The Living Night (Book 1) (29 page)

Eventually they found themselves in another open
chamber. A lavish sea-water aquarium lined one wall and speed metal crashed
through the speakers. The mosh pit was larger and the perversions more wicked,
but otherwise this room seemed very similar to the last. Mostly Americans
gathered here, so it was more likely that they would find who they were looking
for, or at least someone who knew where he was.

After forcing their way to the bar, they asked a
bartender if she knew where Ciara was. The bartender could only spare a second,
but she shouted an answer and turned back to the thirsty horde.

The vampires picked their way down another
corridor, emerging into a smaller, dingier room, with jazz blooming from the speakers.
They found Ciara reclining in a dark corner booth, opium smoke hovering over
the table. Waiters and waitresses handed out menus designed for rarer
pleasures. Ciara and a small group of baked friends lounged on the soft purple
cushions, taking a breather before smoking some more.

Ciara was an abunka, long and black, dressed in
a shimmering suit with a bright orange shirt beneath the dark jacket, and
before him sat a small dusty jar filled with living fish. Part of the curse of
the
abunkan
race was to crave the taste of fish from
the sea, while at the same time knowing that salt water was toxic to them. Ciara
seemed like a lot of New York jazz lounge cat
mixed with a little Las Vegas
snake-oil salesman. One of Ruegger’s many contacts, he smiled as the vampires
approached.

"Made it out alive?" he said in raspy
African-tinted English.

“We made it,” Ruegger said.

Ciara clapped his spindly hand on his knee,
cufflinks glittering in the blue-
ish
light, and
chuckled to himself. "You two look like you're still on honeymoon, you
know. Warms the heart just to see you."

"We're not
married
," Danielle said.

Ciara's smile grew wider. "That sounded
very pointed. I think that was a hint, my boy." When Ruegger didn’t reply,
Ciara said, "Touched a nerve, did I?" The abunka pursed his dark lips.
Blue light bounced off the gold rings on his fingers and played winsomely about
his face.

"Shades don't get married,” Ruegger said.

"What of your dear departed friend Ludwig
and his lovely bride?" asked Ciara, reaching into the jar in front of him
with a pair of tongs and pulling out a squirming fish. He stuffed the fish's
belly in his mouth and bit down gently, savoring the juices. Using what
mindthrust he had, he stilled the fish's thrashings with a soothing, psychic
finger.

"So what've you heard of Ludwig’s death?”
Ruegger said. “Anything new?"

Ciara smacked his lips, set the fish skeleton
down in a small pile of its predecessors, and wiped at his mouth with a pink
napkin. He nodded guiltily. "I'm afraid so.”

"Well?"

Ciara rolled his eyes. "It was those two Balaklava, wasn't it—Junger and Jagoda—that killed him?
Well, I happen to know that Testopha was killed by none other than the dynamic
duo. Unfortunately, this knowledge comes too late to make reparations between
the karula and the abunka. War often isn't something that can be stopped by
something so trivial as truth."

Ruegger exchanged a glance with Danielle, and
she felt just as surprised as he looked.

"Then Testopha wasn't Scoured," he
said.

"Not unless the Balaklava
work for the Scourer,” Ciara said.

This was interesting, but it didn’t jive with
what they’d learned in Las Vegas.

"The Scouring doesn't usually work that
way,” Ruegger pointed out. “It works through local hit-teams."

"You speak of the Scouring as if it's a
natural phenomenon, my boy, and I admit, it has the right proportions—relative
to the Community, of course. At last count, I've heard that it's claimed over a
hundred immortal lives, not to mention those killed in its rather chaotic
aftermath. See, it always kills a crime lord, or someone in a position of
power—every now and then a religious figure—which causes insanity afterwards as
that position is battled or grieved over. It's my opinion that
that
is
the intention of the Scouring, not the immediate death of its victim."

"You've given it some thought."

"I have ... I have." Suddenly Ciara
seemed weary. "Please tell me you're staying awhile." His face turned
bitter then, shark-like anger rising to the placid surface. "If you go
tonight, you might miss the city burning. Fucking fanatics, I don't understand
it! I'm an abunka and I don't hate the karula, do I? No. We eat fish, have dark
skin, live underground and they don't, but so fucking what?"

Ruegger nodded gently. "It's all connected
to the Scouring somehow. Junger and Jagoda must be working for the one who's
been pulling the strings. The Scourer. We know they're working for Vistrot, but
I don’t see him as the Scourer. Anything else, maybe, but that just doesn’t
seem like him. Why would he want to eradicate crime and religion? Junger and
Jagoda must be working for someone else, as well. Do you have any idea who?"

Ciara licked his fingers, sucking with wet smacking
sounds, then shook his head. "I have absolutely no idea, although I do
know that the Balaklava were hired not too long ago to do some artwork for
Roche Sarnova, which is the first contact that I know of that they've had with
the outside world since their days in Jamaica. It’d seem possible that
Sarnova could be their employer. But again, I don't know."

Carefully, Ruegger said, "Do you know anything
of Hauswell?"

"He's dead, isn't he. Why, do you think
that was just a ruse?"

"Could it be that he's here
somewhere?"

Ciara looked at him steadily. "Anything's
possible. He could be staying with us under an assumed name, I suppose, but I
wouldn't know him if I saw him. In fact, you two are probably the only ones in
this part of the world that
would
recognize him." He lowered his
voice still further. “However, I will … make inquiries.”

It would have to do, Danielle supposed. She knew
that Ciara would pass the word to Hauswell. Now it was up to Hauswell to make
contact.

The abunka nodded, seeing the vampires’
understanding. "Well, I'm sure you'd like to get some rest and unpack.
Please, come visit me later, if you have time." He snapped his fingers and
a young boy stepped out of the shadows, bare-chested, with various-colored
designs painted on his hairless torso. He was silent, but his eyes were sober.
"Gabriel, would you please show my friends to a room?"

Gabriel glanced them over, cocked his head and
marched off. Ruegger and Danielle hurried after. Gabriel led them through a
tunnel that turned out to be a shortcut back up to the mansion. He showed them
to a room and left in silence.

Ruegger looked out the window while Danielle
shut the door and reclined on the bed.

 
“Very
informative,” she said. “Sad, all of it, but informative.”

“What are you thinking?”

She shook her head and smiled. “Nothing, really.
And everything. Strange to say this, after what we’ve been through, but this
place is depraved. Despite that, I actually like the people here. It’s the
atmosphere. Drugs and sex and violence.” She patted the bedside beside her.
“Now you’re the one that looks gloomy. Come here, love. Let me see if I can
cheer you up.”

*
    
*
    
*

Later,
after they'd broken the bed in and were lying around on it smoking cigarettes,
Danielle nudged him.

"What about that breakfast you promised
me?"

He crossed to the window and looked down on the
sprawling city. Danielle joined him. She could see a building on fire far away
and thought it might be Saskia's, but she couldn't be certain. Several
buildings burned.

"I'm hungry, too," he said.

They dressed and followed Gabriel's corridor
down to the halls of the renegade abunka, and from there drifted over to the
mosh pit, which was slowly becoming as much an orgy as the orgy, though the sex
was a little more violent. The vampires stayed to watch the band for a bit,
though they declined to dance.

What do mortals think of
all this
?
Danielle wondered. If this was their only glimpse of the immortal community,
they must think all shades were debauched. The shame was that, say, fifty
percent of the shades here were decent folk like Ciara, who stood head and
shoulders (morally) above most of the members of the Community. The thought
saddened her.

"Here, I saw a food vendor just down the
way,” Ruegger said. “Breakfast, remember?”

They ordered beer and goat meat in a wrapper and
sat down on a dining rug in a quiet corner of the area. She downed her beer
quickly, trying to cool herself down, and drank the next one at a more
leisurely pace. The goat wraps, as it turned out, weren’t half bad.

“Still hungry?” he said.

He didn’t mean for food, she knew.

“Insatiable.”

After finishing their meal, they moved through
the familiar din of the party, drifting until they found a little wooden stand
not far from what looked like a theater of sorts, with hundreds, maybe
thousands of seats planted along a slope with a stage at the bottom. Something
was going on down there, but the vampires didn't pay much attention.

They stopped before the wooden stand, where a
few mortals watched them. One smiled and yelled something in salesman-
ese
("Come and enjoy yourselves, ladies and
gentlemen—tonight may be the END OF THE WORLD!"), but the vampires were
already there. The mortal who ran this booth made his living off selling
intelligence, mainly catering to immortals who, like Ruegger and Danielle,
preferred to feed only off the scum of humanity; the man had a small army of
scouts infiltrate the hallways regularly on the look-out for tasty evildoers.
The scouts would keep tabs on these villains' locations, selling this
information to shades.

An hour later, after Ruegger and Danielle had
fed properly on a murderer, they returned to the theater area and bought a pair
of tickets. As it turned out, a circus side-show run by a shade named Maximillian
was touring the world's seedier quarters; they had just come from Calcutta and tomorrow they would leave for New York. Apparently,
the so-called freaks (a word they themselves used) belonged to a troupe called
The Funhouse of the Forsaken. The odd flock bought some popcorn and settled in
for the show.

Maximillian—a tall, skinny man with a wicked
leer and a thin, curled mustache—acted the ringleader, and he presented a
creature that looked to be a horribly obese two-headed man. A fellow in an
outrageous tuxedo complete with tails emerged from the wings wheeling an array
of knives and daggers on a small table.

He bound the two-headed man to a portable wall (painted
psychedelic colors), then staggered back a great length, brandishing his knives
wildly. The crowd cheered, and Danielle latched onto Ruegger’s hand.

At first, the man in the tuxedo threw the knives
in a ring around the two-headed man, but then one of the knives flew straight into
the fellow’s midsection, and blood (fake, surely) squirted out. The knife-wielder
laughed, grabbed a double-sided dagger and charged toward the helpless captive.
As he plunged the blade into his victim's midsection, the two-headed man seemed
to come apart at the seams, revealing that he was in fact two men, Siamese
twins who had been separated but could give the illusion of coming together
again. The twins grabbed their tormentor, engulfing him, and he seemed to
disappear into the portable wall amidst a geyser of more fake blood, leaving
only his gaudy tux behind.

The twins cackled, freed themselves, and gave a
bow to enthusiastic applause. As they departed the stage, Maximillian presented
the next show. After another few acts, Ruegger and Danielle relinquished their
seats to someone else and moved to another part of the carnival. Eventually,
they found a jazz lounge far removed from the action, where they sat down at a
nice table close to the musicians.

It wasn't long before Ruegger recognized a
familiar figure sitting alone at a booth, drinking a Bloody Mary. Ruegger sat
up bolt-straight. Danielle turned.

It was Hauswell.

Chapter 23

Two
weeks after the showdown at Laslo's mission, Vistrot awoke from a peaceful
sleep to the sound of a ringing phone; it was his most private of private lines
and the only one that could have interrupted him in his bedroom. He snatched up
the phone and demanded, "Yes, what is it?"

"It's Cloire, sweet-cheeks. Hope I didn't
wake you."

"This better be good."

"Oh, baby, `good' doesn't cover it."

"Did you kill Ruegger and Danielle or
not?"

"Not as such."

He sighed. Cloire always had been a bitch and
he'd never had much occasion to talk to her, but for some reason he liked her.
If nothing else, she had spunk.

“Where have you been?” he said. “I sent you to
Vegas two weeks ago and you haven’t even checked in, yet. Where’s Jean-Pierre?”

“Calm down, cue ball. We’ve been away testing
loyalty. Trust me, it was needed.”

"Explain. Quickly."

As she described the events that had taken place,
he couldn't help but to notice the satisfaction in her voice.

"So you've broken with Jean-Pierre,"
he said when she was through, trying very hard to disguise his disappointment.
He wasn't angry at Cloire; she had, in fact, done what she was supposed to do.
If the albino couldn't hack it anymore, then he was better left out. But this
changed things greatly.

"That's a fact," she said. "But
we still work for you, big guy. Are your orders still to kill the odd
flock?"

"No."

"What?"

Keeping his laughter in check, he said,
"That's right, sweet-cheeks. You're not to kill them."

"Goddamn you, you fat bastard. You can't
do
this to me."

This time he couldn't keep it down. He laughed,
long and hard, and he could hear Cloire growling on the other end, which just
made it more enjoyable. Finally, when it was out of his system, he said,
"You're still to pursue them, Cloire. You're to capture them, not kill
them. Do you understand me?"

"The line's breaking up. I didn't catch
that last part. You said kill them?"

"Don't irritate me, Cloire. If you have
them killed, I'll have you hunted down, no matter where you are, and believe
me, death will be the least of your worries." When she said nothing, he
went on. "How do you intend to reacquire them?"

Some good humor returned to her voice, and he
could hear the smile there. "I think you'll like this one ... "

He did. When she was finished speaking, he had a
new respect for her; she was quite the devious mind, wasn't she, and she knew
very well how the human (or immortal) mind worked. Yes, her plan even smacked
of genius.

"Do it," he said, and hung up.

Beside him, Kristen stirred. More and more, she
had taken to leaving her apartment and spending the days with him, which he
liked, although it made some clandestine matters more difficult.

Like a child, she was curled into the fetal
position and her thumb was stuck cutely in her mouth. So innocent and so full
of fire. Vistrot felt a strong paternal instinct toward her, which he knew she
both liked and didn't; sometimes she said he behaved like an overbearing father
and didn't see her as a grown woman. Sometimes he had to admit, if only to
himself, that she was right. But he loved her.

Little did he realize then just how much that
love would be tested in the days to follow.

*
    
*
    
*

Kristen
woke up around three in the afternoon and dressed in silence, letting Vistrot
sleep. After leaving him a note on her pillow, she departed, giving her driver
instructions to take her to Jean-Pierre.

Upon entering his apartment, she was shocked at
the changes she saw. All the chains had been taken down, as had most of the
sharp objects that once sprouted from the walls, and an empty bottle of
champagne stood on the kitchen counter. She moved into the bedroom to see the
albino and some strange woman lying peacefully. The woman slept, but he didn’t.

When he saw Kristen, he pulled on a pair of
pants. Taking her arm, he led her from the bedroom and closed the door behind
them.

"Who was that?" she asked, expecting
him to say that it was another of his whores.

"That's Sophia," he said. "My
wife."

"Your what!"

"Keep your voice down, Krissy."

"Sorry ... but you're
married
?"

"Very much so."

"Christ, I didn't know the drugs in Las Vegas were
that
good. Honey, let me feel your
forehead."

“
Kriss
, don’t. I think
I might just love her."

"Have you told her that?"

"Of course not."

"So you married someone that you don't
love. Why?"

He sank into his uncomfortable wrought-iron
chair, and she eased herself to the floor beside him. "She's completely
changed my world, Kristen. I can't put it in words—but yes, I really do think I
love her. She's so
strong
, so collected, and she's
moral
, for
God's sakes; she's teaching me how to not kill innocents, to only feed off
criminals and such." He smiled. He looked happier and more at peace with
himself than Kristen had ever seen him. "I think she just may be my
salvation."

The news stunned Kristen. It had only been a few
weeks ago that he'd been a miserable wreck huddled in the corner, covered with
tears and blood. How could he have come so far in so little time? She'd
overhead Vistrot's conversation with Cloire and knew that Jean-Pierre was no
longer the leader of his death-squad—a fact which she thought might have
crushed him and which was the reason she'd come here today. But
married?

"Baby..." she said hesitantly,
"I'm going to tell you this because I don't think anyone else would dare:
you're on the rebound—that's all this woman is. You lost both Danielle and your
crew. You've turned to this Sophia for comfort ... Although I'm glad to hear
your choice in food has changed. I really am. That’s wonderful."

"You don't understand," he said.
"All this time I've been looking to Danielle for purpose, for
definition—my tragedy was who I was. Sophia is teaching me how to
find
myself—how to
live
! Come,
Krissy, I'd expected you, if no one else, to be happy for me."

She frowned. What he said was true: he did seem
much improved. And surely this Sophia was responsible for the removal of the
hooks and chains, and the glow that Jean-Pierre gave off …

"Okay," she said and tried to give a
genuine smile, though on the inside she felt shell-shocked. "I'm happy for
you." She embraced him, giving him a peck on the cheek. "But where
does that leave us?"

"We'll always be there for each other,
Kristen. Nothing will change that. It simply won't be in a sexual way."

"So why are you two still in New York? Why aren't you
off on honeymoon or something?"

"Sophia just joined Vistrot's organization.
She was a part of the crew, but she stayed with me instead. So it's important
for her to stay in town so that he can find another position for her; it would
look bad if she just ran away with me. As for me ... well, I suppose I need to
find a new position as well."

"What will you do—head another
death-squad?"

"I don't think I could ever do that again.
I could never kill another innocent."

"She's changed you that much?” When he nodded,
she said, "You're like a completely different person, Jean-Pierre. You
really are."

"Do you still love me?"

"Of course, and I'm happy that you're
finally over Danielle, but this is all very strange to me, baby. I can't
believe you're married. Jesus, you're somebody's
husband
! Do you two
have little cute names for each other and all that crap?"

"We're working on it."

She swayed. "I need a drink."

He fetched them both a beer. Before too long,
she left, still in a daze, thinking of marriage and insanity. But somewhere
inside her, an idea was growing.

*
    
*
    
*

Jean-Pierre
returned to the bedroom, where he watched Sophia sleep; she could sense it. She
smiled, her eyes still closed, and she said, "I can feel you watching me,
you know."

"Shall I stop?"

"No, I like it." She opened her eyes
and reached for a cigarette.

"Your eyes . . ." he said. "They
remind me of something—something from a long time ago. I'd almost
forgotten."

"What?"

"My mother. She had eyes just like
yours."

She wondered if she should tell him. What would
be his reaction?
Well
, she reasoned,
I'm going to have to tell him
sooner or later. Why drag it out?

She moved to the window, feeling the dying
sunlight against her bare skin, soaking her in its warm rays like an olive in a
martini. These past few days had been bliss, from their acid-laced wedding to
their hallucinogenic road trip back up to New York, to tearing all the chains from his
ceiling and thrashing around on his mattress in lustful abandon. That, she
thought—removing all the hooks and chains—had really been a milestone.

Recognizing his discomfiture at her gentleness
toward him, she had, over the last few days, been trying to make him understand
that he possessed this same quality and that he should rejoice in it instead of
rejecting it. They were both so similar in that way, having spent most of their
lives denying and suppressing their emotions instead of thriving in them. She
was now more certain than ever that this is where true strength came from, and
he was slowly coming round to this conclusion, too.

The teachings weren’t all one-way. She wouldn't
have been able to teach him what she did if she hadn't had him to learn from in
the first place. She saw the tenderness in him (which he hated and suppressed,
but which she was still able to see) and learned how to express it herself, and
then she taught him how to do the same. Though he considered her to be his
redemption, he was really the redemption for the both of them.

Now it was time for the great unmasking, an
event inevitable in any of her previous seductions (even pleasantly
anticipated), but it was probably avoidable. Being honest with him wasn't going
to be easy—in fact, what it amounted to was her declaration of love, though he
might not see it as such—but it was just as well. After all, she was a
masochist and a sadist. She gave as well as she received.

"Jean-Pierre," she said softly.

"Yes, darling?"

"I've something to tell you. Please, sit
down." He came to the bed, puzzled, while she crossed to her discarded
clothes and produced a cigar which she'd bought yesterday in preparation for
this event. She handed it to him. He stared at it dumbly. No matter. It was a
bad joke, anyway.

"What is it?" he asked.

She smiled. "First, tell me this: do you
love me?"

"I ... yes, I think so. I married you,
didn’t I?"

“Yes, but we never said the words.”

 
He shook
his head as if to clear away the cobwebs. "Do
you
love
me
?"

"You didn't answer my question, sweetheart.
What have I been trying to teach you these last few days? Don't be afraid of
what you feel. You were hurt once and, yes, you could be hurt again, but you're
never truly going to live until you accept yourself, feelings and all. This
means you must learn to express them when the timing's appropriate. Now’s one
of those times."

He looked at her for a long moment.
"Yes," he said finally. "Sophia, I love you."

Her heart rose into her throat. Of course, no
tears came to her eyes. Crying was something she'd never been able to do.

"Do you love me?" he said again.

"Yes," she replied honestly. "I
love you."

His hugged her, and she rejoiced in the feeling
of his hard body against her.

"Baby," she said, pushing him away
gently, "what I have to say is this: I am the daughter of the Ghensiv
Veliswa and the Werewolf Jean-Pierre."

He jerked away, and his green eyes grew dim.

“It’s true,” she said.

"My god," he murmured. "All this
time, I've been sleeping with my
daughter
!"

"Does it really matter?"

For another long moment he said nothing. Then, standing
abruptly, he lit a cigarette and started pacing. "Of course it does,
Sophia. How can you—why did you—how come you didn't tell me before? And how
could you
marry
me? Is this a joke?" He seemed to notice the cigar,
which he still held absently in his hand, and threw it to the ground.
"Christ, why didn't Veliswa ever tell me?"