by Mary Hughes
Nixie just rolled her eyes.
“You’re caught, Shiv.” Glynn shook him. “It’s over. We know you’re trying to kidnap Mishela and why.”
Mishela stepped up, fists on hips. “Is that why you took my ‘Hello Cthulhu’ panties? To get my scent in order to track me?”
“No, Mishela, never.” Steve—or Shiv—blinked at her. His eyes got big and glossy, and his lower lip stuck out and trembled. “I just wanted a token. Something to remind me of your sweet self.”
“Aw,” Nixie said. “Puppy love. Cute but messy. Better push his nose in it before it gets any worse.”
”Let Shiv go, darlings,” a new voice said. “He was working for me.”
The voice was a rich alto. The knot of showgoers near the outer doors parted, and a stunning woman step through. Her long black gown was backless—with a neckline down to her navel, almost frontless too. Black eye shadow and blood-red lipstick was a look most women couldn’t carry off, but it painted her exotically beautiful. She looked like a perfect fictional vampire.
I blinked. This was probably the real thing.
As she glided past the paying customers, she handed them all colorful slips of paper. They looked at the papers, then each other.
Then the showgoers, our audience, trooped out the lobby door. I stared after them in disbelief.
The woman sauntered toward the other vampires. “Hello, Julian. How’s the little wifey?” Her voice was a deep purr, Catwoman but for the snide, mocking way she said wifey. I liked Halle Berry but not this woman.
Julian’s glare said he felt the same. “Camille.”
She sauntered past him to stand before Glynn. “Hello, darling.”
He stared down his high druid nose at her. “Is this Nosferatu’s minion?” His Welsh accent rolled like thunder.
“Is this the Ancient One’s little fetch boy?” A wicked smile on her full lips, she poked a single red nail into his chest. “It’s lieutenant, darling. Get it right.”
The nail dug, quick and sharp, into his shirt. Through it, a red flower appeared. He growled low.
She laughed. “Second lieutenant, actually, now that Ruthven’s gone.”
“Congratulations,” Julian said. The word was iced with sarcasm.
“Thank you.” Eyes never leaving Glynn’s, she licked her bloody fingernail. “It opens up the position of third lieutenant. Interested, darling?”
I expected him to smash her face or slash her with his knife. But he only stared at her, breathing through whitened, distended nostrils.
She smiled. Slowly extended all her nails, reaching for his face—to kiss him or claw him, I didn’t know and didn’t care.
I flew out of the house doorway. “Leave him alone.” Glynn could take care of himself, but strangely that didn’t matter in my need to defend what was…mine. Aw, hell.
Julian stopped me with an arm. But not before Camille’s head swiveled.
“And who is this?” She sniffed the air delicately. Her ruby lips quirked to a nasty little grin. “How droll. What is it with you Alliance boys and your human whores?”
Glynn slapped her. Her head snapped back, the surprise on her face unfeigned and instantly gone. Her nails lengthened to claws and she slashed them across his face.
I jumped, but Julian stopped me. “Let him handle it.”
A condescending smile crossed Glynn’s face, his striped skin already healing. He raised the hapless Shiv until he dangled. “This yours?”
“Of course, darling.” She cocked her head, black hair rippling past her shoulder. “Is that a trick question?”
“Here’s the trick.” Glynn reached into his jacket and pulled out his long knife. He grinned at Shiv. “This won’t stop you, but it will slow you down.” With a single muscular slash, Glynn beheaded the rogue. Blood spurted from the stub. The bony head fell with a muted thud.
I looked away.
“Camille,” Glynn purred. “Don’t make the mistake of going after my girls ever again. Any of them.” His gaze flicked to me, a stern look that seemed to say, “This is the monster you’re getting involved with.”
Yet I saw a yearning to be understood beneath the austerity.
Then he looked away. I was left wishing I could comfort him somehow.
“Good thing the carpet’s red,” Nixie muttered. She touched me on the shoulder, sass softened with compassion. “Don’t worry, it’s temporary. The only way to permanently stop a v-guy is cremate him or burn him in the sun. They’ll slap Shiv’s head back on, stick him in the ground for a few days and he’ll be good as new.”
I still didn’t look at the body.
“Don’t touch any of our humans.” Julian’s voice was frigid as death. “Go back to Chicago, Camille. Run home where you belong.”
“Oh, but I am home.”
Camille’s sly, loaded tone jolted my gaze toward her, to see what type of snake could talk without hissing.
She wore a ripe gloat, the kind that holds a hand of queens when every last dime has been bet. “Is this any way to treat a fellow Meiers Corners businesswoman?”
“I’ve no time for games,” Glynn said. “Get out.”
“Of course. After I give you this.” She offered one of her colorful slips of paper.
He just glared.
She held it out to Julian. “You?”
When he glared too, Nixie said, “Oh, for shit’s sake,” and started for her.
“Nixie, no.” Julian snapped up the paper so fast his hand blurred.
Camille’s smile broadened. “I have more for tomorrow night. And the night after. In case you find time for games.” She gave Glynn one last leer.
Then, with a dramatic swirl, she collapsed into a river of smoke, flowing along the lobby carpet and out the door.
Julian glared like he wanted to snap out his lighter and make her a fuse.
“What the hell?” Glynn snatched the paper from Julian’s hand. Scowling, his eyes darkened to royal blue—royally pissed. “This is why the house is so sparse.”
Avoiding the headless body, I sidled over and angled my head to see.
It was a flyer for a brand-new goth nightclub called Fangs To You. The club’s address was the Kalten building.
It featured a coupon for free drinks—for tonight.
Chapter Eleven
“Damn.” Julian tossed back a shot of whiskey, then plunked it down in a row of empties that stretched the width of the table. Apparently, the older the vampire the more it took to get drunk, because Julian was still red-eyed, long-fanged and apparently clear-headed. “This was their plan all along.”
We ringed a table right in the middle of Nieman’s Bar, but Julian’s fanged state wasn’t a problem. Not just the PAC had been emptied by Camille’s free drinks.
“I can’t believe we fell for it.” Mishela, back in her tomboy flannel and cap, toyed with her soda. “The kidnapping attempts were a diversion, to keep us from seeing them finishing the club.”
“Not just a diversion,” Nixie said. She was systematically destroying every bowl of bar peanuts within reach. “If you’d gone MIA, Scary Ancient Dude would have been flinging-apeshit mad. You know Nosy’s MO. Anything to fuck up the Alliance.”
Anyone else, I would have asked what the hell they meant. I was sort of used to not understanding Nixie.
Fortunately, Julian had gotten to be a competent translator. “Mishela’s kidnapping would have upset the Ancient One, distracted him and disrupted the Alliance. You’re right. That could have been Nosferatu’s primary plan, with Camille as a backup.”
“A one-two punch.” Nixie mimed a jab-cross. “Knock us off balance with Shiv, then KO with this shit.”
“Perhaps it’s not that bad?” Glynn nursed a Red Special, which smelled uncomfortably like brandy and blood. “Perhaps the townspeople will check out the club, find it not to their liking, and life will return to normal.”
I jumped on that. “Of course. The novelty attracted them. It’ll wear off.” Then I shook my
head. “But in the meantime, it’s free drinks. No self-respecting Meiers Corners—” I tried to think what our noun-forming suffix might be. Corners-ite? Corners-zian? Corners-erella? Gave up. “No MCer turns down free.”
“What chaps my ass,” Nixie said, “is that those good Corners folk could have come back after downing their drinks. They didn’t.”
Glynn frowned. “So?”
“So the shiny-new’ll wear off, sure. But maybe too late for us.”
I tried to steal a peanut, nearly got my hand chomped. Small, fast and pregnant is a dangerous combination. I shook out my fingers. “I hope not. If we lose our audience, that’s bad. But all the quaint local shoppes the Sparkasse Bank invested in will be in trouble too.”
“And if the shoppes default, well.” Julian downed another shot. “The bank will be ripe for takeover or worse.”
“Fuck me,” Nixie said. “Aren’t we as much fun as a barrel of dicks?”
Julian eyed her. “I think you mean ‘barrel of monkeys’.”
“Dude, the only possible way being mashed in a barrel with a bunch of hairy little things would be fun is if it’s dicks.”
“Ah.” Julian set the shot glass down. “My mistake.”
“Remind me,” Mishela said. “Why is the Coterie going after Meiers Corners?”
“First tell me what the Coterie is,” I said. “And Nosy and the Alliance.”
Julian said, “The Iowa Alliance is a group of philosophically like-minded vampires who live in harmony with humanity.”
“The good guys,” Nixie translated.
“Thanks,” I said. “And ‘Iowa’ Alliance because…?”
“The Alliance is based there,” Glynn said. “It’s where the leader lives.”
“Ah.” I nodded wisely. “Scary Ancient Dude.”
Nixie snorted. “Better than Ancient ‘One’, which is totally baka fakerific cuz there’s more than one.”
“But not many,” Glynn said. “In our world, age means strength, and the head of the Alliance is a vampire who’s walked the earth so long, no one knows how old he is.”
“Couple that with his steel will, preternatural intelligence and personal fortune…” Julian knocked back his last shot, grimaced. “He’s the most dangerous being on the planet. Thus Ancient ‘One’ is most appropriate.”
I finished off my beer, set it on our tray. “Okay. And the Coterie?”
“The vampires running the Chicago territory,” Julian said. “They stand philosophically against the Alliance. Their leader Nosferatu hates the Ancient One. I’ll let you explain.” With a nod to Glynn, Julian swept the rest of the empties onto the tray, stood and doddered off toward the bar. Apparently not as sober as I’d thought.
Glynn watched him go. “Chicago’s the third-largest city in the United States. It’s also the third-largest population center of vampires.”
I raised eyebrows. “Vampires fill out censuses? Is that one of the race options and I just didn’t see it?”
“We have our ways.” Glynn shrugged. “The Coterie is a bit of a mafia-like group that uses a gang of rogues, the Lestats, as their muscle. Nosferatu is the head of it all.”
Mishela took off her cap and played with it absently. “Nosferatu’s after power, territory and blood.”
“Especially ours.” Nixie scrubbed salt out of the only bowl Julian had left her. “Nosy and his homeboys love to grab up small-town blood centers.”
“Don’t they have blood centers in Chicago?”
“They’re protected,” Glynn said. “Grandfathered in on an arrangement the Ancient One made with the federal government. Vampires are powerful, but even a pack couldn’t stand against a platoon of Marines or Army field artillery.”
“The Coterie’d be jackass stupid to invade Chi-town blood banks.” Nixie threw the bowl on the table. “So they score on the streets and in their clubs. But that blood’s full of drugs and crap—and they have to hunt it, so it’s iffy besides. Funeral homes and hospitals are surer, but most of that blood’s old and sick.”
“Yuck,” I said when I deciphered that.
Glynn said, “Nosferatu is trying every way he can to take over territory west.”
“Yum, yum, farm-fresh blood,” Nixie said.
Which upped the yuck-factor. “So the government protects big blood centers and the Alliance protects the small-town centers?”
“And small-town people,” Glynn said. “It’s forced Nosferatu to bargain for blood or, worse yet, buy it.”
“I know Nosferatu hates the Ancient One.” Mishela popped her cap back on her loose hair. “But why is the Coterie going so hard after Meiers Corners?”
“Revenge?” Nixie said as Julian returned and passed around refills. She yoinked all the peanuts, gobbled up two cheekfuls and munched like a tiny blonde chipmunk. “Nosy wanted our close and hackable blood center. He’s tried like three times to get it or the city under his thumb. But we pwned him every time. That’s gotta sting.”
I took a sip of my beer, smacked my lips at the bright taste of imported pilsner. Julian’d sprung for the good stuff.
“That’s possible,” Glynn said. “Nosferatu was successful taking over a few small eastern blood centers. Meiers Corners standing firm might taunt him.”
“So why bother with it?” Mishela asked. “Why not stick with easy blood?”
“Because he can’t go much further east,” Julian said. “Not without running afoul of the New York Cadre.”
“Sounds like ball teams,” I said. “So if he wants to go west, why doesn’t he just go west?”
“Because of Project Shield.”
I frowned. “What’s—?”
“What you’d think,” Glynn said. “A line of Alliance households on the Coterie’s border.”
“Both a defense and an early alert system.” Julian lined up an arc of shot glasses. “Like the old DEW line between North America and the USSR during the cold war.”
Nixie said, “It’s all ‘Red rover, red rover let Nosy come over’.”
“You mean he’s trying to break though?” I frowned. “And he just picked Meiers Corners at random to attack?”
“If only,” she said. “We’re the Anne Robinson.”
“I beg your pardon?” Julian said.
“Suit guy.” Nixie winked. “Renaissance dances are his bubblegum pop.”
I suddenly got it. “We’re the weakest link.”
“Yup,” Nixie said. “Goodbye.”
I got cold.
“The Ancient One won’t let that happen,” Mishela said. “He’ll stop it before it goes too far.”
“You weren’t around the last time he personally stepped in.” Glynn shuddered, tossed off the last of his drink and shuddered again. “It wasn’t pretty.”
Julian turned distinctly green around the edges.
Nixie frowned at her husband. “Okay, so top priority is keeping Scary Dude from having to unleash his Ancient mojo.”
“But how?” Julian said. “If Camille is in Meiers Corners legally, it’s her prerogative to offer whatever sales incentives she considers efficacious.”
“Julian, sweetheart, love of my life. Want to tool that down to words invented in the last millennium?”
I said, “If she’s not doing anything illegal, we can’t force her out.”
“That sucks.” Nixie upended the last bowl of peanuts into her mouth. She held it out to Julian and batted her eyelids.
With a sigh, he gathered bowls onto the tray and returned to the bar.
Nixie lowered her voice and leaned in. “So, what if we eighty-six legal? Could we run over there, tear off her head, dig out her heart? Blow up her club?”
“It would make life easier,” Glynn said. “But the Ancient One tends to frown on that sort of thing.”
“Us being the good guys.” Mishela grinned.
“So we sit on our thumbs and twirl while the bitch takes our audience?” Nixie frowned at the door. “We should at least check out the club.”
&nb
sp; I opened my mouth to agree.
Glynn cut in with a snarled, “Too dangerous. Julian would forbid it—and I also.”
Though he said it to Nixie, he was glaring at me. I blinked.
“Shoulda sent you to get peanuts too.” Nixie said it to Glynn, then gave me an apologetic shrug. “They tend to be a mite overprotective of their mates.”
Second time, I couldn’t let that pass. My “young man” was bad enough. “Glynn’s not my—”
“We could turn Camille’s ploy against her,” Mishela said.
“I’m interested,” Nixie said. “Details.”
I tried again. “Glynn’s not—”
“Of course, he isn’t.” Mishela grinned. “Focus here. Camille’s snatching tourists, right? So her customers have to be sleeping somewhere, eating during the day when she’s closed. We just tell those businesses to talk up other good-guy businesses. We grab the tourists back—and the show.”
“We could also offer incentives,” I said, my mind starting to work now that the scary mate idea was off the table. “An MC Quainte Shoppe Coupone Booke or something. That’ll take more time to put together, but it’ll work for both tourists and locals.”
Julian returned with a trayful of peanuts—and a glass of milk. “Drink.” He plopped the glass in front of Nixie. “We’ll leave right after. You need your rest.”
“We need to prevent Ancient One Armageddon more.” She grimaced but drank.
“Hey.” I frowned. “If this Ancient guy is so powerful, why doesn’t he rule Chicago already? Or New York or London or any of the big cities?”
“He does, in a way.” Glynn fingered his empty glass. “He has business interests all over the world, a much more effective leash on things up until now.”
“Don’t get me started on that,” Mishela said. “He’s really pissed at the economy. Blames Nosferatu and works insane hours to keep it from tanking completely.”
I pictured a sort of shadow mogul, a vampire Howard Hughes skulking in hotel penthouses. “This Ancient of yours is a business tycoon? Then why have I never heard of him?”
Glynn said, “You’ve heard of him, all right. He’s Mishela’s guardian. Kai Elias.”
Entr’acte
Glynn insisted that everyone walk Junior home that night. He implied it was for safety against rogues, but actually it was so he wasn’t alone with her, couldn’t touch her and smell her and love her. Emerson eyed him, but wisely said nothing. If the other male had made the twitting comment Glynn could just see on his lips, he’d have turned him into bloody mincemeat.