Books 1–4

by Nancy A. Collins

Esher leaned forward in his seat, resting his chin on his fist. “You did not nest in the barracks. And my servant, Orgot, has not been seen since I sent him down into the catacombs with you. I have called to him, blood to blood, but he has not responded.”

  “I was on the other side of Deadtown at cockcrow,” she lied. “I had to doss down in an empty building until the sunset. As for your man Orgot, the last time I saw him he was lurching down an alley looking for a tipple.”

  “That I do not doubt,” Esher sighed. “A drunk is a drunk, whether he gets his booze from the neck of a bottle or a wino. I would not be surprised if the fool got caught by the sun after passing out in the gutter. As for your skirting the conditions I placed upon you—I will forgive you once, and one time only. Watch your step, Sonja. I am quick to punish those who displease me. You do not want to be on my bad side.”

  “Your will is law, milord,” she replied with a bow of her head.

  “I am glad to hear it,” the vampire lord said with a dry laugh. “I have need of your help this evening. In two hours time I am to meet with the Borges Brothers.”

  “Aren’t they Sinjon’s allies?” she asked, feigning surprise.

  “Yes,” he replied with a sly smile. “Hence the change I spoke of.”

  “Are they coming to Deadtown?”

  “They refuse to set foot here, even during the day,” Esher replied. “The Borges Brothers are superstitious fools, born of peasant farmers. Still, their fear of Deadtown doesn’t stop them from trafficking with its devils. I am to meet with them at a restaurant they own in the city—one that serves as a front for their operations.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  “I have nothing to fear from humans. They are tools in my hand, nothing more. As for you, since Decima will be accompanying me to the meeting, you will stay here and guard Nikola.”

  “But I thought that was Webb and Obeah’s job?”

  “Normally, that is the case. But they are humans, after all. I need a vampire sentry to back them up, in case Sinjon makes a move to claim Nikola as his prize. He insists that I have breached Noble etiquette, and that she now belongs to him!”

  Decima stepped forward and gingerly cleared her throat. “Technically, he’s right, milord. You were the one who told him to choose whatever he wanted…”

  “I don’t care if he’s in the right!” Esher snarled. “I’ll see him in Hell before I surrender her! And as for you”, he said, pointing his finger at Sonja, “you will keep watch over Nikola until I return, is that understood?”

  “Perfectly, milord,” Sonja and Decima replied in unison.

  As Sonja left the House of Esher, she crossed the street and paused to place one of her boots onto the curb. “Are you there, kid?” she whispered as she bent to tighten her laces.

  “I’m here,” the boy answered, his pale face peeking up from underneath the sewer grate.

  “Take this to Sinjon,” she said as she slipped him a piece of folded paper. “Esher’s ordered me to guard your mother tonight.”

  “Are you going to rescue her?”

  “I’m going to try. But Obeah and Webb are still with her.”

  “I bet you can kill them easy!” Ryan said confidently.

  “Just deliver the note, okay, kid?” she said. As she walked back across the street, she silently cursed herself for telling Ryan about his mom. She didn’t want the kid to get his hopes up too high.

  Decima emerged from the front door and stood glaring at Sonja. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I was just finishing up a perimeter check,” Sonja explained. “By the way, where did all the Pointers go?”

  “Lord Esher pulled the humans from guard duty and sent them to the club,” Decima replied tartly. “He doesn’t want Sinjon to notice a drop-off in attendance at the Dance Macabre tonight and get suspicious. The Master does not wish to be seen leaving Deadtown, so he will be leaving the House via one of the auxiliary tunnels in the next ten minutes. Webb and Obeah are on their way with the dancer. Once she is here, you are to escort her to Lord Esher’s private chambers, then remain on guard until his return. Is that clear?”

  “Like crystal.”

  “It better be, bitch!” Decima snarled. “Because if anything happens to the dancer, you are the one to answer for it!” With that, Esher’s lieutenant turned and marched into the stronghold.

  “Bite me,” Sonja growled as she flipped a bird at the female vampire’s retreating back. She glanced at her watch. She hoped the kid didn’t run into trouble reaching Sinjon.

  Ryan leaned cautiously out of the dark doorway and scanned the street for signs of Esher’s men, clutching Sonja’s note to his chest like a life preserver. He glanced down at the silver-thorn crucifix Sonja had given him. It was heavy and tended to swing like a pendulum when he ran. After a moment’s deliberation, he carefully rearranged it so that it rested between his ragged jersey and his undershirt.

  Taking a deep breath, he darted from his hiding place and headed in the direction of the shadowed alleyway across the street. He knew to keep his head down and shoulders hunched and make himself as small as possible, so if one of the Pointers spotted him out of the corner of their eye, they’d mistake him for a stray dog. Not that there were many stray animals wandering the streets in Deadtown, nowadays.

  He was still holding his breath as he cleared the curb and made the entrance of the alley, only to have it escape him in a single gasp as he collided with a pair of legs. Although he was sent sprawling, he did not relinquish his grip on the note.

  A heavyset African-American wearing a Pointer jacket and sporting the letters “BMF” shaved into the side of his head glowered down at Ryan. He held a 40 of Olde English malt liquor in one meaty hand and a blunt in the other.

  “You tryin’ t’fuck with me, punk?” BMF growled. His frown deepened as he got a better look at the boy. “Hold on—! You that kid—! The one Esher wants dead!”

  Ryan scrambled to his feet and began to run. BMF swore and tossed aside his malt liquor in order to give chase. Although he was younger and lighter than his pursuer, the gang-member’s legs were easily three times longer than his. His eyes darted about frantically, looking for a broken basement window or an old coal chute he could scoot down.

  As he turned the corner, he saw the church, which meant he was close to the Black Lodge. But as he glanced back over his shoulder, he tripped and fell headlong onto the cobblestones. His first instinct was to cry—but the tears were not those of a child who has hurt himself while playing. They were tears of untold grief and guilt. He had failed to get the message to Sinjon. And because of his failure, he was never going to see his mother ever again. His eyes swimming with tears, he lifted his head to look at his killer. But instead he found himself staring up at the face of a boy who appeared to be no more than sixteen, with corpse-white skin and lips as red and full as ripe tomatoes.

  “What have we here?” purred the vampire. “A midnight snack, perhaps?”

  A second, equally pallid face, even younger than the first, loomed into view. “He’s bleeding, Tristan!” the other vampire said with breathless excitement.

  “So I see, Ethan,” Tristan replied. “Such a yummy little boy! I could eat him right up!”

  “Back off, motherfuckers! The punk’s mine!” BMF shouted. The Pointer was standing twenty feet away and pointing a flaregun at the vampires. “Don’t try an’ mess with me! I’ll burn your lily-white asses!”

  Tristan sneered, exposing his fangs, and raised his hands. “Please don’t shoot, Mr. Gangbanger!”

  Ryan lay on the hard cobblestones, looking from the vampires to the Pointer and back again when, suddenly, the one called Ethan wasn’t there anymore. It was as if someone had thrown a switch and he simply disappeared. A second later BMF screamed as his gun arm was turned completely around in its socket. Ethan suddenly reappeared, only now he was s
tanding behind the Pointer and holding the flare gun.

  Tristan’s snide smile disappeared, to be replaced by a look of genuine hate as he leapt forward and grabbed BMF’s head between his hands. “Lesson Number One is humans don’t threaten vampires,” he growled into the terrified gang-member’s face. “Lesson Number Two is that there is no Lesson Number Two.” With a twitch of his hands, Tristan turned BMF’s head around on his shoulders so that he had an unobstructed—and final—view of his own ass.

  “Now, where were we?” Tristan said, dusting off his hands. He bent down and grabbed Ryan by his shirtfront, jerking the boy back onto his feet. The vampire’s tongue darted out and licked at the blood trickling from a cut on the child’s forehead, only to recoil with a hiss like an angry cat.

  “Silver!”

  Ryan looked down and realized that the thorny crucifix had worked its way free from his clothing. Seeing the look of fear in the vampires’ eyes, he found the courage to speak up.

  “I’m to bring this to Sinjon,” he said, holding up the message.

  “It’s the boy we were told about!” Ethan said, realization sparking in his wine-red eyes. “We are to bring the boy directly to Lord Sinjon!”

  “What would our sire want with a wretched child?” Tristan asked, regarding Ryan with open distaste.

  “He is under Lord Sinjon’s protection,” Ethan replied as he grabbed Ryan by the elbow. “That is all that matters.”

  Two minutes later, the boy found himself being hurried through the corridors of the Black Lodge. Other vampires, curious as to what a human child was doing in their midst, stuck their heads out of various doors, only to flinch and quickly withdraw upon catching sight of the silver talisman around his neck. At last they came to a room where a vampire dressed like the man on the dollar bill sat on a big golden chair. Seated at the vampire’s feet was a human boy who bore a strong physical resemblance to Tristan and Ethan, dressed in only a pair of silk pajama bottoms.

  The ancient Noble smiled and held out an elegantly manicured hand. “Welcome, small one. I am Sinjon, Lord of Deadtown. I believe you have something for me—?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I don’t like this,” Obeah mumbled from the back seat of the Batmobile. “Much as I hate that bitch Decima, we need her for back-up.” He glanced over at Nikola, who was seated between him and the driver’s-side door, gazing at her own reflection in the heavily tinted window. She gave no sign of having heard him.

  “Esher said he’d have an escort waiting for us at the House. It’ll be cool, man. Don’t sweat your balls,” Webb laughed. He was sitting up front with the driver, literally riding shotgun.

  “Sweatin’ my balls is what’s kept ’em on me all this time,” Obeah snapped in reply. “Who’s waitin’ on us at the House?”

  “The new chick. The one with the shades.”

  “Fuck!” Obeah spat in disgust. “She’s even spookier than Decima!”

  Webb turned around to grin at his friend. “Whatchoo talkin’ bout? Hey, I’d fuck her! The bitch is fine!”

  “Yeah, if you like dead meat.”

  “Shit! Pussy’s pussy, whether it’s body temperature or not!” Webb laughed. He was still laughing as a hand punched through the front passenger-side window and grabbed him by the collar, yanking him out of the moving car.

  The driver swore and grabbed for the Glock resting on the dashboard, but before his fingers closed on the gun, something cold and sharp touched his throat. A spurt of blood sprayed from his jugular, turning the Batmobile’s windshield bright red.

  Nikola turned to look at Obeah, who was frantically trying to climb into the front seat and grab the steering wheel. The Batmobile bounced over the curb and headed straight for a brick wall. At least it looked like a brick wall. It was hard to tell with all the blood coating the windshield.

  There was a loud crash as the vintage Caddy smashed into a fire hydrant, sending Obeah hurtling through the windshield, bouncing off the hood like it was a trampoline. Nikola was thrown against the back of the front seat hard enough to bruise her shoulder, but was otherwise unhurt. She sat on the floor of the car, listening to the radiator hiss and the motor tick. She did not move as the passenger door was wrenched off its hinge and tossed aside. She saw a female vampire dressed in a black leather jacket and automatically cringed, assuming it was Decima.

  “Are you okay?”

  Nikola frowned in confusion. Decima could have cared less if she was hurt or not. Whoever the vampire in the black leather jacket and sunglasses was, it wasn’t Lord Esher’s lieutenant.

  “Can you hear me?” Nikola nodded.

  The strange vampire muttered a curse under her breath as she grabbed the dancer’s wrist and pulled her out of the demolished car. Nikola gazed placidly at the sight of Obeah sprawled in the street, his matted hair full of busted safety glass. Although there was blood coating his face and clothes, the bokor was still breathing. Webb, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky, his skull having split open on the nearby curb, his brains oozing through the cracks in his spiderweb tattoo like toothpaste squeezed from the middle of the tube.

  “Bonk-bonk on the head,” Nikola giggled.

  The female vampire hustled her into a nearby alley, then took her by the shoulders and turned her so they were face-to-face. She removed her sunglasses, exposing eyes the color of fresh blood.

  “Nikola, listen to me.” The dancer twitched and blinked, but did not pull away.

  “Tell me where it is.”

  “Where what is?” Nikola whispered, her voice as tiny as a child’s. “The drugs Esher stole from the Borges.” “In his room.”

  “Where?”

  “In the Chinese box.”

  “Good girl.” She pressed her index finger against the back of the dancer’s neck. “Go to sleep.” As Nikola collapsed into her arms like a sack of wet laundry, Sonja quickly tossed her over a leather-clad shoulder.

  She didn’t have any choice but to drop back into overdrive, although she was uncertain how it might affect her traveling companion, given that ghostwalking was physically stressful even for vampires. Sonja took a deep breath and centered herself the best she could before taking a step sidewise in time and space. To the naked eye, it would appear as if she’d simply winked out of existence, but in reality she was still there, but only registered as a flicker of darkness at the edge of human perception.

  She darted down alleyways and jogged down side streets, remaining in overdrive until she reached the entrance to the Black Lodge, where she reappeared in front of a startled Black Spoon guard.

  “Sinjon is expecting me,” she said brusquely, pushing past the gang member before he could bring his AK47 to bear.

  She found the Noble in his private chambers, watching Ryan gulp down chocolate milk and Hostess Sno-Balls with the morbid fascination usually reserved for those watching boa constrictors feed on live rats. Johan, Sinjon’s current favorite, was seated on an ottoman in the corner, looking sulky as Sonja dropped her burden onto a nearby couch.

  Ryan shot to his feet, spilling chocolate milk on the eighteenth-century Persian rug. “Mama!” the boy cried out in a mixture of excitement and relief as he shot across the room, burying his face in his mother’s lap, smearing chocolate and creamy filling on her white satin dress.

  Nikola blinked, as if emerging from a dream, and looked down at the boy clinging to her. She reached out with a trembling hand and lightly touched the crown of his head, smoothing the prematurely gray hair they both shared. “Ryan?” she whispered uncertainly. “Your name is Ryan. Isn’t it?” She turned and looked to Sonja, as if seeking confirmation.

  “Of course you know Ryan, Nikola,” she said gently. “He’s your son.”

  “My… son?” A flicker of confusion crossed the dancer’s face, to be quickly replaced by a smile.

  “You are proving quite an ally, my dear,” Sinjo
n said as he drew Sonja aside. “First you alert me to Esher’s double-cross, now you deliver his little lap-dancer to me! If only you could recover the drugs as well?”

  “No can do. He’s got the drugs on him,” she lied. “He’s taking them to his meeting with the Borges Brothers as a sign of good faith. He’s going to claim he stole them from one of your flunkies.”

  “Damn his eyes!” Sinjon spat.

  “Looks to me there’s only one way you can clear your good name—and that’s to break up his little soiree with the Brothers Borges. Do you know the restaurant they’re meeting at?”

  “Intimately.”

  “So what are you waiting for?”

  “What about you, my dear?” Sinjon asked. “Are you interested in coming with us?”

  “If it’s all the same to you, milord, I think it is best I not be seen in your company right now. Should things not work out as planned, you’ll still need someone on the inside.”

  “What about them?” Johan asked, pointing at Ryan and Nikola.

  “They are to remain under my protection!” Sinjon announced as he picked up his walking stick. “The woman is an ideal bargaining chip.”

  Two decade ago, the neighborhood just beyond Deadtown consisted of nothing but crumbling warehouses, greasy spoons, and missions. Then, ten years ago, a bunch of real estate developers bought up everything and renovated the drafty, vermin-ridden buildings into “artist lofts” no artist could afford. The greasy spoons were replaced by chi-chi eateries specializing in nouvelle cuisine, southwestern cooking, and sushi, while the missions were closed and boutiques and overpriced retro knick-knack shops popped up in their place like urban mushrooms.

  The restaurant that served as a front for the Borges Brothers boasted a general dining room and bar downstairs, while its upstairs was reserved for large dinner groups and special occasions, such as wedding receptions, birthday parties—and meetings between drug kingpins and vampire lords.

  The room was tastefully appointed in sea-foam green and off-white, with three French windows that opened onto a widow’s walk balcony that, weather permitting, allowed guests a view of the city lights reflected in the nearby bay. But tonight the curtains were drawn tight and heavily armed men in cheap suits stood beside the windows. The service stairs that led to the kitchen below were also heavily guarded.