"Why Jason then?"
"A werewolf for a wereleopard might be an acceptable trade to him."
"Not to me. We are not trading one hostage for another, and I am certainly not giving myself to that monster."
"You see, ma petite, you will not endure that. You will not risk Jason to save Gregory. I ask again, what will you risk for them?"
"I'll risk my life, but only if I've got a good chance of getting out alive. No sex, absolutely not. No trading one hostage for another. Nobody else gets skinned alive or raped. How's that for parameters?"
"Padma and Fernando will be disappointed, but the others might agree. I will do the best I can within the limits you have given me."
"No rape, no maiming, no actual intercourse, no hostages, does that really tie your hands that much?"
"When we have survived all this, ma petite, and the council has gone home, I will tell you stories of my time at court. I have seen spectacles that even in the telling would give you nightmares."
"Nice to know you think we're going to survive."
"I am hopeful, yes."
"But not certain," I said.
"Nothing is certain, ma petite, not even death."
He had me there. My beeper went off. It pulled a gasp from my throat. Nervous, who me?
"Are you all right, ma petite?"
"My beeper went off," I said. I checked the number. It was Dolph. "It's the police. I need to return the call."
"I will begin negotiations with the council, ma petite. If they ask too much, I will let your leopards remain where they are."
"Padma will kill Vivian now that he thinks she belongs to me. He might have killed her before, but it would have been by accident. If we don't get her out of there, he'll do it on purpose."
"One meeting with him and you are so sure of this?"
"You think I'm wrong?" I asked.
"No, ma petite, I think you are exactly right."
"Get them out of there, Jean-Claude. Make the best deal you can."
"I have your permission to use your name in this?"
"Yeah." My beeper went off a second time. Dolph, impatient as usual. "I've got to go, Jean-Claude."
"Very well, ma petite. I will bargain for us all, then."
"You do that," I said. "Wait ... "
"Yes, ma petite."
"You aren't going to go back to the Circus in person tonight, are you? I don't want you in there alone," I said.
"I will use the phone, if you prefer," he said.
"I do."
"You don't trust them," he said.
"Not hardly."
"Wise beyond your years," he said.
"Suspicious beyond my years, you mean."
"That as well, ma petite. If they will not negotiate over the phone?" he asked.
"Then let it go."
"You said you were willing to risk your life, ma petite."
"I didn't say I was willing to risk yours."
"Ah," he said. "Je t'aime, ma petite."
"I love you, too," I said.
He hung up first, and I dialed the police. Here was hoping whatever Dolph had in mind was some nice straightforward police work. Yeah, right.
23
The victim had been rushed to a hospital by the time I arrived at Burnt Offerings. It's one of my favorites of the newer vampire businesses. It was far from the vampire district. The only other vamp businesses were blocks, miles away. As you walked through the doors there was a poster from the 1970's movie Burnt Offerings, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis staring down at you. There was a life size waxwork of Christopher Lee as Dracula in the bar. There was one wall with framed caricatures of horror stars of the sixties and seventies, floor to ceiling, no tables allowed to obstruct the view. It wasn't uncommon to see clusters of visitors trying to identify who was who. At midnight whoever had the most correct guesses got a free dinner for two.
The place was pure schlock. Some of the waiters were real vamps, but others were just wannabes. For some it was just a job, and they specialized in plastic Halloween teeth and jokes. For others it was their chance to pretend. They had dental caps over their canines and worked very hard at being the real thing. Other waiters or waitresses were dressed up as mummies, the wolf man, Frankenstein's monster. To my knowledge the only real monsters were the vamps. If a shapeshifter wanted to come out of the closet, there was better money to be made in more exotic locales.
The place was always packed. I wasn't sure whether Jean-Claude was sorry he hadn't thought of it first or if he was simply embarrassed by it. It was a little déclassé for him. Me, I loved it. From the haunted house soundtrack to the Bela Lugosi burgers, extra rare unless otherwise requested. Bela was one of the few exceptions to the 60's and 70's movie decor. Hard to have a horror theme restaurant without the original movie Dracula.
You haven't lived until you've been there on a Friday night for Scary Karaoke. I took Ronnie. Veronica (Ronnie) Sims is a private detective and my best friend. We had a blast.
But back to the body. All right, not a body, a victim. But if the bartender hadn't been fast with a fire extinguisher, it would have been a body.
Detective Clive Perry was the man in charge. He's tall, slender, sort of Denzel Washington without the broad shoulders. He's one of the most polite people I've ever met. I've never heard him yell, and only seen him lose his composure once -- when a large white cop had pointed a gun at the "nigger detective." Even then I was the one who pointed my gun at the rogue cop. I was the one that was ready to shoot while Perry was still trying to talk the situation down. Maybe I overreacted. Maybe I didn't. No one died.
He turned with a smile, soft voice. "Ms. Blake, good to see you."
"Good to see you, too, Detective Perry." He always affected me this way. He was so polite, so soft-spoken that I fell into the same pattern. I was never this nice to anyone else.
We were in the bar with its life-size waxwork of Christopher Lee as Dracula looming over us. The bartender was a vamp named Harry who had long auburn hair and a silver stud in his nose. He looked very young, very cutting edge, and could probably remember the Jamestown charter, though his British accent showed he was newer to the country than the 1600's. He was polishing the bar like his life depended on it. Even with his nice blank face, I could tell he was nervous. Couldn't blame him, I guess. Harry was part owner as well as bartender.
A woman had been attacked in the bar by a vampire patron. Very bad for business. The woman had thrown a drink in his face and lit him with her lighter. Ingenious in an emergency. Vamps burn really well. But the quiet bar in a family-oriented tourist trap didn't seem the place for such extreme measures. Maybe she panicked.
"Witnesses all say she seemed friendly until he got a little too close," Perry said.
"Did he bite her?"
Perry nodded.
"Shit," I said.
"But she lit him up, Anita. He's badly burned. He may not make it. What could she have thrown on him to get third-degree burns so quickly?"
"How quickly?"
He checked his notes. "Seconds and he went up."
I asked Harry. "What was she drinking?"
He didn't ask who, just said, "Straight Scotch. Best we had in the place."
"High alcohol content?"
He nodded.
"That would have been enough," I said. "Once you get a vamp burning, they burn until they're put out. They're very combustible."