In my room I shut the door and advance on Shane, who’s sitting among the CDs again.
“Get out!” I twist off the red cap and hurl the contents of the jar at him.
He sputters and spits, then wipes his mouth. “What the—salt? I’m a vampire, not a slug.”
“Keep your voice down. It’s garlic salt.”
“It is?” He brushes the stuff out of his hair and sniffs his sleeve. “How old is that jar?”
I glance at the bottom, which bears a faded price tag (89c) instead of a UPC code. “Maybe a decade, or two. It came with the apartment.”
“I’d say it’s past its peak freshness.” Shane rubs his arm. “Although I am a little itchy.” He stands up, and I step back. He holds up his hands. “Relax, I won’t hurt you. If you wanted me to leave, all you had to do was ask.”
“I’m pretty sure I did.”
He points to a stack of CDs between us. “Here’s A through Bowie, in order. That was as far as I got before you started throwing condiments.”
I put the empty garlic salt jar in my pocket. “I was afraid if I told you to leave, you might try to hurt Lori.”
“No, you weren’t.” He smirks. “You were afraid I’d convince you to let me stay.”
His cockiness provokes my foot to reach out and kick A through Bowie, scattering them across the rug. Shane blanches, a breath hissing through his teeth as if I’ve rammed a cross of pure sunlight into his temple. I remember what Lori said about her mother, and immediately I regret my action. A little.
He heads for the stairs without looking back. I follow him down and out the front door.
He turns and glances over my head as I stand in the doorway. “Hope I didn’t upset your friend.”
“Please don’t break into my apartment again, even if I can’t stop you.”
“I won’t, I swear. If you promise to do one thing for me.”
“I’ll put the CDs in order tomorrow. You want me to take a picture to prove it?”
He brightens. “That’d be great. Thank you.”
Before I can react, he grasps my face in both hands and kisses me quickly, as if in gratitude.
“Night.” He turns and saunters into the shadows.
I double-lock the door, then climb the stairs to join Lori. She’ll convince me I’m an idiot for even considering the possibility of maybe not totally despising that monster.
Hopefully before it’s too late.
7
Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere
“Heard you got bit.”
Franklin wastes no time with Monday morning niceties.
I refuse to glance down at my thigh as I cross the office to dump my purse on my desk. “Had nothing better to do on a Friday night.”
“Tell me about it. This town is no place for the living.” He seems more relaxed now that we share the station’s Big Secret. “Ready to do actual work?”
“When you put it that way, how can I resist?” I sit across from him, carefully, keeping my knees together, since crossing my legs would be agony.
“Today’s prospect,” he says, “is a Sherwood boutique called Waxing Nostalgic.”
“The candle place where people sniff the merchandise and never buy it?”
Franklin nods and stuffs a pencil into his electric sharpener. When the buzzing fades, he says, “Bernita Johnson wants to cut back her ads from five thirty-second spots a week to two.” He gives me a level look. “This is bad.”
“So we pay her a visit, threaten to flatten her kneecaps.”
“Something like that.” He sharpens another pencil. “That’s just to get your feet wet dealing with clients. This afternoon we start baiting the hook for bigger fish. Now that our signal is reaching urban markets, we can get clients with deeper pockets.”
“Cool.” I check out today’s Wilde quote: A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Franklin sharpens a third pencil, and I notice that he has a cupful of about two dozen on his desk.
“What’s with all the pencils?”
“Protection.” He drops another sharp one into the cup. “You should make your own cache.”
“A cache? As in, a collection of weapons?”
“I made a holster. See?” He stuffs a sharpened pencil into a receptacle hanging from his belt loop. “I’ve got boxes of them stashed in every room of this building, in case you need to defend yourself.”
“Have the vampires ever threatened you?”
“No, but it’s good to be prepared.”
“If you don’t like them, why do you work here?”
“Marketing jobs are scarce in Sherwood.”
“Why not work in the city?”
“I hate commuting.”
“Then why not live in the city?”
Franklin glares at me. “If you must know, my boyfriend teaches at Sherwood College.”
“Oh.” I hide my surprise. Not that I don’t think Franklin’s boyfriendable. He’s actually fairly cute. He just seems awfully grumpy for someone in a steady relationship. “So where would I leave something for one of the DJs?”
Franklin shakes his head slowly, as if he’s just heard of my tragic death.
“If I’m going to market this station,” I remind him, “I have to get acquainted with its lifeblood. So to speak.”
He sighs. “Mailboxes are in the lounge downstairs.”
I go to my purse and grab a red greeting-card envelope. “If I’m not back in five, send the Salvation Army.”
The lounge downstairs is empty, and silent except for the whine of a Rush Limbaugh wannabe bitching about illegal immigrants. The speaker sits mounted on the ceiling in the corner. When I turn to glare at it, I see the row of putty-colored metal mailbox slots. I make my delivery.
On my way back to the stairs, I pass the door to the studio. The ON THE AIR light is off, so I quietly turn the knob.
I find myself in a narrow hallway. The studio sits behind a thick glass window. It’s like a museum exhibit of twentieth-century-radio history: reel-to-reel decks and turntables sit beside CD players and a computer monitor with glowing green numbers.
No one’s inside, since a syndicated show is playing, but I wonder why the vampires can’t broadcast during the day. They’d be protected from sunshine down here. Then again, this is their sleepy time. Asking them to work during the day would be worse than asking a human to work the night shift.
At the end of the corridor to my right, a thick metal door reads DANGER: KEEP OUT in red block letters.
I step up to it and place my palm on its surface, just below the sign. It’s cold and smooth, like a restaurant’s walk-in freezer. The handle is heavy, a lever rather than a knob. It would take some effort to open it, which, being smarter than your average horror movie victim, I decline to do. But I notice that the door’s bottom edge is made of rubber, creating a seal against the linoleum floor.
My hand whips off the stainless steel surface.
KEEP OUT is cold storage for the station’s most valuable assets.
I back away, rubbing my hand against the rough fabric of my denim miniskirt. The chill takes a few moments to subside.
As I stare at the door, an idea awakens, twisting and groping for freedom like a moth trying to pop out of a cocoon a few days early.
I look at the studio.
Nah.
Then the door.
Maybe.
And back at the studio.
Why the hell not?
Waxing Nostalgic is the kind of store that makes you wish you’d been born without a nose.
Franklin and I stop halfway through the door, slammed by ten thousand scents that don’t get along. Thick pillar candles, grouped by color family, line the wall shelves of the claustrophobic shop.
I urge my feet forward against their will, toward a front table Fourth of July display. Founding Fathers with wicks coming out of their heads seem to beg us to buy them, burn them, release them from their waxy hell.
Franklin lets the door shut behind us, jangling a cowbell tied to the handle. A brown terrier lies on a mat near the register to our right. It blinks at us, and nothing more. No doubt its brain is fried from the olfactory assault.
“Be right out!” A shrill voice emerges from behind the curtain of a back room.
Franklin turns to me and says, “Don’t act surprised. Just play along.” He hastens to straighten his tie and his posture.
I nod, more bemused than confused. I work at a radio station with vampire DJs. What could possibly surprise me?
“Bernita!” Franklin swishes over to the woman who just came out from the back room. “Hey, girlfriend, it’s been a million years.” He gives her an expansive hug, complete with fluttery back-pat.
She beams, then pinches his cheek like an aunt. “Frankie, how are you?”
“I’m fabulous, thanks for asking.” His voice is an octave higher than I’ve ever heard it. I struggle not to gape. “And you—” He holds her at arm’s length, tilting his head. “—you look spectacular! Have you lost weight?”
She preens at the attention and pats her formidable girth. “Two hundred pounds the moment I got divorced.”
“You are too rotten!” Franklin squeezes her arm and stamps his foot. His breezy manner makes him look fifty pounds lighter himself. Suddenly his clothes appear perfectly tailored, no longer drooping over his body like wet washcloths on a towel rack.
“Oh, just look at our little Reginald.” He leans over to koochie-koo the dog. “I tell you, I could eat him up with a spoon.”
I think a little piece of Franklin died as he uttered the last word with a lisp.
Bernita sweeps her arm toward the merchandise. “Need some candles? I have a few.” She’s smiling, but her eyes plead for business. Convincing her to give us more money won’t be easy.
Franklin grins at me. “Ciara needs some for her bedroom.”
“Ahhh … ” The nearly round woman sidles over. “Expecting an evening with a special young man?”
I send my boss an arsenic-laced smile, then turn to Bernita. “Do you have garlic-scented candles?”
She brightens. “I do have pizza candles. Only eleven ninety-nine.”
I follow her to a food-related display, hoping WMMP will extend me an expense account. She hands me, with an inordinate amount of pride, a glass container filled with red, white, and green-striped wax.
“Oh, I couldn’t,” I tell her. “It’s too pretty to burn.”
She fluffs her helmet of mahogany-dyed hair. “That’s why you need two—one to burn and one to look at.”
“Fabu,” Franklin says. “She’ll take three so she won’t have to make another trip.”
Great. Instead of buying food, I’ll just buy objects that smell like food. Maybe my pancreas won’t know the difference.
“Let me check in the back.” Bernita sashays toward the curtain. “I think we have one with pepperoni scent.”
As soon as she disappears, I turn to stare at Franklin.
“What?” he says.
I cock my head at him. “Paging Dr. Jekyll?”
“Oh, that.” His voice flattens back to normal. “A good salesman fulfills expectations. This is a small town, where people lack exposure to nonstereotypical images of homosexuals. So if I queer it up a little here and there—”
“A little?”
“—and act like those assholes on TV, then people are charmed rather than challenged. I make them feel open-minded because they have a ‘gay friend.’ People who feel good spend money.” Franklin spreads his hands in a gesture of resignation. “I faced the truth long ago: with my real personality, I couldn’t sell a bucket of water to a man on fire.”
As I’m marveling at the discovery of a kindred spirit, Bernita returns and clonks two more pizza candles on the counter.
“No pepperoni, but sausage will do, right?” She rings them up without waiting for my answer.
Franklin leans on the counter. “You know what would bring in even more business?” He flutters a sweep of blond eyelashes. “Advertising.”
Her glee fades as she becomes the sellee instead of the seller. “Times are tough. I’ve got to cut back on something.”
I pull the glass lid off the pizza candle and inhale the ghastly aroma of artificial garlic.
Franklin presses on, smooth as milk. “But Bernita, it’s during tough times that you need to get the word out more than ever.” His eyes actually twinkle. “If more people knew about this amazing place, you’d be flooded with customers.”
Bernita blushes, then stands up straight, as if she just remembered she has a spine. “I need to check my budget. I’ll think about it and call you.”
I reseal the candle. It’d sure keep Shane away, along with the rest of the world.
Wait a minute …
“There’s no time to think about it,” I blurt.
They turn to me with quizzical looks.
“That is,” I add, “rates will be going up soon. Now’s a perfect time to lock in the current prices.”
“Why are rates going up?” Bernita asks Franklin.
“Ciara, why don’t you explain?” he says pointedly.
“I wish I could, but it’s a secret.” I lean over the counter and give her my best conspiratorial whisper. “We’re beginning a new marketing campaign that will blow the socks off this entire region. Everyone will be listening.”
Bernita glances at Franklin, who smiles and nods in an Oscar-worthy performance. She doesn’t look convinced.
“Forgive my ignorance,” she says, “but how can a marketing campaign make that much of a difference?”
“We’re going to make a significant announcement about the nature of WMMP.”
Her eyes widen. “What is it?”
I bite my lip. “If I told you, it would ruin the surprise. All I can say is that it will show the world how unique the station really is.” At least, I hope it’s unique in that respect.
Bernita taps her polka-dotted fingernails against the counter as she thinks. Finally she drops the down-home facade. “You’d better not be bullshitting me, girl.”
“I assure you, she’s not.” With the flair of a magician, Franklin snaps open his briefcase and whips out the current rate sheet. “We hired Ciara because she’s the best at what she does.”
Bernita clicks on her adding machine and taps out some numbers, using a pencil eraser instead of her fingers. “I suppose I could do my usual five thirty-second spots a week for four weeks. When will the rates go up and by how much?”
Franklin clears his throat. “Well, that depends on—”
“They’ll triple by the end of the month,” I tell her. “After that, depending on demand, they could rise again.”
She taps the pencil on the counter a few times. “I’ll take eight weeks, then.”
I peruse the merchandise while Bernita and Franklin draw up a contract. The many clearance items include holiday candles with candy facsimiles embedded in the outer surfaces. A two-inch-long wax Easter bunny stares at me, trapped like Han Solo in carbonite.
“You have a tremendous day now, ‘kay?” Franklin calls to Bernita as he walks toward the door. She gives me a bewildered wave, which I recognize as a sign to retreat before she can think too hard about what just happened.
Once we’re outside, a few shops down and out of Bernita’s sight, Franklin’s fingers wrap around my elbow.
“This idea of yours had better be good,” he growls, “or I’ll have your head in a chafing dish.”
8
Get Up Stand Up
The vampires—all but Monroe, whose Midnight Blues show pipes in over the speaker—file into the lounge and gather around the poker table. I stand next to an overhead projector, pretending to put my transparencies in order, though I’ve gone over them so many times I could do this presentation in a coma. Franklin helped me put it together, but he declined to join us this evening because of his “allergies.” Coward.
David
stands beside me and addresses the skeptical-eyed DJs. “You all remember Ciara, our new sales and marketing intern. I hired her to help us turn things around. She has a big idea, but we need your approval and cooperation.”
As David covers some old business, Shane pulls a familiar red envelope from his shirt pocket. He jigs the envelope on the table and gives me a secretive smile.
I look around to gauge the other vampires’ moods. Regina studies her nails as if they contain a long-lost Dead Sea scroll. Noah looks like his mind is paging through a list of all the other places he’d rather be. Jim rotates his ‘69 Charger key chain—a miniature replica of his own blue sweetheart—over and over in his hands. Spencer listens attentively to David while using a Crazy Straw to sip from a bottle of cranapple juice. He sees me looking at him and grins, his gums a rich red.
Oh. It’s not cranapple juice. The butterflies in my stomach vomit on each other’s wings.
“And with that,” David says, “it’s on to new business. Ciara?”
I take a deep breath and try not to imagine my audience in their underwear.
“Today’s commercial radio is a musical wasteland. Modern disc jockeys play what the suits tell them to play. The less they know about music, the better, because every second they spend enlightening their listeners is a second the corporation isn’t making money off ads or promoters’ payments.”
Relishing their attention, I expand my gestures and let the words flow. “But you’re more than a bunch of trained poodles. You each offer something unique—an intimate understanding of your Life Time and the music it gave birth to. You know that. I know that.” I point to the walls. “But the world doesn’t know that. And even if we told them, ‘Hey, we’ve got the experts right here every night,’ they wouldn’t care. Unless we told them why.” Insert dramatic pause, my mental note tells me.
They glance at each other, then Noah takes the bait. “Why what?”
“Why you are experts.” I nod to David, who switches off the overhead lights. My first transparency is carefully positioned on the projector. I turn it on.
WVMP—THE LIFEBLOOD OF ROCK ‘N’ ROLL.
Above the slogan appears the new logo: an electric guitar with two bleeding fang wounds.
Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires Page 72