She set down her bags, sat on the sofa and fell over onto the too-firm cushions. She promptly fell asleep and didn’t wake up until Len came into the room two hours later.
“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” he whispered, gently stroking her forehead.
She blinked. “Lenny? I think I passed out. I took cold medicine.”
“Silly. You know that stuff doesn’t agree with you. It makes you act drunk.”
“I was afraid my head would explode if I didn’t take action.”
“Well I hope you didn’t take that twelve-hour stuff.”
“I did. I wanted to be clear for the Mutually Male shindig tonight. I want to know what our competition has been up to. I sent out a few feelers to other event planners and apparently their scheme is still top secret.”
Mutually Male was a gay personal products company. A gay lifestyle fair was going on at the Chicago Convention Center this weekend and Mutually Male was using the venue to unveil a line of products specifically for gay vamps—a new concept in small niche marketing. The Stoked event planners were all eager to attend the party.
“Well, your nose might be clear, but now you’ll have to worry about your brain. I’ll make some coffee. You better get dressed because we only have an hour before we have to leave for the Convention Center.”
“What time is it, anyway?”
“Six. Wear something warm. It’s always chilly in that place.”
“There’s no such thing as a warm cocktail dress, Len.”
“Mm. Especially not the ones you buy.”
She went into her bedroom and put her garment bag on the bed. As she wrestled with the bag’s zipper her head started to hammer, so she decided to lie down for a minute…
“Caro! Come on babe, wake up. We’ve got to go.” Lenny was standing next to her. He was wearing a pinstripe suit and holding half a mug of coffee.
She sat up and ran a hand through her hair. “I wasn’t sleeping. I was just resting my eyes. The dresses made me tired.”
“You’ve been in here for almost an hour, girl. Here, let me pick something.” He rifled through her stuff, pulling out a von Furstenberg dress. “I knew I made you buy this for a reason. This will be perfect.” It was black wool jersey with long sleeves.
As far as Caro was concerned its only redeeming quality was the plunging vee of the neckline. She didn’t have the energy to argue. “Okay, whatever. I get to pick the shoes though.”
“Fine, just be quick. The cab will be here in a few minutes.”
“Why are we taking a cab?” she asked as Len pulled lingerie from her suitcase.
“Because parking at the convention center is going to be a nightmare. I don’t think either one of us wants to walk three miles through a cold, dark parking garage.”
“Gotcha,” Caro said. After taking off her clothes, she quickly put on the black satin push-up bra and sheer hose Len had laid out.
“Hey. You know in those Regency novels, Len?”
“What Regency novels might those be, Caro?”
“You know, those romances where the hero always has a personal servant? To tie his cravat. Blacken his boots. What are those guys called?”
“Love slaves?”
“No, silly. Valets. That’s what they’re called. You should be one of those.”
“No, I should be a lady’s maid. Because the only person I dress other than myself is you.”
Caro pulled the dress over her head. “Does Merrell like you to dress him?”
“Mm. Sometimes. But he usually does a pretty good job on his own.”
“How is he doing, by the way?”
“Good. I think.”
Caro pulled a large box from one of the shopping bags stacked in the corner of the room. “Do you guys like to do each other in the ass, or does just one of you like the, umm…receiving part?”
“Caro! For Christ’s sake!”
“Sorry.” She plopped down on the bed and began pulling on a wicked pair of black stretch boots. “I was just curious. I was, you know, wondering how those things got decided between guys. Like do your different sensibilities ever get in the way? You know, since you’re from different species…”
Len laughed. “How do you and Alex decide who goes down on who first, or who gets on top?
“Umm…”
“Right,” said Len. “It just happens, usually. Or somebody asks. The differences just make things sexier. Right?”
“Yeah. Vive le difference and all that, huh?” She struggled to stand on her three-inch heels. Uh-oh. Definitely looped out on cold medicine. Len steadied her.
“Maybe you should go for flats tonight,” he suggested.
“I don’t own any flats.”
“Of course not. Well, you’ll have to lean on me, I guess.”
She smiled and brushed his cheek with her palm. “I always do, Len. I always do.”
* * * * *
It was a blessedly short taxi ride to the convention center, which was just south of downtown. The cab cue was long and Caro could see crowds of people crossing through the glass pedestrian bridge from the parking lot.
“Gee, it looks like there are a lot of people here.”
“Yeah, the Mutually Male folks invited everybody and their dogs. It’s one of the major national gay events of the year.”
Caro’s head felt like it was going to separate from her body and float as they entered the building and started walking up one of the huge, elevated concourses. Len took her hand. “It’s going to be packed in there because they’ve got the main party in one of the smaller halls. But the food should be good—Merrell knows the guys who are doing the catering.”
There were greeters at the doors handing out glittering, white-and-gold cellophane bags with samples and packets of information about Mutually Male products. Len and Caro each took one, Lenny cracking a surprised frown as he looked at his. “This looks familiar, huh?” It was amazingly similar to the ones they were ordering for the Stoked gala.
They walked through a zigzagged entryway that had been created with stark white panels. When they came into the room they both gasped.
There, on a pillared platform in the middle of the arena-sized space, was a giant replica of a Greek spa. At first glance it appeared to be identical to the display they’d almost finished designing.
Len gripped Caro’s hand. “Umm, Caro? Do you see what I see?”
Caro wiped her other hand across her face, hoping to jog her vision, not trusting her eyes. She walked slowly toward the display, keeping hold of Len’s hand.
“Oh. Wow.”
As they traversed the perimeter of the structure, Caro felt her face flush and her palms sweat, reality beginning to shift sickeningly. Every time she looked over at Len, his jaw had dropped another centimeter.
The Mutually Male display wasn’t as deluxe as the one they had designed for Stoked—it looked like it had been put together in about a week—but it was their design without any mistake.
Caro grabbed Len’s arm and pointed to the side of the room. The giant buffet tables lining the space were in the shape of golden Greek scrolls—one of Alex’s designs. She was absolutely sure of it.
Then, as if they were in a film that was suddenly going in fast motion, she noticed hundreds of things in the huge room that were their ideas. Nearly every item was something they had included in their design for Stoked.
“Well, I’ll be fucked by a demon’s monkey,” murmured Len. “We’ve been one-hundred-percent ripped off. Sabotaged. Sold out. Fucked over.”
She struggled to catch her breath, worrying that she might hyperventilate. Then, as if the strange film they’d gotten sucked into suddenly turned into a slow-mo nightmare, she saw Jack Farrell and Mike Powers walking toward them. Jack looked deeply concerned. Mike looked irate.
They stopped in front of them and Mike gestured wildly toward the spa display. “Do you two want to tell me what the fuck is going on here?”
Len turned to him, looking like he was about
to blow a gasket. An unusual look for Len. “That’s what we were just wondering ourselves, Powers! Somebody sold us out and I want to know who the fuck it was!”
Caro felt like her heart was going to skitter right out of her chest.
Mike’s face turned the color of his scarlet necktie. “You’re going to have to do some fast talking to convince me that it wasn’t you who sold out Stoked! How do we know it wasn’t you who ripped off Mutually Male and then tried to sell the ideas as your own?”
“How fucking stupid do you think we are?” Len’s voice was now raised enough that people were stopping to stare. Caro clutched his arm.
Jack’s eyes were frosty. He looked as hard and cold as one of the phony Greek busts looming behind him.
“Mike. Len. Come on. Let’s be professionals.” A chill was also evident in Jack’s voice as he looked first at Len and then at Caro. “That’s why we hired King and Associates and Party Mavens, right? Because we wanted professionals. And this kind of thing isn’t what happens when you work with professionals.”
“Where are Alex and Sherene?” Caro asked. There had to be an explanation for this…a joke or a mistake or some kind of an immortal party gag…
“Alex called a little bit ago and said they were running late,” Jack said. As they watched a waiter parade by in a costume Lenny had designed and Jack had approved, Jack shook his head. “Jesus, I can’t believe this. There is no way in hell this can be coincidence. It’s on a smaller scale than our scheme, and done a lot more cheaply. But the damage is done. We’re going to have to scrap our entire plan now.” His eyes rested on Lenny and Caro.
Oh God, he looked so accusing…
“Look, Jack,” said Len, obviously trying to keep his voice under control. “I don’t know what’s going through your head, but the only people we’ve shown our plans to are the folks at Stoked. We sold the ideas to you. So professionally speaking, this is your problem.”
Mike began to bluster but Jack interrupted. “Maybe so, but after laying out thousands of dollars to buy your ideas, I don’t think the Stoked folks are that stupid either. I don’t know what kind of security system you guys have there in Cleveland. I do know that I’ve witnessed you folks do some pretty bizarre things. In fact, just yesterday, Gerald, one of our receptionists, told me Caro comes into the office by herself every morning at four a.m.—and asked him not to let anyone know she was doing it.”
Caro gasped as her equilibrium shifted. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alex and Sherene walking toward them. She could practically see anger sparking from Alex’s body. Oh shit. His eyes were completely silver.
He stopped a few feet away, blasting Jack with a molten-sterling gaze before giving Mike and Len the same sizzling treatment. Then his eyes rested on her. “What the hell’s going on?” he asked, calm voice a creepy accompaniment to his crazed expression.
When Mike and Jack started hurling accusations, Alex held up his hand and roared “Stop!” loud enough to make a nearby buffet table shake and rattle. He put his hand down and a display banner rippled in the resulting hot wind, losing one of its moorings before coming partially down. As the crowd murmured, a bunch of toga-clad waiters ran to keep the banner from falling on anyone.
“Explain this fucking debacle now!” Alex’s jaw was locked, cheek muscles jumping in his obvious effort to speak in a semi-normal tone of voice.
“You sold us out, you bloodsucker!” Mike Powers stupidly got into Alex’s face.
Caro clenched Lenny’s arm even harder. Electricity sparked in the air, drawing all eyes upward to where blue and white light zigged and crackled in the fixtures towering above them.
Vampire fireworks. One of Alex’s unique gifts. His own particular version of a truly thunderous rage.
“Ah! Isn’t this a lovely party?” A low, melodious voice seemed to quell the mayhem. Caro turned to see a stunning, raven-haired vampire female gliding toward them. She looked familiar but Caro’s spinning head wouldn’t stop to figure it out.
Len pulled Caro aside, his grasp becoming instantly more protective, and the vampiress stepped forward into the middle of the circle formed by their unhappy group, fixing her glittering charcoal gaze on Alex.
“Lyra, do you know anything about this?” Jack asked the female vamp, his expression half-frightened, half-pissed.
“Who the hell are you?” Mike asked at the same time, shifting from foot to foot, his personal space definitely invaded.
“What the fuck did you do?” Alex’s low, menacing voice made the other men’s mortal tones sound like kindergartners squealing at recess.
Lyra’s laugh was a warbling trill as she made a show of looking around the room. “Don’t you just love this design? What a concept! What a theme! So well conceived.”
A bolt of lightning struck the half-football-field-sized platform next to them. The spa tilted. Water went splashing. People screamed.
“Alex, stop it!” Caro’s cry could barely be heard.
“Tell me what you did!” His voice split the air like a thunderbolt. Sherene had her hand on his arm, whispering placating words in French that Alex was totally ignoring.
“Now, now, my handsome prince of mayhem,” Lyra chortled. “It was your idea to keep things down and dirty and amongst us vampires. Remember? I was the one who suggested taking the matter to the Immortal Council.”
“How did you get the plans?”
A security crew was corralling people from the room, trying to keep them from crushing each other. “Who is she?” shouted Mike over the fray.
“She’s the CEO of VampedUp,” Jack said. “And a good friend of Mitchell Corson.”
“The marketing guy for Mutually Male?” Lenny asked.
Lyra flashed her canines at him. “The very one.”
“How did you get the plans? Last time I ask,” Alex repeated. This time his voice sounded dangerously suppressed. He faced Lyra the way a primed bull faces a matador. Caro could almost see the air blasting from his nostrils, his feet stomping and scraping the ground.
And then Lyra, dressed appropriately in red, taunted him with a verbal flag. “Why, from your sweet little mortal bloodmate, of course.”
Caro froze as six pairs of eyes fixed on her. Her muddled head wouldn’t work. What did Lyra mean? Oh God. Did they all think she had something to do with this?
She remembered what Jack had said about Gerald. About how she’d told him not to tell anyone she’d been working late. Alone. She looked at Lyra, then Alex.
Did they think she was a spy? That she’d been working for this horrible, scary vampire woman? She swallowed hard, tried to squeak out a denial from her closing throat. “I don’t know…I didn’t…”
Lyra trilled more laughter.
Caro grabbed Lyra’s arm—it felt cold, bony and skinny like a skeleton’s. “What do you mean? Tell me, please!” Lyra preened under her touch, treating Caro’s clutch like a caress. Caro stepped back in revulsion.
“Alex?” Caro turned to him. His face was fierce, hard and utterly still. A warrior statue.
Finally his lips moved. “You wouldn’t let me protect you.” Violence seeped through his whisper, wending its way into her body, down her gut…tightening against her wrist.
“But I didn’t do anything! Nothing happened!” The scene was too surreal—the chaos surrounding them, the accusing eyes. A party gone horribly, dreadfully amok.
“I read your mind, my sweet.” Lyra’s friendly smile added to the horror. “All those late nights you’ve been spending at the office. Diligently reviewing the plans. Poring over every detail, every specification. You have a lovely, clear thought process. Smart, precise. So easy to read.”
“I thought vamps couldn’t read mortal minds!” Mike looked outraged.
“Mm. Vampire blood runs in her pretty little veins.” Lyra’s eyes fixed on Caro’s neck. Her teeth extended with an exhale and a hiss.
“But she’s his bloodmate!” Sherene clutched Alex’s arm but he wrenched it easily from her
grasp. “Under his protection!”
“Not if he hasn’t fed from her in five years,” chortled Lyra gleefully. “Her mind is fair game for all of us.”
“She. Is. Mine.” Alex stepped before Lyra, a black thunderhead ready to set its fury free. “And you will pay for violating what is mine!”
Caro screamed when she saw him unleash the energy. “Alex, no! You’re playing into her hands—”
He raised his hands, silver eyes blazing and glittering, sharp white teeth flashing. Lightning ricocheted off the walls and ceiling.
Caro tried to hang on to Len’s arm but her blood rushed too quickly, became a humming blast that cloaked her vision. She lost her grip. She was falling, falling…
* * * * *
Len was carrying her out of the convention room. Lights were flashing. People were running, screaming.
“Where’s Alex? We’ve got to stop him…” She mumbled a panicked plea into Lenny’s neck.
“Shh-shh. I’ve got you,” he whispered in her ear.
He set her down on a low bench a few hundred feet from the entrance. Hundreds of people swarmed by, shouting, pushing. Police were using bullhorns, trying to direct the crowds away from the building. Len held her hand, stroking it gently.
“Is she coming around?” she heard Jack say, his voice laced with concern.
“Yeah,” said Len. “Here she is now.” Caro tried to sit up and Len put his arm around her, bolstering her up against his side. “She took cold medicine earlier. It never agrees with her. That, combined with the shock…”
Caro looked up at Jack. Mike was standing behind him. She shut her eyes again, wanting to go to sleep and dream another dream because this one sucked.
“Where’s Alex?” She couldn’t make her voice louder than a mumble. Mike spoke right over her.
“I think I see the paramedics coming. Let’s try to keep mum about the cause of this.” Mike’s tone was laced with typical authority.
After fifteen minutes of poking and prodding her as she sat amongst a crowd of gaping onlookers, the paramedics determined that her vital signs were okay and that she had a large bump on the back of her head.
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