Blood Will Have Blood Read Free Page A

called my aunt, did you do it from your office?” That would be as private as skywriting over the Charles River. Three doors. Eavesdropper heaven.
    â€œI may have. I think I did. Why?”
    â€œThanks, Arthur.”
    â€œDon’t hang up! Why did you want to know about—”
    â€œNothing, Arthur. Never mind.”
    â€œMichael?” Darien’s tone was hopeful. “Have you thought it over? I don’t mean to put the pressure on—”
    â€œI haven’t even started reading the damn script.” The words died on Spraggue’s tongue. He glanced at the beheaded bat, resting in fragments of bright wrapping paper.
    â€œI’ll take the part,” he said.

Chapter Three
    â€œPlaces!”
    â€œGet with it! Cut the work lights!”
    â€œJust minimal blues between scenes! Take ’em down another point. Set it! Start with 47B. Preset 10. Okay?”
    â€œCan I take the house lights out?” The stage manager shaded her eyes, stared expectantly at the center section of the orchestra. Experience rather than sight told her where Arthur Darien sat. The director nodded, then realized that the spotlights effectively blinded the woman.
    â€œPlease, Karen,” he shouted back.
    Karen Snow, stage manager. Spraggue checked her off on his mental shopping list. Didn’t look as tough as she sounded. Her voice was too big for her body. She gave a curt nod of her sleek dark head and paced steadily off into the wings. Authority set her tiny figure apart. In all the chaos of the long morning, Spraggue realized, he had never seen the stage manager run, never heard her voice go shrill.
    A fat man glided across the carpeted auditorium and sat delicately in the seat next to Arthur Darien’s. His face was as round and smooth as his body; his hair dark and greasy for one so pale. He folded his hands neatly over his belly, hiding the gap where his vast blue shirt failed to meet his navy pants.
    Darien smiled, said hello. He called the fat man Dennis. Dennis. That would be the house manager, Dennis Boland. One more for the shopping list. Out of the running, Darien had said. Out of town when—
    â€œCurtain!” The lights dimmed then came up slowly, deep blue shrouded in mist. The faint beams lit the unfinished set to advantage. All the scenery was constructed on a revolving platform. One semicircle handled the Westenra house and various rooms in Dr. Seward’s sanatorium. The other side in stark contrast to the realistic Victorian interiors, consisted entirely of steps, landings, and platforms—a constructivist approach to both the rocky seaside at Whitby and the ancient battlements of Castle Dracula.
    Now the setting was Transylvania, a chamber in the vampire’s ancestral home.
    The two actresses on stage, Spraggue decided, looked even better together than they did separately. Side by side, blond Georgina Phillips’s slight figure emphasized brunette Deirdre Marten’s model height. The blonde looked platinum; the brunette’s silky hair glistened jet black. Together, the brides of Dracula were a testament to the excellent taste of the Vampire King.
    Georgina muffed a line, broke character, groped for the correct words.
    â€œStop!” Arthur Darien’s voice, world-weary, cut in. Spraggue grinned. God, he remembered that tone, that disappointed you’ve-failed-me-again sigh, that dreadful forebearance. Ten years ago, Michael Spraggue, the novice actor, had found it soul-shattering. Even now, he was glad not to be its target.
    â€œTake ten,” the voice continued sadly.
    Footsteps. Darien and the playwright left the auditorium. The dark-haired woman floated wordlessly off into the wings. The blonde bride, a pink flush settling over her round face, made a beeline for Spraggue’s first-row seat.
    â€œAnother rewrite break!” she announced with a moan. “It’ll be my lines that go. Every time I open my mouth on that stage I