Beauty Bites

by Mary Hughes

  “Thanks.” It couldn’t be that easy, but nothing ventured, so I started for the service door.

  She caught my arm, vamp-fast even in her Prada knockoffs, and pulled me in reverse so hard she nearly yanked my arm out of its socket. I did drop my purse. I will say this for her; the girl’s strong.

  “Hey!” I rubbed my shoulder.

  She gave me a fanged grin as she tightened her grip on me. “I forgot to tell you. All the other rooms’ doors are locked. You’ve been outsmarted and outmaneuvered, bitch.”

  “Yeah, you’ve been ahead of me the whole time, I get it. Go Team Edward.” Sheesh. Apparently some people’s egos were based totally on image. “Wait. Locked doors, which you know I can’t get through… You expected Ric. This is an ambush of some kind for him. One problem, though. Ric isn’t here.”

  “Are you sure?” Camille raised her voice. “Come out now, darling. But be careful. I’ve rigged a nice little trap for you.”

  “He’s not here,” I repeated, although there was a buzz in the air, raising bumps on my skin.

  No, I’d left him at the cabin. Proof was the empty rearview mirror. Ric couldn’t be here.

  Could he?

  “See this?” Camille held up a small box, her thumb on its red button. “It’s armed now. The trap is rigged to go off when I take my hand off this button.”

  Damn, a dead man’s switch.

  “It’s courtesy of some of my more technically capable allies. A bit repetitive, as they did the same trick for my predecessor, and a tad cliché, but they’re only tech, you know. Not as creative as Yoo-oo.” She sang the last to an unseen party.

  Another chill fluttered across my arms. “No,” I whispered. “I left him behind.”

  “Did you, now?” Her body quivered with a heh-heh, laughter that, pressed up against her, I felt to my marrow. “Your little human is here, Ric, where it seems all you have to do is wrestle her from my grasp. But your precious painting is in one of three locked rooms. And to make things more interesting—I’ve rigged a vat of acid above both your human and your painting. They’re welded directly to the ceiling sprinklers, and trust me, you can’t unhook or destroy them quick enough to save both human and painting. If I release this switch…” She laughed out loud, villain’s cackle number three. “Your pretty little human gets ugly real fast. Or your precious picture is destroyed, but I think I know which you’ll choose. Come out now, darling. Slowly. Or I release the corrosive.” She waggled the dead man’s switch. “Now, darling. Hmm. Well, I guess I get to destroy both your portrait and your whore. Ah. At last.”

  Mist trickled through the open doorway. It solidified into a very pumped, very angry Ric. In jeans and tee he was a lean, prime male, more dangerous than ever. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Camille?”

  “Exactly the fuck.” Camille grinned. “Because I like to fuck. Cocks, mouths, minds. Hello, Ric. Took you long enough.”

  My heart yearned at the sight of his beautiful face, his azure eyes shading toward a stormy violet, his fingers clenching, claws sharpening the tips. I was stupidly glad to see him.

  I was also pissed as hell. “I left you at the cabin!”

  “I got into your car’s trunk before you peeled out.” He glanced at me, then returned his glare to Camille. “Burned half my face off, misting, but I recovered on the drive. Good thing it wasn’t a hatchback.”

  “How resourceful,” Camille said. “But I knew you’d manage if I got my hands on your plaything. Which of course is why I told Little to make the meet for daylight hours. I knew she’d come, I knew you’d follow, and I knew she’d make a perfect hostage to your good behavior.”

  Hearing it spelled out, I wanted to punch something—the wall, the table, or better yet her. She was using me against Ric. My Plucky Girl Heroine was all empty image. “Why, Camille? What more do you want?”

  “Ric, of course,” she purred. “On his back, in my bed. In chains.”

  My vision exploded red, my pulse whooshed in my ears. One word rang in my head. Mine. “Not. Happening.”

  “That’s not your call, whore.”

  “Watch your mouth.” Ric, his eyes burning violet-red, started for her.

  “You, stop!” Camille levered my wrist between my shoulder blades and jerked up. I stifled a squeak of pain.

  Ric froze.

  “You have a choice. Your ‘lady love’—” she sneered it, “—is here. The painting is nearby. If I release the switch, the acid will fall. You have time to rescue one.”

  I snorted. “You’ve been watching too many Batman reruns. Not the movies, the sixties show.”

  “What?”

  “Convoluted Traps ‘R Us.”

  “Hey. Who holds who hostage?”

  “It’s a complex plan.” Ric held up conciliatory hand. “Multifaceted.”

  “There. You see?” Camille sniffed. “I’m glad someone appreciates it.”

  “Right,” I said. “Why? Why so”—needlessly—“complex?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but Nosferatu likes us to show some intelligence and advanced planning. He is like my dear Loo-ee.” Her voice got dreamy on the name.

  “Who?”

  “Louis XIV, you stupid girl. King of France in the 1600s. That was a century.”

  “Oh, sure.” My other history class. “He employed massively convoluted…excuse me, complex court protocol to keep his nobles too busy to rebel. Or, like a harried parent, out of his hair.”

  There was a silence. Then she yanked up on my wrist again. “Enough! Ric, what’s it going to be? Miss Mouthy here, or your household?” She waved the switch box. “Your fuck or your feed?”

  Ric snarled.

  “Go for the painting, Ric,” I said. “Your people’s lives are at stake.” All this time, I’d thought it was me versus Ric, sizzle versus steak. Sizzle wasn’t the enemy. Camille was. “Remember Rosie and Harry. Camille will have to release me to escape the acid herself. I’ll run for the door. A splash won’t kill me.”

  “Think again, pretty girl. I’ll maneuver you so your face gets it.” Camille’s breath was warm in my ear and smelled faintly of whiskey—maybe after a nibble of Little she’d needed a palate-cleanser. “You’ll be scarred. How will you feel when Ric rejects your ugly ass? Not dead, but you’ll wish you were.”

  Anger flooded me at her words, and I wished I could splash her with hazardous chemicals too…like my pepper spray.

  My heart sped up at the thought.

  “You win, Camille.” Ric’s fangs receded and his eyes banked to a careful blue. “You’ve been so clever. How did you know about the painting in the first place?”

  “Finally. You noticed my brilliance.” She cooed it. “How? I pay attention. After you beat Nosferatu’s tactical team, you said you were going to retrieve ‘the item’. The team leader reported that to Nosferatu. He figured out it was that portrait of him.”

  “He’s smart.” He edged nearer.

  “There’s a reason he’s head of the Chicago vampires,” she agreed. “You really ought to join us.”

  “Maybe I will. But how did you know about the painting?”

  “Nosferatu called me. He said you were going out of town to collect a crate of his.”

  With one ear on her monologing I scanned for my purse. It lay four feet away on the floor, dropped when Camille grabbed me. Too far, with her attached to me like a lamprey.

  “I seduced Little to watch for your return, to pump you for information. But since you were away, I also told him to make the Meiers Corners presentation happen. Until I got my hands on the crate, that was my ticket to first lieutenant. It was the perfect day—that morning I crushed your plaything; that night Little saw the crate go into your safe and we stole it. A doubleheader.”

  Ric took another step. “But how did you know about the portrait?”

  “I peeked into the crate.” She simpered. “When I asked Nosferatu about it he went apeshit, and I realized I might have even better leverage.�
� She paused. “I really want that promotion.”

  “So is there something I can do to help you get it?” Ric slid closer to the kill zone.

  “I only want a little information.” Camille’s mouth lifted from my ear, her tone girlish, almost coaxing. She must have finally seen Ric’s advance because she stiffened. “Hey. Back off, buddy.”

  He froze, hands up. “Sure.” He backed a step.

  “More.”

  He backed another two. “Information?”

  “Well…yes. Tell me why that picture is so important. A weapon? Blackmail? Nosferatu’s a little scrawny, so what? He doesn’t need to be big to be physically powerful. Well, some Lestats would care. But that’s not all there is to it, is there?”

  Maybe Ric could get my spray. I caught his eyes then flicked my gaze to the purse. Then I squinched my eyes and pulled back my upper lip and made an I-got-shot-with-pepper-spray face.

  He blinked at me in a horrified way. “Um, no. Camille.” It was clear from his expression the “no” was for me. “Nosferatu’s size wouldn’t stop him from being really fast and evading attack. Not to mention misting.”

  Damn, I’d forgotten that. She’d see Ric coming, mist to compensate, and I’d probably be the one to get a faceful of pain. I’d have to figure out some way she didn’t see coming.

  “Exactly,” she said. “Besides, Nosferatu has me, and Giuseppe.”

  I couldn’t retrieve the purse. Ric couldn’t. Could I get word to Rosie or Harry downstairs? Somehow call up one of the serving folk—if there were any of them not under Camille’s power?

  Phooey. Talk about needlessly complex. I took a breath and centered myself. Forgot image to look at the facts. And knew who had to get the purse, and how.

  “So tell me, Ric,” Camille purred. “Why?”

  “Don’t tell her,” I said. “Camille can deluge me with acid, make me a beast. I’ve been ugly before. I don’t care.”

  “Pfft,” Camille said. “You care. You’re not as gorgeous as me, but you’re nice enough for a human.”

  “Nope, I was ugly. And I can prove it. There’s a picture of me in my purse. It shows what a scrawny kid I was.”

  “You expect me to fall for that? There’s also a weapon in that purse, which you’ll pull on me the instant you get your hands on it.”

  “Then get it yourself. The picture is in there, you’ll see.”

  “Synnove.” Ric raised both brows. “You were ugly? Why haven’t I seen this picture?” He leaked just enough resentfulness into his tone to sell it. There was a reason Holiday was the best.

  Camille tapped a foot. “All right, I’m curious. Ric, kick the purse over here.”

  He growled irritably, and did. I relaxed my muscles to the ready, alert for a moment of distraction in which I could escape.

  But she kept me yanked tight while she picked up the purse one-handed. “Where is it?”

  “In my wallet. You may have to dig.”

  She set the purse on the table and fingered through. “What’s this?” She pulled out the small black canister. “Pepper spray?” She laughed and threw it out the service doorway, a tiny black missile. “Nice try, human.”

  “For heaven’s sake. Do you have a Y chromosome? There’s the wallet, right under the sunscreen. The picture’s in it.”

  “No need to get insulting,” she huffed. Extracting the wallet, she opened it to my pictures. The real me was on top, smiling like the naive idiot I was.

  Camille started laughing. She laughed and laughed, to the point that it was almost offensive. “What a freak. Here, Ric.” She crumpled the picture and tossed it at him. “Take a look at who your lover really is.”

  Ric caught the picture, smoothed it out and stared at it for the longest time.

  His face was unreadable.

  “Isn’t that the ugliest kid you’ve ever seen?” Camille sneered.

  “Physically, perhaps.”

  He wasn’t pretending.

  My insides crumpled worse than the photo. Had I counted on him seeing the Prince—Princess—inside the Beast? To love me anyway?

  But men wanted beauty. Why would Ric be any different, simply because I needed him to be?

  He looked up. “Is this really you, Synnove?”

  “Yes. That’s my reality.” My heart was breaking. Might as well spill it all. “Not only who I was, but who I still am.”

  “No.” He stared at me, his eyes saying…something. “It’s just a picture.”

  “A picture of me.” Didn’t he get it?

  “My sunshine. You’re not looking at it right.” Ric turned the picture so I could see it, the spotted face and haystack hair I’d seen a thousand times. He said gently, “This is an image—and it was only ever an image.”

  I blinked at the crinkly photo in his powerful fingers. My fourteen-year-old face. My reality check.

  Wasn’t real.

  I’d been so caught in the image of me as ugly duckling become gorgeous swan—add another fairy tale—that I’d never grown beyond it.

  It was only a picture. It wasn’t real.

  It never had been.

  I’d created an image of myself, a mask, and put it on. An image of me as a doctor who always told the truth and made life fair for others and who telegraphed her kicks. Then I’d made myself over in the image, rather than letting my full underlying reality express itself.

  It had taken Ric Holiday, the king of appearances, to see the truth.

  “Since it’s not you…” He smiled at me—and tossed the picture away.

  Lightning struck, and with it, understanding so powerful I staggered. About me, about Camille…about our way out of this mess.

  Ric had thrown away my picture.

  Camille would never throw away an advantage. She’d cheat first. The portrait wasn’t here.

  Ric had thrown away my picture.

  Now I threw away the image of myself that I’d clung to all those years, free to claim the reality of who I truly was. Strong, fast, smart and determined, with strengths and flaws, but most of all, a healer. I could switch to Crisis Time mode in an instant, triage like a goddess, and spontaneously spout Gray’s.

  Crisis Time. Click.

  Triage. Camille first. Acid and fairness could wait.

  And now for Gray’s. I grabbed for the dead man’s switch. My telegraph and her vampire reflexes ensured that I missed and she pulled the box out of reach.

  But when I “missed”, I smacked her forearm…and simultaneously set the edge of my foot against her shinbone.

  “You want this, human?” She raised her arm overhead, waving the box tauntingly. “Try to get it.”

  “Camille.” My voice was strong and calm. “Did you know the metatarsus is especially sensitive to shock? Vampires even more than humans, if I understand the physiology. Which, because I’m a doctor, I do.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “This.”

  She might have felt my hit on her leg and, being faster than me, might have avoided what happened next. But her attention was on my hit to her arm and my attempt to get the box.

  So she didn’t stop me when, using her tibia as a guide, I stomped the hell out of her instep.

  She yowled. Ric was right—vampires felt pain more than humans. Her hand sprang open, releasing me.

  I ran toward Ric, both hands raised. If my wrists were unusually flat and my fingers clenched, that might have been my terror. I’d telegraphed my intent again. I hadn’t even gone a step when she snared me by the wrist.

  “No, you don’t!” She hauled me back with an extra-vicious yank, rewinding me like a yo-yo.

  Yep. I spun into her—like Aiden.

  Fist first.

  My entire hundred forty-five pounds slammed into her jaw. My shoulder was behind it.

  She staggered back, swaying on her feet.

  Damn. I needed her unconscious and unable to mist away. I pulled my arm back for another punch.

  The electric shock of delaye
d pain cracked up my fist and arm. I howled. Vampire bone was like hitting a cliff. I wasn’t using those fingers any time soon.

  But without follow up all this would be for nothing. I bent over and head-butted her in the solar plexus.

  With a soft woof, Camille collapsed. Yay! I thought.

  Until the dead man’s switch popped into the air.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Time clarified. Moment. Ric, caught mid-step, coming at us. Moment. The switch, button still flat, arching gracefully into the air. Moment. The button starting to rise, the red edge peeking up. Moment. Ric completing his step.

  He’d never make it in time.

  Acid was about to splash everywhere. I didn’t care about my looks, but my eyes and hands were another story if I ever wanted to sew another kid’s boo-boo. I tucked both hands in my belly, curled over and braced for an acid bath.

  In a repeat of the Ogre shooting, Ric hit me with all his weight. I went down. He extended himself, covering my body. “I’ve got you, Synnove,” he panted into my ear. “I’m here. I’ll protect you, Sunshine. Forever, if you’ll let me.”

  Amazement bubbled through me. He thought the painting was here. Yet he’d chosen me. My eyes and nose prickled with emotion.

  “Very nice tackle,” a dry voice drawled. “But not really necessary.”

  Ric’s weight shifted. “Aiden?”

  I lifted my head. The black-haired vampire leaned against the wall, dead man’s switch in hand, thumb firmly on the button. He still wore that bulky black leather jacket, zipped shut despite the day’s heat.

  “Aiden, you fuck.” Ric glared red daggers. “How dare you risk Synnove by trying to get the switch? We had a plan. I was supposed to distract Camille so you could rescue Synnove.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I didn’t need rescuing.”

  To my astonishment Ric turned his glare on me. “You. If you ever risk your life like that again—”

  “I didn’t try to get the switch, I got it,” Aiden said. “Now I’m going to get the painting.” He tossed me a grin over his shoulder. “Nice right cross, by the way.”

  “Wait,” I said. “We need to restrain Camille somehow.”

  Ric began, “The painting—”