Drop Dead Gorgeous (3 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Derek lay in his bed in the dark, feeling the now familiar surge of what seemed very much like adrenaline just before dawn. If he weren’t safely tucked into his home with the boarded up windows and securely locked doors, he would instinctively use this rush of energy to dig himself into the ground for the day. Fortunately, he hadn’t had the need to do such a thing, but his maker and his brothers had assured him he’d be able to do it.

He felt his brothers all around him. He had fifteen of them. Some he hadn’t even met, but he could feel them. One was running towards the nest; the others were already inside the houses, as was Madeline. The last one entered his house and Derek felt him close by. He closed his eyes and waited for dawn, thinking of Clara as he’d done every night since he’d met her. He thought of the first time he’d seen her.   

He was sitting in the makeup chair backstage before a fashion show at the Wiltern Theater. Primarily a print model, he didn’t often do shows, but he was later glad he’d chosen to do this one.

He faced the women’s side of the dressing area. Several were changing – trying on clothes before the show to make sure they fit properly. He paid no attention to them just as they would pay no attention to him when it came time for him to change in the open backstage area.

What did catch his interest was the dark-haired woman standing with a small group of models. She was obviously not a model as she was several inches shorter than the other women, even in high-heeled boots. And she had more pronounced curves than the other women. Her snug black skirt and red sweater showed them to perfection.

“You’re straight, aren’t you?” Maxwell, the hairdresser, asked as he began working on Derek’s hair.

“Yeah.”

“I see you’re watching the girls change. Kinda pervy.”

“Actually, I was watching the woman in the red sweater. Do you know who she is?”

“Crimson.”

“Excuse me?”

“Her sweater is crimson, and yes, her name’s Clara Devereux. She’s the runway booker at Beacon.”

“Monica’s friend. I mean, I’ve heard Monica mention her. Monica’s my agent.”

“I can see the appeal. She has great hair, although I’d layer it a little.”

“I like it just like it is.” It was thick and glossy, just past her shoulders, and begged to be touched
–
brushed back to expose her neck.

“And she could stand to lose ten pounds.”

“Oh, I disagree.” He studied her body –
the word “womanly” came to mind. She was full-breasted with rounded hips and a delicate waist.

“If I were straight, I probably would too. Straight men like to squeeze things and she’s definitely got things to squeeze.”

“Yeah.” He imagined his hands cupping her delicious behind, pulling her to him.

“I hate to burst your horny little bubble, but she’s dating the owner of Beacon.”

Suddenly his mind’s eye saw someone else’s hands on her, and the fantasy came to a screeching halt.

“Really? Is it serious?” he asked.
Please say no.

“Yes. I think they live together.”

Damn.
“Well, I can still look.”

And he did. He stared, actually.

Clara gave hugs to the women in her circle and left.

Every time Derek hit the stage that night, his eyes scanned the audience for the crimson sweater, but the room was too big and the lights were too bright. He couldn’t see much beyond the first few rows.

He didn’t see her again for months – not until the day on the beach, but he thought of her often and how beautiful she’d looked in that sweater.

Derek opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. It was dusk. He wondered if he’d ever get used to how suddenly he fell into his daytime rest. It didn’t feel like falling asleep. He wasn’t groggy or sleepy first, searching for a comfortable position. He felt the adrenaline and then everything was just gone. He remembered thinking of Clara backstage at the fashion show and then he was here looking at the ceiling nine hours later.

He got up and focused his energy on the overhead light and TV, and both came on. He kept the TV on CNN so he could keep up with the world. Terence said it was a good sign that he was interested in what was going on. Some new vampires didn’t make it because they were so consumed with depression – hatred for what they had become. Derek had felt that way for the first month or so, but he slowly became more engaged with the living, especially since he’d begun following Clara. It gave him a reason to get up at night, even if he had no real hope of ever being with her again.

But everything had changed last night. He thought of the look in her eyes when she’d come to in his arms. She felt the same way he did. He believed she might love him.
But what does that matter now? I’m a monster. And I hurt her.

He remembered her hands pushing him away, her sobs as she begged him to stop. But he couldn’t stop. Because now he was a monster, driven by blind hunger. He thought of the taste of her as he bit into the flesh of her neck. At that moment, he didn’t care about anything but the blood, and now what he’d done to her sickened him.

He sat up and looked around his room. Like the other three bedrooms in the house, it was big – bigger than his bedroom had been in Beverly Hills and almost the size of his entire New York apartment.  It was filled with matching mahogany furniture – ornately carved dressers, a desk, night stands, and a four-poster bed – a full, not a queen, indicating it was old. He guessed the set was probably from the 30s or 40s.

The plain white walls were adorned with art in wood or gold frames – a landscape in oil, an etching of a European cathedral, a pair of botanical prints. The boards over the windows hadn’t been painted as they had been downstairs, and the bare curtain rods were still attached to the wall above. The ceiling was high, framed in dental molding, and the hardwood floor was covered with an oriental rug, heavily worn.

He started to get dressed, and eyed the full laundry basket in his closet that needed to go downstairs. Laundry was one of his household chores and he made a mental note to do a few loads later, pondering how vampires in the movies never had to do mundane chores.
But neither do most of the humans in movies, come to think of it
.

He left his room, crossing the wide hallway to the bathroom to brush his teeth, popping his fangs down to give them a scrub. He could extend them and fold them back against his upper palate at will, but sometimes they moved of their own accord. When extended they were amazingly sharp, and when relaxed, his teeth looked perfectly normal.

There was no point in shaving, but he ran a comb through his hair before going back to pull the chenille bedspread back in place.

He decided to sit on the bed to watch the news for a minute. This was how he’d learned of the body that had been found long after Madeline had killed him. He was sick when he realized that Madeline or the brothers had murdered some innocent person and planted the body near where Derek had been killed. Thanks to Madeline, the authorities had remains – not identifiable as Derek’s, but at least human, and the world had stopped looking for him soon after.

He wondered to what lengths the brothers had gone to see that his missing person file was closed – medical records changed, memories wiped clean, loose ends tied up. All the brothers were good at their jobs. Madeline saw to that.

He was reported to have gotten lost hiking. But he was never lost. He’d sprained his ankle – maybe broken it, and had literally crawled back to his car, taking almost the entire day. He had worried Clara would be angry because he’d be late for their date, but he couldn’t get a signal in the canyon to call her from his cell phone.

He could see the road and the safety of his car through the trees when Madeline appeared in front of him. It was dark, but the moon was full and he recognized her, relieved to see someone who could help him.

“I need some help,” he said, feeling it was obvious since he was crawling on the ground.

She smiled and nodded, which he found strange.

He’d seen her several times before and had noticed her. She was quite beautiful with long dark red hair and green eyes that were lighter than most. She was very pale and thin, and she wore blood red lipstick. He wondered why he kept running into her and then thought it even odder that she was here.

Before he had a chance to say another word, she was on him and he felt her bite into his neck. He tried to push her off, but she was alarmingly strong. He knew she was killing him, and even though he fought with all his might in spite of the pain in his ankle, he couldn’t overpower her. He felt his body weaken, and thought of Clara waiting for him. In his last moment, he longed to be with her.

The bedroom door opened, jolting him out of his memories, and Madeline came into the room. Locks were useless in a house full of vampires. She sat beside him on the bed. He lowered the volume of the TV with his mind and turned to her.

“Terence said you fed by yourself last night,” she began.

“Yes, I did.”

“And it went well? You used your magic?”

“It went fine.”

She reached over and began to unbutton his pants. He grabbed her hand and stopped her.

“
Jesus, Madeline.”

“Excuse me?” She withdrew her hand and he buttoned his pants.

“I mean, I thought we were done with that. That’s why you got Billy.”

“That’s why I got you too. You don’t say no to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand. I just thought, you know, with Billy….” After last night, having Madeline touch him felt like he was cheating on Clara.

“You’re here because of that pretty face and those fat bank accounts. If any of you aren’t fucking me or earning me money, you’re disappointing me, and I don’t like to be disappointed.”

“I got it. I just thought you preferred Billy now.”

He instinctively feared her, although he still wasn’t certain exactly what she could do to him. He wouldn’t have cared if she finished him, really – forced him into the sun, driven a wooden stake into his heart, whatever it took to finally end his existence. But then Clara’s sleeping face flashed through his mind, along with a glimmer of a hope he’d been missing.

“I do prefer Billy. He’s a better fuck,” she said.

And with that, she got up and walked out of the room.

He despised her. And he despised himself for needing her. As soon as he’d awakened after she’d killed him, she’d been there with a champagne flute of blood and her insatiable body, riding him as he drank. It had been the most exquisite sensation he could have imagined.

That’s all they’d done for the first week or so. He’d been little but mindlessly hungry and horny every night and she’d been his only reprieve.

Eventually, he’d met some of the others – all born of Madeline just as he’d been, and they’d helped him learn what he’d become. When he left Madeline’s house and was placed in the house with Terence and Raymond, he didn’t know how lucky he was. They were fairly nice – not exactly friendly at first, but at least they were helpful. Samuel, who lived in the house across from Derek, was a thug and an idiot. Bradley and Aaron next door seemed the same. Derek gave several of the brothers a wide berth when he’d seen them on the street, having no interest in making friends. Or enemies.

Madeline seemed to have chosen some of her conquests based on their looks alone. Or maybe their money. Of the ones he’d met, he’d noted very few charming personalities, but then, maybe their nature had diminished their humanity over time. Maybe he’d do the same, and someday be the brute Madeline’s new boys avoided. He hated contemplating what his future here might be – knowing he was cursed to this life for longer than could be imagined.

If the others hated Madeline as Derek did, he couldn’t tell. They all knew they could never kill her because her demise would end them all. They were born of the magic in her blood, and when it ceased to exist, they would all perish.

Once he’d moved to Terence and Raymond’s house, Derek’s lust and thirst had lessened and he’d been able to control himself more and more. He’d still fucked Madeline and she’d still fed him both with human blood and her own, but he’d also spent time learning the magic from her and from Raymond and Terence, and eventually, he’d been allowed to roam the night alone. That was when he’d started to follow Clara, always careful that he was alone and not followed by Madeline or a brother.

And that’s also when he’d thought of giving Clara the house in Santa Barbara. Terence did all the wills. He probably had the equivalent of several law degrees by now, and continued to study to stay current. He’d sat with Derek and gone over his bank accounts, stock accounts, his IRA. Everything was left to Madeline, of course. That was how she ran the nest – with the assets of her conquests. She changed her identity every few decades by assuming the identity of one of her victims, and everything was transferred to her new name. Terence made sure legally she was always above reproach.

One night Derek realized she didn’t know yet about the house in Santa Barbara. She’d mentioned getting his possessions from the apartment in Beverly Hills and leaving those in his New York apartment, and said nothing about the house. She even asked if he had any other places, and he’d lied and said that he didn’t.