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And I’d sure like to know where Medea Bava is. She wants me dead every bit as much as Aelita. I should have gone after her when I was still Lucifer. Once I burned down Tartarus, she didn’t have anywhere to run. Now she’s with Deumos and I don’t know what that means. I don’t even know if the Sub Rosa has an Inquisition anymore. If they do, maybe a new Inquisitor has it in for me. I could ask Blackburn, but what are the chances he’d tell me the truth? Medea doesn’t need any official title to come after me, and if she kills me, everyone is going to say, “He deserved it,” and go have lunch.
No, I don’t need a war with the Cold Cases. I’ve got all I can handle right now.
As vile as they were, things were so much easier in the arena. It was all pain and anger and I knew exactly what I had to do and when. I’ll never stop dreaming about it and wanting things to be that simple again. The arena is my heroin. I’ve kicked the habit, but I’ll never get completely over it.
THE DARK ETERNAL is set up in Death Rides A Horse, a posh fetish bar in West Hollywood.
The Eternal made their bones by killing off or absorbing a lot of the scattered bloodsucker street gangs, then updating and expanding their business. The Eternal has even been known to do hits or provide protection for some of the big Sub Rosa families. All very much on the down low. They make most of their money off Lurkers and vampire wannabes dealing B+. Blood Plus. It’s blood infused with every kind of up, down, and Ring Around the Rosie you can think of. Addicts come to the Eternal because their product is the best. Score cheap bathtub gin from one of the outlaw gangs in Compton or San Berdoo and you’re likely to OD. Or end up with permanent palsy. Imagine living forever shaking so much you can’t piss straight much less sink your fangs into an unwilling throat.
Outside the club there’s a line stretching all the way to the corner. I walk up to the doorman, a burly black dude with a cross tattooed on his bald scalp. It’s a common vampire joke. Crosses don’t work on them any more than flypaper.
He puts a hand in the middle of my chest and notices the bulge of the gun under my coat.
“We’re all full up tonight. Try again tomorrow,” he says with a slight Jamaican accent.
“I’m on the list.”
He smiles while looking over the crowd.
“I doubt that.”
“I’m on Tykho’s list.”
He glances at me, then back to the line.
“That’s not a joke you want to be telling, man.”
I take out my phone and hold it up so he can see the time.
“I have a midnight appointment. If I’m not in the club in two minutes, it’s your skull Tykho is going to be gnawing on tonight. Not mine.”
He thinks it over. In a second he thumbs on the radio headset he’s wearing. He puts his hand over the mouthpiece.
“What’s your name?”
“Stark.”
“Ah,” he says. “They said look for a scarred man, but damn, you’re a lot uglier than I expected.”
He speaks into the headset. “I got your man Stark here and I’m sending him in. What? Don’t worry yourself. You’ll recognize him.”
He gives me a big toothy smile, showing his fangs.
“Go right in, sir.”
I light a Malediction.
“What’s wrong with you, man? You can’t smoke inside.”
“Why? None of you breathe. It’s not like you’re going to get cancer.”
He touches his lapels.
“It makes our clothes smell bad. Bothers some of the minions.”
I don’t have to ask who the minions are. There’s a whole army of them lined up outside the club.
I drop the smoke and crush it out with my boot.
