My Vampire Idol
My Vampire Idol
Shifting Reality, Book 3
R.G. Alexander
My Vampire Idol
Copyright 2014 by R.G. Alexander
Edited by D.S. Editing
Formatted by
IRONHORSE formatting
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright
owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents
are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced
in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use
of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark
owners.
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Dedication
Just one this time. You. Thank you for waiting, for asking for Mac's story when he
thought he'd been long forgotten. For being patient and enjoying the funny. This book
is dedicated to you.
Table of Contents
“Quick, say something Scottish!”
Mac paused with his glass halfway to his lips and sighed.
Here?
Here in the middle of the desert in a town he hadn’t even caught the name of? Was
there nowhere he could go to get away from these idiots?
Turning away from the bar, he took in the skinny fan in the faded
Shifting Reality
T-shirt and the camera phone being held up to his face, its red light flashing.
“Och and Aye,” he muttered obligingly, lifting his glass to his lips while his other
hand reached out to crush the phone with a speed that made the man gasp. “Now be a
good lad, forget you ever saw me and
fook off
.”
He sent a forceful mental suggestion, not blinking until the dazed man turned and
slowly shuffled away.
That was a stronger command than he’d intended. Poor boy probably wouldn’t remember
his name for a day or two. He hated doing it, but it was necessary and he was in a
foul mood. Being on camera was the last thing he wanted to think about at the moment.
Someday Mac really was going to kill Thomas. The damn cat had ruined his life. His
dark, endless and, until recently,
unrecorded
life.
Thomas had already been a difficult roommate, coming and going at all hours, shifting
in the penthouse and shedding all over the furniture. But it had been manageable and,
Mac had to admit, life had been more entertaining with the shifter and the demon’s
spawn around.
For a while.
Then Thomas had made him famous against his will, revealed some fairly classified
information in order to meet his paramour and, now that he had her, had promptly disappeared
to some undisclosed love shack until all the movie chaos died down.
The movie. The worst decision Mac had ever made.
When Thomas created
Shifting Reality
—an online video blog he’d started out of sheer boredom—his goal was to share what
he was with the world. What they all were.
Mac believed it would never amount to anything, that it would disappear amongst the
insanity and wild imaginings that filled those blasted machines Saint could control
and most of humanity was now addicted to.
Instead, the blog had spread like a virus and was considered to be one of the most
popular reality shows online. So popular that the “contest” they’d had—inviting people
into Mac’s ancestral home in Scotland and allowing them to see for themselves what
they were—set records. Interviews with the contestants who were present had piqued
outside interest. Too much interest.
He took another drink and shook his head, unable to believe he’d gotten personally
involved in that madness by the end. For what? For Thomas and Margo? For
true love
?
“Hah,” he muttered to no one in particular.
After it was done and they’d all agreed to sign with a particular production company
for Thomas’ mate’s sake, Mac believed it was settled. But then the snooty bitch Margo
used to work for decided she could retire by selling the rights and announced it before
talking to them. An all-out bidding war had ensued, sparking more media attention
than anything that had come before. More trouble. Far too widespread for Mac and Saint
to clean up alone.
Thank you, Thomas.
Now the major studios were vying to make the star-studded sleeper about a shifter,
a demon half-breed and a vampire revealing themselves to the world and finding love
online. The last Hollywood rag he’d read before he left California had mentioned that
Gerard Butler was angling to be cast as the curmudgeonly Scottish vampire with the
heart of gold.
Mac grimaced. Good scripts must be hard to find.
A majority of people still believed Mac, Thomas and Saint were actors taking advantage
of the popular paranormal trend. There was even an angry online petition demanding
to know why the original cast was being shafted for bigger names.
Most
of the world thought they were fictional characters. Most…but not all. And it was
that small percentage that had sent Mac away from his castle—which since the show
had become a fucking tourist attraction, with his ghostly but loyal housekeeper, Esther,
standing guard. It had also driven him away from his comfortable penthouse apartment
in Los Angeles after the manager had slipped several disconcerting notes under his
door about his wife’s unusual fantasy—something to do with body glitter and handcuffs.
It was that percentage that had initially set him to wandering like a homeless vagabond,
desperate to find a world without Wi-Fi. Without cable. Preferably without people.
This bar in the middle of the Nevada desert had two out of three.
Good enough.
Not that he was hiding from anything. Vampires did
not
hide.
Saint, that snarky demonic bastard, would no doubt argue that hiding was
all
a vampire did. From the sun, from dangerously bitter exes who were angry for being
turned. He’d say that lurking in shadows and huddling in coffins were prerequisites.
“Demons might be exhibitionists,” he’d often smirk. “But vampires are the kinky sharp-toothed
voyeurs hiding in the closet.”
Mac snorted, finished his scotch and mentally corrected his absent friend. He was
no voyeur, and the goal of his kind had never been to stay in the dark—but to hide
in plain sight, saturating the media with fiction and embracing the clichés. That
was the one true way to ensure any “witnesses” would be treated with skepticism. It
was why he’d been upset, but hadn’t taken drastic action when Thomas had decided to
come out. Why he’d believed helping the shifter get his girl wouldn’t cause any lasting
harm. Hell, at the time, he’d had several vampires begging him to be on “the show”,
so he’d assumed he was making the right call.
Deception and misdirection had always been key to the vampires’ survival, and even
as Mac scorned that aspect of what he was, he knew he’d practiced both. That was how
he’d continued to remain in his home, to retain his wealth…to survive. The only creatures
vampires were meant to be utterly forthcoming with were their
own kind
.
If someone had ever asked him to compare the vampire community to a human group? It
would be the mob. If you were a “made man”—in the more literal interpretation of the
word, of course—you were in. And once you were in, you followed the rules or faced
the consequences. Bullshit excuses, even if they were true, were pointless.
The latest rumor he’d heard on the vamp grapevine was that
they
were no longer amused by
Shifting Reality
.
They
wanted explanations.
They
wanted his head on a platter along with the death of everyone involved in the online
revelation that they hadn’t sanctioned. The one they couldn’t blame on large studios
with exquisite special effects and Hollywood stars.
“Good fucking luck with that.” He tilted his glass in salute, knowing there was no
way they could get their wish without creating a worse public relations nightmare.
This genie couldn’t be shoved, beaten or drained back into its bottle. At least, not
until the spotlight had turned away from them and onto another shiny toy.
Meanwhile, if anyone tried to touch his friends or the women they had finally found
happiness with…there would be consequences. Mac knew as long as he was on the move,
their attention would be focused entirely on him, which was the point. He was the
more appetizing bait. The real traitor.
Two of their hunters had already failed and wouldn’t be trying again any time soon.
Fucking demons for hire—a classless and desperate move in Mac’s opinion. If “they”
wanted him, they could get up off their dusty arses and come for him themselves instead
of hiring soulless thugs.
He swore softly. What was he doing? It would be easier to get it over with, to go
to them and receive their judgment. But damn it, he didn’t want to. Not yet. He wanted
to be left alone for a while. To find some peace before he faced his fate.
He’d had enough of watching Thomas and Saint live out their bliss with their significant
others—he didn’t want to sign any autographs and he damn sure didn’t feel the need
to kiss the cold, dead ass of some old-world, sissified vampires to be forgiven for
his conduct or allowed a quick end.
Hell, he was in a dark mood.
Mac pounded his glass on the bar once to let the bartender know it needed to be refilled.
He hadn’t been this maudlin since the decade after he was made.
High-pitched feedback from a microphone on the small stage made him flinch and grit
his teeth. He was too old for this shit. He would go out into the desert at dawn and
be done with the whole bloody thing, but that was a coward’s path. Mac was many things,
but he had never been called a coward. He was just…what had Thomas called him?
Grumpy.
Hunkering down at the bar and attempting to appear as forbidding as possible, he tried
to ignore the chipper, female twang that now echoed through the bar. The speaker smelled
of canned peaches and Ivory soap. A perky scent for a perky voice.
“Welcome to the first annual Belly Up Jam,” she started, before whooping and causing
the microphone to screech again. “Yippee! Oops. Sorry everybody.”
No one responded, enthusiastically or otherwise, and after a moment he could hear
the shuffling of papers as she continued, “I can see a lot of people got last minute
jitters and decided not to come in spite of all the flyers and hard work everyone
put it. Well, shame on them. But the show must go on, right? Besides, I just have
a really good feeling that they’ll be pouring in to enter before the contest is over.
Maybe after the diner closes down for the night. This is an opportunity to represent
our town, after all. And to win money for our school, which everybody knows could
sure use some fixing up after that fire.”
Mac’s curiosity got the better of him and he turned on his barstool to look around
the room. Including the man whose camera now contributed to the sawdust already coating
the floor, there were six people—the skeletal bartender, dressed in a tattered leather
vest and sporting a long, bushy beard; the short, plump woman with the dimpled smile
currently at the microphone; and four other patrons besides himself. None of them
looked as though they were here for a contest.