There must have been a hundred people in line in the room and another two hundred in the hallway. Their tickets had times stamped on them so they’d know when it was their turn to get in line. The rest of the room was separated into 8 rows of five individual 6' tables facing each other across four wide aisles. There were curtains behind each row of tables so you could only see the celebrities on either side of the aisle you were in. I recognized most of the actors doing the signings; they’d all appeared in at least one of Ovsanna’s films or the series she produces. Bruce Campbell and Michael Berryman flanked Annie Ross and they hadn’t stopped signing since the doors opened three hours ago. Some of the other actors weren’t quite as well-known, but everyone seemed to be selling steadily.
I decided to take a walk, say hello to Robert Taylor and Joel Kinnamon, both of whom I’d met when they guest starred on L.A. Undercover. Robert’s table was at the far end of the room. He was talking to two girls in Buffy garb— short skirts, barrettes, and matching stakes— and a tall, skinny guy who had to have been from England— his ears, neck, skull, and face were tatted with badges from the English Premier Soccer League: Arsenal on his nose, Manchester United under his left eye, Cardiff City under his right. Tottenham Hotspur and West Bromwich Albion divided his forehead. God forbid the Brits stop playing soccer. I was trying to check out his Adam’s apple— maybe Chelsea— without being too obvious, when a red haired woman who looked like Ovsanna’s former assistant crossed the aisle. She slipped behind a man in a bacon suit— a full-length rasher of bacon suit— and a 200 lb. Little Red Riding Hood with her werewolf in tow.
“Maral?” I called out. The woman didn’t react. By the time I got around a fat guy in a Chick-fil-A costume and a Christopher Walken look-alike in zombie make-up with a Walken Dead nametag on his rags, she’d disappeared. That was okay. It couldn’t have been Maral, not dressed like a Goth in black lace-up boots and a shiny mini-skirt and metal-studded top. The Maral McKenzie I knew lived in designer suits and those weird high heels by the French guy with the hard to pronounce name.
Six months ago, when I showed up at Ovsanna’s house to arrest Maral for trying to have me killed, she was gone. Disappeared. All Ovsanna ever said was she’d sent her away and she wouldn’t be back. Three weeks later Ovsanna hired Monk to replace her. She’s never spoken of her since.
I was back at the first aisle, the one that separated a row of celebrities’ tables from the three lines of fans waiting to climb the stairs to Ovsanna’s table. Ovsanna’s friend Tim DeKay was slammed with women waiting to get his autograph on photos from his series White Collar.
A dozen fans stood in line on the stage, blocking my view of Ovsanna as they leaned over the table to select the photos they wanted her to sign. I got a glimpse of her talking to yet another Buffy babe. Must be an easy costume to pull together. All you need is a hairbrush and a hair clip, a backpack, a micro-mini, and a piece of wood with a sharp end on it. From what I could see, this Buffy was a little oldand a little heavy for the part. She could have played Buffy’s grandma on a break from her Jenny Craig weigh-in. Had to hand it to her for creativity, though. She’d stenciled Sunnydale High on a men’s XL hoodie, and her stake was a big, 3” wide #2 pencil hanging from a string around her neck.
I looked away for a moment to watch a fan coming down the aisle with his head on a platter in front of him. When I looked back, the Buffy woman had jumped onto Ovsanna’s table. She was screaming. I heard “bitch”, and “beware”, and then she tore the pencil off her neck and lunged at Ovsanna. Ovsanna fell backward, out of my sight. Her hand came up just as the woman aimed the pencil at her, pointed end first like Drew Brees throwing to his wide receiver. That was all I could see. I started moving, shoving through fans who were just beginning to react. A mummy on stilts went down in front of me. I jumped over him and yelled at the people in my way. Up ahead, Monk charged up the stairs to the table. I could see the woman standing frozen on the tabletop. I couldn’t see Ovsanna. In the next second, the woman jumped off the table, ran to the edge of the stage, leapt to the ground, and raced for the exit.
I had a choice to make— fast. Monk had reached Ovsanna, and Buffy was getting away. Ovsanna can take care of herself. She’s a vampyre; I’ve seen her heal from life-threatening wounds in a matter of minutes. Of course, she couldn’t do anything obvious in front of a crowd of screaming fans with iPhones in their hands, but she had Monk to shield her— all 280 lbs. of him— and for all I knew, the stake hadn’t met its mark.
I turned and plowed back the way I came, leaving a Chewbacca and a Godzilla in my wake, trying to keep the Buffy woman in my sights.
4. OVSANNA
I threw up my hand to catch the crazed woman’s wrist, but my motion knocked the chair out from under me and before I could gain my balance, she let loose with the stake. It pierced my neck just to the left of my larynx, pinning me to the floor. I locked eyes with my vampyre slayer.
I expected her to land on me, but instead she froze where she stood, staring at me with stunned disbelief. She didn’t understand what had happened. Or hadn’t happened. In her world, I was supposed to dissolve into gold sprinkle dust as soon as her deadly pencil found its mark. That’s what they used on the show. But I was still alive— no sprinkle dust— and her wooden stake hadn’t worked. She hadn’t slain the vampyre.
I could have killed her in a split second. Dropped my fangs and severed her jugular. Or unleashed my talons and torn out her heart so fast that the fans who were becoming aware of the commotion at my table wouldn’t know what had happened. But then how would I explain a still-beating heart flopping around atop my photos? Or a geyser of blood spraying everyone’s costumes as they stood in line? Special effects by Greg Nicotero? Just as hard to explain— how could I remove the stake nailing my neck to the hardwood floor while I held off an attack from a 50-year-old Biggest Loser candidate?
I didn’t move. She did. She jumped off the table and ran to the edge of the stage and then jumped from there six feet down to the floor. Overweight maybe, but not arthritic. She took one brief second to look back at me, horror on her face that she hadn’t succeeded in her task, and then raced for the ballroom doors.
I lay back on the floor and closed my eyes. Listened to the riot that was starting all around me. Well… this was one way to kick off a horror convention.
* * *
Monk was on me in an instant. He ripped out the stake and pressed the tablecloth over the tear in my throat. I watched his face as my blood pulsed out. His flawless yellow brown skin paled to a sickly greige.
I pushed his hands away and held the cloth myself. “Go after her, Monk,” I said. I couldn’t let him see the wound or how my flesh would almost immediately begin to heal itself. And if I lost too much blood before that happened, I was going to need Peter anyway. I was going to need to feed. “I’ll be okay. Send someone to get Peter for me, and you go after that woman.”
“But Ms. Moore—”
I sat up, the cloth pressed tightly against my neck. “You’ve got to stop her, Monk! She’s sick and she’s dangerous! Go after her. I’ll be okay.” The police detail that Matty had hired to work security was swarming the stage. “The officers will take care of me. Go!”
Monk turned and took off running, all 280 pounds of him. All I could think was, “Why haven’t I cast him in something?”
I sat still on the floor watching security usher the fans off the stage— sending them away with the promise of extended signing times if I returned later in the day; and if I didn’t, a guarantee they’d get the autographs they’d paid for sent to them by mail. Flashes exploded from the ballroom floor, where everyone had become aware of what had happened and no one wanted to be the last to post their Snapchats.
I told the police I didn’t want a doctor, and I especially didn’t want any press coming around. I described the woman for them, leaving out her odor of mental illness and concentrating on what she’d been wearing and her gray hair. The woman was ill; I’d be happie
r to have Monk or Peter find her than the NOPD. I let two of the officers help me stand and walk me to my suite. One remained guard outside the door.
I hadn’t really needed help standing, but if Peter didn’t get back soon, I might. I’d lost a lot of blood. I walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. It’s a good thing I’d overpacked; I wouldn’t be wearing the Prabal Gurung dress again, not with my blood spattered all over it. The tablecloth was saturated, too, but the wound was beginning to close. I could feel the frayed muscles in my neck cauterizing themselves, reaching to rejoin each other under my flesh. In a few hours, there’d be no sign I’d been stabbed.
In a few hours— if I could feed. If I couldn’t, my body wouldn’t have the nourishment it needed to heal itself and I’d begin to die. I wouldn’t think it possible except that it had happened to me once before, on Achill Island in Ireland, when I fell— or more likely was pushed— sixty feet down “the Big Mountain” of Slieve More. My left arm was shattered, my left leg snapped in two midway up my calf, two ribs cracked, a third punctured my diaphragm, and my collarbone was crushed.
That day, it had been weeks since I’d fed. I was badly injured— much worse than today— and my body didn’t have the nutrients to sustain the intense healing process. I lay there in the rubble of the mountainside and I began to see pieces of my life, my oh-so-long life, flashing in front of me— a sure sign that this time I wasn’t going to survive. I was going to dissolve into a liquid, gelatinous sludge and slide down the mountain with the mud streams.
I would have… if Maral hadn’t found me.
She didn’t know I was vampyre. I was her boss, an actress, the head of a film studio, the woman who had saved her from a murder conviction. Not a vampyre. Vampyres don’t really exist. Vampyres are only in the movies.
Yet, while she watched in horror as my muscles and bones attempted to fuse together to heal, I whispered my secret to her, and she believed me. And like the great personal assistant she was, she offered me her wrist.
Because that’s what she’d learned from the movies.
She saved my life that day. Up until then, I hadn’t known my own body could summon my demise, given the right set of circumstances: no sustenance, and injuries too severe to heal without it. Since then, I’ve always been careful to maintain my diet, and thanks to Peter, whose presence led ultimately to Maral’s departure— when her jealousy turned criminal— I’ve not had to kill to do it.
I sank to the cool tile floor, rested my head against the vanity, and hoped Peter would return before I lost consciousness.
5. PETER
I mowed over a family of Beverly Hillbilly zombies and the real Elvira, who was extremely gracious in light of the fact I’d knocked her on her ass, but by the time I got into the main hallway I couldn’t find the Buffy who’d attacked Ovsanna. Three other women in similar costumes, yes, but not the one who’d tried to take out Ovsanna. No one with gray hair and crepey skin. Over-the-hill Buffy was too old to run very fast, she’d probably taken one of the elevators that thirty or so people were waiting for. I pushed into the crowd and asked a female Klingon if she’d seen Buffy The Vampire Slayer enter the elevator. The woman was 300 lbs. if she was an ounce and at least 50 of those were her breasts. Which were covered in hieroglyphics. I got so momentarily distracted trying to read the brown squiggles she had painted there that I didn’t hear her reply. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. She answered me in Klingon.
Monk came barreling around the corner from the ballroom. For an ex-Sumo wrestler, the man is fast. He stopped when he saw me, which was good ’cause the guy weighs a ton. I’m 6' and pretty strong, but I haven’t been to the gym in the past few months— a tiger attack can set you back— and I was in no shape to collide with the Incredible Hulk.
“How’s Ovsanna?”
Monk nodded.
“Is she back in her room?”
He nodded again. He doesn’t say much if he doesn’t have to; maybe a carryover from his wrestling days. He’s always seemed to me a strange choice to replace Maral as Ovsanna’s assistant, but she says he’s good at what he does. He’s an IT whiz, I know that. SONY could have used him against the North Koreans. And not that Ovsanna needs a bodyguard, but he makes a good one. Just looking at him is enough to keep the crazies away.
Except for this Buffy character.
“I lost her,” I said to him. “By the time I got through the crowd, she’d disappeared. She might be staying in the hotel. If she’d headed for the lobby or one of the exits, I would have seen her.”
“I’ll find manager,” he said. “See if exists security cameras in ballroom or hallway. If she’s guest, somebody recognize. You go back to Ms. Moore, she asks for you.” He was upset, that was apparent; I’d never heard his English so poor.
He left and I badged my way onto the next elevator, leaving twenty impatient ghouls and one overweight Klingon in my wake. Not one of them noticed I was flashing a BHPD shield instead of the New Orleans Star and Crescent.
Just as well. I’ve got zip jurisdiction in this town.
6. OVSANNA
I was lying on the bathroom floor when Peter came in. Still conscious, but weakened by the loss of blood and the energy it was taking to heal my wound. I could barely speak.
“I was hoping you’d get here,” I whispered. “Did Monk find you? Did you find the woman?”
“Shhhh,” he said, “save your strength. Even for a vampyre, you’re looking peaked.”
He picked me up in his arms and carried me to the bed. Then he took off his jacket and lay down beside me. He took my face in his hands. “I think I know what will perk you up,” he said, as he unbuttoned his shirt. “Want some take-out food?”
Peter’s blood was like ambrosia compared to what Maral’s had become before I sent her away. THC from the weed she’d taken to smoking when she was upset— which was more and more often after Peter and I started seeing each other— curdled her blood and made it unpalatable. Vampyres are immune to the effects of drugs or alcohol, but if we feed on blood tainted with either, we suffer its unpleasantness. It’s been more than a century since Rimbaud and I celebrated his birthday with him getting drunk on absinthe and offering me his neck, but I still remember how sick I felt the next day.
It had gotten so I hated sucking on Maral when she’d been smoking.
Peter was different. Peter was spicy and full, rich with his pheromones, redolent of clove and arnica. I slid my fangs gently into the soft inner flesh below his elbow and nursed until I felt my strength return. And when I felt strong enough, I pushed his shoulders down on the bed and lowered myself on him, watching his eyes, feeling the delicious tremors that came with tightening around him, and seeing what his eyes told me he was feeling as I enclosed him. We moved together then, slowly at first, and then deeper and harder and more demanding until I could no longer hold myself away from him. Our bodies crashed together and I gave up control completely.
Afterwards, we stayed like that, silent, me lying atop him with my head on his chest, until I rolled to his side and licked his arm. We both watched my saliva close his puncture wounds. I was as good as new. Better, actually.
“So,” I said, “I had dinner and we both had something delightful for dessert. Not a bad way to start an evening, do you think?”
“I try not to think when I’m with you, Ovsanna. At least, not when we’re alone together like this. If I try to make sense of this, I’ll end up in a loony bin.”
“Uh huh,” I said, “just like the woman who attacked me. I take it she got away?”
He nodded. “From both of us. By the time I made it through the crowd, she’d disappeared. Monk’s tracking down any security cam footage that might have caught her.” He brushed his fingers over my neck, where there was no longer any sign I’d been pierced. “I couldn’t see what was going on before she threw the stake at you. I heard her yell ‘bitch’, and then she warned you to beware. Of what? Of her? What else did she say to you?”
“She
’s schizophrenic, Peter. I knew that as soon as she entered the room. Mental illness carries with it a scent, noticeable by my species, at least. She believes she’s Buffy; hence the costume. She said she was a slayer and why didn’t I recognize her, because she knew who I was. She kept repeating that… ‘I know who you are. I know who you’— wait a minute! That’s what one of the stalkers says on Facebook.”
“What stalkers?” He pulled away, immediately alert.
“Oh, I’ve always got a handful of people sending private messages to my fan page, telling me what they’d like to do to me or what they’d like me to do to them. You don’t want to know. I don’t even see most of them. Monk screens everything and just shows me the ones he thinks I should be aware of because they’re persistent, or sound like they’ve really gone off the deep end. And one of the ones he showed me keeps posting ‘I know who you are’. I remember because every time I see it, I think, ‘well, yes, you and a million other film goers.’”
“Is it a woman? What’s her name?” He was all business now.
“I don’t remember. I haven’t paid that much attention. Wait a minute.” I walked to the desk on the opposite side of the room. “Monk had a paper here with their names on it. He went over it with the hotel manager to see if any of them were registered. They weren’t.” I rifled through Variety and The Reporter and the latest faxes from the studio, and pulled out a single sheet of paper with three names double spaced on it. “Dr. Severance Taylor, Bea Summers, and Nado Goren, Esq.”
Make Me Dead: A Vampyres of Hollywood Mystery Page 3
