All Wallows' Eve (A Blood Kin Vampires Book Bite)



  All Wallows’ Eve

  ~ be despaired ~

  A Blood Kin Vampires Book Bite

  by Randi Rogue

  Copyright 2011 by Randi Rogue

  Cover by Randi Rogue

  Cover Photo Apple-Vamp Self-sabotage Copyright 2012 by de Short & Randi Rogue

  Author Photo by de Short

  “Book Bite” designation by Debra Geary

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, organizations, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  License Notes

  Table of Contents

  ~ to find your way ~

  Copyright Information

  Chronology ~ To Best Experience This Series

  Chapter One ~ Dirty Thirty

  Chapter Two ~ Playing Dirty

  Chapter Three ~ Snitch

  Chapter Four ~ Hic

  Chapter Five ~ Up

  Chapter Six ~ Smack

  Other Works ~ To Discover My Other eBook Stories

  About the Author ~ One Who is Perpetually Under Construction

  Connect with the Author ~ Through Various Outlets

  Acknowledgements ~ For Which I am Grateful

  Thank you ~ Farewell Until Next Time

  Chronology

  ~ to best experience this series ~

  All Wallows’ Eve

  A Blood Kin Vampires Book Bite

  featuring Constance Ferrer

  Beatific

  A Blood Kin Vampires Novel ~ Book One

  initializing the Blood Kin Truth & Peace Prophecy

  One

  ~ dirty thirty ~

  “Life is death at thirty,” Mallory warned me smartly. “For us girls, that is.”

  Mallory Garrett was twenty-five, professionally perky, and personably gossipy. Her BA in Biology was crowned by an MBA, because, as she often exclaimed, business was the biology of modern economics, which was the ribcage of modern society. Her youth, spitfire personality, and steeped education made her a darling of the office. They also allowed her to steal half of my promotion despite the company’s supposed steadfast policy not to promote to management without at least a minimum of five years of professional experience in the industry. She’d only been there six months at the time that the promotion debacle had begun. Hellbound, she’d only been working six months.

  I, Constance Ferrer, aged twenty-nine years, three hundred sixty and a half days, had almost eight years experience in the department. Counting my Tomorrow’s Madame Scientists summer internship, I had more than ten years at the company. Unfortunately, I never finished my Chemistry degree—which was how I went from the labs to the office—and that violated the other steadfast policy regarding management promotion: degree required.

  Thus, began the promotion debacle.

  As we were the best candidates and we both passed the initial insurance physical, our superiors’ solution was to dissolve the assistant manager position and split the manager spot into two co-managers. It was an eighteen month experiment. At the end of it, they’d either decide to keep the arrangement or reassign us into the original position designations, our placement dependent on our performance over the duration of the experiment.

  I was fairly sure the more youthful, more educated, and more spritelier Miss Perfect Mallory Garrett was winning.

  I scoffed at her twenty-five-year-old insight—I had a good, well-practiced scoff—and stabbed the knife deep into the orange flesh of the oversized pumpkin.

  …And I immediately regretted it.

  I had a mincing suspicion that the intensity of the stab may have been inappropriate for the office break room. I winced at my poor office etiquette, the petty reaction that had caused it, and my hapless massacre of the pumpkin as a result of it, and said, “Is this your way of telling me you’d rather go to my funeral than throw me a surprise party?”

  She lit up at that: eyes wide, smile gleaming, posture effervescent. I briefly wondered if I could stuff her inside my jack-o-lantern—if I could manage to finish it without destroying it—instead of a candle. When she grabbed my wrist, stopping my angry carving, I considered carving the brightness right out of her.

  Yeah… I needed to develop some outlets.

  “That’s a great idea!”

  I sneered at her. Or tried to, at least. It may have been a little watery. I’m not as outwardly fierce as my inwardly thoughts. Very calmly, very quietly, I asked, “You want to throw me a funeral?”

  “A funeral-themed party!”

  I loathed the idea. Muriel from accounting in faux Goth wear, Arnold in IT hamming it up with crocodile tears, saggy crepe paper clotheslining the aisles, stale cake tackying the desks and rotting teeth, and gag gifts generating plastic smiles while lacerating my innards… Just the thought of it fritzed my brain. And yet, I couldn’t stop the fluttering excitement brewing in the pit of my belly. I’d always wanted someone to throw me a party.

  Tempering both head and gut, I asked, “Here? In the office?”

  She swatted me—not the best thing to do to someone unskilled with the cutlery and holding a grudge over sharing a job-title—and exclaimed, “No! At your house. Saturday. You’re all settled in now, right?”

  “Sure.” It was nonchalant. And a lie. My mind raced with the gazillion things I’d need to do before I finished unpacking, let alone, got settled. I’d gotten lazy after the first weekend in the place—my place, my first, fully owned and only mostly mortgaged house, even if it was only a tiny, run-down two bedroom cottage, albeit with a great screened-in back porch—and had been living off delivery pizza, Chinese, and Indian along with their most sacred cousins, paper plates and plastic utensils, for the last six weeks.

  And then there was the state of its decor. As someone rooted in paranoia (I’d had nightmares of repossession all during the buying process) and well-acquainted with her own penchant to dream a little—okay, a lot—beyond her realistic means, I’d done the smart thing for once, and aimed low. And it showed. My place was charming, which meant that it was older, needed quite a few cosmetic repairs, and was completely furnished with what I’d retained from my previous apartment. And since my apartment had mostly been decorated back in my college days, that meant cheap, lightweight, and sparse. To think, I once lavished in the fiberboard table and desk, the roughhewn couch and chairs, and the bendable desk lamps.

  Today was Monday. I’d never get my home party-ready by Saturday night. Not ready enough to show off to my subordinates, my superiors, and especially not to my competition at any rate. So, while it curdled my yogurt to give up my first chance to be thrown a party, I tried dissuading her by saying, “What? A casket-cake, black dresses, and mourners regaling my lost virtues?”

  “Exactly!”

  Crap. That backfired.

  “It’ll be great,” she continued gushing, apparently completely missing the look of intense dread I was sure had leaked onto my face. “After all, what better way to combat a nasty stigma than to embrace it?” A rather creepy gleam sparkled in her eyes as she added, “And beat it to a bloody pulp!”

  That was the same look she got when she took on a disgruntled client. It was the same look that reminded me that there were real reasons as to why she stole half of the job-title that should’ve been completely mine.

  “Sounds like fun,” I said, and withdrew my knife.

  The jack-o-lantern was as good as I was going to be able to make it.

>   My life, I feared, could be described the same.

  And yet, that hopeful flutter persisted.

  ~ ~ ~

  I used poster gum to strategically affix the garland of autumn leaves around the newly added Halloween decorations to the display atop the long stretch of counter extending from the receptionist’s desk, the three end tables that separated and flanked the four chairs that wrapped the corner between the door and the desk, and the thin shelf that jutted out above them. Mostly, the decorations consisted of a slew of paper bats, a couple straw witches, four burlap vampires, and several painted gourds and mini-pumpkins. The main attraction, however, was on top of the comment card and pamphlet display. That housed my jack-o-lantern.

  It was lopsided. The toothy grin became a vampire’s guffaw because I’d chipped the tooth on one side and had to cut them into points to cover my mistake. One eye was bigger and higher than the other. I added messy eyebrows—mostly thin off-centered hat-like carets—in my attempt to de-emphasize the eye issue, but it wound up making it look surprised. And perhaps, crazed. That got overshadowed by the plethora of colorful curlicues I’d drawn all over the back and sides of it in an imitation of wild, though purposefully ornate, hair. That save had required me to scavenge all the desktops in the department in order to collect enough colored markers to complete it. A few of the whorls were thin outlines as a result.

  It was my best office jack-o-lantern to date and I beamed over it.

  I set a fresh pumpkin-pie scented candle inside and the rest of the opened box of candles behind it. I planned to arrive early to light it, so it would greet everyone else as they arrived for the day.

  I shut off the last of the lights on my way out. I had a home to spruce up for a party to mark a cornerstone of my life.

  …A life that could use some sprucing up as well.

  ~ ~ ~

  Both furniture stores I visited after work depressed me, ridiculously so. Their selections were gorgeous. They were fantasies. I wandered between the heavenly displays, letting my imagination carry me into their promises.

  One room arrangement sketched a warm, embracing setting of rusty leathers, mahogany shelves, amber lamps, and toe curling fur rugs. It swathed me in a future of breakfasts filled with hearty bacon, eggs and mile high pancakes slathered in buttery maple syrup, bookish afternoons, hot chocolate with marshmallow evenings with finger art on frosted windows, and cracklin’ fire-lit nights.

  Another arrangement orchestrated a prim, aristocratic setting of patterned wing backs, crystal vases, silver service, a photo-strewn piano, and embroidered throws. It tickled me into visions of garden brunches with croissants and honey-butter, yogurt and fresh berries, and demitasse cups of espresso, violin recitals on the weekend, tux-and-gown dinner parties, and clinking champagne fluted soirées.

  A third fostered a plush, relaxing setting of fluffy cotton cushions, natural-grained blonde floors, drift wood stands, a decked-out entertainment center, and lazy woven ceiling fans. It lulled me into musings of breakfasts in bed, wicker basket picnics on checkered blankets, burger and potato salad cookouts, and popcorn and movie robe-clad cuddles.

  They all spelled me. However, the price tags drowned me in nightmares of an endless stream of red-stamped past-due letters, days and nights of screening my phone calls to dodge the collection agencies, and fear of actually using my furnishings so they’d outlast repaying them.

  I’m not proud of it, but I cried a little as I drove home.

  I cried a little more when home greeted me with dusty boxes, sparse, scratched, frayed, and dingy furnishings, and a kitchen equipped of dry cereal, canned tuna, skim milk, half a bottle of wine from the devoured welcome basket my realtor had left for me, and a bevy of disposable plates, cups and utensils.

  I ordered pizza, grabbed the wine, and took it with me out to my haven, my lovely screened in back porch. I sipped from a festive, glossy, red backyard barbecue plastic cup while laying on the cheap folding lounge chair. I shifted around on the woven plastic supports until I found a balance between falling through the spreading gaps in the weave and being pinched where they crossed and latched to the aluminum frame. I whispered a silly invitation to all vampires who may wish to save me from this boring life. It was absurd and ridiculous, but since I was using my imagination to transform the rickety metal and plastic folding lounge into something plush and cozy, I figured I may as well go all the way with it.

  All settled in and comfy as I was likely to get under the circumstances, I picked up my novel and continued reading the frisky fantasy about warring vampire clans. It was the book that lifted my spirits. It dashed them as well. I couldn’t be a vampire like the characters in the book, but I not-so-secretly wished I could be.

  I went to bed feeling mushy, bloated, greasy and utterly dreamy. Sleep came fraught with dreams more exciting and grandiose than I could ever rightfully dare to hope for, though I did it anyway, and typically ended up living vicariously, pathetically, through the wild imaginations of fantasy and science fiction authors.

  Sometime between oblivion and neuro-gasms, I found a happy medium of an ambition.

  Tomorrow, I’d light that jack-o-lantern, sop up my tears with eight to ten hours of work, and then maybe I’d check some big-box stores online. There had to be something out there I could afford to spruce up my home.

  Tomorrow, I’d get to sprucing up my life.

  Two

  ~ playing dirty ~

  Tuesday did not go as planned.

  I wasn’t the first one in the office. Mallory’s polished brand spanking new BMW coup filled the space beside mine, where I settled my six-year-old Toyota sedan. Don’t get me wrong. I liked my car. It was clean, well maintained, not bad on gas, and performed quite functionally. However, sitting beside Mallory’s executive-in-the-making beast, mine felt like it belonged to, well, what I was: a mundane, customer-service supervisor. It seemed that it spoke our paths for us. I tried to ignore it, tried to remind myself that I was still in the game. I could still win. Our bosses didn’t care what kind of car we drove.

  I was grinning, optimistic, when I tapped my ID to the security panel to let myself in.

  The grin did not last far beyond the elevator ride to the fourth floor of the twenty-eight story, company-owned and -operated building.

  The parking lot may have tipped me off to Mallory’s presence, but not to the extent of her dastardly intent. Not only had she beaten me there, but she had added a bit of decoration to the seasonal display in the reception nook. Her contribution was an absolutely, stupendously exquisite example of whimsical artistry. The enormous pumpkin she’d brought was not a jack-o-lantern in the traditional sense. It was a multi-depth scratched etching of the company logo. Despite the dynamic, multilayered shadows that enhanced the three-dimensional appearance of the image, the carving didn’t once puncture through to the inner bowl of the pumpkin. The candle—one of my specially purchased pumpkin spice scented stash—made the organic orange globe glow pleasantly, eerily, and beautifully. As in, I’d never seen the logo look so pretty.

  Her pumpkin was on the long counter extension of the receptionist’s desk, way off to the side and out of initial view by whoever walked in the door. And yet, despite that, it totally stole the show. Nobody that came through that door would fail to be drawn to it.

  It may as well have replaced mine entirely.

  So, I did just that.

  Then I stormed off to the break room to get my coffee and to put my jack-o-lantern out of its misery. As I drove the knife into it, I got an idea. It was a horrible, wretched, inappropriate-for-the-office and awfully pitiful act, but I couldn’t seem to recognize that fact until after I’d placed the mutilated, still impaled, gourd-like squash on her stupid, co-manager desk as a message of how I was not the soon-to-be-past-my-never-existed-prime mouse that she thought I was and returned to my desk.

  And answered my emails.

  And sorted my standard mail.

  And updated my
schedule.

  And returned some calls from my voice mail.

  By that point, the spot between my shoulder blades ached as if I’d plunged the knife there instead of into the mass of curlicues on my jack-o-lantern.

  Yeah… Not my best moment. This got compounded by my compulsory cowering beneath a shield of phone calls.

  ~ ~ ~

  “As you know, Blood Conscience is a groundbreaking medical corporation that specializes in research and technology surrounding blood and its various diseases, syndromes and applications,” I said, as Mallory’s head popped up into view over the top of the upholstered wall separating our corner cubicles with the grand floor to ceiling view of the parking garage and neighboring roofs. I swiveled to put my back to the opening to my space and continued on the phone, “While we’ve acquired financial success in the pharmaceutical industry, we are most proud of our development of the additive that drastically extends the shelf-life of donated blood.”

  I heard her heels padding on the bland, beige short-weave carpet as Mallory hooked around that wall and hovered behind me.

  I continued ignoring her and continued talking—perhaps a little too brightly and loudly—on the phone, “Whole blood from a non-relative became viable for fifty-two days, compared to the previous thirty-five. From a relative, forty-four instead of twenty-eight.”

  Her fingernails impatiently ticked the desk as she fingered a couple of files I’d left open there.

  “Red blood cells went from forty-two to sixty-three.”

  The drawer closed when she leaned her hip against it. Pens rattled in their cup as she shifted her position against my desk.

  “Platelets went from five days to nine days, and the real kicker…white blood cells, frozen, jumped from one year to almost three.”

  “…”

  Okay… The details were boring, sure, but I’d never put a client to sleep with the spiel before. I needed to regain his attention again, so I continued, saying, “This additive is made available to charitable medical centers free of charge.”