After Dark (13 page)

Authors: Nancy A. Collins

BOOK: After Dark

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CHAPTER 17

C
ally let out a long, slow breath of disbelief. Lilith had actually been
nice
to her. She was tempted to go look out the window and see if there were any pigs flying over Central Park.

Almost as surprising to Cally was the realization she actually felt
sorry
for Lilith. For the first time she had a handle on what drove Lilith to act the way she did. While her own relationship with her mother had been far from perfect, at least she had been secure in the knowledge that Sheila loved her.

Despite Count de Laval and Anton Mauvais’s claims, vampires were not that different from their human cousins. They were capable of genuinely nurturing relationships with their offspring, just like any human parent. She had seen it with the Maledetto family, as well as between Melinda and her mother, and even Count Orlock and his grotesquely deformed son, Klaus. She had even experienced it, albeit secondhand, through Baron Metzger.

But to
never
know the security and warmth that came with a mother’s love, not because she was an orphan but because her mother
refused
to love her child…

No wonder Lilith was such a manipulative, messed-up, chronically insecure bitch.

Perhaps Irina’s death had started Lilith seeing things from a new perspective. The sudden loss of someone close had a way of doing that to you, as Cally knew all too well. That might explain her unexpected sea change.

Maybe, just maybe, Cally could finally have a sister in Lilith after all.

Anything was possible.

Lilith left her mother’s old room and hurried back across the hall to her suite. She locked the door and threw herself onto the bed, her shoulders shaking as she buried her face into the pillows so no one could hear. After a couple of minutes she finally rolled over onto her back, exhausted by her laughter.

This was going to be so
easy!
Why hadn’t she thought of it before?

She had spent so much time and energy trying to best Cally in physical confrontations, only to fail miserably. There was no way she could defeat her in battle: now that she possessed the power of the Shadow Hand, it was too dangerous to continue to blatantly antagonize her.

It was time to change tactics. This time she would take a page out of Carmen’s playbook. Instead of treating Cally as her enemy, she would pretend to be her friend and get as close to her prey as possible so she could win her trust. Then she would bide her time until Cally no longer suspected a thing, and, when she wasn’t looking—blammo!

Although it galled her to suffer the indignity of sharing a roof with her half-breed sibling, it was only a matter of time before she would be free to call her own shots and move out. When she and Exo finally perfected the anti-vanishing cream, she’d take it to Sister Midnight and show her what it could do. It was that simple. With the proper investors and distributor, they could go international within a matter of weeks. The money would be enormous, as would be the fame and attention.

Lilith’s thoughts of worldwide superstardom were interrupted by the sound of something tapping on one of the panes of the French doors that opened onto the small balcony outside her bedroom. She threw back the curtains covering the window, smiling to herself as she saw the pale face pressed against the windowpane, looking into the room with eyes filled with longing.

As she opened the balcony door, she thought about how, after tonight, nothing would
ever
be the same again. Not for her. Not for Exo. And certainly not for Cally. Once customers got their hands on the anti-vanishing cream, it would change the world for vampire and human alike.

Her father’s fortunes would seem small compared to the income from the cream. She could do whatever she liked—with whomever she liked. Until then, she would have to bide her time, like a spider in its web, waiting for precisely the right moment to administer the killing stroke.

Just you wait and see, Daddy.

About the Author

NANCY A. COLLINS
is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award and the British Fantasy Society Icarus Award, as well as a nominee for the Eisner, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, and an International Horror Guild Award. Best known for her groundbreaking vampire character, Sonja Blue, her works include
VAMPS, DEAD MAN’S HAND, KNUCKLES AND TALES, DEAD ROSES FOR A BLUE LADY, SUNGLASSES AFTER DARK
, and
AVENUE X
. She also served a two-year stint as a writer for DC Comics’ Swamp Thing. Ms. Collins currently makes her home in Wilmington, North Carolina.

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Credits

Cover design by Ray Shappell

Copyright

VAMPS: AFTER DARK
. Copyright © 2009 by Nancy A. Collins. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Adobe Digital Edition June 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-192027-1

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