Brightblade

by C. T. Phipps

  I take it you don’t like your new sister-in-law, Zadkiel said.

  We are not calling her that, I snapped. Besides, she’s already married. That means their marriage isn’t real.

  Abraham would disagree, Zadkiel replied. Honestly, I felt that test of his faith with Isaac was a bit on the extreme side.

  Please don’t talk about the Bible in a strip club.

  You’re more embarrassed than me by far, mortal.

  Yes, but that’s because it’s a vampire strip club.

  “So where is Bryce?” I asked Tracy.

  “Down there,” Tracy said, shrugging. “I told Minji to entertain him.”

  “Entertain him how?” I asked, looking over at her.

  Tracy gave me a how do you think? look.

  “Let’s hope he’s not broken,” I muttered.

  “He’s not as innocent as you think,” Tracy muttered. “But that’s not my story to tell.”

  “Whatever.”

  The current performers were a pair of undead, male and female, who moved with sinuous unnatural grace. You could tell I was already being affected by my new “living vampire” state given I was using words like sinuous unnatural grace.

  Alex came out behind me accompanied by Tracy. Alex looked down at the floor show and smiled blandly before reaching for his wallet.

  “Really, Alex?” I asked.

  “The athleticism on display is quite impressive,” Alex replied. “They deserve a generous tip.”

  “No kidding,” Tracy said. “I can’t keep up with Patch and Jewelry down there. The two are like the Chinese acrobats of vampires. It’s why I stick to stage magic and comedy.”

  I blinked. “You’re a stripping stage magician?”

  Clearly, this place offered a wider variety of entertainments than I’d initially surmised. See, there it was again. I was using words like initially surmised. What the hell did vampirism do to you? Did you automatically sound like a snooty French academic? Were vampires French?

  “You know what they say,” Tracy said, smiling, “The point of the lovely assistant is to make sure the audience’s attention is not on your hands. I don’t have that problem.”

  I hesitated before asking my next question. I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact my brother was alive, let alone a vampire that Tracy worked for. “Are you…okay? I mean, Ashura referred to you as a Blood Slave and if you need help then I’m here for you. I’m sure Alex is too, unless he’s brainwashed. Are you brainwashed, Alex?”

  “Nope,” Alex said. “Mind you, if I was brainwashed then I wouldn’t know it.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

  “You asked,” Alex said. “I probably am but it’s more likely the Men in Black who have conditioned me to be their agent than any vampire.”

  “I’m not in trouble, Ashley,” Tracy said, seemingly offended. “In fact, working for Arthur is the very opposite of being a slave. Believe me, I know the difference.”

  “Except for the part of being mystically bound to his will,” Alex said. “The character of Renfield was based on one of Dracula’s Blood Servants. Dracula’s frequent bending of his mind resulted in it shattering.”

  I remembered another thing that bothered me about my relationship with Alex, the fact he had absolutely no filter on his mouth.

  Tracy sucked in her breath. She still breathed, just like I did. “Do you know anything about dhampyr? I mean, aside from the fact we’re half-vampires?”

  I opened my mouth then closed it. “Honestly, no. I mean, I seem to be pretty dhampyr-ish right now.”

  “You should check out Vampire Hunter D or Castlevania: Symphony of the Night,” Alex said.

  I ignored him. “I admit, what I know is mostly hearsay.”

  “You’re pretty much born with a greatly extended lifespan and lesser version of most vampire powers. You can also sense when other vampires are near. I got my telepathy too and know a bit of real magic to supplement my stage show.”

  “Plus, you are physically appealing,” Alex said.

  “Thank you,” Tracy said. “But most dhampyr don’t live to adulthood.”

  I blinked. “What, why?”

  “Uh, because we’re surrounded by vampires our entire lives,” Tracy said, as if it was self-obvious. “Saul Baron had forty children but there’s like five of us left, not counting the ones he’s turned like Sophia.”

  I blinked. “He ate his own kids?”

  I’d heard horrible things about vampires before, but this seemed like propaganda against them.

  “Mostly, he just killed them because they were disappointments. The eating them was just a bonus.” Tracy grimaced. “Dhampyrs don’t exactly have the best reputation among the undead. Hell, we have a history of being vampire hunters.”

  “Against their own parents?” I asked, again.

  “Yes, who are invariably assholes I remind you,” Tracy replied. “With rare exceptions. There was a moment back there, when Ashura first walked in, that you reacted like you were a cat to someone turning on a vacuum cleaner.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” I muttered. “But yes, there was a really big ‘run away’ sensation.”

  “The Sense of the Predator,” Alex said, casually returning with a Coca Cola in a glass. Apparently, he’d gone down to the bar and come back. “One of the abilities of the dhampyr that don’t become shifters.”

  “You can become shifters?” I asked, confused again.

  “Sometimes. Not me, though,” Tracy said. “Some of the first vampires were shifters who came back from the dead. Some of their first kids were shifters themselves. Both got their powers from the blood of the Elder Gods they worshiped until Marduk liberated us. It makes our whole Hatfield and McCoy racial animosity thing even crazier. Dhampyr can sense vampires and also fight better than most humans. Combine that with our other chief quality and you can see why we’re not too beloved by our ancestors.”

  “What quality is that?” I asked.

  “We’re delicious,” Tracy said, disgusted. “Most undead who have dhampyr children don’t eat them but that’s only because they usually have self-control enough not to eat their kids. That doesn’t apply to other vampires. Dhampyr blood is like a fine wine to the undead palette. Eventually, most of them are turned into ‘kegs’ someone eventually drains dry. They’re the lucky ones versus those held prisoner like free range cattle.”

  “Saul did that?” I asked, horrified.

  “He bred us as tools but wasn’t averse to feeding on us when he felt peckish,” Tracy said, shuddering in revulsion. “When Saul first came to the city, he gave away his children as concubines to Old Ones among the undead. We were bribes. The murdering part came when Ashura banned slave-trafficking. Voivode Thoth has since reinstituted the slaving ban. That doesn’t mean such things aren’t still done. It’s just informal now.”

  This was all too much to handle. “Were you a gift to Arthur?”

  “No,” Tracy said, shaking her head. “Arthur and the Network freed us. It’s kind of an anti-Old One and Ancient group created in the wake of the House falling. While it was still around, the lesser, well, weaker supernaturals had at least a little protection. Now it’s up to all of us to find a protector or we’re what’s next on the menu. Arthur is mine.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a very good deal,” I said, looking back at the strippers. I didn’t want to think of my brother and Ashura exploiting a bunch of half-bloods. Huh, I already had a nickname for dhampyrs. Well, no, that was too long. Damps?

  “Arthur’s better than a lot of them,” Tracy replied. “A lot better.”

  She sounded like she wanted to say more but was hesitant.

  “He’s only eight-years-undead,” Alex said, finishing his coke with a straw. “How does he maintain power? Or is it just his relationship with Ashura?”

  “That’s what you’re worried about?” I asked, stunned.

  “I’ve learned the only way to get justice is to play politics,” Al
ex replied. “You have to know not only your enemy but your enemy’s enemies or they’ll close ranks against one another. If you can play them against one another then you can take down a monster who has lived centuries even if you have to let the other ones go.”

  I stared at him. “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “Arthur is very strong for his age,” Tracy said. “Hell, in general. Some say he’s even got the Bloodsword a.k.a the Sword of Dracula. It’s partially why Ashura chooses to live with him as he’s a formidable protector of his territory.”

  “Uh huh,” I said, looking at him. “My Arthur? The guy who couldn’t talk to women unless it was in-character at LARPs? The guy who once got in a fight with a ninety-pound nerd over dice and lost? That Arthur?”

  “Well, that’s changed,” Tracy muttered before smiling seductively. “I could tell you stories—”

  “Please don’t,” I said, covering my ears. “Can we just find Bryce and go talk to this Samvrutha woman?”

  “Sure,” Tracy said, shrugging. “He’s gotta be around here somewhere.”

  I started walking down the steps toward the showroom floor. “Are you sure you like working here? I mean, we can give you a raise.”

  “I make more money than you do,” Tracy said.

  I blinked. “Wait, what?”

  Tracy nodded. “I just give the secretary money to my deadbeat nieces and nephews, the ones from my human side.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “Is it so hard to believe I enjoy making money off a body I’m proud of?”

  I had no response to that. “So, uh, can we talk about anything else? Literally anything else?”

  “Were you really the Red Widow?” Tracy asked.

  “Okay, maybe not literally,” I said.

  “Yes, she was,” Alex said, cheerfully.

  “I used to have your poster on my wall!” Tracy said.

  “Alright, fine,” I added as we passed the bartenders who were both Tinks. One had marble-white skin, antenna, butterfly wings and I tried not to stare. Which seemed to offend her when I looked away. Dammit, I was just not built for a strip club where I wasn’t supposed to be judgmental.

  “But that’s so cool!” Tracy said, waving hi to her coworkers as she passed them. “I remember hearing all sorts of crazy stories about you when the Reveal first happened. I mean, I was just a little girl—”

  I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “Which means you couldn’t have been very old,” Tracy replied, uncomfortably. “Just into adulthood now that I think about it. But the news was always talking about you like you were a real-life superhero.”

  “That was the idea,” I said, sadly. “Mac and I were just some of the supes who tried to do it. There was even a vampire who put on a cape in California who tried to fly around and save people.”

  “E.M.T a.k.a Steve Jones,” Alex said. “He’s presently serving a three-hundred-year sentence for eating a family that shot at him once they realized he was a vampire.”

  “Why did you quit?” Tracy asked, genuinely interested.

  “I had my reasons.”

  “I heard Powerhouse died. I mean, you knew him, right? You were always on magazine covers together,” Tracy said, blinking as we stood in front of a booth with red leather interior and specially designed angles that made it impossible to see who was inside. From the noises within, someone was having a very good time. Oh Jesus, I’d come upon Bryce having sex with a hooker (or overly courteous stripper) and the only way I could avoid breaking it up is talk about the worst time of my life.

  “I’m in hell,” I muttered.

  Not even close, Zadkiel replied.

  No one asked you!

  “What was his name?” Tracy looked at me then Alex.

  “Powerhouse,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Mac.”

  “Robert Lincoln Macdonald,” Alex said, standing beside me and putting his coke on a bunny-eared woman’s tray as she passed. She wasn’t wearing a costume. “One of Bright Falls’ commoner werewolves and a former truck driver. He was outed as a shapeshifter when he saved a woman from being raped on national TV. Good P.R. at a critical time.”

  “He believed one of the O’Hara family, the werewolf royalty, set it up,” I said, sighing. “Probably was. Either way, he was a good man and we had a lot of good times together. It made us both overconfident. Still, we were the New Detroit Justice League of Two.”

  “Batman and Robin would be more appropriate then,” Alex replied.

  “Yes, but Mac would never agree to be Robin,” I said, smiling. “Are you sure you want to know the story, Tracy? It’s pretty graphic.”

  Tracy nodded. “My life is pretty graphic.”

  She had me there. “Alright.”

  “You didn’t—” Alex started to say.

  “Stop.” I thought back to that dark moment. “We were investigating a supernatural serial killer. Someone who was causing all sorts of panic and the vamps wanted caught every bit as much as the regular authorities. A series of bodies were showing up, one after the other, with their hearts missing. No entry wound. There was just a bunch of cloth in the shape of a heart where their hearts used to be.”

  “The Raglady,” Tracy said, nodding. “The whole city stopped being rebuilt for a month because of her.”

  “More like three,” I said. “Eventually, someone somewhere heard or saw something before passing it along to their undead masters. The vamps figured that if we did it then it would work out better for everyone so they slipped the killer’s location to us. I figured I could deal with some sort of homicidal psychopath with a cloth fetish.”

  “And you couldn’t,” Tracy finished.

  I closed my eyes. “The Raglady was a bright with teleportation abilities. She was also harmless on her own. Theresa Thompson had the mind of a child and just liked to make sculptures with clothing scraps. Unfortunately, this is New Detroit and somehow she attracted a demon. The Wire-Woman. She manipulated Theresa into killing people.” What happened next couldn’t be described. So, I just summarized. “The Raglady killed Mac, I killed the Raglady, and then the Wire-Woman left. She’d forced me to kill someone not responsible for her actions, so she counted it as a win.”

  “You did it as self-defense,” Alex reassured me.

  “I did it because the Wire-Woman said she’d let me go if I killed the Raglady,” I said. “She didn’t even know what was happening when I burned her mind out with my empathy powers.”

  “Oh,” Alex said.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  That was when I heard the couple in the booth both reach climax at the same time. Which was pretty simple when one of the pair was a vampire.

  “Ugh,” I said, looking away. “Can we move to another location?”

  “Nope!” Tracy knocked on the side of the booth. “Are you done, Bryce?”

  “Gah!” Bryce shouted.

  Chapter Twelve

  Don’t Answer the Phone when it’s Evil

  Talking about my past wasn’t comfortable for me. To them, it was simple, I’d been under duress, tortured by a demon, compelled to do something wrong. It was entirely understandable. I, however, am the one who did it. The one who made a choice to end my suffering by killing another person while the Wire-Woman laughed. I could still hear her laughter. It’s never left my ears. I don’t know what the world would sound like without it, now. And what would it mean for me if I did?

  You were wrong to do what you did and the guilt you feel is well-earned. Do better.

  I slumped against the wall. The sword might as well have punched me in the gut for all the difference it made. My right hand trembled. “Thank you, I needed that.”

  You’re welcome.

  “Ashley?” Alex asked, reaching over to touch my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

  Why did people always ask that when the answer was obviously no?

  “It’s okay,” I said, sucking in my breath. “I’m just trying to push through serious trauma.”
r />   “This may not be the place to do that,” Alex said, gently.

  “Ya think?”

  Bryce practically leaped out of the booth, adjusting his pants. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and there was a little red smudge on his neck and above his right pec. “Nothing was happening! Happened! Anything that happened was nothing!”

  Tracy blinked. “Really? Minji, what did you do wrong?”

  A lovely dark-haired Korean girl in what appeared to be a sexy costume version of a Detroit Pistons cheerleader outfit stepped out of the booth behind him. A little dab of blood was on the side of her cheek that she licked off. She was rail thin, pale, and her eyes were predatory rather than warm. She was another vampire but I didn’t feel the same fear I felt from Ashura (or even Arthur to an extent). In fact, I felt almost as powerful if not more so as our two monsters mentally tested themselves against one another.

  “I did everything right,” Minji said, crossing his arms. “Bruce was also adequate.”

  “Bryce,” Bryce corrected. “Wait, adequate?”

  “Yeah, no diseases or drugs or anything,” Minji said. “Quite tasty.”

  I put the muscle back to my spine and stood away from the wall. I had to at least pretend I was strong enough. “If Bryce is done paying far too much to do nothing, can we move on and find this Mitra person?”

  “I don’t pay for sex!” Bryce said.

  Tracy and Minji looked at him, annoyed.

  “I mean, not that there’s anything wrong…I mean,” Bryce started to say. “Oh my God, Ashley, you’re a vampire now!”

  “I like him,” Alex said, cheerfully. “Is he your new sidekick?”

  “No, he’s a trainee, which is like a sidekick but with even less respect,” Tracy said. “He’s cool, though, and survived a werebear attack.”

  “Really?” Minji asked, seemingly genuinely impressed. “I guess I’ll give him another snacking on the house.”

  “Really?” Bryce asked. “T-that sounds a-awesome.”

  “You can drop the fake stutter,” Tracy said. “Telepath, remember?”