CHAPTER ELEVEN

Most days Kevin’s sire, Opal, was nearly his polar opposite: sweet and friendly and motherly. She had not been able to have children in life, so she loved her baby vampires with all her heart—a love that annoyed the hell out of Kevin, who did not hide his disdain at being mothered. Opal had shown interest in turning Zoë, but she had politely turned down the offer.

Opal, like Phil, didn’t seem to have the stereotypical vampire personality of angst and torment that Kevin so fully embodied. Zoë couldn’t imagine her hurting a fly. But as she descended the stairs, her fangs elongated and her eyes glowing red, Zoë took a step back to give her room.

“So you’ve heard what’s going on?” Zoë asked.

“Something is wrong with my son, that’s all I know,” Opal said, an edge to her usually soft voice. “He has done something bad, and he is angry and frightened and possibly in danger.”

Zoë nodded and told her the details. The vampire stood with her spine rigid and a frozen smile on her face. Zoë explained the evidence against Kevin and tried to ignore the tears leaking from Opal’s eyes. She stared at Zoë with an intensity that made Zoë twitch.

Freddie Who’s Always Ready was true to his name and had supplied Zoë with sandwiches—three of them—and Opal with a warm mug of blood. The kitchen of the B and B was not as homey as the house; it was more industrial, with white walls and steel appliances. Freddie confided in Zoë that he didn’t want Opal going into a bloody rage in the dining room littered with antiques, so he put them in the kitchen to talk.

“So we need to find Kevin, and fast,” Zoë concluded. “I figure if we find him before Public Works does we can find out what happened.”

“I’ll tell you what happened,” Opal said with a tense, brittle tone. “He has left me. He wants to go sire another, he wants to be his own vampire. My baby has left me.”

“I, uh, don’t think he sired anyone. Public Works thinks he just killed her.”

“That’s because I’ve never told him exactly how to do it,” Opal said. “That information is dangerous to give to a new vampire. Before you know it, they’re off turning their spouses or their best friends or someone they want to fuck.”

Zoë blanched at the word coming out of sweet Opal’s mouth.

“You don’t learn how to turn until you’re at least ten years old, and then only if you’re incredibly mature. I didn’t think Kevin would be ready until he was at least fifty. Regardless, he’s done with me.” Opal collapsed into the kitchen chair as if someone had cut her strings, holding her head in her hands and weeping.

Blood sloshed out of her mug and onto her lap, and she made no move to wipe it up. Zoë grabbed a dish towel and put it over the spreading stain. She fought the urge to grab the vampire by the shoulders and remind her that this had absolutely nothing to do with Opal, that Kevin was probably an asshole before she turned him. But she knew Opal wouldn’t listen. She tried a different tack.

“I think,” she said, hating herself for putting on the kid gloves, “that if you are with me when I find him, we can find out what happened and maybe convince him to come back with us. He hates me, Opal, he won’t listen to me. He will listen to you. He has to. He respects you.”

“Dregs from a mumblecrust,” Opal muttered.

Zoë was entirely flummoxed. “What?”

“That is what my generation calls bullshit. You know he doesn’t love me. He respects me because that’s what one does with a sire, but nothing else ties him to me. He couldn’t leave me in New York, but he sees New Orleans as his way to get free of me, this job, and everything else.”

“Whoa,” Zoë said, holding up her hand. “You’re not telling me he is quitting, are you?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. He wants nothing to do with either of us.”

Zoë closed her eyes, thinking of whether they could take up his slack with the remaining writers.

Oh sure, said that little sober part of her brain. Dude murdered a woman, has threatened you, but you don’t get up in arms till he threatens to quit? This job is seriously messing with your priorities.

Opal stood abruptly. “Let’s go. We’re losing the night.”

Zoë stepped back. “OK, do we want to bring Bertie along? Another person might—”

“No,” Opal interrupted her just as Bertie walked into the kitchen.

“What’s all the hubbub?” he asked, yawning. His brown hair was rumpled, and Zoë could have sworn he actually grew an inch or two as he stretched.

“Kevin’s apparently gone on a killing rampage and Public Works knows it, and Eir and Gwen are hunting a vengeance dog demon for killing a cat,” Zoë said, collapsing onto a kitchen chair. “Nothing new.”

“Oh, OK,” Bertie said. “Can you guys keep it down, then?”

Zoë groaned. “How can any of you get attached to other coterie if you just blow it off when one of you dies? If they find him, they will kill him. Uh, again.”

Opal’s jaw was clenched. “They will not. Not unless they want this town to bleed.”

The voice in Zoë’s head was very small. Bleed?

Now is not the time, she thought. Not with an angry, determined vampire in front of her.

“Bertie,” Zoë said, turning to the wyrm. “Can you help us find Kevin, or are you going back to bed?”

Bertie sighed and looked longingly at the kitchen door, then back at Zoë. “I don’t know, Zoë. It’s not in the job description.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Dude, if you knew the shit I’ve had to do that hasn’t been in the managing editor’s job description, you’d go back to New York without another word. A coworker is in trouble. We could use someone with your experience. And”—she added, wondering if she could play on his vanity—“someone with your wisdom. You’re one of the oldest here.” This was a lie, of course. Bertie was two hundred years old, only a baby to his race, but Eir and Gwen had to be at least two thousand years old each, and she didn’t know how old Opal was. But the point she was trying to make was that he was older and wiser than she.

He pursed his lips, but she could tell she had gotten to him. “You do know that if it was him, and he’s not on his way out of town, we have to turn him in or we are accomplices?”

“I’ve seen a few police shows in my time,” Zoë said, nodding.

“And if he has fed directly from a frightened person, he’s likely to be in bloodlust. Vampires in bloodlust are not great negotiators,” Bertie said.

Bloodlust? When Phil had fed from the deranged zoëtist attacking the city (after feeding on her milquetoast husband) he had managed to keep his cool, Zoë remembered. But perhaps he was a rare vampire.

“I didn’t know that,” she admitted. “But this is why we need you.”

“Of course we need a wyrm,” Opal said archly, rounding on Bertie. “Because who among us would be able to give advice about a vampire?”

“Can we not turn this into a pissing contest?” Zoë asked. “I need all the help I can get. And why the hell am I the only one apparently concerned about Kevin, who incidentally I loathe?”

Opal actually looked hurt at that, the stiffness leaving her spine and her dark eyes pleading with Zoë. “I am very concerned,” she said softly. “He’s my child. But you do understand we have to find him on my terms.”

“Actually, I don’t understand that at all. I thought we just needed to find him. But if you think we can find him on your terms, lead the way.”

“I don’t have a choice in this, do I?” Bertie asked, rolling up his sleeves. Zoë couldn’t keep herself from trying to see if he had scales, but still the only thing that betrayed him as coterie was pupils that seemed more snakelike than human. He said he could shape-shift, but she had never seen it.

She shrugged. “You could have a choice. But if Public Works finds him, then that means you have more work to do tomorrow. If you want Kevin here to pull his weight on the book, you will need to help us. Are you in?”

Bertie’s strange snake eyes stared into her own, and then he finally sighed and nodded. “He’ll be at Bourbon Street Terror. Let’s go.”

“What?” Zoë asked. “How do you know that?”

“He’ll be hungry. That’s the weird thing about vampires—feeding makes them want to eat more. Making deals with blood banks is the best thing that’s ever happened to them. Bloodlust doesn’t peak as much.”

Opal stood at the back door, arms crossed. “I wouldn’t talk, Bertie. Your eating habits are foul.”

Bertie stood up straighter. “I beg your pardon? I eat in private, and always clean up afterward.”

Zoë realized she didn’t know how, or what, the dragon ate, and got a bit uncomfortable.

“Let’s argue as we walk, OK?” Zoë said, pulling her coat back on and heading out the door.

Sounds of celebration and parties drifted from the French Quarter. Laughter, music, horns, cheers, the sounds of New Orleans. An hour earlier Zoë had been enjoying that. Well, in a drunk haze while running away from her problems, but enjoying it nonetheless. Zoë rubbed her arms against the slight chill and hurried to follow Opal and Bertie back into the French Quarter.

It was still difficult to maneuver through the drunken revelries, but Zoë found that her own buzz had left, thanks to adrenaline and shock, and she made her way with purpose, following the baby dragon.

“So do you think Kevin will be at this bar?” Zoë asked Opal, who leaned forward as she walked.

Three young men on a balcony, holding plastic hurricane glasses and draped with beads, catcalled to them, asking to see their tits. Opal didn’t even look up, but Bertie paused, faced the men, and lifted his shirt. His back was to Zoë, so she didn’t see what he showed them, but the drunken men went silent, stepping back from the balcony. It looked as if one of them started to cry.

Opal dragged Zoë’s attention back to her. “I don’t know where he will be. He’s never been the most compliant child,” Opal said. Her fangs were out, and she bared them when she spoke.

“So there’s no sort of bond between you two?” Zoë asked. She itched to take out her notepad to write this down, but she felt that would be bad form. “Like being able to find one another?”

Opal gave her a withering look as she shouldered her petite form past five people with white demon masks. One grumbled a warning and Zoë realized they weren’t wearing masks.

“There is no bond. Not like that. He is compelled to obey me, but he’s fought that since he was turned. I think perhaps now he’s severed it completely. My heart is breaking.”

She didn’t sound as if her heart was breaking. Her voice was sharp and focused, without any of the mothering tone Zoë had heard before.

Zoë picked up her pace to keep up with the angry vampire, and noticed Bertie had fallen behind to raise his shirt again, again with the effect of quieting the revelers. She ran into Opal’s back when the vampire abruptly stopped.

“Sorry,” she muttered. “Why are we stopping?”

“Bertie said Kevin was on Bourbon Street. We are here. Which way?” She looked both ways, nostrils flaring.

Bertie joined them then, ambling up the street. He had several strands of purple and red beads around his neck.

“That bachelorette party actually appreciated what I have to give,” he said as Zoë pointedly looked at his beads.

“Which way is the bar, Bertie?” Zoë said with forced calm.

“About two blocks. I’ll show you.”

Their progress was considerably slower now that Bertie was leading them, and Opal’s hands clenched and unclenched as they walked.

“Do, uh, do you have a plan?” Zoë asked. “We need to find out where he was and everything. See if he has an alibi.”

Bertie looked over his shoulder. “You don’t have a plan yourself? You seem to never have a plan. Don’t you think that’s dangerous?”

“I have a plan,” Opal said. “And, Zoë, I appreciate you giving him the benefit of the doubt, but do you really think he is innocent? He’s a vampire who’s been chafing at the bit of both his sire and his employer. I can sense he is out of control tonight. Of course he’s guilty.”

Zoë blanched. “Seriously? You’re sure? But—then why are we doing this? Why not just call Public Works?” Her hand went into her coat pocket for her phone, but Opal clamped her hand onto Zoë’s and squeezed. Zoë winced.

“Because if Public Works gets him, I won’t be able to.”

The vampire bar was disappointingly dull. Vampires had centuries to refine tastes, save up money, and build great things, and what did they have? A bar on Bourbon Street with the windows painted black and a big drop of blood in red over the black paint. This of course meant you could only see the symbol when up close, and it looked as if it had been painted by high school sophomores with the goal of decorating for the Halloween dance in a condemned house.

Perhaps that’s what they were going for, Zoë thought.

They walked into the bar, Opal first. She hissed at the bouncer, a small black teenage boy who thumbed through a copy of Rolling Stone as he sat on his stool. The boy snapped his head up and hissed back at Opal, and even though Zoë knew they could both rip her throat out without a thought, it was clearly only a display of tail feathers.

The boy let Opal through, but stuck his hand out after she walked past. Zoë ran into his arm, and then Bertie plowed into her. Although the bouncer appeared young and slight, his body had the ropy steel muscle that Zoë identified with vampires.

“Vampires only,” he said, with a heavy Southern accent. Then he looked thoughtful. “Unless you’re lunch,” he added.

“I’m with her,” Zoë said. She really didn’t want to lie and say that yes, she was lunch. She’d had bad experiences with that ruse before, and had nearly been dinner for an incubus.

Opal charged down the hall ahead of them, which was draped with bare lightbulbs and black cloth. The place was tacky. The hallway turned left and presumably opened up to a larger room, but Zoë couldn’t see around the corner. The earnest crooning of ABBA karaoke floated down the hall.

“Is that ‘Dancing Queen’?” Zoë asked, smiling.

“Yeah. And?” the boy said. He pushed her back out the door. “No humans. And no whatever he is.” The boy jerked his head toward Bertie.

Bertie drew himself up. “I am a wyrm, young man, and over two hundred years old.”

“Big deal,” the boy said, examining his fingernails. “I’ve got two hundred fifty.”

“Wow, who turned you so young?” Zoë couldn’t help asking.

“That is none of your goddamned business,” the boy said, frowning at her. “I don’t ask about your parents, do I?”

Zoë was about to tell him to go ahead, she didn’t know anything anyway, but Kevin interrupted her, barreling toward her down the hallway. He shoved the boy aside and pushed past Zoë with the force of a charging bull.

Zoë and Bertie shared an uncomfortable moment of being tangled together, and before they could right themselves, Opal went storming after Kevin and into the night.

Zoë and Bertie righted themselves and ran after the vampires, ignoring the outraged questions from the bouncer.

“Where?” Bertie asked. The street was full of revelers, but no vampires. There wasn’t even a sign of their passing.

Zoë had never seen a vampire in full sprint before. She had seen Phil attack humans and zombies, and knew he was a surprisingly quick and brutal fighter. But she had never seen them run.

It was clear that Zoë and Bertie had no chance to catch up to them.

Please, if there’s any way you can give me a hint as to which way the vampires went, I’d really appreciate it, she pleaded to the city silently, and felt a mental pull to the left. She could have been imagining it, like kids playing with a Ouija board, but she had nothing else to trust and Bertie wasn’t helping.

Honestly she didn’t know how she was supposed to prevent the vampires’ fighting. She couldn’t stop a truck from running down a hill; angry vampires didn’t seem much different.

Zoë crossed the street as quickly as she could to get into the flow of the crowd, Bertie on her heels. She had to jerk him away from lifting his shirt again to screaming groups of men and women. “Later,” she said through gritted teeth.

A thought struck her as she shouldered past a large, half-naked man. “Hey, vampires can’t fly, can they?” she asked Bertie.

“The very old ones can,” he said in an offhand manner. Zoë guessed it took some pretty impressive flying to impress a dragon.

“Kevin’s nowhere near very old,” Zoë said. “He’s like five or something. I don’t know how old Opal is.”

“Kevin would be old enough to run, though,” Bertie said. “We’re not going to catch them. You know, your sense of team leadership is illusionary at best.”

Zoë glared at him and turned down St. Philip Street on a hunch—or maybe guidance from the city. She didn’t know. After a few blocks she heard a howl and a thump.

“The train yard,” she said, and ran. Luckily she had seen it during her walk that day, and knew the most direct way there.

Again, it was painfully obvious that her body was a lumbering sack of organs and muscles and the others were fueled by magic or blood or something. Still, she was in shape, and she sprinted with Bertie grumbling behind her. Then Bertie was ahead of her. Still grumbling, but faster than she was.

“Sure, I’m a secret member of the almighty coterie, the hidden citytalker, powerful and sly. And I run like an ox.”

Another thump. “What are they doing up there?” she shouted to Bertie, who was outdistancing her.

“Fighting!” he shouted back. “Do you have a plan how to deal with this?”

“Why does everyone want to know if I have a plan! Jesus!” She honestly didn’t know what she could do. Threaten to fire them? Call Phil and put him on speakerphone? See if she could summon up one of those demon dogs to help her out?

The large warehouse buildings of the train yard sat at the edge of the Mississippi River, casting shadows on the gravel lot. Above them, a tangle of struggling limbs leaped into the sky.

“I seriously don’t have a plan to deal with this,” she whispered.

Opal flew Kevin higher and higher until they were a dark spot in the light-polluted night sky. “Oh man, she isn’t going to—”

Opal dropped him. Kevin fell, arms and legs flailing, reaching terminal velocity quickly. It took only a few seconds for him to reach the warehouse roof, where he slammed with a great boom that even cut over the noise of the parties up the street. Then Opal drifted downward, arms out, palms up, like a slowly falling angel.

“Baby vampires can’t fly,” Bertie said softly when Zoë caught up with him. They stood under the gutter of the warehouse, the tin roof beginning about ten feet above them. He leaped lightly and suddenly was gone.

Panting, Zoë stared at the roof where she had lost sight of most of her writers. She stood there, dumbly, and watched Bertie wave at her over the edge.

“What’s going on now?” Zoë asked.

Bertie leaned over the edge. He grinned at her. “Can’t get up here, can you?”

Zoë looked around for a ladder to prove him wrong, and then made a face up at him. “No, smartass. What’s happening?”

“This is why you’re not a leader,” he said conversationally as he leaned over and held his hand down.

“There’s no way you can leverage me up there,” Zoë said, but took his hand anyway. With a yank that nearly removed her arm at the socket, Bertie pulled her up to the roof.

“And you forget, I’m not human,” he said.

“Yeah, yeah, you’re so smart and old and strong. All hail the baby dragon. Is that enough thanks for you?” she said.

“It’s getting there.”

Despite his fall, Kevin was still alive. He and Opal struggled like Irish wrestlers, wrapped around each other, each trying to get the upper hand. Finally Opal lifted him as if he were a sack of flour and threw him—in the direction of Zoë and Bertie.

“Oh God,” Zoë said, and ducked. Bertie slid out of the way immediately, but Kevin’s foot caught Zoë in the back of the head and knocked her down, where she rolled toward the edge of the warehouse. Woozy from the hit, she tried to slow her progress, trying to gain purchase on the tin roof. Her feet slid over the edge, but she finally slowed enough to grab on to the edge to stop herself.

She panted for a moment, trying to get her wits about her, and only too late realized she didn’t know where Kevin had landed. But by then he had already grabbed her leg and yanked her off the building.

CHAPTER 13

Dining

STRIP CLUBS

EXCERPT FROM THE UPCOMING BOOK TROILUS’S EATS, NEW ORLEANS RESTAURANT GUIDE

Hers N’ His: A Bourbon Street Speakeasy

There is a reason New Orleans is consistently rated one of the best places for incubi and succubi to eat, and that reason is Bourbon Street. Not only can the succubi feed by simply answering the call of “Show your tits!” but some of the more exclusive sex clubs cater to a wide variety of human tastes. While Hers N’ His is a members-only club, visiting incubi and succubi can get a night of dining (or “work” as the humans would call it) by calling and asking for the Tree Man. (A woodland spirit, he’s called that because of his massive size.)

As with most speakeasies, any prostitution in the back room is illegal and hidden and under a strict no-tell policy. Public Works knows of all the clubs in New Orleans, but turns the other way unless someone gets hurt. So, as with usual encounters, know when to stop.