The Wages of Sin (Blood Brothers Vampire Series Book Two) (3 page)

Feels like a contract gig for some Hollywood big
shot, spending days and nights in a four-star hotel and always
being told to keep typing. Like I’ve finally got that book deal I
always wanted and my computer is sitting under the Sword of
Damocles. Woe for those writers who fear mediocrity, who fear
rejection from New York publishing houses and literary magazines.
Let them show their work to a serial murderer each morning and pray
he laughs at each account of his own vile escapades. Let them write
about murders and robberies spanning a thousand years in which said
psychopath insists he participated and pretend with smiling faces
it’s all so plausible. Let them document the travels of this
bizarre and terrifying man, then see if they’re bothered when their
mothers think their next manuscript is ‘just so vulgar.’

Fuck them and their prude mothers and petty
problems. Fuck that version of me from six months ago.

Me being me, I’m sure I’ve yet to acknowledge the
precariousness of my situation on the level a smarter person would.
I don’t know if I’ve got a real Jeff Dahmer locking me up here or
just some schmuck with a thirst for fame. My hunch leans in favor
of the latter, but better to err on the side of the former, better
for the book and potentially for my health if I write like I
believe.

Doubtless, if I keep my intake of Vitamin Walker
Black at the right level, I can stay productive and keep from
wallowing. So bottoms up.

I try not to wonder whether he’ll kill me when the
book is done, when the club opens and his name is in magazines and
newspapers all over the country and I have nothing left to offer
him. I give myself fifty-fifty.

Again, bottoms up.

On an evening in mid-December—an evening when,
unbeknownst to him, a terminally ill young woman was being moved
into the bourgeois prison cell opposite his own—a man by the name
of Jonathan Price wrote these words in his journal. The journal was
something he kept to himself, since he considered himself a man’s
man and was vaguely embarrassed at the decidedly feminine habit.
The way vampires hate journals, Jonathan’s choice to keep it to
himself may have saved his life, especially considering the secrets
held within.

Hearing commotion outside, he stuffed the journal
into his desk drawer and made like he had been doing something
productive. A minute later, the door opened.

“Tyr, Jonathan. Jonathan, Tyr.”

Jonathan stood up and offered his
hand. Up until now he’d had his doubts as to whether Tyr was even a
real person. He appeared in most of Loki’s stories and had
allegedly been estranged since
The Great
Train Robbery of 1986
—what everybody else
called
The Amtrak
Massacre
.

Tyr shook Jonathan’s hand with what Jonathan took to
be an expression of quiet hatred, the way one looks at a dog turd
on his living room floor. To Loki, whose powers of observation were
stronger, the expression was a confused and apprehensive one.

“Jonathan is writing our story,” Loki told Tyr.
“When the club opens, we’re going to put out a book, get our
pictures on every magazine and news station. He’s gonna make us
rockstars.”

Tyr looked at Jonathan the way Jonathan looked at
obnoxious drunks before slugging them in the face. Jonathan gave a
goofy smile.

“Loki. This is… This is irresponsible. Can’t you see
how irresponsible this is?”

“I didn’t kill your girlfriend; don’t you kill my
dream.”

Jonathan was less comfortable than usual. Loki
talked of murder when he told stories, but the casual intonation of
‘I didn’t kill your girlfriend’ in combination with a blank look
from Tyr felt a little more real than the story of an Old West
massacre told in the first person by a man who couldn’t have been
much older than thirty.

“I’ll leave you two to get to know each other,” said
Loki.

Jonathan took a drink, edgier now than he had been a
moment ago in the presence of the frightening stranger who’d taken
an instant dislike to him.

“So how the fuck are you?” Jonathan asked, trying to
be friendly.

Tyr poured himself a drink. “I’ve been better. How
long have you known my Brother?”

He and Jonathan took seats opposite each other and
talked. It was to be the closest thing to a conversation between
friends the two would have.

Add Ammonium Hydroxide to Nitrobenzene and Allyl
Sulphide (but wear gloves and a mask when you do it), mix it with
Sodium Hydroxide and Trichloroethane and you get what vampires call
Holy Water. This turns vampiric skin into a bubbling, gooey mess
faster than any flamethrower—but keep your distance because it’s
not doing you any favors either.

Now take a drop or two and dilute it with LSD and
phencyclidine and you get a little thing called Liquid Christ. It’s
not easy to get a good buzz with a vampiric blood flow, so a
vampire has to go balls to the wall if he wants his reality
enhanced.

If you want Loki’s patented variation on Liquid
Christ, a little amalgamation by the name of Black Jesus, blend
Liquid Christ with black tar heroin. For best effects, snort one
line of coke with each nostril beforehand and chase it with a
bottle of absinthe.

Now you’re there. You’re where Loki and Thor were
the night they met Jonathan.

Liquid Christ will kill a human dead and isn’t
advisable for anyone outside of a few 1970’s rockstars, but
Jonathan had downed six shots of whiskey and eight beers and was
operating on a similarly blurred plane of existence. He was
medicating another rejected manuscript and consumed three beers
fewer than he would have in celebration had the novel been
accepted. Following his night of drinking, he had administered a
self-breathalyzer consisting of rapidly exhaling into his hand with
his mouth and inhaling through his nose. He deemed himself suitable
for highway travel and headed home in his Station Wagon.

Loki and Thor were blazing around the city in Thor’s
silver Rolls Royce coupe, smoking cigars with the windows down and
taking in the heat of the night. They drove as could be expected of
coked-out vampires, taking corners too sharply and skidding their
tires, running people off the road, and turning their headlights on
and off at opportune moments to frighten other drivers.

The pleasure cruise was short-lived before Thor
found himself driving next to Jonathan on a two-way road. He inched
in the direction of the Station Wagon to make his fellow late-night
driver nervous. This had little effect on Jonathan’s alcohol-warped
mind as his concentration was focused on the streetlights, blurring
slightly as he passed each one.

Thor closed the gap.

The distinct and unambiguous sound of colliding
vehicles rose in the night. Cracking fiberglass and thumping metal.
The bang of finely-crafted products demolishing one another. That
unmistakable sound as clear as pain, like an alarm to be sure the
world is aware that what is happening was not meant to happen. A
few sparks illuminated Loki’s malicious, laughing face through the
open passenger window. Thor pulled away from the Station Wagon,
opening the gap again.

Jonathan struggled for breath. He was in an
accident, which instinct told him was almost certainly his fault.
His self-breathalyzer had malfunctioned and he had nobody to sue
but himself.

He stepped on the brake pedal. The wheels on the
Station Wagon locked and the rubber burned. Tires screamed on the
asphalt skating rink like kittens in boiling water.

Thor pumped his brakes to stay behind the Station
Wagon as it spun out, doing his best to blind Jonathan with his
headlights and give the vampires a view of the silly human
scrambling anxiously for control, twisting his steering wheel
blindly in either direction, his face a mask of terror and
self-loathing.

The cars made contact again.

The Station Wagon spun faster, danced the dance of a
drunken preteen until one end caught the driver’s side of the Rolls
and sent it careening off the street. Loki lost his cigar out the
window, grabbing for it vainly as it went. The Station Wagon came
to a stop perpendicular to the two lanes of the road it filled.

Thor and Loki climbed out of the Rolls, which had
come to a less-than-gracious stop against a birch tree, and Loki
lit a new cigar.

“Nice driving, Sherlock,” he said to Thor, which
would have been an odd thing to say had they been sober.

Jonathan was gasping for breath, swearing profusely
and subconsciously. He tried to assess the situation, to come back
from the adrenal blackout. He was broke, new to town, unemployed,
did not have a publishing contract, and already had made the first
‘life’ mistake of his new Las Vegas life. He would be made to
either spend time in jail or pay a fine he couldn’t afford. His
out-of-state license was as good as gone.

A fist full of jewelry was knocking on the window
next to his head. The man from the other car. Shit. Were they all
right? What was next?

Get it together, Jon. Sort out the catastrophe
first, worry about the lifelong repercussions in a moment. Baby
steps.

Loki and Thor stepped back, having a guess what was
coming. Jonathan fumbled with the door, swung his feet out, and
looked up at his victims.

“Are you—” he began before his esophagus tightened.
A stew of bar food and partially digested alcohol formed a lagoon
around his shoes in two bursts, the first one short only in
comparison to the second.

“I’m sorry, was that a question?” Loki smiled around
his cigar.

“Is everyone all right?” Jonathan asked, coughing
and spitting up the rest of what had caught on his teeth.

“Everyone except her. What’s her name?”

“What? Who?”

“Your car.” Thor smiled.

“Huh?”

Loki laughed. “No fuckin’ name!” He was higher than
Thor.

“A car ought to have a name. Otherwise who cares if
she gets hurt? Who is she?”

Jonathan blinked. “Oh. No name. She’s a piece of
shit.” He forced a laugh.

“Well, she fucked up MacBeth.” Until now the Rolls
had never had a name.

“I… I’m sorry, uh… I have insurance.”

Loki reeled himself back to reality. “No, that’s no
good. We don’t deal with insurance. How much cash do you have on
you?”

Jonathan could feel the rest of his drinks coming
up. These weren’t men you wanted to run into in a dark alley, much
less a Station Wagon.

“I’m broke. I just moved here.”

Thor took a gun out of his jacket and trained it on
Jonathan. Time slowed.

“Give him your wallet anyway,” Thor said. His voice
sounded muffled and distant as Jonathan tried to keep from passing
out.

He dug into his pocket and fished out his wallet.
Loki flipped it open and looked at the driver’s license.

“Idaho,” he read aloud. “What brings you to Vegas,
hillbilly?”

“Uh… Writing?”

Loki’s eyes lit up. “No shit?”

“Uh… No. No shit. I mean, yeah. I mean…”

“I know what you mean. You mean you’re not shitting
me.”

“No. I mean, yeah, I’m not.”

“Stop talking. Who are you writing for?”

“Well, I’m not really. I’m looking for work just
doing freelance stuff.” He wanted to add that this was just
temporary until a publisher recognized his genius, but he set aside
his pride.

“You gonna write about us?” Loki asked.

“What? No. No, of course not. This was all my
fault.”

“Clearly,” said Thor.

“That’s not what I’m asking,” said Loki, pocketing
the wallet. “This isn’t worth writing about. This is a car wreck.
Happens every day. And a mugging. Happens every day also. People
wave guns at each other all the time in this city. This is mundane.
But I’ve got stories I could tell you, man, you wouldn’t
believe.”

“Tell me.” Jonathan would have said anything to
prolong his judgment. He wanted the gun pointed away from him, even
just for a minute while Loki spoke, only to be brought back up to
finish him off afterward. He wanted safety, even false safety, for
one more moment.

“Not right now,” Loki said. “Right now it’s your
story that’s important, because mine goes on regardless. Who would
be the first to notice if you disappeared tonight?”

The answer was Jewel, his girlfriend of two years.
They were living together in a cheap apartment and he could bet she
was waiting up for him right now. He didn’t want to think about
her. He didn’t want to think how he’d talked her into Las Vegas
against her will, how she hated the heat, how her life would be
empty if he didn’t come home. He didn’t want to think how they’d
abandoned their life in Idaho and started anew here with only each
other, how they’d already overdrawn their bank accounts in the
move. He didn’t want to think how if this was the end of him, she
was stuck in a town she hated, unemployed, in a shit apartment she
couldn’t afford. He didn’t want to think how she’d get evicted and
end up on the street, probably begging for money from gamblers and
asking sick men for shelter, getting abused or thrown out for not
sleeping with them.

He didn’t want to think how if he died quickly and
painlessly on an empty street, she would suffer for the next few
years, falling apart slowly with no one to turn to before something
killed her, be it a stranger she shouldn’t have trusted, suicide
through lack of hope, or the diabetes she couldn’t afford to
medicate anymore. He didn’t want to think about any of it.

All he could think about, maybe because of all the
pulp fiction he read, was the possibility that Loki was a sociopath
who got off on power, on destroying lives. Maybe that’s why he
didn’t beg, why he left Jewel out of it.

“Probably my apartment manager,” he said. “But he’d
just think I ducked out to avoid getting evicted.”