Crossed (7 page)

Winter wants to see you.—Andre

im nt h1s btch.
I thumbed the letters angrily, then bounced my cell off Tabitha’s shoulder. It hit with a wet sound, and the smell of rancid filth assailed me. Corpse sweat. Brown trickles of fluid had begun to form on Tabitha’s upper body, covering her skin with a growing sheen of nastiness. Some vampires get it every night, but not Tabitha. It had happened to her once before, just after she turned for the first time, but as far as I knew it hadn’t happened since.

I ran across and grabbed my cell before it got more yecch on it and hurried to the bathroom to wash it off before the corpse sweat dried there. I retched into the sink as the smell grew, less rotting body odor than the unenviable scent of backed-up sewer. All thoughts of breakfast forgotten, I grabbed my overnight bag and rushed naked into the hall before the odor permeated everything.

Why the fuck was she getting the sweats now? She hadn’t discovered any new powers (that sets it off sometimes). Getting married hadn’t . . . Shit. She was trying to fight my magic. Some inner part of her wanted to shake free of the hold I had over her. How cute!

I slipped into a crimson thong, a pair of tight side-stitched low-rise jeans, a white long-sleeved crop top, and my black Skechers.

So you’re not interested in his deal then?—Andre

wht d3al?

The one Winter would like to speak to you about.—Andre

5p311 !t out, @55.

I’m afraid I didn’t understand that last text.—Andre

Grr. Andre’s inability to read a simple text message pissed me off no end. “Fine.” My fingers jabbed the keys rapidly.

Spell it out, Andre. What deal?

I didn’t wait in the hallway for Andre’s next text message. I wanted caffeine even if Tabitha’s stench-ridden protest had put me off my breakfast. A quick trip to the elevator and down to the hotel lobby took me to an embedded Starbucks. My
Venti Mint Chocolaty Chip Frappuccino Blended Creme with Chocolate Whipped Cream and a double shot of Espresso was still in progress when my cell beeped.

Winter proposes a deal that will give you what you want. You want the issues between you and your sister over Eric to end. If you work with him, by the end of the game, you will no longer have to worry about the competition.—Andre

Before replying, I read the message twice more.

Does he have a bet riding on the outcome?
I texted. My drink vanished, barely tasted, while I waited. I bought a Raspberry Apricot Thumbprint Scone and ordered another Frappuccino, constantly checking my cell for messages. Ten minutes later, the response came in, a simple
Yes
without the
—Andre
.

WTF?!? Winter said he was betting against Eric in aris . . .
I stabbed Send and watched the little animation, a winged envelope flying into the distance, as my cell transmitted the message.

Meet him and talk about it tonight,
Andre’s message blinked back at me.
Just because Winter has bet against Eric in Paris doesn’t mean he expects him to lose in Void City.

When and where?

Meet him at the Iversonian. Sunset.

What?
“Why the hell is Winter asking to meet at someone else’s club? Much less a true immortal’s club?” I murmured to myself. Iver Richardson a.k.a. the Iversonian, the club’s owner, is a true immortal, a collector of the unique, both sentient and nonsentient. He rarely gives his acquisitions up, which is why others started calling him the Iversonian, and he has a massive control complex, which is why he named his club the
Iversonian in some sort of weird bid to “own” the nickname. He’s tangled with Talbot (which was a check mark in his favor as far as I’m concerned), but true immortals can’t be ended—not really. Their essence can be absorbed by another of their kind, and under the right circumstances they can be freed from their body, transmuted completely to spirit, but even then, they are still present somewhere.
I wonder if a revenant can eat the essence of a true immortal.
The thought danced in my head, a tantalizing bit of curiosity.

Why not Winter’s club?
I texted back.

Discretion
, he sent back.

“Discretion.” I strummed my fingers on the tabletop in the Hilton’s lobby. Fine. I’d go, but if Winter thought he was going to try anything funny with me . . . I’d saved up enough of Eric’s imperial glory to defend myself. I tapped into a small sample of the power I sapped from Eric every time we had sex and smiled as my fingernails turned black and cold, extending into claws.

    7    

ERIC:

THE DEMON HEART—NEW AND IMPROVED

Fang drove me into the shaded lower level of the Pollux Theater’s parking deck and I stared across the street at the newly refurbished and repurposed Demon Heart—or rather, Demon Heart Lanes Bowling Alley. What the hell had I been thinking? I’d traded strippers for synthetic Day-Glo balls, bowling pins, the sweet smells of griddle cakes and bowling alley pizza . . . Ah. That had probably been it. The pizza.

I took the short walkway from the parking deck to the lobby of the Pollux, my movie palace, and smiled at the improvements. The place had been gutted by fire several months ago, and Ebon Winter had restored it for me as a wedding gift.

Many things hadn’t been changed at all, or if so, only subtly and with magic. The front was still four glass doors opening into a spacious area where, in times long past, moviegoers had purchased their tickets from a ticket seller inside a golden colored ticket booth. Winter had wired the booth with modern connections and credit card readers even though I wasn’t likely to ever need them, given that I hardly ever show movies to
the public. A state-of-the-art alarm system had been installed as well, with a full set of Guild-certified wards layered over it.

My chandelier was now self-cleaning, as was the mirrored entryway. The concession stand had been reworked too, only now there was a wine rack with a selection of blood wine from Lord Phillip’s own stock. Vintages with which he had grown tired were no longer poured out or flung into the fireplace, but were instead used to restock my supply. I’m sure that was some sort of insult, but Phillip knew I wouldn’t take it as one, and for that matter, he knew I just didn’t care. I grabbed a bottle without looking at the label and headed through the theater doors, down the center aisle, right up to the stage.

Talbot was sitting dead center in the mezzanine, his heartbeat a steady thrum of calm composure, breathing in slow deep draws as if he were napping. We didn’t speak. There was no need. I knew what had his attention.

I looked past the rows of new, more comfortable seats, let my gaze linger on the clever way that Winter had reworked the decorative hangings over the curtains concealing the organ pipes stage left and stage right to resemble the figures I’d seen squaring off against one another in stained glass at the Highland Towers. On the right, a female uber vamp with fierce red eyes, dark black skin, and engorged breasts glared at a vampiric knight in holy armor on the left. My gaze drifted further up to the apex of the dome’s ceiling, where a magical painting of a night sky had replaced the old representations of Castor and Pollux that had been destroyed by the fire. The new painting showed the sky directly above the Pollux, but as it might have appeared if there were no light pollution—a clear perfect night sky that changed with the seasons. Winter has style, I’ll give him that, but when I looked down at the stage to the same object that fascinated Talbot, that’s when I felt a little shiver of excitement.

“The Mighty Wurlitzer,” my theater organ, was well worth
our attention. If you look it up on Wikipedia, they have a list of sixteen or so Wurlitzer theater organs that are still in their original locations. That number is one off.

My Wurlitzer really was original to the building, though it had been sold to a collector when I got blown up and had my assets seized while I was trying to re-form. Now, thanks to Winter, it had been returned to its place, stage left and in the upright position. I have a love-hate relationship with the damn thing. An organ like this should be treasured, should be played and maintained. An organ like this brings back memories . . . and memories and I don’t get along.

I read somewhere that music and musical ability are stored in a different part of the brain than most data. The words might escape me, but I’ve always been able to sit down at something with the right number of keys and re-create a tune. When I died, I could still play, so apparently my muscles will never forget what to do.

At the start of every movie at the Pollux, back when it was open to the public, in addition to the cartoons, newsreels, and sometimes even local folks demonstrating their talents, there was always a sing-along and some organ music when the show was about to start and again after it was over. Ode to bygone days. Blah blah blah.

“Are you going to play it?” Talbot’s voice was a study in restrained eagerness, his eyes focused on the organ.

“Why,” I asked. “Want to hear ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’?” I ran my hand along the top of the stage. Before the renovations, the floor had been too uneven for modern productions, but it was smooth now, up to code. I wouldn’t have changed that.

“Is that what you feel like playing?”

“Sure.”
No.
I looked up at him over my shoulder, momentarily surprised to see him wearing something other than a suit and tie. He wore a loose-fitting T-shirt, the sleeves torn
or cut away to reveal his well-muscled arms to the best effect. A musky scent, sweat for his kind, clung to him. He’d been working out.
Why?

“Then play it. Or not.” His tennis shoes slid across the new carpet as he stood to leave. Just to make him show his real desire, I leapt onto the stage, crossed to the Wurlitzer, and turned the blower on. The subtle hiss of air whispered through the pipes. Talbot froze. In the good old days that sound had had much the same effect as the sound of a DTS test in front of the feature presentation in a modern theater. Talbot found his seat, waiting.

“Pick a song,” I said.

“Any song?”

“Yeah, but I want a favor in exchange.”

We both knew what he wanted. He wanted to see if it still worked, if when I played, he’d see the same sight that had made him my boon companion for the last twenty years. He wanted a song that could vanquish demons and save the world. He wanted me to be a hero, a golden soul . . . like in El Segundo. I swear to God, you save the world one fucking time and some people never let you live it down.

But then, I guess everybody has their little eccentricities. Talbot’s is that he thinks I’m a hero. Whoever bought him DVD copies of
Angel
ought to be shot.

“Stardust,”
he said quickly.

Fucking “Star Dust.” It had been our song, me and . . . old what’s-her-face, the woman whose name I’m pretending to forget: Marilyn.

“Don’t you want to know my favor first?”

Talbot laughed. “You want me to find out what’s wrong with Tabitha.”

“How’d you know?”

“You walk in here the day after your wedding without taking a shower and think I don’t know something’s up? I smell
Tabitha, Rachel, and some Asian woman, Eric.” He gripped the rail of the mezzanine, leaning precariously over the edge. “You aren’t the only one with a discerning olfactory sense. Mine tells me more about what you did last night than I want to know, but what I know about Tabitha tells me . . . I should look into it.”

I looked down at the keys.

“It could be that someone magically ‘spiked’ the hotel room as a perverse wedding present. Just find out what happened for me.”

Shoes hit the carpet on the mezzanine floor. Bare feet moved on metal. A glance showed me Talbot, perched on the rail at as close to the optimum acoustic center of the theater as he could reach without a rope.

“You comfortable?” I asked.