suggestibility. He was a scared kid whose imagination had reinterpreted his fear based on campfire tales. But he didn’t. My skin had goose bumps at his story.
“Whoa,” I said, in validation. This was my gift, my superpower: making people feel like they could talk about anything. Making them open up and reveal their secrets.
“It could have all been in my head,” he said quickly. “It could have all been my imagination.”
Tina said, “Radical drops in temperature in localized areas have been reported with some hauntings. That whole incident, it doesn’t sound unlikely at all.” This didn’t seem to comfort Conrad any.
“You weren’t afraid of it?” Jeffrey said.
“No,” Conrad said. “It mostly made me feel sad.”
“Had there been any deaths in your family at the time? Had you lost any friends?” Jeffrey asked. “Might someone have been trying to contact you?”
Conrad thought for a moment, and his face was a blank. “No. No, that couldn’t have been it.” His voice was stark, and I wondered if he was lying, but suggesting that would have made him turn surly and shut up. Best move on.
My victims… er, interview subjects were mostly too clever and too used to the spotlight to slip up and answer my really probing questions. I didn’t get stunning confessions from any of them, except the one from Conrad. He was quiet for the rest of the evening, and I wondered what nerve I’d touched.
Around midnight, the group started jumping ship, led by Conrad. I grumbled at the mutiny, but not really, because by the end of it I was left with Anastasia, Gemma, and Dorian. Maybe they’d be more forthcoming without everyone else around.
What was I thinking? We still had cameras focused on us. Probably a lost cause, but I had to try.
I waited until Anastasia and Dorian were involved in a conversation in the kitchen, where he was pouring a glass of wine. I was sure they were trading notes and commentary on their fellow housemates and everything they’d learned. Gemma wasn’t interested and went to the window to look out at the nighttime meadow, trimmed with white from a waning moon. I sidled up to join her, not too obviously, I hoped.
“Hey, Gemma, can I ask you a question?”
“I suppose.” She had a stunning smile—of course. “Doesn’t mean I’ll answer it.”
“Why? Why become a vampire?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s such a boring question.”
“Still. Humor me.”
She hesitated, then gave a lopsided shrug, her first unstudied gesture. “I was afraid of getting old.” She looked away, refusing to meet my gaze. Like a kid almost—twenty years old and bored by old people, meaning anyone over twenty-five. How long did it take a vampire to develop that haughty poise that was so common with them? Long enough to realize the world was growing old around them? A generation—when you stop understanding the kids who look like you?
Was that arrogance a shield?
“That’s not a very good reason,” I said.
She frowned. It damaged her poise, just a bit. “I’ve been on the pageant circuit since I was eight. It’s all I’ve ever known how to do. When I was fifteen, I went on anti depressants. I was two inches too short for the modeling agencies, and my mom acted like it was the end of the world, like I was this huge failure. My looks—it’s all I have. I don’t know how Anastasia found me. It’s like she had this crystal ball and saw me screaming, ‘Get me out of here.’ She said she could keep me young forever. Like I said, that’s all I have. She’s taken such good care of me, I never looked back. She has uses for a very beautiful woman. What she does—she can use someone like me. I’m happy to help her.”
I was almost afraid to ask what she was talking about. I thought I knew—the vampire entourage. The collection of beautiful people at a Master’s—or Mistress’s—beck and call. An alpha werewolf could gain status by showing off how many lesser wolves he—or she—could take care of. Vampires did the same thing by showing how many beautiful and powerful vampires owed them loyalty. It was almost feudal. Anastasia could bring Gemma into a room and distract everyone in it. Her adversaries wouldn’t even know they were being distracted.
Was Gemma so afraid of growing old she’d make herself into a pawn? I didn’t understand it. But then, I hadn’t chosen to become what I was. It happened, and I just dealt with it. Making lemonade out of lemons and all that. Bottoms up.
“That seems kind of sad to me,” I said. “There’s so much more that makes up a person. There’s a quote from Coco Chanel: ‘Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.’ I’m kind of curious to see what kind of face I’m going to merit.” My smile was wry.
“Oh, you’re different,” she said. “You couldn’t possibly depend on your looks. Oh—I didn’t mean it like that.” I hadn’t even had a chance to react to what she’d said. My smile only got more wry. “You’re nice-looking, really cute. But you have so much else along with your looks. That’s what I meant,” she said. “Never mind. You know what I mean.”
“You thought you didn’t have anything else to aspire to. Yeah, I think I get it.”
Anastasia joined us. Dorian had gone to the basement, I assumed. She put her hands on Gemma’s shoulders and leaned in to whisper, “Go on downstairs. I’d like to speak with Kitty.”
Ah, here it came, the smackdown for trying to weasel a confession out of Gemma, like Gemma couldn’t speak for herself. The younger vampire smiled at me, squeezed her Mistress’s hand, and retreated to the basement, leaving Anastasia and me alone.
I waited, but she didn’t say anything. She gazed out the window, as Gemma had, a faint smile on her lips, seemingly admiring the beauty. And she
I couldn’t stand it. “Did you really just need a pretty face hanging around you? Because that doesn’t seem like the best reason to make someone a vampire,” I said.
She didn’t react; didn’t look angry, or amused. What, then? “There’s more to Gemma than her looks,” Anastasia said finally. “Even she’ll see that someday. I wouldn’t have turned her otherwise. But consider this: without the time to grow out of her old life, she might never have discovered that about herself.”
“But she’s still entering beauty pageants,” I said. “I’d have thought a stint with the Peace Corps might have done more to improve her sense of self-worth.”
“May I ask you a question now?” she said.
I couldn’t say no, even though I felt a bit cornered. I didn’t really want to be the focus of this woman’s attention. With just the two of us here, looking anywhere but her eyes was difficult. I worked to keep from fidgeting.
“This two-thousand-year-old vampire you said you met,” she said. “Who was it?”
I didn’t want to talk about this. “He was a little intimidating.”
“Let me tell you about him. He’s not so tall; average height and build, but he looks like stone. Close-cropped hair. An intense man. He was probably intense even before he turned to vampirism. And he’s concerned with power. Political, territorial. He chooses minions, binds them to him. He’s preparing allies for a coming conflict.”
Weakly, I nodded. “That’s right. That’s him.”
Anastasia leaned forward a little, her full lips in a pouting smile, her gaze searching. “What did he tell you, Kitty? What did he offer you? What did he demand?”
My thin pretense of a smile fell. “What do you know about him? Why are you asking me these things?”
“Evasion,” she said, straightening slowly, catlike. “That tells me something, as well.”
“Are you trying to figure out whose side I’m on? If Roman succeeded in buying me off?”
“Did he?”
What the hell, just lay it out there. “No.”
Her gaze still studied me, assessed me. I got the feeling she didn’t believe me, but talking about Roman made all my muscles go tense. Surely she could see that.
“So what’s your interest in him?” I said. “Are you one of his?”
She was too good, too experienced to let her expression slip. Too magnificent a poker player. But I thought I knew: if she was one of his, she wouldn’t have to ask me about him. The thought actually made me like her better. But I didn’t like being in a verbal fencing match with an obviously experienced vampire. I was so outclassed.
“Is he a rival, then?” I asked, when she didn’t answer. “How old does that make you?”
Her smile widened and for a moment seemed genuine. Like in another moment she’d laugh and we’d be like
