I looked to Ellis for confirmation of this. She gave a miserable little nod. I sighed, closed my eyes again and muttered, “Oh alright then!” I heard a familiar dull crunch as Voshki sank her fangs into her own wrist.
Her blood tasted even sweeter than Ellis’s. It ran through me like a warm, silky current, filling my mind with colors and patterns and images of strange and wonderful things I could not begin to explain. I had a fancy I might be seeing the very nature of Heaven itself. I had no recollection of drinking Voshki’s blood before, but I was fully conscious of what I was doing now, and of what it was doing to me. I very much wanted to touch Voshki, and her to touch me—hell, I wanted to have that wild monkey sex with her, if I had been up to it, but a part of me remained aware of Ellis being present in the room. Only a part, mind you, and not a very strong part at that. On the contrary, the yearning ache for Voshki was something very strong indeed. When she felt I’d had enough of her sweet blood, she gently disengaged her wrist from my mouth, and then she ducked her face close to mine and licked the excess blood from around my lips. Just that quick, light touch of her tongue against my mouth started about a dozen fires in various parts of my anatomy.
“You should rest now,” she told me as she stood up once more from the bed. She glanced at Ellis, then back at me. “I have things to do. Ellis will stay with you. And she will not let you out of her sight for a single second this time, will you Ellis?”
“No,” Ellis said flatly.
I rolled my head on the pillow to look at my contrite vampire girlfriend. Glowing eyes there too. I felt a dreamy smile stretching my lips. Two gorgeous, sexy vampires fighting over me! Was I a lucky dyke or what?
Voshki snickered. “I think maybe you’ve had about as much of my blood for now as you need,” she remarked.
I blinked. “You read my mind?”
“We both did,” Ellis sighed. “Loud and clear.”
Huh. I was really gonna have to work on my barriers. Later.
* * *
Later turned out to be eight hours later. I know I have never slept as much before in my entire life, and I have a feeling I never will again. I didn’t even awake feeling all that refreshed either, which seemed a rotten trick. I awoke also with the certainty that if I didn’t have a shower right now I was going to come down with something truly horrible picked up from being in that toxic waste-dump Derek McBride had called home.
Ellis sat in a chair across from the bed. That she was watching me whilst I slept should have been at least a little creepy, and under other circumstances I guess it would have been, but given the present circumstances, it was reassuring. And touching. She moved to the bedside the instant she saw I was awake.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
I nodded. “Better,” I assured her. It was the truth. I still felt horrible, but horrible is a step up from deathly, right? I motioned to the empty glass on the nightstand. “I could use some more water.”
She fetched a fresh pitcher for me and sat on the bed, still watching me closely whilst I drank. Then, my thirst quenched, I made an attempt to sit up instead.
“Where are you going?” Ellis asked.
“You said you found me in Derek McBride’s shack. God knows what all sorts of fuckery that hovel was harboring. I’m taking a shower.”
Sensible vampire that she is, Ellis did not even try to argue with me. She just asked if I wished for her to accompany me…in case I felt giddy and fell down? I gave her a wry smile.
“I’m more likely to get giddy and fall down if you’re in there with me,” I pointed out.
She seemed pleased with the compliment. “I’ll come into the bathroom with you then, but I’ll stay outside of the shower,” she decided.
Fine by me. Well, not really. I would have loved for her to come into the shower with me, but I wasn’t exactly in any shape for shower sex.
One long, hot, luxurious but sexless shower later then, every inch of skin was scrubbed free of any potentially deadly bacteria or viruses from Derek’s shack. I wrapped myself in a big, fluffy towel and staggered, feeling slightly giddy anyway from the hot water but infinitely happier, back to bed. Only problem was, now that I was clean, I had no desire to slip back between the contaminated sheets. Ellis must have read my mind. Or maybe just the look of disdain on my face.
“Sit,” she commanded, pushing a chair against the backs of my knees so that I had no choice. “I’ll go fetch Housekeeping to change the bed. Don’t move, okay?”
“Not a muscle,” I assured her.
Twenty minutes later I had fresh laundry and Ellis had fetched some nightclothes for me to put on. She had the grace to look embarrassed.
“I’m sorry Vosh left you naked. Sometimes my esteemed sire forgets that humans don’t think the same way as vampires do.”
“You mean we get embarrassed by being naked in front of people we have the uncontrollable desire to fuck like bunnies with?” I asked. Vampires are not the only ones who can be blunt.
Ellis blinked. Nodded.
I let the smile stretch my mouth muscles to cracking point. “That’s okay. The odd thing is, I’d have been more embarrassed if it’d been a human. Somehow being a vampire makes it less…well, less of a big deal. Does that make sense?” I hoped I was making sense to Ellis, because I was making very little to myself.
She gave a careful nod. “I think so. You do want to…have sex with Vosh then?”
“Wild, abandoned, filthy monkey sex. Yes.”
“You did have a lot of her blood, and it’s powerful stuff. You could feel that way about her for some considerable time. Can you live with that?”
I knew the unspoken addition to that last question was, “can you live with it without doing something about it?” Truthfully, I wasn’t so sure I could. Or whether I wanted to be able to do nothing about it. But there was no way I was going to tell Ellis that. Not right now. Maybe not ever. I shrugged and bought myself time by pouring some more water to drink. At this rate I was going to be awake for the next thirty-six hours peeing all the time. “Since I know it’s the blood compelling me to feel this way, I think I can control it,” I answered carefully. Ellis looked at me for a long moment, then she nodded.
I was curious. “Why didn’t it happen like that when we shared blood?”
Ellis shrugged. “As I said, Vosh is vampire royalty, old blood if you like. And old vampire blood is extremely powerful. Mine is nowhere near old enough or powerful enough to create that kind of…visceral connection. I would have to…” she looked away, embarrassed, I thought… “I would have to sire you as a vampire to create that connection with you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I’d already run through the “Oh. Wow. My God!” classics and I didn’t want to look dumb by repeating myself. So I said nothing. Ellis saved us both further discomfort by changing the subject.
“We still haven’t been able to locate Sheriff Bartlett or that Marjorie woman. Vosh has Samson and a bunch of other people working on finding them.”
I felt a small pang of lustful regret thinking about those blonde good looks and what was never going to be. Ellis fortunately was too preoccupied by brooding on the possible whereabouts of the Children of Judas and their tame humans to notice the naughty path my thoughts had just wandered down. I grabbed those thoughts by the scruff of the neck and hauled them back onto the straight and narrow.
“There’s no sign of the Tuckers either,” Ellis added darkly. “They’ve all gone to ground but good. Goddamned cowards.”
Cowardly, yes. Sensible, also yes. Robin Shepherd must have known that after she grabbed Voshki’s human—me—there would be a posse of angry vampires looking for her and anyone else associated with her. She had gotten everyone concerned out.
Without warning I realized I was hungry, and not for blood either, which was a good thing, I suppose. “I could really eat something,” I said to Ellis.
For a moment she just looked blankly at me, apparently having forgotten that humans
require nourishment other than blood. Then she said, “Oh. Yes. You’re hungry. You want food, right?” As though such a notion were both quaint and utterly ridiculous, like Holland wanting mountains.
I managed not to let my smile become too patronizing. “Yeah, Ellis, I’m hungry. I would like something to eat that doesn’t involve biting into a vampire’s wrist.”
“You don’t like feeding from us?” She frowned.
Now did not feel like the time to be delving into an existential discussion about my feelings toward drinking vampire blood. Now felt like the time to be guzzling down a full English breakfast with a side order of bagels. I felt sure I could find a swimming pool somewhere in Holly Bush Junction to work it off, or if not that, then at least a treadmill. Failing that, there was always vampire sex.
“Please. Just find me some food. Before I start on the curtains,” I begged.
With Ellis out of the room (she assured me Samson was right outside in the corridor to come rushing in should anything happen) I took the opportunity to get out that fifth and vital limb all Hollywood inhabitants have surgically attached as part of their citizenship—my cell phone. I called Roz first at the office and was assured everything was ticking along, no crises that the ever-efficient Roz could not handle. When she inquired whether it had been seafood that gave me the poisoning I was momentarily confused. Then I remembered the reason Voshki gave her for my being temporarily incommunicado, and agreed that yes, it had indeed been bad seafood. When in doubt, blame the seafood.
After Roz, I called Lydia. I wanted to touch base with her, and to hear her tell me that everything would be alright. She was suitably sympathetic, promising much gin and weed to help me recover. I also wanted to know if she had been able to plug the leaks Robin Shepherd’s rumor-spreading had caused aboard the good ship The Right Guy. Lydia had indeed been doing a power of digging and plugging, and as a result I was in for a surprise. Another one. My life was just full of those. Most of them I could have lived without.
“This comes from someone who heard it from someone who heard it from someone whose friend told it to them, okay?” Lydia warned me. I heard the sound of a lighter being struck and a second later Lydia inhaled deeply. Of course, her office at the studio is as rabidly No-Smoking as everywhere else on the planet these days, but for Lydia, other people’s rules are mere guidelines. I have yet to meet the person brave enough, or hell-bent enough, to challenge her about lighting up anywhere she damn well pleases. I suspect the person doesn’t exist, because Lydia probably killed them soon as they opened their mouth.
What Lydia said next would have caused me to drop to the floor had I been standing up. I was glad I wasn’t.
“It’s Caitlin Harris who has been rumor-mongering.”
I took a moment just to process that. I was also sincerely glad that despite the fact that vampires can read your thoughts, they do not possess super-hearing. Otherwise Samson would have been able to hear every word of our conversation and he would have felt obliged to report it to Voshki. I might dislike Caitlin Harris, but I did not want to see her come to harm. Well, not the kind of harm Voshki would visit upon her if she found out what Caitlin had been up to.
“This is for sure?” I asked Lydia.
I could hear the shrug in her voice. “Like I said, someone who knows someone, and on and on. So, as sure as rumor ever can be in this town.”
It didn’t make sense. Caitlin was doing her very best work on The Right Guy—she was getting rave reviews, and she was being touted for a couple TV awards. I had heard that her take-home pay was none too shabby either, considering her pedigree was less than stellar. So why in the blue fuck would she try to sabotage all of this? As far as I was aware, Caitlin’s quota of mental health problems did not include the sort that might cause her to destroy her own career on purpose. She was all about her career.
“You gonna tell Vosh about this?” Lydia asked.
I told her no, I figured I’d keep it to myself just now, maybe have a quiet word with Caitlin first, see if I couldn’t find out what was going on with her. Before I even considered throwing her to the wolves.
“To the vampires, you mean!” Lydia cackled. She bid me ciao, get better soon and to call her again soon as I was back in civilization.
I was still pondering the Caitlin bombshell when Ellis returned with a room service cart laden with enough breakfast to feed a score of actresses for the next millennium.
“I wasn’t sure what you wanted,” she explained.
I smiled. “So you brought the entire kitchen. Bless you.”
I put the Caitlin problem to the back of my mind whilst I concentrated on eating. Not quite everything on the cart, but almost. Arteries be damned. If I was ever in any danger of a heart attack I could always have Ellis make me into a vampire. After all, if you can’t beat ’em, you may as well join ’em, right?
And there was always that visceral connection to make up for being Undead. I figured I could learn to live with that.
CHAPTER TWELVE
There was nothing more to keep us in Holly Bush Junction. The peeper problem had been solved, and we had no idea when, or even if, either Sheriff Bartlett or the Tuckers would return. In the case of the Tuckers, Voshki felt it was unlikely they would be foolish or arrogant enough to do so. However, if Sheriff Bartlett did chance to make a reappearance, Amelia needed only to call.
Besides, Voshki claimed she really needed to be back in LA. I figured she just got as antsy for skyscrapers, smog and ill-tempered traffic as did Lydia.
Before we left Holly Bush Junction, there was one small thing I needed to do. I told my vampire guardians that I had something to discuss with my actor client, and could they give me some privacy? Voshki was not keen, argued with me until I agreed at least to let Samson drive me to the set and back.
“He stays outside,” I insisted mulishly.
Voshki simmered, but she agreed.
I found Caitlin Harris in her trailer, resting between takes. Often that’s a euphemism for having sex with someone other than your legitimate partner, but in this case, Caitlin really was resting. She’d done a couple very physical scenes that morning during which she had sprained an ankle, and she was making all the expected hay out of it.
“Dante?” She was obviously nonplussed to see me. Not quite pleased either.
I stepped inside, closed the door, walked over to the couch and helped myself to taking a seat. Caitlin had herself draped all over the matching couch opposite me, a white fake fur blanket covering her, an ice pack clutched to her temples even though it was her ankle she’d sprained. The very picture of the actress suffering for her art. I wasn’t impressed. I’ve seen this skit a thousand times before. Some have even performed it to much better effect than Caitlin.
It wasn’t a big trailer. Maybe not even as big as I would have expected, but it was comfortably enough appointed. No doubt if Caitlin did win the awards she was tipped to, the trailer would get bigger and comfier still.
“Caitlin, I’m going to say something to you. I’m only going to say it this one time, and then I’m never going to bring it up again. So I need for you to listen carefully to me. Okay?” I leaned forward with my arms resting on my knees, and as serious an expression as I could muster. I saw Caitlin briefly trying to calculate what might be coming, draw a blank and nod at me to proceed.
“I know you have been spreading rumors to the investors that the show is in trouble,” I began. I saw Caitlin’s mouth open and I thrust a hand up and forward, shook my head at her. “Don’t bother with the denial, it’d just be embarrassing for both of us…” Her mouth closed and I nodded approval… “Don’t ask me either how I know this because you know I’m not going to tell you that. I don’t know why you would be trying to sabotage this show, and frankly, Caitlin, I don’t want to know, nor do I care. But please. Just heed this.”
My stare got hard. Hard enough to make Caitlin flinch. Good. She needed to be scared. I’m a damn sight less scary than Voshki would be if
she caught on to what Caitlin was doing. “I know that you know Voshki Kevorkian is one of the major investors, but you don’t know Voshki anywhere near well enough to know that she can be an extremely dangerous…” I came close to saying “vampire” but managed to edit myself on the hoof… “person to cross. It is not something I would recommend anyone do. Whatever your reasons for doing what you did, Caitlin, you need to stop doing it right now. Before Voshki finds out.”
I shrugged, then stood up. “That’s it, Caitlin. That’s all I have to say. Goodbye. And good luck with your career.”
I made it all the way to the door before she spoke my name. I half-turned. She looked at me with unease in her green eyes. And the unmistakable sheen of incipient tears. “You wouldn’t understand why I was doing it,” she whispered.
I gave another shrug. I had already decided I didn’t want any part of this other than to give her fair warning to cease and desist. “You’re right. I wouldn’t,” I told her. I opened the door, stepped out of her trailer, and out of her life. Well, the last bit I could only hope and wish for, although I did have a bad feeling I wouldn’t be getting this wish. Once people like Caitlin Harris have inserted themselves into your life, ridding yourself of them can be as difficult as banishing termites from your house once and for all without actually demolishing the whole house and setting fire to the ground it stood on. But unless you are prepared to take such drastic steps, the bastards always come back.
Samson drove us back to the hotel where the rest of the vampires were packed up and ready to leave. Voshki asked me to ride with her in the Viper and I couldn’t see any reason to refuse. And although Ellis obviously wasn’t thrilled to bits with the idea, she didn’t exactly try to forbid me either. Like that would have stopped me anyway. Ellis was no more the boss of me than Voshki was.
During the drive, Voshki told me that the vampire Council wanted a meeting regarding Robin Shepherd.
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