The Living Night (Book 1) (12 page)

"The same could be asked of you, you know.
You could checkmate me and be done with it, but no."

"Is that your sneak move, Harry?
Suicide?"

"Are we still talking about chess?"

"I don't know. Are we?"

Harry sighed. "I'm moving to
Swakashani
, okay? An island paradise, or so I've heard. But
thanks for the concern."

"Since you're asking for it so badly …"
Ruegger moved. “Checkmate.”

Harry toppled his king. "Thanks for the
game. It's been stimulating." He studied Ruegger. "So what's going
on, buddy? Why the hell is Vistrot salivating over you?"

"I was hoping you'd know. You hear more
gossip than I do."

"Did you know that just three nights ago
Vistrot had one of his own men killed? One of the higher-ups, too."

"Why?"

"Couldn't tell you,” Harry said. “No one
knows. Some say he was an informant or something, but that's just conjecture. To
make matters more interesting, did you know a certain pair of Balaklava
are in town? Junger and Jagoda, I think they're called. I hear you've met them.
They killed a bunch of people last night in Queens.
Close to a hundred, I think. Some sort of feeding frenzy." He grinned.
"Maybe I should pay them a visit."

"No.
They'll rip you limb from limb, Harry, sun
or no sun. Even I don't stand a chance against them. Your interference won't do
any good, you understand? Go to
Swakashani
like you
planned. It's beautiful. Meet some native girl and go scuba every day. Drink
coconut milk and martinis—I know they're your favorite—but do
not
go
visit Junger and Jagoda. They're more dangerous than just about anything."

"Is that a fact?"

"Just promise me you won't fuck with
them."

"Alright, alright."

"Is that a promise?"

"Sure. But I'll keep an ear out, tell you
anything if I hear anything, for as long as I'm in town. Come by whenever you
want."

"Are you kicking me out?" Ruegger
said.

"Yes, but first I've got something you'll
be interested in hearing. Someone knows who hired Junger and Jagoda to kill
Ludwig.”

Ruegger leaned forward. “Who?”

Harry smiled. “I
thought
that would get your attention.”

“Well?”

Harry rolled a shoulder. “I didn’t say I knew.
Someone
knows. One of my friends sleeps
around a lot. Well, she found herself with an immortal assassin last night, a
vampire. He claims he was just hired to take out a very important target. He
wouldn’t say who, only that the target had found out who ordered Ludwig’s
murder and needed to be silenced.”

“Who’s hired the assassin?”

“I don’t know that, either. But the assassin is
going under the name Vincent Greggs, and apparently he’s leaving tomorrow night
to go after his target.”

“That doesn’t give us much time. Where’s he
staying?”

“The Clearglass Inn, just outside of town.”

*
    
*
    
*

David
didn't have to think too long. Not at all, really. Loyalty to Veliswa or
loyalty to Vistrot? Not too complicated a question. Besides, he'd already
chosen his style of life: the underworld, outside both law and mortality. To
rise in the ranks of the underworld meant Vistrot's favor; if this were to
cause Veliswa some misfortune, so be it. She was just a stepping stone to his
greatness.

He wasn't well liked or well known among the
mob, so he went to the most powerful figure he knew that was friendly at all
toward him: a werewolf named Loirot. Wings stroking the brisk night air, David
flew toward Loirot's modest three-storied manse. Landing on the roof would be
rude, so he used the backdoor.

The mortal butler opened the door and waved the
jandrow in with distaste. He was a stocky and impeccably-dressed old man with a
square jaw and steel-gray hair.

"Sir Loirot is not expecting you.”

"Oh, but he will be,” David said. “Tell him
it's urgent."

The butler didn't have to say anything of the
sort; like many shades, the Werewolf Loirot could perform a type of telepathy
with humans whom he had "formatted" to his taste—and he always kept a
phantasmagorical finger in his manservant's head.

"This way," the human said, after a
moment. He led David to the plush staircase, with expensive carpeting that was
perhaps a touch too old. Some of the gold threads interwoven with the rich
crimson ones were coming undone. The butler moved swiftly, almost faster than
David could catch up with him; there must be more of Loirot in the man than
there was of the man himself. He marched stiffly up to the last story and down
a dark corridor to the last door on the left, right near a stained-glass window
that let in a twisted version of the moon.

The mahogany door swung open on a great room
with more dark paneling and rich carpeting. Heavily shadowed, the chamber seemed
thick with age and dust.

The Werewolf Loirot lounged at a table some
distance away from the four-
postered
bed, dressed
only in cream silk pants, deep shadows covering his face and torso. A shock of
unruly dark brown hair struck up from his head. Calm, he sipped red wine from a
large glass goblet with one hand and stuck a sweet-smelling cigar to his dark,
ruddy lips with the other. His gaze kept drifting to the bed.

David wasn't shocked or saddened by what lay
there; it did make him hungry, though, and jandrows traditionally fed off of
only hearts.

A dark-haired girl, Asian perhaps, had been tied
at the hands and feet by black silk ribbons bound to the four thick posts of
the bed. She was very still, dead quite obviously, with several areas of dark
moistness at her chest, her thighs, her abdomen, where her flesh had been
tugged away; ragged muscle and bone gleamed wetly, and dark blood had splattered
the sheets, the curtains flying from the bedposts and the carpet near the bed.
It looks as though she exploded
, David
thought. He realized it wasn't just shadow covering Loirot, but drying crimson.

"Yes?" said Loirot.

"Um. I heard about the vampires Ruegger and
Danielle being wanted."

"And?”

"You're still working for Jean-Pierre?"

"I don't work
for
anyone, David. But yes, I am a member of the team of which the
albino is the head. What's your information?"

"I heard a rumor that they had a pig.
Ruegger and Danielle, I mean." He expected a response from the werewolf,
but Loirot just stared at him. "Yes, and ... I saw the pig. I think. It
was at the Ghensiv Veliswa's penthouse, at the Cardeux Building.
It was just sundown, so it couldn't have been the animal of a customer of hers—and
I know she lives with no one, and she dates no one that I know of. She'd
certainly refuse to go out with anyone who had an animal like that."

"Not what I heard.”

"Yes, well. I've worked for ...
with
her a long time, almost since the day I crossed over, and I know she has no pig
and doesn't know anyone with a pig, and this one had a spiked collar and an
earring. Can you imagine?" He looked at Loirot, who was very still indeed,
and ruffled an uncomfortable wing.

"Is that all?"

"Um ... yes. I felt I should tell
you."

Loirot shoved the cigar between his lips. "Vistrot
will be pleased."

"You'll make sure he knows it was me who—?"

"Get out of my sight."

The manservant led the way.

*
    
*
    
*

As
the door clanged shut on them, Loirot lifted the gauntlet to his lips and
sipped. A grin worked its way across his handsome face, and his eyes turned
once more to the girl on the bed.

"And now," he said, "the
Darkling."

Chapter 9

Ruegger
and Danielle were back in each other's arms when suddenly she jerked up from
sleep. Almost frantic, she put a hand to her forehead, feeling sweat stand out
on her brow.

Dark shapes over me,
laughing … thrusting … cutting …

Malcolm …

Panting, Danielle rolled over to the edge of the
bed and reached for the pocket of her jeans. With shaking fingers, she pulled the
last clove out of its box and lit it.
Just
a nightmare, Danielle.
But it wasn’t. She shook the hair out of her eyes
and moved into the bathroom. Staring at herself in the mirror, it was not the
Danielle of today she saw, but the scarred and desperate fourteen-year-old girl
she’d once been.

She switched on the shower.
Must get clean.

Ruegger must have heard the shower start up, as
she caught the sounds of him climbing out of bed.

"Want the last half of the clove?" she
called.

"I’m okay.”

Twenty minutes later, after they had dried off
and Ruegger had told her what he'd learned from Lavaca, she said, "So I
guess we need to pay a visit to the Clearglass Inn."

"Looks like. Someone knows who
orderd
Ludwig’s death, and we need to find out who before
they’re murdered.”

“Fine.” She paused, picturing black shapes
moving above her. "Listen, I've some ... business to attend to.”

He seemed to understand. Sadly, he nodded.
"Then we hunt alone tonight."

She reached a trembling hand to his face.
Something in her dissolved, and she felt tears rise behind her eyes. She
embraced him tight, then broke away.

"I'll be fine,” she said. “This is almost
the last one."

He nodded. "Yes," he said.
"Almost the last one."

*
    
*
    
*

Jean-Pierre
didn't smile when he heard the news. He didn't grin, or smirk, or bat an eye.
He looked as if he had known it all along, as if he had heard it from other
sources as well, which perhaps he had. Finally, after maybe five complete
minutes of silence, the werewolf nodded to himself as if he understood the
implications, but that the implications just served to confirm some defeatist
theory of his own. His luminous green eyes—the only color anywhere on him—dimmed
just a little.

He slumped in an uncomfortable steel chair in
what was meant to be the dining room of his apartment. The entire eight-storied
apartment building, situated as it was in a seedy pocket of the city, had been
condemned long ago, but with Jean-Pierre's well-hidden fortune he managed to
grease the right wheels to prevent its destruction. He lived in only one
apartment on the eighth story and left the rest of the building to the vagrants
and wanderers who dwelt here. The most unhinged of the homeless population
gravitated to him. On occasion, they acted as his servants, and he could
control them psychically. It was like a small, less ambitious version of hell,
and Jean-Pierre was the devil.

His rooms were barren if one neglected to count
the few scattered chairs, the table, and the countless blades and hooks that
rose from the floor, sprouted from the wall or hung by rusty chains from the
ceiling. He had an entire hall devoted to the chains, which fell to about
waist-level from a barely-visible ceiling and held at their ends all variations
of sharp and painful instruments. Jean-Pierre ran through the gauntlet whenever
the demons closed in. The pain drove them away.

He studied Loirot. Loirot had always been the
flamboyant one. He seemed to want recognition for bringing what he surely
thought of as good news, but Jean-Pierre would deny him any satisfaction.

Byron cleared his throat in an attempt to prompt
some response out of Jean-Pierre. A large Australian werewolf, he stood nearly
six-five and probably over two hundred and fifty pounds, all muscle.

Jean-Pierre turned to Kilian, his lieutenant.
"Well?"

"Well what?" Kilian snapped.
"You're the fucking leader of this outfit. You’re not on vacation anymore."

Jean-Pierre often had the urge to kill the
insubordinate toad, but restrained himself when he thought of Vistrot. The
Titan had no hand in Jean-Pierre's movements other than assigning the tasks
themselves, but he had insisted that he be allowed to appoint one member of the
death-squad, and Kilian was that man. It would not go well to kill him.
Besides, Kilian was right. Jean-Pierre was back now and it was time to act like
it. Still …

The albino lifted a flaming Pall
Mall to his lips. “Do you vouch for this information?”

“
I
vouch
for it,” Loirot said.

Kilian said nothing. He had been the one to
insist on calling this meeting, and Jean-Pierre held him responsible for its
outcome.

The albino turned to the final member of the
death-squad, Cloire, the only female present and the crew's technical wizard. Small,
with short died hair and mismatched eyes (one green, one amber), a neurotic
energy seemed to fill her.

"The van good to go?"

"Get as it gets," she said.

He stared at the fading end of his cigarette,
then glanced up at the four expectant werewolves. His team.

"Then let's go," he said.

He saw them to the door and told them he'd be
down in a minute, then turned and re-entered the Hooked Hall. Moving to a
corner hidden by blades and spikes, he rapped on a section of wall. The wall
bucked, and with a billow of dusty plaster someone shoved the section away.

Coughing, the Ghensiv Veliswa emerged from the
hollow space between walls.

"Well, well,” Jean-Pierre said. “It seems
as though you've had some interesting houseguests."

"So it would seem, lover. What of it?"

"You've been a bad girl. Do you know what I
do with bad girls?"

"I've an idea, yes." Veliswa laughed.

He struck her, hard, sending her back into the
shadows of the hidden room. "I'll deal with you later. Don't leave, Veli. I'll
go much easier on you if you stay. And ... well, I really would prefer that.
You've been good to me, you know. You're almost like a sister, really."

"If I'm a sister, Jean-Pierre, then—"

"Enough! We go back a long way, Veli. Don't
make me come after you.”

She wiped at her eyes. "We go back even
more than you know."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll make sure you find out one day. But
go on,
mon ami
. Just remember that if you kill my friends and don't kill
me ... well, sleep lightly, dear."

He spun and walked away, disappearing through
the chains.

When he was gone, she slunk over to the fire
escape and descended. She didn't hear Jean-Pierre make a phone call then, and
she never noticed the motorcycle that stayed behind her all the way.

*
    
*
    
*

Danielle
waited in the dark. She gripped a blade in her right hand, a long and severely-curving
instrument more scythe than knife, and in her left hand she held a lit clove,
one she'd found in her jacket pocket.

A blue-collar wasteland stretched around her. It
was the type of place Danielle had been raised in before she lived on the
streets. Cigarette butts, crumpled beer cans, and other familiar assorted trash
littered the dusty one-story house, was strewn across the ugly sofa in the
living room (where Danielle now stood), was carelessly flicked over the cheap
coffee table/leg rest and hunched forgotten atop the TV that, though not large,
dominated the room.

Jason Locke lived here. Long ago, Locke had
taken part in Danielle’s gang rape and mutilation. Of course, Locke wasn't what
he called himself these days; he'd changed his name and moved to a different
pocket of town, but he could never escape her. Try as he might, he would be the
sixth to die. She'd saved her foster-brother Malcolm Verger for last. He had
been the leader of the gang that had raped her repeatedly, then taken a razor
blade to her adolescent face and body and left her for dead.

What happens when I
finally kill Malcolm?
she wondered.
After he’s dead, will I
still carry this hate—or will the nightmares go away?

Light pierced the dusty drapes and bathed the living
room with brutally-honest light, transforming what was almost nostalgic for Danielle
into an ugly nightmare pinned in by four walls. The headlights cut off. The car
engine sputtered and died.

The vampiress crossed over to Locke's
ash-covered CD player and inserted Mussorgsky’s "Night on Bald
Mountain", which she'd brought with her, and with the first reverberations
of the chords she felt a smile spread across her face.

*
    
*
    
*

With
a jingle of keys, the door swung open and Locke crossed its threshold for the
last time. Not registering the music until it was too late and the door was
irrevocably shut, he stiffened in fear.

He'd heard the tale from witnesses—two
girlfriends, one wife—of Danielle's previous revenge-based bloodlettings. She
never killed the witnesses, but she always played a piece of classical music
which was more or less alien to her victims' ears but was presumably the same
piece every time. That's what the cops had suggested, and one witness (a
rapist's girlfriend) had been able to identify the song as the one that always
played on the Fourth of July.

There were numerous articles written about
Danielle in the papers, most notably the tabloids, who called her the Gutter
Angel. Most people thought of her as a serial killer, but at least one guilty
rapist had confessed the story of Danielle's rape and attempted murder to his
wife after several of his friends had died, and the wife later told the police
and some reporters the story. So the public knew, and many considered Danielle
a sort of folk hero.

Thus Jason knew what was in store.

His eyes flicked from one shadow to another, but
she was nowhere to be found. He pulled out a cigarette as the music built up
around him.

"O-one last smoke?" he said.

Silence answered.

Then, from a shadow he must have overlooked,
stepped the girl, as young and beautiful as he'd heard she was, many years ago.
Her eyes sparkled against her too-ivory skin and her
winedark
lips were hooked in a toothless smile.
How
can she be so young? And her skin … uncut …

"The song's over ten minutes long,"
she said. "And yes, you will live that long, not that you’ll enjoy it.”

He stared, transfixed. "What they said,
they were right. The ones you spared, I mean. You're not ... human, are you?"

When she smiled, her fangs caught the light.

He pressed himself tight against the door.
"My God, it’s true! You're—"

She descended, and his screams rose from his
rapidly-diminishing body until the thunder of Mussorgsky's melody ceased in
time to his heart.

*
    
*
    
*

Guards
escorted Kilian through the several checkpoints that led to Vistrot's den,
located in the subbasement of a subbasement of a skyscraper downtown. Rumor was
he owned half the building. Either way, he’d officed in this granite cellar for
the better part of three decades. People called it The Titanic. Kilian
personally believed that Vistrot owned many such basements throughout the city
and off the island and switched headquarters every night. This would explain
the deeply impersonal nature of the large, echoing hall that he was being led
through, which terminated in a door flanked by two more immortal guards.

One held the door for him.

Kilian stepped into a large and sparsely
decorated chamber. Plastic covered the floor in as tasteful a way as
possible—in case any blood was shed in the room, Kilian was all too aware.

He stopped before the great ebony desk, polished
and gleaming, cluttered by papers and scented by spices that rose from the
old-fashioned box of Cuban cigars, and waited for the Titan to look up. It
never failed to amaze him how
vast
Vistrot was, an immense man both of
bone and flesh—absurdly obese yet impossibly strong. When he stood he reached
almost seven feet, which made his mostly bald head harder to see than now. The
big man’s girth strained against a rumpled but immaculately tailored dark blue
suit. His chair supported his four hundred pounds admirably as he leaned back,
phone to his pale, scaly head.

"Have it fixed by midnight tomorrow,"
he was saying into it. "You know the consequences if you fail." He
had a cold, guttural voice. Even as his finger pressed the button to disconnect
the call, his massive head was tilting up to stare at Kilian. "Sit
down."

Kilian obeyed, adjusting himself with what he
took to be the appropriate body language: relaxed, but not too.