Club Monstrosity (11 page)

Linda hugged herself and rocked slightly. “He was the biggest monster of us all. He
liked
to menace and scare.”

Kai let out a low growl that shut the Swamp Dweller up entirely. But Natalie wasn’t so easily cowed.

“Do you know where he is, Kai?” she asked softly.

Kai, normally so composed, so calm, turned bright red. “No. I haven’t seen Rehu since he accused me of siding with all of you and left me.”

Alec tilted his head. There was something about the waver in Kai’s voice, the way she bit her lip, that said she was lying. But would she really cover for an ex-lover? One with whom she had shared a volatile relationship? The guy had gotten her killed . . . albeit a couple thousand years before, but still . . . Alec had always pegged Kai for being smarter than that.

“I doubt he’s still even in the city,” Kai continued, with that same lilt of desperation to her tone. “Even if he is, he would
never
hurt anyone.”

Drake snorted his disagreement and Kai turned on him with the same level of anger she’d first shown Linda.

“Shut up, Vampire.”

“So eloquent,” Drake sneered.

Kai took a long step toward him and that seemed to signal all hell breaking loose once again. Linda burst into tears as Hyde taunted her, Natalie grabbed Kai’s arm and they started arguing over the merits of vampire-slaying. Alec ran a hand over his face. How could they ever hope to defend themselves if they couldn’t even manage to stay on target for ten minutes put together?

“Hey,” he began, raising his voice to go above the fray. No one listened. “Hey!”

But it was to no avail. Alec was about ready to give up when Drake swirled his cape around himself. There was a small pop and then he vanished into a bat. He flew to the center of the room and reappeared, this time standing on Jekyll’s coffee table.

“Silence!” he bellowed, and his tone, not to mention his Animal Kingdom act, shut down the fighting in an instant. “While you tussle, this enemy grows in power. And I have another suggestion of who it could be. Our oldest and most treacherous adversary.”

He paused, Alec could only assume for dramatic effect, and then hissed, “Van Helsing.”

11

The name Van Helsing sucked the oxygen from the room and left all of them with the same blank, empty, terrified expression that Natalie felt on her own face.

Van Helsing, a family of monster hunters who had stalked and killed their kind for dozens of generations.

Van Helsing, the oldest and deepest enemy any monster had.

Stoker had gotten it wrong, of course, when it came to that family. He described them as only hunting vampires, and in truth they had started out that way. But eventually they had expanded into so much more. They were at the front of every mob with pitchforks and often hired themselves out to make “monster problems” go away. Blood money had lined their pockets and made them powerful in politics both abroad and in the United States.

“How could it be the Van Helsings?” Hyde hissed. “We’ve had a truce with them for decades.”

“Five decades, to be precise,” Drake agreed. “When they realized no one was willing to pay them to chase ‘pretend’ creatures anymore and decided to start investing their blood money in technical stocks.”

Natalie pursed her lips. It was so unfair that bad people got to be rich from murder, while the monsters they’d chased lived in shitty apartments and hid their true identities for fear of renewed persecution.

“So why would they want to hunt us now?” Natalie asked.

Drake arched a thin brow. “They still live, don’t they? At least one here in New York . . . that I know of. And if they live, they hate. It is in their nature.”

Natalie rubbed her eyes as she tried to clear the bile from her throat and memories from her mind.

“But why would they break our pact after all this time?” she whispered.

That pact had been the biggest relief of her life. For years she had holed up in disgusting hovels to keep the Van Helsings away from her. When the truce was signed, she had been able to come out of hiding and
live,
even if she did have to wear turtlenecks.

She didn’t want to go back underground.

Alec shrugged. “There’s one way to find out.” When everyone stared at him, he said, “Ask.”

“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Kai said. “I’m used to dealing with total assholes. I’ll go visit the local one. Who else?”

Drake pushed to his feet and glared at Kai. “No.
I
was their first enemy and
I
brokered the truce all those years ago. I should meet with him. Alone.”

Natalie shook her head. “Come on, Drake, you know I like you, but you have to admit you can be forgetful.”

He glared at her and she rushed to continue and soothe his hurt feelings. “And what if you’re right that they’re involved in these murders? Go alone, and that could be a death sentence. With more of us, at least we’d have a chance against some kind of sneak attack.”

Drake considered that for a moment, but then nodded. “Very well, Natalie.
You
may come, but no one else.”

Natalie shifted. She had said
we,
hadn’t she? Crap, there was no getting out of it. The way Kai was glaring at her, she was certain that if she bailed, the mummy would insist on being the one to stand at Drake’s side. And she’d seen Kai’s face when she talked about Rehu. The Mummy Girl was so stuck on protecting her old boyfriend from accusation that she might just do anything to keep him safe. Including sabotaging this meeting. Or lying about what happened during it.

“Okay, I guess it’s you and me, Drake,” she finally said. “You set up the meeting and let me know the particulars. I’ll make sure I can be there any time, any place.”

Anyway, Alec seemed pretty impressed by Natalie’s decision to ride shotgun for Drake. He was staring at her with a wide grin on his ridiculously handsome face, which was getting shaggier and wolfier every day. That was actually kind of nice.

In a weird way. That she didn’t like. Nope. Not at all. Because she didn’t like Alec. She just had to keep reminding herself of that.

“Great,” Hyde said as he got up and sneered at all of them. “Now can you all get out of our house?”

Jekyll stared at him. “Hyde!”

“Oh, please. I’m saying what you’re too much of a weakling to say, even though I
feel
you thinking it.”

Jekyll blushed to a deep, dark red, but he did look relieved when the group started moving for the door. “Report back to us if anyone hears anything new,” he said, his tone weak. “Thank you for coming.”

Natalie rolled her eyes as she stepped into the hall. Immediately Kai booked it for the elevator, but Natalie hung back until Alec came out of the apartment.

“Waiting for me?” he asked with a laugh. “How sweet.”

She ignored his baiting. “I’ve got to go to work, but Alec, I need you to do something.”

“Anything.”

She glanced at him. Fuck, he looked serious when he said that. She cleared her throat.

“Um, Kai . . . follow her. See if you can turn up anything about Rehu.”

Alec looked at her sharply. “You think she was hiding something about him, too?”

Natalie blinked. Were they really on the same page? “Yeah, I do. She was really . . .
twitchy
when his name was brought up.”

“And twitchy is not our little Kai,” Alec agreed. “Seems like denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.”

She stared. “How long have you been waiting to use that line?”

He shrugged. “Um, forever.”

“I . . . just . . .” She shook her head. There was no response to it. “Well, now that it’s out of your system, I think the mummy is as good a lead as anything we might think about the Van Helsings. I don’t want to drop it just to make Kai happy and then be sorry if someone else gets killed in some horrible way.”

“I agree.” He met her eyes evenly. “Hey, Natalie, you were great in there. Really calm, but firm when you were talking. A leader, even. It’s nice to see you coming out of your shell and getting a bit more . . . monstrous.”

Natalie smiled. Normally she didn’t like being called monstrous, but this wasn’t an insult, it was a compliment. And Alec meant it, which sort of made her all warm inside.

“Um, yeah, so I’m going to work. Text me later, okay?” she said, then turned on her heel and hurried for the stairwell. Somehow she didn’t think riding down in an elevator with the werewolf was such a good idea.

Not since what she really wanted to do right now was kiss his scruffy face off.

Natalie stood staring up at the brownstone and shivered. If Jekyll and Hyde’s place was a modern mausoleum, this place was a traditional mansion. Bought with old money. And she couldn’t help but keep thinking about the fact that their “old money” had been earned when the mercenary Van Helsings got villagers to pay them to eliminate their “monsters”—whether said village even had a supernatural being present or not.

Which somehow never made it into books or movies.

Drake was suddenly at her elbow and Natalie jumped in surprise as she spun to face him.

“Right now is not the time to freak me out, Vampire!” she snapped.

He glared at her. “Don’t threaten me, Natalie. I’m not a child you can menace.”

Natalie flinched. “Goddamn it, I’d never menace a child, that’s just a—” She stopped as she looked around. Where had he come from anyway? Her heart sank. “Please tell me you didn’t just fly here as a bat and transform right on the street.”

He shrugged. “There’s no one around.”

She rubbed her eyes with one hand. “Drake, you know that isn’t the point. Kai keeps telling you—”

“Kai is not my leader,” Drake said in a cold, clipped tone that revealed all his Eastern European royal roots. “No one is.”

Natalie slowly counted to ten so she didn’t further offend Count Divalicious.

“Okay, so you won’t stop because someone
tells
you to. But will you stop if I
ask
you? Pretty please, Your Highness Count Dracula, will you stop taking these risks? I know you don’t think getting found out is a big deal, but some of us do.”

“You are so afraid of them,” Drake said with a tilt of his head. “Even though you’re strong.”

She thought about that for a long moment. “There are a lot more of them than me. I just want to be . . .
invisible
to them. That’s all.”

Drake sighed. “Very well, Natalie. I will
try
to be more discreet. And
you
will try to be less terrified.”

She rolled her eyes. “Now you sound like Blob.”

Drake tensed and they both thought of their former circle leader.

He shook his head. “I was surprised you could join me for this meeting tonight.”

Natalie pursed her lips. She didn’t like the implication behind his tone.

“Is
that
why you made these arrangements just a few hours after we agreed to come here? In the hopes I couldn’t get out of work?”

“Of course not.” He shook his head, but she could see she’d struck on at least part of the truth. Still, he gave her no chance to question his motives further. “The Van Helsings have never been known to take their time when it comes to us. As soon as I sent word that we wanted a meeting, this time and place were arranged.”

Natalie pursed her lips. “I’m not sure I believe you, Drake. But arguing with you has never gotten anyone anywhere.”

He smiled a fraction. “No. That is true.”

She shook her head. “Okay, I guess let’s just go in and see this guy.”

Drake led the way up the stairs and knocked. After a moment, the door swung open to reveal a butler. Natalie blinked. An actual butler, dressed up in a uniform and everything, just like they were actually in a Stoker novel. And the guy was impressive. He looked to be about eight million years old, or at least like he’d come through the last period when the Van Helsings were at war with the monsters.

He sniffed with disdain as he looked down at them. “Good evening.
He
is expecting you.”

Without any other words, the butler stepped back and motioned them into the foyer. He shut the door behind them, locked it with an ominous clang, and then walked down a long hallway.

Tapestries hung on every wall, and they were not pleasant. They depicted the taking of heads, the letting of blood, the killing of monsters. In fact, Natalie was sure she recognized a friend here and there on their finely woven surfaces. But despite the finery in the hangings, the rest of the home was dusty, hardly used. As they passed by rooms on their slow walk toward . . .
wherever,
Natalie couldn’t help but notice furniture covered by sheets.

The place was musty, like a freshly opened tomb. And Natalie knew tombs.

She leaned over to Drake. “Shit, this is just like a movie.”

“Some things they do get right, my dear,” Drake said with a shrug.

They reached a shut door and the butler opened it and stepped inside. Natalie couldn’t see around him as he said, “Sir, your . . .
guests
are here.”

If the person inside answered, Natalie didn’t hear him. But the butler stepped back and motioned them into the room. Natalie stopped just inside the door and looked around in wonder at the study.

The ceilings were ridiculously high and lined with bookshelves from the floor all the way up to where a skylight let in a little light during the day. It was night now, so there was just the faintest hint of city lights through the portal.

She leaned closer and flinched. The books on the very first shelf were various editions of
Dracula
and
Frankenstein.
She couldn’t help but think that was on purpose.

She turned away from the disturbing literature choices and looked toward the desk all the way in the back of the room. In front of it was a man. A very old man. A very old man in a wheelchair.

“Van Helsing,” Drake said, his voice thick with a mixture of disdain and grudging respect.

Natalie’s eyes widened. She had seen the minions of the Van Helsings over the years, even caught a glimpse of one of the family members about a century ago, but she hadn’t had the displeasure of their company for decades upon decades.

This man was not what she had expected. He was in no way a threat to a four-hundred-pound blob man. And she doubted he could incite a mob to riot. He was small and wrinkled and looked like everyone’s grandpa. Well, everyone’s but hers, since she had never had one.

“
Drakule,
” the man responded, his voice thick with a German accent. His gaze, as sharp and bright as a hawk, despite his age, swung over to her. “And
this
must be the Frankenstein.”

Natalie shook her head. She would not be cowed by a man in a wheelchair. She straightened her spine and said, “Frankenstein was the scientist, not the monster. Shouldn’t you know that? I mean, no one
ever
gets it right, but isn’t that your deal, to know about monsters?
I’m
Natalie Gray.”

She held out her hand, but Van Helsing didn’t move to take it and she pulled it back to her side with a shrug.

He turned his full attention back to Drake. “I was surprised to hear from you after all these years, Vampire. I thought we’d made our arrangement very clear. No contact. No war.”