Bad Blood (13 page)

Wait a second. “I’m not here to—”

“Where on Earth did you find
her
in this city of sin?” Allegra asks, looking impressed. “Innocents for Sale? Virgins R Us?” She peers at me. “You’re not a call girl, are you? ’Cause we only pay ten dollars an hour.”

My face burns. “No way.”

“Look at her blush!” Jayden points out. “She’s perfect. Just what we’ve been looking for. Sweet, pretty . . .”

Now my face is on fire. Pretty. Does he really think I’m pretty? “But I’m not going to be in Vegas very long,” I stammer, finding myself running out of arguments. “Sunday at the latest.”

“Sunday’s fine!” Eric butts in. “We just need someone to do Saturday’s performance. You’ll keep the show alive so we can keep auditioning next week. Try to find
someone
on this planet that will please Cornelius for the long haul so we never have to audition again for the rest of our lives.”

“It’s not even a speaking role,” adds Allegra. “So no lines to learn. Super easy. Even a call girl could do it.” The other two shoot her a look. “Well, if we paid her more than ten dollars an hour, that is,” she amends.

“Please say yes!” Jayden begs, catching my eyes with his own pleading ones.

“We’re desperate. We need you.”

I gnaw at my lower lip, trying to decide what I should do. The main purpose of this trip is to investigate Jane, of course, not fulfill my dreams to become a (somewhat) professional actress, acting side-by-side with cute emo boys. But on the other hand, by taking this particular role—the one Jane used to play—I’d be literally stepping into her old shoes. These people knew her and they could probably give me the 411 better than anyone. Each rehearsal would be like major recon and it might very well be my best chance to expose her for who she really is.

“Okay,” I say, making up my mind. “I’m in. But just for Saturday’s performance.”

The three cast members cheer and give me quick hugs to welcome me to the show. I feel happy as they excitedly chatter about my role. The impromptu hugging and enthusiasm for acting sends a jolt of familiar adrenaline through my body. I really do love the theater, after all. After feeling kind of lost in Vegas, it’s almost as if I’ve come home.

“By the way, I’m Sunny,” I say, realizing I hadn’t officially introduced myself.

“This is Eric and Allegra,” Jayden introduces. “They play Van Helsing and Lucy in the play.”

“Jayden here plays Jonathan Harker,” adds Allegra. “And Cornelius plays Dracula.”

“It’s not a great play,” Eric admits. “But it’s fun. Well, we’re fun anyway. You’ll like it here. Well, you’ll like us anyway.”

“Except maybe for Cornelius. He can be a bit much.”

“Where is Cornelius?” I ask, looking around.

“Oh, he won’t be here for a while,” Jayden says. “He only comes out at night.”

“Yeah. Which means that’s when all our rehearsals are held,” adds Eric. “Guy never steps foot in the theater until after the sun goes down.”

“He’s a real-life vampire,” Allegra adds in a spooky voice. Then she giggles.

“Or at least that’s what he’d like us to believe.”

I remember the cowboy kissing Jane the night before. Could he really be a vampire? A vampire pretending to be an actor in some cheesy Vegas revue? It seems so unlikely—ridiculous even—but at the same time he
was
talking to Jane. He knows she’s infiltrating the vampire world. And he didn’t seem all that shocked about it.

“So what’s the deal with Ja—I mean Sasha?” I ask. “The girl who had the role of Mina before me?”

The three actors scowl. Jane is evidently not their favorite person.

“She took off,” Eric informs me. “Left us high and dry.”

“Not a huge loss,” Allegra adds. “She was a terrible actress. Not to mention a horrible dresser. The girl wouldn’t know fashion if it came up and bit her on the ass.”

“She only got the part because she was sleeping with Cornelius,” Jayden finishes.

I nod absently, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. So Jane/ Sasha has been dating Cornelius (which I had already inferred from their earlier make-out session) and starring in this small production as Mina. She takes off on them one day and suddenly shows up two thousand miles away in suburban Massachusetts, claiming she’s a Rhodes scholar from Oxford and ready to become blood mates with my boyfriend.

None of this makes any sense.

The thing is, the council takes this blood mate thing pretty seriously. They’re way picky and do a ton of background checks on candidates—even DNA stuff, which never lies—before granting approval of a candidate. And that’s just for the blood mates of minor vamps. Imagine what they do in the case of someone like Magnus, a major coven’s Master! They should have gone through Jane’s history with a fine-tooth comb. And any of these red flags I’m seeing would have been picked up quicker than you can say rejected blood mate. So how did Jane pass her test? How did she become certified? And what’s Cornelius’s role in all of this? Did he put her up to it all somehow? And if so, why? What does he hope to gain by getting his girlfriend into the blood coven?

Nothing good, that much I’m sure of.

“Anyway, she’s gone and you’re here and you’re perfect,” Jayden exclaims and I flush at the compliment. Perfect. I can’t remember the last time a boy called me perfect. Certainly not my boyfriend, who, I might add, has still yet to call me once this whole trip.

My cell phone starts belting out a Taylor Swift song. Of course. I glance down to the caller ID, but only out of habit. Gotta hand it to the vamp, he has very good ESP. Wonder what he’s doing up during high daylight.

“Excuse me for a moment,” I say to the actors, backing up toward the auditorium door. “I need to take this.”

Once outside, I answer. “Hey, baby,” I say, a thrill tickling my stomach. “What are you doing still awake?”

I hadn’t been aware of how much I’d been missing Magnus until I saw his name on the caller ID. I realize I can’t wait to hear his deep, throaty, Englishaccented voice murmur how lost and lonely he’s been and how terrible Vegas is without me by his side. How he made a horrible mistake leaving me behind and if only I had somehow decided to break his rules and come anyway, he’d be so happy. He’d pull me into his arms, whispering . . .

“Sunny, are you effing insane?”

Hmm, I was thinking more like “I love you” but okay . . . Maybe he means insane with love for him?

He doesn’t.

“I just spent five thousand dollars bailing Marcia out of jail.”

Oops. I kind of forgot about her.

“Marcia was in jail!?” I cry, putting on my best shocked, horrified, can’tbelieve-this-is-happening voice. I am an actress after all. An actress with a real part in a real play that isn’t put on by a high school, I might add. “I mean, I always knew she was kind of a bitchy loose screw, but jail? What on Earth did she do to wind up in jail?”

“Don’t give me that innocent BS,” Magnus snarls on the other end. “She told me everything. I know you set her up and I know you’re somewhere in Vegas. Why the hell are you in Vegas, Sunny? I thought we talked about this.”

So much for “wish you were here.”

“Rayne and I wanted to see our dad, of course,” I reply, switching to defensive mode. Stupid Marcia. And stupid Rayne, too, for thinking her stupid plan would solve everything. “He lives here, remember?” I’m not lying, I might point out. Rayne and I
did
want to see our dad. And he
does
live here. Just not this particular week.

“I see,” Magnus says slowly. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard him so pissed. Except maybe the time he accidentally bit me instead of Rayne that first night at Club Fang. Which, I might point out, was technically his fault, not mine. “So after years of never visiting Vegas you two randomly decide that this would be the perfect week to head out West for a little father/daughter bonding? The same week, per random coincidence and wild chance, that I would be in Vegas for the consortium and specifically told you that you could not come with me?”

Hmm, when he puts it that way it does sound kind of bad. But still!

“I’m seventeen years old. You can’t tell me what to do!” I blurt out. “If my sister and I want to go to Vegas, we should be able to go to Vegas!”

He sighs deeply into the phone. “Really?” he asks. “That’s how you want to play this? That I’m some evil tyrant, holding you back, treating you like a child?”

“You’ve got to admit, sometimes you do.”

“Only for your own good. To protect you,” he insists. “Vegas is dangerous enough when all is well and mortal. Now add vampires to the mix. Not a great place for a seventeen-year-old to be wandering around.”

“What are they going to do to me,” I demand, furious now, “that you haven’t already done?”

He’s silent for a moment and I know I’ve finally gotten to him. But instead of feeling triumphant for getting the upper hand, I just feel sick to my stomach.

“Sunny,” he says at last, “I’m sorry if you think I’m some horrible, unreasonable jerk-off. But I’m only trying to protect you.”

“And I’m only doing this to protect
you
!” I insist.

“Why on Earth would you think I’d need protection from you?” he asks, incredulously. “I’m a thousand-year-old vampire. You don’t think I can take care of myself?”

“Not from forces at work behind the scenes that you know nothing about,” I reply. “Not from Jane.”

I suck in a breath, waiting for his reaction. It bursts over the phone lines a second later like a high-powered explosion. “Oh my God, Sunny, you have got to be kidding me. You’re still on about her? Is that what this is all about? You came to Vegas to spy on me and my blood mate?”

“You don’t understand!” I cry, furious. “She’s not who she says she is. I mean, did you know she was in a play about vampires? I saw it on a playbill and—”

“Seriously, Sunny, this jealousy thing has got to stop,” Magnus interrupts in a weary voice. “As I told you before, numerous times, I might add, there’s nothing wrong with Jane. She’s been vetted by the coven librarians a hundred times over and checks out with flying colors. Do you think these guys would let anyone slide through who wasn’t totally worthy of running the Blood Coven?

Of being partnered with me? I can promise you, without hesitation or doubt, that these researchers have nothing but my best interests at heart. And if they say Jane is worthy, then that’s good enough for me.”

I gnaw at my lower lip, frustrated beyond all hell. “Well, it’s not good enough for me,” I insist. “Because I know she’s an evil fraud. And I’m going to prove it to you if it kills me.”

Magnus sighs into the phone. “You know, I really thought you were more mature than this, Sunny,” he says in a disappointed tone. “I guess I sometimes forget you’re only seventeen.”

“I am mature,” I squeak back, my voice going into the Minnie Mouse octaves, as it always does when I’m upset. Which is not, unfortunately, the best argument for maturity. “If you’d just listen to me for two seconds!”

Magnus is so quiet that I have to check to make sure he hasn’t hung up. Finally he speaks. “Okay, I’ll listen. If it’s that important to you, I will. Can you meet me at the Mandalay at eight o’clock tonight? I think I have a five-minute break between meetings. We can get a coffee and talk.”

Five-minute break. That’s all I get, huh? Meanwhile Jane gets to spend the whole week with him. Really nice. Not to mention eight o’clock is when play practice starts. And I have to show up to that or they’ll kick me out of the play and I’ll lose my chance to investigate Cornelius.

That said, I’m guessing Magnus is so not going to understand.

“Um, actually . . .” How am I going to explain this without coming off as a complete flaky lunatic? “Eight o’clock is not really good for me, to tell you the truth.”

“What?”

“I have to . . .” I trail off as the auditorium door opens and Allegra, Jayden, and Eric stroll out of the theater. Damn it! Now I can’t even explain this is all a front for an important undercover investigation.

“Sunny? Why can’t you meet me tonight?”

“I have play practice!” I blurt out, not knowing what else to say.

“Play . . . practice?” Magnus sounds like he’s one millisecond away from exploding again. Great. Just great. “I thought you were in Vegas.”

Jayden peers at me with concerned eyes. It’s then that I remember I must look a mess. All blotchy red skin and tear-stained face. He mouths, “Are you okay?” I nod and give him a one-second gesture, then turn back to the phone.

“Look, can I call you in a little bit?” I ask, needing to get out of the theater where I can’t be overheard before I can really explain what I’m doing suddenly starring in a Vegas vampire revue.

“No, I’ve got to get to bed. I’ve been up way too long already, bailing Marcia out of jail. Do you know how hard it is for a vampire to get to the Vegas police office in the middle of the morning without being fried alive? Even with onehundred-plus sunblock slathered on every inch of my body, I’m burned all over.”

I expel a frustrated breath. “Okay, fine,” I say. “Call me tonight when you get off. Whatever time it is, I don’t care.”

“Fine.”

He sounds so pissed off and I’m desperate to explain. But what can I do? I can’t give him the whole story with the three actors loitering in the lobby. I mean, they seem nice and all, but what if one of them is loyal to Cornelius?

They’d kick me out of the play and then I’d never have the chance to get all the dirt on Jane. And with no proof, I’ll have no way to stop the biting ceremony Friday night and Magnus will end up bonded together with Evil Bad Girl for all eternity. Or at least until she figures out a way to slay him and take over.

“Magnus, you have to trust me,” I say, not wanting to hang up without giving it at least one more try. “I know something’s wrong here.”

“Trust you?” he spits out. “Kind of like how you’re trusting me with Jane?”

I grip the phone. Oh so it’s going to be like that, is it? “That’s different!”

“Sure it is. Good night, Sunny. Enjoy your . . . play practice.”

And with that, the line goes dead.

I force back the tears as I stuff my phone into my bag. The fact that he doesn’t believe me hurts more than I care to admit. Why can’t he see that it’s not him I don’t trust—but Jane? I mean, I’m only doing any of this because I love him and don’t want to see him hurt. Heck, it would have been a lot easier to just stay back home in Massachusetts and let the whole thing play out. It’s not like I’m having any fun out here.