The Living Night (Book 1) (24 page)

They surged all around him and Danielle. Ruegger
swiveled, turned, punched, kicked. He hard his enemies’ bones breaking. Soaked
with blood from head to toe, he fought on.

“Danielle,” he gasped. “Danielle!”

He could no longer see her.

“Ruegger … ”

There were too many of them. Escape was
impossible.

He heard growls approach. Singer. In beast form.
As the werewolf joined the fight, Ruegger realized his time had come.

A voice, Laslo’s: “Come to God, my son.”

Ruegger tried to answer, but one of the
deaders
rammed a dagger through his throat, and blackness
overcame him.

Chapter 19

When
Sophia woke up in the morning, sunlight streamed in through the window and she
glanced at the clock on the bedside counter. Nine-thirty. Early enough.

She sat up in bed—Jean-Pierre's bed—and noticed
him still asleep beside her. He was such an angelic sleeper. This was the first
time in a long time she’d woken up next to a man that 1) she hadn’t had sex
with and 2) she had no plans to destroy. Oddly self-conscious, she ran her hand
through his pale blond hair.

Last night had been good. Healthy, in its own
twisted way. They’d danced and gotten drunk together. Even talked. She had let
her guard down,
and wasn’t sorry about it.

She even felt a little guilty about her attempt
to seduce him. It was her natural instinct, though, maybe the natural instinct
of all ghensivs; when she saw a weakness in a man, she honed in on it and used
it to her best advantage, or what she thought would be her best advantage at
the time. Sometimes she was wrong.

She reprimanded herself for her emotional
outlook. Emotion made one weak. And yet he looked so beautiful lying there …

She rose and lit a Black Death. She would wait
and see. If she felt anything real towards him, she’d make an effort to own up
to those feelings instead of turning away from them as usual. Of course, part of
her cringed at the whole notion.
Gods,
girl. You can’t do this. He’s …

She banished the thought. They were immortals
and above such concerns.

She showered and dressed, and by that time he
was up as well. While he showered, she found the kitchen and brewed some
coffee. She saw that Kilian was already up. Cloire marched into the room, two
cigarettes in her mouth, and smiled.

"
Mornin
',
Sofe
."

"
Mornin
', Cloire.
Wanna cup?"

"Hellfire and fuck yeah. Byron and I
finished off four liters of tequila last night. He puked on me in the middle of
the night and the sad thing is I couldn't blame him."

The morning progressed, and by ten-thirty
everyone was dressed and ready to go. Since they'd rented a van at the airport
last night, the first priority of the day was to find some sympathetic
criminals and purchase hardware, as, having taken a commercial flight to Las Vegas, the death-squad
had had to leave their guns back home. Unfortunate but easy to rectify, which
they did quickly and were on to the second objective by noon. It was a nice day
outside and the team was in good spirits.

The second objective was to find Ruegger and
Danielle, which meant interrogating anyone that might've come in contact with
them in the past week. Ruegger and Danielle were certain to be looking for
Hauswell, even though the rumors of his death were now common knowledge. As the
day went on, the death-squad talked to many minor underworld figures, who would
be the best sources of information on Hauswell, and by five o'clock it became
clear that the underworld was really and truly in turmoil. Hauswell's absence
had left a hole that many were trying to fill. In fact, they were warring over
the position, without success. All Hauswell's former lieutenants and rivals were
at each other's throats.

No one seemed very powerful. No one, that is,
except for an enigmatic figure few seemed to have met in person, a shade named
Karl Barnaby. Apparently he’d just arrived on the scene, and it was rumored
that he was very wealthy and powerful. Though he was a newcomer, he was quickly
making Las Vegas his territory. Mystery surrounded him, but no one the death-squad
talked to proved helpful in solving it.

They did find out a critical piece of
information, which was repeated over and over again in rumor: Hauswell's body
was at Laslo's. That, Jean-Pierre was certain, was where Ruegger and Danielle
would go. The others agreed, but Kilian had something to say:

"I don't think Hauswell's dead. I think he
planted the rumor of his death himself to make going underground easier.”

Surprisingly, Jean-Pierre agreed. "Hauswell’s
too crafty to die."

"So what do we do about it?"

"I've an idea."

Jean-Pierre took them to a particular
casino/hotel operated by one of Hauswell's former lieutenants. If the
death-squad had learned anything today, it was that the underworld was so weak
here that the name Vistrot carried great weight and, while they probably
would've been killed within a few hours of entering the city had Hauswell still
been in power, they were at the present time feared as emissaries of Vistrot. Vistrot
had the power to wipe all these insignificant players off the board at a whim
if he was willing to devote the man-power.

Jean-Pierre parked the van and the crew followed
him inside, where he demanded to see the operator of the establishment. After
some
mindpulling
, he got his way. The death-squad stormed
into the office, closing the door behind them. The operator, a morbine named
Stacey, had been expecting them and had a small army of shades behind his desk,
all armed, just in case.

"We're looking for Hauswell,"
Jean-Pierre said.

"He's dead," said Stacey. "Or
haven't you heard?"

The albino laughed. "He's not dead; it was
just a trick to evade the Scouring."

"As far as I know, he's quite dead."

"Then who killed him?"

"He was Scoured, I suppose."

"Yes, but as we've all come to know, the
Scouring usually works through local hit-teams. That's how it killed Lord Chang
in Hong Kong yesterday, or haven't you heard?
That's how it killed Hernandez in Columbia
two weeks ago. And that's how it would have killed Hauswell. Since we've been
here, we've heard many rumors and many false braggarts, tales of several squads
who take credit for the killing. It seems to be becoming common knowledge that
the body at Laslo's mission is missing a head—so if it really is the body of
Hauswell, the team that killed him took his head as a trophy. But none of the
braggarts have the head.
So who has it?
"

Of course, much of what he said wasn't quite
true; the death-squad hadn't been in town long enough to gather all this
information. Jean-Pierre was simply making the necessary leaps based on the
assumption that Hauswell was still alive. The bluff worked.

Stacey swallowed. "I ... don't know. Now
please get out of here."

The albino turned to his crew. "Do it.” They
all withdrew their weapons. The small army behind Stacey raised theirs as well,
but Jean-Pierre held up his hand. "Not yet," he cautioned.
"Stacey, do you see that all our guns are silenced?"

"Yes."

"Yours are not. We can shoot you all night
without making a sound—no cops will come and no awkward questions for you to
answer. If your men return fire, it makes a big loud sound and the poor
tourists in their rooms are certain to call the boys in blue. And the boys in
blue will alert the mob. Other bosses will find out about it. You’ll look weak.
You're at a disadvantage, Stacey. We have nothing to lose and you do. Trust me,
we will shoot until every last bone in you is shredded, and I'll personally
throw what's left of you out for the sun to enjoy, and if you return fire
you're fucked. In addition to that, if so much as one of your rounds hits any
one of my crew, you'll have the wrath of Vistrot down on you tomorrow."

Sweat popped out on Stacey’s brow. He took a sip
of his gin and tonic. "What do you want to know?"

"Tell me where Hauswell is."

"His carcass is at Laslo's ... "

"Incorrect answer. Now my team is going to
fire at you for approximately ten seconds. Then I'll ask the same question: if
Hauswell's not alive, where is his head?"

"No, wait—"

The death-squad fired, knocking Stacey from his
chair and sending his blood across the desk. After ten seconds, they stopped
and Jean-Pierre asked the question again—with the same results. This repeated
itself several times until Stacey was in tatters, but the results did not
change. The location of the head was not known.

Satisfied, Jean-Pierre nodded to his crew and
they left. He’d gotten the answers he expected; without the head, Hauswell's
death could not be verified and therefore there was a very good chance he was
still alive. Which meant that if the death-squad could not reacquire the odd
flock at Laslo's mission, all they would have to do was find Hauswell and wait
for Ruegger and Danielle to show up.

As she boarded the van at a harried pace, Sophia
found herself impressed. Jean-Pierre had handled himself ably. He was very much
a leader. If she allowed herself to feel, she realized that she could—and to
her utter surprise—fall in love with someone like that.

"So what now?" Loirot asked. "We
go to Laslo's?"

"We've gotta feed first," Cloire
pointed out. "It's already nightfall."

Jean-Pierre nodded. "We feed—and then, at
long last, we go to Laslo's and kill the odd flock."

It was then that Sophia realized she was being
foolish; her love life could wait. Somehow, within the next few hours, she had
to prevent the deaths of two shades she'd sworn to her own mother that she
would protect. Otherwise they would most assuredly die.

*
    
*
    
*

It
horrified Sophia how easy it was for the death-squad to round up a set of victims.
They just stopped at a street corner and Jean-Pierre used his psychic powers to
lure five mortals into the van. To any passers-by, it must have looked
prearranged—a van stops and five people climb in.

So strange and shocking that these creatures, this
crew, could seem so friendly and nice and yet be so casually brutal. Then
again, Sophia knew, they didn't see humans as equals, but thought of humans
much as humans might think of cattle. The werewolves simply loaded up the
victims, rented a motel room and, Jean-Pierre still keeping the mortals in
check with his mindpull, herded the victims into the room, where they were
bound and gagged. There were no preliminaries—the werewolves just set to it,
the killing and eating of the mortals.

Cloire and Byron shared one, as did Loirot and
Kiernevar, while Jean-Pierre and Kilian fed on a whole one each. As a show of
respect for the newcomer, they let Sophia feed on a whole one, too.

The others had stripped naked so as not to dirty
their clothes, but all she had to do was take off her pants, which she did
before straddling the man that she was to feed from. More ghensiv than
werewolf, all she needed was his seed. As ghensivs must receive semen to live,
they’re sometimes faced with unwilling, frigid or impotent men, and accordingly
they have certain psychic powers of stimulation. So, staring into his eyes, Sophia
aroused the man, then took him into her.

The others, if they noticed this, just figured
she was having her fun before feeding from him, because everyone except
Jean-Pierre assumed she was werewolf, what with her ability to walk about
during daytime. At last, however, they noticed.

"What's going on here?" said Cloire,
covered in her victim's blood. Byron stood behind her. They had just finished
their meals and were staring at Sophia’s victim, still quite intact.

Sophia didn’t answer. She’d finished her
business and was slipping her pants back on.

"She's a ghensiv," Jean-Pierre said,
picking a piece of flesh from his teeth.

"But—"

"She's half werewolf, too, Cloire. Let it
go."

"No," said Kilian. "Part of the
reason we all kill together during Initiation is to prove our loyalty to each
other and our race. How can we trust her if she's not willing to do so?"

"Sorry,
Sofe
, but
I agree," said Cloire.

“Kiernevar,” said Kiernevar.

"I hate to say it, Jean-Pierre," Byron
said gently, "but they're right. Even though we didn't wait the proper
four days, this is still the conclusion to our second Initiation. We all must
kill. Surely you see that."

"What do you say, Sophia?” Jean-Pierre
said. “Would you kill him to prove your loyalty to us?"

"I kill only for personal or financial reasons,”
she said, “and I very rarely have to kill someone. You do what you need to do
in order to stay alive and so do I. There's no reason why I should go beyond
that to prove my loyalty to you. In fact, I think you should show your loyalty
to me by respecting that."

The albino nodded. "That's her decision.
Everyone okay with it?"

"I'm not," said Kilian. "It's not
fair to the rest of us."

"Ditto," said Cloire. To the others: "Are
you with me?" Reluctantly, Loirot and Byron nodded, but Kiernevar just stared
at them. She turned to the ghensiv. "
Sofe
, we could
be friends, but if you refuse to do this thing, it'll create a rift between us.
What do you care if some piddling mortal lives or dies?"

"It's not necessary," Sophia stated.
"If I killed him, I’d be a wastrel. I don't see how that would be proving
my loyalty to you."