Chapter Fifteen
Fortunately, Glynn was already moving. He hoisted me and skimmed around the tree. The flashlight beam cut to both sides but didn’t catch us.
“Well, I thought I saw someone, but now I don’t. Maybe I was imagining it.” The rusty tenor was Detective Dirk’s. “Guess I’d better call Detective Strongwell and report all’s quiet. I wonder if she’ll be breathing heavy like last time.”
Off-key humming and the boop-boop of a cell phone receded. I sighed. There were times Dirk’s social obtuseness was a blessing.
“That was close.” Glynn set me down.
It put my face at pecs level. My mouth landed on the swell of one cotton-covered mound as if I couldn’t help it. I could have, of course. The decision was still mine, each time, to risk forging a forever-type bond.
But I’d made the choice several times already and each time was getting easier. Maybe it wouldn’t have if Glynn were an ass hat, but he was talented, caring, and, as I tugged his shirt out of his pants and fastened onto bare, pale gold skin, tasted really good.
“Junior,” Glynn groaned. His chest lifted like he was grabbing something overhead. I slicked my tongue over a nipple. Wood cracked. His hands came down, a thick, leafy branch between them. He groaned again, this time in frustration. “We shouldn’t.”
“Yeah,” I panted. “But I’d give half my poster collection for a bed right now.”
“Give me a moment.” He shucked his jacket and draped it over my shoulders, then ran off while pulling his T-shirt over his head.
I barely had time to process the shock of those sweeping lats flaring like a rising cobra when he returned to whisk me up—against his naked body.
I clung to truly awesome muscles. “What about Dirk?”
“He’s gone. I found us someplace private.” He stepped under a waterfall of willow tree branches and we were in nature’s secluded bower.
He’d lined the springy ground with his soft T-shirt and worn jeans. Laying me on this impromptu bed, he covered me with skin warmer and smoother than any blanket.
I spread my hands on his back. My fingers rippled over acres of pure muscle. His mouth descended on mine, and his taste was as wild and darkly sensual as our outdoor cocoon.
With the world shut out, his urgency changed, taking his time, kissing me thoroughly with soft swipes of tongue and lips, light nips and tastes. I loved the feel of his skillful mouth—loved even more the occasional slips of control, those jags of impatience, quickly contained, that meant he wanted as much as me, but was making sure I had my fill of pleasure first.
I stabbed my tongue between his lips and demanded my own back.
His mouth opened and his dark taste intensified. I kissed until I was drunk on him, until my body throbbed and my blood pounded and I desperately wanted more. I tried to open my thighs, but my legs were pinned under his. I wriggled.
He lifted slightly, the male version of the panty hip-lift. Immediately, I spread my legs. He settled between them, heavy and hot. My jeans and panties were thin barriers to his pulsing erection and my blossoming need.
He wrapped both hands around my waist and swept up, raising my tee and bra over my breasts. He fell to suckling.
Sweet need filled me. I marveled at his dark head, nearly as big as my whole chest, and his shoulders broad as airplane’s wings just beyond. Need intensified to ache. I cupped his silky head and pressed him closer.
Birds chirped around us, masking our quickening breaths and soft moans. At my urging, he suckled harder. My fingers clenched fistfuls of black hair. He made a small sound, pain laced with pleasure. I consciously eased my grip, but was too aroused to stop my hands from rubbing him with ever increasing desire.
He raised his head and I skimmed fingers over his face, his strong cheekbones, his lips…his fangs. Their smooth warmth drew me and I stroked them with my thumbs. They lengthened and throbbed under the pads of my fingers. I stroked again.
He groaned, a tight, throttled roar. Every muscle around his eyes clenched tight, his jaw clenched even tighter. His cock expanded up my belly like a balloon, dripping hot desire.
I blinked. Teeth as a G-spot? But the evidence was before me, so I plucked them between thumb and forefinger like nipples.
His reaction was immediate and extreme. He reared back, mouth open wide, and sank them into my breast.
Lava desire poured into me, seared me. Lust surged, flooded every nerve ending, every organ. My body filled, swelled almost painfully. The pressure built without an outlet, without release, until my hips jerked, drawing my jeans-sheathed sex over his hard erection. Friction burned hot, pumped my ballooning need. I whimpered.
With fangs still embedded, his lips clasped my nipple and pulled. He suckled me, hard. I swelled brighter, hotter, as if I were filling with the exploding universe. The erotic suction was so intense it bent me in an arch into the soft, clothes-lined loam.
I rubbed myself frantically against his thick cock, seeking release. My flexing hips scraped denim over his bare shaft, hard enough to scour him raw. He didn’t seem to notice, suckling me with eyes closed, his expression pure bliss. “Ah, babi. You’re so sweet. So lovely.”
“Glynn…please, enough.” I was terribly aroused and having trouble breathing, trying to keep my moans and pants under the natural noises around us.
He lifted his head. His fangs emerged from my breast, red with my blood.
It was a surreal moment. I might have been horrified, but the sheer joy of his bite filled me to bursting. Liquid heat welled near my nipple, trickled down the curve. Coppery-smelling.
Glynn’s eyes closed, his nostrils flared. “Ah, Junior. My love.” Lashes thick and black against his druid’s cheeks, he touched a worshipful tongue to the hot thread. Began to lap, gently. His complete immersion in the act, engrossed to the point of communing, thrilled me. His tongue, his breath, his passionate celebration inflamed me to flashpoint.
As he licked, he thrust a hand into my waistband. His fingers found my clit, stroked. Like the blown side of a mountain, I orgasmed.
His low rumble started, a dark purring not even vaguely human. I barely noticed. With a final lick, he came to hands and knees over me, grabbed my jeans and pulled them off.
I lifted my hips with a languid roll but neither of us cared. Comfortably sated, my legs fell open. The scent of my satisfaction was so strong even I could smell it.
His gaze riveted on my sex, pupils flaming bright red. His fangs shot out like swords and his cock was so hard it stood straight up.
I slid my hands down my belly to my thighs, framing my vulva. “What are you waiting for?” My seductive whisper barely rose above the crickets’ chirps.
The soft spring air caressed my body. Watching him, I ran a finger over the wet silk of my sex. Overhead, slivers of starry sky shone through the willow’s leafy fall.
Nature at its seductive best. And the prince of nature’s fertile magic knelt between my thighs, staring at me with red, red eyes.
“Come on.” I wiggled in the snug nest of his clothes, trailed one finger along where I wanted that throbbing cock. He still didn’t move a muscle, so I slid the tip of my forefinger in.
He growled, grabbed my thighs. Spread them roughly. Dropped his head and began to feast.
The instant his tongue branded my slit, I arched with intense pleasure. It jerked me against his hold, but he was so inhumanly strong, it was like jerking against the weight of the earth. His fingers bit into my thighs, his mouth opened wide…my vision went red as his fangs sank into my swollen labia.
I screamed a climax so big and shockingly fast it was a whoosh of wildfire. I gasped, panted, then keened when he started sucking on my pussy while it still flexed. Heaven help me, his mouth, all hot, wet suction, sent me even higher. I grabbed hunks of hair and felt the world buck beneath me. He sucked and tongued, impaled me on fangs until I was wound so tight and coming so hard it was pain. Not dull aching or rasping hunger but blistering, screaming, fuck-me-oh-please, open, ravenous wounds.
In the midst of my screaming, Glynn pulled away and fell to one fist over me, chest pumped. The other fist held his fat, sheathed erection. He guided it toward my spasming pussy and I thought thank you, but he only touched his fist to my vulva, thumb positioned over my clitoris.
I writhed under him, trying to impale myself on him, but his hand was in the way. His fist pressed to my open sex and he started feeding cock through it, slow as a glacier. I was an out-of-control wildfire, and he was feeding me heaven inch by screaming inch.
The head popped through first, stretching me. An inch of shaft. Two. I grabbed his shoulders, my clutching fingers barely denting ironwood muscles. I writhed to leverage my hips onto him, thrashing to jam heaven home. He froze me simply by pressing his thumb against my clitoral sheath, bearing down with heavy, dark pleasure. I sucked in a breath.
The thumb wiggled. Jagged bolts cut through me like branched lightning. He grunted and fed in another inch of thick shaft. At this rate, I’d burn to ashes long before he got all the way in.
He did a one-arm pushup. Biceps bulging, his head lowered to my throat, his thumb still assaulting my clit, up and down now, like thumbing a lighter. I cried out, not caring if the world heard me. His breath brushed hot against the sensitive skin of my neck. I wrenched my head back, exposing my throat. His teeth nipped flesh, his incisors sharp, the fangs lying smooth alongside.
Another inch of cock. Two.
I was beyond frantic. I grabbed his head, his hips, and shoved. Urged him to bite me, screw me. But he only nipped and nibbled and teased and oh-so-slowly drove me insane.
Another inch sank in, finally kissed cervix. He was completely filling me, eight or nine inches of shaft and glans—and he still hadn’t removed his fist.
I was out of my head with need for him and he hadn’t removed his fist. Like his kiss, he was restraining himself, hanging back, focused totally on my pleasure—and ignoring his.
Fuck that.
I grabbed his ears with both hands, tried to shake him. Like shaking a cliff. “Damn you, Glynn. Take me. Let go. Find your own pleasure, dammit.”
He lifted his head. His face was flushed, his eyes heavy-lidded with desire, the red gleam under them the only sign of his preternatural hunger. “Your satisfaction comes first. Your pleasure triggers mine.” His lids drifted shut, then open again, fully. “That’s not right. Your pleasure…it completes mine.”
I was wiggling like a worm on this hook of lust and didn’t see the difference. “I’m satisfied, damn you. Twice. Three times. I don’t know how many.”
He smiled, lazily. “Not enough.” And releasing his cock, he thrust me into the center of the earth.
Ever been pounded into the mattress? Powered into by a male so strong it’s like being bedded by an oil rig, whacking its great thrusting piston into you?
Glynn’s hips rolled and plunged until I was pulverized. Until I shattered in that sweet, dark night. And when I shuddered with release, he didn’t stop. He kept driving straight through my climax, rode me until I lay limp and utterly spent under him.
Then, with a growl, he stabbed his fingers into the soil next to my head.
Energy crackled up his arms, spread through his chest like he was calling up magic. His face glowed, his eyes shone brilliant as the sun. All his muscles expanded, pumped so big and hard the earth itself must have filled them.
It raised the hairs on my arms. My blood pounded in my ears. The short wisps in my braid crackled like a thunderstorm.
All that power, all that weight, slammed into me. I clenched in reaction. Was slammed into again, deep, so deep I whimpered. Was slammed again.
Something inside me awoke. Something dense and heavy and deep, like molten iron at the earth’s core.
Slam.
It shook me. Literally, my breasts and hips shuddering, but that was only the outer manifestation of a deeper, more electrifying jolt. I’d already climaxed several times and was now a yielding receptacle for his pleasure.
And he, by the simple fact that he put me first, was making me come again.
Growling, he pummeled me, riding me with the rhythm of the rising sea. His male magic commanded my body, my blood, my very soul. I rose with him. Dark as the night, powerful as the earth and vast and irresistible as water, he thrust into me. An ocean’s wave of pleasure swept in with him, swelling bigger and bigger with no crest in sight—and rolling directly toward me.
His climax was coming. And if he continued to take me with him, mine.
I shrieked my denial. An orgasm that big would destroy me. I clung to his massive, pumped biceps, pleaded for him to finish before he demolished me.
He rode me harder. His balls slapped my buttocks and his teeth opened over my throat and I’d gotten what I’d wanted, him out of control, but I hadn’t reckoned with the cost. I opened my mouth to scream—just as he sank fangs into my throat.
I imploded. Fractured all the way to my soul, shattering. Seismic waves stripped me of all my pretenses, anything civilized falling and breaking like so much crockery in an earthquake. My body gloried in a pleasure so complete it remade me in its own image. I howled, began pumping my own hips in reaction, flailing desperately and instinctively until I was riding atop the waves, pushing them longer, farther.
I seized him with my legs and beat up, my force that of a woman instead of the earth, but enough for him to roar in counterpoint and churn his pelvis so tight and fast we both burned to cinders. Then he bit me again and the cinders exploded.
Bits of ash floating in the dark were all that was left of me.
Time passed. Rumbles of lazy pleasure stirred the ash. Soft licks here and there recalled a body once real. Warm night brushed bedewed skin, rumpling it into goose bumps. Slits of vision opened to sapphire eyes soft and deep as the night.
Heels slid off muscular buttocks, thumped to spongy ground. Mine, I realized somewhat dazedly. “What…did we…?”
“No one heard. No one’s near.” He touched a finger to his nose.
“Some sniffer.” I yawned. Stretched. I felt clean, new, like I’d gotten a great night’s sleep.
Until reality crashed into my head. I’d had sex with Glynn, again. Not just sex, but sex so cataclysmic it qualified as more. As physical intimacy. As—gulp—lovemaking.
It’s not the decision itself, I told myself frantically. It’s what I do after.
Great words, and I knew they were true, but it was now way after and I had no idea what the hell I was going to do.
Glynn noticed my dismay and tried to persuade me to talk as we slowly dressed and made for home. His idea of persuasion was soft kisses and gentle bites, and I admit they would have worked if they hadn’t led to more lustful pursuits, three times in quiet, dark corners of the city. The only talking we did then was with our hands and mouths and the occasional groaned name.
So we didn’t talk about it. Just as well. I still had my duty and rainbow dreams, and Glynn still had to leave at the end of the show.
Nothing had changed, just because everything had.
I loved him. I’d thought that before, but this was the kind of love that would throw away duty, forget dreams, simply to stay with him a few moments longer.
Feelings that big should move mountains. It’s absolutely incredible to me that they don’t even ruffle the real world unless action is taken.
Since most emotions don’t last and most actions do, it pays to be very careful to know for sure what’s real. The saying “think before you act” is just good business sense, and I was nothing if not all business. Well, except for the music part.
But my emotions were so overwhelming, thinking was almost impossible. Right now my saying was more, “When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout”. Cap that with city businesses plunging toward financial ruin and Elias’s Armageddon marching one day closer, and maybe panic was a sensible reaction.
I needed simple again. I needed to reduce my life to problems I could solve.
Okay, good. Glynn first. Leaving at the end of the show, traveling to the home he loved. I’d already decided to let him go. Loving him even more didn’t change that.
Vampires? I might be able to make a difference there, as part of Nixie and Elena’s group. I tucked that away for later.
CIC Mutual? Too big for me to knock down.
Camille and her club?
There, as another business owner, I could prove useful. I’d see things the others might miss: ways to get her out of Meiers Corners, means to pull her well-manicured claws out of our citizenry.
Once I could think again, that was.
Thursday morning I discovered the city’s financial crisis was closer than anyone thought.
Before I even unlocked for the day, Rocky Hrbek was knocking frantically on the door. When I opened up, she ran in, breathing fast, locked the door behind her and drew me away from it as if we could be heard. In a low voice, she said, “They did it. I never thought they would. It’s personal, Junior. Almost evil.”
“Calm down. Another stolen garden gnome?”
She gaped at me from behind her huge glasses. “Are you serious? No, this is important. A friend at work called me. They posted yesterday. You’ll get yours today.”
“They’re mailing out stolen garden gnomes?”
“No!” Rocky rarely lost her temper, but that did it. “CIC is demanding full premium payment.”
“Your supervisor is demanding payment?”
“Would you listen?” She glared at me like I was the slowest tricycle on the planet. “The directive came from the president of the company himself. All premiums are due immediately.”
That finally got through. “W…what? But they can’t.”
“They think they can, and they have some nasty, ruthless lawyers who agree.” She lowered her voice even more. “I know Julian’s good, but they’ve got a whole cadre of sharks ready to stab us with lawsuits. Even if we’re in the right, we’d bleed out before we win. And dead is dead.”
An imperious knock at the door spun her. “Crap, it’s Mrs. Blau. You’d better let her in. She’s gotten crabby lately.”
“Everyone’s gotten crabby lately,” I muttered. Camille’s doing. I went to the door, Rocky following.
“Maybe it’s catching,” she said as I unlocked the door. “That would explain why Mr. Nosferatu went all Snidely Whiplash on us.”
“Nosferatu?” Unless there was more than one, that was the vampire who stood against the Iowa Alliance. “How do you know him?”
“He’s president of CIC.”
If she’d whapped me in the face with a bassoon, I couldn’t have been more stunned. Yet it made obvious sense. Nosferatu, the vampire attacking Meiers Corners, was behind CIC, the insurance company attacking Meiers Corners. Nosferatu was the high mucky-muck at CIC Camille was involved with. Why hadn’t I put it together before this?
I had a lot of time to think about it that day. We had customers, but they perused the sausage in stony silence. When they spoke, it was to criticize. Our receipts were way down, and I knew we weren’t the only ones.
Worse, we got our dunning notice in that morning’s mail. The letter carrier looked almost sick delivering it. It wasn’t the first he’d seen either.
The envelope rattled in my shaking hand. This was intolerable. I had to do something. We needed money, but even business guru Kai Elias’s cash was tied up helping the truly penniless. And besides, no self-respecting MC businessperson would accept a handout.
So what we really needed were tourists.
But Camille had grabbed those tourists somehow. She’d hooked them as surely as she’d grabbed our own people. And I had no idea how.
I opened the envelope. It was as Rocky said, twelve thousand dollars due by the end of the month. We could find other insurance, but it’d be hard to bind a new policy in time to stay open. Yet to pay this, we’d have to sacrifice the cooler fund, our savings and my instruments.
I felt cornered and out of options. Business Truth #7 said I should just wait, that the solution would become obvious. An obvious solution to citywide meltdown, and two ruthless vampires?
I didn’t have a lot of hope.
The theater that night was nearly empty. A dozen people sat in the audience, mostly parents.
Takashi’s beats were listless. Director Dumbass’s sparkling swish was gone. Even Mishela’s voice wavered as she wished upon that star.
What’s more shattered than heartbroken?
We didn’t bother playing the bows. I trudged back to the prop room, sluggishly disassembled and swabbed instruments.
Glynn appeared in the doorway. “Walk you home?”
“I’m not good company.”
“I thought perhaps…” He stared at his feet. “Maybe you could come to my room. I have a real bed.” He raised his eyes. Deepest blue, they were filled with such longing that it stole my breath.
“Bed?” The bower had been awesome, but the thought of Glynn’s huge mattress…a door to muffle anything louder than gasps and moans… My hormones revved directly into desperation. I stuffed instruments in cases, grabbed his arm and hustled us out the door.
Our hands found each other’s skin on the way, sliding under clothes and exploring so fast we were practically undressed by the time we hit Glynn’s door. He turned the knob with a hand borrowed from my breast, immediately diving back under while he kicked open the door. He scooped me off my feet and twirled me across the threshold—and ground to a stop.
His nostrils were flared, his fangs full length and his eyes burned bright red and not in the good lusty way. I followed his stare to see—
The small table was bare.
Glynn rushed to it and frantically patted it like a blind man, like maybe his tchotchkes were still there, just invisible. He hadn’t put me down, had simply baled me into one arm like a sack of groceries. I wasn’t insulted at being treated like cat litter; I was amazed. He’d held on to me.
In the midst of a nightmare, he’d only clutched me tighter.
“Oh, Duw, where are they?” He whispered it like a prayer, as though he were actually asking God. He dropped to his knees, twitched aside the heavy brocade tablecloth, but I knew he wouldn’t find his tchotchkes there. If they were anywhere in the room, his preternatural nose would have at least detected the pipe, the unglazed ceramic holding its cavendish essence.
He rose and circled the room in search anyway. Round and round, checking the same places two or three times. His directionless search screamed his loss.
“Glynn.” I caressed his hair. “Glynn, stop. Sit down. We need to think.”
It took five minutes of petting and gentle words before he finally collapsed on the foot of the bed.
“Why?” His voice broke. My heart broke with it. “Why would someone do this? Who would do it?”
He was incredibly vulnerable right now. Of course, his very vulnerability made him deadly dangerous. Not to me, but I didn’t want to touch off that powder and have it explode on someone else. So I spoke slowly, carefully. “Who knew what those items meant?”
“Nobody. I never talk about them.” He took a deep breath, making a visible attempt to calm himself. “You know. Elias knows, I suppose. Nobody else.”
“Not what they symbolized. Who knows how important they are to you?”
His eyes focused, for the first time since seeing the empty table, on me. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. Many people. Emersons, Mishela, some of the Alliance vampires. And—” His eyes abruptly unfocused, like he’d been shot. “Oh, bollocks. I can’t believe…it can’t be.”
“Can’t be what?” Or rather, who?
The pain contorting his face confirmed a “who”, someone close. Betrayal by a friend.
But there was anger in his face too. A friend, but not a heart’s friend. I was incredibly relieved—until he said her name.
“Camille.”
I shuddered.
He shook his head. “How could it be her? Wouldn’t I smell her?”
Camille knew about the tchotchkes, knew how important they were to Glynn. She had, at one time, been close enough for him to feel hurt and betrayed now. Close enough that he remembered her scent.
Close, to guys, usually meant sex.
Damn.
Yes, Glynn wasn’t mine. And yes, I knew he was eight hundred years on this earth and had to have had sex before me.
But it hurt. Not because Glynn had belonged to someone else first. But because he might still belong to her. The male I loved so much that he’d become a part of me, might still be part of someone else. Wouldn’t he have forgotten her scent otherwise?
I wanted Glynn to belong to me.
Well, mostly I wanted him to be happy. And maybe he wouldn’t get that belonging to me—but he sure wasn’t going to get it with her.
Damn it, I just wanted him to be happy.
Oh God. I loved him. The real deal—not just first-blush euphoria or giddy sex, but the nitty-gritty, daily grind, your-happiness-matters love. I’d run away from it, then deluded myself that it was a business decision. I’d lost both those battles. Having never felt quite this way about anyone, I thought maybe I’d lost the war as well.
And there went my rainbow dreams.
I was singularly less impressed with losing them than I’d expected. Maybe shock. Maybe because Glynn was still here, at least for a few more days. Or the sense of inevitability. Mom had fallen, so would I. How many children actually ended up completely different from their parents? How many molecules escaped the liquid as gas? All of them whispered my brain, but I hadn’t done that well in chemistry and couldn’t trust the answer I wanted in the face of the answer I had.
“I’d smell her,” Glynn said again, sounding lost.
I put my feelings to one side. I could deal with them later. Glynn was suffering now.
I stroked his hair. “You just need to do a more thorough search.”
His eyes focused on me like I’d thrown him a lifeline.
“Start in this room. Go over every inch again, using all your senses. Search the entire basement, both townhouses, and the yard.”
“Why?” He made a half-gesture at the table. His eyes dulled. “They’re gone.”
“You’ll find traces. Clues to what happened.” I took his beloved face in both hands. “Get Julian to help you, and Nikos and Rebecca. Even if you’re distracted, they’re good. They’re sure to find something.” I put more certainty in my voice than I felt. If the thief were human, I’d have had no doubt. But I had no idea what a vampire could hide.
He nodded and I could practically see his intellect come online. “I’ll ask Mishela too. Both her acting and Elias have trained her to observe.”
“Great.” Now came the tricky part.
Glynn and I might have no future, but my love demanded I do at least this much for him. I needed to at least try to get Glynn’s pieces of home back. But I knew what would happen if I told him I was going to visit Fangs To You. He’d try to stop me. I couldn’t let that happen.
Safer for me if I asked him along. But he still remembered Camille’s scent, was still lost and hurt at just the thought that she might be the thief. He was so vulnerable my heart broke.
Besides, I didn’t think I’d be in any real danger. Hey, I wasn’t intending to announce myself. A little luck and she’d never know I was there.
I released his face. “Look, since you’re using vampire senses, I’ll just slow you down. I’ll head home.” He frowned again, so I added, “If you come up with anything, give me a call.”
“Well…you must be tired. You work too hard, Junior.” He managed a small smile. “Thank you. You’re good for me.”
I covered my embarrassment by pressing a kiss to his gorgeous lips.
Enough of Glynn’s protector self was left to insist on driving me home. I managed to not give myself away on the drive home, but his sad face made it hard. With a quick kiss I jumped out and ran inside. I ran to the front store window and watched the limo purr away. Then I wrote a note explaining where I’d gone and slipped it onto my dad’s desk. I wasn’t expecting trouble, but I was going into the lair of a she-bitch vampire.
For Glynn. For the pain she’d caused him.
I took a deep breath. Showtime.
I locked the door behind me. Because a vampire owned the club across the street from my parents, sure. But the Cheese Dudes lived right next door and they were tricky.
Stoking my courage with my love, I walked across the street.
I didn’t have one of Camille’s flyers, so I had to fork over twenty bucks cover (and show half a dozen forms of ID to prove I was underheight, not underage. Stupid long-lived vampires. I bet they thought two hundred was still jail bait).
Inside, the smoke and pulsing light made it hard to see. But when my vision cleared, I saw it wasn’t just free drinks Camille was offering.
Barely clothed women and men strutted around, offering customers trays of rancid-looking cheese curds—and themselves. I sucked in a surprised breath. How had this gotten past the planning commission?
I nearly choked on that breath. The smoke was nauseatingly sweet. Marijuana sweet. I coughed. Hookers and drugs? How was our good, upstanding MC citizenry not only not up in arms over this decadence, but participating? Body snatchers?
I needed to focus. I’d come to find Glynn’s pieces of home. I looked around to orient myself.
The long bar to the left was stocked with the standard taps and bottles, littered with bowls of peanuts. The only unusual things were the near-nudity of the bartenders and the plates of cheese being gobbled by everyone in sight.
I frowned.
Shouts from a nearby table turned my head. A pumpkin-headed man knocked cards and chips off the table with an angry sweep. A woman in skin-tight leather leaped to her feet, snapping out a whip.
No, not Camille’s lackeys, or even tourists, but Police Captain Titus and the mayor’s secretary, Heidi.
Tempers escalated. More shouts. I thought things would get messy (Heidi could do more damage with her whip than most people could with a Mauser), but she threw aside the quirt to shove Titus. Snarling, Titus shoved back.
The ensuing fight was not much more than grade school butting. I looked away, embarrassed for them.
And caught the action at another table, where a woman reached for a card tucked in her shoe. The card was a queen of clubs, and the hand was Anna Versnobt’s, Miss Better-than-everyone in school.
Meiers Corners folk, brawling and cheating. Good grief. I needed to find Glynn’s tchotchkes and get out of here before whatever it was affected me too.
Fangs To You was built like a hotel atrium, with an open main floor facing a two-story, motel-like front, upper walkway shading a lower. On the ground floor was an elevator and a door through which staff shuttled with their ever-freshened trays of cheese. The kitchen. There’d be restrooms and storage and maybe offices nearby. Good place to start. I wound my way through tables toward the gallery.
One of the waiters stopped me on the way. “GObubble?”
Actually he shoved his tray of curds in my face. Lucky I’d had all that martial arts training. My head recoiled just in time to save me an impromptu nose job. “No, thanks.”
“Are you sure?” He teased the tray in front of me. “They’re Go-go-goooood.”
About to refuse more vigorously, I caught sight of his eyes. His pupils were blown like popped balloons. Drugged, and more than mere weed.
“Okay then.” I snatched a couple cheese curds. They crackled in my fingers, like bubblewrap. GObubbles, huh. I grabbed a napkin from the tray, wrapped the curds, stuffed them in a pocket, and headed on.
I slowed as I crossed the main floor. The whole place was low-light, but I’d seen staff step down a few feet out of the kitchen. Searching with my toe, I discovered raised marble.
I stepped up, was dazzled by a thousand tiny lights.
The underside of the upper walkway was studded with them. The overhang had blocked them like a cloud covering the stars.
The elevator was right in front of me, doors wide like a hungry maw. I swallowed, sidled away from the bloody gullet. To my right were four doors labeled in red. Fangs. Blood. The hair on my nape went up. The Dungeon. My scalp prickled.
Storage.
Okay, that was soothingly prosaic.
Fangs and Blood were subtitled Men and Women. My hair settled. The Dungeon was the kitchen.
Storage was my first search target. Since I wasn’t dressed in the official uniform of lederhosen and pasties, I backed up to the door and watched The Dungeon for a break in the tray traffic. The instant no one was looking I pulled open the Storage door and spun inside.
And jumped back, spine against the door, horrified. Ye gods, whoever did their shipping and receiving should be shot.
Haphazardly stacked boxes of expensive wines and cheap booze cluttered a hallway far too narrow for fire safety. (My father’s cousin’s wife’s half brother Herbort was in the assessor’s department. Why keep a family Bible for genealogy when you can use the phone book?)
Several boxes were stamped with stylized fangs and a red slashed circle over a man stick-figure. Vampire-only rotgut? I edged in until I could see the printing. In red letters was the slogan “Bomb your blood with Vamka!” Maybe a play on the word vodka, but the small print simply said mannitol hexanitrate. I made a mental note to look that up on the Internet.
They were plenty big enough to hide a few small knickknacks, but none of the boxes looked opened. I tested the seams on several with my fingers. They all seemed solid, factory-sealed. I moved on in my search.
Four more doors lined this narrow hallway, helpfully labeled Cool, Cold, Office Supplies and Props. I guessed Cool was storage for cheese and preserved meat, and Cold for uncooked foods. Office supplies seemed self-explanatory.
But Props?
I peeked. It was a moderate-size room with garage-style shelves loaded with boxes of studded leather, lederhosen and personal lubricant—strawberry. And, strangely, a whole rack of chainsaws on the back wall.
Oh boy. I didn’t want to know. But for Glynn, I started for the first box.
The door slapped open behind me. A big goon filled the doorway, dressed in the black-on-black of security. “You. Come with me.”
“I just got lost—“
“Now, Ms. Stieg. Or do you want me to carry you?”
I grinned and followed him. He led me, not to the exit, but to the open maw of the elevator. I gulped, stepped inside. It rose smoothly but when the door opened, the guy held it and gestured me out.
Camille was there.
She wasn’t looking at me. She stood at the balcony railing, the overlord surveying the scurrying ants. Paying ants, by the avaricious twist of her lips. Hey, I’m in business. I value good service above profit, but I know the grin o’ greed when I see it.
I looked over the rail, tried to see the floor action from her perspective. Slow, dull-sensed humans, their lifetime not much more than a pet’s. To her we were merely animals, deserving no better treatment.
But that didn’t explain what she’d done to Glynn.
“Camille.” I growled her name.
She turned. “Well, well. Glynn’s little human whore, come to save the day.” Her carmine lips curved, more sneer than smile.
I saw then that even the most perfect features can be ugly.
I sneered back. “Says Glynn’s discards.” It was a shot in the dark, but by the thunderstorm in her eyes, it scored.
Another clue was that she seized my ear, nearly pulling it off my skull.
She tried to yank me in, but I’d studied hapkido with Mr. Miyagi. I grabbed her wrist to control our distance, then used my other hand to seize her little finger. With a firm grip established, I wrenched on it.
Vampires, I was pleased to prove, were actually more sensitive than humans. She let go with a squawk.
And the score was Junior two, Vampbitch zero.
“Why are you here, slut?” She stepped back with a glower.
Apparently we were getting right to the point. Fine with me. “Where are Glynn’s tchotchkes, asswipe?”
“How should I know?” She rolled her eyes. “Glynn’s missing little trinkets have nothing to do with me. Why would you think they do?”
“You like people vulnerable, Camille. Glynn rejected you, you wanted to get even, so you took them.”
“Nonsense. I rejected him.”
Her nonanswer was answer enough. “Give them back.”
“Or else what?” She spat it. “You’ll simper at me? Cast your human stink on me?”
“I’ll figure something out. Just know I’ll get them eventually.”
She snarled. “You think to buy Glynn’s affection with his little pieces of home, but he’ll leave you anyway. You’re a flash in the pan. I’m eternal, with centuries of experience pleasing a male. I’m built for sex.”
“And I’m built for love,” I snarled back. “Besides, you’re not eternal, just long-lived. I’ll get his tchotchkes back, Camille, if it’s the last thing I do.” I nearly smacked myself. I was talking like a bad vampire soap opera. So I offered her a combination of my father’s and mother’s best sign language instead, a stiff middle finger and a slapped arm. “Sit and twirl, Camille.” Spinning on my heel, I hit the elevator and jabbed down.
The black-clad security goon caught me by the shoulders as I steamed out. Ham hands clasping me tight, he hustled me through the gambling, boozing and fighting. The bouncer at the door saw us coming and swung the door wide just in time for the goon to toss me through.
I stumbled out onto the pavement. Gathering myself, I brushed specks of indignity off my sleeves. Then I glared at the black marble facade. This was worse than I thought.
She had Glynn’s tchotchkes; I was sure of it. But how would I find them now that she knew I was looking?
And what the hell had happened to the good folk of Meiers Corners? What I’d seen in there wasn’t just free drinks gone wild nor temporary madness. That was the complete corruption of our small-town values.
And our good folk embracing that corruption.
I slapped dust from my pants. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe this was just the inevitable backlash from all our straitjacket niceness. Taken to the extreme, Meiers Corners was inbred, narrow-minded, and valued cleanliness and efficiency über alles, sieg heil.
But if this backlash went on too long, well. Beyond killing tourism, it would kill the spirit of the town itself.
As I slapped more dust, I heard a crackle. Those damned GObubble cheese curds. I pulled them out of my pocket, unwrapped the napkin and sniffed. Stench burned like nasal buckshot. My head spun. Wheeling, I braced myself against marble, breathed anywhere but that napkin. Gradually my dizziness faded.
The memory of the stink, sharp as crystal, didn’t. It beckoned, urging me to take another whiff. To bite into that juicy pungency. I lifted the napkin. Opened my mouth. Extended my tongue…
My cell rang. It snapped me out of it. I stared at the curds. What was in this stuff? I rewrapped the curds, rammed them deep into my pocket, smashing them. Pulled out my phone. It was Twyla.
“Junior. What the hell is going on?”
Stink rose from my hip. The aroma was so bad it was good. Tempting. I wanted a taste so much. I swallowed hard. “What do you mean?”
“Glynn looks like he was hit with a bus. What did you do to him?”
“Nothing. It was Camille.” I touched my pocket. It crackled slightly. I needed to get these curds analyzed. And not by eating one. I fled across the street, dissipating the stink. “She stole his tchotchkes.”
“Ouch. Sorry. Nikos smelled you and we jumped to conclusions.”
“It’s understandable. But maybe you can do me a favor.” I hopped up onto the other curb and told her about the curds. Twyla would know what to do. She had connections with the whole world.
“Drugged, addictive bar nibbles?” Twyla tched. “That would explain why everyone’s so crazy. My cousin Synnove is studying to be a doctor in Chicago. I’ll get her to look at them.”
“It has to be fast.” What with vampire Armageddon coming and all. “Oh. And if we’re right, we’ll need an antidote.”
“Believe me, I understand. I’ll be there in five to collect the sample.”
As I waited for Twyla, I replayed the confrontation at Fangs To You. I was angry that Camille had stolen the symbols of the only home Glynn had ever known. But then to pretend she hadn’t? She was playing emotional head games with little pieces of Glynn’s heart, and I was furious at that.
Camille was going down.
The purr of an engine caught my attention. Julian’s limo pulled to the curb. The passenger window buzzed down, revealing Twyla, a couple large posters resting against her knees. Her sig-O Nikos was at the wheel.
I handed her the napkin of cheese curds.
“I’ll get these to my cousin tonight, after Nikos and I hang these posters.” She started to buzz the window back up.
“Wait,” I said. “I want to help shut Camille down. What can I do?”
She nailed me with a stare. “Don’t go back to Fangs To You.”
“Sure,” I said like she hadn’t read my mind. Besides, it wouldn’t do any good. The bouncers knew my face now. “But I have to do something.”
“Julian and I are working on legal ways to get her out. In the meantime, there’s not much you can do.”
“I could hang those posters for you.”
She grimaced. “I suppose. These go on the front and back of the PAC.”
I understood the grimace only after she’d opened the door and slid the posters out. They read Closed until further notice. “What’s going on?”
“CIC.” Her expression was as angry as I’ve ever seen it.
“Demanding full payment by the end of the month? I know.”
“No. Demanding the PAC’s full payment now. Unless we fork over the money, the PAC’s insurance policy is canceled effective midnight tonight. No coverage, no show.”
“What about another insurance company?”
“Frankly, to get coverage bound by tomorrow night, we’d have to walk in to that company cash in hand. And cash is one thing the city is short of right now.”
Cash in hand. Ideas started percolating. “What about the show itself? Is that insured?”
“Yes, but… Junior, what are you thinking?”
“Hold off on this.” I shoved the posters back at her. “I’ve got a couple ideas.”
“But you won’t tell me what they are? They’re insane, aren’t they?”
“Of course not. Well, one isn’t. Better hurry with that cheese.”
She was shaking her head as Nikos drove off.
If Camille had been even one bit ashamed about addicting and corrupting Meiers Corners…if she’d been the least remorseful about stealing Glynn’s keepsakes…but she wasn’t. I was almost hoping my sane idea didn’t work, because the crazy one would truly piss Her Bitchiness off.
The reasonable idea was simple. Get a personal loan to pay for insurance. The crazy one? All I’m saying is that it involved angry vampires and office supplies.
So, just in case, I needed to print up a large poster or two. I ran inside our store, into the office.
I’d just started printing when my mother swept in. She glared at the page coming out of the printer. “What is this, young lady?”
“A poster.”
She squinted at it. “The show is changing venues? Why?”
I explained about the insurance problem, then made the mistake of adding, “But this is only my backup plan.”
“Your backup plan?” She transferred her suspicion to me. “I thought the PAC was the mayor’s responsibility. So if this is your backup plan, what is your primary plan?”
“Um, try to get a loan?” My lameness always seemed magnified in the face of her naked disbelief.
“With what as collateral? The only thing we possess that a bank would value is our building.” She fell back a step, hand to breast, with a theatrical gasp. “You would mortgage the business your father gave his life to, the business we Stiegs have spent generations creating?”
I recognized the start of the death spiral argument too late. “Mom, it’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done for me.” Still, I tried again to make this conversation come out different. “But—”
“Why are you not grateful? You are not on the streets, starving. Or worse, doing drugs or…or a punky rocker like that Schmeling girl.”
“Nixie’s married now,” I said tiredly. She’d already scripted the next line, what else could I do? “To a Boston lawyer. Even by your definition of success, she’s made it.”
“I gave up my career for you,” she said. “A star mezzo with the Italian opera.”
The same conversation that we’d had a week ago, a year ago, forever ago it seemed. I felt like I was Neo from The Matrix, stuck in an infinite loop of simulated reality. All I needed was the blue pill of “business comes first” and I’d be trapped in the Matrix all over again.
“Always remember, Junior. Business comes first.”
God, get me off this train. Whatever I said next would be the wrong thing. She’d slap me and tell me my dad didn’t have to marry her. Defending him, even though he’d seduced her.
Wait.
I’d always assumed that he’d seduced her. That he’d ignited the lust in her, the temptation that had overwhelmed her. But what if they were like Glynn and me—both just that horny for each other?
I’d never asked her.
She waited, fire in her eyes. I wasn’t going to ask now, at least not straight out. Even deciding on the red pill of get me out of this, I wanted to avoid the whole ripping needles out of my spine.
So I stepped back. “You never told me how you and Pop met.”
She blinked. Her mouth, primed to harangue, closed slowly.
“I know it was in Germany,” I prompted. “At a shop or something?”
“Bavaria,” she said faintly.
“What?”
“We were touring.” She cleared her throat. “My opera company. We were in Bavaria, with Die Fledermaus. Your father was on a buying trip. He came to hear the opera. Your father loves music, you know.” She glared as if I would challenge that.
I sat on the desk and gave her my full attention. “I know. He loves to sing hymns at church.”
“You noticed.” Mom nodded, sank into a chair in front of the desk. “After the performance, your father came to the dressing rooms—to tell me my German stank. I didn’t understand him.” She laughed. “If I had, I would have scolded him. I certainly wouldn’t have thought he had the most beautiful eyes in the world.”
She smiled, the soft smile of memory. I saw her as my dad must have, young and loving life. “So why did Pop make you quit opera? Because of me?”
She blinked in surprise. “No. Your grandparents would have loved to care for you, happiest with a dozen children in the house. If we could have had more after you…ah well, that’s not your question. I could have left you with the Stiegs in good conscience. Your father would have said okay because he loved me and wanted the best for me. I could have—and maybe should have—chosen my career.”
She stared at her hands, strangely quiet on her lap. When she raised her eyes, I could see she had made her own tough decisions long ago, and not only lived with them, but shaped them into a life. “Junior, I had a good career, but after I met your father, I realized that for me, what I had was empty without someone to share it with. The triumphs meant more by his side, the fears and troubles less. Difficulties were easier to meet, but also they had less importance, sì? Sharing life with him has made me happy.”
“And the store? That makes you happy?”
“Not as happy as singing. But singing doesn’t make me as happy as your father.” She paused and some of the Mom I knew leaked through. “None of this changes the fact that your father and I have broken our backs for you. The Stieg family business comes first.”
I nodded soberly. But inside I was smiling. She’d married Dad, not for business or even because she’d gotten pregnant, but because she loved him.
