“She’s going to go see him.” I sucked in a terrified breath. “She’s going to see him and he’s going to figure out what she is.” I crumpled the paper and yanked the door to Nina’s bedroom open, then sighed.
To call Nina’s bedroom a “
And then there were the shoes.
Nina was obsessed with the evolution of shoes and maintained that her affair—and nauseating procurement of shoes—was nothing less than an anthropological, sociological study. She kept a scant collection of greased Victorian boots and bootlets with their delicate buttons from ankle to toe; there was a selection of saddle shoes and Sandra Dee cotton candy-colored pumps, which bled to an earthy collection of shaggy boots and love-beaded sandals (two pairs complete with Woodstock mud). Then came the chunky platforms, the 1980s color blocked pointy numbers, the 1990s fashion flats, and finally a selection of sky-high stilettos, peep-toe booties, and sexy strappy numbers emblazoned with names like Manolo and Louboutin. Her shoe collection alone was worth more than my car and made my current selection—a pair of shaggy Payless Shoe Source slippers in a leopard print—seem that much less exotic or cute.
It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. The torn-out article emblazoned with Harley’s smug, smiling face was pinned to Nina’s wall. I groaned, and my stomach churned as I thought about poor, battered Bettina, Sergio, and Mrs. Henderson—somewhere. Mrs. Henderson was one of the most annoying clients I’d ever met, but I certainly didn’t want her—I gulped—dead.
I grabbed my cell phone and speed dialed Nina, shifting my weight from foot to foot and muttering, “Come on, Neens, come on... .” When the last ring bled into Nina’s voice mail—her gleeful, recorded voice telling me to leave a message—I felt the lump form in my throat. I choked out, “Neens, it’s me. Call me right away.” I paused, then added, “Love you” before hanging up.
I traded in my slippers for boots, shrugged into my coat, snatched up my shoulder bag, and charged into the hallway, where I stopped dead, frowning.
It was the middle of the night and that meant that Nina was at Poe’s.
The vampire coffehouse.
Though I spent forty hours a week surrounded by all manner of the undead, being the only breather in a vampire haven wasn’t exactly tops on my bucket list. I bit my lip and then dialed Alex, squeezing my eyes shut when his voice mail clicked on, sternly telling me to leave a message or dial 911 if this was an actual emergency.
I considered it.
Then I rushed across the hall and sucked in a deep breath before hammering on Will’s door. He was a breather, but still ... two breathers in a vampire bar were better than one, right?
When he didn’t answer, I felt the sting of tears burning my eyes. My best friend could be in serious danger, and everyone I knew—and everyone I knew who owned weapons—was out.
They’d better be planning a surprise party for me.
It was a quick drive to Poe’s, which was tucked between an empty storefront and a Chinese herb shop at the beach end of Clement Street. I had never actually been there before. When I stood out front, I realized the dreary, hand-painted Poe’s sign—complete with a beady-eyed raven—did little to quell my angst.
Ditto with the blacked-out windows.
I paced for a few minutes and left pleading voice mails on everyone’s phones for a second time—something between “I really need your help” and “If I die at the fangs of a rogue vampire tonight, it’ll be on your shoulders.” (Rogue being UDA speak for a nonadherent client.)
Then I called the only other person I could think of... .
“Sophie was right to call Steve,” Steve said with an authoritative pat of my hand while I desperately tried to breathe through my mouth.
Trolls in general—and Steve, in particular—have a very distinctive smell. It’s distinctly horrible. Like an unholy combination of sewer rot and ripe blue cheese. And although Steve was the last person on my call list—and generally the first on my “stay far, far away from” list, I did have a soft spot for the little moldy man ever since he had been instrumental in saving my life. Besides, being a troll, he would give me some badly needed Underworld cred and we should fit right in.
But that didn’t mean I enjoyed hanging out with him. “Now,” Steve started, “Steve thinks Sophie should pretend to be Steve’s love monkey.”
I gave Steve an unamused once-over, which he ignored, threading his graying arm through mine, his lichen- covered knuckles closing over my fingers. I caught our reflection in the blacked-out glass: me, stylishly disheveled in skinny jeans, UGG boots, and a herringbone hooded jacket; Steve, dressed in his trademark velour track suit, dripping with enough gold chains to give Mr. T a run for his money. His stubby troll arms wrapped around my right thigh; his flat, stone gray eyes looked up at me lovingly while his pointed tongue slid over his snaggled yellow teeth lasciviously.
Oh boy, we wouldn’t stand out at all.
Chapter Twenty
The inside of Poe’s was uniformly dim and beatnik chic. The dark wood tables were crowded with fabulous- looking intellectuals reading newspapers and having conversations in low murmurs. Everywhere pale hands were wrapped around bowl-sized mugs that wafted little bits of steam. The only indication that Poe’s was anything more than your average Starbucks-refuting coffeehouse was that those mugs—the ones that were empty and stacked on the counter—were stained a deep, rich red.
I pushed my fire engine red hair over my shoulder and pasted on my most confident-feeling smile, while covertly trying to shake Steve off my thigh. Though, even without three feet of gray skin and swamp lichen attached to my leg, I don’t think I would have been able to blend in. I barely had one foot through the front door when all heads turned and swung toward us, nostrils twitching.
I gulped, willing my heart to continue along at its natural clip, praying that what I heard was not my blood roaring through my veins because if I heard it, everyone else did, too. A very tall woman, with blue-black hair pulled back into a slick ponytail, bangs cut high on her forehead, cocked her head toward me, clearly listening. My heart continued to do its siren-sounding thump, and the woman licked her lips. A glistening hint of saliva colored her lower lip. I stiffened and grabbed Steve’s hand, holding tight.
“Steve knew Sophie would come around.”
Sophie knew that with the vampires’ supernatural sense of smell, Steve’s personal odor could work as a kind of shield.
Despite being the only breather in a coffehouse filled to the gill with people who dined on people like me between meals, I wasn’t a complete idiot.
I glanced around. “I don’t see her. Maybe she left?”
I watched the woman with the ponytail stiffen in her chair; her body was erect and she leaned slightly forward, as though she were about to pounce. I didn’t recognize her from the UDA, which meant it was possible that she was newly created or new to town—two things that meant she didn’t know or possibly didn’t care to adhere to the UDA’s strict no-eating-me policy.
With one eye on salivation girl, I limped over to the front counter, where an adorable-looking Leighton Meester knockoff was pushing a white towel in small circles on the sparkling granite.
“Hi,” I said, brightening. “Hi, excuse me. I’m Sophie Lawson ...”
The
