Werehunter (anthology)

“Allow me.” A thin, graceful hand appeared over her shoulder, holding a tiny tube of surgical adhesive. “I had the sinking feeling that you would forget. This glue, cherie, it does not age well.”

“Piffle. Figure a back-stage haunt would know that.” She took the white plastic tube from Andre, and proceeded to attach the pesky lashes properly. This time they obliged by staying put. She finished her prepa­rations with a quick application of liner, and spun around to face her partner. “Here,” she said, posing, feeling more than a little smug about how well the black leather jumpsuit fit, “How do I look?”

Andre cocked his bowler to the side and leaned on his umbrella. “Ravishing. And I?” His dark eyes twinkled merrily. Although he looked a great deal more like Timothy Dalton than Patrick Macnee, anyone seeing the two of them together would have no doubt who he was supposed to be costumed as. Di was very glad they had a “pair” costume, and blessed Andre’s infatuation with old TV shows.

And they’re damned well going to see us together all the time, Di told herself firmly. Why I ever agreed to this fiasco . . .

“You look altogether too good to make me feel comfortable,” she told him, snapping off the light over the mirror. “I hope you realize what you’re letting yourself in for. You’re going to think you’re a drumstick in a pool of piranha.”

Andre made a face as he followed her into the hotel room from the dressing alcove. “Cherie, these are only romance writers. They—”

“Are for the most part over-imaginative middle-aged hausfraus, married to guys that are going thin on top and thick on the bottom, and you’re likely going to be one of a handful of males in the room. And the rest are going to be middle-aged copies of their husbands, agents, or gay.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “So where do you think that leaves you?”

“Like Old Man Kangaroo, very much run after.” He had the audacity to laugh at her. “Have no fear, cherie. I shall evade the sharp little piranha teeth.”

“I just hope I can,” she muttered under her breath. Under most circumstances she avoided the Romance Writers of the World functions like the plague, chucked the newsletter in the garbage without reading it, and paid her dues only because Morrie pointed out that it would look really strange if she didn’t belong. The RWW, she had found, was a hotbed of infighting and jealousy, and “my advances are bigger than your advances, so I am writing Deathless Prose and you are writing tripe.” The general attitude seemed to be, “the publishers are out to get you, the agents are out to get you and your fellow writers are out to get you.” Since Di got along perfectly well with agent and publishers, and really didn’t care how well or poorly other writers were doing, she didn’t see the point.

But somehow Morrie had talked her into attending the RWW Halloween party. And for the life of her, she couldn’t remember why or how.

“Why am I doing this?” she asked Andre, as she snatched up her purse from the beige-draped bed, transferred everything really necessary into a black-leather belt-pouch, and slung the latter around her hips, making very sure the belt didn’t interfere with the holster on her other hip. “You were the one who talked to Morrie on the phone.”

“Because M’sieur Morrie wishes you to give his client Robert Harrison someone to talk to,” the vampire reminded her. “M’sieur Harrison agreed to escort Valentine Vervain to the party in a moment of weakness equal to yours.”

“Why in Hades did he agree to that?” she exclaimed, giving the sable-haired vampire a look of profound astonishment.

“Because Miss Vervain—cherie, that is not her real name, is it?—is one of Morrie’s best clients, is newly divorced and alone and Morrie claims most insecure, and M’sieur Harrison was kind to her,” Andre replied.

Di took a quick look around the hotel room, to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything. One thing about combining her annual “make nice with the publishers” trip with Halloween, she had a chance to get together with all her old New York buddies for a real Samhain celebration and avoid the Christmas and Thanksgiving crowds and bad weather. “I remember. That was when she did that crossover thing, and the sci-fi people took her apart for trying to claim it was the best thing since Tolkien.” She chuckled heartlessly. “The less said about that, the better. Her magic system had holes I could drive a Mack truck through. But Harrison was a gentle­man and kept the bloodshed to a minimum. But Morrie doesn’t know Valentine—and no, sexy, her name used to be Edith Bowman until she changed it legally—if he thinks she’s as insecure as she’s acting. Three quarters of what La Valentine does is an act. And everything is in Technicolor and Dolby enhanced sound. So what’s Harrison doing in town?”

She snatched up the key from the desk, and stuffed it into the pouch, as Andre held the door open for her.

“I do not know,” he replied, twirling the umbrella once and waving her past. “You should ask him.”

“I hope Valentine doesn’t eat him alive,” she said, striding down the beige hall, and frankly enjoying the appreciative look a hotel room-service clerk gave her as she sauntered by. “I wonder if she’s going to wear the outfit from the cover of her last book—if she does, Harrison may decide he wants to spend the rest of the party in the men’s room.” She reached the end of the hall a fraction of a second before Andre, and punched the button for the elevator.