Raw Deal (Bite Back) (7 page)

I stumbled, instinctively reaching out with a hand.

I touched naked flesh. Rhythmically moving naked flesh. A man groaned.

I snatched my hand back.

All around me, people were making out. On low, bulbous sofas, or floor cushions, or just the floor. What the hell had I expected in a freaking sex club?

I couldn’t see well enough, but the sounds didn’t suggest anything other than sex, and there was no coppery smell here—I couldn’t smell vampire, no, but I could certainly smell the sex.

Someone moaned with pleasure just beside me. A hand brushed against my calf, lingered.

I moved before I got invited to join, edging nervously through the obstacle course, through the gossamer drapes, which were eerie to touch, and into the open space of the upper floor of the club.

I stopped to get my breath back. Up here, the fashion mix from the dance club was reversed.

Here be many vampires
. Pretend ones. Still no coppery scent.

There was a bar at the far side, and between me and the bar, the floor was open. It was strobe-lit from below somehow. People swirled across it as if they were dancing in the lights. They would gather in groups, pause and chatter, then the group would dissolve and they’d swirl around some more, like flocks of birds. Everyone seemed to have their head down half the time. I’m not up on all the latest dance moves, but I’d never heard of this one.

The bar seemed to be a better place to stand and look around.

I walked across and finally caught on. I managed not to stumble again, which wouldn’t have been cool at all. The floor was glass. I could see the people dancing in the club below me.

I made it to the bar and ordered a rum. Mission rules be damned.

I watched Dominé’s inner club members sweep to and fro over the market. One group made a selection, pointing eagerly, and a couple of staff dressed like the two on the door were dispatched to fetch a man and a woman from the dance floor. The group and their selections then disappeared up a staircase at the side of the room. Two guys had a single girl fetched and went to find some space behind the drapes.

I had a better idea than I wanted of what was behind the drapes. What was upstairs?

From the plans I knew there had been rooms up there, but the club had changed since then. Maybe there were bedrooms. Maybe, given the club’s kink, there were dungeons. It was too crowded to swing a whip behind the drapes and there hadn’t looked to be any kind of place anyone could be strapped down.

I shuddered and then pushed the images aside. I was here on recon, not to judge. And regardless, the dancers who had been selected and come up didn’t seem at all upset. On the contrary, they looked as if they regarded it as some sort of a privilege. The club couldn’t operate if people disappeared after going upstairs, and it was popular, so I had to guess they still regarded it as a privilege when they came back downstairs.

That didn’t necessarily mean there weren’t vampires up there.

A mixed group of five came down the stairs and made their way slowly to the bar. They looked sated and tired; a couple of them also looked sore and were moving carefully. No one had any bite marks on their necks.

A couple at the bar saw me watching. She was a curvy redhead, dressed in a black silk pant suit. He was stocky, with fair hair held in a ponytail by a tight steel clip. They were both pretty as magazine covers, skin so pale I wondered if that was cosmetics. While they both stared intently at me, she ran her hand up and down his groin and he casually opened her shirt to caress her breasts. She licked her crimson lips in unmistakable invitation.

Oh crap. I turned away abruptly and gulped the rum. Not just vampires and bouncers to avoid. It was all kinds of fascinating to see, but I had a job to do. I slunk further around the bar, trying to avoid catching anyone’s eye.

Staff moved through the club. There were two types: the fetchers and door guards, who were dressed in romantic eighteenth century outfits, and the wait staff, who were dressed in very little. Both sexes of wait staff wore thongs and some kind of collar. The men wore tight cowboy chaps and had made a serious investment in their abs. The women wore short leather basques and I suspected some had made serious investments in their chests. All the wait staff seemed kind of stiff, and I stopped one woman who was passing.

“Your pleasure, mistress?” she whispered, holding her tray in front of her belly.

“Just wanted a better look at you, really,” I said.

“Of course.” She put her tray behind her and arched her back.

I ignored the display she was putting on. My eyes fixed on her collar. It was made of dull metal, a weave of circles and barbs that dug into the flesh of her neck. No wonder the wait staff moved stiffly.

I looked closer. “That’s broken your skin.”

“Yes, mistress, it does.”

“You’re bleeding,” I said. She didn’t nod—she couldn’t really without more pain, but her head moved a little and she smiled.  “You like it?” I asked incredulously.

“She does, of course.” Another woman slipped between us. “Don’t you, Giselle?”

“Yes, Dominé.”

French from the sound of her voice, the mysterious Dominé was a small woman, a full head shorter than her employee, whom she held tightly against her.

She offered her face up, inviting a kiss, or demanding it. Giselle had to bend her head. A gasp escaped her as the spikes pierced her flesh. Her eyes darkened and closed.

The kiss was a lingering touch of lips. Then Dominé chuckled and licked Giselle’s chest beneath the collar, where a little blood had trickled down. Giselle’s breath sighed out.

I backed up, feeling a little nauseous and fighting not to show it.

Dominé hadn’t come alone. I could feel others behind me and a glance confirmed two men standing there in the highwayman costumes. Dominé herself was in a black lace dress, a blood-red ribbon in her white hair. A single crimson rose had been embroidered on her dress above her left breast.

Spectacle over, Dominé dismissed Giselle and spun to face me, her eyes bright. “And you,
étranger
, did you enjoy that?”

“Watching you lick some blood from her chest? No, not my scene.”

“And what is your scene?”

I said the first thing that came into my head. “Something with a bit more freedom and passion on both sides.”

“Ah, yes. Freedom. The
angoisse
is not good for that. However much she enjoys it, it does inhibit movement, even if you take her
debout
, up against a wall. And not just Giselle, of course. All the wait staff are
torquate
. Passion? Well, you find passion where you will.”

“You lost me at ‘yes’,” I said.

She laughed. “I like a person who admits the truth straight off. It saves so much time. Come.”

She led the way, and although they didn’t actually touch me, her goons shepherded me in her wake.

Her office was behind the bar.

We sat at her desk, silently taking stock of each other. The goons stood by the door.

In the brighter light of her office, I could see that Dominé looked about forty, lean and sharp as a blade. The hair was pure white, but thick and healthy, the skin, pale. Her eyes were gray, cool and depthless, like mountain mist. They missed little and the face was hard.

Her dress was exquisite. It had the look of something handmade. The office was sparse and minimalist, all designer angles, muted metal and frosted glass. This club business paid well.

Another handsome highwayman entered with an ice bucket on a stand, which he placed beside Dominé. He brought two tall fluted glasses from a cabinet, took a bottle of champagne from the ice and eased the cork out with a pop.

The champagne sparkled in the glasses. I wondered about the wisdom of accepting drinks from strangers in bars, but I was distracted by Dominé.

I’d expected her to not bother to acknowledge the presence of her employee. Or, if she were  polite, to thank him. Dominé had him bend down and kiss her, very fully. Tongues were involved, or I wasn’t a judge. He gave every indication that he enjoyed it and she caressed his cheek fondly before sending him away.

She watched him leave and then turned back to me and toasted me with her glass. We sipped, looking at each other over the rims.

“Do you like the champagne?” she said.

“I’m no expert, but it tastes good to me.”

“You drank rum at the bar. Straight rum. An unusual choice.”

I shrugged. I liked rum.

Dominé didn’t smell of vampire. Not for the first time, I wondered at my ability and how reliable it might be. I had sensed the vampires that had stalked my team in the jungle. I’d caught the barest echoes of that scent at times in Denver, without being able to identify anyone. This evening I’d had my first absolute certainty with the woman on the door, but she wasn’t a vampire, she just smelled as if she’d been with one.

But what if different vampires had completely different scents? What if the spidey-sense didn’t always work?

What if Dominé was a vampire and I couldn’t tell?

She enjoyed trying to shock with her behavior, but that didn’t mean anything. I couldn’t quite get a handle on her, or her interest in me. I wasn’t a member; she could have had me refused entry. Or, if she’d become suspicious I was snooping around, she could have ordered me escorted off the premises. Taking me into her office had sent some kind of a signal and I couldn’t figure out whether it was threatening or not.

“Your name?”

“Amber.” We could both do the one name bit.

“Hmmm.” She tilted her head to one side and regarded me. “Something with more passion, you said, Amber. Like Valerie, perhaps?”

She said it in the French way, with the tone going up at the end.

“Who’s Valerie?”

“She’s the one on the door tonight. You made quite an impression on her, yet you didn’t even exchange names.” She clicked her tongue in disapproval.

“Not really my scene either.”

“Well.” She pouted. “Not interested in this, not interested in that. You’ve come for the Blood Orchid and you don’t trade, as you put it. Club Agonia is for like-minded people, Amber.” She leaned forward and rested her chin on one hand. “Tell me, why are you here? What has attracted you to my little club?”

She didn’t appear to be some hard-bitten crime lord. On the other hand, she had two big men standing behind me. If I was wrong and she was a vampire, maybe the two men were as well. I wasn’t armed and the odds were against me, from what I knew of vampire fighting skills.

But if she was a human and they were just a couple of bouncers, I’d back myself even without weapons. I’m stronger than I look, much quicker and better at fighting than almost anyone expects.

Club Agonia wasn’t about drugs or gambling. I’d lay good odds that some of those delicious bodies out there hadn’t been born in America and might not have had much in the way of a right to stay, but I hadn’t gotten the feeling of anyone being trafficked, or forced, or underage. Yes, Dominé wouldn’t want the law looking too closely at what went on. I’m sure the DA could make a case for closing the place, just as I was sure Dominé had a lawyer who could fight it. The police weren’t interested in Club Agonia unless something happened or someone made a complaint.

In any event, saying I was a policewoman wouldn’t serve any purpose. And Dominé might have more to tell me if I played along. All I had to do was to work out the rules to the game.

“What I was looking for, I haven’t found,” I said.

“And what was that?”

“I’m looking for the real thing, Dominé. You don’t seem to have it. I’m disappointed.”

Her face went closed and she made a signal with her hand. I tensed, but all she’d done was order her goons out.

She sat back and stared at me for a long while.

“I thought you looked…” she paused, “predatory, when I saw you on the security camera.” She took a deep breath and her gray eyes narrowed with calculation. “And here, before me, you
are
and you
are not
, somehow. The image is not the truth, but neither is the myth.” 

She seemed to be having the mirror image of my problem evaluating her. Finally, she came to a decision and spoke again. “My Valerie seems to have an attraction to people like you.”

I didn’t enjoy the implication of what I was like, but I ignored it. “People who are members of your little club? Like-minded people, Dominé?”

She tried to hide it, but a shiver went through her. “No. Not members. People who visited, but are not welcome again.”

We drank champagne and stared at each other some more. No one likes to move first in these situations, to be the first to say the unbelievable. I didn’t, and yet I knew it wasn’t unbelievable at all.

“Club Agonia is much safer, Amber,” she said at last. “I sense you are different. These people out there, the ones you seek, you are not like them, exactly. What you want might not be the same. They will not give you a safeword.”

She stood and poured more champagne into our glasses. I could see her hand trembled slightly.

“I’m not looking for them to make friends,” I said quietly.

Her eyes snapped back to me.

“You are alone.” It was almost an accusation.

“Tonight, yes.”

She sat back down and frowned in thought for a long time. Then, reaching below, she opened a drawer and took out two simple business cards and a pen. The cards had her singular name, and a telephone number. She handed them to me.

“Please, write a number where I can contact you.”

I wrote my cell phone number on one and handed it back.

“What’s this for?” I indicated the other card.

“That’s for you to keep,” she said.

“Why?”

“When you want to come back—” she raised her hand as I started to speak. “When you want to come back, call me. You belong here, Amber. You don’t know it yet, but your body does.”

I shook my head. “I’m not into pain, or the—”

She interrupted me. “It’s not really about pain. It’s about passion. And I sense you need passion like a woman in the desert needs water. Trust me…as I find I trust you.” She stood up and drained her glass. “As to your task. What I can, I will do. I would take it as a personal favor if you escorted Valerie home tonight. I think she may be too scared to go home on her own. She will meet you in the lobby. There may be something she can say which will help you in your search.”