Page 13 of Fang Fiction

Tess did. The woman was a solid six inches taller, so Tess was more or less eye-level with her lips. Tess watched as the woman smiled widely, then went frozen with wonder and terror as the woman’s canines elongated into dagger-sharp fangs.

“What the fucking fuck,” Tess blurted, her voice barely above a whisper. Had she well and truly lost her mind, and this was just an exceptionally vivid hallucination? Was she a walking twist in an M. Night Shyamalan movie?

“See?” The woman leaned in. “You know who I am—and what. You’ve seen my photograph. You know what I can do. And you know my name.”

Tess looked at her, knowing the answer, but too shocked and confused to speak the words.

“Go on,” the woman prodded. “Say it.”

“You’re not…” Tess whispered. “I know you’re not…”

“Who, Tess?” She ran an ice-cold finger along Tess’s jaw.

Tess closed her eyes.

“You can’t be Octavia Yoo.”

Chapter 3

Anonymous message submitted to Troi Toi gossip website

Hi Troi! Longtime reader, first time submitter—and needless to say, ANON PLEASE! Okay, so here’s the tea: I work the front desk at The Carlyle, and last night, this woman comes in, absolutely stunning, wearing a killer green cocktail dress, but she doesn’t have a purse, a wallet, no luggage, nothing. She comes to the desk with the poshest British accent you’ve ever heard and tells me she has a room booked under the name Octavia Yoo. All right, people book under fake names all the time, so I don’t think anything of it, I just laugh and ask her if she needs rollaway beds for Hermione Granger and Bella Swann, but she doesn’t smile back, like, at all. So of course I don’t have anything booked for her, but she insists I do, and then she starts glaring into my eyes in this funny way, and I’m like bitch are you trying to glamour me? Like does she seriously think she’s a vampire right now? So I tell her hey, I love Blood Feud, Octavia is obviously my favorite character—I’m a homosexual who lives in Chelsea, like duh I’m obsessed with her—but I can’t give her a room unless she gives me a credit card. And then she looks, like, scared? And asks me what Blood Feud is? So at this point I’m like, lady, snaps for your cosplay, but I’m at work, okay? Time to take your performance art elsewhere. Then a security guard came over and she physically ran out of the hotel without another word. So anyway Troi, just thought your readers should know: Either the best Octavia Yoo impersonator in history is roaming around New York, or vampires are real.

“Right in one guess.” The woman smiled wider, her fangs gleaming in the candlelight. “Not bad for a human.”

“No.” Tess shook her head. “No, this is—I don’t know, a trick. You’re not—you can’t possibly be—”

“A vampire?”

“Vampires don’t exist!” Tess insisted.

“That’s not what you said on BuzzFeed.”

“God, that fucking essay.” Tess exhaled. “So you read it, and you came here…why? For a prank? To get money or something? The Nigerian prince scam, except you’re a fake vampire instead?”

“You work in a hotel and you’re wearing that dress.” The woman’s expression was somewhere between disdain and pity. “And you’ve come to the conclusion that I’m after your money?”

“Hey, you’re hot,” a drunken voice interrupted. They turned to see the best man, his body swaying and his speech slurred.

“Thank you for that unprompted assessment, but we’re in the middle of a conversation,” Octavia snapped.

“No, we’re not.” Tess took the opportunity to back away. “I need to—excuse me.”

She turned and hurried toward the ballroom exit. Whoever that woman was, whatever racket she was running, Tess wanted no part of it—this night had already been enough of a disaster without adding a fanged con artist into the mix. Tess let out a sigh of relief when she pushed into the empty service stairway. Everything at the wedding was fine; there was no reason she shouldn’t head back up to her office and start looking for a new job—preferably one that put at least one ocean between Tess and everyone she’d seen tonight.

She heard the door to the stairwell open behind her, and her body tensed up. Was the woman following her? Were they going to have some kind of unpleasant confrontation?

“Why did you leave? We were talking.”

Tess froze. That wasn’t the woman—it was the best man.

“Um, I’m working!” she called down to him. “Have a nice night!”

She kept walking up the stairs, hoping the excuse would deter him, but she heard heavy footfalls, and in a few seconds he was beside her.

“Working?” He gave her a lopsided grin. “It’s midnight.”

He was big—like, linebacker big, with close-cropped hair and watery eyes—and something about his expression made Tess’s blood run cold. She wanted to get out of this stairwell, but he was blocking her path.