Under Wraps

day?” She folded her legs underneath her and kicked off a pair of complicated-looking heels, then sunk onto the sofa next to me. I shivered and pulled my robe tighter against the waft of cool air that came from her marble skin.

“Thanks for not letting him eat me,” I whispered, leaning into her.

“I wasn’t going to eat you!” Vlad called without looking up from his laptop. “At least not a lot.”

“So,” Nina repeated, her midnight-dark eyes glittering, “how was your day with Officer Love? Excellent? Wonderful? A freak show of wild, breather sex?”

“I’m sitting right here!” Vlad moaned.

“You’re one hundred and twelve, get over it. Humans have sex,” Nina called back.

“Gross.”

I downed my wine and Nina frowned.

“That bad, huh?” she asked.

“Not with Officer Lo—I mean Detective Hayes. He’s fine—straddles that fine line between obnoxious and wonderfully hot—but fine. It’s this case.” I shuddered. “There was another murder today.”

I saw the top of Vlad’s head poke over his laptop screen as he listened in. Nina looked away, reaching for an out-of-date InStyle magazine on the coffee table. “I still don’t see why this is such a big deal. Everyone kills everyone in this city. Everyone’s either dead, undead, or dying.”

I raked my fingers through my hair. “Nina, this is serious. The crime scene, it was awful. It was a woman our—or, my—age. There was blood everywhere.” I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry. “And someone removed the woman’s heart.”

Nina’s eyes flashed. “Removed it?”

“Removed it?” Vlad repeated. “Completely?”

I nodded. “Gone. Hayes is convinced it’s a vampire.”

“Stupid,” Vlad groaned, going back to his computer game.

Nina raised an eyebrow and snapped a magazine page, ignoring Vlad. “Is that so?” She sat forward. “Does this detective even know anything about vampires? Anything at all? Humf.” She snapped another page. “He probably thinks we’re anti-garlic, too.”

“You hate garlic.”

Nina pinned me with a glare. “It gives me bad breath.”

I pinned her back. “You don’t have breath.”

Vlad chuckled from his spot at the table.

Nina rolled her eyes. “Anyway. We don’t do hearts. Or waste blood. Ever. Starving vamps in Africa, you know?” She pointed, her eyes narrowed. “Hobgoblins. That’s what you’re dealing with. They’re sloppy. And into all those weird organ meats.”

I could feel my eyes bulge.

“And they’re more likely to go rogue. Hobgoblins and zombies. They have no respect for the rules.”

“Ghouls either,” Vlad supplied.

“What do you think of me in this dress?” Nina folded a page back and held the magazine up to her narrow cheekbone. “Good?”

I sunk back into the couch, my stomach gurgling. “I can’t think of fashion right now. People are dying. And other people are thinking it’s coming from the Underworld. You know—”

Nina wrinkled her pixie nose. “I know. Delicate balance between worlds, blah, blah, blah.” She tossed the magazine and kicked her legs up onto the coffee table, balancing her chin in her palm. “You don’t think it’s coming from the Underworld?”

“I don’t know. There was veiling and a pentagram, so it’s got to be someone who knows their magics.”

Nina eyed me, the corners of her mouth turning up. “Pentagrams? How very every eighties horror movie. And any demon could learn to veil; it’s magic one-oh-one.”

“Can you?” I asked.

Nina looked away. “Any person could learn to do it, too.”

“Well, the veiling was one thing, but the rest … I’ve worked in the Underworld for a long time, Nina. I’ve worked with vampires, werewolves, even hobgoblins, and I’ve never even seen a hint of this kind of”—I shuddered again—“destruction.”

Nina raised a sculpted eyebrow.

“Not even from zombies,” I added. “Or ghouls.”

“Well,” Nina said, sitting forward, “remember when that Chaos demon ate your goldfish? That was pretty destructive.”

“A Chaos demon ate your goldfish?” Vlad said. “Cool.”

“It was not cool,” I snapped. “He swallowed Tipsy whole And the little plastic pirate ship she was hiding in. But the stupid demon didn’t rip her heart out.”

Nina shrugged, letting one elegantly slim arm hang over the arm of the couch.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Soph,” Nina started. “It certainly could be human. I’ve definitely seen a lot of crazy lunatic breathers in my day. Or days.”

“And people think we’re the monsters,” Vlad said.

Nina grinned then, her little fangs blue-white against her bright red lipstick. “So, what are you up to tonight?”

I glanced at the clock, then nodded toward my bedroom. “I can’t think of anything other than sleep.” I tapped my chest. “Breather, remember? We thrive on sleep. What about you?”

Nina gave me a smug smile and headed toward our guest room, which doubled as her enormous, stuffed-to- the-gills closet. “I am introducing my baby nephew Louis—”

“Aunt Nina, it’s Vlad!” Vlad moaned.

Nina rolled her eyes. “Whatever. We’re going to a new all-night club. It just opened right off the Haight. It’s called Dirt.”

I wrinkled my nose. “A club called Dirt?”

She raised a pleased eyebrow. “It’s strictly provamp. And way more breather-acceptable than its predecessor, Blood.”

“Do you have something to wear, Vlad?” Nina asked, stressing his name.

Vlad stood, smoothing his vest. “I’m wearing this.”

Nina poked her head out of her closet. “Awesome. I’m going to the hottest new club in town with a Halloween costume. Just”—she scrutinized Vlad’s suit—“don’t walk too close to me.”

“Hey,” I called, following Nina into her room as she nearly disappeared behind a lacy heap of vintage Betsey Johnson dresses. “How’d it go with Mr. Sampson tonight? Did you have any trouble with the chains? Sometimes the ankle lock sticks.”

“Ankle lock?” Vlad asked.

“Sampson’s a werewolf,” I called over my shoulder.

Vlad shrugged and went back to playing his game.

Nina stopped her rushed plow through her pillaged couture, and her head popped up, a silky cashmere tank top bunched around her thin shoulders.

I crossed my arms, panicked. “You did remember to chain Mr. Sampson, didn’t you?”

She gently gnawed on her bottom lip. “It’s not even a full moon, Soph. He’ll be fine, right?”

“Nina!”

She struggled into her tank top and stepped into a pair of deep-purple suede mules. “So I forgot this one time! I’ll do it tomorrow. No big.”

“You can’t just do it tomorrow!” I threw back the curtains and stared out the window, my eyes searching the inky night sky for the moon. “You have to chain him every night.”

Nina came out of her room, straightening her going-out clothes. “I thought that was just precautionary.”

I let out a long sigh, rubbing my temples. “It is—kind of. Werewolf evolution is so rapid. But”—I glanced outside again—“we have to do it. Every night.”

Nina bit her lip, looking apologetic. I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Don’t worry, Nina. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks,” she said, wrapping her tiny cold hands around my forearms. “I promise I won’t forget again. Besides”—she shrugged, her shoulders delicate and starkly pale against the black straps of her tank—“Sampson will