Demon Lord 3: Blue Star Priestess (34 page)

It didn’t take long before a six-foot-four bouncer opened the door.  He wore jeans, a black tee, and a leather jacket.  Little piggy eyes scanned the night for who
had knocked.  I angled myself to slide past him.  Standing at his back, facing away, I kicked and hit the back of his knee.  This brought his head a lot closer to mine.  Reaching over my own shoulder, I hooked his head and jumped, hanging onto him.  Gravity did the rest.  His chin went up, his head went backwards, and there was a loud crack.  I stood, supporting his dead weight.  I turned, picked up the body, and carried him in past a second bouncer.  I made a point of not extending my magical cover to the body.  This created the illusion it was floating midair, the heads lolling as if the neck were broken.  That last part was real. 

He looked at the floating body.  Before he could piss himself or run away, I drew one of the short swords strapped to my back and stabbed him in the heart.  I pulled out the sword and wiped it off between the legs of one of the body, leaving blood smeared denim behind.  I was in a long hallway with several side doors.  The one at the end of the hall would lead into the main part of the nightclub
.

I sheathed my sword, grabbed two ankles, and dragged my victims to the first door.  It turned out to be a store room: paper towels, bar towels, beer nuts, and assorted boxes.  I piled the bodies inside, having achieved my first goal in enemy territory: secure your line of retreat.
  Coming back, I might be moving fast and might not be cloaked.  Also, this was two less bruisers to hamper my fun.  On the plus side, there were also two more ghosts in the area.  The more people that died from here on out, the great the odds of saving the entire city.  According to my master plan.

Andrews, the club’s owner, is a human who deals on the side in information, selling out the preternatural community to the government and anyone with money.  He will only sell information to humans because he hates everything else.  The typical human asshole has caused a lot of deaths, but no one has wanted to draw government attention by pitching him in front of a bus.

I went straight on, almost to the club’s main room.  Through those doors, I heard industrial post-modern grunge rock.  A live band was playing.  The singer’s male voice was tortured and raspy.  I could feel the bass in my bones.  I opened a door on the left that said “office.”  People can be so helpful.  I found Andrew inside fucking an underage girl coked out of her mind.  I closed the door behind me, drew a sword, and dropped my
Demon Wing
spell. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Andrew
s yelled.

Andrew
s was dark-tanned with thick, short black hair and an everlasting five o’clock shadow on his face.  Pants around his ankles, he stood about my height, but skinner and female soft.  He pulled up his black khaki-style pants and zipped.   Half of his collarless, overly long, blue silk shirt hung out.  His eyes focused on through me, trying to see what I was.  Rumor had it he’d inherited the “sight” from a long-dead ancestor.

“You’re not welcome here, dragon.  Get out.” 
Yep, that proves it.

I looked at the girl in the corner sitting on the edge of his desk, and pitched my voice soft and high.  “Would your attentions not be put to better use on a camel?”  I couldn’t talk like myself.  I had to be something else.  And I couldn’t leave Andrews alive since he could see through my disguise. 

He said, “Where the hell are my men?  No one should be able to just walk in on me.  Never mind that now.  Leave before I kill you.”

I walked forward.  Andrews swept the girl behind him, sliding along the edge of the L-shaped desk until he sat in the middle, the girl falling to the floor at his feet.  Andrew’s arrogance was cracking at the advance of my sword.  The girl would have been sobbing in panic if she were too coked-out to care.  I smiled.

“Andrews, you little worm, you’re not fit to be human.  How awful to be as weak as you.”  I waved the sword, drawing his eyes to the tip.  I needed the practice acting fey so I stayed in character even though he know it was off.  “I come looking for knowledge.  Little do I care of your raping children, your deals with the slayers, your dabbling in black sorcery which leaves you with a very definitive stench by the way.  For all I care, you can welcome lust with open arms and make love to every single camel, goat, and pooch until your tiny testicles explode and lose all hydraulic pressure.” 

Man, I’m sounding fruit loops here.  Hopefully in a scary way.

Andrew shook in fear.  The acid tang thick in the small office.   I watched him gather his nerve, still his shakes.  He met my eyes and said, “How dare you speak to me this way?”

I put the edge of my sword to neck.  “I’ll give you information but not an apology.”

I pulled back the sword from Andrew’s neck and settled into his desk chair.

He stayed where he was, feeling superior because he could stare down on me.  Still, the fear lingered.  The girl sat on the floor, staring off into something only she could see.   The small clock on the desk was a crescent moon with a star inside.  Some papers I saw were in English and looked that looked produced by someone with MS going through withdraws.  The AK-47 under the desk looked dirty and in need of cleaning.  I felt sadness in my heart seeing an iconic work of art so neglected. 

I mentally patted the AK. 
Don’t worry, Honey, I’ll take you away from this terrible place.

I sheathed my weapon and picked up an opened bag of fried pig skins.  I nibbled delicately and used the crispy thing as a pointer.  “Invaders to our smoggy shores have taken a sweet young child whose blood come from dragons.” The scuzball’s eyes lit up at
sweet young child
, fantasies all but glazing his eyes. 

“How young?” he asked.

“You may have heard of her.  She is what you like, right?  New grass on the field, to employ a tender metaphor.”

“Such information has value,” he said.

“As it happens, I am obscenely wealthy, while you are just obscene.  Speak, human, and be rewarded as you cannot imagine.”

“I know who you mean.”  Andrew relaxed, calmed by the prospect of hard cash.  “They asked for supplies and a place to hold a captive.  My delivery personnel saw a child on one visit and reported it to me.”

“Where?”

“It’s bad business to burn clients.  If word gets around, I stand to lose.”

I leaned forward in the chair, and crunched the pig skin between my teeth.  I held up a finger as if to make a point and whispered.  “You know…?”

On reflex, Andrews copied my lean, coming closer to better hear.  I grabbed his shirt and slammed his face on the desk, and breaking his nose.  I threw him back in place and continued as if violence had never erupted. 

“What the fuck!”  He grabbed his nose as blood leaked down his chin.  I pulled out a drawer and found a heavy stapler.  Standing, I closed on him, slamming him across the face, breaking a few teeth.  Andrew screamed inarticulately while crying.  I pushed the stapler into his mouth, cutting off the sound.  “If you don’t tell me,” I said, “next, we’re going to be playing with scissors, and not in a good way.”  I paused.  “Oh, I hate myself, lowered to do such barbarism.  Someone might mistake me for human.  How sweet it would be to have a midnight tea, and tasty pussy to eat, but no, I have to sit here and act like the animal I see.  I will give you one last chance to appease my killing rage.”

I picked up the scissors and ate another piece of fried pig skin.

“Th-the address … in my phone.”  His tongue pushed blood and teeth out of his mouth without spiting.  “In the text, under Hamud, everything I have on them is in my safe, it’s yours.”

I smiled and put away the scissors. 
“Open it.”

He scurried to the mirror, pulled it away from the wall.  A recessed safe was there.  He opened the safe and moved aside.  I pulled him close,
emptied the bag of fried pig skin in his mouth, and stabbed Andrews in the eye with his crescent moon clock, killing him.

That’s for helping my enemies,
for smelling bad, for raping underage girls, and for abusing an AK-47.
 

The body fell in front of the coked-out girl who now had something new and interesting to stare at.

I took the folder I needed and the stacks of cash.  I stuck it all a brown paper bag from the trash.
 

I warmed my
Demon Wings
tattoo, and left with the AK-47 as promised.  The threshold had a protective barrier to allow only humans inside the club.  It shimmered slightly, a yellow-red, but didn’t stop me.  I was half human after all, and my magic was quite a bit stronger.
 
In the main room, the music pounded fiercely.  My spell made people move out of my way even if they didn’t really see me.  I grabbed a bottle of rum from behind the bar drank it while standing on top of the bar.  I tossed the empty against a bar mirror, shattering it.  Laughing, I drew both short swords and dropped my
Demon Wings
spell.  It took a few seconds for people to notice me.  Girls screamed.  The bartender went to grab my leg, but I lifted it and kicked him in the face.  I leaped off the table and started to carve up the dancers.  Fear fill the room, all I could smell.

I felt the tattoos on the back of my legs warm as my
Vampiric Speed
tattoo awoke.  In an hour, I’d the delayed price for using this power: crippling cramps so awful it not even alcohol would help.  I’d become fast as a pure-blood vampire.  In a blink of an eye, I was on the other side of the club, sitting down with a pair of spoiled cocksuckers, huge hats shoved far back on their heads, sleeveless shirts, and baggy pants that’s looked like they had diapers on underneath, diapers very full. 

I watched with them as people I’d darted past dropped to the ground with missing heads and arms, some cut clean in half.  The bodies made a path from where I’d been on the bar to where I was siting.  Before the cocksuckers could do anything, their arms went flying in the air.  Their screams briefly joined the rest in the room, who could not find the exit no matter how hard they tried.

Heads kept flying, as the club-crawlers begged God to save them.  None of them tried heroics, but died like sheep in a pen.

Weak, so weak.  You only care about others opinions and looking cool and now you will leave nice corpses behind
for funerals.

It didn’t take long before the room was qui
et.   I saved the DJ for last.

I returned to my vehicle and had Osamu drive to the address in the file, a warehouse with a for sale sign in front.  I had a bad feeling when I approached and found no guards outside, and no lights on the high, tiny windows.  I kicked in the front door and found signs of hasty packing.  There was a kid’s bowl half full of soggy cereal, but no kid.  

Damn, so close…

THIRTY-FIVE

“If people insist on dying they

 
might as well be useful doing it.”

                                      —Caine Deathwalker

The directions Gloria gave me over the phone led to a stone, steel, and glass
luxury high-rise on Hope Street.  I walked off the elevator, through a hallway, to a door left open for me.  I went in and closed the door.  The place was sizable enough for stadium football, well, almost, though that would have been hell on the golden oak floors.  The open blinds—mechanically and remote controlled—revealed a balcony where an orgy could have been held in comfort, with an incredible view of the downtown towers and the Hollywood Hills area.   The living room, dining room, and kitchen area was all open, no walls to block the view of the wrap around windows.  The kitchen was done in black lava stone, glass counters, and black and chrome appliances.  There was a breakfast bar with four stools, each of the seats made of clear plastic.  This was a place God might live in, if he could afford it.

“Incredible, isn’t it?” Gloria asked.

I turned toward her as she came out a door I assumed led to the master bedroom.  “You rented this just for me?  I’m flattered.”

“No, I own the building.  This particular penthouse is for state visits, when the European or Asian Court vampires come to visit.  I like to rub it in their faces how well we’re doing without benefit of their despotic rule.” 

Forget about rubbing salt into a wound, that’s what ground glass is for.

She thumbed over her shoulder in the direction she’d just come.  “Back there, in the master bedroom, is another entertainment center like the one out here, except I’ve moved in some extra desks, computers, holo screens, and plasma displays.  The system is tied into my son’s server network, without his knowledge of course. Through his system, we can piggyback into Lauphram’s War Room when a channel is opened.  My system here could hack Lauphram’s system directly, but not without getting noticed, though I’m still working on that.”

“You’re not afraid I’ll tell him?”

Gloria’s laugh filled the great space.  “Oh, I think he already assumes everybody on the

L.A. Council is trying all the time anyway.  It’s why his security upgrades are unrelenting.”

Yeah, the Old Man had firewalls on top of firewalls, and magical barriers besides.  For an ancient Atlantean, he’d gone ultramodern in his thinking in a big way.  That was evident in the fact that our clan took the castoffs of other demon clans, mixing every kind.  Strength through a diversity of skills, physical types, and magic systems.  This was why L.A. had first become Lauphram’s territory, and then an open city for preternatural kind.

I passed Gloria, and found my way to the nerve-center she’d set up in the master bedroom.  This was another sprawling space with wraparound glass and chrome windows and a balcony.   The bed was large enough for my entire harem.   Across from the foot of the bed were chairs, a table, and a couch.  The island of grouped furniture faced the electronics that Gloria had installed.

I went to that corner and sat in a desk with a series of computers slaved together.  From this station, I could run everything else. 
Hella convenient.
  I inputted all my recent data, and marked the various sites where I’d established spell circles.  They were in hard to find locations, with fifth dimensional complexity that meant only the Blue Star Priestess or her son could take one apart.  And they’d probably not bother. 

By themselves, each circle was fairly innocuous, traps invoked by murder, meant to capture the souls of the city’s dying as a fuel source.  The circles were necromantic, but—if you took the time to plot them on a plasma screen—you’d find that the points were collectively part of a bigger pattern that overlaid all of L.A. in a geomantic web: death magic fueling a city-wide protective barrier based on earth magic.  As I finished inputting the recent kills of my alter identity, the new circles invoked, more of the pattern on the big plasma screen appeared.

Gloria studied my work, then turned to me.  How many more of these circles do you need to set up?”

I thought of what the Poseidon’s Cup could do in enemy hands: tsunamis becoming tidal waves, pounding the coast, taking out our clan house, then L.A.—millions dying to feed the power of the blue star priestess’ soul gem.  All to make her a goddess, and crush Lauphram in revenge; a city for a city.

“About two hundred more.”  I yawned.  “I just hope we have time to finish.”

“You should get some rest, eat something, and stock up on ammo.  If you drive yourself into the ground, you’ll make critical mistakes.”

“Not sure I can afford the time.  All these disappearances I’m causing, Lauphram’s going to lump them in with enemy activity.  He’ll soon be deploying forces to try to stop me.  I can’t have him know what I’m doing.  I can’t risk anyone but you and me knowing.  Usually, only one person can keep a secret.”

She eased behind me, her hands kneading my shoulders.  I leaned my head back into the warm, soft valley of her tits.  She said, “True, but more than one person can set up these ritual points.  I myself am not unfamiliar with
murder for a good cause.  “I’ll do some of these for you.  Get a little sleep, then go see if Lauphram is onto our plan.  You being with him while some of the killing is going on should prevent any suspicion being thrown your way.”

“
I’ll go back to the clan house for a nap.  I want to check up on Izumi.  She might want a break from being me.”

“She’s a good friend.  You chose your followers well.  You have an eye for loyalty and beauty.”

I dug out my car keys and set them on the computer desk.  “They go to the Mercedes SLK200 in the underground parking garage.  Take good care of it; it’s a new toy.”

She reached past me for the keys, snatching them up.  “Is it fast?”

“Faster than a coked-out hooker looking for dick.”

“Which means what?”

“It’s more speed than you will ever need.”

“Sounds like overkill.”

“Well if you’d rather take a cab…”

She backed away, clutching my keys to her breasts.  “No, that’s all right.  What’s the use of having vampire mind control powers if you can’t get out of a few speeding tickets?”

I rose and turned.  “The disguise is in the trunk.  We need to make sure that anyone getting a glimpse of the “Occult Killer” as the news calls me, keeps describing an albino freak with silver hair and a fondness for gray leather and black capes.”  I smiled.  “I think I’m building a legend that will terrify the FBI profilers for years to come.”

Gloria moved toward the bedroom door.  “I’ve always wanted to be in the theatre.”

She left, and I wandered over to the bed’s night stand, curious about how Gloria might have stocked the place.  I opened a drawer and found six boxes of textured condoms with reservoir tips.  I appropriated them for my own use.  Rummaging, I turned up eatable, cherry flavored panties, nipple clamps, and a feather duster.  The next drawer down provided glass dildos, a vibrator, and   a two pound bag of sour gummy worms.   I was afraid to look any farther. 

Pulling out my phone, I called Izumi.  She picked up at once.  “Caine, you’re uh, it’s all over the news.  A madman is running loose in the streets.  A city under siege, film at eleven! 

When are you coming back?”

“Do you have a lock on my position?”

“Sure, the fey gem you gave me helps a lot.  It’s a part of you that seeks unity with the rest of you.”

“Bring me over now.”

“Hold on a second.”

A silver blur star unfurled from nothing, flattening out, stretching out into a six foot oval, three feet wide.  The portal was the color of sunlight glaring off of snow.  I stepped into the light, the boxes of condoms held against my stomach as gravity fell away.  I ghosted through fire and stepped back into gravity in the master bedroom of my suite in the clan house. 

The door opened with Izumi—no longer wearing my image—backpedaling.  “Really, everything’s fine.”

“I’d like to see for myself.”  The voice was Lauphram’s.  He pushed into the room in time to see the portal closing behind me.  I was glad I hadn’t returned wearing the storm-fey outfit.  I called out, “Hey, Old Man, nice of you to visit me in prison.  Of course, you’re the one who locked me up in here.”

His eyes watched the portal shrink and die.  “Doesn’t seem like you were too inconvenienced.  I thought I sensed a lot of fey energy in here.” 

I walked to the bed and made a show of dropping all six boxes of designer condoms onto the bed.  “I had to make a run.  I ran out.” 

Lauphram shook his head.  “Sometimes I wonder if your father really was human and not an incubus or satyr.”

“I blame it on my dragon side’s appetites.”

Lauphram leaned against the inner doorway.  “Red’s still here.  He’s been asking to see you.”

“Anything on Julia?” I asked.

“No, that’s what’s driving him crazy.  He keeps talking about going out in the street and ripping the city apart until he kinds her.”

Izumi came back to hang on my arm.  “If he loses control and goes dragon, he’ll endanger the preternatural community.  His own clan will outlaw him, or worse.”

“I’ll talk to him,” I said.

Lauphram straightened up and backed into the living room.  “Good, he’s just outside in the hallway.  Enjoy.”

Izumi followed me out into the living room and settled herself on the couch, tucking her feet under her.  Lauphram went to the door and opened it.  There’d been a change of shift.  I didn’t recognize the two demons standing guard in the hall.   Red stomped in past them, bearing down on me.  I sat on the back of the loveseat, one foot dangling in the air, the other on the floor. 

He stopped and leaned down, peering into my face.  “Caine, what the hell?  You’re in here getting your rocks off when Julia’s in danger?”

“I’m doing what I can,” I said.

“It’s not enough!”  He straightened.  “Are you really under arrest, or is this one of Lauphram’s strategies?”

I shook my head and shrugged.  “Like I’d know.”  I looked to see if Lauphram would answer that, but he’d conveniently exited, closing the hall door behind him.

“Come on, Caine, I’ll help you bust out of here, and we’ll go beat some answers out of these would-be conquerors.”

“That’s not a good idea, Red.  I’ve got plans going.  Operations in motion.  You just have to trust me.”

“Trust you?  You’re the one who lost her in the first place.”

That pissed me off.  “I seem to remember telling you both to stay under cover and out of the fighting.  You’re the one who went all glory-hound and wound up eating a rocket.”

He growled at me, a deep sound of menace, and shoved me in the shoulder so I flipped back onto the loveseat and rolled onto the floor. 

My dragon side roused, incensed.  His thoughts pushed into my mind like burning coals. 
A lowly red dares touch a golden dragon.  Clans have died for less.

I got this
, I told him.  I stepped onto the love seat, staring across its back at Red.  “You know, I see
you
here, but where’s your clan?  Who’s really ignoring her danger?” 

Red tried to say something but choked on his own words.  He clamped his mouth shut and stormed off, tearing the door open and shoving past the startled guards outside.  They closed the door, leaving me alone with Izumi.  I turned to face her and jumped to the floor.
  I sat on the loveseat, the proper way this time. 

Izumi smiled brightly at me.  “That went well.”

“Tell me about it.  I need a liter of vodka and a few hours of sleep.”

“And then?”

I thought about it.  “Then a lot more people need to die.”