Vamparazzi (43 page)

“Oh, Leischneudel,” I said in sympathy.

“I was really shaken up at first,” he admitted. “Almost suicidal. But, of course, as soon as I went to Mary Ann in despair and confessed everything, she straightened me out.”

“Oh?” How did a girl straighten out her boyfriend after finding out he had just accidentally become a
vampire?

“She made me see what was important. What actually mattered.”

“Which was?”

“The transformation
did
heal me!” he said. “It did make me strong and healthy. It completely changed my life! I got back together with Mary Ann and could be a real boyfriend to her. I also returned to college, finished my degree, graduated, and moved to New York to become an actor. I'll be able to marry Mary Ann, be a good father to her children, and grow old with her while I spend my senior years doing character roles.”

Leischneudel's blood-sticky smile was glowing with grateful happiness as he recognized his blessings anew. “And
now
I've got a major role in a sold-out Broadway show. Okay, it's a show about an evil vampire who kills people, which is a little disturbing for me . . . And we're mauled nightly by vamparazzi, which I find a pretty stressful.”

“Uh-huh.”

“But I think of myself as the luckiest guy in the world!” he said. “And if the price for all this is that I have to drink a glass of blood every week or two, I think that's a fair bargain, even if I didn't originally know what I was getting into.”

I glanced at the bottle he had pilfered from Daemon's refrigerator. “Leischneudel, before you started stealing blood from Daemon's stash, how did you get your—”

“I didn't!” He flushed guiltily and amended. “Well, just this once. I shouldn't have done it. But when you opened that bottle the other night and I smelled his blood, even before you took a sip—”

“You knew it was
his
blood?” I blurted.

“Oh, of course. It smells just like him.” Seeing my expression, he added, “Well, to a vampire, anyhow.”

“You could have
told
me,” I said irritably. “I was worried all night that—”

“I know. I wanted to tell you. Just like I wanted to tell the cops that the blood in those bottles was Daemon's, not the murder victim's. But then I would have to explain how I knew . . . And, well, how could I?” He gave me an apologetic look, then continued, “Anyhow, when I realized those bottles really did have blood in them, I stole one.”

I recalled that he had been transfixed for a few moments by the site of the stuff spilling onto the carpet, his eyes wide, his nostrils quivering. At the time, I thought he was just shocked, as I was, by our discovery.

“It was very wrong of me,” he said. “I was just so
hungry
. Mary Ann and I originally thought she'd visit this weekend, and she had left enough blood at my place to last until then.”

“Ah, so Mary Ann is your source,” I said.

“Of course! We . . . we, uh . . .” He blushed furiously.

“It's part of your sex life?” I guessed.

He nodded, too embarrassed to say more.

Thinking of Lopez, I said, “Man, you straight arrow guys are full of surprises.”

He sighed. “She was really stressing out about this research paper she's got to finish, and I knew I wouldn't be able to spend much time with her if she came here, anyhow . . . So I lied and told her I still had some of her blood left over, and I'd be fine if she didn't come.”

“That didn't work out so well, I gather?”

“Daemon's refrigerator was just too tempting,” he said. “Those bottles of blood right
there.
I thought Daemon wouldn't notice if just
one
was missing. So that night, while he was onstage and no one was around, I snuck into his dressing room and stole this bottle.”

“I don't understand,” I said. “If you stole it then, what are you doing here now?”

“That was the same night the police came—and confiscated the remaining bottles. So I was terrified after that. I had stolen something the police were treating as evidence in a murder case.” He admitted to me, “That's why I couldn't sleep that night, and why I called Mary Ann so early Sunday morning. I didn't know what to do.”

“What did Mary Ann say?”

“She was very disappointed in me,” he said sadly. “I had
lied
to her, and I had
stolen
. We had a pretty serious talk.”

“I'll bet.”

“We decided there would be too many complications for me if I turned the bottle over to the police.”

“True.”

“But Mary Ann didn't think I should drink
stolen
blood. So I promised I would return it to Daemon's refrigerator as soon as I could find an opportunity.”

I looked at the open bottle I had caught him drinking. “I guess you had a crisis of willpower at the very last ditch?”

“I'm just so
hungry
,” he said again. “And Mary Ann won't be here until the weekend.”

“Then for God's sake, Leischneudel, finish the bottle.”

His eyes widened. “You really think I should?”

“Yes. Quickly, too, before Daemon gets here. Go on. Start drinking.”

“
Now?
With you here?”

“Yes.” I decided not to spoil his appetite by telling him that a crack Lithuanian vampire hunter was headed our way. I'd wait until he was done drinking. “You should never have brought that bottle back here. You should have drunk the blood and disposed of the evidence. Mary Ann is admirably moral and obviously very supportive, but she's not very pragmatic.”

Leischneudel took several greedy glugs of the bottle, then sighed luxuriantly through blood-soaked lips. “Oh,
God
, I was hungry.”

“There's something that still doesn't add up.” I frowned, thinking it over. “There should have been more bottles when the cops confiscated them.”

He paused before his next sip. “I thought so, too. There were four bottles left when I took this one. I remember because, well, to be perfectly honest, that was
why
I took only one. I thought more than that would be noticed.”

“And you never stole a bottle before that?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Mary Ann and I always, um, extract enough blood for me to get by between her visits. This weekend was just ... a mistake. One I won't make again.”

“When he caught me drinking his blood,” I said, remembering now, “Daemon said something about how his supply was being pilfered.”

“You mean you weren't the first person to raid Daemon's fridge?” Leischneudel asked.

“And you weren't the
last
one to raid it before the cops got here and took what was left.”

Our eyes met.

“Esther . . .” Leischneudel said slowly. “Are we saying there's another vampire in this building besides
me?
”

I
used Leischneudel's cell phone to call Max and explain our suspicions.

“I have a theory, too,” said the mage. “I observed the phenomenon
twice
yesterday that soon after we entered the theater, Nelli experienced what appeared to be an allergic reaction and soon after we exited, she reverted to a state of robust good health. You and I assumed that something in the theater was troubling her senses.”

“Uh-huh.”

I made an exasperated gesture at Leischneudel, who was listening intently to my conversation, urging him to
drink faster.
Daemon could arrive at any moment, and we were still in his dressing room—since I thought we might be noticed if we left the room with half a bottle of blood in our possession. Besides, I didn't want to bump into Tarr or Fiona, if I could avoid it.

Max continued, “I now postulate that, since Nelli is a mystical being, what irritated her senses yesterday was—”

“A vampire?” I guessed. “Or, rather, vampires.” Thack and Leischneudel had both been here, after all.

“Yes. I think it possible,” Max said, “that we
were
getting an affirmative reaction from Nelli. We just didn't recognize it.”

“Because we were looking for something identical to her reactions to mystical threats on previous occasions,” I said.

“Precisely. A living vampire—as you now know from your friendships with two of them—is not inherently threatening or evil. That's a matter of character and circumstances. Ergo, Nelli does not respond to vampirism as a threat. But I now suspect she
does
respond to it as an irritant to her delicate senses.”

I exercised tact and did not mention that Max's delicately sensitive mystical familiar regularly gulped down discarded garbage during her habitual perambulations.

“The question is, Max, if I'm right and there is an unknown vampire wandering around here, can Nelli's senses pinpoint him?”

“We can only ascertain that by making the attempt.”

“Can you bring her to the theater right away? Since the vampire hunter is coming to New York—”

“What?” Leischneudel blurted.

“I'll tell you in a minute,” I whispered. Then I continued saying to Max, “We might be able to help narrow his search and end this nightmare faster if Nelli can identify the rogue vampire.”

“Nelli and I shall come to the Hamburg forthwith,” Max said. “However, under the terms of the treaty, if any representative of the council asks me to leave or wants Nelli to stand down—”

“Yes, I understand,” I said. “I'll make sure someone knows at the stage door to let you in.”

As I ended the call, Leischneudel said, “A
vampire hunter
is coming here?”

“Yes. I didn't want to spoil your dinner, so I was saving the news for afterward. Drink
up
, by the way.”

He pursed his bloody lips and cradled the mostly empty bottle against his chest, rocking back and forth a little. “I think I've lost my appetite. A
Lithuanian
vampire hunter?”

“You should keep a low profile while he's here.”

“Oh, you
think?
” he snapped.

I realized he was very upset.

“There's no need to panic,” I lied, recalling what Max had said about the ruthlessness of Lithuanian vampire hunters. “We can get through this.”

There was a sharp, heavy knock at the door. We both flinched, looked at it, and froze. A moment later, someone flung open the door.

Leischneudel hastily wiped his mouth with his hand. I glanced at him and saw with dismay that all that did was smear the blood around, making it even more noticeable.

A total stranger stood in the doorway. He was an older man, gray-haired and heavyset. He had a ruddy complexion and a pug nose, and he wore sensible clothing: a plaid flannel shirt, an anorak, khaki trousers, and sturdy shoes.

What I mostly noticed, though, was the crossbow in his hand.

He said, “I'm looking for Daemon Rav . . .” His blue eyes fixed on Leischneudel, who was frantically smearing blood across his mouth.
“Vampire!”

The stranger raised his crossbow and took aim.

“No!”
I leaped to my feet.

“Wait!”
Leischneudel howled, diving sideways.

The vampire hunter shifted his crossbow to track Leischneudel's evasive move. He stepped further in the room to corner his quarry—and slipped on the champagne I had spilled by the door. His eyes bulged as he cried out and sailed up into the air, where he seemed to hover for a moment like a cartoon character, then he crashed heavily to the floor, banging his head against the doorjamb as he fell.

I knelt down next to him and felt for a pulse.

Leischneudel peeked out from behind the chair he was hiding behind. “What did you
do
, Esther?”

I said, “He's still alive.”

“Also trigger-happy!”

“Quite.” I took away the crossbow. “Do you think we should tie him up?”

“Yes.”
Apparently too shaken to stand upright, Leischneudel crawled over to the stranger. “Let's do that right now.”

I closed the door, since I shrewdly suspected that some of our colleagues might question our intentions if they saw us tying up an unconscious stranger.

Leischneudel, who was still in his street clothes, removed his belt and bound the stranger's hands behind his back. Then he rooted around the room searching for something equally strong to use on the legs.

“I'm a little disappointed,” I said.

“What, that he didn't
kill
me?”

“Calm down. I just mean
this
is the Dirty D'Artagnanator, sent all the way from Vilnius to slay our rogue vampire? He's not quite what I expected.”

Leischneudel, who had found an electrical extension cord, started binding the man's ankles with it. “What
were
you expecting?”

“Well, not a chubby old guy who immediately knocked himself out so we could tie him up.” Then I realized what else I hadn't expected. “Wait a
minute.
”

I knelt beside the unconscious man and started fishing around in his pockets.

“What are you looking for?” Leischneudel asked as he finished his task.

“His ID. This man sounded American when he spoke. The vampire hunter who's coming to New York doesn't even speak English . . . Ah-hah! Here it is.” I found his wallet, opened it, and pulled out the driver's license.

“Who is he?” Leischneudel asked.

I frowned, puzzled. “He's Peter Simkus of Oshkosh, Wisconsin.” After a moment, it hit me. “Oh,
crap.
I need your phone again.”