Vamparazzi (46 page)

When the bricks finally stopped falling and I stopped screaming in hysterical terror, I was alone, in the dark, with the exit to the Hamburg sealed off by an immense pile of ruined masonry.

Behind me, trapped somewhere else in this tunnel with me, she screamed again.

F
or a moment, lying in absolute darkness, dazed, coughing, my head still reeling from the noise of the cave-in, and utterly alone except for those mad, terrified screams bouncing off the curved brick walls all around me, I thought I had died and gone to hell.

Then I started to pull myself together.

I felt something sharp poking me painfully in my breast, and I remembered that I had stuffed Tarr's little key-chain flashlight into my bodice. I pulled it out, flicked the switch—and could have wept with relief when it worked. As soon as the tunnel was illuminated, my surroundings—though eerie—started to settle into a normal, prosaic pattern.

Being able to
see
again calmed me down enough to start thinking rationally about other things.

I realized that Mad Rachel must be the woman I'd heard screaming—and, knowing her, she was simply having a hysterical reaction to the frightening, implosive thunder of the cave-in.

If she was up ahead in this tunnel, then so were my other colleagues. I just needed to catch up to them. And then we would find an exit.

Now that I had survived the cave-in, the thick barrier of brick, rock, mortar, dirt, and sediment behind me mostly meant that I didn't have to keep running from vamparazzi or vampire hunters now. And getting away from them had been the point of coming down here, after all.

So I felt calm, collected, and optimistic as I painfully scraped myself off the wet tunnel floor and examined myself for injuries. I was scraped and bleeding in a few places, and feeling twinges of pain in others; but there was no serious damage.

Well, not to
me.
My costume was another matter. No amount of cleaning and ironing would ever make this dress presentable again. It was utterly filthy and in tatters.

I felt some anxiety about Fiona's reaction when she saw it; but, after all, it wasn't as if I had
planned
to be caught in an underground cave-in while wearing my costume. Sometimes these things just happen.

To me, anyhow.

Poor Leischneudel! He didn't have a flashlight, he must be all alone wherever he was,
and
he was claustrophobic. I needed to get out of here quickly so I could call Lopez. He seemed to know this underground area well, so he'd come up with a good search strategy if Leischneudel hadn't emerged by then. We needed to get him
out
of the tunnels.

I started walking ahead, relieved that my limbs were in good working order. Still, I wouldn't catch up to my colleagues unless I sprinted, so I'd better see if I could get them to wait for me.

“Hello?” I called. Then louder.
“Hello?”

Rachel screamed her head off. For the first time since meeting her, I found that a reassuring sound.

“Esther!” she shrieked. “
Esther!
Is that you?”

I waited for the echo to stop bouncing off the walls. Then I responded.

“Yes! Can you guys wait for me?”

“Esther!” she screamed.
“He's mrgh vrungh oong!”

“What?”

“Esther?” Tarr called. “Are you okay? Did you
hear
that before?”

More bouncing echoes.

“Cave-in!” I called. “I'm fine, but Leischneudel and I got separated! Wait up! I'm coming!”

“Okay!”

“Esther!”
Rachel screamed.
“Hurry!”

Yeah, yeah, whatever.

Since I was sloshing through water, on uneven ground, in shoes that were never intended for this sort of thing, it seemed as if I walked a long way, though it was probably not more than two hundred yards.

Mad Rachel was weeping and wailing hysterically now, howling inarticulate pleas, and babbling nonsense syllables. The noise floated and echoed eerily through the dark tunnel as my feeble little light guided me through the murky gloom of this old, abandoned, forgotten place ... until I reached what seemed to be some sort of underground intersection.

There was a wide, high-ceilinged chamber, and the tunnel I was emerging from was one of three that met here, all coming from different directions. I smelled dirty water, wet old brick and cement, rotting garbage, a hint of sulfur ... and also a strong whiff of sewage.

I choked a little, hoping the air quality wouldn't get any worse before we found a way out of this system.

I flashed my little light around, wondering which way to go from here. Rachel's sobbing seemed very close now, almost as if I should be able to reach out and touch her. I was about to call out to my colleagues when I was startled to see Rachel appear in the beam of my light.

What was she doing weeping here alone in the dark? Had the men
abandoned
her? I could understand the temptation, but it didn't seem likely.

She was sitting on a stony protrusion that had been worn smooth and shiny with time and erosion. Her gown was wet and filthy, though not as tattered as mine. Her eye makeup had turned into dark, thick, ugly streaks that flowed down her puffy, weeping face. She rocked back and forth, sobbing brokenheartedly, her eyes squeezed shut, apparently not even aware that I had emerged from the tunnel and was shining my light on her face.

Unnerved by the sight of her huddled alone in the stygian darkness, wailing inconsolably, I flicked my light around the room—and fell back a step and gasped when I saw Tarr, standing perfectly still just a few feet away from me in the dark, staring at me in silence.

“Jesus, you scared me!” I snapped.

“Esther!”
Rachel stood up and stumbled through the water, which was deeper here than it had been in the tunnel, to reach me. She flung herself against me, making me stagger, shrieking and sobbing.

Trying to hold Rachel away with one hand, I shone the feeble light around the chamber, looking for Victor, Daemon, and Bill. There was no sign of them. Which explained why mine was the only light here.

Raising my voice to be heard above Rachel's noisy sobbing as she clung insistently to me, I asked Tarr, “Where's everyone else?”

“They went the other way.” He nodded in the direction from which I had just come.

I didn't understand. “Why did you guys split up?”

“I came this way on my own.” He shook his head and looked at Rachel in exasperation. “She followed me. I didn't ask her to.”

Rachel howled louder.

Oh, great. I was stuck down here with the only two people I knew who could make me think fondly of Daemon's company, by comparison. He, Bill, Victor, and Leischneudel were probably all discovering an exit and going topside right now, even as I remained lost underground with Rachel weeping hysterically on my shoulder and Tarr—I could have sworn it—ogling my tattered neckline.

I was about to suggest we proceed and search for a way out of here when Tarr suddenly grabbed Rachel by the hair,
yanked
her away from me while she howled in pain and clutched her head, and then
threw
her across the chamber. With much more raw strength than I would have suspected he possessed.

Rachel screamed loudly, then started crawling through the water on her hands and knees, scrambling to get farther away from Tarr.

I shouted at him, “Have you gone
insane?
”

“She's just so
noisy
,” he said wearily.

Rachel screeched, “He's going to kill us!”

“Shut the fuck
up!
” Tarr's shout startled me so much I nearly dropped the light.

Rachel curled up into a ball and started rocking back and forth again, sobbing with her eyes squeezed shut.

“All right, you need to calm down,” I said sharply to Tarr, horrified by his behavior—and more than a little scared.

“I'm hungry,” he said casually. “It's making me cranky.”

“It's making you
nuts
,” I snapped. “Don't touch her again!”

“You
are
a tough one,” he said with admiration. “I've liked that about you since we met.”

“Let's get out of here,” I said coldly.

“He's gonna kill us!” Rachel shrieked at me. “Don't you
get
it? He's going to kill us!”

“Of course he's not,” I said firmly to her. I looked at Al again. “Er, right?”

“Well,
her
I'm going to kill,” he said matter-of-factly. “But you and me . . . we could work something out.”

I studied his face to see if this was another of his tasteless jokes—gone
way
too far in this case. But he wasn't grinning now. His shadowed face was relaxed but humorless.

“What do you
mean
you're going to kill her?” I demanded.

“I didn't ask her to come. In fact, I told her not to. But she followed me instead of going with them.” He shrugged. “I could eat.”

My head was spinning. I wondered if a rock had hit it during the cave-in and I just didn't realize it. My eyes were stinging from the foul air, and my throat was starting to itch. There was a disgusting taste in my mouth.

“Oh, my God,” I said slowly, feeling cold shoot through my bones. “
You
killed Angeline.”

“I don't really want to kill
you,
” he said. “I like you.”

“I'm
so
flattered.”

“You and me, we could have some fun together.”

“No, we couldn't.”

“I thought for sure you'd stick with the others. I didn't expect to see you here. And I don't really
want
to drink you.” He grinned. “Well, okay, maybe I want it a
little.
”

“A vampire lurking at the Hamburg,” I said, trying not to let him see how much his words frightened me. “And plenty of access to Daemon's dressing room. You've been pilfering his blood supply since you started hanging around.”

I also realized now why Nelli had sneezed so much in Daemon's room; Tarr had been there.

“You know, it's funny—even Daemon's
blood
tastes phony.” Tarr guffawed and added, “Oh, this is even funnier. He's so stuck on himself, he thought the blood was disappearing because the cast and crew were sneaking ‘personal mementos' of working with him. What an
asshole.
”

I thought it would be unwise to comment on the irony of Tarr's assessment. I said, “You know your way around underground, so you thought you could get away from the vampire hunters once we came down here tonight.”

“Hey, you really impressed me with that one, Esther.” He sounded almost flirtatious. “I mean, whoa! I had no
idea
that entrance was there! This whole area here is new to me.”

“You turned the opposite way and tried to go off on your own when everyone entered this tunnel because you know what a Lithuanian vampire hunter is—what he's capable of,” I said. “You knew he'd recover, track us, and catch up. And you didn't want to be with the rest of us when he did.”

“You don't mess around with a vampire hunter, toots,” he said. “They're serious business.”

“I'm told they also err on the side of thoroughness. Let's say Edvardas does kill Daemon, just to be on the safe side, since you've worked so hard to smear him for Angeline's death,” I said. “Do you really think a
vampire hunter
will just get on a plane and go back to Vilnius then? Come on, Al. Do you imagine he'll be gullible enough to believe that
Daemon
killed Benas Novicki?”

Certainly not after the way Daemon had cowered, flailed, and wailed “I'm an actor” in response to Edvardas' attack.

Tarr drew in a sharp breath. “How the fuck do you know about Novicki?”

My supposition was now certainty. “I know that Novicki was murdered by the same vampire who killed Angeline and two local urban explorers.”

“Hey, what's with that tone, kiddo?” he said in a cajoling voice. “I'm just following the natural instincts of a predator. No reason to go all judgmental on me.”

“
Al,
” I said in exasperation. “You're a
murderer!
In fact, you're a serial killer!” And I was trapped underground with him, and nobody knew it.

“Oh, come on,” Tarr said. “People wander around beneath the city in tunnels and vaults that haven't been used in a hundred years. What do they
think
is gonna happen to them?”

“Probably they
weren't
thinking they'd be eaten by a vampire,” I said coldly.

“They got what they deserved.”

“And what did Angeline deserve?” I said angrily.

“Don't try to pretend you're grieving for
her,
” he said.

“Why did you kill her?” I demanded.

“I was hungry.” His tone suggested I was slow on the uptake. “Look, she bothered me at work around four in the morning to tell me she had a hot scoop about Daemon, so I met her—”

“Why haven't the cops traced that?”

“Prepaid cell. I got rid of it.”

Four in the morning. Dead time. No one knew Tarr had left the
Exposé
building, and no one saw him or Angeline.

He said with disgust, “Her ‘scoop' just turned out to be some time-wasting bullshit she was making up as she went along because she was mad that Daemon kicked her out.”

So that's what happened after she was last seen by witnesses. Following through on her threat to Daemon to ‘expose' him, she connected with Tarr, the nosy tabloid reporter she'd met in Daemon's car. “Jesus, Al, she didn't deserve to die for wasting your time!”