“I’m not some lame duck,” she muttered.
“Just, please. For me.” He stuck out his bottom lip a little.
“Ugh. Fine.”
“One more thing.” Vlad pulled what looked like a key fob from the back pocket of his jeans. “Carry this on your person.” He showcased the little plastic circle in the palm of his hand like a chick on The Price is Right. “Put it on your keychain; that’s what other vampires do. Call it personal security. If you’re in an attack situation and are being outmatched, push this button here, and a wave of electric current—like the one on your front door—will zap whoever’s trying to take you down.” He paused before handing it to her. “Vampires only. This will kill a human but just knock a vampire on his back. Got it?”
She sighed but took the key fob anyway, and then walked to the kitchen, where she pulled out a bag of B-negative and slurped.
Vlad turned his attention to Nicholas. He put his hands in his stained jeans pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Sorry for asking, but are you the, well…” He let out a manly chuckle. “Are you that old guy I heard was on the Keys?”
Nicholas mirrored his gesture. Of course, he wasn’t wearing stained jeans. He was in black trousers and a white button-down, so sexily snug the buttons looked ready to burst. “Maybe.”
“The Great Lover, right?”
Imogene laughed. “That’s him.”
Vlad leaned in closer, as if Imogene couldn’t hear. “Is it true about Marilyn?”
Imogene dropped her blood bag. “Monroe?”
Nicholas didn’t dare look at her. “We might have, hypothetically, met.”
“You banged Marilyn Monroe?” Imogene screeched.
Nicholas sighed. “We might have had intimate contact.”
“Ipso facto, I fucked Marilyn Monroe.” She stared at the kitchen counter. “My mind is blown.”
Nicholas cleared his throat. “Thank you very much, Vlad, for services rendered.” He started guiding the man to the door. “I trust your company is billing my account.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Vlad gave Nicholas a star-struck leer.
Nicholas closed the door behind him and immediately punched in the security code, rendering them prisoners in her home. He turned to face her, hands still in his pockets.
“I think I want a list,” she said. “Of all the famous women you’ve fucked.”
He grimaced. “No.”
“Come on,” she begged.
“No.” He returned to the couch and sat down. All she could see was the back of his head.
She took her blood bag with her as she straddled his lap. “Why don’t you take pride in all your conquests? I would.”
He rested his hands on her thighs. “I feel it’s disrespectful to the women I’ve loved.”
“They’re dead. They don’t care.”
“All the more reason. No need to sully the memory of them.”
She took a drink. “Can I ask you something?”
“You never seem to stop.”
“Have you ever glamoured a woman into bed with you?”
His chin seemed to disappear into his throat. “God, no!”
“But you could.”
“Of course I could, but I never would.”
She opened her thighs wider and pushed against him, which made him take a shaky inhale. “Didn’t you ever think about having a harem?” she asked.
“Sweetheart, sometimes one woman is more than enough, let alone dozens.”
Imogene tossed the blood bag where her broken coffee table used to be. “You just called me ‘sweetheart.’”
His tongue touched his pink top lip. “Is that not okay?”
She shrugged. “Never had a pet name before.”
“I wouldn’t consider ‘sweetheart’ a pet name for you.” His hands moved around to cup her ass. “It’s too sweet.”
“Mm.” She touched her nose to his. “Then what would my pet name be?”
He tried to capture her mouth, but she leaned back. “Something wicked, I suppose. Perhaps I’ll call you my rascal or mischievous imp. Or even better: you’re my siren. You’ve seduced me with eighties pop.”
She laughed and buried her head against his shoulder. He’d fed an hour earlier, so that tongue-teasing scent of fresh-cut basil was back. She hummed, her mouth open on his skin. She licked up his throat to behind his ear and he shivered.
“Definitely my siren,” he whispered. “Are you going to drown me like sailors of yore?”
She pulled back and grinned, her tongue between her fangs. “Only if you mean suffocating you with my breasts.”
“Oh, but what a way to go.” Evidently tired of her teasing, he held tight to the back of her neck and pulled her down to him. She sighed into his mouth and nipped until the strange, sour flavor of vampire blood filled her mouth.
He gasped and touched his bleeding lip. “You’re going to pay for that.”
She shrieked and jumped off him, running upstairs with her hands waving wildly in the air. He caught her halfway up the steps. They never made it to a proper piece of furniture.
Chapter Eleven
When Nicholas got the call that another human had been deaded the vampire way in Lazaret, he reached for Imogene’s car keys without asking. She stole them back. “I’m coming with you.”
“No, you’re not.” When he was annoyed, he over-enunciated his consonants and sounded even more posh, if that was possible.
“Yeah. I am.”
“Imogene.” His voice was like warm honey.
“No charming me, lover boy. Let’s go.”
They drove in silence down the key and across the bridge to the dim lights of Lazaret, Nicholas texting all the while. He didn’t even jump when she took a turn too fast and fishtailed across damp pavement.
He gave directions in muttered commands under his breath until she found herself about a half block from Necto. Blue and red police lights flashed in front of yellow crime scene tape. There was a news team, as well as a crowd of half-drunk bystanders in club clothes. Imogene thought she recognized a few of them.
Dr. Savage and Dean stood in their usual full body leather hunter suits—and actually looked semi-normal, considering the guy next to them was wearing little more than fluorescent green body paint.
Nicholas buttoned his black suit coat as he approached them, Imogene struggling to keep up in her combat boots. “Did you take a look?” he asked.
Dr. Savage shook her head. “I was waiting for you.”
He nodded and lifted the yellow police tape. Imogene just waited for some boy in blue to step in and stop him, but as soon as that happened, Nicholas waved his hand like a magician doing a trick.
And they were surrounded by chickens.
Not literally, but everyone on the entire block all of a sudden stopped looking curious and started clucking, walking around in circles, flapping their elbows like wings.
“Gah…” Imogene spouted. “What the…”
She watched Nicholas, Dr. Savage, and Dean approach the crime scene and followed, because what the hell else was she going to do? Hang out with a bunch of poultry impersonators? One of the cops she passed was quite the performer. He was probably a hit at weddings.
“Did you just… uh.” She took running steps to catch up. “Nicholas, did you just turn these humans into chickens?”
“It’ll wear off in an hour,” he said, not looking at her. His green-gold eyes were focused on the dead body, sprawled at the base of a building.
“Right,” Imogene said. She froze when she got closer to the body, not because she knew the guy, but because she felt like she knew him—because he looked a lot like Nicholas, who knelt by the body and said, “Blimey.”
“He looks like you,” Dr. Savage said. “It’s her. You know it’s her.”
He ran a hand through his short hair. “Rain, just give me a second please.”
The deaded human wasn’t an exact replica or anything. She didn’t think anyone was as good-looking as Ni
cholas, not even—she winced to think it—Ian. But the guy was young, had probably been out clubbing with a fake ID. He had the same short haircut, even though his hair was more of the bright red variety than Nicholas’s burnt amber. His eyes were wide open toward the sky and green. He had the same tall, slim build. Even his long fingers resembled the fingers Imogene now knew so well. His throat was torn open, wet and red in the revolving echoes of blue-red light from the street.
She watched Nicholas sniff, which made her sniff. There were hints of fresh blood, wet pavement, and garbage, but nothing floral—nothing like a lady’s perfume.
Over the sound of clucking, Nicholas’s voice rose. “The resemblance is a mere coincidence. There is no reason Amora would be here.”
“Especially since she’s dead,” Dean said. “Right, pretty boy?”
Nicholas’s eyes narrowed. “How’d you like to cluck like a chicken?”
Dr. Savage stepped in front of her boyfriend. “Stop it. Both of you. My God, it’s like dealing with teenage girls.”
Imogene circled the body to get a better look at the neck.
“It’s true, there’s no scent of blue lotus, but look at him, Nicholas.” Dr. Savage extended both her hands toward the corpse. “Tell me this isn’t a message.”
“Okay.” He crossed his arms. “From whom?”
Dr. Savage pursed her lips and looked like a soccer mom at a bondage club. “I don’t know. Are there any vampires out there who might be out to get you? You’ve had centuries to piss people off.”
“What, some angry vampire husband, perhaps? No.” He shook his head. “There’s no one. I’ve been living like a monk for the past five years.”
“Not exactly true,” Imogene interjected.
He nodded to her. “Okay, but we have a problem. We can’t have vampires killing humans. I assume it’s a newbie, so we need to find them and stop them.”
Imogene reached for her phone. She turned her back on the clucking humans, police cars, and other vampires present and sent a quick text message to Vixen: “Did you kill anyone tonight?”
Vixen responded in all caps: “NO. NO. NO,” followed by a sobbing emoticon.
As Imogene put her phone away—and made plans to pay Vixen a visit—she noticed a dark shadow farther down the alley, peering around the corner. Imogene’s head popped up in time to see a swatch of black hair and swish of long, red fabric. Taking off at a gallop, her combat boots whacked the pavement. She turned the corner and expected to see a retreating figure and instead found nothing but the scent of something sweet.
“Imogene.”
“Shit!” She jumped two feet in the air. “Jesus, Nicholas.” She hadn’t even heard him come up behind her.
He put his hand on her arm and, for some reason, pushed her behind him as he stared down the dark and empty alley.
“Do you smell that?” she asked.
His eyes bounced off the brick walls and dumpsters. He pulled a bottle of air freshener from somewhere inside his suit and sprayed it. A cloud of Fresh Linen surrounded them.
“Where the heck did that come from?” She pointed as he put the bottle back in his suit.
“I shouldn’t have let you come here.”
She skimmed over the whole “let you” thing and went instead with, “Is Amora dead?”
He looked down at her. “No.”
“Well, fuck, is she here?”
“It would appear so.”
“Is she here for you?”
“No.”
Imogene tugged on his arm. “Then what the hell is she here for?”
Nicholas shook his head as Dr. Savage and Dean appeared at his side. “Blue lotus?” Dr. Savage said.
Nicholas squeezed Imogene’s hand—hard. “Not that I can tell.”
Dean sneezed, having possibly caught a mouthful of scented air.
Imogene glared up at Nicholas. One of her eyes twitched as she squeezed his hand back until he winced. He pulled her toward the cop cars at a speed she could barely manage, and before Dr. Savage and Dean could join them, he kissed her and whispered in her ear, “Don’t tell them anything. Just let me deal with this.”
She grumbled.
“Please, Imogene.”
She grumbled some more but kissed him anyway.
“Will you take Rayna and her human home?”
“But they have a car.”
He turned his head to Dr. Savage. “I need your car.”
“Why?” Dean balled his hands into fists.
Nicholas looked to his old friend. “Just trust me, Rain.”
She sighed. “Dean, give him the keys. Imogene, would you kindly give us a ride home?”
Nicholas touched Imogene’s chin. “I’ll be back later.” His eyes said he would explain.
“Fine,” she snarled.
They shoved through a bunch of clucking, dancing chicken people to get back to their vehicles, and once there, Imogene slammed her door so hard, the car shook. She drove like she was being chased, if only to get Dr. Savage and Dean the hell out of her presence. She needed Celia and Ian and an ocean swim.
Quietly, Dr. Savage said, “So you and Nicholas are…”
“Fucking? Yes.”
“Is it going well?”
Imogene swerved onto the bridge. “You’ve slept with him. What do you think?”
Dean cleared his throat in the back seat.
“Well, I’m happy for you. You seem equally matched.”
“Yeah, how so?” She sped onto Admiral Key. “The boy just turned two dozen humans into chickens with the wave of his hand. How powerful is he, doc?”
“Powerful.”
She almost hit two tourists whizzing through St. Arthur’s Circle. “But he’s a good guy. He’s one of us. Right?”
“What do you think?”
“What do I think?” She almost slammed on the brakes just to make a point. “I’ve known him for five seconds; you’ve known him for a hundred years. You tell me, Rain.”
“Don’t call her that.”
She looked in the rearview mirror. “Shut your face, Dean. The adults are talking.”
Dr. Savage patiently got that therapist look about her. “When you’re around Nicholas, Imogene, how does it feel?”
“I dunno, like my insides are on fire?”
“Do you feel safe?”
“I guess, yeah. I feel safe with him.” Nicholas hadn’t slept in the guest bedroom for nights. At nine p.m., she woke naked every evening with her nose pressed against his neck, his arms around her. If sleeping next to someone naked didn’t imply “feeling safe,” she didn’t know what did.
“Good,” Dr. Savage said. “But remember what I said.”
“You say about a million things.”
“If you think something strange is going on with Nicholas, you’ll tell me.”
She pulled to a sudden stop in Dr. Savage’s driveway. “Yeah. Now, get out of my car.” She watched them walk up to the house and wondered if she’d just lied.
Like Kramer on cocaine, she kicked the door open to Ian and Celia’s place and found Ian on his back on the floor covered in Ralph. She shrugged and dove onto their pile, purging both men of all the air in their lungs.
“Imogene,” Ian wheezed.
“Sorry.” She lifted herself up on her arms. “It’s force of habit to jump into a pile of men.” She rolled to the side and wondered why Ralph was still hugging Ian, and… was he crying? “What’s going on here, you pussies?”
Celia tottered in from the kitchen with two cans of Nattie Light. “Imogene!” She grinned. “Ian is going to start surfing again!”
“No shit?”
“It’s just so unreal, man.” Ralph sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his arm. “This is, like, the best day of my life.” It was sort of sweet to see Celia’s annoying coworker like that, gone all soft over his surfing idol, who’d given up the sport years before thanks to that shark in Hawaii—who apparently also thought Ian smelled like bacon and Christmas and
joy.
Celia looked a little weepy and disoriented as she passed the cans of beer to Ian and Ralph. Of course, Imogene stole Ralph’s before he could take a sip. “Too young,” she said.
He didn’t respond—just kept staring at Ian in a relieved sort of awe.
“A toast.” She raised her beer. “To the great Ian Hasselback’s return to the wild waves.”
Celia clapped in the kitchen doorway, and Ian leaned up on his elbows to drink his beer.
“What brought this on?” Imogene asked, tugging at her shoelaces.
He tilted his head back and sighed. The freckle on the side of his neck jumped as he swallowed. “Well, I’m going to be a father soon, and I thought, I don’t want my kid living in fear—of anything—which is what I’ve been doing ever since…” He gestured to the bite-shaped scar on his calf. “I’ve decided to be a role model.”
“Sounds terrifying.” Imogene chugged half her beer.
“Nu-uh,” Celia said, easing ever so slowly into Ian’s used recliner that smelled like old people. Ian put his hand on his wife’s knee. “Imogene, you were my role model when we met.”
She winced. “Shit balls, why?”
“Because you’re confident and say ‘fuck’ a lot.”
“Admirable qualities, I admit.” She looked at the surfboard in the corner. The only use it’d gotten had been Ian petting it occasionally while playing video games. She wasn’t even sure he did it consciously. “I came over for a swim. Why don’t we get that thing wet?” She nodded to the board.
“Dude!” Ralph shouted in affirmation.
Ian gave her a sideways smile. “Should we?”
Imogene stood. “I demand it.”
Ralph carried the board outside while Ian led a clumsy Celia with his arm around her shoulders. Imogene left her boots inside (no need to get them filled with sand) and trotted along after them, earlier memories of a bloody crime scene pushed to the back of her head. Worrying about Nicholas could wait, now that they had something to celebrate.
She stood at the edge of the water as Ralph tore off his t-shirt and ran into the warm ocean, screeching like a mad hyena with Ian’s surfboard. Ian took off his shirt, too, and Celia, fully clothed, wandered in until her green maternity dress spread around her like seaweed.
Bite Somebody Else Page 13