Master of Obsidian

by Jamie Craig

  “It wasn’t me,” she said before he could greet her. “And if that asshole told you it was, he’s fucking lying.”

  Gideon leaned against the jamb. “Maybe you should tell me your side of the story then,” he said. If he played along like he knew what she was talking about, she’d be more likely to cooperate after he let her off on whatever misdemeanor she was afraid of being blamed for.

  Rina pushed a lank strand of dishwater blonde hair out of her eyes. “I did exactly like he told me. I took the shit downtown, I put it in the box, I left. Somebody else stole it. You think I’m so dumb I’d be trying to rip off Henry of all people?”

  He didn’t react on the outside, but Gideon’s stomach lurched. It was not the name he had expected, though Henry was the reason he’d sought Rina out in the first place. She used him to buy drugs for the kids she hung out with; Gideon had figured she might have something to say about obsidian or even Tricia.

  “If you didn’t take it, then, who did?”

  “How the fuck should I know? You know how many vampires are crawling through this town. It could be any one of them.”

  Gideon frowned. “Blaming the entire city doesn’t exactly help you sound innocent, Rina.”

  With an exasperated sigh, Rina released her grip on the jamb and flounced back into her dingy apartment. Gideon followed her in, trying not to show his disdain for the wall-to-wall trash or the rats he heard scuttling behind the walls.

  “I know it’s not your bag, Gideon, but have you ever seen someone hopped up on obsidian? Don’t tell me they wouldn’t steal it if they saw the opportunity. Especially if they’re already hopped up. I don’t care what fucking line Henry tried to sell you, but I did my job. I made the drop. It’s his problem if his buyer didn’t get it, not mine.”

  It wasn’t Gideon’s problem, either, but what the story told him painted the obsidian picture even blacker. Henry was spreading the drug around more widely, and worse, it was so badly wanted that vamps were stealing it in order to get their hands on it. The chaos he and Jess feared was already encroaching, and if they didn’t do something soon, the entire city was going to collapse.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “I’ll convince Henry to get off your case if you help me find one of Henry’s girls.”

  Rina flopped down onto her beat-up couch, her features shifting back to her plain Jane looks. She looked even younger in her human mask. “Since when do you care about one of his skanks? I’ve seen some of the people you hook up with at Sangre. You can do way better than anybody who’d have anything to do with Henry.”

  He ignored her commentary. “Do we have a deal or not?”

  “Who’re you looking for?”

  “Tricia.”

  He knew the instant he said the name that she knew who he was talking about. And he decided in that second that there was no way he was leaving without getting the information he wanted. He didn’t want to beat it out of Rina, but he would. In the end, the life of one druggie vamp couldn’t compare to the peace of an entire city.

  “All I gotta do is tell you where you can find her?”

  Maybe he wouldn’t have to resort to violence after all.

  “That’s all you have to do, Rina.”

  She grinned. It almost made her look innocent. “Deal.”

  * * * *

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  Jesse stopped short, his hand poised to grab a book off the top shelf. He looked to the source of the question from the corner of his eye. “Nothing?”

  Michelle narrowed her eyes. “Right, nothing. That’s why you look like shit and you winced reaching for that book. Did you get in a fight?”

  “It happens in my line of work,” Jesse said mildly, his fingers closing around an old, leather spine. He had hoped to get in and out of the book store without seeing Michelle, but those hopes had been slim. She was always there, even though she insisted that she slept and ate elsewhere.

  She stepped behind him, rudely pulling his collar down to look at the nape of his neck. “What? Was there an all-you-can-eat Jesse buffet?”

  “No,” he said, ducking away from her and straightening his shirt. “How much is this book?”

  “I’m not selling that book to you.”

  Jesse frowned. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re lying to me, and I don’t sell my books to liars,” she announced, spinning on her heel. “Put that back where you found it.”

  “I need this book.”

  “I need a million dollars.”

  “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “Whose?”

  “A lot of innocent people.”

  Michelle waved her hand. “There are no innocent people in this world.”

  “There are people who don’t deserve to die the way Toby Richards did.”

  She eyed him over her glasses. “Are you saying there are people in this world who do deserve to die that way?” She sniffed. “Oh, wait, look who I’m talking to.”

  “Michelle, that’s not fair.”

  “So, what did you do to deserve that?” she asked, gesturing at his neck.

  “What’s with the third degree? You’ve never minded taking Gideon’s money before.”

  “Gideon never bit a hunk out of your neck before.”

  Jesse set the book on the counter, but he kept his hand on it so she couldn’t snatch it away from him. He liked Michelle, but she had a long-standing grudge against Gideon that Jess couldn’t explain. Of course, he realized Gideon rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, and everybody who hated him probably had a good reason to.

  “We’re trying to figure out who killed Toby Richards. There’s nothing we can do about him, but we have reason to suspect a powerful drug was involved. One that could wreak havoc if it ever gets widely disseminated.”

  “What does that have to do with your neck?”

  More than you know. But if Jesse tried to explain how the drug had affected Gideon, Michelle would have led the angry mob to his door. He didn’t know her age, but he doubted she was more than fifty. And she was built to fight. She had a body as impassive as a brick wall, and a face to match. She seemed to get thicker and meaner with each passing year, and she wasn’t afraid of a fight, fair or not. Jesse loved her dearly, but only when her impatience and anger weren’t directed at him.

  “It could infect Gideon, and every other vampire in the city. It makes them…”

  “Nearly kill their associates?”

  “It removes whatever control they have. You know a lot of vampires are trying to live in the human world, or at least, trying to coexist in the city without attracting attention. Can you imagine what a drug like this can do?”

  “Why won’t you answer my questions?”

  “Why won’t you listen to me?”

  Michelle regarded him with cobalt eyes. “Jesse, you’re a good boy. I like seeing you around. I like the books you bring me, and I like the way you always treat the books you buy. And I can ignore who you’ve aligned yourself with. I don’t like it, but you’re a big boy, and I guess I can’t do anything about it. But you’re crossing lines you can’t even see.”

  Jesse listened to her small speech calmly. He wasn’t surprised. Humans who fraternized with vampires were about as popular around town as Gideon. And Michelle never bothered to hide her true feelings anyway. “What do you want to know?”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “No.”

  “Come here, I want to show you something,” she said, turning to the door. She didn’t check to see if Jesse was following her as she disappeared behind a curtain that hid a steep, narrow staircase.

  He followed her downstairs. The narrow building had a basement and a sub-basement. Jesse knew about the rooms, but she never invited him downstairs, which only fed his secret suspicions that she actually lived in the store.

  But the basement didn’t boast a small apartment. There were more bookshelves. Several fans were running to keep the room dry, and t
he bulbs in the low hanging light fixtures were very dim. Each book on the shelf was housed in a sealed plastic bag, and she handed him a pair of latex clubs as he entered the room.

  “This is where I keep my rare books.”

  Jesse nodded mutely. It was like stepping into the inner-sanctum of an ancient temple—a great surprise and an even greater honor. “This is…amazing.”

  “It is.”

  “Do you have more downstairs?”

  “Yes, but nothing you need to see.”

  Jesse would have disagreed. “But there’s something I need to see down here?”

  “When did you first learn about vampires?”

  Jesse frowned. “I don’t know. I was probably eight or nine. I got into my father’s library and I thought all the old sketches and photographs were fake, like the pictures of fairies my mum kept in her sun room.”

  “But they weren’t.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “And when did you learn of Gideon?”

  Jesse smiled slightly. That particular memory wasn’t in danger of fading. “I was fifteen. Father had finally allowed me to start investigating his books, and there was a picture of Gideon from the 1920s.”

  “Here in Chicago?”

  He shrugged. “I guess so. Hasn’t Gideon been here since around the turn of the century?”

  She went directly to a book on the middle shelf. One of many bound in brown leather that looked entirely innocuous. He couldn’t see the title in the dim light as Michelle carefully pulled it out of the bag. Slowly, almost reverently, she opened the book and turned the pages unerringly. She silently handed him the open book.

  It was a picture of Gideon that he had never seen before. His smile was full of fangs, but oddly playful. He was standing in the middle of two women and two men, and Jesse was almost certain that the other four in the photo were humans. Humans who looked startlingly young, but their eyes seemed very old. Jesse didn’t know if that was a trick of the light. Gideon had a possessive hand around the nearest woman’s waist, and his other hand was blocked by one of the men—who wasn’t much more than a boy. Jesse thought he knew what Gideon was doing with his hand.

  “It’s a good likeness of him.”

  Michelle turned the page, and there was another photograph of the five of them, but now they were mostly naked. Their poses were still stiff and proper, but their smiles were more playful, their skin pale. She kept turning the page, revealing photo after photo. Soon they were all completely naked. And then the poses changed.

  Gideon with his cock in a girl’s mouth. Gideon with his mouth wrapped around somebody else’s cock. Gideon fucking the other girl. Gideon with his head buried between the same girl’s thighs—possibly sucking his own come from her pussy. One picture featured Gideon and the young man with dark hair. He was bent over at the waist, touching his toes, and Gideon was gripping his hips, the tip of his cock already buried in the man’s ass.

  The final photo looked to be a blood bath.

  “Why are you showing me these? Do you think I forgot he was a vampire?”

  “Do you think these kids thought they were going to die? When they dressed in their finest clothes to pose with Gideon, do you think they knew they were wearing their funeral shrouds?”

  “Gideon is different now.”

  “Gideon is a vampire. They don’t change. They can’t. There are so many photographs like this. I know the ones I have here barely touch the tip of the iceberg and I have at least another dozen picture books.”

  “Where did you get these?”

  She shrugged. “Various collectors. It doesn’t matter. What makes you think you’re different from these kids? From any of these kids?”

  “If he planned to kill me, he would have done so by now.”

  Michelle yanked the book from him with more force than she should have. “That’s your answer? You must be safe because he hasn’t bathed in your blood yet?”

  “He’s my friend, Michelle.”

  “Do you think he has the same concept of friendship that you do?”

  “Do you think I’d still be alive now if he didn’t, Michelle? He didn’t have to hire me, give me a job and a place to stay until I was back on my feet again. In the nearly forty years since he started Gideon Investigations, he always worked alone. He didn’t even know me at first. But I proved to him that I could be useful, and that’s all he ever asked from me.”

  She looked at his neck. “That’s all?”

  “I’ve been in some tight spots, and in the two years I’ve known Gideon, he’s never left me in those spots by myself.”

  “I think you’re making a mistake.”

  “So noted, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “I had to try, Jesse. I hope you understand.” She held the book out to him. “Take this. I think you need to have a reminder of how things could go.”

  Jesse took it with a small nod. “I appreciate the gift.”

  “I’ll sell you the other book you wanted.”

  Jesse smiled. “I thought you probably would.”

  “Just promise me you won’t let him go too far,” Michelle said, taking his elbow and leading him back to the stairs.

  “Believe it or not, I don’t actually have a death wish. I won’t let him go too far.”

  “That doesn’t actually make me feel better,” she muttered.

  “So, are you going to let me come down here again?”

  “No.”

  “Please?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s my porn collection, Jess. I don’t expect you to let me root around under your bed, do I? Well, I guess these days, it’s probably all on your computer.”

  Jesse laughed as they stepped into the brightly lit store. “The bottom of my closet, actually.”

  “You owe me eighty dollars for that book.”

  Jesse grimaced. “Put it on my tab?”

  “You better pay up before you try to take any more books out of this store. I’m not running a charity here.”

  He promised to do just that as she carefully wrapped the book and slid it into a paper bag. His mind was still reeling from the day’s events, but as he hurried through the thick heat of the late evening, all he could think about were those damned photos.

  * * * *

  Gideon would never have found her in a million years. The vampires of Chicago were—most of the time—creatures of habit. They lived in the same areas, chose the same neighborhoods for kills, hung out at the same demon-safe venues. They rarely broke from these patterns, and all Gideon thought as he stood outside the greenhouse was that Tricia was one gutsy demon. There would be few options for hiding when the sun was out. Nobody would ever think to find her here.

  It was easy to break in, not so easy to figure out where to start first. The greenhouse was huge, and felt even larger with the echo of the rain on the glass roof resounding between its walls. Gideon picked up one of the directory brochures and thumbed through it, ignoring the layout of the plants in favor of locating the security offices. Tricia might not have a reflection, but modern technology was a bit more sophisticated than mirrors these days.

  More importantly, Gideon was not a stupid vampire.

  He found her almost immediately, though he recognized it was more luck than any type of skill. Using his map, he plotted a route to Rare Flowers and crept through the silent rows, eyes glittering gold as he scanned for any sign of movement. The dearth of sound would have been eerie to anyone not accustomed to it, but Gideon was a predator, had been for centuries. A vampire who didn’t even have the sense not to get on the wrong side of one of the most powerful humans in Chicago didn’t stand a chance.

  Gideon slapped his hand over her mouth, dragging her back against the hard wall of his body. Her fangs descended, trying to slash through the tough skin of his palm, but he merely tightened his hold, waiting her out until her struggles stopped.

  “Like to slaughter your boyfriends, do
you?” he growled in her ear. “Good thing for me I have no interest in being your friend.”

  Chapter 11

  Jesse was reasonably certain the office was still empty when he returned, but he still searched through both the office and the apartment looking for any sign of Gideon. He wanted to study the photographs closer, but he didn’t necessarily want Gideon to know he had them. Not yet.

  Jess settled on the couch in Gideon’s apartment, turning on every light in the room to study the tiny print that accompanied each picture. He hoped it would supply more clues about the victims’ identities, as well as the context of the photos. Who was behind the camera? Another vampire? A human? Did the photographer survive long after he snapped the final image? Who developed the film? Who took the time to publish it?

  He hoped the title page would help answer those questions, but there was no title page, or anything resembling a copyright page. The cover was similarly unmarked. No title, no author, no publisher, nothing one would expect to find on a cover. Jesse realized it had been privately bound. This might have been the only copy in existence. Had Gideon hired, or forced, somebody to make this book for his own private collection? That seemed like the most reasonable guess, but if that was the case, how had Michelle acquired it?

  There were prints before he reached the section Michelle had shown him, but none of them featured Gideon, or anybody Jesse recognized from the other photos. Many of them were explicit, staged sex, but others had a more PG-rating. They didn’t seem at all the sort of thing Gideon would want to keep for his own pleasure. His tastes for sex weren’t so vanilla, and as far as his tastes for art went, he usually liked work that was more bold, more startling, even disturbing and frightening.

  Even though he knew how this particular series of photos would end, he still felt a thrill at the first sight of Gideon. Aesthetically, he was a truly beautiful creature. That judgment was completely separate from Jesse’s physical attraction to the vampire. Tall, muscular, with flashing black eyes and that wicked, full mouth. He would challenge anybody to look at Gideon, without any preconceptions, and admit he wasn’t stunning.