The napkin said MELMOTH HOTEL.
Brett tucked it away, thinking it was as good a lead as leads got.
15
She was sitting in the middle of the dojo when he went to check on her, the morning paper spread out around her like a holocaust. She was shaking, her arms over her head. Rocking. Rocking.
Alek picked up the part of the paper she had been reading. It was a follow-up to one of the Ladykiller murders. According to the story, there had been two new victims of the Ladykiller crimes a couple of nights ago, one a young woman identified as Irena Sullivan, 19, an exotic dancer who worked in a club in the Brooklyn Heights, the other a little four-year-old girl named Lilly Langford. The body of Irena Sullivan had been found missing from the morgue and a morgue attendant slaughtered almost ritualistically, making the police suspect local inner city blood cults of snatching the body and killing the man. The remaining victim, Lilly Langford, was being buried at St. Patrick’s Cemetery on Friday with general services held afterward for the familyless dead girl.
Alek lowered the paper. “Was she your sister?”
For a long time Irena said nothing at all. Then, slowly, reluctantly, she unwound. Her cheeks were rusty with tears. She looked dazed and unwell, her eyes going everywhere and seemingly into a far place where he had no welcome to come. “No,” she said in time. Her voice was horse as if she had been screaming for hours. “She was just a little girl. We lived in the same project. Lilly’s mother… she was my age. One night she put Lilly in a Dumpster and ran away. Then Lilly was mine.”
Silence pressed in around them.
“I’m sorry,” he said. It was inadequate, but he had no idea what else to say.
Irena stared up at him. “Why didn’t Lilly wake up like me?”
“Lilly wasn’t like you.”
“Immortal.” Irena looked confused, then rose to her feet and began to circle the room. But now there was purpose in the way she moved. Purpose… and a dangerous grace. She was waking up. Moving past her pain and into something else. Something that made the hairs on the backs of Alek’s hands stand on end. Something that singed his nostrils. Irena stopped to stare up at the weapons, her red hair streaming down her back like a curtain of blood. “What is that?” she asked, looking up.
Alek followed her gaze to a carved wooden staff with a massive flint scythe at both ends and rawhide and beads wound throughout its length. “It’s called a Jatarri staff. It was used in battle in ancient Africa.”
Her voice was calm. “Can you use it?”
The change of conversation made him feel better, made the suffocating presence of sorrow depart. He went to the wall armory and took it down. The weapon was massively heavy and awkward, nothing like the slender, flyweight katanas he was used to using, but he could still use it. He moved to one of the fall mats and spun it carefully in his hands, wrist over wrist, remembering the physically demanding moves he had been taught. It was not his type of weapon, but he could still wield it.
He watched the shadow of the weapon fall across Irena’s upturned face.
Irena was stone. And yet an odd calm—almost a determination—had driven the sorrow from her face and from the room. He didn’t know what that meant, but it frightened him.
He gave her the staff. She took it and weighed it in her hands as if it were very valuable or fragile. He said, “It takes years, if not decades, of dedication before it can be properly used.”
She gripped it solidly. Like a warrior would. Her tears were gone but her face shone with their spillage as if her flesh had been burnished with gold. “You said I’m immortal,” she said. Her eyes narrowed. Fired steel. Scarlet. “I have all the time in the world.”
16
The Melmoth Hotel was an ideal vampire hangout. Its architecture was a queer mixture of the gothic and the Victorian. Its façade was grimy and full of turrets, curlicues, gargoyles, gingerbreading and weird bas-reliefs that looked almost surreal in the weird Londonesque glow of the midnight streetlamps lining the street. Brett went through the revolving doors and into the somber antique lobby, ogling the people, goths and freaks, many of which might be vampires themselves for all Brett knew. They certainly were spiritual sisters to his kind of people. This was a dive for the well to do to either slum it or for the street ruffians to pretend at elegance. Brett simply could not decide which. It was also one of those trendy joints that catered to much of the bar and club scene. Ignoring the night clerk, who did not choose to look his way anyway, Brett proceeded down a rather dark hallway to an even darker club where some bass-beat techno blitz was beating against the black, neon-spattered walls. The look was tacky and overdone and infinitely false. Nothing like Club Bauhaus, which was a meat locker but had the self-respect to keep the lighting low.
He ordered a scotch and water and gave the barkeep, a young woman in a backless tux and short white-dyed hair, a fifty-dollar tip and a question.
“Seen him but he doesn’t drink,” she answered distractedly.
“You mean he doesn’t come in here often?”
She looked at him as if he were stupid. “He came in a time or two. But he said he never drinks wine.” She rolled her eyes.
He let her go service some red-haired whore at the end of the bar. Well, at least he knew for a fact that blondie had indeed been staying here. Now all that was left was to discover which room on which floor he had. Since the joint was one of those pay in advance dives, it was possible his belongings were still here and would remain so until his bill ran out, which might be now or never. In any event, he had to move.
But how to tell where he had been staying? There were twelve floors. Twelve fucking floors! Brett was just about ready to start feeling sorry for himself again because this lead was a fine one indeed—but what the hell do you do with it?—when he thought he was going crazy and had to all but keep from falling off the stool with shock when the shadow entered the room, temporarily blocking the light from the lobby before moving off to one side.
Brett immediately recognized the sharp, foxlike features, the blonde hair—shorter now—and the same stormy grey eyes. This was impossible! There was no way in hell something could walk away from a beheading, no matter how immortal it was. It was simply impossible! Yet there he was, the blonde slayer, a cigarette in his fingers, his eyes scanning the floor of the hotel. Brett turned back as the slayer looked his way. The thing’s eyes swept past him and came to rest on the whore at the end of the bar. Sitting at this angle, Brett saw the woman quite well. She smiled her professional working smile the moment the thing’s eyes alighted on her.
The slayer wandered past Brett and started talking to the woman. Even from the back he saw it clearly for what it was. It was not human. It was like some insect or alien species dressed in a frock coat and slacks. He couldn’t understand how the woman could not see it. The slayer bought her a drink and they whispered to each other for a while. The whore’s grin broadened. The slayer put out his arm and she latched onto it immediately.
Brett followed the new couple down the corridor, trying to stay at a safe, unobserved distance. Back in the lobby they chose one of the elevators. That was when Brett realized he had no idea where they were going and quickened his step, letting them see him now, he was so desperate. The whore, not the slayer, stepped on the track of the elevator as he approached.
“Thanks,” he muttered, slipping into the elevator.
The whore cuddled against the slayer as the slayer gave him an uninterested once-over and then punched the button for the tenth floor. The old Otis elevator rattled upward, making Brett feel like he was trapped in an oversized upright coffin. But luck was with him, because the whore had dug the slayer’s keys out of his pocket—they were the old-fashioned kind, a real key on a ring with a marker, not a key card, thankfully—and Brett stared intently at the whore’s hands until he made out the number.
1022.
The elevator let the couple off on the tenth floor. But for appearance’s sake, Brett rode the elevator to
the next floor, then took it back down to the lobby. Although he knew exactly what he had to do now, he leaned against the wall of the lobby by the pay phones for almost five full minutes as he arranged his thoughts. Then he pushed off the wall and staggering like a drunk toward the revolving doors.
How? he wondered. How could it still be alive? He had seen its head come off. He had seen its blood spill like a flood to the floor of the warehouse. He had touched the blood for chrissakes…
How? How?
How can something come back from the dead? he kept asking himself as he made his way across the sidewalk toward the Porsche. Because it was a vampire? But vampires were not dead or undead. They were very much alive. Malevolently alive. So how…
Unless…
In Blood Brothers, the Baron had met a complete double of himself. A creature as good-natured and gentle as the Baron was evil. Baron Blood’s twin brother…
And then he knew.
Back in the car, Brett smiled and switched on the radio to a hard-hitting all-metal station and smacked the wheel in victory. Ah Brett, he thought, you are smarter than the average bear. If he ever attained a true measure of immortality—if such an impossible thing was indeed possible—Brett knew he would make one hell of an unstoppable vampire.
17
He was leaning against the gymnast bar and watching Irena assault the big Wave water bag hanging from a chain from the ceiling when the doorbell rang. Assaulting it was an understatement, he realized. She did not assault it, but literally attacked it like an animal, her taped hands and feet landing lightning-fast blows into it, sweating and kei-calling as she did so, making the bag sway dangerously on its chain. Her gaze was vapid; she saw nothing but the bag, her concentration so complete, he took up his coffee cup and went out into the hall without her even noticing.
Brett Edelman was on the stoop, fingering the rose bush outside the door. It was a project of his he had taken up some time ago. He had grafted red roses onto white. But the white ones had all died. “Don’t touch that,” Alek said, slamming his cup onto its saucer after taking a quick sip.
Edelman looked up slyly. He reminded Alek of some kind of animated character in a TV show somewhere. A shark in a suit.
“The answer is no,” Alek said.
“I haven’t asked the question.”
“Go home.” Alek slammed the door in his face and turned and went down the hall and into the library. For some reason, the room calmed his nerves when he felt jangled. The flow of books, the smell of the leather, the sight of the gilded spines lent him a feeling of enormous peace. He wandered to the window where the lights of the city were already shining like bright fallen stars and heard that troublesome little man enter the hallway and then the library behind him and shut the door. From the sound of him—or the lack thereof—the little creep was in awe of the collection. Alek turned around and glanced down at the lighted screen of the computer where he had been busy translating the Ninth Chronicle before he became aware of Irena’s workout in the other room. He scrolled up the screen so the man would not see.
Edelman took a book down off the shelf and examined it a moment before saying, “I was wrong to try and blackmail you into the job. I realize that now. Someone like yourself wouldn’t let himself get caught up in such machinations… ”
“Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we?”
Edelman looked up, startled. “Yes… lets.” He put the book back on the shelf and said, “Here’s the deal. You do this job and I give you a very valuable bit of information.”
“I don’t do work like that,” Alek stated evenly, “and you have absolutely no information I could use.”
“Not even the whereabouts of a certain angry slayer who lost his brother recently?”
Alek tried not to let the surprise show on his face, but the little rat was such a conniving bastard, he recognized it anyway.
“I thought so,” Edelman said. He lit a cigarette and started to wander among the shelves. “See, you and your kind are odd creatures to be sure, but not entirely impossible to figure out. You think you’re so superior to us, so much more than we can ever be. But when it all comes down to it, you’re no different than anyone else. If you can understand the mind of a man, then the mind of a dhampir isn’t so difficult.”
Alek leaned against the wall and drank his coffee.
“At first, when I saw the thing you murdered walking around, I thought it must be the same creature. Then it occurred to me that that wasn’t true at all. It’s the thing’s brother.”
“It isn’t a ‘thing’,” Alek said.
Edelman shrugged. “Whatever it is, it wants you dead. I know it and you know it. Now the question remains, my friend, how much do you want to know where he is?”
“Stay away from Michael,” Alek said. “I will tell you once. Next time you learn on your own.”
“Michael,” Edelman said with a flickering smile. “What a dull name for such an interesting character.” The man flecked his ashes into a nearby urn. “And why should I stay aware from Michael? Because Michael will kill me?”
“No,” Alek said. “He won’t kill you.”
Edelman dropped his cigarette to the flowered Victorian carpet, grinding it out with the heel of his wingtip while he held Alek’s eyes. “You’re really beginning to shit me, you know that?” he said. “And you might not want to do that.”
“Because you’ll kill me?” Alek mocked him.
“I make men wish they were never born.”
“I’m not a man.”
“And you won’t be anything else when I finish with you!”
Alek tilted his head. “If you’re done posturing, Mr. Edelman, the door is that way.”
“I know where the goddamn door is, Mr. Knight.”
“You also know where the sword is, Mr. Edelman.”
Baring his teeth in what could only be called a human grimace, Brett Edelman headed in that direction. Alek waited until he heard the door slam shut against the jamb, rattling the stained glass in its panes. Then he waited a few moments more.
Irena appeared in the doorway, drenched in sweat, her beautiful white-boned body heaving with exertion under the tank top and sweat pants she was wearing. This time the clothing was her own. He had gone last night and gotten it for her, dragging as much of it as he could from the filthy shitbox she and Lilly had called home. “I’ve finished, Alek,” she said. “Can I practice with the Jatarri staff?”
“No.”
She waited. She knew better than to oppose his instructions. Then she said, her voice hoarse, “I want to learn to fight with it.”
“First you learn to fight without it. How long did you go with the bag?”
“Two hours.”
He nodded. “Did you finish high school?”
Irena looked taken aback by the question. She oriented herself, then dropped her eyes. “I… no.”
“I want you to read these books.”
She looked up and took in the hundreds of thousands of books on shelves that climbed every wall of the library. Books were stacked on tables and on revolving racks set between hard-backed benches. Books were crammed under windows and into corners. Books were even piled on the floor. She looked at them all. “Which books?”
“All of them,” he said. He looked around a moment until he saw the one he wanted, then he walked over to a shelf and took down a fat volume in worn brown leather with soft gold gilding. “Read one book a day. Start with this one.” He gave it to her.
She looked down at John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
“I’ll be away for a bit. A few hours.”
She looked up. “Where will you be?”
“Downstairs.”
She stood in his way with the book clutched to her chest.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Lilly’s funeral is today. I want to go to the cemetery.”
“You can’t go to the cemetery.”
“Why?”
“Someone might see you. You’re de
ad, Irena.”
“Bess will be there. I—”
“That life is over.” He moved past her into the hallway.
She turned to face him. Her eyes pleaded with him. Pleaded for mercy, for understanding.
But he would not be moved. Turning around, he said, “Irena died. And if you want to make the person responsible for her death pay, if you want that person held accountable, she has to remain that way.”
Her eyes darkened.
He watched as the unraveling hem of her tank top crisped and curled while the acrid aroma of burned stuff filled his nostrils. That was something else. She needed to hone her talents. But right now she just needed to heal. To heal and to learn control.
“Then don’t call me Irena,” she whispered.
“What should I call you?”
“Phoenix.”
“Very well,” he said.
18
He experienced a chill when he stepped into the Great Abbey. He wanted to believe it was the vastness of the subterranean chamber and the coolness that never left it, even at the height of a broiling New England summer, but somehow he doubted it. He closed the great double doors behind him, cutting off the sight of the stairs that had led him down here to this separate world. But somehow, when he stood in the Abbey, he had the uncomfortable feeling that there was no other world. There seemed to be nothing at all but this great echoing expanse of darkness and the never-ending neck-crawling feeling that he was being watched from the shadows that skirted every dark corner and every half-seen ledge.
Slayer: Black Miracles Page 22
