7
Lopez said with forced patience, “No, of course not.”
I frowned in confusion. “But you just said . . .”
“She was exsanguinated, Esther,” he said. “Not bitten by an immortal creature of the night.”
“How do you drain all of someone’s blood?” I wondered. A scant familiarity with vampire fiction was my only source of information on the subject.
“Details probably aren’t a good idea.”
“Who besides a vampire exsanguinates people?” I demanded.
“I should have guessed,” Lopez said wearily. “You believe in vampires.”
“No,” I said. “No . . . Well, actually, I don’t know.” I had seen too many strange things (such as zombies, animated gargoyles, evil spirits, doppelgängers, and mystical vanishings) to dismiss the possibility outright. “Let’s say I don’t believe in the pop culture stereotypes of vampires.”
“Like your leading man?” Lopez cast another dark glance at the welt on my neck.
The leading man, I realized, who had been feeling his oats tonight. Who had, for a few moments there onstage, scared me into believing he might actually be what he claimed to be.
“He keeps blood in his dressing room,” I blurted.
“Yeah, I heard. I gather everyone’s heard. We’ll find out soon what it really is.”
“Oh, it’s blood, all right.” I felt a little queasy again.
My companion was skeptical. “What makes you so sure?”
“I drank some of it.”
“You what?” He reflexively grabbed my shoulders.
“It was an accident. I thought it was Nocturne wine cooler.”
He looked shocked. “You drink Nocturne?”
“No,” I said. “But it was the only thing available at the time.”
“Even so . . .” He let go of me, his expression suggesting that he was completely rethinking his opinion of me.
I said, “To return to the point, those bottles in his fridge are filled with—”
“What were you doing, having a cocktail in that guy’s dressing room?” my ex-almost-boyfriend demanded.
I sighed and explained. I tried to keep it brief but, as was often the case, Lopez had a lot of questions, so I wound up telling him almost everything that had happened in Daemon’s dressing room. While we talked, we drifted toward one of the theater’s darkened backstage alcoves, both tired and wanting to get off our feet. He used his dirty sleeve to dust off a packing crate for me, then we sat on it together. I could hear occasional familiar noises and voices echoing through the backstage area as the stage crew reset everything for tomorrow’s performance and various people milled around.
When I finished my account, Lopez was silent for a few moments, mulling it over—probably looking for possible links with information he wasn’t sharing with me.
“What are you thinking?” I asked, shifting uncomfortably. I’d been in this push-up corset for hours, and it was starting to feel like diabolical torture.
“If it’s human blood,” he answered, “whose is it and how did the Vampire Ravel acquire it?”
“Those are creepy questions.”
“But the answers aren’t necessarily criminal. He claims in public that he indulges in blood play, so—”
“In what?”
“Blood play. Sexual practices that involve shedding, sharing, and/or ingesting blood.”
“Oh, vampire sex. Right. He makes claims about it in private, too. I assumed he was lying until I took an innocent swig of his wine cellar.”
“I can’t believe you were going to drink Nocturne,” Lopez muttered, clearly still disillusioned with me.
“Can we stick to the subject?”
“Okay. Right.” After a moment, he asked, “What was the subject again? Sorry, I’m a little tired. I haven’t been to bed since ... Actually, I can’t remember.”
“Ah. So that’s why you fell asleep in my dressing room.”
“Yeah. I was listening to the show on the intercom for a while after I snuck in. You sounded really good, Esther. I wasn’t even sure it was you, at first—very much the proper English lady,” he said. “But then there was a scene with the vampire yammering at the half-wit brother about a vow of silence and the meaning of honor . . . something like that, anyhow. And I guess it lulled me right to sleep.”
I laughed. Lopez smiled as he removed his bandana, stuck it into a pocket, and ran his fingers through his overlong hair, rubbing his scalp as if trying to soothe a fatigue headache. I suddenly wanted to do that for him, so I folded my hands tightly together on my lap.
Returning to the subject, I asked, “If the blood in Daemon’s refrigerator turns out to be human, will they arrest him?”
“No, not necessarily. Not if he can produce the consensual adult whose blood it is, for example.”
“So you don’t think it’s . . .” Remembering that I had tasted some of it, I couldn’t manage to finish my sentence.
“The victim’s blood?” Lopez shook his head. “I doubt it. It would be very convenient for the cops if Daemon were dumb enough to stock his fridge with evidence of a homicide. But we don’t get that lucky in most investigations.”
“He picks up fans for casual sex, so I suppose he could have blood samples from multiple partners,” I mused.
“Maybe . . .”
Hearing his doubtful tone, I prodded, “But you don’t think so?”
“I think he might not still be alive and healthy enough to do eight performances a week if he didn’t make a point of knowing exactly whose blood he’s playing with and that it’s safe.”
“He told me it was safe.” I felt anxious again.
“And I’ll make sure we get a definite answer from the lab about that tomorrow,” Lopez promised firmly.
“They’ll analyze it that soon?”
He nodded. “This case will be a feeding frenzy for the media, so the department wants to clear your costar or else charge him—one or the other—as soon as possible. They’ll start processing the physical evidence as soon as they collect it.”
“Maybe the blood isn’t even human.” I liked this theory, because it meant that I had not sipped human blood tonight.
“Oh, I think it probably is.” Lopez absently rubbed the black stubble on his jaw while he mused aloud, “I have a feeling you were right. Daemon Ravel’s been so rigorous about cultivating his vampire image, he wouldn’t neglect a detail like that after giving a tabloid writer access to every corner of his unlife. He’s invested years in this masquerade, after all.”
“And a lot of money, too,” I added, thinking of the famous sun-blocking windows he’d had installed in his Soho loft.
“So he’s probably been thorough enough to stock that fridge with human blood, knowing the reporter would pilfer some of it. I’ll bet the cops will find more of it in his home, too.”
“You think the police will search his loft?”
“They might be there already.” Seeing my surprise, he explained gently, “The victim went home with Daemon late last night, Esther. Based on what’s known right now, that’s the last time that anyone saw her alive. And the body was dumped only about eight blocks from Daemon’s address. The investigating officers were getting a search warrant while I was being briefed. Cops will be arriving here any minute, too.”
“Oh.” I remembered that he had said so earlier. My head was spinning. After a moment, I realized what had probably upset Victor between shows. I asked, “You said too many people already know about this?”
He nodded. “By the time the police arrived and secured the scene, locals were talking, and a couple of journalists were asking questions.”
“I think someone phoned Daemon’s assistant around midnight and told him about it.” Perhaps a reporter asking for a comment or quote about the murder? If so, no wonder Victor had been so unnerved. “I’m sure he didn’t say anything to Daemon before the second show was over, but he might be telling him right now.”
Lopez shrugged. “It’s all right. No one involved in the case seems to think there’s any risk of Daemon Ravel trying to run away. He’ll lawyer up, but he won’t go into hiding.”
“Oh. Good point.” I thought it likely that, if forced to choose between the two things, Daemon would prefer a prompt public hanging in Times Square to disappearing and eventually falling off the radar. “I guess the cops will question all of us—everyone who works with Daemon?”
“Probably. In any case, they’ll definitely want to talk to you, due to your connection with the victim.”
“We weren’t connected,” I said irritably. “She dressed like my character, and she punched me in the face last night outside the stage door. That’s not a connection.”
“It is now that she’s been murdered,” Lopez said. “Listen to me. I want you to stay away from Daemon. Depending on what happens in the next few hours, he might be in custody by morning, anyhow. But if not, then until he’s either arrested or cleared, stay away from him. Do you understand me?”
“You really think he’s the killer?”
“I don’t know. And until I do, you shouldn’t go anywhere near him.”
“But I do eight shows a week with him,” I pointed out.
“Stay away from him offstage,” Lopez clarified patiently. “However badly Daemon behaves onstage, I’m pretty skeptical he’d commit a murder there.”
“I really don’t know about this.” I shook my head. “Sure, Daemon’s a jerk with bloodsucking pretensions. And tonight he actually scared me onstage. For a minute there, I thought ... you know.”
I touched the welt on my neck, remembering the reckless enthusiasm with which he had bit and sucked while I wrestled with him in front of the audience. Was he reliving what had happened in private with the demented fan he’d taken home last night? Had she struggled, too, before dying?
“I really should have punched him,” Lopez muttered.
With my wits recovered, though, I recognized that Daemon had let go of me as soon as the lighting changed and I played Jane’s death. He hadn’t even missed his cue, never mind losing his head while holding me in his arms and gnawing on my neck. What had excited Daemon tonight, far more than biting me, was the audience’s captivated reaction during that scene, followed by the wild applause, the standing ovation, and the curtain calls. That was what he was after, and being too rough with me was just a means to get it. My neck was a prop, not the real object of his appetite. His actions had been a narcissistic performance, not a seduction or an attack. And that was in keeping with all my other experience of him.
“Despite everything, I have a hard time seeing him as a murderer,” I said. “I mean, murder is serious. It’s for real. Whereas Daemon is such a poseur. He’s just so . . . absurd.”
My companion, more experienced than I with such things, pointed out, “You know what a serial killer’s neighbors and coworkers usually say when he’s arrested ? ‘He seemed like such a harmless guy.’ ”
“Oh.” I felt a chill, and I wasn’t sure if it was because my neckline invited pneumonia in that drafty theater, or because of what I remembered next. “Uh, did I mention that I hit Daemon and threatened him tonight?”
Lopez gave a startled laugh. “After he bit you? Good.”
“Maybe not so good,” I said uneasily.
Realizing I was unnerved, he covered my clasped hands with one of his and squeezed gently. “Keep in mind that when a man preys on a lone woman, he’s usually looking for an easy, vulnerable target. He wants a victim who’ll be terrified and submissive, not someone who’ll fight back, verbally challenge him, and turn his attack into a struggle that he risks losing.”
“Oh.” I was slightly reassured by this. “Daemon probably knows that leaves me out.”
He grinned and released my hands. “Anyone who’s ever met you knows that leaves you out.”
“Look, you met Daemon tonight. Sort of. Did he strike you as dangerous?”
“No, he struck me as pretty absurd, too,” Lopez admitted. “But impressions can be misleading, so that doesn’t mean it’s safe for you to be around him. Besides, his being the killer is just one of the possibilities that got me sneaking in here to talk to you now instead of going home to sleep off a thirty-hour shift.”
“I have a feeling I’ll regret asking this, but what other possibilities are you thinking about?”
“Well, even if Daemon’s not so convinced by his own act that he went nuts and tried to be a real vampire, killing a woman in the process . . .” Lopez’s hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it away. “That doesn’t mean that no one else felt convinced enough by Daemon’s crap to try it. It might be someone Angeline knew, someone she hooked up with sometime after leaving here with Daemon. Or maybe the killer is someone who’s obsessed with Daemon. In which case . . .” He paused before saying, “One of the patrolmen who’s been on duty here thinks that some of Daemon’s fans would like to take your place—or take your character’s place.”
“Yeah, I’m hearing that a lot tonight.”
“Some of his fans see the chemistry between you and Daemon as—”
“It’s not between me and Daemon,” I said sharply. “It’s between Ruthven and Jane!” After a moment, I added, “Sorry. Sore spot.”
Staying on point, he continued, “For a fan obsessed with Daemon, the perception of his attraction to you—or to your character—could make you a target. The person who killed a Jane look-alike, after Daemon singled her out in public last night, might be working his—or her—way up to killing the real Jane. So to speak.”
“Well. I’m really glad I asked you to specify your worries for me,” I said sourly. “I feel so much better now.”
“It’s just a theory,” he said, trying to soothe me.
“It’s a theory,” I said, my voice a little shrill with anxiety, “that got you rushing over here after a thirty-hour shift, in the middle of the night, when we haven’t even seen or spoken to each other for months—”
“And whose choice was that?” he snapped.
There was a moment of tense, surprised silence between us.
“Sorry.” Lopez took a steadying breath and repeated, “Sorry. That’s not what I meant to say.”
“I told you why . . .” I felt flustered. “I mean, I think I told you why—”
“Let’s not get sidetracked again,” he said. “I didn’t come here to . . . I don’t want you to . . .” He let out his breath in a rush and concluded, “We need to stay focused.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say.
Like a seasoned actor slipping back into character for the next scene, Lopez deliberately shifted gears into cop mode. “Have you noticed anyone strange hanging around the theater lately?”
I gave him an incredulous look. “Uh, yes.”
“Oh. Right. Let me rephrase that.” He brushed black hair out of his eyes again. “Has anyone recently made you feel threatened or uncomfortable? Or seemed to be paying too much attention to you?”
“Yes,” I said. “The murder victim.”
“Anyone else?” he prodded.
“Of course.” I gave him a few examples by describing the gauntlet I’d run outside the theater to get to work tonight.
“How did the mad scientist expect you to collect a sample of Daemon’s semen?” Lopez demanded. “Wait. Never mind. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know.”
“And when Leischneudel and I came to work last night,” I said, “some guy dressed in a black cape jumped right into our path when we were trying to get into the theater and threatened to drink our blood. I might be able to identify him if I saw him again. His fangs didn’t fit so well—they kind of wobbled, and he had a bit of a drooling problem.”
“You’re making me really glad I deal with criminals instead of theatergoers,” Lopez said.
“These aren’t theatergoers,” I said. “They’re vamparazzi.”
“Whatzi?”
I explained the phrase, which he liked, and then I concluded, “I don’t think the odds are very good of being able to spot a crazy killer in that particular crowd.”
“You’ve got a point,” he said dryly. “All right, let’s talk instead about your safety. There are some rules I want you to follow until the killer is in custody.”
“You mean guidelines,” I said.
“No, these are rules, Esther. And if you break them, I promise you, we’ll have the worst fight we’ve ever had. Because I don’t want the investigating officers on this case to brief me about your death.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “Are we clear?”
He did not sound patient or soothing now. And, well, he had a point. So I said, “Yes. What are the rules?”
The list was pretty much what you’d expect. In addition to avoiding contact with Daemon when we weren’t onstage, I mustn’t go anywhere alone; I must be extremely cautious with vamparazzi, strangers, and mere acquaintances ; and I couldn’t let anyone into my apartment whom I hadn’t known since before I auditioned for The Vampyre. Lopez agreed that Leischneudel could be an exception to this rule, since the actor wasn’t a suspect and his insistence on escorting me to and from work each night dovetailed well with the “don’t go anywhere alone” rule.
Lopez also suggested, with obvious ambivalence, that I consider staying with Max for a while. “Just until the killer is arrested.”
I shook my head. “No, there’s no place for me to sleep there.”
“So bring a sleeping bag. His place is huge, isn’t it? You could probably have the whole top floor to yourself.”
“Ugh, no! I couldn’t possibly sleep up there. That’s where . . .” I froze and stopped speaking. For a moment, I stopped breathing.
“That’s where what?” Lopez prodded.
The third floor of Zadok’s Rare and Used Books, in the West Village, was where Hieronymus had lived. Max lived on the second floor and kept his laboratory in the basement. The bookstore was on the main floor.
Hieronymus had been Max’s apprentice. And we had killed him.
Well, Max had killed him, along with the help of an out-of-town mage named Lysander. But I had helped. A lot.
It had been necessary, and I didn’t regret it. Hieronymus had been malevolent, power-mad, and practically genocidal. I felt a little haunted by his death, but not sorry about it. I had also taken pains to make sure Lopez never knew what we had done. There was too much about it that he wouldn’t understand—too much that the legal system, of which he was a part, wouldn’t understand, either.
“What’s on the third floor of Max’s place?” he asked suspiciously.
Hieronymus’ third-floor living quarters were sparsely furnished, and there was a bed there. But I couldn’t sleep in a bedroom vacated by someone I had helped kill. I just couldn’t.
I also couldn’t explain the situation to Lopez. So I gave myself a mental shake and said simply, “I don’t want to impose on Max.”
“I don’t think he’d regard it as an impos—”
“I have three locks on my front door at home. I’ll use them all. I’ll keep all the windows locked, too. Leischneudel will search my place at night when he takes me home. And I’ll follow all your rules. Okay?”
“Call nine-one-one if there’s any trouble,” Lopez instructed. “Any trouble. And call my cell if anything at all seems a little odd or out of the ordinary to you.”
“Ever since opening night, things seem odd and—”
“I mean, if you think someone in the subway is staring at you, or if you see a stranger loitering outside your apartment, or if you hear a noise at night that’s probably just the building settling, call me. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I understand that. But there’s something I don’t understand,” I said. “Why were you briefed about this case?”
He was in the Organized Crime Control Bureau. Unless Angeline’s death was mob-related—and nothing Lopez had said to me indicated this—I didn’t understand why an OCCB detective would be involved in this investigation. Unless ...
I asked suddenly, “It is because of me? Because the cops know that you and I are ... friends?”
That wasn’t precisely the right word, but calling him my ex-almost-boyfriend seemed like a bit of a mouthful. And I supposed what was between us was indeed a kind of friendship.
“They didn’t know we’re . . . friends,” he said, obviously unable to think of a better word, either, for our strange relationship. “But when they briefed me, I disclosed. So hopefully they’ll keep in mind, when they question you, that I know you.”
“So if that’s not why, then why have you been briefed?”
“They called me after someone realized this murder could be related to the case I’m investigating,” he said carefully.
Still not seeing the potential organized crime angle, I asked, “Why do they think that?”
“There are some similarities. Such as where the body was found.” He shook his hair out of his eyes. It promptly fell back over them.
“Where was it found?”
He hesitated, then said, “Okay. This part’s bound to be in the news, too. The body was found underground.”