“Marty, you’re a hundred and thirty-eight!” I exclaimed before realizing the hypocrisy behind that statement.
“It’s not like that, we work together,” the girl offered, smiling hesitatingly at me. “I’m the new Fantastic Frankie.”
Chapter 6
Maximus offered to drive me five states away to Gretchen’s. Marty refused and said we’d figure this out. I didn’t know how, but I wasn’t about to involve Maximus any further. I gave him a hug and told him I’d be fine. That was getting a lot easier to say. Maybe soon, I’d even believe it.
Marty waited until Dawn—the new Fantastic Frankie’s real name—went back to bed in my old room before offering his idea.
“I’ll tell her she can finish this event, then she has to find another gig. Bill the Beetle Man could use an assistant—”
“You can’t do that,” I said, exhaustion making my voice sharp. “Being a carnie isn’t most people’s first or second career choices. Dawn’s broke and desperate, isn’t she?”
He nodded glumly. “Yeah, plus she’s got a warrant on her. Petty theft, multiple counts. People seem to forget that eating isn’t free. She could pull a small stretch if they catch her.”
How like Marty to come to this girl’s rescue by giving her a job, a place to live, and safety by green-eyeing any suspicious cops that came sniffing around. He’d done the same for me when I was Dawn’s age and only a little more desperate. I couldn’t take a young girl’s best chance away from her, no matter my own crappy circumstances.
I smiled and hoped it didn’t look like a grimace.
“See, you can’t fire her. Don’t worry about me. I, ah, have some jewelry I can sell that’ll keep me flush for a year or so.” Good thing Vlad had insisted that I leave with everything he’d given me. “In the meantime, I’ll create my own solo act.”
He reached across the fold-down table and grasped my hand. “You’ll stay here until you’ve booked some slots for that act.”
“No, really—”
“Don’t argue,” he cut me off, squeezing my hand. “You’re not my daughter by blood but I love you as much as Vera, God rest her soul, so shut up and let’s get you a place to sleep.”
I laughed at that, blinking past tears that were caused by happiness for a change. “I love you, too, Marty, and I’ve always thought the couch was really comfortable.”
She’s pretty good, I thought a week later as I watched Dawn perform with Marty. Granted, he had added some of the more complicated flips and tumbles to his part of the routine, but Dawn had a good sense of showmanship that made up for her acrobatic weaknesses. By the time she landed on his shoulders at the end, I could almost pretend I’d been watching myself. We looked alike with our slender builds and long black hair. Aside from wanting to shield her from the law, no wonder Marty hadn’t bothered to change Dawn’s stage name from the one I’d used. I doubted any of the spectators who’d seen our act before realized that I’d been replaced with a younger, less-electrified model.
I’d gone to their show to prove that I was okay with how things had turned out. Dawn was a sweet girl who needed this break and I did have other options. Limited ones, true, but options nonetheless. Starting tonight, I was reclaiming my life. Cheering Marty and Dawn on was step one.
Step two was talking to Edgar. He might be nicknamed The Hammer for his fierce negotiating tactics, but he was more honest than your average pawnbroker. Despite Marty’s assurances that I could stay as long as I wanted, the Winnebago really was too small for three people, even if one of us was a dwarf.
Most of the crowd left while Marty and Dawn took their encore bows. I waited in the uppermost section of the stands, wanting to avoid as much contact with spectators as I could. I wore specialized gloves, but even casual contact would feel like static electricity to anyone who touched me. That’s why I had on long sleeves and long pants though it was eighty degrees in the tent. The hat, well. That and my hair were to hide my scar from nosy onlookers.
When there was no one left in the upper stands except me and a strikingly attractive brunette, I rose. She did, too, still staring at the stage as if waiting for Marty and Dawn to reappear. They wouldn’t. This had been their final show.
I was about to say that when the woman leapt off the top of the bleachers, landing with more grace than an Olympic medalist. That, more than the thirty-foot jump, told me she wasn’t human. She must’ve realized she’d outed herself because she glared up at me and her eyes changed to glowing green.
“You saw nothing,” she hissed.
I nodded, not bothering to tell her I already knew about her kind. Or that the vampire blood I had to drink every week to keep my inner electricity from killing me meant I was immune to mind control. She left and I continued down the bleachers at my humanly slow pace, making a mental note to tell Marty he’d had a vampire in the audience tonight.
From there, I headed to the employee parking lot. Edgar’s trailer wasn’t far from Marty’s, but he wanted to do business at his place. Maybe he was worried that Marty would green-eye him into overpaying me for the jewels if Marty witnessed our transaction. Edgar wasn’t immune to mind control and he, like a lot of the regular carnies, knew what Marty was.
I knocked before a gruff voice told me to come in. Once I did, I blinked at the glare. Edgar had every interior lamp on, all the better to appraise what I had inside my purse.
“Frankie,” he said, using the name most carnies knew me by.
I smiled wryly at the bony, white-haired man. “One of them.”
Edgar waved at the dinette table. I sat opposite him and began to empty out the contents of the velvet pouch inside my purse. This was the first I’d dared to look at the jewels, and I silently willed myself to be unemotional.
It didn’t work. Each piece had a memory that tore at my heart. How warm Vlad’s fingers felt when he slid the ruby and diamond cuff onto my wrist. The stunning aquamarine earrings he’d said matched the color of my eyes. His lips on my throat as he fastened the black diamond necklace around it. Then the ancient-looking gold ring with the dragon emblem . . .
I froze, clutching it instead of placing it on the table. Why had Vlad included this with the things he’d had packed for me? Edgar didn’t seem to notice my shock. He was too busy looking at the other pieces through a magnifying glass.
“No flaws in the stones . . . excellent workmanship and design . . . highest grade of gold and platinum.” He glanced up at me while still holding the magnifier to one eye. “Whoever he was, you should’ve held on to him a little longer.”
“Some things are more important than money,” I replied, still reeling from the presence of the ring. Vlad said only vampires in his line had one of these. Had one of his servants made a mistake including this with the other pieces? Or was it a sign that his invitation to change me still stood?
Edgar finally noticed that I clutched something. “Whatcha got there?”
“Nothing.” I’d starve on the street before I hocked this.
He grinned. “Trying to whet my appetite by pretending I can’t have it? Nice try, but I’ve seen every trick before—”
A deafening roar cut him off. Then the whole trailer shuddered and the windows shattered. I didn’t have time to scream before a wall of fire swallowed us both.
Chapter 7
“We’ve got a live one!”
I wish I hadn’t heard the voice. Then I wouldn’t have felt the pain that followed as consciousness reared its pitiless head. In addition to that, something so heavy was on top of me that it hurt to breathe. Then I regretted breathing as the scent of scorched meat filled my lungs.
I really regretted opening my eyes. A blackened skull wrapped in a hideous pale cloak was the first thing I saw. It pressed down on me, crushing my limbs and sending fissures of agony through me. I screamed, but it came out as a choked gasp.
“Don’t move,” an urgent voice instructed.
I craned my neck as much as I could. To the right of the skull, behi
nd the twisted cloak, was a helmeted fireman.
“We’re going to get you out,” he went on, his voice muffled from the breathing device he wore. “Don’t move.”
I couldn’t if I wanted to. My eyes burned, but after some hard blinking, I saw the skull on top of me wasn’t wearing a cloak. What surrounded it was too thick and hard, like plastic . . .
The last vestige of confusion lifted. Not plastic. It was the white acrylic dinette table that had been between me and Edgar when the explosion went off, which meant the charred skull belonged to Edgar. The fire must’ve been so hot it melted the table around him like a grisly shroud. That—plus something else, from the heaviness—pinned me beneath it.
“What happened?” I managed. “Is anyone else hurt?”
The fireman didn’t answer. I asked again, but my only response was an oxygen mask placed over my face. Then a flurry of activity began as more firemen arrived and tried to clear away the debris on top of me.
“Looks like the furniture melted around her,” one of them muttered, disbelief clear in his tone. “How is she still alive?”
I knew the answer, but it was the least of my concerns. Marty and Dawn would’ve gone back to the RV to change after their final show. That was only a few trailers away. What if the explosion had reached them, too?
“My friend is a dwarf,” I said despite how much it hurt to talk. “His trailer isn’t far. Has anyone seen him?”
No response, but they exchanged pitying glances. Then I remembered the words I’d woken up to. We’ve got a live one! Fear mixed with pain shot through me. Marty was a vampire, yet he wasn’t fireproof. Only I was. What if Edgar hadn’t been the only person killed tonight?
I angled my head until I moved the oxygen mask partially aside. Then, forgetting the pain, I began to scream as loud as I could, hoping desperately that he was alive to hear me.
“Marty! Marty, where are you?”
Heavy hands forced the mask back in place. Someone said to give me a sedative. I kept screaming, anguish rising as only more medical workers appeared. Marty should’ve come by now. Even with all the other noises, he should’ve heard me. I screamed louder in desperation. Please, Marty, please be okay!
Suddenly a path cleared as the people clustered around me were shoved aside with inhuman force. Relief turned to confusion when I got a look at the vampire who knelt down next to me.
“Leila, you’re alive,” Maximus breathed.
He started to say something else, but my hearing faded and a cottony taste filled my mouth. The last thing I saw were his eyes changing to blazing green as he rose and turned around.
This time when I woke up, I wasn’t in pain. That awful stench was still there, though, as if someone had overcooked a roast and rubbed it all over me. I coughed, relieved my lungs didn’t feel like closed fists anymore. Then I opened my eyes.
Walls the color of old mustard met my gaze. Not pretty, but better than a charred skull. I rolled over, seeing the rest of the tiny room in that single glance. It made the blond vampire on the opposite bed look even larger and more imposing.
I had so many questions, like why I was naked under the covers, but my primary concern hadn’t changed.
“Marty. Is he . . . ?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“He’s gone, Leila.”
Maximus’s tone was gentle, but the words hit me with more force than the downed power line I’d touched when I was thirteen. I sucked in a breath that ended on a sob. At the same time, something dark rose in me, causing my right hand to spark. I wanted to do so much more than cry. I wanted to lash Maximus with all the voltage I had in me for saying such an awful thing that couldn’t—couldn’t!—be true, yet all I could do was fight for control while absorbing the news that my best friend was dead.
Maximus didn’t attempt to comfort me. Either he could sense the danger in my sparking hand or he didn’t care how I felt. Then my sobs subsided as suspicion broke through my grief.
“What happened? And what are you doing here? You were supposed to be back in Romania by now!”
His mouth twisted. “I didn’t set the explosion, if that’s what you’re thinking. If I had, I would have killed you when I saw you survived. Your being alive proves I’m not behind it.”
Currents still throbbed in my hand. “Who is behind it?”
“I don’t know.”
Maximus got up and began to pace, difficult since three of his strides covered the length of the room. His clothes were ripped and soot smeared, making me wonder again why he’d been Johnny-on-the-spot when the explosion went off.
“The fireman said a gas line ruptured,” he continued. “They’re calling it an accident. Since it ruptured right next to Marty’s trailer, I doubt that.”
“But why would anyone want to kill Marty?” I burst out.
He swung a hard glance my way. “I don’t think anyone did.”
The explosion was meant for me? If so, it almost worked. Despite my fireproofing, I’d nearly been crushed to death. Maximus must have given me some of his blood to heal me.
“If someone wanted to kill me, why didn’t they just shoot me in the head?” I asked, grief making my voice dull.
“They must have wanted it to look like an accident.”
I swiped my eyes. Tears wouldn’t help me find who’d killed my best friend. “What does Vlad think?”
Maximus stopped pacing and turned around, an inscrutable look on his face. “I didn’t tell him about the explosion, let alone that you survived it.”
“Why not? We’re broken up, but I doubt he’d be happy to hear that someone tried to kill me.”
Maximus said nothing. Underneath those closed-off, rugged features, I caught a glimpse of pity. And understood.
“No,” I whispered. “He wouldn’t.”
Maximus let out a grim snort. “Oh? You came as close to humiliating him as anyone has since Szilagyi faked his death centuries ago. And you saw how Vlad reacted to that.”
“I humiliated him?” If I hadn’t been so torn up over Marty’s death, I would’ve laughed. “I told Vlad I loved him only to have him make it clear where I’d always rank in his life, which was just a few notches above ‘undead bed buddy.’ ”
“True,” Maximus replied without hesitation, “but that’s more than he offered any of his other lovers, yet you turned him down. Then you had the temerity to leave him.”
“Temerity?” I repeated in disbelief.
“No woman has ever left Vlad. Cynthiana, his lover before you, even seduced Shrapnel trying to make Vlad jealous after he ended things between them.”
“Did it work?” I couldn’t help but ask.
“Aside from cutting off his protection for Cynthiana because she callously used Shrapnel for her own gain, he didn’t care.”
“How long was Vlad with her?”
Maximus thought for a moment. “Around thirty years.”
I was incredulous. “That’s longer than I’ve been alive! If Vlad walked away from that relationship without a backward glance, he’s probably forgotten me already.”
Maximus slanted a look my way before resuming his pacing. “Not likely. Regardless of what he does or doesn’t feel for you, your double rejection will burn him for years.”
Enough to incite him to murder me? The thought made me feel like a drowning victim who’d been dunked under one more time.
“Let’s say Vlad does want me dead. I doubt he’d be so cowardly as to fake a gas line explosion when he could’ve killed me while I was still at his castle.”
“Yes, but then he’d have to kill Gretchen and your father, too, making the whole business look very emotional on his part.” A weary sort of cynicism replaced the pity on his face. “Being emotional is seen as a weakness among vampires. Vlad knows his enemies would fall on him like wolves if they suspected that weakness in him.”
First Marty’s death, then realizing the explosion was meant for me, now the suggestion that my ex-boyfriend might be behind it. I closed my e
yes. How much more could I take?
“You’re Vlad’s right-hand man” was what I said after an extended pause. “Wouldn’t he tell you if he planned to kill me?”
Maximus was silent so long, I opened my eyes. “What now?”
“I don’t think he would,” Maximus finally said. “He’d know I would have a problem with it, and why strain my loyalty if he didn’t have to? Instead, he could’ve ordered someone else to make your death look like an accident. If I hadn’t been here, I might’ve even believed it.”
Back to that question. “Why were you here?”
He sighed, returning to the bed across from mine. “Partly because I wanted to make sure Marty really did let you stay with him even though he’d replaced you with that other girl. You need vampire blood to keep your electricity levels from killing you. If Marty wouldn’t have kept providing it, I would have made other arrangements. But mostly, Leila, I didn’t go back to Romania because of how I feel about you.”
If I wasn’t overloaded from grief, I would’ve been shocked. As it was, I could only muster up faint surprise.
Maximus leaned forward, brushing my hair back.
“I told you when we met, you’re beautiful, ballsy, and your abilities fascinate me. I’ve also seen your courage, your loyalty, and your strength in leaving a man you loved because you knew he’d never love you.”
More surprise, but that was trivial compared to my anguish and the growing need I had to avenge my best friend and the young girl who’d never had a real chance at life.
“Maximus, you’re very attractive and I’m flattered, but I can’t even think about this right now.”
He leaned back, a hard little smile curving his mouth. “I know, but we are having this conversation again.”
I didn’t argue. I was too busy trying to figure out who was behind that explosion. I still doubted it was Vlad, but if Maximus thought it was possible, I shouldn’t throw caution to the wind by automatically discounting the idea.
Besides, even if I was right and Vlad wasn’t behind this, I doubted news of my alleged death would rock him. He’d gone out of his way to prove that I didn’t mean much to him.