The Goddess and The Vampire Page 7

Chapter Six

  "THANKS FOR THE tip.” Gerald said from his spot on the couch as we entered the Vampire Consulate. “I didn't find Kilestra in Azle."

  I looked at Gerald and had to be impressed. He was covered in blood, most of it his own. His schoolboy clothes were ripped and shredded. He had several twitches he couldn't control. When he stood and walked toward us, he had a noticeable limp.

  "Did I say Azle?” I said in my all-innocent voice. "Maybe I was thinking about Venus."

  "I did find a pack of Werearmadillos." Gerald said and set his face. "Pretty nasty ones, too."

  Andy burst out laughing and I couldn't help smiling a bit myself. Jackie looked at him and let her eyebrows go up. Her face spoke as clearly as words, armadillos did this to you?

  "Armadillos are a lot tougher than they look.” Gerald said and narrowed his eyes. "This isn't over, Willy. One of the Armadillos gave me a lead. I'm going to find Kilestra and bring her to Fedor."

  "How did you manage to piss off the Armadillos?” Andy said as Gerald was limping toward the door.

  "I ran over a regular armadillo and they took offense.” Gerald said, and then winced in pain at the movement. "Happens all the time on Jacksboro Highway. And thanks for telling me about the Gravel Haulers. Those rednecks damn near killed me just for being a vampire."

  Gerald gave us all his evil eye and then left.

  "That guy has more issues than Vogue.” Jackie said and looked at the bloody floor and the stains on the couch. "I’m not cleaning up any of this blood."

  "I'll be sure to mention that.” I said and went into Fedor's office.

  I SAT DOWN in one of the green leather chairs and took a deep breath. Fedor looked at me without much interest. Before he could ask me what had happened, I heard a noise from the outer office. It was a booming voice, not gunshots, but it still sent a shock through my system. The next moment Grandfather entered Fedor's office.

  "Nice place you got here, Fedor.” Grandfather said and took in the Victorian atmosphere of Fedor's inner sanctum. "You know the '50s are over, right? And I don't mean the 1950s."

  "It's just a little reminder.” Fedor said and stared at Grandfather. "Of a more refined era."

  "Yeah, I think Dickens got all that refinement down on paper." Grandfather said and looked around. "You just need a few homeless children begging for bread crumbs to add a touch of verisimilitude."

  "What can I do for you, James?” Fedor said in a flat tone that made his English accent sound even more pretentious than usual.

  "I've moved out of the Mansion, well, just about, and I was wondering if you had some work for me.” Grandfather was wearing his black suit with a black T-shirt. He looked like a cross between a priest and a has-been rock star from the ‘60s. This was my usual fashion statement. I had to pause for a moment to wonder what I looked like to people. I shook my head, sure I looked better in this outfit than he did.

  "Do you want to help Wilhem track down people who owe me money or information?” Fedor said as he leaned back and steepled his fingers. "We can always use more Enforcers."

  "You seriously want my Grandfather to be a Code Enforcer?” I said and rubbed my eyes. "I'm not sure he's exactly right for the job."

  "Well, you’re not exactly right for the job either and I still keep you around.” Fedor said and let his eyes drift in my direction.

  "I was thinking more of the Acquisition front.” Grandfather said and sat down in the other green leather chair. "I have one of those faces that make people want to talk. I'd be good at getting Information."

  "Really?” Fedor rocked slowly in his large swivel chair. He turned his back to us and continued to rock. After a few minutes, Grandfather looked at me and raised his palms. I shook my head to say I don’t know. Fedor has never been this shy with me. I always got direct answers, whether I wanted them or not. Fedor turned around and slapped a hand on his desk.

  "Alright.” Fedor said and nodded at Grandfather as if he had found a long lost friend. "We'll give it a go. Find me some information worth having."

  After Grandfather left, I kind of stared at Fedor for a few minutes. Maybe it was time for me to let the family live more of their own lives. Well, within reason.

  "I never paid much attention to the Consulate’s information gathering side.” I said to Fedor. "Do you really think my Grandfather will be good at it?"

  "He does have one of those faces.” Fedor said and drummed his fingers on the thick leather mat that rested on his desktop. "And I think he's picked up a few vampire tricks to get people to trust him. He has been with you for a long time.

  “Most of our Intel gathering is nothing strenuous. Someone sitting in a crowded place and listening to random thoughts. Our Military Attaché, The Captain, does the serious data mining and phone tapping and all of that kind of thing. Your Grandfather has a way of making people drop their defenses and open up."

  "That's a comforting thought.” I said and waited.

  "There's still the matter of Billy.” Fedor said. "I put him in chains and probed his mind, but I couldn’t get anything out of him. Before I knew what was happening, I had let him go.”

  “You think Billy whammied you?” I said and let the shock show on my face. “Really?”

  “I’d like you to talk to him again.” Fedor said and tapped a finger on his desk. “Try and find out how he did that and how he changed the color of your car. I like the dark red better than the black by the way."

  "That was Ravenhawk's doing.” I said. "She got rid of the glow and made it red. I've been thinking of changing colors anyway."

  "So she read your mind and you got your wish.” Fedor said and raised an eyebrow at me. "How sweet that she still cares. Now go talk to Billy, and try to get something real from him this time.”

  I ROLLED BACK to the all too familiar streets of Poly. Where the surface roads are named after letters and the freeways are named after Civil Rights leaders. The roads were in pretty sad shape. The Dodge bottomed out on a couple of the dips near Billy's house.

  "Hey.” Billy said as he pulled the old glass paneled door open. "Long time no see."

  "Yeah.” I said and walked into the living room. There was now a gaming system hooked up to the flat screen. A dirty looking Were was guiding her on screen persona through a dark forest filled with waiting monsters. The Were turned around and I recognized Beth. A standard issue Goth girl. Her makeup from Alice Cooper and her short spiky hair from David Bowie. She was wearing some kind of black spandex outfit that clearly showed she wasn’t wearing anything else. She was a good old-fashioned Werecoyote and her eyes had the golden tint to prove it. I hadn’t recognized her scent due to the many competing odors in Billy’s living room.

  "Wil.” She said and crinkled her nose at me. "You smell good for a dead man."

  "Thanks.” I said and sat down on the couch next to Beth. "I heard you moved to Mexico."

  "The magic scene down there is kind of dark and creepy.” Beth said and shuddered. "So I decided to stick with what I know. Rolling drunken rednecks."

  "Didn't you have a job as a bartender one time?” Billy said and plopped down on the couch on the other side of Beth.

  "Yeah.” Beth said in a well duh voice. "Where do you think I found the rednecks?"

  "I need to talk to you about that money you gave me, Billy.” I said. I watched the screen as something jumped out at the sword-wielding hero and quickly killed him.

  "Damn.” Beth said and dropped the controller. "This game is hard."

  "I've got a bit of a cash flow problem at the moment.” Billy said and scratched his scalp through his tangle of unwashed hair. "I spent most of my money on the new place and on odds and ends like the Xbox."

  "That money you gave me the other day.” I said and leaned forward so Billy could see me around Beth. "It kind of disappeared before I could spend it."

  "What money?” Billy said and frowned. "Did I give you some money?"

  Did Billy even have a short-term memory anymore? I recapp
ed our last couple of meetings for him. He just stared at me with his forehead wrinkled.

  "That's weird, Dude.” Billy said and leaned back into the couch. "That's like major league weird."

  "Billy was down in Monterey for the last couple of weeks.” Beth said and wiggled around as she tried to help her character move faster. "I don't like to travel alone and Billy came down to share my return trip. And break me out of a pretty nasty Mexican jail."

  I was beginning to see a pattern here, but it was still kind of fuzzy and didn't want to come into focus. Beth fiddled with the game controller. She loaded a saved game and started playing again. After a few moments of yelling and body jerking, the hero was dead again. Damn, this was a tough game.

  "I've got some money.” Beth said and tossed aside the controller again. "And it's not money whipped up out of nowhere. My money is good old-fashioned paper. But it's in Pesos. It takes up most of a storage unit. If that bothers you."

  "Pesos?” I said and looked at Beth as I nodded my head. "How much space would ten grand worth of Pesos take up? Ten Grand American."

  "It’s in 100 Peso notes, so let’s see.” Beth said and stroked her dirty blonde hair as she did some mental calculations. "That would be like 140 thousand Pesos?"

  "You sure you don't have anything real in your Mom's closet?” I asked Billy as I dismissed the whole idea of hauling around a pallet load of Pesos. I turned and looked into Beth’s eyes. “Why do you have a truck load of Pesos?”

  “I have to make a delivery.” Beth said and frowned as if she didn’t want to tell me about it. “And I was just going to loan it to you, not give it to you. I’m all caught up on my Tribute for the year.”

  “Fine.” I said and tried to remember the last time I got anything of value from Beth. Nothing was coming to mind.

  "Oh yeah.” Billy said as he got up and walked to the dark wooden door that led to his Mother's room. "Let me go and look in Mom’s closet."

  Billy closed the door and I could hear his Mom yelling at him. He yelled back. I didn't listen too hard. Beth gave me a look and shook her head.

  "Billy's mom is a bitch.” Beth said and reached for the game controller again. I watched the game's hero die three or four more times. Beth beat the beast by throwing a bunch of bombs at it. She pressed buttons that brought up a bewildering array of options as she powered up a level. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. When Billy returned, he had to tap me on the shoulder to bring me back to this plane of reality.

  "I didn't have any cash.” Billy said as if it wasn’t much of a problem, and I guess for Billy, it wasn't. "But I found a couple of bags of loose diamonds."

  Billy tossed me two small velvet pouches. They felt like bean bags filled with small pebbles. I opened one of the bags and spilled the diamonds across my palm. Even in the dim light of Billy's living room, the diamonds sparkled with a fire all their own.

  "That's about all I got right now.” Billy said and yawned. "They're real. The bags of cash were just decoys to keep people from stealing my other stuff. Works every time."

  “Oh yeah.” Beth said as if she just noticed I was there. “I met this guy in Mexico who said you saved his life. He asked me to give you this.”

  Beth handed me a ring made of a dark metal with a swirling design. I recognized it as Damascus steel.

  “And he sent me a wedding ring?” I said as I held the ring where I could see it in the light. “This guy did know I’m a vampire, right?”

  “He was an Ancient or something.” Beth said with a shrug. “Who knows what those bastards are thinking?”

  I slipped the ring onto my finger and it snugged into place. I gave it a twist, but it didn’t move. I cursed and showed Beth a flash of power in my eyes. Beth’s eyebrows rose and she gave the ring a tug.

  “It looks nice.” She said and went back to her game. “Guess I can spend the Pesos now.”

  “Someone paid you a truck load of Pesos to give me this ring?” I said and turned Beth’s face toward me. “What does it do?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Beth said and tried to squirm out of my grasp. “He said you were in way over your head and this would help.”

  A few moments later I blinked my eyes. I was sitting on the sofa watching Billy and Beth explore another game location. I looked at my watch. Twenty minutes had passed. There was a kind of blank spot in my mind.

  “Have I just been sitting here?” I said and they both looked startled that I had spoken.

  “You were talking about some Elf.” Beth said and narrowed her eyes at me. “You kept telling me how much prettier she is than me. And then you pinched my ass. You left a bruise.”

  “What?” I said and shook my head. “Why would I pinch your ass?”

  “It was kind of unexpected.” Beth said and smiled at me. “But I liked it.”

  I squinted my eyes and tried to think. It wasn’t easy.

  I LEFT BILLY and Beth and headed back home. It was getting late. When I got to my small private drive, I found the black Suburban parked in my way. I parked next to it, got out, and walked over to where Raoul was sitting behind the wheel.

  "So you and the car are both in good shape now?” I said and noticed that a couple of the bullet holes had sloppy Bondo patches over them. I peered into the Suburban and saw that Raoul had a soft cast wrapped around his left leg. Raoul chewed a toothpick and curled his lip at me.

  "If I wasn't still waiting for you to give up Kilestra.” Raoul said through clenched teeth. "I'd kill you right here. In fact, if you don't tell me where I can find Kilestra, I just might kill you for the hell of it."

  "Always a pleasure.” I said and looked past Raoul to the empty passenger seat. "Where's Izumi?"

  "She's over here, Kiddo.” Grandfather said from the doorway to the access tunnel. "She’s a nice little number, isn't she?"

  "I've seen worse.” I said and walked toward the light spilling from the doorway. Izumi was standing near Grandfather. She seemed to have stopped in the middle of saying something. She had her Katana resting on Grandfather’s shoulder. She looked ready to take his head off. I stopped where I was, not sure I could flash across the distance in time to stop his execution. "Is everything alright?"

  "Oh sure.” Grandfather said and reached up and pushed the blade away from his neck. "Izumi here was just telling me what a good idea it would be to tell her if I spotted Kilestra around here."

  The light in the access tunnel was good enough for me to get a better look at Izumi. I watched as she slid the long Katana into some kind of fabric belt. It rested neatly next to her slightly shorter Wakizashi. She showed the practiced ease that comes from years of using the blades. I had no doubt that she could have killed Grandfather before I could have stopped her. But she hadn’t, so I just stared at her, instead of killing her.

  She was a couple of inches taller than me and must have weighed half as much. I like thin women, but Izumi was taking it that extra step. She was basically skin stretched tight over bone. Of course, she was some kind of a grim reaper. I guess I could count myself lucky that she had the skin. I raised my eyes to her face and she smiled at me without showing her teeth. Her flesh was all white and her eyes were all black with thick lashes like spider legs. I found that to be an interesting face. Her flowing robe flashed in front of my face and gave her the illusion of more body than she had.

  "Is that right?” I said and put some persuasion into my voice. “How are you doing, Izumi?”

  "No need for that, Master Walengrave.” Izumi said and floated away from Grandfather like a cloud on a warm night. She glided back toward the Suburban. "Your Ojiisan and I, were just, you know, talking."

  "Talking?” Raoul yelled as he struggled to get out of the Suburban. "You were supposed to be putting the screws to him. Twisting his arm. Threatening to break his fucking neck. Do I have to do all the heavy lifting?"

  Raoul limped forward and pulled out a pistol. It was a CZ 75b. I read way too many of Andy’s gun magazines. He pointed it at Grand
father. I flashed forward and swept Raoul’s good leg out from under him. He lost his grip on the gun as he fell. He yelled out in pain as his injured leg bounced against the pavement. He scrambled to reach for the automatic. Izumi stepped forward and put her bony foot on it.

  "Hey, be careful with that.” Raoul said and looked up at Izumi in confusion. "That thing cost me $700, plus I had to buy special anti-Vampire ammo.”

  "You do know aftermarket stuff like that will void your warranty.” Izumi said as she scooped up the CZ 75b and tested its weight in her skeletal hand. "It is a good weapon. I've used them from time to time. I've had the opportunity to take them off the bodies of Special Forces personnel. I resell them in the Night Markets."

  Raoul crawled to his feet and rubbed the back of his head. He limped back to the Suburban and leaned against the front fender. He gave both Izumi and me a hard look as he curled his lip and squinted his eyes. He didn’t look happy.

  "All we want is to find Kilestra.” Izumi said as she guided Raoul around to the car’s passenger side. "This isn't personal. It's just business."

  “But it’s getting personal.” Raoul said as he opened the door to the Suburban. He took his gun from Izumi and re-holstered it. “Next time I’ll be the one doing the talking and Izumi will be the one waiting in the fucking car.”

  Grandfather walked over and stood next to me. We watched as Izumi and Raoul drove off. Raoul gave us the finger and yelled something in Spanish, which I'm pretty sure wasn’t flattering.

  "I think that girl has the hots for me.” Grandfather said and poked me in the side with his elbow. "And can she talk. She said they have their cover story in place, whatever that means."

  “She had a sword to your throat.” I said and stared at him.

  “Yeah, she was showing me her Katana.” Grandfather said and nodded. “It’s a beauty. Made by some Master that’s been dead for a couple of thousand years. It was singing to me. Gotta love magic swords.”

  "Did you find out why they want Kilestra?” I said and tried not to think about what a magical sword would do to my tender vampire flesh.

  "No.” Grandfather said and put a finger to his lips. "But I'm a Collector now. If I did know, you’d have to pay for it."

  “Yeah.” I said and let my thoughts wander for a moment.

  "Izumi said they killed some Vampire in Monterey before they got the call to come here." Grandfather said and tilted his head at me.

  "Monterey?” I said and felt a tingle from the ring on my finger. "They killed an Ancient?”

  “Sanctioned Kill Order.” Grandfather said as he looked up from his phone. “There’s no name listed though. Kind of odd. No photo either.”

  There was a fuzzy ringing in the back of my head. A moment later, I couldn’t recall what, exactly, we had been talking about.

  BACK IN MY rooms, I held Grandfather in my strong embrace and sank my fangs into his neck. I took just enough to hold me through the rest of the night. I released him and looked into his old eyes. He smiled that slightly stoned smile that comes from years of being a Chosen and patted me on the cheek.

  "I know Sally thinks you are abusing us.” Grandfather said and looked tenderly at me. "Sometimes I have doubts myself. But it is better than the alternative.”

  "I think so.” I said and guided him to his temporary quarters.

  I’M NOT MUCH of a Seer, visions of mad Goddesses notwithstanding. But I can do a bit of reading of the recent past. It’s a Power I stole about a hundred years ago. It’s not a great skill, I can only see people I know and I tend to get just flashes. Like all such skills, it would improve if I used it more, but I never seemed to have the time.

  Off the Common room are two smaller rooms that were closets of some sort when I got the house. One had a nice little air shaft that was easy enough to run a stove pipe through. The room is small. With just enough room for a stool and an old Franklin stove. Its dark open face was perfect for staring into the flames and getting a nice whiff of wood smoke.

  I started a small fire, sat with my back against the wall, and watched the flames dance. I let my thoughts drift to Kilestra and a vision took form from recent echoes.

  I see her in a long dark hallway. It's on the upper floors in Carlo's home. Kilestra takes a turn and heads into a large room filled with books and tables. The windows are old style, small with panes of glass in a metal frame. Several of the crank driven windows are open at odd angles. The noises of downtown Fort Worth drifted in with the cool of the night. Kilestra looks around the room and walks purposefully toward the far wall of bookcases.

  Kilestra keeps to the shadows as she moves through the room. I take a deep breath as my vision self feels someone else enter the room. Kilestra turns instantly and sees Fredric standing there. There’s no point in trying to hide from another vampire. Kilestra just stares at Fredric. But Fredric ignores her. He walks up to one of the tables, and sits down. There’s a large book with latched hinges keeping it closed. He says something and the latches pop open. He flips through the pages of the large book. I can see the page he stops on is filled with glowing illuminated characters. His face has the look of an old style horror movie with harsh shadows in all the wrong places.

  The flames flicker madly and the scene has changed.

  Kilestra is leaving the Jangling Spurs’s back room. She has that large book Frederic had been reading cradled in one arm. She was swinging a duffle bag with the other hand. She gives the hallways a quick scan and then flashes through a shadow and out of sight.

  I try to guide the vision back into the club’s office. I wanted to see if Fredric was alive or dead. See if his head was still attached to his body or if maybe Kilestra was carrying it around in a bag. The vision faded and I was left to ponder the possibility that Kilestra had killed Fredric.

  I looked at the clock and saw that it was almost sunrise. I walked over to my crypt. I lay down and closed my eyes. I waited a few minutes, and then I was dead to the world.