The edges of Pike’s full mouth pushed up into a disgustingly sexy grin. “Both, actually.”
I was considering laying a trail of bird-deterrent spikes across the floor while Pike crossed the room to our little kitchenette and began fixing himself a coffee or a pinecone covered in peanut butter or something. I was trying to count to ten and breathe deeply—a hell of a challenge when breath is in short supply—when my eyes landed on my little supermodel.
The little wisp of a thing had changed out of my dress and into the clothes she had showed up in—jeans that clung to her no-hips in an attempt to be skinny but edged away from her stick legs, and a tank top that slid over her tiny breasts that were mosquito bites more than A-cups. She had a business card pinched between her fingers and she was zeroed in on Pike,
my
Pike. She did a sexy little saunter toward him. I watched in horror as she pushed her chewed-to-the-quick nails through his lush, dark hair, moving the strands that forever fell into his eyes. She swiveled her hips in a laughable attempt at sexy, but the way she held her mouth made up for her stick-figure frame: Her lips were curved in a half pout, half scowl that oozed sex, pursed in that kind of grin that leaves everything to the imagination and sends it soaring into the sheets.
“It’s Wendi,” she was saying in a little singsong voice. “W-e-n-d-”—her eyes flashed into a mock-up of baby sweet innocence—“i.” She blinked those doe eyes and dragged a corner of pretty pink tongue across her bottom lip, dropping her voice to what would have been a low whisper to anyone who didn’t have vampire hearing. “Your girlfriend doesn’t have to know a thing.”
To his credit, Pike’s spine stiffened before anything else on him did. His hand clamped around her wrist as she went to stroke his hair again. “I’m not interested.”
“Why go vintage when you can go all new?”
Vintage?!
The word cut through me like a fang through flesh and I was seething, the rage thrumming like a pulse. I made a beeline for the kitchenette.
“Who are you calling vintage?” I roared, far louder than I’d meant.
Wendi’s mouth dropped open to a little “o” of surprise. “Oh, Ms. LaShay. I didn’t see you there.” She licked her lips again and stared at me, her eyes full of faux innocence.
“Get out,” I said, pressing my jaw together to regain a semblance of control.
Truth was, I wanted to pitch the bitch like a javelin, but I had worked too hard to get here—both as a designer and as a vampire posing as a breather—to blow it on this piece of insipid trash. Instead, I stepped forward, closed a hand around her upper arm, and told her in no uncertain terms that she was effectively fired from walking for Drop Dead Clothing, ever.
And I may have whispered something about her imminent death should she set foot near my man or my couture ever again. But again, that’s beside the point—or at least it was.
I let myself into my apartment and my nephew Vlad was already there, stretched out on the couch as if he had done anything,
ever
, that required him to relax and unwind. His giant duster jacket was draped over my coffee table, his brocade Dracula vest on the floor, and his ascot was lying in a crumpled heap next to two empty blood bags and his boots.
While I got the fashionista gene in the LaShay pool, Vlad got the “movementarian” one and had become the front man for the Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement (VERM for short, and for annoying Vlad incessantly). The movement rallied against the modern concept of the vampire in media and strove to dash the image of sparkly, soul-having, friendly vamps and restore vampires and their detractors back to the days of old. Basically, VERM demanded its adherents re-create the image of the sexy, brooding vampire that terrified and mesmerized all breathers he encountered. And somewhere within those requirements was the “classic” vampire dress code that made Vlad and his cronies look like Count Chocula rejects rather than the terrifying bastions of hell they strove to become.
Vlad rolled over onto his side, pausing his Bloodlust game just as the cartoon vampire was about to feast on some busty brunette with wide anime eyes. He held his laptop steady with one hand and glared up at me like I was interrupting something in my own apartment.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest. “Surfing porn again?”
Vlad rolled his eyes—black as coal and a mirror image of mine—and looked suitably disgusted. “You’re so gross, Aunt Nina.”
“I’ve had a long day, Vlad,” I groaned, dropping my things and heading for the refrigerator. “Want something?”
“Nah, just ate.”
I rifled through the refrigerator that was half cold storage and half general bureau. Blood bags were kept on the top two shelves; batteries, nail polish, and a lone beer in the door should we have a visitor; and the crisper and meat drawers kept my selection of hats and scarves in pristine, if a little cold, condition.
Vlad kept his Doc Martens in the freezer.
I helped myself to a blood bag and pierced the edge with one angled fang, popped in a straw, and began sipping the thing Capri Sun–style.
“This is so good,” I said, holding the viscous liquid on my tongue for a beat before swallowing it down.
Vlad wrinkled his nose. “I don’t like the organic as much. They’re always low fat. Can’t you get the Trucker brand anymore? I like those. They have a bacon-y aftertaste.”
“You buy what you like. Oh, that’s right. You’ve been couch surfing for three and a half months and don’t have a job. Or an apartment.”
“I have a job,” he huffed. “In San Francisco. I’m just here on an exchange program.”
I slurped at the little stars of plasma stuck in the bottom of the bag. “Exchange of what?”
“God, Auntie! Why can’t you just let me relax for like, five minutes? I’m tired. It’s not like I didn’t go apartment hunting today because I totally did.”
I felt my eyebrows go up. Could it be true? I would soon have my
own
space, devoid of my dearest nephew and his bad attitude?
“You did? How’d it go? Did you find something?” I worked to meter my voice so my absolute excitement wouldn’t be too obvious.
Vlad narrowed his eyes. “You don’t have to sound so absolutely thrilled. It’s not like I found one.”
Crushed!
“Oh no?”
“No. I hunted. You didn’t expect me to find one right away, did you? Please. I have standards.”
I felt my lip curling up into an involuntary snarl and cocked my hip out. “Standards? You? Really?”
Chronologically, Vlad was closing in on a century and thus should have had the grace and maturity not to annoy the crap out of me, to rent his own apartment, and to have actual standards. But, as his body was stuck at a perennial sixteen years old, somewhere along the line, dear old Vlad decided that his mind and maturity level should top out there as well. Which is why he had, once again, taken up couch surfing at my place, dedicated to his stupid Bloodlust video game while wearing socks that hadn’t been washed since we both were in Afros and elevator shoes.
“Besides,” he said, his eyes not leaving his screen. “You need me.”
“I do, do I?”
“Word on the street is that you’re down a model.”
“And you’re going to step in for her? Fabulous. Lose about ninety pounds, grow out that helmet you call a hairstyle, and practice your catwalk. In stilettos.” I sucked at the little gelatinous pillows of plasma that floated at the bottom of my blood bag while Vlad let out an impressive groan and finally cut his eyes from his precious computer game.
“I was thinking that I could help you out. I know how busy and stressed out you’ve been. Fashion Week is, what? Two days away? You must have tons to do.”
I softened. Family—actual bloodline, look-like-each-other
family
—is rare among vampires and I really was lucky to have Vlad. Granted, I made him. His poor mother, my little sister, had sought me out when Vlad had taken ill. I hadn’t seen my family—actually, they hadn’t seen me—since I’d been changed, but Lucienne came to me, her tiny face drawn and pinched with this little, this little
child
in her arms. Only he was sixteen years old. The disease had ravaged him so that he looked barely a day over eleven. I remember his dull, flat eyes, clouded by imminent death. The way his gaunt face caved in around his cheekbones, his cracked, swollen lips. And she had begged me.
“You can make him well,” she had said to me in that small voice of hers. “You can make him live.”
When Vlad and I outlived our family, all we had was each other. We are family and we need each other, we love each other, we’ll be there for each other—for eternity, should we make it that long. All we’ll ever have is each other.
“That’s very kind, Vlad, I appreciate that.”
He shrugged. “I figured you can handle all your sewing or paperwork or ramp building or whatever, and I can interview model replacements.”
All we’ll ever have is each other.
Son of a bitch.
I smacked him hard with a pillow. “Don’t you ever think with anything other than your bloodless little head?”
“Don’t be gross, Auntie Neen.” He opened his laptop once again, hitting the flashing red RESUME button. “Trust me. You’ll need me.”
Though I don’t sleep, morning—the earliest, night fading into dawn morning—is easily my favorite time of day in every city that I’ve ever lived. In Paris, when I was new and would wander the streets all night long, fangs stained with the blood of snacks or meals or newfound friends, I would always stop on the Pont au Double and watch the fingers of light break through the city. There was nothing special or particularly beautiful about the view from the bridge, but it was the way the dawn broke and woke the city, a little at a time, that always gave me pleasure or hope or calm. It is these same stirrings of life that still give me pleasure whether it’s the first commuters pushing their way through the San Francisco streets or here in Manhattan, when the night people switch to morning people, the beautiful partygoers scurrying away with the fading darkness, replaced by the smart office workers walking with purpose in the gray light of morning. There is something so fresh about a city, so hopeful in the mornings—which is why I was feeling particularly bright and cheery as I made my way to my studio. Winter was in the air, but fall was hanging on fiercely so snow flurries were still a welcome anomaly and the wool coats weren’t out yet. I was in my mid-thigh-length angora-blend trench with the thick black whipstitch and skipping a little as I went.
Just because I was dead didn’t mean I couldn’t be happy.
I paused and admired my logo etched on the smoked glass doors of my studio door—Drop Dead Clothing, Designs by Nina LaShay—before sinking my key into the lock and throwing open the doors with a flourish and possibly a happy working song.
Except my door wouldn’t open.
I checked my key and checked the lock—right key, lock rolling—but there was something holding the door shut. I fidgeted and jiggled and finally threw my shoulder against the wooden liner, and voila! The door lurched open a few extra inches only to stop and thud one more time.
I didn’t need to see it to know what it was because I could smell it.
Death. Fresh.
Pinpricks of electricity walked down my vertebrae one by one. Something else hung in the air, too. Faint. Stale.
Perfume.
I edged my way into the studio vestibule, carefully allowing just enough wiggle room to sneak in. My breakfast was thrumming through my body, the blood pulsing at a dizzying pace. The hot, sour taste of adrenaline shot through me.
It was Wendi’s perfume.
I looked down, and there she was in a pose befitting a supermodel. Eyes open wide, a clear, innocent-looking blue with pink-stained lips pursed in a sexy heart shape. She was bent at her impossibly tiny waist, her thighs pulled up against her, her long legs spread behind her as though she were ready to jump. And her hair . . . her long, honey blond locks still held some of the curl from the photo shoot I had sent her out of, but while the weak tea color flared out behind her, the hair close to her scalp was colored a heady, rusted red. The color of bricks. The color of blood.
A lesser woman would have trembled. A human who didn’t wear death like a second skin would have screamed cinematically, pressing her palms against her open mouth and lurching backward while ominous music blared behind her. And I wanted to do all those things, really, I did—but this was me, and in more than a century I’d had more than my share of dead bodies (though, admittedly, not all of them this pretty), so I simply sighed and stepped around her, sank down onto the next step, and pulled out my cell phone.
“Told you you’d need me” was Vlad’s cheeky telephone greeting.
“I don’t need you,” I huffed into the phone. “Just come down to my studio, would you please?”
“Do you
need
me to?”
“You know, you’re awfully flippant for a guy who could be stopped cold by a vegetable.”
I could hear Vlad shift on his end of the phone. “Technically, garlic is considered a spice, and have you not checked the mirror lately? Because you have the same nonreflection that I do.”
“Just get down your butt down here.”
I stayed seated, thrumming my fingers on the step while I waited for Vlad. My instinct was to run upstairs and finish off the rest of my line; after all, it was now, I checked my phone, less than twenty-four hours from the kick-off of Fashion Week, and if I didn’t get to my sewing machine, my four models—scratch that, three—would be stomping down my debut runway in various forms of haute couture undress.
I glanced down at Wendi and figured she wasn’t going anywhere, then sprinted upstairs, plopped myself at my sewing machine, and got to work on a three-quarter-length body-con dress with a flouncy little peplum. The ensemble was a near replica of something I had worn back in the early days of jazz and blues in the back-alley clubs of Chicago.