Ripper

by Lexi Blake

  * * * *

  I stopped at a convenience store and stocked up. There’s a reason most PIs are overweight with a tendency to have coronaries. Salads simply don’t work as stakeout food. I bought a six-pack of Dr. Pepper, some M&Ms, a bag of Doritos, and a single beer. Okay, I bought a single Dr. Pepper and a six-pack of beer. I was still freaking hung over. I stand by the beer choice. I stopped by a street vendor on Good Latimer and bought a couple of tacos and a churro before heading north into a much nicer section of town.

  I located the building indicated by the address in Joanne’s little spiral. It was one in a long line of Victorian townhouses. I took stock of my surroundings and was pleased to find a small office building across from the residential street. It came complete with a parking garage that would nicely serve as my nest for the night. It was a little ways away from the actual house, but I had my camera with a high-powered telephoto lens, so I didn’t need to be super close. I tried to turn into the parking garage, but it was private and required a security code. Luckily, there was no actual guard on duty so I parked the Jeep down the street, shoved all my gear into a backpack, and hiked.

  It was after six by the time I found the perfect perch. Everyone seemed to have gone home for the weekend and there wasn’t a car in the garage. I walked up to the fifth floor, which afforded me an excellent view of the townhouse.

  Like all the houses on the small block, it was well maintained and obviously expensive. This was North Dallas, the nicest part of town. The small complex of townhomes was surrounded by superior stores, restaurants, and small, exclusive companies. I noted, as I polished off a really excellent beef taco, that while all the other streets in the area had pedestrians walking on them, this street was completely empty. It was kind of odd. I studied the small block of townhomes. There were six in all and they looked like they had serious square footage. Probably three bedrooms or more. So where were the cars in the driveways? Where were the silly signs on the doors that announced the house was established in such and such year? Where were the bikes, dumped in the yards by kids running in the house to dinner? Where was anyone at all?

  The lights in the middle townhouse came on at precisely six forty-three. Sundown. The hairs on my forearms stood straight up. Now I knew why there weren’t bikes on the lawns. I would bet my life that all six townhomes were connected on the inside and I was staring at a vampire club.

  I took a deep breath because a couple of things were becoming clear to me. One, Joanne Taylor had been playing a dangerous game. She was a hooker, but it went beyond that. Vampires wanted more than sex. Oh, from what I understood, they wanted the sex. Vampires could feed off sexual energy, but their primary source of energy was always blood. Sometimes the vamp got a little overeager and took too much. Joanne might be stronger than a regular human, but she needed the proper blood volume to survive. The second fact I realized while staring at that club really scared me. The freaking Vampire Council had to be involved. If she was working at a vampire club, then the Council knew about it.

  I didn’t want to get involved with the Council.

  Everything I knew about vampires I knew from my father and from the stories my mother has told me. Mom’s dad was a hunter, but not exactly one like my dad. He’d hunted at the request of the Council or a pack where, for political reasons, the alpha chose not to dispense justice himself. Every so often my grandfather would get a call and he would leave his backwoods home in East Texas and hunt down some supernatural creature that had gone crazy or caused too much trouble. Granddad was particularly good at hunting werewolves. He always had an order of execution and he only killed wolves who met the criteria for a “righteous” kill.

  My dad was pretty much the opposite. While Granddad had many friends in the local packs and was respected, my father was a revenge hunter. I twisted the top off a beer and let it coat my throat as I thought about my father. His mom and sister had been torn apart by a wolf who went crazy. My granddad had been the one to hunt the wolf and he’d found my seventeen-year-old father in the process. He felt bad for the kid and brought him home where he taught him everything he knew about hunting. I would like to have known my granddad better, but he died before my father left us and we weren’t permitted to have anything to do with a traitor. Mom had only managed to sneak away to visit her dad a few times. While my father had been more than happy to take my grandfather’s training and his daughter, once Dad had everything he needed he decided to have nothing more to do with the old man. Having a friend or two in the nonhuman world was the same thing as treason in my father’s mind. I suppose my brothers’ and my lifestyle were a big old “fuck you” to Dad.

  I shook my head and took another swallow. My mind was wandering. Dad had known the basics about vampires. Rule number one—don’t fuck around with vampires. Rule number two—see rule number one. Vampires are a genetic anomaly. There’s something in their DNA that clicks on when death occurs. The vampire rises and takes blood and then, as long as he continues to take blood, his body functions. The vampire is stronger than a human. Most are stronger than wolves and shifters. They develop different powers over the years and this forms their class system. Warriors tend to be the strongest of the strong. They’re fast and kill with ease. Most vampires can be described as warriors, but there are others as well. Some have exceptional mental powers and others can make you see things that aren’t there. I’ve heard that some can even fly, but until I see it, I ain’t believing that one.

  They also have the most organized, powerful central system of government in the supernatural world. The Vampire Council rules the supernaturals with an iron fist. I’d heard vague rumors that there had been a change at the top of the Council, but trust me, they’re still the same assholes, different faces. If Joanne Taylor was killed by a vampire it would be hard for me to prove it and even harder to bring him to justice. The Council protects their own.

  I sighed and settled in because I wasn’t going to let some group of old, and I mean old, politicians stop me from finding out the truth. I pulled out my camera and concentrated on the front of the building. I took a bunch of pictures, getting the lay of the land, so to speak. The first limo arrived shortly after full dark and contained a group of females. It surprised me because I had understood that the women who worked in the vampire clubs tended to live there. They were slaves. These women didn’t look like slaves, but they were dressed in heels and short dresses and ready to party. Their clothes reminded me of the dresses Liv found in the back of Joanne’s closet. I made sure I got close-ups of the girls as they headed into the building. A big guy opened the door and I caught the briefest glimpse of a blonde-haired woman greeting the girls.

  I twisted the cap off beer number two and my body was finally relaxing after a day of tormenting me. I shifted on my knees and decided that I would put a pillow in the back of the Jeep for times like this. My knees were hurting from kneeling on the hard concrete, but I didn’t want to stand up. Even though I was a long way from the club, vampires have damn fine senses, and I didn’t want to get caught.

  A Mercedes pulled up and the big guy was moving quickly to get to that car. He hauled ass to open the door for the dark-haired man who tossed his keys at him. I snapped off a few quick photos before really studying the vampire through the lens. I engaged the zoom and got my first good look at a vampire who didn’t play games with my brother.

  He wasn’t the tallest man I’d seen, but he was powerfully built. His eyes were gray and seemed extremely cold to me. His hair was brown and slicked back. He wore a tailored suit and black tie. The male radiated superiority to everyone around him. He breathed in the night air and I felt the air of anticipation from him even across the block and five floors up. He was hungry and he wanted blood.

  The vampire took the steps two at a time in his eagerness to get to the door. The thin, blonde woman was waiting to greet him. She nodded formally as he entered the house and she closed the door behind him.

  I sat back on my heels. He’d given me
the serious creeps and I hadn’t even seen the dude’s fangs. I made a mental note to buy a crossbow at the earliest given opportunity. I was taking another swig of my rapidly warming beer when every single one of my instincts went on full alert.

  I can’t properly describe it, but it’s never steered me wrong. I know when I’m no longer alone. I slowly put the beer down and reached into my bag, carefully palming my .38. I closed my eyes and opened my ears. Whoever was coming for me was making their way up the ramp from the lower levels. The sound was somewhat slow. There was something impatient about the brisk thuds. Whoever it was, they weren’t really trying to hide their progress, but that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. I pulled myself up onto the cement column, making sure my sneakers were hidden from view. I had to let one foot dangle off the ledge to make sure no one could see where I was hiding. I pulled the .38 close to my chest and made sure the safety was off. I closed my eyes and listened. The sound was getting closer and closer, the click clack getting more and more pissed off as it made its way up the ramps. I was beginning to suspect who was after me, but I couldn’t be sure until I had visual recognition. Even with my suspicion, I intended to give whoever was coming up that ramp a reason to reconsider.

  “Damn it,” I heard a feminine voice say. The female sighed and started up the ramp to go to the top floor of the parking garage when she stopped and turned. I smiled. She’d seen my stuff on the floor of the garage, but she still hadn’t seen me.

  “Kelsey?” Liv asked hesitantly. “Are you here?”

  I leapt from my hiding place and had her perfectly in my sights before she had a chance to breathe.

  “Holy shit!” Liv screamed and jumped back at least two feet before landing on her ass.

  I grinned down at her. “You were looking for me?”

  “Bitch!” she breathed, her eyes wide. “I hate it when you do that.”

  I have to admit I enjoyed the way she had to catch her breath and clutched her chest, like she could stop her heart from racing. “Then don’t try to sneak up on me.”

  Her eyes narrowed and I knew she was no longer thinking about her fear. “Sneak up on you? I’ve sent you twenty texts. I left ten voice mails. I told you in the last one that I was working on a locator spell and that I would be here, in this very place, in twenty minutes. I don’t know how else you want me to announce my damn presence.”

  I shrugged and clicked the safety back on the gun. “I guess I missed that.”

  Liv scrambled up, her heels clacking against the cement. “Yeah, right. I believe that. You’ve ignored me all day.”

  “I’m working,” I said because I knew that tone. I was about to get a massive lecture on the evils of alcohol. I smiled bitterly as I twisted open beer number three.

  “I can tell.” She shook her head at the empty beer bottles and food wrappers. “Nathan called me last night. Between that and your drunk texting, I figured out you fell off the wagon last night.”

  “I wasn’t aware I’d been on the wagon.” I got back on my knees because Liv might want to throw an intervention, but my night was far from over. Another limo was pulling up.

  I was clicking pictures of three vampires and two women. These were kind of strange looking vamps, I thought as Liv’s tirade continued. She was saying something about me throwing my life away. I was thinking that vamps didn’t normally wear jeans and hockey jerseys. The tall, lanky vampire was wearing just that and he had his arm wrapped securely around the shoulder of a dark-haired Hispanic girl who, if I had to guess, was a werewolf.

  Curious. I wondered if the wolf was a hooker. Liv continued on, telling me how dangerous it was to get drunk when I had no backup, but I was thinking no on the hooker bit. The vamp’s smile was a happy one. There wasn’t anything salacious about it, just a sweet joy. I doubted the woman in his arms was anything but a girlfriend. He was careful with her. The other vampire with a female seemed a little European to me. They had a certain style that American men didn’t have and confidence in their own sexuality that few American men possessed. This vampire was wearing a dusky rose silk shirt over dark brown slacks and he looked wholly masculine in them. He held hands with a blonde in a short skirt and a wide smile. The last vamp seemed young and I meant that in a vampire fashion. If I was a betting girl, I would lay money that he’d recently started walking the night and the two older vamps were showing him the ropes.

  “Have you listened to a word I said?” Liv asked, her hands on her hips.

  I turned and tried a conciliatory smile. “Alcohol bad. Sobriety good.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Give me a damn beer.”

  I tossed her the coldest one I had left. She sank down and regarded me with serious brown eyes.

  “What are we doing here, Kels?”

  The limo drove off and I wondered if that was it. “I’m working a case you sent me on. You’re bitching at me. That’s what we’re doing here.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I looked down at my best friend and gave up the fight. “It’s a vampire club. It’s one of the addresses in Joanne’s book. I think she worked here.”

  “Sheee-it!” Liv took a long swig. “A real vamp club?” She knelt beside me, looking over the concrete barrier.

  “Four vamps have already gone in and it’s early,” I commented.

  “I’ve heard they like to get the whole dinner thing out of the way.”

  “Four vampires.” From what I understood, they were rare and tended to spread out. “Do you think that’s the whole population of North Texas?”

  Liv snorted. “Not lately.”

  I pursed my lips as I thought about the implications of diving in. I knew that Liv, Nate, and Jamie had been careful to keep any news of the supernatural world out of my hearing for the last ten years or so. I was about to open the door. “What do you mean?”

  Liv’s shoulder-length golden brown hair was in her right hand as she twisted it around. It was an unconscious mannerism she used when she was contemplating a problem. “You know Nathan doesn’t think it’s a good idea for us to keep you in the loop. He really thinks it is best for you to stay out of this world entirely.”

  “He worked you over good, didn’t he?”

  Liv sighed. “He showed up after school and yelled at me for a while. He told me I was driving you to drink.”

  “It wasn’t you, Livie,” I said with a sarcastic grin. “I totally drove myself. That’s what got my ass in trouble in the first place. Next time I’ll walk.”

  She punched me in the arm. “Don’t joke. I think Nate’s wrong. I think you need this. I don’t think you’ll be able to live in the normal world. You’ll have to keep too many secrets and deny too much of yourself. So, do you want the lowdown on the vamps?”

  I hesitated, but only for a moment. Liv was right. It wasn’t like ignoring the supernatural world had made me blissfully happy. “Hit me.”

  “The Council moved to Dallas almost ten years ago,” she said.

  Now my eyes were wide. “Seriously? I thought they were based in Paris and had been since…forever. What the hell are they doing in Dallas?”

  “The king lives here.”

  “There’s an actual vampire king and he lives in Dallas?”

  “Yeah,” Liv replied. “He’s the real deal. He took out the old Council ten years ago when they started to threaten the wolves and shifters. Only one member of the old Council survived the war. Now the Council formally governs the supernatural world and the seats are held by the various species. The king is the head of the Council. There’s a seat for vampires, werewolves, shifters, witches, humans, and the Fae. The king only votes in the event of a tie.”

  “Wow.” I finally understood what it meant to be flabbergasted. “That’s amazing. And everyone’s getting along?”

  “Not as well as the king apparently expected,” Liv admitted. “He’s already had to put down two attempts to overthrow him. I think after all those centuries of iron-fisted control, some groups are going a li
ttle too far with their newfound freedom. My coven leader says the king’s looking for a solution. He wants to create a kind of law enforcement for the supes.”

  I laughed because whoever took that job was a fucking idiot. “Nice, he wants a sheriff. Well, good luck to him.”

  I got back to watching the house. They were careful. I couldn’t see a damn thing through those windows, and I started to wonder how good an idea it would be to try to sneak in. Or maybe I could get a date. They seemed to be letting dates in. From what I understood, only vampires, companions, and slaves ever got into one of those clubs…Then my mind made another mental leap.

  “He got rid of the slaves,” I whispered.

  Liv shook her head enthusiastically. “It was one of the first things he did. He freed all the slaves, though a lot of them stayed with their vampire masters, but the vamps have to prove they’re paying their staffs.”

  “Then who’s feeding all these visiting vamps? If the king is here then I assume he has a court. If the slaves are gone, who’s going to feed the vampires?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  Liv’s mouth formed a perfect little O. “Hookers. Holy crap, Kels, you’re right. Someone’s bringing in hookers to fill up the clubs.”

  “But other supes would be better than grabbing a bunch of human girls off the street,” I commented. “Some asshole is recruiting supernatural college girls to prostitute themselves to vampires.”

  Liv thought about that for a second. “I get your point, but what else are they supposed to do? The vampires have to eat. The king won’t let them enslave humans anymore.”

  “Look, Liv, I don’t have some moral problem with it. If some chick wants to work her way through college on her back then good for her. But Joanne is missing and I don’t think she’s in Mexico with a john. I think she’s dead and I think it had to with her job.”

  “Really?” Liv teared up.

  “Sorry,” I said, taking a deep breath. “If I had to bet on it, I would say I’m hunting for a corpse.”