"Renfield's words may, regrettably, live on, but the bug-eater ended with that blasted film. The message I bear remains: You must come with me."
"Now?" I couldn't believe I was asking that question, like I might consider it some other day.
"No. Never," I corrected myself. "We know all about you these days. You can't reverse your surname and pretend to be some Transylvanian nobleman, 'Count Alucard'! This is not sleepy old England between the World Wars of the last century. This is post-Millennium Revelation America. We're all on to you."
"Perhaps, Miss Street, but you have tried to trick my master. He's had time to discover your name and profession. He could choose to crush you like one of that pathetic Renfield's bugs. Instead, he is magnanimous. He wishes to employ you. You call yourself a paranormal investigator, do you not?"
"Barely. I just phoned the Yellow Pages today to order the ad. It'll take ages to show up. How would your master, whoever he is, know that?"
"We... he knows many things through many means."
"And how'd you know where to find me?"
"All my kind know Hector Nightwine and his Sunset Road estate. You are becoming known as his creature," Dracula announced with loathing.
"His part-time private investigator! I'm nobody's creature. What have you got against Hector?" I was puzzled, because Nightwine was a known admirer of CinSims.
"He has leased all three of my brides." Dracula positively hissed the last word through his fangs. "I am denied all... access."
"Oh."
I had to admit that the trio of willowy train-dragging thirties femmes fatales made a pretty good girl back-up group for Drac. They were the only vampire chick role models I aspired to. I made the height requirement, being five-eight flat-footed, but not the weight one. Lean and hungry (i.e., anorexic) is definitely not my look. I'm a substantial girl, more hourglass than swizzle stick. Still, it'd be fun to slink around in fangs and furbelows.
"Enough chitchat. Come with me." He extended a graceful gray hand.
Well, adolescent me had wanted to meet a gentleman vampire of the old school and now here I had one.
Don't go, Irma urged. You don't know where that walking corpse has been.
"Do not be afraid," Dracula said in slow formal tones, noting my hesitancy. "These days I only drink from those who pay for the privilege. I am the resident attraction at the Love in Vein Social Club."
"Then what are you doing here tonight?"
"My master occasionally needs me mobile. The night has always been mine. Sometimes what he wants from me is what I also want for myself... a beautiful but shaken young woman, a midnight mission, an opportunity to stretch my wings and my reach, as of old. To be powerful. To be irresistible. You will come with me, Miss Delilah Street, because you must."
He leaned nearer. I inhaled the stale scent of cigar smoke and raw meat and old blood. Then he withdrew. I wondered if the chicken garlic on my breath was slapping him in the undead kisser. Good! But I had a feeling this was an offer I shouldn't refuse.
"Not so fast," I told him. "Not in this outfit do I go anywhere. Turn your back while I change clothes if you want me to go with you."
No! Irma was kicking up an internal storm. You don't know where and you don't know who. You can't go.
Irma was my alter ego, the psychological crutch of a lonely kid, I figured, but she could get bossy. I didn't feel the need to heed her at the moment. The King Vampire in this town had called on me for help, no matter how rudely he had put it or how seedy his operation. I had to live up to my new business card: Delilah Street, P.I.
What kind of paranormal investigator would flinch from a CinSim vampire? Underneath all the props and persona, even Dracula was just an animated zombie these days. A lot of classic horror film creatures had been resurrected by the Immortality Mob to entertain the tourists. At least Mothra hadn't been sent to pick me up.
I thought about Quicksilver asleep below as I pulled a black knit turtleneck down over my black yoga pants. Old Drac must have some spell to put animals asleep, even big supernaturally strong wolfhound-wolf crossbreeds. Otherwise, he'd be at the vampire's throat.
I thrust my feet into a pair of black cowboy boot mules and grabbed the slim Baggalini uptown messenger bag I'd found so handy during my incarnation as a