by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor
“Beep you?”
“Yeah. I want to make sure it works.”
“Well…the funny thing is, I actually left it upstairs.”
Flynn leaned forward. “Tell me I’m not hearing you correctly! Tessa, I told you to wear it.”
“Flynn…”
“I’m coming down there.”
“Don’t.”
“Fuck that.”
“Flynn, I’m not wearing it because you have no idea of the power of the vampire who’s coming for me. This is my battle, and it’s over a hundred years old.”
“Let’s talk about this.”
“Flynn…talk to Alex. Look at the medical examiner’s report on Hack.”
Click. She had hung up on him.
Flynn rubbed his hand over his face. She made his blood pressure go up. Goddamn but she was stubborn. He called Williams.
“Hey, it’s Flynn.”
“How you feeling?”
“Like a fucking Hummer ran over me, backed up, and ran over me again.”
“That good?”
“Yeah. That good. Listen…you have the ME report on Tessa’s friend? The kid who was strung up?”
“Ye-ah…”
“What?”
“Well, it’s funny you should ask about it. This case is just strange, Flynn.”
“Can you make a copy and bring your file over?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be resting?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be my friend?”
“Fuck you.”
“Just like old times.”
An hour later, Alex and Flynn were sitting at Flynn’s card table looking at the file.
“I forgot how nicely decorated your place is,” Alex deadpanned. At the look on Flynn’s face, he added, “I would have thought having a girlfriend would put you in a better mood. If it’s possible, you’re worse.”
“Well, this particular girlfriend comes with excess baggage.”
“Oh, and like you’re a piece of cake. Does the name Diana ring a bell? Or how ’bout the all-nighters when you just stay in the apartment and pace because you can’t turn off a case in your mind? Yeah…you’re a regular teddy bear.”
“Cut the psychological analysis. Or shall we bring up your womanizing?”
“All right. But I did take a bullet for you.”
“After the warehouse, I say we’re even.”
“No. We’ll never be even. I have to put up with you. Whereas you get wonderful, well-mannered me.”
Flynn rolled his eyes. “Just read the files.”
The two detectives looked at the medical examiner’s findings. Most of the blood had been drained from Hack’s body—but there was little blood found in the apartment. Where was it? AlexWilliams posited that the killer was familiar with embalming techniques.
“Think about it. A funeral worker. Knows how to drain the body…made incisions on the neck…which were obscured by the ligature marks from the rope. Drains the blood by…I don’t know…guess we have to go interview some funeral directors. But I think that’s where we’ll find the killer. This is some seriously fucked-up killer. Could even be a serial killer, you ask me.”
“I’m not so sure of that. Let me ask you something, Alex.”
“Hmm?”
“Remember the two hookers killed down by the Hudson?”
“Few years ago?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure I remember them. That one girl’s mother came and visited us, begging us to find her daughter’s killer. Bothered me we never solved it.”
“But what about the other thing?”
“What other thing?”
“Alex…we never talked about it. What about the guy—the guy up on the roof?”
“Some nut.”
“Who just happened to disappear into thin air?”
“Well, there’s that. But we were tired.”
“That’s what I told myself, too. But I know what I saw.”
“You don’t know nothing. We were tired. I was hungry. It was dark.”
“What if there was another explanation?”
“What?”
“A vampire.”
Alex stared at Flynn for a full minute before he howled with laughter. “Yeah…and you know, Flynn…Frankenstein and the wolfman were out there that night, too.” He laughed some more and wiped a tear from his eye. “Vampire. That’s a good one.”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?”
“No. But you sound like you’re crazy.”
“You’ve known me a long time, Alex. Ever think I was crazy before?”
“Besides when you walked down the aisle with Diana…no.”
“Look at this file. What’s not to say it wasn’t a vampire. That and the other cases we’ve worked on with victims who had blood drained. And what about those crack dealers who bought it down in Alphabet City? The junkies were screaming about vampires.”
“Look…I can buy—maybe—that there’s some freak roaming this city who thinks he’s a vampire. But that’s as far as I’m willing to go. It wasn’t a vampire because there’s no such fucking thing. And I think you’ve been knocked on the head or had too much anesthesia.”
“I need to go to Tessa’s tonight.”
“Why? You think someone’s gonna try to suck her blood,” Alex said, affecting a Transylvanian accent straight out of central casting.
“Yes.”
“What kind of drugs did they give you at the hospital?”
“Alex, I’m serious. I need you to come with me.”
“You are serious.”
“Serious as a heart attack. So are you coming with me?”
“If only to prove to you this shit is crazy.”
“Good.” Flynn stood and tossed Alex his jacket. “And another thing?”
“What?”
“Ordinary bullets won’t kill them. You have to chop off their head or drag them out in sunlight.”
“Sure you do,” Alex said. “Sure you do.”
Flynn walked to the door of his apartment. “And the garlic thing won’t work either. Not with this bloodline.”
“Damn,” Alex said. “And I was just thinking we’d eat some Italian food and breathe on them.”
“Keep laughing. Keep laughing. But don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Flynn said as he locked the door to his apartment.
Chapter 23
Tessa hurriedly went up to her martial arts studio and brought down more samurai swords. As she carried down the last of her swords and looked at them lined up in her office, she shook her head and wondered—just how was she going to be a one-woman army?
Then she had an idea.
Dialing her ultra-wired friend, she got Lily on the first ring.
“Hey, girlfriend.”
“Hey, Lily. Where have you been?”
“Ohh, Cool and I have a little thing going. Spending time with him, while you, my dear, are ensconced in your bedroom with that sexy detective. I’m behind locked doors at his place.”
“Lily, I need you to listen to me.” Tessa adored Lily, but reliability was not one of her friend’s strong suits. If you told Lily you’d meet her at midnight, she might be there around two a.m. Unless it was to go hunting, in which case Lily’s predator instincts kept her on time.
“Sure thing.”
“Remember I showed you the concentric circles…and sooner or later we would hit bull’s-eye?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, the time is now, honey. And I need a favor. I need you to go down to Grand Central Station, to King. And I need to you tell him I sent you…and that Marco and his friends have arrived. If he wants a war, he’s got one. At the Night Flight. Tonight.”
“I hate going down there. In fact, if I never enter an underground tunnel again, it will be too soon.”
“I know. And I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t—”
“Tess…I would do anything to get Marco. I’d eat a rat if I had to. I’m leaving now.”
“Good luck.�
��
“Luck has nothing to do with it. Whoever’s stronger tonight will survive.”
Lily stood at the entrance to King’s lair. She fought, for a moment, a queasy feeling in her stomach. Of course, it was a similar queasy feeling to the one she’d felt the first time she awoke in Marco’s chambers, so long ago….
“Where am I?” she had asked.
“With me, child.”
“Sir Constantine?”
Lily looked around her. It was 1870, and she was in his private chambers, but she had no recollection of how she had gotten there, and she was acutely aware of a buzzing in her head.
“Sit down, Lily. Sit down,” he soothed.
Lily looked over at the sitting area where a dead body was slumped over in a chair. A trail of blood trickled down from the woman’s neck to her bosom, to the floor. Lily fought the urge to throw up.
“What’s happened?” She heard the panic in her own voice. She stared down at her clothes. Her breasts were practically pouring out of her undergarments.
Suddenly, the soothing voice of Marco Constantine was replaced by a cruel one. “Don’t you remember?” he sneered.
“Remember what?” The room spun around and around.
“Your dear, oafish father came. With an offer of marriage from a neighboring farmer. A widower with ten wailing, screaming, insufferable brats. You would be nothing more than a pathetic slave. A workhorse, until that life killed you just as it killed his second wife—you would be the third maiden he’d worked like a dog.”
In a flash, Lily recalled her father yelling at her that this was her only chance at marriage. That she had to obey him. Then darkness. She squinted and held her head and tried to remember, but nothing came to her.
“And then, my precious Lily, you came crawling and crying and begging to me not to send you away. You have it pretty good here, do you not? You have a comfortable room, luxurious linens, all the food you wish, and a Master who only wants to be left alone all day. You begged me to help you. So I did.”
“But why can I not remember?”
“You can, you sniveling brat. You can. You just refuse to remember. Well, let me refresh your memory….”
He strode over to the dead body and lifted her head up by the roots of her hair. “You and I fed on this creature together. You now have two choices—come with me permanently…or die.”
Lily panicked. She began breathing shallowly and clutching around her for something to steady herself.
“I’ll leave you to your decision, then,” Marco spat at her. Then he walked out of his chambers, locking her in, leaving her with the dead body of a woman she didn’t recognize.
Lily started to have flashes. The memories were fragments, each more horrifying than the next, and none of them made sense. She didn’t know if they were pieces of a nightmare, or reality. Each time she blinked, she saw something, like momentary flashes of the countryside when lightning lights up the night sky.
Her father. Twisting her arm and shouting at her.
Marco striding into the room.
Begging Marco to save her…to not send her away. Clutching at his boots, sobbing.
Marco ordering her father to leave, then soothing her, speaking softly as one might speak to a child.
Then…later that night, wine. Too much wine. Then pain. Horrible pain on her neck. Then feeding on Marco in return. He called it a blood wedding.
Lily raced over to the small mirror on the Master’s dresser. She lifted it up, trembling, and there, unmistakably, were two bite marks on her neck. They looked infected…festering.
More memories.
A woman from a tavern…invited back by Marco…then…but it couldn’t be…him offering her neck to Lily.
One word.
“Drink.”
Now, remembering, Lily collapsed to the floor and threw up. She clutched at her sides in agony.
And then, darkness.
Lily didn’t know if she woke up that night or a week later. She only knew she felt searing pain.
It was pain unlike any she had ever felt. Every bit of her, from her hair to her eyelashes, to her joints and bones, to her skin, cried out in agony. The touch of the fabric of her dress against her skin pained her. When she blinked it was as if someone were piercing her eyes with needles.
She screamed. And the scream made her head hurt more. Struggling, her legs like lead, she half crawled to the door of Marco’s chambers and pounded. Then she collapsed again from the exertion and lay on the floor unable to move, sure she would die at any moment.
But she didn’t die.
Soon, she would only wish for death.
She gasped for air. She clawed at her face, leaving scratches. She felt agony. She called out for God, for her long-dead mother, for mercy.
And finally, mercy arrived.
But it was not the mercy she wanted.
Sir Marco Constantine arrived and unlocked the door. He pointed at the dead woman. The woman’s neck had bite marks identical to Lily’s.
“Your choice is simple. Death or eternal life.”
Lily, in that moment, understood. She rolled over and threw up again. But Sir Marco Constantine had chosen his victim wisely. Because in the servant girl Lily Duvall, he had seen a spark of life, a girl who wanted more than to end up the caretaker of ten brats, uselessly pawed by her husband each night in an old, stained bed on a farm, used like a goat or a cow.
And so Lily chose eternal life. And sealed her fate.
Now Lily felt unfamiliar tears gather at the corners of her eyes. She swallowed hard. It had been so long since she was that girl in agony on that floor, offered a choice she barely comprehended. But she knew her revenge against Marco would all come down to this night.
She strode with confidence down the tunnel. Twice men in rags made a lunge for her, and each time she kicked them hard with her boots and walked on until she stood before King’s throne.
“Tessa sent me.”
“I saw you once before.”
“It happens tonight. At her club.”
“And how do I know this isn’t a trap? Why shouldn’t I take a stake and drive it through your heart now?” He stood, raising himself up to his full six-foot height, his face threatening.
“One, I would kick your testicles up into your throat before you were two steps my way. Two, you know Tessa. She has some kind of code about these things. Marco is coming for her, and you can either be there or not. I personally don’t give a damn, because either way, I’m taking down as many of his fiends as possible tonight.”
“You speak pretty ballsy for a woman.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one with a grudge against him.”
“I’ll think about what you’ve said. Now get out of here before I change my mind about driving a stake through your heart. My truce is with Tessa, not you.”
Lily turned on her heel and walked away. Whether King and his followers came to the Night Flight or not, she was going to make sure Marco faced sunrise.
Chapter 24
Tessa buzzed for Jorge around one a.m.
“Yeah?” He poked his head into her office.
“I need you to close early tonight. I want everyone out of here within an hour. That includes all the dishwashers, bartenders…. Tell them there’ll be a bonus in their paychecks this week to compensate for the lost tips and wages. Tell them I’m shutting for a private party that just came up.”
She saw Jorge’s eyes wander to the swords.
“Your private party have anything to do with those?”
“Maybe. Just do it, Jorge. Send everyone home.”
Fifteen minutes later, she clicked on the plasma screen and saw the house lights go up. Lily arrived at her office door.
“Come in, Lil, hon.”
“I told King.”
“And?”
“He was hostile.”
“How unusual.”
“I know. And noncommittal.”
Tessa ignored Lily’s last wor
ds and waved to the swords. “Choose your weapon. I suggest we make a few heads roll tonight.”
“You sure it’s tonight?”
“Well, sweetheart, look at this.” Tessa flicked on different views from the club, all showing shadowy blurs moving amongst the lingering crowd. The house music had stopped.
“Oh yeah, definitely trouble.”
“And then I looked at my calendar.”
“What about it?”
“It’s my wedding anniversary.”
“Your what?”
“My wedding anniversary. It’s not like I celebrate it. To me, it’s like any other day. But when I happened to look at my calendar, it just jumped out at me. This is all synchronized for maximum effect.”
“You must be exceedingly good in bed.”
“What?”
“Marco Constantine gathers all his dark forces to converge on you in the twenty-first century—more than a hundred years after he marries you and sleeps with you. I’d say that’s codependent behavior, wouldn’t you?”
Tessa couldn’t help laughing.
“I’m serious! What’s your secret?”
“Shut up, Lily. I swear with each passing decade you get more…feisty.”
“Well, I just want to make sure I’m never deceived or taken advantage of again!”
Tessa used the remote to click on a view of the club. It was finally empty. She called Jorge’s cell phone.
“Yeah, Tess?”
“Go on home. I’ll lock up.”
“Okay, be careful.”
“Always.”
“Well, Lily, pick a weapon.”
Lily chose a sword made in Eastern China circa 1880, Tessa chose a sword from Japan. Together they left the office for the cavernous club, to wait.
Jorge and Cool stood half a block down from the Night Flight Club.
“I ain’t buying this private party shit,” Jorge said. “She’s in trouble.”
“You think the mob is leaning on her?”
“Honestly? No. I think it’s something big.”
“Like what?”
“Something supernatural.”
“What? Like aliens?”
Jorge shrugged his massive shoulders. “No. Not aliens. But something. In the club tonight…I got a bad feeling.”