“Do you need a cab? I can call one to the hotel at the end of the alley if you do.”
“No. Thank you. I really am all right. Bad food. Not drink.” I hated maligning the dinner I’d had, but “ghost poisoning” is not the clever explanation you want to offer for barfing in a bar.
She nodded, but her eyes were narrowed and I was sure she didn’t quite believe me. I washed my face and hands again and killed a few more minutes until I felt steady enough to venture back out. The ghosts had reconvened, so I hoped that meant the intimidating phantasm had gone for the time being. Before I could escape the room, the bartender flagged me down. Reluctantly I walked through the ectoplasmic storm to the bar.
“Did you want these?” he asked, pointing to the objects on the bar. There were more of them now.
“No. They fell from the ceiling. They don’t belong to me.” I should have taken them—I was sure the ghosts had left them for that purpose—but I didn’t want to touch them at the moment on the chance that they were . . . hers. “Maybe you could put them somewhere in case the owner comes back for them?”
He peered at me as if he, too, was gauging my sobriety and then swept them into a small container, which he put beneath the bar. “All right. If you change your mind, though . . .”
“Yeah. OK,” I said and got out as quickly as I could without appearing to run.
Outside, the terrifying phantom woman with the melting face was waiting for me, looking even more skeletal and less human than before. “You cannot take them from me,” she said, her voice sighing through the alley on a wind that stank of death. “Tribute is given. It cannot be taken away.”
I didn’t have a ready reply, though she seemed to expect one, studying me as she was through empty eye sockets with her head cocked slightly sideways. I slid a step backward on the old brick alley floor, my boot soles picking up grit and emitting a slight grinding sound. The revenant lurched toward me and I ducked to spin away. . . .
Something cold and vicious struck me hard from the left—my blind side, knocking me into the railing over a sunken courtyard on the far side of the alley. I fetched up hard and tried to dig my feet in, but there was only hard brick and empty air. I felt myself tipping over the railing and I scrabbled to get a grip on it, or loop my arm around it as something scraped at my face and neck.
I started to scream, but the shout was choked off by an ice-cold hand that clamped over my mouth. But one hand busy meant one less to grapple me with and I hunkered down, pulling out of the remaining grip on my shoulders and wedging myself under the rail. Tucked into the metal bars, I kicked out at the man-shaped thing that attacked me and hit it hard in the knee. It staggered, then turned to take a second swing at me. . . .
Suddenly it spun and bolted away at inhuman speed—it looked like the vampire-ish thing that had followed me to the alley. A second black shape trailing an aura of blood and pain pursued it up the alley and everything Grey fled ahead of it, leaving a vacant eddy of mist and empty ghostlight for me to stand in.
I crept to the nearest bench attached to the railing I’d nearly toppled over and sat down, huddling into myself and shivering as if it were midwinter instead of the first week of July. The melting-faced horror was gone, as was the vampire-like man—if it wasn’t the one that had followed me into the market, it was something of the same type.
I breathed hard, catching my startled breath and calming the instinct that urged me to run far and fast as the darkness that had pursued my assailant returned. . . .
Some things never leave your memory; this stomach-turning smell and oppressive clot of dark energy were indelible in my mind. Even though he made no sound and my vision was a mess of Grey overlaid on normal like so much static on a television picture, I knew when he stopped next to me and I raised my head. “Hello, Carlos. Thanks for that.”
It’s a bit difficult to describe the relationship between Carlos and me. We’re friends of a sort, but our history is tangled with unsavory details like death, madness, and vampire politics. I hadn’t seen him—or most of Seattle’s vampires—in quite a while. Not that I minded: Vampires literally turn my stomach and they always have an angle. They’re a frightening lot, but Carlos was much worse than most. He was also a necromancer and he worked as the chief advisor to Seattle’s top vampire—a former client of mine. Carlos and I had done some horrible—if necessary—things together and our secrets bound us in silence and uneasy respect.
“Thanks are unnecessary. I didn’t catch him.” His quiet voice resonated in my chest.
“Maybe that’s as good a reason as any to be grateful.” I hated to imagine what Carlos might have in mind for any member of the uncanny who’d offended him. He, after all, was a creature who killed for power.
“No. It was he I was stalking. Driving him off you was not what I’d had in mind. But Cameron would not like to hear you’d been injured by one of ours—even if that one has gone rogue.”
I shook off some of my discomfort and studied his face. It wasn’t just his dark hair and beard that made Carlos difficult to read—his expression is subtle and chilly at the best of times. “You have a rogue vampire on the streets?” I asked, taken by surprise—it hadn’t quite looked like a vampire in my Grey sight, but I didn’t know everything about that terrible species. Between them Carlos, Cameron, and his inner circle don’t miss much and it seemed unlikely that they’d have no idea of it if one of their community was turning against them. “How did that slip by?”
“Not a slip. A theft. My assistant was foolish and fell among evil companions.”
I raised my eyebrows. It’s hard to imagine companions much more evil than vampires, but given what Quinton had said about his father, I didn’t doubt it was true. I chose to address the less frightening half of the statement. “You have an assistant now? Well, I suppose Cameron did sort of graduate out of that job. . . .” I hadn’t taken time to wonder how that situation had been resolved, but obviously it had. Cameron had, technically, still been Carlos’s protege when the vampire hierarchy came tumbling down and Cameron stepped into the void.
“It would be inappropriate for the Prince of the City to stoop and carry for me, but I must still work—work that you know requires considerable labor. Inman was only a dhampir, so I cannot be surprised if his mind has been persuaded against us.”
I guessed that was the situation Quinton had been warning me about when he said the vampires had a problem. “When did this happen?”
“A few weeks ago. The half-converted can be difficult to track since they walk the daylight as well as the night.”
“And you didn’t come to me?”
“I felt it would not be in our best interest to be seen to rely on your help too frequently, Greywalker. The current cabal is still young in power.”
Considering I’d helped put that group in power, I was well aware of how sketchy the underpinnings of the regime were and how quickly the situation could have turned into a bloodbath at any hint of weakness.
“How—?” I started, but Carlos cut me off with a look.
“This is not the best place for conversation. And I have things I would ask you, too.”
I was more shaken than I’d thought if I hadn’t the presence of mind to realize that chats with vampires are not best pursued in public places, like famous alleys in front of famous bars. I nodded. “Where would you prefer? I’m on the job, but, to be honest, it’s not going well. . . .”
He made a humming sound and motioned for me to follow him down the alley, blending into the night as only a vampire can. I came along behind, trusting him not to lead me into danger—which says a lot about our relationship in spite of the fact that Carlos is the most frightening thing I know. He went down the alley and ducked across Stewart Street, heading to a bench in a tiny courtyard behind the Inn at the Market. It was probably a lovely place to sit and talk during the day. At night it was secluded and dark in spite of its proximity to streetlights and busy roads. We sat uncomfortably close, his aura of death and pain lying over me like a blanket of horrors.
Once we were seated, posing like lovers conversing, I asked, “Why didn’t you come to me when your assistant went missing? You know I would take any case of yours as a priority.”
“I do, which is why I did not. Cameron suggested it, but he was dissuaded. We cannot be seen to run to you with petty internal problems.”
“But a rogue vampire is not a petty—”
He cut me off. “No, but we did not want it known that such a thing had happened. And I prefer to hunt those who defy me myself.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“Defy you? That sounds . . . complicated.” I wouldn’t have thought a demi-vampire could do other than obey the vampire to whom he was tied by blood and power. Purlis had managed a very dangerous coup. No wonder Carlos hadn’t wanted word to get out. It also gave me a new perspective on my ambitious and unpleasant nearly
