“If they call your bluff, we’ll come up with a Plan B,” he said. “But I think if all we do is simply film you making a Vampires are real! announcement and send it with the email, it should be enough.”
“I wish I believed that.”
Reginald sat back in his chair and scratched his chin, pondering. “It isn’t as though Edwina or the Jamesons will go on TikTok to check whether you’ve followed through.” He regarded me before adding, “And to be honest, Frederick wouldn’t actually want something like that on the internet anyway. Neither would I.”
I swallowed down the fear that rose at the thought that this plan might endanger Frederick even as I was attempting to save him.
“Okay,” I said, closing my laptop without hitting send on the email. “Where should we film this?”
“Freddie’s apartment,” Reginald said immediately. “His mom will recognize the setting, and your being there even when he’s gone will send a strong message of Back off, this man is mine.” He tilted his head as he regarded me. “Assuming, of course, that that’s the message you want to send.”
He had a knowing look on his face, and I felt myself flush under his gaze. Because it wasn’t just that I didn’t want Frederick to be coerced into marrying someone he did not love.
It was more than that.
I wanted Frederick to be safe.
But I also wanted him for me.
I needed his captors to understand that.
“That is the message I want to send,” I confirmed. “Let’s go back to the apartment and film this thing.”
Reginald smiled his agreement. Though it’s possible he was smirking at me instead.
* * *
“This isn’t going to work.”
“It will.”
I stared at Reginald as the terrible video he’d just taken of me threatening to expose all of vampire-kind played back to us from my laptop.
“Were we convincing?”
Reginald frowned contemplatively and made a seesawing motion with his hand. “Yes? Maybe? Hard to say. Either way it’s too late for do-overs. We’ve already emailed it to Mrs. Fitzwilliam.”
I sighed and buried my face in my hands.
“Humans of North America,” the video version of me chirped with false bravado, Frederick’s creepy stuffed wolf’s head with the glowing red eyes hanging just above my head. (“I got it for him at Disney World,” Reginald had explained. “But I told him I chopped off a werewolf’s head so I’d sound tough.”) “I come to you with news of great importance.”
The video-me held aloft two bags of blood I’d gotten from the small refrigerator Frederick kept in his bedroom, one in each hand. I thought back to how horrified I’d been the first time I saw all that blood in the kitchen. It didn’t bother me so much anymore. Frederick had kept his promise to me, never once eating in my presence or storing his blood in a place I might find it.
It was clear to me now that he’d chosen the most humane way to survive that he possibly could.
The video-me managed to keep from broadcasting any of these tender thoughts. That part had gone well, at least. Usually I had zero poker face at all. Brandishing the bags, video-me said, “The recent rash of blood bank break-ins have all been the work of vampires living in our midst. And here is the proof!”
Video-me pointed up to the “werewolf head” hanging above me. “They behead werewolves for sport! They drink the blood of our children! They live right here in Chicago. In New York City. Everywhere! No corner of the earth is safe while they roam free!”
(“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.