Rules of Seduction

by Jenna Mullins

  Weston can feel himself go rigid, the hairs on the back of his neck pricking up—a sure sign he’s being stared at. He needs space. He needs to talk to his friends. While he’d normally bask in the attention, this is not the morning for the hey-aren’t-you-aw-man-can-I-get-a-photo-for-my-little-sister-she-loves-you conversation. He keeps his eyes on his phone, firing off a mass text to Lola, Nike, and after a moment’s hesitation, Mark, too.

  “Sorry. Hit the elevator button, then realized I left my coffee on my counter,” sneaker guy says as the elevator begins to drop again.

  Weston raises his eyebrow, thumbs over to Twitter. “Yep.”

  “I’m Kris. I think I’ve seen you around. You live here?”

  Weston has no choice but to look up. When he does, a lump forms in his throat. He has seen this guy around the building once in a while. Kris is tall, dark-skinned with surprising green eyes, the kind of casual-slouchy posture that people build ad campaigns around. Perfect-looking, honestly, despite the fact that he’s wearing some save-the-whales t-shirt (As if whales are what the mortals should be worrying about, Weston can’t help thinking) and cheap jeans. A messenger bag is slung over his shoulder; it reads ROSTER INDUSTRIES in a small logo on the front.

  He’s got to be doing a walk of shame, or maybe headed to the cart outside to pick up a bacon-egg-and-cheese for his girlfriend waiting upstairs. No way a guy wearing jeans like that can afford to live in a building like this.

  “Typically, when someone introduces himself, you do the same,” Kris says after Weston wastes a beat sizing him up. “You know, for future reference, in case you’re new to this planet.”

  If only he knew. Weston’s about to stutter out a reply—he’s caught off guard, caught staring, but the elevator suddenly dings and the doors open into the lobby. Kris offers a quick smile, nods, and walks out.

  Still nothing from his friends. Weston’s anxiety is firing. There’s nothing that grinds his gears more than people going offline. They’ve got the privilege of living in an era when there are a thousand ways to be in touch, at all hours of the day, messages zinging through the airwaves all around them—and they’re just wasting it by turning off their phones?

  Wes offers the doorman a weak nod as he pushes past the revolving door. Outside, it’s just after 10 a.m. on a Sunday, but the streets are packed—Monday at rush-hour packed.

  He’s barely gotten two feet past his building’s lobby when he hears a breathless, “Ohmygod” from over his shoulder. He steels himself for the inevitable as he turns around.

  Sure enough, a teenage girl is staring at him, wide-eyed. “Ohmygod,” she says again. “Weston Wolfe?”

  It was a surname his agent chose—and Wes has had so many different names over the centuries, he didn’t really care either way. He plasters on a smile. It stretches his skin almost painfully.

  “Yup,” he says. “Hi.”

  “Ohmygod,” she says. “I’m the hugest fan. Your song Manic Poetry is literally everything. Can we take a selfie?”

  He leans in dutifully as she pokes at her cell phone, trying not to grimace as she presses her cheek firmly against his and offers the camera a wild-eyed grin. Wes doesn’t mind greeting his fans—it’s pretty much what he was born for. He just doesn’t love the touching part of it.

  As she walks away, Weston whistles loudly and a cab almost immediately materializes. The Gods may have lost their more spectacular powers, but their essence— his capacity to move the masses with a message, Lola’s ability to inspire lust in the most disinterested of hearts, Dean’s tendency to rile a crowd of underage drunks into an unparalleled frenzy—those things have stuck.

  “Uptown,” he tells the cabbie, rolling his window down to clear the stench of stale cigarette smoke from the car. “I’m going to Swank.”

  “Sure, but it’s gonna take a while,” the driver drawls. “Midtown’s a goddamn mess, on account of—well, you know.”

  Weston doesn’t know. Normally, he’s read every headline twice by this time of the morning, but today his news-scanning routine came to an obvious screeching halt. Yeah, the recent sanitation workers’ strike has led to a massive pile-up of trash bags on the street, and it’s been relatively hot this week, which just leads to general unpleasantness but anybody who’s spent a summer in this city is used to the stench of other people’s garbage, both literal and metaphorical.

  The driver heads uptown at a snail’s pace, and Weston grabs his phone to check the news, to see what the hell is really going on. Suddenly, the cab driver slams on the brakes, screeching to an abrupt halt as Weston flies against the partition, nearly losing his grip on his cell. A panicked pedestrian—an older woman, who just ran out into the street—narrowly dodges the hood of the car. Her eyes are wide and panicked as they meet Weston’s, just briefly, through the windshield, and then she takes off. Suddenly, the panic spreads, and within seconds, all the mortals on the sidewalk are running and screeching, a cacophony of ugly shrieks battering Weston’s eardrums. He rolls his window back up and peers out it.

  And then he sees them: rats.

  Hundreds of rats emerge from the Times Square subway station, chasing people out into the streets. Several of them scamper over the cab and the driver begins to curse in Arabic—quite creatively, Weston might add, he hasn’t heard words like that in years—as he flips on his windshield wipers in a futile attempt to scare them off.

  “The radio,” Weston says urgently, and the guy flips the dial on.

  Unsurprisingly, there’s no music, just a breathy-sounding newscaster. As he listens to the broadcast, Weston’s heart begins to ricochet around his chest again. “…city workers believe that flooding on the 2, 3, F, B and D lines due to last week’s tropical storm and last night’s downpour, in addition to the lengthy garbage strike, have contributed to the historic appearance of thousands of rats above ground. City officials urge people not to panic, as the city is working hard to contain the problem and the sanitation strike is expected to come to an amicable conclusion…”

  The cabbie meets Weston’s eyes in the rear-view mirror for the first time, and then twists around in his seat. “Hey, aren’t you that singer?” he says.

  That’d be Weston’s cue to leave. He throws a wad of bills into the front seat. He’s been alive for a long time, and this might be his second-least favorite morning ever. He leaps out of the cab and, with sunglasses on and hat pulled low, does his best to blend into the crowd on the sidewalks as they move uptown. He’s been through a hell of a lot worse than a couple of rats, so they hardly send him into a tizzy, but he’s not exactly psyched about them, either.

  He plucks at his shirt as he walks, tugging the collar away from his neck. The weather’s been fucked lately, an unseasonable heat like the sun is trying to burn itself out, and then what the news is calling “The Red Tide.” It is what it sounds like, blood-red water affecting coastlines from China to the Hudson River. And now rats.

  When he arrives at the hotel, there’s a particularly unbearable crowd in the lobby—an endless crush of wannabe hipsters in sweaty fedoras and offensively bad Native American-print miniskirts from Urban Outfitters, all of them swiping at their phones, posting selfies to Instagram.

  Weston catches the eye of an exasperated-looking concierge, whose eyebrows shoot up into his forehead when he recognizes Weston. A little bit of fame goes a long way in this city, and immediately, the man waves Weston over to an elevator and ushers him inside, keeping out the crush of people out as the doors close.

  Wes hits the button for the rooftop deck and leans close to the mirror on the wall, smoothing his hair with a nervous kind of energy. He realizes how stupid it is for him to be worrying about how he looks, but it calms him a little when he confirms that his vermin-infested walk with the teeming masses of New York City hasn’t screwed up his coif.

  It’s not because he hasn’t seen Mark in a while. He just likes things a certain way, and if he’s about to go tell his last remaining friends that the world is ending, h
e’ll afford himself the miniscule comfort of knowing he looks good doing it.

  When the elevator doors slide open, Weston sees his friends immediately. It’s impossible for eyes not to be drawn to the table of stunning-looking people. Lola, ethereal and intriguing, tangling her fingers in her wild, wavy blonde hair, the ends still stained a pale pink from a Manic Panic phase she had a few months ago. Nike, vivid and effervescent, her long legs gleaming. And then, of course, Mark: well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered and tan, with a jaw carved out of marble. He’s the spitting image of the Norse god of war from whom he is descended.

  That’s not to say every god looks like a nineteen-year-old runway model. The Ancients the first gods—opted to look old, their flowing white curls and sun-browned, leathery skin a symbol of their then-infinite power and wisdom. Some of the more violent gods chose to twist their features into ugly snarls, striking fear in the hearts of the mortals. Gods of abundance and wealth were plump and rosy-cheeked, while gods of war and competition were sinewy and tall.

  When the mortals stopped believing, though, the gods’ power to change their bodies and faces was one of the first to go. At this point, most of them are stuck with the face they’ve got—changing is a power rarely seen, even among the remaining Ancients.

  Weston takes a deep breath, preparing himself to deliver the news, but before he can work himself up to it, Lola spots him and waves. “Weston! Where were you last night? You missed a ton of drugged-out hipsters and sub-par music, until Dean took over the deck.”

  Mark looks up from his omelet. “Dude, it’s good to see you. Sit down.”

  “I thought Wes was avoiding you, Mark,” Nike chimes in, sipping a pomegranate mimosa.

  “He is dodging my calls,” Mark says, eyes locked with Weston’s. “I have better luck when I tweet him.”

  Weston ignores that. “You can stop talking about me like I’m not even here.”

  “Oh, we’d be saying far worse if you weren’t,” Nike says, grinning, as she pats the seat next to her.

  “Don’t any of you check your phones anymore?” he says, sitting down a little shakily. How’s he going to begin? “I’ve been texting for a half an hour.”

  “Unlike you, we don’t have them surgically merged with our palms,” Nike retorts.

  “You look…pale.” Lola squints at him, as if she’s never seen him before. “Are you okay?”

  Mark slides his barely-touched screwdriver over to Weston. Grateful, Weston takes a long sip, allowing himself just a moment to get his shit together. It’s been a while since he’s seen his friends like this—relatively happy, sharing brunch cocktails and you’ll-never-believe-my-night stories.

  Unfortunately, he has to ruin it.

  He takes a deep breath. “I have news. Bad news.” He takes his phone out of his pocket and opens the page he read this morning. He hands the phone to Lola and waits as she reads the article out loud.

  New York Night

  Sunday, June 16 Edition

  ‘Angel’ commits suicide in hotel pool

  Tourists staying at the upscale Jefferson Hotel were met with a grisly display just before dawn on Sunday. The body of a teenage girl was found at the bottom of the four star hotel’s rooftop pool. Staff discovered the body when a group of young revelers broke into the pool area at 3 a.m., after hours.

  A source with the NYPD, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to the Star that the identity of the girl has yet to be determined, but she appears to have committed suicide and officials do not suspect foul play.

  The Jane Doe was found with her wrists slit and her body weighted by a copper doorstop in the shape of an angel, tied to her ankle. She has a number of distinguishing tattoos, most notably a large, distinctive white-feathered butterfly on her back. No missing persons matching her description have been reported.

  “At first we thought the pink water was some new trend or something,” eyewitness Birdie Brill, 22, said on the scene. “It was awful. I started puking. So gross. Why would you kill yourself in a public place?”

  The Jefferson Hotel released a statement denying that the girl was a guest of their establishment. While NYPD has not made any official statement on the matter, they do encourage anyone with information about the identity of the mystery girl to contact authorities.

  After a few seconds, Lola’s hand spasms, and she drops the phone to the table. Nike snatches it. “It can’t be her,” Lola whispers. “It’s got to be someone else.”

  Nike murmurs, “Oh, god,” and hands the phone to Mark. “Weston, are you sure?”

  “The article said that a bunch of teenagers found the body,” Weston replies. “So I did a hashtag search on Instagram, and, sure enough, one of the little dipshits posted a pic.”

  “People are disgusting,” Mark says. He shuts the phone off hastily and slams it down on the table, probably to protect Lola and Nike from the grainy photo of the thin, nearly emaciated body submerged in a pink pool.

  “I saw the tattoos. It’s her. Nadia killed herself.” Weston takes a long, deep breath. “Hope is dead.”

  Learn more about Eternal Night: follow author Carina Adly MacKenzie, a writer for The CW hit series The Originals, on Twitter!

  About the Author

  Carina Adly MacKenzie grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, where she boldly defied the no-reading-at-the-dinner-table rule time and time again. After studying English at the University of Colorado at Boulder, Carina moved to Los Angeles to pursue a writing career. Carina was a television critic and entertainment reporter for Zap2it.com, the Los Angeles Times, and Teen Vogue, among other publications. Currently, she spends her days obsessing over vampire sibling rivalry as a writer for The CW’s hit drama, The Originals. She loves coffee, Twitter, and her little dog Pacey. Eternal Night is her first novel. Photo © Keahu Kahuanui

  Check out all The Studio eBooks!

  The Studio at Paper Lantern Lit combines fresh storytelling with the latest digital innovations to create a one-of-kind reading experience.

  Download a FREE copy of

  The Studio Sampler