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I smiled and shook my head. “The only guys I meet are gangsters. It’s hard to find someone to bring home to Momma.”
He laughed, tilting his head back so the strobes danced in his liquid-brown eyes. “Does your mom know what you do?”
“Yeah, she’s always known. She’s just glad I have a job.”
“She probably worries about you. You’re her baby girl. This line of work, it’s gotta freak her out.”
I shrugged. I didn’t tell him my mom was a fortune-teller, a good one. Mom probably knew more about my life and my future than I wanted to think. Then again, maybe not—the fortune-telling game is notoriously unreliable, even for Mom.
I’d probably learned as much as I was going to, and really, that was more than I expected. I’d found a connection between Jamal and Papa Danwe’s outfit. Maybe Jamal was doing business with Papa Danwe. Maybe the kid had unknowingly picked up one of Terrence Cole’s girlfriends and tied her to the bondage rack in his apartment. I could see Jamal getting himself squeezed for something like that.
And then there was the Vampire Fred. I couldn’t probe his mind as I could a normal human’s, probably because his brain was as dead as the rest of him. But I didn’t like him. I didn’t like him lurking around my boss’s son. I didn’t know exactly what Jamal had been up to in the club, but I didn’t like the apparent coincidence of an unaligned supernatural creature hanging out in the place—hanging out with Papa Danwe’s guys. I was itching to connect Fred to the murder in some way.
Mostly, though, I didn’t want the undead piece of shit with Adan. Maybe it wasn’t any of my business, but I thought his father would want me to step up. Okay, maybe I had ulterior motives. Maybe it was some maternal, protective part of me screaming to get involved. Or maybe it was the romantically challenged part. I was sure it was what the maverick in the cop shows would do, so it had that going for it.
“Do you think your friends would mind if we got out of here?” I asked. I’d planned to wait until the end of the song to make my move, but I think the same damn song had been playing since I walked into the club.
Adan’s arms tightened around me and he breathed in my ear. “I don’t think I care what they think, Domino.”
We left the club without returning to the table. Fred, of course, was leaning against my car when we got outside. My vintage 1965 Lincoln Continental convertible with the original Arctic White paint. The vampire gave me the Look—the usual vamp shtick that would make a mortal woman his willing slave or whatever. To me he just looked like a really pale and very gay fashion model.
“Scratch the paint and I’ll shove a stake far enough up your ass to pick the blood clots out of your teeth.” I smiled and tucked my arm inside Adan’s. “Fred,” I added.
I’d like to say Fred sensed my great power and backed down. I’d like to say he recognized the more dangerous predator and submitted to the law of the jungle. But he didn’t. Fred made a move.
There aren’t a lot of vampires in L.A. They don’t like gathering in large numbers—too much competition for food. But when it comes to vampires, popular culture is so full of shit I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll mention just two things in passing.
First, humans haven’t believed in monsters for a long time, but in the twenty-first century, we’ve taken it one step further. We’ve rehabilitated the bastards. These days, vampires aren’t really monsters; they’re just tragically hip antiheroes with unusual diets. They sip daintily from cherished and willing blood donors and pine away for their lost humanity.
Well, vampirism isn’t a disease. It’s not a virus, or a genetic disorder or any other ridiculous pseudoscientific rationalization. Vampirism is blood magic. It’s a necromantic shortcut to immortality and a limited range of superpowers. Vampires are just ex-human sociopaths who lacked the juice to become real sorcerers.
Second, in the supernatural food chain of the underworld, vampires are pussies.
The instant Fred leaned away from my car, I triggered the repulsion spell stored in the silver gangster ring on my right pinkie. The ring was a preloaded talisman, allowing me to cast the spell with only the barest concentration and no witty quotation.
So when the Vampire Fred launched himself at me with catlike speed and preternatural fury, the repulsion spell met him halfway and used his own kinetic energy—plus a little extra—to throw him over my Lincoln, across the street and into the storefront of an overpriced flower shop.
“This’ll just take a second,” I said to Adan, and then I went after Fred.
By the time I crossed the street, the vampire was standing up and brushing flower petals and broken glass from his suit. He saw me approach and dropped into a predatory crouch, fangs bared and ready for battle.
Still about twenty feet away, I casually extended my hand, palm up, toward the Vampire Fred. “Vi Victa Vis,” I said. That’s Cicero—sometimes I bust out the Latin. The force spell hit Fred in the sternum and knocked him through the back of the flower shop into the skin-care clinic on the other side of the drywall.
This time, Fred was a little slower getting up. It’s another myth of popular culture that vampires are fucking bulletproof. They’re tougher than humans and they heal quickly when they’re fed, but their bones still break when you hit them hard enough. Fred’s left shoulder was dislocated and his right leg was twisted at an unnatural angle.
“All movements go too far,” I said, picking him up with the telekinesis spell and flipping him back through the flower shop and out into the street. There was the screech of rubber against pavement and a double thump as the Vampire Fred was run over by a Mercedes before he could crawl out of the way. Oops.
I made my way back through the trashed flower shop, pausing to pick out a red rose for Adan. The Benz was stopped but the driver wasn’t getting out of the car. Fred was struggling to peel himself off the asphalt. I guess five hundred years of owning mortals had made him a little stubborn.
“A great flame follows a little spark,” I said, and a grapefruit-size sphere of fusion fire appeared, spinning like a miniature sun above my upturned hand. I let Fred get a good look at it.
“You might want to stay down, Fred, so I don’t have to cook your pasty ass.”
Fred’s jaw clenched, whether in pain or frustration I wasn’t sure. I could see the pride and survival instinct, both honed over centuries, warring in his eyes. He looked at me. He looked at the fire. Survival won.
Like I said, vampires are pussies.
“Here’s the way it is, Fred. Out of respect for your friendship with Mr. Rashan,” I said, turning and smiling at Adan, “I’m going to let you walk away. But Fred, if you fuck with me again, you’re going to burn. Clear?”
The Vampire Fred gritted his pointy teeth, and then he nodded.
“Groovy,” I said. “Now get the fuck out of here.”
Without a word, Fred pulled himself up and hobbled off down the street. Even with a busted wheel, the vampire limped faster than the human eye could follow.
I pulled in juice and dropped a confusion spell over the street, just enough hoodoo to render any witnesses or inconvenient security cameras useless to a police investigation. I looked in the direction the vampire had fled, then turned back to the crowd of stunned onlookers and shrugged.
“He wasn’t on the list.”
Three
Adan was annoyed. We were cruising down Santa Monica Boulevard toward the beach, and he was pressed against the passenger door and glaring at me.
“You didn’t have to kick his ass like that in front of everyone.”
“He started it,” I said. “I wasn’t going to touch him as long as he didn’t scratch my car.”
“You sound like a ten-year-old, Domino.”
“Well, what should I have done? He’s a vampire. You want me to go back and let him take a bite out of me?”
“No, of course not. And I know he’s a vampire, but he’s been cool to me. Besides, you provoked him.”
I shrugged. That was true. I tried a different angle.
“He’s cool? You know the magic is in the killing, right? Every human is topped off with ten pints, give or take, but all that’s just foreplay. It’s the mouthful that stops the heart that keeps him going.”
“I know. I just said he’s been cool to me.” He shook his head and snorted. “Anyway, you’re a gangster. Where do you get off judging him?”
I scowled. “Yeah, I’m a gangster—in your father’s employ, I might add—but that doesn’t make me a homicidal undead monster. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember the last time I killed a guy and drank his blood.”
“No, you just kill guys and have some stooge bury the bodies.”
Ouch. That was going to leave a mark. “I don’t kill anyone. Usually. And never civilians. If you choose to get in the game, you know the rules and you know the risks. It’s not murder when you have to kill an enemy soldier.”
Adan laughed. “Oh, yeah, the standard gangster code of situational ethics. That bullshit’s an insult to real soldiers.”
“That…is probably true. Anyway, it’s just a fucking metaphor. Excuse my language.”
“Actually,” Adan said, “I think it’s a fucking analogy.”
I glared at him and he laughed. I shook my head, chuckling, and just like that the tension was borne away by the wind whipping through the open convertible.
I wasn’t sure why I was arguing with this guy, anyway. His last name was Rashan. He knew the score. The truth was, Adan had pushed one of my buttons. Growing up, I’d always thought I’d end up using my magic for the Forces of Good. Maybe work a quiet job by day and kick evil ass by night, like Batman or the Ghostbusters. Long before I hooked up with the outfit, I’d seen enough of the world to know how things really work.
Adan was right. I clung to that gangster code because it was just about all I had to distinguish myself from psychopathic freaks like the Vampire Fred. I hadn’t killed often, but I had killed. I hadn’t killed innocents, but I’d taken husbands, and fathers, and brothers and sons. Even some sisters. To stay sane, I tried to convince myself they were bad guys, just like me, and they got what they deserved.
And still, late at night and usually when I was drunk, I’d type their names into that search box on my laptop and reach out to them in the Beyond. They never answered, but I knew they were waiting for me out there in the dark.
Adan noticed my uncharacteristically angsty mood and laid a hand on my arm. “I’ve had this argument a thousand times with my dad,” he said. “You know what he says? He says the difference between a strong man and a weak man is that the strong man will do anything, even kill, to remain strong…the weak man will do anything, even die, to remain weak. He says that a man who is both strong and good will kill to remain strong, and will hate himself for it.”
I looked at Adan, and a little smile teased his infinitely kissable lips. That’s about when things started to get really complicated. I knew my little stunt with Fred would have ended my chances with most of the guys I’d met. Not because they felt sorry for Fred or disapproved of violence or anything like that, but because they would have felt threatened and humiliated by it.
The bottom line was that I’d worked over the vampire because I’d wanted to protect Adan. And he didn’t seem to mind. The reason for his enlightened attitude was obvious—he knew the outfit. He knew the life. He knew that in the underworld it wasn’t about girl power versus machismo or any of that shit. It was about the juice. I had it and he didn’t. Adan accepted that. He maybe didn’t like it, exactly, but he was man enough to deal with it. For a girl like me, Adan was a miracle.
By the time we got to the beach, I’d forgotten why I went to the club. Sitting with Adan on the sand, listening to the sound of the waves and the wind, I forgot about Jamal altogether.
We were sitting quietly together when I heard laughter drifting across the water. The moon was out, and I could see there were no late-night surfers or swimmers out there.
I nudged Adan. “Watch,” I said. I scooped up a handful of juice that washed ashore with the tide and spun a spell of true seeing. Golden, sparkling light cascaded out over the waves. The light revealed figures frolicking in the surf, male and female, their skin so pale it was almost translucent in the moonlight.
“Oh, my God. What are they?” Adan whispered.
“Ocean spirits. Mermaids—merpeople—or something like it. When I was a kid, I used to come down here all the time just to try to catch a glimpse of them. They’re more common now than they used to be. I don’t know why. Sometimes I’d go months without seeing one.”
The creatures noticed us and froze, suspended in the water like seaweed bobbing in the tide. Then, as suddenly as they’d appeared, they were gone. I dropped the spell and the light faded.
“Domino, that was amazing. I had no idea,” Adan said, moving closer to me. I shivered, shamelessly, and he wrapped an arm around me and pulled me against his body.
“There’s a whole world out there most people never even see,” I said. “Some of it is beautiful.” Most of it just wants to eat you. I decided to keep that part to myself.
“I want to see you again, Domino.”
“I’d like that.”
“What about my father?”
“Yeah, I’ll have to see him again, too.”
Adan laughed. “No, I mean, he probably wouldn’t approve.”
I smiled. “I’m sure of it. He probably wants you to find a nice professional girl, like a doctor or lawyer or something.”
“No, he hates lawyers.”
“Well, whatever fathers want for their sons these days, I’m pretty sure a gangster isn’t what he has in mind. If you’re planning to get involved in the outfit, it could get really complicated.”
Adan didn’t respond and I looked over at him. He was staring down at his feet, tracing abstract designs in the sand with his fingertips.
“Did I say something wrong?”
He shook his head. “Nah, it’s okay. It’s just…I can’t ever be part of the outfit.” He looked up at me, and I thought I saw real pain in his eyes. “I don’t have it, Domino. I’m not a sorcerer.”
I already knew that, and I felt stupid for being so careless with my words. I’d known he didn’t have any real juice the moment I saw him in the club. I’d thought about what that meant for me, but I really hadn’t thought about what it would mean for him.
“Damn, I’m sorry. I thought maybe, you know, considering who your father is—”
“It’s cool. It just doesn’t work that way. Dad says the gift or whatever isn’t genetic. He has over thirty living children. None of them have it. He keeps trying because he wants an heir, in case something happens to him. I’m his latest disappointment.” Adan laughed and shook his head. “Ah, man, I can’t believe I’m telling you all this. Dad would kill me.”
I squeezed his arm and smiled. “I won’t tell on you.”
He laughed. “Thanks,” he said, “and I won’t tell him you forced me to reveal his secret shame.”
I tried to laugh, but really, that shit wasn’t funny. It was definitely the kind of thing Rashan wouldn’t want anyone to know. I felt like I had a good relationship with my boss, but I couldn’t read him, didn’t really know him. I couldn’t even guess what he’d do if he knew I’d found out about something like this.
“Yeah, let’s just pretend you didn’t tell me that,” I said. “The fewer of your father’s secrets I know, the better.”
Adan nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry I told you. I just…I guess I feel like I can talk to you. Maybe it’s lame, but it gets lonely, you know? I can’t be a part of my father’s life, but I never really feel at home in the normal world, either, because of what I know.”
I understood how he felt. I’d had that same feeling of being an outcast until his father found me and brought me into the outfit. For Adan, it was worse. He would always be an outsider in both worlds. That was real loneliness. I could even see how he’d reach out to someone like the Vampire Fred—anyone or anything that would accept him.
“Maybe it’s a bad idea, Adan, but I still want to see you.”
He smiled. “Me, too. It’ll be our secret. Dinner tomorrow night?”
“Okay,” I said, “I want pizza.”
“I’m impressed,” he said. “On a first date, women usually restrict themselves to salads they never actually eat.”
Okay, I use magic to cheat with dieting, too. “I have a fast metabolism,” I said.
“Sounds great—I love pizza. Pick you up at seven?”
I nodded and smiled.
“Give me your cell phone. I’ll give you my number and you can call me tomorrow, give me directions.”
I handed him my cell and he punched in his number and gave it back to me. I checked the display, and he’d given me both his home and cell numbers. My dating game was a little rusty, but that seemed like a good sign.
“Great,” I said. “I’ll call you. I’d better get going. Did you drive tonight or catch a ride with someone?”
“I drove,” he said. “You can just drop me at the club.” I did, and I waited there until he got in his car and drove away.
I’d never been a romantic. I didn’t believe in love at first sight, soul mates, star-crossed romance or any of that stuff. I didn’t believe that Adan and I were destined to fall in love, get married and live happily ever after. Judging by past experience, he was more likely to screw up my life, make me miserable and hop in bed with an exotic dancer just when I was finally getting used to him.
I grew up in the barrio, fatherless and poor. My life was violent and brutal, and I’d long ago stopped pretending there was anything more to it than getting ahead and getting out alive. Despite that, it wasn’t a hard life. With magic, I could have just about anything I wanted. The only thing I couldn’t change with a little juice was myself. I couldn’t change how I felt, and I couldn’t change what I believed. And the worst thing about not believing was that I always knew what I’d lost or what I’d never had.
I was a gangster, and I’d done things for which even God couldn’t forgive me. But I was still human. I was still a woman. I wanted to believe in that fairy-tale love that little girls dream about, and I hated that I couldn’t. The cruelest joke of the underworld was that so many parts of fairy tales were true, but not the ones that really mattered.
