Meanwhile, Dashiell had a few updates from Las Vegas. All upcoming productions of Demeter had been canceled. There was a rumor floating around that the Holmwoods had left town with the show’s profits, though the Bellagio declined to press charges. A new Cirque du Soleil show was announced for the Bellagio theater a few days later, and after a couple of weeks of speculative newspaper articles, everyone moved on.
The hospital shooting in Boulder City was blamed on one of the orderlies, who had, the story went, killed a bunch of his colleagues before turning the gun on himself. I felt a little bad about that, but ultimately I had too many other things to feel guilty about.
I spent a couple of days resting and healing, and then my life got more or less back to normal, at least on the outside. I cleaned up supernatural messes, worked on Dashiell’s security with Hayne and his team, trained with Marko, and watched TV with Molly. I went through all the motions, but I couldn’t help but feel different. Older, mostly.
The one bright spot that came out of the whole mess was Wyatt’s surprisingly smooth transition into life in LA. Dashiell had offered him a job on a security team at one of his companies, but Wyatt turned him down and got his own part-time gig, as a bartender at a gay cowboy bar in West Hollywood. The job kept him busy and distracted, and gave him somewhere to go every night. And after decades in Las Vegas, there was nothing the homosexual cowpokes of Los Angeles could do that would so much as raise an eyebrow on the old vampire. When he wasn’t working, Wyatt stuck close to the mansion, running nighttime errands for Dashiell or working on Beatrice’s garden under floodlights. I saw him fairly often, and every time Laurel called me to check on him, I could truthfully say he seemed at peace with his new life.
At least for the next year or so.
As for me, grief seemed to have taken root in my chest again. I’d lost people before, God knows, but Jameson’s death hit me harder than I would have expected. Maybe it was because he was a null too, or because I had seen a romantic future for us, but I began having nightmares about him that rattled me. In the dreams I saw him dead, or bleeding out, or—worst of all—perfectly fine and laughing, in bed with me. There were nightmares about Malcolm, too. In those dreams, it was me he found, me he shaped into what he wanted. There were many nights when Molly shook me awake, her eyes wide with alarm, because I’d extended my radius in my sleep.
After a couple of weeks of this, I started researching what it would take to go to New York and assassinate Malcolm. He may not have pulled the trigger himself, but in so many ways, he had orchestrated Jameson’s death. I wanted him to pay for that.
Dashiell somehow figured out what I was doing, though, and warned me off. Actually, he didn’t warn me off, which was sort of refreshing. He just told me I needed to work on my timing. “You’re not ready,” he said sternly. “And he’ll be expecting it now. Better to wait a bit, and let him think he’s won.”
So I put the idea on hold, but the nightmares persisted. Eventually I wondered if my subconscious might be tormenting me because we’d never held a funeral. Jameson’s body was buried in a mass grave in the Nevada desert, but it wasn’t like the lack of a body made it impossible to pay my respects. When my friend Caroline had died, we’d at least had a memorial service. I guess I just hadn’t realized how important it was to say a real goodbye until the opportunity was taken from me. Which was another terrible irony, because getting rid of dead bodies was part of what I did for a living. For years, I had refused to think about what destroying bodies did to the victims’ loved ones. Now it was me.
I could have asked Beatrice to put together a memorial service, of course, or maybe even done it myself . . . but who would I invite? Who was left to remember Jameson besides me and the horrible Malcolm, who was responsible for his death? That was the worst tragedy of all. Jameson had lived a short life filled with pain and bitterness, and now he was gone, with almost no evidence that he’d ever lived.
Well. That was what I thought, anyway.
It was Shadow who clued me in. She went from her normal level of “attached and protective” to suddenly giving me the full Secret Service treatment. She stuck to my side even in our own yard, where she’d always enjoyed roaming around, and even came into the bathroom when I showered, standing guard just outside the tub. Sometimes she would paw and whine at me for no apparent reason, getting frustrated, like she was trying to tell me something that I was just too oblivious to understand.
Until, with a growing sense of terror, I did.
“Scaaaaaaaaaaarlett,” Molly yelled. It was a Thursday night, three weeks into April, and we were all set up for house movie night. It was Molly’s turn to pick what we watched, but she had surprised me by eschewing the usual romantic comedies in favor of an Ingrid Bergman mini-marathon. Jesse had promised to come by for the second feature, Notorious, after he finished family dinner at his parents’ house.
“Are you coming or what?” Molly called. “I know humans spend a lot of time in the bathroom, but this is getting ridiculous!”
Dazed, I swung the bathroom door open and shuffled into the living room like the living dead. Shadow, who had managed to wedge herself into the small bathroom with me by standing in the dry tub, followed at my heels, keeping to my slow pace like she was spotting me for a fall. Which maybe she was.
“Scarlett?” Molly asked, her eyes filling with concern. “Have you been crying?” When I didn’t answer, she rushed to add, “Uh, I didn’t mean to hassle you about the bathroom; you can stay in there as long as you want.”
I just shook my head. “I don’t know how to . . . this is so . . . so . . .” I didn’t have the words.
Looking panicked, Molly vaulted off the couch and rushed over to me, grasping my arms. “What happened?” she asked, searching my face. “Did someone hurt you?”
In answer, I held up my fist, clenched so tightly that my knuckles ached, so Molly could see the test.
“I’m pregnant.”
Acknowledgments
Being exposed to the work of Joss Whedon at a formative age taught me maybe my hardest lesson about writing: no matter how much you like your guy, you gotta keep knocking them down. Your hero can win the biggest of battles, but having a series means you will have to knock them back down again. It’s not always fun, or easy, but it’s also the only way readers can watch your hero learn to pick herself back up.
Over the course of five novels I have had a great time watching Scarlett pick herself back up again, each time a little stronger and smarter than before. If I’m being totally honest, somewhere along the way I began to enjoy devising ways to knock her down, too. For me, that was the final hurdle to becoming a writer: when I finally got past the urge to only be nice to my darling protagonists. Life isn’t nice, and there’s no reason why life in a world full of magic should be any nicer. The key thing for me, and the reason I love being a writer, is that Scarlett always gets up, and she’s always a little better for having fallen.
In many ways Blood Gamble is the culmination of both Scarlett’s journey and my own. It’s a fish-out-of-water story about someone who just learned to swim in their own pond, and it ends with a game-changer (sorry, that was a lot of metaphors just there). Believe it or not, the twist at the end of Blood Gamble has been part of my plan since Dead Spots, and I’m so excited and grateful to have finally reached this plotline, possibly the most epic of all my knockdowns.
I do understand—I’ve understood all along—that this ending will worry or aggravate some longtime readers. I have agonized over the upcoming response to this book, but ultimately I decided I needed to stick to my plan for Scarlett and the series. If this alienates you to the point of needing to quit reading my books, I thank you for taking the journey with me thus far. But to those of you on the fence, or worried about the novels “jumping the shark” (oh, how I loathe that expression), I say: Wait. Watch. There is a plan.
Meanwhile, as usual, there are many people I need to thank for helping me make Blood Gamble a book I can be p
roud of. My enormous gratitude to Tara Erson (pronounced TAR-uh, like the sticky stuff), a great friend who welcomed me into her home in Las Vegas and took time out of a crazy schedule to show me around the city—despite suffering from an excruciating toothache pretty much the whole time. Like Scarlett, I’m not particularly fond of the Strip, but visiting Tara always helps me understand the fascinating, vibrant, and always-evolving city beyond the casinos, where real people live completely sequin-free lives. A disclaimer: this book mentions a number of real-life locations, and a couple that I made up so I could trash them. Because this is fiction, I have taken many liberties with layout, security, hours, etc. in order to tell a better story. All resulting inaccuracies are mine alone.
My thanks also goes out to Alex Bledsoe, a great writer and friend, who was gracious enough to do a signing with me at Barnes & Noble in Madison when I was promoting my novella Nightshades. The topic was vampires, and the discussion inevitably turned to Dracula. Because the Transylvanian count has appeared so many times, in so many formats, someone asked us if we would ever write Dracula in our own books. Alex said no, because Dracula is sacrosanct, and because putting him into a book would result in comparisons to the original, which is a fight you can’t win.
I said, “Hold my beer.”
Kidding. I don’t drink beer. But the conversation did get me thinking that while I wouldn’t necessarily write Count Dracula, it could be fun to dip a toe into the lore. And that became the seed of the Holmwoods’ story you see here.
Thank you to the team at 47North: my acquisitions editor, Adrienne Procaccini, my amazing developmental editor, Angela Polidoro, and the other behind-the-scenes people who are instrumental to putting out the finished product you now hold. I also want to thank my husband, Tyler, who gave me an idea that became the engine for much of the plot, and my wonderful extended family, who read my books and act as my champions in so many ways. Thank you to my parents, not because they particularly helped with this book (although Dad did have a few nice Vegas tips), but because they raised me and are therefore kind of responsible for everything I do. Actually, if you have issues with the book, maybe take it up with them? Just a thought. (See how I just complimented them and threw them under the bus in the same paragraph? My dad taught me that.)
Scarlett Bernard will return in Shadow Hunt.
Melissa Olson
March 10, 2017
About the Author
Photo © 2013 Elizabeth Kraft
Melissa F. Olson was raised in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, and studied film and literature at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Melissa is the author of eight Old World novels for 47North as well as the Tor.com novella Nightshades and its two sequels. She now lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her husband, two kids, three dogs, and two jittery chinchillas. Read more about her work and strange life at www.MelissaFOlson.com.
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