Leaning against one of my rides, I pulled out my phone and placed a call. The connection went through. The Old Man’s deep tones greeted me. “Hello, Caine. What have you fucked up now?”
“Why does everything always have to be my fault?”
“Caine, I know you, remember?”
“Even you can be wrong, Old Man. Storm Court hit again. This time they sent a wind mage. He was strong. They’re starting to learn from their mistakes.”
“Next time it will be a mass attack. I understand you went off this morning without your personal security. That’s not wise. I’m sending them out to hook-up with you.”
“Look, Old One, chances are very low of another ambush right away. I don’t—”
“No argument. I’m overriding you. Where are you now?”
“Malibu, but I’m about to hit the road. I need to find Vivian. She’s off the grid a little. I’ll drive to the clan house after that.”
“Have your car call me when you find Vivian.”
“Sure.” I hung up and put my phone away. Pushing off my car, I turned to face the side driver’s window. My handsome, well-dressed image was reflected back at me from the midnight-blue Mustang, the one with pale-blue lightning striping the sides and adorning the hood. This vehicle had the most magically-assisted security devices, and its own artificial intelligence.
“It’s me. Disengage security defenses.”
I felt a tingle as a sweep of magic licked past, seeing if my reality matched my voice. The door lock popped up. I pulled the handle, opened the door, and slid in. Had I been someone else, a hundred thousand volts would have bitched slapped the hell out of me, making me a deeply-hurtin’ crispy critter. The lightning paint job was my way of giving fair notice. Why don’t people understand what a great humanitarian I am?
I buckled up and used the thumb scanner to further identify myself. Embedded in the steering wheel hub, a red crystal bead glowed to life. It projected a horizontal beam that fanned down across my eyes. With retinal confirmation, the engine turned itself on. I backed out and rolled down to the street where I wheeled about and roared away. My finger stabbed the radio player. The crunch of hard rock guitars and throbbing drums filled the air. A painfully coarse voice screamed something mostly indecipherable.
And so the hunt begins.
Heading for downtown L.A. where most of my contacts were, I had time to kill. I decided to take care of a little matter so it didn’t grow into a monster. I searched my phone’s contact list for a number I seldom used. In moments, the call was going through. I transferred the call to my dash system and put my phone away so I wouldn’t have to kill a cop who might try to give me a ticket for driving while on the phone.
A deep voice came out of a speaker. “Yeah?”
“Josh, Caine here.” Joshua Kent was the were-liger I’d run into in Sacramento, during the affair with the Green Flame Assassin. He owed me a favor for heading off a preternatural war in his city. “I need to talk to Kat if she’s there.”
His voice was edged with suspicion. “About what?”
“I need a favor. I need her to come up to Malibu for a while. She can bring a surfboard if she wants.”
There was a long silence. Time to push some buttons. “Are you going to make the decision for her?” I asked. “She won’t like that.”
Josh said, “A lot of bad things happen around you, Caine. I have doubts that you’re a good person.”
Time to lay it on thicker. These people have good hearts. It makes them easy to manipulate them. “The favor’s not really for me. There’s this young were-wolf girl who lives next door, who’s responsibility for a bunch of new wolves. She was raped and tortured and raped some more…” I pretended to choke up just a little. “Anyway, she needs a maternal figure, someone wise to talk to, someone to help her hold it together in case another shifter clan decides to move in and take advantage of … damaged goods.”
“So you need muscle too, and aren’t bothering to ask because you know I won’t let Kat go without me.”
“Kat is one of the most caring people I know.” Simple truth. “I just thought this might be something she’d want to do. I know how well she takes care of her own were-kitties. And I do know that things have been quiet down there since she took over as Mistress of the City. Vamps haven’t been back, right?”
“Yeah, but we have a really busy schedule with … what? No, Kat, don’t…”
“Hello, Caine?” the voice was female and cheery. “Give my stupid, overprotective husband the street address. We’ll find the route online and be there by tonight.”
Josh came back on the connection. “Okay, fine. Give me the details.”
I did, and ended the call. The Mustang continued nosing toward L.A. where a number of bars catered to preternaturals. I saw one coming up, The Purple Lemur. It belonged to a loner shifter that had no clan. The only reason a clan didn’t try to muscle in was because Gloria, vampire royalty, had put the word out to leave it alone. The bar attracted a large number of human theater buffs that she liked to occasionally mingle with. I understand they served grape juice, gin, and Sprite as the house drink, a Purple Passion.
The building was white brick. The front entrance was a blue-tinted glass door with purple lights just above it. It was too early for the bar to be open, but I expected someone to be on the premises. Someone who’d want to answer to a few question in exchange for cash. If not here, someone somewhere would know what I wanted to find out.
Just a matter of time.
The one thing I wasn’t going to do was to go to the Slayers who tossed her out of their humans-only club. No, one day I’d be looking them up and that would not be a friendly visit. I was really looking forward to it.
The third informant I tried was a drunken were-weasel, cleaning windshields with a dirty rag and bucket of water at a Dollar Store parking lot. He wore greasy coveralls that might once have belong to a car mechanic. Loose threads indicated of where a name tag had been ripped away. I pulled up near him and got out, leaving the car running. His eyes lit up as he stared at the Mustang. “Wash your windows?” he asked.
My car snarled like it wanted to bite him. “Over your dead body,” she said.
The talking car clearly confused him. I waved a handful of cash to focus him. I’m looking for information on a Dhampyr who was recently kicked out of the Slayers. Know anything about her?”
“I might ‘ave heard something from a friend who works for a butcher.”
“Might have won’t put money in your hand. I fanned myself with the cash.
“There’s a day-walker up in Lincoln Heights, just bought this ugly Victorian with an avocado paintjob. She’s fixen it up.”
He named a cross street, as close as he could get me. I figured it was enough to finish tracking her down. I scribbled the directions on a takeout napkin, and handed him a hundred.
He looked at me with grave reproach. “That’s goddamn all?”
I put the rest of the cash away and bitch-slapped him. His face turned, then his whole body.
He crashed to the concrete. Really, some people can be so stupid. Just because I flash a role of bills doesn’t mean I’m offering them all. “Be grateful I’m letting you keep the hundred.”
I settled into my ride and moved on.
FIVE
“Of course I shot you! I’m
helping you keep your secrets.”
—Caine Deathwalker
Vivian had fallen off the grid, but not far. Turns out, she’d purchased a Civil War era Gingerbread Victorian overlooking the L.A. River, in Lincoln Heights. I drove up there. A few questions at the local meat market—and a hundred dollar bill—turned up the street address of a new, female customer that took regular delivery of fresh animal blood.
At that address, I discovered a three-story, green Play Dough colored building sad shape. Part of a chimney was broken and a front porch column slanted out of alignment. The porch flower beds were brashly crimson. The property was enclose
d by a rough-hewn wall with gaps in the mortar. A black, wrought iron gate crossed the sidewalk entrance to the property. There was a mailbox by the outer wall that smelled new; no name, just a bat stenciled on it.
I parked and went through the gate, cross a yard, up to the wooden steps of the porch. A few steps were in need of replacing. I looked up at the door. The rectangular window panes were dark with dust. A long metal and glass lantern hung over the entrance. Intentional or not, the amber-glassed lantern had all the appearance of a death trap waiting to happen. The brass door-knockers looked like they wanted to bite any hand foolish enough to knock.
Hearing banging sounds off to the side, I went around the base of the elevated porch and found a ground level door in its side standing wide open. There were concrete stairs going under the porch, down into a basement. Light down there gave evidence I wasn’t just spinning my wheels. Someone was home. I went downstairs, my hand on a side rail. As nearing the bottom step, I heard arguing voices.
“Vivian, you have to listen to me. The Slayers aren’t going to ask you back, not here, not anywhere. You only got in years ago under my watch because I’m your grandfather. Now that I’ve retired…”
“Why did you retire, so suddenly? Just couldn’t wait to screw up my life?”
“I have cancer. If I hadn’t left, they’d have noticed already and forced me to step down.”
“Cancer? And you’re only now telling me?”
“You’ve had a great deal on your mind. I didn’t want you to drop your life to take care of me. I can pay people for that. I want to go with an easy mind, knowing you’re going to be okay. That’s why pushed you toward Deathwalker. He’s the real power in the city. If the Slayers ever go after him, he will destroy them easily. I want that power on your side. That’s why I invited him here in a rather round-about way.”
“Ah, so that’s who’s loitering on my stairs.”
I went down, into the open. “And here I thought I was being quiet.”
“Dhampyr, remember. I can hear your heartbeat as fifty yards.” She looked beautiful as ever, white-marble skin, raven-wing hair, her very kissable mouth somewhat pouty, painted crimson red. She turned dark eyes on her grandfather, handing him a pipe wrench. “You keep working on the plumbing. I’ll make us some lunch.”
She crossed an open expanse of concrete floor. She stomped past a washer and dryer, and up some wooden stairs to another part of the house. In that she wore a crop top and very short shorts, I was forced to ogle until she went out of sight. What incredible legs, and that ass...
I turned back to Carson. As usual, the ex-slayers was unarmed. The vibe he put out suggested that ordinary weapons couldn’t threaten him. Strength seeped from his pores, the scent of green magic, of freshly turned earth and the rank decay of autumn detritus. And, yes, my dragon nose smelled a hint of death, his cancer. He still had a good bit of time. The disease had yet to alter his appearance. He was exactly as I remembered: steel-gray hair, a clean-shaved, wrinkled face with deep, slate-green eyes. A body losing its tone, but still honed by a lifetime of training.
“I’ve been hoping to run into you,” Carson said.
“Yeah, with a car?”
He ignored my keen wit. “Given your background, you’ve probably used Atlantean crystals before.”
I shrugged. “Healing crystals. The Old Man has some books recorded on crystal too. Why.”
“I want to make a contract with you. I’m offering crystals in payment.”
“A crystal is only as good as what’s on it,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me first who I’m supposed to kill?”
“I get tired of standing. Back and knees aren’t what they used to be.” He wandered over to the dryer and hopped on top, improvising a throne. “To answer your question, it’s not death I want to buy, but life.”
“Let a friendly werewolf bite you. If you survive the change, you’ll live forever, and your cancer will be gone.”
“I’ve been tempted, but, no. I’ve fought creatures of the night all my life. To become one now would make a mockery of too many sacrifices and hard-fought battles. I came into this world as a man, I’ll go out as one. The life I want to buy is Vivian’s. She’s essentially alone in the world, and I’m not going to be there for her. A lot of preternaturals will see her as a desirable target now that she’s not a Slayer any more. They’ll want payback for being hunted.”
“Yeah, she’s desirable all right, but pretty tough, too. And she has friends that will look out for her.” I knew of three were-kitties that would cover her back no questions asked, one advantage of a harem. Vivian didn’t consider herself in one, but the rest of us claimed her.
Carson shook his head in disagreement. “It’s not enough that she’s in your orbit. I want a pledge that you will assign a high priority to protecting her—always.” He pulled a small, copper-colored box out of a coat pocket, and held it in both hands.
“That level of commitment doesn’t come cheap. And it presumes that Vivian will let me protect her in a way she’d find smothering.”
“I can only ask that you do your best. What I’m offering should be worth the inconvenience to you.”
I looked at the copper box in his hands. “What is it that you’re offering?”
“Project Black Crown. Slayer history and heritage. Yours. I have information here on your father, what he is, and why he and your mother had to go so far off the grid to survive.”
I went very still. My heart fluttered with burning need. Here was something I’d searched for all my life. Carson had secrets I’d never been able to pry away from the Old Man. Carson slowly opened the box. Inside was a dark green felt lining with three depressions, each the size of a Bic mini-lighter. The depressions held malachite crystals that weren’t quite as bright as emeralds.
Carson gave me a hard glare. “You can never tell anyone you have these. Every Slayer in the world would descend on L.A. and go for your throat. They’d kill me and Vivian as well, slowly, painfully. You see, I, uh, borrowed these from the holy relic vault without asking. Your father’s secrets are tied up with Slayer secrets.”
“There’s only one reason—I can think of—why that would be true. My father was one of you?”
“Not exactly.”
There was a gasp from the stairs. I looked over and saw Vivian standing on the stairs. She’d caught my last statement. And her gaze was locked on the copper box her grandfather held. Her stare went to Carson’s face. “What’s going on here?”
“Business,” Carson said. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Business with Caine is worry enough for the whole world. What’s on those crystals?”
He closed the box, handed it to me, and gave Vivian a warm smile. “If Caine wants you to know, I’m sure he’ll let you beat it out of him.”
Yeah, I got something she can beat, all right. I stashed the box in an inside coat pocket, and looked at Vivian. “I assume lunch is ready.”
“Lunch can go to hell in a picnic basket. I want to know what’s going on between you two.”
I shrugged. “Nothing, anymore.”
Her eyes warmed from black to an incandescent pink. “Caine…”
It was amazing how much threat she could put in a single word. I changed the subject. “What are you doing with this old monstrosity? You going to live here?”
“While I fix it up. I’ll sell it then and make a tidy profit.”
“You’re flipping houses now? That’s one way to recover from being kicked out of the Slayers.”
Her eyes were edging now from pink to red. “Thanks for the painful reminder.”
I said, “We all have things we’d rather not talk about.” I remembered the time I was doing a favor for a friend and got pulled over for speeding with a trunk full of dead hookers.
The fire in her eyes cooled a little. She frowned. “Okay, point made. I’ll mind my own business and you do the same.”
“Except you really do want to tell me about this pla
ce. Your first project, huh?” I said. “Must be a thrill to restore the hidden beauty underneath.”
She turned and started up the stairs. “Like I said, lunch is ready.”
“Wait,” I said. “I brought you a present. I reached into a coat pocket and pulled out a black opal ring, one of twelve I’d purchased in the Honduras. The silver bands were attached to silver settings that protected the soft edges of the stones. The opal’s face was mostly pitch black with gray, crimson, and blue-violet flakes in it. A rune on the inside of the band made it fit whatever finger put it on. She came back down the stairs and I handed her the ring. “Wearing this shows you’re under my command, answering to me alone as a top lieutenant. The ring has strong magic. When you really need me, wherever you happen to be, I will know. I will come. Uh, an oath of fealty is required.”
Her pink eyes edged into red, but she took the ring, a sign of her hidden insecurity. “How many demons do you command?”
“Somewhere around five-hundred, give or take a few dozen. I haven’t counted lately.”
“And they’ll take my orders?”
“Long as I live, or until you piss me off and I take the ring back.”
“The slayers never trusted me with more than field unit or two.”
“They don’t know talent when they see it.”
She slipped the ring on, and turned away. I wasn’t sure, but I thought she was holding back a tear or two. Maybe that was just wishful thinking.
I followed her with Carson right behind. The wooden stairs groaned with our weight. I wanted to get out alive, so I made a mental note to keep an eye out for weak floorboards. My sense of impending doom eased off when I saw the kitchen. There was no refrigerator or dishwasher. A microwave occupied the counter. Several coolers were off to the side by a fireplace style oven. There was a gap where a regular stove might have been, and a metal rack over it where pts and pans might once have dangled. I saw food and paper plates on a picnic table. There were benches, wrap-around shelves on two walls that were empty, and the floor was golden yellow stone tile that looked Italian. The walls were white plaster, matching the color of the empty cabinets. It all needed work, but I could see the potential.
Demon Lord 5: Silver Crown King Page 4
