I noticed one nearby—he/she/it had reflective white skin and was tall, with black eyes and a tuft of white and green leaflets shooting out at odd angles from the top of their head.
Hunh, so that’s what a daikon demon looks like.
It’s amazing the things that pop into your head when you think you might be about to die.
Daphne screeched behind me, breaking our impasse.
The entire horde moved towards me as one as Daphne closed in behind me, her dreadlocks streaming around her head with a life of their own.
If Rynn asked me to pinpoint when everything became a disaster, this was definitely it.
“You’ve got a great art collection,” I tried.
Daphne smiled, but it looked more like she was baring her teeth—serrated teeth. Son of a bitch, what the hell was it with supernaturals and the sharp teeth? Rynn better not be hiding serrated teeth somewhere—and speaking of incubi, where the hell was Artemis?
“You know, it’s funny you stealing those artifacts from me. Considering you stole them for me in the first place,” Daphne said.
“Whoa? I’m sorry? I did not steal anything for you—especially not these,” I said, shaking the bag holding the artifacts.
Daphne only smiled. “That’s not what my paper trail says.” Louder, for the crowd, she added, “Not only does Mr. Kurosawa’s Owl steal dangerous artifacts, she sneaks back in to try and cover her mistakes.”
The way she was smiling . . . she knew I wasn’t the thief; what’s more, she knew I was being set up . . .
“Funny, considering you’re the one holding the cursed artifacts.” I knew as soon as I said it that it’d been the wrong thing to say. Daphne was way too happy about it.
“No dear, that would be you. And I was only doing the dragon’s job retrieving them from reckless and incompetent human hands.”
Screw reasoning, it was a losing battle. Whatever Daphne was angling for with the rest of the supernaturals here, she had the upper hand. Time to get the hell out.
For once, Captain was two big steps ahead of me. He bolted through what I’d assumed was a broom closet. It wasn’t—it was some sort of servants’ wing.
At this point I was game for anything. I raced after my cat.
Daphne screeched, and it sounded like the entire ballroom picked up after me. That worked in my favor—a few hundred monsters all trying to squeeze through a narrow doorway at the same time would slow the mob down.
Captain skidded to a stop along the hardwood floor halfway down the hallway and lifted his nose up to sniff the air.
“I thought you knew where you were going!” I said.
He mewed and bolted down a left arm of the smaller passage.
I swore. Not the direction I would have picked, but here’s hoping Captain could smell freedom better than me. Not that I had many options left . . . no windows or vents, and I could hear that damn horde right behind me.
At the end of the passage, Captain stopped again and started sniffing and scratching madly at the bottom of a door.
I shook my head. “Dude, I’m trusting you,” I said, and opened it. Captain shot through, and I followed after. No more than three steps in, rotting lily of the valley hit me, right before Captain howled.
Shit. Using the door handle as an anchor, I stopped. “Bad cat! Get back here!”
It was too late though. Captain launched himself at the vampire standing at the other end—dressed in a server’s outfit, of all things.
Well, local vampires wouldn’t know about the wonder of a Mau’s poisonous bite. This vampire did though. He waited until the last minute of Captain’s leap, then, faster than a human would have been able to, caught him in a canvas bag.
Damn it. Had to be one of Alexander’s. I scanned the room for something to attack the vampire with—a chair, painting, baseball-sized stone sculpture . . . The poker at the fireplace caught my eye. That’d do.
Captain shrieked, and the vampire swore in French as my cat did his best to tear his way out of the bag.
Before I could launch myself at the fireplace poker though, a bag found its way over my head—the same kind they’d caught Captain with.
I yelled and tried to push it off, but a cord pulled it tight around my neck. The lily of the valley scent got stronger as someone, not much taller than me, leaned in to whisper, “Miss me much, little birdie?” Female. Valley girl accent.
Bindi. Psychotic surfer vampire chick from hell. Before I could throw an insult at her, a baseball bat collided with my stomach, knocking the wind out of me and doubling me over.
I held my breath against the vampire pheromones. OK, Alix, think. Three vampires: Bindi holding me, the one with the baseball bat, and the one trying to contain Captain. Captain and I could manage three vampires; all I had to do was get out of the bag.
I threw my head back where I thought Bindi’s face might be and was rewarded with a crunch of cartilage and Bindi’s resulting growl. She let go of my arms, and I started to untie the burlap hood.
A sickly sweet smell hit me that wasn’t vampire pheromone. More like sweetened acetone. Ether. They’d doused the bags with ether. Shit.
I raced to get the bag off, but it was no use—the ether and pheromones permeated my lungs and nose. With the two of them mixed, I’d pass out any moment. “Captain?” I tried.
I got a mew, but it was faint; they’d doused him too.
The last thought that hit me was I hoped they didn’t hand us over to Daphne’s horde. Then again, considering my last conversation with Alexander, the horde might be the gentler way to go.
10
Vampires of the Sunset Strip
Time: No fucking clue
Place: Urine, beer, and gross negligence of eardrums say nightclub
Or the basement of a dive bar, take your pick. It was the mix of beer and urine that gave it away. Funny how alcohol dulls the smell of urine . . . I’ve never wondered about that relationship before, but there you go.
I leaned my head back against the concrete wall as Captain let out another forlorn mew.
Only his head poked out the top of a burlap bag. He wasn’t impressed. So unimpressed that a few minutes earlier, he’d decided to pee all over the bag. And himself. I added ammonia to the regular dive bar smells that permeated the closet-sized room. Way to get the message across to our vampire captors, Captain. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
“You realize this is all your fault? You were supposed to find us an exit, not vampires.”
He meowed again and looked at me expectantly.
I held up my hands, both tied with a zip cord. “I get it, you want out, but I can’t exactly help you here.” I’d already tried slipping out of them, but the vampires had gotten smart since last time. They’d switched from plastic to metal.
Assholes.
At least I couldn’t smell any rotting lily of the valley, though that could just mean they had something worse in store.
Try to think about the positives, Alix . . .
Well, Captain was in here with me, but my bag, along with the two cursed items and one very authentic-looking fake, was gone.
That was positive, right? I couldn’t accidently curse myself anymore.
Oh hell, I give up.
The door opened and Bindi stepped through. I held my breath against the pheromones that assaulted my nose.
Vampires . . . how do I say this accurately? They’re like the cockroaches of the supernatural world. Vampires hold the exalted position of being one of the only supernaturals that starts off human. Most of what you’ve heard in the movies or read in stories is exaggerated and overblown. First off, vampires don’t have superstrength. They excrete a narcotic-like pheromone that delivers their victims into a euphoric high where they’d be hard-pressed to throw a punch, let alone run. It’s also more addictive than heroin. Vampire junkie
s, as I like to call them, are those who follow their vampire sugar daddies around waiting for the next hit.
As for the rest of the legends? Holy water is a complete bust, so are crosses, though sunlight has its uses. It depends how old the vampire is—the really old ones go up in seconds, but the young ones still sustain nasty burns from a good dose of UV light. Same thing goes for the allergic reactions to garlic.
Like cockroaches though, you might kill a few, but most just crawl off into a dark hole to lick their wounds, breed, and return another day.
Oh yeah, and they hate Captain. Maus were bred by the ancient Egyptians to attack vampires on sight. Their bites are poisonous to vampires and elicit one hell of an allergic reaction. As evidenced by the scar left on Alexander’s face, the poison nullifies some of the healing—and Alexander was a few hundred years old.
They like to play dress-up too; designer suits, expensive shoes—you know, Eurotrash. Though apparently Bindi was in a class of her own. She was still dressed like a university surfer chick in a pair of dock shorts, tank top, and flip-flops, with her shoulder-length blond hair in tangled waves.
“Wow, they let you walk around dressed like that? What, did Alexander add a surfing department to his cronies? You look ridiculous, by the way.”
As I expected, Bindi didn’t take the jab well. Her mouth twisted into a snarl—not a subtle one but a full-on, fang-baring snarl.
Bindi was what I like to call batshit crazy. She’d been a few baskets shy of a picnic when human, and vampirism hadn’t helped. An archaeologist PhD student by trade, she’d been roped into a plot to steal artifacts for a powerful vampire in exchange for being turned. Already well on her way to full-blown sociopath, Bindi had killed a bunch of her innocent dig mates to prove just how dedicated she was.
She balled up her fists and stepped inside the closet, but she was very careful to stay out of range of Captain, who, for his part, had doubled his efforts to tear his way out of the bag. He’d escalated from hissing to spitting.
“I was sent to tell you the master is on his way,” Bindi said.
I made a derisive noise. “The only people in the world who call Alexander ‘master’ are you and him, and that includes vampires. Now, go woman up and start calling him ‘dipshit’ and ‘asshole’ like the rest of us—”
She snarled and took a step closer towards me. “Stop screwing your face up and show some respect.”
I snorted. “Or what?”
“Or I’ll eat your cat and make . . .” Bindi suddenly looked disgusted and glanced around the room. “What is that smell?” she said, and covered up her nose.
“What—the cat pee? Your fault for not including a litter box.”
“Oh my God, that is the foulest—” I didn’t hear the rest as Bindi succumbed to a coughing fit.
Hunh. Note to self: Captain’s pee was bad for vampires too.
Being a young vampire, Bindi’s pheromones hadn’t hit me full force yet. With her doubled over, maybe I could crawl out of here—at least until I could find some wire cutters.
Captain wiggled in his bag and bunny-hopped towards a still-doubled-over Bindi. I held my breath, hoping she didn’t notice as he made two more hops, each time wiggling furiously, then launching the sack towards his target. He latched on to her bare leg.
Bindi straightened, the anger and viciousness replaced by panic and excruciating pain. She shrieked and dropped to her knees . . . which was a stupid idea on her part, since it allowed Captain to sink his teeth in deeper—which he did.
Her leg began to turn an unhealthy shade of purple. “Get it off me, get it off me!” she yelled, batting at Captain’s head.
“You know that only pisses him off,” I offered. “If you stay still, he might let go.” He wouldn’t, but hopefully the level of pain was high enough that Bindi would believe anything.
She continued to shriek, but her struggling lightened a notch and she stopped smacking him. “It’s not working!”
Let’s hope the pain was real bad. I held up my hands. “Untie the zip cord and I can get him off.” I’d actually untie Captain so he could get his claws in. I’d seen vampire’s pass out from Captain bites before.
“Do you think I’m stupid?” she said.
Considering you let the vampire-hunting cat bite you? “It’s that, or let him keep going,” I said. The entire calf and knee were purple now. “You know his bites leave scars—look at Alexander’s face.”
That did it. Red tears streaming down her face, she leaned towards me. Nothing like pain to cloud judgment.
“Enough!”
I turned my attention to the doorway, where Alexander stood in all his Eurotrash glory. Bindi looked too, but she was still whimpering and grasping her leg, trying to block the purple color now creeping up her thigh.
I gave Alexander my best nonchalant look, but the sickly sweet lily of the valley ebbing off him hit me. So much so that Alexander, with chestnut hair that fell a little past his shoulders, struck me as moderately attractive, even with the pink scar marring the right side of his face. His expensive suit and leather shoes were worth more than my Winnebago.
Like Bindi, Alexander noticed the smell, barely hiding his disgust as he pulled out a handkerchief and held it to his nose.
I nodded at Bindi, still whimpering with Captain attached to her leg. “You’re really letting the dress code slide, Alexander.”
He frowned and tsked as he took in the room before turning to Bindi. “I thought I told you to stay away from the Mau,” he said, his thick French accent on full display. As far as I could tell, Alexander had been made roughly three hundred years ago in Paris. He’d picked up English but had never lost the accent.
Bindi stopped whimpering long enough to snarl at me. “She tricked me.”
“I tricked you? Oh come on, Bindi.” I held up my wrists. “I’m a prisoner—of vampires. Of course I tried to trick you.” I turned my attention to Alexander. “Come on, you must be desperate if you let her in—”
He strode over to where Bindi—weeping now—was cradling her leg, then he picked up Captain by the scruff of his neck. “Get the cat off, or I will do it for you.”
I swore under my breath and hoped Captain listened this time. I whistled twice. Captain turned his bright yellow eyes on me. “Captain, heel—let go of the vampire,” I said.
He growled, deep and throaty.
“Let go now, otherwise the other vampire is going to eat you.”
That did the trick, but not the way I’d hoped. Captain had been so wrapped up in trying to devour Bindi’s leg that he hadn’t noticed Alexander. Now he did. Captain released Bindi, let out a howl and, contorting his body, made a grab for Alexander.
Alexander shook Captain and held both my cat and the cat pee–drenched bag away from his suit, thereby avoiding Captain’s teeth. I breathed a sigh of relief. As much as I would have enjoyed seeing Alexander’s hand ravaged by Captain’s teeth, there were now two vampires, and I was still tied up and starting to feel the effects of pheromones. I didn’t like Captain’s odds right now if he pissed off Alexander—as it was, I already didn’t like our odds.
Alexander deposited Captain’s bag beside me and turned to deal with Bindi, who was still weeping. I couldn’t see or hear what was said, but she immediately got up and fled the broom closet.
Alexander closed the door behind her, drowning out the music as Captain continued to growl. He removed something from his pocket . . . it looked like something to fit over my mouth.
In spite of my haze, my panic nerves still lit up. I twisted away as Alexander fit the contraption over my head, but that’s the bitch about vampire pheromones—they zap your strength.
I held my breath until my lungs were burning and I couldn’t hold out anymore . . . there was no more trace of rotting lily of the valley. A gas mask? I tested the air, taking in a deeper breath
. Sure enough, it was clean.
What the hell was Alexander giving me a gas mask for?
It must have registered in my eyes, because Alexander said, “See? I am not unreasonable. Now we may have a civilized conversation on . . . how would you say? Fair ground?”
I glared. Alexander planned on having a civilized conversation with me about as much as Captain planned on curling up on his lap. “What the hell are you up to?” I said.
Alexander tsked as he pulled up a footstool and sat on the far side of the room— about as far as he could get from a screeching Captain. “So skeptical and angry for one so young.”
Alexander and I have a history. Before I’d known Alexander was a vampire, he’d been a client of mine. A good client; he’d never asked questions, paid me on time, and had been gifted with more money than sense. Or at least that’s what I’d assumed when he’d asked me to retrieve a sarcophagus from underneath Ephesus, telling me under no circumstances to open it because of a vampire. This part I’m not proud of: assuming he was short a few baskets of a picnic, hiding treasure, or both, I’d opened the sarcophagus. In broad daylight. The ancient vampire had dissolved into ash, putting me on Alexander’s shit list for vaporizing his Grand Poobah.
Resealing the sarcophagus and collecting payment before they could get the lid off probably hadn’t helped matters.
Regardless, I knew from experience that the best way to get information out of Alexander was to piss him the hell off. Vampire Psychology with Owl 101.
“Go to hell,” I told him.
Alexander didn’t get mad. He smiled, just enough to expose the tips of his fangs, and held up my purse-turned-cat-carrier. “I wish to know why were you stealing these particular artifacts from the siren this evening.”
Now, that was unexpected . . . and, to be honest, threw me for a loop. What did Alexander care about Daphne’s artifacts?
He jiggled the bag, waiting.
Alexander and his vampires hadn’t been at the party for me, they’d been after the artifacts as well. Now I knew why the case had been open and who was likely responsible for the fake. “What the hell do you want with the artifacts?” I said.
Owl and the City of Angels Page 20