I frowned at him and relaxed back into the cushions, but had to admit to myself that I did understand what he meant. Having a curious mind had landed me into more sticky situations than I could count.
‘What was going on with the vampires downstairs? Why were they fighting? From what I saw, it was about to turn into a bloodbath. Talk about Night of the Living Dead.’
He scooted excitedly to the edge of the cushion, eager to share.
‘By the time I got there, the chaos had started to wind down and the interlopers were gone. From what I could gather, some vampires are challenging Devereux’s rule of the coven. Bryce, the one we talked about before, is determined to take Devereux down. It seems very personal to him – the two of them definitely have unfinished business. He and his followers threatened the club manager, knowing it would piss Devereux off, and the fun began. The room was one unholy mess after the combat ended.’
‘Yeah.’ I grimaced. ‘I saw some of the body fluids oozing out from the doorway.’
He motioned with his cup. ‘Vampire bodies heal very quickly, so even the worst injuries repaired themselves within minutes. If it hadn’t been for the blood everywhere, you wouldn’t have known a vampire war was being waged.’
‘What did you do? Just run in and start swinging? Do you have a death wish?’
‘No.’ He laughed. ‘I’m adventurous. I’m courageous. I’m relentless. But I’m not stupid. Besides, I’d found out from my vampire source Ian – Deep Fang, I call him, you know, like the Watergate informer – that when a vamp loses blood, the first thing he does is seek a donor. I didn’t want to be anyone’s dinner, so I kept my distance until Devereux was alone in the room.’
A little energy rush charged through my body. ‘You talked to Devereux?’
As Alan started to answer, the doorbell rang. I walked over and peered through the peephole to make sure the visitor was welcome company. It was more than welcome. It was food – police-escorted food. I cracked the door, and was slammed by a wall of noise as hordes of reporters shouted questions from the road. I quickly handed over enough money to cover the bill plus a generous tip and reached out to grab the bag. I offered my thanks, then closed and relocked the door. I carried the large sack of Chinese food to the kitchen table.
‘Do you want to wait on the rest of the story until you’ve eaten, or can you continue?’ Alan asked.
The smell of the food was driving me mad and I moved around the kitchen in a blur, gathering plates, glasses and utensils. ‘I’ll bet I can eat and talk at the same time. Wow. You ordered lots.’
‘Oh, did you want something, too?’ He laughed.
‘Very funny.’
I opened a new bottle of wine and poured some into each of our glasses, then we sat at the table and dived into the feast. Neither of us gained any points for table manners during the meal. The food was glorious and we ate with silent enthusiasm for a few minutes. There’s nothing like stress and hunger to cause us to revisit our primitive roots.
For some reason I suddenly thought about the fact that vampires didn’t eat food. I wouldn’t ever be sitting at the table sharing a meal with Devereux. At least not any meal I could force myself to contemplate. Unless, of course, we’d all gone mad or there were hallucinogens in the water supply, and none of this had really happened.
I paused in the food-shovelling process and sipped my wine. ‘You spoke to Devereux? What did you talk about?’
Alan had already cleaned up his first helping and was reaching for reinforcements.
‘It was strange, actually. He was in the middle of telling me about his long-standing rivalry with Bryce and all of a sudden he stopped talking and closed his eyes. Then he said, “She is gone – he has taken her.” I started to ask who was gone, and who “he” was, but before I could get the words out, Devereux vanished.’
‘You mean he left the room?’ I claimed seconds on the egg rolls.
‘No. He literally vanished. Vampires aren’t bound by the same limitations of time and space as we humans are. They can move through both with just a thought.’
‘I don’t understand what you mean. Physical matter has certain unarguable limitations – flesh-and-blood bodies can’t just disappear from one place and rearrange their molecules in another. We haven’t caught up with Star Trek yet.’ Although I had seen Devereux and Bryce levitating. That was definitely strange.
Alan polished off his second helping and went for the championship round, adding an impressive third layer to the sustenance already on its way down to his deceptively flat stomach.
‘Devereux would say there are limitations if you believe there are. But I’ve seen him vanish and reappear so many times that I don’t have any problem accepting that vampires can travel by thought, not only in this dimension but in all the others.’
I pushed my plate away, finally satiated.
‘Other dimensions? You know, every time we talk your stories get weirder and weirder. Are you going to tell me next that the vampires are really aliens, preparing to take over the Earth? Or maybe they’re controlling us with their minds, and we’ll be herded into holding pens – walking blood receptacles – to wait for an impending undead feeding frenzy?’
‘No.’ He chuckled. ‘I’m not going to tell you any of that, but you have to admit they’d be interesting hypotheses to pursue. I’ll make a note of them. Shall I continue telling you about Devereux, or would you rather make fun of my proclivities?’
‘Oh, by all means, please continue.’ I raised my wineglass in his direction.
‘Anyway, after he vanished I went back upstairs and then outside, looking for you. Of course, you weren’t there, but I found Devereux leaning against the building about a half-block down from the entrance to the club. He was just standing there with his eyes closed and when I approached he said, “The one who has her is not only evil, but he is also insane. His mind is splintered and he is more animal than vampire.”’ Alan had altered his voice, imitating Devereux’s accent and unique speech patterns. ‘At that point I still didn’t even know who he was talking about. He said, “I am linked with her mind so I should be able to sense her, but he has done something to mask her energy signature. He has overwhelmed her mind with his and is keeping us from communicating with each other. I have met few others powerful enough to do that. She is in great danger. She must be found.”’
I appreciated his clever Devereux impersonation and shook my head. ‘You actually remember what he said, word for word? That’s quite the memory you have there, Special Agent Stevens.’
‘Yes, it does come in handy. I have the auditory equivalent of a photographic memory. Remember that in case you tell me something and then say you didn’t.’
‘Okay.’ I reached out and patted his arm. ‘I’ll remember that. Then what happened?’
We returned to the living room and reestablished ourselves on the couch.
He cleared his throat. ‘A whole lot of nothing. Devereux vanished again and I went back into the club to search for you. I still thought you were in there somewhere. Just so you know, I kept an eye out for Tom too, but I never saw him. I ran into Devereux’s personal assistant, a snarly vamp named Luna, and I asked if she’d seen you. She said she couldn’t believe so many people were interested in one ordinary human and that Devereux was so beside himself that you’d been taken. That was the first time I realised they were talking about you.’
‘I’m surprised Luna even deigned to acknowledge my existence.’
‘She is a charmer.’ He reached over and stroked my leg. ‘I didn’t want to believe you were missing – I’m stubborn that way – so I kept looking in the club and giving people your description and asking if they’d seen you. Finally, I drove back to the cop shop to see if there’d been any reports. I knew they wouldn’t put out a missing-person report that soon, but I was rattling cages as much as I could. Turns out I didn’t need to. A couple of hours later, the chief showed up in person and ordered that you be made top priority. All available units went out on the street, searching for you, then they alerted the media. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I still don’t know what happened to get the chief riled up.’