I peeled it away and, between my thumb and index finger, flicked it into the kitchen sink. Stuff like that was going to ruin my reputation.
At twenty-five, Mark Perkins decided he wanted to swim the English Channel. At twenty-six, he decided he wanted to climb Everest. Then it was Machu Picchu, base-jumping, ghost-hunting in New Orleans and racing the Utah salt flats. Unlike Mallory, who rarely planned, Mark planned with a vengeance.
He just never actually
did
anything.
Tall and thin with short brown hair, he blew through our front door like a tempest, arms laden with guidebooks, maps, and two paper bags with greasy bottoms.
“Chinese!” Mallory squealed, leaping to the door when he came in. She pecked his cheek, grabbed a bag of food, and headed to the kitchen. I’d been reading again, so I returned the book to its spot on the coffee table.
He nodded in my direction, dumped his own books on the love seat, and followed Mallory. “Merit.”
“Hi, Mark.” I gave him a little finger wave and rose from the couch, but I paused before following him to check his literature. On the couch, their glossy, mountain-pictured labels read:
The Greatest Adventure Book Ever
,
Climbing for Dummies
, and
Your Big, Fat Swiss Adventure.
The Matterhorn, apparently, was next on Mark’s list. Poor, sweet, dumb Mark.
“She’s gone fang, Mark,” Mallory called out. “So be careful.”
Halfway to the kitchen, Mark stopped midstride and turned to face me, grinning like an idiot. “Kick. Fucking. Ass.”
I rolled my eyes and snatched the remaining bag of Chinese. “Kick your own ass. Did you get crab rangoon?”
He frowned. “What do vampires need with crab rangoon?”
We moved into the kitchen. I put the bag on the kitchen counter and picked through it until I found the paper box of fried crab-and-cream-cheese-stuffed dough and a container of sweet-and-sour sauce. I popped them both open, dipped a wrap in the sauce, and bit in. They were still hot—and I groaned happily at the taste: sweet, salty, crispy, creamy. Everything a newly changed vampire could want.
“Orgasms, apparently,” Mallory snarked, and pulled out her own containers of food. She pulled one open, then broke open a set of chopsticks, stared into the container, pulled out a chunk of broccoli, and munched.
“So, how long have you been the walking dead?” Mark asked.
Mallory choked. I thumped her, ever so helpfully, on the back.
“I’m on day two,” I told him, and pulled out another bit of fried wanton heaven. “So far, it’s been uneventful.”
Famous last words, those.
We’d been eating about ten minutes when we heard glass shatter in the front of the house. Our heads snapped up at the sound. We stood simultaneously, but I motioned Mark and Mallory back down. Mallory’s eyes widened, and I guessed what she’d seen: My blood hummed with adrenaline, and I knew my eyes had gone silver.
“Stay here,” I told them, and walked across the kitchen. I flipped off the overhead light and moved into the unlit hallway. There were no other sounds in the house, and I didn’t hear anything outside—cars revving, people screaming, sirens flaring. Carefully hugging the walls, I crept into the living room. The living room window—a picture window made up of a single sheet of glass—had been shattered from the outside in. A brick lay on the floor, wrapped in white paper, a breeze fluttering one corner of it. First things first, I thought, ignoring the missile to pick my way across the glass to the front door and check the peephole. The yard was empty and quiet. It was dark out, so theoretically our attackers could have been hiding in the shrubbery, but I knew no one was there. I could kind of . . . tell. There were no sounds, no smells, no indications that anyone had been near the house beyond the light, acrid scent of car exhaust. They’d driven by, done the deed, and moved on.
I went back to the brick, reached down to pick it up, and pulled away the band of paper. In scraggly black script, it read:
Think UR 2 good 4 us, Cadogan bitch?
Next time U die.
The threat was clear enough, and I guessed that I now qualified as the “Cadogan bitch.” But “too good for us” stumped me. It sounded like a choice—like I’d chosen Cadogan out of the catalog of vampire Houses. It was profoundly untrue, and a good clue—the vandal didn’t know me, at least not well enough to understand how inaccurate the statement really was. How little choice I’d had.
Mark’s voice rang out. “Merit?”
I looked up, found them huddled in the doorway, and felt my chest tighten protectively. It took me a moment—a surprising one—to realize that the tingle in my limbs wasn’t fear, but adrenaline. I beckoned them forward with a folded hand. “It’s okay. You can come in. Just watch the glass.”
Mallory stepped carefully into the room, tiptoed through the fragments. “Jesus. The window—what happened?”
“Holy crap,” Mark agreed, surveying the damage.
Mallory looked up at me, eyes bright with fear. “What happened?”
I handed her the note. She read it, then met my gaze. “You’re the bitch?”
I shrugged. “I assume so, but I don’t understand the threat.”
Mark walked to the door, opened it slowly, and looked outside. “Nothing else out here,” he called out, “just some glass.” He drew back in, his gaze moving between us. “You’ve got some plywood or something I could hang over the window?”
I looked to Mallory, who shrugged. “There might be something in the garage.”
He nodded. “I’ll go check. I’ll be right back.”
When the front door shut behind him, Mallory looked down at the note in her hands. “Do you think we should call the cops?”
“No,” I told her, remembering my father’s admonition. But an idea dawned. I took the note back from her and stuffed it into my pocket. “I think we should go to the House.”
Ten minutes later, Mark was balancing on the edge of the stoop, securing an old sheet of particleboard over the window, and Mallory and I were pulling the car out of the garage, Hyde Park address in hand. Mark wasn’t thrilled that Mallory was planning to visit a den of vampires in the middle of the night, but I think that stemmed mostly from the fact that he hadn’t been invited to tag along. His blusters about her safety didn’t read sincere given the awestruck expression on his face.
To mollify him, we promised to keep our cell phones in hand. Apparently thinking extra precautions were warranted, Mark ran down the driveway as we pulled out, and when Mallory rolled down the passenger-side window, he stuffed a good-luck charm into her hands.
“What’s this?” she asked him.
“Garlic.” He slid a glance to me, then winged his eyebrows at Mallory.
“Vampires,”
he whispered through a tightly clenched jaw, as if the movement of his lips was the Rosetta stone that was gonna key me into his secret code.
“I can still hear, Mark,” I reminded him.
He blushed and shrugged apologetically. Mallory shook the plastic take-out container of organic prepeeled garlic and held it beneath my nose. I sniffed, waited for a reaction, and when nothing happened, shrugged.
“I’m not sure Whole Foods is what Buffy had in mind, hon, but thanks for the thought.” She blew a kiss to Mark, and we watched him return to his station at the window. As I pulled the Volvo out of the driveway, Mallory threw the plastic bin into the backseat. “I’m not sure how long this thing with Mark is going to last.”
“Huh,” I remarked, trying to remain supportively neutral. “Not going well?”
“He’s well-meaning, I guess, and we have fun.” She shrugged. “I don’t know. There’s just not much there—beneath the camaraderie, I mean.”
I nodded. “I get that.”
She waved a hand in the air. “More important issue at hand.” She swiveled in her seat to face me. “Before we hit Hyde Park, I want to be sure what we’re doing. Are we going to kick vampire ass, or are we just going to ask about this death-threat issue?”
I gnawed the inside of my lip as I considered her question. We were walking into a nest of trouble, and had only ourselves—an ad executive and a not-quite-two-day-old vampire—as weapons. And while Mallory spent an hour in the gym every day, and I had ten years of ballet lessons and a lot of jogged miles under my belt, I doubted either of those would help significantly. They certainly hadn’t helped a few days ago.
“We’re going to talk to them calmly and rationally,” I decided.
“And you’re not going to tell Darth Sullivan you reject his fascist assumption of authority?”
I stifled a laugh. “Maybe not at this first meeting, no.”
Traffic was light; the drive didn’t take long. Mallory served as navigator, checking the directions we’d printed off the Web. “We’re getting close,” she finally said, and instructed me to turn left. When we reached the address, we gaped.
“Oh, my God.”
“I know. I see it.” I parallel parked in an empty slot on the street—between a Beemer and Mercedes, incidentally—and we got out of the car. The House, and it was a mansion, took up a whole block. The building was surrounded by an intricately wrought, ten-foot-high, black iron fence. The interior of the fence was lined with shrubs and hedges, so the lawns were shielded from public view. The House itself was gigantic, three pale limestone stories leading to a slate mansard roof. There was a turret on one corner and tall rectangular windows ringed the floors. Gabled dormer windows and widows’ walks gave the top floor a Gothic look. But overall, while the building was imposing and the lot larger than those nearby, it looked at home beside its Hyde Park neighbors.
Well, except for the vampire thing.
Mallory squeezed my hand. “You ready?”
“No,” I admitted. “But I need to do this.”
We followed the sidewalk to a gap in the iron fence where two black-clad men stood, swords belted at their sides. Both were tall and lean, with long, straight dark hair, tied back tightly. They looked alike, the guards, their just-this-side-of-gaunt facial features fraternally similar.
The one on the left whispered something into his mouthpiece, then touched his earpiece, and finally nodded at me. “You can go in,” he told me, then shifted his gaze to Mallory. “But she can’t.”
Easy decision. “She goes, or I don’t.”
He turned his back on us, and I heard faint whispering as he touched the headset again. When he turned back again, a nod was the only affirmation we got.
As we walked up the sidewalk, Mallory took my hand and squeezed it. “Chatty fellows. They had swords.”
Not just swords, I thought, glancing back at the lean, slightly curved scabbards and long, straight handles.
“I think they’re katanas.” These were the swords of the samurai, a fact I’d learned while researching weaponry for my dissertation. Although I was interested in the romantic side of medieval literature—think Lancelot and Tristan—the genre was heavy on the war and weapons.
“Do you think you’ll get a sword?”
“What the hell would I do with a sword?” We reached the front door, which was unguarded. The portico that covered it was arched, and four symbols, the lowest one a stylized “C,” hung above the door.
“Hmm,” I said. “Knock or just go in, do you think?”
We were saved the decision. The door was opened by a tall, exquisitely handsome man with caramel-colored skin. His hair was short, his eyes a pale green. He wore a black suit that was perfectly fitted to his frame, and a crisp white dress shirt beneath. He extended a hand. “Malik.”
This was the second vampire. Not the one who turned me, but his colleague.
“Merit,” I said, taking his hand. “And Mallory.”
His nostrils flared as he looked at Mallory, and his brows lifted. “Magic?”
Mallory and I looked at each other. “I beg your pardon?” I asked. He didn’t respond, but moved aside to let us enter.
The interior of the House was as impressive as the outside. Contrary to what I’d expected—black tulle, leather furniture, red candles, pentagrams—the House was very tastefully decorated. Actually, it looked like a five-star hotel. The floors were gleaming wood, the high ceilings girded by ancient beams of thick oak. The decor—lots of inlaid woods, urns of flowers, carefully selected lighting—was sophisticated and French-inspired. Malik escorted us past one parlor and into another.
“Stay here,” he instructed in a tone that brooked no argument. We obeyed, Mallory and I standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway so we could survey the room. Ten or so men and women, all dressed in trendy black suits, milled around, some with PDAs in hand, others on couches perusing laptop computers. I felt incredibly gauche in jeans and a T-shirt, especially when their gazes began to fall on Mallory and me.
“New girl,” Mal whispered. “It’s like your first day at school.”
I nodded. “Feels like that.”
“Do you think he’s in here? Sullivan, I mean?”
I looked around, which was futile. “Maybe?” I offered. “I don’t know what he looks like.” I hadn’t gotten a good look at his face when he bit me, and if he’d been there while I was recuperating, I had no memory of it. I had an inkling that he belonged to the distinctly green eyes I remembered, but that was only a hunch.
“Use your spidey sense.”
I chuckled. “Even if I had a spidey sense, I wouldn’t know how to use it.”
A voice suddenly echoed through the parlor—louder than the quiet whispering of the working vamps. “That’s fine, Celina. I appreciate your calling me.”
The words belonged to a man with a cell phone at his ear who’d stepped into the doorway on the opposite side of the long room. He was tall, two or three inches over six feet, and lean like a swimmer—narrow waist, broad shoulders, long legs. His hair was straight, shoulder-length, and golden-blond. His face was chiseled—knife-edge cheekbones and a firm jaw, his brow strong, his lips worth calling home about. He was dressed in a black suit that fit his body like a glove, beneath which was an impeccably white dress shirt, top button unclasped, no tie.