Eternity in Death (In Death #24.5)(11)

“Illegals hasn’t worked the combo,” Peabody began once they’d shoehorned into the elevator. “They don’t even have Bloodbath on their list of watch points. But they have worked a combination of Erotica, Bliss, Rabbit, with traces of blood—usually animal blood—in cases of vampire fetishism. They call it Vamp, and the use generally skews young. They haven’t had any homicides as a result of.”

“Our guy upped the stakes, considerably. Have to wonder why the club hasn’t made their list.”

“It’s new,” Peabody told her. “Way underground. Hadn’t hit their radar until I contacted them regarding our investigation.”

“Underground clubs pop up faster than weeds,” McNab put in. “Live or die on word of mouth. Since it’s more than urban legend that people tend to go down and not come back up, they don’t get heavy tourist traffic.”

“Tiara Kent found out about it somewhere.” Eve strode off the elevator and into the garage.

“Crowd she runs with.” Peabody jerked a shoulder. “New place with a jagged edge? It would be right up her alley.”

“And in less than two weeks from the first time she goes down, she’s guzzling a new, exciting illegals cocktail, and dies from a neck wound.” Eve slid behind the wheel of her vehicle. “That’s fast work, smooth work when you consider the security in her building never made him.” She glanced over at Roarke. “How much would a few pints of human blood net on the black market?”

“A few hundred.”

“What about famous human blood?”

“Ah.” He nodded as she drove out of the garage. “Yes, that might drive up the price to the right buyer. Are you thinking she was specifically targeted?”

“It’s an angle. She’s known, and she’s known to take risks, to slut around, to live wild. Her best friend hadn’t heard of the club before Kent clued her in. So maybe the idea or an invitation got passed straight onto the vic. In any case, she hooked up with her killer there, so someone saw them together. Someone knows him.”

“You know,” McNab speculated, “if you factor out the blood-sucking, soulless demon angle, this should be a slam dunk.”

“Good thing none of us believe in blood-sucking, soulless demons.” But Peabody’s hand crept over and found McNab’s.

Eve caught the gesture in the rearview, just as she caught the way the fingers of Peabody’s free hand snuck between the buttons of her shirt to close over something.

“Peabody, are you wearing a cross?”

“What? Me?” The hand dropped like a stone into her lap. Her cheeks went pink as she cleared her throat. “It just happened that I know Mariella in Records, who just happened to have one, and I happened to borrow it. Just for backup.”

“I see. And would you also be carrying a pointy stick?”

“Not unless you mean McNab.”

McNab smiled easily as Eve stopped at a light, turned around in her seat. “Repeat after me: Vampires do not exist.”

“Vampires do not exist,” Peabody recited.

With a nod, Eve turned back, then narrowed her eyes at Roarke. “What’s that look on your face?”

“Speculation. Most legends, after all, have some basis in fact. From Vlad the Impaler to Dracula of lore. It’s interesting, don’t you think?”

“It’s interesting that I’m in this vehicle with a trio of lamebrains.”

“Lamebrained to some,” Roarke replied equably, “open-minded to others.”

“Huh. Maybe we should stop off at a market on the way, pick up a few pounds of garlic, just to ease those open minds.”

“Really?” Peabody said from the back, then hunched her shoulders as Eve sent her a stony stare in the rearview mirror. “That means no,” Peabody muttered to McNab.

“I translated already.”

Eve had to settle for a second-level street slot five blocks from the underground entrance. The sun had set, and the balmy April day had gone to chill with a wind that had risen up to kick through the urban canyons.

They moved through the packs of pedestrians—heading home, heading to dinner, heading to entertainment. At the mouth of the underground entrance, Eve paused.

“Stick together through the tunnels,” she ordered. “We can work in pairs once we get to the club, but even then, let’s keep visual contact at all times.”

She didn’t believe in the demons of lore, but she knew the human variety existed. And many of them lived, played, or worked in the bowels of the city.

They moved down, out of the noise, out of the wind, into the dank dimness of the tunnels. The clubs and haunts and dives that existed there catered to a clientele that would make most convicted felons sprint in the opposite direction.

Offerings underground included sex clubs that specialized in S&M, in torture dealt out for a fee by human, droid, or machine, or any miserable combination thereof. In the bars, the drinks were next to lethal and a man’s life was worth less than the price of a shot. The violent and the mad might wander there, sliding off into the shadows to do what could only be done in the dark, where blood and death bloomed like fetid mushrooms.

She could hear weeping, raw and wild, echoing down one of the tunnels, and laughter that was somehow worse. She saw one of the lost addicts, pale as a ghost, huddled on the filthy floor, panting, pushing a syringe against his arm, giving himself a fix of what would eventually kill him.