The Vampire Book of the Month Club (23 page)

“Sure, Norm.” She pats his big belly familiarly, as if this is something that happens every night on set. “When you need us, big guy, you'll know where to find us.”

With that Abby leads us off the graveyard set, past the half-empty and crumb-covered craft service table and the Porta-Johns to her camper, which isn't quite as big as I remember from my last visit to the set (was that
Zombie Diaries 2
or
3
?). It's still more than three times the size of our dorm suite back at Nightshade Academy.

“Budget cuts,” Abby says by way of explanation as we crowd into the main sitting area. “The last one didn't do so well on DVD. They're hoping to leak this one online a few months early to generate more buzz. Until then, it's home sweet camper!”

I smile at her from my leatherback wing seat, looking for any signs of scarring or disfigurement on her face and seeing none. Aside from a paler shade of skin, and the green contacts the makeup people have her wear “for continuity,” she's the same old Abby.

“What, you drank all the Jolt Cola again?” Wyatt says, once again raiding Abby's dorm-size fridge as he bends down, giving us both a great shot of his derriere, which is irresistible even in his tattered fake-zombie costume. “I thought you had some kind of pull around here. You know I can't possibly drink this generic stuff.”

“You'll drink it, and you'll like it.” She tosses one of her promotional
Zombie Diaries
dolls—sorry, action figures—at his backside and misses. It lands in the sink with a clatter that echoes long after the doll's feet get stuck in the drain.

So much has happened since we left the Council of Ancients, all of it surprisingly good (you know, aside from the whole being immortal and having to drink blood for the rest of our lives part).

Wyatt has more work than ever. Abby, despite her grumblings, is lucky to be undead and more popular than ever, and Hemoglobin Press says the anticipation for the fifth Better off Bled book is off the charts.

I suppose I should be stoked, but it's pretty hard to get too excited when you know that buried within the pages, your book—
your
book—is a code only vampires can read, giving them directions to a place where after four days of vampire seminars and undead breakout sessions and dastardly meet and greets, they'll feed on the good people of Lake Hammer, Texas, like fat guys at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

I don't know how that's going to play itself out just yet, but despite Lord Rothchild's warnings, there is still a part of me more human than vampire. I keep waiting for it to wane, for myself to give in to the hunger, to become insatiable for blood, but so far I have been able to control myself fairly well.

Not that I'm any kind of saint, mind you, but I'm far from veering into Reece territory anytime soon, thank you very much.

Regardless of my own need to feed, the taking of another life—another
human
life—is something I've yet to experience and something I certainly don't want to accomplish because of my next book.

Still, I had to run the code as is, or Reece and the Ancients and every other vampire on this planet would know the jig was up and would come looking for me. (After all, my name is right there on the cover!) And not just me, but as Reece warned, everyone around me: Abby, Wyatt, fellow students, teachers . . . even our families and friends.

I was in it now, deep in it, for better or worse, and unlike one of my books, I couldn't just write my own ending and live happily ever after. This ending was going to be a lot stickier and then bloodier than even I could imagine.

But the conclave is still a few months away, and I still have time to plan before the good people of Hammer Lake are led to slaughter.

“Think fast!” Wyatt says, tossing me a fresh bag of blood from Abby's hidden supply.

“You sure you have enough, Abby?” I ask anxiously, desperate to slice off the silver foil seal and drain it dry before she can answer.

She shrugs. “It's cool. You guys go ahead. I've got a pretty good connection: a guy in the makeup department. He gets it by the case from the blood bank downtown every other day or so, tells them it's for research. He says the supply is pretty much unlimited, thanks to the hospitals being so particular about the blood supply lately.”

“So, what?” asks Wyatt, those perfect lips centimeters away from his straw. “These are like . . . rejects?”

“Takes one to know one.” She sighs without looking up from her latest script changes. “These in particular, I think he said, have, I dunno . . . hepatitis C?”

“Gross,” he says, lips still hovering over the straw.

“Dude, I've been sucking them dry all week and look at me,” she says, smiling healthily and looking none the worse for wear.

Wyatt and I shrug, sucking greedily until our bags are dry.

Without looking up from her precious script, Abby says, “You guys are gross.”

A few seconds later, there is a knock at the door, and Abby's assistant swings it open to announce, “Abby, we need you on set.”

Wyatt and I start to get up, but she smiles. “Not you guys yet. We just need to do a few reshoots, and then wardrobe will be back to get you, 'K?”

I smile as the college intern turns at the foot of the camper stairs and waits expectantly for Abby.

Abby gets up, sighs, and turns to us. “Before I go, I should warn you that the tech guys have this ray gun, see, like on
Star Wars
? It detects bodily fluids . . . so keep your hands to yourselves, or this is your first and last guest appearance in the latest installment of the Academy Award–winning Zombie Diaries franchise.”

“Promise?” Wyatt asks before she slams the door. He sighs and takes Abby's seat, putting his feet on my chair and twirling it around.

When I swing back to face him, his lips are waiting for me.

T
here is one at every book signing—the vannabes. Vampire wannabes.

The one approaching is tall and thin and strong, and if she didn't want to be a vampire so badly, she'd probably be really, really—I mean
really
—pretty.

Instead she covers her fresh, young face in pancake makeup, slathers her perfect, pouty lips in maroon lipstick, dyes her long hair a shade too dark, and covers her size-two body in outdated frills and drab collars in a size (or two) too big.

“Hi,” I say, trying not to wrinkle my nose at the strong, spicy, no doubt dramatically named perfume she's wearing. “What's
your
name?”

“Countess Alexandra the Eighth,” she says without a trace of irony, her steely young eyes daring me to dispute her.

I don't argue this time. I smother a sigh and just sign her new copy of my book, smiling but not too widely lest she see the faintest hint of the fangs lurking just below my upper jawline. They feel awkward and unsightly, although not a single person all night has commented on my appearance one way or another.

It's like when I had braces back in eighth grade. To me they felt big and awkward, and I could swear they were the first thing anybody saw when I approached, but no one ever noticed, and after a while I just started taking them for granted and basically ignored them.

I'm looking forward to the completely-ignoring-them phase, but I'm not quite there yet.

“Going to the conclave this year?” I ask Countess Alexandra the Eighth, signing my name with a flourish.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sh-sh-
sure
,” she stammers, and not even three layers of pancake makeup can cover up the blush rising across her young, hollow cheeks.

“Supposed to be a
really
good time,” I say knowingly, sliding the book back across my signing table.

“Yeah, can't wait,” she continues to bluff, avoiding eye contact as she reaches eagerly for her hot-off-the-press, $22.95 copy of Better off Bled #5:
Scarlet's Sacrifice
by Nora Falcon. Yeah, yeah, I know what Reece wanted to call it, but . . . my book, my rules, my title. Besides, the title wasn't part of the message, anyway.

She tries to grab it off the predictably black tablecloth, but I hold it firmly until she looks at me, her face half-expectant, half-impatient.

“Hey, Countess,” I tease, before finally letting the book go. “Be careful what you wish for.”

She pauses, blinking twice, and in her confusion, I see the sad little seventeen-year-old hiding beneath the vampire costume.

Suddenly I am sad about taunting her, sad about pretending I'm any better than her simply for knowing something no human should ever know.

I feel vaguely bad that I am partly to blame for her ridiculous outfit, for her three layers of makeup, for her frilly name and the vials of fake blood she and the rest of her “coven” spread around freely every Saturday night as they light black candles and sip tomato juice and watch
Interview with the Vampire
for the four hundredth time, probably.

And I'm even sadder to think how many girls like her will be living and dying in Lake Hammer, Texas, this time next year. At least, according to every other vampire on the planet. For myself, I have finally cracked my own code: a way to help those poor humans in Texas and not alert Reece or the Council or anyone else before conclave. Another code, a human code, was included in my last-minute rewrite of the latest adventures of Scarlet Stain, and as soon as I reveal how to crack it, Hammer, Texas will be a ghost town long before the vampires show up. Of course, timing is everything, and it will take every ounce of patience I've had—plus a few acting lessons from Abby, of course—not to let Reece and the others know my dirty little secret. But it's out there, in every new copy of the book, in every bookstore, on every tablet, in every country, and eventually all will be revealed.

If I live that long, that is.

Countess Alexandra the Eighth smirks, clutching the book to her chest, and the moment is gone.

She disappears into the jostling, late-night bookstore crowd, joining her small “coven” of five identically clad friends as they slurp frozen mochaccinos through green straws and black-painted lips near the Books 'n Beans café.

I sigh, rub my eyes, and start to uncap a fresh Sharpie pen to sign my next book when a familiar face leans in and oozes, “Can you make mine out to Model of the Year, please?”

Wyatt smiles, his hair grown out, his chiseled features flawless, his pale hands outstretched eagerly.

Out of sheer habit, I grab the book. “You sure that won't jinx anything?” I ask, signing it as per his request.

“You're still my girl, right?” he asks, causing a scene in his tight, black jeans and white T-shirt, both looking as if they were designed just for him.

“I suppose,” I say coyly, adding a personal postscript.

“Then what do I have to lose?” He grins.

I shove the book back and smirk. “You always know just what to say, don't you, player?”

He smiles, ignoring the impatient vannabes stamping their feet behind him as he opens the book to read my inscription.

I hazard a glance behind him, hoping for once that Abby has found time to show up.

He seems to know what, or whom, I'm looking for. “Reshoots,” he says, barely looking up from the title page of the book in his long, graceful hands. “She said she'd catch you next time.”

“Next time.” I violently snap the cap back onto my Sharpie even though I know full well I'm just going to have to use it in another couple of seconds. “Next what, Wyatt? Next book signing? Next decade? Next
century
? She hasn't been to one of my signing in ages!”

He leans down, smiles, and whispers, “Hey, one out of two of us ain't bad, right?”

I smirk and look up at him.

The weeks, then months, since Reece turned him have been almost supernaturally good to Wyatt. His skin, once tan, is now a marble, almost fashionable pale. The turning took what baby fat had made him so adorable before and evaporated it, leaving in its stead a lean, nearly fat-free Adonis. He was never a slouch to begin with, trust me, but now it seems his entire musculature has literally transformed into something else altogether. It's to the point now where I have to force myself not to gasp whenever he shows up like this, unannounced and unabashedly awesome. It seems almost cruel that a boy should look this good and yet still be mine.

His eyes are darker now too, his black hair shoulder length and flowing, his cheekbones even more pronounced. If anything, he's booked more jobs since becoming a vampire than ever before.

I'm happy for him but bummed for me. Now we spend even less time together, and I crave every moment he can steal away and simply be there by my side.

I watch his thin lips curl into a genuinely inspired smile as he reads his personal message from me:

To my Model of the Year,

I look forward to getting between your covers later.

Your Girl

He turns without a word, exiting the line.

With a collective sigh, the vannabes pause to watch him walk toward—appropriately enough—the romantic literature section.

Even his movements have changed, the way his muscles and bones join and flow together so that he doesn't so much strut as stride, like a panther stalking his prey.

I follow him with my eyes (me and every other girl in the joint) and see him turn and hug a girl.

I almost stand from my signing table to launch a twelve-pound, two-hundred-page hardcover book at her until I see a familiar face—

Abby!

She wears an expensive black tracksuit over her
Zombie Diaries
wardrobe and a ball cap to disguise her appearance, but I'd know that pert nose and familiar smile anywhere.

So she'd made it after all.

About damn time!

She gives me a guilty smile, which is pretty gratifying coming from a girl who hasn't genuinely apologized—ever, for anything—since we've met.