Sex, Lies, and Vampires

them under a brighter light. 'And what have we heeeaaaaargh!'

''Ello, you so very interesting lady,' a spectral voice rolled out of the wall, quickly followed by a man with long brown curls, doublet, hose, and Elizabethan ruff. I backed toward the door, clutching the notes in one hand, the hoop earring with the other. The ghost—it was a ghost, my poor overworked mind admitted—swept a be-feathered hat from his head and made me a low, courtly bow. 'I did not know we 'ad the company most fair. I am Antonio.'

'Uh,' I said, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that a handsome ghost was stalking me. I backed up a few more steps. I had to get out of there. 'Right. I think this party is over. If these notes aren't good enough, then I'm just going to give up the breastplate, because honestly, I think at this point I'm going to need my sanity more than a career jump.'

'You wish to talk about the breasts?' The ghostly Antonio shimmered forward as I backed up, his eyes locked on my chest. He twirled one end of a slight moustache as he ogled me. 'I am most 'appy to do whatever will please my lady. Your breasts, they rise up off your chest like two plump pigeons just waiting to be plucked.'

Oh, lucky me. I got a randy ghost.

'Um…' I felt behind me for the wall, not trusting the ghost enough to take my eyes off it to look for the door.

'What is your name, oh, beauteous lady of the pigeon breasts?'

'Er…' The fingertips on the hand waving behind me touched books. I took a couple of steps to the left, where the door I came in was located.

'You will permit me a slight squeeze? They are so attractive, your breasts. I 'ave seen many breasts in my time, but yours—ah, glorious one, yours are a banquet of breasts! I must feast at them.'

'Eeek!' I squealed as Antonio's slightly translucent hand reached for my chest. I spun around intending to escape the library with my stolen items, but where the door used to be a brick wall had suddenly materialized.

A very warm brick wall.

One that had two piercing blue eyes, long reddish-black hair, and fangs bared in a soundless snarl.

Vampire!

Chapter Three

'I've heard of being caught between a rock and a hard place, but this is ridiculous.' Behind me the ghostly Antonio was swearing at the vampire who blocked the door. 'Hi!' I said to the vampire. 'You must be Melissande's cousin. We weren't expecting you back. I'm… uh… she asked me to… um… you're probably wondering what I'm doing here, huh?'

'Beslubbered 'edgepig!' Antonio spat at the intruder, pulling a rapier from his side. 'It is not enough that I must tolerate that other evil one putting 'is 'ands all over my beloved Allegra, now you come to claim my one true love! What is your name, my darling?' he asked in an aside to me.

'Uh…'

'It is enough! I will not tolerate you claiming the most beautiful Uh and 'er glorious breasts! She is mine, all of 'er!'

The vampire Christian, who had been watching the ghost with an amused cock to one of his glossy chocolate eyebrows, transferred his gaze from Antonio to my breasts. Impudent hussies that they were, they tried to thrust themselves forward toward him. I wrapped my arms over my chest and glared at both Antonio and the vampire, mentally telling my body that no matter how handsome the vampire might be, the last thing I wanted was to get involved with someone who was technically undead. 'Look, I know this seems weird, you catching me here digging around your library, but I have an explanation.'

'You will go now, un'oly dead one, else I shall cut off your man'ood and feed it to you.' Antonio floated between us and whipped his sword around in a manner that probably would have left us both dead if it had been real.

Christian closed his eyes for a second. 'Just what I need, an antagonistic ghost,' he said. 'Go away. My business is not with you.' He waved a hand through the middle of the ghost. Amazingly, Antonio started to disintegrate.

'I am not antagonistic! Me, I went to Mass every morning!' Antonio's sword flashed in an intricate move no doubt intended to geld the vampire. Evidently he noticed he was fading, because he stopped gelding and shook his fist instead. 'Basta! I shall call the others. They are watching Angel DVDs, but they will leave their precious Spike for you, you 'ideous spew-specked…'

'There's a lot to be said for exorcisms,' Christian muttered under his breath as Antonio faded away into nothing.

'I thought only people who were possessed with a demon could be exorcised?'

Bright blue eyes snapped to mine, narrowing as they examined me from toes to head. Nervously I stepped back a few paces, my hands behind my back as I tried to stuff the stolen notes and earring into my back pocket, hoping that if Christian caught a glimpse of them, he'd believe they belonged to me. I wasn't sure he wouldn't mind Melissande having them, but I'd leave that to the two of them to work out.

'Who are you?' Christian asked, his voice low and rough, but with an edge of something that sent a little shiver down my back.

'I'm… uh… your cousin Melissande hired me.'

He took two steps forward until he was a hairbreadth away from me. 'Melissande isn't my cousin, and do not make me repeat myself again.'

As he spoke, fangs flashed white in his mouth. Out of the blue a thought struck me, one so startling that my brain processed it without giving overdue thought to just how precarious a position I was in. 'You know, I always assumed that vampires' fangs retracted or something when they weren't using them. Kind of like a cobra's fangs— present and accounted for when you want to use them, and out of the way when you don't.'

They do, in most Dark Ones. Christian's voice had an almost ethereal quality, such a physical presence that I felt it in my head as well as heard it.

'But not you?' I looked at the pattern of red that wrapped around his torso. Like the one on the book, it was almost so faded I couldn't see it, seeming to shimmer in and out of my vision, like a half-glimpsed shadow seen out of the corner of my eye. I knew what it was the minute I saw it, though. Some things are just too horrible to ever forget, no matter how hard you try. 'Does it have something to do with the curse that binds you?'

Christian stared at me for a moment, and I knew I'd gone too far. Just because Melissande had assured me that this vampire wouldn't hurt me didn't mean he couldn't if he was peeved enough. What did you say?

'Nothing,' I said, moving to the side. 'It's not important. You know, Melissande is just outside. Why don't we call her, and she can clear up this whole mess—'

'You heard me,' he accused, grabbing my arm in a grip that was borderline painful.

'Ow,' I said. His grip loosened a smidgen. 'Yeah, I heard you. I'm standing right here.'

You heard what I said about Dark Ones.

'Well, duh! I'm not deaf. I understand you're miffed about finding me here, but I promised Melissande —'

It is not possible. You are not Moravian. You are not a telepath. And yet you hear me. He pulled me up close to his body, the heat from his chest burning my arm. You can see the curse?

'Yeah, I can see it, but not clearly. If I look straight at it, it disappears. I have to kind of peek at it from the corner of my eye to see the patt… oh, my God. Your mouth didn't move just then. I was watching.' The skin along my back and arms crawled as a horrible realization dawned upon me. 'What's going on? Why can I hear you talk without your mouth moving? You're not like some sort of vampire ventriloquist, are you?'

He shook his head. 'This is not happening.'

'I know how you feel,' I said on a sigh. 'I've had that feeling all evening, ever since the imp episode, but I've