The following morning I was hell-bent on restoring my reputation or, failing that, blowing everyone on the judging panel away with my incredible designs. Which was why I was at the Fashion Institute when most breathers were pulling their pillows over their heads or indulging in their last half hour of REM sleep. Though New York was truly a city that never slept, it did seem to take the occasional doze—apparently between four-thirty and five A.M.—because it was decidedly, delectably calm right up until I keyed the passcode at the Institute. I was halfway through the four-digit super-secret code when the front door slammed open and I went chest to chest—then butt to cement with—
“Pike?”
He was still dressed in his cocktail-hour deconstructed tuxedo but this morning’s look was for more deconstructed than it was tuxedo. His carefully disheveled hair was actually disheveled and he sported a spray of dark stubble over his upper lip and chin. He brushed a hand over the would-be beard when he glanced down at me, his eyes wild and disturbingly alive.
“Oh, Nina, my God, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.” It came out as one long string and I avoided the hand he offered, suddenly strangely suspicious. He may have once (yesterday) been my gorgeous future soul mate, but he was tainted by fashion thief Emerson, and was now running out of a building where my designs were supposed to be safe.
I pushed myself to standing, feeling my eyes narrow as I scrutinized him, and saw the barely imperceptible way his head reared back from my examination. There were no telltale bulges where he might have hidden my patterns or design notes—and I looked carefully, examining every bulge.
We vampires like to be incredibly thorough. I like to be incredibly thorough.
I smelled beer on Pike’s morning-after breath and his whole countenance was agitated, guarded.
“Are you high?” I asked, my arms crossing in front of my chest.
Pike actually stopped and seemed to settle, his pale lips quirking upward. “High? May have had a few beers to wash down my Wheaties but nothing more. What are you doing here?”
“I have a show to prepare for. And a passcode. How did you get in here? Why did you get in here?”
Pike’s sudden coolness ticked all the way through him and he patted the black camera bag that crossed his chest. “Working. I was here working.”
My eyes raked over his attire and I cocked out a hip. “You were up all night shooting designs for designers who were fast asleep in their own homes? Or, you know,” I said and licked my lips, trying to conjure up the best word. “Dead?”
Pike was unfazed. He actually looked cooler than before as he eyed me. “And I’m supposed to believe you were one of those fast asleep at home?”
Truth was, I’d spent my evening starring as Roxie Hart in an off-Broadway production of Chicago. Well, not so much an off-Broadway production as a karaoke bar with beer-stained carpet, but this grungy photog didn’t need to know that.
I just raised my eyebrows until Pike rolled his eyes. “I don’t only work for the Institute, you know.”
He brushed past me as though that were all the explanation I needed and even though his pain-in-the-ass quotient went up to about a thousand, I couldn’t help but sneak a peek and notice that his regular ass quotient still hovered somewhere between perfection and breathtaking. I watched him hail a cab with lightning speed, the yellow thing disappearing down the street.
I rode the crotchety old elevator (what is it with breathers and their need for all things retro?) up to the design studio and felt little butterfly flaps of anxiety in my belly. I have dreamed of having my own little studio since the early 1900s—you should have seen Coco’s little place in Paris!—and now, because of this design opportunity, I had it.
Well, almost.
One of the enormous benefits of this competition was that both Emerson and I were awarded top-notch design studios— outfitted with the latest and greatest of everything—in which to baste, steam, slice, and create the designs for each of our competing lines.
The enormous matching drawback was that each of these incredible studios shared floor space with each other. I had a bank of floor-to-ceiling cabinets and hanging closets at the front end of the room; Emerson had an identical setup on her side. We each had huge drafting and cutting tables, dual sewing machines, maiden forms, and steamers. As designers, all we needed to bring were our designs, our fabric bolts, and our personal tools. Where I traveled with a lucky pair of scissors, a seam ripper called Marie Antoinette, and a pincushion in the shape of a mushroom, I was fairly sure that Emerson only packed a tape recorder and a notebook titled “Designs I Stole.”
But it was nice this morning as the sun started to break through the heavy gray fog and the entire studio was peaceful, quiet, and Emerson-free.
I went to work outlining a new design and when the spark of inspiration slipped from the page and pointed at my rack of newly designed dresses, I couldn’t help but snatch one from the rack and grab my lucky scissors.
Only, they weren’t there.
I tore apart my pink-rhinestoned tool kit and then went to work opening every drawer and yanking open every closet. Finally, I dropped to my knees in a desperate hope that my lucky pair had slipped from their holster. I patted and searched until my knees felt knobby and raw—and I was facing Emerson’s side of the room.
I felt my hackles go up, a hot stripe of rage going from the base of my head to the end of my spine.
She did it.
Emerson Hawk stole my lucky shears.
I heard the electric lock tumbling downstairs, the ping! and rush of elevators coming to life as the people started to make their way into the building.
There wasn’t much time.
I sprinted the fifty feet across the room and grabbed at Emerson’s drawers, tearing through them like a burglar with a serious mission. In the back of my head I heard the footsteps and early-morning chatter as students and designers closed in on our room and when I grabbed the handle of Emerson’s closet door—the one marked “personal”—I was in such a fury that I didn’t care as the voices closed in.
I should have.
It all happened in one elongated second—my hand closing on the knob; the voices of the contest director and models breaking over the threshold. Me pulling the closet door open. Emerson line-driving me from the darkness.
“What the—?”
“Oh, my God!”
“Are they fighting again?”
Though Emerson jumped out of her closet and pummeled me—then lay there like a dead weight—she was no match for my strength so I quickly rolled her off me, but in that millisecond my nostrils twitched and my mouth started to water. It wasn’t her usual noxious scent. It was something very, very different.
Heavy. Metallic.
Blood.
I felt my mouth drop open and my eyes bulge when I stared at my blood-covered hands, at the smear across my blouse.
And then I looked at Emerson.
“Oh, my—” I started to kick away, felt the inane need to put distance between me and her.
“What’s wrong with her?” one of the models asked.
“Is she okay?” Jason Forbes rushed toward me and Emerson. “Are you okay? What happened? If you ladies can’t—” Jason paused, looked down at Emerson, and then crouched slowly. A chalky white washed over his face. He glanced at me and I knew exactly what the hard look in his eyes meant: Emerson Hawk was dead. When I crawled over to see for myself, I wished I was, too.
Sticking out of Emerson’s concave chest were my lucky scissors. And it didn’t take an X-ray to figure out that their sharp double-blades were wedged firmly and deeply into her silent heart.