“I’m an exotic dancer. That is, I strip,” she said straight-up, with a knowing smile.
“Is this something you did before becoming a vampire, or did you take it up after?”
“Before, which is part of why I keep doing it—it’s something I know, and I’m pretty good at it if I do say so myself. It’s a lot more fun knowing I won’t ever have to worry about competing with the younger girls, as far as looks go.”
“That’s a perk I certainly hadn’t thought of. And dare I ask how long you’ve been at it?”
“You mean, how long have I been a vampire? Angelo warned me you’d ask me that.”
“It’s standard,” I agreed. “So, how about it? How old are you?”
“Oh, not that old, not compared to someone like Angelo or Rick. I’m just a baby, really.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Yeah. Right. Moving on, I’ve encountered anecdotal evidence that stripping as a vampire is more lucrative than stripping as a mortal human. Can you confirm or deny this?”
“I can understand why someone might think that’s the case. But really, there are so many factors involved, as anyone in the business can tell you. The time of day, location, the joint’s policies, local ordinances. Being a vampire turns out to be the least of it. In fact, I try not to use my … influence too often. It starts to look suspicious, you know what I mean? I may be one of the immortal undead, but the girls in the dressing room can use a bottle of holy water just as well as anyone if I start poaching.”
That made a frightening amount of good sense. “Did I promise a peek into a hidden world, or what? So Colette, are you up front with your status as a vampire, or do you keep it secret? Is it a marketing point for you? ‘Come see the vampire stripper’?”
“It would be, if I actually advertised it, but I don’t. Some of my friends know, and that’s it, really. I don’t want to turn this into more of a freak show than it already is by advertising I’m a vampire. I mean, look what happened to you when you came out.”
“Freak show?” I asked, grinning. “It’s worked out pretty well for me.”
“I suppose, if you like being a target.”
Ouch. I kind of did feel like I’d painted one on myself some days. Well, I’d held on this long, hadn’t I? Without the benefit of vampire immortality, even.
Moving on, then. “So it’s safe to say that becoming a vampire didn’t change your ability or desire to be a stripper?”
“Like I said, I do this because it’s what I know, it’s a way I know I can make some money, and I like to have my own money rather than depending totally on the Family. The Family knows what I do, they’re okay with it. It’s good to have diverse resources, don’t you think?” She purred on this last.
“Remember folks, you heard it here first: vampires have their sticky little fingers in everything, don’t they?” I’d probably hear about this from Angelo later. Really, though, if he hadn’t wanted Colette to talk, he wouldn’t have introduced her to me. “Colette, how do you feel about taking a few calls?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” she said. “I know how this works.”
“All right, I’m opening the line for calls.” I checked the monitor very, very carefully and picked what sounded like a reasonably intelligent question, hoping against hope that however likely this episode was to end up in the gutter, we wouldn’t actually start there. “Nancy from Hartford, you’re on the air.”
“Hi, Kitty, thanks for taking my call.”
“You’re very welcome, Nancy. Do you have a question for Colette?”
“Omigosh, yes, what an opportunity to talk to a real, live vampire.” I could have quibbled with the terminology there, but I didn’t. Nancy continued, “I know you can’t say exactly how long you’ve been a stripper, but you must have an interesting perspective, and I wondered if you could talk a little bit about how the field has changed over the course of your career?”
Intelligent and academic, even. For my first question of the night, I chose wisely. Even better, Colette was happy to talk about changes in work environments, music, and traditions. “But in the end, it’s always been about watching women take their tops off, and that’ll never change,” she concluded. “Actually, you know what’s changed the most? Male strippers. Equal-opportunity stripping. Maybe a little more high end than what most of us do, but I’m not going to knock it.”
I switched lines. “On to the next call, now. Jen, you’re on the air.”
“Um, gosh, wow. Okay. My question, yeah. If becoming a vampire didn’t change anything about how much you made stripping, why do it at all?”
Colette sat back in her chair, legs crossed. “Why strip, or why be a vampire?”
“Well, yeah,” Jen said.
“Really, becoming a vampire had nothing to do with whether or not I was stripping. But what would you say if I told you I’ve found wonderful pickings at my places of employment.”
“You mean … oh,” Jen said. The phone clicked off.
“And I think we’ve lost Jen,” I said, suppressing an urge to chortle. “Next caller, you’re on the air.”
The caller was male, brash, and I’d lay money that he’d been drinking. “Yeah, Colette, great talking to you. Do you do private parties?”
“You couldn’t afford me.”
“But what if—”
“Really,” she said. That purr again.
I cut the caller off before he could embarrass himself further. “And how about we break for station ID? This is The Midnight Hour, and we’ll be back in a sec.” I waved at Matt thought the window, but he was a step ahead of me, cuing up the PSAs. The on-air sign dimmed—a reprieve.
I sat back and regarded my guest. “What do you think?” I asked.
“Angelo said this would be fun, and he was right. Certainly shakes things up.”
“You’re a natural at this,” I said. “I have to prod some people to get them to talk.
“Show business is show business.”
I could argue about that, but I’d lose. “Maybe you could convince Angelo to come on the show for an interview.”
“And how likely do you think that is?”
None. None likely. “You putting in a good word for me couldn’t hurt, could it?”
She narrowed her gaze. “Why are you so interested in interviewing Angelo?”
“I don’t know much about him. I’d love to know more. If I’m going to ask him stuff anyway, I might as well get a show out of it.”
“Just knowledge and entertainment, then? No ulterior motive?”
“Well, more like stories. Vampires have the best stories. That’s why I wanted to talk to you—I never would have expected a vampire to work as a stripper. Most of them are so … private. Or what’s the word I’m looking for…”
“Elitist?”
Nailed it. “But here you are, and the Family approves. So what does the Family get out of having one of their own working as an exotic dancer?”
Her smile shined. “It’s not always about the Families, Kitty. Sometimes there’s no secret agenda, no conspiracy. Not even much of a story. Sometimes there’s a stripper who just happens to be a vampire. A radio host who happens to be a werewolf.”
She might have had a point. I’d been trying to unwrap Roman’s conspiracy for so long, I’d started to see everything as a thread leading back to it. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
“And Angelo really is just a guy who was unexpectedly put in charge when he’d rather sit the whole thing out.” She shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.
“So you think he’s a nice enough guy,” I said, not sure I trusted her opinion on the matter.
“To tell you the truth, I miss Rick. But Angelo’s not a bad guy.”
And that had to count for something I supposed.
We came back on the air, she answered another round of questions. All in all, this show was turning into one of my better efforts.
During the next break, she unfolded from her chair. “This has bee
n fun, but I really need to get going. Thanks for inviting me.” She offered her hand, and I shook it, and she gave me a charming little wave before stalking out of the studio.
Matt had to knock on the glass to get me to notice his countdown. On the air in five, and me without my guest. Right. Seat of my pants, here we go.
“All right, welcome back to The Midnight Hour. A little change of plans. My guest, Colette, has turned into a bat and flapped away. Not really, vampires don’t really turn into bats. They only want us to think they do. Never mind. But I want to thank her for stopping by and giving us some insight into her world. But this has brought up an issue I’d love to discuss next. So, a question for the peanut gallery: Once they turn sixty-five, how long should working vampires be able to collect social security? The rest of their lives, like the rest of us? Are you a vampire collecting social security? I want to hear from you…”
Chapter 4
BEN WENT back to work, too, which meant making the business trip to Wyoming. The house was very big and quiet without him around.
This was purely psychological. I’d spent plenty of time in the house alone, when he was out working or whatever. Then, I didn’t think about it, because I knew he’d be back soon, or he’d call to let me know where he was. He’d still be in Denver, in our territory. I could listen for the sounds of him returning home.
Now, I listened for sounds that weren’t there. The walls seemed to creak, and every car engine or barking dog set my hair on end. I waited for the hum of his car turning into the driveway, a sound I knew I wasn’t going to hear. Maddening.
I kept music on to fill the space.
At night, lying in bed alone, the quiet grew much worse. I left the music on, turned low, to provide a background noise to distract the part of my mind that kept listening for cars, or kept convincing me that an intruder was in the kitchen making off with the silverware. I slept on Ben’s side of the bed, my face buried in his pillow, so I could breathe in the scent of him. I berated myself for being soppy.
The next afternoon, I sat on the floor of the office, much as Ben had found me the day before, papers and books piled everywhere, thinking. Pretending to think. I was leaning against the desk, looking at the sky through the window, enjoying the winter sun blazing through, and if someone had asked what I was thinking about in that moment, I wouldn’t have been able to say.
While thinking I would work more when I had the house to myself was a nice idea, I’d known all along that it wasn’t going to happen, because not having enough time, space, or quiet to work wasn’t the reason I hadn’t finished the book. I had the problem of too much information, and no clue how to tie it together. I had entire chapters written, and no idea what order to put them in. Did I arrange stories chronologically, geographically, thematically? Biographically, with a framework about how the stories related to me personally? All equally valid approaches. I kept changing my mind.
When my cell phone rang, I jumped like it was a fire alarm, scattering papers and sliding shut the book I’d been pretending to read. I needed a minute of scrambling before I could actually reach the phone, and was surprised when the caller ID showed it wasn’t Ben. I shouldn’t have been surprised; he’d called last night to say he’d arrived in Cheyenne okay, and I wasn’t expecting another call from him until tonight.
This call came from Tom, one of the werewolves in our pack. I may have sounded a little surly when I answered.
“What is it?”
“Um, hi?” Tom was one of the bigger males in the pack—one of the tough guys, the kind who actually made you think of werewolves when you saw him. That he could sound sheepish talking to me usually made me smile.
I settled down. “Hi. And how are we today?”
“Actually … we may have a problem.”
I straightened, a shadow of fur prickling on my skin and hackles rising. “What is it?”
“I’m up in the mountains, out past Georgetown, and I caught a weird scent. Might be werewolf or some other kind of lycanthrope. Definitely not one of ours.”
A stranger, in our territory. We’d had invaders before. Just recently a strange werewolf had arrived for the express purpose of trying to take the pack away from us. I took this sort of thing seriously. With the news about Roman and Antony, my worry pressed on me like a boulder.
“Is it just one person or a group? Did they seem lost? Are they looking for something?”
Tom said, “It wasn’t enough to make a trail, not anything I could track. It was almost like they circled around for a while. Maybe they were looking for something.”
“And it was fresh?”
“Couldn’t be more than a day old,” he said. “It was pretty strong—I wouldn’t have called if it was just a trace.”
I blew out a breath. This could be nothing—someone passing through, getting lost. Or it could be someone with bad intentions. A scouting mission for an attack at some later date?
Either way, I couldn’t ignore it. If things went well, we might have a new friend to talk to. If not … I had a territory to defend. I started cleaning up in preparation for leaving. I wanted to go there to take a look.
“Just out of curiosity,” I said. “What were you doing out that way?”
He paused a moment, then said, nervous, “Um … just going for a hike…”
“You shifted, didn’t you? Went out for a run?” “Going for a run” was a euphemism among werewolves. Tom grumbled a perfunctory, unenthusiastic denial. “Why exactly did you do this? Full moon’s not for a week.” Six days, actually. I kept count. We all did.
“I’m not hurting anything,” he said, and I could almost see him pouting. “I didn’t get in any kind of trouble.”
We had to shape-shift on the night of a full moon, but we had the ability to shift anytime we wanted. Or we shifted when we were stressed, angry, frightened, in danger … yeah. Part of why we formed packs was so we could watch out for each other. We could gather on nights of the full moon, shape-shift together, make sure we stayed safe—and didn’t do anything that might get us in trouble, like hunting people. We could take care of each other, so we didn’t shift uncontrollably at other times. Solo shifting kind of defeated the purpose.
“Tom. You know better than that.”
“Seriously, I’m not hurting anything. I can handle it.”
If I sounded like an irate parent, he sounded like a teenager. I trusted Tom; he was smart enough to go to a remote spot if he was going to do recreational shape-shifting. Of everyone in the pack, he was probably the one who most enjoyed being a werewolf—who reveled in the power and exhilaration of running on four legs, feeling the wind in your fur, hunting for the taste of fresh meat …
Most of us tried to ignore how good being wolf made us feel.
“Why don’t you just tell me that you had a suspicion something was wrong and went out to patrol under your own initiative?”
“Okay, then. I went out to patrol because I thought something might be wrong.”
“Fine. Okay. Good work, then. I want to check it out. I can be out there in about an hour. Can you wait for me and show me what you found?”
“I’ll be here.”
We hung up and I looked around at my paper-strewn, chaotic office. This could wait another day. Going to see what Tom had found was more important.
* * *
I CALLED Ben. His phone went straight to voice mail, which I expected. He was probably in a meeting. I left a message explaining what was happening and that Tom was with me, because Ben would worry if I was on my own. He’d worry anyway, but he’d be reassured that I wasn’t running off alone. Then I drove into the mountains to meet Tom.
Denver lay near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains—the Front Range, which rose from the Great Plains like a wall of sandstone and granite. I turned the car onto I-70. The freeway climbed, curving around hills, until I was in the mountains proper. Within half an hour, pine-covered slopes surrounded me. In the dead of winter, I rolled down the window so I c
ould smell the sharp, icy air, laden with the scent of snow and forest. The wind whipped strands of my blond hair out of my ponytail and into my face. South-facing slopes and hillsides were bare of snow, green with conifers rising tall. North-facing slopes had a carpet of white. I’d managed to miss ski traffic heading to the resorts farther west.
Soon enough, I reached the Georgetown exit and pulled off onto the frontage road, and from there to the road that wound into the mountains. Then came a couple of narrow drives, then dirt roads. I felt like I was traveling through time, from the height of civilization to some nineteenth-century village, to wilderness. I ran into patches of ice and snow, but my little car with its snow tires handled the road okay.
On full-moon nights, we rotated between half a dozen semiremote spots in national forest land in the Rockies, or out east on the plains. They had to be close enough to Denver that we could drive there in an hour or two, but far enough away from people that we weren’t likely to draw attention or cause trouble. A set of USGS topographic maps marking service roads helped us pick our spots. The best ones had sheltered areas where we could bed down for the rest of the night, open spaces where we could run, and plenty of prey. Deer and rabbit, usually. That was the true purpose of shape-shifting and running on full-moon nights: blood. The need to let our wolf sides loose; the desire to kill that we could only restrain for so long. This one night, we had to send our howling songs to the moon, and let our claws and teeth tear into the weak.
I found Tom’s car, a compact SUV parked on the side of the road by a pine tree. I pulled my hatchback in behind his car, then followed his scent through the trees, around a rise, and into a clearing. Tom stood on a slope patched with half-melted drifts of snow, leaning on a tree and looking out into the next valley. He wore jeans and no shirt, and went shoeless. He must have called me as soon as he’d woken up after his time as a wolf and dressed just enough to appear decent. In his thirties, he was as fit and rugged a man as a red-blooded girl like me could hope to gaze upon.
“Hey,” I said, coming to stand beside him. I touched his shoulder, a confirmation of contact, a wolfish gesture of comfort and identity. Relaxing, he dropped his shoulders and pressed his lips into a smile. He turned his gaze away, a sign of submission to the alpha of his pack.