by Mark Henwick
Okay, so I lied a little when I spoke to Rom earlier. I hadn’t had this much fun in a long time. Being in the police was very worthy, of course. It just wasn’t the same as being on a solo mission and all that went with that.
The bouncer silently opened the barrier and I stalked through, letting the cloak float. The mission was green—I was in.
Or so I thought.
I checked the cloak in the lobby and stood for a minute in confusion, looking for a door into the club. I could certainly hear it, but apart from the light in the check-in clerk’s cubicle, the lobby was dark. Opposite the cubicle, where I expected the door to be, there was a floor-to-ceiling carved head of a sleeping man, face slack and eyes closed beneath a Neanderthal brow.
On instinct, I walked toward the face. There had to be something there.
As I approached, machinery engaged with a thunk. The brow started to rise. Huge eyes opened, staring madly, spilling yellow light over me, and finally the mouth started to gape.
The air from the club wafted out like hot breath, and the noise of the music shook my bones.
I walked forward on the tongue. It was slightly rubbery and wobbly beneath my feet.
Gross.
The throat deposited me right at the edge of the dancing.
The club had a top of the line sound and light system, and the full crowd inside were enjoying themselves. It was exactly what it depicted on the website; it attracted niche clientele and it catered well for them. There was more leather than a whole ranch of cows and enough metalwork in people’s faces to make a combine harvester.
I’d been in quieter riots.
The churn of dancers threw a couple against me. They were moving together roughly in time with the music, which was more than I could say for the threesome I bounced off as I staggered back.
A girl with black leather boots up to her crotch and wearing no more than a wide belt as a skirt was stuck between two guys in vampire costumes.
She saw me and flung out a hand. “Hey, pretty vamp, give me a hand here,” she yelled. I didn’t think she was entirely joking, but she wasn’t getting my hand, or any other part of me.
“You got in there, you get yourself out,” I yelled back.
“Bitch,” she mouthed amiably at me as the guy bit her neck. She wasn’t in any particular danger. It was all fake fangs, all pretend and show.
I’d come here for the Blood Orchid Market, and if it was just a vampire theme night at a hot club, that was okay by me.
I fought my way around the crowd and made it to the bar. There were all sorts of scents in here, but nothing that said real vampire to me.
I found a quieter spot eventually and leaned against the bar, sipping a soda.
The whole place was done in black glass: walls, ceiling, even the floor. Expensive, bulletproof glass, the kind they use in the floors of observation towers that people can jump up and down on. Each huge panel was rimmed with shiny steel and seemed to suck light in. The glass gave me the creeps for some reason.
The bar was at the far end from the entrance. In front of me, the dance floor heaved like a herd stampeding. On the right, the DJ was set up against a structure covered in scored metal that reflected lights and shapes.
I pictured the layout of the building.
That structure took up a whole lot of room. The way it came out at an angle above the DJ was odd. Maybe there was a set of stairs inside, going up to the next floor? They hadn’t been in the plans the colonel had given me.
There were two more floors. The original stairs had been against the wall, and there was no sign of them now. Okay, so that was almost certainly a set of stairs behind the DJ.
If this was the dance floor, what went on upstairs? If there were vampires in the club, would they come down and dance, or would I need to go up and find them?
I hadn’t brought a weapon. Tonight, I was going to rely on running away very quickly if things became dangerous. Down here, there were too many witnesses and plenty of fire exits for anything too dangerous to happen. If there was something going on, it was on the higher floors. It would be guarded and it wouldn’t be so easy to pass unnoticed.
And none of this speculation was getting the job done.
I started to make my way through the dancers. If I thought the evening had been peculiar up to then, it went bizarre at that point and never recovered.
A male vampire, another fake, in a Great Gatsby dinner jacket and pleated white shirt, came up and grabbed my arm.
“Take me, please,” he shouted over the noise.
“What, right here on the dance floor?”
“No, upstairs.” He grimaced in frustration, free hand pushing his slicked hair back down. “You’ve got the look, I know you’ll get in. They just never seem to see me.”
I couldn’t say I was ignorant of what happened upstairs, but did this guy know? Or did he only think he knew?
“Do you really want to go up there?”
“Of course.”
“What do you think goes on?”
“The action, of course.” He looked exasperated.
That wasn’t especially helpful. He probably didn’t know much more than I did. At least it was a sort of confirmation there were people up there. It sounded as if he thought it was just sex. Maybe the worst I could fear tonight was being thrown out for intruding on a private orgy. But much as I appreciated his information, I wasn’t taking him with me.
“I’ve got no invite for me, let alone both of us.” I removed his hand and moved away quickly.
He was pulled away by the swirl of dancers. If anything, the floor was getting fuller and rowdier.
There were stairs around the back of the structure; a couple up on a landing, guarding a door, and a big kiss-off sign saying no admittance. The curved steps swept down like descending ripples in a pool. They were made from gleaming pale marble, the sort with big white patterns in it that look like animal fat. The man and woman were lit by a tiny spotlight above them, casting pools of shadow across their faces.
There was no reason for door staff if there really was no admittance allowed. I was lacking a Harley to make an initial impression this time, so it was all going to come down to bluff. And the best bluff, I decided, was to act as if I was doing them a favor.
My foot touched the first step and my nose caught the faintest coppery scent.
Shit!
There had been a part of me that believed this was all nothing more than going through the motions for the colonel, that there were no vampires in Denver. That was wrong.
My heart rate soared and I got a gut-churning flashback of the night when I’d first smelled them in South America.
They were here.
In the same moment, my training kicked in. My brain jerked forward out of the panic freeze. If there were vampires here, they had to be different than those I’d encountered before. For one thing, they had to be very careful not to expose themselves by attacking people. They weren’t like the ones I’d fought a year ago in the South American jungle.
My hesitation, with one foot on the first step, did nothing for my attempted disguise of belonging here.
“No admittance,” said the woman. She had a European accent I couldn’t place, and she was dressed like an eighteenth century gentleman: ruffles oozing out from the collar and cuffs of her stiff velvet jacket. Her head tilted up arrogantly.
“So thoughtful of the management, to provide a speaking sign for illiterates,” I said. I forced myself to move up the steps.
Her eyes narrowed in anger, but she looked me over and her face betrayed a hint of uncertainty.
“I’m here for the Blood Orchid,” I said, continuing to climb. How many vampires would there be in here? What would they be doing? Would they mark me out immediately? The nearest emergency exit was down the stairs behind me; how quickly could I get out, if I had to?
The man had been leaning against the wall, dressed as an elegant highwayman, with long hair tied back and a Zorro mask. He s
tood up now, blocking the way.
“Buying or selling?” he said. It sounded rehearsed, a rote phrase. Crap, there was some kind of password. The emails the colonel had shown me hadn’t mentioned that.
“I’m from out of town, and I don’t trade,” I said. My heart seemed to be beating in my throat. “I’m here to see what kind of a place Dominé runs.”
That was my one ticket to get in—I knew the name of the owner.
Whatever I was doing seemed to be the right thing; now he looked unsure.
“One moment, please.”
He pulled out a mike that had been twisted back behind his ear and turned away to talk into it.
I faced the woman. The coppery smell was coming from her, but strangely, there was no feeling of vampire about her. With the adrenaline flooding my system and giving me some false confidence, I moved closer. I was on a level with her now and could look down into her face. Sergeants practice this look, and it has so many uses.
She was nervous, scared even. Her face was half turned away and she was stealing glances at me from beneath her lashes. Given the type of club this was, and the show I was putting on, I guess I shouldn’t have been so shocked to realize she was frightened and attracted to me at the same time.
Well, there were two red lights on that. One, I wasn’t attracted to her, and two, I wasn’t going to give the colonel a reason to snatch me back.
I needed to find out how she came to smell of vampire, and there were probably going to be things I needed to find out about the club. I’d just have to find some way to loosen her tongue when I came out.
I snorted. No, not what I meant at all!
The man turned back, interrupting my surreal conversation with myself. I noticed a small camera on a pivot above his head. Someone had gotten an eyeful of me staring down their guards; maybe my bluff was about to be called.
“Ma’am,” he said. He stood back against the wall and held the heavy door open. “Straight through the curtains.”
Apparently, I looked and acted the part, but now someone inside was aware of me, and probably interested. I’d need to make this quick, before I got thrown out. Or had to beat a retreat.
I took a last, long look at the woman, and then I strode in.
It was about 11. I still didn’t know it, but the clock had been ticking for 24 hours, and another person was going to die tonight.
Chapter 7
I passed through the curtains. It was dark inside.
I stepped sideways quickly, my eyes straining to adjust and my body taut with anticipation. I felt too stationary. My training was telling me I might as well have stuck a gun range target on my chest. I sensed people all around me. But no one leaped out of the darkness. And I couldn’t smell vampire.
The noise of the dance club was sharply reduced when the door to the stairs closed behind me. I could even hear murmurs in the gloom, laced through with a sort of primal heartbeat from the sound system downstairs.
My arrival had been ignored. Whoever was here wasn’t paying me any attention.
I was disoriented by what light there was; there were drapes like veils ahead of me and through them, the floor beyond seemed to glow and pulse, while the ceiling was dark. Between me and the drapes it was darker, but I could sense there were shapes, moving.
I stumbled, instinctively reaching out with a hand.
I touched naked flesh. Rhythmically moving naked flesh. A man groaned.
I snatched my hand back.
All around me, people were making out. On low, bulbous sofas, or floor cushions, or just the floor. What the hell had I expected in a freaking sex club?
I couldn’t see well enough, but the sounds didn’t suggest anything other than sex, and there was no coppery smell here—I couldn’t smell vampire, no, but I could certainly smell the sex.
Someone moaned with pleasure just beside me. A hand brushed against my calf, lingered.
I moved before I got invited to join, edging nervously through the obstacle course, through the gossamer drapes, which were eerie to touch, and into the open space of the upper floor of the club.
I stopped to get my breath back. Up here, the fashion mix from the dance club was reversed.
Here be many vampires. Pretend ones. Still no coppery scent.
There was a bar at the far side, and between me and the bar, the floor was open. It was strobe-lit from below somehow. People swirled across it as if they were dancing in the lights. They would gather in groups, pause and chatter, then the group would dissolve and they’d swirl around some more, like flocks of birds. Everyone seemed to have their head down half the time. I’m not up on all the latest dance moves, but I’d never heard of this one.
The bar seemed to be a better place to stand and look around.
I walked across and finally caught on. I managed not to stumble again, which wouldn’t have been cool at all. The floor was glass. I could see the people dancing in the club below me.
I made it to the bar and ordered a rum. Mission rules be damned.
I watched Dominé’s inner club members sweep to and fro over the market. One group made a selection, pointing eagerly, and a couple of staff dressed like the two on the door were dispatched to fetch a man and a woman from the dance floor. The group and their selections then disappeared up a staircase at the side of the room. Two guys had a single girl fetched and went to find some space behind the drapes.
I had a better idea than I wanted of what was behind the drapes. What was upstairs?
From the plans I knew there had been rooms up there, but the club had changed since then. Maybe there were bedrooms. Maybe, given the club’s kink, there were dungeons. It was too crowded to swing a whip behind the drapes and there hadn’t looked to be any kind of place anyone could be strapped down.
I shuddered and then pushed the images aside. I was here on recon, not to judge. And regardless, the dancers who had been selected and come up didn’t seem at all upset. On the contrary, they looked as if they regarded it as some sort of a privilege. The club couldn’t operate if people disappeared after going upstairs, and it was popular, so I had to guess they still regarded it as a privilege when they came back downstairs.
That didn’t necessarily mean there weren’t vampires up there.
A mixed group of five came down the stairs and made their way slowly to the bar. They looked sated and tired; a couple of them also looked sore and were moving carefully. No one had any bite marks on their necks.
A couple at the bar saw me watching. She was a curvy redhead, dressed in a black silk pant suit. He was stocky, with fair hair held in a ponytail by a tight steel clip. They were both pretty as magazine covers, skin so pale I wondered if that was cosmetics. While they both stared intently at me, she ran her hand up and down his groin and he casually opened her shirt to caress her breasts. She licked her crimson lips in unmistakable invitation.
Oh crap. I turned away abruptly and gulped the rum. Not just vampires and bouncers to avoid. It was all kinds of fascinating to see, but I had a job to do. I slunk further around the bar, trying to avoid catching anyone’s eye.
Staff moved through the club. There were two types: the fetchers and door guards, who were dressed in romantic eighteenth century outfits, and the wait staff, who were dressed in very little. Both sexes of wait staff wore thongs and some kind of collar. The men wore tight cowboy chaps and had made a serious investment in their abs. The women wore short leather basques and I suspected some had made serious investments in their chests. All the wait staff seemed kind of stiff, and I stopped one woman who was passing.
“Your pleasure, mistress?” she whispered, holding her tray in front of her belly.
“Just wanted a better look at you, really,” I said.
“Of course.” She put her tray behind her and arched her back.
I ignored the display she was putting on. My eyes fixed on her collar. It was made of dull metal, a weave of circles and barbs that dug into the flesh of her neck. No wonder the wait staff
moved stiffly.
I looked closer. “That’s broken your skin.”
“Yes, mistress, it does.”
“You’re bleeding,” I said. She didn’t nod—she couldn’t really without more pain, but her head moved a little and she smiled. “You like it?” I asked incredulously.
“She does, of course.” Another woman slipped between us. “Don’t you, Giselle?”
“Yes, Dominé.”
French from the sound of her voice, the mysterious Dominé was a small woman, a full head shorter than her employee, whom she held tightly against her.
She offered her face up, inviting a kiss, or demanding it. Giselle had to bend her head. A gasp escaped her as the spikes pierced her flesh. Her eyes darkened and closed.
The kiss was a lingering touch of lips. Then Dominé chuckled and licked Giselle’s chest beneath the collar, where a little blood had trickled down. Giselle’s breath sighed out.
I backed up, feeling a little nauseous and fighting not to show it.
Dominé hadn’t come alone. I could feel others behind me and a glance confirmed two men standing there in the highwayman costumes. Dominé herself was in a black lace dress, a blood-red ribbon in her white hair. A single crimson rose had been embroidered on her dress above her left breast.
Spectacle over, Dominé dismissed Giselle and spun to face me, her eyes bright. “And you, étranger, did you enjoy that?”
“Watching you lick some blood from her chest? No, not my scene.”
“And what is your scene?”
I said the first thing that came into my head. “Something with a bit more freedom and passion on both sides.”
“Ah, yes. Freedom. The angoisse is not good for that. However much she enjoys it, it does inhibit movement, even if you take her debout, up against a wall. And not just Giselle, of course. All the wait staff are torquate. Passion? Well, you find passion where you will.”