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Of course, the Hollywood of today was nothing like the Hollywood of the thirties and forties. Movie stars had truly been stars back then. There had been a mystery about them, a larger-than-life presence that had projected beyond their screen image. Stars like Gable and Bogart, and her favorite, the ever-appealing bad boy, Robert Mitchum. He had smoked too much, drunk too much, and she had adored him. She had been on the set when he filmed Out of the Past, totally captivated by his performance, by his broad shoulders and heavy-lidded eyes. She had once overheard him remark that acting “sure beat working.” He had been a star who defined cool. How she missed him.
Mara shook her head. Movie stars today . . . they just weren’t cut from the same cloth. Only a few of them were even worthy of the name. Most were just celebrities, rising out of nowhere, shining brightly for a few brief moments, and then disappearing just as quickly, unremarked and soon forgotten.
Mara had been in town less than a week when she heard that one of the major producers was hosting a little get-together at his palatial estate in Brentwood. Knowing she would be welcome, Mara donned a slinky white gown that was slit provocatively up one side, stepped into a pair of silver, spiked heels, and arrived at the house, unannounced and uninvited, just after ten.
The producer, Sterling Gaylord Price, welcomed her with his usual lecherous smile. Sterling was pushing seventy if he was a day, but you would never know it to look at him. No doubt a skilled and expensive plastic surgeon was responsible for shaving ten years off Price’s appearance. And everyone knew sixty was the new forty.
“Mara!” he gushed, kissing her soundly on both cheeks, “it’s been too long. Too long. Where have you been keeping yourself?” z&²
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she replied with a saucy grin. She linked her arm with his as they moved from the foyer to the front parlor. “I love what you’ve done to the place.”
He beamed at her. “Alison’s a whiz at decorating.” He gestured at a tall, slender young woman with bright blond hair. “She did the whole place herself.”
“Amazing.” Mara glanced at the scantily clad Mrs. Sterling Price, who was holding court amidst a group of suntanned young men. By Mara’s reckoning, the girl, who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two, was the fifth Mrs. Price. Like all the others, she was no doubt a whiz at calling a decorator, writing checks, and bleeding Price for everything she could get before he tired of her and moved on to the next overeager starlet who was willing to trade favors for fame and fortune.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Sterling said, giving Mara’s arm a squeeze. “Maybe we can get together for drinks, just the two of us, sometime next week.”
“Maybe,” Mara replied with a coy smile. When Hell freezes over. Sterling was a notorious playboy, always on the lookout for the next future ex-Mrs. Price.
She chatted with him another few minutes, relieved when some pouty-lipped starlet with flaming red hair and cleavage she hadn’t been born with called him away.
Mara spent the next hour flirting with several young men, all of whom were movie-star gorgeous, even though none of them truly appealed to her. They were too young, too pretty, too eager.
A handsome waiter bearing a candy-laden silver tray paused to offer her a truffle. Lost in thoughts of Kyle, she took it without thinking and popped it into her mouth. Dark rich cocoa and chocolate liqueur flowed over her tongue like liquid silk, followed by a rush of panic. What had she done? She hadn’t eaten mortal food in over two thousand years. She had thoughtlessly nibbled on a fig soon after she had been turned, and been violently ill.
Not wanting anyone to see her, she hurried toward the double doors leading to the veranda. Outside, she took a deep breath, her hands clutching her stomach, and then she frowned. She didn’t feel sick at all, didn’t feel anything except a strong desire for another chocolate truffle. Maybe two.
“How can that be?” she muttered. “Mortal food is like poison to us.” Curious, she went back inside, her gaze darting around the room until she spied the same waiter.
He smiled knowingly when he saw her hurrying toward him. “Delicious, are they not?” he asked with a wink.
“Very.” Mara picked a plump one from the tray and carried it outside. She ate it slowly, savoring the way the chocolate melted on her tongue, the way it flooded her senses with an odd sense of euphoria.
Nothing in all the world had ever tasted so good.
Or scared her so much.
What was happening to her?
Mara noticed several other changes in the course of the next few weeks. Although she could be active during the day, she had always preferred the night. Now, she found herself spending more of her waking hours in the daylight, resting more at night. In the past, she had, on various occasions, been tempted by mortal food, mainly items that were unheard of when she had been mortal—things like ice cream, cheeseburgers, hot dogs smothered in mustard and onions, caramel popcorn, thick-crust pizza topped with ham and pineapple. But she had never dared satisfy her curiosity.
Three nights after the party at Sterling’s, Mara went to a formal sit-down dinner at the home of a well-known director. Indulging her curiosity, she sampled every course that was placed before her—Maine lobster served on a bed of fluffy, long-grain, white rice, broccoli smothered in butter, a warm fudge brownie topped with vanilla ice cream and drowning in chocolate sauce.
Later, back at home, she paced the floor, her thoughts in turmoil as she tried to understand what was happening to her. No matter how often she contemplated her burgeoning appetite for mortal food, her diminished lust for blood, and her sudden preference for taking her rest at night, she always reached the same conclusion. Like it or not, she was becoming less vampire and more human with each passing day.
Was such a thing even possible? And if so, how long would it be until her preternatural longings and abilities were gone and she was once again mortal, subject to all the frailties and weaknesses of the human race?
She told herself it was inconceivable. She had been a vampire for thousands of years. Once a vampire, always a vampire. It wasn’t a sickness, but a way of life. There was no cure, no going back, even if one wished it. And she most definitely did not. She scarcely remembered what it had been like to be mortal, nor did she have any desire to experience it again. She was Nosferatu, the oldest and most powerful of her kind.
Any other way of life was out of the question.
And even as the thought crossed her mind, she found herself craving the taste of a hot fudge sundae like the one she had seen advertised on the satellite screen earlier that night. It would take only a moment to will herself to the nearest restaurant . . .
