Page 22 of Brimstone Bound
‘He was probably in one of the vamp strip joints,’ Liza said disdainfully.
‘There are vamp strip joints?’
She raised her eyebrows in a particularly patronising fashion. I couldn’t blame her; I was starting to feel that up till now I’d led a very sheltered life.
‘There are very few real vampires in them,’ she told me. ‘Most of the strippers are human women hoping to catch some highly placed vampire’s eye and get themselves turned. Not that you’d catch someone like Lord Horvath frequenting such an establishment.’
I had a sudden image of the head of the vampires as a stern old bloke with a grey moustache and a neatly trimmed beard who would never demean himself by lolling around a bar, let alone one filled with near-naked women.
‘Yeah,’ Fred agreed. ‘The last thing he needs is to go trolling for birds.’ Birds?
‘Sorry,’ he continued, seeing my expression. ‘Women.’
‘Is that because he’s already in a committed relationship?’ I asked.
He barked a laugh. ‘No! Because he’s got women of all ages and types throwing themselves at him all day long. The man’s virtually got his own harem.’
Oh. That made more sense.
‘The vamps are all about fun,’ Fred said. ‘And the wolves are all about seriousness and stiff upper lips.’ There was a wistful note to his tone. I cast him a sidelong glance and wondered if he had a hankering to be turned. I thought he seemed far too lethargic to fit in with either group.
‘How old is Lord Horvath?’
‘About seventy, give or take. And no,’ Liza continued, before I could ask my next question, ‘he’s not immortal. Vamps live for longer than we do, but they can’t avoid the circle of life forever. Their lifespan is about double ours.’
‘What about the wolves? How long do they live?’
Her brow creased. ‘It’s difficult to say. Best guess is about the same as us. But due toaccidents,’ she drew quotation marks in the air, ‘when they’re in animal form, the wolves’ average life expectancy tends to be lower.’
‘Do they ever come here? Any of them?’
‘No. I doubt it would occur to a supe to drop by. The biggest groups – both vamps and werewolves – think that we’re too weak, too stupid and too sentimental to be bothered with. Both of them turn humans when they need to boost their numbers, but they’re very picky about who they take on. That,’ she conceded, ‘and the fact that their numbers were capped by the government at the turn of last century.’
I dredged up what I could remember from my history classes. ‘The 1901 Limiting Act?’
Liza snapped her fingers. ‘That’s the one. It’s next to impossible to be turned into a supe by accident either. There are a lot of rules around bites and a lot of safeguards in place to prevent mistakes from being made.’
I picked up a pen from the desk and twirled it. Casual, Emma, I told myself. Act casual. ‘Tell me more about the other supes. Are any of them immortal? Or, uh, undead?’
Fred blinked. ‘Undead? What, you mean like zombies?’
I managed a weak laugh.
‘Or like ghosts?’
I did my best to look uninterested. ‘It was just a thought.’
‘You’ve been reading too many horror stories,’ Liza said. ‘Believe me, things are shitty enough around here as it is without dead supes walking around.’ She paused and looked at me. ‘Why? What have you heard?’
I was saved from answering by the ring of the telephone. Picking up the receiver, I was relieved to hear Molly’s warm, familiar voice.
‘Alright,’ she said briskly, ‘I haven’t been able to find out a huge amount. The DC in charge of the investigation has several other cases on the go, and apparently there’s a delay on Jane Doe’s post-mortem, which is holding everything up.’
I sent out a brief prayer of gratitude to Laura. ‘No leads then?’
‘Not so far.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I get the impression that the folks around here are inclined to let it go because of the location of the murder.’
I sucked in a breath. ‘Let it go? She was aperson,Molly. Just because she died near the supes’ areas shouldn’t mean that she’s forgotten!’
