Fangtastic

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

Fangtastic
© 2012 by Lucienne Diver.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book's subject.

First e-book edition © 2011

E-book ISBN: 9780738731612

Book design by Bob Gaul

Cover design by Lisa Novak

Cover art: Woman © Mixa/PunchStock,

Night club scene © iStockphoto.com/dwphotos

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Acknowledgments

There are so many people to whom I want to express appreciation, and so little room to do it. First, thank you to my awesome husband, Pete, and son, Ty, for all the encouragement and love; my entire family for support and inspiration; Joy Heuser for helping me scout locations; Beth Dunne for keeping me laughing; and Don (Vlad) Deich for amazingly valuable information. (Note: while there is a Vlad in
Fangtastic
, the real deal is much more Snape-eque, if I can create my own entirely fictitious word. Survey says?) Also, I'm sending a huge thank you to my agent, Kristin Nelson, and her incredible team, as well as the entire Flux crew for helping me bring Gina and her peeps to “life.”

Finally, I want to give a mega shout out to my fans, especially those who write. I love hearing from you!

For Ty, Kaleb, Mikey, Cameron and all the boys this time

Vampire Dictionary for the
Grave-ly Uninformed by Gina Covello

OMG, nobody told me vampdom came with a vocabulary list! Apparently, if you're a human who wants to walk the walk, you've got to talk the talk … or something like that. So, if you're still alive and kicking but want to play on the shady side of the street, you're going to need your very own vampirism cheat sheet. Ever helpful, I've provided some vocab words below. And yes, you will be tested on this later.

• The Black Veil
  (which I look totally hot in, by the way): Turns out this isn't so much a fashion statement as some kind of code. Words to live by. Kinda like a vamp version of
  Cosmo
  … only different.
  
• Roleplayer/lifestyler:
  Not the guy who still lives with his parents and pays way more attention to
  World of Warcraft
  than his own personal hygiene. Someone who likes to dress up and play vampire.
  
• Sanguines:
  People who put on their prosthetic teeth or otherwise open a vein to feed. (Really? I mean, with mochachinos and milkshakes in the world, you're opting for blood? If I had the choice, I'd be going after a little thing I like to call taste.)
  
• Pranic or psychic vampires:
  Feng shui vamps. They feed on life force instead of blood.
  
• Fledgelings:
  Humans new to the “vampire” court. Someday they might leave the nest and establish their own clutch, clan, or coven. Or not.
  
• Elder:
  If you've served the community well you may be selected to become an elder. I'm sorry, but one of the primo things about being a vampire, even if you only play one on TV, is eternal youth. “Elder” is too much like “older”—just takes all the fun out of things.
  
• Knighted Ronan:
  Kinda like black knights. Respect, yo, but no definite loyalties, no politics.
  
• Regent:
  Prom king and/or queen of the vampire court.
  
• Clan or House:
  Like a fanged fraternity or a sanguine sorority. (Note how I was actually able to use the word “sanguine” in a sentence. Points for me!)
  

Other terms you might need:

• Telemetric:
  A person who can read the history of an object by touch.
  
• Telekinetic:
  Someone who can move objects with their mind. Great fun at parties … and séances.
  
• Telepath:
  Someone with the ability to read minds as easily as the latest issue of
  Vogue.
  Also to send mental messages.
  
• Truth-teller:
  Like a living lie detector, a guy or gal who magically knows whether you've been naughty or nice.
  

1

O
kay, I'd only been on one super-secret spy mission for the Feds so far and already I knew my favorite part—the downtime afterward.

My BFF Marcy and I were sitting on the world's least comfortable couch in the rec room at spook central giving each other pedicures and catching up on missed episodes of
Project Runway
.
We were both in drawstring shorts and tanks, though I filled my top out better. To compensate, she had her shorts rolled down low enough to show her tramp stamp. Not that there was anyone around to see us. Just about everyone else was super serious and busy, busy, busy. They couldn't appreciate that sometimes you had to sit back and smell the nail polish. Ultraviolet in my case; Tantalizing Tangerine for Marcy. Cosmetic companies were big on that alliteration. Big word, huh—“alliteration.” I learned it from my boy Bobby. Did I mention that he's a genius? Or the near clone of Zac Efron? For Twilighters—Edward who?

“Okay, gimme your other foot,” I told her as I finished the first.

Marcy shifted on the couch so she could swing her painted foot onto the coffee table and bring her untouched toes my way, and suddenly the channel changed from Renee's big reveal to news.

We both groaned, and Marcy reached beneath herself for the remote she was sitting on when I halted her.

“Wait, turn it up.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the funny look she gave me. The rest of my attention was riveted on the television, where I thought they'd just said something about vampires. The footage they were showing was really blurry, as if the show's producers had done their best to enlarge a distant shot. But there was definitely something man-shaped in the picture, silhouetted against an outside wall—with what looked like a giant tarantula on his head, but was probably a mousse job gone horribly wrong. He made some sort of sign at the camera and ran off into the night. A second shadow followed in his wake.

“Witnesses say—” a newscaster blared suddenly.

I winced at the volume. “I didn't say turn it up full blast!”

“Sorry!”

Marcy got the volume back under control. I missed what it was the witnesses said, but then heard, “Police called to the home found a scene of carnage and have just now released the names of the victims—forty-nine-year-old Jonathan Swinter and forty-two-year-old mother-of-two Margo Beckett Swinter. Their youngest daughter is reported to be in critical condition. Their eldest daughter, who sources say was not living at home at the time of the attack, has not yet been located. Police have set up a tip line and are asking that anyone with information—”

“What's up?” Marcy asked. “You know them?”

“No, but—”

“Meeting.” Leaning in the doorway was a square-faced young stud with dark, military-short hair and no lips—not to speak of, anyway. In keeping with my “S” nicknaming scheme for our government handlers, I'd dubbed him Agent Straight-laced. But apparently his real name was Brent.

“But our toes,” Marcy protested. “Can't it wait until they're dry?”

“Let me think. Death, destruction, national security …
um, no.”

“Yeah, well, my very cover could depend on the even application of polish. The slightest imperfection could give me away. I don't want to call that kind of attention to myself,” Marcy said.

“Then maybe you should roll up your shorts,” he suggested.

“Okay, you two,” I cut in, “get a room.” I swung my feet down to the floor and rose, but pedicure sandals were so not meant for graceful exits.

“What—never!” Marcy sputtered.

“Maybe if it were the end of the world,” Brent said, about the same time.

“In your dreams!” Marcy fired back.

His eyes flared. “Oh, you've no idea.”

Yup, I'd called it. No one could be that straight-laced
and
sane. One or the other had to give. Since the Feds probably did psych evals on their employees, I was guessing Marcy made him nuts in the
me Tarzan, you Jane
way rather than the
American Psycho
way. They were fun to poke at.

“After you,” Brent said, indicating the door. He might have wanted to make sure we didn't dawdle, but I thought it was to get a better look at Marcy's tramp stamp. It was a good thing Marcy had used a fake ID to get the tat on her sixteenth birthday, because now that we'd been vamped, body alterations wouldn't take—not tattoos, piercings, or Botox. Anything alien or perforating got pushed out and healed up. If it weren't for the whole eternal-youth thing, the rest would probably have sent me screaming into the night. Luckily, though, my lips had never needed collagen injections, and our all-liquid diet was very slimming.

Marcy followed me out of the room, both of our feet flapping like ducks'. Pedicure sandals were a little like flip-flops, but with partitions between
each
toe, not just the first and second. Difficult to manage sashaying down hallways, but as I looked back, Marcy was doing her best. I wondered if she was quite as indifferent to Agent Straight-laced as she pretended. With Marcy it was hard to tell; the swing in her step was as unconscious as breathing … even more so now that breath was no longer a factor.

“Briefing room four,” Brent called from behind us.

I pushed through the door on the right into a room that would send high school AV squads to geek heaven. There were screens, projectors, gadgets, doodads … I didn't even know what half the stuff did, but I immediately recognized the image on the central screen. Marcy and I had just seen it on TV—the blurry figure from the newscast. How random was that?

Bobby was already there, seated front and center like the teacher's pet that he was. He'd been one of the brains back at our old school, and while that hadn't changed, the loss of his Coke-bottle lenses had let me see him in a whole new light. Especially his unbelievable blue eyes. The wicked vamp powers didn't hurt either. He had mojo out the wazoo … okay, that sounded so, so wrong. Mojo to spare … there, that sounded better. Anyway, he was smokin' hot, plenty powerful, and
mine.

He took my hand as I sat and gave it a squeeze. It sent a kind of electric shock through me, straight to my heart, which did a little stutter like it might restart.

On either side of the screen stood Agent Stuffed Shirt—aka Sid, and Agent Stick-up-her-butt—aka Maya, who rolled her eyes at the sight of our hand-holding. Probably she thought it was unprofessional. Whatever. Neither of us had volunteered to work for the Feds. They'd made us an offer we couldn't refuse. Literally. So making her crazy was sort of one of the perks of the job.

I was surprised when, instead of going off on his merry way, Brent closed the door behind him and joined us at the table. Marcy, Bobby, and I were all part of the juju brigade—a group of vamps who'd been recruited to handle supernatural spy stuff—but Brent was a breather, just like all the handlers I'd seen so far. I wondered if that was significant, like there was some kind of bias against vamps being in positions of power.

Before I could pursue this thought, Maya tossed folders down in front of each of us. “Already?” I grumbled. “We've only had a week to recover from our last mission.”

“You're super-speedy healers. How much time do you need? Besides, after you've given yourselves manicures, pedicures, facials, bikini waxes, and all the rest of that crap, what else is left?”

“You know, a massage would be really soothing.”

She growled.

“Jeez, lighten up. I was thinking for
you.
Hot stone massage, maybe. And a paraffin dip for your hands, because damn, woman—”

“Enough!” Sid said from the front of the room. “We have a case. While you vamps may live forever, these people … ” He threw a set of eight-by-ten color glossies down on the table. As if he'd practiced, they fanned out perfectly. “These people didn't. And we don't think the folks who did this are anywhere near done.”

Bobby picked up the nearest photo, which looked like a still from some horror flick. I glanced away, but not before I saw a woman with her throat slashed, her shirt torn open, and enough spilled blood to paint the walls, which someone had done, forming the word
VICTIM
all in caps. Okay, so the baddies had mastered the obvious and for some reason felt the need to share with the class.

“This is awful, but it looks like a normal killing, if there is such a thing. Isn't this a job for local police or maybe the FBI? Why get us involved?” Bobby asked.

“A witness reported that the perpetrators were vampires.” Sid held up a hand to stop Bobby's oncoming protest. “Of course, we know they're not. For one thing, they were caught on camera skulking around the house. For another—”

“Vampires would never have wasted all that blood,” Bobby cut in, unable to resist.

“Right.” Sid picked up a clicker from a nearby TV stand and the image onscreen changed to a closer-in shot of that central figure. It was sharper, too, like it had been enhanced. “However, we've identified one of the suspects as Nelson Ricci, a seventeen-year-old high school senior. He actually is part of the Tampa vampire community—the human vampire community—where he goes by the name of Dion. We assume that the others with him come from the same group.” Sid clicked over to a screen shot of the second shadow Marcy and I had noticed in the news footage. No amount of enhancement could turn a shadow into a mug shot, but it was clear that the shade had a few too many limbs, meaning it probably showed at least two people running side by side.

“Dion?” I mused. As vamp names went, it was hardly as awe-inspiring as Grigori or even Edward. It sounded more diva than devil.

“There's a vampire community in Tampa?” Bobby asked at the same time. “As in Tampa,
Florida
?
The Sunshine State? And this community lets in humans? I think my head might just explode.”

“If you would all stop interrupting,” Sid said stiffly, living up to his Stuffed Shirt label, “I'll get to all that.” He took a breath, as if he were planning to get the info out in one shot before anyone had another chance to cut in. “Yes, there's a vampire clutch in Tampa,
Florida
,
made up of people who behave like vampires—both energy vampires and bloodsuckers with prosthetic fangs. The thing is that the people who run the clubs and parties for these humans are the real thing. Hiding in plain sight, making money and feeding from willing donors who have no idea of the truth and would only be intrigued by it if they did.”

“Brilliant!” Bobby said.

“I'm so glad you approve,” Sid answered wryly.
“Anyway
,
our plan is twofold. We want to find these killer kids and, if we can, infiltrate the true vampire community. We're going in hard and soft. Gina, all of vampiredom knows about you because of the council's Kill or Capture order. We're going to use that to our advantage. You're going to go in, ask questions, snoop. Don't be too obvious, but don't be a wallflower either.”

I snorted. Like that was even a possibility.

“We want the vampires to notice you,” he continued, “and to bring you into the fold.”

“But—” Bobby started to protest.

Sid just talked over him. “Don't worry. They won't kill her. She's going to offer them something they want very badly.” We all looked at him expectantly.
“
You
.”

My jaw dropped and an objection formed on my lips, but Sid was already moving on. “Gina, you're going to pose as a double agent. Tell them you're finished working for the Feds. Too many rules and regulations, the pay is lousy … improvise. Convince them you can turn Bobby to their side as well, bring him in as a show of good faith. Once you're both on the inside, gather all the intelligence you can. We have reason to believe that the vampire council has hatched a new plan. We need to know what they're up to and locate their base of operations so we can stop them.”

“And you think the council is sharing their secrets with the club-running vamps of Tampa Bay?” I asked.

“I think that once you get Bobby to them, you and he will be passed quickly up the chain of command to those in the know.”

“Um … yay?”

“Marcy and Brent,” Sid continued without pause, “will be soft surveillance. While Gina's getting in good with the vamps, we want you two out there mingling with the patrons. Find out who associates or is associated with the killer kids. Talk to them. You're on the human element, but you're also to back up Bobby and Gina as your investigation allows. Their primary concern will be the vampire power players. However, it seems likely the two are connected. We need to find out how.”

“And catch the killers, of course,” Bobby cut in.