turns to fire in their veins. They hunt and kill because they need to, because if they didn’t, they’d tear their own heads off. Just like any fix, the calm that comes from the kill doesn’t last long, but for a few minutes or maybe an hour, the fire fades to a single glowing ember and they’re at peace. Until they need to hunt again.
If I learned anything Downtown it’s this: I’m not a vampire, but I am a junkie. And every junkie needs a fix.
A DELIVERY VAN is pulling away from the curb outside the Bamboo House of Dolls. I go in and see stacks of whiskey in boxes, steel beer kegs, and Carlos by the bar, flanked by three lanky skinheads. One is in a bomber jacket, one is in a T-shirt of some black metal band, and the third, a huge skinhead, is in a German military officer’s coat.
Bomber Jacket jerks his head toward me. “We’re closed!”
“Just a quick one, sweetheart,” I say. “So I know you love me.”
Bomber Jacket pulls out—can you fucking believe this guy?—a Luger pistol, like he thinks he’s Rommel. Quicker than he can react, I scoop up one of the beer kegs and underhand it at him. It slams into his chest and knocks him across the room. The Luger flies out of his hand and lands on the floor somewhere near the bar.
The shaved ape in the officer’s coat starts across the room at me while the black metal skinhead pulls an impressive shank from his boot. Just to make things fun, I go straight for the one with the knife. This confuses the ape, who turns just as I reach his pal, whose arm is straight out, trying to pig-stick me. It’s been a long time since I’ve gone up against a human, so I don’t know if I’m really fast or if these geniuses are really slow, but I slip past the skinhead’s blade and pop him in the elbow, hyperextending the joint just enough to hurt, but not to snap. While little birdies are still flying around his head, I grab his arm and do-si-do around him, swinging him into the ape just as he comes up behind me.
But the ape is too huge to go down. He staggers back a step then lunges at me, faster than I expected. Fast enough to get hold of my jacket and throw a fist as hard as a tire iron into my jaw. I don’t want to get into a real fight with this guy because I’m more interested in his partner with the knife. When he loads up for another John Wayne punch, I grab one of the squat, bottom-heavy glass candles off the bar and smash it into the side of his head. That sends him staggering back to the opposite wall, where he slides down like a pile of bloody laundry.
The guy with the knife is back on me. He has just enough brains to know not to try to stab me straight on, so he’s going for a slashing attack. His arm blurs back and forth, then down, then up, trying to catch me off guard and bleed me. I parry his blows, letting one land on my forearm or shoulder occasionally. This is what I’ve wanted, a real chance to test the Kevlar armor in this jacket. He’s working up a pretty nice sweat, coming at me with all he’s got. Still, he’s easy to dance around, easy to block. His face is contorted and frantic with anger. As long as I let him get a shot in every now and then, I bet he’ll keep coming until he dies of old age or a stroke.
The guy I hit with the beer keg hasn’t moved, but the ape is getting back to his feet. Time to wrap things up.
As the black metal skinhead slashes down at my head, I reach up with my right hand and grab the knife. There’s a familiar ache, like electricity and heat, as the blade slices deep into my palm. I slam the heel of my left hand up under his jaw, staggering him, then twist my right hand, snapping the blade cleanly off his knife. As the ape rushes me, I go low and shove the broken blade deep into his thigh. He howls in pain and falls against the bar.
Damn, it feels great to hurt idiots.
None of the skinheads is getting up for a minute, so I look around for the Luger. Carlos is behind the bar, frozen in place, like he’s not sure if he’s more afraid of me or the Nazis on the floor. I spot the gun under a stool at the end of the bar and kneel to get it.
Good thing, too.
A blue-white ball of plasma misses me by a few millimeters and explodes against the far wall.
I wheel around and see him. It occurs to me that I might have been having a little too much fun before. I hadn’t thought to check if there was another skinhead in the storeroom. I snatch the Luger from under the stool, but it doesn’t help because the new skinhead does something a lot more interesting.
He holds up his right hand. There’s something with a glowing end. Gnarled like a short tree branch. It extends from his hand and wraps around his forearm to his elbow. It’s a piece of a Devil Daisy. I don’t know the real name. Devil Daisy is just what I called them. I haven’t seen one in a long time and that was in the arena. That’s all I get to think before he blasts a tongue of blue-white dragon fire at me. I’m still afraid to use magic. All I can do is dive to my left, rolling over some tables and chairs and landing on the floor. The second shot goes wide, as does his third. Still, I feel the heat and skin-crawling static as each shot streaks by.
This is some powerful magic the skinhead is packing, but it’s obvious from the way he’s waving the branch around that he doesn’t fully understand what it is or how to use it, beyond a dim aim-and-pray strategy.
My theory that he’s not in control of the weapon is confirmed when the ape yells something and the guy with the Devil Daisy turns and almost blows his own foot off. It’s the Three Stooges with death rays over there. The one I took the Luger from yells, “Asshole!” He gets to his feet and he and the ape, limping, with the knife still in his leg, get the skinhead I hit with the keg between them and drag him out the door. The one with the Daisy backs out of the place, holding the branch out like he’s covering himself with a gun.
“What the fuck was that?” yells Carlos.
“The Nazi asshole must have had a flare gun,” I lie.
I walk over, drop the Luger on the bar, and push it to Carlos. “Merry Christmas. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”
“What am I supposed to do with that?”
“I don’t know. Put it up next to the tiki dolls.”
“I don’t like guns. Is it loaded?”
I pop the clip out, check it, and slide it back in. “Yeah. Keep it behind the bar. Those guys are going to come back. Not tonight, but sometime soon.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely.”
“I still don’t want it,” he says, and pushes the Luger toward me. I flick on the safety and shove it into my jacket pocket. Carlos nods toward me. “You’re bleeding,” he says, and hands me a clean bar towel. I wrap it around the hand I used to grab the skinhead’s knife. The hand still hurts, but it’ll stop bleeding by the time I walk outside.
Carlos leans on the bar. “So, what are you? Special Forces? Some kind of ninja?”
“Yeah, I’m the ghost of Bruce Lee. You have a cigarette?” Carlos shakes his head. The moment is still burning bright for him, but it’s over for me. The rage has gone south and now I have a bigger problem. No question I was shot at by a magic weapon, but it was used by someone who had no idea what he was doing. I consider the possibility that Mason sent the skinheads, not to shake down Carlos, but to ambush me, only that doesn’t make any sense. If Mason decides to send a hit squad for me, he’ll make sure they know exactly what weapons they’re packing and how they work.
So, what devil Kris Kringle is handing out death rays to
