Once Bitten

by Clare Willis

Genres: Paranormal Romance

Synopsis

Is it more than just a one-bite stand? Angie McCaffrey has endured her share of liquid lunches and boardroom shmoozefests to win new advertising clients. But her latest account--a cosmetics line for wannabe vampires--involves some unusual customer research at San Francisco's hippest private nightclub. The "undead" patrons are about as genuine as Macabre Factor's press-on fangs, but one thing is very real--the skin-tingling connection Angie feels with her clients' mysterious friend, Eric Taylor. Still, there are a few problems with this hot new romance. 1) Eric is rumored to have dated Angie's scheming boss, Lucy. 2) Lucy, missing for days, just turned up dead and bloodless. And, oh yeah, 3) Angie has suddenly developed a teeny aversion to sunlight. Is Eric a real vampire, a killer, or both? Angie's got a lot riding on the answer--her heart, her life, and maybe even her soul. . . "Clare Willis offers a clever twist on the world of vampires." —Alexandra Ivy, author of Darkness Unleashed

Release date: November 18, 2009

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 353

Sample

I met my vampire lover on a Wednesday.

I almost missed my destiny that day by oversleeping, but if I had missed it, wouldn’t that have been my destiny instead? Usually I take the bus to work, but since I was late I drove my Mini to the lot next to our building in downtown San Francisco, resigning myself to the hemorrhagic rate of three dollars every twenty minutes. At lunchtime I’d move to a cheaper lot. After parking in a half-space that could only have accommodated my elfin vehicle, I stopped to watch a sailboat glide under the Bay Bridge. Sun sparkled on the water, the boat, the bridge, and the bikini-clad woman lying on the sailboat’s deck—a picture worth framing. It was the second Wednesday in October, the time when savvy tourists come to San Francisco because they know it’s when we have our best weather. Since playing hooky on a sailboat was not an option, I consoled myself with the promise of lunch at an outdoor café. Little did I know it would be the last time I’d be enjoying sunlight for quite a while.

I revolved through the door of 555 Battery and waved to Clive, the silent security guard. The elevator was packed like the Tokyo subway, so I opted to walk the three flights to my office. Letters etched into a wavy glass wall in the lobby proclaimed the owner of my labor as Hall, Fitch, and Berg, Advertising. We were also known informally as HFB (and sometimes as Heel, Fetch, and Beg due to our reputation for doing anything to acquire an account). If a jingle pops into your head spontaneously while you’re cruising the supermarket aisle for soda pop or laundry detergent, it’s probably ours.

The administrative assistant, Theresa, was standing outside her cubicle nibbling a fingernail. She ran to meet me, her three-inch heels clicking on the polished concrete floor.

“Oh good, Angie, you’re here. The clients will be here in fifteen minutes, Lucy’s still not here, and Kimberley and Les are in Dick’s office waiting for you.”

“Lucy’s still not here?”

My boss, Lucy Weston, had missed the last two days of work without notifying anyone. This was out of character for her, but not unheard of at HFB. Last year, one overworked account supervisor had gone out for coffee and sent her resignation from Puerto Vallarta two weeks later. So no one had taken much time to worry about Lucy, as we were all busy trying to make her absence invisible to the clients. I had been in the office until 11 o’clock the night before, working on the Unicorn Pulp and Paper account, which was why I had overslept.

Theresa shook her head. “No, nobody’s heard from her.”

“So is somebody going to call the police today?”

“Mary from HR is going to do it, but she’s trying to find any friends or family to call first, to see if Lucy told anyone where she was going.”

I was harboring a secret hope that I’d get to do something around a client besides play stagehand for Lucy, so I had to admit to being somewhat grateful for her absence.

“Which room are we using?” I walked toward my office with Theresa following in my wake.

“Nobody told me anything,” she answered. “Lucy usually arranges the rooms with me.”

“What rooms are available?”

“Hammett is being used. Kerouac and Ferlinghetti are open.”

“Kerouac will do. Pull down the projection screen and set up some snacks in there, okay?”

“What do you think they want to drink?”

I couldn’t resist the obvious answer. “How about some fresh blood?”

Theresa laughed dutifully and veered off toward the Kerouac Room.

I made this quip because our new clients were vampires. Macabre Factor consisted of a twenty-something Goth couple who were into the vampire club scene in San Francisco. They started out creating makeup that they used on themselves; chalk-white base tinged with blue, fine-tipped red liner to outline the veins in the neck, and fake fingernails in shades of green, gray, and blue. But when they showed up with real fangs and topaz eyes friends and admirers began clamoring to buy their products. Thus a business was born, with cosmetics manufactured in Sweden, contact lenses from China, and a dentist in Los Angeles with an exclusive contract to manufacture custom fangs that attached to your canines like dental crowns.

I rushed down the hall to my office. All of the assistant account executives have real offices, as opposed to cubicles, which makes us feel very grown up, but every door has a narrow glass window next to it so our bosses can check up on us as they walk by.

For two years Macabre Factor concentrated on selling only to their own kind through their website. But they had recently decided to expand their client base, and with many of the highest rated shows on TV this season featuring an undead creature of one sort or another, the market research showed that they had picked the perfect time. I wasn’t sure where the capital was coming from, since Macabre Factor was a small company, but it was going to be a big launch.

This morning we were going to pitch our preliminary ideas for their campaign. Had Lucy been here this morning my job would have been to show up early and set up my computer as a backup in case Lucy’s went on the fritz, follow along as she gave the pitch and supply any details she might have forgotten, and make sure everyone’s coffee cup was full. But I had done a lot of the background work on this account, so with Lucy absent I was hoping Dick might let me manage the meeting. It occurred to me that if anything bad had happened to Lucy I was to feel awfully guilty. In fact I already did.

I threw my coat over the Aeron chair and shoved aside the pile of illustrations that I had been going over last night. The logo for Unicorn Pulp and Paper was a unicorn surfing on a ream of copy paper and we’d been choosing a personality for the new iteration. There was a classical unicorn, a chubby unicorn, a mean-looking unicorn with a drill-like horn, and an angelic unicorn whose horn resembled an upturned ice cream cone. In my dreams last night the mean unicorn had skewered the angelic unicorn like a shish kebab.

When I turned on my computer the screen was cluttered with files, just like my desk, and the floor behind my chair, so I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t immediately locate Macabre Factor. But after I did a search for it and turned up empty-handed, that was when I really began to panic. I’d spent five years working as an actor before starvation drove me to the ad business and one of my biggest fears then was forgetting my lines, imagining myself staring into the footlights like a stroke victim. This was the ad agency equivalent.

I opened my email and began searching through the two hundred and eighty three messages in my inbox. We’d emailed the Macabre Factor illustrations back and forth dozens of times between Accounts and Creative but my email showed no evidence of it. At this point I started having another creeping feeling. This one was suspicion. I allowed myself to use a curse word that I was raised never to utter, but I was alone and in this case it was justified.

I might have accidentally deleted a file, I could admit to that. But I did not go through two hundred and eighty three emails and trash every one pertaining to Macabre Factor. No, it was clear I had been sabotaged.

 

Dick Partridge’s office was three doors down from mine. I knocked and went in without waiting for an answer, since I was already late. As VP of Consumer Product Advertising Dick had earned a large corner office with windows facing the turning cogs of progress in buildings across the street. It wasn’t a view of San Francisco Bay, but it was much nicer than my blank wall. He also had space for a round table and four chairs, which was where I found Dick, Les, and Kimberley.

“Good morning, Angie,” Dick said, looking at his watch conspicuously. “I trust you have a good reason for your dilatory behavior, so let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

We’d have to, since I had no idea what he was talking about.

Dick Partridge talked like he had cotton balls in his nose and a stick up his you-know-what, using the longest words he could find to express the simplest ideas. Today he’d made the unfortunate choice of wearing a pink Oxford shirt. He looked like a pimple ready to burst.

Next to him, writing industriously, was Kimberley Bennett, my fellow assistant account executive. She was also my roommate, although we never came to work together because Kimberley kept earlier hours than I think is healthy. Kimberley looked like Hollywood’s idea of an advertising executive: blond hair (fake, but not so you’d know) to her shoulders, big blue eyes, and an hourglass figure. To complete the image she wore skirts so short and heels so high she looked like she was on stilts. The black A-line skirt I was wearing ended sensibly at mid-calf, grazing the tops of my black leather boots. No sense competing when the game is fixed.

Les Banks, the graphic artist, looked up from his BlackBerry to give me a nod and a smile. Because Les was a “creative,” he was allowed a laxity of attire that would never be tolerated in the account executives, who are known as the “suits.” Today he was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt adorned with a grinning skull. His buzz-cut brown hair revealed a perfectly oval head, both ears sported gold hoop earrings, and he had a tiny rectangle of facial hair under the lower lip which, when I first saw it, I thought was the result of neglectful shaving but later realized was a fashion statement. I secretly thought Les was quite good looking. In boring meetings I would sometimes fantasize about what his half-inch-long hair would feel like rubbing over my stomach. I managed a smile for Les, despite my misery.

“What did I miss?” I tried to sound peppy.

“We just convened,” said Dick. “As you are all aware, the clients are arriving instantaneously. We probably should have postponed, but of course nobody could have apprehended Lucy’s absence. Speaking of which, I’m sure no one wishes to arrogate her duties, but if she’s not back by tomorrow we’re going to have to discuss an emergency distribution of her clients. I’ve already set a meeting for ten o’clock in the Ferlinghetti Room. Which we’ll cancel if Lucy surfaces, as we trust she will. So, Kimberley and Angie, I guess this will be your chance to fly solo. Are you ready?”

Kimberley jumped in before I’d even opened my mouth. “Oh, yes, Dick, the presentation is completely ready.”

“Well, I would certainly like to attend, but my presence is required by a major client,” Dick said. “So you three are going to handle Macabre Factor this morning.”

Kimberley batted her eyelashes at Dick. “Dick, since Lucy isn’t here, someone is going to have to take the lead. I’d like to volunteer. I coordinated the market research and I’m the most familiar with the account. And I’ve got the presentation right here on my laptop, ready to go.”

Kimberley was the most familiar with the account? I cursed silently, but I couldn’t really blame her. We had both been laboring in Lucy’s chain gang for months; of course she would be plotting a break out as well. The only difference was that she didn’t care if there was collateral damage. But there was nothing I could do without making myself look like a faker, a whiner, or a tattletale.

I looked at Les, expecting him to be claiming his free ticket to the ladies’ mud wrestling show that was about to begin, but he was busy digging dirt out of his fingernail with the cap of his pen. I made a mental note to myself to stop fantasizing about him.

Dick didn’t miss a beat. “I suggest you handle the presentation conjunctively. Two heads are better than one.” He waved the backs of his hands at us. “Well, go ahead. Mustn’t keep the clients waiting. Although since they’re vampires, I suppose they are immutable.” His arch delivery indicated a joke, so we all laughed. Kimberley grabbed her laptop and rushed out the door.

In the hall I saw Les walking in the wrong direction, to the Creative Department rather than the Kerouac room.

“Les, aren’t you coming?”

He turned around. “Listen, Angie, I’m swamped with another account. Do you think you could do this one without me?”

His expression was plaintive. I had never noticed before that his hazel eyes were flecked with dark stripes, like a cat’s, but with him staring so intently at me I couldn’t miss it. Most of the people in Creative were chronically behind, the mark of an artist being asked to work in a widget factory. Les, however, had never asked me for special favors. I wondered why he was starting now.

“Yes, all right, but only if you promise to keep your phone on in case they have any questions that only you can answer. Is that fair?”

“I owe you one. And Angie, please don’t tell Dick I didn’t show, okay?”

“Okay.”

He surprised me with a brief hug before dashing down the hall.

 

When I arrived at the meeting Kimberley and the founders of Macabre Factor were already there, chatting amiably under a photograph of a cloud of cigarette smoke with Jack Kerouac inside it. Although I knew their legal names from the various contracts we had signed, Douglas and Marie Claire Paquin, they insisted on being called by their noms de sang, Suleiman and Moravia. These vampires didn’t seem to be the daylight avoiding type. Even though it was 9:00 A.M. they were as bright-eyed as game show contestants.

“Good morning, Suleiman, Moravia,” I hurried to say. “I’m so sorry to be late.”

“No, please, do not worry about it,” Suleiman answered, as he bowed over my hand. “Theresa made us very comfortable.”

Suleiman’s accent was British plus something else, possibly Indian. His black hair was slicked back from his slightly receding hairline with a shiny hair gel, probably the one from their line called “Sleek.” His eyes were dark and thick-lashed and his skin was olive-toned. His outfit was straight out of Hedda Gabler: a pinstriped cutaway frock coat, paisley vest, and a red silk cravat secured with a pearl tie tack. He was unusual without being over the top, and despite my better judgment I was intrigued. I also wanted to know where he bought his clothes.

Once, when Lucy had referred to the clients as “the vampires,” Moravia had corrected her.

“We don’t say ‘vampires,’ we refer to those in the vampire lifestyle.”

Since then we always used the politically correct term, at least to their faces. I assumed the vampire lifestyle meant dressing in black, frequenting night clubs, listening to Goth music, and drinking Bloody Marys. Although I’d never been to a vampire club, I felt I understood something about their chosen lifestyle. Taking on an unusual persona gives you an entrée into a world that is glamorous and different from your own mundane life. You can easily recognize who belongs and who doesn’t. I can’t count the number of late-night, coffee-driven conversations I’ve had with other actors about how much different (and better) our world was compared to the nine-to-five one. Of course, I recanted those statements when I couldn’t make my car payments, but I still understood that need to feel special.

“Will Lucy be joining us this morning?” Moravia’s breathy voice interrupted my reverie.

Human Resources had already told us yesterday that until we had some definitive answer about Lucy’s whereabouts we were to simply say Lucy was “unavoidably delayed.”

“Lucy was unavoidably delayed this morning,” Kimberley answered. “But Angie and I can’t wait to show you the great concepts we’ve prepared for you.”

Moravia nodded and leaned back in her chair, giving me a view of the tops of her breasts, perfectly round and the size of small cantaloupes. Her cleavage could support a pencil upright. She bore a close resemblance to Elvira, Mistress of the Night, who appears in display ads (not ours) in liquor stores every Halloween. Her long black hair was parted in the middle and worn loose down her back. Her face was an artful display of all of her company’s wares, with translucent white skin, black-rimmed eyes that could give Cleopatra a run for her money, and juicy red lips. Moravia might have been plain if you caught her just out of the shower, but then you probably wouldn’t be looking at her face. The two were the perfect spokesmodels for their brand, and that was the pitch.

Kimberley projected the first illustration, of Suleiman and Moravia in a red Ferrari convertible driving out of a Transylvanian-style castle on a mountain. Suleiman was smiling at Moravia while she laughed with her head thrown back, her hair blowing in the wind. Both were wearing sunglasses and had visible fangs. Moravia’s dress was classic Vampira, with jagged-edged sleeves, while they’d put Suleiman in a playboy smoking jacket. The caption under the picture read: “You’re going to live forever. Make sure you look good.” Below that the words “Macabre Factor Cosmetics” dripped down the page in a spidery Gothic font.

The rest of the illustrations had the same combination of style and campy humor: the couple at a Hollywood-style party, toasting each other with glasses of red liquid; skiing down a mountain dressed in bright parkas, red lips sparkling against the snow; in the stands at the horse races, shielded from the sun in huge hats. Kimberley ran down the campaign logistics—the magazines, the websites and blogs, the rollout in select cosmetic and department stores—and I helped her the same way I helped Lucy, filling in relevant details and statistics.

Finally it was over and we were silent. Now was the moment of truth.

Neither Suleiman nor Moravia spoke for a long time. Finally Suleiman took a deep breath. “Well, you certainly made us look attractive. But I don’t think this quite gets at what we’re after. After all, it makes us look like we’re trying to join their society, instead of vice versa. I think people might be attracted a little more to the dark side. The seductive lure of the vampire, so to speak.”

Moravia chimed in. “Yes, Sully’s right. We don’t really see our target audience as the debutante ball, Junior League types. Frankly, most of us don’t go skiing. Too much risk of sunburn.”

I got up to close the projection screen, using the motions to cover my discomfort. How could Lucy have been working with these people for the last month and not know what they wanted? I consoled myself by thinking that if she had let me talk to them we wouldn’t be having this problem, but I knew that wasn’t necessarily true. Sometimes clients have to see a pitch to realize what they don’t want, and it helps them clarify their desires. It’s awkward, however, and a little embarrassing.

Kimberley cleared her throat. “You know, I totally agree with you,” she said. “Angie and I were pushing for something a little more, uh, edgy, but Lucy felt sure you would love this. We’ve got some other great ideas for you, though, in that vein.” She giggled at her own joke.

I kept my head down. Kimberley was now insulting Lucy in front of the clients. If Lucy caught wind of it when she came back I didn’t want her to think I’d been involved.

Suleiman jumped in, his voice enthusiastic. “I think it would be a great idea if you both came to the club and soaked in the scene, met some of our friends. I bet some of them would even be willing to be part of the campaign. Why don’t you come tonight?”

Moravia leaned across the table like she wanted to confide something. Her bosom threatened to pop out of her dress. “There’s just one thing. If Lucy comes back today, well, if you could possibly keep tonight’s date between us…It’s not that we don’t like Lucy, not at all, but we think you two deserve a chance with this.”

Suleiman nodded. “We see how things are with her,” he said pointedly.

There’s something we call account executive telepathy, which is a subtle form of body language we use to communicate around clients. I tried to silently ascertain what Kimberley thought of their proposition, but she seemed to have turned off her radar.

“Well, we’ll certainly try to come,” I said, “if not tonight, then another time. We’ll just have to check our calendars. Why don’t you write down the address?”

Suleiman pointed at Kimberley, who was stacking pens on a legal pad.

“Ask Kimberley, she’s been there before.”

 

Kimberley and I saw Suleiman and Moravia to the reception area. All the way back up in the elevator and down the hall I waited for Kimberley to speak. I’d already imagined the scenario—Kimberley’s tearful confession followed by my generous forgiveness. Lucy had kept us both on a short leash, but her absence had set us free. Kimberley had decided on a Machiavellian approach to career enhancement. I, on the other hand, had been raised by an Eagle Scout and a Sunday school teacher, and wasn’t capable of taking two newspapers out of the kiosk when I had only paid for one. If I were Kimberley I’d be riddled with guilt and waiting for the first opportunity to unburden myself. But Kimberley didn’t seem to feel any such obligation. When we reached her office she walked in without another word to me. Before the door had shut I followed her inside.

“So you’ve been to the House of Usher before?” I asked. “What’s it like?”

“I. . .