The Vampire Book of the Month Club, Page 2

  I worry about them because they don’t just like vampires; they want to be vampires. As in, literally, they want to feast on blood, live forever, have sharp teeth, and sleep by day, live by night—eternally. At least they think that’s what they want, but they think they want it more than anything.

  Some are young—too young to be reading my books (which can get a little racy and a lot violent, if I do say so myself), let alone be out past midnight at one of my standing-room-only book signings.

  This one is roughly my age, seventeen or so, washed out, trembling in anticipation over meeting the Nora Falcon, author of the best-selling Better off Bled series featuring the fictional heroine Scarlet Stain, she of the flowing red locks, bodacious backside, and elite vampire-slaying legends.

  “I can’t believe it’s really you.” She squeals as she hands over the fourth and latest installment in the series, Better Bled Than Dead. “I’ve read all your books. This is by far the best!”

  “Thank you,” I say, hoarse from three straight hours of saying thank you. “That really means a lot to me . . .” I leave an intentional pause there at the end as the international sign for Insert your name here.

  She blurts, “Anastasia,” and averts her gaze.

  “Anastasia.” I sigh, pausing before committing it permanently to the inside jacket of the thick book I’m holding. “Is that your real name?”

  “That’s the name my coven gave me,” she says somewhat self-consciously, looking to her left.

  I follow her glance to a trio of identically dressed girls waving.

  I wave back and murmur, “Some coven.”

  Anastasia says, “I know, right?”

  And the way she says it, I can’t tell if she’s being self-deprecating or actually believes it’s some coven.

  “Maybe I should address this to your real name,” I suggest, somewhat maternally, although we’re clearly the same age. “You know, just in case you want to show it to your grandkids one day.”

  She takes a step back. “Well, why would I have grandkids?” she asks, snipping off each word like a tailor on a strict deadline cutting a hemline.

  Uh-oh, she’s not just a vannabe; she’s a true believer. They’re even worse. They believe vampires are real, and they hang out in covens and get dressed up and go to book signings at midnight.

  “Well, you know, just in case you and your . . . coven over there grow up, get married, and have—”

  “Grow up!”

  Now her coven is no longer waving but looking like they’re about to curse me from where they stand slurping frozen lattes in the bookstore café.

  “Vampires never grow up. You of all people should know that, Nora Falcon!”

  The bookstore security team—two bookish geeks barely older than me wearing mustard-yellow Books ’n Beans cashier aprons—look at us anxiously.

  Really anxiously, as in, We hope you know what to do in this situation, Nora, because one of us just wet his pants.

  I smile, wave, and nod to let them know I’m OK and turn my attention back to Anastasia. “Silly me,” I say through clenched teeth. “Of course you’re right, Anastasia.”

  She calms down a little as I make a big show of writing the following in her book:

  To Anastasia, a true believer, loyal fan, and beautiful soul.

  All my best,

  Nora Falcon

  She looks at it, sighs, harrumphs, and then holds it triumphantly over her head for her whole coven—all three of them—to see.

  I reach for my second bottled water of the evening and turn to greet the next girl in line.

  Only, it’s not a girl—and he.

  Is.

  Hot.

  Now, fair warning, I am not one of those girls who throw the word hot around loosely.

  When you go to a school like Nightshade Preparatory Academy for Exemplary Boys and Girls in a place like Beverly Hills, well, hot guys are literally a dime a dozen.

  I mean, these are guys who get paid to be hot: athletes, movie and TV stars, male models, that kind of thing.

  These are the guys you see walking around half-naked in shaving cream commercials, wearing next to nothing in underwear ads, or leering at you from billboards as you drive to the mall.

  So when I say this guy is hot, I mean hotter than hot. I mean red hot: flawless skin, high cheekbones, dark hair cut short—just right for an action figure.

  “Uh, hi, um, hellooooooo,” I stammer and purr, and now it’s my turn for trembling hands as I reach to grab the copy of Better Bled Than Dead.

  He holds it just out of reach, making me look even more awkward as warmth creeps up my throat and into my cheeks.

  “Can I just say,” he oozes in a voice as smooth as caramel drizzling across a butter pecan sundae (both of which I could die for right about now, btw), “what an honor it is to meet Nora Falcon? The Nora Falcon.”

  “Please,” I gush as he finally hands over the book. “I bet you say that to all the best-selling authors.”

  Ugh. Did I really just say that?

  To him?

  What a totally ridiculous thing to say to the first, and possibly only, hot guy to ever show up at one of my book signings.

  I search his movie-star-handsome face for signs of revulsion and see only the darkest chocolate-brown eyes I’ve ever had the good fortune to peer into, live and in person. “Actually,” he says, leaning in conspiratorially as a wisp of spicy cologne wafts pleasantly off his broad chest, “this is the first time I’ve ever been to one of these. But when I heard you’d be here tonight, I just couldn’t resist.”

  I blush and open the book cover, and a piece of paper falls out. “Oops.” I reach for it as it flutters onto the predictably black tablecloth the bookstore has used to cover up the fold-up picnic table I’m sitting at (you stay classy, Books ’n Beans), surrounded by towering stacks of my new book.

  As I reach to hand it back, I take a peek and see it’s a class schedule for none other than . . . Nightshade Academy.

  What are the odds?

  He reaches for it with long fingers tipped by manicured nails. “Sorry. I don’t know how that got in there.”

  “That’s crazy,” I say, sitting up in my seat a little higher as all kinds of romantic possibilities flood my imagination and send my heart back into overdrive. “I go to Nightshade. Are you . . . new?”

  He hangs his head a little, looks up at me with long lashes to match his heavenly eyes, and admits, “I just got into town, actually. I start at Nightshade tomorrow.”

  There follows a kind of awkward pause where I’m wondering whether to say something like How nice (too adult), How awesome (too trendy), or How . . . appetizing (too cheesy—unless it’s coming out of the mouth of one of my characters, that is).

  In the end, I don’t say any of the above. I don’t say anything at all. It’s like my mind has short-circuited. It’s like I’m so used to seeing girls at these things, chatting and smiling and feeling totally at ease without any testosterone in the room, and then this guy shows up and suddenly I’m out of my comfort zone in a major way.

  Then he kind of blurts, “I’d love it if you could maybe, possibly, but no . . . that’s too much to ask.”

  “What?” I ask, ignoring the dozen girls squirming in line behind Mr. Way-Too-Handsome-to-Be-at-a-Book-Signing Guy. “What’s too much?”

  “Nothing,” he says, still avoiding eye contact, with his head hung low like a kid who’s just broken his mom’s favorite lamp and taped it back together and is waiting to get caught the next time she dusts. “It’s just that, well, I’m new here in town and don’t know anybody, and you know how it is your first day: it’s make-or-break time, right? But if someone like you could show me around, just for a period or two, man, that would be awesome. See what I did there? I always do that; I meet someone new, find out we have something in common with each other, and then I overstep.”

  I shake my head, then nod too quickly, hurting my neck a little in the process. “Nonsense,” I say,
shooting a death glare at the vannabe tapping her foot behind Mr. Handsome. “I’d love to show you around. My locker’s in D-wing. Just look for the one painted black—the freshmen think they’re cute by doing that every year—and I’ll be waiting for you. Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but if I don’t sign this and send you on your way, I’m afraid the mob behind you will have you roasting on a spit in five hot seconds.”

  “Oh, of course,” he says. “Where are my manners? It’s Reece. Reece Rothchild, if you don’t mind.”

  Reece.

  Rothchild.

  Seriously?

  That’s too rich.

  He could be a character in one of my novels.

  In fact, he should be in one of my novels! (Note to self: put Reece Rothchild in your next book.)

  I write the following:

  To Reece, looking forward to an eventful school year.

  Your new classmate,

  Nora

  He pauses, reading it, before shutting the front cover slowly.

  Immediately I’m editing it in my head: did I say too much, not enough?

  Was I too friendly?

  Too standoffish?

  Too pushy?

  He just stands there, not awkwardly, just . . . dazzlingly.

  He is wearing jeans so fitted and custom washed, they must be expensive (perhaps even tailor-made), and black Venetian loafers so soft, you could spread them on a dinner roll, plus a gorgeous gray cashmere hoodie that hugs every inch of his rippling—

  “Sorry,” I blurt (too loudly!), suddenly realizing his thick, red lips have been moving—and apparently for quite some time now. “You were saying?”

  He laughs gently, revealing straight white teeth. “Nothing much, Nora. I just said I’ll see you tomorrow. D-wing, black locker, 7:15 a.m. sharp. I’m looking forward to it. Really.”

  When he says really, he nearly growls it, looking deep into my eyes.

  I nod (me too!), watching as he makes a sharp left turn and exits the line, those long fingers running over my still-fresh inscription as if it were in Braille and he were reading it with his long, lingering fingertips instead of his luscious, dark-chocolate eyes.

  He doesn’t walk away so much as saunter, like a big cat in one of those documentaries about tigers in the jungle, his long legs moving him quickly through the bookstore as those skin-like jeans hug every curve of his tempting—

  The next girl in line clears her throat forcibly.

  I look up, blushing, to see a large girl with jet-black hair to match her voluminous cloak.

  “Sorry, um . . .” I’m fishing for her name.

  She smiles, hands over the book with predictably black-painted nails bitten to the quick, and announces, “Permafrost.”

  I still my hand before signing.

  “Is that your real name?”

  Chapter 2

  Abby is making ramen noodles in the dorm suite kitchen when I finally get home later that night.

  Or should I say, early that morning.

  I glance at the clock above the oven, and it says 1:14 a.m.

  I wish I could say that either was a rare occurrence.

  She has her imported French pore-opening mask on her angular face, but she’s still in wardrobe from yet another night shoot—skuzzy black jeans and a faded rock-concert T-shirt covered in fake blood.

  I yawn. “Did you just get home?”

  She smiles in a thin line so as not to crack her mask and murmurs through pursed lips, “Ten minutes ago.”

  It comes out sounding like Zen-mini-shee-go, but we do this so often I now speak fluent face-mask-pinched-mouth-ese.

  I look to the counter and see two thin-at-the-bottom, wider-at-the-top bowls, a set of shiny plastic chopsticks next to each. “You’re making me some too?” I ask so hopefully it comes off as pathetic. I’m so hungry I could hug her! That is, if I didn’t mind washing all that fake blood off my new linen shirt.

  She nods, handing me the slotted spoon so I can take over while she washes off her mask in the communal bathroom.

  I stir the noodles midboil, sighing at their close-to-perfect consistency. Leave it to Abby to stick me with the hardest part. I drain the noodles over the sink—we never eat them like soup but prefer them like lo mein—and split them up evenly into the two big bowls.

  Abby has already put fresh chives, sesame seeds, soy sauce, steamed tofu chunks, and shaved ginger at the bottom of each bowl, so as the steam rises, it lets off a pleasantly pungent aroma that makes me feel right at home—not to mention downright ravenous.

  She rushes in amid a cloud of fresh steam and something vaguely perfumy. She’s freshly scrubbed and out of costume now, her long, lithe body still managing to look curvy in a pink nightshirt to match her fluffy slippers.

  She flops down on the couch, and I join her.

  “What a night!” she complains, then blows on her first chopstick full of still-steaming noodles. “Half the extras for the big zombie massacre we were shooting didn’t show up, so we had to wait around for two hours while the assistant director went out and dragged thirty warm bodies in off the streets and got them in full wardrobe and makeup.”

  “What, you mean you had to sit in your four-thousand-square-foot trailer and wait two whole hours with your feet up while reading Teen Talk? There should be a march on the Hollywood Sign in protest!”

  “Whatever.” She sighs around a mouthful of steaming noodles. “Like your job’s so hard, sitting around signing your John Hancock while a bunch of fans drool all over you. We should switch for a day and see how fun you think it is being a glamorous B-horror-movie star!”

  “I’d love it,” I snap, my noodles still too hot to eat and my stomach rumbling. “Then you can explain to my publisher why I won’t be able to hit my next deadline.”

  “You still haven’t started your next book?” she asks, sea-green eyes wide in mock shock. “You’re always typing away on your laptop, so what are you writing if it’s not about Satin Stain?”

  “Uh, it’s Scarlet Stain, and I am writing. All the time. It’s just . . . nothing’s really working for me, so I keep throwing it out.”

  “Still,” she says around another mouthful, “it’s not like you to miss a deadline. It’s not like you to even come close to missing a deadline.”

  She looks at me disapprovingly over the lip of her bowl of steaming noodles.

  “How can I make my deadline, what with book signings and homework and cooking you dinner every night?”

  She smiles sarcastically, both of us too hungry to fake argue about our fake problems anymore.

  Truth is, Abby looks as tired as I feel.

  Joke around as I might, I know it’s not easy going to class all day and filming the latest installment of her straight-to-DVD Zombie Diaries movie all afternoon and evening, plus most weekends.

  I mean, it’s one thing for me to sit around in the suite pecking away on my twenty-one-inch laptop cooking up new adventures for Scarlet Stain to endure, but Abby has to actually show up on set, looking good, lines rehearsed, and physically fight off fake zombies for hours every night.

  OK, granted, she has plenty of downtime in that gargantuan trailer of hers on set, but even that can get old when you know you have to get your game face on any minute now.

  “Why are you still on this shoot anyway, Abs? I thought it was supposed to last three weeks.”

  “It was.” She groans, halfway through her noodles while I’m just starting mine. “But there were script problems, and they had to rewrite the ending, again, which means a few extra days of reshoots, and . . . do you care? Point is, we’re going on week six, and I’m at my wits’ end.”

  I smirk. “Well, you didn’t have very far to—”

  “Stuff it,” she says before I can finish, mouth full, eyes smiling.

  She sighs contentedly, somehow still managing to look pretty in her nightshirt now dotted with fresh ramen noodle stains. She’s two inches taller than I am, maybe fifteen pounds lighter, and looks every
bit the up-and-coming Hollywood starlet. She’s not supermodel beautiful but only because she smiles so much, doesn’t smoke, actually eats, and hasn’t gotten any “work” done—yet. She is au naturel and still radiates perfection—damn her! As if that all wasn’t more than enough, Abby also has that girl-next-door look, what with the chestnut-brown hair, sea-green eyes, pert button nose, and long, coltish legs.

  She prances around the suite, doing the dishes, wiping down this, scrubbing off that, the bottom of her perfect butt poking out from under her nightshirt whenever she reaches too high—or bends too low. Not that I’m jealous or anything—heh—but what I wouldn’t give to eat anything I wanted, all the time, and still look like a starlet.

  I brush my teeth and get into my too-big nightshirt, and we’re back in the suite, winding down for the night, morning, whatever, when Abby says, “Sooooo anything . . . interesting happen at your signing tonight?” She has a knowing look and a sly grin, neither of which I trust at the moment.

  “Not really,” I bluff.

  I think vaguely of telling her about the phantom footsteps behind me on the way to the book signing, but she doesn’t look like she’s in the mood for anything serious right now. “At least, not unless you want to count the fact that every week now there are more and more true believers out there.”

  “Tell me about it,” she says, and I know she’s going to turn a question about me into yet another story about her. “Every night we get fans who insist they’re zombies. As in, literally, the Living Dead. I honestly think some of them have even tried eating brains, like, for real. It’s the craziest thing. It’s like nobody wants to be human anymore!”

  I nod, yawn, and rub my eyes.

  “What I meant to say,” she goes on, “is did anyone interesting show up to your signing tonight?”

  I think of Reece Rothchild, he of the chocolate-brown eyes and snug jeans. I try to hide my blush and fail epically. “What are you up to, Abs? It’s too late to play your reindeer games.”

  “There’s this thing called the Internet,” she explains, her pink slippers up on the coffee table as she pins me with those green eyes, “and people who use the Internet have these things called websites. Even companies like, oh, say, the local Books ’n Beans on the corner there? And, well, some of these bookstores—I’m not saying which ones, now—have these things called live cams, and certain actresses, who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons, when they are stuck in their two-thousand-square-foot trailers, not four-thousand-square-foot trailers, waiting for the AD to round up thirty zombie extras, can click on these webcams and watch their roommate totally flirt with some hot guy in a gray cashmere hoodie that looked like it was totally made for him. You know, somewhere in France! So, I’ll ask you again, did—?”