Nancy A Collins-Vamps 02 (12 page)

“I’m sorry if I’m acting really weird right now, Peter.” 121

She sighed wearily. “It’s just that I’ve had a
lot
to deal with in the last twenty-four hours, and it’s really been messing with my head.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“I don’t want to say.”

Peter smiled and stroked her hair. “C’mon, you can tell me,” he said. “You said yourself that I was the only person you could really talk to.”

“Not this time,” she said, stepping away from him.

Peter took her firmly by the shoulder and turned her back around so that they were face-to-face. He gently lifted her chin so that he was looking directly into her sparkling green eyes. “I hate seeing you this worried.

Please tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong, really. It’s just that things are—

complicated right now. Last night, after I got home from the pier, I found my father waiting for me in the living room.”

“You’re joking, right?” Peter’s eyes were wide with surprise.

“Afraid not,” Cally sighed. “I want to tell you who he is, but I don’t think that would be a good idea right now. If it’s okay with you, I’d rather wait until I figure out who I really am and where I fit in all of this.”

“What’s to figure out?” Peter smiled reassuringly.

“You and I belong together. That’s all that really matters, right?” He stepped forward, opening his arms 122

to hug her, only to have Cally quickly sidestep his embrace.

“That’s what I thought, too, but now I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?” Peter asked, his smile sliding off his face like eggs off a plate. “You don’t want to break up with me, do you?”

“Damn it, I don’t know, Peter. All of this is so
confusing
! I still want to be with you, but I don’t know how much longer we can keep seeing each other before something bad happens.”

“What is there to be afraid of?” Peter asked, an edge of resentment in his voice.

“What is there
not
to be afraid of?” Cally replied with a humorless laugh.

“I don’t understand.” Peter frowned. “You’ve always said that our being together was worth the risks we have to take. What’s made you change your mind?”

“I won’t lie to you—what happened on the pier last night really made me rethink what we’re doing. We almost
killed
each other.”

“Yeah, but we
didn’t
.”

“That’s not the point! I don’t want to be in a position where we resent each other, Peter. And when you were talking about your friends, I could see it in your eyes, if only for a moment. You hated me for what happened to them.”

123

Peter dropped his gaze. “It wasn’t your fault, Cally.

You didn’t know it was me. You were just trying to help your friend.”

“Peter—you don’t understand. Even if I
had
known it was you beforehand, I still would have done the same thing. Just as
you
would have, even if you’d known Melinda was my friend. It’s hardwired into us. And even though I know that you were just doing what you’ve been raised to do, part of me is still angry at you for attacking Melly, and, I’ll admit, I’m also a little bit scared of you. I saw the look in your eyes when you spun around. You hated me right then as much as anyone can hate anything—up until you recognized me.

Hate like that doesn’t just go away, Peter. You and I both know that.

“I was dreaming we could run away somewhere and start a new life together, but the best we can ever hope for are stolen moments, nothing more. There’s no future in this. Not for me, and certainly not for you.

That’s why I don’t want what we have to be ruined any further.”

As she moved to leave, Peter grabbed Cally’s arm.

“Don’t do this, Cally!” he pleaded. “We can get it to work, I know we can!”

“Don’t make this any harder than it already is, Peter.”

“No. I
won’t
let you do this to us!” he said, tightening 124

his grip. “I love you, Cally. Why are you tearing us apart?”

Suddenly her hand was on his throat, her fingers biting deep into the flesh. Peter let go of Cally’s arm and began clawing at his neck, gasping desperately for air.

“Can’t you see?” Cally whispered hoarsely as the tears ran down her face. “Love will
always
tear us apart.” Peter awoke to find himself sprawled across a grave. As he struggled to stand, his body was racked by heaving coughs that made his bruised throat burn.

He’d loved Cally with all his soul, and she had repaid him by crushing his heart and physically attacking him.

His father was right: you couldn’t trust vampires. Not even the half-human ones. They corrupted everything and everyone they came in contact with, including him.

He’d lied to his father about Cally’s whereabouts, even tampered with evidence that might lead his father to her. And for what? He dared not tell his father what had happened for fear of losing his respect. And if the others at the Institute learned he’d covered for the sucker responsible for what happened to Big Ike, Sam, and Drummer, no one would be willing to partner with him ever again.

If only there was some way he could redeem himself.

Maybe then he could close his eyes at night and not 125

hear Drummer’s screams. . . .

As he shuffled through the carpet of fallen leaves that covered the ground, Peter’s eye was caught by what looked to be an envelope lying at the foot of a grave. On picking it up, a formal RSVP card fell out. It was written in some arcane alphabet. Frowning, Peter turned the envelope over and was surprised to see a computer-printed label, the address written in English, on the front. His eyes widened in surprise on spying the name Orlock.

While vampires liked to hold themselves above the lowly humans on whom they preyed, they apparently didn’t consider it beneath them to make use of human inventions, such as the postal service. They would end up paying dearly for their carelessness.

126

Sneaking out of the house to go to the Maison d’Ombres shoot turned out to be far easier than Lilith had expected. Shortly before sunrise her parents bade each other good day and quickly retreated to their separate suites. Within minutes of their master and mistress retiring, the Todd family’s undead staff followed suit, shuffling off to the storage closets on each floor of the penthouse, where they would spend the coming daylight hours stacked on narrow shelves like cordwood.

With the undead servants out of the way, that just left the day shift, which consisted of the human thralls who served as the Balmoral building’s concierge, its doorman, and the daylight drivers and other errand runners. All Lilith had to do to sneak past them was to walk out of the Balmoral via the loading dock instead 127

of the front door and hail a cab instead of calling for one of the family cars. It was just that simple and oh so exciting.

The shoot was being held at a full-service facility for New York’s fashion and film industry, on West Thirty-fifth, in what was once the city’s infamous Hell’s Kitchen. As she entered the ground-floor studio, Lilith was surprised to find herself standing in what looked like a movie soundstage. In the middle of the twenty-five-hundred-square-foot room was a replica of a Parisian garret—or at least three quarters of one—

complete with a window that looked out onto the Eiffel Tower. The studio was full of lighting techs, carpenters, and other less identifiable people, all of them clutching clipboards in one hand and cups of Starbucks coffee in the other as they spoke frantically into their Bluetooth headsets.

“Lili!”

Kristof trotted toward her from the other side of the studio, a smile on his face. He was accompanied by a wiry man with dramatically highlighted hair. “You’re right on time!”

“My God, Kristof! She’s absolutely
stunning
!” the other man gasped, putting his hands to his mouth in an exaggerated show of surprise. “Where on
earth
did you find her?”

“D&G, believe it or not,” Kristof replied with a laugh. “Lili, I would like you to meet Tomás, the art 128

director for today’s shoot. I’ve got to set up a few more lights, so I’ll be leaving you in his very capable hands.”

“Let’s get you in the makeup chair!” Tomás said, taking Lilith by the arm. “So, Kristof tells me you’re a virgin.”

“What?”
Lilith’s cheeks colored slightly.

“Not in that sense of the word, sweetie.” Tomás laughed. “If anyone else but Kristof had told me that he was using someone with absolutely no professional modeling background to launch a new fashion line, I would have laughed in his face. But if there is one thing I
know
, it’s that Kristof is never wrong when it comes to talent. And if he says you can pull this off, then I have the utmost faith in his decision.”

The makeup and hair station was in the far corner of the studio, next to a salon-style shampoo sink and a well-lit vanity table. The hairstylist and makeup artist were ready and waiting, the tools of their respective trades in place, as Tomás and Lilith walked up.

“Dino? Maureen? This is Lili Graves, Kristof’s new discovery. I want you to make her ready for her close-up.”

“That’s what we’re here for.” Dino grinned, stick-ing a comb into the hip pocket of his bubblegum-pink designer jeans. “God! I can’t
wait
to get my hands on your hair! Hop up in the chair, baby girl, so Mama and Daddy can get to work!”

Maureen leaned forward, closely scrutinizing Lilith’s 129

face as if she were an art expert authenticating a masterpiece. “You have the most exquisite skin! It’s like porcelain.”

As Dino began parting Lilith’s hair into two-inch sec-tions, Maureen prepared the pressed powder for Lilith’s T zone. “We’re going for a subdued yet sophisticated look here,” the makeup artist explained. “Something clean, with just a hint of radiance.”

Lilith stared into the vanity mirror, awestruck by the sight of her own face. Her entire life she had been forced to steal glimpses of herself whenever she could, all the while fearful of being caught. Now she was free to look at herself as much as she wanted, and nobody seemed to think a thing about it. It felt incredibly natural yet at the same time oddly surreal, like flying while in a dream.

“I can’t believe this is really happening,” she muttered.

“Girlfriend, I
totally
know where you’re coming from!” Dino chuckled. He had finished pinning her sectioned hair into mini-buns and was now misting them with a flexible-hold hair spray. “You are living the dream, hon! Living the dream!”

As Lilith stared at her mirror image, Kristof’s face suddenly popped in over her shoulder. Although she was unable to turn her head, Lilith could see that there was a college-age brunette standing at the photographer’s elbow, a clipboard folded under her arm. Lilith 130

eyed the girl suspiciously. She didn’t like the idea of other women hanging around Kristof.

“How is our star doing, Maureen?” Kristof asked.

“I’ve never worked on someone so relaxed before,” Maureen said as she applied a shimmery nude pink shade to Lili’s eyes. “Usually the new girls twitch or fidget, especially when I’m working on their eyes. Lili just sits there and lets me do my thing. It’s wonderful!” Lilith smiled, acknowledging Maureen’s compliment. Sitting as still as a life-size doll while others toiled on her makeup and hair was as natural to her as breathing. After all, she’d been carefully groomed since earliest childhood by her personal dresser, a two-hundred-sixty-year-old undead gypsy girl named Esmeralda who had once been in charge of overseeing Madame de Pompadour’s toilette.

“Lili, this is my assistant, Miriam,” Kristof said, pointing to the girl with the clipboard. “She’s handling all the paperwork for the shoot. She just needs you to fill out a few forms before we get started. Excuse me—I have to go talk to the lighting crew.”

“Hi, Lili, I’ve got some ten-ninety-nines I need you to fill out,” Miriam said, holding out the clipboard and a ballpoint pen.

“Ten-ninety-nines?” Lilith echoed, trying not to let on that she had no idea what they were.

“Uh-huh, it’s for the IRS,” Miriam explained. “I just need you to fill out your name, address, and Social 131

Security number in the proper boxes.”

“Social Security number . . . ?” Lilith’s guts began to cinch themselves into a knot. This was something she was completely unprepared for. She had imagined she would simply come to the studio, Kristof would take his pictures, and she would leave with a lot of money and fame. But now she was being asked to fill out forms and prove her identity—which was something of a problem, given that Lili Graves didn’t actually exist.

“Uh-huh. You wouldn’t happen to have your Social Security card on you, would you?”

“Sorry, I’m afraid I don’t.” The truth of the matter was that not only did she not have a Social Security card, Lilith didn’t even know what Social Security actually
was
, save that the clots on TV were always yammering about it running out.

“Uh-huh. How about a driver’s license I can Xerox?”

“I don’t
have
a driver’s license,” Lilith replied, irritation starting to creep into her voice. “I don’t drive.”

“Who in Manhattan does, right?” Miriam said with a chuckle. “Okay, then—how about a student ID?

Anything with your picture on it . . . ?” By the Founders, the woman was
relentless
! Lilith took a deep breath as she tried to steady herself, her mind scrambling for an easy, believable lie that would extricate her from this situation.

“I’m afraid I left all my identification back at my 132

dorm at Columbia. I didn’t realize I’d need it. I’m real new at all this. . . .”

“Uh-huh. That’s all right, Lili. Just fill out as much as you can. I’ll get what I need for our files at the next shoot.”

“Next shoot?” Lilith asked as she quickly jotted down false information on the forms.

“Uh-huh. Maison d’Ombres has arranged for at least three different editorial shoots in
ELLE
,
Vogue
, and
Vanity Fair
,” Miriam explained. “This is the
ELLE