Carson stood and walked behind my chair, clamping his sausage-sized fingers on my shoulders, massaging roughly. The engineer on the other side of the glass in front of us shook his head frantically, gesturing at Carson to return to his seat. Carson’s hands inched away from my shoulders, heading down toward my br**sts. I bolted from the chair, grabbing my microphone as I slipped out of his reach.
Speaking of evil energy. What was up with this fool? I hadn’t heard any feedback about him from anyone that would’ve led me to believe he was such a degenerate. Was he on drugs? He’d be a midnight vampire snack, if he didn’t chill pretty soon. There was more than one benefit to hanging out with the undead.
I leaned against the glass separating the on-air room from the hallway, where spectators were lined up, laughing and pointing at Carson’s supposedly clever antics. I tried to focus on answering Nancy’s questions, while making sure I stayed out of Carson’s vicinity.
He danced around the studio while I spoke, lifting the front of his T-shirt, pointing to his protruding, hairy stomach. His audience made its pleasure known. I tried not to lose my breakfast and kept my voice steady.
“Those are great questions, Nancy. Yes. I do offer both groups and educational classes. Have them call my office. I have noticed an increase in people of all ages joining these cults. It doesn’t make sense, because there’s been so much negative publicity about the dark underside of the vampire lifestyle. But there does seem to be an escalating interest. I’ve also heard the talk about Denver being one of the places where evil is growing. A police friend told me recently that all forms of violent crimes are up here. People seem to be losing control of themselves. I admit I don’t understand what could be causing the changes.”
Well, at least not anything I can talk about.
Carson leaped back into his chair, drew his microphone close, and affected a whining, high-pitched voice, “Oh, my goodness gracious. There’s evil in Denver. Somebody save me! That’s enough with the social worker.” He punched the next blinking button. “You’re on the air, and I insist you be more interesting than the last caller.”
There were a few seconds of silence, during which the hairs on the back of my neck rose and goose bumps swarmed over my arms. Although silence doesn’t begin to cover it. It was more like the air had been sucked out of the room. Or a black hole had opened up—cold, bottomless, and terrifying. Even Carson seemed temporarily entranced. Then a deep, sonorous male voice spoke.
“Dr. Knight. I have looked forward to meeting you.”
My solar plexus tingled as it always did when a vampire was near.
Whoa. What’s going on here? This guy has the vampire voice, for sure. And his vibe is definitely bloodsucker. But it’s daylight, so he can’t really be a vampire. I shouldn’t be able to feel a vampire over the telephone, right? I don’t trust myself anymore to make judgments about who’s a vampire and who isn’t. Brother Luther slipped right under my radar and that almost got me killed.
Carson, who’d snapped out of his mini-trance, wheezed into the microphone, “Hey, Doc. I think we got us a live one here! Or a dead one! I’m a riot—I really crack myself up. I’ll bet this guy’s a vampire. He sounds like a vampire. So, Mister Vampire. What’s your name and what’s it like being a creature of the night?” He sat back in his chair, smiling, waiting for the next straight line to be supplied for his comedy routine.
The caller whispered, “Silence, tedious human.”
Carson slumped in his chair, his chin landing on his fleshy chest, his eyes snapping shut.
I stared wide-eyed at Carson, having seen this kind of hypnosis-like state before. Always from vampires. Real ones.
“Dr. Knight?” the deep voice purred.
I gasped involuntarily. His voice was distractingly arousing. It caressed my skin like warm fingers, reminding me of intimate encounters of the gorgeous undead variety. What the hell was going on?
I cleared my throat. “Yes. I’m here. There does seem to be something … unique … about you. Something …”
“Vampiric?” he whispered, the resonance of the word vibrating like a hand stroking my body.
Yikes. I think I moaned. Pull yourself together, Kismet. You’ve been through this before. Now’s not the time to reexplore the “V” spot. Take a deep breath and cross your legs. Tight.
He gave a devilish chuckle.
“You’re a vampire?” I blurted a bit too loudly.
“I am, indeed.”
And hopefully, all the listeners will assume he’s a wannabe or a nutter.
“How can you be a vampire and be awake during the day?”
“I am very old. Older than anything you can understand. I no longer have any limitations on my abilities. As long as my body is sheltered from the direct rays of the sun, it is pleasant to move about. Although, I much prefer the night. And, each vampire has his or her own special skills. You have only had a small taste of mine.”
When he said “taste,” I felt something tongue-like move between my legs and I pressed my thighs even tighter together.
I glanced over at Carson to make sure he wasn’t witnessing my discomfort, but he was still out cold, drooling down the front of his shirt. His studio audience seemed entranced, too.
This can’t be good. The entire radio audience is listening to me talk to a real vampire. Is this some kind of setup? I’ve never felt a vampire this powerful before. Maybe not even Devereux.
Apparently reading my thoughts, the caller said, “They will not remember a thing, Dr. Knight. Do not trouble yourself about the humans. They are in a light trance. We can chat freely.”
I suddenly imagined hundreds of cars swerving off roads all over the Denver metro area, as listeners dozed at the wheel.
He laughed, the sound tightening my stomach. I wasn’t sure if the feeling was pleasure or pain. Maybe it was both.
“Ah, yes. One might expect a psychologist to be the compassionate type. But never fear. The populace is safe from me. At least for the moment. They are merely hypnotized. It is quite simple to insert a mental suggestion into the radio waves. For a vampire, creating an altered state is not dependent upon proximity. Your mortals believe they’re listening to a pleasant tune while we speak and will resurface remembering a relaxing daydream. No harm will come to them. Until it suits me, anyway.”
“What do you want?” I finally managed to mumble. The sound of his voice made my head fuzzy.
“Just to introduce myself. I am a unique soul, even in the vampire world. Lyren Hallow, Vampire Hunter Extraordinaire, at your service. You may call me Hallow.”
His disclosure momentarily threw me and I sputtered, “What? A vampire hunter? But you’re a vampire. How can you be a vampire hunter? Aren’t there rules about that?”
“A fiend has to make a living, yes?” He laughed, the sound caressing my pleasure centers. “Even ancient vampires are not immune to the delightful siren song of money. Surprisingly superficial, I admit, but the acquisition of gold has always been an intriguing game. And in my own defense, I challenge you to keep uncovering reasons to crawl out of the tomb every night after thousands of years. Existence can be such a chore. But hunting down and killing my own kind, now there is something a nightwalker can sink his fangs into.”
He laughed again, as if he found himself highly amusing.
I cleared my throat, stalling for time. Ever since I stumbled into Denver’s hidden vampire community, I’d been struggling to regain my balance—to find some sanity to cling to in the midst of one absurd revelation after another.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“I have been hired to harvest someone you know. I thought it only sporting to tip my hand ever so slightly—just to keep things interesting. And, of course, you are becoming very well known in the bloodsucker community. I simply could not resist strolling through your brain, if even from a distance. I expect you will make the quest much more tantalizing for me. The link between us is open now, so it will be much easier for us to communicate in the future. But, alas, I must leave you. Duty calls. Oh, and by the way. You might notice some changes in your behavior. Fewer inhibitions. Nothing to worry about. Until we meet again, lovely Doctor Knight.”
There was a click and the line went dead. So to speak.
Changes in my behavior? What the hell does he mean by “harvest”? Does he mean he’s going to kill someone? Someone I know? Or, rather, some vampire I know? This must be a sick joke.
I hadn’t noticed that the engineer on the other side of the glass partition in the studio had been staring off into space, until he suddenly jerked back to awareness. So did Carson, who managed to startle himself out of his chair, which rolled away from him and struck the wall with a crash. His flabby hindquarters hit the floor with a dull thud.
He wiped the pooling saliva from his chins and stood, looking around, a stranger in a strange land.
“What the hell just happened?” he bellowed, scratching his bulging belly.
The engineer knocked on the glass, then pointed to the clock to show Carson that he needed to announce the station identification and the time, because several minutes had passed and our interview was over.
Carson grabbed his microphone and slipped back into his boorish on-air personality. He gave the required information, and glared at me. “I’d like to thank our guest, the boob-dacious Dr. Kismet Knight, for being on the show today. Aliens must have abducted me because I sure as hell don’t know where the time went. But stay tuned. I’ll be right back after these words from our moneymakers.”
He clicked off his mic and turned suspicious eyes to me.
“I don’t remember shit, and I don’t know what you did, but I know you did something. I feel it in my bones. There was that weird phone call and then—nothing. Maybe you slipped something into my coffee. This isn’t over, Kismet, baby. You’ll be hearing from me again. I have a feeling there’s a story here, and I intend to be the one to exploit it as only I can.” He made a sucking-in-air noise with his mouth that reminded me of the Hannibal Lecter character in The Silence of the Lambs.
I grabbed my briefcase and gave myself clear evidence of how many steps it took to get out the studio door.
It was tempting to tell Carson what kind of nasty coffin of worms he was opening, but I decided not to. He’d been the worst kind of abusive idiot to me during our interview, and I wasn’t in the mood to go out of my way to save his neck—literally.
Besides, if he wanted to step into a rerun of The Twilight Zone, who was I to interfere?
I hustled down the carpeted hallway toward the lobby fast enough to generate static cling in the bottom of my dress. The material sealed itself around my knees and I stopped, resting a hand against the wall next to the reception desk, watching tiny electrical sparks dance around the fabric as I tugged it away from my legs.
Carson’s voice slithered out of the invisible speakers built into the ceiling of the radio station, announcing his next guest. It was the former Miss Denver, who’d been disqualified when her breast enhancement surgery had been discovered. As if everyone and her sister wasn’t lining up for augmentation these days. Thanks to my mother’s contribution to my DNA, I wouldn’t be joining the throngs anytime soon.
But the poor beauty queen. I wondered if she was as clueless as I’d been about Carson’s agenda, or if she expected to be humiliated.
I must have mumbled something out loud while I was bent over, working at the hem of my dress, because a voice answered me.
“Carson Miller is an oozing wart on the ass of humanity. No, wait. He’s what gets sucked out of porta-potties after sports events. No, wait. He’s what you squish out of a pimple.”
Chapter Two
Surprised, I jerked my head up to discover the source of the accurate descriptions and found a hand reaching out in my direction.
My gaze traveled up—way up—to settle on the face of the tall woman standing in front of me, smiling.
Instinctively, I grasped the offered hand, and matched her smile.
She had to be well over six feet tall, because I’m just four inches shy of that in my bare feet, and today I was wearing three-inch heels. She still seemed to tower over me. Even in her comfortable-looking athletic shoes.
But it was her hair, even more than her stature, that caught the eye. An amazing waterfall of silky, white hair that fell almost to the backs of her knees.
My dark brown hair is very long and curly, but compared to hers, I’ve got a crew cut.
I stared rudely at the arctic avalanche of snow flowing down her body, trying to figure out what sort of genetic glitch could have given someone so obviously young, such pure white hair. After a few seconds, my good manners reappeared and I offered a nod of apology.
She laughed, a warm tinkling sound, and released my hand. “Yeah, don’t worry about it. Everybody has that reaction. I’m the Snow Queen, otherwise known as Maxie Westhaven—the Maxie part being short for Maxwell. My parents definitely wanted a boy.” She laughed again, and spun around in a circle. “Ya think they were a little disappointed?”
I added my laughter to hers, nodding as she proved she had a healthy sense of humor about her Victoria’s Secret model-type body. Even though she tried to camouflage her curvy shape, it wasn’t something you could hide under a Denver Broncos T-shirt and baggy jeans. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kismet—”
“Yeah. I know who you are. I saw your picture in the paper a few months back when you were embroiled in all that vampire stuff. I even tried to interview you then. I just heard you on the radio. Oh, by the way, I’m a reporter for National Skeptic magazine. Have you heard of us?”