“A cabal? Perfect.” A cabal is a group of vamps who live and play together. I’ve only heard bad and worse things about them. I shake my head. “I’m sorry, but shouldn’t Irie be the one going? All I can do is toss things at them, she can burn them up.”
“Oliver was insistent you go. For experience.”
“Of course he was. There’ll be kissing and touching involved?”
“There is no way Oliver would put his lustful feelings over the well being of others,” George says as if I’ve just insulted the Pope. “I trust him, and so should you.”
He’s right. Lecherous though he may be, Oliver is great at this job. “I’m sorry. I just really don’t want to go.”
“There’s no reason to be nervous. You’ll be in communication with us the entire time. We’ll be an hour away by plane if anything should happen. This is simply a fact-finding mission on your part. When you locate the cabal, the rest of the team will join and help take it out if necessary. It isn’t the first time we’ve done this. You’ll be fine.” He stands up. “The plane leaves in an hour. All the supplies you need are loaded already. We’ve arranged for a service to pick you up at the airfield and take you to a hotel that caters to vampires.”
“So, I’m the dutiful girlfriend making sure her man gets there safely. I think I can manage that.”
“Excellent. I have no doubt you’ll do just fine.” He pats my hand as he passes out the door.
Well, that makes one of us.
_____
He has got to be kidding. I look … like my grandmother’s worst nightmare. I wouldn’t wear this stuff on Halloween. Black mesh top under a bustier? Tacky. Too-tight black leather mini-skirt? I think I can see my cellulite imprinted on the fabric. I’ll put the black stiletto boots on before we land and not a moment sooner. It’ll be a miracle if I can take two steps in them. I haven’t even decided on makeup, except red lips with lots of powder and eyeliner. If sexy was the aim, we’ve missed the target by about fifty feet and landed in the red light district. I feel ridiculous. Crud, it’s time to go.
This is going to suck so bad—pun intended.
I zip up my suitcase with a sigh. Why is he doing this? What does he think, I’ll be so wrapped up in our cover that I’ll just fall into his arms? If he puts one hand on me—
The telephone rings. This is a rare occurrence, since most of the people I now know on this planet live in this house. I only get two calls a week, if that. One from Nana, the other from my best friend, April, and they both called in the past few days. I pick it up. “Hello?”
“Hello,” says a voice that lets loose every variety of butterfly into my stomach.
“Oh! Hi!” I say, my voice raising an octave. “How are you? How’s it going? You good?” Stop babbling, Bea.
“I’m fine,” Will says. “I’m sorry I didn’t call yesterday. How did things go with your brother?”
He remembered. He called to check on me on his vacation! I am squealing for joy inside, but not outside. Cool is my middle name. I sit on the bed as best as I can in this skirt. “About what I expected. Nasty names, hurt feelings. I should have known better, I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You thought he’d act like a brother. As he should have. Nothing wrong with that.”
“He seemed to think so.” I sigh. “I’ll know better next time. I did sort of deserve it. You know, the whole ‘almost killing him’ thing.”
“No, you don’t,” he states emphatically. “You have to stop beating yourself up over that. It was an accident. And you’ve made sure it will never happen again. That’s more than most people would do. Focus on that.”
“I’ll try,” I say with a smile.
“Still, I wish there was something I could do.”
Hop on the next flight and ravage me when you walk in the door? My smile widens from cheek to cheek. “That’s sweet, thank you. I’m over it for the most part. You know me, I try not to dwell on things.”
“I know. It’s one of the things I admire most about you. You’re a good person.” Neither of us says anything for a few seconds. This is standard for almost all our conversations, uncomfortable silences. We’re working on it. We didn’t start with awkwardness, that’s progress. I broke it last time, so it’s his turn now. “Am I missing anything else interesting there?”
Crud, he just had to ask. Okay, I have two choices. I can tell him about Operation Lovebirds and he’ll either A) dwell on the fact Oliver is leading an operation without him, but do nothing, or B) in a grand romantic gesture, order me not to go and hop on the first flight back to stop me. Either way, it’ll ruin his first vacation in years, and I’ll still have to go. Plus, if he goes with Option A, it could break my heart. On to my second idea. “Nothing. Same old, same old. I’m boring. What about you? Having fun getting in touch with your inner wolf ?”
“I suppose. I’m learning a lot about …”
“Your gift?” He hates calling it that as much as I do. As if turning into a wolf against your will, or almost giving your brother a brain aneurysm, is something akin to a bracelet from Tiffany’s. “What have you learned since we last spoke?”
“I think I have partial transformation down.”
“What’s that?”
“If I concentrate hard enough on one part of my body, I can change it from human to wolf and back again.”
“Wow! Really? Like your hand can become a paw?”
“Yeah, but it’s getting things back to normal that I have problems with. Yesterday, I spent the whole day walking around with a paw. Everyone acted like it was nothing.”
“That must be refreshing.”
“Not really. I’m actually still homesick. I think it’s getting worse by the hour.”
“You miss us?” I ask.
He pauses. “Some more than others.”
My smile could light up Vegas. “Well, Nancy misses you horribly.”
“Does she?”
“Yeah. She’s moping around. Told me she’s constantly thinking about you. It’s downright pathetic.”
Another pause. “Well, tell her the feeling is mutual. I miss her more than I thought I would.”
I feel my cheeks flaring up, and I clear my throat. “So, they still treating you okay?” They being the Eastern Pack, a group of werewolves who hold domain over all the wolves from the Mississippi River east. Will met them right when he turned and got on with the Alpha, or leader, Jason Dahl. Will has an open invitation to permanently join them but probably never will. Too much kumbayaing and rules.
“I guess. It’s all too upbeat for my taste, but otherwise I guess I’m having a good time.”
“What do you mean, upbeat?”
“The whole time I’ve been here, they’ve been drumming into my head this ‘proud to be a werewolf’ rhetoric. I wouldn’t be surprised if they asked me to be in a parade or something.”
“I’d like to see that,” I chuckle. “You’ll all be carrying banners and howling in Baltimore.”
“Well, if it happens I’ll send you a plane ticket.”
“We can march and chant together! I’ll even dress up! We can wear matching fur coats while singing ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’.”
“No singing. I’ve heard you sing. We wouldn’t want to clear the streets.”
“Shut up. I’m not that bad.”
“You really are,” he chuckles. “But I’d let you walk with and hold my leash, how’s that?”
“I’m honored you’d trust me with that responsibility,” I laugh.
Someone knocks on my door, and it opens before I can respond. Agent Wolfe, Irie’s nighttime playmate and one of the actual FBI agents assigned here, pokes his head in. “The plane’s waiting.”
“Is someone there?” Will asks.
Covering the phone with one hand, I wave Agent Wolfe away mouthing the words, “Just a minute.” Releasing the receiver I say, “Will, sorry, I have to go. Nancy’s waiting for me.”
“Oh, okay,” he says, sounding disappointed.
The feeling is mutual.
“I’m sorry. She’s been waiting for half an hour. I’ll see you in a few days, okay? Try to have fun. Bye.” I hang up before he says another word.
“You didn’t tell him, did you?” Wolfe asks.
I stand up, pulling my skirt down. “Of course not. And you better not either.”
“And have him eat the messenger? I don’t think so.” Wolfe steps into the room, picking up both my suitcases. He glances at me and smiles. “You look … nice.”
I pick up my boots from the floor. “Shut up. I look like an Elvira reject.”
“Then you’ll fit in with everyone else there. And don’t be nervous. Just stick close to Oliver and follow everything he says. Do that, and you’ll be fine.”
Right. I am so doomed.
Three
Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Smythe
I know people flying in private jets with unlimited financial resources shouldn’t be miserable, or at least that’s what I thought when I’d watch those celebrity shows, but it does happen. I’d rather be in my old Volvo without air conditioning on my way to anywhere but Dallas, Texas, in this Cessna. I’ve seen Dallas. Lived there, done that. Of course at the time I was six. A lot has changed since. Instead of pink jelly shoes and overalls, now I’m barely wearing clothes, and the shoes I have on might kill me before any vampire does. Either a man or a sadomasochistic woman invented these things. Even sitting down, they’re as comfortable as the Rack. The clothes and makeup—all two inches of it to make me resemble a corpse—aren’t any better. “Slut” has never been a good look for me. My best friend, April, would laugh if she saw me now. She was always trying to get me to dress like this when we went out as teenagers. One look now and she’d bite her tongue clean off. My jelly-shoe-wearing self would run away crying.
This will never work, not in a billion years. Nobody will ever believe I belong in the vampire world. I mean, I’ve only ever met one, and if he’s any indication, I’ll stick out like a redhead in Asia. I’m not sophisticated, I’m sure as heck not sexy, even in costume. Especially in this costume. I’m cute, and on a good day pretty, but there hasn’t been a single millisecond of my life on this Earth that I’ve been sexy. I’m a child playing dress up as a mother’s worst nightmare.
Oh goody, we’ve begun our descent onto a private airstrip just outside Dallas. Maybe, if I ask, the pilot will fly me home to San Diego instead. I wouldn’t mind this assignment as much if it was anywhere but Dallas. Bad memories. The last time I was here, I was that six-year-old in jelly shoes. Mom was working as a waitress/singer at a bar and shacking up with some guy named Chuck or Buck or something equally fitting for a man she met at the bar and moved us in with a week later. We were in his trailer one night and Mom didn’t have dinner ready on time. He smacked her so hard she almost lost a tooth. A plate flew across the room, smashing into his head and knocking him unconscious. I was on the other side of the room from it, but I knew I threw it. That’s the first time I can remember using my power. Not a happy memory.
The plane touches down onto the tarmac with no problems. Like most airstrips we land on, this one is small and desolate with maybe two runways and one hanger. We can’t fly commercial because we usually bring flamethrowers and machetes with us. Not to mention it might draw attention if we pick up a coffin at baggage claim. Of course, our pick-up at the strips are pre-arranged with local FBI, so I just climb into a car and go to our destination. Here, I have no idea what to expect. Having an FBI escort would compromise our cover. I just hope I don’t have to sneak Oliver’s coffin into the hotel myself.
The plane jerks to a complete stop, and I manage to stand up. Four inch heels, three inches more than I like. Crud, I have to concentrate just to walk, how am I going to fight? God, I hope I don’t have to fight—or run, as I’m more apt to do surrounded by scary monsters. Ugh. This entire situation has disaster written all over it. The plane door unfolds from the outside, and I hobble down the steps.
“Mrs. Smythe?” a man asks the moment I step outside. Lord, it is hot! I feel the perspiration on my forehead already. There goes my makeup. At least the sun is setting, so it’ll be eighty-nine degrees instead of ninety in a few hours. I shield the sun with my free hand. “You Mrs. Smythe?” the man asks again.
I gaze from the sun down to the burly man in a pit-stained wife beater waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Behind him, a white truck with “Damon’s Plumbing” idles. Oliver would hire a plumber to greet me. “I’m sorry, who are you?”
“Look lady, I don’t have all day. I’m sweating like a pig. Are you Beatrice Smythe or not? I’m here to pick up Beatrice and Oliver Smythe.”
We’re married? “I’m her.” I think.
“Good. Is he in the cargo?”Clearly he knows the vampire thing.
“Yes.”
The man—Damon, I guess—backs up the van to the plane and jumps out again. He opens the back of the van and the cargo hold on the plane, pulling a ramp up to the plane. The gorilla tosses my bags to the ground, getting them all dirty from the dust covering this whole state. Only two of the bags are mine, so the other two must be Oliver’s. Louis Vuitton: definitely his. When the final one, a black duffel, hits the ground, the unmistakable sound of metal on metal escapes it. A gun might as well have gone off. The man glances at the bag, then me. My body tenses. That has to be the weapons bag. Does he know I’m a fraud? Was our cover blown already? What—
“You gonna get those?” he asks. “I ain’t a fucking valet, lady.”
“Right,” I mumble. “Sorry.”
While my rude helper sets up the ramp, I put the suitcases in the back of the van. Effing heck, this duffel is heavy. Do we have an atom bomb in there or something? I swear, carrying something that weighs as much as you do in stilettos should be an event in the Olympics. When I manage to get the bag in the back of the van (giving Magilla Gorilla a brief view of Victoria’s secret, no doubt), I wipe my brow with a sigh. I spent half my flight here on my makeup and hair, and it’s ruined in three minutes. Well, he can get that coffin in all by himself, thank you very much. I climb into the passenger’s side, turn the key, and crank up the AC. Aah, much better.
Five minutes later, Mr. Grumpy secures the coffin, and we’re on our way out of the airstrip. The man turns on the radio, and Shania Twain belts out “Any Man of Mine,” a personal favorite of mine. Up until age eight I moved up, down, and sideways across the Southwest, so tunes from Tanya Tucker and Garth Brooks became my lullabies. I’ve always loved country music, even when people make fun of me for it. Southern Californians do not listen to country music. Boy bands, yes; Johnny Cash, no. With Shania’s help, I calm down a little. Well, as calm as someone who’s riding with a perfect stranger going to an unknown destination with a vampire asleep in the back can be. Okay, nervous again.
“We’re going to the Dauphine, right?” the man asks.
“Um, right,” I say.
The man pauses then says, “Too rich for my blood. Hear they got silk sheets or some such shit.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” I say, inwardly rolling my eyes. Oliver would pick the hotel decorated by Hugh Hefner.
“First time here?”
Crud, personal questions. I have no idea if this is Mrs. Smythe’s first time in Dallas. What if Oliver or George or whomever mentioned something over the phone when arranging this? Wing it. No other choice. “Yeah. We’re just here to visit some friends. Vampire friends, not my friends. I have no friends here, right, because I’ve never been here before.” Shut up! “Is it nice?”
“No better, no worse than anyplace else.”
Not a glowing endorsement. “So, you pick up a lot of vampires?”
He scoffs. “You must be new. Lady, the V word is forbidden. They’ll cut your tongue out if you use it to outsiders. Literally.”
Oh. Not even to the hotel, and I’ve made a faux pas. “I will definitely remember that, thank you.” We ride in silence for a few seconds, except for Brooks & Dunn, but I’m not good wi
th silence. “How’s the party scene here? Oliver, that’s my husband, says it’s wild.”
“How the fuck would I know? I don’t associate with you people. Besides picking you up, I want nothing to do with y’all.”
“I’m sorry? You people?” Okay, now I—I mean Mrs. Smythe—is offended. “A bit judgmental, aren’t we? You don’t seem to have a problem taking money from ‘us people’.”
“Taking money is one thing lady, fucking ’em and getting gnawed on like a bone is another.”
My mouth drops open. “Just shut up and drive, jerk-off.” That was Mrs. Smythe swearing, not me.
He shuts up and drives. Good boy.
A long fifteen minutes later, we pull into a residential area of antebellum mansions behind brick and metal fences. High houses with columns holding up balconies and wraparound porches are surrounded by perfect lawns of emerald green grass with lush trees and the odd fountain. This is not the Dallas I knew. Not a trailer park in sight. We turn the corner on Dauphine Street to find more of the same. The van stops at one of the more hospitable gates. Ivy covers half the metal fence. The gorilla rolls down his window, allowing a gust of hot air into the cool interior. He reaches to the call box, pushing the red button.
“Yes?” a man says over the intercom a moment later.
“Dropping off Smythe.”
“Password?”
“Daffodil.”
The box buzzes, and the gate slowly opens like the parting of an ivy sea. The rest of the house comes into view. Oh my goodness, I’m staying at Tara from Gone with the Wind. It’s beautiful. I live in a mansion now, but I’m still a sucker for a grand house. Three stories with a wraparound porch on all three levels secured with roman columns and metal fences around the perimeter. We pull up the red brick driveway past oak trees covered in Spanish moss. There have to be close to a dozen windows on each floor, strangely some showing white lace curtains and others blacked out. Patio furniture is placed around the three porches: tables, chairs, even a swing per level. The ivy—
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