Page 2 (1/2)

There was a streahs froer, shaking his head each tiive you?"

"Rent and shoes?"

Holden took a blue, flowing, peasant-style top off the rack, held it up to rimaced, then released it intothrown out" He snatched up another hanger, this one holding a slinky black cocktail dress I’d used once to bait a vaarlow "This is what you’re going to wear"

"My Russian prostitute dress?" I was incredulous He couldn’t be serious It was skin-tight satin cut three inches above the knee and tried its hardest to make it seem like I had boobs But wasn’t itfor so other than the meal?

"You can’t wear jeans on a first date, Secret Not if you want there to be a second"

I would have liked to dispute what he was saying, but for the better part of the eighties Holden had been an editor-at-large for GQ How do you argue with so what defined style, even if it had been in the eighties?

Begrudgingly, I ad as you tell me about the business once I’m in it"

"Deal"

Chapter Two

By the tiold Jiue who’d re late forto let me cancel He walked with me so we could discuss the council’s business and still make it to Midtown East in time for Tyler’s nine o’clock reservation at a new steakhouse called Red

I think I was supposed to be iet us a table at such a popular place, but I didn’t care as long as they kne to ht be able to eat hu for et in polite co s to the guys I rossed out If Tyler wasn’t a the former, it wouldn’t matter what I’d worn Guys rarely ask for a second date when you’ve physically repulsed the to feel comfortable in the outfit Holden had chosen and continued to be a bit torn about wearing the heels When I know I , I like to be as co could be involved

Thanks to the coility of bothin heels But if you’ve ever tried to chase a vampire across Battery Park in four-inch stilettos, you’d know agility is the least of your worries

But right now, Battery Park wasdidn’t seem too likely as alked south on 6th The constant noise of the city washed away any concern of us being overheard

The sky was a pretty shade of night-tili at me with its art deco teeth like an upside-down Cheshire cat

I’d stopped tugging at the hem of the dress before ere out of Hell’s Kitchen and only received one catcall since Wearing a short skirt on a Saturday night hardly qualified you as interesting or unique enough to warrant sideways glances, especially on 6th Avenue

"Sig leftme to come to the main hall after sundown," Holden explained

The vampires had their headquarters West of SoHo, on Green, which even the keenest huic the only thing hu hole in the wall What was actually there was a sight to behold It was a sister building to Grand Central Terht sources low of a ti past It was there ht--business of all vaovernment, only less bloodthirsty

The hub also housed, in the dungeon-like depths of its basement, the most powerful members of vampire society--the Tribunal They were the three who kept control and balance in the va the three, and the most powerful vampire on the East Coast if not all of North America, was the one who issued all the warrants And it was the Tribunal who toldof a black sheep arata at headquarters, it fell to Holden to pass the warrants along to me I could count on one hand the number of times I’d had to visit the hub, and on each of those occasions I’d been in trouble The current arrange and the other Tribunal leaders scared the bejesus out ofhad told hi It didn’t escape e to have arrived before nightfall, he would have been awake during daylight hours