Blood Bath & Beyond

by Michelle Rowen

  A lot of things in this world freaked me out. But I’d decided that enforcers—smart, savvy, immortal, and completely deadly—had graduated to the very top of my list.

  Chapter 16

  Club Noir wasn’t on the Strip. It wasn’t a casino or hotel. It was just a little run-down theater that had a dinner show of half-naked and slightly past-their-prime showgirls, followed by a break, followed by a little magic and psychic entertainment at ten o’clock, when the audience was mostly too drunk to care.

  We arrived too early for any of the main entertainment, but the showgirls were milling around the dining area trailing cheap feather boas and sour expressions when they thought no one was looking.

  Just like Josh had hinted to me earlier, Kristopher was already here. Thierry paid off a man in front to take us back to meet him. It hadn’t cost very much. The man even confirmed that Kristopher rarely left the club. He didn’t work two jobs like Josh did.

  Thierry and I exchanged a glance when the club owner left us alone with the psychic in a back room that looked as if it doubled as a dressing room. It also contained storage—cardboard boxes piled high to the ceiling. Torn wallpaper. A cracked mirror surrounded by lights.

  Kristopher was either meditating or napping sitting up with his legs crossed on a worn vinyl couch. We stood at the open doorway and waited for two solid minutes, but Kristopher didn’t open his eyes.

  Finally, I cleared my throat.

  One of Kristopher’s eyes popped open and his brow went up.

  He had longish black hair and pale skin. His eye was a muddy brown shade. He wore a ruffled white shirt and black leather pants. Black liner was smudged around his eyes, which made him look like a Goth pirate.

  “Hello,” I greeted him. “Sorry to disturb, but can we talk to you?”

  The other eye popped open—and, surprisingly, it wasn’t brown like the other. It was pale blue and the mismatched eyes gave him a spooky look. He swept his gaze over me before doing the same with Thierry. “You’re vampires.”

  It was always on the tip of my tongue to deny a statement like that, but considering he worked regularly with Josh, I was going to assume he knew that we existed and that not all of us were serial killers. Still, I didn’t immediately nod my head and let him know he was right. A little uncertainty never hurt anyone.

  “You’re Kristopher, right?” I asked. Best to make sure just in case we’d been led somewhere incorrectly.

  “That’s me. Kristopher DeMon.”

  I blinked. “How do you spell your last name?”

  He looked at me with a glimmer of amusement in those mismatched eyes. “D-E-M-O-N.”

  I shifted my feet. “Yeah, that’s how I thought it would be spelled.”

  Stage name, I told myself. It’s his stage name, just like Vladimir Nosferatu.

  Besides, if you were a demon in disguise, would you really announce it to the world? I mean, was Criss Angel really an angel?

  I had heard rumors to that effect, but that didn’t mean it was true.

  “Um, I’m Sarah Dearly. This is Thierry de Bennicoeur.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” he said.

  “Meditating, huh?” I scanned the room looking for something that might help me decide if this guy was a big faker or not. “That’s relaxing. Clears the mind, helps concentration. I keep meaning to take it up.”

  “To meditate, you need to be capable of stilling your mind and thinking of nothing at all. Those unable to control their worries and stresses and those who are impatient find it nearly impossible—but they’re the ones who need it the most. It’s a quandary.”

  “Yes, that is…a quandary,” I agreed.

  “What do you want? I’m preparing for my show tonight.”

  “Josh gave me your name,” I said. Thierry remained silent beside me. He watched me curiously, as if amused that I had taken over. I wasn’t sure why I had, exactly, but it was my decision to come here in the first place, so I might as well put my money where my mouth was. “He said that you’re a psychic who can speak with the dead.”

  “And you want me to help you speak to someone you’ve lost.”

  “Yes. You could say that.”

  “Some dearly departed relative whom you miss with all your heart.”

  I glanced at Thierry.

  His expression was grim. “Very intuitive, don’t you think? He can read you like a book.”

  Smart-ass. I wasn’t giving up so easily.

  “Can you do it?” I asked. “For real?”

  Kristopher’s gaze shot to me. “You doubt my powers?”

  “Well, I mean, I’m not sure. That’s why I’m wondering. What can I say? I’m a skeptic.”

  “I am as real as they come.” He narrowed his eyes at me as if concentrating. “I can glean your name from the fabric of the universe. It’s…it starts with a…a…” He nodded his head toward me, staring right into my eyes. “A C. Yes, a C. I can see it. Your name is…Catherine. Cathy.”

  I grimaced. “Close. It’s Sarah. I just told you that a minute ago, actually. Remember?”

  “Right, yes. Sarah. But you know a Catherine. She means a great deal to you. She is the one who has passed on. She was a…” He leaned forward again, rocking on his black steel-tipped boots. “A…an aunt. Yes, an aunt. Your aunt Catherine is with us, Sarah. She wants me to tell you that she loves you very much.”

  I couldn’t believe this. I’d thought this might be something helpful, but instead I got this jackass. I’d put my entire future happiness in the hands of a jackass in a frilly shirt. Instead of making me sad or upset, it just made me angry.

  I poked him in the chest. “You suck, you know that?”

  “Excuse me?” When he rubbed his chest, I noticed he wore a strange ring. It covered three fingers and had two short half-inch spikes.

  “You’re a terrible psychic. How do you even get a job with skills that bad? It’s painful, really. People pay you for this? You don’t get thrown out on your butt? Is that why you have that pointy ring on your hand, so people don’t get too close?”

  He frowned a little. “I’m offended.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “There is a Catherine. She’s here with us right now, telling me that you used to go for long walks on the beach—Malibu, right? You’re a California girl.”

  My mouth was wide open. “Wow, you’re not even close. Born and bred in Ontario. Swap the beach with snow and you’re in the right territory.”

  “Sarah…,” Thierry said.

  I put my hand up. My disappointment and frustration with everything was manifesting as anger directed at a fake, spooky-eyed psychic. “Just give me a minute here to tell this chump off, Thierry. We came all this way, hoped that he might be more than just another…I’m going to use the word ‘chump’ here again, because I can’t think of anything better right now. This is pathetic. Completely pathetic.”

  Kristopher spread his hands. “I’m sorry if my gifts are not to your satisfaction. I channel the secrets of the universe and use them to help those in need.”

  “Just great. Now we’re stuck exactly where we were to begin with.” I turned to Thierry. “We can figure something else out. Just because he’s a fake—”

  “He’s not a fake.” Thierry’s attention wasn’t on me; it was on Kristopher.

  “What?”

  “He’s real.”

  “Of course I’m real,” Kristopher said thinly. “I think I just proved that to you with an absolutely free reading.”

  Thierry had his arms crossed over his chest and he studied the psychic carefully. “I’m not really sure what game you’re playing to go to such extremes to appear incompetent.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Thierry’s gaze moved to his unusual jewelry. “And you’re more powerful than my first guess. I see you have the tools to work blood magic. I haven’t seen a sickle ring like that in over a hundred years.”

  “It’s time for you to leave.�
�� Kristopher’s voice grew darker.

  “Where do you get blood in the quantities required? And are all your donors willing?”

  “Maybe I just think it’s a nice piece of jewelry that makes me look badass.”

  Thierry glanced at me. “A sickle ring has many uses, primarily being a dark wizard’s tool for delving deeper with his magic. Blood magic—it’s a powerful thing. But very dangerous to the wizard himself, since it often backfires.”

  Uneasily, I took another glance at the ring. It looked like something you might find at Blood Bath & Beyond, a random Goth trinket to make someone look dangerous and edgy. The ring itself was deeply etched with small symbols on the burnished silver. And the spikes themselves…now that I was paying attention, they looked a whole lot like sharp vampire fangs. Stab this in a victim’s jugular and the resulting wound would look exactly like a vampire bite.

  My mind immediately went to the serial killer—the last victim grabbing hold of me and trying to tell me who’d killed him: Vampire.

  Kristopher, at first glance, looked exactly like a vampire should if you didn’t know any different.

  And…did Thierry just say dark wizard?

  “You’re right,” Kristopher finally said. “It is dangerous. Which is why I use it only rarely and when absolutely necessary.”

  “Then why wear the ring now?”

  “Because it looks badass.” Kristopher smiled, but it didn’t look friendly. His spooky eyes took in both me and Thierry as if seeing us for the first time. “What do you want from me?”

  “We want you to summon one who has recently died so we can question him.” Thierry didn’t ask if Kristopher could do it. The confident look on his face was enough to show that he was totally convinced that this guy was legit.

  “Difficult,” Kristopher said.

  “For someone with as much power as I can sense from you, I find that hard to believe.”

  Kristopher’s unpleasant smile held. “Sometimes those with power are unable to fully tap into it.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “Let’s just say I have limited access to the full extent of what I can do.”

  “Is that your own doing or did someone else put these restrictions on you?”

  Kristopher looked at Thierry with a distinctly unfriendly expression. “You are a bit too insightful for your own good…Thierry, was it?”

  “I’m just a good judge of character.”

  “And what do you see in my character?”

  Thierry’s eyes narrowed slightly. “A man who is hiding from what he really is and his full potential. Why would one who has touched dark magic be working in a low-end dinner theater telling fortunes for pennies?” Thierry studied him for a moment. And I studied Thierry, surprised by just about everything that was happening here. “It’s a punishment. You’re condemned to be this way for some crime in your past. Being here, putting up with regular humans who look at you as no more than momentary entertainment, it must be torture for someone like you.”

  Kristopher’s expression tightened. “You have no idea.”

  “You might be surprised.” Thierry was silent for a moment, as if mulling over what he’d gleaned. “What happens when you access your true power and don’t just put on a flashy show to distract from the truth? What do you lose that you value more than anything? What is the punishment?”

  “Stop,” Kristopher warned.

  “Is it pain? No. Beneath the frills and makeup you think masks the real you, you strike me as someone who can take a great deal of it. Is it someone you love you’re concerned with hurting?” He cocked his head. “A woman who meant everything to you? No, I don’t think so. My guess is if there was anyone like that, she’s gone—a long, long time ago.”

  A split second later, Thierry flew backward and smashed against the wall next to the door. His eyes flashed and moved to me, but the rest of him seemed pinned. For the first time since we’d arrived here, an edge of worry went through his previously confident and assessing gaze.

  Kristopher’s arms were tense, his fists clenched, and he stormed toward Thierry. I cut him off, putting myself between the two men.

  “Take it easy,” I said, panicky. “Seriously, just relax. I’m sorry for what Thierry said…. Sometimes he can be a little too blunt for his own good. Just don’t—don’t hurt him. Please.”

  Kristopher’s gaze snapped to me and beyond the fury in his strange eyes, I saw something else now—madness. It hadn’t been there before. Only since he used whatever magic he normally kept under lock and key.

  He shook a little, but I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or frustration. “Why did you have to come here?” he demanded.

  “I’ve heard they make a fantastic Tequila Sunrise.” I tried to breathe and do whatever I could to defuse this particular bomb. “And also, because we desperately need your help.”

  “Get out of my way.”

  “Not a chance.”

  He shook his head, his face etched in misery and that touch of crazy. I suddenly realized that was what Thierry had guessed at, although he’d been wrong and only provoked the man further. There was a price to pay for Kristopher tapping into his magic. It was his sanity.

  “You think you can protect him from me?” A dark smile flashed on his face. “You’re barely powerful enough to continue breathing.”

  I didn’t budge. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

  He stared fiercely at me for a long time—maybe a full minute. I forced myself to hold his gaze and not flinch or look away. Thierry didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. Whatever Kristopher had done to him had stopped him cold and kept him immobilized. I could only assume he’d be able to kill Thierry just as easily if he wanted to. It was a chilling thought.

  Finally, Kristopher glanced past me at Thierry. “You’re a lucky man. Many women would flee the moment they felt threatened, not stay and defend someone else when they’re obviously outmatched.” Sanity had slowly returned to his gaze.

  “Release him from whatever this is,” I said firmly.

  “I don’t like him.”

  “You don’t like him only because he hit too close to home. There was someone who meant everything to you and you lost her, right? And now you want to take it out on someone else.”

  His eyes slid to mine. “Believe me, I’ve taken it out on many over the years. But here we are. If I kill this vampire with my magic, I will go completely insane. Would it be worth it?”

  A violent shiver went through me. “I’m going to vote no.”

  “I don’t know. It might be.”

  Did anyone else have any idea who Kristopher DeMon the Magnificent really was? Or was his Goth pirate persona enough to fool everybody except Thierry?

  Sometimes that man was too insightful for his own good.

  “I’m sorry for whatever you’ve been through.” I sounded totally sincere because I was. I hated seeing anyone in pain and it didn’t really matter who they were. I didn’t know what Kristopher had done in his life, but the fact that he’d all but admitted he’d lost someone he loved was enough to coax out a tune on my heartstrings. “But we still need your help. If we don’t find answers, then we’re going to be torn apart, too—and I bet it’s going to end just as badly as whatever happened to you. So please, help us contact somebody.”

  “I don’t usually help vampires. I don’t count them among my friends.”

  “What about Josh?”

  He laughed softly, humorlessly. “Yeah, that fool. I’ll admit it. Over his head and overworked. When he’s not working, he’s got a grand thirst for the roulette tables. Keeps channeling what money he has left into losing ventures like that money-suck of a store of his. And that new vamp show that’s opening next week is sure to be another failure.”

  “You mean Fang?” I said, surprised. “Josh is an investor?”

  “He is. I want to help him out, but he wants to do it all on his own. So be it.”

  I smiled. “You want to help him—a vampire.
You see a friend in need and you want to lend a hand. I knew you weren’t unredemptively evil.”

  He glared at me. “Don’t try to see light where there’s only darkness, vampire.”

  “You might be a dark room, but there’s a night-light glowing in the corner, even if you don’t believe it. So are you going to help us or what?”

  His glare wavered just a little. “You don’t exactly make a great bargain for yourself. What does it get me?”

  “The satisfaction of helping two people in need, and knowing you did it to help that glimmer in the corner get a little bit brighter.”

  He stared at me so long I was afraid he was going to hypnotize me with those mismatched eyes and make me start clucking like a chicken. Or worse.

  “Say please,” he said.

  “Please.”

  Thierry gasped from behind me and was finally able to move. I hadn’t realized it before, but he hadn’t been breathing until now. He’d been suffocating. Vampires didn’t need to breathe as much as humans, but they did need to breathe. I wasn’t totally sure if suffocation could eventually kill us, but it would be extremely unpleasant. He recovered quickly and came to my side, sliding an arm around my waist. I looked at him with concern, expecting him to do something in retaliation, but other than that firm grip on me, the tension in his body was kept under control…although I felt the potential violence humming all around him.

  “Let’s get this over with.” Kristopher held out a hand to me. “Give me something that belonged to whomever you wish to contact.”

  I stared at his hand. “You need something, like, specific?”

  “Yes.”

  “You can’t just pull a spirit out of the air if we give you a name and description?”

  “No. Spirit magic is different. I need something to ground me, to help me pick through the world of the dead and summon their ghost here.”

  “I can go find a Ouija board for you if it’ll help.”

  “That won’t do it.” His hand was still extended. “If you don’t have anything, you yourself can work as an anchor if he touched you. It’s more difficult, but there’s still a chance.”