I hadn’t bothered to file mine down yet. I just tried not to smile too widely while in mixed company. I’d done that once in the presence of a hunter and the night had not gone very smoothly afterward.
We trailed after Victoria and her friend as they exited the backstage area and moved along a hallway.
“Excuse me,” Thierry said after a moment.
Victoria stopped walking and turned around to look at us curiously. She’d pushed the cowboy hat back so it hung around her neck on a thin leather band, leaving her platinum blond ringlets free. Her skin was pale and perfect, her eyes the blue of violets, and she wore a bit of glossy pink lip gloss, but not enough to make her look too grown-up.
I wondered how old she really was and if she’d been turned recently or if she’d been like this for dozens, or even hundreds, of years. The thought made me shiver.
“Yes?” the man with her said.
Thierry approached them. He folded his arms over his chest and looked tall, strong, and suitably authoritative for a situation like this. “I’d like to talk to you. To both of you.”
“About what?” the man asked cautiously.
“You’re a fantastic singer.” I crouched down in front of the little girl so I was eye to eye with her.
Victoria beamed. “Thank you. Who are you?”
“I’m Sarah.” I nodded at my handsome, but grim and menacing-looking, fiancé. “This is Thierry.”
“Victoria is late for an interview with a local paper,” the man said. “But she appreciates your kind words.”
“Her interview will have to wait a little longer,” Thierry said firmly. “I was sent here specifically to talk to Ms. Corday. I’m in Vegas representing the Ring and need to ask a few questions about—”
“Run, Vicky!” the man yelled. “Now!”
Everything suddenly moved so quickly that I could barely register what was happening. The man shoved the little girl away from him, placing his body in front of hers like a shield. There was a flash of silver as he pulled a knife from a sheath at his belt hidden under his jacket.
He stormed at Thierry and, without any hesitation, sank the blade into his chest to the hilt. It had taken no more than a few seconds total—barely enough time to take a breath, let alone to scream, but now I let out a frightened shriek as I realized what had just happened.
Thierry had been stabbed! A silver blade to the heart of a vampire was every bit as deadly as a wooden stake.
Thierry snarled and grabbed the man with both hands before slamming him into the wall so hard that it left a dent. The man’s lips curled back from his upper teeth and I could see his fangs. Another slam—Thierry certainly didn’t lack in strength; vampires only got stronger as they aged—was enough to render his attacker unconscious and he sank to the floor in a heap.
“Thierry—” I reached for him, petrified that he’d been seriously injured and I was about to lose him before my very eyes.
His brow was deeply furrowed. “No, Sarah. I’ll be fine. It—it wasn’t silver. Go after her. Explain that we’re not here to hurt her.” He gripped the hilt of the knife and pulled it out with a grunt, then braced himself against the wall. There was a thin sheen of perspiration on his forehead, and his face had paled. He was in pain, but he wasn’t dead.
That was all I had time to think about—he wasn’t dead. A sob of relief rose in my throat. The man had stabbed him in his heart, but it wasn’t with a silver blade. If it had been, he’d be dead and gone. Just like that.
My head whipped to my right. Victoria ran down the hallway like a small pink streak of lightning.
I didn’t question Thierry; I simply ran after the little vampire. If she escaped, I would bet we wouldn’t get another chance to talk to her. I didn’t think a failed first assignment would make a very good impression on the mysteriously unpleasant Ring, especially after Thierry and Bernard’s violent argument last night.
I caught up with Victoria just as she was about to enter the theater again, and I grabbed the back of her pink vest. She was about to scream, but I clamped my hand down over her mouth and dragged her around the corner into an empty meeting room with stacked chairs.
Had to say, it felt very wrong. To anyone not in the know, it would look like I was attacking a child. If her pal hadn’t just tried to kill the man I loved, then I might have had second thoughts about this. I still had them, but they didn’t stop me.
“Be quiet,” I growled, and loosened my grip on her enough to let her talk. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Don’t hurt me!”
“Do you understand English? I just said I wouldn’t. What was that back there? Do you get your buddy to stab everyone who tries to talk to you?”
“Where’s my daddy?”
“He’s dead,” I said dryly.
Her bottom lip wobbled and tears welled in her eyes.
Guilt skittered through me. What if the Ring had been wrong? If this wasn’t a vampire, if she was an actual human child, then she was going to be seriously traumatized over this. That made two of us.
“He’s not dead,” I amended. “I was just joking. But he tried to kill the man I was with. That’s not cool.”
“He was protecting me!”
“Thierry didn’t even make a move on you. All he wanted to do was talk.”
Her little chest moved in and out with shaky sobs. “I’m s-scared. Wh-why are you being so mean to me? Why c-can’t you leave me alone? I want my daddy!”
My stomach sank.
Oh my God. We were wrong. This was a human child and she was going to be scared of fanged strangers for the rest of her life.
No…no. I had to stay strong. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. Not sure who said that, but somebody obviously did once upon a time.
“Okay, Victoria,” I said firmly. “Cut the crap. I know what you are. Talk to me and I’ll give you my word that nothing bad’s going to happen to you. However, if you give me any more problems, then I’ll have to call in…um, an enforcer, and I promise he won’t be as friendly as I am. In fact, I bet he’ll have a nice sharp stake with your name on it.”
She just stared at me, her little blue eyes growing wider and wider with every word I spoke.
If I was wrong, I was so going to hell for this.
“But, my daddy—”
“Victoria,” I said sharply, standing in front of her with my arms crossed, tapping my foot against the floor like a strict schoolmarm from Little House on the Prairie. “Talk to me. Now.”
She stared up at me beseechingly through her sweet little expression—eyes glossy, blond ringlets shivering with fright—for a few more drawn-out moments while I forced myself not to back down, beg her forgiveness, and offer to take her out for ice cream.
Finally, she sighed heavily.
“Unbelievable,” she muttered. “I need a damn cigarette right now or I am seriously going to freak out.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
She patted her sides and pulled a pack of Marlboros and a Zippo lighter from the pocket of her frilly skirt. She sparked the lighter and inhaled deeply on the cigarette before blowing out a long stream of rancid-smelling smoke. Then she glared up at me.
“Okay, talk,” she snarled, jabbing the cigarette in my general direction. “What’s your problem?”
Maybe I wasn’t going to hell. At least, not for this.
“So it’s true. You really are a vampire.”
She looked at me like I was stupid. “I haven’t done anything wrong. Why can’t the Ring leave me alone?”
“They’ve bothered you before?”
“Once. Thought the blissful silence was going to last. Guess not.”
I spread my hands. “Look, I don’t really know what this is all about. The man your friend stabbed—Thierry—he’s the one who wants to talk to you.”
“So who are you, his secretary?”
“I prefer the term ‘personal assistant.’” My frown deepened. “No, wait. Actually, I’m his fi
ancée, if you really want to know. But, yes, I’m also assisting him.”
It sounded more equal and a little less Mad Men that way. I held up my left hand and waggled my ring finger to prove my claim.
Victoria didn’t look impressed. “Don’t call in an enforcer. Just do yourself and me a favor and do not do that. Ever.”
There was fear in her voice again, enough that it made goose bumps form on my arms. “Not likely to win friends and influence people?”
“You’re new, aren’t you?” Victoria narrowed her eyes at me and puffed on her cigarette. “I can spot the puppies from a mile away.”
“Puppies?”
“How long have you been turned? A month or two?”
I bristled. “Seven months.”
“Yeah. Well, you’ll get the hang of it sooner or later. Or you won’t. Have you met up with many hunters yet?”
“I’ve met my share.”
“Okay, then, you might just be able to understand the words that are coming out of my mouth. Enforcers for the Ring are like vampire hunters from hell.” She tugged on my hand so I could draw closer to hear her whisper. Instead, she shouted, “They’re evil incarnate!”
This little girl was not going to be winning Miss Congeniality anytime soon.
“Okay,” I said. “No enforcers. Sheesh. Take it easy.”
She shook her head. “The last time I got involved in some bad stuff, they came for me. I barely escaped with my life. That’s why I reacted like that, why Charles, my assistant, reacted like that. He wanted to give me a chance to escape.”
The genuine fear in her eyes made me uneasy. “Thierry wouldn’t just kill someone who didn’t deserve it. Doesn’t matter who he works for. He’s one of the good guys.”
She exhaled shakily. “Fine. I’ll meet with your boss for fifteen minutes. That’s it. He can have his say and then I want to be left alone. I don’t cause trouble. I do my very best to fit in. And I need time to mentally prepare for the pageant tonight.” She dropped the cigarette butt onto the carpeted floor and ground it out with the toe of her pink cowboy boot.
I nodded. “Fifteen minutes sounds reasonable. And like I said before, he’s not my boss. He’s my fiancé.”
“Whatever.” She shrugged. “Let’s go see him, whoever he is. And if there’s any funny business, then I can’t be responsible for how many pieces I’m going to tear you both into.”
I feared this tiny vampire. And now my clothes stank from cigarette smoke.
“Talk,” Victoria snapped.
We’d gone up to my and Thierry’s suite on the thirty-second floor with Victoria and her assistant, Charles. While recovering from being knocked unconscious, he scurried to the honor bar when Thierry gave him the nod to help himself. Victoria had a scotch on the rocks and another cigarette.
It was extremely disconcerting to see her smoke and drink like a sailor on leave in the big city. I felt the urge to get her a glass of milk and a chocolate-chip cookie instead.
Thierry sat next to me on the sofa in our large suite. I sensed he wasn’t feeling very well after being stabbed through the heart. I didn’t really blame him. If it had been a shallower wound, he would already be healed. Since Charles got his heart—the bastard—it would take more time and energy before he was good as new.
He put up a very good front. If I hadn’t seen what happened with my own eyes, I would never guess he was seriously injured. Plus, his regular black suit didn’t show the blood very much. Maybe that was why he’d settled on that color scheme for his wardrobe in the first place—to hide bloodstains.
Gee, that was a rather morbid thought.
“When were you sired, Victoria?” Thierry asked evenly.
She downed the rest of her drink and eyed him as if deciding whether she wanted to be truthful or not. “Ninety-six years ago.”
I gaped at her. The child with the taste for booze and nicotine was old enough to be my great-grandmother.
“Who sired you?”
Another pause. “A vampire named Madeline Halward. She lived in the small English village where I was being raised in an orphanage. My parents died in the war. She promised that she’d take care of me, that she would be my new mother. She waited until I agreed to stay with her and…well, it happened. She wanted to have a child forever—one who’d never grow up and leave her—and she chose me.”
“The Ring has rules about this,” Thierry said. “To protect children from this fate even if the child is originally given the choice to change.”
Victoria paced to the floor-to-ceiling windows that had a great view of the fountains and clear across Las Vegas Boulevard to the Paris Hotel. “Do you honestly think I would have chosen this for myself?”
My chest tightened. “I’m so sorry. It must be horrible for you.”
She spun around, eyes flashing. “Don’t feel sorry for me, puppy. I haven’t regretted what happened to me a single day of my life. Do you know how much I can get away with by looking like this? People love me the moment they see me. I can use that to my advantage.”
I stared at her. “You don’t feel trapped in the body of a child?”
“Trapped? Hell no. This is awesome. I’m just a kid—I’ll always just be a kid. I can get away with murder.”
Thierry stiffened next to me. “Funny you should say that. You wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with the recent string of vampire-related serial killings in Vegas, would you?”
Her cherublike face fell. “It’s just an expression, sourpuss. I don’t murder people. Charles brings me my blood. It’s one of his duties.”
“And where does Charles get this blood?”
Thierry was a natural at this interrogation stuff. Had to say it was sort of turning me on. I’d always had a secret crush on Columbo.
Charles moved into my view. “There’s a blood bank here in Vegas called Blood Bath and Beyond. Its front is a vampire novelty shop.”
This was the first I’d heard of a local blood bank. “Where are they?”
“Right here on the Strip, down by the MGM Hotel. You can’t miss it.”
“Do you need to visit there soon, Sarah?” Thierry asked.
I placed a hand over my empty stomach. “I am getting a bit hungry. I think I’ll check it out after we’re finished here.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I keep forgetting that you should drink something every day to keep up your strength.”
“Luckily, I don’t forget. I have a nice little built-in reminder when random necks start to look appetizing to me.”
Yes, vampires and blood. One of the myths that was very true, no matter how much I wished I could have a normal diet. The need for blood was like a dull ache inside me, a lot like hunger pains, a craving for food when you were otherwise on a diet, but…different. It was best to pay very close attention to those pains and do what you could to satisfy them. If they were ignored for too long, then…well, it would become increasingly difficult to be around humans.
He turned back to Victoria. “So, this…Madeline. Do you know where she is now? Does she stay in touch with you?”
The little vampire shook her head. “I haven’t seen her in more than fifty years. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
“You parted ways?”
“I ran away from her. She was a kook. Completely insane. She sired me—even though it works for me, she didn’t do it with a clear head. She’d lost three children and she wanted a child who’d never age, never die. She treated me like a china doll, dressing me up and showing me off to her friends.”
“You didn’t like that?” I asked. “I mean, you seem to like to dress up.”
Victoria looked at me sharply. “Do you think I do this for fun, puppy?”
I wasn’t thrilled with the nickname she’d chosen for me. “You don’t?”
“The Little Miss Platinum Vegas pageant is the top pageant in the country. It has a ten-thousand-dollar grand prize. This is how I make my living. It’s not like I have a whole lot of
options. Not many Wall Street brokerages want to hire a six-year-old. No, instead I strut my stuff and sing my songs and I have a fifty percent success rate with being named Ultimate Grand Supreme. Other contestants shrivel with fear and awe when they see the name Victoria Corday on the contestant list.”
“We have so many sashes and trophies, we have no idea what to do with them all,” Charles said proudly.
“Congrats.” My stomach rumbled. I was getting hungrier by the minute.
“You can’t continue on in this vein, Victoria,” Thierry said bluntly.
“No pun intended,” I added.
She looked distressed. “Are you telling me I can’t compete in pageants anymore?”
“That is exactly what I’m saying. I know it’s difficult, but you must be able to see how dangerous it is. If a hunter got wind of what you’re doing—and if they assumed that other children around you are also vampires—”
“It would be a massacre,” Charles finished, stunned by this possibility as if he’d never considered it before.
The glass in Victoria’s hand shattered when she squeezed it too hard, betraying her nerves. “So what am I supposed to do? How is a hundred-and-two-year-old vampire who looks like a little kid supposed to support herself?” She paced to the window and stared at the view outside before turning to look at us, her expression already brightening. “Well…I guess I could go to Hollywood and become an actress.”
Thierry crossed his arms gingerly over his injured chest. “Excuse me?”
She beamed, clearly pleased by her new idea. “Kids can’t act worth crap. I could be the ultimate child actor. I’d take direction well, deliver my lines perfectly. I could win an Oscar! I’d considered it before, but—”
“But you don’t age,” I reminded her. “So they’d probably figure out there’s a problem in a few years.”
She swore under her breath and glared at me. “You’re annoying, puppy.”
“Sorry. Just telling it like it is.” Was I supposed to be the good cop or the bad cop? At the moment, I was the tired and hungry cop.