by Kat Cotton
“We needed blood to draw the Demon Child. I didn’t want her getting hurt.”
“Well, I don’t want you getting hurt. She’s expendable.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Is that why you got me on this case? Because you thought I’d use myself as bait for the kid?”
“The thought did occur to me. You do have a reputation for getting the job done. I’m not sure how well deserved that is, though.”
“And the Vampire King?”
My hands twitched, so I held on to my knees. This conversation just made me madder and madder, but I’d hold it all in until I got the answers I needed.
“He’s the Vampire King. King of vampires.”
“Yeah, I figured that from the name. Although, it does sound like he runs some kind of warehouse outlet beside the highway with a catchy jingle on late-night TV. Since when have the vampires had a king?”
“Since always. We don’t advertise it widely. If you’re in a position like that, you keep it quiet. Otherwise, you get all kinds of shit happening. You think you know the paranormal world, but there is so much still hidden from you. In fact, he’s not really a king technically. There are old families around the world, and he is one of the oldest. He is more powerful than most. He has an ancient power that few of us have.”
“Now he has the Demon Child as well.”
Nic nodded.
“He’s the one who woke the Demon Child in the first place?”
Nic nodded again.
“He wants war. He wants to work with the mayor to bring the vampires out into the light.”
“That seems about right. Did you figure all this out on your own? Nice work, Clem Starr.” He patted me on the knee.
I smacked his hand away, making sure my silver ring grazed his skin. He winced away from me. That gave me a little bit of satisfaction.
“And once the vampires are out in the open, there’ll be war.”
“Do you have a strategy to deal with this war thing?” I asked. “You can’t just sit back and let it happen.”
“We can move out of town.”
“Even if you move away, this thing will spread. It won’t be confined to one city or place. What about your motivational speaking? Once the world knows about vampires, do you think they’ll be so motivated by you? People will begin questioning everything about you. The things that they let slide now because they can’t accept the truth. Once that barrier crumbles, you’ll lose all your freedoms.”
“So, Clem Starr, famous Demon Fighter, what do you suggest? Surely with your extensive knowledge of the paranormal world, you have a master plan.”
I grabbed my arms around myself. That was better than punching him.
“Do you really want to sit around playing Monopoly when there’s a war brewing?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. This war won’t happen if you catch the Demon Child.”
“I’m not sure if that’s the exact game plan for anyone involved here. The mayor can still expose the vampires without the Demon Child. We should be focused on the mayor and that Vampire King.”
“Destroying the Demon Child would be the first step. He’s the key. If he’s out of the way, we buy some time.”
“Why not go straight for the Vampire King? He’s the top dog here.”
A weird look came over Kisho’s face. I had no idea what it meant.
“We can’t kill the Vampire King,” Nic said.
“Why the hell not?”
He picked up his top hat off the floor and closed his palm around it.
“You can’t just destroy the old ones. It can’t be done.”
“It’s not impossible, surely?”
“There is only one person who has the power to destroy the King.”
“So, get them to do it. Surely any sane person, or vampire, would want the balance to stay as it is.” My fingers dug into my legs with frustration at this conversation. “They’d have to be as powerful as fuck to destroy him. Anyone that powerful would’ve started a war way before now if they wanted war.”
“They won’t. They refuse.”
I had no idea what was going on, but Kisho got up and left the room. Nic uncurled his fist, and that little Monopoly hat had been crushed to powder.
I wouldn’t get any answers here, so I figured it was time to leave.
“Just destroy the Demon Child and get your money, Clem Starr. That’s your job. Leave the rest to other people. It’s not your problem.”
Chapter 22: Swell Guy
The mayor called me into his office, which for starters caused all kinds of wardrobe dilemmas. What do you wear for something like that? I’d tried on about thirty combinations with no luck.
“Hey, Clem, your dog ate my new socks,” housemate Chris called to me.
“Well, don’t put your socks where he can eat them. Jeez, it’s not rocket science.”
“Don’t put your dog where he can eat my socks. That’s not rocket science either. Also, your rent is overdue. Again.”
Ha, I pulled out those shiny bills from the money Nic had paid me. That would wipe the smug smile off his face. Then I looked at them. They were so pretty. I didn’t want my pretty money going into his dirty pocket.
“I’ll have it next week,” I told him.
Then I picked up all my clothes off the bed. I didn’t want the dog eating them. In the end, I put on a black shirt and black t-shirt. You can’t go wrong with all black. I’d blend in with all those office workers at city hall.
When I got there, though, I realized it took more than a black outfit to blend in. My shoes, my bag, my makeup, all of it made me stand out. Oh, and fire-engine-red hair, not so common in the corporate world. But then, it wasn’t like I needed to blend in anyway. The mayor had called me. He needed me, not the other way around.
I sucked in my stomach, jutted my chin out and walked through the fancy marble foyer to the security desk.
“I’m here to see the mayor,” I told the guy. He checked a list, then gave me some kind of pass.
“You need to pin it on,” he said.
That really didn’t work for me, but I figured I’d do it until I got past him. I started walking.
When I got to the mayor’s floor, I had to go through another receptionist before I saw him. She waved me through.
“He’s expecting you.”
I went in and sat down.
The mayor sure had a fancy office. He had the most super-comfortable visitor chair. It did everything but massage your butt. On his massive desk, he had all kinds of fancy gold pens and shit. Wow, being mayor would rule.
His windows looked out over the whole city. In one direction, you could see right out over the bay. The other direction the mountains. The river snaked through the high-rises of the city. A few helicopters buzzed around. So many people going about their everyday lives, not even aware of the underground side of the city, or that up here, above them all, the mayor intended to use them as cannon fodder in a war he couldn’t win.
“So, Clementine, you must be wondering why I asked you in here.”
“Sure,” I answered. “It’s not every day I get access to the inner sanctum of city hall. Do you get coffee here?”
The mayor got out an envelope and took out a photo, passing it across the desk to me. He totally ignored that coffee hint.
I picked the photo up.
Nic.
It wasn’t a great photo of him, to be honest. If Nic saw that, he’d freak. His face looked a bit puffy, and the lighting wasn’t at all flattering. I grinned. I wondered if the mayor would let me keep a copy. I’d wave it under Nic’s nose…
“You know him.”
Not a question. The mayor had definitely been keeping tabs on me. I was ninety percent sure he’d been the one who bugged my office. But ninety percent wasn’t enough.
“I know him.”
The mayor tapped his pen against his lips. “He’s not a desirable person.”
I guess that depended on your definition of desirable. He definitely had his
good points even if he was annoying as hell. His body, at least, was desirable. I’d totally fuck him if he had his mouth gagged. Well, maybe not. It was the personality that was the problem, though, definitely not the looks or body.
“I’ve got a proposition for you.”
Ha, the mayor might be attractive and all, but I wasn’t going there. I had my moral standards, and even if I needed the cash, I wasn’t into that kind of thing.
“Not that kind of proposition,” he said. “Come on, Clementine, you should be smarter than that.”
Oh, maybe my mind went to the gutter a bit too easily.
“I told you to butt out of this whole vampire investigation.” He leaned forward, resting on his elbows, and beamed a confidence-inspiring smile at me.
The guy was so fucking congenial. Like he’d win Miss Congeniality at the mayor contest, if such a thing existed. I didn’t trust him a bit.
“And let that Demon Child feast on the city? I do have some morals.”
“You know I only want what’s best for you. Getting involved in something like this isn’t a smart career move. I need to protect my people, and you aren’t making that easy.”
The dude was full of shit. If he wanted to protect people, he’d pay me to kill the Demon Child, but he didn’t. The one doing that was Nic. So, who was evil and who was good? The way I looked at it, the one giving me a shit ton of cash was the good guy, even if he was fucked up in his own way.
“That may be true, but you’re putting me out of work.”
“Think about it. In the long term, isn’t it going to be better for you if this all becomes public knowledge? You could have a legit business. Go big-time. Even open up franchises. Demon fighting will be in demand.”
Maybe the mayor had a point, but if I couldn’t eat in the short term, there was no long term for me.
“How long-term are we talking? Because right now I have a cash-flow crisis.”
“You can’t mean to say you want demons and vamps lurking around the city so you can make money out of them.”
That was pretty much what I was saying, in a nutshell. I didn’t want people getting killed, but I couldn’t see how bringing the whole underworld out into the open would help either. Kill off the bad ones, learn to live with the inoffensive ones.
“So, what happens after you shine this light on the vamps?”
The mayor didn’t seem really big on that part of his plan. Did he really think people would just accept that paranormal evil lurked in the dark corners of the city, then trust in him to protect them?
“Well, first up, I want this guy staked. That’s where you come into it.”
“Nic?”
I could see why you’d want that. All his talk of you not having any sexual aura and how you failed, and that whole sitting around playing Monopoly while the world was going to hell. But he was Nic. You couldn’t just stake him.
“That’s like murder,” I said.
“Murder? He’s a vampire, he has no soul. He’s no different from the zillions of other demons you’ve gotten rid of.”
Technically, the mayor was right, but it seemed different. Nic was my friend. Well, not an actual friend, but we hung out. He’d done my makeup and we’d drunk coffee together and he’d given me money. That’s friendship, right? Also, Kisho would be really sad if I staked Nic. Just because someone was annoying was no reason to stake them.
“It’s different.”
I’d never be able to explain why it was different in a way that made sense to anyone. Perhaps it was because vampires were different from demons. Demons never had a soul to begin with, while vampires did. No, it wasn’t that. It was because most demons were ugly as all hell, while Nic was hot. That might be a shallow reason not to kill someone, but it was the truth.
“This is why the Fighter Council doesn’t let you fraternize with demons. You’ve gotten attached to this guy. I’m sure that he seems almost human to you. But it’s an illusion. He’s no more human than this paperweight.”
He held up his paperweight to show me. A baby polar bear paperweight.
The mayor made perfect sense. And that paperweight was so cute. I wonder if the mayor would get me one. He was all best buddies with the polar bear people.
“So, what’s the point of this? You want the vamps out in the open, and you don’t get more open than being a semifamous motivational speaker. Why can’t you just expose him as a vampire?”
“He’s too charismatic. You think you can convince people that vampires are evil when they see his million-dollar smile and perfect skin? That’s not going to repel people. He’s like the perfect recruitment poster for the vampire world. People need to see ugly vampires. They need to be horrifying and repulsive, the stuff of nightmares.”
“So, you and the Vampire King? What’s the story there?”
The mayor actually reddened and shuffled in his seat. Yeah, I bet he didn’t want anyone knowing about that relationship.
“That’s expedient at the moment.”
“You can work with him, but you want Nic dusted?”
“He’s not the same kind of threat.”
“He’s not the same kind of threat?” My voice rose a few octaves. “He’s the worst kind of threat. There is no way you can defeat him.”
To me, the Vampire King was a whole other level of threat. Like an actual threat that would kill a lot of people. The biggest threat Nic posed was annoying you to death. This whole conversation
irritated me. The mayor wanting me to stake Nic had turned me into a Nic apologist. That was exactly what I didn’t want to be.
“Come on, what real threat does he pose? He’s happy to stay underground and live his vampire life without any fuss. He doesn’t even kill people to feed.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just know. It’s not like he’s doing anything wrong.”
“You think being a vampire is not doing wrong?”
I crossed my legs and looked the mayor right in the eyes. What did I think? Both Nic and Kisho had lied to me. They’d kept secrets. I’d found one, but there could be so many more.
“Well, is it wrong?”
I knew, with all of my training that I should think it was wrong. Paranormal things equal evil. That was the very basis of all Demon Fighter training. I’d accepted that. I’d been only too happy to believe that anything that wasn’t human was a threat.
“He’s thralled you.”
I shook my head. “Nope. I just can’t see anything wrong with what he does.”
“He doesn’t have a soul.”
“Yeah, well, there are a lot of humans like that too, as far as I can see. Humans who are willing to let others die to make their point.”
This conversation had started to bore me. The mayor obviously had his own ideas, which were very different from mine. Different in the way that they were wrong.
“Clementine, the time is coming when you have to pick sides. These vampires, they might let you think they’re your friends, but they are just using you. They’ll get you to do their bidding and then, when you are no longer of use to them, they’ll dump you. You are going to get hurt.”
He looked at me with his clear blue mayor eyes. Those eyes seemed filled with concern. I wanted to argue with him, but I had nothing. No proof that he was wrong. The trouble was that being with Nic and Kisho was fun, had been fun. They’d given me something I’d been lacking in my life. But maybe they were playing me. Nic sure had a talent for seeing what a person needed and giving it to them.
Even if it was true, though, I wasn’t going to open my heart to the mayor.
“If that’s all, I’ll get going. There’s not much more to discuss, is there?”
I stood up.
“You are going to regret this, Clementine. But my door is open. Maybe, when you’ve had time to think, you’ll see things differently. Time’s coming for you to make a decision about which side you want to be on. I hope you pick Team Human.”
Team Human—the nam
e alone was enough to make me not want to be on that team. There was only one team for me. That was Team Clem.
I paused in the doorway. The mayor couldn’t even see his own stupid.
“What are you going to do when the Vampire King gets into power? There is no way you can defeat someone so ancient and strong?”
The mayor looked up at me.
“You don’t know about the prophecy?”
“No, I don’t know about any stupid prophecy. And, if you’re going to tell me I’m the chosen one or some bullshit like that, I’ll brain you with that baby polar bear paperweight.”
The mayor laughed. “Of course you’re not the chosen one. The Vampire King can only be defeated by someone of his own blood. You’d think that’d be easy enough to avoid, but the poor bugger got someone knocked up. A human.”
The mayor shuffled those papers on his desk as though he wasn’t dropping the hugest bomb on me.
“So he’s got a son out there with the power to destroy him. Only reason the son is still alive is that he’s not pure vampire. He’s never fed. When he does, he has all the power to bring Daddy down to Chinatown. I just need to find that son and use him for my own purposes.”
My head pounded. No way. No freakin’ way. That could not be possible. It wasn’t like there would actually be more than one human/vampire hybrid out there, though. Things fell into place, but not into the places I wanted them to fall. They fell into weird and horrible places.
Kisho and Nic had not just lied to me, they’d lied big-time. Huge lies that destroyed the ground of our whole relationship.
No wonder Kisho had freaked like a little bitch at the warehouse. Why hadn’t his father just killed him years ago? That’d have been easier. Not that I wanted Kisho dead. I just didn’t understand Daddy Dearest’s motives.
Chapter 23: Fight
Even if I hated Nic, I had to warn him about the mayor. If the mayor was so blasé about offering me the job of staking him, he wouldn’t stop there.
When I showed up to tell him, though, I wondered if staking him wasn’t for the best.
“This isn’t a convenient time for you to come bursting in here,” Nic said. “It’s rather rude, actually.”
