My Roommate Is a Vampire(87)
(“You’re good,” Reginald mused.
“You’re lying,” I accused.
“Maybe,” Reginald admitted.)
A moment later, video-Reginald burst into the scene. “Mwah-ha-ha!” he exclaimed, his fangs out, his eyes wide. “I’ve come to drink your blood!” he continued in the cheesiest fake-Transylvanian accent I’d ever heard. Video-Reginald then grabbed one of the bags of blood in my hand and tore it open with a flourish, sucking it down with as much gusto as he had the night I found out he was a vampire.
Video-me screamed, and then the scene went dark.
Reginald closed the laptop and shrugged. “Okay, so I admit it’s not my best work. But we’re on a deadline. And as you’ve no doubt already noticed, hyperbole and overacting are the metaphorical bread and butter of the larger vampire community.”
I thought back to my first impression of Edwina D. Fitzwilliam, in her satin-silk-velvet black mishmash of a dress and her 1970s glam-rock makeup. “I may have noticed that.”
“Anyway, there’s nothing we can do right now but wait,” Reginald said reasonably. “If Edwina buys it, we ride tomorrow at sunset. And if she doesn’t . . .”
Reginald didn’t finish that thought.
But he didn’t have to.
If Frederick’s mother and the Jamesons didn’t buy this ruse, I knew full well that neither of us had a Plan B.
TWENTY
Letter from Mr. Frederick J. Fitzwilliam to Cassie Greenberg, dated November 18, confiscated and unsent
My dearest Cassie,
It has been more than twenty-four hours since my capture, but I believe I have made progress towards securing my release.
I have spoken with Miss Jameson. While I am as convinced as ever that a union between us would be disastrous, I am gratified for confirmation that she is not as stuck in the old ways as her parents. While my rejection has stung and offended her, she has enough self-possession and self-worth to not want any man who does not want her. I believe she will eventually become an unlikely ally in my attempts to earn back my freedom.
I hope you are faring well—and that you do not interpret my silence as anything other than what it is. Specifically: me, trapped in a terrifying dungeon in the suburbs with no way to escape.
All my love,
Frederick
From: Nanmo Merriweather [[email protected]]
To: Cassie Greenberg [[email protected]]
Subject: Your terms
Dear Miss Greenberg,
I, Mrs. Edwina D. Fitzwilliam’s assistant, write you on her behalf to inform you that you have left her with no choice but to agree to your demands.
Please come to the castle located at 2314 S. Hedgeworth Way in Naperville, Illinois, at eight o’clock tomorrow evening. She will release her son to your custody if, and only if, you destroy all existing copies of your vampire exposé in her presence. The motion picture you have created has the power to destroy everything we have worked so hard to establish since leaving England—and while choosing her son’s betrothed is important to my mistress, nothing is more important to our kind than to live in secret.
We will see you tomorrow evening. (Also, please do not reply to this email. Mrs. Fitzwilliam does not know how to check her email. All of her emails therefore bounce directly to me and, frankly, I have enough work to do already without also keeping up with her pettier correspondence.)
With kind regards,
N. Merriweather
“I can’t believe she’s still got Nanmo doing her bidding like this,” Reginald tsked, shaking his head. “The man is four hundred and seventy-five years old, for crying out loud. It’s embarrassing.”
“Yeah,” I said, not knowing how else to respond to that. I was so far out of my element I couldn’t even see my element anymore.
“Well, I guess the important thing is they bought it,” Reginald said. “I’m at once surprised, because this really is silly, and not at all surprised. I’ll fly you there tomorrow at eight.”
“No,” I said very quickly, holding up my hands. “I’ll just take an Uber.”
Reginald stared at me from his vantage point on Frederick’s black leather sofa. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not safe for you to go to this by yourself.”
I paled at the thought of showing up to this rendezvous without vampire backup. “Oh, I know that. It would be suicide to show up at that house alone.”
“It would,” Reginald agreed.
“I just meant if I fly there with you, I’ll be too distracted by my first-ever flight without an airplane to be able to keep my head on straight for what I might have to do once we get there.”
Reginald leaned against the sofa cushions as he considered that. “Fine,” he said. “It’s true that flying for the first time can be a lot. So sure. Take an Uber. But don’t get out of the car until you see me hovering in the sky just on the other side of the basketball hoop.”
I frowned at him. “Basketball hoop?”
“You’ll know it when you see it,” he said, before muttering something about suburban hellscape under his breath that I didn’t quite catch. He stood up and made his way to the front door.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night,” I said, trying to convey a confidence I absolutely did not feel.