by Phil Tucker
“What did you think of Colonel Caldwell?” asked Selah.
“He’s under a lot of pressure,” said Fernanda. “He has a lot of responsibility, and from what he told me, very few people understand how much work his soldiers do. Everybody complains about what they are incapable of doing, where they fail, but they don’t understand how much worse the situation would be without them.”
“I’m sure,” said Selah. “Did he mention Blood Dust?”
“Yes,” said Fernanda, confused at Selah’s tone. “He did. He said it’s a poison that is rotting the city. He said controlling its spread was critical to improving things, but that without permission to act inside the Core, they are at a permanent disadvantage. What? Why are you smiling like that?”
“It’s just very rich to hear that from coming from Colonel Caldwell,” said Selah. “I’m just glad to hear that he’s so concerned about stopping the Blood Dust trade.”
“Well,” said Fernanda, still trying to understand Selah’s tone. “I agree. That’s one of our main lines of inquiry. We want to learn about the origins of the Dust. Where is it made? How? What are the vampires here turning into drug dealers? I hope Louis will answer these questions. He has seemed very sophisticated the few times I have spoken with him. Very civilized.”
“What do you know about Louis?” asked Selah. Now that they were actually inside the Core, she realized that they had precious little information about their next step.
Fernanda sat back, curled that errant strand of hair behind her ear. “One thing I am very aware of is that most of what I know is probably not true. We have spoken twice. He’s supposed to be French, and to have been a vampire since the French Revolution. He told me that he was a close friend of Marat, and would drink his blood each night as Marat lay in his bathtub. Who knows if it is true? He told me that he came to the United States just before the Civil War, and to have spent most of his unlife in Canada. However, I’ve uncovered a report from an interrogation during the War where another vampire placed him in DC for most of the twentieth century, so who is to know?” Fernanda smiled nervously. “That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”
Cloud shifted in his seat. “How—I don’t get it. How did this colonel connect you to him? The military and the vampires here talk to each other?”
“Yeah, kind of,” said Michael. His voice was laconic, almost lazy. He had a camera out and was fiddling with the lens. “The military and the vamps are pretty cuddly ’round here. From what we can gather, it’s a live-and-let-live kind of situation.”
“It’s been very surreal,” confessed Fernanda, reaching forward to touch Selah’s knee. “Not what we expected at all. In Miami, I believe there are diplomatic connections, government communications through the embassy, no? Here in LA, it’s the military that does the talking. Not much government oversight at all.”
Cloud nodded. “So this Louis, he wants you to interview him?”
“Yes,” said Fernanda. “He said that this is going to be a very exciting time, and he would love to have me around to record it.”
“Exciting time?” Selah frowned. “Why? What’s happening?”
Fernanda shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s what I’ve come to find out. What better invitation could there be for a reporter?”
The van had been driving at a steady speed but began to slow as it curved down an off-ramp. It pulled onto a new street, turned sharply and came to a stop. Both guys up front jumped out, and a moment later, the rear doors of the van opened.
“Vamonos,” said Alex. The four of them climbed out and saw that they were standing in an abandoned gas station at an intersection. The sudden sense of space after the crowding of the slums was unnerving, the distance between the buildings making them feel exposed, the towering palms that hadn’t been chopped down for building material. Another van was stopped before them, four men waiting with their arms crossed.
Lunchbox was already over there, talking to them in low tones. He handed over a hefty suitcase to the largest of the four men, who placed it in the arms of a second and snapped it open. After glancing at the contents and rifling through what was obviously an obscene amount of money, he nodded and snapped the case closed.
Selah set her pack down and walked over. The four men didn’t seem to be vampires. The leader was a fair-skinned mulatto with a forest of heavy dreads falling down around his harsh-featured face, his shoulders broad and heavily muscled, a revolver holstered at his hip. His face was a mass of hard angles and sharp planes, as if it had been used as an anvil to hammer out crude iron objects. Wearing only a mesh singlet, his musculature was so impressive and defined it seemed more an aesthetic achievement than anything else.
“Okay.” He sniffed, covering one nostril, and then covered the other and sniffed again. “We’re good to go.” He paused, looked at Selah, and then past her at the other three. “Who the fuck is this? We were told two passengers, not four.”
Lunchbox shrugged dolefully. “Life. It is full of surprises. One must learn to adapt, or one dies. You got four on this ride, not two.”
The mulatto scowled. “Hell we got four. We were told to pick up two reporters. Who the hell are the other two?”
“I’m Selah. I want to meet with Louis.” She stepped closer. Tension coiled through the four strangers. Selah ignored the other three, their machine pistols and rifles. Looked up at the ponderously muscled leader. “Armando said you could get us to him. All we need is a ride.”
“I look like I care?” The large man shook his head, features made ugly by the anger that twisted his lips. “You can walk where you like, but you ain’t getting a ride with me.”
He turned away, and Selah felt dark anger blossom within her, as if a field of smooth, moon-lit grass had suddenly erupted in black-petalled flowers, curling and growing sinuously and smothering the world. It wasn’t fully her own anger, but she didn’t care.
“Hey!” Selah’s voice was a sharp bark, snapping out at the mulatto with the ferocity of a whip crack. “I’m not done with you. Get back here.”
The man stiffened, as she knew he would. Didn’t turn around, but instead simply stared off into the night, as if thinking something over. When he did turn, it was to raise and level his chrome-plated revolver at her head. “What you say?”
Selah smiled. There was nobody under the stars but her and this man. Cloud, Lunchbox, the other three—they faded into the background. She reached up and pulled off her shades, opening her eyes wide as she looked the man full in the face. She pitched her voice low. “I said, I’m not done with you. Now come here.”
The large man’s eyes flared wide with shock. His gun dipped, and then rose once more. He shook his head. “What the hell?” Shot a look of pure fury and betrayal at Lunchbox. “What the fuck, man? You setting me up?”
Selah walked forward once more. She felt as if she were being buoyed along on waves of delight and wickedness, felt a sense of overpowering mastery over this man. She stopped before him, and ran one finger down the length of his gun’s barrel. “If you don’t put this away, I will be very upset.”
Sweat coursed down the man’s temple. He was watching her as if mesmerized. All he had to do was pull the trigger. She was right before him. But if he missed—if she moved too fast, as vampires were wont to do—then he was dead. He knew that, felt it in his bones, and her smile, languorous and amused, was demolishing his confidence.
Nobody spoke, nobody moved. With a grunt he lowered the revolver. Broke eye contact, and shook his head. “Fine. Whatever. You can ride with us, and then you’re their problem. Not mine.” He broke away, but Selah knew what was coming next. Felt it coming. He thought himself so cunning. So she watched him, prepared. When he was a good three yards away, he spun around, revolver swinging back up. “Shoot the bitch!”
But Selah wasn’t there. She allowed the dark waters within her to boil over, drank deep of the power within her core. Bent down, flexed her knees and threw herself into a lightning-fast sidestep. Everything
slowed. The mulatto was still calling out his order, spinning around, revolver rising once more. She glided to her right, and then touched the toe of her shoe to the ground, caught her weight, arrested her momentum, and darted forward. The man was just now registering that she’d moved, turning his head to follow her. She took three long strides and came up behind him. Ancient, predatory instincts overrode her mind. A confidence, a surety suffused her. She reached up and grasped his chin with one hand, the back of his head with the other.
It took no effort to snap his neck.
The huge man became boneless and sank to the ground, revolver skittering out from his suddenly nerveless fingers.
Everybody stood frozen. Selah down at the man who lay sprawled, child-like, at her feet. His chin was turned past his left shoulder, eyes wide and looking blindly at the night sky. She was breathing with short, sharp gasps that smoothed out and became normal even as she became aware of them. She looked at the mulatto’s three men. They had their guns pointed at her now, but were clearly terrified. For an aching second they hesitated, and then as one lowered their guns.
Her heart thudded within her chest as felt nausea crept up within her, rank and rancid in her gut. She didn’t want to look at what was at her feet. Didn’t want to think of what she had just done, without effort, without thought. She fought the sudden desire to flee into the darkness, to run as fast as she could to outrace the deed, and instead looked at the gaping Lunchbox.
“Finish the exchange.” Her voice was hard, alien in her own ears. “Hurry up.”
He blinked, nodded, glanced at her feet, and then averted his face as if the sight scalded his eyes. “Okay. Let’s go.” His deep voice had lost its natural authority. It shook now, and he hurried over to the back of the other van. Alex followed him, shooting vicious looks her way.
Only then did she dare look at Cloud. He was frozen, head tilted back like a stallion about to rear. His face looked to be carved from bone, expressionless. His eyes were wide, his mouth a slit. She met his gaze and saw a world of horror and revulsion contained within his eyes. She looked away and strode to the edge of the gas station where she looked down the street. Shops and stores stood abandoned, remnants of a world long gone. A restaurant called Arthur’s, windows shattered. A Starbucks before which still stood a sandwich board advertising pumpkin lattes. A strip mall far beyond it. Trees, the night sky, luminous and clear, a thousand brilliant pricking stars needling down at her. She reached up with shaking hands and slipped her shades back on.
Her heart felt like a great moth, beating rapidly, tremulously, trapped within the cage of her ribs. She raised her chin. Thought of Mama B, and immediately closed that down. He had been planning to shoot me. He was raising his gun, was telling the others to shoot me as well. Selah replayed the sequence in her mind. He’d refused to take us where we need to go. Was going to leave us here. He was going to kill me. It was self-defense. She tried the words, said them to herself, but they didn’t sound real.
Tears brimmed in her eyes, ran down her cheeks. These damn eyes can still cry then. She held herself still, refusing to tremble, to crumple down into a crouch. Recalled how his chin had felt cupped in the palm of her hand, how he’d smelled of sour sweat and cigars up close. The sickening crack of his neck vertebrae giving way. He was lying there right now, just a dozen yards behind her. Dead. Selah closed her eyes. The vast darkness, that source of illimitable power within her had retreated, unrepentant, to watch her from her depths. She could feel it within her, waiting to claim her, to numb her pain, to make her indifferent to what had happened. She played the murder—was it murder? Over and over in her mind, willing herself to feel pain. To not let herself become indifferent.
The swap took only a couple of minutes. She looked down the street the whole time, not seeing anything, trapped like a fly in the amber of her own agony. She hoped Cloud would approach her. To chastise her, perhaps, to reassure her, to say something, anything. For his touch. He didn’t approach.
“Okay,” said Lunchbox. She turned as he closed the van doors. He turned to the other three. “Tell Louis this had nothing to do with Armando. We knew nothing about all this.” He rounded the front of the van and climbed in. Alex did the same, and its engine roared to life. They pulled out of the gas station and drove away. Selah looked at the other three men. They were watching her, panic hovering beneath the surface of their skin. Pull yourself together. Don’t ruin things now.
“Everybody in the van,” she said, fighting for cool. “You two, in the back with the other three. One of you grab my pack. I’m going to ride up front. You—yes. You drive. Let’s go.”
She didn’t look at Cloud, didn’t look at the body on the ground. She strode toward the van’s passenger door as if the ground were made of glass and one false step could plunge her into oblivion. Held her chin high, reaching up only to adjust her shades. The door was unlocked, so she stepped up into the van’s seat and automatically pulled the safety belt down and clicked it in.
The others got in. She heard doors opening, closing. Nobody spoke. The driver climbed in next to her. She didn’t look at him. Got a sense of his being young, Latino, perhaps eighteen. Hair spiked, face long and handsome like that of a young horse. Arms sleeved in unimaginative tattoos. He fumbled with the key, and finally gunned the engine. Turned the wheel, and they were off.
Selah felt like one of those Egyptian statues in the MET. Her tears had stopped, and her eyes felt as dry as sand. She rocked as the van took its turns, ran over potholes, and climbed the on-ramp back onto I-5. They were heading north. To Louis’ court. Where he would be told she’d just killed one of his men. Think. Think, girl, ‘cause you’ve little time left, and you sure as hell can’t mess up again. Think! She knew she should be planning her approach. Revising her introduction to Louis. She’d practiced her introduction with Cloud on the drive west, but now all those words, those carefully crafted phrases were blown out of her mind like leaves before a storm.
He’s lying there right now, in that gas station. Cooling down. Eyes open. Oh god, I should have at least closed his eyes. Selah tightened her jaw. Padrino Machado had told her she had days left. A handful, less than a week. She tried to recall what she’d been thinking when she attacked that man. What had been going through her head. Couldn’t remember. Just a sense of excitement, a predatory thrill. A sense of power, of entitlement. She’d been able to taste his fear.
That’s what happens when you become a vampire, she thought. That’s what happened to all the leaders who were embraced during the War. They’d gone from being good men and women to becoming the very enemy themselves. Presidents, generals, congressmen, governors, celebrities, cardinals, priests, community organizers. As each rose to prominence, picking up the baton and leading the war, they had fallen, picked off by the vampires and turned to their side.
And now it’s happening to me. Selah curled her hands into each other and focused on keeping her breath steady. A few more nights and this will be all that I am. A predator. A monster. A vampire.
Chapter Nine
They drove in silence, the van barreling up I-5 at nearly ninety miles an hour. It was clear of abandoned vehicles, an open expanse of freeway under the stars, flanked by rows of towering palm trees, the occasional retaining wall, or simply an imposingly view of the vast LA core, somber and dark. Selah allowed herself to sink into a fugue, unable to persist in her torturous line of thought, and retreated altogether into a state of watchfulness, taking in the shadowy city as it unrolled before her but not actively following their path.
Behind them she could hear the sound of whispered voices, tense and low, but she ignored them. Cloud was probably getting even closer to Fernanda, comforting her maybe. Selah frowned, suddenly disgusted at herself. A man lay dead behind her, and here she was, thinking petty thoughts.
In the far distance the towers of downtown LA swept into view as they made a grandiose bend. They were few in number, a pitiful cluster of skyscrapers that paled in comparison t
o the shock of towers that dominated the heart of Miami, or the forest of high-rises that marched from shore to shore in Manhattan, but there they were. Only one was illuminated, the others standing in darkness as if castigated by some dour god for their sins.
On they drove, rushing through the night. The driver merged onto the I-710, and only then did Selah turn to him, realizing that they’d already been driving at a frenetic speed for more than ten minutes.
“Where are we going?”
The boy startled and the van swerved as he jerked the wheel. He slashed a panicked look at her, licked his dry lips and nodded, as if affirming his words before he even spoke them. “Huntington Gardens. That’s where Louis is at. The Gardens.”
Selah studied the boy’s face. They were heading straight north now. “Then—why is he dealing with Armando if he’s located so far away?”
“They—I mean, Louis—he moves around. One week he had everybody down in Long Beach, then they moved over to Sunset Strip, then—you see? I heard they spent a whole month living in Disneyland this one time, but that can’t be right ‘cause that’s outside the Core.” The boy flashed a scared grin, which immediately disappeared. “Shit. I don’t know. But he really likes Huntington. We’ve been there more than a month now.”
Selah nodded and bit her lower lip. She didn’t know much about the vampire politics in LA. Nobody did. The news reports and documentaries that had come out since the War had shown that there was no one single figure in control like Sawiskera had been in Miami. There was no organized structure, no coherent face turned to the outside world. No system of control, no oversight over the humans. Just roving gangs of vampires.
“How many vampires are in Louis’ court?”