The Shareholder

By Guy James

When Juli Hudson lands her dream job at a prestigious New York law firm, she has no idea that she was hired for only one reason: to be murdered...by a vampire attorney.

Will you be able to figure out who the murdering vampire is before Juli’s time runs out?

If you like to read about vampires and find lawyers frightening, The Shareholder is for you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guy James
• Release date: Sep 20, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466167322

Book preview

The Shareholder

Guy James

Copyright 2011 by Guy James

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Also by Guy James:

Sven the Zombie Slayer

Rats on Strings

Blood Spatter

Please visit http://guyjamesfiction.blogspot.com/ to learn about other existing and upcoming titles from Guy James.

Table of Contents

Foreword

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

Foreword

She screamed, and the wine glass slipped through her fingers. The bowl of the glass shattered on the floor; the stem and foot separated, but remained intact. The wine she’d been enjoying, a King Family Roseland 2010, formed a small golden puddle around the shards of the wine glass’s bowl. Moments later, the bright puddle was marred by dark red spots, and then it was more blood than wine.

***

The Shareholder gazed at the girl’s limp, blood-soaked body, feeling not a tinge of remorse. She lay there, draped over the small threshold between living room and balcony, like a fallen decorative object, her sundress a sopping, bloody rag clinging to her athletic frame.

The Shareholder stood up and walked closer, avoiding the bloody wine puddle. The girl had sated the Shareholder’s hunger, and now she was to be thrown away, back to the uncaring world that, though unconcerned with her, had been quite generous to the Shareholder over the centuries.

How stupid she had been. How trusting and utterly naive—and what a delicious meal. The Shareholder crouched down by the girl’s body for a closer look. Her skin, tan though it was on the outside, betrayed massive blood loss. In spite of the blood still flowing from her neck, running onto the floor, the Shareholder was full. It was unusual for the Shareholder not to take more, to be satisfied through incomplete feeding.

The Shareholder stood up, stepped over the body and out onto the balcony. The night was shrouded in mist, utterly beautiful. The full moon shone down through the soupy haze in the air, and it reminded the Shareholder of how wonderful it was to be a vampire—to have seen the moon shine down on so many different places around the world, and at so many different times. The moon never appeared the same way twice.

The muted glimmering of stars reached through the veil of mist into the vampire’s peripheral vision, as if the stars were describing a message. The vampire stared at the moon through the shimmering haze, unblinking, as if looking into it, or perhaps beyond it.

1

Good afternoon. Ms. Hudson...is that correct?

Yes.

May I call you...Juli?

Yes, of course.

Good, good. So I see here that you’re originally from Roanoke, Virginia. What made you apply to our firm?

Well... Juli took a deep breath, recalling her well-rehearsed interview routine. I’ve always been fascinated by New York City, and I think that’s even more the case because I’m from such a small city in Virginia.

Roanoke is a city?

Yes, we have about 100,000 people.

Interesting, please continue.

There’s so much life in New York, always something to do, and I’ve always wanted to live there. Juli paused, as per her rehearsals. In fact, I’ve always dreamed of moving there. And, of course, as much as I want to live in New York City, I’m even more interested in working for the New York office of Krov & Kantz, because of the type of work that you do there.

Hmm? And what type of work is that?

Corporate work. I’m interested in transactional law.

The Shareholder nodded, and resolved to continue to ask questions, but not to listen to any more of the girl’s answers. It didn’t matter what she said. She would get the job, the Shareholder would make sure of that. This girl—Juli—she was the one. Her blood was just right, and there would be a way to kill her without anyone finding out. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, isn’t that what they said?

It was against the rules, of course—it was against the Shareholder’s own rules. It wasn’t prudent to go killing people at your workplace, for obvious reasons. But rules were for breaking.

The Shareholder’s fangs protruded momentarily, in anticipation of biting into the girl’s neck. It was a beautifully sculpted neck, and the blood pulsing just beneath—the Shareholder sighed. It would be a long wait until she joined the firm as a summer associate, it was only August. The Shareholder sighed again, and the fangs retracted.

Juli smiled. To the Shareholder, it was the very essence of allure, drawing up the centuries-old hunger to its total, deadly, ravenous—

May I ask you a question?

The Shareholder groaned inwardly. Please do.

Why do they call them shareholders at your firm, instead of partners? I think what I’m asking is, what are the structural differences in organizing as a corporation instead of a partnership, as far as its impact on law firms?

That had been a mouthful, and after Juli got it out, she put on what she hoped was a look of genuine interest. That question had been the clincher, she was sure of it, and was feeling better about this interview by the minute.

She had played the shareholder question just right, it was a bit insightful, and she played dumb about it. No one liked a girl that was too smart. And no one liked to be outshone by a lowly law student.

Juli knew the answer to her own question, and, more importantly, she knew better than to let that on. She had read her copy of The 48 Laws of Power, after all. She had