Dead Is The New Black

I had the sucker, I swear it. I could feel him twisting in my grasp, trying to get his head close enough to my clutching hands to rip some flesh from me. Two red-hot trails exploded down my bare arms and an unearthly yowl split the darkness, startling me so much that I let go.

Mr. Rat streaked toward the hole in the side of the building he’d come out of. I threw myself after him like a baseball player sliding into home plate, my hands outstretched, my silk top shredding on broken pavement and the heel of one of my Ferragamos snapping as I made my leap.

I slammed headfirst into the wall. The mangy tomcat beside me slammed into it at the same time.

“You’ve killed Bojangles!” The screech startled me more than the yowl had, and the apparition that appeared out of the gloom almost stopped my heart. Then I recognized the figure with the frizzy, waistlength gray hair swooping toward the tomcat as my elusive upstairs neighbor.

“I didn’t kill him,” I denied, getting to my feet and preparing to beat a hasty retreat. The last thing I wanted was to answer questions about why I was staking out a Dumpster. “I…I tripped over him. I was just walking along minding my own business and I—”

Bojangles chose that moment to prove he was alive by letting loose with another enraged yowl. He sprang from Weird Cat Lady’s arms and took off around the side of the building.

“See, he’s fine.” I gave his mistress a nervous smile. “Well, it was certainly nice meeting you, but I really must be—” “I should have realized. You were fighting Bo-Bo over a rat.” Her voice dropped from its previous screech, and I thought I could hear a note of pity in it.

“Excuse me?” I hoped my laugh sounded suitably incredulous. “Why would I fight your fleabag cat over a rat?”

“For the same reason I’ve trained Bojangles and the rest of my strays to catch them and bring them to me,” WCL said, the compassion in her tone now unmistakable. “Because you don’t want to kill humans to feed your blood hunger. You’re a vamp like me, aren’t you?”

I opened my mouth to give her a cool brush-off, but the words wouldn’t come. Instead, I heard myself utter a choking gasp. Worse, the gasp was immediately accompanied by the wet feel of big, fat tears welling up from my eyes.

Let’s get one thing straight—with my baby-blue eyes and strawberry-blond curls I may look fragile and sensitive, and I’m not above batting said eyes and tossing said curls at any hapless male who shows up as an interesting blip on my personal radar screen. I’ve also perfected the art of instant tears, Swarovski droplets that tremble on my lashes but never get to the point where they smear my Urban Decay mascara. But—and I’ll totally deny this if it ever gets out—I’m really as tough as old boots, to borrow one of Popsie’s favorite phrases. I’ve had to be, growing up with Megan and Kat as my sisters. I mean, Meg’s beautiful and smart and doesn’t take crap from anyone, and Kat simply sizzles with sexiness. They’re a hard act to follow, and if I had an ounce of fragility in me my ego would have been completely crushed by now.

Which it’s not, thank you very much. Well, not until I dissolved into a weepy pool of tears and clogged nose and embarrassing spitty stuff running from the corners of my mouth as my choked gasps became full-blown howls of misery. I whooped and coughed and shuddered and tried again to speak, but only managed something that sounded like, “Nuh, nuh…nuh fair! Nuh…bell tower! But nuh…nuh chickened out!”

Not my most shining moment. I wouldn’t have blamed Weird Cat Lady for thinking she’d run into someone even weirder than herself and leaving me to finish dissolving by the Dumpster all by my lonesome, but she didn’t. She hauled me inside and upstairs to her apartment, sat me down at her kitchen table while she brewed some tea and waited until I was vaguely coherent again.

“Firstly, you’re not a chicken just because you didn’t kill yourself,” she said, setting a mug in front of me and bending down to stroke the sea of cats twining around her ankles. “Drink this, it’s got goldenseal and Moroccan mint in it. I came up with the basic recipe when I started going through menopause to control my hot flashes, but after I turned vamp I found if I tweaked the ingredients a little it helped with the blood cravings.”

I took a sip and tried not to gag. “Nice,” I said, still snuffling.

She gave me a grin that made me look past her gray hair to the girl she must have been thirty years earlier. “You lie like Nixon,” she declared. “It tastes like hell and I know it, but when my inner thermostat jacks up twenty degrees I’ll gulp down anything to get relief. Same goes for the hunger. It’s bad enough that a vegetarian like me is drinking rat blood, but after all these years of protesting wars and violence, there’s no way Kathy Lehman’s going to take a human life just because some dickhead old boyfriend showed up one night and turned me into a vampire. I’ll walk into the sunlight before I do that.” She frowned. “Which leads me to the question of why you didn’t try that route, instead of jumping from a church tower. And how did you manage to get into a church, anyway?”

I choked down another sip of tea. “Vamphood seems to be working differently on me than it does with everyone else. I can still go out in the day without flash-frying and I don’t appear to be banned yet from entering a church. I guess it’s got something to do with the way I was marked.” I saw the question in her eyes and stifled a sigh. “Queen Vampyr. I was a baby. The curse was supposed to kick in during my twenty-first year, which it did a few weeks ago, but the hunger only hit me tonight.”

“And you immediately wanted to tear your nearest and dearest from limb to limb?” Kathy Lehman said shrewdly. “Been there, almost did that. I fought the impulse and made do with rat blood. But since you’re not a crazy cat lady like me, you might have to go a different route.” She tipped her head to one side. “There are a few of us around, you know—vamps who’ve vowed to find any alternative to embracing the darkness. We’ve even formed our own unofficial support group that meets every Tuesday in the basement of the local union hall. Drop by if you feel the need.”

I tried to keep my thoughts from my expression, since my thoughts were running along the lines of, sweet of you to offer, but I think I’d rather stake myself, thanks. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, trying to wipe out the image I’d just had of myself saying, “Hi, my name’s Tashya and I’m a vampire,” and having a roomful of enthusiastically cheerful strangers chorus back, “Hi, Tashya!”

“You do that.” Again Kathy smiled, as if she could read my mind. “But right now I’m guessing you’d like some more concrete help.” Rising from the table, she turned to her refrigerator and ripped a page from a cat memo pad hanging from a cat magnet. Scribbling something on it, she handed it to me. “Go to this address. It’s a butcher shop and it’ll be closed at this time of night, naturally, but old man Schneider does a booming after-hours business in the alleyway at the back of the store. Try to get there as early as possible because he sometimes runs out.”

I glanced at the scrap of paper in my hand. “Not that I don’t appreciate the grocery tip, but how does buying a couple of black-market T-bones help me?”

“Old man Schneider’s after-hours business isn’t in meat, it’s in pig’s blood,” Kathy said bluntly. “He sells it in quart bags, like milk, at twenty bucks a pop.”

This time I wasn’t able to hide my reaction. “Ewww,” I said in disgust. “Blood in a bag?”

“Would you prefer it free-range from a human?” she asked wryly. “If you think you can handle the hunger any other way, you’re wrong. Sooner or later you’re going to kill—” She broke off abruptly as a thump, like something jumping through an open window, sounded from the adjacent room. The next moment Bojangles swaggered into the kitchen, a dead rat in his jaws. With feline pride he deposited it at his mistress’s feet.

I realized two things simultaneously: one, I didn’t want to see what happened next; and two, the rat didn’t look as unappetizing to me as it should. I swallowed the sudden nausea that rose in me and backed toward the door. “I can see you’re about to sit down to dinner, so I’ll leave you to it,” I said quickly. “Thanks for the advice and the tea and for—”

“Good cat.” Kathy wasn’t listening to me. She scooped the limp gray body from the floor and gave the battle-scarred tom a distracted pat. Her voice sounded thicker and deeper. “I’ll save the head for you as usual, Bo-Bo.”

Her teeth began to lengthen past her bottom lip as she brought the dead rat to her mouth. I turned and fled, clutching the scrap of paper in my hand.

Chapter 2

It wasn’t the scene in WCL’s kitchen that night that made me change my mind about buying take-out blood-in-a-bag, it was the realization that if Mr. Bojangles hadn’t butted in when he had during our tussle by the Dumpster, it could have been me chowing down on a rat hors d’oeuvre. I take back what I said about standing in line in a garbage-strewn alleyway being rock bottom—the alternative would have been worse.

Famous last words.

“It’s okay, Joe, she didn’t mean to barge into you like that,” a girl’s voice behind me called after the old man with the shopping cart. “Hey, Mata Hari, wanna move your butt?” The owner of the voice poked me in the ribs as she asked the terse question.

I lowered my sunglasses at her. “Do you have a problem?” I asked coolly.

She jerked her head at the fast-retreating old man. “Besides the fact that you almost knocked down Crazy Joe? Yeah, my problem is that the line’s moving and you aren’t. I don’t particularly want to get in a rumble with a bunch of wannabes who might think it’d be a hoot to cut in ahead of us.”

“Wannabes?” Frowning, I began to close the gap in front of me, only to realize it wasn’t there anymore. To be exact, it had been filled by four black-clad figures standing with their backs to me.

“Great. Just fuckin’ great.” The girl behind me spoke again, her tone bitterly resigned. I turned and studied her in growing irritation. She looked about my age, but that was all we had in common. She was a few inches shorter than my five-seven, and the vintage punk-rock T-shirt and ripped khaki cargos she was wearing didn’t hide her compact toughness. Her hair was white-blond with dark roots, carelessly hacked into short spikes that stood up like two-tone chicken feathers around her head. Her eyes glared green at me.

“You gonna tell them to get outta here or do I have to?” She didn’t bother waiting for my reply, but stepped in front of me, tapping the nearest black-clad shoulder. “Yo, buddy,” she snapped. “Haul your ass to the back of the line and take your friends with you.”

Slowly the four figures turned to face her, moving apart so that they flanked us. Four pairs of red eyes stared menacingly out of four dead-white faces, and when the one whose shoulder had been tapped spoke, his lifted upper lip revealed razor-sharp fangs.

“We need blood,” he said in a low, emotionless voice that seemed too deep for his Ichabod Cranelike frame. He was older than his companions and it was obvious he was their spokes-vamp. “Force us, and we’ll take it from you, human.”

“Slice the bitch, Viktor!” The teenaged vamp beside him had skanky black hair extensions falling nearly to her waist. She carried through her dubious style sense with a black-and-red bustier that showed way too much bobbing cleavage, leather boots climbing halfway up her non-toned thighs and torn fishnet stockings. The whole ensemble was finished off with a Dead and Loving It tattoo inked on her slightly pouchy stomach. If I’d been feeling more charitable I might have taken her aside and suggested she try a few sit-ups or maybe look into Pilates, but her outburst to Viktor had kind of turned me off the feeling-charitable-toward-her thing.

It had turned punk-girl off, too, and from her attitude so far I was guessing she hadn’t had an abundance of charitable feelings in the first place. She flicked a glance at the teen vamp’s soft midriff and shook her head. “Chickie-poo, I’d find it easier to believe you were a dedicated blood-drinker if you weren’t flaunting that burgers-and-shakes tummy at us. Dead and Loving It? I’m Lovin’ It would have been more appropriate.”

“Hey, nobody talks to my girlfriend, Cindy, like that!” The second female vamp had Manic Panic red hair and a smear of black lipstick on one of her fangs. She was dressed like her friend and I realized that their outfits seemed somehow familiar to me, although for the moment I couldn’t think why. She turned to Viktor. “I know you said we weren’t ready to drink from a human source yet, Master, but if you want to, like, slake your thirst with these vermin, please don’t hold back on our unworthy accounts.”

“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.