Here Comes the Vampire (Dead End Dating)

by Kimberly Raye

  But she was probably still asleep and I couldn’t afford to waste even a minute. I needed to watch those DVDs. That, and I didn’t feel like putting away my shoes.

  I left my bags in the living room and headed into the bathroom. Pulling the dreaded commitment vial from around my neck, I stifled a shiver and stuffed it into a drawer. I peeled off my clothes and stepped into the shower. Hot water blasted over me and for the next few minutes, I actually managed to forget about the past twenty-four hours. Instead I thought about Ty and the way he’d kissed me before I’d boarded the plane for Vegas and he’d headed off to Chicago in hot pursuit of his next bounty.

  FYI—the vamp had mad skills when it came to sucking face. He didn’t gobble-you-up like some guys. He knew how to use his lips. His tongue. A little nibble here. A little stroke there. More nibbling. More stroking. Some impressive hand action to make things really interesting.

  My mind stalled on the interesting part as I grabbed the soap and lathered up. Thanks to a cheap landlord and an ancient hot water heater, the fun.

  The drinking.

  The wedding chapel.

  The elevator.

  Ugh.

  I rinsed off, killed the water and yanked the shower curtain aside. Grabbing a towel, I headed for the bedroom. Rather than throw myself face down on the Egyptian cotton for a major cry fest, I pulled on an old pair of Juicy sweats and a white Hello Kitty tank top and headed back into the living room.

  I was a friggin’ vampire and vamps didn’t cry. They were strong. Fearless. Invincible. Besides, I’d pretty much exhausted the waterworks when I was in the shower. Now I just felt tired. Dead tired.

  Pun intended.

  While the average denizen of the dark is the life of the after-hours party, we pretty much poop out at the first sign of a UV ray. We need solid, uninterrupted sleep to recharge our super senses. Otherwise we get cranky. Not the flipping-off-people-on-the-subway variety. We’re talking the I-want-to-rip-apart-any-and-everyone-who-gets-in-my-way Queen of the Damned kind. Not good for a vamp who doesn’t do blood and guts very well.

  I needed to crash in a major way.

  At the same time, I’d gotten myself into a deep mess that I needed out of now, otherwise I’d be picking out His and Hers coffins with Remy.

  I stifled a yawn and headed straight for the fridge for a can of Red Bull.

  Three cans later, I was wide-eyed and ready to go. I bypassed the blinking light on my answering machine, flipped the deadbolt on the front door and headed for my make-up case and the mountain of DVDs. I popped in the first one, sank down onto the couch with Red Bull number four and s

  et out to prove my innocence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Something’s wrong,” Evie declared when I walked into Dead End Dating on Monday afternoon.

  After ten hours of DVD footage, twelve Red Bulls, eight cups of coffee and a big fat nada when it came to evidence.

  “You look—“

  “Tired? Listless? Drained?”

  She eyeballed me. “Homicidal.”

  I rest my case.

  I chanced a glance in the large mirror that hung above Evie’s desk. While I had it going on in the fashionista department—crème-colored Eryn Brinie cardigan dress, gold python belt and Anya Hindmarch patent leather Faye wedges—the rest was straight out of a True Blood episode. My eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. My skin was pale despite the full tube of Shimmer & Shake Bronzer I’d slathered on after my shower. My blonde hair looked wild and uncontrollable despite two hours with a flat iron and a full tube of Straight Talk conditioner. My cheeks were hollowed out, my lips drawn, my jaw tense.

  I looked desperate.

  Depraved.

  Hungry.

  Definitely a vamp just this side of postal.

  She flashed me a knowing grin. “Shouldn’t you be glowing? Oh, no, wait. Pregnant women glow. Married women eat.”

  “I hate you.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re too nice to hate me. Besides,” she smoothed her blonde ponytail, “You know I’m just teasing you. I’ve got your back.” Excitement lit her eyes. “Even more, I’ve got the one thing that will make you feel loads better.”

  “An eye witness that Remy and I didn’t do the nasty in Vegas?”

  “Better.”

  “An eye witness that we didn’t do the nasty and DVD footage to back it up?”

  “Way better.”

  “An eye witnesdiv s that we didn’t do the nasty and DVD footage to back it up and Charlie Hunnam’s cell number?” Did I mention I was currently crushing on Jax from Sons of Anarchy? Not that I was going to call him up because, hey, I loved Ty. But a girl needs options.

  “This is a hundred times more excellent than any of the above.” She held up a white bakery box. “I’ve got your sugar fix.”

  In addition to having great fashion sense—Evie looked office perfect in a black ruffled BCBG skirt and white silk poet’s blouse—she also had it going on in the brains department. She’d come up with the fantabulous idea of offering free coffee and all-you-can-eat donuts to anyone who filled out a profile. While I’d been skeptical, the promo had brought in close to twenty clients the first week (and a few homeless guys who slept in the alley out back) and made a believer out of me. We’d been oozing Krispy Kremes ever since.

  “I’ve got strawberry crème, chocolate crème, vanilla crème, chocolate glazed and bran.” When I arched an eyebrow, she added, “Mr. Fairweather from the Jenkinsville Retirement Home is coming over today to fill out a profile. He saw our ad in one of the local papers. He just lost his wife of sixty-nine years and he’s eager to get back on the horse. His words, not mine. He wants our senior special.”

  “We don’t have a senior special.”

  “We do now. I took our basic package and gave him a senior discount. He’ll be here in about—achewww!” She grabbed a Kleenex and motioned to the bakery box. “Knock yourself out.”

  I shook my head. “They go straight to my hips.”

  “They go straight to everyone’s hips.” She blew into the tissue. “That’s why God invented Fat Buster diet pills.”

  “I don’t do diets.”

  When she gave me a girlfriend, puleeze look, I added, “That is, I don’t do diet pills. I am on this high protein liquid program.”

  She grabbed another Kleenex and caught another sneeze. “And that really keeps you from pigging out on nachos and ice cream and Snicker bars?” she asked, though it came out sounding more like And that weally keepths you from pigging outh on nachos and ithe cream and Snither bars?

  “Never touch the stuff.” Although I did unwrap a candy bar on occasion just to take a whiff. The chocolate and peanuts reminded me of my great great grandmaman Chantal Germaine Renoit du Marchette who used to tell me stories about the old country and all the raids she’d gone on with her long-time BFF Attila the Hun.

  FYI: All BVs emitted a rich, sugary scent that only other BVs could smell. Each fragrance was unique to a specific vamp, from my mother and her succulent cherries jubilee to yours truly and the ever fantabulous parfum le cotton candy.

  Not that I’d enjoyed hearing about all the murders and decapitation (despite my BV heritage, death and destruction were so not my thing). Still, I’d liked sitting on Grand-maman’s lap, particularly since the woman knew how to bribe. Every time I’d climbed up on her knee, she’d handed me her priceless string of black pearls to play with during story time.

  What can I say? I had my priorities.

  “No donuts. I’ll just grab a cup of coffee,” I said even though I truly was ravenously hungry. Since I’d had zero sleep to rejuvenate me, I needed another source of energy. Bring on the blood, baby. My stomach grumbled and my gaze went to Evie’s throat. Her pulse raced thanks to all of the sneezing, making the vein throb and my insides clench. Usually females fed off males, but there was always the exception.

  The evil side of me blurted out the argument and, thankfully, my good side jumped right in with both f
ists swinging.

  Are you freakin Ce ye blurted ’ kidding me? Good assistants are hard to come by. And more importantly, you like Evie. Friends don’t bite friends. At least not without lots of Vodka, a Mexican waiter named Santiago and mutual consent.

  All right, so maybe the Ninas and I had gotten a little too wild during our last Spring Break together down in Cabo and maybe, just maybe we might have staged a blind taste test just to see, you know, if we could tell who was who. It was just good, clean, intoxicated fun. The kind no one really talked about. Except as prime blackmail material.

  But that’s beside the point.

  All important at this moment? To get my feet moving ASAP before I turned Evie into the vamp equivalent of a Big Mac.

  “I’ve got a ton of work to do,” I blurted as I made a bee-line for my office.

  “What about the coffee?”

  “I’ll get some later. You should go home and nurse that cold.” I slammed the door and let out a sigh of relief. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s what I told myself. Unfortunately, the person who’d coined the phrase had failed to take into account super duper vamp hearing.

  The steady ka-thunk ka-thunk ka-thunk echoed in my head and I hit the button on my iPod dock. Katy Perry launched into an oldie, but a goodie Wakin’ up in Vegas.

  So not the song I needed to hear at the moment.

  I queued up the next on my playlist. Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance poured from the surround sound.

  Was I cursed?

  I moved on to the third song. The speakers vibrated with a burst of synthesizer and Kesha’s voice filled the room, effectively drowning out Evie’s heartbeat.

  There. That was more like it.

  I sang a verse about brushing my teeth with a bottle of Jack as I rounded my desk and sank down into my chair. I so needed to download some new music. The new stuff from Selena Gomez and Maroon 5. Maybe a little Rihanna or Flo Rida. But every time I meant to, something came up. A new client walked in, or I did something desperately depraved in Vegas.

  As I turned to put my purse in a nearby drawer, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the chrome pencil cup and the backs of my eyes burned.

  A crazy reaction because I’d expected to look like hell after ten wasted hours of watching a Cher impersonator get it on with a Wayne Newton look-a-like in one of the guest bathrooms, three midgets beating up a security guard with a petrified sausage stolen from one of the breakfast buffets, and the lead singer of one of my favorite eighties bands getting shit-faced and peeing on a potted plant in the front lobby.

  I blinked frantically. So what if I had wasted an entire day and hadn’t so much as glimpsed the elevator where Remy and I had supposedly done the deed?

  That was a good thing. As long as I hadn’t actually seen yours truly having manic orgasms, there was still doubt. Hope.

  At the same time, I was in a race against time to figure this out before Ty came home. Even more depressing, there was an extremely good chance that it would take several days—even weeks--to watch all of the footage, which meant I’d better get used to bad hair, horrible skin and the insane urge to have Evie for a McSnack.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath. Once. Twice. Not that the oxygen packed any Kapow! for my vamp brain cells, but I’d been blending too many years to count and so I went for the number one human anti-anxiety technique.

  When that didn’t work, I powered up my computer, pulled up Nordstroms.com and went for the vamp equivalent—shopping.

  I added a pair of Derek Lam strappy satin stilettos to my shopping cart, fought down a rush of Wait! That’s my rent for the next two months! and clicked the C clileAUTO BUY button.

  Giddiness flooded me and I quickly reached for the bottle of AB- in my bottom drawer to keep the momentum going. I poured a glass and popped it into the small microwave sitting on a nearby shelf. I’d just guzzled half the glass and was feeling fairly calm when Evie walked in, a tissue in one hand and a stack of files in the other.

  I froze like a deer caught in a pair of gonzo headlights. This was it. My cover was blown. Evie would freak and run screaming from the building. Then it would be angry mobs and torches and DED would be toast. I’d be forced to move back home with my parents. They’d say I told you so and hand me my very own Moe’s name tag. I’d have a major nervous breakdown and wind up in that special vacation spot my Aunt Gwen had gone to about eighty years ago, never to be heard from again.

  I know, I know. Queen of the Damned wasn’t the only invite to my Lack of Sleep Party. Drama Queen Extraordinaire was obviously number two on the guest list.

  “Tomato juice,” Evie declared. “You must have read my mind.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I need juice. For my cold.”

  “You need orange juice, as in Vitamin C.”

  “But I don’t have any and the store on the corner is out. This’ll be better than nothing right now. Besides it has antioxidants.”

  “But you can’t.” I held the bottle out of her reach. “I mean, you might be allergic to tomatoes.”

  “I’m not allergic to tomatoes.”

  “What about the pesticides used to fertilize the tomatoes?”

  “No.”

  “The glass it’s bottled in?”

  “Just hand it over.”

  Before her fingers could close around the neck, I turned away and pretended to stumble forward. The bottle fell to the floor with a thunk and my imported stash spilled all over the hardwood. “Uh, oh. Clumsy me.” I snatched up the bottle—thankful that it hadn’t broken--and tossed it in the nearby trash.

  “I’ll get some papertowels—“

  But before she could finish her sentence, I’d snatched a stack of napkins from a nearby sideboard and was busily mopping up the mess. Swipe, swirl, scrub, done. “There.” I plopped the mess in the trash. “So what’s up?” I walked over to my desk and ignored the strange look that Evie gave me.

  Undoubtedly, her head was spinning from my fast reflexes. Go Super Vamp!

  I gave her a pointed look that said What? and she seemed to shake away her suspicions.

  “Look, I know you don’t want to deal with all of this right now, but I’ve had an entire bottle of Nyquil and I’m practically worthless. These are the latest profiles that we still haven’t managed to hook up,” she told me as she handed over the manila folders. “The first three are the English teachers from the local middle school that you met with last month—achewwww!” She wiped at her red nose. “The ones doing the Datetribe thing to encourage each other to get out more. I’ve been scanning our database, but I can’t find any decent matches.” Another sneeze punctuated the statement. “Then we’ve got Paul the Plumber. He’s from Brooklyn and determined to meet a girl who doesn’t have an accent. He says if they tie the knot, she’ll be manning the phones at his office so she needs to speak clearly.”

  “Any look requirements?”

  “No facial hair.” Achewwww!

  “That rules out the English teachers. Any appointments other than Mr. Fairweather?”

  “Only one. Her name is Erica Godfrey. She’s a forty-three year old financial analyst. Only child. Father’s a lawyer. Good income. Decent looks. She says she’s up for a promotion and her boss likes happily married couples so she ne ClesFathereds a husband by the end of this week.” She paused to blow her nose. “She wants to show him off at next week’s corporate banquet. She signed up for our ultra deluxe package, but made it clear that she isn’t paying a dime if we can’t produce results in seven days. She said she already signed up with five other dating services to up her odds. She’s offering a fifty thousand dollar bonus to the one that hooks her up first.”

  “Fifty thousand on top of the ultra deluxe package fee?” My pulse started to pound. A reaction that had nothing to do with the sharp, rich fragrance of Evie’s blood and everything to do with the enticing scent of eau de cash.

  “If we hook her up before anyone else.” Another sneeze. Then a sniffle. “If we don’t, w
e get nothing.”

  My brain skidded to halt after the word else and I smiled—really smiled--for the first time that morning. While I do my damndest to defy the stereotype of snotty, pretentious, materialist born vampere, there was no fighting DNA or the fact that I’d lost my entire wardrobe not long ago to a slobbering, puking demon (think Evie possessed by the spirit of a vicious serial killer). While I’d purchased the essentials, I’d yet to build my stash back up to its initial glory.

  50K would buy a helluva lot of stuff, lemme tell ya.

  I took one look at my assistant, from her watery eyes to her pale cheeks. “You should go home.”

  “But I’ve got messages. Your mother called.” She handed over the slips of paper. “Six times. Call number one wanted to know what kind of band you want for the reception. Call number two said never mind that she would pick the band because she has better taste. Call three wanted to know if you want silver or gold imprinting on the napkins. Call four said never mind that she’s going with gold because she doesn’t want anyone to think that she and your father are trying to be chintzy—achewww! Call five wanted to know if you want a sit-down dinner or an all-you-can-eat buffet. Call six said—“

  “Let me guess. Never mind she’s going for the buffet because she doesn’t want anyone to think that she and my father are cheap.”

  “Actually she said you’d better call her as soon as possible because she’s this close to stabbing the penny-pinching bastard.” I arched an eyebrow and she added, “She wants the buffet, but he thinks it’ll cost too much money on account of your aunts are, quote, greedy bitches, end quote. He said they’re liable to bankrupt him because they don’t know how to control themselves and he’s refusing to pay unless your mother opts for a limited sit-down menu or crosses them off the guest list.” She gave me a watery smile. “And that’s it.”

  I eyeballed the letter opener sitting on the corner of my desk. I didn’t think of myself as an emo, but a jab in the heart sounded pretty good right about now.