She went to the tower and took its elevator up. At the top she got out and doubled back down toward Woodland Court, walking along in a sort of tunnel formed by bougainvillea branches that overhung the public walk, with white trumpet-vine, plumeria, honeysuckle and jasmine. The night air was like paradise.
She could see over back fences as she crept along, now and then getting a glimpse into somebody’s lit kitchen: an ancient lady in a bathrobe, sitting hunched over a cup of coffee. A woman in a nightgown, ironing a pair of striped trousers. A young man with all his hair standing up, walking to and fro as a tiny baby screamed on his shoulder.
Shadow flitted past them, unseen and unknown.
Here was the house with the unlocked iron gate; she had learned that if she ran down the steps at the side of the house, crossed the lower garden and ducked through a hedge, she emerged just above the tallest of the bamboo thickets. Now she dropped down the steps in three bounds, silent, and crept into the darkness on the other side of the hedge.
There she stopped, listening, until it began to grow light. She felt her way forward, taking infinite care. A voice spoke from the other side of the bamboo thicket.
“I don’t think she’s coming back tonight.” That was Darlene.
“She has to come back sometime,” said Julie. “Little bitch.”
“But it’ll be daylight soon,” said Darlene, with a trace of whimper in her voice.
“I don’t give a shit, okay?” said Todd. “She broke my fucking nose. I’m going to kick her ass.”
Shadow grinned. She found a comfortable position and settled back to wait. The sky paled; the roar of the waking city rose from down on Highland. Finally she heard Darlene again, crying.
“Look, who needs her anyway? We have to get back.”
“It’s not like we’re
really
going to die if the sun hits us,” said Todd.
Julie, sounding outraged, said, “We’re creatures of darkness. It’s the principle of the thing, you know? She affronted the Kindred!”
“Whatever,” said Todd.
About ten more minutes passed before he exhaled loudly, said, “This is crap,” and got up. Shadow peered through the bamboo and watched the three of them trudging sadly down the street, in their white pancake makeup and black polyester cloaks.
Shadow had Sunday and Monday nights off. When she’d had the Impala, she’d gone driving. She’d head out Santa Monica as far as the beach, where she’d walk beside the dark water, or go to some of the clubs out there.
She didn’t feel like staying home that Sunday night. The nearest club was down on the Boulevard, just off Orchid; she left early, before sunset, and instead of going straight down Highland took the back way, all the way up and over the hill on the other side, emerging behind Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. Once or twice, through the quiet residential section, she thought she heard footsteps echoing her own. When she turned and looked, though, there were no coven members swirling their capes; only a man, indistinct in the twilight, walking along without drama.
The club, The Pearl Diver, had been there since the 1940s and had originally had a South Seas theme. All the tuck-and-roll banquettes had been torn out, though, and now it looked vaguely industrial. There was a bar, there was a platform for the DJ’s equipment, there were a few chromed steel tables and folding chairs; all the rest was dance floor.
It was usually pretty quiet on a Sunday. Shadow liked it that way. She didn’t go to meet people. She liked to dance, but by herself; she liked to drink, and that was safest done alone too. But it was good to do these things in a public place, in a pool of colored light, to music so loud she felt its vibration in her bones.
Shadow ordered a vodka on the rocks, on the grounds that it had fewer calories than other drinks. It was pure, it was volatile; one drink and her exhaustion drained away, and she was out on the floor and jumping to the music. Her hair flew, her knees and elbows pumped, and she didn’t give a rat’s ass who might be lurking in the darkness at the edge of the dance floor. She was
moving
.
At some point she was in a bright warm place and the DJ had just put on Buzzcocks’
Ever Fallen in Love?
There was someone dancing beside her, suddenly. She looked up at him, snarling, but her shout of anger died in her throat.
He was as caught up in the dance as she was, he wasn’t even looking at her. He was fast, he was sinuous, he was in perfect control. He needed nothing.
She thought he might be a surfer. What was a surfer doing in a punk hangout? His skin was tanned dark amber, with a red flush under it, and his forearms were tattooed. There were bright glints in his red hair. He wore ragged jeans, a torn shirt, but a fire opal winked from his ear.
Shadow felt all her breath going out of her. She staggered away from him, got another drink at the bar, found a vacant table and sat down. Her legs were trembling. Other people were staring at the guy now. Two older girls sitting at the table next to hers watched him with avid expressions.
“Damn,” said one of them, in awe.
“Who is
that
?” said the other. “The God of the Beach?”
The music ended, and the dancer looked around. He spotted Shadow, walked to her table and loomed over her. He looked familiar. Where had she seen him before?
“Can I buy you a drink?” he said.
“Hell yes!” said the nearer of the girls at the next table, as she leaned forward to catch his eye. His unmoving gaze rested on Shadow.
“Okay,” said Shadow.
He went to the bar and returned a moment later with a pair of vodkas on the rocks. He put them down and seated himself next to her.
“Okay if I sit with you?” he said. He didn’t smile as he said it, and that lowered her defenses a little. Smiling people always wanted something more.
“Yeah, okay,” she said.
She waited for him to say the stupid things non-punks said when they came into a place like this. Most men, looking at her Doc Martens and black ensemble, assumed she was a lesbian and did something idiotic like jovially telling her they were lesbians, too, trapped in the bodies of men. She’d never known what that was supposed to make her feel, other than contempt.
But he said nothing. He just sat there, watching her.
“You can really dance, you know?” she blurted, and felt like a fool.
He seemed to think about that, watching her as he took a sip of his drink. “Thanks,” he said at last. “I liked your dancing too.”
Eyeing him sidelong, she tried to define what it was about him that was making her heart contract so painfully. He looked a little like Scott Rosenthal back in eighth grade, the boy she’d dreamed of marrying someday. He looked a little like Rick, the nice guy her mother had dated for a while.
No;
Samantha
had fantasized about a white wedding, without ever actually getting up the courage to even say hello to Scott Rosenthal.
Samantha
had hidden in her room, crying, while her mother had had a drunken quarrel with Rick and ended up throwing him out.
Shadow never wept over anybody.
The guy was talking to her in a low soothing voice, and she realized that he wasn’t nearly as inarticulate as he had seemed at first. He spoke quietly, patiently, yes, a lot like Rick. What had Rick’s last name been?
“…But I don’t really think you’re into this?” he was saying. He put his hand over hers. His hand was warm. It startled her a little.
“What?”
“All this,” he said, nodding toward the couples at the bar. “All these desperate people.”
“No,” she said. “I just come here to dance.”
“I could tell,” he said. “Me too.”
“You burn up the floor, man,” said Shadow. “Not like the rest of these posers. They’re
needy
. That’s why I like my space, you know?”
He nodded solemnly. Shadow looked down and saw that her glass was empty. Without a word he got up and brought her another drink.
She found herself talking to him about her life. He listened without comment, without smiling. What was there to smile about? But now and then he squeezed her hand.
It made her feel lightheaded. It made her want to do something stupid.
Someone was standing beside their table. It was the bartender, the older one, looking surly.
“What’s this Kiki says about putting drinks on your tab? You ain’t got no damn tab,” said the bartender.
Rick (No, that wasn’t his name. Had he told her his name?) looked up at the bartender and smiled. His smile was all light and warmth; Shadow leaned toward him involuntarily.
“You didn’t recognize me, did you?” he said pleasantly. The bartender peered at him, confused. Then he laughed.
“Jesus, what’s wrong with my eyes? Never mind! Can I get you another round?”
“Yes,” said the guy.
Shadow drank, but was no longer relaxed. She was shaking. Where was her self-control?
She didn’t need this guy.
But, she told herself, she could
use
him, couldn’t she? Of course she could. Samantha would be going all dewy-eyed and dreaming of a future right about now, but Shadow knew better than that. He was somebody, he was an actor or in a band or something, obviously. He must have money.
If nothing else, she might talk him into walking her home. She could tell him about the vampire covens, and they’d have a good laugh.
Her glass was empty. The music had stopped, the lights gone down; the DJ was taking a break. People at the tables around them seemed to be half asleep. When had she stopped talking?
He closed his hand on hers and rose from his seat. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Shadow followed him outside. The night was dank, chilly, smelled tired. He led her along the Walk of Stars, under the glittering lights, and they turned up Orchid into the darkness. She looked around as they got to Franklin.
“Where’s your car?” she stammered, suddenly wary.
“We’re going back to your place, remember?” he said, sounding amused. “And watching out for vampires.”
“Right,” she said, and now she remembered telling him, and felt so relieved she took his hand again and gave him a little-lost-girl look. “Vampires are scary.”
He put his arm around her as they crossed Franklin. God, he was warm. Maybe he’d loan her enough money to get the Impala repaired. Maybe he’d move in with her. Maybe she’d move in with him. But she wouldn’t love him, because only the Samanthas of the world were stupid enough to do that. Shadows kept control, kept their distance.
But she had to admit she wanted the strength of his big body, its heat, its hardness. Well, why not? It was there to be used. All the way up the hill and down the other side, she clung to him. Who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t come up with any excuse just to be with him?
They were at her door. No vampires. She let him in.
She switched on the light in the bathroom, which was a dim little bulb with a pink shade. In the half-light he peeled off his shirt, and she saw that his tattoos swirled up his arms and across his broad chest, coiling patterns like Chinese dragons. Nowhere stark white unsunned, even when he stepped out of his jeans. Nothing to repel her, nothing on which she could look in scorn. If Samantha had gone down on her knees and prayed for a lover, he’d look like this.
But she was Shadow.
She got up and skinned out of her clothes, summoning all her arrogance, and if he was repelled by her pallid skin or those five pounds she couldn’t shear off no matter how she starved herself, if he regretted being here, well, it was too damn late now. She gave him a push toward the bed.
“Come on, stud,” she said. “Do you do anything else as nice as you dance?”
She kept control, at first. She rode him, hard and careless, and he performed like a big, stolid horse. It was only when she collapsed on him, when he put his arms around her and rolled over onto her, that Samantha, dumb bitch, began crying and telling him how beautiful he was.
She couldn’t get out of his arms. She was too weak to get out of his arms, even when the sheets blackened and the flames rose in a great burst, lighting up the room like sunrise. Unsmiling, he looked into her eyes. His muscles rippled, the dragons on his body went writhing over her flesh. He put his face close to hers and her hair flared up, all the chemicals from the dye erupting in rainbow sparks, and there was pain but a kind of ecstasy too. The fire was paring away her ugly, overweight body.
And Samantha was gone at last and she was Shadow.
The landlord was so old his skin was going transparent, but he wore a sporty cap and had no trouble hobbling around with a cane. He led Jon into the parking lot and waved a hand at the incinerated ruin of Unit D.
“That’s it,” he said. Jon shook his head, looking at the police tape around the wreckage. He leaned back to look up at the overhanging trees whose branches had shriveled from the heat, the stands of bamboo with their leaves seared away. Then he glanced across at the bulldozed space on the other side of the parking lot.
“This is your second fire in a month, isn’t it?” he said, with suspicion in his voice.
“Yep,” said the landlord. “No connection, though. This one, tenant fell asleep smoking in bed. Near as the cops could tell.”
“Yeah?” Jon stepped back, raised his camera and took three quick shots in succession. “That’s too bad.”
The landlord shrugged. “Good excuse to sell the place. Some young guy like you could tear all these units out, put in a nice big condo building, make a lot of money. You know anybody who’s interested?”
Jon shook his head. He walked up to the edge of the police tape and leaned in to get a closer shot of the tumbled ashes, the twisted bed frame with its paint blistered, its rubber casters melted off. He saw no sign of the mattress; the police must have carted it away.
Something caught his attention, moving back in among the cinders. Jon reached forward gingerly and lifted back what was left of a coffee table.
A kitten backed away on unsteady legs. It was black as the cinders themselves, and so young its eyes were pearly.
“Oh, cool,” said Jon, wishing he could use the image for
Negative Pulse
. He raised his camera anyway, and took a photograph.