Under Wraps

Chapter Seven

“So, is there anything in particular you’d like to do while you’re here, Vlad?”

Vlad ran his fingers over the dashboard, and I saw that his nails were painted black.

“I like your nail polish,” I tried.

Vlad glared at me, his eyes dark and flat.

“Aunt Nina got me a job at UDA,” he said finally.

“Really? That’s great! Doing what?”

“Mail room.”

I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. “Oh. Well, you’ll love it there. Everyone at the UDA is great. Like one big family, really. Did your Aunt Nina tell you that I work there, too?”

I felt Vlad’s eyes on me, taking me in. “They let you work there?”

“Yeah. I work for Mr. Sampson—he’s the head of the UDA. I’m his assistant.”

Vlad looked at me skeptically and shook his head. “No offense, but I can’t believe they’d let someone like you work at the Underworld Detection Agency. It just goes to show that the demon world is losing its foothold. No offense,” he repeated.

I frowned, staring at the road through the windshield. “No offense taken … kind of.”

Seventy-seven-year-old Mr. Howard, self-proclaimed ladies’ man and the building’s resident gossip hound, was nuzzling the ear of a giggling, gray-haired woman when we walked into the building vestibule. He pulled the woman—carefully stuffed into yards of cheetah-print spandex—closer to him and gave her a playful kiss on her wrinkled neck.

“Sophie Lawson!” Mr. Howard beamed when he saw Vlad and me. He quickly straightened up, a wave of pink creeping across his high cheeks. He looked Vlad up and down and smiled. “Well, hello, young man. Are you a friend of Sophie’s?”

Vlad remained expressionless, and I was secretly pleased that his deadpan demeanor wasn’t just reserved for me.

“Mr. Howard, this is Nina’s nephew, Vlad. He’s going to be visiting Nina and me for a while.” I leaned closer to Mr. Howard, stage whispering, “He’s very shy.”

Mr. Howard nodded and snaked an arm around his woman, then looked down at her, his gray eyes shining with lust as he eyed her heaving bosom. “Lovey, this is Sophie and her friend. Sophie lives in the apartment across the hall from me.”

The old woman eyed me suspiciously and offered a limp hand, her wrist-load of bangles jangling as she did so. She looked around me then, her eyes widening when they settled on Vlad. She straightened up and pushed out her large chest as her greasy-red lips crept up into a flirtatious grin. I stepped into her line of vision to break the spell.

Vampires—male and female—have a magnetic draw on average humans. It guarantees the propagation of their kind, though is less beneficial to our kind. I heard Vlad quietly grumble behind me.

“Don’t you worry, Lovey,” Mr. Howard muttered, his hand firmly working the woman’s rump, “Sophie and I are just good friends.”

“Good to see you again, Mr. Howard,” I said, my smile wan. “Nice to have met you, too. Vlad and I should be heading upstairs, though. Time to get settled.” I grabbed Vlad by the elbow and pushed him in front of me, then nodded to the couple who immediately went back into nuzzle mode.

“Look,” I said under my breath, “You’re going to run into a lot of humans here. You’ve got to keep that”—I wriggled my fingers in front of him—“under control.”

“Of course,” Vlad said smoothly.

“I’m serious. No glamouring while you’re here. At least not while you’re here, here.”

Vlad eyed me, but his expression didn’t change.

“Glad we’re clear,” I said mostly to myself.

Vlad and I headed up to my apartment. I pushed my key into the lock and dumped my shoulder bag on the hallway floor. If I can just get into the tub—into the tub and maybe into the liquor cabinet—this day will improve immensely, I told myself. I ushered Vlad in, then kicked the door closed with my foot, snapping the dead bolt behind us.

“Nina should be home soon. Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. If you don’t mind, I’m going to take a bath.”

“Do you have high-speed Internet?” Vlad asked.

“Yeah, of course.”

He whipped a MacBook Pro out of his book bag, flipped it open, and settled himself at our kitchen table.

I guess teenagers—dead or alive—are pretty much the same everywhere.

I stripped off my clothes when I walked into the bathroom, leaving them in a trailing heap on the floor. Once I was in nothing but my bra and panties I toed my skirt, blouse, and jacket, noticing an oblong stain of red-black blood on the cuff of my blouse. My stomach lurched and my eyes watered.

“So much for that outfit.”

I grabbed the broom and dustpan from the linen closet and swept my clothes into a heap, then dumped the mess—dustpan and all—into the rubbish bin.

I ran the bathwater as hot as I could get it and upturned a bottle of honey-coconut bubble bath under the faucet. I sniffed and then tossed in a handful of pink crystal bath salts and then sunk myself up to my eyebrows in the hot, soapy water, hoping that the mélange of fluffy bath scents and scalding water would wash away any trace of vomit, blood, and memory.

Once I felt adequately boiled—my skin warm, pink, and wrinkled—I snuggled into my baby-blue chenille bathrobe and padded to the kitchen. Vlad hadn’t moved from his spot at the table, and now the glow from the laptop reflected off his pale skin eerily.

“What are you playing?” I asked him.

He didn’t look up. “Bloodlust.”

My stomach lurched. “How nice.”

I poured a glass of Sauvignon Blanc and promptly downed it.

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked Vlad. “Nina stocked the fridge for you. She’s got A, B, O pos, and O neg. There’s Blood Light too, but …”

Do vampires have a drinking age?

“No, thanks.” Vlad wagged his head, his eyes never leaving his screen. “I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself.”

I dumped a half loaf of Wonder Bread on the counter for myself and slathered a few pieces of the fluffy white bread with peanut butter and grape jelly, promising myself that I would go right back to avoiding carbs and eating like a grown-up tomorrow. Then I poured myself a second glass of wine and headed for the couch. “I’m just going to watch a little TV if you don’t mind.”

Vlad didn’t answer.

I was picking the crusts off my sandwich and watching a Gossip Girl rerun when I heard the lock tumble and Nina appeared in the doorway, nudging the door closed with her hip.

“Hey,” she said, coming in, dumping her purse and keys on the countertop.

I jumped a little, dropping the remains of my sandwich in my lap. “Ugh. You scared me.” I licked peanut butter off my hand.

She wiggled her fingers and stuck out her tongue. “Woooo! I vant to suck your blood!” Her Transylvanian accent left something to be desired. She giggled.

“Not amusing,” I said, tossing a pillow at her.

“Louis!” Nina squealed, when she saw him sitting at the table.

Louis didn’t look up, and I leaned over to Nina. “His name is Vlad now.”

Nina frowned. “Vlad? Really?”

Vlad looked over his laptop and stood up, gliding silently toward Nina. “Aunt Nina,” he said, grinning, exposing those small fangs.

Nina stood on tiptoes to hug him, and I got a little warm fuzzy from the vampire family reunion. “This is so nice!”

Nina stepped out of Vlad’s embrace. “So you’re going to be Vlad now? Seriously?”

Vlad nodded solemnly, clasping his hands in front of him.

“Why? Couldn’t come up with something more original, like Lord Voldemort?”

Vlad glared at Nina.

“What’s wrong with Vlad?” I asked, popping the last bite of sandwich in my mouth.

“Every male vamp under a hundred and fifty calls himself Vlad. It’s the Muhammad of the vampire world. You know, Vlad the Impaler? Vlad Von Dracula?”

I shrugged, and she swung her head to Vlad again. “And what’s with the outfit?”

“This is the uniform of the Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement.”

Nina rolled her eyes and flopped on the couch. “Oh, man. You haven’t gotten involved with the Movementarians, have you? Ugh, Louis.”

“Vlad,” he corrected.

“What’s a Movementarian?”

Vlad glared at Nina. “We are not Movementarians. We are soldiers of the Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement.”

“And that is …?” I tried again.

Nina checked out her cuticles. “It’s a bunch of loony vamps that want to drag vampirism back to the dark ages. Hence”—she gestured toward Vlad—“the castle Drac wear. They always talk about going back to the ‘old ways’—and are especially against humans.”

“Not true,” Vlad said with a hungry grin. “We love humans.” His dark eyes settled on me, and I shuddered.

Nina glared at Vlad, then climbed up on the couch, standing on a cushion so she was nose to nose with him. She began wagging her finger a quarter-inch from his nose.

“Look, Louis, if you even think about drinking the tiniest blood bubble from Sophie, I will stake you and behead you myself.”

“You really frighten me,” Vlad said, deadpan.

“And I’ll turn that human girl who was always trolling around you back home, and you’ll be stuck with her whiney, Hannah Montana countenance for all of eternity.”

Vlad snarled and went back to his laptop. “I wouldn’t have eaten her,” he muttered to the screen.

Nina hopped off the couch and smiled down at me. “Teenagers.” She shrugged. “So, Sophie, how was your day?” She folded her legs underneath her and kicked off a pair of complicated-looking heels, then sunk onto the sofa next to me. I shivered and pulled my robe tighter against the waft of cool air that came from her marble skin.

“Thanks for not letting him eat me,” I whispered, leaning into her.

“I wasn’t going to eat you!” Vlad called without looking up from his laptop. “At least not a lot.”

“So,” Nina repeated, her midnight-dark eyes glittering, “how was your day with Officer Love? Excellent? Wonderful? A freak show of wild, breather sex?”

“I’m sitting right here!” Vlad moaned.

“You’re one hundred and twelve, get over it. Humans have sex,” Nina called back.

“Gross.”

I downed my wine and Nina frowned.

“That bad, huh?” she asked.

“Not with Officer Lo—I mean Detective Hayes. He’s fine—straddles that fine line between obnoxious and wonderfully hot—but fine. It’s this case.” I shuddered. “There was another murder today.”

I saw the top of Vlad’s head poke over his laptop screen as he listened in. Nina looked away, reaching for an out-of-date InStyle magazine on the coffee table. “I still don’t see why this is such a big deal. Everyone kills everyone in this city. Everyone’s either dead, undead, or dying.”

I raked my fingers through my hair. “Nina, this is serious. The crime scene, it was awful. It was a woman our—or, my—age. There was blood everywhere.” I tried to swallow, but my throat was dry. “And someone removed the woman’s heart.”

Nina’s eyes flashed. “Removed it?”

“Removed it?” Vlad repeated. “Completely?”

I nodded. “Gone. Hayes is convinced it’s a vampire.”

“Stupid,” Vlad groaned, going back to his computer game.

Nina raised an eyebrow and snapped a magazine page, ignoring Vlad. “Is that so?” She sat forward. “Does this detective even know anything about vampires? Anything at all? Humf.” She snapped another page. “He probably thinks we’re anti-garlic, too.”

“You hate garlic.”

Nina pinned me with a glare. “It gives me bad breath.”

I pinned her back. “You don’t have breath.”

Vlad chuckled from his spot at the table.

Nina rolled her eyes. “Anyway. We don’t do hearts. Or waste blood. Ever. Starving vamps in Africa, you know?” She pointed, her eyes narrowed. “Hobgoblins. That’s what you’re dealing with. They’re sloppy. And into all those weird organ meats.”

I could feel my eyes bulge.

“And they’re more likely to go rogue. Hobgoblins and zombies. They have no respect for the rules.”

“Ghouls either,” Vlad supplied.

“What do you think of me in this dress?” Nina folded a page back and held the magazine up to her narrow cheekbone. “Good?”

I sunk back into the couch, my stomach gurgling. “I can’t think of fashion right now. People are dying. And other people are thinking it’s coming from the Underworld. You know—”

Nina wrinkled her pixie nose. “I know. Delicate balance between worlds, blah, blah, blah.” She tossed the magazine and kicked her legs up onto the coffee table, balancing her chin in her palm. “You don’t think it’s coming from the Underworld?”

“I don’t know. There was veiling and a pentagram, so it’s got to be someone who knows their magics.”

Nina eyed me, the corners of her mouth turning up. “Pentagrams? How very every eighties horror movie. And any demon could learn to veil; it’s magic one-oh-one.”

“Can you?” I asked.

Nina looked away. “Any person could learn to do it, too.”

“Well, the veiling was one thing, but the rest … I’ve worked in the Underworld for a long time, Nina. I’ve worked with vampires, werewolves, even hobgoblins, and I’ve never even seen a hint of this kind of”—I shuddered again—“destruction.”

Nina raised a sculpted eyebrow.

“Not even from zombies,” I added. “Or ghouls.”

“Well,” Nina said, sitting forward, “remember when that Chaos demon ate your goldfish? That was pretty destructive.”

“A Chaos demon ate your goldfish?” Vlad said. “Cool.”

“It was not cool,” I snapped. “He swallowed Tipsy whole And the little plastic pirate ship she was hiding in. But the stupid demon didn’t rip her heart out.”

Nina shrugged, letting one elegantly slim arm hang over the arm of the couch.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Soph,” Nina started. “It certainly could be human. I’ve definitely seen a lot of crazy lunatic breathers in my day. Or days.”

“And people think we’re the monsters,” Vlad said.

Nina grinned then, her little fangs blue-white against her bright red lipstick. “So, what are you up to tonight?”

I glanced at the clock, then nodded toward my bedroom. “I can’t think of anything other than sleep.” I tapped my chest. “Breather, remember? We thrive on sleep. What about you?”

Nina gave me a smug smile and headed toward our guest room, which doubled as her enormous, stuffed-to-the-gills closet. “I am introducing my baby nephew Louis—”

“Aunt Nina, it’s Vlad!” Vlad moaned.

Nina rolled her eyes. “Whatever. We’re going to a new all-night club. It just opened right off the Haight. It’s called Dirt.”

I wrinkled my nose. “A club called Dirt?”

She raised a pleased eyebrow. “It’s strictly provamp. And way more breather-acceptable than its predecessor, Blood.”

“Do you have something to wear, Vlad?” Nina asked, stressing his name.

Vlad stood, smoothing his vest. “I’m wearing this.”

Nina poked her head out of her closet. “Awesome. I’m going to the hottest new club in town with a Halloween costume. Just”—she scrutinized Vlad’s suit—“don’t walk too close to me.”

“Hey,” I called, following Nina into her room as she nearly disappeared behind a lacy heap of vintage Betsey Johnson dresses. “How’d it go with Mr. Sampson tonight? Did you have any trouble with the chains? Sometimes the ankle lock sticks.”

“Ankle lock?” Vlad asked.

“Sampson’s a werewolf,” I called over my shoulder.

Vlad shrugged and went back to playing his game.

Nina stopped her rushed plow through her pillaged couture, and her head popped up, a silky cashmere tank top bunched around her thin shoulders.

I crossed my arms, panicked. “You did remember to chain Mr. Sampson, didn’t you?”

She gently gnawed on her bottom lip. “It’s not even a full moon, Soph. He’ll be fine, right?”

“Nina!”

She struggled into her tank top and stepped into a pair of deep-purple suede mules. “So I forgot this one time! I’ll do it tomorrow. No big.”

“You can’t just do it tomorrow!” I threw back the curtains and stared out the window, my eyes searching the inky night sky for the moon. “You have to chain him every night.”

Nina came out of her room, straightening her going-out clothes. “I thought that was just precautionary.”

I let out a long sigh, rubbing my temples. “It is—kind of. Werewolf evolution is so rapid. But”—I glanced outside again—“we have to do it. Every night.”

Nina bit her lip, looking apologetic. I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Don’t worry, Nina. I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks,” she said, wrapping her tiny cold hands around my forearms. “I promise I won’t forget again. Besides”—she shrugged, her shoulders delicate and starkly pale against the black straps of her tank—“Sampson will be so happy to see you.”

A zip of heat rushed up the back of my neck, and I indulged in the me-and-Mr. Sampson fantasy for a split second before deciding to give up romance novels for good. The surge of estrogen obviously had my hormones in overdrive.

“Come on, Vlad, we’re going to Dirt!”

Nina gave me a quick kiss on the cheek and tucked a beaded gold Armani clutch under one arm. She did a quick spin, her glossy black hair fanning around her head, her makeup perfect on her poreless face. “Good?” she asked.

“Good.” I nodded, hugging her cold form close to me. “You guys have a nice time. And be safe, okay?”

Nina pulled away and bared her fangs, her delicate features going sharp and bloodthirsty in a split second. Vlad grinned, his own sharp fangs exposed.

“I think we’ll be okay,” she said, smiling sweetly. “See you in the morning.” Nina and Vlad noiselessly disappeared out the front door and I tumbled the lock behind them.

I would have liked to be polished and put together to head down to UDA (especially since it would very likely only be me, Mr. Sampson, and the dim glow from the safety lights). But it was late and wanton comfort won over wanton sexy, so I compromised: a pair of slim black yoga pants and a clean University of San Francisco sweatshirt. Impressive, right? I raked a brush through my mass of red curls and then coaxed them into a bouncy ponytail, then hastily swiped on a bit of mascara and let cherry ChapStick stand in for gloss.

I headed to the elevator and realized that I’d never been more thankful to have underground parking than I was on this night, which seemed darker and colder than most city nights.

Within minutes I was in the SFPD parking lot. There was a half-rusted Chevette in my usual parking space, and it seemed as if the majority of the city was spending its Wednesday night at the police station. The lot was nearly full, and squad cars kept coming and going, uniformed officers guiding cuffed suspects through the glassed-in side door. I circled the station once and had to park nearly a block away, wedging my little car between a behemoth SUV and a station wagon packed to the ceiling with newspapers and soda cans.

I shimmied out of the car and wedged my house keys through my fingers like claws, then walked with purpose (and terror) toward the police station. When I got there, I found myself doing a quick scan for Detective Hayes’s white SUV and then scolding myself for hoping he was there. First of all: he might be attractively hot with those piercing blue eyes and that sexy, playful half smile, but he was obnoxious, with those beady blue eyes and that smug, cocky half smile. Second of all: I looked like a cross between a redheaded troll doll and college dropout Barbie—not exactly hot-obnoxious-man-impressing material. I slipped into the elevators and headed down to UDA.

When the doors opened on the UDA foyer, the place was deserted. Pale yellow emergency lights hummed from the back corners, but everything else remained completely blanketed in the stiff darkness. I picked my way through the waiting room chairs and vacant desks and hurried down the hallway, my sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. Empty in the shadows, the UDA offices looked far more frightening than they did in broad daylight, dotted with warlocks, vampires, and general demon folk. I shuddered.

I flicked on the light in my little front office and paused when I felt the grit under my tennis shoe. I looked down and my pulse quickened. There was a scattering of broken glass on the floor. I kicked aside the little shards and hugged my elbows, a cold wave of fear washing over me.

“Hello?” My voice came out hollow and tinny in the empty room. “Pete? It’s me, Sophie.” I picked my way through the pieces of glass and sucked in a breath when I saw five ragged tears in the fainting couch fabric. I fit my fingers over them. “Claw marks,” I whispered, my blood running cold.

There was a huge gash on the side of my desk, and my chair had been tossed across the room, shattering a cheery painting of the Golden Gate Bridge. I stepped over the cracked pot of my spider plant and swallowed hard, seeing the splinters along the door frame. Mr. Sampson’s office door was hanging by one hinge; the gold letters that used to spell out PETE SAMPSON, PRESIDENT on the door were scratched and shattered. I pushed the door aside and stepped into his office. The room was dark except for the ominous green glow from the bank light on his desk; its little gold ball bobbed on the end of its pull chain.

“Pete?” I asked again.

There was no answer, and the entire room was still as I edged my way behind Sampson’s big desk, pushing his chair aside and examining the wall chains.

“Oh no.” I sucked in a breath, my fingers running over one open shackle, the metal distorted, folded over itself. I followed the ankle chain to the eyebolt lying on the ground in a shower of powdery cement crumbs, the place in the wall where the eyebolt was held was now puckered and cracked.

“Oh, Mr. Sampson,” I whispered. “What happened here?”

I dropped the shackle and headed for the elevator, digging in my shoulder bag for the business card Detective Hayes had given me and flipping open my cell phone. I punched in his number and transferred my weight from foot to foot, counting each ring.

“Parker?” I asked the second I heard the phone connect. “Detective?”

Detective Hayes’s voice was sleep-heavy and gruff. “Parker is fine, Lawson.”

“Wow,” I said, pushing the button on the elevator. “You knew it was me. You are a good detective.”

“Good enough to have caller ID. Did your new houseguest take a bite out of you or is there another reason for this?” I heard him pause; then I heard the groan of a mattress, “One A.M. phone call?”

“Maybe.” I bit my lip, glancing once more over my shoulder at Mr. Sampson’s office. “I think my boss is missing.”

“Your boss? You mean Mr. Sampson? Missing? How do you know that? Where are you?”

“At the office. I’m about to get in the elevator. I came down here because Nina told me that she didn’t chain up Pete—Mr. Sampson—tonight. I was worried so I came to do it myself.”

“It’s not a full moon, right?” Hayes let out an inelegant, bored yawn. “Maybe he just went home.”

“His den.”

“What?”

“His den. He has a den, not a home … exactly. And no, I don’t think so. The office—something happened here. Everything is broken, shattered and … and one of the chains was broken. It had been torn from the wall.”

“So what does that mean? I thought you said that Nina didn’t chain him up. Why would the chains have been broken if Mr. Sampson never got chained up?”

“Mr. Sampson knows that he needs to be chained up. Always—full moon, or not.” I slumped, waiting for the damn elevator. “So, sometimes if we’re busy, Mr. Sampson will start chaining himself. If he does it early enough, it’s not a problem. But if he starts to change … if he starts to change before he’s completely secured—”

“He can do things like tear chains straight out of cement.”

“Yeah.” The elevator dinged and the doors slid open, to my immense relief. I rushed inside, mashing my fingers against the CLOSE DOOR button.

“Do you think he’s dangerous?” All the sleep was gone from Parker’s voice now.

“No,” I said, annoyed, “I think he’s in danger.”

The elevator doors slid shut, the phone still pressed against my ear. “There is a murderer on the loose and frankly, a task force of police officers who are out looking for a giant dog to shoot. I think someone may have gone after Sampson. Parker?” I frowned into the mouthpiece. “Parker, are you listening to me?” My cell phone went silent, the frowny little call dropped! icon on the screen.

“Stupid cell phone,” I muttered, riding the elevator to the ground floor of the police department.

I half ran, half walked through the bustling police department offices, my heart thundering in my throat. When I pushed through the back door into the department parking lot, one of the overhead lights was buzzing and blinking annoyingly. I stepped into the outside darkness and hurried through the lot that had emptied considerably, and when I approached my car down the block, the behemoth SUV and paper-stacked station wagon were gone, too. I was about to push my key into the lock when I heard the rustle of feet on gravel, and the unmistakable metallic smell of blood wafting on the air. I resisted the bad-horror-movie urge to yell out Hello? Is anybody there? into the darkness, and instead focused on getting my car door open and me behind the wheel before I wet my pants.

I yanked open my car door and was halfway through it when I felt the moist breath against my neck, then the viselike grip on my shoulder, yanking me out of the car. I yelped as fire roared from my shoulder to my chest and I was pulled, my forehead crashing against the hard metal door frame, the skin above my left eye splitting and immediately starting to ooze blood. I couldn’t make out the face in the darkness, but I knew that it was coming toward me, teeth bared, fingers gripping. Blood stung my eye and so I clenched my eyes shut, ready for the toothpicklike snapping of my bones. I opened my mouth to scream, but my voice was gone, strangled, lost in my own throat.

And that was the last thing I remembered.