by J. D. Robb
“Tiara Kent found out about it somewhere.” Eve strode off the elevator and into the garage.
“Crowd she runs with.” Peabody jerked a shoulder. “New place with a jagged edge? It would be right up her alley.”
“And in less than two weeks from the first time she goes down, she’s guzzling a new, exciting illegals cocktail, and dies from a neck wound.” Eve slid behind the wheel of her vehicle. “That’s fast work, smooth work when you consider the security in her building never made him.” She glanced over at Roarke. “How much would a few pints of human blood net on the black market?”
“A few hundred.”
“What about famous human blood?”
“Ah.” He nodded as she drove out of the garage. “Yes, that might drive up the price to the right buyer. Are you thinking she was specifically targeted?”
“It’s an angle. She’s known, and she’s known to take risks, to slut around, to live wild. Her best friend hadn’t heard of the club before Kent clued her in. So maybe the idea or an invitation got passed straight onto the vic. In any case, she hooked up with her killer there, so someone saw them together. Someone knows him.”
“You know,” McNab speculated, “if you factor out the blood-sucking, soulless demon angle, this should be a slam dunk.”
“Good thing none of us believe in blood-sucking, soulless demons.” But Peabody ’s hand crept over and found McNab’s.
Eve caught the gesture in the rearview, just as she caught the way the fingers of Peabody ’s free hand snuck between the buttons of her shirt to close over something.
“ Peabody, are you wearing a cross?”
“What? Me?” The hand dropped like a stone into her lap. Her cheeks went pink as she cleared her throat. “It just happened that I know Mariella in Records, who just happened to have one, and I happened to borrow it. Just for backup.”
“I see. And would you also be carrying a pointy stick?”
“Not unless you mean McNab.”
McNab smiled easily as Eve stopped at a light, turned around in her seat. “Repeat after me: Vampires do not exist.”
“Vampires do not exist,” Peabody recited.
With a nod, Eve turned back, then narrowed her eyes at Roarke. “What’s that look on your face?”
“Speculation. Most legends, after all, have some basis in fact. From Vlad the Impaler to Dracula of lore. It’s interesting, don’t you think?”
“It’s interesting that I’m in this vehicle with a trio of lamebrains.”
“Lamebrained to some,” Roarke replied equably, “open-minded to others.”
“Huh. Maybe we should stop off at a market on the way, pick up a few pounds of garlic, just to ease those open minds.”
“Really?” Peabody said from the back, then hunched her shoulders as Eve sent her a stony stare in the rearview mirror. “That means no,” Peabody muttered to McNab.
“I translated already.”
Eve had to settle for a second-level street slot five blocks from the underground entrance. The sun had set, and the balmy April day had gone to chill with a wind that had risen up to kick through the urban canyons.
They moved through the packs of pedestrians-heading home, heading to dinner, heading to entertainment. At the mouth of the underground entrance, Eve paused.
“Stick together through the tunnels,” she ordered. “We can work in pairs once we get to the club, but even then, let’s keep visual contact at all times.”
She didn’t believe in the demons of lore, but she knew the human variety existed. And many of them lived, played, or worked in the bowels of the city.
They moved down, out of the noise, out of the wind, into the dank dimness of the tunnels. The clubs and haunts and dives that existed there catered to a clientele that would make most convicted felons sprint in the opposite direction.
Offerings underground included sex clubs that specialized in S amp;M, in torture dealt out for a fee by human, droid, or machine, or any miserable combination thereof. In the bars, the drinks were next to lethal and a man’s life was worth less than the price of a shot. The violent and the mad might wander there, sliding off into the shadows to do what could only be done in the dark, where blood and death bloomed like fetid mushrooms.
She could hear weeping, raw and wild, echoing down one of the tunnels, and laughter that was somehow worse. She saw one of the lost addicts, pale as a ghost, huddled on the filthy floor, panting, pushing a syringe against his arm, giving himself a fix of what would eventually kill him.
She turned away from it, passed a sex club where the lights were hard and red and reminded her of the room in Dallas where she’d killed her father.
It was cold underground, as it had been cold in that room. The kind of cold that sank its teeth into the bone like an animal.
She heard something scuttling to the left, and saw the gleam of eyes. She stared into them until they blinked, and they vanished.
“I should’ve given you my clutch piece,” she said under her breath to Roarke.
“Not to worry. I have my own.”
She spared him a glance. He looked, she realized, every bit as deadly as anything that roamed the tunnels. “Try not to use it.”
They turned down an angle beyond a vid parlor where someone screamed in a hideous combination of pain and delight.
She smelled piss and vomit as they descended the next level. When a man with bulging muscles stepped out of the dark, turned the knife he held into the slant of light so it gleamed, Eve simply drew her weapon.
“Wanna bet who wins?” she asked him, and he melted away again.
From there, she followed the strong vibration of bass, the scent of heavy perfume, and the ocean surf roar of voices.
The lights here were red as well, with some smoke blue, fog gray shimmered in. Mists curled and crawled over the floor. The doorway was an arch, to represent the mouth of a cave. Over the arch the word BLOODBATH throbbed in bloody red.
Two bouncers, one black, one white, both built like tanker jets, flanked the arch, then stepped together to form a wall of oiled muscle.
“Invitation or passcode,” they said in unison.
“This is both.” Eve pulled out her badge, and got twin smirks.
“That doesn’t mean jack down here,” the one on the left told her. “Private club.”
Before she could speak again, Roarke simply pulled out several bills. “I believe this is the passcode.”
After the money passed, the bouncers separated to make an opening. As they walked through, Eve shot Roarke an annoyed look. “I don’t have to bribe my way in.”
“No, but you were going to hurt them, and that’s a lot messier. In any case, it was worth the fee as you take me to the most interesting places.”
The club was three open levels, dark and smoky, with the pentagram bar as the center. A stage jutted out on the second level where a band played the kind of music that bashed into the chest like hurled stones. Fog crept over it like writhing snakes. Patrons sat at the bar, at metal tables, lurked in corners or danced on platforms. Nearly all wore black, and nearly all were well under thirty.
There were some privacy booths and some were already occupied with couples or small groups smoking what was likely illegal substances inside the domes, or groping each other. Eve’s gaze tracked up to note there were private rooms on the third level. The club had a live sex license, and no doubt all manner of acts transpired behind the doors.
She approached the bar where a man or woman worked at every point of the pentagram. Eve chose a woman with straight black hair parted in the center to frame a pale, pale face. Her lips were heavy and full and dyed deep, dark red.
“What can I get you?” the woman asked.
“Whoever’s in charge.” Eve set her badge on the slick black metal of the bar.
“There a problem?”
“There will be if you don’t get me whoever runs this place.”
“Sure.” The bartender drew a headset out of her pocket
. “Dorian? Allesseria. I’ve got a cop at station three asking for the manager. Sure thing.”
She put the headset away again. “He’ll be right down. Said I should offer you a drink, on the house.”
“No, thanks. Have you seen this woman in here, Allesseria?” Eve drew out Tiara’s ID photo.
She saw recognition immediately, then the quick wariness. And then the lie. “Can’t say I have. We get slammed in here by midnight. Hard to pick out faces in the crowd, and with this lighting.”
“Right. You got anything on tap here but beer and brew?”
Once again, Eve saw the lie. “I don’t know what you mean. I just run the stick at this station. That’s it, that’s all. I got customers.”
“She’s not only a poor liar,” Roarke observed. “She’s a frightened one.”
“Yeah, she is.” Eve scanned the crowd again. She saw a man barely old enough to make legal limit actually wearing a cape, and a woman, nearly a decade older, all but bursting out of a long, tight black dress, who was wrapping herself around him like a snake on one of the dance platforms.
Another woman in sharp red sat alone in a privacy booth and looked mildly bored. When a man wearing mostly tattoos glided up to the bar, ordered, Allesseria poured something into a tall glass that bubbled and smoked. He downed it where he stood, throat rippling, then set the glass down with a snarling grin that flashed pointed incisors.
Eve literally felt Peabody shudder beside her. “Jesus, this place is creepy.”
“It’s a bunch of show and theater.”
Then Eve saw him coming down the corkscrew of steps from the top level. He was dressed in black, as would be expected. His hair, black as well, rained past his shoulders, a sharp contrast to the white skin of his face. And that face had a hard and sensual beauty that compelled the eye.
He moved gracefully, a lithe black cat. As he reached the second level, a blonde rushed toward him, gripped his hand. There was a pathetic desperation about her as she leaned into him. He simply trailed his fingers down her cheek, shook his head. Then he bent to capture her mouth in a deep kiss as his hands slid under her short skirt to rub naked, exposed flesh. She clung to him afterward so that he had to set her aside, which he did by lifting her a foot off the ground in a show of careless strength.
Eve could see her mouth move, knew the woman called to him, though the music and voices drowned out the sound.
He crossed the main level, and his eyes locked with Eve’s. She felt the jolt-she could admit it. His eyes were like ink, deep and dark and hooded. As he walked to her, his lips curved in a smile that was both knowing and confident.
And in the smile she saw something that didn’t cause that quick, physical jolt, but a deep and churning physical dread.
“Good evening,” he said in a voice that carried a trace of some Eastern European accent. “I’m Dorian Vadim, and this is my place.”
Though her throat had gone dry, Eve gave him an acknowledging nod. “Lieutenant Dallas.” She drew out her badge yet again. “Detectives Peabody and McNab. And…”
“No introduction necessary.” There was another quality to him now, what seemed to be a prickly combination of admiration and envy. “I’m aware of Roarke, and of you, Lieutenant. Welcome to Bloodbath.”
Five
She knew what she saw when she looked at him. She saw in those pitch-dark eyes her greatest single fear: She saw her father.
There was no physical resemblance between the man before her and the one who had tormented and abused her for the first eight years of her life. It went, she understood, deeper than physical. Its surface was a calculated charm thinly coated over an indifferent cruelty.
Under it all was utter disregard for anything approaching the human code.
The monster that had lived in her father looked at her now out of Dorian Vadim’s eyes.
And he smiled almost as if he knew it. “It’s an honor to have you here. What can I get you to drink?”
“We’re not drinking,” Eve told him, though she would have paid any price but pride for a sip of water to cool the burning in her throat. “This isn’t a social call.”
“No, of course not. Well then, what can I do for you?”
Eve slid the photo of Tiara across the bar. Dorian lifted it, glanced at it briefly. “Tiara Kent. I heard she was killed this morning. Tragic.” He tossed it down again without another glance. “So young, so lovely.”
“She’s been in here.”
“Yes.” He affirmed without an instant’s hesitation. “A week or two ago. Twice, I believe. I greeted her myself when I was told she’d come in. Good for business.”
“How did she get the invitation?” Eve demanded.
“One may have been sent to her. A selection of the young, high-profile clubbers is sent invitations periodically. We’ve only been open a few weeks. But as you can see…” He turned, gestured to the crowd that screamed over the blasting music. “Business is good.”
“She came alone.”
“I believe she did, now that you mention it.” He turned back, angling just a little closer to Eve, until the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. “As I recall, she was to meet a friend, or friends. I don’t believe she did. I’d hoped she’d come back, with some of her crowd. They spend lavishly, and can make a club such as this.”
“Underground clubs aren’t made that way.”
“Things change.” He picked up the drink Allesseria had set on the bar, watching Eve over the rim as he sipped. “As do times.”
“And how much time did you spend with Kent?”
“Quite a bit on her initial visit. I gave her a tour of the place, bought her a few drinks.” He sipped again, slowly. “Danced with her.”
Her father had smelled of candy from the mints he chewed to cover the liquor. Dorian smelled of musk, yet she scented the hard sweetness of candy and whiskey. “Went home with her?”
He smiled, and when he set down his glass his knuckles lightly brushed Eve’s hand. “If you want to know if I fucked her, you’ve only to ask. I didn’t, though it was tempting. But bad for business. Wouldn’t you agree?” he said to Roarke. “Sex with clients is a tricky business.”
“It would depend on the client, and the business.” Roarke’s voice was a silky purr, a tone Eve knew was dangerous. “Other things are bad for business as well.”
As if acknowledging some unspoken warning, Dorian angled his head in a slight nod, shifted his body away from Eve’s.
“Did you tell her you were a vampire?” Eve demanded. “That you could turn her?”
Dorian slid on a stool and laughed. “Yes, to the first. It’s part of the atmosphere, as you can clearly see. The core clientele come here for the thrill, the eroticism of the cult, the thrill of possibility. Certainly part of the draw is the fear and the allure of the undead, along with the dark promise of eternal youth and power.”
“So you sell it, but you don’t buy it.”
“We’ll just say I very much enjoy my work.”
“Tiara Kent was exsanguinated, through a two-pronged wound through the carotid artery.”
He lifted one arched black brow. “Really? Fascinating. Do you believe in vampires, Lieutenant Dallas? In those who prey on the human, and thirst for their blood?”
“I believe in the susceptible, in the foolish, and in those who exploit them. She was drugged first.” Eve took a careless glance around and hated, hated that her chest felt tight. “I wonder how many illegals I’d net if I ordered a sweep of this place?”
“I couldn’t say. We both know such things aren’t as…regulated underground.” He stared deeply into her eyes. “Just as we both know that’s not what you’re here for.”
“One leads to another. Her killer left his DNA behind.”
“Ah, well. We can, at least, settle that one particular element.” Watching her still, he rolled up his sleeve. “Allesseria, I’ll need a syringe with a vial. Unopened.”
“You keep needles behind the bar?” Eve s
napped out.
“Part of the show. We serve several drinks that contain a dram or two of pig’s blood, and it’s added with a syringe for flourish.” He took the needle from the bartender. “Should you do the honors,” he asked Eve, “or I?”
“A swab of your spit would be easier.”
“But not nearly as interesting.” He pumped his fist until a vein rose, then slid the needle neatly-expertly, Eve thought-into it. Depressed the plunger. “Allesseria, you’ll witness I’m providing the lieutenant with my blood voluntarily.”
When the bartender didn’t speak, Dorian turned his head toward her slowly, stared.
“Yes. Yes, I will.”
“That should be enough.” He flashed a hard smile at Eve, then removed the needle, capped off the vial. “Thank you, Allesseria.” Flipping the syringe agilely, he held it out, plunger first. “Dispose of that properly,” he ordered, then handed the vial to Eve. “You’ll mark and seal that in our presence?”
As she did, Dorian swiped his fingertip over the drop of blood on the tiny puncture in his flesh, then laid it on his tongue. “Is there anything else?”
“Did you see Miss Kent with anyone in particular, see her leaving with anyone?”
“I can’t say I did. I believe she danced with any number of people. Feel free to ask any of the staff, and I’ll be happy to ask myself.”
“You do that. We’ll need an address, Mr. Vadim.”
“Dorian, please. I’m known as Dorian. I can be reached here. I’m living upstairs at the moment. Let me give you a card.” He waved his fingers, flicked them, and a glossy black card appeared between the index and middle finger. As he passed it to Eve, his fingers brushed down her palm, lingered for just an instant too long. Then he smiled. “I tend to sleep days.”
“I bet. One more thing. Can you verify your whereabouts from midnight to three this morning?”
“I would have been here. As I said, I’m most often here.”
“Anybody vouch for that?”
His lips quirked again, in a kind of smug amusement that put her back up. “I imagine so. You might ask any of the staff or the regulars. Allesseria?” He turned his black gaze from Eve’s face to the bartender. “You were on last night. Didn’t we speak some time after midnight?”