Isla, Dinner...
The lord of fartness and livers, or whatever, lived in an old, brick house. It was quiet. A bloomless, thorny rose garden lined the brick walkway. Ivy had swallowed one of the walls and white shudders framed tall windows. Barely tell it was snug in the middle of Old City, the oldest and most touristy part of town. Just a few garden walls behind tourist traps like the Liberty Bell and Betsy Ross's pad and Independence Hall. Must be nice to be rich.
I shuddered and brushed a cobweb off my arm in the house's foyer. I take it back. They weren't that rich. Rich people hired cleaners. These vamps..."See you hired Vincent Price for interior design," I said.
Both Julian and the house sighed. Nobody appreciated my jokes.
Beside me, Greg twitched, momentarily tugging at his leather jacket. I noticed the back was scratched and ripped, like he'd been dragged across a stake pit.
Boy was acting weird. Well, to say he didn't regularly act weird would be generous, but this was weirder. My confession had rattled him. He was hiding that he wasn't over it. Vamps just really do have a thing about control. If they can't even stand sharing an apartment with ghosts, then yikes, nobody tell them they can't go anywhere in Philly without standing on one of them.
Like right now.
Julian's lord's home was littered with the dead. Mostly young people, late teens, early twenties. I guess they make good donors, as the vamps say. A pair of waifs lounged on the main stair; one girl completely sprawled across the top half of steps, the flickering sconces giving her eerie glow. I could see a few other haunting figures shuffling about down the hall too.
Closest to us, curled up like a dog on the bearskin rug, was another haunter. A ghastly thin boy. Twenty-ish I'd guess. His hair was dull and shaggy. Skin gray and papery. His sweater hung limply off his bony shoulders, stretched collar drooping down his chest. Tiny puncture marks dotted every inch of his visible skin, though mainly clustered around his neck and underarm. He just laid there, absently scratching at a plastic tube in his wrist.
Poor kid. Dying like a junkie in a vampire den clearly isn't a happy-fun-time way to go. Had this been what Lily was fleeing from the night she came to see me?
"Get up, Caleb," said Julian, bending over and scooping the kid up by the armpits. "You can't just pass out on the floor. Mistress has rules about this."
I leapt back as Julian helped Caleb to his feet. The boy nodded and yawned and shuffled off into the back of the house, bumping into Greg along the way. Caleb was, apparently, very much alive. Woops.
"And you two!" snapped Julian at the girls on the stairs. "Somebody's going to break their necks tripping over you!"
They giggled.
"Really?" I blurted.
Shit! What was this, screw with the necromancer night? Was everybody just alive in this dumb house?
Julian and Greg were giving me looks. Julian's was scathing. Greg's was more alas has the fever finally rotted her brain?
"More of your mister's servants?" I asked in a very smooth deflection.
"They're just donors. My position is an honor and a responsibility. One my Liege will reward me for, when the time is right." He rubbed his unmarred neck. "Excuse me while I announce your presence. My Liege! Lord of Darkness and Terror. I have fulfilled your request to bring you Gregor, son of—"
"Stop yelling and just go fetch the old coot, you twit," grumbled Greg, nose pinched.
Julian huffed, but still, gestured for us to stay put as he trotted up the stairs. Watching us like a joyless nanny over his shoulder, he slipped into a darkened hallway, leaving a vampire and a necromancer unattended a spooky old mansion. Somebody write me a punchline.
Greg nudged me with an elbow.
"Is that to take the money and run?" I whispered.
"No. You wouldn't even make it very far," he shook his head, answering me matter-of-factly. "Look at that. Recognize anything?"
I blinked. A massive portrait, ornately framed in gold, hung in the foyer. The pale woman in it loomed over the entrance, tight lipped and judging all those who entered her domain.
"Who's that, Queen Victoria?"
Greg frowned and pointed to the plaque at the bottom.
I squinted.
Lady Rosemond Mary Favichia (nee Hastings).
"Reincarnation my left tit. How's this guy recognize Lily as his true love when she doesn't look anything like this woman."
She really didn't. I think... if I'm remembering her correctly. Lily was petite and Latina. Her eyes were darker. Brown. Maybe hazel? Definitely not a redhead. Her black curls had been cut into shag style at her shoulders, with her bangs twisting up and over her eyes. Her face was softer too, rounder, with more baby fat. Or, maybe more square? I don't recall exactly what she was wearing under that puffer coat either, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was pink.
Lady Rosemond was wearing white. Her dress, wedding finery by the looks of all the lace and high collars, was as pale as her skin. Cascading down her back and long, slender neck was a curtain of gentle, auburn waves, half twisted into braids at on the crown of her head. She looked sad. Pale gray eyes were hooded and downcast. Her thin mouth was parted in a little sigh. I don't know, maybe she was just tired from the weight of the massive ruby on her finger. Her hand was delicately sprawled over her ample bosom, flaunting the rock.
"Maybe it's more of a recognition of her soul? I'm sure reincarnation doesn't mean the same literal body is reborn... Pretty sure," Greg shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I meant the ring. It fell out your purse the other night. After we left Lily's."
My cheeks flushed. He saw that? "No, it—"
"I'll be collecting it to return to my client," Greg leaned in close, whispering in my ear, "if he asks for it."
"Your client. Does that mean you're not taking—"
"Gregorio!" A scratchy voice declared. We split like curdled cake batter, just as some old, Crypt Keeper looking dumbass appeared at the top of the stairs, arms outstretched to make his glossy cape, I shit you not, look like wings. "At last! After a forever of waiting! You return my truest love to me!"
"Evening, Dmitri."
I choked. Greg elbowed me again, and I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from cackling in the old vamp's wrinkly face. This was Dmitri? This guy? Shit. Was not expecting that. Was it prejudiced of me to assume all vamps were babes? Looking at Greg and Sloane and the club last night, well... I mean, come on, it seemed like a given. What Lily see in this guy?
The golden chandelier in the foyer flickered.
Guess she saw dollar signs.
"I knew ye would not fail me like the unworthy swine you—hhsssssss!"
Crypt Keeper stumbled over one of the girls on the stair. She screamed. He hissed. Fangs stretched down his chin, soaked with spit, as he morphed his arms into actual bat wings and flapped to regain his balance. One girl hustled her twiggy ass up those stairs and out of the way, but the one who'd tripped the old man didn't move fast enough.
He snagged her by the hair and hauled her upright. She whimpered apologies but the vamp didn't seem to care. With a tearing sound that made my scalp itch, he whipped her down the stairs. Troll balls! My gut tightened. But she didn't hit a single step on the way down. Vamp had flung her so fiercely she was airborne, squealing, till the other vampire in the room caught her.
I hadn't noticed Greg was no longer standing next to me till he was at the foot of the stair, the unfortunate donor smashing into him back first. It wasn't graceful. Greg stumbled, his arms locking around her front. She kicked him in the shin.
Greg set the girl down on her feet and pulled the fallen sleeve of her shirt up. You know, for modesty. And the scars. "You swell?" he whispered.
She scurried off without so much as a thanks dude. A tingle of heat prickled my chest and shoulders. Greg had done that same move on me that time he melted my brain. Watching him be gentle with that girl brought back the sensation of his cold fingers dragging silk across my skin.
Blue eyes, narrowed and stern, watched her vanish down the hall. Greg was tight tonight. Not just in his pants. His jaw was clenched, teeth grinding through the hole in his cheek. He tongued it occasionally (shiver me timbers). His discomfort was palpable and contagious. Damn I could really use a cigarette.
Greg's scars weren't as jarring as Caleb's or the girl's. Being nocturnal (and dead) paled him so much the white strips of damaged flesh under his pretty face were easy to overlook. They were subtle, but long, ragged, torn. If he'd seen any drop of sun in the last hundred or so years, they'd be stark and ugly. Rough and violent and ancient crisscrossing tracks. One on top of another on top of another. Not the same connect the dots map of tiny punctures Caleb wore, which comparatively seemed oddly kind.
"Ah, Gregorio! You spoil the fun. The heads. Like eggs they crack!"
Maybe kind wasn't the right word.
"Prick," I muttered. That felt right.
"What's this?" said Dmitri.
In a flurry of leathery wings, the old vamp landed in the foyer before us. Greg stepped in front of me (visibly biting back a swear). What a gentleman. But instead of tearing out mine or Greg's throats, Dmitri pulled Greg into a bone cracking hug.
"Oh, you saw my invitation was bring your own blood feast tonight, good, good, good! Julian. My chalice!"
"Yes, My Liege!" Julian yipped, bowing, eyes fluttering closed and a slight twitch in his pants. He bounced down the hall and disappeared.
I couldn't contain my chuckle. Man was whipped.
Releasing Greg, Dmitri swooped forward and took my hand in his skeleton one, his watery eyes glinting strangely in the dim light. Dizziness slapped me. Made my head hurt and eyelids heavy. If this batty prick was doing some brain melting jawn on me, I'd stake him. Just the second I could pull my numb hand out from his...
"'Nough of that, D—my liege. Let's talk your case."
Greg slapped a hand on Dmitri's shoulder, pulling his attention away from me. I didn't trip or stumble over my heels at all, thanks very much. Greg had no right to look at me all concerned like that either. I was fine. Perfectly fine. Could've absolutely handled it. The residual headache didn't mean anything. Only that Dmitri was definitely a prick.
"Ah, yes, yes. Come into my library! We'll dine later!"
Dmitri swirled his cape around Greg and glided, literally, them both into a room just off the main foyer. In the threshold, he turned back to me.
"Bying the way," he tugged on his floor length cloak and then gestured to my leopard print coat thrown over my cocktail dress. My exposed neck and shoulders warmed. "This, as the poets would say, is a good lewk."
"Thanks. I know."
Greg shot me one last look – what was that? Pleading? Grumpy? – and the door slammed in my face. Dmitri seemed to cackle on the other side.
Men.
"Aight," I said, pulling a pack of cigs from purse. "Guess I'll just wait here."
"Got a light, skank?"
I jumped and fumbled the pack. Sloane caught it. In one fluid motion, she tossed it back. Those damn vampire reflexes. Bitch materialized out of nowhere.
"Depends," I said, lighting up. "You planning to eat me?"
Sloane looked me up and down and sneered. "Just looking at you tastes like a goat shit in my mouth."
"Thanks."
She wore a similarly elegant black pantsuit as she had the night before. But new, mismatching, gleaming gold geometric earrings hung from each lobe. The whole modern elegance look was all accented by her shaved head and the shimmering teal lipstick. She even pinched one of those long, art deco era cigarette holders between her fingertips.
Damn. Woman was really pulling this look off.
Bitch.
"Didn't I bribe you ass nuts to leave me and my husband, and our business, the fuck alone?"
Yeah, get in line. Seems everyone but your screwy husband was trying to pay us off.
I lit my cigarette. "Didn't take."
"Figures. Your boy struck me as the noble type," she watched me toy with the lighter before finally sighing. " Fucking fine. You want a drink or something?"
I tossed her the lighter. Which she, of course, caught without really looking. Yeah, I could take Jules' money. But I couldn't exactly forget about the barista I resurrected in my living room last week, or the Pack will be the least of my problems. I still needed to find her and undo this spell.
What better suspect to question in the side chick's murder than a shitty husband's angry wife? Sloane hated Lily, according to her own valet. She called her Dmitri's favorite slut, something like that, right to my face. Normal reaction, I guess, when your beau's a cheater.
Sloane clicked her cigarette holder against her teeth.
"Wine," I said. "Red."
"The house favorite," Sloane lit up her fancy ass cigarette. "Come the fuck inside."
Speak Philadelphian: Independence Hall. Big, drafty, hot, old brick building. But, you know, American old, so not that old, not really. Former capital of both the city and the United States, in its infancy. Famous for having that declaration signed there. At least three vampires signed that document. Two of them are still kicking. And biting.