Nancy A Collins-Vamps 02 (19 page)

and home theater system were already wrapped in lay-ers of bubble wrap, awaiting the arrival of the movers.

Tonight she’d be content to look at the photo of her parents she had rescued from Walther.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Sheila said. “I wish you knew that.” The tears trickling down her face mingled with 200

the bourbon, giving it a mildly salty taste.

As she raised the bottle again, Sheila heard a muffled ringing sound. It seemed to be coming from Cally’s room.

A cell phone? Since when did Cally have a cell phone?

Sheila got to her feet and headed, somewhat unsteadily, for her daughter’s bedroom, where she found a small silver phone lying forgotten, buried under the rumpled sheets of the canopy bed.

Sheila stared at the caller ID, trying to see who it was, but the incoming caller’s identity was blocked. She flipped open the phone and put the receiver to her ear.

“Cally, thank God I reached you in time!” a young male voice said breathlessly. “You have to believe me—I never intended for it to end like this! Please forgive me.

I was so afraid I was going to lose you forever! Don’t hang up. Please . . . I know you don’t want to talk to me, but you’ve
got
to listen!”

“Who is this?” Sheila scowled.

“Cally?” The timbre of the young man’s voice suddenly changed from desperate to cautious.

“This is Cally’s mother, and Cally isn’t here,” Sheila said in a stern voice. “She left to go to the Grand Ball with Baron Metz—I mean, her father.”

“God, no—!” The young man gasped. “You’ve got to stop them, Ms. Monture! You’ve got to reach her and tell her not to go!”

“I know who you are!” Sheila said in sudden 201

realization. “You’re that no-good Maledetto boy. You’ve got some nerve calling here. Leave my daughter alone!

She doesn’t need to get mixed up with a bunch of two-bit killers.”

“Sheila! Please, you don’t understand—!” The young man’s voice was close to panic. “You’re
both
in danger!

You
have
to get out of the house!”

“How do you know my name?” Sheila frowned.

“Go away and leave my baby alone, you hear me? She doesn’t need you complicating her life!” She snapped the cell phone shut and tossed it back onto the bed.

As she stepped out of her daughter’s room, there was a loud, booming knock on the front door, followed by a second, even louder one. No doubt it was the movers come to collect their things.

“Hold your horses, I’m coming!” Sheila yelled.

Whoever was on the other side of the door sounded like they were using a battering ram instead of their fists.

“There’s no need to knock the door off its hinges—!” Although she had not been raised in vampire society, Cally knew that Rauhnacht was one of a handful of dates held sacred by her father’s people. Throughout the world, Old Bloods and New Bloods alike were gathered that night to welcome the arrival of the Dark Season, where the nights are longer than the days, as they had done for thousands of years.

Scores of prominent Old Bloods had traveled from 202

as far as half a world away to view the newest crop of young females at the palatial home of Count Boris Orlock.

Situated at the end of a two-mile-long driveway, King’s Stone seemed to rise like some great leviathan from the nearby Atlantic Ocean. The four stone towers of the modern-day castle stood watch over the cardi-nal points of the compass. As Baron Metzger’s vintage Duesenberg wended its way along the Orlocks’ private drive, Cally spotted a topiary garden. At first she smiled at the sight of the shrubbery clipped to resemble animals and mythic beasts—then she realized that the topiary animals were divided into predator and prey.

An arborvitae lion stalked a bay laurel gazelle, while a myrtle wolf hunted a sheep sculpted of yew, and a dragon made of holly brought down a boxwood pig.

As Cally stared at the grim tableaux, something white flashed at the corner of her eye and she turned her head to see what it might be. A man was staggering through the hedges, his clothes badly disheveled. He was wildly waving a white cane with a red tip.

“Help me!”
the blind man cried in terror. “For the love of all that’s holy,
somebody please help me
!” A gang of small children swarmed out from behind the topiary wolf, giggling and laughing as if on a McDonald’s playground. As one, they surged forward and took the blind man to the ground. Cally quickly looked away as they snapped at their struggling prey 203

with their razor-sharp baby fangs.

“Ahhh, blindman’s bluff!” Baron Metzger said with a nostalgic smile. “To be young and innocent again!” As the baron’s car entered the cobblestone courtyard, an undead servant dressed in the livery of a footman hurried forward and opened the passenger door for Cally.

Baron Metzger took her hand and wrapped it around his arm, and together they began to climb the entry stairs of King’s Stone. Cally looked up and glimpsed what appeared to be a gargoyle perched high atop the conical roof of the north tower.

The Orlocks’ major domo, a bald man with a Prussian accent and a dueling scar, stood guard in the foyer, checking the credentials of all who entered his master’s home. Cally handed him her invitation, which he took and added to a pile on the table beside him.

“Welcome to King’s Stone,” the head butler said.

“The guests are gathered in the Grand Hall.” As Cally and Baron Metzger walked forward, a pair of servants in Orlock livery opened the large double doors at the other end of the room. Cally gasped in awe at the sight of the Grand Hall spread before her. It was thirty-five feet wide and seventy feet long, with a vaulted ceiling that rose to the third floor. The walls of the great hall were lined with red damask and draped with tapestries dating back to the twelfth century.

Gathered within its vast space were nearly three hundred 204

vampires, chatting and laughing among themselves as they sampled the blood gushing from solid-gold heated beverage fountains, one for each blood type, arrayed along a medieval banquet table that stretched half the length of the room.

“Come, my dear,” Baron Metzger said. “We must pay our respects to King’s Stone’s lord and lady. Ah! There they are!” He raised a hand in greeting. “Boris!” On hearing his name, the master of King’s Stone turned to greet his old friend.

Cally had heard of Orlocks since she was a kid—she had even met one, the count’s own son, Xander—but nothing had prepared her for this.

Standing nearly seven feet tall despite the hump in his back, Count Boris Orlock—heir to the bloodright of Urlok the Terrible, greatest of all the Founders—looked like a ghastly amalgamation of skull, bat, and spider.

He was cadaverously thin, with a completely hairless head and fanged front teeth that stuck out of his oddly sensuous mouth like tiny knitting needles. His ears were unnaturally large and pointed, like those of a bat, with clumps of wiry hair growing out of them like weeds. He held his long, spindly arms tucked in close to his body and compulsively dry-washed his hands, the fingers of which were as long and gnarled as the legs of a king crab. Yet despite his frightful appearance, the count possessed an oddly dignified hideousness that is only found in those as powerful as they are ugly. He 205

commanded respect as well as repugnance from those around him.

“Karl! How good to see you, old friend!” Count Orlock smiled, looking like a hairless rat baring its fangs as he warmly clasped his guest’s hand in his own.

“It is equally good to see you, dear Boris! And Countess—you are as lovely as ever.”

Where her husband was the very definition of the word
nightmare
, Countess Juliana Orlock was a dream made flesh. With her perfect skin, sapphire-blue eyes, long platinum hair, and glamorous, shimmer-ing sequined one-shoulder gown, she looked like she should be on her way to a Hollywood premiere, not a vampire ball.

“Ah, Baron—still the silver-tongued devil, I see,” she said fondly.

“Come now, Juliana.” Count Orlock smiled, gently stroking one of his outlandishly long fingers against his wife’s flawless cheek. “You cannot fault a man for simply stating a fact.”

“Dearest, you’re making me blush,” the countess said with a coy smile.

“Your Illustriousness, I would like to introduce you to my daughter, Miss Cally Monture.”

Count Orlock smiled, taking Cally’s hand in his monstrous one. To her surprise, his touch was incredibly delicate. “I was not aware you
had
a daughter, Karl.”

“Her mother was one of my New Blood concubines,” 206

Baron Metzger explained. “I have chosen to acknowledge Cally now that my dear wife is no longer with us.”

“Ah!” Count Orlock said with knowing nod. “She is
exquisite
, Karl.”

“You’re too kind, Count,” Cally said. She curtsied.

“Enough chitchatting with old fossils such as myself!” Count Orlock laughed. “It’s Rauhnacht!

Tonight is for the young! I’ll have one of my pages take you upstairs to where the other debutantes are. It won’t be long before the ceremony begins.”

207

The room where the debutantes waited for their presentation at the Grand Ball was on the third floor of the main section of King’s Stone. As she was escorted down the gloomy corridor, Cally noticed that the sconces that lined them were carved to resemble forearms, the gnarled hands holding lit candles. The servant stopped and opened a diamond-paneled oak door, revealing an opulently appointed salon decorated in the Louis XIV style. As she scanned the room for her friends, Cally recognized many of the girls from Bathory—but there were several she had never seen before, like the girl in the black sari-style Versace gown and the dark-haired girl in the Rei Kawakubo original.

The Maledetto twins and Melinda were clustered in a corner of the salon, as far away from Lilith’s clique as possible. Bella and Bette sat facing each other on 208

an antique figure-eight love seat, making last-minute adjustments to their hair and makeup. For the first time since she’d known them, the twins were wearing their hair unbound and were dressed differently.

Melinda sat in a nearby chair, swapping out a pair of Manolo platform slingbacks in favor of a pair of Jimmy Choo strappies.

Cally automatically started across the room toward the other girls, only to stop halfway. As much as she wanted to be with her friends on her last night in New York, she could not go against her father’s wishes.

An older woman, dressed in a strapless evening gown so tight it seemed to be pushing her breasts into her face, suddenly appeared in front of Cally. “You’re late! The presentation ceremony is less than an hour away. Which one are you?” she asked, peering around her bust at the new arrival.

“Cally Monture.”

The older woman consulted the PDA she held in one hand, stabbing at the display with her stylus.

“Monture . . . Monture . . . Ah! Here you are. My name is Pandora Grume; I have been assigned to make sure everyone and everything runs on time tonight.”

“What is
she
doing here?” Lilith Todd, dressed in a black Marchesa satin chiffon sculpted evening gown, stood glaring at Cally, her hands planted firmly on her hips as she tapped a Prada-shod foot in anger.

“Since when does the Presentation Committee extend 209

invitations to fatherless
bastards
?” The entire room fell silent and everyone, including Melinda and the twins, turned to stare at Cally.

“I
have
a father,” Cally replied, trying to remain calm.

“Yeah, but you don’t even know his name!” Carmen said, getting up from a nearby sofa. “Lilith told me so!”

“That’s not true anymore,” Cally said, addressing Carmen while keeping an eye on Lilith. “My father has claimed me as his legal daughter.”

On hearing this, Lilith flinched and fell silent.

Carmen, however, continued to press her verbal attack.

“Oh, yeah? Who is he, then?”

“Baron Metzger.”

“Metzger?”
Lilith said in a tight voice, her eyes narrowing into suspicious slits.

“May I have your attention?” Madame Grume said, her voice cutting right through the giggly chatter that filled the room. “It’s time for the debutantes to claim their bouquets.” She stepped aside as an Orlock family footman entered, pushing a large serving cart containing a baker’s dozen of bouquets.

Although the bouquets were all fashioned from roses, they were far from identical. Each was unique and had a card affixed to it, identifying which girl it was for and the escort it was from.

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Lilith stepped forward, claiming her place at the head of the line. She was pleasantly surprised to discover that her bouquet was the nicest one on the cart: six bright red Passion roses decorated with delicate stems of twisted willow and bound in black satin. Exo might be a spod and a bat boy, but at least he had great taste. As she picked up her bouquet, she spotted Cally’s name written on a card attached to a bunch of velvety dark-red Black Magic roses, their stems bound in antique lace.

She wondered what kind of pathetic loser would agree to be the escort of a half-blood bastard like Monture. Deciding it would be good for a chuckle, she flipped the card over—only to stare, dumbstruck, at the name on the other side.

It had to be a mistake. It
couldn’t
be. He
wouldn’t
.

He
knew
how she felt about Cally! Lilith’s heart began to vibrate in her chest until she feared it would tear itself loose.

“Is something wrong, Lili?” Carmen asked. “Your hands are shaking.”

Lilith grabbed her bouquet and ran out of the room, leaving Carmen to stare after her, perplexed. The redhead claimed her own bouquet—a half dozen deep crimson roses decorated with Swarovski crystals—and hurried after her friend.

Carmen found Lilith in the powder room across the hall from the salon. She was standing in front of the sink, 211

running the hot water until steam rose from the basin.

As Carmen watched, Lilith thrust her hands under the scalding torrent, hissing through her teeth as her skin turned bright red and blisters rose across her palms.