Sneak Peek – Chapter One of Stagecraft

I’ve been following the Twitter hashtag #everyvillainneeds and am loving the answers.  If it were up to Cassie, her villains would have a better sense of humor and fewer teeth!

In case you haven’t heard, Stagecraft, book two of the Bit Parts series is out now.  Here’s a little taste of the book to whet your appetite.

Chapter One – Stagecraft

Tonight’s dinner theater played to a packed house. One hundred ninety-eight guests were human. The other two were vampires.

Most humans wouldn’t recognize a vamp even if they bumped into one because vampires were experts at hiding in plain sight. I, however, always sussed them out. It was their unearthly vibe; an unpleasant shiver that, even across a crowded room, electrified my nerves. My boyfriend, Isaiah, and his best friend Perry agreed: once you’d been bitten by a vampire, their presence would trouble your blood forever.

The past four months had been blessedly vampire-free, and I wasn’t happy to see them again. The pair sat together at a back, corner table near the kitchen doorway. One was tall and thin with a hawkish nose, and the other was short and pudgy with a round face like a pie. Both were male. The tall vamp looked a bit dated in his three-piece suit and wide tie. The other wore a brightly-colored madras jacket and loafers. I didn’t recognize either one of them, but then again, I didn’t know every vampire in the local grieve.

One of the other actresses nudged me and hissed, “Cassie, get going!” I’d almost missed my cue. Hurriedly, I swept onstage with the other five actresses. Together, we played bridesmaids in a dinner theater piece called Wedding Party! Our costumes were hideous, ruffled, turquoise dresses paired with silver heels so tall they added five inches to my height. Tall was kind of nice since I hate being short, but I constantly worried about twisting an ankle during the bridesmaids’ song and dance number.

Wedding Party! was an interactive, musical crossbreed of Bridezillas and The Sopranos. I liked to think I got the part because I was a good singer and an even better actress. But more likely, it was because the olive complexion and black hair I’d inherited from my Greek father and Lebanese mother made me look Italian.

Grinning widely and clutching a small bouquet of silk flowers, I twirled after the other bridesmaids and into the dining room, which had been decorated with a wedding theme. There were strings of fairy lights, red and white linens, and table centerpieces made with lighted candles stuck in empty Chianti bottles.

The ‘wedding guests’ – as the audience was referred to – clapped in time to the jaunty music and ignored the waiters who scurried from table to table, clearing away salad plates, refilling breadstick baskets, and serving lasagna. Amid the lively atmosphere, only the two vamps remained still. They faced each other like marble bookends with their untouched food and wine in-between.

The bride put a wrist to her forehead and whined her line about wedding stress, the cue for the bridesmaids’ big number. This was the moment when each of us selected a male guest from the audience and escorted, sometimes dragged, him onto the stage to dance. Bridesmaids number 1 and 3 always went for the young, hot guys, even though we were repeatedly warned not to choose men based on their looks. I aimed for the jovial, grandfatherly types who, on the whole, were good sports and knew how to have fun.

Ignoring the vampires, I grabbed the hand of a heavy, balding man who had been enthusiastically clapping and singing to the music. He was so excited to be picked that he accidentally upended his wine all over my costume. Terrific. Well at least it was nice to have an enthusiastic partner for once.  Audience members who got into the spirit of things made my job much easier.

Halfway to the stage, the song was interrupted with a loud bang. The audience gasped. I jumped and tightened my grip on my partner’s hand. My stomach clenched when the unmistakable smell of burned vampire reached me. As I swung my partner around for a better look at the back table, a second pop burst from the same corner. This time, I saw a black cloud of vampire ash billow up.

At the second explosion, the audience clapped as if it was all a part of the show. The actors probably thought it was a kitchen mishap and carried on without interruption. Only I knew the truth: a pair of vampires had been murdered.

After the show, as I was changing into my street clothes, bridesmaid number 2 grabbed my elbow. “Did you hear those bangs during our number? I nearly screamed.”

Laura Bigelow, the woman who played the bride, joined us. “It was probably just another dinner disaster.” Now that she was out of her costume – a fluffy cloud of a wedding dress and a wig of elaborately-coiffed, jet-black hair – Laura looked skinny. Almost scrawny. “Remember the breadstick fiasco last week? I swear the dining room still smells like smoke.”

Although my insides jittered at the thought of the killings, I managed a smile. “I’m sure that’s it,” I said. “Nothing to worry about.”

“One of these days, this place is going to set itself on fire,” the bridesmaid muttered before walking away.

When the bridesmaid was out of hearing range, Laura giggled behind her hand. “Did that explosion scare you? I nearly knocked the wig off my head when I jumped.” Then she noticed the wine stain on my costume. “Oh no! What happened?”

“My dance partner accidentally dumped wine on me,” I explained, putting the dress into a plastic garment bag. I would have to take it to the cleaners right away.

“Do you think you can get that out?”

“I certainly hope so.” I didn’t want to have to pay for the costume if it was permanently damaged.

Laura gathered her things and walked me to the door. “You want to join me and Xi? We’re going to the casino.” She gave a little sigh. “Again.”

“Maybe some other time.” Not only did I not want to waste money gambling, I really needed to find out more about the double murder.

“Well how about Tuesday night? Raging Fools is playing at the Ark, and I don’t want to go by myself. I’ll get tickets for you and Isaiah. And even for your adorable roommate and his boyfriend.”

I was curious if Xi’s band was half as good as his bragging indicated. And having Isaiah and Andrew there would make the event tolerable. “Okay,” I agreed.

She grinned. “Terrific! It will be so much fun!”

More fun that hunting vampires. Less fun than a night home alone with Isaiah. Everything was relative.

Just like every night, Xi – whose name sounded like the last letter of the alphabet – had parked himself outside the dressing room. He was a lanky guy with thick glasses, a scrubby beard, and a buzz cut. He nodded hello to me then said, “Hey Laura bird, ready to fly?”

Laura giggled and linked her arm through his. Then, with a wave to me, they left the building.

Although I wanted to leave as well, I forced myself back into the dining room where the tables were being bussed. I didn’t believe the pair of vampires had come to the theater by random chance. Maybe they had shown up to do Hedda’s business, or maybe they’d been coming after me! After all, my history with them wasn’t so good. In any event, I was determined to check it out before going home.

The vampires’ dishes had been cleared away, but a waiter frantically scrubbed the tabletop, trying to remove the greasy, black scum clinging to its surface. My breath caught as my lingering doubts fell away. Only residue from a dead vampire left that kind of mess.

Despite the waiter’s efforts, the table refused to come clean. “Try baby wipes,” I suggested.

He threw down his rag in disgust. “Where am I supposed to get baby wipes?”

I dug in my purse for a mini-pack of wipes. Alongside silver crucifixes and wooden stakes, baby wipes were an indispensable part of a vampire hunter’s toolkit. “Did you see the guys who were sitting here?” I asked, handing the waiter a wipe.

He accepted it with a grunt of thanks and resumed scrubbing. Sure enough, the greasy residue wiped off. “Yeah, I saw them, and if I see them again, I’m kicking their asses. Look at the mess they left me!” He pointed to the wall where spatters of candle wax had adhered to the wall paper. “They broke the damn wine bottle too, and didn’t even leave me a tip!”

I pressed on like I was Nancy Drew. “Do you know what time they left?”

The waiter tossed the dirty wipe into the trash. “Nope.”

I followed him to the next table. “Was anyone else sitting with them? Or talking to them?”

The waiter looked me over. “You’re one of the bridesmaids, right?” When I nodded, he said, “I’ve got a joint in my car. If you give me a few minutes, we can talk all night if you want.”

At his suggestive wink, my eyes narrowed. “My boyfriend’s expecting me soon.” And he’d tie your neck in a knot if he knew what you were suggesting, I thought.

“Figures.” He dumped the dirty dishes from the next table into a plastic bin. “No, I didn’t see anyone else near them. Just the two guys. They came in, I served them, and that’s it.”

For a moment I wondered if the waiter was the killer. But no, that was impossible. If he’d vaporized two vampires, he’d be running for his life, not sticking around to bus tables. So who else would have had the guts and knowledge to pull off such a crime?

To my knowledge, only four vampire slayers lived in the city. Besides me, there was my friend Andrew, but he was busy attending his evening cooking classes. Isaiah and Perry were hosting a Magic card tournament at their comic store. In any case, none of us would have attacked a pair of vampires in a crowded restaurant, and none of us would have ever gone after a member of Hedda Widderstrom’s grieve. That would be suicidal.

A final look around turned up nothing, so I slung my purse over my shoulder, grabbed my dirty costume, and headed to the parking lot.

It was time to find my favorite vampire hunter.

As expected, Isaiah was at Holy Comics, the comic book store that occupied the former sanctuary of an old, Gothic-style church. Even this late at night, it came as no surprise that he was hard at work on the killing floor. Only, from the way he glowered, it appeared that he was the one getting slaughtered.

Since rogue vampires no longer stalked the city, Perry and Isaiah had been devoting more time into building up their comic store business. To draw in customers, they’d begun hosting monthly tournaments for the card game, Magic. Once every week, they wedged a dozen card tables into the back of the store so that avid fans of the game could play one another for a shot at the title of Magic Master. Isaiah organized the events and drew up the rules. Perry’s contribution was publicity. He was the one who had renamed the chancel area the ‘killing floor.’

Isaiah had protested, saying the name was sacrilegious, but Perry disagreed. “Think of it,” he argued. “The chancel used to house the altar. And the altar was where the sacrifices were made – either symbolically or literally. Depending on your particular viewpoint.”

“I still don’t like it,” Isaiah had grumbled. “This church might not hold worship services anymore, but it’s still holy ground.”

Even so, Isaiah’s aversion to the term ‘killing floor’ didn’t keep him from playing in the monthly tournaments. In fact, he threw himself into the thick of it, competing for up to two hours at a stretch.

At this time of night, all the other players had packed up and left, but my favorite vampire hunter still sat across the table from a high school kid – a Holy Comics regular.  Derrick was whip thin, pale as skim milk, and angular – all knees and elbows beneath his jeans and Mine Craft T-shirt. In contrast, Isaiah’s skin was dark as midnight, and he was built as solidly as an oak tree. Even sitting, he towered over Derrick.

Isaiah wore his dreadlocks pulled away from his face, exposing his unshaven jaw and a silver earring. He hunched in his chair, deep in thought, frowning and tugging his luscious lower lip in concentration.

Four months into our relationship, and Isaiah’s amber eyes still made my heart go melty. But instead of kissing my hero and disrupting his concentration, I joined Perry at the cash register where he squatted near the floor, his pudgy belly resting on his knees as he fussed with something beneath the counter.

“How long has this game been going on?” I glanced at my watch. It was nearly eleven o’clock.

“Over two hours.” Perry grunted and hauled himself to his feet. He raised his voice. “And I’d really like to go home now!”

“So leave,” Isaiah growled. His deep voice vibrated across the room. “I’ll lock up the store.”

Magic was an intricate game. In fact, it was so complex that Perry and Isaiah hired a Magic expert to officiate at the tournaments. Right now, the official was half asleep in an overstuffed armchair Isaiah had dragged up from the church basement.

“Hurry up and lose already,” Perry said. “You’re ineligible for the prize, remember?” The prize was a twenty-dollar gift certificate for Holy Comics.

Isaiah, who hated giving up on anything, remained glued to his seat. His hand hovered, as if to make a move. Derrick tensed, ready for whatever Isaiah was about to throw down. At the last minute, however, Isaiah dropped his hand and went back to thinking.

Perry gave a miserable groan. To cheer him up, I held out a paper bag that I’d pilfered from the Wedding Party! kitchen. “Look! Breadsticks!”

Instead of eagerly plunging his hand into the bag, Perry drew back in horror. “Get those things out of here!”

“You’re not on a diet are you?” I resisted poking his Pillsbury Dough Boy tummy.

“Please,” he scoffed. “Diet is a four-letter word. No, we have a new store policy.” He pointed to a sign taped to the wall: Absolutely NO Food or Drinks Allowed. Then he lowered his voice to a whisper. “We’ve got mice.”

I clapped my hand over my mouth. My sister ran her catering business out of the church basement kitchen. If she knew there were mice in the building, she’d have a fit. Something like that could revoke her food-handling license. “Elena would die if she knew.”

“Elena?! What about us? Do you know how fast a mouse can chew through a comic book? Our entire stock is at risk. Yesterday, I found a carton of Spidey comics with a gnawed corner. Thank God the little monster didn’t get any further than the box.” He extracted a mouse trap from a paper bag that had been sitting on the counter, and waved it at me. “I have a zero-tolerance policy for mice!”

“You can’t kill them!” I protested. As a kid, I’d owned a gerbil, and I couldn’t bear to think of Tinkerbell’s close cousins being slaughtered.

“It’s either them or the comics, so guess which one I’m choosing.”

My reply was interrupted by a sudden flurry of activity on the killing floor. Isaiah played a card, and Derrick slapped down another one with a crow of victory. Isaiah, frowning, retaliated with another play of his own. They spoke in rapid-fire Magic speak. Making sense of the conversation was impossible.

When the kid trumped Isaiah’s second play with another one of his own, Isaiah threw his cards down in disgust. To anyone who didn’t know him, this would have been a clue to run away. But Derrick had hung around the store long enough to know that Isaiah wasn’t half as menacing as he seemed.

Sure enough, Isaiah’s glower turned into a smile. He shook Derrick’s hand. “Good game.”

Derrick accepted his victory with grace. “Just add the prize money to my store account,” he told Perry as he packed up his cards. Then he glanced sheepishly at Isaiah. “You can keep the Berserk card if you want.”

“It’s yours. You won it fair and square.” Isaiah pushed the card towards the teen who eagerly put it into his box.

“You put your Berserk card up against Derrick?” Perry asked, shocked. “Kid, I’m adding you to our wall of fame, and sticking Isaiah on the sucker list.”

Isaiah glowered, but Derrick lit up like a pinball machine. “Thanks!” A honk from the parking lot sent him streaking towards the door. “My mom’s here. Gotta go.”

Perry smirked. “How much did that Berserk set you back?”

“Don’t ask,” Isaiah muttered. He flexed his lame leg, which must have tightened up after so much sitting. “I should have had him, but I just couldn’t lay enough manna to reach my heavy hitters.” I knew next to nothing about the rules, but I did know that players in the tournament often put up their own cards as bets in the game. Losing that card probably cost Isaiah fifty bucks or more.

“Don’t worry. He’ll spend more than that in your store by next week,” I said.

Now that the game was over, Isaiah finally realized that I was in the room. The glum look left his eyes. “I thought you were working.” He pulled me into his arms and kissed me. “Tonight must be my lucky night after all.”

Too bad I couldn’t agree with him on that. The vampire story was on my tongue, but I didn’t dare spill it yet. Not with the Magic official dozing in the chair.

Sensing something was up, Isaiah released me. “Hey, Telly,” he shouted to the sleeping man.

The official snorted and jerked awake. “What?”

“Game’s over,” Perry said. “See you next month.”

Telly yawned and stretched before putting his loafers back on. I shifted from one foot to the other, itching with the need to get my story out. By the time the official had put on his jacket, accepted the pay envelope from Perry, and slowly made his way out the door, I was close to exploding.

“Well?” Isaiah asked the minute the three of us were alone.

After a deep breath, I told them about what had transpired at the show. Perry rubbed his chin while he listened, and Isaiah tugged at his lower lip.

When I finished, Perry glanced at Isaiah. “What do you think?”

Isaiah used to be Hedda’s enforcer, taking out the rogue vampires who had once prowled the streets of Detroit. But since the rogue vamp epidemic had ended, he’d steered clear of Hedda and her grieve.

Isaiah frowned thoughtfully. “Did those vamps at the show seem to be getting along?”

“They didn’t look happy, but they weren’t snarling at each other,” I said.

“Sounds like vampire friendship to me,” Perry said. “Okay, so who has the nerve to take out vampires so publicly?”

“Maybe there’s a new vampire hunter in town,” I joked.

Isaiah’s eyebrows rose as he considered the implications, but Perry shook his head. “Anyone crazy enough to murder a pair of vampires in public would be hunted down and drained before he could clean his weapons.”

True. Hedda was pretty reasonable for a vampire, but she had zero tolerance for any human hunting down the members of her grieve. I shifted from one foot to the other. Even thinking about the ugly possibilities of Hedda’s revenge made me nervous.

“No, it couldn’t have been a human. But vampires don’t kill their own kind,” Isaiah mused. The cardinal rule – in fact, the only rule – among vampires was that they could not kill other vampires. Lawbreakers were severely punished.

“Think Hedda will tell us?” I wondered.

Perry snorted. “No. In fact, if we ask, she’d probably deny that anything happened.”

“But I was there. I saw the whole thing. Well, most of it anyway.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Perry said. “This is vampire business, and they won’t let us in on it.”

“Maybe I’ll try to have a word with her,” Isaiah said. He once again tugged his lower lip thoughtfully.

Wanting to put those luscious lips of his to better use, I said goodbye to Perry and asked Isaiah to walk me to my car for a goodnight kiss before I left.

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Stagecraft is available for pre-order on Amazon for a dollar off the cover price – only $1.99 until January 26.