Human Revolt 02 - Vampire LA

by Phil Tucker

  “You can wait. If you wait two more nights, maybe three, then yes. You can compel me. Force me to tell you. But by then it will be too late, and you will be one of us. You will laugh at the idea of fighting me. I will lie with you and drink your blood as you drink mine, as you bind yourself to my cause.”

  Louis released her wrists and kicked her full in the chest. The force of the blow lifted her from her knees, knocked her back to crash onto the floor a full four yards away. She rolled until she fetched up limp against the far wall.

  “Now,” said Louis. He straightened his jacket. Selah forced herself up onto her forearms, and allowed her head to rest on the cold marble floor. She couldn’t move her hands. The pain was excruciating, throbbing, demanding all her attention. “Caldwell will be at 48 Juniper Street within the hour. He will be there for no more than ten minutes. You are to kill him while he conducts his transaction. Return here. I will tell you what you need to know. Any questions?”

  Selah forced herself to stand. His face was repairing itself. The bone filling out, gaining definition. He reached up and smoothed his hair back. Smiled at her, his fangs pure and long. “Now, if you will excuse me. I have friends to entertain. We are so very bored.”

  He turned and walked away. Selah heard soft giggles, and saw that a number of vampires had been watching from the edges of the gallery. Saw the tall black one and her Latina friend, both hiding their faces behind fans. They turned to each other, laughed, and hurried away. Others faded back into the hall, until Selah was left cradling her hands in her lap. Alone.

  She looked down at her wrists. Already the pain was fading, the livid marks smoothing away. Healing themselves. She closed her eyes. She had tried. Selah took a breath. Caldwell—48 Juniper Street. The Colonel. A mere drug dealer who was spreading Blood Dust throughout the country.

  Selah rose to her feet, irresolute. She would take a look. That was all. She would go and observe. What other option did she have?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Selah walked to the front of the house and stole a car. She simply walked up to a couple as they got out of their SUV and demanded the keys. The man removed his shades to reveal black eyes and grinned. Selah promptly did the same. While he blinked, taken aback, she struck him down by hammer fisting him across the jaw. He crumpled, and the woman screamed and took off wildly into the bushes. Selah ignored her, fished the keys out of the vampire’s jerking fingers, and climbed into the SUV. It was a nice ride. New, with dove-gray leather sets and that new-car smell. Selah pursed her lips and spread her fingers over the taut leather-clad steering wheel. Examined the instrument panel, the vampire’s Omni locked in its cradle. Turned the SUV on, and drove out of the circular driveway.

  She reached over and turned on the Omni. It glowed to life, and the windshield of the car promptly became a translucent extension of its screen. Selah nodded her appreciation. Now this she could work with. There were three FingerTip caps attached to the side of the Omni. Driving slowly up the long road that passed through the rest of the grounds, she reached down and slipped them onto her index, middle finger, and thumb. Clicked them together to activate them, and extended her hand toward the windshield, which reacted as a touch screen without her actually needing to touch it.

  Selah quickly navigated to the map function, and spoke the address. The road ahead lit up with a faint translucent green marker. The path she had to follow. From where she sat the actual road itself seemed to glow, but she knew that was just the windshield’s tech. Not bad. With the navigation program engaged, she pressed the accelerator and drove on, bursting out of the entrance.

  Down the street, out onto the avenue, and then onto the 110. Her windshield told her it was called the Arroyo Parkway. Selah snorted. Once, maybe. Now it was just another abandoned ribbon of asphalt taking her from one desolate spot to another. Curious, she summoned the satellite view over her intended destination. The image of a park appeared on the passenger side of the windshield. No, not a park—a lake. The area was called Echo Park. The meeting was set at the northern tip, where a triangular wedge of grass and palm trees thrust into the lake proper. Selah drove with one eye on the road, and with her FingerTips explored the area. Zoomed in, and then checked out street view.

  By the time she took the US-101 exit, she had a good idea as to where to go and what to do. She was going to be about twenty minutes early. Perfect. She drove on. The stars were brilliant overhead. The city dark all around, the towers of downtown visible in her rearview mirror as she headed northwest. There was little traffic rushing by, but much more than she’d become used to in Miami. Who were these people? What kind of life did they live here in the Core? Did they work for the vampires, or eke out their own miserable existences?

  Selah reached out and opened the music cloud on the Omni. She skimmed over to the Emotional Scales and keyed in her mood, fixing the range somewhere between Furious, Despairing, and Melancholic. At the last moment she flicked in an undercurrent of Excitement, and sent her request out. Immediately ’80s Goth rock began to play, the plangent picking of electric guitar chords over a driving beat, synthetic and insistent. Selah hesitated, thought of spinning to another selection, but then settled in. This would work.

  She took the off-ramp down to Echo Park Boulevard, and turned right so as to cruised up a street parallel to the lake a block over. The speakers were sublime, a chorus of voices begging for mercy and demanding justice while the music seethed on, vast as an ocean whipped by a storm. She didn’t want to risk driving right up to the meeting site—there might be guards posted, or something she couldn’t foresee. So instead she and parked at the head of a set of concrete stairs that descended down two blocks of hillside to Echo Park Boulevard.

  Selah killed the music and turned off the car. The windshield went dead, and she looked out over the lake below, the waters smooth and reflective. Selah looked at the Omni—fifteen minutes to go. She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Felt panic rise up within her like a diver fighting for the surface, and climbed out of the car before she lost her nerve. Closed the door carefully and shivered in the chill.

  Don’t think, she said to herself. Just go and check it out. The stairway down to the street below was steep and flanked by palm trees. Everything was silent but for the chirp of insects. She ghosted down steps, crossed a street, and then descended a grass slope to a fence at the bottom. She leaped over the chain links and onto Echo Park Boulevard. The lake was directly across the street, and she could see the meeting spot across the water. Nothing. Silence. No lights, no movement, no cars.

  Selah jogged down the boulevard, keeping the lake on her left, trying to peer into every shadow at once. One block up, and then around the lake’s northern edge. Selah paused again, listened, and then continued. Were there sentries? Would they expect her? How paranoid were they? She slowed down, crossed the lanes and stepped off the pavement and onto the grass that bounded the lake’s shore. Faded in amongst the palm trees, and crept forward, pausing every few steps to listen. Five minutes to go. Up ahead, beyond a small playground and partly hidden behind a brick building, was a parking lot, as small as a tennis court and no doubt where the deal was going to go down. She hesitated and then moved up to the long, red-bricked public restroom to stand at its south wall and stare out over the cracked asphalt. Hidden deep in shadow, a screen of palm trees and bushes before her, she hunkered down and waited.

  Silence. Selah studied the lake and desperately tried not to think. To not make a decision, to simply react. Every time a panicked question arose in her mind, she squashed it. Stay focused. Stay focused.

  She startled when a car pulled into the lot, headlights strafing the foliage. The car stopped, the lights dimmed, and doors opened. Voices spilled out into the night air. Selah strained to listen.

  “Fucking running late, again. You’d think he had more important things to do.”

  A second voice, lighter, feminine. “He does have better things to do. Or he should. Were he a better kind of man.
”

  Laughter, and the doors closed. Three people. They moved to stand at the back of the car, facing the street they had just driven in from. Something caught Selah’s eye, a flash of light on a metallic surface. She peered past the newly arrived car at the darkness on the far side of the lot. There, amidst the bushes. Two more people. Selah’s mouth went dry. Vampires? No. They weren’t moving gracefully enough. Two people crawling into position, with a good view of the lot. They were holding something—not guns—something metallic, with glass on the front. Cameras. Selah sat back on her heels, and scowled. Fernanda and Michael. What the hell were they doing here? Louis must have sent them. Which had to mean something—but she got no further with that line of thought. A series of trucks were coming up Echo Lake Boulevard, six of them, large and bulky and with painfully bright headlights.

  Selah turned to watch them approach. Large enough for SUVs. But no—these were Humvees, real ones, the army kind. She watched as they turned left on Park. Dark, painted in camouflage patterns, the six vehicles rumbled into the parking lot like a segmented worm, a millipede sporting heavy weaponry.

  Oh, shit, thought Selah. He’s brought the whole army with him. Doors opened, and a score of men jumped down, rifles held before them. The three people standing by the car’s trunk raised their arms ironically as if under arrest, and one of them broke out into a giggle.

  The fourth Humvee opened up and a man got down. That’s got to be Caldwell, thought Selah. He walked forward, into the flood of Humvee headlights, so that he was little more than a backlit silhouette. Stood with his hands on his hips, a trim, short figure with a baseball cap. “You brought the Dust?” His voice was sharp, already impatient. As if he disdained being here.

  “Of course,” said one of the three in a British accent, a young man who lowered his arms and stepped forward. “A pleasure to see you, Colonel. How’s the missus?”

  “Get it out then.”

  Selah rubbed her face. It was a deal. The Colonel was here to buy drugs. But why would he come in person? Why not just send in his men? What was she going to do? Selah edged forward, watching carefully, trying to judge angles, how she might approach.

  “Here you go, then,” said the Brit. He’d pulled something out of the trunk. Several somethings, actually, the other two helping him. Each as large as a pillow, and looking as heavy as bags of flour. “That’s sixty pounds right there. You good for it?”

  “Of course.” The sneer was audible. “Mannow, Kimartin, Sampson, bring it over.” Three soldiers jogged forward and heaved up the sacks, hefting them over their shoulders. They fell back and disappeared amongst the Humvees.

  “Where is she?” asked the Colonel. “I thought she was coming.”

  “Apologies,” said the Brit. “Arachne wanted to be here, but pressing business and what not.”

  Arachne? Selah stood up. A desperate plan came into being, fully formed. She would never had even considered it were it not for the predatory edge that consumed her mind, the need that drove her to act. So she did. Without any attempt at sneaking, Selah strode forward.

  “What?” The Colonel was saying, furious. “She’s not here? That’s not acceptable!”

  “Sorry, Colonel,” said the Brit. “She sends her regards and promises to catch up with you next time. She’s got one last shipment coming your way. Should be ready by next week, and this one will be the largest yet. Same place and time?”

  “No need,” said Selah, fighting for calm, for assurance, for the kind of confidence Arachne might herself project. “I’m here. We can talk.” Everybody spun to stare at her as she emerged into the glare of the headlights. She focused on the Colonel, and ignored everybody else. He was in his fifties, a dry and hard man, face clean shaven, eyes sharp with stark crow’s-feet at their corners, as if he’d spent years trying to see beyond the horizon. He stiffened at her appearance, his men half raising their guns, but he extended his hand and they lowered them once more.

  Selah strode past the courier’s car, and ignored the stammered questions the British man tried to put to her. Ignored the twenty or thirty armed soldiers who glared at her, the military-grade weapons in their hands. Instead, she smiled at the Colonel who visibly relaxed at the sight of her.

  “Arachne. I’m glad you decided to show.”

  “Of course.” Selah’s mind was one blind panicked blur. “Thank you for coming. I know it must have taken some effort to make it out here.”

  The Colonel waved that aside. “It’s of no matter. Now. What was it you needed to tell me?” His blue eyes almost glittered with sharp intensity. “What’s going to happen that I should be ready for?”

  Selah stopped a yard from him and looked him full in the face, feet wide, shoulders back. You’re a two-hundred-year-old vampire, the leader of the biggest gang in the Los Angeles Core, so act like it! She smiled at him. “Colonel, how long have we been doing business?”

  He blinked. “About three years now. Why?”

  “And during that time, have I ever given you a reason to complain?” Selah fervently hoped Arachne hadn’t.

  “No. What’s this about?”

  “And haven’t you made a rather ridiculous amount of money due to our business partnership?” That had to be a safe one.

  “Well, yes, of course.” Suspicion was growing in his tone.

  “And what do you think I have been getting out of this arrangement?” There had been no sign of the Colonel paying for the drugs.

  “What? How do you mean?” The man’s tone became severe. “Are you saying you’re not pleased with my work?”

  “That is not what I’m saying.” Selah made her voice sharp. “Humor me.” Theo’s words rang in her mind—the Blood Dust trade. That’s what this is all about.

  “Well,” said the Colonel, clearly irritated. He looked around at his soldiers as if loath to speak before them. “I’ve invested your, ah, profits amongst certain key figures. Ensured that a blind eye’s been turned to much that goes on here. Are you going to change our arrangement? Is that what this is about?”

  “No,” said Selah. So the vampires don’t even get the money. It’s spent directly on bribes. Selah tried to imagine just how much money was being spent on buying privacy in the Core. “I am very pleased.” She hesitated. What to ask next? What to say? “What of Frederick Brown? Does that name ring a bell?”

  “Frederick Brown?” The Colonel scowled at her. “Who?”

  “A reporter? From New York?” Selah realized that her tone had become pleading. She forced herself to relax, to assume once more the hauteur of Arachne.

  “A reporter? Oh—yes.” Selah felt herself begin to tremble. Could this be it? The moment she’d been waiting for? “How do you know about him?”

  Selah waved her hand. “That’s none of your concern.”

  “Then neither is this reporter. Don’t worry. He was asking about private army affairs. Classified programs. Nothing to do with you, and nothing we need to speak about.”

  Selah fumbled for her next question. “I heard he was asking about Blood Dust.”

  “Sure, sure, but only in a general sense. Nothing that led back to you. He was interested in what I was doing with the Dust, not where it came from. Now. What is it you wanted to tell me? What is this big change that’s coming?”

  “Big change?” Selah tried to keep the confusion from her voice. She wanted to parse his words, figure out what that meant for her dad. Private army affairs?

  “Yes.” The Colonel narrowed his eyes. “Your words, not mine. Big change that you wished to tell me about in person. What should I be expecting?”

  Selah found herself wanting to cry, to laugh. She studied the Colonel’s weathered, lined face, and desperately wondered what he did for fun, when he wasn’t distributing drugs throughout the country and pouring millions of dollars into bribes. When he wasn’t disappearing innocent reporters. She wondered if he had ever wanted to be something other than this, an agent for corruption, decay, destruction, and evil. “Hmm? Co
me on, I haven’t got all night.”

  “But you do,” said Selah, sadness in her voice. “You’ve got all night, and the rest of forever.” She reached up and tore her nails through his throat, the move so sudden, so viciously fast that the Colonel actually blinked at her before realizing what had happened. His blood sprayed out horrifically from his severed arteries, and he choked and staggered back, hands at his neck. The soldiers around him turned to stare at where the Colonel was collapsing, and then immediately raised their rifles as commands were yelled.

  But Selah wasn’t there. Even as her nails had parted the old man’s neck she’d been turning, allowing the momentum of her striking arm to carry her around and down into a furious sprint, out of the parking lot and toward the palms and bushes. Gunfire exploded around her, tried to track her as she ran, but she was too fast. Not faster than a bullet, but faster than the soldiers thought possible, faster than they could adjust their aim. The parking lot behind her burst in a cataclysm of dust and shattered asphalt, but Selah was already in the shadows and racing past the brick restroom. It had all taken less than two seconds.

  Men yelled behind her, Humvees roared to life, but Selah didn’t wait. She ran, putting all her fear and revulsion and terror into her limbs, into each long stride, the balls of her feet barely skimming the ground as she flitted along the lake’s edge, and then across the street, over the fence, up the grassy slope, across Laguna, and up the concrete stairs to her SUV.

  She stopped, heaving for breath, sweat coating her face and running down the channel of her spine, slicking her shirt to her body. She turned, bloody hand on the hood of the SUV to stare down at the lake below. It had taken her less than thirty seconds to race up here, a feat no human—perhaps no vampire, even—could ever hope to match. Below, voices called out in fury, and then gunfire sounded, along with several screams that stopped short. The couriers. They had just been executed.