Bite Me: Big Easy Nights Page 8

  “Because whatever side Leroy’s on,” I said, carefully looking away, “there’s something you need to know about him. And about me.”

  I set aside my fears for Grams and told Paul about Tommy Walker, the goth nerd of my high school. He’d been invisible to It Girls like me despite the dark eye makeup, the black clothes, and the hostile attitude he’d used to scream his indifference. I’d never been mean to the freaks—or even really noticed them—and he’d never been insane enough to ask out a cheerleader, but he’d noticed me. Apparently a lot.

  Everyone says that hindsight is 20/20, but that’s crap; after five years I still couldn’t remember doing anything to make him fixate on me, or any warning that he had. No black roses left at my locker, no love letters in calligraphy, no Bela Lugosi’s Dead mix CD, nothing.

  Paul didn’t say a word while I told him about Tommy’s going deep vampire-goth after graduation, joining a vampire “coven,” getting fang caps, and finally committing suicide. Tommy opened his veins in the middle of a pentagram while I was in the middle of my sophomore year at community college. In a better world he would have bled out and died; instead he got exactly what he’d hoped for—his obsession-triggered breakthrough into true vampirehood.

  All that was normal in my world now, and I could see Paul wasn’t following me; most vamps were obsessive goths or vampire-romance lovers who turned through suicide or misadventure. Then I told him about how dead Tommy, risen as psycho-Vlad, tricked his way into our home and ripped my parent’s throats out while I hid screaming in a closet. How he kidnapped me and locked me in a basement hole for two weeks while he fed off me and enthralled me over and over again until I loved him so deep and mindlessly I’d have killed my own parents if he’d asked. Til all I’d wanted was his bite. And how he’d killed me.

  Paul finally got it. “Chèr—dear God in Heaven. You’re progeny? What happened to—”

  I laughed woodenly. “Staked, burned, ashes scattered on Lake Michigan. So now you know why I don’t like other vamps much.”

  “And you still think Acacia may have a sire?”

  “Maybe. But Marc Leroy definitely has one.” I told him about super-vamps, watched him try and wrap his mind around the idea of a whole class of vampire not hung up on holy objects and other compulsions.

  “You’re sure about Leroy?”

  “He didn’t flinch at entering a church, and wasn’t even a little worried about what Father Graff could do to him. He doesn’t like the vamp-scene, not even a bit. His place, the part of it I saw, doesn’t have a trace of goth, and he’s got that whole I’m Too Cool To Be A Vampire thing going. He works for a living! There’s no way he turned the usual way.”

  I didn’t point out that Leroy was black, and black goths were as rare as…well, I’d never seen one, and that he was good looking as hell. I could easily imagine a vamp fixating on him like psycho-Vlad had on me.

  “Do you think he got turned accidentally? Like Emerson was thinking with Acacia?”

  “Maybe. But there’s one more thing, and you’ve got to swear this doesn’t go back to Emerson or anyone else official.” I looked away again so he’d know I wasn’t trying to influence him.

  “Okay,” he said finally. “As long as it’s not a crime I’d have to report.”

  So I told him all about Artemis and master vampires and Killing Nights.

  Chapter Twelve

  The bats have left the bell tower,

  The victims have been bled.

  Red velvet lines the black box,

  Bela Lugosi's dead.

  Undead undead undead.

  Nouvelle Vague, Bela Lugosi’s Dead.

  * * *

  Not the Killing Nights of course, the ones that never happened now. Just the possibility. Take one psycho master vamp, he enthralls and turns three or four dozen, at least one of those is now a master vamp too and completely under his control… Bite and repeat for the ultimate undead pyramid scheme, each sire loyal to the one above him and controlling a couple more, and most of their covens full of fanatically loyal supervamps with almost zero vampire weaknesses. All hail the vampire apocalypse.

  Even the possibility was bad enough for me; any master vamps I found were getting recycled into the Mississippi. If Acacia or Leroy had a sire, he was ashes headed for the sea as soon as I got to him.

  Paul must have read something in my eyes; he shook off the news of my former vigilante status and visions of burning cities, and frowned.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll buy that some vampires are made—that certainly explains you—but you’re acting like any master vampire needs to be brought down like a rabid dog. Most vamps are real pieces of work sure, but here’s no reason to think all master vamps are like the one who killed— The one who turned you.”

  “The DSA—”

  “The DSA knows about this?”

  “The DSA has protocols for it. They know about Tommy now, and they know it—he—can happen again.”

  “So, what will happen if they think there’s one in New Orleans?”

  I sighed.

  “I’m here to tell them if there’s one in New Orleans; they didn’t just send me down here to help keep stupid teenagers from donating. If they think there’s even a chance, they’ll round up every vamp for testing—and any vamp that can breed… well, how they deal with him will depend on how ‘reliable’ he is. Best case, indefinite quarantine as a lethal disease vector.”

  “That’s not right, chèr. The government can’t—”

  “The government can and it should. Look.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, searched for words.

  “Paul, vamps are parasites. Last night I committed felony assault three times to feed, and it doesn’t matter that it didn’t hurt and none of my donors remember it. You know that. My legal alternative, what I’ve done since I got here, is voluntary donors. But what am I doing then? Feeding a junkie’s habit, that’s what I’m doing! I’m a freaking drug pusher.”

  “You get some of them out—”

  “Yeah, and so what? Every vamp in this town supports at least three fang addicts—a lot more if we’re greedy. They pay us real well, Paul, directly or not, and get vamped so often that they end up half-enthralled, completely susceptible to any vamp’s influence. It’s why you don’t like us any more than I do. The only reason we’re not a new addiction epidemic is we can’t breed so there’s only so many of us to go around. Can you imagine if there were hundreds of us? Thousands?”

  I gave him a chance to say something. Anything. He didn’t.

  “And then there’s the wannabe-vamps, like Acacia. How many do you think there are who’re willing to pay big to trade their suntans for eternal youth and the freaking coolness of it all if it’s a sure bet? You don’t need a psychotic murdering rapist like Tommy. Say you’ve got a ‘sane’ master vamp—they’d be lining up to pay big bucks to get turned and all you’d need is one master vamp progeny going batshit for us to be dancing the Apocalypse Waltz. And how many crime lords—or governments for that matter—would pay or force a master vamp to vampirize their muscle? How ‘bout an insane regime like North Korea used to be, with an all-supervamp special force? Talk about bioterrorism. Do you think normal people are going to tolerate the threat as our numbers grow?”

  “Jacky, chèr.”

  I stopped, looked around. The praying parishioner had gone—hopefully we hadn’t chased him away.

  I forced my voice lower. “It’s not inevitable, really. Maybe one in thirty vamps can create progeny, but since that’s a deep, deep, government secret, how would a potential master vamp find out he was one? Everybody knows that vampires can’t reproduce except on that one-in-a-thousand chance, and most of us aren’t stupid or crazy enough to try and turn someone when it will probably kill them. But the one who’s tried, and had it work? Like Acacia’s or Leroy’s hypothetical sire? If it worked once he’ll try it again. When it works again, he’ll know. And then unless we get him, unless I take him down or take him in, one way or a
nother we’re climbing into that hand basket for our quick ride to Hell.”

  Paul’s face had gone hard, his mouth tight, but he shook his head.

  “We’ve got an audience,” he said, pointing with his chin. Carefully glancing back, I saw a tall dark-haired man talking to a priest—both just as carefully not looking at us. Paul surprised me.

  “Kiss me,” he whispered.

  I blinked. Huh?

  “Give me a long goodbye, and go.”

  Aha. I stood, then bent down to hold his face for a long kiss. Able to see past his ear, I watched our audience look away. “Emerson had to let Acacia’s brother go,” Paul whispered as we separated.

  “Wait, what?” My lips felt full of blood. Focus, girl.

  “Be careful—I’ll meet you at the car,” he said low enough that I barely heard him. I remembered my cue.

  “Goodbye,” I said, trying not to overplay and sound like a dramatic heroine in a sob-scene. I turned and walked away without looking back.

  I’d scouted St. Louis Cathedral before, and now I took advantage of its best spy-feature: the back way out through St. Anthony’s Garden. If the tall dark man was a tail then there was no way he could follow me out past Paul without being hugely obvious, and the chance he’d sent somebody else around was small.

  New Orleans had more than its share of “haunted” places, and St. Anthony’s Garden was one. In the old days it had been a dueling ground, though its monument was for sailors who died somewhere else. Through its gate, I turned and headed up Royal Street, moving with the happy, swirling Carnival crowd.

  Would Paul confront them? Or just play it out and go?

  Being unescorted meant I attracted a few calls and offers, so ducking into a Mardi Gras shop, I bought a festival mask and feathered beret. On impulse I also picked up a cheap krewe costume, a satin jacket, bright purple with gold trim and fringing. Changing in the shop, I folded up my leather jacket and stuffed it in a purchase bag, inserted myself into a happy group of masked partiers, and let them sweep me out the door and up the street.

  I didn’t need to feed, but a cheerfully assertive college boy who introduced himself as Brent bought me a beer-yard of dark Guinness and I was happy to hold onto his arm. I stayed with the party for a couple of blocks, even yelled “Throw me something, mister!” with them when a walking krewe in carnival feathers mamboed by behind a brass band and drum major. I caught two strings of gold and silver beads for my efforts and added them to my costume. At the corner of Royal and Dumaine, I handed Brent the half-full yard with a whisper implying I had to find the lady’s room, then ducked into the crowded corner bar and back out through the Dumaine Street door.

  Up Dumaine I found an alley that took me away from the street, where I took off the mask, cap, and beads, and traded jackets. I stuffed everything into the bag, hopped three fences on my way through the close warren of buildings, and came out on St. Phillip Street. From there it was only a five minutes’ easy walk to the car, but I stood in the shadow of a closed drapery shop and watched it and everyone in sight of it for another ten.

  Where was Paul?

  My cell buzzed, startling me. It was Paul.

  “Jacky?”

  “Running late?” I asked, putting a smile on my face in case anyone was watching.

  “Not exactly. Check the windshield.”

  I froze, looked around. No one close to me was doing anything other than passing, and there were damn few line-of-sight angles to see me from that didn’t involve breaking and entering.

  “Paul—”

  “I’m okay, just do it.”

  Stepping out of the shadows, I hurried over to the car. Someone had stuck a business card under the left wiper. It was matte-black, blank except for a silver-engraved razor-thin crescent on one side: the symbol of the Midnight Ball.

  “Hello, Ms. Bouchard,” a different voice said in my ear. “Do you have it?”

  I waited until I could control myself. “Yes. If you hurt—”

  “Understood. He will be waiting for you when you return.” He hung up and I stared at my phone, thoughts fighting for priority. The loudest demanded that I find whoever had Paul, nail him to the wall so he couldn’t mist away, and explain his mistake in a reasonable voice while he screamed. He’d heal afterward, but he’d get the point. I put that one off with promises.

  No demands, no instructions, but the card only meant one thing: the Master of Ceremonies wanted to see me.

  Well, now I wanted to see him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that tonight, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway?

  Bram Stoker, Dracula.

  Who waits for midnight?

  Jacky Bouchard.

  * * *

  The Midnight Ball might be just a few nights away, but now Lalaurie House was dark, all but one of its windows shuttered behind their fancy ironwork. The house squatted on the corner of Royal Street and Governor Nicholas, three stories of old evil and rumored hauntings even before the Master of Ceremonies bought it and restored it to its old French Creole splendor.

  Where else would a rich vamp live, but a home built by an insanely cruel woman who kept a torture chamber in her attic?

  I stepped through the street gate and handed the card to the guard standing in the recessed entryway. He grinned and half-tore it like it was a movie ticket before handing it back and beckoning me through the door. Vessy, the Master of Ceremonies’ assistant (advisor, enforcer, right-hand man?) greeted me in the shadowed entry hall. He was a tall, stringy vamp; the guard beside him, impressively muscled with ornamental scars crisscrossing his bald head and bare biceps, easily outweighed him.

  Scarhead held out a silver platter large enough to host a small roast pig.

  “Weapons, phone,” he said. Vessy didn’t say anything, but his eyes widened when I dropped the Desert Eagle and oversized knife on the platter, ringing it like a gong. I added my cellphone, held out the bag and smiled at them. Showing fang.

  Scarhead looked at Vessy, who shrugged, passing on the body search and leaving me my little Kel-Tec, a comforting weight at the small of my back.

  “Take me to your mathster,” I lisped. Vessy glared but Scarhead barked a laugh, set the platter and bag on a hall table, and led me up the sweeping staircase to the second floor.

  I’ve never been superstitious, and since the nightmares that took place in Lalaurie House happened nearly two hundred years before the Event, I didn’t believe the ghosts of tortured and murdered slaves haunted the place seeking revenge. The Master of Ceremonies had had years to make the place his own, but I would have bet a month’s Sentinels pay that at least one of the high society vamp’s staff was an undercover cop. I doubted he’d buried more bodies under the floor, so that left out any post-Event hauntings.

  But Lalaurie House still creeped me out.

  Part of it was the low lighting provided by fake electric candles and the soft music piped into every room, sometimes so low it played just on the edge of my hearing. Most of it was the way that all the staff moved silently on soft-soled shoes, without talking or even acknowledging anyone’s presence—like they were ghosts themselves, moving in a world where I was invisible. They were performing, and the entire house was a stage. It was creepy as hell, and what did it say about the playwright?

  So I didn’t look at them, or at Scarhead when he stopped at the top of the stairs; I knew where the library was, and my host would be waiting for me there. It was the best stage in the house. Scarhead had to skip around me to open the library door before I did, then rush to arrive beside me when I kept going to stop on the carpet in the middle of the room.

  “Ms. Bouchard, Sir,” he said, not near as smoothly as he’d have liked.

  “Thank you Richard. That will be all.”

  He silently closed the door behind him as the owner of Lalaurie House turned away from the unshuttered window, the one I’d seen from the s
treet. We studied each other.

  I didn’t know why he bothered to wear the black Carnival mask that always covered half his face. It didn’t hide his dark hair or steel grey eyes or disguise his deep voice, a voice that matched the large and muscled body inside the tailored suits he wore. His crisp bowtie circled a neck I couldn’t have gotten both hands around, and heavy rings sat on thick but not stubby fingers. The vamps that attacked me had used masks to hide their identities, but if he danced down the street in full krewe costume in eye-bleeding color, covered in fringe and beads, I’d recognize him from a block away.

  The fanciful image tugged at the corners of my mouth, and I let it just to push his buttons. His hands tightened on the head of his cane, and I decided to push some more.

  “Nice stick. Does it have a sword in it?”

  The jab missed; he chuckled. “Indeed. A necessary accessory for any gentleman. Thank you for coming.”

  “Bite me.”

  “Later, perhaps. Would you care to sit? I heard about today’s unfortunate event. I assure you that I have had nothing to do with the attempts on your life, but we have much to discuss.”

  “Let Paul go.”

  “Paul is also necessary, since my goal is a civil conversation with Artemis.”

  * * *

  No one can be as still as a vampire, and only my eyes moved as I measured him. I could put three bullets in his head, take his sword cane while he was stunned, remove his head and be out the window with it before anyone could stop me. Except the glass looked bulletproof and was covered by ironwork. I could mist—but the outside walls were probably not air permeable and I’d find myself trapped in the house in another fight with vamps that knew the rules better than I did.