Just One Bite (6 page)

“Earl? You there, buddy?”

He grabbed the receiver and pressed the button. “Right here.”

“We need you in the sanctuary ASAP. And bring the mop.”

“Don’t tell me,” I said when he clipped the radio back onto his belt and stuffed my card into his pocket. “Clean up on aisle nine?”

“It’s a tough job”—he shrugged—“but somebody’s gotta do it.”

I thought of Dead End Dating, Vinnie’s detailed list, and the all-important fact that I could very well be
this
close to kissing my afterlife goodbye. I stiffened. “Tell me about it.”

Six

I
hopped a cab back to the office and headed straight for the bathroom and a bottle of antibacterial soap. Clean and barefoot (I stashed the booties until I could get them repaired), I spent the next few hours entering profiles, setting up various client dates, and dodging phone calls from my mother.

Despite having my afterlife threatened and getting slimed by a stinky demon, it turned out to be just another typical work night. So much so, that by the time I powered off my computer and killed the lights, I’d stopped worrying altogether.

Everything would work out.

Carmen would fall madly in love with Vinnie and his mother. Remy would turn out to be gay and my mother would give up trying to fix me up. Barney’s would extend my credit line. Ty would show up with an engagement ring the size of a third-world country. Brad would come to his senses, dump Ang, reunite with Jen, and they would live happily ever after.

Hey, it could happen.

I locked up, let myself out the back door into the alley, and closed my eyes. A little concentration and I started to feel weightless. The flutter of wings echoed in my ears and just like that, I went from fantabulously dressed matchmaker to megalicious pink bat (I wasn’t hitting the pavement in my bare tootsies any more than I absolutely had to).

By cab, my apartment was about ten minutes away in a renovated duplex on the east side of Manhattan. Via bloodsucking creature of the night, I made it in a minute flat.

I flapped my way around the side and landed behind a large green dumpster. The smell of cat litter (my neighbor Mrs. Janske was a widow with about a zillion cats) and old newspapers (the accountant down the hall from me had an addiction to the
Wall Street Journal
) burned my nostrils.

A tingling swept over me and the rhythmic
whap whap whap
faded into the beat of my own heart. The cold of the ground seeped into my feet and something wet and sticky squished between my toes (I
so
needed to work on my landing skills).

I ignored the urge to look down and proceeded around the side of the building. Climbing the front steps, I keyed in the security code and slipped inside.

If apartments were retailers, my place would be a dollar store in the burglar-bar section of Brooklyn. Obviously a huge step down from the flagship Neiman Marcus—aka my parents’ Park Avenue penthouse—where I’d crashed prior to asserting my independence, but still the best move I’d ever made.

Having my own digs was primo. I could prance around in my thong, drink my dinner straight from the bottle, and leave my lingerie hanging all over the bathroom. There was no one telling me what time to be home or how to decorate or what pretentious born vamp I should boff (all right, already, so my ma was still doing this, but she did it via nagging cellphone messages rather than live and in color).

Still, in all fairness, living with my folks hadn’t been a
total
nightmare. There had been a teensy, tiny sliver of sunshine in an otherwise overcast sky.

Two words.
Maid service.

I ignored a faint niggle of regret and took the stairs toward the fifth floor. I was halfway down the hallway, humming the latest Fergie tune, when I spotted the small gift-wrapped box sitting on my
LIFE IS A BEACH PARTY
mat.

My heart stalled and I froze. My gaze zeroed in on the trademark Tiffany blue box.

Ty.

It was the first thought that popped into my head.

All right, already. My first thought was
holy shit,
but Ty followed right on its heels.

A notion that was too ridiculous even to contemplate, of course. I was an ultra-hot born vamp. Jessica Simpson and Carmen Electra and Jenna Jameson all rolled into one. We’re talking sexy, seductive,
irresistible.

I thought of all the cab drivers and newsstand attendants and Starbucks clerks I’d smiled at over the years.

And then I thought of the average salary of a cabbie/newsstand attendant/Starbucks clerk.

Okay, so maybe Ty wasn’t that far out of the realm of possibility. Capturing criminals was dangerous work. Surely it paid megabucks.

My heart started beating again, shifting into overdrive as I knelt and retrieved the box sitting on my faded palm tree.

Excitement zipped up and down my spine, along with a rush of pure joy. I was definitely tipping the scales toward
crazy.
It wasn’t like this was
it.
The right guy. The right time. The beginning of the rest of my afterlife as a committed vamp.

Sure, I’d given up dead-end relationships because I was ready to settle down, but not with Ty. We were all wrong for each other. I knew it. He knew it. That’s why we put on the brakes after monumental, fantabulous sex and a crystal-clear connection even Sprint couldn’t screw up. We weren’t going anywhere.

Except maybe the Guinness Book of World Records for the most orgasms in a twenty-four-hour period. Fantabulous orgasms. The kind that made your toes curl and your skin tingle and your knees go weak and…
oh, baby.

My cheeks heated up (along with a few other places) and I gave myself a mental shake. We had no future together.

Made.

Born.

Comprende
?

Whatever waited in the box—even if it was the gargantuan marquise with the side baguettes and platinum setting I’d been lusting after
forever
—was going straight back to the store.

Not happening.

Forget it.

No thank you.

And so there was no reason to torture myself by looking, right? I should simply call Ty, tell him that what we had was beautiful, but strictly superficial. It was over and I was terribly sorry if I misled him.

At the same time, he’d probably gone to a ridiculous amount of trouble to pick out just the right thing. He’d probably spent days, maybe even weeks, searching for the perfect thing to wow me. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t at least take a quick peek and admire his selection?

I tore off the bow and gripped the lid.

Easy.
My conscience went from preachy to reasonable.
It might not be platinum. It might be silver. Or gold. It might not even be a marquise. It might be a princess cut. Or a solitaire. Hell, it might not even be a ring at all. It might be a diamond necklace. Or one of those divine filigree bracelets. Or a pair of bloody fangs
—

My mind went numb and my stomach dropped to my ankles as I stared at the surprise nestled on a bed of white satin.

After several heart-pounding moments, I snapped the lid shut as quickly as I’d opened it. I stood there doing more of the heavy-duty stress-reducing breathing I’d seen on
Dr. Phil.
The frantic in and out of oxygen only made my pulse beat that much faster. The panic mounted. Cold horror slid through me and I became quickly aware of the dark, ominous hallway that lurked around me.

I forgot all about the key in my purse, twisted the knob on my door, and pushed. Hinges strained. Wood cracked and splintered and I rushed inside. I slammed the door shut behind me, stuffed the nearest chair I could find under the doorknob (on account of I’d just taken out the dead bolt and a good chunk of wood), and went in search of coping mechanism number two—alcohol.

Since I’m more of a social drinker (Cosmos with The Ninas, appletinis after work with Evie, Jell-O shots while helping my human sister-in-law pick out an atrocious wedding dress), the best I could come up with was a travel-sized bottle of Crystal left over from a cruise I’d taken with my family ages ago in celebration of Moe’s going national.

The cork popped, the opening gasped, and I downed the entire bottle in one long, desperate gulp. By the time I finished, I felt loads better.

Okay, so
loads
was stretching things a bit, but I felt calm enough to evaluate the past few minutes rationally.

Who? What? When? Why?

The questions raced through my brain, none of which could be answered unless I grew some big ones, opened the box again, and gave the contents another look. Just to make sure, you know, that the ghoulish things weren’t some stress-induced figment of my imagination.

I had been threatened and slimed, and all in the same night. That was enough to wig anyone out and send them off to the Land of the Loony.

I braced myself and reached for the box.

The good news was that I wasn’t a hallucinating nutcase. The bad news was that they were still there.

Gleaming white enamel. Razor sharp ends. Bloody stumps.

My chest tightened and a lump worked its way up my throat.

Like I know crying is useless and weak and yada yada, but sometimes it feels like the right thing to do, even for a badass vampire like yours truly. Especially when I noticed the small white card tucked into the lid of the box. I pried the paper loose and unfolded it.

Just a little reminder of what I’m going to do to you if you don’t find me a woman…V.

The reality of what I was up against hit me. I sank down onto the edge of my sofa and started to bawl.

For myself.

For the poor schlump who’d lost his fangs.

For myself. Because I was going to be the next poor schlump if I didn’t find Vinnie’s soul mate in time for Mama Balducci’s birthday.

My vision blurred. I was sniffling like crazy when I felt a brush of warmth against my ankle, followed by a soft
meow.

I wiped at my cheeks and blinked frantically. Killer’s image came into focus.

He wasn’t the most attractive cat (I’d rescued him from an alley and certain death at the hands of a rat the size of King Kong). He was brown and white, and still a little on the thin side, but I’d spruced him up with a silver collar and a white rhinestone tee that read
THE KING HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING
.

Instantly, my fear multiplied when I thought of Vinnie planting the box outside my door with Killer mere inches away. If the guy could dismember a were bear and rip the teeth off a vampire without one iota of conscience, imagine what he could do to a poor, helpless kitty.

Killer narrowed his bright green eyes, his message loud and clear.
Enough with the blubbering, already. I’d like to eat sometime before global warming ends and we plunge into the next ice age.

Make that a snotty, pretentious, smart-ass kitty.

“I’m this close to losing my fangs. I could use a little compassion, here.”

Compassion’s for wussies. What you need is a baseball bat. Or better yet, a Glock. Cap a few in his ass and you’re home free.

Yeah, right. I
so
didn’t do death and destruction all that well. A gun was definitely out.

As for the bat…

I made a mental note to hit the local sporting goods store first thing next afternoon. In the meantime, I pushed to my feet and stashed the Tiffany box in the back of my closet until I could give it a proper burial.

A few minutes later (after searching the apartment for more body parts and double-checking the chair in front of the door), detoured off the panic highway and U-turned back to normal.

Alicia Keys drifted from my iPod docking station. The scent of my favorite Bundt Cake candle sweetened the air. I changed into pink Juicy sweats and headed for the pantry.

I’d just reached for a can of Kitty Cuisine when a strange sense of awareness crawled through me. I knew then, even before I heard the slow creak of wood and the tremble of hinges, that someone was trying to get into my apartment.

And with the sucky way my night was going, I felt pretty damned certain that it wasn’t Colin Farrel.

Seven