I currently operated under the name of Lawrence Church – I no longer use this name so I do not mind mentioning it – and I had planned on remaining in the city for only a couple of days, but delays in the arrangements of the sale kept me longer than anticipated. I had taken up residence in a fourth floor room of one of the city’s finer hotels and paid a rather handsome sum to the daytime manager to be sure I would never be disturbed during daylight hours. I would have preferred a less public place to stay, but as I was conducting business in town I needed to keep up appearances with the persona I was using. I did not trust the bed since it lay directly next to a window covered with only the flimsiest of curtains, so I closed the bathroom door and built myself a nest of pillows and sheets in the bathtub. Curled tightly in a hard porcelain tub is not the most dignified manner of sleeping, however it did keep me properly shielded from the sun, and that was the most important thing.
One particular night, I decided I had spent enough time cooped up in that cramped hotel room and I decided to prowl the nearby piers for any unlucky vagrant that may have been caught out in the torrential rain. I hunted until early morning before choosing a victim, spending most of the night running or walking through the alleys and docks simply for the joy of being outside skulking through the dismal grey atmosphere. When I finally decided to feed it was much too late and I was too far from the hotel to make it safely back before daylight. I was not overly concerned with my situation. The city of San Francisco was familiar to me and I knew of several available places to go to ground nearby. I selected an underground storage room beneath an abandoned machine shop. I did not own the property, but I knew the actual owners were in the midst of several legal battles that kept the shop closed and inactive, making it a reasonably safe location to hide.
I made entry into the machine shop through a broken window, remembering to bite my cheek and spit a small amount of blood just outside the building as Andi had shown me so long ago. This was the vampire equivalent of a “Please Do Not Disturb” sign. Although if another vampire chose to ignore the warning there wasn’t much I could do about it, except maybe go running out the back door and look for a new place to hide. The likelihood of that was slight though. The blood scent typically worked since, like myself, most of my kind did not seem to seek out unnecessary confrontations.
Once inside, I made my way to the spacious but windowless storage room I had discovered on previous visits to the location. The single metal door that led from the main workspace into the underground room was easily securable from the inside and, after making sure that I would not have any unexpected visitors accidentally barging in on me, I settled myself into a dark corner to pass the day. As I let my consciousness ebb, I was at the time unaware that my impromptu decision to forgo my hotel room would prove to be a fortunate turn of luck for me.
The following evening I roamed the piers a few more hours as a tourist. The rain did not fall that night, though the clouds remained threatening, so there were many more visitors and locals moving about area. Not wishing to return to my hotel right away, I wandered into a clothing retail outlet and ditched the wet wrinkled outfit I had worn the past two nights for new jeans, a t-shirt, and a fleece-lined, tan leather jacket that had caught my eye from a display rack. I kept my sneakers although they squished a little from the water they had soaked up the night before. Looking less like a vagrant in my new, dry clothing, I was free to move among the pedestrians on the pier without drawing unwanted attention to myself.
It was late when I at last decided to return to my hotel. A glance at my watch as I rode the elevator up to my floor showed five minutes before one o’clock. Upon arriving at my room, I used my card key to let myself in and was met with an unpleasant surprise.
A quick glance around showed me that my room had been thoroughly ransacked. All of my possessions had been rifled through and tossed about. Every drawer had been pulled out of the dresser and dropped onto the floor, and even the mattress on the bed had been flipped off of its box springs. Stalking through the room, I fumed at the violation of my privacy. I tried to calm down enough to assess the extent of the damage, and surprisingly, as I looked around more carefully, nothing appeared to actually be broken. I did not see anything obviously missing, either.
However, on closer inspection I could see that everything I owned was wet. Not sodden like my possessions had been dunked in a bucket, but still thoroughly covered as if all my stuff had been laid out across the floor and small cups of water or other liquid had been systematically tossed over it. I picked one of my shirts up off of the floor to inspect it more closely, and as the bare skin of my hand touched the damp material a fiery pain raced up my arm. Like touching an open flame, the pain did not grow slowly but flared instantly, without warning, into full glory. I dropped the shirt and jumped a step backwards, shaking my stinging hand and muttering a startled oath. But the damage was done. Something clung to my skin like napalm, burning into my flesh.
I dashed for the bathroom, thrust my damaged hand into the sink and turned on the cold water knob as far as it would go. The burning eased and the pain subsided to a dull ache. When the throbbing at last began to fade, I removed my hand from under the flow of water and noted with shock the red blisters forming on my palm. The liquid had burned me like concentrated acid, although everything else it touched in the room seemed unharmed.
Panic flushed through me, leaving a sick knot in the pit of my stomach. If my heart could beat, it would have been racing as the realization struck me that I was in serious trouble. Whoever had entered my room knew what I was and they knew how to hurt me. A liquid that burned only me and left all else unaffected was too specific to be anything but a directed assault. My first impulse was to run from the room, leave the city and never look back; but I held my ground and forced myself to think rationally. If I could not figure out the nature of this threat, I could not nullify it. If I couldn’t nullify it, it could find me again, and maybe the next time I would not be so lucky as to be away from home when it came for me. I knew my current identity was compromised and I would have to abandon it, but I also had to consider carefully what I possessed in my room that might put other aliases equally at risk. I mentally cataloged what I had packed and brought with me for this trip. Item by item I compared the list in my head with the items I saw around me, though I touched nothing else in the room as I didn’t want to get burned a second time. When I had reassured myself to the best of my ability that only Lawrence Church was threatened I backed out of the room – carefully placing every step to minimize any contact with the toxic mess – and tried to figure out what my next move should be.
Standing in the hallway and looking back through my open doorway, I could see that whatever had been sprayed throughout the room to hurt me had been applied to all of my possessions as well as any of the areas that I was likely to touch or settle down upon. My clothes and my luggage were covered, and the bed sheets and furniture had been doused. Whoever my attacker was, he or she had been thorough. In my favor, there was so much of the liquid everywhere that whoever had been scattering it about my room had more than likely gotten the stuff on themselves, or at minimum they had walked through puddles of it. That meant the liquid was on their shoes.
At least, I hoped it was.
The hallway outside my room ran east toward the elevators and west to several additional rooms. The floor of the passageway was covered with a short, tight-weaved carpet that was designed to show minimal wear in high traffic areas. Even my sharp eyes could not distinguish any recent footprints leading away from my room from the general wear in the carpet pattern. With a grimace, I dropped to my knees and lay my palms flat along the floor, then began crawling slowly east toward the elevators. Tentatively, I inched forward, sweeping my hands along the short fibers of the carpet.
Nothing.
I turned around and repeated the same motions toward the west. This time, as I made my way past the door of my room, my hand passed over a damp spot in the rug leaving
me with the sensation of brushing bare skin across a red-hot coal. I flinched back, reflexively wiping my hand dry on my shirt. New blisters rose on the already throbbing palm of my hand, but at least now I knew that my attacker had passed this way.
Praying my enemy had taken the time to get close to me before attacking, I followed the path they had left by the burning touch of their trail. Moving on hands and knees I swept my palms back and forth across the carpet’s surface seeking evidence of his passage. Tears rose to my eyes from the continued torture I forced upon myself, but I persevered. I had to. Every blazing touch compounded the pain from the previous contact, but I told myself the agony was the price I needed to pay to stay alive. Even so, each time I was burned, it took me a little bit longer to convince myself to put my hands back down and keep moving. But I did keep moving. Thankfully, as I had hoped, the trail led only a few doors down from my own room. A light touch on the doorknob and another shock of searing heat told me I had the right place.
My first impulse was to kick the door in and confront anyone who might still be in the room. A moment of rational thought, however dispelled that urge. Whoever might be inside knew who and what I was. They would not be unprepared. Especially after the reception I had received in my own room, they had to expect that I might come looking for them. It was much more likely that they had already checked out and gotten far away from here, but on the off chance they were inside, this was not the time to charge in. This was a time for thinking first and acting with purpose. I elected to try another tack.
I ran downstairs rather than wait for the elevator, and when I reached the lobby I impatiently rang the bell for the night manager.
“Who is staying in room 419?” I asked, when the manager finally deigned to put in an appearance.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said in a condescending tone, deliberately draping a small, slender hand over the round silver bell I had been pounding, and sliding it a few inches away from me. Disapproval radiated in his voice, though whether at my appearance – I realized that my clothes were clean, but the rest of me still showed evidence of spending the previous day in an abandoned building – or merely at being bothered by one of the hotel guests I could not say. He was a prissy little man in a cheap but well-fitted suit. His hands were impeccably manicured, though there was a bandage wrapped around one thumb, and his thinning blond hair had been slicked with some type of hair product and pulled back tight against his skull. Everything about him appeared to be carefully groomed but still slightly damaged and beyond full repair; like a car that has just been washed and waxed but rust spots are still showing through the paint job. He had deep etched frown lines around his eyes and mouth as though everything around him seemed to displease him at some level or another.
“I am not at liberty to give out information on our guests,” he said, brushing at imaginary dust on the front counter while pointedly not making eye contact with me. “Perhaps if you wish to leave a message for this person, I could see that she gets it.”
“No. I need a name.” I placed a hundred-dollar bill on the counter, keeping my hand firmly over the bill, but leaving the denomination visible. The manager’s eyebrows rose. The frown never left his face, but he did finally look up at me. I could see in his eyes he clearly understood my meaning.
“Oh, well. If it’s just a name you need, maybe I can help out just this once. What was the room number again?”
“Four-Nineteen.” I smiled and released the money. Even as he accessed the guest register in his computer, the bill disappeared from the counter top. He scanned the screen and shook his head.
“I’m afraid no one is in the room right now. A mister Victor Daemon checked in four days ago, but he checked out late this afternoon. Perhaps that is the gentleman you are looking for?”
Victor Daemon. It was obviously a false name, but it was all I had. “Spell his name for me, please.”
“D-A-E-M-O-N.” The manager eyed me up and down carefully. Surprisingly, he smiled, probably thinking himself very charming. “You know, I don’t get off until five, but I don’t have to be behind this desk the whole time. Would you like to get a cup of coffee?”
The abrupt switch from disapproval to pick-up line shocked me speechless. After a stunned moment I realized what must have happened. He thought I had seen some woman in room 419 and that I was trying to get a name to meet her. It made sense. I’m sure it happened all the time. When the name on the registry was that of a man he had reassessed my potential as date material. And I’m sure the flash of money I had just shown him did not hurt my standing in his eyes, either.
As I realized all this, I almost laughed in his face. Despite Niven’s attestations regarding human males, I still had not yet pursued that particular avenue. Perhaps, at another time I might have taken this stuffed shirt up on his offer, then left him decapitated in a ditch for his trouble. Right now, however, I did not have time for any distractions.
“I’m sorry, I can’t,” I said as politely as I could manage. “Did mister Daemon leave an address or phone number?”
“No. Nothing.”
The little mouse of a human being looked disappointed. I briefly reconsidered spending a few minutes to take him out back and kill him. Just to cheer him up. Again I reminded myself that more pressing matters demanded my attention.
“How did he pay?” I asked, focusing back on my more immediate concerns.
“Just a moment.” He pressed a few keys. “Cash”
“Damn it!” No address or credit card number to follow up. “All right, I’ll be checking out, too. Room 411.”
“And how would you like to pay?”
“Cash.”
“Of course,” he sighed.
CHAPTER 18
I spent the next hour and a half on my cell phone researching and calling nearby hotels. The odds of finding Victor Daemon this way were slim at best, but I had to try something. I could not just sit idly while someone wanting to kill me stalked the city. I could run to another state and hopefully just leave this guy behind, but if he found me once there was no guarantee that he couldn’t do it again. I had to at least try to go on the offensive.
And if it didn’t work, running could always be plan B.
“Hello, Hilton by the Bay. May I help you?” asked a voice on the line.
“Yes. My name is Michael Daemon,” I said. “I’m trying to locate my brother. There has been sort of a family emergency and I need to get a hold of him right away. His name is Victor Daemon and he was supposed to check in some time this afternoon. Is he there by any chance?”
“One moment, sir. I’ll check.” There was a long pause and the sound of fingernails tapping a keyboard reached my ears. “No. I’m sorry, he didn’t check in today. May I take a message in case he shows up later tonight?”
“No. But, thank you. I’ll try calling later.”
Click.
I made several unproductive phone calls identical to the first. I did not know if he was even still in the city, although because he had not succeeded in killing me I thought he would probably stick around. He could also be using a different name even if he was nearby. But this was the only lead I had and until I had completely exhausted it, I could not afford to simply give up. I lost track of how many hotels I called, but I worked my way through the phone directory until eventually, surprisingly, fortune smiled down upon me.
“Yes, you’re brother checked in at six o’clock this evening,” the clerk’s voice assured me. “I believe he is in right now. Would you like me to transfer your call?”
“No. I’m nearby and I really should talk to him in person. What room is he in?”
“He is in eighteen-oh-eight.”
“Thank you very much. I appreciate your help.”
I hung up feeling frightened and elated at the same time. I did not know for certain if I had found the same person that had broken into my room, but I sure as hell planned to find out. I could not just kick in his door and challenge him without knowing anythin
g about him. There was too much risk that he would be expecting me, or that even if I completely surprised him he might still be experienced and dangerous enough to hurt or kill me during the confrontation. I needed to be sure that when we met I had complete control of the situation.
There was considerable risk involved in going to meet Victor Daemon at his hotel, but there was no reason that I had to be the one to take that particular risk. Why put my own neck on the line when I could hand that job to someone else?
My cell phone still lay in my hand, the home screen lit and glowing up at me as I contemplated my options. Reaching a decision, I tapped the phone icon and dialed by memory an unlisted number. The conversation that followed was brief but to the point.
“Hello?” replied a male voice sounding partially slurred by sleep.
“Do you fear the day?” I asked.
There was a slight pause and I heard him clear his throat as he forced himself awake. “No. But I am a Friend of the Dark.”
“Your life is in peril.”
“I offer it freely.”
“Listen closely. There is a man, Victor Daemon,” I spelled it for him. “He is staying at the San Francisco Ambassador. Room eighteen-oh-eight. I want him. Take four men and bring him to me at the Wharf House. You know where it is?”
“Yes,” came the immediate reply.
“Good. Bring any possessions he has with him. Be careful. He is very dangerous. Take no unnecessary chances, but I want him alive and able to talk.”
I hung up. Now, the only thing left for me to do was go to the warehouse I had selected and wait for my pursuer to be brought to me.
When I arrived at the warehouse, I searched through the large empty interior looking for something with which to bind my new captive so he could not pose a serious threat to me. In a janitor’s closet, I finally located several feet of thick rope. Not ideal, but it would have to do. With the rope in hand I settled myself in the dark and waited. I forced myself to sit quietly, although nervous energy filled me and begged for an outlet. Patience is not a virtue that comes easy for me.
When Darkness Comes Page 20
