Blood and Bullets Read online

  After the two bouncers were bound and gagged, I grabbed the desk and moved it off of Greggie. With the desk out of the way I could see that his femur was indeed broken. The break formed a strange lump on his thigh, the bone sticking up at a weird angle.

  Compound fractures are one of the worst ways to break a bone. Being a renfield it had the same pain level as it would for a normal human, but he should heal much faster. Fast enough not to need a hospital if the break was stabilized.

  Greggie was a little bit of a quandary for me. I have killed renfields in the past. Usually they are evil on their own, and that is why they are tied to a vampire to start with. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Greggie well enough to say that. Renfields, no matter how connected they are to a vampire or how many powers and abilities they received from that, are still fundamentally human. Again, I really do try not to kill humans.

  Now, in my experience, if I killed his master, he stood a good chance of dying with him, especially if he was older than a human should live. Just like the age of a vampire catches up with their body once you kill them, the same thing happens to a renfield. If he was not older than he should be, then he might die from the psychic shock of his master’s death. But for now, he was human.

  A strong, supernaturally powered human who was mystically tied to a blood-sucking fiend from hell and who tried to take me out a minute ago, but human nonetheless.

  So I picked up one of the leather chairs and smashed it against the floor until it broke into pieces. Then taking the duct tape and two chair legs, I splinted his thigh to hold it steady. He tried to grab me once during the process, but some pressure on his leg and a good dose of glaring from me made him settle down. I picked up the chair he was in and then lifted him into it. He didn’t weigh but about 120 pounds. Some quick work with the handcuffs and the extension cord and he was completely immobile in the chair. Larson watched all of this quietly.

  Once Greggie was in the chair and secure, I sat on the side of the overturned desk and pulled his chair over to me. The Desert Eagle came out. Again, a gun, naked in your hand, makes a nice threat.

  “Now we need to come to an understanding. I want to talk to your master tonight. Dawn is coming and I do not have time to play around.” I tapped his broken leg with the barrel of the gun and he flinched deeply. “Now, here is the part you need to understand. I know I set your leg. I know I didn’t pull out my gun earlier and cap those two bouncers on the floor. I know that these two facts might lead you to think that I will not kill you.” I leaned in so that our faces were an inch apart. His eyes were dilated to the maximum with pain, and those almost-black pupils locked on my eyes. Oily sweat stood out along his cheeks and forehead, and his breath ruffled my goatee.

  I had his undivided attention.

  “That would be a very bad assumption for you to make. Tell me where your master is and I will walk out of here with you alive. Refuse and I will shoot you in the face and then go door-to-door on Gregorios’s other businesses. Your choice.” Leaning back, I crossed my arms, keeping the gun out. “Now talk.”

  Greggie took a shaky breath. “If I tell you, then you will simply go kill him.”

  “Only if he makes me.” The lie slipped from my mouth easily. “You said he didn’t try to have me killed, so I just want him to point me in the direction of who did.”

  He stared at me as if trying to see if I was telling the truth. My eyes were blank. Windows to my soul with the shades pulled down. After a moment, he dropped his head as if he were defeated. “He has retreated to his brothel on Cheshire Bridge Road.”

  “Thank you.” I stood up. The moths began beating frantically against the inside of my head as he reached out for his master. Spinning the Desert Eagle in my hand, I slammed the butt of it into his broken thigh. The moths blinked out of metaphysical existence. Greggie mewled like a hurt cat, a scream strangled in his throat, and then he passed out. His body slumped bonelessly, held upright against the orange extension cord.

  “Why the hell did you do that?” Larson was almost as pale as Greggie was and his voice shook like his hands.

  “He was trying to contact his master metaphysically. The pain cut his concentration and stopped him.” I slipped the gun back inside my jacket. “We need to go now, because I am sure if he wakes up he will call out to Gregorios, and I don’t want that son of a bitch knowing we are coming. Cheshire Bridge is only about fifteen minutes away, so hopefully he’ll stay out until then.”

  Larson reached around his neck and pulled out two of the blessed rosaries I had given him earlier. Slipping them over Greggie’s head, he tucked them into the renfield’s fancy shirt. I looked a question at him.

  “If he wakes up, the holy object should keep him from using any vampire powers, which means he would not be able to contact his master as long as they are touching his skin,” Larson said. Made sense to me. Actually, I should have thought of it myself.

  I nodded my approval, adjusted my coat to cover my weapons, and we were off to a vampire whorehouse.

  9

  Turning down Walter Trout on the Comet’s stereo, I looked over at Larson. We were zipping through the city streets, heading over to Southern Dolls, the vampire whorehouse. We had cleared the club of people by cutting the music and turning on the lights. Larson had suggested the fire alarm, but I nixed that plan. It would have brought the fire department and police to check on the club. With my plan, we just had to wait for the people who were completely stoned to realize they had to go. Tiff had been hustled out of Helletog and put in her own car.

  I told her to go home and never come back, her job was done there. She looked at me with her big eyes and nodded without question. I also told her to go see Kat tomorrow about a job at Polecats.

  Yes, there are jobs there that do not include dancing. Not that she wasn’t dancer material.

  Anyway.

  A call to Kat had garnered directions to Gregorios’s whorehouse on Cheshire Bridge. She informed me that it was a vampire jack shack, stocked and manned by vampire chicks who serviced their clientele with sex and bloodletting. It also had a dungeon for customers with kinkier tastes. I told her about Tiff and flipped my phone shut.

  “That was a good move back at the club, with the rosary. Thanks.”

  Larson glared at me. His voice was heated. “Look, don’t mock me. I know what you think about me. I thought once I could be what you are, but I know now that I’m not cut out for it.” Thin, sparrow hands flitted around his duster, adjusting it out of nervous anger. “But just because I’m not some gigantic, gun-toting maniac doesn’t mean I’m worthless.” Turning to the window, he watched traffic and lights streak by in the nighttime. “I realize that I can’t beat information out of people like you, but I do know a thing or two about vampires. I can help you until this godforsaken night is over.”

  He had a point. I had been dismissing him and keeping him with me only to figure out why he was chosen as bait. He had some knowledge, even if it wasn’t from experience, and so far, he had not been the liability I had first thought. To be perfectly honest, even back in the attack in the alley, he had helped. Keeping those vampires off my back with his cross had turned the tide in our favor. It was one of the reasons we had made it out alive.

  “Okay, you’re right. From here on out, I put you to work. You should be of help, but you still listen to me. You still do what I say, when I say it.” I slowed the car and began looking. “And you still don’t get a gun.”

  Larson stared at me for a long moment. His head drifted up and down, nodding in agreement. I slowed the Comet as we came up on the jack shack. The big car bounced when we left asphalt and hit gravel pulling into the parking lot of the whorehouse.

  A small muscle in my back gave a twinge of protest as I swung out of the car. I had pulled something at the club, probably tossing that big-ass desk over. It would only get worse as the night wore on, that’s the way strained muscles are. I stood beside my door, taking stock of the area and staying ready to drop back in
to the Comet if need be. Larson followed my lead and stayed next to his. The whorehouse was a low, one-story cinderblock building with a flat, tarred roof. It had a few windows that were all painted black and covered by bars. The building itself was understated. Painted gray and with no decoration to indicate it was a business.

  The whorehouse sign was a big, lit box with the words SOUTHERN DOLLS on it. It cast a pink glow across the cars in the lot. I began walking around the car to the front of the building. Larson joined me. Gray gravel under our feet crunched with every step. I spoke to him low and from the corner of my mouth. “Here’s the plan. You are my backup. Go to the door, ring the buzzer. They will look at you on the camera and buzz you in. You open the door and hold it for a second. I’ll be right behind you.” I grabbed his arm to emphasize the next point. “Once we are inside, just go with the flow and keep your mouth shut. If we get separated, just play it cool. You can be nervous in here; first timers usually are, so they won’t think anything about it, but do not panic. When shit goes off, you follow my lead and watch my back. Don’t let anything or anyone sneak up behind me.”

  “How will I know when”—he made bunny ears with his fingers—“‘shit has gone off’?”

  My hand patted my shoulder where the Desert Eagle rode. “Trust me, you’ll know.” He nodded and I let go of him. I stood back out of the line of sight for the door camera. I definitely didn’t want to be spotted this early. Larson stepped up to the door and pressed the buzzer. After about thirty seconds there was a beep and a click as the door was unlocked. Larson pulled it open wide and stepped out of the way. My coat brushed him as I swept by quickly and we went inside.

  Once through the door there was a narrow hallway that was completely bare of decoration. It quickly ended into an open room with couches, chairs, and half-naked girls. There were five of them. All different types. All trying to look human.

  Blond, brunette, redhead, black, and Hispanic, apparently they were trying to have something for everybody. The blond was tall, leggy, and spray-tanned, with huge implants riding her chest. Her face was not bad, but heavy on the eye shadow, heavy on the lipstick, with hair by White Rain. She was trying to go for the southern girl-next-door look by wearing the absolute smallest rebel flag bikini ever made. Either that or she shopped in some really slutty juniors’ sections. Even her six-inch heeled stripper shoes had a rebel flag motif. She stuck out her hand, and before I shook it I checked to see if her nails had rebel flags painted on them. Nope, just red.

  “Hey, y’all, welcome to Southern Dolls. I’m Blair, have y’all ever visited us before?” I smiled at her southern accent. It was real. Maybe she genuinely was a southern girl before she died. Could be, Blair was an extremely southern name. I shook her cool hand. Vampires are room temperature always. Cool, but not so much that the average person could tell. I took my hand back as soon as I could, even a chick vampire is strong enough to pull an arm off if she wanted to.

  “I’ve been here a long time ago, but this is my brother-in-law’s first time.” I grabbed Larson in a manly arm-across-the-shoulder hug. A big grin was plastered on my face and I was really pushing my own southern accent.

  It bothers me when I see southerners on TV portrayed as having a thick drawl and talking like they are not very bright. We do not talk like that. There are folks here with southern accents, yes, some really thick and heavy, but those folks are usually still intelligent. I normally speak clearly and with little accent.

  My southernness shows in the fact that I do use the term y’all, and when I am tired, drunk, or around others with heavy southern accents, my own southern accent comes out to play. I was hamming it up for Blair’s sake.

  “I figured since I’m getting married this weekend we should go out and live it up. Y’all treated me so good last time, I figured my buddy here needed a dose of your southern hospitality.”

  One perfectly cultivated blond eyebrow rose over Blair’s crystal blue eyes. “And should we treat your friend as well as we treated you last time?”

  I laughed, playing along. “Aw, we should start him off a little slower; as you can tell, he’s a bit nervous. But if he enjoys himself, then by all means, give him the works, it’s on me tonight.” I reached in my coat pocket for my credit card, careful to keep the guns all covered. No need to show a gun too early, it kind of kills a conversation. Blair smiled and took the card in her long-nailed hand.

  “Well, then, sugar, I’ll just scamper on back and run this card for the basic while your friend picks one of us for company.”

  “Go ahead and run it for two, darlin’, as long as you can be my pick.” A brilliant smile flew over her shoulder. No way in hell did I want her behind us when it broke off. She was clearly in charge, and that meant she was probably the most dangerous one of the five.

  It was bad enough I was going to leave three behind and one with Larson. I still had no real plan because I wasn’t sure where Gregorios was in the building. Hell, for that matter, I didn’t know for a fact that he was in the building at all. I was pretty confident Greggie hadn’t lied, but not 100%. This could all pan out to be a bust.

  Blair giggled and smiled as she turned her back and walked into a small room beside the one we were in, shaking her barely covered ass in the process. “Go ahead and have your friend make his pick, I’ll be out in a moment.” I watched her carefully. Dead or not, the girl knew how to walk.

  Larson looked at me with a slight glare. I clapped him on the shoulder. “Just pick whoever you like best, man. Don’t worry about the cost, I’ve got it covered. It will all be all right as long as you remember the rules your wife gave you before we left.” I said the last in a light manner, but gave him plenty of eye contact so he would understand that I meant my rules. He stumbled a bit as I pushed him toward the four remaining vampires.

  His face was bright red as he looked them over. I hoped he could tell they were vampires. He had some knowledge, but it wasn’t real-world experience. I hoped the hindsight of knowing the vampire in Varney’s was indeed a vampire would help him now. By the way he was acting, he didn’t have much real-world experience with girls undead or alive.

  Finally, he pointed to the brunette. She giggled and she wiggled as she held out her hand for him to join her. Looking her up and down, she was cute enough. Short and a little chubby, but fine I guess. Her nearly black hair fell to her shoulders in a straight line, and her bangs stopped Bettie Page style an inch above eyes that were a bright green and surrounded by too much eyeliner. A round face had big, pouty lips slathered with bright red lipstick, and a straight nose finished her face. For an outfit, she had a leopard-print corset that pushed her full breasts up under her chin, a tiny black miniskirt over very generous hips, and fishnet hose that ended in black patent stripper high heels.

  It took a push on the shoulder from me to get Larson to take the step and take her hand. She led him away as he glanced back at me. Smiling, I waved him off. He was on his own for a minute or two, I had bigger vampires to fry.

  Speaking of, Blair sashayed her way back next to me and handed me back my card. She was all smiles as she put her arm in mine. No, there were no flashing fangs. Vampire’s canines extend before they feed, a lot like a cobra’s fangs or, better yet, a cat’s claws. Just before a vampire strikes, the muscles in their face and neck tighten and knot up to give them the most power available. This also makes their canines slide down and become longer and tilted back into their mouths, so that when they lock down on their victim they have a death hold. If you tear a vampire off of someone during a feeding, it will usually take a mouthful of flesh with it. It’s what happened to my side to leave that fist-sized scar. Let me tell you, that was a crappy lesson on vampire anatomy right there. Blair tugged on my arm and we walked the same way Larson and the brunette had gone.

  The door we went through opened to another hallway. There were doors down one side of it with lights above them. Some of the lights were on, some were off. I knew that this was how you could tell if a room wa
s occupied.

  All the doors looked the same. Cheap. To the right of our entrance was a rack full of clothes and costumes for the girls. A nurse’s outfit, a plaid skirt, and a catsuit hung limply on wire hangers like they had given up. The doors extended to the left. At the far left end of the hallway was a large set of double doors with iron bars on them. I was going to assume that was the dungeon.

  “Which room do we go in?”

  “Aw, sugar, any room with a light on will do.” She smiled and tilted her head as she looked up at me. Her eyes were wide and crystal blue. I knew then why she had been turned. She had the face of an innocent. Her eyes were wide and her features fine. She had the look of a china doll. All sweet southern charm and doe-eyed Dixie doll. However, from there down she was built like a pornographer’s wet dream. The combination was intoxicating. Plainly put, she was a knockout. But Blair wasn’t the newly dead, she was well in control of herself. The innocent act was just that, an act. That body was just bait set in a trap. No matter how many charms she had, they only masked the bloodlust in her vampiric heart.

  I looked up and down the hall. The doors along it were cheap. Not a one of them different. They all had locks, but the doors themselves were cheap. If you look closely, you can always tell a cheap-ass door. They are made from a plain wood frame and covered with a thin eighth of an inch of Luan, which is wood fibers held together by glue. You can spot them a mile away primarily because they soak paint up like a sponge and always have spots that look like the wood is showing through. The thing about those doors is they are no better than paper for protection. One kick from a normal guy and that door is coming down. That is, assuming he doesn’t put his foot right through it and get stuck from the knee down.