Fangtabulous Read Free

of jawline and a body like someone had merged a linebacker with Lurch from The Addams Family .
    In addition to the cage, the gift shop’s collection of the macabre included a life-sized coffin set atop a wooden cart displayed in the window catty-corner to where we’d entered. Brent accidentally brushed up against it when he moved out of the way of a bevy of browsers squeezing past him toward the door. He flinched as he made contact, which was totally weird. Sure, Brent could read the histories of things with a bare touch, but bare was the operative word. He knew better. Except for his face, he had everything covered: dark-wash jeans, navy pea coat, gloves, and watch cap.
    Marcy took him in hand, and since he was her boyfriend, thus her problem, I let myself get distracted by a display of bling, which on closer examination turned out to be shrunken heads, bats, and sparkly spiders. The fashionista in me did a little recoil. In my mind, the line should be drawn at bejeweled bugs. More intriguing were the black velvet chokers the next rack over with garnet drops (or pretty good imitations thereo f ) cascading from the side, as though to simulate the blood dripping from vampire bites. As if we’d be so wasteful. Still, they were pretty, and I thought what better way to hide being a vamp than to go around looking like a victim? Maybe I could convince the others to part with some funds in the name of blending in.
    “May I help you?” asked a voice, nearly in my ear. I jumped, like a half inch, just enough to play girly, because, really, I’d totally seen him coming.
    I put a hand to my heart and looked up at him through long, dark, perfectly natural lashes. It was a stunner not to have to look up too far. At five foot nothin’, I was used to four-inch heels or a permanent crick in the neck.
    “Yes, thank you.” I answered, returning a choker to the rack. “We’re looking for Donato.”
    The guy who’d snuck up eyed me with heavily kohl-lined eyes. He wasn’t just under-tall, he was celery-stalk thin on top of it. His pants were black, baggy, and overly pocketed. A chain dangled from a belt loop to his back pocket, probably linked up to a wallet, making me wonder how painful it must be for him to sit. His T-shirt had a graphic of a dove-gray skull with a diamondback snake weaving in and out of the eye sockets, providing the only spot of color in an otherwise monochromatic ensemble. In short, his outfit was consistent with what all the cool goth guys were wearing this season.
    I was in stealth hottie mode myself, which is to say I’d had to leave all my couture behind when we went on the run. I was currently rocking a girly version of a sports tee—a pale blue scoop-neck with white piping around the neck and down the sleeves and the number eighty-eight emblazoned across my chest. I had no idea what it stood for, but the shirt clung to me in all the right places. My mother would have needed a Valium if she’d ever learned I’d shopped off the rack … at a rest stop, no less … but beggars/choosers and all that jazz.
    “You’re friends with Donato?” he asked, like he doubted it.
    “More like family, really.”
    He cocked an eyebrow, spiky piercing rising all the way to his hairline.
    “Hunter sent us,” I added.
    “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
    “From Tampa.” Geez, you wouldn’t think the name “Hunter” would be so hot with pretend vampires, although I supposed it beat “Slayer.”
    “Well then.” He smiled, and that “Schizophrenic Psycho” song from the radio went through my head. If we were here on one of our super-spy missions, he’d be at the very top of my watch list. “Follow me.”
    We all followed him to the curtained archway at the back of the store that I’d been too distracted by bling to attend to before. Psycho had probably come straight through that curtain when he’d snuck up on me. Okay, maybe it was unfair of me to think of him that way. I didn’t actually