New Orleans's Nobody: Vampire Vignettes

By Mary Hughes and M.J. Chase

A malicious April Fools’ Day joke turns deadly for me, cook-in-training Mo Gaffney, when a dozen rogue vampires attack. I wield my knives in a defense that’s a fair imitation of the video game Asteroids.

One vampire knows how to play.

Broad shoulders. A flash of muscle. This huge sucker is devastating, and I’m not just talking about his fighting. Luckily the massive, turbocharged, excessively deadly vampire is on my side. He rescues me and walks me home.

I tease him a bit before I realize he’s in Jacksonville for the big vampire conclave. He’s not just a master vampire—he’s a grandmaster. And get this. He wants to see me again.

Nobody Mo has a date with a grandmaster vampire.

Vampire Vignettes. Short. Scintillating. First, exciting meets between an apex master vampire and the human woman who lights his life for the first time in centuries. Each story features a vampire master of the city and the woman who charms (or fights or snarks) her way into his life.

Special note to Biting Love fans—This isn't the Biting Love Universe. This is a short, first-meet story in a post-Unmasking universe. While there's sensual tension, it's meant for general audiences. There are vampires and snark, though. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

• Language: English
• Publisher: 7th Octave Publishing
• Release date: Mar 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781940958286

Mary Hughes

I write wickedly fun romantic adventures and steamy paranormal romances, stories that crackle with action and love. Challenging, smart alpha men--and women not afraid of a challenge. Oh, do the sparks fly when he meets THE woman guaranteed to infuriate and inflame him most.In real life I'm an author, a spouse and mother, a flutist, a computer geek, and a binge-TV-watcher of The Flash, Elementary, NCIS, and Wynonna Earp.~Mary HughesNewsletter: http://www.maryhughesbooks.com/Newsletter.htmlWebsite http://www.maryhughesbooks.com/Book Bub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/mary-hughesBlog http://maryhughesbooks.blogspot.com/Group Blog http://www.lustwithalaugh.com/Facebook http://www.facebook.com/MaryHughesAuthorTwitter http://www.twitter.com/MaryHughesBooks

Book preview

"A must-read!" ~RT Reviews TOP PICK on Passion Bites

"The beginning of what a true love match with intelligence, compassion and quirky snark can accomplish" ~Jeanne Mead, 5-star review on Chicago’s Chosen

Vampire Vignettes

Vignette: a short, delicately memorable scene.

Short. Scintillating. First, exciting meets between an apex master vampire and the human woman who lights his life for the first time in centuries. Each story features a vampire master of the city and the woman who charms (or fights or snarks) her way into his life.

New Orleans’s Nobody

A malicious April Fools’ Day joke turns deadly for me, cook-in-training Mo Gaffney, when a dozen rogue vampires attack. I wield my knives in a defense that’s fair imitation of the video game Asteroids.

One vampire knows how to play.

Broad shoulders. A flash of muscle. This huge sucker is devastating, and I’m not just talking about his fighting. Luckily the massive, turbocharged, excessively deadly vampire on my side. He rescues me and walks me home.

I tease him a bit before I realize he’s in Jacksonville for the big vampire conclave. He’s not just a master vampire—he’s a grandmaster. And get this. He wants to see me again.

Nobody Mo has a date with a grandmaster vampire.

Smashword Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for your support and respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

New Orleans’s Nobody

Copyright © 2020 by Mary Hughes

ISBN: 978-1-940958-28-6

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

New Orleans’s Nobody

Vampire Vignettes

Mary Hughes

MJ Chase

Dedication

To Gregg, as they all are.

Table of Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Sneak Peek

About the Authors

More Titles by Mary Hughes

More Titles by MJ Chase

Chapter One

I’m a nobody. I fade into the background at parties, nobody remembers my name when we’re introduced because I’m quiet, and bullies pick on me as their preferred prey because I don’t like to cause trouble and rarely fight back.

It makes me the butt of a lot of April Fools jokes. I don’t mind. People like to play pranks. Some can be mean, and it’s better they be mean to me, who can take it, than some poor soul who can’t.

Still, I should have been more wary about that particular note, found on March 31.

Meet me at the minimart at midnight. It’s a matter of life or death. ~Shawna. In my defense, it was her loopy handwriting.

I slipped out of my home, a two-vamp household, at eleven forty-five and walked briskly to the meet. The minimart was halfway between my household and Shawna’s.

Trying to exude confidence, I strode along. Hoping any rogue vamps would think I had a protector vampire shadowing me. Jacksonville’s grandmaster has patrols out from dusk to dawn, but rogue vampires still hunt for easy blood, with us humans as prey.

Still, life or death, right? That wasn’t an overstatement. My best friend, Shawna Rice, was in the dangerous process of proving her household master vampire was…overtapping the veins, if you know what I mean. We’d meet at strange places at strange times, to avoid preternatural ears eavesdropping.

If Shawna’s corrupt master got any hint of what she was doing before she had a solid case to bring before the Jacksonville grandmaster, she was dead.

The minimart was dark when I got there, the lot empty. No Shawna.

Instead a paper fluttered, taped to the glass door.

At that point my subconscious knocked on my brain (Hello? Anyone home?) and I got a bad feeling. Maureen Mo Gaffney, mistress of the obvious.

I trotted toward the store, foreboding making my hand shake as I plucked the note off the door and read it.

Gotcha! April Fools, Mo! ~Jerkface. Not his name, but it should’ve been.

April Fools, right. I was the April Fool.

That was when the rogues melted out of the night.

Vampires circled me. I scanned them, using my peripheral vision. You don’t want to meet their hypnotic red eyes. One, two, three…French fry me. A dozen or more.

Two were big goons who looked like they used soda straws made of hollow bones.

Three were pale and skeletal, which meant they hadn’t drunk blood lately. They’d be especially savage attacking.

There I was, a human alone in the night. The paper rattling in my trembling hand wasn’t a particularly good weapon.

Still, I tried to tough it out.

Hey, guys. I was here to meet someone, but they didn’t show. The nerve, right?

One of the big goons broke away from the pack, stalking toward me with murder in his eyes.

My heart pounded, but I stood my ground. Never run from a vamp. It excites them. And anyway, where would I go? The minimart, which had been a twenty-four/seven before the Great Unmasking—when we found out vampires weren’t fictitious and definitely did not sparkle—the minimart now shut up tight by sunset. No protection there.

Quick catch-up. Vampires are real. They drink blood, but for their veins, not their food. Good guys ask before they suck and take no for an answer. Bad guys do whatever the hell they want.

These dozen, to judge by the one stalking toward me, were the bad-guy kind.

I was a little light on weapons because I’d sneaked out of the house. The paper in my hand wouldn’t do squat.

But I had the garlic defense spray everyone carries these days. If he didn’t see it coming, I had a chance—and this was where being a nobody came in handy.

My nervous blathering covered sliding the can from my pocket. The big goon didn’t even see it as he stalked ever closer.

Didn’t see it until I snapped up the spray, jabbed the button, and shot concentrated garlic straight into his eyes.

He howled.

Success juiced my blood. I turned and ran. One step, two…

Cold, skeletal fingers snatched me by the wrist, a hard squeeze forcing me to drop the spray, a jerk spinning me around.

Eyes met mine, glowing red