Once Bitten - Clare Willis Read online

  THE FIRST BITE

  Eric moved me toward one of the curtained-off areas. He lifted me easily and laid me across the couch, and then pulled the curtain closed. He hadn’t released my left hand and now he lifted my arm and licked the inside of my wrist. I literally shivered with pleasure, even though he was barely touching me. I closed my eyes and felt his lips touch my cheek, cold enough to cause me to flinch, but warming almost instantly. His kisses moved lightly across my face to my neck. I breathed in his scent and it flowed through me like a drug, swept away my inhibitions, all my conscious thoughts. His hands slipped under my dress and moved everywhere, bringing the nerves to life all over my body.

  “Angela, surrender yourself to me, and I will fulfill all your dreams.” His voice seemed to come from someplace deep inside me. Did he really say that?

  “Yes, yes, God, yes…” Did I really say that?

  His lips caressed my face, my arms, my neck. I felt his teeth against my skin like tiny shards of glass scraping and burning, but the pain was the same as the pleasure, and my body reached out to receive him. I was overwhelmed by a yearning to be closer to him, to merge with him so that nothing could ever separate us.

  Then came a sudden pinch of pain, exquisitely sharp…

  ONCE BITTEN

  CLARE WILLIS

  ZEBRA BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I owe a debt of gratitude to my agents, Joanna MacKenzie and Danielle Egan-Miller, and my editor, John Scognamiglio, for making my dream of being published come true; to my writing group (Joe, Amy, Yang, Susan, John, and Bill) for holding my feet to the fire; to Mom and Dad for passing on the writing gene; and to Vail for his unconditional support. I’d also like to thank Kevin Collins and Jane Willis for their advice on the technical aspects of advertising.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 1

  I met my vampire lover on a Wednesday.

  I almost missed my destiny that day by oversleeping, but if I had missed it, wouldn’t that have been my destiny instead? Usually I take the bus to work, but since I was late I drove my Mini to the lot next to our building in downtown San Francisco, resigning myself to the hemorrhagic rate of three dollars every twenty minutes. At lunchtime I’d move to a cheaper lot. After parking in a half-space that could only have accommodated my elfin vehicle, I stopped to watch a sailboat glide under the Bay Bridge. Sun sparkled on the water, the boat, the bridge, and the bikini-clad woman lying on the sailboat’s deck—a picture worth framing. It was the second Wednesday in October, the time when savvy tourists come to San Francisco because they know it’s when we have our best weather. Since playing hooky on a sailboat was not an option, I consoled myself with the promise of lunch at an outdoor café. Little did I know it would be the last time I’d be enjoying sunlight for quite a while.

  I revolved through the door of 555 Battery and waved to Clive, the silent security guard. The elevator was packed like the Tokyo subway, so I opted to walk the three flights to my office. Letters etched into a wavy glass wall in the lobby proclaimed the owner of my labor as Hall, Fitch, and Berg, Advertising. We were also known informally as HFB (and sometimes as Heel, Fetch, and Beg due to our reputation for doing anything to acquire an account). If a jingle pops into your head spontaneously while you’re cruising the supermarket aisle for soda pop or laundry detergent, it’s probably ours.

  The administrative assistant, Theresa, was standing outside her cubicle nibbling a fingernail. She ran to meet me, her three-inch heels clicking on the polished concrete floor.

  “Oh good, Angie, you’re here. The clients will be here in fifteen minutes, Lucy’s still not here, and Kimberley and Les are in Dick’s office waiting for you.”

  “Lucy’s still not here?”

  My boss, Lucy Weston, had missed the last two days of work without notifying anyone. This was out of character for her, but not unheard of at HFB. Last year, one overworked account supervisor had gone out for coffee and sent her resignation from Puerto Vallarta two weeks later. So no one had taken much time to worry about Lucy, as we were all busy trying to make her absence invisible to the clients. I had been in the office until 11 o’clock the night before, working on the Unicorn Pulp and Paper account, which was why I had overslept.

  Theresa shook her head. “No, nobody’s heard from her.”

  “So is somebody going to call the police today?”

  “Mary from HR is going to do it, but she’s trying to find any friends or family to call first, to see if Lucy told anyone where she was going.”

  I was harboring a secret hope that I’d get to do something around a client besides play stagehand for Lucy, so I had to admit to being somewhat grateful for her absence.

  “Which room are we using?” I walked toward my office with Theresa following in my wake.

  “Nobody told me anything,” she answered. “Lucy usually arranges the rooms with me.”

  “What rooms are available?”

  “Hammett is being used. Kerouac and Ferlinghetti are open.”

  “Kerouac will do. Pull down the projection screen and set up some snacks in there, okay?”

  “What do you think they want to drink?”

  I couldn’t resist the obvious answer. “How about some fresh blood?”

  Theresa laughed dutifully and veered off toward the Kerouac Room.

  I made this quip because our new clients were vampires. Macabre Factor consisted of a twenty-something Goth couple who were into the vampire club scene in San Francisco. They started out creating makeup that they used on themselves; chalk-white base tinged with blue, fine-tipped red liner to outline the veins in the neck, and fake fingernails in shades of green, gray, and blue. But when they showed up with real fangs and topaz eyes friends and admirers began clamoring to buy their products. Thus a business was born, with cosmetics manufactured in Sweden, contact lenses from China, and a dentist in Los Angeles with an exclusive contract to manufacture custom fangs that attached to your canines like dental crowns.

  I rushed down the hall to my office. All of the assistant account executives have real offices, as opposed to cubicles, which makes us feel very grown up, but every door has a narrow glass window next to it so our bosses can check up on us as they walk by.

  For two years Macabre Factor concentrated on selling only to their own kind through their website. But they had recently decided to expand their client base, and with many of the highest rated shows on TV this season featuring an undead creature of one sort or another, the market research showed that they had picked the perfect time. I wasn’t sure where the capital was coming from, since Macabre Factor was a small company, but it was going to be a big launch.

  This morning we were going to pitch our preliminary ideas for their campaign. Had Lucy been here this morning my job would have been to show up early and set up my computer as a backup in case Lucy’s went on the fritz, follow along as she gave the pitch and supply any details she might have forgotten, and make sure everyo
ne’s coffee cup was full. But I had done a lot of the background work on this account, so with Lucy absent I was hoping Dick might let me manage the meeting. It occurred to me that if anything bad had happened to Lucy I was to feel awfully guilty. In fact I already did.

  I threw my coat over the Aeron chair and shoved aside the pile of illustrations that I had been going over last night. The logo for Unicorn Pulp and Paper was a unicorn surfing on a ream of copy paper and we’d been choosing a personality for the new iteration. There was a classical unicorn, a chubby unicorn, a mean-looking unicorn with a drill-like horn, and an angelic unicorn whose horn resembled an upturned ice cream cone. In my dreams last night the mean unicorn had skewered the angelic unicorn like a shish kebab.

  When I turned on my computer the screen was cluttered with files, just like my desk, and the floor behind my chair, so I wasn’t surprised when I couldn’t immediately locate Macabre Factor. But after I did a search for it and turned up empty-handed, that was when I really began to panic. I’d spent five years working as an actor before starvation drove me to the ad business and one of my biggest fears then was forgetting my lines, imagining myself staring into the footlights like a stroke victim. This was the ad agency equivalent.

  I opened my email and began searching through the two hundred and eighty three messages in my inbox. We’d emailed the Macabre Factor illustrations back and forth dozens of times between Accounts and Creative but my email showed no evidence of it. At this point I started having another creeping feeling. This one was suspicion. I allowed myself to use a curse word that I was raised never to utter, but I was alone and in this case it was justified.

  I might have accidentally deleted a file, I could admit to that. But I did not go through two hundred and eighty three emails and trash every one pertaining to Macabre Factor. No, it was clear I had been sabotaged.

  Dick Partridge’s office was three doors down from mine. I knocked and went in without waiting for an answer, since I was already late. As VP of Consumer Product Advertising Dick had earned a large corner office with windows facing the turning cogs of progress in buildings across the street. It wasn’t a view of San Francisco Bay, but it was much nicer than my blank wall. He also had space for a round table and four chairs, which was where I found Dick, Les, and Kimberley.

  “Good morning, Angie,” Dick said, looking at his watch conspicuously. “I trust you have a good reason for your dilatory behavior, so let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

  We’d have to, since I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Dick Partridge talked like he had cotton balls in his nose and a stick up his you-know-what, using the longest words he could find to express the simplest ideas. Today he’d made the unfortunate choice of wearing a pink Oxford shirt. He looked like a pimple ready to burst.

  Next to him, writing industriously, was Kimberley Bennett, my fellow assistant account executive. She was also my roommate, although we never came to work together because Kimberley kept earlier hours than I think is healthy. Kimberley looked like Hollywood’s idea of an advertising executive: blond hair (fake, but not so you’d know) to her shoulders, big blue eyes, and an hourglass figure. To complete the image she wore skirts so short and heels so high she looked like she was on stilts. The black A-line skirt I was wearing ended sensibly at mid-calf, grazing the tops of my black leather boots. No sense competing when the game is fixed.

  Les Banks, the graphic artist, looked up from his BlackBerry to give me a nod and a smile. Because Les was a “creative,” he was allowed a laxity of attire that would never be tolerated in the account executives, who are known as the “suits.” Today he was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt adorned with a grinning skull. His buzz-cut brown hair revealed a perfectly oval head, both ears sported gold hoop earrings, and he had a tiny rectangle of facial hair under the lower lip which, when I first saw it, I thought was the result of neglectful shaving but later realized was a fashion statement. I secretly thought Les was quite good looking. In boring meetings I would sometimes fantasize about what his half-inch-long hair would feel like rubbing over my stomach. I managed a smile for Les, despite my misery.

  “What did I miss?” I tried to sound peppy.

  “We just convened,” said Dick. “As you are all aware, the clients are arriving instantaneously. We probably should have postponed, but of course nobody could have apprehended Lucy’s absence. Speaking of which, I’m sure no one wishes to arrogate her duties, but if she’s not back by tomorrow we’re going to have to discuss an emergency distribution of her clients. I’ve already set a meeting for ten o’clock in the Ferlinghetti Room. Which we’ll cancel if Lucy surfaces, as we trust she will. So, Kimberley and Angie, I guess this will be your chance to fly solo. Are you ready?”

  Kimberley jumped in before I’d even opened my mouth. “Oh, yes, Dick, the presentation is completely ready.”

  “Well, I would certainly like to attend, but my presence is required by a major client,” Dick said. “So you three are going to handle Macabre Factor this morning.”

  Kimberley batted her eyelashes at Dick. “Dick, since Lucy isn’t here, someone is going to have to take the lead. I’d like to volunteer. I coordinated the market research and I’m the most familiar with the account. And I’ve got the presentation right here on my laptop, ready to go.”

  Kimberley was the most familiar with the account? I cursed silently, but I couldn’t really blame her. We had both been laboring in Lucy’s chain gang for months; of course she would be plotting a break out as well. The only difference was that she didn’t care if there was collateral damage. But there was nothing I could do without making myself look like a faker, a whiner, or a tattletale.

  I looked at Les, expecting him to be claiming his free ticket to the ladies’ mud wrestling show that was about to begin, but he was busy digging dirt out of his fingernail with the cap of his pen. I made a mental note to myself to stop fantasizing about him.

  Dick didn’t miss a beat. “I suggest you handle the presentation conjunctively. Two heads are better than one.” He waved the backs of his hands at us. “Well, go ahead. Mustn’t keep the clients waiting. Although since they’re vampires, I suppose they are immutable.” His arch delivery indicated a joke, so we all laughed. Kimberley grabbed her laptop and rushed out the door.

  In the hall I saw Les walking in the wrong direction, to the Creative Department rather than the Kerouac room.

  “Les, aren’t you coming?”

  He turned around. “Listen, Angie, I’m swamped with another account. Do you think you could do this one without me?”

  His expression was plaintive. I had never noticed before that his hazel eyes were flecked with dark stripes, like a cat’s, but with him staring so intently at me I couldn’t miss it. Most of the people in Creative were chronically behind, the mark of an artist being asked to work in a widget factory. Les, however, had never asked me for special favors. I wondered why he was starting now.

  “Yes, all right, but only if you promise to keep your phone on in case they have any questions that only you can answer. Is that fair?”

  “I owe you one. And Angie, please don’t tell Dick I didn’t show, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He surprised me with a brief hug before dashing down the hall.

  When I arrived at the meeting Kimberley and the founders of Macabre Factor were already there, chatting amiably under a photograph of a cloud of cigarette smoke with Jack Kerouac inside it. Although I knew their legal names from the various contracts we had signed, Douglas and Marie Claire Paquin, they insisted on being called by their noms de sang, Suleiman and Moravia. These vampires didn’t seem to be the daylight avoiding type. Even though it was 9:00 A.M. they were as bright-eyed as game show contestants.

  “Good morning, Suleiman, Moravia,” I hurried to say. “I’m so sorry to be late.”

  “No, please, do not worry about it,” Suleiman answered, as he bowed over my hand. “Theresa made us very comfortable.”

/>   Suleiman’s accent was British plus something else, possibly Indian. His black hair was slicked back from his slightly receding hairline with a shiny hair gel, probably the one from their line called “Sleek.” His eyes were dark and thick-lashed and his skin was olive-toned. His outfit was straight out of Hedda Gabler: a pinstriped cutaway frock coat, paisley vest, and a red silk cravat secured with a pearl tie tack. He was unusual without being over the top, and despite my better judgment I was intrigued. I also wanted to know where he bought his clothes.

  Once, when Lucy had referred to the clients as “the vampires,” Moravia had corrected her.

  “We don’t say ‘vampires,’ we refer to those in the vampire lifestyle.”

  Since then we always used the politically correct term, at least to their faces. I assumed the vampire lifestyle meant dressing in black, frequenting night clubs, listening to Goth music, and drinking Bloody Marys. Although I’d never been to a vampire club, I felt I understood something about their chosen lifestyle. Taking on an unusual persona gives you an entrée into a world that is glamorous and different from your own mundane life. You can easily recognize who belongs and who doesn’t. I can’t count the number of late-night, coffee-driven conversations I’ve had with other actors about how much different (and better) our world was compared to the nine-to-five one. Of course, I recanted those statements when I couldn’t make my car payments, but I still understood that need to feel special.

  “Will Lucy be joining us this morning?” Moravia’s breathy voice interrupted my reverie.