SNAP: The World Unfolds (5 page)

My heart was pounding so much my ribs ached. I concentrated on in-out, in-out, willing my lungs to take charge and shuttle vital oxygen to my brain. It seemed like a long time before the same voice said, “There, that’s better. Can you stand?”

My nod hurt my bruised neck. A hand, not attached to a shiny black arm, reached down and helped me up. I finally opened my eyes and looked at Carlos, the limo driver who’d brought me to work just a few minutes before.

“What happened?” I whispered. My voice had a pondful of frogs in it. I cleared my throat and tried again. “What just happened here? Who was that guy? Where is he?”

“You mean that was just friendly business rivalry? That guy was out to kidnap or kill me.” I put my hand up to the side of my neck and felt something sticky. Pulled my hand away and it was red.

“I’m bleeding!” I screeched.

“It’s not too bad.” Carlos was way too calm for my money. “He was only able to break the skin before I got him. He didn’t get any.”

“He didn’t get any what? What did he cut me with? I didn’t see any knife or anything.” Admittedly, I wasn’t the best witness of what went down for those few seconds but I felt sure I’d have seen a knife if the guy had one.

Carlos looked at me the way Jazz did sometimes. Like I asked some bonehead question or was too stupid to survive. “The Huszars are a vampire family. You were attacked by a younger family member, one who doesn’t know the ways yet.”

“I have a silenced Glock and a knife. Hang on a sec while I get my first aid kit and take a look at your neck. I really think it’s just a scratch. It shouldn’t hurt and the bleeding’s slowing down.”

“Maybe I should go to the nurse’s office,” I stammered, thinking to get away from this insane person. A vampire slice being tended by a demon? I didn’t think so.

“What nurse’s office?” Carlos looked honestly stumped.

“I found one last week when I got off on the wrong floor,” I mumbled. “It was in a corridor where I hadn’t been. It had some reclining chairs, IV stands, syringes, lots of medical stuff. The sign said it didn’t open until 5 p.m.”

Carlos shook his head. “SNAP doesn’t have a company nurse. You couldn’t have seen a medical office.”

A demon? I was being driven around L.A. by a demon? Sure, I‘d heard the rumors about urban vampires when I was at UCLA, everybody did. But they were just rumors. At least I’d thought so.

Now I wasn’t so sure.

What had Carlos said? The guy who attacked me was from the Huszar family. And they were enemies of the Kandeskys. Did that mean the Baron was a vampire, too?

The attack left me woozy and I wasn’t thinking straight. Just because the Huszars were vampires and enemies of the Baron’s family, didn’t mean he was one, too. I knew he came from Eastern Europe—whether Hungary or one of the Balkan countries I wasn’t sure—but lots of people were from there and they weren’t all vampires.

Carlos had swabbed something on my neck and stuck on a bandage so I started for my office.
I had a lot to think about and a residue of fear. Whoever or whatever attacked me, had me spooked. I can stand up for myself in a business situation, but I’d never even been mugged, so my physical courage was untested. Judging from this morning, I didn’t have much to test.

I dropped my briefcase and Blackberry on the desk before heading to the restroom, fixed my smudged makeup, shook my hair forward to cover the bandage and struck a nonchalant pose back behind my desk.

“Some people...” Jazz muttered as she brought my coffee and the mail. She slid her eyes to my neck and I watched her struggle to keep the questions to herself. Beyond the bandage, I had no other signs of my weird morning in the garage and definitely needed the coffee.

The email wasn’t so much an invitation as a command appearance at the Baron’s castle in Hungary. And on the top of the pile of mail was a heavy cream envelop addressed in calligraphy.

The invitations said that a company limo would pick me up at 8 that night and informed me that I should pack at least three formal dresses as well as casual and business clothes for a week. And shoes to match.

I had to get in gear and hit some shops, fast. LA wasn’t the place for formal clothes unless you were on the red carpet circuit and I for sure wasn’t. I looked at Jazz. She saw my stricken face and whirled out of my office. In a few minutes she was back with a piece of paper.

“I called the personal shoppers at both Saks and Neiman. You have appointments beginning in an hour. I told them you’d need a minimum of dresses, shoes, accessories and three business outfits. You better make an appointment for your hair this afternoon.”

Whatever Jazz was paid, it wasn’t enough. I’d have to make sure she got a raise as soon as I came back. That resolution jarred my memory and I said, “By the way, I came in through a different hall the other day and found a room I’d never seen before. It was medical looking. Is it the company nurse’s office?”

My internal phone line gurgled and another driver announced he was waiting in the garage to take me to my shopping appointments.

“Where’s Carlos? He drove me in this morning.”

“He’s on another assignment,” the driver said. “I’ve been told to stay with you until you get on the plane for the Baron’s.”

I’d never had a personal shopper and the afternoon was a crash course in how our celebrity subjects lived. I had it a little easier because I got the treatment without the hordes of gawkers but I felt a little like Marie Antoinette waking up to find the French court waiting to watch her get dressed. At the end, though, I had three day dresses with Jimmy Choos and Charles Jourdans, one pair of casual silk slacks with contrasting silk shirt and blazer, and three stunning floor-length evening dresses with Stewart Weisman strappy sandals. My hair guy did magic with highlights and a gonzo cut and by 7 I was home, sorting underwear and packing bags.

The driver had waited in my living room and on the dot of 8, asked if I had my passport (I was carrying it all the time now), picked up my bags and headed for the airport. We took the usual ramp off the Harbor freeway but instead of taking the lane for departing flights, we looped around, came into a side entrance and drove into a hangar that housed a full-sized plane with the SNAP logo.

“Why are we here?” I asked.

“You’re taking the corporate plane,” he said. “Didn’t anybody tell you?”

This was only the first surprise. The second was coming into the 737’s cabin. It was an apartment. A living area had leather couches, armchairs and tables with a large flat-screen TV taking up part of one wall. Further back was an office and in the rear were two bedrooms.

“Let me take your bag,” a young woman said. “I’m Chrissy and I’ll be your flight attendant. We have two passengers this trip so we have the two-bedroom configuration. Do you have a preference?”

Chrissy looked like an SNAP girl. She was blonde, sleek and trim. Her hair was pulled back and twisted up on her head, her eyes were ringed in kohl and her black skirt and red blazer were set off with her Russian Red lipstick. Where did SNAP, or the Baron, find these clones?

“I’ll take the one on the right,” I said with as much panache as I could muster given that my chin kept hitting my chest. It was a small room and it looked as though a much larger sleeping area had been partitioned into two.

The third surprise was when I turned to go back to the living room and saw my traveling companion.

Jean-Louis smiled. “You look like you weren’t expecting me.”

This was going to be a hard trip.

I’d never spent much time alone with Jean-Louis. Well, there was that dance during our hunting trip, but we were still surrounded by several hundred of L.A.’s finest partiers.

“No, I didn’t expect you.” I managed not to stumble over my tongue. “Do you know what this invitation or summons is all about? And how come you got asked? You’re lower on the hiring ladder than I am.”

Chrissy came over to us. “I have to have you seated with seatbelts on as we take off. Once we’re up you can just move around except for landings.”

“What landings?” I asked.

“The first leg is to Newark,” she said. “We’ll refuel and you can stretch. We’ll be in the hangar for about an hour.”

In the hangar? I didn’t want to show my ignorance of private plane travel so I just nodded. Why would we stay in a hangar? Don’t most planes take on fuel outside? I can just watch and listen with the best of them when I need to, and I’d have to do this for the trip to be a learning experience instead of a freak-out.

“Which chair do you want?” Jean-Louis’ voice brought me back.

“”I don’t care. Does it matter? I’ll take this one,” I pointed at the black number next to me.

Jean-Louis nodded and buckled himself into one across the table from me. Chrissy disappeared into the cockpit area, the pilot started taxing out to the runway and the engine’s roar shook us.

Ten minutes later we were out over the Pacific, making the big turn that would take us east and five minutes after that Chrissy reappeared.

“Have you eaten? We have several meals I can get you. There’s a duck confit salad, Chilean sea bass, pork tenderloin with nectarines and, of course, steak tartre. Can I get you something to drink while you’re deciding?”

“I’d like a white wine, a Sauvignon Blanc, please,” I ordered. “And no, I haven’t eaten. I’ll take the sea bass.”

Chrissy turned to Jean-Louis and I could see she was taking his looks in stride. No fluttery eyelashes, no shy-sexy smile, just business with an ease that made me wonder what was going on. Did she know him? Did they have a past? Would I wrestle up the courage to ask him? We were pretty captive in an enclosed space for several hours.

“I’ll have Bull’s Blood,” he said and Chrissy headed off to get our orders.

He unbuckled his seat belt and moved over to the couch, patting a spot next to him. “We can have our drinks and eat here.”

Wait a minute, who died and put him in charge? “Why do you know so much about this? I’m senior to you and I’ve never been asked to Hungary. I haven’t even been invited to use the company plane.”

I hadn’t had much hardship so far at SNAP, though. All my travel had been first class, and I didn’t arrive looking like a sardine packed in oil.

He smiled. “I know. We’ve heard about your incident this morning. That’s why the Baron asked us both. I’m going to explain some things before we get to Budapest.”

Chrissy came back in with our drinks and set the glasses down on the table in front of us. “Your dinner will be done in a second,” she looked at me. I looked up at her and suddenly realized the dim lighting. As I looked around, I also realized all of the shades were drawn over the windows. I didn’t really matter to me, I’d been doing so much traveling that I didn’t even bother to look out the windows and besides, we were flying at night. We’d land in Newark before dawn.