Stage Fright (Bit Parts)

by Scott, Michelle

  “Don’t be. I’m over it.”

  Yeah right, I thought, but didn’t press the issue.

  “I wish we’d met earlier,” he said. “No one should have to go through this alone.”

  I smiled. If I’d been able to lean on that broad chest and have those strong arms around me, I was certain that those panic attacks would have fled long ago.

  Isaiah started to say something else when there was a knock at the door.

  “It’s just Perry,” he said, rising to answer. I nodded, trying to hide my disappointment at being interrupted.

  Perry’s voice came from the living room. “What happened to your nose?” When Isaiah rumbled something, Perry whooped and charged into the kitchen. “You scored a hit on the Outfielder?” He grinned at me. “Impressive!”

  “The Outfielder?”

  Perry straddled one of the kitchen chairs. “Isaiah and I first met online. Outfielder was his screen name. Now, I like to think of it as his superhero name.” Isaiah rolled his eyes at this, but Perry took an imaginary swing like he was standing at the plate.

  “So that’s why you had your baseball bat tonight,” I said. “To kill the vampires.” I remembered hearing somewhere that wooden baseball bats were made from ash, and – if my horror movie education was correct – ash wood was lethal to vampires. Therefore, using a bat as a weapon made sense. Sort of. As much sense as anything in this strange, new world.

  Perry’s smile widened. “Ah, you finally remember about the vampires.” He glanced over his shoulder at Isaiah. “How did that go?”

  “She did well.” The note of pride in Isaiah’s voice made me flush pleasantly. “How were things at the theater?”

  “Quiet. Not a rogue in sight.” Noticing my confusion, Perry said, “Rogues are vampires, but without any soul. If a vamp drains every bit of shine from a human, he’ll have a rogue on his hands.”

  I picked at my food, thinking out loud. “Shine is soul – and it’s what the vampires eat?”

  Perry helped himself to a slice of pizza. “Well, there’s blood, too, of course, but shine is what keeps a vampire acting human. See, vampires have no souls of their own, and without enough shine, a vampire will go rogue. If that happens, no amount of soul will bring it back.”

  I shuddered at the memory of those crazed beasts, and my fingers twitched in revulsion as if Darryl’s foot was still in my hands. Suddenly, the pizza lost its appeal, and I pushed it away. Darryl had been a class-A pain in the ass, and dying didn’t make him a saint. Still, he didn’t deserve to be vampire bait. No one did. “So that’s why they steal our shine.”

  “Hedda doesn’t steal it,” Isaiah rumbled. “When it comes to human souls, she’s very reverent. She holds herself and her grieve to a higher standard. They never feed from unwilling victims.”

  Perry shrugged as if unconvinced. “You have more faith in her than I do. I mean, think of Marcella.”

  “She’s changed,” Isaiah said tightly. “You know that.”

  “If you say so.”

  To defuse the brewing argument, I asked, “Why don’t the vampires get rid of the rogues themselves? Why make you two do it?”

  “Each grieve has its own code of ethics,” Perry said, “but there’s one rule they all hold to: vampires cannot kill other vampires. And rogues are considered vampires. Any vampire who breaks that prime directive better run for his life.” As Perry spoke, he kept his eyes on Isaiah, as if looking for clues on how much to tell me. At Isaiah’s nod, Perry continued. “The only legitimate reason to kill a vampire is if that vampire has killed another of his kind.”

  “Since Perry and I are considered sub-vampires,” Isaiah said, “we’re outside vampire law.”

  “You must be busy,” I said. “I mean, how many rogues were at the Bleak tonight?”

  “Twelve,” Isaiah said tightly.

  Perry shook his head. “That’s more than we took out in the past two years combined. The rogue population is growing by leaps and bounds.” He nodded at Isaiah. “How’s the leg holding up?”

  “It’s tight,” Isaiah admitted. He rubbed his calf muscle, wincing as he dug in his fingers. “But it will hold.”

  Perry’s forehead furrowed. “Are you willing to risk that in a fight?”

  “I don’t have a choice.”

  Perry grabbed another slice of Isaiah’s pizza and chewed thoughtfully. “Someone must be having themselves a feeding frenzy. A really sloppy feeding frenzy. Maybe it’s Luquin Astor.”

  “Luquin the artist is a vampire?” I asked.

  “He is now,” Isaiah said. “That ‘afterglow’ party at the Muse was Luquin’s transition ceremony. Turning a human into a vampire is a tricky business.” Again, Isaiah and Perry exchanged a look. “It’s why Hedda wanted me there,” Isaiah continued. “If something went wrong, and Luquin turned into a rogue, I was to take him out.”

  I shuddered, remembering the strange groans and grunts coming from the dark recesses of the Muse. Charles hadn’t been jealous of any lifetime achievement award. He’d wanted to become a vampire. I pressed my hands to my head to keep it from exploding. Everything I’d thought I’d known about life in general and my mentor in particular had fallen apart in only a few minutes.

  Isaiah tugged thoughtfully on his lower lip. “A new vampire like Luquin would have a big appetite, but Hedda is keeping him on a short leash. He’s only supposed to be feeding from Geoffrey.”

  By now, nothing should have shocked me, but this did. “Geoffrey Leopold? The curator from the Muse?” When Isaiah nodded, my stomach tightened. Geoffrey with the madras shirts and ring on every finger was a vampire’s wet nurse. No wonder he’d been so anxious on Sunday night.

  “It’s the price of his position,” Perry said. “Hedda set him up with the gallery, and in return, he does what she tells him to. All her humans do that.”

  I glanced from Isaiah to Perry and back again. “What do you get in return for being her enforcers?”

  “Something very, very valuable,” Isaiah said, his eyes serious.

  “Your Jeep?”

  “Please,” Perry scoffed. “The Outfielder would never sell himself so cheaply.”

  “Holy Comics?”

  Perry rolled his eyes.

  I swallowed, wondering what prize Hedda had used to entice them. “What?”

  “Season tickets to the Bleak Street,” Isaiah deadpanned.

  I snorted. Then my snicker turned into a laugh which turned into crazy hilarity. I nearly fell out of my chair. Tears ran from my eyes.

  When I finally got myself back together, Perry said, “Don’t knock it. The Scent of Ketchup was actually a pretty good play. I managed to stay awake for the entire first act.” This sent me over the edge again. Even Isaiah was chuckling.

  “Thanks. I needed that,” I said, wiping my eyes. “It’s been a really long day.”

  “And if the rogues keep appearing, it may be a really long night,” Perry said.

  “Something’s going on,” Isaiah agreed. “I just wish I knew whose messes we’re cleaning up.”

  Perry grabbed a third slice. “What about Victor?”

  Isaiah shrugged. “I doubt the head of the Stuyvesant grieve would be that sloppy. He might feed on unwilling humans, but he’d never turn someone rogue. Besides, Hedda’s hooked him up with enough blood donors to keep him satisfied.”

  Willing victims like Tabitha who had traded a night with Victor for a walk-on part in a Broadway musical. And Darryl... Suddenly, I saw that afternoon’s events in a new way. “Victor was playing Ten Minutes of Heaven with Darryl in the bathroom this afternoon. At the time, I thought they were…erm…being intimate, but now I’m guessing that Victor was taking Darryl’s soul because afterwards, he gave Darryl a part in his play.”

  “Was Darryl the guy we found dead in the parking lot?” Perry asked.

  “Yes, but he left the theater on his own two feet,” I said. “He looked dazed, but otherwise okay.”

  Perry sighed and ran both his hand
s through his hair. “Okay, so it isn’t Victor, and that puts us back at square one. Terrific.”

  I frowned. “Can’t you ask Hedda?”

  “If a member of Hedda’s grieve was giving her trouble, she’d never tell us,” Isaiah said. “Hedda guards her secrets very closely. Especially now that Victor is snooping around.”

  I recalled what I’d learned that morning. “Charles said that Hedda was indebted to Victor.”

  “The Stuyvesants are a very powerful grieve. No doubt, he was responsible for turning Hedda into a vamp.”

  “Does that make him her boss?”

  Perry grabbed a pen from his pocket and drew three, concentric circles on the empty pizza box. “We’re in the dark about a lot of this, but from what I understand, the grieve system works like nesting dolls.” He wrote LUQUIN in the innermost circle, HEDDA in the next circle, and VICTOR in the outermost one. “See, any human that Victor turned into a vampire would answer to him as would any vampires that vampire created. Each vamp is indebted to their maker who, in return, is indebted to his maker.”

  “So if Luquin Astor tried to create his own grieve, Luquin’s vampires would have to answer to Luquin and Hedda and Victor?”

  “Exactly.” Perry dropped the pen and groaned. “Unfortunately, that’s as much as we know. Like I said, Hedda keeps nearly everything from us. If we had a spy on the inside, we could get a grip on the situation instead of having our asses handed to us.”

  I studied Perry’s chart. “Where does Bertrand Peabody fit into this?”

  Both Isaiah and Perry stared at me. “Bertrand who?” Perry asked.

  “Charles said Hedda used to be married to him,” I explained. “In fact, he said, Bertrand made her who she is just like Victor made Bertrand who he is. Which, I assume, means Victor turned Bertrand into a vampire, and Bertrand turned Hedda.” I drew another ring on the pizza box in-between Hedda and Victor’s.” That would make the chain of command: Luquin, Hedda, Bertrand, and Victor.”

  Perry’s jaw dropped. “And you know this…how?”

  “Like I said, Charles told me.”

  Perry’s eyes popped wide. He grinned and pumped his fist in the air. “Yes!”

  “No.” Isaiah’s voice rumbled like thunder.

  “Are you crazy?” Perry asked. “Do you realize what we have here?”

  Isaiah clenched his massive fists. “I said no!”

  I looked from one to the other. “No what?”

  “We’ve been trying for years to find out more about vampire politics and grieves,” Perry said, his face lit with excitement. “Here you come along, and in one day gather more intelligence than we could have in six months.”

  “Forget it,” Isaiah said. When Perry started to argue, Isaiah cut him off with a glare that could have stripped paint from the walls. “If we act on information that Cassie overhears from the Bleak Street, it won’t take the vampires long to figure out where we got it.”

  Perry’s smile died on his lips. “You’re right.” His shoulders slumped. “Damn.” Then he raised his eyes hopefully. “Maybe one of us could audition for that play. What’s it called? 16 Voices?”

  “Victor wants to do it as a wire fu musical,” I said. “All sixteen actors suspended above the stage and singing their parts.”

  Perry grimaced. “Never mind.”

  I wished I could help them out, but there was no way in hell that I was going back to work on Victor’s play. I didn’t care that I’d recommitted to being the stage manager, I was quitting again. I refused to deal with vampires. “I’d love to help, but…”

  “No buts,” Isaiah said. “It’s too dangerous.”

  I smiled at him, grateful that he understood.

  My head buzzed from exhaustion. My giddy feeling had been replaced by a leaden one. I swore I could sleep for a week. I stood. “I need to get home.”

  “Let me see your phone,” Isaiah said. When I handed it over, he programmed his number into it. “There. Now I we have each other’s numbers. If you’re worried about vamps, you can call me.”

  I struggled to remain calm, but inside I was doing back flips. I had his number! I hadn’t even needed to come up with a crazy plan in order to get it. “Thanks.”

  He walked me out to my car, and when I got in, I rolled down the window. He braced his arms on the car and leaned inside.

  “When I go home, should I sprinkle my door with holy water or anything?” I was only half teasing. The thought of those rogues – or any other vampires – getting into my home terrified me. Then I had a worse thought. “I was bitten! Will I turn into a vampire?!”

  “You couldn’t wear that silver necklace of yours if you were.”

  Good point. Seeing Isaiah’s silver earring still winking from high up in his ear made me feel even better. My midnight rescuer wasn’t a vampire, either.

  “Also, since rogues don’t have soul, they won’t come out during the day. And vampires, all vampires, can’t get into your home without an invitation. Holy ground is off limits, too.”

  “Is that why your store is in the old church?”

  “That’s one of the reasons.”

  “What’s the other?”

  His lips quirked up. “When the realtor showed Perry the sanctuary, he fell in love with the name Holy Comics.”

  I laughed.

  “Can I see you again?” he asked.

  “Definitely. I want to know more about those bastards.” Now that I understood the danger, I wasn’t about to go around unprepared. “Maybe you can also explain more about how a grieve works, and why Hedda always stages such bizarre plays.” My mind was clicking away now, my thoughts jamming against each other like traffic during rush hour.

  He looked at his hands. “Well, we could discuss vampires if that’s what you want to do.”

  I nodded. “Yes, that’s what I want to do.” It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I realized he’d meant we could meet together for some other reason than discussing vampires.

  Chapter Eleven

  The moment I pulled into my driveway, my phone rang.

  “Hey Cassie.”

  “Andrew! Where have you been? I’ve been calling you all day!”

  His voice was peculiarly flat. “When you asked me to move in with you, did you mean it?”

  “Of course!”

  “Then will you come pick me up?”

  Although it was nearly midnight, and I was exhausted, I immediately put the car into reverse. “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you when you get here,” he said and hung up.

  Andrew must have been watching for me because the moment I pulled into his driveway, he came through the front door carrying a massive gym bag. His broken expression spoke volumes.

  I met him with a hug. “What’s wrong?”

  He pressed his lips together. “I thought Caleb and I had moved past that argument over the audition, but this morning, he started in on me again. He got so angry, that…” Andrew fought for control. “Never mind. Anyway, I told him that we’re through.”

  I uttered a silent prayer of thanks as I opened the trunk. Andrew threw in his bag then returned to the condo for two more. The last thing to go in were his free weights which were so heavy that they sagged the back end of my poor Focus.

  As I slammed the trunk shut, Caleb’s SUV screeched up and jolted to a stop, half on the lawn and half in the street. “Get in the car, Cassie,” Andrew said tightly and went to meet his boyfriend.

  I caught his arm. “Forget him. Let’s just leave.”

  Caleb tumbled out of his vehicle and nearly fell to his knees. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” His words were fuzzy at the edges.

  “I’m leaving.” Andrew’s voice trembled. “For good this time.”

  “You’re not going anywhere!” Caleb jabbed his finger in Andrew’s chest. He stank of booze. “Get in the house!”

  Andrew shoved his house keys at Caleb who let them drop to the ground. Caleb’s face tightened with gr
ief. “You’re not really leaving, are you? I’m sorry, okay? I swear I didn’t mean it. I love you!”

  Andrew hesitated, but I put my hand on his arm, guiding him towards my car. “Let’s go.”

  “I said I love you, you little bitch!” Caleb snatched at Andrew’s arm, but Andrew jerked away. When Caleb made another grab, I slapped his hand.

  Caleb erupted. “Stay out of this!” He grabbed a fistful of my coat and yanked me forwards, nearly pulling me off my feet. Furious, I grabbed hold of the first thing I could reach – his ear – and gave it a mighty twist. He yelped and let go, but then lunged at me again.

  Andrew slipped behind Caleb and put him in a headlock. “Leave her alone!”

  Caleb swore loudly and tried to wrestle free.

  “Andrew, come on,” I shouted. “Andrew!”

  Andrew let Caleb drop to the ground. “Don’t you ever touch her again!” He got into my car and slammed the door.

  I gunned the engine, peeling out of the driveway so fast I nearly clipped their mailbox. As I sped off, Caleb threw something at my car. A paper cup full of Coke and probably rum exploded across the back window.

  A few blocks later, I pulled off the side of the road. My hands were shaking too hard to drive.

  “You okay?” Andrew asked.

  “Yeah. You?”

  He nodded. “Thanks for coming for me.”

  “Of course I’d come for you!” I reached across the gear shifter for an awkward hug, and ended up poking my hand into his side. He winced.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  My heart sped up. “Caleb hurt you, didn’t he?” When Andrew remained silent, I said, “What did he do? Show me!”

  Reluctantly, Andrew turned sideways and lifted his jacket and t-shirt. I switched on the dome light. Just above the waistline of his jeans was a nasty bruise and a long gouge with some missing skin. “Caleb pushed me into a corner of the kitchen counter.”

  From the look of it, Caleb had thrown him against the counter, not just pushed him. I choked back a sob. Rage painted my vision red.

  A trace of worry broke through Andrew’s woodenness. “Calm down, Cassie. It’s not that bad.”