Page 15 of Kissed the Mark
There was typing on the other end. “Leandrahas assistants around the clock. Let me see who it is right now,”the receptionist said. They should switch out the councilreceptionist with this one, I thought. “Terri is her assistantduring the day today. Let me transfer you over.”
There was some grotesque hold music, acountry song that clanged against my ears. And then: “Leandra’soffice, this is Terri. How can I help you?”
“Terri,” I said, relieved. Maybe I hadhallucinated the last few days and nothing was out of the ordinary,and I’d go home to my empty apartment and play with my undead cat.“When’s the last time you saw Leandra? I’ve been working with herfor the last week and she disappeared on me,” I lied.
“She’s shown herself toyouthis lastweek?” Terri asked, the irritation creeping into her voice.“Leandra hasn’t been here in a month. Patricia is pissed. I’ll haveto tell her you were in contact.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know,” I said sheepishly.“I would have said something sooner.”
“Patricia will be in contact with you,” shesaid, and hung up.
An uncomfortable warmth spread across myskin. If there was one thing I’d learned while living in Mayfair,it was that you wanted to fly under the radar of the vampire queen.There was no way to prove it, but an Unseelie fairy had trespassedon vampire territory and was never seen again, and we all suspectedPatricia of offing him. She was infamous for her ruthlessness,which was probably what made her a good vampire queen. The councilwould be poorly matched to go against her—their own representativefrom the Mayfair vampires was directly under Patricia’s wing andacted solely in her interests.
I had more questions than before, and nowI’d pissed off Allie and possibly gotten myself under the vampirequeen’s scrutiny. It was not going to be a fun night.
?
Without her memories, Leandra was acompletely different person. She woke from her day sleep aroundsunset with her hair in a giant tangled ball and promptly stole mymost garish shade of nail polish. I looked up from making myselfdinner to find that she’d spilled half the bottle onto hardwoodfloor, not to mention her nails resembled a kindergartener tryingto color within the lines. It didn’t help that she was wearing anold, oversized T-shirt of mine, either.
“It doesn’t look like yours,” she said,pouting. A wave of exhaustion overcame me—the same kind that Iwould get babysitting as a teenager.
“I’ll help you in a second.” I strained mypasta and then went over to her, pressing a wet paper towel to thefloor. The bright purple polish spread around and stained everyknot in the wood. “That’s coming out of my security deposit,” Imuttered to myself.
Leandra passed me the bottle of nail polish.I stopped the bottle and applied nail polish remover to thedisaster she’d created on her hands, stroking each finger up anddown with a cotton ball. “Before you lost your memories you alwayshad unchipped nails. It was unnatural,” I said.
She glanced up at me from where I sat, herbig eyes full of wonder. Maybe they didn’t use a lot of nail polishin the ’20s. I paused with her ring finger pinched between two ofthe fingers on my left hand. “What?” I asked.
“You are very beautiful,” she said.
In spite of myself, my face burned withembarrassment under the attention. “Gee, I wish you were this niceall the time,” I said, more to myself than her.
“I’ve always liked blondes,” she said as Iresumed painting her nails. She sat crisscrossed, watching everystroke of the brush as though I was her own personal Bob Ross.
“Always?” I asked.
“Oh, yes.”
I swallowed.Don’t think about that dumbkiss. She wasn’t even acting like herself. Whatever witch haddone this to her really had it out for her. “Leandra—”
An urgent knocking pounded against the doorat the bottom of the stairs leading to my apartment. We both froze,Leandra snatching her hand away from my grip. “Who’s that?” shehissed.
“I don’t know,” I said. Contrary to myrecent track record, I rarely took people back to my place. “Youhave to hide.”
“Where?”
The knocking came again. The hinges were soold that the door was bound to burst inward. Still, the persondidn’t announce themselves.
“Just hide!” I snapped. I scanned the roomand settled on the folding doors to the nook that housed my washerand dryer. “In here!”
She gaped at me. “You jest. I would neverfit in there!”
“Just do it, Leandra!” The knocking wasendless now, a hammering that never ceased. I shoved Leandra in thechest toward the closet, until she stumbled backward. There wereonly a handful of inches between the door and the dryer. “Find away!”
I scrambled down the stairs without checkingto see if Leandra had followed my order. In haste, I thrust thedoor unlocked and threw it open.
My jaw dropped as far down as it would go. Ihad never seen Patricia before, but if this wasn’t her, I’d eat myshoe. She was stereotypical as far as vampires went—she wore ahigh-collared cloak over an elegant midnight blue dress, herdécolletage on full display against an elaborate diamond necklacein the shape of a rose. Hair as white as her skin was piled high onher head, held in place by pins accentuated by little flowers.Henchmen flanked her on either side in identical black-on-blackgarb.
“Invite me in immediately,” Patriciacommanded.
