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restocked the store.
    He walked over and they made kissing gestures. “You must have heard?” he said.
    “About your break-up? Sorry.”
    “Inevitable. I imagine it will all be very civilized. I’ll get a settlement and visiting rights with Ai Ling.” He looked around. “Business has really picked up.”
    Lilia said, “Yes. I was even summoned to Seventh Avenue by the Kindly Ones.”
    “My, MY!”
    “Remember when telephone gossip was the fastest news on the planet? Now what any kid posts online, the world knows before the next day dawns.”
    Larry smiled and turned away. She watched him help a pale young man select a ring with a tiny broken crucifix on it.
    Lilia remembered the last Nightwalker scene turning sour. “ BLOODY HELL ” screamed a Post headline. “ Nightwalkers in Rehab,” was a three part series in the Village Voice. But it was years between those first hints and the morning everyone woke up with hideous addictions to blood and biting.
    This time the turnaround would be quick. And Lilia knew she had to ride the wave or go under for good.
    A few nights later, the Savage Design trio, complete with personal assistants, photographers, a video crew, and a special secret arrived at Lilia’s shop.
    Paulo in soccer shorts and jersey repeatedly kicked a ball against the hydrant in front of Reliquary. The kid’s legs did a fast dance step as he stopped the rebound each time then slammed the ball again. Seemingly independent of this, the lizard eyes took in the store and its surroundings.
    Felice nodded to Lilia as she went through Reliquary with her face carefully kept in neutral and examined everything while murmuring notes to herself on a hand held recorder.
    “Nothing needs to be changed,” she said to the production assistant who followed her. “Treat each dusty corner and gauche display as an asset. Pretend you’re an explorer stumbling on a mysterious if tacky Transylvanian castle.”
    Then she said into the recorder, “Time is more precious than blood on this particular project. It’s all a matter of DEATH and death. ”
    A team of trimmers lighted and dressed Reliquary’s front windows. Katya appeared outside shortly afterwards, towering in dark, rough leather platform shoes with dizzyingly high heels that seemed to be watching when you stared. She herded a couple of long-necked professional models and half a dozen Nightwalker kids whom she’d discovered around the city.
    The photography crew did shots of them on the sidewalk. “They’ll be in here shortly,” Katya assured Lilia when she popped into the shop. She also insisted on having Scarlet Jones and Bret in the promotional shots.
    “We’ll have them behind the counter like they run the place, darling. They exhibit the proper mix of inexperience and incipient damnation.”
    It went without saying that Lilia herself would stay out of camera range—hers was not the look or age range being aimed for. As the crew began setting up inside, the male model said something to Katya that Lilia couldn’t hear. In reply Katya looked down at him and pointed to her shoes. The guy wilted.
    Scarlet Jones and Bret wore sunglasses as they basked in the photographer’s lights. Felice had them change into white silk tops that rested off their shoulders. Lilia noticed that the bites on their necks were deeper and thought these new blouses looked somehow familiar.
    Felice turned to her and said, “Of course you recognize the original Herrault design from the last Nightwalker go-round. Maison Herrault itself OK’d these knock-offs.
    “I was afraid we’d have to go to Indonesia for production. Time delay on a fad like this can be fatal. But Hurrah for the Recession! Suddenly there are sweatshops in the Bronx—fast, cheap, and with passable quality.”
    Lilia looked away lest Felice smile. But she heard the other say, “Reliquary will get a six-week exclusivity period after which they’ll be sold at other specialty shops throughout North America