Love Bites UK (Mammoth Book Of Vampire Romance2)

by Telep, Trisha

  I frown. “How many daylight vampires are there?”

  “Only a few dozen, but the programme is promising.”

  “Is it possible someone is trying to sabotage the movement by driving you to savagery or death?”

  He gives a hollow, almost spectral laugh. “Even likely, but I do not have the time to explore that possibility, my feline friend. Can you . . . will you . . . look after Vesper when I am gone?”

  Vesper emits an anguished screech and casts herself on the vampire’s chest.

  What can I do but promise? Still, I know I am in no position to shepherd a vampire pussycat. I need help with this case, probably human help.

  First, I stiffen my spine and judiciously pat down the fallen vampire. He is nicely dressed in silk-blend black from foot to, ah, neck, and well built as humans go under his fancy clothes. I find a couple of interesting objects in his sports coat side pockets.

  One is a slick multifunction device the size of a credit card. My street-calloused pads manage to punch enough buttons to call up his client list of blood donors. This causes my eyebrow whiskers to lift. They are all female, all right, and one is a well-known performer on the Strip. I could make some tidy dough from the tabloids if I outed her erotic . . . tastes.

  But that would be unethical. A plan is forming in my agile brain, but things are always complicated for a guy of my physical type.

  “What is this?” I ask Vesper, rolling a ping-pong-ball-sized object I found in his pocket from one paw to the other over the pavement.

  She leaps down to swat it away from me. “My toy.”

  “Just a minute there.” I manage to pull it safely against my hairy masculine chest. “There seems to be something inside.” I perk an ear at a muted but frantic buzzing.

  “My toy,” she repeats. “My master bought it for me.”

  A tug of toy ensues, during which, thanks to my superior strength, the ball breaks in half like a perfectly split eggshell.

  Well.

  The buzzing, now loud enough to decipher, resolves into an indignant high-pitched voice, as the winged inhabitant gives us both what-for.

  “It is a Whirr-away,” Vesper says. “My master hurls it for me to chase and find.”

  “Hmm.” I trap a tiny wing under one curved claw. “I have eaten bigger mites than this by accident. This is no ‘toy’, Vesper, it is an earth-bound pixie. Very rare. Your master must treasure you indeed.”

  “You would stoop to petty thievery while my master lies dying?”

  “I would stoop to using your ‘toy’ for a much more serious purpose. What is your name, little fellow?”

  “I am female,” the creature buzzes back at me.

  “Is it true that pixies are allergic to silver?” A lot of supernaturals can be injured by silver.

  I feel the tiny wing tremble against my pad. “Awful stuff. It burns my skin and if it ever enters my blood, I will die.”

  “Then I imagine you could spot the stuff instantly, from a long ways away?”

  Another shudder. “It is far too popular as human jewellery. I smell six women wearing it on the street out there.”

  “What if the silver sprang from a lock of long white hair?”

  The tiny human-like body leaps atop my mitt, pulling its wing free. “Changeling silver. That is different. Very rare and powerful. Almost non-existent in this realm.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Wasp-Wing.”

  “I take it you can fly far and fast, Wasp-Wing.”

  “Like bolt lightning. I have been leashed so as not to over-challenge the vampire’s feline companion.”

  “I usually work with a human female on my cases,” I explain to all who listen, which is a fading vampire, a heart-broken vampire cat and my new pixie pal. “We need human help and I am thinking of a new partner this time who might just have the paranormal talent to do the trick. Fly topside, find the woman who wears changeling silver and bring her back, fast as you can.”

  “That will depend on the woman,” Wasp-Wing rustles, vanishing like a dust mote against the neon-lit night.

  “My toy will never come back,” Vesper mourns. “I always had to trap and fetch it.”

  “Nothing wins over an ally more than letting it feel useful and challenged, Vesper.”

  “You expect this silver-bearing human female to save my master?”

  “At the very least, she can move the body.”

  She strikes at me with fanned claws, but I easily dodge the blow. Those vampire claws may be toxic, for all I know.

  “Calm down, Vesper. We all need help sometimes.”

  “If my master cannot drink he will die,” she growls softly, curling up along his side.

  I gingerly mount his chest, which of course does not lift up and down, and examine the weapon that pins him. It is not a toy either, but a curved claw two inches long. Small things can be potent, I know. Including pixies.

  Perhaps ten minutes later, a shadow fills the alley opening, then a figure strides to our location and stands, hands on hips, feet astride, looking down. She is wearing low-rise blue jeans and a grey leotard top.

  On her right elbow perches a tiny, glowing, winged figure.

  “It is a good thing I brake for butterflies,” she says. “My windshield almost pulverized the pixie before I discovered what it was. Am I to understand I have been summoned to perform a ‘professional courtesy’ for another PI?”

  “Nicely put,” I tell Wasp-Wing, although the woman cannot hear me.

  Now that a human is on the scene, I am back to my usual handicap: my vow not to speak to the breed. Pixies, luckily, have no such principles and this one has been buzzing her head off since she landed on my colleague’s windshield.

  The woman kneels beside the vampire, taking him for a fallen private investigator.

  “Man, you are nearly gone,” she murmurs as Vesper jumps up to rub back and forth on her bent leg, white fangs gleaming.

  I know what Vesper is thinking – she is hoping my hard-won assistant will trip over her onto her master and become instant fang bait.

  He struggles, feeling the temptation, and manages to whisper, “Stay away.”

  “No can do,” the woman says. “The pixie blabbed all. The name is Delilah Street. I am a paranormal investigator who has met a daylight vampire. I know your more-evolved type is mortally harmless to humans. We need to get you somewhere private.”

  He struggles as her hand reaches for the claw dart in his chest.

  “Bespelled!” Wasp-Wing whines a warning, hovering over Delilah Street’s fingers.

  “No problem,” she says, jerking out the claw as if it was a mere thorn. “What is your name?” she asks the vampire.

  His body still twitches from the stake’s removal. “Damien Abbott,” he gasps. “You planning my gravestone? A daylight vampire will not rise again, never fear.”

  “You had better rise now or you will die, and these cats and the pixie seem unhappy about that, which is good enough for me. My blood is a bit off, human docs tell me, but I am the only oasis you have got going, pilgrim. Can you take just enough to walk a few feet?”

  “I am stronger unstaked, but my control is shaky.”

  “I will have to trust it. I have never been vampire-bit. A minor withdrawal does not put me on the road to turning, Damien, but just a sip, pretty please.”

  “You are not my client.”

  “No, you are mine now.” She extends a brave, bare wrist to his lips. “As the Wicked Stepmother said to Snow White, whom I happen to resemble, ‘Come, bite.’”

  She is right. In the faint light I see her skin is almost as pale as the vampire’s and her hair as dark. I never thought I would live to see a smart dame inviting potential disaster, but I have heard Miss Delilah Street is the nervy type. I position myself to take a big chomp out of the guy’s private parts if he should overimbibe, and I can see his eye-white glisten as his gaze shifts to the threat I pose.

  Miss Delilah Street shudders a pix
ie shiver and then all is silent and still in the alley until Damien jerks his head aside.

  “I did not feel a thing,” Miss Delilah says.

  “I secrete an initial drop of anaesthesia.”

  “In fact,” she adds, purring a little like Vesper, who was now kneading her master’s arm, “you remind me of my daylight vampire acquaintance, who is quite a sexy guy.”

  “I secrete an aphrodisiac as well.”

  “Oh.” She jerks back, then moves behind him and bends to get an arm under his shoulder. “Upsy-daisy. Does my blood have any special effects?”

  He lurches upright and actually cracks a smile. “It is a bit on the effervescent side. You enjoy your champagne, Delilah?”

  “I am the Cocktail Queen of the Inferno Bar from time to time,” she quips. “I invent ’em more than drink ’em. Come on, you had the smarts to get darted just feet from the back of Wrathbone’s Bar. I called ahead for a private room.”

  “You are confident. What about –?”

  “The cats are following.”

  “No, the, the –”

  Miss Delilah Street looks down at me. Wasp-Wing had curled back into her ball, which I had rolled shut. Right now the lot was in my mouth, in my live prey carry, which would not dent a cotton ball.

  “Who do you think told me your location? Handy little thing.”

  “Wasp-Wing is my cell phone, and Vesper’s companion.”

  “Worry not. Your pocket-rocket pixie is safely stowed. Midnight Louie’s custody is the safest place for it.”

  “You know this alley cat who has designs on Vesper?”

  “Yup. He is a primo private eye, although I am surprised to see him walking on the wild side down here. He is not as young as he used to be.”

  I beg your pardon! I bare my fangs. But Miss Delilah Street is too busy planning her next move to pay any attention to mine.

  “Get inside,” she tells the temporarily revived vamp, “where I can nail the dart-thrower and save your undead life.”

  Miss Vesper pauses on the threshold, flaunting her fantail in my face to bring me to a sudden stop.

  “So you are a notorious figure in the Overworld?” she says.

  I sigh and let Wasp-Wing’s carrier down to roll into the room beyond. “I do cut a wide swath,” I say, striking a duellist’s pose with my foreshivs extended.

  “All you have done for my master is hang around me.”

  None are so unappreciated as the subtle. I step aside to permit the lady to enter first.

  Wrathbone’s is a rather rowdy venue, I have heard, with armed skeletons decorating the walls and a clientele that runs from adventure-seeking tourists to celebrity zombies to werewolf mobsters to vamps and narcs.

  This room we have entered, however, is rather luxe, with an inner sanctum, i.e., bedroom.

  “Perfect,” Miss Delilah declares, ushering our wounded vamp onto the bed within. “You might as well husband your resources in your usual field of operations.”

  “I have only so many minutes before I will need more than your compromised blood to keep conscious, much less . . . viable,” he warns.

  “Relax,” she tells him as Vesper rushes to claim what must be her usual spot on the bed. I well recognize the instinct. My Miss Temple has only one significant other (at a time; there are two vying for the prime spot), but that is another story in another place and time.

  Poor Miss Vesper must share her master’s accommodations with . . . several usurpers. I hasten to the anteroom and Miss Delilah’s side. She has seated herself to scroll through our host’s social register.

  “Seven women,” she mutters, “one for each day of the week, and all at staggered times. Six Thursday; nine am. Friday; noon Saturday; three Sunday; six Monday; nine pm. Tuesday. And midnight tomorrow: Wednesday.”

  She eyes my attentive presence. “Our vampire is a creature of habit, which makes him easy to target. I wonder if daylight vampires ever actually sleep.”

  I settle on my belly, forearms wrapped and abutting in my “wise mandarin” pose. Any minute now I would be calling Vesper “Grasshopper”, were she not reclining in the bedroom.

  “What is today’s nine pm client, Corrine, besides late?” Miss Delilah asks herself, and me. “Is she at their usual rendezvous? Or does she know she need not bother? Why not text her to come here?”

  “Now,” she tells me, “that done, it is high time for an interview with the vampire.”

  I appreciate being kept abreast, so to speak, of the proceedings, and accompany her back into the adjoining bedroom. Vesper reclines beside her enervated master, although the crimson velvet bedspread is my main attraction. I would look terrific on it and my black coat would add a formal touch nestling next to Vesper’s dazzling white one.

  Damien probably looks tasty to human females, with his white silk shirt open to allow the wound to heal, and his black-suited form long and lean against the plush fabric.

  I assume Miss Delilah Street must be thinking the same thing, because I hear her catch her breath.

  “Shades of Sansouci,” she murmurs mysteriously.

  “I had no idea the Sinkhole had places like this,” Damien says lazily.

  “Vegas has always sold seduction,” she answers.

  “You realize I need to get back on my feeding schedule soon. Your blood is strangely soothing and exciting at the same time, but I took only what I needed to get to a safe place.”

  “I know all that. One of your ladies is en route.”

  “My nine pm? Corrine? Good. She has a calm nature. No hysterics from her.”

  I can see Miss Delilah register that at least one of his ladies is hotheaded.

  Speaking of hot-headed ladies, Damien lifts a pallid hand to stroke Vesper’s little pink ears, earning a slit-eyed purr. Pitty-pat goes my heart.

  Miss Delilah sits on the foot of the bed. I see Damien’s shoes have been slipped off and he is in stocking feet, like Vesper and myself.

  “Tell me about your clients,” Miss Dee says. “I know their names and appointment times from your BlackBerry.”

  He shuts his eyes to save strength to talk, and perhaps to picture the seven mistresses on whom his undead life depends daily.

  “Corrine is a widow who deeply loved her husband and wants no other spouse. Midnight belongs to Violet, a goth girl who is dying to live the part. Dawn brings Petra, a career woman with no time for human love. Nine in the morning is Tess’ time. She is an artist. Noon means I lunch on Suzanne, a retired nurse who enjoys ministering to the needy. At three, Nelda arrives for tea and sympathy. She has multiple sclerosis, but is doing well now. The ancients thought bloodletting beneficial for disease. Sunset falls when Vyrle comes. She is a chorus girl and finds our activity energizing.”

  Miss Delilah snaps Damien’s BlackBerry shut and rises. “I will admit your nine pm appointment when she arrives.”

  “Corrine.” He smiles, relieved. “What a lovely person.”

  It is hard to pull myself away from the vision that is a red-velvet reclining Vesper with her pink nose and ears and very sharp white teeth. I could certainly spare a little blood for a rendezvous with a hot tamale femme fatale . . .

  Miss Delilah shuts the bedroom door and pulls a Mama-san chair with a huge round rattan back against the wall and sits. It provides an impressive background for her white skin, black hair and morning glory-vivid blue eyes. She would make one gorgeous blue-eyed black cat.

  “The only thing to do, Louie,” she addresses me as I arrange myself formally at her feet, “is to put each of Damien’s ladies to the test. I urgently texted them all to come here. We must find out where hatred hides behind their vampire-loving exteriors, because that surely was the motive.”

  Hatred of Damien? I wonder. Or someone jealous of his attachment to his other lady friends? Human emotions get so messy when it comes to sex. My kind avoids that sort of trap thanks to a little inborn thing called “heat”.

  The door to Wrathbone’s opens to admit a roar of laughte
r and the reek of booze, smoke and blood. In walks Miss Corrine. I see right away that Miss Delilah Street is dumbfounded. Me too.

  Miss Corrine is at least sixty, which can mean well preserved these days, but still silver-haired and sedately respectable. One would not imagine her in abandoned intimacy with a vampire, but life is like that and it takes a lot more to surprise Midnight Louie.

  “Who are you?” Corrine demands suspiciously. “I know it is nine-thirty. I was not on time for my nine o’clock, but he was not there . . . ”

  “I am Damien’s . . . agent. I am afraid that he has been injured –”

  Corinne ingests a gasp of horror.

  “– and he needs a full measure of replacement blood at once. Perhaps a client would be willing to . . . give all to save him. As you know, a future eternal life as a daylight vampire would not be insurmountable.”

  “Oh, no! How terrible. Poor Damien. He is a dear, but I have several grandchildren. Surely my usual allotment would help?”

  “Not enough fast enough.”

  Miss Corrine glances to the closed door and shudders. “I am so sorry. I live for my grandchildren. They need me. Several are in half-vampire, half-human families. I cannot give them up.”

  “I quite understand. Would you mind waiting at the reserved table outside the door? Damien’s other clients are arriving. One may make the ultimate sacrifice and save him. Or . . . he may wish to bid you goodbye.”

  “I do not know . . .”

  “Drinks, of course, are on the house.”

  “The others are coming? I know nothing about them. We have never met.”

  “Now is your opportunity.”

  It looks as if Miss Delilah Street knows females almost as well as Midnight Louie does. I have never seen a one who did not want to at least eyeball a romantic rival. Or maybe do her in. Or their common object of affection.

  No sooner has Miss Corrine, the widowed grandmother, departed than another knock comes.