I didn’t sleep as long as I had hoped. When my eyes opened, I knew that up above, out beyond our covered windows, the sun had not yet set. Still, I pushed open the lid of my casket and stepped into my fluffy pig slippers and listlessly ascended the stone stairs and out the secret doorway in Yelena’s closet, leaving Rosanna behind to continue her slumber in her own casket. In the house I didn’t turn on any lights. I went to the kitchen and picked my phone up off the counter, and unplugged it. When the screen lit up, I saw I had missed texts from Darcy, Hisato, and Vance. I admit, I checked Vance’s text first. It said:

  “I know it’s last minute, but do you want to go to this?”

  There was an image of a flyer advertising a gallery in Burbank I was familiar with that exclusively sold dark art. They were having a new show opening tonight called Vampanorama: A Collection of Vampire Themed Art.

  My first thought was that Vance is more into vampires than I am, and I am one. I began texting, “Do you mean go with you?” But then I backspaced over it and typed, “Sure. I’d love to.” And I sent it.

  A minute later I received a reply: “Yay! Should I pick you up?”

  “Did you get a car?”

  “No. I was going to Uber.”

  “I’ll Uber too and meet you there. 9 o’clock?”

  “Perfect. I’ll wait for you outside.”

  I went from listless to electrified just from a text. Well, I guess it’s more than that. It’s being remembered. It’s being invited. I had to figure out what to wear to a vampire themed show.

  “I like your dress,” he said when I got out of the car. “Actually, I like all of it. You really are an empress.”

  I was wearing a strapless violet ball gown with crinoline beneath to make the skirt poofy. I had a matching clutch. I even wore my tiara. I was like a little Mirela. But I also wore diamond earrings and a diamond bracelet, which made me like a little Yelena. And with the cut of the gown, the diamond made from Yelena’s ashes, in its asymmetrical heart shaped pendant, hung visibly over my skin from a thin chain around my neck. That part, of course, is just me as me.

  Vance was wearing fitted black pants and over his black shirt he wore a green and gold floral brocade vest. He carried a vintage walking cane, black with a silver filigree handle. His hair wasn’t messy. He had used pomade. He looked very handsome, even with silly fake fangs.

  As the empress he saw me as, I held out my hand delicately, so that he had no choice but to take it as we entered the gallery. Many heads turned for us. I don’t know if I was overdressed, or if it was because of our very apparent age difference. I doubt it was from my radiance, despite all my diamonds glittering. It might have been all him, his good looks, and me as a side note that quietly asks, “Who’s on the arm of a guy like that?”

  At this vampire show, I was the only real vampire there. Everyone else was mortal. Many of them were dressed up, many in Victorian era clothing. The walls were covered in paintings, mostly acrylics, some oils. All of it vampire related, mostly portraits, but a few ruined castles and moonlit cemeteries. There were some mixed-media pieces I wanted to get a closer look at as we made our way through the crowd.

  “Vance! Hey, Vance!” a tall young man called.

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  Vance turned and smiled as the man approached. He too wore a brocade vest and fake fangs. Vance let go of my hand so that he could hug this man with a vigorous embrace. His other hand still held the walking cane though.

  “How are you, Lucius? When was the last time I saw you?”

  “October. Remember? For the Vienna ball. Really looking forward to San Francisco next month.”

  “Me too. Me too.”

  “I’ll bet you are,” Lucius said, and with a chuckle he punched Vance lightly on the shoulder. Vance chuckled as well, but it seemed sheepish because I was there. Obviously there was an inside joke between the two of them that somehow felt boy yucky and left a lewd residue which Vance then tried to clean up.

  “Lucius, I’d like to introduce you to…”

  Upon the promise of these words, Lucius finally looked down and noticed me.

  Vance didn’t finish; he turned to me, “How should I introduce you?” He mouthed the word “Empress?”

  My eyes widened and my shoulders shrugged.

  “Lucius, this is the Empress Solodnikova.”

  Lucius smiled as if he had been told a joke. He was now playing along. He reached out and I gave him my hand, which he bent forward to kiss. “The pleasure is all mine, Empress.”

  I smiled.

  “Wow, nice fangs,” Lucius said.

  Vance winked at me.

  Then they said some other meaningless stuff…how good it was to see each other…we should catch up…sure thing…message me…blah blah. But Lucius mentioned San Francisco one more time and then walked away toward a woman he seemed to know.

  “Popular guy,” I said.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Vance answered.

  I held out my hand once more and Vance took it as we promenaded around the gallery looking at the art, but Vance was stopped a number of times by people he knew or people who knew who he was because of the whole Carmilla Courtship Society thing. Those who weren’t his friend seemed to want to be. He seemed as popular as his Instagram and my hand was in his. I had felt popular when I was in Romania with my coven, but that was because I was their ruler. Here with Vance, I didn’t feel popular, but I felt I belonged to the popular crowd, and I discovered that’s a different feeling.

  At the back of the gallery, there was a sketch artist doing caricatures of guests for a pay-what-you-will donation. He was currently sketching a couple who smiled big to showcase their fake vampire fangs.

  I looked up at Vance, hinting with my eyes that we should go next, but he looked unsure. Did he not want to be drawn? Or did he not want to be drawn with me?

  “Please? I’ll pay.”

  “No. I can pay,” he said.

  “No. I want to pay. That way I get to keep it,” I answered, and that settled things.

  I didn’t know when it was proper to pay, so when it was our turn, before we sat down on the worn but velvet fainting couch, I opened my clutch and took out a stack of large bills, grabbed some without counting and handed them to the artist. We then sat.

  “Do you always carry so much money?” Vance whispered.

  I hoped he didn’t feel emasculated. Not because of his feelings, but because of mine. If he did, it would have been a turn off. I don’t think he thought much of it though.

  I sat to his right. Our shoulders, mine bare, were touching. The artist asked us to smile. I guess he expected we wanted our fangs drawn; this was a vampire show after all. So we smiled, and after a moment, it no longer felt fake. My hands rested in my lap. To my absolute secret delight, Vance reached over and placed his right hand on my left. I wanted to turn and look at him, make eye contact, but we were being sketched and I didn’t want to betray my excitement. Instead my eyes gleefully roamed the gallery, looking at all the faces gathered. Vance seemed to know half of them, but I didn’t know a soul. That is, until I recognized a face hanging on the far wall. There, bordered by a gold Baroque frame was a portrait of a real vampire, brightly painted against a dark but faded background of ruins which worked to draw forth the searing red hair falling around the bloodless cheeks of its subject. It was a portrait of Triana. The Triana I had killed just last year during our war with Los Angeles de Sangre. Triana, the favorite of Dulcea, one of the two Blood Angel coven lords. Someone had painted her. Even at this distance, I could read the artist’s name on the card affixed beside the painting, Julian Jiménez. I wondered if this Julian Jiménez was mortal or immortal, and if the latter, was he a Blood Angel as well?

  I was glad I had brought so much money. I was glad there was not yet a red dot next to the painting’s title, “Esplendor Eterno.” Because I knew I was going to buy this painting of the girl whose heart I had squeezed so hard it burst.

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