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  A mechanical lighter clicked and Marilyn inhaled deeply. “Thanks,” she told him.

  “I think I’ll spare myself the secondhand smoke, Marilyn.” Talbot coughed. “I’ll get back to you when Magbidion has more information.”

  I heard the door open and close and then open again.

  “Talbot,” Marilyn called down the hallway.

  “Yes?”

  “She didn’t drink a junkie or anything tonight, did she?”

  “No,” he answered. “I brought her some of Eric’s stash from the fridge in the break room. I meant to ask you to check your ledger and see whose turn it is to give more this week so that I could replace it.”

  “Not from here in the office?” Marilyn asked.

  “No,” Talbot answered. “According to Veruca, Roger pitched a shit fit when you fed Tabitha some of his stock last night, said for us to stay out of the office fridge…”

  “Like he ever drinks cold blood,” Marilyn snapped.

  “And that Tabitha should have to hunt, like Veruca,” Talbot finished.

  “Well,” Veruca interjected defensively, “that’s what he said.”

  “The stash in the break room is all Eric’s, though,” Talbot continued, “so I thought that’d be okay.”

  Marilyn took a long drag off her cigarette and blew smoke into the hallway. “Have Magbidion check the blood. All of it.”

  “Will do,” Talbot replied.

  I knew that blood had tasted funny.

  15

  ERIC:

  SPIKED

  It was a warm August night so I didn’t mind flying home. Roger had been right to get Rachel out of there, but I was still a little pissed that he hadn’t come back to give me a ride. He did know I was going to win, right?

  It didn’t take as long as I thought it would for me to fly back to the Pollux. I landed on the old theater’s roof. Across the street, the Demon Heart’s large neon sign was off and a Closed sign hung on the front doors. My watch had stopped, but I didn’t think it was closing time yet.

  The scent of blood hit me before I had made it halfway across the street. The smell wasn’t quite as strong at the back door, but when I walked in I had to pause, allow myself to adjust. Whatever had happened, I was relatively certain that going into a feeding frenzy wouldn’t help. Down the hall, in the business office, Marilyn and Talbot were talking. They looked my way when I opened the door.

  Marilyn looked stressed, puffing away at a cigarette, her arm in a sling. Talbot was pretty well banged up. His shirt was shredded, and I could see scratches on his arms, chest, and back. The ones on his back looked particularly deep. The sorcerer Magbidion was with them. Sometimes I call him Mag because it gets on his nerves. He wasn’t with the local mages’ guild, so he was free to work for vampires; I’d used him before. In fact, I’d been meaning to call him. I made a mental note to have Mag look at the silver bullet while he was here.

  “I was just telling them they did the right thing when they used the Somnolence Crystal,” Magbidion told me. “I was able to fix all the humans out there, but you’ll need a new Somnolence Crystal. I can have it ready tomorrow for fifteen grand.”

  “Fifteen thousand?” I asked incredulously. I seemed to recall the last one costing less than that.

  “Pay it,” Marilyn snapped. “And I don’t want to hear any complaints about the fifty thousand we owe him for cleaning up the mess tonight. It was worth every penny.”

  “What the hell happened?” I walked past them into the office and slid the company checkbook out of the drawer. The carbon copy above the check I was writing caught my attention.

  “Who the fuck is Fergus Jenkins and why did we write him a check for thirty thousand dollars?”

  Talbot shrugged. Marilyn’s eyes narrowed, but her mouth stayed firmly shut. “Anyone?” I asked again.

  “Who wrote the check?” Veruca asked innocently.

  I looked closely at the signature. Roger had signed my name. He never dots his i’s. He also he made the e in Eric look more like a c and connected it to the r. When I write my name the e stands alone.

  “Roger,” I said flatly, “I’ll ask him about it.” I sniffed the air. It was hard to tell over the carnage, but I didn’t smell him. “Isn’t he back yet?”

  Veruca shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m headed out, though. If I see him, I’ll ask him to call you.”

  “Fine.” Someone was going to have to explain this to me eventually, but in the meantime I wrote Magbidion a check. He reached for it, but I held back.

  “What am I paying sixty-five thousand dollars for?” I asked.

  “Fifteen thousand for the new crystal. I could do it for five, but then it wouldn’t put paranormals to sleep. It costs ten to cover werewolves, ogres, those kinds of things, and another five to make sure that it doesn’t put any of the Demon Heart staff to sleep along with the riffraff. I have to key them in individually.”

  “I know that. I mean the rest of it.”

  “Ask them.” Mag pointed at Talbot and Marilyn. “You don’t want to pay me to explain it to you.” I held the check back out to him. He took it, shook my hand, and started to leave. “You know,” he called over his shoulder, “you’d save a lot of money if you just agreed to be my champion.”

  Ever since Mag had seen me fight that demon in El Segundo he’d been after me to champion his cause when the time came. Magbidion hadn’t been born with magic; he’d cut a deal to get it. He was going to lose his soul unless he had a champion who could kill whatever demon it was that he’d made the deal with. Mag lived in fear of repo day, and I wanted no part of it.

  “Let’s keep it cash and carry for now,” I told him. He headed for the exit and then I remembered the silver bullet in my pocket.

  “Mag,” I said, following him out to the hallway, “Let me ask you something.”

  He stopped and peered at me from beneath bushy brown eyebrows. As far as I knew, it was the only hair on his body and that was why he let them grow a little wild. “What is it?” Mag asked.

  “I found this bullet out at Orchard Lake in the skull of a werewolf. You ever see anything like it?” I handed him the bullet. He promptly dropped it.

  “You can’t just hand somebody a thing like that!” Mag wiped his hands off on his pants. “It’s a soul stealer.”

  I knelt next to it. “I’ve been carrying it around in my pocket.”

  “You can hold it safely.” He emphasized the you. “You’re a dead thing.”

  “Sorry.” I picked it up and held it out in my palm. He bent over to examine it more closely. Lines of blue shone on his face, cast by the runes carved into the bullet. “If death wasn’t enough to pull your soul out of your body,” Magbidion continued, “then this won’t be a problem for you.”

  He took a ratty-looking pair of wire-framed reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on. Magbidion traced his finger over one of the symbols, the same symbol Rachel had recognized. “It only kills werewolves.” He sighed. “You want to be careful, though. It’s not made to kill vampires, but it shape-locks anything supernatural that it hits. You get hit with one of these and there’ll be no turning to a bat and flying back to the crypt until you get the bullet out. The silver would probably set you on fire too. Hell, I didn’t have anything to worry about.”

  “Then you hold it.” I handed it to him. The way I dumped the bullet into his hand made me remember having handed it to Rachel. Good thing it only worked on werewolves.

  “It has souls inside of it, too.” He crossed his eyes. “Two, four, six…hold still…eight…nine…Lot of ‘em in there. Fella could make some impressive wards with these guys.”

  “Wards?”

  “Are you kidding me?” Magbidion tapped the bullet. “Werewolf souls are perfect for wards. They’re supernatural and mundane at the same time…. Human, yet not human. Perfect for keeping normals and paranormals at bay. I hear it took about thirty to erect the wards over at the Highland Towers and they’re damn nea
r impregnable.”

  He made a series of motions in the air.

  “Looks like you’re trying to adjust the focus on an invisible camera,” I told him.

  “I am.” Mag paused. “Well, kind of.”

  He kept motioning and my stomach turned. The sound of fingernails on a chalkboard rose from the bullet. “It’s a tricky artifact,” Mag explained. “I nearly missed it, but this bullet is linked to something…some things. More bullets, maybe? I could tell for sure if I saw the gun.”

  With each adjustment he made, the sound got worse until with a final twist it stopped. Seven little blue cables of light extended three feet from the bullet’s base. Magbidion touched one of them and bit his lip. “It’s no good. Someone would have to follow the trail and you don’t have enough money to pay me to do that.” He perked up. “Unless, of course, you want to be my champion.”

  “I’ll think about it.” I took the bullet back. “For now, why don’t you tell me what you can.”

  “This bullet is connected…it has five little brother bullets, and all of them are tied to one another and more importantly, to one hell of a gun.” He took off his glasses and put them away. “It’s powerful magic. I couldn’t make something like that. Whoever made it is either real bad juju or had a demon to help them.”

  “Now I just have to find a tracker, right?” I put the bullet back in my pocket. “How much do I owe you for the info?”

  “I’ll put it on your tab.”

  “I’d rather write you another check.”

  “Just let me know if you decide to make any wards with that stuff. I’ve always wanted to work with the real thing.”

  “It’s a deal,” I agreed.

  He started to leave, then stopped himself. “Can I park my RV in the Pollux parking deck tonight? The first floor is tall enough.”

  “Anytime,” I told him, meaning it. I followed him out the back door and watched as he walked over to a ragtag RV with what looked like a decade’s worth of dust and grime on it. He unlocked it and looked over his shoulder at me.

  “You know Talbot could probably follow the bullet’s trail back to the gun if he knew to look for it.” He tapped his temple. “Cat’s eyes.” He climbed in and the vehicular behemoth came to life, spewing a cloud of black smoke from the tailpipe.

  I walked back inside and returned to the office. Marilyn hopped out of my chair as I approached, moving to a folding chair across the room. Talbot loomed near the door as usual. They gave me a rundown on what had happened and it didn’t make me the happiest boy in the world to find out that my newly turned girlfriend had gone batshit and tried to kill every human in my club. “How’s Candice?”

  “They’re keeping her overnight for observation,” Talbot said matter-of-factly. “Broken clavicle, cracked sternum, a pretty good concussion, and a fair assortment of cuts and bruises; I wouldn’t expect her to work for a while even if she does decide to come back. We had six girls working when it happened. Jasmine will be okay in a day or two. She’s weak from the blood loss. Kaylee got off with bumps and bruises, and Sharon and Desiree were just scared half to death. Lil’s dead, though, and that emcee you were trying out, Rick…we’ll need to find a replacement. He’s dead too.”

  “Fuck! That stupid bitch!” I stood up, brushing past Talbot to stick my head out into the hall. Tabitha’s new scent drifted toward me from the dressing room.

  “It wasn’t her fault, Eric.” Marilyn sighed. I turned to look at her, my hand still on the door. “Magbidion was surprised that she lasted as long as she did before exploding.”

  The question I was about to ask must have been betrayed by my expression, because Talbot answered it. “I fed her cold blood again tonight. I got it out of your emergency stash in the break room fridge because I didn’t have much time.”

  “And?”

  “And Magbidion said somebody spiked your blood,” he concluded. “Not the blood in the office fridge that you and Roger share. Just the stuff in the break room…just yours.”

  “It’s easier to get to,” I said. “Anybody can get into that break room.

  “Call the girls and tell them that the Demon Heart is closed until I get this all sorted out. Everyone still gets paid,” I told Marilyn.

  It’s not like I need the money anyway, which I’ve tried to explain to Roger more than once. It doesn’t matter if we turn a profit. The Demon Heart’s all about food supply, not money. Managed properly, the club could lose twenty grand a month and we’d still be fine. As it was, we usually made money anyway, assuming we didn’t have to shell out for a lot of high-priced magical stuff. Maybe it would have been cheaper to be Magbidion’s champion. I just didn’t know exactly what it entailed, aside from killing the demon, and as usual, I didn’t want to know.

  “Damn werewolves,” I griped. “Do you think they could be behind this? I mean I get the attack at the hockey game, but—”

  “You got attacked at a hockey game?” Marilyn wheezed. She’d walked around behind the desk and started dialing, receiver in hand.

  “Yeah. I killed the Void City Howlers.” I shrugged. “They were werewolves. Didn’t Roger and Rachel tell you about it?”

  “Veruca told you they aren’t back yet,” Talbot reminded me.

  “Shit. They left first. They really should have gotten back first.” Marilyn hung up the phone and the three of us walked back to the fridge in the break room. Talbot slid past me and opened it. I kept five pints of blood in there for emergencies and weekends, in addition to the supply Roger and I share in the office mini-fridge. There was generally at least one night each week when I wound up drinking blood out of the fridge, usually when all the girls were busy and I just didn’t feel like going out. There were two left, pushed to the back behind various salad dressings, bottled water, diet sodas, and the remains of Candice’s pizza; Magbidion had marked both bags with a big red X. Marilyn reached past me for a bottle of water with a large M etched into the cap.

  I picked up one of the blood bags and shook it at Talbot. “What the hell did he say is in these things?”

  Marilyn set her water on top of the fridge, took the bag from me, put it back in the fridge, and closed the door. She stood facing me, but her eyes were on the floor. “Someone tried to slip you the be-all-end-all of Mickey Finns, Eric. Magbidion did two thousand dollars worth of mojo over it and said it was something mixed with werewolf blood. He took one with him to study it, but we already know it makes the vampire who drinks it go berserk. He thinks that at the beginning it gives the victim a mild euphoria and erodes their self-control, but when the drinker next tastes human blood, warm blood, from the source—”

  “They go apeshit,” Talbot concluded. “We’re just lucky that it wasn’t you.”

  “I’d have killed everyone,” I said softly. “Is there any way to know who did it?”

  “No.” Marilyn shook her head. “All of the girls use this room, and our security’s not all that tight to start with.” She grabbed her water bottle and took a drink. There was a bruise on her right arm, like it had been grabbed too hard, but it was her left arm in the sling. I thought back to the slap. Had I grabbed both arms? I didn’t think so, not that I could ask. “Hey, did I do that, too?” seemed a little insensitive.

  Talbot seemed to be considering something.

  “Spit it out,” I said.

  “Well, Veruca was back here even though she had the night off. That struck me as a little odd.”

  “I think that blood’s been in there all week. Could have been anyone. Go make your calls, and if you get any leads from the girls, let me know,” I told Marilyn. “I’ll check on Tabitha.” Pushing past both of them, I headed down the hall toward the dressing room. Tabitha was inside lying on the floor. A crossbow bolt protruded from the side of her left breast. Dried blood covered her from knee to earlobe. Combined with the unnatural pallor, she looked like a murder victim.

  I sniffed. Most of the blood was human, though some of it smelled like Talbot’s. She was also naked
except for a G-string. The whole scene reminded me of a little kid looking at his favorite toy broken on the floor, but I knew that Tabitha was more than a plaything, whether I wanted to believe it or not.

  Scooping her up, I carried her into the bedroom and kicked the door shut behind me. I sat down on the bed and held her tight against me. She was limp, cold, and lifeless, but not “dead” dead. A piece of wood through the heart kills Drones, Soldiers, and some of the wimpier Masters, but it only paralyzes the rest of us.

  I kissed her forehead and silently thanked anybody that was listening for letting her be powerful enough to survive. For a few more minutes I just sat there with her, holding her, then I laid her on the bed and straddled her. Her eyes were closed. I pushed them open so that I could see them.

  Any vampire can use telepathy if they have eye-to-eye contact with someone, but it opens you up to being mesmerized by the other vampire…unless you’re their sire, or have a stronger psychic fortitude than they do. Using my power over her as her sire, I reached into her mind. She was awake and aware. She could feel everything, hear everything, but she couldn’t move.

  I’m going to pull the bolt out, I thought to her. If you can’t keep control of yourself, I’ll have to put it back in.

  Okay, she thought at me, weakly.

  I tried pulling the bolt out backward, tearing muscle, but in the end, I rolled her up on her side and slowly pushed the bolt through far enough to snap off the bloodied head. I let her fall back, locking eyes with her again, and extracted the bolt, a foot-long shaft of thin wood covered in blood.

  She cried out and grabbed my shoulders. “Ow! Fuck!” She clutched at the gaping hole in her chest. “That really hurts! Shit!”

  She seemed fine. The wound was already closing; her healing worked about as quickly as mine, which was a good thing. I tossed the bolt aside and kissed her, happy she was alive, undestroyed, whatever. I wanted to lick the blood from her breasts, but stopped myself, afraid it might be tainted with whatever had drugged her. It was then, as I leaned down, tongue hovering over Tabitha’s breast, that Marilyn walked in.