SNAP: The World Unfolds (6 page)

After I finished dinner and after Jean-Louis had another glass of Bull’s Blood, the deep red wine leaving faint pink dregs in the glass, Chrissy came back and handed me a remote control.

“We have a DVD of tonight’s SNAP, as well as one from Munich and one from Rio,” she said. “I’ll go turn the beds down if you want to sleep. As I said, we’ll be in Newark only about an hour, and the flight to Budapest is another eight hours. I imagine you’d like a few hours’ sleep. The Baron usually expects his guests to be available as soon as they reach the castle.”

We watched the U.S. show and part of the Rio one. The adrenaline I’d generated from waiting for Jean-Louis’ secret was sapping all my energy and I was going to have to lie down for awhile. Even after Newark, we still had a long flight. I was asleep in minutes, not even spending the usual time reading over stuff for future issues or other planning papers.

We landed in Newark a little before five in the morning. It was still dark and dim lights in the hangar didn’t make much of a dent in the cavernous gloom.

I’d slept a couple of hours but Jean-Louis was still awake. “Let’s spend some time talking,” he said, “before I get some sleep.”

“OK, what’s so important that the Baron designated you as the official breaker-of-news?” I was cranky. Lack of sleep, the adrenaline hangover and resentment of whatever special status Jean-Louis had, made me snappish.

kind? Like the guy who attacked me this morning? From the Huszar family? Like the demon, Carlos?”

“That’s a little over the top, but basically, yes. We don’t fly around at night in

capes or attack people and suck blood, but we do live on blood.” And at that he smiled fully for the first time since I’d met him. His canine teeth were pointed and fang-like and I recoiled.

“Get away from me! Don’t touch me!” I screamed, ran into my bedroom and slammed and locked the door. What the hell was this, some kind of sick joke? I’ve been dumped before but the guy didn’t show me fangs to chase me away.

Jean-Louis knocked lightly on the door. “Don’t be afraid, we knew you weren’t one of us. That’s one reason we recruited you.”

“Who’s ‘us?” I stammered. I was backed up on the bed, hugging my arms around my drawn-up legs and trying to keep my neck covered. The past day had just gone to the sublime. There weren’t vampires and demons, right? And they sure didn’t run international conglomerates.

After the attack in the garage, I knew I didn’t have much physical courage. Now I felt what moral courage I’d stored over the years up gush out. I was beyond scared, I was almost speechless with terror. With one of the nameless fears of the dark side facing me I felt myself blacking out.

Jean-Louis’ voice, calming in its everyday tone, came to me from the other side of the cabin door. “Well, starting with the Baron, there’s me and Carola and Chaz and Mira and several other production people. Some of the night crew, obviously.”

“How...what....why me?”

“We watched you for a couple of years. We, the Baron, really liked your charging right in and taking things on. Your understanding of the kind of journalism we do, your not being afraid to tackle the big people and the hard questions. There are tons of publications, emags, blogs, magazines, cable shows today. It’s not like
Photoplay
and
Silver Screen
anymore. Everybody covers celebrities and we need to keep our place at the front of the pack.

“We also needed a regular to be the door, the portal, between our world and yours. The person had to be quick, unafraid, knowledgeable, able to relate to both worlds. When I say we watched you, we were watching a few others, as well. But you’re the one we wanted. You’re the key that translates information for us. We want to expand into what were the Eastern Bloc countries, and especially into Asia. India, Southeast Asia, even China are economies on fire and more than three billion people live there. The advertising alone is staggering.

“That’s why the Huszars want you. They think they’re going into competition with us and they need you for instant credentials. They watched us become powerful and wealthy and realized they’d missed the boat. They stayed home and killed people for food. We went out and found power, and food, in other ways. Jealousy really riles the blood.”

I was reeling.

“You’ve heard that there’s a vampire colony in the Los Angeles area, right?” he asked.

“I’d always heard that. But I thought it was just one of those urban myths,” I managed between numb lips. “Like alligators in the sewers.”

“Don’t you remember a few years back when there was an alligator in that lake? He got there because somebody dumped him and he sure wasn’t a myth. We’re not either. The Baron will be telling you more of our history, but I’m supposed to get you acclimated to the idea that you’re working for vampires.”

At that point I didn’t think I’d ever be acclimated. This was just too big to wrap my mind around. At UCLA we had acquaintances who’d dressed all in black, wore cloaks, slept all day and partied all night. But there were just college kids, playing. Or so I’d thought. What if some of them were members of the colony? How big was the colony? Where did they live? How did they live?

I started to stammer a question but Jean-Louis’ voice overrode mine. “Open the door and come out and talk to me. I’m the same person you’ve worked with and even the same person you’ve danced with. You weren’t afraid then.”

God, he was right! I’d danced with a vampire? How was that even possible? I got off the bed and sidled to the door. “If I come out you won’t grab me will you?” It came out through chattering teeth.

He gave his throaty laugh. “No, I won’t grab you. You’re far too valuable to us as you are. Besides, if I was going to grab you, I’d had plenty of opportunities before this.”

I stuck my head around the corner of the door. He was standing there and looked just the same. Black hair, dark-blue-verging-on-violet eyes. My mother’s voice,
Don’t trust anyone prettier than you.
He still was prettier and I wondered how she knew what would happen.

I was sitting in a chair across the cabin from Jean-Louis when Chrissy came back to remind us to fasten our safety belts. We were about to take off for Budapest. Vampire country, here I come, I thought.

“Don’t look so stricken,” Jean-Louis smiled. “Everything’s the same as it has been for months now. Do you want to talk about it?”

I nodded yes, still afraid that I couldn’t make sense of spoken words.

“Didn’t you wonder about the offices always being dark? Didn’t you wonder about the sound of the phones?”

“Yes,” I croaked. “I’ve asked Jazz about some of those things. Oh, my god,” I suddenly blurted, “the nurse’s office! I asked her about that right before we left.”

“You hadn’t seen that before?”

“No. I just usually came in through the garage on a lower floor. Or sometimes I even used the front entrance.”

He chuckled. “You’ve probably given the Ice Princesses a shock. They don’t know what staff are vampires and who aren’t. I’m sure they think that all senior staff are.”

“The Ice Princesses? I thought I was the only one who called them that.”

“No.” He shook his head. “They’re known as that. There’s a look that the Baron likes for the SNAP staff who interact with the public.”

“Like Chrissy,” I mumbled.

“Yep. There must be about a hundred of them scattered throughout the offices. The two in the LA office are the best known donors.”

“Donors? What does that mean...,” my voice trailed off.

“A medical lab? Maybe a blood bank?” he asked. “Because it is. We can feed in different ways. We can take directly from a donor,” here he smiled again to show fangs, “we can use blood that’s been drawn from a donor and stored, we use some of the blood substitutes they’re developing and testing and we use blood from other animals. Notice the steak tartre on the menu?”

“But I thought if you bit somebody, they died and came back as a vampire?”

“No, you have to have almost all of your blood drained for that to happen. And we clearly don’t want to do that to donors. If they stay alive, they can manufacture more blood. We have some who’ve been donors for more than 20 years.”

We were airborne over the Atlantic and heading east, chasing the sunrise. As light started to seep under the shades, Jean-Louis noticed. “Time for me to get some sleep. I have sleep masks that fit tightly over your eyes if you want to use one.”

I’d noticed there were no windows in the bedroom area of the plane. Now I understood why. And why dim lights and why pulled curtains and why, and why...and why no one from work had taken me up on my offer of a glass of wine on my balcony to watch the sun set.

It was clear that the plane crew weren’t vampires. We’d fly in sun until we began a landing pattern and we’d deplane in Budapest about 9 that evening. Then what? If I was headed into a nest of vampires they’d be awake all night, meaning I’d have to be, too. There were less than seven hours left in the flight and I’d have to get freshened up. There was a bath with a small shower and my bags were stowed in a closet so giving myself an hour at the end of the flight meant I had about five hours to sleep and I better use them.

. I had so many questions, still. How did they come to LA? How many were there? When did they come? What did Jean-Louis mean when he talked about the fan movie magazines from the 30s?

Why did this vampire, a Baron from Hungary—and who even knew that Hungary still had barons—head up this international media conglomerate?

But I needed to sleep. I wouldn’t be able to face this without some rest so I took a sleeping pill. Even with the pill, my mind raced and when Chrissy knocked on my door, I felt as though I’d spent the night in a whirlpool, going around and not getting anywhere.

After a fast shower, I fixed my hair, put on fresh make-up and slipped on the new silk slacks. With the blazer over my shoulders, I went out into the main cabin where Jean-Louis was already sitting, looking over a portfolio. He was dressed in European casual—slacks, silk shirt, alligator belt, hand-sewn loafers. A Patek-Phillippe on his left wrist completed the look, more urbane than his usual LA jeans-and-jacket.

“I’m glad you got some sleep,” he nodded. “This is probably unnerving for you and you’ll need to be alert.”

“Why, are all your vampire friends going to attack me?” I asked. I thought snide would put me on the offense rather than whining on the defense.

Jean-Louis gave me an unreadable glance. “You don’t have to be nasty,” he was calm.. “You’re in this of your own free will. You took this job and if you don’t want to keep it, you can quit. We’re vampires, not slave owners.”

The plane gave a sudden downward lurch followed by the clunk of the landing gear being deployed. Chrissy stuck her head out from the cockpit. “We’re on final approach to Budapest. Seatbelts, please,” and she disappeared again.

“
He’ll do it.” Stefan Kandesky traced a route along a centuries-old hunting path. “It’s getting harder and harder for them to find food nearby. And their inroads onto our lands are only getting them killed.”

Franz, Simon and a contingent of demons trailed behind as they wound through the woods.

“
You know Felix follows the wishes of his family.” Simon wrapped himself tighter in his jacket. “Not many of them want to do anything beyond the immediate. They don’t plan for long term. Feed and war, kill and war, grab power when you can and war with neighbors. What will happen when they run out of neighbors?”