Dead Is The New Black

“Speak for yourself, Trudy,” the second male in the group interjected, his red gaze focusing on me. He had a face like a ferret, if ferrets wore lip studs. And tongue studs, I noted with an inner shudder as he gave Viktor a defiant shrug. “I owe you for turning me, dude, but I don’t see why I have to take orders from you forever. Screw lining up for pig’s blood—I’m ready for the real thing. I’ll drain this bitch and leave the blonde to you.” He glanced at punk-girl. “Sorry, babe, but I’m not into dykes.”

“My name’s not babe, it’s Brooklyn,” punk-girl said with a cold smile. “And if you meant the dyke remark as a slam, it wasn’t. I’m here, I’m queer, and damn glad of it when I run into a primo specimen of the male sex like you.” She switched her attention back to Viktor. “Sweet little scam you’re running. I normally wouldn’t care less that you get your rocks off by playing mentor-vamp to the teen goth set, but you and I both know you don’t need what old man Schneider’s selling.” She glanced past Viktor and scowled. “He’s down to the last few bags. I don’t plan on letting a line-jumping imposter screw me out of my daily corpuscle fix, so either walk away politely or I’m going to have to go all Lady Dracula on your ass. What’s it gonna be, waxteeth?”

Now, here’s the thing: I know that as a vamp myself, other bloodsuckers should hold no fear for me. I mean, the whole taboo about us not being able to feed from each other, right? Except I still think of myself as Tashya Crosse, normal American girl, and when I’m confronted by pointy teeth and red eyes my automatic thought processes go something like, a) damn, where’s my stake; b) damn, where’s my Daughter of Lilith sister and c) damn, how fast can I run in these frikkin’ heels. So while I admired her cojones, I wasn’t real happy about Brooklyn throwing down the gauntlet to the hungry-looking Viktor, especially since I was pretty sure she’d gotten one vital detail wrong.

“Uh, Brook?” I said, edging closer to her and speaking out of the side of my mouth. “Not to quibble, but they’re not wax. His teeth, I mean. If they were, the sharp parts would have gone kind of round and melty by now, no? Just a thought,” I added in an undertone.

“Good point, Mata Hari.” She rolled her eyes. “Wax, plastic, whatever, he’s not one of us. Don’t tell me you can’t smell the reek of human coming off him and his pathetic posse.” She took in my blank look and scowled at me—I was beginning to understand that scowling was her default expression. “Pork barbeque, kind of, with maybe a whiff of mesquite? That’s what humans smell like to me, anyway, which might be a partial explanation of why I haven’t let myself feed on them yet. When you’re raised by a Jewish baba as strict as my grandmother, God rest her, you don’t even go for simulated bacon bits on your Caesar salad—and don’t even ask how I justify pig’s blood, because that’s where my dear, departed Baba and I part ways. You really can’t smell them?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Just what kind of vamp are—”

“What you smell can only be your own wretched humanity,” Viktor broke in, “but as tempted as I am to spill your blood in the dust, I will spare your life this time. Restraint is an exquisite lesson to learn, my young friends,” he intoned to Trudy and Cindy and Stud-Tongue. “Watch well and learn how we Dark Ones master our impulses.”

Beside me Brooklyn made a sound that could have been a snort but if Viktor heard, he chose to ignore it—a further demonstration of his iron control, I supposed. He stepped out of line, Trudy and Cindy falling in behind him, although from their pissed-off pouts they weren’t thrilled about their undead leader’s decision. The thought crossed my mind that Brooklyn was the coolest vamp I’d yet met—I mean, come on, the woman had that whole funky, don’t-mess-with-me aura, plus she was gay. Plus she had those minty-green eyes. Plus under the ratty tee she was wearing, her body looked to-die-for buff and…anyway, despite the fact that I didn’t buy her barbeque theory about Viktor being human, I was thinking about how totally cool she was and wondering whether her lips were naturally that Scarlett Johanssonish or if she’d had collagen injections, when something happened that yanked my attention back to the here and now.

Actually, a whole bunch of things happened. But since they all happened at almost the same time, they’re lumped together in my recollection as one big near disaster.

In order, here’s how said near disaster went down. First, Stud-Tongue decided to skip the impulse-controlling lesson Viktor had decided to demonstrate to his pupil-vamps. Second, he lunged at his chosen blood-buffet—little ol’ moi, of course. His maneuver took me by surprise, although not because I was still looking at Brooklyn’s lips. A second earlier I’d wrenched my gaze away from her and was idly scanning the alleyway when a movement in the shadows snagged my attention. I realized that while I’d been staring at Brooklyn, someone else had been staring at me. I caught a glimpse of navy-blue eyes under straight brows, a strong mouth curved with amusement and an incongruous froth of white lace against a dark collar and cuffs. But like I said, right then Stud-Tongue attempted to chow down on my neck, diverting my attention from Mr. Tall, Dark and Blue-Eyed lurking in the shadows.

Brooklyn later told me I’d moved so fast that I’d actually blurred. Then she frowned and said it was more like I’d been in one place one moment and in a totally different one the next, like Sonny Chiba in The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge, her all-time favorite kung-fu movie. After she dragged me to see The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge one night, I asked her if my mouth had moved independently from the words that had come out of it, also like in TSFLR, and she said no, but that was probably because I was absolutely silent throughout the whole encounter with Stud-Tongue.

“Silent and expressionless,” she added, looking away from me. And my eyes had been black, empty holes.

Obviously if I’d known any of that at the time it would have creeped me out, but I didn’t. In fact, I don’t recall thinking anything in the split second that it took for me to nearly kill Stud-Tongue. All I remember is that I seemed to be looking at the scene that was unfolding as if I was watching through a blood-smeared window. I saw the sleeve of my trench coat slide through a dark-red fog, saw my own fingers close around Stud-Tongue’s neck, saw the triumph in his eyes turn to terror. The red stain obscuring my vision darkened to black and my focus narrowed in on the throbbing vein under my pressing thumb.

It beat like a heart. I could hear blood surging through it like ocean waves rising and falling onto wet, black sand. I felt an answering surge come from deep inside me, and as I brought my mouth to that hypnotically pulsing vein and bared my lengthening fangs, the hunger I’d pushed back earlier that evening came roaring back, stronger than ever.

The tips of my fangs pierced flesh. I began to drive them in deeper, anticipating the hotly orgasmic rush of blood flooding into my mouth.

And then I was flat on my back on the pavement, my jaw feeling as if it had been broken and a solid weight bearing down on me. “Leash it!” Brooklyn snarled, bending forward from her squatting position on my chest and thrusting her face into mine. “You’re here tonight for the same reason we all are—because you’re trying to fight the hunger. Not that I care about this scumbag, but he’s not worth losing your soul over! Besides, the freakin’ Daughter sometimes patrols this area. I hear she’s inclined to stake first and ask questions after, so unless you want a hunk of wood through your heart, you’d better get a grip, Mata Hari!”

Her warning wasn’t necessary. The pain from her roundhouse punch to my jaw had broken through the red fog that had surrounded me. Shaking my head to clear it, I saw Stud-Tongue and Viktor and the two females rapidly take their leave and suddenly realized why Trudy and Cindy’s outfits had seemed familiar.

“Omigod, they’re bad Zena clones,” I muttered. “The bustiers, the fishnets—they’re practically channeling the bitch. What’s that about?”

“Who cares,” Brooklyn said impatiently. “All I want to know is whether your hunger’s abated. If you lose control—”

“Since her death at the hands of the Darkheart Daughter, the Russian Queen Vampyr has become somewhat of a legend, madam. A dark legend, to be sure, but the foolish can be indiscriminate in their emulation. May I help you to your feet?”

In the dust and dirt of the alleyway, the riding boots standing a few inches away from me looked out of place. They were black leather, polished to a mirrored gleam. Still lying on my back, I let my gaze travel upward past the boots, past the dark blue trousers that rose out of them, past the militarycut blue sleeve extended gallantly toward me, lace spilling from its cuff.

Two words: Yum. Yes, that’s just one word, but I said it twice, as in yum, yum. And I’m not sure I didn’t say it out loud.

You know those nights when you’re lying in bed not sleeping because you just had a fight with your boyfriend and you’re thinking all men are jerks? And you decide that if you’d been given the job, you totally could have created a better male sex and you start imagining what that perfect man would be like? And a little later when you’ve got a clear picture of your perfect-man creation in your mind—for some reason mine always ends up looking slightly Hugh Jackman-y—you kind of glance sideways at the nightstand beside your bed and without really meaning to, you find yourself opening the drawer and reaching for Mr. Love-Bunny, into whom you just put fresh batteries a couple of days ago…

All right, I’m back, and if you’re not I’m going on without you. My point is that Mr. Tall, Dark and Blue-Eyed was even better than any perfect man I’d ever imagined…although he did kind of have the Hugh Jackman thing going on, especially around his mouth. A strand of black hair grazed the straight, dark eyebrows I’d noticed earlier and brushed against thick, spiky lashes I hadn’t noticed in my brief glance before Stud-Tongue had embarked on his short-lived career as a working vamp. The aforementioned mouth was chiseled and lush at the same time, and just looking at his lips made me want to bite them—not in a fang-girl way but in a nipping-at-them-in-between-getting-kissed-by-them way. Right now they were smiling at me, revealing a gleam of white teeth that seemed dazzling in the shadows of the alleyway.

“My friend doesn’t need your help, thanks.” Brooklyn yanked me up by my wrist as she rose and brought her face to mine. “Sorry about hauling off and slugging you the way I did, Mata Hari,” she said in the softest tone I’d heard her use so far.

I winced as her fingertips gently touched my jawline. “Um, ow,” I said on an indrawn breath. “And since we went straight to the hauling off and slugging phase in our relationship, we bypassed the hi, my name is Tashya part, so, hi, my name’s Tashya.”

“Hi, Tashya. Mine’s Brooklyn Steinberg.” The corners of her mouth quirked sexily upward as she stepped back. “But I’m not sure Mata Hari didn’t go better with the whole incognito trench coat and wig look you’ve got going on there. By the way, you might want to straighten that happenin’ First Lady hairdo before the bangs end up at the back of your head.”

I’d forgotten about the damn wig, but now she’d reminded me I realized I might as well ditch it. I’d only worn the thing in an attempt to keep a low profile, and if trying to rip Stud-Tongue’s jugular out hadn’t turned that into an impossibility, being on the receiving end of a girl-on-girl smackdown certainly had. I pulled off my brunette bob and shook out my own curls, going for a slow-mo shampoo-advertisement effect as I turned to include Mr.Tall, Dark Etc. in our little social circle—merely out of common courtesy, of course, and not for any less admirable reason like wanting to put the moves on him.

“So you think Trudy and Cindy were dressed the way they were because they’re members in good standing of the local Zena-Skank-Mistress-of-the-Universe fan club?” I shook my head again just in case he hadn’t caught the full effect the first time. “How do you explain the fangs and the red eyes?”

“Wax, like I told you, and the eyes were colored contacts. The line’s moving, Tash,” Brooklyn broke in. She directed a cold look at our companion. “I could go into a whole riff on the fact that for someone who’s doing a Queer-Eye on other people’s clothes you’re wearing a pretty weird-ass outfit yourself, stranger, but instead I’ll just tell you what I told Vik-baby—move it or lose it.”

“My apologies for putting you in the position of not having a name by which to address me, madam.” Instead of taking offense at Brooklyn’s brusqueness, he obligingly stepped aside. “Allow me to rectify my omission, ladies. Heath Lockridge, late of the First New York Muskets.” I was concentrating so hard on not going into total meltdown at his adorable English-type way of speaking that I barely took in what he was saying. “Your theory about our hastily departed friends is admirable but wrong, I fear. The cadaverous Viktor is what is called an orthodontist, I understand, recently arrived in town upon the sad demise of his uncle, also a practitioner in the field. I am no expert on the profession, madam, but I have been told ’tis no very great matter for one such as he to outfit himself and other nonimmortals with a set of retractable canines, although he seems to have let his followers believe they received the gift of fangs from his vampyr bite.”

For a moment I forgot to flirt. “Omigod, he must be Dr. Maisel’s nephew. My sis—” I caught myself “—I mean, the local Daughter of Lilith and her Healer sister staked Maisel and his witchy wife after they turned vamp. Not that I was there or anything,” I added hastily as I stepped forward into the spill of illumination coming from the open exit door of a building backing onto the alley.

In the doorway stood a stocky older man wearing a stained butcher’s apron and holding a clear, sealed bag whose contents gleamed ruby in the light. Suddenly nervous, I passed over the twenty-dollar bill Kathy Lehman had advised me was the inflated price Schneider charged for his disgusting product, but as I reached for the bag a wave of nausea swept over me.

“Sorry, lady, but some precautions I haff to take, ja?”

His breath wafting a withering blast of garlic over me, old man Schneider shrugged in heavy unconcern as my fingers closed weakly over the bag. I felt Heath’s grip on my shoulder and took a staggering step away before turning back to wait for Brooklyn, then a different sensation rose up in me. As the hunger flooded through me for the third time that night, I shrugged off Heath’s steadying hand.

“I’m okay,” I said thickly—and if you’re wondering why thickly, all I can say is you try talking when your eye-teeth are in the process of lengthening past your bottom lip. I gave up all pretence of politeness and sunk my canines into the plastic, ripping a jagged hole in one corner. “Just need to take a little nip of the good stuff here—”

“Damn, it’s a setup!”

Brooklyn’s words sent a chill of fear through me, but the hunger overrode all other emotions. I slurped down a mouthful of blood—

Okay, let’s lay down some ground rules here before I go any further. Yes, I know how totally gross that last sentence sounded, and yes, I know there’s no way I can describe the taste or the smell or the exquisite sensations I felt while I was glugging back my happy snack of pig’s blood so that anyone who isn’t a vampire can understand—and by understand I basically mean not toss your cookies at the very thought. So you’re just going to have to take it on faith, the stuff was ambrosia to me. I didn’t even want to waste the part that was trickling down my chin, so as I reluctantly lowered my bag o’blood and met Brooklyn’s alarmed eyes I used the back of my hand to smear the spilled residue toward my mouth.

“Setup?” I looked quickly about, but I couldn’t see anything that might have alerted her. “Who set us up and how?”

Her gaze traveled coldly over me. “Shove the innocent act, Mata Hari, your cover’s blown. You shoulda kept the bad wig on, or at least stayed in the shadows. You’re Natashya Crosse, the sister of the Daughter and the Healer, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, she is, vamp. Wanna make something of it?”

The measured challenge came from behind me. I whirled around, my heart sinking as I saw the two people I least wanted to encounter tonight.

Megan—she was the one who’d spoken—was wearing your basic Daughter of Lilith black and carrying your basic Daughter of Lilith stake. Kat had never bought into the Healer-Nurturing-Soul-Mother look, so she was dressed as she always was, in something slinky and designer and drop-dead sexy. But their expressions as they looked at me were identical, and I suddenly felt like an old wino chugging from a bottle of Woolite.

“Oh, sweetie, no,” Kat said, her husky voice breaking with appalled compassion.

“Dammit, Tash, you told us you were controlling the hunger!” Megan accused.

“They didn’t know you were here tonight?” Brooklyn’s tone lost its edge. She stepped in front of me and whipped out a tissue. “All down your freakin’ chin, babe,” she murmured as she dabbed at my face before turning to my sisters. “She is controlling it, and if you two weren’t such holier-than-thou bitches, you’d realize that,” she snapped.

I didn’t see Megan’s and Kat’s reactions. I was too busy scanning the alleyway for Heath. He’d been beside me only a moment ago, and I hadn’t seen him leave.

But he was gone. And at the far end of the alleyway I saw a bat rise swiftly over the rooftops and disappear.

Chapter 3

“Oh, shit. Heads up, Tashya—dude with weapon at five o’clock,” Brooklyn said under her breath as a figure detached itself from the shadows and moved to Kat’s side. Her eyes narrowed. “And is that a friggin’ wolf?”

“Holier than thou?” Megan said ominously as her hand fell to the wolf’s silver-tipped black ruff. She kept her gaze on Brooklyn. “I guess we are at that, seeing as how you’re about to go straight to hell, vamp. Step away from her, Tash.”

I heard a door slam and the sound of a dead bolt shooting into its lock. Glancing sideways, I saw old man Schneider had decided discretion was the better part of valor and had closed up shop for the evening. Which was understandable enough, since his clientele had melted away into the darkness during the past few seconds, leaving only me and Brooklyn and the muttering derelict Brook had called Crazy Joe, who’d returned and was now pawing through a garbage can, oblivious to the drama being enacted a few feet away from him. My humiliation at Megan and Kat finding me here was replaced by anger.

“The dude with the nail gun that shoots silver-tipped nails is Kat’s ex-con main squeeze, Jack Rawls. And the wolf’s a shapeshifter named Mikhail. Rumor has it Megan lets him sleep on her bed if he’s been a good dog,” I told Brooklyn, loudly enough for Megan to hear. I switched my attention to my sisters. “No one’s going to hell tonight, Meg,” I declared. “I hear you’ve patrolled this alley before, so you know damn well that the vamps who come here don’t feed off humans. Take your pointy stick and go home, and tell the rest of your little gang they’re not wanted, either. That includes you, Kat.”

“There’s no such thing as a vamp that doesn’t feed off humans.” Beside Kat, Jack’s finger tightened on the nail gun’s trigger. “Only vamps that haven’t fed off humans yet.”

“Sweetie, you know your killer instinct’s one of the things I adore about you, but you’re aiming at my little sister,” Kat drawled. “If you dust her I’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth, so dial it down, comprendes? Megan, Tash was just being her usual bratty self with that remark about Mikhail. Lower your stake before Darkheart gets here.”

“Grandfather’s with you?” I thrust my bag of blood at Brooklyn, almost spilling it in my agitation. “Take this. No, don’t just hold it in front of you for everyone to see, stash it somewhere!”

She stared at me. “What’s with you? Your big sisters show up and ten seconds later you’re emotional wreckage?”

“They’re only my big sisters by a matter of minutes,” I said distractedly. “We’re triplets. Just hide the blood, okay, Brook? Kat, I can’t believe you let Megan do this! I’ll bet I know what this is about—our Daughter of Lilith sister’s decided I’m not pulling my weight at Darkheart & Crosse and she’s trying to get me booted from the agency. But since she doesn’t have the guts to Trump me herself, she accidentally-on-purpose arranged for Grandfather Darkheart to see how far down Vamp Avenue I’ve travelled in the past few weeks so he has to tell me I’m fired! All I can say is that when Grammie and Popsie finally come home, you two are going to be in major shit, so there!”

My arms folded across my chest in triumph, I turned to Brooklyn. “Darkheart & Crosse was my brainwave,” I informed her. “After Zena got dusted I figured there’d be a need for an agency that specialized in vampire-related investigations, and I was totally right, but since Megan became a Daughter it’s all about her. She can’t stand that the business I thought up is threatening to overshadow her Daughter of Lilith activities.” I waited for Brooklyn’s reaction but when it came it wasn’t what I’d expected.

“Too bad, babe.” In her ice-green eyes I saw a glimmer of something that looked like disappointment. She held out my bag of blood. “I’m outta here.”

“So am I,” I said, glancing defiantly in Megan’s direction. “You want to hit an after-hours club together, maybe see if we can find a couple of interesting guys? Or in your case, girl,” I amended.

“I thought I had,” Brooklyn said. “Looks like I was wrong. Stay out of the sunlight, Mata Hari.” She turned to go, but then she hesitated. “I sometimes wonder why I got vamped, you know? Like why me, a nice Jewish girl who was good to her Bubbe, kind to small children, only bought lattes made from fair-trade coffee beans? Hell, I’ve got a sister, too—a twin, and except that she’s straight the two of us could be clones. Yet I got turned and Xandra didn’t. I haven’t figured it out yet.” She shrugged. “But if life’s supposed to be more than just a series of random shitstorms, maybe the reason why you received this fun bonus from fate is because being a vamp is your only chance of becoming a real person. I really hope that happens for you, babe. Vamp or not, the little I saw of who you could be was a hell of a lot more intriguing than the bratty younger sister of the Daughter and the Healer.”

In my own defence, I’d like to point out that it had been a long night, what with chickening out of killing myself, playing tug-of-rat with a cat and nearly getting bitten by Stud-Tongue. Not to mention receiving a wicked uppercut to my jaw from my new best friend, finding and losing the man of my fantasies and having my sisters discover I’d progressed to drinking blood. All in all, I wasn’t in the mood to thank Brook for her assessment of me and thoughtfully ask myself if any of what she’d said could be true. I was more in the mood to yell the meanest things I could think of at her as she walked away from me.

Which is what I did, and to this day I wish I could call back the words I flung after her.

“You mean I won’t have to think of a polite way to tell you I don’t appreciate being pawed on the slightest pretext by another woman, babe?” I gave a short laugh. “News flash, Punk-girl—that’s not a tragedy, that’s a relief! Even if I were gay, you’re so not my type, with that dark-root look you’ve got going with your hair and that Salvation Army look you’ve got going with your clothes!” I raised my voice as she slipped into the shadows between two buildings and disappeared from my view without ever having looked back. “And another thing—”

Something brushed against my hair and fell to my shoulders. Startled, I looked down at myself and saw the starry shapes of small, white flowers against the black of my trenchcoat. Then the nausea hit me, ten times more powerfully than it had in reaction to old man Schneider’s garlic breath, and I realized what the flowers were.