Vampire Babylon - Night Rising Part 1

NIGHT RISING.

VAMPIRE BABYLON.

by Chris Marie Green.

THE RECOVERY.

I would like to acknowledge Sheree Whitefeather and Judy Duarte, two critique partners who keep their eyes wide open; Wally Lind and the crimescenewriter web loop for all their guidance (I'd like to add that all errors are my own.); Pamela Harty and Deidre Knight, who put such faith into me and my books; and Ginjer Buchanan, the one whose support allows the Underground to exist. Thank you, everyone, for everything you do.

ONE.

RISINGA red mist hung over Los Angeles at midnight, a mist so thick that it blocked the moon's glow.

One so dense it almost hid what would become another shocking Tinseltown legend by the time morning rolled around.

The damp air had been tinted with the crimson neon of a dingy alley's bar sign: Lenny's, it read in cursive beneath the tilt of a cartoon martini. As the wiring flickered on and off, so did the atmosphere, an apathetic heartbeat on the fringes of Hollywood Boulevard.

A police radio from one of the many black-and-whites blocking the entrances to the alley broke the silence with a burst of static, then buzzed to nothing. A hushed crowd was gathering on the slick pavement nearby, people craning their necks to gape through the fog and into the slender pa.s.sageway. And even though the cops were doing their d.a.m.nedest to contain the scene, they couldn't cover up the accident.

At least, that's what they'd called it at first.

An "accident."

From the looks of the Aston Martin, it was a fair a.s.sessment. The sleek machine was nothing more than wheezing, twisted steel embracing an electrical pole, an abstract sculpture you might find in the victim's own Malibu mansion. But that's where the "accident" ended and the horror began.

Nothing made sense anymore after the cops looked past the car and toward the dead man.

The world's biggest action star had his back to the bar's door, his muscled arms spread wide, his hands pierced by shrapnel, pinning him down. His head, with that glorious fall of golden hair, hung to one side, a wedge of sparkling, jagged window gla.s.s embedded in his forehead. His million-dollar blue eyes were closed, his aging yet still bankable face bathed in red. He'd died just moments ago, unable to speak around the blood that was choking him.

Sure, freak accidents sometimes happened. Bodies flew from crashed cars, metal followed, people died.

But what the beat cops couldn't figure out was the rest of it: the way the victim's s.h.i.+rt had been torn open to reveal the bare chest so many women had swooned over.

The way shattered gla.s.s had cut into his skin, forming one word.

REPENT.

Soon, the detectives arrived. Overworked, underpaid, their clothing rumpled by long hours on the job and a lack of giving a s.h.i.+t about appearances. A detective, one who haunted the perimeter, took a long glance at Jesse Shane, Big-time Movie Star, and just nodded his head.

"You get what you ask for," he said to himself, then ambled into the darkness.

There was so much gla.s.s and metal gouging Shane's legs that blood had pooled and trickled over the ground, heading toward a nearby square of sewer grating. The police merely walked around it as the star's life flowed away from him, leaking past the grating and into the echoing darkness of the underground.

Drip, drip...

They worked until their eyes glazed over from cynical exhaustion. But what the average cop wouldn't discover was a mouth, yawning open, just beneath the sewer grating. It was catching every drop of cooled liquid on its tongue.

Drip, drip...

Hidden from view, the creature swallowed, blocking out the noise from above, closing its eyes and shuddering in pure delight, in agonizing need.

Digging its claws into the skin of its palms, the thing leaned its head back again, blood splas.h.i.+ng onto its chin, then into its mouth.

A slant of wan light caught the gleam of iron fangs as it gulped down the taste of beautiful memory.

More, thought the thing while the blood wet its throat.

More.

As keen yearning tore through the creature, it licked its lips and opened its mouth again, whimpering from the hunger, the sharp craving. Waiting for the next drop to fall.

More.

Meanwhile, back up above in the streets, the cops went about their business, trying to solve the mystery of Jesse Shane, a man whose life had ended in its prime.

A man whose bizarre death would, oddly enough, keep him alive for years to come.

TWO.

ABOVE.

Eleven Years Later WHEN Dawn Madison got back to L.A., her dad had already been missing for four days.

That's right. Frank Madison, age forty-seven, a towering charmer with linebacker shoulders and hands strong enough to crack heads when his usual job as hired muscle called for it, was gone, just like that. A fading picture on a Wanted poster. Or maybe even an image on a milk carton or, more appropriately, a bottle of Ex-Lax or whatever geriatrics were gulping down these days.

Because in La-La Land, you might as well be dead if you were over thirty. Harsh, but true.

Not that Dawn really believed at this point that he was in actual trouble. Every so often, the man went off her radar, hopping on his Harley to take a spin up the California coast so he could carouse with the finest elements of society in roadside greasy spoons and bars. Or sometimes he went on mysterious fis.h.i.+ng trips near Mexico only to resurface a week later with crazy stories about mermaids or any variety of tall tales he could bulls.h.i.+t after drinking enough tequila to disable a small army.

It's just that, this time, someone else had contacted Dawn to tell her about his absence and, d.a.m.n it all, if they thought his MIA act was worth calling her about, she was compelled to check into it. p.r.o.nto. No matter where he'd gone off to this month.

As dusk mingled with the smog, she pulled to the curb of his latest place of employment-some kind of investigation agency- then cut the engine of her battered Corolla. For a full minute, she couldn't move. Didn't really want to.

What if all she found was bad news? Or what if...?

Thoughts of her mom crept along the edges of Dawn's memory, taunting her with the specter of death. The guarantee that nothing lasted forever, even if you spent long nights awake and alone, wis.h.i.+ng you had the power to make things different.

But...Dawn blocked out a sadness that'd dogged her for years. She'd never known her mom except through beautiful images and painful comparisons. So why did the emptiness still feel like it'd been inflicted only a second ago?

Shaking it off, Dawn threw open the car door, slammed it shut. Eva Claremont had nothing to do with Frank. He'd be okay. No need to get rattled. Come midnight, Dawn would probably find herself back on a plane zooming across the country, cussing at Frank and letting him run free again.So nix the worrywart act, she thought, walking toward the private investigation agency, a Spanish Revival house with the dubious t.i.tle of Limpet and a.s.sociates hand-painted on a small sign hanging from its hinges over the porch. It reeked of golden-age glamour: iron grating covering the large circular, curtained windows; red-tiled roof basking under the watch of a wors.h.i.+pful sky; tan stucco patching the aging face of the exterior. The only thing that didn't seem to go with the whole Black-Dahlia-dollhouse feel was a gothic iron cross poised over the doorway.

How very medieval chic. How terribly L.A.

As she approached the door, lights flared on and washed over her. What was this, prison?

Ringing the doorbell, she fanned her face, chasing away the July humidity, then checked her clunky watch, exhaling in frustration because it was already quarter to eight and she was pretty sure that Mr. Limpet had closed down for the day.

The chimes echoed throughout the building. She jammed the bell again. When Kiko Daniels had called her last night, she'd come running, all the way from a job in Virginia, but maybe she hadn't gotten here fast enough...?

Jeez,chill, she thought. If the guys at work could see you now, you'd never live it down. They don't call you "Mad Dog" on the set for nothing, baby.

Clean out of patience, Dawn fumbled with the cell phone in her jeans pocket. But then the heavy door whooshed open, and she stopped. Stared.

Darkness stretched in front of her.

"h.e.l.lo?" The greeting bounced off the walls.

Just as she was wondering whether to go on in or to take a few prudent steps backward-yeah, like prudence came naturally to her-she heard a sigh gus.h.i.+ng from somewhere near hip level.

A young "little person" stood there, hand on his hip, wearing such an astounding look of exasperation that she felt like apologizing without knowing what she was sorry for. He was blond, with round blue eyes, long sandy lashes, rosebud lips, and a dimple in his chin under a faint soul patch. Kinda pretty, if you asked Dawn.

"What?" he demanded in a familiar tinny, scratchy voice.

Kiko, the guy who'd called her?

He didn't seem to like her hesitation. "You think I'm a bug pinned to a piece of velvet for your amus.e.m.e.nt?"

"No," she said, otherwise speechless. His rudeness shocked her more than anything. G.o.d, over the course of four films and three TV shows as a stuntwoman, she'd worked with dwarves, giants, and even a woman who could pull her lip over her head. Dawn, herself, frequently spent her days falling out windows, being thrown into walls by evil creatures, and fighting villains with roundhouse kicks and tae kwon do punches.

Out-of-the-ordinary was a regular part of Dawn's world.

"Well...?" he added.

She tried not to revert to any trademark a.s.sertiveness, i.e., b.i.t.c.hery. Frank had always told her to be nice unless the person deserved a split lip. And she'd neededa lotof lessons about "nice" while growing up. So, even though she was irritated by this guy's mouth, Dawn supposed this was pretty much a situation that called for "nice."

Sticking out her hand, she bent down slightly so the smaller man wouldn't have to reach up to shake. "I'm Dawn Madison, Frank's daughter." He glanced at her hand like she was holding roadkill on a stick. Then he turned around, leaving her greeting flapping in the wind.

"'Bout time you got here," he grumped over his shoulder as he walked away. "We've been waiting."

Gee. Color her welcomed.

Had she done something besides getting here as fast as she could to encourage this crankiness? Or, worse yet, what had Frank done?

Dawn stepped over the threshold and, as soon as she shut the door, faint darkness took over, helped only by the waning light fighting through the thick curtains over the foyer windows. There was also a hint of something in the air-a scent that belonged to old houses, places with a story or two behind their walls. Must, wilted roses, aged wood, lemon polish that tried to reduce all those histories to a dull s.h.i.+ne.

As her eyes adjusted, she realized that she was standing beneath a sprawling black iron chandelier, complete with gutted candles.

To her right, the faint glow of a grand staircase curved to the second story.

"I came up here to fiddle with the fuse box," his Jolliness said. "We blew something downstairs."

She was about to ask him if he'd heard her ringing the bell when he beat her to the punch.

"Uh-huh," he said in response to the non-query. "So I thought I ought to come up here for that, also."

Brows puckering, she started to ask how he'd known what she was going to say.

"None of your biz." His footsteps clomped on the floor.

The snot was walking away from her again.

Odd duck, she thought. Probably some guy with a few psychic moments who made most of his money on the Venice Beach Boardwalk hustling tourists. His parlor tricks didn't phase her though, because L.A. had one of every kind. The city was a bowl that held all types of fruit.

And as a kid who'd been raised in Hollyweird, she'd pretty much seen everything.

Following him through the dimness, she traced a hand along the walls. They were rough, paint layered upon itself year after year.

He came to an abrupt halt, and she b.u.mped into him.

"Have any flashlights?" she asked.

"Please. I know this place like the back of my hand."

Sweek,went the sound of a metal door being opened.Snick, snick, snick,went the pulse of switches being levered.

A burst of white illuminated the room, compliments of that chandelier. It allowed her to see the humming starkness of the creamy walls, the aged hardwood floors, a ma.s.sive blackened granite-edged fireplace. A sienna-tinged painting hung above the mantel, featuring a red cape that wrapped like a column of fire around a nude, lushly curved woman. She had a wicked gleam in her narrowed amber eyes-something like an invitation.

Absently, Dawn brushed over her neck with her fingertips, her skin misted with sweat from having been outside.

This place was overkill.SoL.A. A melodramatic Frankenstein Castle decorated with "LOOK AT ME!" desperation.

"Let there be light," he said. "Not as much as outside, thank G.o.d."

"Oh." The man was wiping his hands together, his gaze trained on Dawn again. "The UVs. Ultraviolets."

Ultraviolets?

While languidly rubbing her neck, she resigned herself to what he was seeing: an average Josey who could never compete with that woman in the painting. A tall brunette chick wearing a long, low ponytail and dressed in a sleeveless black T-s.h.i.+rt with black jeans and biker boots. Tanned skin, light brown eyes, a slim white scar riding one brow. A predilection for leather bracelets and a lone silver armband that circled her bicep like a coiled snake. Her only other jewelry decorated her pierced ears, her right lobe featuring two earrings instead of one. The extra bauble depicted a moon dripping delicate silver chains and ruby gem-beads, a proud souvenir.

Yup, physically honed Dawn Madison, a twenty-four-year-old who was connected to her daddy by her rough-edged looks and to her stupendously famous s.e.x G.o.ddess mother in...

Well, nothing, except for lineage.