Vamparazzi (38 page)

“
I'm
not the one who proposed having sex in a coffin a few minutes ago,” I replied.

“I do
not
like your friends, Daemon.” She slid off his lap and stomped away, ignoring his belated suggestion that maybe she could go get us some more drinks.

Daemon shrugged, then looked at me. “You're foka too much on the milkall deals.”

I frowned. “What?”

“You're focused too much on the medical details,” Thack translated.

“Oh.” I was surprised that Daemon had followed my rant well enough to have an opinion.

I touched the welt on my neck. “
This
was not a sexy experience for me, even if your fans enjoyed it.”

“A vampire lover,” he said seriously, making a noticeable effort to articulate clearly, “is powerful, mysterious, experienced. He dominates your will. He lives outside the rules. He is ruthless, but can be tender if—”

“He also probably has skin like ice,” I said, as the ramifications of an “undead” lover occurred to me. “I mean, he's not alive, right? Not in the normal, mortal sense of the word.”

“So his skin wouldn't be the
only
cold thing you'd notice about him,” Thack said with a startled laugh.

“You're right!” My eyes widened. “Daemon, I can assure you, after the first time you've had a cold gynecological instrument shoved up your—”

“Please rephrase that thought,” Thack said.

“Well, suffice it to say, there are certain body parts that aren't coming anywhere
near
me if they're cold,” I said firmly. “Plus—cold kisses? A cold tongue? Blegh! Wouldn't it be like kissing a reptile?”

“Thank you for yet another image that will be haunting me late into the night,” Thack said.

“I'm just not seeing it,” I said to Daemon, who was staring at me dumbfounded. “Sure, I get the metaphor. But once you really start thinking about this stuff—a vampire lover is about as erotic as serving dinner in a morgue that needs cleaning.”

“And the imagery keeps right on coming.” Thack pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

“Ohhh . . .” Daemon hunched over a little and covered his mouth with one hand. “I don't feel so good.”

“It's just barely possible,” I said without sympathy, “that you've have too much to drink.”

“I'm calling my uncle.” Thack flipped open the phone. “I can't take much more of . . . Oh, for God's sake. Of course.
That's
what's taking so long.”

“What?” I asked.

“I'm not getting a signal down here.”

“Ungh.” Daemon clutched his stomach. “I think I'm going to . . . to . . .”

“You just need some air,” Thack said to him. “Let's get out of here so I can call Wisconsin.”

“Good idea.” I was already out of my chair. “Oh, what'll we do about the bill?”

Thack eyed Daemon, who was groaning and making alarming faces. “He's a regular here. Let's tell them to put the drinks on his tab. He did most of the drinking, after all.”

I nodded. “Our waitress is still AWOL, so I'll go tell the bartender. You take the prince of night outside before he makes a mess on the floor.”

Thack nodded, then took a firm hold of Daemon's elbow and guided the groaning actor toward the stairs. I told Treat and Silent the plan. Since they were on duty, so to speak, they'd only had soft drinks; so rather than search fruitlessly for the waitress, they just threw some cash on their table and went to wait by the stairs, keeping their eyes fixed on me as I made my way to the bar. I elbowed my way through the crowd, found the bartender, and explained the situation. She said it was no problem. I got the impression that despite Daemon's character flaws, he was a reliable customer who could be trusted to cover his debts.

Eager to get outside and learn if there was any news from Vilnius yet, I quickly turned to go—and walked
right
into our long-absent waitress. She was carrying a platter loaded with dirty empties back to the bar, and she seemed to be in a hurry, too. We collided fast and hard, staggered sideways together, tripped over an empty chair, and went flying. The two of us landed in a noisy, painful clatter of breaking glass, startled shouts, and bone-cracking collision with the hard floor.

I lay there winded and in pain, thinking about how much I wished I had defied Thack and just gone home to bed. When helpful hands grasped my arms and shoulders to help me off the floor, I protested. I didn't want to get up. I just wanted to lie here until someone brought a stretcher, put me on it, and took me home.

Then someone said, “She's bleeding!”

I became aware of the stinging in my left hand, previously unnoticed because everything
else
hurt so much. I turned my head to look at it. I saw that, when landing in this painful heap, I had cut the heel of my palm on a wineglass that had shattered into large, sharp pieces.

“Oy.” I held up my quivering hand and studied it. I was lucky. If the cut had been just a half-inch lower, the broken glass would have driven into the soft tissue of my wrist and I'd need a paramedic. I groaned, cradling my hand, and let Treat and Silent haul me off the floor.

I apologized to the waitress, who was disheveled and grimacing but didn't seem to be seriously hurt. She blamed me for the accident—and was so vocally angry at me that Treat wound up speaking firmly to her while Silent folded his arms and gave her a hard stare.

While they were doing that, I looked down at my hand and realized it was really bleeding. “Damn.”

I grabbed a couple of red-and-black cocktail napkins off the bar to press against the cut.

Then I looked around and realized that I was far from the door, in an underground cellar, surrounded by strangers who self-identified as vampires; and I was
bleeding
.

“We need to go,” I said to my posse. “
Now
.”

I turned and headed for the door, feeling all eyes upon me. Quickening my footsteps, I heard my two bodyguards right behind me—and felt uncomfortably aware that they, too, considered themselves vampires.

I sure hoped those girls in the bathroom had been right about most of the “vampire community” not drinking blood. As the club's clientele all watched me make my dash for the door, my heart pounded with anxiety and I prayed that no one would try to snack on my hand.

I dashed up the steep, dark steps to exit the Vampire Cave, unnerved by the thudding footsteps of the two vamparazzi right behind me. When I emerged onto the sidewalk, I panted with relief.

Shaking a little with reaction from my painful fall, my nasty cut, and my subsequent anxiety attack, I looked around to get my bearings. Daemon was leaning against the side of the building, close to the window where the leather-gear novelty shop displayed its wares. He was clutching his stomach with one hand and his head with the other. Thack was pacing up and down the sidewalk, talking into his cell phone. Flame and Casper, hanging out by their bikes, approached when they saw me emerge from the club.

Flame immediately noticed my injured hand. “What happened, Miss Diamond?”

“I fell and cut myself.”

He looked sternly at Treat and Silent. “You allowed Miss Diamond to be injured? On
our watch?
”

“It was an accident,” I said. “I bumped into—”

“Miss Diamond's safety is our responsibility!” Flame admonished his crew. “If we can't protect her in a lowrisk environment like the Vampire Cave, how will we protect her against a real threat?”

“Actually, I just fell and—”

“If Miss Diamond falls down again, we need to be there
breaking
the fall!” Flame declared. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” said Casper.

“Yes,” said Treat. “I won't fail again.”

Silent nodded.

“Oh, it's just a cut, fellows.” Actually, in the dim light of the street lamps, I could see that the blood was seeping through the bar napkin. “Uh, has anyone got a hanky or something?”

I had left my tote bag locked inside Daemon's car with his chauffeur, rather than haul it into the club. And it only contained a few tissues, anyhow; I could tell that I needed something more substantial for this cut.

The men searched their pockets, then apologized profusely for coming up empty-handed.

“That's okay. I'll ask Thack,” I said. “Um, at ease, men.”

I walked over to my agent. His eyes widened when he saw my disheveled appearance and injured hand.

“Just a minute, Uncle Peter.” He held the phone against his chest. “What on earth has happened to you
now?
”

“Never mind. What's the news from Vilnius?”

“There
was
a vampire hunter here. A guy called Benas Novicki. Apparently he was an old hand. Very experienced.”

“And?”

“He's missing,” Thack said gravely.

“Missing?” I repeated. “For how long?”

“They're not sure. The last time they heard from him was about three months ago, when he reported that he was closing in on someone he'd been hunting for a while.”

“That's it? No more contact after that?”

“None.”

“They didn't think that was strange?”

“Not for a while,” Thack said. “Apparently hunters are better at killing vampires than they are at staying in touch with the council. Anyhow, they finally started trying to reach him couple of weeks ago. No response. He's missing.” Thack sighed and added, “Now that we've related what's happening here, he's also presumed dead. The council is sure he wouldn't drop the ball on
this
.”

“Well, isn't there another vampire hunter in town? A back-up guy?” When Thack shook his head, I demanded, “What kind of shoddy operation
is
this?”

“A fourteenth-century one,” Thack said. “And it's not as if vampire hunters are thick on the ground, Esther. Only some vampires are hunters. And there are only a few thousand vampires, after all, in a world of six billion people, so—”

“Okay, okay, I get it. Well, what are we supposed to do now?”

“That's what I'm finding out.”

Seeing that he was about to put the phone to his ear again, I said, “Wait! Do you have a handkerchief?”

He patted his breast pocket then shook his head. “Sorry.”

Thack went back to talking to his uncle, and I went over to where Daemon was leaning against the building in a stupor. I asked if he had a hanky. Lost in the throes of booze-induced dizziness and nausea, he didn't seem to hear me.

“Where's your car, Daemon? Can you call the driver?” I prodded.

He wheezed, and his eyes started watering.

“Can you hear me?” I asked. “I want my bag. And it's time to go.”

To my surprise, as I stood there trying to communicate with the inebriated actor, a police squad car pulled up to the curb. I was even more surprised when Lopez got out of the car's backseat.

He gave me an exasperated look, then leaned down to the driver's window to speak to the officers in the vehicle.

He was clean-shaven today but otherwise still looked disreputable, and his clothes were even more unexpected than last night's grubby ensemble. He was wearing waders, the sort of things that fishermen or utility workers sometimes wore: rubber boots that turned into trousers that came up to his waist, held up by suspenders.

Lopez finished speaking to the cops, then turned and came toward the spot on the sidewalk where I stood with an actor who was threatening to puke.

As a chilly breeze swept across the street, I got a distinct whiff of sewage. “What is
that?
”

Daemon sneezed, then groaned again. “My allergies. You're standing too close to me!”

“Oh. Sorry.”

I stepped away—and bumped into Lopez. He caught me by the shoulders and turned me to face him.

That's when I realized where that odor was coming from. “Oh, my God, that's
you?
”

He said tersely, in a low voice, “What part of ‘stay away from him' didn't you understand when we talked about this?”

“What is that
smell?
” Daemon moaned.

“
Fine
, I'll get farther away from you,” I said to him.

His hands still on my shoulders, Lopez said, “You aren't supposed to be near him in the first place!”

“No, not you,” Daemon said, his speech slurred, his half-closed eyes red and tearing. “It's like ... ugh, what
is
that?”

Lopez's impatient expression changed to mingled surprise and alarm when he got a good look at Daemon. “I'll stand downwind of you,” he volunteered quickly.

“Oh, no . . .” Daemon hunched over. “I think I'm going to—
Bweegggh!
”

Lopez had been wise to wear waders.

“J
esus, Mary, and Joseph!” Hauling me with him, Lopez leaped back as the liquid contents of Daemon's stomach hit the sidewalk in messy splatter. “What in God's name have you two been
doing?
”

“He's been drowning his sorrows,” I said, taking another step back as Daemon did an encore. “Now his sorrows are fighting back.”

“What are
you
doing here with him? And at a vampire club, for God's sake?”

“Miss Diamond?” Flame and Casper joined us, looking sternly at Lopez. “Do you need assistance?”

“Oh! No thanks, guys. This is a friend of mine.” I glanced at Lopez. “Are you still going by Hector Sousa?”