Blood and Fire

by McKenna, Shannon

  The net of avid users was ever expanding. As were the profits.

  Even so, King always knew that he was destined for more than fueling the ego fantasies of the very rich. His dream was not merely to synthesize drugs that make people feel perfect. No, that fell far short.

  He wanted to synthesize true perfection. In a human being. To actually improve on the normal human blueprint, with all its inherent flaws. A human was a haphazard rough draft. It needed molding. Careful, mindful sculpting, with an eye toward towering profit.

  His project had grown and flowered into something extraordinary over the years. Zoe was a shining example. Arousal made her literally glow in the dark. His body hummed with frustrated sexual desire.

  His operatives now made more money out in the field than Michael Ranieri ever dreamed of, discreetly shaping the history of the world while earning billions in fees. And every last cent belonged to King.

  But this was none of Michael’s business. The man knew of King’s private creative project, in a vague way, but wasn’t bright enough to grasp the true scope of King’s work. So why burden him with it?

  Zoe was pulling her dress back on. He held up his hand. “No, my dear. Stay exactly as you are.”

  The dress dropped. She straightened, ribcage tilted to show off her breasts to the best advantage as Julian pushed open the doors. He took note of Zoe’s nudity and gave them a look that implored forgiveness before stepping aside to admit Michael Ranieri.

  Michael was tall, stocky, in his fifties, like King, and blessed with the swarthy good looks that graced most of the Ranieri clan. He opened his mouth to complain. It froze open when he saw Zoe. Whatever he had been meaning to complain about evaporated from his mind.

  King’s mouth twitched. Michael was so predictable.

  The man cleared his throat. “Ah . . . did I interrupt anything?”

  Such a stupid, annoying question. King gave him a friendly smile. “Oh, nothing that won’t keep and be perfectly enjoyable later. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Michael? And at this unusual hour?”

  “Can I speak in front of . . . ?” He pointed at Zoe.

  “I trust Zoe absolutely,” King said. Zoe’s eyes shone with delight.

  Michael flapped his hand. “I was at my father’s eightieth birthday party,” he said fretfully. “I couldn’t get away until late. They’ve been busting my balls the whole past month. Ever since we heard about Parr killing himself in the nuthouse.”

  King’s mouth tightened. “So sad, isn’t it?”

  “Hah.” Michael snorted. “The only reason Howard Parr would die, and his daughter go missing, is because he talked. So did he talk?”

  Every now and then, Michael showed a brief flash of inconvenient intelligence. “I’m taking care of it, Michael,” King said.

  “Oh, fuck,” Michael snarled. “So he did talk. So, this Parr girl, what was her name, Lily? Is she dead? Tell me she’s dead, Neil.”

  “I said, I’m taking care of it.”

  Michael threw his hands in the air. “That’s just great. So she’s on the loose, looking for Bruno Ranieri? You do remember that you can’t touch Bruno. You know what would happen to us if you did, right?”

  King sighed. “I’m not planning on killing them,” he lied smoothly.

  “So it’s true, then? You were the one who did Howard?”

  King gestured at Zoe, giving credit where it was due. “She did.”

  Zoe preened, displaying her perfect naked self with a queenly nonchalance that made Michael Ranieri tug at his collar.

  King caught Zoe’s eye, made a twirling gesture with his fingertip. Zoe gave him a smoky smile and spun on the balls of her feet. She did a three-sixty, and another half turn, placing her hands against the wall. Arching her back, legs parted. Oh, that naughty, slutty, clever girl.

  Michael jerked his hypnotized regard away from Zoe’s ass and shook himself like a wet dog. “So. About Bruno. You remember—”

  “The famous letter, yes. More than a year has passed since Tony Ranieri was killed. They haven’t sent it yet. Why are you so nervous?”

  “BLily Parr is on the loose!” Michael yelled. “And if Howard spilled the beans to her, and she tells Bruno, then you’re going to want to make a move, right? But if you do, we take it up the ass, Neil! Rosa Ranieri is a jealous bitch who’ll fuck us just for spite!”

  “Italian families,” King said softly. “So colorful. Cousinly love.”

  “Second cousins.” Michael stressed the distinction. “They’re only second cousins. And they’re poison. I was the one that opened Tony’s package twenty years ago, Neil, remember? With the severed fingers?”

  King made his voice soothing, reasonable. “Michael, please. Think about it. Will anyone really care about that letter, after all these years?”

  “Fuck, yes, they’ll care! Didn’t you hear about Sonny Franzese? He was put away at fucking ninety-three! I do not want my father to go to prison, Neil! He’s eighty years old! And he’s not well!”

  It was clear from Michael’s wine-flushed face that he was under the impression that this was all somehow King’s problem. But now was perhaps not exactly the moment to make this clear. Perhaps Zoe could deliver the message some dark night. With a long knife.

  And in the meantime, Zoe could also provide some badly needed distraction. “Zoe, my dove,” he said. “Pour Michael a glass of wine.”

  Zoe obliged. Michael stared at her breasts, his face going hot and lumpish with lust. “Is she one of your, uh . . .” He trailed off, took the wine, his limited vocabulary failing him. “Will she, uh—”

  “Do anything I ask?” King finished softly. “Yes, Michael. She will.”

  Michael gulped wine, staring. His erection was painfully evident.

  King sighed, yielding to the inevitable. After all, Zoe was not made of soap. And at least this way, Michael could do the requisite grunting and sweating. King needed only to lean back and do the honors, reciting Zoe’s reward codes. “Would you care to partake?” he offered politely.

  Michael’s eyes flashed. “Don’t mind if I do. Is there a room—”

  “Right here. I need to be close to her, so I can use her codes.”

  “Codes? What the fuck? You mean, do her right in front of you?” Michael shook his head. “That’s sick, Neil. We’re not eighteen anymore.”

  “The code gives her orgasms more powerful than anything you’ve ever felt,” King coaxed. “Quite a sensation, for the man on the inside.”

  Michael’s face reddened. “It’s just too fucking kinky weird for me.”

  For Zoe’s sake, King pulled out the book that held his sex drugs and selected a performance enhancer from the pages of transdermal dots. He stuck the dot on the inside of his business partner’s wrist.

  “Uh?” Michael stared at the green dot, suspicious. “What’s this?”

  “A token of my esteem.” King gestured at Zoe. “Feel free.”

  Zoe turned, bracing herself against the table and arching her perfect buttocks invitingly. Michael unfastened his pants, whipped out his stiff member. He took the plunge, with a piglike snort of satisfaction.

  King sat down across from Zoe, gave her hand an encouraging pat, and recited another of her reward verses. She was squealing with pleasure in less than twenty seconds, shuddering with waves of delight as Michael pumped away heavily behind her, huffing and grunting.

  Unpleasantly noisy, but King steehatimself and soldiered on.

  6

  Dawn was near, and the chick with the cat-eye specs was going for a walk with him. Or whatever that metaphorically entailed. Bruno’s brain churned out a dizzying series of pornographic possibilities.

  Down, boy. A walk is just a walk is just a walk.

  That stern directive buzzed in Bruno’s head like radio interference as he muscled his way through the rest of his shift.

  This was way more than a walk. Everything about Lily was more than what it seemed. She had problems. He could smell them. He’d
had plenty of trouble in his life. He’d started young, and he hadn’t stopped yet. But her trouble vibe wasn’t putting him off. Nope. On the contrary.

  That was twisted. Sicko. Or at the very least, really, really stupid.

  He was too wound up. He could feeling it coming over him, the perilous urge to babble. It was a self-defense mechanism, he figured. Consider his family. Silent lumps on a log, every one of them. Tony had just grunted orders and growled obscenities. Zia Rosa had mostly smacked him with a spoon and screeched Calabrese dialect. And Kev hadn’t talked at all for the first year Bruno had known him, after Bruno came from Newark to live with Tony. He’d been too brain damaged.

  Even now that Kev had gotten his life fixed, vanquished the evil zombie masters, found his biological family, and was wallowing in true love, he was no chatterbox. Nah, that was Bruno’s God-given job.

  Bruno took a peek at the outside thermometer. The coat crumpled on the booth seat next to Lily was too thin for this weather. He could get her into his car, he supposed. Turn on the chair heater. Let her inhale the scent of new leather upholstery. His car was made for seduction.

  But he’d said a walk. A walk would keep him honest. His condo was across town, so he couldn’t walk her to his home, bullshit central. The babe lair. The whole place carefully calculated to make girls wet. From the terrace with the stunning view of the Portland skyline and Mount Hood right down to the Jacuzzi, the high-tech appliances, the fridge full of gourmet goodies, and the stash of chocolate truffles, his rescue remedy for girls who displayed warning signs of hormonal imbalance. Oak floorboards, track lighting, Tuscan tiles in the huge kitchen, all of it was predicated on the ruthless law of the jungle; i.e., the female of the species will put out for the male who displays the largest and most up-to-date home entertainment system.

  All bullshit. A cheap trick. Or come to think of it, hardly a cheap trick. A very, very expensive trick. But Lily would be wise to it.

  He was uncomfortable in the place, now, especially since the Rudy dreams had come back. Must’ve been all that time spent sitting alone in the dark after Tony’s death and the zombie masters debacle, contemplating his own desperate compensatory bullshit. Seeing it for what it was, shivering and naked and small. He’d spent a whole lot of money on a whole bunch of silly, extravagant shit that he did not really need to make himself feel safer. To scoot him back from that cliff’s edge, where the smoke curled and the howls of the damned drifted up. But the edge was still right there. It didn’t work. There was no such thing as safe.

  Mamma’s death had taught him that.

  He brushed the thought away before it could dig its claws into his guts. Nah, he didn’t want to bring Lily to his condo. She wouldnst be impressed by the espresso machine or the wet bar or the Tuscan tile. She’d look at him with those hard, blazing eyes, and see right through him. How hard he was trying. How futile it was.

  He’d take her up to Tony’s apartment, if he took her at all. There was little or no discernible bullshit in the shabby hole in the wall where Tony had lived since he had opened the diner. Bruno had lived there, too, from age twelve until he left home.

  Sid had finally gotten himself in gear, and Leona stumbled in late, bleary eyed and sullen. He could not wait for Zia Rosa to get back and deal with them. He was not cut out to be a restaurateur. It was like herding fucking cats. He came out of the back room, shrugging on his leather bomber jacket. Lily got up, sliding her arms into her own shapeless thin canvas coat. It was baggy, wide shoulders drooping. So she didn’t show that sexpot outfit off to just anyone. Good.

  She belted her coat, caught him ogling. Her red lips curved. His face heated. He was so not smooth with her. His smoothness just fell off of him, thud. He became jerky, jagged. As dumb as a rock.

  He held the door open for her and offered her his arm as they stepped out. She accepted it. The tingling buzz of contact penetrated layers of cloth and leather. The cold was damp and penetrating. Mist blurred the street, tinted orange by the streetlights, fuzzing the headlights of the cars that passed. They walked silently, Bruno scrabbling for a conversation starter and coming up blank.

  She broke the silence first. “I must be keeping you from going home and getting some sleep.”

  He snorted. Yeah, sure. He’d forgotten what sleep meant. “Actually, my day’s just beginning. Usually, I’d be heading home by now for a shower, and then it’s right off to work again.”

  She shot him a curious glance. “Another job?”

  “My real job,” he explained. “I own a company that produces kites and educational toys.” He read her puzzled expression. “Yeah, I know. So what’s with the graveyard shift at a diner, right? I’m just covering for my aunt, Zia Rosa. She runs the place, but she’s not here right now, and we’re short-staffed.” He sighed. “So I’m up. Good old Bruno.”

  “This is the pastry-making aunt?” she asked.

  “Yeah, the very one. Taught me everything I know. She’s up in Seattle now. I don’t know for how much longer. But if it’s too much longer, I’m closing the place down, and to hell with it.”

  Yeah, right. Brave words. Zia Rosa was reveling in her surrogate grandmotherhood. It helped fill the hole her brother Tony’s death had left in her life, which made it really hard to criticize her. Who was he to mess with anybody else’s coping mechanisms?

  “You must be so tired,” she said.

  He wasn’t, actually. That point of contact where their arms touched was glowing, shooting impulses at random through his body. He’d be lucky if he didn’t start twitching and jittering.

  “You’re not talkative anymore,” she observed. “What happened?”

  He smothered the howl of laughter so as not to sound psycho. “I’m nervous,” he admitted in the spirit of total honesty, since she got off on that. “Too tense. It turns that faucet right off.”

  “Ah.” The wings of her pageboy swung down to veil her face for a few yards. She turned to him again. “Don’t be tense. I don’t bite.”

  Like hell. He was covered with virtual tooth marks.

  “What could I do that would make you relax?” she mused.

  Oh, give him a fucking break. He stopped, making her lurch and stumble, clutching his arm. “Are you setting me up?” he demanded.

  “Um. I actually don’t have any ulterior—”

  “Bullshit. You asked for total honesty. What do you think would relax me? Take a wild guess.”

  Her bright eyes narrowed. “So, what you’re saying is, you want to just, ah, get right down to it?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying,” he bitched. “You keep putting a sign on my forehead that says ‘horndog asshole.’ This might shock you, but I genuinely am interested in you as a person. I also have a hard-on. Under normal circumstances, the hard-on wouldn’t matter. I’d take you to dinner, to the movies, strolling in the Rose Garden. I’d cook for you. Make pastry for you. We’d talk about spirituality and politics and food. I’d wait four or five dates before I even tried to kiss you. I’d let the tension build until you were ready to explode.”

  “Sounds nice,” she murmured.

  “Too bad!” he snapped. “Not going to happen! You’ve been yanking me around by the tail from the minute you opened your mouth! You’re the one who’s tense!”

  “I see.” Her hair hid her profile. “I suppose I am.”

  “You throw yourself in my path like a fucking grenade, at four in the morning, dressed like that, and start messing with my head! I don’t know how to be with you, and I don’t want to fuck this up. So help me out. What do you want from me, Lily? Spell it out. Don’t make me guess.”

  She sucked in her lower lip. Trying not to smile, damn her. “Dressed like that?” she echoed. “How should I be dressed?”

  She was jerking him around again, but he took the bait willingly enough. “A sweater,” he informed her. “Flannel-lined jeans. Wool socks, warm shoes, a hat, scarf, and a thick down parka. As a matter of fact, you should be wearing a warm house wi
th a locked door on top of that.”

  She was shivering, so he unlinked his arm from hers and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  “I guess I am a little cold,” she murmured.

  Well, then. He’d go for it. In the name of gallantry. Or whatever.

  “Do you want to go inside?” he asked.

  “You mean, to your place?”

  “No, my place is across town. But my uncle’s apartment is right over the diner. I could make you a cup of tea or something.”

  “And your uncle?” she asked. “I don’t want to disturb—”

  “My late uncle,” he clarified. “He died last year.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it,” she said.

  He didn’t want to get anywhere near that, so he squeezed her shoulders. “So?” he urged. “You want to go up?”

  She gave him a nod. He waited for more cues. For her to say something biting. For her to change her mind, flip-flop on him.

  She didn’t. They walked back the way they’d come, turning on to the side street behind the diner. Struck mute by mutual shyness.

  He had an unpleasant moment as he led her up the shabby staircase, past scarred apartment doors badly in need of painting. The building was a dump, and Tony’s apartment inside was no exception.

  But the deal was struck. He unlocked the doo and preceded her into an apartment as severe as a monk’s cell but less attractive. Tony had been the ultimate minimalist. A bare overhead bulb. A crucifix on the wall. A color photo of Tony’s parents, aged and scowling. A faded old sepia-toned photo of Tony’s grandparents, clad in dusty black, also scowling. A sagging plaid couch, a beat-up coffee table, an antique TV. An ashtray still full of Tony’s cigarette butts. That gave him a pang.

  It smelled of dust, emptiness. It was frigidly cold, so he switched on the halogen space heater. The stench of burning dust fluff floated up to tease his nose as it flared eagerly to life. “Sorry,” he said.

  She laid her bag down and went to the window. “What for?”

  He tried to turn on the lamp next to the couch, but the bulb was burned out. The brutal overhead was the only light. It made his tired eyes water and sting. “That the place is so—”