Heroes (2 page)

Ben looked to Ibis, who gave him the faintest of conciliatory nods, but the owner of the Silk Road concentrated his attention on his troublesome hotel manager. “The traditional way of moving a nest into a new territory is to ask permission of the Enforcer of the City.”

Of course, Martina laughed at this. “I do not deal with Enforcers. Not as a subordinate. You know that, Ibis. I do ask your approval.”

Her gaze should have swept around to every other vampire in the room, but of course, she didn’t bother. If she noticed the angry tension building at the table, she ignored it. Martina was not only a revolutionary, she was downright rude, or maybe just totally oblivious. She was up to something, of course, something to do with her schemes to change the world. The world was just fine as far as Ben was concerned, though it would be much better if Martina and her kind got out of town.

“What about Duke?” Dresser asked. “He’s given permission for Martina’s nest and ours to occupy the hotel. This is
our
territory.” Dresser was one of about a dozen vampires that called Ibis nest leader. Martina had ten vampires in her nest. Even adding companions and slaves to this group, the vampire population took up only a small percent of the rooms and extensive grounds of Las Vegas’s latest destination resort.

“You’re not supposed to leave the area,” Ben spoke up. “That’s the deal.”

“I did not make that deal,” Martina answered. “I do not deal with monsters who
eat
my kind. I am subject to no Enforcer. To no Law set down by a puppet shadow government.”

“We’ve heard this before,” Dresser complained. “Maybe you don’t obey the Laws, but Ibis does. You agreed to work for Ibis in exchange for access to ancient knowledge. Do you want to get him in trouble with the Enforcer of the City?”

Martina laughed. “The Enforcer of this city is no threat to anyone.”

She was right about that, and Ben was thankful for it. Duke, or the Duke of Norfolk, as he claimed to have been back in his mortal life, was not what you’d call conscientious. Above all else, the Enforcer of the City wanted a quiet life.

“Just slip Duke a few thousand,” Ben suggested. “He’ll be happy to leave you alone. I can arrange it for you.”
And take my usual twenty percent of the deal,
Ben added to himself.

“I do not bribe corrupt monsters. I ask no one’s permission to do as I choose. But yours,” she added, concentrating on Ibis again. “Out of respect for your age and learning, I ask the freedom of the entire territory.”

Ibis rested his hands on the table. “I see.”

“She’s going to cause trouble,” Dresser complained.

Ibis sighed. “I know.” He kept his inscrutable gaze on Martina.

This is
my
town,
Ben thought.
She should ask me.

“Do what you will,” Ibis told Martina. When she grinned with satisfaction, fangs gleaming brightly, he added, “The consequences will be on your head, child, not mine.”

There’s going to be trouble all right,
Ben thought. He sent a glare toward the happy Martina, who was about to spread her crazy revolution out onto
his
streets. He wondered just what he could do to help that trouble along.

Chapter 1

“LIGHT’S BEEN AROUND for a long time, of course.”

“Well—yeah. You have heard of the Big Bang, haven’t you?”

“I meant artificial light. Even when I was a youngster, there were certain—shall we say, weak-minded—individuals who’d have a little too much to drink and sit around staring into firelight for hours.”

“Seems like a harmless hobby.”

“Let me finish. It was hardly unknown for fire addicts to walk into a raging bonfire. The results were a bit—”

“Crispy?”

“Geoffrey, I’m not often in the mood to be instructive. Why don’t you take me seriously when I am?”

“Sorry, Val.” The truth was this was his first time in Vegas and what he really
wanted
to do was look at the lights.

“Oh.”

Geoff Sterling was suddenly glad he wasn’t the one driving the Cadillac convertible. He thought about closing his eyes, but the lights were so pretty . . . “Maybe you better continue being instructive.”

“Uh-huh. Wise child.” It was her turn to keep him out of trouble as he’d been doing with her for the last couple of years. “Being immortal doesn’t make you invulnerable. There are certain—mental problems—that crop up from time to time in even the powerful, wise, and ancient ones. For example, I never thought I’d end up agoraphobic.” The fact that they were in Las Vegas at all, and in a convertible with the top down,
and
that she was driving showed that the fear of open spaces was a treatable one. The fact that she was so scared she was having trouble keeping her hunting claws and fangs from growing showed that the phobia wasn’t going away. It was just something, like all things that went with being a vampire, that had to be controlled. “Pain in the ass, really.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I have noticed the death grip you have on the steering wheel.” His head craned from side to side. Glitter everywhere! “Go on.”

“Then there’s light addiction,” Valentine went on. “It’s an ancient problem, but I have heard those who suffer from it called neon junkies. I’m afraid Las Vegas seems to attract a certain element.” She paused, and finally stated, “It’s a town full of losers.”

Geoff felt her distaste, and he laughed, which pretty much brought him out of his fascination with all the brightness and color filling the desert night. “Valentine, you are such a snob.”

She tossed her head, stirring the thick fall of black curls around her shoulders. “Young man, I’ve worked in Hollywood for over seventy years. I wouldn’t have stayed in the business if I was a snob about sleazeballs and losers.”

“Hollywood sleazeballs and losers are mortal. You expect better from your own kind. Madam, you are a vampire elitist.”

“I’ll admit that I do prefer associating with a better class of monster, but I hardly think I’m snobbish.”

“Uh-huh.”

She ignored these sarcastic syllables. “All I’m saying is that light is a dangerous thing. While we’re here, you need to be careful.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Just me?”

“Light’s not my downfall. Probably not yours, either, but be warned, be aware. This place is dangerous.”

“It’s Las Vegas,” he answered. “It’s artificial.”

“So are bullets,” she reminded him. “So’s a dagger, come to think of it. We tool-using types are very good at creating nonnatural recipes for disaster. Vampires have good reason to both bless and curse that Thomas Edison fellow.”

Geoff turned his face into the hot wind that blew up the street out of the desert. “I like this town,” he said. “It’s a hungry place. Garish. Dark to the heart. I like that energy.”

“It doesn’t have a basketball team,” Valentine complained. “How can you like a town without an NBA franchise?”

Geoff glanced at the fanciful architecture of the huge resorts on either side of Las Vegas Boulevard. He looked at the anonymous hordes of people on the side-walks and the bridges crossing above the tangled traffic. He absorbed emotions and the essence of excited life. Adrenaline-soaked blood scented the night. You could get a buzz just from breathing around here. “It has other amenities.”

“Doesn’t feel that different than L.A. to me.”

“You are old and jaded.”

“No shit. Actually,” she added, slowing the car, “something about this place is making my skin crawl.”

Valentine ignored the honking behind them and the cars swerving to pass them. She slowed the Cadillac practically to a stop, her gaze swinging from left to right. “Oh,” she said finally, concentrating on the nearest hotel. A many-domed palace set in exotic gardens rose above the street. It looked like ancient Samarkand had been set down on the Strip.

Valentine made a face. “So that’s the Silk Road.”

“Which is where we’re staying, right?” Geoff began to suspect that leaving it up to Valentine to make their travel arrangements hadn’t been such a good idea.

“Of course we’re not staying there. Who wants to stay at a hotel run by vampires?” She stomped on the gas pedal.

“Uh, Val . . . ?” Geoff jerked a thumb as the building receded in the distance. When she stopped at the next red light, he said, “We both invested in building the Silk Road.”

“Yeah. So? I invested in White Star Lines once upon a time, but I didn’t take the
Titanic,
did I?”

He looked back at the huge hotel complex. “You don’t think it was a good investment?”

“I think it’s a fine investment. And I’m sure it’s a lovely hotel, if you want to pay five hundred a night for a room and you have absolutely no psychic ability whatsoever. I
know
what lives in that place, and personally, I’ve always hated being around vampires.”

She sounded like she was talking about an infestation of cockroaches. “You said you weren’t a snob.”

“I lied. Of course, I don’t like being around anybody—but you—for very long.”

“Sometimes you give the term
reclusive
a bad name.”

“I’m not reclusive. I’m a snob. You said so. At least about strigoi. Besides, our business is to work the room to get financing and distribution for our next project at the convention center at the other end of town. Why traipse back and forth from one end of Las Vegas to the other if we don’t have to?”

“To see the lights and—shit.” Geoff closed his eyes, then put his hands over them when he could still
feel
the light pulsing seductively just out of reach. “Shit,” he muttered again.

“There’s a Law,” Valentine said. Her voice sounded very far away. “One of the few Laws that still make sense.”

He was of the Nighthawk line. Nighthawks were supposed to be Enforcers, to know the Laws of the Blood. He’d opted not to be involved in the ancient system that constrained the lives of Nighthawks as much as it did normal strigoi. It wasn’t as if he’d known he was going to turn into a Nighthawk. He’d only signed on to be a vampire, which was weird enough. The second change had come as a complete surprise.

He’d used his new powers only once, to avenge the death of someone he cared for, and that one time had been enough. He was a fledgling moviemaker, not a cop.

The car moved forward again and the hot wind continued to blow across his face while he waited for Val to explain. Instead, she let the silence drag on. Sometimes he worried about her attention span, or lack thereof, but sometimes, like tonight, she liked to play enigmatic font of ancient wisdom.

“What Law is that?” Valentine made him ask.

“Beware of the Light,” she told him.

Geoff thought about it. “Maybe I should invest in some sunglasses.”

“Maybe we should get you indoors and—oh, shit!”

The car swerved violently to the right. Brakes squealed. Horns blared. Geoff’s eyes popped open as he was thrown sideways. Valentine was swearing, in a language that sounded kind of like English, but not much. Geoff saw her shaking her fist, and realized she was pissed as hell at somebody. He looked around, and saw a vampire dressed like a derelict standing in front of the car, staring into the headlights like a deer frozen on the highway. Only a deer’s eyes didn’t glow red with inner fire, and a deer’s lips didn’t draw back to show ugly yellow fangs. That was a couple of the ways you could tell a vampire from Bambi.

“Damn it, Eddie!” Valentine shouted in recognizable English this time. “Are you trying to get killed?”

“Eddie?”

A woman appeared out of the night before Valentine could answer, weaving between traffic with supernatural speed. The woman took Eddie by the arm in an unbreakable grip and led him away. Valentine let it happen, even though Eddie looked back at her with pleading eyes.

“Who was that?”

Valentine answered Geoff’s question with a shake of her head, though her heart that had beat for several thousand years ached at the wrecked being that had lurched across her view. Was indeed. Eddie was so past tense. She wondered at seeing him, looming up like an accusing ghost out of one of Shakespeare’s history plays. Wondered who the vampire female was. Wondered at what was going on. Valentine worried about him, but Eddie was long past any help.

“Neon junkie,” she answered her young protégé. And drove on.

 
“You just want to gamble, right? After the wedding?”

“No.”

“Jebel, you don’t always have to be honest with me.”

“Sweetheart, I am never completely honest with you.”

“Good.” Char McCairn considered this conversation, and decided she and Jebel Haven were being even odder than usual. She sat back against the leather passenger seat of the Jeep Cherokee and watched the long, flat desert highway roll by on the way from Arizona to Nevada as she said, “You aren’t planning on robbing any casinos, are you?”

“Nope.”

“Killing vampires?”

“Like shooting fish in a barrel in that town.”

Jebel did like a challenge. She had her own plans for after they stood up for Santini and Della in the Las Vegas wedding chapel where they’d been told to meet the happy couple. “I just don’t want you to get bored,” she told her lover.

“Stuff happens when I get bored,” he agreed.

“Fatalities happen.”

Haven chuckled. “That’s stuff.”

“I’m glad Baker decided to drive his own car,” she added as she noticed a pair of headlights when she glanced in the side mirror. She liked Baker well enough, but the big ex-cop had this tendency to try to kill her every now and then. No matter how often it was explained and demonstrated to him that not all vampires were bloodsucking fiends, he couldn’t quite wrap his sense of self-preservation around it. He did try, but sharing close quarters with him didn’t make for the most relaxing traveling arrangements for anyone involved. Besides, she enjoyed having time alone with Haven.