No Rest for the Wicked (15 page)

“You lie,” said Caballo. “You're a fucking liar.” He lisped a bit when he spoke, due, probably, to two of his front teeth having been knocked out.

“Bring them,” Nicolas snapped at someone there. “No sense making a spectacle in the street, is there?”

“Nah, that's cool, we're just going home now—”

That's all I got out before five guys immobilized me. Caballo didn't even appear to resist.

I would have liked to memorize the route they dragged me in, the direction of doors, and how many flights of stairs we ascended, but I only swam up out of the pain on a mattress in a room, Caballo beside me.

“What happened, dog?” He rolled over and looked at me, still speaking with a lisp, though I saw that his teeth were growing back.

“This is all your fault, bastard,” I said.

“I wath hungry,” said Caballo. He pushed himself up, his eyes flashing to green to brown to green and back to brown. “Theriously. I'm thtarving.”

A voice said from above and beyond us, “That's due to the injuries.”

Both Caballo and I rolled to crouching defensive postures, looking around.

“Who thaid that?”

A knock of knuckles on glass, and then I saw the window, about six feet up the wall, a foot high and three feet wide. Smiling down from up there was Mitch from the rave.

“Can we get something to eat?” I asked him.

“Oh, that's not up to me,” said Mitch.

“Who is it up to? Can I talk to him?”

“Did you really follow me from the party? You know, I'm kind of upset about that. They've taken my car from me.”

“I'm sorry, man,” I said.

Caballo had stumbled to his feet and now leaned against the wall, wiping his nose with his arm.

“It's okay. They said they might give me a motorcycle.”

Just the thought of Mitch's damp white hands touching my baby made me growl. My hand went instinctively to the pocket where I'd kept the toss-away phone, but of course it was gone.

“Caballo, you got your cell?”

“Naw, man. They took everything.” Caballo showed me the empty ankle sheath where he usually carried a knife.

“Can we talk to whoever is in charge?” I asked Mitch. But he was gone, the window above our heads vacant.

Seconds later, a small troop of bloodsuckers came through the doors and wrestled Caballo and me down the hallway, a flight of stairs, and outside a fire door to what appeared to be a wide patio next to the river. The concrete was dirty and cracked, strands of zoysia grass reaching across random slabs. Caballo writhed and spat and tried to bite anyone he could, but it was useless. We were soon strapped down, spread-eagle, our ankles and wrists shackled.

Then they just walked away and left us there.

Caballo swore for several minutes, yanking at his shackles and heaving his torso up and down uselessly before he finally stopped, panting, and said, “This is all your fault, you fucking homo.”

I've been in a lot of bad situations in my career, and I was still calmly sifting through my options.

As soon as Richardson lost contact with us, they'd report that information to Nancy and Peter, who would climb into his old Caddie and come down here.

Except Peter was undoubtedly standing in Davis's office getting his ass reamed.

So, Nancy was my only hope. That thought settled into my chest like lead.

I could feel the sunrise creeping toward the horizon, the familiar scent of hot tar and warm earth that always presaged it, filling my nostrils.

Caballo was emitting a steady stream of curses and pleas to God. “Christ, I don't wanna go to hell, dog. Not yet.”

“What makes you think that's what will happen?”

“Don't get all fucking modern on me. Drew, he said we got no souls so we gotta go to hell.”

“No souls?” I didn't feel the absence of anything. Not any more than I always had. I continued to piece out our options. Nancy wouldn't raid the building because, I suspected, she was trying to keep her activities beneath the radar. It would be only her and the two techs most probably.

I figured Nancy had as much a chance of sneaking around the building housing the vampires undetected as a poodle had of sneaking through the San Bernardino Forest. She'd be breakfast. And we'd be dust.

The vise of regret started tightening in my chest, and I jerked uselessly against the restraints more as an attempt to escape my thoughts than with any hope of breaking free. Bad enough that we'd failed to rescue Drew. I could still see Peter, head bent, defeated, as Davis rained the tirade down upon him.

Guess I have that break I promised you.

Since we'd been beat cops, Peter had talked about his dream vacation. Like a lot of PD, he fantasized about sun, sand, and mai tais. Minimum physical exertion and excitement. Maximum amount of rum-induced numbness, swinging in a hammock and possibly ogling cute behinds in thongs.

“South Beach,” he said, sipping his coffee from the Styrofoam cup. We'd been in the car
for three hours watching the dark windows of the El Segundo apartment. It'd been pissing down
the filthy mist they call rain in So Cal for two hours, and every inch of the cruiser was damp.

“Or even Jamaica.”

“I hear they walk up to you on the streets and offer pot in Jamaica.”

Peter looked scandalized. “Not to me, they wouldn't.”

I looked over at him. It was a year or so before we'd started fucking, and just the sight of
Peter was enough to make me hard. In that tight-in-the-chest, aching way that came of wanting
the man, not just the ass. Even after a full shift in the musty cruiser, Peter looked clean and
bright and perfect as a new brass button, sitting there. I imagined some Rastafarian offering him
a fat doobie and had to grin. “I think you're right.”

“Damned straight, I am.” He sipped at his coffee, then set the cup down near my hand.

Our knuckles grazed, and I felt the little tingle and rush in my dick I always did when he touched
me. “South Beach, then. Don't want to have to kick ass on my vacation.”

“Just chase it, huh?”

He turned his head to gaze out the side window at the apartment we were staking out.

“Did you see something in the window there?”

Of course, now it would be impossible for me to go on a sand-and-sea vacation. I'd noticed that Peter had stopped talking about it, and it only occurred to me now, lying spread out on the damp ash-covered slabs of concrete, that he'd probably only done so because he couldn't take me with him.

There'd been plenty of times he'd mentioned it before, though.

“So don't you have some time off coming?”

I'd been in deep with the Mongols for weeks. Ruben was getting twitchy and paranoid, like
he could feel the proverbial sword of Damocles hanging up there above him. He'd started a fight

with a group of Angels the other night, and he'd been dropping in on every officer of the club
unexpectedly.

But I'd had to get away for a few hours. The whole gig was making me sweat too. So Peter
and I met up in Santa Barbara at one of those swank bars that no biker would be caught dead in.

“I figured I'd wait until your case was closed,” said Peter, topping off his glass of beer
with the last of the liquid in his bottle.

“Why?” I was eyeing a svelte young man at the bar who had been eyeing me back for
about thirty minutes or so.

It took a moment for me to notice that Peter was no longer talking, and when I pulled my
gaze from the kid at the bar, I saw that Peter was counting out his money and pushing his chair
back from the table.

“Don't you want some of that cheesecake, Peter?”

“Maybe I should watch it with the cheesecake. I'm getting fat.” He stood. “You ready?”

I'd stepped in it for sure. My mind did a quick U-turn and swept up the tail of the last
conversation. “So, what were you thinking of doing with your time off?”

His jaw clenched and relaxed like he was grinding his teeth. “Figured a couple weeks in
South Beach. Catch some sun.”

“I could go for that.”

“Yeah?” And his gaze flicked toward me and away. “You think?”

“Absolutely,” I lied.

It wouldn't have killed me, would it? A couple of weeks of my life that would have meant the world to Peter. Damn. This was exactly why I'd always hoped to go quickly. To avoid just this sort of recollection.

“Fucking pricks. Hypocrites.” Caballo was still cursing. “Like they don't take it every chance they get.” He swore a long string of creative adjectives. “I don't care, motherfuckers. It was worth it.”

“What was worth it?” I asked. I'd rather spend my last moments hearing about Caballo's lost life than thinking about my own.

“That chick in the club. What the hell, man. That's what I am…”

It hadn't occurred to me that Nicolas might have been correct. “So you killed her?”

“What, killed? She was food, man.”

I'm no one to lecture another man on morality or ethics. So there was a certain calm acceptance when I asked. “I thought you were bagging it.”

“Fuck that shit. Who the hell we kidding? We aren't human no more. Or we weren't. I guess we'll find out in about forty-five minutes what that means, won't we, dog?”

I could smell dawn and even feel it in my bones. I closed my eyes. “I guess we will.”

And then we were both silent. The silence of the damned accepting their fate. I could hear the traffic on the 110. Perpetual as the sea. I could hear the rodents on the pavement near us.

Unfortunately for them, there'd be nothing left to scavenge. From the streaks and damp around us, I guessed our ashes would be hosed into the Los Angeles river.

A certain pleased satisfaction settled into me at that thought.

“Psst,” said a voice right near my ear, and my eyes popped open.

“Drew?” Because there he was. Safe and sound. His dark eyes merry. Leaning over me and doing something to the shackles at my right wrist.

“Hurry up.” He got me loose and went to Caballo, moving fast and talking low. “I told Mitch I had to take a whiz. He's soft but he's not stupid. I figure he'll come looking for me any minute.”

Caballo got loose and hugged Drew against him. “I'm going to fucking cry,” he said.

Drew pushed him away, looking uncomfortable. “Come on, we've got to move fast. I know where they've stashed your bikes.” He gestured toward a hole in the fence near the slabs of the river.

We ran down a break between a leaning fence and a stucco building. So dark I couldn't clearly see what was so soft and squishing under my feet, though the rank smell gave me some ideas.

“Fucking rats,” said Caballo from behind me, corroborating my guess.

Drew had paused at another opening in the fence. “They eat them too,” he said, finger raised to his lips. “Shhh…”

They hadn't pulled the starters, and the keys were still in the ignition. She looked fierce and awesome down there in the dark.

“How're we going to get them out of here?” I asked Drew.

He gestured and pointed and led us, wheeling our rides as quietly as we could, to an oil-streaked ramp that led up to the street. Then he climbed on the back, wrapped his arms around me, and we got the hell out of there.

* * *

The sun was skulking just below the horizon when I slid into the parking lot of the Empress Parlor. I figured I had about twenty minutes before I was toast.

Caballo hopped off his bike and scampered straight up the side of the building without looking back. From below we heard him bang open the door to the rooftop access.

Drew slid off my bike.

“Hold on a minute.” I stopped him before he could walk off. “What the hell were you doing back there?”

“Everything was fine. You guys didn't need to worry. Mitch thinks I'm his friend.”

“He's a vampire, you idiot.”

“So are you.”

Dawn rumbled in the distance like the warning growl of a mountain lion. “I'm not done with you, you understand? But I need to check in with Peter.” I kicked the clutch and shouted over the roar of the engine. “Thanks for saving my undead ass.”

Drew looked pleased with himself. “Couldn't let anything happen to you two. You're my family.”

I turned my head away so he wouldn't see the expression on my face. “Later.”

When I rounded the corner toward the freeway onramp, I looked back and saw him watching me go, an affectionate smile on his face.

That smile was gonna haunt me.

As it turned out, Peter hadn't even known I was missing.

He opened the door, looking no more anxious than he would if the mailman were late. “It's nearly dawn. I thought you'd decided to stay with your friends.”

“We were
captured
, Peter.”

“You're kidding.”

Jesus
. “Didn't Nancy tell you?”

He shook his head. “Get in here before the sun burns your ass,” he said, gesturing me in.

“Nancy and I haven't spoken. When I got out of my meeting with Davis, I heard that she was pulled in by the bureau. I figure she's had a worse night than I had. Seriously, you were captured?”

“We bungled the whole shebang. What a mess. How bad was the meeting with Davis?”

“Christ, don't get me started. You hungry?” I'd followed him to the kitchen, where he offered me a beer with one hand and a bag of blood with the other.

“Starved.”

“You can tell me about it after we eat.”

He had what looked like pasta on the stove.

“Little early for dinner, isn't it?”

He grunted. “You've got me on
your
schedule.”

I loved the way he felt when I came up behind him and wrapped my arms around his body, that tight ass against my aching dick and his hard stomach under my hands. He smelled like cinnamon and cherry-flavored cough syrup. His skin was still warm. “You're still sick,” I whispered, nuzzling the place just behind his earlobe that made him shiver from the base of his

spine to the top of his head and made him grab one of my hands and push it inside the folds of his robe.