by Mary Hughes
Not v-guys. But the tightness in her tone said she was honestly worried. I needed to listen up. “What’s a consent decree?”
“It’s when the feds take a closer look at how a bank’s being run. If the Sparkasse Bank doesn’t get more capital soon, or repayment on enough loans to rebalance their portfolio, well, they may get put up for sale.”
“And that’s bad, why?”
“Some very nasty people would like a toehold in our city.” Twyla rose and snagged the wine bottle from the kitchen. “Buying our main source of business loans would give them that and more.”
“But a white knight—”
“Synnove, I can’t go into it, but we’re being targeted, and all our defense eggs are in the tourism basket. Seemed like a sure thing at the time.” Returning with the wine, she topped off my glass, refilled her own and sat, curling her legs under her. Her dark eyes were serious. “We need to draw warm bodies with our Kinkadesque local color before our picture turns Gorey.”
“Hey. I like the drawings he did for MYSTERY!”
“You like cutting people open with a knife and digging through their guts. I question your grasp on charming and touristy.”
“Viscera.”
“What?”
“Viscera, not guts. Sounds better. Less slimy. See? I can do charming.”
“Lovely. The point is, after our great start with the off-Broadway musical, we need to get the word out or we’ll backslide. Which means Holiday.”
“Why can’t we tout our own fudge shoppes and luncheon nooks?”
She heaved a big sigh that said clearer than words that I was being a stubborn, short-sighted ass. “It’s not simply about pushing quainte shite. Research told me tourists are looking for walkability and multiday potential and ‘vibe’, whatever the hell that means. More than advertising, we need someone who understands advertising. We need Ric Holiday.”
“Okay, got it.” I tapped my glass against my lips, thinking. Twyla wanted Ric Holiday. I wanted to avoid Ric Holiday. How could I get both? Hey, sometimes doctors did the impossible. They were called miracles.
And I thought I might just have one. “This is more than wine can handle.” I set my glass down. “Where’s your chocolate?”
“S’mores?”
“No. Straight up.”
“You’re going to do it.” She smiled. “You’re going back.”
“Don’t sound so happy. You’re going to owe me so bad you’ll be my Favors Bitch for the rest of your life.” I rummaged around in the cupboards, caught the sting of cacao and found the giant extra-dark bars between a box of graham crackers and a bag of marshmallows. I cracked one in half without opening it, tore the paper in two and handed one to Twyla.
“Favors Bitch?” She took her half, unwrapped a corner and bit into it appreciatively. “Aren’t you forgetting the time I bailed you out of the principal’s office after you greased Anna Versnobt’s ‘back’ vibrator with heat rub?”
Should have kept the whole bar. “Not my fault. She went on and on about how she used it for sore muscles. I was only trying to help her.”
She ticked up fingers. “Your student loan paperwork, the tax returns I did for you, the time you ‘helped’ me with my new car by filling the tires with air except you’d only ever pumped 90-psi bicycle tires before—”
“Enough.” I sat and snapped off chocolate with my teeth. “Do you want to hear my idea or not?”
“Sure.” She smirked. She knew she’d won.
“Some day you’ll regret that smirk,” I grumbled. “You won’t know where or when, but it’ll involve bubble gum and hair curlers. I’m just sayin’.”
The smirk widened. “Why don’t you tell me your idea before I expire of ooh-I’m-scareds?”
“Nice one.” I chewed and swallowed. Ah, the healing properties of chocolate. “Holiday Buzz is one of those prestige firms where clients are ‘hired’ instead of the other way around. All I have to do is get the agency to take us on. Holiday has his touch on everything his firm does. I convince any account rep and voilà.”
“Once the firm takes the job, he’ll become involved?” She raised a brow. “You’re banking an awful lot on your assessment of his character. You’re sure?”
“My entire hometown’s fate rests on this. More—my Favor Balance rests on this. Of course I’m sure.”
Chapter Six
Ft. Dearborn on the Chicago River, 1812
The scrawny chicken scuttled across the settlement’s dirt road. Ric darted after it, ten-year-old arms stretched. He was scrawnier than the chicken. If he could catch the beast, he’d eat like a king, filling his belly for the first time since his parents died.
The chicken ducked around a wooden building—straight between a set of pants-covered legs.
Ric piled up short at the sight of two men arguing. One man wore a military uniform, and the other the costume of a prosperous trader. Both looked angry and concerned. Ric’s meal dashed away, forgotten.
The uniformed man’s eyes were narrowed against the bright morning sun. “I won’t go against orders, and we’ve been ordered to evacuate this fort.”
“It’s suicide to leave.” The second man kept to the building’s shadow. “Where are we supposed to go?”
“East. To Fort Wayne.”
Ric perked his ears. He seemed to remember his parents came from “out east”. That his grandparents lived there.
“I don’t like the idea of leaving the safety of the block-houses,” the trader said.
“The danger isn’t imminent. And I have my orders.”
“Always orders,” the trader muttered.
“My duty is clear. We will leave the fifteenth, at nine a.m.. You can come with us, or you can try to defend this place by yourself.”
Days went by. Anxiously, Ric watched the preparations in and around the fort. The uniformed men were given ammunition and supplies. Baggage wagons were made ready for the sick, and the women and children.
On the morning of the fifteenth, Ric slipped into one of the wagons, his sweating not all due to the August heat. Outside a band played martial music. He tried to feel brave and optimistic as the wagons rolled out.
But as they rode along, the temperature dropped. Ric’s sweat chilled. He could smell the lake when suddenly a shout went up, and another. The curtain was ripped aside and a man leaped into their midst. He looked like the trader, only something was wrong with his face. It looked like a living mask hacked out of wood, with red fire for eyes. Women screamed, children cried. Blood flew.
The last thing Ric remembered was the man smiling at him—with gleaming fangs.
The official report said twelve children were tomahawked in one wagon alone by a single savage. The truth was darker, more complex. The single killer was a white man, and the bodies were mutilated to cover the true atrocity.
Ric woke in the cool dark. He felt completely relaxed. Good. Strong. And starving.
No, he was thirsty. His mouth worked with a deep, abiding need to suck. His teeth ached to bite. He reached up to massage his throbbing gums but his arm was restricted. He wrestled against cloth bindings until they tore. He rubbed a thumb over his gums and nicked his skin on a sharp new fang.
The smell of his own blood kicked him into overdrive. He thrust hands through the windings, into soft dirt. It was easier than he expected, cloth tearing on his sharp little claws, arms digging powerfully. He was stronger than he’d ever known. He scrabbled up through the earth and burst from his grave into the bright light.
And promptly fell on his face.
His limbs, so potent in the ground, didn’t work properly in the air. He felt like a newborn, bursting from the womb only to find himself in a place where he was uncoordinated and unprepared. He lay there, blinking against the bright light, shocked when it resolved into the moon and stars burning like lamps.
A face wavered in his vision. Instinct took over. His claws snapped out toward the prey…who was gone.
“You look like a ba
by bird flopping around.” The face reappeared. Black hair, black eyes, straight nose. Red slash of a mouth, slightly curved in amusement. An older boy, maybe twelve.
Don’t stand there like a jerk, Ric said. Help me up.
Or at least, those were the words in his head. What came out was, “Whuh wa wa.”
Surprisingly, the boy understood him. He snared Ric’s hand. “You bite me and I twist your head off.” The boy yanked Ric to his feet. Ric’s legs wobbled like milk-soaked bread. The boy got an arm around him, and between the two of them Ric managed a stumbling walk. A succulent artery pulsed mere inches away in the boy’s neck. Ric had to force himself not to bite into it.
“Good thing they didn’t drain your blood,” the boy remarked casually. “You’d have attacked anything that moved. Remember that, kid. Even stale blood in your veins is better than no blood at all.”
The name is Ric, but what Ric said was “Ya wuh wih.”
“I’m Aiden.” The boy either knew what he was going to say or was almost omniscient. “The second thing to remember is never go out in the sun. You’ll burn like dry tinder.”
Aiden took Ric to a big house, the biggest he’d seen outside the fort. The cellar beneath the house was even bigger. It smelled of sweet bare earth. The older boy eased him to the ground with surprising gentleness. “This is your new home, kid. You’re one of the lucky ones who made it. This far, at least.”
Ric didn’t find out what Aiden meant until he’d been given a dead body to drain (the blood was stale but still tasted so good) and slept a couple days in the rich soil, much better than the stuff he’d clawed up through. When he finally woke feeling almost himself, the thought came to him that the dirt of his current bed wasn’t native. He opened his eyes to ask Aiden.
A man with a knife stood over him. The moment Ric’s eyes opened, the man attacked. Ric screamed a ten-year-old’s horror. The knife sliced through his arm. Blood fountained. He screamed louder. But when the knife slashed toward him again he snapped his mouth shut, leaped to his feet and ran until he blacked out.
He woke again. Same man, same knife. Same attack. This time Ric didn’t bother screaming. He rolled aside. The knife whumped into dirt. Two-handed, Ric grabbed the knife. The man tried to pull it away. They wrestled until Ric yanked with all his strength. Bone snapped. The man screamed and the knife fell into Ric’s hands. He jumped to his feet brandishing it, prepared to attack.
Aiden caught him before he did. “Good job, kid. The only one who figured it out faster was me. You’re going to make it.” And then, whispering in his ear for only him to hear, “I’ll make sure of it.”
Later Ric asked Aiden, “What is this place?”
Aiden said, “Training camp.”
“Military?”
“Trackers. Spies. Assassins.”
Later still, Ric saw Aiden filter out into the night. Ric followed, practicing some of the hiding techniques he’d learned.
The older boy stopped at an unmarked grave. “I know you’re there,” he said to the shadows where Ric hid. “You might as well come out.”
Ric wasn’t surprised. Aiden always seemed to know everything. Ric came out. “What are we waiting for?”
“A kid died three days ago, supposedly of an animal mauling. They buried him there.”
“Was it really an animal?”
“You know better.” Aiden turned to him then, and there was the barest gleam deep within those black eyes that told him Aiden was ferociously angry. “He does it on purpose. Turns children, young so he can control them, then waits to see if they survive. He calls it his first test. Doesn’t sound so horrific that way.”
Ric shivered, not knowing why. He was barely eleven then. “Who’s ‘he’?”
Aiden spat a name into his ear. “Nosferatu.”
Ric shuddered.
“Don’t ever say his name out loud.” Aiden stared into the distance. “He has a long reach around Chicago.”
Ric was confused. “He gives us shelter from the sun, blood when we don’t catch enough. He trains us. Don’t you trust him?”
“No.” The word was flat. “He’s turning us into murderers.”
“I don’t believe that. He cares about us—”
“You spend enough time standing here, watching, waiting to see if these massacred children rise. Watch frightened kids claw their way out of their graves, only to kill their first prey in blood lust. Or die in fiery pain if they’re not smart enough to evade the knife. Then see what you think. It makes me sick.”
Ric’s brows went up. “Why did you rescue me then? Take me home?”
Aiden spun on him, nostrils flared, lips thin. “What else could I do? Where else is there to go?”
Ric was shocked at the emotion blazing from the boy who was his mentor, his protector. Anger and pain bled from Aiden, and a hopelessness so profound it tore at Ric’s heart.
This boy had been Ric’s salvation, safeguarding his life, his sanity. Ric couldn’t let him suffer like this without doing something about it. If Ric’s parents were still alive…but they weren’t. Nobody but him and Aiden. It was up to him. Ric squared his shoulders. “I don’t know where we go. But we’ll find a place. We’ll find a way to leave, to live a better life.”
“You don’t understand.” Aiden slashed the air with one hand. “He isn’t a vampire to take defection lightly; he’ll kill us as an example to his other flunkies. And for the personal affront? He’ll make it slow and painful.”
“You’ll let that stop you?” Ric challenged.
Aiden’s black brows snapped together and his hand fisted. Then, slowly, both relaxed. “No. No, I won’t let fear stop me. All right, I’m in.”
They floundered with plan after plan, each one more desperate and less likely to succeed. Each day they lost a little more ground to the soul-killing training at Nosferatu’s tender mercies, and those of his sadistic teachers.
They nearly succumbed and became pitiless killing machines.
A little human girl saved them.
Eloise was barely six years old when she came to live at the big house. Her father kept her apart from the vampires, but Ric and Aiden had long since learned the secret ways of the compound. They sneaked into the girl’s room that first time because they could.
She captivated them with her innocence. She was lonely and thirsty for company, and she begged them to return when they could. The boys told themselves they kept visiting because they were bored. Little by little, each made the others’ lives a little less lonely. A little less cruel. They pulled each other back bit by bit from the brink.
Then Ric saw Nosferatu standing against a sapling Ric measured his own growth on. It changed everything. Even then, Ric understood spin and image.
By this time escape itself was no longer a problem. Aiden had taught Ric how to lay down false trails, and Ric taught Aiden how to foster false images. They would cross the newly formed state line, run as far as they could, then hide.
The problem was keeping Nosferatu from coming after them. Ric now had the start of the solution. The final piece was provided by the little girl.
Ric was fourteen and Aiden sixteen when they finally ran away from Nosferatu. They asked their little human friend to escape with them, confident of their abilities to protect her.
Eloise didn’t make it.
Now Nosferatu was after them again. And suddenly all Ric’s mindfucks and razzle-dazzle didn’t seem nearly good enough.
Chapter Seven
I went to bed but couldn’t sleep. It was too dark in my room, and the noises, chirping and whoo-whooing, were all wrong.
I certainly wasn’t bothered by thoughts of sexy Ric Holiday.
Skewer me with a scalpel. Yes I was. I whumped onto my other side and squeezed my eyes shut.
My phone went off, providing some much-needed electric light and manmade sounds. I snatched it up. The readout said Hospital. “Hello?”
“Doctor Synnove?” It was a boy’s thin voice.
; “Teddy, honey, why are you calling so late? Are you okay?”
“I miss you. Read me a story?”
The poor sweetie. He couldn’t sleep either. I pulled out my ereader and thumbed open The Big Purple Book of Fairy Tales—there was a whole series of them including Red, Purple and Blue, but if you ask me, when they got to Fulvous and Chartreuse they jumped the shark—and read to him until he mumbled, “Good night.” By then I was sleepy too.
I dreamed.
Such innocuous words. So very different than the hot, sweaty, sheet-twisting reality. I blame the naked image of Camille burned into my brain, and Ric’s hot…everything. I don’t normally have such vivid, carnal dreams; at least not that I can remember. And wouldn’t both Freud and Jung have a field day with that?
I was a barbarian queen. My brave men had won a decisive victory against a rival clan chief and this was our victory celebration. My finest warriors and commanders stood at attention, awaiting their reward. Naked.
I paced before them, my white skirts swirling around my legs, my gown a suspicious cross between Princess Leia’s and Camille’s frontless/backless number. I gave a stirring speech. My warriors’ oiled muscles gleamed in the sunlight. As I prepared to choose, the men grew hard in anticipation.
One brown-bearded warrior pleased me. I grabbed his head, my fingers sliding into silky hair, and kissed him. His beard bristled against my skin, his mouth hot and moist against my lips. He tasted of war. His hands cupped my face reverently and he kissed me back, his tongue teasing inside my mouth.
A third hand skimmed my back. I raised my head. The men circled close, surrounding me. Another callused hand found the soft skin of my shoulder. Yet another slid under my dress to touch my breast. As the men fondled me until I moaned, they kissed me, each deeper and harder, to gain my favor.
“Enough!” A deep, dark voice rang from beyond the circle. “I am your bravest champion, my queen. I claim exclusive rights. Any who denies my claim, let him face me now in single combat.”
The men eased back as a tall warrior stepped forward. He was clean-shaven, with spiky blond hair and stunning blue eyes that captured my breath, even as his hands and mouth captured the rest of me.