Peggy looked at me, completely pleased with herself.
I didn't need to say anything. She knew. We both did. It was too easy of a victory. And that made me nervous.
The world I knew died yesterday when a vampire came to me for help.
If we were living in a world of magic, if I had been blissfully unaware all this time, there was no way a quest was this simple. Heroes need conflict. And Bastet had basically handed the chain to us on a platter of kittens.
I looked up at a dull gray Los Angeles sky as gloomy and oppressive as the corruption of the city’s heart. But still there was no sign of trouble up or down the alleyway. No cop cars, no strange people in black leather walking towards me whistling while playing with sharp silver knives. No hunters. Nothing.
That scared me. No gods or goddesses ever gave an artifact away for free. There was always a cost, and I knew that the price for this gift would be high. Cats like to play with their toys. They like to play with their meals, too.
Not sure which one we were.
“Come on. Let's go,” Peggy said. “Any time we have left before trouble comes, we need to use wisely. Let’s focus on getting back to the crypt, to fixing Celestine.”
“Yeah,” I agreed sarcastically, “All we got to do now is get past one hundred hungry, newborn vampires. You know, without dying.”
Peggy’s smile only dimmed slightly. “There are more things on earth and under the Sun than you could possibly imagine, Tristan,” she cryptically remarked. “They won't touch me, and I'll make sure they don't see you. When we enter the theater, just stand behind me and walk in my footsteps.”
I trusted Peggy, more than I should have, more than was safe to trust a woman, let alone a girl I barely knew. But she didn't seem to be a sphinx who would betray me easily. She didn't lie for the pleasure of hurting another. In fact, she didn't take joy in the pain of vampires, let alone humans.
So instead of worrying about traps and deception, I decided trust would be repaid. I knowingly took that chance, heart on my sleeve. Looking at the length of amulet-strewn chain in Peggy’s hands, I noted the exceptional workmanship of the jewelry. Reaching out my own hand to touch it, my curiosity was oblivious to manners.
At first, Peggy shied way and then stopped herself. Holding out the chain in her open palm, she encouraged me, “Take it if you can, Tristan. But it comes with a price. You gotta be willing to pay....”
Which was exactly what I was afraid of.
But love has a cost, too. I was willing to pay that toll.
Without hesitation, I let go of Marian and reached out my hand to tie my fate to the dead heart of a monster.
To Celestine.
4
All That Glitters
Tristan St. Denis
The line of limousines stretched on for blocks.
Tinted windows covered the vehicles, driven by tuxedoed and capped chauffeurs, black gloves resting on steering wheels as they patiently waited for their moment in the spotlight. One after another, the stretch limousines pulled up to the red carpet, the waiting paparazzi, and the swelling crowd of rabid fans. So much screaming filled the air, it was almost impossible to hear any conversation.
That didn’t matter. No need to talk.
Flashes of cameras lit up the drop-off point bright as noon day. Every person stepping on the thick red carpet was blinded as if they stared directly at the sun. A thousand lights shone in the sprawling city, focused on the night of the movie premiere.
Hollywood pulled out all the stops. With her lips painted bright red and a dress cut in all the right places, the newest movie starlet gracefully stepped out of her limo, waving to the crowd as she emerged. She stood there, craving the attention, glowing in the stark, harsh flashes of press cameras, finally getting her moment in the only real sun of Hollywood. Light bulbs flashed as breathless reporters noted everything about her clothing choices, scrutinizing her earrings, her hair, her shoes, her makeup, and the people who accompanied her.
The fourth, the fifth, and then the sixth stretch limo dropped off their preening contents. Hollywood royalty, the jesters, the studio heads, the writers, the money men, the male lead, the cinematographer—they were all there. And one by one, they filed in, past the rabid fans, past the shock of light bulbs and blinding flashes in their faces. Together with their entourages, the crowd of gifted creators and hangers-on entered the historic ornate and gilded theater.
Excitement filled the air. Liquor and conversation flowed along with vicious gossip. Most of the monsters in the lobby were still human, their hidden dealings only occurred out of public view. They clung to the shadows while walking proudly in the glory of their fame. But when no one watched, those men and women found their darkest desires in the waiting rooms, the alleyways, and the tinted windows.
Tonight, none of their strange tastes mattered. The most important thing the premiere attendees had to discuss was what after party they should choose. None of these people had been invited to the mansions on the hill.
Not yet.
That's what all of them sold their souls and their looks for: the exclusive mansion and diamonds dripping on their hands and neck and ears. The theater filled with modern day princes and princesses pulled out of the lottery of the poor, lifted by their talent to the unreachable stars. They were more than royalty in America, they were gods. And after fame and riches, they all craved one final gift: immortality.
The tenth limo showed up a little bit late, making a dramatic last minute entrance behind the others. Very few photographers were left to snap a picture.
Worked out just fine, I thought, reluctant to be the center of attention.
The chauffeur open the car door. I stepped out on to the red carpet, my surroundings as unbelievable as the world that I lived in now.
I turned and offered my hand to the beautiful girl who was with me, one of the child stars, one of the up and coming actors who possessed great promise and talent. None of the press knew who she was, which is why they immediately took note.
Cameras clicked.
Offering her my arm, I led her slowly down the red carpet and into the movie theater lobby.
Dressed like a flapper, hair done up short with the glitter of a short-sleeved, long-waisted dress and a thousand sparkling sequins that swayed when she moved, Peggy was almost perfect. She didn't even look like herself, not at all like the shell-shocked, miserable girl we’d rescued.
Laughing lightly, she glided across the lobby and greeted people so famous that I was tongue-tied just to be in the same room. She wasn’t flustered. Playing her part down to the penny, she nailed every performance.
Wild, incautious, the perfection of youth and vitality, Peggy’s smile opened more doors than a hundred hunters ever could have. I quietly followed in her wake, an escort to the blazing star that she pretended to be. With a face not-quite famous, not-quite recognizable but absolutely at home amid all of the glamour of Hollywood, Peggy was the key that unlocked the door to the interior of the historic movie theater.
We walked into hell.
With a rush of light and sound, we were at the center of the vampire lair, ready.
Now all we had to do was disappear. Oh, and manage to get past the undead special ops, bloodthirsty, and grizzled veterans that Celestine had hastily raised to be her newborn army. While the humans paraded in their finery above ground, vampires waited in the shadows, ready to steal blood and life from the unwary.
The interior of the theater was embellished in gold and the reddest, red paint I had ever seen. The walls were the exact color of newly spilt blood.
Wealth was on display in every single inch of the place. Covering decorated tables, there were glasses of wine, and hors d'oeuvres, and diamonds, and silk in every direction.
It was obscene. Overwhelming. Beautiful.
I headed straight for the shadows. I knew my place. I'd rather face a vampire then the overwhelming sensation of that much money and too much glamour. I preferred a pair of jean
s myself. Sweatshirt, a t-shirt underneath, and a simple pair of sneakers— that was about as dressed up as I've ever been.
Unlike me, Peggy bloomed. She stayed in the spotlight, holding their gazes, keeping the questions at bay simply by exhibiting a confidence far beyond her years. She possessed a mixture of grace and beauty that few women acquired. And yet she was a mortal...
At least that's what Celestine had said to the other vampires.
If Peggy is a mortal, what exactly is she? She sings and when she does, she glows... that describes no creature I have ever heard of. Why is she so valuable? Peggy’s truth was a mystery that would have to wait.
Besides, I had other things on my mind—like surviving the night.
Celestine loves her, that’s good enough. A wise man takes the partners that opportunity offers.
Including this one... Completely at home, I watched Peggy flit amongst the most beautiful and talented people in the world.
Celestine's daughter was more than capable of taking care of herself.
In fact with the gown she was wearing, Peggy held far more weapons than I did.
Ducking around the corner, I found a bit of deep shadow undisturbed by the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. From that vantage point, I looked around, scanning the crowd. Oblivious, all of them… or intentionally ignorant.
These people had to know, had to guess at the savage underbelly of real Hollywood. They had to know that hundreds of men and women died to feed monsters that lived not ten feet away, just under their feet.
They weren’t all innocent. Some of these people made deals with the devil.
As I watched the crowd closely, I could even tell who. There was a hardness to certain eyes, a cold evaluation in the way that they regarded the other attendees. The theater filled with people who lied for a living, those who sold them to the public, and those who wrote the gossip that fueled Hollywood. A few hardened creatures scanned the crowd, the same way of butcher looked at a particularly fine cut of meat before dividing it into parcels for sale.
Absolutely creepy.
There were at least three people inside the historic movie theater for the film's premiere who knew that something was wrong. Those three did nothing to protect the others. I watched two cold and stern women whose smiles never reached their eyes. The glanced at me and dismissed my presence just as quickly as they passed me on their way to visit the restroom.
Except they never made it.
Stopping by the open bar, they struck up a conversation with a bewildered chap. From his startled expression and ill-fitting tuxedo, the man was most likely a film crew member. He obviously felt out of place at the premiere. Anonymity clung to his shoulders, along with a thrift store suit. Clearly, one of the runners behind the scenes, the man was a Hollywood hopeful whose dreams had crashed and died years ago.
Just to survive, he got a job as part of the crew.
Tonight, the young man finally got a chance to see real fame in Hollywood.
Only he didn't realize yet that he wasn't a part of the power structure. He was just there for the food.
As the food.
The two women I had noticed before spoke to him with voices lilting, their glances diamond sharp. They settled in around their target, deadly beautiful. They teased him with every gesture.
After a few minutes, one dropped her drink. Spilling a little bit on her dress at the very bottom of her skirt, she cursed. Flushed with nerves, the young man was instantly attentive and so very apologetic. And while the cruel-eyed woman brushed off his apology, she let him lead the way past the shadows where I stood.
Looking for paper towels and salt, they rushed to the back where the restrooms and powder rooms were, past three utility closets and the exit stairwell. For a few moments, they went to the powder room.
A low growl built in the back of my throat. These creatures had no shame. My hackles raised. No matter their costumes or the diamonds on their hands, these were not good people.
Period.
Then one woman came out of the bath room, visibly upset.
Embarrassed, the young man tried to apologize again but she stormed out the exit door. Loudly exclaiming her distress, she fixated on grabbing a cigarette to calm her nerves, while the youth groveled.
Galled, I watch the two of them go out to the alleyway. As soon as the door latch opened and clicked shut behind them, the second woman emerged. Her dress was absolutely fine. Not a blemish on it.
A flood of anger rushed through me as I watched the scam revealed.
Swifter than a cheetah springing after a gazelle, she was at the back exit, slipping through it to the dark of night. As the swinging door opened and closed, I saw a part of his hand, his grip open wide, startled—captured prey.
I didn't open the door.
I didn’t have to. I knew that those two vampires fed and fed well. Theatrical and yet discreet, they were too smart to be discovered. Frankly, my fight was not with them. Bigger fish to fry… still, I felt bad for the dumb kid. His last night in Tinseltown was a real drain.
I looked back towards Peggy. She was already gliding towards my side, lowering her guard as she stepped into the shadows.
“Ready?” The look on her face was so intense, I didn't even need to answer.
She stepped over towards the restrooms to the exit stairwell. For a moment, she considered walking out the alleyway. I placed my hand on her shoulder and whispered, “Wouldn't recommend that, right now. Not the best of time.”
With a small gesture of my head, I pointed to the blood splatter on the ground.
Peggy nodded sharply. She knew the signs. Straightening her shoulders, Peggy chose which battle we spent our limited resources to fight. “Right,” she said, directing our path away from a useless confrontation.
“He’s already dead,” I muttered. Stay on track. I forced myself to stay calm. I wanted justice. I wanted to save that guy. But idiocy has its own cost. I could not afford to pay for his mistakes, right then. Too much to lose.
“The stairwell, it is,” she remarked as we turned away from the vicious murder happening in the alleyway. We turned our backs on one soul in order to save the city.
I still regret that.
Together, we entered the cramped stairs, knowing that there would be one hundred newborn vampires to deal with, down below our feet. They were monsters. And yet—it wasn’t their fault.
Celestine wouldn't want us to harm them. Regardless, we had to get past their glaring fury and formidable skill to have a chance of healing her. Hidden under the movie theater, the crypt presented a problem: it was so compact, even the concealed passageways were of no use. We had to enter and exit without alarming the horde of hunger. We couldn’t go back in through the secret tunnel. We had already used that option. As soon as we left Celestine, the wall was sealed behind us.
But Peggy, the clever girl, then had a brilliant idea. It had taken the better part of the afternoon to get the ingredients and the tux and dress. But voila. So, while we looked the part of bored starlet and scruffy escort, we smelled horribly, inside and out. Really.
We reeked.
On each stair level landing, she turned to me and nodded. Together, we swallowed the contents of the final two middle-sized glass bottles. Wrapped in fine linen, they barely clinked in my pockets and inside her clutch.
I handed her a third vial of the oily yellow stuff.
“Cheers,” we toasted each other with another shot of crushed garlic. Both of us looked more green than human by the time we finished the last gulp. Sharp and biting, the garlic was terrible to eat without butter, bread, and pasta.
But that was the high cost of living through the night.
Once the bottles were empty, we were both quite green.
Gingerly, we went down to the very end of the stairwell three stories below ground. At the bottom there was a secure door. The locking system was oddly modern for a historic movie theater. That was the mark of Celestine’s caution. The simple black pad requi
red fingerprints and a code. We didn’t bother with the pad. Neither one of us had the fingerprints.
“I think I have something,” Peggy whispered, standing over the keypad. She entered a chain of thirteen numbers and then she entered nine more and then stopped. Her hand hovered above the pad. We waited, listening intently.
Something turned inside the mechanism. And the door clicked open.
Immediately, fangs sliced through the damp air. And then they stopped, incisors and all, mid-air. All around us, vampires took a deep breath. And recoiled.
They glared at us, appalled at our necks and exposed skin. Monsters snarled and backed away, looking completely disgusted.
Cool as an ice cube in winter, I turned to Peggy and whispered, “Let’s face it: we stink.”
Her stern expression broke into a smile.
“What in the bloody hell?” A few of the terrible monsters cried out, recoiling.
I had to agree.
We smelled nasty. The garlic oil and stink thoroughly coated our insides, sinking into our blood and sweating from our skin pores. At that point, we were inedible. The rank smell was everywhere. We were not dinner, not anymore. Now, we were smelly six month old rotten, moldy trash. We were listed in the dictionary under synonyms of skunks’ regret. My smile was sharp enough to cut through silk.
Peggy’s plan worked beautifully.
Instantly, the wave of fangs and claws of a hundred of hungry vampires retracted as they looked at us, completely confused. Offended, even.
Before they could even decide how to react beyond their initial shock, Peggy and I grabbed hands and ran through the stunned crowd.
Abruptly jolted out of a hunger frenzy, the berserker monsters stood there and watched us go. The skunk’s defense—that's what we claimed. Our blood was just too poisonous and our breath too noxious for a single vampire to do more than glance at us, sniff, and turn away to dry vomit.
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