“Oh yeah. I’m serious, bitch. You better back off and head to the back of the line.”
Wendy’s face was contorted in a glower, the bones in her jaw clicked and popped, moving, reshaping her jawline. Her arms clung to her side like logs ending in two tight fists. They resembled a pair of sledgehammers.
I slid in between the two. “What’s your name, gorgeous?”
The blonde wolf grinned. “Tanesha Jones.” When she voiced the last “s” she accentuated it with a finger snap. “I don’t need to ask your name, girl. I see you all the time on TV.”
“Oh stop.” I winked. She could continue for several more minutes, at least, and it wouldn’t bother me a bit.
“No. Serious. You’re my party girl. Way better than Paris.”
“But twice as deadly.” I winked and gave her a practiced snarl.
“I know that’s right.” Tanesha giggled and flipped her hair over her shoulder.
I mimicked the activity on my end. If I’d learned anything from my mother it was how to manipulate, and this one was nearly on the hook.
“Are you sure we’re not on that list, Tanesha?”
“Um.” She wrinkled her muzzle, looked away. “Well—”
“Yes?”
“It was on here, both of you were, but—”
“What do you mean ‘were’?” Wendy had flanked me, her hands on her hips. Had she learned nothing from watching me work? You’d think that some of my skill would rub off, but no. Pesky emotions.
Tanesha reverted to her seemingly natural bitch state, lips curling for maximum canine exposure. “And why would I tell you anything, bitch?”
I reached for Wendy’s arm and drew her close. “Not another word. You’re fucking up my shtick. Now, just stand over there and be quiet.”
“That’s right, you better get ahold of your girl.”
Wendy stomped a few feet away, and straightened her gown, as much as the puffy frock could be fixed. We were going to have a talk about that dress; I was having a hard time looking at it. I returned my attention to the job at hand.
“You’re going to have to excuse my friend. She’s had a bad night.” I leaned in close, conspiratorially. “She’s experiencing a little flaking, downstairs, if you know what I mean,” I whispered, winked at Wendy in the distance, and gave her the thumbs up. She eyed me suspiciously.
“Ooo, girl, I’m glad I’ve still got a heartbeat. The worst I deal with down there is a little yeast.” She eyed me, watching for a response.
“Don’t you mean head cheese?”
Tanesha erupted into a deep raucous laughter, shoulders jumping. “You nasty,” she managed to choke out. “And I love it. Now come close. I’m not supposed to tell you this but the owner had us cross your name off the list just an hour ago.”
“What?”
“Yep. Mr. Markham called the manager and nixed you from the opening night festivities. Cold, I thought.”
“Damn. Markham, you say?”
Tanesha tilted her head like a threat. “Not a word, girl. I can’t afford to lose this job.”
I looked back at Wendy, the crowd that was going to watch us shuffle away, and the cameras that would be documenting it all. Markham or not, this wasn’t just a dangerous situation, it was quickly becoming a PR nightmare. “Shit, that’s embarrassing.”
“Mmm hmm. Do you want me to make a scene so you can get out of here without people noticing?”
“No thanks, Tanesha. I’m a big girl, I can deal.”
“You’re good people, Amanda. No matter what they say.”
“Sometimes the news gets it right, girl.” I smirked.
“You’re bad.” She chuckled in a deeper tone than she’d liked and cut it off instantly. I turned to Wendy and shook my head no.
As long as I’d been dead—I was going on two years now—I hadn’t missed a single social event. And now, I was blackballed. What the fuck? I can see Markham banning Gil from his club, but me? That’s insane. Could my popularity be waning? I know it seems unlikely.
“Come on, Wendy. Let’s go.”
We turned from the velvet rope into a tidal wave of flashbulbs, and enough questions to clog our ears for days.
“Miss Feral?” Cheshire grin.
“Wendy?” Wrinkled nose.
“What’s happening?” Smirky judgment.
“Not going in?” Giggles.
“What’s the story?” Sarcastic tone.
I gave them a publicity grin. “No news here, boys, just forgot something in the car.” The stalkerazzi were unconvinced. We posed for a couple of mercy shots and then took measured steps past the line of photographers. Too much speed would seem urgent and call for a chase, and I didn’t intend to end up like Princess Diana, no matter how much publicity it’d get me.
“Jesus, those pictures are going to be everywhere, tomorrow,” Wendy said, as we moved out of earshot. She’d sucked her lips inside and nibbled, a nervous tick that made the pretty blonde look toothless.
“Stop sucking your lips and don’t worry, I’ll figure out some kind of spin and have Marithé leak it. It’ll be fine.” I had to be strong, Wendy could freak out at any second and draw more attention. It’s not like my heart wouldn’t have been beating out of my chest.24 So humiliating, right? But, like I said, I had to be strong. “Let’s go eat a wino. You know how that always cheers you up.”
“Okay.” She stretched the word out, as though unconvinced.
“C’mon, girl. We’ll go down to Pioneer Square and make it a smorgasbord!”
She giggled. I linked on at her elbow and we Blah-niked toward the car, hips bumping.
“What the hell do you think happened back there?” she asked. We stopped at the car. Since, at some point during the horror show, Seattle had decided to stop the rain, we tossed our umbrellas in the back.
“Oh … I think it has a little something to do with our buddy, Gil. Where is he?” I looked at my watch. He was twenty minutes late, not that that wasn’t just like him—or any of us. I usually followed strict “fashionably late” guidelines, myself. But, to keep us waiting twenty minutes when something as catastrophic as a velvet rope denial had happened? Unacceptable.
I didn’t have to wonder for long.
A blood-curdling scream split the night into before and after,25 a scream that blended the feminine quality of a horror movie starlet with all the masculine panic of a proctology patient.
Gil burst from around the corner of the next street, feet pounding the wet pavement and arms waving. He wore his trim Gucci suit in monochrome, making his hysteria all the more comic in its formality. “Car!” he yelled. “Car! Car! Car!”
Two massive dogs emerged behind him, snapping, snarling, and scrabbling at the cement. They were held back from a full charge by leashes that ended in a familiar, yet horrifying presence.
Markham howled more than his dogs, deep, guttural and menacing. Blood from his cheeks vaporized with each yell, filling the air between him and Gil in curling tentacles of vampiric spray. Between screams, his face was wild and his lips curled back from a pair of particularly nasty looking fangs dripping red condensation down his face and onto a white dress shirt, already striped with gore.
Sloppy fucker.
Wendy and I split off, leaving the SUV’s hatch open, and darting around opposite sides of the car.26 We were in and cranked before Gil hit our side of the sidewalk. Wendy screamed from a barely cracked window, “Hurry! He’s almost on you!”
“No shit!” Gil dove between two Japanese imports, forcing the dogs to scrabble up and over the hood of one, crushing and dimpling it, and slowing them down only slightly. From this proximity, it was clear they weren’t dogs at all, but fully shifted werewolves. Slobber flung from snapping maws in large enough globs to splat on the sidewalk like water balloons.
I put the car in drive and as Gil dove into the trunk space, floored the accelerator, careening between two cars in the rear of the lot. Markham’s blood screams spattered the windows in flecks of
crimson. I hit the wipers and cranked the wheel right, pointing us at a nearby alley. Gil swatted at the swinging pull of the rear lid, and closed it just as the werewolves reached the car. Their claws scraped across the window, etching it with their fury. They were on us until the curb at the next street, where a sliding pivot flung them from their purchase on the bumper.
Markham planted himself in the middle of the street and bellowed. The blast of expectorated blood should have emptied him. The eruption was conical and expanded, catching on the buildings, and sending rivulets down the gray glass. He was still there when I turned onto Denny Avenue.
Blood rained from the sky.
21 A butt-load, which is far worse than an actual shit-load, in that a butt-load is perpetually hangin’ on. You know what I mean.
22 I may be exaggerating, but only slightly.
23 Zombie Wear Daily: The source for the fashion-conscious zombie.
24 Had it not been a blackened husk, of course.
25 As far as screams go, blood curdling is the way to go. Don’t settle, victims.
26 No small feat in stilettos.
Chapter 4
Winos, Witches and
Winnebagos
Willing to relocate? Enthusiastic about the recent strides in clairvoyant technology? Leading medium accepting applications for Psychic Technicians 1 and 2, must have excellent communication skills and triple-digit Intelligence Quotient.
—Employment Section, Seattle Supernatural Daily
We didn’t really talk about our next step, it just sort of … happened. No one even spoke until the car was barreling up Interstate 90 toward the pass, Mr. Kim snoring quietly in the back. We all looked like zombies, even the two that weren’t.
I turned on the radio.
“A mysterious red rain fell on the downtown core, around 1:00 this morning,” a man’s voice reported. “Centered just north of Belltown, the odd substance, that some described as diluted blood, fell for only a few minutes, but the evidence of the event can be found on every car, building, and bystander unfortunate enough to be caught in the downpour. We talked to Mara, a waitress and witness to the bizarre rain.”
“The reapers are gonna have to work a miracle to sort this out,” Wendy said.27
“No doubt, they’ll be working those little asses all night cleaning the streets and washing memories.”
Gil squeezed his torso between the front seats, elbows up on the seat backs. “I almost feel sorry for them.”
“Sh! I’m listening.” I cranked the volume up.
“It happened all quick. Like super sudden. I’d just stepped out the door when the first drops fell. I’d be pissed if it weren’t a uniform.”
“Mara’s shirt is covered with red spots and streaks, much like everything else in the area. The police are treating it like a crime scene at this point …”
There was a pause in the news report, a subtle crackling static that seemed to take over for only a few seconds, but was likely much longer. I looked at Wendy, who nodded. Gil slid back into his seat, relief spreading across his face. The interruption subsided.
“We have with us Seattle Police Department spokeswoman, Gail Charles. Officer Charles, have you found the source of this unusual—”
“Absolutely—nothing of any import, simply a busted water main and a little rust. City water is on its way.”
That was quick.
The reapers wielded their magic with the impatience of only children. I imagined the scowls of contempt on their faces as they moved through the crowds, snapping fingers and clearing minds, all with the springy-stepped footing of child stars. The massive mouth portal would be open, chomping at the blood debris, and licking windows clean.
“I wish I could have seen them show up,” Wendy said.
“Ew. I don’t.” I glowered. “I owe those brats twenty grand for last time I cut myself. If I’m not more careful, I’m gonna be broke and broken. Plus, they’re just fucking creepy.”
“I think they’re adorable.”
“So you’ve worked through that porcelain doll phobia, then.”
“Shut up.” Wendy’s eyes squinted.
“No. You shut up.”
“You’re the one that made us go to Markham’s club.”
“How was I supposed to know? It’s all Gil’s fault anyway.”
“Um. If I could break into girl-talk for a minute.” Gil’s face was slack. He stared off in the distance.
I followed his gaze. Didn’t see anything. “What’s up?”
He looked down at the dash clock. 4:30 A.M.
“That’s dawn up there.” He pointed toward the break in the mountains. A dim light clung to the trees like the faintest dew. Only a vampire would notice. I didn’t pick up on the importance of the statement, right away … and then it hit like a wave.
“Oh crap.” If we didn’t find shelter, Gil was going to either burn or be forced to claw into the earth.
“Is there a motel nearby? When was the last exit? How far are we from the next exit?” Gil broke free from the stupor that claimed him. He spat his words, and clung to the seat backs with white-knuckled intensity.
“Calm down. This is America, there’s got to be some sort of commerce blighting the landscape just over the hill there.” I pointed to the cresting roadway.
But there wasn’t. Just more of the same, trees, more hills, and the higher we climbed the more obvious dawn became.
I’d never seen a vampire fry before and you can bet your ass, Gil wasn’t about to be my first. He told me, once, about seeing it happen on an underground video that made its way through the suck circles.28 The female vampire was tied to a table in a forest clearing, face up and nude. The light simply tanned her, at first, and then seemed to ignite in her veins, searing her flesh in a web pattern, before bursting from inside and engulfing her. Finishing her.
A shudder rolled through me.
That wasn’t going to happen to Gil. I wouldn’t let it. “The way I see it, we’ve got another two hours before direct sunlight, maybe more in the forested areas. We can’t be more than an hour away from a town with a motel, or something.”
Gil warmed to this idea. “I agree. Okay. Anything sounds like a plan right now.”
Always the breath of fresh air, Wendy said, “I knew we shouldn’t have wasted all that time driving around the city. What if you guys are wrong about the timing?”
The sound of Gil’s teeth grinding sent shivers rolling through me. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Maybe.” Wendy snatched her purse from the floorboard and dug inside.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
She pulled out her cell phone and spoke two words, “Madame Gloria.”
“Jesus.”
“It couldn’t hurt, Amanda,” Gil said.
A minute later and we had another voice in the car. Wendy’s telephone psychic had joined us on speaker. Her voice was rich and buttery like a jazz singer’s, hypnotic. Ear crack. There was no wonder Wendy called on her so often. “Here’s what you’re going to do, children. Take the next exit.”
She had no sooner gotten the words out than the next exit was on us. Hearing no dissent, I pulled the car off the freeway. At the top of the off-ramp a sign pointed toward a campground.
“Follow the signs to the campground, when you arrive at the gate, turn off your lights.”
This was beginning to sound dangerous, but no more so than a flaming vampire in the backseat of my Volvo, so I kept going. The road to our destination was worn and potholed, and entirely unlit. This was the kind of dark that scared the living, and it was beginning to scare me. My headlights seemed swallowed in the dense forest on either side, and the paved road gave way to dirt before too long.
Then we came up to a sign.
Green Gulch Camp
Closed for Season
STAY OUT!
It hung from a chain that blocked our way.
“Shit!” Gil screamed, defeated.
Madame Gloria�
�s voice attempted to soothe, “Now, now, ease yourself, vampire. Shelter is at hand. Drive into the campground and at the curve, you’ll find what you seek.” Then, “That was twelve minutes, Wendy, shall I add it to your bill?”
Wendy looked from me to Gil, sheepishly. She clicked off the speakerphone and whispered, “Yeah, that’s fine … I know.” She glanced in my direction, not quite meeting my gaze. “I know,” she said, again, and hung up.
“Hmm.”
“What?” Wendy snapped.
“Are you sure about her?”
“She guarantees her visions to be moderately accurate.”
“Well, in that case—”
“What?”
“You realize that means she’s only right part of the time.”
“Well I have faith that she’s right about this.”
“Okay.” I shrugged.
Wendy turned to her window, her scowl reflected in green dash light.
Gil left the car to unhook the chain, and hook it closed behind us. The further into the campground we drove, the wetter it became. Not from any noticeable rain; the dampness just seemed to be its natural state, permeating everything, condensing on the windows. Muddy puddles splashed dry as we churned through.
“Turn off the ligh—” Gil yelled, then cut himself off, then whispered, as though someone could hear us inside the car. “She told us to turn off the lights!”
I clicked them off and we bounced over the rough road in darkness for a moment, before a dim glow appeared in the distance, flickering on and off as though with candlelight. I stopped and turned off the engine. “That must be it.”
“Yep.” Wendy clutched at the dash; she was chewing her lips again.
“Why are you scared?” I asked. “Did that witch tell you something?”
“No. It’s just kind of scary, that’s all.”
“We’re the monsters, ladies.” Gil opened his door and hopped out. “Remember?” He pushed the door shut with a quiet click, and then a soft bump to secure it.
I pulled off my heels and followed suit. Dirty feet were far preferable to ruined designer shoes, even if I had to drive barefoot.
Wendy didn’t move. “I’ll stay here and guard the car.”
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