Your Coffin or Mine?

by Kimberly Raye

  “That’s actually a good thing.”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged. “But she also glares at me a lot, as if she can’t stand me. What do you think?”

  This was it. My chance to come clean and stop carrying the burden of my mother all by my lonesome. I would simply tell Mandy how much my mother detested her and go from there. The girl had a right to know. I mean, really. I would want to know if the love of my life’s mother hated my guts.

  I think.

  “She doesn’t hate you,” I told her.

  “What makes you say that?”

  Yeah, what? “She just doesn’t warm up to people very quickly.” Okay, so technically she was a lukewarm vampire who would never warm up, but that was beside the point. “Just give her a little time.”

  “She doesn’t think I’m good enough for him.”

  “No, actually, she doesn’t.”

  Her gaze collided with mine. “I knew it!”

  “She thinks you’re too good. Don’t take this the wrong way, Mandy, but Jack’s a real shit. Believe me, I’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it. She just doesn’t want you to wake up one day and realize you made a mistake.” Okay, so this was my fear for Mandy, not my mother’s, but who was I to argue details? “She just wants you to be sure.”

  “I know how Jack used to be. I mean, I’ve never seen it, but I’ve heard. A player. Sleeping with different women every weekend.”

  I nodded. “And during the week.”

  “But he’s changed. He’s a wonderful man. Committed. Loving. And everyone deserves a second chance, don’t you think?” Without waiting for my reply, she added, “Even a player like Jack.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She seemed to think. “You know what? I am.” Her shoulders stiffened. “I’ve actually never been more sure of anything, or anyone, in my entire life.” She leveled a stare at me. “I know I’m doing the right thing by marrying him. Deep in my heart, I know.”

  I smiled. “Then that’s all that matters.”

  She seemed suddenly aware of the tears streaming down her face. She sniffled and wiped at her cheeks. “You know, you’re right. Who cares if I’m wearing a hideous dress and eating chili on THE most important day of my life? I’m marrying the vampire I love. The vampire who loves me. We don’t need a fancy location or an elaborate ceremony. We don’t even need favors for the guests. The almonds tied in those cute little satin baggies. We just need each other.”

  Yeah, right.

  I wiped at a traitorous tear that slid down my own cheek. “You’re not going to wear a hideous dress or tie the knot in a greasy diner.” I sniffled. “And no way are you wearing white and going within twenty feet of a platter of chili-cheese fries.” I stiffened. “Not if I can help it. You’re going to have the wedding of your dreams.”

  “Really?” Her eyes glimmered with newfound hope and I nodded.

  What can I say? I’m a sucker (no pun intended) for the big H.

  “You’re so wonderful, Lil. I’m so glad we’re going to be sisters.” She seemed to gather her determination as she slapped more tears from her face. “So what are we going to do?”

  I forced aside my own crazy notions of love and marriage and Ty, and pasted on my most convincing smile. “Don’t worry about a thing. Just finish trying on the rest of these and leave the details to me.”

  Nineteen

  After we finished up at Wedding Wonderland, I took a cab straight home. I drank a glass of freshly nuked blood, fed Killer a can of cat food, and then spent the next few hours on the computer researching alternatives to the wedding dress situation. When I felt certain I had a workable plan, I tackled the ceremony location.

  “I need a favor,” I told Nina One when she answered her cellphone.

  “I need my jacket. And my sunglasses.”

  “You can have them both if you do me this one itty-bitty favor.”

  “I’m not seducing Remy. He’s nice and all, but I’m not ready to squeeze out a couple of born vamps right now and his mother is worse than yours.”

  No, really? “This isn’t about Remy. I need a ballroom.” I explained the Mandy situation and ended with a dramatic, “If you do this for me, I’ll do anything.”

  “Bajra cashmere scarf?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of my first-born. My second, too, if you validate parking.”

  “Sorry, but I prefer more immediate gratification. Like, say, sometime in this century.”

  “Thanks a lot.” I closed my eyes and pictured my all-time favorite accessory ever. At least until Hermés came out with their fall collection in three months, two days, and sixteen hours. “Okay,” I blurted before I could change my mind. “It’s yours.”

  “Really?”

  “I said so, didn’t I?”

  “I’ll check our schedule and see who I can bump.” She paused and I could hear her fingers flying over the keyboard. “It’ll be tricky. We already have a banquet for the bar association scheduled for that evening.” More typing and my anxiety level kicked up a notch.

  “Maybe I’ll call Lola and see if she can work something at the Plaza,” I said. The minute the words were out, the fingertips tapping the keyboard on the other end of the line stopped cold and the earth stalled on its axis.

  Lola Bettancourt Camden was the daughter of real estate tycoon and born vamp extraordinaire Hamilton Camden. Her father and Nina’s frequently competed for the same high-end properties. The running score as of yesterday’s buyout of the Chase bank building put Hamilton in the lead while Victor Lancaster ran a close second.

  Following in their fathers’ Gucci footsteps, Nina and Lola frequently went head-to-head for rare and extremely hard to come by designer couture. My Bajra was a one-of-a-kind. A gift from my mother, along with my own closetful of lime-green Polos and beige Dockers, when she and Dad had handed over the NYU locations of Midnight Moe’s to yours truly for my last birthday present.

  I’d given back the copy centers (the uniforms had my name embroidered on them, which meant they were mine until they started to decay or I had a run-in with a sharp object), but I’d snapped up the scarf faster than Killer went through a dish of Tantalizing Tuna.

  “You wouldn’t call Lola,” she finally said, her voice accusing. “You hate Lola.”

  “She’s a bitch, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t strike a little deal with her in the name of family.”

  “Let’s see…” The fingers started moving again, faster this time, and I smiled. “I could tell the bar president that we’ve had a recent lawsuit filed against us by a disgruntled guest and that one of their members is handling the case, which would make a dinner at our establishment a direct conflict of interest.”

  “Brilliant.”

  “I’ll move the bar dinner to the Omni,” another one of daddy Lancaster hotels, “and put the Marchette-Dupree wedding in its place right here.” I heard more typing followed by a “There. All done.”

  “You’re the best.”

  “You WILL follow through this time, right? Because it’s been a full twenty-four hours and I still haven’t seen my jacket or the shades.”

  “I’ll drop them by tomorrow.”

  “Cross your heart and hope to pierce a virgin in the eye?”

  Ugh. Had we been that bloodthirsty as kids?

  Goober alert! Fangs. Coffins. Night skulking.

  Okay, so we had been that bloodthirsty as kids.

  “I do,” I grumbled.

  “Say it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Cross my heart and hope to pierce a virgin in the eye.”

  “And say, ‘Thank you, Nina.’”

  “Thank you, Nina.”

  “For tonight and for last night.”

  “For tonight and for last night.”

  “Don’t mention it. I move things all the time. Reservations hates me. Except for George and Chuck. They think I’m the shit. But Anna and Megan? Haters, the both of them.” Her voice took on an edge of excitement. “I don’t usually lik
e to stop by at your folks’ place because they’re so…Well, you know how they are.”

  Unfortunately, I did.

  “But last night was kind of fun. I haven’t seen your brother in ages. I remembered him as this stuck-up, full-of-himself gigolo, but he’s really changed. He’s actually kind of nice.”

  Max? Rob? Or Jack? All three fit the initial description. Jack, however, was the only one who hit pay dirt on the change part. And the nice. Or at least seminice since Mandy.

  “I’m afraid he’s already taken.”

  “Oh, no. By who?”

  “Hello? That was the entire point of me dragging you all the way across state lines. Jack’s getting married to Dr. Mandy. My mom is freaked. Remember?”

  “Not Jack, silly. I’m talking about Rob.”

  “Rob has changed?”

  “It’s so obvious. He’s older and, well, more mature.”

  “Were we at the same party? The one where Rob arm wrestled Max for dibs on the comfortable recliner?”

  “He won,” she declared. “I was so impressed.”

  I was so not hearing this. “Let me get this straight. You’re interested in Rob?”

  “I think there’s a little something there. A connection. Do you think he’s attracted to me?”

  Let me think about this. Nina walks upright. Drinks blood. Has a vagina. “He adores you.”

  “Really? Did he say that?”

  “Not in so many words, but I know my brother. Trust me, he would do you in a heartbeat.”

  “Excellent. Maybe I’ll tag along for the next hunt.”

  “We’re not hunting this Sunday. I mean, we probably will (on account of we haven’t NOT hunted in over three hundred years and my dad was big on maintaining tradition), but not until after my mom’s dinner party.”

  “I accept.”

  “You’re not invited. Unless,” I added, my mind racing, “I get to keep the sunglasses.”

  “But I earned those,” she whined.

  “True, but I’m going to earn them back by giving up my seat at the dinner table so that you can sit next to Rob.”

  “All right.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. Keep them. Listen, I have to hang up. There’s a long line at check-in. We have a convention in town—romance writers, or something like that. I’ll see you tomorrow for my jacket.” Click.

  I hung up and stared at the phone in disbelief.

  No way, no way did she just give up a pair of Badgley Mischka’s for a piddly orgasm, or even ten of them. Like me and a few other megalicious female vamps, Nina had an impressive two-digit Orgasm Quotient. Designer couture came first while doing the humpty-hump ran a close second. Never were they reversed.

  Unless…

  A smile crept across my face.

  “Nina likes Rob,” I told Killer, who sat on my lap, his head resting on one knee. “Isn’t that great? Maybe they’ll hook up and I’ll be an aunt.”

  I pictured myself herding a few dozen little Robs and Ninas through the department store, Barney’s (wearing my favorite Rebecca Taylor chiffon dress), and the smiled faded. We’re talking chiffon. As in susceptible to fingerprints and frantic little hands tugging and pulling and rrrrip!

  Oh, no they didn’t!

  They didn’t. I drew in a deep breath to calm my pounding heart. I was getting way ahead of myself. I tuned out the image and shifted to one where Nina and Rob stared adoringly into each other’s eyes (after writing me a big fat check for services rendered) and said I do. Much better.

  I sighed and Killer meowed.

  I rode the wave of contentment for several more seconds before I upended back into a sea of crappiness.

  It was the middle of the night, I was a hot, happening vampere, and I was desperately alone (except for Killer, but I didn’t count him because then I would have felt that much worse because I now had a big pile of kitty litter sitting in my bathroom just waiting for me to take the plunge). My two best friends had found someone (Nina One had Rob (sort of) and Nina Two had her commitment mate, Wilson). Jack had Mandy. Max had half the socialites in Manhattan, including one of the Hiltons (but you didn’t hear that from me). Come Friday night, Word would have Suze. My mother had my father. And I had fantabulous hair.

  Yep, my afterlife sucked, all right.

  Meow.

  Killer’s soft call pushed into my thoughts and I glanced down to see him staring up at me with un-blinking green eyes.

  Enough with the pity party, already. You don’t know real despair until you’re half-starved and stuck in an alley playing bitch to a pit bull named Big Boy.

  True enough.

  I pushed away the doom and gloom and tried to concentrate on scoping out an appropriate restaurant for Word to take Suze. I Googled and scrolled through the list of possibilities. Should they go up-scale or low-key?

  The question echoed in my head and reminded me of my own personal dilemma. Chief of police or renegade bounty hunter?

  I thought about Remy and how perfect he was—refined, with a hefty fertility rating, which made me think about Ty and how imperfect he was, rugged with no fertility rating at all, and how it didn’t really matter.

  I liked them both.

  Actually, I liked Ty more.

  I scribbled down the names of two different bar and grills and powered off the computer. I found Ash’s phone number and punched it into my cell. He answered on the fourth ring.

  “Do you have any leads?”

  “Not since you called me about six hours ago.”

  “Is that all it’s been?”

  “Yep.”

  “Are you sure? Because it seems like a lot longer.”

  “I’m timing you.”

  “Oh.” I set Killer on the floor and pushed to my feet. “I don’t do waiting very well.” I paced the floor. “I just really need to know that he’s okay.”

  “The only thing I can tell you is that we did pull a second set of prints from his doorknob. I matched them up to a felon from Brooklyn. He just got out of prison after doing eight years for armed robbery.”

  What? “They only give eight years for armed robbery?”

  “Give or take time off for good behavior. He walked about three weeks ago and word on the street has it that he was gunning for Ty. Ran his mouth all over town about how he was going to gut Ty and eat his tongue.”

  “Ewww.”

  “And then he just disappeared.”

  “With Ty and his tongue?”

  “Professional opinion?”

  “Yes.”

  “I doubt it. Whoever—whatever—took Ty was a lot more of a badass than your average human thief. Even so, his prints shouldn’t have been there, so we’re following up.”

  It wasn’t what I wanted to hear and so I reversed back to the inefficiency of our justice system. “Eight years? For an armed burglar/tongue eater? That’s it?”

  “That’s the justice system.”

  “But he should still be locked up, confined to criminal tongues instead of those belonging to kind, decent, law-abiding citizens.”

  “Sure, he should. And so should half the criminals in New York, but the system is overcrowded. There’s just not enough room.”

  “Which is just cause to turn violent, twisted offenders out into the street?” My fingers tightened on the cell phone and my vision was a glazed vivid crimson. “What the hell are we paying taxes for? So guys like that can walk up and down Fifth Avenue and pull a Hannibal Lecter? So they can kidnap and torture and—”

  “Easy, there, Norma Rae,” he cut in. “I’m on your side. I’m just giving you an update.”

  I reined in my temper and drew a deep breath to calm my pounding heart. “Fine. I’m sorry. But I’m writing my congressman.”

  “Have at it. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can do about locating the felon. I’ll let you know if I turn up anything.”

  It wasn’t the answer I’d wanted, but it was better than nothing.

  A tiny l
ead.

  A thread of hope.

  I latched onto it and held it close as I crawled into bed next to Killer and closed my eyes. Ash would find the felon who would lead him to Ty before he had his tongue eaten, or worse.

  At least that’s what I told myself.

  But the more I tried to reach Ty, the more the silence continued, and the more I started to think that maybe, just maybe, it was already too late.

  Twenty

  I spent the entire day tossing and turning and feeling like the only Diet Coke in a fridge full of O positive and AB negative.

  Translation: useless.

  Which explained why I, the Countess Lilliana Arrabella Guinevere du Marchette, forfeited her twelve hundred-thread-count sheets for a vacuum cleaner.

  No, really.

  I was that desperate to do something, sleep eluded me, and so it seemed like a good idea. Much better than lying in bed and staring at the ceiling.

  Waiting.

  Worrying.

  I did the rugs and dusted. I even swept the bathroom. When I finished, I paused near the sink and eyed the toilet brush.

  Okay, so I wasn’t that worried.

  Besides, I’d killed what was left of the daylight. The sun was just about to set and I had a busy evening ahead.

  I hopped in the shower and then went through my nightly ritual of hair and makeup and more hair. I pulled on a cream-colored, ultrashort, Foley embroidered silk dress and flat gold sandals, and then topped off The Stepford Wives meet Twiggy look with a leather Coach clutch, crystal earrings, and my sunglasses. I grabbed Nina’s Donna Karan jacket and the scarf and headed out the door.

  I might have felt like crap, but I looked as vampilicious as ever.

  Obviously I wasn’t the only one who thought so, because the camera started flashing the minute I stepped out in front of my building.

  I so wasn’t in the mood for this.

  Before I knew what was happening, my preternatural feet had carried me across the street. I faced a startled Gwen, who looked as if she’d just seen a ghost.