Mario Acevedo: X-Rated Bloodsuckers

Special thanksto the wonderful people at HarperCollins and especially my publisher, Rene Alegria, my editor, Diana Gill, her assistant, Will Hinton, and my publicist, Michelle Dominguez. There's no mention big enough for PMA Literary and Film Management, Inc. and my agent, Scott Hoffman, now at Folio Literary Management, LLC. I'm grateful for the support given to me by booksellers across the country. Writing about corpses involved special research, and thanks to Lt. Ed Winter at the Department of Coroner, County of Los Angeles, for giving me the short tour. The burdens of my travels were eased by the many people who welcomed me into their homes: Rebecca Hulem, Bob Hadaya, Joni Mulder, David Lacy, and Joe Flynn. To Erika Paterson for her advice, friendship, and the occasional dance lessons. I got a lot of wonderful props from those rabble-rousers at La Bloga: Manuel Ramos, Dan Olivas, Rudy G., Michael Sedano, and Gina Ruiz. A big smile for that special vampire writer, Marta Acosta, who contacted me out of the blue and dragged me into her blogosphere. My critique group who kept after me until I got things right: Heidi Kuhn, Jeanne Stein, Sandy Meckstroth, Margie and Tom Lawson, Jeff Shelby, Jim Cole, Kevin Tracy, and Sue Viders. To mi gente at El Centro Su Teatro: Tony Garcia, Tanya Mote, and Mica for pushing the Chicano vampire bandwagon. I still look for inspiration from my friends in the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and my fellow scribes at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop: Andrea Dupree, Mike Henry, William Henderson, Shari Caudron, Eric Olson, and Amanda Rea. Then there is that malicious bunch in the Mystery Writers of America: Gwen Shuster-Haynes, R.T. Lawton, Chris Goff, and Bonnie Ramthum (who gave me a bottle of vampire wine). Zooming in at low orbit is the creative and hard-charging bunch of the DogmataDenver team: Russ Wright, Tadd Moskal, David Menard, Jennifer Mosquera, Eric Matelski, and Amy, his smarty-pants wife. Finally, to my sister Sylvia and her partner Janet, my brother Armando, my sons Alex and Emil, my aunt Angelica, and my uncle Sam and tia Alma.

"It's about murder,"said Katz Meow.

Murder? I had trouble accepting the premise from such pillowy and succulent red lips.

I gave Katz the vampire once-over. A quick study of her eyes, the portals to a human's consciousness. Mascara clumped her eyelashes, making them seem like ragged penumbras around the shiny blue marbles of her irises. Her high-boned cheeks were round and perfect.

My gaze dropped to her neck, and I studied the hollows between the tendons of her throat, marking the choicest spot to sink my fangs and tap her jugular.

Should I fang her, there could be one of three outcomes.

If I only sucked her blood, I could modulate which of the enzymes in my saliva flowed back through the punctures. These enzymes deepened vampire hypnosis and could induce permanent amnesia, and make her swoon with orgasmic pleasure or writhe in searing pain.

If I sucked too much blood, I would kill her.

Or should our blood commingle after the fanging-especially through an open-mouth kiss as was done to me years ago-then she'd be damned to walk the earth as a vampire.

The low collar of her dress arced like a smile across her voluptuous cleavage. My eyes went back to hers, lingering for an instant in fleeting lust.

Morning sunlight illuminated my office.

Sunblock and makeup covered my translucent complexion. Katz didn't know I was a vampire. Humans couldn't know. They must never know. Superstition and skepticism protect us, the undead. The moment humans discovered we exist, they would hunt us down. Those vampires the humans didn't exterminate would be imprisoned and dissected. I had to be careful what cases I accepted as an undead private detective.

Katz fidgeted in the leather chair facing my desk, as if she sensed my wariness.

"Whose murder?" I asked.

Katz wrung her hands, the manicured white-tipped fingernails crisscrossing. "My friend Roxy Bronze."

"Never heard of her."

Katz reached into the large Gucci handbag-real or knockoff-resting by her ankle. Gold bracelets jangled from her wrist as she offered me a plastic DVD case.

The cover of the DVD showed Katz and a statuesque brunette, holding each other by the waist. Both wore matching black bikini bottoms and bolero vests, and stood on clear plastic stiletto slut pumps. They had wanton grins as lurid as what the DVD title blared in fluorescent green letters: SUPER-VIXEN SKANK FEST, VOLUME EIGHT. Printed across their respective muscular thighs were their names: KATZ MEOW and ROXY BRONZE.

Katz brushed a tangle of blond hair from her forehead and looked away. She tapped one of her wooden-soled clogs against the oak floor.

The reverse side of the DVD case was a collage of Ms. Meow and Ms. Bronze in what looked like a high-impact version of the Kama Sutra as they played together, with other women and sex toys, and an assortment of men with amazingly large penises.

I flipped the DVD over and examined the cover again. My gaze traced across Roxy Bronze's face. The narrow bridge of her nose, the pronounced dimples in her cheeks, a chin tapering to a neat point-this last detail emphasized the elongated outline of her face. Her smile curved up in a pronounced U, exposing a neat row of porcelain white teeth.

Roxy looked familiar. But from where? Maybe I had seen her picture somewhere else.

I handed the DVD to Katz.

Katz took the case and dropped it into her bag.

My mind held the images of Katz and Roxy screwing like farm animals. "You're a…"

She finished the sentence for me. "An erotic film actress."

Fancy way of saying she nuzzled crotches for a living. When receiving new clients, I was tempted to read their auras, since they betrayed much about what humans think. Auras were more expressive than facial gestures. But special contacts covered my eyes, hiding the tapetum lucidum -the mirrorlike retinas vampires share with other nocturnal predators-so I was out of luck. The contacts allowed me to appear human, though at the cost of diminishing my night vision and losing my ability to read auras and hypnotize prey at will.

"You live in L.A.?" I asked. We were in my Denver office, a long way from California.

"Yes, the Valley."

"What valley?"

Katz smirked. "San Fernando."

Of course. The San Fernando Valley was to porn what Maine was to lobster fishing. "Katz Meow is your stage name, I take it."

"It is."

"And your real name?"

"Katz Meow is my real name."

"Where were you born? A pet store?"

She sighed and said, "My real name is Wilma Pettigrew. I'm originally from Shelbyville, Indiana."

I didn't blame her for changing names. Katz Meow conjured silk lingerie and Porsches. Wilma Pettigrew, gingham aprons and Buicks. "Ms. Pettigrew, where did-"

"Please, Felix," she interrupted, "Mr. Gomez, I mean, don't call me Ms. Pettigrew. I hate that name." Her voice took on a flat, nasal quality, as if the mention of Wilma Pettigrew took her from Southern California and back to her midwestern neighborhood. "I'm Katz. Katz Meow. Ms. Meow. But never Wilma Pettigrew."

I acknowledged her request with a nod. "Very well… Ms. Meow, where did this murder take place?"

"L.A.," she said. "Hollywood, to be specific."

"And you've come to Denver. You couldn't find someone out there willing to take the case?"

Katz held her gaze on me.

"Or that you trusted?"

"It's both," she replied.

"What about the police? There had to be an investigation."

"There were cops and paperwork, a real dog and pony show. They said it was probably a holdup gone bad, claiming Roxy was at the wrong place at the wrong time. But I know their story was a sham."