He blew on her neck, his warm breath enlivening
the dried sweat there, making her stir. "Shouldn't we work through those things,
though?"
He could feel her smiling against his hand.
"I love you, Rueg," she said, “but you always think before you
speak."
"Meaning?"
She placed her hand on his thigh, drew little
circles on his firm pale skin.
"Some things you should
let lie.”
Knocking came from the door.
“Come in,” Ruegger said.
"Lord Kharker is preparing for tonight's
Hunt," Gavin said, popping his head in. "He invites you to join him.
If that’s satisfactory, he asks that you meet him in the Elephant Room in
fifteen minutes." Without waiting for a response, he bowed his head and
withdrew, shutting the door behind him.
"Jesus," said Danielle.
"One moral dilemma after another."
"Shall we go?"
"If we do ... we won't kill them,
okay?"
"Of course."
"But?"
When he didn't answer,
she nodded sadly. "Yeah, I know... He'll kill them anyway, won't he? Maybe
not tonight, but they'll be Hunt-fodder eventually."
"Yes."
"That fucking
bastard.
That arrogant fucking bastard.
He really thinks he's
better than they are, doesn't he?"
“He thinks it’s the natural order of things.”
She rose from the bed, naked, lit a cigarette
and started pacing the room, wrestling with herself. Ruegger hated putting her
in this situation and knew that speaking his own mind would only exasperate
her.
"Remember our pact? Remember the
Marshals?" she asked. "To fight evil where we could ... and let's not
get into that there's-no-such-thing-as-evil argument. But let's say this: if there
is such a thing, Kharker embodies it. Would you agree?"
He closed his eyes. "We're not going to
kill Kharker."
"But wouldn't that be the right thing to
do? Kill him now and he'll never hurt anyone again."
"Morally speaking, I guess that's a gray
area. But even if we wanted to ... to kill him ... we wouldn't be able to.
Kharker's too strong, and he's got Gavin and the rest of them."
"And you love him, don't you?"
"
Dani
..."
"Don't
Dani
me,
goddamnit! Not when you're protecting someone like him. There's no fucking gray
area about that!"
He didn't know what to say, so he lit a Red and
slipped on a pair of black jeans. She turned away from him, and he knew that
she was crying, if only on the inside.
"Fine," he said. "I love you. I
love him. You're probably the only two people alive I can say that about, except
maybe Amelia, if Hauswell was telling the truth. Now I'm not going to see
anyone I love get hurt, and I don't like it that you're using my feelings for
you to get me to kill him."
"I'm not trying to manipulate you, Rueg,"
she told him, still turned away from him, her arms folded stiffly across her
chest, the point of her cigarette sticking out from beyond a shoulder.
"But he's a jackal, no matter how loveable he might be."
She stabbed her cigarette out and began to
dress. There were no tears in her eyes, and Ruegger wondered sadly if maybe he
was rubbing off on her. When she was dressed, she walked over to him and embraced
him. He could feel her tremble a little against him and wondered if she could
feel him doing the same.
"Let's not fight anymore, okay?" she
said, her words muffled by his chest. "You're the only one I have in this
world. When we fight it's like I'm losing something. To tell you the truth,
Rueg, I just got a little seasick back there when I was yelling at you."
"Me, too.”
He stroked her oily
hair. Taking her face in his hands, he placed his hot forehead against hers,
their noses barely touching, their eyes staring into each other's, unblinking.
"I love you."
"I love you, too, damnit."
They found Kharker in front of the large,
blazing fireplace of the Elephant Room, a wreath of cigar smoke over his head.
He wore a fine dark bathrobe that had seen better days, and he was naked
beneath it, ready for the Hunt. Smiling when he saw the odd flock, he took an
expensive box down from the mantle over the fireplace and held it out to them.
"Please, take one," he said.
"Thanks," said Ruegger, lifting a
brown tube from the box and tearing through the plastic.
"Yeah," said Danielle, smelling hers.
Once she had it lit, she looked at Kharker and said, "Why do you do
this?"
Around his cigar, he said, "Tastes
good."
"No.
The Hunt."
"Same reason, dear.
Same
reason.
But don't worry your little dark head about it. I hate to see
you scowl. When I learned you were coming, I ordered in some good old-fashioned
murderers, especially for you—and Ruegger, of course, if those are still who he
decides to feed from."
She took a step back as if to get a better look
at Kharker, and Ruegger saw surprise on her face.
"No shit?" she said. "You did
that for me?"
Kharker chuckled, stepped forward and placed a
hand on her shoulder. "Don't look so shocked, my dear. I pride myself on
being a good host and I would never want any of my guests—you, least of all—to
feel uncomfortable. Now come, both of you, and let's go meet our victims."
Danielle hesitated. "No," she said, a
little unsure. "I'm glad you ... that you did this for me ... but still,
I'd rather not meet them first.
If that's okay with
you."
He nodded kindly. "Of course it is.
Ruegger?"
"Yes?"
Kharker cocked his head questioningly, ready to
go meet his prey. It was a friendly gesture, and Ruegger felt somewhat torn.
Like Kharker, he enjoyed meeting his victims, if for different reasons.
"No," the Darkling said. "I'll
stay with
Dani
."
The Great White Hunter turned his eyes up to the
heavens, as if to ask why. Ruegger knew he was trying to make light of it all,
but he also knew there was some hurt in Kharker's old, rough face.
"How will we tell the difference,"
asked Danielle, "between your prey and ours, the murderers?"
"Collars," said Kharker. "The
murderers will be wearing black collars around their necks." He bowed
informally. "Well, have fun, you two. I'll meet you back here when you're
done."
"Looking forward to it," said Ruegger,
gratified by the Hunter's chuckle but unnerved by the glance that Danielle shot
him.
When Kharker was gone, Danielle gave a little
self-deprecating laugh. "He is something, isn't he?"
Ruegger nodded. Smoking, he lost himself in
thought for a moment before she tugged his sleeve.
"Hmm?"
"Come on, baby," she said. "Let's
go outside. I'm hungry."
*
*
*
The
Hunt went well. The black-collared prey shot at Ruegger and Danielle, sliced
them with knives and even bit them, but the murderers were brought down
eventually, dying bloodily in the potent tangle of the jungle. Danielle glowed
as she drained her meals, while Ruegger got more enjoyment out of watching her
than from the meals themselves. Each vampire fed twice that night and after
feeding spent the remaining time scaring the surviving prey, sending them deep
into the forest to be recovered by Kharker's retrieval units.
When they finally returned to the main building,
it was an hour before dawn. Experiencing the wild rush of the kill, Ruegger and
Danielle showered together, making love with frenzied abandon as they washed
themselves of their victims' bloods. They shouted and screamed, gorging
themselves on each other until they were spent. Afterwards, they took turns
drying each other off, gently toweling the other's tender skin. Smiling,
holding hands, they threw on bathrobes, lit cigarettes and made their way into
the Elephant Room.
Lord Kharker stared out of a window, his eyes
turned to the windswept night beyond the glass. At the sound of the odd flock's
entrance, he swiveled, and it was instantly apparent by his furrowed brow that
something was wrong.
"What is it?" asked Ruegger.
"This morning, before you arrived,"
said the Hunter quietly, as if to
himself
. "I
noticed some of the mosquitoes flare up at sunrise, like little matches going
off all around me."
"You mean, they've been sucking the blood
of vampires," Danielle said after a moment.
"Or at
least shades that couldn't stand the sun."
Kharker nodded absently, his hands clasped
behind his back. "Something's out there," he said.
"In
the forest."
"It could be something else," Ruegger
said.
"A past guest, maybe.
Something."
"No," said the Hunter. "Any bug
that sucked on a past guest would have been vaporized by the sun long ago, if
the guest wasn't a werewolf. But that's not all. One of the retrieval units I
sent out tonight. They never came back." He returned to the window, stared
through his own reflection out into what waited beyond. "Something's out
there," he said.
Chapter 2
That
day, safe behind blackout curtains and in the warm embrace of Ruegger's arms,
Danielle dreamed of a night long ago, the night her foster brother Malcolm Verger
and Jason Locke and the rest of them had raped and tortured her. She could feel
their hands around her throat, squeezing and crushing as they thrust themselves
inside her, their savage grindings eased by the oil of her blood. They beat
her, smashing some of the bones in her face and her chest. Straight-razors
flew. They were cutting her deeply, in too many places to name, when suddenly,
emerging from the gutter, Junger and Jagoda appeared.
“It’s my turn, mon,” Junger said.
Gasping, Danielle awoke.
*
*
*
"What
is it?" Ruegger said, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.
"N-nothing," she said.
She wiped away a trickle of sweat from her
forehead with a trembling hand, kicked all the sheets off herself and sat up,
panting.
“Nothing?” he said.
His first instinct was to wrap his arms about
her, but he saw by her expression that the last thing she wanted was to be
touched. One strap of her silk slip had fallen off a shoulder, but he didn't
dare move to right it. Sitting up carefully, he reached for a pack of
cigarettes and offered it to her, but she waved it away, not looking at him.
After watching her expectantly for a while, waiting to be able to help her in
some way, he realized that she was completely oblivious to him. She stared
straight ahead, her eyes clear but glassy, and she seemed to be looking at
something within instead of without.
Unfortunately, it was not the first time he'd
seen her like this in the days following their departure from Las Vegas. Being crucified and made helpless
by Laslo had only seemed to reawaken her old nightmares about Malcolm Verger’s
gang raping her when she was a young girl. To give her time to think it
through, Ruegger used the head, washed his face, shaved and dressed. Danielle
appeared a little more collected now, although she still sat motionless on the
bed. He thought she might be on the verge of tears and found to his surprise
that he hoped that she was.
I don’t want
to rub off on her too much.
She didn't cry, though.
At long last, she shook her head, whispered the
word "Jesus" and climbed from bed. She slipped on a tight pair of
black jeans and a black T-shirt that revealed her midriff. For the first time
in a long while, Ruegger found the color black depressing. Perhaps, just
perhaps, it was time for a change.
She hugged him, but he thought it more
perfunctory than an honest display of affection.
"Baby," he said.
"Hmm?"
"I love you."
"I love you, too."
Normally, after their dusk rituals had been
performed, they would talk for some time or enjoy a while of companionable
silence, so he found it strange that the silence which followed her declaration
was tense and uncomfortable. He wanted to speak of it but couldn't find an
angle. Puzzled, he sat down on one corner of the bed and used the glowing butt
of his day's first cigarette to light a second, which gave him something to do.
Meanwhile, Danielle went to the window, raised
the blackout curtains and stared out at the young night and the boiling jungle
that was a part of it.
Gavin entered. Bowing formally, he bid the odd
flock good dusk and informed them that Kharker would be coming by in ten
minutes to escort them to breakfast. After Ruegger thanked him, he left.
"Hungry?" Ruegger asked Danielle, when
they were alone again. He knew it was a weak attempt at conversation but didn't
know what else to say.
At first he didn't think she would answer. She
was absorbed by the vision from the window and for a second Ruegger wondered if
she was trying to pinpoint the boogeyman that Kharker had been so afraid of the
previous night.
Finally, she gave a small nod and said,
"Yeah.
A little."
He smiled.
"Me, too.
I could eat a horse and its rider.
Its rider, most
especially."
She grinned, but he wasn't entirely sure why,
and that disturbed him as much as anything else.
When Ruegger had burned half of his third smoke,
Kharker came to the door, and the Darkling felt a tremendous wave of relief.
"Come, come," Kharker beckoned.
"I have a very special breakfast prepared for you."
Ruegger felt the warmth of the Hunter's
presence, but an old wariness rose up in him. There was something just a little
rotten behind Kharker's smile, or else Ruegger was imagining things—which he
hoped to be the truth. If he was seeing demons in every shadow, then perhaps
there was nothing wrong with Danielle at all. Perhaps everything would be okay.
Kharker stepped back from the doorway and waited
patiently for Ruegger and Danielle to join him. When they did, he said,
"Did you both have a good day's rest?"
"Yeah, sure," Danielle muttered.
Kharker shot a look at Ruegger, but he didn't
know what to say and shrugged instead.
"What's for breakfast?" he asked.
The Hunter grinned. "I remember how much
you used to love southern cooking—American southern, I mean—so I've prepared a
breakfast of biscuits and gravy and eggs. On the side will be refried beans,
salsa, corn tortillas, guacamole, spiced sausage and other goodies so you can
make your breakfast tacos."
"Sounds
delicious."
"Oh, it will be ... if you can keep your
mind on the food."
Danielle looked up at Kharker. "What do you
mean?"
Ruegger didn't like the amusement in his old
friend's face when the Hunter said, "When I learned you were coming, I
invited some guests that I think you will be very interested in seeing."
"Me?"
"Especially you, my
dear."
"I don't understand."
"You will, my dear. You will."
Ruegger performed a mental checklist of all the
pistols strapped to his body. There were three, he counted, which
seemed a small number
. Of course, guns wouldn't make much of
a difference here, he knew, and they made a very poor security blanket for him
to take heart in.
As the archway that led to the dining room loomed
closer, beads of sweat popped out on his forehead. He cast a glance at
Danielle, but her eyes were fixed firmly on the archway. Seeming to since his
appraisal, she turned her large black eyes his way, but they seemed flat and
far away to him, devoid of their usual warmth. He wanted to hold her hand, but
if action was to be required shortly, he needed his hands free.
Finally, they reached the archway, and Kharker
hung back a moment, allowing his guests to catch up. Ruegger began to reach for
a gun even before he could see what waited within the dining room, and by the
time he stood beneath the archway, he held a gleaming pistol in his hand.
Though the room wasn't quite as cavernous as
Kharker's main dining hall, it was by no means small, but anything Ruegger saw
of the room at first was due only to peripheral vision.
The first thing he noticed was Harry Lavaca.
Harry sat on the opposite side of the enormous breakfast table, a spoonful of
what looked like tortilla soup poised at his lips, his large brown eyes resting
on Ruegger and the Darkling's gun. Harry laid the spoon down and gave a weak
smile. It seemed apologetic.
To Harry's right, Cloire perched waspishly, her
hand on a bulbous .45, which lay next to her own bowl of soup. Her mouth hooked
in a mean smile, and her strange eyes lingered first on Ruegger, then longer on
Danielle.
To her right sat Kilian, who had pushed his bowl
of soup forward to indicate that he would not touch the stuff. His legs
crossed, he held a newspaper in his hands and seemed not the least bit
interested when the odd flock came into view.
Before Ruegger could really absorb the scene
before him, Danielle snatched the pistol from his hand and fired several loud
rounds into Kilian’s chest.
"You bastard," Danielle spat.
"You killed my pig."
He raised his paper so that his eyes could be
seen through the holes she’d created. He carefully folded the paper and sat it
down on the table.
"Do you how hard it is to get today's copy
of the
New York Times
in the fucking Congo?" he said. H glanced down
at his immaculate suit and fingered the blood-soaked bullet holes. "Danielle,
do you know what I'm going to do to you?"
"I can't wait to find out."
Cloire laid a hand on Kilian's, but he just
smiled. When his eyes turned back to Danielle, he said, his voice grave,
"I'm going to send you a bill."
Ruegger wasn't quite sure whether the man was
actually as sour as he seemed or if his humor was simply very
dry
. Either way, Ruegger placed a hand over Danielle's and
gently reclaimed his pistol. He chanced a look at Kharker and saw that beneath
the Hunter's straight face lurked mischief.
"What's this all about?" Ruegger said,
putting away the gun.
"Sit, sit," said Kharker. "Don't
worry, all will be on the table soon enough."
After Ruegger and Danielle were seated across from
Lavaca and the werewolves, a servant emerged from the kitchen and set two bowls
of the tortilla soup before them. Another placed one before the Hunter,
commanding all from the head of the table.
"Sorry to have started without you,"
Kharker said, "but my new guests were hungry."
Ruegger noticed Kilian's untouched appetizer but
made no comment. When he'd taken a bite of soup, he said, "Good."
"Thank you,” Kharker said. “I actually
imported two Hispanic cooks and one Texan just to prepare this meal for
you."
"You imported three chefs just to make some
soup and refried beans?"
Kharker shrugged. "For you, I spare no
expense."
Ruegger glanced sideways at Danielle to see if
she was enjoying her soup; though her hand guided spoonful after spoonful into
her mouth, her eyes never left Cloire's. Cloire, for her part, seemed to be
enjoying the attention.
"Where's Jean-Pierre?" Danielle asked.
Cloire smiled. "Still in Las Vegas, for all I know."
Danielle nodded, kept eating her soup.
Ruegger returned his attention to Lavaca,
finishing off the dregs from his bowl.
"How are you, Harry?"
“I've been worse," Harry said.
"Have they been treating you well?"
"We've been treating him just fine,"
Cloire answered. "We haven't fed from him and we haven't fucked with his
mind."
"So why'd you bring him here?"
Cloire smiled again, and Ruegger found that she
had an unpleasant smile.
"To serve as an eyewitness that
you would trust.
We found him by accident, but I think he'll turn out to
be useful."
"An eyewitness to
what?"
Danielle asked.
Lord Kharker cleared his throat. All eyes turned
to him. Smiling kindly and making an expansive gesture with his large hands,
the Hunter said, "Please, there is a time for everything. Let's wait for
the main course to begin this discussion."
"No," Ruegger said. "Let's do
this now."
He saw a flash of anger in his old friend's face
but didn't care. Kharker liked a dose of melodrama every now and then, and it
was a penchant that Ruegger wasn't willing to indulge at the moment. In fact,
it was a penchant that he was beginning to resent.
"I agree with Ruegger," said Kilian,
looking at his watch. "Let's get on with it already."
He bent down to an attaché case propped up
against his chair leg and hefted it onto the table. He popped the latches and
opened the case, but its contents faced him.
Ruegger leaned forward.
Kilian withdrew a Polaroid picture from the
attaché case and tossed it to Danielle.
"Recognize him?" Kilian asked.
She stared dumbly at the picture for a long
moment, uncomprehending. Then, slowly, she seemed to recognize what she was
looking at. As the light dawned, she threw the picture down on the table and placed
a hand to her temple.
"
Shit
."
Ruegger glanced down at the picture to see a
trim, middle-aged gentleman in a nice suit holding up a copy of yesterday's
New
York Times
to face the camera. In the background, Ruegger saw that the wall
behind the man seemed to be made of stone.
"Who is it?" Ruegger asked, thinking
that maybe he should comfort her but still unsure whether or not she would
permit him to put his arm around her.
Danielle shot out of her chair, knocking it to
the floor and breaking it unintentionally. Once up, though, she didn’t seem to
know what to do. She lit a cigarette and glared at the werewolves.