it's her. She comes in from time to time. Checks out the bar. Working girl, from
what I've seen of her."
"She ever talk to you?"
The bartender shook his head. "Just to order drinks. Virgin Marys. Keeps to
herself, unless she hooks a John."
"When's the last time you saw her?"
"Couple of weeks ago, I guess. She left with some suit." He tilted his head to
one side. "Are you a cop, lady?"
"Do I look like a cop?"
"Hell, no!" the bartender snorted. "The reason I asked, see… that suit she
walked out of here with turned up missing a couple of days later."
"You don't say?"
"Cops were all over this place, asking questions. I guess he was some kind of
business bigwig," he said, turning to slide one of the long stems into its overhead
rack. "The cops seemed to think the bastard high-tailed it to Rio with company
funds. The way I see it—" The bartender turned back to face his questioner, only
to find himself addressing empty space. He shrugged and resumed polishing his
highball glass. Fucking tourists.
Sonja strode purposefully across the Hotel Orso's lobby, oblivious to the
stares from the staff and guests. She had more important things on her mind. The
blood witch was in the area.
There was no doubt the Contessa's renfield was out and about, doing her
mistress's work.
She had spent the better part of two years tracking down the old bitch. She
had come close to killing her back in Vienna, only to have her escape. Now it was
up to her to track down the Contessa and finish her off, much like a master hunter
would a wounded deer.
Vampires as ancient as the Contessa were never easy prey. You didn't get to
be hundreds of years old without honing to a fine art the ability to go to ground. If
one identity got too hot for them, they would switch to another as easily as they
would change their socks. This made her quarry especially difficult to keep track
of. However, since ancients rarely had to worry about being recognized from one
generation to another, they tended to use the same identities over and over again.
Another thing in her favor was the inherent difficulty ancients seemed to have in
understanding the importance of technology, which to her meant commissioning a
computer database, based on her own design, that could access and crossreference real estate records, land titles, newspaper reports, census information,
birth and death certificates, and maps, scanning them for known identities and
pseudonyms of the so-called Ruling Class. As an afterthought, she had an
anagram generator incorporated into the system, just in case someone decided to
get cute.
A search on the Contessa pulled up newspaper reports dating from the
Depression of a notorious "high-class house of ill repute" called Red Velvet
Manor. Its madam was one Eliza Bayroth, who was rumored to have catered to
the more outre tastes of captains of industry, Supreme Court justices, and the
occasional President After the start of World War II, rumors began to circulate of
occult rituals, which may or may not have been a cover for Fifth Columnist
activities.
The brothel shut down shortly after a newspaperman famous for underworld
reportage announced his intention of publishing an expose of Red Velvet Manor.
The reporter disappeared off the face of the Earth not long after that. A year later,
a badly decomposed body, believed to be that of the missing journalist, was
found in a nearby landfill. It was assumed to be a gangland killing. By the time the
body was uncovered, Madame Bayroth had married a dissolute Romanian
nobleman and set sail for the Continent, where, from there on in, she was known
simply as the Contessa.
This information dovetailed into what she herself had uncovered from her
European sources and from microfiched issues of Le Figaro, Paris-Match, and
Der Spiegel. Studied in its totality, the data answered several nagging questions
Sonja had concerning her quarry.
She had been hunting vampires for almost thirty years. Her knowledge of their
strengths and weaknesses, their abilities and limits, did not come from reading
books or watching movies, but from hands-on experience. But, for all her
Contessa. For one, she did not seem to possess the telltale fangs, nor did she
surround herself with lesser vampires of her own Making. And, most important,
she had survived an attack with a silver weapon, albeit as a double amputee.
Sonja realized now that she had made a grave mistake in classifying the
Contessa as a garden-variety vampire. From what she had since learned from
various sources and her own research, the Contessa was not a true vampire, but a
strega—those who transform themselves into Undead through the use of black
magic. Such creatures were rare, but those that existed were crafty and possessed
different strengths and weaknesses than "typical" vampires. While the Contessa's
means of feeding on her victims did not spread the taint, that didn't make her any
less dangerous. Like all vampires, she was a corrupting force on any human who
fell into her sphere of influence. To allow such a monster to continue to exist was
anathema to Sonja.
After all, it was one such monster that had attacked Sonja, over thirty years
ago… and made her one of them.
Phaedra was wearing the short red wig and the black silk sheath that night. It
hadn't taken her very long to reel in the next John whose name wasn't John. As
they headed for the Boxter, he began to drag his heels. She turned to look at him.
"Is there something wrong, sugar?"
"Look, lady…" he said, his face coloring. "I thought I could go through with
this."
"What do you mean?" she asked, genuinely baffled.
"It's not you!" he said with a nervous laugh. "God knows, you're one of the
most beautiful women I've ever met! It's just that—well, I keep thinking of my wife
and the kids. And, well, I'm sure you're a great person and all that… but I just
can't go through with this. I'm sorry if I led you on back at the bar."
Phaedra blinked and shifted around uncomfortably, uncertain of what she
should do. She had never had a John throw the hook before. The one or two who
had gotten away in the past had done so simply because someone who would
have been able to give a description to the local authorities or remember a license
plate number had walked up at an inopportune moment. But nothing like actual
rejection had ever happened to her before. It had never once crossed her mind that
a man might be capable of passing up sex. In her experience, given the chance,
men fucked anything that was willing, and much that was not.
"I feel like I haven't been honest with you or myself. My name isn't John, it's
Frank. Frank Hensley," he said, an abashed look on his face. "Believe me, I would
love to spend the night with you—"
"Get in the car," she said.
"Beg pardon?" Frank blinked, uncertain he'd heard her correctly.
"Get in the car, damn you!"
Frank's eyes widened at the sight of the gun aimed at his midsection. "Whoa,
lady!" he said, automatically raising his hands. "Don't you think you're
overreacting?"
Bartenders, like cops, develop a sixth sense for trouble. And the chick in the
leather jacket was definitely that. Over the years he learned never to trust anyone
who wore sunglasses after the sun went down, since it usually meant they were
strung out on something. Still, potential trouble or not, it was his job to serve her,
just as he would any other customer who happened to stroll into the Embers
Lounge.
"What'll it be, ma'am?"
"I don't want a drink, just information. Have you seen this woman?" she asked,
pushing a snapshot wrapped in a twenty towards him.
"What's the deal?" he said, eyeing her suspiciously. "She owe you money or
something?"
The woman in the sunglasses smiled crookedly without showing her teeth. "Far
from it. In fact, I'm the one who owes her. I'm just trying to track her down so I
can pay her back."
The bartender hesitated for a moment, but the twenty was too tempting to
ignore. He picked up the photo and frowned at it for a moment.
"Yeah, I recognize her."
The stranger in the leather jacket and mirrored shades grew attentive. "When
was the last time you saw her?"
"Just a few minutes ago." He nodded in the direction of the side door. "She
just left with some suit."
To his surprise, the stranger bared her teeth in a snarl and headed in the
direction he'd indicated as if the joint had suddenly caught fire. The bartender
wasn't certain, but he could have sworn he'd glimpsed fangs. He shook his head,
doing his best to forget what he had just seen as he pocketed the twenty. Yeah,
she was trouble all right. But not his, thank God.
"Shut up and get in the car!" Phaedra said, jerking open the passenger door.
Frank stared at the gun, then at Phaedra. What he saw in her eyes was enough
to turn him on his heel and send him sprinting back in the direction of the motel.
He managed to get halfway across the parking lot before she dropped him with a
single shot to the right leg. Frank lay on the asphalt, writhing in pain as he clutched
what remained of his kneecap.
Phaedra hurried to claim her prize, removing the handcuffs she kept hidden in
her purse as she crossed the lot with brisk, purposeful strides. Frank cringed in
fear, lifting his bloodied hands to shield his face, as she loomed over him.
"Take my wallet, if that's what you want! I don't care! Just don't kill me!
Please! I've got a wife and kids!"
Phaedra cursed under her breath and quickly scanned the parking lot for
witnesses. The bastard was making too much noise. She would be better off
popping him here and now and fleeing the scene, then starting from scratch in one
of the gentlemen's clubs across town. Phaedra returned the handcuffs to her purse
and raised the gun. Frank began to alternately pray and sob out loud.
Before Phaedra could squeeze the trigger, the side door of the bar banged
open, causing her to swing the gun in the direction of the noise. She saw a strange
woman standing framed in the doorway, dressed in a black leather motorcycle
jacket and wearing a pair of mirrored sunglasses, even though it was the dead of
night.
The stranger did not seem surprised by the sight of a man wallowing on the
asphalt, nor was she frightened by the gun pointed in her direction. Instead of
turning and running back into the building, the stranger let the door close behind
her and gave her right wrist a small, sharp snap and a silver blade in the shape of a
frozen flame sprouted from her hand as if by magic. Phaedra gasped in
recognition, even though she had never seen the woman before.
The Blue Monster fixed Phaedra with its horrible mirrored eyes and moved
towards her with determined, measured steps, its hideous silver fang reflecting the
glow from the streetlights.
Phaedra squeezed the trigger of the gun, firing on her approaching enemy. The
Blue Monster moved with the fluid grace of underwater ballet, twisting its upper
torso one-quarter turn to allow the bullet to pass by. The second bullet, however,
caught it in the upper shoulder, knocking it to the ground.
Phaedra looked down at Frank, still cowering at her feet, then at the Blue
Monster, which was already painfully picking itself up off the ground, and, with a
scream of angry frustration, fled to the waiting Boxter, leaving six feet of smoking
rubber in her wake.
Sonja sat up and grimaced at the pain radiating from her shoulder. She bit her
lower lip, her fangs inadvertently drawing more blood. It felt like the renfield had
broken her damn collarbone. Then again, she'd taken slugs to the heart and lungs
without much to show for it except some scars. She grunted as she got to her feet,
pushing the throbbing in her shoulder to the back of her mind.
She walked over to where the renfield's intended victim lay huddled on the
asphalt. He was alive, although his face was starting to go gray from shock. He
flinched as she leaned over him.
"Don't shoot me," he whispered.
"I'm not her."
The side door opened, and the bartender stuck his head outside. "What the
fuck's going on out here?"
"This man's been shot! Call 911!" she shouted in reply.
The bartender nodded and disappeared back inside the Embers.
Frank shook his head, a look of baffled pain on his face. "Why'd she shoot
me?"
"You must have broken the script. You did something she was unprepared
for."
Frank laughed without humor. "All I said was that I didn't want to go home
with her." His laughter turned into a moan, causing him to close his eyes. When he
opened them again, the woman with the mirrored sunglasses was gone. Which
suited him just fine. There was something about the way she stared at the blood
from his wound that scared him even more than being shot again.
The sound of the front door slamming shut reverberated throughout the house.
Startled, the Contessa looked around at the red velvet wallpaper and the gilded
rococo statuary that surrounded her on all sides, a look of bafflement on her face.
This wasn't Vienna. And she was reasonably sure it wasn't Budapest. But if she
was in neither of these places, then where was she? And, more important, when
was she?
Her confused gaze fell to her lap, and she caught sight of the grotesque
contraptions that served as her legs. Ah, yes. The New World. The city that
sprawled along the shores of the great inland freshwater sea. She stared at a
heavily brocaded mahogany love seat and saw a long-dead Chief Justice being
fellated by a twelve-year-old boy. She shook her head, dislodging the ghost
memory. It was so easy to forget where and when she was these days.
If it wasn't for Magda… no, her name was Gretchen. Wait, that wasn't right,
either. Phaedra? Yes. That was it. If it weren't for her faithful companion, Phaedra,
she would become lost within the world inside herself, wandering the shadowhaunted palaces and ballrooms of centuries past.
"Contessa!"
Phaedra burst into the parlor, her mascara smeared and hair in disarray. That
more than the
look of fear on her companion's face shocked the Contessa back
into her senses.
"What is it, child? You look a fright."
Phaedra grabbed the handles of the old woman's wheelchair and began quickly
pushing her towards the converted dumbwaiter. "We have to leave! We have to
leave right now!"
"Phaedra, what's going on?" The Contessa twisted around in her seat so she
could face her companion. "Answer me, young lady!"
Phaedra fumbled with the door to the elevator, her eyes blinded by tears. "I'm
so sorry, mistress. I'm so, so sorry."
"Sorry? For what!"
Phaedra's shoulders shook as she began to sob. "I've failed you, mistress.
Please forgive me."
"Speak plainly, Phaedra! You're starting to annoy me!"
"The Blue Monster is here."
The Contessa gasped involuntarily as phantom pain shot through the stumps of
her legs. She put a trembling hand to her mouth, her eyes wide with fear.
"Are you certain it's her?"
"As sure as sunlight burns," Phaedra replied. "Please, Contessa, we've got to
leave right now! Take the elevator to the ground floor and wait for me by the
boathouse. I'll go upstairs and get the strongbox and passports, then I'll bring the
car around. I'll have to put you in the trunk—just in case sunrise catches us before
I can reach a safe haven."
"But I don't want to ride in the trunk," the Contessa said petulantly.
"Please, mistress, not now! Just do as I ask!" Phaedra pushed the wheelchair
into the elevator and pulled the doors shut behind it. "I'll be down to get you in a
couple of minutes. I promise."
The Contessa sat in the darkened elevator, staring at the control panel for a
long moment, before punching the button.
Phaedra grabbed the top drawer of the bedroom dresser and yanked it out,
sending crotchless panties and Wonder Bras flying in every direction. She flipped
the drawer over, revealing the manila envelope taped to its bottom. Inside the
envelope were numerous identity papers, passports, and documents made out in
the various names the Contessa had used over the years. Exactly which
pseudonym they would be using to flee the country would be decided later.
Phaedra stuffed the envelope inside a leather satchel, then hurried over to the