chapter 9
Noir loathed the Twenty-First Century.
Granted, it was just beginning, but the era was already showing signs of being tiresome, what with humans constantly prattling on about computers this and digital that. It reminded him of all that blather about steam power and pneumatics during the Industrial Revolution.
Humans were so insanely proud of their little discoveries, but inherently blind to their darker applications.
Little had changed since the first grunting upright ape set the savannah ablaze while dragging a burning branch back home to his tribe. It was up to Noir and others of his ilk to realize the true potential of the computer age, then orchestrate a way to benefit from the damage and despair it would spawn. Still, it was difficult for him to become excited about the prospect of stalking victims in cyberspace. It was all so...
bloodless. What was the point? Where was the sport?
So much had changed since he had first fought his way free of the shroud: kingdoms had risen and collapsed; religions died only to be reborn in different skins; new worlds were discovered, conquered and reconquered. So why should he bother mastering the nuances of modern technology, language, etiquette, and dress when it all was going to change in a few years, anyway?
Why bother indeed? He knew the answer to that question all too well. It was far too easy for one of his kind to become anachronistic. Vampires had to stay up to date if they wished to avoid detection. That was why he affected dreadlocks and black silk suits instead of a turban. There used to be a day when Nobles prided themselves on staying current, but now most of them seemed content to remain walking museum pieces. He had seen Count Tenebrae on the streets of London just last year, dressed like he was planning a night out with Wilde and Whistler. In the old days, such blatant anachronism in dress would have been equivalent to signing your own death warrant, but not anymore.
Perhaps, in his own way, he was guilty of the sin of anachronism as well. There was no denying that things had changed for the better for his kind. The days of existing in fear of vampire hunters and the witch finders elite were long gone. But still, old habits died hard.
He had seen kings beheaded, martyrs torched, Popes strangled in their baths, cities burnt until the sky was so thick with soot there was no telling day from night. Some of the most dangerous men known to history had once been amongst his confidantes and enemies, and yet he endured: eternal, if not unchanged.
He was born in the Holy Land, in the city of Tyre, in what was once known as the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
His father was a second-generation crusader baron, his mother a former slave who occasionally served her Christian masters as healer and sorceress.
His father's father had been the third son of a rural petty-baron in the north of France, who realized it was better to soldier in the name of the Lord and risk death by heathen hands than to squat in a chilly castle and munch turnips in the vain hope his elder brothers and their progeny might succumb to the plague, and took up the cross and followed Hugh of Vermandois across the Alps.
His grandfather fought with great bravery and precious little mercy, emerging from the slaughter of Jerusalem looking as if he had been dipped in blood. Man, woman, child, it made no difference to him; his ruthless sangfroid in battle became legendary amongst his fellow crusaders. In reward for his service, Noir's grandfather was granted a baronage by King Baldwin and presented with a goules shield bearing a two-handed sword in argent, point down, piercing a human heart in white. He was also given the surname Coeur de Neige: "Heart of Snow." In France, Coeur de Neige had been the surplus son of a lesser noble, but under the baking sun of the Transjordan he became a man of means whose counsel was heeded in the Court of Lieges. Using his new status to its greatest advantage, the fledgling baron married the niece of Raymond of Saint-Gilles, Count of Toulouse and Lord of Tripoli, thereby cementing his place in the emerging aristocracy of Outremer, as the crusader kingdoms were then known. Noir's father, the first of his line born to the title, arrived in 1130.
Noir's mother, Lisha, often claimed the blood of Hannibal flowed in her veins. As a boy, she would regale him with tales of her family having been descended from the royal wizard-priests of Moloch and, more recently, the master hunters who captured and sold African elephants and other wild beasts to the Romans for the spectacles at the Circus Maximus.
When Noir's father, the younger Coeur de Neige, first laid eyes on Lisha, she was a slave. Years before, while traveling to Mecca, her family's caravan had been set upon by brigands, who slaughtered her relatives and sold her into slavery. Fortunately, Lisha had proved herself not only beautiful, but also skilled as an herbalist, and she was bought by a wealthy Frankish baron who was more interested in curing his gout than sating his lusts.
Coeur de Neige was visiting the old baron, who was a friend of his late father's, when he fell ill with a fever. Lisha nursed him back to health, spending weeks at his bedside. When the old baron died a year later, one of his last acts was to grant Lisha her freedom. Coeur de Neige quickly brought her within his retinue as apothecary and concubine. Noir was born three years later, in 1161.
He was the first of four children, and the only one to survive past infancy. Although born on the wrong side of the blanket, his childhood was a comparatively happy one, as his father proved favorably disposed to him. The baron lavished a great deal of time and attention on both Noir and his mother, making sure they wanted for nothing.
Along with making sure Noir was taught the finer points of horsemanship and combat, Coeur de Neige saw to it that his son was schooled in both Latin and French, so that he might serve as steward to the house.
Lisha made sure that her family's traditions were passed along to her son, as well. She schooled the boy in how to recognize, harvest, and dry the various herbs and plants used in any respectable apothecary, and upon his reaching the age of thirteen, they graduated from the potions and pills of the healer to darker knowledge. It was then that Noir discovered that his mother was indeed heir to ancient power.
Although it was within Lisha's power to summon siroccos, call down cyclones, and visit unimaginable plagues upon her enemies, she never once did any of these things. Even though she could curdle the wombs of those who spited her so that they produced hare-lipped fools, she never lifted her hand to curse them. It simply was not in her nature to do so, despite the degradation and injustice she had suffered throughout her life.
Some would say that his mother was a woman of kind heart and good intentions. Noir thought she was weak.
When Noir turned eighteen, Coeur de Neige presented his illegitimate son with an emblazoned shield depicting a two-handed sword in argent, point sinister, piercing a human heart in sable. This was the closest his father ever came to publicly acknowledging him. Noir was proud to have been given arms and promised to serve Coeur de Neige as loyally as any vassal knight. And for nearly ten years, he was as good as his word.
Coeur de Neige soon discovered that his son was an adept diplomat with a keen eye for the interests of the family. Given the tenuous situation of the crusader states, having an intelligent aide whose loyalty was assured by blood was handy indeed. Coeur de Neige's trust in his son was so absolute, he appointed Noir his steward and left him in charge while he traveled to France and claimed the northern barony of a great- uncle who had died without issue. For the better part of a year, Noir served in Coeur de Neige's stead, settling issues amongst the tenants and filling his father's seat at the Council of Lieges.
During his father's absence, five galleys were brought to the Port of A[let on the backs of camels. This bizarre fleet, manned by Outremer warriors thirsty for Muslim blood and treasure, sailed the Red Sea, ravaging the coasts as far as Aden. A group of knights even went so far as to try to seize Medina. After a year of such raiding, Saladin's navy destroyed the Frankish fleet and had the prisoners put to death at Mecca, much to the Mohammedans delight.
The man behind such outlandish piracy was Reginald de Chatillon, Lord of Krak Montreal and the Port of Atlet. He cared little of a man's pedigree, provided he was ready with a sword and willing to die for Christ and kingdom. Noir admired the crazy-brave Chatillon, who was the type of man whose personality could easily sway Popes and kings and incite men into taking up arms against insane odds.
The smell of a new crusade brewing in the Holy Land brought Noir's father, the fifty-five year old Coeur de Neige, back from France. And when he arrived, Noir was stunned to discover his father had a sixteen- year-old wife. Her name was Mathilde and she was her husband's second cousin on his mother's side, as well as being directly related to Eleanor of Aquitaine. The baron, who was getting on in years, had succumbed to pressure from his Frankish cousins to produce a legal heir, one whose pedigree as a European and a Christian could not be questioned.
One of the grounds for agreement to the marriage, as put forth by Mathilde's family, was that Coeur de Neige renounce both Lisha and Noir and turn them out of his service. Which he did as easily as another man might change his boots.
Lisha was aggrieved by the turn of events, but she did not allow it to destroy her. For years she had been setting aside the pieces of jewelry and other finery the baron bestowed upon her, and lost no time in securing a villa on the mainland. Noir, on the other hand, was not so well prepared, either financially or emotionally, and found himself turned out into the world with nothing but the clothes on his back, a sword, and a bastard's shield. It was his mother who made him the gift of a fully outfitted horse, a set of arms, as well as a page from her household staff.
Thus caparisoned, he traveled to the fortified castle of Krak Montreal and pledged his sword to Chatillon's service, knowing that he would soon have the chance to prove himself in battle to his new lord.
In 1185 Saladin attempted to take the Krak Montreal, only to meet with a stalemate. A truce was signed between Saladin and Chatillon, but Reginald, ever the daredevil, broke it by raiding a caravan and carrying off the sultan's own sister. This final insult was all that it took for Saladin to declare holy war and invade the Kingdom of Jerusalem in earnest.
Saladin's troops blocked the main road to Tiberias and sent a small force to attack the town, hoping to lure the crusaders into the open. Coeur de Neige's kinsman, Count Raymond of Tripoli, urged the King of Jerusalem not to fall into Saladin's trap, even though his own wife was within the threatened city. As the evening wore on and tempers flared, Chatillon, who was never a friend of Tripoli, accused Raymond of cowardice and treason and prevailed on King Guy to change his mind. For once, Chatillon's vaunted brashness did not hold him in good stead.
The next day the forces of Jerusalem underwent an exhausting march in grueling heat and spent the entire night without water. To make matters worse, Saladin's men set grass fires that filled the air with choking smoke that added even further to the troops' thirst and disorientation. Finally, with the smoke from the grass fires pouring into their faces, the foot soldiers broke ranks and fled, disrupting the cavalry. The bravery and dedication of those marshaled on the shores of Lake Tiberias was not enough to overcome Saladin's army, who swarmed them like locusts on a field of ripe wheat.
The Christian forces were annihilated; the king, the grand master of the Templars and Chatillon were captured, and only a handful of knights escaped. By all rights, Noir should have died with his comrades on the lakeshore, but he somehow managed to stagger from the chaos of the battlefield with the help of his page.
By the time they reached his mother's villa, Noir had no more blood in him than a mouse. He vaguely recalled tumbling from the back of his horse upon entering the courtyard. Although Lisha was deeply afraid for her son's life, she did not allow herself to become distraught. She kept her head, ordered that he be prepared for treatment, and sent a runner to Coeur de Neige to inform him of his son's condition.
Lisha knew Noir was dying, and that no mortal medicine could save him. She set aside her dried herbs, powdered rhinoceros horn and pickled tiger penises and turned to the ornately worked rosewood chest with the golden lock she kept in a special hiding place in her workshop.
As a boy, Noir had seen the contents of the rosewood chest only once, for the things locked inside it were rare and wondrous indeed, used only in the direst of emergencies. Lisha took from the box a glass jar sealed in beeswax and wrapped in a rosary. Inside the jar was something black and shriveled that looked like a bloom of fungus, but was actually the heart of a vampire. Utilizing specific elixirs and rituals, Lisha boiled the heart down into a vile broth the color of tar. As her son lay dying, she forced the noxious brew down his gullet with the aid of a funnel. Within seconds of being fed the odious concoction, Noir breathed his last.
Although the life had fled her son's body, Lisha showed no outwards signs of grief or sorrow. Instead of ordering her servants to anoint his body and wrap it in a winding sheet, she told them that within three days time he would arise from the dead. The servants thought her mad, but none dared go against her orders.
On the second day following Noir's death, Baron Coeur de Neige arrived at the villa. Although he had not so much as spoken to Noir since renouncing him, the baron lost no time in riding out from Tyre with an escort of Knights Templar once he learned of his bastard son's condition. Upon his arrival the servants quickly filled the baron in on how Noir's death had unhinged the Lady Lisha's mind.
The baron was outraged when he saw his son's body still sprawled on his deathbed, his brow naked of the priest's unction. Coeur de Neige demanded to know why Noir had not been given last rites. Lisha stated that their son was not truly dead, and that he would rise on the evening of the third day as surely as Christ had rolled back the stone, but this blasphemy angered the baron even further.
Lisha attempted to explain what she had done, hoping he would understand the desperate measures love had lead her to take. Instead, Coeur de Neige turned upon the woman who had shared his bed for twenty- five years and, denouncing her as a witch, plunged a dagger into her belly. She died at his feet. The Templars who accompanied the baron saw that Noir's mortal remains were administered the last rites.
Now that the body was officially consecrated, Lisha's remaining servants sewed Noir into a shroud and took the corpse to be buried in a nearby churchyard. Satisfied that all was as it should be, Coeur de Neige headed back to Tyre, where his young wife and infant son awaited his return.
Of course, Noir awoke on the night of the third day, just as his mother had said he would.
Upon his resurrection, Noir found himself somewhere dark and close, his arms crossed over his chest and tied into place by strips of soft cloth, with a great weight bearing down upon his entire body. He tried to open his eyes, but something cold and metallic lay atop the lids, keeping them in place. He tried to cry out in alarm, but his mouth was filled with cotton.
Marshaling all his strength, he managed to tear his arms free, pull the cotton batting from his mouth, and knock the coins from his eyes. He clawed at the shroud with nails that were far longer and stronger than any he had possessed in life, struggling upward like a swimmer desperate for air. Loose earth fell into his eyes and open mouth as he struggled to escape the claustrophobic darkness. The moon of Islam hung in the sky as he wriggled free of his grave like a snake shedding its skin.
He wandered forth from the churchyard, dazed and empty-eyed, like a statue suddenly transformed from marble into flesh, dressed in nothing but the tatters of his burial shroud, his hair filled with grave dirt.
Like every new resurrectant, he was operating by instinct alone, shuffling towards those things his living brain had deemed family, as they would be the ones most likely, in their grief, to cast aside caution and throw open their doors to such a shocking apparition.
A mile from the churchyard Noir came upon a solitary pilgrim huddled in one of the shelters built along those roads that lead from the seaports to the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The pilgrim awakened suddenly, startled from his pious dreams by the smell of death. Upon seeing the horror looming over him, the pilgrim cried out to his god to deliver him, but there was no salvation to be had in the Holy Land that night.
Noir attacked the pilgrim like a man fresh from the desert drinking from a skin of water. After he had drained the pilgrim dry, Noir's senses returned to him, at least enough to realize he must cover his nakedness if he wished to continue his journey unnoticed. After stripping his victim of garments, he set out anew, this time not to feed mindlessly, but to find his mother, for Noir knew that whatever change had been worked upon him must have been her doing.
In escaping the grave, Noir discovered he had also escaped the frailties of the human condition. His eyes now could see as clearly in the night as they once did during the day; he could smell all manner of things he never had before, things such as fear; he could hear the faintest rustling of a mouse amongst the dry grasses along the road, or the slither of an asp hidden amongst the rocks. But the biggest change of all was the need, unlike any he had ever known as a mortal man, located just below the pit of his belly and just above his loins, which called for the blood of the living.
As Noir drew closer to his mother's villa, he saw that no lights were burning in the windows. He found this strange, for he knew Lisha often sat up late into the night, working on her various potions and spells.
As he approached the outer walls, Noir caught a familiar scent rising from the nearby dung heap, a stink he had come to know all too well on the battlefield: the odor of decomposing human flesh.
There was what looked like a scarecrow, thrown by a careless farmhand, atop the heap. Upon closer inspection, Noir recognized the body as that of his mother. He could identify her only by her hair and clothes, since the dogs and vultures had been at her. A rage so great it manifested itself as calm broke within his breast.
Noir strode into the courtyard, kicking open his mother's padlocked workshop. The servants appeared, awakened by the noise, torches in hand, swords and cudgels at the ready. The majordomo demanded to know who he was and what business he had with them at such an hour. When Noir turned to face them, they gasped aloud, crossed themselves and offered up prayers of protection to Allah.
Noir demanded to know who had slain his mother and ordered her body cast out with the offal. At first the servants were too frightened to speak, but at last the majordomo said it was the work of Baron Coeur de Neige, who believed the Lady Lisha had poisoned their son in order to avenge herself against him for marrying the Lady Mathilde.
Upon hearing this, Noir burst into laughter, which made the servants gathered before him shiver in their boots. What an egotist his father was! The baron saw all things done by others as somehow relating to him; he could not fathom how Lisha's actions could be fueled by love, not hate.
Indeed, the Lady Lisha had not robbed the baron of his posterity, but presented him with a son who could never grow old, never die - one who could stride the world forever! And this was how he repaid her?
Two nights later, in the city of Tyre, Noir entered his father's house, moving like a shadow through the inner court with its splashing fountain and carefully tended rose garden. He found his father's wife alone in her chambers, her attention focused on a piece of embroidery. She looked up from her handiwork as he approached, her brow furrowed in confusion for a long moment, before her eyes grew wide in recognition.
Her gaze cut quickly to the far side of the room then back to where Noir stood. He followed her furtive glance and saw the peaked crown of a cradle, swaddled in white gauze to keep biting flies away from the occupant's tender flesh. Noir smiled, and his father's wife cried out in horror and flung herself at him, desperate to put herself between her child and the demon in her bedchamber.
Noir grabbed her by the heavy braid hanging down her back, jerking her out of his way as he would a hound on a leash. The Lady Mathilde fell to the stone floor as Noir snatched up his infant half-brother, dangling the child like a rabbit in a butcher's stall.
The babe opened its maw, revealing bare, pink gums, and issued a cry as thin as gruel. Noir shook his head in amazement that his father would chose to turn him aside in favor of such weak meat.
The Lady Mathilde, seeing the look in Noir's eyes, crawled on her belly and placed herself at his feet, promising she would give herself to him, to do with as he saw fit, if only he spared her son. Noir looked down at his groveling stepmother, her eyes swollen and made red by tears, and with a smile dashed the child's skull against the wall.
Noir then took his father's wife as she lay on the floor, stricken dumb by fear and grief. He was cold as death inside her, causing her to find her tongue at last, and she cried out to her savior to deliver her from the devil's embrace. As the last flicker of sanity and hope fled her eyes, Noir buried his fangs in her neck and took from her that which he truly lusted after.
Sated on Mathilde's blood, Noir sat in the dark and awaited his father's return to his family. As luck would have it, he did not have long to wait. Baron Coeur de Neige entered the room dressed in a long shirt and soft slippers, carrying a taper to light his way. Hidden in the shadows, Noir sneered at the sight of his father tiptoeing towards the bed, calling out his wife's name in a singsong voice like a smitten schoolboy. The baron nearly dropped his candle when he stumbled across the Lady Mathilde's corpse sprawled on the floor. At the sight of his wife's body, the baron made a noise somewhere between an angry roar and a pained sob. He looked about wildly, searching for the assassin he knew had to be lurking nearby.
"Hello, Father," Noir said, stepping from his hiding place. "Did you miss me?"
Coeur de Neige stared for a long moment, unable to believe his eyes. When he finally spoke, his voice was little more than a whisper. "I saw you buried. You're dead."
"No, Father. I'm far from it. But I will tell you who is dead: my mother, for one, as well as your other, lesser spawn. But as for your pretty little wife... once her incubation period has passed, she will return to this world, but as my bride, not yours. And while I may be a bastard, I am not a cruel one. I will not slay an unarmed man; I am giving you a fighting chance, which is more than you gave my mother."
Noir removed the dagger from its sheath at his waist and tossed it to Coeur de Neige. It landed at the baron's feet, the pommel towards his hand. The baron quickly snatched up the weapon and buried it to the hilt in his son's chest, skewering his heart.
The baron took a step back and wiped the back of his hand across his lips, expecting Noir to collapse onto the floor. Instead, he stood and stared at his father, a mocking smile on his lips, the dagger jutting from his chest like a bothersome thorn.
Coeur de Neige crossed himself with trembling hands as his son pulled the blade free. Noir grinned, baring his new, sharp teeth so that his father could see them.
"You are not my son, but some fiend dressed in his shape, sent by Satan to torment me!" Coeur de Neige cried, his voice made hoarse by horror.
"Believe what you like, father," Noir replied. "It will make no difference in Hell." And with that Noir drove the dagger pulled from his heart into the baron's own. Coeur de Neige fell to the floor at his son's feet, his face set in a rictus of terror.
Thus Noir began his existence by obliterating his paternal line; assuring there would be no others of his blood, save for those of his Making. Still, he did not completely sever himself from his past, as he took the name Coeur du Noir, after the bar sinister coat of arms presented to him by his late father.
Still, avenging his mother's murder by committing patricide was just the beginning of what would prove a long and contentious existence. Noir quickly discovered he was not the same as other vampires. Having been Made through sorcery rather than by another of his kind, Noir lacked the patronage and protection that came with being part of an established brood, which meant he not only had to worry about detection by humans, but challenges from other vampires as well.
Realizing his disadvantage, Noir approached different Nobles and offered his skills as a necromancer if they would accept him into their service. But in undeath, as in life, a man is judged by what he is not, not by what he is. And, in the Ruling Class's bloodshot eyes, Noir was strega, not enkidu, and therefore not to be trusted.
Since the Nobles would not have him, Noir set about creating his own brood - one fashioned not only of those he Made, but other solitaires who did not fit the enkidu definition of "normal." And in time, Noir watched those who once snubbed him as a freak fall into extinction, while he continued, surrounded by his little family of oddlings.
He had spent centuries wandering from country to country, moving through the kingdoms of mankind like the shadow of a bad dream. For those who knew how to look, his will and whims were visible in the histories of a dozen peoples, like a vast tapestry woven from bloodied thread. But that was part of a time long past, in a world so different from the one he now dwelt in, it might as well have taken place on Mars.
Where once he commanded princes like pawns on a chess board, now Noir satisfied himself with manipulating the city councilmen, business executives and government officials who frequented establishments such as Dolly Dagger's.
While many Nobles turned up their noses at posing as a member of the "lower orders," Noir had discovered it was far easier to avoid detection by pretending to be a shady businessman rather than posing as a member of the aristocracy. Blackmail, hot cars and credit card theft might seem prosaic for one of his station, but it was nothing more than window dressing. Humans expected a certain amount of mystery from someone involved in the underworld. If they thought you a villain, they would never suspect you of being an actual monster.
Not that Noir had to worry about being hunted down by vampire hunters. Once humans stopped looking for vampires in abandoned houses and deserted churchyards, the undead were free to move about unnoticed. However, the threat from members of the Ruling Class was still very real, and a good portion of Noir's time and energy was spent guarding against attacks from rival Nobles eager to boost their status.
There was any number of scheming enkidu, including that bastard Tenebrae, who were more than eager to eat his heart.
The office intercom buzzed. It was three o'clock in the morning; the bar was closed and it was time to review the night's receipts. Noir mimed opening a lock and the office door swung open of its own accord.
The sight of Lady Madonna's gravid belly caused a prickle of disgust to travel up Noir's spine, but he forced himself to smile at her nonetheless. As loathsome as her condition was to him, she had proven herself extremely useful to him time and again, and that, in the end, was all what truly mattered.
"What do you have for me, my dear?"
Lady Madonna placed the cash box onto the table for his inspection. "The house made three thousand, counting door and bar receipts."
Noir gave the contents a cursory glance, then pushed it away. "How did the girls do?"
Lady Madonna responded by tossing three wallets, two sets of car keys, and one diamond-studded Rolex onto the desk. Noir quickly thumbed through the plastic, ferreting out the department store and gas cards.
"We'll unload the cars on DeMarco. He's always in the market for rolling steel," Noir said, tossing the gutted wallets into a nearby wastebasket.
Lady Madonna laced her hands across her swollen belly, which he had come to recognize as a sign of ill ease.
Noir turned to face his lieutenant, raising an eyebrow as he spoke. "Was there any trouble tonight?"
"I'm not sure. There was someone here earlier who looked like trouble. A woman. Black leather jacket, jeans, boots. Whatever she was up to, she didn't stay long. She couldn't have been in the club more than five, six minutes, tops."
Noir reached out and touched Ygon's mind with his own. The ogre's thoughts were as thick as compost, but nowhere near as fertile.
Ygon.
The ogre looked around, trying to locate the source of Noir's voice.
I'm in the office, moron! "Yes, milord?" Ygon vocalized his response in order to form cogent enough thought patterns, otherwise all Noir picked up was pictures and scent patterns. Bring me the surveillance tapes from the main floor.
"As you command, milord."
A few minutes later Ygon entered the office carrying a set of VHS tapes in one hand like they were dominoes. He handed the cassettes to Lady Madonna, who inserted the first one into a video player built into the bookcase. The thirty-two inch video monitor set flush into the wall behind the desk suddenly blinked on. Lady Madonna hit the Play button on the remote control and the silver snow on the screen dissolved into the interior of Dolly Dagger's, as shot from a hidden camera just inside the front door.
The surveillance cameras had not been Noir's idea, but a holdover from the establishment's previous owner. Still, they proved to be a useful bit of technology; especially those cameras mounted behind the mirrors in the VIP rooms.
Lady Madonna pointed to the time code running in the far right side of the screen: twenty after midnight.
Noir leaned forward, steepling his fingers as he watched the playback. There is no way to read auras on videotape, so he had to use other physical cues to decide whether or not the woman was human. Judging from her build and her clothes, it was easy to dismiss her as an off-duty dancer checking out the club before an audition. But there was something in the way she handled herself.... She moved like a woman who knew she was being watched, but not for the usual reasons.
"She's trouble alright," Noir said, nodding thoughtfully.
He followed the trouble as she moved towards the bar, came to a sudden halt, and then turned toward the runway. The camera angle, however, did not allow him to see exactly who or what she was looking at. A couple of seconds later she exited the bar, clearly in pursuit of someone off-camera.
"One thing is for certain; she didn't come alone." Noir snapped his fingers impatiently. "Where's the other surveillance tape?"
Lady Madonna popped out the first tape and fed in a second, fast-forwarding until the timer read 12:20.
This time the camera angle was facing outward from the stage.
"There. There she is." Noir pointed to the trouble crossing into the camera's field of vision, headed towards the bar. She was in the far background, but still visible on the tape. He watched the trouble come to a sudden stop, then turn. The colored lights from the stage flared off her mirrored sunglasses. It was relatively simple to trace her line-of-sight to a man standing at the foot of the runway, staring up at one of the dancers.
Although the lust in the man's eyes was familiar enough, he was not the type of customer the Dagger tended to attract. Noir was tempted to label the stranger a renfield, until he saw a silver belt buckle shaped like skull winking in the lights from the runway. No. Whatever this man in black might be, he wasn't the human servant of a vampire. Still, Noir could not shake the feeling that he recognized the man's face.
That was one of the curses of having existed for nearly ten centuries: after a while, all faces were vaguely familiar.
As the man in black stared at the dancer undulating on the stage, the lust abruptly winked out of his eyes, to be replaced by a look of horrified recognition. The man in black turned and ran out the door, the trouble following on his heels.
Most interesting.
"Who was working the stage during that shift?"
Lady Madonna checked her clipboard. "Gloria was on from midnight to a quarter after one."
It took Noir a minute or two to place the female. He had acquired so many brides over the centuries, their names and faces tended to blur together. He had a clearer memory of her previous owner than he did of her. Then again, that was almost always the case, since the vast majority of his brides once belonged to former business partners foolish enough to betray him. Some would say he was endlessly repeating that final, Oedipal act between his father and himself, but Noir saw it as going with what he knew.
"Have her brought to me. She was recognized tonight - I want to know by whom."
"As you command, milord."
Noir took the remote control from Lady Madonna, rewinding it back to where the trouble turned to face the stage. For some reason, he felt the same thrill of excitement he used to experience when he was on the run from the Inquisition.
Something told him things were about to get interesting again.