Rachel came out of my dressing room and saw us all. “God, what are you still doing here?” she said critically. “Didn’t you guys hear Bill call Act One places? Am I the only professional around here?”
She shoved her way through our little group, oblivious to me and Tarr wrestling for his notebook, and to Victor panting and sweating while Leischneudel patted his back and urged him to keep breathing.
I gave up my struggle with Tarr, let him have the notebook, and said to Leischneudel, “She’s right. We have to go right now.”
“We really do,” the actor said. “I’m sorry, Victor. Um, I’m sure everything will be fine.”
“You won’t tell Daemon, will you?” Victor said urgently. “The show must go on!”
“No,” I promised, “we won’t tell him.”
“Tell him what?” Tarr persisted.
“I have no idea. And you,” I said to the reporter, “leave this man alone.”
“Of course,” Tarr said with pellucid innocence. “Absolutely.”
Poor Victor.
Leischneudel took my arm, and we scurried toward the darkened wings to start the second show. From that moment forward, I had no room in my head to spare a thought for Victor or whatever he’d been babbling about. Also no room, thankfully, to dwell on Tarr having asked me out on a date (so to speak).
During intermission, I saw Victor backstage, but he was so artificially bright and bubbly, I assumed that the crisis, whatever it was, must have passed. Given his tendency to overreact, I assumed it was nothing—an assumption which seemed to be confirmed when he bent my ear, at length, about the carpet on which I had spilled blood hours ago, assuring me the dry cleaners thought they could get the stain out completely.
I brushed him off and found a quiet spot backstage to rest in solitude for the remainder of the intermission. This was my sixth performance in three days, I was feeling the burn, and I would be onstage for much of Act Two. Ianthe had been eaten by Ruthven in Act One, but she appeared briefly several times in Act Two, when a feverish, guilt-ridden Aubrey imagined his sweetheart haunting him for failing to save her from Ruthven. Apart from those moments, Mad Rachel would be wandering around backstage until the curtain call, complaining of boredom because too few of her acquaintances were available for phone chats this late at night. I wondered how Leischneudel, who had an exhausting part, was getting through this second show, given that he’d gotten so little sleep last night, thanks to Mimi the cat.
When the curtain rose on Act Two, though, I didn’t feel the fatigue anymore, nor did I see it in my two leading men as we performed scene after scene. That’s the magic of the stage and the synergy of actors with a live audience. I knew I’d be exhausted as soon as the show was over, but I felt energized and alert as I waited in the wings to go back onstage for my final scene, Jane’s wedding night.
Once I was onstage, face-to-face with my groom in the golden light of our private sitting room at night, and nervous about adjourning with him to the adjoining conjugal chamber, I spoke about my poor brother, who was too ill to attend the small, intimate wedding breakfast which had followed the private marriage ceremony this morning. A little while ago, my delirious sibling, openly horrified to learn my marriage was now a fait accompli, had said strange things to me about my groom, bizarre comments that were unquestionably a symptom of his brain fever ... but which nonetheless made me uneasy enough that I now tried to broach the subject of those incoherent accusations with my new lord and master.
My husband brushed aside my questions with sinister half-answers and boldly explicit physical flattery as the two of us began circling each other like swordsmen in the early moments of a mortal duel. Slowly, almost languidly, he pursued me around the room, drawing ever closer, his intense gaze, silken voice, and erotic predation wearing down my reticence until, finally, I stopped fleeing and let him touch me, claim me, own me. He spoke to me of life, death, blood, innocence, pleasure, and pain, all the while taking down my hair, stroking my body, and exploring portions of my anatomy that no man had ever touched before.
Including portions which I had specifically told Daemon not to touch again.
I found the vampire’s lengthy speech about life, the universe, and everything rather tedious and derivative, but Jane found it provocative and enthralling—as did the audience. Tarr had described the fans’ absorption well; when Ruthven stopped speaking long enough to press several slow, sultry kisses against Jane’s shoulder and neck, you could have heard a pin drop in that theater. Then when he ran his hands over my body and reached inside my dress to cup one of my breasts, I heard sighs throughout the audience, and an audible moan from someone sitting close to the stage.
My uncomfortable but flimsy push-up corset was not much protection against this sort of intrusion, and I was annoyed. Daemon’s hands, as he well knew, were supposed to stay outside my dress at all times.
Ruthven droned on for a while longer, toying with his bride, alternately seducing and terrorizing her. Although Jane by now wanted to lie down on the floor and fling up her skirts for him, I was incensed when Daemon slid his hand down to the juncture of my thighs and cupped me there. I writhed and moaned with feigned passion, which activity I used to conceal my firmly moving his hand to my hip while I stomped on his instep.
He wanted to improvise? Fine. Two could play that game.
Daemon grunted in surprised pain then snorted a little with laughter, which reaction he concealed by burying his face in my tumbled hair.
He had his revenge, though. As Ruthven swept Jane into their final embrace, his long, hard, taut body pressing against her supple and yielding one, and lowered his mouth to her unresisting neck ... Daemon bit me.
I mean, really bit me. Like he was actually trying to get blood from my veins. I uttered a stifled sound of pain as my knees buckled and I clutched his shoulders.
I heard more sighs and moans, the audience responding to Ruthven’s ruthless sexual domination and what they thought were my expressions of orgasmic ecstasy.
Then Daemon started sucking intensely. Without thinking, I gasped and reflexively shoved at his shoulders. He clutched me tighter, I lost my footing, and we began sinking to the floor together—which was not how the scene had been choreographed. The audience, a number of whom had previously seen the play and probably realized we were going off course, seemed to collectively hold its breath as our unrehearsed wrestling took us both down to our knees, pushing, clutching, and writhing.
I suddenly remembered the little bottles of blood in Daemon’s dressing room. The tinted windows of his Soho loft. His insistence on avoiding direct sunlight. As he bore me to the floor, his teeth and tongue working on the tender flesh of my throat, I panicked.
I’m being murdered by a vampire, I thought, right in front of hundreds of people!
Then I thought, And some of them paid three hundred dollars to see this show. Unbelievable!
I felt the spotlight on us intensifying and growing brighter; the effect was supposed to make Jane’s body look whiter, drained of blood as she died. I realized that if I gave a death rattle and went limp, Daemon would have to stop biting me and carry on with the scene. I tried it and, sure enough, it worked.
Daemon rose to his feet and uttered a few lines as I lay dead, my neck throbbing while I plotted his evisceration. Next, Leischneudel entered, found my corpse, and went mad with grief. Then the vampire, exercising hypnotic power over Aubrey, convinced the young man to take his own life. Leischneudel plunged a prop dagger into his torso and collapsed, staying well outside the spotlight that made me look pale enough to have been exsanguinated. The two of us lay motionless onstage as Daemon gave his final speech, a dark little homily about the price of messing with a vampire.
Two things happened as soon as the curtain came down. The audience exploded into thunderous applause and noisy cries of rapturous adulation. And I leaped to my feet, sought Daemon in the dark, and kicked him as hard as I could.
“Ow !” Leischneudel howled, f
lailing and stumbling backward.
“Oh, no!” I cried, realizing I had miscalculated. “I’m sorry!”
With my pupils contracted in response to the spotlight shining on Jane’s dead face, I couldn’t see anything when the stage went dark.
Leischneudel must have stumbled into Mad Rachel as she was coming onstage for the curtain call. I heard her bellow, “Oof! Goddamn it! Watch where you’re going!”
Someone touched me, and I swatted the hand away.
“It’s me,” Leischneudel said, shouting to be heard above the roar of the crowd.
“Oh! Are you okay?” I shouted back.
“Come on, hold hands!” Rachel said. “Why is everyone in the wrong place?”
“I think she tried to kick me!” Daemon sounded shocked.
“Come on,” Rachel said.
I still couldn’t see anything, but when I felt Daemon grab my hand, I shoved him. “I’m not holding your hand!”
“Here, I’ll do it.” Leischneudel shouted, “Daemon, give me your hand!”
“No! I’m not holding a guy’s hand in the curtain call!”
The curtain rose on us all standing there bickering.
We immediately fell into line for our bows, but I didn’t accept Daemon’s outstretched hand, and when he tried to grasp mine, I stepped out of reach as I smiled at the audience—who were all on their feet, shouting and applauding wildly.
We did four curtain calls, the most we’d ever done. The audience was still applauding and shouting for another one when the curtain came down again and I turned on my heel and stalked offstage, followed by Leischneudel.
“Are you okay?” I asked him, relieved to see he wasn’t limping.
“I’m fine,” he assured me.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I meant that kick for him.”
“So I gathered. What’s wrong? What happened?”
“I swear, I will kill him before this run is over.”
Daemon was onstage, taking another curtain call alone. Afterward, as soon as he exited into the wings, I walked up to him and slapped him so hard my hand stung. He staggered backward, his eyes watering.
He shook his head a couple of times, as if to clear his vision, then said, “Oh, come on, Esther. They loved it! Listen to that applause. Five curtain calls!”
“If you ever do that again,” I shouted, “I will hit you that hard onstage, in the middle of the performance. I mean it!”
“Hey, great show, guys,” Tarr said behind me. “Whoa, Esther! Daemon! You guys really took that scene to a whole new level!”
I resisted the urge to slug Tarr, too, and stormed down the hallway toward my dressing room. Behind me, I heard Daemon accepting Tarr’s congratulations.
“What a jerk!” I muttered. “Leischneudel?”
He was right behind me. “Yes?”
“I’m exhausted. I want to go home. Please get me out of this gown. Right now!”
“Of course.” He started undoing my laces, trotting to keep up with me. “What happened, Esther?”
“I think he’s started to believe his own bullshit.” And for a moment there, with Daemon’s teeth sinking into my throat, I had believed it, too. Feeling sticky, tired, and cranky, I added, “God, I want this dress off.”
“Halfway there.”
“Good.” I reached my dressing room, flung open the door—and froze when I saw Detective Connor Lopez there.
6
Lopez was sitting slumped in a stiff-backed chair next to the makeup table. His face was turned away from me, but I could see it clearly reflected in the brightly lit mirror that ran the length of the table. His legs were stretched out in front of him, his arms and ankles crossed, his chin resting on his chest. His eyes were closed and his long, dark lashes lay against his cheeks in peaceful repose.
He was ... dozing? Here?
He flinched and lifted his head abruptly when Leischneudel, hot on my heels as he unlaced the back of my costume, bumped into my suddenly immobile body, inadvertently smashed his pert nose against the back of my head, and exclaimed, “Ow!”
“Oops!” I said.
Lopez’s dazed gaze flew to us as he sat up, blinking in startled surprise. I stepped through the doorway and turned to face Leischneudel, whose hand was clasped over his nose while his eyes watered.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. You should get danger pay for working with me tonight. Is it bleeding?” I said in a rush, more flustered by the sight of Lopez than of my fellow thespian staggering backward in pain (again) because of me. “Come on, Daemon might not be far behind us. Get in here before he sees it.” After what had just happened, I wasn’t as certain as I used to be that Daemon’s appetite for hemoglobin was just an act.
I dragged Leischneudel into my dressing room, slammed the door behind us, and tried to pry his hand away from his face.
“Let me see it,” I said, using the firm tone I often found it expedient to employ with him.
He removed his hand and gave a little sniff as he reached for the pocket of his elegant Regency waistcoat.
“It’s not bleeding,” I said with relief. Unlike a certain D-list celebrity who reveled in his gothic antics (my neck was really smarting, and I knew there’d be a telltale mark there by tomorrow), I had no desire to see my colleagues’ blood.
Behind me, I heard Lopez rise to his feet and shove the chair away.
Leischneudel pulled out a neatly folded handkerchief and used it to dab at his eyes. “It’s all right. It just really hurt for a second there.” He sniffed again and shook his head. “I thought things like this wouldn’t happen anymore.”
“Things like walking into me?” I said.
“Pain.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I forgot you were right behind me.”
He stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket, touched his nose tenderly, and said, “I’m fine. It feels better already. And it’s a lot easier to get this thing off you when you’re standing still, anyhow.” He put his hand on my shoulder to turn me slightly as he shifted position to get his hands on the back of my dress again. That’s when he saw Lopez.
“Oh!” Leischneudel froze in surprise, his hands on the laces of my gown, as he stared at the strange man in my dressing room.
Taking in the detective’s uncharacteristically grubby appearance tonight, I suddenly realized how disreputable Lopez looked. Even intimidating. Particularly to someone who had no idea who he was or what he was doing here.
Come to think of it... “What are you doing here?” I blurted.
“You know him?” Leischneudel asked anxiously.
“We need to talk,” Lopez said to me.
“We do?”
“Right away,” he said, his gaze riveted on the sheer foundation garment exposed by my half-undone laces. Then his blue eyes shifted coldly to Leischneudel. “Hi.”
“Er . . . hello,” the actor replied, obviously wondering why Lopez looked ready to kill him.
My heart pounded with mixed emotions.
I had struggled with my desires but had remained resolute and strong since the last time we’d seen each other, that stormy night in Harlem more than two months ago. Why did Lopez have to come here now and make this even harder for me?
I had missed him so much. Why hadn’t he come sooner, damn him?
Wow, he came! He couldn’t stay away from me.
Okay, stop, I thought.
Recognizing the awkward silence that was filling the room as I stared in smitten fascination at Lopez while he and Leischneudel eyed each other, I realized that I should make introductions.
I said to Lopez, “This is Leischneudel Drysdale, one of the actors in the show.”
Calling on his good manners, Leischneudel released my laces and stepped forward to offer Lopez a courteous handshake.
I said, “Leischneudel, this is—”
“Hector,” Lopez said, giving Leischneudel’s hand a quick, curt shake. “Hector Sousa. I’m a friend of Esther’s.”
&nb
sp; I gaped at Lopez, stunned by his use of a phony name and having no idea what to say next.
Leischneudel looked down at his hand with a slight frown, rubbing his fingers together as if trying to remove an unpleasant substance.
This caused Lopez to rub his own hand self-consciously down the front of his sweatshirt. “Um, sorry.”
Always the gentleman, Leischneudel quickly said, “No, no, not at all.” But since the cat was out of the bag, he pulled out his handkerchief again and wiped his hand. I noticed that the white fabric came away darkly smeared, which would make Fiona even crankier than usual.
I glanced at Lopez’s hands and noticed that they were rather dirty, as if smeared with crude oil. Like everything else about his appearance this evening, that was unusual for him. While not fastidious, he was generally a clean, tidy guy. Tonight, though, he looked like a street thug. Or, alternately, like a laborer at the end of a long, hard overtime shift.
An NYPD detective assigned to the Organized Crime Control Bureau, Connor Lopez (who didn’t look like a “Connor”) was in his early thirties, slightly under six feet tall, and lithe and lean, like a soccer player. The youngest of three sons, he had inherited rich blue eyes from his Irish-American mother; and maybe his lush, full lips had been another of her hereditary gifts to him. Otherwise, he (I had always assumed) resembled his Cuban-born father; his straight, shiny hair was coal black, his skin was a burnished golden olive hue, and his facial features were strong and distinct.
When on duty, he usually wore conservative, budget-conscious suits (I suspected he was a regular customer of Banana Republic). Off-duty, I had mostly seem him dressed like any regular guy trying not to scare off a woman: casual, but not sloppy.
Tonight, though, he was in a hooded gray sweatshirt that had seen better days. There was an odd yellow stain around the bottom hem, a hole in one elbow, dark smudges all over the sleeves, and more smudges on his chest and stomach, as if he’d wiped his dirty hands there a number of times before now. The rounded neckline of a T-shirt was visible above the zipped-up V-neck of the sweatshirt, and I could see, even with this limited view, that the garment was ragged and old. His legs were covered by slightly baggy military khakis—the kind of bilecolored trousers that have lots of pockets and pouches. He wore lace-up work boots that came up to his shins. They looked waterproof, sturdy, and well-made; but like the clothing, they, too, appeared to have been in his life a long time and subjected to hard use.
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