Read Good & Dead #1 for Free Online Page B

Slowly, as if in a trance, Michael walked to the bathroom mirror.  He pulled down his collar and stared at his reflection for what seemed like years. 
    There on his neck were two perfectly round white scars.
    Michael swayed with sickness and understanding.  Then the dirty, underwear-strewn bathroom floor came up to meet him.

5
     
     
     
    Two shiny gray heels.    That is the first thing Michael saw when he opened his eyes again. 
    “Hi, there,” said a silky voice.
    Michael looked up with bleary eyes to see who had spoken.
    There in his moldy, towel-less bathroom, standing in the small shaft of light coming in through the half-boarded window, was the most beautiful woman in all creation.    She stood at ease, with her hands on her hips, staring down at Michael.    She looked inconceivably out of place.
    “Who…” Michael said, “who are you?”
    “My name is Bell,” she said calmly, orange fingernails drumming idly on ample hips, “and you are Michael?”
    “Um…yeah…” he said, straining to raise his head off the floor.    A pair of underwear was stuck to his face.
    “This is embarrassing,” the woman called Bell said with a smile, “I’ll step out and let you have a minute to yourself.”
    “Oh,” Michael said, but she was already out, closing the door behind her, a faint aroma of spring lingering for a moment before the damp air enveloped it.
    Michael got clumsily to his feet.    He looked in the mirror and tried to tame the side of his hair that had been pasted to the wet bathroom floor.   His curls bounced right back into fuzzy disarray.  That wasn’t going to get any better.    Finally, feeling numb and stupid, he opened the door.
    Bell sat on the end of his unmade bed, still looking fantastically foreign.    She wore a light gray business suit that touched her every curve, and heels in gunmetal gray leather.    Her hair was pin straight and perfect- brilliantly red against her creamy ivory skin and vibrant green eyes.    She was a tall, impossibly beautiful woman.    Why in the world is she in my apartment?    Then a horrible thought occurred to him.    Was she a detective?    He didn’t think a detective would break in to someone’s home…unless she thought she could make an arrest.
    “Hello, Michael,” she said, flashing a perfect smile, “feeling better?”
    “How do you know my name?” Michael choked out.
    “Or where you live?” she chided, eyes sparkling mischievously.
    “Yeah…that, too.”  Michael’s head spun.  He quietly closed the bathroom door and leaned against it for support.
    “This is my neighborhood, Michael,” she said, glancing to the fire escape.  Two men stood there, one looking into the street below, one watching the roofline.  “This is my city.  I know everything that happens in my city.”
    “Are you…a cop?” Michael asked, hating his voice for trembling.
    Bell laughed.  It was an unsettling, sharp sound.   
    “No,” she said firmly as she rose from the bed, “I am not a cop.    They are not cops,” she added, gesturing to the men on the balcony.    Her full height was stunning.    Michael had very rarely met a woman as tall as himself, and when he did she was big in every direction.    Bell was something else entirely.   Her lithe limbs were cut with lean muscle.  There was something playful and terrifying in her stance, a commanding presence and a strange, restrained energy that unnerved him.
    “Well, then, uh…” Michael said, unable to take his eyes from her body.
    “We are vampires.”
    “Okay…”
    “You do know that you are a vampire, don’t you?”
    Michael was unwilling to accept this information.  He didn’t say anything.    He couldn’t say anything.    Yesterday morning he woke up worried about his midterm and about their opening night.    He would trade anything for his old problems.    He missed them.  He just stared blankly somewhere near Bell’s mouth.    His