On the nearest sofa, two women were curled up together, one semireclined, holding her hand out, the other bending over whatever her companion held. Cocaine, maybe methamphetamine. If Hans and his bunch had opened an exclusive drug club, they were treading dangerous ground for people who had to stay below the radar. I wasn't sure whether this violated the council's statutes, but we'd need to look into it after this investigation was over.
One of the women on the divan leaned over her partner's arm. I tried to glance over discreetly, to see what kind of drugs they were using, but the woman wasn't holding anything. Instead, she stretched out her arm, empty palm up, forearm braced with her other hand. A dark line bisected the inside of her forearm. She clenched her fist and a rivulet of blood trickled down. Her companion lowered her mouth to the cut.
I stumbled back, hitting Cassandra. She turned sharply, mouth opening to snap at me, then followed my gaze. She wheeled on Ronald.
"Who is that woman? I don't know her."
"She's not-" Ronald lowered his voice. "-not a vampire."
"Not a-?" I said. "Then why is she…?"
"Because she wants to," Ronald said. "Some like to give, some to receive. Hardly a new fetish, but they've become more open about it. We're simply taking advantage-"
Cassandra stomped off before he could finish. She strode to the nearest curtain and shoved it back, to the yelps of the surprised guests within. She swung around, letting the curtain fall, and headed for the next cubicle. Ronald scrambled after her. I stayed where I was. I'd seen enough.
"You're not seeing the beauty of it, Cassandra," Ronald whispered. "The opportunities. Hiding in plain sight, that's the ultimate goal, isn't it? Other races can do it. Why shouldn't we?"
Cassandra shoved back another beaded curtain. I looked away, but not fast enough. Inside was the singer, in her mock bridal ensemble, splayed across the center of the couch, arms outstretched, her two female companions each attached leechlike to an arm, her dress shoved up around her hips while her male bodyguard crouched before her, pants down… and I don't need to describe anymore. Suffice to say, I hoped to wipe the scene from my memory before it reappeared at an inopportune moment, and ruined a perfectly good round of bed games.
Cassandra whirled on Ronald. "Get these people out of here now."
"But-but-they're members. They've paid-"
"Get them out and consider yourself lucky if money is all you lose."
"M-maybe this wasn't such a good idea, maybe we made an error in judgment, but-"
Cassandra brought her face down to his. "Do you remember the Athenian problem? Do you remember the penalty for their 'error in judgment'?"
Ronald swallowed. "Give me a minute."
He hurried to the singer's cubicle and pushed his head through the beaded curtain. I caught the words "police," "raid," and "five minutes." The quartet came barreling out so fast, they were still pulling on their clothes as they raced past me.
A minute later, as the last stragglers stumbled for the exit, a door opened at the far end of the room. In strode a tall woman in her late twenties. Her face was too angular to be pretty, with features better suited to a man. She wore her blond hair long and straight, an uncomplimentary style that left one with the fleeting impression that she might be a guy in drag, yet her black silk baby-doll revealed enough to reassure any confused onlooker that she was indeed gender female. Even her feet were bare, toes painted bright red, as were her fingernails and her lips. It looked as if she'd put on her lipstick in the dark, and smeared it. As she moved into the semilit room, I saw that it wasn't lipstick at all, but blood.
"Wipe your mouth, Brigid," Cassandra snapped. "No one here is impressed."
"I thought I heard harping," Brigid said, gliding into the center of the room. "I should have known it was the queen bitch-" A tiny smile. "Whoops, I meant queen bee."
"We know what you meant, Brigid. Have the guts to admit it."
Cassandra's gaze slid from Brigid and riveted to a young man following Brigid so closely that he was almost hidden behind the statuesque vampire. He was no more than my age, slightly built and pretty, with huge brown eyes fixed in a look of bovine befuddlement. Blood dribbled down the side of his neck, but he seemed not to notice, and stood there, gaze fixed on the back of Brigid's head, lips curved in an inane little smile.
"Get him out of here," Cassandra said.
"You don't give me orders, Cassandra," Brigid said.
"I do if you're fool enough to need them. Send him home."
"Oh, but he is home." She reached down and stroked his crotch. "He likes it here."
"Don't be boorish," Cassandra said. "Find another dupe to charm when I'm gone."
"I don't need to charm him," Brigid said, hand still on the young man's crotch. He closed his eyes and began rocking. "He stays because he wants to stay."
Cassandra thrust the young man toward Ronald. "Get him out of here."
Brigid grabbed Cassandra's arm. When Cassandra glared at her, she dropped it and stepped away, lips drawn back. She saw me and her eyes glimmered. I tensed, binding spell at the ready.
"You bring your human along and I can't bring mine?" Brigid said, eyes fixed on mine.
"She's not human, which you'll discover if you continue what you're doing."
Brigid's blue eyes gleamed brighter. Charming me, or trying to. The power rarely worked on other supernaturals, but to be sure, I took the opportunity to field-test yet another of my new spells: an anticharm incantation. Brigid yelped.
"Stings, doesn't it?" Cassandra said. "Leave the girl alone or she'll move onto something even less comfortable."
Brigid turned to Cassandra. "What do you want, bitch?"
Cassandra smiled. "Undisguised hate. We're making progress. I want John."
"He's not here."
"That's not what your bouncer said."
Brigid flipped her hair off her shoulder. "Well, he's wrong. Hans isn't here."
Cassandra turned on Ronald, who backed up against the wall.
"He was in the back room, with Brigid and the boy," Ronald said.
"Let me guess," Cassandra said to Brigid. "He told you to come out here and create a diversion while he slipped out the back door. Come on then, Paige. Time to hunt a coward."
Never Underestimate the Power of Vampire Ego
The back door of the Rampart opened into an alley.
"What about Ronald and Brigid?" I said, hovering in the doorway. "They might know something, and the moment we're out of sight, they're going to bolt, too. Two birds in the hand are definitely worth more than one in the bush."
Cassandra shook her head, gaze traveling along the alley. "They'd never betray John. Without him, they wouldn't survive." She turned left. "This way."
"You picked up his trail?"
"No, but I'd go this way."
We looped behind a body shop and came out into a warren of dilapidated row houses that looked as if they'd been boarded up since I was in grade school. At the end of the lane, Cassandra stopped and studied the houses. A bottle clinked. I jumped.
"If you hear someone, it's not him," she said.
"Someone else is out here?"
"Lots of someones, Paige. Abandoned doesn't mean empty."
As if to underscore this, a woman's laugh floated down the street. A bottle sailed from a second-story window and smashed on the road, adding to a puddle of broken glass.
Cassandra walked to the far sidewalk and traversed the row of houses, with me at her heels. I felt silly tagging along after her and, worse yet, useless, but there was nothing else I could do. My sensing spell wouldn't work for finding a vampire, and if he wasn't going to give himself away by making noise, there was no use searching on my own.
Two houses from the end, Cassandra peered up at the building. She grabbed the rusted railing and started climbing the steps to the front door. Halfway up, she stopped. She looked at the door, tilted her head, then wheeled. I ducked out of her way, but she stayed on the step and gazed out into the street. After a moment, she turned back to the house, studied it, then shook her head and marched down. At the road, she passed the last house with only the briefest glance and crossed the road. I jogged after her.