The Living Night (Book 1) (16 page)

"We're not gonna make it," she said.
"Under nine minutes till sunrise.”

He laid a hand on the back of her neck and massaged
the tense muscles there. "We'll look back on this and laugh."

"From our graves, yeah. You want a
tombstone or a crypt?"

"Oh, crypt, most definitely.” He checked
the rear-view. "Still behind us."

She grunted and tried to throw her legs up on
the dashboard, but she was too weak and her legs slid off and thudded to the
floor.

"Death sucks," she said.

He reached a hand to the backseat and pulled out
second suitcase—the heavy one. Both were densely packed: one with clothes, one
with weapons. The arms ranged from the exotic to the mundane, tools Ruegger had
collected over the years; when one got too old, he'd replace it. After a while,
Danielle had gotten into it, and the guns became sleeker and more powerful.
Anything that could fit, fit. Not just guns—bombs, too, from
plastique
to grenades.

Ruegger was probably thinking of throwing a
timed device onto the road behind them, but those things were so uncertain …

He shook her gently, and Danielle cracked an
eye. She must have passed out. "What?" she groaned, looking around
and closing her eye again.

"We’re there."

He swerved onto the exit ramp. She felt the
grating of metal on concrete as their hurtling black contraption smashed
against a pockmarked wall.

"What?" She leaned into him, putting
both arms around him, letting the blood drip from her chest.

He glanced at the rear-view mirror. “No sign of
our pursuers. We're almost to the Inn.”

"
No
," she warned, her voice
cracking. "Motels are death-traps, baby. All they've got to do is go
room-to-room until—"

He pressed his chin against her head.
"That's not going to happen, and we have something to do," he said,
swerving into the parking lot of the little hide-away motel, the
CLEARGLASS INN
, just as advertised. He
screeched to a halt in front of the lobby doors, and the car shuddered and
died. The vampires bailed out of the car, suitcases in tow, and Danielle was
almost to the lobby when Ruegger shouted, "Wait!"

She spun. "What?" She looked at a watch.
"Under three minutes.”

“We’re just paying a visit, not checking in.”

“Okay …”

“What’s the one thing we learned on our
anniversary?”

Comprehension dawned. She swore.

“It’s the best way out of this,” he said.

“But—”

Not bothering to argue about it, he moved into
the lobby.

“Where’s Vincent Greggs?” he asked the man
behind the counter. “He’s a guest of yours.”

“I can’t give out that—”

Ruegger extended his powers; Danielle could
sense it. He wasn’t a strong psychic manipulator like Jean-Pierre, but he could
handle one human for a brief time. “Where is Vincent Greggs?”

The registrar blinked. “Let me check.” He typed
into his computer, then glanced up. “Room 314.”

Ruegger marched up the stairs to the third floor,
Danielle immediately behind. They found Room 314 and Ruegger kicked in the
door. Greggs, a prudent vampire, was just checking the windows to make sure his
personal blackout curtains had been installed properly. He whirled, anger mixed
with fear in his face, as Ruegger and Danielle barged in.

“What the hell—?”

Ruegger grabbed him by the throat and hefted him
off the ground. “You were hired to take out someone—someone who knows who
killed Ludwig Gleason. Who’s your target?”

The man tried to talk, couldn’t. Ruegger eased
up.

“Will you let me go if I tell you?” Greggs said.

“No. But I won’t torture you, either.”

Grimness settled over the other’s features.
“You’re the Marshals, aren’t you?”

“That’s right. Now talk.”

“Hauswell,” Vincent said. “I was hired to kill
Hauswell. I was just on my to—”

Ruegger tore off his head. Even as the blood
spurted, Ruegger tuned, wearily, and offered the body, and blood, to Danielle.

“Drink,” he said. “Go on.”

She hesitated. “You … you didn’t even give him a
chance.”

He let out a breath. “I know, but he was a hired
assassin, a killer without conscience or mercy. There’s no difference between
him and any other shade we’ve taken out before. The sun is almost up.”

Slowly, she nodded, and took the body in her
arms.

*
    
*
    
*

The
van jerked to a smoldering stop yards from the vampires' Mustang, and
Jean-Pierre clambered from the overheated hulk to stare at the rising sun. He
heard doors opening and closing behind him, but his gaze was unwavering. If
Danielle wasn't in stasis by now, she'd be dead.

"The car's empty!" Loirot shouted.
He'd recovered more quickly after imbibing what Byron had given him, and he was
up and moving—but still not at peak health.

"Trunk?" Jean-Pierre said.

"Working on it," came the reply.

Jean-Pierre waited, breathless.

"Trunk's empty!"

"Go search the dumpster and outer perimeter
of the building," he instructed Loirot. "Keep an eye out for sewer
grates and air shafts. If you find them alive don't stay to fight."

Loirot stalked away.

"Check the hollow beneath the back
compartment," Jean-Pierre said.

With the help of Cloire, Kilian found the catch
and removed it. A metal door lay there, the lid of the vampires' last-ditch
coffin.

"Waste of time," said Byron. "
Vampires're
paranoid about being trapped in their coffins.
They'll've
gotten as far away as possible by now."

"We've got to open it,” Kilian said. “Just
to be sure."

Byron shrugged. "I don't get paid by the
hour ..."

"It'll be booby-trapped," Cloire said.
"Be sure of that."

Jean-Pierre nodded. "Can you open it?"

"Anything for you,
lovey
."
Quietly, she set to work, and the crew waited tensely. Loirot returned, shaking
his head. At last Cloire looked up. “Done,” she said. “Shall I open it?”

The entire crew watched their leader. This was a
decisive moment. If the coffin was opened and occupied, the vampires would be
struck by the sun and become flaming husks that would blow away in the wind,
dead to all the world. Or Jean-Pierre would refuse to open it.

The albino lowered his head, took the last drag
on the last cigarette of the pack, and flung it to the ground. When he looked
back up at his crew, his face betrayed his thoughts.

"Fuck," said Cloire. "You goddamned
pussy-whipped
bastard
." She
turned her back to him and walked away, casting a malicious, if conspiratorial,
glance at Kilian.

"We'll wait till nightfall to open the
chamber," Jean-Pierre said

“Fuck that,” said Cloire, coming back, with a
scowling Kilian by her side. Loirot was with them, too. “We’re opening the
coffin
now
.”

"Get away from there!" Jean-Pierre
shouted, stepping forward, but Loirot and Kilian blocked him off.

"Now
now
,
whitey," said Cloire. "It's my turn now. Are you with us or against
us?"

Jean-Pierre saw he had no choice, not if he
wanted to stay leader of this crew. "You … you've removed all the
booby-traps?"

"No promises. They had it rigged pretty
tight."

He flicked his wrist in disgust. "Do it.”

She grinned and hopped into the back compartment.
After fiddling with the coffin's catch for a moment, she turned toward the
others dramatically, a showman's pause, then threw off the lid and leapt back.
There was an audible creaking of leather as those assembled leaned forward to
peer into the shallow recess.

The explosion sent roaring flame and twisted
metal to wash over asphalt and werewolf alike. When the heat died away, it left
only wreckage in its wake, with smoke billowing from nearby cars (including the
werewolves' new van) and drifting through the shattered glass of the lobby.
Charred rubble lay strewn across the ground, and cries of alarm could be heard
from inside.

Smoking, Jean-Pierre raised his head from
pavement, searching for the others; in turn, they rose and did the same. Jean-Pierre
could hear Loirot muttering, "Fucking ruined my suit, the bastards."

Despite it all, Jean-Pierre felt pleased.
Run, Danielle.

"More cops are going to come," Byron
said.

The albino nodded, watching the others gather
around.

"Brilliant disarming," Kilian said to
Cloire.

"Fuck off and go to hell," she
snarled.

"Knock it off,” Jean-Pierre said.

Loirot snorted. "Don't order them around.
Not unless you're going to act like a leader, Jean-Pierre."

"That's right," Cloire said. "You're
slipping, whitey."

The albino's lip curled down. "Is there a
point to this, Cloire?"

Her eyes blazed. "Shape up or ship out. You're
utterly fucked-up, you know, completely eaten up by someone you're supposed to
be killing. In fact, I think the only reason you haven't flat out told us to pack
up and go home is that you figure the best way to keep dear Danielle alive is
to head the team that's sent to kill her."

They glared at each other, both spoiling for a
fight.

Loirot cleared his throat. “I hear sirens.”

*
    
*
    
*

What
Ruegger and Danielle had learned on their anniversary was the importance of
tunneling. So, after swearing profusely, the odd flock took to the dirt,
hollowing out what little space they could as deep and dark as they could
reasonably want to go.

Ruegger dug deep, reaching the cool moistness of
the hidden earth, maybe forty feet down. With Danielle’s help, he tunneled
sideways, putting some distance between the fugitives and the motel. The dirt
was cold, hard, wet, and endless, and Ruegger's telekinetic abilities weren't
strong enough to eliminate the need for physical labor.

They hit an underground river and plunged into
it unexpectedly. They allowed it to sweep them along. The river brought them into
a network of natural caverns, which were very dark indeed. Ruegger helped
Danielle out of the water and they lay along the rocky shore in silence,
dripping wet, catching their breath.

Danielle laughed. "We should do that more
often."

Ruegger moved their two briefcases out of the
way and threw his arm around her. "I'm glad you feel that way. It's gonna
be hell getting out of here."

He lay down, feeling the smooth stone against
his back, and Danielle rested her head on his chest. It was so peaceful down here,
if dark. He wondered when and if he'd ever be able to return to New York, but found to
his surprise that he didn't care. New
York had haunted his dreams for too long.

“You
know
,”
she said, and there was a thoughtful quality in her voice that made him wary.

“Yes?” he said.

“Well, we’re in the dark, underground, with only
the babble of a subterranean river for sound …”

“So?”

“Now might be the
perfect
time for you to tell me your story.”

“My story?”

“Don’t be dense. Your past. Your history.
Everyone else knows so much about it—Veliswa, Hauswell, Ludwig, Malie—but I
don’t know anything. I’m tired of not knowing about you, babe. About what
you’ve been through, who you are. Your famous dark period. Everything.”

He heard the sincerity in her voice, and the
pain. He sympathized. Still …

“I’m sorry,
Dani
, but
… I’m not ready,” he said.

In the background, the river babbled. Danielle
let out a long breath.

“So, what now?” she said.

“On to Las
Vegas,” he said. Both knew that’s where Hauswell would
be. It’s where the old vampire based his criminal operations out of. “Time to
find out who killed Ludwig.”

Chapter 12

Bastard!

Kristen skulked past Vistrot's many guards and
soldiers. For their part, they took little notice of her; as the Titan’s
concubine, she was as common a sight to them as they were to her.

She flew past them, this little blond girl in a
tight T-shirt and miniskirt by Gianni Versace, until she reached the end of the
corridor, where one of the two doormen opened the door for her, and stormed
into Vistrot's office.

He was on the phone, of course. He was always on
the phone.

Before she could get a word out, he lifted a
finger to command her silence. God, she hated that. Early on, though, he'd
instilled in her a respect for his powers. If she interrupted him now, he'd
only use his psychic abilities to silence her. She didn't like that at
all—drifting in your own consciousness while someone else controlled your body.
It was a terrible feeling, a violation. And she was only human (more or less),
after all. She could not counter his psychic abilities with her own. She had
other abilities, though.

She folded her arms across her skinny chest and
tapped a foot incessantly. He shifted uncomfortably under her glare.
Good
.

She and Vistrot had been lovers since the 1950s.
Back then he'd had a regular harem, and when he'd seen her—a little pouting
fifteen-year-old with a bow in her hair—sipping on a cream soda alone (dejected
would be a better word) in an ice-cream parlor, he'd known he must add her to
his collection.

So, in typical Titan sensitivity, he'd kidnapped
her. He thrust all those old lavish gifts upon her, clothes and cars and jewels
and servants, in an attempt to sooth her, not that it had worked. But a strange
thing occurred during her first month of imprisonment. She and Vistrot, all
four hundred pounds of him, had fallen in love—and, after a year, he'd
disbanded his harem at her request.

She'd demanded that he send money to her
grief-stricken parents and he'd done it. She'd demanded an apartment for
herself and a checking account and he'd done it. He'd done everything she asked
him to do and more.

One thing she'd never asked for was a taste of
his immortal blood; she hadn't wanted that gift. He would just have to live
with her aging self. Then the second strange thing developed. It turned out
that by taking his juices into her on a regular basis, she'd become somewhat
immortal herself. She didn't have his telekinesis, amazing strength or
recuperative abilities, but she did not age. She still looked to be the
fifteen-year-old girl he'd fallen for all those years ago, even if she was now
ancient. God alone knew how old Vistrot was; it was not something he spoke of.

Sometimes she craved for her old mortal life
back, even cried over it, but she loved him too much and couldn't bear the
thought of leaving him. Every now and then, in the early years, he'd had his
little indiscretions, but she'd put an end to that.

And that's what she would do now.

Into the phone, Vistrot was saying, "Now,
listen, Junger. It's a shame about your tomb ... sarcastic? ... yes, that was ...
now shut up ...you left the bodies—you killed them in the first place!—and you
deserved punishment, both of you ... Yes, so I commanded the massacres. I
wasn’t going to tell Jean-Pierre that. So
what
that he thought you were
supposed to kill Ruegger and Danielle? It was a necessary lie. Do you want him
to know the truth? Yes, I'm quite aware you don't know it, either ... Is that a
threat? I'd have you killed before you got to the first sub-level and you know
it ... No, there's no general contract out on them. That was just a rumor that
I spread to ease suspicion. Jean-Pierre is the only one assigned to kill them,
just as you are the only ones assigned to do what you're doing. Now do
it."

He slammed the phone down, shook his head as if
the conversation had made him nauseous, and took a sip of the sherry on his
desk. He glanced up at Kristen and smiled. How adorable he looked with that big
cunning baby-face and those bright eyes and that cruel, sensuous mouth.

"It's an unexpected pleasure to see you at
work at this time of night, darling," he said in his rich baritone voice.
"You should visit more often, really. Please, take a seat, my dear."

"I don't think so. How can you look so
smug! You're cheating on me, Augustine Michael Vistrot, I know you are, you
bastard."

"Nonsense. Now calm down and be rational.
You have such a temper. Please, would you like me to send for a drink or
something? Care for a cigar?"

She grabbed the big cigar-box and hurled it to
the floor, then flew over the desk, wrapped her arms about him and kissed him
square on the lips, darting her tongue into his age-old mouth. She teased at
his lips a little, tugged on the lower one, then bit it. Then bit it
hard
, drawing blood. Before he could
react, she was back on the other side of the massive desk, glaring at him.

"I can taste her in your mouth,
Auggie-dear."

He put a handkerchief to his lip and sighed, his
great shoulders rising up and down slowly. He looked so incredibly guilty and
hurt she just wanted to sweep it all under the rug and embrace him. She held
herself back with difficulty.

"You're cheating on me," she repeated.

"Never. How can you even think that?"

"It's true, isn't it? I thought all that
was over years ago! How
could
you?"

"But I never—"

"You fucking
liar
! You never spend
any time with me anymore, Auggie. Never. Not since that damn war in Europe began and that ... that Scouring! And now that
we're in hiding from the Scourer—I never get to go anywhere with you."

She stared into his big blue eyes and weakened a
little. He looked so hurt and so sincere in his own condescending way. As she
watched, the cut on his lip healed and he licked the blood away. Oh, what he
could do with that tongue!

"We haven't ... made love ... not like we
used to, in six weeks!” she said. “I'm going out of my mind. And if you weren't
sleeping with some
slut
you would be too! How can you say nothing's
wrong?"

He focused his mind on the toppled cigar box,
lifted it and the scattered cigars with his mindthrust and placed them back on
the desk.

"You're so sweet," he said. "So
pure. You're the purest thing in my life. I hate to see you upset. Please ... oh,
don't cry. Please don't cry. Oh, baby, come here."

She came to him, hating the tears that welled up
in her, and sat in his lap while he put his big warm arms around her.
"Don't do this to me," she sobbed. "I love you."

"You know I love you, too, baby."

She balled her fists and beat at his chest.
"You love your work more than you could ever love me! You're always
promising we'll take a vacation ... go to Hawaii like we used to ... but we never
do." She collapsed against him. "We never do. You never have time for
me anymore.
Never
."

He stroked her cheeks, his hands so
excruciatingly tender, and ran a strong hand through her golden hair. "You
know I love you more than my work, but these are times of great peril—
great
peril. Soon things will be different, you'll see. Very different. The whole
structure of our world will change, and, if we play our cards right, we'll come
out on top and never have a care in the world again. Don't you see? I'm doing
this for
us
. It'll be wonderful, every day a delight, and we'll spend
all the time in the world together. How would you like to get
married
?"

She gasped. She so wanted to believe what he was
saying, but how could she? He was such an adept liar.

"Do you mean it?" she said.

"Of course I do." He kissed her
forehead.

At his touch, she could feel the stirring in
her, the longing. She played with his tie, kissed his throat, ran her hands
along the back of his big bald head, squirming in his lap until she could feel
him hardening, then she slid a hand down and undid his zipper, stroking the
sensuous, knobby tube of flesh that popped out.

"No," he said, shaking his head,
tearing her away from him. "Now's not the time."

She slapped him hard and hopped off his lap.

"That's it," she growled. "I
know
you're cheating on me now. When
have you ever turned me down? You're probably afraid you can't keep it up
because you just screwed that whore, whoever she is!"

"It's not true,” he said, but he was lying
and they both knew it. "Look," he said after a silence, "if I
ever did cheat on you it wouldn't be because I loved another."

"Oh, don't you give that men-have-urges
crap. Maybe I have urges, too. Maybe I've acted on them! What do you think of
that?"

"Please don't say that. If I ever found out
you were cheating on me ..."

"Yes? You'd do what, exactly? The same
thing I'm doing now that you're cheating on me? I'd like to see it. So go on,
explain why you're breaking my heart."

"It's not like you think."

"Oh, so you admit it!"

"No! Calm down. It's the future I'm
thinking of. If ever I did something ... behind your back ... it would only be
because I loved you, because I'm trying to ensure our future together. It's
part of what I was trying to explain ... It's complicated—"

"You're a liar! You don't really love me,
do you? Do you! Well, you'll regret this, I swear to God!"

"Kristen, baby, don't do anything foolish.
Promise me!"

"Oh, and I'm expected to keep
my
promises?
Ha!"

She stormed out of the room, hearing him call after
her but not caring one fucking fig, brushed furiously past his soldiers and
guards in her stolid march to the elevator. Reaching in her purse—such a little
girl's purse, she realized suddenly—she whipped out the phone and ordered her
limo to pick her up, and by the time she was outside, it was there.

"Take me to the albino's," she
ordered.

The limo stopped in front of Jean-Pierre’s
eight-story hovel and Kristen hopped out, entering the building.
It
oughta
be torn
down,
she thought.
Put out of its
misery.

As she stepped into the main hall, she noticed a
horrible deathly stench in here and could see many dried-up trails of blood. Something
horrible had happened here, it was obvious. A few of the albino's vagrant
minions hung about, but there weren't as many of them as usual, and some looked
to be nursing serious wounds. And, Christ, it smelled awful.

She found him in the Hooked Room, in a corner,
slumped over in a little ball, pulling his knees into himself. He was naked,
covered in blood and crying. It was clear to Kristen that he'd recently run
through the gauntlet of the hooks and chains and various blades, trying to
drive away his obsessive thoughts.

Crouching beside him, she laid a hand on his
shoulder. Though he must have known she was there, he jumped.

"Go away.”

"No.” She grabbed him under the armpit and
tried to pull him to his feet, but he wouldn't budge. She collapsed on the
bloody floor with the effort. "What is it, baby? Why've you done this to
yourself?"

"They've all left me," he muttered,
his green eyes cloudy and wet and far away. "Or they will soon, even Byron.
He can't resist that bitch. And Danielle, gone with Ruegger unless I kill them
both ... And Veliswa, I never thought she'd leave me, of all people. We've been
lovers for a hundred years. Met in Paris,
actually. I even think on some level she loves me. How foolish ..."

Kristen slapped him, hard, and a vague clarity
returned to his eyes.

"You're rambling, Jean-Pierre. Stand up.
Come on, let's go for a nice cappuccino." She grabbed him again and
lifted, and this time he rose, slowly, his bare back sliding against the rough
wall.

"They're all gone to me," he said.

What could've caused this?

Ever since she'd realized Vistrot was cheating
on her, she'd been having an affair with Jean-Pierre, whom she'd known forever
in conjunction with the Titan. It was a sisterly love she felt toward the
albino, but their affair was enough to relieve her frustrations. At least she
was honest with him, and he went along with their little arrangement for his own
reasons. Probably her youthfulness reminded him of Danielle (although Kristen
was actually older, at least time-wise), but it could be something else.

But this ...

She'd seen him just the other day and he'd been
fine. Something traumatic must have happened. He never let his feelings show
when he was around others; only when alone with himself did the facade shudder,
and he must have been alone with himself for far too long for him to be in this
state. He hadn't even straightened up when she'd come into the room, and that
was all too uncharacteristic.

"I'm not gone," she whispered, and
embraced him. "I'll always be here for you." She kissed his nearly
hairless chest and tugged at his one silver nipple-ring gently.