Predatory

HIGH STAKES HANNAH JAYNE

Some people were meant for big cities.

And fabulousness.

I’m one of those people.

I’m Nina LaShay and one day, my brand will be everywhere.

I stand in front of the mirror every day and say that to my reflection. Well, not so much to my reflection as to the mirrored image of my brand-new, temporary Manhattan digs as I don’t have much of a reflection—or any reflection at all.

Being undead will do that to you.

Call me what you want—vampire. Bloodless one. Nightwalker; lost one; soulless, Godless aboveground hell dweller. Personally, I’m partial to Life-Backward, Fashion-Forward Temple of Awesome. How else do you explain a twenty-one-year-old (give or take 141 years) woman being one of the last three standing in the greatest fashion competition the couture world has ever seen?

I was steaming my latest Drop Dead creation—that’s the name of my fashion line—Drop Dead Clothing (I know, totes adorbs, right?), when the faint scent of two-day-old patchouli oil and sweat snaked into my apartment. The whole super-vamp sense of smell? Makes pastries smell a thousand times more amazing. It also makes the modern street hippie “at one with the Earth” smell like a three-day bus ride through Calcutta in June. I wrinkled my nose and did my best to breathe through my mouth before I snatched open the multi-bolted door and grimaced—then snarled—when I saw where the pungent scent was coming from.

It was her.

Emerson Hawk.

With her beady brown eyes, gaunt cheeks, and head of Supercuts-styled straw-colored locks, she looked far more drowned pigeon than hawk, but what can you do?

She gasped when she saw me, her anemic lips dropping open.

“You’re my competition?”

I wanted to say something scathing and smart but decided to err on the side of breather-approved sportsmanlike conduct. “And I suppose that means that you’re mine.”

Emerson cocked her head and swooshed her ugly hair over one shoulder. “I was being facetious, sweetie. You and your welcome-to-the-dark-side designs are no kind of competition at all.”

I felt myself bristle and although Emerson is shamefully, one-hundred-percent flesh-and-blood human being (“breathers” as they’re known on the undead end), I desperately wanted to stake her through her patchouli-scented heart.

“Please,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “Drop Dead has spanked—what is it? Tweet by Emerson Hawk?”

“Soar,” she corrected with a snarl. “Soar by Emerson Hawk.”

“Oh, right. Either way, Drop Dead has spanked your line often and repeatedly.” I smiled sweetly, my lips pressed together—not so much in an effort to hide my always-there pointed petite incisors, but more in an effort to keep my fangs from digging into her obnoxious sallow flesh.

But I bet she’d taste like stale bread.

Emerson waved at the air like I was some gnat at her ear. “Small-town shit.”

“San Francisco Fashion Week is not small-town shit.”

“Emerson?” A head popped out from the door behind Emerson, and Emerson bristled.

“What do you need, Nicolette?” she asked from between gritted teeth.

Nicolette blushed a fierce red and glanced quickly at me and then directly to the stained carpet at her feet. But in that fleeting glance, I noticed that Nicolette shared Emerson’s unfortunately beady eyes and sharp, defined cheekbones, though she had clearly gotten the luxe end of the stick when it came to hair. Hers was cut in a cheeky bob and glistened a pretty blond. “I have all the garments steamed if you want to take a look.”

“Hi,” I said casually, “who are you?”

“She’s my sister,” Emerson snapped. “And Nicolette, even you can’t mess up steam. There are a few more things in the bathroom, though.”

“Sisters?” I said. “How very Little House on the Prairie.”

Even with her face turned toward the floor, I could see Nicolette’s cheeks push up into a smile. “I’m Nina, by the way.” I pushed out a hand and Nicolette shook; the female equivalent of crossing enemy lines. I could practically see the steam shooting from Emerson’s ears and it gave me a happy.

“Your sister was telling me all about her cute little fashion line.”

“Cute? Apparently you forgot who spanked who in Seattle?”

“It’s whom. Who spanked whom. And of course I didn’t forget. I generally find it hard to forget when someone steals my designs,” I said.

“Steals? I prefer to call it ‘borrowed inspiration.’”

“I prefer to call it a death wish.”

“Um,” Nicolette said, her voice soft as she addressed the floor. “Isn’t there a third person in the competition?”

Emerson rested her fists on her love handles and threw back her head, looking like a stupid statue of some sort of conqueror. “There is a third person, but he’s hardly part of the competition.”

“He?” I hated being caught unawares, but I hadn’t read my welcome packet (hello? I’m in New York. Is someone seriously expecting me to read?) and didn’t know who was behind door number three.

Emerson jerked a thumb in the vague direction of the hallway. “Reg.”

“Reginald Fairfield?” I gaped.

Reginald Fairfield was the Queen Elizabeth of the up-and-coming fashion world: regal, benign, and basically a figurehead who kept plaid walking shorts and seersucker fabrics alive and kicking. Every one of his lines was crisp and came in shades of Martha’s-Vineyard-slash-old money, and the rumor around town was the man himself had never actually wielded a pair of scissors—he left the dirty work to his “traveling companion,” an exceptionally well-tanned young gentleman with a heavy accent and a resumé that I am completely sure contained the words “cabana boy.”

“They moved in about a week early.”

I nodded. “I suppose it would take some time for Reginald to unpack his marble busts and Felipe’s Speedos.”

Nicolette sniggered behind her hand and Emerson went from remotely tolerable back to grade-A horrible. “Didn’t you have some fabric to steam?”

Nicolette scampered away like a sad little pup and Emerson turned her eyes—and her stench—back to me.

“Look LaShay, you and I both know that this competition boils down to only two people: you and me.”

I pursed my lips. “So you admit I’m competition.”

Emerson just rolled her eyes and continued. “Your designs may have impressed a few lesser judges and”—she made air quotes—“spanked mine, but this time, make no mistake. I. Will. Bury. You.”

I cocked an eyebrow, not the least bit bothered by Emerson’s attempt at threatening me. “Don’t you mean your designs will bury mine?”

She smiled this time, poking the edge of her tongue out to moisten her bottom lip as she shrugged. “Semantics.”

I stood in the hallway, staring, as she slammed the door.

It was the next morning and being a vampire with no need of sleep, I spent the midnight hours checking out the town, frowning at the all beautiful clothes locked behind plate glass and CLOSED signs, and ultimately decimating two more blood bags than I needed to while watching Susan Lucci hock obscene-looking Pilates equipment and god-awful jewelry. When the sun finally began to peek through my drawn blinds, I gathered up my wares—rolls of gorgeous, plush fabric that was hand-sewn decades before the word vintage was coined (one of the huge benefits of having a shopping habit that spanned centuries rather than seasons), spun gold thread, bugle beads, and my absolute favorite, number-one must have: a good pair of scissors. I rolled the pair I had across my palm, enjoying their heft, the Swarovski-crusted handle, the ultrasharp blades, and the swirled-letter engraving there: Not friend, sister. Love always, Sophie.

It gave me a little pang when I ran my fingers over the words. Sophie Lawson is my San Francisco roommate and though so fashion-challenged it’s terminal, she means the world to me. In my afterlife I tried hard to never let anything get to me, never let anything attach, but Sophie did both of those things. Besides, her constant bad body luck (the dead were constantly dropping out of the woodwork when she was around) kept me really entertained.

Good entertainment means a lot when you’ve been around for every movie from The Horse in Motion to Spiderman (all iterations).

My hand was hovering over the phone when I heard the thunk-thunk-thunk of someone beating the walls in the hallway, then a low, enraged voice echoing through the hundred-year-old architecture.

“I’m know you’re in there! Get out here!”

I poked my head out into the hallway and groaned when I saw that the burly, angry voice was coming from Emerson, and the thunk-thunk-thunking from her clodhopper shoe as she kicked my next-door neighbor’s door.

“What the hell is your problem, Emerson? You’re going to wake up the entire borough!”

Emerson turned to me, nostrils flaring, eyes spitting fire. “It’s Reginald Fairfield. I know he’s in there,” she said, turning her back to the still-closed door. “I know you’re in there!” She gave the door another wallop—this time with her fisted hand—then a few more swift kicks before I grabbed her around the waist, yanking her back.

“Why are you beating on his door like a maniac?”

“A maniac? A maniac?” She wriggled out of my bear hold. “You were probably in on it! You probably let him into my apartment!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Reginald stole my fabric. The whole bolt! All of it!” She was flailing but hitting nothing, and sweat beaded on her upper lip and at her hairline, matting down her blunt-cut bangs. “He’s a cheat! And now he’s hiding out. He won’t even open the door, the coward.” She launched herself at the door. “You’re a coward, Reginald!”

“Dios mio! Ladies, ladies, what is going on here?”

We both blinked at Felipe, Reginald’s paramour, as he stood in the hallway, tanned legs exposed in his plaid walking shorts, muscles flexed as he carried two stuffed grocery bags against his chest.

A new rage roiled through Emerson’s body, the heat coming off her in waves. I held my nose and wrapped an arm around her before she lunged at Felipe.

“Nice to see you again, Felipe,” I said, doing my best to secure Emerson but avoid her stink. “Emerson is under the impression that Reginald stole some fabric from her.”

“It’s not an impression!” Emerson screeched.

Felipe just shook his head and clucked his tongue, unaffected. “My Reginald would do nothing of the sort,” he said in his heavily accented English. “Besides,” he continued, his dark eyes taking in Emerson and her cardboard-colored dress, “Reggie would not use your fabrics. They are so . . .” He let the word trail off, the disgust on his face finishing his sentence.

“He didn’t steal it to use it, he stole it to fuck me up!”

“How do you know that Reginald was the one who stole your fabric?” I asked Emerson.

She gritted her teeth and spat through them. “He came over last night. Both of them did. We had a glass of wine, and Reginald was touching the fabric, admiring it.”

“He was just trying to be nice,” Felipe clarified, shifting his shopping bags.

“I got sleepy. They must have drugged me. I fell asleep—probably didn’t even lock the door after they left. And when I woke up—gone! The whole bolt. And now the damn coward won’t even open up the door and confront me.”

“Pshhh!” Felipe let out a dismissing puff of air. “Reggie is just a hard sleeper.” He handed me a bag and plugged his key into the lock. “Reggie,” he sang as we trailed behind.

I heard the bag clatter to the hardwood floor first, a jar of marinated mushrooms shattering, the oil oozing toward my shoes. Then I heard Felipe, heard the air squeeze out of his lungs. I didn’t have to see his face to know that it was twisted in horror, and as pearl white as mine.

“Oh! Oh!” He clutched his chest and I set my bag down, then gently pushed him aside. And if I hadn’t seen it before, I would have screamed, too.

A body. Reginald.

A loop of fabric was wrapped around his neck, pinching tight as he hung from the rafter. His head lolled forward as if he had just fallen asleep. But his eyes were open, bulging. They were already clouded and dull. His skin was mottled purple and he swayed an inch this way, an inch that way, his shoes scraping across the glossy finish of the cherry-wood table underneath him. Each time his body moved, the rafter he was tied to groaned. The scrape of his feet and the groan of the rafter seemed like the only sounds in the entire world and I remembered, far before I was turned, my father sitting with me as a child while I held my grandmother’s hand. She lay in bed, wilted, her body ravaged by sickness.

“She’s gone now,” my father said as his hand glided over her eyes.

I squeezed my grandmother’s hand, unwilling to believe, even as sadness locked in my throat. “But how do you know?”

There had been no change in my grandmother from this moment to the last. Not a final word, a sigh—not even a flicker of her soul as it passed through her body.

“The silence,” my father said simply, standing. “It’s dead silence.”

That was what surrounded us now in Reginald’s apartment—dead silence, punctuated only by the scrape and groan.

And then the living came through.

“Oh, Reggie!” Felipe slapped his hands to his cheeks and started to scream—a high-pitched, painful wail, tears welling and rolling over his manicured fingers.

“Oh, God,” I whispered.

“That’s my fabric!” Emerson’s voice was a shrill knife cutting through Felipe’s anguish and my own astonishment as I tried to tear my eyes from Reginald. Emerson shoved me aside, pointing to the ragged-edge loops around Reginald’s neck. “That’s why he stole my bolt?”

It actually was god-awful fabric, even for a suicide.

Felipe heaved and began clawing at the table, his clawed hands going for Reginald’s pant legs as I tried to hold him back.

“Emerson,” I snapped, “forget about the fabric and call nine-one-one.”

I held on to Felipe and he crushed against me, finally giving up, crying silently. I could feel his warmth, the thud of his heart—and I couldn’t look at Reginald anymore. He wasn’t just a dead breather. He had been loved.

Emerson was on her cell phone; I could hear her voice, calm and rigid as she talked to the nine-one-one operator.

“Suicide . . . hanging . . . already dead.” She was shielding the phone with her hand, her back toward the body. She looked over her shoulder once or twice and mumbled into the phone.

“We have to get him down!” Felipe sobbed, tearing away from me. “We can’t just leave him there, hanging like that.”

“No,” I said, grabbing a handful of his shirt, yanking him backward. “We have to leave him, Felipe. The police will handle this.” Back in San Francisco, I had tried to pull my roommate away from enough CSI marathons to be pretty familiar with police procedurals.

“We’re going to call the police? But why?”

“They’re already on their way,” Emerson said, waggling her cell phone as if that explained it all.

“Holy fuck.”

It could have been the slow motion of the whole situation but the two-word sentence sounded like a full monologue. My head snapped to where the deep voice was coming from. It was my direct intent to rip his throat out for interrupting this horrific moment, but when I saw him, the death scene in front of me faded into oblivion and my entire body went rigid, colder than normal, and on complete and utter I-want-to-eat-him-in-a-nonvampiric-way high alert.

He was handsome in that traffic-stopping kind of way, with brown-black hair that was just slightly shaggy and unkempt. The wave of his bangs licked over his eyebrows and framed chocolate-brown eyes that I would happily drown in. His skin was the most delicious shade of non-New York, non-vampire toasty brown, and, I happily noticed, he had the kind of body that made one think of Greek gods or jungle men in loincloths. He had a tribal tattoo running down the length of his well-muscled arm and though I had never been interested in them before, I was suddenly, wholeheartedly pro-ink.

Even from this distance, I could smell the salty, toasted coconut scent that wafted from his skin.

I was actually salivating.

Though it almost physically hurt to tear my eyes from him I did—just for a millisecond—to glance at Emerson. She had gone from open-mouthed stare to stone still, feet akimbo, hands on hips. Her eyes were hard, narrow slits spitting dagger glares toward the man I intended to spend the rest of my afterlife with.

“What the hell are you doing here, Pike?” she spat.

Pike, Pike! She knew his name! Images of harp-strumming cherubs and Vera Wang floated in my mind while his name pinged around my head like the heavenly music it was. Pi-i-i-i-i-i-k-e . . .

And then it stopped.

How did Emerson Hawk, of utter stink and stolen designs know my new beau, Pike? Which is actually kind of a stupid name (unless you’re a fish, natch) but still, it should never have been able to come out of Emerson’s halitosis-filled mouth.

Pike held up an expensive looking camera. “Photo essay for the contest. But . . .”

Emerson pointed. “Reginald Fairfield.”

“I was supposed to shoot the three finalists.”

Emerson cocked out a hip, still pointing. “Meet finalist number three. A photo shoot is not going to happen.” Her voice was remarkably unaffected and I cringed. Maybe I wasn’t the only one without a soul.

“Is something going to be done about—”

But his deep voice was cut off by the wail of sirens and the marching band-like clatter of police officers as they thundered into the building. They spread out, corralling us as crime scene techs surrounded the body and studied the scene.

“We’re going to need to clear the premises.” The police officer didn’t look at us as he said it, but no one dared challenge him. “But don’t go far. We need to take statements.”

Emerson, Felipe, Pike, and I stumbled out into the hallway, keeping our distance from the flurry of activity flowing in and out of Reginald’s apartment. Felipe was quiet, nose a heady red, cheeks chapped from the constant flow of tears. I patted his shoulder awkwardly. He sniffled and shook like a wet Chihuahua.

“I’m really sorry, man,” Pike said slowly.

Felipe continued to stare straight ahead, teeth chattering, but otherwise catatonic.

I heard Pike suck in a sharp breath and jam his hands in his pockets. As a dead man was hanging not thirty feet away, I shouldn’t have noticed the way that motion—hands in pockets—pulled Pike’s jeans just a little tighter over his ass, exposing his perfect, peach-shaped bottom, but I did.

I remembered the sweet, juicy taste of peaches and licked my lips, savoring the memory on my tongue.

Then Pike turned those mesmerizing cozy brown eyes of his on me. “I don’t think we’ve met yet. You must be Nina, right? I’m Pike.” He held a hand out—a big, wonderful hand that made me think of the old adage about big hands and feet—and I slipped my hand into his feeling dainty and demure—which was refreshing when I’m most often referred to as any variant of “soulless bloodsucker.”

I brushed my long, black hair over one shoulder and pulled back my shoulders—or stuck out my breasts, depending on how you looked at it—and pasted on my most beguiling smile. I may be a little short in the soul/life department, but when it came to flirting, I was a star student and Pike warmed to my gaze.

“Yes, I’m Nina LaShay. And this,” I said, touching Felipe lightly on the shoulder. “This is Felipe. He is—was . . .” I choked on the word and Felipe’s eyes went round and heart-breakingly big. “He was with Reginald.”

“Dios mio!” Felipe started again, huffing and tearing at his hair. “Mi osito de peluche es muerte! Muerte!”

One of the paramedics came toward us and snaked an arm around Felipe, talking in a low, soothing voice and leading him away.

Pike shook his head. “Poor guy.”

There was an uncomfortable pause and I briefly thought of Googling “How to flirt at a murder scene.” I decided to go with the tried and true.

“So you’re—Pike?” I could feel my eyebrows scrunching together unattractively and Pike offered a small smile, his eyes completely transfixed on mine. It was like we were speaking our own incredibly sexy language.

I had every intention of making that language clothing optional.

“It’s short for Paikea.”

Well sure, that was better.

“It’s Maori, but I’m actually Hawaiian.”

I was thinking of my Pike, greased up in suntan oil and smelling like coconuts.

“You have quite a strong grip, don’t you?”

I snatched my hand back, embarrassed, wishing for once that I had an ounce of blood to wash a cute crimson blush across my cheeks. Instead I just smiled demurely, glancing at my soulmate through lowered lashes.

“You could probably get out of here, Pike. There’s not going to be any photo shoot. At least I’m not doing one.” Emerson turned on her heel and disappeared into her apartment, slamming the door behind her.

“Ah, Emerson,” Pike said. “A regular breath of vile air.”

He leaned back against the wall, looking very Diesel-commercial chic. His eyes went over my head, scanning the activity in Reginald’s apartment, and I took a quick moment to revel, taking in every inch of this man who should have been a calendar model.

For every month of the year.

I swallowed back the inappropriate desire to engage him in some sultry dirty talk and instead leaned against the wall across from him. I was about to open my mouth, was working up the perfect post-suicide sentence when Pike hitched his shoulder at me and silently walked away.

I fought the urge to growl and then the urge to crawl under my bed and hide. I wasn’t used to people walking away from me—especially not male people. I was working up a reason to follow Pike when Emerson stopped behind me, close enough that her patchouli scent wafted off her and stuck to me. I grimaced, then immediately pasted on an appropriately demure smile.

“This is awful, isn’t it?”

She actually shrugged. “Hate to speak ill of the dead, but the coward was obviously too scared to show his face after he stole my fabric.”

My voice was a hissing whisper. “Are you kidding me? A man is dead, and you’re still focused on your fabric? God, even Pike,” I said, jutting my chin toward him, desperate to feel his name on my tongue again. “A complete stranger feels more for Reginald than you do.”

Emerson shook her head, that gnat-in-her-ear expression on her face. “Pike is no stranger.” She waved her hand in his general direction. “He’s an ex.”

I hoped to God that Emerson meant an ex to Reginald or Felipe because even finding out that the love of my life was gay was preferable to finding out that he may have once been attracted to someone like Emerson. “He hangs around a lot. Kind of can’t get the message.”

I felt my mouth drop wide open. By the pleased purse on Emerson’s lips, I could tell that she knew she’d hit a nerve. She looked about to say something smart but was silenced by an officer carrying a Ziploc bag stuffed with hideous fabric.

Emerson made a tiny puppy sound, then shoved me out of the way. “Where are you taking that? That is my fabric!” she yelled. “I told you he stole it.” She snatched the whole bag out of the officer’s gloved hand and gaped. “It’s ruined!”

The officer snatched the bag back. “It’s evidence.”

“Evidence?” Emerson said. “But it’s mine. I need it for the competition!”

Pike came over to us, getting in front of Emerson and letting the cop scurry away. “Reginald used that fabric to hang himself.”

“Oh, my God,” I whispered.

“Did he use it all? Do I have enough for my garment?”

I swung my head toward Emerson, astonished. “That’s what you’re worried about? Your stupid fabric?”

“We’re in a competition, Nina, or have you forgotten?”

“We’re at the scene of a suicide!” Part of me wanted to give Emerson’s neck a little slash just to see what kind of demon she was. But I could hear her breath, hear the blood pumping from her heart and pulsing through her human veins. My stomach turned in on itself knowing that someone still in possession of her soul could be so callous. “A man is dead.”

“Can you ask someone about the extra fabric?” she asked Pike.

“I’m just a photographer, but I can ask one of the cops. . . .” he said, though clearly uncomfortable as he stepped back.

“I cannot believe you, Emerson. I knew you were a snake but I didn’t peg you for completely heartless. Reginald is dead.”

“And I’m sorry for that,” she said unconvincingly. “But he was still a competitor.”

I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head and for once, I couldn’t think of a thing to say. That seemed to be just fine to Emerson, who shrugged again.

“And then there were two,” she said before walking back toward her apartment.

I was shaking my head, still shocked, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned and blinked into the slate-gray eyes of yet another police officer. This one was short and stocky, with tree-trunk legs and a little leather notebook clutched in his baseball-mitt hands. He used the tip of his Bic to scratch at his receding hairline. “Are you the one who discovered the body?”

For some reason, my voice was stuck in my throat so I nodded, dumbly.

“I just need to take a quick statement. Your name and address, please.”

I must have recited everything properly because the cop seemed satisfied. He looked up from his notebook, eyes laser-focused on mine. “What was the state of the body when you first entered the premises?”

I was trying to think of a kind way to say “hanged,” but nothing seemed to soften the blow. “It was, uh, deceased. Hanging. No one touched it, though.”

The officer, whose name badge read Hopkins, raised his eyebrows. “It?”

“The body,” I said. “Reginald. We went in with Felipe and saw him . . . there. Like that. Then . . .” I waved my hand, gesturing to the chaos.

“So, you were with the others when Felipe opened the door?”

“Yes.” It was barely a whisper.

Hopkins wrote something in his little notebook and I wondered briefly why cops always seemed to repeat your answers back to you. “And the others were Felipe, Emerson, Pike, and uh, Nicolette?”

I suddenly drew a huge blank. “I think.”

Hopkins raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I mean, yes.”

Look—we have an impeccable sense of smell, super speed, and no discernible weight. Memory? Strictly breather-class. It’s not good.

Hopkins cut his eyes to me, then to Felipe, who hung back in the hallway, and back to me. He chewed his bottom lip and narrowed his eyes, à la every incompetent cop I’d ever seen on TV. “What was your relationship with Mr. Fairfield?”

I swung my head. “We didn’t have much of one. We were colleagues. In the fashion industry.”

“So you didn’t know anything about Mr. Fairfield’s emotional state.”

I think it is perfectly obvious that Reginald Fairfield wasn’t of sound mind. No one in Easter-colored seersucker could be. But I pegged Hopkins for more of a by-the-book kind of cop rather than a down-the-runway one. “No, I didn’t.”

Hopkins sucked in a long breath, then tucked his pen in his chest pocket. “It’s likely we’ll have some more questions for you later, okay? You’ll want to stay around.” He turned and disappeared into Reginald’s apartment once more, and Felipe rushed toward me, a bottle of water quaking in his hands. He was no longer crying, but his body already looked ravaged from his grief. His shoulders were hunched and his eyes looked hollow and sunk into the redness around them.

“Since we’re not supposed to leave, why don’t you come inside, Felipe? I’m just down the hall.” I looked over Felipe’s shoulder and eyed Pike. “You’re welcome to come inside as well, Pike.” I liked the way his name sounded on my tongue and yes, I did admonish myself for thinking of Pike in my mouth while a team of police officers were cutting a dead man down next door.

I’m only vampire; so sue me.

I led Felipe into the apartment, Pike behind us. Felipe took a small sip from the water bottle and must have rehydrated. He immediately started crying again, full, body-wracking sobs while he wrung his hands and mumbled, his accent becoming thicker and more pronounced with each word. I might be without a soul but I wasn’t without a heart and mine ached for him. I filled a glass of water and pushed it into Felipe’s hands, then slung my arm over his shoulder and led him to the couch. He shivered under my touch.

“You’re freezing.”

“Circulation problem,” I said automatically.

Pike took a seat on the couch and scooted over, giving Felipe room to sit. I caught Pike’s hot chocolate gaze for a second and I was immediately warmed by the sweet concern in his eyes, and taken by the way his lips still looked full and tasty even when the corners turned down in a slight frown. He nodded to Felipe who crushed himself into the couch and heaved an enormous, hiccupping breath.

Through the open apartment door I could see the coroner and his assistant pushing through the crowd, could hear the squeaking wheels of the gurney as they laid Reginald out and wheeled him away. Thankfully, the din of chatter, police radios, and general city noises must have drowned out the dead sounds for Felipe because he sucked down his bottle of water and blinked repeatedly, the tears actually seeming to dry.

Officer Hopkins ambled down the hall and knocked on Emerson’s door. I watched as Nicolette pulled it open, her face a yellow-hued shade of pale, her eyes small and circled by exhausted purple bags. They darted past Hopkins and took in the scene in the hall, skidded over the coroner as he pushed Reginald away. There was a slight terror in her eyes and I could see the pale edges of her lips pulled down as she murmured to Officer Hopkins. When Nicolette disappeared and Emerson took her spot, I took a step forward, my head cocked.

“Your relationship to Mr. Fairfield, miss?”

Emerson blinked quickly and even from across the hall—and by way of my super-vamp sense—I could hear her heartbeat speed up, could hear the sharpness of the shallow breath she sucked in. I crossed my arms in front of my chest, watching, as Emerson licked her lips.

“He was a designer like myself.”

“And you all three live here in this complex? Is it, like, some sort of shared housing or artist co-op or something?”

I watched Emerson’s head swing from side to side, her straw hair brushing her shoulders. “We’re the three finalists in a design competition.” She bit her bottom lip, her eyes flashing and catching mine. “Well, we were.”

“So you’re competitors?” Hopkins tapped the end of his pen against Emerson’s doorframe, the rhythmic tap like a heartbeat. “Was there a lot of stress at this competition? Was Mr. Fairfield not doing well?”

Emerson straightened up, her hands going to the doorframe and gripping. I caught the smallest scent of sweat on the air.

Emerson was nervous.

“The competition hadn’t really started yet. I don’t see why Reginald would have been—would have thought he wasn’t doing well. Maybe Felipe knows more.” Emerson’s eyes crested over Hopkins’s head and she looked at me. “Or maybe Nina knows something.” She glanced at her non-ironic Swatch watch and shifted her weight. “Are we through now? I’ve got to work on my designs.”

Emerson left Hopkins standing in the doorway. He turned on his heel and we were eye to eye—me, standing in my apartment, door flung wide open, spying, and him, narrow-eyed, chewing on the end of his pen. He beckoned for me to come into the hallway.

“Can I help you?”

“Miss LaShay,” he said, shifting his weight in what I was guessing he thought was some sort of imposing manner. “Is there a reason you didn’t mention that you and Mr. Fairfield were direct competitors in this competition?”

I snaked my arms in front of my chest and mirrored Officer Hopkins’s narrow-eyed glare. “I didn’t think it was necessary information.”

“Might have given someone the motive to harm Fairfield, don’t you think?”

“I would think, had he not hung himself.”

Hopkins shot me a slow, appraising gaze. “Just make sure you don’t leave the county, all right? I might have some additional questions for you.”

Something about the way Hopkins kept his watery eyes fixed on me gave me a slight chill. I had every intention of escorting him right out of my apartment until he checked his smartphone, scanned the room, and asked, “Felipe DeLaCruz?”

Felipe turned and raised a small hand. “I am Felipe.”

Hopkins paused then, his flat-balloon face breaking into what passed as a smile. “Pike! Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Hopkins and Pike did that awkward, manly handshake-to-semi-hug kind of thing and I felt my mouth drop open. I made a beeline for them.

“You two know each other?” I hissed.

“Pike does some photography work for us on occasion.” Hopkins raised his eyebrows toward Pike. “Is that why you’re here now?”

“Actually, I was hired by the magazine to shoot the designers.”

Hopkins’s eyes showed a flash of interest. “So you knew the dec—”

I shot a glance over my shoulder and nudged Hopkins and Pike out of the living room, out of Felipe’s direct line of sight.

“Can you not throw around words like deceased and decedent in front of Felipe? That man just lost the man he loved. Can’t you be a little more sensitive?”

The sentence bobbed around in my head and my spine stiffened. My breather roommate was constantly telling me to “be a little more sensitive.” She was usually the one inundated with dead bodies and detectives.

Guess things were starting to rub off.

Hopkins blew out a long sigh and I made a mental note to drop an inhaler off at the police station—the man obviously had breathing issues. Either that or someone along the line told him that sharp breaths were the way to throw a suspect off. I would have laughed, had I not had the sneaking suspicion that I was going to be one of his “suspects.”

“Mr. DeLaCruz?” Hopkins said, edging his way back toward the living room.

I fixed him with a stare, not entirely sure what I was trying to convey. I was angry, suspicious, sad for Felipe’s loss—and, strangely, a little scared.

“So you and Hopkins, huh?”

Pike broke out into a smile that looked wildly inappropriate amongst the background of crumpled tissues and crime scene techs, but it shot a bolt of fire through me just the same.

“Me and Hopkins? It’s not like we were dating or anything. I just bump into him on occasion.”

I nodded.

“So,” Pike said as he followed me into the kitchen, inclining his head, eyes jutting to Felipe and the officer. “What do you think that’s all about?”

“Probably just routine,” I said, suddenly feeling the need to put space between us. “Can I get you something to eat?” I asked him, wishing to God he’d say no since the entirety of my refrigerator’s contents were six O negative blood bags and sixteen varying shades of OPI nail polish.

“No, I’m cool. So what did Hopkins want with you?”

I spun, my body suddenly colder than normal. “He wanted to know what he should buy you for your birthday.”

Pike scrunched his brow and I rolled my eyes.

“Hopkins didn’t want anything with me.”

Pike gestured toward the hall. “You guys were talking for quite a while.”

I pinched my bottom lip, scanning Pike from tip to tail. He was gorgeous, there was no doubt about that. But, could I trust him?

The last time I trusted a good-looking man, he sucked away my blood and my soul. I had learned my lesson.

“It was nothing. He just had some basic questions.” I shrugged, still feeling uneasy.

I peered over Pike’s shoulder to see Felipe on the couch, head in his hands, index fingers pressed against his temples. Hopkins sat across from him, that stupid pen poised over his little leather notepad.

“No one would want to hurt my Reggie,” Felipe moaned. “He was such a gentle soul.”

“Why is Hopkins treating Reginald’s suicide like it was a murder?” I whispered.

Pike shrugged, his gaze following mine. “Maybe there is more to it than we saw.”

By the time Hopkins had grilled us all and the crime scene and cop brigade had left the building, my body was humming. I could still smell Pike in my apartment, his coconut scent just hanging in the air. But there was something else, too—and having spent enough time with it I couldn’t deny it: the stench of death was heavy in the air.

I leaned against my window, watching the taxicabs honking and tourists walking on the street below, watching people going about their everyday lives in the twilight. They moved in sort of an organized chaos, completely unaware that just a few hundred feet away a life had ended and another had changed completely.

I remembered the last breath of life as it seeped out of me. My body fought to hold tight to it and I felt like my insides were burning. But the handsome stranger—his arms—were tight around me and somehow I still felt safe, willing the life to drip out of me as I licked the droplets of blood on his neck. I needed them. The thirst was overwhelming. I was changing; I was becoming someone—something—else, and all around me life went on. My parents sat in the parlor; my siblings, fast asleep in their beds. And I was outside, dying, living, changing, becoming.

An immense sadness washed over me.

I flopped onto my couch and pressed my fingertips to my temples. I didn’t have a headache—it’s physiologically impossible for a vampire to have a headache—but I could almost swear it was on its way.

That’s why I jumped a foot and a half when the goddamn black bird that had taken up residence outside my front window started squawking like the disease-infested winged rodent that it was. I rolled last week’s copy of US Weekly into a narrow tube, flattened myself against the wall, then slammed the magazine against the glass, willing the stupid bird to exit once and for all. I didn’t have the nerve to look.

It’s not that I’m afraid of birds. Hello? I’m a vampire. I’m afraid of nothing! Except maybe sunlight, shoulder pads, and the very real idea that neon and side ponytails are coming back into fashion. But birds? No. They just disgust me. With their beady eyes and their mean, pointy beaks, and those wings. Disease is carried on those wings, I just know it. So the fact that this, this—monster—had the gall to pace my windowsill on a very regular basis, squawking and clawing and generally just making a nuisance of itself, bothered me to no end.

Seriously, I was considering renting a cat.

When a good minute—a silent, non–wing-beating or squawking minute—passed, I took a two-inch step forward and peered around the window molding, an indescribable relief washing over me when all I saw beyond the clear window glass were a few cabs inching along the street and a woman berating a parking meter.

My relieved sigh curdled into a scream as that stupid bird launched itself into my line of sight, squawking and flapping like a murderous maniac, the tips of its wings tapping the glass.

I was reeling backward, vaulting toward the couch when an insistent knock at my door terrified me five times more and I felt every muscle in my body instinctively stiffen. Though my fangs are always exposed, in times of true vampdom—i.e., when an artery needs ravaging or a bartender spills something on my Manolo Blahniks—the fangs extend an extra half-inch causing that frightening scowl you see plastered all over TV. My hackles were up and adrenaline pulsed through me; even my hair seemed to stand on electrified end. My every thought was savagery and a hiss of air sliced through my teeth as I snatched open the door.

I was met with pursed lips.

And a cocked eyebrow.

And an expression completely devoid of terror or shock.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“What? A guy can’t fly across country to see his favorite aunt?” My nephew was standing in the hallway, framed by chintzy yellow hallway light, grinning like I had just won the Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes. His fangs were small but pronounced, pinching against the edges of his upturned lips.

“I’m not your favorite aunt, I’m your only aunt.” I addressed him suspiciously and the smile fell from his face.

“So can I come in or not?”

In the Hollywood sea of vampires with horrible accents, satchels full of graveyard dirt, and the ability to turn into bats—there was one thing they had gotten right: a vampire can’t enter private premises without first being invited. Even if those premises were home to another vampire. I stood aside and opened my arms. “Vlad, you are welcome to come into my apartment.”

Vlad stepped over the threshold, arms crossed in front of his chest. Looming at just over six feet, he looked down at me with one of those noncommittal teenage expressions. A hint of mischief flickered in his dark eyes and I was instantly seized with joy and sadness. Vlad looked so much like his mother—my sister—that it warmed me. But the feeling almost immediately fled because I knew Sonia was dead, would never know that her son was thriving—though undead—or that his Aunt Nina was taking good care of him. She also would never know that Vlad headed up the West Coast division of VERM—the Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement—or dressed like a fashionably suicidal cross between Bela Lugosi and Count Chocula.

Maybe it was better that she stayed in the grave.

I jumped forward anyway, enveloping Vlad in a crisp hug. “I’m sorry. I am really happy to see you! But, really, what are you doing here?”

He stepped back in true teenage fashion as though someone would catch wind of the fact that he had shown a modicum of emotion. Vlad may be one hundred and twelve, but he was forever caught in the moody, brooding, obnoxious sentience of a sixteen year old.

And he never picked up his socks.

He threw an Army duffel onto my couch and grinned again. I could tell he just fed by the deep, ruddy pink of his lips.

“I came to visit you!”

Now I crossed my arms in front of my chest and cocked a brow. “What’d you do?”

A sweet innocence flooded over Vlad’s face. “What do you mean?”

I pulled my cell phone from my jeans pocket and poised a finger over the trackpad. “You know I have Sophie on speed dial.” In addition to being my roommate in San Francisco, Sophie is Vlad’s partial guardian by proxy, and my very best friend.

Vlad held up a silencing hand. “Okay, okay. So, there’s some talk that I may have had a tiny indiscretion with a fairy.”

“Fairies are awful!” Though Walt Disney painted them with big, kind eyes and pursed pink lips, anyone who’s met one will tell you that fairies—and pixies, too—are awful little buggers. Mean, sassy, stuck-up.

And some of them bite.

“So you came out here to escape your fairy lover?”

“Actually, I came out here to escape Kale. You think fairies are bad? Try a jilted teenage witch.” Vlad whipped off his coat, showing off a dark strip on his pale white arm. “This just happened. She made the sun rise in our damn apartment. That bitch could have killed me!”

I slung an arm over Vlad’s shoulder. “Oh, she’d never kill you. Just torture you a little. I like her. And I’m glad you’re here.”

Vlad tugged me close in an awkward hug. “Me, too. It’ll be nice to hang here for a bit. No romantic drama, no bodies dropping from the ceiling or crime scene tape.” He flopped down on the couch next to his duffel and I bit my lip, before perching next to him.

“So, it’s not totally drama-free around here.”

“Oh, right because of your little ‘fashion war’ with that guy and—what’s her name? Kenmore?”

“Emerson,” I corrected. “Reginald and Emerson. And the war is pretty much over.”

Vlad gave me an appraising smile. “You won?”

I wrinkled my nose. “Not exactly.”

He quirked a brow. “Someone drop out?”

“More like dropped dead.”

“Dropped on her own or . . .” Vlad waggled his eyebrows in the universal “don’t-make-me-say-it” style.

“What? Are you kidding me? I had nothing to do with it. It was right next door and it looked like suicide.”

“‘Looked like’ suicide?”

“It’s a long story.”

Vlad pulled a blood bag from his duffel, pierced it with a single fang, and started to suck. He emptied the thing and burped loudly before he addressed me. “So you made it look like suicide.”

I turned to look at Vlad full in the face. “Are you seriously asking me if I had anything to do with Reginald’s death? Because I follow the strictest UDA bylaws and even if I were to stray just the slightest”—I held my thumb and forefinger a smidge apart—“tiniest bit, frankly, it wouldn’t be Reginald Fairfield that I’d off. It’d be Emerson Hawk. That woman is vile.”

Vlad’s eyes flashed.

As if on cue, there was another insistent, thundering knock on my door. “You can stay,” I told Vlad as I went to answer it. “Peace and quiet, however,” I said as I snatched open the door. “Died about a week ago.”

Emerson was standing in the hallway, hip out, arms crossed, beady eyes even beadier though they were rimmed with coal and something hideously sparkly. She had actually brushed her hair and it was in a semi-attractive swoop pinned at the base of her skull, and her black gown had an asymmetrical hemline that was so completely last year it was laughable. But still, the dress was impeccably tailored and the ruched drop waist was understated and elegant, wondrously hiding Emerson’s usual Kentucky Fried Chicken and Yoo-hoo paunch. Nicolette was behind her, back toward me as she hunched, managing two beaded purses in one hand while she struggled to lock Emerson’s door.

“Hello, Emerson.”

Her eyes raked over me, her sour expression not changing. “Aren’t you ready yet? Or is that what you’re wearing?”

“What are you talking about? What am I wearing for what?”

Nicolette, having finally gotten the door locked, rushed to Emerson’s side and handed her a heavy ecru card. My stomach sunk as I recognized it.

“The cocktail reception.”

Emerson nodded.

“Someone just died. Are they actually still holding that? Only the completely heartless and macabre could think of going through with any of the competition activities right now.”

“Everything was already booked. They couldn’t cancel at the last minute and Mr. Forbes said that everything would go forward as planned. Except of course, with one less fashion show.”

“You talked to Mr. Forbes?”

Mr. Forbes was the head of the New York Design Institute and whether or not you knew your Vera from your Versace could be overlooked if Jason Forbes was on your side.

A sly grin rolled across her face. “We may have run into each other a time or two at this quaint little coffee bar I frequent.”

I was gritting my teeth so hard I imagined them starting to powder. “You’ve only been in New York a week.”

“Anyway, Jason”—she stressed the name—“thought that the best way to honor Reginald would be to continue on as planned. So, again, are you wearing that? As far as your designs go, it is one of your better ones.”

My nostrils flared and I felt myself shrink back in my fashion-fail skinny jeans, Ugg boots, and tank top.

“Is that your date?” Emerson poked a bony finger into my apartment, aiming at Vlad.

“Nephew.”

Nicolette’s head peeked over Emerson’s shoulder. I saw her cheeks redden when her eyes met Vlad’s.

“Christ,” I groaned. “I’ll see you at the reception.”

The door had barely slammed before Vlad was at my side, smiling and licking his lips. “Who’s the girl?”

“Emerson Hawk is hardly a girl. I don’t even know if she’s human.”

“No,” Vlad groaned. “The other one.”

“That’s Emerson’s sister and A, anyone with even an ounce of Emerson Hawk blood in her is completely and totally off limits to you and your undead little friend down there,” I said as my eyes skipped over his zipper, “and B, you’re on the run from one woman and you’re running out of safe houses. So keep it zipped. I have a party to get ready for.”

The reception for the Institute for Haute Couture was at a swanky restaurant in Chelsea with low lights, polished cement, and an open bar. It was stuffed to the gills with beautiful people in one-of-a-kind dresses, white-gloved waiters wielding untouched appetizer trays, and quite possibly every hair product in the tristate area. My town car let me out in front of the restaurant at the precise time as Emerson’s let her out and even though a grimace would totally throw off the incredible vibe of my gold-threaded vintage Versace, I couldn’t help it when I saw her.

Emerson strode past me, her beaded clutch almost taking me out as she did. Nicolette, hurrying behind as usual, shot me a small, apologetic smile before she yanked open the door for Emerson. They walked into the restaurant and melted into the crowd; I stepped in and there was an audible gasp.

Scanning the room, I could see why.

Aside from the waiters, the place was a morbid sea of black. Black dresses, black suits, black hair décor that masqueraded as vintage. My gold dress stood out like a shiny beacon and I smiled, accepting my glory while Emerson glowered in the crowd, her drink practically evaporating from the waves of heat that rolled off her.

The energy in the restaurant was low, most people not knowing whether they should mourn or celebrate. Half a drink in, Jason Forbes took a makeshift stage and made a touching—if quick—toast to Reginald’s life and career then a muted introduction of the contest, Emerson, and me. Directly afterward, the heavy appetizers—and the murmured gossip—started. I carried around a canapé and a glass of champagne and flitted from group to group, head cocked, lips in a serene yet friendly smile, ears open.

I heard that Reginald had offed himself because Felipe was going home to a mystery wife he had back in Brazil. I heard the suicide was due to a fashion line Reginald was hired for that nosedived, taking the entire company with it. I heard that it was drugs, alcohol, carbohydrates. But when I heard that Reginald hadn’t committed suicide at all, I stopped walking.

A model I knew as Bea was talking, her greasy-plate lips stained a weird glossy orange as she held court.

I edged my way in, gushed appropriately, and Bea pulled me into the conversation.

“My boyfriend,” she said, flapping enormous baby-girl lashes. “He is interested in so many things, so he volunteers at the city morgue.”

The woman next to me nudged me in the ribs with a bony elbow and mouthed the words “community service.”

Bea shot her a death glance and kept going. “Adam had to stand by and watch the coroner start the autography.”

“Autopsy,” I corrected, taking a burning swallow of champagne.

“Right. They started the preliminary thing and the coroner talks into a tape recorder. Adam heard him say that the . . . the,” Bea said, and made a motion around her neck. “The rings on Reginald’s neck were not conducted to a death by hanging.”

“They weren’t conducive to a hanging?”

Bea turned her enormous eyes on me and nodded. “You heard that, too?”

I had to physically control myself from rolling my eyes.

“Anyway,” Bea went on, “he said that it looked like Reginald was dead before he could hang himself.”

The other women in the circle shivered appropriately but I stepped forward. “How did he die, then?”

Bea’s tiny bird shoulders rose. “And did he hang himself before or after?”

I handed Bea my champagne glass and beat a hasty retreat—at least I tried to, before coming face to face with Emerson.

“Someone’s in a hurry,” she said, her eyes raking over me. “Need to rush off and rip a few seams?”

My one-track mind went from checking out Reginald’s not-suicide to wishing Emerson was the one swinging from the rafters.

I stopped there.

“Hey, Em,” I said, closing the distance between us—and thankful my gag reflex had disappeared along with my soul. “What were you doing this morning?”

She cocked an anemic eyebrow that let me know she suspected something. “I was with you.”

“Before that.”

She whipped away from me. “Why do you ask?”

I sized Emerson up. If Bea was right—and I couldn’t put much stock in that, as she was boobs over brains—and Reginald’s death wasn’t a suicide, could someone like Emerson be responsible?

I shrugged. “Just curious.”

Emerson crossed her arms in front of her chest—or attempted to, as her horrid interpretation of sleeves swallowed her up—and flared her nostrils. “Nicolette and I were working at the apartment.”

I narrowed my eyes, trying to determine if there was something in her voice, her stare that would indicate absolute guilt. I like to think my super-vampire sense would make me particularly good at reading a breather’s emotions, but no.

“Stop staring at me.”

“Ms. LaShay!” I felt an arm snake through mine before I heard Jason Forbes’s deep voice—but not before I saw Emerson’s face tighten, her eyes sharp as naked swords.

“I was hoping to catch you. I see you and Ms. Hawk are getting acquainted.”

I put on my most dazzling smile and nodded. “We certainly are.”

Jason pitched his head toward mine, his lips just brushing my ear. “I’d like to talk to you about one of your designs.”

I kept grinning, enjoying Emerson’s pallor.

It was at the precise moment that Jason put his hand on my arm that I saw Emerson lurch forward, in the most melodramatic fall I’d seen in lifetimes. I watched the deep, red zinfandel swish from her bowl glass, up, up, up and out, and then I felt the liquid seeping through my dress, dripping over my collarbone, droplets slipping down through my décolletage.

And then all hell broke loose.

I forgot that Jason Forbes was within wetting distance and screamed, “You bitch! You did that on purpose!”

A slick grin rushed across Emerson’s lips before her expression snapped into one of mock apology and horror. “Oh, dear, oh! I’m such a klutz. Please, do send me the dry-cleaning bill.”

People had started to circle now, looking sadly at my spoiled dress—few things moved fashionistas like wounded couture.

“If you were worth anything as a designer, you’d know that you don’t dry-clean hand-dyed, vintage Versace.”

Emerson cocked her head, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. “Are you sure that’s Versace? I think you may have been taken, sweetie. I did the full Versace catalog when I was there,” she said, her voice rising on Versace. “And I really don’t recall seeing that particular number in their annals.”

I’m usually known for keeping my cool. But tonight, my cool was wrapped around Emerson Hawk’s scraggly neck. Before I realized it we were in a full-on girl-fight, complete with hair pulling and feline scowls. Had my entire life and fashion career not been on the line, I would have gone full-on Lestat on her ass and left picking subpar designer out of my teeth.

“I swear to God I’m going to murder you!” I growled.

“With what?” Emerson wrinkled her nose. “Your polyester excuse for couture or one of your gag-worthy designs?”

“Ladies, ladies, ladies!”

I felt strong arms snaking around my waist and suddenly I was off the ground, being pulled backward. I craned my neck to see who my savior/new attackee was and harrumphed when I realized it was Pike. I had expected Jason, but found him standing a few feet away, grinning like someone was about to inflate the ring and fill it with mud. I was so flabbergasted and annoyed that I wasn’t even able to take the time to appreciate being wrapped in Pike’s arms, or how devastatingly handsome he looked in a slim-fitting deconstructed tuxedo, his hair half slicked, half I-just-rolled-out-of-bed sexy.

He yanked me a good ten feet from Emerson and her weapon of couture destruction but I could still see the sick smile on her face and my rage boiled again.

“Put me down!” I said between clenched teeth. “I’m going to rip her throat out. I don’t care if she’s your girlfriend.”

Pike dropped me with a thump. “My girlfriend?”

I waved at the air. “Ex, whatever. She ruined my dress. On purpose. She’s a snarky little snake in the grass.”

“Shh, shh, shh. Nina, relax. She is a—what did you call her? Snaky snark? She’s that, which is why you’re not going to let her get you tossed out of this competition.”

The anger in my gut was slowly, barely, starting to pull back. I glanced at Pike’s earnest expression and then back over my shoulder at Emerson, who was being led toward the back patio, leaning on some poor waiter as if she’d been actually wounded.

Three more minutes and she would have been.

The tone in the restaurant went from high piano notes and polite laughter to throaty “did you see those two go at it?” whispers and averted eyes.

Pike handed me a glass of soda water and a thick cloth napkin. I dabbed at my dress delicately, each wine-soaked dab stabbing at my patience a little more. I cut my eyes out toward the patio where someone was trying to engage Emerson in conversation, but she looked up, locked my gaze, and offered a slick, ugly smile.

“Game on, bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

“What was that?” Pike asked.

“Nothing.”

“So, why did you think Emerson was my girlfriend?”

I tossed down my now wine-soaked napkin, something like ruined-man resignation floating over me. “Because that’s what she told me.”

Pike kind of grinned and crossed his arms in front of his chest, the motion pushing aside the collar of his shirt just enough for me to see a smooth, tanned length of neck and collarbone. I could see the beginnings of a thick black tattoo and I had to clench my jaws—and my knees—to keep from examining it closer. “And did that make you mad?”

His eyes sparkled with the kind of mischief that shot adrenaline and hormones throughout my body—dead or not. I licked my lips and tossed a length of slick black hair over my shoulder. “Do you want it to make me mad?”

Pike shrugged, took a long pull on the beer I didn’t know he was holding. “Nah, I just didn’t want you to feel bad.”

I blinked my confusion. Was he just a terrible flirt . . . or really that dense?

His eyes dropped to my dress. “You should probably get out of that dress.”

Another zing pinballed throughout my body. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad flirt after all.

“There’s a dry cleaner about a block down. Ask for Mrs. Cho; she can get out anything.” Pike turned on his heel and left me standing, wet, confused, and annoyed in the center of the party.

I left shortly after, grumbling the whole cab ride home and doing that odd, legs apart, my-dress-is-soaked-and-chafing kind of walk. All I wanted was to pull on my cozy cashmere sweat suit (terry cloth is so passé) and sink my teeth into a still-warm blood bag. And that’s what I would have done, if that stupid blackbird—he was taunting me, I was sure of it—hadn’t been pacing on the front stoop.

I paused and glared down at the thing, waving my hands but keeping my distance. “Shooo! Shooo! You shouldn’t be walking anyway. Fly you little bastard!”

The thing paused, cocked its disease-infested head and spread its wings wide as if it understood me.

Nina LaShay: bird whisperer.

Then it snapped those wings against its little bird body and glared.

I chanced a swift kick and a sprint when a damp bugle bead started to dig into my flesh. I felt the flap of the blackbird’s wings and snapped the door shut on its protesting scowl.

“I warned you!” I screamed, pressing my face up against the glass in the door. The bird fluttered down to the stoop again, unharmed but, I thought, with a murderous look in its eye.

I was going to have to hire an exterminator.

The following morning I was hell-bent on restoring my reputation or, failing that, blowing everyone on the judging panel away with my incredible designs. Which was why I was at the Fashion Institute when most breathers were pulling their pillows over their heads or indulging in their last half hour of REM sleep. Though New York was truly a city that never slept, it did seem to take the occasional doze—apparently between four-thirty and five A.M.—because it was decidedly, delectably calm right up until I keyed the passcode at the Institute. I was halfway through the four-digit super-secret code when the front door slammed open and I went chest to chest—then butt to cement with—

“Pike?”

He was still dressed in his cocktail-hour deconstructed tuxedo but this morning’s look was for more deconstructed than it was tuxedo. His carefully disheveled hair was actually disheveled and he sported a spray of dark stubble over his upper lip and chin. He brushed a hand over the would-be beard when he glanced down at me, his eyes wild and disturbingly alive.

“Oh, Nina, my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” It came out as one long string and I avoided the hand he offered, suddenly strangely suspicious. He may have once (yesterday) been my gorgeous future soul mate, but he was tainted by fashion thief Emerson, and was now running out of a building where my designs were supposed to be safe.

I pushed myself to standing, feeling my eyes narrow as I scrutinized him, and saw the barely imperceptible way his head reared back from my examination. There were no telltale bulges where he might have hidden my patterns or design notes—and I looked carefully, examining every bulge.

We vampires like to be incredibly thorough. I like to be incredibly thorough.

I smelled beer on Pike’s morning-after breath and his whole countenance was agitated, guarded.

“Are you high?” I asked, my arms crossing in front of my chest.

Pike actually stopped and seemed to settle, his pale lips quirking upward. “High? May have had a few beers to wash down my Wheaties but nothing more. What are you doing here?”

“I have a show to prepare for. And a passcode. How did you get in here? Why did you get in here?”

Pike’s sudden coolness ticked all the way through him and he patted the black camera bag that crossed his chest. “Working. I was here working.”

My eyes raked over his attire and I cocked out a hip. “You were up all night shooting designs for designers who were fast asleep in their own homes? Or, you know,” I said and licked my lips, trying to conjure up the best word. “Dead?”

Pike was unfazed. He actually looked cooler than before as he eyed me. “And I’m supposed to believe you were one of those fast asleep at home?”

Truth was, I’d spent my evening starring as Roxie Hart in an off-Broadway production of Chicago. Well, not so much an off-Broadway production as a karaoke bar with beer-stained carpet, but this grungy photog didn’t need to know that.

I just raised my eyebrows until Pike rolled his eyes. “I don’t only work for the Institute, you know.”

He brushed past me as though that were all the explanation I needed and even though his pain-in-the-ass quotient went up to about a thousand, I couldn’t help but sneak a peek and notice that his regular ass quotient still hovered somewhere between perfection and breathtaking. I watched him hail a cab with lightning speed, the yellow thing disappearing down the street.

I rode the crotchety old elevator (what is it with breathers and their need for all things retro?) up to the design studio and felt little butterfly flaps of anxiety in my belly. I have dreamed of having my own little studio since the early 1900s—you should have seen Coco’s little place in Paris!—and now, because of this design opportunity, I had it.

Well, almost.

One of the enormous benefits of this competition was that both Emerson and I were awarded top-notch design studios— outfitted with the latest and greatest of everything—in which to baste, steam, slice, and create the designs for each of our competing lines.

The enormous matching drawback was that each of these incredible studios shared floor space with each other. I had a bank of floor-to-ceiling cabinets and hanging closets at the front end of the room; Emerson had an identical setup on her side. We each had huge drafting and cutting tables, dual sewing machines, maiden forms, and steamers. As designers, all we needed to bring were our designs, our fabric bolts, and our personal tools. Where I traveled with a lucky pair of scissors, a seam ripper called Marie Antoinette, and a pincushion in the shape of a mushroom, I was fairly sure that Emerson only packed a tape recorder and a notebook titled “Designs I Stole.”

But it was nice this morning as the sun started to break through the heavy gray fog and the entire studio was peaceful, quiet, and Emerson-free.

I went to work outlining a new design and when the spark of inspiration slipped from the page and pointed at my rack of newly designed dresses, I couldn’t help but snatch one from the rack and grab my lucky scissors.

Only, they weren’t there.

I tore apart my pink-rhinestoned tool kit and then went to work opening every drawer and yanking open every closet. Finally, I dropped to my knees in a desperate hope that my lucky pair had slipped from their holster. I patted and searched until my knees felt knobby and raw—and I was facing Emerson’s side of the room.

I felt my hackles go up, a hot stripe of rage going from the base of my head to the end of my spine.

She did it.

Emerson Hawk stole my lucky shears.

I heard the electric lock tumbling downstairs, the ping! and rush of elevators coming to life as the people started to make their way into the building.

There wasn’t much time.

I sprinted the fifty feet across the room and grabbed at Emerson’s drawers, tearing through them like a burglar with a serious mission. In the back of my head I heard the footsteps and early-morning chatter as students and designers closed in on our room and when I grabbed the handle of Emerson’s closet door—the one marked “personal”—I was in such a fury that I didn’t care as the voices closed in.

I should have.

It all happened in one elongated second—my hand closing on the knob; the voices of the contest director and models breaking over the threshold. Me pulling the closet door open. Emerson line-driving me from the darkness.

“What the—?”

“Oh, my God!”

“Are they fighting again?”

Though Emerson jumped out of her closet and pummeled me—then lay there like a dead weight—she was no match for my strength so I quickly rolled her off me, but in that millisecond my nostrils twitched and my mouth started to water. It wasn’t her usual noxious scent. It was something very, very different.

Heavy. Metallic.

Blood.

I felt my mouth drop open and my eyes bulge when I stared at my blood-covered hands, at the smear across my blouse.

And then I looked at Emerson.

“Oh, my—” I started to kick away, felt the inane need to put distance between me and her.

“What’s wrong with her?” one of the models asked.

“Is she okay?” Jason Forbes rushed toward me and Emerson. “Are you okay? What happened? If you ladies can’t—” Jason paused, looked down at Emerson, and then crouched slowly. A chalky white washed over his face. He glanced at me and I knew exactly what the hard look in his eyes meant: Emerson Hawk was dead. When I crawled over to see for myself, I wished I was, too.

Sticking out of Emerson’s concave chest were my lucky scissors. And it didn’t take an X-ray to figure out that their sharp double-blades were wedged firmly and deeply into her silent heart.

From the moment Emerson’s lifeless body hit mine to the second she was being zipped into a slick black coroner’s bag could have been five minutes or five hours. The studio was a buzz of muffled conversations and accusatory glances. I wanted nothing more than to crawl back to the cool, dark cave of an apartment and sort out what had just happened—and what it meant. I was ready to dash when a fat, round detective sidled up to me, flipping open his little leather notebook and breathing at me with his coffee breath. I had expected Officer Hopkins, but the gentleman before me was built like a fireplug and wearing his ill-fitting cotton-poly off-the-rack suit like it was an Armani.

“I’m aware of the previous case but I’m not at liberty to talk about it.” He shifted his eyes as though everyone were about to pounce in an attempt to overhear us.

“It just seems odd that they’d send a detective out for this case but not Reginald’s.”

“You are Nina LaShay, right?” the detective said, completely ignoring my question.

I nodded silently, my arms wrapped around my chest, gripping my elbows.

“I’m Detective Moyer. You were the last to see the decedent alive, were you not?”

“Well—no, not that I know of.” An image of Pike rushing out looking disheveled and nervous flashed through my mind, the image flitting so quickly I didn’t have time to dwell on it. “I saw her last night and then,” I gestured to the closet door, still gaping open, its emptiness a quiet screech that Emerson Hawk was dead.

“Then you found her this morning.”

“She . . . kind of . . . found me.”

“Were you and the decedent friends, Ms. LaShay?”

I wanted to focus on answering the detective’s questions, but every time he asked me anything, he smacked his lips in a weird kind of final gesture and it was turning my stomach. “I wouldn’t say we were friends, exactly. We were colleagues. And competitors.”

If I hadn’t been staring at Moyer’s fat, pale lips making that stupid smacking sound, I would have thought better of telling this man—who was tapping the end of his pen, looking thoughtfully at me—that I might have had motive to kill Emerson. I thought of Hopkins and his accusatory stare and then longed for it as Moyer’s eyebrows went up. He poised the pen over his notepad as though he were about to take down some frantic confession, and any inch of confidence I was harboring wilted.

“Isn’t it true that you two got into some kind of argument last night?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it an argument. Just a little disagreement. Emerson spilled a little wine on my dress, that’s all.” And by a “little wine” I meant half a bottle and by “on my dress” I meant soaked clean through until I had a faint purplish hue when I finally stripped the soaked garment off. I shrugged and tried to smile. “Crowded party and . . . accidents happen.”

Accident my slightly purple ass.

Moyer cocked his head. He was a one hundred percent cardboard cutout of every other detective my San Francisco roommate DVR’d each week, right down to his bulbous red nose and the aforementioned “isn’t it true.”

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence as though Moyer expected me to say more.

“And, that’s it,” I said.

Moyer cocked a single caterpillar eyebrow and shot me one of those “prove it to me” expressions. The kind of expression that is so disconcerting it encourages perfectly innocent and well-read people to start babbling like psychopathic idiots. I was a solid four minutes into my soliloquy that contained a good selection of incriminating myself and backpedaling when my voice was drowned out by the ridiculously loud squawking of a black bird pacing the ledge of the open window.

My God, New York was infested.

Though I pathologically hate birds—not fear, hate—as I mentioned before, I could have run up and kissed this one on its filth-infested birdie beak for creating just the distraction that allowed me a millisecond to give myself a mental head-slap and take the vampire equivalent of a deep, calming breath.

My mouth fell open again at the precise time the bird’s beak cracked wide, as though the foul thing was watching me.

“Someone shoo that bird away,” Detective Moyer said, clearly annoyed.

One of the pup cops used his hat to bat at the screen and the black bird did a patronizing flap of its enormous wings, circling about six inches from the ledge, still squawking like a maniac.

Moyer blew out a disgusted sigh and raked a fat hand over his round face. “We’ll need to have you come down to the station to answer some questions,” he said finally. “Now.”

I swallowed and glanced out the window, the sun catching the heavy leaded glass. Just the glare stung my bare shoulders and I inched away. “Can we finish the interview downstairs? Or in a non–bird-infested room? I just would like to not be here.”

Moyer looked around, his eyes landing on the pattern spread on my table, edged by a heap of fabric scraps.

“What’s all this about? You one of the, er, sewing students?”

I felt myself stiffen even though I knew it was not the time to throw my weight(lessness) around. “I’m a designer, actually. This”—I gestured to the tables, the dresses, the patterns—“is a contest. A competition.” I swallowed, thinking of the swish-swish sound Reginald’s shoes made as they scraped across the dining table, thinking of Emerson’s sightless eyes, the slack in her jaw as it stayed open, forever frozen in surprise.

Moyer eyed the fabric swatches and then eyed me, skepticism written all over his face. “Like a TV thing?”

I was about to correct him, but instead bet on the draw-to-Hollywood that most breathers in this anyone-can-be-a-star decade seemed to have. “Yeah.”

I pumped my head, growing more excited and happy that the majority of my never-lie-to-a-cop morals disappeared when my soul did. “Reality TV.”

Detective Moyer’s spider-veined cheeks reddened and pushed up into a smile. “Is that model going to be here?” He looked around as though we were storing her in a closet or a drawer. “The blonde one? The host? She’s from Sweden or Switzerland. Saskatchewan or something.”

“Uh, yeah, absolutely,” I said.

If necessary, I’m sure I could scare up a Saskatchewan model somewhere, right?

Moyer straightened his tie and yanked his pants up over his enormous keg of a belly, his eyes scanning the studio as if he had simply overlooked an enormous camera crew.

“Are you miked?” he asked in a gruff, low murmur.

“Miked?”

He raised his bushy eyebrows and I was amused and horrified that this man of the law would be so into grabbing his fifteen minutes that he would use a homicide to get there. And to get a piece of prime Saskatchewan model ass, apparently.

“No,” I said, leaning in. “This isn’t part of the show.”

I watched Moyer’s Adam’s apple bob as he considered. “I’ll meet you down in the lobby.”

My feet hadn’t so much as touched the lobby’s deco marbled floor when Pike met me at the elevator.

“What are you doing back here?” I wanted to know. “Coming back to make sure the job is done?”

Pike’s eyebrows went up and I tried my best to gauge everything about him—his body heat, the thunder of his heart—but he stayed completely still and relaxed.

It’s too bad the good-looking ones are always sociopaths.

“What are you—?”

I poked his chest with my index finger. “I know what you did.”

“You know that I got shit-faced drunk and slept in the stairwell because I lost my keys?”

“Lost your keys?”

Pike looked sheepish. “They were in my pants.”

I glanced down and realized that Pike was wearing a pair of ill-fitting pants instead of the slim pair that went with his suit. Perhaps earlier, I was too busy looking for bulges instead of the poorly stiched seams and unnatural fabrics to notice the change. But I still wasn’t convinced.

“So you lost your pants and your keys.”

Pike nodded then held my gaze, his eyes meltingly delicious and for the briefest of moments I considered what life with a serial killer might be like.

I shook myself from my revelry. “That’s a convenient story.”

The other elevator plinged! and Detective Moyer stepped out with another officer who was carrying two steaming cups of coffee. Moyer nodded to Pike, who raised his own paper coffee cup to the man.

I narrowed my eyes. “You know Detective Moyer?”

Pike’s eyes cut to me as the steam wisped from around his deep brown eyes. “Didn’t I tell you I work for a lot of people? Sometimes even the NYPD.”

“Right.” I felt myself grimace. “Crime scene photographer.”

I glanced back at where Moyer and the pup cop were setting themselves up, then back at Pike.

“Well you’d better stay around. They want to know who saw Emerson last.”

“And why do you think that was me?”

I narrowed my eyes and Pike narrowed his right back at me and stepped a little closer, his nose—his lips—barely inches from mine.

“Are you accusing me of something, Ms. LaShay?”

“Ms. LaShay?” It was Moyer’s deep voice and he was looking over his shoulder at me now, those heavy brows raised expectantly.

I poked Pike in the chest. “We’re not done.”

And though there is no reason in this realm or the other that it should have, the second we touched, a spark shot through me like delicious wildfire. I pulled my finger back as though it burned but it was too late; Pike’s eyes were low and hooded, and the half-inch of smile on his pursed lips let me know that he felt it, too.

Moyer asked me a rather routine, CSI-type series of questions that I answered with the practiced unease of someone who had seen her first dead body. No one needed to know that back home in San Francisco, my every day was spent with the dead. New York may be the city that never sleeps, but San Francisco was the city that never dies.

“Well,” Moyer said, his pale eyes scanning his notebook as his meat hook of a hand started to close it. “I think that’s pretty much all we need.”

I stood up, but Moyer stopped me. “Oh, Ms. LaShay, just one more thing. Did you recognize the scissors that were used to kill Ms. Hawk?”

My whole body stiffened and if my heart still beat, I knew it would be up in my throat, clanging like a fire bell. I swallowed slowly. “They were mine.”

The buzz and hum of the active lobby was suddenly plunged into a deep, uncomfortable silence as though everyone—from the half-conscious security guard to the honking cabbies right outside the door—had heard me.

“Yours?”

I wanted to lie, to shrug it off, but those scissors would be dislodged from Emerson’s chest eventually, and when they were, they would see my name engraved right across the blade.

“Ms. LaShay, I’m going to have to ask that you don’t leave town until we have this all sorted out. You’re free to contact your lawyer.”

“My lawyer?” I felt myself blanch. “Am I—am I suspected of something?”

Moyer didn’t answer me but his expression told me that his answer was nothing that I wanted to hear.

A cold stripe of fear shot down my spine and my whole body rang electric. I may have fangs, I may have walked this earth for centuries, but right now, I was in deep, deep trouble.

I handed the cabbie several crumpled bills and pushed my way into the apartment vestibule, sinking my key into the lock. It had only been a day, but I already couldn’t remember not feeling like my body was covered with the stench of death (and not the good kind), or when I didn’t want to slink out of my clothes, burn them—which is high holy treason with a wardrobe like mine—or slip away to parts unknown. I pulled out my cell again and hit speed dial again.

“Underworld Detection Agency, San Francisco. This is Kale. How may I direct your call?”

“Hey, Kale, it’s Nina. Can you put me through to legal?”

“Nina!” Kale’s voice brightened, then dropped to a low whisper. “Can you do me a favor and tell Vlad something?”

I swallowed. “Who told you he was here?”

“You just did.”

Before I could respond—or backpedal—Kale had put me through to legal where my “call was very important to them and would be answered in the order it was received.” I drummed my fingers on my purse while listening to an instrumental version of “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You” and told myself that I would deal with Kale’s Easter egg hunt later.

I was still on hold when I made it to the fourth floor, a perky UDA employee breaking in between during “A Groovy Kind of Love” to ask me if I knew I could file most basic UDA legal documents online. I clicked my phone off, depressed at my lack of a solution and dearly missing the good, old-fashioned slam of a receiver on its base.

Sliding an icon wasn’t very satisfying.

I was standing in front of Reginald’s door now, one piddling strip of crime-scene tape strung across the jamb, the door sealed with a flashy red sticker warning that no one other than the police, an inspector, or the coroner was permitted entry.

“Or the resident vampire,” I muttered under my breath before taking my fresh manicure to the thing.

Once the sticker was slit, I was surprised to find the door unlocked. I slipped into the apartment and winced, getting another sickly sweet hit of that new-dead smell.

I crossed the living room and cracked the kitchen window, letting the musty scent of New York summer seep in, letting the throb and bustle of the city pierce the silence.

“All right, Reginald, show me something that will help me.”

But there was nothing overtly cluelike in the apartment. The furniture, modern and standoffish, was pristine, not even bearing a telltale crease where some murderer may have taken respite after his job was done. There was nothing—except . . .

I climbed up onto the dining table, careful to skirt the dark smudges where Reginald’s shoes had scraped, and rolled up onto my tiptoes. There, on the top of one of the exposed beams, was a forgotten scrap of fabric—Emerson’s fabric. The fabric that Reginald’s murderer had tightened around Reginald’s neck until he had stopped breathing. I shuddered, pulled my barrette from my hair, and used it as a sort of makeshift, evidence-sustaining pair of tweezers and grabbed the swatch.

Other than the raggedy ends where the fabric had ripped, there was nothing significant or incriminating about it. The strip was about two inches wide, followed the print of the fabric, but was cut against the grain. No name plates, no fingerprints, no “if found please return to.” I held it up to my nose, whiffing the slightest scent of tuberose and freesia locked into the stitch. Apparently it hadn’t been in Emerson’s apartment long enough to adopt her scent.

There was nothing and I was annoyed, but I shoved the scrap in my pocket anyway, jumping off the table and closing Reginald’s door behind me.

What a waste.

I was only able to grumble for a millisecond; a feeling of stiff unease washed down the skinny hallway and my hackles went up. I spun, staring down Emerson’s closed door.

My nostril flicked.

Emerson’s patchouli smell still hung light on the air, but there was something else now, too, something that wasn’t there earlier.

And then there was the slightest, softest sound.

A footstep.

Someone, doing their best to step lightly, to carefully avoid the creaking floorboards. A drawer slid open. Someone rifling.

I slowly wrapped my palm around Emerson’s doorknob and was met with a lock. I bit my bottom lip, considering.

Then I slid a bobby pin out of my extensive updo (which was quickly falling due to my surprisingly helpful multiuse of barrettes and pins) and quietly stuck it into the lock. A single jiggle and the lock popped, the door popping open a millimeter. I pushed it open a tiny bit more and sucked in my stomach—a human habit that hadn’t yet died—peering into the apartment.

It was quiet, and the heaps of clothing and crap all around could have signaled that Emerson’s place had just been ransacked, or that Emerson employed the same kind of housekeeping style my roommate did back at home: slob chic.

I slid through the doorway, head cocked, still listening. Whoever was inside paused, because suddenly the room went uncomfortably still.

But the scent was still there.

I scanned the room, my footfalls silent even on the squeaky floorboard (we vamps have no discernible weight) and stopped short when I saw Emerson’s sketchbook laid out on the glass-topped kitchen table. It was open to a black-draped design that was a mirror image of something I had been working on and everything in me started to boil.

Which was probably why I didn’t hear him.

He clamped one leather-gloved hand around my waist and another around my mouth and dragged me backward. I tried to dig my heels into the heavy carpet to slow him down but my weightlessness worked against me and it was an easy slide. I tried kicking and punching, but with my assailant behind me, firmly clasping me against his chest, it was futile.

“Let me go,” I growled against the man’s hand, feeling the angle on my fangs sharpening.

He responded by tightening his grip and I opened my mouth, sinking my teeth into his palm.

He howled and pulled away from me; I lurched for the vase on the counter, swinging it hard. Water and roses shot out in a clear arc and the heavy leaded crystal made a pleasing, smacking sound when it caught my attacker square in the jaw. I thought it would stop him but the shot only angered him and his hands were on me, grabbing fistfuls of shirt. I was off my feet and face to face with eyes that spit white-hot anger.

A voice echoing in the hallway startled us both and I was tossed to the side, landing in a crumbled heap in a pile of discarded muslin sketch paper. My assailant cast one backward glance at me, cracked open the living room window, and disappeared onto the fire escape.

I sat up like a shot—vampire pride wounded, the strap on my Jimmy Choo busted, and pulsing with rage. I vaulted toward the window and followed the black-clad man out onto the fire escape for exactly forty-five seconds. He shot an upward glance at me as he climbed down the escape ladders. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open just the tiniest bit and I knew he saw the smoke, the little burst of fire as it pierced my skin and singed my hair. I edged back as far from the single flicker of fire bringing sunlight that I could, patting my shoulder and trying to put out the flame. I slapped it out. It smoldered, smoked, and seemed to die, only to pop once again like a cobra dancing out of its basket.

“Son of a bitch!”

My entire body was rigid and the tension pulsed through me like an electric shock as Pike lunged out the window for me and dragged me inside. He pressed a dishtowel against my shoulder, holding and waiting until the flame died out. He folded up the blackened towel and tossed it on the table.

“What happened?” Pike asked me. “What are you doing here?”

I figured if I drew his attention away from my little Sterno moment, he might forget about it. “What the hell are you doing here? I live here.”

He pointed. “You live there. This is Emerson’s place and you were on fire.”

I harrumphed. “I was on fire? You were seeing things, dude. I was just smoking.”

Pike cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.

“I know. It’s a foul habit. I’m trying to quit. Got one of those patch things, and some of that gum . . .” I was rambling.

“So you decided to come over to Emerson’s house to indulge in this foul habit?”

I offered him my “duh, isn’t it obvious?” shrug. “What are you doing here?”

Pike took a step toward me. “I was actually heading over to your place to check in on you.” A tiny blush shot over his cheeks. “I don’t have your number.”

“Then how’d you end up here?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “You left Emerson’s door open. And after I saw that Reginald’s place had been opened, I thought I’d see what was going on.”

He looked earnest enough but a girl doesn’t walk the earth for centuries and (continue) to be fooled by a pair of gorgeous eyes and well-tanned swimmer’s shoulders that slouched pitifully.

“How do I know you weren’t coming to my place to kill me?”

Pike took another step and I backed up against the window, instinctually. I felt the singe on my back but I needed to put as much distance between him and me as possible.

He cocked a grin that would have been heartwarming, had he not been a psychopath. “Why would I kill you?”

“Because I saw you this morning. Drunk or not, you were leaving the scene of a crime. If I tell the cops . . .”

Still grinning. “Having another cigarette?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re smoking again.”

I felt my brow furrow and put my hands on my hips, feeling indignant. “I’m smoking? I’m not smoking anything, Pike. I saw you well and fine.”

“No,” he said, striding toward me, pointing. “You’re actually smoking.”

I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see a plume of gray-black smoke rise up from my shoulder blade and the cotton strap of my tank top engulfed by a tiny flame.

“Son of a bitch!”

Pike had me in his arms in a split second and was wrapping me in one of Emerson’s discarded muslin swatches. He spun me as he wrapped and before I knew it, I was fairly well mummified.

“Thanks. I think it’s out.” I tried to wiggle my arms but they were clamped to my sides. “A little help?”

Pike pulled a chair out from Emerson’s drafting table and plopped himself down. He kicked up his feet and crossed his own arms in front of his chest. “No.”

“No?”

He wagged his head. “No. I’m not going to help you get out of that until you answer some questions for me.”

I tried to take a step, but my legs were clamped too. I considered a Hulk-like show of vampire prowess, but then I’d have some explaining to do.

“What kind of girl catches on fire and doesn’t know it?”

I bit down hard, feeling the edge of my fangs slicing into my gums.

Looks like I would have some explaining to do, after all.

“Why do you care?” I asked, chin hitched.

“Because I just walked in on a woman snooping around a dead woman’s place, and said woman—the first one—caught on fire.”

I tried to shrug nonchalantly. “So?”

“So there is no fire around. And I had to tell you that you were on fire. Who does that?”

“Spontaneous combustion happens, Pike. Look it up on Wikipedia.”

He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Can you help me sit down at least?”

I started to take a series of minuscule steps while Pike pulled a chair out for me. He put his large hands over my shoulder and that same spark shot through me, making every hair on my swaddled arms stand on end. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

“Get off me,” I said, maneuvering myself into the chair. I sat down hard, feeling Emerson’s cheap chair selection ringing up my tailbone. “This is rather uncomfortable.”

Pike sat across from me and narrowed his eyes into what I figured he supposed was an intimidating glare. I rubbed the tip of my tongue over one fang and felt my stomach growl when my eyes fell to the thick vein in his neck, pumping fresh blood.

“I’m here.” I tried to shrug. “What the hell do you want to ask me?”

Now Pike leaned back and kicked one ankle over his knee. I told myself that the constant salivation was a result of skipping my breakfast pouch and had nothing to do with the way his jeans rode up at the thighs or the way he pursed his red, full lips.

I bit mine.

“Apart from this whole thing,” he said, gesturing to the apartment. “How do you know Emerson?”

I rolled my eyes. Why were the pretty ones always so dumb?

“We’re both fashion designers. We meet up at events and she’s a two-faced design stealer.” Pike’s eyebrows rose and I hurriedly tacked on, “God rest her soul.”

“So you and she weren’t friends?”

“What gave you that impression, Colombo?”

Pike blew out a sigh. “So before you,” he cleared his throat, “caught fire, what were you doing here? Stealing?”

“Stealing my own designs? Hardly. I was looking for clues.”

“Clues?”

I was getting frustrated and the muslin was starting to chafe. “About who killed Emerson!”

“If you hated her, why would you care?”

“Because I’m a good fucking person, okay?” I stopped trying to hide my annoyance, and that seemed to make Pike crack a self-appreciative grin. “I’m not so sure about that. Good fucking people don’t burst into flames.”

“Look it up!” I snapped.

Pike popped out of his chair. “Can I take a picture of you?”

“So you can sell it to some bondage website? Hell no.”

“Okay, I’ll cut you free.” He produced a pocketknife and flicked it open. He didn’t look menacing nor did he brandish the weapon in any way other than to show me he had it, but my hackles went up.

This guy wanted something.

“What do you want?” I asked, suspicion shading my voice.

Pike leaned toward me and gingerly edged the tip of the knife into a piece of muslin, directly between my breasts. “Nothing, Nina. Just a nice, normal, honest-to-goodness photo of you.”

I glanced down at the tip of the blade resting an inch from my chest. He could plunge the thing in with all his might and nothing would happen. I’d keep (not) breathing, blinking, and looking very much alive.

But the blood-free wound would be a little bit more difficult to explain than my completely plausible spontaneous combustion explanation.

“What are you?” Pike asked, his voice slow, his eyes wickedly alive with something that looked only vaguely human.

“A San Franciscan,” I tried.

The blade came a hair closer, and I heard the distinctive sound of muslin starting to split. “What. Are. You.” Every word was its own sentence, each punctuated by Pike’s wild eyes.

I considered letting him stab me, then breaking out of my mummy costume and ripping his idiot throat out. But UDA law strictly forbade that kind of thing, even if your local breather was a nosy asshat.

Or so fiercely handsome that this completely unfortunate situation left a fire between my legs while I tried to lean into his blade. There was something sexy, something so undeniably hot about Pike’s hard-set eyes, about the danger of that slick blade resting between my breasts.

I locked Pike’s eyes, hoping my coal-black ones were as hard or as deep as his. I ran my tongue over my teeth and my mouth dropped open as Pike leaned into me. I could hear his heartbeat speed up. I could hear the blood as it pulsed through his veins. Could feel the hot moisture from his lips as he breathed.

“I—”

“Apartment sixty-one A, right here on the right.” It was the landlord, his voice a combination of asthma and Jersey—and he wasn’t alone. Another voice—low, gruff.

“Detective Moyer,” I whispered to Pike.

His face paled when the doorknob rattled and before I knew it, I was staring at Emerson’s ugly carpet while Pike carried me over his shoulder and shoved me—and then himself—into the bedroom closet.

“What the hell are you—” I started to hiss but he stopped me with a scathing look and a finger pressed to his lips as we heard the landlord, the detective, and, I figured, one or two of the pup cops, filing into Emerson’s living room.

“Shut up or they’re hauling us both off to jail,” Pike said with a low hiss.

There was something about his sudden slip into alpha male that was sexy and, growing slightly more comfortable in my muslin shackles, I leaned back into Emerson’s patchouli-scented clothes until my shoulder blades went flush with the back wall. Pike ducked and joined me in the black depths of the closet, our bodies hidden by the shapeless black clothing. I would have commented on the horror of it, but Pike had to press up against me to stay hidden. His back was to the door, his front pressed against mine, his outstretched arms essentially caging me in.

Something inside me started to flutter.

Something inside him started to harden.

“I guess we know what turns you on,” I said slyly.

Pike rolled his eyes, edged over, and fished his knife from his pocket. I hoped he couldn’t see my face fall in the darkness and went back to my pissed-off girl expression. “How are we supposed to—”

But Pike clapped a hand over my mouth and pressed himself against me yet again. I trained my eyes to focus on the ceiling, suddenly glad my arms were bound to my sides because they were aching to wrap around him even as I tried to ignore how perfectly our bodies seemed to fit together.

“Looks clear in here, boss,” one of the pup cops was saying. I could hear him turning fabric swatches in his hands, then I chanced a glance at Pike. His eyes were hard and round, drawing me in, his lips a half-inch from mine. I watched him purse them into a small pucker and for a fleeting second I weighed the idea of mauling this man right here in a dead girl’s apartment. It seemed like the wrong thing to do, but I found myself pulling toward him, a stripe of desire running like razor wire down my spine.

“Gibbs,” Moyer barked, “this way.”

When Pike pressed a single finger against his puckered lips, I thought my innards would explode—with embarrassment, rage, or unquenched desire, I couldn’t be sure—but held myself statue-still when I heard the closet door open, a yellow orb of light penetrating the closet’s darkness.

Through a drooping lapel and a circa 1982 butterflied collar I could see Detective Moyer’s bloodshot eyes, his meat-hook hand directing the flashlight over Emerson’s clothes. Pike held his breath but his heart kept thumping against my chest.

“I don’t know,” Detective Morris said to the clothes. “I’m not convinced it’s the same guy.”

“MO was the same. Woman, twenty-three to twenty-seven, killed in her workplace with a weapon of opportunity. I’d say that’s our guy.” I could see Gibbs behind the detective, shrugging, just before Moyer closed the door on us.

“That guy’s a serial, and this Hawk girl isn’t his type.”

“So what do you think?”

I heard Moyer suck on his teeth. “You know what? I like that LaShay girl for this one.”

Pike looked down at me, and my eyes widened.

“The one with the black hair who found her? She’s a tiny little thing. She may have done in the second one, but you think she could have gotten Fairfield, too? She couldn’t have gotten him up there,” Gibbs said.

“She could have a partner. I don’t know; maybe this competition was that important to her. Important enough to kill. It’s supposed to be on TV, you know. That could have stressed her to the point of popping off her competitors. Between you and me, she seems a few slices short of a grilled cheese.”

I bristled while Pike clapped a hand over his mouth, stifling a laugh. I glared at him, hoping to convey serial murderer seriousness, but he kept looking over my head.

Finally, I felt him let out a slow, shallow breath, as we heard the men move away from the closet.

“Yeah, a partner maybe,” the cop continued. “When are we interviewing the sister? She lives here, too, right?”

“She was hysterical. Guess the two were real close.”

I felt my brow furrow and Pike blinked at me. I shook my head and mouthed the word “no” as I had had the supreme displeasure of running into Emerson numerous times, but Nicolette only showed up this once.

“Medics took her to City General. Hilburn went with her, but I don’t think the girl has said anything yet.”

Pike started breathing again as Moyer and Gibbs left the bedroom, their footsteps getting lighter as they walked toward the door. I felt my shoulders slump and for the first time noticed sweat beading along my hairline. We started to loosen ourselves from each other but stopped when we heard Gibbs addressing the unknown cop in the living room.

“What do you think of the designer? The one who found her?”

“I don’t know,” the cop said slowly. “I’m not really into fashion.”

“As our murderer,” Moyer retorted, exasperation evident. “You saw the shears, right?”

“Heard about the engraving. And she certainly had motive.”

Pike looked down at me, his expression a combination of interest and suspicion. I did my best to meet his gaze with a menacing glare.

“She’s number one on the suspect list,” Moyer said.

“How do we feel about the photographer? I heard he and the vic used to date.”

Even in the darkness, I could see the blush washing over Pike’s face, could see the fear in his eyes.

“I can’t see why he’d do Fairfield in,” Moyer said.

“Maybe he offed the competition for his lady friend. She didn’t appreciate it so he whacked her, too.”

We heard Moyer cluck his tongue and then chuckle. “Interesting theory. Remind me to make you my deputy.”

Once the door clicked shut and the lock tumbled, Pike produced his pocket knife/rock-hard member again, silently slicing me out of the muslin. I left it in a heap in the depths of the closet, stepping over Emerson’s collection of thick-soled sensible shoes.

“So, you don’t know when you’re on fire and you’re a murder suspect.”

I put my hands on my hips, the heat that was roiling in my panties moving to an angry flame in my gut. “So are you.”

“Yeah, but I’m not guilty.”

“Neither am I.”

Pike took me in from head to toe, his eyes so sharp and hard it made my own body go on high alert. Finally he turned, leaving me behind as he went for the living room. “I’m not sure I believe you,” he said.

“Well, I’m not sure I believe you,” I fumed. “Besides, why would I kill Emerson? I would have beaten her in the competition anyway. And it’s not like she was even—hey.” I clenched my hands, kicked my feet apart, and glared at Pike, who had turned to face me, slight interest on his face. “I don’t have to defend myself to you.”

He shrugged. “The guilty always overcompensate.” He went back to work gathering his things.

“No,” I said, yanking on his shoulder until he faced me. “The guilty always act nonchalant. They always point the finger of accusation.”

We both looked down at my index finger, extended, my hot-pink fingernail pressed up against Pike’s chest, slice of red sticker across it. I quickly withdrew, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

“Look, I don’t know about you, but going to jail for a crime I didn’t commit is really not on my bucket list. So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to head out.”

“And do what? Hide out? Oh, no you’re not. I’ll tell them you were here.”

Pike glared at me and cocked his head. “You were here, too.” I blinked, realizing for the first time that I had just spent the last twenty minutes tied up and trapped in a closet by and with a possible murderer. A cold shiver washed over me and I squinted, trying to pick up the slightest twitch in Pike’s eyes—something that said he was hiding a secret, something that said he was guilty.

“What? You trying to read my mind?”

“That would be a short story.”

“Why would I kill Emerson?” Pike huffed.

“Because she was your ex-girlfriend.”

Pike opened the door. “She wasn’t my ex-girlfriend and I hardly ever saw her.”

“Maybe that cop was right and you killed Reginald, too. For Emerson. Or maybe you wanted her to be your girlfriend, but she scorned you—although I can’t see Emerson scorning anyone, that whole beggars-can’t-be-choosers thing, but whatever. That’s it, huh? You loved her. It was one of those ‘if-I-can’t-have-her-then-nobody-can’ things, huh?” I bit my lip. “No, that’s preposterous. Emerson was an awful person.” A tiny niggle of guilt touched the back of my mind and I sighed. “But she didn’t deserve to be shish-kabobed by a pair of designer shears.”

A sympathetic look flashed over Pike’s face. “You should go home, Nina. Lock your doors. Don’t go anywhere alone.”

I frowned. “What are you going to do?”

Pike sighed, his chest rising mightily. “I’m going to go track a killer.”

The air in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees once Pike slipped out. I stood in Emerson’s empty living room, listening to the silence for a full minute before I took off like a shot down the hall, nearly pummeling Pike in the apartment vestibule.

“You can’t hunt down a killer,” I said, my voice sounding breathless and desperate. “You can’t do it alone. You need backup.”

Pike paused, listening, and I moistened my suddenly dry lips. “You need me.”

A hint of exhausted smile pushed at the corner of Pike’s lips. “And you’re credible backup?”

I pressed my teeth together, feeling the familiar push of my razor-sharp fangs. “You’d be surprised,” I muttered.

If this were a movie, our vestibule exchange would be followed by a musical montage of Pike and me with heads bent as we studied files and photo books over greasy takeout boxes of congealing Chinese food. The music would speed up as the scenes sped up to show the change of seasons, the stubble growing on Pike’s chin as we grew more and more disillusioned. But this isn’t a movie.

“How do we start?” I said after what seemed like an hour had passed.

Pike rested a hand on my shoulder, his eyes intense as he looked directly at me. “I meant what I said, Nina. Go upstairs. Lock your doors. Don’t go anywhere alone.” He spoke slowly, like a father explaining dating rules to his daughter and though I should have been offended and indignant, all I could muster up was a cold fist of fear gripping the bottom of my stomach. As Pike turned to go, I knew with every fiber of my being that he was about to fall into something grittier, dirtier, and far more dangerous than even he expected.

“Do you want to know why I couldn’t feel the fire?” I said to the back of his head.

He stopped, his hand on the door, back still toward me. I swallowed heavily when I saw his hand close over the door handle, the muscles at the back of his arms flicking as he went to push it open.

“Do you want to know why you can’t take my picture?”

Pike stopped. His shoulders straightened and he turned to me, his face open, eyes soft. I saw a sliver of pink tongue dart out of his mouth, moistening his lips. “Why?”

I took a step down, unsure of how—or why—I had bartered my biggest secret to find the murderer of a woman I couldn’t stand and a man I barely knew.

“Upstairs.”

Vlad actually looked up from his laptop when Pike walked in. I felt my eyebrows rise and a sweet warmth spread in my stomach when Vlad’s dark brows shot downward, his thin lips pulled into a menacing scowl as his eyes flickered over Pike.

Aw, Vlad. He cared.

“I’m sorry,” Pike said, looking from Vlad to me. “I didn’t realize you had company.”

“He’s not company, he’s my nephew.” I crossed over to Vlad. “Vlad, this is my friend”—my breath caught on the word—“Pike. Pike, my nephew, Vlad.”

The two men regarded each other casually, critically, before offering each other one of those barely perceptible manly head nods.

Vlad went back to his screen and Pike followed me to the couch.

“All right,” Pike said, sitting down beside me. “What’s the big reveal?”

I saw Vlad stiffen in his spot at the dining table. His eyebrows shot up over the screen, his eyes, wide and accusing, following. “Can you come here for a second, Nina?”

I beelined over to Vlad and leaned my head in, certain of what he was going to say. “Please tell me your big reveal entails your tits or your ass or something else that won’t potentially ruin my life or make you have to eat Pike.”

“I know what I’m doing, Vlad,” I hissed. And, because I felt like I should, I added, “And watch your language.”

Even though I had no idea what I was doing.

Pike edged to the side of the couch. “So?”

A knock on the door stopped him and I celebrated my good luck. I snatched open the door and was greeted by Felipe’s strangled cries, his shoulders shimmying under the dead weight of his emotion.

“Nina, Nina, oh, it’s awful!” He plunged himself into my arms and I was forced to hug him, to think of friend over fashion as a snot bubble popped on my dupioni silk blouse.

“Felipe, what’s going on?”

“It’s my Reggie,” he huffed.

Pike and I shared a very déjà vu look. “What about Reginald?”

“He didn’t commit the suicide. He—he—he was murdered.” The admittance came out with another rash of hysterical tears and Pike rushed over.

“What do you mean he was murdered?”

I knew what I heard at the cocktail party, but Felipe’s crushed face was painful confirmation.

“I just came from the police station. They did the”—sniff—“the”—sniff—“autopsy. It came back positive. Or whatever you say. My Reggie was murdered!”

Pike snaked his arms in front of his chest. “First Reginald and now Emerson,” he said just under his breath. He shot me a sidelong glance and I knew exactly what he didn’t say: that I was next.

We spent the next twenty minutes listening as Felipe filled us in on what the police had told him—which wasn’t much. By the time he left the sun was dipping into the Hudson and I was pacing. Pike grabbed both my shoulders and I stopped my march.

“What’s up?”

“What’s up? There is a murderer on the loose. And you and I both know who’s next on his list. Me.” Being mainly immortal I wasn’t all that nervous. But still, getting stabbed or hung would be nothing short of an enormous pain in my ass, not to mention the havoc it would wreak on my wardrobe.

“I’m not sure that’s what you should be most concerned about,” Pike said.

I raised a brow.

“Suspect.” Pike mouthed the word.

I shook my head. “No, no, that’s just a theory. And a flimsy one at that. You have more motive.”

“Like I said, Emerson and I barely spoke. The whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing was completely in her head. Emerson and Reginald were both your competitors. With both of them gone, you’ve technically won the competition. That’s your motive.”

I yanked my shoulders away from Pike and gaped. “Are you seriously accusing me of killing off my competition? I’ll have you know that I would have whipped their asses fair and square. God rest their souls.”

“I’m not accusing you. I’m telling you.”

“They don’t think it’s me. They think it’s you.” Pike rolled his eyes and I dropped my voice. “Or me.”

“How much do you know about Emerson? You said you used to run into her all the time. I know you two weren’t friends but—”

“But what? I knew nothing about her other than what I told you. I didn’t even know she had a sister for God’s sake until she showed up in my face.” I paused. “That’s it. The sister. We need to talk to her.” I bit my bottom lip. “But she probably wouldn’t talk to us.”

“Because she was apparently so hysterical?”

“Because she might think that one of us killed Emerson.”

Pike pinned me with a stare and I sighed, dropping my head in my hands. “I will be the hysterical one if I have to go to prison. They make everyone shower together. And you have to wear those stupid plastic shoes!” I frowned, my eyes skittering over the apartment and seeing bars, one of those ugly metal toilets, and a thin cot with four-thread-count sheets.

And then I saw Vlad.

Slowly, his eyes came up from behind the screen. “What?”

I felt a smile playing at the edge of my lips. “She’ll talk to you.”

“What?” Pike asked.

I stopped, excitement building in my chest. “She’ll talk to Vlad. He’s young, he’s charming,” I said and glanced at Pike. “He’s not you. She’ll open up to him.”

Pike looked over at Vlad and then back at me. “No offense to your nephew, but do you really think a girl who just lost her sister to murder is going to suddenly go all boy crazy for him?” He jerked a thumb toward Vlad, and threw in a, “No offense, bro,” for good measure.

“Well, Vlad’s got—” I paused, biting my tongue before I said the word glamours. A glamour is almost like a vampire pheromone; it attracts humans to us like bees to honey and once they find us . . . well, humans tend to become utterly entranced and allow us to eat them. Usually.

If you don’t adhere to UDA guidelines.

Glamours are strictly forbidden according to the UDA-V charter but I am almost completely sure that a glamour for solving a homicide was a way lesser charge than a glamour for committing a homicide. And either way, I’d rather be beheaded by the UDA than spend eternity in a prison cell and an orange jumpsuit.

“I mean Vlad’s got charm.” I turned toward him and threw on my best version of adorably irresistible Disney eyes. “Please, Vlad. For me?”

Vlad looked up, eyed me warily. “No.”

I crossed the room in two short strides and batted my lashes again. “Pweeze?”

He shook his head.

I tossed a quick glance over my shoulder, then laid my palm flat on the table, a quarter-inch from Vlad’s hand.

“Look,” I said, my voice low and dripping with heat. “I made you, Louis.” Vlad didn’t regard me visually, but I could see a stiffness run through his spine as I regarded him by his real, pre-vamp, pre-Count-Chocula-obsession name. “And I will be the first one to take you out.”

“Can’t. UDA bylaw.” There was an edge of teenage smugness in his words that made me want to kill him just a little bit more.

“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest. “I won’t kill you.” I snatched my cell phone from where it rested on the counter. “But Kale will.”

Vlad stood up so quickly his chair thunked to the ground behind him. “Fine!” he said, terror cutting through his eyes. “Just please,” he continued, holding up both hands as if the phone were about to spit bullets. “Whatever you do, don’t call Kale. Please.”

Now I was smug.

Pike looped an arm over the back of the couch as he turned to stare at us. “Who’s this—”

“Never mind,” Vlad and I said in unison.

I pushed Vlad toward the door. “Come on. Just go over there. Ask her for coffee.”

“I don’t feel good about this,” Vlad said, pulling on his collar.

“You’re doing a good thing,” I said, patting him lightly on the shoulder. “You saw the way Nicolette lit up when you introduced yourself.”

Vlad glared down at me and Pike piped in, “Besides, it’s just coffee.” His grin was wide and genuine and I melted just a tiny bit, barely even registering the fact that he could very well be a homicidal maniac.

I had Vlad in a vice grip and the doorknob in my hand when Pike grabbed my shoulder, his hand warm and heavy. “Wait,” he said, “do we have some kind of plan?”

I whirled. “Of course we do. Vlad goes out with Nicolette, asks some questions, gains some intel about whether or not Emerson has some horrid, murderous people in her immediate past—”

Vlad opened his mouth and I shot him a very loving but very deathly gaze.

“And then he relays it back to us. We find said murderous people and voila! Off the hook.”

“Sounds awfully simple,” Pike said skeptically.

“Don’t worry, it won’t be,” Vlad answered.

Pike and I sat in an uncomfortable silence while Vlad left the apartment. When an acceptable amount of time had passed—about thirty seconds—I sprinted toward the front door and pushed my nose through the crack that Vlad had left open. He was in the hallway and had just knocked on Nicolette’s door.

“What’s happening?” Pike came up behind me, his chest pressing up against my back, his hands resting on my hips. I wanted to grind into him, to toss him to the couch, to experience something other than this constant edginess and suspicion.

But Nicolette opened the door.

She was red-eyed and pink-nosed, her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. She immediately straightened up when she saw who her caller was.

I felt Pike lean closer to me, his lips a hairsbreadth from my ear as he leaned down, his breath warm against the marble cold of my neck. “Damn. She asked him in.”

“That’s a good sign, though.” I tiptoed—sheerly for effect—weightless, remember?—across the hall and pressed my ear lightly to Nicolette and Emerson’s apartment door.

“He’s asking her to coffee,” I whispered over my shoulder. “She said ‘okay, how about in five minutes.’ Oh, crap.” I ran back across the hall, smacking chest-to-warm-carved chest into Pike and may or may not have held the stance for a longer-than-appropriate moment. I felt Pike’s arms go around me, his palm on the small of my back. Then Vlad pressed through the door and we sprang apart like a negative charge. Pike’s cheeks were flushed and there was a light sheen of sweat above his upper lip.

“What were you two doing?” Vlad asked without hiding the suspicious disgust from his face.

“Waiting for you. What happened?”

Vlad patted his well-shellacked hair. “We’re going for coffee. Just like he asked.” He pretend-breathed on me. “How’s my breath?”

“You’re disgusting,” I said. “Have fun. And don’t forget, you tell us everything. And really dig, you know? Pry.”

Vlad rolled his eyes. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He made sure to slam the door when he left.

I waited for a beat, worrying my bottom lip. Finally, I grabbed my keys, straightened my ponytail, and gave Pike the universal sign for “come on, get off my couch.”

“Where are you going?” he wanted to know.

“On a date with my nephew.”

Pike and I were tucked against a back wall at a tiny round coffee table barely big enough for our elbows, let alone our drinks.

“You’re sure you don’t want anything? Coffee? Frap-mocha-liscious or however the hell they bastardized coffee?”

I pursed my lips together and shook my head. “I’m fine, thanks.” I tapped my ever-present travel mug. “I’ve had about all the coffee I could take for the day.”

And it wasn’t a total lie. The blood bad that I had for breakfast had a distinct, burnt coffee flavor. Made my teeth curl just thinking about it.

Pike had his elbows on the table, chin in hand. “What kind of woman comes to a coffeehouse and doesn’t at least order a coffee? Or . . .” He pulled a chipped white plate toward him and snatched the muffin from it, his bite leaving less than half the muffin. “A sweet?”

“The kind of girl who is on a stakeout.” I nudged my chair a half-inch farther away. “Can you try to keep most of that in your mouth?”

Pike shrugged. “I can’t even hear what they’re talking about.”

Vlad and Nicolette were seated half the shop away from us, Nicolette’s light waves falling over the back of her chair while Vlad smiled kindly and nodded, all the while shooting dagger glances at us whenever Nicolette looked away.

“Nicolette is talking about Emerson. She ate a cookie—snickerdoodle, I think—and is now talking about Christmas Eve at her parents’ house. Apparently, Emerson got an Easy-Bake Oven while Nicolette got the Barbie Design Studio.”

Pike leaned back in his chair, clearly impressed. “You can hear that?”

Heat zinged through me and I felt color—whoever’s it was—washing over my cheeks. “I have really, really good hearing. And I read lips. It runs in the family.” I kept my eyes focused on Vlad but I knew that Pike was staring at me. “Interesting.”

A good forty minutes had passed and Nicolette told Vlad about being on the cheerleading squad and her college career. Vlad looked adequately forlorn and heartbroken as he mentioned his “ex-girlfriend” and how he came out to New York to mend his broken heart. I was about to gag, Pike was about to drop dead of boredom, and we were no closer to learning anything about Emerson’s private life.

“Okay, either something happens or I’m going to stab someone through the heart.”

My throat tightened and my blood froze statue-still. “What did you say?”

Pike held up his hands. “Sorry—too soon? Too soon.”

I felt my mouth drop open then slammed it shut again, certain that Pike was talking about stabbing in general—not staking a vampire through the heart.

And I don’t know if that made me feel better or worse.

“Tell me about yourself.”

“What?”

Pike let out a long sigh and leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head. The motion caused his semifitted black tee to rise just the smallest bit—just enough to expose a thin, two-inch trail of jet black hair leading from his very kissable belly button and disappearing into the gathered elastic of his boxer shorts. I licked my lips.

“What do you want to know?”

“Well . . .”

I did my best to tear my eyes from that happy trail, to tear my mind from what lay beneath.

“Tell me about your family.”

Nothing will pull you out of a fantasy like an incredibly sexy man asking you to talk about your family.

“Not much to tell,” I said simply. “Mom, dad, sister, two brothers.” I shrugged toward Vlad. “And Vlad.”

“What kind of name is Vlad? I assumed you were French.”

I felt my beaming grin go from ear to ear. I loved it when a man recognized my elegant French upbringing—especially now, more than a century and a half after the fact. “You did?”

“Yeah. French or Spanish—‘La’ Shay.’”

Well, he was pretty enough to be a little bit dumb.

“My sister married a Hungarian,” I lied. “Vlad is a pretty common Hungarian name.”

Pike’s brows went up. “Interesting. I thought it was Russian.”

It was storybook vampire cliché! I wanted to scream. Which was why Louis LaShay chose to adopt the annoying Dracula moniker later in his non-creative vampire life.

“Look, Vlad and Nicolette are on a date.” I snaked a tongue over my bottom lip, my number one tip in my arsenal of man-without-pants-prep. “Why don’t we stop talking family and start talking fantasy?”

A single eyebrow rose over Pike’s dark eyes and his lips quirked into a smile that stood halfway between innocently interested and sex god with a naughty spot. “Fantasy, huh?”

I nodded slowly, resting my chin on my hands, letting a flow of my dark hair spill over my shoulder. If I had a whipped-cream topped coffee—if I could stomach such a thing—I would trail an index finger through it. Instead I leaned just a touch closer to Pike, letting my long hair tickle his arm.

The temperature in the coffeehouse rose by ten degrees.

“Well . . .” He let his voice trail off in that half-gravelly, all-sexy way, his eyes cutting from mine to wash all over my body with an appreciative grin. “Vlad wants you.”

I squelched a snarl. “That’s disgusting. We’re French nobles! Not Alabama hillbillies! You’re into some sick—”

Pike rolled his eyes and pointed. “No, Vlad, for real, wants you.”

I whipped my head toward where he pointed and this time, didn’t bother toning down the snarl. Vlad stood up and walked toward the restroom; I followed at a furious pace.

“What do you want? Don’t you know I was—” I paused, cleared my throat, and straightened. “Please tell me you’ve called this little summit because you found out something good.”

Vlad shrugged, all unaffected teen. “Sorry I interrupted your attempt at a fang bang, but this is going nowhere. All Nicolette wants to talk about is Christmas in Norman Rockwell-ville and her stupid Barbie Design Studio.”

I arched a brow. “Barbie Design Studio?”

Vlad shrugged. “I don’t know. Apparently Emerson got the Easy-Bake Oven. Look, I’ll give her five more minutes and then I’m taking her home.”

“Five more minutes?”

Vlad whipped out his iPhone. “And this time counts.”

Five minutes—to the millisecond—later, Vlad was tossing a few crumpled bills on the table and opening the door for Nicolette.

I groaned. “So, that was a waste.”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . we never got to talk about your fantasy . . . or your fears.”

I was drained, cranky, and the sickly sweet smell of pastries going day old was making my stomach churn. As sexy as Pike was, the borrowed blood running through my veins was almost gone and all I wanted was an US Weekly and a vat of O Neg. “Maybe another time.”

Pike sucked in a sharp breath. “There is something we haven’t tried.”

I was waiting for him to say sex. Or kissing. And I was cursing myself for wasting all that good blood when it could have been rushing to my—

“We need to look at the bodies.”

Never mind.

“Look at the bodies? What for?” I wanted to know.

“Anything. Signs of struggle, bruises, cuts—something the police may have missed.”

“I certainly don’t have a whole load of faith in breathers but I figure the cops—and the coroner, or medical examiner—would probably have found, photographed, or scraped off anything of evidentiary importance.”

“Did you say breather?”

I grabbed my purse and stood up quickly. “Sure, breather. It’s what everyone calls the cops in San Francisco. You know . . .” My mind raced. “They ‘breathe’ justice?” I turned on my heel. “I’ve got to go.”

I felt Pike’s hand close over my forearm and the strong warmth sent a shiver of gooseflesh all over my body. He pulled me closer and my breath caught in my throat, the tight anticipation all at once amazing and uncomfortable. His lips brushed over the part in my hair, then barely touched my earlobe. “Meet me tonight.”

My body felt like warm Jell-O as his command oozed through me. I swallowed, batting my eyelashes in that slow, bedroomy way that Elizabeth Taylor created and I mastered. “Where are we going?”

“The morgue.”

It’s official: I’ve been living with Sophie Lawson for way too long.

It’s never dark in the city. It’s also never without a population or a pulse, which was why I was wearing a form-fitting black Shoshanna Lonstein dress (I forgive her for the Seinfeld marriage debacle; we can’t always avoid the starter husband) with six-inch platform heels in blazing blue for my evening sojourn to the morgue. Besides the fact that I would never be caught dead (again) in anything velour or with a drawstring, the ensemble was a perfect cover: New Yorkers might mistake me for a socialite or a supermodel, but a morgue burglar? Not a chance.

Pike looked me up and down and despite that fact that our upcoming “date” revolved around the officially dead, his appraising grin shot a little zing down my spine. “Well you look like you’re ready to catch a killer.”

Vlad crossed the living room, gave me a once over, and muttered, “Or hepatitis.”

The Lower Manhattan City Morgue sits like a fat, ugly beehive among other government-owned fat, ugly beehive buildings.

I suppose there isn’t a lot of support of a morgue makeover.

It was easy enough to slip inside and easier still to scurry around unbidden—vampires have no scent, nor any discernible weight, which means no footsteps, no creaky floors to give us away. And also the man at the front desk was asleep.

I waved Pike through and we scurried down the dimly lit hall.

“Okay, stay out here and stand guard.”

“No way,” I said. “I’m going in. You stand guard.”

Pike sighed. “Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?”

“Look, Pike, my roommate is basically a private investigator who is dating a detective. I have inadvertently been on more stakeouts, snuck through more morgues, and flopped around with more dead bodies than all the NYPD put together.”

“I don’t know why, but I’m kind of aroused right now.”

“You’re sick.” I yanked open the storage-room door. “Stand guard.”

Inside, I was pleased to see the bodies were stored in an orderly fashion (did I mention we vamps are a little bit OCD?). I was able to find Reginald and stretch him out on one of the exam tables in record time, gingerly placing a file folder over his flash-frozen man bits—I could only investigate so many things at once. I checked out the red-purple bruises circling his neck—not entirely certain what I was looking for—and was walking my fingers toward a tiny red pinprick behind his left ear. “Interesting,” I whispered to my dead audience. The pinprick was minuscule and could have been a broken blood vessel or a mole for all I knew, but I knew how to find out. I pulled Reginald’s file and did a quick scan. The bruises were listed, as well as a hernia scar, a hair weave, and a little tattoo on Reginald’s derriere. There was no mention of the pinprick.

I left Reginald laid out and went to find Emerson. She wasn’t listed on any of the drawers and I gulped, staring at the heavy metal door for the “overflow” body storage. There are very few things that give me the heebie-jeebies, but walking into a room where the dead are laid out and stacked like bakery goods made my stomach lurch—and not in a good way. I sucked in a nerve-steadying breath and stepped into the walk-in freezer, jamming a Gross Anatomy book in the doorway. I had seen one too many television shows where the main characters get locked in a walk-in and end up freezing to death or eating their weight in ice cream.

All my bases covered, I went to work examining the paperwork stacked on each body. I was so engrossed—or so desperate to get Emerson and get out of there—that I didn’t hear someone slyly removing the Gross Anatomy book. What I did hear was the heavy metal thunk of the door closing.

My heart locked in my throat, but I refused to let myself panic. I casually walked up to the door, certain that the giant refrigerator people had seen all the locked-in-the-freezer episodes as well, and had created some sort of snazzy trapdoor or inside lock pop.

Apparently, refrigerator people are not TV watchers.

I dug into my cleavage and yanked out my cell phone. I wasn’t entirely sure whom I’d call to rescue me from a walk-in freezer filled with people-sicles, but Vlad was usually good for the occasional rescue. I wrapped my arms around myself and hit the speed-dial button.

And nothing happened.

“No bars!” I groaned. I started to pace, staring down at my screen. Closer to the back of the fridge a few cheery bars popped up. If I held the phone above my head, I got another half. Still not enough to support a phone call.

I pressed myself as far back as I could, then eyed the stackable body shelves. If I could just get a little higher . . . I tentatively poked a foot on the edge of the lowermost platform, careful not to get anybody on my shoe. I took a step up. And then another. And then I grinned down at my phone when it decided it could make a call.

And then I heard the weird, scraping sound of the undead coming back to life. My hackles went up, hot adrenaline sparking through me.

I jumped from the cart and launched it backward. I would like to say I barrel-rolled or did something equally as theatrical but what I did was sail through the air, arms outstretched, fingers clawed and desperate for something to hold on to. When I landed on the cement floor, I had the slick, cold plastic of body bags in each hand, the contents of each bag—and several others—pummeling me from above.

I howled.

I don’t think my feet hit the ground as I jumped, and tossed my body into the door, screaming bloody murder.

“Pike! PIKE! Get me out of here! Get me the fuck out of here! I’m stuck!”

It seemed to take eons for Pike to hear me and loosen the door. When he did I ran out, circling the autopsy tables, relishing the way the room-temperature air burned at my frozen skin.

I felt Pike’s eyes on me, curious, as I rubbed my arms and let the adrenaline drain from my body. “Where were you?” I finally hissed, eyes narrowed.

“I was outside. Standing guard. Just like you told me to be.”

I couldn’t fault him for doing as I’d told him, but I wanted to. “Why did you come in here?”

“You were taking forever, I had to pee, and then I heard you huffing and thumping. I thought maybe you were getting a little frisky with ol’ Reg there.”

He grinned and I recoiled, disgusted. “You’re a big ass.”

“And you’re a big ol’ side of beef locking yourself in the deep freeze. Did you find anything?”

“First of all, I didn’t lock myself in the freezer. I shoved a book in the doorway so I wouldn’t get stuck.”

Pike made a show of looking all around for a book.

“Someone filched the book and shut the door on me.”

Pike raised his eyebrows, though he didn’t look the least bit convinced. “Is that so? Because I’ve been waiting out there,” he said, jerking a thumb toward the hall. “And I happen to know for a fact that no one came in here.”

I gaped. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Of course not. I might be calling you a little bit embarrassed because you locked yourself in the fridge, but definitely not a liar.”

The chill from the fridge had distinctly worn off and rage burned through me. Before I could open my eyes—or my fang-filled mouth—Pike was checking the bodies piled in the fridge. “Here’s our friend Emerson.”

He laid her out on the slab and unzipped her. I was surprised when a stab of emotion shot through me—I’m not sure if it was seeing Emerson laid out this way, or seeing Nicolette red-eyed and torn up over the death of her sister. Either way, the body was just a shell—I knew that better than anyone. But there was something pulling me.

“So what are we looking for?”

I hugged my arms across my chest. “Look behind her left ear.”

Pike did as he was told and I watched his finger slide over Emerson’s marble-still flesh. “Nothing.”

I peered, and pointed. “See that tiny hole? Needle prick.”

“Needle prick? What does that mean?”

“Reginald has one, too. Same place. It means that neither Reg nor Emerson died the way we thought they did.”

Pike was fingering Emerson’s chart and I could see his lips move as he read. That should have been enough for me to shake him off but there was something charming and sweet about the way his lips moved, little bursts of breath puffing at every other word. “Well, that’s something they didn’t say in the papers.”

“What’s that?”

“Drain cleaner.”

I stiffened. “What?”

“They found drain cleaner in both of them.”

“Why would someone inject—”

“It would cause pain, an arrhythmia at best, death at worst.”

I stepped back. “Do I want to know how you know that?”

Pike snapped the file shut and got to work putting Reginald and Emerson back. “Probably not.”

We were able to sneak right back out of the morgue—a happy coincidence for us, an unsettling lack in homeland security for the rest of the country. But, I supposed, as I brushed my dress back down over my thighs, maybe terrorists going on body raids wasn’t exactly at threat level red.

It was one of those nights where everything about the city hummed and moved, but the city itself stayed impossibly still. The air didn’t move and the moon hung in the sky, as pale and anemic as everything else that wilted in the heat.

“Okay,” I said as we walked, “two people are injected with drain cleaner, then made to look like they’ve either committed suicide or been murdered.”

“By you.”

“What?”

Pike slurped the last bit of the purple ICEE he made us stop for through his straw. “First one looked like suicide, second one looked like a murder caused by you.” He grinned, his teeth tinged purple.

“Thanks for pointing that out, Colombo.” I frowned. “And we have nothing in the way of leads, do we?”

“Other than you trying to kill off the competition, no.”

I spun, my finger a quarter-inch from his nose. “What did I say? Look at me.” I jumped back, gave him a good chance to take in my self-styled ensemble. “I would have won that competition fair and square. Someone is out to get me.”

Suddenly Pike was face to face with me and I could feel his hot breath breaking over my cheeks. “Then why hasn’t he gotten you yet?”

Anger bubbled in my veins. “Because I’m a—”

“A what?” His eyes flashed.

I broke his gaze. “I don’t need to tell you anything.” I tried to turn away but his hand was around my arm, clamping down. His warmth shot through my whole body and I remembered things. . . .

Another ink-black night where everything hung still and quiet in the oppressing heat. A rustle in the bushes and I was on the window sill, tucking my petticoats between my legs . . . I felt the air cut open when I dropped, my boots hitting the soft earth below my window. And he was there. He was just a shadow then but he was there—I didn’t need to see him to feel him over every inch of my body, to feel the air sizzle with his vibrant electricity. His fingertips brushed my arm and they were ice cold but sent fire-hot prickles and every synapse firing—and then he closed the distance between us and his lips were on mine. Wanting, tasting. And I was young and I was thirsty and I had never felt this way before . . . then his lips left mine and trailed slowly, with feather-light kisses over my jaw and down my neck. I felt my pulse throb and his tongue circled it. My heart pounded and my head was filled. There was fire roaring through me and it was at my neck. I heard the pierce before I felt it. My virgin skin popped and his teeth sunk in. And when I closed my eyes, everything was dripping in the most vibrant shade of red. . . .

“Pike.” I was breathing hard and trying to push the word past my teeth. Pike had me now, tonight, in this city, and I could feel his fingers pressing at the small of my back as I crushed against him, his hand cupping my chin, my cheek. The city cracked and came alive and I was distinctly aware of every horn honking, every New Yorker talking, yelling, laughing. Waves crashed. The world crashed when Pike’s lips covered mine. I tried to pull back but his fingers dug into me and my entire body was exploding with things I hadn’t felt since that last night, since that last moment when my own blood shot through my veins.

I could feel.

My entire body was on high alert and I felt the hot softness of Pike’s wet lips. I felt his tongue nudge my mouth open and I could taste him.

And somewhere, there was blood.

Too close.

My eyes were on the vein throbbing on Pike’s neck.

“No,” I said, pulling back, pushing against his chest.

“Don’t go.” Pike pulled me back to him and I felt the word on my earlobe as his mouth opened and he nibbled.

My body throbbed. My need deepened. I pushed away—tore myself away—from Pike and stumbled backward and then started to run.

“I know what you are.” Pike’s words tumbled out and hit every wall of the dismal little alley.

I stopped, turned. “What are you talking about?”

He took a slow step forward, his eyes still hard, pinning me. “I know what you are, Nina.”

I licked my lips and all the energy, the heat that had surged through my body, was gone. I was hollow again, and cold. “I don’t know what you think you know about me.”

Pike licked his lips, bee-stung and red from our kiss. “You’re a vampire.”

I turned my back and left Pike standing alone in the alleyway.

I walked the rest of the way home and Pike didn’t follow. I kept my thoughts focused on the murders so I wouldn’t hear his voice reverberate through my head. A vampire. I knew it, I flaunted it—in the Underworld, natch—but hearing the word come out of his mouth . . .

I sunk my key into the lock and shoved into the apartment vestibule. The overhead light was buzzing and swinging lightly, illuminating the squarish, brown-paper-wrapped package on top of my mail slot. The sender had used a whole spool of tape and twine and addressed the thing simply to “LaShay.” I shoved it under my arm and carried it to my apartment.

“Hey, where’ve you been?” Vlad wrinkled his nose. “You smell like morgue.”

I flopped down on the couch.

“What’s with you?”

“Pike knows.”

Vlad finished his blood bag with a mighty suck and pushed himself up to a sitting position. “Pike knows who the murderer is? That’s good because all this death and dying is really ruining my vacation.”

“No.” I blinked, staring straight ahead. “Pike knows about me.”

I didn’t need to fill him in; the knowing flashed across Vlad’s eyes. “He knows you’re a vampire? Does he know I am?”

I swung my head. “I doubt it.”

“So we have a murderer on the loose, a guy who knows you’re a card-carrying member of the undead. . . . How did he find out? And, he’s not going to go all Van Helsing on us, is he? Because we’d need special approval from the UDA to take him out and you know who handles that paperwork, right? Kale. She’d never approve me. Hell, she’d call Pike and leave a trail of breadcrumbs or Hostess CupCakes right to me.”

I swallowed. “I don’t know how he knows. He just—he just said it. ‘I know what you are.’”

Vlad crushed his blood bag and tossed it onto the coffee table. “Ominous.”

“Vlad, what am I supposed to do about this? A breather knows about me.”

Vlad shrugged, finding the remote control and aiming at the TV. “I don’t know. Kill him, I guess.”

Something washed over me and it took me a good minute to realize that it was pain. I didn’t want to kill Pike. I didn’t want to be what I was.

“I—I need some air.”

Something was welling inside me, pressing against my chest and making my eyes sting by the time I crested the steps down to the apartment vestibule.

And then everything changed.

Two of the ancient windows were cracked open; I could see there was a gentle breeze outside but the air in the vestibule itself was staid and heavy but crackled with a weird, electric energy. I sniffed. The metallic scent was sharp and distinctive and my whole body went on high alert—my fangs sharpening and elongating, saliva rushing toward my tongue.

There was blood in the air.

It stank of injury and heat with just the slightest tinge of something fresh. I took a step. The energy-filled trail stopped dead on the bottom floor landing and so did I, spinning slowly in the darkness, and finally cussing at myself for being a scared little girl. And then I heard the whimper.

It was soft, barely a breath, but there was something in the single syllable that was anguished. I stiffened.

“Hello?”

There was a breath of pregnant silence and then two ragged, heavy breaths. “Help?”

I turned toward the voice. “Where are you? Who are you?”

“Please.” The word tore at my gut and I felt my human side taking over—someone in pain, in anguish—someone reaching out. Because she doesn’t know that I’m a monster.

I swept the thought out of my mind as quickly as it came and closed my eyes, concentrating on the breathing. Ragged breath in, ragged breath out. I took a step. Ragged breath—and suddenly the vestibule was heavy with the sweet metallic stench of blood. A drip of saliva rolled down my throat.

“Tell me where you are.”

“I’m here,” she said, “By the stairs. I—I don’t think I can move.”

I crept along the stairwell and banister. The blood scent grew stronger each step the light grew darker. I was swallowing furiously, trying not to think about how delicate the scent was, how delicious. The way it felt when fangs punctured flesh—warm, soft—like berries popping, flooding your mouth with delicious, rich juice.

My heart thudded and my stomach lurched, growled. I was ready to flee, to run back upstairs and lock myself in my apartment but then—

“Nina?”

Nicolette lay in a heap on the floor, her body impossibly bent, her face fragile and pale. Her thick, cracked lips trembled and moisture surrounded her milky eyes. “Please help me.”

I swallowed and bent down to her, bending my head from the heady smell of fresh blood. I watched my own hand reach out, shakily touch Nicolette on the shoulder, my fingers barely grazing the girl’s torn flesh.

“What happened?” It was my voice, but I wasn’t sure that I had spoken.

“Someone attacked me,” Nicolette said, her voice a low whisper. “Is he gone?”

I looked over my shoulder and rose to my full height. “I’ll make sure.”

I knew that her attacker wasn’t there. I could smell every scent in the vestibule—layers upon layers of Clorox and urine, the cloying, salty smell of humanity coming through day after day and hour after hour—and the sinful, beckoning scent of Nicolette’s fresh blood.

I pushed open the double doors and bent my head out, sucking in lungfuls of night air. Soon I was coughing—and crying. I wanted to help her. I wanted to taste her.

“Is he gone?”

I could hear Nicolette shifting on the floor and I sprang toward her, my arms reaching out, doing my best to gingerly touch her clothes, the banister, anything that wasn’t soaked in her blood.

“Are you okay?”

Nicolette stood now and shakily came out of the darkness. I sucked in a breath.

Her long blond hair was matted, knotted with blood that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time. One eye was already blooming with purple bruises and angry red scratches, her lashes disappearing in the swell. Tears rolled down her cheeks and her flesh showed underneath—a pink and delicate contrast to the smudged dirt and dried blood everywhere else.

“Who did this to you?”

Nicolette lurched toward me and crumpled in my arms. I stiffened, feeling the sticky warmth of her blood on my skin and when she started to cry—great, hiccupping sobs—I was able to hold her against me and hold my breath. When it got to be too much I chanced a tiny breath, my nose a quarter-inch above a gash that crossed the side of Nicolette’s head. I recoiled just slightly, an antiseptic stench coming from her unbroken skin.

“I’m going to call nine-one-one.”

I went to reach for my phone but Nicolette’s arm shot out, her hand grabbing my wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. “No, please don’t, Nina. I’m scared.”

I patted Nicolette’s shoulder awkwardly. “Don’t worry, sweetie. Everything will be okay.” I had no idea whether or not it would be—and betted toward the latter when I realized I had left my phone in the apartment. “I’m just going to use the emergency line down here, okay? I’m not going anywhere.” I gingerly began to extricate myself from Nicolette. She whimpered lightly but shifted her weight away from me and I scurried across the tile. My hand was wrapped around the telephone receiver when I heard Nicolette’s bones cracking as she stood. At the same second I turned, something heavy smashed across the side of my head. I felt my skin pucker and gash, felt the crush of my browbone and nose. The sheer force knocked me backward and I heard the clatter of the telephone receiver as it fell to the ground; I felt the cool glass of the door as I slumped against it. A horrid clanging sound reverberated through my skull. There was screaming and—squawking?

I wasn’t sure which one—if either—that I was doing so I worked to pull my eyes open. I needed to protect Nicolette—frail, battered Nicolette.

Nicolette, who was vaulting directly toward me, absolute hate in her eyes, knuckles burning white as she gripped a length of metal pipe.

“Nicolette?”

She bared her teeth and let out the most heinous banshee-like scream I’d ever heard. My hands went up instinctively and I grabbed the pipe as it sliced through the air toward me. She was basically growling now, teeth clenched, chin shiny with saliva. I held the pipe but Nicolette was surprisingly strong. She lurched and caught me square in the gut with the sole of her foot; I crashed through the glass door, shards catching the moonlight and dancing like little stars. My shoulder blades slapped against the concrete and Nicolette wasted no time, dropping the pipe and clawing at my neck.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong with me!” she spat. “Why won’t you fucking die? You were on fire—and frozen—and now—die!”

Her hands went to me again and I squirmed. She grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked until I heard strands breaking. She pulled her arm back to show me my own hair, no longer attached to my scalp. Her grin was wide and terrifyingly maniacal.

“You bitch!”

Wallop me with a metal pipe, sure. Try and choke me? Whatever. Mess with my hair? I will seriously end you.

I felt my sharpening fangs and unholy rage roar through me. I was about to lunge—and finish—Nicolette when a shriek cut through the night and my winged nemesis dive-bombed. I was sure he was some sort of beaked bastion of hell answering Nicolette’s beckon until he skidded over her forehead, talons extending, cutting wide gashes across her cheeks and nose.

She recoiled and swatted at the thing but it was gone instantly. I used the distraction to buck Nicolette off of me, and suddenly Pike was there and he was gripping her, dragging her away from me.

“She’s crazy!” I screamed.

“You’re crazy!” Nicolette’s eyes were on fire.

“What happened?” Pike yelled, still holding Nicolette back.

“She attacked me!” We were both pointing fingers, but I was gaping.

I paused and stared at Pike. “Wait, where the hell did you come from?”

“Kill her!” Nicolette screamed. “She’s a thief just like my damn sister!”

“You—”

“I’m the designer,” she spat. “Not you, not Emerson, or Fairfield. Me!”

“Because you got the Barbie Design Studio,” Pike said.

“And Emerson stole it!”

“So you killed her?” I asked.

Rage roiled through Nicolette’s body. “She stole everything!”

Nicolette’s screams were drowned out by the wailing of sirens and before she could finish her psychotic reasoning, police officers and paramedics were flooding out of their cars and rushing toward us.

Moyer was one of them. He jutted his chin toward Pike. “You sure about her?”

“She admitted it.”

Hopkins raced in with a pair of cuffs and Nicolette was subdued and led away, though she was still squirming and screaming, doing her best to kick and bite poor Hopkins.

“Hey, you okay?” Pike touched my arm gently.

“How did you—oh, God, the drain cleaner. I smelled it all over her but I didn’t put two and two together.”

A sad smile played at the edges of his lips. “Why would you?”

“Well, you obviously put something together or did you just happen to—” I happened to glance down at Pike’s hand, still soft on my arm. His fingernails were tinged with the slightest bit of deep red. I narrowed my eyes, unease flooding my body. “You know what I am because of what you are, huh?”

Pike’s eyes grew and he led me away from the officers checking out the scene. “Yeah.”

“And here I thought Emerson was the unholy one.”

He looked genuinely offended. “I’m not unholy. I’m an ancient legend—my family has been shifting for hundreds of generations.”

“Shifting? So what are you—?” I paused, glancing down at those nails again and then backing away. “No. Oh, no. No.”

“What?”

“You’re the bird. You’re the fucking black bird, aren’t you?”

“Crow.”

“Diseased flying rodent . . .”

Pike’s lip curled into a snarl. “Those are pigeons. And you should talk! Bats are, like, the most rabid animals in history.”

I was suddenly more offended by Pike than I was by Nicolette’s attempted thrashing. “I do not turn into a bat!”

Moyer stepped over, his bushy eyebrows curved down in confusion. “Ugh, are you guys through here? We’re just about to take Nicolette downtown. Apparently, she planned to take out all three of the competitors and launch her own fashion show at the end of it.”

Pike grimaced.

“Well, it does make sense. Her cuts on Emerson’s fabric were impeccable—except for going against the grain.”

Both Moyer and Pike gaped at me and I shrugged. “Just an observation.”

“Anyway,” Moyer said to me. “Good thing she didn’t get her hands on you.”

My hand immediately went to my smashed nose and crushed browbone that had since healed.

Love that vampire super-speed thing.

“So,” Pike said after Moyer departed. “I think we make a pretty good crime-fighting team.”

“What? Bird Boy and Kick Ass?”

Pike cocked a brow. “You know Bird Boy just saved your ass.”

“Yeah, well.” I paused, considering. “It took you long enough.”