He crouched by the door, eating cold beef stew out of a can with his fingers. I used the duct tape to fasten the cheap curtains down, the weight of approaching dawn filling my entire body with lead.
“Don’t open the door,” I said, again.
He nodded vigorously. “No housekeeping. No visitors. No no.”
I did not bother to take off my boots. Tomorrow we needed more money, a different car, more travel. There were other cities. They all held Prometheans, true, but Leonidas would not look for me if Tarquin said I was dead. And I had no fame among the Kin. I was merely an anonymous Preserver, working to hold back the tide of time.
I watched the
I pulled up the blankets. Bleach, industrial-strength detergent, and the ghosts of mortals lived in the cloth. I arranged the flat pillows and lay on my back, hugging the red file folder to my chest. Evidence of Leonidas’s treachery. Even Prometheans were not supposed to turn on their own kind. How long had he been planning this? How many other Preservers had died, or lost their charges to this malice?
Did it matter? I am immortal too. I could keep this evidence for a long, long time. If there was ever a chance, I could find a way to make the viper sting the White King.
And Wolf? Did Leonidas have a reason to hate him as well, or was he just the victim of mortal cruelty? Where were his kin? Destroyed? Still living?
Did it matter? He was my ward now. One more thing to save. Perhaps I could do a better job of it now.
“Pretty Eleni,” he slurred. “Good
Our kind does not weep. So why were my cheeks wet? I shut my eyes and called up their faces, each printed on the darkness behind my lids.
Zhen. Virginia. Peter. Amelie. Vengeance did not give them a heartbeat again. It did not salve the wound.
Another empty can hit the pile in the bin. I breathed steadily, wishing for the unconsciousness of daysleep. The sun was a brass note hovering at the edge of my hearing, ready to climb over the horizon and scorch the earth once more.
The sun drew nearer, and my body became unresponsive. The bed creaked. Wolf climbed up and settled against me. The file’s heavy paper crinkled, but I freed one arm and he snuggled into my side, his head heavy on my slender iron shoulder. He made a low, happy sound.
I fled into darkness as the sun rose, and wept no more.
VAMPIRES PREFER BLONDES
P. N. Elrod
WATERVIEW, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 1937
My weeklong singing engagement at the Classic Club was over, and my hard-earned pay was safe in a grouch bag hanging from my neck. All I had to do was trade my stage gown for a traveling suit, then get to the station to catch the milk train heading home to Chicago.
I was just dropping on a slip when my dressing room door crashed opened.
Being a damned pretty girl with a head of carefully tended platinum blond hair, guys “accidentally” blundering in on me has been a common occurrence since my first night onstage. As the star of this week’s show I had the luxury of a private room, kept locked against such interruptions. This door’s hook-and-eye latch was enough to discourage the casually curious, but not a meaty shoulder banging against it with serious force.
The latch snapped, one piece flying across to
Four men crowded the opening, staring. I don’t mind when I’m onstage, but this was my sanctuary. Had they burst in two seconds sooner we’d have been arrested by the vice cops.
“What?” I snapped, ready to fight. Just how drunk were they, how had they gotten past the bouncers, and how much belligerence would be required to get rid of them?
The closest was the biggest and apparently the muscle behind the breaking-in. He was unshaved; his clothing was seedy; his eyes were puffy, bloodshot, and oddly calm. The others were similarly unshaved and red-eyed, but one was in a new suit and looked like a respectable banker, another wore brown pants and a blue coat over just an undershirt, and the third was fully dressed but had no shoes, just filthy wet socks.
Collectively an alarming sight, but my intuition said to stand my ground and act tough.
“What is it?” I demanded, prepared to cut loose with a healthy scream if they made a move. I could shoot, but preferred having the club’s bouncers deal with this … whatever it was.
The banker said in a flat voice, “She’s not the one.”
No-Shoes said, “She’s blond, it’s the right hair.”
“She’s not the one,” the banker repeated. He had something in one hand that might have been a photograph and held it up for the others. Sluggishly, they looked at it, then back at me, while the skin on the back of my neck went tight and cold. Whatever was wrong with them was an unnatural kind of wrong, yet weirdly familiar.
“She’s not the one,” they finally agreed in identical flat voices, then turned and went down the backstage hall to the next door along.
Same operation: Seedy Guy forced the door open, and they looked inside.
The other headliner, a ventriloquist, was surprised as hell and more talkative, angrily asking questions, getting no answers.
“Not a girl,” said the perceptive banker. This time they didn’t check the photo.
I’d tiptoed over to watch, ready to duck, but none of them paid me further notice. I was shaking, fuming, and scared as I tore down the hall yelling for the stage manager and anyone else handy.
A couple bouncers appeared, offering friendly leers, since I was wearing just a slip, but they shot past to earn their keep when shrieks started up in the chorus girls’ dressing room.
The strange invaders had a bad time of it because I didn’t stop raising the roof until they were outnumbered by club employees three to one. Half measures are silly in some situations.
The backstage area was quickly packed with struggling bodies, punches were thrown and caught, clothes ripped. The confined area heard thumpings, glass breaking, men cursing, and girls squealing for what seemed like an hour, but was probably less than a minute. The bouncers knew their business and appeared to be enjoying the exercise. The four men made a good effort to defend themselves, though they moved like players who had overrehearsed and lost their spark.
But if you’re going to have a fight, this was the best kind: brief, brutal, and with the home team victorious.
The men got the bum’s rush. The bouncers and a few other guys who had joined the battle carried things to the back alley, and probably would have rolled into the street, but the club manager stopped them.
“No trouble with the law!” he bellowed, which halted the diehards. It was an advantage to any business not to have police cars roaring up and down the block, scaring off customers. The Classic Club, with illegal gambling in the basement, was particularly considerate of the feelings of its patrons.
The manager stormed into the backstage hall, scowling at the chorus girls who had cautiously emerged from their lair. “All right—who started it?”
With five of them in various stages of dress, undress, outrage, and agitation, he should have known better. They all started talking at once.
He should also have counted. Last I looked there were six girls in the line. While he tried to make sense of simultaneous stories, I eased into the dressing room.
It was like mine, drafty and poorly lighted, but with a lot more stuff confined to roughly the same space. A clothing rack took up the wall behind the door, near to collapse with gaudy taffeta, spangles, and feathers. Onstage
