Chapter 10
Stairs sucked in high heels. Doing anything sucked in heels. These heels, specifically. I cursed Jezebel and the outfit she leant me twice more for good measure, as I made my way up to the main floor. Even though it was still a few levels underground, the space felt lighter, airier.
I ignored the rivulets of sweat collecting on my back, knowing I’d need to go up another level to Lenore’s office… with everything else that was upstairs. Where Todd had made it known he didn’t want to go.
If we could catch Lenore mingling on the main floor it would make things a lot easier, but she wasn’t known for getting high off her own supply. She was an elusive master of ceremonies, her gatherings required her to be on the job, and available to hold court.
I did a quick scan of my surroundings for the telltale blonde bob. If Lenore was mingling, she’d be in the center of the action, glad-handing her members in a choice appearance. Not in one of the distant, ever-moaning, corners.
No luck.
Now, if I could just find Todd, we could get this over with—
Ah, there he was, leaning against a wall right next to the stairwell. He hadn’t been there when I came up. He couldn’t have. I would have noticed.
“Anything?” I asked when I was close enough to speak instead of shout.
“Too much.” He ran a hand over his face. “Nothing on the case. No one is speaking about them. No one noticed they are missing. Which makes sense if—”
“Everyone expects them to be missing. At least for another week…” After the fang ceremony.
Todd nodded. “Victims’ ‘vamps’ are not here either.”
“So, all your skulking around…”
“A lot of neck sucking.” I caught the almost imperceptible flicker of his attention to the blooming hickey on my throat. “And then some.”
It didn’t take much to fill in the blanks on what ‘and then some’ meant. It seemed vampires still enjoyed their exhibitionism. “Guess that means we’re headed upstairs. Ready?”
He stood to his full height, rumbling so deep I could feel the vibrations in my chest.
I nudged him with my shoulder. “Oh, come on.” It wasn’t going to be that bad.
?
It was worse. Not that I had anything against nudity or consensual games, but the shift between downstairs and up was so immediate, so in our faces, it felt interactive.
No wonder Lenore made people come to her, the activities underfoot were a tripping hazard.
We weaved in and around the tangle of bodies that writhed on the padded floor, working our way to the office.
Fully stepping over someone’s arm, I grabbed Todd’s calloused hand, both to reassure him, and as a support to avoid impaling any limbs with my heels.
The floor was a mess of syrup and skin, the entire room had devolved into chaos.
Sticky chaos. Which was one explanation for why almost no one wore clothes.
Most people were naked, slathered in reds of different shades…
and viscosities. Vamps took their time painting their prey, and each other, with sickly sweet syrups, before licking it off one sensuous lap at a time.
My heels pulled at the tacky floor. If it weren’t for the risk of my borrowed dress being dragged across the residue, I would have taken the shoes off. But the dress felt expensive, far more expensive than any other item of clothing I ever owned. And red stained.
Checking in, I gave Todd a knowing look and cocked a brow. He rolled his eyes.
“I’m not afraid of nudity, Delilah. I just…” He caught me as I wobbled, narrowly missing yet another tripping hazard. “Didn’t want to be dessert.”
His grip on my hand told me otherwise. He didn’t want to be vulnerable. And looking around us, that was exactly what this floor was designed to do, people were quite literally feeding off vulnerability. Just as others got a thrill from being exposed.
“Oh, I see, so it’s the mess you were worried about,” I teased, as we reached the office, pulling Todd in front of me and straightening his shirt like a proud mother hen. “There. Presentable.”
Not sure what to do with me, Todd looked to the sky, presumably for strength, then drew his knuckles to the door. But before he could knock, I twisted the handle and stepped into Lenore’s office.
?
The whole move was very anticlimactic.
Lenore was heads down, glasses on the tip of her nose, looking over a thick binder-full of documentation, unfazed by our intrusion.
“Looks like business is booming,” I said, announcing our presence.
“Books on vamps did wonders for recruitment. Now, what can—” She flipped a page before looking up.
Her mood shifted. “Ah, the little hellion …” Clearly, she didn’t know my name.
“…and her FBI friend, I was wondering when you’d show up.
Didn’t you do enough damage to my brand the last time you were here? ”
I almost pinched the bridge of my nose to fight off the budding headache triggered by Lenore’s presence. “I’m sorry, Daemonica was good for business? I seem to remember you having a mass-murderer on your hands until I intervened.”
Daemonica was a New York vamp who had escalated things too far.
She used gatherings as her hunting ground and had the habit of luring her victims to a secondary location where she’d exsanguinate them.
Admittedly, I had gotten involved with the vamp’s case with my opinions on who was responsible already formed. Lenore would remember that.
“Yes, but I would have appreciated if you handled that whole situation with a lot more tact.”
Fine, I also may have been a little heavy handed in my approach. Jezebel, who had gone by another name at the time, and I thought the murders were sanctioned by Lenore as part of running her vamp cult. It took us a while to uncover the truth, that an individual, not the vamps, were responsible.
“But you still offered Jezebel a job.”
“My Jezebel has class. Something you sorely lack.”
What? White splintered across my vision. Why did she have to go there? I could do perfectly well with a few jibes about how I handled things. But pulling me down, and showing possession over someone I considered a friend in the process, got my blood boiling.
Todd took a tender hold of my arm, which meant I must not have been hiding my emotions very well.
At least, he knew better than to tell me to calm down. Instead, he said just about the only thing that would work, “If you need to punch someone. You can punch me. Later.”
He knew what he was doing. Whether or not I chose to act on it, Todd had given me an outlet. And just like that, my anger deflated.
I couldn’t let Lenore’s words get to me. Then she would have won.
“What? What did he say?” Lenore didn’t like not being in control. A trait which seemed to run in the vamp family tree.
“Agent Galt reminded me that we are here for Mercy, Dorian, Celeste, Kian, and Zayd.”
“So?”
“Let me clarify, we are here investigating their murders. It’s looking an awful lot like someone is stepping in on vamp business. We figured you might want to know who.”
Lenore’s face blanched. It looked like she was going to be sick.
For all her pomp and circumstance, she was impacted by the news of their deaths.
Jez had played her role well and hadn’t said a word about the murders to Lenore—who stood, snapping back into herself and into another round of questioning, “And do you? Do you know who? Because unless you do, it seems like you are wasting my time and bothering my membership.”
“Thought it might ruin your brand.” I didn’t move, didn’t blink. Stillness had an unnerving effect on people. “Do you know anyone who would want to do that?”
“By killing people? No. Absolutely and irrevocably not.”
Well, this was going just about as well as I expected.
If anything useful were to come of this conversation, we’d need to get Lenore’s guard down, and my tone was not doing any favors in that department.
She cared about her members, she cared about people, that much I knew.
But our interaction was not allowing her to feel safe enough to show her soft side.
If this was going to go anywhere at all, I’d need to be as sickeningly sweet as the syrups used by the vamps outside. “Lenore, I—”
“—What.”
“I’m sorry.” Yuck, yuck, yuck. Oh, this felt gross. Maybe I would punch Todd later.
“You’re…what?”
“I’m sorry, even though we did end up catching Daemonica,” I gave Todd a pointed look, emphasizing this success as part of my resume, “that I made snap judgements about you, about your vamps, and that I made things more difficult than they needed to be. I’m sorry for the trouble I caused, and that I put the blame on you before knowing more.
Agent Galt and I are not here because we want to make things difficult for you.
Or to assign blame. We’re here because we know how much you care, not only about your business, but about your membership, as people. ”
My apology hung between us, tense like newly strung bow. Lenore may not have liked me, and I didn’t like her, but I could still get the job done and be the bigger person in the process.
After a moment of silence, she exhaled, drumming her fingers on her considerable wooden desk. Once. Twice.
“I supposed I never thanked you for that—catching Daemonica.” Lenore lowered herself back down into her seat. “What can I do? How can I help?”
I readied my first question, but Todd stepped forward, so I played the role of translator instead, as he asked, “Do you have competition?”
“A couple other vamp groups, but they are nothing to worry about.” Lenore leaned back in her chair, her ringed fingers steepled over her waist. “We work hard to play nice. And despite what you may think, we vamps work together to make sure we create a space where everyone belongs.”
Except for me.
I might have said that thought aloud.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You are the reason we have the terms and conditions in the first place.”
What?
“You said, and I quote, ‘maybe if you had a way for people to come forward you wouldn’t have a mass murderer on your hands’.”
Fine, fine, that sounded like me. Maybe not those exact words. But the sentiment was there. The part I found interesting was that Lenore followed through. Perhaps I overestimated the animosity between us.
“And has it been useful? Anyone come forward?”
“The usual stuff every business owner deals with. Complaints about membership fees, our location rotation not aligning with schedules, not leaving enough time for members to get to fang ceremonies, or someone not liking the flavor of body paints on offer.” She shook her ice-blonde bob, such a contrast to her dark skin.
“But no issues have arisen around consent, or between vamp and prey. Consent is such a large part of what we do, especially now, the problem doesn’t really come from my members, or the vamp community.
It’s those with small minds, in small towns like this, that are the real concern. ”
I read between the lines. “So, you’ve received threats?”
“Oh yes, we’ve received threats. By non-vamps.
Usually, it’s kids who don’t get what we do.
Some of it is just pure hate. Others get their jollies from pretending to be vampire slayers.
Spray painting crosses at our events. Mailing in garlic.
A nuisance, but nothing that would warrant getting the police involved. ”
Trying out vamp empathy for the third or fourth time this evening, I said, “Sounds troubling.”
“You get used to it…” The tone in the room changed. “So, Mercy, Celeste…” The emotions and realization seemed to hit Lenore with sudden force. “They’re all really—”
“I’m afraid so.”
Lenore shifted in her seat and flicked away tears before they could fall. “Whatever you need. Let me know. Video footage. Attendance sheets. They’re yours.”
Todd nodded his thanks, and I didn’t miss the subtle glint of approval that flowed in my direction.
“I’ll ensure Jezebel is at your disposal.” Lenore typed something onto her phone which she sent with a whoosh. “Not that she’d need my approval before cavorting around with you... Your continued friendship hasn’t been lost on me.”
She had to be kidding me.
“So, the falling out?” Something Jezebel and I staged so she could gain Lenore’s trust as she transitioned to full-time familiar.
“It was a little convenient, even if the performance was Oscar-worthy.” Lenore smiled as an errant tear slipped free.
She hadn’t fallen for our charade, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Maybe I hadn’t given her enough credit. Maybe she wasn’t so bad, and this is how helpful she could have been if we hadn’t started off on the wrong foot.
Or maybe she was just playing nice because I had the support of the FBI.
“We’ll be in touch about the video footage, and we’ll let you know if we have any further questions.” Todd left a business card I wasn’t even aware he had on Lenore’s desk before stepping back towards the door. “Thank you for your time.”
“I’ll be sure to let you know if anything else springs to mind,” Lenore read off his card, “Special Agent Galt.”
Out of nowhere, my stomach clenched, like someone reached into my belly and grabbed it with a fist. Ugh. I gritted my teeth and stuck my tongue to the roof of my mouth to distract from the hollowing nausea. I sidestepped beside Todd, ready to leave.
I’d packed some goodies away in my bodice, but they would be more than a little conspicuous to reach.
If we did one last quick spin of the main floor, I was sure I could get my hand on some pretzels.
I’d seen some by the bar. I sure as hell wasn’t going to eat the red syrup. Even if it did smell like candy.
The thought of viscous syrup alone almost triggered my gag reflex. I needed to move, fast. I reached for the handle—
“And Delilah?” I slid past the fact that she did know my name as I glanced over my shoulder to find Lenore leaning over her desk with more intensity than I’d ever seen her exhibit. “Make them pay.”