Hi!

This was supposed to be a long weekend, and it's over alreay! Anyway, I've been working on the next chapter, so here it is! Did you see that one coming?

Hope you like it!

Lara

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Chapter 14

The night was crammed with dark shadows and uncrowded space, filled with the kind of silence that only thrived in the dead hour of midnight. I turned my head, searching the shadows for movement again. I'd gone into and out of second sight twice, combing through the aerial landscape with a nervous urgency I was barely able to hide in front of Andy. If Alexander had sent someone to watch me, it would in all likelihood be someone of the non-breathing kind. I didn't mind a little protection after what happened the night before, but not if it meant the head vampire would know every time I so much as sneezed.

We hit the streets with Andy's motorcycle, touring through the city like a drunken tornado, running in random circles before we crossed the borders to the Bronx. It had paid off. By all appearances we'd managed to shake off whoever was keeping an eye on me.

We were about to visit one of Andy's informants, and things could deteriorate if anyone found out who his secret sources were. Luckily, there was no one in the vicinity. No vampire crouching in a tent of shadows waiting to report to Alexander. I sighed. What kind of world was I living in that I had to deal with stuff like that?

"What are you doing?"

I turned and scowled at Andy, but walked back to him.

"Just checking," I muttered. The comment didn't come out the way I intended to. There wasn't enough nonchalance in my voice – too much tightness. Andy had no idea why I was so anxious about being followed and I wanted it to stay that way.

We walked through what once had been a flourishing part of the city, stepped further into a place that reeked of deterioration and desolation. This quarter eerily reminded me of the Red Zone, the zero space in which vampires walked the street like the predators they truly were. Something about this place was just as much a dangerous vacuum as the Red Zone, even though it was different in one important detail. In here it was not the vampiric predator that crawled in the spaces in between. The humans had claimed this part of town for them. Among the reports of violent felony offenses and bloody gang wars that had been coming in over the past years, a majority originated here.

We crossed the street and walked past a solitary group of hunched down shadows that were gathered around a fire in a trash can, smoke billowing up and around them. Even without looking I knew that they were not part of the staggering amount of homeless people this part of town was housing. What we were looking at were gang members, gearing up for another night in the city, another night filled with violence and drugs.

It was not before we came to a halt in front of the building that I realized where Andy was headed to. The building's exterior fit the area's description like a glove, and yet it was extraordinary in its own way. An old, shut-down hotel that must have looked shabby even in its younger years. The windows were barricaded with bits and pieces of cardboard and wood, just like the entrance. Graffiti and vile word combinations mantled its walls like a second skin. Someone must have gotten over the chain-link fence repeatedly, and apparently no one cared.

Andy made a sign to follow him and together we slipped through a narrow opening in the fence, before moving along the side of the building to its back.

The illusion that the hotel was truly deserted, and had been for a long time, evaporated in a sea of faint music and tainted light as we reached the back part. There was jazz music, soft and muffled, but definitely there. Andy motioned for me to be silent as we approached what looked like a back entrance. Just as he knocked on the door, the awkward, discomforting feeling of déjà vu I had been having for the past few minutes, finally burst and exploded.

Jazz music. My eyes widened as I turned to Andy. I thought I knew which informant we were going to visit this time.

"Is it him again?"

Andy didn't even look at me. He was staring at the door as if it would open up magically by sight alone. I wanted to confirm my theory, be sure that we weren't going to see that person, and I wanted to know before that door opened, but something about the steel and bone in his look momentarily silenced me.

By the time I'd made my resolve to make a grab for his elbow and yell at him, just to get an answer, the door opened. A shaft of light spilled out into the darkness like yellow dust.

The first thing I saw was the scar. A line of marred skin ran down the left side of his face like a cord of elongate runes. They came to life in the interplay of shadow and light, and I found myself staring into a rugged face of a man I was familiar with. It was the same human that had opened a door for us once. At that time we'd come to visit –

"Password?"

"We both know that I don't need a password." Andy smiled. "If that's changed, I want to talk to Fabrice about it, personally."

My mind reeled. Fabrice.

If there ever were moments in my life in which I'd wished I was wrong – well, this was one of them. My mind flashed back to the last time we'd met the vampire, who was rogue by definition and had demanded Andy's blood as payment for information. My mind made an instant u-turn. No I didn't want to go in there.

The man, meanwhile, opened the door and made room for us mutely. Andy stepped in without the slightest hint of hesitation.

We walked through empty and dark halls, an open room that probably was used for dining. Dust swirled and danced as we passed through a shaft of light spilling out from a staircase. I watched the back of the man – Scarface, as I'd come to call him – descend in front of us. Mutely we followed him down a staircase that looked like it was going to fold in on itself any second.

More jazz music filled my ears. The sound of blue and swung notes grew louder, more distinct with every step we took. My heart-rate sped up with a growing sense of acid anticipation, my pulse hurling forward under my skin like a crazed freight-train.

Scarface opened another set of doors. Light and Jazz music blinded my senses instants before we walked into the room. Heads turned, conversations stopped only to pick up again and turn into low murmurs. This time I didn't go into second sight. I could taste it on the tip of my tongue. Just like last time the place was filled with beings of every kind and race. Vampires, half-witches, shape shifters, humans, witches. The knowledge that most of them were outcasts of a kind, if not rogues and criminals, made me want to turn around and walk away from this. Fast. What kind of information was Andy hoping to get?

My eyes roamed the room restlessly, searching for the one vampire we'd come for. We moved past a pianoforte that had seen and lived through better days. Paintings and dark, rugged tapestries wound themselves around corners and naked walls, a solitary chandelier illuminating the center of the room like a twisted half moon. Everything about this room had a touch of evanescence, a sense of nostalgia that was hard to ignore.

I turned my eyes back to Andy and the human, and froze. They'd come to a halt in front of a small round table at the left wall. A group of people was playing poker. Fabrice was one of them.

Andy walked past Scarface until he was standing right in front of the table. He stared at Fabrice in silence. I couldn't see his expression, and I was afraid of what I might find in there.

Fabrice didn't do as much as acknowledge our presence. The curtain of silk black hair hid part of the vampire's face like a half-mask, cascading down and melting into the fabric of his crisp suit jacket. I didn't see much of his face either, but I knew what I'd find anyway – a cold, androgynous beauty. A mask of another sort. There was no way to ignore or overlook what he truly was. Fabrice was dealing the cards with the kind of impassivity you only saw in his kind.

"It was harder to find you this time, Fabrice," Andy finally said. "Creek disappeared. Any particular reason why I couldn't get a hold of my contact?"

Fabrice didn't move, didn't even look up once. Instead he finished dealing the cards in stoic silence. He picked them up and looked at them with an unreadable face. Silence stretched and twisted into a blanket of tension.

"I thought you would take the hint, Varner," Fabrice finally said, still studying his cards. "Apparently I was wrong."

"We had a deal, Fabrice."

The vampire laid his cards on the table face down, in a slow, deliberate movement. Time skipped a beat, and within less than a second his eyes were first on Andy, then shifted to me. Two glassy mirrors, muddy and black to the point of hollow, staring back at me. The sensation of invisible tendrils fingering the membranes in my skull raised goose bumps on the nape of my neck. I amped up my power and fortified my mental armor. If Fabrice thought he could hitch a ride on my train of thoughts, he had another think coming.

The corners of his mouth lifted as he turned his eyes back to Andy. "Fold."

Without further acknowledging the rest of the players he got up from the table and nodded towards the back part of the room.

"Follow me."

* * *

The room smelled of stale air and sweat. Compared to the one we'd entered before it was claustrophobic. Fabrice watched us from the other side of the odd arrangement of velvet couches. He'd shed his black suit jacket, revealing a white shirt that showed the hollow of his neck. Something about it made him look more like the adolescent, ageless being I saw the first time we met.

The small glass table separating us looked out of place in a room that reeked of a century that had long passed, but I was grateful for it nonetheless. At least some sort of barrier between us and the rogue vamp.

"I am aware of the fact that Medici might still be alive. I have no evidence yet, but judging from what has been happening in this city, we may assume he is still among us." He slanted his head to the side. "But I guess that is not the real reason you are here, Varner. Why don't you tell me what you really want to know?"

I didn't like the way this vampire was staring at Andy. There was some sort of intimacy in his gaze that scared me. No rogue vamp should have the right to stare at Andy like that.

Andy met Fabrice's stare without blinking. "Why did you try to cut your ties with me, Fabrice? What happened to Creek?"

Fabrice looked at him for a few heartbeats. "Creek was captured and taken in for questioning."

Andy jerked. "By who?"

Fabrice crossed his ankles in front of him. The smile settling on his face was bitter. "Why do you even have to ask? The head vampire of course."

It was all I could do not to flinch. Alexander?

"Alexander's vampires have been invading the city, combing through it like an angry swarm of shadows," Fabrice said. "At first I was afraid they were looking for rogues like us, vampires challenging his authority. It turns out they are looking for another kind of criminal."

I dug my fingers into my palms. "Who?"

Slowly his gaze drifted to me. "Rogue witches. I told you I don't have evidence that Medici is alive. However, Alexander is searching for him. For me that is proof enough." He looked back at Andy. "Now ask your question, Varner. You see, I'm somewhat busy tonight."

Andy stared at him from underneath his eyelashes, lips in a thin line. "This one's confidential. If you agree to talk to us you can't use the information."

"That does negate the arrangement we have. If I agree to give you information without being able to use what I get in return, you will have to pay in blood. And it will cost you more than last time," Fabrice said in a low voice.

"I'm willing to pay," Andy said.