“I’m not supposed to tell you this,” he pointed out, obviously clinging to his fraying patience.

“You’ve got vampire victims littering the landscape, I could be next, and you weren’t going to tell me about this?” I was working up a head of steam now.

He rubbed his forehead as if it ached. “I should never have tried to talk to you when I haven’t slept in . . . I don’t know how long. That was my first mistake—thinking I could deal with you when I’m half-dead.”

Warming to my theme, I demanded, “And what’s wrong with your colleagues, that they’re doubtful about the connection between exsanguinated murder victims recently found underground and last night’s murder? Are they gibbering idiots?”

“My next mistake was thinking I could talk to you at all,” Lopez said with morose self-condemnation. “Even if I’d gotten some sleep first. At what point did I think this might go well? Where was my head?”

“A vampire’s stalking the city, and you didn’t think this was worth mentioning to me?”

“Why would I mention it to you?” he demanded, his volume rising. “Just because you’re in a vampire play?”

“Well . . . Um . . .” Actually, when he it put it that way, I realized there might be a flaw in my logic. Which didn’t stop me from saying, “You should have told me!”

“Told you what?” He clutched his skull as if it was really pounding now. “Esther, there is not a vampire stalking the ... There’s no such thing as . . . Just because the victims have been . . .” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “No. Wait. Stop.” Lopez took a very deep breath. And another. Then he lowered his hands and said with almost epic calm, “We can’t talk about this now. You have to go upstairs and answer police questions. And I have to go home and die.”

“What?”

“Or at least get some sleep.”

Actually, he did look ready to keel over. I took a deep breath, too. “Okay. Yes. You’re right. I’ll go talk to the cops. And pretend we haven’t had this conversation. You go home and ... shave. Seriously.”

“You don’t get to nag someone you’re not dating,” he snapped.

“We’ll talk again tomorrow.”

“I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it.”

I overlooked his needlessly sarcastic tone and turned my back to him. I said over my shoulder, “Since I have to go face your colleagues now, could you please lace me back up? I don’t want the rest of the NYPD to become this familiar with my underwear.”

“Fine.” He came closer.

“It works pretty much like shoelaces,” I said helpfully.

“Uh-huh.” He yanked the sides of my gown together over my chilly back and started tightening and pulling on the laces, his touch impatient and impersonal.

“Careful,” I chided. “If you tear something, I’ll get in big trouble. The wardrobe mistress doesn’t like me.”

“Oh?” He yanked again, obviously still annoyed with me. “Why ever not?”

“The first time I wore this costume, I asked for more clothes.”

That startled a laugh out of him. His touch gentled, and I could hear a modicum of good humor returning to his voice as he said, “Well, I have to admit, given what you’re wearing, I can’t understand why there aren’t a lot more men coming to see this show.”

“Daemon is onstage a lot more than my neckline is,” I said dryly as Lopez finished tying the back of my dress.

At the mention of my leading man, he put his hands firmly on both of my shoulders and gave me a gentle squeeze. “It’s so late,” he said. “After they question you, make sure the cops send you home in a squad car, okay?”

I felt his breath on my neck as his hands stroked down my bare arms. I closed my eyes. “Okay.”

“I’m . . .”

“Hmm?” I leaned back a little, trying to get closer to him without doing anything overt.

“I’m sorry. About . . .” His hands moved on me. Comforting. Arousing. “I didn’t want to scare you. I just want you to be safe.”

“I know.” My voice felt weak. So did my knees. I sank against him, my back melting into the sturdy wall of his chest.

It was only for a few seconds, I promised myself. I’d move away from him in an instant. But first, I needed ... Well, it had just been too long since I had been near him like this.

Lopez lowered his head to rest his cheek against my hair as he tightened his grip on me. He released his breath on a long, slow exhalation. We stood together silently, his body solid against mine as I gratefully soaked up his heat ... and felt dizzily aware of a growing desire to soak up a lot more than that. Remembering that I had decided to give him up rather than get him killed was a lot easier to keep firmly in mind when he wasn’t touching me. Or speaking to me. Or within a mile of me.

I was trying to summon up the will to pull myself out of his grasp when he turned me slightly toward him. My breath trembled in my throat, my blood humming in anticipation of what he might do next. He moved one hand from my arm so that he could trace a finger alongside the rising welt on my neck.

I drew in a sharp breath, excited by his touch.

“Does this still hurt?” His voice was low and soft.

“Um . . .” I’d forgotten about the bite on my neck. And now that Lopez had reminded me of it with his gently tickling touch ... All I could think about, actually, was the feel of his hands on me, his body warming me, the soft caress of his breath on my hair ... and the quickening rise and fall of his chest as he held me. I had no idea if my neck hurt, but the exultant pounding of my heart sure did.

The heavy thudding in my chest brought me to my senses. The sound of my own heartbeat reminded me that I wanted his heart to go on beating, too.

“Be honest with yourself, Esther,” the vicious killer had said to me that fatal night in Harlem, having left Lopez to die alone in the dark. “Would he be lying in agonized paralysis awaiting his death now if not for you?”

Fueled by remembered horror, guilt, and grief, I summoned every bit of willpower I possessed, and I stepped away from him. “I have to go upstairs.”

In an effort to conceal my chaotic feelings, I wound up sounding curt. He heard it and immediately removed his hands from me.

“Right. Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Remember what I said. Don’t lie to the cops about anything, but be discreet about what we’ve discussed.”

“I will.” I met his dark-lashed eyes, blue and bloodshot and a little brooding now. Then I looked away again. “Thank you for coming here to warn me even though you weren’t supposed to get involved.”

He didn’t say anything. Maybe he was remembering, as I was, that he’d done more extreme things than this for me in the past—including lie to his superiors, conceal evidence, and falsify reports. Which had a lot to do with why he’d broken up with me in the first place. That wasn’t the kind of cop he wanted to be, and seeing himself as an honest and honorable police officer was closely entwined with how he saw himself as a man, too.

Finally he said, “I’d better leave.”

When he turned around and went the way we had just come, I said, “You’re really going back there?” I knew he didn’t want to be seen, but the underground passages still struck me as a dark, scary, and damp way to make his exit.

“I like the tunnels,” he said, walking away without looking back, his shoulders slumped with fatigue. “It’s quiet down there.”

“Sure,” I muttered, lifting my skirts as I turned to climb the stairs back up to the theater. “Very quiet. Except for a vampire prowling around, draining people of their—”

“I heard that,” Lopez said irritably.

Following the tooth-jarring noise of Mad Rachel’s wails of rage and anguish, I made my way toward the dressing rooms. I arrived to find that the area was jammed with people; the cast, the crew, Al Tarr, Victor, and a number of cops were all present.

Mad Rachel was inside our dressing room with the door closed. Between sobs, she screeched, “I want Eric! I want my mamma!” And also: “Don’t touch that!”

I heard someone else in the room trying to reason with her; someone who sounded stressed-out and exasperated. A cop assigned to the hapless task of questioning her, I guessed. Whatever he said, it was followed by full-volume ranting from Rachel, the gist of which seemed to be that the police were horrible people and she hated them.

Bill was standing in a corner, deep in conversation with a uniformed cop, his face morose. Victor was pacing just outside the closed door of Daemon’s dressing room, wringing his hands and muttering to himself. Leischneudel was with him, trying to persuade Victor to take a sip of water. The actor dropped the water bottle when he saw me. It hit the floor with a thud, startling Victor, and rolled away.

“Esther!” Leischneudel cried with obvious relief. “I thought you’d left without me.”

“Ah, there’s the missing actress,” Tarr said casually, to no one in particular.

Leischneudel ran toward me, but a tall stranger in a dark coat got in the way, saying, “Esther Diamond?”

Behind him, Leischneudel was waving his arms and grimacing at me.

“Yes,” I said.

“We’ve looked all over for you.” Without even glancing behind him, the man moved smoothly to block Leischneudel’s path when the actor tried to get around him to reach me. “Where have you been?”

“Who are you?” My gaze flashed to the gold badge he was wearing in plain view. “And what’s going on here?”

“Esther, you won’t believe what’s happened!” Hovering behind the tall detective, Leischneudel’s face and tone reflected appalled shock.

“I’m Detective Branson, NYPD.” The cop’s gaze fastened on my neck, and I realized he was looking at the bite mark Daemon had left there. “I need to ask you some questions.”

I looked around with an air of alarmed bewilderment. “About what?”

“Esther!” Leischneudel exclaimed. “Jane has been m—”

“Please wait over there, sir,” Detective Branson interrupted him, pointing to a chair about ten feet away without taking his gaze off my neck. “I need to speak with Miss Diamond.”

Leischneudel was hopping around behind him, trying to get my attention. In a moment of lapsed judgment, the actor clutched his throat, stuck out his tongue, and crossed his eyes.

Branson turned around and looked at him. Perhaps due to his years on the police force, he didn’t react to Leischneudel’s grotesque pantomime. “Now, sir.”

“Jane’s been murdered!” my friend cried, abandoning his attempt at simulating violent death. “The one who attacked you last night!”

“Murdered?” I repeated.

“She hath been most foully slain!” Seeing our expressions, Leischneudel forced himself to taking a calming breath. “Sorry. That just slipped out.”

“Is there somewhere private we can talk?” Branson asked me. “Such as your dressing room?”

I pointed at the door that was practically vibrating under the assault of Mad Rachel’s shrieking wails. “She and I share that room.”

A spasm briefly crossed Branson’s face. “Okay, not in your dressing room then.”

“Jane’s been murdered?” I said.

“Her name wasn’t Jane,” Branson said wearily, evidently having already learned why we called the victim that.

“But she’s been murdered?”

“She’s been found dead.” Branson used the dogged tone of one trying to get control of the conversation. “And I have some questions for you. Starting with, where have you been for the past twenty minutes?”

“The bathroom.”

He shook his head. “We looked for you the bathroom.”

“The one in the lobby,” I specified, hoping they hadn’t searched that far afield for me.

The cop frowned. “Why were you there?”

The volume of Rachel’s sobs increased until I could have sworn the door was rattling. I nodded toward it. “I was avoiding her.”

My explanation evidently satisfied Branson, since he moved on. “I understand that you and Adele Olson met last night?”

“Who?”

“The victim.”

“She’s been murdered?” I repeated.

“Please answer the question, Miss Diamond.”

“What was the question?”

“Did you meet the victim last night?”

“Not exactly. And you know,” I said seriously, “she might not be dead now if you people had arrested her, the way I asked you to.”

I thought I saw a vein pulsing in Branson’s forehead as he said, “Tell me about your encounter last night with Adele Ol—”

“Oh, my God!” Leischneudel gasped, startling both of us. He pointed toward my heels. “What happened to your dress? Fiona will kill you!”

Branson frowned. “Remind me who Fiona is.”

“Something’s happened to my dress?” The last thing I needed, considering everything else that was going on, was trouble with the wardrobe mistress. “Oh, no.”

“Miss Diamond—”

“Here, look.” Leischneudel lifted the back of my skirt while I twisted around to see what he was trying to show me. I discovered that my recent subterranean sojourn had left a dark smudge on the hem of my white gown. Fortunately, it didn’t look like a permanent stain; but Fiona would snark at me about it, even so. “Damn.”

Bending to look at the damage reminded me of how tortuously uncomfortable my corset had become by now. I said absently, “I need to take off my clothes.”

“What?” said Detective Branson.

“The worst part, Esther,” Leischneudel said urgently, “is that the cops think Jane was killed by a vampire.”

“We do not think—”

“You can’t keep me here!” Rachel screeched inside our dressing room. “Equity will hear about this! You’ll never work in this town again!”

“Actors.” Branson looked like he had inherited Lopez’s headache.

The door to Daemon’s dressing room opened, and all eyes turned in that direction. The Vampyre star emerged, preceded by a uniformed cop and followed by a female detective.

As soon as he saw me, Daemon said, “Esther! Tell them I didn’t really mean it!” His pale face was tense and strained, his normally seductive voice taut and panicky. “Tell them it was just part of the play! Tell them.”

My hand flew to my neck, my palm covering the telltale welt there. The melodramatic gesture was reflexive, not intentional. But everyone in the hallway stopped speaking and stared at me. I could feel all eyes fixated on the bite mark I was instinctively covering with my palm. Obviously, the incident onstage had already been a subject of interest in the police interviews.

“Esther,” Daemon said desperately.

I looked at my handsome costar: vain, self-absorbed, ambitious, and deeply mired in his fame-seeking masquerade. Even if I could picture him murdering a girl (and I still didn’t see it), could I imagine him prowling around in dark, dank, dirty underground tunnels to hide her body? Or to prey on other victims?

I stared mutely at Daemon, simply unable to envision him in that role.

Yet another cop came out of Daemon’s dressing room. He held up one of the little bottles from the refrigerator and said to the female detective near Daemon, “It sure seems like blood. The same stuff’s in the other bottle that’s in the fridge, too.”

“Oh, it’s blood, all right,” said Tarr, taking notes. “I could’ve told you that.”

Daemon snapped at him, “You’re not helping, Al.”

The female detective looked at Tarr with open dislike. She did not, however, confiscate his notebook. Tarr was presumably a witness in the case, since he’d left here last night with Daemon and Angeline. And Lopez had said that Daemon’s involvement would put this investigation under a spotlight. So maybe the cops figured that trying to prevent Tarr from writing about tonight would just be a fruitless effort. It would also presumably ensure that he wrote incendiary commentaries about the police stifling freedom of the press in an attempt to conceal how they were bungling the investigation.

No wonder Lopez liked the underground tunnels. There were no tabloid reporters, photographers, or groupies down there.

“When will you release pictures of the stiff?” Tarr asked the policewoman, still writing in his notebook.

“We won’t.” She raised her voice to be heard above the sound of Rachel’s persistent screaming and crying. “Can’t someone convince that woman to calm down?”

“Lotsa luck with that,” Tarr said. “Noisiest broad in the world. High-strung, too.”

The policewoman said to Branson, “Maybe we should send her home.”

Everyone in the hallway nodded vigorously in response to this suggestion.

Except for Detective Branson, who shook his head with manifest regret. “We haven’t been able to get a statement yet. Well, not one that’s of any use. And I think we really need it tonight. Before tabloid goons have a chance to start planting absurd ideas and false impressions in her head.”

“Hey, I take that as an insult,” said Tarr.

“Good,” said Branson.

“I want Eric!” Rachel screeched.

“Will getting ahold of this Eric person calm her down?” the frustrated lady detective asked, also looking a bit headachy now.

“Not that I’ve ever observed,” I said.

“When I was in Hollywood,” Tarr said, “this really big star I was covering—I probably shouldn’t say who, since he was married—was sleeping with a girl like Rachel, and there was this one time—”

“Not now, Mr. Tarr,” the policewoman said.

“Come on, you gotta release photos of the corpse,” Tarr said without missing a beat. “I mean, this is great stuff!”

We all glared at him with varying degrees of revulsion.

“What?” he said, looking around at us. After a moment, he shrugged. “Just doing my job.” He went back to scribbling in his notebook.

The Exposé would have a field day with this murder. The case was one more reason, I realized, that I (and anyone else with taste or sound judgment) should avoid Tarr.

“I hear that freelancers were at the scene, anyhow,” Tarr said. “So we’re gonna run photos from someone, even if you guys won’t play ball.”

Ignoring the reporter, the detective said to her colleague, “Get those two bottles from the fridge over to the lab. We need both of their contents analyzed as soon as possible.”

“Both?” I repeated with a frown. “Two?”

There’d been about half a dozen bottles in that fridge at the start of the evening. I had dropped only one, so there certainly ought to be more than two bottles still in there now. Unless ... My gaze flew to Daemon and my jaw dropped.

“My God,” I said in disgust. “You really do drink blood between shows!”

“You’re not helping, either,” he said darkly.

Detective Branson gestured to my neck. “How exactly did you get this bite mark, Miss Diamond?”

I met the cop’s intent gaze as Rachel howled from behind the closed door, “We’re all going to DIE!”

Branson’s cell phone rang, and he reached inside his coat pocket. “Excuse me for moment.”

He winced at Rachel’s next piercing shriek and put one hand over his ear as he pressed his cell phone against the other ear. He spoke with his caller only long enough to tersely exchange some information. Then he nodded to the female detective as he ended the call. “They’ve found more of those bottles at his home. They’ve also found, er, a coffin.”

She absorbed this, then said to Daemon, “All right. Let’s go, sir.”

I looked at Daemon again. “Are you under arrest?”

“Not yet,” he said wearily. “But the night is young.”

“Actually, it’s nearly four o’clock in the morning,” said the lady detective. “And we still have quite a lot to talk about. So let’s get moving.”

Daemon’s shoulders sagged. “Victor.”

“Yes?” The hand-wringing personal assistant looked like he was trying not to cry.

“Call my lawyer.”

“Of course! Right away.”

“No, better still, go to his place, get him out of bed, and bring him to ... to . . .” Daemon looked at the detective.

“Manhattan South.” She handed a business card to Victor as she said, “Your employer has declined to answer any more questions without a lawyer present. The sooner the attorney meets us there, the sooner we can proceed.” Then she gestured in the direction of the stage door. “Is it still a madhouse out there?”

“Yes,” Branson and a uniformed officer said simultaneously.

“Is there a less conspicuous exit from this place?” she asked with a touch of exasperation.

I thought of the tunnels, but I doubted that was the sort of exit she meant.

Bill offered to show her to the fire exit, which was on the other side of the stage. She spoke into a police radio, asking for an unmarked car to come collect Daemon outside that door. For the first time since I’d met him, the celebrity vampire seemed to favor a discreet departure, too. Although not under arrest—not yet, anyhow—he nonetheless looked like a prisoner as he was escorted out of here by the woman detective and two stern-faced patrolmen.

As Rachel continued sobbing at full volume, I squirmed uncomfortably, trying to relieve the irritation of the corset wires poking into my breasts. I turned toward my dressing room, anxious, exhausted, and eager to go home. Then I saw Detective Branson’s face and realized I’d be here a while longer.

Indeed, another hour passed before Leischneudel and I finally made our way to the stage door, wearing our street clothes and carrying our belongings. Detective Branson had agreed, at my request, to have a squad car take us home. My bruised face was scrubbed clean, and I was limp with fatigue. Leischneudel was still so overwrought by the news of the murder, he was hollow-eyed and babbling nervously.

Detective Branson had asked me a lot of questions about Daemon, his behavior, and the biting incident onstage. He’d also asked me a lot about the murder victim, focusing so much on my “interaction” with her and my “attitude” to her that I got exasperated. I discovered, not for the first time, that I was less sensitive and caring than a man expected me to be. For all that I readily acknowledged that the murder of a young woman was a dreadful tragedy, I nonetheless found the detective’s implications that I ought to feel more emotionally invested in Angeline’s death nonsensical—and also annoying.

“My entire ‘relationship’ with the victim,” I’d wound up snapping at him, “consisted of her knocking me down and punching me. Yes, obviously, I’m sorry that she died young, and I find the manner of her death extremely disturbing. But, no, of course I’m not upset, detective. Why would I get emotional over the death of total stranger who assaulted me during the two whole minutes that I was acquainted with her?”

Well, after that outburst, the rest of the interview was tense, even hostile. I sincerely hoped Branson wouldn’t follow through on his threat to question me again at a later date.

With my nerves frayed, my eyes stinging with fatigue, and my shoulders drooping, I followed Leischneudel through the stage door and was immediately greeted outside by the staccato brightness of flashing bulbs and the excited cries of vamparazzi.

I squinted against the camera lights going off in my face and making my tired eyes water. “They’re still here? It’s nearly five in the morning!”

“Where’s Daemon?” someone in the crowd shouted. “We want Daemon!”

A uniformed cop approached me. “Miss Diamond?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a squad car coming to take you home. It’ll pull up to the curb any minute now.”

“Thank you, officer.”

There were police barricades blocking off this area now, providing us with a mercifully clear path to where the car would collect us. Eager fans leaned forward, hanging over the barricades, some of them smiling and shouting at Leischneudel, clamoring for his autograph. He seized my arm, clutching me tightly and avoiding eye contact with the vamparazzi.

Despite the predawn chill of early November, many of the women out here were in revealing outfits, with deep V-necks, slit skirts, bare shoulders, and lacy sleeves. I wondered if their ghostly white faces and dark-blue lips were due to goth makeup or to hypothermia. Predictably, there were also a number of Janes waiting out here—but at least one of them had given in to a shred of common sense and donned a coat over her flimsy white gown. There were also scary-monster creatures, guys in leather jackets, women in velvet capes, photographers, and more cops than usual. I looked around for Dr. Hal’s little trio, but they seemed to have gone. All things considered, that was a relief.

Neither of the uniformed cops stationed at the stage door looked familiar to me. They weren’t the two officers who had declined to arrest Angeline last night. I wondered if those men had been taken off this assignment because of the tragic outcome of that decision. However, for all that Angeline might indeed still be alive now if she’d been locked up after assaulting me, the cops on the scene couldn’t possibly have foreseen what would happen when they let her go. No one could.

No one but the killer.

I shivered as a dark chill swept through me.

The crowd was now chanting, “Dae-mon! Dae-mon! Dae-mon!”

The cop who had previously spoken to me said, “We tried to tell these people that Mr. Ravel is gone.” He shook his head. “Like reasoning with the sea.”

“Welcome to my world, officer,” I replied. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen the play?”

“At three-fifty a ticket? Are you kidding?”

Leischneudel, who was still clinging anxiously to me, heard this. “That’s what the scalpers are getting now?”

“It was, as of midnight tonight.” The cop added cynically, “If the show doesn’t close, the price will go even higher.”

Leischneudel and I exchanged a glance, both suddenly realizing that The Vampyre’s remaining run depended entirely on whether Daemon was arrested or released. This obvious fact hadn’t occurred to me before now. We didn’t even know if we still had jobs.

“Ah, here’s your ride,” said the cop as a squad car pulled up to the curb. He took my elbow to escort me to the vehicle, while Leischneudel stuck like a burr to my other side.

“Wait, Aubrey!” someone cried.

“They’re leaving!”

“Aubrey! Over here!”

In their eagerness to claim his attention before he got into the car, several shouting fans leaned precariously far over the police barricade while reaching for Leischneudel. Then one of them, perhaps so sleep-deprived by now that all sense of reality had deserted her, started trying to climb over the dense crowd, apparently intent on hurdling the barricade. She flung herself forward, her weight and momentum carrying the whole mass of bodies beneath her forward, too. The angle of their combined, top-heavy weight toppled the barricade, which fell over with a thunderous crash. The noise was accompanied by the shrieks and howls of tumbling vamparazzi, some of them probably in a bit of pain now, others just startled or alarmed.

The two cops with us rushed forward to help the fallen fans and sort out the writhing heap of arms, legs, wings, fangs, and leather. While their attention was wholly focused on that, several Janes scrambled over the pile of bodies and rushed straight at me with maddened expressions on their faces.

“Esther!” Leischneudel cried in alarm. “Watch out!”

I barely had time to drop my tote bag and cover my head with my arms before the well-dressed Regency ladies started pummeling me. Too stunned to scream for help, I uttered breathless grunts of fear and confusion as I fell to the dirty ground and curled up in a defensive ball while they punched and kicked me.

I heard Leischneudel shouting, and I sensed he was scuffling with the Janes. I risked opening my eyes and peeking through my elbows, which where positioned to shield my face. I saw more daintily slippered feet running toward me—and then I felt even more weight piling on top of me.

“Stop!” Leischneudel shouted at them. “Stop!”

“Get her! Get her!” one of the Janes cried.

Get me? Why? WHY? What have I done? I thought.

“Out of my way!” To my relief, a sturdy Jane plucked a skinny one off me and shoved her aside. But then Sturdy Jane took her place and started pummeling me.

“Go away! She’s mine!” another Jane cried. “I’m the one going home with Daemon tonight!”

“No, I’m going home with him!”

Sitting on top of me, these two Janes starting shoving furiously at each other.

Oh, good God, Leischneudel had been right. After last night’s incident, now these girls thought that attacking me was the way to get laid by Daemon! Maniacally deluded about the link between cause and effect, that was why they had suddenly jumped me when they saw their chance tonight.

This was all Daemon’s fault. If he wasn’t arrested for murder, then I would have to kill him.

But I could only do that, it occurred to me as someone tried to pound my head into the pavement, if I lived through this.

“I’m going home with him!” another Jane shrieked, trying to bite my left knee.

I found it hard to believe that sex with anyone could be worth all this, let alone sex with a self-absorbed actor.

I kneed that girl in the face—and I found that I felt much better when I heard her shriek in pain.

Okay, my interval as a cowering victim was officially over now.

“Off! Get off!” I barked at the Janes. Or I tried. I could barely breathe.

Utterly enraged now, and finding this feeling vastly preferable to being frightened and bewildered, I started trying to uncurl from my defensive posture so I could fight back and give these lunatic girls the black eyes and bloody lips they damn well deserved. However, getting out of my fetal position was harder than I had anticipated, since I was by now at the bottom of a pile-on that, as near as I could tell, consisted of half the female population of New York.

I still couldn’t breathe, and I realized that I was going to faint—or worse—if I didn’t get some air pretty soon.

The prospect of suffocating to death beneath a bunch of squealing, lust-crazed vampire groupies all wearing my costume was so appalling, it lent unholy strength to my limbs. I started heaving, kicking, and elbowing the girls, grunting with effort, desperately sucking in quick gasps of air when possible, as I struggled to fling the Janes off me.

“Ow! She’s like an animal!” one of them complained when my elbow hit her in the gut.

“Off!” I snarled—though it came out more like an inarticulate gurgle.

“Help! Officers!” Leischneudel shouted, still trying to fight off my attackers. Then I heard a fleshy thudding sound. Leischneudel grunted in pain, collapsed, and fell down next to me, his hands clutching his groin reflexively as he lay on his back. “Ow.”

“Lei . . .” I croaked breathlessly.

A plump Jane fell on top of him, her butt landing squarely on his solar plexus. He appeared to black out then.

To my relief, I heard a shrill police whistle pierce through the cacophony. Then male voices shouted with reassuring force and authority. I saw large, sensibly shod feet approaching me swiftly, then I felt heavy weights being removed from my body. I was gratefully drawing in huge gulps of air when a pair of strong hands seized me by the shoulders and helped me sit up.

“Miss Diamond! Are you all right?” the rescuing cop asked me anxiously.

I nodded, still gulping down air.

“Are you sure?” he prodded.

Able to speak now, I said, “I want them arrested! All of them! Do you hear me?”

This wasn’t an attempt to prevent them from following in Angeline’s tragic footsteps. I just wanted them all to stew in jail while they contemplated the sin of attacking an innocent actress.

“Arrested!” I repeated. “I want them to have criminal records! Rap sheets! Legal expenses!” I realized I was shouting. I took another breath and said less hysterically, “They deserve to be arrested for this.”

“Yes, ma’am. Absolutely. We’re taking care of it.”

Then I gasped as I recalled that my gallant defender was lying wounded on the pavement. “Leischneudel!”

I turned and scooted over to him. Another cop was tending him. His eyes were open, but the cop was advising him not to sit up just yet. I glanced around and saw that other cops were getting the chaotic scene under control. I was glad to see that quite a few of the vamparazzi obviously disapproved of the Janes assaulting me, and they seemed to be helping the police round them up. The rest of the fans were voluntarily retreating back behind the barricades, noisy but orderly. Some of them started calling out concerned questions, wanting to know if Leischneudel and I were okay.

“Maybe you shouldn’t get up just yet, sir,” said one of the cops as Leischneudel began trying to rise.

“No, no, I’ll be all right.” He reached for me, and I helped him climb slowly to his feet. He stood there for a moment, using me for balance, his posture a little bit hunched over. His face was still strained, but he nodded after a moment. “I’m okay. It’s just always kind of a shock to the system when that happens. You know what I mean?”

The two cops nodded vigorously.

Leischneudel took a deep breath and smiled wanly. “I’d really like to go home now.”

“Of course.”

As we helped Leischneudel walk gingerly toward the squad car, the cop who’d spoken to me earlier said, “With such an exciting show out here, I don’t know why anyone would pay three-fifty just to see the play.”

“Indeed.” Another flashbulb went off in my face. “Heigh ho, the glamorous life.”