Lover Unveiled, page 3
Balz followed along the runner, the pile so thick it was like walking on Wonder Bread, the trail taking him by a lineup of arched windows that let in a glowing view of the skyscrapers and linking roadways below. The sight of the streaming lines of white headlights and red taillights, coupled with the glowing, graceful arches of the twin bridges, was so captivating he had to take a moment to appreciate the urban landscape.
And then he was on the move again.
The security system had been as expected, a high-level, integrated set of belt-and-antiburglar-suspenders that had been a fun challenge to disarm.
Hey, Vishous wasn’t the only one who was handy with the IT shit, ’kay?
It had been a moment of pride for Balz that he hadn’t had to consult the Brother with the Mensa membership about disarming all the motion detectors, door contacts, and laser-sighted sensors in the place. And the fact that Balz did the strip job all on his own was part of the rules he set for himself. These humans with their portable objects of value were sitting ducks for a thief like him: For all intents and purposes, in any conceivable house, condo, apartment, yacht, bunker, whatever, he could just dematerialize in through a plate glass window, put the inhabitants to sleep mentally, and use the five-finger discount to take what he wanted, when he wanted.
But that was like sitting down to Monopoly with a set of brass knuckles. If you could just knock out your opponent, grab all the hotels and houses, all the paper money, and all the properties? Well, congratulations. You just roll those dice and move your little shoe around the board for the next seventy-five thousand rounds, playing with yourself.
The challenge was in the constrictions. And in his case, he applied all human limitations to himself: He was not allowed to do anything that those rats without tails couldn’t. That was the one rule, but it had many, many implications.
Okay, fine. He also cheated on occasion.
Just a little.
But he was a thief, not a priest, for fuck’s sake.
Going along, he wasn’t interested in the lineup of empty guest bedrooms. In fact, the entire condo, including the panic room(s) he was heading for, was vacant. He’d intended to get in when the happy couple were clocking time on the premises—because homeowners were much more of a challenge when they were actually, you know, home—but he was on rotation with the Brotherhood and the Mr. and Mrs. traveled a lot of the time. He was done waiting for the stars to align.
The animal charity he was giving the cash to needed to rebuild after that fire. Fortunately, none of the dogs or cats had been killed, but their medical wing had taken a hit—
What. So he was a sucker for four-legged things. Besides, he didn’t need the money and having a purpose to the taking was what made everything more than just a robbery hobby.
The master suite was an apartment within the condo, a localized concentration of super-fancy and ultra-private that included a separate kitchen area, its own terrace, and a bathroom/closet combo the size of most people’s houses. And they’d totally followed Jodie Foster’s 2002 example. The whole thing went on lockdown in the event of an infiltration by someone with a net worth of less than $40 million or, if it was female, a waist-to-hip ratio lower than 0.75.
Standards, doncha know.
As he crossed into the Big Man Zone, he stopped and listened to all the quiet. God, how fucking boring was this. He really would have preferred to wait for the Mr. and Mrs. to be in res.
Coming up to an archway, he glanced into the kitchen. It was barren as an operating room and just as cozy, everything stainless steel and professional. Then again, it wasn’t like there were any family dinners happening. The Mr.’s original Mrs. and attendant offspring, generated prior to his making his first billion, had been jettisoned like a bad investment. No further use for cozy things.
Sleek and beautiful, cold and state-of-the-art.
Like the new wife, the new life.
Balz kept going. The dressing room had two entrances, one through the bedroom and one through a shallow hall for the servants. It seemed only polite to choose the latter considering he was committing a burglary on the premises, and he was surprised to find things locked. No problem. Taking out his picklock kit, he was in like Flynn in under a minute, and as he entered the Neiman-Marcus-worthy collection of suits, ties, dresses, and accessories, he breathed deep. Ah. So this was the source of the fragrance that permeated the upper floor, and yeah, if money had a scent, this would be it. Heady, strong enough to be noticed, yet not overpowering… flowery, but with the serious weight of sophisticated men’s cologne.
And shit, it was a wonder the Mr. and Mrs. had anything left in the bank considering all these threads.
Behind glass panes, just like the display cases downstairs, hanging rods were set at all levels, as if the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of clothes were perishable if left out to the open air. There was also a thirty-foot-long center aisle of double-sided bureaus, his and hers.
Party time.
Whistling through his front teeth, he tap-danced along as he zeroed in on the compartment holding the man of the condo’s array of tuxedos. Opening the glass, Balz pulled a Moses and Red Sea’d the shoulders of the fine silk jackets. The wall that was revealed was smooth—except for the square outline that, if you didn’t have vampire eyesight or the details of the safe’s location, you wouldn’t tweak to.
Outing a CPU the size of a venti latte, he typed a couple of commands on the BlackBerry-like keyboard. Then he put the unit against the wall. There was some whirring sounds, a clunk and a hiss… and then the panel retracted to reveal a three-by-three-foot safe face with an old school dial—which had been a nice surprise when he’d hacked into the alarm system to check on the how-many’s and where-are’s of its contacts.
He respected the analog choice. Because, hey, you couldn’t break into the damn thing over the web, and as he gave the dial a little spin, he acknowledged that he would have had a hard time getting inside even with a blowtorch and a couple of hours.
So yeah, it was time to fudge his rules.
As he triggered the non-copper lock with his mind, the easy capitulation of the internal bolts made him feel like he’d been sitting in a BarcaLounger eating Doritos for two nights straight: He felt bloated by the ease and dulled by the lack of challenge.
There would be other nights to be tested, he told himself.
When the safe door opened, a little light came on inside, and it illuminated the kinds of goodies he’d expected. The interior also had—wait for it—see-through shelves, and everything on them was separated into—surprise!—like kind: There was cash in stacks that were banded together, reminding him for some reason of bunk beds. There was a case full of watches rocking back and forth, jet-setters line-dancing to some unheard song. And there was a whole bunch of leather jewel cases.
Which was what he was here for.
On that note, he picked off the top one. The thing was bigger than his pretty damn big palm and covered with red leather embossed with a gold border. Digging into the release with his thumb, he popped the lid.
Balz smiled so wide his fangs made an appearance.
But the happy-happy-joy-joy didn’t last as he counted the cases still left inside. There were another six, and for some reason, that half dozen of further opportunity exhausted him. In another time in his life, he would have gone through each one and picked the most valuable. Now he just didn’t give a shit. Besides, what he had was Cartier, and the diamond weight was in the forty-to-fifty-carat range with superb cut, color, and clarity. Like he needed more?
And no, he wasn’t going to scoop them all. His rule was one thing, and one thing only, from any given infiltration. It could be an object, a bunch of things in a container, or a set that was somehow loosely, but tangibly, linked together.
Back in the Old Country, for example, he’d stolen a carriage with four perfectly matched grays under that little loophole.
So he was sticking with the Cartier, and leaving the rest behind.
Getting to his feet, he willed the safe door closed and relocked. And just as he was wondering if he was going to have to get out his trusty little 007 whammy-box again to close the panel, the wall section came down and clicked into place automatically.
For a moment, all he could do was stare at the vacant white Sheetrock between the parted sea of the tuxedo jackets. Closing his eyes, he felt an emptiness that—
“What are you doing?”
At the sound of the female voice, Balz spun around. Standing in the doorway that led in from the bedroom, the Mrs. of the triplex was directly under one of the ceiling fixtures—which meant her diaphanous nightgown was utterly translucent.
Well, Mr. Hedge Fund Manager, Balz thought, you certainly did well for yourself at the altar.
“What are you doing here?” Balz tossed back with a slow smile. “You two are supposed to be in Paris.”
CHAPTER FOUR
As Ralphie zipped up his pants and Chelle reorganized herself under her skirt, he was razor-alert but not buzzing, the orgasm having taken the edge off the coke. Locking his molars, he curled up his arms and tightened all the muscles in his upper body, the torsion curving his spine forward, his lips coming off his front teeth, his bones bending.
The sound he made brought his crew’s faces around.
“He’s ready! He’s the monster!”
At that moment, like the “officials” had been waiting for him to bust his nut, the air horn sounded down at the far end of the garage level.
His crew started chanting, and Chelle came up and leaned into him. He kissed her forehead and said ILY quietly enough so no one but her heard. Then he walked forward, his boys forming a spear of bodies ahead of him, Chelle bringing up the rear. When they penetrated the crowd, people got out of their way, the cheering reaching volumes that would have attracted attention—if anyone had been anywhere near this shitty part of town.
Inside, Ralphie was smiling. Outside, he was all about the fuck-you.
The Reverend had arranged this bout three days ago, with some out-of-towner who had no record and a name no one had heard of. So this was going to be a piece of fucking cake.
“Monster! Monster!”
His crew was chanting his name, and the crowd picked up on it and carried the ball. And even though he knew she was watching, he had to glance back to make sure Chelle was checking this out. She was. Her chin was down, but her eyes were on him, and she had a secret smile on her face that made him feel taller than he was. Thicker than he was. Stronger than he was.
She was his source of strength.
’Cuz he wanted to see that little happy on her face all the time.
Ralphie pulled himself together and refocused on the bodies that were getting out of the way for him. As he closed in on the fighting area, he entered a field of sallow illumination thrown by the running lights of the few cars that had been allowed through the barricades down at street level. The crowd started to go even nutserer when they got a better look at him, and he pretended that he was in the WWE and about to crack a skull in the ring.
Even though all he had was a red circle spray-painted on the stained concrete.
There were two circles, actually, the inner about fifteen feet across, the outer providing a five-foot buffer that the crowd was not supposed to get into—but always did by the ends of the matches. At the start, they followed the rules, though, so he left his crew behind as he alone went into the punch zone.
Beneath his boots, the dried bloodstains from last week’s fight were the color of mud, and he cracked his knuckles as he paced around, his heart pumping as he remembered breaking that nose and knocking out those teeth. As he psyched himself up, the crowd—even his boys and Chelle—disappeared from him. Everything went goodbye. He was in himself and of himself. In himself, of himself. In himself—
As the mantra began to repeat and repeat, a train catching at its tracks, the momentum creating its own kind of surge, he sank his weight into his knees and went from boot to boot with his lean. Fists up, biceps curled, eyes barely blinking, he focused across the circle, at the ring of bodies that had yet to part to reveal his opponent.
Bouncing.
Breathing.
Bouncing.
Breathing…
After a minute and a half of that shit, Ralphie got pretty fucking impatient. What the fuck. Where was the motherfucker? Fucking pussy-ass, out-of-town fuck—
All of the sudden, people in front of him started vibing like they were uncomfortable, heads ripping back and forth like some kind of shit was going down. And then they were moving too quick, a few tripping in the scramble.
Jesus, no one better be outing a goddamn gun—
A thirty-foot-long chute was formed by the hyping bodies, the messy aisle running from the fighting circle to the far breezeway. At the end? A fighter who stood alone, facing away from everything, from everyone, his heavy shoulders silhouetted against the city’s cold steel glow.
Ralphie’s jumping stilled. His heart skipped a beat.
But then a woman dressed like a Karen stumbled into the safety zone and looked around with bug eyes, as if she had no frickin’ clue where she was.
Ignoring her, Ralphie kicked his own ass. What the fuck. Was he the pussy here? That guy was no different from any other big-ass idiot. The bastard turned around? He was probably fatter than Uncle Vinnie.
Fuck him—
The lightning came from out of nowhere, the flash so fucking bright, it turned the inside of the garage into noontime. And as people in the crowd, and even his crew, put their arms up over their heads and crouched down, Ralphie did neither.
He just stood there.
And measured the tattoo that covered the other fighter’s massive, muscle-ribbed back. The black-and-whiter was a huge fucking skull, the crown of bone up at the nape, the jaw with its sharp teeth down at the waist. And even though the eyeballs were gone, all death-rotted out, evil radiated from those pitch-black sockets.
Slowly, the fighter turned around.
Ralphie flushed and could not breathe. As his opponent smiled like he was a serial killer staring down his next victim, his teeth seemed way too long. Especially the canines.
I am going to die tonight, Ralphie thought with an absolute conviction that had nothing to do with coke paranoia.
It was more like the Grim Reaper’s bony hand had landed on his shoulder… and closed its claiming grip. Forever.
What was about to come at him was an actual monster.
* * *
Mae got past the bouncers at ground level. Of course she did. And she managed it without resorting to a replay of Dady’s Girl tactics—although she would have gotten physical if she’d had to, and as a vampire, she could have knocked the block off of any of those barrier-to-entry men. It was more efficient, however, to just flip switches in those human brains and slip inside like she belonged, a pimento among Swarovski crystals.
And now she was up here, packed into a thicket of humans dressed for show, their shoulders bumping into hers, their scents invading her nose like stabbing fingers, their excited chanting a tangible, noxious smoke thickening the air and clogging her lungs. Assaulted by the miserable sensory overload, her brain tried to rise above, but her awareness was like a snow globe, all swirling agitation that obscured the centerpiece.
Where was the Reverend?
Forcing herself to calm down, she tried to send her instincts out. She had no idea what the male looked like, what his real name was. But vampires could locate vampires, and she was not leaving until she found him—
The crowd abruptly shifted, the humans moving like spooked cattle in the concrete acreage of the parking garage—and as she tried to get away from whatever commotion was happening, she suddenly found all kinds of space around her. She was standing totally alone.
Looking down, like maybe there was a bomb in a briefcase she’d somehow missed, she saw two red spray-painted lines. And when she glanced back up, she discovered she was at the head of a long break in the cram of bodies…
Mae lost all breath in her lungs.
Time slowed. The people disappeared. She wasn’t even sure where she was anymore.
The vampire down at the parking level’s far end, who was facing out into the night, was extraordinary… and terrifying—
Before she could form any further thought, blinding light erupted everywhere.
The night sky flooded with an illumination so bright, so vast, it was as if the Scribe Virgin had turned her wrath upon the earth itself. And then came the explosion. Whatever impact occurred was so devastating that an even more intense flash permeated the parking garage, the white light barging in on all sides and taking over as a distant thunder reverberated throughout the city.
Yet in spite of all this, Mae only had eyes for the male.
That tattoo of death across his broad back was a thing of horror, and she had a feeling so was he—
The fighter turned around and she gasped. He had great shoulders bulked with muscles and thighs that were set more solidly than the concrete he stood upon. His bare chest was likewise tattooed, the black-and-gray-inked landscape over his pectorals and abdominals depicting a bony hand reaching out of his torso. As if he were the conduit through which Dhunhd claimed its due.
“Get back!”
Once again, Mae spaced on the fact that she was being addressed. But then a hand grabbed her arm—and for a split second, her brain told her that it was that claw of the fighter coming for her. With a scream, she jumped—and before she could reassemble reality, she was dragged back.
“You’re in the fucking safety zone,” the man snapped. “And trust me, you’re going to want to get out of the way of that.”
