Sunni and Dennis stood under a streetlamp at the corner of Fifth and Market, between a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant and a defunct storefront advertising a gambling game called Fascination. A shopping cart and bundle of blankets in the doorway indicated that someone had claimed the Fascination parlor as their temporary home. Dennis had dressed down for the occasion, but his jeans had razor sharp creases down the legs. Even his skin gave off a plump, glossy sheen that screamed money. Sunni felt a constant, low-level buzz of adrenaline that kept her fingers twitching and her eyes darting around. Dennis, the old boxer, probably thought he was protecting them, but Sunni knew now that she packed more power in her pinkie fingers than Dennis had in his whole body.
Dennis clutched a crumpled paper grocery bag in one hand and his BlackBerry in the other, eyeing everyone who passed them with way too much interest. Most of the denizens of the corner paid him no mind, intent as they were on scoring dope, finding something to eat, or struggling with the demons in their heads, but a few slowed down and looked him over with malicious intent, causing Sunni to bristle with aggression.
“Man, it stinks of pee here,” Dennis said, rubbing his nose. He pushed his sleeve back to check the time, flashing a big Rolex.
Sunni slapped his wrist. “Don’t show that around here.”
He sighed and then chuckled. “I can’t think of the last time someone kept me waiting, Sunni. Except for Gloria, no one would dare.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not in Kansas anymore,” Sunni said.
“Looking for someone?”
The words came from a short, middle-aged white man wearing a blue Windbreaker and an A’s baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, leaning against the graffiti-covered wall next to the store. He had soft brown eyes behind rimless glasses. He looked entirely innocuous.
“Are you Paul?” Dennis asked in his usual booming voice.
“Shh,” the man said, “You trying to wake the whole neighborhood?” He moved a few steps closer to them, but kept looking up and down the street, as if watching for a car. “Did you bring something for me?”
Dennis held out the bag. The man grabbed it, glanced inside, and then tucked it under his jacket.
“Is there a picture in there?”
“Yes.”
Isabel had insisted on engagement photos, even though there wasn’t time to publish them in the newspaper. Sunni, after pondering the fact that a vampire’s image could be reproduced, another myth debunked, had printed one up on the computer. It was in the paper bag, on top of a hundred thousand dollars in cash.
The man in the baseball cap lit a cigarette. “Do you want us to call you when it’s done?” he asked, exhaling in Dennis’s face.
Sunni and Dennis exchanged glances.
“That’s not necessary,” Sunni replied. “We’ll know. ”
“Okay then.” The man dropped the lit cigarette on the sidewalk. He started to turn the corner.
“Wait!” Sunni said.
He looked back at her, his expression neutral.
She closed the distance between them. Up close, she saw his teeth were nicotine stained and his glasses were smudged.
“This man is very, very dangerous,” she whispered.
He smiled. “Yeah, okay.”
She grabbed the arm of his jacket. “I’m serious,” she hissed. “You can’t mess around with this guy. Don’t try to do it with one man, it needs to be several, and they have to be experts. You’ve got to kill him right away; don’t talk to him first. Riddle him with bullets, do you hear me?”
He stared steadily at her hand until she released him. “People like me generally don’t like it when people like you tell us how to do our job,” he said, and then he turned around and walked away.
Sunni ground the man’s cigarette under her heel. “I don’t like this, Dennis.”
He shrugged. “They come very highly recommended.”
“What if they get killed?” Sunni shrieked.
“Quiet.” Dennis tucked Sunni under his arm. “These are trained assassins, Sunni,” he said quietly. “If anyone can do the job, they can.”
Richard left the hotel with plenty of time to spare: St. Sebastian’s was only five blocks up Powell Street. It was a beautiful evening. The perpetual wind and fog had finally receded, leaving the city looking brand-new. San Francisco in the fog was a Monet, all muted colors and soft focus. In sunshine it was a Van Gogh, chaotic and bright. Richard liked the city either way, but to be honest, it was hardly more than the backwater it had been before the Gold Rush. He couldn’t wait to get back to London, to show Sunni what a real city could offer.
He thought about the wedding that was about to occur. It would be his third—no his fourth, actually. He’d forgotten about the barmaid in Munich in 1943. His latest coupling had been to the Countess Yvette de la Foucault, of Lyon, three years ago. It had been a daring move on his part. She was a very rich, very high profile woman. Their marriage was all over the news in Europe. The nerves of every vampire in the Council had been jangled, especially when the countess began to grow ill, of a wasting disease—anemia, septicemia—something nasty but impossible to diagnose. Within two weeks of the marriage she was dead, and her entire fortune had passed to her new husband. It was only then that he found out that the fortune consisted of a mortgaged estate filled with antiques encumbered by the claims of twenty-four different descendants. Isabel, on the other hand, had assured him that she was the sole heir to the LaForge millions.
Lazarus smiled at a pair of attractive women passing him as he strolled up the hill.
“Nice tux,” one of them said.
He lowered his head in acknowledgment of the compliment.
“God damn it,” Richard snapped. “What do they want now?”
The women heard him and looked alarmed, but he wasn’t speaking to them. He was referring to the black limousine that had just pulled into the bus stop. As the door opened Richard prepared himself to deal with Scipio and his henchmen again. He wasn’t worried, but he wanted to get to the church on time. Dealing with the Council might make him late.
But the person who opened the door wasn’t a vampire. It was a red-haired man in a dark suit. Gingers, they called them in England. He held a gun, very discreetly tucked into the crook of his other arm, just the muzzle showing. There was another man in the car: larger, bald, and with a dark complexion. He wasn’t displaying a gun, but Richard guessed he was probably carrying one. Two humans, armed with guns. This was an interesting development.
He stepped into the car at their request. Immediately he pulled a cologne-scented handkerchief from his pocket and held it to his nose. The car stank—of sweat, dried blood, and the rancid stench of fear. These men had been busy. Richard took a deep whiff of cologne and put the hanky down.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, gentlemen?”
The bald man answered. “Dennis LaForge sent us. ”
“I see. You have a wedding gift for me?”
The bald man smiled without showing his teeth. “You could say that. ”
The windows were tinted but Richard could see easily as the car drove a block and then turned into an underground parking garage. They circled down a few floors and parked. Richard could smell the tension coming off the men. It was decidedly more pronounced from the ginger. He had sensed something about Richard that was making him nervous.
The ginger had kept his gun trained on Richard the entire time. To his credit, his hand didn’t shake. Richard’s eyes lingered on the man’s gold wedding band. It was shiny, with not a scratch on it.
The bald man cracked two knuckles. “You aren’t getting married today, I’m afraid. You’re going to leave town now and you aren’t coming back.”
“And if I decline? ”
The man’s expression hardened. He was good at his job, Richard thought. If he were human he’d be quite frightened.
“You don’t get to decline.”
Richard clicked his tongue. “Did your employer tell you anything about me? ”
“He told me enough,” the bald man said.
“Let’s stop talking, Charlie, and just do it,” the red-haired man interjected.
The bald man opened his mouth to reply. It was still open when Richard grabbed his head and snapped it neatly to the side, severing his spinal cord. His head flopped forward, pulling his body along with it, onto the floor. The other man’s gun went off as Richard knocked his hand aside. Whoever had been driving behind the frosted glass panel jumped out of the car. The sound of footsteps on concrete receded into the distance. Richard smiled at the one human left behind.
“Newlywed, are you? ”
The man couldn’t answer. Richard felt his fear like a damp cloud. Like fog, it was, really. Quite unpleasant to be around.
“Well, you should be grateful to me. There will never be a chance for the marriage to go sour. She’ll always remember you like this, young and handsome and virile.”
“Please, sir,” the man babbled. “I’m begging you …”
“Well, perhaps not virile.”
Richard grabbed a hank of the man’s distinctive hair, yanked his head back, and then sank his fangs into his remarkably tender flesh.