juice and wine bar.” She narrowed her tar-pit eyeliner at me. “I see you shop last century. La Vida Loca will have you out of those nineteen-forties fat farm dresses and into sixties anorexic Alice-in-Wonderland white tights and French nape-bows in no time.”
“Is this a chain?”
“Shut your mouth with duct tape!”
Somehow the imagery had turned very creepy.
“This is a one-and-only totally spa-experience health club,” the receptionist said. “We specialize in after- hours workouts for the working girl.”
“Who’s the boss?”
“Our owner and CEO is leading the Zumba Zapata class and should be down in a few minutes. Step up to the bar and have an energy drink on the house.”
Anybody is a fool for a freebie, me not excluded. I plopped myself on a bar-height stool at what looked like an old-fashioned soda fountain with chrome taps and stainless steel mixing machines.
Lilith was missing out on a fun detour down Delilah Street.
“What can I getcha?” The tanned, collegiate-looking blond guy wearing the cop mustache behind the counter looked so California.
I studied the handwritten menu above the work area. Between graphics of smiling and fan-dancing fruits and veggies I perused a funky list of smoothie names, like Bloody Mary Contrary and Vegetarian Voodoo.
“I’ll have a Red Zombie.” Since I’d created a Silver Zombie cocktail I was curious about the nonalcoholic fresh and fruity version.
“Freshly squeezed,” he said with a wink.
“Pomegranate,” I suggested.
The mixer machine was whirring like a speedboat engine, so I didn’t hear his answer.
He turned to put a tall beer glass of scarlet liquid down at my place.
“Cranberry?” I tried next.
He shrugged and returned to polishing the chrome and stainless steel for the next day. I’d just have to use my connoisseur’s nose and tasting tongue.
I had the glass rim at my lips when a hand from behind me snatched it away.
“A glass of sparkling water for the lady,” a low, contralto voice ordered. “She’s the designated driver type.”
I turned indignantly, already pointing at the chorus line of fruits and veggies on the sign above.
“Merely mixers, my dear, not the hard stuff actually on tap. Let’s have a look at you.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
I slipped off the stool and turned to stand nose-to-nose with her. My designated fairy godmother was a tall brunette poured into a peacock-blue leotard. White skin, dark hair and eyes, with that coal-black mane pinned off her neck in a forties updo. Not a drop of sweat showed on her or the leotard she rode in with. Not a bit of a hitch in her breathing.
I managed to remain as cool as one of the line-dancing cucumbers above us. “The Vida in La Vida Loca, I assume.”
Very red lipstick made her teeth look supernaturally white as she smiled, particularly the pointed canines. Or it could be Crest strips. And a genetic tendency to sharp incisors.
“Ihateyourguts,” I got out and closed my eyes. “Just something I wanted to get off my chest once before I die.”
She leaned past me. I peeked to see her claiming my abandoned Red Zombie.
“Welcome to Delilah Street, Delilah. Let’s talk in my office. Take your sparking water.” She eyed the bartender. “I’ll lock up the health bar, Bane.”
While I followed her past the steel-and-birch suspended staircase, a flock of fit young women thronged up it in thong leotards and tights. All were pale, thin, muscular, wearing the same Revlon red lipstick as my hostess, the thick creamy old-fashioned kind that caked and would peel off with a bit of your lips as it got old. Kinda a metaphor for vampires.
They slowed, their eyes fixed on me as they ran into one another and formed a clot on the stairs, predatory pupils dilating, lips parted, and not from exercise.
“Come along,” Vida ordered, emphatic.
I skedaddled after her through a pale birch door. Better one-on-one. The office furniture beyond was more silver-and-blond Nordic modern with accents of scarlet leather and silk. My hostess finished wrapping a sarong around her hips, Dorothy Lamour or Hedy Lamarr come to life from some native girl film of this woman’s prime, the nineteen freaking forties.
I stood with my back to the closed door. “You’re Cesar Cicereau’s Vida.”
She froze like a statue of an Egyptian goddess. Her spine became stone, every disc visible and incised like a hieroglyph, and her voice came out raw and god-awesome. “Don’t
She turned, smiling and gorgeous. “Now sit. I won’t bite.”
Her dark-chocolate eyes threw me a half-humorous, half-challenging look as sharp as a perfectly aimed dart.
I couldn’t help admiring her style, maybe because we’d both adapted it from glamorous but hard-boiled forties film dames. The only difference was Vida had done it naturally in her time. I’d done it unnaturally decades later, hiding in dark empty group-home rec rooms, watching old midnight movies with a nail-file weapon clutched in my hand.
“You were expecting me?” I slunk to the red leather sling chair in front of the desk.
It might mean I was a nonchalant shady lady. It might mean I was scared out of my vintage-loving mind. Take your pick. Mom was my literal role model? And she could eat me. Gee, a whole bunch of fairy tales rolled into one.
I leaned forward to set my water glass on the white sharkskin desktop. “I’m well over twenty-one now, you know. What’s the foamy red stuff about? Blood beer?”
“Never you mind.” She leaned behind her and selected a crystal decanter from a line of liquor bottles. “Feel free to spike your water, since you’re such a big girl now. Albino Scotch should suit you.”
I shook my head, blinking. Red Zombie, white scotch?
“This
“Why did you leave Las Vegas?” I asked her. “When did you leave?”
“Don’t you mean, ‘Why did I leave
I jerked my head to the vague air behind me. “Preferred the rave up the . . . street to exploring. I guess I’m glad she’s safe, at least.”
“Lilith is never ‘safe.’ It’s against her nature.” She smiled again, which was more disturbing than if she’d hissed and bared her fangs. “On the other hand, I always knew you’d find me, Delilah. You’re the explorer.”
“Vampires can’t reproduce.”
“No time for niceties, I see. What vampires can and cannot do is a tangle of mixed mythologies, my dear.”
“And our father?”
Vida shrugged and sipped. “It’s not for me to say. There are . . . candidates. Some,” she added as her fangs showed, “forced upon me.”
Oh, Lordy. First I’d worried for years I’d been raped as a child and I just get over that false assumption and now I get to worry I’m a product of rape. Can’t women ever get free of such ugly personal histories?
“I saw a photo of you in the old days on Cicereau’s computer,” I told her so she’d know I was an effective investigator. “It was something of a family shot, if you include that to mean ‘Family’ in the mob fashion.”
“How did
“Broke in.”
“To his office at the Gehenna? Nicely done.” She leaned back to pull out a drawer. In a moment, she’d
