by Lee Dignam
“I’ve been to the neighborhood before,” Neo said. “Pixi hangs out nearby; they share Crow’s Heights together.”
“She’d probably know if Lionel is doing something he shouldn’t be doing, then, right?”
“I don’t know. They’ve always been close, closer than most vampires tend to get, especially since he’s a suit and she’s… well, she’s Pixi”
“I doubt she has any involvement in his business though; Pixi couldn’t care less about running a nightclub.”
“Maybe not, but we should be careful in our line of questioning anyway.”
“Do we have a plan?”
“Plan?”
“When we get to the club. Doesn’t look like you’re in a talkative mood, so I guess I’ll talk to Lionel?”
Neo nodded. “I don’t think it’d be a good idea if we both went in, anyway.”
“No?”
“He’d panic.”
“If he doesn’t have anything to hide, he should be fine, right?”
“He probably does have a lot to hide. Human slaves would just be another skeleton in his closet.”
“How well do you know him?”
“Not well enough.”
“Should we get Pixi involved, then? If she knows him, she may be able to help.”
Neo shook his head. “Better not. We don’t want things escalating, and with Pixi around, things will escalate.”
Cyanide let herself relax in the seat and leaned her head against the window, watching Ashwood as it flickered past like a jittery movie reel, catching only glimpses of words or pictures on storefronts. The rain hadn’t picked up, but remained consistent, falling hard enough to distort images on the other side of the window and patter lightly on the car, but not hard enough to force people to run for cover. She let her mind get lost in the sound, preferring it over the incessant, cacophonous beating of the hundreds of hearts passing just as quickly as the pictures and words; a nightmarish chorus with no rhythm or reason, yet intoxicating and mesmerizing all the same.
When they neared the Crow’s Heights projects, the outside crowd didn’t exactly thin so much as it changed. There were storefronts here, but a great many of them peddled booze or boobs instead of groceries and child supplies. The streets were littered with homeless people, in alleys huddled around barrel fires, or sitting in nooks, covered in blankets and cardboard boxes. The only positive thing about the place was the number of ambitious entrepreneurs—if you considered hooking, leg-breaking, or drug-dealing a form of entrepreneurship.
The Heights looked like a shit hole—a pool of desperation and deviousness. And yet, despite all that, there were children here, and families huddling along, anxious to get home. People lived here, doing their best to make a bad situation into something they could work with. People just trying to get by, not bothering anyone. People who, if given a decent chance, could probably do wonderful things with themselves.
Lionel’s club sat on the edge of the district, a huge castle, impenetrable and indomitable. Its once red-brick façade was painted black, as if to suck the light out of its surroundings, creating something of a spotlight on its own small, high-up windows from which small starbursts of light could be seen. On the side of the repurposed factory, the word Lust shone brightly, almost invitingly.
Neo stopped the car across from the main door—a metal slab built into the wall, lorded over by a large man wearing a suit and holding an electronic tablet. In front of him, people of all colors, shapes, and sizes lined up behind a velvet rope, each anxious to get in and join the fun, or forget about their worries, or both.
“You sure we shouldn’t both go in?” Cyanide asked.
“I’m sure,” Neo said. “You’ll be fine.”
“And you? Where will you be?”
“I’ll be close enough. If you need me, you know what to do.”
Cyanide nodded, then stepped out of the car. When she shut the door, Neo drove off into the night, making a right turn and disappearing. She could hear the thump of the bass from out here, despite the heavy soundproofing that must have gone into making the club as quiet as possible. As she crossed the road, the steady beat of the music banging against her ears and reverberating in her chest almost started to sound like a rapid heartbeat. Soon, she couldn’t hear the music at all; there were only the hearts, the blood, and the thirst.
How there were so many people present so early in the evening, she didn’t know. When she was alive, going out to a club before midnight was unthinkable. Maybe it was the promise of physical contact with strangers in a dark, frantic environment that brought the crowd. Maybe the booze here was dirt cheap. Or maybe in some obscure part of their subconscious, these people knew what happened behind these doors, and craved the thrill of grinding up against a vampire.
She walked up to the door, bypassing the crowd, and stood in front of the man with the tablet. “Name?” he asked, without looking at her.
“I’m not on the list,” she said.
The bouncer examined her. “Look, you’re hot and everything,” he said, “But we’re at capacity.”
“At capacity. At nine at night.”
“It’s a popular club.”
She stepped up to him, getting close enough to speak quietly while still enabling him to hear her. “I need to see Lionel,” she said.
“Who?” he asked.
“You know who Lionel is. I need to talk to him.”
“Even if I did know who you were talking about, there’s no way I’d be able to let you into that club right now.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit. I told you. We’re at capacity. Now, get to the back of the line.”
Cyanide clenched her jaw. A human may have done as he said; this man was taller than her, had arms the size of pigs, and a mean pair of eyes set into his skull. She could almost picture him in a gladiatorial ring, his huge stomach glistening with sweat, his brown skin covered in blood and torn up in several places, ripping a piece of a lion’s shoulder off with his teeth. But Cyanide wasn’t human, and she had seen this done before.
Lowering her gaze, she concentrated on the power of her own blood and bid it to bubble beneath her skin. Though he wanted to look away, he seemed to be unable to do so, as if he were caught in the gravity of this strange woman’s eyes.
“You’re going to let me in,” she said. “Now.”
“I’m going to let you in?” he asked, his mind trying to fight the command away, but failing.
“Let me in,” she insisted, pushing the suggestion deeper into his head.
Beads of sweat broke on his forehead. His face twisted, still fighting, still resisting, but he caved and turned to the side, allowing Cyanide to walk past him and through the metal door set into the wall. He didn’t say anything as she went past, simply shook his head, trying to understand why he had let her through. That hadn’t been easy, or pretty—other vampires had an easier time with suggestions—but it had at least worked, and now Cyanide had entered Lust.
It was time to find Lionel.
CHAPTER NINE
Cyanide stepped into the dark nightclub. Black lights fixed to the ceiling bathed the walls in neon light, illuminating crazy, swirling patterns drawn into them with luminous paint. Chalk-drawn spirals, letters, and numbers, none of which were arranged in any kind of order or with any reason, crowded around her as she walked up the stairs. Eventually, these images seemed to start moving of their own volition, causing a kind of disorientation she hadn’t seen coming.
She found herself grasping, reaching, for the wall’s edge at the top of the stairs and hoisting herself up. There was a coat check, again bathed in purple light, with a woman sitting behind it, her hair caught up in a messy knot on top of her head, eyes glued to her phone. Cyanide was about to approach the woman when she was intercepted by a man in a suit. The sharpness of his canines wasn’t lost on her, and she put her guard up.
“Who are you?” the man asked.
“I’m Cyanid
e,” she said, perhaps a little warily thanks to the disorientation.
“I don’t know who you are.”
“I guess that’s not important—the important thing is that Lionel knows who I am, and I’m here to see him.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“I didn’t think I needed one.”
The vampire squared up to her and puffed his chest. He was smaller than the bouncer at the front door, but size didn’t matter when you were undead. For all she knew, he had the strength of ten men.
“If you don’t have an appointment,” he said, “You’d better leave, or feel free to join the humans on the floor. But I should warn you, there’s strictly no feeding outside of the private rooms.”
“Look,” she said, “I don’t want to go downstairs, and I don’t have a lot of time to argue with you. I need to see Lionel, and it’s really important that I do. I don’t want to waste any more of my time, so if you could point me in the right direction, I’ll get the hell out of your hair, and you can go back to watching the stairs.”
“If you’re not on the list to see Lionel, I can’t let you—” Just as he was about to finish his sentence, he pressed his finger against his right ear and turned his head to the side. “Are you sure?” he asked, likely into some kind of concealed microphone. “I understand, but I just—yes, very well.”
Cyanide’s eyebrow rose when he looked at her. “Who was that?” she asked.
He said nothing, and turned his nose up at her as he stepped aside.
She nodded, then walked past him. “This way?” she asked, throwing her eyes over her shoulder.
“Yes,” he said, sighing a little too loudly. “It’s the last door down the hall.”
This one wasn’t lit with a black light as the other areas had been, though the corridor itself was black and devoid of any lights. There were doors on the left and right, placed at various intervals throughout the straight corridor. The doors were numbered, from one to eight, and from the other side of each, she could hear nothing. No music, no talking, anything.
The door at the end of the hall opened a couple of inches as she approached, and a warm, orange glow spilled out from inside. She pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped through, letting it shut behind her. Though she didn’t know much about Lionel, a quick glance at the possessions in his office told her a number of things about him; things he probably enjoyed his clients finding out before any conversations could start.
Number one: the framed oil paintings of famous old people hanging along the walls told her he had an interest in history. Number two: the cabinet filled with expensive alcohols and the wine rack next to it told her he enjoyed the luxuries of the mortal world, even if they would no longer satisfy him the way they might have once done. And number three: his mahogany desk was large enough to clearly state the distance he appreciated between himself and his clients.
Standing behind the desk was Lionel. He was a handsome man who possessed a full head of thick, black hair which he kept in a swept back kind of style, a sharp jawline, and a posture only a private or boarding school could give a person. He had full lips he had probably kissed many models with, wore a black suit and white shirt that were probably worth more than everything Cyanide owned, and had dark, mysterious eyes.
In his presence, Cyanide felt entirely underdressed, even though this wasn’t a black tie meeting.
He gestured to the chair opposite the desk from him, and she walked to it and sat down. The air was thick with the smell of his cologne, but she could also detect a hint of female perfume, as well as blood. Blood had been spilled in this room, and recently, too. Definitely tonight, maybe in the last hour.
“He’s not going to like that I let you in,” Lionel said. The smile on his bright, warm, rosy-cheeked face threw her off her guard.
“Huh?” she asked.
“Foley, the guy you were just talking to. He watches the door pretty well, but gets pissed off if I overrule his decision to keep someone out.”
“He should get over it.”
A disarming smile, like a ray of sunshine, crossed his face. “Yeah, probably. So, what is it I can do for you? I don’t have a great deal of time, so if we could get down to the reason why you’re here?”
“Right,” she said, nodding, and realizing then she hadn’t exactly figured out how she was going to ask what she had to ask. Do you buy girls on the black market seemed like a pretty direct accusation, and she was in another vampire’s turf; playing her hand like that, when she didn’t have an exit plan, wasn’t the best card to play. So, she decided to play it cool.
“I’m… looking for someone,” she said.
“Looking for someone? Anyone in particular?”
“No, just, someone. Someone who fits a certain… type… I’m interested in.”
“I understand entirely. You’re looking for a blood doll.”
“Is that what they’re called?”
“You can call them whatever you want, but that’s the term many vampires use to describe someone who offers their blood to be consumed by another.”
Blood doll. When she conjured the thought in her mind, all she could picture was a Barbie doll filled with blood that children could rip into with their teeth. But wasn’t that what they were? These girls were probably pretty, dressed to the nines, and ready to do anything the vampire wanted because they were being paid to do it, though not necessarily because they wanted to.
“Okay, so, that’s what I would like,” she said, “One blood doll… please.” One blood doll? She thought. What the fuck was that? I’m not ordering a fucking coffee.
Lionel’s bright smile now turned into a lazy one. “Never done this before?” he asked.
“Not really. But I’d like to try one out.”
“Alright, but first, I want to know if you can pay or if you’re just wasting my time.”
“I can pay,” she said, figuring if she had to maintain the charade she would probably put this on Daniel’s tab.
“Perfect,” Lionel said.
He grabbed a tablet computer from the desk, flicked the screen on, and handed it to her. It was displaying a photo of a young, attractive woman wearing, surprisingly, all of her clothes. She was standing in a park at Ashwood University on a cloudy day with a backpack thrown over her shoulder. One of the campus’ redbrick buildings in the back of the shot gave the location away.
“What’s this?” Cyanide asked.
“Her name is Ashley; she’s in her second year, and she’s studying to become a doctor. She’s bright, funny, and says she loves dogs, but really is more of a cat person.”
She turned her eyes up at him. “I don’t understand. Is this like, a fantasy thing?”
“No, it’s real. That girl is real.”
“And she’s a blood doll?”
Lionel nodded.
“So, that means she knows about vampires?”
“She does, and so do the rest of my employees. They know what they’ve signed up for.”
“And what have they signed up for, exactly?”
“What do you think? Vampires feed on them.”
Cyanide noticed there were more pictures in the photo album and started flicking through them. The next one was a picture of a man, maybe in his late twenties. From what he was wearing, he looked like a firefighter, and he was giving the camera a thumb’s up. His smile was wide and pearly, his shoulders were broad and strong, and he didn’t at all seem like the kind of person who would get forced into a truck without breaking an arm or two first.
“Why would anyone willingly do this?” Cyanide asked.
“Ashley has student loans to pay. Sam’s wife is expecting a child, and he doesn’t have any savings. They come in every couple of nights, eat and drink for free, and then get fed off of by whoever happens to have rented their services. They’re clean, they get regular medical checks to ensure they’re in good health, and they need the money so much I know they won’t talk. It helps that the experie
nce is pleasurable for them.”
“So, wait a second… these people aren’t forced to do what they have to do?”
Lionel’s eyes narrowed further. “I don’t like where your questions are going.”
“No,” Cyanide said, “That’s—I don’t mean that. I’m just surprised.”
“Everything that happens at Lust is above board. No one is forced to do anything they don’t want to do. That’s how we ensure the experience is safe for the vampire, and for the human.”
Cyanide put the tablet down on the desk. “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“You’ve asked a lot of questions already, but go ahead.”
“Do you know anything about human trafficking?”
Lionel crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I know what it is, if that’s what you mean. I’m starting to think you never wanted to hire some time in a private room.”
She shook her head.
“Well,” he continued, his face darkening, tightening, “Like I said, my employees are all here of their own free will. No one has come to Lust illegally.”
He hadn’t liked the insinuation, of that much she was sure. “How close of an eye do you keep on your employees? Do any of them ever go missing?”
Lionel remained silent for a time, considering her from behind thoughtful eyes. Though she tried, she couldn’t peer into him and figure out just what he was thinking. She was sure he had recently fed, but the warm, human blood in his system seemed to do nothing to his poker face. The question hung long enough for Cyanide to notice the length of the pause stretching like the slow rising of the moon at night.
“There is one girl who hasn’t been available for the last couple of days,” he finally said.
“How long ago since you last talked to her?” she asked.
“Three? Four days, maybe? She had been requested by a client, a regular, but no one could get hold of her, and given the nature of our business, we didn’t exactly want to push or get the authorities involved.”
“So, this girl goes missing, and that’s it? No one is able to figure out what happened because it might make people ask questions of you?”
