Drop Dead Gorgeous

by Juliet Lyons

  “Nothing, Superintendent,” an officer confirms.

  Burke sighs loudly. “Right-o. We’ll send forensics in first thing tomorrow and dust for prints, make a proper search of the place.”

  They all file back along the hall, and I’m about to follow them, my gaze lingering on the smashed pool of glass beneath the TV, when I catch sight of a white envelope facedown on the faded blue carpet.

  Frowning, I reach down to pick it up. I run my thumb under the seal, tipping the contents into my open palm. A familiar object hits my skin with a thunk, a white square of paper fluttering to the floor.

  I open my fingers to stare at the object in my left hand, but even before the gold glints beneath the electric bulb in the ceiling and I turn it over to see my family’s coat of arms—a diagonal strip of silver through a green background, a dove at the tip of the crest—I know what it is and what it means.

  I stare dumbfounded at the ring, a token of everything I used to be, a reminder of the night my first love died, a symbol that no matter how many years pass or how far you run, the past always catches up.

  My knees sag as I drop to the dusty carpet and unfold the thin white paper. It takes my eyes a moment to focus on the black spiky ink on the page.

  You should take better care of your things.

  A burst of horror explodes at the center of my chest as the meaning sinks in.

  I drop the ring and the note, and without stopping to explain to a stunned-looking Burke, I flee the house, moving so fast, the night air cuts into my skin like a knife.

  You should take better care of your things.

  He is going after Mila.

  Chapter 17

  Mila

  “Fight,” I say to Lee Davies, leaning forward on the swivel chair. “Fight for her with everything you’ve got, and when there’s nothing left, fight some more.”

  For the zillionth time since Vincent left, my eyes flicker between the clock on the wall and my phone on the desk. Though it’s been roughly thirty minutes since he left with Burke, it already feels like hours.

  Cat, who is sitting on my left, shakes her head. “I disagree. No disrespect, Mila, but I think you should go Buddhist on this one, Davies—do nothing.”

  Davies glances between us both in confusion, his brow furrowed. “Nothing?”

  Cat nods. “If you keep calling and texting and making a fuss, you become the enemy. Thus, pushing her further into the comforting arms of Mr. UPS. If you do nothing, you give her time to think. Suddenly, rather than the bad guy, you’re the reasonable, self-effacing man who’s only ever wanted the best for her. She starts to realize what she’s missing.”

  From over by the window, Ronin scoffs. The whole time we’ve been counseling Lee he’s been silent, staring out into the night, but now he’s glaring at Cat with a wicked glint in his eye, a smirk stretched across his thin lips. “Do nothing,” he says, mimicking Cat’s voice. “I hardly think London’s longest-living spinster is in a position to be dishing out marriage advice.”

  Cat whips her head around to him, lip curled. “Oh,” she says, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I forgot we have an expert on matters of the heart in our midst. Do tell us what your advice would be.”

  Hands thrust deep into his pockets, Ronin steps away from the window. “No thanks. I’m not overly fond of telling people how to live their lives. Besides, relationships don’t interest me.”

  “Evidently,” Cat says, cutting him a scornful glare.

  Davies and I exchange wide-eyed looks, as if we’ve just realized we’re trapped in a cage with a pair of man-eating lions.

  “You know,” Ronin says, wagging an index finger at her, “the whole ‘do nothing’ advice reminds me of that night we spent together. Maybe that’s your modus operandi in all walks of life, including the bedroom.”

  As Cat’s brown-green eyes flash with anger, Lee spins around to his computer and begins typing on his laptop, and I snatch my phone, pretending to be engrossed in the home screen.

  Cat lets out a high-pitched laugh. “Please, you’re so used to those harpies at your club you have no idea what a real woman wants—probably never did.”

  “Show me a real woman and we’ll ask her,” Ronin retorts.

  “I actually find it hilarious you’re still doing this.”

  Ronin lets out a tiny snort of incredulity. “Doing what?”

  “Razzing me because I didn’t want to see you again after we slept together. For a creature who’s been around since the dawn of time, you’re surprisingly inept when it comes to dating. I’ve known five-year-olds with a better grasp of emotional maturity.”

  Lee Davies’s fingers still on the computer keys, my phone almost slips from my grasp. This is better than Jersey Shore.

  Ronin chuckles. “Don’t flatter yourself, Catherine. I was just doing my bit for the community, giving an old dog a bone.”

  Cat’s chair rolls backward and knocks into mine as she leaps out of her seat. The tension is so thick, they’re either going to kill each other or kiss—violently. “If I’m such an old dog, why did you make Vincent ask me to meet you?”

  I sneak a peek at the pair of them. They’re a foot apart, blazing eyes locked. It’s obvious they’ve completely forgotten Lee and I are in earshot.

  He shrugs a shoulder. “I get a kick out of seeing you angry. Everyone is always so afraid of me, it’s a novelty.”

  Cat, who is on the verge of shouting, cries, “A novelty!”

  My eyes dart back to Ronin. But before I get to hear his snarky response, I’m distracted by the buzzing of my phone. I jump about two feet into the air, grabbing for it so fast it slips from my sweaty grip and slides to the floor. Lee spins in his chair and snatches it up, holding it out to me. I’m so frantic to hit the green button I barely register the fact it’s an unknown number.

  “Hello?”

  There is a long pause on the other end. “Mila? It’s Karolina from class.”

  My heart sinks, Lee’s face dropping as I shake my head.

  “Oh, hi, Karolina.” Disappointment leaks into my voice.

  “I’m sorry. This is bad time for you? I call back?”

  The text from earlier flashes into my head. With all the drama, I’d completely forgotten I sent it. “No. Not a bad time. I can talk.”

  I hold a finger up to Lee and drift to the other side of the office. With all the yelling going on, I can barely hear her.

  “Mila, you are there?”

  “Yes, I am. Sorry, I was just going somewhere more private.”

  “You want to know about the life essence?”

  I take a deep breath. “Yes. I was wondering if they ever change.”

  Karolina pauses. I imagine her examining her nails. What makes up Karolina’s essence? I muse. Possibly Prada handbags and unsuitable men.

  “The vampire man did not explain this?” There is a hint of exasperation in her Eastern European accent.

  “Yes, he did, but it…” I pause, knotting a long strand of hair around my index finger. “It bothers me.”

  “Oh. It is woman?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are jealous?”

  “No,” I say quickly. “It’s not that. There’s a particular scene, a tragic incident he can’t move past and it makes me wonder if he’ll ever be truly happy—if I can ever make him truly happy. Does that make sense?”

  Karolina sighs. “Life essences are different for everyone. They mean different things. Mine is of my mother. How long ago is this tragic incident?”

  I cringe. “About three hundred years, give or take.”

  “I see. Does he tell you he loves you?”

  “No,” I admit, thinking of his face right before he left, his jaw clenched so tight a pulse hammered beneath the skin. It seemed as though he was waging some inner battle, as if he wanted to unlea
sh something important but thought better of it.

  “Do you love him?”

  I suck in a sharp breath. God. I do. I really do.

  “It’s early days,” I mumble. “Very early days.”

  “I warn you about the relationship between vampire and human. Things are not easy. Some say it is great curse to fall for the undead.”

  “No shit,” I mutter.

  We are silent for a few seconds. Across the office, Ronin and Cat are still going at it hammer and tongs, their voices clashing with the cheering noises erupting from Davies’s computer. From the sound of it, he’s watching a football match to drown out the arguing.

  “It’s possible for the life essence to change,” Karolina says. “If he lets go of the past, his life essence will change with it. But nothing is certain. There’s no vampire handbook.”

  “No,” I say grimly. “I suppose there wouldn’t be.”

  “I wish I could help better.”

  I close my eyes, rubbing my temples. “That’s okay. Thanks for calling me.”

  “Of course,” she continues, “if you decide to spend your lives together, there is a way to fix age problem.”

  “Do you mean by me turning into a vampire?”

  Karolina laughs shrilly. “Oh, Mila, no. I mean for him. To take away his immortality.”

  My eyes flip open, the walls and desks around me blurring. The floor seems to drop away from under me. At that moment, the shouting from Ronin and Cat reaches fever pitch.

  “You’re nothing but a neurotic shrew,” Ronin bellows.

  Cat emits a loud ha! “A neurotic shrew you’ve been pestering for the past four years.”

  “What?” I say into the phone. She says something, but I can’t hear her over the racket. I edge toward the door, slipping out into the blessed silence of the empty corridor.

  “Say it again,” I say, the phone pressed tightly to my ear.

  She laughs, the noise tinkling down the line like a bell. “I said, how lucky for you I am vampire witch.”

  I think of the card she gave me, the special talents Vincent mentioned. “Are you messing with me?” I ask, my stomach fluttering with excitement.

  “No, Mila. I wouldn’t do that.”

  I’m about to ask her to elaborate when I hear the unmistakable swoosh of the elevator doors opening around the corner of the corridor. Vincent is back.

  “Karolina, I have to go, but I really, really want to talk more about this. Can I call you tomorrow?”

  “Yes. Speak then. Bye, Mila.”

  We hang up. There are soft footfalls now, barely audible above the gurgle from Lee’s computer, the high-pitched voices of Cat and Ronin. I slide my phone into the back of my jeans, a smile already twitching at the corners of my mouth as I hurtle along the corridor. I skid around the corner, smacking chest first into someone tall and broad.

  Even before rough hands seize my shoulders, I know it isn’t Vincent. A strong scent hits my nostrils—a rich, musky cologne. The knot of excitement in my tummy twists violently in fear. I stop breathing, my legs turning to water beneath me. Suddenly I’m back in the damp alley, amid kitchen waste and the lingering aroma of stale piss. My eyes home in on an open collar, a triangle of olive flesh, and then I lift my gaze, my brain joining the images together like pieces of a terrifying puzzle.

  I stare into the face of David Moreau.

  Without the faux charm of the bar, his features are a mask of hard lines—tight, angular jaw, broad forehead, flat cheekbones. Beneath the stark glare of the fluorescent lighting, his eyes are as hard and bitter as two black coffee beans.

  He holds my gaze, his pupils dilating to slits as the scream surging up my throat dies in my mouth. My self-control leaks away as his dead eyes pierce mine.

  My vocal cords are frozen. Cat, Ronin, I scream with my mind. Lee. Did they even notice I left the room?

  Moreau holds an index finger to his lips, his dark eyes flashing as he yanks me by the arm along the corridor and into the elevator he just stepped out of.

  I watch, numb with horror as he jabs the button to take us into the basement, to the underground garage.

  When the sliding doors bang shut, he grins, a sinister, mocking smile, his teeth as white as a shark’s.

  “I was disappointed when you didn’t call me after our date, Mila,” he jeers. “Was it something I said?”

  His hand clamps around my upper arm like a vise. He walks me backward until I hit the mirror, his face so close I almost choke on his cologne.

  Look away, I command myself. Look away. He can’t control you. But my eyes stay pinned to his grinning face, my body as stiff as a corpse.

  “I think we’ll have some fun, you and I,” he continues. “There’s a lot of unfinished business between us. Particularly now you’re Inspector Ferrer’s pet.”

  Under the glamour, I can barely muster a frown. Inside, however, I’m screaming like a banshee, my head throbbing painfully as I struggle to regain power over my body.

  “Foolish of him to leave you unattended,” he goads. “I didn’t think for one minute it would be this easy. That you would walk right into my arms.”

  The jolt of the elevator hitting the ground floor breaks his concentration for a split second. I manage to shut my eyes as he heaves me out into the cool, stale air of the garage.

  My feet shuffle across rough concrete. If I could just scream, Cat or Ronin will hear me. Surely by now they’ve realized I’m gone.

  I wait until Moreau stops. By this point I’ve guessed this is more than just an escape route, that we’re going to get into a vehicle. As soon as I hear him click a key fob, I take advantage of the small distraction by throwing my energy into fighting off the glamour. I think of things that have happened in the past that made me feel something—the anger when Scott ditched me, the sadness I felt when Dad moved out, the first time Vincent kissed me—drawing out memories and cramming them into my nerve endings, forcing myself into action.

  The fog clears.

  Without wasting a moment, I open my mouth, allowing as much air into my lungs as possible, and scream. A rattling shriek ricochets around the concrete walls. I’m so detached from it, for a second I’m convinced it isn’t me at all. When I flick my eyes open, the last thing I see is Moreau’s dark eyes narrowed to slits and his hand as he pulls it back to strike me, hard and flat across the face.

  * * *

  The first thought I have when I wake up is that I’m going to die. My skull throbs. Nausea rises up the back of my throat like bile. I feel as though I’ve been flung down a flight of stairs and then dragged back up by the roots of my hair. I do a mental inventory of my body, relieved to find all parts intact and fully clothed, though my side is numb from the cold concrete I’m lying on, loose stones digging into my elbow and knee.

  A moan escapes my lips—a good sign, as it means the glamour has dropped. As far as good things go, however, everything else is dire. A burning sensation radiates from my wrists, and when I try to move them, I realize they’re tightly bound, the searing pain caused by a thin rope cutting into my skin like a blade. I try to reach into the darkness without opening my eyes, praying I’m alone while simultaneously hoping he hasn’t abandoned me, leaving me to rot in some remote dark hole.

  I open my eyes to nothing but thick blackness. I screw my eyes shut again, wondering if the blow to the head has blinded me, before reopening them in an attempt to differentiate between the shades of coal black. Nothing changes. Either I am blind or the place where I’m tied up is windowless.

  I wait for a wave of nausea to fade before slowly heaving myself into a sitting position. Right away I wish I hadn’t. Not only does the pain cause a thin trickle of vomit to spill over my chin, but footsteps approach and a match hisses as it’s struck. Any relief I feel at seeing the tiny flame flicker to life is eclipsed by David Moreau’s face looming
toward me, pale and luminous in the darkness.

  I bite back a bloodcurdling scream.

  “Sleeping Beauty is awake,” he goads. With a spasm of horror, I realize he smells different, the scent of his cologne smothered by the unmistakable whiff of gasoline.

  I turn away from the flame and he straightens, lighting what appears to be an old-fashioned gas lamp and setting it down on the ground. At first I think he’s brought me to a cave. The walls of the room are rocky and uneven but set into the gray stone above are timber beams. The ground is bare, stripped of floorboards, and bone-dry.

  “Did you sleep well?” he asks, dark eyes gleaming like jet in the flickering light of the flame.

  “Where am I?” I demand. My voice is hoarse and slurred. It occurs to me he can’t have taken me far from Scotland Yard or we would still be driving. Unless I’ve been out for a long time.

  “Still in London,” he says. “Don’t worry. I’ve not taken you anywhere your boyfriend won’t be able to find you.”

  As the words sink in, my eyes snag on a flash of light on the floor near my feet. There, gleaming in the orange glow of the lamp, is a large metal blade shaped like a scythe.

  Moreau clocks my wide-eyed terror, following my gaze to the weapon. “Ah, don’t worry about that. You’ll be dead before lover boy.”

  My stomach churns violently and I begin to tremble. Although the air is humid and stuffy, my teeth chatter, knocking together like loose marbles in a bag. The rational part of my brain tells me to keep him talking. I recall hearing somewhere that if abducted, you should make friends with your captor, if for no other reason than to buy yourself more time.

  “What’s Vincent to you?”

  He cocks his head to one side, frowning. “I was under the impression he knew of our connection by now. Or hasn’t he told you?”

  “No,” I say, deciding to play dumb to keep him speaking. “I thought it was me you were after.”

  He laughs, and if there wasn’t already enough evidence this guy is seriously unhinged, the mad cackle erupting from his mouth confirms it.