Under Suspicion

Chapter Two

I was fishing my keys out of my shoulder bag—and cursing my apparent need to pack everything I’ve ever owned into eleven inches of knockoff Kate Spade—when I heard the thump from behind my locked apartment door. My hackles immediately went up. My suddenly sweaty palms worked the straps of my bag while my heart thudded into my throat and I pressed my ear to the door.

There was an audible groan. A breathy whimper.

I dumped my bag and gave the door a “hi-ya!” with my foot, splintering it open—at least, that’s what I imagined I would do. Instead, I shakily retrieved the hide-a-key from the dusty top of the door frame and sank it into the lock, very slowly pushing open the door. I peered into the darkened living room, gulping heavily when my little lunatic of puppy fur and kibble breath didn’t come barreling and barking to the door to greet me.

“ChaCha?” I whispered into the darkness.

The metallic stench of blood hung heavy in the air.

“Sophie?”

“Vlad?” I pressed on the light and felt my stomach churn as Vlad sprang up, shirtless, his chest alabaster pale in the now-glaring lights.

Kale sprang up from underneath him, her manicured black fingernails working furiously to button her shirt.

“Oh God. You guys! This is ... ew!”

I tried to look away as Vlad reworked the contraption that passed for his VERM-approved seventeenth-century button fly.

“Ew, ew, EW!”

“What are you doing home?” Vlad demanded. He looked down at Kale, whose cheeks were a heady red.

“You said she was seeing Mrs. Henderson.”

Kale looked up at me, dark eyes a combination of horror and embarrassment. “You were supposed to be seeing Mrs. Henderson.”

I crossed my arms, and my eyes scanned the living room, littered with blood bags, a tipped glass of something sticky-looking dripping onto the carpet and—I cocked my head to listen—Barry White crooning softly on the stereo.

“Are you kidding me right now?”

Kale stood up, dressed now, eyes wide. “Please, Sophie, don’t tell Lorraine about this.”

I felt my left eye start to twitch.

“Just go, Kale.”

Kale gathered her purse and turned to Vlad, pink lips in midpucker.

“Now,” I groaned.

Kale hurried out the front door and I kicked it shut behind her and then got to work blowing out what remained of my last Pottery Barn mulberry candle.

“You were supposed to be at work,” Vlad grumbled from his spot on the couch. “You’re not going to tell anyone about this, are you?”

I spun to face Vlad. “First of all, it doesn’t matter if I was in Timbuktu. You were schtupping Kale on the couch. My couch! I watch Maury on that couch. Now I’m going to have to burn it.”

“If it helps, we hadn’t actually gotten to the schtupping part.”

I glared. “It doesn’t.”

“So ... you’re not going to say anything to anyone?” I thought of Vlad’s flock of Bela Lugosi–dressed VERM members and their anti-mixing stance while I looked at Vlad, right now more teenaged boy than broody immortal. I couldn’t be entirely certain, but I’m pretty sure that trading whatever vampire’s passed off as spit with the finance intern/receptionist (a witch) was probably frowned upon by the Count Chocula set.

“No, I won’t say anything.”

Vlad grinned, relieved, his fangs showing the slightest tinge of blood-stained pink. “Thanks.”

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence. “By the way,” I stated, “congratulations on your promotion. How did it go over at the staff meeting?”

Vlad beamed. “Really well. People seemed really excited—I mean, most people.”

Vlad’s eyes held mine and I could feel myself shrink.

“I’m really excited for you, Vlad, I am.” I forced a smile almost bigger than I could stand.

“But?”

“Nothing.”

Vlad’s eyebrows remained high.

“You’re sixteen,” I finally relented.

“I died when I was sixteen.” Though his voice had a determined, dark edge, there was still something in it that was soft and vulnerable—something that I wanted to nurture and protect.

“I am really proud of you, Vlad. It’s just going to take a while to put two and,” I said, pausing, “one hundred and twelve together, okay?”

Vlad rolled his eyes, a hint of a smile on his lips. “I know, it’s the best you can do. You’re only mortal.”

“The expression is ‘you’re only human.’”

“Whatevs.”

And he was back to being sixteen again.

There was a quick rap on the door and Vlad yanked it open, grinning at Will.

“Hey, mate,” Will said.

Vlad sucked a leftover splatter of blood from his fingertip and pointed at me. “Sophie’s over there. I need to get ready for my meeting.”

Vlad disappeared into Nina’s room, shutting the door softly behind him. Will looked from the door to the torn blood bags still dripping on the coffee table. The alarm was evident on his face. He held me by the shoulders and looked me up and down, finally tilting my neck. “You okay, love? Did he, uh”—Will bit his lips, trying to choose his words—“hurt you?”

Oh! My guardian angel!

I crossed my arms. “Some Guardian you are. I could have been fang food and you’d come sauntering in here asking if I was okay, love.” I feigned Will’s English accent.

Will narrowed his eyes. “I’m a very good Guardian, which is why I didn’t embarrass us both by rushing in here all ‘good angel’ on you. I knew you weren’t in any real danger.”

The “good angel” jab stung. While most women would adore the fact that two incredibly attractive men moved Heaven and Planet Earth (sometimes quite literally) for their personal protection, the “angel” versus “Guardian” barbs got quite old.

“Besides, I’m here for Nina.”

Let’s get one thing straight: I like Will Sherman. He’s attractive in that sandy surfer with a head full of completely mussable blond-brown hair kind of way; in that sun-kissed skin, English accent, “mind the gap” sort of way. And I’ll admit, in a few instances of utter weakness, I have felt a certain below-the-belly-button twinge when he smiled and his eyes did that mischievous little crinkle thing, or when he said something adorable and Englishy, like “Let’s have a lag-ah and watch telly at the pub.” So I like him, yes. He’s my Guardian—and not in that “until you’re eighteen” sort of way, but in an “until the balance of power has been restored between the good and the fallen, I will protect you” kind of way. Which, when you really get down to it, is hard not to like. But I don’t love him. Which is why getting a tiny twinge of jealousy pricking at my spine was a completely unnecessary surprise.

I felt my eyebrows disappear into my bangs. “Nina? Why are you looking for Nina?”

Will held up a collection of DVDs. “I’m returning her Entourage set.”

Again, I repeat: I don’t love Will. So I am chalking up the cold wash of relief that flooded over me at the presentation of the Entourage episodes as relief that Nina’s DVD collection could once again be complete, rather than the idea that my roommate was making moves on my Guardian.

“I’ll be sure she gets them.” I held out my hands, silently praying that Will couldn’t feel the heat that wafted from me.

Will clapped his hands over the DVD spines and pushed past me. “That’s okay. I’ll wait.” He pulled out a dining-room chair and plopped down. He kicked his feet up on the dining table and crossed his legs at the ankles, displaying his bright red-and-yellow Arsenal Football Club socks.

“Nice socks.”

Will beamed. “Gift from Mum.”

“Get your feet off my table.”

“Ooh, you’re snarky. So who are we after this week?”

“What?”

I followed Will’s honey-colored eyes to Vlad, who had changed into a crisp white shirt, dark brocade vest, and silly-looking ascot. His black hair was slicked back in a precise hair helmet that showed off the deep widow’s peak that he and Nina—and most members of the LaShay clan, I expected—shared. He had a stack of flyers under one arm and was trying to wrangle a handful of VERM protest signs in the other.

“We are not ‘after’ anyone,” Vlad said, setting his signs against the table and rearranging the poof of his ascot. “We’re simply planning a silent protest of Edie Havenhurst’s new book, Fendi and Fangs.”

In one fell swoop Nina pushed through the front door, ditched her size-of-Guatemala shoulder bag and her sky-high booties and landed elegantly on the couch, her lifeless body not making a sound. She pulled up onto her knees, her grin somewhere between excited and maniacal, her coal black eyes wide.

“Ohmigod! I love Fendi and Fangs! I think it’s even better than Dooney, Bourke, and Buried.” Nina leaned over and pulled a worn paperback from underneath the couch cushions, holding it up like a prize. “I love, love, love Eliza Draconie. She’s the reason I went blond.”

Nina had taken her waist-length glossy Prell hair from her supernatural inky black to a sun-kissed California blond. Today she was wearing it in two long, skillfully mussed braids, topped off with a knitted gray beanie and a pair of heavy black-rimmed eyeglasses. Paired with the aforementioned boat-necked Balenciaga, Nina looked like a sexy Calvin Klein ad. Should I attempt the same look, I’m quite sure I would have looked like I had just walked off the set of a “Be Kind to Your Local Librarian” ad.

Nina jabbed a finger at me. “And, by the way, walking into a conversation about a book I love has totally saved your ass.”

I blinked.

“Shopping!” Nina informed me.

I slapped my palm against my forehead. “Neens, I’m so sorry.”

“Who’s this Eliza bird?” Will wanted to know.

“Who is Eliza Draconie?” Nina’s coal black eyes were as wide as saucers, and her little heart-shaped mouth was held in an astonished O. “She is only the most fashion-forward and fabulous vampire ever to live!”

I cupped my mouth with my hand and leaned toward Will. “To not live. She’s—”

“I know,” Will said, waving his hand at me, “undead. A vampire.”

“And completely fictional,” I finished.

“Maybe,” Nina said, “but Edie knows what she’s talking about.” Nina tapped her index finger against her ruby red lips. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Edie was one of us, or is seriously entrenched.”

Vlad spit out an exasperated sigh. “She is not one of us, nor does she have any kind of connection to the demon Underworld. She is yet another ‘pop culture artist’”—he made air quotes with his pale fingers—“who is propagating this myth of the fashion-whoring vampire woman, catting around modern society and falling in love with breathers. You should be ashamed, Aunt Nina. Edie Havenhurst is setting back the female gender thousands of years.”

“Back to when that ascot was in style,” Nina said without looking up from her book.

Vlad glared at her and then looked back at us, his black-painted fingernails raking over his ascot. “We are simply doing a small-scale demonstration at Ms. Havenhurst’s book signing tonight.”

Nina was up and standing nose to nose with Vlad in half a heartbeat, and I gripped my chest. I don’t care how long I’ve lived with a vampire—that creepy, silent, superspeed thing was going to kill me eventually.

“Edie Havenhurst is here? In San Francisco? Now? Ohmigod, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

Vlad grinned triumphantly and held out his protest sign to Nina. “So you’re coming down?”

Nina’s eyes were glassy as she tapped her fingers against her pale forearm. “I don’t think I have anything to wear.”

“What you have on is fine. We’re not trying to stand out. Our message is.” Vlad shook the sign at her and Nina glared at it as though the flimsy cardboard was doused in holy water or polyester. “Get rid of that. I’m not going on your dork march. I’m going to meet Edie Havenhurst.”

Vlad let out a low growl and stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind him so hard that my requisite San Francisco dweller photo of the Golden Gate Bridge rattled in its frame. Nina, unfazed, kicked open her bedroom door, opening the gaping portal into the velvety, vampire world of vintage couture. Will and I exchanged a glance.

“Feel like watching a vampire drool?” I asked him.

“Sadly enough, I haven’t anything better to do.”