Vampyres of Hollywood

by Adrienne Barbeau; Michael Scott

  “I didn’t know that, Captain.” Captain Barton was a practicing Methodist. Where was he getting this stuff?

  “Neither did I until this morning.” He hit a couple of keys on his computer and I could see a garish Web site reflected on the window behind his desk. “According to HollywoodGossip.com, some sort of drug-fueled orgy was going on in that place. Men, women, and animals. Or at least one animal, maybe a gorilla. The party got out of hand; someone went berserk, starting killing people. The animal got excited and started chewing on the bones—”

  “Whoa, Captain, I was there. That’s just so much bull—”

  “I guarantee you, Detective, that’s what’s going to be reported as honest-to-god truth on the noon news. There’ll even be a gorilla sighting in Beverly Hills.” His lips curled in what might have been a smile and I realized why he was probably going to be mayor someday.

  “I’d believe a gorilla in Beverly Hills,” I said.

  “And this department will make no comment. None,” he added for emphasis.

  “I hear you. I’m not talking to anyone.”

  “This town has a short attention span. Let the news stations get excited and run with it. It buys us time. Let’s move on for a moment.”

  He hit the wireless keyboard again and leaned over to look at the screen. Reflected in his glasses I saw a photo: Biblical Benny, aka Benzedrine Benny, aka a lot of other Bennys.

  “This Benny character will be back on the streets in a couple of hours. He called his parents and they called Thomas Mesereau—you know, the guy who defended Michael Jackson? Mr. Mesereau is talking about filing against the city, citing harassment, false arrest…theft.”

  “Theft?”

  “You took his cell phone,” Barton said mildly.

  “So that he could not communicate with the woman I was going to see…I gave it back to him when we picked him up this morning.”

  “Which brings me to his alibi for the time of the murder.” Barton read in silence for a moment, then looked up at me. “He claims he was being interviewed by you at the time that Eva Casale was being killed.”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but the Captain held up his hand. He had a Darth Vader Band-Aid on the tip of his little finger. “I’m not going to be able to keep him in custody much longer. I can throw a few misdemeanors at him: trading without a license, vagrancy—”

  “Littering,” I suggested, “tax evasion…”

  The Captain took me seriously and dutifully made a note of my suggestions; then he pushed the keyboard back under the desk and folded his hands together, interlacing his fingers. “But once the press finds out we’ve released him and we’re without a suspect in custody…”

  He didn’t have to finish what he was saying. I was basically up shit creek without a paddle—in a canoe with a hole in the bottom.

  “Talk to me about Ovsanna Moore and the girlfriend. Where do they fit into all this? How are they involved?”

  “Well, there’s no motive for any of the killings, and no opportunity as far as I can see. They’ve got alibis for two of the three previous murders and claim they have an alibi for last night, which I haven’t had time to check. Ovsanna Moore just admitted she thinks the killings may be related to a blackmail threat she’s been receiving over the past number of months.”

  The Captain straightened in his Aeron chair. “Did she report it?”

  I shook my head. “I asked her; she said she hadn’t because she didn’t think we’d be able to do anything about it. It was too vague a threat, she said.”

  “Maybe there is no threat?” He noticed me looking at Darth Vader and pulled the Band-Aid off his pinkie, tossing it in the waste-basket under his desk.

  “She says she has investors lined up willing to put something like fifty million into Anticipation. She was afraid that if news of the blackmail attempt got out, she’d lose the investment.” The more I repeated Ovsanna’s words, the less I was buying them. I was starting to think she’d been playing me.

  “So what was the threat—‘sell us the company or we kill people’?”

  “Not quite…more like ‘sell us a portion of the company or we kill people.’” The Captain sucked on the cut on his little finger and stared at me. I nodded. “It’s thin, I know.”

  “It’s not just thin, it’s a size zero.”

  “She sprung this on me this morning, and it sort of made a vague sense at the time.” I’d been puzzling over her bizarre statement as I drove over from Bel Air. And now, hearing it in my own words with a couple of cups of sludge from the department coffeemaker in me, it just didn’t make a whole lot of sense. “But why look for fifty-one percent of the company and not a total buyout? Why kill people on the periphery of her life and not those closer to her? Someone who had meaning to her?” I’d been played, all right. There were more holes in her story than in one of the paper snowflakes the Captain’s grandkids had cut out and taped to his wall.

  The Captain rummaged through the bottom right drawer of his desk and came up with a roll of adhesive tape. As he talked, he tore off half an inch and wrapped it around his pinkie. He sat back in his chair and then did what everyone who wears suspenders does: hooked his thumbs under them and pulled them forward. “She’s a movie star—which means she’s a drama queen. She has to be at the center of everything. So this is all about her. And secondly, you’re a cop. People lie to you.”

  The Captain was right. People see the badge and they start making up shit. It’s an occupational hazard. You can ask someone the time and they’ll lie to you or think it’s some sort of trick question.

  “This sounds like one of her movie scripts. We’re moving into fantasyland here, Peter. Why is she feeding you this line of bull if she’s not involved?”

  I started to shake my head. “I don’t know, Captain. But she just doesn’t feel right for it. Her alibis, for the first murders, at least, are solid. And what’s the motive? Except for Thomas DeWitte, she was barely connected to any of the vics. What does she stand to gain?”

  “Here’s what I’m thinking. We have the…the Cinema Slayer killings,” he was flipping pages on one of the murder books as he talked, “and then we have the two recent murders.” He pulled the other two murder books closer to him. “Three movie stars—not big stars, but stars nonetheless—killed. Even though the M.O.s were different, we’re pretty certain it’s one killer. And at some time or another they’d all worked for Ovsanna Moore. Then yesterday, Casale, the special effects woman, and this DeWitte character. These slayings look like they were made by the same hand—well, except for the teeth marks and who knows what the fuck that’s about at this point. But the viciousness of the slaughter, the total annihilation of the bodies, suggests the same perp for both. Neither one of these vics were actors, but both of them worked for Ovsanna Moore. There’s your connection right there.”

  “It’s a small town, Captain. You know that. Moore has been around a long time; she’s probably worked with half of Hollywood. Yes, there’s a connection, but what’s her motive? What does she stand to gain with these people gone?” I stood up and started pacing the room.

  “She could be guilty,” Captain Barton suggested.

  I started to shake my head. “I didn’t believe she is, but I’ve nothing to go on, other than my gut.”

  “Make sure that gut feeling is not just indigestion.” He glanced down at the notes. “Did you know that Miss Moore and Thomas DeWitte were romantically involved for a time?”

  “She said something about it, but I didn’t get any details.”

  “And did you know that Eva Casale had an affair with Maral McKenzie?”

  “Just rumors, nothing concrete,” I muttered, as I lied. That one had slipped right by me.

  “And the link is Miss Moore herself.”

  I remembered what my dad told me. At the end of the day it all came down to sex and money. I stopped pacing. “Who’ve you been talking to, Captain?”

  He allowed himself a self-satisfied smile. “I’ve
been a long time in this town. I’ve got my sources and I didn’t always just drive a desk.” He extracted a single sheet of paper from one of the murder books and pushed it toward me. “And of course, we have the witness statement.”

  “Witness statement?” I spun the page and scanned the dozen lines. Yesterday morning, Ovsanna Moore had threatened the life of Thomas DeWitte. A tiny little detail she’d forgotten to tell me. The only person you’re in danger from is me, Thomas. Fuck up one more time and you’re gone. Gone and never coming back.

  Ovsanna Moore had issued the threat less than twelve hours before Thomas DeWitte was butchered.

  The witness statement was made by Milla Taylor, the late Thomas DeWitte’s secretary.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Vampyres are physical creatures.

  I dropped a sugar cube of L’Occitane Green Tea with Jasmine into the bathwater and watched it fizz up under the Jacuzzi jets, their rumble drowning out the noise of the lone news helicopter still circling over the house. Probably KABC with nothing else to report on. I stepped into the tub and let my body collapse.

  We are a long-lived species, certainly, immune to many of the afflictions of Homo sapiens, not susceptible to colds and flus, allergies, or most diseases. Our metabolism is highly specialized, designed to metastasize blood, extract the nutrients needed to sustain our lives. Our hearts can be twice the size of human organs; our kidneys and livers are usually enlarged; our stomachs are tiny. We can eat and drink normal food, but it usually passes straight through the system. Less than half a pint of fresh human blood will sustain an adult vampyre for about a month. Some of the vampyre clans—the Nosferatu and Strigae—can live off animal blood; others, like the Bobhan Sith, can only survive on human blood. I’ve never come across a vegetarian vampyre, and although there have been a couple of attempts to synthesize blood, it just hasn’t worked. If you’re of a metaphysical frame of mind, you might think we need more than just the blood, we need the life essence. Over the years, I’ve become an expert on blood. I’m fascinated with this stuff that keeps us alive. I even spent time in the twenties working as a lab assistant to the legendary immunologist Reuben Kahn and later, much later, I anonymously helped fund research into Draculin, the blood-thinning drug that was developed from vampire bat saliva. Because when you strip away the mythology and the weirdos and the foolish legends and movie special effects, it is the act of drinking blood—or the ability to drink and extract nourishment from blood—that truly separates Homo sanguineous from Homo sapiens.

  It is said that the devil thrives because no one believes in him anymore; well, the same might be said of my kind. Just as the Neanderthal lived alongside the Cro-Magnon for a time, I think the vampyre probably shared the earliest cave fires with mankind. Man’s oldest legends are full of references to my breed, and we certainly lived and worked alongside him sometime in the first millennium. There are stories from that time about entire religions built around blood.

  And from the very beginning there have been hunters—usually self-appointed, self-righteous guardians of humanity. When the power of the Church became absolute, there was a concerted effort to wipe my race from the face of the earth. Vampyres were considered demons’ spawn, and the witch hunters went out armed with the Malleus Maleficarum in one hand and a stake in the other. Bounties were offered on vampyre kills by the most pious of parishes. Scores of unfortunate innocents were killed, their teeth knocked out and their decapitated heads presented for the bounty as vampyre skulls. I’ve heard similar stories of Apache hunters killing Mexican villagers and scalping them because their hair was sufficiently similar for it to be passed off as Indian scalps. Over the years, stories passing from one Hunter to another helped establish the certain methods of killing my race: impalement through only the heart or skull, decapitation, disembowelment, drowning, and, of course, burning.

  True Vampyre Hunters are rare now. Oh, there’s always some creative psychopath who will claim vampirism as a defense for murder—either he was one or he was killing one—but a real Hunter, a proper Hunter, well now, that’s a dying breed. Dying, but not dead. Not yet.

  I turned off the jets and took the box of matches from the shelf beside the tub to light a floating candle, then rested my head on the bath pillow and allowed the memories to come, moving back years, then decades, then centuries…to London.

  1888.

  Jack the Ripper was the last real Hunter I’d encountered. He was a vicious butcher, the way too many sadistic Warm can be. The Charlie Manson of his time. Jack was really after Mary Kelly, because he’d discovered that she’d been Turned by a mediocre French artist she’d posed for. The artist was a vampyre, but a Rogue who had abandoned his clan. He didn’t have the two shillings he’d promised the woman for posing, so he gave her something he claimed was much more precious. And he got dinner in return.

  I’m not sure if Mary completely Turned; from the stories I’ve heard, I don’t believe she did. But she did infect at least a dozen men and half a dozen women with a mild strain of vampirism before she died, and indeed, if Jack hadn’t killed her, we would have been forced to put her down ourselves. The last thing we needed was a plague of newly Turned vampyre trollops wandering the streets. I’m not old enough to remember the last time that happened, but the Vampyres of Stabiae destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum to stop a similar plague.

  Jack killed the other four women simply to discover the location of Mary’s address. When he finally found Mary, he used one of the traditional methods, savage disembowelment, literally tearing her body apart, to ensure that there could be no regeneration. I arrived too late to stop him; the Vampyres of London had finally roused themselves from their torpor and descended on Whitechapel, drawn by the aroma of blood. They feasted on Mary’s remains while I searched for Jack. I never did discover him and was convinced either they’d killed him or he’d thrown himself into the Thames. Later, much, much later, I learned that they had caught him. They’d imprisoned him in a Roman dungeon deep below London, then Turned him, made him a vampyre so that they could continue to practice their tortures on him. That’s another part of our DNA: vampyres feel very little remorse and we thrive on revenge. They’re probably still chewing on him, a little at a time. Vampyre flesh regenerates with remarkable resilience. There is an urban legend amongst the vampyre community that Jack is still alive, locked in a hidden room beneath the Tower of London.

  Jack was the last of the great Hunters. There hasn’t been a proper one since. Oh, there have been allegations of course, there are always rumors of an order within the Catholic Church dedicated to my kind, but I’ve never encountered them.

  But this Hunter is different.

  He’s displaying his kills. Hunters don’t display their kills; they don’t want to alert other vampyres they’re in the area and they don’t want to run the risk of suffering the alleged fate of Jack the Ripper. This one doesn’t seem to care.

  It’s almost as if this Hunter wants us to know he’s working in Hollywood. As though he’s sending a warning to the vampyre clans that he’s coming for them.

  No, not coming for them.

  Coming for me.

  I blew out the candle and rose slowly from the tub, letting the thoughts on the outskirts of my mind swirl into consciousness like the water in the drain.

  Eddings. Goulart. Gordon. I’d worked with all of them. I’d Turned all of them. They were of my clan. But Eva Casale wasn’t. Nor was Thomas DeWitte. Neither Eva nor Thomas were even vampyres.

  But the five dead represented both halves of my world: vampyre and human. Personal and professional. The Hunter knew that. And he knew Eva’s death and Thomas’s death—two Anticipation employees—would force the police to look at my connection to the three previous murders. And the combination of police attention and media attention would rouse the ire of the Vampyres of Hollywood, an ire I’d be hard-pressed to survive. The Hunter may not be able to do away with me himself, but he was setting me up to be destroyed by my own kind—the
Vampyres of Hollywood.

  How the hell did he know about us?

  I toweled myself dry and grabbed my robe with so much force I ripped the hook from the wall. Hurrying from the bathroom, leaving tiny wet footprints on the Italian tile, I raced into my office. My heart was pounding…well, as much as a vampyre heart can pound.

  Maral looked up from the huge Mac screen. There were at least half a dozen windows open—AnticipationStudios.com overlapped Ovsanna.com and my Gmail site. I caught a glimpse of my Web site guest book. “Just answering your fan mail. Lots of condolences on the death of Thomas.” She stopped. “What’s wrong?”

  “Get the car. The SUV.”

  Maral’s fingers rattled across the wireless keyboard, shutting each window faster than I could read the rest of the site names. If she was surprised, she said nothing. She knew I rarely drove the SUV.

  “How soon can we leave without attracting attention?”

  Maral swung back to the screen and called up the images from the cameras on the walls and the front gate. There were only two cars left, two photographers, cameras dangling around their necks, chatting idly together. “That’s all that’s left of the press. Want me to call the security patrol, see if they can get them away from the house?”

  “No, that would only excite their interest.”

  I started for my bedroom, removing my robe as I strode into the walk-in closet. Maral was right behind me and she watched me from the doorway as I pulled on my jeans and bra and black turtleneck sweater. She likes seeing me naked. And normally I would have taken my time getting dressed, both of us enjoying her watching me. But not now. “I want you to take the SUV and leave. Make it look like you’re heading for LAX.” I pulled on my black calfskin boots. “If the photographers ask, don’t hesitate to tell them.”

  “And where will you be?”

  “Once the paparazzi leave, I’ll follow in the Mercedes. Wait in front of the Airport Valet on Sepulveda and I’ll meet you there. We’ll give the Mercedes to the valet and continue the rest of the way in the SUV. Bring something warm; it could get cold later.”