Down These Strange Streets Read Free

manners, but Taffy was within two hundred years of being as old as Dahlia. They were the oldest vampires in the nest, and their friendship had survived many trials.
    Taffy had been practically Amazonian during her lifetime, and she remained an impressive woman even now. She was five foot seven and busty; her light hair exploded in a tangled halo around her head and fell past her shoulders. Taffy’s husband Don was one of the trials they’d survived, and it was because of Don’s preference that Taffy went heavy on the makeup and tight on the clothes. Don thought that was a mighty fine look on Taffy.
    Of course, Don was a werewolf. His taste was dubious, at best.
    Taffy waved at Don, who was over by the food table. Werewolves were always hungry, and they could drink alcohol until the cows came home—and then the Weres would eat them. A party with an open bar and a buffet was like heaven to Don and his new enforcer, Bernie. The two Weres were making the most of the opportunity, since politics demanded they be in the vampire nest for Joaquin’s ascension celebration.
    Dahlia noticed Don and Bernie casting contemptuous glances at the group of blood donors. Werewolves thought humans who were willing to give blood to vampires were from the bottom of the barrel. Any selfrespecting Were would rather have his fur shaved off. Dahlia was sure Don didn’t mind giving Taffy a sip in private . . . at least she hoped that was the case. During Dahlia’s own brief marriage to the previous enforcer, her husband had not been averse to a little nip.
    The demons and half-demons huddled together in a corner, and just after a very skinny female said something, they all burst into laughter. Dahlia looked for one half-demon computer geek she knew better than the others. With a frisson of pleasure, she spotted Melponeus’s reddish skin and chestnut curls in the cluster. Their eyes met. The half-demon and Dahlia exchanged personal smiles. They had had some memorable evenings together in Dahlia’s bedroom on the lower level of the mansion. The glitter in Melponeus’s pale eyes told Dahlia that the demon wouldn’t mind a replay.
    She might retrieve some pleasure from this dismal evening, after all.
    A few creatures Dahlia didn’t recognize were scattered through the crowd. No fairies, of course; vampires loved fairies to death, literally. But there were other creatures of the fae present, and a witch. Joaquin had a reputation as a liberal, and he’d made up the party list and presented it to Lakeisha, who’d retained her post as the executive assistant to the sheriff despite the change in regimes. Lakeisha had sniffed at some of the inclusions, but she had obeyed without a verbal comment. All the vampires were walking softly and carefully until they learned their new leader’s character. Since he’d lived on his own, not in the nest, until his appointment as sheriff, Joaquin was a largely unknown element.
    As Taffy took Dahlia’s arm to steer her over to the buffet to join Don, Dahlia said, “I’m not enjoying myself, though I ought to be.”
    “Why not?” Taffy asked. “The humans will be gone soon, and we can be ourselves. It’s not like we haven’t seen this coming. Cedric has been getting more and more set in his ways. He’s lazy. He’s sloppy. A waistcoat every day. So dated! He can’t even pretend to belong to this century.”
    Like all successful vampires, Dahlia knew that the key to surviving for centuries was adaptation. And the most conspicuous adaptation was following the trend in clothes and language. This had been essential when vampires existed in secret, so they could blend in with a crowd long enough to cut out their prey. Vampires were an increasingly familiar presence in business and politics, but they found that society still accepted them more easily if they mimicked modern Americans. It was true, too, that old habits died hard. It had been only six years since the undead had “come out,” and to vampires