terrible sin.”

A fuse just blew in my head. “More terrible than adultery?”

“Yes. I would’ve been excommunicated.”

“But you just said you changed religions for Mom, so why would you care?”

“When you’re born a Catholic, especially among my people, you’re part of a body. Being cut off from that body is like losing a piece of yourself.”

“I don’t get how that’s more important than marrying the woman you love.”

“I don’t expect you to understand. We raised you as a Pentecostal, like your mother. For you, and for most of the people who came to our revivals, living in sin is worse than divorce. That’s why we never told anyone.”

I wave my hands. “Don’t assume anything about what I believe. As far as I’m concerned, the lies are the worst part of it.” At least until the next thought hits me. “Do you have children with this woman?”

“I do not.”

I squint at him, wishing I could play back his reply to search for the deception. “Four years and she never got pregnant? I’m assuming no birth control, of course, since that would be a sin.”

He scratches his ear, face reddening. “That’s more detail than I want to discuss with my daughter.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the truth when I was a kid?” As soon as the question leaves my mouth, I know the answer. They figured I’d blab to someone, and they’d be exposed as sanctimonious hypocrites.

“I’m sorry we never told you. It came out in the trial, but you were only allowed in the courtroom long enough to testify.” His pause swells the tension. “Since you were the key witness against us.”

I take a sudden renewed interest in my sandwich. “They made me testify. I couldn’t lie on the stand.”

I feel his gaze on me as I pick the flaxseeds off the crust of the multigrain bread. For some reason they’ve always bothered me.

My father doesn’t speak, and in his silence lies the accusation I can’t deny.

I wasn’t just the key witness; I was the fink. I gave the cops the anonymous tip that started the entire investigation.

If I could reach the remote, I’d un-mute the TV to crack the oppressive hush. There’s a band on the Tonight Show I don’t recognize, with a female lead singer in a red muumuu.

I can feel my father watching me, waiting for my confession. Now I know why Shane’s silence last night tore up my insides. I’m tired of being on trial.

I turn to look him in the eye. “Are you going to do this for the next eight years, too?”

“Do what?”

“Not talk to me.”

He shifts his weight. “I’ve been undercover. I haven’t talked to anyone on the outside.”

“For two years. And the six years before that, you were in prison, not calling me. Not writing.”

“Not being called. Not being written to. Not being visited by my own daughter.”

My stomach twists at his victim voice. “Illinois is a long way from here.”

“Your foster parents were an hour’s drive from the prison, and I know they offered to bring you.” His voice rises, bludgeoning the air between us. “In the eighteen months before college, you never came to see me. Not once.”

“Because you never called.”

“Why was it my job to call you? You were the one who put me there.”

“And that’s why I needed you to call me. To tell me I was forgiven.” My voice cracks on the last word.

He looks away. He can’t say it.

My throat grinds out a whisper. “Mom forgave me.”

His jaw clenches. “Yes, she was good at that. Not like you and me.”

I enunciate each word. “I’m not like you.”

He lifts his head to meet my gaze. “You’re exactly like me. We hurt people even when we don’t mean to. And when we do mean to ...” His smile is both proud and diabolical. “The Control told me all about your last con. A masterpiece.”

My hand clenches around the sandwich, squeezing egg salad over my fingers. “I needed money for college.”

“So did that man’s children.”

“Stop it.”

“Ciara, we do what we have to do.” He comes over and sits on the arm of my chair. “That man was greedy, like all marks. He wanted to get rich quick. He was cheating on his wife, for heaven’s sake. He deserved everything you did to him.” Dad sighs and rests his hands on his knees in a posture of defeat. “I only wish you hadn’t compromised your virtue to make the score. Your mother and I raised you to be decent.”

I lean away from him and scoff. “What does sex have to do with decency?”

He doesn’t answer, just cocks his head as if I’m speaking Swahili.

I glare at him. “I spent my childhood watching you steal from people who weren’t greedy, just gullible. How is that raising me to be decent?”

He stands and moves away, waving his hand dismissively. “Regardless, I don’t think you should be dating a vampire.”

My brain goggles at the rapid change in subject. “What?”

“I’ve lived with them for two years. They only care about feeding their needs.”

“Shane’s different.”

“Maybe now he is. But it’s just a matter of time before he decays into a monster.”

“Not if I can help it.”

“And you can’t.”

I won’t have this argument with him. “I’m only twenty-four. I’m not looking for a husband.”

“And one day when you hurt him, he won’t crawl away quietly like your last boyfriend did.”

“This isn’t about the mark, and it’s not about Shane.” I stand and face him. “Say it, Dad. I betrayed you. But you just did the same thing to your own family.”

He eyes me up and down, coldly. “Yes, I learned about loyalty from the master.”

My chest tightens. I shouldn’t let him do this to me. I shouldn’t feel guilty. I shouldn’t care how much I’ve hurt this lying, scheming sociopath.

The tears come anyway. Immediately my father’s at my side, his arms around me.

“Ciara, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.” He strokes my back in soothing circles. “Angel, please don’t cry.” His voice is rough around the edges, like he’ll break down himself any moment. “It’s not your fault I’m a crook. You just did what you thought was right.”

“I didn’t know they’d send you away.” I pull back and wipe my face. “I thought you’d get a fine or maybe a few days in the local jail. I just wanted you and Mom to stop so we could have a normal life.”

“I know. You didn’t realize you were knocking down such a big house of cards.” He picks up a tissue box from the side table and hands it to me. “You didn’t know about the rest of it: the insurance fraud, the phony investment schemes, the identity thefts.”

His last words stop the flow of my tears. I drag the tissue over my eyes, so hard it pulls my lashes. Time to wrestle my brain back to business.

I glance at the clock. “I’d better get to bed. I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.”

“Ciara, have a seat for just a minute longer.”

I sit, this time next to him on the couch, though not close enough to touch.

He folds his hands. “I want to help you.”

“Help me what?”

“I know why you and your friends were at that apartment.”

My face stays straight, even as my mind is screaming Oh shit! “We were just cleaning up.”

“And gathering her papers so you could pose as her.”

“We weren’t.” I remember the bugs. “And keep your voice down.”

“The Control knows about your plan, and they don’t care. It’s not their jurisdiction.”

“They wouldn’t care if I impersonated one of their agents? Not that I am.”

“In the short term, all they care about is getting Gideon. I’ve given them enough evidence against him to ensure my freedom—and yours—for a long time.”

“What kind of evidence?”

“Photos. Documentation.” He tugs on the end of his sleeve and looks away. “Physical evidence.”

I wince. “Were you bitten a lot?”

“The usual two-week rotation. I’d feel sick and tired the day after, but the rest of the time it wasn’t half-bad.”

I decide not to undergo the does-being-bitten-feel-good discussion with my father.

“So tell me your scheme,” he says. “Friday’s the big day, huh?”

“How do you know all this?”

“Elizabeth’s office is bugged. So are her phone lines. And no, David doesn’t know.”

I hesitate. He already knows about the scam, so I wouldn’t jeopardize it by telling him. And I could use his help. I’m sure I haven’t thought of all the angles. Saving the station is more important than my pride.

Speaking of pride, the criminal’s kryptonite, a not-so-small part of me wants to flaunt my work, to show my father what I’ve learned. Show him what I’ve become.

“All right.” I pick up my sandwich, suddenly hungry again. “Here’s the deal.”

27
Everybody Wants to Rule the World

August 2

8:00 a.m.

An anonymous Control agent drives us to the station. It feels odd planning a crime under the watchful eye of a man in uniform, but what my dad said makes sense: out-maneuvering a communications conglomerate is small potatoes next to capturing Gideon. Actually, the scam is big potatoes, but the Control doesn’t eat potatoes. Anyway ...

The station’s front door is locked as always. I knock.

“Go around,” says a voice I recognize as Shane’s.

I lead Dad to the cellar door at the back of the building, the door that connects via a closed corridor to the downstairs lounge. “So they don’t fry,” I explain.

We come upstairs to find Travis at my desk with his laptop, color printer, and binding machine. Shane and David stand behind him, and Franklin sits at his own desk with a cache of sharpened pencils within reach.

Shane steps forward. “Ciara, what’s he doing here?”

I walk over to him. “Dad’s going to help us with the con.”

“You told him?”

“He already knew.” I look at David. “The Control bugged Elizabeth’s office and phones.”

David grimaces and lets out a sharp exhale. “What about my office? What about downstairs?”

“I don’t know,” my dad says, “but I could check if you like.”

David’s shoulders sag in relief. “Thank you. Let’s start in the lounge.”

When they’re downstairs out of hearing, I turn to Shane. “You could be a little friendlier to my dad.”

“He looks at me like I’m a circus lion about to turn on my tamer.”

“Ooh, I’m your tamer?” I tug his shirt collar to bring his mouth to mine. “Let me get my whip and chair.”

Travis clears his throat. “When y’all get your tongues off each other’s tonsils, I’ll show you the file.” With a few swift mouse moves, he displays a two-page print preview. One page contains a surreptitious photo of the real Elizabeth, followed by a list of fun facts about her. “All we gotta do is replace the information with disinformation.”

I pull his digital camera out of my lower drawer and turn to Franklin. “I’m ready for my close-up, Mister DeMille.”

In the parking lot, Franklin shoots me doing mundane things like walking to my—I mean, Elizabeth’s— Mercedes. To simulate candidness, I pick my teeth in the rearview mirror.

Soon David and my father join us. Franklin starts snapping shots of David. I scan the woods for the Control agents I know are patrolling, but even in the morning light I can’t see them in their mottled green daytime uniforms. I doubt Gideon would send a human to do his work, anyway, so we’re probably safe until dark.

Dad stands next to me, chin in hand, examining David.

“Hold everything,” he says suddenly. “I have an idea.”

David stops his charade of casualness and turns to my dad as if awaiting orders from General Patton.

“I know what this con is missing.” Dad takes a dramatic pause. “Emotion.”

I ask him to explain, knowing I’ll regret it.

“These Skywave folks,” he says, “won’t believe Elizabeth has changed her mind just for the money. After all, the whole reason she was improving the station was so she could sell it.” He points at David. “What if she has a better reason to keep it?”

“I don’t get it,” I say, though I actually do. I just don’t want to be the one to explain it to my boss.

“Hear me out.” Dad slips into sales mode—not that he was ever much out of it. “A relationship gives Elizabeth a plausible motive for keeping the station. After all, she wouldn’t put her ever-lovin’ honey out of work.”

David looks at him, then me, with more than a touch of trepidation. “So we pretend we’re going out.”

I gasp. “No, more than that.” I reach into my—I mean, Elizabeth’s—purse and pull out the tiny black jewelry box.

David advances on me. “You stole the ring?”

“I was going to give it to you, once you’d wised up enough to take it.”

He snatches the box from me and opens it, looking relieved it’s not empty.

“A good con is all in the details.” I reach forward and pull out the ring, then slip it on my finger. “We get a picture of me wearing this and maybe us holding hands.”

“That’s brilliant, Pumpkin.” Dad beams at me. I feel my face flush with pride. “But better yet, wait until the meeting tomorrow to show the ring and announce the engagement. It’ll create a distraction.” He waves a hand between me and David. “You two should kiss for the photo.”

My smile fades. “But he’s my boss.”

“No, you’re his boss, in our new reality.”

“0«r reality? When did this become your con?”

“When I improved it.” He tilts his head toward the station. “I’m sure the corpse will understand.”

My jaw drops as I realize he’s referring to Shane. For a moment I can’t find my voice.

Finally I raise a trembling hand and point to the station. “Go.”

“Honey, I didn’t mean—”

“Now.” I turn my back. I can’t even look at him.

The sound of crunching driveway pebbles fades as he walks away. I look up at David. “I’m so sorry.”

“Why?”

“For what he suggested. I know why he did it. He doesn’t want me with Shane, so he thinks he can push me into another man’s arms. I’m not some gypsy wench who’ll let Mum and Da choose her husband.”

“I’m sure your father just wants you to be happy.” He puts his hands in his pockets. “So how do we do this?”

“Do what?”

“Kiss.”

I snort. “We don’t. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not. You said, ‘It’s all in the details.’ A sneaky candid of us kissing will make the engagement a lot more credible. It’ll already be established in their minds that we’re a couple—that Elizabeth and I are a couple—so it won’t come out of the blue.”

I rub my temples and wish he were wrong. I should have figured it out myself, and probably would have if I weren’t so pissed at my dad.

“You’re right.” Determined to be a professional, I move to stand beside Elizabeth’s car. “Let’s get it over with.”

David joins me, and we stand there looking like idiots for a few moments. “I’ll ask again,” he says. “How do we do this?”

I shrug. “Close our eyes and think of England?”

“Are we done yet?” Franklin yells from the other end of the parking lot.

“Keep shooting until we tell you to stop,” I call to him, then turn back to David. “Pretend I’m Elizabeth.”

His dark green eyes droop at the corners.

“But don’t look sad,” I add. “Remember, we just got engaged.”

I hold my hand up to display the ring. He takes my fingers and runs his thumb over the diamond, a dozen emotions playing over his face. The breeze suddenly drops to nothing. Along with the distant click-whir of the camera, I swear I can hear my own pounding pulse.

“I really loved her,” he murmurs.

“I know you did.” I stop myself from asking why.

“But it’s time to put away the past.” He covers the ring with his palm, then shifts his gaze to meet mine. “Can you help me?”

I want to look away, break the connection our all-too-human eyes are forming. “Depends what you mean by ‘help.’“ I pull him closer with the hand he’s holding. “If you mean, can I give you one last moment with her, one chance to say good-bye the way you wanted to, then yes.”

He draws the back of his fingertips over my cheek, then leans in close. “Good-bye,” he whispers.

I expect the kiss to be tentative, awkward. Instead, David’s mouth meets mine with a familiar conviction, as if we’ve done this a thousand times. As the kiss deepens, his longing makes me dizzy, a wave pulling me under. It feels like it could drown me.

He pulls me tight against him. I can’t push him away, can’t even wedge a hand between our bodies, so I respond the way Elizabeth should have, returning his passion and making him feel, for a moment, that he’s not a heartsick fool. As he presses me against the car and his fingers tangle in my hair, I find myself hoping—and fearing—that I’ll never be the object of such a love, one that could bring a man to his knees and never let him stand again.

His mouth tenses suddenly, and he draws in a sharp breath through his nose. He pulls away, eyes glistening.

“Okay? “I whisper.

“Yeah.” He passes a hand over his mouth, then clears his throat. “I think that went well.”

“Me, too,” I try to chirp, hoping to ease the terrible weight of the moment. My face feels like it’s been in a sauna.

I signal to Franklin, promising myself I’ll never think about the kiss again.

David says, “Um ...”

“No.” I put up a palm between us. “No ‘um.’ Let’s just—leave it.”

He nods quickly. “Good idea.”

A car is rumbling toward us down the gravel driveway, sending a cloud of dust into the trees.

Lori.

She doesn’t even pull into a parking spot, just shuts off the engine in front of me and leaps out.

“Where have you been? I’ve been calling you for three days.” She slams the car door. “I went to your apartment and some goonie-looking guy told me to mind my own business. What the hell’s going on?” She steps back and scans me. “And why are you wearing a suit?”

I take her hands. “I’m so sorry about the phone. I was held hostage, and then the battery ran out and I didn’t have time to charge it.”

“Hostage? Are you okay? And again, what’s with the suit?”

I hesitate. She knows about the vamps, but nothing about my past. “I have a big meeting tomorrow.”

“Oh.” She looks at David, then at Franklin, who just walked up to us. Her voice lowers. “Does it have anything to do with, you know ...” She makes fangs with her middle fingers.

I look past her shoulder to see my dad striding toward us. I seize Lori’s arm and drag her toward Elizabeth’s car. “Tell you what, I’ll explain it all over lunch.”

“Isn’t it a little early—”

“Greetings!”

Lori turns and smiles at my father’s approach. “Hello.”

“You must be one of Ciara’s college friends,” he says to her in a snake-smooth voice.

Lori shakes his hand and introduces herself as I stand there hoping the earth will swallow me as a midmorning snack.

“Pleased to meet you,” he says to her, “I’m Ciara’s father.”

Lori’s face goes blank for a moment. “Oh, you mean her foster father.”

He turns to me. “Pumpkin? What did you tell her?”

“That you were dead.”

Lori gapes. “Wha ... ?”

I take her arm to lead her inside. “David, I’m taking a very long coffee break.”

“Wait,” my father says. “Lori, do you have any acting experience?”

9:45 a.m.

My best friend Lori, innocent little cutie-pie Lori, the one uncorrupted element in my entire fucking life, has turned into a monster.

I stand in the parking lot with my father, watching her pretend to be me. She hikes her miniskirt into microskirt territory, flirts with David, jams in my driver’s seat to an imaginary song on the radio, and generally acts like a dork.

Dad thought it would be a great idea for Elizabeth’s marketing director Ciara Griffin to come to the meeting with her tomorrow. I admit a bigger staff makes Elizabeth look more impressive, but despite Lori’s enthusiasm for the role of yours truly, she’s a novice. And despite Dad’s qualifications, I’m beginning to resent his enhancements to my operation, like I’m a kid who needs help with her science project.

I glare at him. “If she gets in trouble because of this—”

“It’s her choice. And look how jazzed she is.”

He’s right. After an initial flurry of indignation that I’d hidden my darkest secret from her, Lori adjusted rather well to my criminal past and present. If I were a mugger or a bank robber, she’d feel different, but people think con artists are cool.

Mostly because we are.

10:15 a.m.

“This was your dad’s idea?”

“Yes, although I had to agree it was an improvement on the plan.”

Shane glowers at the empty chair behind David’s desk. I brought him in here so we could speak privately about The Kiss, away from the mockery of Travis and Franklin. “Where’s your father now?”

“Outside, directing Lori on the finer points of being Ciara Griffin. I couldn’t watch anymore. Besides, I wanted you to hear about this from me.”

Shane’s face is set in a stony pensiveness, his posture closed, arms folded over his chest. He flicks an icy glance at me. “Why? What’s the big deal?”

“No. None big deal. I mean, it was nothing.” I drag a hand through my hair. “If I seem nervous, it’s not because it affected me. I just didn’t know how you would react.”

“You think I’m a jealous man?”

“Kinda, yeah.”

“Insecure?”

“No,” I hurry to say. “Just sensitive.”

He takes a step closer, backing me up against the desk. “Do you want me to get mad?”

“No.”

His lips curve in a crafty smile. “Good. Because it’ll be a lot more fun to get even.”

11:15 a.m.

I stare at the Gallery of Me, both genuine and pretend, on Travis’s computer screen.

“Am I really that obnoxious?” I ask Lori over a box of doughnuts at my desk.

“Yes,” Franklin answers.

“But now you know where I get it from.” I glance at David’s closed office door. My dad is in there ingratiating himself with my boss. In just a few hours they’ve become good buds. David’s probably hungry for a substitute father since his own died so young. As for my dad, he wants to be everyone’s friend, just in case he needs to take advantage of them one day.

At least it keeps both of them out of my hair.

I click and drag the best picture of Lori/me into the box in Travis’s report. “We’ll print and bind this, then have it messengered to Jolene’s boss right at five o’clock.”

“What about Jolene?” Lori flips through the pages of the report. “Won’t she recognize us at the meeting tomorrow?”

I check my watch. “Travis had agreed to get the report to Jolene this afternoon. Of course, that was back when he could still do daylight. He’s probably called her by now to tell her that, A, there were some late developments that had to be added to the report, thus delaying its production, and, B, his car broke down and she needs to meet him at five at his office, where his curmudgeonly associate Leonard—played by Franklin—will be waiting with the original report.”

Franklin nods. “For some reason Ciara thought my personality would mesh well with Jolene’s.”

“Well enough to have a drink while waiting for Travis to walk back from the print shop with the addendum she wants. She sees the original report—the one that shows the real Elizabeth and the real Ciara—inserted in that envelope.”

Franklin holds up exhibit A.

“So what’s this addendum she’s waiting for from the printer?” Lori asks.

“Travis has promised her some serious dirt on yours truly.” I lean back in my chair. “See, the key to conning someone is to exploit their weakness. Jolene’s weakness is me, or more precisely, her hatred of me.”

“You ruined her bachelorette party,” Lori says. “But how long is she going to sit around waiting for Travis before she takes the original report?”

“As long as it takes her to pass out.” Franklin shakes a bottle of prescription sedatives. “It’ll help time go by faster for her.”

“How much time?” she asks me.

“Until after our meeting tomorrow.”

“You’re going to drug her for over twelve hours?”

“David will be there all night to monitor her vitals. Shane’ll stand watch so David can get some sleep before our big meeting.”

She holds up a photo of The Kiss. “Shane and David, together all night? I’d love to be a fly on that wall.”

I take the picture from her. “That issue’s been settled to everyone’s satisfaction.”

“So then what happens at sunrise?”

“Franklin will be there when she wakes up. Only he won’t be the same man.”

“Hi, I’m Frankie!” Franklin slips seamlessly into La Cage aux Folks mode. “I am so sorry about my brother Leonard’s party. My gracious, they get out of hand sometimes. You’re lucky no one called the cops. Let me fetch you some coffee. Do you need Sweet’n Low?”

I fill in the part of the groggy Jolene. “Whah? What happened? Why are you talking like that?”

“I guess you had a leeeetle too much butterscotch schnapps, judging by the photos.”

I cross to Franklin’s desk. “What photos?”

He hands me the digital camera. I pretend to flip through the pictures, then gasp. “Oh. My God. Is that me? Who’s that guy?”

“I don’t know, but my goodness, he has a nice butt. Did he mention my name at all?”

“You drugged me!” I mime hurling the camera against the wall. “That’s what I think of your stupid tricks!”

“Hey! Do you know how much that camera cost?”

“Not as much as a lawsuit will cost you.”

Franklin flips his hand. “You can work that out with Travis when he gets back. Since he already downloaded the pictures, I imagine there’ll be some negotiation.” He looks up through his lashes. “Unless you have somewhere you have to be.”

As Jolene, I look at my watch. “My meeting! Just give me the report.”

“You sure you don’t want coffee? I found this to-die-for Costa Rican blend.”

“Leonard, cut the evil twin bullshit and give me the fucking report!”

Franklin hands me a different envelope—identical to the one containing the original report—and waggles his shoulders in indignation. “Aren’t you the fussy little queen bitch this morning?”

“And ... scene.” I bow, then speak to Lori in my own voice. “Without opening the sealed envelope to look at the report, which is mostly blank, she runs to her car and drives away like a maniac. But the night before, Noah siphoned off most of the fuel, and Jim tampered with the fuel gauge serving unit so that her needle stays on half a tank. When she runs out of gas, somewhere on a country road between here and the next town, she tries to call the office, but alas, her cell phone battery is dead, due to the fact that it’s been used all night to play Tetris and check the local weather in Hong Kong. Oddly enough, her phone’s car adapter has vanished.”

“Back up a second,” Lori says. “Why does Franklin need to act like he’s his own twin?”

“Just to disorient her, then piss her off. The more emotional she is, the faster she’ll get out of there and the less likely she’ll look at the blank report.”

Lori nods. “So she misses the meeting.”

“She misses the meeting and probably gets fired. Travis and his detective agency have packed up and disappeared that morning, so she has no legal recourse. Since he has naked photos of her, she’ll drop the whole thing to protect her new marriage.”

“Wow.” Lori sets down her half-eaten doughnut. “You’re really going to screw her over, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh.” No point in showing remorse I don’t feel. “But it’s screwery in self-defense. She can’t wait to fire us all after the takeover.”

Lori looks nauseated. “And that makes it okay?”

“Yes, it does.” I cross the office and pull my chair to sit next to her. “I’ve done a lot of bad shit in my life. This summer, for the first time, I’ve done really good shit. These vampires are finally questioning the so-called fact that their future is nothing but an endless fade. They’re starting to live in the Now. I won’t let anyone take that away from them. And no one is going to take away the one good deed of my life.” I pick up another doughnut. “Especially not some horse-faced twat like Jolene.”

My phone rings. It’s Travis, who reveals that he phoned my nemesis about the report’s delay. Jolene was predictably pissed but heartened when she heard that the reason for said delay was information that could hurt me.

I hang up and turn to Lori. “I’ll understand if you don’t want to be a part of this, but I need to know now. Are you in?”

She stares at the picture of her/me in Travis’s report, then swallows hard. “I’m in.” She sets the report aside. “So who’s the ‘nice butt’ guy in Jolene’s naked pictures?”

Franklin snickers. “Let’s just say Shane will have his photographic revenge tonight.”

12:00 p.m.

David, Lori, and I grab a table at the local diner and go over the script, with my dad’s semi-unwelcome assistance. David and I are the two major players, with Lori supporting us as a shill, there to help create our reality—or our “truth,” as she calls it. She seems to relish the opportunity to put one over on The Man.

The Man, in this case, consists of Alfred Bombeck and Sherilyn Murphy, the Skywave executives overseeing the WVMP takeover. Travis’s research gives me a few personal details I can use: Murphy has “adopted” a wolf pack in Yellowstone National Park, and Bombeck thinks the New York Yankees are evil incarnate.

Elizabeth’s notes and e-mails reveal Murphy and Bombeck as a good-cop/bad-cop team. One of them (Bombeck) lays on the fear tactics, trying to railroad the young station owner into parting with her holding. Meanwhile, Murphy plays on Elizabeth’s need for economic security and the knowledge that the station will be able to grow and blossom in the best possible hands.

They’re con artists even if they don’t know it. But I think they know it.

1:30 p.m.

I wait in line alone at Motor Vehicles, ready to commit my first identity theft. I think about the credit card commercials that portray such bandits as sadistic hedonists, cackling over the booty they’ve bought with their victims’ good names. I tell myself I’m not like them. I tell myself this theft serves a noble purpose. I tell myself there’s no other way.

I convince myself. It’s not hard.

“Next?”

I approach the counter and grimace at the ennui-ridden clerk. “I lost my driver’s license.”

“Was it stolen?” she asks. Her tone suggests she doesn’t care.

I sigh and conjure a blush. “No, I was bungee jumping yesterday, out in Washington County? You know, where that big gorge is?” The clerk blinks. “Anyway, my license was in my shirt pocket. It never bounced back up with me. It’s probably halfway to the Chesapeake Bay by now, if a trout hasn’t eaten it.”

She’s already torn off a number. She pushes it and a blank form across the counter at me. I thank her, glumly, and move to the waiting area. An electronic marquee announces the latest news and offers the occasional music trivia, the inanity of which would make the DJs snarf their blood cocktails.

My number dings. This clerk, an athletic-looking brunette in her thirties, appears to have taken her happy pills today.

“Good morning! What can I do for you?”

I tell her my sad bungee story, and she relates her own extreme sports experiences while typing in the information from Elizabeth’s birth certificate and Social Security card.

“I just can’t get enough of that adrenaline rush,” she coos. “Of course, you know what I mean.”

My heart pounds in my ears, and every sense is amplified times ten. “Absolutely.”

When requested, I hand her several more proofs of residence than she needs, plus a twenty-dollar bill for the fee.

“Stand up against this wall and smile, okey-doke?” She hums along with the Blue Oyster Cult tune piped in over the speakers. “Ready? Don’t say ‘cheese,’ say, ‘Tomorrow’s Friday!’“

Five minutes later, I pick up Elizabeth’s new driver’s license, featuring a picture of me looking as if I just swallowed a turkey bone.

I’m in the game again. I give the clerk a wave and a broad smile. “Tomorrow’s Friday!”

2:15 p.m.

I use Elizabeth’s debit card to buy a decent pair of shoes to go with her suit. For the meeting, of course.

5:45 p.m.

The Control robo-dude drives me and my dad back to the safe house.

5:52 p.m.

Franklin text-messages me:

BOTTOMS UP

28
Money For Nothing

August 3

5:54 a.m.

I wake to the sounds of Jim signing off with the Stones’ “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll.” The song gives me the soul-deep inspiration I need to jump out of bed and begin the Day of Triumph. In the shower I wail it three times over, full volume.

I put on Elizabeth’s ice-blue suit, then bop down to the kitchen, where my dad sits with a cup of coffee and yesterday’s newspaper, still in his robe and slippers.

“Wish me luck?”

“You don’t need it.” He looks at me over his reading glasses. “I wish I could be there.”

I breeze past him to the refrigerator. “What are your plans for the day?”

“Gideon issues.”

“I hope they hurry up and neutralize that motherf— uh, that guy soon. This place is nice, but I want to go home.” I pull out the orange juice and the package of English muffins. “Ooh, honey wheat. My favorite.”

“It’ll all be over before you know it.”

“Then what? Will you stick around, or will the Control move you somewhere else?”

“Hard to say. Ciara, I’ve been meaning to ask, what church do you go to now?”

I put the muffin in the toaster and push down the lever, harder than I have to. “I don’t go to church.”

“So you have a purely private relationship with Our Lord?”

I snort. “Come on, you don’t really believe all that shit, do you?”

“Hey! What did I say about your language?”

“Goddamn it, Dad, your preaching days are over. Drop the act.”

“It’s not an act.”

“Have you forgotten? All those years, you and Mom weren’t really healing people. You were fooling them.”

“Their faith was real,” he says, “and that’s what healed them.”

“But yours wasn’t.”

“Maybe not at first.” His voice lowers and sobers. “But if you play a role long enough, eventually you become it.”

“In other words, fake it till you make it? I’ll try that. One day I’ll be a rich vampire owning a radio station. Maybe I’ll even get taller.” I pop the English muffin from the toaster, even though it’s not done. I just want to get out of here.

“Ciara, I know you’re bitter over the lies you think your mother and I told—”

“That I think you told?”

“—but don’t take it out on God.”

“Can we talk about this later? I need to keep my head in the game.”

“Sure, honey.” He sits back in his chair, folds his paper, and sets it aside. “I want you to know, whatever happens, I’m proud of you.”

I turn toward the counter and fumble with the butter dish. My vision’s gone cloudy, and my knife misses the muffin and spreads butter on my thumb. “Tell me again at the end of the day, okay? Assuming you’re not bailing me out of jail.”

I blink back the wetness—for the sake of my mascara, of course—and finish buttering the English muffin. Then I set it in front of him on the table.

“Here, you’re too skinny.” I bend down to kiss his forehead. “I’ll call you when it’s over.”

He grabs my hand as I move away. His face is strangely solemn. “Good luck, Angel.”

“Thought you said I didn’t need it.” I wave at him on my way to the garage, where my Control chauffeur awaits. Something makes me want to look over my shoulder at my father one more time, like a kid on her first day at kindergarten.

But I keep moving, straight ahead, a woman on a mission.

8:25 a.m.

Skywave’s regional headquarters looms like a glass Godzilla over the skyline of its Virginia suburb. As I walk toward it, followed by my entourage—and the Control goon at a discreet distance—I resist the urge to gawk at its gleaming facade like a tourist at the Empire State Building. I’m supposed to be here, after all, and I have to act the part.

My name is Elizabeth Vasser. I was born in Evanston, Illinois, on July 19, 1970. I graduated magna cum laude from the University of Chicago in 1992 with degrees in psychology and criminology. I play racquetball, poorly, and once won a Skee-Ball contest on the boardwalk of Wildwood, New Jersey. Pet peeves: men who curse in public and people who use the word “schizophrenic” to mean “of two minds.”

My name is Elizabeth Vasser.

8:30 a.m.

“Good morning, Ms. Vasser. Welcome to Skywave.” The young blond assistant holds out his hand in greeting as he strides across the lobby’s marble floor.

“Thank you so much.” I shake his hand with a warm, dry palm. “Let me introduce my staff. This is David Fetter, my general manager, and Ciara Griffin, our marketing director.”

His regard lingers on the latter for an extra moment before turning back to me. “I’m Jonathan, Sherilyn Murphy’s assistant. You can call me Jon,” he adds in Lori’s direction. “Ms. Murphy asked me to bring you up to the conference room.”

He leads us down a hallway lined with gold and platinum records on the wall. I catch Lori checking out Jonathan’s butt and give her a warning glare. It’s not as if they can go out, considering he thinks she’s me.

The brass-railed elevator displays a television screen running a music video by a new country/western band. On the top floor, we enter a lavishly decorated conference room, the walls of which are filled with autographed photos of recording artists.

Two executives await us, flanked by what looks like stacks of contracts. Between them sits a single windowed envelope.

A sharp-dressed brunette in her late thirties stands to greet us. “Good morning, I’m Sherilyn Murphy. We’ve spoken on the phone many times.” She points to my lapel. “Hey, great pin.”

I finger the silver brooch. “Thanks, I just love wolves.”

“Me, too. There’s something magical about them, don’t you think?” She gushes as if wolves are a rock star she would sleep with if she could.

A gruff, balding man in his fifties joins us. “Alfred Bombeck. Glad you could be on time.”

“I almost couldn’t get out of bed this morning.” I rub my eyes and smile at David. “We were up late watching the White Sox beat the Yankees in extra innings.”

Bombeck’s face lights up. “How about that bottom of the fourteenth?” His eyes narrow with sadistic pleasure. “I loved watching those bastards in the bullpen get pum-meled.”

Jonathan offers us coffee and Danish on the credenza. I resist the free food, taking only a small cup of coffee before I sit. Near the contracts, three expensive-looking pens are lined up like a military color guard.

“Your station has acquired a bit of notoriety this summer,” Murphy says. “The vampire gimmick was very successful.”

Bombeck clears his throat. “Odd, but successful.”

“We’ve talked to our marketing folks,” Murphy says, “and they want to continue the vampire theme after the takeover. With our own radio personalities, of course.”

I give them a sweet smile to mask my utter hatred of everything they stand for. “Rather than waste your valuable time, I should be frank. We’ve decided to decline the buyout offer. I don’t want to sell the station.”

The Skywave folks gape at me. Bombeck sputters. “What? Just a week ago you couldn’t wait to take our money.”

“If circumstances have changed,” Murphy purrs, “I’m sure we can work something out.”

“Circumstances have changed.” I beam at David. “We want to leave the station as a legacy to our children.” I pull my left hand from under the table. “David and I are getting married.”

“Oh my God!” On cue, Lori squeals, rolls back her chair, and rushes around the table to hug David, then me. “I’m so happy for you!” She yanks my hand closer to her face. “I saw this ring earlier but didn’t want to say anything. I thought maybe it was one of those ‘pre-engagement’ rings guys give when they’re not ready for commitment but don’t want to lose the girlfriend.” She hugs me again and whispers, “How am I doing?”

“Perfect,” I whisper back. In my regular voice, I say, “Thank you, Ciara. It’s wonderful to have your support.”

Murphy coughs. “Congratulations. But I think we can offer your children an even better legacy.”

“Given the recent popularity of the station, we’ve raised the offer a bit.” Bombeck slides the envelope down the table to me. Through its plastic window I see the words, “Pay to the Order of Elizabeth Vasser.”

“Thank you, but no.” I try to slide it back, but Bombeck’s hand stops its movement.

“Please at least look at the amount,” he says. “You don’t want to walk away from this deal with your eyes closed.”

My hand wants to open the envelope, just to see, but my better judgment says, Don’t even think about it. It makes my hand push harder. “I’m sorry, but the station is priceless to me.”

Murphy cuts in with a strained smile. “We understand that, but if this deal breaks down, our bosses will want to know that we made every effort to convince you. If we tell them that you never even looked at the figure, it could make things difficult for our jobs.”

I calculate the risk of seeing the check versus that of pissing them off further. If I get them in trouble, they might investigate Elizabeth’s change of heart. “Just tell me how much.”

“It’s on the check,” Murphy says evenly.

I know where this is going. Seeing a check with Elizabeth’s (my) name on it will have more impact than hearing an abstract number out loud. I’ll imagine what I could do with all those zeros and commas. I want to push it away again.

More than anything, though, I want to get out of here. Things are running too smoothly. A con without a hitch is a con waiting to implode. Maybe the check is the hitch, just a speed bump.

A piece of clear tape holds the envelope shut. It pops off easily. The check is a lovely mottled pink that complements the rubies on my ring.

$10,000,000.00.

I am Elizabeth Vasser. By the end of the day I’ll have a passport in her name with my picture on it. By the end of the weekend I’ll be in New Zealand. By the end of next week, the check will have cleared into a new offshore account, and I’ll never have to work again. No more ramen noodles and piece-of-shit cars and shoes with holes in their soles.

I’ll set up the DJs in fine fashion for years. Maybe they could start a new radio station. I’ll get Lori her Sherwood ghost tour business. I’ll support my dad, and my mom when she gets out of jail, and they’ll never have to cheat anyone again. The world’s overall misery level will actually drop.

My hands begin to quiver. I blink hard to break the spell the money is casting over me. My hesitation only weakens our position. If Skywave thinks Elizabeth can be bought, they’ll never stop trying.

Beautiful New Zealand. Land of Lord of the Rings.

And then it hits me. Taking this check means getting something for nothing, the mark’s dream. Who’s the sucker now?

Unless ...

An angry voice echoes in the corridor outside the conference room. The door bangs open, letting in a bedraggled ball of fury.

Jolene.

She points at me, hand shaking like she has the DTs. “Ciara Griffin, I’m going to kill you.” She reaches inside her bag and pulls out—whew, not a gun, but the detective’s report.

I look at Lori, whose face has locked into panic. I knew she wasn’t cut out for this. I stand and speak to Jolene. “I’m sorry, miss, have we met? Why are you calling me Ciara?”

Jolene stares at me. A lock of unwashed hair flops across her right eye. “What are you—? Of course we’ve met. You stole my shirt.” Her voice pitches into hysteria. “I bet that guy Leonard or Frankie or whatever is a friend of yours. He broke into my detective’s office to drug me and take naked pictures. You had him screw up my car so I’d miss the meeting. I bet you didn’t count on me running out of gas in front of a gas station.”

David rises and places a protective arm around me. I send Murphy and Bombeck a helpless look. “I’m afraid I don’t know what she’s babbling about. Does she work here?”

Lori gasps and grabs my hand. “That’s the woman I told you about, the one who’s been following me.” She stands and glares at Jolene. “Stop stalking me or I’ll call the cops.”

Jolene’s sedative-fogged expression drifts from indignation to bewilderment. “You’re not Ciara, you’re that barmaid. Why are you pretending to be her?”

“No one’s pretending anything here but you, apparently.” I put my purse on the table and retrieve my wallet. “I have identification.” I hold out Elizabeth’s new driver’s license to the Skywave executives.

Murphy waves it off. “That’s not necessary. Jolene, please go back to your office. We’ll discuss this matter after Ms. Vasser and her staff leave.”

“But that’s not Elizabeth Vasser!” Jolene plops down the padded envelope and tears it open, showering the table with fuzzy gray packing material. “See? Read this. It tells the truth.”

Murphy gives us a nervous glance and tells Jolene in a low voice, “I already received this yesterday.”

“What?” Jolene shoves the thick document toward her boss. “No, this is it. I hired the detective, why would he send it to you?”

“Maybe because I sign his checks?” Murphy licks her finger and pages through the report. She puts a hand to her head like she’s got the world’s worst migraine, then slams the report shut. “There’s nothing here.”

“I saw it yesterday.” Jolene grabs the report and turns the pages so hard, some of them rip. “How can it be blank? It was all there, the real Elizabeth, the real Ciara—where is it?” Her face flushes an even deeper red.

“Wait a minute.” David stalks over and flips the report to the front cover. “You hired someone to spy on us? What kind of shady company are you?”

“It was all legal, I assure you.” Bombeck looks at Murphy. “This PI of yours was fully licensed, right?”

“That’s what I was told.” Murphy turns a glare on Jolene. “But I think I was told a lot of things that weren’t true.”

Sounds like my exit cue.

“I can’t believe I almost let your company buy my station.” In a fit of fake melodrama, I tear the check into tiny pieces and shove it back in the envelope, which I crumple in hands that shake with rage. “Good day.”

Jonathan stands quickly to escort us out through the other door, the one Jolene isn’t standing near. We head down the corridor, and I steel my legs not to run.

A voice echoes down the hall. “This isn’t over, Ciara!” Jolene yells. “You hear me? It’s not over!”

Lori huddles closer to me. “Elizabeth, that lady scares me.”

Jonathan shades his eyes, as if the embarrassment blinds him. “I’m very sorry. She’s new here and obviously hasn’t learned the Skywave standards of client relations.” In a near whisper he adds, “I doubt she’ll be here by the end of the day.”

I tuck the crumpled envelope into my purse and keep my tiny smile inside my head where it belongs.

29
Wicked Game

“A toast.” David raises his beer bottle over the center of the picnic table. “To Ciara.”

Everyone but me—that is, the six vampires and the three other humans sitting on David’s back deck— smashes a raucous clink. We even convinced Franklin and Monroe to join our party. My Control goon, however, insisted on sitting by himself out front to keep watch for trouble.

“No.” I lift my beer and look at David. “To Elizabeth.”

His smile is tinged with pain and gratitude as he clinks, then drinks.

“To all of us.” I raise my voice. “We rocked.”

Cries of “Hear, hear!” “Right on!” and “Fuck, yeah!” resound over the backyard, which is shaded in a deep twilight. Through the sliding screen door we can hear Noah’s reggae show on the stereo. The lilting, bouncing music matches the mood of the celebration. The closest neighbor is a farm several acres behind David’s house, so we can crank it up.

The four of us who eat are bedecked in napkin bibs, to ward off the guts of steamed crabs. Shane seems to enjoy taking a wooden mallet to the bright red shells. From the seat on my right he slips me another piece of moist white crabmeat. I push it around my plate without eating it.

“I thought it was all over when you opened that check,” David says to me over his beer.

Lori claps her hand to her chest. “My heart stopped. I could almost hear your thoughts, Ciara: Take the money and run!”

David wipes his hands. “Now that we’re all here, care to tell us how much it was for?”

I shake my head. “Never telling.”

“Two million?”

I brandish my teeny fork at him. “I won’t play this game.”

They all put their beers on the table and stare at me, waiting.

“Five million,” I tell them.

Franklin whistles. “And you just walked away. You have Elizabeth’s identity, you could’ve kept the money.” He looks around the table. “After giving us a cut to buy our silence, of course.”

I nod. My thumb draws trails in my bottle’s condensation, but my churning stomach won’t let me drink any more. I can still see the check in my hands, begging me to give it a good home.

David stands and clears his throat. No more toasts, I hope.

“Ciara, in honor of the job you’ve done this summer, I’d like to give you this, if you’ll accept it.” He hands me a narrow black box, the hard vinyl type found in gift stores.

My nausea surges as I lift the lid. “David, this really isn’t—”

A nameplate sits inside the box. CIARA GRIFFIN, it reads, then in smaller letters, MARKETING MANAGER.

“I don’t get it.” I look at David. “What’s this for?”

“For your desk.”

“Shouldn’t it say, ‘Marketing Intern’?”

“Not if you take the full-time job I’m about to offer you.”

I gape at him. “What about school?” My voice goes raspy. “I still have a year left.”

“You can take classes part-time, even during the day if you need. I’m sure Elizabeth would be happy to start a tuition reimbursement program, wouldn’t she?”

A real job. A steady boyfriend. Stability. The rest of my life closes in like a velvet vise. I can’t breathe.

“So what do you say?” David asks.

“I—” The letters on my nameplate blur and clear and blur again. Who the fuck is Ciara Griffin, anyway?

Everyone around the table watches me with anticipation. Lori’s grin beams in the porch light. I can’t look at Shane.

“I have to think about it.” I spy my cell phone on the table. “Hey, we should invite my dad over.”

“Why?” Shane says.

“That’s a great idea.” David gestures to the pile of crabs. “Plenty of food. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it earlier.”

“I’ll go inside where it’s quieter.” I grab the phone and stand up.

“I’ll come with you,” Shane says. “We need more beer, anyway.”

“The extra case is downstairs in the storeroom,” David says. “End of the hall.”

Shane follows me in to the dining room/living room area, then to the stairs. I wait until we hit the landing of the split foyer to turn on him.

“It’s bad enough I’ve got that Control goon following me around. Now you. Don’t you trust me?”

“I trust you. I just don’t trust your dad.”

“Neither do I.”

He gives me a skeptical look. “‘You’ve been acting strange tonight. Not eating, hardly drinking. What’s going on?”

I look away. “Leftover nerves, that’s all.”

Shane studies my face, his own turning stony. He knows I’m lying, something I’ve never done to him before. But I can’t tell him what I’ve done, especially when I haven’t decided to follow through on it yet. Calling my dad will help me decide. I think.

“I’ve gotta get the beer.” He trots down the short stairway from the foyer into the basement. I follow him, opening my cell phone and searching my contacts list for Dad’s number. Adding him to speed dial will be a big step in our renewed relationship.

Shane turns down the dark hallway. I have to switch on the light to see. A flash of white startles me, until I realize it’s just Antoine the cat. He trots ahead of me.

At the end of the hall Shane opens a door to a room with concrete walls and floor. The cat slips in around his ankles. I find Dad’s number and hit “Send.”

The storeroom holds the furnace and a series of well-organized shelves that contain mostly home improvement supplies—paints, tools, gardening equipment. They might as well be museum exhibits for all their familiarity to me. Shane finds two cases of beer under a workbench.

My foot hits something soft that clanks. A familiar duffel bag.

Dad finally picks up on the fifth ring. “Ciara?”

“Hi Dad.”

He makes a muffled noise, like he’s switching the phone to the other ear. “What do you want? I mean, how’s my girl?” Sounds of traffic rush in the background.

My thumb runs over my back jeans pocket, tucking in the piece of paper. “Where are you?”

“Oh.” His voice pitches a bit higher. “On the road.”

“Get your Control bot to bring you over here. We’re having a party.”

Shane slides the cases of beer across the concrete floor.

“A party, that’s nice,” my dad says. “At the station?”

“No, at David’s house.”

“David’s house?” he blurts. Tires squeal in the background.

“Yeah. You like steamed crabs, right? We’ve got—”

“Ciara, get out of there!”

“Why?”

“Gideon’s coming.”

My stomach turns cold. “Gideon’s coming after me now? Here?”

Shane jumps up and shuts off the light. He motions for me to get down, then creeps to the ground floor storeroom window, the one facing the front yard.

My father’s voice is breathless. “Not you. He wants David.”

“Why?” I whisper.

“Because of Antoine.”

A cold horror creeps up the back of my legs. I force myself to speak slowly. “How does Gideon know David killed Antoine?”

“David told me.” My father’s voice tightens. “I told Gideon. I’m sorry, Angel.”

A tear slips out of my left eye. “Daddy, no … ”

“Please get out now. Run.”

Shane strides from the window and grabs the phone from my hand. “Ronan, they’re here. Gideon and three others, all armed. Call the Control.”

He slaps the phone shut. “They’re in the driveway,” he whispers to me. “One of them’s heading for the front door, the rest around back toward the deck.”

“The Control agent is out front. He’ll—”

A loud clack rings out from that direction, sounding like a staple gun. The cat streaks behind the furnace to hide. Shane motions for me to stay on the floor while he returns to the window. A shadow sails by, and Shane leaps to the side out of sight.

He peers out the window at the retreating figure. “I think one of the vampires just shot your guard. Now they’re all around back.”

I turn to the windowed door leading to the backyard. Three figures dash by, then another. I hear shouting, then the pounding of feet up the stairs of David’s deck.

Lori screams. I suck in a breath and try not to echo her.

Shane puts a finger to his lips and goes to the back door. I hear the door to the deck slide open, and soon the feet are on the floor above us.

“They’re herding everyone inside.” He grabs the duffel bag and unzips it. “You should go out the back door now before they search the house.”

“No way, those are my friends up there.”

“Need something long-range,” he mutters, then pulls out the stakes and sets them aside, careful not to let them rattle against the concrete floor. “Here we go.” He lifts out the crossbow.

I open the outside pocket and pull out the Holy Water Super Soaker. “Is fifty feet long-range enough?”

He nods and sets aside the crossbow. “And no human collateral damage.”

I grab the funnel and turn away from Shane to load the gun’s reservoir. I remove the cap on one of the glass bottles and begin to pour.

Another clack sounds from above, followed by another scream. I fumble the holy water bottle, spilling drops on my bare knees. Shane reaches out to grab it, then draws his hand back just in time. I scoop it up from the floor before it empties.

Two sets of footsteps pound down the stairs. A crash and a cry of agony come from the hallway outside the storeroom. I pour the rest of the spilled bottle into the reservoir, then quickly dump in the other one. It’s only enough for two, maybe three shots, none of them deadly. But with the crossbow I’d be as likely to hurt David as Gideon.

Shane stands and unsheathes the katana sword. The blade reflects the golden glow of the porch light filtering through the back window. He looks down at me. I nod. Our battle plan is clear.

I pull back the pump handle twice to fill the pistol’s reservoir. The hallway is quiet now. Silently, Shane turns the knob of the storeroom door. I hold my breath as it swings open, waiting for the hinges to creak and give us away. When I peek around the corner, I realize it doesn’t matter.

At the bottom of the stairs, at the other end of the hall, Gideon has David pinned to the floor, his mouth to his neck.

Gun raised, I step into the hallway and aim. Gideon’s eyes flash up at me, his dark hair disheveled, the lower half of his face soaked in David’s blood.

I fire.

Gideon’s howl mixes with the hiss of steam. He swipes at his face, which blackens and smokes like a marshmallow in a campfire. Blinded, he jumps to his feet and rushes me, slamming his shoulder into the wall. Shouts echo from upstairs. I pump wildly to reload.

Shane jumps between us, but my finger is already squeezing the trigger. This time the scream is his. He draws back his sizzling arm to raise the sword, then strikes.

Gideon raises his own arm in time to block the blade, which slices clean through at the elbow. The severed limb hits the floor as Gideon spins to grab Shane by the neck with his remaining hand.

He pins him to the wall and starts to squeeze. With his strength, he could rip Shane’s head off in one motion.

I fire one last shot.

When the water hits his face, Gideon hisses and falls to his knees, still throttling Shane. The stump of his left arm is closing up already.

Shane slams his elbow onto Gideon’s arm, loosening his grip enough to slip out. Gideon roars and flails one-handed for his opponent, but Shane is already lifting the sword.

From the stairway behind him steps Gideon’s bodyguard Lawrence. In one hand he holds a pistol; in the other, a sharpened stake. He raises both.

The sword screams through the air. Gideon’s head drops to the carpet, bounces against the wall, rolls once, and comes to a stop. His eyes shine white at me from his charred face.

“No . . .” Lawrence clutches his own chest and falls to his knees as Gideon’s body thuds the floor, slumping on its side between his severed arm and head. Blood spouts from his neck in two arcs against the white walls, splashing onto my feet and ankles before I can leap out of the way.

Shane whirls on Lawrence, ready to strike. Seeing his opponent defenseless, he lowers the weapon and stares down at the vampire’s writhing form. From upstairs come three distinct thumps.

I toss away the water pistol and run up to him. “I burned you. Are you all right?”

“I’ll live.” He kicks Lawrence’s weapons out of reach. “David looks bad.”

Blood streams from the wound in David’s neck, soaking the carpet beneath him. Before I can react, Franklin and Spencer are rounding the stairs, the latter holding David’s red EMT bag.

Spencer kneels beside David and opens the bag. He rips open several packets of gauze and presses them against the wound.

“Put his feet up,” he tells me, then examines the wound briefly before pressing the gauze against David’s neck again. “Looks like Gideon maybe grazed the internal jugular. Lucky. Another inch would’ve taken his carotid. If we stop the bleeding and get him to the hospital, he should be all right.”

“I’ll call an ambulance.” Franklin pulls out his cell phone.

“No,” David wheezes. “No ambulance.”

Franklin looks around at the blood-spattered scene, one that would surely launch the biggest police investigation in this county’s history. “Is it safe for me to drive him?”

Spencer nods. “I’ll go with you. We can move him as soon as I control the bleeding.”

Franklin leaps up and heads for the stairs. “I’ll pull the truck up to the front door.” He takes one last glance back at the carnage. “This is why I never come to vampire parties.”

As he goes up the stairs, Jim passes him coming down, holding a long metallic-looking cord.

“Monroe and Regina are tying up the other two bodyguards. They dropped like sides of meat.” He looks at the pieces of Gideon, then at Shane. “I knew you had it in you.” His foot nudges Lawrence, who’s still trembling and looks nearly unconscious.

“What’s happening to him?” Shane asks.

“Same thing that’ll happen to you when Regina bites the dust.” Jim drags Lawrence’s arms behind his back and starts to bind his wrists with the cord.

“They must have all been Gideon’s progeny,” Spencer says.

“They were,” I tell them. “But why hasn’t he been sucked into the void yet?”

“The heart’s got to drain,” Spencer says. “With a staking it’s mighty quick, but a beheading can take a minute.”

I stand slowly and move to Shane’s side. Gideon’s blood has stopped flowing. As we watch, his body starts to turn inward, folding into the stump of his neck.

I cover my face. “Shane, you don’t want to see it.”

“I have to,” he whispers. “I did this.”

“That’s exactly why you shouldn’t see it.” I tug on his arm, but he resists. At our feet, Lawrence starts to moan and shake. His cries are echoed upstairs. “Shane, please.”

“Go if you want.” His gaze is fixed on Gideon. “I’m staying.”

Gideon’s head starts to slide across the floor, drawn into the vortex of his corpse.

From above, Travis begins to shriek. The sound isn’t human, isn’t animal, isn’t even something in-between. It’s the sound of hell. I cover my ears and lurch up the stairs.

In the middle of the living room floor, the detective lies in the fetal position, ripping at the front of his shirt and emitting a high, rusted screech. Monroe kneels beside him to grab his wrists, murmuring low, soothing words to the young vampire. I notice his own leg has a solid circle of blood—no longer flowing—perhaps the result of the other gunshot. Lori huddles in the corner, face buried in her arms.

Wallace and Jacob, Gideon’s other two progeny, writhe and scream on their stomachs, hands bound behind their backs. Regina guards them, insufficiently armed with a pair of stakes. Two large pistols fitted with silencers sit on the dining room table. The radio is still playing, the peppy reggae tune oblivious to our drama.

Regina glances nervously at Travis. “Here comes the downside of killing Gideon.”

Travis’s eyes bulge, and his neck seems to contract around his throat, cutting off breath. He rolls on his back, spasming like a poisoned bug.

But the worst is what appears beneath his torn shirt. The skin above his heart twists and pulls as if an unseen hand is trying to tear it off. A great purple stain spreads across his chest, widening like a pool of blood under a murder victim.

Franklin opens the front door. His truck is parked on the lawn near the porch, engine running. I follow him back down to the basement, relieved to have a purpose.

Slightly more alert now, David groans when Spencer picks him up. As directed, I hold his head firm against Spencer’s shoulder while Franklin keeps the pressure on his wound. I don’t even glance behind me at Shane and what’s left of Gideon. The popping, hissing, cracking sound is enough.

“Ciara … ” David whispers as we carefully maneuver over the foyer landing and out the front door.

“Don’t talk.” We pass my Control guard, sprawled on his back in the bushes, the porch light revealing a neat hole in the center of his forehead. “Oh, no.”

“What?” David rasps.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Franklin says.

I climb into the truck ahead of David and steady him as Spencer lays him on the narrow backseat of Franklin’s truck.

David lifts a hand to me. “Do you want the job or not?”

“Now’s not a great time to ask that.” I place his hand back on his chest. “My dad ratted you out to Gideon.”

He shuts his eyes. “Shouldn’t have told.”

“No, you shouldn’t have trusted him. But everyone does. You’re just the latest in a long line of—” I decide not to finish the sentence.

“Suckers,” he whispers.

Spencer opens the door on my side and motions for me to get out so he can take my place.

I hop out, then turn quickly to David. “Hey, this means we can go back to being the Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

He gives me a weak thumbs-up as Spencer shuts the door.

As I move away from the truck, a sudden shivering movement from below catches my eye. I look down in time to see the blotches of Gideon’s blood fly off my shoes toward the house. They squeeze through the screen and disappear within.

My knees weaken, but the sound of Travis screaming forces me to keep moving. I rush back into the house just as Shane comes up the stairs to the foyer, his face paler than I’ve ever seen it.

“He’s gone,” he whispers, then looks down to see the sword still in his left hand. I take it from him gently, avoiding the long black burns on his arms, and lead him upstairs.

Travis utters a long wail that seems to echo between the walls of the house even as it fades. He falls silent and still. After a few moments, he draws a sudden, sharp breath, then another, until he’s panting wildly. Jacob and Wallace lie unconscious.

Regina kneels to examine them. “They’ll be okay, unfortunately. I should have staked them while they were awake. Wouldn’t be sporting now.” A loud thup! comes from the bottom of the stairs. Regina looks down over the railing. “Hm. I guess Jim doesn’t agree.”

In a few moments, Jim saunters up the stairs carrying the crossbow in one hand and a blood-tipped arrow in the other.

He sees us staring at him. “What? I didn’t like the way that guy pushed me around. Sue me for having pride.” He reloads the crossbow at the top of the stairs and looks at Wallace and Jacob. “Should I waste these other two?”

“No,” Shane says. “There’s been enough death for one day.”

“Not quite.” Regina kneels next to Travis, who lies slumped on his side. “I don’t think our little friend is going to make it. He’s too young and weak to survive his maker’s death.”

“Unless … ” Monroe lifts his dark gaze to me, then shifts it to Lori, who’s still crouched in the corner.

I take a step forward. “Is there something we can do to save him? We should at least try.”

Jim snickers. “You might change your mind when you hear what it is.”

I look at Travis, gasping like a fish on dry land. “I know what it is.” I close my eyes. “I’ll do it.”

The room is silent for a few moments, until Regina speaks. “You do realize it doesn’t exactly involve a smoothie and a foot massage?”

“I know.” I look at Shane. “Although I wouldn’t mind that as a reward.”

“Ciara, are you sure?” He comes to my side. “This is the guy who tried to kill you.”

“He couldn’t help it. And he’s one of us now.”

My words play back in my head. One of us. Am I one of us? It’s been eight years since I’ve been one of anything.

“Just one condition,” I tell Shane. “It has to be you who makes the—you know.”

He takes my hand. “We’ll do it in David’s room.” He looks at Travis. “Someone bring him. Hurry.”

“I’ll get him,” Jim says.

“Uh-uh.” I hold out my palm. “I’m never having so much as a hangnail in front of you.” I look at Monroe without meeting his gaze. “Please.”

30
Inside Out

“Lights on or off?” Shane says.

In reply, I pull the cord on David’s bedside lamp. It emits a muted glow through a smoked-glass shade.

Shane lays a dark brown towel in place of one of the pillows. “To get the blood quickly enough to save Travis, I should do the neck. Is that okay?”

“Is it safe?”

“Sure.” He touches my throat. “I’ll nick the external jugular. It’s small, right near the surface so there won’t be much pain. No muscle to go through. It’s safe as long as you lie down.”

I nod, hoping I don’t pass out. I lie down on my right side with my back to the center of the bed. “Gideon was going to bite my neck, but we were standing up.”

“Really?” Shane stretches out facing me. “Interesting.”

“Why?”

“I’ll explain later. You sure about this?” he asks again.

Without gravity to keep it down, my heart has crept up into my esophagus. “No, but I’d be a real bitch to back out now.” I touch his mouth. “Will you be able to, you know—”

“Get it up? Yeah. Fangs are like coughs—they can be voluntary as well as involuntary.”

He draws back his lips, and there they are. I shrink back a few inches just as Monroe lays Travis on the bed behind me.

“Don’t be afraid.” Shane tilts my chin up. “Just breathe deep and slow, and look in my eyes.”

I obey, and feel myself start to fall. Shane turns loose the same hypnotic power he showed that first night outside the library, when he was trying to convince me of his monstrous nature. Every moment since then he’s been more than human with me. Now the blue of his irises holds an ocean that promises a trip to another world if I just dive in.

My pulse slows. My muscles slacken. My mouth opens. Shane leans in and covers it with his own, lips soft and full, tongue soothing rather than demanding. My skin grows warm with a languid desire, my body melding into his.

His lips leave my mouth, caress the edge of my jaw, and finally reach my throat. His tongue searches for the heat of my pulse, and I don’t even flinch. I’m not afraid. I can do this. I probably won’t even scream.

A sudden pain pierces my throat. Its electric echo shoots down my spine and up into my skull.

I scream, but just a little.

Shane’s hand tightens on my hip to hold me still, while the other strokes the back of my neck. I focus on the touch of his fingers, letting my awareness shrink to those inches of skin, rather than those that are protesting this violation of flesh.

He groans deep in his throat, as he did when he bit Deirdre. I remember wishing I could make him make that noise.

His fangs withdraw. The pain subsides slightly. A trickle of warm liquid travels down my neck. Shane catches it with his tongue and gives a long, heavy exhale.

“You don’t have to enjoy this quite so much,” I remind him.

He glances at my face. “Sorry.” He places his hand against my neck, below the wound—catching the blood, I assume. Then he reaches over me toward Travis. “Come on, drink.” He sighs and pulls back. “He’s too out of it.” He nods to Monroe. “Sit him up.”

Shane bends over my neck again. “I have to get it in him directly, like with a baby bird. Once he wakes up, he can drink on his own.”

He puts his mouth to my throat and this time manages to hold back sounds of ecstasy. I notice he doesn’t touch the wound itself, only the trickle of blood as it flows away.

Without swallowing, he sits up and leans across me, where Monroe holds Travis. He takes the semiconscious vampire’s face in his hands and kisses him. His tongue moves in the other man’s mouth, delivering the life-giving blood.

If it weren’t my blood, it would be totally hot.

A few moments later, Shane breaks the kiss, then tilts Travis’s chin up and strokes his throat. “Swallow, damn it.”

Travis’s lashes flutter, and his lips smack ever so slightly. He swallows, then draws in a sharp breath. Monroe and Shane share a sigh of relief.

Shane tilts me to lie almost on my back. I feel the weight of Travis next to me on the mattress.

“Easy, son,” Monroe murmurs. Cold lips touch the side of my neck, where the blood is dribbling slowly, like a broken water fountain. I wince at the pain the new pressure brings.

Shane squeezes my knee. “Back in a sec.” He hurries to the bathroom, where sounds of mouth-rinsing ensue. I close my eyes and wait for his return.

“That was considerate,” I say when he sits beside me again.

He shrugs. “I like to think of myself as a Sensitive New Age vampire.” He checks Travis’s progress, then says to Monroe, “You should probably go check on the others, make sure Regina and Jim haven’t dismembered anyone.”

Monroe leaves without a word. “It’s weird,” I tell Shane. “The two guys who saved me from Travis are helping him drink from me now.”

“Oh, the irony.”

I feel a strong desire for small talk. “So how’s Deirdre?”

“Good, or so I hear. She’s with Jim now. I told you last month I wasn’t going to drink any more women.”

“Only if I agreed to be your girlfriend.”

“I preempted you.”

“Oh.” I would feel warm and toasty inside if a vampire weren’t slurping my collarbone. “Did you get any good men out of your trades?”

“There’s one really cool guy from Pittsburgh. We’ve scheduled a couple of visits when the Steelers play Monday Night Football. He’s got cable.”

“Is he cute?”

“He’s sixty-three.”

“Eww. I mean, oh.”

The pain spikes, making my eyes water. I cry out.

“Hey!” Shane’s hand flashes out and eases Travis’s head away from my throat. “What did we teach you about sucking?”

“Sorry,” Travis croaks, then goes back to licking my neck.

I wipe my eyes, resisting the urge to jump up and run away. “What’s wrong with sucking?”

“It can damage the wound and make it more in-fectible.”

My stomach flips over and my head goes sloshy. “Quick, tell me a story so I don’t hork.”

Shane lies beside me. I can’t see him now without turning my head, which hurts to do, so I just look at the ceiling.

“I’ll tell you about April 5, 1995.”

My eyes widen. “I didn’t mean the story.”

“Do you want to hear it or not?”

I touch his chest. “If you want to tell me.”

He takes a few deep breaths. “I didn’t want to live,” he says finally. “The reasons aren’t important. Basically, my life sucked, and I was on the wrong medication. Same sad story of a million depressives.”

I close my eyes and listen. It’s like hearing his voice on the radio again, except this time his words really are just for me. Even Travis seems to swallow more quietly out of respect.

“Then I met Regina,” Shane continues. “She understood how much I wanted to be released from this shitty world, from the pain that had become the only thing I knew. The same darkness was in her.” He scoffs. “Or so I thought. She was a vampire, she had to be dark, right?”

“One would assume.”

“I struggled with it. I hadn’t been to mass in years, but I prayed for the strength to live, for a sign that I belonged here. I never got either. So I asked Regina to kill me.” He runs his fingers through my hair, soothing the muscles at my temple. “Guess I should’ve picked a more reliable method.”

“But as suicides go, it’s kinda cool.”

“And useful. Since I didn’t need my blood anymore, why not give it to someone who did? Better than spilling it all over my living room and waiting for the old lady next door to complain about the smell.” He pauses. “Besides, Regina had bitten me before. It felt incredible. I thought, what a magnificent way to die.”

I wonder why vampire bites don’t have the same effect on me. Maybe they’re like any other drug—some people get high and others just get nauseous.

“That night,” he continues, “Regina drank me deeper than ever. My heart felt like it was playing the drum solo to ‘Wipe Out.’ But I didn’t care, because I was leaving my body behind. I was happy.

“Next thing I knew, her blood was gushing into my mouth. I tried to turn away, spit it out, because I knew what it meant. When I finally swallowed, everything changed. There was bright light instead of darkness, hunger instead of emptiness. I grabbed her, and I drank.”

“Why’d you do it, if you wanted to die?”

His fingertips stroke the back of my arm. “Bodies want to live. Stomachs vomit poison. Wrists close up. It takes a lot to make the machine turn itself off.”

I wonder how many times he tried. My life hasn’t always been happy, but I never thought the alternative could be better.

“Maybe Regina planned all along to turn me, but she won’t admit it. She claims she couldn’t bear to watch me die.”

I understand her impulse. After seeing Elizabeth and Gideon die, I plan to dress Shane in a Kevlar turtleneck. “She saved your life.”

“I wanted death,” he says bitterly. “She wanted a pet.”

God, I fucking love this man. I’d do anything to keep him from entering that dark place again.

I open my mouth to tell him so, but Travis chooses this poignant moment to start snoring.

Shane looks over my shoulder. “His color’s a lot better now. I think he’ll make it after all.” He reaches for the packet of gauze on the nightstand. “Thank you for your kind donation, ma’am. Please help yourself to juice and cookies before you leave.”

“So what happened after you were turned?”

“Regina took me to a veteran donor, and I drank a human for the first time.” He sits up, then tears open the gauze and presses it gently against my neck. “I felt better.”

“That good, huh?”

“It was like I’d found everything I was ever looking for. Blood’s a lot like drugs, but it makes you strong instead of weak. All the other vampire crap—never seeing the sun, not enjoying food, having to find, flatter, and fuck donors you don’t even like—blood makes it all worthwhile.”

I move his hand so I can hold the gauze myself and press more firmly than he would dare. “So you were happy, then, after you turned.”

“Hell, no. Regina and her friends had to put me on suicide watch. They’d force-feed me blood, then nail me into a coffin before sunrise. A coffin, for Christ’s sake.” Still holding my hand, he stretches out beside me again, closer than before. “Finally the Control stuck me in one of their nursing homes for rehab. Two years later, David visited and offered me this job. They wouldn’t let me leave, said I wasn’t ready. So I escaped and refused to go back, because I finally had something to live for.”

I tighten my fingers around his. “I’m glad Regina gave you another life.”

Shane touches his forehead to my temple. “Me, too,” he whispers. “Now.”

He kisses my cheek softly. I slide my hand up his arm, then remove it quickly as I remember his burns. I look down and gasp.

“You’re healed.”

He sits up and rotates his smooth, unmarked arm in the lamplight. “Whoa.”

“David said holy water always left scars.”

“I know, but there’s nothing.” He stares at me. “It must’ve been your blood.”

“But if blood could heal holy water burns, someone would’ve figured it out by now.”

“I don’t mean any blood, Ciara. I mean your blood.”

The awe in his eyes makes me shiver. “What’s so special about my blood?”

“Good question.”

I check the gauze pad. The red spot looks normal to me. “If I’d known it would heal you, I would’ve let you drink me right away.”

“Thanks.” He marvels at his arm again. “I’ll remember that next time you shoot me with holy water.”

“Besides, it would’ve been so romantic, very Buffy and Angel.” Now I know I’m delirious.

“Very what?”

“TV shows. After your life. We can rent the DVDs if you want to catch up.”

“We’ll have lots of time once the nights get longer.”

Suddenly I can imagine the time. Cuddling in front of the TV with Shane and a mug of apple cider. Hanging with the whole VMP gang around David’s fireplace—with the humans closest to the flames, of course—shooting the shit and arguing over who was the most talented Beatle.

This time, such a future doesn’t feel like a vise or a straitjacket.

A knock sounds at the door. Shane lies down and shoves his healed arm under the covers. “Who is it?”

Regina opens it far enough to fit her face. “The Control’s here. A bit late, but at least they can help clean up. You almost done?”

“We’re done, we’re just recovering.” Shane peeks at the sleeping Travis. “He’ll need to drink in another couple hours, but he’ll survive, barely.”

“Poor bloke.” The sympathy in her voice sounds genuine. “How about the sunnyside? She make it?”

“I’m right here,” I say, “and yes, I’m fine.”

“Good. That colonel guy wants to see you.”

In a few moments, Colonel Lanham’s voice comes from the door. “Ms. Griffin, your father called us.”

I close my eyes against a wave of dizziness. “Where is he?”

He hesitates. “I was hoping you’d know.”

My eyes slam open. “He’s skipped town?”

“I’m afraid so. When he phoned, we thought he was still with his guard, so we didn’t trace the call.” He moves next to the bed where I can see him without turning my head. “But we’ll find him. One of our agents was killed here tonight. More humans might have died because of his treachery.”

“Did he say why he did it?”

“No. Near as we can figure, he was acting as a double agent for us and Gideon. At some point he switched loyalties. Maybe Gideon paid him more.”

My eyes grow tight around the edges. “He never switched loyalties. He just stayed loyal to himself.” Nice game, Daddy.

“What about the station?” Shane asks him.

“As far as we’re concerned, Elizabeth can stay alive. The Control will continue to support the mission of WVMP in keeping the six of you off the streets, as it were.”

“Thanks,” I tell him, wondering how long we can fool the IRS. “Can I go home now that Gideon’s dead?”

“Certainly. With two of his top men in custody, we should be able to dismantle his compound.”

“Don’t count on it. Those people want to be there. There’ll always be another Gideon.”

“Nonetheless, we’ll do our best to ensure your lives return to normal.” He looks at the three of us sprawled on the bed and seems to hear his own words. “Relatively speaking.”

31
Come as You Are

“You’re getting really good at that.”

“I’m an excellent driver,” Shane says in his best Rain Man imitation as he shifts into first gear.

I look back at David’s driveway, full of black vans belonging to the International Agency for the Control and Management of Undead Corporeal Entities. Luckily, out here in the country all this hubbub won’t attract attention. Then again, if David lived in town it would have been harder to attack him in the first place. Location really is everything in real estate.

These thoughts, along with my lingering light-head-edness, fail to distract me from the day’s biggest devastation.

“Thanks for not saying ‘I told you so.’”

Shane concentrates on second gear before answering. “I didn’t have to tell you so. You knew.”

“I thought I was being careful with my father, not giving away too much. But I never thought he’d take Gideon’s side. It explains everything—why Gideon was stalking me that first night I came to the station, why he didn’t turn me into a vampire.”

Shane gives me a long look, then turns off the lane onto the country road. “He wasn’t going to turn you into a vampire. He was going to kill you.”

“How do you know?”

“You said he was going to bite your neck standing up. That can cause an air embolism that would’ve stopped your heart or given you a stroke. You wouldn’t have lived long enough to be turned.”

I grab the door handle, expecting a surge of nausea. Usually a phrase like “air embolism,” even out of context, would make me need to lie down. But after a few deep breaths, I just feel glad to be alive.

“What was the last ‘last song’ you played for me, the night I was at Gideon’s? Our, uh, reception died.” I omit the reason, that Jim had smashed the radio against the door.

“I’ll play it for you on my next show.”

“Just tell me.”

“That’s not how it works. How are you feeling?”

I sigh at his change of subject. He’ll do what I want, but in his own time. “A little sore when I turn my head. Otherwise okay.”

“Good, but that’s not what I meant.”

Ahead of us, a rabbit darts halfway across the road, then changes its mind and springs back into the weeds.

“I feel stupid. I thought my father was lying about something, but I figured it had to do with his wife and whether they had any kids. I should have put all the pieces together.”

“You had a lot on your mind with the con.”

“I should have warned David about him. Dad has a talent for wrangling confessions.”

“People feel better after they share their darkest sins. They feel lighter.”

He’s right. Now that my moments of adrenaline and heroism have passed, the weight of what I did earlier today sinks to the bottom of my stomach. I can undo that deed, but the knot in my gut won’t leave until I tell Shane. Even if it means losing him.

My phone rings. Franklin.

“Figured you’d want to know,” he says. “David’s okay. He’ll be in the hospital overnight, but he won’t need surgery.”

“What did you tell the doctors?”

“That David was attacked by a stray pit bull.”

“Did they believe you? This is the guy who publicly claimed to run a vampire radio station.”

“Just play those last three words back in your head. That ought to answer your question.”

After two months of this job, sometimes I forget how ridiculous it sounds. “Can David talk?”

“He’s asleep. Before he conked out, he told me to ask you if you’re taking the job.”

“I’ll see you guys on Monday.”

“That doesn’t really answer—”

I hang up. “It’s official,” I tell Shane. “We saved our boss’s life.”

“Time for a raise.”

We stop at the traffic light connecting David’s road to the highway. In the red glow, I look at Shane’s bandaged arm. Beneath it lies unblemished skin—we covered it so no one would see and ask questions.

“There must be a simpler explanation for your recovery. Maybe I have a rare blood type or Rh factor, whatever that is.”

He glances at his arm. “The burn was so bad it only hurt for a second, then went totally numb. That’s third degree. It should have taken weeks to heal and left nasty scars. But it’s like it never happened. You did something.”

“My father thinks people can be healed by faith—their own or someone else’s.”

“Maybe, but neither of us expected me to get better.”

“Plus I have no faith.” I point to the bumper sticker on the car in front of us. Eternity, Your Choice: Smoking or Non-Smoking. “Heh. As long as I’m already dead, I’ll take smoking. Speaking of which, I could really go for a cigarette. Is that a side effect of being bitten? Someone should tell Philip Morris.” I look at Shane, whose expression has sobered. “I’m just kidding.”

“You really don’t believe in heaven and hell?”

“No, I don’t.” I manage to scrub my voice of most of the scorn I feel. “I don’t believe in any of—” I suck in a sharp breath. “Shane, that’s it!”

“What’s it?”

“It wasn’t my faith that healed you. It was my lack of faith. I’m like a desanctifier. An anti-holy.” This pleases me more than it should.

He laughs. “Wait. You’re saying your skepticism is some kind of holy-weapon neutralizer? That’s ridiculous.”

“Never underestimate the power of the scoff.”

He shakes his head. “Man, that’s really heavy, as Jim would say.” The light turns green. We turn onto the highway, downhill toward Sherwood.

An even better thought occurs to me. “Maybe I changed you permanently, made you immune to sacredness.”

“That would be nice.”

“Then you could go to mass again.”

“Who says I want to?” He looks at me, then back at the road. “Maybe on Christmas and Easter. But how would we find out it was permanent without burning me again?”

“Good point. I suppose we could hold clinical trials, put an ad for volunteers in the City Paper.”

He laughs again, then goes silent. “I can’t wear this bandage forever. The others will notice.”

“Tough. I won’t be a walking pharmacy for vampires. I didn’t exactly get my jollies from being bitten.”

“I know. It makes your sacrifice that much nobler.”

“Please. I’m no saint.”

“You’re loyal to your friends, and that’s good enough for me.”

I don’t answer, knowing I have evidence to contradict him.

We get home to my apartment, and I use my own key for the first time since Sunday. As I push open the door, its rubber bottom edge slides against today’s mail.

“I’ll get it.” Shane picks up an envelope and hands it to me. On the front is my name written in a handwriting I wish I no longer recognized.

My dizziness returns, having nothing to do with shock or blood loss. I sink onto the bottom step leading to my apartment. Shane flicks the switch, and for the first time in months, the overhead light comes on.

I look up at it. “My landlord finally changed the bulb.”

“Or maybe the Control guard got bored during his stakeout.” Shane sits beside me. “You want me to read it for you?”

I shake my head and slide my thumb under the envelope’s edge, feeling a strong sense of deja vu from opening the Skywave check.

The letter looks scribbled in haste, perhaps on a vertical surface, as the pen seems to have run out of ink a few times.

Ciara,

First, I never intended to betray you. In fact, my alliance with Gideon was probably all that prevented your death at his hands. But I’m sorry for the lies. Every one of them.

They’ll catch me soon, if they can. I’ll go back to jail, perhaps for the rest of my life. In that event, please, please come see me. Forgive me.

Those last two sentences are underlined so hard the pen poked holes in the paper. My rib cage seems to constrict. The rest of the words are barely legible.

When you were younger, I told you about our family curse. I said it was salesmanship, that we could make anyone buy what we offered and beg us for more. It was meant as a joke, since the power of persuasion is usually a coveted gift.

But every gift is a curse in disguise. Because eventually we run out of suckers, and the only fools left are the people we love.

He must not have had time to sign it. It’s folded unevenly and wrinkled from being crammed in the envelope.

I hand the letter to Shane and rest my forehead in my hands while he reads.

When he finishes, he says, “You’re not like him.”

I look at him from the corner of my eye. “Remember when you said you wanted to peel back all my layers until you found the real Ciara?”

“On Lori’s boss’s desk. I remember.”

I lift my head. “Have you ever thought, if you got past all those layers, you might not want me anymore?”

“How do you know I haven’t already found the real you?”

“Trust me, you haven’t.” I take a deep breath and let it out. “But you’re about to.”

I reach in my back pocket and pull out another envelope. I hand it to him in exchange for Dad’s letter. He gives me a quizzical look as he opens it and withdraws the pink Skywave check.

$10,000,000.00.

I hold my breath as Shane stares at it.

“No ...” He shakes his head. There’s no triumph of cynicism on his face. His eyes fill with nothing but hurt and bewilderment, and that tells me everything. He believed in me until now.

His voice is nearly a whisper. “David said you tore up the check at the meeting.”

“I did tear up a check. I had Travis’s paycheck in my purse, along with his expired license—evidence of Skywave’s spying in case we needed them to back off. I switched the checks when Jolene came in.” From my purse I pull the last envelope, full of crumpled paper. “I tore up a check for eight hundred forty-six dollars and fifty cents.”

He stares at the ten million dollars for a long moment, then shoves it into my hand. “Go. I won’t tell anyone.” He sets his elbows on his knees, not facing me. “And I don’t want a cut in exchange for my silence.”

“Shane . . . that’s not why I showed you.”

He turns back, his gaze intense. “I can’t go with you. I can’t fly, I can’t even chance a boat. We could get an inside cabin with no windows, but ships sometimes run fire drills in the daytime.”

“If I could take you, I’d go—”

“And I’d just slow you down.”

“—but I can’t, so I won’t.”

“You deserve a new life.” He stops. “Wait—won’t what?”

“Go.”

His eyes narrow. “You’d give up ten million dollars and a new life just for me?”

“Not just for you. I’m staying for my job, for the station and that whole dysfunctional family that makes the Munsters look like the Cleavers.” I hold up my dad’s letter. “Most of all, I’m staying for me.”

“Just tell me one thing.” His solemn voice chills me. “Did you plan all along to cheat us?”

I let out a deep breath. “No—except maybe in poker, just a little. For the big stuff, I was always on your side. I didn’t even know they were going to give me a check at the meeting. But once it was in my hands, some terrible, evil part of me couldn’t let it go.”

“That part of you isn’t evil. That part’s a conniver, but it’s what saved the station.” He takes my hand. “That part is why I love you.”

My mouth drops open, and I forget how to breathe.

“It’s not the only reason, of course,” he says. “I also love the part of you that takes pity on stray dogs, and the part that makes my body feel like spontaneously combusting— in a good way, I mean.”

I take his face between my hands and try to tell him with my eyes what it means that he loves me because of who I am, not in spite of it. In case the eyes aren’t enough, I add the three words themselves, in alphabetical order, whispered between kisses and ragged breaths, repeated until they no longer sound strange coming from my mouth.

Shane wraps his arms around me. My skin feels raw and exposed, even under my clothes. I flinch, and his touch softens in response, hands gliding up my back, over the unbitten side of my neck, to my face, caressing me like I’m made of silk.

“Come on.” He stands and helps me up. Unlike my knees, my brain feels strong and clear. As we ascend the stairway, I know what I have to do.

I stop at the doorway to my bedroom while he moves inside.

“You wanted to hear my last ‘last song’ for you,” he says, “the one I played while you were at Gideon’s.” He goes to my shelves, blocking them with his body so I can’t see which CD he pulls out. After a rattle of plastic, he taps the play button.

Applause, then a soft voice. “Good evening. This is off our first record.”

The opening acoustic chords of “About a Girl” rumble forth, the first song we listened to together—before he bit me and I hit him. I laugh, having never been so uplifted at the sound of Nirvana.

He walks back to me, an ironic smile on his lips. “Did you expect something sappy just because you were in mortal danger?”

“Come with me.” Carrying the check and my father’s letter, I lead him into the bathroom. I pick up the matches lying next to the strawberry-scented candle.

“No.” He takes Dad’s note and tucks it into his shirt pocket. “Someday you’ll wish you had this.”

I nod, wondering if someday I’ll hate it when he’s right.

I open the matchbook. Sweat makes my hands slippery, and even the rough cardboard of the match is hard to hold, but I manage to light it.

I place the check in the dry sink and find myself unable to continue. Flame eats the flimsy cardboard stick, traveling down the shaft of the match so quickly it burns my fingers and falls smoldering on the edge of the sink. Shane waits.

The second match lights more easily. My hands are steady now, so steady they freeze when it’s time to drop the match onto the check. I light the candle instead and stare at the trail of zeroes.

“It’s freedom,” I say to Shane’s reflection. “The con to end all cons. With ten million dollars I could afford to be a good person for the rest of my life.”

One side of his face crinkles into a smirk. “Fortunately, it costs nothing to be bad, and you’re better at that.” His fingertips brush the back of my shoulder. “Cut the drama and just burn the thing.”

“Okay, okay.” As the song heads into the last chorus, I light the third match off the candle’s flame and pick up the check in my other hand.

I feel on the verge of a freedom even ten million dollars can’t buy. Who knows? Maybe only negative ten million dollars can buy it. A small price to beat a curse.

Match meets paper, which flares the colors of a sunrise. The crowd cheers again.

Author’s Note

Visit the vampire DJs, listen to VMP playlists, and get your own Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll merchandise at www.WVMPradio.com. For the vamps’ secret stories of how they were turned, check out www.jerismithready.com.

Read on for a sneak peek at

BAD TO THE BONE
the thrilling sequel to WICKED GAME.

1
Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On

The things I believe in can be counted on one hand—even if that hand were two-fifths occupied with, say, smoking a cigarette, or making a bunny for a shadow puppet show, or forming “devil horns” at a heavy metal concert. The things I believe in boil down to three major categories:

Rock ’n’ roll

Vampires

A damn good pair of shoes

Number Two came about when one bit me, in the middle of what could non-skankily be called an “intimate encounter.” The third came later, when I gained the identity and thus the bank account of my dead-undead-dead boss Elizabeth Vasser, owner of WVMP, The Lifeblood of Rock ’n’ Roll.

I’m two people only on paper. In real life, I’m just Ciara Griffin, underpaid marketing manager and not-paid miracle worker for a vampire radio station.

On nights like this, marketing is a miracle in itself.

The Smoking Pig is packed with fans who chose to spend Halloween Eve—aka Hell Night, Mischief Night, or Tuesday—in a bar with their favorite DJs, the ones who whisk them through time into another era, and into a world where vampires just might exist.

I lean back against the brass bar rail to avoid getting trampled by a couple dressed as Marilyn Monroe and Marilyn Manson. The guy in the Monroe costume can’t be more than twenty-one, but he’s twisting to a fifty-year-old tune with as much enthusiasm as his grandfather probably did.

Above me, the station’s long black banner hangs on one of the rustic pub’s long wooden crossbeams. Draped with fake cobwebs, it features our trademark logo, an electric guitar with two bleeding fang marks.

The two Marilyns jostle me again, and I reach up to check the status of my mile-high ponytail. Wearing a short floral dress as twenty percent of the Go-Go’s (the Belinda Carlisle percent), I’m glad the crowd provides plenty of heat. October in Maryland shows no mercy to beach wear.

“Excuse me,” shouts a voice to my left, straining to be heard over Jerry Lee Lewis’s slammin’ piano.

I peer over rosy-lensed sunglasses at a young man about my age and height—mid-twenties, five-eightish, with a lanky frame verging on heroin-chic thin.

“The bartender said I should speak to you,” he says.

I examine his swooping bleach blond hair, skinny jeans, and faded Weezer T-shirt. The smudged black guyliner makes his hazel eyes pop out behind a pair of round glasses.

“Billy Idol meets Harry Potter. I like it.”

He puts a hand to his ear. “What?”

“Your costume,” I shout, my voice already raw after only an hour of this party.

He gives a twitchy frown and shifts the messenger bag slung over his left shoulder. “I’m Jeremy Glaser, a journalism grad student at University of Maryland. I came up to do a story on your station.”

Oops. I guess it’s not a costume.

Jeremy extends a heavily tattooed arm toward the rear wall of the Smoking Pig, away from the stage and the speakers. “Can we talk?”

I reach back to the bar for my ginger ale. “Interviews by appointment only. Give me your e-mail and—”

“It’s a freelance assignment for Rolling Stone.”

My glass slips, and I spill soda down my arm. “Whoa!” I shake the liquid off my hand and grab a bar napkin. “I mean, wow.”

He gestures for me to join him at the back of the Pig. This time I don’t hesitate.

We push through the crowd toward a dark corner, my espadrilles sticking in the booze puddles. I take the opportunity to rein in my galloping ambition and figure out how to play my hand.

Why didn’t this guy call ahead? Either he’s an impos-ter (always my first guess, due to my own former occupation), or he’s committing journalistic ambush to see if we’ll embarrass ourselves.

“So what’s the angle?” I ask him over my shoulder.

“The first issue of the new year will focus on the death of independent radio.” He turns to me as we reach the back wall. “You guys are putting up a valiant battle against the inevitable.”

“Thanks. I guess.” I hand him my business card. “Ciara Griffin, marketing and promotions manager.”

“I know who you are.” He examines my card in the light of a dancing skeleton lantern, then jots a note under my name. “&er-ah,” he mumbles, noting the correct pronunciation.

I keep my smile sweet. “Could I take a peek at your credentials?”

He pulls a handful of folded paper from his bag’s outside pocket. “The one with the letterhead is the assignment from Rolling Stone editorial. The other pages are e-mails discussing the nature of the story.”

I angle the paper to the light. “How does a journalism student snag such a major gig?”

“My professor has a connection.” He adjusts his glasses with his middle finger. “Also, I can be pushy.”

“I like pushy.” I hand him back the papers. “In fact, I’d like to buy pushy a drink.”

My best friend Lori swoops by with a trayful of empty glasses and “horrors d’oeuvres” plates. I reach out to stop her—gently, due to her momentum and the breakable items. She’s dressed as another twenty percent of the Go-Go’s, a small black Jane Wiedlin wig covering her white-blonde hair.

“Hey, Ciara.” She sends her words to me but aims her perky smile at Jeremy.

“Lori, I know you’re busy, but can you get this gentleman from Rolling Stone” —I emphasize the last two words— “whatever he’d like to drink? Bill it to the station.”

“I can’t accept,” he says, impervious to her cute. “Conflict of interest.”

“Put it on my personal tab,” I tell her. “A drink between new friends.”

She beams at him. “There’s a dollar-a-pint Halloween special on our dark microbrew.”

He hesitates. “Do you have any absinthe?”

“Um, I’ll check.” Lori tries not to laugh as she looks at me. “Another ginger ale?”

“Definitely.”

Lori winks before walking away. She knows I always stay more sober than my marks.

I take the last sip of my flat soda to wet my drying mouth. Dealing with the press is usually the jurisdiction of my immediate boss, Franklin, the sales and publicity director. Despite great effort, he’s never raised the interest of a national publication, much less Rolling Stone. And now they’ve fallen in our laps, waiting for me to fill them with fascination.

Jeremy crosses his arms and examines me, in a skeptical pose right out of All the President’s Men. “So what gave you the idea to start this vampire DJ gimmick?”

“It’s not a gimmick. They’re really vampires.” I offer an ironic smile. “They’re each stuck in the time they were ‘turned,’ which is why they dress and talk like the people back in the day.” I point to the stage, where a tall man with slicked-back auburn hair surveys his poodle-skirted, pony-tailed groupies through a pair of dark sunglasses. “Spencer, for instance, became a vampire in Memphis in the late fifties. He was around when Sun Records discovered Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, all those guys.” He sends the girls a smile of false bashfulness as he arranges his stack of 45s. “Spencer was right there at the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. You could even say he was one of its midwives.”

Jeremy looks at me like I’ve just recited my grocery list. He hasn’t written any of this down. “My research says you came up with this Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll thing in a desperate effort to boost ratings.”

“It was either that or get bought out by Skywave.” I still have corporate-takeover nightmares, where my fanged friends are forced to spin Top Forty hits until they stake themselves in despair. “Something wrong with trying to survive?”

“No, it’s genius.” He checks out the Lifeblood of Rock ‘n’ Roll banner. “But how long can it last?”

“Well—” I scratch my nose to cover my wince. Despite our rabid fan base, ratings since the summer have tanked. The public at large is beginning to yawn and look for the Next Big Thing.

It doesn’t help that the DJs don’t look or act like stereotypical vampires. They wear blue jeans instead of capes. They’d rather guzzle beer, bourbon, and tequila than sip red wine. They don’t brood, except about having to record promos for car dealerships and power vacs. They never attend the opera.

As much as the vampires enjoy their adoring audiences, they want to keep their real nature secret, to avoid the inevitable mass freakout and subsequent stake-fest. Survival is paramount, and without WVMP, our vampires would lose their sun-shielding home under the station. Not to mention their whole reason for “living.”

The music.

“It can last forever,” I tell Jeremy. “Rock ‘n’ roll will never die. Just like vampires.”

A muscle near his eye twitches—the classic journalist spare-me-the-spin facial tic.

Lori arrives with our drinks. “Sorry, no absinthe. Hope beer’s okay.”

“Whatever.” Jeremy accepts his drink and hands her two dollars. “Keep the change.”

Ignoring his refusal of my generosity, I raise my new glass of ginger ale. “To the music.”

He clinks and sips, then nearly spits the experimental dark microbrew back into the glass. There’s a reason they sell it for a buck.

He wipes the foam from his mouth with a bar napkin. “I noticed that after the last ratings report you cut your advertising rates by ten percent. Sounds like you’re having trouble holding the public’s attention and it’s hurting your bottom line.”

“Every business has its ups and downs.”

“But commercial radio is hopeless. How can you compete with downloads and satellite stations?” He raises his eyebrows. “What’s next, werewolves?”

I ignore the jest. “We’ll compete the same way radio stations always have—by providing a unique experience and quality entertainment.”

Jeremy doesn’t record those weasel words. I scan the bar, hoping to see David, our general manager, or another DJ—anyone who can impress this guy.

The front door opens, and in walks my savior.

“Come on.” I beckon Jeremy to follow me. “Meet our star.”

The reporter looks past me, and his jaw drops, transforming his face from cyni-cool to little-kid glee. “Yeah yeah. That’d be great.”

Pushing through the crowd, I glance back to see Jeremy close behind, frantically flipping the pages of a small notebook.

By the time I get to the door, Shane is surrounded by a gaggle of college girls. Towering over them at six-foot-five, he greets them with an easy grin, but when his gaze rises to meet mine, his pale blue eyes light up with such force, the groupies’ smiles turn to scowls.

The women look over their shoulders at me. One is dressed as Courtney Love in a white baby doll dress, black combat boots, and smeared mascara—presumably to appeal to grunge-boy Shane. As I pass through the gauntlet, she gives me and my costume a glare that could melt Teflon.

I take Shane’s hand, then pull him close to speak in his ear. “This guy’s from Rolling Stone.̵

“You’re kidding.”

“I’ve never lied to you.” He’s the only one I can say that about. I turn to introduce the reporter. “Jeremy Glaser—”

“Shane McAllister,” Jeremy says, then reaches forward and pumps Shane’s hand hard enough to hurt a mere human. “I love your show. I listened to it back when I went to Sherwood College, in your pre-vampire days.”

“Wow. I mean, thanks. I mean, good to meet you.”

“Would you consider an interview?”

“Seriously?” Shane smoothes the front of his flannel shirt.

“He’ll meet you over there in a sec.” I look at Jeremy and point to the place where we were just talking. He salutes with his little notebook and hurries to the back of the bar.

Shane squeezes my elbow. “You look cute tonight.”

“Tonight?”

“Always.” He succeeds in sneaking a kiss. “So what should I tell this guy?”

“He says his angle is the struggle of independent radio, so give him your authenticity spiel and how radio should be all about the music.” I hook my pinky into the belt loop of his faded ripped jeans. “You know, the stuff I find so adorable.”

“Adorably naive, right. What about the undead issue? The standard ‘pretend to be a human pretending to be a vampire’ routine?”

“Yes, with lots of wink-winks. Your usual ironic self.”

He nods, then hands me his backpack of CDs before heading off to join Jeremy.

Bill Riley’s “Flying Saucers Rock ‘n’ Roll” fades out, and Spencer’s honey-smooth drawl comes out of the speakers.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we got two hours left ‘til Halloween. Time for me to say good night, but I’m gonna turn it over to my great friend, ‘Mississippi’ Monroe Jefferson.” The crowd whistles and hollers, especially the older members. Spencer continues, “He’ll play you some blues that I guarantee’ll send a shiver down your spine.”

He steps aside and adjusts the microphone down to the level of Monroe, who has appeared in the chair behind him, like in a magic trick. Another cheer. The stage light makes Monroe’s suit glow white, setting off his smooth ebony skin and the lustrous scarlet of his acoustic guitar.

Monroe lets loose with a weepingly beautiful version of Robert Johnson’s “Me and the Devil Blues.” I smile at the choice; the story of his turning is well known by his fans. Like several legendary musicians of his place and time, Monroe supposedly went to the crossroads at midnight, to trade his soul to the Devil for the ability to master the blues. A vampire was waiting for him, and the rest is history.

The blues always makes me want to drink, so I head to the bar and signal to Stuart, the owner of the Smoking Pig, who is making a valiant attempt to look like Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran.

He slides a bottle of my favorite beer across the bar. “How’s it going with the reporter?”

“Journalists are a lot harder to impress than the general public.” I watch him light a cigarette. “Any luck on that smoking ban waiver?”

Stuart shakes his head in disgust. “I sent the state a photo of the sign hanging over our front door. I said, ‘If you look closely, you’ll notice that under the words ‘The Smoking Pig’ is an illustration of a pig with a cigarette. They didn’t care.” He takes a hostile puff. “Fascists.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Set up an outdoor lounge with space heaters. It’ll cost a fortune.”

“Hey, Ciara,” comes a voice at my elbow. Lori sidles close and adjusts the poof of my ponytail. “I remember that guy Jeremy from my History of the Middle East class senior year. Smart, but kinda intense. He said he hoped the Iraq war lasted long enough for him to be an embedded reporter.”

“A thrill-seeker, huh?” I watch him in the corner speaking with Shane, scribbling madly in his notebook. Shane maintains a casual posture against the wall, but his supernatural stillness creates a magnetic field that seems to have snagged the journalist. “I don’t like it.”

“Why not?” she asks me just as Monroe finishes his song to a rush of applause. “Don’t you want the publicity?”

“I want fawning puff pieces about how cool it is to be a vampire. I don’t want someone to find out the truth.”

Lori hurries off to pick up an order as Monroe begins another song. I watch his fingers glide over the strings like a water bug skimming a pond. He makes it look so easy. Shane tried to teach me guitar last month—I stopped after two days and ten blisters.

A familiar arm slides over my shoulders. I lean into Shane and crane my neck to look behind him. “Where’s the reporter?”

“Interviewing Spencer.” He hesitates. “I think he wants to be bitten.”

“Lori said he was weird. Are you sure?”

Shane nods. “A vampire can smell an eager donor a mile away.”

“Do I need to forbid you to bite a reporter?”

He rolls his eyes. “I’m not that dumb. Anyway, I don’t think he thinks I’m really a vampire.”

“Because that’s insane.”

“I think he thinks I’m a wannabe.”

Ah yes. In the “real” vampire subculture, some humans believe they need to drink blood to thrive, and there are people lined up to oblige them. Lacking fangs, they use razors or needles to bleed their “donors.”

Some of those donors find their way to a real-real vampire, and if they can be trusted to hide the truth, the two form a symbiotic relationship. The donors exchange blood for money or sex or—most commonly—the masochistic thrill of serving a creature that could rip off their heads.

Not for me. The sensation of being stabbed with a pair of ice picks does nothing for my self-esteem or libido.

At a minute to midnight, my boy takes over the stage from Monroe, who tips his hat to the worshipping crowd on his way out. No one dares to follow. Like Spencer and the other older vampires, Monroe’s charisma holds an edge of menace that sane people wisely avoid. It’s why we ask them to wear sunglasses in public whenever possible.

Shane, on the other hand, exudes humanity, giving his admirers a friendly wave as he moves to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, the time is twelve a.m. It is now. Officially. Halloween.”

He hits a switch and a low, hypnotic bass emanates from the speaker—the opening moments of Concrete Blonde’s “Bloodletting.” The patrons writhe and vamp, reveling in the dark magic his music weaves.

Someone calls my name. I turn to see Lori leaning out of the kitchen, holding onto the edge of the swinging door.

“What’s up?” I ask as I follow her into the kitchen.

She takes me behind the salad prep area, where an old boom box sits on a shelf. She turns up the volume. Above the clatter of pans and the sizzle of grease, I hear an angry male voice.

“—not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them, as Paul told the Ephesians.” He lets that sink in. “Don’t let the secular media and your children’s public school teachers convince you that Halloween is harmless fun. Your tolerance is their greatest weapon in this culture war. Fact: Halloween is a pagan holiday that glorifies darkness and evil and everything God wants us to fight.”

I glance past her at the chef/dishwasher, who’s searing a pair of burgers on the grill, then at the ceramic white statue of the Virgin Mary above the prep table. “When did Jorge get born again?”

Lori shakes her head. “It’s supposed to be WVMP.”

“No, it’s just mistuned.” I twist the grease-encrusted knob, searching for the station. “The antenna probably got knocked.”

“I already tried that. I was here when it happened, just now.” She points to the wall clock, which reads a minute after midnight. “Regina was giving her usual creepy intro, then suddenly it was this guy.”

I tweak the dial again and again, but there’s no Regina, no Bauhaus, no Sex Pistols. Just a whole lotta Jesus goin’ on.

“I better get David.”

The kitchen door sweeps inward, banging into the stainless steel dishwasher. My boss stalks toward us, dressed as Bruce Springsteen circa Born in the U.S.A., cell phone at his ear. As David passes me, I hear a woman’s screech from the earpiece.

“I’ll call you back.” He shuts the phone as he stomps up to the radio, the bandana around his ripped blue jeans flapping with each step.

“She’s not on,” I tell him. “It’s some guy nutting off about Satan.”

David adjusts the knob up and down, only to get another dose of Ranty Man.

He curses under his breath. “Regina said she’s flooded with calls.”

“It happened exactly at midnight,” Lori offers.

“Strange.” David stares at the boom box. “It’s like another station was just created on the same frequency.”

“Isn’t that illegal?” I ask him.

“Extremely.” He rubs the dark, uneven stubble on his chin, a look he’s been working on for a week (and, if I may say, has been worth the wait). “If it’s a pirate operation, the FCC could slap them with a fine and confiscate their equipment, maybe even throw them in jail.”

“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s report them.”

He gives me a patronizing glare, like I’ve suggested we call up Santa Claus. “Ciara, the FCC doesn’t exactly have a twenty-four-hour emergency number. We’ll have to file a report during business hours.”

“What if it’s not pirates?” I gesture to the radio. “It sounds too high-quality to be coming out of someone’s basement. What if it’s another real station?” My mind sounds the cha-ching! of a cash register. “Can we sue them?”

David turns away, dark brows furrowed. “If it’s a real station,” he murmurs, “I might be able to find out—” He looks at Lori. “Can I use your boss’s computer?”

She points to the back of the kitchen. “There’s Stuart’s office. Sorry about the mess.”

David speaks to me as he strides away. “Call Regina, tell her to get the location of everyone who can’t hear us.”

I head back to the bar, where Shane is onstage and on the phone. He pulls his head away from the phone, as if it’s delivering electric shocks.

I weave through the crowd to the edge of the stage, then mouth the word, “Regina?” to him. Shane nods. Good thing his eardrums are as immortal as the rest of him.

I signal for him to hand me the phone. He shakes his head but obliges. “Be careful!” he shouts.

I move away from the speakers to hear Regina. Unnecessary. Astronauts on the International Space Station can probably hear her.

“Hey, it’s me,” I say as calmly as I can. “David says to find out the locations of all the callers who can’t hear us.”

“Don’t you think I thought of that?” Regina’s voice is even harsher than usual. “They’re everywhere—D.C., Sherwood, Baltimore, Harrisburg, every town in between. This isn’t some half-assed pirate operation. Someone is fucking with me.”

“I doubt it’s personal. It’s probably just an anti-Halloween demonstration by religious wackos. David says he might find out who it is by looking on the Internet.”

There’s a long pause before her voice comes back, muted. “Really?”

Regina died in 1987, so her entire experience of the Internet consists of the Matthew Broderick movie WarGames. To her, the Web is omnipotent, able to produce tragedies and miracles with a few keywords.

“Go on with the show as if nothing’s happened,” I tell her, “and we’ll be at the station after the bar closes at two.”

She gives a tight sigh. “I wish I could figure out how to blame you for this.”

I hang up the phone as Jeremy approaches me, notebook in hand. “Everything okay?” he asks.

“Of course. Why?”

“The way you and the station manager were running around, it looks like there’s a crisis.”

“Nope.” I adjust my sunglasses. “No crisis.”

“You mean, other than the fact that no one can hear your broadcast?” In response to my stunned look, he holds up his own phone. “My roommate just texted me.”

Crap. How many other media outlets have noticed already? How many advertisers have noticed?

He steps closer, a new gleam in his eye. “Let me help you find the pirate.”

“I don’t think so.” That’s all we need, for him to snoop around and discover the real truth. “Thanks, anyway.” I pat his arm and turn toward the stage.

“This could be a huge story,” he says.

I stop. Visions of the station, the logo, maybe even Shane’s face, on the cover of Rolling Stone form a slide show in my head. Visions of solvency. Visions of survival.

I turn back to Jeremy. “Give us a day to put our own people on it. I’ll get you something Thursday morning.”

“Exclusive?”

“Through the weekend.”

“Good enough.” He tucks his notebook back into his pocket. “I’m going to drive back home to College Park and listen myself. I’ll call you Thursday.”

On my way back to the kitchen, I wing Shane’s cell phone toward the stage. He snags it with a deft maneuver.

In Stuart’s dim office, I find David leaning close to the monitor, his worried face aglow in the pale white light. He gives me a distracted glance as I pick my way through the piles of papers and stacks of shrink-wrapped Halloween bar napkins.

“Found something odd.” David points to the screen. “The FCC keeps a public record of every application. Here’s one for a translator construction permit from earlier this month right here in Sherwood.”

“A what construction?”

“Translator. It’s a two-way antenna that takes a radio signal and transmits it way outside the station’s original range. Let’s say we wanted to broadcast in Poughkeepsie. We’d build translator stations to relay the signal, and then everyone between here and there could hear us.”

“But we couldn’t trample on another station’s frequency, right?”

“Right. To stay legal, we’d have the translator change our frequency to one that’s available in our target area. If we’re 94.3 here, we might be 102.1 in Scranton.”

I squint at the browser to see what looks like an application from a Family Air Network, Inc. “But these people didn’t bother switching.”

“No, they bothered.” David highlights a box on the application. “Specifically requested our frequency.” He rips off his Springsteen headband and glares up at me. “They’re after us.”