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Vodka, God’s greatest invention next to antibiotics and Gandhi. It’s even better with … um … that orange stuff made from oranges. What’s it called? Whatever it’s called, it rocks. This stuff, plus From Here to Eternity, almost makes me forget my crappy brother and crappy ass life. Oops, I said a bad word. I owe Nana a nickel.
I love this movie. Burt Lancaster is my ultimate, super-duper fave. So strong, so virile, so funny. If he were still alive, I’d so have wild hot monkey sex with him. Is it weird having sexual fantasies about a dead man? Oh, wait, make that two dead men. No. Not allowed to think about him. I am so not going there tonight.
Oh, here it is! The scene! Yep, there they go. The ocean drenches their locked bodies, but they don’t notice because they’re so into each other. God, that’d be nice. I tried to get my ex-boyfriend Steven to act out that scene, but he refused. Didn’t want to get sand in his pants. Stupid Steven. He was never that adventurous, reason number thirty-six we split up. I do miss him—well, the idea of him—sometimes, like tonight. I could use a semi-pleasant distraction for a few minutes. A very few minutes in his case. Heh, heh. Alas, the only person I’d even seriously consider as a distraction is somewhere in nowheresville Maryland on vacation, and I’m not even sure he wants to distract me.
God, it’s so unfair! My stupid, jerk, poopy ass—damn, another nickel—brother gets a gorgeous, rich woman who probably makes him chocolate cake in the nude, and soon a cute little baby to hold and play with. Meanwhile, I—who has saved countless lives and am nice to old people and animals—am stuck in flipping Kansas with only Mr. Shaky in the nightstand for company. Sure, I could throw myself at the living dead man, but alcohol hasn’t totally eaten away my reason. Three more drinks maybe. Oh, Will, why aren’t you here? I would have already jumped your bones by now, whether you wanted me to or not.
Stupid Will. Why did he pick now to go on vacation? He’s been gone for a week, with one more to go, camping and fishing and running with the wolves or whatever. One of the packs invited him for some male werewolf bonding. Got their own compound and everything. How he can still go camping, I don’t know. His wife became steak tartare and he was turned into a werewolf on a camping trip years ago. He won’t talk about it but still camps, go figure.
Two months, and the only things I know about him are he’s brave, he’s a natural leader, his butt looks perfect in jeans, and I make his skin crawl. Well, I don’t make his skin crawl, my curse does. At least that’s what he says. Like it matters, crawling is crawling.
I hate my life. Damn my brother. Maybe I should call a witch and have her put a curse on him. Yeah, all his hair could fall out. That’d be awesome! Oops, drink’s empty. Time for another.
I toss off the covers, and with glass in hand, walk toward my good buddy vodka and its friend OJ. Okay, the world’s a little wobbly. At least this time it’s not due to a concussion. Shoot, how many have I had? Three, but all mild. That’s still a lot.
This time, three parts vodka and one part juice. That’s the word I couldn’t remember! Juice! I pour and taste. Lord! My body shimmies. Strong. I am so paying for this in the morning. Still worth it. No more homicidal or suicidal thoughts here. I am incredibly horny, though.
Someone knocks on the door. Oh, bloody heck. Why can’t people just leave me alone? Nancy literally popped into my room and did her best to cheer me up by talking nonstop about the new Johnny Depp movie. I hate living with a teleporter. No privacy. I managed to stand her babbling for fifteen minutes before kicking her out. Even Irie and Agent Wolfe stopped by to check on me after their date. They’re probably off distracting each other like crazy right now, having hot pyrokinetic/special agent fun. Jerks. I hate them.
Eff it, whoever’s at the door will go away soon enough. I can’t stand any more cheering up. The person knocks again. “I can hear you breathing in there,” Oliver says on the other side. I don’t move, and even stop breathing. Maybe he’ll take the hint. “Please open the door.” Guess not.
“Sleeping,” I shout. “Come back tomorrow. Or never. Never is better.”
“If you open the door, I will give you a gift,” he teases.
“Oh, I can just imagine what that ‘gift’ is. No, thank you.”
“Please open the door. I will wait here as long as I must.”
He will too. I once made the mistake of saying I’d go to a movie with him but changed my mind and decided to watch NCIS with Andrew. (Hey, Andrew is not very social, so I had to take the opportunity for camaraderie when it presented itself.) Oliver stood outside my door for over half an hour, humming and knocking. I finally had to push him down the hall with my mind. He shot like a missile, breaking the vase on the end table. Sometimes I don’t know my own strength. So, I know I have two choices: torture us both by making him wait a few hours while he knocks every thirty seconds, or give him the satisfaction of me giving in. If Burt wasn’t on …
“Open, my dear. I really do have a gift for you.”
“If this gift involves any part of your anatomy, I swear I will send you flying through the wall again,” I say as I wobble toward the door and fling it open.
He leans against the doorframe, both hands behind his back, with that cat-that-killed-the-canary grin, Number Two. Slight fang action. He’s still prepped out in khakis, but now his shoulder-length brown and golden hair is slicked back, held in a ponytail. Bar sluts beware.
“What? I’m missing a shirtless Burt Lancaster for this.”
“You reek of alcohol.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
“The hangover tomorrow will be intolerable.”
“Problems I don’t have right now. What do you want? And where is my present?”
“May I enter?”
I stretch my arm across the doorway. “No. Go away. I have more vodka to drink.”
“We have an assignment,” he says.
“I didn’t hear the alarm.” Even drunk—heck, even dead—you can’t miss a Klaxon bell louder than an Ozzy Osbourne concert.
“Special assignment. Just you and I. George will brief you on the particulars tomorrow when you are more … receptive.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I’m not going anywhere alone with you.”
“You do not trust me?” he asks with amusement, but the grin drops.
“No comment.”
Grin Number Three returns. “Perhaps it is yourself you do not trust.”
I scoff. “You wish.”
“I did not know you were a mind reader as well.”
“An amoeba could tell what’s on your mind right now. You do know that trying to get me into bed on your way to pick up other girls isn’t the best tactic, right?”
“I am giving you a chance to have me all to yourself.”
“No, you’re not; you’re here to annoy me with stupid sexual innuendo like ‘special assignment’ because I’m all vulnerable. I am not having sex with you. Deal!”
“I believe you were the party who brought up sexual relations, my dear. I am here solely on official business. And to give you this.” Arms move and out comes something black and lacy. Big shocker. He holds it by the straps with crooked fingers and that grin, Number One, the one with the raised eyebrows and massive fang action. I haven’t seen something like this getup outside of Frederick’s of Hollywood. It’s a bustier with black lace over dark purple satin, and a corset with boning complete with a lace-up back. Jenna Jameson meets Jane Austen.
“You’ll look cute in it. On your way to Rocky Horror?”
“Clever. No, it is for you.”
“I am not wearing that, you pig.”
“You will.”
“And why would I do that?” He releases one of the straps and yanks at the side of the corset. The fabric rips off with the sound of Velcro.
Oh, wow. In between where the boning was are thin silver throwing daggers with crosses for handles and more engraved on the blades. “Awesome.”
“I thought you would enjoy that.” He reattach
es the cover so it’s skanky as new, handing it to me. “It should fit.”
“What exactly am I supposed to do with this thing?”
“Practice.” He makes a graceful little throwing motion.
“Why? What’s the assignment?”
Grin Number Three surfaces again. “I cannot wait to see you in it. Till tomorrow.” He turns and walks down the hall, out to hunt for a distraction. I gaze down at my sexy/deadly present. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
Nothing in my closet matches it.
Two
Special Assignment
Concentrate on the red circle. No, be the red circle. There are no black circles around it, no white background. There is nothing but that red circle. Holding the blade by the cross hilt, I raise my arm to the level of my head and throw with all my might at the target. Crud! The handle reaches the wall first, not even close to the target. Darn it! Once, just once, I’d like to get near the stupid piece of paper. Rambo made it look so easy.
“I’m blaming the hangover,” I say.
“Or you can blame it on your weak ass arms,” Irie says, still pumping away on the exercise bike.
“Like you could do any better.”
“I don’t have to. He gave you those knives for a reason. You better learn to use them by tonight.”
I walk over to the wall and pick up the six knives from the blue mat on the floor. They’re so thin, probably less than a millimeter, but sharp as heck. “You ever had to use these?”
“Couple times. The bra was too big, but the knives did the job. Not enough to kill, unless you hit the heart several times. Hurts vamps and weres like a motherfucker, though. Makes them stop chasing you every time.”
“So this assignment has something to do with vamps or weres?”
“If I had to guess, this ‘special assignment’ has more to do with getting you alone wearing next to nothing than any fighting.”
“That thought has crossed my mind.” I walk back to my position twenty feet from the target and stare down at the knives in my hands. “But just in case …” All the knives float out of my hands into the air, lined up in a row. As fast as bullets, they shoot across the room, three hitting the bull’s eye and the rest surrounding the red eye.
“Nice,” Irie says.
I stroll back to the target, tugging at one of the knives. Shoot, it won’t come out. I pull a few more times, and out it comes. I have the same problem with the other five. “Maybe I do need to work on my upper body strength.”
“Oh, I’m sure Will won’t have a problem staring down your shirt while you sweat and moan on the bench press,” she says in an insinuating tone a deaf man could catch.
Three times a week Will and I exercise together, if you can call it that. He basically makes me weight train for ten minutes—my complaining always gets the better of him—then he “teaches” me martial arts. Judo, Krav Maga, anything he thinks is useful. Of course, I spend most of the time on my back, and not in a good way.
“I liked you better when you weren’t getting any. You’re about as smutty-minded as Oliver now.” I start placing the daggers back into the corset.
“I’m happy! Is it so wrong I want everyone else to be happy too?”
“No, it’s just annoying.”
“Come on, Bea. It’s just us girls here. You can admit you miss him. Just a little.”
“Yeah, I so miss getting my butt kicked three times a week by a werewolf. Fun times.”
“You don’t miss being pinned under him, your slick bodies touching, his musk filling your every sense …”
“Definitely liked you better when you weren’t getting any.”
She chuckles, and pedals even faster. “Seriously though, has he called at all?”
I climb onto the bike next to her. Cardio time. “Just once or twice to check in.” Or maybe five times, each lasting over an hour, but who’s counting?
“And you don’t think it’s strange that he’s only called you?”
I groan. “Will you please stop? We’re friends, end of story.”
“Well, I know he’ll be pissed when he hears you and Oliver went off to destinations unknown, one of you wearing lingerie.”
“It’s not lingerie, it’s a weapon. And hopefully, Will won’t find out. I’m tired of pulling those two apart. I feel like I’m back at elementary school.”
“We used to just let them go at it. It was funny.”
Poof ! Nancy, teenage teleporter, appears like magic dressed literally head to toe in black. Black hair cut like Bettie Page’s, thick black-framed glasses, sweater, Capri pants, and Mary Janes. She’s going through a black phase now, which in my opinion is a vast improvement on the polka dot phase last month. My black sweater hangs on her rail-thin body. I’ve been looking for that. The past two months have made me realize I’m happy I never had a sister. “Hey,” she says. “What you up to?”
“What the hell are you doing teleporting? What if your tutor saw?” Irie says.
“She’s gone. Chill. I’m not, like, totally brain dead. I’ve been sent to get Bea. George wants you. What’s going on? He wouldn’t tell me. What’s that for?” she asks, pointing to the bustier. “And why did Oliver leave me a note asking me to let you, like, borrow my clothes?”
“He what?”
“Yeah. Like all my Goth shirts, even my chains and stuff. I left them on your bed. But they’ll all, like, be too tight on you.”
“That’s probably the point,” Irie says.
“The point of what? What does she know that I don’t?” Nancy asks.
“Nance, you know about as much as I do.” I climb off the bike and pick up my secret weapon. “George in the briefing room?”
“Yeah,” Nancy replies.
“I’ll drop off my slut clothes later,” Irie says as I walk out.
“Yeah, because they’re so gonna fit me,” I call back.
The gym takes up half of sub-basement two, with the gun/skills training center taking up the other half. There is a small concrete cell where Will wolfs out once a month, but I hate going in there. It smells. I walk through the tiny hallway to the elevator. Up one floor to sub-basement one, home to our briefing room and Oliver’s bedroom, the only room in the house I haven’t been in. I won’t even take a peek. I’m sure red satin lines the walls with a black silk bed taking up half the room. The briefing room is the first door on the left, which is where George awaits me.
Dr. George Black, Ph.D., the man who runs the whole F.R.E.A.K.S. show. He does the research, deals with the bureaucracy, and makes a mean Chimichanga. He’s been part of the team for over forty years. First as a consultant, then as the head of the F.R.E.A.K.S., a clandestine offshoot of the FBI. Technically, we don’t exist, but here we are, smack dab in the middle of the country like Area 51. (Not that I’ve been there; I’ve asked, but I’m not allowed to take a tour.)
George sits at the head of the long table, his face obscured behind the file marked “Classified,” so only his gray hair shows. He looks up when I clear my throat. “Sorry,” he says. “I was just familiarizing myself a bit more with the case.”
“What?” I ask, sitting across from him. “You didn’t prep it?”
“Afraid not. Oliver left it on my desk this morning with detailed instructions as to hotels and supplies. I have to say, he does a better job than I do.”
“I doubt it. So, what’s the deal? Am I acting as trashy bait or what? Let me guess, he’s cast me as either a stripper or a hooker. Or possibly a stripping hooker?”
George points the remote in his hand at the projector on the back wall, and the lights dim. We use this room to watch movies sometimes with our feet up on the table—only time we can get away with that.
Up pops a picture of a thirty-something woman standing behind a bar with enough booze to supply a frat party. George flicks to the next slide of a teenage girl. Pretty, skinny, dressed in a long blue gown with a clean-cut boy standing next to her in a tux. The next picture is of an African American m
an in his forties sitting on a motorcycle.
“Who are they?” I ask.
He flips to a photo of a girl in her late teens in full Goth garb. Black hair, black lips, dog collar, and fake white skin. Then another of a picture of a man and woman my age holding up wine glasses in a toast. “That’s the last one.”
“So, who are they?”
“Missing persons from the Dallas area.” He looks in the file. “The first two are Suzie Thal and Kate Bending. Suzie disappeared two and a half months ago, and Kate weeks after that. The man was Antoine Baker, police officer with Fort Worth police. He went missing a week after Kate. The Goth was Donna Zahn, missing two weeks. Finally, the couple are Don and Linda Costarello, both vanished one week ago.”
“What’s the connection?”
“Nothing, as far as I can tell. All different races, ages. The FBI and local police have treated them as separate cases.”
“And we know better?”
“The only commonality was their enjoyment of the night life, but none frequented the same clubs, according to the reports. The Costarellos and Donna Zahn lived in Dallas, Bending in Grapevine. Suzie Thal worked and lived in Weatherford.”
“But Oliver found a connection. How?”
“One of the reasons he was brought on the team was his … network of associates. He is fairly well known in the vampire community.”
I scoff. “As what?”
“He told me ‘a fun man.’ We’ve found it handy in situations like this.”
“So, someone called him and said all the people are connected?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I have no idea. He never reveals his sources,” George says.
“Then how do we know this person isn’t making this up to ambush us or something?”
“Oliver hasn’t been wrong in the past.”
“Then we all go investigate. Why the special assignment?” I ask.
“Oliver feels, and I agree, that an undercover operation is the best tactic in this situation.”
“So, I am supposed to be a stripping hooker?”
He chuckles. “No, nothing that extreme. Your cover is lovers looking to join the Dallas vampire scene. You infiltrate and discreetly ask questions. According to the source, the disappearances can be attributed to a group of approximately seven vampires traveling together.”
To Catch a Vampire Page 2