Brought to you by OBS reviewer Heidi

Tiara Kent was your typical club-hopping, party-going, always in the spotlight celebrity.  She was beautiful, rich, self-centered and vain.  The thought of growing old and losing her looks was a fate worse than death, in her opinion.  So when he offered her a chance at immortality; a chance to keep her youth and beauty forever, she jumped at the chance.  She did everything he told her to.  She drank the thick red drink, she turned off her security system, she laid herself out on the bed and waited for him to come take her; she waited for him to kill her so that she could rise again; immortal.  Only she didn’t rise again.

When Eve Dallas got to her she had been drained; her body had been dosed with a heavy cocktail of so many drugs that it boggled the minds of everyone on the force, even in the illegals department who pride themselves that they’ve seen it all.  The only wound on her body was two puncture marks on her neck.  We all know that vampires don’t exist so what caused these marks and where is all her blood?

Eve once again has to face down an urban legend, this time its vampires, it takes all kinds.  And, when Eve looks this killer in the eyes she has to face down her own demons or one demon in particular that always seems to look her in the face and rock her to her core; her father.  Yes, the monster that sired her is dead, but this guy has that same cold evil way about him that makes the blood in Eve’s veins run cold.  Will she be able to fight the fears of her youth and bring this guy to justice?

This was a quick easy read, under 100 pages in length,  and could easily be read in a handful of hours.  Originally appearing in the anthology, Dead of Night, this novella is the perfect little Halloween story that asks the same question that many books, movies, and TV shows have asked over the years; do vampires really exist?   For Eve Dallas the answer is a resounding NO!!  But that doesn’t stop people from thinking that they do or even stop some wannabes from thinking that they could actually be a member of the undead.

This story ran at a good pace and kept you interested, but unfortunately it did suffer from being a short story and just wasn’t long enough to engage me enough to blow my mind, but it was fun nonetheless.  And, it wasn’t nearly as corny as most Halloween short stories.  You got to see the tender love between Roarke and Eve and a little of Roarke’s protective side, which I always enjoy, and of course a little bit of humor.

“I didn’t want to tell you I’d been scared, much less why. I guess that was stupid.”

“It was.”

“Aren’t you supposed to say something like ‘no, it wasn’t. Blah, blah, support, stroke, let me get you some chocolate’?”

“You haven’t read the marriage handbook’s footnotes. It’s another woman who does that sort of thing. I believe I’m allowed to be more blunt, then ask if you’d like a quick shag.”

“Shag yourself”

But I think by far my favorite part of this book was smart-ass Baxter.  The hanging of the garlic over Eve’s office door when she got the case  and then giving her a stake when she went in to face the ‘Prince of Darkness’ on her own; little did he know that his little prank may have saved her life.

This story won’t be a thought provoking mind-bender, just a nice light read, but I think In Death fans will easily enjoy it as they prepare to read the next full-length novel in the franchise, Creation in Death.