The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge

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The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge Page 23

by Mark L. Van Name


  She would have to flee. She had no chance against the Commission’s enforcers. She played back her encounter with them in her mind. Jameson was dangerous but Karla was bloody terrifying.

  She remembered the possessive way Karla had looked at Jameson and a new idea occurred to her, an odd and interesting idea. Her daemon was very pleased with his new possession. How would her daemon, her very powerful daemon, react to a threat against his beautiful witch?

  Rosalynne had spent her whole life in the shadows hiding, running when she couldn’t hide. Maybe she did not have to hide anymore? There was more than one sort of power. It remained to be seen who owned whom.

  A slow grin spread across her face. The gargoyle on her breast winked at her and she winked back. She lowered herself deeper into the bath water, blowing bubbles while making plans.

  After all, beauty is a witch.

  * * *

  JOHN LAMBSHEAD was born in Cornwall in the 50s in the seaside resort of Newquay. He was educated in London at Brunel University and worked as a British Museum research scientist until his recent semiretirement, publishing many scientific papers. He has always had a second life, storyboarding computer games and writing radio plays, popular military history, and, latterly, fantasy. His first novel, Lucy’s Blade, was published by Baen in 2006. He is married with two grown-up daughters.

  He supplied these notes about his story:

  * * *

  “Beauty is a Witch” is a story about London, East London, the industrial city east of London Town and north of the Thames, that dates back to Medieval times. This is the city unvisited by the tourist. It has been the home of poverty, criminality, and depravity on an unimaginable scale. East London names like Jack the Ripper (1888) and the Kray Twins, leaders of Britain’s most feared organized crime syndicate in the 1960s, still resonate in popular culture. It is the traditional entry point for immigrant waves to the UK. Huguenot, Irish, Jews, Lebanese, Turks have all lived there and left their mark. The current newcomers are Bangladeshi.

  There is a real Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel, but you will find it quite unlike my entirely fictional description. The original blind beggar was Henry de Montfort, son of Simon de Montfort who set up the first elected parliament in Europe. Legend has it that Henry was blinded at the battle of Evesham and wandered as a beggar until he reached Bethnal Green, where he begged on the old Roman road. He was befriended by a baroness with whom he had a child, Besse—who gave her name to Besse Road. Booth launched the Salvation Army outside the Blind Beggar, and Ronnie Kray really did shoot George Cornell to death in the bar. Cornell was associated with the rival South London Richardson crime syndicate—the torture gang.

  East London is now home to gleaming towers of chrome and glass, the largest financial center in the world. They still gamble there, but now with trillions of dollars rather than a handful of gold sovereigns. The girls still ply the oldest trade, but the modern belle de jours charge three hundred pounds an hour and the cost of a luxury hotel room and taxi. It’s a far cry from the penny knee-trembler in a dirty alley. Cocaine has replaced gin as life’s little helper. Criminals still flourish but they use computers rather than razors.

  Old East London is still there, if you know where to look: a plaque on a modern building, or a piece of wall that survived both the Blitz and Heseltine’s bulldozers. If you look carefully out of the corner of your eye, as the sun drops over the Thames into Kent, you may catch the shadow of a top hat and cane or a trilby and pistol. If you are really fortunate you might see a blind beggar on the Roman road. If you do, give him a couple of pounds—for luck.

  THE LONG DARK NIGHT

  OF DIEGO CHAN

  MARK L. VAN NAME

  “Sam’s gone over,” the first line of the text message said.

  “You said you’d help if it ever came to this,” the second continued.

  “It has.”

  “Barbara.”

  Diego Chan kept running but reversed direction and headed back to the Super 8 that was passing for home this week. His legs carried him easily, his heart beat a steady rhythm, and his muscles moved smoothly and with power. He brushed the sweat from his eyes and thumbed a response, “Okay.” He sent it on its way through the three redirectors that would mask its origins before it reached her.

  He pulled up the tracking display on his phone: five miles out, a hair over seven minutes a mile so far, over thirty-five minutes to make it back. Not good enough. He pushed harder but not so hard that anyone would notice. That wouldn’t buy him much time, but if she was right, the clock had started ticking a while ago.

  The morning sun was still coming into its own when he reached the motel thirty-one minutes later.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe he chose this,” Barbara said. “He was sick, real sick—pancreatic cancer—and he knew he was probably going to die, but he had decided to fight it. He’d been at it for two months.”

  Chan froze. Sam hadn’t contacted him. Once, Sam would have told him anything that mattered. That was a long time ago, though. A long time.

  “Did you hear me?” she said.

  “Yes.” Chan moved the phone to his right hand and resumed toweling himself dry. “Did he file new paperwork?”

  “No,” she said. “What you have is all there is. That’s part of why I’m sure. The rest is . . .” she paused, “you know, he’s just too strong. Even sick.” She paused again as her voice caught. “If he did decide he wanted to change, he’d talk to me first. I know he would.”

  “Yes,” Chan said. “He would.” He put the phone back in his left hand as he began to dress. “Why do you think this happened, that one of them took him?”

  “He’d mentioned approaches from some guy, Matt something, somebody he said you both knew from a long time ago. Said the guy had heard about his cancer and wouldn’t give up. Asked him to come to a club he owned.”

  Yeah, a long time, as far back as Chan had memories, all the way to the first foster home. When Matt had decided to make the move, Chan hadn’t liked it, but Matt had done it straight, filed the paperwork, gone over, what, maybe six years ago now.

  “When?” Chan said.

  “I can’t be sure,” she said, “but they usually leave the restaurant about one, sometimes two, so after that.” Her voice trailed off. “He’s never come home later than three. Never.”

  From anyone else, Chan would have considered this an overreaction, encouraged them to wait a day for the missing person to show up, but not Barbara. Sam was never late and kept every appointment.

  Chan checked the time: 7:00 a.m. here in Raleigh, 4:00 in San Francisco. Sam leaves no earlier than one, no later than two, so roughly a two- to three-hour window from when he left work to now. Matt would play it smart, ask to talk to Sam, lure him over, maybe spend an hour doing all of that. One to two hours already ticked off. Twenty-two he could reasonably count on, twenty-three if he was lucky.

  No. No point in counting on luck. Twenty-two hours.

  “What’s the name of Matt’s club?” he said.

  “Changes.” she said. “It’s, uh, a sex club. Serves everybody. He runs it, makes the Chronicle now and then, keeps it clean and on the level. They say.”

  Chan nodded. That was good: He had somewhere to start.

  “I’ll catch the first flight I can,” he said.

  “Will that be soon enough? We only have”—she choked back a sob—“before . . .”

  “I think so,” Chan said, “but that doesn’t matter. It’s all I can do, so we have to assume it will be.” He paused. “Sam’s gone either way. You understand that, right?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “I do, but this is what he would have wanted. He always said that.”

  “Yes,” Chan said, “he did.” He terminated the call.

  He opened a browser on his laptop to search for flights.

  “I’m coming,” he said to the still, empty room.

  * * *

  The American Airlines terminal at Raleigh-D
urham International Airport sported the same chrome and wood and glass design of every major airport with a redesign within the last five years. Chan liked it well enough when he bothered to look at it, but mostly he didn’t notice it. He wasn’t on a job, but he might as well have been, so he focused on the people and watched for signs of trouble. He had to assume that Matt would know Barbara would call him, but he had no reason to believe Matt would know where he was. Still, it always paid to be careful.

  He needed to be rested when he arrived, so he blew almost two grand on a one-way first-class ticket on the 10:15 via Chicago, then forked over the day fee for the Admiral’s Club. He crammed himself into a corner chair where he could watch the door. No way had they designed these things for people his size; at six four and 240, he rarely found comfortable seats.

  Decision time.

  He could try it on his own, but that would cost time, maybe a lot of it, to acquire what he’d need to invade a club that he had to assume would be full of them. If he asked for help, though, he’d owe his occasional employer.

  Chan hated owing anything to anyone.

  He was wasting time. He already knew the answer. He’d promised Sam, so he had to do everything in his power to keep that promise.

  He booted his laptop, brought up a clock, sent the message with the number of the mobile he was about to destroy, and waited.

  The phone rang two minutes later.

  He pressed the connect button but said nothing.

  Silence.

  After thirty seconds, he said, “I need a package and some data.”

  “We have no current contract,” a scrambled voice replied.

  Chan waited. They both knew how this would go, so there was no point in playing.

  After a few seconds, the voice laughed, a sound more like car fenders screeching on impact than human laughter. “It’ll come out of the next job.”

  “Yes.”

  “How complete a package?”

  Chan glanced at his nearly empty backpack. Between jobs, he never carried more than the pack could hold, and he rarely took that much. Aside from his documentation, the usual travel basics, a few wads of cash, and the slim, waterproof envelope of key papers—one of which was Sam’s—he had nothing he’d need.

  “Complete.” He shrugged. The heavy leather jacket slid over him, so worn and smooth it moved liked water. “I have a jacket; that’s it.”

  After a pause, the voice said, “Will this come back on us?”

  “No. The paperwork is good.”

  “Where?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “The data?”

  “All filed paperwork for Sam Flynn, plus background on Matt Gresham.”

  The pause was longer this time. “Matt Gresham is involved in this?”

  Chan sighed. “Is that a problem?”

  The car fenders screeched again. “No, but if you end up canceling him, we might make a little profit on this.”

  “It’s only him if he forces it to go that way. It’s not my goal.”

  “Then we’ll hope for the worst.”

  Chan said nothing. The easiest way to get in trouble with these people was to talk. The less he said, the less likely he was to screw up.

  “Intercontinental Hotel. A room will be waiting in your name. It’ll be there.”

  After a pause, the voice added, “You know you owe us, right.”

  It wasn’t a question.

  The call ended.

  Chan went into the men’s restroom, closed the door of the rearmost stall, and smashed the phone. He broke the SIM card in half, then flushed those two pieces. Habit. Probably unnecessary now, but not harmful, either.

  9:35 a.m.

  6:35 there.

  Twenty-plus hours.

  He headed for the gate.

  * * *

  On the first plane, Chan bought Internet access with a credit card in an identity so thin it would rip easier than a wet sheet of notepaper.

  Barbara was right: nothing about the Changes club was secret. Its web site offered an event listing, membership plans and costs, the disclaimer forms you’d have to sign to enter, customer testimonials, photos of all the rooms—play spaces, it called them—and even a floor plan. Formerly a theater, it sprawled across three levels: balcony, main, and basement. Every floor had at least one room with dirt for burial and rebirth play.

  Great. Lots to search.

  Matt’s picture graced half a dozen pages that explained how very safe you could be there as you indulged your wildest dreams. Sex club. Kink club. All in private or in public, as you chose. Watch, play, or do both. Regularly inspected and licensed by city and state health authorities. Full bar, alcohol and blood. On-site security and medical staff. Humans and vampires playing together. Open from ten to sunrise.

  Its neighbors—strip shows, cheap hotels, two diners open late—gave endorsements that included thin pitches for their own goods and services.

  Chan enlarged his search to include articles about the club. News services attacked it in slow times but lost their energy for the fight faster than three-pack-a-day smokers sprinting up Lombard Street. No one had ever found any evidence of anyone being turned there without the proper paperwork. Members and even a couple of former beat cops gave testimonials when it won an online vote for being the safest of the late-night San Francisco clubs. Not a single news story mentioned a fight or an arrest inside it.

  All of that information proved only that Matt was smart, which Chan already knew.

  He also knew but had no way to prove that Matt had taken Sam. Since before he’d turned, Matt had been evangelical on the benefits and how good it was. He’d want to save Sam—and to have Sam join him.

  No, Chan had no doubt that Matt had Sam. The question was, which risk was greater for Matt: leaving the club in the wee hours to go somewhere at the key time, or bringing Sam there.

  Matt hated variables he couldn’t control, so he’d prefer Sam be there, but then he’d be taking on other risks: finding a safe burial spot, minimizing the number of people who knew, and making sure no one checking the club found out. Meeting Sam elsewhere might be a simpler answer.

  No way to know by staring at the screen.

  Chan would have to ask Matt.

  When they announced the descent into Chicago, Chan turned off the laptop. He knew all he could about the club without going there.

  * * *

  Chan dozed the second leg and left it feeling as rested as he reasonably could given that even the first-class seats weren’t a good fit for him. He’d normally invest the first few days in a new place making sure no one was tracking him, but he didn’t have the time. The plane landed slightly late, so he didn’t make it to the cab line until 4:45, which put him smack in the middle of the worst of the rush-hour traffic.

  He walked into the gleaming glass tower of the Intercontinental a few minutes before six.

  Eight hours to go, give or take.

  He fought the urge to rush everyone he encountered. It wouldn’t help, and it could attract attention to him or even slow him.

  At the check-in desk, he gave his name and asked if they’d bring the package from his room so he could keep waiting for his friends in the lobby.

  Their smiles never wavered. An earthquake wouldn’t change their expressions; it was that kind of hotel.

  He tipped the bellman a twenty and grabbed the heavy, locked duffel bag from the guy’s two hands with one of his. He headed for the bar and kept on going past it, through the restaurant and out the side door. The short time meant he had to ask for the package, but he didn’t have to trust his occasional employer to give him a room. He could expect them to be watching him, because if they thought they might be able to make money off him, they’d try to steer events their way. With no definite engagement on the line, however, the surveillance team wouldn’t be large.

  Chan quick-walked to the corner, turned, and cut through the parking garage. On the other side, he caught the light, crossed the street
, entered the multistory mall, and crammed himself into an elevator with a mother with two little boys, one on each arm.

  They stared at him.

  He ignored them.

  When the doors opened on the top floor, the mother rushed them out of the elevator.

  He rode it back down one level, stepped out, and followed signs to a luggage store. They’d have a tracker in the bag to help the follow team. It’s what he would have done. With a small team, they’d use it to know when he left the mall. They might also have observers on the exits, but they wouldn’t risk following him in a five-story structure: too much turf to cover. He bought a huge, red, rolling suitcase composed of some polycarbonate material so light it weighed less than his reinforced jacket. It cost all the cash in his wallet, but he had ten grand more in the backpack.

  At a big-and-tall store a floor further down, he picked up a tweed sport coat that billowed around his waist but fit his shoulders and was tight but tolerable on his arms.

  He snagged a Giants cap and XXXL T-shirt from a templelike shop dedicated to the team.

  An electronics store sold him a prepaid mobile phone.

  He bought clear spectacles at an eyewear kiosk.

  In a public restroom he went to the handicap stall. The duffel’s locks were keyed to his last payment account, as usual. He transferred the contents of the bag one at a time into the suitcase, checking each one carefully for tracking chips. The short sword’s handle might hide one, but his experience was that inserting a chip there was more trouble than it was worth, so he didn’t worry about it. Ditto for the dozen purpleheart wood stakes. He tossed out the bands on the five stacks of twenty hundreds. The bills would be traceable, of course, but not as quickly as Chan would finish here.

  He added his backpack, shirt, and leather jacket to the big suitcase. He closed the suitcase and folded the duffel. He tore the tags off his new clothing and donned the T-shirt and sport coat. He tied his hair in a ponytail and tucked it under the cap. He put on the glasses.

 

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