SNAP: New Talent

by Drier, Michele

  “We need to clear the air, again.” His voice sounded, what—tired, peeved, indifferent? When I glanced over, the glimmer had faded, not a good sign.

  “Something happened today that set you off. What was it?”

  “I took a walk down to the river this afternoon and when Vladmir and I came back through the armory, Sandor said that Vladmir had been assigned to me because of what I was going to do next. That meant that Sandor, and probably Vladmir, whom I’d never met before, both knew what I was about to do, where I was about to go, before I did. And that made me feel like chopped liver.”

  “‘Chopped liver’? What the hell does that have to do with anything.” Jean-Louis was honestly stumped, enough so that he wasn’t furious.

  “It’s just an expression. It means, well, that something’s not good enough. Instead of being a fancy pate de fois gras, you’re only chopped liver.” Explaining it like that made me feel pretty petty and using an American colloquialism was something I tried not to do, because it always threw the vampires who spoke the classical and upper-class dialects of the languages.

  Watching me stumble around trying to make sense of chopped liver, watching my face start to get pink, Jean-Louis lost some of his anger.

  “We do have differences. You’re right, I don’t always tell you everything, but that’s because I’m not used to caring about someone, or having someone in my world who cares about me. My focus has been the family and the business, so my confidants have been Stefan, sometimes Milos and Bela from the village here, occasionally Pen and the SNAP executive team.”

  That was a long statement, and one probably hard for him to make. He was this stunning man, at ease anywhere in the world, speaking several languages, able to hold his own against the best art directors in the business. And he’s apologizing to me. Well, he didn’t say “I’m sorry,” but this was the closest I’d ever get to it and it popped my bubble of anger.

  “I don’t like that I get so hurt by you.” I got up and moved to the arm of his chair. “I’m like you, I just haven’t had anybody to care about for so long, that I’ve woven a little world of my own and I’m the king, or queen...the most important person, anyway, and don’t have to answer to anybody. I’m used to being in a world where people worry about my moods, not where I have worry about some one else’s. Wow, when two egoists like us come together, there’s liable to be collateral damage!”

  He reached up and stroked my face, following the line on my chin with one of his long, sensuous fingers. I slid into his lap and nestled my head into his shoulder.

  “If you keep trying to remember to tell me things, to take me into your confidence, to let me help you plan, I will try not to take everything as a personal slight.”

  He nodded so I said, “Now, what plans do you have for me that the demons already know about?”

  Chapter Seven

  Jean-Louis moved so suddenly I was almost dumped on the floor. “My God, woman, you just never give up! You know that we’ve been talking about opening new outlets in the east...Ukraine, Russia, why is this such a big surprise?”

  Hah, I was right! I was getting shipped to Moscow!

  “When do I have to leave?” The thought of going to a strange city, a cold place where I knew no one and didn’t speak—or for that matter, read—the language, with only Vladmir for companionship and safety made chills run down my spine. Jean-Louis wouldn’t subject me to a long absence, would he?

  “Leave? Where are you going?” I would swear his puzzled look was real.

  “You’re sending me to Russia, to Moscow, aren’t you?”

  This time I did end up on the floor as this beautiful vampire threw back his head and laughed so hard he convulsed.

  “Where do you come up with these...these...ideas? Who ever said you were going to Moscow?”

  “Well, there’s Vladmir, there’s everybody suddenly speaking Russian. And what about Markov at dinner?” My indignation was tempered with my being on the floor in a Chanel suit with a skirt so tight I couldn’t bend a knee.

  Jean-Louis’ laughter tapered off, he stood up, lifted me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me. “I swear, you don’t rush to these weird assumptions when you’re making business decisions. What makes you do it where I’m concerned?”

  He brought me up short. I didn’t make half-assed assumptions in business. I asked questions, researched, knew all the information before I decided. That I did it so fast, and accurately, was what made me valuable; so valuable that SNAP hired me and the Huszars wanted me. When I came to my personal life, my life with Jean-Louis, well, if there was a dead-end road available, I took it.

  “It’s because of you. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

  “You mean because I’m a vampire? And I’m, oh, about 450 years older than you? And we have just slightly more money than Bill Gates... or the Habsburgs used to?”

  “Well, there’s all of that. But I think it’s an emotional vulnerability. It’s frightening to me to realize that I’m in love with you. Before, if I could keep it casual, if I could keep my own life away, inside myself, it didn’t matter so much if it wasn’t reciprocated, if the man moved on. Now, I’m terrified that I’ll lose you, or you’ll tire of me.”

  He put his finger across my lips, until I stopped talking and then kissed me, deeply and carefully, making the long bones in my legs melt.

  “And how do you think I feel, knowing that you’ll age and I won’t? That eventually you’ll die and leave me? That’s one reason Pen and Stefan are worried about us, about me. They watched me go though several affairs with regulars after Magda was killed and all that emotional upheaval pulled me away from SNAP and away from the family. I’m second in command of the family, and there are a lot of very old souls who rely on me, for whom I’m responsible.”

  And here was where so many of our arguments started.

  As the second in the family, it was up to Jean-Louis to watch the Huszars, to track their movements and to anticipate their changes. For a long while, this meant working with the demons, watching the Neutrality, keeping tabs on deaths and disappearances in the Carpathians and the surrounding areas.

  But when SNAP built a 24/7 media empire based on print and broadcast shows, and when television and then social media allowed for instant and world-wide communications, the Huszars watched gape-mouthed as the Kandeskys raked in the money with both hands.

  The feud exploded when I showed up. They realized I had the media and business savvy to grow the SNAP empire even larger, and to expand it to Eastern Europe and into Asia, and they lost it. They didn’t set out to kill me, they wanted to kidnap me so I could teach them to build a conglomerate to rival SNAP.

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen. Not if Jean-Louis and all the Kandesky demons could help it. So I got round-the-clock security, which I still thought of as captivity and chafed under. And that reaction drove Jean-Louis into a frenzy, so he stopped confiding in me and just worked with the demons to keep me under their surveillance. Which made me yell at him that he never took my feeling into considerations...which lead to....just say our Dance of the Stupid Egos was alive and smashing up a lot feelings as it lumbered back and forth.

  “We haven’t cleared up much.” I pulled away from him to catch my breath. “Am I, or am I not, going to Moscow?”

  “Not. At least not right now. We’re going to use some of Markov’s contacts in Kiev to begin something in Ukraine first. Test the market. The Russian oligarchy is still being run like a Mafia enterprise, with outward wealth and inward secrecy. We have to figure out how to develop information about all those billionaires.

  “And now, I have to get back to Stefan. We have a double agenda with the Huszars tonight. How’s the possible coup against Matthais coming along and who’s the best contact in Kiev. You’re welcome to sit in, but I’ll warn you, the conversation will only be in Hungarian and Russian and I won’t be able to translate.”

  It was a sop, but I gra
bbed it. At least if I were sitting at the table, I had gravitas with the Huszars, and truth-to-tell, with all the Kandeskys as well.

  Chapter Eight

  I hate meetings. I’m not a person who thinks going to meetings gets things done. I’m much better at one-to-one, make a decision, get it done.

  So why I thought sitting in a meeting with a bunch of vampires speaking Russian was going to be interesting, I don’t know. I put it down to what Jean-Louis did to me, and tonight he was doing it in spades. He looked glorious.

  Dinner tonight wasn’t formal, so Jean-Louis had chosen a dark gray pinstripe Armani suit, white shirt, subtly patterned tie, gold cuff links and a gold Patek Phillippe watch so thin that it looked as though it could float away. As we joined the meeting, he took off his jacket and rolled his shirt sleeves back, exposing his beautifully long and expressive hands and wrists. His glimmer was low and his eyes were so black they sparkled with reflected light. It was all I could do to collapse into a chair, not onto the floor.

  And that was the high point of the meeting. It went back and forth, with Jean-Louis doing most of the Kandesky talking. Occasionally Alessandr would say something, waving his hand for emphasis, and I took it that he was probably talking about the Neutrality. Jean-Louis would turn to Milos or Bela for clarification.

  When Markov spoke, it was Russian and I figured they were discussing the next step in Kiev. Stefan was quietly taking it all in, his eyes missing nothing. Pen sat next to him and the two would exchange a quick whispered consultation about a point then relapse to silent, careful watchfulness.

  I managed about an hour-and-a-half. When one of the house demons brought in a tray with water, coffee and Bulls Blood, the lull gave me a chance to leave with a small lie.

  “Please excuse me, I need to check New York emails and voicemails while there’s still time today. Baron, Pen, thank you for a lovely dinner, Jean-Louis, would you give my regrets to our guests for leaving?”

  Jean-Louis caught my eye with a glance that said “Later”. Or I hoped it said “later”. It was after two in the morning, and I didn’t want him to use up all of his night dealing with the Huszars and other business.

  Back in my suite, I changed to my California clothes, jeans and an old shirt of Jean-Louis’ that he’d left one morning, grabbed a bottle of water and went into my office. It wasn’t a total lie, there were always emails and voicemails from around the world. Keeping up with the Western Hemisphere and the U.S., particularly with the time difference between the coasts, meant I could practically do business any time I chose. Europe was easier, with just three hours to deal with.

  Tonight’s email stream was a flurry of cc’s on feedback from the show, layouts for the next magazine, requests from budding celebs for coverage, letters from PR agents letting us know that their clients would be at this party or that opening and wouldn’t we want to send a team to cover it. Jazz and her staff (she now had two assistants and was in middle management heaven; constantly referring to them as “my staff” in a way that always gave me a Biblical connotation), were doing a terrific job at keeping these every-day issues at bay.

  Jazz had catalogued the freelancers and paparazzi we used by country and expertise (film and TV stars, aristos, sports figures, politicos, just-plain-filthy-richos) so she had contract templates ready to go. Anyone new, she ran by me to vet. She’d send me work samples, clips or videos, reviews or testimonials, references and any rap sheets. Once they were OK’d we’d buy three or four submission from them. If those turned out well, they got moved to our “approved” status, which meant they could submit stuff, we’d use it (or not) and once a month send them a compilation of everything we bought, with a check.

  Also tonight was a nicer, longish, gossipy email from Francois. He was looking forward to me visiting him in Paris and had set up appointments with some of the couturier houses, both for shopping and to talk about coverage for the spring shows. We weren’t a fashion mag. Our competition wasn’t Vogue or Elle or Glamour. We covered the women who bought and wore those clothes, who attended the shows, and the men who (usually) paid for them.

  When we covered the Oscars (or any big celeb event) our writers and photographers had to know who was wearing what, where and when they bought it—or borrowed it, many times—and occasionally did a sidebar on the designer. This was amazing self-fulfillment and everybody won.

  I’d only had one chance to visit the Paris houses before I was whisked away to the Hungarian wilds, so I was excited about this trip. I also needed Francois to help me set up the same kind of a junket to Milan for the Italian shows, although the way Jean-Louis bought Armani and Gucci, he’d probably want to go.

  I was sidetracking about time in Milan with Jean-Louis and didn’t hear the door open, so when Jean-Louis touched my shoulder, I thought my heart would stop—from fear, not lust. Because I jumped so suddenly, he put his hand over my mouth to keep my screams from waking Elise, then leaned over to cover my mouth with his.

  That stopped the screams.

  This was a ploy he’d developed to keep me from waking up the whole wing of the castle. I have a huge startle reflex, which is deadly when I’m suddenly waked up. There had been a few occasions at the outset of my living here that proved embarrassing all the way around. My screams brought the maid and the demons running, usually with their guns drawn, which brought even more screams from the servants. And about this time, somebody always flipped on all the outside security lights, bathing everything in a weird bluish glow that pretty much woke everybody up except the vampires who were up anyway.

  It took an hour of so for everything to settle back down, so the word was out that nobody could just come into my rooms at night without making sure I was awake. Stefan, Jean-Louis and Sandor hoped this was enough of a deterrent that if—or when—I screamed again, it was really a threat . Of course Jean-Louis being Jean-Louis, he handled it in a slightly different way, which was fine by me.

  I returned his kiss and wound my arms around his neck.

  “I’m surprised you stayed as long as you did at the meeting,” He broke away, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Felt you proved your point?”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  “Ha, that’s one of the things I love about you. You’re so adult.” He stuck his out at me, which cracked us up.

  “You’re so damned smug, you knew I wouldn’t be able to stick with the meeting.”

  He smiled. “I know, but it meant a lot to you to be there, so there you were. Want to know what happened?”

  “Of course I do, but what time is it? How soon before you have to leave?”

  “It’s only four and sunrise isn’t until almost seven.”

  “Let’s talk then. Want something to drink?”

  He wiggled his eyebrows. “What are you offering? You?”

  “Not hardly. What’s happening with the coup?” If I didn’t keep the banter light, either we’d end up back in our Stupid Cycle or I’d fall so far under his spell that I’d become a donor, something he’d asked me about but not something I was ever going to think about.

  He laid back in the chair and draped one of his long legs over the arm. “Where is the coup going? I’m not sure. Alessandr is energetic, but not one of the brighter Huszars. And that’s saying a lot from that bunch, none of whom are very bright. I really need to deal with Karoly, he’s got the best handle on manipulation and disinformation. I’ve loaned him several books and political maneuvers and propaganda.”

  I was surprised. I’d figured that Karoly and his band of merry vampires were chafing under Matthais’ hand and just wanted to exercise a little of their own power. Now Jean-Louis was saying that this may actually look like a regime change. Who was Karoly planning on using disinformation on? His own tribe? The villagers they consistently hunted for food? The lower echelons of the various governments of the area they called their territory?

  It must have been hard on the vampire families, keeping track of the political divisions that overl
apped their home areas. When they were young, or new, or regulars, the area was all part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a huge swath of Central Europe. After World War I, the empire split apart into different countries, a move that was even more complicated after World War II. Bring in the Cold War, the Soviet influence, the breakup of the USSR, and you had some cities that were in seven different countries or political subdivisions, within a hundred years. Trying to remember who to pay off, and in which currency, kept the Huszars on their toes.

  But disinformation sounded like they were going to head in a different direction and needed some positive spin on their motives.

  “What, exactly, are Karoly and his followers trying to do?”

  Jean-Louis waved his hand. “I don’t know, but what I’m trying to get them to do, is to become a subsidiary.”

  “What? You want them to be part of the Kandeskys?” I snorted at the thought. “These are the people—well, not really people, but...you know—who have fought with you for centuries over territory, food, power. And let’s not forget that they’ve had it in for me. Now they’ll just come along quietly into the fold? I think not!”

  As I stood up, all hell broke loose outside. And this time when I screamed, Jean-Louis didn’t stop me.

  Unidentified things beat against the side of the building, smashed into the windows and rained soot down the fireplaces. The outside lights blazed on, showing the terraces and gardens in strobe-like detail. I was torn between rushing to the windows and hiding under the bed covers. As I wavered, Jean-Louis calmly walked to the door and had a quiet conversation with Vladmir. I heard, “Let’s give it about five more minutes,” before I rushed into the bathroom and locked the door. Even through the door, though, I could hear the shrieks of whatever was attacking, undercut by the deep shouts of the demons. “Over here,” “No, toward the river” “I’ve netted some!”