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Warning: mild body horror.
Le Vamp Chic was the kind of place that matched its name exactly, falling somewhere between tacky neon and opulence. Charis had never been there before, but it had always been on her radar. If she were honest, it was on everyone’s radar, but so far they hadn’t been charged with any illegal activities. It was possible they were on the up-and-up, nothing more than a simple vampire cabaret; humans just equated vampires with sex so much that it was impossible to escape the stereotype.
“The meter’s running,” her cab driver said pointedly, and she cut a look at the back of his head before she went for her wallet. She paid her fare and pulled up her scarf as she stepped out. It was drizzling now, the earlier threat of rain making good on its promise, and she couldn’t resist turning her face up, stealing a moment for herself. It didn’t feel as good as the ocean, but the mist was delicate and refreshing against her skin.
Okay, she thought. Break time’s over.
She pushed the door open, a rush of warm air escaping as she stepped inside. The interior was lush—her shoes sank into the thick, merlot-colored carpet, and colorful silk tapestries draped the walls. Just past the foyer, beyond a half-drawn curtain that served as a door, she could see the stage. Patrons were already filtering into the room and taking their seats on ridiculous, crushed-velvet chairs.
Her eyes lit on the reception desk, and she nodded at the hostess, waiting for a lull in customers before she approached.
“Welcome to Le Vamp Chic. How may I help you?”
Charis smiled, looking at the woman hopefully as she signed her question. Do you speak ASL? She got a blank look in return and deflated a little. It was too loud to use her phone app, so she pulled out a notebook and flashed her identification. I’m Charis (Kah-rees) Matsouka. Private eye, she wrote. Questions. She slid the notebook over the desk and waited.
“I’m sorry.” The hostess shook her head, and Charis wished for a moment that this was the kind of place that used name tags. “We can’t give out information on our patrons.” She pushed Charis’ notebook back over, but Charis left it open for easier conversation as she leaned against the desk.
She smiled again, quick and friendly, and scrawled, I understand. What’s your name?
“Moira.” Moira’s smile was thin and tight-lipped but not unfriendly. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful, Detective.”
Charis, please. Charis looked at Moira for a moment longer, tapping her pen against the edge of her notebook. Do me a favor? Monster to monster? She tugged down the collar of her shirt, revealing the trail of iridescent scales that lined her collarbone and the closed gills beneath.
Moira leaned back and folded her arms over her chest, tapping her manicured nails on her arm. “You play dirty.”
Charis shrugged, and they stared at each other, the silence stretching between them in a battle of wills. The lights flickered on and off again, and the corner of Moira’s mouth curled.
Charis had her.
“Tell you what, Ms. Matsouka. Pay the cover fee, watch our show, and I’ll see what I can do about your favor.”
Charis maintained eye contact as she drew her wallet out of her inner jacket pocket and slid two twenties across the counter. Looking for Casey Penn. Send info my way?
Moira took Charis’ money and put it in the till. “Absolutely. Please enjoy the show.”
Charis nodded in acknowledgement and took her notebook, pushing aside the heavy curtain that served as the door into the next room. There weren’t many seats left, but she found one tucked into a corner. It offered an awkward view of the small stage, but it suited her purposes well enough. At a glance, the audience seemed mostly human; from the way they relaxed in the space, it was obvious they were regulars, with only one or two showing the nervous excitement of a first-timer. The lights flashed on and off a final time, and then the room went completely dark, a spotlight fixing on the stage.
The thing about shows like this? They were all the same. Vampires were beautiful and graceful and people lost their fucking minds over them. It was trite. Charis wouldn’t cast judgment on what people found to make themselves happy, though. Not out loud anyway.
The first dancers came out on the stage in silks and feathers. Scheherazade and her sultan, seducing and seduced with movement instead of words. It was beautiful, sensual, and the music was as heady as wine. More than once Charis found herself watching the performance instead of the audience.
The curtain went down, and Charis remained in her seat, letting the last few chords of the music ring in her ears. It was almost a travesty that she had to focus again, but she was on a job.
The performers came off the stage for a post-show meet and greet, and she kept a sharp eye on the line of vampires and their admirers. Nothing in particular stood out, but there was something niggling at the corners of her mind, an itch that she couldn’t quite scratch. There was something here. She could feel it.
Charis backed out of the dance hall while she waited for the meet and greet to end, nodding respectfully to Moira as she chose a spot near the door for her stakeout. It was more difficult to watch the body language of the performers from farther away, but building trust with the business was worth the risk.
The audience members finally started to filter out, most going straight for the door. Moira disappeared through the Employees Only door behind her, and Charis noted one or two men breaking away from the crowd, leaving to go through a nondescript door to her left.
Brothel, maybe? Charis could imagine Casey Penn: a middle class white banker with a pregnant wife at home, coming to a nightclub and paying for something a little more exotic. It would explain just about everything, and she sighed. Boring and predictable, but at least it paid the bills.
Moira came back and waved Charis over. “Go to room six, just through that door.” She gestured at the black door that Charis had been watching.
Charis smiled in acknowledgement before she went through the door. It was about what she expected—dimly lit and over the top, with a burgundy carpet and large oil paintings on the walls. She wasn’t any good at recognizing art styles, so she didn’t bother trying to guess the artist’s name. It was enough to know that naked women lined the walls in front of her, leading her forward. She found room six and eased the door open, slipping inside and letting the door close behind her.
This room was surprisingly simple and utilitarian. If the foyer was a dazzling display of wealth, this room was designed for comfort. There was a black loveseat against one wall, with two small end tables on either side. There was a fireplace to her right, already lit and radiating warmth. Incense burned in a hanging censer, barely disguising the coppery scent of old blood beneath the smoke.
In the center of the room was a woman wearing a deep blue silk robe, cinched tight around her waist. Charis remembered her from the stage, and her dark hair was still decorated with the sparkling hairpins she had been wearing during her performance. She had a flush of color across her cheekbones that meant she’d fed recently.
“Good evening,” she said; her voice held some vaguely European accent, although Charis couldn’t quite place it. “Moira told me you had some questions about Casey.”
Casey, not Mr. Penn. There was familiarity there. Charis nodded, and now that it was quieter, she pulled her phone out and activated her text-to-speech app. Her fingers flew across the touch screen keyboard, and a pleasant, robotic voice spoke for her. “Thank you for seeing me. What’s your name?”
“Lila Pentecost, at the moment. Please, sit and make yourself comfortable.” Lila gestured at the loveseat and gracefully sat, crossing her legs as she settled against the cushions. Her robe slipped open to reveal a calculated sliver of thigh and shoulder that Charis ignored, eyes fixed on Lila’s face. She remained standing.
“My name is Charis Matsouka. I’m a private investigator. My client was concerned about Mr. Penn’s behavior, and my investigation led me here.”
“Everything I’ve done is perfectly legal—”
Charis held a hand up to stop Lila before she went any further, and she flashed an apologetic smile at her as she typed her response. “I’m not in the business of arresting people, Ms. Pentecost. I’m just here for information.”
“I see.” Lila relaxed against the loveseat and sighed, reaching up to remove her hairpins and running her fingers through her hair to shake the strands loose.
“Straight to the point, then.” Lila waited patiently as Charis formulated her questions. “What’s your relationship with Mr. Penn? Are you his mistress?”
Lila laughed. “Heavens, no. I don’t fuck humans. It would be like having sex with a cow—some people may be into it, but I’m definitely not.”
“Would you like to clarify how you know him?”
Lila tilted her head, watching Charis with speculative eyes. “You know, you look very familiar. Have we met before?”
Charis fought against the instinctive urge to withdraw, jerking her eyes away from the door. “No. We haven’t.”
“Hmm.” Lila shrugged as if she’d lost interest. “Casey visits often. He likes to watch us dance.”
Charis pulled her notebook from her jacket pocket, flipped it open, and tapped her index finger against the edge of the page as she scanned her notes. They were both silent until the pleasant phone voice spoke for Charis again. “He stayed for much longer than a performance. Three days ago, he was here for two hours.”
Lila leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands and giving Charis a very good view of her cleavage. “Being paid to talk to someone sounds lucrative. Do you enjoy your job?”
Charis snapped her notebook shut and frowned at her phone, jabbing at the screen. “Do you enjoy yours?” That wasn’t satisfying at all. Sometimes, she wished there was a setting for ‘annoyed.’
Lila sighed again, the corner of her mouth curling up. “You do enjoy your questions, don’t you?”
Charis clenched her jaw and looked away from Lila, scanning the room again. She wasn’t interested in playing twenty questions. If Casey didn’t come for sex, then why did he keep coming back? The touch of old blood in the air stopped Charis in her tracks, and she focused on Lila again, piecing it together. The blood in the air, the familiarity of the performers with their audience. The silent hall. “Not a brothel. Frenzy house.”
Lila stared up at her and arched her eyebrow. “Are you expecting applause? Congratulations, you discovered our secret.”
“Is he here?”
Lila rolled her eyes. “You said yourself that he was here three days ago. We let people donate every eight weeks, just like the Red Cross.”
Charis glanced over the room again before returning her eyes to Lila. “I didn’t think someone like you would be willing to indulge a human’s adrenaline rush.”
“I’m hungry!” Lila snapped, and she closed her eyes, sucking a deep breath as she searched for composure. “You know how it is, Ms. Matsouka.”
Charis softened, choosing to take the seat next to Lila. She took Lila’s hand and took the opportunity to push, her temples pulsing a little with the strain. She typed a response into her app and kept eye contact until it began to speak. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Lila’s eyes jolted up to meet Charis’, and she could see the slow expansion of Lila’s pupils until the black had eclipsed everything but the small ring of her silver irises. “I hate it. Ever since we assimilated, we’ve done nothing but encourage the fantasies of humans, and I hate it.”
Charis nodded, releasing Lila’s hand, and she watched as Lila’s pupils shrank to a normal size.
“I do know you,” Lila said. “You were televised.” She reached out and snatched Charis’ scarf from her neck, pressing her cool fingers against the scarred tissue of Charis’ throat.
Charis didn’t flinch. It was a hard-won victory.
“What did they call him?” Lila asked, her voice low and intimate. “The Siren Slasher. Do I remember that correctly?”
Charis rubbed her hand over her face and stood, stalking across the room. Her skin was crawling with memory, and she squeezed her phone as she jabbed at the keyboard. “His name is Harvey Dumas, not the damned Slasher. Satisfied?”
“You can’t blame me for being curious.” Charis ran her hand through her hair and turned to face Lila again; she had reclined against the loveseat. “A siren without a voice is a good story.”
Charis looked down at her phone again, wishing that she had the ability to make her robot speaker really, really emphatic. “Casey Penn. Started coming to Le Vamp Chic six months ago.”
“You are persistent, aren’t you?” Lila watched Charis a moment longer, and then deflated all at once, resting her head back on the loveseat and closing her eyes. “The first time I had an appointment with Casey, he thought I was going to kill him.” Her voice was flat, toneless. “It’s the adrenaline rush he’s after. He wants to feel alive.” She scoffed, and even Charis couldn’t resist grinning at that. “Before the Accords, I would have swallowed him up and cast his body aside like meat.” She raised her head and ran her hand through her hair again. “Now we’re held accountable. I’m not stupid, I know very well why we stepped out of the shadows and stopped hiding. It’s just so confining.”
Charis nodded and took a second to type on her keyboard again. She had the answer she needed at this point, but she wasn’t the kind of asshole who would leave after what she just did. “The Accords became legal when I was sixteen. I don’t know if I ever met a vampire before assimilating.”
“You wouldn’t have,” Lila said. “We fed until our thirst was slaked, and then we would sleep. A successful vampire wouldn’t have had time to make a social call.”
“Sounds like you eat regularly. Why aren’t you satisfied?”
Lila rose from the loveseat, untying the belt of her robe. She shrugged it off, and it fell into a pool of blue at her feet. She was pale, her underclothes the same color as her robe, and she was stunning. “Do you think I’m beautiful?”
Charis frowned, taken aback by the change in subject. “Of course,” she finally answered. “Everyone knows vampires are beautiful.”
“Exactly.” Lila knelt and wrapped the robe around her shoulders again. “We can’t be anything but beautiful. Do you know what a vampire looks like when we aren’t hungry?”
Charis shook her head. She’d never had a reason to be involved with vampires before, but she was certainly getting a crash course in them now.
Lila squeezed her eyes shut again and raised a hand to her head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m saying these things.”
Charis went to Lila and squeezed her arms, guiding her back down to the loveseat. Lila was shaky, vulnerable, and the slow rise of guilt made Charis nauseous. I’m sorry, she couldn’t say, her mouth moving uselessly.
There was a perfunctory knock on the door and Moira strode inside, making a beeline for Lila. She whispered something in Lila’s ear that made her curse and struggle off the loveseat. She passed Charis without a word and yanked open the door, Moira hot on her heels.
It was too good of an opportunity to pass up, so Charis followed them down the hall and into another one of the feeding rooms. The layout was similar to the room they had just left, and on the loveseat was—
Charis squeezed her eyes shut and tried to breathe. The old blood scent that lingered in the other room was nothing compared to this. It was as if the air was drenched in an invisible mist that tasted like raw meat, and Charis had to press the back of her hand against her mouth to stop herself from throwing up.
Casey Penn was slumped over the arm of the loveseat, shaking, his skin too white. He was shrunken in on himself, desiccating before her eyes. Attached to him was a vampire she hadn’t seen at the performance, her unearthly beauty gone, her stomach distended and bloated from feeding. Lila seized her by the throat, pinching hard at the hinge of her jaw, and she released Casey with a wet sound of disconnect.
Moira swept Casey into her arms like he weighed nothing, and looked at Lila. “I’ll take care of this.” Then she turned and pinned Charis with a look. “I trust that you’ll remain discreet. Monster to monster.”
Charis nodded once, sharp and short, and stepped aside to let Moira leave with Casey. Lila made a frustrated sound deep in her throat, and turned to take hold of Charis’ elbow, guiding her out of the room.
“We’ll leave Charlie to digest,” Lila said tightly, and they walked back into room six. Charis folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the door while Lila paced toward the fireplace, dragging her fingers through her hair again. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Wow. Really? Charis had had absolutely no idea.
Lila turned back to Charis, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth. “I do trust that we can rely on your discretion? I think we got to him in time, and we have transfusion services for when the… sessions prove to be more taxing than they should.” Whatever Lila saw in Charis’ face caused her to wring her hands, and she took a halting step forward. “Please, Detective. You know what it’s like to have something taken from you. If this gets out, it won’t only hurt us, it’ll hurt—”
Charis raised her index finger to her lips, and Lila stumbled to a stop, her eyes jewel-bright with anxiety. She typed her question and waited for the app to translate it. “Not just a performer, are you?”
Lila slowly made her way to the loveseat and sank down, covering her face with her hands. “I’m in charge as much as anyone is.”
Charis took a deep breath. Her decision was simple, really. She had no loyalty to Mr. Penn, and she’d fulfilled her job. “Won’t tell anyone.”
“Thank you.” Lila looked at Charis again, her face twisted in frustration. “Would you… It’s foolish to ask, but seeing Charlie and tasting—I want to remember what it was like. I can pay?” Lila pulled a small roll of cash out of her bra and peeled away several bills, offering them to Charis. It was enough to pay the rent on her office, and there were already so many layers of secrecy between them that maybe one more wouldn’t be an issue. She accepted the money and shoved it in her pocket.
She walked over to Lila and reached out, brushing her fingers against Lila’s temple, and the back of her neck tingled as she spoke soundless words.
This was something Harvey Dumas never understood. The secret of sirens wasn’t their voice. It was their mind.
Charis reached for her power, prickling and alive at her core, and let it weave into Lila’s thoughts. She wasn’t hungry. She couldn’t possibly be hungry, not with the satisfying meal she’d just had. Now it was time to sleep.
Lila closed her eyes, slumping over on her side, and Charis laid her out on the loveseat. She would be dead to the world for a long time. Charis rearranged her scarf and straightened her clothes before she stepped out of the room and headed back into the main foyer.
Moira was back at her post, baring her teeth in a small wince that Charis thought might have been an attempt at a smile. “You found us on a bad day, unfortunately. Did you get everything you needed?”
Charis nodded, and after a second’s hesitation, swiped her fingers across her screen. “Keep an eye on Lila. She’s asleep.”
“Asleep?” Moira asked, her forehead knitting into a hard frown, and Charis shook her head. To her relief, Moria nodded, letting it go. “At any rate, thank you for your consideration.”
“Is he okay?” Charis asked.
Moira looked around for any eavesdroppers before she leaned closer to Charis. “We got to him in time, just barely. He’ll live, even if he regrets it when he wakes up.”
Mr. Penn’s location was something she could add to the case report for her client, but there was no need to add anything she’d witnessed. She had the unenviable task of telling Casey Penn’s sister-in-law that he wasn’t having an affair with a woman, but it was clear now that he had made a mistress of death. Whether they would choose to confront that or not was, fortunately, above her paygrade.
Charis gestured her good-bye to Moira and headed for the entrance.
Outside, it was still raining.
A Fistful of Rain by Mallory Overbrook is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Mallory Overbrook - Author 