INSATIABLE

MEG CABOT

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-one

Chapter Twenty-two

Chapter Twenty-three

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-five

Chapter Twenty-six

Chapter Twenty-seven

Chapter Twenty-eight

Chapter Twenty-nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-one

Chapter Thirty-two

Chapter Thirty-three

Chapter Thirty-four

Chapter Thirty-five

Chapter Thirty-six

Chapter Thirty-seven

Chapter Thirty-eight

Chapter Thirty-nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-one

Chapter Forty-two

Chapter Forty-three

Chapter Forty-four

Chapter Forty-five

Chapter Forty-six

Chapter Forty-seven

Chapter Forty-eight

Chapter Forty-nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-one

Chapter Fifty-two

Chapter Fifty-three

Chapter Fifty-four

Chapter Fifty-five

Chapter Fifty-six

Chapter Fifty-seven

Chapter Fifty-eight

Chapter Fifty-nine

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty-one

Chapter Sixty-two

Chapter Sixty-three

Author’s Note

About the Author

By Meg Cabot

Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter One

9:15 A.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

Downtown 6 platform

East Seventy-seventh Street and Lexington Avenue

New York, New York

It was a miracle.

Meena hurried onto the subway car and grabbed hold of one of the gleaming silver poles, hardly daring to believe her good fortune.

It was morning rush hour, and she was running late.

She’d expected to have to cram herself into a car packed with hundreds of other commuters who were also running late.

But here she was, still panting a little from having run all the way to the station, stepping into a car that was practically empty.

Maybe, she thought, things are going to go my way for a change.

Meena didn’t look around. She kept her gaze fastened on the ad above her head, which declared that she could have beautiful, clear skin if she called a certain Dr. Zizmor right away.

Don’t look, Meena told herself. Whatever you do, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look. …

With luck, she thought, she might make it all the way to her stop at Fifty-first Street without making eye contact or having any interaction at all with another human being. …

It was the butterflies—life-size—that caught Meena’s attention at first. No city girl would wear white pumps with huge plastic insects on the toes. The romance novel (Meena assumed it was a romance, based on the helpless-looking, doe-eyed young woman on the cover) the girl was reading had Cyrillic writing on it. The giant roller suitcase parked in front of her was an additional clue that the girl was from out of town.

Though none of that—including the fact that she’d pinned her long blond braids onto the top of her head, Sound of Music style, and had paired her cheap yellow polyester dress with purple leggings—was as dead a giveaway to her new-in-town status as what the girl did next.

“Oh, I sorry,” she said, looking up at Meena with a smile that changed her whole face and made her go from merely pretty to almost beautiful. “Please, you want sit?”

The girl moved her purse, which she’d left on the seat next to her, so that Meena could sit down beside her. No New Yorker would ever have done such a thing. Not when there were a dozen other empty seats on the train.

Meena’s heart sank.

Because now she knew two things with absolute certainty:

One was that, despite the miracle of the nearly empty subway car, things definitely weren’t going to go her way that day.

The other was that the girl with the plastic butterflies on her shoes was going to be dead before the end of the week.

Chapter Two

9:30 A.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

6 train

New York, New York

Meena hoped she was wrong about Miss Butterfly.

Except that Meena was never wrong. Not about death.

Giving in to the inevitable, Meena let go of the gleaming metal pole and slid into the seat the girl had offered.

“So, is this your first time visiting the city?” Meena asked Miss Butterfly, even though she already knew the answer.

The girl, still smiling, cocked her head.

“Yes. New York City!” she cried enthusiastically.

Great. Her English was basically nonexistent.

Miss Butterfly had pulled out a cell phone and was scrolling through some photos on it. She stopped on one and held it up for Meena to see.

“See?” Miss Butterfly said proudly. “Boyfriend. My American boyfriend, Gerald.”

Meena looked at the grainy picture. Oh, brother, she thought.

Why? Meena asked herself. Why today, of all days? She didn’t have time for this. She had a meeting. And a story to pitch. There was that head writing position, vacant now that Ned had had that very public nervous breakdown in the network dining room during spring sweeps.

Head writer was really where the money was on a show like Insatiable.

Meena needed money. And she was sure the pressure wouldn’t cause her to have a nervous breakdown. She hadn’t had one so far, and she had plenty of things to worry about besides Insatiable’s ratings.

A woman’s voice came over the subway car’s loudspeakers to warn that the doors were closing. The next stop, she announced, would be Forty-second Street, Grand Central Station.

Meena, having missed her own stop, stayed where she was.

God, Meena thought. When will my life stop sucking?

“He looks very nice,” she lied to Miss Butterfly about Gerald. “You’re here to visit him?”

Miss Butterfly nodded energetically.

“He help me get visa,” she said. “And—” She used the cell phone to mimic taking photos of herself.

“Head shots,” Meena said. She worked in the business. She understood exactly what Miss Butterfly was talking about. And her heart sank even more. “So you want to be a model. Or an actress?”

Miss Butterfly beamed and nodded. “Yes, yes. Actress.”

Of course. Of course this pretty girl wanted to be an actress.

Fantastic, Meena thought cynically. So Gerald was her manager, too. That explained a lot about the baseball cap—pulled down so low that Meena couldn’t see his eyes—and the number of gold chains around his neck in the photo.

“What’s your name?” Meena asked.

Miss Butterfly pointed at herself, as if surprised Meena cared to discuss her as opposed to the ultra-fantastic Gerald.

“I? I am Yalena.”

“Great,” Meena said. She opened her bag, dug around the mess inside it, and came up with a business card. She always had one handy for exactly this kind of situation, which unfortunately came up all too often … especially when Meena rode the subway. “Yalena, if you need anything—anything at all—I want you to call me. My cell phone number is on there. See it?” She pointed to the number. “You can call me anytime. My name is Meena. If things don’t work out with your boyfriend—if he turns out to be mean to you, or hurts you in any way—I want you to know you can call me. I’ll come get you, wherever you are. Day or night. And listen …,” she added. “Don’t show this card to your boyfriend. This is a secret card. For emergencies. Between girlfriends. Do you understand?”

Yalena just gazed at her, smiling happily.

She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand at all that Meena’s number might literally mean the difference between life and death for her.

They never understood.

The train pulled up to Forty-second Street station. Yalena jumped up.

“Grand Central?” she asked, looking panicky.

“Yes,” Meena said. “This is Grand Central.”

“I meet my boyfriend here,” Yalena said excitedly, grabbing her huge roller bag and giving it a yank. She took Meena’s card in her other hand, beaming. “Thank you! I call.”

She meant she’d call to get together for coffee sometime.

But Meena knew Yalena would call her for something totally different. If she didn’t lose the card … or if Gerald didn’t find it and take it away. Then give her a fist sandwich.

“Remember,” Meena repeated, following her off the train. “Don’t tell your boyfriend you have that. Hide it somewhere.”

“I do,” Yalena said, and scrambled toward the nearest flight of stairs, lugging her suitcase behind her. It was so huge, and Yalena was so small, she could barely drag it. Meena, giving in to the inevitable, picked up the bottom of the girl’s incredibly heavy suitcase and helped her carry it up the steep and crowded staircase. Then she pointed Yalena in the direction the girl needed to go—the boyfriend was meeting her “under the clock” in the “big station.”

Then, with a sigh, Meena turned around and headed for a train back uptown, so she could get to Madison and Fifty-third Street, where her office building was located.

Meena knew Yalena hadn’t understood a word she’d said. Well, maybe one in five.

And even if she had, there wouldn’t have been any point in telling the girl the truth. She wouldn’t have believed Meena, anyway.

Just like there was no point in following her now, seeing the boyfriend for herself, and then saying something to him like, “I know what you really are and what you do for a living. And I’m going to call the police.”

Because you can’t call the cops on someone for something they’re going to do. Any more than you can tell someone that they’re going to die.

Meena had learned this the hard way.

She sighed again. She was going to have to run now if she wanted to catch the next train uptown. …

She just prayed there wouldn’t be too many people on it.

Chapter Three

6:00 P.M. EET, Tuesday, April 13

History Department

University of Bucharest

Bucharest, Romania

Professor?”

Lucien Antonescu smiled up at her from the enormous antique desk behind which he sat, grading papers. “Yes?”

“So is it true,” Natalia asked, grasping at the first question she could think of, since she’d completely forgotten what she’d meant to ask him the moment his dark-eyed gaze fell upon her, “that the oldest human remains ever found were discovered in Romania?”

Oh, no! Human remains? How disgusting! How could she ask something so stupid?

“The oldest human remains found in Europe,” Professor Antonescu said, correcting her gently. “The oldest human remains ever found were discovered in Ethiopia. And they’re roughly a hundred and fifty thousand years older than the remains found in what we consider modern-day Romania, in the Cave with Bones.”

The girl was only half listening. He was the sexiest of all her instructors, and that included teaching assistants. On the University of Bucharest’s equivalent of Rateyourprof.com, Professor Lucien Antonescu had been given all 10s in the looks category.

And justifiably so, since he was over six feet tall, lean and broad shouldered, with thick dark hair that he wore brushed back from his temples and a smooth, gorgeous forehead.

As if all that weren’t enough, he had dark brown eyes that, in certain lights, when he was lecturing and grew excited about his subject matter—which happened frequently, because he was impassioned about Eastern European history—flashed red.

Surely the posts on the message boards were exaggerated … especially the ones hinting that he was related to the Romanian royal family and was a duke or a prince or something.

But since taking Professor Antonescu’s class, Natalia could see why he—and his course—was so popular. And why the line of girls—and some boys, though when he showed pictures of ancient Romanian art, Professor Antonescu spoke so appreciatively of the lush lines of the female form that there was no possible way he could be gay—at his office hours was so long. He was a gifted orator, with a regal yet very engaging presence. …

And he was so very, very hot.

“So,” Natalia said hesitantly, taking in the way his perfectly tailored black cashmere blazer molded those shoulders. She wondered why she couldn’t see his eyes—those dark, flashing eyes—better and realized it was because he had the shades to his office windows pulled down. She hoped he’d still notice that she’d worn a new shirt, one that showed off her cleavage to its best advantage. She’d bought it at a steep discount at H&M, but it still made her look irresistible. “It would be correct to say that Romania is the cradle of civilization in Europe.”

This, Natalia thought, sounded very intelligent.

“It would be a lovely idea, of course,” Professor Antonescu said, looking thoughtful. “Certainly there have been human beings living here for over two millennia, and this land has been the site of many bloody invasions, from the Romans to the Huns, until finally we had what today makes up modern-day Romania … Moldavia and Wallachia, and of course Transylvania. But the cradle of civilization … I don’t know that we can say that.” He was even better looking when he smiled, if such a thing were possible.

“Professor.”

The smile caused her to come undone. She knew she was not the first. His bachelor status was legendary, the intrigue heightening whenever he was spotted with a woman—never the same one twice—in the posher restaurants downtown. How many had he asked back to his castle—he owned a castle!—outside of Sighişoara, or to his enormous loft apartment in the trendiest district of Bucharest?

No one knew. Maybe hundreds. Maybe none. He didn’t seem to care to marry and start a family.

Well, all that would change when he tasted her cooking. Iliana, behind her in line to see him just now, had teased her for saying she was going to invite him over. So old-fashioned! She said Natalia should just offer to sleep with him right there, in his office, like Iliana was going to, and get it over with.

But Natalia’s mother had always told her she made the best sarmale of anyone in the family. One taste, her mother said, and any man would be hers.

“Yes?” Professor Antonescu asked, one of those thick dark eyebrows raising.

Natalia wished he hadn’t done this. It only made him look more attractive and made her feel more foolish for what she was about to do.

“Would you like to come to my place for a home-cooked meal sometime?” she asked, all in a rush. Her heart was beating wildly. She was sure he could see it thrumming behind her breast, considering how low-cut her new blouse was.

Something in the dimly lit office made a chirping sound.

“I beg your pardon,” Professor Antonescu said. He reached into the inside pocket of his expensive coat and produced a slim cell phone … top of the line, of course. “I thought I’d turned this off.”

Natalia stood there, wondering if she ought to say something about the sarmale or perhaps undo another button of her blouse, as Iliana would have done …

… but she hesitated when she saw Professor Antonescu’s expression change as his gaze fell on the name on the caller identification.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “This is an important call. I have to take it. Could we discuss this at another time?”

Natalia felt her cheeks growing red. It was merely because he was looking at her … and yet had never once lowered his gaze below her neck.

“Of course,” she said shamefacedly.

“And please tell the others,” Professor Antonescu said as he accepted the call, “that unfortunately I’ll have to end office hours early this evening. A family emergency.”

Family emergency. He had family?

“I’ll let them know,” the girl said, pleased. He trusted her! That would put Iliana in her place!

“Thank you,” Professor Antonescu said politely as she slunk from the dark, lushly decorated room, all in richly appointed leather-trimmed furniture and filled with manuscripts that were many centuries older than she was. Even Professor Antonescu’s office was different from the offices of her other instructors, which were as barren as a politburo’s and just as grim.

She opened the door, slipped through it, and turned to close it. …

But not before she heard him say, in a voice she had never heard him use before, and in English, “What? When?” Then, “Not again.”

Natalia turned then to see a look on his face that made her heart turn over in her chest.

But not in the joyful way it did when she spied him coming down the corridor toward the lecture hall.

Now she was afraid.

Deathly afraid.

Because those beautiful eyes of his had gone vermilion … the same color her shower water ran when she accidentally cut her leg while shaving.

Only this wasn’t a trickle of water. It was a man’s eyes. His eyes.

And they’d gone the color of blood.

His gaze was boring into her as if he could see straight through her blouse, past her bra, and into the most intimate places of her heart.

“Get out,” he said in a voice that she would swear later, when she told her mother about it, didn’t even sound human.

Natalia turned, threw open the door, and flung herself through it, flying with a face as white as death past the other students waiting to see their professor.

“Well, that obviously went well,” Iliana said with a sneer.

But when Iliana tried Professor Antonescu’s office door, she found it locked. She knocked and knocked, finally cupping both hands around her eyes and pressing them to the door’s frosted glass.

“The lights are out. I don’t see him in there. I think … I think he’s gone.”

But how could the professor have left a locked a room from which there was no other exit?

Chapter Four

9:45 A.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

Outside the ABN Building

East Fifty-third Street and Madison Avenue

New York, New York

Good morning, Miss Meena. The usual?” Abdullah, the guy in the glassed-in coffee stand outside her office building, asked her when it was finally her turn to order.

“Good morning, Abdullah,” Meena said. “Better make it a large. I’ve got a big meeting. Light, please. And don’t bother toasting the bagel today, I’m running really, really late.”

Abdullah nodded and went to work as Meena narrowed her gaze at him. She could tell he still hadn’t seen a doctor about his out-of-control blood pressure, despite the talk she’d had with him about it last week.

Seriously, she was the one who was going to stroke out one day if people didn’t start listening to her. She knew taking time from work to go to the doctor was a pain.

But when the alternative was dying?

Precognition.

Extrasensory perception.

Witchcraft.

It didn’t matter what anyone called it: In Meena’s opinion, as a skill, it was totally useless.

Had it been particularly helpful when she’d finally managed to convince her longtime boyfriend, David, about the tumor that she could sense was growing in his brain?

Sure, she’d saved David’s life (had they found the tumor any later, it would have been inoperable, the doctors said).

But David had left Meena immediately after his recovery for one of his perky radiology nurses. Brianna healed people who were sick, he’d said. She wasn’t a “freak” who told them they were going to die.

What had Meena gotten out of saving David? Nothing but a lot of heartache.

And she’d lost half the down payment on the apartment that they’d bought together. Which she still owed him. And which he was being a total jerk about her paying back on her pittance of a salary.

David and Brianna were buying their first house together. And expecting their first baby.

Of course.

Meena had learned from that experience—and all the ones before it—that no one was interested in finding out how they were going to die.

Except her best friend, Leisha, of course, who always listened to Meena … ever since that time in the ninth grade when Rob Pace asked her to that Aerosmith concert, and Meena told her not to go, and Rob took Angie Harwood instead.

That’s how Angie Harwood, and not Leisha, ended up getting decapitated when the wheel of a semi tractor-trailer came spinning off and landed on top of Rob’s Camaro as it was cruising down I-95 on the way home from the concert.

Meena, upon learning of the accident the morning after it occurred (Rob had miraculously escaped with only a broken collarbone), had promptly thrown up her breakfast.

Why hadn’t she realized that by saving her best friend from certain death, she’d all but guaranteed another girl’s? She ought to have warned Angie, too, and done anything—everything—to stop Rob from going that night.

She swore then that she would never allow what had happened to Angie Harwood to happen to another human being. Not if she could help it.

It was no wonder then that high school, torturous for many, had been even worse for Meena.

Which was how she got into television writing as a career. Real kids may not have enjoyed the company of the “You’re Gonna Die Girl” so much.

But the people Meena discovered on the soap operas her mom liked to watch—Insatiable had been a favorite—were always happy to see her.

And when the story lines on the soaps she liked didn’t go the way she thought they should, Meena started writing her own.

Surprisingly, this hobby had paid off.

Well, if you call being a dialogue writer for the second-highest-rated soap opera in America a payoff.

Which Meena did. Sort of. She knew she’d landed what millions would kill for … a dream job.

And given her “gift,” she knew her life could have been a thousand times worse. Look what had happened to Joan of Arc.

Then there was Cassandra, daughter of the Trojan king Priam. She too had been given the gift of prophecy. Because she hadn’t returned a god’s love, that gift was turned by that god into a curse, so that Cassandra’s prophecies, though true, would never be believed.

Hardly anyone ever believed Meena either. But that didn’t mean she was going to give up trying. Not on girls like the one she’d met on the subway, and not on Abdullah. She’d get him to go to the doctor, eventually.

It was just too bad, really, that the one person whose future Meena had never been able to see was her own.

Until now, anyway.

If she was much later to work, she was going to lose any chance whatsoever she had at convincing Sy to take her pitch seriously.

And forget about that promotion to head writer.

She didn’t need to be psychic to figure that out.

Chapter Five

7:00 P.M. EET, Tuesday, April 13

The hills outside of Sighişoara

Mures County, Romania

Lucien Antonescu was furious, and when he was furious, he sometimes lost control.

He’d frightened that young girl in his office nearly to death, and he hadn’t wanted to do that. He’d felt her fear … it had been sharp and as tightly wound as a garrote. She was a good person, longing, like most girls her age, only for love.

And he’d terrified her.

But he didn’t have time to worry about that now. Now he had a very serious situation that was going to require all of his attention for the immediate future.

And so he was doing what he could in an attempt to calm himself. His favorite classical piece—by Tchaikovsky—played over the hall’s speakers (which he’d purchased and had shipped from the U.S. at enormous expense; quality sound was important).

And he’d opened one of the truly exquisite bottles of Bordeaux in his collection and was letting it breathe on the sideboard. He could smell the tannins even from halfway across the room. The scent was soothing. …

Still, he couldn’t help pacing the length of the great hall, an enormous fire roaring in the stone hearth at one end of the room and the stuffed heads of various animals his ancestors had killed leering down at him from the walls above.

“Three,” he growled at the laptop sitting on the long, elaborately carved wooden table in the center of the room. “Three dead girls? All within the past few weeks? Why wasn’t I told this before now?”

“I didn’t realize that there was a connection between them, my lord,” the slightly anxious voice from the computer’s speakers said in English.

“Three exsanguinated corpses, all left nude in various city parks?” Lucien didn’t attempt to keep the sarcasm from his tone. “Covered in bite marks? And you didn’t realize there was a connection. I see.”

“Obviously the authorities don’t want to start a citywide panic,” the voice said fretfully. “My sources didn’t know anything about the bite marks until this morning. …”

“And what attempts,” Lucien asked, ignoring this last remark, “have been made to discover who is committing these atrocities?”

“Everyone I’ve spoken to denies any knowledge whatsoev—”

Lucien cut him off. “Then obviously you’re not speaking to the appropriate people. Or someone is lying.”

“I … I can’t imagine anyone would dare,” the voice said hesitantly. “They know I’m speaking on your authority, sire. I feel … if I may, sire … that it isn’t … well, one of us. Someone we know.”

Lucien paused in his circuit around the room.

“That’s impossible,” he said flatly. “There’s no one we don’t know.”

He turned and approached the wine decanter, which was filled with rich ruby liquid. He could see the reflection of the firelight against one side of the perfect crystal globe.

“It’s one of us,” Lucien said, inhaling the earthy fragrance of the Bordeaux. “Someone who has forgotten himself. And his vows.”

“Surely not,” the voice said nervously. “No one would dare. Everyone knows the repercussions of committing such a crime under your rule. That your retribution will be swift … and severe.”

“Nevertheless.” Lucien picked up the decanter and watched as the liquid inside left a deep red film against the far side of the crystal bulb. “Someone’s savagely killing human women and leaving their bodies out in the open to be discovered.”

“He is putting all of us at risk,” the voice from the laptop agreed hesitantly.

“Yes,” Lucien said. “Needlessly so. He must be discovered, punished, and stopped. Permanently.”

“Yes, my lord,” the voice said. “Only … how? How are we to discover him? The police … my informants tell me that the police haven’t a single lead.”

Lucien’s perfectly formed lips curved into a bitter smile. “The police,” he said. “Ah, yes. The police.” He glanced away from the decanter he held, toward the face on the computer screen a few yards away. “Emil, find me a place to stay. I’m coming to town.”

“Sire?” Emil looked startled. “You? Are you certain? Surely that won’t be—”

“I’m certain. I will find our murdering friend. And then …”

Lucien opened his fingers and let the decanter fall to the flagstones beneath his feet. The crystal bell smashed into a thousand pieces, the wine it contained making a deep red smear across the floor, where, centuries before, Lucien had watched his father dash the brains of so many of their servants.

“I will show him myself what happens when anyone dares to break a vow to me.”

Chapter Six

10:30 A.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

ABN Building

520 Madison Avenue

New York, New York

Meena was wolfing down her bagel when Paul, one of the breakdown writers, poked his balding head into her office.

“I don’t have time to help you update your Facebook page right now, Paul,” Meena said. “I’ve only got a minute before I have to meet with Sy.”

“I take it you didn’t hear, then,” Paul said morosely.

“Hear what?” Meena asked with her mouth full.

“About Shoshona.”

Meena’s blood went cold.

So it had finally happened. And it was all her fault for not saying anything.

But how did you warn someone that her advanced state of gymorexia was going to kill her? Treadmills were not widely known to be fatal, and Shoshona was so proud to have gotten down to size 00.

The truth was, Shoshona had never been one of Meena’s favorite people.

“She … died?”

“No.” Paul looked at Meena strangely. “She got the head writer position. I guess it happened last night.”

Meena choked.

“Wh-what?” She blinked back tears. She told herself they were tears from a chunk of bagel going down the wrong tube.

But they weren’t.

“Didn’t you see the e-mail?” Paul asked. “They sent it around this morning.”

“No,” Meena croaked. “I was on the subway.”

“Oh,” Paul said. “Well, I’m updating my résumé. I figure she’ll be firing me soon anyway so she can hire one of her club-hopping friends. Would you mind looking it over later?”

“Sure,” Meena said numbly.

But she was only half listening to him. They’d passed her over for Shoshona? After all the hard work she’d done this year? Much of it Shoshona’s work, because Shoshona was forever leaving the office early to go work out?

No. Just no.

Meena was standing in the door to Sy’s office exactly two minutes before their appointed meeting, anger bubbling over.

“Sy,” she said. “I’d like to speak to you about—”

That was when she noticed Shoshona was already sitting in one of the chairs in front of his desk, wearing, as usual, something from Crewcuts, the J.Crew children’s section; she was that skinny.

“Oh, Meena,” Shoshona Metzenbaum said, tossing some of her long, silky dark hair. “There you are. I was just telling Sy how much I love the little treatment you gave him. The one about Tabby being in love with that bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks? So sweet.”

Sweet? Up until today, Shoshona’s only job responsibility at Insatiable had been, like Meena’s, to write the dialogue for story breakdowns, especially those featuring the show’s biggest and longest-running star, Cheryl Trent, who played Victoria Worthington Stone, and now her teenage daughter on the show, Tabitha.

Except that Shoshona had rarely been able to handle even that, always leaving early to go to the gym or calling to say she’d be late because her convertible had broken down on the way back into the city from the Metzenbaum family weekend home in the Hamptons.

Or the decorator who was redoing her downtown loft hadn’t shown up on time.

Or she’d missed the last flight out of St. Croix and was going to have to stay another night.

Not that anyone who mattered ever got upset about these things, considering who Shoshona’s aunt and uncle were: Fran and Stan Metzenbaum, Insatiable’s executive producers and cocreators.

It would have been different, Meena thought, if Shoshona had actually deserved this promotion. If it had been Paul or any of the other writers who actually showed up to the office once in a while, Meena wouldn’t have minded.

But Shoshona? Meena had once overheard her bragging on the phone to a friend that she’d never even watched the show until her aunt and uncle had hired her to come work for them … unlike Meena, who’d never missed a single episode—not since she turned twelve. Shoshona didn’t know the names of every single one of Victoria’s ex-husbands, the way Meena did, or why they’d broken up (Victoria was insatiable, it was true, but not terribly lucky in love). Or that Victoria’s beloved teenage daughter, Tabitha, was following in her mom’s footsteps. (So far they’d managed to kill off every single one of Tabby’s love interests. The latest had just been blown up in a Jet Ski accident intended for Tabby by a spurned stalker.)

“I’m glad you like it,” Meena said with forced patience. “I thought throwing in a bad boy for Tabby might attract a younger demographic—”

“That’s exactly what we’re hearing from corporate,” Shoshona said, flinging Sy an astonished glance. “We were just sitting here discussing that. Weren’t we, Sy?”

“We were,” Sy said, beaming at Meena. “Come on in, kid, and take a seat. You heard the great news about Shoshona?”

Meena couldn’t bring herself to look at Shoshona, she was so furious. She kept her gaze on Sy as she sank into the other Aeron chair in front of his desk.

“I did,” she said. “And I was really hoping to have a word with you in private this morning, Sy.”

“Nothing you can’t say to me in front of Shoshona,” Sy said jovially, waving a hand. “Frankly, I think this is just fantastic. We’re going to have some real estrogen power going on here!”

Meena stared at him. Had Sy really just said the words estrogen power?

And could he actually not know that Meena had been the one doing all of Shoshona’s work for the past twelve months?

“Right,” Shoshona said. “So I think Meena should be one of the first to know about the new direction the network would like to see us start heading in.”

“The network?” Meena echoed bewilderedly.

“Well, our sponsor, really,” Shoshona said, correcting herself.

To Meena’s knowledge, Consumer Dynamics Inc.—Insatiable’s sponsor, a multinational technology and services conglomerate, which also happened to own Affiliated Broadcast Network—had never once lowered itself to bother with the show.

Until now, apparently.

“In a word,” Shoshona said, “they want us to go vampire. All vampire, all the time.”

Meena immediately felt the bagel and coffee she’d had for breakfast come back up.

“No,” she said after swallowing hard. “We can’t do that.”

Sy blinked confusedly at Meena. “Why the hell not?”

She ought to have known. Her day, which had already started off so badly, could only get worse. Lately her whole life had been headed in a steady downward trajectory.

“Well, for one thing, because there’s already a soap opera on a rival network with a vampire story line that’s killing us in the ratings,” Meena said. “A little show called Lust. Remember? I mean, we have to have some pride. We can’t just outright copy Lust.”

Shoshona pretended to be busy straightening her patterned hose as Meena spoke. Sy, peering over his desk, couldn’t take his eyes off her long, coltish legs.

Meena wished she had a mini-Butterfinger for sustenance. Or to smash into Shoshona’s flat-ironed hair.

Flat-ironing! Who even bothered anymore?

Certainly not Meena, who had hacked off most of her dark hair at Leisha’s command—Leisha’s “gift” was that she could look at anyone and immediately tell them exactly the most flattering way they ought to be wearing their hair—and who had enough problems making it to work on time without having to worry about flat-ironing, even when she wasn’t busy trying to save young girls on the subway from certain death by white slavery.

“We’ll look like total fools,” Meena said.

“I don’t think so,” Shoshona said coolly. “Lust is obviously doing something right. It’s one of the few soaps right now that hasn’t been canceled or been forced to move to L.A. to shoot to save money. It’s actually going up in the ratings. And like you said, if we’re going to survive, we need to pull in a younger demographic. Kids don’t care about soaps. It’s all about reality shows to them.”

“And what’s so real,” Meena demanded, “about vampires?”

“Oh, I assure you, they’re real,” Shoshona said with a catlike smile. “You’ve read about those girls they keep finding, drained of all their blood, in parks all over New York City, haven’t you?”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Meena said sourly. “They weren’t drained of all their blood. They were just strangled.”

“Um, excuse me,” Shoshona said. “But I have an inside source who says all three of those girls were bitten everywhere and drained of every drop of their blood. There’s a real-life vampire here in Manhattan, and he’s feeding on innocent girls.”

Meena rolled her eyes. Okay. It was true some girls had turned up dead lately in a few city parks.

But drained of their blood? Shoshona was taking vampire fever—which, yes, gripped the country, there was no denying that; it was obvious enough that even Consumer Dynamics Inc. was aware of it, and they were so oblivious to trends that they still thought having a MySpace page was cutting-edge—too far.

“So let’s give the show a pulled-from-the-headlines feel,” Shoshona went on, “and have a vampire feed on the girls in Insatiable. Tabby’s friends. And let him brainwash Tabby, and let Tabby be his vampire bride.”

Sy pointed at Shoshona. “Vampire bride,” he yelled. “I love it. Even better, CDI loves it!”

Meena contemplated getting up, walking over to Sy’s office window, opening it, and jumping.

“And you haven’t heard the pièce de résistance,” Shoshona said. “I can get Gregory Bane—”

Sy gasped and leaned forward. “Yes?”

Meena moaned and dropped her head into her hands. Gregory Bane played the vampire on Lust. There wasn’t a single person on earth who was sicker of Gregory Bane than Meena.

And she’d never even met him.

“—to get Stefan Dominic to read for the part of the vampire,” Shoshona went on.

Sy, looking disappointed, sank back into his chair. “Who the hell is Stefan Dominic?” he barked.

Shoshona smirked.

“Only Gregory Bane’s best friend,” she said. “I mean, they go clubbing together practically every weekend. I know you’ve seen his picture with Gregory in Us Weekly, Sy. The press we’ll get from hiring him will be huge. I can’t believe no one’s snatched him up already. And the best thing? He has his SAG card, and he can come in this Friday to read with Taylor.” Shoshona looked like the cat who’d swallowed the canary. “I already talked to him about it. He goes to my gym.”

Suddenly, Meena knew exactly why Shoshona was spending so much time on that treadmill. And it didn’t have anything to do with fitting into those Crewcuts.

“There is no way,” Meena said, fighting for inner patience, “that Taylor”—Taylor Mackenzie was the actress who played Tabby—“is going to agree to play a vampire bride.”

Taylor had recently gone on a macrobiotic diet and hired a personal trainer, shrinking herself down to Shoshona’s size. Although Taylor was delighted about this—and the attention the tabloids were paying to her because of it—she needed to watch out if she too didn’t want to end up in a coffin … something Meena had been trying to warn her about by leaving large deli sandwiches in her dressing room. Not exactly subtle, but the best Meena could do.

“Tabby will like it if the network tells her to,” Shoshona said. “This is what ABN wants.”

Meena was trying very hard not to grit her teeth. Her dentist had already chastised her for doing this in her sleep and prescribed her a mouth guard. Meena dreaded wearing it, because it wasn’t exactly the most romantic thing to show up wearing to bed. She looked like a hockey goalie.

But it was that, the dentist said, or a new, less stressful job.

And there were none of those to be found. At least not in television writing.

And since Meena was currently sleeping alone, she guessed it didn’t matter what she looked like anyway.

“Cheryl isn’t going to like it,” Meena warned them. Cheryl was the veteran actress who’d played Victoria Worthington Stone for the past thirty years. “You know she’s been hoping this is the year she’ll finally get that Emmy.”

Thirty years, ten marriages, four miscarriages, one abortion, two murders, six kidnappings, and an evil twin later, and Cheryl Trent still had never won a single Daytime Emmy.

It was a crime, in Meena’s opinion. Not just because Meena was one of Cheryl’s biggest fans and getting to write for her was the thrill of a lifetime, but because Cheryl was one of the nicest ladies Meena had ever met.

And part of Meena’s plan, in the story line she’d submitted to Sy—but which he’d just passed over for Shoshona’s vampire plot—had been for Victoria Worthington Stone to fall for Tabby’s new boyfriend’s father, a bitter police chief Victoria was going to help reunite with his wayward son … giving Cheryl a sure shot at that golden statuette for which she so longed.

But a vampire story line? No one was going to be handing out Emmies for that.

“Yeah, well,” Shoshona said, narrowing her eyes at Meena, “Cheryl can cry me a river.”

Meena’s jaw dropped. This was the thanks she got for having saved Shoshona’s butt so many times with her late scripts?

Why had she even bothered?

“I love it,” Sy said, snapping his fingers. “Run it past your aunt and uncle. I gotta go, I’ve got a meeting.” He stood up.

“Sy,” Meena said. Her mouth felt dry.

“What?” He looked annoyed.

“Don’t …”

There were so many things she wanted to say. Felt as if she had to say. For the good of her soul. For the good of the show. For the good of the country as a whole.

Instead, she just said, “Don’t take Fifth. There’s congestion. I heard it on 1010 Wins. Have the cabbie take Park.”

Sy’s face relaxed. “Thanks, Harper,” he said. “Finally, something useful out of you.” Then he turned and left the room.

Meena swiveled her head to stare daggers at Shoshona.

Not because she was irritated that she’d just saved Sy’s life—if he took Fifth, his cab would, indeed, meet with congestion that would so irritate him, he’d get out and walk, causing him to jaywalk injudiciously at Forty-seventh and be struck by a Fresh Direct truck—and he wasn’t the least bit grateful, but because she knew what “Run it past it your aunt and uncle” meant.

It meant Shoshona had won.

“Vampires,” Meena said. “Real original, Metzenbaum.”

Shoshona stood up, slinging her bag over her shoulder. “Get over it, Harper. They’re everywhere. You can’t escape them.”

She turned and walked out.

And for the first time, Meena noticed the gem-encrusted dragon on the side of Shoshona’s tote.

No. It couldn’t be.

But it was.

The Marc Jacobs tote Meena had secretly been lusting after for half a year but denying herself because it cost $5,000.

And no way could Meena afford—or justify spending—that much money on a bag.

And, all right, Shoshona had it in aquamarine, not the ruby red that would perfectly round out Meena’s wardrobe.

But still.

Meena stared after her, grinding her teeth.

Now she was going to have no choice but to make an emergency run at lunch to CVS in order to restock her secret candy drawer.

Chapter Seven

12:00 P.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

Walmart parking lot

Chattanooga, TN

Alaric Wulf didn’t consider himself a snob. Far from it.

If anyone back at the office ever bothered to ask—and, with the exception of his partner, Martin, none of those ingrates ever had—Alaric would have pointed out that for the first fifteen of his thirty-five years, he’d lived in abject poverty, eating only when his various stepfathers won enough money at the track, and then only if there was enough cash left over for food after his drug-addicted mother was done scoring.

And so Alaric had chosen to live on the streets (and off his wits) in his native Zurich, until child services caught him and forced him go to a group home, where he’d been surprised to find himself much better cared for by strangers than he’d ever been by his own family.

It was in the group home that Alaric had been brought to the attention of, and eventually recruited by, the Palatine Guard, thanks to what turned out to be a strong sword arm, unerring aim, an innate aptitude for languages, and the fact that nothing—not his stepfathers, social workers, priests who claimed to have the voice of God whispering in their ear, or blood-sucking vampires—intimidated (or impressed) him.

Now Alaric slept on eight-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets every night, drove an Audi R8, and routinely dined on favorite dishes like foie gras and duck confit. His suits were all Italian, and he wouldn’t have dreamed of donning a shirt that hadn’t been hand pressed. He enjoyed swimming a hundred laps, then sitting in the sauna every morning at the gym; had an active sex life with numerous attractive and cultured women who knew nothing of his background; collected Betty and Veronica comic books (which he had to have specially shipped to Rome from America at a not-unimpressive cost); and killed vampires for a living as part of a highly secretive military unit of the Vatican.

Life was good …

True, he had a lifestyle upon which most of his coworkers frowned. The majority of them, for instance, preferred to stay in local convents or rectories while traveling, while Alaric always checked into the finest hotel he could find … which he paid for himself, of course. Why not? He didn’t have any children or parents to support. Was it his fault that an early interest in investing (particularly in precious metals, specifically gold, which he couldn’t help noticing there seemed to be a great deal of around the Vatican) had made him his Zurich banker’s favorite client?

Still, in no way did Alaric Wulf consider himself a snob. He could “rough it” like anyone else. He was, in fact, “roughing it” now.

Sitting in his rental car outside a large discount retail establishment in Chattanooga—Chattanooga; what a name for a city!—Alaric watched as the lunchtime crowd flooded toward the store. A sketchy report from a pair of frantic parents had worked its way to his superiors at the Palatine Guard: A young woman who worked at this particular Walmart had been attacked by a vamp in this very parking lot on her way home from work one night. She still bore the telltale puncture wounds on her neck.

The problem was that she insisted to her parents that the marks were not from an “attack” at all but were the result of a “love bite.”

In other words, she adored her attacker.

Of course, Alaric thought with his customary cynicism. They all do. Society had romanticized vampires to the point that many impressionable young women threw themselves at the actors who played vampires in movies and on television.

Not that it was their fault. Women were genetically programmed to be attracted to powerful and good-looking men, men with a high testosterone level who would make good providers for their children, which was how vampires—rich, tall, strong, and handsome—were usually portrayed on film.

Alaric wondered if women would feel quite the same about vampires if they could have seen his former partner Martin in the ICU after they’d tangled with the nest of vamps they’d found in that warehouse outside of Berlin. They’d torn half of Martin’s face off. He was still sucking his dinner through a straw.

Fortunately, the demons had left him the use of his eyes, so he would still see the daughter he and his partner Karl had adopted—Alaric’s goddaughter, Simone—celebrate her fourth birthday.

Thus Alaric’s dedication to his work.

Of course, he’d been dedicated before that particular incident. How many other careers allowed you to use a sword? He could think of very few.

And Alaric was very fond of his sword, Señor Sticky. The blade, unlike humans, did not lie. It didn’t cheat, and it didn’t discriminate … even if vampires were stupid. Especially American vampires. They hung out in places Alaric himself would never have gone, especially if he were immortal. Such as high schools. And Walmart.

If Alaric were a vampire—and that was never going to happen, because if by some heinous accident of fate he were even bitten enough times for that to occur, Martin was under instructions to kill him instantly, no matter how much he fought—he’d step it up. Target, maybe.

Alaric supposed vampires avoided Target because of the parking lot security cameras. (It was a myth that vampires wouldn’t show up in mirrors or on film. Certainly in the old days it had been true, when silver-backed mirrors and film had been the norm. But now that the world had gone digital—and mirrors were cheap—vampire reflections could be caught just like anyone else’s.) Alaric actually liked Target. They didn’t have Target in Rome. He’d bought a Goofy watch the last time he’d been in a Target. The other guards had made fun of him, but he liked his Goofy watch. It was old-fashioned and didn’t do anything but tell time.

But sometimes all you needed was to know the time.

Alaric’s cell phone buzzed, and he laid down his Betty and Veronica comic and fished the phone from his coat pocket, then read the text he’d received with interest.

Manhattan. Reports of completely exsanguinated bodies. At least three dead.

Alaric had to read the message twice to make sure he’d read it right.

Exsanguinated bodies? There hadn’t been a vampire stupid enough actually to drain a body completely of blood in a century. At least not that Alaric knew of.

Because that—unlike what this vamp was doing in Chattanooga—was murder, and not simply assault with a pair of fangs.

And assault like that could never even be proven—not in a regular court of law—because the victim had given consent … due to mind control, of course.

But only the Palatine and the girl’s parents would ever believe that.

If some vamp was stupid enough actually to be murdering his victims, that could only mean one thing:

The prince would be crawling out of whatever hole he’d been hiding in for the past century.

He’d have to. He’d never allow something like this to jeopardize the safety of his minions.

Alaric grinned. His week was looking a whole lot brighter.

Suddenly, through the crowds, Alaric saw a uniformed Walmart employee coming his way, toward the car the girl’s parents had described as hers and that Alaric had carefully parked alongside.

Sarah didn’t resemble the photo her parents had provided … at least, not anymore. Being a vamp’s personal blood donor could do that to a woman. Her formerly round cheeks were thin, and her uniform was hanging on her wasted frame. Her curly red hair had lost its bounce, and she was wearing a kerchief of some kind around her neck to hide the “love bite” her new friend had left behind during his last visit.

She was so anemic, she didn’t even notice when Alaric got out of his car and stood there in front of her, a massive figure in the noonday sun, Señor Sticky carefully hidden—for now—in the folds of his trench coat. She just kept slurping on the large cup of soda she was holding.

She needed all that soda, he supposed. She had to keep building up new plasma if she was going to be someone’s dinner tonight.

“Sarah,” Alaric said quietly.

She stopped short and finally looked up at him, her blue-eyed gaze listless.

Now was the time to show her the sword. Sometimes it was the only thing that got through to them in their ardor-induced stupors.

Alaric pushed back the folds of his coat.

“Just tell me where he is, Sarah,” he said gently. “And I’ll let you live.”

Chapter Eight

2:00 P.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

ABN Building

520 Madison Avenue

New York, New York

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED. …

WHAT: A fancy dinner at our place, 910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11A

WHEN: Thursday, April 15, at 7:30 P.M.

WHY: Emil’s cousin, the prince, is in town!

DRESS: Fancy! DRESS UP! This is your chance to meet real, old-fashioned royalty! Dig out your fanciest, sexiest, most expensive shoes and dresses and have fun! No need to feel down just because your husband won’t let you take the platinum card out for a spin! Shop your closet and we’ll see you on Thursday!

xoxo Mary Lou

Meena stared at her computer monitor.

She was supposed to be working on the dialogue for next week’s explosive scene in which Tabby confronted her mother for sleeping with her riding instructor, Romero, on whom Tabby herself had a crush.

But all she could think about was Shoshona’s promotion and her horrible vampire story line, which Fran and Stan had, of course, approved, agreeing with the network (who agreed with CDI) that it was going to make Insatiable more appealing to the all-important eighteen-to-forty-nine female demographic … which would in turn bring in more advertising money. Which would in turn get them all raises (the Insatiable writing staff had been under a pay freeze for more than a year).

Then Mary Lou’s e-mail had popped into her in-box.

And Meena lost all ability whatsoever to concentrate on anything else.

Appalled, Meena forwarded the e-mail to her best friend, Leisha.

“Who is this person?” Leisha called a few minutes later to ask.

“My next-door neighbor Mary Lou,” Meena said, astonished that Leisha wouldn’t remember. She only complained about something Mary Lou had said or done every other day.

“Oh, that’s right,” Leisha said. “The one you used to like until she started stalking you on the elevator every day—”

“—trying to fix me up with every single guy she knows,” Meena finished for her, “after David and I broke up. Right. Plus, she keeps going on about how she traced her husband Emil’s ancestry back to Romanian royalty. She figured out he’s a count, which makes her a—”

“Countess,” Leisha said. Meena could hear hair dryers buzzing in the background. Leisha worked as a stylist at a high-end salon in SoHo. “Wasn’t she the one on the co-op board of your building who wouldn’t let you and David buy the apartment at first because you weren’t married? But then when she found out you write for Insatiable, she changed her mind because she’s a big Victoria Worthington Stone fan?”

“Yeah,” Meena said. She took a bite from the mini-Butterfinger she’d pulled from her secret snack drawer. “And she hates Jon but she pretends she doesn’t.”

“What’s she hate your brother for?” Now Leisha sounded surprised.

“She thinks he’s a mooch for moving in with me,” Meena said. “The real question is, how am I going to get out of going to her party?”

“Uh,” Leisha said, “no offense … but why wouldn’t you go? Last I heard, your social calendar wasn’t exactly jam-packed.”

“Yeah, well,” Meena said, “I don’t have time to be hobnobbing with alleged Romanian princes when I need to be worrying about what’s going to happen next to Victoria Worthington Stone and her vulnerable yet headstrong daughter, Tabitha.” Meena took another bite of her mini-Butterfinger. The important thing was to make each one last as long as possible, which was difficult, because they were so small.

“Stupid of me,” Leisha said. “Of course. So what is going to happen to Victoria Worthington Stone and her vulnerable yet headstrong daughter, Tabitha?”

Meena sighed. “One guess. It came down from on high today. Written on a stone tablet from Consumer Dynamics Inc. itself.”

“What was it?”

“Lust started a vampire story arc, and they’re killing us in the ratings. So …”

Leisha let out a little burble of laughter. “Oh, yeah. Gregory Bane. Guys have been asking me to do their hair like his for weeks. Like it’s an actual style and not something accomplished with a razor blade and some mousse. People are psycho for that guy.”

“Tell me about it.” Meena spun around in her office chair so she could look away from her computer screen and out over the gray valley of skyscrapers that made up Fifty-third Street between Madison and Fifth. She knew that, somewhere out there, Yalena was finding out that her dreams of a new life in America weren’t exactly turning out the way she’d expected them to. Meena wondered how long it would be before she’d call. Or if she’d ever call. “I don’t get it. The guy looks like a toothpick. With hair.”

Leisha bubbled with more laughter. Meena loved the sound of Leisha’s laughter. It cheered her up and reminded her of the old days, before they’d both ended up with mortgages.

Still, Meena felt obligated to say, “It’s not funny. You know how I feel about vampires.”

“Yeah,” Leisha said, sounding a little bored. “What is it you’re always saying again? In the cult of monster misogyny, vampires are king?”

“Well,” Meena said, “they do always seem to choose to prey on pretty female victims. And yet for some reason, women find this sexy.”

“I don’t,” Leisha said. “I want to be killed by Frankenstein. I like ’em big. And stupid. Don’t tell my husband.”

“Even though these guys admit over and over to wanting to kill us,” Meena went on, “the idea that they’re nobly restraining themselves from doing so is supposed to be attractive? Excuse me, but how is knowing a guy wants to kill you hot?”

“The fact that he wants to but doesn’t makes some girls feel special,” Leisha said simply. “Plus, vampires are all rich. I could deal with having some rich guy who wants to kill me—but is nobly restraining himself—being super into me right now. Adam doesn’t have a job, but he won’t even help with the laundry.”

“Vampires aren’t real!” Meena shouted into the phone.

“Calm down. Look, I don’t see what the big deal is,” Leisha said. “If someone who can tell how everyone she meets is going to die can exist, why can’t vampires?”

Meena took a deep breath. “Did I tell you Shoshona got the gig as head writer? Why don’t you just twist the knife?”

“Oh, my God.” Leisha sounded apologetic. “I’m so, so sorry, Meen. What are you going to do?”

“What can I do?” Meena asked. “Wait it out. She’s going to screw up eventually. Hopefully when she does, the show and I will both still be here, and I can step in and save the day.”

“Got it,” Leisha said. “Hero complex.”

Meena knit her brows. “What?”

“Vampires are monster misogynists,” Leisha said. “And you have a hero complex. You always have. Of course you think you’re going to save the show. And probably the world, while you’re at it.”

Meena snorted. “Right. Enough about me. How’s Adam?”

“Hasn’t gotten off the couch in three days,” Leisha replied.

Meena nodded, forgetting that Leisha couldn’t see her. “That’s normal for the first month after a layoff.”

“He just lies there in front of CNN, like a zombie. He’s starting to freak out about this serial killer thing.”

“What serial killer thing?” Then Meena remembered what Shoshona had been talking about in her meeting with Sy. “Oh, that thing with the dead girls, in the parks?”

“Exactly. You know, he actually grunted at me the other day when I asked him if he’d picked up the mail from the box downstairs.”

Meena sighed. “Jon was the same way after he lost his job and had to move in with me. At least he does laundry now. Only because I have a washer-dryer unit in the apartment and you can’t help tripping over the piles on the way to it.”

“I asked Adam when he was going to get started with the baby’s room,” Leisha said. “Or the baby’s alcove, I guess I should call it, since that room is so small, it’s practically a closet. Still, he has to put a door on it, and the drywall, and paint it and everything. You know what he said? It’s still too early and that there’s plenty of time. Thomas is coming in two months! Sometimes I don’t know if we’re going to make it. I really don’t.”

“Yes, you will,” Meena said soothingly. “We’ll get through all of this. Really, we will.”

Meena didn’t believe this, of course. It had been months since her brother, Jon, had been laid off from the investment company where he’d worked as a systems analyst, and he was no closer to finding a job than he’d been the day of his firing … same as Leisha’s husband, Adam, who’d been Jon’s college roommate before Jon had introduced him to Leisha. The few jobs that were out there in their fields had hundreds, maybe thousands, of equally qualified applicants vying for them.

“Is that a prediction?” Leisha asked.

“It is,” Meena said firmly.

“I’m holding you to that,” Leisha said. “Well, good luck with the prince. I’d wear black. Black is always appropriate. Even for meeting royalty.” She hung up.

Meena set the receiver down, chewing her lower lip. She hated lying to Leisha.

Because things weren’t going to be fine.

Something was wrong. Leisha kept telling Meena that her due date was two months away.

And maybe that’s what her doctor had said.

But the doctor was wrong. Every time Leisha said it—“Thomas is coming in two months”—Meena felt an uncomfortable twinge.

The baby—Meena was positive—was coming next month. Possibly even sooner than that.

And Thomas! Leisha and Adam wanted to name their baby Thomas Weinberg!

That kid was going to be a pretty funny-looking Thomas, considering that it was a girl and not a boy.

But how did you tell an expectant mother that everything her doctor was saying was wrong … when it was all just based on a feeling? Especially when all of your previous predictions had been about death, not a new life?

Easy. You didn’t tell her at all. You kept your mouth zipped up tight.

Turning back to her computer monitor, Meena was confronted again with Mary Lou’s e-mail. Sometimes she found it hard to believe there were still people who didn’t have to work for a living … ladies with princes for relatives who did nothing but plan elaborate parties and use their husband’s credit card to go shopping all day.

And then meanwhile there were girls like Yalena, being preyed upon by scumbags like her boyfriend, Gerald, about whom the cops could do exactly nothing. …

But these people existed.

And they lived right in her building. Right next door to her, in fact.

Meena resolutely hit Delete, then opened a new document and began to write.

Chapter Nine

11:00 P.M. GMT, Tuesday, April 13

Somewhere above the Atlantic

Lucien Antonescu did not like to fly commercially, but not, perhaps, for the same reasons other people might dislike it. He had no control issues—other than his concerns about controlling his own rage—and of course no fear of death. The idea of a fiery or otherwise painful end did not trouble him in any way.

He was, however, disturbed by the way the airlines packed their customers into the metal tubes they were currently calling “planes,” then expected them to sit in those impossibly small, cramped excuses for “seats” for so many hours on end, with no exercise or fresh air.

So it had been some time since Lucien Antonescu had been on an airplane he himself did not own (his personal Learjet was ideal for most trips but not powerful enough for nonstop transatlantic flight). When asked to speak at an overseas conference or tour for one of his books, Lucien tended simply to decline. He wasn’t fond of publicity in any case …

But today Lucien was flying first class. The seats there were designed as individual compartments, so that other passengers seated in front of, behind, or beside him were not visible.

At a certain point during the flight, the attractive and very pleasant stewardess—they were called flight attendants now, he reminded himself—presented him with a menu from which he was asked to choose from a dizzying selection of food choices and wines, including some quite decent Italian Barolos. …

Later, after the pilot turned out the lights, the flight attendant asked him if he’d like her to make his bed for him. He accepted, purely out of curiosity. What bed? His wide and spacious seat, it transpired, automatically folded out into a reasonably sized (though not for him, being several inches over six feet tall) bed, all at the touch of a button.

The lovely flight attendant then produced a padded mattress from yet another hidden recess, real sheets that she “tucked in,” a duvet, and a pillow, which she fluffed.

She then handed him a cloth bag containing a large pair of designer pajamas, a toothbrush and paste, and an eye mask.

Finally, she wished him good night with a smile. He smiled back, not because he had any intention of changing into the pajamas or of going to sleep, but because he found the entire procedure—and her—so utterly charming.

His smile made her blush. She was divorced from an unscrupulous man who had been cheating on her throughout their eight-year marriage and was supporting their toddler on her own. She wished only that her ex-husband would pay his child support on time and visit their daughter once in a while. She did not tell Lucien these things … but then, she did not have to. He knew them because he could not be around people without their secret thoughts intruding upon his own. It was something to which he’d grown accustomed over the years, something that he occasionally enjoyed. It made him feel human again.

Almost.

She excused herself to see to another passenger, a corpulent businessman seated across the spacious aisle, in 6J. The passenger in seat 6J could not seem to stop complaining: His pillow was not soft enough, his pajamas were not large enough, his toothbrush bristles were too stiff, and his champagne glass was not filled quickly enough.

Based on Lucien’s observations, the man in 6J was pressing the call button approximately every four to five minutes, annoying both the flight attendant and the lady in the seat in front of him, who raised her sleeping mask and peeked out from her darkened compartment to see what all the commotion was about. She had an important meeting in the morning and needed to get her rest.

Lucien rose while the flight attendant slipped back to the galley to fetch the businessman another pillow. Then he stepped across the aisle to pay a visit to 6J.

“What do you want?” The man—whose mind was as shallow as a thimble—looked up to sneer at Lucien.

When the flight attendant came back, she was surprised to find the passenger in 6J appearing alarmingly pale and in such a deep sleep, he seemed almost to be comatose. She threw a quick, questioning glance around the cabin, meeting Lucien’s gaze, for he was standing, reaching for a book he’d left in the overhead bin.

“Tired out from all that champagne, I expect,” Lucien said to her. “Not used to so much alcohol at such a high altitude.” He gave her a wink.

The flight attendant hesitated, then, as if transfixed by Lucien’s grin, smiled shyly back and offered him the extra pillow.

“Why, thank you,” he said.

Later, as he strolled along the darkened aisles while the jet hurtled through the night sky toward New York, listening to the breathing of the unconscious passengers and sampling their dreams, Lucien looked down at their bare, vulnerable throats as they dozed and thought that really, someone should do something to make airline travel more enjoyable for everyone, not just the privileged few in first class.

Chapter Ten

6:30 P.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

910 Park Avenue

New York, New York

Meena stabbed the Up button, then looked around furtively. She was tired after her long day and hoped one thing—just this one little thing—would go her way.

And that was slipping onto the elevator of the building in which she lived without running into her neighbor Mary Lou, so that she could take the eleven-story ride to their floor in restful silence.

Meena’s building—910 Park Avenue—was elegant, with a doorman guarding its shiny brass doors, a marble lobby, a crystal chandelier, and an underground garage with parking spaces for which residents could pay an additional $500 per month (though Meena would have preferred to put that money toward a certain Marc Jacobs jewel-encrusted dragon tote … if she could have afforded an extra $500 a month, which she couldn’t).

But her apartment didn’t exactly live up to the building’s elegance: it needed repainting badly; the moldings along the ceilings were crumbling; the parquet floor needed sanding; the antique fireplaces didn’t work; and the French doors leading to the minuscule balcony that looked out over her neighbor Mary Lou’s terrace (which was practically the size of Meena’s whole apartment) stuck. And she was running out of closet space.

The important thing was, it was hers—or at least it would be, when she finally paid David back for his share of the down payment. They’d been fortunate to have bought when the market was at rock bottom and the previous owners had been divorcing and desperate to sell … and just as a small inheritance from Meena’s great-aunt Wilhelmina, for whom she’d been named (her mother had spelled it Meena for fear that her teachers and classmates might forever mispronounce her name “Myna”), finally came through.

Though David was long gone, Meena never pictured her apartment as a place to which she could bring back a date. But when she’d seen Shoshona leaving the office with a good-looking guy (whom she now realized had to have been the infamous Stefan Dominic; Meena had only managed to catch a glimpse of the back of his dark head before the two of them had disappeared onto the elevator for after-work drinks), she’d felt a twinge of envy.

Meena couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been on a date … unless she counted the first—and last—time she’d let Mary Lou set her up with a guy, someone from her husband’s office … the one whom Meena had felt compelled to inform over calamari when they’d met at a trendy restaurant downtown that he needed to have his cholesterol checked, or he was going to have a heart attack before the age of thirty-five.

Needless to say, he’d never called for a second date.

But hopefully he had called his doctor and gotten on Lipitor.

And yet she persevered in praying for the one thing that never, ever seemed to come true.

With the frequency of their encounters, Meena might as well have been dating her neighbor.

Every morning, poof! Mary Lou appeared, just as Meena pushed the Down button. Same thing each evening.

It was uncanny.

And every single time, any hope of having a civilized commute was shot.

Because then Meena was forced to listen to Mary Lou wax enthusiastic about whatever new guy she’d met whom she was convinced would be just perfect for Meena or whatever incredible story line idea she’d thought up the night before for Insatiable.

Oh, really? Meena would be forced to reply politely. Thank you, Mary Lou. Actually, I’m seeing someone. Someone from my office.

Or, No, really, I’ll definitely run your idea that Victoria Worthington Stone should become foreign ambassador to Brazil by Fran and Stan. I’m sure they’ll love that.

Except that there was no guy from Meena’s office whom she was seeing (except Paul, platonically; he’d been happily married with three kids for twenty-five years), and the countess had never, not even once, come up with a single usable story line for her favorite character, Victoria Worthington Stone.

It was too bad, because Meena genuinely liked warm, if somewhat over-the-top Mary Lou and her unassuming, slightly harassed-looking husband, Emil.

It was just that Meena was beginning to feel a little how Ned must have felt the day of his nervous breakdown in the ABN dining room … especially since David had left, and Mary Lou had become obsessed with Meena’s love life. How was Meena going to bring a date home if her older brother was always hanging around the apartment, making fettuccine Alfredo? Someone just needed to give Meena a little push in the right direction.

And Mary Lou had obviously appointed herself that person.

This became especially obvious that day, when Meena was once again unable to meet her goal of avoiding the countess at the elevator. …

Poof!

There she was.

“Meena!” the countess cried. “I’m so glad I ran into you! Did you get my e-mail? Emil’s cousin, the prince, is coming to town. You’re going to love him; he’s a writer, just like you. Only he writes books, not for a soap opera. A professor of ancient Romanian history, actually. You got my e-mail about the dinner party I’m having in his honor this Thursday, right? Do you think you’ll be able to make it?”

“Oh,” Meena said. “I don’t know. Things are crazy at work—”

“Oh, your job!” Meena realized she should have kept her mouth shut, since Mary Lou warmed to the subject immediately. “You work way too hard at that job of yours. Not that I don’t love every minute of it. Last week when Victoria made out with Father Juan Carlos in the vestibule after she went to confession over her guilt about sleeping with her daughter’s riding instructor, I had to stuff a napkin in my mouth to keep from screaming my head off and startling the maid while she was vacuuming, I was that excited. That was so brilliant! That story line was one of yours, wasn’t it?”

Meena inclined her head modestly. She was proud of the Victoria-and-the-hot-priest story line. It was different when it was a priest who was nobly restraining himself from sleeping with a woman. Father Juan Carlos didn’t also want to kill Victoria.

“Well, actually—” she started to say, but Mary Lou interrupted her.

“Still, you’re going to drive yourself into early menopause slaving away for that show. Anyway, listen …”

With a ding the elevator doors opened, and Meena and the countess stepped inside to begin what would, for Meena, anyway, be the eons-long ride up.

Mary Lou then proceeded to give Meena a long description of the castle in which the prince spent his summers in Romania. Mary Lou was intimately acquainted with it, because it was near the castle where she and her husband summered for two months every year—two blissful months during which Meena was able to ride the elevator countess-free.

By floor five, Meena was wondering why she’d never gotten a feeling about Mary Lou’s or her husband Emil’s impending demises. It was odd, really.

On the other hand, it was possible her power to predict death, which had shown up when she’d reached her tweens, was starting to wane now that she was approaching thirty (a girl could dream).

More likely, however, given Meena’s luck, it was morphing into something else … look at the strange feelings she got around Leisha and her baby.

By the tenth floor, Meena had heard all she could stand about Saxon architectural influences.

“Oh, would you look at that,” Meena said when the elevator doors finally, and mercifully, opened at their floor.

“Oh, Meena,” the countess said as the two of them strolled toward their respective doors. “I forgot to ask. How’s your brother doing?”

And there it was. The Head Tilt.

The Head Tilt was accompanied, of course, by the Sympathetic Look. The countess was no stranger to Botox, as Meena well knew, since the countess had to be well over forty, but her face was as unlined as if she were Meena’s age—perhaps because Mary Lou had such an extraordinary collection of picture hats, as well as gloves, which she wore with fierce resolution to keep out the sun. Today’s was a gargantuan maroon concoction.

So it was all there, the Head Tilt, the “eleven” between the eyebrows (two crinkled lines of concern), the purse of the lips as if to say, I care. Deeply. Tell me: How’s your brother doing?

“Jon’s doing great,” Meena said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, given how many times a week she was forced to repeat this phrase. “Really great. Working out, doing a lot of reading, even cooking. He tried a new recipe last night for dinner. He made a great Chinese orange beef for me that he got out of the Times. It was delicious!”

This was an outright lie. It had actually been terrible and Meena had been furious with Jon for even attempting it. He was no great chef. Steaks on Meena’s hibachi on the balcony were his forté, not something they could just as easily have ordered in. She’d had to throw it down the garbage chute. Meena hoped the countess and her husband Emil hadn’t smelled it when they’d come home from whatever benefit they’d been attending. They were always going to—when they weren’t hosting—charity events, all over the city, late into the night, and had their names mentioned on the society pages regularly, as much for their generous gifts as for their party-hopping.

“Oh!” Mary Lou flattened her hand against the front of her Chanel jacket. “That’s great. I so admire what you’re doing, letting him live with you until he gets back on his feet. So generous. The prince just loves generous people, and so he’ll just love you. Of course …” Mary Lou brought her hand away, and the seven- or eight-carat diamond that she’d been wearing beneath the glove she’d stripped away flashed in the glow from the overhead light in the hallway. “Do bring Jon when you come over for dinner to meet the prince on Thursday night. He’s always welcome as well. Such a sweet young man.”

Meena kept a smile frozen on her face.

“Well, thanks,” Meena said with forced cheer. “But I’m not sure about our plans. I’ll let you know. Have a good night!”

“You, too,” Mary Lou said. “Au revoir!”

One thing, Meena thought as she hurried toward her apartment. One good thing could still happen to her today. She was never going to give up hope. Without hope, what did you have?

Nothing. That’s what.

She could still find the ruby dragon tote. Maybe online, used somewhere.

Except that, even used, it would still be more expensive than she could afford. It would be selfish and horrible of her to buy something so frivolous that she clearly didn’t need, especially when so many people were out of work and could barely afford food and had horrible people like Yalena’s boyfriend preying on them.

She was never going to buy the bag, of course. Not even used.

But it was important to have hope.

Chapter Eleven

6:30 P.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

New York, New York

HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO JOIN THE NYPD?

In order to be considered for appointment in the NYPD, you must pass a series of medical, physical, and psychological examinations to determine your suitability. Want to learn more about our requirements?

Jon, staring at the computer screen, shrugged, took another sip of his Gatorade, and clicked Learn more.

Applicants must be at least 17½ years of age by the last day of filing of the exam they are applying for.

“Oh, yeah,” Jon said. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

Meena’s dog, Jack Bauer, hearing the sound of a human voice, jumped up from his dog bed and trotted curiously over to the couch to see what was happening. Jon tilted his bottle of Gatorade in the dog’s direction in a toast and kept reading happily.

Applicants must not have reached their 35th birthday on or before the first day of filing of the exam they are applying for.

“Done,” he said to Jack Bauer. “We are so joining the NYPD!”

Jack Bauer tilted his head questioningly, sat down on his haunches, and yipped.

“Yes.” Jon put down his Gatorade, picked up the phone, and dialed. As soon as the person on the other end lifted the receiver, he said, “Dude. We’re joining the NYPD.”

“The hell we are,” Adam said. “I’m about to be a father. I may need a job, but not one where I get my ass shot off. Did you know there’s a serial killer on the loose out there?”

“I’m sure there are several,” Jon said. He put his size-twelve feet on his sister’s coffee table. Jack Bauer, inspired by this development, leapt onto the couch, where he was strictly forbidden by Meena from sitting. Jon moved over a little to make room for him. “And we’re going to catch them. Because guess what? The New York City Police Department? Hiring. All you gotta be is over seventeen and a half years of age and under thirty-five. Bingo. That’s us.”

“Also crazy. Did you read that part? How somebody would have to be crazy to apply to be a cop in this freaking city?”

“Yes, in addition to a written and physical exam, there is a psych evaluation,” Jon said, glancing at his laptop. “And you might have some problems passing that part, seeing as how you were a mortgage-backed-security trader.”

“Are you done?” Adam asked. “Because I have to go now.”

“Yeah,” Jon said. “Okay, go to the NYPD website. I really think we should do this. We can do something to make a difference, Weinberg. We can arrest perps. We can help little abused children.”

“Listen to you,” Adam said. But Jon could hear clicking in the background and knew Weinberg was doing as he’d asked him to. “Perps. Like you know anything about perps. Have you been watching The Wire again?”

“I’m serious. Think about it. What did we do at our last jobs? Sure, we made a ton of cash, for other people and for ourselves. But did we really touch people’s lives in a meaningful way? No.”

“I beg to differ,” Adam said. “I handled the Alaska Teachers’ Union pension fund.”

“And,” Jon said, “what happened to it, Adam?”

Adam grumbled, “It wasn’t my fault.”

“Those teachers are gonna be fine,” Jon said. “Okay, probably not. But maybe getting laid off is a blessing in disguise. This could be our chance to give back what we lost. By helping people who are really in need.”

“And carry guns,” Adam pointed out. “Admit it, Harper. The part you like is the part where we get guns.”

“The thought that we would be issued firearms and permission to legally carry them did cross my mind,” Jon said. “But it’s really about helping people, Weinberg. Do you honestly just want to let this serial killer you’re worried about roam around free?”

“No,” Adam said. “I want to find a job doing what I’m trained to do. I would like to implement cash and derivatives strategies and execute trades while communicating market information and trends to other investment professionals within the firm.”

“Really?” Jon couldn’t hide his disappointment. “That’s the line you’re going with on the résumé?”

“That’s what I told the HR rep at TransCarta,” Adam said. “Which is the only place that seems to be hiring right now.”

“When you could be saving lives.”

“Let me ask you something,” Adam said. “Have you run this one by your sister?”

“What do you mean?” Jon asked defensively.

“I think you know what I mean,” Adam said. “I mean, have you told that bat-shit-crazy sister of yours that you’re thinking of applying for a job with the NYPD?”

“I don’t have to tell my sister everything I’m thinking about doing,” Jon said stiffly.

“Oh, yeah?” Adam laughed in an evil way. “Well, I’m not applying for a job with the NYPD unless your sister says she sees the two of us retiring as lieutenants or whatever.”

Jon said, with a spurt of irritation, “You should know by now it doesn’t work that way with her.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “I guess if it did, neither of us would be in this situation, would we?”

Jon sighed. His sister’s gift had never exactly made life easier for him. Why couldn’t she have been able to predict winning lottery numbers, or which girl in the bar was most likely to sleep with him, or something actually useful? Hearing the ways in which he might conceivably die was interesting, Jon supposed.

But he’d rather have gotten rich. Or laid.

Jon heard the scrape of Meena’s key in the lock. Jack Bauer heard it too, and quickly leapt off the couch to return to his dog bed.

Jon said, “We’ll talk about this later. I gotta go,” to Adam, then hung up and took his feet off the coffee table.

Meena came in looking flustered and fresh faced, as she always did when she returned from anywhere. She asked, “Was Jack Bauer on the couch just now?”

“Of course not,” Jon said, getting up. “How was your day, dear?”

“It sucked. I met a girl on the subway I think is going to end up sold into white slavery and then killed.”

“Sweet,” Jon said sarcastically.

“Tell me about it,” Meena said. “And Shoshona got the head writer gig. And the network is mandating a crappy vampire story line, so my beautiful and totally awe-inspiring proposal about the bad boy with the police chief dad was completely dead on arrival.”

“Shoshona got the head writer gig?” Jon asked. “That blows. You gave the subway girl your card, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Meena said, throwing her keys into the little tray on the kitchen counter, which she’d started keeping there for that purpose after Jon finally pointed out that her psychic power was useless at finding the things she kept losing. “Hopefully she’ll call.”

“What about Taylor?” Jon asked. He tried to keep his voice casual. He’d had a crush on Taylor Mackenzie—whom his sister had pointed out many times was way too young for him—since Meena had first started writing for the show.

“She’s the one getting the new vampire boyfriend,” Meena said. “They’ve got Gregory Bane’s best friend coming in to read with her on Friday. He’s hot, apparently. I think I saw him leaving the office with Shoshona tonight. But it was mostly only the back of his head.”

Jon glanced at his reflection in the round antique mirror Meena had hanging above the dining table.

“I’m hot,” he said, admiring his own reflection. “What do you think? Don’t I look like vampire material to you?”

Meena snorted. “Right. Playing a chorus member in the musical Mame when you were in high school doesn’t count as acting experience. Especially since you only did it for extra credit to keep from getting kicked off the baseball team thanks to your D in Spanish.”

She shrugged out of her jacket and crossed the room to meet Jack Bauer, who’d run over to give her a welcome lick.

“And how’s my little man?” she asked. “Did you save the world today? I think you did. I think you saved the world from nuclear annihilation, just like you do every single twenty-four hours. Look at you. Just look at you.”

Jack Bauer was a Pomeranian-chow mix Meena had insisted on bringing home from the ASPCA the first time they’d ever set foot in it, “just to look,” after David had walked out on her and she’d been pretty much comatose with depression. The tiny mutt had been sitting in a big empty cage by himself, his huge brown eyes so filled with anxiety that Meena had remarked that, with his blond fur, he resembled Kiefer Sutherland during a particularly dramatic moment on the television show 24.

When the dog had fallen into her arms as soon as the cage door was opened, showering her face with grateful kisses, the inevitable adoption was sealed, and the name Jack Bauer stuck, because the anxious look in the mutt’s eyes rarely vanished all the way, unless he was lounging in the apartment by Meena’s side.

“He saved the world, all right,” Jon said. “He tried to hump a maltipoo in the small dog run at Carl Schurz Park.”

“My hero,” Meena cried, scooping the dog up and hugging him. “Keep showing your male dominance, even though you’ve been fixed.” She turned to Jon. “So, what did you do today?”

“I was totally going to make chicken,” Jon said. “But when I got to the store none of the chickens looked any good.”

“Really?” Meena said, going over to the couch and reaching for the remote.

“Yeah,” Jon said. “They were all past their expiration dates. It was like the Perdue delivery didn’t come in on time or something.”

“Let’s just order in,” she said. She’d flipped on the news. “We haven’t had Thai in a while.”

He felt a surge of relief.

“Thai sounds great. Or Indian.”

“Indian sounds good, too,” she said. “Oh, my God, we got invited to the countess’s on Thursday. If we keep the lights out,” she added, like this was a perfectly reasonable way to deal with the problem, “we don’t have to worry about them seeing that we’re home under the crack in the door.”

“Meena.” Jon loved his sister.

But she was totally and completely insane.

And she always had been.

Meena shook her head. “Jon. You know I can’t help but love her. But she’s trying to fix me up with some Romanian prince her husband’s related to. Come on.”

“A prince?” Jon raised his eyebrows. “Seriously? Is he rich?”

“I don’t want to meet a prince,” Meena said. She sounded mad. She looked mad. “I’m already having the worst week of my life, and it’s only Tuesday!”

Jon knew Meena well enough to know this wasn’t about Shoshona getting the job, or the girl she’d met on the subway, or even the show, which she adored.

“What,” he said flatly. “What did you see?”

“Nothing,” she said, throwing him a confused look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You know something,” Jon said. “You know what I’m talking about. Who is it about? Me? It’s about me, isn’t it? Just tell me. I can take it. When am I going? Is it this week?”

Meena looked away. “What? No. You’re fine. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Jon shook his head. He didn’t think he was wrong. He’d lived with his kid sister long enough to recognize the signs.

She obviously knew something about somebody now … only who? And why wasn’t she saying?

“Is it Mom and Dad?” he asked. “I thought you said they were fine. I mean, relatively speaking.”

“They are fine.” Meena glared at him. “For two people who continue to whoop it up at happy hour every night down in Boca like they think they’re F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.”

“Then I don’t get it,” Jon said. “Your crazy-ass millionaire neighbor who thinks she’s a countess invited you to a dinner party at her place to meet a real Romanian prince on Thursday night. And you’re telling me you don’t think you’re going to get any story ideas out of that? Are you serious?”

Meena looked at him, her big dark eyes luminous in the light from the sun setting just outside her windows, turning the sky from rosy pink to a delicate lavender. Finally she smiled.

“You’re right,” she said. “How could I miss such a fantastic opportunity, so rich with the promise of pretentious buffoonery for me to mock later on Insatiable? I have a professional duty to be there.”

“Absolutely,” Jon said.

“I’ll RSVP yes to the countess,” Meena said.

“Way to go.” Jon reached out to ruffle her short, boyishly cut dark hair. “I’ll go order us some samosas.”

Meena grinned and turned up the volume on the news, which was all about how they still hadn’t been able to identify any of the victims of what they were now calling the Park Strangler. They were urging any members of the public who might recognize the women to come forward.

“After all,” Meena said thoughtfully, clearly not paying attention to the information the grim-faced anchorwoman was doling out, “Victoria Worthington Stone’s dated plenty of doctors, lawyers, millionaires, shipping magnates, gangsters, murderers, maniacs, cops, cowboys, priests, and once even her own half brother—until she found out who he really was. It’s about time she dated a prince.”

“That’s the spirit,” Jon said, and started dialing.

Chapter Twelve

6:30 P.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

West Fourth Street

Chattanooga, TN

Alaric Wulf wasn’t surprised to find that Sarah, like most women—and men—in love with a vampire, was initially resistant to the idea of giving up the address of her lover.

“Just tell me where he is, and I’ll let you live.”

Sarah had hedged for a while. Like most victims, she didn’t care anymore about her own life. Her brain was too nutrient deprived. She cared only about protecting her sire.

Until Alaric finally put his sword to her throat.

The Palatine Guard was listed in most encyclopedias and search engines as a now-defunct military unit of the Vatican, formed to defend Rome against attack from foreign invaders.

This was partly true: the Palatine Guard was a military unit of the Vatican.

But it was hardly defunct. And the invaders it had been formed to defend against weren’t foreign.

They were demon.

And the Guards weren’t defending just Rome from them, but the entire world.

Members of the Guard had different methods for getting victims of these demons, who were often besotted by their attackers, to talk. Abraham Holtzman—currently the Guard’s most senior officer, who’d trained both Alaric and Martin—had always preferred deception. He’d flash a fake card from a fancy (fictitious) legal firm, explaining that he’d been hired by the vampire’s estranged family to deliver a large inheritance check.

Often the victim was so flustered by delighted surprise that she didn’t notice Holtzman had never even mentioned the vamp’s name.

That was because he didn’t know it.

But that was Holtzman. Alaric had always suspected that Holtzman could get away with this because he was so scholarly looking. His Jewish parents had been appalled when he’d gone to work for the Vatican, though Holtzman hadn’t converted. (Conversion was not a job requirement. It was difficult enough to find anyone able to keep his head while swinging a sword at a screaming succubus, let alone someone who was also a devoted Catholic. Palatine Guard members were of a wide mix of religions … even, like Alaric, complete nonbelievers.)

It helped Holtzman’s ruse, Alaric supposed, that he looked like a lawyer.

Still, there was nothing wrong with looking like a muscle-bound demon-hunter … especially if that was what one was. Alaric didn’t have degrees in anything, except chopping the heads off vampires and returning their victims to full humanity once more.

So Alaric didn’t waste time on ruses the way Holtzman did. Especially not when it came to Sarah. He got straight to the point … by applying Señor Sticky to her throat.

When she finally stammered, “Felix … Felix lives in a loft over an antiques store on West Fourth … but please …,” he grabbed her by the back of the neck and stuffed her into the passenger seat of his rental car. He didn’t need her texting her undead lover any warnings so Felix could call his vamp friends and set up a trap.

It wasn’t the most uplifting drive over to Felix’s place. Especially because Sarah sobbed most of the way and whispered, “Please, please … don’t hurt him. You don’t understand … he doesn’t want to be the way he is. He hates what he is. He hates that he has to … hurt me.”

“Yes?” Alaric glanced at her. He’d turned the car radio to the heavy metal station. He didn’t particularly like heavy metal, but he needed something loud enough to drown out the sound of her sniffling. “So why do you let him do it, then?”

“Because,” Sarah said, sniffling, “he’ll die if I don’t.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Alaric said. “He can’t die unless someone stabs him with a wooden stake through the heart or cuts off his head. Or, alternatively, if someone shoves him into some direct sunlight or completely immerses his body in holy water. But then,” he added, throwing a glance her way, “you must know all this.”

“None of that’s true,” Sarah said. “He told me all those things were myths. Also about how vampires can live on animal blood. He said if they do that, they’ll die. That’s why he has to drink my blood. To stay alive.”

Alaric rolled his eyes. “Do you realize girls like you have been falling for that one for centuries? Vamps just don’t like animal blood. It weakens them. And they don’t look as nice after they’ve been drinking it for a while. And if they’re anything, vamps are vain. Human blood’s like filet mignon to them. So if he told you he’ll die if you don’t let him drink your blood, he’s a damned liar, in addition to being a putrid stinking woman-abusing soulless abomination.”

Sarah seemed to find his language objectionable, since this statement only made her weep harder.

Alaric felt a little bad about this. Holtzman was always telling him that he needed to work on his people skills more.

Accordingly, Alaric passed her a tissue from the little packet the rental car agency had left in the car.

“You’re mean,” Sarah said, blowing her nose into the tissue. “Felix isn’t a soulless abomination. He’s sensitive. He has feelings. He reads me poetry. Shakespeare.”

Alaric wanted to pull the car over so he could throw up, but they didn’t have time. The sooner they got this over with, the sooner he could go back to the hotel; order some room service; have a nice, relaxing bath (in the world’s tiniest tub, which had those grainy strips attached to the bottom, so guests wouldn’t slip in the shower—this was Alaric’s number one pet peeve about less-than-five-star hotels; he was a grown man, he knew how to stand without falling in the tub); and go to bed.

Then, tomorrow morning, he’d fly to New York, check into the Peninsula, find the prince, and kill him.

This made him quite happy to think about.

“This,” Alaric explained to Sarah in what he thought was a kindly voice, “isn’t love you’re feeling. Only dopamine. Because Felix isn’t like anyone else you know. Being a creature of the night, he’s new and exciting and activates a neurotransmitter in your brain that releases feelings of euphoria when you’re around him … especially because you know you can never actually be together, and he seems complicated, and perhaps even sensitive and vulnerable at times. But I can assure you: he’s anything but.”

“How dare you?” Sarah demanded hotly. “It isn’t dopa … whatever! It’s love! Love!”

Alaric wanted to argue. Vampires were incapable of love—human love—because they didn’t have hearts. Well, technically, he supposed they possessed hearts, since that’s what he had to stab a stake into in order to kill them. But their hearts didn’t pump blood or beat.

So how could they feel love, much less return it?

But arguing with a teenager over the semantics of vampire love didn’t seem like a winning proposition to him.

“Oh, come on, then,” Alaric couldn’t help saying finally, noticing that his passenger continued to sob quietly to herself. “It’s not all bad.”

“How?” Sarah demanded, flashing an aggravated look at him. “How is this not all bad? You’re going to try to kill my boyfriend!”

“True,” Alaric said. They were nearly to the address she’d given him. “But look at it this way. He promised to turn you into a vampire, didn’t he?”

“Yes,” Sarah said, sounding a bit surprised. “He said he was going to turn me, just as soon as he got his strength up. Then I’ll be beautiful, like him. And immortal.”

“Right,” Alaric said a little sarcastically. He knew this Felix had no intention whatsoever of turning her. Doing so would deprive him of his primary food source.

What Alaric was sure the vampire would do instead was string her along for a few more months; then, when she grew too sickly from anemia to be of any more use to him, he’d move on to some healthier host. He’d probably tell her it was him, not her … that he needed time to “think about things.” Then he’d disappear.

Then, after her broken heart—and even more broken body—had healed, Felix would probably find his way back to Sarah—and to Chattanooga—and start the cycle all over again. Unless Sarah found the strength to put her foot down and tell him no, she would not be abused in this way.

But that wouldn’t happen. The vamps were just too alluring. And their victims just never seemed to think they deserved better than the treatment they were given. It was almost as if they were afraid to put their foot down, because they thought they’d never get anything better. …

But that was what Alaric was for. He would be Sarah’s foot, since she didn’t have the strength, or willpower, to put her own down. He’d make sure she got something better and stop the cycle from continuing. Permanently.

Alaric found a parking space … except that it was beside a fire hydrant.

It didn’t matter. They wouldn’t be there that long.

“Supposing he did turn you into one of his kind,” he said, switching off the engine and turning to look at her, “then me, or one of my fellow officers, would only have to kill you eventually, because that’s what we do. We’re demon killers. And trust me, you really wouldn’t want any of us on your tail. We’d be your worst nightmare. It’s much better this way. This way, you’ll stay a human, and maybe you can go to college and get a degree and a fun job doing something you like. Or maybe you can find some nice guy back at the Walmart you can go out with, even marry. And, assuming you want them, you two can have a few babies, and grow old and watch them have babies, and be grandparents someday. Wouldn’t you like that? You could never have babies with Felix.”

“Vampires can have babies,” Sarah informed him. “I read it in a book.”

“Yes,” Alaric said, feeling annoyed. “Well, in books, the vampires struggle nobly against themselves not to bite you, because they love you so much. But that didn’t exactly happen, did it? So the books aren’t really very accurate, are they?”

Sarah glared at him.

“I hate you,” she said.

Alaric nodded. “I know,” he said. He reached across her and opened the car door. “Get out.”

She looked at him blankly. “What?”

“Go on,” he said. “I know you’re dying to run ahead and give lover boy the heads-up. I’m going to let you. Tell him I’ll let him go, on one condition.”

Her entire demeanor changed. Suddenly, she was all that was accommodating and pleasant.

“What condition?” she asked eagerly.

“Tell him that if he tells me where I can find the prince, I’ll let you both go. Then you can run off and have vampire babies together.”

Alaric couldn’t say the last part without laughing, though he did try, remembering that he was supposed to be working on his people skills.

Sarah evidently didn’t notice.

“Oh, thank you!” Sarah was smiling as she scrambled from the car. “Thank you so much!”

“Not a problem,” Alaric said. He watched as she ran across the sidewalk and up to an unobtrusive-looking door beside the display window of an antiques shop inside an industrial-looking building. He gathered his things as she pressed an intercom. Then he calmly strode to the alley, where, as he’d suspected, there was a fire escape. He leapt for the rusted metal ladder as he heard Felix’s voice asking through the intercom, “Who is it?”

Then the buzzer went off, letting Sarah inside the building.

It only took Alaric a moment or two to climb to the roof of the building, and less than that to secure a grappling hook to the side of the building, then fasten the end of the rope to his belt.

A few seconds later, Alaric jumped from the roof, crashing through Felix’s plate-glass living room windows…

… just as the vampire was putting on a black cloak to shield himself from the sun, preparing to make a run for it. Sarah screamed as UV-protection glass went flying everywhere.

The vampire, desperate to get out of the sun’s rays, which could be fatal to him, threw himself at the front door.

“Now, Felix,” Alaric said calmly. “You can’t go that way, either.”

A second later, Felix was shrieking. This was because Alaric had hurled a glass vial filled with holy water at the door. It burst over the knob, singeing the vampire’s fingers as he reached for it. He drew his hand away, hissing with pain and cradling his smoking fingers.

“I thought you said you’d let him go if he told!” Sarah shouted with outrage.

“And I will,” Alaric said, smiling at her. He turned toward Felix. “So,” he said. “Where can I find your prince?”

Felix, who looked like a handsome boy of eighteen or twenty—and appeared from his taste in wall posters to have a fondness for the band Belle and Sebastian—curled back his lips to reveal a set of extremely strong white teeth. His incisors were unnaturally long and, true to his species, not unpointy.

“I’ll never tell, demon hunter,” he growled.

Then he threw back his head and let out a hiss, his long tongue darting in and out of his mouth like a lizard’s tail.

Sarah looked shocked. She’d apparently never heard her boyfriend use that tone of voice before. Or seen his eyes glow red.

“Felix,” she cried. “Just tell him! He said he’d let you go if you told.”

When Felix swung his glowing red eyes and twisting tongue toward her, she staggered back a step. “Why did you bring him here, you stupid whore?” Felix demanded.

Horrified, Sarah started crying all over again.

Alaric took her tears as his cue that it would be all right with her if he performed his duty. So he stepped forward, swinging Señor Sticky free of its scabbard.

It was over in a matter of seconds. To his credit, the vampire put up a good fight.

But cornered by sunlight on one side and holy water on the other, he had nowhere to go. There was no escape.

Alaric didn’t give him a chance for any last words. In his experience, vampires didn’t really have anything that interesting or insightful to say. It was all Shakespeare and emo.

When he was done, he looked at the girl. She was curled up in a ball over by the broken window, weeping softly to herself.

But—and Alaric knew he wasn’t imagining it—her hair had already begun to recover its luster, and there was color in her cheeks that hadn’t been there before.

She’d be fine in a few days, if her parents fed her enough protein.

He sheathed his sword.

“Get up now,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing voice. He was so bad at this part. Martin was the one who always knew the right thing to say. “I will drive you home to your mother.”

She uncurled a little and looked at him coldly. “You said you wouldn’t kill him if he told,” she said. Her voice sounded stronger than before, and her eyes had a shine to them that had nothing to do with tears. She was, he knew, her own person again and no longer a pawn to a vampire sire. His killing Felix had released her.

“And he didn’t tell,” Alaric pointed out.

“You didn’t give him a chance!” she cried.

But she was getting up, carefully avoiding looking in the direction where the body was.

Except that there was no body. Only clothes lay where Felix had been. He had to have been over a hundred years old. His bones were dust.

“He would never have told,” Alaric said. “If he had told, the prince, or his minions, would have killed him, and far less gently than I did. He chose to die by my sword because he knew it would be quicker.” He looked down at her. “They’d have killed you, too, you know, if they’d have found you here with him. They’d have fed on you until there was nothing left.”

Sarah blinked. “You mean … he died to protect me? Oh … that’s so sweet!”

Alaric wanted to show her the photographs he always carried of what some of her now former boyfriend’s friends had done to Martin. How they’d bitten and peeled strips of his flesh off, just for fun. Vampires were incapable of sweetness.

But Holtzman, he knew, wouldn’t approve of this.

Besides, his job there was done. She was free now.

And that meant it was time for him to go back to the hotel and pack for New York, to go after a vampire who might really prove a challenge to his sword arm, unlike her silly boyfriend.

So he only said, “Let’s take you home now.”

And that’s exactly what he did.

Chapter Thirteen

10:00 P.M. EST, Tuesday, April 13

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11A

New York, New York

What is this?” Emil walked into the spacious master bedroom he shared with his vivacious and slender wife, holding a printout of the e-mail he’d found on his desktop.

“Oh, hon,” Mary Lou said as she breezed by on her way to her dressing table. “That’s just a little Evite I sent out to all my girlfriends for the dinner party I’m having in Prince Lucien’s honor on Thursday.”

Emil felt a small but persistent sensation in the center of his belly that was not unlike being poked over and over by someone with very long nails … a sensation with which, as it happened, Emil was not unfamiliar.

“You sent out an e-mail about the prince?” he said. “You do realize that if this message falls into the wrong hands, it could jeopardize everything?”

“Oh, don’t be such a ninny,” Mary Lou said. “I only sent it to my very best friends. Whose hands is it going to fall into?”

Emil fought for inner patience.

“The Dracul, for one?” he said drily when he could speak again. “The Palatine Guard, for another? Not to mention the humans? All the people who’d like to see us, not to mention the prince, destroyed?”

“Oh, pooh,” Mary Lou said. She sat down in front of the large mirror behind her dressing table and began removing her makeup. “You’re being melodramatic. No one wants to destroy us anymore. The prince has the Dracul under control. The Palatine Guard don’t know where we are, and the humans love us! Look at how popular we are in books and on the TV. Why, if everyone found out, I’m sure I’d be invited onto Oprah as a special guest.”

“Mary Lou!” Emil stared at her reflection in astonishment. “Someone is killing women! All over town! No one is going to be inviting you onto Oprah while women are being killed by a member of our brethren. And the prince isn’t going to want a dinner party in his honor. He’s going to prefer to keep a low profile while he’s in town, trying to find that killer.”

“I have so many beautiful, intelligent female friends,” Mary Lou said, gazing thoughtfully at herself. “Why shouldn’t I show them off? The prince has been alone too long.”

“Lucien’s not here,” Emil said, feeling as if he were drowning, “to find a wife. He’s here on business. The murders—”

“And if he should happen to meet a nice girl,” Mary Lou said, interrupting, “while he’s here, would that be so terrible? Apparently he hasn’t had any luck in his own country. But you know we have the most amazing women in the world right here in the good old U.S. of A—”

“Mary Lou.” Emil stared uncomfortably at his wife’s bare shoulders. “You understand that you’re putting me in a terribly awkward position. Lucien asked that I not mention his arrival to anyone, and here you are sending out e-mails to everyone on your cc list, an e-mail that could be traced back—”

“Not everyone,” Mary Lou said indignantly. “Just my best single girlfriends, and a few of the married ones so as not to make it look obvious he’s being set up. None of them is employed by the Vatican, for goodness sake, or members of the Dracul. I just asked Linda and Tom, and Faith and Frank, and Carol from your office, and Becca and Ashley, and Meena from across the hall.”

“Meena?” Emil was confused. Many things about his wife confused him. He was certain that even if they spent an eternity together—and it already felt like they had—he’d never fully understand her. “The prince … and Meena Harper? But she’s—”

“Why not?” Mary Lou gave her naturally curly—and still naturally blond—hair a flip. “At first glance she may not seem like his type, but I like her. She’s got that cute little figure, and a pixie cut suits her. Most women can’t pull it off, you know, but she works it. And if the prince likes her, just think how grateful he’ll be to us. Besides,” she added with a shrug, “all she does is work to keep her and that no-good brother of hers financially afloat. I think she needs a break.”

“She likes her job,” Emil said, thinking of all the times he’d seen his neighbor in her pajamas barefoot in their floor’s trash room, disgruntledly stuffing heavily crossed-out script pages down the chute to the incinerator.

Well, maybe she didn’t always like her job.

“Oh, sure,” Mary Lou said. “The soap opera thing. But do you think she’d work if she didn’t have to?”

Emil thought about this. “Yes,” he said.

“Well, that shows what you know about women, which is nothing. Look at those ladies she writes about on Insatiable, Victoria Worthington Stone and her daughter, Tabby. Victoria’s never had a job in her life, except for that time she was a model. Oh, and a fashion designer. Oh, and when she was a race car driver, but that was only for a week before she crashed and lost the baby and was in that coma. Those aren’t even real jobs. They say you write about what you wish would happen to you. So, obviously Meena wishes she didn’t have a job.”

“Or,” Emil said, “she wishes she were a race car driver.”

“And Prince Lucien would be able to provide for her.” Mary Lou went on, ignoring him. “And since the prince likes writing, the two of them already have something in common.”

“It’s a very different kind of writing,” Emil said. “Lucien writes historical nonfiction. And anyway, he made it very clear when I spoke to him that he wanted to keep his visit under the radar. We’re at a very critical time with the Dracul. These murders—”

“Oh, stop being such a worrywart,” Mary Lou said. “No man wouldn’t want to have dinner with a lot of pretty ladies.” She laughed and turned to poke her husband in his belly, which stuck out ever so slightly over the waistband of his trousers. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t enjoy being the center of attention of me and all my friends. Not that you aren’t …”

“Well.” Emil felt the pressure in his gut receding slightly. “Maybe he won’t mind so much. A man has to eat, after all.”

“Exactly,” Mary Lou exclaimed. “And so why not do it in the company of a lot of lovely, accomplished ladies?”

“Why not?” Emil asked.

Maybe, he thought, his wife was right:

The man did have to eat, after all.

Chapter Fourteen

3:45 A.M. EST, Wednesday, April 14

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11B

New York, New York

Meena stared at the bright red numbers on the digital clock in her bedroom. Three forty-five. She had five hours before she had to leave for the office. Four more to sleep before she had to get up to start getting ready.

Except that she couldn’t sleep. She lay there, staring at the ceiling, grinding her teeth, and thinking about Yalena—all she could see was a picture of the girl’s body, battered almost beyond recognition—and Cheryl and CDI and the job she hadn’t gotten and Jon and her parents and David and the countess and Leisha and Adam and the baby.

Now she’d never get to sleep.

There was only one answer to Meena’s problem, and it lay in a little orange prescription bottle in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. She hated resorting to pills, but lately she’d been relying on them more and more.

She was just about to reach for her secret stash of pills in the medicine cabinet when she heard it:

The clickety-clack of Jack Bauer’s claws on the hardwood floor behind her.

Seeing her up and around, Jack Bauer thought it was morning and time for his first walk of the day.

“Okay, Jack,” Meena whispered to him. “Okay. We’ll go.”

She spat out her mouth guard, leaving it in the sink, then slipped as quietly as she could into her coat and a pair of sneakers and got Jack Bauer’s leash from its hook.

She’d just take him on a short walk, she decided, then go back to bed. She’d be home in less than fifteen minutes. With half a pill, she could still get a full four hours of restorative sleep before work. Everything would be okay.

In the lobby of Meena’s building, Pradip, the night doorman, had dozed off with his head resting on one of his textbooks. He was studying to be a masseur, which Meena thought was a fine career option for him, since people were having multiple careers nowadays well into their eighties, and his death didn’t appear to be imminent.

Meena crept past him, careful not to disturb him—all the staff in her building worked so hard—and slipped out the automatic doors to the sidewalk, where Jack Bauer hurried to relieve himself against the potted palm just beside the red carpet by the building’s entrance, as was his ritual. Meena waited beside him, inhaling the fresh morning air. Or was it still night? She wasn’t sure. The sky above was a dark blue wash, a paler blue at the edges, where it disappeared behind the tall buildings.

Meena gave Jack Bauer’s leash a tug, and he obediently began trotting beside her. They had a route they always took this time of night—down Park Avenue to Seventy-eighth; past St. George’s Cathedral, currently closed for badly needed renovations; then back down Eightieth, and to the apartment.

But for some reason that night—or that morning—Jack was feeling jumpy. Meena could tell, because he ignored some of the places he usually liked to take an inordinately long time sniffing and just kept trotting forward, nervously snuffling the air, almost as if … well, as if he were anticipating something.

But because this was the way he often behaved—his name was, after all, Jack Bauer: he was a jumble of nerves, always expecting the worst, barking at their front door when it was only the countess and her husband coming home from a party—Meena thought nothing of it.

She let Jack Bauer pull her along, thinking idly about work. How was she going to fit a prince for Cheryl into Shoshona’s vampire story line?

And Yalena—should Meena have followed her to her meeting with the boyfriend? She was wondering whether she could have said something to him, given him a look, done something to let him know she was onto him, when she noticed the first other person she’d seen on foot since leaving her building, coming toward her on the same side of the street, but from the opposite direction.

It was a man.

But he was a very tall man, dressed in a long black trench coat that flapped behind him almost like a cape.

Meena tightened her grip on Jack Bauer’s leash, and not just because the dog had begun growling. She was alone on a dark street approaching a large man she didn’t know. What on earth was he doing out at four in the morning without a dog if he wasn’t drunk?

She didn’t blame Jack Bauer for being suspicious. She was suspicious, too.

But as they approached the wide steps to St. George’s Cathedral, surrounded by scaffolding, Meena saw from the security lights shining down from the church spires that the man was unusually good looking—maybe in his mid to late thirties—and was in no way giving off signs that he didn’t belong in the ritzy neighborhood. His clothes were impeccably tailored and in good taste; his dark hair, brushed back from his temples without a hint of gray, immaculately groomed. Even his sideburns were the perfect length.

She was the one, she belatedly realized, who probably looked suspicious, given the fact that her short hair was doubtlessly pointing up in spikes (as it was wont to do when she’d just gotten up), she was without makeup, and her blue flannel pajama legs—with white puffy clouds on them—were sticking out of the bottom of her own trench coat, above her well-worn sneakers.

When she raised her gaze to meet his as he walked past her—Jack Bauer was practically snarling by this time—she was smiling apologetically, both for her appearance and for her dog’s behavior.

He smiled back, his eyes dark and as full of mystery as the windows peering down around them.

And she relaxed.

She had no bad feelings about this man. Not a single twinge about how or when he was going to die. Amazingly enough she felt nothing …

… nothing at all about him.

“Shhh,” Meena said to Jack Bauer, embarrassed over the dog’s antics.

It was right then that the sky collapsed.

Chapter Fifteen

4:00 A.M. EST, Wednesday, April 14

St. George’s Cathedral

180 East Seventy-eighth Street

New York, New York

The sky didn’t really collapse, of course.

It only seemed that way, because a huge section of it came swooping down at Meena from one of the spires of the cathedral.

She screamed and ducked, covering Jack Bauer with her body and arms, trying to protect them both from what looked like an ink-dark swath of material that came hurtling down at her head.

Except that she could see glimpses of the misty yellow glare from the street and security lights between the objects that were propelling themselves toward her at such an unbelievably fast speed.

Which was when Meena realized this wasn’t a single solid piece of St. George’s Cathedral, crumbling at last.

It was, unbelievably, bats. Hundreds, maybe thousands of black, shrieking bats, all headed straight at her, their pink mouths open, razor-sharp claws extended, beady yellow eyes bulging as they swept down from the cathedral’s spires, blocking out most of the night sky and available lamplight with their foot-wide wingspan, their only target Meena Harper and her Pomeranian-chow mix.

At first Meena froze. She wasn’t paralyzed with fear so much as with shock. All she could think was, this was how she was going to die? Being chewed to death by rats with wings?

Meena had been envisioning other people’s deaths for so long, it had never occurred to her that she might one day be experiencing her own.

And now, faced by her own imminent destruction, all she was able to think was that she’d never, not even for a second, seen it coming.

Then, her heart stuck in her throat, too terrified to let out a second scream as she stood at the bottom of the steps of the cathedral, she pulled Jack Bauer into her arms—those bats were nearly as big as he was—then dropped to the pavement to protect her dog, her face, and her eyes. Burying her nose in Jack’s fur, she began frantically to pray, though she’d never been a particularly religious person before that moment. Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please, she prayed, to no deity in particular, as every second the bats’ shrieks sounded more and more loudly in her ears.

And then, just as it seemed the first of those claws had to sink into her scalp, the back of her neck, her unprotected spine, she felt something—or rather someone—drop on top of her, envelop her, blocking out the light and sound almost completely.

And she realized, risking a brief upward glance, that it was the man who’d been standing next to her … the tall, good-looking man with the nice hair, in the expensive coat. The man about whose future she’d felt exactly nothing.

Except that that was impossible. Because he’d thrown himself over her, in order to protect her from the bats.

And now he, not she, was being torn apart by bat claws and pummeled by the impact of their careening bodies. She could feel the force of them as they struck him, one after another, reverberating all the way through his body to hers, as the two of them crouched on the cathedral steps, bombarded by keening winged missiles.

Why he wasn’t crying out with the pain he had to feel as each talon struck him, Meena didn’t know. He wasn’t even trying to shield his face and neck from the bats as they continued to tear at him. Meena couldn’t quite see his face beneath the dark protective folds of his coat, which had formed a sort of canopy over her, shielding her from the menacing attack.

But she thought she caught a glimpse of his eyes once as she glanced out, trying to see what was happening, and she could have sworn…

Well, she could have sworn they flashed as red as the brake lights she’d seen all up and down Park Avenue.

But that, of course, would have been impossible.

As impossible as the fact that she hadn’t sensed he was going to die tonight the minute she’d seen him coming toward her.

And die protecting her.

But that had to be what was happening. Because no human being could go through an attack like this and live.

Meena couldn’t believe any of this was happening. It was four in the morning, and she was on Seventy-eighth Street in front of a church she’d walked by a hundred—maybe even a thousand—times before, and she was being attacked by killer bats, while a man—a total stranger—had thrown himself over her, voluntarily giving his own life for hers.

And then, just when Meena was certain she couldn’t take it a moment longer—when she was convinced the attack would never stop and that they would eat right through the man’s body and down to hers—as suddenly as the bats had appeared, they were gone.

Just vanished into the night sky, disappearing as mysteriously as they’d come.

And the street was silent again, save for the distant sound of traffic over on Park Avenue. There wasn’t a noise to be heard, except for Jack Bauer’s whines and her own ragged breathing. She hadn’t realized until then that she was crying.

She couldn’t hear the man’s breathing. Was he dead already? How could he be dead without her having felt his death approaching? Even though he was a stranger to her, she ought to have known. Her power to predict death—unwanted as it had always been—had never once failed her before.

“Oh!” She found that she couldn’t catch her breath. She was trying to take in large gulps of air, but no oxygen seemed to be reaching her lungs. And it wasn’t because her protector was dead weight on top of her, either. “Oh, my God.”

That was when the man rolled off Meena and, in a deep voice tinged with an accent that sounded to her like a mixture of British and a hint of something else, asked, “Are you all right, miss?”

Chapter Sixteen

4:10 A.M. EST, Wednesday, April 14

St. George’s Cathedral

180 East Seventy-eighth Street

New York, New York

None of it was the slightest bit possible, of course.

That he should be completely unhurt and conversing with her as politely as if she’d just tripped over Jack Bauer’s leash and fallen across the sidewalk and he was a passerby who’d stooped to help her back up.

That she was looking into the eyes of the charming stranger kneeling beside her and saw that they weren’t red at all, but a perfectly ordinary dark brown.

“I—I’m fine,” Meena stammered in response to his inquiry after her health. She’d let Jack Bauer go because she could no longer hold on to his wildly wiggling body. He darted as far as the end of his leash would allow him to, then stood there growling, all the fur on his back raised. Meena couldn’t believe how horribly behaved he was being.

“Are you all right?” she asked her rescuer in a trembling voice.

“I’m very well, thank you.” The man had risen to his feet and now reached down to take Meena’s hands in his, to help her up. “I’d heard, of course, that New York City was dangerous. But I’d no idea it was quite as dangerous as that.”

Was he …? He was.

He was making a little joke.

His grip on her hands was steady. Meena felt oddly reassured by it. And by the little joke.

“I-it’s not,” Meena stammered.

Meena needed, she decided, to sit down. His grip on her hands was the only thing keeping her on her feet.

“I think we should get you to a hospital,” she heard herself say.

Or me, she thought. For a full head CT.

“Not at all,” the man said, putting an arm around her shaking shoulders. His grip seemed to say, I’m in control. There’s no need to worry about anything. Everything is going to be all right now. In a distant part of her brain, she hoped he would never, ever let go. “I’m fine. I think we should get you home, though. You seem done in. Where did you say you lived?”

“I didn’t,” Meena said. Her mind was awhirl, she knew. But whose wouldn’t be after such an event? How could he be so calm? Bats, Meena remembered, sometimes carried rabies. “Did any of them bite you? You should go to the ER right away. They can stop rabies if they catch it early enough.”

“None of them bit me,” he said in an amused tone of voice. He had taken the leash from her and was now walking both her and Jack Bauer—though unlike Meena, Jack Bauer wasn’t in the least bit unsteady on his feet and was fighting against his lead, wearing an expression not unlike the one Kiefer Sutherland wore when terrorists kidnapped the president on his show, like he was going to attack anyone and everyone who got in front of him. “But I’ll go to the hospital and get myself checked out as soon as I’ve gotten you home safely.”

“It’s important,” Meena said as they crossed the street. She was babbling. She knew she was babbling, but she couldn’t help it. What was going on? Who was this man? How could he be uninjured? Why was Jack Bauer acting like such a maniac? “It’s important you go. Victoria Worthington Stone got rabies once from a rabid bat when she was in a plane crash in South America, and in the ensuing brain fever, she slept with her half brother … although she didn’t know he was her half brother at the time.”

What was she talking about? Victoria Worthington Stone? Oh, God. Really?

The man hesitated. “Is this a friend of yours?” he asked.

Cringing with embarrassment, Meena said, “Well, I mean, Cheryl is. She plays Victoria Worthington Stone on Insatiable. I write her dialogue. But it’s true about the bats and rabies. We may be just a soap opera, but we strive for authenticity in our plotlines. …”

Or at least we used to, before Shoshona made head writer and caved to the demands of the sponsor, she just managed to stop herself from adding.

“I understand,” he said, gently leading her past the grocery store where Jon had said the chicken delivery hadn’t been made. There was a delivery truck outside the store now, though, the motor running noisily. Oh, so there’ll be chicken today, Meena thought disconnectedly. Yeah. She was losing it.

“So you’re a writer.”

“Dialogue writer.” Meena felt the need to correct him. “I’ve never written a scene like that,” meaning what had just happened outside St. George’s.

She couldn’t get it out of her head: the sound of all those wings flapping. And the smell of them—so foul, the way she’d always imagined death would smell, had she ever smelled death, which, thankfully, she hadn’t. She’d known so many people for whom death had come so near, some of whom it had even touched, because she hadn’t been able to save them. …

But death had never, ever come that close to her.

And the shrieking … that sound they’d made as they’d come tearing down from the sky, and then as their bodies had thudded into his …

And those eyes. Those red eyes.

Surely she’d only imagined those.

Meena had now come as near, personally, to death—to hell on earth—as she ever wanted to.

And she didn’t understand how she’d escaped it. She didn’t understand it at all.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling to a stop in front of him and lifting her chin to look him in the face. She didn’t care about the tears anymore, or the way she must have looked and sounded. She had to know. She had to know what was going on. “But I don’t understand. How can you not be hurt? I saw them. There were hundreds of them, coming right at us. I felt them hitting your body. You should be torn apart. But there’s not a scratch on you.”

He was so handsome, so … nice. How could she ever have thought anything about him, except that he was what he was? A tall, wonderful stranger who’d saved her life?

“D-don’t get me wrong,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m eternally grateful. What you did … that was so incredible. I’ll never be able to thank you enough. But … how did you do that?”

“They were only a few little bats,” he said with a smile.

Only a few little bats.

But … no. It had been more … much more than that. She was sure of it.

As sure as she could be of anything so late at night, after something so traumatic.

“You’re home now,” he said, and nodded toward the automatic brass doors a few feet away. “I’m sorry for what happened. I’m afraid it was my fault. But you should be quite safe for the night.”

Meena’s gaze focused, and she realized that, indeed, they’d arrived at 910 Park Avenue. The familiar green awning stretched over their heads. Through the glass of the doors, she could see Pradip, still dozing at the reception desk with his face on his textbook.

“But …” She looked back up at her rescuer, confused. “I didn’t tell you where I live. I never even told you my na—”

Jack Bauer whined, tugging on his leash, anxious to get away from the man who had saved their lives.

“Of course you did. It was wonderful to meet you, Meena,” the man said, letting go of her shoulders. “But it would be better for you if you forgot all about this and went inside now.”

Jack Bauer pulled her toward the doors, which opened automatically with a quiet whooshing sound. Pradip, behind the desk, stirred and began to raise his head. Meena’s feet, as if of their own accord, began to move toward 910 Park Avenue.

But at the threshold, she turned to look back.

“I don’t even know your name,” she said to the tall stranger, who stood waiting with his hands in his coat pockets, as if to be certain she made it safely inside before he went on his way.

“It’s Lucien,” he said.

“Lucien,” she repeated, so she would remember it. Not that it was likely she’d forget anything about this night. “Well. Thank you so much, Lucien.”

“Good night, Meena,” he said.

And then Jack Bauer pulled her the rest of the way inside, and the automatic doors closed with a gentle whoosh behind her.

When she turned to see if she could catch one last glimpse of him, he was gone. She wasn’t entirely certain he had ever been there at all.

Except for the fact that, when she got safely inside her apartment again, she saw that the knees of her pajamas were dirty from where she’d scraped them diving for the sidewalk.

Proof that what had happened hadn’t been a dream—or a nightmare—after all.

Chapter Seventeen

4:45 A.M. EST, Wednesday, April 14

St. George’s Cathedral

180 East Seventy-eighth Street

New York, New York

It wasn’t to be borne. They’d attacked him, and in the open, where anyone could have seen. Someone had seen. Granted, only the human girl, and she was in too much shock from the extreme violence of what had occurred and her own near brush with death ever to give anyone a rational account of it…

… in the unlikely event she were to remember it at all, which she wouldn’t.

But that wasn’t the point.

Someone was going to have to pay.

The question was, who?

Lucien stood in front of the cathedral, staring up at the spires. He had circled back after delivering the girl safely to her home. He hadn’t missed the irony of where she lived. But that was probably only to be expected. In many ways, Manhattan was a collection of small villages, just like his home country. People rarely ventured out of their own neighborhoods, especially young women walking small, fluffy dogs at four o’clock in the morning.

St. George’s. The irony of that wasn’t lost on him either. For hadn’t St. George slain the dragon?

And now the cathedral stood empty while undergoing renovation. What better time for the children of Dracul—or “dragon,” in his native Romanian—to desecrate it?

And what better time than now for the Dracul to convey their message to the only full-blooded son of the prince of darkness that they would no longer abide by his rule?

Sighing, Lucien climbed the steps where, just moments before, he’d fended off the attack from his own kind. They must have put out word of his arrival mere seconds after he’d set foot on American soil in order to have rallied so many to the cause of destroying him.

It was a bit disappointing to discover that he was so violently disliked among his own brethren.

On the other hand, he’d never asked to be liked. Only to be obeyed.

Glancing up and down the street to make sure he was alone—no more pretty, pajamaed dog walkers—he lifted away a section of the blue scaffolding that surrounded the cathedral, then slipped behind it. The church, badly in need of repair—and even more in need of cleaning—rose up before him, some of its ornate stained glass windows broken, even where they were covered in metal wire.

Not that this would keep him out, nor any like him.

They were all gone now, of course. How long they must have waited, knowing he would pass by eventually, going to or from Emil’s. He could only imagine the bickering. Especially among the females. The Dracul women had always been venom tongued.

With only a quick adjustment, he was inside the chained doors of the church and striding down the trash-strewn center aisle. The pews were in disorder, some knocked completely over, some lying askew like drunken sailors after a night out.

Just as he’d suspected, the Dracul had been inside the church as well. There was a primitive spray-painted outline of a dragon on what had once been an ornately decorated marble altar.

Now it was completely ruined. However much the congregation had raised for their renovation, they would need that much more to have the altar sandblasted.

Lucien shook his head. So much needless destruction. So much disregard for beauty.

Behind him, he heard something and whirled, his lightning-fast reflexes a fraction slower than usual from all the energy he’d had to exert during the encounter outside the church.

But fortunately it was only a dove, fluttering up from between the riotously disturbed pews, that interrupted Lucien’s solitude now. The Dracul had all gone, no doubt frustrated by their ineffectual attempt to assassinate him.

Relieved he would not be called again to defend himself so soon, he let his shoulders sag a little. It had taken every ounce of power he’d had left after the attack to heal himself from the wounds he’d received from the Dracul. It wouldn’t have been right to have allowed the girl to see the gouging his face and body had undergone, and so he’d taken care to repair himself even as the wounds were being inflicted. There were those humans who could take in stride the sight of a man’s face shredded by an attack of flesh-eating bats. …

And then there were those who could not.

The dog walker had definitely fallen into the category of not. She had seemed like a good sort of person—or someone who strived to do the right thing, anyway. Though her thoughts, for some reason, had been as difficult to penetrate as a rain forest.

Some humans were like that. Some had minds as dry and arid as a desert, and just as easily navigated. Others had psyches more like the dog walker’s, only accessible with a machete.

It was strange that such a pretty, vivacious girl would have so much emotional baggage. He trusted, however, that whatever dark secrets she was harboring, they wouldn’t get in the way of the memory wipe he’d conducted upon on her, which would guarantee that she’d remember none of the incident and go happily about her business as if the attack had never happened.

He wished he could be as fortunate.

Lucien stood in the ruins of the cathedral, contemplating his next move. The sun would be coming up soon. He needed to go to ground, then have a few words with his half brother, Dimitri.

And of course make out a generous check to the St. George’s Cathedral Renovation Fund.

Chapter Eighteen

8:45 A.M. EST, Wednesday, April 14

The Tennessean Hotel

Chattanooga, TN

Alaric, just back from his morning swim, stared down at the message on his computer screen. It seemed entirely too good to be true.

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED. …

WHAT: A fancy dinner at our place, 910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11A

WHEN: Thursday, April 15, at 7:30 P.M.

WHY: Emil’s cousin, the prince, is in town!

“Where did you get this?” he asked Martin over his mobile phone.

“The IT department found it during their routine scanning and thought it might be something.”

The Vatican had gone high-tech some time ago and now employed an entire fleet of full-time computer programmers and analysts for the Palatine, taking their battle against the forces of evil to the cyber as well as street level.

“And what makes them think,” Alaric asked in Italian, “that this has anything to do with our prince?”

Martin sounded annoyed. And no wonder. It was nap time in Rome, at least for Martin’s daughter, Simone. And probably for Martin, too. He’d been sleeping a lot while recovering from his wounds, thanks to all the painkillers he’d been prescribed by the Vatican surgeons.

“They’re checking the passenger manifests of every incoming flight, private as well as commercial, to New York City, and there was a Lucien Antonescu, professor of ancient Romanian history, on a flight from Bucharest last night. First-class seat.”

“So?” Alaric was bored already. His kill the day before hadn’t been all that exciting—except for the part where Alaric had crashed through the window, which of course he’d enjoyed. And the breakfast buffet, which he’d checked out on his way back to the room from the pool, had been uninspiring, to say the least.

“They’ve looked into this Professor Antonescu,” Martin said. “Rumor has it he’s been teaching at this university—night classes only—for thirty years. But they got hold of a copy of his last author photo … the guy looks thirty-five, at the oldest.”

Alaric snorted. “Oh,” he said sarcastically. “His author photo. Well, that cinches it. No writer would ever use an outdated author photo.”

“He has a summer place in Sighişoara,” Martin went on. “A castle, people say.”

“Who doesn’t own a castle in Sighişoara these days?” Alaric asked. He picked up the remote from his hotel bed and began flipping through the channels. The Tennessean, which had promised to be a luxury hotel, offered only one premium cable channel, HBO, and there was nothing good on it, except, predictably, a show featuring vampires. Alaric watched the Hollywood vampires for a while, smirking at how attractive and self-restrained they were. If only people knew the real story.

“I think this one might be legitimate, Alaric,” Martin said. “The woman who sent it, her last name is Antonescu. She’s a Manhattan socialite. Her husband’s a big real estate wheeler-dealer. We’ve never had any reason to suspect them before, except that the techno geeks got a hit with the names, the word prince, and the flight today. Anyway, it can’t hurt to check out the party, is what they’re saying from above. Everyone says this guy is a royal. He’s got to be the prince from the e-mail. I mean, this woman claims her husband’s descended from the Romanian royal family, and that she’s a countess. They’ve got property in Sighişoara as well.”

“Romanian royal family.” Alaric’s finger froze as he was flipping away from the Hollywood vampires.

“Exactly,” Martin said. “That’s why Johanna sent it my way. She thought you’d want to see it.”

“Why didn’t she just forward it straight to me?” Alaric asked, confused.

“Why do you think, dumbass?” Now Martin sounded not only annoyed but amused. “It’s not your case. You’re supposed to be finding the serial killer. Besides …”

Alaric leaned forward. “Besides what?” he asked. He hadn’t slept well. The pillows of his hotel bed hadn’t been very comfortable. He’d piled them all up against one another, and they still didn’t equal the luxuriousness of his goose-down-filled pillows from home. Alaric hadn’t even wanted to think about what he’d find if he ran a blue light over the bed’s comforter. He’d wadded it up and stashed it in the closet anyway along with what had passed for the room’s wall “art.”

“Holtzman’s ordered that you be kept on the Manhattan serial killer. Johanna says there’s a feeling you might be too personally invested in all this to be allowed to go after the prince.” Martin finished quickly. “Sorry, old bud.”

Alaric nearly choked on the swallow he’d taken from the bottle of sparkling water he’d plucked from the minibar.

“I know,” his former partner said soothingly as Alaric spurted out a few choice curses. “Look, I know how you feel. You think it’s not killing me to be out of action while all this is going down?”

“This is bureaucratic bullshit,” Alaric declared, and hurled his empty water bottle at the place on the wall where the offensively bad art had once hung. Irritatingly, the bottle didn’t even break. It was plastic.

“I know,” Martin said into his ear. “But look at it from Holtzman’s perspective. You can hardly be considered impartial anymore. And you don’t exactly follow protocol when it comes to demon hunting, do you? Nor is impulse control one of your strong suits. What did you just throw?”

“Nothing,” Alaric said, getting out of bed and going to pick up his sword. “And I resent the implication that in a one-on-one with the prince of darkness, I’d be anything but strictly professional.” He pointed his sword at the pretty vampire boy on the television screen. “I’m eminently capable of keeping my emotions in check while severing that bastard’s head from his body.”

“I know,” Martin said. “Why do you think I sent you that e-mail in the first place?”

Alaric shook his head. Damned bureaucrats. He loved his job, but one thing he could never understand was how the higher-ups couldn’t see that they only made things more difficult with their damned red tape.

Take Martin, for instance. He still had to keep the fact that he was married to a man a secret from their superiors. Not from Holtzman, of course … Holtzman, like Alaric, couldn’t have cared less who his fellow guards went home to at night, as long as they got the job they’d been trained to do done (although in Holtzman’s case, he preferred them to do it under budget).

But times—and attitudes—were changing all over the world. One could only hope they’d change soon in the Papal Palace.

“Look, just remember,” Martin said. “You didn’t get that e-mail from me. Understand?”

“Yeah,” Alaric said, sheathing his sword. “Thanks. How are you feeling, anyway?”

“Been better,” Martin said. “Been worse. I gotta go. Simone wants her nap. What are you going to do today?”

Alaric grinned. “Oh, the usual. Check out. Fly to New York. Save the world.”

Chapter Nineteen

2:00 P.M. EST, Wednesday, April 14

ABN Building

520 Madison Avenue

New York, New York

I already know.” Cheryl’s lower lip began to tremble. Just a little. “Shoshona told me last night.”

“Don’t cry,” Meena said, plunging her hand into a nearby box of tissues and then passing a wad of them to Insatiable’s leading lady. “Seriously. You know how your makeup runs when you cry. And we’re in high def now.”

“It’s fine,” Cheryl said. But she took the tissues and dabbed at her eyes just the same. “They can spray it back on. I just can’t believe after all these years, they’re selling out by going with a vampire. For Taylor.”

“It came down from the network,” Meena said. Although she didn’t know why she was defending Shoshona. “CDI wants it. I’m sure there’s some kind of new tie-in product they want to market. …”

“That just makes it worse,” Cheryl said with a sob.

“Look, don’t tell anyone,” Meena said, trying to sound encouraging. “But I think I’ve thought of something for you. Something fantastic.”

She just wasn’t willing to say it out loud. Not yet. She didn’t know why, exactly.

Well, all right, she did know why: the network was going to hate it.

And okay … maybe Leisha’s reaction over the phone when Meena had called her earlier in the day to tell her what had happened outside St. George’s had shaken her confidence a little.

“Bats?” Leisha had echoed.

“Yes,” Meena had said emphatically. “Bats.”

“In front of St. George’s Cathedral,” Leisha had said, as if requesting confirmation. “And this random guy just threw himself over you to protect you from them?”

“And Jack Bauer,” Meena had said, reminding her.

Leisha ignored her. “And he didn’t get a scratch on him, even though all of these bats attacked his face?”

“Yes,” Meena had said. “And then he walked me back to my building. Even though I never told him where I lived. It was like he just knew.”

“Okay, look,” Leisha had said. The sound of hair dryers blowing in the background was loud, as usual. “There’s a totally rational explanation for the whole thing: You took the sleeping pill, even though you don’t think you did. And then you took the dog for a walk. And you had a waking nightmare.”

“Except I didn’t take the sleeping pill.” Meena had insisted. “Leisha, I took it when I got home. I had to; I was shaking so badly from everything that happened. How else do you think I got to sleep after something like that? I was a wreck.”

“Well,” Leisha said, “there’s no other explanation. Because none of what you’re describing could have happened. Huge flocks of bats—or whatever it’s called when it’s bats and not birds—do not just go swooping down out of nowhere, attacking people in Manhattan. And how could he possibly have known where you lived—and your name, which you also said he knew—even though you didn’t tell him? There’s no such thing as mind readers, Meena. Except Sookie Stackhouse, and she’s made up. All you can do is tell how people are going to die, which isn’t nearly as useful or cool. You took the pill before you went out and just don’t remember, and then dreamed the whole thing. You’re working on a story line about vampires, remember? It’s natural you’d dream about bats. Vampires, bats. I’m surprised the guy you dreamed up wasn’t wearing a big black cape or sparkling or something.”

“He was in Burberry,” Meena said, knitting her brow. “But he definitely didn’t sparkle. He was very polite, though. And strong. He kept his arm around my shoulders the whole way home. It’s the only reason I didn’t fall down. He was so in control.”

Thinking about how strong and in control Lucien had been brought back feelings of warmth, even when Meena remembered it in the daytime. Except for one thing.

“But Jack Bauer hated him. Why would I dream that?”

“God, I’m just glad you’re all right,” Leisha had said, sounding concerned. “Whatever happened last night. You shouldn’t be out so late, even with Jack Bauer. What if the guy hadn’t been so polite or such a gentleman? Did you tell Jon about it?”

Meena had frowned as she’d sipped her morning soda. “No. I mean … sort of. I told him I saw some bats outside the church. That’s all.”

“You didn’t tell him because the guy was hot.” It was a statement.

“No! Leisha, come on. I barely talked to him.” She didn’t mention the feelings of warmth she got when she thought about how strong and in control he’d been.

“What? You’re mumbling! Over some guy you met in a dream! I can’t believe it. You like him.”

“If it was a dream,” Meena had said defensively, “parts of it were really vivid. And why shouldn’t I like him? He saved my life. And Jack Bauer’s,” she’d added hastily.

Leisha had said, “I knew all this crazy soap opera writing would catch up with you someday, and now it has. Meena, you’re in love with a guy your subconscious made up for you. A superman who saves you from bat attacks. God, it’s so obvious. He saved you from having to write about vampires, which you hate! Especially now, with Shoshona being your new boss.”

Meena had gotten up to throw her soda can away. She’d paused as she was about to toss it over the lip of her office recycling can.

“Well,” she’d said, “I guess I never thought of it that way. But … now that you mention it, the bats could represent my deep and abiding loathing for vampires.”

“Right,” Leisha had said. “Of course. Doesn’t that make more sense than any of it actually having happened?”

“Maybe,” Meena had said. “But then how do you explain the knees of my pajamas? They were filthy when I got up this morning. Obviously I was on the ground at some point. …”

“You really did go out to walk Jack Bauer, and you knelt down to scoop up some of his poop?” Leisha had suggested. “And don’t remember it?”

Meena had made a face. “You really know how to kill the romance in a story, don’t you?” she’d said.

“That’s what best friends are for, sweetie,” Leisha’d said. “It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.”

But now, sitting in Cheryl’s dressing room, Meena wondered. …

Had it all been a dream? Her subconscious working out her frustration over having to write about something she hated, like Leisha said?

And if it was … well, why not let it work to her advantage?

“Look,” Meena said. She glanced around the veteran actress’s luxurious dressing room as if she was worried someone might be eavesdropping. But there was only Cheryl’s vast doll collection—all dolls from the Madame Alexander Victoria Worthington Stone collection—watching. “Don’t say anything to Shoshona, because I haven’t written anything up yet—but I was thinking of having Victoria meet … well, a prince, actually.”

“A prince?” Cheryl was so astonished, she actually stopped crying. “What kind of prince?”

“A … Romanian one,” Meena said.

The truth was, ever since she’d gotten up that morning—still woozy from her ordeal the night before, even though Leisha was probably right and it had all been a dream brought on by her frustration over having lost out on the head writer job and having taken her sleep medication before, and not after, Jack Bauer’s walk—she hadn’t been able to get Lucien, and his ever so slightly European accent, out of her head.

And okay, so it was possible he was a figment of her overactive imagination, a manifestation of how she envisioned her creative self (weird that her creative self was a hot guy in a black trench coat, but whatever), who went around saving her from bats, also known as vampiric story lines thought up by Shoshona (who was wearing fishnets today, and they probably weren’t even control-top).

But Meena had felt so secure and protected in his arms. She hadn’t felt that way in so long. It always seemed lately as if the wolves—or bats—were bearing down on her. If it wasn’t the bills coming due at the end of the month, it was Shoshona, getting all the promotions but doing none of the work at the office.

Meena suspected Cheryl probably felt the same, since she suddenly sighed, gazed at her reflection in her dressing room mirror, then tugged on her décolletage.

“I don’t know, kiddo.” Cheryl looked skeptical. “No offense. But you against the network? I don’t think so. They let Gregory Bane kill off Beverly Rivington from Lust the other day. Twenty-five years she’d been on that show, and they had some scrawny kid with a funny haircut suck all the blood out of her. If that’s not an analogy for the way my career is going, I don’t know what is.”

“I know,” Meena said. She’d been hoping Cheryl hadn’t heard about Beverly. But that was ridiculous in a business like this, where everyone carried an iPhone and was connected to E! Online twenty-four/seven. “But I’m not going to let that happen to you.”

“Oh, really?” Cheryl raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“I’m going to write in a Romanian prince vampire slayer for Victoria to hire to kill off her daughter’s vampire boyfriend,” Meena said dramatically.

Meena knew she was treading on thin ice. Introducing a new character solely to kill off Shoshona’s character? The vampire who was supposed to save Insatiable from the beating they were taking in the ratings from Lust? The vampire the network wanted?

Was she insane?

Except that she had never felt more sane in her life.

Cheryl evidently didn’t agree.

“It’s your funeral, hon,” she said dubiously.

“It spells Daytime Emmy to me,” Meena said.

Cheryl looked modest. “Oh, sweetheart. From your lips to the Emmy voters’ ears. Well.” She gave her highly stylized hair a pat. “I guess I better go out there and suck face with that priest.”

Meena followed Cheryl out into the hallway. But instead of heading for the studio, she turned to go back upstairs to her own office. She needed to get started writing about Lucien, the Romanian prince who was going to kill off Shoshona’s vampire, right away. Who knew almost being killed by a lot of bats could be so creatively inspirational?

But it wasn’t, she knew, the bats that had gotten her creative juices flowing; it was Lucien’s warm brown eyes. …

Maybe while she was at it, she thought, she should write a Craigslist Missed Connections ad. How else was she ever going to see Lucien again?

It was as she was trying to figure out how she’d describe those warm brown eyes in her ad that she almost smacked into Taylor, coming out of the elevator in full costume and makeup for a scene she was shooting in the riding stables with her character’s current love interest, Romero, her riding instructor.

“Oh my God, Meena!” Taylor cried, flinging both her arms around Meena. “Thank you so much!”

Meena, feeling a little strangled, hugged Taylor back. “Of course. Any time.” Thank you for what?

“You just don’t know,” Taylor said, finally releasing her and peering down at her with tears brimming her wide blue eyes, “how much it means to me to snag this fantastic story line. I’ve just been so jealous of Mallory Piers on Lust for getting all this press for those scenes she’s been doing with Gregory Bane. And now I’m getting a vampire of my very own!”

“Oh,” Meena said. “That. Yeah.” Meena ran a hand through her short hair distractedly. She couldn’t help but feel a little guilty about the fact that she’d just been heading upstairs with the intent of killing off Taylor’s new love interest. “Well, that was more the network’s idea. CDI’s, actually …”

“I know,” Taylor said. “Shoshona already stopped by and told me.”

I bet she did, Meena thought. Shoshona seemed to have been all over the building, flapping her mouth.

“I think it’s so great that the two of you are working together to put some young blood back into Insatiable,” Taylor said, reaching out to squeeze Meena’s hands.

“No problem,” she said to Taylor. She didn’t think now would be a good time to point out that she was planning on writing a romantic lead for Cheryl who was going to put a stake through the heart of Taylor’s new on-screen boyfriend.

“Thanks again,” Taylor said. “And thanks, too, for all the deli sandwiches you keep dropping by my dressing room. But you know, they really aren’t part of my new diet. Let’s do sashimi sometime!”

She ran off, her thighs so slim they looked like they belonged on a gazelle. Meena got into the elevator with a hint of a scowl on her face, only to find Shoshona already in the car.

Great.

“Hello, Meena,” Shoshona said with a kittenish smile.

“Hello, Shoshona.” Meena couldn’t help noticing that Shoshona was carrying her Marc Jacobs dragon tote. Up close, Meena could see it had the perfect detachable messenger-bag strap, too, so no matter how much junk you stuffed into it, it wouldn’t cut into your shoulder. “Going up?”

“Of course,” Shoshona said. “Looking forward to meeting our new Maximillian Cabrera on Friday?”

“Who’s Maximillian Cabrera?” Meena asked, bewildered.

“Taylor’s vampire lover,” Shoshona said, rolling her eyes as if Meena were stupid for not knowing. Except that Meena hadn’t seen the breakdowns for the vampire story line. How could she, since in her usual fashion Shoshona hadn’t even given them to Paul to write? “Stefan’s coming in to read for the part on Friday. You were there when I told Sy about it. Remember?”

Meena, annoyed, kept her gaze on the numbers above their heads as they lit up. “Oh,” she said. “Right.”

“And Stefan told me that Gregory himself might come with him,” Shoshona added.

“Oh, goody,” Meena said. Maybe she would bring Jon to work with her on Friday. He couldn’t do worse at the audition than some friend of Gregory Bane’s.

And God knew Jon was better looking. Not that Meena would ever have admitted this in front of Jon.

“I’m really glad you’ve decided to be a team player about this, Meena,” Shoshona said. “You scratch my back, and maybe someday, I’ll scratch yours.”

I bet you will, Meena thought cynically.

Chapter Twenty

1:00 A.M. EST, Thursday, April 15

Concubine Lounge

125 East Eleventh Street

New York, New York

The club was dark and the techno music pounding, louder even than in most discos in Bucharest.

Not that Lucien frequented such places … if he could help it. They were too smoky for his taste and tended to attract a rough crowd, lured by the promise of copious amounts of cheap liquor and scantily clad women. Those kinds of clubs were more for students. It made Lucien uncomfortable to be spotted in the same places as his students. It wasn’t, he felt, appropriate.

Particularly when his female students threw their legs over his and began rubbing their groin over him, a dance move popularly referred to as “grinding.”

Lucien had seen many dance styles come and go, usually with more amusement than alarm. But of all of them, he hoped “grinding” would be of shortest duration. There really wasn’t anything attractive or sexually alluring about it.

However, as he stood surveying the crowded dance floor of Concubine, he saw that grinding was as popular in the States as it was in Bucharest. It was a bit difficult to tell because of the smoke from the dry ice machines. But it certainly seemed that way from all the bodies writhing up against one another.

When one body, garbed only in black leather pants and a metal bikini top, detached itself from the others and wriggled up against him, Lucien asked, “Where’s Dimitri?”

The girl ran a black-nailed hand along his flat abs, pulling his white shirt from his trouser belt. She looked up at him through her spiky blond bangs as she began grinding against him in time to the music and said flirtatiously, “We don’t need him. Unless you like it that way.”

Lucien reached up and caught her wrist in an iron grip before she could dip her fingers into the waistband of his trousers.

“Where,” he asked again, his eyes flaring red, “is Dimitri?”

The girl stopped grinding and said, her voice rising to a fearful whine, “He’s over there. God! I was just trying to be friendly.”

Lucien let go of her wrist and strode toward the VIP area, where she’d pointed with a shaking finger. He hadn’t meant to frighten her.

On the other hand, she’d been high and hoping he had drugs on him to get her even higher. Beyond that, her mind had been empty as the Sahara. Lucien couldn’t help being reminded of the dog walker from the night before, whose mind had been just the opposite—impenetrable as a jungle.

He wondered why he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about her. He told himself it was only because she and the dancing girl were close in age and both attractive.

The resemblance ended there, however. He’d given up feeling sorry for addicts like the dancing girl. There were too many of them these days.

The VIP area where Dimitri was sitting was separated from the dance floor with black velvet ropes and featured a series of elegant, high-backed booths that formed a retreat from the loud music and gyrating bodies on the dance floor. On the soft black leather seats lounged a half dozen middle-aged men—much too middle-aged, and far too paunchy, for the extremely young and slender women who were draped all over them, their doe-eyed gazes as blank as that of the girl who’d just attempted to grind upon Lucien.

In a neighboring booth sat a few much younger men. One of them looked up and smiled as Lucien approached …

… just as two heavyset bodyguards attempted to block Lucien’s path.

“Sorry, sir,” said one of the men, who weighed nearly three hundred pounds and was wearing a gold chain around his thick neck with the name Reginald emblazoned on it. “This area is for VIPs only.”

“I can see that, Reginald,” Lucien said. “I’m here to see Mr. Dimitri. And you’re going to let me pass.”

“Of course I am,” Reginald said, and he moved aside. “I’m very sorry, sir.”

Reginald’s partner, who weighed nearly as much as Reginald, all of it muscle, was appalled.

“Reggie!” he cried. “What are you doing?”

Reginald explained, as he unhooked the velvet rope for Lucien to pass, “You heard the man. He’s here to see Mr. Dimitri.”

Dimitri had risen from his booth and come to meet Lucien. A tall, dark-haired man in a business suit that fit as perfectly as any of Lucien’s, he wore a white shirt that was open at the throat, revealing a leather cord from which hung a small iron dragon symbol.

“Brother,” Dimitri said, stretching out a hand to take Lucien’s in his. “This is a surprise. It’s been too long. When did you get in?”

“Dimitri,” Lucien answered coolly. He shook his half brother’s hand, pointedly ignoring the question. “You’re doing well, I see.”

“Oh, this?” Dimitri’s wide gesture with his left hand (in which he was holding an expensive Cuban cigar; he’d always, Lucien remembered, had a fondness for smoking, one that matched Lucien’s own fondness for fine wines) encompassed Reginald and his partner, the VIP area, the whole of the club. “This is nothing. I have four more nationwide, and am opening another one in Rio de Janeiro next month.”

“Rio,” Lucien said, raising his eyebrows. “Still treading dangerously.”

“What danger? It’s a nightclub,” Dimitri said, emphasizing the word night. “Only we call them lounges now. You would love Rio. The humidity! Very good for the skin. Come, you must meet my new friends from TransCarta. You must have heard of it, the private equity firm? They’re brokering a rather large deal at the moment and are in need of some stress relief. So of course they’ve come here. Everyone who works in finance has such a bad reputation these days. Negative publicity. That’s something you and I know a bit about, don’t we, brother?”

Dimitri laughed at his own joke as he took Lucien’s arm, attempting to steer him toward the booth of middle-aged men being nuzzled by the reed-thin young girls.

“Maybe later for that, Dimitri,” Lucien said. “I’d rather speak privately to you for a moment first. We have much business to discuss, I think, you and I.”

“Nonsense,” Dimitri said. “Pleasure before business! I know what you’re talking about … and why you’re here.” He slapped an arm around Lucien’s shoulder and began steering him toward the booth he’d just vacated. “An unfortunate thing, about these young dead girls. And I’ve asked around—believe me, it’s not good for the club, having a maniac like this loose—and I can assure you, no one knows a thing about it. If they did, don’t you think I’d have taken care of it already? You know me, Lucien. Anything to improve the bottom line!”

Lucien tilted his head toward the girl who’d approached him as he’d come in, the one in the metal halter top. She was now gyrating by herself on the dance floor, off in her own little drug-induced stupor.

“And her? You aren’t doing a very good job of keeping hard drugs out of the place,” he remarked. “Surely that can’t be helping to improve the bottom line.”

Dimitri followed his half brother’s gaze.

“Oh, drugs,” he said, and rolled his eyes. “Well, what are you going to do? They’re everywhere. The government should legalize them already, then tax them and use the money to pay off the deficit and get the addicts the help they need. But why are we talking about such a depressing topic? Come, you haven’t seen Stefan in ages. And you have to meet my very latest project.”

“Your latest project?” Lucien raised an eyebrow. “It isn’t this … lounge?”

“Not at all!” Dimitri guided him toward a table at which sat a somewhat seedy-looking young man and his even seedier companion, both of whom were wearing extraordinarily tight trousers and shirts open to mid-chest beneath leather motorcycle jackets. They were flanked on either side by pencil-slim young women who did not appear to be wearing much in the way of clothing at all but had exceptionally flat chests and very straight hair.

“A new business venture,” Dimitri announced enthusiastically. “Gregory Bane, meet my brother, visiting all the way from Romania, Lucien Antonescu.”

“Hello, sir.” The thinner of the two young men stood to shake Lucien’s hand. Lucien knew why he was being so obsequious even before he felt Gregory Bane’s skin … or saw the slim dragon tattoo that decorated the inside of his pale wrist.

“A pleasure,” Lucien said unsmilingly.

“It’s all mine,” Gregory Bane said, his eyelids fluttering nervously.

Lucien wondered how long it had been since the boy had turned and who’d turned him. Not Dimitri, surely. His brother was many things … but not that. More than likely he’d seen an opportunity and had one of his many paramours do it. The boy was, Lucien supposed, good looking by the standard set by his current crop of female students, who tended to be slim and unwashed.

The other boy, who wore his dragon like Dimitri’s, in the form of an iron symbol on a leather wristband, stood and extended his right hand. …

“Uncle Lucien,” Stefan said a little diffidently.

But then again, the boy had never been all there, Lucien thought as he shook his nephew’s hand.

Whether that was because he’d seen his father murder his mother before his very eyes—it had been a different time and place, when uxoricide hadn’t been all that uncommon, but still, Lucien hadn’t approved—or because he’d been turned too young, Lucien had never been sure.

The young man was a definite disappointment. Dimitri was forever formulating some scheme or another to give him some direction. But he’d never even allowed the boy to use his last name. How could he expect Stefan to exercise any sort of career initiative?

What game was Dimitri playing at now? Lucien wondered. And what did the paunchy financial analysts from TransCarta have to do with it, if anything? Was it all really just part of his half brother’s new “business venture”?

Or something more insidious?

Oh, Dimitri acted the part of welcoming family, all open arms. … He even ordered bottles of Veuve for the table, though champagne was never Lucien’s favorite. He’d never been fond of bubbles, which vanished immediately on the tongue. He preferred heavier, meatier wines that coated the mouth like … well, a meal.

But it all seemed a little like the champagne, or the young human women who’d draped themselves over Gregory Bane and the hapless Stefan—not to mention over the hedge fund managers in the booth next door—who said nothing but disappeared often to go to the ladies’ room, then came back wiping their noses, their minds as empty as that of the girl who’d tried to get him to dance with her.

Too showy. Not enough substance. Just a lot of air.

After a while, Lucien felt he had seen enough. If there were answers at his half brother’s club, he wasn’t going to get them this way.

He excused himself, saying that he had to go.

Dimitri showed him out through a back exit, since the front was now too crowded with drug-addled partygoers for him to leave without having to push his way through.

“Where are you staying while you’re here?” Dimitri asked—too casually—blowing smoke from his cigar toward the starry night sky, which was just visible from the dark alley in which they stood.

“Emil found me a place,” Lucien said. The less said about where, Lucien figured, the better. He trusted his brother. …

But only to a point.

Dimitri gave a chuckle. “Emil,” he said. “Is he still with that idiotic wife of his?”

“He is,” Lucien said.

“Marriage,” Dimitri said. “Now that is the one thing you and I do have in common. No need to get tangled up in that. Well. Again.”

“It’s never seemed prudent,” Lucien carefully agreed.

Dimitri stared at him for a second or two before bursting into surprised laughter.

“Prudent,” he cried. “Listen to you! You haven’t changed, have you? Not in all this time.”

Lucien shot him an appraising look.

“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose either of us has.”

Dimitri stopped laughing abruptly and pointed at Lucien.

“I don’t like the sound of that,” he said in a deep voice. “I hope you didn’t come here to stir up trouble, Lucien. Because we’ve been doing perfectly fine on this side of the Atlantic without even a hint of trouble from the Palatine … and without any interference from you.”

His eyes, normally every bit as dark as his half brother’s, glowed as red as his cigar as he said the word interference.

A second later, a layer of the trash, dirt, gravel, and broken glass lining the alley floor just in front of Lucien began to rise into the air, then swirl more and more rapidly together until it was a towering, violently destructive tornado headed straight at him.

Lucien threw an arm up to guard his face from the debris.

That was when Dimitri found himself thrown back against the side of a Dumpster, as if an unseen wind had lifted him and blown him there. His fall was broken by some empty liquor boxes someone had flattened and stacked before the Dumpster for recycling. Otherwise, he would have slammed against the steel receptacle with as much force as if he’d been shot from a nail gun.

As he lay there, stunned, the vortex Dimitri had created died as abruptly as he’d crumbled, all the pieces of glass and trash falling back to the alley floor.

Lucien strolled up to where his brother lay, pausing on his way to carefully stamp out the cigar Dimitri had dropped, then lift it and deposit it in the Dumpster behind him.

Lucien was furious … but even when furious, he was still conscientious about litter.

“I have no idea what kind of game you’re playing here, Dimitri,” Lucien said, leaning an elbow on the side of the Dumpster and speaking down to his brother in a voice that was almost eerie in its calmness after the violence that had erupted just seconds before. “Nightclubs filled with investment bankers and drug-addicted young women. That’s your business, and I agreed long ago I’d stay out of Dracul business, so long as there weren’t any human deaths from loss of blood. But now … it’s not the Palatine you need to fear … it’s me.”

Dimitri, slumped against the side of the Dumpster like a piece of garbage waiting to be picked up, winced up at his brother.

“I know that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’ve always known that. You didn’t have to hit me so hard, you know.”

“These dead girls,” Lucien said, ignoring his brother. “What do you know about them?”

“I told you,” Dimitri said. “I don’t know anything about them.”

A stainless steel countertop that lay abandoned to one side of the Dumpster suddenly rose several feet into the air and dangled threateningly above Dimitri’s head.

“Wait,” Dimitri cried, throwing an arm over his face to protect his handsome features from destruction. “All right, all right. Yes, I’ve heard talk—”

Lucien let the countertop fall harmlessly to one side. The clatter it made was deafeningly loud, and the two men could hear rats squeak and scurry away. Dimitri, still seated in the muck on the alley floor, made a face.

“But you can’t think I know who’s doing it, Lucien,” he said. “Obviously if I did, I’d put a stop to it. I don’t even know why you’d think it’s one of us. It’s clearly some sick pervert.”

“Who drinks human blood,” Lucien said calmly.

“Well, lots of people do,” Dimitri said. “It’s quite stylish to be a vampire these days. Or act like one, anyway.”

Lucien studied his younger brother. He would have liked to have believed Dimitri was as innocent as he claimed.

But Lucien had made the mistake of believing in his brother’s innocence in times past.

And it had nearly cost him his life.

He wouldn’t make that same mistake again, especially when it might now involve human lives.

“If I find out you know anything about these murders,” Lucien said, “and you didn’t tell me or do anything to stop the killer—or happen to be behind the killings yourself—I will destroy you, and everything and everyone you care about, Dimitri. Do you understand?”

Dimitri, trying to struggle to his feet and out of the garbage and slime, said, “Brother! We’ve obviously gotten off on the wrong foot again. I’m sorry about that little misunderstanding back there. Can’t we—”

But Lucien wasn’t done. He placed a hand on his half brother’s shoulder and shoved him back down into the muck from which he’d just been attempting to climb.

Then Lucien leaned over him and whispered into his ear, “No. We can’t. You know the agreement. Everyone can drink. But no one can—”

“For the love of God, Lucien!” Dimitri cried. “Do you think I don’t know, after all these years? No one may kill a human, no matter how much he might thirst. To do so will bring swift and absolute retribution from the prince. The Dracul have lived under your orders for more than a century. Do you think we might have somehow forgotten them?”

“Yes,” Lucien said grimly. “Because you have before. And you will again.”

It was right then that the back door to the club opened and Reginald and his partner appeared.

“Mr. Dimitri?” Reginald asked in some alarm, seeing his boss lying on the alley floor.

Lucien straightened.

“Give him a hand, will you, Reginald?” Lucien asked over his shoulder as he turned to stride swiftly past him and into the dark night. “Mr. Dimitri is going to need all the help he can get.”

Chapter Twenty-one

7:00 P.M. EST, Thursday, April 15

St. George’s Cathedral

180 East Seventy-eighth Street

New York, New York

Meena stared at the cathedral. In the fading daylight, it looked beautiful, with its twin spires straining toward the spring sky and elegant stained glass, even if some of the windows were broken in places. Who would throw rocks at a church window, anyway?

Sure, it was surrounded with the familiar blue plywood that always went up around a building in Manhattan when construction was taking place.

But the plywood was nowhere near high enough to hide the large and lovely cathedral behind it.

A cathedral that, just two nights before, had been the scene of an inexplicable, brutal attack.

Or had it?

Meena stood with Jack Bauer on his leash at the bottom of the cathedral steps, exactly where they had been the night before last when the bats had come swooping down out of nowhere.

At first she’d been worried that Jack wouldn’t want to go anywhere near the church because of what had happened last time they’d been there.

But he showed no sign of any reluctance, trotting right up and lifting a leg on a parked car in front of it.

He obviously didn’t harbor any ill memories of the incident.

But though at first her own had been a bit fuzzy, she remembered it all now, as clearly as if it had just happened a few minutes, and not nearly forty-eight hours, ago. There was the place on the sidewalk where she’d crouched, her heart in her throat, for so long while the bats had flung themselves over and over at Lucien’s face and body, trying—she’d been certain at the time—to rip him apart.

Except that he’d been fine, his face without a mark on it.

And true, there were no actual drops of blood or anything like that on the ground to show that there’d been any attack at all.

But she recognized the crack in the pavement; how could she forget it? Her face had been almost right up against it as Lucien had lain across her, keeping her safe.

It was strange, Meena thought as she stood gazing up at the church spires, wondering if the bats were in there now and when they might awaken—and attack—again. She didn’t get a feeling of evil from the cathedral, even though the exact spot where she stood had very nearly been the site of a savage mauling.

Meena didn’t flatter herself that as a dialogue writer for a show of Insatiable’s quality she was particularly gifted. She didn’t put on airs that she was a creative genius.

Nor did she think of herself as any more creative than the artists she sometimes saw outside the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the ones who painted amateur sunsets and landscapes and then sold them to tourists who happened to be walking by.

Meena felt her scripts for Insatiable were much the same thing: a reflection of what was happening daily in front of the average American, just like a sunset … only maybe a little more dramatic, to keep people interested.

But she’d always been aware of being a tiny bit more sensitive to mood than other people, possibly because of her ability to tell when something horrible was going to happen to someone.

Maybe there just wasn’t anything horrible about St. George’s to sense. Because a tragedy at St. George’s had been averted … thanks to Lucien, whoever he was. He’d saved her life. She didn’t know how or why, but he had.

Did Lucien, Meena wondered, ever think about what had happened outside the church and how strange it had been? Perhaps he too had come to stand outside St. George’s and asked himself the very same questions she was. Maybe he’d posted a Craigslist Missed Connections ad about her (she’d been too shy to post one about him). She’d better remember to check. …

“Meena?”

Meena jumped nearly out of her skin. She whirled around, half expecting to find Lucien himself staring down at her.

But it was only Jon, looking extremely surprised to find her standing in front of St. George’s Cathedral on a Thursday evening, staring at nothing.

“What are you doing here?” Jon asked. “I thought you were taking Jack Bauer for a walk.”

“I was,” Meena said, tugging on Jack’s leash. Jack Bauer was actually lying on the sidewalk, licking his hind leg, and ignored her. “I mean, I am. I was just … thinking about something.”

“I can tell.” Jon stood next to her and looked up at the church spires. He was dressed up in pressed khakis and a nice shirt, and was, for some reason, wearing a tie. In his right hand was a brown paper bag. “Are you still freaking out about that flock of bats?”

“It was a colony,” Meena corrected him. “I looked it up on Wikipedia. Bats live in colonies. And I found out they don’t normally attack something—or someone—as a group the way they did the other night. That had to have been a total fluke. They’re really more solitary hunters. You know, because they use high-frequency sonar.”

Jon looked down at her like she was crazy.

“Okay,” he said. “Good to know. Are you going to come home and get ready? Because we have the Antonescus’ dinner party in half an hour.”

She blinked. “What?”

“The countess’s dinner party,” he said. “Remember? For her cousin, the prince. It’s Thursday night. You said we’d go.”

Meena rolled her eyes. “Oh,” she said. “That. Yeah. We can’t go. I didn’t RSVP.”

“Meena,” Jon said, shaking his head. “We talked about this. We said we’d go.”

“Well,” Meena said, “I never told her we’d go. So, I guess we can’t go. Too bad. Let’s watch a marathon of The Office instead.”

“No,” Jon said. “Free food. Remember? Besides, I already saw Mary Lou in the elevator today and she asked if we were coming and I said yes. So we have to go. Look, I bought them a bottle of wine.” He held up the paper bag. “It cost me six bucks. I’m not wasting it.”

Meena’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I don’t think I can handle a party at the countess’s tonight. It’s been a really bad week.”

“I know,” Jon said, taking her by the elbow and turning her away from the church. “But you want to meet this prince guy, right? Isn’t he the guy you want to use as a model for the vampire slayer in your spec script? The one for Cheryl?”

“Actually,” Meena admitted as they started walking toward 910 Park, “I think I met someone who would be a better model for the prince.”

“Really?” Jon said. “Who?”

“Oh, just a guy,” Meena said, knowing what Jon would have to say about her adventure with Lucien outside the cathedral the night before last.

And if she told him, he’d only deliver a big-brotherly lecture about her leaving the apartment late at night, something she knew she ought not to have done. In their gender-unequal society, it still wasn’t totally safe for American women to wander the streets of New York City unescorted late at night. (Although to be fair, it wasn’t safe for anyone to do this, really. There were rampaging colonies of bats lurking everywhere.)

“Well, the guy we’re meeting tonight is supposed to be a prince,” Jon said. “Where else are you going to meet one of those?”

“Nowhere,” Meena admitted, realizing Jon had actually been looking forward to this dinner party. He didn’t get a chance to go out very often, since he was … well, broke and unemployed. And most of his friends were as well. Entertainment was the last thing on which any of them could afford to splurge. She ought to have known that to her brother, any chance to leave the apartment was a welcome one … even if it was just to go to the neighbors’ place across the hall.

She glanced over her shoulder at the spires of the church shooting up toward the lavender evening sky, the clouds pink in the setting sun, as Jon steered her away from it. Churches, she thought idly. What are they even for?

To worship in, obviously. But to worship what, exactly? A god who gave you gifts you never even asked for, that were basically just a curse?

On the other hand, what else did people have, exactly?

Nothing.

Nothing but hope that things might get better someday.

The kind of hope that Meena, on her TV show, and the priests at St. George’s tried to give people.

“You’re right,” Meena said with a sigh, turning around.

“We don’t have to stay all night,” Jon said as they rounded the corner. “If it’s bogus, we’ll leave.”

“Sure,” Meena said. “And who knows? It might even be fun.”

Even though, of course, she didn’t for one second actually believe this.

Chapter Twenty-two

7:30 P.M. EST, Thursday, April 15

910 Park Avenue, Apt. 11A

New York, New York

Lucien was quite certain his cousin had lost his mind.

“A dinner party?” he echoed as he handed his overcoat to the maid, who took it to hang in the hall closet.

“It’s just …,” Emil explained quietly, so that his wife, busy with the caterer in the dining room, couldn’t overhear, “she seems to have this fantasy that you’re in need of a bride and that New York is the place where you’re going to find one. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. If you want to smite me, my lord, I perfectly understand.”

Lucien, instead of being furious—which he knew was the reaction Emil was expecting from him—felt only amusement. Although he’d made it clear he wanted no one to know of his arrival in New York, that, of course, was a moot point. The damage was done. Clearly, his enemies already knew where he was: an attempt had been made on his life. The information had simply traveled.

Much in the way Lucien expected that news of how he’d treated his own brother would get around. He didn’t regret this. He counted on it. If everyone heard Dimitri had picked a battle with him and Lucien had won, they’d be even less inclined to stage a second attack of the sort that had occurred the other night, which he’d clearly survived.

The prince of darkness was in town and indomitable as ever.

But a dinner party? With humans?

The idea made Lucien smile.

“Your wife,” he said to Emil, “is a bold woman.”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Emil said with a queasy smile. “But, honestly, my lord, if you wish to go back to the penthouse—”

“It’s all right, Emil,” Lucien said soothingly. Sometimes he thought Emil would self-implode, he was wound so tightly. “I’m assuming you have some decent wines to serve.”

Emil brightened considerably. “Of course, my lord,” he said. “Some lovely amarones I purchased just for you. Come, let me open them.”

Emil followed Lucien to his library, where he opened a fine Italian red. After a while, from the darkened, comfortable room, they could hear the first guests arriving and Mary Lou’s vivacious voice as she greeted them.

“I suppose,” Emil said reluctantly, “we should go out there.”

“It will be fine,” Lucien reassured his cousin. “I quite enjoy humans. I used to be one, remember? And I teach them.”

The two men emerged into the living room, where Mary Lou shrieked with delight.

“Well, there they are!” she screamed. She had on a long turquoise dress with quite a lot of gold jewelry and matching gold shoes. Her eye shadow was the same color as the dress. Her long blond hair had been perfectly curled and coifed. “Where have you two been hiding? Prince Lucien, I want you to meet our friends Linda and Tom Bradford, and this is Faith and Frank Herrera, and Carol Priestley and Becca Evans and Ashley Menendez from Emil’s office. Everyone, this is Prince Lucien Antonescu. …”

The women were attractive, the men jovial. Lucien shook hands with all of them, then joined in the small talk about New York City and the shows and restaurants he was to be sure not to miss while he was there.

It was a beautiful spring evening, and the Antonescus had opened all the French doors to their large wraparound terrace. The sun had already sunk into the west, and the sky was a lovely shade of pink and lavender. Lucien strolled out onto the terrace, joined by several of the women, all holding glasses of champagne and talking excitedly about an art opening they’d been to the week before.

Mary Lou had not chosen poorly. Her guests were beautiful, intelligent women.

When Lucien heard the doorbell to the apartment ring, he didn’t look to see who was arriving next because he didn’t want to seem rude. (And he could tell it wasn’t a member of the Dracul or the Palatine Guard there to assassinate him. They would never bother using the bell.)

But then he did look, because something told him he needed to.

And the sound of the women’s conversation around him died away. Not because they’d ceased speaking.

But because he was no longer listening.

It was the woman who’d been walking her dog the night of his attack, the one who’d nearly been killed herself. Meena Harper, her name had been.

He saw that Mary Lou was kissing her hello and taking a cheap bottle of wine from her tall, male companion.

Of course she was there at Emil’s. Of course she was. What had he been expecting? Deep down, he must have known. Otherwise he’d have left, walked out an hour ago. He wasn’t in New York to socialize with Emil’s wife’s human friends. He’d never wanted for female companionship when he needed it and was perfectly capable of finding it without Mary Lou’s help.

And now the last woman in the world with whom he should have been consorting—because he could feel for himself the magnetic pull she had on him—had walked into the room. And he was just standing there, staring at her, in her inexpensive black dress and boyishly short hair.

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