by Ray Garton
There was one door in the room, but it was locked. The doorknob turned, but there was a deadbolt above it with the latch on the other side.
The room was equipped with a television and a stereo system, a couch, a chair, a small coffee table, everything in creams and earth tones. There was a colorful abstract painting on the wall above the couch.
As comfortable as her surroundings were, Karen was still afraid. She did not feel groggy anymore and was getting her strength back, but she was afraid of what would come next. Her body ached everywhere. The hot shower had helped some, but she still felt as if she'd taken a beating. She reminded herself that she had.
Karen was on the couch watching television when she heard movement outside the door. She quickly grabbed the remote and turned off the TV, and curled her legs under her.
The door swung open and Anya came in carrying a tray with a bottle of champagne and two glasses on it, and something else.
Instead of staring at the tray, Karen quickly looked beyond Anya through the open door. All she saw was part of a wall before Anya kicked the door closed.
"I hope you like champagne and caviar," Anya said as she put the tray on the coffee table. The tray also held a mound of caviar in the center of a plate, surrounded by crackers.
"I love caviar," Karen said, her voice hoarse.
"Good. Help yourself, and don't be shy."
Karen put her feet on the floor and bent forward, took a cracker, and scooped up some caviar on a corner. She was starving. While she did that, Anya popped the cork from the champagne bottle and poured it into the two fluted crystal glasses. She handed a glass to Karen, lifted hers, and said, "To you and me."
Karen did not return the gesture before sipping the champagne. "What's the occasion?" she said.
"I thought you knew. You've been brought here to my apartment in the building. I never use it, so I've moved you in here. You have clothes, a television, music if you want. I thought you would at least be grateful."
"I am grateful. Very grateful. But how long will I be here? When will you let me go?"
"Who knows, Karen," Anya said with a smile as she sat on the couch, "maybe with enough champagne and caviar, you won't want to go."
"That doesn't answer my question."
Anya sighed, then sipped her champagne. "Your friends have been told you will not be coming back. That you are the price of investigating us."
"What about Casey? Where is she?"
"You're full of questions, aren't you?"
Karen said nothing. She scooped up more caviar on a cracker and ate it. She wondered if Anya could hear her stomach growling.
"You and I are going to be together for awhile, Karen," Anya said. "We're going to have a relationship, and I think it should be an honest one, don't you? So I will tell you where Casey is. She's dead. Her head was cut off and sent to Davey Owen. That's his price for blowing up Live Girls back in 1987, killing a lot of vampires, and nearly exposing us. You, on the other hand, are in this comfortable apartment, drinking champagne and eating caviar. Do you understand? I'm trying to tell you that if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead already. So you can relax. You're afraid of me, and I don't want you to be."
Karen sat back and looked down at her lap for a long moment. She thought of Casey, of Davey, and her throat burned with tears. But she held them back. She was determined not to cry in front of this woman.
"Are you ... will you ever let me go?" Karen said without looking up.
"Worry about that later, Karen," Anya said. She bent forward and poured more champagne into their glasses on the coffee table. She scooted closer to Karen on the couch and put her left arm across her shoulders. "Let's try that toast again," she said as she lifted her glass. "To us."
After a moment, Karen lifted her glass and touched it to Anya's with a musical ting. "To us," she said. She sipped the champagne. It made her head feel a touch fizzy, and she began to feel groggy again. She said, "I'm not... I haven't..." She took a deep breath and let it out in a big puff. "I'm straight."
Anya smiled as she moved in and said, "I don't mind."
Karen wanted to move her head, but she could not, and Anya's lips pressed to hers. Anya opened her mouth and lightly traced her tongue around Karen's lips. Karen wanted to protest, to push her away, but a wave of physical weakness passed through her and she slowly slid over on her side, with Anya on top of her, still kissing her.
Anya sat up and put their champagne glasses on an end table. She kept her eyes open and looked directly into Karen's. As Anya kissed her again, strength drained from Karen's body like blood from a wound. The room darkened until she could see nothing but Anya's eyes. She felt Anya's hands moving over her body and they seemed to deliver an electrical current that made Karen tremble.
Anya pulled the nightgown up and up, and Karen sat up so Anya could pull it off over her head. She lay back on the couch naked as Anya slowly, lightly ran her fingertips all over Karen's body. Her eyes slowly closed as she became immersed in the sensation. It was like butterflies fluttering their wings against her, all over her body.
Karen's heart beat faster, her breaths became tremulous. Her hands bunched into fists at her sides as electricity coursed through her body, and she became wet. She could no longer feel the couch beneath her there was nothing in the world but the sensation of Anya's fingertips running all over her body. Karen lost all track of time and it seemed to go on forever, until the only sound she could hear was that of her heart pounding in her ears.
When Anya kissed her again, Karen surrendered and opened her mouth. Their tongues met and writhed together. Anya kissed her throat then, kissed her shoulder, her chest, then put her mouth over Karen's left breast. She nibbled on Karen's nipple until it became hard as a pebble, then she moved to the other breast, and all the while, her fingertips continued to pass up and down over Karen's body.
Anya kissed her way down to the triangle of auburn hair between Karen's legs. With the fingers of her right hand, she separated Karen's labia and ran her tongue up and down between them slowly, kissed her, sucked and nibbled.
Karen cried out as Anya put her mouth over her erect clitoris, sucked it in hard, and rapidly flicked her tongue over it, then slipped a finger inside her, then another finger. Karen clawed at the couch and clenched her teeth as she thrust her hips forward, pressing herself against Anya's mouth.
She felt a sharp sting in her groin, but barely noticed it because Anya was fucking her with her fingers. She did not hear the sucking sounds because of the thundering of her heart.
Karen felt herself melt into a liquid mass, a puddle on the couch. She heard her own cries of release as if from a great distance as she exploded with one orgasm after another. They came in great waves that splashed over her and made her dissolve.
There was a moment when everything, even the sensations, blacked out and she floated in utterly silent darkness, everything forgotten. Then the feelings rushed in again in wave after wave.
Even after Anya stopped touching her, Karen's body continued to shudder with pleasure as she slowly came down, gasping for breath.
Karen opened her eyes and saw Anya smiling down at her. Something dark was smeared by the right corner of Anya's mouth, and she licked it away.
"Now, aren't you glad you came here?" Anya whispered. "You rest. I'll be back later for something a little more ... mutual. I'll bring some more food, too. Is there anything in particular you'd like?"
Karen opened her mouth but could not speak. She still had no voice.
"Don't worry," Anya said, "I'll bring something good."
Karen closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, Anya was gone. She'd heard the door open and close.
She tried to sit up but could not. She was completely drained of energy, empty and limp. She lay there naked on the couch and drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Vicki LaRue lived in an expensive neighborhood in Toluca Lake, in a development called Vistawood. The homes were a
good distance apart in hilly country. Davey stopped at the gate as a camera watched them. In the backseat, Isaac rolled down his window and said, "Hey, Vick, it's me!"
Keoph wondered what they were getting into. "Look," he said to Davey, "I think we should make this visit as short as possible, okay?"
Davey shrugged. "If you want. Why?"
"A place where illegal guns are being sold is not a safe place to hang out, okay?" he said.
"Oh, yeah," Davey said, nodding, "that makes sense. Okay, we'll try to keep it short."
Vicki had a sprawling estate at the end of a long driveway through a patch of enormous oak trees. Davey parked the Mercedes in the circular drive in front of the house. As Isaac led them up the front steps, the double doors opened and in the doorway stood a handsome, olive-skinned man wearing a pewter-colored negligee and black mules with heels.
"Hello, Isaac," the man said, making no effort to disguise his deep voice. "How are you?"
Vicki wasn't very effeminate, and he appeared to be a little shaky on those heels.
"Vicki, this is Davey Owen and Gavin Keoph. Guys, this is Vicki LaRue."
"Gentlemen, a pleasure," Vicki said, shaking their hands. He had a strong grip. "Why don't we go inside." He stood back and welcomed them with a flourish of his arm. Vicki closed the doors behind them, then led them to a room in the back of the house. "This is the library, although I haven't read very many of the books in here. I stick to Jackie Collins and that ilk, myself. Maybe a little Mary Higgins Clark now and then, but not often, because her books keep me up nights."
Vicki went to one of the enormous bookshelves and pulled it easily away from the wall. There was a door behind it, which Vicki opened.
"In here, gentlemen," he said. He turned to lead them through the door, then stopped and turned back to them. "You know, I'm usually a good judge of people, and you don't look to me like the type of guys who need guns. You know what I mean?"
Keoph said, "We'd rather not answer any questions, if you don't mind."
"Oh, I'm not asking questions, I know better than to do that in my business. Just making an observation. You'll have to forgive me, I talk too much. At least, that's what my wife is always telling me. Especially when we go shopping together. People just open up to me once we start talking, I make friends very easy. In fact, in the shop where I bought this negligee, I started talking to the girl who waited on me, and by the time we were done, she'd told me she was from Texas, had just broken up with her boyfriend, and had had two abortions before she turned twenty. It drove my wife crazy. She didn't want to hear all that, so I—oh, look at me. I'm doing it again. I'm sorry. This way, gentlemen."
Keoph and the others followed Vicki through the door into a large room that was full of guns. There were guns everywhere—on the walls, on shelves, in cabinets—everywhere.
Vicki turned to them and folded his arms across his chest. "All right, gentlemen, what are you looking for?"
Davey said, "We're looking for some kind of machine gun, something light and . . . convenient."
"Well, I have a wide variety to choose from. What do you say we try a few out?"
Vicki gathered up a number of guns and took them down some stairs from his secret room to his basement, where he had a shooting range. He gave them headphone like protectors to put over their ears for protection from the loud noise of the guns. Keoph tried different machine guns and machine pistols, and decided he preferred the HK MP5 submachine gun. Isaac tried a couple, too, for the fun of it, but mostly he just stayed out of the way.
Davey’s useless hand created a problem. He could not clutch the hand guard with his left hand, and he certainly couldn’t shoot a submachine gun with just one arm.
"I think I have something that might work for you," Vicki said. "I'll be back in a few minutes, don't go away."
While Vicki was gone, Keoph fired the MP5 some more.
Vicki returned with a rather short, black shotgun. Its barrel and the magazine tube beneath it were a little over a foot long. It was semi-automatic, with a synthetic stock and sights like a rifle, rather than the small gold bead on the end of the barrel. In his other hand, he held some kind of strap.
"Not too long ago," Vicki said, "I had a client who'd lost his left arm. We devised this contraption to allow him to shoot with just one arm. I had three made, but he only bought two, so I've got this one left over." He unfolded the long, wide sling strap, which he attached to the stock, and to the sling swivel on the magazine tube. He hoisted the sling over Davey's head and onto his left shoulder. The shotgun hung at his right side, parallel to the floor. Along the sling were stitched a couple dozen loops filled with fat black 12-gauge cartridges. "Now," Vicki said, "slide your left hand through this loop." Davey slipped his gloved hand through a wide, padded, nylon loop attached to the same forward clip as the sling. Vicki cinched down a Velcro strap on his arm. "All you need now," Vicki said, "is a bag to carry more cartridges. Isn't this nice?"
"It's perfect," Davey said. He raised and lowered his left arm and guided the shotgun's muzzle up and down, then left and right. With his right hand, he took a cartridge from the loop on the strap and fed it into the magazine. He put in one cartridge after another, until the magazine was full. He reached up and pulled the bolt back and released it, allowing it to slam forward and chamber the first round.
"You've got the hang of it already," Vicki said.
"Thank you, Vicki," Davey said.
"You can try the gun out in a minute. But first, I brought something else down that you might be interested in," Vicki said. He went out the door, and came back a moment later with a box. He removed something from the box and handed it to Keoph, a black cannister that fit nicely in his hand.
"A hand grenade?" Davey said.
"This is an XM84 stun grenade," Vicki said. "Set this off in a room full of people and nobody gets hurt, but it stuns them for awhile. Would you have any use for them?"
Davey said, "Yes," and Keoph said, "Absolutely," at the same time.
Vicki smiled. "Very good. What do you say we try a couple out, just so you'll know what to expect?"
Davey's cell phone chirped and he took it from his pocket, flipped it open. "Hello?" As he listened, he turned to Keoph. "Yes, Mrs. Dupassie, I'm very interested, but I'm kind of busy at the moment. Would you mind if we came over to your place in the next hour? ... Great, that's what we'll do then. Thank you." He folded the phone up and put it back in his pocket. "That was Mrs. Dupassie," he said to Keoph. "She's picked something up about Karen and wants to talk to us. We'll go over there as soon as we're done here."
Vicki clapped his hands and rubbed them together as he smiled and said, "Well, shall we set off a couple grenades?"
After Davey made a trip to the bank for a lot of cash, they left Vicki LaRue's house with five HK MP5 submachine guns, sixty magazines capable of holding thirty rounds each, three cases of 9mm ammunition, the shotgun and strap device and lots of ammunition, and eight XM84 stun grenades in a box in the trunk.
Before leaving, Davey asked Vicki if it would be possible to use his shooting range later that night.
"We've got some guys who've never used these guns before and need a chance to get familiar with them," Davey said, "but we have nowhere to go. If we could use your range awhile tonight, I'd sure appreciate it."
"Nothing makes me happier than the sound of gunfire in my shooting range," Vicki said with a smile. "Does nine o'clock sound okay?"
"Perfect," Davey said.
"I'll be expecting you."
It was still raining outside, still hot and sticky.
Davey drove Isaac to his trailer and dropped him off, then drove to Mrs. Dupassie's apartment. The shades were all pulled down to keep out the sunlight, and the apartment was dark.
The old woman looked tired.
"It woke me up from a sound sleep," she said after letting them in. They went to the small dining table and sat down. "See, if I'm looking to pick something up on someone, I'll sometimes handl
e the personal item for awhile before going to bed, and sometimes I get something in my sleep. It's something more than a dream—more vivid, more .. . immediate. More of a vision. So this morning, before going to bed, I held Karen's purse for awhile. I picked something up in my sleep."
She got up and went to the refrigerator, where she got a bottle of blood.
"Anything to drink for either of you?" she said.
"I could use some of that," Davey said.
"Nothing for me," Keoph said.
She got another bottle of blood and handed it to Davey as she sat down. "For awhile, all I got was darkness. But that's changed. Karen is now in a nice room with a nice bed, clothes, light, a television. She's been moved."
"From the hotel?" Keoph said.
"No, I don't think she's been taken out of the building, but she's been moved to a different place, another room, something like that."
"Anything else?" Davey said.
"I get the sense that she's up off the ground, up high," Mrs. Dupassie said.
"Like on an upper floor?" Keoph said.
She nodded. "Yes. She's definitely not on the ground floor."
"That's helpful," Davey said.
Keoph said, "It's still not going to be easy to find her in there. I'm sure she's locked up."
"No, it won't be easy," Davey said.
"But I don't like the alternative," Keoph said.
"Is there anything else, Mrs. Dupassie?"
Mrs. Dupassie said, "I don't know what's been done to her, but she's been hurt in some way, and she feels . . . filthy. She feels defiled, contaminated. But most of all, she's terrified."
Davey drove them back to his place in Laurel Canyon.
"When are we going to do this?" Keoph said once they were inside.
"We can't do it today," Davey said. "It's late in the afternoon. I want to do it late morning, or noon, thereabouts. We'll have to wait till tomorrow. They'll be at their weakest then. I still expect a fight, but midday is the most vulnerable time for us, we're weak and not thinking as clearly as usual. That's why we sleep during the day. Of course, that means that I and Norman and his friends will be weak, too. So, in the meantime, I'm going to get some sleep. I suggest you do the same. You can stay here if you want, we've got three guest rooms."