Ward of the Vampire: Complete Serial Read online

  My face felt on fire when I unzipped the dress, slipped it off the mannequin and stepped into it. I sucked in my stomach, expecting it to be tight, and was surprised when it zipped up easily. Well, when I say easily… I did have to play contortionist for a few moments to do the zipper in the back, feeling absolutely ridiculous and all too aware that Miss Delilah was watching. She didn’t offer to help. I didn’t ask.

  At last, the dress was zipped. It fit like a dream. Do I betray my overly deep interest in bridal couture if I describe it as a mermaid-style sheath with a sweetheart neckline? The bodice had just enough draping to accentuate my curves without being over the top. Gorgeous, but the satin fabric looked like it might wrinkle just from being looked at too intently. It was a bit too long for me, or so I thought until Miss Delilah gestured at the floor near the mannequins.

  “Put on some shoes. The peep-toe ones, I think.”

  I hadn’t noticed the shoes until now. Three pairs, all high-heels, all red—and all to die for.

  I slipped on the shiny leather peep-toe pair. They fit just as well as the dress, which surprised me because I knew Miss Delilah’s shoe size was larger than mine.

  “Go ahead, take a few steps around,” she said. “Is it too tight to move in? How about the shoes?”

  I walked around the room, feeling incredibly self-conscious. I’m not ashamed of my body in any way, but it’s one thing to be confident in my own clothes and quite another to feel at ease in a gown that costs about half what I make in a year. Never mind the price; I’d never worn something that low cut or long enough to brush on the floor with each step; even my prom dress wasn’t that long.

  “Hmm.” Miss Delilah tapped a finger over her lips. “I like it, but there’s something off about it. It doesn’t move quite right.”

  “Maybe it’s just me,” I said. “I’m not used to wearing gowns like this.”

  If she heard me, she didn’t reply, and instead she motioned toward the other dresses. “Let’s see the next one. With the black trimmed shoes this time.”

  I dutifully slipped out of the dress, careful not to wrinkle it. The next one—and again you’ll have to forgive the bridal talk because I have no idea how else to describe it—was a ball gown. Think Disney’s Cinderella in a deep ruby red. Layers of tulle, a lace overlay and thin beaded straps. It was beautiful but heavy, and before I even zipped it up Miss Delilah shook her head.

  “No, definitely not it. Next.”

  I can’t say I was having much fun at that point, but it never occurred to me to protest. Looking back, I guess it should have been a clue that something not entirely natural was going on.

  The ball gown went back onto the mannequin form. I turned to the next dress and realized this one was a back-laced corset. How was I going to put that on by myself? Before I could figure it out, Miss Delilah stood, her robe swishing gently around her as she came to me.

  “You’ll need to lose the bra for this one,” she said, lifting the dress off the mannequin.

  I gulped.

  Another perfectly reasonable occasion to say no. I still didn’t.

  I turned around until my back was to her and slipped my bra off. It’s not that I’m that much of a prude, but come on, how often do you find yourself topless and wearing nothing more than panties in front of your boss?

  After fumbling with it for a second or two, I dropped the bra to the floor and, at her command, lifted my arms. She slipped the gown over my head and tugged it down in place, immediately starting to do the laces in the back while I was still smoothing down the skirt. Made from bright, light chiffon, it fell as an A-line from a dropped waist. The corset was made of a thicker fabric, with a scalloped top and crystals scattered throughout.

  “The trick to a corset,” she said on a conversational tone, “is to tighten it until you can’t breathe anymore.”

  She demonstrated, and I let out a huff as every last bit of air was squeezed out of my lungs.

  “And then,” she continued, “to release just the width of two fingers.”

  She did release the laces somewhat, and I didn’t feel anymore like I would die of asphyxia in the next minute. As she finished the lacing, I did feel rather glad that I’d only have to wear the dress for a few minutes. The corset was giving me a cleavage to die for but I do enjoy breathing very much.

  “Peep-toe shoes,” she demanded as she stepped back.

  I slipped into the shoes and stood there, arms at my side, watching her watch me and thinking that, lack of air notwithstanding, this had to be the most beautiful dress I’d ever worn. And there wasn’t even a mirror in the room for me to look at myself.

  Miss Delilah apparently agreed. She nodded once and smiled.

  “Perfect. All we need is to get your hair up, freshen up your make-up a bit, and we’ll be all set to go.”

  I stared at her, confused beyond words. She couldn’t have just said what I thought she had said, right?

  She had.

  As it turned out, she’d known all along which dress she’d wear: the fourth one, a long sheath that hugged her body like a second skin, with a black train hanging in the back. The other three, she’d bought for me. No, not just bought. She’d had them made for me. That was why they, and the shoes, fit so well. How she knew my measurements, I have no idea.

  I wasn’t wearing the Cinderella dress, but when she was done with me, I did feel like I’d just met my fairy godmother and was about to go to the ball to meet the prince.

  Except that, as far as I can recall, there weren’t vampires in the fairy tale, and the godmother didn’t offer Cinderella to the prince as a midnight snack.

  *

  We took a limo to the party. Maybe the livery service was out of pumpkins.

  I kept thinking I’d start hyperventilating any moment, now, but while she was curling my hair and pinning it up—she’d done it herself, telling me to stay still and let her work her magic and I’d had a hard time stifling a giggle at that word—Miss Delilah had told me to relax and I’d done exactly that.

  I was going to the party of the season, I’d brush elbows with people I was accustomed to seeing in magazines, on TV or on movie screens, but I was calm. Relaxed. Just like she’d told me to be. Another clue, but I was too mellow to pick up on it.

  In hindsight…

  No, forget hindsight. There is no amount of clues that would have made me understand.

  Or believe.

  I’m still not sure I believe it now.

  Would you?

  Be honest, now. You’ve read stories in which vampires are real. Or magic. Or elves. Or aliens with ten heads who eat nothing but sushi. You’ve seen movies with the same. All right, maybe not the sushi-eating alien, but that could be a fun movie. Anyway. Would you be any less shocked if you were suddenly confronted to that alien? Or for that matter, vampires?

  No, you wouldn’t be. Even if you really enjoy vampire stories, even if you sometimes think to yourself ‘I bet vampires really do exist and I wish I could meet one someday,’ deep down you know there is no such thing and it’s all just pretty—or not so pretty—stories.

  We like to tell ourselves stories. Like to be scared, or thrilled, or enthralled. Like to forget our lives are nothing more than ordinary. But when your life turns out to be anything but ordinary, it’s like nothing you ever imagined. I know that firsthand. Just like I know all those stories have a nugget of truth to them, but don’t quite tell us what vampires are truly like.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a bit and return to that limo.

  It stopped right in front of the mansion. The chauffeur came around to open the door for us, and we stepped out onto, I kid you not, a red carpet, complete with security guards keeping photographers and curious passersby at bay.

  Miss Delilah walked onto that carpet and under these flashes as though she does that every day. Which, okay, isn’t far from the truth. Me? Not so much. All I could think as I followed her was, ‘Don’t trip.’ I really didn’t want to e
nd up on one of those blogs I was reading as the nobody who humiliated herself before even getting to the party.

  I managed to step inside without making a fool out of myself. A man at the door greeted Miss Delilah by name and gave her a little bow. He threw the tiniest of questioning looks toward me. Miss Delilah simply said, “My guest,” which apparently was enough. The man inclined his head toward me, said, “Welcome, Miss,” and started turning to the guests who had arrived after us.

  Again I followed Miss Delilah’s lead and handed the wrap she had draped over my shoulders, a twin of her own, to the coat check. I slipped my ticket in the tiny, beaded black clutch Miss Delilah had let me borrow.

  She linked her arm with mine, then, and leaned in close to whisper in a conspiratorial tone.

  “Now, Lina dear, this is as far as we go together. It’s a nice house, I’m sure you’ll enjoy exploring it and have fun meeting new people.” Her voice slipped into a deeper, thicker tone as she held my gaze. “Be nice to my brother when you see him, and don’t you dare leave without me.”

  I was taken by the urge to laugh.

  Be nice to Mr. Ward? Why did she think she needed to tell me such a thing? Did she really expect me to be rude to our host, one of the most powerful men in town—or even in the world? Did she think I’d trade barbs with him and call him a jerk?

  If that was what she thought, she was entirely right.

  Before I could reply to her admonitions, she stepped away from me. In moments, she had disappeared into the crowd, the red of her dress blending with a hundred other red dresses that were twirling around a hundred black tuxedos. I don’t mind crowds, but all of a sudden I was feeling entirely out of my depth.

  Every single one of the people around me was the kind of person I’d usually welcome in Miss Delilah’s office with ‘May I take your coat?’ or ‘Can I offer you a refreshment?’ and I had this unshakable feeling that they would know, just by looking at me, that I didn’t belong to their world.

  I took a champagne cup from a passing waiter, hoping to give myself a countenance. Everyone around me was chatting, greeting old friends, and I felt utterly alone. Some part of me was upset with Miss Delilah. What game was she playing, bringing me to this party and then leaving me by myself?

  Not that I’d have felt much better if she’d stayed with me. She was my boss. We didn’t chitchat, or pretend to be friends. She told me what she wanted, and I did it, it was as simple as that and I was quite happy with it.

  Now it’s not to say my job was easy. If she said she wanted a bouquet of roses on her desk by the time she came to work, it wasn’t much of a challenge to call one of the four florists I used regularly. On the other hand, the one time she decided she wanted black orchids in the lobby… that was altogether trickier.

  As I quickly learned, there are plenty of plants called ‘black orchids’ but they aren’t actually black. Instead, they’re usually a very deep dark purple, so dark it does look black under the proper conditions. That? Is not what Miss Delilah asked for. I actually contacted orchid specialists and subsidized two of them into creating a new variety for Miss Delilah. But since that might take years, I had to improvise to provide her black orchids in the meantime.

  A chemist came up with a blend of dyes and additives that are injected into the flower bud before it opens so the petals turn black as ink without the flower losing its scent or dying prematurely. Miss Delilah loved it. She actually told me I’d done a good job.

  Three weeks later, she wanted bonsais in the lobby.

  I told a friend about the orchids saga, once. Okay, so he wasn’t a friend, he was a guy a friend had set me up with as a blind date. We were having fun, and I told him the orchid story thinking he’d find it amusing, like I had. All this work, all this money spent, and in the end when Miss Delilah got what she wanted, she moved on to the next shiny thing the way a kid would.

  He thought it was ‘horrible’ and ‘demeaning’ to me. He actually told me that if I wanted to find another job, he’d put in a good word with the bosses at his company. That was the first and last time we went out. I’ve never felt demeaned by my job with Miss Delilah, but I was rather insulted that this guy I barely knew decided that my job was meaningless and unworthy of me.

  The way I saw it, she set challenges, and it was up to me to figure out how best to fulfill them. And truth be told, it was a lot more fun investigating black orchids, even if it took me two months to do something that would last three weeks, than it was to pick up the phone and order three dozen long-stemmed roses.

  As I sipped on my champagne, I started thinking of the party as a new challenge she had set for me. She’d told me to explore, to meet new people—to enjoy myself. And I’d be damned if I didn’t do all that. How many people would have paid to be right where I was? How many had dreamed of it?

  And yes, I had dreamed of it too. I just had never expected that particular dream would come true. I’d accompanied Miss Delilah to a few shows or events, but only when she was offered extra tickets. We’d gone there our separate ways, and I’d done no more than smile when seeing her across a room. She’d never taken me to a party like this before. Maybe she never would again. I might as well enjoy the opportunity.

  For the next couple of hours, I passed from room to room, approaching people who were alone as I was, striking conversations about the pieces of art displayed everywhere or the music drifting from another room or the elegant platters of food that passed through the crowd along with refreshments.

  One woman I talked to turned out to be the very artist who had created the oversized painting in front of which she was standing, a beautiful rendering of Central Park.

  “This is the largest piece I ever sold,” she confided. “And I’d never seen my work in a place such as this before.”

  At which point, she gestured to the painting on the opposite wall, the canvas equally as a large and half concealed by the crowd admiring it: an original from Monet. It was worth millions.

  One of the men admiring the Monet heard her and turned to her piece. He observed it for a moment before asking the woman for her name and questioning her about her creative process. Others joined the conversation, and soon the crowd around her was even thicker than it had been around the Monet. I listened for a little while then let her have her moment in the spotlight and slipped away to the next room.

  I had a hard time figuring out what each new room was like when a chattering crowd wasn’t flowing through, laughter bubbling on their lips like the champagne in their glasses. All these art pieces belonged in galleries, or maybe museums, but there were armchairs in each room, sofas, a desk here and there, even a dining table, complete with matching chairs, long enough to host a Thanksgiving dinner for a large family. The furniture wouldn’t have been out of place in a museum either.

  I don’t know how long I toured the first floor. I wandered until I found myself in front of a wide marble staircase. It looked inviting. Music was drifting down, melding with the fast pieces the string quartet in the front had been playing one after the other since I arrived. I went up.

  And I was stunned to realize that the second floor was identical to the first: artwork, antique furniture, room after room full of noise and beauty and people I recognized but didn’t dare talk to. And everything everywhere was red and black.

  It was overwhelming. Or maybe I should have had something to eat along with those two—three?—glasses of champagne.

  Feeling a little lightheaded, I looked around for a bit of quiet and solitude, but guests were everywhere. When I passed by heavy curtains, I lifted a corner, and was almost relieved to get a glimpse of a balcony behind a window.

  I checked that no one was paying attention to me, then slipped behind the curtain and opened the window. It was only when I stepped onto the balcony that I realized someone was already there.

  He was leaning forward, one elbow resting on the ornate stone balustrade, his chin propped in his palm. His hair was darker than ink. When he g
lanced back, I barely saw the cigarette hanging from his lips.

  My eyes went straight to his, and I couldn’t suppress a quiet gasp. They were so dark that they seemed completely black. I knew it was only because of the lack of light, but just the same, that look made me shiver. That, and the cold December air. He didn’t seem to mind the cold at all. He’d taken his tuxedo jacket off, and it rested on the balustrade next to him.

  “The freaking party’s inside,” he said in an exhalation of smoke, looking away again. “Go back in and leave me the hell alone.”

  At any other time, I’d have stammered an apology and gone back in. I honestly don’t know what came over me. Maybe it was the champagne. Maybe I simply couldn’t stand going back to all that noise, all those people quite yet. Maybe it was the smoke; I quit a long time ago, but when I’m stressed I still crave nicotine. Or maybe I was just tired of doing what other people told me to.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied, stepping to the other end of the balcony, as far away from him and from that delicious smoke as I could. “Why go in and enjoy the company of so many pleasant people when I can be out here with a jerk?”

  I was looking down at the park on the other side of the street, but from the corner of my eye I could see him turn his face to me, the end of the cigarette flaring bright red when he sucked in a breath.

  “Why indeed inflict such charm on them,” he drawled, “when you can focus it on me? Name your price, already and go.”

  I turned fully toward him, outraged.

  “My price?” I repeated, probably in a too loud voice. “My price for what? Who do you think I am?”

  “I have no idea whatsoever who you are,” he said, looking away from me again. “But I know your kind. I know why you come to parties like this, showing skin halfway down to your navel.”

  I gasped in disbelief, my free hand instinctively coming up to the exposed skin above the top of my gown. Compared to some other décolleté dresses I’d seen that night, mine was nothing if not conservative. And it definitely didn’t go down to my navel.