- VERONICA -

I look at myself in the mirror, and I don't know who I am. My hair is in perfect, shiny curls like those girls' in a Victoria's Secret catalog. There's so much cosmetics on my face I feel like a 5-year-old's birthday cake with enough frostings to give a young adult diabetes. The red silk camisole I'm wearing is short enough to show my belly button without me having to lift my arms, and its V-shaped neckline plunges down past my breasts, exposing a daringly generous amount of cleavage that has been dusted with glittering bronzing powder to draw the eyes. The heels of my boots are four-inch high and pointy enough to rival my dagger as a weapon. They do, however, make my bare legs look wonderfully toned all the time, which makes wearing the skin-tight, leather shorts that come up to my groin a tad less embarrassing.

The whole thing makes me look like a prostitute, but that's the whole point of it, and Chris has made sure I can pass for one with flying colors. That's what they look for - a lonely girl with little to no family ties whose lifestyle makes it likely to be raped and left to die in the woods somewhere. It makes things less complicated. With no family to press them, the police don't investigate as much when they go missing, and the public is always quick to blame such a victim as someone who's asking for it rather than the rapist. As a result, these men and women tend to just vanish without consequences, and the syndicate gets off easy.

So to catch a kidnapper in action I have to play a role. For the past three weeks, I've been dressed in a similar fashion and sent to hang out at bars and clubs in town alone for them to start noticing my potential. Once that happens, according to Chris, they'd do a background check to make sure I truly fit the stereotype, and that I'm not some important person's daughter that will draw the public's attention if I go missing. Chris gives me a different identity and dresses me to look like a different person for each venue I visit so I can draw more than one kidnapper over a short period of time. In each one of those venues, Chris sends a rotation of guys he trusts to flirt with and eventually escorts me to some dark corners for a show, just to make sure I'm not bothered by some real-life scums while on the job. It's not that he thinks I can't deal with them, he'd explained, but that I shouldn't be caught kicking somebody's ass if I am to offer myself as a target, which makes sense, I suppose.

Well, the plan works rather brilliantly. In the past three weeks, I've been attacked twice by crooks who took the job offer from the syndicate. They followed me back to the cabin at the end of the night, and here I go to work on them. Both of the men talked quite readily, but all they could tell us was who their middleman was, and they were two different persons in each case. Rae decided to wait to collect more data before grabbing those middlemen for questioning, just to make sure we don't waste a good lead. Meanwhile, Chris works on finding out by whom they may have been contacted to spread the job offer.

The problem was what to do with the crooks we've captured after they talked. As it turns out, Chris and Rae are both turned vampires, and ironically they happen to have a bit more humanity than I do. They gave the first one some kind of injection that erases people's memories and plagues them with long-lasting hallucinations, then they dumped him near a hospital somewhere to be helped and rehabilitated. The second one, we found out from his blabbering, happened to be a serial rapist and a coldblooded murderer. I killed the son of a bitch before Rae could inject him with anything, but not before I did some good work on the prick. We had a bit of a disagreement on that issue, but I put my foot down and told them this is how it's going to be if they want me on the job. Some people don't deserve a second chance. Some animals don't deserve to live.

"You look good enough to eat."

I turn to see Chris leaning on the doorframe of my bathroom where I've left the door opened. As always, his blue eyes sparkle as they travel up and down my body, not in a sexual way - not anymore - but in the way a stylist might look at his great work. Ever since he knew I've been poisoned by Remus, Chris has stopped flirting with me completely. It's as if he's drawn a bold line and categorized me into a different species that can't be mixed with his kind. I have a feeling there's a lot more to it than the fact that Remus has marked me as his property, but I can't figure out just yet what it is. I should, however. Something that drives a playboy like Chris to draw such a line could be used as leverage. But how bold that line is really, I have to wonder.

"So, where do you want me to go whoring tonight?" I walk past him out the door and into the adjacent living room where I've laid out my weapons. I pick up my leather jacket and stuff a gun and a knife into the inside pockets, and one small, foldable blade into the outer one. Chris always sends someone to watch me from afar to make sure I'm safe, but I'm not in the habit of putting my life or safety in anyone's hand, certainly not in vampires and their associates.

"There's a bar called Red on the corner of Fifth and Collins Avenue," he says, scowling at my weapons, as usual. I think he's a bit hurt that I don't trust him or his men. "They have a full moon party tonight. The place should be packed. It's a good opportunity to show yourself."

Full moon. I've almost forgotten. It's been a month since I've been given the antidotes, and since he gave me thirty pills, technically I should have taken the last one this morning. The problem is, I've accidentally flushed one down the toilet a week ago while I was puking my guts out with the pill in my hand, and so I've actually been out since yesterday. Without it, the wretched nausea has returned and doesn't go away, and the migraine-like headache that has been bothering me since last night has increased in both frequency and intensity to the point that I feel I won't be able to hide it much longer. Since that first full moon, I've had no contact from Lucien or Remus, not even through Chris or Rae, and I'm beginning to worry that my worst fear would come true a lot sooner than I'd expected.

"Remus told me the portal that connects our world to his opens only on a full moon. Is that true?" I ask.

Chris nods. "Yes. Why?"

"I'm out of antidote," I say, not withholding my look of concern. If I don't get the refills tonight, that means I have to wait until the next full moon for someone to be able to bring it to me. Considering the knowledge that His Royal Highness Remus Valentin 'never comes here to deal with these things' as Rae has put it, I figure it would be rather easy for my little existence to slip his mind. Suddenly, I feel like garbage that has been left to rot when a homeowner goes on vacation, all because of that prick.

Chris blinks, and I immediately know it has slipped his mind as well. How convenient. "I'm pretty sure someone will be bringing your antidotes tonight. I'll talk to Rae. It should be fine."

I release a sigh. 'Should be' and 'pretty sure' don't exactly cut it for me. This is my life on the line, and I'll likely be dead before the next full moon without those pills, or the damage to my internal organs might be irreversible by then. Besides, after two weeks or so the pills have begun to work more effectively. My nightmares tend to come less frequently now. I also find I'm able to sleep a lot longer than before, and I don't want to fall back into that hell again for missing a few pills. The nausea, however, has been just as bad as the first day and even though the antidote can make it go away pretty instantly, it tends to come back with a vengeance about three hours before it's time for my next pill, which is about 6 am every morning. Needless to say, having had no antidote for the past thirty-six hours is not only killing me slowly, but it also means that I haven't managed to hold any food down since that morning. As a result, I'm hungry, nauseous, exhausted, and pissed enough to stick a knife into anything alive the moment I am given an opportunity. I want to at least yell at somebody, or rasp a complaint at how unorganized this shit is, but I don't want any of them to think I'm a panicky little human girl. I also don't want to tell them about my clumsiness that has led me to flush a pill down a goddamn toilet, so I keep my mouth shut and pretend that I believe someone will bring me the antidotes on a gold tray. Deep down, I don't believe it one bit.

Chris drops me off somewhere near the bar and I walk the rest of the way. There are two of his men trailing me, as usual, and inside the bar, there would be more eyes and ears. I look at my watch and it says eleven. Usually, I stay out until two or three in the morning before I return to my cabin, but tonight I think I'm going to wrap it in a couple of hours and head back early. My head feels like it's about to explode any minute, and all I want is to go home and lie down. Hopefully by then my new batch of antidote would have been delivered. Hopefully.

Luckily, no one follows me home that night so I didn't have to fight anyone while having the urge to run to the toilet every five minutes. I dismissed Chris' men who usually escort me to my door after a night out, saying that I want to stop by a friend's place after. By that time I was experiencing nausea, headache, and fever, and I was sick at having to pretend I feel just fine.

By some miracles, I still manage to drag myself home in that state and get myself inside. It's 2 am and I haven't heard from any of the four vampires I have been in contact with. There are no antidotes anywhere in my house either, no notes to comfort me that someone is working on it. I curse all of them in my head and make my way into the kitchen for some cold water and wash my face hoping that it would cool down my fever a bit. Just then, I hear a noise coming from the front of the cabin. It's the sound of footsteps of two people, no, three, that tells me they've just stepped inside my house.

Did I leave the front door open? I question myself as I clumsily reach for the gun in my jacket. The fever and headache combination is making me slow and disoriented. I've not once forgotten to lock my door when I enter, but that night I suddenly can't remember if I have. The intruders are closer now to the entrance of my kitchen, and a part of me is hoping that it might be Rae, Chris, and perhaps Lucien that have decided to bring me the antidote. The problem is by now I can recognize Rae's and Chris' footsteps, and I know for sure it's not them.

I draw a breath position myself behind the door, my back pressed tight against the wall. Three intruders aren't something I can't handle even when I'm unarmed, but at that point, I can hardly stand up straight from the fatigue and fever.

The first one enters, and I kick hard on the door to slam it in his face. He stumbles back, groaning at the nose I've just broken. The other two rush into the room, and I trip one down with my foot before rolling away behind the dining table for cover and shoot at the third man with my Glock. It misses, thanks to my weakened state, and it takes me several more shots until a bullet finds its way in his chest. The cry I've earned from it tells me they're vampires, not humans, who've followed me home, which means one should be down for good by my silver bullet, but the other two -

A hand grips my hair from behind and throws me against the nearby wall like I'm a stuffed animal. My head bangs against the wood and for a moment, my vision blurs. The next thing I know, I'm staring at a pair of grotesquely sharp fangs a hand away from my face. The gun has been knocked out of my hand and I can't seem to get at the knife I've stashed in my jacket. I close my eyes just before the fangs descend on my throat. I'm going to die tonight, and I know it. Well, at least I'll die fighting vampires and not poisoned by one.

A crack sounded next to my ear, followed by a thud of something being tossed across the room. I open my eyes and I see a red spot on the wall to my left - a splatter of blood the size of a basketball dripping down the polished wood. On the floor, directly underneath it, lies a head - the severed head of the vampire who attacked me. I look down and at my feet and I see the body whose neck has been ripped clean off and is bleeding all over my boots. There is no one else in the room, at least not anymore, except the two corpses and me.

There was a fourth person in my house, I realize with panic crawling up my spine. More importantly, where is the third vampire?

I limp over to the gun, wincing at the ankle that seems to have been sprained pretty badly during the attack. There's a noise outside the house like someone is running and then crashing into something. I grumble as I try to balance my weight on one leg and stand up straight. Whatever that thing is out there that has ripped the head off a vampire is coming back into the house, or the third vampire is, I'm certain, and I have to be ready. The problem is, with my sprained ankle I can't run or use my legs to kick anything worth the effort, and my fever is dulling all my senses like I've just been given a big dose of sedative. The only chance I have is to shoot down the intruder from a distance, and I have just one bullet left in my Glock.

Someone enters the house again, alone this time, his footfall unhurried and unnervingly sure. My heart accelerates as he draws nearer, pumping my veins full with adrenaline. The gun feels slick in my hands and I grip it harder. When a pair of black boots step into the room, I take a long breath, hold it, and pull the trigger.