Death Blows: The Bloodhound Files-2 (25 page)

“That’ll be fine.”

The Hunter’s Lodge is one of those thatched-roof long-house affairs, with more torch lighting, a bamboo and rattan bar, and lots of wicker seating for lounging around on and fanning yourself with your pith helmet. We get a couple of beers from the bar and sit down, Charlie picking a very solidlooking wingback chair made from oak.

I glance around the room. Almost exclusively thropes, most already in half-were form and gesturing excitedly to one another in sign language, but there are a few pires here, too—I’m getting better and better at spotting the difference at first sight. It’s a combination of things: subliminal cues like posture or gestures, more overt signals like paleness of skin or thickness of hair. And of course, the size of incisors versus canines.

There are even a pair of lems present, both the obsidian color that identifies enforcers. They study us from across the room with flat, evaluating stares, but don’t approach us. Just as well—we don’t need any extra attention. I wonder who they are, though; a couple of cops from the big city, maybe, trying to fuel the needs of the Kodiak engine growling deep inside the black sand of their bodies? Plasticskinned army men on leave, trying to scratch an itch that push-button warfare doesn’t satisfy, feeding a ghost hunger haunting a belly packed with dirt?

“Snipers,” Charlie says, noticing who I’m looking at. “They work for the reserve. Their job is to throw a slug into any ‘uncooperative’ animal’s brain.”

I frown and take a swig of my beer. It tastes coppery, and I quickly spit it back into my glass. Really should know better by now than to sample anything without checking the ingredients first. “I thought the whole idea was to give the customers a firsthand experience.”

Charlie grunts. “Yeah, well, that’s what they
think
they want. Up close and personal, sometimes they have a change of heart. In that case, someone has to take care of the pissed-off twelve-hundred-pound Cape buffalo with claw marks on its ass.”

“Isn’t that what the guide is for?”

“In most cases. Sometimes they need backup—they hunt some pretty big game here.”

I have a sudden flash of a group of thropes lugging a step-ladder while chasing a giraffe. “Shut up, brain,” I mutter.

“Excuse me?” Cassius says.

“Nothing.”

We sit and pretend to enjoy our overpriced drinks, though I don’t actually consume any of mine. After half an hour or so, a tall, regal-looking black woman marches into the bar, a less-than-happy look on her face. She spots us and strides over, and I take the few seconds before she arrives to give her a quick once-over: Her skin is lighter than I expected, her hair cropped short over a wide but attractive face. She’s dressed in tan cargo shorts and a matching shirt tied in a knot at her chest, her feet bare.

She stops and glares down at Cassius. “Mr. Burnwell, hmm? You’re here to either tell me I’m finally going to get the backing I need, or deport me. Which is it?” Her English is elegant, shaded with a touch of Dutch Afrikaans.

“Neither. Have you heard about the Brigade?”

It turns out she hasn’t. She sits down and joins us, and Cassius fills her in.

“Good Lord,” she murmurs when he’s done. “Saladin
and
Lucy? It’s hard to believe.”

“I thought I’d come down and warn you myself,” Cassius says. “I understand you’re not exactly in the loop these days.”

She glances at him sharply. “Not in favor, you mean. I know how I’m regarded in Washington. And a phone call would have done just as well, David—except you can’t actually see what I’m up to that way, can you?”

“No. And you’re right—I
am
checking up on you. So far, all the evidence points to the killer being someone that knows our secrets.”

“In that case, I should think
you’re
the prime suspect.” She turns and addresses me for the first time.

“And who are you? It’s not like David to bring his human playmates into the field.”

I’m not surprised the pheromone didn’t fool her. “I’m Special Agent Jace Valchek, Cath—or do you prefer Your Highness?”

“I prefer to be left alone while I’m working, Ms. Valchek. While I do appreciate the heads-up, I was in the middle of tracking an injured wildebeest when you interrupted my night, and I’d really like to finish it off before it suffers any further.” She gets to her feet. Even without shoes, she must stand six-four.

“I’ve got a few questions for you first,” I say. “And royalty or not, you’re going to answer them.”

“I see. And if I decline?”

“Then you can find another country to be exiled to. You’re a guest here, Ms. Shaka; play nice and so will we.”

By the look on her face, she’s more amused than offended. “Your kitten has claws,” she tells Cassius.

“All right, then—what do you wish to know?”

I question her about her whereabouts during the two murders, and she provides me with answers: She was here, working. There are hidden security cameras all over the reserve, so it should be fairly easy to confirm her alibi. She agrees to take me to the monitoring station to check the recordings for the last few days—they keep everything indefinitely, using the data to help track the movements and behaviors of the animals.

Cassius tells me he’ll wait for me in the lodge. I shouldn’t be surprised; he’s simply adapted his strategy to how he thinks I’m going to act ahead of time. I tell Charlie to stay put, too, just to keep Cassius honest.

We walk along a wood-chip-strewn path lit by flickering torches, foliage rustling softly on either side. It’s hard to believe I’m still in North America—guess their shamans know what they’re doing. From the number of guests, I’d say they can afford the best.

“So,” Shaka says. “Is this the part where just we girls talk?”

“Huh? Ah, actually, I’ve never been very good at the whole girl-talk thing. Not my style.”

“Nor mine. I sense something different about you—other than that scent you wear to mask your humanity.”

“I’m not from around here. ‘Here’ being reality as you know it.”

“Ah. A crossover. Cassius always was willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get what he wanted.”

I’m getting a little tired of the whole
ooh, you’re Cassius’s latest blood babe
thing. “What he wanted in this case was a specialist. I hunt maniacs—you know, that condition that thropes and pires don’t suffer from? Oh, wait—that’s not true anymore, is it?”

She ignores the jab. “A hunter of the mad. Interesting. I’ve had to put down animals that have been infected with rabies—I’ve even encountered a mystical strain that infects lycanthropes, though it’s rare. I can’t imagine how you could track an intelligent being afflicted with such a condition—wouldn’t its actions be almost entirely random?”

“Only in the most severe cases. I deal largely with those with some ability to conceal their disease.”

She smiles. “The half-mad, then. Does their madness make them easier or harder to catch?”

I find myself starting to like this woman—she asks good questions. “Both. They tend to have a very distorted worldview, which can make their logic hard to follow—but if you can manage it, it sometimes leads you right to them.”

“That’s the secret of successfully tracking any prey—learn to think like them. Know what drives them and you can arrive at their destination before they do.”

“Thinking like a psychopath I can manage; where I come from, there are plenty of examples to study. Vampires, werewolves, and golems, though—not so much.”

“This place must seem very alien to you.”

“Yes and no. Mostly, it’s very similar—cars drive down streets, people walk down sidewalks, shopping malls throttle suburbs. It’s the little things that throw me off—the toothbrushes with multiple attachments, the candy bars with flavors like mutton.”

“The loss of the familiar is a price all exiles must pay,” she says. “I remember when I first came to this country thinking how strange everything smelled. But as time goes on, it’s what I
don’t
smell that I miss. The sweetness of the flowers that grew on the riverbank near my village; the rich, spicy stew my mother used to make. Sometimes I think I would give up everything I’ve worked for, everything I care about, just to have those scents fill my nostrils again.”

I sigh. “Butterscotch pudding.”

She smiles. “A childhood treat?”

“An adult vice. I’m not even sure where butterscotch comes from—about all I know is it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with actual butter or scotch. And you don’t seem to have it here.”

She chuckles, and manages to make it sound sad. “I hope one day you will get your butterscotch pudding, Jace Valchek. If I ever hear of such a thing, I will be sure to let you know.”

We reach another building with a thatched roof, though the door seems a lot sturdier than the lounge’s.

“This is the security center,” she says. “Though the door shouldn’t be ajar—I must have a word with T’Kwele—”

Her voice is casual, but she puts one hand on my chest and stops me dead. She makes eye contact, flicks a glance at the door and puts a finger to her lips.

And then she dives into a nearby bush and is gone.

I blink. If I hadn’t been watching her, I wouldn’t have known where she went—she made almost no noise at all. What’s going on here? Is she going to teach this T’Kwele a lesson about lax security? Am I supposed to walk in, or just stand here until something happens?

No. The look in her eyes was serious. She’s operating on instinct, and that instinct told her something was wrong. And I’ll bet her instincts are very, very sharp . . .

I draw my scythes as quietly as I can. Though I can hear distant voices and laughter, there’s no one in this part of the compound. Not that I can see, anyway.

That doesn’t last. The door to the security building opens and half a dozen pires spill out. In this case, identifying them as hemovores isn’t difficult; each of them has oversize fangs, a high widow’s peak of slicked-back dark hair, and a face white with makeup. They’re all dressed identically, in knee-length black dusters with high collars lined in red satin.

Great. Now I have to deal with Lugosis . . .

FOURTEEN

Let me tell you a little about Bela Lugosi.

Lugosi was a Hungarian actor born near the end of the nineteenth century. He came to America in the 1920s and worked in both films and theater, starring in a Broadway play called
Dracula
that became a big hit; the movie that followed made him a star. That much is true in my world and this one, but that’s about it.

See, in this world
Dracula
was a very different thing. It was still a work of fiction, but in a world of vampires and werewolves, it was more of a murder mystery than a horror novel. Dracula himself comes across more like a criminal mastermind out for world conquest than a bogeyman—still a monster, but one easier to identify with. For the pire readers, anyway.

The book wasn’t nearly as successful, either—not until Bram Stoker stalked and murdered several pire hookers in London’s Whitechapel district. Being a writer, he couldn’t resist bragging about his deeds in print, sending letters to the local press—unfortunately for him, someone recognized his prose style and he was arrested. And hanged.

The fact that the murders had been committed by a human set off riots, with over two hundred human deaths before it was over. The novel catapulted to instant fame, and the serial-killer thriller genre was born.

The Bela of this world’s portrayal of the old neckbiter was memorable for two reasons: first, the sheer physicality he brought to the role—he played him as a combination of Errol Flynn and Jimmy Cagney, with a little Bogart thrown in.

Second, Bela himself started off human. He became a pire in order to get the part.

I shouldn’t be shocked at that. The list of things a hungry actor will do for even a small part, let alone a starring role, is long and humiliating. And all the obvious jokes about Hollywood bloodsuckers, immortality and the lack of anything like a soul are there, too. But I still find it horrifying—to give up your humanity, to change the basic nature of what you are, in return for success? I can’t imagine doing that, despite the joke I made to Cassius.

But Bela could, and did. And though his career had its ups and downs—particularly during the 1940s and 1950s when musicals were big—he never acquired the painkiller habit that sidelined him in my world. Vampires don’t get sciatica.

Still, his star had faded by the time the 1960s rolled around, and he spent most of the next two decades playing forgettable mob bosses in crime pictures. Until 1981, and a little film called
Raiders of the Lost
Ark
.

I won’t go into the differences between that film and the one I know—the important thing is that it relaunched Bela’s career, and made him the go-to guy for cynical, flawed heroes who preferred to solve their problems with a slug to the jaw and a fast getaway vehicle. Over the years he’s played parts that in my reality went to Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Bruce Willis—he’s terrific in the first few
Die Hard
movies. There’s even a series of updated
Dracula
films where he plays the count as a kind of superpowered antihero, and it’s these films that his most hardcore fans adore. They dress like him, wear the same kind of fang extensions he does, even try to talk like him; Bela never did lose that Hungarian accent.

And now I’m staring down a group of these wannabes.

This is a lot more dangerous than it sounds. Lugosis tend to be Eastern Europeans who have survived genocidal wars, and their attitude toward anyone who isn’t one of them ranges from contemptuous to predatory. They’ve been known to kill people as the punch line to a joke—the same sort of deadpan one-liners that Lugosi utters after setting someone on fire and throwing them off a building.

“Vell, vell, vell,” the leader says. He’s virtually indistinguishable from the rest of them, other than the fact that the medal hanging off the red ribbon around his neck is a little bigger than the others. “Vere’s your friend, little thrope?”

“You tell me,” I say. “All those little TVs in the room you just came out of? That’s not cable.”