A Darker Crimson

by Carolyn Jewel

  Tiber frowned. The people he killed stayed that way. If Masters wasn’t dead, if she’d become a vampire, his chances of clearing himself with Fleur Dumont weren’t good. The Primary Assembly didn’t look kindly on conversions. A rogue Masters, if she was even sane, wasn’t likely to say he’d done her a favor. “Only dead people get autopsied.”

  “There was no autopsy, Tiber,” Claudia said.

  Despite the subject matter of the discussion, he liked this new side of her: relaxed, confident and intensely concentrated on the facts. It was a whole new Claudia to fall in love with. Love. It was an odd thought. “Explain, if you will.”

  “The body never arrived.” She reached behind her and with a forefinger tapped the LCD panel at the spot she meant. “Somewhere between the wharf and the M.E.’s office, Laura Masters disappeared.” She tilted her head and smiled at him. “Dead people rarely get up and walk away by themselves unless they’re vamps or wolves.”

  Korzha pulled up another chair and sat on it backward, his arms propped on the back. “Shit.”

  Together, they stared at the monitor. “The dogs are plenty pissed that Masters got dumped in their territory, I bet. Within twenty-four hours after that picture hit the papers, random vampire-killing incidents spiked.”

  Tiber was fascinated by her facility on the machine. “Interested in a little consulting work on the side, Donovan?”

  “Hmm?” She was staring at the monitor and wasn’t listening. She clicked a link. A multi-colored chart rendered on the screen, graphing deaths by date, time, cause and victim. “Forty-eight hours later, dog deaths show a similar spike.” She tapped the screen again.

  “Retaliation?”

  “In spades, Tiber. Watch this.” She limited results to non-natural deaths, then eliminated humans from the data set. The upward slope increased. “There’s been little sign of slowing since. And here’s the projection over the next seventy-two hours.” The graphic re-rendered. “With Masters running around and demons in town, if you want my guess, we’ll be looking at a near vertical slope before the end of the month. Which means, shoot, that I lost that pool. I bet that jerk Benson wins.” She was trying to be flip, but he could see she was upset. “This is exactly what Jaise hoped would happen. Demons won’t need to start a war if we do it for them. We’ll be too busy killing each other to bother with them.”

  “If Masters has risen, and I’m not saying she has,” Korzha said with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, “she’s likely rogue. Dangerous.”

  “Watch this.” Claudia changed her query and pulled a result set of human deaths where cause of death was paranormal-suspected over the last forty-eight hours, plotted by the half-hour. “23:17 p.m. PDT yesterday.” She pointed at the base of a precipitous spike. “That’s midnight. The Bak-Faru didn’t really get going until then. At least I assume it’s them.” Claudia pressed a few more keys. “Sorted by zip-plus-four. Fifteen in the Lower. And there shouldn’t be any because no one reports from the Lower. Things must be pretty tense there if they’re letting B-Ops in there.”

  “So, where is she now?”

  “That, Tiber, is a very good question.” She tapped some more on the keyboard. “Probably I won’t find it,” she muttered. “I stuck my comm unit on her when we were in the portal room, but you never know.” Her fingers flew. Tap. Rattle, rattle, tap. “It’s worth a check… Got you, sucker. Well, okay, look at this.” She peered at the screen, tapped more keys, and sat back, hands on the top of her head. “Darn video card is too slow. And here we are.” She leaned forward. “That cannot be right.”

  “What?”

  More tapping, more muttering. Twenty seconds later she looked at Tiber and said, “It’s in the Lower. My old neighborhood. Now how the hell did my comm unit end up there?”

  “We should find out, yes?”

  Claudia leapt up and was non-stop action. In less than an hour, she had Holly up, dressed and fed and was over to Ruth’s apartment to arrange for sitting and had come back from shopping carrying three plastic bags that said Goodwill Global Industries on the side. With a grin, she said, “Do you have any cash on you? I owe Ruth twenty bucks.”

  Korzha stared down when Claudia put the bags at his feet. Goodwill?

  “It’s not safe to use my plastic, and we sure as hell can’t use yours. And, you cannot go into the Lower looking like that.” She looked him up and down, but without that little gleam of appreciation he liked catching in her eyes when she usually did that. He’d forgotten how good it felt to be in love. And it seemed he had it bad.

  “Like what?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Like a refugee from a Jet Li movie.” She bent down and pulled a pair of faded blue jeans from the bag. “Keep the tee-shirt, it’s good, but put this on. Don’t button it.” She pulled out a shirt with palm trees, monkeys and coconuts in orange, chartreuse and pink.

  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “Shoes.” She handed him a pair of black boots with silver buckles at the sides. “Socks.”

  “They’re red.”

  “I should have gotten you pink?”

  “This is splendid. Thank you.” He took the jeans from her, too. He already owned a pair of jeans bought on a lark and worn exactly never. “Just splendid,” he said.

  “Change.” She threw a box of condoms on the bed. His eyebrows rose. “I don’t get STDs, Claudia. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “What about swimmers?”

  “Swimmers?”

  Her eyebrows drew together. “Are you fertile, Tiber?”

  Now that surprised him. The question about took his breath. “Not very.”

  “I hope that’s nothing like not very pregnant,” she said, slowly.

  “It means,” he said, “that I am fecund. But vampire fertility rates are low. Very low.” The idea of an unplanned pregnancy ought to send him into a panic, but it didn’t. He was vaguely pleased by the thought. Hell, he didn’t even know if vampires and humans could conceive. He’d never bothered to find out. “Aren’t you on anything?”

  She took a deep breath. “I can’t afford it at my benefits level. And I don’t sleep around, so it just wasn’t an issue.”

  “Claudia—”

  “Get dressed.” Her mouth was tight. “There’s nothing I can do about it now.”

  He changed. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or dismayed that she turned pink when he shucked his borrowed pants. The new jeans were a tight fit. When she spoke, she said, “Too bad you don’t have a bullet wound. Still, if you can show off your scars, do.” Her eyes zipped up and down, from his head to his feet. Ah, Korzha thought with intense satisfaction. There it was: that little gleam in her eyes. “You look good,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  Claudia went up on tiptoe and pulled the scrunchie from his hair. She ran her fingers through his curls. Her torso pressed against his. If she’d do that more often, he’d keep his hair long just for her. “There.” She took a step back and frowned at him.

  “What?”

  “You’re too pale. They’ll know you’re a vamp the minute they set eyes on you. You’re going to have to feed, Korzha.”

  It was his turn to frown. “I’ll take care of it,” he said. He could probably find a supply…

  Her face fell, only for a moment, and then she had a smile in place. Well, well, well. She was jealous. The idea took hold in him and blossomed. She thought he was going to go out and find someone else to feed on, and she didn’t like it. Despite feeling like a damn fool, he grinned. If possible, her face fell even more. “Donovan,” he said. “I’m a vampire.”

  “Sex and all,” she said.

  “You’d have to arrest me if I went out and bit some random other woman.”

  “Like you care.”

  He put an arm around her waist and kissed the top of her head. He knew what it cost her to come so close to complaining. They needed to formalize this relationship. He needed to. He wanted to. But not when s
he was distracted by all this. “Dear-heart. Claudia,” he said. “I promise, no sex with anyone but you.” And he meant it. “There are blood banks.”

  “Blood banks safe for a fang who has a Vendix after him?”

  “There are places where even a vamp such as I am may discreetly fulfill his needs. Without sex and without breaking the law,” he said.

  “Okay, then.” Her tight mouth spoiled the effect of her nonchalant reply. “Do whatever you need to. I’m fine with it. Just fine.”

  He folded his arms around her and breathed in her scent. “Claudia. There’s no one else but you. No one.”

  When he returned, fed and with a healthy color, Claudia took Holly and the mink to Ruth’s apartment and made sure they knew not to open the door for any reason. When kisses and admonishments were complete, she and Tiber left. She had two windows in her apartment. One opened onto an interior stairwell to the garbage cans and looked across to apartment #415. The living room window faced a parking lot. They soared into the sky from there.

  The two of them touched down half a mile from the coordinates Claudia had, but before they walked into the Lower, she handed him a gun. “Put it in your waistband. Of course that’s stupid,” she said when his eyebrows rose. “The point is to make it obvious you’re packing.”

  “Yes, Officer,” Tiber said.

  “Don’t call me that. In the Lower, that could get us killed. Me killed.” Her fingers lingered on his stomach, and his body reacted in predictable fashion. As far as he was concerned, the gun was unnecessary; but then humans did need to show off their toys, and if he was going to try to pass as a mortal thug, he might as well have one.

  Claudia grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.”

  She her own clothes from Goodwill and looked suitably disreputable and completely delicious. Jeans with a hole in one knee, a tee-shirt a size too small, which on her was more than a little distracting. Boots. No jacket. He made a note to take her shopping. Rodeo Drive. Something slinky.

  The smell here was less than inviting: human excrement, vermin, and from the mouth of every alley they passed, rotting garbage. He smelled werewolf here and there, and motor oil everywhere. Human riff-raff with pit bulls or some equally fierce dog at their feet, slumped in doorways clutching paper-wrapped bottles or else lolling mindlessly under the effects of narco. The ones coming down from a high held out twitching hands for money or another fix.

  “Sense anything?” she asked.

  “A few rogues. Wolves. There’s a demon here. At least one. Possibly more.”

  “Bak-Faru?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  They saw anxious faces, wary and assessing, on humans of all colors, from dark as night to pale as a vamp on the edge. Narco dealers stood on corners with whores who ranged from unconscionably young to gray-haired crones. Dilapidated buildings lined the streets with boarded-up windows and metal-sheeted doors. All the store fronts were barricaded and the proprietors sat behind Plexiglas booths.

  Gang tags covered every surface, wild, colorful and inventive. Most of the street lamps were broken and those that worked dimmed, buzzed and brightened in the uneven cycle characteristic of an illegal power grid connection. Not everyone looked down and out; every now and then, Tiber caught a glimpse of a well-dressed human. Once or twice, he saw or felt a vamp. One of them was rogue. The other was not. Korzha stuck close to Donovan. The flare of neon signs flickered in and out with the fluctuating power.

  “This way,” she whispered, nudging him. “Should be in here.”

  Korzha’s sense of the demon vanished. Was it gone? Or just hiding?

  “In here” was an internet café called Jumpin’ Beans, the signage of which some tagger had amended to Humpin’ Beans, with suitable and imaginative artwork underneath. A neon sign flashed the words Net Café by turns virulent blue and purple. Underneath was a placard with a hemp-leaf watermark that read Medicinal Marijuana, Rx and I.D. Required.

  The choice of music was decidedly retro. Alan Jackson. The room reeked of smoke from Gaulois with an undercurrent of Humboldt weed. There were posters of smiling footballers each holding a beer and with a svelte blonde on his arm. In one corner a near-life-sized cardboard cutout of the latest NASCAR champion held a brew. His cardboard arm supported a cardboard blonde in a red dress. Someone had tagged the beer and obscured the brand-name.

  A pot-bellied man with a finger-thin braid dangling to mid-shoulder played pool on a table with torn felt in the center of the room. A woman in a too-short dress and track lines up her arm leaned against the man, waiting to take her shot. Other customers slouched over drinks or smokes or both. At the last stool, a skinny man with stringy blond hair stared into an LCD panel and nursed a glass of whatever beer was on tap. He smelled like werewolf. An espresso machine took up the left half of the bar. Dusty magazines and newspapers covered the top of it, and a barista lounged nearby, ready to make coffee for any customer with the money. As if they really served coffee here.

  At his side, Claudia tensed. Tiber could feel her fear. The barista looked them up and down, his attention lingering on Korzha before he looked at Claudia. “Well, well, well,” the man said. “Long time no see, babe.”

  “How ya doin’, Rabin?” Claudia said.

  “I’m doin’.”

  Cameras in each corner of the room caught every movement. Korzha heard the whir of one of the lenses repositioning. Rabin went back to staring at Tiber and scratched his sandy goatee. “I can guess what she’s doing here, but what about you? You slumming?” he asked.

  Claudia gave Rabin the finger. Her walk had changed into a slouching roll of her hips. Her salute didn’t seem to offend anyone. Chances had never been good they’d find Masters or her body and since this place seemed an unlikely spot for a corpse or a vampire, Tiber assumed they’d come to find Claudia’s comm unit. It’d be interesting to know how it ended up here. From somewhere in the back of the building, he heard a high pitched chirruping and the soft hum of motors. Odd.

  “What can I do ya for?” Rabin asked when Claudia approached the bar.

  She glanced at the espresso machine. “Quad non-fat macchiato?”

  Rabin grinned. “Fuck off, bitch.”

  “You first.”

  “T’sing Tao’s on tap. If you got a doc’s scrip, the weed’s behind the counter.”

  Claudia stuck her hands deep in her pockets and rocked back on her heels. “So, is Fly-Low here?” she asked. Her voice sounded different, too, Tiber noticed, the same slurred cadence as Rabin. She fit right in. He didn’t like the change.

  Rabin looked her up and down, paused at her chest in her too-tight shirt, then, after a quick look at Korzha, jerked a thumb toward a door at the back. “You know the drill. Weapons go in there.” He pointed to a battered cardboard box at the end of the bar. Some wag had labeled the box hardware, software & deadware. “The metal detector will make noise if you don’t unpack it all, and then this guy”—he jerked a thumb in the direction of the blond who smelled strongly of werewolf—“will have to hurt you.”

  “Really?” Claudia said. “He don’t look like much to me.”

  The blond’s eyes sidled away from the LCD. “I have to hurt you, you won’t like it.”

  Claudia gave him the finger, too.

  The man stared at her. “Me? I love hurting people.”

  “Oh, scary.”

  “Knock once,” said Rabin.

  When they’d put their guns in the box and, after Claudia, with a show of hands and fingers, pulled two knives from her sleeve and another from her boot, Korzha watched her take a deep breath. He felt the anxiety rolling off her. He leaned into her. “Who the hell is Fly-Low?”

  “After the vamps, he’s probably the most powerful person in Crimson City.” She knocked once and put her hand on the doorknob. “I knew him a long time ago.”

  The chirruping stopped the moment she knocked. The hum of the electric motor continued. Damp air hit Tiber in the face when she opened the door. He smelled dirt. Terr
ariums from fifty to a hundred-gallon size lined the entire back wall. The air was so wet it felt like rain. Diffuse light shone on the tanks. Tiber closed the door and cut off Jackson singing “If French Fries Were Fat Free.” In one corner, a vidscreen showed the bar. The werewolf stared into the camera.

  A man turned from his contemplation of one of the tanks. He wore khakis and a dark green t-shirt with #006633 printed in light grey lettering across the chest. A homemade tattoo of connected knives formed a band around his upper arm. He had short brown hair and dark blue eyes all wrong for his olive complexion. Acne had scarred his cheeks, but hadn’t diminished his physical appeal in the least. He studied Claudia, his attention fixed on the metallic thread in her hair. He spared a glance for Korzha, but went back to staring at Claudia.

  He looked thirty-five, maybe the young side of forty. The chirruping started up again, two distinct calls, one a ululating chirp, the other a more fluid, rolling two-toned tattoo. He tightened the mesh-ventilated lid on a container he held in one hand. He found space for it on a table crowded with soil, bags of pebbles, plant cuttings, brass tongs and stoppered phials. A brazier at one end exuded heat. The set-up looked like a large and expensive way to smoke crack and OD fast, but the smell was wrong and the smoldering mass on the platform above the embers looked vaguely animal-like.

  “Bonita.” His voice lilted with the vocalized vowels of the Southern hemisphere. An attractive accent. He smiled. “I always wondered what happened to you.”

  “Fly-Low,” she said. “Good to see you. Is G around?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “G’s around.” His mouth twitched. “You going to introduce me to your new boyfriend?”

  “Tiber, Fly-Low. Fly-Low, Tiber.”

  Another smirk appeared on Fly-Low’s mouth. “Peace, Tiberiu Korzha.”

  “Fly-Low,” he said softly. But he didn’t say it in anything like a friendly manner. The man’s eyebrows lifted.

  Claudia nodded at the terrariums. “You got them to breed.”

  Fly-Low glanced at the tanks behind him and then back at Korzha. His pupils were huge. “I started out with Phyllobates Terribilis, those are the yellow ones,” he said to Korzha. “Now I have Dendrobates, Epipedobates and Minyobates, too. Blue, green, red, you name it, I got them. I got them all, now.”