Chapter 8
8
C onfused by the sparkly chandelier overhead, plus the gorgeous boy fanning my face with the latest issue of Architectural Digest , I jolted up on the sofa.
The skirt of my dress had gotten tangled around my thighs during the failed escape attempt, and I quickly smoothed it down. Despite the impossible feat I’d just witnessed, my first worry was that I’d flashed everyone in the room my ugly old cotton underwear, faded blue with yellow ice cream cones.
I gulped the glass of water that had been placed in front of me on the coffee table. I must have been out for a couple minutes, because no signs remained of the spilled cappuccino. Stephano said it had been lovely to meet me and then made a hasty exit. Michael and Marlena peered at me expectantly from the other sofa.
“Okay,” I began. “Assuming I’m not hallucinating or haven’t gone insane, you’re . . .” I barked out a crazy laugh. “No, sorry, I can’t even say it. Not yet.” How could I not?
“Vampires,” Michael finished for me.
“Right. So . . .” I had so many questions— How were you made? How old are you? Are you going to kill me? —so it was hard to choose only a couple. I decided on, “What I don’t understand is what you need me for. You said your clients need companions—or decoys , though I’m still not clear what that means. Why would any vampire want to hang out with a human, if not to eat them?”
“That’s a valid question,” Marlena said smoothly. “As you can imagine, vampires wish to remain a secret. However, with the advent of social media and intrusive technology, it’s increasingly difficult for us to stay hidden.”
“Wait, how many of you are there?”
“In the world?” Marlena shrugged. “I honestly don’t know, exactly. Tens of thousands, perhaps.”
“Probably more like hundreds of thousands.” With a chuckle, Michael added, “We don’t have a Census Bureau.”
“I don’t believe it,” I blurted.
Michael smiled. “We’re everywhere, but a lot of humans never come across vamps on account of us only coming out after sunset. Most nights, I don’t even get up until after midnight.”
My mouth fell open. “That whole thing about you guys going up in flames in sunlight is true?”
“Afraid so,” they answered.
“There are other decoy services like Dignitary operating throughout the world,” Marlena said, keeping us on topic. “But we’re the only one located in San Francisco. As far as why we want you to work for us, it’s simple; we need humans to help us blend in with mainstream society. Younger humans—twenty-somethings like you—are more inclined to keep an open mind, we’ve found. Plus, you’re willing to take more risks and have flexible schedules because you’ve got less tying you down: husbands, wives, children, long-term careers, etcetera.”
“So, the job has risks?” If Marlena thought I was going to miss that detail because of how briefly she’d touched on it, she was wrong.
Michael and Marlena exchanged a look. “Well, it might have been risky for you to enter the home of two strangers at night, but you came anyway, no?” she said rhetorically.
Hey, I brought pepper spray, I wanted to say. Though a lot of good it would have done me against vampires. I noticed that she hadn’t really answered my question.
Swiftly moving on, Michael said, “We also want our decoys to be more than a pretty face. They must be smart, too, and personable. When we’d started chatting at the bar last night, and then you told me you’d gone to Dewhurst, I suspected you might fit the bill. After meeting with you again, I can see I was right.”
I blushed, muttering an awkward thanks.
Marlena continued, “As we touched on previously, our clients are mostly billionaires. Honestly, Olivia, you’d be amazed by how many wholesome household brands are owned by vampire CEOs. Naturally, wealth comes with obligations. Dignitary clients have functions like benefit dinners, galas, and so on that they must attend. Humans are involved in a lot of these events, as it’s virtually impossible for a vampire to run a business these days without involving at least a few.”
“So, having a decoy at their side helps allows them to blend in better. Most vampires can easily pass for humans, but there are also some who . . . well, not so much.” Michael chuckled. “Whatever the case, when we have a living, breathing mortal at our side, we stand out less.”
“This is where the decoy part comes in,” Marlena said.
I mulled it over. “I guess that makes sense. Do other humans—ones not employed by agencies like Dignitary—know of your existence?”
“A few do, yes,” she answered. “But it’s at a vampire’s discretion. This is another reason why we have a need for decoys. Some mortals who know about us feel uncomfortable when they’re alone with a vampire, particularly when business matters are being discussed. Decoys act as buffers, alleviating the stress of vampire-human proceedings like contract signings.”
“Basically, humans who do business with vampires feel more relaxed when there’s another human in the room,” I simplified.
Marlena nodded. “Exactly.”
Michael interjected, “We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that decoys don’t only go to places where other humans are present. If you work for us, they’ll be times when you’ll go to vampire-only venues where you’re the only living, breathing person in the room. As strange as it sounds, having a mortal on your arm is a status symbol in the vampire world.”
“Really? Why is that?”
“To vampires, it’s humans who are exotic,” he said. “We encounter them every night, of course, but do we get to interact with them socially? Not really. We were once mortal ourselves, which I’m sure you know—there are some things movies get right—but there are those who were turned so long ago that they’ve forgotten what mortality is like. Vampires want to live vicariously through humans, absorb their modern customs. We envy your kind in so many ways—how you can eat food and drink wine, feel the sun on your skin. I can be lonely and monotonous, only associating with other vampires.”
Everything made sense when explained that way. Vampires sounded like such a sad species. I felt a pang of pity for immortals—Michael, at least. Marlena seemed as if she’d be fine on her own for the rest of eternity. I wished I hadn’t freaked out about Stephano the way I had.
Marlena added, “Our clients can be themselves around decoys, who know exactly what they are. You have no idea how exhausting it is for us to constantly invent excuses about why we aren’t eating, why we’re so pale, why we can only have meetings at night. Humans can be so nosey—no offense. With a decoy around, we have a scapegoat. We can attribute our inability to meet earlier than sundown on your work schedule, justify our lack of appetite by claiming that we have already dined with you . And you, of course, will be right at the vampire’s side to corroborate.”
“A decoy in the most literal sense.”
“Exactly,” Marlena said.
“While we’re on the subject of dining, have your clients ever bitten any decoys? It isn’t racist against vampires or whatever for me to ask, is it?” For my own peace of mind, it had to be asked.
They snickered. The back of my neck prickled with embarrassment. I thought it was a valid question.
Marlena shook her head. “There are underground blood banks that cater solely to vampires. Instead of receiving it, they’re selling it, you see. On the surface, they look like an average human business. Behind the scenes, though, they’re dealing in blood. In fact, the bar where you and Michael met is one such establishment.”
“Shwilly Pete’s?”
“Oh, Peter was an infamous buccaneer of his day,” Michal commented, as if he was discussing an accountant or schoolteacher.
“Shwilly Pete was an actual pirate ?”
He nodded. “He relieved many British of their treasures.”
“And now he runs a bar in San Francisco that also doubles as a blood bank for vampires.” I couldn’t believe that I had given the statement in earnest.
I must have looked stunned, because Michael added with a shrug, “It’s the same as you going to a coffee house and ordering a Frappa-whatever off the menu. It hasn’t always been this way, of course, but vampires have evolved to keep up with the times. We can’t go around killing people. There would be repercussions.”
“Vampires do slip up occasionally. It’s rare, though. Like humans, we are not unflawed,” Marlena said.
My idea of “slipping up” was downing a whole pint of ice cream instead of the intended scoop, not draining a mortal of their blood. Quibbles to a vampire, I supposed.
“But none of our clients have ever bitten a decoy,” she added. “Not a single time in the ninety-seven years we’ve been in business.”
I still had my reservations. It sounded too packaged and perfect. “So, nobody has ever been hurt?”
Michael and Marlena exchanged another look, then Michael said, “I suppose there’s no point in hiding it. You’d hear it from one of the other decoys, regardless, if you decide to work for us. They do love to gossip.”
“At least if you hear it from us your opinion of vampires won’t be tainted by silly speculations. Some of the decoys have vivid imaginations,” Marlena added acerbically.
I knew there had to be a catch.
“Throughout the years, four decoys have gone missing. To clarify, none of them ever disappeared while on the job,” Michael said.
“What happened to them?”
He shook his head. “I honestly don’t know. One day they were here, decoying for us regularly. The next— poof —they were gone. What breaks my heart most is that I don’t know what became of any of them.”
“When did this happen?”
“Different times. One in 1924, one in 1963, one in 1985, and then the last one.”
Did Marlena think I wouldn’t notice her omission? “And the last?”
Marlena was smooth with the answer. “Penelope went away last month.”
Last month!
“Went away?” What strange phrasing.
“I’m telling you, Olivia, it was like she evaporated from the face of the earth. Everything she owned was left inside her apartment: clothes, furniture, wallet . . . even an envelope filled with five grand in cash. Penelope worked for us for about three years. She was like a daughter,” Michael said, his eyes glistening. Marlena signed, shooting him dagger eyes.
I tried to be gentle with my enquiry. “What makes you believe vampires weren’t responsible for the disappearance?”
Marlena wasted no time answering, probably to stop Michael from spilling more tea. I was wishing she’d leave so that just Michael and I could talk openly. Fat chance of that happening. “We are talking about only four decoys in a time span of nearly a hundred years, Olivia. Certainly, human businesses have had a few employees go missing during the same amount of time.”
While she had a point, she was overlooking the fact that human businesses weren’t run by creatures who needed to drink blood to stay alive. They had their blood banks, but what if they didn’t realize their supply had been depleted? There had been times when I’d forgotten to go to the grocery store and out of ravenousness eaten the first edible things I’d come across, calling a hunk of cheese, a few gummy worms, and a handful of popcorn a meal. Was it so inconceivable that the same might happen to a vampire with a human in place of snack foods?
“Vampires have no cause to hurt our employees,” Michael said. “Plus, all our clients are carefully vetted. There’s no riffraff here.”
Because only poor people murder and billionaires never do wrong, I was tempted to snipe.
“Furthermore, the decoys who disappeared didn’t exactly have their heads glued on straight.” Marlena rolled her eyes, accentuating her point.
Marlena’s interjections were really starting to piss me off. Her superior tone also left something to be desired. I threw in the towel on warming to the vampire. I figured I’d done my civic duty by trying to give her the benefit of the doubt. I couldn’t help it if she was turning out to be a real pain in the ass.
I held Marlena’s gaze. “What do you mean?”
She was startled by my question, but it didn’t take her long to recover. “Raquel, for example, was unpredictable—she was the girl who went away back in the twenties. She was a stage actress, forever chasing her next big break in Hollywood. She was sweet but naive. It wouldn’t surprise me if she landed herself in a mess with a crooked man who claimed to be a director. It wasn’t uncommon for actresses to disappear back then. A lot of unscrupulous men took advantage.”
“Poor girl,” I said.
“Indeed,” Marlena responded with the utmost insincerity. She drummed her chin with her red lacquered fingernails. “Then there was Daisy, the girl who went missing in the sixties. She was a beautiful thing, but such a flake. She was always hitching rides and hopping on tour buses. No telling what happened to her. And Anthony—he was the one to go away in the eighties—was into extreme sports. So, for all we know, he fell off a cliff!”
The woman had an answer for everything.
Judging by his muteness, Michael didn’t buy into the propaganda, but I didn’t fault him for not speaking up. Something told me that Marlena had a knack for rebuking those who dared to contradict her. I’d sure hate to be on the receiving end of her wrath.
Michael clasped his hands together. “But let’s move on to the best part, shall we? The money! You probably want to know how much you will be paid, correct?”
It’s the only reason I came, I didn’t say.
“At Dignitary, you’d be our full-fledged employee. You would work for us under the guise of being our personal assistant or secretary—something of that nature. Obviously, you cannot state you’re a vampire decoy on your W-2 form, now can you?”
I grinned at Michael. “No, I suppose not.”
“I can assure you that we run a very legitimate business. We pay our taxes just like every human American. It helps, certainly, that we have vampire associates who work within the IRS. Most humans already think the IRS is run by a bunch of bloodsuckers, but they don’t know how true that is.” Michael chortled at his own joke.
“Okay, so I’d be paid . . . hourly? Weekly?” The suspense was killing me.
“You would be paid bi-weekly,” Marlena answered. “We pay two hundred dollars an hour. You would typically work a five-hour shift two or three times a week.”
I quickly did the math. That was a salary of $8000 to $12,000 a month; on the low end, it was nearly a six-figure yearly income. Way more than I’d make using my psychology degree at an entry level, not that I had any job prospects in that regard, anyway. I could pay my debt down in no time.
Still, I had my suspicions. “And there is absolutely no, uh, hanky-panky of any kind involved? I’d just be hanging out with vampires?”
Michael smiled politely. “That is correct. We don’t run a brothel. I may be many things, Olivia, but I am certainly no pimp.”
I backtracked, “I wasn’t trying to be insulting. It just seems like an exorbitant amount of money.”
“It’s a fair question,” Michael said. “We pay excessively for a few purposes, but our main motive is to ensure your silence. With the salary we provide, we feel confident that you will not risk your job by blabbing to your human acquaintances about the existence of vampires. That is our number one rule at Dignitary. Under no circumstance can you tell anyone what you do—not your family, closest friends, or lovers. And we mean for the rest of your life . You can never reveal the vampire secret to another human. This rule is not just in place for our safety, but for yours, too. If you even allude to mortals that you have proof of vampirism, you will be placing your life in danger. And the lives of everyone you love. While we adore humans, the vampire community will not tolerate treachery of any sort.”
I made a zipping motion over my mouth. “My lips are sealed.” I was too scared to ask what they would have done to me if I’d been successful in running away after seeing what Stephano could do.
“You should also be warned that some vampires can read minds,” Marlena piped in, making me wonder if she could. If so, oops. “Those with this gift will most likely have a listen inside your head to discern whether you have been talking.”
“Got it. No blabbing.” Fortunately, I didn’t know a lot of people I could accidentally spill the beans to.
“Another reason we pay well,” Michael continued, “is that decoys do more than merely ‘hang out.’ We expect you to participate in whatever event you are brought to. Socialize, ask questions about and become friendly with the vampires you meet. This isn’t a job for the passive.”
“Is there anything else?”
Michael thought a moment. “No, not that I can—”
“Actually, there is,” Marlena cut it. “We do have another rule about interpersonal relationships. Decoys may not engage in any sexual or romantic relationship with our clients. This is a policy Michael and I tend to disagree on, but I don’t consider it professional for our human employees to become intimately involved with vampires. It’s tacky. As we’ve said, we don’t work in the business of prostitution. Your employment will be terminated immediately if I learn you’re dating anyone we’ve paid you to accompany. Is this clear?”
I was being spoken to as if I was already guilty of breaking the rule. Or mentally incompetent. She didn’t seriously believe that I’d want to hop into bed with a cold, dead, blood-drinking vampire, did she? I wasn’t even convinced such a thing was physically possible. Maybe humans and vampires were sexually incompatible the same way dogs and cats were. Close, but no cigar.
I smiled sweetly, wanting to tell Marlena to go fuck herself. “Sounds reasonable. When can I start?”