The Wages of Sin (Blood Brothers Vampire Series Book Two) (7 page)

“You told him I was coming?”

“No. I told him you had been here.”

“I told you not to mention me.”

“That… is not exactly what you said.”

“So he came in, you told him I was coming for him,
he left early.”

“You’re really twisting this to make it sound like
it’s my fault.”

CLACK!

After putting one staple in Clyde’s shoulder, which
the little pissant cried over like an eight-year-old getting her
nipple pierced, Horace resigned himself to meeting this Doug
character tomorrow and stepped out into the Las Vegas night. He’d
gotten into his car and driven a couple blocks when a voice came
from the backseat.

“You’re looking for Thor? Douglas Thor?”

Horace grabbed for the staple gun, which he’d set on
the passenger seat a moment ago, but it wasn’t there.

“Who are you?” he asked, still more calm than anyone
ought to have been under the circumstances.

“Nobody worth mentioning,” said the stranger, who
happened to be an ancient vampire and a wanted serial killer known
nationally as the Wandering Butcher, “but I can confirm for you
that he’s the guy you’re looking for.”

“Yeah, what do you know?” Horace watched the rear
view mirror, trying to get a look at the stranger in the back seat
whenever a little light found its way into the vehicle.

“A woman named Samantha was murdered recently.
You’re looking for the guy who pulled the trigger on her—or ripped
her neck open, more specifically. I’m telling you Thor’s your
guy.”

This was the point in the Hollywood movie where the
hero drives his car into a wall at forty miles an hour, narrowly
saved by his seatbelt and airbag, and the bad guy flies through the
windshield and explodes like a water balloon. Problem was, Horace
wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and for all he knew the guy in the
backseat was. Still, he considered putting his seatbelt on as
quickly as possible and taking a chance on the crash.

“I think you’d better tell me who you are, guy. Me
and the police are the only ones supposed to know about the neck
wound, so whatever you’ve got to do with this, you better come
clean now or there are gonna be problems between you and me.”

“Don’t talk tough, please. Badgering an informant is
bad form.”

“How do I know you’re not him? Maybe you ducked out
of the club just before I came in, now you’re posing as somebody
else to throw me off the trail or take me somewhere quiet and kill
me.”

“Don’t be an idiot. The parking lot was quiet, I
could have killed you there. I could kill you at a stoplight and
get out of the car—this is Vegas. I told you Thor’s your man. I can
tell you where to find him. Or you can run this car off the road,
kill us both, and never get closure. Your call.”

Horace weighed his options. He relaxed his hands on
the steering wheel and let off the gas a little.

“How do you know this Thor guy killed her?”

“It’s kind of a hobby of mine. I watch certain
people and I fuck with them. You ever heard of a bar called The
Chupacabra?”

“No.”

“It opened tonight. It’s owned by a guy named Jack
Loki. Thor’s a partner. You go look in the tabloid newspapers,
you’ll find plenty about these guys. They call themselves the Blood
Brothers. They think they’re vampires. Thor hangs around clubs at
night, he seduces girls, and he drinks their blood. Sick fuck,
right?”

“That’s it? No motive at all? Just to drink her
blood?”

“Technically that’s a motive, but let’s not split
hairs.”

“So my daughter’s dead because of some kid who’s
seen too many movies and thinks he’s Bela Lugosi?”

“Kiefer Sutherland’s probably more like it, but I
guess you’re an older fella.”

“Tell me where to find him.”

At a pawn shop specializing in guns and knives,
Horace asked the clerk if he had anything with a silver blade on
it. It was an idea the Butcher had planted in his mind, but Horace
needed a weapon anyway, something better than a staple gun. You
could kill somebody with that thing but it would be a long and
messy process, like skinning a deer with a pair of pliers.

There were likely to be at least two people in the
house, both of whom liked to pretend they were vampires and drink
people’s blood according to the guy in the car. That sounded like a
lot of excitement to handle with a staple gun. He thought of buying
a handgun, but killing somebody on the same night you buy a gun is
an easy way to get caught and Horace had always been a lousy shot
anyway.

So a knife it was, and if they had a silver one then
so much the better.

Either by astonishing coincidence or, more likely,
by orchestration on the part of the Butcher, there was a silver
knife with a six-inch blade in stock and the shopkeeper wanted a
hundred and fifty bucks for it.

“Sold,” said Horace.

“So why silver?” asked the shopkeeper, putting the
weapon in its wooden box. “Hunting werewolves?”

“Vampires.”

“Oh right. Werewolves are just the bullets,
right?”

“Huh?”

“Silver bullets?”

“I don’t know. Everybody’s a goddamn horror movie
expert tonight.”

When Horace got back out to his car, the Butcher had
disappeared, but by now he’d been told how to get to Thor’s house
and he had his new knife. He didn’t need the stranger’s help
anymore.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Jewel sat in the car biting her nails and shifting
in her seat. She’d read articles about Loki in a few tabloids after
going through Jonathan’s e-mails and had to grant the similarities
to the story Jonathan had told her. A criminal who claims to be a
vampire. A club opening in Las Vegas.

She’d spent a long time doubting everything Jonathan
had told her, but somewhere in her mind there was a glimmer of
possibility that Jonathan was telling the truth. She just wanted to
get a look at Jack Loki, the man who had presumably kidnapped her
lover and led her life into shambles. She didn’t think she had it
in her to confront him, but she wanted to see his face.
Nonetheless, she found herself sitting in the car too terrified to
enter the building. She didn’t know what she was scared of
specifically. She could think of no reason entering the club would
put her in danger, but she had trouble convincing herself to get
out of the car and walk in.

It is a sad fact of human life that people live
their lives in perpetual mundanity, which becomes the only state in
which they are comfortable. For this reason, they become anxious in
circumstances where any significant thing, good or bad, has the
potential to happen.

“Well if you’re gonna do it, do it. Otherwise go
home,” she told herself.

She’d been sitting in the car for almost an hour now
watching young people strut in and stumble out. There was loud
music and a big crowd and clearly a dangerous supply of alcohol.
Somewhere inside was a guy named Jack Loki who might have kidnapped
a struggling writer and forced him to write a book about
vampires.

Jewel got out of the car and shut the door, doing
her best to steady her heart rate. All she was doing was taking a
peak, after all, and she was a black woman from Idaho. There’d been
bigger villains in her life than vampires.

At a table on a far end of the club, Jonathan was
sitting with a big man whose back was to Jewel, and who had a tiny
white girl sitting in his lap with her hands all over him.

Jewel froze. She’d wanted to get a look at Loki, but
she hadn’t prepared herself for the possibility of seeing Jonathan
here. In her mind she saw herself running to him and embracing him,
or throwing a drink in his face and demanding he explain himself.
Then she thought of running to get the police in case there was
truth to the story she’d dismissed as bullshit.

Before she’d made up her mind, Jonathan made eye
contact with her and his eyelids retreated into his brain. He
became paralyzed for a moment, then seemed to gesture for her to
leave. As she debated whether to obey, the big man at the table
turned and looked at her.

He was mildly frightening, but mostly because of his
size. His face was one of tremendous confidence and charisma. He
smiled and waved his hand, inviting her to join them.

Her decision wasn’t one that came easily, and in
some parallel universe she ran for the door and found a group of
cops across the street and they rushed to her side and detained
Jack Loki and Jonathan thanked her profusely and everything was
hunky-dory for the rest of their lives. Unfortunately, Jewel didn’t
live in a parallel universe. She lived in the universe where she
walked over to Jonathan’s and Loki’s table and took a seat with
them.

“So who is this?” Loki asked Jonathan.

“Uh…”

“
I’m his
girlfriend.
Was
his girlfriend, till he vanished.”

“Ah. From what I understand, writers have a tendency
to do that.” Loki shot a look to Jonathan, who swallowed.

“You’re Jack Loki?” asked Jewel.

“That I am, little lady. And who might you be?”

“Jewel.” She shook his hand, not taking her eyes off
his.

“Vivienne,” said Vivienne, not wanting to be left
out of the conversation, but everyone ignored her all the same.

“You know, Jonathan has told me so very little about
you,” said Loki. “Shockingly little. Nothing at all, as a matter of
fact.”

“Jewel and I dated back in Idaho before I came
here,” Jonathan said a little too anxiously. “Idaho’s awful,
there’s not much worth talking about in that section of my life.
What brings you to Vegas, Jewel?”

“She lives here,” said Loki. “You ought to know
that. You lived here with her.”

“This bitch? Never.”

Jewel looked hurt and furious. Vivienne looked at
Jonathan like he was the biggest prick she’d ever met, as though
she had the faintest idea who any of these people were or what was
going on.

Loki giggled. “He’s trying to upset you so you’ll
leave the table. He thinks it’s safer for you that way.”

“Hm. I see. So you’re the perceptive type.”

“I am, as a matter of fact. How sweet of you to
notice.”

“You can just see through everybody,” said Vivienne
affectionately. Loki was sick of her already.

“Just go, Jewel,” said Jonathan.

“I’m not afraid of vampires.”

“So few of you are. That’s your tragedy.”

“How do you know each other?” asked Jewel.

“He’s writing a book about me. Or did you already
know that?” Loki looked back and forth between them.

Jewel didn’t answer.

“E-mail,” said Loki. He grinned a little. “Vivienne,
go get us a shot of something, will you?”

Vivienne stood up with a smile and left the
table.

“So what do I have to expect?” Loki asked the two of
them. “Cops? Friends with guns? Camera crews? Crosses? Garlic? Holy
water? What have you got?”

Jewel shifted in her seat. She found she suddenly
believed every word Jonathan had written and would have felt awful
for the things she’d written back were she not absolutely
terrified.

“There’s nothing, is there? You thought of notifying
somebody but you decided you were big and strong enough to handle
it on your own and now that you’re here you’re not so sure. And
Jonathan over here knows you’re not. He wishes you’d just get up
and run, but that’s not going to happen. You’re too frightened to
do it, and with good reason.”

“Let her go, Loki. We don’t even talk anymore. As
long as you’ve got me, she’ll keep quiet.”

“I don’t think she will. I think you earned yourself
a cellmate. I bet you write better when you’re writing for two
lives instead of one.”

“Let me go,” said Jewel quietly. “I won’t talk.”

“You will though. I’m good at gauging that sort of
thing.” He was. And she would have.

“If you touch me I’ll scream,” said Jewel. This was
something humans said to scare other humans who were afraid of
attention. Its effects were stronger on men who had killed fewer
than sixty thousand people.

“I won’t touch you. You just come with us when we
leave and I’ll never even have to get within six inches of
you.”

“Run, Jewel. Just run.”

Loki laughed. “Don’t listen to this joker. He’s
talking crazy.”

About that time Vivienne came back to the table with
four shot-glasses full of something or other.

“What did I miss?” she asked.

“I think we’re all getting ready to head back to my
place,” said Loki. “Aren’t we?”

Jonathan and Jewel said nothing.

“Can I come?” asked Vivienne.

“Of course you may,” said Loki. “Let’s drink a toast
to new friends and get the hell out of here.”

And though Vivienne was the only one of the five who
knew what they were drinking, nobody drank quite as eagerly as
Jonathan.

Thor arrived back at The Chupacabra as Loki and
Jonathan were coming out the door with Vivienne and a cute black
woman.

“Heading out?” asked Thor, doing his best to hide
his intent to ditch his Brothers and leave town as soon as the big
guy with the staple gun was dead.

“Yeah we’re beat,” said Loki. “Hey, this is Jewel.
Turns out Jonathan’s had a girlfriend all this time none of us knew
about.”

“That so?”

Jesus. Things kept getting worse.

“Jewel, this is Thor,” said Loki. “He’s the nice
one.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said unconvincingly.
Jonathan had his arms wrapped around her and she was cowering
against his chest. He kept whispering in her ear, telling her to
run, but she wouldn’t do it.

“Vivienne, honey, there you are. You disappeared in
there. I couldn’t find you,” said some girl out front who had
similarly blonde hair cut shorter than Vivienne’s and sharper edges
on her face. “I should take you home. It’s really late. Mom’ll be
upset.”