A Darker Crimson

by Carolyn Jewel

  “You don’t say?”

  Claudia twisted a little to look at the vampire. His eyes glittered, but she was careful not to directly meet his gaze. Not with that vampire voodoo head stuff he liked to do. She wanted to look, but she didn’t. “Look, Korzha, the P.D. isn’t stupid about paranormal crimes, no matter what B-Ops likes to say.” She pointed again. “Heart torn out and put in the left hand. Wasted blood as a sign of contempt. Plain as day if you know anything about rogue kills. One of these guys was here to get made, I’ll guarantee that.”

  “If you say so.”

  Claudia fought back annoyance. She’d seen this too many time to doubt herself. “Takedown on the first guy, all the blood drained, throat slit to be sure he isn’t coming back. Then the rogue-kill here with the other. To send a message.”

  “Fascinating,” Korzha replied.

  Claudia was about to say something that wasn’t very nice when the hair on her arms prickled. She glanced over her shoulder. The construction site was empty except for her and Korzha, the two bodies, and the smell of death. She’d give her left nut, if she had one, that one of Korzha’s associates had just arrived. “Busy vamp, aren’t you, Mr. Korzha?” she asked.

  “One strives not to be bored.” He made a point of glancing at his Patek Philippe wristwatch. Another affection of the Upper. Vamps didn’t need watches.

  “You got someplace to be?”

  Korzha shrugged. “A wedding reception.”

  “How romantic.” She rose and held up a hand, palm out. The howling cats started up again and she waited for a lull. “I got someplace to be, too, you know. I promised my daughter I’d make her waffles for breakfast.” She checked her comms. “In three hours.”

  “Your daughter?” the vamp said.

  Claudia knew she shouldn’t smile at him, but she did anyway. “Strawberry waffles. With whipped cream on top.” She pointed her forefinger downward and made a swirling motion. “You gonna mess me up and break her heart?”

  One of his eyebrows quirked. “Mess you up?”

  Talk about using the wrong words. Claudia went on alert. “Are you?” she said in a low voice.

  “Perish the thought.”

  For some reason, he sounded…sad. Must be her imagination. “I’m humoring you here, okay?” she checked the time on her comms. The digital components of the device were worth about thirty-five cents American and performed like they were worth no more than seven cents. In forty-eight seconds she could read the test results. Korzha shifted his weight, and a thrill of adrenaline rolled through her. She flinched, but he didn’t attack. He just checked his twenty thousand dollar watch again. Where was everyone? She really didn’t want to be alone with this vamp and a bunch of spilled blood. “What happens if I check the HemoStrip and the little arrow points to the minus?” Meaning, of course, not human.

  “Nothing?” he said, with a taint of irony.

  “You’re a regular comedian, aren’t you?” There was a moment of silence Claudia expected would be filled with a sarcastic retort.

  Instead, he said, “How old is your daughter?”

  “Ten. She’s the greatest. She really is.” Great. Now she was over-sharing. Had they made enough eye contact that he was rolling her? She was worried he might be. Why else would she notice that he was unfairly handsome? Hair the color of an espresso bean; straight nose, a bit flared. All the best characteristics of an eastern European. Sensitive mouth, strong cheekbones, a hint of the Attic hordes in the shape of his eyes. Even she, trained to a certain level of immunity to preternatural charm, couldn’t entirely resist. She looked at the bodies again. “If one of them’s a demon, how come they’re both dead?” she asked.

  “One does wonder.”

  She cocked her head and flicked on her Mag-light again. “Now that’s just weird.”

  “Maybe, Officer Donovan. But then, I lack your insight into the criminal mind.”

  “F-you, Korzha.”

  “Regrettably, I must decline the offer. Another time, perhaps?”

  Claudia rolled her eyes again. “The small guy’s got a tattoo.” She fixed her light on it, a pale blue swirl of interlocking lines on his exposed shoulder. “Rogues like body art. Ever seen that before?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.” She checked her comms again. “Where the hell are the detectives?” The remark wasn’t meant for Korzha. “I gave them a head’s up big enough to drive a truck through. They ought to be here.” She kicked the toe of her boot into the dirt. She did not want to deal with B-Ops and their paperwork. Six forms for every paranormal handoff. Not to mention double pay for the babysitter whenever Claudia pulled an all-nighter and needed the sitter to stay with her daughter. Seemed like all her overtime pay went to the IRS and the sitter. “Another night totally screwed up.”

  Korzha seemed amused. “Perhaps your colleagues are unavoidably detained?”

  Claudia ignored him. “So.” She narrowed her eyes and pulled out the HemoStrip. “How come you know so much about demons?”

  “I make a point of keeping myself informed.”

  She clutched the HemoStrip but had her eyes on her time readout. Fifteen seconds. “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s minus.”

  She flashed her light on the HemoStrip because the dim lamp at the street corner wasn’t bright enough to get a decent reading. Her heart bottomed out. “Aw, shoot.”

  “Problem, Officer?”

  Hell, yes. She was going to be filling out twelve forms. Six for Korzha and six for the non-human corpse. She thought about the bodies and the rumors of demons. The lots of rumors. The street lamp dimmed, buzzed, then flared before settling down to a faint yellowish glow. It made her feel sick, the thought of demons loose in the city. Korzha looked like a statue. “I’m just going to ask this straight out, okay?” she asked.

  “I’m not going to hypnotize you,” he said with a hint of exasperation. “Stop staring at my ear and talk to me. What offensive question do you wish to ask?”

  She risked a look into his eyes. Green. Like moss. She’d always wanted green eyes, but got stuck with plain old brown. “Let’s say you’re right, and this is a demon. What’s it doing in Los Angeles?” she asked.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “Not that I have all the time in the world for this fascinating chat, Officer, but haven’t any of your forays into the B-Ops network gotten you the answer to that question?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Was that a stab in the dark, or did he really know she’d cracked B-Ops? It never paid to dismiss the improbable. It just didn’t. Her chest tightened. The world was a pretty scary place. The whole damn city was on the edge of war. It was practically in the middle of one, only no one would admit it. Conflict my ass. The war between the species had already walked right in and sat down to dinner. “Does Fleur Dumont know you’re negotiating with demons, Korzha?”

  He laughed, only he didn’t sound amused. “It’s so much easier to promise I’ll never do it again.”

  “She’ll have your head on a platter.” The pull of his charisma tugged at her. For a guy out slumming, he kept himself pretty Upper. Right. A wedding reception. Too bad his expensive shoes were getting dirty.

  “If humans won’t live up to their responsibilities here, keeping the peace and our treaty, then I’ll do whatever it takes to see vamps live despite you. Despite Fleur Dumont, if I have to.”

  “You think humans are killing vamps?”

  “Are you?”

  “You’re insane, you know that?” He wasn’t, and they both knew it. The lamp buzzed again then settled down. “B-Ops is always doing sneaky shit, I’ll give you that, but that vamp stuff they were pulling, that’s mostly died down. Everything’s cool. And there are no demons here. If there were, I’d think we’d know.” Claudia wished that had come out more like she believed it.

  “How old are you?” Korzha asked. Not in a nice way. “Twenty-two? Maybe twenty-three?”

  She was twenty-five, but she
knew she looked younger. “None of your damn business.”

  “A child. You know nothing.”

  Claudia bristled. “Oh, and you were what when you got made? Thirty? Thirty-five, tops, I bet.” She frowned at him. Maybe he’d been in his twenties when he was converted. It was hard to tell with some vamps, particularly when they didn’t adjust well, as made vampires typically did not. Tiberiu ‘Tiber’ Korzha was a made vamp; everyone knew that. “The P.D. file on you doesn’t go back more than ten years, and the B-Ops file doesn’t have much more.”

  “On the servers you got to.”

  She ignored the dig, but he was right. “You can’t be that old.”

  “I stopped counting three hundred years ago.”

  She made a face at him. “Har, har.”

  A blue flash illuminated the street. No sound, just light. Typical B-Ops. Well, she wasn’t going to do them any favors. She flashed her Mag-light on the demon corpse or whatever it was, but the beam sputtered once, turned yellow and went out. She stared at the cylinder with disgust. “That’s what’s wrong with the world today.” She shook the flashlight in Korzha’s face. “Brand-new batteries!”

  “Tsk, tsk,” the vamp said.

  “Look, I don’t feel like spending what’s left of my shift filling out forms on you. Why don’t you head off to your party?” She twitched her head toward the building next door. “But Korzha? If that guy’s not a demon, I’m coming after you. I’ll crash your reception and arrest you right in front of the happy bride and groom. That’s a promise.”

  “How romantic, Officer.” He gave her a business card. “My private cell is on here. If it seems you’re going to be late for your appointment, call me. I’ll see you get there on time.”

  “Scram, would you?”

  Korzha didn’t waste a moment; Claudia blinked, and he was gone. Just like a vamp. She waited for the detectives or the coroner or some B-Ops bozos to announce themselves, then took a step toward the street when nobody did. The blue light faded, and she walked into a nightmare.

  Chapter Two

  Claudia ducked to avoid having her head burnt off by a bolt of blue fire. She made herself as small a target as she could and squinted to see who the hell had fired on her without warning. At the corner of the street, and about twenty feet away from the eerie blue glow, stood a lone figure: a man, but without any weapon that she could see. His clothes bore a striking similarity to the second corpse’s, the man Korzha claimed was a demon. He wore the same tunic-shaped shirt and close-fitting pants.

  She hit her comm and got a sputter of white noise. Shit. Head down, she drew her sidearm and flicked off the safety. Where the hell were the detectives? About now she’d be happy to see B-Ops. She jammed in a full clip, regular ammo, and shouted, “L.A.P.D! Put down your weapon. Now!”

  Another bolt of fire burst from the man. What the hell kind of weapon was he packing? And how had he managed to jack it up like that? Heat singed her hair and sent her heart into a tattoo against her ribs. Whoever he was, he meant business. Or else he was nuts. Whichever it was, she needed someplace to hide.

  Cover of darkness evaporated in the bluish glow that overwhelmed the light mounted on a dented pole. Claudia fought off a wild terror. The man’s sudden appearance had her rattled. Losing focus was deadly when you walked a beat in this part of the city. She was a mile from the Lower, where not even cops dared to go. She wondered if the nutcase was someone from there who didn’t know he’d gone out of range. He walked toward her.

  She hit her comm again and got nothing but static. Panic filled her. She held desperately to her ebbing calm. She aimed her weapon at the figure but at the last minute pulled right. There wasn’t anything worse than finding out you’d killed some kid high on narco, and it happened sometimes. Mostly to new cops like her. She’d made her share of house calls to the family. She really, really hated telling some woman her baby was dead. And it didn’t matter how old the deceased was; he, or she, was always somebody’s baby.

  Two shots, deliberately close, ought to put a dose of fear into the freak. Claudia took aim, but the air around her target shimmered. He lifted a hand and, swear to God, Claudia saw fire flickering where his eyes ought to be. Another flash of blue flame headed her way. She dove behind the debris-dumpster and switched out her clip. Forget vanilla ammo. She needed silver or UV. This guy was obviously a paranormal. She couldn’t get enough air into her lungs. Where the hell was her backup?

  A siren blared, too distant to think help might be near. Overhead the steady thop-thop-thop of a chopper on its nightly rounds reverberated in her ears. A bit closer, pungent sulphur curled into her nose with the fainter odor of ozone and burnt hair. Not good. She tapped the comm band around her wrist and got nothing but a static hiss. She palmed a fingernail-sized bit of modified plastique with a detonator. Her own personal hack, this stuff. She’d probably get fired for using it. On the other hand, living long enough to get fired didn’t seem like such a bad thing right now. Besides, she made the stuff on the sly for several of the beat officers. Vice and Narc, too. Kept you from getting killed by a rogue vamp or some badass werewolf while you waited for B-Ops to show up. If the right guys came for clean-up they’d look they other way, and she’d be okay.

  The perp moved. She saw a flash, an almost blinding glow of energy that pulsed in her, through her, and throbbed in time with her heartbeat. Half a tick before the dumpster imploded, she threw her explosive. She vaulted for the bulldozer and just caught the edge of the bucket. The metal arms dipped and the whole contraption groaned like an old man struggling to rise from his overstuffed recliner. The bucket tilted down, and she dropped to the ground amid a shower of dirt. She cracked her shin on a rusted pole trapped under one of the ’dozer-tracks. The plastique hadn’t gone off. Given the size of the ball, there should have been a very big noise, and the perp who was after her should have been knocked flat on his ass from the concussion.

  He wasn’t. He walked toward her, stepping over the bodies without so much as a glance. The air did that queer sort of shimmering thing again, and the resulting glow was bright enough for her to read a newspaper if she wanted. She blinked once, then got a good look at him. At first, she thought she was seeing a werewolf transformation, which would have been a relief, because that would have meant all she had to do was change the clip in her sidearm and blow a hole in its chest. But that wasn’t it. The face went from human to un-human in the blink of an eye. Its shoulders quivered, and like that, she faced a monster. Flames flickered in its eyes. It grinned.

  Claudia went from apprehensive to terrified in half a nanosecond.

  What the hell was that thing?

  It was less than ten feet from her, and she felt the pulse of a mental connect: a vampish sort of thing, a dark and slippery probe in her head. They weren’t even making eye contact, and it could touch her mind. She shook her head and, temporarily at least, cleared her thoughts. Was it some kind of super-vamp? Able to shape-shift like that? The mental thing was similar to what a vamp did, but with a hell of a lot more range. A cross between a vamp and a dog? How the hell did you defend against that?

  Claudia prepared to be toast. Except two things happened. The first was a panic-induced rush of peace. Her years-ago decision about how she would end her life had prepared her for this moment. She had a will, a guardian appointed for her daughter, Holly, and enough insurance to know Holly wouldn’t go without. She could look this monster in the eye and feel calm. With calmness came her defense. Calm gave her a wall, an enfolding barrier between her and the monster. The second thing was that three Cazadores appeared on the sidewalk. She felt the moment the monster lost its mental focus on her.

  After all these years, rogue vamps and moon-mad dogs notwithstanding, the Cazadores were still the gang of record in the worst parts of town. One tall, two not-so-tall, all three with illegal tasers strapped to their thighs and backs, they were no doubt looking to expand their territory. The Lower never got smaller, only wider and uglier. The police w
eren’t welcome there. One of the gangbangers held a Street Sweeper, modified to work like a machine gun. Nobody, but nobody, was welcome in the Lower without sanction by the Cazadores. They owned the right to illegal hunts, and they owned the midnight market. Claudia pressed herself flat to the ’dozer track. All things considered, she’d rather be killed by a Cazadore than the blue-light freak.

  In the space between her breaths, she heard the distinctive ka-schick of an ammo clip being rammed home. She used to steal dinner every night with guys like that, and now they wanted to shoot her? The sound distracted the monster. Not much, but enough. She pitched herself sideways just as blue fire hit the bulldozer. Yellow sparks sprayed the air, showering down like biting gnats. There was a brimstone and saltpeter smell. Another miss, and that worried her. A miss just didn’t sit right. If the creature didn’t want to kill her, what did it want?

  The Cazadores shouted. Behind them, Claudia saw, or thought she saw, a lithe shape leap from the house on one side of the lot to the back of another building. Oh, great. Just fabulous. All she needed now was some rogue vamp come to check out the proceedings. Bad enough she didn’t have much chance of keeping herself alive, now she had to keep a vamp from meeting an untimely end. Protect and serve.

  With a furious roar, her assailant whirled toward the street. Some kind of energy pulse burst from it. The backwash threw Claudia against the bulldozer. Her elbow hit the ledge of the tracks and her gun arm went numb. The monster hissed and flicked its wrist in a dismissive gesture toward the three Cazadores. One of the short ones screamed. Then the sound cut off and he was gone. Just…gone. The tall one dropped his Street Sweeper. Just in time, too, because the weapon imploded. Laughter thundered, and at the sound, the remaining Cazadores proved smarter than Claudia because they ran like hell. Claudia lurched to her feet, but the monster turned before the feeling came back to her fingers. It advanced on her until they were nose to snout.