Bad Blood (8 page)

“Don’t you think that’s a little overkill?” Rayne asks, giving me a skeptical look.

“No. I don’t. And I’d appreciate it if you take this seriously,” I tell her. “These are vampires, you know. And some of them very well might be evil.”

Rayne looks unconvinced, so I add, “I brought you the purple wig . . .”

She grins. It’s her favorite, I know. “Well, in that case, let’s go Cosplay.”

We head into the bathroom and I rummage through my bag, pulling out our wigs. They’re not the most subtle choices, of course, hers being the aforementioned purple and mine a fluorescent pink. But it’s Vegas, right?

Anything goes.

I hand Rayne her wig and shove mine on my head. Then I add a pair of blackrimmed reading glasses I found on David’s nightstand. Perfect. I glance in the mirror. Now we’re completely disguised and will be able to spy to our hearts’

content without anyone even having a chance of recognizing us.

“Sunny, Rayne?”

Huh? We whirl around, realizing too late that Magnus’s blond, bitchy secretary (who’s a ringer for Marcia Brady) has entered the bathroom and is currently giving us a snotty once-over. Hmm. Guess our disguises aren’t as foolproof as I’d hoped they’d be . . .

“What are you guys doing here? And with those crazy wigs!” She shakes her head. “Is that what passes for fashion in the mortal world these days? God, I’m glad I’m a vampire.”

Lovely. There have to be at least three hundred vampires at this consortium and we have to run into the one I like least of all first thing. The one who, I might add, would happily cut in line to be the first to sell me out to her boss. If I don’t do something quick, Magnus is going to know I’m in Vegas in three seconds flat.

Think, Sunny!
My mind races desperately, trying to come up with a plan. Something—anything to distract her from telling on me. But I’m completely coming up blank. I glance over at my sister, praying for Rayne’s intervention.

“Oh, Marcia, I’m so glad we’ve found you!” Rayne suddenly cries, throwing her arms around Marcia and pulling her into a huge hug. She’s stiff as a board and when my sister pulls away she’s wearing a very annoyed and confused expression on her face.

“
You
were looking for
me
?” she repeats skeptically.

“Why yes,” Rayne says, nodding her head so vigorously she has to straighten her wig afterward. “Well, technically Magnus is. Evidently he left some really important papers back in his hotel room. Stuff he desperately needs for his next meeting.”

“Oh!” Her eyes widen with concern. I smile smugly, liking my sister’s plan already. If I know one thing about Marcia it’s that she’s obsessed with Magnus and would do anything to help him. Then she narrows her eyes suspiciously.

“So why doesn’t he just go get them?” she asks. “After all, they’re just an elevator ride away.”

Good point. Damn. But Rayne wasn’t giving up. “Oh please,” she says, shooting her a disdainful look. “Do you have any idea how crazed Lord Magnus is tonight? His schedule is jam-packed. He doesn’t have time to run errands. That’s why he has a
secretary
to begin with.”

“Executive assistant,” she corrects. As if there’s a difference. And what’s Rayne’s plan here, anyway?

“Will you go get his papers, Marcia?” Rayne asks, eyes wide and pleading. “I mean, I’d have Sunny go, but she’d just mess everything up—being a dumb, silly human and all.”

I bristle a little at that last statement, but remind myself it’s for a good cause.

“Of course,” Marcia says, straightening her shoulders with pride. “The last thing Lord Magnus needs is for you two clowns to be rummaging around his things. I’ll go and deliver his papers to him. You can go back to playing slots or whatever it is you’re wasting time doing here.”

“Do you know the room number?” Rayne asks sweetly.

She gives me a smug look. “Room twenty-one-forty-three, of course,” she sniffs. “Lord Magnus tells me
everything
.”

“Of course he does,” Rayne agrees, smiling patronizingly. “And he’s given you a key to get in?”

She rolls her eyes. “Please. I’m a vampire. I don’t need a key to break these pathetic mortal locks.”

“Perfect.” Rayne beams at her. “Well, you’d better get going then.”

“Indeed.” And with that, she turns and sprints down the hallway, all vamp on a mission.

Rayne turns to me with a grin on her face. “There. She won’t be troubling us for a while.”

“But she’s just running up to get some paperwork,” I remind her. “Then she’ll be back downstairs to let Magnus know we’re in town.” I didn’t want to criticize Rayne’s plan, but it did seem a bit short-sighted to tell the truth.

“Quiet, oh sister of little faith.” Rayne pulls her cell phone from her purse and dials a number. “Yes, this is Room twenty-one-forty-two,” she says into the phone. “I believe someone’s breaking in to the room next door. You might want to call the cops or something.”

I stare at her as she hangs up. She grins at me, a smug look on her face and pulls a wallet out of her pocket. Marcia’s wallet. She must have stolen it out of her bag during that big, friendly hug.

“Breaking-and-entering with no ID to speak of . . . that ought to send her to a Vegas jail for a few hours at the very least. Sure, she might try to call Magnus to bail her out, but he’ll be in meetings all night. With his cell turned off.” She nods at me, triumphant. “Am I good or what?”

I hesitate. “Good in the short term,” I say carefully. “But she’s eventually going to get out. And then she’s going to tell Magnus what we did. And we’ll be in more trouble then than we’d be if she just told him she happened to see us.”

“Well, you’ll just have to work a little quicker then,” Rayne says with a scowl, evidently displeased that I’m not gushing over her oh-so-clever act.

“I know but . . .” I try to rationalize without making her angry. “I was sort of hoping to have at least until Friday. That’s when the biting ceremony is.”

“I see. Well, I’m so sorry I screwed up your perfect investigation schedule,”

Rayne retorts. Oh great, now she’s going into defensive mode again.

“Rayne, come on. You know I appreciate what you’re doing. It’s just—”

“Whatev,” she says, taking off her wig and handing it back to me. “If you have a better plan, I suggest you start implementing it. I, on the other hand, am heading down to the slots.”

A half hour and a quick costume change later, I’m once again wandering through the Mandalay Bay convention center, this time alone. At least now I’m positive no secretaries or anyone else related to the Blood Coven will recognize me. Mainly because I swung by the Hustler store and found a Vegas showgirl costume, complete with feathered hairpiece. I look absolutely ridiculous, I’m sure. But, hey, when in Vegas do what the . . . Vegans? Vegasites? Vegasers?

do, right?

I find the check-in booth for the consortium and casually grab a schedule off the table. Looks like there are several different sessions going on now. A panel discussing whether or not blood donors should be allowed to form unions. A team-building workshop where participants are asked to walk over a bed of hot crosses. A demo from VampCovenz.com showcasing their latest high-tech coffin security system dubbed “Who Let the Bats Out?” And a Coven Masters round table on what to do about the growing issue of unlicensed, unaffiliated covens popping up around the world. Covens that do not, the brochure explains, follow the consortium charter (which usually means their vamps are all munching on the necks of random peeps, rather than consenting blood donors).

While the cross-walking thing sounds pretty cool (how do they keep their feet from catching fire?) I decide my best bet to find Magnus and Jane is at the round table. I know the unlicensed coven thing is a hot issue with my boyfriend after the evil Maverick attempted to poison his coven last year. Jane would probably be decidedly less interested, but I’m sure she’s glued to Magnus’s side regardless.

I head down the hallway to Room 23B, where the round table is happening. Luckily, they’ve left the meeting room door ajar, allowing me to peek inside without making my presence known. Sure enough, Magnus is there, dressed in a very delectable black suit, his long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. At his right sits Jane, looking more than a little bored. Gone are her trashy clothes—today she looks like she stepped right out of a Banana Republic window display. Her badly dyed red hair is pulled back into a severe bun and her formerly dangly disco ball earrings have been replaced by sensible studs. She looks the part of an Oxford-educated, political mastermind, blood-mate-tobe, which only serves to annoy me further. I watch as she whispers something in my boyfriend’s ear and he laughs. Laughs! As if he’s having a great time. A great time without me. A great time without me with a girl who isn’t supposed to take my place. My heart aches as I watch her paw at his shoulder with those fake fingernails of hers. (The pink bats are long gone, replaced by a sensible French manicure.) It takes everything inside of me not to barge into the room and claw her throat out for touching my boyfriend like that. Of course he’s not guiltless either—allowing her to do it, thinking I’m safe and sound back in suburban Massachusetts and won’t ever know.

“Excuse me?” She raises a hand. The round table leader gestures for her to speak. “Um, yeah,” she says. “I was just, um, wondering why we don’t legalize all the unlicensed covens? I mean, they’re already here, after all.”

“Maybe you’ve never seen an unlicensed coven,” sniffs a tuxedoed vampire from across the table. “Their ways can be barbaric. They kill dogs, cats, children, all to feed their bloodlust. By accepting them into our midst, we’d be condoning that sort of behavior, which we would never do.”

“Indeed,” adds a woman with bright red lipstick and jet-black hair to his left.

“What would Slayer Inc. do if they learned we allowed such vampires into our inner circles? They’d go on the offensive and our tenuous peace would be broken forever. I don’t think anyone here wants that.”

Jane frowns. “You’re totally generalizing,” she says. “Just because they’re unlicensed doesn’t mean they’re all a bunch of child chompers. They may simply be vamps, unable to buy their way into a coven, bonding together for safety purposes.”

“We also don’t need to take on a bunch of charity case vampires,” interrupts tuxedo vamp haughtily. “We have enough problems without instating a welfare system within the consortium.”

A bunch of the vampires at the table titter. I smile.
Take that, Jane!
No one cares about your opinion.

“Actually Jane has a point,” Magnus interrupts.

Except evidently my boyfriend, that is. Sigh.

All eyes are now on Magnus. He clears his throat and then speaks. “I recently allowed a group of unlicensed vampires to apply to become members of my coven,” he explains. “They had been working as biters at the illegal Blood Bar downtown—abused by their tyrant employer. They were extremely grateful for the chance to join a coven and, I have to say, have adjusted very well to coven life. In fact, I’ve put one of them, a former bouncer named Francis, in charge of security and he does a fantastic job.” He looks at Jane and smiles. (Yes, smiles!

Like he’s giving her all the credit for this move, when I know very well it was Rayne and Jareth who talked him into doing the whole open-door policy thing to begin with.) “There is no segregation at the Blood Coven and we like it that way.”

I feel a sickening jealousy crush down on me at his careless use of the word

“we” when referring to the boyfriend-stealing bitch beside him. How dare he refer to himself and Jane as a “we”—that’s
our
pronoun. I’m so mad it’s all I can do to keep from falling over. (Though it’s a distinct possibility this is partially due to the seven-inch platform stripper shoes I’m currently wearing rather than simply my fury.)

The vampires at the table clap respectfully as Magnus yields the floor. A vote is called for, to determine whether the consortium should rule on unlicensed vamps or leave it up to the individual covens. Magnus and Jane smile at one another; they know they’ve won.

And I suddenly realize I’m the one who’s lost. What am I even doing here in Vegas, trying to prove some ridiculous conspiracy theory based entirely on some random college trivia I found off Wikipedia? I mean, what if I’m wrong?

What if she actually is who she’s claiming to be—a Rhodes scholar, a political mastermind, a worthy leader looking only to protect and serve the vampires who will fall under her jurisdiction as co-master of the Blood Coven. Why, her expertise could become a real asset to the coven and help them rise to power and wealth beyond imagination, just as Magnus has dreamed of since taking over. Who am I to selfishly try to sabotage all of that goodness simply because I can’t bear to see my boyfriend bonded for eternity to another woman?

I slump into a nearby armchair, discouraged and depressed. In a way I should be happy, right? I mean, it’s not like I want the Blood Coven to be infiltrated by an evil imposter vampire set on its destruction or anything. So if Jane’s on the up and up, that’s a good thing. Sort of. Okay, not really. God, is all of this really just due to plain and simple ugly jealousy on my part? Have I jumped to ridiculous conclusions simply because I can’t deal with the idea of my boyfriend hooking up with someone other than me? After all, the Blood Coven is a highly sophisticated, highly technological organization. Surely, they would have checked out Jane before selecting her and checked her out well. Put her through DNA testing, blood testing, a three-month training course—just like Rayne had to do when she first got certified—before they’d match her up with a blood mate.

The last thing they needed was some stupid high school kid jumping in with her own investigation. What did I think I’d find that they couldn’t?

I’m feeling majorly sorry for myself at this point and decide maybe I’ll go find Rayne and tell her we should just head home to Massachusetts. I don’t belong here in Vegas and, really, there’s nothing left for me to do. Dad’s not even here to make sticking around half worthwhile.

But just as I’m about to punch in my sister’s number on my cell, the meeting room door is pushed open and Jane slips out of the room. She either doesn’t see me or doesn’t recognize me in my showgirl gear as she walks past me, down the red-carpeted hallway in expensive-looking heels. I watch her for a moment, debating what I should do.