Urban Fantasy Collection - Vampires (85 page)

“Oh. Sorry. I guess
human
is an insult for your kind.”

“Not to me.” He pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket—the list of stations. “I'll do what you and David asked, listen to Skywave's garbage. But you have to do something for me.”

I step back. “Will it require medical intervention?”

“Listen to my show tonight.”

“You want me to wake up at three a.m.?”

“Five forty-five. Just for the last few minutes.”

I flutter my hand against my heart in exaggerated coyness. “Why, Mister McAllister, are you going to dedicate a song to me?”

“That would be unprofessional.” He takes a step toward me. “Just know that the last song I play every night will be for you.”

He takes my hand and draws it to his lips, closing his eyes as he kisses the gap between the first knuckles of my middle and ring fingers. Something wakes and squirms inside me.

He lowers my hand but doesn't let go. The barest tug moves me closer. My chin tilts up, and the kiss is sweet, promising rather than insisting. His mouth tastes like mint, with a faint coppery undertone.

The kiss ends when it should. We say nothing more, and I enter my home and go to bed, alone.

I'm awake long before 5:45. In fact, I'm awake at 3 a.m., listening to Shane's
Whatever
radio show. To my surprise, it's not just grunge—though that's heavily represented—but includes samples of cerebral indie/college rock, buoyant pop-punk, and even a little alt-country. The common denominator seems to be an almost pretentious lack of pretension.

When Shane speaks, I close my eyes and imagine him lying here behind me, murmuring softly. Not words of dark seduction, just whatever's on his mind, some fascinating fact about Nick Drake or the Hammond B3. His breath moves my hair, tickling my earlobe, but I don't brush my hand between us because it's tucked inside his. Our entwined arms lie on top of the covers.

I open my eyes. Yecch, boyfriend thoughts, the kind I haven't had since I was a teenager. It's one thing to imagine Shane naked and slathered in olive oil, but another animal entirely to picture us cuddling.

I roll over and tell the ceiling, “He's not human.” The ceiling stares back, dingy and unresponsive.

5:54 a.m. arrives. I expect him to finish the show with a tune lambasting modern bourgeois society, with a particular dig at the commercialism I so ruthlessly represent.

“Time for me to crawl back in my hole,” he says, “so I'll leave you with one last song to start your day—or end it, as the case may be. A lot of people don't know that Otis Redding wrote this. The Dead covered it, but this is the best-known version, and, I think, the most kick-ass. Good morning, and good night.”

After a brief drum intro, a bass guitar joins a piano in a ballsy, bluesey series of notes.

I laugh and pull the pillow over my head, wondering whether The Black Crowes' “Hard to Handle” is meant to describe me or Shane.

Probably both, which could be the most fun of all.

June 7

We embark on our mission to rock the world. I write press releases, contract a new Web-site designer, and order WVMP merchandise. Franklin divides our duties into sales (him) and marketing/promotions (me). I'm thrilled; marketing puts me at arm's length from my targets and feels less like a con job than sales. Besides, Mr. Hyde is the master in that department.

The sutures in my thigh itch like crazy, requiring several trips to the bathroom to indulge in unrepentant scratching.

June 12

David takes out my stitches and buys me more bagels.

June 13

I fire our Web-site designer.

June 14

I create fliers and hire a new Web designer, one who doesn't think spinning logos and cheesy Flash animations are still cutting edge. If I hadn't met the first one during the daytime, I would swear she was a vampire.

June 15

Friday night I wander into the lounge, where I find Shane, Regina, Spencer, and Noah playing poker. I gesture to the empty chair, currently occupied by Shane's feet. “Mind if I join you?”

They all gape at me, even Shane. Regina turns to him, on her left. “Did you invite her?”

He smiles and pushes the chair out with his heels. “I am now.”

“I hardly ever play,” I say as I sit. “You'll have to remind me how.”

Their laughter has the force of an air horn.

Regina tosses down her cards. “Why don't we just write you a check and get it over with?”

I wave off her concern. “Not all con artists are good poker players. Don't believe everything you see in
The Sting.
”

They all look at Spencer. His shadowed gaze pierces me, but not long enough. He nods. “I don't see any harm in letting the little girl play. Everyone knows ladies are bad at poker.”

“Sod right off,” Regina says.

“Not you.” Noah kisses the air in her direction. “Jah have mercy on the man who dare to call you a ‘lady.'”

Spencer's knuckles rap the table. “Back to the game, boys and girls.”

They finish the hand, and I pretend not to watch their patterns.

Regina gathers up the cards to deal. She eyes me as she shuffles. “Which games do you know?”

I tick them off on my fingers. “Draw, stud, hold ‘em— but I'm a little foggy on the rules, so I might need help.” I toss this last word to Spencer.

She taps the deck against her chin. “Okay, seven-card stud, follow the queen, low Chicago matches the pot.”

Everyone groans. I play dumb. “What's that mean?”

“It means we're not playing,” Spencer says. “Regina, you know the rules. No wild cards, no random factors, none of that garbage. Don't turn it into a game of luck.” He shifts in his chair. “I don't trust luck.”

“Luck is our only chance against her.” She jerks her chin in my direction. Receiving no sympathy, she sighs and deals the cards. “Fine. Seven-card stud. Period.”

Faking cluelessness is easy; faking a clueless person faking a clue requires more finesse. The key is to ask dumb questions that aren't too dumb, and knit one's brows at the appropriate times.

I bet aggressively at the beginning of the first hand, but fold before it's time to show my cards. This bizarre behavior puzzles the guys, but Regina just scoffs.

“Nice attempt at incompetence, but you don't fool me.” She lights a long brown cigarette and pulls a French inhale as she examines me. “What's your middle name?”

“Marjorie. Why?”

“Marjorie?” She snorts. “And you think
we're
in the wrong decade?”

“It's my mom's name. I like it.”

Her eyes shift to a distant focus for several moments. “Hmm. You're a one.”

“A what?”

“In numerology. And your soul urge number is five. Figures.” She shakes her head at Shane. “Don't bother trying to tie this one down.”

He ignores her and starts to deal. We play the next few hands in silence, and I fold early in each. I sense their frustration as they learn nothing about my style.

Finally I get a decent hand—a low straight—and decide to overplay it. On the next betting round, I raise by three dollars.

Everyone folds. I pout. “Doesn't anybody want to see my cards?”

“Sure, honey,” Spencer says, “let's have a look.”

I display the straight on the table like a kindergartner with her first finger painting.

“I folded a flush,” Noah says. “The way you bet, I thought you had a full boat.”

“But a straight beats a flush,” I tell him.

“No, it doesn't,” Regina says, then catches herself. “Come on, you knew that.”

“It's statistically harder to get a straight than a flush.”

“That's backward,” she says. “In seven-card stud the odds of getting a flush are one-in-thirty-three versus one-in-twenty-two for a straight.”

Shane pushes the chips in my direction. “You know, it does seem like it ought to be the other way around.”

She turns on him. “You're already whipped, and you haven't even fucked her yet.”

Spencer clears his throat. “Ciara, would you like me to make you a list of the hand rankings?”

One down, three to go. “Would you?” I ask sweetly. “And I could use a drink, if it's not too much trouble.”

“I'll get it,” Shane says.

“Of course you will.” Regina sends him a glare, which he ignores.

The two nice vampires depart, leaving me with Regina and Noah, who look at me like I'm made of garlic. Trying to forget what Shane told me about their killer instincts, I turn to Noah. “David tells me you're from Kingston. What's that like?”

He folds his arms across his chest, resting his thumbs on his biceps. “We don't care you're a con artist.” His dialect turns the I into an EE so it comes out “artiste.”

“Actually, we kind of like it,” Regina adds. “But don't ever think of turning your talents on us.”

“I've given all that up.” I hold up my left hand to swear.

“Why?” asks Noah.

“Yeah, you said you were raised to cheat.” Regina leans forward. “Are you from a family of cons?”

“Sort of.” I run my fingernail over the table's rubber edge. “I'd rather just forget about them.”

“Yeah, wouldn't that be nice? Pretend our folks never existed, that we all create ourselves just the way we want to be.” She tugs on a strand of black hair that dips over her forehead. “Sometimes I think rebellion gives them more power than they deserve.”

“You should not deny them,” Noah says to me. “When you deny your roots, you deny your soul. For example.” He gestures to himself with a shrug. “I was Rasta in my life. Becoming a vampire did not change that.”

“I thought Rastafarians weren't supposed to eat meat. Wouldn't blood be not, uh, kosher?”

“‘
Ital
' is the word. You are right, but God want me to be a vampire, so I must drink blood.”

“But he won't drink blood bank leftovers,” Regina says, “because it's processed.”

Noah nods once. “I do my best. It's all He require of us.”

“Why do you think God wants you to be a vampire?” I ask him.

“Because it's what I am. It's how I bring light into the world. How I fight Babylon.”

Contemplating his circular logic, I glance at Regina, who regards Noah with a warmth and admiration I've never seen her give Shane.

I remember that “Babylon” is the Rasta word for the oppressive economic and political system. “Skywave is part of Babylon,” I tell him.

“I know this. Why do you think I help you beat them?”

“Because it's fun.”

His chuckle is melodic. “That, too.”

Shane and Spencer return, the former with a cold beer and a brief brush of fingertips against my shoulder.

Spencer hands me an index card. “I'm afraid my handwriting isn't the world's neatest. Can you read this all right?”

I look at the list of poker hand ranks, then pull it closer to make sure it isn't typed. His print is meticulous and precise, each letter the same size, in perfect formation across the unlined card. A chill zings down my spine.

The other vamps look away in discomfort. They must be aware of each other's compulsions.

“It's lovely,” I tell Spencer, who pulls his chair closer and settles in beside me.

Shortly before midnight, Jim bounces in, singing “Eight Miles High” so off-key I barely recognize it. He dumps himself on the sofa and waves at me like my presence is nothing out of the ordinary.

“Deal you in next hand?” Spencer asks him.

“Nah.” Jim accompanies himself on air guitar. “Can't concentrate.”

I recognize his glow as that of a well-fed vampire. My tension should ease, since his state makes me less tasty, but it creeps me out to picture Jim and an unknown donor locked in the same embrace as Shane and the Mommy in Red.

“How's Janis?” Shane asks him.

Jim groans and runs a hand through his long brown curls. “Cranky bitch. Need to drain her before she starts making noise.”

I stare at him, then at Shane, who can't keep a straight face. “Janis is his car,” he informs me.

I swallow hard. “I knew that.”

At midnight, Spencer leaves to do his show, so the rest of us take a break. As I watch Noah carefully avoid stepping on the seams in the rug, my chair suddenly slides to the right. I look down to see Shane's boot tucked under its rung, pulling me closer to him.

“Since we're both almost broke,” he whispers into my shoulder, “why don't we get out of here?”

I answer his left ear, careful not to be sucked into his seductive gaze. “Are you coming to the launch party at the Smoking Pig?”

“Not if it's going to be all about the vampire schtick.”

“It'll be about the music. Speaking of which, are you doing your homework, listening to Skywave's Festival of Crap?”

His lip curls. “It's been one of the most depressing weeks of my life. What passes for music anymore ...” He swipes his hand over his face. “I just sounded like a fuddy-duddy, didn't I?”

“Not until you used the word ‘fuddy-duddy.' Look, all the other DJs are coming to the party at the Pig—even Monroe, according to Spencer. You don't have to play. Just show up.”

He glances at Regina, lounging on the couch, her head propped against Jim's shoulder and her legs draped over Noah's lap. They don't even pretend they're not listening.

“If I show up to watch,” Shane says to me, “you'll all drag me onstage and turn me into a spectacle.”

“So you're not coming.”

“I told you, I haven't decided yet.”

I set down my beer with a bang. “Shane, you've heard what this station could become. Maybe you've imagined playing the same fifty songs over and over until your brain turns to oatmeal. If you're supposedly so young and human, then why can't you see what the rest of them see? You won't survive if you hide.”