I had very little money, and nowhere to go. How would I possibly stand a chance? Besides, Dashiell knew about Jack. I wasn’t going to let anyone else die just for knowing me. Not ever.
Denial, Scarlett, I thought. Denial is your friend. Focus on the case. Before I’d left, Dashiell had given me the names of the dead vampires’ human servants: Victoria Grottum, Thomas Freedner, and Jason Myles. When I asked him for more information, he’d just waved a hand dismissively. Why would you need the home addresses of your employees’ food supply?
Cruz got on my computer and logged in to the LAPD database to check out the names. The news was not good: Grottum and Myles didn’t have California driver’s licenses, so neither of them had a home address listed with the DMV. That was weird in itself, since LA is a driving city, but maybe they had moved in from other states or something. Neither of them paid taxes or had registered cell phones. They were, for all intents and purposes, off the grid. I guess when a vampire pays all your bills and fills all your needs, so to speak, you don’t worry too much about legalities.
Thomas Freedner, the third human servant, did have an LA license and an address listed, but when Cruz followed up with the building’s landlord, it turned out Freedner had moved two years earlier. No forwarding address, no phone number listed.
So we weren’t going to get an easy assist from the LAPD computers. That made things more complicated, but I did actually have a plan. In my job, you learn a lot about where everyone spends their downtime. Werewolves, by and large, hang out at Hair of the Dog when they want to socialize with other wolves. The witches have get-togethers in their homes, like really twisted Tupperware parties. The vampires have their own places to gather, places that are dark and underground and, at best, ethically questionable. But there’s another Old World group in LA—the human servants. And they go clubbing.
“So these people are like voluntary food?” Cruz asked me as we drove east on the 10 Freeway toward downtown.
“Yes and no. Human servants belong to a specific vampire. Like going steady, I guess. They’re under the vampire’s protection, and if another vampire feeds off them, that vamp gets in trouble. But there are plenty of people who offer themselves to the vampires who aren’t human servants,” I told him. “There’s a lot of voluntary food.”
“Why would anyone do that?”
I sighed. “Some of them are thrill-seekers; they’re in it for the adrenaline rush of playing with fire. Some are the vamparazzi, the groupies who worship vampires and want to become one. They make me sad.” I realized that I was speeding and immediately slowed down. What was wrong with me tonight? Oh, right, I’d been kidnapped and slapped around by vampires and might die in like a day. “But the worst ones are the terminally ill. They’re hoping to be turned so that they can live forever.”
“And how do you get turned again? You drink their blood?”
“Yep. Vampire blood is dead blood; it’s infected with the same magic that animates the vampires. In theory, if you drink so much as a drop, you get sick for a couple of days, it kills you, and then you turn. Or the vampire might kill you, and then you turn faster.” I could feel Cruz shudder in the seat next to me. “But they don’t turn very many people anymore,” I added helpfully.
“Why not?”
I sighed. “That’s this whole big other thing.”
“Can’t you just give me the short version?”
I glared over at him, but he just showed me an innocent expression. Ugh. “There’s something...wrong with magic,” I finally explained. “There are two parts to the transformation—the human crosses the line from living to dead, and the magic bonds with their blood to revive them. But the magic chooses, for lack of a better word, which blood to bond with, and lately, it hasn’t been choosing very many people.” There have always been failed attempts to create a vampire, but in last century or so, it has become much more likely to fail than to succeed. “Every time it doesn’t work, the failure means a human corpse that needs to be dealt with.”
“Wait, so magic is...dying?”
I shrugged. That was a question for people a hell of a lot smarter than me. “All I know is, it’s gotten a lot harder to make a baby vampire. I think they’ve mostly stopped trying.”
He thought about all that for a few minutes while I drove in silence.
“Scarlett, how did you find out about all this stuff?” Cruz finally asked. “I mean, you neutralize everything, so it’s not like you could’ve experienced any of this firsthand.”
“I had a teacher.”
“Where is she now?”
“She died,” I said shortly. “Cancer.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Forget about it.” I took the exit for downtown, maneuvering the van onto busy Figuoreoa Street.
“So,” Cruz said, ready to change the subject, “how will we know who these people are? I mean, you got their names, but how will we find them?”
For the first time since we’d gotten in the van, I grinned. “We’ll just ask,” I said cheerfully. “Nobody wants to mess with the bogeyman.” Even if she is just a janitor.
The LA night was cool and brisk, clear enough to see miles and miles of city lights. I rolled the windows down when we got off the freeway, and Cruz smiled and closed his eyes. For a second, I thought he was going to hang his head out the window and pant, and I had to smile.
Our first stop was a rooftop club on one of the big downtown skyscrapers.