by C. T. Phipps
“Would you prefer Thoth tell you to go after a vampire of indeterminate age with no plan, no backup, and weapons that might not be able to hurt it?” Sam said, looking over at me.
“Yes, no, maybe,” I muttered, sighing as I looked at all the McMansions and gorgeous homes around me. Plenty of Detroit’s’ citizens had cashed in on the transformation of the city, but I also knew plenty of these guys had never spent a day of their lives in the city until the vampire money had started rolling in. “Also, I don’t take orders from Thoth. I take suggestions.”
Which was a big fat lie since I took orders from damn near everybody in this town. The only thing that had changed with my power up last year was there was more demanded of me.
“If you say so,” Sam said. “Can you even fight an Ancient?”
“I dunno,” I muttered. “I shouldn’t be able to fight an Old One. They used to be able to throw me around like—”
“A geeky sixteen-year-old mathlete in a school of football players that hates bisexuals?” David said, looking up. “Who didn’t have awesome zombie powers that now require him to eat human flesh?”
I looked back at him.
“Hypothetically,” David said, looking back down at his cellphone. The thing probably cost more than our trailer.
“Yeah, like that,” I said, chuckling. “Since my time-powers erratically kicked in, though, and all the power I absorbed from Renaud, I’m able to do a lot of things I couldn’t do before. I’m like Dracula now.”
That was a bit of an understatement. I was like a locomotive now, brimming with power I didn’t understand how to tap. It hadn’t helped my budget to accidentally break a bunch of doorknobs and accidentally put a hole in the roof after smashing through it during a nightmare. The fact vampires didn’t normally dream in their sleep was another downside as I did now, reliving the memories of all those people I’d absorbed the souls of.
“Yeah, a crappy B-movie Dracula,” David explained. “Because you can do stuff, but you can’t control it.”
“Stop helping,” I said. “But yeah, I can throw down with vampires a hundred times my age now, and I’m not exaggerating.”
Mind that, I hadn’t exactly put that to the test. I had taken to beating up misbehaving Youngbloods and had even destroyed a few of our kind who needed killing. That wasn’t the same as throwing down with an Ancient, though. It was why I’d packed shotguns, blessed silver ammo, and even a grenade in the back. I might be able to take Jackson in a fair fight now but, honestly, who the hell wanted a fair fight?
“I heard you were as strong as a vampire of six hundred years,” Sam said, genuinely complimenting me. “As powerful as Ashura.”
“Except not as awesome, deadly, rich, or cool, or at all,” David said.
“Did I piss in your Cheerios?” I asked, not bothering to look back. “Not that I piss, or you eat. Okay, that was just a badly constructed metaphor all around.”
“Sorry,” David said, getting his cell phone to work. “I’m still processing the fact I have to become a cannibal or slowly rot away to nothingness.”
“Or not use your superpowers,” I said.
“Like I said, I have to become a cannibal or slowly rot away to nothingness,” David said, not even entertaining the idea. “So, who’s up for some Taylor Swift?”
Sam shot her hand up.
“I’m not sure how strong I’m supposed to be, actually,” I admitted. “I gained a serious power boost from taking Renaud’s power but it’s not like any of my new abilities came with a guidebook. I lack his centuries of experience. Thoth says I’m as strong as an Old One and that he can feel my power, but mostly I’ve just gotten crap powers on top of my one decent one. Which I can’t control.”
“Is it true Old Ones can’t die unless another Old One kills them?” Sam asked.
“Yep,” I said, shaking my head. “I saw one get caught in a car bomb and he stitched himself back together over the course of a month. He’s not exactly sane, but I understand he’ll shake that off in a few months.”
“Can you come back from the dead?”
“Not eager to test that theory,” I admitted. “I figure if we do encounter the Ancient who killed Rebecca, our best option will be to run.”
I hated admitting it. but maybe it was right to go after Jackson rather than the Ancient. I might be able to punch above my weight class, but there was a difference between fighting a guy with a few more wins than you and going into the ring with Tyson. If it was an Ancient, then it was probably best to do this by the books. Get the Council of Ancients to send a bunch of their people and an army of Bloodslave werewolves to handle things. I just hoped Yukie realized the same thing and she was drinking off her failure as a bodyguard in a bar somewhere.
“Well, I hope we’re able to find Rebecca’s killer despite everything,” Sam said, clearly nervous.
David started to play “Shake it Off”. I almost stopped the car then and there to rip it from his hands to crush it. “Why?”
“You really think it’s that big of a deal?” I asked, wondering why she was worried about whether a serial killer was avenged.
“You don’t know much about politics, do you?” Sam asked.
“I know the President has tiny hands and I pay too much for my mom’s healthcare,” I said, shrugging. “Everything else is Greek to me.”
“The peace between the New World’s vampires is barely holding,” Sam said, discussing the kind of stuff I didn’t pay attention to. “The Network has overthrown the voivodes of seven cities and set up their own independent governments. The hunters in Central America grow bolder every day, and the Texan vampires want their own Vampire Special Zone. If Rebecca Plum’s murder isn’t avenged, it could be used as a justification for challenging Ashura’s position as head of the Northern America voivodes. New Detroit is the most liberal and pro-humanity branch of vampiredom—”
“That is fucking sad,” David said, looking at her.
“Without it to keep the government happy, it’ll be a new Secret Crusade,” Sam said.
The Secret Crusade was the Catholic Church’s private war on vampires, which had lasted from roughly 1204 until the modern era when they’d been forced to call it off with vampires achieving legal recognition in several countries. The EU had finally acknowledged them as (un)living beings last year, pretty much putting an end to legal vampire hunting in the West. That didn’t stop them from agitating for war against the unholy every other sermon. It was the one thing they agreed upon with the United States’ fundamentalists.
“Thoth won’t let that happen,” I said, not entirely believing it.
“He won’t be able to stop it alone,” Sam said, sighing. “It also won’t just be vampires caught up in a government-sponsored purge. At best, every supernatural will be tagged then deported to one of the United States’ many islands. Witches, shifters, fairies, and psychics are all at risk. At worse, they’ll be sorted into useful and useless before being destroyed.”
“All the more reason to band together and stop it,” David said. “Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.”
Sam shook her head. “You’d think that, but plenty of vampires want a war. They think treating humans as equal is setting the bar too low. Voivodes like Forsyth and Drago think humans will worship vampires if they set themselves up as gods. That the governments will turn on their own people if promised immortality.”
They were possibly right but the thing about that was, it wasn’t the politicians I was worried about in any war between humans and vampires. It was the guys with tanks. Unlike Enil, I wasn’t immune to fifty-pound shells. “So, you think this might have been a setup?”
“Ashura believed it,” Sam said. “The BOSS agents also seem to indicate it. The presence of an Ancient complicates things, though. Right now, Lucinda will probably be able to smooth things over and negotiate a blood price for Plum. Forsyth will no cause to demand Ashura be forced out of New Detroit.”
“Lucinda a.k.a. Th
oth’s wife or Lucinda a.k.a. the Voivode of Mexico?” I asked.
“One in the same.”
“Damn,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, I suspected, but it’s nice to have confirmation.”
“That surprises you?” Sam asked. “I thought Thoth would have told you all about her.”
“Thoth keeps his secrets to himself.” I paused. “So, let me get this straight. He’s married to Lucinda and Ashura. Two of the deadliest women on Earth.”
“I guess he has a type.”
“Or a death wish,” I muttered. Mind you, I had a history of seeing very dangerous women myself. One or two at least. They were exciting and, well, dangerous. I found myself, not for the first time or even thirtieth, both amazed and a little jealous of Thoth’s love life. Thoth, however, was definitely our version of the Dos Equis’ “Most Interesting Man in the World”. His biggest regret being not having any regrets at all.
“Why do Thoth and Ashura trust you with this? I mean, you’re a…” I fumbled for the right thing to say. Slave didn’t seem the right word to use.
“You don’t have to reassure me,” Sam said, giving me a sideways glance. “I knew what I was getting into when I agreed to be their servant. I’m generally happy with my lot even if I don’t want to become a vampire.”
“You don’t?” David asked.
“I’m a witch,” Sam said, simply. “I remain a part of the natural cycle in a way the undead does. When I die, I’ll re-enter the Great Wheel and be reborn. That’s not something that will necessarily happen if I’m changed.”
“What about your kids?” I surprised myself by asking.
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted.
That made me sad. “May I ask just how you got into this?”
“I thought you knew the general story,” Sam said.
“It’s a story that changes each time in the retelling,” I said, shrugging. “I know the fact you were a history teacher and your husband tried to sacrifice you before Thoth swooped you up but that’s about it. I don’t know if I can accredit what else I’ve heard.”
“The part where I sliced my husband’s throat, so Thoth could eat him and sold myself to him?”
“Yeah, that part. You don’t seem, uh, the type.”
Sam smirked. “What sort of type do I seem?”
“Less Elizabeth Bathory and more Priyanka Chopra.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Sam said, her smirk turning into a genuine smile. “I’m a Red Witch, so I’m no stranger to making hard choices. Ravi was a vampire, it was a choice between it and cancer, so he decided reincarnation was worth risking. He didn’t take to it well, though. For years he’d been losing himself to debts, blood, and alcohol. Still, I’d loved him right up to the point I killed him. If he’d asked me to prostitute myself to pay his debts, I would have done so. No, wait, I wouldn’t have. I would have found some way to get us out of the mess he’d put us in. He’d tried to mind-fuck me, though, and I knew I needed to make a good impression to get service with a higher master. So I slew him and asked to be able to work off his debts, so I could protect our children.”
Wow. “The higher master being Thoth.”
“To live in New Detroit is to work for the vampires, even when you’re a witch. Though I actually do much more work for Ashura.”
David, however, missed the point of the story. “What’s a Red Witch?”
“Magic is fundamentally about balancing natural forces both within and without,” Sam said, dumbing it down as much as she could. “Whenever you use White Magic, it’s designed to give of yourself to the world, so you can strengthen that balance within you. Black Magic is ignoring that balance and tearing it apart abroad. It will royally fuck you up unless you use a sacrifice, scapegoat, or talismans to ward against the karmic backlash.”
“Do unto others because magic will otherwise do unto you. Unless you get some other poor sucker to pay the price,” I said, following her so far.
“Pretty much,” Sam explained.
“So, I take it Red Mages are the fence sitters. A little bit black, a little bit white, but gray wizards were taken by Gandalf?”
“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding. “My parents were both White Witches who taught me to never use magic for evil and to help others. They said magic was to serve mankind and not to rule over him. Both ended up sacrificed by Black Witches to increase their power. After that, I decided being good was for suckers, but I didn’t have it in me to be a monster either.”
“Just work for them,” David said.
I shot him a glare through the rearview mirror. “Really, David?”
“I think I lost my sense of tact when I died,” David said, shrugging.
“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “Way before then. Also, do any of these places look like Jacksons? All I’m getting is old white people money.”
“Sorry, I live in the suburbs,” Sam said, surveying the mansions beside us. “As for working for monsters, it’s better to have one’s back than have them behind you. Also, I get paid ten times as much as I did weaving spells for tourists.”
I tried not to grumble about that. “So, what kind of juice can you bring to the table? I mean, we talking Drew Barrymore’s Firestarter or Hermione here in terms of witchcraft?”
“Drew Barrymore was a psychic, not a witch,” David corrected.
“Shut up, David.”
“I can bind Jackson, burn him, or crush him. I can also affect the minds of any mortal henchmen he has,” Sam replied. “But if he gets hold of me, I’m toast.”
“Squishy wizard, gotcha,” I said, frowning. “I dealt with one of those in the bathroom today.”
Sam looked confused. “Okay?”
“Ooo,” David said, suddenly pulling out his cell phone. “I need to tell Stephen not to have his pack dispose of that body! I can eat it instead!”
I pulled the car to a stop in the middle of the road and turned back to look at him. “You are not eating anyone at my house.”
“Our house,” David said, texting. “We live in the same trailer.”
“You’re a vampire who lives in a trailer?” Sam asked, skeptically.
“Mobile home,” I corrected.
“Which you share with a roommate,” Sam said, disbelieving. “What do you spend your money on?”
“Stuff,” I said, frowning. I looked over at my cell phone charging on the dashboard thanks to a gadget I’d picked up from the Dusk giftshop. The bills were due for mom’s health insurance, and I wanted to call Melissa back. Albeit, I was going to have to be honest with her, and I wasn’t sure there was an easy way to say I slept with a shifter literally the day you got back into town. Sorry about that. Are we still on for tonight?
“Oh, hey!” David said, pointing sideways. “I found Jackson’s house? Dude lives like the Fresh Prince.”
Well, at least there was going to be something I could take my frustrations out on. I turned to the house and saw it was guarded like Abu Ghraib. There were guys with AK-47s patrolling the rooftops, a half-dozen bangers in the porch with gold-plated Uzis, and even some bloodogs the size of small ponies. Dude had a private army. Being conspicuous was apparently not one of Jackson’s worries.
“And Lucy pulls out the football from underneath me again,” I muttered.
Chapter Ten
Carl Jackson’s mansion was a living testament to the fact shit floats. The place was newly constructed but looked like one of those ivy-covered mansions from The Great Gatsby or, as I would have described it, “Uncle Phil’s place.” It was a three-story building with a massive yard, brick fence, and guys carrying legal-only-in-Michigan assault rifles as they patrolled the place with their blooddogs.
The other vampire homes I knew weren’t nearly as well-defended, and if you were describing a vampire Fort Knox then, well, that would literally be what this place was. About the only good thing I could say about it was everyone here was from Detroit, and the residents were all people of color. Even that enjoyable factoid
was ruined by the fact they were primarily the kind of people like Jackson, parasites who had fed on the good hardworking people of my city until they’d risen to the top. Note: this is a vampire calling them parasites.
“How did that asshole get to be so damn rich?” David said, expressing the same sentiment I had. “I knew him in high school, and he was a jumped-up thug then.”
“You knew him in high school?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” David said. “He used to beat me up for being gay every Thursday. I don’t think he understood the whole distinction between bi and gay.”
Sam looked back. “Because it would have been better if he’d just beaten up the gay students?”
“In the sense it wouldn’t have been me, yes,” David replied. “Thankfully, he was two years older than me, and I only had to deal with his crew afterward. The ones who didn’t become Knives, at least.”
That was a familiar story. “Apparently, crime does pay and so does selling teenagers song downloads about how hard life is as one of the undead in Detroit. Or how awesome it is, I guess. Depends on the rapper.”
“Like Kayne’s Can’t Tell Vampires Nothing, right? I love that song,” Sam said, cheerily.
I closed my eyes. Why did you have to sell out when you changed, Kayne? “Yeah, stuff like that. When everything was legalized, he had a big chunk of legitimate businesses that he parlayed into all his. At the end of the day, though, he’s just a wannabe.”
“A richer than god wannabe with a private army,” David said.
I grimaced. “Yes, but a wannabe. A soon-to-be-dead wannabe.”
The problem was I had no idea how the hell I was going to pull that off. I mean, I could fly up to his room, grab him and drag him away but that was relying a lot on him being in a room with windows. Also, not getting shot while I was in the air. Oh, and me actually being able to fly without crashing. With my time powers, erratic as they might be, I could go all John Woo bullet time on these assholes. However, even if I did manage to kill them all, I’d still have to take care of Jackson. Plus, I didn’t necessarily want to kill fifteen other brothers just to look badass. I tried that method before, and it had just left me feeling sick and dirty. I could stop time, run in, throw the grenade and run back but that wouldn’t get him to Thoth alive.