by J. R. Rain
“Will we all be able to be there? Whatever the decision is?”
Black Beauty suddenly bucked, making contact with the back wall. I crouched further into my front corner. The two men were walking away now, their voices fading.
“...it will be a joint decision, I’m sure...” said the first, and then they were gone, their voices fading with them.
I quietly stood up and faced the huge animal. We observed each other for a moment, each unable to communicate except with our eyes. His belied trust. My gut told me they were talking about the woman I’d been hired to help. And perhaps my client. All the more reason to get to her—and the sooner the better. Even if I couldn’t free her tonight, I had to at least find out where and how she was being detained. Then I could form a plan.
I waited a few minutes. I patted the horse’s great neck and pretended I knew what I was doing. He just stood there. He could have easily trampled me to death. Part of me wished he would.
But he didn’t, so I hauled myself back out of the stall. I walked quietly, listening hard, and systematically searched for a way to the basement. Shortly, I found the service elevator—and a stairway down.
The elevator wouldn’t do. Not at this time of night. Too much noise. No cover. My every instinct told me to take the stairs, which I did.
The basement was dimly lit, and something told me there was danger here. That something came in the form of the hair standing on end at the back of my neck. I pushed forward, alert.
Empty rooms, one after another. No storage or equipment down here. What the hell was this place? My defenses were up. Way up.
I rounded a corner and stopped abruptly. Here, was a door with a padlock. Across the way, two men sat in another room, talking quietly and playing cards. I knew this was the room, but how to...
Suddenly I heard a great ruckus from above. A horse stomping and whinnying. I knew it was Black Beauty. How I knew this, I didn’t know. But I was sure of it. I stepped deeper into the shadows as the men threw down their cards and raced past me. Soon, I heard their boots pounding up the stairs.
I had no time to lose. I silently thanked the horse and pulled out my set of lock picks. Every competent detective has one. Thirty seconds later—an eternity in my mind—I slipped off the lock and opened the door.
I was almost sorry I did.
Chapter Six
She was lying in the far corner.
A shaft of light from the hallway behind me cast a rectangle of yellow into the room. If not for that, the woman had been lying in complete darkness.
I stared, trying to process what I was seeing, until I realized there was no processing any of this.
This...this was unimaginable.
She was propped against the far wall, arms suspended from chains. No, not any chains. Silver chains. They sparkled and caught the ambient light. Correction...barbed silver chains, digging deeply into her skin. Next to her was an empty plastic cup, with a little blood still in it. Her mask was indeed iron, but had been welded down the middle with molten silver.
Jesus.
The room was filthy, reminding me of a true medieval dungeon. The stone room was a perfect box. Ten by ten and humid as hell. A torture chamber, if I’d ever seen one. A place to be forgotten, where screams would never, ever be heard.
Sweet Jesus.
Who she was, I didn’t know. Why she was chained and bound and covered in an iron mask...I didn’t know that either. This was beyond even my own comprehension.
And I’d seen some pretty wild shit.
Although I was hardly an expert on the supernatural, I suspected there was something to the silver that dug into her skin and held the mask in place.
A vampire?
I’d seen my share of such creatures. Whether or not I truly believed they existed, I didn’t know. Part of me—most of me—believed they were nothing more than the wild conjurings of my grief-stricken mind. Still, I had seen things that defied logic. So much so that I had done my best to forget what I had seen.
But this...there was no forgetting this.
Ever.
Whoever she was, she was clearly weak. Her head hung down, her arms suspended from chains. She could have been Joan of Arc awaiting her burning at the stake. She could have been any number of victims, awaiting further brutality at the hands of their tormentors.
Her chest didn’t move. Nothing moved. Dead?
Jesus. I was tempted to pull out my cell and call 911. Hell, call anyone. And tell them what? A woman was chained to a wall beneath Medievaland?
A dead woman, I thought. She’s not breathing.
I was just about to rush to her side when something amazing happened.
She lifted her head.
And looked right at me.
Chapter Seven
Amazingly, she pushed herself up to a sitting position.
Despite the chains—and despite the fact that she was not breathing—she held herself with dignity. I moved forward, squatted before her.
“Who are you?” I asked. No time to waste. I was thinking fast. Take her or come back with a better plan? If we were caught, I had a feeling I wouldn’t be coming back. Ever. I’d be six feet under.
“You should go,” she echoed my thoughts in an accented voice.
I looked at the cup of blood before her. The cup of congealing blood. Blood that had been, I was sure, recently consumed. By her?
Sweet, sweet Jesus.
There was a bendy straw in the cup, the only way to feed her, I guessed, through a tiny hole in the mask in the mouth area.
“Why are you being held here?” I placed my hand on hers just to be sure. Ice cold. I nearly recoiled but didn’t. She was either dead or a...
A vampire.
I’m dreaming, I thought. I’m not really here. Yesterday I was following a cheating spouse. A man who’d been secretly dating his boss. A male boss. Last night I was sitting on the balcony with Roxi, holding her hand. Her very warm hand.
I’m dreaming, I thought again.
No, whispered a soft voice in my thoughts. So soft that I could have heard it next to me. You’re not dreaming, friend. And you are in terrible danger.
Dream or no dream, the eyes behind the mask suddenly widened and shot up behind me. I barely had time to react.
I swung around, my right leg extended so as to hopefully trip whoever was behind me. It worked—for one of my attackers. The element of surprise bought me a precious second or two. I punched the one still standing, hard, but it did little damage. My punches rarely did little damage. My punches generally did a lot of damage. But now my arm rebounded as surely as if I’d hit a side of beef.
Or something not human.
The one I’d tripped was up in a flash. Too fast. Faster than I’d ever seen any man move.
Because he’s not a man, came a thought. A thought, I was alarmed to discover, that was not my own.
I searched the room for a weapon…anything. There were only the silver chains wrapped around the woman. I wouldn’t sink so low as to hide behind a chained woman. I glanced at her, and she gestured to the far corner. Nearly hidden in shadows was an old two-by-four leaning against the wall.
I did get a few punches in as I maneuvered toward the corner. Punches that had little, if any, effect. Indeed, I might have just broken my hand on one of their jaws.
I almost reached the wood, and the door. I had to choose. I didn’t care for either option. I wasn’t keen on the idea of running, but I was less inclined to die.
Just as I lunged for the two-by-four, one of the bastards tripped me, and the other got a hold of the wood instead. The last thing I remembered was trying to cover my head as I saw the blow coming down.
Chapter Eight
The nightmares had changed somewhat over the past couple of years. Locations changed, scenery changed. My son’s screaming and his burning body remained the same. My helplessness to save him always remained. The horror remained.
This time we were at the beach. I’d pulled his burning body from
the car. I was carrying him, running like hell toward the ocean. (I know saltwater would really hurt, but this was a dream, right?) If only I could get him wet, he might live. Maybe. But the sand slowed my pace. Try as I might, I wasn’t getting any closer to the water. My son screamed in pain with every step I took. I was thirsty. The ocean water wouldn’t help me but it would save my son. He screeched in agony as I tripped and dropped him on the hot sand.
Christ, I needed water for strength. I wasn’t strong enough to get him to the waves...
I was slapped awake. My first thought was of the dream. My second was that my head felt like someone had used it as a soccer ball. As I opened my eyes, my third thought was instantly upon who’d just slapped me. The night was dark and cold. I reached for my gun but a strong hand stopped me.
A strong, feminine hand.
As my vision cleared, the person who seemingly manifested before me was the last person I’d expected to see. Then again, considering where I had been and what I had just seen, maybe I shouldn’t have been too surprised.
“Veronica.”
My client from two years ago. My client who’d first introduced me to the world of the undead. Or to my own insanity.
“Yeah. You’re welcome,” she said.
We were in an alley, but where, I had no clue. For a second I thought I was going to throw up. I gagged. She stepped back a little. Polite of her. I forced my half-digested medieval dinner to stay put. Next, Veronica helped me to my feet. She was clearly stronger than she looked. She steered me to a small car that was parked just inside the alley.
Later, after she’d put a few miles behind us, she pulled onto a quiet street and stopped the car. She lit a cigarette as I ran my fingers tenderly around the back of my head. Two giant lumps. Oh, goody.
“Smoking’s bad for your health,” I said, wincing. “Cuts years off your life.”
She laughed. “So does getting your head bludgeoned.”
I didn’t laugh. I didn’t say anything either. I was still processing the night. I was still processing the fact that I was now sitting next to an old client of mine. A client who, I was certain, was now very much a creature of the night.
Yeah, I’m going crazy.
“What the hell were you doing there?” she asked.
Veronica still looked eighteen, although her dark eyes held more wisdom than any eighteen year old I’d ever seen. We’d touched base only a few times since I’d saved her life a couple of years ago.
“How did you find me?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“We’re...” she paused, started again. “We’re connected somehow, Spinoza.”
Crazy words. They were words that made me even forget the two lumps at the back of my head. “I need a drink.”
“No drinks, Spinoza. The man who attacked me years ago was a vampire. You know that.”
“I really need a drink.”
“Calm down, buckaroo. This isn’t new news. Anyway, by saving me, we somehow...bonded.”
“Bonded?”
She nodded. “Mentally. It happens when there’s a close bond between vampire and mortal. Apparently saving one’s life accelerates that bond. Who knew?”
“You know you sound crazy,” I said. “Batshit crazy.”
“Says the man I found lying in the alley in a pool of his own blood. How do you think I found you?”
I thought about that as long and hard as my throbbing head would permit. Bonded? Lord help me.
“Now that that’s out of the way, Spinoza, why don’t you tell me what sort of shit you’ve stumbled into?”
Rubbing my head, hearing the craziness that was issuing forth from my mouth, I told her about my case, everything I’d explained to Roxi, plus the night’s events.
She sat there, thinking. “Huh,” she finally said.
“Very astute,” I commented. “Know anything about the woman in the iron mask?”
“I will soon,” was all she said. “And, if my hunch is correct, she is far more than a woman. Far, far more.”
Chapter Nine
I opened the fridge, half-expecting to find an ice-cold beer. Or a twelve-pack. Of course, there wasn’t any beer. There was a half-bottle of Roxi’s chardonnay, but I firmly guided my hand to a Diet Coke, along with half a meatball sandwich that I tossed in the microwave.
I took these to my desk. I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed, but I had work to do. I thought of those woeful eyes behind the mask. Not blue, but violet. And they had been full of pain that may have matched my own. Maybe.
I picked up my cell and punched in my client’s number. Voicemail. I left a message and hung up. I opened my laptop and researched Medievaland. I wanted to learn who owned that particular franchise. This information could be easily found, if one knew how. Then I did some background checks on the owner. Came up with nothing. They weren’t vampires, of that I was certain. They didn’t even live in California. That’s one annoying aspect of private detective work; much of the research is necessary but hardly ever relevant to the case.
I washed the last of the sandwich down with a swig of Diet Coke. Her accent. Swedish? Norwegian? I could be at my laptop all day. I didn’t have enough information. I called my client again, frowning when he still failed to pick up. Now that I’d seen her, I understood his concern. So why wasn’t he answering?
I knew it was pointless, but I searched the internet for vampires with violet eyes. That would have been too easy. And probably inaccurate. Nothing, of course. I called a couple of trusted contacts and inquired.
Three hours later, still at my desk, I sat drumming my fingers. My mind wandered to the last drink I’d taken before killing my son. He would have been fifteen now, had I not taken that last drink. Or maybe the last four or five. He might have had a girlfriend. I’d never had a chance to give him “the talk.”
It was early afternoon and Roxi would be calling soon. She called me every day. The thought was comforting, and I felt a pang of disappointment that I might disappoint her with my lack of progress. Meeting a vampire in silver chains was something, but I didn’t consider getting clobbered and dumped in an alley as progress. I knew two things: one, I needed to talk more with my client, and two, I had to help the imprisoned woman, whoever she was.
* * *
A shower and clean clothes helped.
I’d heard somewhere that a shower could make you feel as good as 25 milligrams of Demerol. I wondered if that was true. I’d never taken it; I refused to ever take anything to ease pain. I didn’t feel I deserved to be relieved of pain of any kind. But I did ice the lump on my head to bring down the swelling. I’d had concussions before. I didn’t think I had one now, but I wouldn’t be of use to anyone if I couldn’t function.
I had filled Roxi in when she called. With my past cases, in regard to creatures of the night, Roxi had proven to be remarkably open-minded. More so than I had been. I would have dismissed such stories as just that...stories.
That was, if course, if I hadn’t seen these things first-hand.
They’re real, I thought. Whatever they are.
And Veronica was one of them. And perhaps even more strange, she and I were linked telepathically. As in, she somehow had access to my thoughts. My tortured thoughts. Poor thing.
I shook my head again and winced.
“You should see a doctor,” she said, referring to my head injuries.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“Well, let me at least come over. Fix you dinner?”
I supposed all women had a tendency to fix things, but I hated it.
“It’s okay. I have to go out. Research.”
“About vampires?”
“Something like that.”
She asked me to call later. I promised I would. Roxi cared for me, but she also respected my work. Even when it came to blood-sucking fiends. If I were her, I would have run for the hills. And kept running.
I hung up and got my coat and k
eys.
Chapter Ten
The Tam O’Shanter was a classy Scottish pub in Glendale.
I liked it because of its unique, somewhat secretive ambiance and the intelligent, diverse regulars. You could mingle at the bar, or sit quietly alone and listen to the pianist, Frank. I liked the older big band tunes. Frank was a real entertainer. He could jump from “Getting to Know You” to “Clair de Lune” with the seamless grace of a ballerina, either leading the chorus of voices that rose around him or bending into the kind of classical piece that let his piano do the talking. It was a great place to get away, a place where no one would think of finding me; it was my little secret haven.
I got into my car and headed over to the Tam, where I was to meet Veronica. As I entered the pub, Frank transitioned his melody to “As Time Goes By” from the old Bogie film, Casablanca. He knew I liked that particular tune and played it whenever I came in. He smiled at me, and I attempted a smile back.
Attempted.
Veronica was sipping a martini in a nearby booth. I slipped in across from her and ordered an Arnold Palmer. “Tell me something I don’t know, kiddo,” I said.
“Stop calling me that.”
“Okay, Mistress of the Night, tell me something I don’t know.”
Veronica unsheathed an olive from the toothpick and popped it into her mouth. My mouth watered. I looked away.
“You really have a knack for picking cases,” she observed as I faced her again.
“I thought you were going to tell me something new.”
“I am. I just don’t know where to begin.”
“Why don’t you start with this: Who is the woman in the mask?”
Instead she said, “There’s a newer group of vampires in Orange County. They formed as a coven a few years ago, but they’ve grown much larger than that.”
“How much larger?”
“I’m not quite sure. They’re very secretive. Probably about thirty in all. They’re becoming a gang, or like some mob or something.”