shoes, and put on a good game. But it’d always be just that—a game, one that I was fully aware of playing. A facade that was fun to wear, but which would eventually flake. If a guy spent long enough with me, by which I meant maybe forty-eight hours, he’d eventually see frayed jeans, sweatshirts, ratty tennis shoes, and probably one of Minnie’s hairballs dried and forgotten behind the couch. Not even my cat could be counted upon to help create my allure.
But this woman in front of me—she didn’t have to pretend. She’d go to sleep wearing makeup and wake up with it precisely, sexily smudged the next day. Skirts that would be too tight or short on me would fit her perfectly, pertly, and if they were snatched up off the floor after a night out, they would possess wrinkles that were totally in or ahead of style. Her hair would look beautiful in all of its stages, from shower-clean to four-day bedhead, locks merely growing more defined and exotically chunky as time passed, making people on the train—should she ever deign to ride it—bold enough to ask her what styling products she preferred.
Her lips were crimson, naturally so, and her waist-length hair was the color of deep, dark, arterial blood, a blue-red entirely unnatural and entirely unfair.
And as I took all of her in, feeling ashamed for the state in which I’d presented myself, I realized with a start that I’d seen her before. On the
“You’re the girl from the watch ad,” I blurted.
A faint smile set her lips aflame and made her glorious cheekbones rise. “You’re familiar with my work?”
“I’ve seen it before. Them before. The watches.” I pointed to my own empty wrist. I didn’t tell her that the last train I’d ridden in had had a huge cock painted near her face. Maybe not being a fashion model did have
Her smile tightened in a way that said she was used to people acting dumb around her, myself included. “Please come in.”
She led me down a short corridor, and I was still staring. I supposed it was rude of me, but it’s not every day you have someone semifamous opening a door for you. I knew some vampires had a look-away power that they used around humans—maybe this was the reverse of that, where my eyes were glued. I glanced at my badge to see if it would show me anything. She paused and opened up a door.
“Please go sit down,” she said.
This new room had no windows, all of the glass outside obviously just for show. The majority of it was decorated in blacks and grays that I could barely differentiate in the low lighting. Now that my eyes had adjusted I could see an elegant-looking man with gray hair and long sideburns. He’d been changed when he was old, elderly, even, looking frail inside a suit the same color as his chair’s upholstery, sitting across an expansive dark wood desk. “We do prefer the night, Miss Spence,” he said, and gestured to a chair across from him.
I walked over and sat down. “I’m sorry. Work.”
“This time, I’ll forgive you. But it does not do to keep those who do you favors waiting.”
I nodded, and glanced over to my left. The model woman sat behind him on a plush leather couch, legs crossed, a lip of skirt pulled tight across her perfect knee. “Are you the man I spoke with?” I asked.
“The same. Not a man, though. But you should know that.” His thin lips pulled into an amused smile, and he stared at me. Through me. My badge glimmered in the room’s eerie twilight.
I put my hand around my badge. His look—it was like Gaius, the vampire boy-child I’d seen, on that other patient’s transfusion night. “Please stop.”
The man shrugged, and my badge went dim. “I just wanted to see what protections your badge afforded you.”
“Apparently not hearing you in my head, or vice versa, is one of them.” I let my badge drop, and kept my best game face on.
“Again, we are the ones doing you favors here, Miss Spence,” he said, regarding me casually with half-lidded eyes.
“Vampires never do anything for free.”
“And yet you saved one, not long ago. Risked your life for her, you told me, on the phone.”
“Yes. But that hasn’t worked out well for me so far.” I scooted to the edge of the chair. Its plush seat and high armrests threatened to envelop me. “So how can I help you help me?”
He laughed, and behind him, the glorious woman smiled. “All right, Miss Spence. I’m sure you are tired, and your occupation requires a certain forthrightness.”
He stood. “My name is Geoffrey Weatherton, Esquire. Before I became a vampire, I was a lawyer, and I am still one now. It runs in my blood, you could say.” His lips pulled wide at his joke, revealing the fanged teeth that would, once revealed outside of this room and on any day but Halloween, give him away.
“You said that you spoke with her, yes? The girl?” he continued.
“Anna.”
“Before she was kidnapped—and she promised to come to your trial?”
“Yes, she did.”
“Then I’ll take your case.” He opened up a folder in front of him—I hadn’t noticed it before, black leather against the mahogany wood. “I just need your signature is all.”
I leaned forward and took the papers he was offering me. “Want to explain this while I read?”
“I’m offering to take your case in exchange for your bloodright. Which would indebt you and any of your children into perpetuity to me and my Throne. Your bloodline would be our donors under permanent retainer.”
I was relieved to find that the pages I held were computer printouts, not handwritten calligraphy on vellum. It made it feel slightly less like a devil’s deal.
“Which Throne do you belong to?” I asked, looking at the papers in my hands.
“The Rose Throne. We have a vested interest in humanity.”
“I bet you do. And who is prosecuting me?”
He smiled. “The Zverskiye.”
I tried not to start. They were Anna’s relatives, the ones that I was sure had Anna now. “And they are?”
“The Beastly Ones, roughly translated.”
I looked from him to my papers and back again. “And how exactly are you all different?”
Geoffrey leaned back in thought. His eyes closed, and I wondered how much longer he could fight the rising sun. “It’s a question of resources and stewardship.” He brought his head forward again, and stared at me, slouching over on one side. “The Rose Throne believes that humanity needs to be cultivated.”
I leaned forward, putting the papers on the desk. I’d never heard anything like that before. “Like educated? Or enlightened?”
Geoffrey’s face took on a bemused expression, and then he laughed. “Like mushrooms. Chickens. Cows. Managed, herded, looked out for.”
I felt stupid for having been rooked. “For your own best interests, of course.”
Geoffrey crossed his bony hands atop the desk, and gently smiled at me. “Well, we are vampires, Miss Spence. The Zver prefer to think of you—of all humans—as free-range meat. Perhaps given that circumstance, you’d rather be a herded cow. Or a stalk of celery.”
I grunted without giving an answer, and turned to the pages in my hand. Page after page of legalese. So this was what lawyer vampires did while they were up at night. It was tough going, but I had faith in myself. I’d translated badly written doctor’s notes involving medication names that sounded like porn stars involved in Nigerian e-mail scams. I could manage this. I read through to the very end, and when I reached it, he was asleep, his chin bowed to touch his chest, as though he was a run-down toy. I shook the pages lightly for his attention and he started back awake. “How will you help me, though?” I asked. “Right now, you’re counting on her to keep her word—if she doesn’t, I die. If she does, I’m indebted to you. What do I get from you out of all this?”
“I, and my assistant, will make inquiries after your friend through vampire channels.” He waved two fingers in the air, and the woman nodded, sending a long lock of red hair spilling into her lap. “Sike speaks for me during the day.”
I looked from him to her and back again. “So I’m supposed to trust that you’ll be doing … something? Asking … questions?” I folded the papers together in my lap. “Really? That’s your plan? I’m signing my life away for this?”
