Chapter One
Claudia Donovan crouched down to get a closer look at the
bodies, the smell telling her it was bad, a damp smell,
tangy with blood and bile. The moon hung low and pale in
the sky, and darkness shrouded the freshly graded dirt.
Two bodies sprawled in the shadow of a bulldozer. At one
end of the lot a dumpster overflowed with construction
debris, broken sheetrock, tattered insulation and twisted
re-bar. She switched on her mag-light. The beam
illuminated the sheen of viscera.
Los Angeles, the City of Angels. It was earning its other
nickname all over again: Crimson City. The war-oh, right,
the "conflict"-between the species was spreading. This
time, two adult males. The smaller one looked peaceful.
Close cropped afro, square-chinned face, ebony skin, big
brown eyes and a deep gash across his throat. The other
one, John Doe Number Two, didn't look so peaceful. Both
men looked dead.
Claudia reached for her police-issue pack and took out a
pair of latex gloves. After a hesitation, she slipped them
on. No sense not checking things out while she waited for
the detectives and the M.E. to arrive. Considering she'd
notified the L.A.P.D. fifteen minutes before she'd called
the buttheads from Internal Operations, she felt confident
the detectives would arrive first. They'd better. Internal
Operations, unofficially Battlefield Operations or B-Ops,
the city government Intelligence division, was nothing but
a freaking pain in the ass. No one in the L.A.P.D. liked
them, least of all her. But in this case, damn it, she
didn't have a choice. She had to notify B-Ops because of
Korzha.
She glanced at the vampire just to make sure he was still
there. He was. Now there was a real piece of work. Tiberiu
Korzha. He was the reputed head of the vampire Family
Korzha with an army of lawyers who had so far made every
Prosecuting Attorney in the city look like a chump. The
creature stood just within sight, though much of his face
remained in shadow. Mostly the P.D. dealt with rogue
vamps, vampires who went outside the law and the treaty
between the species or who just went flat out insane; but
Korzha had Strata +1 written all over him: He was part of
their society and was as suave, rich and debonair as they
came. Right now, he stood still as a statue. She hoped he
had control of himself. There was blood all over,
including a crimson splatter on the side of the bulldozer.
Spilled blood tended to make an edgy vamp edgier.
"You have anything to do with this, Korzha, or you just
get lucky?" she asked.
"Lucky," he replied. But not like he meant it.
The L.A.P.D. didn't have jurisdiction to arrest him for
any of the crimes of which he was suspected-racketeering,
drug-trafficking, assault, forced conversion, fraud, and
aiding-and-abetting all of the above-but everybody knew
Tiberiu Korzha was a killer. Anyone needed a vamp taken
down, Korzha was reputedly the guy to make the hit. He was
an interesting vamp. B-Ops insisted paranormal
investigations belonged to them, but Claudia didn't give a
rat's ass about that. There wasn't any law against the
P.D. asking a vamp questions. Not yet.
Even in the dark, she took care not to meet Korzha's eyes.
He'd been at her precinct for a friendly interview more
than once. He liked to voodoo the ladies, give them that
come-hither-for-a-mind-blowing-orgasm stare. He'd tried it
once or twice with her. Damn near worked. Good-looking
vamp. Weren't they all? She went back to examining the
bodies.
She decided Korzha must have fed on at least one of the
dead guys, and that's why he wasn't twitchy.
"Lucky accident? Or lucky you got them both?" she asked,
still crouched beside the bodies. The new P.D. uniforms,
dark blue and form fitting, tended to fit poorly in the
crotch. She had long legs and her uniform pants kept
riding up.
"Well," the vamp said in his smooth voice. "You know what
they say about luck."
"Yeah, right. If it weren't for bad luck. ... Vamps don't
have bad luck," she retorted. How much bad luck could you
have if you lived in the Upper, were rolling in money and
didn't die without a lot of help? Not much. Now, her? She
had all kinds of luck, none good lately. Way too much
overtime. All the cops were pulling extra shifts just to
keep up. Her precinct had a pool going on total body count
by end of month. She had one of the highest numbers.
Halfway through the month and they were almost there. Her
pick looked pretty good.
"This guy-" She pointed to the larger body. "He had some
bad luck, I'd say." She glanced up again, kind of a
sideways look so as to avoid meeting his eyes. A vamp
hanging out in this neighborhood just didn't compute, not
without throwing in a criminal motive or two or
three. "Dollars to donuts he was looking to get Made. You
know anything about that?" Korzha's teeth flashed in the
dim light. "I haven't Made a vampire in ... quite a long
time."
"Yeah. Right."
"The last thing this city needs is more post-human wrecks
running amok."
She reached into the last of the smaller corpse's pockets.
Surprise, surprise. He had no ID. "Something's rotten in
the State of Denmark, wouldn't you say?" John Doe One
looked to be the younger as well as the smaller of the two
bodies. Adult human male, well developed. Good nutrition.
She touched his neck and found the wounds she expected.
His skin felt cool with a faint sheen of something on the
surface. There were two puncture wounds, and about a
centimeter and a half below that a scatter line of
petechia from lower teeth pressing up and two telltale
bruises from lower canines.
Korzha hunkered down beside her, watching curiously.
"Got hungry, did you?" she asked.
She pretended she didn't notice his shoulder practically
touching hers. The problem with vamps like Korzha, besides
the sharp teeth and insatiable lust for human blood, was
the combination of physical and supernatural charisma.
Supposedly, the man had been good-looking when he was
human and becoming a vamp must have tripled the effect.
When the subject came up, which it did whenever he got
hauled to the precinct for a little polite interrogation,
most every woman agreed Korzha was a fine-looking man.
Yummy was the adjective most often applied. Rumor was a
lot of other vamps imitated his looks. Some things, of
course, couldn't be duplicated: his six-foot frame,
muscled without being overdone, and a face that, when you
caught him in a moment of repose, was handsome but not
pretty. The Armani suits, leather shoes, French shirts,
the close shave and the perfect hair cut with a hint of
sideburn trimmed to a point, razored off his neck-that
look, a lot of male vamps adopted. If Korzha raked his
fingers through his hair, every espresso-colored lock
sprang back into place. A bit chilly, it always seemed to
her, that kind of perfection. But, he had a smile that
could heat a person up pretty quick.
Korzha shook his head like he had a bad taste in his
mouth. Somewhere in the distance a dog barked. A real dog,
not a werewolf. "It wasn't me."
Claudia shrugged. "It's not like I'm a vegetarian myself.
But did you have to kill him?"
"I didn't."
"Right." She shook her head. "I swear, I don't know why I
bother asking. I could have caught you with your teeth in
the guy's throat and you'd be, 'Officer, I'm innocent.'"
She risked a look at the vamp. His face was
expressionless, but she saw his tongue come out to wet his
lower lip. She hated it when anyone-fang, dog or human-
thought she was stupid. "You're one of the most freaking
notorious vamps in the whole of Crimson City, Korzha. A
known hit-man-"
"Prove it."
"I find you standing over two dead guys, and you didn't
kill anybody?"
"Officially, of course-" Korzha gave her an odd smile-
"until the coroner calls it, they aren't dead."
"Stow it, fang."
Korzha laughed. "Even if I did-how would you put it?-take
care of these two gentlemen, Officer Donovan, you're
outside your jurisdiction." Every now and then, Korzha
talked like he came from someplace else. Someplace far
away from the good old U.S. of A. Really, really Upper.
Stood to reason. Most vampires and all the vamps from the
Korzha family came from the Upper, lived in Strata +1. And
it was in the nature of vamps to like the finer things.
They looked it, lived it, talked it. They wouldn't
interact with humans at all if they didn't need blood.
"Yeah, well. B-Ops isn't here yet," she said. Resentment
gave her words an edge. B-Ops demanded they handle all
paranormal incidents; like that sort of crime could only
be handled by college boys and jarheads. B-Ops thought the
L.A.P.D. was incompetent. From what she'd seen in her time
on the force, they worked hard to compete. Nobody in the
P.D. liked B-Ops; it was kind of a mutual-hatred society.
Just like the rest of the city. Another serving of
antipathy, please.
"Well, then," Korzha said, letting his aristocratic tones
linger in the air.
"I'm the officer on the scene," she said. Freaking vamp.
Snobs, all of them. Thought they were better than
everyone. "There's dead humans here. Gotta take a look.
Ask a few questions. It'd be a dereliction of duty, if I
didn't."
"Only one of them is human," Korzha said.
He sounded serious, and Claudia thought that was a pretty
interesting change of tactic. Vamps hardly ever shared
information with cops. "Yeah? Which one isn't?"
"The larger."
She studied the second body for a moment. It made a far
less pleasant sight than the first which wasn't remotely
pretty. Number Two's chest was torn open. Not cut; torn.
It looked like someone had stuck his bare hand into the
guy's rib cage, made a fist and pulled hard. A heart
balanced in the corpse's left hand and, judging from the
mess in his torso, she presumed it was his. She checked
her comm readout, figured she had enough time, and dug a
HemoStrip out of her backpack. "He's not a vamp or he'd be
turning to dust by now, and I doubt he's a werewolf."
"Why?" asked Korzha.
"Why do I think he's not a dog?" Sheesh. Vamps could be so
ignorant. But Korzha ought to know, considering the
neighborhood he chose to hang out in. Lotsa wolves around
here. "Easy," she said. "No sign of re-transformation. And
besides, if he was a dog, his packmates would be all over
this place."
The vampire didn't move. Eerie, the way his kind could be
so motionless.
"Lucky us." She wiggled the HemoStrip at him. "Plenty of
blood for a field sample." She collected a drop of
glistening gore from the center of the chest cavity, less
chance of contamination, then dropped the strip in the
vial and broke the chem-release seal. "So, not a dog, not
a vamp. Not a human. What the hell is he then? A ghost?"
"A demon."
Claudia fell backward onto her butt. Something went squish
under her, followed by the odor of something rotting from
the inside out. "Oh, crud. This is just gross. Korzha, you
made me drop the HemoStrip." The vampire plucked something
from the ground and handed it to her. Damn preternatural
vision. B-Ops got night vision contacts, but not the P.D.,
oh no. God forbid the first line of defense in a city
about to ignite should be prepared. Not that she could
blame Korzha for that. She took the HemoStrip from
him. "Thanks."
"My pleasure."
She dropped the vial into a pocket to free up her hands
for brushing off her backside. Thank God she still had on
the gloves. Yuck. Her eyes fixed on Korzha's ear-he was a
tall creature, which meant her head tipped back-she could
peripherally see the line of his just-shaved cheek. She
caught a whiff of sandalwood from him. Nice. "Let's
pretend a minute there's any such thing as demons," she
said.
"Cut the crap, Officer." There was that voice again.
Very ... Upper. "You know damn well there are."
"How can you tell?" she asked, genuinely curious. She
stripped off her gloves and shoved them in an outside
pocket of her pants. "To me, these look like two regular
humans who didn't deserve to die."
Korzha picked something off the seat of her pants and
flung it away. "Experience."
She gave him a look. Had he, or had he not, let his hand
linger on her butt? Somewhere in the back of the lot, a
tomcat yowled. "Gonna explain that?" she asked. She lifted
her eyebrows when he didn't and pointed at the body. "If
you're so experienced, what kind of demon is it?"
"A dead one," Korzha said.
"Everyone's a comedian," she said.
"He's Mahsei."
"Isn't that a kind of tuna fish?" She gave him a fake
grin. "I got that for lunch today. Tuna salad with celery
and stuff in it. Made it myself."
The vampire indicated the second body. "Considered a
lesser demon. Although," he added, "I believe Mahsei are
underestimated in their world."
"Har, har." Claudia turned back to the bodies. She gave
John Doe Two a closer glance. Looked human to her. She
really, really hated being condescended to. "Jerk," she
muttered.
"I heard that."
"Oh, gee." She lifted a hand. He could be in the Upper
right now, relaxing amidst the best that money could buy,
and instead he was out here with the freaks and losers of
L.A., slumming. Feeling superior. "Sorry, Korzha. I forgot
about the supernatural hearing and all that. I'll be more
careful next time."
"You do that."
Claudia studied the bodies. The thing was, rumors about
demons had been cropping up on the streets for some time
now. Lots of dead vamps and dogs these days, too. Lots of
unrest. She frowned. She wasn't about to tell Korzha that
something about the second body bothered her. The clothes
for instance; unusual fabric, and not a style she'd ever
seen in Crimson City. There were no buttons on the pants,
and no zipper either. Instead, they laced in front. She
touched the corpse's chin, pulling his face around. His
eyes were open. For a moment she thought he'd been blind,
but it was just that his irises were so pale they looked
nearly white. "No rigor yet," she said to cover her
surprise. But she supposed the eyes weren't so unusual.
She knew at least one other human with freakily pale
irises.
Korzha coughed, but she ignored him. Her mind clicked
along. She didn't give a crap about contaminating the
scene. B-Ops wouldn't notice, and if they did, hey, what
did they expect? The P.D. was incompetent. They shoulda
got to the scene sooner. "This guy ..." She pointed to the
gaping chest. "Classic rogue kill."
"You don't say?"
Claudia twisted a little to look at the vampire. His eyes
glittered, but she was careful not to directly meet his
gaze. Not with that vampire voodoo head stuff he liked to
do. She wanted to look, but she didn't. "Look, Korzha, the
P.D. isn't stupid about paranormal crimes, no matter what
B-Ops likes to say." She pointed again. "Heart torn out
and put in the left hand. Wasted blood as a sign of
contempt. Plain as day if you know anything about rogue
kills. One of these guys was here to get Made, I'll
guarantee that."
"If you say so."
Claudia fought back annoyance and explained: "Take down on
the first guy, all the blood drained, throat slit to be
sure he isn't coming back. Then the rogue-kill here with
the other. To send a message."
"Fascinating," Korzha replied.
Claudia suddenly felt the hair on her arms prickle. She
glanced over her shoulder, but the construction site was
empty except for her and Korzha, the two bodies and the
smell of death. "Busy vamp, aren't you, Mr. Korzha?" she
asked.
"One strives not to be bored." He made a point of glancing
at his Patek Philippe wristwatch. Another affection of the
Upper. Vamps didn't need watches.
"You got someplace to be?"
Korzha shrugged. "A wedding reception."
"How romantic." She rose, and held up a hand, palm out.
The howling cats started up again and she waited for a
lull. "I got someplace to be, too, you know. I promised my
daughter I'd make her waffles for breakfast." She checked
her comms.
"In three hours."
"Your daughter?" the vamp said.
Claudia knew she shouldn't smile at him, but she did
anyway. "Strawberry waffles. With whipped cream on top."
She pointed her forefinger downward and made a swirling
motion. "You gonna mess me up and break her heart?"
"Perish the thought."