Suck It Up (22 page)

35

Flirtation

As much as Morning wanted to get the shot in one last take and be done with it, he faced new problems. His refreshing and reinvigorating break in the desert had him so pumped he flew through the obstacle course too fast for the camera to follow. And he was rushing his lines. It took several takes, along with adjustments on both sides of the camera, before the director, Birnam, and Morning reached a happy medium.

Climbing to the top of the set for what he was sure would be the perfect take, Morning spotted Portia talking to a stranger. He was a head taller than her, had longish blond hair, was built like a swimmer, and looked about nineteen. He was the hunk Morning knew he could never be. It sent a pang of jealousy knifing through him. But it was more than jealousy. Since fighting off the urge to feed on Portia in his dressing room, another feeling stirred in him. Possession. He had spared her. If anyone had a right to her, he did. He decided to deal with blondie-boy after he nailed the take.

DeThanatos had acquired his preppie look after visiting the studio's costume department. He had swapped his monk's robe for chinos, a crisp white shirt, and a tie. He had also procured a blond wig. Even though he had never come face to face with Birnam in the centuries they'd both haunted the earth, he didn't know if he had been spotted by whatever surveillance Birnam might have on Morning.

DeThanatos had convinced Portia he was doing a college internship at the studio, and had slipped onto the closed set to see the famous Morning McCobb. Portia had told him how difficult the shoot had been, but that Morning was on the verge of the perfect take. DeThanatos was more intrigued by the nasty looks Morning was shooting him as he climbed to the top of the set. They were looks DeThanatos hoped to fashion into a weapon: Jealousy. Mortals called it the green-eyed monster. For vampires it was more like the white-fanged monster. In either case, jealousy could make you do things you'd regret later.

DeThanatos decided it was time to go for the jugular. Figuratively, of course. “To be honest,” he said to Portia with a casual smile, “Mr. McCobb doesn't interest me as much as you.”

She answered his flirtation with a dubious look. Just because the guy was older, and hot, didn't mean she couldn't see right through him. A cocky guy was a cocky guy. And it was only a matter of time before he took his first swing at getting to first base. “Oh, really? What's so interesting about me?”

DeThanatos coolly backpedaled. “Not you personally, what you're doing.”

She'd seen that move before too: step from the batter's box of intention to the batter's box of indifference. This guy was smooth; he was a switch-hitter. “What do you think I'm doing?”

He glanced at her Handycam, which she had fired back up after Morning had turned into the full-of-himself actor. “If I had to guess,” he said with a lazy shrug, “I'd say you're making the movie of the making of Morning McCobb.”

His clairvoyance impressed her. “How did you know that?”

“From the camera, of course, but the real giveaway is in your eyes.”

“Really.” Despite his leap back into the batter's box of blatant intention, her curiosity kept her in the game. “What do my eyes give away?”

He glanced up at Morning glowering down at them, then back to her. To fan the flames, he studied Portia for a long moment before speaking.

She felt uneasy under the heat of his gray eyes, but she refused to look away.

He broke into a teasing smile. “Your eyes have the look of those women who go to Africa and devote their lives to studying lions or gorillas.” He looked back up at Morning. “Or some other wild animal.”

She laughed.

DeThanatos laughed too, for Morning's benefit.

“You're right,” she said, watching Morning accelerate his climb toward the platform. “I'm fascinated by my subject.”

“But there's more than burning curiosity,” he added, resuming a serious tone. “There's also a hunger in your eyes.”

“Are you saying I'm a vampire?”

“Of a sort. You're a psychic vampire. You feed on people's stories.”

Portia stared at him, not sure if he meant it as an insult or a compliment. Most guys she could talk circles around. This one was different. But she wasn't sure how.

“Hey,” he added with a casual shrug, “it takes one to know one.”

“Oh, you're a psychic vampire too?”

“Yes and no. In truth, I'm just a plain old people person.”

She scoffed at the funny sound of it. “‘A people person.' If you want to bring it to the twenty-first century, maybe you should try ‘a peep's peep.'”

He shook his head. “No, I prefer a people person.”

His stubbornness impressed her. Even if he was a guy on the make, at least he wasn't twisting into a pretzel to please her. “How many times a day do people tell you you're weird?”

He grinned. “None.” It was the most honest thing he'd said yet. “But I'll admit, I'm old-fashioned. I mean, if I change my ways to impress you, you might think I want something.”

Her insides jumped as his clairvoyance struck twice. This guy was more than a switch-hitter, he had a corked bat. She started to speak but was interrupted by Morning's shout.

“Let's do it!” Back on the platform, Morning was ready to go. This time he didn't touch the wooden disc for good luck. He didn't need it. Watching Portia flirt with the tall stranger had charged him with all the motivation he needed. He was going to blow both of them away with his performance.

As the director shouted orders, DeThanatos walked away.

It caught Portia by surprise. “Aren't you going to watch the shot?”

He kept moving toward the exit. “No. I like to see things when they're all wrapped up, neat and tidy.” He tossed her a friendly smile, and sauntered out of the sound-stage.

She shook her head. “Preppies. They can be so twisted.” Her words contradicted the squishy feeling in her stomach. She hoped to see him again. Brushing the thought aside, she raised her camera and zoomed up to Morning at the top of the set.

         

The take was perfect. After Morning uttered his last line, the studio burst into cheers and applause. His only disappointment was that the blond invader had disappeared.

During all the backslapping and congratulations from Birnam, the director, Penny, and the crew, Morning looked for Portia. He spotted her at the row of tables where dinner had been served earlier. She was picking at a salad. After the celebration died down he walked over. Trying to look unaffected by his triumph, he pulled out his cell phone, turned it back on, and pocketed it as he joined her. “Glad it's over? Or do you think I can do better?”

She flashed a smile. “No, that was incredible!”

“You sure?” he asked with a sneer. “I could do another take if you'd like more hang time with blondie-boy.”

Her face fell. “Blondie-boy?”

“Yeah. Who was that guy?”

She pulled back, trying to figure him. For someone whose circulatory system was supposed to be churning with her hopes, desires, and the beat of a heart surrendered to love, he had a rude way of showing it. “I didn't get his name. Besides, I thought we decided to be friends.”

“Right,” he said, then air-quoted with his index fingers. “‘Friends.'”

She gawked, waiting for him to realize what he'd just done. He was oblivious. Birnam was right. He had no clue what had happened in the desert. She just wished his heart were as obedient as his fingers.

Morning's cell phone bleeped, signaling a message.

Portia was glad for the excuse to get away. “Hey, that's probably from Tiger Woods, crowning you the new king of commercials.” She turned and walked off. She also wanted to go outside and grab a shot of the spot where he had been reduced to ashes and reborn as the blood brother she wasn't sure she wanted.

Watching her go, he flipped open his phone and got his voice mail. There was a message from the fireman. He listened with irritation as the old man explained that he was running into resistance from the fire department's brass. While they loved the idea of having Morning join the FDNY, waiving the minimum age requirement for one sixteen-year-old might lead to a flood of lawsuits by other sixteen-year-olds wanting equal treatment. As the fireman promised to keep working on it, Morning saw Birnam coming toward him. He shut the phone and stuffed it in his pocket.

Birnam joined him at the food table. For a long moment they watched the crew break the set apart like a giant green iceberg. Birnam ended the silence. “I know I said this was the last thing you had to do. But before you go back to New York, would you like to see the final product? We'll be debuting it in Leaguer Mountain tomorrow night. It would be great if you were there.”

Before the shoot, Morning had planned to don a disguise, catch a flight back to New York, hide out at St. Giles, and start studying for the entrance exam to the Fire Academy. But there was no point in studying for an exam they might never let him take. “Who's going to be there?”

“Thousands of Leaguers,” Birnam said. “And your graduating class.”

Morning flashed back to the cheer the crew had given him minutes before. It was a cheer his class had denied him. The runt of the litter would be returning as a conquering hero. “Okay,” he said. “I'll go.”

Birnam nodded with pleasure. “Good. That way we can all thank you for leading us out of the
selva obscura,
to the very edge of the dark wood.”

After Birnam walked away, a wave of bone-deep exhaustion engulfed Morning. He sagged with fatigue as a scent slithered into his consciousness. The smell pulled him to the source.

A platter on the table held a decimated roast beef. The hunk of tattered meat sat in a puddle of greasy blood. He pushed the meat aside, lifted the platter, and drank. Even polluted with fat, it was the best thing he'd tasted in a long time.

36

To the Mountain

After returning to Ducats, Morning tumbled into the abyss of sleep. He wouldn't climb back out until the next afternoon.

Portia had a fitful night of sleep, followed by a morning at the hotel pool where she continued her mental tossing and turning. She was mystified by the changes in Morning since reviving him with her blood. If her hopes and desires were supposed to be running in his veins, why were they coming out so twisted? Where was the heart that Birnam said would be surrendered to love? If Morning was supposed to be a reflection of her personality, at least for a couple of days, why had he become conceited, jealous, and hard-edged? Was that who
she
was? Or was that who she'd be if she were a guy?

But the biggest change she noticed was in his eyes. She used to take pleasure in catching his averted glances. Now she found herself avoiding eyes that were harsh and accusatory, like she had done something wrong.

The more his personality change gnawed at her, the more the dreadful truth emerged. The fun, good-natured vampire next door she thought she was falling for had become like so many other guys: predictable, egocentric pillars of testosterone. Once upon a time, he had shape-shifted into a fog, a tree, a dolphin, a pigeon, a puppy, and a wolf. Now he had transformed into just another jerk.

Fortunately, Portia was back to
Assume the worst.

Unfortunately, Morning wasn't the only one running through her mind. Another guy kept popping into view: the stranger she'd met in the studio. While Morning slogged through her mental labyrinth like a spent marathoner, the stranger flashed like a sprinter. And there was no doubt which one made her heart beat faster.

But Portia knew herself well enough to know where the intriguing stranger fit in the astrology of guys. He was the eye candy, the talk taffy, that made a girl feel good when there were troubles with guy number one. It didn't make him guy number two. He was more like cough syrup. Good to get you through a troubled night, but not something you wanted to swig every day.

Besides, she kept reminding herself, there were far more important things to obsess about than Morning and yesterday's crush. She had to come up with a new film title. After Morning almost lost it in his dressing room, and then got so cocksure and abusive after the blood transfusion, the whole Jackie Robinson–sainthood thing didn't fly. It was more like
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Several new titles came to mind.
A Tale of Two Mornings. Morning McCobb: Creature of the Lite or Creature of the Night?
Or if she wanted to go with an autobiographical slant,
How I Juiced the Jackie Robinson of the Vampire League into Barry Bonds.

While Morning slept, and Portia vacillated between guy angst and title brainstorming, Penny had a long breakfast meeting with Birnam. After telling her that Morning's role as the first Leaguer ambassador was almost over, Birnam congratulated Penny on a job well done and gave her a fat bonus. Then he filled her in on the next volume of the IVL playbook. Lastly, they went over the talking points she needed to cover when she met the media mob still gathered outside Ducats Hotel and Casino.

In the last twenty-four hours, the news dealers who supplied celebrity junkies with their daily dose of gossip had grown anxious without a new headline on Morning. To fill the void a rumor had been started: Morning had been destroyed by a vampire slayer. Penny's job, as Birnam made clear, was to assure the public that Morning was safe and sound, and would be making an important announcement that evening during a commercial break on America's hottest new TV show,
Based on an Urban Legend.

After Penny held the news conference, and ducked a barrage of questions, Birnam offered her a full-time position with the IVL as they continued their march toward Worldwide Out Day. She appreciated his lucrative offer, and told him that handling the first outed vampire had been the experience of a lifetime.

“However,” she said candidly, “while I can handle being around one or two vampires, being surrounded by them every day would push my comfort zone.”

“How about giving it a try for one night?” Birnam asked. He continued off her puzzled look. “Tonight, when we air the commercial for IVLeague.us, and launch the website, we're throwing a huge party. You and Portia should be there.”

She arched an eyebrow. “And where is there?”

He grinned. “You don't want to know. But I'll fly you and Portia to the party, then back to Vegas tonight.”

         

Late that afternoon, Birnam piloted his helicopter toward a crimson sun sinking in the White Mountains of California. Morning sat in the copilot's seat. Penny and Portia sat behind them. They both wore blindfolds.

Portia was dying to sneak a peek to see what they were flying over, but she suppressed the urge. It wasn't because she had promised her mother not to cheat, it was because she had asked herself,
What would Christiane do?
The answer was obvious. If by not peeking you earned trust points with the president of the IVL, and became the first Lifer to see the secret school where Leaguer vampires were trained, you didn't peek or even open your eyes under the blindfold.

Not cheating benefited her in one other way. She didn't have to stare at the back of Morning's head and try to imagine what he was thinking. The irony didn't escape her. After turning him into a blood twin, his mind had become unreadable, a foggy mirror. But there was reason for hope. A day had passed since he had gone from ash to a-hole. Maybe his DNA would start reasserting itself and he'd go back to being the old Morning.

Her stomach lurched as the helicopter made a sharp descent. After the chopper landed, Birnam told them to remove their blindfolds.

Portia and Penny found themselves on the dusty street of a ghost town, in the deep shadow of a mountain. Half of the rickety buildings clung to the rocky mountainside. The most unusual sight was the greenish glow of solar lights puncturing the dusk.

As they exited the chopper, Birnam told Morning to grab their guests' garment bag and asked the ladies to follow him.

Morning grumbled as he hauled the bag out of the back. He didn't like being reduced to a bellhop, and he didn't understand why someone wasn't there to meet them. The oversight heightened the agitated mood he'd been in since waking up that afternoon. He didn't know if it was the jangles that sometimes came from too much sleep, or some kind of hangover from roast-beef blood, but he felt like nails ran through his veins. Following the trio, he carried the bag into a dilapidated hotel jutting from the mountainside.

The hotel lobby was carpeted with wall-to-wall dust. It softened the thud of their footsteps. The only light came from a flickering chandelier that looked more like a giant firefly caught in a ceiling of cobwebs.

“Welcome to Leaguer Mountain,” Birnam announced.

From the second they entered, Portia sensed her mother's rising hackles. She tried to defuse them. “Hey, if you've seen one party house, you've seen 'em all.”

Birnam's easy laughter filled the room. It even got a chuckle from Morning. Portia gave him a relieved look. So there was
one
good thing about having a blood double: he was a sucker for your jokes.

Birnam raised a remote and hit a button. The hotel desk, and the wall behind it, swung open, revealing a modern lobby, brightly lit and sparkling with polished stone. “The Leaguer Mountain Guesthouse,” he announced.

Penny's doubts melted away—at least the ones about Birnam's sense of style.

Birnam led them into the lobby.

Morning noticed that the guest room doors seemed to lead deeper into the mountain. But he couldn't remember anything inside the mountain that could have been the back of the guesthouse. “How long has this been here?”

“A few years.” Birnam pulled a key card from his pocket. “I've been planning the interface between Leaguers and Lifers for some time.”

As Birnam handed Penny the key card, Portia asked the question she'd been sitting on since they'd taken off. “Can I bring my Handycam to the launch party?”

“Absolutely,” Birnam replied. “On one condition.”

“What?”

“I keep all the footage until after Worldwide Out Day.”

“How long will that be?” Portia asked.

“If all goes well, in a month or two.”

She nodded happily. “Deal.”

Morning handed Portia the garment bag, along with his take on Birnam's condition. “We can't have you outing any Leaguers before Worldwide Out Day. Until the big day is a slam dunk, this experiment only has one guinea pig,” he said, doing a one-digit air-quote on “guinea pig.” “And that's me.”

Birnam tried to soften the testy remark. “It's a crude way of putting it, but that's about right.” Then he gave his guests a welcoming smile. “Someone will come and fetch you at eight.”

As Birnam and Morning left, Portia realized she hadn't gotten any close-up footage of his personality change from sweet kid to schmuck-stick. She added it to her shot list for the night.

         

Birnam and Morning made their way through the ghost town's saloon, entered Leaguer Mountain through the rock door at the back of the stage, and moved along the tunnel toward the Academy.

“Is coming back here putting you in a bad mood?” Birnam asked.

“I don't know,” Morning answered as he searched for why he felt so on edge. “Maybe it's like you said, it's uncharted territory, and everything's getting more intense.”

Birnam was tempted to tell him that being caught in the riptide of Portia's blood and his own DNA trying to reassert itself might have something to do with it. But the night was too big to risk sabotaging it by undercutting Morning's confidence with the knowledge that he was running on Portia fuel.

Morning finally got to the question that had been bugging him since they boarded the chopper in Vegas. “Why did you invite them?”

“They've both made a huge contribution to your success.”

“And they got paid for it.”

Birnam answered his truculence with a patient smile. “Portia hasn't made a dime.”

“She's getting to shoot a film that's going to make her famous.”

“Isn't there enough room in the spotlight for both of you?”

“I'm not jealous of her, if that's what you mean.”

“You're certain of that?”

Morning's chest tightened. He wondered if Birnam had been eavesdropping outside the dressing room when he'd almost attacked Portia. “Look, Mr. Birnam, it's like you said. I hovered over the well, I've bitten the bloodlust bullet, and I'm over it. I'm over her.”

They entered the courtyard in front of the Academy's main building. Birnam stopped and placed his hands on Morning's shoulders. “I believe you. I also believe in the feelings I still hear in your voice. You want to know why I invited them? They're still part of your test—our test.”

Morning stepped back, breaking from his hands. “I'm done with tests. I passed 'em to earn my diploma, and I passed 'em with Portia. I'm here to enjoy the night.”

“Yes, and revel in the fact that you're this close”—Birnam held up his thumb and index finger—“to becoming the first vampire to turn back the clock and pursue his Lifer dreams. Keep that in mind as you enjoy the night.”

Birnam started away, then turned around. “Oh, I almost forgot. We left your room like it was. You'll find a tuxedo. Wear it. I'll see you at the party.”