Slayer for Hire

By P.E. Cunningham

Nineteen-year-old Billie Eshleman loves the TV show Slayer for Hire, and has a major fangirl crush on its hunky star, Dylan Garber. When the show comes to her home town to film a movie version, it’s her greatest dream come true. Unfortunately, she’s not the only fan trying to crash the set. A real vampire has fixated on the fictitious “slayer,” and is determined to make Dylan her mate—like, for the rest of eternity.

With help from Dylan’s co-star, Matt—an actor with vampire-related secrets of his own—it’s up to Billie to keep her idol from joining the ranks of the undead long enough to finish the movie. And, incidentally, keep herself alive in the process.

14+ for adult situations

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight Teen
• Release date: Feb 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781771302869

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Slayer for Hire by P.E. Cunningham

Published by Evernight Teen at Smashwords

www.evernightteen.com

Copyright© 2012 P.E. Cunningham

ISBN: 978-1-77130-286-9

Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

Editor: Marie Medina

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To Serena, Reader #1, and Piper, the next generation.

SLAYER FOR HIRE

P.E. Cunningham

Copyright © 2013

Chapter One

The lone bullfrog belching his availability into the muggy night shut up when I started swearing. I bit my tongue to keep more four-letter opinions from slipping out. I’d almost made it to my quarry and didn’t want to alert them.

Good luck with that. The squishy ground made even inching along treacherous. I had to keep grabbing at saplings and brush to keep from sliding on patches of mud. At one point my foot skidded right into the scummy water, where the mud on the bottom promptly sucked it down. The water smelled like a sewer plant. I anchored myself to a bendy sapling and wrestled my leg back onto relatively dry land. By some miracle I still had my sneaker, which was not only soaked, mud-covered and cold, but now also made squelchy noises at every single step. Just flippin’ perfect.

To top it off, my fight with the swamp over my foot must have woken up the local mosquitoes, because a cloud of them zoomed in on my exposed cheeks and the backs of my hands for a drink or six before going back to bed. And you wonder why I was swearing.

Right about now you’re also probably wondering why any girl in her right mind would be slogging through a swamp after dark. C’mon. Why does any girl do anything totally stupid? For a boy, of course.

In this case he was more than any mere mortal boy. He was Dylan Garber, star of the TV show Slayer for Hire, and top of the charts in hotness. The show had become so popular over its two seasons they were doing a movie version. They’d decided to film it right here in Ackleton, Pennsylvania, right in my back yard. Some benevolent god somewhere had chosen to smile upon me.

Okay, tonight they were filming in a swamp in the middle of nowhere a half hour’s drive from my back yard. And my guardian god had decreed my foot should slide into bug- and germ-infested swamp water. A glimpse of Dylan was worth the squish. All gods must have their sacrifices.

Nobody was supposed to know about tonight’s film shoot. The PR blitz said Saturday, and this was Thursday night. Lucky for me I’d had the afternoon shift at the diner, and some of the crew came in. I’d been following news about the Slayer movie on the Spoiler Central site, and figured out right off who these strangers were. A bit of eavesdropping and a lot of shameless flirting and I was able to determine a) they’d started filming the movie already, and b) where. As soon as they said swamp, I had my target.

The closest access was the aptly named Swamp Road. I only got partway up it before I was stopped by two big vans parked across it. The vans had two big drivers with a slew of burly friends. The security gorillas turned me back, politely but implacably. Flirting techniques honed in a diner on truckers don’t work on professional rent-a-cops.

However, it takes more than that to shake a determined fangirl. I’d gone to school with the Snyder brothers, even dated a couple of them. Their uncle’s farm bordered the swamp. I backtracked to the half-mile gravel lane that led to the farm. Partway up it, I pulled over and parked and cut through the woods to come up on the shoot from behind. Take that, security apes.

In my eagerness to see Dylan I’d temporarily forgotten about the swamp that Swamp Road was named after. Take that, me.

Squishing now at every step, my mosquito entourage and I slogged on. Images of Dylan Garber, with his piercing blue eyes and pouty lips and bad boy looks and all that messy dark hair just begging for a woman’s fingers to smooth it out for him, kept me going.

Have I mentioned I’m a major fan?

Bright lights glimmered up ahead through the crisscrossed branches of trees. Steady, harsh lights on big stands. It had to be the film site. I thought I heard voices. I dropped to the ground.

I heard something else, too. A sharp hiss from the patch of brush I’d dropped next to.

Oh booger. Thoughts of Dylan and his beautiful lips and eyes faded before Facts About Swamps #1. Besides bullfrogs, swamps have snakes in them. I must have dumped myself practically on top of one.

How many species of poisonous snakes live in swamps in central Pennsylvania? Did sucking out the poison with your mouth really work, or was that just urban myth? Or should that be rural myth?

I don’t want to hurt you, I whispered at the snake. I just want to see Dylan once before I die. Please don’t bite me, okay?

The snake hissed back. It sounded really pissed. A body way too big for a snake’s made ominous rustles in the brush.

Did Pennsylvania have pythons? Had I upset a cougar or something?

I was trying hard not to make any noise, even with imminent death rattling the underbrush at me, but I must have yelped or something because I heard somebody heading toward me from the direction of the lights. The bushes made one last threatening shake and went quiet.

This left me alone on the ground with my boobs sucking up bacteria-laden moisture and something larger than a snake aimed right at me. I rolled over hastily. That added swampy sog to my butt, but now I was facing the approaching noise in better flight-or-fight position. Or would be, once I scrambled back to my feet.

I got in half a scramble before my wet sneaker slipped and dumped me back on my keister. That’s how the man who appeared between the trees found me.

Oh. My. God.

Not literally. That would have been Dylan. The man stepped into a patch of starlight, and suddenly I was face to kneecaps with God’s sidekick.

TV didn’t do proper justice to how tall he really was. Or how incredibly cute. Even in the dim, swampy light he was one huge hunk of handsome. Long face, long red-brown hair, long, lean torso, long legs, long just about everything. He seemed more curious than mad, like he’d come out here looking for snakes and found me instead. I took that as a good sign.

All this was Rational Brain’s reaction. Stupid Social Interactive Brain, which had fallen under the spell of Rabid Fangirl Brain, blurted out the first words that popped into it. Jeez’n crackers. You’re Emmett.

His long jaw tightened. Let me guess, he said dryly. You’re a fan. You waded through a swamp in the dark for a glimpse of Dylan Garber.

I slumped farther into the muck. Pretty much.

Uh-huh. Long Lad bent and held out his hand. It was smooth and warm as a mitten and big enough to swallow up mine with no trouble. He lifted me easily off the soggy ground, like I weighed even less than a twig. I’ll never be mistaken for one of the swamp’s slender saplings, but whoa.

I’m Billie, I said, my first fully rational words since I got off work that afternoon. "Billie Eshleman. I am such a fan of Slayer for Hire."

Part of a smile quirked one side of his mouth. I kind of figured that. I’m—

Emmett. Oh, come on, Stupid Social Interactive Brain. Give me just one break, okay? I stammered out, I mean—

He cut off my apology with a nod, like he was used to this. Only when I’m in front of a camera. Otherwise I’m Matt Richards.

I know. He played Emmett Land, slayer Jesse Pierce’s lore source, technogeek and partner. He spent a lot of time in a lot of episodes getting choked or beat up on by vampires. Other than watching Dylan rescue him, I’d never paid all that much attention to his character. I watched the show for Dylan; everything and everyone else was set dressing. Maybe I should just throw myself face-first into the muck and end it all right now. Sorry.

For what? His bit of a smile blossomed into a full-blown grin. My God, would you look at those dimples? They should be classified as lethal weapons. My name, or the fact we’ve both wrecked our shoes?

I smiled back. I found I was having trouble standing steady. Must be the swampy ground. Had to be the swampy ground. It couldn’t be his voice, all deep and sweet and thick as maple syrup. It couldn’t be his hand, which still had mine trapped in it. Without that connection, I think my legs would have dumped my wet butt back on the ground again. It couldn’t be anything about him. I was a Jesse girl. I was here for Dylan. Just because Matt co-starred on the show didn’t make him important.

Tell that to Rabid Fangirl Brain. In person, with Dylan nowhere in sight, his smile lit up the entire world. Like stepping outside into the sunshine on the last day of school, or at the end of a shift at the diner.

Stupid S. I. Brain took over my tongue again. You don’t look this tall on TV.

His grin got even wider, and my legs got even wobblier. You call this tall? I’m only six-three. My dad’s even taller. Mom doesn’t think I’m done growing yet.

Only? At five-three, with two of those three currently sinking into the marshy earth, I risked a serious neck crick if I looked above his chest for an extended period. Too bad, because this close up he had really pretty eyes. I couldn’t tell their color for certain in the gloom, but they were worth a crick or three or four.

If only he’d been Dylan. It would have made everything worth it.

C’mon. He tugged me toward the lights. Let’s get you out of here.

I tugged automatically in the opposite direction. It’s okay. I have a car.

Where? He peered beyond my head. In the swamp?

Other side. I waved my free hand in the general direction of the Snyder farm. I took the long way.

He gave the swamp a frowny once-and-done and then looked back at me. You’ve had enough swamp for one night, he decided. You came all the way out here and destroyed your sneakers, you might as well get to watch the shoot. I’ll smooth it over with the crew.

Really? My heart leaped. Dylan!

Just for a little bit, though. Then you’ll have to leave.

A little bit was all I needed. I went along with him eagerly. An honest-to-Pete film shoot, with the film’s co-star! Maybe even a couple of words with the star himself, if the angels smiled down on me.

The spot where the Slayer movie was filming had been cleaned up like a room in a luxury hotel. There wasn’t a speck of leaf litter or stray brown pine needle on the ground at all. All stones and pebbles that could mess up somebody’s footing had been swept aside. It was hotter than late June in a swamp should be, probably because of the lights, and smelled like a bug spray factory. There were three big cameras, two guys with handheld cameras, two mikes on cranes that had to duck under tree branches, and over two dozen people rigged up with wires and headphones. Off to one side some girl was getting her hair seen to.

And Dylan Garber, the slayer himself—

Wasn’t there.

I must have scanned the set five times. I saw men, women, skinny people, big hulky people like the security apes, a balding stickpole of a guy in a Hawaiian shirt with a shorter guy in a hoodie trailing after him, but nobody who made the world screech to a halt or lit up the set brighter than the arc lights. In short, no Dylan.

Matt waited with more patience than I deserved while I stared about in ever-increasing dismay. Finally I looked up at him.

Dylan’s not in this scene, he said. He’s not even in Pennsylvania yet. He’s not scheduled to start filming until Saturday. He put his big hand on my shoulder. Do you want a lift back to your car now?

Not here. No Dylan. I’d crawled through a swamp and pissed off a snake, all for nothing. Tonight immediately shot to the top of my Proof I’m Too Stupid to Live list.

The bald guy in the Hawaiian shirt stormed up. Where the hell did you duck off to? he demanded from Matt. We’re about to shoot— He spotted me. All of a sudden I wished I was back in the swamp with the snake. I shrank against Matt instinctively. How the hell did she get in here? His long nose wrinkled. And what’s she been rolling in?

The studio’s crack security forgot to check the swamp, Matt said. She snuck in to see Dylan. She’s harmless, Rog. She’s a fan.

There’s no such thing as a harmless fan. Rolly! he yelled at the biggest of the big guys. Got a job for you. Get this gate-crasher out of here.

Matt moved. Just an inch, but it put him between me and Mr. Hawaiian Shirt. I promised her she could watch some of the shoot. I swear she won’t get in the way. I nodded vehement agreement.

Rog glowered down at me. The glower stopped on my sneakers. You walked through the swamp?

More like waded. The road was blocked off.

He muttered a word I’m pretty sure was a swear. He followed that up with, Fans. That sounded like a swear too, the way he said it. Twenty minutes, he snapped at me and Matt, and then she goes. No cell phones, no cameras. He stalked off. The guy in the hoodie stared at me—I’m assuming he stared, since I couldn’t make out his face—before he slouched after Rog.

Roger Villanova, director, Matt introduced me to Hawaiian Shirt’s back. He’s a little antsy. Keep quiet and stay out of the way and he’ll forget you’re here.

I let Matt guide me to a couple of chairs beyond the ring of cameras. I felt all squishy inside—a nice squishy, not like the chilly wet in my sneakers. Matt had stood up for me, a fan and a stranger, in front of the director. Now I was going to get to watch an actual film shoot!

Shouldn’t you be getting ready or getting makeup or something? I asked when he sat beside me.

No rush. We need to get this other shot first. And now that he’d taken responsibility for me, he had to stick around. I nodded like the obvious hadn’t occurred to me.

The director yelled for quiet, and Matt and I shut up. The girl, now with perfect hair, and some boy, who wasn’t half as hot as Dylan, stepped in front of the cameras. The director said, Go. They spouted lines about an ancient vampire curse and the girl’s plans for the prom. I guess they were supposed to be high-schoolers. The girl looked maybe my age, nineteen pressing up against twenty, but the boy looked closer to thirty. I figured they’d have to be over eighteen so they could legally film after dark, but jeez’n crackers. Let’s keep it somewhere in the realm of reality, huh?

They did the scene. Then they did it again. Then they did it three more times. Why? The first looked fine to me. Then they moved the cameras and did it again. I looked at Matt and let my eyes ask the question.

Multiple takes, Matt