Angel of Vengeance (12 page)

“You’re invited.”

She bent and kissed me with lips as soft and cold and red as refrigerated cherry gelatin. She moaned. Her fangs grew like twin erections around my probing tongue. Weak with love and sex and fear and death, I gave myself over to her and when the bite finally came it felt like the angry word of God.

12

V
in’s place is gun-barrel dark when I get there. I decide to poke around anyway. Call it a hunch.

I enter the back way. The wrought-iron fence is just the way I left it: mangled. I slip through carrying my little doctor’s bag. I jimmy the coved doors and step like a whisper inside. The place smells of spent meth.

I haven’t been invited this time round. Too bad for Vin once is enough.

I find him sitting in darkness on the chaise lounge in the sunken living room. Even in the dark my night-vision eyes can see that he has been roughed up. His thin upper lip is swollen and one eye is puffy as a French pastry. His heartbeat is fast. I can smell the drugs in his system.

I scrape a match and light a smoke. Vin jerks like he’s on wires and gasps and twists a light on, almost knocking it over in his hurry. He seems relieved when he sees it’s me.

“Oh, it’s you,” he says.

“It’s me,” I agree.

“You scared the Christ outa me, guy. How’d you get in?”

I stab my butt doorward.

“Oh,” he says, and blinks. He fumbles for a pair of Ray-Bans next to a glass pipe on the coffee table, puts them on. He seems to draw confidence from them. “What the fuck you doin’ here anyway? You can’t just waltz into somebody’s house like this. That’s called breaking and entering where I come from.”

“Call it whatever you want,” I say.

He stares. I stare. We stare. Vin decides to change the subject. “Leroy’s lookin’ for you, ya know that?”

“That who remodeled your face for you?”

Vin nods. “Yeah, Leroy and his fuckin’ boy. What the hell were you thinkin’, messin’ with him?”

“He messed with me first.”

“Yeah well, you pissed him off big time, guy. Big time. And you dragged me right in the shit with you. He was very, very majorly fuckin’ pissed off that I gave you his number and vouched for you. I didn’t want to do it, but I had to give you up to save my own ass.”

“Well, I’m sure you held out as long as possible.”

Vin sniffs, looks at the pipe, rules it out—for now. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, right. But they were serious, you know? Leroy’s comin’ for you. I mean, you shot his ass. Not that he prolly didn’t deserve it, but he can’t afford to just let somethin’ like that go, ya know? He’s got a rep to protect. I mean, fuck.”

“Vin, shut up and look at me.” He shuts up and looks. “I didn’t come here to talk about Leroy.”

“Well, what the fuck did you come to talk about?”

“Raya Van Cleef.”

“Aw, Jesus. We already discussed all that. I told ya everything.”

I give my head a shake. I blow smoke. “Not everything. Not about what happened between you two.”

“The fuck you talkin’ about?” He gives me the corner of his eyes behind the shades. It’s funny, it seems the dumber people are, the less good they are at playing dumb.

“You know what. The last day. The day Reesa came home and found you and her little sister together.”

“I don’t know who the fuck you been talkin’ to, guy, but that didn’t happen.”

The lie mixes with the remnants of the meth in the air, creating a smell as ugly as pedophilia.

“You raped a fourteen year-old girl, Vin.”

He shakes his head big and exaggerated-like. “No.”

“You did.”

“Fuck you. I didn’t rape no one. The little slut wanted it.”

“That right?”

“Fuckin’-A it is. You don’t know what it was like, her livin’ with us.”

“Why don’t you tell me.”

“She was always doin’ shit to try and get me horny, ya know? Walkin’ around in only a t-shirt and panties. Sitting too close on the couch. Leavin’ her door open when she was changing. Shit like that.”

“And I bet you just hated that.”

“Look, I tried to stay away. But she threw it at me.” The stink in the air tells me Vin isn’t buying his own bullshit.

“Or maybe you were sick of all her teasing so you decided to teach her a lesson.”

“Fuck you.”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter. Either way you’re one sick son-of-a-bitch.”

Vin sneers. It looks just like his smile. “Listen to you, all high an’ mighty, but I bet if it’d been you insteada me, you’da done the same thing. The same goddamn thing.”

“Ya think?”

“Fuckin’-A I do. Maybe she’s a little young, but she was old enough to know what she was doing. Play with fire, you get burned. I mean, hell, we’re only human right?”

I shake my head. “No, Vin, that’s where you’re wrong.”

“The fuck you talkin’ about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that I’m not human and, to be honest, I don’t really think you make the grade either.”

I stoop and unlatch the strap on my satchel. Vin watches, as if noticing it for the first time. “What’s in there?”

“The vials I’m going to store your blood in,” I tell him.

Vin’s eyes get skittish the way someone’s eyes do when they realize they might be all alone in a room with a crazy person. I smell a problem brewing. I take a step closer, but I’m too far away to stop his hand from darting into a crack between couch cushions and coming out holding a jumpy-looking nine-millimeter.

“What’re you doin’, Vin?”

“What I shoulda done the last fuckin’ time you was here. You fucked up coming back, you know that?”

“All right, so I’ll leave.”

“I don’t think so, guy. No one comes into my house and threatens me. You messed me up with Leroy. Messed me up good. This’ll make it right.” Vin racks the gun.

“You don’t wanna do this,” I say.

“Actually, I do.” The meth makes him laugh too hard.

“What about the cops?”

He shrugs. “You broke into my house. I’m within my rights to shoot you.”

“Just like that?”

“No. Just like this.” He pulls the trigger. The gun barks. Twice. I’m too close to miss. The bullets catch me in the chest, spin me, and throw me back over a lounge chair. I go down. Hard.

I don’t care who you are, bullets hurt. There’s no getting around it. The pain isn’t as bad as the first bullet I ever took— that was the worst—but it’s far from good. Kind of like a root canal that starts before the Novocain has fully kicked in.

Vin’s eight hundred dollar Italian shoes whisper sweet nothings on the carpet and then he’s standing above me. “Thought you was a real tough customer, didn’t you? Comin’ in here and trying to intimidate me. But guess what, pal? Vin Prince don’t intimidate.”

I play possum, hoping maybe Vin won’t shoot me any more if he thinks I’m dead. Well deader, anyway. He doesn’t. What he does is rear back and kick me hard in the head like a forward trying to score on a penalty kick. I don’t flinch. I don’t move. I lie there and take it. If there’s one thing vampires are good at, it’s playing dead. Vin kicks me hard five or six more times. “How’d you like that, you fuck? How’d you like that?”

I wait it out. I guess I sell it. Or maybe he just gets bored. Meth-heads need lots of stimulation. In any case, after two more half-hearted kicks, he struts back to the couch and sets the gun down in favor of his pipe.

I let him get a little medicine in him before I stand up and stagger over and tap him on the back of one shoulder. He turns with a yelp. I take the pipe and help him off with his sunglasses.

“Since you asked, I didn’t like it, Vin. Not any of it,” I say, feeling a sensation similar to a near-death adrenaline rush as the change begins.

Meth-eyed, he turns and goes for the gun, but it might as well be a feather duster for all the good it will do him now. I stop him with a vicious clamp to the throat. I squeeze until he gets all woozy and docile-like, then I set him back on the couch.

In my experience, there are two basic kinds of people—rabbits and deer. Rabbits bolt when they witness a vampire metamorphose. They’ll Bugs Bunny through walls in the attempt to get away. They have to be caught and taken down. Deer, on the other hand, freeze up, hardly able to move or even breathe in the car-headlight horror of what they are seeing. There’s never any way to predict who’ll do what.

As it turns out, Vin’s a deer. He sits on the couch, mouth open like a bulldozer blade, as he watches it happen. When it’s done he just quivers and hyperventilates as I settle down beside him and take his head in my hands. Since it’s his first time I try to make it nice, but I think it hurts him a little. The first time always hurts a little.

13

W
hen I awaken, I go through the usual routine with Vin. I drag him to the tub. I sever what needs severing. I bleed him dry. I fill my vials. I erase evidence. I leave.

I take the fresh blood supply back to the office and store it in my mini-fridge where it’ll keep. Then I strip my bullet-ruined shirt off and take a gander at my new ventilation system. They hurt, don’t think they don’t. The dime-sized holes at mid-chest level I can see, but I have to reach around and feel for the ones in back. Both bullets went all the way through. I’m glad about it. As glad as you can be about a thing like that, anyway. Good old Vin must have preferred solid bullets to hollow-points. I’m glad about that too.

I go to the deep freeze and grab a handful of the grave dirt that serves as my mattress. I drop it in a bowl and muddy it with some of Vin’s blood. When I get the right consistency, I pack the holes finger-deep, spackle them off, bandage them, and wrap my torso in gauze. It’ll take a little time, but they’ll heal. The dirt and blood will speed the process. Vampire homeopathy 101.

Before I leave I put in a call to information to see if I can get an address for a Reesa Van Cleef. I can’t. Somehow I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy. I hang up. It rings as soon as the earpiece touches the cradle. I pick up.

“Angel.”

“Jesus Christ, don’t you ever answer your phone?” a female voice demands.

“I just did. Who is this?”

“Callie—Dallas. I’ve been calling you all day. Where have you been?”

“Went to a funeral. You ready to talk?”

“First you answer some questions for me and then, if I like the answers, maybe—just maybe—I’ll talk.”

“Sure. Ask away. Twenty a song seem fair?”

“Fuck you.”

Enough sweet talk. “Okay, whatsit you wanna know?”

“I want to know what the fuck is going on. Who are you working for?”

“Raya’s sister.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Yeah? What makes you think so?”

“I’m asking the questions.”

“And you have a real knack for it,” I say.

“Look, if I’m being set up, I’m not going down alone. I’ll go to the cops. I’ll make a deal. This whole thing didn’t start with me and you know it.”

“What whole thing?” Silence from her end. “Talk to me,” I say. “It sounds like you’re in over your head. Maybe I can help you.”

“Yeah right,” she sneers right through the phone. “You don’t know the first goddamn thing about what’s going on.”

“You show me yours, I’ll show you mine. Let’s help each other. If you’re in as deep as I think, you’re gonna hafta trust somebody. Might as well be me. Whaddya say?”

“If you’re fucking with me, so help me—”

“I’m not.”

More silence. Then: “All right. All right, we’ll talk, but not over the phone.”

“Why not?”

“Because for all I know you could be recording this. Besides, I’m late for work. Come see me there. Late.”

“How much will it cost me this time?”

“Fuck you.”

I smile into the dial tone.

14

W
hen it gets late enough, I take the back way down to the uninspired parking garage that serves my building. It is mostly deserted by this hour of night, being as I’m the only twenty-four hours a day resident. Off-white lighting clings like soap scum to the walls, making the place look even dingier than it already is. The Benz purrs with pleasure as I start her up. As I go to reverse, I see a familiar-looking black Navigator glide up behind me on blade tires and block me in. Great. Just what I need.

Leroy’s boy jumps out of the driver’s seat and comes rushing up, waving an equally familiar-looking Glock in my face with the hand that isn’t in a cast. “Out the car, muthafucka. Let’s go.”

I get out and get a good look at him for the first time. I try to decide whether he’s bigger than he is ugly, or uglier than he is big. In the end I take ugly by a nose; a bent, disjointed one. Not helping matters any is the fact that his lips are cut and swollen and six of his front teeth are broken or missing altogether. Evidently he hasn’t had time to meet with a good goldsmith yet.

“What you lookin’ at, bitch?” he asks, while we wait for Leroy to gather a pair of crutches together from the back of the truck and come join us.

“That pretty smile of yours,” I say. “That natural or didja have work done?”

He puts the butt of the gun to work trying to erase my smile. It does the trick. I take a knee. I spit blood. When I get up I see that Leroy has crutched over and joined us.

“Look what the fuck you done did to me, mufucka,” Leroy says by way of greeting.

“You ask me, you brought that on yourself.”

“Oh I see—I axed to get shot, huh?”

“I gave you a choice. You picked the limp.”

Leroy grins. “You a dead mufucka an’ you don’t even know it. Belee dat.”

“I do believe it,” I say. “Look, I’ve got some place to be right now, so how ’bout we continue this little reunion later, Leroy—”

“
Leh
-roy.”

“Whatever. Here’s your new choice: leave right now and keep sucking air, or stick around and quit cold-turkey.”

“Naw, naw, you ain’t givin’ the mufuckin’ choices dis time, fool. Leh-roy be givin’ the choices. Belee dat. See—see first I gone have my boy shoot you in the leg, give your bitch-ass a chance to see how dat feel. Then, I give you yo’ choice if you want the next one in the mufuckin’ face, or the mufuckin’ chest.”