Outside the hospital, the sun was setting. Eve stopped for a moment in front of the limo that was waiting for her. The driver – a tall ogre too large for his uniform – was holding the door open for her.
“I’ll walk,” she said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand.
The ogre stared at her with round, green eyes.
“Miss Stakes?” he asked. “It’s twelve miles.”
“I’ll get a cab,” she lied. She felt she needed to walk a hundred miles to clear her head.
“But you have a limo,” the ogre argued. “You don’t need a cab.”
“I’ll walk,” Eve repeated coldly. “Drive back to the office now, or you’re fired.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The ogre gave a clumsy salute, closed the door he’d been holding open for her, got into the driver’s seat and drove off. The sun had set, and Eve pulled away her veil, letting the cold air cool her face. In the darkness, her skin was healing, prickling where the burned patches were returning to life.
She’d barely walked for five minutes when she noticed the car following her. It wasn’t her limo, or any of the cars from Blood Lust Corporation. And yet it looked very much like a vampire car, dark windows and all.
Eve wasn’t in the mood for games. She stopped, turned, and glared at the car. It stopped, and a door opened. Then she heard a gruff voice behind her.
“You’ll want to get in the car, Miss. The boss wants to talk to you.”
She felt something like a stick press against the back of her head.
“A gun?” she asked, repressing a cackle. “Really? Do you at least have silver bullets?”
“Holy water,” the man behind her answered. “It looks like a toy gun to cops, if they see us. But it’ll hurt if I pull the trigger. It’ll hurt a lot, Miss.”
Eve smiled.
“Then you’d better be careful where you point it,” she said.
It took half a second for her to duck under the gun, turn around, grab her assailant’s arm and twist it behind his back until he dropped the gun. The toy clattered to the ground and broke, spilling water onto the pavement. Large droplets splashed onto Eve’s dress, seeping into the fabric. Eve released the man and grabbed frantically at her dress, trying to tear off the soaked fabric without touching the water. The dress clung to her legs, but there was no pain, and the water didn’t burn her skin.
“Sorry, Miss,” the man said, rubbing his arm. “It’s just plain water. Couldn’t risk anyone getting hurt.”
Eve reached out her left hand, grabbed him by his throat and pushed him against the car. The man clawed at her hand, trying to pry open her fingers, but didn’t fight back. And then recognition dawned on her face, and she let go of his throat.
“Iggy,” she said coldly.
The man coughed, sputtered, then spoke.
“Ignatius Gravels, at your service, Miss Eve,” he said. “Master Vincent would like a word.”
“Most people use the phone,” Eve said coldly.
“It’s not that kind of word,” Ignatius said. “Not the kind you’d like others to know about. In case the phone’s tapped. As yours is, Miss.”
Eve shrugged.
“It’s only tapped by the police and half a dozen tabloids,” she said.
But she got into the car anyway.
“This better be worth my time,” she warned, closing the car door.
***
The car stopped in front of a luxurious apartment complex. A concierge dressed in an impeccable uniform greeted Iggy with great respect. But, to Eve’s surprise, Iggy didn’t take her to the penthouse. Instead, they stopped in front of an unremarkable apartment on the thirteenth floor.
“Master Vincent likes to keep a low profile,” Iggy explained, fumbling for the keys.
Eve repressed a smile. The luxury of the building itself was ill suited to what she would have called a low profile.
“Perhaps a middling profile,” a deep voice said from the other side of the door.
There was the sound of a key turning in the lock from within, and the door opened to reveal Vincent Steele, Iggy’s master.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said, holding the door open for her and gesturing at the opulent interior of the apartment with his free hand.
Gilded crystal chandeliers lit a somber interior covered in dark wood paneling, while a soft, blood-red carpet spread from wall to wall to mufle any sound of footsteps. The entrance opened into a wide living room furnished with perfect taste, and, beyond it, wide doors opened onto a shaded balcony filled with fragrant plants, their leaves rustling gently in the breeze outside. The cold night air was streaming in from the balcony, gently swaying the folds of silk curtains as thin as spiderwebs. On a table, two crystal glasses sparkled in the warm glow of electric light, and a bottle of her company’s finest wine-flavored synthetic blood stood unopened next to them.
Vincent himself was dressed in an elegant Italian suit, his tall, slender frame cutting a dashing figure against the backdrop of the white curtains. His vampire fangs shone an immaculate white in his bright smile, which was stretched wide over his face, perhaps a little too wide. He had evidently taken every step to impress her.
“Do come in,” he said, while at the same time motioning to Iggy to leave.
The henchman gave a clumsy bow and disappeared into the corridor outside.
Eve took a few circumspect steps into the room. She wasn’t expecting a trap, not exactly, but after the way she and Vincent had parted decades earlier, she was not certain she could trust him.
“Would you like something to drink?” Vincent asked, gesturing at the bottle of synthetic blood. “Wine? Pomegranate juice?”
“Coffee,” Eve said, sitting down in an armchair by the window.
“I thought you’d say that,” Vincent answered with a smile.
He opened a minibar to reveal a wealth of cans of caffeinated synthetic blood.
“That was always your favorite,” he said, handing her a can and opening one for himself.
Eve repressed another smile. Of course he’d remember that. He always remembered everything.
“Why am I here?” she asked coldly.
Vincent waited until she’d had a sip of her drink before he answered. The caffeine always put her in a good mood, and of course he remembered that too.
“I’m just trying to prove I’m a good guy,” he said. “I even drink synthetic blood now, see?”
He demonstrated by taking a sip of his own drink.
“What brought about the change?” Eve asked coldly. “Last time we talked, you were certain my synthetic blood business would never pick up. ‘A real vampire will always choose real blood,’ isn’t that what you said?”
Vincent took another sip of his drink.
“I didn’t think you’d succeed in making anything this good,” he said. “Your early recipes were... unpromising.”
“It’s the flavoring,” she confessed with unfeigned modesty. “We didn’t really start seeing any sales until the caramel-flavored line was launched. Plain synthetic blood doesn’t sell well, but it’s hard to get real blood in exactly the flavor you want, when you want it. Buying this stuff over the counter is much more convenient than keeping a human for days and feeding him only the right ingredients.”
“I should have never doubted your genius,” Vincent said. It sounded like an apology, and Eve knew it was the closest thing to one that she could get from him. She knew he was too proud to say anything more, too proud to even say this much. And yet she couldn’t quite forgive him.
“And how have you been?” she asked coldly. “Still scamming unsuspecting humans, I presume?”
“I’m an honest businessman,” Vincent defended himself with a roguish smile.
“Honest loan shark, you mean,” Eve said.
“You have been keeping yourself informed of my wrongdoings,” he noticed. “I’m touched. I thought you’d cast our friendship aside.”
“You are the one who cast our friendship aside when you dismissed my ambitions for Blood Lust Corporation as – how did you call them again? – childish dreams!”
“You mean when I refused to risk my hard-earned money by investing in your venture,” Vincent pointed out dryly. “I didn’t expect you’d use your friends for cash. I had thought it beneath you.”
“I have no friends, evidently,” Eve answered stiffly, “or else I would have received some moral support, at the very least. If only you’d had faith in me—”
“I could have been rich, I know,” Vincent said.
“We could have stayed friends,” Eve completed her sentence. “I would have had an ally. Do you have any idea how lonely it was, being the only one who believes in the idea of synthetic blood, of vampires living alongside humans in peace, being accepted by humans as people, not predators? Do you have any idea how much it hurt to hear even my best friend mocking me?”
She had lost her calm by now entirely, and she took a sip of her drink to calm herself down. The caffeine buzz was not soothing.
“I’ll have a glass of the wine-flavored one,” she said, setting the can on the table.
Vincent poured her a glass and handed it to her without a word. He waited until she’d downed her drink, then poured her another glass.
“I didn’t want you to throw your money away on a wild goose chase,” he said, pouring himself a glass of the wine-flavored drink as well. “I didn’t want you to throw my money away on it either.”
He downed his drink and looked at the empty glass wistfully.
“I was wrong,” he finally said. “But now... Now I’d like us to work together.”
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