by Jack Conner
* * *
What Ruegger and Danielle had learned on their anniversary was the importance of tunneling. So, after swearing profusely, the odd flock took to the dirt, hollowing out what little space they could as deep and dark as they could reasonably want to go.
Ruegger dug deep, reaching the cool moistness of the hidden earth, maybe forty feet down. With Danielle’s help, he tunneled sideways, putting some distance between the fugitives and the motel. The dirt was cold, hard, wet, and endless, and Ruegger's telekinetic abilities weren't strong enough to eliminate the need for physical labor.
They hit an underground river and plunged into it unexpectedly. They allowed it to sweep them along. The river brought them into a network of natural caverns, which were very dark indeed. Ruegger helped Danielle out of the water and they lay along the rocky shore in silence, dripping wet, catching their breath.
Danielle laughed. "We should do that more often."
Ruegger moved their two briefcases out of the way and threw his arm around her. "I'm glad you feel that way. It's gonna be hell getting out of here."
He lay down, feeling the smooth stone against his back, and Danielle rested her head on his chest. It was so peaceful down here, if dark. He wondered when and if he'd ever be able to return to New York, but found to his surprise that he didn't care. New York had haunted his dreams for too long.
“You know,” she said, and there was a thoughtful quality in her voice that made him wary.
“Yes?” he said.
“Well, we’re in the dark, underground, with only the babble of a subterranean river for sound …”
“So?”
“Now might be the perfect time for you to tell me your story.”
“My story?”
“Don’t be dense. Your past. Your history. Everyone else knows so much about it—Veliswa, Hauswell, Ludwig, Malie—but I don’t know anything. I’m tired of not knowing about you, babe. About what you’ve been through, who you are. Your famous dark period. Everything.”
He heard the sincerity in her voice, and the pain. He sympathized. Still …
“I’m sorry, Dani, but … I’m not ready,” he said.
In the background, the river babbled. Danielle let out a long breath.
“So, what now?” she said.
“On to Las Vegas,” he said. Both knew that’s where Hauswell would be. It’s where the old vampire based his criminal operations out of. “Time to find out who killed Ludwig.”
Chapter 11
Bastard!
Kristen skulked past Vistrot's many guards and soldiers. For their part, they took little notice of her; as the Titan’s concubine, she was as common a sight to them as they were to her.
She flew past them, this little blond girl in a tight T-shirt and miniskirt by Gianni Versace, until she reached the end of the corridor, where one of the two doormen opened the door for her, and stormed into Vistrot's office.
He was on the phone, of course. He was always on the phone.
Before she could get a word out, he lifted a finger to command her silence. God, she hated that. Early on, though, he'd instilled in her a respect for his powers. If she interrupted him now, he'd only use his psychic abilities to silence her. She didn't like that at all—drifting in your own consciousness while someone else controlled your body. It was a terrible feeling, a violation. And she was only human (more or less), after all. She could not counter his psychic abilities with her own. She had other abilities, though.
She folded her arms across her skinny chest and tapped a foot incessantly. He shifted uncomfortably under her glare. Good.
She and Vistrot had been lovers since the 1950s. Back then he'd had a regular harem, and when he'd seen her—a little pouting fifteen-year-old with a bow in her hair—sipping on a cream soda alone (dejected would be a better word) in an ice-cream parlor, he'd known he must add her to his collection.
So, in typical Titan sensitivity, he'd kidnapped her. He thrust all those old lavish gifts upon her, clothes and cars and jewels and servants, in an attempt to sooth her, not that it had worked. But a strange thing occurred during her first month of imprisonment. She and Vistrot, all four hundred pounds of him, had fallen in love—and, after a year, he'd disbanded his harem at her request.
She'd demanded that he send money to her grief-stricken parents and he'd done it. She'd demanded an apartment for herself and a checking account and he'd done it. He'd done everything she asked him to do and more.
One thing she'd never asked for was a taste of his immortal blood; she hadn't wanted that gift. He would just have to live with her aging self. Then the second strange thing developed. It turned out that by taking his juices into her on a regular basis, she'd become somewhat immortal herself. She didn't have his telekinesis, amazing strength or recuperative abilities, but she did not age. She still looked to be the fifteen-year-old girl he'd fallen for all those years ago, even if she was now ancient. God alone knew how old Vistrot was; it was not something he spoke of.
Sometimes she craved for her old mortal life back, even cried over it, but she loved him too much and couldn't bear the thought of leaving him. Every now and then, in the early years, he'd had his little indiscretions, but she'd put an end to that.
And that's what she would do now.
Into the phone, Vistrot was saying, "Now, listen, Junger. It's a shame about your tomb ... sarcastic? ... yes, that was ... now shut up ...you left the bodies—you killed them in the first place!—and you deserved punishment, both of you ... Yes, so I commanded the massacres. I wasn’t going to tell Jean-Pierre that. So what that he thought you were supposed to kill Ruegger and Danielle? It was a necessary lie. Do you want him to know the truth? Yes, I'm quite aware you don't know it, either ... Is that a threat? I'd have you killed before you got to the first sub-level and you know it ... No, there's no general contract out on them. That was just a rumor that I spread to ease suspicion. Jean-Pierre is the only one assigned to kill them, just as you are the only ones assigned to do what you're doing. Now do it."
He slammed the phone down, shook his head as if the conversation had made him nauseous, and took a sip of the sherry on his desk. He glanced up at Kristen and smiled. How adorable he looked with that big cunning baby-face and those bright eyes and that cruel, sensuous mouth.
"It's an unexpected pleasure to see you at work at this time of night, darling," he said in his rich baritone voice. "You should visit more often, really. Please, take a seat, my dear."
"I don't think so. How can you look so smug! You're cheating on me, Augustine Michael Vistrot, I know you are, you bastard."
"Nonsense. Now calm down and be rational. You have such a temper. Please, would you like me to send for a drink or something? Care for a cigar?"
She grabbed the big cigar-box and hurled it to the floor, then flew over the desk, wrapped her arms about him and kissed him square on the lips, darting her tongue into his age-old mouth. She teased at his lips a little, tugged on the lower one, then bit it. Then bit it hard, drawing blood. Before he could react, she was back on the other side of the massive desk, glaring at him.
"I can taste her in your mouth, Auggie-dear."
He put a handkerchief to his lip and sighed, his great shoulders rising up and down slowly. He looked so incredibly guilty and hurt she just wanted to sweep it all under the rug and embrace him. She held herself back with difficulty.
"You're cheating on me," she repeated.
"Never. How can you even think that?"
"It's true, isn't it? I thought all that was over years ago! How could you?"
"But I never—"
"You fucking liar! You never spend any time with me anymore, Auggie. Never. Not since that damn war in Europe began and that ... that Scouring! And now that we're in hiding from the Scourer—I never get to go anywhere with you."
She stared into his big blue eyes and weakened a little. He looked so hurt and so sincere in his own condescending way. As she watched, the cut on his lip healed and
he licked the blood away. Oh, what he could do with that tongue!
"We haven't ... made love ... not like we used to, in six weeks!” she said. “I'm going out of my mind. And if you weren't sleeping with some slut you would be too! How can you say nothing's wrong?"
He focused his mind on the toppled cigar box, lifted it and the scattered cigars with his mindthrust and placed them back on the desk.
"You're so sweet," he said. "So pure. You're the purest thing in my life. I hate to see you upset. Please ... oh, don't cry. Please don't cry. Oh, baby, come here."
She came to him, hating the tears that welled up in her, and sat in his lap while he put his big warm arms around her. "Don't do this to me," she sobbed. "I love you."
"You know I love you, too, baby."
She balled her fists and beat at his chest. "You love your work more than you could ever love me! You're always promising we'll take a vacation ... go to Hawaii like we used to ... but we never do." She collapsed against him. "We never do. You never have time for me anymore. Never."
He stroked her cheeks, his hands so excruciatingly tender, and ran a strong hand through her golden hair. "You know I love you more than my work, but these are times of great peril—great peril. Soon things will be different, you'll see. Very different. The whole structure of our world will change, and, if we play our cards right, we'll come out on top and never have a care in the world again. Don't you see? I'm doing this for us. It'll be wonderful, every day a delight, and we'll spend all the time in the world together. How would you like to get married?"
She gasped. She so wanted to believe what he was saying, but how could she? He was such an adept liar.
"Do you mean it?" she said.
"Of course I do." He kissed her forehead.
At his touch, she could feel the stirring in her, the longing. She played with his tie, kissed his throat, ran her hands along the back of his big bald head, squirming in his lap until she could feel him hardening, then she slid a hand down and undid his zipper, stroking the sensuous, knobby tube of flesh that popped out.
"No," he said, shaking his head, tearing her away from him. "Now's not the time."
She slapped him hard and hopped off his lap.
"That's it," she growled. "I know you're cheating on me now. When have you ever turned me down? You're probably afraid you can't keep it up because you just screwed that whore, whoever she is!"
"It's not true,” he said, but he was lying and they both knew it. "Look," he said after a silence, "if I ever did cheat on you it wouldn't be because I loved another."
"Oh, don't you give that men-have-urges crap. Maybe I have urges, too. Maybe I've acted on them! What do you think of that?"
"Please don't say that. If I ever found out you were cheating on me ..."
"Yes? You'd do what, exactly? The same thing I'm doing now that you're cheating on me? I'd like to see it. So go on, explain why you're breaking my heart."
"It's not like you think."
"Oh, so you admit it!"
"No! Calm down. It's the future I'm thinking of. If ever I did something ... behind your back ... it would only be because I loved you, because I'm trying to ensure our future together. It's part of what I was trying to explain ... It's complicated—"
"You're a liar! You don't really love me, do you? Do you! Well, you'll regret this, I swear to God!"
"Kristen, baby, don't do anything foolish. Promise me!"
"Oh, and I'm expected to keep my promises? Ha!"
She stormed out of the room, hearing him call after her but not caring one fucking fig, brushed furiously past his soldiers and guards in her stolid march to the elevator. Reaching in her purse—such a little girl's purse, she realized suddenly—she whipped out the phone and ordered her limo to pick her up, and by the time she was outside, it was there.
"Take me to the albino's," she ordered.
The limo stopped in front of Jean-Pierre’s eight-story hovel and Kristen hopped out, entering the building. It oughta be torn down, she thought. Put out of its misery.
As she stepped into the main hall, she noticed a horrible deathly stench in here and could see many dried-up trails of blood. Something horrible had happened here, it was obvious. A few of the albino's vagrant minions hung about, but there weren't as many of them as usual, and some looked to be nursing serious wounds. And, Christ, it smelled awful.
She found him in the Hooked Room, in a corner, slumped over in a little ball, pulling his knees into himself. He was naked, covered in blood and crying. It was clear to Kristen that he'd recently run through the gauntlet of the hooks and chains and various blades, trying to drive away his obsessive thoughts.
Crouching beside him, she laid a hand on his shoulder. Though he must have known she was there, he jumped.
"Go away.”
"No.” She grabbed him under the armpit and tried to pull him to his feet, but he wouldn't budge. She collapsed on the bloody floor with the effort. "What is it, baby? Why've you done this to yourself?"
"They've all left me," he muttered, his green eyes cloudy and wet and far away. "Or they will soon, even Byron. He can't resist that bitch. And Danielle, gone with Ruegger unless I kill them both ... And Veliswa, I never thought she'd leave me, of all people. We've been lovers for a hundred years. Met in Paris, actually. I even think on some level she loves me. How foolish ..."
Kristen slapped him, hard, and a vague clarity returned to his eyes.
"You're rambling, Jean-Pierre. Stand up. Come on, let's go for a nice cappuccino." She grabbed him again and lifted, and this time he rose, slowly, his bare back sliding against the rough wall.
"They're all gone to me," he said.
What could've caused this?
Ever since she'd realized Vistrot was cheating on her, she'd been having an affair with Jean-Pierre, whom she'd known forever in conjunction with the Titan. It was a sisterly love she felt toward the albino, but their affair was enough to relieve her frustrations. At least she was honest with him, and he went along with their little arrangement for his own reasons. Probably her youthfulness reminded him of Danielle (although Kristen was actually older, at least time-wise), but it could be something else.
But this ...
She'd seen him just the other day and he'd been fine. Something traumatic must have happened. He never let his feelings show when he was around others; only when alone with himself did the facade shudder, and he must have been alone with himself for far too long for him to be in this state. He hadn't even straightened up when she'd come into the room, and that was all too uncharacteristic.
"I'm not gone," she whispered, and embraced him. "I'll always be here for you." She kissed his nearly hairless chest and tugged at his one silver nipple ring gently.
The corners of his mouth slid up just a little. Thinking that maybe a little of the old two-headed-beast would make him feel better, she sank to her knees before him and started stroking his member.
"No.” He pushed her away. "Sex isn't the answer to everything, Kristen. You're so immature sometimes, you really are. Some wounds are too deep."
She stood up and slapped him again. "Never push me unless I want you to!" Still, she was pleased that he seemed more his old self. "Ah, my poor, passionate, tragic Frenchman ... what am I going to do with you?"
"Is that why you want me? Because I'm tragic? If I got over Danielle, would you still love me?"
"Of course. But, wait ... you love me?"
He moved to a counter and lit a Pall Mall. How regal he looked, standing there, naked, covered in blood, but unbent and strong.
"To what end?" he said. "The feelings aren't there, not in that way. You love Vistrot and I Danielle. I'll say the same thing I said to Veliswa: you're like a sister to me. I'd never let any harm come to you."
She sighed, lit a cigarette herself, a Virginia Slim. It seemed that he felt the same way about her as she did towards him. At least he was being honest. But, ah, how she wanted someone to really, truly love her. Vistrot did to a
n extent. But no matter what he said, his work was his first priority and always would be. In her dreams sometimes she imagined herself eloping with the albino, but this was just a schoolgirl fantasy, just grasping at straws because they were the only things that were real.
"Are you reading my thoughts?" she asked.
"I would never do that."
"So what do we do now, Jean-Pierre?"
"You started whatever it is between us because of what's going on between you and the Titan. If I rejected you now your dissatisfaction would remain; you'd only find a new outlet. So I won't turn you away, and ... now that you're the only one left for me ..." He shook himself, clearly trying to avoid slipping back to the way he'd been when she arrived. That state seemed so close, as if he'd collapse at any moment. "I don’t have the strength to turn you away. If either one of us leaves the other, it will be you."
"I'll never leave you, Jean-Pierre. Never. I may go back to Vistrot, I may stop sleeping with you ... but I'll always be here for you as a friend."
He smiled. "Never say always."
"How about that cappuccino?"
His smile became more seductive, and as he walked over toward her, she felt an electric thrill pass through her. He pressed himself against her, and their lips locked. She threw her arms about his sweaty, bloody torso, feeling herself grow wet instantly.
"No," she murmured, her eyes catching the hooks and chains. "Not here ..."
He led her into his bedroom. A stark testament to self-abnegation, at least it was devoid of blades and had a large mattress, if not a real bed. He lay her down on it, tore off her clothes and ravished her. She so loved to be ravished; Vistrot was much too gentle a lover.
Halfway through it, Jean-Pierre began to cry again, and she could see the shame and self-hatred in his face even as the sweat dripped from his brow. At first she was deeply annoyed. Then, as if his misery were contagious, she realized her own great unhappiness and began to cry as well. They resumed fucking savagely, this new emotion only fueling their lust. At the climactic moment, they came together, a first for them.