by C. T. Phipps
I still remembered the taste of Elisha's blood in my mouth and the pleasure of her fangs in my neck. I remembered pressing her down against the bed, up against walls, and things that wouldn't fly on Skinemax. Vampires didn't really think of sex the way human beings did anymore. The Bite, essentially, reduced sex to foreplay. It was good and fun, don't get me wrong, but really just the lead-up for the good stuff.
Even so, we'd had a lot of sex over the years.
“Why'd you break up?” Melissa asked. “Which I know is none of my business—”
“You're absolutely correct.”
“But given we're entering into a vampire-run bar, I'd rather know if she's going to start shooting you on sight.”
There was actually a decent chance of that. “This isn't so much a vampire bar as a Neutral Ground for the poor and dispossessed of Detroit.”
“Way to duck the question,” Melissa said, not stepping across the street until I answered her question.
I closed my eyes. “In the end I had to make a choice. That choice didn't go down well with a lot of the people here.”
“What kind of choice?” Melissa asked.
“A stupid one.” I had to choose between fighting in their war or staying on the sidelines. I’d stayed on the sidelines, which was probably a good thing since I’d been spying on them nearly my entire time with them. I still regretted the way things had ended with Elisha, despite the fact it was entirely her fault we broke up.
Wow, I was a douchebag.
“What kind of reception can we expect in there?” Melissa asked.
I shook my head. “It depends. I was pretty friendly with some of the Network's people even after I broke up with Elisha. Not all of them agreed with her politics or the direction she was taking the organization. Others hate me and think I'm part of the establishment.”
“Because your creator is the establishment?” David said.
“More like heavily invested in it,” I said. “But yeah, that and I kind of told them they could take their organization and take a running leap out the front door at noon.”
Melissa snorted. “Is that all?”
“Yeah,” I said, walking to the front door. The snipers didn't shoot at us, but one of them did aim at me, which told me all I needed to know about how I was going to be received here.
There was a time when I'd been pretty damn sympathetic to the Network. Still was, since I was possibly covering up their involvement with Renaud. I'd learned a lot since then, including why the entire organization was one big joke on its members, but that didn't keep me from sympathizing with the little guy. It was one-third black Panthers, one-third Occupy Wall Street, and one-third street gang.
My kind of people.
“Stay down and don't draw attention to yourself,” I said, taking note of the two dozen motorcycles out front. There were just as many cars up and down the block, including our own. The Razor was a temporary shelter for those of Old Detroit's supernaturals without a place to go. “This isn't your scene.”
“You'd be surprised what my scene was,” Melissa said, taking my arm. “Vampire hunters usually don't get their prey by hanging around church.”
“Don't mention that either.” I pointed a finger at her for emphasis.
“What about me?” David asked. “Any tips for fitting in?”
“Don't piss anyone off,” I said.
“And if I do?”
“I don't know you from Renfield.”
David frowned at that.
As we reached The Razor's wooden front doors, I heard an old-fashioned jukebox playing “Bela Lugosi's Dead” by Bauhaus from inside. The Network sure did love the classics. Opening the doors, I entered into a church that had been turned into a combination of a bar, strip club, and impromptu town hall.
The Razor's main hall had been cleaned out of pews, and in their place was a dozen picnic tables stolen from New Detroit Central Park. There was also a set of pool tables being played on, with at least one of the players floating over the board for a better shot. Replacing the altar was a large bar with rows of various spirits in a cathedral of booze, blood, and mixtures of both.
The lights were jury-rigged, with a set of Christmas lights adding to the ambience. There was a slight red tinge to the illumination, which made everything a good deal more ominous. Just as I remembered, the jukebox was to one side, and now switching over to Nightwish’s “Century Child.” The strip club portion of the place came about because someone had stabbed steel poles into a couple of the tables, and a few of the bar's customers were taking advantage of them. They shed their clothes to dance just for the hell of it, like we were in Return of the Living Dead.
As for the inhabitants? They were a bunch of freaks. There were no two ways around that. As Thoth said, supernaturals had developed their own culture independent of so-called regular society, and that meant they tended to be a little on the rougher or scarier side. Just about everyone was sporting black leather, chains, spikes, and all manner of piercings. There was also less need to employ glamours to disguise inhuman features. I saw people who had red skin, horns, and tails, as well as those whose creation hadn't kept them from looking like walking corpses.
“Strange,” Melissa said, surveying the place even as she looked like Janet entering Doctor Frank-N-Furter's castle for the first time.
“A bit of an understatement, don't you think?” I said, walking down the main pathway between the tables to the bar.
“No, I mean it's the first time I've ever been in a place like this and it didn't smell like a men's room. There's no scent of smoke either.”
“Yeah, The Razor has a strict no smoking policy.”
“How do they enforce that?” Melissa asked.
“The werewolves eat anybody who does it,” I said, noticing there wasn't much of the old gang here. I caught a couple of glimpses of people I vaguely recognized, but there was no sign of the group I used to hang out with post-creation. I wondered if they were all dead.
“All right,” I said, taking an entirely pointless deep breath. “Everyone play it cool. I know the lady who tends the bar, but we can't show any kind of weakness here. This is the kind of place where people will say they're going to kick your teeth in and then do it.”
“I think you're overestimating just how dangerous this place is,” Melissa said.
“What?” I asked, doing a double-take.
“Most of these places are safe havens for a reason. They're built on fundamentally different sorts of rules than dens for criminals. Most of the people here probably just want to have a good time in the company of their fellow supernaturals.”
I rolled my eyes, wondering where someone less than a night old got off telling me about how not dangerous this place was.
“Pete! My baby boy!” A shrill but pleasant voice, like a Hindi Fran Drescher, shouted from nearby.
“Ah hell,” I muttered. This was going to suck.
I found myself wrapped up in six arms from behind, which lifted me up like a rag doll, then spun around and hugged by an Indian woman six inches taller than me as well as a helluva lot stronger. Mama Kali was beautiful. She looked to be in her early thirties and she kept her hair up in a hairstyle approaching a beehive in size.
Kali was wearing an outrageous long ruffled red dress that looked like something more appropriate for prom night. The extra arms coming out of her sides appeared and disappeared at her will, leaving only fashionable holes whenever she wasn't using them.
Rakshasas were funny that way.
“Oh, hey!” I said, unable to resist being treated like her long-lost nephew. “How ya doing, Kali? Glad to see you're still around.”
I was, sort of.
“You are so cute!” Kali said, dropping me. She then pinched my cheek and ruined any credibility I might have had as a hardass. “You've also come into your power, I can sense it! I remember when you first walked into my bar, I said, that is a vampire who is going places! Which you still have time to do! Someday!”
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I rubbed the back of my head. “Uh, thanks.”
“Show no weaknesses, huh?” Melissa said, practically giggling.
“Heya!” David said. “Long time no see.”
“You know her?” I said, looking at David.
“Oh yeah, she DJ-ed my prom,” David said. “You know, back when she was just the strangest lady on my block.”
“David!” Mama Kali said, stretching out her arms. “Why hasn't this poor lug made you a vampire yet?”
“He's only been my servant for three months!” I snapped. “Why is everyone thinking that's long enough?”
Mama pointed at me with three hands. “When you meet the right one, you know.”
I covered my face. “Please don't say that.”
“So, I take it you're the owner?” Melissa asked, her voice friendly and cheerful.
Kali stopped to look at Melissa, raising an eyebrow as if surveying her soul. “Interesting. And you are?”
“Melissa. Just Melissa.”
“Yes, Just Melissa, I am Mama Kali, mistress and proprietor of The Razor. Whenever there are wayward supernaturals, lost souls, and those cast out from their homes, I am here to lend them a helping hand or six. It is my pleasure to welcome any friend or family of Pete's to my demesne.”
“She's not my friend,” I said, immediately regretting saying it.
“But she does share your blood,” Kali said, her black eyes seeming to penetrate the soul. “As well as the blood of the Crusader.”
Melissa's eyes widened. “You know?”
“Shh!” I said, looking over my shoulder. “We're trying to keep that on the down low.”
Kali snorted. “Good luck with that. Jumping Jack Flash has been prophesizing all night about the Crusader and the terrible doom he's going to bring to the city.”
Kali gestured with her head to one of the nearby tables, where a beak-nosed white man in a white shirt, large coat, and oversized fedora was drinking a thick tankard of what looked like green beer. Jumping Jack Flash was someone I recognized and something of an enigma. No one could really tell what sort of supernatural he was, and he was usually too addled to give any concrete answer.
Jumping Jack Flash leaned over to kiss a bald man with a dog collar around his neck before speaking. “The doom of the Apophis shall come down in flames and fire, smiting the civilization of New Detroit. The ibis, the soldier, and the inquisitor shall thwart this or not. Maybe there will be a heartbreak as good men aid evil with betrayals! Oh, and there will be turmoil in the Middle East.”
I stared at him. “He's a bit late on a few of those. I suspect the last one to be accurate, though.”
“Jumping Jack Flash doesn't prophesize what will be like a true seer, just what might be. Which, in most cases, just means he's a good guesser.”
“There are people who can prophesize what will be?” Melissa asked. “No possibility of changing it?”
“Oh yes,” Kali said, nodding. “We supernaturals kill them as soon as they're identified.”
Melissa opened her mouth to raise an objection, then closed it.
“The virgin will buy me a beer,” Jumping Jack Flash said to David.
“I'm not a virgin,” David said. “And I'm not buying you a beer.”
“The liar will buy me a beer or I shall speak it to all the hills,” Jumping Jack Flash said, raising an eyebrow. “Also, about how you once took your mother's—”
“Get that guy a beer, would you?” David said, reaching for his wallet and checking its contents. “Uh, Stone will pay you.”
I gave him a sideways look. “Why did I make you my servant again, David?”
“Because the only thing worse than working at a Qwik & Shop as a vampire is working at one without someone technically lower?” David suggested.
“Technically?” I asked.
“Oh, you work at a Qwik & Shop?” Kali asked, putting two hands in front of her mouth. “Why didn't you come to me! I could have saved you from that fate worse than damnation!”
I didn't argue with her there. “I wasn't exactly sure I'd still be welcome here. Not after the incident. I didn't know how many of my old associates here were still holding a grudge.”
“There aren’t many of those left,” Kali said, sighing. “So sad.”
“I see,” I said, taking a deep breath.
“Almost all of them have moved uptown and taken jobs with the establishment,” Kali said. “Midtown sells our culture and heritage for American dollars. Most of us have just stopped trying to fight it.”
“The Network allows that?” I asked, disgusted.
“You know what the Network really is,” Kali said, showing she'd figured out the truth I’d figured out long ago. Not difficult for a woman who could read another's sins. “It's those who feel it shouldn't be about making money that bother me. They refuse to accept the cause is lost or, if you think about it, won in an unsatisfying way.”
I picked up on Kali's hint. “I need to speak with Elisha about some things. How badly has she gone off the deep end?”
“The ocean of the soul is a funny thing,” Kali said. “You can always go deeper.”
“Until you drown,” I said.
“Drinks, Soldier of Time!” Jumping Jack Flash shouted. “Drinks and I shall share the secret of Atlantis's destruction! I shall share what I learned from the bodhisattva Jim Morrison and how to contact the ghost of Jimi Hendrix! I will tell you how to make a fool and his money part ways.”
I pulled out my wallet and gave Kali a hundred-dollar bill. “I'll give you this if you can get him to shut up.”
“And that is one of them,” Jumping Jack Flash said.
Kali smiled at the bill and stretched it between a pair of her hands. “Qwik & Shop pays a lot better than I expected.”
“I came into an inheritance,” I said, wishing I hadn't brought it out. “Is Elisha still plugged into the underground?”
“My dear, she is the underground,” Kali said, shaking her head. “Be wary of seeing things as they were versus how they are.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I asked, sick and tired of these word games.
“Peter?” Elisha's voice was a blast from the past.
I turned around. Elisha was standing there in an uncharacteristic pantsuit with her raven hair pulled back in a severe bun. Elisha was Latina in origin, her mother Puerto Rican and her father half-Mexican, half-Italian. Her skin was a fairly light shade of brown, but still to my taste. It was strange seeing her dressed like that since my last memories of her were very different.
Then I had another flashback.
Goddammit.
Chapter Twelve
I found my mind once more moving to the past and I wondered how to stop doing that. I needed to stay focused on the present. These kinds of distractions were going to get me killed, especially when the person in front of me very much wanted to kill me.
At least the last we met.
In my vision, it was almost two years ago. The Razor was decked out like a fortress with all of the tables covered in armaments. All of the still-strong Network's soldiers were prepping for war on Elisha's command. Elisha had a wilder style back then, like a sexy Marxist guerilla. She was dressed in a green camo tank top with blue jeans and a leather jacket. Her long straight dark hair hung down to her shoulders and her dad's Special Forces beret rested slightly to one side of her head.
Elisha was holding a shotgun as the rest of her gang was prepping their weapons behind her. There were vampires, spriggans, succubi, dhampyr, two werecats, a wereraven, and a witch. The Network had already lost so many people, it was horrifying to think they were going to lose more in a pointless battle.
Two days ago, the Santa Muerta gang, a jumped-up crew of hedge mages and Bloodsworn with delusions of grandeur, had killed two members of the Network as a lesson to stay out of their business. The Santa Muerta had decided they were going to run Old Detroit's criminal enterprises, and for that to happen, they need to get ri
d of Elisha and her crew.
The Network wasn't a group of criminals by inclination, but to provide any kind of support to the supernatural world's less fortunate meant they raised money through illicit means. That meant drug-dealing, prostitution, a lower class sort of gambling than the casinos offered, and sometimes worse.
Tonight was worse.
“This is a bad idea, Elisha,” I said, trying to figure out a way to convince her to abandon this fight before she got her people killed. I didn't have any doubt they could take down the Santa Muerta, but they would suffer casualties, and that would leave them vulnerable to the next group wanting to carve a place in Old Detroit's rapidly expanding underworld.
I looked at Jumping Jack Flash, who was playing with a deck of cards, seemingly unconcerned that this group was going to war, then at Kali. Kali's expression was unhappy even as she served everyone a round of free drinks.
Of the group, I thought she was the only one besides me who suspected that this conflict was prearranged to continue driving down property values so the Old Ones could expand their construction project. The problem was, I'd tried to explain this to them and found myself talking to deaf ears.
In retrospect, I should have thought more about the differences between who I was and who they were. I was wearing a fine suit, not as expensive as the kind Thoth wore, but still a shit ton nicer than the kind of clothes I was reduced to wearing now. I was an outsider to them, one that wasn't ever going to win them over with words.
But I'd tried.
“It's a horrible idea, but it still has to be done, Iraq,” Elisha said, using her pet name for me. “Blood has been spilled and honor needs to be satisfied.”
“You're being used.” I tried to explain the situation to her. “The Old Ones don't want you or the Muerta here in Detroit, so they're playing you against one another.”
It was how the Old Ones did things. When you reached a certain age, you learned how not to fight your own battles but to get your enemies to fight each other. It had only been two years since the Uprising, when the Council's agents had manipulated the Network into attacking their representatives, justifying a major crackdown.