Hannah Jayne - Under Suspicion

I felt my eyebrows disappear into my bangs. “Nina? Why are you looking for Nina?”

Will held up a collection of DVDs. “I’m returning her Entourage set.”

Again, I repeat: I don’t love Will. So I am chalking up the cold wash of relief that flooded over me at the presentation of the Entourage episodes as relief that Nina’s DVD collection could once again be complete, rather than the idea that my roommate was making moves on my Guardian.

“I’ll be sure she gets them.” I held out my hands, silently praying that Will couldn’t feel the heat that wafted from me.

Will clapped his hands over the DVD spines and pushed past me. “That’s okay. I’ll wait.” He pulled out a dining-room chair and plopped down. He kicked his feet up on the dining table and crossed his legs at the ankles, displaying his bright red-and-yellow Arsenal Football Club socks.

“Nice socks.”

Will beamed. “Gift from Mum.”

“Get your feet off my table.”

“Ooh, you’re snarky. So who are we after this week?”

“What?”

I followed Will’s honey-colored eyes to Vlad, who had changed into a crisp white shirt, dark brocade vest, and silly-looking ascot. His black hair was slicked back in a precise hair helmet that showed off the deep widow’s peak that he and Nina—and most members of the LaShay clan, I expected—shared. He had a stack of flyers under one arm and was trying to wrangle a handful of VERM protest signs in the other.

“ We are not ‘after’ anyone,” Vlad said, setting his signs against the table and rearranging the poof of his ascot. “We’re simply planning a silent protest of Edie Havenhurst’s new book, Fendi and Fangs. ”

In one fell swoop Nina pushed through the front door, ditched her size-of-Guatemala shoulder bag and her sky-high booties and landed elegantly on the couch, her lifeless body not making a sound. She pulled up onto her knees, her grin somewhere between excited and maniacal, her coal black eyes wide.

“Ohmigod! I love Fendi and Fangs ! I think it’s even better than Dooney, Bourke, and Buried. ” Nina leaned over and pulled a worn paperback from underneath the couch cushions, holding it up like a prize. “I love, love, love Eliza Draconie. She’s the reason I went blond.”

Nina had taken her waist-length glossy Prell hair from her supernatural inky black to a sun-kissed California blond. Today she was wearing it in two long, skillfully mussed braids, topped off with a knitted gray beanie and a pair of heavy black-rimmed eyeglasses. Paired with the aforementioned boat-necked Balenciaga, Nina looked like a sexy Calvin Klein ad. Should I attempt the same look, I’m quite sure I would have looked like I had just walked off the set of a “Be Kind to Your Local Librarian” ad.

Nina jabbed a finger at me. “And, by the way, walking into a conversation about a book I love has totally saved your ass.”

I blinked.

“Shopping!” Nina informed me.

I slapped my palm against my forehead. “Neens, I’m so sorry.”

“Who’s this Eliza bird?” Will wanted to know.

“Who is Eliza Draconie?” Nina’s coal black eyes were as wide as saucers, and her little heart-shaped mouth was held in an astonished O. “She is only the most fashion-forward and fabulous vampire ever to live!”

I cupped my mouth with my hand and leaned toward Will. “To not live. She’s—”

“I know,” Will said, waving his hand at me, “undead. A vampire.”

“And completely fictional,” I finished.

“Maybe,” Nina said, “but Edie knows what she’s talking about.” Nina tapped her index finger against her ruby red lips. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say Edie was one of us, or is seriously entrenched.”

Vlad spit out an exasperated sigh. “She is not one of us, nor does she have any kind of connection to the demon Underworld. She is yet another ‘pop culture artist’”—he made air quotes with his pale fingers—“who is propagating this myth of the fashion-whoring vampire woman, catting around modern society and falling in love with breathers. You should be ashamed, Aunt Nina. Edie Havenhurst is setting back the female gender thousands of years.”

“Back to when that ascot was in style,” Nina said without looking up from her book.

Vlad glared at her and then looked back at us, his black-painted fingernails raking over his ascot. “We are simply doing a small-scale demonstration at Ms. Havenhurst’s book signing tonight.”

Nina was up and standing nose to nose with Vlad in half a heartbeat, and I gripped my chest. I don’t care how long I’ve lived with a vampire—that creepy, silent, superspeed thing was going to kill me eventually.

“Edie Havenhurst is here ? In San Francisco? Now? Ohmigod, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

Vlad grinned triumphantly and held out his protest sign to Nina. “So you’re coming down?”

Nina’s eyes were glassy as she tapped her fingers against her pale forearm. “I don’t think I have anything to wear.”

“What you have on is fine. We’re not trying to stand out. Our message is.” Vlad shook the sign at her and Nina glared at it as though the flimsy cardboard was doused in holy water or polyester. “Get rid of that. I’m not going on your dork march. I’m going to meet Edie Havenhurst.”

Vlad let out a low growl and stomped out of the house, slamming the door behind him so hard that my requisite San Francisco dweller photo of the Golden Gate Bridge rattled in its frame. Nina, unfazed, kicked open her bedroom door, opening the gaping portal into the velvety, vampire world of vintage couture. Will and I exchanged a glance.

“Feel like watching a vampire drool?” I asked him.

“Sadly enough, I haven’t anything better to do.”

I was white-knuckling the dashboard of Nina’s little black Lexus coupe while she sped through intersections, dodging terrified-looking tourists as they clutched Nordstrom bags and hunks of sourdough bread to their chests.

“Slow down, Neens. You’re the only one who’s immortal here.”

“Ahem,” Vlad growled from the backseat.

“You know what I mean,” I said without turning around.

Vlad and Will were tucked into the cramped backseat, and I could see Will’s long legs trying to negotiate Vlad’s collection of protest signs and VERM leaflets while he tried desperately to avoid Nina’s collection of discarded drunk-on-the-go blood bags and unacceptable fashion choices.

“Did you have to bring all of this?” Will asked as he pulled a FEAR THE FANGS sign out from under one butt cheek. “I mean, aren’t you VERM guys supposed to be kind of secretive?”

I watched Vlad’s perfectly sculpted eyebrows come together. “The Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement. We don’t shorten it.”

Will’s expression said he was waiting for more, and Vlad rolled his eyes.

“Yes, we are a rather secretive organization.”

I cleared my throat. “But isn’t VER—sorry, the Empowerment Movement—isn’t it basically running the UDA now? I mean, you’ve got Eldridge and Dixon and now you.”

Vlad looked positively disgusted and ignored me completely. “As I was saying, the Vampire Empowerment and Restoration Movement is a rather secretive organization. To you people. But there are instances—like the egregious and degrading portrayal of our kind, especially just to make a few bucks—that demand we not stay silent. As I mentioned, this will be a peaceful protest.”

Will blanched. “I suppose that’s good to know.”

Vlad looked toward the window wistfully. “Originally we were going to have a parade.”