“Well … in a way, that kind of goes without saying,” Raina said. “I mean, that pretty much sums up the oath you’d take with the Communion of Blood…”
“Then you see that I understand the nature of that commitment. I know it and I’m willing to I accept it,” Sam insisted confidently. Pushing back her chair to make room, Samantha lowered herself to one knee before Raina, bowing her head. “Please, your grace. Please … give me the opportunity to redeem myself and to honor my sister’s memory.”
Raina felt somewhat embarrassed to have someone like Samantha, whom she barely knew, acting so subserviently by kneeling before her like this and practically begging to be accepted. Samantha seemed like a very proud person, perhaps even vain, an elegant and highly intelligent woman that was surely, at that point, accustomed to others following her direction and obeying her instructions. Even knowing what little Raina did about her, it seemed completely out of character for someone like Samantha to debase herself like this in front of an audience of strangers.
Raina looked over to those in the office with her. Serenity’s consorts appeared blankly indifferent to the scene – not bored, but also without an opinion on the matter. Serenity was standing now, clasping her hands together and waiting in almost total stillness with wide eyes of anticipation. Glancing at Thomas, she saw him merely lift a corner of his lips and then shrug. Sophie, the only one apparently willing to offer any input on the matter, nodded her head enthusiastically with big eyes and an eager grin.
Raina finally turned to look down at the beautiful raven-haired woman that was practically laying at her feet. It would be very hard to say no. It would be even harder, though, to say yes. Not only did Samantha apparently realize what she was getting herself into, she appeared to be doing so largely out of desperation. Raina was not sure which fate was worse: dying of a terminal illness as a human, or living as a creature whose very existence depended upon a steady diet of bloodshed and sex. Knowing who Samantha really was, knowing she was Brenna’s little sister … could she really condemn her to either fate? Death by cancer, or an inevitable death by violence?
With a heavy sigh, she made her choice. There was no way she could have decided otherwise, even if there hadn’t been any connection to Brenna in the matter. She simply didn’t have it in her heart to coldly turn her back on someone when she had a clear and certain opportunity to offer them help … even if her attempt to help them might ultimately prove to be their demise.
“Do you have a passport?” Raina asked.
Sam lifted her head to look up at Raina with a surprised look. “Yes, I do.”
“Do you have someone to take care of your business and look after your home for the next week or so?”
Samantha grinned, understanding. She had a beautiful smile. It would be a shame to ruin that lovely smile by adding a pair of fangs.
“Yes, of course. I know just the person.”
“All right,” she finally answered with a sigh. “When do you want to do this?”
She looked aside nervously, then back up to Raina with a raised eyebrow as she said, “Would, um … would now be too soon?”
“A little soon, yeah.”
“We have plenty of qualified witnesses already,” Serenity offered hopefully.
“Do you have an eighteen-gauge needle, a syringe, some alcohol swabs, cotton gauze, and a few sodium-heparin tubes handy, by chance?” Raina asked her with undisguised hostility. “No? Then no, we can’t do it right now.”
Serenity seemed confused instead of offended as she asked, “You only need to offer her an opened vein, your grace … or your body.”
“It’s not that simple. Look … forget it, I won’t go into it right now,” Raina said with a dismissive wave. “Long story short, if we’re going to do this, I want to do it right. The Communion of Blood is one of our most sacred ceremonies, and a strip club is hardly the kind of place that…”
Raina shut herself up abruptly. As usual, her mouth had managed to overrun her brain and once again caused her to sound like a complete bitch. Who the hell did she think she was, anyway? Grand Duchess or not, she felt like an uppity snob, spouting the same kind of holier-than-thou drivel as any other High Court, and she absolutely hated herself for it … especially when it was at Samantha’s expense. This was Brenna’s family, for crying out loud. Was this the kind of first impression she wanted to be making?
“I’m sorry, I … I didn’t mean it like that,” Raina said awkwardly.
Samantha stood up with a perfectly blank expression upon her face. “No, it’s okay. You’re right. This isn’t the best place.”
“No, really,” she insisted, “I’m sorry. That was totally out of line. I didn’t mean that as an insult.”
“It’s okay, your grace…”
“Raina.”
“Raina,” Samantha corrected herself, smiling broadly again, “it’s okay. Really. You’re right. We should do this somewhere else. Perhaps at my house?”
“Do you have a spare bed?”
“I have two … no, three, actually,” she replied with a bit of thought. “Dominic has been staying at his girlfriend’s apartment lately…”
“Great,” she said. “I hate to impose upon you, but we did have a problem trying to get our rooms at the hotel downtown, so…”
“Oh, I’d love to have you stay! That would be wonderful!” Sam replied gleefully, clasping her hands together.
“Awesome. Well, what do you say we call Jasmine in here so we can all leave?”
As Samantha nodded and moved toward the open door, she replied, “Absolutely. I’ll just wrap things up here and let Kelly know that I will be taking the rest of the night…” As she pushed the door open to remove the rod propping it open, her eyes grew wide and her lips parted with shock as she observed something outside. “Oh no…”
“What’s wrong?” Raina moved closer and crowded herself into the doorway to see what it was. Right away, she spotted the body. “That, uh … that’s not good.”
Samantha excused herself as she hurriedly brushed past Raina to snap up a cordless telephone receiver from her desk. As she dialed for help, Raina allowed her morbid curiosity to get the better of her. She quickly placed the prop rod back into position and, walking as quickly as her heels would allow, Raina hurried over to the female sprawled out upon the littered concrete of the alleyway.
Right away, she knew the woman was dead. She didn’t have any obvious signs of injury, but the way in which she was so awkwardly positioned upon her back, with one of her legs tucked under and her right arm flung outward, made it appear that she had either been dumped there or she had simply fallen from the sky. The fact that she was mostly nude also contributed to Raina’s sudden conclusion.
Of some consolation was the immediate realization that it wasn’t Jasmine Thuy, as this woman was clearly not Asian. Raina knelt beside the woman but was careful not to touch her, simply observing for any signs of breathing or movement. The young blonde female was utterly still, and Raina could not sense the slightest bit of emotion from her. Her skin was terribly pale and grayish in color, even in the relative gloom of the poorly-illuminated back alley, her lips were almost bluish in color, and her eyes were half-open and unblinking. Clad only in a pair of bikini briefs, the many bruises, cuts, and puncture wounds in various states of healing were visible all over her body. Her face, forearms, and lower legs were completely unmarred, as though the injuries she had sustained were deliberately targeted so as not to appear obvious when she was clothed. Having seen and heard about such victims before, both females and males, she knew the young woman had been a vampire’s plaything, somebody’s Steady Blood. And now, apparently this poor soul had paid the ultimate price for having devoted herself to that lifestyle.
“Don’t touch her!” Serenity cried as she hurried over. She placed her hands upon Raina’s shoulders and began to urge her away. “If you put any of your fingerprints or leave any DNA evidence…”
“Back off!” Raina snap
ped, smacking away Serenity’s hands and standing up again. “I didn’t touch anything.”
Serenity shrank back with a genuinely scared look, eventually turning that gaze upon the body lying before Raina. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want you to get blamed for something we all know you didn’t do.”
Samantha stepped out of the opened door again with the phone to her ear, speaking with a 9-1-1 dispatcher. She informed dispatcher that the woman they had found appeared to be dead, gave the address and name of the club, and informed them who was present with her. The call was surprisingly brief, during which Raina asked Thomas and Sophie to go back into the club, find Jasmine, and escort her back to the office. When Samantha finally ended the call, she was staring down at the body of the dead female with wide, terrified eyes, looking far more panicked than her steady, calm voice had sounded.
“I know her,” Sam told Raina softly. “I know who this is. I’ve seen her before.”
“Who is she?”
Samantha thought for a moment and then shook her head. “I can’t think of her name. But I’m sure that I’ve seen her before. She worked in this club a few months ago.” She narrowed her eyes slightly, struggling to remember. “I want to say her name was … Becca … Brenda … something starting with a ‘B’…”
“Well, the cops will probably figure it out soon enough,” Raina said, gently taking her by the arm in an attempt to guide her away. “We should probably go back inside.”
“Someone should stay with her … with the body, I mean.”
“I’ll take care of that,” she assured her.
Raina silently gestured to Serenity’s consorts, asking them to stay outside and watch both ends of the alleyway. They nodded in compliance as Raina led a visibly rattled Sam back indoors. She was beginning to tremble slightly as she sat down behind her desk once more. Serenity followed them back inside quietly, wisely choosing to keep her distance from Raina by standing on the opposite side of the office near the main door.
“I take it you’ve never seen a dead body before,” Raina said as she watched Samantha open a nearby drawer of her desk.
“Not recently,” she admitted, “but I’ve seen quite a few in the past. I worked in a funeral home for three years before I got my degree in business management. Of course, seeing a body there and seeing one here are two very … very different things.” She looked up to Raina, blinking her eyes several times as she appeared to again be holding back tears. “And you?”
“I used to work in a hospital lab, downstairs near the morgue. I got to see bodies and parts of bodies almost on a daily basis,” she replied calmly.
“Yes, but again, that’s different.”
Raina shrugged. “I guess the only other dead people I’ve seen were the ones that were dead because I made them dead.”
From within the drawer, Samantha withdrew a stainless steel flask wrapped in black leather, unscrewed the cap, and took a long drink from it. Visibly wincing at the intensity of whatever was in the flask, she held it up in offering to Raina, raising one of her thin, well-sculpted black eyebrows. Raina accepted the flask readily, though she paused to give its top a sniff before putting it to her lips. It had no distinctive odor of anything else but alcohol.
“Vodka,” Samantha said. “I don’t usually drink, but … sometimes it helps.”
Raina only took a small sip from the flask before handing it back. The vodka was practically flavorless but went down smoothly with a subtle burn that wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. She had never cared for vodka because she didn’t see the point in drinking something without any taste; then again, as was apparently the case with Sam, people probably didn’t tend to drink vodka for any other reason than the desired effect it could bring about in a sufficient quantity. Serenity declined to take a sip when it was offered.
Screwing the cap back on, she explained, “It’s not just seeing that girl dead that bothers me the most. Right now … honestly … I’m terrified. I know who did this to her.”
“Who?”
“I … I’m afraid to say…”
“Tell me.” Raina put a hand upon her shoulder and swiveled Samantha’s chair about slightly to face her as she leaned closer. “Please, Sam. Just tell me.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t tell you,” she insisted. “I want to, but I can’t. Jasmine will tell you, but only because she has no other choice.”
“What difference does it make if you tell me?”
Samantha closed her eyes, shaking her head sadly. “I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be. I’ve already promised to keep you safe, okay? And if you’re going to be my bloodspawn, then we’re going to have to be completely open and honest with each other.” Raina gave Sam’s shoulder a light squeeze and shake with her hand, and Samantha’s eyes opened again. “I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”
“Dante Giovanni,” she finally replied. “He owns all of the major clubs. He employs most of the nude and topless dance talent in the East Valley, and he produces adult films. He’s well-connected … very well-connected. As far as the entire adult entertainment industry in this area is concerned, he runs everything.”
Raina stood tall and folded her arms, closing her eyes for a moment as she took in a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. “I know who he is.”
“He was Brenna’s Maker.”
“I know, I know.” Raina shook her head sadly. “I don’t know why it never occurred to me until just now. I should have known it from the start.” She covered her eyes with one hand, rubbing her temples sorely as a stress headache already began to settle in. “I never should have stopped her. I should’ve just let Brenna kill him when she had the chance.”
The sound of sirens approaching outside became louder and louder. Just as it sounded that the police had arrived, the door leading into the office from the club opened and both Thomas and Sophie entered. Sophie closed the door, looking a bit distraught.
Raina held apart her hands impatiently. “Well?”
“We can’t find her anywhere,” Sophie explained.
“Are you sure?” Raina persisted. “You know what she looks like, don’t you? Jazz was the girl on stage when we first walked in…”
“She should be the only Asian girl we have working tonight,” Samantha additionally offered.
Thomas shook his head. “She’s gone. She left.”
As one, Raina, Serenity, and Samantha all gasped, “What?”
“They said she left with someone just a couple of minutes ago,” Sophie said, “some guy named Mister Giovanni that came in not long after us…”
Raina felt her spirits crash with an almost physical pull, a feeling made all the more intense as it was shared by both Sam and Serenity. Sam actually groaned aloud and buried her face in her arms on the desk.
“Oh God … that poor, poor girl,” Samantha declared hopelessly.
* * * *
Chapter Twenty-Two
The arrival of a fairly large number of police officers effectively shut down Naughty by Night for the remainder of the evening. Customers, dancers, and bouncers alike were all interviewed one after the other by police officers, and Samantha was briefly separated from Raina and the others while she was questioned at length by detectives.
Raina learned most of the details as they were relayed to her by Samantha afterward. A number of the girl’s belongings were found dumped in a nearby trash bin also in the alley, and she was soon identified as Rebecca Vicks, dead at only nineteen years old. There would be an autopsy, of course, and the county medical examiner would run toxicology tests. From what the police detectives could tell at the time, however, she did not appear to have died as a result of violence, as none of the bruises and other marks upon her body appeared to have been recently made. Sam already had a very strong feeling that they would find that Becca had died of an overdose. The very reason that she remembered the girl was because Sam had banned her from Naughty by Night after observing her in the powder room buying drugs fro
m another girl, whom she also barred from the club.
Becca had apparently begun working for Mister Giovanni in one or more of his own clubs, and he soon took her under his leathery wing as yet another one of his “preferred girls.” He had a reputation as something of a playboy that wooed females with his wealth and fame, usually those that worked for him, enticing them into living with him. Two, sometimes three women at a time would be living with him at any given time. A well-known rumor amongst those in the business but, until then, unknown to the police was that Mister Giovanni’s girlfriends, after a few months, had a tendency to turn up dead of drug overdoses or simply disappear.
Samantha had finally chosen to explain everything she knew to the authorities. By her estimate, Mister Giovanni had been through at least fifteen girlfriends over the past three years, and of those fifteen or so women, only Jasmine was still thought to be alive. No less than seven of those women were known to have become his bloodspawn, as their Change had been documented and all seven had been issued VIC cards by the state to certify their new status. Sadly, the police were essentially powerless to prosecute Mister Giovanni for anything that may have happened to any of those girls; once they became his bloodspawn, he had legally been within his rights to kill them for virtually any reason he saw fit.
In spite of the police and media attention surrounding the body of Rebecca Vicks, Samantha sincerely urged the police to find Jasmine Thuy as soon as possible, insisting that she was in grave danger. Although others insisted that she had left voluntarily with a man, the male in question did not match Dante Giovanni’s description at all. Sam insisted that Jasmine had been kidnapped by one of Mister Giovanni’s thugs and was in imminent danger of being seriously harmed or killed. The police responded to Sam’s pleas by promptly issuing an area-wide alert, perhaps only because a human being’s life was at stake. Had a vampire’s life been at risk, Raina was certain that a report would have been made, but nothing more would have come about as a result – they would have simply waited for a corpse to turn up.
The Darkest Colors- Exsanguinations Page 45