“Shall we share?” Her voice matched any Bloomsbury bluestocking, educated and precise. “Or shall we fight over them? You found them, but I stopped them.”
“What do you mean, share?” The big man had found his balls again. It was now clear that he believed he’d been chased by devils, who turned out to be two flappers from a New Year’s party. “Get away from me, you thieving tarts!”
“I do not tolerate interruptions!” she snapped. “Sit down and be quiet!”
Under her glamour, he sat down on a log, quite ignoring the thick layer of snow on it.
His companion was a slight thing, shivering with fear and cold; her thin dress was garish red and cheap. She should have taken a lesson from me; my dress was far nicer and the deep rose red suited my complexion. “He has money,” she said. “Take it, let us go!”
“Now, now,” I said, chiding her. “Money is a good and useful thing, but it is not all, my dear. Sit down.”
She sat down on the log beside her beau, trembling, her eyes glazed with terror. A small nosegay of red carnations fell from her hand.
“So, what is it to be?” Lily asked me.
I was quite fascinated by her. “What are your plans this evening?”
She affected casualness. “I had nothing particular in mind.”
All thoughts about meeting Eric for hunting and a late dinner had fled. It was the first time I’d ever found anyone who could distract me from him. “Perhaps we could share these, and then find some diverting way to see in the New Year together?”
She clapped her hands. “C’est tres agréable! Shall we start with the big one? Let the little one stew a bit, save her for pudding?”
“My thoughts precisely.” I held out a hand. “I am Pam Ravenscroft.”
She shook. “Lily Macintosh.”
“A pleasure.”
“I hope so.” She clapped her hands again, and said, “You! Big ’un!”
The man roused from his dullness, and without another word, Lily clawed the collar down from the man’s shirt and tore into his throat. His face was a mask of horror and ultimate torment, but he was helpless to resist.
I took a moment to admire the reflections of Lily’s beads against the hard snow, the spatter of blood in the flickering lamplight, and the eager way her head bobbed as she fed.
And, oooh! She liked nice things, too; her dress was by Worth!
The big man fell, a slave to weakness and gravity. I saw the blood flowing still, heard the faint flutter of his still-beating heart, and took his wrist before she could drain him entirely.
He tasted of rare roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, a reasonable Bordeaux, followed by champagne . . .
Nothing like good traditional British fare in winter, shared by lamplight.
Lily’s appetite was as great as mine. She licked the tears from the sobbing girl’s cheeks, and I couldn’t resist doing the same.
Sublime.
Lily grabbed a meager wrist and I took the carotid. Even though we dug in with all the gusto of schoolgirls sharing a chocolate sundae, I realized I was no longer hungry for blood.
Lily stared at me from across the body of the girl, who was dying but far from gone.
My new friend reached over, removed a drop of blood from my lip with a finger. Popped it in her own mouth with a mischievous grin.
I moved the hair behind her ears, wiped a smear of blood from her chin.
Lily stood and hooked her thumbs under the straps of her dress. The weight of the beads pulled the silk down as quickly as any stage curtain. Besides her shoes, she wore nothing but the most charming camiknickers.
I undressed instantly and we embraced. Our bodies weren’t much warmer than the snow. The girl watched us make love, helpless to escape, as her blood slowly seeped out and colored the snow around her.
After, we stirred only when daylight was nigh. The girl had finally died, but I didn’t begrudge the waste of food or my wrinkled, damp dress, for Lily was quite simply the cat’s meow. She was delicate and fierce at the same time, and her body was delicious, with a superb rump and delightful little breasts.
In a giddy mood, besotted with my new friend, I plucked three red carnations from the fallen nosegay and set them on the remains of our dessert.
Lily cocked her head. “According to my grandmother, that means . . . fascination and love.”
I was taken aback she understood me. “You know the language of flowers?”
“She called it hanakotoba. My grandmother was Japanese. She taught me years ago, before I was turned.” She looked me straight in the eye. “That is the same flower I would have chosen. For you.”
“You are delectable!” I exclaimed. “We must meet again.”
“We were clearly made for each other,” she agreed. “So I shall make a point of it.” Stooping, she took two carnations from the corpse, tucked one in my bosom and the other behind her ear.
I sang as I made my way back to Eric.
Lily and I met again over the years, never for long, but renewing our affection and passion every time. Eventually I learned that she’d sold her human life to her maker, Frederick, her servitude in return for the payment of her father’s gambling debts.
“My father had three choices: Be killed, turn my little sister Rose out as a whore, or sell me to Frederick. It was not a difficult choice: Rose is everything to me. To protect her, I would undertake far worse than turning vampire.”
As always, I marveled at how human affection survived the transformation and even grew with the intensity of vampire feeling. I admired Lily for it.
But then Morgan had killed Frederick and taken Lily as his own. He made her swear an oath to obey him for a number of years, but each time her term was nearly up, he found another reason for her to swear again. I suspected Morgan arranged more of Lily’s father’s gambling debts so as to torment Lily for his own amusement. I thanked heaven and hell for Eric, for he was as decent a master as one could ask for. More than giving him my obedience, I was thankful for Eric.
“My word is everything to me,” Lily said, late one night in Paris. A prostitute lay drained at the foot of our bed. “But almost . . . I would run away from Morgan. I would break my oath. Almost, I would, Pam, for you.”
“And almost I would leave Eric for you,” I said. It was untrue, of course, but she was well worth the compliment. I nuzzled her neck and nibbled her ear. “Merely say the word, and I’ll help you escape.”
“Pam,” she said sternly, giving me a little shake. “I made a promise. My sister’s safety depends on it.”
“My apologies, Lily,” I said. “I understand.”
We nestled together as the sun rose, but secretly, I considered how short a mortal’s life was, and that when Rose died, Lily and I might be together.
I park a block from the front of the party venue—an establishment with huge underground rooms to accommodate vampire events. I don’t want them to recognize the car and wonder what the guard from the house is doing here. There is a raincoat in the backseat of the stolen car, and I pull it on to cover most of the blood, a temporary solution until the odor betrays me.
The place is crawling with the dignitaries’ guards. I recognize a lot of them but don’t remember seeing them on the way in. There are far more of Morgan’s people, and I wonder who else Morgan owes money to.
I need to find another way in. I circle around to the service entrance in the back. The security is looser here, which makes no sense.
Until I see who’s running the show—no one would cross him. I walk purposefully toward my potential ally. There’s a slim chance, but I might make it past him.
But will I make it out again? As I approach the entrance and the big man with the clipboard, I remember that hypodermic earlier, and how I failed Lily so badly so long ago. She’s in on it, has to be. No love for me, and none for my master—
she has everything to gain by helping Morgan and, as much as she dislikes him, she’ll never turn on him.
I gather up my courage, for Eric’s sake. I owed him all. I once had said, with a mortal girl’s silly bravado, that I would give the sun, the moon, and the stars for true freedom. With Eric, I’d only had to give up the sun.
The last I’d heard from Lily was in 1955. I’d been cleaning my house when she called, nearly hysterical.
Another gambling debt: Her father was old, but not too frail to find a bookie. His debtors wanted an exorbitant amount of interest, and Morgan, again, had offered help.
“You got the money from him . . . by promising another fifty years of service?” I said. “But . . . I have some money and I could ask Eric—” Though I didn’t think he would give me the cash, I thought he might loan it to me. With interest, of course, but never with such unreasonable demands as Morgan.
Again, the thought crossed my mind that Morgan might be using Lily’s family to torture her.
“It was the only way. And Morgan insisted I find someone else to deliver the payment. Pam, I’m asking you. Will you save my sister?”
I had promised to meet Eric in two days, but I was closer to the Chicago suburb than Lily was. “I’m on my way.”
“Thank you, Pam. If anything happens to Rose—”
“It won’t. I swear.”
“Go now, my darling! Come back to me with good news!”
I ran to my car without even changing from my jeans into a skirt. I drove like the demon I am but had miscalculated the distance to the town I intended to spend the day in. My skin began to tighten as I raced the coming dawn, but the city limits were still ahead of me. I considered digging myself a hole in the ground, but I saw an abandoned barn. I pulled my Thunderbird into it and there was a distinct smell of burning bacon when I finally put myself into the trunk, pulling the door down just shy of locking. My skin felt as though I’d had a blistering sunburn as I pulled a blanket over me.
June days are hellishly long.
I drove dangerously far the next night with the gas gauge needle pinning E. Relieved when I saw a service station, I cursed the slowness with which the tank filled.
Halfway between the gas station and my goal, disaster. A tire blew out.
It was a bad puncture, possibly made by a piece of ragged metal from my day in that rubbish-filled barn.
I changed the tire, rather than running the rest of the way. I might need the T-Bird to escape.
I got to the rendezvous, a small house in the suburbs, with a minute to spare. The race across country, the fear, the happiness I’d bring to Lily, the rush of triumph—my emotions were so heightened they bordered on the erotic.
Then I noticed the door hanging open, not even latched, let alone locked.
I sniffed tentatively and dread replaced my fleeting sense of victory.
I was too late. If I was a minute early, the gangsters had been thirty minutes early. They’d gotten bored, perhaps, or didn’t believe Lily would come.
Maybe, now that he had fifty more years of service from her, Morgan had finally decided to remove this distraction from Lily’s life.
The headless corpses of Rose and her father were in the living room. I reached out to rearrange the soaking, bloodied dress of the girl, place her head closer to the top of her neck, for the sake of decency.
I left, following the trail of the killers. I had little time, with two pressing demands on me: the coming day and my meeting with Eric. But if I’d failed to save Lily’s family, I could still act on her behalf.
“Hey, you! Hey, stop!”
I’m almost to the guy with the clipboard when I hear the voice behind me. It’s the type of voice usually followed by chambered rounds or drawn stakes.
I rush forward, waving. “Quinn! So, so sorry I’m late!”
He recognizes me and dismisses the guard. He’s frowning in a way that still means mine is a slim chance.
“You have to help me.”
“Oh, yeah?” The bald weretiger gives me a glance meant to wither. “Listen, Pam, why aren’t you inside? Through the front door, with the other vampires?”
“There’s a trap, for Eric. I don’t trust a note, and he’ll need my help to escape from Morgan—who owes Eric money. I can’t go in through the front because they’ll recognize me.”
Quinn shakes his head. “I have a reputation to maintain, professional discretion. And I don’t like your boss.” He makes a face at my blood-soaked outfit under the raincoat. “I don’t like you.”
I go straight for his soft spot. “If I don’t get out, and Eric with me, the first one Morgan will go after is Sookie Stackhouse. You know how useful she is to vampires.”
He growls. I must admit his warning makes me go all gooey inside, which helps focus my nerves. I have no idea what I’ll do when I get in. Eric might sense I am in trouble, but he won’t know that the danger comes from Morgan.
“Morgan’s a sadist; there’s no way you’d want him near Sookie.” Then I apply the coup de grâce. “You don’t want these fuckers to get one over on you, either. Using your event as cover.”
“No one screws around with my business.” He looks me up and down. “And no one, but no one, messes with Sookie if I can help it. Okay. But you can’t just go onstage like that. And they all have props; you need one, too. It’s a parade of costumed blood donors; Missy must have seen a movie about the elaborate displays at court banquets. A show of grotesques before dinner—it’s not as shocking as Missy thinks, but it’s a way to get you in.”
“Well?” I can barely keep from tapping my foot. “We don’t have time to waste.”
“All I have left is a chimp and he’s not feeling well.” A smirk crosses that pretty face. “I hate to think what he’d do if he smelled vamp up close, in his state.”
“A chimp isn’t enough,” I say, biting my lip. “I need to bring the house down, literally. We need more impact, I need all eyes on me until the last moment. And enough cover for me and Eric to get away.” Inspiration strikes and I look up at Quinn. “I need a tiger.”
“No way.”
“Not even for Sookie?”
He pauses. I hold my breath, metaphorically speaking.
Quinn finally sighs. “Fuck it. Okay.”
I’m starting to like this idea; I’ve always had a certain flair for entertaining. “Do you have a leash?”
His shaved head flushes dark and he says through gritted teeth, “I’m not going to let anyone put a leash on me!”
I shrug. “Fine, but you’re going to have to do something spectacular when I get out there. You do have a reputation to live up to.” Even though I think what he is doing is tacky, a higher-end version of serving sushi on a naked woman. Honestly. If I’m going to diddle my food, I want to do it in private.
He nods.
It isn’t fair; he’s only a man, after all. There are only so many routes you need to try: offer to protect what he desires or appeal to his ego.
Quinn starts stripping. When he gets down to his boxers, I pause to enjoy the rest of the show.
I’ll give this to Sookie; the little sun-sucker and I have our differences, but I admire her taste in man-flesh.
I’m enjoying the view of Quinn naked when he says, “And now you. You can’t go out there looking like that.”
I frown and look down. The weretiger had a point. The raincoat is filthy, my twinset is torn, and I am blood-soaked down to my capris. I didn’t have time to change after checking the security, so at least my lovely dress was spared. But then I see the full extent of the ruin and curse: Fucking Morgan owes me a new pair of driving mocs! That’s it: I’m officially going to kill him myself.
“Fine, give me anything. Just make it quick.”
“The only thing that will fit you is . . .” A sly look crosses his face.
He pulls the dress off the rack and hands me a bag of accessories to match. The bag is marked Wonderland/Alice.
“Oh, hells to the no.” The bane of my life Before . . . there was no way I’d sully my life After with that.
“Come on. I’ve seen the Morticia drag you wear at Fangtasia. You’re not bothered by that.”
“Strictly a marketing device. Eric’s orders. This—” I shake my head.
“It’s either that”—he nods at the hateful costume—“or—”
“I’ll go naked.”
“You said you need to make a big impression. This is bigger than naked.”
I snatch the garments from him, snarling. “Fuck you, tiger.”
He grins at me. “Fuck you, vampire.”
I saw Lily only twice after my catastrophic failure. The first was when I told her what had happened. She went as close to catatonic as I’d ever seen in a vampire. The grief came off her in waves, but I watched her go carefully about her duties as usual, managing the motel she ran for Morgan, checking the security, giving orders to his day man. I explained what happened, how I was late and the enforcers early. I didn’t mention my suspicions about Morgan.
“But they paid, I assure you,” I said, putting a hand on hers. “I followed them home. I slaughtered their children while their wives watched, letting the women know their men were responsible. Then I killed them all, too. The one with no family, I followed to the construction site they used as a cover and knocked him unconscious. I nailed him to the studs of a new wall. When he woke up, I told him he had fifteen minutes. If he could pull his hands and feet and ears from the nails, I’d let him go. He failed, but that was only because I’d used an epoxy underneath him first. I had only a short time before I had to meet Eric, but I made them suffer as much as I could.”
She looked up with an unreadable expression in her eyes. I had never seen anything like it in a human, vampire, were, or animal. She opened her mouth to speak, but Morgan came in.
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