Lucy was shocked to find out that most of the worst vampire activity wasn’t happening in the shady alleys and dark corners of the Quarter. Most of their kills happened in the residential neighborhood just a block northeast of Bourbon Street, almost in plain sight. She wondered about the residents, and whether or not all of the homes were occupied by vampires, who knew dinner would be stumbling by and possibly getting sick on their front steps. Oddly enough, killing vampires couldn’t turn Lucy’s stomach quite as fast as the sounds of a drunken reveler letting loose with the projectile vomit.
It was nearly four and the party around them hadn’t shown any signs of slowing down.
“I don’t like the looks of that.” Lucy pointed down the block, where a stumbling threesome, a tall thin man with his arm around two obviously drunk and obviously under aged girls, shuffled their way through the side gate of one of the houses. Both girls looked as if they would fall flat on their faces if the guy let them go.
“I didn’t get a good look at him, but yeah,” Hugh agreed, “that don’t look like a good scene regardless. You two take the front. I’m going to see if I can hop the fence from behind.” Hugh took off running while Lucy and Lance ran up to the gate, which was locked.
“I think I can kick it, the wood looks rotten,” Lance whispered.
“No need,” Lucy whispered back, pulling a small thin tool from her purse. She had the lock picked within seconds. The door swung open with an audible groan. So much for a surprise entrance.
Lucy and Lance stood off to the side and waited for the possible ambush. When none came, they peeked inside. The narrow walkway between the houses was empty, but there were sounds coming from around back. Cautiously, they made their way to the small backyard. The girls had passed out. At least Lucy hoped that was what had happened. They had been dumped unceremoniously onto a plastic lounge chair that had seen better days. The guy was at the back door, fumbling with his keys. Though she and Lance could see just fine, Lucy looked around and noticed that there were no lights, meaning the yard was pitch black and he couldn’t see them at all. She motioned to Lance to keep quiet and stepped forward slowly. The guy didn’t notice. She took another step, still no reaction.
“Hey buddy!” Lucy slurred, now just feet from where he stood. The guy jumped and turned toward her. Pale gold eyes, nearly identical to her own, flashed a warning.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Who th’fug am I?” Lucy swayed a bit, appearing intoxicated. “You said theresh a gonna be a party here! I don’ see no party, wha' the hell? Wass with the passed out bishes? Did I mish th’party?”
The vampire smiled slowly and took a step forward. “Yeah, that’s right, sorry baby, you startled me. The party’s inside, but let’s you and me stay out here for a little while, you know? Get to know each other better.” He snaked an arm around Lucy’s waist and pulled her tight against him. “We got plenty of time.”
Lucy let out a throaty chuckle and put her hand up to her neck. She watched as the vampire’s fangs descended, as if sensing her invitation. With all the confirmation that she needed, Lucy unsheathed one jewel tipped CPA and plunged it into the side of his neck. His grip on her slackened and he fell to the ground.
“Nice performance, Lucy,” Lance commented, “but why the theatrics? I was about to piss myself when he grabbed you!”
“No shit!” Hugh jumped down from the tree he had been hiding in, startling both of them.
Lucy sighed. “I had to know for sure. He had the right eyes, but he didn’t see or sense me sneaking up on him, so I hesitated. He might have just been some creep date rapist, and while that’s heinous in its own right, I wouldn’t have killed him, just had the police arrest him. Sorry if I freaked you guys out. Speaking of which, we gotta do something about these girls, like get them to a hospital. God only knows if they’re just drunk or if he pumped them full of roofies.”
“An ambulance is on the way, along with a police escort,” Lance informed her. “It’s okay, Lucy, yeah you freaked me out, but you obviously knew what you were doing.”
“Yeah, you better know what you’re doing since I trained you.” Hugh smiled briefly. “But damn Lucy, I know you survived an attack, I saw it with my own eyes, but girl, you got lucky. Unless you got some hidden super powers we don’t know about, just be careful.”
Lucy nodded, ignoring the comment about super powers, knowing that Hugh had every reason to be suspicious about what happened that first night. Instead, she went to check on the girls and wait for the ambulance.
The following nights had Lucy dressed as a middle-aged cemetery enthusiast, complete with wild gray hair and a face full of wrinkles, followed by a Goth chick, with black hair and fake facial piercings. In a surreal way, Lucy was having fun stepping into the roles of people so far removed from her own plain vanilla lifestyle. The work was exhausting, but she was beginning to feel comfortable in her strange role as a vigilante keeper of the peace. She was still hesitant to kill, something that was not lost on her teammates. She realized it was only a matter of time before word got back to Evan about her reluctance.
As it happened, Evan wasn’t her biggest problem.
Monday was Lucy’s first night off. Her first actual day off, she realized, in more than a month. After a leisurely breakfast, she scooped up Gumbo, who was fast growing into a fat cat on Ida’s cooking, and took her first daytime trip to the Quarter since her attack. She strolled through the French Market and couldn’t resist the lure of the candy shop. After polishing off a very large praline, she realized, with some guilt, that she had not made it back to the training room after telling Evan she would keep up with her workouts. As penance, and despite Gumbo’s disgruntled mewling, she jogged the entire two miles back to EJC and suited up for a work out.
Lucy soon lost herself in the rhythmic cadence of the training course. Running, jumping, dodging, and jabbing, she rode the endorphin high for all it was worth. If nothing else, Lucy now had a body she could be proud of. She had only lost eight pounds, barely more than half what Abe had recommended, but where previously she had unsightly bulges, Lucy now had sleek, lean muscles. Best of all, she had abs! Admittedly, they weren’t the washboard abs she envied on Saba and Lou, and she had to clench her stomach to see them, but it was a start.
After a very sweaty and fulfilling two hours, Lucy reached her arms high above her head with a satisfied stretch. As she leaned forward to stretch the kinks from her back, someone grabbed her arms, and she found herself staring at Andre, who calmly had both her wrists in one hand.
“Can I help you?” Lucy straightened up as much as she could with her arms held awkwardly in front of her, realizing that her bent over position was giving Andre more than an eyeful of cleavage.
“That’s a rather polite response, but vampires are not usually known to give points for etiquette,” Andre replied dryly. “Why didn’t you attack me? Or at least try to block?”
“Perhaps because I was just stretching after a two hour workout in a secure training facility, where I wasn’t expecting to be attacked? Or perhaps,” Lucy pulled a ridiculously sultry face, “because I thought you just wanted to hold my hand and were too shy to tell me.” With a wink, she grasped Andre’s forearm, twisted her body, and flipped him onto his back. She peered down at him with a smug smile. “Was that better?”
“Actually, yes, that was an expert throw.” Andre hopped to his feet and began pacing while trying to figure out the best way to approach his concerns without upsetting Lucy further. She was like no one he had met before and that fact simultaneously intrigued and worried him. At that moment though, he was more worried. If the rumors he had heard were true, then Lucy was playing a very dangerous game that could quickly turn deadly.
Lucy resumed her stretching with feigned indifference, but she really wanted to grab Andre by the shoulders and shake him until he spit out whatever it was that was bugging him.
“Look, Lucy,” he began slowly, “I try not to listen to the rumors th
at fly around here, but I’ve heard some things that are somewhat disturbing.”
“About me?”
“About you, yes. You’ve nearly been bitten every night?” Andre asked pointedly.
Lucy rolled her eyes. “I have not nearly been bitten. I’ve been acting rationally and with caution. Would you rather I stab someone first and worry about their innocence later?”
“Of course not, but Lucy, there had to be some indicator, the lenses you wear make their eyes rather obvious, don’t you think? You noticed that the first night out.”
“Yet you didn’t react until Lona confirmed what I saw,” Lucy pointed out. “I could accuse you of not acting in the public’s best interest, you know.”
“That was different and you know it. Waiting to make an approach is not the same thing as practically baring your neck in offering.”
“That’s not-” Lucy started to shout back, but realized she could avoid a fight with a simple demonstration. “Here, let me show you something.” She walked over to the bench where her bag lay and pulled out a small contact case. She removed her lenses and returned to Andre with her own eyes exposed.
Given his own history, Andre would not have been completely out of line had he been repulsed by the revelation that Lucy was very obviously a genetically modified vampire. But to his surprise, he wasn’t. If anything, her unnaturally pale gold eyes, flecked with slightly darker amber shards, balanced the stark contrast of her alabaster skin and deep mahogany hair, transforming her from simply attractive to stunningly beautiful.
“If you saw me out at night, say I got lost and I ended up in one of the seedier sections of Iberville. I’m alone. I’m tweaking and just trying to find my way back to my nice four-star hotel on Canal. What would you do?” She could clearly see that she had caught him off guard.
“I’d be cautious, for sure. I’d keep an eye on you and when it became obvious you were lost I’d probably approach you, from a distance, mind, but I’d ask if you need help.”
“Uh huh, and you’re forgetting you and Miles were in Iberville last night and I saw the way you were dressed, like a couple of homeless thugs. I'd be scared, I’d take off running, then what would you do?”
Andre nodded and waved his hand. “Okay, I get it, but Lucy, you’re an anomaly. I don’t understand any more than you do, but you have to accept that you’re the exception, not the rule. If you see a vampire, especially in the company of an impaired human, you react.”
“And I do!” Lucy stamped her foot for emphasis. “But how do you know? Okay fine, I know that technically, I’m not supposed to exist, but consider this. What if a normal human, or a normal vampire, like Dara or Ida, was to get knocked up by a mod, have a baby, and that baby inherits some of the same freakiness I do, what then? Say that baby grows up to make some bad life choices, does drugs, gets in a gang, or just does something stupid like tried to hook up with a drunk girl on a Friday night? Killing them would basically amount to genocide and I’m not willing to take that risk!”
“But that’s just it! Lucy, you really don’t know how unique you are!” Andre began gesturing wildly, something that Lucy noticed he did when he was frustrated. “Mods are not born, they are created. You want to talk about genocide? Mods are sterilized as not to accidentally procreate and weaken their race.”
Lucy cringed. She didn’t remember that tidbit of information from the history lesson Evan had given her. In addition to an extra layer of mystery surrounding her birth, Andre had given her yet another reason to be ashamed of her ancestry.
“Lucy,” Andre sighed, “I saw the blood on your neck Thursday night.”
Lucy looked down at her shoes. At least Miles had kept his promise. “Thursday night I was bitten,” she said softly. “But I was bitten because I made a mistake. A monumental mistake. You heard the calls come in. Miles and I split up. I charged into an alley and nearly stabbed a kid who was doing nothing more than trying to get it on with his girl. He nearly pissed his pants, for chrissake! I blanked them, sent them back to safety, and had a mini freak out and that is when I was bitten.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know.” And that’s why Miles is getting a gift basket of his favorite microbrew delivered as soon as I can get online to order it, she added silently.
“Still, Lucy, as horrible as I know that must have been, you can’t let it make you reckless. Evan wants to start sending you out with a single partner soon and you have to know that you’d be putting your partner in jeopardy, not just yourself.”
“How much do you know about me?”
“I’m Evan’s nephew,” Andre said with a rueful smile. “He expects me to inherit the operation someday. What does that tell you?”
“Then you know that if I happen to get bitten, I’m not putting anyone in jeopardy, not even myself.”
“You can’t rely on that. And even so, you can’t-”
“Can’t I?” With two steps, Lucy was behind Andre and had palmed the blade that she knew he carried at his waist. As he turned to see what she was doing, she held the knife up. “How do you keep your wallet in the Quarter?” she asked. Shaking her head, she held out her arm and drew the blade across, cutting deep enough to draw blood.
“Lucy!” Andre looked horrified. Lucy shook her head and held up her hand to stop him from saying anything else. She wiped away the blood with her towel and held out her arm, where a thin pink line was the only evidence of damage. She then wiped the blade clean, handed it back to him and gathered her things to leave.
“We’re not done, you know,” Andre called after her.
“No,” she sighed to herself, “I expect we aren’t.”
Chapter 14
“Lucy, you’re coming with me tonight,” Evan informed her at dinner.
With frizzy, gray-streaked hair and watery blue eyes hidden behind chunky square glasses, Lucy was playing the role of an eccentric, middle-aged arts patron. Wearing a gauzy peasant smock and paint spattered bell-bottom jeans, Lucy walked along side Evan, through the corridor that would allow them to exit near the convention center. Quadrant one ran from their office in the Central Business District, through the Warehouse and Arts District, and down to the Riverwalk Market and convention center. It was also the area where Evan, Saba, and Mike had all been attacked, though in recent years vampire activity in this area was a lot lower than other areas. It made sense then, that Evan would choose this location for Lucy’s first time out with a single partner.
It was also the first time that Lucy and Evan worked together. For two and a half weeks, she had worked three nights on, one off, and had been out with all of the permanent teams at least once, but mainly with Miles and Andre. As she had expected, Andre had kept a close eye on her and was always quick to criticize. She suspected that he was the reason Evan had waited so long to move her to the next level, though honestly, she was more than happy to stay in her position of back up.
“Quiet night so far,” the voice of Lydia, a gallery owner and watcher for the Arts district, buzzed in Lucy’s ear.
“Head down our way,” broke in the voice of Harry, a bouncer at a sports bar on Tchoupitoulas. “The game ended hours ago, but LSU won and the bars are packed.”
Lucy and Evan headed in the general direction of the sports bars. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” Lucy started. “I understand why we stick mainly to areas with night life, but does anyone ever check the residential neighborhoods? Some of those streets are pretty dark and I don’t want to think about how many people walk around late at night.”
“That’s actually a very good question,” Evan acknowledged with a nod. “We used to, or at least we tried, but you have to remember that we started out as a team of four and remained that way for many years. We would try to cover the entire city every night. All we accomplished was showing up at the scene of the crime with no clues as to the whereabouts of our vampires. So we started concentrating our searches on areas where attacks had already happened. We had a big vampire problem i
n the Ninth Ward back then, but you can probably figure out why that’s not the case anymore.”
“Katrina affected the vampire population too then?”
“Exactly, though it sickens me to think that they probably fared far better than the people who lived there. But really, that was the only place besides the French Quarter and Warehouse that we ever had any attacks at all until recently. I have eyes in every corner of the city and all of the suburbs, and no one has seen anything suspicious. Plus, the police have alerted us to every vampire attack in the city since 1989. I wish I could say that we’ve stopped them all, but I can’t. However, there has been a significant drop since we expanded the team.”
“Be honest with me, do you think we’ll ever get rid of all of the vampires in New Orleans?” Lucy asked.
“I’m hopeful,” Evan replied wistfully, “but at this point, I feel like we’re facing a building with a cockroach infestation armed with a can of Raid. We may kill a few, but the rest go scurrying back under the refrigerator where they build up a tolerance.”
“On that sobering note, I guess I’ll shelve my retirement plans.”
“At least for a little while. There’s still a beach somewhere in Tahiti with my name written on it.”
It had been a quiet night after all, with a total of three vampire attacks, two near the sports bars, as expected, and one down by the Riverwalk Market. In all three instances, Evan had stepped back, allowing Lucy to go in for the kill. Luckily, in each instance, there was no reason to hesitate. The vampires were very obvious in their motives. Since they were on foot, Evan placed a call to Mike, who sent a van to pick them up, along with the bodies.
The Eyes of the Sun: The Complete Trilogy Page 14
