Fionan Molony was Lelith’s right hand, a borderline oldblood, hundred years and change. He liked virgins. Not just the literal kind, but also those new to the S&B lifestyle. He’d been dining on a smorgasbord of Wannabes since the Reveal. The poor girls didn’t even know what hit them. They fell for his charm, they fell for his tour-guide act, and in the end, they just fell.
He left a string of missing girls in his wake, all in their late teens or early twenties. Their lives snuffed out by his vampire lust. Tonight, Roeland had served him up Rhuna, tailored to Molony’s tastes. He would not, could not, refuse.
Now that Roeland could see him, he felt a knot of doubt growing in his chest. Oldbloods didn’t live to become oldbloods through lack of caution. Maybe John was right. He watched Rhuna flirting with the monster as he shepherded her toward his Jaguar convertible. She wrapped her arm around his waist and pressed herself too close to him for Roeland’s comfort.
Beside him, John dug his fingers into the dash.
“She’ll be fine,” Roeland said. He was trying to convince himself as much as the others.
Molony reached for a key fob and lowered the convertible’s top remotely. He watched Rhuna giggle and excitedly clap her hands together in delight.
He thought back to the moments after Tom and Diana had left. Rhuna had acted strange. Even for her.
How much of this was an act?
Molony opened the passenger door and Rhuna got in. She waited until he sat in the driver’s seat before stretching her arms backward over the seat and arching her back. Roeland could only imagine the view Molony was getting.
He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
He started the van’s engine and waited for Molony’s Jaguar to pull away, then slipped out in pursuit.
10
10:15 P.M.
Filip’s anger hadn’t diminished at all over the last hour. He was still cleaning up Nico’s mess. They’d just dumped out everything that wasn’t a part of their order on the floor of the van, taken the entire cooler, and left. He pressed another armload of frozen meat against his chest as he tried to keep the plastic vacuum-sealed packages from sliding against each other. He passed Mitch on his way back out to the van. Mitch paused and held the door open for him.
They had the routine down now. Filip had lost count, but this had to be at least his eighth load. He turned immediately right upon entering and passed into a small room. On the floor were several large, cheap Styrofoam coolers he and Mitch had coopted. He dumped the armload of frozen packages into one that still had room. It wasn’t hard to ignore what it was, packaged like this. It looked much like the ordinary meat he’d always used to mask the blood products he dealt in.
He headed back out to the van, holding the door open for Mitch as he came in with another unwieldy armload.
“Maybe one more trip and then the other big cooler.”
Filip grumbled what passed for a reply. He still couldn’t figure out how he was going to move that damn cooler with just him and Mitch. He had to get Gus and Lonzo back here, and the hell with Stan and his order. They couldn’t risk the whole operation over one fuckup. He reached the van and snatched at the remaining packages of meat. He piled them up in his arms and they slid frustratingly against one another, several falling back to the floor of the van as fast as he could pick them up. He wasn’t going to make it in one more trip.
Then Filip had an idea. He let the packs of meat in his arms fall to the floor and opened the second cooler. He slid some of the meat around to make more room and shoveled the packs from the floor of the van into the cooler. A few more packs wouldn’t hurt; he and Mitch weren’t going to move it alone anyway. He slammed the cooler lid down several times, and after he’d moved some of the packs around a bit more, it finally closed.
He stood leaning against the cooler and pulled his cell phone out of his jacket. He dialed Gus. No answer. Then he dialed Lonzo. Straight to voice mail. It seemed like he’d just spoken to them earlier. Filip had a bad feeling. If those guys got pinched, too …
A noise caught his attention, the steps of someone walking across the gravel of the lot. The footfall didn’t sound like Mitch’s heavy steps and Mitch would have been coming from the other side anyway, unless he’d decided to walk around the block for some reason. Filip held his breath to listen more carefully. The footsteps stopped right outside the van.
Was it the cops?
Nico’s crew?
One of his new customers? No, those assholes had been as quiet as the vampires.
He thought of the pistol holstered in the small of his back.
Mitch would have said something by now. Filip decided to put on his buddy act. He was good at it, and it would help throw whoever was out there off their guard.
“Hey friend, what can I help you with so we can both go away happy?”
“I’m glad you’re feeling so accommodating tonight, because we could use your help.”
Filip tried to place the voice and it came to him. It was a cop, but one he had an arrangement with.
“Alex? Jesus, you damn near made me shit myself.”
Filip came out of the van and saw Alex standing there alone, one hand in the pocket of his khakis. That hand was probably holding an automatic. At least he and Alex understood each other. That he could deal with.
“I shouldn’t have, I made enough noise coming up here.” Alex looked into the van. “You a little shorthanded tonight? You’re bringing in a little juice supply and you have nobody else around? Are you getting stupid on me?”
“Come on, man, you know my rep. Everyone’s my friend, right? Who’d want to hurt me?”
“Well, me for starters. You planning on moving the cooler by yourself?” Alex asked.
“Me and Mitch. We could use a hand if you’re feeling helpful.”
Alex gave him a look and stepped into the van. “What’s inside, I wonder?”
Filip’s heart turned to ice. He didn’t want Alex, of all people, looking too closely inside. What completely shitty luck to have him come down right now. “You know, speaking of getting stupid. You come down here alone and start talking shit, poking around and stuff…”
Alex took his hand out of his pocket. It was empty. It wasn’t a gesture of peace, but a sign meant to convey to Filip that he didn’t need whatever was in his pocket. “Never said I was alone.”
“Your partner around?” Filip, dark-skinned as he was, still managed to lose a shade or two of complexion.
“Always.”
The back door of the bodega opened up, sending a triangular spear of light into the small lot. Shadows danced and Alex shrank behind the front seats of the van. Mitch was backing the handcart out of the doorway.
“Mitch, go ahead and head back inside. I’ll come get you when I’m ready.”
Mitch half turned, his hands still on the handcart. “You want I should get Jean?”
Filip liked Mitch even better right then. He was smart, not like those other two idiots he had working for him. Jean wasn’t a person. Jean was a shotgun Filip kept upstairs.
“Naw, it’s cool. Just give me a couple minutes.”
“You got it.”
Filip turned back to Alex. “Now, what do you want, bro? You can see I have a busy night ahead of me.”
“Okay, I got a couple things for you.” Alex opened the lid of the cooler and started poking around absently at the packages of meat. “First, have you heard anything about vigilantes taking down vampires? I’m not talking about the onesy-twosy nut thinking he’s going to get a quick payback. I’m talking about semipro, holy-avenger types. Organized.”
Filip kept staring at Alex’s hands in the cooler. Was Alex just toying with him? Then the importance of Alex’s question hit him.
“What, the uh Nocturn Killer? Abraham? Holy shit, the rumors are right. That manifesto was real? He’s here ain’t, he? Whoa. You guys need to pull your heads out of your collective asses on that one before it blows up in your faces.
Folks are talking like he’s some kind of folk hero, gonna take the night back from the sangers.”
“Fantastic. Are folks scared? You know, your nocturn customers?”
“Not more than normal. They’re pissed. Only a matter of time until some sanger goes to take the law into his own hands as payback. You sure that’s not what happened this morning?”
Alex ignored the last sentence. “What about folks out to get some vamp juice on the cheap?”
“What? Someone rolling a sanger?”
“Been known to happen.”
“So’s folks playing Russian roulette, but it ain’t smart. Anyways, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Right.”
“I’m a legitimate businessman selling a product in demand. Hell, if the dicks in D.C. were a little more open-minded, my whole operation would be aboveboard.”
Alex chuckled. “I’ll believe it when it happens. Second thing, there’s a new source of juice out. Human stock, heavy adrenaline, not synthetic. Hard to find and extremely expensive. A new cut, we need to know who’s running it.”
“I ain’t heard nothing about that.” How the hell could the cops know about that already? Filip had been running it less than a week, and if Nico hadn’t shown up to grab his order early, there’d be a whole cooler of that shit sitting right where Alex was standing!
“So if I dig a little deeper in here, I’m not gonna find any blood products, right?”
Filip laughed nervously. “Didn’t say that. Just I don’t know about any new adrenalized juice. Have yourself a look.”
“Just like that? Preemptive offer, so then you think I won’t look? You know me better than that.”
Alex shoved his hand into the cold packs of hard frozen meat. He shoved the tightly crammed packages aside, digging farther down. Under the top layer, the packages had frozen together almost as one solid mass. They wouldn’t budge. Alex grunted and pushed the packages aside. Loosened packs spilled onto the floor of the van.
Filip could have sworn he saw the cooler move.
“What is this? How come you don’t get your stuff through regular suppliers?”
Filip thought quickly; could it be possible Alex didn’t realize what he was digging through?
“You know me, man. I only deal in the best stuff. That right there is straight from the farm, all choice, all organic, no hormones or any of that crap. I know you’re into all the healthy stuff. I could throw some in for you, you know, give you a police discount.”
“Sell it to someone else.” Alex grunted. He continued to scoop meat off to the side, digging deeper into the cooler.
“It’s all kosher, you know. Or halal, if you swing that way.”
“Kosher and halal? Nice.”
Filip laughed nervously. “Hey, it’s whatever you want it to be if it allows me to charge more. Like the song says, ‘If you’ve got the money, honey, we’ve got your disease.’”
Alex found what he was looking for: plasma bags, frozen blood packs.
“What the hell is this?” Alex held up a pack in mock surprise. “Are you telling me you’re a juice dealer?”
“Uh gee, I ain’t ever seen that before, uh, honest, it ain’t mine,” Filip joked.
Alex reached into his pocket and came up with a small tactical flashlight. He thumbed the touch switch on the back and the light shifted, going from white to dark purple. He brought one blood pack to eye level and moved the light over it. The blood inside the pack, dark crimson and blackish under the white light, now fluoresced noticeably. This was vampire blood. Very expensive and hard to come by. And Filip needed every single drop, especially if he expected to have any fun with clients later that night.
Filip lost all expression of amusement. “Hey, that ain’t UV, is it? Turn that shit off! You’re gonna ruin it!”
Alex tossed the pack back into the cooler. He fished around and came up with one from another batch. He did the same thing to it. The blood did not fluoresce. This was human stock.
“You had better have donor papers for this.”
“Yeah, yeah. You want to see them now?”
“Yeah.”
“Shit. Why are you busting my balls, bro?” Filip opened the passenger door of the van and picked up a large metal-enclosed clipboard, the kind delivery people used to carry before everything went electronic. He always kept some fakes on hand just in case. They wouldn’t stand up to a full check, but he hoped Alex wouldn’t go that far. If he did, he could shoot him and make a run for it.
Not that he’d make it. Alex’s partner would be on him faster than he could move. That pistol wasn’t going to do anything to an Ancient.
He was getting pretty tired of people ordering him around tonight. The thought brought Nico to mind and formed the seeds of an idea, a little payback for both of his pains in the ass.
“Here you go.” He handed the clipboard to Alex.
Alex took it and opened the top. He leafed through the papers absently. Then he put the clipboard on the corner of the open cooler.
“You’re going to have to get rid of all this meat,” Alex said.
“What?” It wasn’t what Filip had been expecting. He was still formulating his plan.
“Selling juice is one thing. Those customers know what they’re getting into. I can’t have you selling strange meat to the neighborhood housewives out of a van. That’s not happening. And I’ll know if you try anything.”
“That cost me a shitload.”
“I’m sure you’ll pass on the cost to your customers. Call it the cost of doing business. Why pack it in with the juice?”
“Because it masks the scent of the blood products from them, you know, the ones with more sensitive noses.”
Another voice joined the conversation, quiet and icy.
“It does not.”
Filip jumped in his skin. The voice, vaguely European in accent, seemed to bring its own chill to the air.
“Wha—” he managed to stammer.
“It does not mask the scent.” A phantom slid from shadows Filip would have sworn weren’t dark enough to conceal anyone. He saw a tall solid man with pale skin and hair so black it looked as if there was nothing there at first, until he stepped into the edge of the light’s glow.
Filip didn’t move, though he had met Alex’s partner before. He was beginning to wish he never had. Each time he saw the ancient vampire was as disconcerting as the first. It was one thing to meet a vampire in a well-lit room, quite another in a dimly lit parking lot. Filip had met enough killers, human and vampire, to know one when he saw one. This man, this vampire, was an old hand at killing.
“That’s not what we need, Alex,” Marcus said. His voice never really rose above a whisper, yet it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
Alex stepped out of the van and put one hand on Filip’s shoulder. “You’re lucky, Filip. It would have gone very badly for you if that was the stuff we were looking for.”
Filip thought again of Nico picking up the other cooler early. Oh yeah, he wanted everyone to suffer a little. He put his plan into motion.
“Uh yeah. Hey, if your partner’s up for something, you know, he can help himself. As you saw, I have some really good stock there.”
Alex answered for Marcus. “No thanks, just keep an ear to the ground for us, okay?”
“Yeah sure. I’ve got something for you right now, if you’re interested. There’s a new juice joint. Very exclusive. They screen everybody. High-quality bleeders, not your normal emo Wannabe stock.”
“So?”
“So, they’ve only been going a couple of days, but word is they’re running through booze and broads like the world’s about to come to an end. It’s like a party to end all parties. I’m thinking maybe they might know something.” Filip hoped it sounded convincing.
“Wow, just like that? What’s your beef with them?”
“They’re moving a lot of product out of there. Performance enhancers, vamp … er … nocturn blood. Some human stock
for those that don’t want to get personal with the bleeders. Competition is already stiff, man.”
“So you sic us on them hoping your troubles go away?” Alex asked.
“Hey, a guy’s gotta do what he can to stay ahead in this economy, right?”
“We’ll check it out. If they do as much trade as you say, we might even raise an eyebrow or two. Speaking of which, you need to start cutting back, you’re starting to get too big for the big boys to ignore. As long as you stay small-time we can help each other out.”
Filip almost laughed. Alex thought he was a hard-ass cop, but he really was clueless.
“So a businessman can’t get rich?”
“You’re already past rich. You’ve been playing it smart, so stay smart and not smart-ass. I’ve been doing this longer than you think. Nails that stick up too high tend to get hammered down. If someone needs a trophy to put on the wall to please the mayor or the media, guess whose head gets whacked and mounted. The smart-asses who aren’t playing smart.”
“I knew deep down you liked me.”
“We do not,” Marcus said. He slid across the gravel in the lot and made no sound. Marcus was doing that shit on purpose just to get at him. It worked. “A word to the wise is sufficient. Now, if you would be so kind as to give us the location of the club you spoke of.”
11
Rhuna was pumping out enough pheromones to make a normal male weep from lust and frustration. She was putting on quite a show, too, making sure to stretch her arms and legs in the right places, letting Molony get an eyeful. In her outfit, it wasn’t very hard, especially with the convertible’s top down. She almost felt violated by the wind. She let her hand brush along Fionan Molony’s leg just long enough to place a suggestion of potential impropriety in his mind.
Sure, he was a monster. But he was also a good-looking rake. And there were no rules against a girl having a little fun before getting down to business.
She was still feeling heady from the meal Lou had brought her. To be truthful, she was a bit on the horny side, too. She went with it. It helped her play her role all the better.
Graveyard Shift Page 8