“I want you to pull your wolves out of my turf.”
“Ain’t any wolves in your neck of the woods.”
“Tell that to the motherfuckers who just tried to run me down.”
Murdock narrowed his eyes further, so they looked like gleaming points in the smoky dimness. “Who,” he said.
“I don’t know who,” she said, “There were four of them. One of them called himself Wraith.”
“Wraith, that crazy asshole. He spill into your side of the Heights?”
“He paid me a visit, but I don’t think he expected to meet me in the street; or the beating I gave him.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”
“Get him out. You’re the big bad wolf around here, right? Do something about it.”
Talking to the big, bad wolf like this wasn’t likely to win Pixi any points, or maybe it would; either way, she didn’t care. She kept eye contact at all times, not once letting her focus stray from those two, fine points. Breaking a stare was a sign of weakness among werewolves, and while she wasn’t one of them, she knew their games, their ways.
“You want me to do something I can’t do,” Murdock said.
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Both. You know the rules. We keep what we can keep.”
“That’s bullshit. I don’t play by your rules. Remember? That’s why we made a deal. You told me your people wouldn’t spill into the Heights so long as I made sure other vampires didn’t use it as a hunting ground. I kept my end of the deal. What do you think will happen if I go back on it?”
“You’ve got a lot of balls coming in here, to my house, and threatening me like that.”
“Bigger than yours. Why don’t you keep your people in check?”
“You think I go around telling packs where to go and what to do? They’re grown men. They can do what they want.”
Pixi’s eyes fell on the gun and then immediately whipped back onto Murdock’s, so quickly she was sure he hadn’t noticed. It probably wasn’t loaded with silver bullets—werewolves didn’t carry silver—but a .45 to the side of the head from this close would put even a werewolf down. She was sure she could grab it and press it against his head before he could react.
“Get them out of my turf,” Pixi said. “Don’t go back on your deal.”
Murdock shifted in his seat, and the leather squeaked beneath him. “No,” he said.
If Pixi’s heart could beat, it may have been thundering inside of her chest, causing her vision and her hands to shake, her stomach to tremble. But it wasn’t beating. The blood gently oozing through the dead veins in her body was cold, affording her a kind of clarity of thought only achievable by someone completely devoid of chemically induced impulses.
She squared up to him, letting her hand slowly slide across the table. “If you don’t pull them out, you’ll have four dead bodies to deal with.”
Murdock stiffened, his face hardening. “You know what your problem is?” he asked. “You think you’re one of us because you’re tough, because you can fight, because you crawled out of a werewolf’s pussy all those years ago. But you’re one of them. You aren’t one of us. Vampires all think they’re entitled little shits who can demand and get whatever they want. You say you’re one of us, but here you are, making demands. But you ain’t one of us, so before you go around thinking you have any kind of authority around here, you’d better think again. It’s only for the love I bore your mother that I even tolerate you.”
Murdock’s words stung harder than Pixi would have liked, but she didn’t let it show on her face. Hearing Murdock talk about her mother had stirred something within her, had awakened something dormant; something dangerous. Her memories of her breathing days were the only things still keeping her from slipping into the kind of narcissism prevalent in immortals who had forgotten what it was like to be human, but they were also triggers.
Pixi had been born into a family of werewolves. Her mother, Aisha, had been a well-respected huntress, but she was also a single mother trying to balance her duties to her pack and to her family. Being a huntress didn’t always pay the bills. Not even half the time. The pack took care of itself and of family members when it could, but the other times, Aisha struggled to keep things together.
When her mother died, the baton passed to Pixi to keep the family running smoothly. But she failed, and now she was here, staring Murdock down.
She kept eye contact, never once looking away, not even to see how close her hand was to the gun. Pixi knew exactly how much farther her hand needed to travel before she could grip the handle, bring it to bear on his head, and pull the trigger. Killing him wouldn’t solve any of her problems, but she didn’t care about that. He would be dead, and she would be satisfied.
Respect, reputation, revenge.
“You don’t get to talk about my mother,” Pixi said, and in a lightning-quick move she grabbed the gun, swung it around, and discharged it right into the wall, an inch away from Murdock’s ear.
Chairs scraped across wooden floors, glasses fell and shattered, and even the jukebox stopped playing. The smell of gunpowder tickled Pixi’s nose, and her ears were ringing from the explosion that had taken place inside the barrel. The bullet had lodged itself into a wooden support beam embedded into the wall, but not before having taken a huge bite out of it, sending an shower of little wooden splinters in all directions.
Murdock didn’t say anything, and neither did Pixi. She set the gun back down on the table and slid out of the booth. Werewolves stared at her as she made the almost never-ending walk through the bar toward the exit. One of the men swung a pool cue at Pixi, and she had to duck at the last second to avoid it. This sent her stumbling through the doors and out into the street.
She stepped away from the bar, keeping an eye on it as she went. As soon as the door opened and werewolves emerged from inside, Pixi turned tail and ran back onto her side of Crow’s Heights.
Her short welcome was officially over.
Chapter Four
Pixi walked the fractured sidewalk accompanied only by her own footsteps and the pitter-patter of light rain. Streetlights blinked their nighttime lightshow to an audience of crows sitting on high poles and electrical cables, shrugging the rain off their feathers. In an alley filled with overflowing dumpsters, a pack of hungry, wild dogs rummaged for scraps.
Crow’s Heights was a rare thing—a border district pressed between two strongholds; one belonging to werewolves, and one to vampires. Murdock’s bar sat on the east side of the district, where the buildings thinned and gave way to industrial parks and one of Ashwood’s many harbors. The other stronghold was a vampire-owned nightclub called Lust, and it was one of the only things about the district that worked.
If you didn’t count the drug and gun trade.
Unlike the other two border districts in Ashwood, Pixi hadn’t allowed Crow’s Heights to become an arena for ‘friendly’ skirmishes between vampire and werewolf. In those situations, it was always the humans who suffered the most—and if you lived in this part of town, you had suffered enough for two lifetimes. No. Pixi was a buffer between vampires and werewolves here, for all the good it did her.
The first hints of music touched her ears about a block out from the nightclub, a sound only Pixi’s supernatural senses would be able to detect. The club sat inside a repurposed and gutted-out packaging plant, a blocky eyesore sitting in the middle of an otherwise residential neighborhood like a dark castle lording over its surroundings. A long line of people still waiting to get in even at this time of night circled the building; some were smoking, others chatting, others puking their guts out on the sidewalk.
At the front of the line was a small, grey door being guarded by a mean looking black man in a black suit. He had an iPad in his thick fingered hand, an earpiece in his ear, and don’t fuck with me written on his face. Above his head, a CCTV camera poked out of the building to watch the crowd. On the opposite side of the street, another camera c
aught a second angle of the only way into the building.
Pixi crossed the street, then walked parallel along the line of waiting clubbers. At the head of the line, the bouncer took one look at her and immediately pushed the club door open to let her in. Deep, thumping bass spilled out into the night. A chorus of protests began to rise, starting at the front and cascading all the way to the midpoint of the line. Pixi ignored them and walked through the door.
A short set of steps greeted her immediately upon entering. The walls were as dark in here as they were outside, but a strip of black-lights along the ceiling illuminated a myriad of swirling patterns drawn into them with glow-in-the-dark paint. A tribal pattern, Pixi thought. At the top of the stairs was a coat-check, a pretty little goth-girl covered in piercings and tattoos manning it, and another bull-dog of a man in a suit.
The man put himself in Pixi’s way, blocking her from getting off the stairs and entering the level. The black-lights turned his face purple, and made his teeth shine brilliantly white. The sharpened canines in his mouth gave him away for what he was; a vampire, and another layer of security to protect against intruders.
“What’s your business here?” he asked, his voice effortlessly rising above the pumping bass.
“I came to party,” Pixi said, “Didn’t think I had to run that by you.”
“Sure, in this club you do. I ask again; what is your business here.”
Pixi grit her teeth and clenched her jaw. The thought this boot-lick was making her answer questions made her cold, dead blood start to boil. This was the second time she had been vetted, and it was starting to piss her off.
“I’m here to see Lionel,” she said.
“Lionel isn’t taking visitors tonight.”
“Like hell he isn’t. I know Lionel. It’s cool.”
“It’s not cool. He isn’t taking visitors, especially from the likes of you.”
She felt her hands clench into fists, almost unconsciously. “I’ve tried to be nice, but if you don’t—”
The man stepped away as Pixi spoke, returning to his sentry-like stance just to the side of the coat-check without saying a word. She stared at him, wondering why he had disengaged as abruptly as he had. Vampires weren’t usually susceptible to threats of physical violence, least of all the newer ones who thought they had become Gods impervious to harm. No. Someone had said something through his earpiece; someone watching from behind the camera aimed at the staircase Pixi found herself standing in now.
She turned her eyes up at it and scowled, then walked past the coat-check and through the staff-only door hidden behind it. This led to another dark corridor, flanked on both sides by unmarked doors Pixi had never been in, and would never be caught dead in. These were blood rooms—where vampires went for a bite with a little extra privacy, or at least the illusion of privacy. Premiums were high, but Lionel’s menu was vast and could accommodate just about anyone’s tastes.
Pixi tried not to look at the doors, keeping her eyes fixed on the one at the end of the hall. It opened as she arrived, and a warm, orange glow radiated from inside. A man’s silhouette briefly broke the rectangle of light, but he stepped out of the way as Pixi approached, letting her into the office.
Lionel crossed the room and circled around the oak desk on the other side of it. The walls were a deep, earthy brown with soft, warm lights set into gothic fixtures all around, scattered between old oil paintings of people Pixi had never heard of. A bar ran along the right hand side of the room, the shelves stacked with every bottle of alcohol imaginable. Next to the bar was a lush, black couch pressed into the corner of the room, adorned with one of the mightiest symbols of affluence.
A well-endowed woman in a silk, scarlet nightgown.
Pixi felt like she’d just walked into a den of wasps. Leaving was an option, sure, but it was also a weak move to make at this point. She shut the door and stepped toward the table, ignoring the woman with the eager look in her eyes. Lionel himself wore a black suit over a blood red shirt with the collar popped open. The room smelled like his musky cologne, alcohol, and blood.
“I need to talk to you,” she said, getting straight to the point.
A smile spread across Lionel’s cleanly shaven face. Despite the dimness of the room, his cool, grey eyes seemed to sparkle like diamonds in a cave. And if this was a cave, he was the dragon sitting on his pile of treasure.
“Please,” he said, his voice calm and smooth, “Take a seat.”
Pixi sat down, but said nothing.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked, gesturing at the woman in the nightgown. She had her thumb and forefinger delicately clasping a single strand of lace at her breast. Déjà vu tickled the back of her mind and she remembered how her last conversation with Murdock had started. He had also mentioned offering her a drink.
“No thanks,” she said.
Lionel cocked his head to the side. “You look flustered. A drink might do you good.”
“I don’t want a drink. A bunch of wolves strayed out of their den and attacked me.”
His eyebrows went up and he nodded, slowly. This wasn’t concern, simply his brain processing facts. “Did you provoke them?”
“That’s a stupid question, isn’t it?”
“We know you have a tendency to be a little… aggressive… sometimes.”
“I didn’t provoke them. They came out of nowhere and tried to run me down.”
He stroked his jaw. “You’re still standing, so they didn’t get the better of you. Did you kill any of them?”
“No. Those punks didn’t know how to fight.”
“Good.”
Pixi’s hackles rose. “Good?” she asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means they won’t be out for blood.”
She walked up to his desk, slammed the heels of her palms on it and stared him square in the eyes. “Motherfucker, I’m out for blood. Why do you think I’m here?”
Lionel watched Pixi’s hands for a long moment, and then turned his glare up at her. “Take your hands off my desk,” he said.
“Or what?” she asked as she inched closer to him, her black and violet hair falling down the sides of her face.
An electric charge passed between them, and his eyes seemed to drink the electricity in and reflect it off their surface in a slight glimmer. Lionel leaned back into his chair and Pixi straightened up.
“What happened after they attacked you?” he asked, “Are they still in the neighborhood?”
“I don’t know. I went to Murdock’s but they didn’t follow me.”
“And you came back alive.”
“Not the first time.”
He paused. “I take it you didn’t like what he had to say?”
“I asked him to call off his dogs. He refused. Told me he couldn’t control them.”
“From what you’ve told me about werewolves, that’s normal, right?”
Pixi stared at him like he was some difficult jigsaw puzzle she couldn’t solve. “Whose side are you on?”
“Ours, of course. But I’m not sure what it is it you want me to do. Relocate you? I can do that.”
“I don’t want a relocation, I want you to back me up. You Lord over one half of the Heights.”
“Back you up in exactly what way?”
“Until now, the only thing separating you from them has been me, but they aren’t listening to me anymore. If you don’t want a pack of wild wolves causing shit in your backyard, you’ll do something about this.”
Lionel stood and walked around the desk. “Look,” he said, “Crow’s Heights is a dump. You enjoy living here for some reason, and I’m not about to question that, but I will tell you this. You could live a much more comfortable life if you would just let me set you up. You’ve got an incredible artistic talent. I can help you see your potential.”
Pixi turned her head to follow Lionel as he circled around her. “You’re going to help me discover my potential?” she asked.
&nb
sp; “If you’d let me. We’d strike a deal with Murdock, let him keep your half of the Heights, and then I can move you somewhere more upscale. I’ll even buy you a studio to work from—something bigger than the cupboard you’re working out of now.”
“Cupboard?” she asked, turning around to face him.
“I didn’t mean any disrespect,” he said, his hands going up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m just trying to help.”
“Then help. That’s all I want from you. If you aren’t going to help me get rid of these wolves, I’ll figure it out on my own.”
Pixi headed for the door, but Lionel grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Wait,” he said.
She looked at his hand and then into his eyes. “Let go of my arm,” she said, “I won’t ask twice.”
He let go. “Look,” he said, “It’s not that I don’t want to help. I’m just not in the business of pissing werewolves off. If they want the Heights, I’d rather work something out so they leave my club alone and give them what they want. They may have a better use for the place than we do.”
“These guys are animals. They’re going to hurt people, kill people, and you’re asking me to let that happen and look away.”
Lionel didn’t seem to have a response to that.
She walked past him, shoving into his shoulder as she went. When she got to the door, she yanked it open and walked out without saying another word. This hadn’t gone as she had planned. She had thought Lionel had more of an interest in the Heights, but she had been wrong. The only thing left for her to do now was go home and sleep, but first, she was going to get something to drink.
And she was going to get it on her own terms.
Chapter Five
The sun went down beyond Ashwood’s horizon a little after six in afternoon. Soon after, while commuters were making the drives back to their homes, eager to huddle together with their families and fill their bellies, Pixi arose from slumber with what felt like a burning ball of acid in her stomach. She fought through the first hunger pang of the night, always the worst, and sat up on her creaky bed. Six inches of plywood nailed tightly around a windowpane were all that separated her chosen place of rest from the sun’s deadly rays, but it was either this or sleep in the bath-tub.
Legends of the Damned: A Collection of Edgy Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels Page 71