“Black and Blonde” Part 3

The next night, he did something he had sworn he would never do. He went to see Raymond.

High on Hogg Hill, the midnight palace started rocking at sundown and didn’t stop until sunrise. A thirty-two room mansion built in the 1930s, it was half Black’s age and had seen twice as much action. The whores and junkies here were children of a higher tax bracket than the waterfront gang and none of them were smart enough to get paid for their services. Just being invited was honour enough. Some camped out for days, wasted beyond coherence, on animal skin rugs. Others dropped in occasionally, when the urge to submit grew unbearable. Once Raymond got his fangs into you, he became your god.

The Duster crapped out halfway up the hill and Black had to walk to the summit. He was passed a dozen times by expensive imports packed with air-brushed youth, a generation of latchkey kids set loose on the world in search of love and acceptance. There was an underground belief among mortals that vampires gave love as easily as they made it. Black knew better.

He accessed the property by scaling the wall of the lower garden. Only an hour past midnight, the party had already spilled from the main house and trickled downhill; the first casualties—a pair of naked, sweating males entangled at the base of the wall—were nearly interrupted when Black landed a foot from their bobbing heads. He skirted wide and picked his way toward the light, following the distant throb of bass and blood through box hedges and flower beds. Living statuary proved to be more party guests, couples and clusters of both genders engaged in drunken chatter between sloppy kisses and sloppier sex. Stronger than the sight and sound combined was the smell: a thick, syrupy blend of salt, earth and opium. The scent of blood hung like a scarlet mist in the swollen air. Black had bartered a pint from a wharfside derelict and knew it hadn’t been enough. If he got out of this unscathed, it would be a miracle.

He got as far as the swimming pool before he glimpsed his first vampire. They spotted each other at the same time. Black stopped in his tracks, ignoring the skinny dippers in the heated water. The vampire was a bouncer, assigned to keep everyone happy and toss out interlopers. Black didn’t know him.

He stood his ground as the bouncer prowled around the rim of the pool. The other’s look was intimidating, but Black was not impressed and let him see it. “Raymond around?” he asked when the chances of being overheard were slim.

“Who wants to know?”

“Tell him his grandson is here to see him.”

That earned a suspicious glower. Big goons like this one were prized even less for their senses of humour than their intelligence. “Wait here.”

Black shrugged agreeably. The scenery was pleasant enough; he rarely had opportunity to watch such sleek, pampered individuals in action. They were like dolphins, arcing and slicing through the water. One of the girls spied him lurking in the shadows and swam over. The subsurface light slid like a tongue along her nude body. “Hey, cutie, wanna play?”

Cutie? “I don’t play, sweetheart. I’m always dead serious.”

She laughed, more drunk than drugged from the sound of it. “I can be serious, too.”

“Sure you can.”

She brought up her knees and pushed herself back from the pool’s edge, showing off her perky breasts and long legs. Black walked away. “Hey!” she called after him. Anything more was strangled when a boy sneaked up from behind and ducked her head beneath the water. She reared up, sputtering, and turned on the boy with a shriek. He laughed but she was angry; how quickly mischief turned to menace. Soon the other swimmers were getting involved, taking sides, throwing punches.

“Party’s going awry,” Black advised the vampire posted at the terrace doors.

“I go in when blood is drawn,” the vampire said.

Black shook his head. The first goon returned without Raymond. Black prepared to argue dismissal, but the bouncer beckoned him inside the house.

The music was louder here. Conversely, the action was calmer. Candles burned: pillars and tapers and votives scented with herbs. Smoke from incense sticks wafted drowsily through the vaulted drawing room. Crystal bowls of tablets, capsules and powder were scattered across low tabletops within easy reach of the overstuffed loveseats. Bodies were strewn everywhere, draped over furniture and each other like a scene from a film subtitled in a Romance language. A few hardier souls were upright and slow dancing, chins propped on shoulders, arms loose around waists. Articles of designer clothing hung on lampshades and pooled in jewel colours on the floor. Black was overdressed and underdressed at the same time. Remarkable.

In the eye of this slow motion hurricane, a tall, thin vampire swayed in sensuous rhythm to the music, holding a half-naked male in his arms. They were kissing with tongues, but the vampire’s eyes were wide open and searching. When they found Black, the kiss ended. The boy slithered down the length of the vampire’s body and came to rest, unconscious, at his bare feet. Raymond stepped over him like one avoiding a crack in the sidewalk. He was dressed like the decadent lord he had been in life, swathed in a loose, lacy shirt and snug satin pants. His hair gleamed coal black in the flickering light.

“Well well well well well well well,” he drawled in a deep, rasping voice, sashaying Black’s way with a languid swing of lean hips. “If it isn’t a crasher from the wrong end of town. My parties are by invitation only, Ariel. How’d you get this far?”

“I came on foot.”

Raymond gave him a pitiful look. “Still driving the Duster? My, my. How practical of you. If only I could drive the same car for more than six months at a time.” He gestured with a pale, elegant hand at the languishing crowd around them. “Can I offer you someone?”

Black silently produced the photograph Tess had given him.

“Oh, someone specific,” Raymond remarked. He took the photo, studied it, handed it back. “He’s not one of mine. Sorry.”

“Do you know him?” Black asked.

“Are you deaf? I just said he’s not one of mine.”

“Yeah, but do you know him?”

Raymond snatched the photo back and gave it a dramatically close inspection. “It’s hard to tell with the shades, but he looks like one of the guys in a band I hired a couple of years ago. What’s his name? Trent? Trevor?”

“Travis.”

“Yeah, that’s him. Wicked bass player, can’t sing for toffee.”

“Couldn’t,” Black said.

Raymond’s brows rose. “Past tense? That’s interesting. Most of the immortals I know prefer their meat alive and kicking. Maybe you’ve spent too long in the stews.”

A wandering brunette stopped by to paw at Raymond’s groin; he dislodged her with a murmured obscenity that Black chose not to overhear. She pouted at Black, blaming him with sooty eyes, and stumbled into the mélange behind them. “It’s all relative,” Black said, coldly.

Raymond gave a good impression of drugged indifference, but his deep set black eyes glittered like a raven’s. “What do you want with a dead body?”

“Information. When did you hire the band?”

“A couple of New Year’s Eves ago. I tossed a charity bash at the Four Seasons. Don’t strain yourself to remember it; you weren’t invited.”

Black disliked the casual arrogance in Raymond’s manner. He disliked many things about Raymond, but on any occasion, one or two items were more prevalent than the others. “Have you seen him since?”

“No.”

“Do you know of anyone who has?”

“No.”

“Anyone who might have?”

“This is boring, Ariel. I’ve got one for you: does this have anything to do with the blonde who’s been on your tail of late?”

Black was so surprised that he almost took off his sunglasses.

Raymond smirked. “Oh, I know about her. Longer than you have, no doubt. Let me guess: she’s got the goods on you and you’re being forced to help her prove that her boyfriend wasn’t a coked-out loser who danced with death and lost. Oh, Ariel, you really are a babe in the forest.”

“How do you know about her?” Black demanded.

“It’s called self-preservation. If you were older and a little less … traditional, you might be more attuned yourself.” A redhead dropped by to grope him this time, and Raymond had to brush her off before he continued. “You should take her out before she gets you into trouble.”

“I can’t. Like you said, she’s got the goods on me.”

“So find the one who’s holding. She only thinks a vampire did her boy. There’s no proof.”

“How do you know so much?” Black asked suspiciously.

Raymond scowled. “You don’t listen to a damn thing I say. No wonder a peroxide tart with an expiry date was able to bust you. Listen up now: she’s got a vendetta, which makes her dangerous to more than just you. Think about us, Ariel. We’ve got to protect ourselves.”

Black scanned the smoky room, noting the lax limbs and glazed eyes of bodies sprawled like so many rag dolls. “Yeah,” he agreed, “but who’s going to protect them?”

“That’s not our problem,” Raymond reminded him. “We need them more than they need us. If we can seduce them, we can use them. Don’t be a victim, Ariel. Remember, we’re superior. Well, some of us are.” And he laughed.

Black gave Raymond a long, contemplative look. Bred in a time of utter decadence, Raymond had brought the extremes of historic hedonism to his immortality. Younger by some centuries, Black only looked older. How odd that he more often felt it.

 

to be continued ...