Dead Spots

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I can’t see Kirsten causing a massacre like that, but it’s something to think about.” Unless she’d decided she was tired of the status quo...But Kirsten had sort of established the status quo. I had heard that she was the first to organize the witches, to request an equal share in using a cleaner to keep things under wraps. And she had been very helpful. Before her arrival, there had been too many incidents of witches setting fires or playing with love spells or experimenting with voodoo, of all things. Between my job and hers, there hadn’t been a public witchcraft incident in years. Which meant Dashiell didn’t have to throw money around to cover anything up.

“Is there anyone else who comes to mind, ma’am?” Cruz asked her.

Her long cream-colored fingernails tapped on the water glass. “There is one who wishes to take Dashiell’s place. She has had many names, but she currently calls herself Ariadne.” Beatrice’s long, regal nose wrinkled with distaste. “She and my husband were involved, many years ago. He ended their affair to be with me, and she was...displeased. When Dashiell became the master of Los Angeles, she was very bitter.”

“Can she...?” Cruz began, then paused, looking for words. “Um, can she take him?”

Beatrice smiled benevolently at him, as if he’d just done something adorable. “I do not think so. Definitely not in an even physical match. But a straightforward fight wouldn’t be her style. It would be like her to try to cripple him first, take away his wealth, or churn up animosity with the wolves.” Her gaze turned toward me.

“Do you know where we could find her?” I asked.

I was expecting her to say that Ariadne had gone underground or that she and some minions had taken over an abandoned warehouse downtown, but I watch too much TV. Beatrice said simply, “Of course. She has a residence in Orange County.” She wrote an address on a napkin, passing it over to me. “If you speak to her, I would appreciate if you did not mention my name. The two of us have”—her lip curled, and though she was currently human, for a moment, I saw the predator beneath—“bad blood.”

Five minutes later, Cruz and I were in the coffee shop’s parking lot, trying to figure out our next move.

“What are we doing? Are we going to Orange County, or are we going home to bed?” I asked him. I was starting to sway. And not pay attention to my choice of words.

He gave me a bemused look, and I rolled my eyes.

“Our separate homes, idiot.”

“I don’t want to waste any of your time. Not with that deadline in front of us.”

I sighed. “I know. But it’s two thirty in the morning, and we’re both tired. It might not be the best time to hunt down an ancient jilted vampire.” And life on the line or not, I didn’t feel like going from downtown to Long Beach to Pasadena to Orange County. That is just waaaaaay more of LA County than any one person should have to see in the same night.

But Cruz’s voice was firm when he said, “I don’t think we have a choice.”

I sighed. “Fine. But you’re driving.” I tossed him the keys, and he fumbled to catch them as I grabbed the passenger-side door.

When we’d pulled out of the parking lot, he spoke up. “Something doesn’t fit with the Dashiell theory.”

I tried to stifle a yawn. “Hmm?”

“Look, if this Ariadne person really wanted to hurt Dashiell, and she had access to a null, why wouldn’t she just, you know, have the null go stand by Dashiell and then shoot him or whatever? Why go through all the trouble?”

“Maybe she really likes decorative murder.” I shrugged. “She is a vampire.”

He shook his head. “Nah. If she was close enough to those three vampires to kill them, then she’d be too close to the null, too, right? She’d be a human. And unless she’s fundamentally a lumberjack, there’s just no way a woman could have mutilated those bodies like that.”

“Hey,” I protested, but it was halfhearted. I was too tired to fight sexism on behalf of female serial killers.

“You know what I mean.”

“Maybe she had someone else do it, or maybe she knows someone else who may have wanted to. Or maybe Beatrice is sending us on a wild-goose chase.” Beatrice is probably the nicest vampire I’ve ever known, but my trust in her only extends to questions about as serious as Do these jeans make me look fat?

“That doesn’t bother you?”

I raised my eyebrows. “Jesse. In the last few days, we’ve seen a gruesome triple murder, I’ve been kidnapped, your life has been threatened, my life has been threatened, I got punched by a gorilla vampire, and nobody has gotten enough sleep. Why would it shock or offend me that the vampires are playing mind games? Haven’t you read Anne Rice? They live for this shit.”

“Ugh,” he said, frustrated. “You’re so...”

“What?” I sat up a little straighter. I was awake now.

He was silent for a moment, then said, “You’re, what, twenty-three, twenty-four? You talk like some of the detectives I know who are in their fifties or sixties and think they’ve seen everything human life has to offer. They’re numb from it. But those guys have had thirty years on the force. How are you this jaded?”

I didn’t answer him, just looked away. I felt my eyes starting to close again before I could come up with a defense.