The woman’s eyebrows inched up, crinkling her forehead. Her fingers clutched the air and she let out a scream.
That wail was the signal for everything to jerk into fast-forward and at maximum volume.
People shrieked, sprang from their chairs, and crashed into one another. Food splattered on the floor. Feet and shins pummeled my sides and knocked me off balance. A pair of dainty feet in Manolo Blahniks scrambled across my hands and scraped my knuckles.
A metallic lump glittered under my table. The lump was the size of a fingertip and looked like a deformed mushroom. The thick stem was serrated with flat grooves—like the kind engraved by the lands in a gun barrel.
A bullet. It lay under the gash it had ripped through the table.
I picked up the slug, felt it burn, and flung it away.
A silver bullet.
Meant for me.
I grasped a napkin and reached again for the bullet. It could provide clues about the shooter. A black oxford kicked the slug under a dozen feet stampeding for the exits.
The scream of sirens echoed down the boulevard.
Forget the bullet. I had to get out of here before the police arrived. If Paxton was responsible for the shooting, then his goons in uniform could be coming to get another crack at me.
Tonic’s arm swung lifelessly beside his chair. Wasn’t much I could do now except feel sorry for the dead bastard.
I melted into the panicked mass crowding the front exit, both to hide my departure and mask myself in case another shooter waited. I kept in the middle of a group walking briskly on Wilshire to the end of the block.
Patrol cars barricaded the intersection. Cops ran out with guns drawn and surrounded the bistro.
The group I was with crossed the street, gabbing excitedly on cell phones.
“It was a shooting. My God, I thought we were in Compton.”
“Sally. I’m okay. No biggie, I was almost done with lunch anyway. I got out without paying. Tell my two o’clock I can see him earlier.”
I had to get back to my car. I left the group by ducking through a gap in a tall hedge and found myself facing a private patio behind an executive office complex. Men and women in business clothes lunched at tables and stopped in midchew to stare. I waved and ran off.
Nimble as a fox, I sprinted around shrubs and leapt over fences. I reached the street where I had left my Chrysler. I should’ve felt safe. Instead my fingertips tingled.
Up ahead one block, a white limousine turned the corner and came at me.
Fingers and ears buzzed. My kundalini noir bunched and writhed.
A dark blue Escalade followed the limousine. Tinted windows prevented me from seeing the interior. Both vehicles approached as silently and forebodingly as assassins’ shadows.
Behind me, a second Escalade closed the trap from the opposite direction. Polished wheels reflected the sun like rotating scythes. The two Escalades halted, their boxy shapes as menacing as battle tanks.
Whoever was in the limousine and Escalades knew I was coming this way. Was I followed? Who tracked me? Vampires? They could be anywhere, and my aura wouldn’t escape their eyes. The trees and tall buildings crowded around me with claustrophobic intensity.
Was the one who shot at me and killed Tonic in one of the vehicles? If so, why not open fire?
The limousine veered across the street to stop along the sidewalk close beside me. The driver’s outside mirror almost touched my leg.
The driver’s window lowered. Rachel, the receptionist from Cragnow’s porn business, smiled from the driver’s seat of the limousine. A vampire’s red glare beamed from her eyes. She showed off a pair of shiny new fangs.
The rear door lock clicked. “Get in.”
CHAPTER 35
The rear window of the Escalade on the left lowered like a gun port on a man-of-war. An orange aura shimmered inside.
“I’d rather not,” I replied as I considered Rachel’s invitation. “I had other plans.”
The rear window of the Escalade on the right lowered, revealing another orange aura.
“You don’t have much choice,” Rachel said.
“Where are we going?”
“To an interview.”
“I have a cell phone,” I said. “We could do a conference call. Save you the trouble of driving.”
“Felix,” Rachel said, “you’re not going to get any warning shots.”
The snouts of gun barrels slid from the darkness of the open windows.
“Rachel, you’d better think this through. If they shoot, you’re in the crossfire.”
Something sharp pressed into my crotch. Rachel pushed one of her talons against my scrotum.
“This wouldn’t be fatal, but I’m sure you don’t want me to play marbles with your balls.”
With only the thickness of my clothes between her talon and my jewels, I couldn’t move fast enough to avoid singing contralto forever.
“Rachel, keep this up and we won’t be friends.”
I waved at the Escalades and entered the rear of the limousine. The interior was a plush cocoon of black leather and dark glass. I settled into a wide leather seat, the only passenger in all this room.
Rachel looked through the partition between the driver’s and rear compartments. “Get comfy and enjoy the ride.” A window of dark glass scrolled upward, isolating me in the back. The door locks snapped, and we glided forward.
An interview with whom? Or was this a trap? If so, why not end it here? They—whoever they were—showed no reluctance at opening fire upon a restaurant.
Rachel drove south. The two Escalades trailed close. I removed my contacts and tried the doors, windows, and sunroof. Everything was locked tight. I didn’t like being caged like a dog going to the vet. If I was along for the ride, might as well be under my terms.
I scooted to the front of the passenger compartment, grasped an overhead strap, and kicked the partition window. The glass shattered and fell apart.
Rachel gave a very unvampirelike, girly scream.
I dove through the partition and landed beside Rachel. Her orange aura looked like a ball of burning gasoline. Her fangs and talons extended to maximum length.
She lunged for me. I parried her arms, grabbed a handful of hair, and pressed her open mouth against the steering wheel. She hissed and chomped but I was too strong. The limo whipped back and forth across the lane. Cars scooted out of our way. Their horns honked in disbelief and anger.
I used Rachel’s head to steer and straightened our path. “How many vampires have you killed?”
“None,” she mumbled, the steering wheel pushing into her mouth like a horse bit.
“Same as me. But I’ve killed a lot of humans. You want to be my first vampire?”
Her aura dimmed to a pale, weak orange. “No.”
“You going to behave yourself?”
“Yes.”
I let go of her hair. She spit bits of plastic. Bite marks crimped the steering wheel.
The limousine slowed and glided toward a parked car. Rachel grasped the wheel, jerked the limousine back into the lane, and accelerated.
A cell phone clipped to the dashboard began chiming.
“It’s probably your posse.” I took the phone and flipped it open. “Hello?”
A gruff voice said, “Who the hell is this?”
I handed the phone to Rachel. “They want to speak to the vampire in charge. I think that’s you.”
Rachel held the phone to her ear. A firecracker string of expletives made her wince.
“It’s under control,” she said, sounding like a mewling kitten. “We’ll get there.”
More expletives. Rachel closed the phone. “You got me in trouble.”
We stopped at a red light.
“So what happens? Detention?” I brushed pieces of safety glass off my seat. “Where are we going?”
“I told you. An interview.”
“You can either cut the bullshit or go back to eating the steering wheel.”
Rachel kept her gaze straight ahead.
“Well?” I asked.
“To see Councilwoman Venin.”
The one individual I hadn’t yet seen. So far Venin had been in the margins of my investigation, and now she summoned me with a gesture worthy of a czarist monarch.
The light turned green, and we rolled forward.
“What does she want?”
“To talk.”
“She’s a vampire, right?”
Rachel shook her head.
“Human?”
“That. And more.”
Rachel’s vague reply pissed me off. “What’s that mean?”
“That’s all I know about her,” Rachel added.
I reached over and tapped the bite marks on the steering wheel.
Rachel scowled. “Cut me some slack, okay?”
“Maybe. Who’s in the Escalades?” I asked. “Vampires?”
“They’re to make sure you meet Councilwoman Venin.”
“Is one of them the shooter who tried to nail me at the restaurant?”
“Kacy. He’s in the Escalade behind us.”
“You say that like I’m supposed to know him.”
Rachel replied, “You met in Hollywood. He drove a Jaguar.”
That Kacy. I left him broken and bloody on the hood of his expensive car. “He carries a grudge, I bet.”
“A big one,” Rachel said.
“Then why not do me in now?”
“Because Venin wants to talk to you. She said if you survived the shooting, then you are a vampire worth keeping.”
“Keeping for what?”
“You’ll have to ask her.”
I could commandeer the limousine, but how far would I get? Councilwoman Petale Venin wanted to talk, and I suppose this was as good a time as any.
We merged onto the San Diego Freeway and took the exit into Westwood. Rachel drove a few blocks and turned down a narrow side street into an alley shaded by tall mulberry trees.
The alley led into an open parking bay on the back side of a four-story complex. Rachel parked the limo in a space between two support columns. The Escalades blocked us in. Rachel touched a button, and the doors unlocked. A couple of passengers dismounted from one Escalade, their footfalls deliberate. Ominous.
My door jerked open.
Kacy scowled at me, his aura bright as the lamp of an oncoming train. Scars from my beating pitted his face.
Kacy wore a black leather tactical jumpsuit. He towered over the door, powerful and big, like a Mack truck. An M16 rifle in a combat sling hung from his shoulder. His right hand clasped the pistol grip and kept the muzzle of the rifle aimed at my chest. The weapon was outfitted with a silencer, scope, and aiming laser—the extra doodads needed by a modern assassin.
Kacy grasped my collar and dragged me out of the limousine.
“I don’t know what kind of luck you’ve got, asshole,” he said, “but I’m betting it ends soon. I’ve got enough silver bullets for every organ in your miserable body.”
His finger twitched on the trigger and the red thread of the aiming laser vibrated between my eyebrows. “I sneeze and your brains are pudding.”
A second armed guard, with a complexion the hue of roasted beef, stood next to Kacy. This guard carried an Uzi.
“If this cabrón screws up with Venin,” the guard said, his Chicano accent coming on too forced, “I get dibs.”
The guard might be raza, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t kill him to escape.
Kacy relaxed his finger and the laser disappeared. I blinked to get the spots out of my eyes. The Chicano guard plucked the sunglasses out of my shirt pocket. “Put these on, mocoso.” Snot face. “We’ll tell you when to take them off.”
Kacy jabbed with the M16 toward a door. “That way.”
Venin had a compelling motive to knock off Roxy—revenge for torpedoing Project Eleven. My two vampire escorts meant the councilwoman wasn’t shy about applying muscle or spilling blood, especially if Venin was, as Rachel said, more than human. What was that? How close was I to the nexus of vampire–human collusion? Would Cragnow be here?
Deputy Police Chief Julius Paxton waited inside. He gave a bear trap smile. “Look what floated up the sewer.”
“Kacy doesn’t smell that bad,” I said.
Paxton’s hand shot at me with lightning speed. His fist smashed into my gut.
The blow stunned my kundalini noir. Electric bolts of pain shot through my limbs. The guards grabbed my arms and wrenched my shoulders back.
Paxton’s fangs extended from under his upper lip like two ivory stalactites. He clenched and unclenched his right fist. His arm drew back. I saw the second blow coming like a boulder crashing down the mountain but I was helpless to move out of the way.
His fist hit the same spot as before. My insides were torn apart by an explosion of pain. I doubled over.
The guards let go and I dropped to the floor. Paxton kicked my ribs. Blinded with agony, I curled into a ball and lay on my side.
Paxton dug his shoe into my throat and levered my chin up with his heel. He rubbed the sole of his shoe against my Adam’s apple.
“I’ve got the ass with you, smart guy.” His voice sounded like words dragged over sandpaper. “Twice you’ve escaped. First in Pacoima. Today at Trixie’s. So that’s two times you made me look bad. I can’t kill you now because the councilwoman wants an audience. But the third time will be a charm.”
Paxton withdrew his shoe. He nodded to the guards, who pulled me upright. I leaned against the wall and waited for the nausea to pass.
My sunglasses sat askew on my nose and the Chicano guard adjusted them. “Tough luck, ese.”
An air conditioner hummed and a gust of cool air brushed against me. It took a moment to get the strength to say something. “Paxton, so we’ll see each other around?”
His fangs retracted. “I wouldn’t count on it, shit for brains.”
My two escorts took me to an elevator and up to the third floor. We stopped before a door in the middle of the hall. The Chicano guard reached over my shoulder and knocked.
“Enter,” answered a woman’s voice, sounding brisk and authoritative.
The guard opened the door. Kacy pushed me into a haze of menthol cigarette smoke.
Petale Venin stood behind a desk of polished cherry. She looked exactly like the photos I’d seen of her. A woman in her midforties. Blue, searching irises. Tiny creases around her eyes.
Those eyes. She had a lazy eye. I couldn’t decide which one to look at. The left stared at me and the right was a bit off center. Or was it the right eye that stared at me?
A thin, prominent nose was centered between the fleshy cushions of her well-fed face. Skin the color of a manila envelope toasted by the sun. Rouged cheeks. A perfectly normal human, except for the eyes.
Venin toyed with a set of eyeglasses in her manicured hands. She wore a long-sleeved silk blouse. A pleated brown skirt covered her substantial hips. Still a perfectly normal human except for those eyes.
She motioned in a maternal manner to come close. “Felix, you may take off your sunglasses.”
I did.
The shock turned my guts into liquid.
A red aura surrounded Petale Venin, a vermillion corona placid as still waters. My naked eyes bore into hers and nothing happened.
Venin was immune to vampire hypnosis. She was definitely more than human.
CHAPTER 36
I clutched the back of the chair to steady myself.
How was it possible that Councilwoman Venin could resist vampire hypnosis? My kundalini noir sputtered and jerked in dismayed confusion.
Kacy retreated, closing the door. The Chicano guard stood behind me, submachine gun at the ready, orange aura shining, his face as impassive as an Aztec statue.
I sat, squeezing the arms of the chair to still my trembling fingers.
Petale Venin was human. Or did she merely have the red aura of a human?
I had only met
two other creatures who could resist vampire hypnosis—a delightful forest sprite and a lying, cheating extraterrestrial. The sprite had a green aura, and the alien, yellow.
So was Venin human? Or a mutant hybrid between natural and supernatural? Or something else completely?
“Felix, welcome.” Venin sat and put her eyeglasses on. Both pupils latched onto me, walleyed behind the thick lenses. Her wavy black hair was so stiff it looked chiseled. Silver and henna highlights marbled the dark glossy locks. “Thank you for agreeing to visit me.”
“What did you mean, ‘agreeing’? I wasn’t given much choice.”
“You could’ve run,” she said. “Of course, then you’d be dead and I’d be talking to myself right now.”
I cleared my throat, stalling for time as I took stock of my situation. Venin wanted something; otherwise, her goons would have pumped me full of silver bullets long ago.
Other than an ashtray, I saw no personal effects of Venin: no nameplate or computer on the desk; no plaques or photos on the wall; even the trash was empty. This wasn’t her office, rather a place she came to for “special” business. There was a door to her right, which opened to the hall, or to another room? Did another surprise wait in there?
So here we were—Venin, her crooked eyes, an armed vampire guard, and myself. My Colt automatic and holster remained clipped to the back of my trousers. Why hadn’t they searched me? Either they didn’t have to—bad news for me—or they were complacent—bad news for them.
“I understand you visited my office yesterday.” Her voice had a peppy California accent.
“How do you know?”
“Call it woman’s intuition.” She gave a motherly grin. “Felix, I understand your confusion. Let me answer the questions you might have. Yes, I am human. And yes, I know you are a vampire.”
She admitted knowing the big secret? My grip tightened on the chair. Could she read my aura as well?
“There have been some misunderstandings since you’ve come to L.A. and I want that you and I”—she paddled her hands back and forth between us—“come to an agreement.”
“What misunderstandings?”
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