Blood World

by Chris Mooney

  Sebastian said nothing.

  Ron took the silence as an accusation. He tilted his head to him, ready for a fight. “If she wasn’t one hundred percent clean, I wouldn’t have told Anton to bring her on. Everything on her checks out.”

  Sebastian nodded absently, watching Faye and reviewing what had gone down at Long Beach. “When the flash-bang grenade hit the floor, she didn’t hesitate. She turned and wrapped her arms around me and threw me to the floor.”

  “Like she said, it was a smart move. If you were dead, she wouldn’t be able to collect the reward.”

  “But when things escalated into a full-blown shit show, she didn’t scream or cower or cry or try to run away or find someplace to hide. Then, when Paul killed—” Sebastian’s voice caught, the images of what had happened to his childhood friend constricting his throat and squeezing his heart. “When Frank went down, she didn’t so much as pause. She grabbed a handgun from the floor and returned fire.”

  “Sometimes people can surprise us when the shit hits the fan.”

  Sebastian rubbed a finger across his bottom lip, thinking, watching Faye on the screen. “Way she acted—that’s muscle memory. She’s had training. If she isn’t military, she’s something else.”

  Ron’s eyes turned hard. “You think she’s a cop?”

  “How many women you know who can handle a gun?”

  “If she is Miss Undercover for LAPD or the Feds, then people are watching her, and they would have put a stop to what went down at the house. They wouldn’t have let it escalate. They would have intervened because they knew she was in trouble.”

  Maybe Ron’s right, Sebastian thought. Maybe I’m overthinking this. The bane of every alcoholic.

  Still . . .

  Sebastian reached into his pocket. “There’s also this,” he said, and handed Ron a folded picture of a young boy of three or four sitting in front of a Christmas tree; the camera captured the look of wonder and expectancy on his face. The photo had been folded and unfolded so many times, the white crease marks were beginning to fray.

  Sebastian said, “Maya went to throw out her clothes and saw it peeking out from underneath the insole of her shoe.”

  Ron looked up from the picture. “Her shoe?”

  Sebastian nodded. “She must’ve used a knife, something sharp, to cut out a space so she could hide it.”

  “I know she doesn’t have any siblings. She’s an only child.”

  “What about cousins?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t dig that deep. But I can, if you want me to.” Then, when Sebastian didn’t answer: “Do you want me to?”

  Sebastian had made his living being able to read people. It had made him a lot of money in the real estate business, and it had kept him alive, safe, and well protected from his competitors in the blood world. His initial instincts about Paul had been correct, but he had allowed Paul to enter the business as a promise to Trixie, and he had paid for that dearly.

  But he didn’t need to consult his instincts on Faye. The only reason someone went to great lengths to hide things was to keep a secret about their true, inner self from being discovered. It was basic human nature. So why was Faye hiding a picture, of all things, inside her shoe? More important, why was carrying around this picture so important to her?

  What are you hiding from me, Faye?

  “Dig deep,” Sebastian said. “As deep as you can without putting us at risk.”

  Ron nodded. “I’ll also work my LAPD contacts, see if I can find anything.”

  “Be discreet. We don’t want to tip our hand.”

  Ron slid the photo into his shirt pocket. “What are you going to do with her?”

  “She’s already on our side of the fence. Let’s keep her in the fold.”

  “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?”

  Something Frank would have said. Frank had loved all that Sun Tzu Art of War shit. “Paul has a driver. Why shouldn’t I?”

  Sebastian got to his feet and took one last look at Faye. Her secrets would come out eventually. In his experience, they always did.

  In Heaven as It Is on Earth

  CHAPTER 32

  A FEW MINUTES shy of eleven, Grace decided to call it a night. She said goodbye to her girlfriends, all of them drunk and happy and begging her to stay. Grace held firm. She didn’t want to drive home drunk. Delirium, one of LA’s hottest nightclubs, was one of the safest places to party. You didn’t have to worry about someone pricking you to find out if you were a carrier, and you didn’t have to worry about a bunch of wackos trying to storm the place to take a carrier. The club was, as one reviewer called it, “a maximum-security prison featuring outrageously overpriced drinks and outrageously beautiful people doing outrageously uninhibited things.”

  The security line was long, Grace wishing she could just leave. While she appreciated the security measures the club took so everyone could party in safety, they were still a major pain in the ass. You wanted to party at Delirium, the first thing you had to do was submit an application for a background check. If it came back clean, you were then placed in a lottery where people were (supposedly) picked at random and assigned a night. If you were willing to attend on said night and could cough up a ridiculously high cover charge, you were brought inside to the security center, where you handed over your phone, wallet, and purse. There, you were given a special electronic bracelet that was hooked up to the credit or debit card you had on file. The bracelet also acted as a GPS, tracking your movements inside the club in case someone had to find you.

  The next and final step was the body scanner that treated you to a visual strip search. The scanner could detect metal as well as drugs, plastic explosives, even a polymer gun; but what it was really looking for were prickers, the devices used by stickmen to identify carriers.

  After Grace traded in her bracelet for her purse, she hung in the lobby while the valet went to collect her car—a good thing, too, since the area outside the club was packed with paparazzi. Flashes were going off like machine-gun fire, the cameras pointed at a woman standing by her limo. Traffic outside was backed up, horns honking in every direction. Grace took out her phone and called her mother.

  “Hey. I’m about to leave.”

  “Okay.” Her mother’s relief was palpable.

  Grace said, “I’m waiting for my car, but it might be a while.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “She Who Shall Not Be Named is standing outside the club, posing for pictures.”

  That was what Grace, her mother, and her friends called this sex tape porn star turned reality TV star turned feminist entrepreneur. She Who Shall Not Be Named had become world-famous for a viral sex video of her getting tag-teamed in high school by two football studs at a hotel.

  Grace said, “She’s out there with her new boyfriend.”

  “Some rapper, right?”

  “Da-Nutz.”

  The two were idiots, no question, barely a brain between them, but what really pissed Grace off about the Dipshit Twins were the ridiculous “No Blood” buttons they wore, the two of them pretending to be a part of the whole #noblood movement—which was so hypocritical, because one look at She Who Shall Not Be Named, and you could tell she was on the blood, her skin flawless, tight, and youthful looking even though she was way past forty.

  Grace said, “I just got a text. My car is ready.”

  “Remember, I gave you money for the—”

  “The premium service, yes. It’s all set.”

  “Call me when you get to the car, okay?”

  Grace was very close with her mother and, like most children, was able to read the subtle shift of her parents’ moods, even over the phone. Her mother sounded tired, which wasn’t that much of a surprise since she was an early bird. Tonight, Grace heard traces of fear in her mother’s tone—fear and, Grace thought
, grief.

  “Okay?” her mother asked again.

  “Yes. I’ve got to go. Security is here.”

  Her escort—humongous, with a shaved head and a pissed-off expression—looked like a soldier dressed by Ralph Lauren: nice black suit mixed with a body camera, a bulletproof vest, and a belt that held a handgun, Taser, cans of Mace, and what were called “flash-bang” grenades. Grace felt safe—which was the entire point. His job was to walk her to her car, make sure she was safe.

  As Grace exited the club behind her escort, she reached into her purse for the newest piece of technology designed to help protect carriers in the event of an abduction.

  The panic button was the size of a matchbox. Grace held it between her thumb and index finger as she walked, keeping a close eye on her surroundings. If something happened, all she had to do was press down on the button and break the seal, and it would activate the GPS device she had surgically implanted in the webbing between her thumb and index finger. The size of a grain of rice, the GPS device would immediately send a distress signal not only to the police and local FBI but also to a special recovery team employed by the private security company that manufactured what it called its state-of-the-art “Carrier Retrieval System.”

  Grace arrived at her car. Once she got inside, she made sure the doors were locked. Then she took out her phone and dialed her mother. The car’s Bluetooth synced with her phone. Grace heard her mother’s voice on the speakers.

  “Did you have a good time?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “What was it like?”

  It was like visiting some erotic petting zoo, Grace wanted to say. Her friend Jamie had had a private table with bottle service in the VIP section of the club. There, topless, acrobatic women made of pure muscle floated high above the dance crowd, dangling effortlessly and gracefully from gymnastic rings. Muscular, good-looking men and beautiful women dressed in black thongs were elaborately tied to crosses and torture racks, unable to see the hands exploring their bodies, because they were blindfolded. Cocktail waitresses wearing dark red lipstick and dark red lingerie with matching stripper heels moved with their drink trays through the dance floor and VIP areas. Some carried whips. Some made the customers get down on their knees and lick their shoes before they would serve them their drinks.

  It was all harmless theater, Grace thought, although a great number of people seemed to actually enjoy being uninhibited. She wasn’t one of them. Seeing the naked lust on display made her feel too self-conscious. Uncomfortable. And maybe that was the whole point—confronting those puritan parts of you that were uncomfortable and shy and wanted to look away.

  “It was loud,” Grace told her mother. “I can still hear the EDM music thumping in my ears.”

  “I was never a fan of nightclubs.”

  “I don’t think I am, either.”

  “I’m just glad you’re on your way home.” The fear again.

  Grace said, “Did something happen?”

  “You mean you haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  “What happened in Thousand Oaks,” her mother replied. “It’s all over the news.”

  Which Grace fully admitted she avoided at all costs. Turn on cable or fire up the Internet and go on any social app, at any time of day, and you were treated to a smorgasbord of terror. Her life was already an exercise in fear management. She didn’t need to add fuel to the fire.

  “You should really stay informed,” her mother began.

  “Just tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “Seth Boynton. You went to grade school with him.”

  “Name’s not ringing a bell.”

  “He moved when you were seven, maybe eight. He lives in Thousand Oaks now,” her mother said. “Lived, I should say.”

  “What happened?”

  “He was a carrier.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I didn’t, either, until I read the story. Seth was coming out of a bar and a group of blood snatchers went after him. The bar security got involved, and a couple of patrons were also carrying, and there was a shoot-out and Seth was killed.”

  It shouldn’t have shocked her. Carriers were constantly getting snatched off the streets or dragged from their homes or taken when they were coming out of a store or a bar. It was insane, the way the world was now. And even if you weren’t a carrier, you were still in danger. When professional blood snatchers went after someone, they went in hot and heavy and had no problem hurting or killing anyone who got in their way.

  Grace said, “You should really stop watching the news.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it isn’t healthy.”

  “Ignoring the world isn’t going to stop me from worrying about you.”

  “I’m sorry. For Seth.” And for me, Grace added privately. I’m sorry for what I’ve put you and Dad through since I was born—for what I’m still putting you both through.

  Grace sat idling at a set of lights on Wilshire. It was a four-way stop. “I’ll be home in half an hour, maybe forty minutes,” she said. Up ahead, she saw a truck tearing its way through the intersection, heading west.

  Another drunk driver, she thought. LA was full of them—especially at this time of night.

  “Tell me more about the club,” her mother said.

  A van pulled up alongside her. Grace turned as her mother said, “I read about it online. It seems . . . different.”

  The side door slid open and she saw three masked men, covered from head to toe in black.

  She saw handguns.

  Assault rifles.

  “Oh my God.”

  “What?” her mother asked, alarmed. “What’s going on?”

  A man with a crowbar smashed her side window. Grace had already turned away, searching for the panic button—Where is it? Where did I put it . . . ? Oh my God—and screaming for help as gloved hands flailed at her hair, her mouth and throat.

  CHAPTER 33

  IF FAYE SIMPSON was right about Paul and his crew, whoever they were, deciding to go after her because he thought Anton might have shared valuable information on Paul’s organization, whatever plans he had in place, it made sense to keep Faye as close as possible, which was why Sebastian had her move into his house.

  Space wasn’t an issue. Two of Ron’s best, most trusted men were already living there and were running security operations out of Sebastian’s spacious home office. That left an extra bedroom for Faye. Having her under his roof, Sebastian reasoned, would allow not only him but also Ron’s people to keep a close, watchful eye on her.

  Ron agreed. Before he left for Vegas, he had bugged Faye’s bedroom, even the bathroom she used down the hall, with hidden mikes and cameras.

  In the two weeks she’d been his driver, neither Sebastian nor Ron’s people had caught her snooping or making any phone calls other than to her boyfriend, Max. Sebastian heard recordings of their phone calls and gathered that Max was getting frustrated that Faye was no longer available to him. Faye informed him that she had been given more responsibility at her job, which meant she had to work longer hours, and if Max didn’t like that, well, sorry. Her career came first.

  Faye didn’t tell Max that her new job was being a driver. Max still believed she worked at the LA Health and Wellness Center.

  Sebastian didn’t think the two of them would last.

  It was Sunday, the morning bright and glorious. Sebastian stood in front of his bathroom mirror, finishing up shaving, while he talked to Ron over a wireless earpiece connected to a burner. Ron had been in Vegas over the week, posing as a vanilla government wonk saddled with the sad-sack task of performing a fastidious background check on Faye Simpson, who had recently applied for a federal job that required midlevel security clearance.

  “The next-door neighbor was a boatload of information,” Ron sa
id. “Told me Faye was an only child and pretty much a tomboy until around thirteen or so. She also got into a lot of fights. Didn’t have much in the way of family—the mother, the neighbor said, was kinda tight-lipped, didn’t really like to talk about her past. Neighbor had the impression there was a lot of sadness there, so he never pried all that much. He did, however, remember one time the mother had a birthday party when Faye was really young—maybe about three or four—and the mother said she had family there, some cousins and stuff. One of them might be the kid in the picture.”

  “What about the story she told us about the mother’s boyfriend teaching her how to shoot?”

  “It’s one hundred percent true. The neighbor remembered the guy’s name—Daryll Parson. I tracked him down yesterday. Lives in Seattle now, retired. That’s why him and Faye’s mother broke up. He got a job for Seattle PD, but the mother didn’t want to move, so they split up. Anyway, I got him talking about firearms, and he told me Faye took an interest when she was about fifteen. Had a real skill when it came to shooting, he said, so he took her under his wing. For a while there she had shown interest in becoming a cop, and then she got real good at cards, namely blackjack, and we know what happened there.”

  Sebastian rinsed off his blade and picked up the towel. “What about the photograph? You show it to him?”

  “I showed it to everyone. Nobody here knows anything. Could be a cousin.”

  “What about the boyfriend, Max?”

  “I told you, he’s clean. We’ve done our due diligence on the both of them, and then some.”

  Sebastian moved out of the bathroom, thinking.

  “There’s a flight leaving in an hour,” Ron said. “Would you like me to waste more time out here, or would you like me to come home and focus on our top priority: Paul?”

  “He’s gone dark again.”

  “No, he’s gone quiet. It’s not the same thing. He’s marshaling all his resources and planning some big move—I guarantee it. And he’ll do it soon. Has to, after what happened in Long Beach. When he does, he’s going to come after you—after us—with full force.”