I drove to the Lucky Clover Motel, where Sophie and her friend were waiting for me in room 140. Consisting of one squat story of battered, white cinder block, the Lucky Clover wasn’t quite a rent-by-the-hour flophouse . . . because city ordinances banned innkeepers from renting their accommodations by the hour. The neon sign sputtered to spell “L__ky _lover.” The parking lot was dark and occupied by a handful of beat-up cars. And I would not touch the worn-thin Kelly-green comforters on a dare.
But Sophie had wanted to meet on neutral ground, away from the Council offices, because the Council didn’t want bite-for-hire transactions to occur on the premises. Not because they were trying to protect me from other vampires who might be provoked by the scent of my blood but because no liability insurance carrier would touch them otherwise.
That made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The vampires were waiting for me when I arrived. Sophie was standing precisely in the middle of the dingy room’s even dingier once-beige carpet, where she was least likely to touch any furnishings. Tall, platinum blond, and the owner of an inordinate number of black pantsuits, Sophie exuded a sort of European elegance that set her apart from the vast majority of Half-Moon Hollow’s population.
“Sophie,” I said, nodding in deference.
I didn’t know much about her. Nobody did. Even those who’d worked with her for years didn’t know her last name. She was beautiful in that overtly perfect, plastic manner that made her ethereal and timeless and sort of creepy. In other words, she immediately made me feel inadequate, frumpy, and shabby when I walked into the motel room.
A tiny, mousy blonde in an embroidered pink cardigan sat on the corner of the bed, which was enough to make me question her judgment. She refused to look at me as I crossed the room and set my handbag on the table. And she was wearing thick-framed pink glasses, a weird affectation when you considered that when she had been turned, her vision had automatically become twenty-twenty. Given her strange, hunched posture, I thought maybe the eyeglasses were like a security blanket—perhaps the pane of fake prescription glass made her feel protected from the world.
“Andrea, how lovely. Thank you for joining us,” Sophie purred.
“Sorry I’m late. It was unavoidable.” Opening my purse, I tucked a small leatherette toiletry bag under my arm. I took a deep breath, trying to center myself for “surrogate mode.”
“I’m sure it must’ve been very important for you to have delayed your arrival,” Sophie said, shaking her head. I chose the better part of valor, which was keeping my mouth shut. “Andrea, this is Darla. Darla, this is Andrea, a fully qualified blood surrogate on retainer with the Council to assist in special situations like yours.”
Darla glanced up and gave me a barely audible greeting, then immediately returned her gaze to the hands twisting in her lap.
“Hello, Darla. It’s nice to meet you.”
From what I’d read in the file Sophie sent me, Darla was a brand-new vampire, barely a month turned. As a human, she’d worked at the local Property Valuation Administrator’s office, attended services at the Half-Moon Hollow Baptist Church, and volunteered at the local animal shelter. She’d been turned by her boyfriend, who had apparently wanted more of a three-week thing rather than eternity. He’d dumped her, leaving her high and dry and in the care of Sophie, her Council-assigned foster sire. The trauma of her abandonment had left her with a severe drinking disorder. She shied away from live feeding because she couldn’t stand the sensation of her fangs sinking through skin. A few failed experiments left her unable to drink donor blood. She could drink bottled blood but only certain brands, and only tolerated those brands for a few days at a time before her body rejected that, too. So, basically, Darla was a colicky newborn vampire.
I wasn’t sure what Sophie had done to deserve such a delightful foster assignment, but I would milk every single contact I had at the local Council office to find out.
“I don’t want to do this. I’m fine with bottled blood, really. Surely there have to be people who survive on bottled blood only.”
“Yes, there are, and we make fun of them at the meetings. Now, stretch your fangs,” Sophie told her sternly.
“So, Darla.” I gave her a reassuring smile and sat next to her on the bed. I would burn my slacks later, I promised myself. “I understand that you’re having some trouble with feeding?”
“I just can’t,” Darla whispered in her high, tinny voice with its thick bluegrass accent. “I hate it. I don’t like the biting. I don’t like the way the blood fills my mouth. Everything tastes like pennies. I just can’t do it.”