Laws of the Blood 1: The Hunt

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  LAWS OF THE BLOOD: THE HUNT

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1999 by Susan Sizemore

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

  For information address:

  The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The Penguin Putnam Inc. World Wide Web site address is http://www.penguinputnam.com

  ISBN: 0-7865-3572-5

  AN ACE BOOK®

  Ace Books first published by The Ace Publishing Group, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Electronic edition: March, 2003

  This one’s for me. So there.

  Prologue

  When the blood fever rises, it is the Enforcer who names the time, the place, and the prey.

  APRIL

  DAVY

  (Kneeling in the alley, surrounded by dead bodies. Blood everywhere.) Stares at Sam:

  What happened?

  SAM

  Bares fangs:

  Nothing you’re going to remember.

  “THAT SUCKS!”

  Valentine snorted at the irony of what she’d said and hit the delete key in disgust. She was very good at irony. Her dialogue usually fairly dripped with it. Right now, this script didn’t drip with anything, not even the fresh blood she was hoping to inject into her take on a vampire story. Everybody in town was looking to make Scream-alikes; even she was in on it. Teen horror with a cynical twist was staying hot. She could do cynical.

  “What I don’t do is horror,” Valentine told her agent when he first suggested the production package. “Especially not vampires.” But it was a sweet, sweet deal. After she thought about it for awhile, Valentine decided, Oh, what the hell. There couldn’t be any harm in it.

  “And it’s so . . . ironic,” she muttered and went to get herself a cup of coffee.

  The kitchen wasn’t far away. Valentine was never far away from a cup of coffee. Her condo was expensive, but it wasn’t big. Just a bedroom, kitchen, and a living room that doubled as an office.

  There was a basketball game on the large-screen television in her living room. She glanced at it, saw the Lakers were down by eight points, and decided it was best to work and continue to keep the game on as background noise. Problem was, she didn’t want to work. The night was flying by, and she hadn’t yet put down a word that was worth keeping. “Discipline,” she told herself. “You can do this.”

  There was a terror inside her that told her she couldn’t, that she was empty at last.

  She noticed the blinking light on the answering machine as she returned to her desk. She had three phone lines, but only one person had the number to the phone hooked up to the machine. She didn’t want to talk to him. She didn’t even want to listen to his messages. There had been a time . . . She almost reached for the Play button. No. It would just be recorded pleas and demands. “Reruns,” she grumbled. “And I’m talking to myself again.”

  Came from being alone too much, she supposed. But everyone knew she was eccentric and reclusive. It added to the mystique to make people come to her. To make them want something that was hard to get. You had to use every trick you could to survive in this town.

  “Get’s boring, though, doesn’t it?” she complained and marched right past her desk and onto the balcony. She could feel the accusing glow of the empty computer screen at her back. “I can’t help it,” she complained to it. “The words just won’t come.” She’d always been a storyteller. But lately . . .

  The balcony was full of flowering plants and was surrounded by a high, stucco wall. She leaned her elbows on the familiar rough surface and looked at the view beyond the walled garden that surrounded the building. The air smelled of jasmine and car exhaust, just as it always did. It was beautiful here, peaceful at this late hour. For all of its location near what passed for a heart in this splayed-out city, the building where Valentine lived conjured the charm and luxury of a different era. The Bunker Hill neighborhood was an old one; urban renewal had simply caught up with it and forced it to redecorate. She had preferred it before it became trendy but supposed the newfound popularity would pass, too. She’d still be here.

  “I’m not bored,” she told herself. “I’m not lonely. I’m not desperate.”

  She was all those things and knew it. It was time for a change. There was something going on, it was as pervasive as the smog around her. This restlessness was not her way. If there was one thing she hated, it was change.

  She sipped coffee and listened to the song of a night bird for awhile, hoping for inspiration. Behind her, the game was getting noisy. The Lakers were making baskets. She had to get back to work. She had to put something resembling a story on disk soon, even if it was shit. She wandered to stand in front of the television, coffee cup clutched tightly in her hands. Shaq was on a rampage. Cool.

  After a few seconds, Valentine sat down on the couch, attention riveted on the screen. She sat back. She relaxed. A camera panned across the crowd near the floor for reaction shots after a particularly beautiful pick and roll. Valentine sat up at the speed of light. The coffee cup dropped from her hands to crash into shards at her feet. Hot liquid splashed her legs.

  “What? Show him again!”

  But the camera had moved on to a close-up of a whooping Tom Cruise. Valentine snorted derisively. She’d actually liked the boy in Interview, but it wasn’t pretend vampires that interested her just now. She desperately wanted the camera to move left again, to give her another chance at viewing someone she hadn’t seen in years.

  “Had to be him,” she muttered. “What’s he doing in town? Can’t be. And who was that pretty little red-haired thing with him? How long’s he been in L.A.?” She pounded a fist on the arm of the couch. “And why don’t I ever keep up with what’s going on around here?”

  Valentine smiled and rose slowly to her feet. She kicked aside broken china and ran to her desk. And what difference did any of her questions make when an idea was finally tapping on the back of her brain?

  “I can do this,” she muttered, then laughed wickedly as her fingers moved over the keyboard. “Can and will. Let’s try this again, shall we, gentlemen? Davy and . . . what do I call him? How about . . . ?”

  SULEIMAN:

  What I just did was against the Law.

  DAVY:

  (Kneeling in the alley, surrounded by dead bodies, blood everywhere):

  Kill a half dozen people? I’d say that’s pretty illegal.

  SULEIMAN:

  That’s not the Law I’m talking about.

  DAVY:

  Then what . . .

  Stares at something in Suleiman’s hand. . . . is that?

  Suleiman holds up short dagger. It glitters in the glow from streetlamp.

  SULEIMAN:

  Silver? Yes.

  (Smiles.)

  Doesn’t hold an edge worth a damn.

  Moves forward, teeth bared to show fangs.

  But I don’t use the dagger on mortals. . . .

  Valentine h
ad to take her hands away from the keyboard because they were suddenly shaking too much to type. She barely stopped herself from looking over her shoulder. There were no accusing eyes in the night behind her, but she could feel them anyway.

  “This is wrong. I can’t do this.”

  Then again . . . She sat back in her chair and watched the words on the screen as if she waited for them to scramble, change, fly away, or catch on fire. The cursor just kept blinking, but the words didn’t change. She didn’t like the words particularly. They still weren’t right, but that was because she was trying to tell the wrong story, wasn’t it?

  “But I don’t have a story.”

  You know where to get one, an insidious voice in her head told her.

  Valentine shook her head. “I haven’t been there or done that for a long time.” She hugged herself and wished for a cup of coffee. Somehow, even the short distance to the kitchen seemed like a dangerous journey. She wanted to hide here in her quiet corner, unseen and unnoticed, while she quietly contemplated treason, betrayal, death, and destruction.

  “The box office could be enormous.”

  That is, if she found the right Dream to ride. She knew where to go to do her Dreaming, now, didn’t she? There was a reason she’d seen him sitting in the audience of the basketball game. There was always a reason when their paths crossed. Right now, she needed a savior. Maybe it was his turn to get her butt out of trouble. It was just a story. A movie. Her job. Her life. Of no importance to anyone but her.

  Valentine noticed the clock on the bottom of the computer screen. It was hours until dawn. Too bad. For the first time in ages she was anxious to get a good day’s sleep.

  Chapter 1

  MAY

  ON NIGHTS LIKE this, Don Tomas showed that he was a traditionalist of the oldest school. To get his full attention, Selim had to show him the dagger. Without any sense of melodrama, he slipped it from the sheath strapped to his arm and put it silently down on the mahogany table, the point turned toward himself. Selim rarely thought about the dagger, though he wore it every night. He hadn’t had any reason to use it for a long time. Los Angeles was a quiet town.

  Kamaraju, Alice Fraser, and Michael Tancredi were at the table along with Don Tomas. The five of them watched each other in silence now that the dishes had been cleared away. The dining room’s arched doorways were opened to the scents of a low-walled garden. The soft splash of a fountain made a soothing background noise in the quiet room. Beyond the garden wall a spectacular view of the city spread out from the estate’s dizzying perch.

  Considering that the people in the room rarely spent time together, dinner conversation had been surprisingly affable. Now they waited for Selim.

  It was up to him to speak first, since the dagger was on the table. No one had commented on the absence of the Claremont vampire over dinner, so he rewarded their restraint by saying, “Miriam sends her regrets and apologies for not being able to attend. She has a situation that could risk our security and requested a private meeting with me later this evening.”

  “You will keep us informed of Miriam’s actions.”

  Don Tomas was tall but slender in the wiry, muscular way many of them were, with a low, rough voice and deep, dark eyes. He sat back in the heavy carved chair at the head of the table, half-slouching, physically relaxed while radiating an air of tightly wound tension. His words concerning Miriam hadn’t been a request, but they hadn’t been a demand, either.

  Selim nodded to him. “If her actions touch upon the Hunt in any way, I will inform you and adjust tonight’s arrangements accordingly.” As usual, Selim was very careful with his words. He was best known for being a diplomat, for finding solutions and compromises among the nests. But in the matter of the Hunt there would be no compromising. The strong-willed group before him had to know from the outset that he was the final authority here. From the hard looks in their eyes he knew imposing his will wasn’t going to be easy. But, as Siri would say, he knew the job was dangerous when he took it.

  Selim took a sip of after-dinner coffee at the thought and then went on. “What do you want?”

  Everyone looked to Don Tomas to speak again. He sat very still and looked at Selim. His silence said that he accepted the role of host but refused to be a leader in any way.

  Since no one rushed to speak or even think very loudly, Selim went on. “There’s a ritual going on here,” he reminded them. He gestured at the silver dagger. “Symbolism, remember? I ask the formal question. You tell me that you want a Hunt. I ask why. You explain. You name a body count. I name one. You don’t like it. Eventually we all go home.” He looked around, coldly eyeing them one by one, making sure every gaze was on the dagger rather than on him before he went on. The angry, outraged tension in the room was enough to raise a heat haze and sear the skin right off him. Selim ate it up, but he didn’t smile. He, at least, still took the formalities seriously. Had to, actually.

  “Shall we start over?”

  When he looked back at Don Tomas, the hidalgo met his gaze. There was humor and a hint of apology in those burning, dark eyes. “We need to Hunt. We ask permission of the Strigoi Council. We ask the consent of the Nighthawk, the Enforcer of the Law, Tytan, Bubo, Defender, Protector, The Hunter of the City of Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles.”

  “That’s you,” Alice Fraser added. She turned her fascinating smile on Selim. “Does that make you feel better, darling?”

  Kamaraju sighed. “This is all so last-century, Hunter.”

  “We know the drill,” Michael Tancredi interjected. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Let’s get down to business, shall we?” He sounded matter-of-fact, but his gaze kept sliding back to Selim’s silver dagger.

  Finally, Alice said, “Please put that thing away. It’s so barbaric.”

  “It was made by barbarians,” Selim pointed out. “It’s good to have the reminder.”

  “Is that what the Council thinks?” Kamaraju questioned harshly. “That we need constant reminders?” Of all those present, Kamaraju was the least able to hide his nerves, his needs, his contempt for Laws he hid behind when it suited him.

  “There’s no need to be so defensive, Kama,” Alice admonished. Her tone was firm but not judgmental. Alice made you want to do what she told you. Selim supposed that was why there was a waiting list to get fostered in her nest.

  Kamaraju proved to be as amenable to her charm as anyone else. He gave Selim an apologetic nod, even if he didn’t go so far as to say anything.

  Selim slipped the dagger back into its arm sheath. He folded his long-fingered, elegant hands on the table before him, empty in sight of all of them. This gesture was even more of a threat than showing the dagger, but Kamaraju chose to ignore the meaning of it. He resented authority of any kind but was too much of a coward to challenge it openly. Though the dagger represented the authority of the Strigoi Council, his hands were Selim’s real weapon; it was his right to use them as he chose.

  Selim smiled brightly at the community elders. “Let’s get this PTA meeting over, shall we? Yes,” he answered Kamaraju, “the Council does think we need constant reminders of who and what we are. Fortunately, you have laid-back little me to deal with rather than some stuffy old by-the-Covenant Euro-trash type. We’re all all-American vamps here.” Looking at Don Tomas as he spoke, Selim asked, “How many?”

  “Twenty,” Michael answered. “At least twenty.”

  “We have a list,” Kamaraju added.

  “It’s been twelve years,” Alice pointed out. “That’s a long time, Hunter. A lot of built-up frustration.”

  “Only twelve years?” Selim questioned. “It’s been twenty years since a formal Hunt in New York. Longer than that in New Orleans. And Moscow—”

  “Moscow—or anywhere else—doesn’t have a tight-assed—albeit laid-back—control freak in charge of things, either,” Alice interrupted, as sweet and calm as ever. “We do.”

  “We need twenty, Selim. Believe me,” Mike went on earn
estly. “Twenty is a minimum to cover everything on the agenda. We have the names. All you have to do is give your approval.”

  Selim admired the cold-blooded efficiency of the group, even admired that they’d worked together to come up with a list. He was almost tempted to sit back and let them do what they wanted. Almost, and even almost didn’t last that long. As Alice pointed out, he was a tight-assed control freak. “Twenty is far too many,” he told them.

  “We have three births alone,” Michael protested.

  Selim had long ago perfected the art of canting a sarcastic eyebrow; he practiced it now. “Three fledglings? I don’t think so.”

  “But—” Kamaraju began.

  “No one’s died recently,” Selim went on. “Or moved away. I would have noticed. There isn’t enough territory available to support the addition of three vampires to the community.”

  “You do know about the human population statistics?” Michael asked with equal sarcasm.

  “I’m aware of them.”

  “How many millions more do you want in the game preserve before you’ll let us at them?”

  “I don’t stop you from feeding.”

  “You regulate it.”

  “That’s my job. I don’t stop you from taking companions.”

  “You do a wonderful job of managing the city,” Alice flattered him. “But, Selim, what about our population? Birth control is all very well and good, but . . .”

  “But what? Birth rate isn’t the question here. Not entirely. It’s a matter of maturity.”

  “Whose maturity?” Kamaraju questioned. “Mine?”

  “Yours,” Selim agreed. “Remember Jager? He’s a little problem you started that I’m going to have to finish soon.”

  Kamaraju didn’t try to defend Jager. Didn’t look like he was interested in saving the lad’s life. Good. “Lisa’s different,” Kamaraju said. “And I promised her—”