The Beast

SEVENTEEN

There was a great deal of math to be contemplated when one had an addiction.

As Assail took a seat behind the desk at his glass mansion, he pulled open the long thin drawer that was directly over his thighs and took out three vials that were identical to the one the Brother Vishous had emptied upon his own forearm back at the Brotherhood’s subterranean facility.

Math, math, math . . . mostly multiplication. As in, given the amount of cocaine he had, how long would he be able to keep the cravings at bay? Fourteen hours? Fifteen?

He opened up one of the little brown containers and poured its white powder out on the leather blotter. Using a Centurion American Express card, he made a pair of lines, leaned over them, and took care of his business. Then he sat back in his chair and snuffed everything into place.

Truly, he hated the dripping down the back of his throat. The burn in his sinuses. The bitter taste that bloomed in his mouth. And he most especially despised the fact that he didn’t really get high anymore. He merely experienced a temporary upswing on this horrible roller coaster he had set himself upon, said respite to inevitably be followed by a rushing crash—and then, if he did not attend to himself, the clawing, relentless grab of the cravings.

Glancing at the remaining two vials, he found it difficult to believe that he’d fallen into this pattern. The slip and fall had been both the work of a moment and a slow-motion tragedy. He had initially started using to keep himself alert, but what had begun as a habit of practicality now owned him sure as a master had dominion over a servant in the Old Country.

Fates, he had not intended this.

Had not intended rather a lot, of late.

Extending his arm, he woke up his laptop with a stroke on its touch pad, signed in using one hand even though there were capitals involved in his password, and accessed, via encrypted channels, his overseas account. The big one that was in Geneva.

He had several others.

So many digits and commas before the decimal point on the balance. And staring at the line up, he contemplated exactly how much money one needed—even assuming that as a vampire, he would live out ten human lifespans or more.

Assuming his little habit didn’t usher him off unto the Fade.

Or in his case, Dhund in all likelihood.

Surely he had enough by any practical standard, even in light of recent international finance crises . . . so did he truly have to deal in the drugs anymore? Then again, at the rate he was snorting powder up his nose, he was in danger of becoming his own best customer.

I need your help with the glymera.

As he considered Wrath’s proposal, he had to wonder how what the King wanted him to do was any better or worse than making money off the backs of humans and their need for chemical reinforcement. The royal endeavor was something to pass the time, surely. And if he wasn’t going to traffic in drugs, he needed to surmount the night hours somehow.

Otherwise he would go insane.

Mostly from missing that female of his. Who had not, in fact, ever been his own.

“Marisol,” he whispered into the air.

Why in the hell had he never taken a picture of her? When she had stayed here, in this very house, when he had protected her, with his very life, why hadn’t he picked up his phone, pointed it in her direction and snapped a shot? A mere moment of time, a split second, that was all that it required. But no, he had not done such a thing, and now, here he was, on the far side of the divide, with nothing left of her save that which was in his mind.

It was as if she had died. Except she was still on the planet.

In fact, she was down in Florida, where the ocean lapped at the sweet sand and the nights were a balmy mystery even in fucking October.

He knew exactly where she was, precisely where she stayed—because he had tracked her down there. Made sure that she had gotten to her destination with her grandmother safely. Pined for her from the shadows in the most pathetic manner possible.

But he had honored her request. He had let her go. Let her be free of him and this illegal lifestyle they had both participated in.

Cat burglars and drug dealers could co-exist.

A human woman who wanted to be on the correct side of the law and a vampire pusher addict could not.

With a groan, he put his face in his hands and called her to mind. Yes, oh, yes, he could remember her dark hair and her lithe body, her skin and her dark eyes with a certain clarity. But the passage of time . . . he worried he would forget some nuance at first and then ever larger and more significant details.

And the loss of that was a death by inches even as he continued to breathe.

“Enough,” he muttered as he dropped his arms and leaned back.

Refocusing on himself, he thought about what the King had laid out for him. It would be a change of endeavor, for certain. But he had enough money. He had enough time. And finding another network of middlemen dealers to farm out his product on the streets of Caldwell and Manhattan abruptly seemed too much like work.

Besides . . . having fought side by side with the Brotherhood? He found himself respecting those males. Respecting their leader, too.

It was quite the about-face for an otherwise avowed Libertarian—rather like an atheist considering the existence of God following a near-death experience.

Plus, he owed Vishous his life; that much he was sure of. As worthless as his existence was, he would not be sitting upon this chair, in this glass mansion on the Hudson River, feeding his cocaine habit, unless that Brother had thrown him over his shoulder and run like hell.

Twice.

Oh, that beast. Had he not seen it, he would ne’er have believed its existence.

Assail pushed his chair around with his foot such that he could peer out the windows to the river beyond. A subtle chiming rang from the corner of the room where an old French clock was placed. In the background, over in the rear part of the house, he could hear his cousins moving around in the kitchen.

When he decided to use his cell phone, all he had to do was reach into the pocket of his shredded leather jacket. He had neglected to remove the ruined outerwear even though his house was well-heated against the cold October night.

Then again, all he had cared to do when he had arrived back home was sequester himself in private so he could play catch-up with his little problem.

He could not abide doing lines in front of his cousins. Not that he had any intention of altering his behavior for anybody.

Summoning a number up out of his contacts, he hesitated before initiating the call. As his thumb hovered over the screen, he was acutely aware that if he followed through on this, he was going to become something he had always disdained.

An agent of the King.

Or more to the point . . . an agent of another.

With a strange feeling of dread, he gave into the impulse and put the device to his ear, listening to the ringing commence. In the end, he decided to give himself up to Wrath’s demand for the simple reason that it seemed like the only good thing he could do with himself.

A right thing.

A positive thing.

He was beginning to feel as if it were about time. And mayhap he was taking a page from his Marisol’s book because it was the only way he could be close to her now.

No more drug dealing for him.

Although what he was about to do might well prove to be just as dangerous. So at least he would not grow bored.

“Hello, darling,” he said when the call was answered by a female. “Yes, I do need to feed, thank you. Tonight would be preferable, yes. And I have missed you as well. Indeed, very much so.” He let her go on a bit as she took his lie and swallowed it whole. “Actually, at your main house, please. No, the cottage does not suit a male such as myself. I was willing to make the accommodation at first due to your hellren’s presence, but now that he has taken unto his bed, I find myself unable to make that concession any further. You understand.”

There was a long pause, but he knew that she would relent. “Thank you, nalla,” he intoned evenly. “I shall see you very soon—oh, be in something red. No panties. That is all.”

He hung up on her because she was a female who required schooling if one was to capture and hold her attention. Too easygoing? Too charming? She would lose interest, and that couldn’t happen until he had acquired what he needed from her.

His next call was to the Brother Vishous. When the male answered, Assail uttered only three words prior to hanging up once again.

“I am in.”

“Suuuuure, I’ll stay late. No problem. Not like I have anything better to do.”

As Jo Early sat behind her reception desk, the rest of the real estate office was empty, nothing but a lingering mishmash of colognes and the strangely depressing Muzak overhead to keep her company. Well, that and the frickin’ ficus bushes on either side of her.

Those things dropped their leaves like they were on a constant molt-down—and her OCD just wouldn’t let her relax unless the floor was clean. Then again, she didn’t have to do stomach crunches at the gym.

Not that she went to a gym.

Checking her phone, she shook her head. Seven o’clock.

The plan, the “favor,” she was doing for her boss was to stay here until he brought three contracts in with signatures so she could scan them and e-mail them over to the various buyers’ brokers. Why he couldn’t feed the things into the machine himself and do a little PDF’ing was a mystery.

And okay, maybe she was part of the problem, too.

Not that she was proud to admit it.

Looking up over the lip of the desk counter, she focused on the smoky glass doors that opened to the outside. The office was located in an up-market strip mall that had a hair salon where the cuts started at a hundred bucks—and that was just for the men, a boutique that displayed two pieces of barely-there clothing in its window, a glass-and-china shop that sparkled even on gray days, and, at the far end, a jewelry store that the trophy wives of Caldwell seemed to approve of.

Going by the place’s pneumatic clientele.

“Come on, Bryant. Come on . . .”

Although really, where did she have to go. Home to Dougie and the crop circle arguments? Now there was a party.

As a telephone rang back where the offices were, she woke up her computer and stared at Bryant’s calendar. She put his appointments into Outlook when he texted or called to tell her to. Scheduled things like valid real estate meetings, but also the service for his BMW and visits by the pool man for his place over in that new development. Reminded him to call his mother on her birthday, and ordered flowers for the women he dated.

All the while wondering what he would think if he knew who her parents were.

That little secret was what she soothed herself with when he’d come in on a Monday morning and whisper that he’d been out with a divorcée on Friday and a personal trainer on Saturday and then had a brunch with someone else on Sunday.

Her true identity was armor she used to fight against him. In a war he was utterly unaware of them being engaged in.

Closing out his busy life, she stared at the logo on the screen. Bryant’s last name, Drumm, was the second in line—because the firm had been started by his father. When the man had died nearly two years ago, Bryant had stepped into his shoes, as well as his prime office space, in the same way he did everything else—smiling and with charm. And hey, it wasn’t a bad strategy. Say what you would about the guy’s playboy lifestyle, he could move a ton of real estate and look good doing it.

Caldwell, NY’s own Million Dollar Listing star.

“Come on, Bryant . . . where are you?”

After a re-visit of her already-twice tidied desk, she checked the floor under the right ficus, picked up a leaf and tossed it, sat back and . . .

What the hell, she went onto YouTube.

Dougie had posted that stupid footage on his channel—a rocking destination with a grand total of twenty-nine subscribers. Of which, like, four were Dougie himself in different sock puppets and two were spammers with low standards. As she hit the arrow to watch the forty-two-second clip all over again, she turned on the speakers. The sound track was right out of amateur-central, a combination of too-loud rustling as her roommate held the iPhone up and a distant, not-so-quiet roaring.

Okay, so yes, it certainly looked like something Jurassic-ish out in the middle of that field. And yeah, there seemed to be a lot of clutter on the ground, but who knew what all that was. It was only a camera phone capturing the footage, and maybe that was just the way the trampled area looked to its lens.

She played things a couple more times. Then sat back.

There were five comments. Three were from Dougie and their roommates. One was a testimonial from someone who was making $1750 a month at home!!!!$$$!!!!!. The last was . . . just four words that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.

vamp9120 shit allova again

Left by someone named ghstrydr11.

Frowning, she went on a hunt-and-peck and found vamp9120’s channel. Wow. Okay, three thousand subscribers, and what looked like a hundred videos. Firing one up, she—

Laughed out loud.

The guy talking at the camera was like a LEGO character of Dracula, with a point in the middle of his forehead and even pointier canines, facial hair that looked like it had been painted on rather than shaved around, and a swear-to-God, that must be Elvis collar on his shirt. The guy’s skin was too white, his hair too black, his red lips right out of a MAC tube. And that voice? It was part evangelist, part neo-Victorian, Bram-Stoker-almost.

“—creatures of the night—”

Wait, wasn’t that a line from somewhere?

“—stalking the streets of Caldwell—”

Like the upstate New York version of The Walking Dead? When in doubt, drag a leg.

“—preying on victims—”

Okaaaaaaaaaaaay, moving on. Scrolling down the line-up, she randomly picked another. And yup, Verily, Barely Vlad was once again face-first in the camera—and this time he had a really good smoky eye going on.

“—are real! Vampires are real—”

Wonder if his pulpit was draped in black vel—okay, wow. That was supposed to be a joke, but as the lens pulled back, it did look like he was leaning on something that was, in fact, covered in black velvet.

Cutting that rant off, she went down to the next video, and told herself after this one, enough was enough. “Oh, hey, Vlad, wassup.”

“—testimonial about a vampire encounter.” Vlad turned to a guy sitting next to him in a plastic folding chair. Which was total ambiance right there. “Julio? Tell my fans about what happened to you two nights ago.”

Talk about mixing it up a little: Julio was the anti-vamp, what with a bandanna Tupac’d on his head, and his Jesus piece, and the tattoos up his throat.

His eyes, though . . . they were bugging and frenzied, all Vlad and then some.

“I was downtown, you know, with my boys, and we was . . .”

The story that came out started off as nothing special, just a gangbanger with his people, shooting up rivals in the alleys. But then things took a turn into Drac-landia, with the guy describing how he ran into an abandoned restaurant—and from there on, things got weird.

Assuming you believed him.

“—guy threw me up on the counter and he was all”—Julio did a hiss-and-claw—“and his teeth was all—”

“Like mine,” Vlad cut in.

“’cept his was real shit.” Okay, Vlad clearly did not appreciate that, but Julio was on a roll. “And he had a fucked-up face, his upper lip was all fucked up. And he was gonna kill me. He had a . . .”

Jo hung in for the rest of the interview, even through the part where Vlad all but pushed Julio out of the way, as if Dracu-wannabe’s sharing threshold had been reached.

Sitting back again, she wondered exactly how far she was going to go with this. And answered that one by heading over to the Caldwell Courier Journal site and doing a search on good ol’ Julio’s name. Huh. What do you know. There was an aritcle written the previous December on gang-related activity in the downtown area—and Julio was front and center in it. Even had a picture of him staring out of the back of a CPD patrol car, his eyes sporting that same stretched-wide thing, his mouth likewise cranked open like he was desperately talking to the photographer.

Nothing about vampires, though.

Scrolling up again, it turned out that the name on the byline was one she recognized.

Matter of fact, Bryant had gotten the guy and his wife a house about six months ago. Assuming she had it right.

A quick search in the client files and, yup, she was correct—

“I’m so sorry I’m late!”

Bryant Drumm came through the glass doors at a dead run, but he didn’t look frazzled. His dark hair was in perfect order, his gray-blue suit was closed at the jacket and the papers in his hands were separated into three sections.

So he hadn’t really rushed over. He’d been going at his own pace, even as she’d been rotting here.

He put his elbows on the desk and leaned in with his trademark smile. “Jo, how can I make it up to you?”

She held her hand out. “Gimme. And let me go home.”

Bryant put the papers in her palm, but then refused to let go when she tried to take them. “What would I do without you?”

As he stared down at her, his focus was locked on and complete—like nothing else existed in the world for him, like he was both captivated by her and slightly in awe. And to someone who hadn’t mattered much to her parents, who had been put up for adoption by the people who’d conceived her, who felt lost in the world . . . that was how he got her.

In a sad way that she didn’t like to dwell on much, she lived for these little moments. Stayed late for them. Kept plodding along in hopes it would happen again—

His phone rang. And he was still looking at her as he answered. “Hello? Oh, hey.”

Jo glanced away, and this time when she tugged, he let her have the contracts. She knew that tone of voice of his. It was one of his women.

“I can meet you now,” he murmured. “Where? Mmm-hmmm. No, I’ve already had dinner—but I’m up for dessert. Can’t wait.”

By the time he ended the call, she had turned to the side and fired up the scanner.

“Thanks again, Jo. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Jo didn’t bother to look over her shoulder as she fed in the pages one by one. “I’ll be here.”

“Hey.”

“What?”

“Jo.” When she glanced back at him, he tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes. “You should wear that red more often. It looks good with your hair.”

“Thanks.”

Going back to the scanning, she listened to him leave, the door he went out of whispering shut. A moment later, there was the flare of a powerful engine and then he was gone.

With the knowledge that she was good and alone, she lifted her head and looked at her reflection in the glass entrance. The light from the inset fixtures above streamed down, hitting her hair in such a way that its red and brown tones stood out against the black and gray all around her.

For some reason, the emptiness in the office . . . in her life . . . seemed loud as a scream.