The Lunatic Cafe

by Laurell K. Hamilton

  He was right, for now. He frisked me one-handed. It wasn't very thorough, and I wondered where his partner was.

  "Enough," the vampire said.

  I felt the cop step back from me. "What's going on here?"

  Her power slithered past me, like a great beast had brushed me in the dark. I heard the policeman gasp.

  "Nothing is happening here," the vampire said. There was a flavoring of accent in her voice. German or Austrian, maybe.

  I heard his voice say, "Nothing is happening here."

  "Now go back to directing traffic," she said.

  I turned, slowly, hands still on my head. The cop was standing there, face empty, eyes wide. His gun was pointed at the ground, as if he'd forgotten he was holding it.

  "Go away," she said.

  He stood there frozen. He was wearing his cross tie tack. He was wearing his blessed cross, just like he was supposed to, and it wasn't doing much good.

  I backed away from both of them. If she stopped paying attention to the cop, I wanted to be armed. I lowered my arms slowly, watching the cop. If she took her control off suddenly, and I wasn't where I was supposed to be, he might shoot me. Probably not, but maybe. If he saw me with the gun in my hand a second time, almost certainly.

  "I don't suppose you would remove his cross so I could order him about?"

  My eyes flicked to the vampire. She was looking at me. The cop stirred, struggling like a dreamer in the grip of a nightmare. She turned her eyes back to him, and the struggles ceased.

  "I don't think so," I said. I knelt, trying to keep my attention on both of them. I touched the Browning, and wrapped cold fingers around it. My hands were stiff from being exposed to the cold for so long. I wasn't sure how fast I could draw right at that moment. Maybe I should look into some gloves. Maybe ones with the fingertips cut out.

  I shoved the Browning in my coat pocket, hand still gripping it. My hand would warm up, and I could shoot through my coat if I had to.

  "Without the cross I could make him go away. Why can't I control you like that?"

  "Just lucky, I guess."

  Her eyes flicked to me. Again, he stirred. She had to stare at him while she talked to me. It was interesting to see how much concentration it took. She was powerful but it had its limits.

  "You are the Executioner," she said.

  "What of it?"

  "I didn't believe the stories. Now I believe some of the stories."

  "Bully for you. Now, what do you want?"

  A slight smile curled her lipsticked mouth. "I want you to leave Jean-Claude alone."

  I blinked, not sure I'd heard right. "What do you mean, leave him alone?"

  "Don't date him. Don't flirt with him. Don't talk to him. Leave him alone."

  "Glad to," I said.

  She turned to me, startled. You don't get to surprise a two-hundred-year-old vamp often. Her face looked very human with its wide eyes and little o of surprise.

  The cop gave a snort and looked around wildly. "What the hell?" He looked at both of us. We looked like two petite women out for the evening. He glanced down at his gun and seemed embarrassed. He didn't remember why it was out. He put the gun away, muttering apologies and backing away from us. The vampire let him go.

  "You'd leave Jean-Claude alone, just like that?" she asked.

  "You bet."

  She shook her head. "I do not believe you."

  "Look, I don't care what you believe. If you have the hots for Jean-Claude, more power to you. I've been trying to get him off my back for years."

  Again that shake of the head, sending her yellow hair flying about her face. It was a very girlish gesture. It would have been cute if she hadn't been a corpse.

  "You are lying. You desire him. Anyone would."

  I couldn't argue that. "You got a name?"

  "I am Gretchen."

  "Well, Gretchen, I wish you joy of the Master. If you need any help sinking your fangs into him, let me know. I would love for him to find a nice little vampire to settle down with."

  "You mock me."

  I shrugged. "A little, but it's habit, nothing personal. I mean what I said. I don't want Jean-Claude."

  "You don't think he's beautiful?" Her voice was soft with surprise.

  "Well, yeah, but I think tigers are beautiful. I still don't want to sleep with one."

  "No mortal could resist him."

  "This one can," I said.

  "Stay away from him, or I'll kill you," she said.

  Gretchen wasn't listening to me, not really. She heard the words, but the meaning didn't sink in. Reminded me of Jean-Claude.

  "Look, he chases me. I'll stay away from him if he'll let me. But don't threaten me."

  "He's mine, Anita Blake. Come against me at your peril."

  It was my turn to shake my head. Maybe she didn't know I had a gun pointed at her. Maybe she didn't know it had silver-plated bullets in it. Maybe she had lived for a couple of centuries and had grown arrogant. Yeah, that was probably it.

  "Look, I don't have time for this right now. Jean-Claude is yours, great, fine. I'm thrilled to hear it. Keep him away from me, and I will be the happiest woman alive or dead." I didn't want to turn my back on her, but I had to go. If she wasn't going to jump me here and now, Dolph was waiting at a murder scene. I had to go.

  "Gretchen, what are you and Anita talking about?" Jean-Claude stalked towards us. He was wearing, I kid you not, a black cape. It was a Victorian style with a collar. A top hat with a white silk band completed the look.

  Gretchen gazed at him. It was the only word for it. The naked adoration in her face was sickening, and very human. "I wanted to meet my rival."

  I wasn't her rival, but I didn't think she'd believe that.

  "I told you to wait outside so you would not meet her. You knew that." The last three words were spat out, thrown at her like rocks.

  She flinched. "I meant no harm this night."

  That was almost a lie, but I didn't say anything. I could have told him that she'd threatened me, but somehow it seemed like tattling. She'd gone to a lot of trouble to get me alone. To warn me off. Her love for him was so naked. I could not enlist his help against her. Foolish, but true. Besides, I didn't like owing Jean-Claude favors.

  "I'll leave you two lovebirds alone."

  "What lies did you tell her about us?" His words scalded the air. I could feel myself choking on his rage. Jesus.

  She fell to her knees, hands held upward, not to avoid a blow, but beseeching, reaching for him. "Please, I only wanted to meet her. To see the mortal that would steal you from me."

  I did not want to see this, but it was like a car crash. I couldn't quite bring myself to leave.

  "She steals nothing. I have never loved you."

  The pain was raw on her face, and even under the makeup she looked less human. Her face was thinning out, bones growing more apparent, as if her skin were shrinking.

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her roughly to her feet. His white-gloved fingers dug into her arm. If she'd been human, there would have been bruises. "Get hold of yourself, woman. You are losing control."

  Her thinning lips drew back from fangs. She hissed at him, jerking free of his hand. She covered her face with hands that were almost claws. I'd seen vampires show their true form, but never by accident, never in the open, where anyone might see. "I love you." The words came out muffled and twisted, but the feeling in those three words was very real. Very...human.

  "Get out of sight before you disgrace us all," Jean-Claude said.

  She raised a face that was no longer human to the light. The pale skin glowed with an inner light. The makeup sat on that glowing surface. The blush, eye shadow, lipstick seemed to float above the light, as if her skin would no longer absorb them. When she turned her head, I could see the bones in her jaws like shadows inside her skin. "This is not over between us, Anita Blake." The words fell out from between fangs and teeth.

  "Leave us!" Jean-Claude's words were an echoing hiss.<
br />
  She launched herself skyward, not a leap, not levitation, just upward. She vanished into the darkness with a backwash of wind.

  "Sweet Jesus," I whispered it.

  "I am sorry, ma petite. I sent her out here so this would not happen." He walked towards me in his elegant cape. A gust of icy wind whistled around the corner, and he had to make a grab for the top hat. It was nice to know that at least his clothing didn't obey his every whim.

  "I've got to go, Jean-Claude. The police are waiting for me."

  "I did not mean for this to happen tonight."

  "You never mean for anything to happen, Jean-Claude. But it happens anyway." I put a hand up to stop his words. I didn't want to hear any more of them.

  "I've got to go." I turned and walked towards my car. I transferred my gun back to its holster when I was safely across the icy street.

  "I am sorry, ma petite." I whirled to tell him to get the hell away from me. He wasn't there. The streetlight glowed down on empty sidewalk. I guess he and Gretchen hadn't needed a car.

  7

  THERE IS A glimpse of stately old homes to the right just before you turn onto Highway 44. The houses hide behind a wrought-iron fence and a security gate. When the homes were built, they were the height of elegance and so was the neighborhood. Now the town houses are an island in a rising flood of project housing and dead-eyed children who shoot each other over a scuffed sneaker. But the old money stayed, determined to be elegant, even if it kills them.

  In Fenton the Chrysler plant is still the largest employer. A side road runs past fast-food restaurants and local businesses. But the highway bypasses them all. A straight line going onward and not looking back. The Maritz building spans the highway with a covered crosswalk that looks big enough to hold offices. It gets your attention like an overly aggressive date, but I know the name of the business, and I can't say that about many other buildings along 44. Sometimes aggressive works.

  The Ozark Mountains rise on either side of the road. They are soft and rounded. Gentle mountains. On a sunny autumn day, with the trees blazing color, the mountains are startling in their beauty. On a cold December night with only my own headlights for company, the mountains sat like sleeping giants pressing close to the road. There was just enough snow to gleam white through the naked trees. The black shapes of evergreens were permanent shadows in the moonlight. A limestone cliff shone white where the mountains had been cracked open for a gravel pit.

  Houses huddled at the base of the mountains. Neat farmhouses with front porches just made for sitting on. Not-so-neat houses made of unpainted wood with rusty tin roofs. Corrals sat in empty fields without a farmhouse near. A single horse stood in the icy cold, head down searching the tops of the winter-killed grass. A lot of people kept horses out past Eureka--people who couldn't afford to live in Ladue or Chesterfield, where houses cost over half a mil a piece, but you did get barns, exercising pens, and a corral in your backyard. Here all you got was a shed, a corral, and miles to drive to visit your horse, but at least you had one. A lot of trouble to go to for a horse.

  The white head of a road sign flashed in the headlights. I slowed down. A car had run into the pole and crumbled it like a broken flower stem. The sign was hard to read from a sixty-degree angle. Which was probably why Dolph had told me to look for the smashed sign rather than the street name.

  I pulled onto the narrow road. In St. Louis we'd gotten about a three-inch snowfall. Here it looked more like six. The road hadn't been plowed. It angled sharply upward, climbing into the hills. Tire tracks like wagon wheels made two lines through the snow. The police cars had gotten up the hill. So could my Jeep. In my old Nova I might have been wading fresh snow in high heels. Though I did have a pair of Nikes in the trunk. Still, jogging shoes weren't a big improvement. Maybe I should buy a pair of boots.

  It just didn't snow that much in St. Louis. This was one of the deepest snowfalls I'd seen in four years. Boots seemed sort of unnecessary.

  The trees curled over the road, naked branches bouncing in the headlights. Wet, icy trunks bent towards the road. In summertime the road would be a leafy tunnel, now it was just black bones erupting from the white snow.

  At the crest of the hill there was a heavy stone wall. It had to be ten feet tall, and effectively hid anything on the left-hand side of the road. It had to be the monastery.

  About a hundred yards further there was a plaque set in the wall next to a spiked gate. St. Ambrose Monastery was done in raised letters, metal on metal. A driveway curved up and out of sight around a curve of hill. And just across from the entrance was a smaller gravel road. The car tracks climbed into the darkness ahead of me and vanished over the next hill. If the gate hadn't been there for a landmark, I might have missed it. It was only when I turned the Jeep to an angle that my lights caught the tire tracks leading off to the right.

  I wondered what all the heavy traffic was up ahead. Not my problem. I eased onto the smaller road. Branches scraped at the Jeep, scratching down the gleaming paint job like fingernails on a chalkboard. Great, just great.

  I'd never had a brand-new car before. That first ding, where I'd run over a snow-covered tombstone, had been the hardest. After the first damage the rest was easy to take. Riiight.

  The land opened up to either side of the narrow road. A large meadow with winter-killed weeds waist high, weighted down with snow. Lightning flashes of red and blue strobed over the snow, chasing back the darkness. The meadow stopped abruptly in a perfect straight line where the mower had cut it. A white farmhouse, complete with screened-in porch, sat at the end of the road. Cars were everywhere, like a child's spilled toys. I hoped the road formed a turn around under the snow. If not, the cars were parked all over the grass. My grandmother Blake had hated it when people parked on the grass.

  A lot of the cars had their motors running, including the ambulance. There were people sitting in the cars, waiting. But for what? By the time I got to a crime scene, all the work was usually done. Someone would be waiting to take the body away after I'd finished looking at it, but the crime-scene people should have been done and gone. Something was up.

  I pulled in next to a St. Gerard County Sheriff car. One policeman was standing in the driver's side door, leaning on the roof. He'd been staring at the knot of men near the farmhouse, but he turned to stare at me. He didn't look happy with what he saw. His Smokey Bear hat shielded his face but left his ears and the back of his head open to the cold. He was pale and freckled and at least six foot two. His shoulders were very broad in his dark winter jacket. He looked like a large man who had always been large, and thought that made him tough. His hair was some pale shade that absorbed the colors of flashing lights, so his hair looked alternately blue and red. As did his face, and the snow, and everything else.

  I got out of the car very carefully. Snow spilled in around my foot, soaking my hose, filling the leather pump. It was cold and wet, and I kept a death grip on the car door. High heels and snow do not mix. The last thing I wanted to do was fall on my ass in front of the St. Gerard County Sheriff Department. I should have just grabbed my Nikes from the back of the Jeep and put them on in the car. It was too late now. The deputy sheriff was walking very purposefully towards me. He had boots on and was having no trouble with the snow.

  He stopped within reach of me. I didn't let strange men get that close to me normally but to back up I'd have to let go of the car door. Besides he was the police, I wasn't supposed to be afraid of the police. Right?

  "This is police business, ma'am, I'll have to ask you to leave."

  "I'm Anita Blake. I work with Sergeant Rudolf Storr."

  "You're not a cop." He seemed very certain of that. I sort of resented his tone.

  "No, I'm not."

  "Then you're going to have to leave."

  "Can you tell Sergeant Storr that I'm here...please." Never hurts to be polite.

  "I've asked you real nice twice now to leave. Don't make me ask a third time."

  All he had
to do was reach out and grab my arm, shove me into the Jeep, and away we went. I certainly wasn't going to draw my gun on a cop with a lot of other cops within shouting distance. I didn't want to get shot tonight.

  What could I do? I shut the car door very carefully and leaned against it. If I was careful and didn't move around too much, I might not fall down. If I did, maybe I could claim police brutality.

  "Now, why did you do that?"

  "I drove forty-five minutes and left a date to get here." Try to appeal to his better nature. "Let me talk to Sergeant Storr and if he says I need to leave, I'll leave."

  "I don't care if you flew in from outta state. I say you leave. Right now."

  He didn't have a better nature.

  He reached for me. I stepped back, out of reach. My left foot found a patch of ice and I ended up on my ass in the snow.

  The deputy looked sort of startled. He offered me a hand up without thinking about it. I climbed to my feet using the Jeep's bumper, moving farther away from Deputy Sullen at the same time. He figured this out. The frown lines on his forehead deepened.

  Snow clung in wet clumps to my coat and glided in melting runnels down my legs. I was getting pissed off.

  He strode around the Jeep.

  I backpedaled using my hands on the car as traction. "We can play ring-around-the-Rosie if you want to, Deputy, but I'm not leaving until I've talked to Dolph."

  "Your sergeant isn't in charge here." He stepped a little closer.

  I backed away. "Then find someone who is."

  "You don't need to talk to anyone but me," he said. He took three rapid steps towards me. I backed up faster. If we kept this up we'd be running around the car like a Marx brothers movie, or would that be the Keystone Kops?

  "You're running from me."

  "In these shoes, you've got to be kidding."

  I was almost around the back of the Jeep, we'd be back where we started soon. Over the crackle of police radios you could hear angry voices. One of them sounded like Dolph. I wasn't the only one having trouble with the local cops. Though I seemed to be the only one being chased around a car.

  "Stop, right where you are," he said.

  "If I don't?"

  He unclicked the flap on his holster. His hand rested on the butt of his gun. No words necessary.