Adventures of a Vegan Vamp: A Paranormal Cozy Mystery (17 page)

T
he woman
at the front of the room smiled in that bland, uninterested way that people do when they’d given a presentation fifteen times too many and couldn’t be bothered if you were listening or not.

“I know that some of you are new to the area, and some of you are new to enhanced living.”

At least she had a pleasant voice.

“I’ve provided each of you with a binder. Inside the binder you’ll find…”

Or not so pleasant, because it all sounded like blah, blah, blah. This was going to be an ordeal. And to think I’d been looking forward to the Society’s official orientation since I found out that an orientation existed.

The thick binder in my hands was printed with the words “Do Not Remove from Society Headquarters.” Well, if you’re going to give a girl—vamp—a handbook, you better expect her to take it home.

I wasn’t sure how I’d lug three pounds of paper products and a massive 1990s binder out unnoticed, but I’d work it out.

Just as the presenter was getting to the good part—the location of the several bathrooms scattered throughout the warehouse facility—someone’s phone rang. Shame on them. A lady needed to know where the facilities were located; you never knew when you’d have a makeup emergency or a wardrobe failure. Because as many fluids as I drank these days, I never seemed to actually need to pee. The wonders of magic.

The phone kept ringing. At some point—three rings later? five?—I realized I’d changed my business forwarded calls ringtone…to that same exact ringtone.

I dug through my purse, considered very briefly silencing the call, then answered, “Just one second.”

I started to crawl over the feet and purses of those unfortunate enough to be seated in my aisle. The Society had packed us in like sardines, which was silly with only twelve or fifteen attendees. Couldn’t they have given us a bigger room? “So sorry,” I said to the woman whose foot I’d just trodden on.

I could hear Gladys’s voice as she continued to talk. But I could hardly listen to Gladys, crawl over strangers in a tight space, and make my apologies to the injured. Gladys would have to wait.

Finally, I reached the end of the row, and I turned to give the presenter an apology wave only to find her glaring at me. Oopsie. I waved and smiled anyway then stepped out into the hall.

“I’m so sorry, Gladys. It’s just that I have to attend—” I closed my eyes and sighed. “Did you say dead? Next to you? In bed? Calm down. I’m on my way.” I ended the call with a sigh.

Lord above, Gladys had turned into a project. She was probably having bad nightmares again. I headed toward the front of the warehouse building, to the retail shop. It was the easiest exit to the parking lot, and the stock in the store was always entertaining.

I’d helped her through a rough few days when she’d first transitioned. Like me, she’d been bitten and accidentally turned into a vampire. Our progenitor—a nasty creature who’d hanged for his crimes—had been gorging on the blood of women he found particularly annoying. In the midst of that, he’d killed several women (not a Society crime) and turned loose a few baby vamps on the world—and we’d been too noticeable in our untrained dismay (definitely a Society crime).

I had no memory of my particular neck-biting trauma, but Gladys remembered small pieces. And since then, men made her very uncomfortable. We’d been working on it. As her undead life coach, it was my job. Gladys was my first client, but we were making great progress.

My cell pinged with a new text message. As I slid my finger across the screen, a photo popped up. I flipped my phone to enlarge the picture…yes, definitely a corpse. Definitely in a bed. Quite possibly Gladys’s bed.

As I ran to the front of the building, I couldn’t help thinking at least he was a man—we really were making progress if Gladys had been doing the wild with some guy.

But a dead body meant reinforcements were called for. I made a beeline for my favorite investigator-enforcer-knight’s office. Dead bodies usually meant all sorts of mess. Political mess, physical mess, maybe even paranormal mess.

Alex was great with messes. And he’d helped me. We shared a sensitive secret, so we were tight.

Knocking lightly produced no result, so I pounded.

“What?” It sounded like Mr. Cranky Pants woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

“It’s Mallory.” I opened the door to find a half-naked Alex rolling off the futon he used for emergency kip.

A lot of naked chest, but more interesting—that naked chest was covered in tattoos. Symbols, not pictures. And maybe letters? I leaned closer—

“What do you want?” He snatched a T-shirt off the side table and pulled it over his head. I got a glimpse of his shoulders and back, also covered with tats.

And, most interesting of all, the T-shirt he’d thrown on covered every single bit of ink.

“Ah, my client woke up next to a dead body. Any chance you could help a girl out?”

It said a lot about our relationship that he didn’t look terribly surprised. “I need fifteen minutes.”

“Perfect. You’re a complete doll.”

He spared me a quick glare before disappearing into the bathroom. The door closed with a loud, firm click.

I did know how important his sleep was to him. That was one half of the secret we shared. The spirits—or demons or elementals; he hadn’t really explained the difference—messed with him when he wasn’t a hundred percent. As a result, Alex was a bit of a health nut.
How
exactly they messed with him, I didn’t know. We hadn’t shared quite that much.

Which led to the other half of the secret. Alex hadn’t exactly shared that information. I’d seen one of the little nasties clinging to his back in the middle of the night. Apparently, sleep deprivation wasn’t good for staving off the nasty critters.

Alex cracked the door, and I could hear water running. “Who’s your client?”

I scrunched up my nose and hoped for the best. “Gladys Pepperman.”

His groan was loud enough that I heard it over the running water. I waited—then let out a sigh of relief when he didn’t say anything.

Alex poked his head out of the bathroom. “Aren’t you supposed to be in orientation?”

I shrugged.

“Did you even go?”

“I went. I can even tell you where all of the bathrooms are.”

He stuck his head out again, but this time he was brushing his teeth, so he shot me an exasperated look. “So you pee now?”

“None of your business. A woman—vamp or otherwise—is allowed to retain a little mystery about personal habits.”

“That’s a no, then?”

I shifted the large orientation binder from one arm to the other. “That’s a no. Hey, I don’t suppose theft of orientation materials is one of those crimes that leads to swift execution by hanging?”

Something clattered in the bathroom and Alex swore.

“You okay in there?”

“Yes.” And not long after, he exited looking brighter-eyed—and wearing a small piece of toilet tissue on his jaw. “You will not be hung for stealing orientation materials. But bring them back. There’s some sensitive information inside.”

“And no witchy protection spells that do something nasty—like soak me in dye or make me smell funky—when I cross the headquarters threshold?”

“No, but it’s a thought if we keep getting made Society members like you.”

Made versus born. Such a bizarre prejudice, but groups would hyper-focus on the differences. Alex was born, naturally.

“Ready?” When he nodded, I chucked my keys at him. He had a thing about driving, so I let him. As the more mature person, it seemed the right thing to do. And Alex’s enhanced dexterity and speed meant he had mad driving skills.

“Oh.” I pulled up the picture on my phone as he locked his office. “This is the guy.”

He glanced at my phone, then closed his eyes. When he opened them, he snatched my phone and examined the picture more closely.

“This is the CEO of the Society.”

“No.” I knew that guy, and this wasn’t that guy. “Cornelius has a beard. And he’s shorter, stockier.”

“Cornelius is the chief
security
officer. This is the chief
executive
officer.”

“Oh.” I thought about it. “Uh-oh.”

Alex ran his hand through his hair. “Uh-oh is a massive understatement.”

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