Vamparazzi (48 page)

Lopez rolled off me and hauled my head and shoulders out of the filthy water we had plunged into. I immediately looked over my shoulder. The tunnel behind us was smoking and a little charred, but the fire was gone.

“Are you all right?” he asked me frantically, breathing hard.

“Yes,” I choked out. I still had the wind knocked out of me.

“Are you
sure?
”

“Yes.”

“You're all right?”

“Good.” He seized me by the shoulders and shook me.
Hard.
“When I tell you to go to safety,
go to safety!
”

“Is he dead?” I croaked.

“Are you
listening
to me?”

“Is he dead?” I asked again.

One of the cops said. “Oh, yeah. He's dead.
Oh
, yeah.
Dead.
”

Lopez's gaze dropped to my chest. He drew in a sharp breath as his eyes widened, and he grabbed me again, this time to turn me away from the other two cops. He grimaced anxiously and made a frantic gesture with his hand. I looked down and saw that I had fallen out of my precarious neckline during that headlong dive into the chamber to escape the fire. I tucked myself in, tugged the filthy and tattered neckline upward as best I could, then looked over my shoulder at the cops.

“You're
sure
he's dead?” I asked again.

“In that explosion? Burned to a crispy critter,” said the younger of the two uniformed cops. “Sorry, miss. Sorry. But, yes, he's dead, all right. Oh, yeah.”

In the light of Lopez's headlamp, the young officer's face was wide-eyed with shock as he continued babbling. “I shot him. I know I shot him. I could
swear
I shot him. And then he took my gun away. Just took it away! And grabbed me like a rag doll—my
God,
he was strong. He was about to kill me! He was going to rip my head off! I
know
it. I saw it in his eyes. He took my head and ... And then ... Jesus, that explosion.
Jesus.
” He looked at Lopez. “How did
we
get out of there alive?”

The other cop asked, “How
did
we get out there alive, detective?”

Lopez looked at me. “And you wonder why I go to Mass every week.”

W
e emerged from the tunnels by ascending through a manhole in a street that was only a few blocks away from the theater. I was surprised; while underground, I had felt as if we were so much farther away than that. The dark, chilly night was wonderfully breezy and fresh. The city's familiar skyline glowed glamorously against the endlessly high vault of the open sky. I decided I wasn't even going into a
subway
tunnel for quite some time to come. After tonight's experiences, I was strictly an above-ground person for the foreseeable future.

My injuries were all superficial, but Lopez insisted I let a paramedic examine me. This turned out to be a good idea, since the guy had very nice painkillers and was generous with them. He also insisted on giving me a shot of antibiotics, since I'd been wandering around in filthy water with cuts and scrapes. This was less fun than the painkillers, but nonetheless appreciated.

Mad Rachel was resilient, if nothing else. She got someone to loan her a cell phone barely ten minutes after we emerged into the chilly November night; and a mere ten minutes after
that,
she was screaming into the borrowed phone, “Goddamn you, Eric, you fucking
bastard!
” So all was well there. Lopez predicted wedding bells.

I was worried about Leischneudel, Bill, Victor, and even Daemon, as well as Thack and Max—who were each on their way to the Hamburg, at my request, when the riot broke out. So Lopez agreed to take me back to the theater—where, according to the information he was receiving now, order had been restored.

The crowds around the Hamburg were still being dispersed, but the atmosphere was subdued now. The cops who drove us to the stage door told me and Lopez that a lot of people had been arrested, but very few were injured—and none seriously. There was some property damage, but the immediate post-riot estimate was that it wasn't serious, either. The theater would reopen within a few days, and
The Vampyre
would complete its run.

The cop riding shotgun said, “Seems like the whole thing was more like a block party for nerds that got out of control for about an hour rather than a riot.”

But I, for one, would not readily forget the sight of lust-crazed Janes and lunatic vamparazzi stampeding directly toward me while Dr. Hal screamed, “No prisoners!” and the Caped Crusaders provided their own captions while battling the wannabe undead. All of it accompanied by Lithuanian vampire hunters shooting crossbow bolts at me.

“I guess you had to be there,” I said wanly to the cops.

Lopez squeezed my hand.

While our squad car rolled slowly through the crowded but no longer chaotically crazy streets, he explained to me that he'd entered the tunnels knowing—or, at least, feeling convinced—that Tarr was the killer.

“I started with the name you gave me last night, Benas Novicki. I tracked his movements. He was in LA for a few months before he came to New York. So I checked with LAPD, and they had an open case file.” He paused. “Several murders with one unusual feature in common. A detail that was never released to the public.”

“Exsanguination,” I said, wishing I could see his facial expression, but the car was too dark.

He nodded. “The last one was in July. None since then. Then your friend Novicki, who thinks he's chasing a vampire—”

“He wasn't my friend,” I said. “I never met him.”

“—leaves LA and winds up dead here sometime in August. After which, several murders occur here, similar to the LA file.” He shrugged. “So I started looking for a match between someone who'd been in LA until this summer, and someone Adele Olson had contact with on her final night.”

I gasped. “‘When I was out in Hollywood . . .'”

“Huh?”

“All of Tarr's anecdotes began that way. He talked all the time about his glory days in Hollywood. I didn't know him or his work, and I vaguely assumed it was a few years ago. But I guess it was recent?”

“Yep. He resigned from his job in LA in June and got hired by the
Exposé
when he came here in July—the rag was glad to get him. I gather he had what passed for a great résumé in that line of work.” Lopez added, “He's another one who wasn't using his real name, like the Vampire Ravel and—don't tell me I'm wrong on this one?—Sir Shackleton.”

“What was his real name?”

“Algis Taurus.”

“That sounds Lithuanian.” Of course. He said he'd been born a vampire.

Lopez mused. “I don't understand why he didn't use it. It's more interesting than ‘Al Tarr,' don't you think?”

“I guess this clears Daemon of the murder?” I asked.

“Yeah. And it closes my case, too. Thank God. I was starting to feel like a troll in a bad fairy tale, living underground and lurking in damp, murky places.”

“Speaking of which, what exactly happened in the damp murky place that caught
fire?
” I asked. “That cop's account was ... a little confusing.”

“I get the impression he might decide police work isn't for him,” Lopez said tactfully.

“Well?” I said. “What happened?”

“I think it was a methane gas explosion.”

“Seriously?”

“You smelled the sewage, right?”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

“It builds up methane gas, which is volatile stuff. If it isn't safely released, it can go boom.”

“Which just
happened
to take out a lunatic killer while leaving the three of you alive?” I said. “A murderer who was, at that moment, about to kill a young cop in your care?”

“The kid wasn't in my
care
, Esther,” Lopez said. “I just recruited him to . . .” He cleared his throat. “Well, as it turned out, to chase a dangerous serial killer into an exploding sewage chamber.”

I decided not to press further. I had my own suspicions about what had happened. My theory about this was still as murky as those dark, dank tunnels; but I thought it significant—and I felt certain Max would, too—that at a moment when Tarr was about to kill a young cop for whom Lopez felt responsible, fire had consumed him.

If Lopez did have some sort of unusual gift he wasn't even aware of, then I silently thanked all the mystical powers that he'd gone into that dead-end tunnel with a weapon, however unwitting, that was a match for the murderous rogue vampire that lurked in wait there.

“By the way,” Lopez said as the squad car halted near the stage door. “The cop you assaulted has decided to let bygones be bygones.”

“I didn't
assault
him, I—”

“You poked him in the eye and stole his flashlight in the dark.”

One of the cops in the front seat blurted, “You did
what?
”

Lopez added, “And, Esther, when I tell you to go to safety and let me handle something—”

“Look! We're at the stage door,” I said brightly. “Are you coming in?”

“No, I have to go write my reports,” he said. “And talk to Branson. And explain the death of a cornered felon to my superiors.”

Nonetheless, he got out of the car and came around to my side to open the door and help me out of my seat. Which I appreciated, since I was stiff, bruised, and still in some pain, and my filthy, smelly, tattered gown was still damp and heavy.

“You and Rachel will need to give formal statements,” he said. “Branson will call you about that.”

There was an awkward pause.

Then he said, “So you and me . . . We haven't changed our minds about dumping each other?”

He was filthy and looked exhausted. He needed a shave again, and he smelled of gases, pollutants, and biowaste. And I wanted to take him in my arms and kiss him until the sun rose.

But I was haunted by nightmares I couldn't bear to live with if they came to pass for real next time.

So I said, “Are you sure you don't want to come inside ? There are probably three genuine Lithuanian vampires backstage right now, as well as a made vampire—which is a pretty rare phenomenon. He was made without a permit from the Council of Gediminas, so I think we're going to have some controversy before the night is over. Max could explain it to you, if you're interested, since he battled the undead in the Serbian vampire epidemic, alongside vampire hunters who demanded, in exchange for their help, that he sign a treaty which—”

“Okay,” Lopez said loudly. “Leaving now.”

“You're sure? I can probably find a bottle of Nocturne we could share.”

“Good night, Esther.” He started to get back in the squad car, then turned to look at me. I could see his expression in the glow of the streetlights—a mingling of wry amusement, exasperation, and something that I suspected was affection. “When you give your statement to Branson, don't mention any of that.”

“Of course not.”

“And try to get along with him?”

“Well, we'll see. Good night, Lopez.”

Our eyes held for a minute after he got into the car, and then it pulled away and he was gone.

I gave a little sigh and hugged myself as I watched the car go down the street and disappear around the corner.

Then I recalled that my other suitor lately was a tabloid sleaze and—oh, incidentally—a maniacal rogue vampire.

Yes, I should definitely put romance on the shelf for a while. Or perhaps lock it away in an armored vault.

Four tall men quietly approached me and surrounded me, their attitudes protective, their clothing torn and disheveled, their faces bruised and a little bloodied.

“Guys!” I exclaimed, turning in a circle to review the condition of my vampire posse. “Are you okay? The last time I saw you, you were fighting off the invading horde.”

Flame sighed. “It was a great night, Miss Diamond.”

“A
great
night,” Treat agreed, grinning.

Silent nodded.

“How are
you,
Miss Diamond? You look like you had a rough trip out of the theater. One of your friends was kind enough to come outside a little while ago and let us know that you were safe and under police protection. He said something about you . . . being pulled out of the sewers?”

“Yes,” I said. “Hence the aroma you may have noticed.”

“Shall we escort you to the door, ma'am?” Flame suggested.

“Thank you.” At the stage door, I turned to them before going inside and said, “I appreciate your courage in the face of daunting odds tonight, gentlemen.”

Flame shrugged. “It's our way, Miss Diamond. We're vampires.”

“Of course.” I thanked them again and went inside.

Leischneudel came running down the corridor. “Esther! Oh, thank God! I was so worried!”

“Leischneudel! Are you okay?”

We embraced, then looked each other over. Both of us looked like the survivors of an all-out apocalyptic battle. But
survivors
was the key word. Thrilled to be alive, we hugged again, laughing now.

He had stopped running, upon hearing the rumbling implosion and crash of the cave-in, and had come back and tried to dig through the rubble, frantic to find out whether I was alive. The vampire hunters were there and had insisted he stop in his fruitless task—especially given that moving any of the rubble might cause additional collapse.