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I stormed back into the Demon Heart and locked the door. Marilyn sat behind the bar, my packed suitcase propped up on top of it next to a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. Lord Phillip’s diamond necklace sparkled on top of the suitcase. The shoes that went with my dress were sitting on a bar stool.

  “You’d better go,” Marilyn said after she took a shot of Jack.

  “Who is that girl?” I asked.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Marilyn replied, “but she’s bad business and that’s all I can say. I’m only able to say this much to you because he’s careless with the details.”

  “Who is?” I wondered if she was being infuriating on purpose.

  Marilyn cursed under her breath. I know she thought I was stupid, the look in her eyes told me as much, but there was another emotion there that I couldn’t read: not fear, but frustration, perhaps? “Don’t let her touch you, and stay away from Roger. If you try to hurt him, I’ll have to defend him.”

  “What? Why? Defend Roger? You’re just as nuts as they are. You’re all in on it!”

  “Just go.” Marilyn sighed. “Go to Eric. He might not figure it out either, but he can protect you, as he has me.”

  “I’m not going to Eric!” I shouted. “He’s coming to me!”

  Marilyn made a hand-washing motion and reached into her purse for a pack of cigarettes. “Do what you want then, Tabitha. I hope you’re right about him. I truly do.”

  Rachel, or the thing that looked like Rachel, knocked on the door. “You still in there, slut?”

  Marilyn tore a match out of a Demon Heart matchbook, lit her cigarette and coughed on the smoke. “I hate these things,” she told me, “but if you smoke enough of them they can kill you.”

  “Stop talking to her, Marilyn,” Roger shouted from the other side of the door. As if by magic, Marilyn’s mouth snapped shut. Her eyes spoke volumes and I finally got it. Somehow Roger was controlling Marilyn. But really, what did that have to do with me? I was leaving.

  I slipped on my shoes, put on my necklace, and glared at Marilyn, suitcase in hand. If…no, when Eric came after me, I’d tell him about all the weird shit that had been going on behind his back, but until then, he was on his own.

  I heard Roger fumble with his keys, followed by the metallic click of the lock. I waited until they stepped through the front door.

  “Give Eric a message for me?” I asked, looking from Roger to the witch and back to Marilyn. “Whichever one of you is in charge?”

  “I’m not giving him any mess—,” Roger said. Rachel shut him down with an elbow to the side.

  “What’s the message?” she asked.

  “Tell him I’m going to Lord Phillip’s at the Highland Towers.”

  Roger’s lip twitched, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Fine,” Rachel told me.

  I nodded and headed out the back way, to Eric’s loaner, smiling as I loaded my suitcase into the trunk. Marilyn thought Eric wouldn’t come for me, but she didn’t know him like I did. She’d only really known him when he’d been alive. My knowledge was more recent. Death had changed him, changed both of us. It might take him a while, but he’d made me immortal. I had nothing but time.

  Even when the loaner broke down four blocks from the Demon Heart, it didn’t put a dent in my good mood. Carrying my suitcase, I headed toward the Highland Towers, a strong, single, attractive vampire queen. My only thought was how jealous Eric would be when he found out where I’d gone.

  34

  ERIC:

  UNFINISHED BUSINESS

  I had William drop me off a few blocks from the Demon Heart and I walked them slowly. Roger and I sensed each other half a block away. He popped into my head and I into his, but we acknowledged each other too fast to allow the other to gain much insight into our emotions. We both had things to hide.

  Roger was waiting for me at the Pollux. He sat on a wrought-iron bench to the left of the door in front of the marquee. The Casablanca title was clearly visible on the poster above his head.

  When I was sixteen, I saw Casablanca at the Pollux. Rick said good-bye to Ilsa in the end, even though he loved her. He didn’t know that he was just a character. He didn’t know that Bogart would be in other movies and that on one of those movie sets, Humphrey Bogart would meet Lauren Bacall and fall in love, real love, not celluloid make-believe.

  By leaving me, Tabitha had proved herself. Even as a vampire, she loved me, or she wouldn’t have been so angry when she stormed off. She was better off without me. If I went after her, I’d regret it. If not today or tomorrow, then soon, and for the rest of my unlife.

  “You look like shit.” Roger blew a smoke ring from one of his expensive cigars. He offered me one and I shook my head.

  “I can’t taste them,” I told him.

  “Neither can I, but I still enjoy the aroma.” He put the extra back into the inside pocket of his suit. Roger’s lips pursed together, the hazy fragrant smoke flowing lazily from his nostrils. He looked so cocky, so self-assured, daring me to call him on what he’d been doing, to accuse him.

  “How’d it go with the werewolves?” Roger took another longer pull on his cigar and held it.

  “They’re dead,” I lied casually. We looked at each other. I stared him in the eye, but his attention was focused on my eyebrows, my chin, somewhere over my shoulder, my shoes, and lastly the concrete.

  “Tabitha?” he asked, the words pushing the smoke back out of his lungs.

  “Dumped me. It seems that I’m a murderer and an asshole. I pull the wings off flies and glue them back on upside down…the whole nine yards.”

  The ember at the end of his cigar glowed brighter as he took a long steady draw. “That sucks.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Yeah, it sucks.”

  “What about the wildflower…what’s her name?” He looked up, still careful to avoid my gaze.

  “Rachel? She’s still around. It’ll probably take me a month or two to screw that up.” I sat next to him on the bench. He suppressed the urge to flinch, thought I didn’t notice it, but I did.

  “I’m still sorry about Brian.” He smirked when I said the name. “I killed him the same night you framed me.”

  “You were meant to. That’s why I befriended him.” Another series of smoke rings slipped from his lips, perfect, each inside the other, the way only years of practice can achieve. Damn! And the Cold-Blooded Bastard Award goes to Roger Malcolm.

  “So how much is it going to cost me to buy into this Orchard Lake thing?” I asked, trying to make it sound like a real interest. Here was a man I thought I’d known, a man I’d called friend since 1937. I wanted to know how long he’d been playing me false. After he became a vampire? Before?

  “I underestimated you.” He said it thoughtfully and with a complete lack of shame. No remorse at all.

  “Maybe you just overestimated the werewolves,” I said, trying to match his tone, his total lack of emotion. It was easier, because I could feel Rachel nearby and her influence crept in. Aware of it this time, having been outside her field of influence, I noticed how my control came back in some areas, fled in others: much of my anger was replaced with a desire for her.

  Moving the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, Roger closed his eyes. “Maybe you were just lucky.”

  “Could be,” I allowed. “I always have been.”

  Roger threw the cigar to the ground. The cherry, still lit, rolled free and lay burning on the concrete. We both watched it burn. “That’s something I’ve always hated about you.” He slapped his hands on his knees and rose to his feet. “You get everything you want. You didn’t even care about being a vampire.” He made an effort to stop himself, to bottle up whatever it was that had been boiling up inside him, but it bubbled out anyway, the rant making him look more alive than he’d been in years. “God, I mean, do you even understand how hard I worked to find just the right sire for myself, to arrange things carefully, to slowly win her trust and work my way in?”

  “I bet she really mad
e you work, too,” I said, remembering the rituals he had told me about, the ones she made him go through before she would bleed on his cross-inflicted wounds and heal him. “You must have had it rough. Poor Roger.” Sarcasm bled into my voice. I couldn’t keep up the act anymore. Neither, apparently, could Roger.

  “Damn it!” he shouted at me, fists clenched, eyes burning with a light matching the dying ember from his discarded cigar. “I’m a Master vampire. A Master fucking vampire! Sure it’s not the top. Not the same as being a Vlad. But it’s still the big time. And you, you die in a goddamn car accident…and…and…destiny says screw it! Eric is important. I like Eric. Eric can’t be dead. Let’s make him a Vlad! He’s a good boy! He deserves it!”

  “It could have been anybody, one of the ambulance drivers, a passing bum,” I offered. “What does it matter? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “There was no ambulance, you dumb shit. No hospital. I watched you lie there bleeding for a damn hour before you stopped breathing and then I watched you for another hour just to be sure. And when I was certain you were good and dead, I bribed the cops, paid the fang fee to have you taken directly to the mortician, and had your ass embalmed so that there would be no doubt, because I was tired of you being so much better than me and you getting everything I ever wanted!”

  Cold. Icy cold is how I felt—too astonished or appalled to be mad. “Roger? What the hell, man?” I felt sore and tired. I pushed myself up off of the bench like an old man. “That’s what this was all about? You’re jealous?”

  “Oh. It’s funny to you, huh? Poor jealous Roger.” I had never seen him like this. Not ever in all our fights had he looked at me with such hatred. It was like walking in on your mother-in-law in the bathroom and realizing she’s a guy in drag. It just didn’t fit. What had I ever done to Roger? Who cared if he was a Master and I was a Vlad? “You won’t think it’s funny for long.”

  “Look,” I said soothingly. “Maybe we should get you a vampire therapist or something and just move on.”

  “God! You’d do it, too, wouldn’t you?” He took two agitated steps away from me and spun back around, flailing his arms. “You’d just forget all about it. I bet that if I told you I was sorry you’d forgive me. Inside a month you probably wouldn’t remember it ever even happened.”

  “Pretty much,” I answered truthfully. My words hit him hard and it was clear from the insane look in his eyes that he couldn’t quite grasp how that could be possible. I didn’t want our friendship to be over. I was willing to believe that he was going through some kind of vampiric midlife crisis, that what he was saying about watching me die was bullshit or that he’d been in shock. I wanted him to have a reason, any reason, other than stupid jealousy. C’mon, Roger, I thought at him, just make something the fuck up!

  I didn’t see him move. The stake ripped through my T-shirt and lodged in my heart, a familiar feeling for me. Every time it feels exactly the same. Some vampires say it hurts, but to me, it only hurts on the way in and out. While the stake is in there, I just have an overwhelming urge to burp.

  “You thought I’d share it with you, that I’d let you buy into the project? After all the shit I’ve put up with, do you really think I’d let you in? When Orchard Lake becomes Midnight Lake it’s going to be the next Highland Towers, Eric, and I can’t have you fucking it up. I’m going to be the next big thing! The big kahuna!” Drops of blood stood out on Roger’s brow, rivulets of vampire sweat.

  Nope, I thought at him, overwhelmed more with apathy than sadness, what you get to be is dinner.

  He heard the first howl and staggered away from me. The wolves romped in like the Magnificent Seven and the Seven Samurai all rolled up into one big bad case of old-school whoop ass. All wore their human forms, but with lupine grins. William strolled out of the entrance to the Pollux parking deck holding El Alma Perdida.

  Roger backed away slowly, not running. Was he expecting backup? Ten more of the pack walked out of the deck behind him and another ten stalked from around the corner of the Pollux, all dressed in exactly what they’d worn at their Orchard Lake homes, everything from sweatpants to jeans.

  William yanked the stake out of my chest and pressed the gun into my hands. He grinned at Roger. “Hello again, Mr. Malcolm.”

  “You can’t kill me, Eric. I’ve got connections.” Roger stepped into the road, fighting off panic, keeping all of the werewolves in his field of vision. “And I may not be able to kill you, but now I know what you are and I’m going to take that, too—”

  I fired El Alma Perdida. The bullet struck him in the shoulder and the wound began to sizzle.

  “I’ve been waiting all night to shoot somebody with this gun, Roger,” I said. “And there’s just nobody I’d rather shoot with it than you.”

  “I—” Roger tried to speak, but I shot him twice more, the reports ringing out sharp, clear, and satisfying. You see, I’ve never liked vampires, not even myself. I’ve never made any bones about that. While I thought Roger was my friend, I’d made exceptions, but now…that made him just one more high society vamp in my territory, on my front fucking doorstep. The impact spun him around and he hit the asphalt. His arms flapped up and down as if he were a bat. “Can’t change…”

  “Same thing happened to me earlier,” I explained, not the least bit sympathetic as I walked over to him. “Magbidion explained it to me.”

  “The bullets from El Alma Perdida shape-lock anyone they strike,” William said. “It kept any werewolves Courtney killed from reverting to human form when the sun hit them.”

  “He made sure to leave one bullet in the werewolf until the local law enforcement showed up. He’d let them see the monster, and then dig the last bullet out so they could watch it change back into a human with their own eyes,” I explained. “That way he could get hailed as a monster killer, not hanged as a murderer.” Flames licked out of Roger’s wound, and I kept talking as he swatted frantically at the fire. “It was a nice touch when you had Froggy leave one bullet behind to make it look like El Alma Perdida was back in Courtney’s hands. Too bad the bullets are all linked. Talbot and Tabitha followed the trail right to your bedroom door. Oh, and it’s official…Froggy was a Soldier. When Tabitha staked her: Poof.”

  Roger tried to speak. “I have a hos—” Tongues of fire climbed up his chest and his words were choked off by cries of pain. Once the flames began to spread, they quickly engulfed him, and the pack, now in werewolf forms, descended on him, heedless of the fire, tearing still-smoking chunks of flesh free with their teeth. Does getting eaten by werewolves count as total destruction? I assumed so. He didn’t stop screaming even when he no longer had a throat, the sound echoing out of the empty space at his neck where his throat had been.

  Absent the meat, Roger’s skeleton writhed on the ground. Several of the werewolves drew back, but William and his core followers devoured even the bones. Roger’s cries finally ceased when William crushed his skull between those massive jaws and started chewing. I guess he couldn’t have tasted too bad, because they didn’t leave anything behind. Note to self: That is not the way I want to go out.

  William’s pack loped away to their trucks, leaving William alone with me. He laughed when I put the barrel of El Alma Perdida against his furry chest. “Now, about Greta.”

  “Your spawn will be returned to you unharmed,” he replied. “I am as good as my word.”

  “Fair enough.” I lowered the gun. “I’m sorry about—”

  “Don’t come back to Orchard Lake.”

  So much for apologies. “Keep your pack away from Void City and you’ve got a deal.”

  “What would you have done if I hadn’t listened to you back at the lake and your magic gun didn’t kill me?” he asked.

  “I’ve got an old mercury thermometer in my back pocket,” I lied.

  William smiled. “And if that failed you?”

  “I’d have figured something out,” I assured him. “Don’t you worry about that.”

 
“I believe you,” William said, nodding. “Out at the park, when you commanded the bats to block out the sun, I was afraid you would destroy us all.”

  “Nah, I only wanted my little girl back.”

  “She’s a monster,” he protested.

  “Now you’re just being mean. Besides, she’s no worse than I am.”

  “I beg to differ,” William said. “I didn’t see it until I watched you gun down your friend.”

  “Friend?”

  “Fellow vampire, then,” he amended. “The look in your eye was the same look I see in the eyes of my pack when they exterminate a vampire. You know they are monsters.”

  “It’s kind of a no-brainer.”

  “So you say, Eric of the revenant’s eyes.”

  “Huh?” I asked, startled. “Revenant’s eyes?”

  “When you grow angry, angry enough to grow wings of hate and a skin black with rage, the purple eyes from which you stare are not the eyes of a vampire, but of a revenant, a murdered soul.”

  “Murdered?” I echoed, not wanting to think about it too closely.

  “I only tell you what I saw, Eric.”

  “All right, so maybe I was murdered, but I’m a vampire, not a frickin’ revenant, okay?”

  “As you say, vampire. May the Lord have mercy on your soul.” I watched him lope off into the distance.

  Not a bad birthday, all in all. The werewolves weren’t after me anymore, my best friend who really hadn’t been my best friend was dead, and I could go back into the Pollux and have my way with Rachel guilt-free, more or less.

  “Revenant’s eyes,” I scoffed and sat down on the bench where old what’s-his-name had admitted his betrayal. Roger. Forget him, I told myself. Just let him go. But my memories of Roger were too tangled up with memories of Marilyn. I couldn’t let go of one without sacrificing the other.

  Her familiar heart beat across the street at the Demon Heart, a weary skittish beat in comparison to the steady rhythmic thump of Rachel’s. I let them both serenade me, Rachel upstairs in my bed at the Pollux and Marily—What was Marilyn doing at the Demon Heart this early?