by Jack Conner
"We've got to warn Saskia,” he said.
"Lead the way."
Carrying their luggage, Ruegger and Danielle fought their way through the busy halls, flailing against the current—what the hell was going on?—to reach Saskia's suite on the top story, two floors above. Saskia's soldiers ranged everywhere here, some storming about, some grouped in pairs, guns ready. This was Saskia's domain; everything that happened on this floor related directly to his criminal interests. Usually it was busier here than the other three stories, but obviously Ruegger and Danielle weren't the only ones who'd foreseen bad tidings.
Guards stopped them.
"Take us to Saskia," Ruegger said.
The guards hesitated, then one said, “Come.” The guards led them down a hall into Saskia's office. At the little bar against one wall, Saskia bolted down vodka shots by himself while his guards waited listlessly, one keeping watch at the windows.
Saskia glanced up, coughing as if the vodka had gone down wrong. "Well, this is it, my friends. They've finally decided to have it out with me."
"So you're getting drunk?" Ruegger said.
"Don’t tell anyone. I’m not Muslim, but it pays to put on the act around here. Anyway, I’m just waiting for my ride. The helicopter should be here any minute. Have you ever seen my helipad?"
"We've landed on it before." It was on the roof.
"Ah, that's right. Well, would you like to come with me? Though I honestly doubt the abunka will bother you much—if they killed you it would look as if they are indiscriminate in their wrath, and they want to give the appearance of a holy war. Arrogant bastards."
"Thanks, but we'd only weigh you down. As you said, we'll manage."
"You're evacuating the hotel?" Danielle said.
"Yes, tourists and personal guests alike, all encouraged to leave,” Saskia said. “The least I can do for loyal patrons. Besides, this place probably won't be standing in the morning." He cocked his head and called to one of his guards, the one near the window: "Do I hear our ride?"
The man nodded, his gaze on the object of inquiry. "Should be here in a minute."
Saskia lifted the vodka bottle toward Ruegger. "Would you like to do one last shot with me?"
Ruegger obliged. After Ruegger had swallowed, Danielle downed a shot herself. By that time, the helicopter had drawn near and prepared to land. Ruegger could hear it through the ceiling.
Saskia’s eyes turned up. “Guess my ride’s h—”
The explosion shook the chamber. The aircraft fell to the clay roof of the hotel, missing the helipad but smashing through the ceiling to settle between floors, caught in the ragged hole it had made upon impact. Ruegger didn’t witness it, but he soon saw the proof as Saskia and the vampires ran into the hallway and watched what was left of the helicopter burn. Smoke filled the hall.
"Hells," coughed Saskia. "This is worse than you know."
Danielle wiped soot from her face. "What do you mean?"
Saskia drew them back into this office. "It means that the abunka have decided to use modern technology. Never before would they have shot an aircraft down; they would've tried to win without mechanical devices, using only machetes and the like. This is very bad." He collapsed onto a stool. "Well, let's not make this too dramatic. Not all is lost." He stood suddenly and called his men to him. Before addressing them, he turned to his guests. "I can give you five minutes before I come down. It looks like we're going to have to blast ourselves out the old-fashioned way, but I couldn't live with myself if I endangered you. So please, go now, and I hope to see you again soon, under better circumstances."
Ruegger didn’t like leaving his friend in such an emergency, but he knew that Saskia could take care of himself, and the last thing Danielle needed was another battle. Just the same …
“I can’t leave you,” he said.
“Go. I swear, if you stay—yes, believe it—I’ll kill myself. My honor demands nothing less. I could not risk the lives of my friends without need and go on. Only by leaving will you give me a chance at victory.”
Ruegger nodded, unsure how much this was true but suspecting it might be, and they said their farewells.
"Good luck," Saskia called out behind them.
The vampires emerged into the lobby amid colorful anarchy of the exodus. They stumbled outside, where it only seemed to be more crowded. The stench of camel dung was prevalent, and Danielle lit up a clove. They reached a taxi, its dented metal still smelling of the sun, and hopped in. The engine leapt to life, Ruegger said a few words to the driver, and they set off, the little white car seeming to ricochet from point to point. The lines on the road were little more than decoration.
Not far away, in the direction of Saskia's, gunfire erupted amid a maelstrom of explosions. Ruegger tensed.
“We had to leave him,” Danielle assured him. “It was the only way. Besides, if we’d died back there we couldn’t stop what’s going to happen. If we don’t find Ludwig’s killer …”
“I know.”
She glanced back. “I think we’re being followed.”
"Never a dull moment."
They held hands while the strange dusty city clanked by, letting the spices and street sounds lull them as they made their way to a hellchild carnival on the eve of war.
* * *
The taxi let them out in the lower-east side of town, located on the rise of a hill—the highest in the city—a wild area where corrupt oil millionaires and eccentric foreigners came to stay, enjoying their most depraved fantasies for pocket change. The pocket change being considerable, of course, so that certain undead elements thrived here amid massive adobe villas and Salvatore Dali-influenced bordellos, the desert and its dark-skinned demons waiting just beyond. And below.
Ruegger and Danielle leapt up the steps of a clay mansion painted a pastel red. Torches blazed on the porch, casting shadows across the pillars and the giant statue of a winged lion above the door, flame licking at its teeth and burning from its eyes.
The vampires stepped through the open door, hearing the cacophony of African tribal rock blasting its way out from the bowels of the mansion. As they made their way inside, they noticed the colored lights, the blacklit posters, the torches, and the pulsating projections thrown upon the walls in twisting gothic patterns. Aside from some glowing televisions and hip artistic couches, there was little furniture other than the bars. It was all very Western, which probably seemed exotic to the natives. The smell of opium, hash, sweat and sex flooded the halls, getting thicker the further down the vampires went.
They moved through the secret door, down the secret steps, and into an immense underground cavern of a basement. Pillars stood everywhere, as did torches. All manner of beings rubbed elbows here, from black-winged shades to glowering, suited mortals, from abunka to karula. Different pockets of the room performed different functions, from the crowded bar to the mosh pit to the moaning tangle of the orgy.
Ruegger and Danielle found a certain hallway—one of the many—and followed it until it became a sandy corridor snaking off into the busy darkness, wooden boards holding it up. Here is where the territory of this branch of the renegade abunka really began, and it was a joyous place where the more open-minded mingled and partied. Mortals came too, intrigued by the sex, drugs, and the possibility of meeting the bizarre. They arrived in legions, and they were easy prey not only for their flesh but their money. The ones who didn't get swindled or killed had the possibility of finding themselves, and they spread the word.
A bare-chested, blue-painted man blew flame from his mouth while in the shadows a human male was being sucked off by what seemed to be an under-aged girl, but who was surely an older-than-she-looked ghensiv. Some insectile, red-skinned creatures with tails and moist exoskeletons were pleasuring each other in a confused cluster in the middle of the path, and Ruegger and Danielle were obliged to step over them. A sorcerer with the head of a dog did tricks for the audience while his assistant picked their pockets.
Once
Ruegger and Danielle got lost among the maze of tunnels and found their corridor dead-ending into the upper portion of a gigantic atrium, where jandrows flew and swooped in great arcs, perching on comfortable landings that hung from the ceiling. Danielle found herself wondering if Maleasoel had ever been here.
Eventually they found themselves in another open chamber. A lavish sea-water aquarium lined one wall and speed metal crashed through the speakers. The mosh pit was larger and the perversions more wicked, but otherwise this room seemed very similar to the last. Mostly Americans gathered here, so it was more likely that they would find who they were looking for, or at least someone who knew where he was.
After forcing their way to the bar, they asked a bartender if she knew where Ciara was. The bartender could only spare a second, but she shouted an answer and turned back to the thirsty horde.
The vampires picked their way down another corridor, emerging into a smaller, dingier room, with jazz blooming from the speakers. They found Ciara reclining in a dark corner booth, opium smoke hovering over the table. Waiters and waitresses handed out menus designed for rarer pleasures. Ciara and a small group of baked friends lounged on the soft purple cushions, taking a breather before smoking some more.
Ciara was an abunka, long and black, dressed in a shimmering suit with a bright orange shirt beneath the dark jacket, and before him sat a small dusty jar filled with living fish. Part of the curse of the abunkan race was to crave the taste of fish from the sea, while at the same time knowing that salt water was toxic to them. Ciara seemed like a lot of New York jazz lounge cat mixed with a little Las Vegas snake-oil salesman. One of Ruegger’s many contacts, he smiled as the vampires approached.
"Made it out alive?" he said in raspy African-tinted English.
“We made it,” Ruegger said.
Ciara clapped his spindly hand on his knee, cufflinks glittering in the blue-ish light, and chuckled to himself. "You two look like you're still on honeymoon, you know. Warms the heart just to see you."
"We're not married," Danielle said.
Ciara's smile grew wider. "That sounded very pointed. I think that was a hint, my boy." When Ruegger didn’t reply, Ciara said, "Touched a nerve, did I?" The abunka pursed his dark lips. Blue light bounced off the gold rings on his fingers and played winsomely about his face.
"Shades don't get married,” Ruegger said.
"What of your dear departed friend Ludwig and his lovely bride?" asked Ciara, reaching into the jar in front of him with a pair of tongs and pulling out a squirming fish. He stuffed the fish's belly in his mouth and bit down gently, savoring the juices. Using what mindthrust he had, he stilled the fish's thrashings with a soothing, psychic finger.
"So what've you heard of Ludwig’s death?” Ruegger said. “Anything new?"
Ciara smacked his lips, set the fish skeleton down in a small pile of its predecessors, and wiped at his mouth with a pink napkin. He nodded guiltily. "I'm afraid so.”
"Well?"
Ciara rolled his eyes. "It was those two Balaklava, wasn't it—Junger and Jagoda—that killed him? Well, I happen to know that Testopha was killed by none other than the dynamic duo. Unfortunately, this knowledge comes too late to make reparations between the karula and the abunka. War often isn't something that can be stopped by something so trivial as truth."
Ruegger exchanged a glance with Danielle, and she felt just as surprised as he looked.
"Then Testopha wasn't Scoured," he said.
"Not unless the Balaklava work for the Scourer,” Ciara said.
This was interesting, but it didn’t jive with what they’d learned in Las Vegas.
"The Scouring doesn't usually work that way,” Ruegger pointed out. “It works through local hit-teams."
"You speak of the Scouring as if it's a natural phenomenon, my boy, and I admit, it has the right proportions—relative to the Community, of course. At last count, I've heard that it's claimed over a hundred immortal lives, not to mention those killed in its rather chaotic aftermath. See, it always kills a crime lord, or someone in a position of power—every now and then a religious figure—which causes insanity afterwards as that position is battled or grieved over. It's my opinion that that is the intention of the Scouring, not the immediate death of its victim."
"You've given it some thought."
"I have ... I have." Suddenly Ciara seemed weary. "Please tell me you're staying awhile." His face turned bitter then, shark-like anger rising to the placid surface. "If you go tonight, you might miss the city burning. Fucking fanatics, I don't understand it! I'm an abunka and I don't hate the karula, do I? No. We eat fish, have dark skin, live underground and they don't, but so fucking what?"
Ruegger nodded gently. "It's all connected to the Scouring somehow. Junger and Jagoda must be working for the one who's been pulling the strings. The Scourer. We know they're working for Vistrot, but I don’t see him as the Scourer. Anything else, maybe, but that just doesn’t seem like him. Why would he want to eradicate crime and religion? Junger and Jagoda must be working for someone else, as well. Do you have any idea who?"
Ciara licked his fingers, sucking with wet smacking sounds, then shook his head. "I have absolutely no idea, although I do know that the Balaklava were hired not too long ago to do some artwork for Roche Sarnova, which is the first contact that I know of that they've had with the outside world since their days in Jamaica. It’d seem possible that Sarnova could be their employer. But again, I don't know."
Carefully, Ruegger said, "Do you know anything of Hauswell?"
"He's dead, isn't he. Why, do you think that was just a ruse?"
"Could it be that he's here somewhere?"
Ciara looked at him steadily. "Anything's possible. He could be staying with us under an assumed name, I suppose, but I wouldn't know him if I saw him. In fact, you two are probably the only ones in this part of the world that would recognize him." He lowered his voice still further. “However, I will … make inquiries.”
It would have to do, Danielle supposed. She knew that Ciara would pass the word to Hauswell. Now it was up to Hauswell to make contact.
The abunka nodded, seeing the vampires’ understanding. "Well, I'm sure you'd like to get some rest and unpack. Please, come visit me later, if you have time." He snapped his fingers and a young boy stepped out of the shadows, bare-chested, with various-colored designs painted on his hairless torso. He was silent, but his eyes were sober. "Gabriel, would you please show my friends to a room?"
Gabriel glanced them over, cocked his head and marched off. Ruegger and Danielle hurried after. Gabriel led them through a tunnel that turned out to be a shortcut back up to the mansion. He showed them to a room and left in silence.
Ruegger looked out the window while Danielle shut the door and reclined on the bed.
“Very informative,” she said. “Sad, all of it, but informative.”
“What are you thinking?”
She shook her head and smiled. “Nothing, really. And everything. Strange to say this, after what we’ve been through, but this place is depraved. Despite that, I actually like the people here. It’s the atmosphere. Drugs and sex and violence.” She patted the bedside beside her. “Now you’re the one that looks gloomy. Come here, love. Let me see if I can cheer you up.”
* * *
Later, after they'd broken the bed in and were lying around on it smoking cigarettes, Danielle nudged him.
"What about that breakfast you promised me?"
He crossed to the window and looked down on the sprawling city. Danielle joined him. She could see a building on fire far away and thought it might be Saskia's, but she couldn't be certain. Several buildings burned.
"I'm hungry, too," he said.
They dressed and followed Gabriel's corridor down to the halls of the renegade abunka, and from there drifted over to the mosh pit, which was slowly becoming as much an orgy as the orgy, though the sex was a little more violent. The vampires stayed to watch the band for a bit, though they decl
ined to dance.
What do mortals think of all this? Danielle wondered. If this was their only glimpse of the immortal community, they must think all shades were debauched. The shame was that, say, fifty percent of the shades here were decent folk like Ciara, who stood head and shoulders (morally) above most of the members of the Community. The thought saddened her.
"Here, I saw a food vendor just down the way,” Ruegger said. “Breakfast, remember?”
They ordered beer and goat meat in a wrapper and sat down on a dining rug in a quiet corner of the area. She downed her beer quickly, trying to cool herself down, and drank the next one at a more leisurely pace. The goat wraps, as it turned out, weren’t half bad.
“Still hungry?” he said.
He didn’t mean for food, she knew.
“Insatiable.”
After finishing their meal, they moved through the familiar din of the party, drifting until they found a little wooden stand not far from what looked like a theater of sorts, with hundreds, maybe thousands of seats planted along a slope with a stage at the bottom. Something was going on down there, but the vampires didn't pay much attention.
They stopped before the wooden stand, where a few mortals watched them. One smiled and yelled something in salesman-ese ("Come and enjoy yourselves, ladies and gentlemen—tonight may be the END OF THE WORLD!"), but the vampires were already there. The mortal who ran this booth made his living off selling intelligence, mainly catering to immortals who, like Ruegger and Danielle, preferred to feed only off the scum of humanity; the man had a small army of scouts infiltrate the hallways regularly on the look-out for tasty evildoers. The scouts would keep tabs on these villains' locations, selling this information to shades.
An hour later, after Ruegger and Danielle had fed properly on a murderer, they returned to the theater area and bought a pair of tickets. As it turned out, a circus sideshow run by a shade named Maximillian was touring the world's seedier quarters; they had just come from Calcutta and tomorrow they would leave for New York. Apparently, the so-called freaks (a word they themselves used) belonged to a troupe called The Funhouse of the Forsaken. The odd flock bought some popcorn and settled in for the show.