by A. C. James
“No, it’s not the end of the story. You think you can just buy me off. And why you’re bothering I can only imagine. I want no part of it. If you’re worried I’ll tell someone what you are—I won’t. I don’t want to owe you anything.”
“You don’t.”
I shook my head vehemently. “Look, I can’t accept it and I won’t.”
“Did it ever occur to you that I did it for no other reason than to help you? Why not keep it for now until you can figure something out? Think of it as a loan or lease if that makes you feel better.”
“I can’t drive it. You see the neighborhood where I work. It will get broken into, or worse…stolen,” I said, trying one last attempt to get him to concede.
“No one will touch it.”
“You say that matter-of-factly. What are you going to do? Stand outside all day and guard it?”
“Your car is tagged. No one would be stupid enough to touch it.”
“I don’t understand. You told me last night that you can’t kill humans because it’s against whatever code you have to prevent being discovered.”
“Yes. That’s true. I never said that humans didn’t know about us. There are those that work for us. The chop shop in your neighborhood, for instance, knows not to touch our cars, but for reasons that have nothing to do with knowing about our kind.”
I bit my lower lip.
No matter how much I disliked the situation, I didn’t see any way around it. Clearly, this was the limit of his compromise. I reached out to touch his arm in thanks, just so the argument would be dropped. “I’ll just give back the car once I buy a new one. Well, new to me anyway.” I blinked, trying to find my voice, which came out in a squeak. “Thank you. I have a bit of a problem.” I wasn’t even going to bother arguing with him about dazzling me the night before. I had bigger problems to worry about.
Arie raised an eyebrow and I released his arm, swallowing awkwardly.
“Someone was in my apartment.”
“When?”
“It happened this morning. I was getting ready for work but Mystic led me to a message. Actually, it was more of a threat.”
“Your cat?”
It confused me that this bit of information seemed to intrigue Arie more than the fact that a message had been left to scare the bejesus out of me.
I nodded. “Why do you sound surprised? He made this strange sound and I knew that he wanted me to follow him. When I did, I found the death threat left on my computer.”
I left out the part about the knife. There was no telling how Arie would take it. I couldn’t take another fight that I’d only end up losing. One controlling squabble for the day was about all I could stomach.
Arie ran a hand through his hair. “Your cat sounds like a familiar, but I’ve only see that with witches.”
“What’s a familiar?”
“It’s an animal that you share a magical connection with. From the sound of it your cat tried to warn you.”
“I’m not a witch.”
Arie grinned. “Are you sure? You’ve been able to use your charms on me. But I don’t think you should go home. Do you have a friend you can stay with?”
I shook my head. “I can’t ask Trina. She has a teenager. It’s complicated. I’ll just change my locks and stay at my apartment.”
“That’s no good. I’d rather you stayed with someone, or at least somewhere that’s more secure.”
“I said I’d change the locks. I’m sure I’ll be fine,” I said, putting on a brave face.
I wasn’t sure at all, but I didn’t want to let on how much having my apartment broken into shook me. It felt almost like I’d been violated. I hated feeling vulnerable.
“No. I’ll come up with something. In the meantime, be careful. I think there’s an Ancient that has returned who does not abide by our laws. Until I resolve this I need to keep you safe. I tell you this because you need to know for your own safety.”
“What the hell is an Ancient? And why would they be after me?”
“An Ancient is a vampire that has been around a very long time, a vampire like me. They are very powerful. Just make sure you stay inside, that you’re always where others can see you. I’ll be back for you when you get off. What time does your shift end?”
Panic set in when he told me something from his world was after me. My façade of bravery dissolved whether I wanted it to or not. “You say it’s an Ancient. I don’t know what that means, but I’ve seen what you can do. If they want to come for me, they can and they will. I doubt a coffee shop full of people will stop them. I’m only scheduled four hours today. And I still don’t understand why they’d be after me.”
A look that I didn’t understand crossed his features but was gone almost as fast as it had appeared. He was keeping something from me. Arie brushed the back of his knuckles across my cheek. -Holly, I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear it. I have to go, but I will return for you.- I felt comforted and protected despite everything that was going on.
I smiled at the telepathic transference and then I stood in the storeroom alone. His time-bending trick would take some serious getting used to. I didn’t even get a chance to ask him where he needed to go when I needed him now more than ever. Leaning against the wall for support, I took a moment before returning to my customers. I needed that moment to keep from falling apart and letting fear crush me.
CHAPTER 6
“Do what thou wilt.” -François Rabelais
Arie and I sat in his Venom in silence as I gripped the door handle like my life depended on it. Although when you meet a vampire, maybe that doesn’t matter so much anymore. I chanced a glance at Arie—his steel gray eyes flashed in the darkness as he sped through the streets. Despite Arie’s expert precision rounding corners, my knuckles turned white as the scenery flew by.
“Could you please slow down?”
Arie only grinned. “I haven’t even shown you what she can really do. I don’t feel like dealing with getting pulled over and having to dazzle my way out of a ticket. You should see how she handles at 150 mph.”
“Where are we going, anyway?”
Arie’s smile radiated wicked seductiveness. “To Hell.”
I took in the surroundings of the neighborhood and saw we were somewhere on the South Side of town. Gradually, the car began to slow as we pulled up toward a nondescript building covered in graffiti just like the one in my vision.
While covered in graffiti, it looked in good repair, but there were no windows whatsoever. It also lacked a sign designating its business purpose. The letters HFC, the only distinguishing feature, were scrawled in graffiti on one corner. It looked more like a work of art than the crude representations that covered the rest of the building.
“Wait…what are we doing here?”
Arie sighed. “It’s a bit of a last resort, but I need information, and you’ll be safer with me. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
His words, the way he looked at me just then, made me want to do more than rip his clothes off. His tenderness surprised me. It moved me beyond desire and made me feel connected to him on an emotional level. Just being with Arie—his protectiveness made me feel safe. Arie entered a parking garage connected to the building, pulling the Venom into an empty space. He turned off the engine, leaving the keys in the ignition.
“I don’t think your car is going to be where we left it if you leave your keys in it.”
“Relax. This is the safest parking garage in the whole city. We’re in Gangsta Two Six Four territory, but they don’t mess with us—bad for business. They’re on our payroll, but if it makes you feel better…” Arie tossed me the keys with a smirk. “If you’re good while I get what I need, I’ll even let you drive her on the way home.”
I made a face and threw the keys back at him. “No thanks.”
Arie grinned. “No to being good or no to driving the car?”
“I’m just getting used to the idea of the BMW. No way in hell am I
driving that thing.”
“Suit yourself.”
We entered a lobby through double-hinged doors with exquisite art glass that had red lettering at the center. The elegant red letters read: HFC. It had black lettering underneath with the words, “Fais ce que tu voudras,” and I wished I could remember the French I took back in high school.
People were waiting in line—they were dressed eccentrically, but with the same general style of dark-painted lips, dark eyeliner, and black clothing. Others flaunted a distinctly punk look that clashed with fashions that appeared to walk right off the pages of a history book. These figures appeared Victorian, except that their ensembles too were in varying shades of gray, white, and black.
We approached a woman with short blonde hair which appeared almost white; her albino complexion looked like moonlight. She must have been wearing contacts. Her eyes were pale lavender with white lashes. She was clad in a purple and black dress that looked like what a Cigarette Girl might wear. She stood at an ornate table with a laptop at the front of the line, scanning driver’s licenses and screening those waiting to get in. A large, formidable-looking man with his muscled arms crossed over the large expanse of his chest stood beside her.
Arie didn’t stop to wait in line but walked directly up to the blonde, whose pixie hair spiked out in various directions, while I followed behind. “Hello, Victoria. Good to see you.”
“Arie, I’m going to need her ID to get her in the system.” She nodded in my direction.
“She’s with me. As Chief Justice to the Council of Sanguis, I’ll make sure she’s seen and makes proper introductions. I’ll put her in the system myself.”
“Let them in.” Without pause she gestured to the muscled man to move the rope and open the door.
“Council of Sanguis? So you bring those who break your laws to justice?” I asked.
“Think of the Legacy as the rule makers and the Council as those who enforce the rules.”
“I suppose even vampires need a justice system.” I muttered this instead of what I really thought—that politics and corruption always go hand in hand with justice.
“That’s a good interpretation. Follow me.”
We descended a small set of black marble stairs to a scene similar to the one that greeted us in the lobby. There were men and women dressed in black with eyes rimmed in heavy black eyeliner. Some individuals were so androgynous in appearance that I couldn’t tell whether they were male or female.
A bar stood to the right of a black-light LED dance floor that made the expanse seem like an infinite starry cosmos. Beyond the starry abyss stood a booth outfitted with sound equipment, and behind it a lanky man pumped out industrial music. Next to the booth was an empty stage. I knew whatever this place was, I would be safe with Arie. Still, I looked around, trying to figure out who was human and who was vampire. But I found, with all the Goth types wearing pale make-up, that I couldn’t tell the difference.
“What is this place?”
“This is the Hellfire Club. Downstairs is a Goth club but we’re not here for that. Come on.”
I wondered what he meant, and if there was a difference, but as we headed toward the music I figured it would become too difficult to hear one another. Arie moved with the graceful lumber of a panther through the bodies moving on the dance floor to the aggressive blend of rock and electronic sounds. It created a harsh pumping rhythm as I followed him toward the elevators on the left. The severe strobe lights cast shades and angles that did not complement the features of the mob gyrating, but highlighted their fake resin fangs in a cruel light.
The scent of leather and sweat permeated the dance floor. Arie swiped a key card before stepping into the elevator. Following on his heels, I saw it only had buttons for three floors. He pressed the number two. As the elevator door closed behind us, we were cut off from the harsh rhythm. When the elevator doors opened to the second level, a hedonistic world filled with public sadomasochist activity and open sexuality sprawled around us.
I gulped.
A diverse mix of clientele—covered in masks, latex, and leather, and adorned with whips, chains, and restraints—flooded my vision. Human patrons carried handcrafted accessories that included medical bags filled with blood. I had no idea whether those were real or fake. And I didn’t want to know. A woman was on her knees, head bouncing up and down as she gave a man a blowjob. Someone else fucked her ass from behind.
Unreal.
My mouth dropped open in a mixture of arousal, scorn, and fear. The blood, or fake blood, whichever it might be, kind of grossed me out. I saw a woman forcing a man on his knees to kiss her boot. Something about it turned me on. And perhaps that’s what made me afraid the most—my own arousal. We entered the scene and I saw a balcony that overlooked the Goths dancing below.
“Close your mouth,” Arie said, looking over at me with an amused expression.
I took in the spectacle of body mutilation, piercing, performance art, blood rituals, tattooing, and all sorts of bondage in a kind of horrified wonder. Raunchy sexual and hedonistic activity converged before my eyes. I could see how in this haven of sexual extremes, vampires became invisible wallflowers. It seemed I had more clothing on than almost anyone else, except for Arie and a few others with his same pale complexion.
Then I knew that they were vampires too. Unlike the fake paleness of the Goth clubbers below, their luminosity gave it away. At least if you had a vampire standing next to you for comparison it made it a little easier to tell the difference. I closed my mouth and looked at Arie for some sort of explanation.
“This is…? What, a sex club?”
“This isn’t even our invention. Believe it or not, this concept is a human one. And this exhibition is filled with doctors, lawyers, judges, and even the police, but upstairs is a very exclusive sex club. This operation brings in a lot of money and gives us a lot of leverage. People value privacy.”
“So none of them know…about vampires, I mean.”
“On the contrary, the BDSM sex club upstairs is our playground and the humans here know what we are and come out to play quite willingly. However, the humans downstairs that romanticize or role-play in ‘vampire culture’ wouldn’t know a real vampire if one walked right up to them, and often they do. Come on, let’s get a table by the bar.”
I slipped onto a bar stool next to Arie at a small pub table by the bar. I couldn’t help staring at the most exotic-looking woman I’d ever seen. She had ebony skin and high cheekbones. She pulled a scantily-clad middle-aged man with a receding hair line by a leash. Arie seemed either not to notice or not to care. That appeared to be the general attitude of everyone in the club, whether they were human or vampire.
Trying to loaf casually on the bar stool, I nearly fell off. I struggled to appear indifferent to my surroundings. Arie looked at me with an amused smile and I guessed that I’d failed to pull it off.
“So how long has this place been around?”
Arie shrugged. “Vampires hide in plain sight, and have infiltrated all aspects of society, controlling shares in major corporations and a large part of the world’s wealth. We exist within every level of society you can imagine, from Wall Street to drug cartels, and even the mob. We’re among celebrities and the government…even within the White House. We own this international chain of Goth and BDSM sex clubs we call the Hellfire Club or HFC. It has been around since the 18th century. Depending on the time period, the entertainment downstairs varies, but upstairs has remained much the same, just under different names. Back in the 50s you’d walk in to see them dancing the Lindy Hop down there.”
“And now look at it,” I muttered.
Arie laughed. “I think I liked it best when downstairs hosted a jazz club.”
“I think I’d like that better too.”
I tried to wrap my mind around what Arie told me. Across the club, a pretty blonde pushing forty tilted her neck, voluntarily offering an older vampire better access to her throat. Arie gave the vampire a w
ink while the older vampire acknowledged him with a curt nod before piercing her neck. He began to drink her blood. Although I watched the exchange in fascination, no one else seemed to notice this as something strange or unusual.
“Since the 18th century… Arie, how old are you?” I tried one last time to weasel this bit of information out of him.
“Old enough to know better than to reveal my age or weaknesses,” he said with a sigh. “But I seem to be breaking a lot of my rules with you.”
That made me smile. “And how do you get away with it?”
“These clubs have changed locations and names throughout the centuries. They have been designed for us to feed off humans, going unnoticed under the pretense that they were exclusive clubs for high-society ranks to meet persons of quality to share immoral desires. Back then most of society’s elite happily obliged.”
“I can’t imagine why someone would go for this.” I gestured to the vampire sucking the blood of the pretty blonde and Arie laughed.
“They enjoy it. And some are selected for other services or talents. Like tax accountants, stock brokers, money launderers, computer programmers, or security experts. Having a blood bank employee or someone with nefarious skills of a criminal nature can come in handy. This…” He gestured to the fetish scene, “…is what it has evolved to in modern times.”
The idea that there were vampires among the highest levels of society, and that high-ranking officials knew about the vampire race, seemed impossible to me. I shook my head as I tried to comprehend it. How all this had gone on without vampires being out in the open was mindboggling. As I looked around, I was fascinated, a little repulsed, and more than a little aroused.
A waitress approached our table wearing a black and silver burlesque corset that revealed her cleavage. She wore a silver necklace, and a pale white glowing orb dangled from the chain. Her skin looked pale, luminous, and almost invisible silvery beams trailed behind her. Even her hair, including her eyelashes, sparkled silver. And she smelled like the night air wet with rain.