by Ray Garton
She barely felt Anya's needle-fangs sink into her neck.
The rushing feeling grew more intense and Karen's heart rate and breathing increased. She felt an orgasm rolling toward her inside. It was an undulating feeling, passionate and hot. Through the sound of her beating heart in her ears, she could only barely hear the sucking sounds. A bead of sweat trickled over her temple as she came, crying out.
Then it stopped.
"Thank you," Anya whispered before taking her hand from Karen's chest. She got up and went to the door, opened it, and left.
Karen curled up again and stared into the darkness.
"You okay?" Casey said.
Karen said nothing. She felt the cot move when Casey sat down beside her. She put a shaking hand on Karen's shoulder and squeezed, then took her hand.
"Karen? Talk to me."
Several long seconds passed before Karen said, "This isn't going to stop, is it? They'll keep doing this until they kill us."
Casey said, "You've got to hang on, Karen. Listen, did I hear you correctly? Was that woman's name . . . Anya?"
"Yeah."
After fifteen seconds of silence, Casey whispered, "Anya."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“I don't think you'll get anything out of her," Anya said later that day in Victor Barna's office in Los Angeles. She had used Barna's private elevator and had entered his office through a back door that only he used. She had been seen by no one in the building.
"Why not?" he said.
"Because I believe her. She says they didn't tell anyone. I don't think they did."
"You're sure she doesn't need more persuasion?"
"Castlebeck used them both today," she said. "Karen did a rape video with rough anal sex and a gang-bang with thirteen men. I thought she was going to lose consciousness during the gang-bang."
"You think she would've talked if she knew anything?"
"I'm sure of it."
Barna thought about it a moment. "All right. I trust you."
"What are you going to do with her?"
"I'm not sure yet."
"Give her to me."
"Really?"
"Please."
"I was planning to ask you to go hunting with me this weekend. You wouldn't want me to get jealous, would you?"
She smiled. "Don't worry. She won't cut into my time with you. Think of her as a . . . well, a playmate for me."
He smiled. "Fine. What about this weekend?"
She smiled. "I'm available."
"Saturday night at ten?"
"Sounds good. What are you going to do with the vampire, Casey Thorne?"
Barna frowned. "I'm not sure. Actually, her name is Casey Owen."
Anya turned her head to one side. "Really? She married Davey Owen."
"Who?"
"He was the one who brought down Live Girls in New York."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. I turned him. I had great plans for Davey. He had . .. other ideas. He killed a lot of vampires and came very close to exposing us. He nearly killed me, but I managed to get out."
"The reporter who wrote that article in the Post in 'eighty-seven has been killed, you know."
She nodded. "Yes, Benedek. I heard. That's good. Now we need to do something about Casey and Davey. If Davey knows about us ... well, if I know him, he's likely to try something stupid."
"Maybe we should use Casey to show him what a mistake that would be."
Anya smiled. "Yes, I think that would be a good idea. A very good idea."
"We also have the wife of the writer who's been investigating us," Barna said.
"I didn't know that. What do you want to do with her?"
"She's been shooting movies since she got here. Gang-bangs. I want to tear her down completely, and quickly. Then I want to send her back to him."
"That should make your point. Well, I have things to do. I'm going back to the hotel."
They leaned toward each other over the desk and kissed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Back at Karen's office, Keoph met with Winona.
"There's not much to be found about Mr. Barna," she said, looking at her writing on a yellow legal pad. "He's single, he lives in the penthouse of the Barna Tower in downtown Los Angeles. He has several other homes, in and out of the country. He owns a number of hotels and resorts, and he has more money than he'll probably ever need. He's sort of like Donald Trump, but without the flash. He keeps a very low profile. The press would love nothing more than to learn more about him, but they can't. He's a bit of an enigma. There is one beautiful woman who's been seen with him on more than one occasion, but I haven't been able to identify her or figure out what kind of relationship they have. Would you like me to keep trying?"
Keoph said, "Yes, please, by all means keep trying, Winona. Is that it?"
"Like I said, he keeps a very low profile. I did the best I could. There's just not much information to be found."
"I kind of suspected that. Thank you, Winona, thank you very much."
After Winona left, Keoph sat back in Karen's comfortable chair and intertwined his fingers behind his head, elbows out at each side. He thought of the Royal Arms Hotel. Karen and Casey Owen were somewhere in there, enduring god only knew what. Burgess's wife Denise was probably in there, too. He felt helpless, hands and feet tied, mouth gagged. Then he got an idea.
Keoph got up and went out to Libby's office, where she was typing on a keyboard.
"Libby, Karen and I are going to need the floor plans for the Royal Arms Hotel on Newton Street in North Hollywood. Could you have someone get that for me?"
"Sure, Mr. Keoph. I'll get right on it." She picked up the phone and punched two buttons. As she talked, Keoph went back into Karen's office. He sat down at the desk again, still feeling helpless.
No one in the office had asked where Karen was yet. He did not know what he was going to tell them when they did. He needed to come up with a story.
He hoped she was all right.
Davey slept fitfully. He kept waking up from vivid, smothering nightmares. They were mostly nightmares he hadn't had in years—about what had happened in Times Square in 1987, about Anya, the beautiful vampire who had seduced and turned him, about the hideous things living in the basement of Live Girls. Each time he woke up, always in a sweat, his first thought was Casey.
Hardly a day went by that Davey didn't think about Anya. In a sense, this was all her fault—had she never turned him, none of this would have happened. His biggest regret about blowing up Live Girls had been that the explosion had killed Anya—he'd wanted to do that himself, up close and personal. He had been more weak and vulnerable when she'd seduced and turned him than he'd ever been in his whole life. He'd been foolish, too, he could not deny that. Foolish and stupid and filled with self-pity. He could not think about Anya for very long—it made him too angry and could ruin his whole day—but she crossed his mind every day.
The bed felt so huge without Casey, the house so empty. He could smell her in the bedroom, as if she were there with him. He did not want to imagine what she was going through, but his mind kept returning to the possibilities, and they made his stomach turn.
Finally, he got up and paced in the living room, a sheen of sweat on his naked body. He felt impotent, useless. He hoped Keoph was accomplishing something.
Burgess sat on his couch watching television and drinking. He was drunk, but he didn't stop. He wanted to pass out.
They had told him not to go to the police, that he could endanger Denise further by notifying them.
So he numbed himself. He was unable to think of anything but Denise.
He took another drink of vodka and sat back on the couch.
He felt responsible. If he'd never started the investigation, this wouldn't have happened. He numbed himself to his own guilt, as well as Denise's capture.
He took still another drink.
Karen was torn from sleep when the lights came on and the sirens blared again.
She sat up suddenly, and winced with pain. Her whole body hurt, but most of her pain was between her legs. Her torn anus throbbed as it continued to bleed. She was bruised all over. She felt covered in filth and wanted so much to take a long shower. She felt sticky and smelled of sex, and started to cry.
In the other bed, Casey sat up, too. Her face was drawn and bruised and lumpy from swelling, as were her arms and legs. She looked half-awake and trembled all over. "It's all right," she said, her voice barely audible. "It's just that noise."
The sirens stopped, but the light remained on.
The door opened and Anya walked in. She walked over to Casey's bed. "Come with me," she said.
"Where?"
"Never mind that, just come," Anya said.
"Please don't take her away, Anya," Karen said. "I don't want to be alone." She sniffled and forced herself to stop crying. "Please. Don't."
"Come with me, Casey," Anya said.
Casey sat on the edge of the cot, staring at Anya. "You're ... Anya?"
Anya smiled. "That's right. The name's familiar?"
"Yeah. Familiar."
"Come on, get moving," Anya said.
Casey left the cot and walked unsteadily to the door with Anya. She turned back to Karen and said, "Don't worry, I'll be back."
Anya let Casey go out first, then turned to Karen and smiled. "Don't count on it," she said before leaving and closing the door.
Seconds later, the lights went out again, leaving Karen alone in the dark.
Denise Burgess lay in the dark, her body in agony. She had been brutally raped by numerous men, and beaten by some of them, all in front of cameras. She could find no part of her body that did not ache. Her face was swollen, one eye all the way shut.
Light poured into the room when the door opened. A woman said, "Come on, it's time to go."
Denise tried to move, but only groaned in pain.
The woman in the doorway sighed and left, closed the door. She returned a little later with a large, brawny man.
"Take her," the woman said.
The man went to Denise and picked her up in his arms. She grunted and groaned as he carried her out of the room.
The woman closed the door as she left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The sun set on Los Angeles in a smear of purple and pink with black silhouettes of palm trees standing against it.
Burgess missed the sunset. He lay sprawled on his couch, snoring. The television was tuned to TV Land, and a studio audience laughed every few seconds. His gray cat Angie was curled up and sleeping on the top of one of the couch's back cushions.
His dog Hubert, an enormous Rottweiler, strolled into the living room, went to the end of the couch, and licked Burgess's face with his big pink tongue.
Burgess sputtered and turned his head away. He pushed the dog back and said, "Stop it, Hubert, dammit, just stop it."
When he heard the doorbell, he thought the sound had come from the television—another Domino's commercial, or something. It sounded again during a commercial for Sara Lee cheesecake, and Burgess sat up on the couch. "Who is it?" he shouted.
No one responded from the other side of the front door, and the bell did not ring again. Burgess wondered if he was hearing things.
Something scratched on the front door.
Burgess slowly got to his feet and turned to the door, frowning. He went to it, though he couldn't walk in a straight line, and looked out the peep-hole. His vision blurred, but he could tell there was no one standing there. He unlocked the door and opened it. Movement below, on the concrete porch, drew his eyes downward.
He stared down at the battered, naked woman on the porch. Her right arm moved. She had been scratching on the door to get his attention.
Burgess stared down at the woman for a long time before it registered that he was looking at Denise.
Her hair was matted and dirty, her face lumpy and bruised, her right eye swollen shut. She bled from wounds to her neck. Bruises were developing all over her body.
Burgess heard himself babbling in a panic as he knelt down beside her.
"Oh my god Jesus Denise Denise what did they do Denise oh Jesus oh my god . . ."
Sobriety struck him like a slap in the face. He slid his arms beneath her and very carefully picked her up. He took her into the house and put her down on the couch. He realized he was crying—tears wet his cheeks.
"Mar... ty?" Denise said. Her lips were swollen and bloody.
"I'm right here, honey, right here," he said as he hovered over her on the couch.
"Vam ... pires."
"Yes, honey, yes, I know." Instead of looking for the phone, he took his cell phone from his pocket and punched in 911.
Keoph was in the dining room with the plans of the Royal Arms Hotel spread out on the table before him when Davey came out of his bedroom. He wore a short sleeve plaid shirt and jeans, and he walked slowly, shoulders slumped. He had dark crescents beneath his eyes. From the looks of him, Davey had not slept well. "You okay?" Keoph said.
"Yeah, I'll be fine. Soon as I wake up. What's that?"
Keoph told him.
"That was a good idea, Gavin."
"You think so?" Keoph rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know what good it'll do us, to tell you the truth. Might just be a waste of time."
"We may have to go in."
"Wait. You're not serious."
"I am. We may have no choice. Well, I may have no choice. I wouldn't expect you to come."
"What good would you be to Casey if you were dead?"
Davey smiled, bared his fangs for a moment. "Don't forget, I don't die that easily."
"Even so—" Keoph's cell phone played its little fanfare and he took it from his pocket. "Keoph."
A man began to babble at the other end of the line.
"Whoa, hold on, I can't understand you," Keoph said. "Who is this?"
"Martin Burgess."
"Mr. Burgess, what's wrong?"
"They dumped her at my door, naked and beaten," Burgess said. "I'm at the hospital. Denise has been raped repeatedly, bitten and beaten and, and, and she's in the Emergency Room right now."
"What hospital?"
"Cedars-Sinai."
"How's she doing?"
"I don't know, dammit, but she looked bad, Mr. Keoph, she looked so bad." A moment of silence on the line was followed by a sob from Burgess.
"I'll be right there, Mr. Burgess."
"Will you? Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Keoph."
Keoph put the phone back in his pocket. "I've got to go."
"What's wrong?"
"Denise Burgess was—I mean, my client's wife was returned to him in pretty bad shape."
"Hold it," Davey said. He hurried into the kitchen and came back a moment later with a bottle of blood in hand. "I'm going with you."
In the car, on the way to the hospital, Keoph said, "What do you think it means?"
"What do I think what means?" Davey said. He unscrewed the cap and drank a few gulps from the bottle.
"They dumped Mrs. Burgess on the porch, naked and bleeding, and Burgess says she was raped multiple times." Keoph realized he'd just blown his client's anonymity, but found he could not care too much about that at this point. He seriously doubted that Burgess would mind—he had more urgent matters to think about.
"Oh, my god," Davey said in a low voice.
"What do you think it means, Davey?"
"They're just giving him a warning," Davey said. He looked ahead as he spoke, eyes beyond the windshield. "It's their way of saying, 'Stay away from us.'"
"I imagine the police have become involved," Keoph said. "I wonder what he's told them." He glanced at Davey. "This could lead to exposure. Are you sure you want to be involved?"
Davey thought about that a moment as he kept his eyes on the road. Finally, he turned to Keoph and said, "Well, if it'll help get Casey back, exposure's fine with me."
Davey said nothing as Keoph found a parking space in the ER lot.
He finished his drink and put the bottle on the floorboard in front of his seat. They got out and crossed the lot to the entrance. Keoph was saying something, but Davey barely heard it. He was busy with his own thoughts.
Exposure. He let the word fill his mind. It frightened him because he had no idea what to expect from it. He liked to pose theories to himself, but none of them ever made any sense—they were more fantasies than theories. He once tried to convince himself that mortals and vampires could live together peacefully. That was a fantasy.
He could not honestly take seriously any scenario that did not involve Davey and Casey and others like them being in constant grave danger. He was not sure exactly how, but he had no doubt of it. Exposure could mean death.
But Casey was trapped in the Royal Arms Hotel with a bunch of savage vampires. Davey thought of what had been done to the woman Keoph called Denise Burgess. He shuddered and tried not to think about what was being done to Casey.
In the ER waiting room, Keoph approached Burgess. He sat with his elbows on his thighs and his head in his hands, the only person in the room besides an elderly man seated over by the window.
"Mr. Burgess?" Keoph said.
The man lifted his head. His eyes were puffy, cheeks red, his mouth a tense line. "Hello," he said as he stood.
Davey recognized the writer.
Keoph said, "I didn't properly introduce you two earlier, so Mr. Burgess, I'd like you to meet Davey Owen. Davey Owen, Martin Burgess."
As Burgess stared at Davey, his mouth slowly opened and he reached out a hand to shake. "We talked on the phone."
"Yes, I remember," Davey said as he shook his hand.
"You ... you're a ... a ..."
"Yes, I am," Davey said with a nod.
"How is your wife?" Keoph said.
Burgess shook his head. "She's badly beaten. I'm just waiting out here while they treat her. As soon as they're done, I'm going back in with her. The police are here. The cop was asking Denise questions awhile ago. He may be trying again now, I don't know."