A Christmas Peril (5 page)

Hedda opened her mouth to reply, but
shut it again. Suddenly, she was all smiles. Not because she was
happy, but because she didn’t want Isaiah and me knowing any more
about the troubles within her grieve. “I owe both of you a huge
debt. Cassandra, once again, I underestimated you. The courage you
showed in offering Cornelius your soul marks you as a truly
intrepid person and a valued friend.”

And I’d underestimated the
vampires as well. Maybe not
all
of them were loathsome or
untrustworthy.

“
You are welcome to stay,”
Hedda said.

Personally, I’d had enough. Plus, with
the blood drenching my hair and dress, I looked like post-prom
Carrie. Isaiah hadn’t fared much better. I hoped his tuxedo was a
rental because he’d never get the blood out of it.

Hedda took my hands in hers and kissed
each of my cheeks. “Friends of the grieve, I thank you. What can I
give you in return?”

“
How about a new car to
replace Isaiah’s ruined Jag?” I meant it as a joke, but Hedda
immediately handed over a set of keys. “It’s a gray BMW. Consider
it a rental until we have your car fixed.”

“
And the blood partner who
ruined my ride?” Isaiah asked.

Hedda’s smile faded. “I’ll deal with
her.”

“
What will you do?” I
asked anxiously. I wanted the vandal punished, not murdered. But
Hedda refused to reply. I should have known. After all, grieve
business was grieve business.

Isaiah nodded then said the words I’d
been dying to hear all night. “Let’s go home.”

Isaiah remained silent while we waited
for the valet to bring the new car around. Finally, he said. “Where
did that holy water come from?”

My shoulders sagged. I’d been
terrorized, nearly fed on, and used as bait. But now I had to admit
to lying. Somehow, that seemed worse. “I kind of hid it in my
dress.” Then, before he could argue, I added, “It’s a good thing I
did! I could have been drained.”

“
Or you could have been
attacked by an entire grieve for what you did,” he countered,
equally angry. “I told you not to take any weapons!”

The valet pulled up with our new car.
Isaiah and I glared at one another over the top of the vehicle,
each of us furious. The staring contest was short lived, however,
because he finally looked away.

“
Will you promise to do
what I tell you to next time?” he asked when we were both
inside.

“
No. Will you promise to
stop thinking that vampires are harmless?”

“
No. Most of them are just
fine.”

I harrumphed and crossed my arms over
my chest. Still, it was hard to stay angry at someone who had
willingly battled a roomful of monsters to keep me safe. “Thanks
for the rescue by the way,” I muttered.

“
Any time.” His voice had
softened to the warm-caramel sound I loved. He put his arm around
me and drove one-handed. “You are a brave woman, Cassandra Jaber.
Stubborn and frustrating, but very brave.”

“
And you are a gallant
man, Isaiah Griffin. Delusional and pushy, but gallant.”

I would have leaned my head against
his shoulder if not for the fact that he was covered in vampire
blood.

The clock on the dashboard said it was
forty-five minutes until midnight. I decided to give Andrew a call
to tell him that I was all right, but I wouldn’t be coming home.
After what I’d been through, I wanted nothing more than to spend
the rest of the night with my handsome vampire slayer.

THE END

W
ant to read more about Cassandra and
Isaiah? Here are the first two chapters of
Stage Fright,
the first book in
the
Bit Parts
series.

My entrance onto the stage of the
Cipher Theater was dramatic, but not in a good way. Although I had
left for the audition looking like a million bucks, a sudden
downpour between my car and the theater had turned me into a
tarnished penny. My carefully coiffed hair was plastered to my
skull, and mascara ran down my cheeks. Worst of all, I’d left my
right heel wedged in a sidewalk steam grate, so I clomped onstage
in two different height shoes.

Praying no one noticed that the water
dripping from my dress was forming a puddle on the stage, I
squinted against the brilliant spotlight. Seeing into the
pitch-black theater, however, was impossible. “Sorry I’m late,” I
called out.

My apology was met with dead
silence.

“
Hello?”

Still nothing.

My shoulders slumped. The
casting director had probably given up on me and gone to lunch. In
my mind, the booming voice of Charles Corning, my mentor and
favorite theater arts professor, chided me. “An actor should
never
be late for an
audition.”

I know that, Charles, I
thought irritably. I
would
have been on time if not for the four-car pile-up
on the expressway.

I tried again. “Hello? I’m Cassandra
Jaber? I have an audition?”

A man’s voice said, “You may
begin.”

I sighed, relieved. “I’ll
be reading for Blanche.” I’d coveted the role of Blanche Du Bois,
the downtrodden heroine from
A Streetcar
Named Desire
, ever since I’d read the play
in college. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure I had a shot. It wasn’t my
age – although, I was twenty-four rather than Blanche’s
thirty-something – it was the color of my skin. Not many people
would entertain the idea of a Middle Eastern actress playing a
southern belle. Hopefully, this director was an
exception.

My wet dress clung to my legs, and the
theater’s powerful air conditioner raised goose bumps on my bare
arms, but I took a deep breath and shut out the distractions. I
drew Blanche’s essence into myself, claiming her fading beauty, her
southern charm, and her desperation.

I waited a few heartbeats then began.
“May I speak plainly?... If you'll forgive me, he's common... He's
like an animal.” After hours of practice, Blanche’s lilting drawl
came naturally now. “He has an animal's habits.”

The upstage curtains twitched. Was the next
actress already in the wings, waiting to audition? Without missing
a beat, I continued. “There's even something subhuman about him.
Thousands of years have passed him right by…”

The curtain fluttered again, an annoying
distraction. Determined to remain focused, I lifted my chin, ready
to speak the next line. But at that moment, something darted out
and hauled me off my feet. The spotlight switched off, and
blackness swallowed the stage.

I woke to find myself lying on a lumpy
couch that smelled of old cheese. When I tried to sit, the world
slid sideways. My stomach lurched. Someone pressed on my shoulder
to keep me lying down.

“
What happened?” I
asked.

“
You fainted.” My
attendant was a middle-aged man pretending he was still eighteen,
and this was still 1986. Not only did he have sport of those
asymmetric, new wave, haircuts, he also wore a Killing Joke
t-shirt. His expressionless eyes peered into mine. “You dropped
like a rock.”

I didn’t remember passing
out, but
something
bad had happened. My neck hurt like hell, as did the back of
my head. “I’ve never fainted in my life.”

“
It was probably low blood
sugar,” he said. “Did you eat today?”

I shrugged. Among Charles Corning’s
inviolable ‘Ten Rules to a Successful Audition’ was number six:
always eat beforehand. Although I’d tried to force down a banana as
I left the house, I’d been too nervous to swallow more than a
single bite.

When the man finally let me sit up, I
had an awful, woozy feeling, like I’d drunk too much caffeine on an
empty stomach. “I’m going to throw up.”

“
No, you’re not.” He
handed me a small, plastic container of orange juice. “Drink this.
You’ll feel better.” He acted like he’d spent every day of his life
attending to fainting actresses.

As I drank the orange juice, my
equilibrium slowly returned. I gingerly felt the back of my head.
“Do you think I have a concussion?”

He shook his head. “Naw. You’re fine.”
He helped me to my feet, ushered me out of the room, and through
the theater’s back door. “They’ll get in touch if they want a
callback.”

Callback. As if.

I fought against tears as I hobbled
towards the public lot where I’d parked my car. The audition had
been a disaster of Biblical proportions. Charles’s ‘Ten Rules to a
Successful Audition’ did not include ‘Do not faint onstage’ since
that was a given.

While sitting in traffic on the
expressway, I glanced at the dashboard clock. To my surprise, it
was five thirty. I blinked and looked again. It couldn’t be five
thirty. I’d arrived at the audition a little past one. The clock
was wrong. It had to be! Then I noticed that the rainclouds had
cleared, and the sun was low in the sky. My dress, which had been
soaking wet when I’d arrived at the theater, was now completely
dry.

My heart began beating in triple time,
and my vision grayed at the edges. Hands shaking, I pulled into the
breakdown lane and turned on my hazard lights.

Since leaving the theater, my brain
had been Novocain-numb, but now it was waking up. As it did, I
sensed that something had happened to me while I’d been
unconscious. Something really, really bad. The word ‘rape’
triggered a panic bomb in my gut. I did a frantic, mental check of
my body. My underwear seemed intact, and my intimate parts felt
normal. There was no soreness between my legs, and no wetness.
Physically, I was unharmed.

Well, except for my stiff neck. I
carefully put my hand to my throat and felt two, hard nodes like
BBs under my skin. Touching them sent a sick thrill deep into the
pit of my stomach. Quickly, I withdrew my hand. Had I been bitten
by a tick? Or, worse yet, a spider?! That could explain the
fainting. The thought of a black widow or brown recluse slipping
under the collar of my dress and administering a poisonous bite set
off another panic bomb. Maybe I should head for an emergency
room.

Get a grip, I told myself
sternly. You’re fine. Nothing happened. You passed out because you
were too nervous to eat, and your blood sugar took a plunge. Yet as
much as I tried to convince myself otherwise, part of me insisted
something bad
had
happened.

My fingers crept back to my neck, and
gingerly prodded those two, hard bumps. Taking a deep breath, I
closed my eyes and tried to remember what had happened between the
start of my audition and the time I woke up on the couch. After a
few minutes, however, I gave up. It was like trying to pry open a
door that had been secured with iron bars. As far as my memory was
concerned, those missing hours had never happened.

From the dark, narrow confines of the
backstage, I watched the curtain rise for the last time. If only
the applause was meant for me! Ever since my disastrous audition at
the Cipher five months before, however, I’d developed a strong
aversion to the spotlight. Trying out for a role – any role – was
out of the question. Standing in the wings was as close as I dared
to come to the stage.

Andrew, who had played Dracula, stood
beside me. I squeezed his shoulder. “You rocked it,” I whispered.
He grinned and patted my hand. Remembering that Tabitha, the
leading lady, stood there too, I grudgingly added, “Nice
job.”

She didn’t deign to respond. Instead,
she grabbed Andrew’s hand and led him onstage so they could take
their bows. Although the theater was only half full, the applause
intensified to a respectable level. Tabitha preened like the praise
was meant for her. Of course, it wasn’t. Andrew had single-handedly
rescued a truly disastrous show, and everyone loved him for it.
When he made a dramatic sweep with his cape, the audience got to
its feet.

A standing ovation! Having
my best friend receive his kudos was
almost
as good as being onstage
myself. Although, I still wished I’d been his leading lady. I
pictured the two of us, hand in hand, as we took our bows. My face
would be glowing. The applause would be deafening. The brilliant
lights would blind me…