“Not yet. Have to get you a permit first.”
I just couldn’t win.
I spent that week at work handling the fallout from Friday’s show and introducing America’s first celebrity vampire. Bitterly, now that I was dealing with a manipulative player rather than a genial actress. Although a couple of calls from the agents of people who wanted to be the second celebrity vampire were awfully intriguing . . . I sensed a reality TV show in the making.
I didn’t have the license or the gun when I got shanghaied in the parking lot outside work.
If you want to make yourself hard to find, you’re supposed to vary your route between work and home. Leave at unpredictable times. Make your schedule unpredictable. Get a P.O. box, hide your home address. Get an unlisted phone number.
But everyone could find me at KNOB. They were waiting for me after dark.
“Hi, honey. Love your show.”
I heard her and smelled her at the same time, my nostrils widening as soon as I stepped outside and took in the night air. She was cold, she had no heartbeat—undead. Vampire. She leaned on the wall right outside the door, arms crossed. Her thick brown hair was tied in a wild ponytail, her skin was porcelain pale and smooth. She wore a black lace camisole, leather pants, and high-heeled black boots. And sunglasses. Her red lips smiled.
She wasn’t one of the locals. The vampires in Arturo’s clan had more style and less punk-ass stereotype.
“Who the hell are you?” I said, quiet and wary.
“She’s with me.” The guy just appeared, behind me, leaning on the other side of the door. He had the same pale skin, spiky black hair, and sunglasses. Leather jacket, T-shirt, jeans. That same wicked, predatorial smile.
Fuck.
I walked forward, like I could pretend they weren’t there. A second later, they stood beside me again, and each one had a grip on my arms.
I sighed. “What do you want?”
They both grinned, having too much fun with their game.
“We want to talk,” the guy said.
“I’m listening.”
“Not here,” he said.
Of course not. Side by side, holding me tight, they steered me to a black SUV parked around the corner. Strangely, rather than panic I felt an odd sort of fatalism settle over me, like I finally had too much to deal with. I didn’t have any anxiety left to muster. Maybe they weren’t planning on killing me. Maybe they’d started a fan club and just wanted me to give a little talk to the gang. Maybe they were going to lock me in a shipping crate and sell me into slavery.
See, whatever it was, I just couldn’t think of how bad it could possibly get. My imagination failed me.
I made a token effort to escape. I braced my arms and dropped my weight back—and was shocked when I actually broke out of their grips. Blinking, I looked at them looking back at me. Then the Wolf took over and ran. I turned and launched myself in the same step, dashing down the sidewalk.
Seemingly without moving, without effort, they grabbed hold of me again. I didn’t even sense them moving. In one breath I was running, and in the next I jerked back, flailing like a fish on a line. They hauled me back toward the SUV. I managed to get my feet under me, so I wasn’t completely dragged.
“Cute,” the woman said. “Real cute. Though I can’t blame you for trying.”
“Thanks,” I muttered.
She went around to the passenger side, the guy shoved me in through the driver’s side, and they pinned me between them as they climbed in.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “This’ll be fun.”
Yeah, right. They both looked to be in their twenties. They seemed young, as vampires went. They were having too much fun with it.
They didn’t blindfold me. They didn’t care if I knew where we were going, which boded both well and ill. Maybe they really did just want to talk. But if they were planning on killing me, it wouldn’t matter if I knew where we were going.
I put on an air of bravado. “You guys are from the Eighties, aren’t you?”
She giggled and put her arm across my shoulders, pressing far too close to me for comfort. Goose bumps broke out over my arms. She said, “That’s exactly what he said you’d say.”