Chapter Ten
Stumbling up the stairs, I tried to catch my breath. But I wasn’t going to get any calmer, not with the implications of that internal war flooding me, burning me. I ran to the front hallway and threw open the door to see…nothing.
No people, no beer. Horseshoes lay abandoned on the glistening grass. The party had moved inside the other townhouse because it was pouring rain.
That thunder hadn’t simply been my heart or Glynn’s purr. It had been real.
Lucking fovely. Walking home in the rain, the overflowing flush to an already-toileted day. I took a deep breath, pushed it out to control my heart rate. Sooner started sooner finished. Thank goodness I had my waterproof—
That’s when I remembered my pink jacket.
I spat a ripe curse. The jacket that Glynn had peeled off and dropped to the floor just before his fingers tweaked my already stiff nipples. I swore again. Stupid, leaving my jacket in Glynn’s room.
But stupider, what I’d almost let happen. What I still wanted to happen. Fuck me, I was a size two dress and a size eight ass hat. The blistering need hammered at my preconceptions, chipped at the edges of my very self.
This wasn’t just sex.
I so did not want to process. Dealing with my physical response to a man—vampire—I barely knew, facing the fact that I’d nearly succumbed to passion despite my mother’s history, admitting that I’d almost killed my dreams by tying myself down emotionally and physically…no. It was too big.
Thank goodness for Business Truth #2, “Focus” etc. I’d have to deal with this eventually just to keep sane, but that time was not now. Now I had to get my jacket and escape.
Probably brighter to just escape. But with the pouring rain, I needed a shield or I’d catch a bug, bad because playing a wind instrument with only half a lung sucks green weenies.
So I left my cases and bulled back downstairs.
Several yards away, I saw Glynn’s door was open. No noise came from the room. Maybe he was gone. Maybe he’d gone off somewhere to sulk, or had joined the party in the other townhouse. Maybe I was safe.
I peeked in—and froze.
He stood in the middle of the room, braced, muscles pumped huge, fangs fully extended. But that wasn’t what shocked me. He was totally naked, but it wasn’t that either. He fisted his erection, talons woven like a wreath of thorns around his immense cock, but it wasn’t even that.
No, what shocked me was that his nose was buried in my pink jacket and sheer joy shone on his face.
He threw back his head and climaxed with a roar, red light flaring from his slit eyes, fully vampire and nothing less than fully scary.
I wasn’t scared—I was stunned. He was jacking off, and apparently having a whopping great time of it, to my scent.
He turned his head, saw me and gave an involuntary groan. Actually started coming again.
The sight of Glynn, powerful, gorgeous vampire, so clearly turned on by me, knifed through my gut and groin and heart. Glynn was aroused by me. My whole body sang at the thought.
Maybe, just maybe, my mother had made the right decision. Maybe world-shaking, once-in-a-lifetime pleasure was enough to offset a whole lifetime of payment.
Glynn and I stared at each other, each trapped by our own impossible situations, our own unthinkable thoughts. I only realized I hadn’t a clue to his when we spoke together.
I croaked, “Do you have a condom?” Just as he stuttered, “Junior. I can explain about the teeth.”
Talk about cross-purposes.
“Condom?” He inhaled as if to say something else but he only added, “About my teeth—”
“I know you’re a vampire, Glynn.”
His response was a stare. “You can’t know that.”
“Julian and Nikos are vampires too.”
“Then you don’t understand. You’d be more frightened.”
“Would be, but Nixie and Twyla are deliriously happy. Ergo vampires aren’t the evil creatures that legend says they are.”
“We bite.” He shook his dark head. “I’ll bite you. Doesn’t that scare you?”
“It didn’t kill me before. Would it kill me now?”
“Now, I won’t just bite your neck.” He tossed the pink jacket. “If I don’t have to hide what I’m doing, I’ll bite you everywhere.” The implications flared in his eyes. His fangs lengthened, straining for me, wickedly sharp-looking. His cock filled and strained for me too, desire unbridled.
“Um…everywhere, everywhere?” Sensitive breast flesh? Soft inner arms…or inner thighs…or places even more orgasmic than last night’s bite?
Sweet Carnegie on a pogo stick, the sex would be even better. I nearly went to my knees with the thought.
Now I had a choice.
The best sex of my life. A union so potent it would blow my mind.
And with it, the threat of life-changing complications, like the shackles of love.
Glynn made no move, no indication beyond his long, elegant fangs and straining erection. Oh, heavens, just looking at them made me hurt.
I had a choice, but what a Murphy’s fuckup of a choice. Duty versus need in perfect balance, like Buridan’s ass.
Dammit, I wasn’t an ass; I was human. And more importantly, a businesswoman. The decision was important—but just as important was making it. And what I did after…but that could wait.
I threw away my reservations and ran to him.
He caught me, swept me up and spun with me. My stomach swooped and I laughed.
He leaped onto the bed and laid me on the mattress, his eyes violet fire.
My laughter died, replaced with breathless anticipation.
He straddled me and raised my shirt to expose my bra. His eyes shaded toward red as he scooped my breasts out like ice cream.
He stared, not saying a word.
I squirmed, heat rising on my cheeks. Didn’t he like what he saw?
“Ah, babi. Such beauty.” Approval rumbled deep in his throat, underscoring his words. With a sharp tug, he tore my shirt and bra completely off, tossed them. He fell to his hands over me, his gaze riveted on my breasts.
My nipples tightened to puckered cherries. I licked my lips in anticipation as he opened his mouth wide. His bared fangs were sharp, long and elegant. He leaned down ever so slowly—and sank the tips into my breast.
Pure, sweet fire sang through me. I arched with a silent scream. Lightning streaked from breast to toe, hitting my clit in between, drenching my vulva in liquid heat.
He licked the hot beads of blood. A deep purr rumbled again my ribs.
My fingers found his hair and I blindly petted, urging him to do the same, again, more.
His dark rumble paused as he swallowed. Kissing and licking up the curve, circling round and round to the peak, his purr roughened to almost a growl. He sucked my nipple into his mouth, drawing hard on it.
I squirmed against the intense suction. My writhing pressed his fangs into my skin, nicking the soft flesh. A shudder rippled through me, and I writhed harder.
He slid down beside me and lay a heavy leg over mine, anchoring me in place while he suckled. I twisted but couldn’t dislodge him. So when he licked my breast until it bobbed and sucked my nipple until it stood tight, I could only enjoy.
He licked across to the other breast, eyes closed in pleasure. His mouth left a hot, wet trail on my skin.
I trembled under the weight of his leg, impatient. He only smiled, his fangs flashing…before he sank them in again.
I shrieked. Sensation tore from breast to gut and exploded in my groin, a small but potent orgasm. My blood roared in my ears. The snap and zip of my pants as he opened them was muffled by whoosh-whoosh.
But the heat of his hand on my mons was very clear. My clit felt swollen and straining and I was sure I’d die before he touched it.
His fingers slid down. Slowly he split my labia, gently rasping along the hood of my clit. He began thrusting along the pink nose, stroking, burnishing until my lust burned, until I knew dying was the least of my concerns.
And still his heavy leg restrained me. I bumped my hips, trying to open, trying to give him full access. I shoved and flexed, twisted and strained, but nothing budged him.
Finally, I grabbed his ears, dug my nails in and shoved.
He chuckled, a dark amusement underscored by purr. Giving my breast a final lick, he rose to his knees over me. His eyes were blood red, his fangs sharp and white. His cock lined the gap of his muscular thighs, longer than I had ever seen it. It should have scared me. He should have scared me.
He lifted a packet from the bedside table.
It was a condom.
“Babi. I can’t get you pregnant. But since you’re worried…”
In that moment I loved him.
“I only have the one…”
I wiggled out of pants and panties. His lips kept moving but no words came.
I parted eagerly, wanting him inside.
He tossed my clothes and thrust himself between my naked thighs. Not his hips, but his chest, in perfect position to sink his fangs into my belly.
He pierced my skin lightly, igniting a firestorm of pleasure deep in my pelvis. I moaned. He palmed my mound, fingers splaying through curls, and used the heel of his hand violently on me until another, bigger climax loomed. He opened wide to bite me again.
His fangs pressed into my mons.
I howled. Grabbed him with my thighs, an involuntary cinching at my sudden orgasm. My legs tightened, nearly crushed him when he began lapping frantically and the climax extended. On and on I convulsed, his purr filling my ears.
His hand was still threaded in my pubic hair and now he tugged on it, pulling me open, exposing my innermost flesh to his flaming tongue. Hot licks accosted my clit directly, pleasure so intense it was near pain. If he didn’t back off soon—
He bit me again, piercing my swollen labia. Another climax, driven into my softest flesh, exploded through hips and chest and lungs and emerged as a scream.
As I lay, hoarse and shuddering from that whole-body pow, he raised himself over me. A foil rip and a latex roll and he was ready. He tossed my leg over his shoulder, slotted his sheathed cock between my slick lips and drove himself deep with a single thrust.
All screamed out, I merely whimpered.
He set up a steady rhythm. The friction drove my body into another tight spiral, but I was too overwhelmed to care.
Until, still thrusting, he bent over and bit my throat.
I constricted into a black hole, impossibly tight. And then, arching back in a sweep of devoured stars, I came, diamond hard. Harder than I’d ever come in my life: hard enough to bang the mattress, hard enough to hurt myself.
He licked my throat closed as the shudders coursed through me, then took my mouth sweetly.
My orgasm rounded, swelled into something bigger than simple pleasure. Something more than physical release, bigger than my skin could hold, bigger than even my heart.
I shattered, coming apart in the sunrise tide of sensations, the brand-new dawn of me.
When my heart slowed and I opened my eyes, I found myself cuddled in Glynn’s arms, his big body curled protectively around me. His rumbling purr had softened, no longer pervasive but ruffled a bit like…like he was sleeping.
He’d fallen asleep. Dammit, he’d fucked like a sex-crazed love monkey and then gone totally unconscious. I wriggled, felt crisp sheet under me.
Huh. At least he’d rolled me out of the wet spot first.
I eased from his heavy arms. He stirred with a murmured question, but I patted one bowling-ball shoulder and he relaxed back.
My clothes weren’t immediately apparent. Some hunting produced my pants and panties at the foot of the bed, and my bra in one corner of the room. I couldn’t find my shirt.
My search took me past the tchotchke table. I paused.
The dragon almost certainly stood for Wales. The pipe struck me as quintessentially male, the cookie stamp female. Were they remembrances of his parents? I pictured a beslippered father smoking a pipe while an aproned mother baked cookies.
Then I pictured warrior-priest Glynn in the family photo and it went poof. No way he had such normal, homey parents. Besides, he’d never known his parents.
Maybe the knickknacks signified his dream family. They were clearly important and I wondered if he’d tell me, but doubted it. I wondered if he’d ever explained them to anyone but doubted that too.
I donned my pants, zipped them over my belly. Flat, and he’d used a condom, but the fifteen percent failure rate meant maybe my belly wouldn’t be flat much longer. We might have started a new family. I might have destroyed my future the way my mother had destroyed hers.
Somehow it didn’t feel as devastating as I thought it would.
Probably because it wasn’t real. Fifteen percent failure rate meant eighty-five percent success, even higher with proper usage. I put a hand over my belly. Pictured it growing round with Glynn’s child.
Nope, still nothing.
I saw my shirt and slipped it on, found shoes and socks and put those on too. I glanced back at Glynn, a mountain on the bed, albeit a sated, snoring mountain. I’d had bloody sex with a vampire. Might get pregnant. I didn’t regret any of it.
And it still didn’t feel weird.
My pink jacket lay in the middle of the floor. I snared it, flashed back to Glynn clutching himself while he totally orgasmed on my scent.
Okay, that had been weird. Strangely reassured, I shrugged on the jacket and slipped out the door.
The limo was waiting to take me home. Apparently Glynn had ordered it up, whether before or after the events on his bed I didn’t know. But it filled me with a warm sense of being cared for, protected.
Although, when I really came right down to it, nothing had changed. I had my duty and dreams. Just because I also had need, and he had need, and we came together in quite mutual satisfaction of that need, it didn’t mean answers.
Good thing he’d fallen asleep after. What if he’d wanted to talk? I didn’t really know why I’d slept with him. How could I deal with finding out why he’d slept with me?
What if he wanted to talk the next time I saw him?
Time for more avoidance. Hey, remember Queen Bess. The issue would eventually go away. Maybe.
So Friday afternoon, I buzzed Nixie. “Can you get a message to Glynn? Let him know not to pick me up?”
“Why not?”
“Um…I’m meeting Rocky?” I made a mental promise to call Rocky and ask her so it wouldn’t be an out and out lie.
“Plenty of room in the limo for two. Glynn could pick you both up.”
Friends are damned tricky. “We’re walking. For the exercise.”
She changed tactics. “Tell you what. I’ll pass it along if you spill what you found on the knickknacks.”
More sensitive than the sex issue. “Nothing, really.” I tried to derail her. “How does Julian get to the PAC if Glynn and Mishela use the limo?”
“He goes earlier and reconnoiters, if you really cared, which you don’t. Now dump on the knickknacks, else I’ll forget to pass your message on to Glynn.”
“Bitch.” I gave in to the inevitable. “I saw them, but I don’t have a clue what they mean.”
“How can you not? Rowr, girl, after what Julian smelled passing Glynn’s room, he should have been singing the fucking ‘Star-Spangled Banner’ if you wanted it—”
I managed to finesse my way out of that one by hanging up on her. She called back and I turned off the phone. I waited half an hour before cautiously turning it back on to call Rocky. She agreed to meet me at the Wurstspeicher Haus at six.
The moment my rent-a-kid arrived, I ran upstairs, leaving the store a full hour early, sacrificing another eight and a quarter, and showered so fast my skin steamed. The sun was still high enough to spotlight my picture of Stonehenge when I ran downstairs. It hadn’t stopped Glynn before, but I was counting on the element of surprise.
I raced out the side door, screeched to a stop. Oh joy. The Cheese Dudes had something new to annoy us.
A three-story snake flailed from ground to sky like a demented sock puppet.
They’re called air dancers or tube men or advertising inflatables. They’re big to pull in customers from way far away, so normally they’re placed in parking lots or fields, to have room to billow around.
This one was right in front of the Cheese Dudes’ building—which put its flopping and flailing right in front of our walkway.
Even more annoying, it had the face of Cheese Dude Two.
The Dudes were two guys who took the geek stereotype and supersized it. Dude One was tall and skinny with greasy, badly cut hair. He wore Hubble-lensed glasses wrapped with the inevitable duct tape. Dude Two was tall, chubby and scruffy, a double for Frank Rossitano on 30 Rock, complete with ball cap. The Dudes even had the gamer personas, never showing their faces before supper and staying up well past the hour most Meiers Corners stores locked the door and turned the sign to Geschlossen.
The snake was horribly unquaint, way over the top—and a great marketing idea. My folks would never have one, which automatically made it cool.
And the little ball cap was really cute.
I reminded myself that the snake was in my way. That it was annoying, like the webcam and petty vandalism. That it was even dangerous with its jerky flopping. Up and flop. Up and chop. A Cheese Dude axe, swinging at the mouth of the walkway.
Thank goodness I’d skipped double-dutch as a kid. Mr. Miyagi’s classes had only honed my timing. I zigged out between the roiling curls into the street.
Behind me an electronic deathmetal “Cheese, Marvelous Cheese” presaged a live voice shouting, “Damn you, Stieg. Give us back our Gorgon’s Ola!”
I turned. Shaking his fist from the snake-shadowed store was Dude Two himself.
“I don’t even know what Gorgon’s Ola is,” I yelled back.
“The most popular new cheese ever? ‘Piquantly Pungent, Like a Striking Snake.’” He shook a threatening paw. “We know you stole our shipment, Stieg. We want it back!”
“I don’t have your stinking cheese, Dude.”
With a snarl he came after me. I braced for two hundred pounds of Dude. But his timing was off. A coil bonked him in his Cheesehead. He reeled back, tried again. Got punched in his Cheesebelly.
“Damn you, Stieg. Give us back our Gorgon’s Ola, or else.” Clutching his head and belly, he made one last dash.
The worm flashed down and under. Blew suddenly up.
Bonked the Dude in his unprotected Cheesedoodles.
He bent over the little Dudes with a howl. Hobbled back inside.
“Wow. Those guys are really mad at you.” Rocky trotted up, flute bag clutched to her chest. The outer pocket was unzipped, the top of a paper bag screaming CHEESE just sticking out.
I pointed at the bag. “Consorting with the enemy?”
“I like cheese.” She started toward the PAC. “Anyway, they claim you guys started it. Hey, the Kalten remodeling’s done.”
“We didn’t start…it doesn’t matter who started it.” I hitched instruments. Following, I caught my reflection in Kalten’s gleaming exterior. Rocky was right—the remodelers had finished. The place looked better than new. Triangular black marble planters formed an edgy counterpoint to the glossy marble and mirrored glass facade. “I wonder what kind of business moved in?”
“Hope for wine,” she said. “Goes with both cheese and sausage. I’m surprised you and the Dudes don’t get along better.”
“It’s not our fault. This latest cheese accusation is pure crock. Um, no pun intended. Why would we steal their product?”
“That’s what I thought, especially the Gorgon’s Ola,” Rocky said. “No sane person’d want to steal that stuff.”
“Why not? What is it, exactly? Besides ‘piquantly pungent’?”
“Believe it or not, it started as a mistake. See, sometimes cheese bacteria makes gas early. Then the cheese is ‘blown’, which ruins it.”
I eyed her. “And you know this how?”
“Ralphie gave me the Cliffs Notes while I was picking out my cheddar.”
“Ralphie?”
“One of the Dudes. Anyway, most cheese gas is CO2, but some bacteria produce hydrogen—think Hindenburg. A company accidentally produced Hindenburg cheese, but instead of throwing it away, some CEO decided it was an ‘opportunity’. They marketed the hell out of it, and it became trendy with a certain crowd desperate to be different.”
“Good grief. Eating bad cheese just to be trendy?”
“Hey, people eat raw fish. And blood sausage.”
“Which reminds me. Did your bribe work?”
“I think so.” She held up crossed fingers.
“At least now I know why the Dudes have been so angry lately, if their most popular product disappeared.”
“I wonder what happened to the shipment.”
“Delivered to the wrong address, probably.”
She gave me a look. “With our post office?”
“Stranger things have happened lately.” Like vampires. Which reminded me, I didn’t want to deal with any sexy vampires, or even snarky spouses of sexy vampires. So I nudged her toward the PAC’s side entrance.
For all the trouble I went to avoiding sexy vampires (and snarky friends), it turned out I needn’t have bothered. I never saw Glynn and saw too much of Nixie.
Oh, Glynn came. Er, arrived. Whatever. I knew he was there because at seven ten Mishela flitted by with a flirty wave and an embarrassing thumbs-up. She wouldn’t be here without her shadow, so he was somewhere in the building.
Just nowhere near me.
I was not dejected, but by the time I made my way to the pit, everyone was already in place and had eaten all the good chocolates. Not really, but it felt that way. Then Nixie latched on to me the moment I sat down—literally, grabbing my elbow in a grip of death. “So, spew. All the gory details.”
So much for avoiding confrontation.
I tried to distract her. “Hey Nixie, what’s the best thing you can play on a guitar? Solitaire.”
“Seriously, girlfriend. Was he any good?”
I almost wished she was asking about the knickknacks. I cut a significant glance at Julian, he of the supervamp hearing.
Nixie grinned. “Nothin’ he doesn’t know. Or isn’t willing to learn. Spill.”
“Um, isn’t it time to start?” I glanced out into the audience. Less than half full. Earlier than I thought. “Hey, what’s the only thing a violin is good for?”
“Lighting a viola. Even I know that one, but it won’t work. Details. Juicy. Now.”
Thankfully, that was when the doors closed and Takashi cued tuning. So, later than I thought. I picked up my clarinet to match pitch. Nixie snatched up her alto sax and Julian touched bow to strings.
His hand froze. His nostrils flared. The tips of his fangs popped out between his lips.
All hell broke loose in the lobby. Screams and shrieks, the shrill yip of a dog, barely muffled by the closed doors.
Julian was gone in a puff of smoke. A swirl of mist. Whatever. Nixie barely caught his dropped cello.
While she fumbled with his oversized guitar, I tossed my clarinet on its peg and sprinted out of the pit and up the aisle. I expected Glynn to come shooting from the stage, but as I ran, my brain kicked in and I realized where he was and why, and why the hullabaloo was in the lobby.
That was where Mishela was.
Dorothy made her first entrance through the house, coming from the inner lobby. Glynn would be with her.
From the ruckus, so was the bad guy.
I burst out the house doors. Glynn and a knobby masked dude were tussling midlobby. A handful of latecomers, standing just inside the outer lobby doors, stared.
Julian weaved from side to side over the wrestling pair, judging his moment. Suddenly he darted in and jabbed the masked head.
Glynn followed Julian’s punch with an elbow smash that would have taken off the head of an elephant. It only stunned the masked guy, confirmation if I’d needed it that this was a vampire.
Nixie edged out behind me. She had a pole and jammed it through the theater house doors as an impromptu bar. Hopefully Mishela had done the same with the other house door. We didn’t need more of an audience for this. Nixie said, “Did they get him?”
“I think so.”
Glynn pulled the masked vampire to his feet.
“Good. Now we’ll find out who he is…damn.”
Glynn tore off the mask, revealing Gollum-like Steve.
“Shiv,” Nixie said.
I didn’t know that could be a name, but maybe vampires took knife names like metal bands added umlauts. “Who’s Shiv?”
“A foot soldier, one of the Lestats. I’ll give you the 4-1-1 later. This explains why the kidnapping attempts were so lame. Shiv’s a fuckup. All Ruthven’s homies are.”
“Ruthven?”
“A v-guy rogue-lord and businessman who… It’s complicated.”
“Later?”
“Later.”
Shiv was blustering. “Lemme go! You can’t pin anything on me. It was dark and I had a mask on so you couldn’t know it was me…shit.”
Nixie just rolled her eyes.
“You’re caught, Shiv.” Glynn shook him. “It’s over. We know you’re trying to kidnap Mishela and why.”
Mishela stepped up, fists on hips. “Is that why you took my ‘Hello Cthulhu’ panties? To get my scent in order to track me?”
“No, Mishela, never.” Steve—or Shiv—blinked at her. His eyes got big and glossy, and his lower lip stuck out and trembled. “I just wanted a token. Something to remind me of your sweet self.”
“Aw,” Nixie said. “Puppy love. Cute but messy. Better push his nose in it before it gets any worse.”
”Let Shiv go, darlings,” a new voice said. “He was working for me.”
The voice was a rich alto. The knot of showgoers near the outer doors parted, and a stunning woman step through. Her long black gown was backless—with a neckline down to her navel, almost frontless too. Black eye shadow and blood-red lipstick was a look most women couldn’t carry off, but it painted her exotically beautiful. She looked like a perfect fictional vampire.
I blinked. This was probably the real thing.
As she glided past the paying customers, she handed them all colorful slips of paper. They looked at the papers, then each other.
Then the showgoers, our audience, trooped out the lobby door. I stared after them in disbelief.
The woman sauntered toward the other vampires. “Hello, Julian. How’s the little wifey?” Her voice was a deep purr, Catwoman but for the snide, mocking way she said wifey. I liked Halle Berry but not this woman.
Julian’s glare said he felt the same. “Camille.”
She sauntered past him to stand before Glynn. “Hello, darling.”
He stared down his high druid nose at her. “Is this Nosferatu’s minion?” His Welsh accent rolled like thunder.
“Is this the Ancient One’s little fetch boy?” A wicked smile on her full lips, she poked a single red nail into his chest. “It’s lieutenant, darling. Get it right.”
The nail dug, quick and sharp, into his shirt. Through it, a red flower appeared. He growled low.
She laughed. “Second lieutenant, actually, now that Ruthven’s gone.”
“Congratulations,” Julian said. The word was iced with sarcasm.
“Thank you.” Eyes never leaving Glynn’s, she licked her bloody fingernail. “It opens up the position of third lieutenant. Interested, darling?”
I expected him to smash her face or slash her with his knife. But he only stared at her, breathing through whitened, distended nostrils.
She smiled. Slowly extended all her nails, reaching for his face—to kiss him or claw him, I didn’t know and didn’t care.
I flew out of the house doorway. “Leave him alone.” Glynn could take care of himself, but strangely that didn’t matter in my need to defend what was…mine. Aw, hell.
Julian stopped me with an arm. But not before Camille’s head swiveled.
“And who is this?” She sniffed the air delicately. Her ruby lips quirked to a nasty little grin. “How droll. What is it with you Alliance boys and your human whores?”
Glynn slapped her. Her head snapped back, the surprise on her face unfeigned and instantly gone. Her nails lengthened to claws and she slashed them across his face.
I jumped, but Julian stopped me. “Let him handle it.”
A condescending smile crossed Glynn’s face, his striped skin already healing. He raised the hapless Shiv until he dangled. “This yours?”
“Of course, darling.” She cocked her head, black hair rippling past her shoulder. “Is that a trick question?”
“Here’s the trick.” Glynn reached into his jacket and pulled out his long knife. He grinned at Shiv. “This won’t stop you, but it will slow you down.” With a single muscular slash, Glynn beheaded the rogue. Blood spurted from the stub. The bony head fell with a muted thud.
I looked away.
“Camille,” Glynn purred. “Don’t make the mistake of going after my girls ever again. Any of them.” His gaze flicked to me, a stern look that seemed to say, “This is the monster you’re getting involved with.”
Yet I saw a yearning to be understood beneath the austerity.
Then he looked away. I was left wishing I could comfort him somehow.
“Good thing the carpet’s red,” Nixie muttered. She touched me on the shoulder, sass softened with compassion. “Don’t worry, it’s temporary. The only way to permanently stop a v-guy is cremate him or burn him in the sun. They’ll slap Shiv’s head back on, stick him in the ground for a few days and he’ll be good as new.”
I still didn’t look at the body.
“Don’t touch any of our humans.” Julian’s voice was frigid as death. “Go back to Chicago, Camille. Run home where you belong.”
“Oh, but I am home.”
Camille’s sly, loaded tone jolted my gaze toward her, to see what type of snake could talk without hissing.
She wore a ripe gloat, the kind that holds a hand of queens when every last dime has been bet. “Is this any way to treat a fellow Meiers Corners businesswoman?”
“I’ve no time for games,” Glynn said. “Get out.”
“Of course. After I give you this.” She offered one of her colorful slips of paper.
He just glared.
She held it out to Julian. “You?”
When he glared too, Nixie said, “Oh, for shit’s sake,” and started for her.
“Nixie, no.” Julian snapped up the paper so fast his hand blurred.
Camille’s smile broadened. “I have more for tomorrow night. And the night after. In case you find time for games.” She gave Glynn one last leer.
Then, with a dramatic swirl, she collapsed into a river of smoke, flowing along the lobby carpet and out the door.
Julian glared like he wanted to snap out his lighter and make her a fuse.
“What the hell?” Glynn snatched the paper from Julian’s hand. Scowling, his eyes darkened to royal blue—royally pissed. “This is why the house is so sparse.”
Avoiding the headless body, I sidled over and angled my head to see.
It was a flyer for a brand-new goth nightclub called Fangs To You. The club’s address was the Kalten building.
It featured a coupon for free drinks—for tonight.
