Blackthorne (The Brotherhood of the Gate Book 1) (25 page)

“Great. A deadline. Do you realize that the day after tomorrow is the opening day of Winterfest? This town will be full of people.” Rhi rolled her eyes, which were so bloodshot they resembled a roadmap of downtown Denver, at her not-so-new lover. It was time to change the subject. “My head doesn’t need anything else hitting it, thank you. The imaginary hammer that is whacking it this morning is more than enough. Don’t you need to…
snack
this morning? Is my aura depleted?”

“The aftereffects of an aura feeding are like having the flu…I can’t drain you like that. I’ll find a ‘snack’ later this morning.” Jack softly stroked her leg, noting the flash of revulsion on her face. “Are we so terrible to you? We all try to give back to those we drain…taking away bad memories and pains or leaving behind a mental suggestion that sticks.”

“A suggestion? Like
go on a diet you porker
?”

He was busy admiring her leg, but at her words, gave a short laugh. “Yes…something like that. Pearl likes to drain unhappily married women and suggest that they turn their lives around before it is too late. Go back to school or something like that. I prefer to heal memories myself.”

Her voice got smaller. “Does it hurt?”

“No…it’s a bit pleasurable. Even when being bitten by one like my brother, who has embraced the demon blood wholly, the glamour of the one who feeds makes it…feel like…” he paused as he remembered that Rhi had probably been a victim in another life of such a bloodletting.

She raised an eyebrow. “Like sex? So…how often has Pearl gotten to “drain” you in the last hundred or so years?”

A wide grin split his face. “You’re jealous.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s difficult to be monogamous with a dead woman, I assume. And I get the feeling that the words monogamous and Pearl do not belong in the same sentence.”

“Meow. Do I see claws on those hands?” He yelped in mock terror when she pulled him down on the bed and straddled his chest to crouch threateningly over him. “She only drained me once, I swear. To go through the Change.
She
knew you back then too. I think she lives by some kind of weird code.”

Rhi narrowed her eyes. “Weird is the operative word here, I think.” She made as if to roll off but he held her fast. “Blackthorne, I have to go to a funeral today. It is not polite to look all glowy from rambunctious repeated sex when one is paying her final respects.”

“That’s okay…Pam wanted to see someone glow, didn’t she?”

»»•««

Pam’s reaction to Rhi’s appearance was typical when Rhi went to pick up her friend at the larger A-frame down the hill.

“My God. That must have been some kind of ‘long lost love’ sex. You look awful and I’ve seen gin hangovers that looked better. You also happen to be the second person I have felt compelled to tell that they looked like shit this morning.”

Rhi wearily opened the door of the truck and slid to the ground. She clutched the door to steady herself. “Gee, Pam, don’t hold back. Tell me what you really think about how I look. Why do you think I look like this because of sex?”

“Well. You’re white as a ghost and those circles under your eyes behind those biblically huge sunglasses could be used as a NASCAR track. You look wasted…like a vampire.” Pam started her onslaught at her usual volume but ended with a squeak as the realization of what might be going on hit her. She started digging in the large purple purse hanging off her bony shoulder, cussing.

“That bastard bit you. I’ll cut his balls off, immortal or not…how fun can immortality be with no nuts…shit, where’s my gun?”

“Pam, he didn’t bite me. His kind doesn’t bite. Remember? It was the long lost love sex and the margaritas that did me in. Plus, there were a few nightmares thrown in for good measure.” Rhi motioned for her friend to get into the Blazer. “I feel like something scraped up by a snowplow and my head hurts. Thus, the scarf and sunglasses. I hopefully look European instead of hung over. Where’s Houston?”

Rubbing her neck warily, Pam walked to the passenger side of the blue vehicle and opened the door. “He left here with Nate in tow early this morning after we had a pow-wow on possible weapons of mass destruction to be used on creatures of darkness.”

Rhi looked at her friend in askance.

Pam sighed. “I found Nate in my barn this morning hiding in the hay with the cats. Those critters that came at us in the bar last night went partying in the woods after they were done with us. I didn’t ask too much, I don’t think Nate was ready or able to talk about it. But I think whatever happened was bad. Real bad. And I didn’t want to know. And how your boyfriend got Houston’s cell number, I don’t know. Aren’t these guys supposed to be psychic or something? What are people going to think? Immortals calling up on the phone…it’s unnatural. He should be calling us up with his telepathic powers. We’re meeting later this afternoon after the funeral.”

“Weapons might come in handy. I feel my spider senses tingling this morning.”

Pam gaped at her friend. “Tingling? That must have been some kind of whoopee you made last night, girlfriend. Wait, what
about
whoopee? Screw the demon blood and getting bitten, you had the Marlboro Man mixed with equal parts Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford at your house last night. Spill it.”

“Pam. I don’t want to speak out of turn but…” Here Rhi paused for dramatic effect. “It was romance novel sex.”

“Romance novel sex. With his ‘thews of steel’ and granite abs. I hate you.”

Rhi started the truck and turned down the drive. “What the hell is a ‘thew’?”

“I can’t believe you got to touch that butt.”

“That butt is over 500 years old,” she replied, a bit testily as she scanned the woods for the inevitable shadows.

“All I can say is that like a fine wine, it has only gotten better with age.” Pam gave her friend a lecherous grin.

Rhi sighed. It was going to be a long day.

»»•««

The Mt. Pisgah graveyard was a desolate place, in spite of the fact that there were so many permanent residents. Thousands of the gravestones of the gold rush dead littered the hillside that Rhi, Pam, and the rest of Marie’s funeral procession stood on in silent contemplation. It was a windy, frozen place.

Like everywhere else in town,
Rhi wryly noted to herself, tucking her gloved but still freezing hands into her pockets as the graveside service was read.

She felt a jolt at the sight of a solitary figure standing in another section of the graveyard, swathed in an archaic cloak and ebony veils. She caught Pam’s eye and lifted an eyebrow inquiringly.

“If we wanted to get noticed today, all of these overly wrapped women in the graveyard should do the trick. She looks spectral. Funny, I don’t see her as the type to wear that many clothes…if you get my drift.”

Pam turned in the direction Rhi was looking. “Yeah…and standing right beside her own gravestone…that’s a bit creepy,” she replied in a whisper, keeping one eye on the service that was coming to an end.

Rhi was already acquainted with the famous madam’s history and nodded, “Do you think she’s the one who kept fresh flowers on the grave for over a hundred years?” She referred to the well-known standing order that the local florist had to keep the grave adorned with red silk roses. The order had been taken care of by several different florists since the madam’s “death” over a hundred years ago. The baffling part of the order was that it was completely anonymous and seemingly eternal…the payments were made discreetly by one of the oldest and most prestigious banks in Denver.

The ghostly figure of the madam stood directly beside her equally famous marble heart shaped headstone. The wind lifted her black veils into octopus-like tendrils that floated in the sky behind her. Two perfect silk strands of auburn hair had escaped to mingle with the veils, presenting a scene worthy of a Bronte novel. Several items were scattered over the grave: a huge arrangement of red roses, an unopened bottle of champagne, two handmade dolls presumably made up to resemble Pearl in her heyday, and several letters stuck in a wooden box provided by the city for missives written in her honor. Pearl still had fans visit and leave mementoes even though she had supposedly been dead for a hundred years from an overdose of laudanum at thirty-three. Rhi, in her headscarf and sunglasses, suddenly felt like a child wrapped up in her mother’s sheets on Halloween in comparison. She wondered how Pearl had figured out how to position herself and loosen her scarves just so for the mystical windblown effect.
Bitch.

“I don’t know. But I can easily see a man being obsessed enough with her to make an eternal flower arrangement for her benefit.” A horrifying thought occurred to Rhi and she tried to focus on some of the smaller, untended headstones and scattered crypts that surrounded the grave of Pearl De Vere. “Dear God, Pam. I just realized who else could be buried here…in
this
cemetery.”

The taller woman grimaced and looked at Rhi suspiciously, as if Rhi had told her that there was a piece of hair in her French fries. Her jaw hung loose for a moment and then firmed up with typical stubbornness. “Rhi…don’t ask Pearl where you are buried. You have enough to freak yourself out with, why add to it? And knowing Pearl from the few moments I’ve had to share with her, she would take a perverse joy in showing you how much smaller your tombstone is than hers. Let it go.”

“I have a serious case of the willies,” Rhi told her. “Don’t try to make it better by quoting
Frozen
to me.” Keeping the urge to run shrieking out of the cemetery under control, Rhi joined Pam in the procession of mourners walking toward the parked cars. Rhi’s Blazer was parked precariously on a berm to the side of the gravel road. The cloaked figure of Pearl approached them as they descended, the madam’s strides much longer than Rhi would have expected out of such a carefully cultivated figure.

Pearl pulled back her veil with a flourish to reveal her delicate features.

“I’m here to baby sit you two and stroll the paths of the Mt. Pisgah Cemetery to admire the scenery, wildlife and my own damned tombstone. Any dragons yet?”

Pam was examining the woman’s ensemble, which had been revealed by the rather dramatic unveiling. “Not yet but you’re the first in line to fight the damned thing in that getup. Hemingway couldn’t have dressed you for battle any better. You’re lucky you don’t wear a sword like Jack does, though, it would ruin the line of the thing.”

Pearl snorted in an unladylike manner. “Of course I wear a sword…I’m better at hiding it than these ex-knights who can’t figure out that size isn’t the only factor in a fight…and please don’t give Hemingway any credit in the fashion sense. He couldn’t accessorize a trip to the bathroom. He was usually too drunk to put his clothes on.” She smiled thoughtfully, her eyes looking past them at some fond memory. After a moment’s revelry, she straightened and winked at Rhi. Ignoring the retreating figures of the other mourners, Pearl reached behind her neck and pulled a foot-long jeweled blade from a scabbard that hung between her shoulder blades under her shirt. It had a decidedly Oriental flavor to its décor.

“He gave me this as a gift for my wall. I have found a much better use for it than as a mere accessory.”

It was Rhi’s turn to snort as she examined the blade with interest. It was razor sharp and looked well used. “God, you’re worse than Robin Leach. Who
haven’t
you sleep with in the past 100 years?” She took the grips of the blade Pearl offered her and lifted it in her right hand, feeling the surprising weight of what was a museum quality artifact of death. “Nice. I would’ve figured you for a Colt revolver. Or maybe one of those prissy little Derringers with the pearl grips. Are demons easier to kill with a sword?”

“Oh the Colt is at home on my nightstand. It
did
ruin the line of my suit.” The madam took the short, curved sword back and with the effortless ease of long practice, slid it into the scabbard that was partially hidden by the concealing curtain of her hair. “Demons are hard to kill with anything…a gun will work after about thirty shots. A good slice severing the head from the neck is the best method, if the nasty critters take a form where it is easy to figure out where the head is.”

Rhi shuddered as she examined the small gold insignia on the flap pocket of the beautifully cut black fatigues Pearl wore under her mink trimmed parka. “Chanel makes fatigues?”

“Of course. A black outfit for every occasion, darling. Can we go to the Saint Nicholas
now? I need a cocktail…I had to drink aura from a construction worker early this morning and I feel polluted. I did talk him into going back to college for his doctorate, though.”

The other two women had no adequate answer for that one, so they headed down the hill to their vehicle.

“There’s a picture I didn’t need this morning.” Rhi whispered to Pam.

“Stay away from my neck, Mistress of the Dark,” the other woman replied a bit shakily.

“For the last time…he didn’t bite me. Did you drive here?” Rhi directed the question to Pearl who was examining them both regally as they whispered together.

Pearl grinned. “No, I flew. But I’ll ride with you girls to the hotel, if you don’t mind. The wind plays havoc with my hair.”

“It’s broad daylight. Didn’t anyone see you?”

“Do you realize how few people look up anymore? The people here live with one of the most panoramic views of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range available and they’re too busy counting how many nickels they’ve gotten out of the poker machine at the bar to look up.”

As the Blazer rattled along toward town, Pam turned in her seat to face the dangerous creature lounging in the backseat. Pearl sat as at ease in the worn bench seat as if it were a chaise lounge in an apartment overlooking the
Champs Elysees
in Paris. She didn’t bother with the seat belt.

“Would you like us to drive you past the ‘Old Homestead’ for old times’ sake?” asked Pam, referring to Pearl’s old ‘Parlor House’ from which the madam had ran her girls in the days of yore. The building still stood proudly on Meyers Avenue. It had been converted into a museum that celebrated Pearl and her profession.