CHAPTER FIFTEEN
For the second time tonight I found myself wearing Eddie’s skin as a costume, but being in cover was necessary if I wanted to get close enough to the center of this hornet’s nest without being discovered too soon. Aiden and Leo had become shadows, leaving Liam, Vik, and Raph to enter the theatre through the side door. This wasn’t exactly an ideal situation, especially considering this theatre didn’t look abandoned—closed, but not abandoned.
What if there were innocent people inside who weren’t in league with Elroy and the rest of his group?
I walked up to the building a few seconds after the others had, treading carefully along the sidewalk and keeping my profile low. Even as Eddie there was a risk that I would be spotted by someone who knew who he was, but the sidewalk immediately around the Lion’s Crown itself was empty, save for a little light foot traffic.
Staring at the building itself, I noticed the external lights were on, but the doors were shut. Careful not to look too suspicious, I tried the front door, giving the handle a good pull, and it opened without any resistance. Perhaps because whoever was in there was awaiting the return of the vampire we had just brought to our side, or maybe because someone had forgotten to lock the door.
I snuck inside without giving the matter too much thought and quickly shut the door behind me.
The lobby smelled like popcorn, alcohol, and the sweat of the hundred or so people that had marched out through those very same doors less than an hour ago. If I needed confirmation that this was very much a working theatre, then I had it now. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any staff around. No one counting the night’s takings behind the register, no janitor steam-cleaning the carpets or wiping down the counters, and definitely no Elroy.
I decided to find the stairs to the offices, thinking if I was going to find Elroy anywhere in this building, it would probably be in an office, when a voice spoke up and caused me to freeze in my tracks.
“Show’s over,” a man said, “You can’t be in here.”
Slowly, I turned. The guy was young, maybe in his twenties, and he was wearing a pair of black slacks, a white shirt, and a red waistcoat. The presence of a name-tag pinned to the waistcoat told me he worked for the theatre. His name was Alan.
“Sorry,” I said, “I think I left my wallet inside.”
“Wallet? Where were you sitting?”
Think. “Seat D16.”
“Do you still have your ticket?”
I walked over to the guy, checking first my jeans pockets, then finally my jacket pocket, for a ticket I knew didn’t exist. I shrugged. “I don’t, I must have left it in the car.”
“If you don’t have a ticket, I can’t let you in.”
“I don’t mind waiting here? All you’d have to do is go and check. It probably fell between the seats.”
My attempt at subterfuge was met with suspicious eyes. “Okay, but wait here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Of course,” I said, “Go right ahead, I’ll wait here.”
I waited until Alan moved through a large set of double doors before making a brisk dash for the set of stairs that seemed to curl behind the ticket office. Though my heart was pounding and my legs were shaking, I managed to quickly compose a message to Vik, letting him know exactly what I was doing and alerting him to Alan’s presence. He probably wasn’t the only person in the building right now, and they needed to be aware of that.
I reached the next floor up a couple of seconds after I hit send. Just as I was examining the corridor, and the many staff-only doors on it, one of the doors opened, and another member of staff stepped out. He was tall, and thin, and wearing the same uniform as Alan, only he didn’t have a name tag on him, and his skin was noticeably pale. That didn’t necessarily mean he was a vampire, but the sight of him made me hesitate all the same.
The worst part was, there was nowhere to hide; no room to sneak into. All of the doors were shut, and I had no idea what was behind them. I ducked back into the stairwell, but a voice called out behind me.
“Hey! Who’s there?”
Fuck. My heart was hammering now, a pulse so fast and hard it was making my vision quake, but I stepped out of the stairwell and came into view of the man on the other side of the hall. “Hi,” I said.
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m Eddie…”
“Eddie?”
“Yeah, I, uh, lost my wallet during the show. The guy downstairs, Alan, told me to wait while he went to look for it, but I got lost looking for the bathroom.”
The man in the uniform advanced on me so fast I didn’t have time to turn my body away from his grasping hand as it grabbed my collar. His hand was ice cold. “Wait a second. Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
I tried to shrug. “I’m Eddie?” I repeated.
He narrowed his eyes, then shoved me down the corridor and ushered me unceremoniously into a staff-only room. I thought I was done. Where there was one vampire, there were more. I knew Leo and Aiden were nearby, but if the vampire with his hands on my back chose to snap my neck, not even they would be able to stop him before he got the job done.
Inside what looked like an administrative office which reeked of cigar smoke, however, where the filing cabinets were overflowing, where the carpet hadn’t been changed in years, where the PC on the desk looked like an artefact straight out of the stone age, was the man I had come to find. Elroy was sitting at the desk, with his face buried in an old, dusty book without a title.
Elroy’s eyes tilted up. He arched an eyebrow. “Yes?” he asked.
“Found this one lurking in the halls,” the vampire said, shoving me into the room.
Elroy set the book down and shut it. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m Eddie,” I said, for the third time tonight.
“And what were you doing out in the halls, Eddie?”
I turned my head and looked at the vampire. “Mind if we have a little privacy? I have business to discuss with you.”
“Business of what kind?”
“The business of the drugs I sell for you.”
Elroy scanned me up and down, and for an anxious moment I wondered if he could see my true form even through my shapeshifting powers, but the worry faded away like morning mist as adrenaline replaced anxious nerves. “Leave us,” he said, and the vampire turned around and exited the room, shutting the door as he left.
“Okay,” Elroy said, “Now you have my attention, why are you here, Eddie?”
I took a breath. “You clearly don’t know who I am. I’m just an underling that works on street level, delivering your quality produce to the hungry masses, but I had a business idea I wanted to run by the man sitting at the top.”
“Did you, now?”
“I did, and instead of going through proper channels and risking someone squeezing the information out of me before I was able to deliver it to you in person, I thought I would just sneak my way through.”
“I’m impressed that you were able to figure out where I was. Who told you?”
“Is it important?”
“Privacy is important to me. If someone violated my privacy, I want to know who it was so that I may reprimand them accordingly.”
“And if I don’t tell you?”
“Then I’m going to have to assume you’re here with hostile intentions, and I’ll have to reprimand you for thinking you could just walk into my office and interrupt my work.”
“I don’t know his name, but he’s my guy. The one I meet to get the goods directly from you. He’s on his way here now.”
Elroy stood and walked around his desk. “Very well. Now, onto this business of yours…”
“Yes, right… of course. So, I had this idea…”
My mind blanked. I didn’t have an idea. In fact, I didn’t even know what I was doing in this room, alone, with a vampire guard standing on the other side of the door. If Leo and Aiden were in the room with me, I didn’t know. Maybe they were, but they couldn’t make themselves known to me because Elroy would be able to sense their presence. Leo had said a demon and a warlocks’ powers were similar in nature, so maybe Aiden and Leo had to keep a low profile. The problem with that was, I didn’t know what I had to do, or for how long I had to do it.
“I’m waiting?” Elroy said.
“Right, so, you know how you have your distribution chain,” I said, saying something, anything.
“What about it?”
“Well, considering your product is so rare and valuable, I don’t think entrusting it to vampires is doing you any favors.”
“And why’s that?”
“Vampires are parasites, aren’t they? Who’s to say they aren’t pinching a little off the top?”
Elroy walked around the desk, hands behind his back. “The thought had crossed my mind. Of course, the same can be said for any supernatural, considering the drug is designed to work for everyone, and not just vampires.”
“Right, but vampires are dodgy creatures, and they steal in order to survive… how do you know they aren’t stealing from you?”
“The same way I know that you’re not Eddie.”
A cold wash ran through me, rooting me to the spot. “What?” I asked.
Elroy pistoned his large hand toward me and grabbed my throat, and with one hard thrust managed to pin me up against a wall. For an older man, he was a lot stronger than he looked, and faster.
“Think you could fool me, succubus?” Elroy asked, his hot breath against my face. “Your disguise may be good enough to fool vampires, but I am a warlock of the highest caliber, and your illusions aren’t going to work on me.”
I struggled, unable to speak, eyes scrambling to my left, my right, looking for something—anything—I could use to defend myself against him. I saw a fire extinguisher, but it was too far away. Closer than that was the filing cabinet, but that was too heavy. Instead I worked at Elroy’s fingers, trying to loosen his grip around my neck even as my disguise fell apart around me, revealing me for who I really was.
“There she is,” Elroy said, grinning at me, “The succubus, in the flesh. It would appear that I have you now.”
There was only one thing to do. As my vision darkened around me, my oxygen supply fading fast, I bid my claws to grow from my right hand and I dug them into his meaty arm. The claws sank in deep, punching through flesh and causing warm blood to come gushing out. Elroy dropped me, and I fell to my knees, hacking and coughing, but I couldn’t stay where I was, so I started moving toward the door we had come through, all the while trying to get my throat to work, trying to speak, or scream, or make any kind of sound, but nothing was happening.
“You bitch!” Elroy yelled.
I turned around to look at him just as I managed to get on my feet, only to see him wind back his arm and hurl a bolt of crackling green light at me. I threw myself forward, managing to only barely avoid being struck by that magic bolt, feeling it buzzing as it sailed through the air, past me. The energy bolt smashed into the door I had come through and blasted it into a hail of splinters, and sending the vampire that had been standing guard there flying right into the opposite wall.
Without thinking about it, I turned and headed into the mess of splintered wood, making a be-line for the hallway, but Elroy grabbed my leg and pulled me to the floor with enough force to split my chin as it hit the ground.
When I turned my head, I saw it wasn’t exactly Elroy who had grabbed my foot, but an invisible hand he was controlling with his mind—a hand with a vice-like grip.