Cops and reporters notwithstanding, the streets were less crowded than I expected, far more empty than the first night Beast hunted. The word about the killer vamp had done a number on the crowds. I had never been in the French Quarter on a Saturday night, but I had a feeling the bar and restaurant traffic was down. Not good. I had mental images of armed men taking to the streets in packs, searching for the rogue. Killing any unlucky, handy vamp.
Our walk ended up at the Royal Mojo Blues Company. The smell of fried food and beer and the sound of live music blasted its way into the street, the house band rocking. The RMBC had an outside dining area, a bar, food that smelled hot off the grill, and a dance floor. And the people not on the streets? They were inside. The place was packed. My feet were tapping before I reached the door. After a preliminary sniff to rule out the presence of rogue, I headed to the dance floor, losing Bliss and Rick in the crowd.
A black woman with the voice of an angel blasted a foot-stomping seventies piece by Linda Ronstadt. She was backed up by five other musicians on drums, keyboard, bass, and guitars. A selection of wind instruments rested in a rack.
Conversations merged into a background roar, with Beast picking up a few words here and there: flirting, business complaints, a drug deal taking place sotto voce between two patrons near the bar. No vamp discussions. And the only vamp scent in the joint didn’t smell fresh, though it was familiar. Couples and singles were on the floor, so dancing alone wouldn’t make me stand out. I flowed onto the floor, into the crowd. Into the heat and swirling smoke and started to move. I opened with a corkscrew and shifted into a maya. One of the courses I took between children’s home/high school/teenaged misery and the freedom of RL—real life—was a year of belly dance classes. The best thing about belly dancing was the freestyle moves it added to my repertoire. On a dance floor? I smoke.
I attracted the attention of a half dozen women and they joined me on the dance floor, all of us dancing together, making a space for ourselves and crowding out the couples, at least for the moment. Men left the bar and stood in a line, watching, beer bottles in hand. The women with me shouted and hollered. Beast woke up and purred, pumping energy into the dance.
By the third number I was dancing in front of the band, buffeted by the bass speakers, sweating and dancing my heart out. It had been too long. I really love rock and roll, and the band was good, currently sounding more like Sting than Sting himself.
Three bars into a jazzed-up version of “Moon over Bourbon Street,” I caught the eye of the horn player, just joining the band. Dang if it wasn’t my Joe. Rick. Holding my gaze, he picked up a sax, made a few adjustments. I’d paid no attention to his clothes when he picked me up at the door, but he was wearing a black tee, the fabric so thin it was almost translucent beneath the stage lights, and jeans so tight they molded to his body like the skin of a lover. Oh, my.
He moved to the front of the stage, a bad-boy smile on his mouth and his black hair falling forward in an Elvis curl. He took the mouthpiece between his lips in a move so sensuous it sent shivers down my spine. He started to play. For me. His fingers danced up the keys, and the mellow sound curled around me like a loving hand. So what could I do but dance for him? I moved into the camel walk—figure-eight hips—and added in a few small belly circles and belly drops. It was a come-hither song so I did a come-hither dance.
The number wasn’t the three-minute, fifty-second-plus version of “Moon Over Bourbon Street” once released to radio stations. It was the live version, the male lead’s voice so perfect for the lyrics it tore the heart right out of the entire dance floor. The horn added just the right pathos to a song dedicated to the life of a vampire. Empty floor space filled up fast. Sweat trickled down my spine and I undulated to the beat, a catlike move all my own. The lead singer was crooning, “The brim of my hat hides the eye of a beast,” when I heard Bliss’s scream.
Muffled. Panicked.
I dropped my arms. Whirled. Tore from the floor. Dove around dancers faster than they could see. Weaving fast. Following the sound as it trailed away. Past the bar. Into the dark.
Ladies’ room. I blasted through the door. Slamming it back on its hinges. Two sets of feet in one booth, one female, one male. Vamp smell. Blood.
Time dilated. Slowed. Took on the texture of oiled wood, grained and patterned.
Beast rose. I ripped a stake from my turban with my right hand. Tore the large silver cross from the leather thong around my neck. Yanked the stall door open, breaking the hasp.
The vamp, wearing T-shirt and jeans, whirled. Snarled. Fangs bloodied. Bliss dropped from his arms. A slow-motion fall, like a doll, to the floor. His left hand went down, as if to catch her back to him. Her blood stained his shirt. Stained her clothes. Pumped weakly from her throat. She was pale as death.
Beast screamed in fury. I reversed the stake and lunged. Right-handed, the vamp caught my right wrist. Not the mad one we hunt, Beast warned. Young. Very young.