by Unknown
“Knock it off!” Wei shoved him away. “And stop calling her a bitch, got it? She was pretty flipped off when you stormed out last night.”
“Like I fucking care!” Dai said, plopping down onto the futon. He put his feet up on the coffee table and scowled when Wei knocked them off. “I should have arrested the bitch for aggravated assault on you! I should have fucking arrested them all”
Wei went behind the small counter that separated the living room and kitchen areas. “They took away your badge, remember?” He sneered as he pulled open the fridge and chugged down some cranberry juice.
At least itlooked like cranberry juice.
“What’s that? You drinking that weird shit from the club again? You’ll probably get fucking AIDS.”
Like you may have gotten AIDS from fucking Sakurai?
Wei slammed the fridge shut and pointed at Dai. “You better start showing some goddamned respect or the Elders are gonna kill your ass.”
Dai jumped up. “I knew it! I knew you were into that tong bullshit. Just like your old man.”
Wei charged Dai and aimed a kick at his mid-section, but Dai grabbed his foot and used his momentum against him. Wei hit the floor hard, hard enough to knock a couple framed pictures from atop the TV. Dai held out his hand. “I’m sorry, okay?”
Wei slapped his hand away and pulled himself to his feet. “Fuck you, ge-ge.”
“Hey, go fuck yourself!” Dai shouted, louder than he meant to. All the tension was finally getting to him—the stress. He walked across the room then turned. “That’s what you’re doing already by hanging out with those weirdoes and thugs! You want to end up dead on the street?”
“Like Watts, huh?”
Dai wondered why the hell Wei hadn’t just pulled out a knife and rammed it into his gut. That might’ve hurt a little less, at least.
“What did you just say?” Dai choked out.
“You heard me, Daisuke. If you’re trying to sell that shit to me, that the way I’m living is going to end up no good, then how the hell do you explain what happened to Watts? Why did he have to die the way he did if he was so much fucking better than anyone else? Answer that.”
Because I wasn’t there. Because I took the promotion and I wasn’t in his sector anymore.
Dai narrowed his eyes, forcing away the painful stab that shot through him. “He died because some crackhead gangbanger killed him, that’s why. And if you think that fucked up bunch you’re hanging with is any better, think again. Man, that bitch fucking bit you. Shedrank your blood. Fuck! You were drinking blood in that wine! What iswrong with you?”
Wei shook with rage and Dai braced, expecting him to charge again.
“You stop talking about the Mistress that way! You don’t fucking know anything! She’s incredible! She’s gonna take over Chinatown and the fucking world!”
Wei fell to his knees, doubled over, grabbed his head and cried out. Dai ran to him. “What’s wrong? What is it? Talk to me!” He reached in his pocket for his cell phone but dropped it. “Shit!” He snatched it up again and began to punch in 911 with his thumb but Wei gripped his wrist. Gripped his wrist with an unusual forced that made Dai wince and drop the phone again.
“No! I’m all right. I’m fine. Just leave me alone.”
“The hell you’re fine.” Dai forced the smaller man up, ready to throw him over his shoulder and carry him out if he had to. “I’m taking you to a doctor.”
“No, goddamn it!” Wei yanked out of his grip and stumbled backwards onto the futon. He was pale and shaking, beads of sweat dotting his forehead and the bridge of his nose. His dark eyes flashed bitterly at Dai.
“You always want to play the hero! When we were kids, you always butted in and now you can’t mind your own damn business either.” Wei tilted his head back and rested it against the wall. “Just forget it, man. I thought…I thought I could trust you with this.”
Dai sat down and reached to rub his hand across Wei’s shoulder but his brother jerked away. “Youcan trust me, Wei Wei. You can trust me with anything. You always could.”
“Yeah right. I trusted you my whole life and what did it get me? You killed my father!”
Dai reared back. “You’re crazy. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“The fuck I don’t! You had nightmares about it, Dai. Mom was either working or so exhausted she slept like a brick, but I heard you. I heard you dreaming about it and telling my dad to let her go. I heard you crying in your sleep to Watts that you didn’t mean to kill him.”
“Wei Wei, I—”
“Shut up! I don’t give a fuck anymore! Yeah, I know he was a bastard and he used to beat the shit out of you and Mom and treat me like a little prince. You think that didn’t bother me? And yeah, I wanted to hurt him, too, when he beat her, but I couldn’t cause I was too small. But I kept your secret. All these fucking years while you were trying to be Watts’s perfect little cop-in-training, I kept my mouth shut because I didn’t want to take that away from you. And now . . . just fucking once I want to be somebody. I want something important in my life and you want to fuck it up for me!”
Dai could only stare in silence as his brother got up and paced the room like a caged animal.
“The Mistress is a fucking vampire, Dai. She’s old and she’s the most fucking powerful one of them all—except maybe for that fuck Sakurai—but still . . . . She has plans and she wants me to be there by her side! And you arenot going to stop me.”
Dai had started shaking, all over. Wei knew . . . all this time . . . he shook his head, snapped out of his daze by the mention of Sakurai’s name, even if the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach seemed like it would never go away.
“A vampire.” He formed the words slowly, like he wasn’t sure how to say them. “That’s . . . insane. Wei, that’s crazy.”
“How fucked up are you, Dai? God!” Wei grabbed both sides of his head and let out a guttural cry. “Weren’t you at the club last night? Didn’t yousee?”
“I don’t know what I saw.” Dai bit down on his tongue, tasted the blood and almost vomited.
“The hell you don’t.” Wei grabbed his shoulders and shook him once, but hard enough to make Dai’s teeth clack together. “You’re living in a fucking fantasy world.”
Dai could only laugh. “I’mliving in a fantasy world? You’re fucking around with some babe pretending to be a vampire who wants to take over the world andI’m living the fantasy? What the fuck have they been doping you with?”
“Power,” Wei said quietly. “All the power any man could ever want or need. The power to read people’s minds, to know what they’re doing when they’re not with you. The power to do things we’ve only seen in movies.”
“Like shattering lights if you’re pissed off?” Dai found himself muttering.
“That’s baby shit! Man, I’m talking aboutreal power. Like magickal power.”
Dai stared up at Wei, his face twisting into an expression of disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself, Wei Wei?”
Shaking his head, Wei dropped down on the floor in front of Dai. “If you’re always going to keep doing this to me, then why do you even bother?” He rubbed his eyes with both hands. “Look, if this is because you’re guilt-tripping, just save the big brother act and fuck it.” He looked down at the dirty carpet, avoiding Dai’s stare. “I guess I don’t need you anymore,ge-ge.”
“Don’t say that, Wei. You and Mom are all I have.”
“And whose fault is that?” Wei shot back “I’m onto something good here. Something incredible, and the one in power likes me. I can have it all. For once, I can have italland I’m taking it.”
“Fine.” Dai stood up and crossed the floor. “Do whatever the hell you want.”
“Daisuke,” Wei called after him.
“I don’t give a fuck.” Dai shut the door behind him, without looking back once.
* * * * *
Susan froze when she heard the front door to the apartment open then close. She took
a deep breath, ready to give Dai some bullshit story about forgetting her meds.
“Having fun? Oh, wait, you did that last night I bet.”
Susan turned and shot Diaz a hard look. “That’s none of your business.”
He flashed his IAB shield and chuckled. “Everything is my business, sweetheart, don’t forget it.”
Brandt came into the room next and gave the rumpled bed a long look then grinned at Susan. “If that bed could only talk . . . .”
“Not that you’d be able to relate to any of those stories yourself.” She returned his smirking look. “I’m sure it’s been a while since you’ve gotten any.”
Brandt and Diaz exchanged a couple of smug looks, as if sharing a private joke.
“Yes, I think you’d be right about that, Ms. Lenzer.” Brandt snorted.
“And that means what?”
“Never mind that.” Diaz coughed into his fist. “We need to know—did he tell you anything last night?”
“You mean besides, ‘Oh baby you’re the best I’ve ever had’?” She frowned when Diaz and Brandt nearly busted a gut laughing. “Assholes.” They laughed more and she left the bedroom and went to peek out the front apartment window.
“Oh honey, don’t get snooty on us,’ Diaz said. “You have too much to lose.”
Susan turned to find him staring at her through the open bedroom door. Arching a brow, she gave him the finger.
“Um, honey,” Brandt added, coming out of the bedroom. “Don’t piss us off. I can get federal charges brought against you, too, for that little dope game you been running with the partial evidence you been turning in.”
Susan stepped away from the window. “You better get out of here before he comes back. He won’t suspect anything if I’m here. Don’t you need to check in on your freaks?”
“Oh babe, don’t tease our meal tickets or we’ll feed you to them.”
Susan folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t try to threaten me with that, Diaz.” She glared at them. “You’re not as tight with those freaks as you think.”
Brandt burst into a fit of dry laughter and rubbed his temple. “Not like you and Matsui, right?”
“What the hell is going on?” she snapped. “If you want my cooperation, you better not be keeping any shit from me.”
“Trust us, honey.” Diaz brushed past her, giving her ass a slap as he walked by. “There’s some shit you don’t want to know about.”
He pulled a cigarette from inside his coat pocket and lit up.
“Hey, asshole, Dai doesn’t smoke,” Susan snapped. “He’ll know someone was in here.”
“He’s had uninvited guests before, Lenzer.”
Susan looked away. She could see the FBI agent in the bedroom. Brandt opened the closet door with his foot and looked at the cluttered mess inside with a frown. “I don’t think he has anything in here, Diaz,” he called out toward the living room.
“You were expecting him to have a vampire in his closet?” Susan sneered. “Now that’s stupid, even for you dickheads.”
“He’s got a lot in the closet, honey.” Diaz flicked his ashes on to the floor. “Things you wouldn’t believe.”
Susan cast another worried glance toward the front door. “I’m getting out of here cause he’ll probably be back soon. If you assholes want to stay, go ahead.”
Diaz shrugged. “Not much here we need now—” He broke off when Dai’s cat hissed at him. He kicked the cat, sending it racing off into the bedroom. “Flea-bitten mousetrap.”
“Asshole,” Susan grumbled as she let herself out.
“Wait up, Lenzer.” Brandt followed her out into the hallway while Diaz kept cursing at the little animal.
“What?” she snapped.
“I understand you want something out of Matsui.” He grabbed her elbow and pushed her against the closed elevator doors. “Taking advantage of the situation is one of the perks of the job, but don’t forget what you’re supposed to be doing.”
Susan tried to pull her arm away and he held her down tighter. “It’svery important we get inside that club--thereal one underneath that fruit and leather bar.”
“Okay, I get it.” She gasped when he grabbed her throat.
“Let me repeat myself again, just to make sure you do.” Brandt looked down at her coldly. “Matsui and his shit-eating brother are the keys for us to reach the Mistress and if you can’t pull it together, you’re fucked. And not just by your pretty cocksucking boyfriend, understand?”
* * * * *
Viktoria lounged in the sunken bath in her spacious underground apartment, situated beneath theResurrection. “Oh please, Yun, spare me your false sense of modesty and get your ass in here.”
Yun entered the bathroom, eyes downcast, and dropped to one knee a respectful distance from the tub’s edge. He didn’t so much as flinch when the mistress flicked water at him.
“You fucked up, didn’t you?”
“Not entirely. I’m not sure where Sakurai got off to but Wei Qing went straight home. His brother is unaccounted for just now.”
Viktoria flicked more water at him. “He’s unaccounted for because you can’t stop thinking with that immortal dick of yours long enough to do a decent job.”
A shower of flower-scented water rained upon Yun as the Mistress shot out of the tub and seized him by the hair. She yanked his head back, exposing his throat, and opened her mouth, extending her fangs in a snarl. “You disappoint me often these days, Yun, tell me why I tolerate it.”
“Because I please you just as often,” he said quietly, allowing his hand to glide up and down her wet thigh, slick with the perfumed bath oils she was so fond of.
“Not nearly as often as you used to,” she purred, tangling her fingers tighter in his long hair.
“I can remedy that now, Mistress,” he replied, licking his lips and gliding his fingers higher until he grazed the shaved mound of her sex. He gave her a leering grin as she shifted, allowing him freer access. He slipped one finger inside her then another and another until all of his fingers filled her. She rocked against him and he probed further.
Without warning she slashed at his throat with her free hand then delivered a vicious kick to the midsection that sent him flying across the room. He toppled over a chaise lounge, the blood pouring from his neck and staining the yellow velvet into shades of orange and red.
“Don’t think you can distract me like some mortal whore.”
Yun pulled himself to his feet, his head bowed, the blood slowing to a trickle as his flesh healed. “I would never do such things, Mistress. Forgive me if my desire for you did not seem sincere.”
“Don’t ever underestimate me, Yun. And don’t ever think to patronize me again.”
“No, Mistress.” Yun bowed deeper so she couldn’t see his lips pull back in a snarl. “You have Wei Qing and Mikail to do that for you already.”
Viktoria crossed the bathroom, instantly grabbing Yun by the hair. “I’m starting to get the impression you’re dissatisfied with things, to push me like this,” she hissed. “Maybe you’d prefer if I killed you slowly and painfully.”
Yun kept his voice even. “Forgive me again. But don’t you think its time to start moving against insignificant shits like Jung Kai? The power is ours——yours—already, Mistress.”
Viktoria grabbed Yun’s shoulders, her pointed nails digging through the fabric of his shirt and deep into his skin.
“Jung Kai dies when I say he dies. I want your Chinese brethren to know exactly what price they’ll pay for refusing me as the leader of their ‘business operations’. This is only the start, Yun. I plan to have it all. I place to watch the tongs fall one by one under my control. When they do, we’ll handle the Yakuza who will fall like toddling children and the Asian trade will make me the wealthiest woman in the world. Our enforcers will be specially chosen and prepared mortals like Wei Qing.” She laughed, pulled her hands away and sucked the blood from each fingertip. “If I’m going to live forever, I plan to do
it in style.”
Yun suppressed a roll of laughter from bursting from his mouth.Money . . . this pampered princess of a vampire wanted the most trivial and useless of things, all the while drawing unnecessary attention to their kind like a fool.
Too young to understand the charismatic hold she somehow managed to possess over the other young vampires, she was starting to act like a brat, or worse still, an attention whore.
“The longer we wait, the more humans who don’t fit into the planned order are going to learn about us. Two men who work for the police and FBI are watching us, you know.”
“Of course I know,” she snapped, striding across the room to pick up her silk robe. She pulled it on, tugged the sash tightly around her middle.
Yun managed to keep his smirk in check and mentally congratulated himself for his wonderful restraint.
“Good day, Mistress,” he said with a smile as she stalked out of the bathroom, slamming the door in her wake.
In theory, the Mistress’s plan had much potential. Making use of dark magicks to strengthen some mortals and take control would make the vampire race akin to gods.
Jung Kai and the other Elderchiang shihs were fools to stand against progress, preferring to keep with traditions and ancient ways of existence that didn’t matter any more in the 21st century. By looking down on humans and any vampire that associated with them, they had already begun to nail their coffins shut.
“As long as she doesn’t let this chance slip out of our grasp.” Yun stood and rinsed the dried blood from his throat with the bath water in the tub.
* * * * *
Grabbing the first vacant seat on the subway back to Chinatown, Dai looked through his memo book at the notes he’d made while checking a few things out. Somebody at Bellevue thought they saw a guy coming out of the EDP’s room before his body was found. It was never reported because the guy had literally vanished when they’d blinked. The nursing assistant who “saw” him laughed it off as a figment of her imagination from too many slow nights spent reading romance novels. Her latest was some pirate epic and she said the guy she thought she saw reminded her of a movie hero.
