“Vamparazzi,” I repeated.

It was the name that Leischneudel and I had given to the combination of paparazzi and vampire groupies that swarmed around Daemon Ravel and The Vampyre.

Our disoriented driver said, “I’m going to have to let you folks out here.”

“No, tell that cop who’s coming this way now that we’re cast members,” I said. “He’ll let you through.”

Leischneudel said anxiously, “We’d like to be dropped off as close to the stage door as possible.” After another look at the bizarre crowd pressing their bodies up against the cab, he added, “If you could drive up onto the sidewalk and get right next to the door, that would be good.”

A uniformed cop approached the cab, making his way through the excited throng of wannabe vampires, tabloid photographers, and young women dressed as Miss Jane Aubrey.

“This is crazy,” said our driver.

“No one in this car is disputing that point,” I said.

A young woman wearing white body paint, a skimpy red outfit that had to be very uncomfortable on this chilly autumn night, and big red wings smiled at me through the window, revealing a row of sharp fangs. Ahead of us, a good-looking man dressed exactly like Daemon’s character in He of the Night was escorting a woman across the crowded street, heading in the direction of the theater. His companion was wearing a long, hooded cloak. Although she tripped on her hem, she nonetheless seemed more sensibly garbed than the two women who crossed the street next, both wearing black corsets, fishnet stockings, and not much else.

The cab driver spoke to the cop, who recognized me and Leischneudel and agreed to let the car through the barricade. As we rolled slowly down the street, traveling toward the stage door, we passed far more people than could fit into the theater tonight—even over the course of two performances.

“The Janes look chilly tonight,” Leischneudel observed, nodding toward a group of bare-armed young women whose white Regency gowns were as low-cut as the one I wore onstage.

“Well, yes. It’s November,” I said. “I think this is an example of natural selection in action.”

“Do you see her?” he asked. “The one who attacked you?”

I studied the women in the bright glow of the lights along this crowded street. “I don’t know.”

It was hard to tell, since they all looked roughly the same—like me in my costume.

After a moment, I added, “Ah, but I do see some familiar faces.”

The vamparazzi didn’t consist solely of Daemon’s ardent fans. A few of them were his vehement detractors. My favorites among these were earnest protesters from the Society for the Scientific Study of Vampires (SSSV). The same three people from SSSV showed up outside the theater about once a week, and I suspected the bespectacled trio was the society’s entire membership.

Spotting their picket signs in the crowd, Leischneudel said without enthusiasm, “They’re back? I kind of hoped they had gone away for good.”

“Oh, I would be so disappointed if they did that,” I said.

The SSSV protesters challenged Daemon’s claim of being a real vampire and demanded that he submit to scientific testing. Personally, I liked the idea of Daemon spending a couple of days being poked and prodded by skeptics. However, he brushed off their demands with a combination of smug dismissal and vapid vagueness that evidently satisfied his fans—who verbally abused the SSSV protesters whenever they showed up at the theater (which was perhaps why the trio didn’t come more often).

I had originally supposed that, as critics of Daemon’s behavior, the SSSVers would be natural allies with another group of detractors whom our taxi crept slowly past tonight.

“Hey, look, Vampire Recovery is here, too,” I said to Leischneudel, pointing them out. “It’s a full house tonight. All the misfits are on board.”

Vampire Recovery (greater New York metropolitan area membership: seven) wanted to help Daemon transition to “inactive/dormant status” and thus embrace a lifestyle free of active vampirism (though not, I noted from their outfits, free of the ubiquitous black clothing).

Despite condemning Daemon’s vampire lifestyle, VR had actually turned out to be the SSSV’s most bitter enemy, since the former insisted that the actor’s vampirism was a serious affliction while the latter declared it was baseless nonsense. This ideological chasm had led to a short-lived rumble between the two tiny groups on our opening night. It ended when one of the recovering vamps got a nosebleed and fled down the street, pursued by mad scientists eager to test his blood for proof of vampirism. Since then, both groups had been intimidated into somewhat subdued behavior—not by the exasperated cops, but by vamparazzi who insisted, with leather-clad aggression, that Daemon had every right to remain an active vampire and also to refuse to be scientifically tested like some lab rat.

Seeing several Vampire Recovery reps hovering near the theater, presumably planning to heckle Daemon when he arrived, Leischneudel said wanly, “I wish we could just beam into the theater via a transporter device, like they do on Star Trek.”

He was always fine once he was in costume, in character, and waiting in the wings for his first cue; onstage, he was a consummate, focused professional. But he found all this stuff a nerve-racking ordeal. I found it a distraction and a nuisance, but as long as I wasn’t, oh, being physically assaulted, the bizarre nightly commotion didn’t unravel my nerves the way it did Leischneudel’s.

Then again, I’d been living in New York longer than he had. In this city, a person got used to almost anything after a while.

When the cab came to a halt outside the stage door, Leischneudel said to the driver, “Can you get closer to the door? I mean, really close?”

But the cabby, whose nerves were also frayed by now, emphatically refused to drive onto the densely populated sidewalk. Especially not in plain view of the cops assigned to crowd control tonight.

Then I saw Daemon’s car pulling up behind us, and I squeezed Leischneudel’s hand. “Hang in there. We’ll slip inside when they all make a bee line for the vampire.”

“Which vampire?” the driver muttered.

“The real one.”

“Don’t worry,” I said as I paid the fare. “He never eats eat right before a show.”

We waited until we saw Daemon’s car door swing open, and then we made a dash for it. Leischneudel clung to me like a bad prom date as I shoved my way through the milling crowd.

“Daemon! Daemon! Over here!” a tabloid photographer shouted right into my ear.

His flash went off six inches from my face, momentarily blinding me. I stumbled a little, trying not to fall down as Leischneudel’s feet tangled with mine. Seeing nothing but swimming spots, I reached for whatever support I could find, and I wound up clutching a tall, skinny man.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

While trying to regain my vision and my balance, I squinted up at my rescuer as Leischneudel panted anxiously in my ear. I saw spectacles, a beard, and brown hair, and then I saw the picket sign overhead: UNDEAD —OR JUST UNTRUE?

“Science guy?” I blurted.

“Dr. Hal, with the Society for the Scientific Study of Vampires,” said my rescuer.

“Hi. Um, sorry.” Still blinking and seeing spots, I tried to extract myself from his embrace. “Esther Diamond. With The Vampyre.”

“I know.”

He helped me regain an upright posture—no easy task with half of Leischneudel’s weight leaning against me now—and kept a firm grip on my shoulders.

“Close your eyes completely for a few seconds,” Dr. Hal instructed. “That’ll help.”

Leischneudel’s grip around my waist tightened while I did as the doctor suggested. “Esther?” he said nervously.

“Just a minute.” When I opened my eyes again, my vision was indeed better.

A busty Jane immediately thrust a hanky under my nose. “Can you give this to Daemon for me?”

“Huh?” I said.

“Not you.” Her hot glare of hatred made me remember Leischneudel’s warning that obsessed female fans might now believe that punching me was the way to get laid by Daemon. But caught between Dr. Hal and Leischneudel, I couldn’t move.

To my relief, Dr. Hal pushed the buxom Jane away. Then he said to me, “Miss Diamond, we need your help.”

“Huh?” I said again.

Miss Busty Jane shoved Dr. Hal aside and pressed her unwelcome bosom against me as she simpered at Leischneudel, who was clinging to me so tightly that I thought we might need medical assistance to be pried apart once we got inside.

“Personal bubble,” I said to Busty Jane as she smooshed her breasts into me while leaning closer to Leischneudel. “Personal bubble.”

Ignoring me, she said sweetly to my companion, “Please, will you give this to Daemon for me? A token from a lady?”

I saw writing on the handkerchief and realized she’d scrawled her phone number on it. I could also tell that Leischneudel was starting to hyperventilate.

“We can end this madness, with your help!” cried Dr. Hal, trying to shove Busty Jane again.

She was made of tough stuff. She pushed back—so hard that Dr. Hal’s picket sign fell on his head as he stumbled sideways.

“Ow!”

Leischneudel’s terrified grip tightened reflexively, to the point that I suddenly had trouble breathing.

This turned out to be a blessing, since Busty Jane’s hanky was directly under my nose when she said to Leischneudel, “Tell Daemon it’s saturated with my feminine essence. I’ve rubbed it directly on my—”

“Oh, good God!” This time I shoved Jane. With a little more force than Hal had used. She fell backward into a photographer, who cursed loudly when his camera fell out of his hands and skittered across the pavement. He turned on Busty Jane, shouting in venomous anger. She started trying to climb over him, shrieking at Daemon, who had emerged from his car, and urging the actor to accept her handkerchief.

“Come on,” I said to Leischneudel. “Let’s get inside!”

I felt him nod against my hair and shuffle his feet in the direction of the stage door.

“Miss Diamond, wait!” cried Dr. Hal, physically seizing me by the shoulders again.

Leischneudel tried to pry the scientist’s hands off me, but seemed too overwhelmed to speak or protest.

“You can help us!” Hal said.

“I don’t want to help you,” I said. “I want to go inside and do my show.”

Leischneudel grunted in support of this plan.

Hal said urgently, “He claims he keeps blood in his dressing room.”

“Daemon? Yes, I know. Everyone knows. He makes a point of mentioning it in every interview. If you’ll just let me go now . . .” I joined Leischneudel in trying to loosen the doctor’s viselike grip on me.

“You need to get me a sample!”

That made me pause. “Pardon?”

“We need to know if it’s human blood!”

“Oh, come on, it’s Nocturne wine cooler,” I said dismissively. It was the exact same color as blood, and I knew that Daemon got cases of the beverage for free.

“You’re undoubtedly right,” Hal said. “Let’s prove it!”

I shook my head. “Forget it, Hal.”

“Doctor Hal, if you don’t mind.”

“I wish you luck, but there’s no way I’m getting involved in this.”

A roar of excitement arose from the crowd around us, and I assumed that if I looked over my shoulder, I’d see Daemon striking a pose or kissing a fan.

My bearded captor said, “Don’t you even care about the travesty that this charlatan is perpetrating?”

“Don’t you realize that proving he’s got Nocturne instead of blood in his minifridge won’t make the slightest bit of difference to his fans? They choose to believe his ridiculous claims. Facts don’t enter into it.”

“His behavior is a reflection on you!” Hal said.

“Stop right there,” I said irritably. “I work with him. That’s all.”

“You help him get away with this! By allowing him to fake exsanguination of your body every night, you assist him in his—”

“Oh, get a grip! It’s a play, Hal.” I pulled myself out of his grasp with such force that Leischneudel lost his hold on me and staggered back a few steps.

“All right, if you won’t bring me the so-called blood,” Dr. Hal persisted, “can you at least get me a sample of his semen?”

“What? How do you think I’m going to get a sample of his—No, never mind. Let’s not go there.” I shook off the mad scientist when he tried to grab me again, then said, “Come, Leischneudel!”

I turned and stomped toward the stage door, pushing people out of my way. I felt Leischneudel’s hand clutch my jacket, and I dragged him through the crowd to the door—where I said something unkind to the cop on duty about his inability to keep this area clear for us. Then we went inside.

Once the door was safely shut behind us, I turned to examine my companion. He was as white as a ghost, his pupils were dilated, and his nostrils were flaring with emotion. I decided we did need to find out if there was Nocturne in those bottles in Daemon’s refrigerator. Although I never drank alcohol before a performance, and Leischneudel didn’t drink at all, I thought we both needed a bracer after that too-eventful arrival.

“Come on.” I took his elbow and guided him down the hall to Daemon’s dressing room.

When we got to the door and he realized I intended to enter, he balked. “We can’t go in there!”

I turned the knob. “Sure we can. They’ve unlocked it.” It would get locked again in the wee hours, after we all left.

As the star of the show, Daemon had the nicest dressing room among The Vampyre’s four cast members. The one I shared with the actress who played Ianthe was drafty and had no comfortable chairs. Leischneudel had his own dressing room by default, since Daemon’s contract had required a private one. In any case, all the dressing rooms were pretty much bare bones, which was typical of New York theaters. Most of the little luxuries in Daemon’s room, such as his minifridge, were his personal possessions, temporarily installed here to ensure his comfort.

Timidly following me as I entered the star’s lair, Leischneudel said, “Aren’t we intruding?”

“I’ll tell Daemon it was an emergency. I know you don’t normally indulge, but I think we could both use a quick drink, don’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Esther . . .”

“Well, I could, anyhow.” I opened Daemon’s fridge and peered inside, where there were, as I had glimpsed a few times before now, about half a dozen vials full of ruby red liquid. The decorative little bottles looked as if they had been designed to hold cologne.

I pulled one out of the fridge and said, in a decent imitation of Daemon, “I don’t drink . . . wine cooler.”

Leischneudel smiled, starting to relax a little.

“But any port in a storm,” I added in my own voice.

He came closer. “You really think it’s Nocturne?”

I gave a derisive snort. “Of course.” I opened the small bottle, sniffed its contents, then took a cautious sip, expecting to taste mediocre red wine diluted by fruit juice and soda.

Leischneudel drew in a sharp breath. “Esther.”

Instead, I tasted salt, iron, and something altogether much too biological. I gagged, spat, dropped the little bottle, and covered my mouth with my hand as blood splattered on the nice area carpet at my feet—which was Daemon’s personal property.

“Oh, my God!” I blurted.

A sultry voice in the doorway said, “So you’re the one who’s been pilfering my supply.”

Leischneudel and I whirled to face Daemon as he entered his dressing room, an expression of amused surprise on his face as he looked at me.

“Ugh! Blegh!” I made unattractive gestures with my tongue as I tried to chase away the disgusting taste and texture I had just sampled. “You do keep blood in these bottles!”

Daemon blinked. “What were you expecting?”

“I was hoping for Nocturne.”

He looked skeptical. “Seriously?”

“Well, ‘hoping,’ would be an exaggeration,” I admitted. “We got roughed up on the pavement out there. Again. I wanted a drink.”

Daemon grinned wickedly. “Be my guest.”

“A drink of alcohol.”

“An insipid substitute.”

Leischneudel stood motionless, his nostrils quivering as he stared wide-eyed at the puddle of blood soaking into the carpet at my feet.

I looked down at it, too. “That was revolting. But I’m sorry about the mess, Daemon.”

He shrugged gracefully. “These things happen. Especially with virgins.”

I’d been around him long enough to know that “virgins” meant people inexperienced in “vampire sex,” which I gathered involved blood ingestion—a sexual practice that struck me as roughly on a par with jumping off a cliff if it did not include exchanging recent bloodtest results with one’s partner. I had always assumed Daemon was lying about it. Now, as I fumbled in my tote bag for a bottle of water to wash the sickening taste of blood out of my mouth, I wondered if there was some truth to those claims after all.

Yes, I understood that saying he kept blood in his dressing room was part of his schtick. But why was there was actual blood in here?

Then a more important question occurred to me.

“Is that blood safe?” I asked anxiously. “I mean, has it been tested?”

“Shhh.” Daemon put a gentle finger over my lips. “You’re perfectly all right.”

I brushed his hand aside. “Please tell me it’s not human.”

He looked down at his finger, and I noticed that it was smeared with blood. “It looks like you didn’t even swallow,” he said wryly. Holding my gaze with sensual intensity, he licked the blood off his fingertip. “Mmmm.”

I took comfort in the conviction that he probably wouldn’t do that unless he knew for certain the blood was indeed safe.

I wiped my mouth with my hand and realized there was blood on my chin from when I had reflexively spat. “Blegh.”

Leischneudel bent over to pick up the bottle I had dropped, which he set gingerly on the makeup counter. Then he looked at my face. “Oh! Here, Esther. Let me.” He picked up a towel, held it briefly under the tap in the corner sink to dampen it, then wiped my mouth, chin, and hand.

I said, “I’m really sorry about your carpet, Daemon. I’ll clean it up.” I opened my water bottle and drank a big sip.

While I was swishing water around in my mouth and trying not to think about the texture of the hemoglobin I had just tasted, Daemon said, “No need. Victor will be along any moment. He’ll see to it.”

Daemon had a personal assistant who did everything for him but wipe his bottom. And for all I knew, maybe Victor did that, too.

I felt myself gagging again and decided to avoid nauseating mental images until after I had recovered from tasting blood.

“No, I’m the one who spilled it,” I said. “I’ll clean it up.”

“Nonsense,” Daemon said dismissively. “Leave it to Victor. He’ll know what to do.”

“Well . . . I’m sorry about it. And also about coming in here without asking.”

Leischneudel added, “We were a little stressed out.”

Daemon sat down in front of his makeup mirror and studied his reflection with satisfaction. “The fans are excited tonight, aren’t they?”

Although he embraced and perpetuated various familiar tropes of vampirism, Daemon refuted the popular notion that vampires didn’t have reflections. He described it as a fictional embellishment that conflicted with the laws of physics. This explanation satisfied his fans while eliminating practical challenges that he couldn’t realistically overcome. Apart from the obvious impossibility of managing to avoid reflective surfaces at all times wherever he went, he also needed to be able to look into the mirror, like any other actor, to prepare for performances.

His black hair already looked sexily windswept, but he evidently decided it needed some preparation for tonight. Daemon reached for a brush and some hairspray and started working on it.

Seeing an opportunity to voice his concerns, Leischneudel stiffened his spine and raised the subject of my safety, in view of what had happened last night.

While Leischneudel talked and Daemon ignored him, I grabbed some tissues from Daemon’s makeup table and tried scrubbing my tongue. Then I drank more water.

“Oh, lighten up,” Daemon said after a while. “It was just some harmless fun. And Esther looks fine.” He sent me a darkly flirtatious glance. “Ravishing as always.”

Leischneudel explained that I had a black eye which was well concealed by makeup, and he persisted in warning Daemon that his ill-advised actions of last night might have dire consequences for me.

Daemon tilted his head this way and that, his attention fixed on his reflection as he styled his hair. His gaze only wavered for a moment—when I gargled some water. Both men turned to look at me.

“Sorry,” I said.

“You should embrace new sensations, Esther,” Daemon advised. “Not try to obliterate them from your being.”

“Whatever.” I gargled some more, hoping it would irritate him.

Daemon merely shrugged and shook his head, still looking amused about catching me red-handed with his blood supply.

I imagined the disappointment on Dr. Hal’s face, if we met again, when I had to tell him it really was blood.

Then I remembered the semen request and felt a tad queasy again. However, if a woman didn’t actually know Daemon, I realized as I watched him set aside his hairbrush and open his makeup box, the thought of getting that personal with him would probably seem more appealing than nauseating.

For all that he was vain, self-absorbed, and full of absurd pretensions, there was no denying that nature had blessed Daemon with physical allure. He was about 6 foot 2, with a lean, graceful build, square shoulders, slim hips, and firmly muscled legs. His black hair was thick and wavy, and his dark eyes and brows were intensely dramatic in his pale, handsomely hawklike face. His age was a closely guarded secret, but I thought he was probably in his midthirties.

He had an attractive speaking voice and good stage articulation, but he had dodged my questions about whether he’d had formal training. I thought he probably had, though; after playing the lead role in a demanding schedule for the past six weeks in a good-sized theater, Daemon’s voice was still as clear as a bell, not worn or hoarse. That level of vocal stamina suggested he was a trained stage actor, like the rest of us. But he was habitually vague about his past, and he never admitted to anything as mundane as taking acting classes or attending drama school.

He was also never very clear about how he had supposedly become a vampire. There were occasional allusions to being debauched by a seductive older woman when he was a lad, but “being turned” was an “intensely private experience” that Daemon preferred not to talk about. I wondered if the tabloid reporter to whom Daemon had lately agreed to grant an exclusive and very expensive in-depth interview would get a more detailed version of the tale out of him.

As if my thoughts had summoned him, Al Tarr, the writer who was Daemon’s constant shadow these days, appeared in the doorway. His cynical blue gaze swept the room, taking in everything, and then he nodded in the general direction of the stage door as he said to us, “Did you hear that the cops have arrested a real vampire out there tonight?”