I looked down at it, too. “That was revolting. But I’m sorry about the mess, Daemon.”
He shrugged gracefully. “These things happen. Especially with virgins.”
I’d been around him long enough to know that “virgins” meant people inexperienced in “vampire sex,” which I gathered involved blood ingestion—a sexual practice that struck me as roughly on a par with jumping off a cliff if it did not include exchanging recent bloodtest results with one’s partner. I had always assumed Daemon was lying about it. Now, as I fumbled in my tote bag for a bottle of water to wash the sickening taste of blood out of my mouth, I wondered if there was some truth to those claims after all.
Yes, I understood that saying he kept blood in his dressing room was part of his schtick. But why was there was actual blood in here?
Then a more important question occurred to me.
“Is that blood safe?” I asked anxiously. “I mean, has it been tested?”
“Shhh.” Daemon put a gentle finger over my lips. “You’re perfectly all right.”
I brushed his hand aside. “Please tell me it’s not human.”
He looked down at his finger, and I noticed that it was smeared with blood. “It looks like you didn’t even swallow,” he said wryly. Holding my gaze with sensual intensity, he licked the blood off his fingertip. “Mmmm.”
I took comfort in the conviction that he probably wouldn’t do that unless he knew for certain the blood was indeed safe.
I wiped my mouth with my hand and realized there was blood on my chin from when I had reflexively spat. “Blegh.”
Leischneudel bent over to pick up the bottle I had dropped, which he set gingerly on the makeup counter. Then he looked at my face. “Oh! Here, Esther. Let me.” He picked up a towel, held it briefly under the tap in the corner sink to dampen it, then wiped my mouth, chin, and hand.
I said, “I’m really sorry about your carpet, Daemon. I’ll clean it up.” I opened my water bottle and drank a big sip.
While I was swishing water around in my mouth and trying not to think about the texture of the hemoglobin I had just tasted, Daemon said, “No need. Victor will be along any moment. He’ll see to it.”
Daemon had a personal assistant who did everything for him but wipe his bottom. And for all I knew, maybe Victor did that, too.
I felt myself gagging again and decided to avoid nauseating mental images until after I had recovered from tasting blood.
“No, I’m the one who spilled it,” I said. “I’ll clean it up.”
“Nonsense,” Daemon said dismissively. “Leave it to Victor. He’ll know what to do.”
“Well . . . I’m sorry about it. And also about coming in here without asking.”
Leischneudel added, “We were a little stressed out.”
Daemon sat down in front of his makeup mirror and studied his reflection with satisfaction. “The fans are excited tonight, aren’t they?”
Although he embraced and perpetuated various familiar tropes of vampirism, Daemon refuted the popular notion that vampires didn’t have reflections. He described it as a fictional embellishment that conflicted with the laws of physics. This explanation satisfied his fans while eliminating practical challenges that he couldn’t realistically overcome. Apart from the obvious impossibility of managing to avoid reflective surfaces at all times wherever he went, he also needed to be able to look into the mirror, like any other actor, to prepare for performances.
His black hair already looked sexily windswept, but he evidently decided it needed some preparation for tonight. Daemon reached for a brush and some hairspray and started working on it.
Seeing an opportunity to voice his concerns, Leischneudel stiffened his spine and raised the subject of my safety, in view of what had happened last night.
While Leischneudel talked and Daemon ignored him, I grabbed some tissues from Daemon’s makeup table and tried scrubbing my tongue. Then I drank more water.
“Oh, lighten up,” Daemon said after a while. “It was just some harmless fun. And Esther looks fine.” He sent me a darkly flirtatious glance. “Ravishing as always.”
Leischneudel explained that I had a black eye which was well concealed by makeup, and he persisted in warning Daemon that his ill-advised actions of last night might have dire consequences for me.
Daemon tilted his head this way and that, his attention fixed on his reflection as he styled his hair. His gaze only wavered for a moment—when I gargled some water. Both men turned to look at me.
“Sorry,” I said.
“You should embrace new sensations, Esther,” Daemon advised. “Not try to obliterate them from your being.”
“Whatever.” I gargled some more, hoping it would irritate him.
Daemon merely shrugged and shook his head, still looking amused about catching me red-handed with his blood supply.
I imagined the disappointment on Dr. Hal’s face, if we met again, when I had to tell him it really was blood.
Then I remembered the semen request and felt a tad queasy again. However, if a woman didn’t actually know Daemon, I realized as I watched him set aside his hairbrush and open his makeup box, the thought of getting that personal with him would probably seem more appealing than nauseating.
For all that he was vain, self-absorbed, and full of absurd pretensions, there was no denying that nature had blessed Daemon with physical allure. He was about 6 foot 2, with a lean, graceful build, square shoulders, slim hips, and firmly muscled legs. His black hair was thick and wavy, and his dark eyes and brows were intensely dramatic in his pale, handsomely hawklike face. His age was a closely guarded secret, but I thought he was probably in his midthirties.
He had an attractive speaking voice and good stage articulation, but he had dodged my questions about whether he’d had formal training. I thought he probably had, though; after playing the lead role in a demanding schedule for the past six weeks in a good-sized theater, Daemon’s voice was still as clear as a bell, not worn or hoarse. That level of vocal stamina suggested he was a trained stage actor, like the rest of us. But he was habitually vague about his past, and he never admitted to anything as mundane as taking acting classes or attending drama school.
He was also never very clear about how he had supposedly become a vampire. There were occasional allusions to being debauched by a seductive older woman when he was a lad, but “being turned” was an “intensely private experience” that Daemon preferred not to talk about. I wondered if the tabloid reporter to whom Daemon had lately agreed to grant an exclusive and very expensive in-depth interview would get a more detailed version of the tale out of him.
As if my thoughts had summoned him, Al Tarr, the writer who was Daemon’s constant shadow these days, appeared in the doorway. His cynical blue gaze swept the room, taking in everything, and then he nodded in the general direction of the stage door as he said to us, “Did you hear that the cops have arrested a real vampire out there tonight?”
4
I frowned. “What?”
Leischneudel, who was still jumpy from the full court press we’d gotten outside the theater, gaped at Tarr. “They’ve arrested a real vampire?”
“Actually, about a dozen of ’em.” Tarr chuckled and gave Leischneudel a friendly little punch in the stomach.
I repressed an irritated sigh. Of course the cops were arresting unruly vamparazzi. They’d been doing it for the past two nights.
Annoyed that I’d fallen for another of Tarr’s juvenile gags, I said, “What a droll wit you have.”
“Hee hee!”
When he tried to pat my cheek, I tried to bite him.
“Whoa, I think we’ve got a vampire right here,” Tarr said cheerfully.
“Now, now, children,” Daemon admonished.
“I like a woman with spunk,” said Tarr.
“I only appear spunky,” I said. “Really I’m timid and vaporous.”
He shrugged. “We could still go out.”
“No, we couldn’t.�
��
A staff writer for The Exposé, Tarr had been tagging after Daemon this past week, following him everywhere but the bathroom; and I gathered this would probably go on for a few more days. He was, he said, determined to get the real truth about the man behind the mask, the victim behind the vampire, the cuddly creature of the night behind the celebrity facade.
Tarr was in his early forties, stocky, and short. He had a receding hairline, a ruddy complexion, and big teeth. I found his perpetual grin annoying and somehow sleazy. His unabashed nosiness, combined with his terrier-like persistence, made it clear how he’d become a top tabloid reporter. As he told anyone who failed to flee his presence quickly enough, he had a long résumé of in-depth feature stories about major Hollywood stars and was on a first-name basis with half the celebrity parolees in Tinseltown. I gathered this was his way of saying that Daemon should be flattered Tarr was covering him.
“To return to the subject . . .” Leischneudel said to Daemon. “It might be a good idea for you to issue a statement condemning violence against your fellow actors—and, in particular, against the ladies in the cast.”
Tarr said, “This is about last night, right?”
“Once again, those razor-sharp journalistic instincts zero in on the obvious,” Daemon said, starting to apply base to his face, as he continued creating the dissipatedyet-sexy appearance of Lord Ruthven.
“Were you hurt?” Tarr said to me.
“It’s nice of you to ask, Al,” I said. “Some sixteen hours after you got into the limo with my attacker and Daemon without asking me that.”
Tarr held up his hands as if to proclaim his innocence. “Hey, they were leaving, and I gotta stick with my boy. You know that.”
“Must you call me your ‘boy’?” Daemon said.
I shrewdly sensed that Tarr’s 24/7 companionship was wearing on the vampire’s nerves. Good. Daemon should have to work hard for his money, like everyone else. The Exposé was reputedly paying him thousands for this exhaustive profile. And in addition to the money, he’d get what he valued most—even more attention.
“Jeez, everyone’s so touchy tonight.” Tarr shook his head as he ambled all the way into the room, heading toward a chair. He paused at the spilled blood. “Hey, what’s this? Did I miss a little bloodletting?”
I realized in that instant why the little bottles in the refrigerator contained blood. The Exposé’s crafty reporter was sticking his nose into every aspect of Daemon’s existence. The actor had undoubtedly supposed that Tarr would investigate those bottles. I recalled Daemon saying something, when he caught me with a bottle a few minutes ago, about his supply being pilfered. Tarr must have stolen one of the bottles so he could get its contents analyzed.
I gagged again when I realized that if Daemon had been thorough enough to anticipate that possibility, then the blood in the bottles might well be human.
“You’re sure that blood was safe?” I asked faintly.
Daemon glanced at me in the mirror. “You’ll be fine. Stop worrying.”
“You had some of that stuff?” Tarr asked in surprise.
“Quite by accident,” I said. “That’ll teach me to poke around in a vampire’s fridge.”
Daemon’s gaze returned to his own reflection as he purred, “But if you’d like to poke around in something else of mine, I have a few suggestions . . .”
“Oh, give it a rest, would you?” I was tired of him already tonight—and he hadn’t even fondled me yet.
I turned to leave the room and walked straight into Daemon’s assistant, Victor, who was rushing through the doorway. Victor rushed everywhere and seemed to exist in a perpetual state of semipanic. I found him courteous but fatiguing. An effeminate, plump, completely bald man in his late thirties, Victor had a tendency to overreact to everything—which always made me wonder how he’d wound up working for Daemon, of all people.
When I explained about the bloody carpet and apologized, Victor had a moment of near hysterics over the stain. Then he manfully pulled himself together, patted my shoulder, and told me not to worry about it.
“We can probably save the carpet. And even if we can’t, I don’t want you to feel bad about it,” Victor said warmly to me. “It’s only a thing. And people matter more than things, don’t they? So I just thank God you weren’t hurt when this happened, Esther.”
“Thanks.”
“How would she have been hurt?” Tarr asked in puzzlement.
“I don’t want you to beat yourself up over this,” Victor continued. “I want you to try to put it out of your mind. You’ve got two performances to do tonight, and the show must go on.”
I hadn’t actually planned to think about the carpet ever again, so I was able to assure Victor with all sincerity that I would refrain from engaging in distracting self-condemnation over this incident.
“Good for you!” He patted me again, then pulled out his cell phone. “Now I’m just going to call the dry cleaner and see if he can deal with this tonight.”
“You know a dry cleaner who works on Saturday nights?” I asked.
The assistant stage manager knocked on Daemon’s door. “Forty-five minutes to curtain, people.” When he saw me, he paused. “How’s the eye, Esther?”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“See? She’s fine,” Tarr said to Leischneudel.
“That’s not the point,” the actor replied.
Daemon ignored us all.
“Come on,” I said to Leischneudel. “Let’s go get ready for the first show.”
We left the dressing room and walked down the hall. Victor’s voice, talking urgently on his cell with the dry cleaner, echoed behind us.
Then I heard Tarr call out, “Hey, Esther!”
I looked over my shoulder and saw him exit Daemon’s dressing room and come after us. “You and me, we have to talk!”
“No, we don’t,” I said firmly.
“You’re the only cast member I haven’t interviewed yet.”
I was aware of that. And given my druthers, I’d like to keep it that way. “I don’t have anything to say.”
“Oh, come on, I gotta have you in the article! You’re Jane, the girl Ruthven really loves.”
I blinked and looked at Leischneudel.
“I told you,” the actor said. “It’s what everyone’s talking about.”
“And those scenes between the two of you are hot, hot, hot!” Tarr let out a low whistle and waved his hand as if he’d just burned it. “Everyone wants to know what it’s like to get initiated by Daemon Ravel.”
“Initiated?”
“Into vampire sex.”
“What?” I blurted. “Are you kidding? I’ve never—”
“I’m talking about the wedding night, sweetie.” Tarr added, “You know—in the play?”
“Don’t call me ‘sweetie,’” I snapped. “And here’s what I can tell you about being ‘initiated.’ I have absolutely no idea what it’s like to be touched, embraced, or bitten by Daemon Ravel. I only know how Lord Ruthven does those things.” I grabbed Tarr’s polyester-blend collar and said between gritted teeth, “Are we clear now?”
“That’s a cute take, toots,” Tarr said. “But my readers are going to want a lot more than that.”
“Then they will have to live with the dull ache of disappointment.” I turned away and headed toward my dressing room.
“So we’ll talk later, right?” Tarr called after me. “Maybe over a drink somewhere?”
“You have to admire his persistence,” Leischneudel said to me.
“No, I don’t.”
He halted outside his dressing room and opened the door. “If you need help with your dress, you know where I’ll be.”
I nodded and kept walking. The wardrobe mistress, who didn’t like anyone but Daemon, rarely helped me. And Mad Rachel, the actress who shared my dressing room, couldn’t always be counted on.
As I approached our dressing room, I heard Mad Rachel’s voice booming forth from the other side of th
e closed door, and I realized that this was probably one of those nights when I would need Leischneudel to lace up my gown.
“Fuck you, you fucking cocksucker!”
I opened the door and entered the room. As expected, Rachel was on her cell phone.
“No, fuck you, you cocksucking fucker!” she shrieked.
She was already in costume, having evidently gotten Fiona, the cranky wardrobe mistress, to help her. Rachel Manning was about twenty-five, petite, and extremely pretty. She looked like someone who should be on TV, though the tremendous carrying power of her voice made her a natural for the stage.
“Go fuck yourself, Eric!” she hurled into her cell phone.
I was used to this sort of thing after so many weeks of it; but I had found it disorienting at first to see this fineboned woman in her demure Regency gown screeching vicious obscenities into a cell phone.
Rachel lived with her phone glued to her ear. Her boyfriend, Eric, was usually the person at the other end of the call, though sometimes she gave him a break and talked to her agent or her mother. And she seemed physically incapable of lowering her voice. Whether obscenely angry, as she was now, or just conversing, Rachel always yammered into the phone with the same wellsupported volume that she used onstage; she did this no matter how many times the stage manager or Daemon read her the riot act about it—which they did often, since her backstage bellowing had disrupted the performance a few times.
When she saw me enter the room, she turned away without acknowledging me and shouted into her phone, “I hate you, Eric, you fucking cocksucker!”
Half the time, she chatted to Eric about minutiae; the rest of the time, the two of them fought hysterically while Rachel cursed, at top volume, like a drunken stevedore handicapped by a sadly limited supply of obscenities.
“Go to hell, you fucker!”
It was already clear what kind of night tonight would be. Suppressing a sigh, I walked over to the makeup counter and set down my tote bag.
Rachel looked startled by this. She held the phone away from her ear for a moment and bellowed at me, “Do you mind?”
“Huh?”
“This is a private conversation.” Her tone and facial expression suggested that I had the IQ of chewing gum. “Private.”
Vamparazzi Page 5
