Instead off dropping dead, he dropped the crossbow-but not the gun-and stumbled backwards, out onto the narrow landing.
Among my tasty assortment of vamp superpowers is the ability to pounce good and proper and fierce as any old puma or jaguar. And pounce is what I did. I easily cleared the distance between the bedroom and the ruined front door, striking Rizzo in the solar plexus, hard enough that he took out the banister behind him and tumbled down the stairwell, ass over tits. He hit the bottom like the proverbial sack of potatoes. Bam! Made almost as much noise as his gun, Which, by the by, happened to fire that second barrel when he hit the foyer, taking out the lower half of the front door.
Asshole.
I stood there on the landing, glaring down at Rizzo, as he rolled over and began crawling desperately towards the hole he'd made in the antique wood. I knew B would be righteously pissed if I didn't go after him and finish the job, if I let a second opportunity-its having knocked, so to speak-to conclude our Mickey Mouse holy warrior's sorry existence right then and there. But, I thought, you know, fuck it. My face was on fire, my shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch, and I plain ol' wasn't in the mood. When I murder a motherfucker, that's my prerogative, right? I could deal with Rizzo later, whenever I had a mind to do so. I promised myself that would be the very next time he got in my face.
"Cock stain!" I shouted down the stairs, and just before he slithered through the hole he'd blown in the door, he paused to give me the middle finger.
"Fuck you, too," I muttered.
Yippee-ki-yay. Just another Saturday night in the unlife of Siobhan Quinn Twice-Damned, Twice-Dead. Quinn the werepire, vampwolf, "daughter" of the late Bride of Quiet and "bitch" whelp of an equally deceased werewolf named Jack Grumet.
I turned and went back inside, pausing to prop the sorry excuse that remained of my apartment door back in place as best I could. Then headed back to the bathroom, cursing every dick that had ever spurted cum in that long line culminating in Bertrand Rizzo. My wounds would heal by daylight, but in the meantime, I had a bottle of Vicodin. On the television, the hyenas played tug of war with a blue and pink tangle of wildebeest intestine. At least someone was having fun.
• • •
"Wake up, kitten," Mean Mr. B whispered in my ear. "We've work to do, and I've begun to worry about you." His voice was sticky as molasses, irrevocably insincere.
I can't remember what exactly I was dreaming, not specifically, but I was back in those hardscrabble, smack-cushioned days with Lily and the others. I was back before. A shitty life that had come to seem like paradise. You never miss the water till the well runs dry.
I told the voice dragging me up from the dream to go fuck himself with an ice pick.
"I'm not paying you people to sleep," admonished Berenice Maidstone, impatient, privileged, the voice of someone whose used to folks jumping when she snaps those long fingers of hers.
"Fuck you both," I moaned, and opened my eyes to sunlight leaking in around the edges of the black drapes that only mostly covered my bedroom window. A while back, I'd duct-taped all the way around the curtain, but the tape had soon come loose and I'd never gotten around to sticking it down again. I squinted and rolled over, away from the sun, fumbling for the sunglasses on the small nightstand beside the bed. Vamps might not combust when exposed to sunlight, but it's hell on my eyes. Otherwise, it just sort of prickles at the back of my neck, and then usually only around noon. I found the sunglasses and sat up. The merciful storm clouds of the day before had obviously moved on. The pain in my face and shoulder had gone, but I was still a little groggy from the three twenty-five milligrams of hydrocodone I'd taken after Rizzo came calling. And my mouth tasted like shit. Not literally, but goddamn close enough. I reached beneath the bed and groped around a moment or two until I located the bottle of Bacardi I kept there. There was a glass on the nightstand, and I filled it to the brim with rum. It would help scrub away the fuzz in my head-from the painkillers and the tatters of that dream-and it was always easiest to begin a day with a buzz.
The rum tasted sweet, scorching hot, and smooth-all three, all at once-and it wiped away the shitty taste. I drained the glass in one long swallow.
"Wakey, wakey. Eggs and ba-ky," I grumbled, and filled the glass again, then returned the bottle to the shadows under the edge of the bed. I found my pack of Camels and lit one.
Not a pretty picture, I know, but I've never been a morning person. Going vamp only made matters worse.
I sat there, drinking and smoking, slowly waking up, and stared at my feet and the Play-Doh blue carpet. I struggled to take stock, as the events the night before gradually returned to me.
Kinsley Avenue.
The meeting with Berenice.
The call from B, and then the trip to the city morgue.
My index finger poking about inside the bullet hole someone had put in Shaker Lashly's face.
That shitbird Rizzo.
I took a very deep drag on my cigarette, exhaled, and stared at my phone and Hello Kitty, perched on the edge of the table near an overflowing ashtray that should have been emptied weeks ago. I hadn't checked in with B. I knew that I should, first thing, right then and there, but that was just about the very last thing I had any scrap of inclination to bother with.
Better to focus on getting the answers he wanted.
All I had was the one lead. Berenice had told me her sister sometimes frequented Drusneth's brothel in the Armory. Likely, that would prove to be a dead end, but, weird as it might seem, few and far between are the times I'd rather parlay with Mean Mr. B than a ruthless succubus madam.
I finished the second glass of Bacardi and stubbed out my smoke, then staggered off to the bathroom for a hot shower. By the time I was done and had spackled on my human mask, it was almost noon. My stomach gurgled, reminding me the time to find my next meal was fast approaching. I could put it off another night, probably, but no longer.
"Creep," I said to the creature in the mirror. "Someone finishes you off today, won't no one cry. Not one single solitary soul." The creature lip-synced every word right back at me. We smiled for one another.
By that February, I'd long since had my revenge on the nasties who'd made me one of them and dumped me so rudely into their bullshit games and double dealings, and the anger had deserted me. I was also not the completely suicidal mess I had been back at the start. The desire for vengeance is a powerful motivator, and it helps if you're mostly indifferent to your continued existence. One propels you forward, and the other makes sure you're willing to do what needs to be done to accomplish that which propels you. That day, all those many months later, looking back at myself from the bathroom mirror, I wished I'd had both those things back: the drive and the furious recklessness.
Yeah, well. It is what it is.
I dressed quickly, checked the clip in the Glock, and strapped on the shoulder holster. I also grabbed the canvas bag with the other tools of my trade. After seeing Shaker's corpse, I figured better safe than sorry, better to have all that shit and not need it, than to need all that shit and not have it. Fifteen minutes later, I was out the busted doors, out on the street. Oh, I made a mental note to call the handyman about the doors. I could always chalk it up to a break in while I'd been out. I could think of a decent enough excuse as to why I hadn't called the cops.
It took me three tries to get the rattletrap gray Econoline van started. My POS Honda hadn't survived Mercy Brown's fiery end down in Exeter, and B, cheap bastard that he is, had replaced it with the equally POS van. It was missing the front fender, the passenger seat, and the roof was so rusted out there were spots where rain and snow got in. If B's connections hadn't kept me clear of the DMV inspections, no way the hulk would have been on the road.
Okay, let's not get bogged down in the details. Who the hell gives a shit about that van? Jesus H, Quinn. Anyway, like I said, I had the one lead. The one flimsy-ass lead. And I followed it. I drove west across the Point Street Bridge and the frozen Providence River, down Westminster to the Armory District. There is just one thing I can clearly recall about that drive, even all these years later: There was a sun dog hanging in the sky above the city, a mock sun of muted, overlapping oranges, yellows, and blues. It felt like an omen.
• • •
It isn't customary to show up unannounced at "Madam Calamity's" house of ill repute and unearthly pleasures expecting an audience with Drusneth. It kinda falls into a category the nasties tend to consider ill-fucking advised. But, see, she and B, they go back a ways, and he's often summoned to take care of nuisances, deceits, and miscellaneous headaches she either hasn't got the patience to attend to herself or simply can't be bothered with. More the latter. I'd say they're friends, but that's probably going on beyond too far. More like, they're a pair of cats in a bag that, out of mutual necessity, have learned to tolerate one another's company without all the hissing and spitting and bloodshed and flying fur. So, B gets special treatment, which means, by extension, his employees-and, what with the demise of Shaker Lashly, I'd become the only one of those-also get special treatment. Usually. It's the sort of special treatment that can't be counted on.