“You sent Dr. Jack to my bedroom … You hired me on the sly. Why?”
“Not me directly.”
“Grizelle doesn’t count. She loves you. She hates me. Yet she rolled over and let me lead. It’s not like we were dancing here. Why?”
“You’re right. I ordered her to.”
“Why?
“Maybe because I knew you’re the only woman in Vegas who wouldn’t be distracted by the opportunity to maul me.”
I snorted. “You so flatter yourself, but you’re right there.”
“Maybe because you’re the only woman in Vegas with still a streak of mercy in her soul.”
That I couldn’t answer. Guilty as charged.
“I know what you despise, but what do you want, Miss Street?” His colorless fingertips reached out to the familiar around my wrist. “I’m momentarily the grateful mogul. You have me at your mercy, like Samson under the spell of Delilah. Extort me.”
Now, did the unmerciful minority of my soul feel like taking him up on that offer? Did some taint of Lilith’s jealous, demonic fury linger with me, wanting an eternal piece of him, too? Nothing personal.
“Damned white of you,” I said. “You’ve run up quite an unpaid tab at my little Darkside Bar. I’ll take what you owe me out in IOUs as needed.”
“That’s pretty vague coming from a hard-boiled dame like you.”
“So suffer for a while longer. You’re apparently used to it.”
As I walked away, I considered the endless options of a future with Snow in my debt.
Maybe my mercy could temper our loathe-hate relationship, but how little did I love him? Let me count the ways.
* * *
Author’s Bio:
Carole Nelson Douglas’s sixty novels include S.F./fantasy, mystery, and romance bestsellers. Her cozy-noir Midnight Louie, feline PI mysteries number twenty-four. Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator, began prowling 2013 Vegas-from-Hell in Dancing with Werewolves and was last seen in Virtual Virgin. Carole collects vintage clothing and homeless animals and does dance. Visit her website: www.carolenelsondouglas.com.
OUTSIDE THE BOX
by P. N. ELROD
To paraphrase a line from the movie—it wasn’t in the book—vampires are like chocolates; you don’t know what you get until you open the box.
Not that I was going to dig up a coffin stuffed with a newly made and hungry vamp. My partner and I would watch from a safe distance, the fresh grave bounded by my heavy-duty holding spell. How the vamp got free from its burial would tell us what breed we had on our hands. They were all dangerous, but some more than others.
My name is Marsha Madinia Goldfarb, occupation/vocation/inclination: witch. I register the post-dead and help with the orientation to their new lifestyle. Think you can escape bureaucracy by dying? That would be a no. Sooner or later, however badass a bloodsucker you might be, you will deal with someone from the Company, like me, armed with a clipboard and forms to fill out.
So here I was, my butt parked on a folding campstool in an old cemetery next to an abandoned wreck of an old country church, the sun gone and the darkness thickening.
Meh. It’s a living.
I gave a jump when the custom sound system in the Type III ambulance behind me came to life, blasting the air with the Peter Gunn Theme.
My partner, a vampire named Ellinghaus, began to appear, fading in like old-school special effects: ghostly at first, then forming up and taking on color and solidity. No streaming mist for this guy, he was there or not-there. He timed the fades and formings to the beat of the music. It was his party trick. Not all of them had that kind of control.
Like the rest, his breed of vamp had a special Latin name with the Company geeks, but the informal designation was “Chicago Special.” It coincided with his personal style. He dressed and acted as you might expect from a guy obsessed with the Blues Brothers, complete down to the hat and sunglasses. He even had the accent. On him, it worked. Other vamps ribbed him about it, often not in a good-natured way, but outside the Company people liked him on sight, thinking he was with some nightclub show.
Considering his choice of prime Mancini as his waking-up number for tonight, that was close enough.