Alice smiled faintly, and quoted, “Alliances lead to rivalries, rivalries lead to reckless behavior. Recklessness leads to discovery. Discovery leads to extinction.”
Extinction was definitely something they had to look forward to. His guts clenched with fear, but he fought the temptation to tell her. “I’ve heard that somewhere.”
“First thing I learned as a fledgling. Miriam’s a good teacher. Taught me the difference between a friend and a coconspirator, certainly. We are friends, you and I,” she added, punctuating the words with a brief brush of her hand against his thigh. “I didn’t see any harm in making the list, Selim. I wasn’t going against your authority. If you’re going to kill someone anyway, it might as well serve a purpose.”
“Why?” In a way, her argument reminded him of Siri’s pleas to hunt only bad guys. “Never mind. I don’t feel like debating the matter. Our only purpose is to survive.” Not that they were going to survive much longer, if truth be told. He sighed.
“There’s something very nasty eating you, Selim.”
“Anyone I know?” he joked back.
Alice got up and stood before him. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” He put the coffee he hadn’t touched next to the crystal vase and also stood. Alice pressed herself close to him, her arms going around his neck. An old, sweet, sensation shot through him at the feel of her. His hands went around her waist, but he had no intention of baring his soul, no matter how good Alice felt against him. “Let’s not play this game, shall we?”
She rubbed her cheek against his. Her breath brushed his lips, then she whispered in his ear, “It’s not wicked if it feels good. Or maybe it feels good because it’s wicked. Talk to me, Selim.”
He was going to say no. He was going to push her away. He was going to lecture her sternly. Warn her. Leave. He was going to do all those things. But the door was flung open and Siri rushed in to find them embracing before he could move.
Selim’s first impulse was to fling himself halfway across the room from Alice. His second was to hurriedly explain that they hadn’t been doing anything! He didn’t get the chance to do either. In fact, Siri didn’t even seem to notice that he and Alice Fraser were in a somewhat compromising position when she came running in. Rene came in a few steps behind her, and Alice’s companion’s eyes did narrow jealously when he saw them together. It was Alice who moved away from Selim at that look from Rene.
Siri came to a halt in the middle of the room and flung out her arms. “Alice!” she shouted.
His companion wasn’t radiating jealousy or anger but was nearly bursting with fevered excitement. “What?” Selim shouted back.
“Go ask Alice.”
“What?”
“Ask Alice,” Siri repeated. She pointed at the other vampire. “That’s the song’s title.”
“ ‘White Rabbit,’ actually,” Rene interjected.
“I think we better leave, Siri.”
“No way.”
“What does he have to ask me, Siri?”
“Nothing, Alice.” He reached for Siri’s arm. “We’re leaving now.”
Siri grabbed the front of his shirt and shook. “Listen to me, you paranoid idiot! You have to trust me on this. You have to trust her. You have to talk to Alice. We’re all going to die if you don’t ‘go ask Alice’!”
“Jefferson Starship?” Alice asked.
“Airplane,” Siri and Rene both answered.
“What are you supposed to ask me?” Alice asked Selim.
Everyone’s attention focused on him. Alice and Rene were worried and curious. Siri was frantic, angry, hopeful. All Selim could do was shrug and answer, “I have no idea.”
Chapter 19
“IT WAS YOUR vision,” Selim told Siri. “You tell me what I’m supposed to ask her.”
She didn’t flinch from the fury he aimed at her. She ignored the bitter sarcasm as well. She took a deep breath and then spoke as quickly as she could. “Rene and I were in the kitchen talking, and I mentioned hearing old songs and he mentioned that he used to live in San Francisco and went to the Filmore, but that was before he met Alice, and I suddenly knew what the vision had been trying to tell me earlier.” She blinked and took another breath.
Selim spoke before she could go off again. “You don’t have cryptic visions. You either know something, or you don’t.”
“I’ve been having a bad day, all right?” she snapped back. She touched her temples gingerly. “I feel weird.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like my subconscious is trying to talk to me, but is having to sneak things past this . . . dark curtain. I’m stressed out,” she went on. She looked earnestly between Selim and Alice. “How I know something isn’t important. I just do.”
“You have to trust Siri’s instincts,” Rene chimed in. “I do.”
“And I trust Rene’s gift,” Alice added.
Selim gave them all an exasperated look, but he helped Siri to sit in the wing chair when he should have taken her by the arm and gone home. She clutched at his hand and gave him a pleading look. “You look terrible,” he told his companion. The fact that she was going through hell in an effort to help was a deciding factor in what he said next. “If it was anyone but you, Alice—” He looked at the woman who had once been his companion but had long been a nest leader in her own right. He was completely unsure how to go on.
She looked back. Rene, tall and slender and far from handsome, had his arm protectively around her waist. “I’m not in very good shape myself,” she reminded Selim. “I need a Hunt more than whatever this crisis is. Still . . .” She managed one of her soft, inviting smiles. She projected a very good facsimile of her usual counseling demeanor. “Maybe you should first explain to me why we’re all going to die.”
Selim rubbed the back of his neck. “Oh, boy.” He opened his mouth, but no words came out. At least not on the first try, but after several false starts, and much prompting from Siri, Selim eventually explained as much as he knew.
“A script?” Rene asked when Selim was done. “Am I in it?”
The companion’s enthusiastic curiosity was galling. “I don’t think you understand the seriousness of the matter,” Selim told him. He had wanted Alice to send her companion away, but Alice had balked when he suggested it. She’d said she needed Rene’s strength, and that since he already knew there was trouble, he might as well know what it was.
“It’s just another vampire movie,” Rene answered. Selim had the impression Rene was trying to be reassuring. Trust Alice to have companions that were as sympathetic as she was. “Who’s going to notice if it’s the truth?”
Selim thought that perhaps he hadn’t explained quite as lucidly as he hoped. Then he looked into Alice’s eyes and saw death reflected there. She understood. “You don’t know where this script came from? Who wrote it? The whole story?”
He nodded. “That’s right. What I feel . . . and I trust my feelings,” he added, “is that the story isn’t over yet. Some of it has happened, but the vampire writing it has a vision of the end that . . .” Selim was going to say that he wasn’t going to be alive when the credits rolled, but the sick look on Siri’s face and the frightened speculation on Alice’s kept him from going that far. “Maybe it is just a feeling,” he added. “Maybe I’m being too paranoid.”
“What you need is a copy of the complete script,” said Rene. “I’m sure Joe—”
“What he needs is the person responsible,” Alice interrupted. “You have to cut off the head.” She laughed. “It wouldn’t hurt to kill every human involved as well.” She rubbed her hands together briskly. “I’ve given blow jobs to many a studio executive, but I’ve never actually eaten one.” Her eyes sparkled brightly. “This could be fun, Hunter.”
The true meaning of Siri’s vision came suddenly to Selim, so suddenly that he had to sit down. The thick carpet proved to be quite comfortable as he settled cross-legged onto the floor beside where Siri sat. He ran his hands throu
gh his hair. “Studio executive.” He smiled at his companion. “Studio executive,” he repeated to Alice. “You’re a madam. A Hollywood madam? Like that Heidi—Lewinski girl?”
“Fleiss,” Siri corrected. “Or Madam Alex.”
Alice raised her gaze toward the ceiling. “Oh, please. I much prefer out-of-town businessmen as my clientele.”
Selim was disheartened. “Oh. But you said—”
“Years ago, darling. The current Hollywood fad is for driving SUVs and going to PTA meetings. Decadence is passé.”
“There has to be somebody,” Siri said. “Or my vision wouldn’t have—”
Alice waved her to silence. “There’s something there, all right, dear. Let me think.” She drew away from Rene to pace the room.
While the humans watched Alice, Selim found himself drawn to one of the room’s two windows. He pulled back a sheer curtain and stood very still, holding the soft material bunched tightly in one hand. There was a brick terrace below the window. Beyond the terrace was a lit pool where several young people were swimming laps. No sexy cavorting for the members of Alice’s household. These were her “specials,” he supposed, those with the incredibly rare gift of being able to give or take blood without forming any permanent connection to the other person involved but who always loved the one they were with. Alice searched long and hard for such “transients” as she’d dubbed them. It sickened him to think that he’d actually considering renting the services of one of the women below recently.
He glanced over his shoulder at Siri, almost furtive, definitely guilty. Her attention was on Alice, on the problem. There were dark circles under her eyes, a darkness in her aura. His fault, even if it was for the best. If I’m going to die anyway, he thought now, I want to make love to Siri once more before I go. Then again, that kind of selfishness could get her killed. He shouldn’t think about his own needs but about getting her to somewhere safe while there was still time. If there was still time.
Something about the night called to him, and he turned back to the window to gaze at the sky. He couldn’t see many stars overhead even if he let his vision change, not with all the light thrown up by the city. Danger moved in the darkness. It grabbed Selim’s attention away from other problems for a moment. He felt it like a strong, hot, sand-laden wind on his skin, as a pulling, pulsing rush of blood in his veins. There was always danger in the darkness; he always felt it. Selim spent much of his waking life analyzing the rich, thick, electric currents of intent, emotion, and action that impacted against his special senses. Most of what he detected was the residue of the violence humans perpetrated on each other. Most of it didn’t have a damn thing to do with him or his kind.
Take the rushing red tendrils of hate and fear and lust that were as visible to him right now as lights of the city. He concentrated on them and pinpointed the cause of the distracting disturbance. There was a killer stalking Griffith Park, not that far away. If Selim were a betting man, and he was, he would put money that the source of his discomfort was six blocks away; an arrogant, sexually dysfunctional human male with a great deal of imagination and intelligence, putting off a trail of white-hot mental energy.
“Ugly,” Selim murmured. He turned back toward Alice. “How can you put up with that?”
“What?” Rene asked.
Alice didn’t answer him. She stopped pacing and smiled. “Got it!” She laughed. “I’m getting old, Selim. I should have remembered him right away.”
Selim moved to Alice’s side. “Who?”
“We have a plot on our hands all right, darling,” Alice announced. “A conspiracy. Or at least a very powerful man has been made into somebody’s brand-new toy. If we’re lucky, it’s just one.” She gave him a hard look. “You betting on your luck?”
“Just tell me what you’re talking about,” he said. “Who?”
“Yeah,” Siri chimed in. “Who’s the slave? Who owns him?”
Selim flashed a quick smile at his companion. Siri, thank the Goddess, had cut to the chase. “Names,” Selim said. “Who do I hunt?”
“Art Rasmussen, of course,” Alice said. “The man who runs Arc Light. It should have already been obvious that whoever provided the script is controlling the production our way.”
“Enslaving a studio?” Rene asked. “Is that possible?”
“It wouldn’t have to be everybody,” Siri pointed out. “Besides, there have to be a few artistic people left in the film industry. Most artists have a certain degree of the gift.”
“I passed a call from Rasmussen on to Angela a day or two ago,” Alice went on.
Angela was Alice’s other companion, though they wouldn’t be together much longer. “And this is important how?” Selim asked.
“Angela handles community affairs,” Siri explained to Selim. “So to speak.”
“She told me he was looking for something in a dominatrix scene. Told her he loved his wife and kids, wasn’t into kink, but had this new connection that was stronger.”
“Sounds like a new slave,” Selim agreed. A distracting ripple of fear wavered through him as he spoke. It was an outside sensation. Probably something to do with the murderer nearby. He attempted to shut it out and concentrate on his own problems. “How did Rasmussen find you?” he asked Alice. “Who does he belong to?”
Alice gave him a skeptical look. “A slave is going to give one of my girls more than the necessary buzz-words to get what he needs? I don’t think so.”
“Fine. I’ll have a talk with him,” Selim said decisively. Here was something he could work with. Something he could do to start putting his world back in order. Go ask Alice, indeed. “I need an address for this guy.”
Siri stood up, quivering with anxiety. Her eyes flashed at Selim. “He has a wife and children. I doubt if he’s a volunteer slave.”
“Most are, these days,” Alice agreed. “We should find out how he came to be enslaved before deciding what to do about him.”
Selim found that his claws were slightly extended. He wondered how long he’d been puncturing and shredding the fine cloth of Alice’s drapery. He let the curtain go and stepped away from the window. He fought to focus completely on the women. “I don’t care how he got involved with our kind,” he informed them. “I just want to know what he knows.”
“And we all know how you plan to do that,” Siri answered belligerently.
Alice put her hands on her hips and lifted her chin stubbornly. “I won’t have it, Selim.”
“Won’t have what?” Red rage filtered into his consciousness, but it had nothing to do with these foolish females. Nothing to do with his reaction to their foolishness. It came from outside, from far away. Not aimed at him, but he was part of it. He fought off confusion. “Won’t have what?” he repeated to Alice.
“Won’t have you torturing an innocent man just because it’s the quickest, easiest way. Let me find him,” she urged with her usual persuasiveness. “Talk to him. It may take a little longer, but no harm will be done.”
Before Selim could argue, another rush of terror hit him. He staggered forward. Siri was by his side instantly. Alice a step behind her. He felt like he was being hit on the head with a hammer. His blood started to burn. He stared at the concerned women. “Do you feel that?” They shook their heads. To Selim it looked as if they were puppets moved by the same string. A laugh ripped out of him at the sight.
They tried to help him to a chair, but he pulled away. Wildness built in him.
Help! Please! Geoff! Someone help me!
Laughter answered. He laughed with them. He joined with them. Running footsteps, pounding heartbeats, bloodfire.
Not too close. Not too fast. Play the game. Play it out. Make it last. Feel her? Close your eyes and follow the fear. Taste her terror on the air. Taste her hope. Sexy sweet and hot. She doesn’t see us, thinks she’s free of us. Slow down. Stalk the bitch.
Selim shook his head. Freed himself from the vision. It was happening right now. Should have felt it sooner. The h
uman murderer’s vibes covered over signs of the Hunt. Hunting without his permission.
With an animal cry, Selim tore away from the clutching grasps of the women. The change came. Wild. Freeing. He laughed again, loudly, the sound issuing from a mouth full of monstrous fangs. He could feel who now. He was drawn to where it began. Not far. He didn’t have much time.
Selim turned and ran. He leapt through the window, paying no mind to shattering glass or to any nearby shouts and cries of alarm. He concentrated on the screams for help coming from miles away as he hit the ground running.
There was a wall surrounding the grounds. Inside the wall he found an odd combination of long, low, functional-looking structures punctuating street after street of facades from every era and style of architecture. These buildings showed painted faces in front, with nothing behind them. Not a real place at all; a front; a mask. A television studio, he realized as he rushed down empty, dark streets. These were simply outdoor sets. Reality wasn’t to be found outside. The grounds went on and on, mostly dark and deserted. It was still early in the evening, though, and there were people working in some of the buildings. Selim slowed as he neared one that was surrounded by parked vehicles. He came to a halt not far from an open doorway, waited and watched for a few precious seconds in shadows he made even deeper. People moved around inside, puzzled, afraid. The sound of questioning, shrilly angry voices came to him on the air, and in his thoughts.
Damn.
Someone had been damn sloppy, leaving a mess for him to clean up. Deliberate. A distraction for him. A diversion.
“Son of a bitch,” Selim snarled and reached out to touch the most receptive nearby mind. In a few moments, a petite young woman came out of the studio and walked into Selim’s shadow. Selim took her by the hand, tilted her chin up and they gazed into each other’s eyes. “Tell me what you saw.”
After one brief sigh, the girl answered. “A blond. A skinny, pale, hard-eyed woman. She came onto the set and stared at Moira. Stared. It was scary. I don’t know why, but it was. Tony was going over to tell her to leave, but Moira said it was okay, that she knew her. That the intruder was from her agent’s office.”
Laws of the Blood 1: The Hunt Page 18
