LITMIR.BIZ

      ZEBRA BOOKS

       KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

       http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      I owe a debt of gratitude to my agents, Joanna MacKenzie and Danielle Egan-Miller, and my editor, John Scognamiglio, for making my dream of being published come true; to my writing group (Joe, Amy, Yang, Susan, John, and Bill) for holding my feet to the fire; to Mom and Dad for passing on the writing gene; and to Vail for his unconditional support. I’d also like to thank Kevin Collins and Jane Willis for their advice on the technical aspects of advertising.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 1

      I met my vampire lover on a Wednesday.

      I almost missed my destiny that day by oversleeping, but if I had missed it, wouldn’t that have been my destiny instead? Usually I take the bus to work, but since I was late I drove my Mini to the lot next to our building in downtown San Francisco, resigning myself to the hemorrhagic rate of three dollars every twenty minutes. At lunchtime I’d move to a cheaper lot. After parking in a half-space that could only have accommodated my elfin vehicle, I stopped to watch a sailboat glide under the Bay Bridge. Sun sparkled on the water, the boat, the bridge, and the bikini-clad woman lying on the sailboat’s deck—a picture worth framing. It was the second Wednesday in October, the time when savvy tourists come to San Francisco because they know it’s when we have our best weather. Since playing hooky on a sailboat was not an option, I consoled myself with the promise of lunch at an outdoor café. Little did I know it would be the last time I’d be enjoying sunlight for quite a while.

      I revolved through the door of 555 Battery and waved to Clive, the silent security guard. The elevator was packed like the Tokyo subway, so I opted to walk the three flights to my office. Letters etched into a wavy glass wall in the lobby proclaimed the owner of my labor as Hall, Fitch, and Berg, Advertising. We were also known informally as HFB (and sometimes as Heel, Fetch, and Beg due to our reputation for doing anything to acquire an account). If a jingle pops into your head spontaneously while you’re cruising the supermarket aisle for soda pop or laundry detergent, it’s probably ours.

      The administrative assistant, Theresa, was standing outside her cubicle nibbling a fingernail. She ran to meet me, her three-inch heels clicking on the polished concrete floor.

      “Oh good, Angie, you’re here. The clients will be here in fifteen minutes, Lucy’s still not here, and Kimberley and Les are in Dick’s office waiting for you.”

      “Lucy’s still not here?”

      My boss, Lucy Weston, had missed the last two days of work without notifying anyone. This was out of character for her, but not unheard of at HFB. Last year, one overworked account supervisor had gone out for coffee and sent her resignation from Puerto Vallarta two weeks later. So no one had taken much time to worry about Lucy, as we were all busy trying to make her absence invisible to the clients. I had been in the office until 11 o’clock the night before, working on the Unicorn Pulp and Paper account, which was why I had overslept.

      Theresa shook her head. “No, nobody’s heard from her.”

      “So is somebody going to call the police today?”

      “Mary from HR is going to do it, but she’s trying to find any friends or family to call first, to see if Lucy told anyone where she was going.”

      I was harboring a secret hope that I’d get to do something around a client besides play stagehand for Lucy, so I had to admit to being somewhat grateful for her absence.

      “Which room are we using?” I walked toward my office with Theresa following in my wake.

      “Nobody told me anything,” she answered. “Lucy usually arranges the rooms with me.”

      “What rooms are available?”

      “Hammett is being used. Kerouac and Ferlinghetti are open.”

      “Kerouac will do. Pull down the projection screen and set up some snacks in there, okay?”

      “What do you think they want to drink?”

      I couldn’t resist the obvious answer. “How about some fresh blood?”

      Theresa laughed dutifully and veered off toward the Kerouac Room.

      I made this quip because our new clients were vampires. Macabre Factor consisted of a twenty-something Goth couple who were into the vampire club scene in San Francisco. They started out creating makeup that they used on themselves; chalk-white base tinged with blue, fine-tipped red liner to outline the veins in the neck, and fake fingernails in shades of green, gray, and blue. But when they showed up with real fangs and topaz eyes friends and admirers began clamoring to buy their products. Thus a business was born, with cosmetics manufactured in Sweden, contact lenses from China, and a dentist in Los Angeles with an exclusive contract to manufacture custom fangs that attached to your canines like dental crowns.

      I rushed down the hall to my office. All of the assistant account executives have real offices, as opposed to cubicles, which makes us feel very grown up, but every door has a narrow glass window next to it so

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