I just nodded and continued on my way to my bedroom upstairs, leaving them to carry on genuflecting to the carpet. I didn’t bother to point out that they were both wearing eyeglasses.
Hence I have no desire to read about the life I grew up living.
I lay on the bed then in our brothel-cum-hotel, in Holly Bush Junction, the ass end of California, and tried to concentrate on the latest Dean Koontz novel. My mind, however, kept drifting into thoughts about Ellis, most of them centering around the fact that we would be sharing this very bed in a few hours. Like I said, I was still chafed about that, but I was also kind of excited in a way that seriously disturbed me. When Amelia Kevorkian said she thought I wanted to sleep with Ellis, she had hit on an uncomfortable truth. I do find Ellis attractive…oh hell, let’s face it, you would have to be a nun not to be fired up by Ellis Kovacs. The woman could be covered in road kill and wearing a cabbage for a hat and she’d still have a sex appeal that you could see from outer space…and if I were to be really honest with myself, then hell yes, I would really like to sleep with her. There’s just one niggling problem. Well, one other than vampires being possessive and jealous and stifling in a relationship. Vampires also have a fairly rigid hierarchy. Their leader is deferred to in nearly every matter, much in the way a king or queen—or a president—would be deferred to by human subjects. Except without even the pretense of democracy.
This means the vampire leader also has first dibs on anything that takes his or her fancy, including humans. As I said, sometime ago Voshki made it clear she has a fancy for me, and although I declined the invitation to become her human companion—politely of course—that only bought me time. So long as she retains an interest in me, no other vampire is allowed to make overtures to me. Even Ellis’s joking around with me could get her into trouble, which made me wonder why Ellis was taking that risk. I didn’t flatter myself that it was because she found me so irresistible. Power is everything with vampires. Ellis’s flirting with me would be linked in some way to a power play between her and Voshki, and that was something I did not want to get in the middle of.
Eventually I gave up any attempt to read and instead I took a shower and changed my clothes for dinner. If Ellis or Samson were not back before my stomach really began complaining, I would take a stroll into town, see if I could find one of those restaurants the hotel proprietor had recommended. Eating by yourself in a strange town is about as lame sauce as it gets, but hey, my companions didn’t exactly abide by human social rules, remember? If I had to endure the embarrassment of dining solo, so be it. Fuck the vampires.
Well, that might’ve been an unfortunate choice of terms.
Whilst I was in the shower, Ellis returned. I came out of the bathroom unawares, wrapped in a towel and otherwise naked, and found her lying on my side of the bed, reading my book. She raised her head and gave me an extended look of appreciation, which I pretended to ignore.
“When did you get back?” I asked.
“A few minutes ago. Are you going to ask me where I was?”
“You went to find someone to eat, I assumed.”
I grabbed underwear, socks and a fresh shirt from my bag and stomped back into the bathroom with those. Ellis’s voice drifted to me.
“I asked a few people around town about the guy that lives in that shack.”
“Good for you.” I dressed quickly, not certain that Ellis would stay put on the bed.
“His name is Derek McBride. He doesn’t seem to have a job. According to the people I spoke to, he gets by selling rabbit skins and fish.”
“An outdoorsman, eh?” That was putting it charitably.
“Hmm. The great outdoors.” I heard Ellis shift on the bed and held my breath briefly, but she stayed put. Disappointment mingled with relief. I brushed my teeth, ran a comb through my hair. Most days my hair can charitably be described as “devil-may-care.” At other times it looks like I got caught in a tsunami. Indoors. I listened to Ellis fiddling with the bedside radio as she pondered the mystery of the human attraction to the great outdoors.
“What’s so great about mud and mosquitoes and trying to sleep under a piece of canvas that keeps blowing down in the slightest breeze?”
She was asking the wrong human about that. As far as I am concerned, people who say they love the great outdoors are either liars or deluded. The truth is that, for most people, camping is something you do armed to the teeth with every gadget known to humankind designed to keep the outdoors at bay. All over America you can see these poor, deluded fools in their RV’s equipped with everything from satellite TV to walk-in refrigerators, lugging everything with them from inflatable lawns and insect-repellent flamethrowers to battery-operated microwave ovens and solar-powered tin openers. I have never gone camping in my entire life, so the attraction of sleeping under a piece of canvas and smothering yourself in bug-repellent was about as foreign to me as it was to Ellis.
I realized I had just found something in common with the vampire. Was that good or bad? I wondered.
I buttoned up my shirt, leaned into the mirror to take a critical look at myself. Dark brown, short hair, mid-blue eyes, a sprinkling of freckles across my nose and no discernible double chins yet. That matters in Hollywood, believe me. On the whole, not too bad looking—but no Helen of Troy either. I’m not deluded. I used my fingers to torture my hair a little more where the comb had failed. Then I walked back into the bedroom.
Ellis looked me up and down with more appreciation. “Did you get a date or something?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No. I just thought I’d go out and eat.”
“Alone?”
I nodded. Grabbed a jacket and my wallet.
“Want me to come with you?”
“Are you hungry?”
Oh, now that was a stupid thing to say. If I had scissors to hand I would have cut out my own tongue. I braced myself for Ellis’s response.
“It’s funny, but I’m always hungry when I’m around you,” she said in a low, husky voice that gave me chills. Exactly as it was designed to do, of course.
I was still standing with my back to her, which was stupid also. Vampires can move fast and move silently. I did not even know Ellis had left the bed until she was standing right behind me, her body pressed lightly to mine, leaning over my shoulder. I could feel her mouth against my neck as she murmured, “I get really hungry around you, Dante.”
I could think of nothing to say that would not turn this moment from an awkward one into a potentially deadly one. I heard Ellis’s fangs slide out with a soft snicking sound that gave me more chills. Then I felt her fangs touching the skin of my neck. That turned just about every bone in me to Jell-O. Nerves zinged, flesh quivered. I could not have been more turned on, or more terrified, and what a powerfully erotic combination that is. Ellis let her fangs graze across the soft part of my throat, drawing a deep shudder from me—but no blood—and then she used her tongue to trace my jugular vein. I could feel a pulse throbbing there that was echoed further south and closer to the warm center of my anatomy.
“Don’t, Ellis,” I managed to croak. “Voshki will kill both of us.”
Ellis sucked breath in. Here’s another little tidbit about vampires—they don’t need to breathe. Many of them have perfected the pretense of breathing for when they are in close enough proximity to humans for it to matter. Have you ever noticed how most of us go around never really thinking about other people breathing, let alone actually noticing them doing so? It’s only with lovers—or sick people—that we start to take notice of the act of breathing. A vampire can pretend to breathe by going through the motions, but there is never any actual breath—no feel of it, no smell of it. Ellis’s intake of air was purely for dramatic impact.
She stepped away from me. “I don’t know why Vosh keeps you like this,” she said, and I heard a note of anger in her voice. I turned curiously toward her. She was scowling at a point beyond my right shoulder. “You said no to her. She doesn’t usually keep a
human dangling like this for so long.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know why Voshki kept me on ice like this either. What I did know was that my heart was pounding and the blood rushing through my veins felt like liquid fire. I had been dangerously close to letting Ellis carry on with what she had so obviously wanted to do. To hell with never wanting Voshki to become displeased with me. For Ellis, the risk might be worth it.
Then her black-eyed gaze came back into focus on me. I felt stripped naked by it. I could hardly swallow. My heart blocked my throat. “Sometimes I think you would be worth defying her,” Ellis purred.
I didn’t know what to say. But I knew what to do. Get the hell out of there.
* * *
I chose a roadside diner at random at which to eat. After my encounter with Ellis, the lure of food had waned some until all I could stomach was a burger and fries, with an ice-cold beer. I found that at Mame’s Diner in downtown Holly Bush Junction. Mame’s had red leather banquettes, black and white checkered vinyl flooring and a huge Wurlitzer jukebox stocked with only 1950’s tunes. I loved the place instantly, even if I was less hungry than I’d started out. I took a booth and ate whilst listening to Fats Domino and Eddie Cochrane and Bill Hailey. I had finished my burger and fries and was onto a chocolate ice cream sundae when someone stopped by my booth—who was not the waitress with the blonde beehive servicing my sector of the diner.
It was a blonde though. The blonde sheriff. I looked up, blinked, smiled. “Sheriff Bartlett,” I said pleasantly.
She nodded. “Mizz Sonnier…sorry. Dante. You found our town’s best-kept secret, I see.” She smiled. She was still in uniform, I noticed. Gun, badge, handcuffs and all. Awkwardly she made a gesture inquiring if she might sit. I nodded. The sheriff settled into the banquette.
“Something on your mind, Sheriff?” I inquired, still being pleasant. I ate my sundae steadily, hoping she would not mind. It was delicious, and I really did not want to let it melt.
Sheriff Bartlett shook her head. Changed her mind. Nodded. “I heard that your friend was asking around town about Derek McBride.”
Small town. Someone like Ellis being nosy was going to be memorable. I had more sense than to deny it, simply nodded instead, like it was really no big deal. It seemed to be just that to Sheriff Bartlett, however. She gave me a level stare. Lovely pale blue eyes, like falling water. More eyes for me to drown in. Too many new things were happening here. I wished suddenly I was back in La-La Land, where I at least was familiar with the shaky ground I stood on.
“Do you have reason to think Derek is the peeper?” she asked.
The direct approach. Refreshing. No one in Hollywood is direct. We all talk around things in a coded language. Well, except for the vampires. They can be a pretty direct lot. When they’re not being cryptic. I spooned sundae into my mouth, savored, swallowed. I shrugged. “Too early to say.”
“But you’ve been making inquiries?”
“Do you know something about Derek McBride that makes you think he could be the peeper, Sheriff?” I held the sheriff’s waterfall-gaze.
She shrugged but the gesture was anything except casual. “He hasn’t been in town long, and he doesn’t have a steady source of income, I know that much. I know he’s been in twelve bar fights since he got here, and on every occasion there have been no witnesses afterward. I’ve never been able to arrest him.”
“People drink, get into fights, forget what happened next day,” I pointed out. Of course it could also be a vampire glamouring people into forgetting.
Sheriff Bartlett was not convinced either. “This won’t sound professional, but the guy also gives me the creeps.”
I smiled at that. “I live and work in Hollywood, Sheriff. I deal with people who give me the creeps on a daily basis,” I said. “Hell, there are members of my own family give me the creeps. I guess what I’m saying is, you’ll have to give me something more to work with here.”
“Okay. I’ve talked to him, obviously, about the bar fights, and other stuff. Every time I have talked to him, I’ve come away from the experience feeling much like I suspect FBI agents have felt talking to serial killers. Tainted.”
Strong words. I pushed my empty plate away, leaned back against the soft leather back of the banquette and considered what to say next. “I know you want your town to continue to be safe and peaceful, Sheriff,” I began, and she frowned in a defensive way that I was ready for. I held up a hand to stall her protests. “I can assure you that no one at the location shoot, nor back at the studio, wants anything different. That’s why I’m here. To clear this problem up as quickly as possible and with as little fuss as possible.”
“Uh-huh. You indicated that before.”
“And I meant it before.”
A shadow loomed over both of us then. I had, from the corner of my eye, noticed a tall, distinguished-looking woman in a dark blue dress and matching jacket stand up from a table nearer to the counter and head in our direction. She had been hard to miss because she had flaming blood-red hair. Too red, surely, not to have had some artificial enhancement. Now, as the sheriff and I both craned our necks to look up at the interloper to our conversation, I saw it was the same redhead. Up close I could see that she was in her mid-forties, wearing well, but too angular to be called conventionally attractive. The dress and the jacket both were expensive in an understated way. She beamed a friendly smile at me but she addressed herself to the sheriff.
“Sheriff Bartlett…so sorry to interrupt your little tête-à-tête with our visitor.” She had the glacial intonations and the inbred look of pinched beauty, slightly off-kilter in a way that you just could not put your finger on, indigenous to the high-line WASP. A face that launched a thousand country clubs. I would bet on her origins being New England. Maine. Or maybe Boston.
“Marjorie,” the sheriff said stiffly.
“Is this one of our Hollywood friends then?” Marjorie extended a hand manicured within an inch of its life. I took it politely, held on as lightly as possible in case I might cut myself on a sharp edge.
“Dante Sonnier,” I told her. “I’m just an agent. None of the really exciting stuff.”
“Oh, an agent!” Marjorie sounded just so delighted. She leaned toward me, in no hurry to extricate her paw from mine either. Hazel eyes glittered at me. This woman was a barracuda. I know one of those when I’m faced with one. “I just adore having the movie people in town. It’s so exciting and different for our little backwater burg!” And off she went into a trill of laughter that I bet she practiced to perfection every day in front of the mirror.
“Well, you have a very nice little burg here indeed,” I oozed right back at her. I got my own paw free, resisted an urge to check it for blood.
Marjorie aimed a well-practiced smile in the sheriff’s direction once more. “Please don’t forget, Lois dear, that the Women’s Auxiliary meeting is this evening. Seven p.m. sharp,” she cooed.
“I’ll be there,” Lois Bartlett promised.
Marjorie bestowed more smiley niceness on me. “ So glad to have met you, Dante. I hope you enjoy our town.” She made a gracious little gesture with her head and upper body that was very nearly a bow and glided off. Heads turned and eyes followed her. I swear I heard awed whispering. Just before stepping outside she produced a pair of Prada shades from her matching handbag and settled those on her face with a practiced ease.
I looked at Lois Bartlett with a raised eyebrow. “Let me guess. She’s either the Lady Mayor or she’s the wife of the Mayor?”
The sheriff laughed. “Wife,” she confirmed. “Marjorie Tucker. I believe she hails from Boston.”
I’m rarely wrong about these things. I finished the last mouthful of my beer, wiped my lips with a napkin and looked across the table at Sheriff Lois Bartlett. “We’re not going to do anything to disrupt your town, Sheriff. We don’t need the hassle either, frankly. We’ll talk to Derek McBride and if he is the peeper, well, if I know anything at all about the Derek McBride’s of thi
s world, it’s that they can be made an offer…” I flicked an eyebrow and the sheriff smiled. She knew Derek’s sort as well. “We’ll make him an offer to take his peeping elsewhere that he won’t be inclined to refuse, and everything can go back to normal. Fortunately we don’t have the burden of proof to concern us.”
Sheriff Bartlett chewed it over. Then she nodded. She stood up from the table. “If you need any help, you know where I am. My apologies for interrupting your dinner.” She managed another smile before walking away. That allowed me a few seconds to admire the rear view, which was every bit as good as the front view.
Plus, there was the added bonus that my attraction to the sheriff wouldn’t cost me my damned life.
So I enjoyed that for a few moments, and then it was back to business. Time to pay Derek McBride a little visit.
* * *
I may have stretched the truth somewhat about clearing things up with as little fuss as possible. If I have learned one thing in my life, it is that where actors and vampires are concerned, things rarely are sorted out without there being a whole lot of fuss indeed.
Around seven, with the sun setting on Holly Bush Junction, Samson drove Ellis and me back out to Derek McBride’s shack. We could hear some god-awful music coming from inside, sounded like thrash metal. We didn’t bother to knock—Ellis just shouldered the door off its hinges and we walked right in. That stuff about vampires needing to be invited in first time? More hogwash. That they are mighty strong—not so much hogwash.
Derek was also mighty surprised to see us, so surprised he immediately got his fangs out and tried to attack Ellis. That was his first mistake. It also pretty much confirmed that he was our peeper. If he hadn’t had something to hide, he would have hesitated before attacking an older, stronger vampire. Vampires can sense when they are in the presence of another older, stronger vampire. Ellis is around three hundred years old in vampire years, which makes her a baby in relation to someone like Voshki, but plenty old enough to not be concerned by someone like Derek. She was—she claims—turned at the age of forty-one. I didn’t know forty-one-year-olds could look so good three centuries ago. Anyway, she was older, faster and stronger than Derek McBride and he didn’t stand a chance. Ellis batted him aside like a bothersome fly, sending him crashing into a wall hard enough to splinter the wood. Then she calmly walked over to him, grabbed him around the throat and hoisted him into the air with one hand, letting him dangle there.
Dante's Awakening Page 5
