Mark Henry_Amanda Feral 02 (5 page)

“Oh yeah. I’m serious, bitch. You better back off and head to the back of the line.”

Wendy’s face was contorted in a glower, the bones
in her jaw clicked and popped, moving, reshaping her jawline. Her arms clung to her side like logs ending in two tight fists. They resembled a pair of sledgehammers.

I slid in between the two. “What’s your name, gorgeous?”

The blonde wolf grinned. “Tanesha Jones.” When she voiced the last “s” she accentuated it with a finger snap. “I don’t need to ask your name, girl. I see you all the time on TV.”

“Oh stop.” I winked. She could continue for several more minutes, at least, and it wouldn’t bother me a bit.

“No. Serious. You’re my party girl. Way better than Paris.”

“But twice as deadly.” I winked and gave her a practiced snarl.

“I know that’s right.” Tanesha giggled and flipped her hair over her shoulder.

I mimicked the activity on my end. If I’d learned anything from my mother it was how to manipulate, and this one was nearly on the hook.

“Are you sure we’re not on that list, Tanesha?”

“Um.” She wrinkled her muzzle, looked away. “Well—”

“Yes?”

“It was on here, both of you were, but—”

“What do you mean ‘were’?” Wendy had flanked me, her hands on her hips. Had she learned nothing from watching me work? You’d think that some of my skill would rub off, but no. Pesky emotions.

Tanesha reverted to her seemingly natural bitch state, lips curling for maximum canine exposure. “And why would I tell
you
anything, bitch?”

I reached for Wendy’s arm and drew her close. “Not
another word. You’re fucking up my shtick. Now, just stand over there and be quiet.”

“That’s right, you better get ahold of your girl.”

Wendy stomped a few feet away, and straightened her gown, as much as the puffy frock could be fixed. We were going to have a talk about that dress; I was having a hard time looking at it. I returned my attention to the job at hand.

“You’re going to have to excuse my friend. She’s had a bad night.” I leaned in close, conspiratorially. “She’s experiencing a little flaking, downstairs, if you know what I mean,” I whispered, winked at Wendy in the distance, and gave her the thumbs up. She eyed me suspiciously.

“Ooo, girl, I’m glad I’ve still got a heartbeat. The worst I deal with down there is a little yeast.” She eyed me, watching for a response.

“Don’t you mean head cheese?”

Tanesha erupted into a deep raucous laughter, shoulders jumping. “You nasty,” she managed to choke out. “And I love it. Now come close. I’m not supposed to tell you this but the owner had us cross your name off the list just an hour ago.”

“What?”

“Yep. Mr. Markham called the manager and nixed you from the opening night festivities. Cold, I thought.”

“Damn. Markham, you say?”

Tanesha tilted her head like a threat. “Not a word, girl. I can’t afford to lose this job.”

I looked back at Wendy, the crowd that was going to watch us shuffle away, and the cameras that would be documenting it all. Markham or not, this wasn’t just a dangerous situation, it was quickly becoming a PR nightmare. “Shit, that’s embarrassing.”

“Mmm hmm. Do you want me to make a scene so you can get out of here without people noticing?”

“No thanks, Tanesha. I’m a big girl, I can deal.”

“You’re good people, Amanda. No matter what they say.”

“Sometimes the news gets it right, girl.” I smirked.

“You’re bad.” She chuckled in a deeper tone than she’d liked and cut it off instantly. I turned to Wendy and shook my head no.

As long as I’d been dead—I was going on two years now—I hadn’t missed a single social event. And now, I was blackballed. What the fuck? I can see Markham banning Gil from his club, but me? That’s insane. Could my popularity be waning? I know it seems unlikely.

“Come on, Wendy. Let’s go.”

We turned from the velvet rope into a tidal wave of flashbulbs, and enough questions to clog our ears for days.

“Miss Feral?” Cheshire grin.

“Wendy?” Wrinkled nose.

“What’s happening?” Smirky judgment.

“Not going in?” Giggles.

“What’s the story?” Sarcastic tone.

I gave them a publicity grin. “No news here, boys, just forgot something in the car.” The stalkerazzi were unconvinced. We posed for a couple of mercy shots and then took measured steps past the line of photographers. Too much speed would seem urgent and call for a chase, and I didn’t intend to end up like Princess Diana, no matter how much publicity it’d get me.

“Jesus, those pictures are going to be everywhere, tomorrow,” Wendy said, as we moved out of earshot. She’d sucked her lips inside and nibbled, a nervous tick that made the pretty blonde look toothless.

“Stop sucking your lips and don’t worry, I’ll figure out some kind of spin and have Marithé leak it. It’ll be fine.” I had to be strong, Wendy could freak out at any second and draw more attention. It’s not like my heart wouldn’t have been beating out of my chest.
²⁴
So humiliating, right? But, like I said, I had to be strong. “Let’s go eat a wino. You know how that always cheers you up.”

“Okay.” She stretched the word out, as though unconvinced.

“C’mon, girl. We’ll go down to Pioneer Square and make it a smorgasbord!”

She giggled. I linked on at her elbow and we Blah-niked toward the car, hips bumping.

“What the hell do you think happened back there?” she asked. We stopped at the car. Since, at some point during the horror show, Seattle had decided to stop the rain, we tossed our umbrellas in the back.

“Oh … I think it has a little something to do with our buddy, Gil. Where is he?” I looked at my watch. He was twenty minutes late, not that that wasn’t just like him—or any of us. I usually followed strict “fashionably late” guidelines, myself. But, to keep us waiting twenty minutes when something as catastrophic as a velvet rope denial had happened? Unacceptable.

I didn’t have to wonder for long.

A blood-curdling scream split the night into before and after,
²⁵
a scream that blended the feminine quality of a horror movie starlet with all the masculine panic of a proctology patient.

Gil burst from around the corner of the next street,
feet pounding the wet pavement and arms waving. He wore his trim Gucci suit in monochrome, making his hysteria all the more comic in its formality. “Car!” he yelled. “Car! Car! Car!”

Two massive dogs emerged behind him, snapping, snarling, and scrabbling at the cement. They were held back from a full charge by leashes that ended in a familiar, yet horrifying presence.

Markham howled more than his dogs, deep, guttural and menacing. Blood from his cheeks vaporized with each yell, filling the air between him and Gil in curling tentacles of vampiric spray. Between screams, his face was wild and his lips curled back from a pair of particularly nasty looking fangs dripping red condensation down his face and onto a white dress shirt, already striped with gore.

Sloppy fucker.

Wendy and I split off, leaving the SUV’s hatch open, and darting around opposite sides of the car.
²⁶
We were in and cranked before Gil hit our side of the sidewalk. Wendy screamed from a barely cracked window, “Hurry! He’s almost on you!”

“No shit!” Gil dove between two Japanese imports, forcing the dogs to scrabble up and over the hood of one, crushing and dimpling it, and slowing them down only slightly. From this proximity, it was clear they weren’t dogs at all, but fully shifted werewolves. Slobber flung from snapping maws in large enough globs to splat on the sidewalk like water balloons.

I put the car in drive and as Gil dove into the trunk space, floored the accelerator, careening between two cars in the rear of the lot. Markham’s blood screams spattered the windows in flecks of crimson. I hit the
wipers and cranked the wheel right, pointing us at a nearby alley. Gil swatted at the swinging pull of the rear lid, and closed it just as the werewolves reached the car. Their claws scraped across the window, etching it with their fury. They were on us until the curb at the next street, where a sliding pivot flung them from their purchase on the bumper.

Markham planted himself in the middle of the street and bellowed. The blast of expectorated blood should have emptied him. The eruption was conical and expanded, catching on the buildings, and sending rivulets down the gray glass. He was still there when I turned onto Denny Avenue.

Blood rained from the sky.

We didn’t really talk about our next step, it just sort of … happened. No one even spoke until the car was barreling up Interstate 90 toward the pass, Mr. Kim snoring quietly in the back. We all looked like zombies, even the two that weren’t.

I turned on the radio.

“The reapers are gonna have to work a miracle to sort this out,” Wendy said.
²⁷

“No doubt, they’ll be working those little asses all night cleaning the streets and washing memories.”

Gil squeezed his torso between the front seats, elbows up on the seat backs. “I almost feel sorry for them.”

“Sh! I’m listening.” I cranked the volume up.

There was a pause in the news report, a subtle crackling static that seemed to take over for only a few seconds, but was likely much longer. I looked at Wendy, who nodded. Gil slid back into his seat, relief spreading across his face. The interruption subsided.

That was quick.

The reapers wielded their magic with the impatience of only children. I imagined the scowls of contempt on their faces as they moved through the crowds, snapping fingers and clearing minds, all with the springy-stepped footing of child stars. The massive mouth portal would be open, chomping at the blood debris, and licking windows clean.

“I wish I could have seen them show up,” Wendy said.

“Ew. I don’t.” I glowered. “I owe those brats twenty grand for last time I cut myself. If I’m not more careful, I’m gonna be broke and broken. Plus, they’re just fucking creepy.”

“I think they’re adorable.”

“So you’ve worked through that porcelain doll phobia, then.”

“Shut up.” Wendy’s eyes squinted.

“No.
You
shut up.”

“You’re the one that made us go to Markham’s club.”

“How was I supposed to know? It’s all Gil’s fault anyway.”

“Um. If I could break into girl-talk for a minute.” Gil’s face was slack. He stared off in the distance.

I followed his gaze. Didn’t see anything. “What’s up?”

He looked down at the dash clock. 4:30 A.M.

“That’s dawn up there.” He pointed toward the break in the mountains. A dim light clung to the trees like the faintest dew. Only a vampire would notice. I didn’t pick up on the importance of the statement, right away … and then it hit like a wave.

“Oh crap.” If we didn’t find shelter, Gil was going to either burn or be forced to claw into the earth.

“Is there a motel nearby? When was the last exit? How far are we from the next exit?” Gil broke free from the stupor that claimed him. He spat his words, and clung to the seat backs with white-knuckled intensity.

“Calm down. This is America, there’s got to be some sort of commerce blighting the landscape just over the hill there.” I pointed to the cresting roadway.

But there wasn’t. Just more of the same, trees, more hills, and the higher we climbed the more obvious dawn became.

I’d never seen a vampire fry before and you can bet your ass, Gil wasn’t about to be my first. He told me, once, about seeing it happen on an underground video that made its way through the suck circles.
²⁸
The female vampire was tied to a table in a forest clearing, face up and nude. The light simply tanned her, at first, and then seemed to ignite in her veins, searing her flesh in a web pattern, before bursting from inside and engulfing her. Finishing her.

A shudder rolled through me.

That wasn’t going to happen to Gil. I wouldn’t let it. “The way I see it, we’ve got another two hours before direct sunlight, maybe more in the forested areas. We can’t be more than an hour away from a town with a motel, or something.”