Dead Over Heels

  The saleswoman smiled at it.

  “I’d like to see Calm, Dabble, Mystery, Ravish2, Splendid, Adore, Amazing, Angelic, Heaven, Infinite, Neat, Phantom, Goblin, Fairy, and Rosella. Oh, and will you deliver these to my hotel?”

  “Of course.”

  “You can’t remember to buy milk,” Jessica said, “but you memorized most of the Fall Feldman line?”

  “Do not ruin this for me. Do not.”

  Once the saleswoman disappeared, Nick took out his gun. I wasn’t sure if he was going to shoot me or himself, and frankly, I had other things to worry about. Luckily, he put it away when she came back, staggering under the load of shoe boxes.

  I actually clapped my hands like a kid when I saw her.

  Chapter 12

  That bastard,” Nick fumed in the cab on the way back to the hotel. “He knew what he was getting out of. And he knew what you were sticking me with.”

  “Oh, come on, it wasn’t so bad.”

  “Six hours of shoe shopping!”

  “It was only two.”

  “Well, it felt like a thousand.”

  “Hey, you wanted to come along on this trip.”

  “Yeah, well, I was expecting treachery and betrayal and felony assault. Not this!”

  “Knock it off, you two,” Jessica ordered, massaging her temples. “I’ve got a splitting headache.”

  In a nanosecond, Nick became a totally different person.

  “Babe? You okay? Maybe we better get you back so you can lie down.”

  “I’m fine, Nick, it’s not the cancer. I just have a headache.”

  Nick was in the middle; I was on his left, and Jessica was on his right. If she hadn’t been so thin, it never would have worked. But it did work, which is why I opened my purse, rummaged, then handed Nick a bottle of Advil. He shot me a look of pure gratitude—I almost fell out of the cab—and shook two into his palm, then gave them to Jess, who dry-swallowed them.

  “Thanks for coming along, you guys.”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it,” Jessica said, leaning back and closing her eyes.

  “She’s only speaking for herself,” Nick added.

  “I still can’t decide which pair is my favorite,” I said dreamily. “Infinite, or Fairy.”

  “How about Goblin?” Nick muttered. “You just—hey, you’re going past our hotel!”

  “Sorry, mahn,” the driver said calmly. “Got to admit, tough to see dis place on de street.”

  He had that right. The Grange really blended, which was weird, given how scary and old-fashioned it looked.

  “That’s okay,” Nick said. “Just take a left and drop us off around the corner.”

  “Not at all, mahn. I will get you dere.” I could see his dark eyes in the rearview mirror, heard him pop the car into reverse, and then we were speeding backward.

  “This is a one-way street!” Nick practically shrieked.

  “Dis is New York, mahn.”

  We came to a shuddering halt right outside the lobby steps, and Nick and Jessica couldn’t scramble out fast enough.

  I handed the driver my last fifty and said, “You got some plums on you, big guy. Keep the change.”

  He touched two fingers to an imaginary hat and grinned, his teeth very white in his dark face. “Anyt’ing for a pretty lady.”

  I got out and watched him drive away.

  Now that was cool. Hideously dangerous and illegal, but cool.

  “New York, New York, it’s a helluva town,” I hummed, trotting up the steps to catch up with Nick and Jess.

  Chapter 13

  I spotted Sinclair waiting for us in the lounge; he’d already ordered me a Cosmo. I ran up to him, easily outpacing Nick and Jessica, and flung my arms around his neck so hard he rocked back in his chair.

  He kissed my temple and said into my hair, “Did you have fun shoe shopping?”

  “Oh my God, you would not believe it!”

  He flinched at “God,” rallied, then said, “I’ll believe it very well when the American Express bill comes.”

  “Well, I had to replace the one that’s stuck in the wall.”

  “Ah, so you only bought one pair,” he teased.

  Before I could give him a piece of my mind, or throw my drink at him, Nick and Jess were sitting down at our table. We’d all agreed to compare notes at the end of the evening. Interestingly, now that we were off Nick’s suspect list (not that I truly thought we’d ever really been on it) we were sort of a crime-fighting team.

  Maybe he’d hate us again when we all got back home. Maybe he still hated us but was using us to solve a murder, which would be very Nick-like (and cop-like). Or maybe hanging out with us was loosening him up a little. There was absolutely no way to tell.

  “You dirty rotten son of a bitch,” Nick started. Okay, maybe there was one way to tell. “You knew what her little errand was.”

  Sinclair actually giggled. Giggled. “Which did you like best, Detective Berry? Calm or Infinite?”

  Nick stuck a finger in my husband’s face, which was a good way to get bitten. “If I didn’t hate you with every fiber of my being before, I absolutely do now.”

  “Somehow,” he yawned, “I will try to recover from the remorse.”

  A pretty waitress—short, good figure, gorgeous green eyes, black hair—bounced up to our table. “Good evening, Majesties! May I bring your guests a drink?”

  “Hi,” I said, sticking out a hand. Startled, she shook it. “I’m Betsy. This is Nick and Jessica. She’ll have a Screwdriver, heavy on the vodka, no ice. He’ll have a Bud.”

  Her hand was clammy and almost uncomfortable to touch, but I held onto my smile and she looked weirdly gratified. “Right away, my queen,” she said, and flounced off.

  “That, uh, wasn’t the killer, was it?” Jessica asked.

  “I have been unable to locate the killer. Or if I have, I don’t know it yet. But that will change.” Sinclair looked grim. Well, grimmer. “Of that, I can assure you.”

  “So, no luck tonight?”

  “I believe I just said that.”

  “Told you I should have been there!” Nick said triumphantly.

  “Don’t gloat, hon, it’s unbecoming,” Jessica scolded him gently. “Besides, we were needed elsewhere.”

  He threw up his hands and sank back in his chair. “Shoe shopping!”

  “You don’t have to say it like you’d say ‘snake milking’.”

  “Given a choice,” he began, when the über-efficient waitress (I bet vampire speed came in handy when you were waiting tables) returned with drinks.

  “Thanks a lot, uh—” I squinted, but she wasn’t wearing a name tag.

  “Marcia.”

  “Thanks, Marcia. Just charge it to our room, okay?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Uh . . . will you take a traveler’s check?”

  “I meant, your money is no good here, Majesty.” And she—God, this was so embarrassing—she actually went down on one knee and bowed her head to me. “You’re The One, the foretold queen, and you’ve rid us of Nostro and Marjorie in two years.

  My life is yours.” She looked up, green eyes twinkling. “Or, at the very least, I can pay for your drinks.”

  “Uh . . . that’ll be fine, Marcia.” I was so rattled I didn’t know what to do. Pat her on the head? Wave her away? Invite her to join us?

  Luckily, Sinclair did know what to do. “Your loyalty is noted and appreciated, Marcia. Now leave us, dear.”

  Quick as a snake, Marcia was on her feet and away from the table.

  Hmm. Maybe I should try that.

  “Just in time,” Jessica commented. “I was about to puke.”

  “I didn’t know she was going to do that,” I snapped. “It was so incredibly—”

  “Vampire hearing,” Sinclair said quietly.

  “—nice of her that I was speechless,” I amended hastily.

  Someone waved at our table, and Sinclair stood. “I’ve received some faxes from St. Paul. If you’
ll excuse me.”

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you keep ditching us,” I warned him. “You’ll pay.”

  His eyes gleamed, and he kissed my knuckles. “I look forward to it. Our room, half an hour?”

  “Maybe,” I sniffed, pretending my thighs weren’t already tingling.

  “Oh, barf,” Jessica said. “I never thought I’d wish the cancer would come back to distract me, but . . . ”

  “Don’t even joke about that!”

  “So, the bloodsuckers are happy because you’re the best of a bad lot, eh?” Nick asked.

  “And just when I thought you were done being a dick,” I grumbled.

  “Honey, I haven’t even—wait.”

  “Wait, what?”

  But Nick was looking across the lounge, out into the lobby, where a lone girl was wandering around. She was startling looking, with shoulder-length platinum hair and pale skin. And she was dressed in a white nightgown, in bare feet.

  “Must be a kid of one of the guests.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a pretty fucking dangerous place for a kid to be wandering around, don’t you think?” Nick was already getting up. “Just a sec.”

  Jessica and I looked at each other. “Are we really going to let the guys have all the fun on this trip?” she asked.

  Then we got up and ran after Nick.

  Chapter 14

  Hon? Can I talk to you for a sec?” The little girl—couldn’t have been more than ten—whirled at Nick’s voice and I saw she had huge blue eyes, eyes the color of the sky. Then she laughed and ran off.

  “Wait! I need to talk to you! Where are your folks?”

  All three of us ran after her because—shit!—she had run out the lobby door, out of the (relative) safety of the crowded lobby. Her white blond hair streamed after her like a bridal veil and I thought that I had never seen such a beautiful child. Real tempting pickings for the asshole bloodsucker who liked to munch kids.

  We came out in time to see her disappear around the block, laughing. I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled, “We’re not playing tag, kid! We gotta talk to you!”

  No response. I glanced at my human friends. “Later, gators,” I said, because I was going to do my Bionic Woman thing in a sec and they had no chance of keeping up.

  But even running as fast as I could, by the time I rounded the block, the kid was nowhere to be seen.

  I trudged dejectedly back to them. “That’s great. Now we get to wait for another Goddamned crime scene.”

  “If she lives in the hotel, she probably knows a hundred ways to get back in. Like Eloise,” Jessica suggested. “I think she’ll be okay. She certainly gave us the slip easily enough.”

  “Good point,” I said, cheering up.

  “All the same, I think I’ll hang out here for a while,” Nick said. “Honey, you go up to the room and get some sleep.”

  “And leave you out here in the dark by yourself?”

  “Uh . . . hon, I’m a cop.”

  “A human cop looking for a kid-killing vampire! Besides, the Advil worked fine. I’m not even tired.”

  “Well, shit. That means I have to stay out here, too.”

  Jessica and Nick both looked surprised. “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “Oh, like I’m really going back inside to have nasty sex with Sinclair while you two are walking around trying to prevent vamp-on-kid crime. That’d only make me the biggest jerk in the world.”

  “Well—” Jessica began sweetly, but Nick cut her off.

  “Seriously, Betsy. Go inside. We’ll just walk around out here for a little while and if we don’t see anything, we’ll come in. And if we do see something, we’ll call your cell.” He put a (gentle!) hand on my arm. “Really, go. It’s your honeymoon, right?”

  I was completely torn. Do the right thing, and stick with my human, fragile, easily shreddable friends? Or take the olive branch Nick was so plainly offering? The pleading look on Jessica’s face made up my mind for me.

  “Okay, but call me if you see or hear anything. We can jump out the window and be on the street in about three seconds.”

  “Just get dressed first!” Jessica hollered at me as I went up the stairs. Jerk.

  Chapter 15

  Too impatient to take the elevator, I bounded up the eight flights, ran down the hallway, and jammed my key card into the slot. The door obligingly beeped, I entered, then shut the door behind me and started taking off my clothes. Sinclair was already in bed, the covers turned invitingly back. His faxes were neatly piled on the desk—hey, at least he didn’t bring them to bed. This time.

  “You’re flushed,” he said, surprised. “Did you feed?”

  “No, I ran two blocks in about eight seconds. Nick saw a kid alone in the lobby and we were worried about her.”

  “Ah. I trust you warned her.”

  “Actually, we couldn’t catch her. Quick little minx. Jessica thinks she lives here and knows all the alleys and warrens, like a little rabbit. And pretty!”

  “Pretty?” he asked doubtfully. (Sinclair wasn’t a fan of kids, and barely tolerated BabyJon, my ward and half-brother.)

  “Oh my God, you’ve never seen a prettier kid. She’s practically got ‘bite me’ written on her forehead. So after we couldn’t find her, Nick and Jess stayed outside, just in case.” I hung my shirt on the shoe in the wall, kicked off my pumps, and stepped out of my shorts. I started to wriggle out of my bra when Sinclair held up a hand; I knew what that meant.

  So I walked to the bed and let him gently remove my bra and panties, let him pull me down to him. Then I bit him, hard, on the throat and he bucked beneath me in surprise and pleasure. His cool blood trickled into my mouth like dark wine (irony: I hate wine) and my head started to swim almost immediately.

  I could feel his dick pressing against my stomach, almost jerking like a live thing, and he was still spasming beneath me, so I broke off and licked his blood from my teeth.

  “How about that?”

  In response he rolled me over, pounced on me, and bit me right on the jugular. Now I was the one writhing in pleasure—there was something about being taken, something that was just as fine as doing the taking—I don’t know, I can’t really describe it.

  Then he plunged into me and I shrieked at the ceiling, shrieked and clawed at his back while he drank and thrust, while he filled me up and I filled him up, and I had time for a scant thought

  please God don’t let the cell phone ring

  what?

  and then my orgasm was roaring through me like a freight train, and it was times like that that I wondered why I ever bitched about being a vampire.

  Sinclair shuddered above me and broke off, and I licked the bite on his neck.

  “Cell phone?” he panted.

  “Told . . . Jess and Nick . . . to call if . . . they ran into trouble.”

  He grinned down at me and I stroked his broad back, where my scratch marks were already healing. “Then it’s a very good thing they didn’t—”

  My cell phone rang.

  Chapter 16

  Two blks S, hurry!!!!!!!” Jess had texted, and hurry we did. Instead of dressing, we grabbed hotel robes. Instead of messing with the stairs, we broke the window and jumped out.

  I managed to keep my feet, but felt the shock of the landing all the way up to my hips. Never mind. The blond kid was in trouble—or dead. I just knew it.

  We got there in just a few seconds and I nearly skidded in the blood, which was as awful as it sounds, especially in bare feet.

  “Oh no!”

  “Fuck,” Sinclair muttered, which was very unlike him. I was the potty mouth in the Sinclair family. But the situation certainly warranted it.

  Except . . . it wasn’t her. It was a different girl, slightly older, wearing filthy clothes and with dirty hands. Her skin wasn’t quite as dark as Jessica’s, and already going dusky with death.

  A homeless child? A runaway? Whoever she had been, she’d crossed paths with the wrong
man—or woman—and wouldn’t ever have to worry about finding a place to stay again.

  “Where is everybody?” I asked, kneeling beside the child.

  “We’re the first ones on scene. I’ve called 911.”

  “You guys didn’t see anything?”

  “We didn’t even hear anything,” Jessica said, sounding very strained. “We just rounded the corner and there she was.”

  “Oh, the poor poor thing. Look! I count at least three bite marks, the fucking greedy bastard.”

  “Five,” Sinclair said distantly.

  “We don’t have to kill! We only have to take half a pint or so, Goddamn it!”

  “Yes, that’s been my experience,” Nick said quietly.

  I turned on him and snarled, “Yes, fucking A right, Nick, you’re alive, aren’t you? You’re walking around allowed to be a perfect asshole, aren’t you? But this poor kid—this . . .” I stretched out a trembling hand, wanting to touch her, stroke her face, maybe pull her into my arms. Too late, all too late.

  Nick seized my wrist. “Betsy, don’t! This is a crime scene. Anything you do—change—won’t help the cops and it won’t help her. Just—don’t, okay?”

  “Let go of my wrist,” I said tonelessly, and he did.

  In the background, sirens.

  “There’s nothing we can do except incriminate ourselves,” Sinclair said quietly. “It’s time to go. Nick can handle the cops.”

  He took my hand to help me up and I yanked it out of his grip.

  “And we were busy fucking while this kid was getting bled like a pig,” I hissed at him. “Don’t touch me.”

  I walked out of the alley, alone.

  Chapter 17

  Jessica caught up with me. “You’re not mad at them, you know. You’re mad at the creature doing this under your nose.”

  “Go away.”

  “Oh, you can just shitcan the attitude, Miss Thang! I didn’t kill her. In fact, you and your boy-toy wouldn’t even know about her if I hadn’t told you. So spare me the ’tude.”

  I didn’t say anything. What could I say? She was right.