Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. Maybe reasonable guy makes monster guy stronger. People used to run when they saw me coming because they knew I was there to break things. Now no one’s sure what I’m going to do and that’s its own kind of power.
But how does any of that get me out of this situation? I still have to find the 8 Ball and deal with Aelita or she’s going to deal with me. The only good news is that with the 8 Ball out of her hands she can’t run around killing off the God brothers. They might be the only things in the universe that can stand up to the Angra Om Ya. I’m not looking forward to going at Aelita one-on-one. She’s beaten me more than I’ve beaten her. Hell, she already killed me once. It was only one of Vidocq’s potions that brought me back before my soul wandered off to Hell or Fresno.
And I’d sure like to know where Medea Bava is. She wants me dead every bit as much as Aelita. I should have gone after her when I was still Lucifer. Once I burned down Tartarus, she didn’t have anywhere to run. Now she’s with Deumos and I don’t know what that means. I don’t even know if the Sub Rosa has an Inquisition anymore. If they do, maybe a new Inquisitor has it in for me. I could ask Blackburn, but what are the chances he’d tell me the truth? Medea doesn’t need any official title to come after me, and if she kills me, everyone is going to say, “He deserved it,” and go have lunch.
No, I don’t need a war with the Cold Cases. I’ve got all I can handle right now.
As vile as they were, things were so much easier in the arena. It was all pain and anger and I knew exactly what I had to do and when. I’ll never stop dreaming about it and wanting things to be that simple again. The arena is my heroin. I’ve kicked the habit, but I’ll never get completely over it.
THE DARK ETERNAL is set up in Death Rides A Horse, a posh fetish bar in West Hollywood.
The Eternal made their bones by killing off or absorbing a lot of the scattered bloodsucker street gangs, then updating and expanding their business. The Eternal has even been known to do hits or provide protection for some of the big Sub Rosa families. All very much on the down low. They make most of their money off Lurkers and vampire wannabes dealing B+. Blood Plus. It’s blood infused with every kind of up, down, and Ring Around the Rosie you can think of. Addicts come to the Eternal because their product is the best. Score cheap bathtub gin from one of the outlaw gangs in Compton or San Berdoo and you’re likely to OD. Or end up with permanent palsy. Imagine living forever shaking so much you can’t piss straight much less sink your fangs into an unwilling throat.
Outside the club there’s a line stretching all the way to the corner. I walk up to the doorman, a burly black dude with a cross tattooed on his bald scalp. It’s a common vampire joke. Crosses don’t work on them any more than flypaper.
He puts a hand in the middle of my chest and notices the bulge of the gun under my coat.
“We’re all full up tonight. Try again tomorrow,” he says with a slight Jamaican accent.
“I’m on the list.”
He smiles while looking over the crowd.
“I doubt that.”
“I’m on Tykho’s list.”
He glances at me, then back to the line.
“That’s not a joke you want to be telling, man.”
I take out my phone and hold it up so he can see the time.
“I have a midnight appointment. If I’m not in the club in two minutes, it’s your skull Tykho is going to be gnawing on tonight. Not mine.”
He thinks it over. In a second he thumbs on the radio headset he’s wearing. He puts his hand over the mouthpiece.
“What’s your name?”
“Stark.”
“Ah,” he says. “They said look for a scarred man, but damn, you’re a lot uglier than I expected.”
He speaks into the headset. “I got your man Stark here and I’m sending him in. What? Don’t worry yourself. You’ll recognize him.”
He gives me a big toothy smile, showing his fangs.
“Go right in, sir.”
I light a Malediction.
“What’s wrong with you, man? You can’t smoke inside.”
“Why? None of you breathe. It’s not like you’re going to get cancer.”
He touches his lapels.
“It makes our clothes smell bad. Bothers some of the minions.”
I don’t have to ask who the minions are. There’s a whole army of them lined up outside the club.
I drop the smoke and crush it out with my boot.
“Leave it to L.A. to turn vampires into twelve-steppers.”
I go inside the club. And am instantly rendered deaf by Totalitarian Chic doing a hard techno version of “A Fistful of Dollars” at a hundred decibels.
Years ago, Death Rides A Horse was an upscale Hollywood cowboy joint, meaning it was about as country as Lawrence Welk’s massage therapist. The DE kept the cowboy theme but added the leather-and-latex aesthetic. The dance floor alone must keep half the fetish shops in L.A. in business. A cowgirl vampire rides her bouncing-pony boy minion around the edge of the dance floor. I have no idea how either of them keeps their balance. It’s an impressive achievement. I have to give the DE credit. The self-conscious decadence is a lot easier to take than a bunch of middle-aged businessmen chewing Skoal dressed up like Hopalong Cassidy.
A blond kid good-looking enough to be a Michelangelo model crooks his finger at me. I push through the crowd over to him.
He doesn’t say a word, just loops his arm in mine and pulls me to the back of the club.
Even in the noise and chaos, it isn’t hard to spot Tykho.
Her table is in the far back, under dim lights and crowded with admirers, both dead and alive. Since she doesn’t have to show off, she’s in a simple black corset with a brocade dragon pattern. Her skin is full-moon white. Her spiky blue hair matches the color of her lips. The real giveaway is her eyes. The pupils are long and horizontal. A birth defect from when her mother tried to chemically abort the pregnancy after she’d been bit. Mom blew it and gave birth to a bouncing baby vampire with octopus eyes.
She waves me over and dismisses her entourage with a single elegant wave. I take her hand when she offers it. It’s cold enough to chill champagne.
“Stark. How nice of you to come.”
“Like I was going to turn you down?”
I sit down and a waiter bustles over to take the entourage’s drinks away.
“Some of my people thought you might be too afraid to come.”
“I just didn’t want to ugly up your joint.”
“Trust me. We get uglier faces in here every night. Fear. Greed. A civilian’s terrible hope that she or he can cheat us. These do worse things to a person’s face than a few scars.”
“I’ll drink to that.”
She gestures to a waiter. He comes over and sets something on the table in front of Tykho. A dried and preserved human heart.
“And for you, sir?” says the waiter.
“Whiskey.”
“Any brand?”
“Whatever costs the most.”
“Of course.”
Tykho stares at me like I’m the unlucky one in a “choose-your-own-lobster” tank.
I say, “Your boy Jimi Hendrix last night seemed to think you had something for me. I don’t suppose it’s another suitcase full of money.”