Bloodshot Read Free Page A

premise, well then. Keep reading.
    Have I got a doozy for
you
.
    It began with a card I received in the mail. A simple card doesn’t sound so strange, but the extenuating circumstances were these: (1) The card arrived at my home address; (2) it was addressed to me, personally, by name; and (3) I didn’t recognize the handwriting. I can count on one hand the number of people who might send me a note at home, and I’ve known each of those folks for decades. This was somebody new. And instinct and experience told me that this was Not A Good Thing.
    The envelope also lacked a postmark, which was a neat trick considering the locked residential boxes downstairs. So it wasn’t marked in any way, and it didn’t smell like anything, either. I held it under my nose and closed my eyes, and I caught a whiff of leather—from a glove? the mail carrier’s bag?—and printer ink, and the rubbery taste of a moistening sponge.
    What kind of prissy bitch won’t lick an envelope?
    That’s easy. Another vampire.
    Under the filthiest, most nonbathing of circumstances we don’t leave much body odor, and what we do manufacture we prefer to minimize.
    That extra bit of precaution told me plenty, even before I read the card. It told me that this came from someone who didn’t want to be chased or traced. Somebody was trying to keep all the balls in his court, or all the cards in his hand—however you preferred to look at it.
    I wasn’t sure how I knew my mystery correspondent was a man, but I was right. The message within was typed in italics, as if I ought to whisper should I read it aloud. It said,
    Dear Ms. Pendle
,
    I wish to speak with you about a business matter of utmost confidentiality and great personal significance. I have very deep pockets and I require complete discretion. Please contact me at the phone number below
.
    Thank you for your time
,
    Ian Stott
    And he signed it with a drop of blood, just in case I was too dense to gather the nature of my potential client. The blood smelled sweet and a smidgen sour—not like the Asian sauce, but more like the candy. It’s subtly different from the blood of a living person—both more appealing and less so. It’s tough to describe.
    We’re dead, sort of. Everything smells and tastes different.
    A few things look different, too. My pupils are permanently dilated, so although my eyes once were brown, now they’re black.I’m as white as a compact fluorescent bulb, which you might expect from a woman who avoids the sun to the best of her ability, and my teeth … well, I try not to show them when I smile.
    They’re not all incriminatingly pointy, don’t get me wrong. When I yawn I’m not flashing a row of shark’s choppers, but my canines are decidedly pokey. Thank God they don’t hang down as long as they once did. (I know a guy. He filed them for me.) These days they may be short, but they’re still sharp enough to puncture an oilcan, and that’s how I like it.
    My hair is more or less the same as it always was, a shade of black that doesn’t require any further descriptors. It’s short because—and I tell you this at the risk of dating myself—it was cut in a flapper style when I was still alive. It used to bother me that it won’t grow any longer now that I’m post-viable, but I’ve convinced myself that it’s just as well. It helps reinforce that whole “sexual ambiguity” thing.
    Did I mention that already?
    No? Well, it’s easy to sum up. I’m on three Most Wanted lists internationally … and on every single one I’m listed as a man known only as “Cheshire Red.” I’m not sure how this happened, or why.
    I’m tallish for a woman, or shortish for a man. I’m slender, with breasts that are small enough to go unremarked. In the dark, at a glance, on a grainy security camera, I could pass for a young man. And far be it from
me
to argue with the feebs. If they want to keep on the lookout for a dude, so much the better for my career path and continued