Sex, Lies, and Vampires

I ground my teeth. "Just when I thought I was getting a handle on this whole Dark One/demon lord/imp thing, you go and throw knockers into the mix. I'm going to have to request that you stop, Adrian. I'm about at my limit of how many impossible things I can believe before breakfast."

He flashed a heart-stoppingly roguish grin at me, his dimples just about bringing me to my knees. "Your middle name wouldn't be Alice, would it?" he asked.

"No, it's Diane, and you're no White Rabbit, so let's just stop pretending we're in Wonderland, OK?"

He laughed and pointed across the tiny square at our destination. I watched him for a moment, seeing a glimpse of the charming, charismatic man he must have been before the demon lord cursed him and leeched away all the softer emotions.

Chapter Eleven

Haus Glietgel. I frowned at the discreet blue metal sign posted above a buzzer on the bright pink house. Part of a block of connected buildings, each house was painted either yellow or pink, with glossy black highlights picked out around the windows and doors. The windows were all adorned with flower boxes that were now empty, but I was willing to bet that in the summer they overflowed with the ubiquitous red flowers in Germany. "I know my German is mostly academic in nature, but doesn't that mean House of Lubricating Jelly?"

"Yes," Adrian answered, pushing me past him as the door hummed its willingness to allow us entrance. I had only a quick glance at the shop that filled the lower floor of the house before Adrian hustled me upstairs. At the top, a wrinkled old woman in a shapeless black dress stood waiting for us.

Adrian bowed politely. "Jada. It has been many years."

"Betrayer," the old lady answered in a sing-song voice so dry I swear bits of the words were flaking off into dust. Her face was a morass of wrinkles, her flesh sunken and loose, as if it were only just holding on to the bones beneath. Her hair, scraped back from her head and pulled tight in a minuscule lump on the back of her head, was white with a few thick black hairs mixed in. Her eyes were also white, clouded with cataracts, and although I knew she must be blind, the way she turned her attention on me had me squirming as if she could see deep into my soul. "So you have found her at last?"

"This is Nell. Jada is Gigli's"—Adrian stopped, unable to find the proper word—"sentinel."

"Sentinel?" I looked at the old woman. She was blind, frail, wrinkled within an inch of her life, and looked to be older than the building we stood in.

"Bouncer," the old lady corrected Adrian, cackling at my air of disbelief. "It is an American word, but it carries much power."

"Uh… OK. You're a bouncer." Right. And I was Alice after all.

"You are a Charmer," she answered, a whip-crack of steel in her dusty voice that had me taking back a little of my disbelief in her claim. She raised her hand, and one bent, gnarled finger touched the side of my head. The touch sent icy shivers down my back and arms. "You have light in your head, the white light of oblivion, but your fear is what will destroy you, not the light."

Goose bumps marched up and down my arms at her words. I had never told anyone but Adrian how the stroke had manifested itself as a white light, and he certainly had had no time to tell her about it… not that I thought he would discuss something so private.

"It wasn't my fear that destroyed part of my brain ten years ago," I said softly as I moved closer to Adrian. His arm came around me, comfortingly solid.

The old woman cackled again and waved us in.

"That is one very strange woman," I said in a low undertone as Adrian walked behind me down a dark, narrow passage. "Who on earth would hire someone blind and feeble to be a bouncer, of all things?"

"Jada is a Kohan." I looked my question at him over my shoulder. "Kohan is Farsi for ancient."

"Well, she's certainly all that," I agreed, opening the door at the end of the passage.

It was like opening the door to Wonderland. I looked around the big room pulsing with lights and soft music, walls filled with erotic pictures and paintings, the red and black carpeted floor all but invisible in the sea of bodies that moved and swayed in time with the music. Along the walls little alcoves had been built, shielded with long red velvet drapery, most of which were closed. But some had been left open, and the bodies within the alcoves were entwined and writhing together in a manner that left nothing to the imagination. I finally understood what sort of business Adrian's friend Gigli was running in her house.

"This is a brothel, isn't it? Some sort of weirdo German sex club?"

Adrian just shot me a look that warned me against making a scene, his hand warm and steady on the small of my back as he pushed me into the room. The music swept over us as we entered, and I realized that something must have been added to it, some sort of subliminal message leaving the listener with a strong compulsion to join the throng and dance the night away.