Fashionably Dead

by Robyn Peterman

  “The Kevin, your Fairy Fighting Friend,” he shouted with gusto. What was it with all these loud immortals that looked like celebrities?

  “Of course you are,” I muttered as he leapt off my bed and came at me with both arms extended with all regions south a-swinging in the breeze with a vengeance. I quickly sidestepped the lovin’ headed my way, which caused The Kevin to bash into my doorframe.

  “Ahhhhhhh!” The Kevin moaned, grabbing his nose. “You are quick, my little strudel princess,” he yelled with pride. “You will be a good fighter! I think you broke my nose.”

  “God, I’m so sorry,” I yelped. “Why don’t you sit down?” I grabbed a wad of tissue and pressed them to the fountain of blood gushing from The Kevin’s nose.

  “And smart, too!” The Kevin mumbled as I seated him back on my comforter that I now really needed to wash. It was a good thing I wasn’t hungry. The Kevin’s blood smelled delicious, like hot buttery caramel corn and baked cinnamon apples. That would have been seriously awkward, not to mention uncouth, had I gotten busy and licked his face clean.

  “The Kevin . . . ” I started.

  “You can call me The Kev—all my friends do.”

  “Oookay, The Kev, it’s nice to meet you. I’m sorry I broke your nose . . . and you’re going to have to cover yourself,” I added quickly.

  “What do you mean, O Beautiful One?” The Kev asked.

  I took a deep breath. Did he really not know? “Your privates, The Kev. You have to keep your privates covered.”

  “Because they make you want me?” The Kev smiled seductively with a huge wad of tissue hanging out of his nose.

  “Nooo . . . ” He was definitely not gay. Why wasn’t I attracted to him? He was gorgeous and naked and in my bedroom. Was there something wrong with me? I needed to be diplomatic without crushing The Kev. “You have very . . . um, nice privates, but you’re more like a brother to me.” I smiled and tilted my head to the side giving The Kev my most sincere and sweet sisterly look. Was he going to buy that shit?

  The Kev considered this for a moment and seemed satisfied. He grinned and said, “By my privates, do you mean my buttocks and my rod?”

  God help me. “Yes,” I tried to smile, despite the fact he’d called his penis a rod. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “No problem, my little Krumecaca.” he said.

  “Krumecaca?”

  “It’s a cookie,” The Kev enlightened me.

  “Of course it is.”

  ***

  Life with The Kev and Pam was dysfunctional at its best, and insane at its worst.

  The Kev loved me and Pam. Pam tolerated him with the same sweet profanity-laden disrespect that she tolerated me with. He just laughed, flexed his huge muscles at her, and swatted her on the butt. Pam would squeal like a little girl, and then cuss him out like a sailor. We were one little happy albeit odd family—except for one thing. Even though The Kev loved Pam and me, he was head over heels, cuckoo crazy in love with Gemma. As for how Gemma felt? I’d have to say overwhelmed and alarmed.

  “He’s hot, but he’s weird,” Gemma said, hiding from The Kev in my bedroom. “He told me I wasn’t all human,” she hissed.

  “What did you say to that?” I asked, staring at my ceiling and looking for the little ugly monsters. Where in the hell were they?

  “I didn’t say anything. I punched him.”

  “Holy shit,” I laughed, impressed that she got a shot in. I’d been fight training with The Kev for a while, and barely ever made a dent in him. “What did he do?”

  “He laughed and congratulated me on my fabulous left jab.”

  “Awesome,” I grinned.

  “I suppose,” she giggled.

  We still hadn’t seen The Kev’s wings, but everything else about him was utterly magical. His main shortcoming was his choice in apparel. If he wasn’t running around buck ass naked, which I had expressly forbidden, he put together the most hideous ensembles. Bless his heart.

  Case in point—yesterday he wore a bright purple muscle T-shirt with gold spandex leggings, flip flops and an orange skull cap. I wasn’t sure where he was locating these items and was afraid to ask. I had a very bad feeling that he and Pam had been shopping online with my credit cards while I slept.

  Along with my daily tutoring at the Cressida House from Venus, who was quickly becoming a close friend, my fight training with The Kev had gotten serious. I’ve never worked so hard or been as sore in my entire life. I’d only taken The Kev down once and it had not been easy. He was so delighted when I bested him that he slapped me on the back and sent me flying into a tree, which I knocked down. It was a hundred year old oak.

  As lovely as The Kev was, that bastard punched hard. Not only did I get a major concussion from the tree, I’d had two black eyes, two split lips, four broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder to prove it, and that was after only four days of training. Thank God I was a Vampyre or I’d be for real dead. Well, that and The Kev’s blood. Fairy blood heals. Without The Kev’s blood I’d be a mess. I was too new a Vampyre to heal very quickly.

  The Kev let me drink from him whenever I wanted. Again, strangely enough, it wasn’t sexual with the Kev even though I drank from his neck. Pam was not happy about me drinking so much Fairy blood, but she knew it was necessary for me to heal. Apparently the combination of Fairy blood and Angel blood was very powerful, and pretty much untested. When they thought I was asleep I heard her tell him he’d better train me “fuckin’ good.” According to Pam there were a lot of beings that would want me dead with the unimaginable strength and Magic I would soon have from all the celestial blood I’d been partaking in.

  Between Venus’ tutoring and The Kev’s fight classes I knew more about bloodsuckers and ass kicking than I could ever want to in twenty lifetimes. I still hadn’t revealed anything about Pam or The Kev to any of my new Vampyre friends—not even Venus.

  They hadn’t forbidden me to talk about them, but it just didn’t feel right.

  Since my disastrous decision about getting hypnotized left me dead, I had been following my gut ever since.

  Chapter 7

  Visiting a graveyard at 2:30 in the morning could indicate one of two things. I was drunk and really stupid. Or I was a Vampyre out to pay respects to my beloved recently dead grandmother and didn’t want to fry my ass in the sun. I fell into the latter category.

  “Why the hell is it getting colder?” I asked the crumbling sidewalk. Surprisingly, it didn’t answer. With all the unbelievable occurrences in my life, I half expected the damn sidewalk to strike up a conversation. It was June for Christ’s sake. It wasn’t supposed to be cold. I hurried my pace, wondering if it was going to storm, and ended up right in front of Nana’s huge gravestone. I shivered and got a creepy feeling that I wasn’t alone. I looked around to make sure no one was about to witness how bonkers I’d become.

  “Nana?” I whispered. Nothing. If at first you don’t succeed . . . blah blah blah.

  “Nana?” Still nothing. Shitfire, I was getting spooked. Why in the hell should I be nervous? I was a Vampyre for God’s sake. I was a bloodsucking fiend! Right?

  Right. I was at the top of the stinkin’ food chain!

  Right?

  Right. I was not afraid of anybody!

  Right?

  Wrong! What the fu . . . ?

  With the grace of a cow, I dove behind Nana’s grave into a shallow hole. I heard people walking and talking. Nobody sane should be out here at this time of night except me, and my sanity was debatable. Pam was right. I was a wimpy, pansy-ass Vampyre. Why in the hell did I think it was a good freakin’ idea to visit a graveyard in the middle of the night? Did I learn nothing from the hypnotism Vampyre fiasco? I peeked out and observed three of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen nearing my hidey-hole. Shit.

  There were two women and one man. He had the finest, most asstastically perfect backside I’d ever seen in my life. I started to stand up to get a better look, but common sense prevailed
and I stayed put. Thank you, Jesus. What the hell was wrong with me? An ass is an ass is an ass.

  The trio stopped about six feet from where I hid. They stared at each other with a razor sharp deadly focus. It was as if invisible walls held them back from one another. They completely ignored me. Again, thank you, Jesus. Because I clearly had a death wish, I shifted ever so slightly to get a better look.

  Mr. Beautiful Butt had gold eyes with shoulder length golden blonde hair to match, high sculpted cheekbones and pale flawless skin. Right out of a freakin’ romance novel. His lashes were full and long. He was tall, had a rockin’ bod, and a drool worthy ass that I couldn’t seem to rip my eyes away from. He had full kissable lips, and did I mention that his butt was insane? It was packed into some well-worn jeans with some scuffed up Doc Marten boots, topped off with a just-a-little-bit-tight black T-shirt that clung to his oh-so-muscular top half. He was simply the best looking man I’d ever seen in my entire life and I had this crazy feeling I knew him. There was no way. I would have never forgotten him if we’d met before.

  Red—scary female on the left—was gorgeous. Wild dark red curls flowed down her back and her eyes were a bluish silver. Holy cow, this Vamp-vision was like having binoculars for eyeballs. Her skin was pale and luminous and her mouth was full and pink. She was long and lean with a great rack. Normally, all that would make me jealous, but noooo. What was killin’ me was that Red was Prada’ed out. Prada from head to toe. She was even wearing this season’s thigh high stiletto boots. I would die for those. Oh wait, I can’t do that. I’m dead already.

  Brownie—scary female on the right—had the PMS look. I was very familiar with that one, although I guess that PMS was now a thing of my past. Anyhoo, Brownie had chin length, curly, shiny dark brown hair. Her skin was pale mocha and her amethyst eyes had that same glittery glow as the others. Her cheekbones looked as if they had been cut in stone. Brownie was stunning. She was smaller in stature than Red but held her own. She wore a low cut Betsy Johnson dress with insane platforms. Where did these girls shoe shop?

  Their silence was scarier than if they were screaming. What in the hell was going on here? I sunk lower into my hidey-hole.

  “Haven’t seen you in several years,” Red snapped at my boyfriend.

  “That has certainly been a pleasure,” he grinned. Be still my heart, could he get any hotter? “Last time I saw you, several of your limbs were missing,” he said.

  Now that was random. Maybe my bionic Vampyre hearing had a glitch.

  “That would be thanks to your no-good, son of a bitch, Jane-Austen-Wuthering Heights-loving boyfriend,” Red hissed at my gay?? lover. Damn it to hell, there was no justice.

  My gay prince laughed at Miss Prada. “Ah my lovely sister, I’ll admit to many things over my many centuries, but experimentation is your hobby, not mine. I can guarantee you he is not my boyfriend.”

  Thank you, Jesus.

  “You’re both an embarrassment.” Brownie finally spoke, sounding as bored as I would at a knitting seminar.

  “She speaks,” he said.

  “Screw you,” she countered.

  “Been there, done that, Honey Bunch,” my man parried back.

  Brownie laughed derisively. “You wish,” she quipped, still managing to sound bored.

  God, who does she remind me of?

  “Speaking figuratively, not literally, my dear sister.”

  What the hell? All of these people—and I used that term loosely—were related? If they were, they either have different mothers or different fathers . . . or maybe they’re step-siblings. Because clearly I’m just that stupid, I stood up. Bad, bad, bad idea. The beautiful redhead stared at me, almost confused.

  “There’s someone here,” she said, stating the obvious.

  All of a sudden there were three sets of glittering eyes on me. I finally knew what thick silence felt like—it felt wrong on every level. I struggled to find my voice. Unfortunately, I found it. “This is a lovely cemetery, don’t you think?”

  “She can see us?” Brownie hissed. She didn’t sound so bored now.

  “Impossible,” my future boy toy muttered, “we’re cloaked.”

  Before I could blink he was in front of me, so close I could barely function. He smelled really good. His eyes blazed gold and slowly turned to a brilliant emerald green. He stared steadily at me. A shudder ran through my body.

  My first compulsion was to touch him. I lifted my hand and lightly ran my fingertips along his jaw line. He jerked back as if burnt and began to laugh. “My God, it didn’t work.”

  I knew something was really not right here. This was not normal conversation. These were not normal people. I was fairly sure these were my people and I didn’t want anything to do with them.

  These Vampyres were not like the vapid idiots who visited me the other day, nor were they interesting and nice like the Vampyres at the Cressida House. These were dangerous psychos, dressed to kill, probably literally. Oh. My. God. These were the Rogue Vampyres I was warned about! Shit, shit, shit.

  I was not drunk or asleep. But I was clearly in tons of trouble. Wouldn’t it just figure, the first time I find anyone attractive in like a year, he turns out to be a cuckoo-cuckoo killer Rogue Vampyre. A crazy, mortal-killing bloodsucker that had friends who had ripped his sister’s limbs off.

  Fuck. I couldn’t catch a break if it bit me in the ass.

  And what in the hell was that all about anyway? Ripping limbs off? Did they grow back? Did she get them surgically sewn back on? They looked too normal to have been sewn back on. Crap, why were they staring at me? Did I say any of that out loud? I needed to get the hell out of here.

  “Who do you belong to?” Brownie demanded.

  I had no idea what she was talking about. Did I have an owner? Like a dog? These Vampyres must be from some other kind of Vampyre club, because unless I was mistaken that was not how it worked in Kentucky, or anywhere else in the good old U S of A for that matter. That bullshit ended with the Civil War.

  Wait, did she think I was a hooker? I didn’t look like a hooker. She looked more like a hooker than I did in her big ass platforms and her boobies hanging out of that seriously cute Betsy Johnson. God, I’d love to have that dress. I would look great in that dress. I bet it cost a fortune. Shut up. Shut up. I didn’t have an answer to the question, which was rare, so I said nothing.

  Red stepped closer to me and the air got cooler. “She’s very pretty,” she cooed. “I smell Vampyre, but there’s something else.”

  “She’s gorgeous.” Mr. Hottie’s gaze lingered on my mouth as he spoke then snapped up to my eyes. “But that’s neither here nor there. Who made you and what are you?” he demanded.

  I was starting to get pissed . . . and careless. “I’m a female,” I told Mr. Hot Pants, “and as far as I know my mommy and daddy made me.”

  “Obviously,” he laughed. His eyes raked over my body with appreciation. “But I’m in no mood for games. I’ll ask you again—nicely—one more time. Who made you and what are you?”

  I had no idea what they wanted me to say. My pissed-off reaction was shifting to scared-silly. I was so terrified I felt rooted to the ground. How weird was that? I’d heard people say it but I never believed it until now. My feet would not move. I wanted to run, but there was no chance of that. Brownie was by my right shoulder, Red was by my left, and Prince Starting-to-Be-UnCharming was in my face. I knew I was going to die. How unfair was that? I’d already died once this month. Shit.

  He wrapped his large hand around my throat and very calmly stated, “Why don’t I give you a few choices to make this a little easier for you, pretty girl? Are you a Vampyre-Witch, Vampyre-Ghoul, Vampyre-Demon, or Vampyre-Shifter?”

  “Ghoul and Shifter are out,” Red threw in. “I would be able to sense that.”

  Brownie, not to be out done by the rest of her psycho kin added, “Who sent you and why are you here?” She punctuated it by squeezing my arm so hard I was surprised the bone didn’t snap.


  “Oh my God,” I blurted, “you people are nuts.” I started to laugh. Knowing absolutely I was going to die, I still couldn’t help myself. Prince UnCharming dropped his hand from my throat. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was shocked.

  “Clearly . . . ” I went on, very noticeably raking Mr. Smarty Pants up and down with my eyes. Turnabout is always fair play and he was hot. If I was going to die I may as well enjoy looking at the eye-candy before he ripped me apart.

  “Clearly you are all very good-looking, well dressed Vampyre people who must have escaped from an extremely expensive insane asylum. I don’t know if I like being a Vampyre yet, but if I’m going to end up like you, go ahead and kill me. I want out.” I was definitely heading toward hysteria and entering the land of bizarre cheerleader voice. “You people are batshit crazy. Witches? Ghouls? Demons? Shifters? You forgot Mermaids and Trolls and the Tooth Fairy. I’m just going to leave you to what you were doing. Limb-ripping or whatever. So please step away from me and I’ll go.”

  Nobody moved. Much to my chagrin I started laughing again.

  “Is she laughing at me?” my ex-boyfriend asked.

  “No,” Red interjected, “Us. Did she just say Tooth Fairy?”

  “Yes, I believe she did.” He tried to suppress his amusement.

  “Does she have any idea who we are?” Red asked.

  “I’m going to go with a no on that one,” her brother replied.

  Brownie was not happy. “This is not good, not good at all,” she barked. “I think we should kill her.”

  “We can’t kill her,” Red snapped. “We don’t know what she is, who she belongs to, or why she’s here. So, if we kill her we could end up banished for centuries. She has not threatened our lives. Trance her, Ethan,” she ordered.

  Ethan? His name is Ethan?

  “I tried,” Ethan said. “It didn’t work.”

  “What do you mean?” Brownie was shocked.

  “What I mean, Lelia,” Ethan condescended, “is that she doesn’t trance. She can also clearly see through our cloaking.”