by Harper Allen
Five minutes later, after clambering down the oak tree by my bedroom window and letting my Mini roll noiselessly down the drive to the road, I was speeding along the road that led out of Maplesburg, with Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas singing “Fly Away” on the CD player, which I thought made a perfect soundtrack for my getaway. My plan was to drive around for half an hour, return home and sneak back into my room the same way I’d sneaked out. If Mikhail hadn’t noticed my absence, I’d clean up the coffee and use it again tomorrow to buy myself a longer period of AWOL.
Like I say, that was the plan. I still think it was a good one. Things just didn’t work out as I’d anticipated.
I was heading back into Maplesburg when my cell rang. I pulled it out of my pocket and flipped it open, pulling the Mini over to the side of the deserted road while I took the call.
“Sweetie, you’ll never guess where we are.” Kat’s voice sounded hollow and echoey. It also sounded depressed.
“With Darkheart?” I guessed without taxing my brain too much. “Oh, shit, tell him I forgot to pick up his black bread.”
She ignored my added comment. “In a mausoleum,” she informed me with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “We’re waiting here until sunset to see if any of the crypts start opening up and disgorging vamps. Grandfather says I can stake them before they know we’re here,” she sighed heavily. “Tell Tash from me that missing out on this wasn’t worth her getting into such a snit. I’ve got water dripping down the back of my neck, this place smells really bad and—” static replaced the sound of her voice but then she came back again “—out patrolling till dawn so I guess I’ll see you and Tashie tomorrow morning. Try and talk some sense into her, Meg. Grandfather said she’d get her turn tomorrow night, but she seemed so—” Again the static intruded on her words, and this time I did, too.
“She’s not with you?” I heard sharp worry in my question, but I couldn’t help it. I was worried. “How bad of a snit? Did she say anything about going to the Hot Box? Kat?” The phone went dead. Hastily I called her back and heard the recorded tones of an operator telling me that the customer I was dialling was unavailable.
“So tell me something I don’t know,” I said through gritted teeth as I tossed my cell phone on the passenger seat beside me and stared irresolutely at the setting sun, “like, would Tash really be stupid enough to try and take down Zena herself? Could she be at the Hot Box right now waiting for her to appear?”
But I already knew the answers to those questions. I remembered the excited glint in Tashie’s blue eyes when she’d talked about staking Zena and the stubborn thrust of her chin when she’d vowed to prove that she was Daughter of Lilith material. Tash was stupid enough—or if not stupid, at least blinded by her feelings of competition with Kat. She was at the Hot Box. I knew it in my suddenly tight chest, my suddenly clenched stomach and my suddenly sinking heart.
The sun was already straddling the horizon. I started the Mini and put it in gear. Swinging it onto the road, I made a U-turn and ended up facing the way I’d just come…away from Maplesburg and toward the turnoff to the Hot Box.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I’d just performed the vehicular equivalent of walking upstairs in a see-through negligee to meet my doom. I’d just become Too Dumb to Live.
The Hot Box was a low, unprepossessing building out in the middle of nowhere, built of concrete block and distinguished only by the candy-striped awning that stretched along its length. The pink-and-white stripes were repeated in the flashing neon of the sign that not only proclaimed its name, but also the fact that inside there were Girls, Girls, Girls! Classy.
But besides noting that the neon’s pulsating message was becoming increasingly more visible in the gathering dusk, I was too preoccupied to take much in. “Get Tash, get the hell out. Get Tash, get the hell out. Get Tash—” I mantrad under my breath as I parked my car near the entrance and ran across the gravel to the awning-protected door. My gut feelings had been right: as I’d sped across the expanse of parking lot, I’d seen the tell-tale white Mini, identical to mine, parked among the other cars at the side of the building.
“She didn’t even leave it where she could get to it in a hurry,” I muttered, breaking off my mantra. “What was she thinking?” Stupid question. I knew damn well what had gone on under the riot of red-gold curls that Tash had probably tossed as she’d marched from her car—a vision of herself uttering a few cool quips during a brief battle with Zena that quickly ended in the queen vamp’s death-by-staking.
My fantasy differed in a few key details…key details like who would be killed and who would walk away in any confrontation between my sister and a vamp who had gone up against hundreds of over-confident opponents in her blood-soaked career.
The double doors at the entrance to the club had oversized gold-toned handles. As I drew closer I saw they each depicted a female thrusting forward perkily uptilted breasts. I grabbed a gold-toned boob, pulled open one of the doors and went in.
And immediately winced. Being inside the Hot Box was unnervingly like being inside a giant…no, I can’t go there. Let’s just say that whoever the interior designer had been, he’d taken the tacky name of the club as a theme and run with it. Everything was an almost throbbing pink, from the flocked wallpaper to the worn carpeting to the grubby upholstered doors a few feet ahead of me, from behind which came the muffled sound of music. Since I doubted Tash was watching the show, I glanced around the foyer, hoping to see a door marked Private or some other subtle indication as to where the non-public areas of the club were. My gaze fell instead on the six-foot-tall figure swiftly approaching me.
“Don’t tell me—Cherry’s sick again and you’re filling in for her. I’m getting a little pissed with our resident Lady Godiva being a no-show and sending eleventh-hour replacements, but what the hell. Dressing room’s down the hall, make a left. Where’s your stuff?”
The above speech was accompanied by a long stream of cigarette smoke blown my way. I waved it aside and saw that the speaker couldn’t be Zena, for a couple of reasons. One, there was still daylight outside; and two, Zena, as far as I knew, actually was a female, so she didn’t have to impersonate one.
Which wasn’t to say that the statuesque babe in the red evening gown towering over me couldn’t bring a construction site to a wolf-whistling halt. At least, he could—sorry, she could—if she replaced the platinum Marilyn Monroe wig she’d just taken off her skull-capped head. As if she realized the brown buzz-cut hair sticking through the tight nylon cap ruined her image, she turned to the foyer mirror and began to put on the wig.
I could see her reflection in the mirror, another indicator she wasn’t a vamp, I thought as I shook my head. “Sorry, I’m just here looking for my sister—strawberry curls, blue eyes, about my size. Did you see her come in?”
“A sister act? The campers go crazy over sisters.” Pseudo-Marilyn caught my frown as she patted her wig. “Campers, the creeps in the audience with tent-poles, get it?” she elaborated. “You never heard that expression in any of the other clubs you strip at?”
“I’m not a strip—” I stopped, my thoughts racing. Then I took a breath. “I prefer to think of myself as an exotic dancer,” I said firmly. “But Cherry only called me on my cell ten minutes ago to ask me to fill in for her, so I didn’t have a chance to go home and get my costume.” A vision of Grammie’s and Popsie’s appalled faces suddenly rose up in my mind as I went on, “Can I borrow some pasties, girlfriend?”
Chapter 10
Arguing with Marilyn over what I was doing here would have used up minutes I didn’t have, I thought as I sauntered away from her. I turned into the corridor and my saunter became a sprint.
“Get Tash and get the hell out of here!” My mantra now had an extra edge of fear. The sun had surely set by now, and I wasn’t basing this solely on the fact that it had been slipping below the horizon as I’d entered. It felt as though night had fallen. All of my senses had gone to Def-Con One and I felt as nakedl
y vulnerable as some prehistoric cave-dweller wondering if the sounds outside in the dark were coming from a sabre-toothed tiger or something even worse.
I halted at a partially open door. Letting the light from the hall illuminate the room, I stuck my head inside and saw it was some kind of storage area. I looked over my shoulder, but the hall behind me was empty. “Tash! Tash, you in here?”
There was no answer. I let the door swing shut and resumed sprinting down the corridor, thankful I was wearing sneakers instead of the killer heels I’d had on earlier. Ahead of me was one more door before the corridor branched left and right. Marilyn had said that the left branch led to the dressing room, and since it wasn’t likely that the strippers paraded through the foyer to get to and from their sets, taking a right turn would probably lead me straight onto the club’s stage, staring like a deer caught in the headlights at a roomful of expectant and horny men. Running into Zena was almost preferable, I thought with a shudder as I came to a stop outside the closed door.
Cautiously I opened it a crack, my heart-rate tripling as I saw a glow of light. But mere illumination wasn’t the only difference between this room and the last. This was someone’s office—a decadently luxurious office with red silk covering the walls and faux-zebra and panther skins layered on the floor by an elaborate desk. The lamp on the desk had an unusual globe shade made of some kind ofintricately carved material. Its dim light, escaping only through the piercings in the carving, was barely enough to reveal a fur-draped sofa and the shadowed outline of a closet door beyond the desk.
I took all this in at a glance, my blood congealing in my veins. Office. Sumptuous office. Office that could only belong to Zena, aka Queen Vamp, aka sworn enemy of all things Darkheart, including me. It was too exposed to be her daytime lair, but it would be the first place she would come when she arose every night. And if I’d reached that conclusion, Tash would have, too.
I wanted so badly to turn and run from that room. In fact, my feet had already started retreating back into the hall before I made them stop, forcing myself to ignore the “get the hell out of here” part of my mantra and focus on the “get Tash” part.
Quickly I stepped into the room. Before the door had closed behind me I was flying past the desk, almost wiping out as one of the faux-panther rugs—no, real panther, I realized as my sneaker sank into silky fur—slid sideways under my foot. “Tash, if you’re in here you’d better come out now, or when we get home I’m going to kill you!” I hissed as I sped to the closet and wrenched open the door. “Zena could show up at any—”
Take it from me, there’s nothing, and I mean nada, that can cut off a ranting female in midsentence as fast as having the nearly nude dead body of a woman fall on her. There’s nothing that can turn her skin to the texture of a plucked chicken so instantly, either. As Closet-Girl tumbled onto me, the ropes that had been binding her fell free and tangled around my neck.
“Shit oh shit oh shit oh shit…” I had a new mantra, not quite as catchy as the previous one but even more heartfelt. I tore at the ropes and stumbled backwards from the dead woman so fast that I crashed into the desk behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the lamp begin to fall and realized with panic that if it did I wouldn’t just be in a room with a corpse, I’d be in a dark room with a corpse. I grabbed at the globe shade and immediately felt sick horror. Or, since I was already feeling sick horror, I suppose I should say new sick horror.
The body at my feet was terrible enough. Realizing I was holding a human skull that had been carved and pierced and fitted to a lamp as a shade was almost worse. I let go of the thing so abruptly that it nearly tipped over again, at the same time ripping the last strand of rope from around my throat.
Except it wasn’t rope, I realized. It was hair, jet-black and long enough for an enterprising stripper to use it as a prop in a Lady Godiva act. I’d just found the missing Cherry…and she was a whole lot sicker than Marilyn had suspected.
But I still hadn’t found Tashya. A heartbeat later, I realized why.
The sudden sound of my cell phone ringing should have startled me into the screaming meemies, but as I grabbed my Nokia from the pocket of my hoodie and glanced at the caller display I found myself clutching it as if it were a tiny, Swarovski-studded lifebuoy. Mikhail had found my cell number on the house phone’s speed dial. He’d realized I’d tricked him and was calling to find out where I was. Yes, he’d go all wolfey and pissy and start doing his glowering-at-me thing again, but that was a small price to pay for him getting his tight-bunned ass over here to save mine and Tashya’s.
He’d be able to track her scent, I thought hollowly. It would have been helpful if I’d thought of that before I’d marched into the Hot Box all by myself.
“I know you’re furious and I’ve probably violated some arcane rule of behavior between oborotni and vladelcy, but—”
“Earth to Aunt Bea,” Tashya’s irritated voice said. “God, Meg, it’s like you’re some flustery old lady who doesn’t know how to read a call display. Where is everybody?”
The air shot out of my lungs. I dragged some back in and produced a whispered shout. “What the hell do you mean, where’s everybody? Where have you been? Kat thought you were with me, I thought you were with her and Darkheart—”
“And I would have been if my stupid car hadn’t started making a bunch of weird sounds,” Tash snapped. “I mean, how totally unfair was it, Grandfather choosing Kat to go on the first hunt instead of me? I decided to follow them anyway, but the guy at this ratty garage I pulled into said I was lucky I hadn’t blown the engine. As it was, he told me it would be an overnight job and I had to get a taxi home. Did you know about that orange light and how you’re supposed to change your oil or top it up or whatever when it goes on?”
“Of course I knew,” I said tightly. “I also know better than to leave my car with some crook of a mechanic for him to go joyriding in and end up at the Hot Box. Put Mikhail on the line. I need to talk to him.”
“That’s why I called—I’m here all alone. Isn’t he supposed to stick by your side night and—” I heard her make a sound a lot like the one I’d made a moment earlier when the air had rushed out of my lungs. “Meg?” She said my name in a breathy squeak. “Please tell me you’re not at the Hot Box.”
“I’m at the Hot Box,” I said flatly. “You’re probably not going to have much luck reaching Kat, but if you do, tell her and Darkheart the situation. If Mikhail returns, tell him, too. And Tash?” I heard a quaver in my voice.
“Yes?” There was a quaver in hers, as well.
“If I show up on the doorstep later tonight looking better than I ever looked in my life, shove a crucifix at me. If I’m still me, fine and dandy, but if I’m not…” I swallowed. “If I’m not, stake me, Tashie. No matter what I say or how I plead with you, stake me before I kill anyone I love, okay?”
I didn’t wait for her reply. Snapping my cell phone shut, I started for the door, but then I turned back.
The woman on the floor was no one to me, but Zena had targeted her and that gave us something in common. If she was dead, there was nothing I could do for her. If she was undead, however…My gaze lit upon an ivory and leather letter opener on the desk. I snatched it up and turned back to Cherry, steeling myself for what I needed to do next.
I’d never seen a dead person, much less touched one. As I pushed aside the silky curtain of hair that provided more cover for her near-nudity than the pale blue G-string and scrap of bra she was wearing, I thought I could feel warmth beneath my fingertips. It also seemed to me that her flesh didn’t have the marble hardness I imagined a corpse’s should have.
“But what do I know?” I spoke under my breath. “The whole rigor mortis thing’s a big mystery to me. I don’t have the faintest idea when Zena killed you, aside from the fact that it must have been sometime before dawn this…” My words trailed off as I saw the unmistakable double fang-marks I’d hoped I wouldn’t find. My grip tightened around the letter opener
—there seemed to be an unwritten rule that yours truly wasn’t allowed to go up against a vamp with an honest-to-God stake, I thought—and I flicked an apprehensive glance at Cherry’s face.
She’d been a beautiful woman, with features that still looked vaguely childlike. Her lashes lay like fans against the pink of her cheeks and her lips, as red as her namesake, were slightly pouted in exhalation. I wondered what kind of person she’d been, and whether I’d have liked her if I’d known her.
“It’s too bad we never met,” I told her slowly. “We could have gone shopping together, maybe gone to a bar to check out guys. Can you imagine how they’d have hit on us—a brunette and a blonde, both of us young and totally hot-looking? And if I got my sisters to go with us, there’d be a sudden epidemic of whiplash in the male population of Maplesburg.”
“I know, right?” Cherry agreed, opening her eyes and curving her red lips into a smile. “Like, no other girls would stand a chance against the four of us. We could get a place together, throw parties, kill everyone we don’t like.” She looked thoughtful. “My trailer’s kind of small but it’s close to Rodney Park so it’s too convenient to move from there. I know—we’ll take over the trailer next to mine! It’s way bigger and the couple who live there had a hot tub put in last fall!”
“I’m already packed.” I smiled back at her. Her eyes were a delicious purple shade, and they sparkled at me as if we’d been best friends forever. “But if there’s a couple living there already, how do we get them to move out?”
“Uh, by ripping them into bloody pieces?” Cherry giggled.
“Works for me,” I said solemnly, before I cracked up and began giggling helplessly with her.
