Kasabian waves as we go out.
“Have a nice night. Fuck you all.”
VINCENT SITS IN the back and Candy rides shotgun. I drive us out to a West Hollywood club called Death Rides a Horse. Back when John Wayne still walked the earth, it was an upscale cowboy bar. Now it’s a cowboy bar, crossed with a rave and a fetish club, and populated mostly with dead people. If Death Rides a Horse was in a tourist brochure, it would say that the club is the biggest, baddest, and priciest vampire club in the city. And day and night, human groupies and suckers line up on the boulevard hoping to walk on the wild side and to taste a little bit of eternity.
I’ve been here before, so the bouncers all know me, which means they don’t like me.
I nod to the guy working the door. He’s bearded, balding, and a little pudgy for a vampire. That sometimes happens when you get bitten past a certain age. The ones who get bit young stay pretty forever, but get bitten past fifty and you’re probably going to carry your middle-age gut and bad knees with you for the next billion years. Welcome to the glamorous world of bloodsuckers.
The doorman shakes his head when he sees me.
“Forget it, Stark. It’s a private party.”
“Not tonight.”
I put my boot into his solar plexus and he flies through the front door like a chunky torpedo.
Candy grabs one of Vincent’s arms and I grab the other. We shove and shoulder our way through the dancing, biting mob inside, all the way to the back, where there’s a roped-off private table.
When a guard by the table tries to brace me, I break his jaw and toss him onto the dance floor.
The owner of Death Rides a Horse, the grande dame of all of So Cal’s vampires, looks us over with her tombstone eyes.
“Not tonight, Stark. Whatever it is.”
“Are you sure, Sigrun?”
Tykho’s brows come down and she pulls back her lips, reflexively showing her fangs.
“What did you call me?”
I put my arm around Vincent’s shoulder and pull him forward.
“Vincent, meet Tykho. Tykho, meet Vincent.”
Vincent looks at me, then her.
“Tykho Mond?” he says.
“Who are you?” says Tykho.
“We met once,” he says. “In Munich.”
“I don’t know you and I’ve never been to Munich.”
“Yes, you have. It’s where you escaped me.”
She turns her dead eyes back to me.
“I know you’ll cause a scene if I have you thrown out, so tell me what it is you want, Stark.”
“Nothing. I just wanted you two kids to meet. Sigrun, Tykho Mond, whatever the hell your real name is—meet Vincent. Of course, Vincent is just what we call him around the store. What’s your real name, Vincent?”
“Death,” he says. And his voice carries the feeling of power and danger that I only heard from him once before.
“Very cute, Stark. Now go away or I’ll make your beating part of tonight’s entertainment.”
Vincent grabs the velvet rope surrounding Tykho’s table and starts babbling to her in German. Her eyes widen as he shouts.