Thicker Than Water (Blood Brothers) (10 page)

The show had been entertaining, especially for the fact that its plot had been completely unfounded. There was often tremendous humor in the shows where vampires were slain by humans. As far as Loki was aware such an event had never once occurred in history, and it was comical to see it played out time and time again in the minds of these self-righteous two-legged animals so overindulged with spunk. ‘Anything’s possible,’ they often told one other. Silly assholes. Half of them couldn’t afford the drugs they were addicted to.

In the play, Betsy—who was now getting undressed in front of Loki—had played a young English maiden of the mid-1800s who is kidnapped by vampires who wish to summon forth an ancient spirit from her body. Her true love hears of this and comes to her aid, fighting off the vampiric pussies with crosses and getting the drop on them while they sleep in unguarded coffins. The young man gives his life to save the maiden as he defeats the last of the evil creatures and when she is emotionally unfit to destroy him, he makes her a vampire. It was mostly a Dracula rip-off with needless displays of female nudity and exaggerated violence and therefore was a joy to watch.

Loki had picked Betsy as his drain because of her petite build. Just shy of five feet tall and no more than ninety pounds, she could fit easily into his suitcase so disposing of the body wouldn’t be a chore. After a good fifteen minutes helping her to chip the tile on the walls of the shower, he covered himself in a stream of blood from her neck that sprung forth with all the vibrancy of the fountains at the Bellagio down the street. The dual showerheads did more than enough in the way of cleaning the mess and Loki left the water running over the body as he stepped out of the shower to embrace the night.

With only a bath towel draped from the back of his neck, he stepped into his room to be greeted by a familiar face. The man was sitting on the edge of the bed with his legs crossed and resting his hands on his knees, a determined smile on his face. They hadn’t spoken since Nazi Germany, but Loki recognized him immediately from the meeting years ago and from the police sketches in the papers.

“Butcher,” he said cheerily, grabbing a bathrobe from the bed while ostentatiously positioning his crotch as close to the Butcher’s face as he could. “What brings you to my personal space?”
 

The Butcher rolled his eyes. “I hear tell you bought some property a few blocks off the Strip.”

“And what do you know about that?” Loki cocked his head to one side.

“Oh, I know you’re planning on opening your own little club out there, and I just thought I’d take it upon myself to let you know that word’s getting out.”

“Word’s getting out?” Loki gave a derisive snicker. “Maybe that’s because I published a story in the fuckin’ Chronicle.”

The Butcher laughed, “I know. I know you did. I just wasn’t sure you were aware that The Chosen were discussing what’s to be done with you.”

“The Chosen?” Loki said derisively. “What fuckin’ Chosen? Mr. ‘I know all the secrets of Ofeigr’ has suddenly got a job working for the big man himself?”

Loki lit a cigar and held one out to the Butcher, who took it graciously.

“No, Loki, I’m the same as I always was. A lone wolf roams freely among all the other packs. And I know some of The Chosen well enough to hear the gossip.”

“Alright, I’ll bite.” Loki said, blowing smoke in the Butcher’s face. “What’re The Chosen planning to do with me?”

“Well, if you play your cards right, and I know you’re a hell of a player…” he took a moment to strike a match and light the end of his cigar before he looked up, eyes reflecting the embers through the cigar smoke. “There’s talk of making you a member.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next night at
Cirque Du Soleil
with Eva, all Tyr could think about was killing her and burning her in the incinerator. At five feet six inches, she would fit easily into the steel drum, especially with all the weight she’d lost from the illness. If there was one thing cancer was good for, it was helping a person fit into tight spaces.

Eva was enjoying herself, totally oblivious to the vile thoughts brewing in the perverse mind of her lover. There was a smile on her face and a warm feeling in her heart. She generally kept away from the bigger parts of the city, but this was a show a part of her had always been a little curious about and since she had been feeling particularly well tonight, Tyr had wanted to see to it she saw the show before her health declined further and she couldn’t go out. What a sweet man he was.

He’d have to kill her right away, he thought. If the Butcher was going around talking about him, The Chosen could arrive at any moment. He’d have to kill Eva tonight. And afterward he might have to leave town. He couldn’t be sure who among Eva’s acquaintances might have at least a basic idea of where he lived. If she suddenly stopped existing with no death certificate or hospital visit, somebody might try to contact Tyr. It would be safest to pack up and leave.

Kill her tonight, then pack up and leave tomorrow.

The men and women of the “Circus of the Sun” were doing their thing, engaging in bizarre acrobatics and bending their freakish bodies in ways a human usually only bent when being jammed into an incinerator. Before you doused them in gasoline and fired up the air compressor. Before you superheated them to 1,500 degrees and relegated them to water vapor. Before you struck them from existence.

“Are you enjoying it?” Eva asked Tyr suddenly. He was staring solemnly at the twisted human shapes, dancing a phantasmagoria of haunting steps in an otherworldly atmosphere that reminded him of a sort of dark rite he imagined The Chosen might administer.

“Yeah,” Tyr nodded his head and murmured the word under his breath. He certainly didn’t sound genuine, but he couldn’t do any better under the circumstances.

After another moment of watching the performers, Eva asked, “How did your meeting go last night?”

“Hm?”

Tyr had to think for a moment before he recalled telling Eva he had to take her home early because of a meeting with Doug, an old business associate. He had told Eva he was working on securing property to build a bar. It wasn’t true, but what the hell. She wasn’t going to live long enough to find out, whether he drained her tonight or not.

“Oh! It went fine. Four of us met up at a club and talked for a while. They were into us right off the bat and Doug and I really walloped them.” Tyr tried to amuse himself with this statement, but it didn’t help. If Thor was there to laugh, it would have made him feel better.

“So you think you’ll get the contract?”

There was a big smile on Eva’s face. She was excited for him. It made him fucking sick. She was deeply, sincerely in love with the mortal man he had invented. He asked himself how she’d feel about the immortal man. The immortal man who killed a woman last night after a half-hour of vehement anonymous sex but refused to make love to his girlfriend right up until she was no longer healthy enough for it.

The immortal man who saved her life once.

Could a mortal blame a vampire for acting on his nature, for feeding upon a feeble species that existed mostly for nourishment anyway? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t tell her anyway. Maybe if he drained her immediately after. Then it wouldn’t make a difference, right? He could tell her tonight, and then kill her once he got her reaction.

Kill her whether she accepted him or not.

Jesus.

Love sucks.

“So where is the site exactly? Near the Strip?”

“You know what I was thinking?” Tyr tried to change the subject and the words spilled out of him. “I was thinking it would be great if you moved in with me.”

Eva suddenly forgot the insatiable itch she’d been working at on the back of her neck. Her yellow eyes went wide and her face contorted in a beaming smile.

She threw her arms around him and kissed his lips again and again. Tyr kissed back and faked an eagerness of his own. The obvious truth was living with a human was among the worst things a vampire could possibly do.

That settled it.

It was time to kill her.

They spent the morning on the couch. When the sun had risen, Tyr put
Fright Night
in the VCR and they watched the old vampire film in each other’s arms. Eva mocked Tyr’s allergy to sunlight, calling him her vampire. Tyr laughed and flirted back with obscure tidbits from vampire folklore, a man who knew everything about everything.

At the scarier points of the movie, Eva would jump and Tyr would grab and console her the way mortal dates did in the movies. He’d laugh at her and then they’d kiss. Eva would giggle every time the evil vampire would call out the name “Amy.”

“My roommate’s name is Aimee.
Was
Aimee,” she told Tyr. “She’s a fucking bitch.”

“Yeah? And you want her to get eaten by vampires?” Tyr asked, laughing.

Eva nodded excitedly, giving her best wicked grin.

She fell asleep around ten o’clock in the morning, just before the movie ended. Tyr let her sleep in his arms as he lay there next to her. He shut his eyes and relaxed. She still had belongings to pick up from the house where she had been staying. He wouldn’t kill her until she brought them over. Once she told her roommate she was moving in with Tyr, that would buy him some time. It could be days after her death before anyone wondered where she was. Maybe weeks. The girl wasn’t exactly a social butterfly.

She woke up around seven o’clock in the evening, just before sundown. Tyr pretended to be asleep. Eva took pride in this, never having seen him asleep before. Perhaps she was the cure for his insomnia. She left him a note stating she was going to her apartment to pack her things, and asking he pick her up when he got a chance. When she left through the front door, she was very careful not to let any of the sunlight would touch his sensitive skin. Tyr took pride in this, knowing she was never the wiser.

Only a few hours.

Then she’d be back, and nobody would be looking for her.

A few more hours.

Then it would all be over.

And then he would talk to Thor again. Maybe talk some sense into him this time. Tonight they would abandon Loki, abandon the entire perilous lifestyle they’d let take hold of them.

All he had to do was kill Eva. Then they could go back to living responsibly, to living the way used to. The way they’d lived when Thor’s mortal life had ended on the streets of Tombstone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There was a ruckus in the street outside Al’s Saloon when the boys came back from the train tracks. Katie Locke had been found dead in her bedroom and the drunks had flocked to Al’s. Mr. Locke himself was there with a mob of goons, two of them still nursing their Tyr-inflicted wounds and four more in good health. Al was outside trying to fend them off, and bruised a little from a punch or two taken from the brutes.

They wanted Michael. In his blind rage over his daughter, Locke was able to think of nothing but revenge. Since Loki had entered Katie’s room through the window and remained unseen by anyone in the bar, and since Katie had been in her room alone all night, Locke really had nothing to go on in terms of tracking down her killer. All he could do was assume the murder had taken place sometime in the hour before they found her and deduce from there.

Within that time frame, there was one unusual event that had taken place at the bar and Michael was at its center. Almost as though it had been some kind of set-up, the two brutes Locke had sent to beat Michael down had returned minutes later with wounds on their bodies and terror in their hearts. They’d told tales of a mysterious stranger who stepped out of nowhere and took Michael’s side like a guardian angel. Some drifter dressed in black who had thrown the two men to the ground and beaten them mercilessly before disappearing into the night with Michael. Neither of them had seen the drifter before and nobody knew his name. He was simply a tall and slender figure dressed in black who was rougher than two men twice his size.

A blonde-haired ruffian struck Al and knocked him onto one of his knees.

Locke, standing a few paces back from the rest of the clan, called out, “I don’t give a fuck about you, old man. It’s yer son I’m after. And the only man’s dyin’ tonight is the man who done this to Katie. As long as yer son ain’t that man, he sleeps in his own bed tonight and with a pulse.”

Tommy Warden was among the crowd of spectators gathering at the front of the brothel. While Tommy wasn’t likely to let Al die on this night, he also wasn’t ample to be much help. Between him and the unarmed Al, taking down Locke and his six would have been nothing short of divine intervention.

But divinity was lurking in the shadows, unseen by Locke or the rest of the crowd—and it was preparing to intervene.

“You killed her?” Michael’s eyes widened as he turned to Loki, who had his hands on his guns.