by Mary Hughes
Logan’s stare had sharpened to x-ray. I started babbling. “I like fish, see. And Nieman’s has Friday Fish Fry. And Wednesdays during Lent too, which I guess would be Wednesday Fish Fry. Or maybe Wednesday Lent Fry…I mean Lent Fish Fry.” The more I babbled, the pointier his stare. “So, anyway, um…how about it? Nieman’s, say eight?”
Logan took a step toward me, his eyes set on awl. “I don’t want you staying here alone that late. Six.”
“No! I need time, time to, um, get ready. You know, changing, grooming, uh.”
The last was because Logan had again backed me into the wall, doing his ultra-alpha vampire thing again. His hazel eyes lit almost pure gold, boring into my head like halogen high beams. “Liese. What’s going on?”
I grabbed my two-carat glass reminder of bad trust and twisted.
“What’s wrong, princess?” He pried my fingers from the ring, gently. Gathered me to his chest, rocked me. “Please tell me.”
Sex, I could have handled. Interrogation, I could have handled. Even boring into my head like a latter-day Svengali I could have handled.
But his warm concern finally undid me. “Oh, Logan. It’s—”
The intercom clicked open. A bright voice chirped, “Mr. Steel? Zinnia Jones here. Let me in, please. It’s already Wednesday so we have to go over this list right away if we’re to get everything finished before Monday. I know you’re in there. Mr. Steel?”
I jerked straight. Logan stiffened like a board.
We exchanged a look. Shared a moment of perfect understanding.
He grabbed my hand and we hightailed it for the back room.
“Let me in, Mr. Steel—before I have to call the Ancient One.”
Logan screeched to a halt like lightning had hit him. His fangs shot out, his eyes fired bright red. All his muscles bunched, so tight he quivered. Even his long hair floated out and crackled.
Well, stab me with a fish fork. This was the third time I’d heard that phrase. Who or what was the Ancient One, and why did TAO unsettle the CEO so much? My hand was turning to pulp from his squeezing it. “What is it, Logan? What’s wrong?”
He blinked at me, his red eyes cooling slightly. “It’s…complicated.”
“I have my phone out, Mr. Steel. I’m dialing…”
Logan swore, his voice so loud and harsh that even outside Zinnia’s petal ears must have burned. Creatively too. I don’t think he repeated a single word as he rampaged back into the office, although half his cussing sounded French so I wasn’t a hundred-percent sure.
He hit the handicapped door switch on the wall, hard. I was surprised it didn’t shatter. Zinnia popped through, took one look at his face, expression set to annihilate, and cringed.
But to her credit she straightened and said, “Thank you, sir. I’ve gone through the list and made recommendations. You need to review my suggestions and make a final decision.” She held a manila folder out to him.
He didn’t take it. She waggled the file in front of him. “Mr. Steel, or should I say, Master Logan. Do not make this harder on both of us. You know what will happen if you put this off for too long.”
This time Logan was the one who winced. “Believe me. I know better than you ever could.” He looked like a cornered beast.
Powerful, golden Logan Steel, cornered. The Ancient One must be some powerful guru if the mere mention of he/she/it could make Logan almost desperate.
Of course, a desperate Logan would be twice as dangerous.
Exasperated myself now, I snatched the file from Zinnia. “For goodness sake, Logan. You’re head of a major security company. You must have hired employees before. What’s in this little folder that could possibly alarm you so?” I opened it for a look.
No monster jumped out at me, not even a pink slip. Inside were three pages of spreadsheet with names neatly typed in the first column. Handwritten positive comments were in the second column, negative comments in the third. Zinnia’s personal notes were scribbled in the far margin.
The comments were strange. Instead of stock phrases like “completes work on time” and “shows initiative”, one person “came from five generations of donors” and another “requires consideration because of severe personal trauma”. Zinnia’s note on the last was “attacked by three rogues”.
Rogues. Logan had used that term for bad-guy vampires. But what could it mean, on an interview list for Steel Security?
The intercom clicked open. “Ms. Schmetterling? It’s Bud. Lilly has to use the restroom. May we come in?”
A new set of controls was on my desk. One was helpfully labeled Intercom. As I punched open the line, I absently noted a light labeled Phone Messages” was blinking. “Be right there, Bud.”
I handed the folder back to Zinnia so I could use the door button on the wall. There was probably a control on the desk, but it wasn’t labeled.
Bud sauntered in, little Lilly in tow. One chorus of “Itsy-Bitsy Spider” later they were on their way out, but Bud paused. “Ms. Schmetterling? Could, um, Lilly watch cartoons?”
Since Logan had already been in my drawers and knew the worst, I said, “Sure. Come sit down.”
Zinnia sniffed disapproval. “Not that awful bigoted cartoon again. Isn’t there enough misunderstanding in the world?”
“Mother.” Bud flashed her a warning look.
Logan watched me take Animaniacs from my drawer. “Bigoted? You obviously never saw cartoons in the forties.”
“Having a history doesn’t make it right, Master Logan. You of all people know that. How long have the Children of the Night struggled against prejudice? Against intolerance that labels them evil when they’re simply dentally challenged?”
“Mother.” Bud started flailing like a berserk traffic cop.
But I was starting to enjoy myself. Zinnia’s rants were making sense at last. “Dentally challenged? Isn’t that taking political correctness a little too far?”
Zinnia, just winding up, leaped to her feet. “We all must fight for the less fortunate, for the blood poor, the hemoglobin disadvantaged. Equality is for all people, regardless of race, creed, or dietary restrictions!”
“Mom. Ix-nay on the dead-unay.” Bud shot a look at Logan, shifted his eyes significantly to me.
Logan understood instantly. “It’s all right. Liese knows.”
“A sister in the fight,” Zinnia agreed. Since Bud didn’t appear convinced, I nodded. Zinnia said, “Ms. Schmetterling is with us. A defender of optional respiration.”
I nodded some more.
“And Master Logan’s sex thrall.”
I nodded—“What?”
Logan coughed. “Zinnia, could I have a word? Back room.” He ushered her out before I could do anything. Good thing, or I might have made her respiration optional. Sex thrall my ass.
Setting the kids up with their cartoons cooled me off. That, and the graphics quality of the FragBook really blew me away. With Zinnia’s sprouts occupied, I checked voicemail.
The first message started. The voice was as deep and black as an underground cavern. Filled with the self-assurance of a man totally in command of himself and everyone else around him, that dark voice chilled me to the bone. Logan might be a prince, but this was a king.
The man’s voice scared me, but his words made me want to pee. “Ms. Schmetterling. This is Mr. Elias of the Steel Security Board of Directors. I received an email from you yesterday that we need to discuss. I will be out of town tonight and tomorrow, but I will expect a call from you Friday after six p.m.”
He rattled off his number, which took me three hearings to copy down because my hand was shaking so badly.
I was doomed. How had Elias figured out that picture was from me? Then I slapped my head. Dolly Barton had a mail daemon. What made me think the chairman of a huge security firm would be any less well-informed?
I wasn’t doomed. I was dead. Even if Logan didn’t bite me and drink all my blood because of this, I would lose my job for sure. On top of the fiasco at ADD,
I would never get another. And no job, no medical insurance. Theoretically COBRA would extend coverage, but without a job how would I pay the premiums? No, I would never hold another job. Unless—
Unless I could convince Bernie Botcher to stop blacklisting me.
He’d phoned last night wanting something from me, so I had leverage. Something to do with Steel Security.
Maybe I could talk Logan into helping Botcher. Then Botcher would stop blacklisting me, and when Logan fired me for ruining him, I could find a job.
I’m ashamed to admit I considered it. Use Logan, then abuse him, like Botcher had done to me. But I had issues, not a total meltdown of conscience. I couldn’t do that to a mosquito, much less a man I loved…er, loved having sex with.
But if not that, then what? Because no job, no eat. And no radiation. And while I was kind of fond of eating, I knew I couldn’t do without Mom.
The second message started. It was the only thing that could have scared me worse than Elias.
“Hi, honey. It’s Mom. I’m calling with good news, Liese.”
Excellent. Because if one more thing went wrong I was going to cut off my right hand, bronze it, and use it for a paperweight.
“I’ve enjoyed staying with Cousin Rolf. And they’re glad to have me bunk with them.” For which I was grateful. “But apparently my being here interferes with Rolf’s performance. And it ain’t his singing.”
Oh, crap. Did she mean what I thought she meant? My mother? My holy sainted virginal mother? Okay, I knew she’d had sex at some point in her life, where else had I come from? But that didn’t mean I wanted to think about it.
“Cousin Rolf has been reduced to visiting Rosy Palm and her five lovely daughters.”
Oh for the love of bite me!
“But naturally he wants to get some with his wife instead. So I’m coming home for a few days between treatments. See you tonight, honey.”
I hung up, numb. If one more thing went wrong—why, oh why did I think that? Meet Race Gillette at six, or he’d rat me out. Somehow get rid of him before Logan arrived, or be exposed. Deal with the fallout of that damning picture. Dolly knew I had sent it. Elias knew. Even Race, with his M.A. in Stupid, knew.
As if all that weren’t enough, my mother was coming home.
Bronze my right hand and use it as a paperweight? Just call me Lefty. Goodbye, sex life. No more late night visits from golden vampires. No more supernaturally gifted lovers in my bed, taking me to heaven.
That, I realized, was the worst of all. No Logan in my bed.
Although he was pretty good against the office wall too.
“Liese? What’s wrong?”
I looked up to see Logan returning from the back room, his face filled with concern for me. If only I could believe it was real. If only I could sink into his arms and tell him about the picture. Trust him not to cream me, then can me. Hmm, time for breakfast.
I pushed away from the phone. “Nothing. Or, not much. My mom’s coming home for a few days.”
“Oh.” Then, “Oh. Well, there’s always the file cabinet.”
I goggled. Great minds really did think alike.
Zinnia followed Logan out. “Ms. Schmetterling? Master Logan explained everything. About how you’re not his thrall, but his girlfriend.” She smiled brightly.
“Glad we got that straightened—girlfriend?” If sex thrall smacked me in the face, that punched me in the gut.
“Does that mean Ms. Smelling is coming to live with us?” little Lilly piped up.
Out of the mouths of babes. I pictured Logan and me living together. In bed together. Waking up together, having coffee together. Having morning sex together…that was shattering enough, but when I pictured all of us together, an ocean-sized bed with me and Logan and Zinnia and her whole flower garden and the busload of interviewees…that was just disturbing.
Zinnia patted Lilly’s guinea-gold curls. “Of course, sweetheart. She’s Master Logan’s girlfriend, after all.”
It hit me a second time. Girlfriend. Oh, the bruises. I ignored them. “What’s with the ‘master’ stuff, anyway?”
“Master of the new Iowa Alliance household, of course.” Zinnia picked up the manila folder from the desk where she’d dropped it and bustled over to Logan.
I stared at him. “You’re starting a household? As in, serious commitment and responsibility?”
Logan grimaced as he finally accepted the folder. “Yes.”
Zinnia looked over his arm as he opened it. “The list is totally objective, Mr. Steel. You can see all the interviewees’ positives and negatives. It’s just up to you to pick.”
“Wait.” I scooted to Logan’s other side. Stared at the list of names. “Are you saying these people were interviewing for positions in your vampire household?” Not Steel Security positions? Not my job.
If anything, Logan’s expression got grimmer. “Yes.”
“They’re all candidates—”
“Yes.”
“—for lovers?”
“Yes—no! Good heavens, Liese. Householding’s not about, um, carnal desires.”
“It isn’t? But last night, after se—”
“Shh. Little laptops have big webcams.” He gave a significant glance at Bud and Lilly. The children were no longer watching the cartoons but staring attentively at us.
So I said, “Then what is it about, if not ess-ee-ex?”
Bud rolled his eyes. “I can spell, Ms. Schmetterling.”
“Me too,” Lilly said. “What’s essy-ex?”
“Householding’s about tradition,” Zinnia said. “About protection.”
I scanned the list. There were a preponderance of young women, true. But also older women, and men. Unless Logan was even more adventurous than I thought, these couldn’t all be potential lovers. “Protection from what?”
Zinnia’s blue eyes flared with anger. “From the real evil creatures, Ms. Schmetterling. Rogues. They gang up on humans and drink them dry, or open a vein and let the human bleed out.”
“But why Meiers Corners? We don’t have a rogue problem.” I’d never seen vampires in town before. Except for Bo Strongwell, but I hadn’t known he was one.
Logan closed the folder. “Remember Razor and his gang?”
“Yes, but they’re out-of-towners, right? From Chicago?”
“They’re in town now.”
Zinnia said, “The household won’t actually be in Meiers Corners, since there are two here already.”
“What? Meiers Corners has two houses full of vampires—and nobody knows?”
Bud shook his head. “Not full of vampires, Ms. Schmetterling. Full of people. Each household has about two dozen donors, as well as several children and elderly.”
I stared at Bud. “You don’t even live here. How can you know how many people our households have?”
“It’s simple math.” He paused the cartoon and assumed an earnest, scholarly expression. “Vampires need blood. Regular transfusions, about three times a month.”
“So they only eat three times a month, so what?”
“It’s not food, Ms. Schmetterling. Vampires are like people who can’t make their own blood, so they take donations.” He sounded like he was reciting a school lesson. “People can safely donate about five times a year. That equals six to eight humans per vampire. Assuming three vampire protectors per household, that’s eighteen to twenty-four people.”
A school lesson in the economics of blood. Weird. “And the humans? Why would they agree to being—what word did you use? Donors?”
“Humans need to be protected from wild vampires. Even fledglings are stronger and faster than the strongest human. Many centuries ago the first households were formed, a symbiotic relationship between vampires and humans. That tradition carries on today.”
Another school lesson, vampire history. Please, hit me over the head with a laserjet to balance the pain. “Are there that many wild vampires?”
“Turnings have skyrocketed,” Zinnia said. “
Just in the last twenty years.”
Bud nodded. “There have been surges in the past, during things like the Black Plague and the reign of Vlad the Impaler. But nothing like now, although no one knows why.”
Apparently the vampire science class wasn’t as advanced as economics and history. I looked from Bud to Zinnia to Logan to little Lilly, who’d unpaused the cartoon and was ignoring us all. “But…with all these vampires…hasn’t anybody stumbled onto the fact that they’re real?”
“Bud has a theory about that,” Zinnia said proudly. “Go on, honey. Tell Ms. Schmetterling your theory.”
Bud shrugged, a graceful gesture reminiscent of Logan. “Subconsciously, I think people know. There’s been a spike in vampire literature, movies and even television shows. More traffic in chat rooms and more groups on the Internet. I did a paper on it.”
He did a paper on it. Feed me through the laserjet and print Alice in Wonderland on my naked skin, ’cause it sure felt like I was falling down the white rabbit’s hole. “For school? Isn’t that a bit risky?”
Zinnia answered. “Bud is home-schooled, Ms. Schmetterling.”
Of course he was. I turned to Logan. “And you’re choosing to start one of these households. Be its master.”
“Yes.” His hands tightened convulsively. The folder crumpled in them.
I stared at the warped folder. “You don’t want to?”
“Of course Mr. Steel wants to.” Zinnia pried the folder out of his hands. Smoothed it on my desk. “He’s CEO of a major business, on the board of several more. How hard can running a little household be?”
“It’s not so little.” Logan’s jaw worked, and I caught the glint of pointy teeth just behind his lips. “Four vampire protectors. Thirty human donors, a dozen children and old ones. Not so little.”
“Come now, Mr. Steel.” Zinnia spoke briskly, as to a recalcitrant child. “You’ve trained for this. Longer than any of Mr. Elias’s lieutenants, from what I’ve heard. You’ll be fine. Now, the list?”
