Dante's Awakening

by Devon Marshall

  I indicated her attire with a nod. “Day off?”

  “Don’t sound so surprised,” she responded dryly, removing the shades and tucking them into the neck of her t-shirt. “Even small-town sheriffs get a day off now and then.”

  “Join me?” I asked on impulse.

  She accepted with only the slightest hesitation, sliding into the booth and signaling the same waitress for a coffee. “I heard about the incident at the hotel last night,” she said after the coffee had been poured and small town pleasantries exchanged with the waitress, and we were alone again.

  I blinked, suddenly uncertain whether she was talking about Ellis and me, or about Caitlin. “The actress who was attacked,” she clarified. I raised an eyebrow. Sheriff Bartlett sipped her coffee, smiled at me over the rim. “It’s a small town, Dante. That kind of news travels at the speed of light.”

  “Bad news has that ability everywhere,” I agreed. “You get fired off a set one day in Hollywood, by next day you can’t find work on a TV advert unless it’s being shot in Japan.”

  “What puzzles me is that nobody called for the police,” Sheriff Bartlett remarked with a tight little smile that owed nothing to humor.

  “We movie people sometimes prefer to solve our problems in-house,” I explained.

  “Uh-huh. Like running Derek McBride out of town?”

  So word of that had reached her ears too. I wondered who the omnipresent witness was doing all the whispering in those ears. Small town or not, her information highway was super-fast. Sheriff Bartlett sipped more coffee, looked at me for a while. Then she said, “I don’t care much about the running Derek off thing… I told you what I thought of Derek already. But I am concerned about the attack.”

  I had to tread very carefully here to avoid stepping in any dog shit. “The actress is fine, better than fine. Trust me, she’ll thrive on the attention this will get her,” I said. I made a moue. It’s a meaningless thing to do but it makes you look earnest and trustworthy. “Really, Sheriff, it’s all about money and protecting the investment.”

  “Cold,” Sheriff Bartlett opined.

  She had no idea. None at all. And better for her that she didn’t.

  “Did she get a look at her attacker?”

  “Red hair, tall, skinny. He was posing as a room service guy. It looks like he was probably a fan stalking her.” Kernels of truth again. I borrowed one this time from Caitlin’s recipe book.

  The sheriff grimaced. “Doesn’t sound like anybody I know. Of course I don’t know absolutely everyone in town right now.”

  “I doubt he’ll come back,” I offered. Actually I knew no such thing, but Ellis had seemed pretty sure of it.

  The sheriff switched tack on me then so abruptly I had to do some mental jogging to catch up. She asked me if Ellis Kovacs and I were “an item.”

  “No,” I told her. “We’re just colleagues.”

  That got a nod and a smile, the first genuine one I’d seen from Sheriff Bartlett. Why, I wondered, did I just lie to her about my relationship with Ellis? Did I enjoy stripping naked, smothering myself in honey and taking a sharp stick to a hornet’s nest? Because that’s what I was doing. First sleeping with Ellis and drinking her blood in defiance of Voshki’s stupid claim on me, then willfully ignoring that relationship with Ellis because I wanted to see where this good-looking blonde sheriff was going. At least I was on a roll with doing stupid things.

  “Do you think you’ll be in town for much longer?” Sheriff Bartlett inquired.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose that depends.”

  “It’s just that I was wondering if you’d like to have dinner? With me.”

  Okay. We had reached our destination. I felt my head nod. Lips smile. Heard my voice saying yes, that would be good.

  “Great. Um, how about tomorrow night? I know a place outside of town that’s maybe a little more upscale than here. I could pick you up around seven?”

  Sheriff Bartlett did not believe in wasting any time. On the other hand, I had to wonder if she had ulterior motives in asking me to dinner, like she wanted to pick my brain further on last night’s attack? I didn’t refuse her offer though. She stood, still faintly smiling. “I’ll see you then, Dante,” she said, and laid her fingers on top of my wrist for just a moment.

  It was long enough for me to catch a fleeting impression of her emotions. That surprised the hell out of me, much more than the scent thing had done. Another effect of the blood-drinking, I supposed. Sheriff Bartlett was excited, apprehensive and something else too. Just a little bit angry—but not at me, at someone else. I had never experienced another person’s emotions this way before, the way vampires could experience them all the time, and it was as freaky as it was intriguing. I did wonder if the person Sheriff Bartlett was angry at could be a recent ex-girlfriend. Was I about to become Rebound Gal? I hoped not. I’ve been there before. I’ve spent entire dinners listening to tirades about exes, weepy and bitchy by turn, watching in horror as my date gets steadily sloshed on wine and grows exponentially more maudlin. Usually I end up driving them home as they cry all over my upholstery and tell me how sorry they are for ruining the evening…maybe next time will be better? There never is a next time.

  “See you at seven tomorrow, Sheriff,” I smiled up at her.

  “It’s Lois,” she told me.

  “See you at seven tomorrow, Lois.”

  I watched her ass walk away in those tight black jeans. To hell with the hornet’s nest. Being with the vampires was making me reckless and I figured getting stung might be worth it.

  * * *

  Before I could really enjoy thinking about my dinner with Lois Bartlett, I had another mini-crisis to deal with regarding The Right Guy. I received a call on my cell phone as I walked back to the hotel. It came from Lydia Diamond.

  Lydia is a head of production with a major studio. Lydia is also what we in the business call a “screamer,” meaning she screams at everybody. She screams at assistants, at directors, at producers, frequently at actors. She will even scream at delivery boys. I’ve known Lydia to scream at furniture if there is not a human being around. Some people in Hollywood scream because they are over-grown spoiled children who know they can get away with it. Lydia screams because she enjoys scaring the living crap out of people. But she gets the job done.

  She is also a long-time good friend of mine. She’s a few years older, in her mid-forties, but she can pass for mid-thirties. Partly this is the result of very good genetics, and partly an even better plastic surgeon. Lydia, unlike most women who have been under the knife but would sooner suffer having all their false fingernails pulled out with pliers than admit as much, embraces her surgical enhancements. She is very much in accordance with comedienne Joan Rivers where exercise is concerned, believing that if God had meant for women to do all that bending over He would have made gyms with diamond-encrusted floors, and that plastic surgeons are His way of affirming this. I cannot count the occasions on which Lydia has helped me extricate my mother from whatever drunken, drug-fueled predicament she has gotten herself into. Nor do I care to count the occasions when Lydia and I have enjoyed several drinks together, and had a good bemoan of the state of our relationships. She is heterosexual, by the way, has been married five times, and each time the husband has left because he got sick of being screamed at daily. I think Lydia gets married just to have someone around that she can scream at when she’s not at work and screaming at people there.

  “Dante, darling, how the hell are you?” Lydia’s voice boomed down the line. On a good day she sounds like a foghorn heard from within. On a bad one, her voice takes on the quality and tone of a handful of nails thrown into a blender.

  “Surviving against the odds,” I joked.

  “And where the hell are you? I’ve been calling your office, but that prissy-assed Mormon you call an assistant keeps telling me that you’re out of town and unavailable? I’m bemused, darling.”

  Of course such a concept would be ut
terly foreign to Lydia, who gets panic attacks if she leaves LA County. She is addicted to the Hollywood existence. I explained that I was indeed out of town, on business for Voshki Kevorkian. Yes, Lydia knows about the vampires. One of her husbands was a vampire. The third one, I think.

  “I’ve been hearing things about that little production going on upstate,” Lydia told me then, her tone darkening.

  Lots of hearing going on, very little sharing. I waited for Lydia to elaborate. “I’ve been hearing rumors that the investors in The Right Guy are getting antsy. They’ve been told there are problems on set and are having bad thoughts that the show is about to tank.”

  I was stunned into speechlessness. The show was doing about as well as a show could without being Lost, and the investors surely could not have heard about last night’s attack on Caitlin Harris yet. I know the Hollywood grapevine has an Express Lane, but this news would have been traveling at warp speed with Captain Janeway at the helm to have arrived this fast.

  Then Lydia suggested that someone on the inside might be whispering into the ears of the investors.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “I have no fucking idea, darling. I could do some digging though?”

  “Please, Lyd. I’d appreciate that. And see if you can’t get word to these investors that the rumors they’re hearing are not true.”

  “Consider it done, darling,” my friend promised. Then she added with a suspicious curiosity, “Is Ellis Kovacs up there with you?”

  I didn’t even bother to ask how she knew this. I told her yes, Ellis was here, as was Samson, so what of it?

  “Mmm, darling, you know how it goes…small town far away from LA, you and the delicious Ellis all alone together,” Lydia purred. I felt my jaw come unhinged. Did everyone expect that Ellis and I were going to sleep together? Had they all known how inevitable it was? Lydia cackled. “I know you’re going to tell me all the details when you get back! I can’t wait. Toodle-pip, darling!”

  “Yeah, can’t wait,” I huffed and hung up.

  I walked the rest of the way back to the hotel, the whole time pondering who might have told the show’s investors that things were not going well, and occasionally allowing my thoughts to stray in the direction of the sexy blonde sheriff with whom I was having dinner…and who knew what else later. Then I arrived at the hotel to find Ellis waiting for me, and that happy little bubble of anticipation popped audibly in my head. Ellis did not look happy, on the other hand.

  “Voshki wants us back in LA,” she announced.

  My heart fell. It collided with my stomach on its way to my throat, and both probably bumped into the word “Fuck!” as it flew out of my mouth.

  “Why does she want us back in LA?” I asked. Of course I was convinced Voshki had already found out about Ellis and I, and she was planning to kill both of us—probably stake Ellis and eat me. And no, I do not mean that in the sexual sense. Far fucking from it.

  Ellis blew air. “She’s getting her panties all up in a bunch about this red-haired freak that attacked your ex-girlfriend.”

  “Will you please stop referring to Caitlin as my ex?” I demanded.

  Ellis frowned. “But she is your ex.”

  I sighed. “I know, but I don’t need to be reminded of the fact, okay? Wait, you mean it’s not about us?”

  Ellis looked at me as though I had just spoken to her in Swahili. I made a flapping gesture with my hand in the air between us. “Us. You know…what we did.”

  “Oh. Right. No. I mean, I expect she’ll be pissed about that…” Ellis actually found this something to smile about… “but that’s got nothing to do with her wanting us back in Loonyville ASAP.”

  “Well, does she want us to come back here again?” I must have sounded worried because Ellis gave me a sharp look. I slammed the mental shutters down on all and any thoughts of Sheriff Bartlett, dinner or motorcycles. What did she ride anyway? I forgot to ask her. I could picture her on something big, sexy and Japanese.

  “Why are you thinking about Kawasaki motorcycles?” Ellis wanted to know.

  Damn. I shook my head, a well-practiced shit-eating grin popping out. “I have no idea,” I said cheerfully. “Maybe it’s the prospect of driving all the way back to LA with you and your ’80s cheese-rock that has me thinking about them. You know, Tom Cruise…Kelly McGillis…all that Take My Breath Away crap. So anyway, does Vosh expect us to come back here again or not?”

  Ellis’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you would be dying to get out of Toy Town, USA and back to your comfort zone?” I could practically feel her mind reaching out for mine. Under other circumstances this new psychic connection might have been rather romantic. With Sheriff Bartlett in my head, it was just plain terrifying, not to mention intrusive and annoying.

  I shrugged hard enough to nearly dislocate both shoulders. “It’s starting to grow on me,” I told her. I stepped around her and entered the hotel lobby. “I suppose Vosh expects us to leave immediately?”

  Ellis followed me. “Of course she does. Dante, why are you thinking about blondes and motorcycles? I never thought Kelly McGillis was your sort?”

  Screw romantic. The mind reading thing could get old real quick.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  And so we got in the house-sized SUV again, and we drove all the way back to LA. The whole journey I kept wondering how was I going to explain to Lois Bartlett that I missed our dinner date because the goddamn vampire whose bitch I had very definitely become ordered me back to LA on short notice. Family emergency somehow just did not cut it. At least Ellis kept the radio low and did not sing along for quite the entire journey. I think she was trying to be nice to me. Too bad I was in no mood to appreciate it. I did ask her though about the heightened senses and the ability to read emotions. She smiled, shrugged, told me it would probably wear off soon.

  “I didn’t think you’d had anywhere near enough of my blood to cause that,” she added, sounding a trifle puzzled.

  “It doesn’t seem to happen with everyone. Just…one or two people,” I added carefully.

  Ellis frowned at me. “That’s curious.”

  Voshki was waiting in her office when we arrived, pacing the floor like a caged tiger, scowling and grinding her teeth practically loud enough to be heard from across the room. She stopped pacing as soon as we entered, and rounded on us.

  She started to say, “That red-haired vampire attacked…” and then she stopped. She went very still. Her fangs came out. The red glow erupted in her eyes. It was not the warm, sultry glow of passion, however, this was the fiery blaze of anger. She took a single step toward us.

  “You chose Ellis over me?” Voshki demanded. Her voice was low, even, but it deceived no one in the room for a moment. You could have cut the chill emanating from her with a chainsaw.

  I swallowed. I did not dare look at Ellis.

  “You have her blood in your veins,” Voshki hissed.

  I wanted to run. Even though that would have been pointless. Voshki could have been on me before I even took a half step.

  “I claimed you,” Voshki said then, and suddenly I’d had enough. Maybe it was the petulant tone I perceived in her words, or maybe it was just being discussed like some slave for sale in the Roman markets, but something inside me snapped anyway. I threw up my hands, glared at the vampire leader.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I yelled. “Will you both stop it? I do not belong to either one of you. Who I sleep with…and whose fucking blood I drink…is my choice! Time you guys got your heads around that.”

  And no, I could hardly believe I was saying that either. Especially the blood-drinking bit.

  Beside me, I felt Ellis first stiffen and then reach out to me with her mind, but I slammed those barriers down hard and firm. Ellis took a physical step closer to me. At once Voshki issued a loud hiss from between clenched fangs, red-blazing eyes locking on her love rival. Ellis, to her credit, did not flinch. But that was all the credit I was prepared to give her.

  “I
did not coerce Dante into being with me,” Ellis pronounced.

  Coerce? I snapped a look at her that I fancied could have cut through several layers of steel. Ellis made a little half-shrug with her eyebrows. I shook my head. Coerce! I was properly insulted now. However, it seemed to mollify Voshki somewhat. The glow died to an ember and her fangs retracted.

  “Very well,” she said grudgingly. She looked straight into my eyes and I had to struggle to keep her out of my head. “I will not punish either of you. I still want you, Dante, but I also want you to come to me of your own free will.”

  “Gee thanks,” I said.

  Ellis made a slight bow with her head, gracious both in accepting her leader’s benevolence and in not rubbing her triumph over Voshki in. Vampires! I wish it were werewolves.

  “No, you really don’t,” Ellis murmured at my ear. I took a physical step away from her. Sooner these weird effects wore off, the better.

  Voshki retreated to her desk where she leaned with a hip against the desk edge, arms folded. She looked all very brooding and commanding, and, well, just like a vampire leader ought to look, I suppose. But there remained an undercurrent of unease in her expression that worried me. “I should explain some things,” she began, and I thought Hallelujah! at last, someone willing to explain what the fuck was going on. Voshki twitched a smile utterly devoid of humor at me.

  “I should tell you a little about the Children of Judas,” she began.

  “That’d be nice,” I muttered.

  “The story of their origins is shrouded in some mystery and therefore doubt, but as close as can be gathered it goes like this… Judas Iscariot was condemned by God to wander the earth spawning a unique race of vampire children after he betrayed Jesus. Judas is supposed to have wandered and spawned for many years until he was overcome with despair and returned to the temple in Rome, where he threw the thirty pieces of silver he received for betraying Jesus down at the feet of the Romans and begged for it to be taken back. When his request was refused, he hanged himself right there in the temple. And as a direct result of this action, which apparently pissed God off even more than betraying His only begotten Son… “Voshki’s lip curled and she shook her head, apparently baffled by the vagaries of God… “So, because God was pissed off at him now too, it became that suicides were the favorite victims of Judas’s cursed vampire children. The Children of Judas even developed the power to convince humans to commit suicide so that they would have a ready supply of victims.”