Heroes

by Susan Sizemore

  They were standing together, hip to hip, with his arm around her shoulder and hers around his waist at the very back of the dark theater, near the door. Smoke billowed on the stage, music blared as the audience applauded the performer’s latest trick. Much of Ben’s awareness was on the woman with him and the man on the stage, but his interest in them was also tempered by acute consciousness of the action in the casino behind him. The music of the slots was louder to him than the theater’s sound system. The energy generated by the gamblers was a constant thrum on his psychic nerve endings. Right now it was an even, steady hum of greed and excitement, background noise, nothing for him to worry about. He could take these few minutes out of his night for domestic activities.

  The look Clare gave him was amused. She had a beautiful heart-shaped face and full, red lips. “Tell me what you want me to think.”

  She was a companion, and as such didn’t technically have a say in anything her master wanted. According to the Laws of the Blood, that is. Ben figured the Laws had been drafted by bachelors and old maids, or maybe just plain spouse-abusing assholes. ’Cause anyone who had a real relationship with a companion knew that the way to a peaceful life was to have a little give-and-take in the mix. There could be a lot of sneaking around, backbiting, and scheming in a nest where the boss didn’t demand and give respect to the underlings. Ben had always run his nest as a business. He was the nest leader. He had the final say, and it could be a fatal say for any mortal that really got out of line if it had to be. But he listened to opinions, especially from companions.

  Clare had been his number one squeeze for five years now. He valued her for her brains as much as for her body and blood and the psychic talent that was the spice a vampire needed to feed sexual hunger. He didn’t taste her as often as when they first got together. That was because he intended to keep her attached to him for as long as possible. She was a genius with computers and all the high-tech security systems that were necessary in the casino business these days. No reason to turn her into a sex-crazed mush-brained baby vampire and lose her expertise any sooner than he had to.

  The bloom had worn off their psychic connection, but he respected her place in his household. “What do you think of Reese?” he asked her again.

  “As a magician or as a mate? Your mate,” she added quickly when Ben shot out a burst of jealousy—jealousy that encompassed his possessiveness of both Clare and the mortal he hadn’t yet taken.

  Ben shook his head. “I’m not confused about anything, am I?”

  “Of course not,” she soothed his ego. “My master is always sure and confident. He’s not that attractive,” Clare added, looking back at the stage.

  Even with the assistance of makeup, costuming, and stage lighting, Morgan Reese was not all that good looking. He had a good body thanks to hours spent working out, but he was on the short side. Ben knew that the man’s hair was light red and thinning under the black rug he wore on stage. His mouth was small and his eyes narrow. None of this detracted from the high-wattage charisma that blasted out from the stage when he performed. Reese held the audience with a look, a gesture, his own personal magic, and he was a damn fine stage magician besides. Even though his Welsh wizard stage persona didn’t exactly fit with the Silk Road’s Central Asian fantasy theme, the magician packed every seat in the theater of the casino floor every performance, and sent happy customers back out to gamble the rest of the night away.

  It was the scent of real magic that first brought Ben into the theater the night Reese’s act opened. Curiosity quickly turned to personal interest.

  “Looks aren’t everything.”

  Clare grew tense, but after a few seconds’ hesitation, she whispered, “His personality’s not all that attractive, either.”

  Ben didn’t disagree. Morgan Reese was all about Morgan Reese. He was all ego and arrogance, and ambition. The man wanted to get to the top of his profession, and would happily crush anyone who got in his way. “Reminds me of me.”

  Clare was genuinely indignant. “You’re a nice man.”

  “I was a bastard when I was a man.” He was frequently surprised at how he’d mellowed since he’d given up his life as a human being. He was still hard and ruthless and violent, but those were okay traits in a vampire. “The one who made me is a good person,” he told Clare. “Her name’s Alice. We met one night at Ciro’s.” At her questioning look he added, “Used to be a night-club in Los Angeles. On Sunset. Anybody who was anybody went to Ciro’s.” He smiled reminiscently. “Alice made a project out of reforming me.”

  Vampires didn’t often discuss their own histories; everything was supposed to be a big mystery. Everything. Much worse than any Cosa Nostra code of silence bullshit. With the mob it was always really about money; with vampires it was always really about perceptions of power. He didn’t think it was about real power but personal power, which was stupid, but fine with him. And he thought that much of the secret nature of the society came down to many vampires not wanting to remember being forced to crave the rapes, beatings, and humiliations they’d endured as companions. Alice had tamed him, but she’d given him respect.

  Clare drew his attention back to the present. “You going to make a project out of reforming Morgan Reese?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. What do you think?”

  She bit her bottom lip for a moment, then said, picking up on his thoughts, “I think that people’s real natures don’t change, whether they’re mortal or immortal. Who their master is and how they’re treated as a companion influences the type of vampire they become—but pretty is as pretty does, as I’m told my great-grandmother always used to say. Reese ain’t pretty. But he’s hot,” she added with a grin. “Sizzles with power. I understand your wanting to drink that.”

  Power he didn’t know he had, Ben thought. “The stage magician doesn’t know he’s a real magician, does he?”

  Clare shook her head. “I don’t think he has a clue that the real stuff exists.”

  Yet Reese had been drawn to perform at the Silk Road, a place run by people made immortal by the use of ritual magic. Not only were the real magicians in charge, the vampire who owned the place collected magical artifacts and spell books and put some of the stuff on display as part of the hotel’s décor. Reese was surrounded by magic, and it was only a matter of time before he was drawn into the real magical world. Ben intended to be the one who introduced Morgan Reese to the underneath world, but in a way that would make Reese want to be a part of it.

  Ben stroked his chin as he watched the stage magician take a bow. Applause swelled, drowning out Ben’s words as he said, “Maybe old Ibis’s books and junk’ll come in handy.” He chuckled. “It’ll be like inviting Reese up to see my etchings.”

  “What?” Clare asked. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Old joke,” Ben answered, brushing her curiosity aside. “You don’t need to understand.”

  The stripper’s breasts looked hard as rocks; great mounds of flesh-covered silicon that stayed firmly in place no matter how much she gyrated and jiggled and whirled around the pole in the center of the little stage.

  Haven didn’t care that the boobs weren’t exactly realistic. They were boobs, and he had trouble taking his eyes off them. Char had nice boobs. Not very big, but nice. He loved Char’s boobs, but Char wasn’t there, and her breasts would have been modestly covered if she was. And she would have been asleep, as it was eleven in the morning and vampires were not day people. So Jebel Haven sipped his second beer of the day and took uncomplicated enjoyment in the sight of a naked female as part of the bachelor party entertainment.

  There was a conversation going on between the two other men at the table in the small strip club. Haven was aware of the sometimes tense, sometimes excited tone of his friends’ voices, but he didn’t give any of his attention to what they were saying. It became apparent that Baker and Santini wanted him on it when Baker waved a huge hand in front of Haven’s face to get his attention.

 
; Haven sighed, and peeled his gaze away from the woman on the stage.

  Santini grinned at Haven, his bearded face as maniacal as ever. Maybe more. Della was no saint, even if she did run a homeless shelter. Marriage wasn’t going to change the crazy biker. He raised his beer to his lips, drained it, then asked, “You wanna?”

  Haven knew exactly what Santini meant. “Baker and you want to go hunting.”

  Santini glanced at the stage, and yawned. “Sounds like a better bachelor party than this. Getting married in Vegas is a great idea. Thanks for thinking of it, Jebel.”

  “This town’s swarming with vamps,” Baker said. “Makes my skin crawl.”

  “Harmless,” Haven said. “Most of ’em,” he amended at Baker’s annoyed look. “We’ve got a truce with the sentient ones,” Haven pointed out.

  “What’s sentient mean?” Santini asked.

  “You’ve got a truce,” Baker said.

  The three of them had formed their initial alliance to hunt and destroy a species of mindless bloodsuckers that inhabited the Southwestern desert. After a few years of killing what turned out to be a minor league nuisance of the monster world, Haven met Charlotte McCairn, vampire. Not only was Char a true vampire, she turned out to be an Enforcer, an ubervampire whose job it was to kill average vampires that got out of line. Char also felt a strong ethical need to police the rest of the underneath as well. And Haven was her enforcer.

  Through Char they’d found out about the whole underneath world. That not only did vampires exist, but so did sorcerers, demons, werewolves, all sorts of monsters. Vampires had peace treaties and neutrality agreements with some of these creatures, but sometimes these monsters needed killing. Vampires couldn’t do it—can’t upset the balance of power in the underneath world, don’t you know? Haven was happy to take on the bad guys Char couldn’t technically touch. It was a lot of fun.

  But vampires . . . Vampires needed something more complicated than merely killing. At least some of them. He’d tried to explain that to Baker, but Baker wasn’t involved with the vampire culture. Baker couldn’t understand.

  Haven looked around irritably at his friends. “Couldn’t we just get drunk? Get laid. Gamble. There’s a lot more to do in Vegas than kill vampires.” He focused his attention on Santini, really focused it, the telepathic way Char’d taught him. “What would Della think about you doing anything dangerous right now? She doesn’t want her groom to get killed before the wedding. You don’t want to go hunting right now.”

  Santini’s eyes only glazed over a little as he nodded slowly to Haven’s mental suggestions. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Don’t want to upset Della.”

  “You thought it’d be fun a minute ago,” Baker said. He gave them a disgusted sneer. “You two are so whipped.”

  Haven shrugged. “I’m learning to be subtle is all,” he explained. “We can’t destroy vampires no matter how many we kill. There’s other ways. Better ways.” He leaned over and put his hand on Baker’s arm. “Trust me.” I haven’t deserted the cause, he thought at the other man. Haven sat back and said, “Besides, I can’t leave now.” He glanced across the dim, almost empty room toward the door. “I’m expecting someone.”

  It would have been a nicely dramatic touch if the person he was waiting for walked in at that moment, but since it didn’t happen, Haven went back to sipping beer and dividing his attention between his friends, the club entrance, and the entertainment. Nearly an hour passed before the door opened, letting in desert heat along with a woman.

  Haven recognized her sharp chin and large mouth from the photo posted on her webpage. He didn’t understand anybody letting their picture be posted on the web, or even letting their picture be taken if they could help it. Her photo was on an innocuous personal website, one that was full of blog entries about her daily life. Haven knew very well that the blog stuff was complete fiction. This woman’s life was much like his own, too weird and secret for public consumption. He knew her by the screenname Moll, a name she used in sessions in a highly secure chatroom used by companions. Unlike the original members of the group, Moll had been recruited rather than having found them on her own. Moll was relatively new to his small, covert circle of online friends. It went without saying that she didn’t have his complete trust even though he was one of the instigators of the new outreach program. He assumed that she didn’t have complete faith in him. It took a lot to earn trust in their dangerous conspiracy to change the dark side of the world.

  Neither Baker nor Santini questioned him when he got up and walked away from the table. That was mostly because he’d been learning how to use the psychic abilities he’d been born with. He didn’t want them asking questions, and because they were each slightly psychic themselves, he was able to curb their curiosity, at least long enough to walk away unnoticed.

  This small use of ability was enough to focus Moll’s attention on him. They nodded to each other, and he joined her by the door.

  “DesertDog?”

  He gave her another nod. “Haven,” he introduced himself.

  “Murphy,” she answered. “Clare Murphy.” She gave a distasteful look around the setting. “Let’s go somewhere private.”

  Haven already had a hand on her upper arm. “Fine.” He steered her out the door, into the blistering heat and bright daylight. She shrugged him off and led him to a white Ford Explorer parked half a block from the club. As Clare Murphy unlocked the SUV’s door, Haven asked, “What’s so important about the Silk Road that needs a personal look around?”

  Chapter 3

  BEWARE OF THE Light.

  The words kept running through Char’s head, the letters huge and glowing like a bright, multicolored neon sign. Very distracting. The annoying part was that Char knew she was dreaming when what she was trying to do was project her consciousness out of her immobilized body instead of getting a good day’s rest. Places to go, things to see. Just because she was physically stuck in an air-conditioned hotel room didn’t mean she couldn’t be mentally up and about—except when glitches like having her subconscious block her mind’s way out of her body got in the way.

  Yes, yes, Beware of the Light, I get it, she thought as she tried to will the images from her mind. The point was she wasn’t interested in light. Enlightenment, yes, light, no. The sparkle and flash and neon glow of this city were all very well, but there was nothing resembling reality about the place. Char wanted substance, facts, knowledge. She had eternity to find out everything about everything, and was anxious to dig further into the most important subject of all: vampires, strigoi, her people. There was so much that was secret, lost, hidden, forbidden. Much of this attitude had to do with the nature of ritual magic, of course. Knowledge was indeed power, for those few people magic worked on. She appreciated the necessity of protecting powerful rituals and spells from those who would misuse them. What she hated was the hiding of history. Much of this history was forgotten as well as secret, she was sure, and that annoyed her more than the paranoia and gnosticism of her kind.

  And she was thinking too much, and wallowing in her frustration while a neon sign blinked in front of her closed eyes. Action was what was needed.

  What would Jebel do?

  Take a shotgun to the sign, of course. Even in his dreams. It would never occur to him that he might give himself a bad headache that way. Char chuckled silently, and considered more sensible and subtle options for getting around her own mental roadblocks.

  She closed her eyes, which was an odd thing to try considering that her physical eyes were shut tight and impossible to open before sunset. Her interior vision had been fixed on the bright, blinking neon sign even while her thoughts rambled. The first thing she had to do was block out the light. Beware of the Light, indeed, the words snarled through her thoughts.

  Light still flashed behind her inner eyes, ominous, like lightning from an approaching storm.

  Darkness, Char thought. Nothing but lovely, still, velvet black darkness.

  It took a long tim
e to come. She would have balled her fists in frustration if she could. She would have ground her teeth and drummed her heels against the hotel mattress. But stillness was forced on her. Stillness in the daylight was the nature and curse of her kind. She had to accept it as she had no other choice.

  Gradually, the lights faded though they didn’t completely disappear. Char also managed to push away from roaming thoughts and focus her concentration. The problem, she realized, was that she was trying to project her consciousness, but she was not trying to reach into the mind and movements of a waking person. Striking out on one’s own without a carrier to dreamride was tricky.

  She could reach Jebel easily enough if she tried, but what good would that do her in keeping this project secret?

  Besides, he was busy today. He was attending Santini’s bachelor party. The hardbitten mortal menfolk of her little world were carousing in ways she didn’t want to know about. And it wouldn’t only be rude to jump into Jebel’s head and ask him to take her to the Silk Road. It would be dangerous to drag him into this. Not just for him trying to sneak into the areas she wanted to explore, but for strigoi kind if her mortal lover took an interest in her discoveries.

  Char might disapprove of secrecy within the vampire community, but keeping secrets from those who did not have blood ties to the underneath world was imperative. Her involvement with Jebel Haven was definitely skirting the edges of legality for the two of them to be together the way they were. But it worked for them—

  And she was thinking too much again.

  Float in the darkness. If you’re going to think, think about where you want to be. Visualize, and go. That was how this astral projection thing was supposed to work.

  Like everywhere else, the Silk Road had a website. It had advertising brochures. There’d been an article full of glossy photos in a recent travel magazine, and she’d caught glimpses of the casino and lobby on a Travel Channel show on Las Vegas.

  So, she knew what the place looked like. She only had to put herself there. Once she managed that, she could attempt to have a look around in the parts of the building where the tourists didn’t go.