Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter collection 11-15

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  I grabbed his arm and moved him back far enough so I could open the door. The two women were still clinging to him. Raven-hair was blushing, and the brunette was still scowling at me. I kept my smile in place, though it felt more like a grimace.

  Nathaniel said, “Beth Ann, Patty, if you don’t let me go, I can’t get on stage.”

  “Stay out here with us, and we wouldn’t care,” one of them said.

  I glanced behind me and saw a black-shirted man. It was Buzz, the vamp that usually worked the door here. He had the same black crew cut that he had always had, small pale eyes, and more muscles than you should need as a dead man. His black shirt said GUILTY PLEASURES SECURITY in red letters. I didn’t usually like Buzz much, but tonight I was glad to see him. Help had arrived.

  I could have cleared the steps if I was allowed to be mean, but having to be nice at the same time I was trying to be firm was beyond me. My skill set simply did not include it.

  He forced his face into a smile before the women behind me could see him clearly. He was the newly dead, around twenty years, which meant he looked very alive for a dead man. Most humans wouldn’t have spotted him in a crowd. Most people think that vamps gain the ability to pass for human, but that’s never been my experience. Older is less human, just better at the mind games so humans don’t notice.

  “Ladies, you’re not supposed to be back here,” Buzz cajoled. He moved past me, and his chest was so muscle-bound that it looked like there wasn’t room for all of us and his upper body to stand on that small landing.

  The brunette said, “Is she really security?”

  “If that’s what she said,” he said in the same good-fellow-well-met voice. He was cheerfully extracting Nathaniel from the blondes. He managed to make a game of it, and they spilled around Buzz’s muscular body, as if to say, if they couldn’t cling to Nathaniel, any male would do. Of course, from the sound of the joking conversation, the blondes knew Buzz, too.

  Raven-hair had backed down the steps, eyes a little wide. She didn’t want to play. It made me think better of her.

  I drew Nathaniel in through the open door, with the brunette giving me a murderous glare. She was taking this way too personally. It was sort of unnerving. Nathaniel and I were safely through the door, but I didn’t like closing it and leaving Buzz out there alone. I mean, he’d helped us. What were the rules about security guards? Did they get protected, too, or just the dancers and customers? If you cut a security guard did he not bleed? So I stood there uncertainly with Nathaniel. It was Nathaniel who gently closed the door.

  “Buzz will be fine, he knows how to talk to them.”

  “What, you read my mind?”

  He smiled. “No, I just know you. He helped us, and now you feel obligated.”

  I fought the urge to squirm or shuffle my feet. I hated when anyone figured me out that clearly. Was I that transparent? Apparently so.

  I decided to change the subject. “How did they know that ‘Brandon’ would be here tonight?”

  “When we change headliners, we have an E-mail list that we notify. There’s even a list just for Brandon.”

  I looked at him. “You mean that some of these women dropped everything, changed all their plans, because they found out that Brandon was going to be here tonight?”

  He shrugged and managed to look a little embarrassed. “Some of them, yes.”

  I shook my head. I changed the subject again, because I was losing again. “Who was supposed to be keeping the fans away from this door?”

  The door in question opened. Buzz laughed and joked, until the door closed behind him, then he leaned against it and looked tired. “Primo was.”

  It took me a second to realize that he’d answered the question I’d asked with the door closed. “You heard me ask the question?”

  He nodded. Then he grinned flashing fangs, the sign of a new vamp. “You didn’t know I could hear you through the door?”

  “Hear, yes, but I thought you were too busy concentrating on the women outside.”

  He looked past me at Nathaniel. “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Buzz pushed himself away from the door and stood, settling his big, overdeveloped shoulders like a bird settles its feathers. “I better go talk to Primo, for what good it will do.”

  “What do you mean, good it will do?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “Primo is old, really old. He wants to be one of Jean-Claude’s vamps, but he had his eye on like the number two, or at least number three slot. He’s pissed that he’s having to be security at a strip club. He’s more pissed that a baby like me is his direct boss.” Buzz looked worried. “He’s old school, and he thinks if he keeps pushing me, that I’ll call him out. But I am not going to challenge that thing. He’d kill me.”

  “Have you told Jean-Claude what’s going on?”

  He nodded. “He told Primo that if he couldn’t stomach this job and obey me, then he could get out of town.”

  “Did that help for awhile?” I asked.

  Buzz smiled. “Have you heard this story before?”

  “No, but I know how the really old vamps can be. They are proud bastards.”

  Nathaniel touched my arm. “I need to talk to Jean-Claude about tonight’s performance.”

  “I’ll join you in the office in a minute.”

  Nathaniel started to say something, then seemed to think better of it and just went down the white hallway. I watched him go into the office that was just a few doors down. Then I turned back to Buzz. “Is it just not doing what he’s told, or is there more?”

  “He’s started taking money to let in people we don’t let in.”

  “Like who?”

  “Men.”

  I raised eyebrows. “You don’t let in any men?”

  “Not a lot. It makes the women uncomfortable, and some of the dancers don’t like it either. You’re either comfortable shakin’ your thing in front of other men, or you’re not.”

  “I guess that makes sense, but you let some in.”

  “Couples, just like they do at most female strip clubs across the river.”

  “But Primo is letting in single men,” I said.

  He nodded.

  “What did Jean-Claude tell you to do about it?”

  “He told me to deal with it. That if I wasn’t vampire enough to control Primo that maybe I didn’t deserve my job. Jean-Claude is old, too, Anita. I think they’re both setting me up for some kind of showdown, and Primo will hurt me, or kill me.”

  “You look like you can take care of yourself.”

  “If it’s just strong-arm stuff, yeah, but Primo isn’t a brute, Anita, he’s dripping with power. I even agree with him that Jean-Claude isn’t using him well. He’s too powerful to be down here doing this, and he doesn’t have the temperament for it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s more likely to start fights than stop them. He’ll take money from men to get in, then he’ll throw their asses out.”

  I shook my head. “You know, Buzz, this doesn’t sound like a problem that Jean-Claude would let go this far.”

  “Not normally,” he said, “but it’s like Jean-Claude is waiting to see what we’ll do before he steps in. I’d just as soon not be dead before he does it.”

  “Is it really that bad?”

  “The women out there were okay, but we’ve had one dancer that was stalked. Another one had an irate husband go after him with a knife, because he was jealous that his wife was a member of the dancer’s fan club.”

  “The dancers have fan clubs?”

  “The headliners do.”

  “Nathaniel has a fan club?” I made it a question, because it seemed like it should be.

  “Brandon has a fan club, yeah.” He looked at me and laughed. “You didn’t know.”

  “I don’t really pay attention to the day-to-day business here.”

  He nodded. He was back to looking worried.

  I’d never liked Buzz. I di
dn’t exactly dislike him, but he wasn’t my friend. But, if his version of what was going on with Primo was accurate he was in a bad spot. A spot that I didn’t understand. Jean-Claude was a good business vampire, and this didn’t sound like good business.

  “I’ll talk to Jean-Claude, Buzz. I’ll find out what his thinking is about Primo.”

  Buzz sighed. “Well, I can’t ask for more.” He grinned, suddenly flashing those fangs again. “In fact, until now I thought you didn’t like me.”

  It made me smile. “If you thought I didn’t like you, then why pour your problems in my ear?”

  “Who else do I have to go to?”

  “Asher is Jean-Claude’s second in command.”

  He shook his head. “I work here, problems stay here, all the businesses are run that way.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said. It was probably a holdover from the days when each business was run by a different vamp. “So, because I visit all the businesses, I’m what, an ambassador?”

  He gave that fang-flashing grin again. “Kind of.”

  “I’ll try to find out what’s going on, that’s the best I can do. If Jean-Claude is really setting you up for a power struggle with Primo, I’ll tell you.”

  He looked relieved. “I just need to know where I stand, ya know.”

  I nodded. “I know.”

  A black-shirted man came running through the door at the end of the hallway, accompanied by a sudden blast of music and noise. He was blond and looked like a college student, but he ran down the hallway like he was on springs. Lycanthrope of some kind.

  He was talking before he got to us. “We got a problem out there. Primo let a bunch of guys in, they started heckling Byron. You said come get you the next time it got ugly. It’s ugly.”

  Buzz was already moving down the hall, not exactly running. I hesitated for a second, then started trotting with them.

  Buzz glanced at me. “You coming along?”

  I sort of shrugged. “I’d feel funny just walking away.”

  “Our job is to tone things down a notch,” he said. “Not make it worse.”

  “Are you saying you don’t want me?”

  “Hell no,” the blond said. “The Executioner on our side. I’ll take that.”

  “Who are you?” I asked, running to keep up with their fast walk.

  “Clay,” he said, offering his hand over the front of Buzz’s body.

  “Be sociable later,” Buzz said. He hesitated at the door, as if he were gathering himself. There was suddenly a faint hum of energy coming off of Buzz. I’d never felt anything from him before. His gray eyes glowed—if gray could glow. “I am so tired of this shit,” he said, and opened the door.

  34

  THE MUSIC WAS still playing, a pulsing beat, but the man on stage wasn’t dancing, because he wasn’t the show anymore. The show was a small ocean of college students surrounding a man that towered above them. He was like a pale tower caught in the middle of their jeans and letter jackets. The tallest of them only came to his shoulder, but there were a lot of them, and almost all of them were wearing a jacket that indicated they did some kind of sport. Some of them looked almost as muscle-bound as the club security. Primo had picked a good bunch if he wanted to start trouble, and he so wanted to start trouble.

  The other black-shirted security guards didn’t seem to know what to do. Their divided loyalties showed in the fact that they hadn’t waded in to help Primo. They were on the fringe of the gang of college guys, keeping them contained as best they could, but they weren’t pulling them off the big vampire. If I hadn’t known anything about Primo and what had gone on before, I’d have learned something just by watching the other men refuse to help him.

  It wasn’t Primo’s size that was the problem. It was the waves of power that radiated off of him. Most vamp power, and even lycanthrope power, filled a room like water rising, until you drowned in it. Primo’s power literally pulsed and flowed. Every time he smacked someone with his big open hand, the power spiked and tightened along my skin. His power seemed to feed off his own violence. But he was keeping his big hands open, just slapping them around, which was, of course, insulting the college students’ manhood.

  One of the biggest of the group jumped onto Primo, hanging on to his shoulder and arm. Primo grabbed him by the shoulder and peeled him off like he was nothing. He tossed him into the coat check booth and earned a scream from the holy item–check girl that worked there.

  Primo’s power was thick enough to walk on, but only for a second, then down it went. He couldn’t sustain it.

  “Enough,” Buzz said, and he sounded unhappy to have to say it. He motioned, and that one motion ended the security guards’ hesitation. The other black-shirts moved in and started helping the college guys move toward the door. They made some progress, but the guys didn’t want to leave their buddies ass-deep in giant vampire. I couldn’t really blame them.

  Again, this was outside my skill set. I could have drawn badge and gun and stopped it, if I was willing to arrest, or kill Primo, but I didn’t know how to tone it down. As Buzz had said, their job was not to make it worse, but to make it better. I didn’t know how to do that. Not really.

  Buzz was yelling, “Primo, Primo, stop fighting back. We need to get this out of the club.”

  Primo’s answer to that was to pick up two college students by the throat, one in each hand, as if he meant to bang their heads together. But while his hands were busy, another enterprising young man, with short brown hair and shoulders nearly as wide as Buzz’s, hit him in the face. He knew how to throw a punch. It rocked the vampire’s head back, and blood blossomed at his mouth, like a crimson flower on all that white skin.

  The music from the stage died abruptly, and into that sudden silence Primo screamed. A huge rage-filled battle cry. He dropped the two men in his hands like they were nothing and went for the man who’d hit him. I expected him to throw him around like he had the others, but he didn’t. He picked him up by the front of his jacket until his feet dangled off the ground, and he was probably choking on his own collar. But instead of those big pale shoulders bunching to throw the man, Primo’s hand went back, and this time he closed his fist. From that close up, with that kind of strength, he was going to snap the man’s neck.

  I drew the Browning, but truthfully without a court order of execution, I was in the same boat as a police officer. I couldn’t shoot him if I thought he was only going to hurt someone. How did I argue in court that I knew how strong a vampire was and how fragile the human body could be? And call it a hunch, but I figured once I shot Primo, I had to kill him. I did not want that level of muscle and magic touching me. I was harder to kill, not immortal.

  I aimed down my arm, because court and explanations would come later, and that kid was about to die. I was about to take a shoulder shot, because it was my best bet with this many people around, when everyone else got brave, too.

  Clay was closest, and he jumped him. Primo tossed the shapeshifter into the first row of tables. Women screamed and scattered. Clay was getting to his feet, but that big fist was pulling back again.

  Buzz was screaming, “No, Primo, no!”

  I had the gun pointed at the floor, because when you’re tense, your fingers are tense, too. If I shot someone, I wanted it to be on purpose. I started to move closer and to one side for a better shot, when the black-shirts swarmed him, and I had no shot at all.

  If I’d been ready to kill his ass, I’d have yelled for them to get away, but I was still hoping to avoid it. I moved closer, and to one side, farther away from the tables, where I thought I had a better chance at getting a clear shot. I’d never tried to shoot anyone in the middle of a bar fight. Just the tumble of bodies was intimidating. It was like trying to hit a target with civilians flying around it.

  Primo tossed them around like they were dolls, while still holding the man straight-arm. The more they fought him, the stronger his power spiked and billowed, as if every blow, whether his or theirs,
powered him up. He was lost behind a mound of black-shirts, then I felt his power draw in like an atom bomb breathing, and I had time to yell, “Everybody down!” I wasn’t sure what was coming, but it was going to be bad.

  I hit the floor like I’d told everybody else to do, though I put myself flat to the ground. I glanced at most of the women and waiters behind me and saw them crouching on the floor. Jesus, didn’t anyone know how to take cover?

  Primo didn’t use his body to throw them off in a burst of black shirts, he used his magic. It blew them airborne in a spray of black shirts and falling bodies. If I’d been crouched like the people I’d complained about, I could have moved faster. But flat on the ground, I had a split-second to decide whether I was going to cover my head and hold my ground, try to roll farther away, or get to my knees and scramble for it. Flat to the ground doesn’t help when things as heavy as bodies are falling. I got up to scramble away, and a body smashed into me. I had a moment to be quietly stunned, and then another one landed on top of me.

  I’d been hit, I’d been thrown, I’d been a lot of things, but I’d never had two adult men land on me from the air. All the breath was crushed out of my body, and if I’d been as human as I looked, things would have broken. I laid there for a second, stunned, and the two men on top of me weren’t moving at all.

  The first thing I moved was my head, back to look over my shoulder to where Primo had been. He was still there. Still standing. He’d picked up a different college student and was dangling him in his hand. His big fist was cocked back again. Fuck.

  I realized two things at once. One, I could move my hands, two, my gun wasn’t in either of them. My body was pinned underneath several hundred pounds. I was strong, and I could get out, but it wouldn’t be quick, and I had no idea where my gun was. No one that he’d thrown off was moving. Primo’s fist started forward, and there was one of those moments where the world slows down. I had all the time in the world to watch him land that blow, all the time in the world to watch him snap that man’s neck and know I couldn’t stop him.