by Devon, Cat
“Yes, but he did it for love.”
Daniella shook her head. “I can’t see Nick St. George doing anything for love. I didn’t get the impression that he’s a people person.”
“Yet he’s the head of the local business association?”
Daniella nodded. “I think that’s more of a power trip than anything else. He seemed very surprised that he couldn’t boss me around.”
“So the guy is a bully.”
Daniella frowned. “That’s the thing. I’ve dealt with bullies before. When I was a pastry chef in New York, my boss was impossible. No, Nick is more than a bully. I suspect he could be charming if he really wanted to and if it would get him something he wants.”
“So you think that will be his next step? That he’ll try to charm you?”
Daniella grinned. “I sure hope so.” She wiggled her fingers in a come here gesture. “Let him try. I’ll be ready for him.”
* * *
“That was a waste of time,” Nick said. He could feel his jaw clenching as he spoke to fellow vamp Pat Heller at Pat’s Tats tattoo parlor. Looking around, Nick remembered Daniella’s comments about the ambience at his place. He didn’t think she’d like Pat’s Tats any better. No doubt the wall covered with various body art designs would offend her dainty sensibilities. He couldn’t imagine her as the type of female to get a tramp stamp.
He also couldn’t imagine her approving of Pat with his gray hair held back in a ponytail. The vamp was commonly mistaken for George Carlin before he passed away. George had actually been Pat’s favorite comedian. Since vampires remain the same as when they were turned, Pat’s hair stayed long and prematurely gray as it had when he’d been bitten back in the 1600s.
“What was a waste of time?” Pat asked before he sipped blood from a dainty Wedgwood porcelain teacup.
“My meeting with Little Miss Cupcake Maker.”
“What’s the problem? You just look her in the eye and use mind compulsion to make her change her mind about opening her store around here.”
“I did that. It didn’t work.”
Pat looked surprised. “It didn’t work? I’ve never heard of that before. She’s not a vamp, is she?”
“No, but I have a feeling she’s going to be a pain in the ass.”
“You have a feeling, huh?”
“I meant it as a simple observation. You know I don’t do feelings.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“Do not tell anyone about her being immune to my mind compulsion,” Nick said.
“Feeling a little inadequate, are you?”
Nick growled.
Pat shook his head with disapproval. “How many times do I have to tell you that vamps don’t growl? Werewolves growl.”
Nick’s silence spoke volumes. So did his glare.
“You’ve been a vampire long enough to know better,” Pat scolded him.
“Is this the part where you go on and on about how many centuries you’ve been a vampire?”
“I do not go on and on,” Pat said.
“I need to figure out more about this cupcake maker,” Nick said.
“Her name is Daniella, right?”
Nick nodded.
“It’s a lovely name.” Pat sat back in his chair. “I knew a Daniella in Paris before the Revolution. Ah, those were the days…” He paused, clearly lost in the memories. “Of course his real name was Daniel. I’ve been gay for a long time. But I’ve never been happier than I am with my current partner, Bruce. It helps that he’s a vamp, too. Not that he’s been around as long as I have.”
“That longevity of yours and your intelligence are what have saved our clan from the devastating effects of sunlight. You’re the reason we can go out in daylight without frying and turning into crispy critters.”
“I just wish I could have come up with the answer faster. It took me a few centuries to come up with the right combination of ink and symbols for a tattoo that allows us to tolerate daylight. I knew it involved the fleur-de-lis design, but it was the formula for the ink that had me stumped for so long. I had to get the ratio exactly right to counteract the UV rays that are so deadly to vampires. It was a painful process—I had to sit in a strong beam of sunshine coming through a window to see if I had it right. I can’t tell you how many times I’d end up with blistering burns in mere seconds. Once I was back in the shade again, my vamp super-healing abilities restored my skin to normal and I’d try it again. It wasn’t until almost thirty years ago that I got it down. With the tattoo it’s all about design, ink, and location, location, location.”
“Better late than never,” Nick said, running his hand over the tattoo on the nape of his neck.
“True. As with all things vampire, each kind finds their own way. Outsider vamps think it has to do with refining the blood. After going through what I have, there is no way I’d give up the secret to our being able to tolerate sunshine here in Vamptown. Do you think I’m going to share that formula with every Tom, Dick, or Harry vamp that walks through my door? No way. Especially not the dicks.”
“What about the human dicks? Are you still accepting them as clients?” Nick asked.
“On occasion,” Pat said. “It’s not like I’m making a meal of them. I don’t need to. Doc Boomer has come up with the perfect formula to revitalize the human blood we get from the human-run funeral home. It’s better than fresh. He’s even added calcium for healthy bones and teeth. After all, dental hygiene is important to our kind. That’s why Doc Boomer runs the twenty-four-hour dental clinic here in Vamptown. Doc is currently a dentist but he’s also been a physician and a chemist in the past.” Pat paused to empty his cup before dabbing at his mouth with a linen napkin. “As for the humans, I only take a small sip from the ones who pass out. That’s why I can say with utmost confidence that Doc’s blood formula is better than the blood from a still-breathing human. Doc has filtered out all the impurities. No germs, viruses, or cooties. Not that it matters, since we are immortal. But no one goes looking for cooties. Even vamps.”
“You know there have been rumblings about us taking over the funeral home,” Nick said.
“I’m aware. But that would draw too much attention. No, I believe our current arrangement is the best. Let the humans deal with the boring details at the funeral home; we merely siphon off the blood unbeknownst to them. But getting back to Daniella … that is strange that she didn’t respond to your mind compulsion.”
“It’s never happened to me before,” Nick said.
“Maybe you should try experimenting with it on another human. Just to make sure you haven’t lost your touch or something.”
“That’s a good idea. I need to talk to Daniella’s brother Gordon at the funeral home anyway.”
“Make sure your mind compulsion still works before you go into any details with Gordon,” Pat said.
Nick glared at him. “I’m not stupid.”
“I know that.”
Did he? Pat used to trust him completely. His friend had never doubted him before. Yet now Pat was reminding Nick not to make any rookie mistakes. Hell, he might not have as many centuries under his belt as Pat did, but Nick had been around for two hundred years.
This was all the cupcake maker’s fault. Nick had only met the female two hours ago and already she was making his life difficult. She’d started complicating things the second she refused to back down from her plans to open the cupcake store down the street. And to make matters worse, she’d been so damn cheerful about it all.
Nick couldn’t figure her out, but he would. Because no one ever got the best of him.
“Gordon will be trembling in his boots if you walk into the funeral home with that look on your face,” Pat said.
“Good. Humans are easier to deal with when fear keeps them in their place.”
“You were human once,” Pat said.
Nick didn’t welcome the reminder. He didn’t want to think about those days so very, very long ago.
* * *
&nbs
p; None of the limited number of humans in Vamptown were aware that they were surrounded by vampires, and Nick was determined to keep it that way. Which is why he began compelling Gordon the instant he walked into his office at the Evergreen Funeral Home. Usually such visits involved some reminder to keep the blood flowing, but this one was different.
“Tell me about your sister Daniella.” Nick stared into the funeral director’s eyes and watched them go glassy and blank. He was relieved to see that mind compulsion continued to work just fine on Gordon, unlike his sister.
“She was born in Chicago eighteen months after me. Birth date June first. She’s twenty-nine. Graduated from college with honors.” He quickly stated facts as if by rote. “Went to boot camp at CIA.”
“Hold on. The CIA?” Could this explain somehow why Daniella was immune to his vamp mind compulsion? Had spy training taught her to resist any sort of mental coercion?
“CIA—Culinary Institute of America,” Gordon said before continuing, “Favorite music groups are Coldplay and The Script. Favorite color is pink. Drives a pink Vespa moped she’s named Shirley. Always wears her helmet, which is also pink.”
“Tell me more.”
“She’s very stubborn but usually cheerful. Studied in New York to be a pastry chef. Worked there at some fancy place I can never remember the name of. Her best friend here in Chicago is Suz Beckman, an accountant.”
“Are there any men in Daniella’s life?”
“Me, my father—”
“No,” Nick interrupted him. “I mean romantic relationships.”
“She went to senior prom with my best friend Randy Schmidt.”
“More recent than that,” Nick said impatiently.
“Dave Labelle in New York City. She broke up with him when she moved back to Chicago a couple of months ago. The asshole cheated on her. She nearly whacked him with a cupcake baking tin.”
“Anything strange about her?”
“Aside from the baking-tin thing, she always wins at Scrabble. I think she cheats even though she says she doesn’t.”
“Besides that?”
“She has a kick-ass memory. Almost as good as that actress who used to be on the TV show Taxi.”
“What else?”
“Sometimes she knows what you’re going to say before you say it.”
“She has ESP?”
“I guess. She’s no good at guessing Lotto ticket numbers or winning horses at the track, though.”
Nick knew that Gordon had a gambling problem and had racked up debts, which made him an easy mark for working outside the legalities and regulations involved with running a funeral home. Even if he did sometimes wonder about things, he never asked questions, and that wasn’t entirely due to his being compelled. It also was due to the fact that he didn’t want to know because money was coming in. He didn’t want to rock the boat even if he didn’t know exactly what kind of boat it was. It was a lucrative one, and that’s all that mattered.
If Daniella really did have telepathic abilities, Nick was willing to bet that she wouldn’t help her brother further his gambling addiction. The fact that she didn’t accurately predict the numbers or the horse names didn’t mean she couldn’t do it. It could mean she wouldn’t do it.
“That’s all for now,” Nick said. “You will not remember this conversation at all, Gordon. You won’t remember me asking about your sister. Do you understand?”
Gordon nodded, blinked, and then said, “We are fully booked for funerals all this week. Business is booming.”
“I’m happy for you.” A successful mortuary was the lifeblood of the vamps in Vamptown. There were other vampire clusters in the city that had their own ways of obtaining blood. Some had an “in” at the blood bank or a hospital. Others had darker ways of satisfying their hunger.
Mind compulsion kept Gordon and his talented embalmer Phil Phelps in line. Nick didn’t need to know all the gory details. He left that to Doc Boomer, who assured everyone that there was no mixing of embalming fluids with the blood drainage. If that meant an adjustment in procedures, so be it. Vamptown had been flourishing lately, having successfully dealt with two of the most challenging aspects of life as a vampire—blood and daylight.
Daniella had the potential to put all that at risk. Nick needed to figure out what made her different, and he needed to do it fast.
* * *
Daniella stared at her surroundings with equal parts delight and dismay. The Heavenly Cupcakes grand opening was only ten days away. There was no way she’d be ready in time, was there?
“Stay calm,” she ordered herself. Saying the words out loud made her feel better somehow.
Turning on her iPad, she chose “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from her music files. As the cheerful Spamalot song filled the space, she reminded herself of the things that had gone right. For one thing, her father owned the building, which featured an empty storefront and a one-bedroom apartment upstairs, and was letting her have it rent-free for one year. He also allowed her to remodel the dingy space and even recommended a great contractor.
She’d kept the art deco architectural details, like the decorative moldings, from the 1920s when this building and most on the rest of the block had been built. She’d brightened the walls with subtle blush-pink paint and added black-framed prints of angels she’d collected over the years. The combination of the dramatic black against the pale pink provided a feeling of both class and welcoming warmth. She could have gone for the more traditional look of hot pink and black from the 1950s diner era but had preferred this more restrained ambience.
Daniella had transformed the back into a dream bakery with a huge stainless worktable, an industrial-sized oven, a commercial fridge and freezer, and a pantry with carefully labeled storage bins for the dry goods like flour and sugar. Her pink KitchenAid handheld mixer and huge mixing bowls were stored on wire racks.
The Spamalot song repeated. Now that she thought about it, her shop wasn’t in dire straits after all. Yes, the pair of cupcake wrought-iron wall sconce light fixtures still had to be installed, but that should be done by tomorrow. And yes, the glass display cases for her trays of cupcakes were the wrong size and had to be sent back, but the vendor assured her the correct ones would be delivered tomorrow. Meanwhile, she really needed to focus on hiring some part-time help. She’d been trying for the past month without much success. Without any success, really.
Lost in thought, Daniella sat at one of the marble-topped tables facing the window while she scanned the list on her iPad. It vaguely seeped into her consciousness that the light was diminishing outside as darkness fell. She glanced out the window and saw a lone figure standing on the sidewalk. The hair on the back of her neck stood up. Someone was watching her. She couldn’t see their face in the shadows, but she felt their presence.
She raced to the security system panel and punched in a series of numbers, hoping she was hitting the right buttons. Putting her hand on the front doorknob, she felt it turn. Her heart raced. The door opened, and she faced her stalker.
Chapter Three
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist,” Daniella said with a big smile. “Come in!” Daniella pulled Nick into her shop before he could protest. He was looking at her rather strangely. Was that suspicion she saw reflected in his stormy gray eyes, or something else?
“I wouldn’t be able to resist? Explain,” he said curtly.
“Seeing my store. It was the flyer I left for you, wasn’t it? The one with the drawings of what I planned to do with the store. You had to see the finished product yourself. Not that the renovation is completely finished yet, obviously.” She waved her hand at the sawhorses reserving the area where the glass display cases would be. “But the space has great bones.”
Daniella cheerfully chose to ignore the way Nick was glaring at her as if he wanted to break a few of her bones and continued. “I admit the place doesn’t have the gorgeous examples of art deco that other buildings like Chicago’s Board of Trad
e has, but I like to think that it’s special in its own charming way.”
“No moose heads or plastic mackerels for you, right?”
“Right.”
Nick stared deep into her eyes. “You don’t want to open your store here.” He was using what she’d labeled his hypnotic voice.
She widened her eyes and stared right back at him. “Why do you keep saying that?” she said in exasperation. “Of course I want to open my store here. Duh. That’s why I renovated the space.”
“Duh?” He appeared somewhat at a loss at her response.
“Yeah, duh. Look at that crown molding. Isn’t that cool? The brick buildings all along this block were built in the 1920s. That was an exciting time. The Roaring Twenties with flappers dancing the Charleston and men bootlegging alcohol during Prohibition.”
“How do you know it was exciting?” His suspicious look was back.
“I can read. And I like reading about history. Do you?”
“Do I what?” he said.
“Like history? Like the 1920s?”
“Sure. It’s almost as if I’ve lived through it,” he said drily.
She nodded. “I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I mean if these walls could only talk. Well, maybe not these exact walls, since we had to put in new wallboard and remove what was here before. The space has been empty for a while.”
“I know.”
“As the head of the local business association, I’d think you’d be happy to see it being utilized.” She tilted her head to study him a moment. “Unless you’re afraid that I’m going to ‘girlie’ up the block by adding my classy shop? I mean, you’ve got a bar next to a tattoo parlor next to a dental clinic.”
“My point exactly. Not really the clientele you’d be wanting.”
“My father owns this building and he’s giving it to me rent-free for a year. I can’t afford to go anywhere else.”
“You can’t afford to stay here, either,” he muttered. Or was it a growl?
“My dad tells me this isn’t a high crime area,” she said.
The corner of Nick’s mouth lifted slightly in what was probably his version of a smile. “You could say we’ve taken a bite out of crime.”
