Wicked Game

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  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 ha
nd 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).