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  “Dude, there is no way she was down here! She would never cheat on me, and I don’t see Jules during the week. She’s got homework and shit, man. She’s smart. I’m not about to screw up her getting into college just because I’m horny. You gotta think I’m a better person than that!” He kept scooching along the floor on his butt until he bumped into a wall, then he shimmied his way to standing. He was careful to keep both hands in plain view. I guess he thought I was going to kill him or something. Maybe the pistol in my hand gave him the right impression.

  There might be better ways to ask someone a question than kicking their door down and scaring the crap out of them, but not many, and I wasn’t in the best of moods. I’m a little bit ashamed to say it, but Rabbit made a convenient outlet for some of my frustrations. But no way was I going to tell him that.

  “You live in a sewer. You’re named after a rodent, you bathe once a week whether you need it or not, and you suck blood to survive. I don’t think you even count as a person, much less as a better person than anyone else at literally anything.” I leaned over to get right in his face. “Now tell me everything you know and I won’t paint the ceiling with Rabbit guts.”

  An acrid smell filled the room, and Rabbit’s expression got even more pitiful, which I would have sworn was impossible only half a second before. I stepped back and looked down at the rapidly spreading wet spot on the front of his pants. I’d literally scared the piss out of him.

  I turned to Rabbit’s stoner pals. “Get out. Forget everything from the moment we walked in. And the Hulk is stronger, you idiots.” I laid a compulsion on their heads strong enough to get RuPaul to swear off high heels, and they left. I grabbed a handful of Rabbit’s hair and dragged the terrified little vampire back over to the table.

  Greg caught the look I gave him and set the table back up. I deposited Rabbit in a chair and sat across from him. “If you didn’t kill her, Rabbit, then here’s the million-dollar question. Who did?”

  “Y-you believe me?” he asked, relief creeping in on the edges of his terror.

  “People don’t usually piss themselves in fear over a lie,” Greg said.

  “I’m with him,” I agreed. “I don’t have a lot of experience with people wetting themselves in my presence, but it does speak to a level of fear that’s usually associated with dying for something you didn’t do, rather than the kind of deserved fear of dying for something you actually did.”

  “Oh thank God,” Rabbit said, dropping his head to the table. “I really thought you were going to kill me.”

  “The option was on the table,” I said, “but you convinced me you were innocent.”

  “Admittedly there are less smelly ways,” Greg added, pulling up a chair to sit beside me. “But if you didn’t kill Julia, then that begs the question, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Rabbit said, a little pink-tinged fear sweat still beading on his forehead. “Who did, and how are we going to find the sonofabitch so I can kill him?”

  “Let’s start with some basic questions, like how often did Julia visit you down here?” Greg asked.

  “Never,” Rabbit said. He must have seen something in my face that amused him, because he let out a short bark of a laugh. “Dude, it’s a sewer full of vampires. Julia was a good chick. A nice girl. She didn’t need to be running around down here in this literal shithole. Besides, I’m not dangling a morsel like that in front of the Morlocks, no matter how much I trust them.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” I said. “So where did you meet?”

  “Sometimes I’d meet her after work and we’d go walk through the big cemetery across the street. Sometimes she’d get a ride from somebody at the restaurant and meet me at a club and we’d hang out. Sometimes, when her mom wasn’t there, I’d go to her place and we’d watch movies and stuff.”

  “Please don’t elaborate about the stuff,” Greg said.

  “Shut up, you pervert. It wasn’t about that. I mean, yeah, she was pretty, but we didn’t even have sex that much. I just liked being around her. She made me feel . . . I dunno, it sounds stupid.”

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  “She made me feel alive.” A single tear ran down the side of Rabbit’s face. “This life ain’t all sitting on a throne and telling people to do shit, you know? I didn’t ask to run things down here, I just kinda stepped up because I looked around and didn’t see anybody better.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said, and Rabbit locked eyes with me. Right then, sitting on folding chair around a crappy table in an abandoned sewer tunnel, I connected with the wiry little vampire. Neither one of us wanted the lives we ended up with, but we did the job because there was nobody around better qualified.

  “Yeah, I guess you do,” he said after a beat.

  “Did you ever notice anybody around paying too much attention to you? Any vampires?” Greg asked.

  “Or werewolves, or were-whatevers, for that matter,” I added.

  Rabbit’s brow wrinkled. “No, I can’t remember ever noticing anybody that looked wrong. What’s up with the pups? You having trouble with the dog pound?”

  “Nothing I can’t take care of,” I said. “Let’s focus on what we know. She was killed by a vampire, and either she was killed in the sewers, or she was killed by somebody who lives down here. Are there any Morlocks who would go after her to screw with you?”

  “Nah.” Rabbit leaned back in his chair, looking at the ceiling. “I mean, there’s a few people who don’t like me running things, and more than a few who think they could do better, but nobody’s that big of a dick. Besides, draining her and leaving her to wake up alone like that is really against the Ritual, and there’s no way a Morlock would do that.”

  I looked over at Greg, who shrugged. “What Ritual, Rabbit?”

  The little man’s head snapped down, and he dropped the chair back onto all four feet. “What do you mean, ‘what Ritual?’ I thought you were the Master of the damn City?”

  “You want to see how much of a Master I am?” I leaned forward in my own chair.

  Seeing the fire in my eyes, Rabbit leaned back. “Nah, nah. I just thought your little dude William would have explained everything to you. But maybe he thought you already knew. But you aren’t from here, are you?”

  “We both grew up here, Rabbit. We’re as native as anybody can be,” Greg said.

  “That’s not what I mean, dumbass. I mean, you weren’t turned here.”

  “No,” I agreed. “We were turned at Clemson, right after graduation.”

  “And that chick you hang with, Abby? She was turned by a rogue, right?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “The same woman that turned me.”

  “Okay, that explains it. You see, whenever a new vampire is made, at least here, there’s a whole ritual to it. The Master is the only one who has authority to make new vampires, for one thing. If Tiram ever even thought somebody was making baby vamps behind his back, he’d stake them out on the roof of his building and watch the video monitors as the sun came up.”

  “Harsh,” Greg said.

  “You met Tiram,” Rabbit replied.

  “Good point. Harsh, but totally in character, then. Go ahead.” Greg waved his hand for Rabbit to continue.

  “So yeah, the only person allowed to make vampires in Charlotte is . . . well, you, now that Tiram’s dead. And it’s a whole thing, man. There are candles, and Latin shit, and all kinds of proclamations of how sacred the bond of blood is, and how we’re all responsible for the actions of the newest rebirth. I mean, it’s a load of crap, because Tiram always just turned anybody he wanted to, but any time he did it, there was an open bar, so I went to all the Turnings.”

  “So whoever killed Julia either didn’t know about this Ritual,” Greg said.

  “Or didn’t care,” I finished. “And either thinks that the r
ules don’t apply to him, or killed this girl as a direct challenge to me and my authority.”

  “Like a coup?” Rabbit asked.

  “Without the Che Guevara T-shirts, but yeah, like a coup,” I agreed. “So now we need to find out who’s leading this possible coup, and where they are.”

  “And kick their ass,” Rabbit added.

  “Oh yeah, definitely got some ass to kick for this one. You don’t use innocents to get my attention. You want a fight, meet me in the street at noon like in the movies.”

  “Um, Jimmy?” Greg raised his hand.

  “Yeah, I know, I know. I turn into a crispy critter if I go anywhere near the middle of a street at high noon. It’s a friggin’ metaphor. So let’s think about this. Who has a reason to hate me?”

  “The weres,” Greg said.

  “A lot of those witches that were hanging out with Lilith really don’t like you,” Rabbit added.

  “There’s a couple of vampire gangs that were making a lot of good coin selling hard drugs with Tiram in charge, but you kinda crapped all over their action. I bet they all want you dead,” Greg chimed in.

  “About half the Morlocks blame you for Alexis getting killed,” Rabbit said.

  Greg almost bounced in his chair “Oh yeah, and Marcus Owen. He hates you.”

  “Okay!” I held up both hands. “As funny as it is to rattle off a list of every monster and human in the city that wants me dead, we don’t have that kind of time.”

  “Yeah,” Greg agreed. “I mean, we haven’t even scratched the surface of the people who hate your guts.”

  “Thanks,” I replied. I turned to Rabbit. “You said a lot of the Morlocks blame me for getting Alexis killed. Would any of them try to start something behind your back?”

  He scratched his chin for a minute, then shook his head. “Nah, they might want you to die in a fire, but they’re not gonna try and make it happen. Too chicken. But . . .”

  “But what?” I asked, leaning forward.

  “Nah, it’s not a thing,” Rabbit said.

  “Why don’t you tell me what it is, and I’ll decide if it’s a thing?” I prodded.

  “Well, there was this dude named Alexander that was one of Alexis’s favorites. He wasn’t like her second-in-command or anything, because we don’t really work like that. It’s more of a controlled chaos thing than a structured leader thing. But he was somebody she trusted, and he was pretty pissed when she went after Tiram. He ranted and raved about you, what an asshole you are, what an idiot Alexis was for putting her faith in you, how you were going to be the doom of the Morlocks, how—”

  I held up a hand. “I get it. He doesn’t like me.”

  “Didn’t,” Rabbit corrected. “He got killed with everybody else when Tiram’s guys—I mean Lilith’s guys—came down and tore the place apart.”

  I leaned back in my chair and shook my head. “Then what’s the damn point of all this, Rabbit? If he’s true-dead, he’s not a problem!”

  “But what if he ain’t dead?” Rabbit said. “A lot of people were just gone after Lilith’s raid. No bodies, just vanished. I always figured some of them went back topside, and maybe some left town. But maybe some of them went deeper. Ever since we got things going back here, people will wander off. Not many, but every week or two another couple of Morlocks are gone. And lately I’ve heard some stuff about another safe place underground for our people, someplace you don’t know about. I haven’t really worried about it, because it’s not like we take attendance down here. People are free to come and go as they like, and nobody’s been looking for the folks that leave, but now that you got somebody making baby vampires, or trying to, and they smell like sewer, well . . .”

  “You think this Alexander has something to do with siphoning off your followers and Julia?” Greg asked.

  “He was always pretty charismatic. Wouldn’t take too much effort for him to get some folks who don’t like the way I run things to go over to him. And he hates your guts.” Rabbit shrugged. “I dunno. But it’s the best I got.”

  “So you think there’s a disaffected Morlock living even deeper in the sewers plotting to kill me, and he kidnapped your girlfriend to lure me down there to kill me?” I asked.

  “No, I think this asshole kidnapped Jules to get me down there, thinking that we’re friends and you’d hunt down anybody who punched my ticket.”

  I thought about it for a few seconds. “I would, too.”

  “You’re a pain in the ass, but you’re still under his protection,” Greg said.

  “Shit. It makes sense. As much as anything in my life makes sense. Where do I find this Alexander the Not-So-Damn-Great?” I asked.

  “Rumor has it this new place is somewhere down under the construction site that used to be Eastland Mall,” Rabbit said. The old mall was bulldozed years ago, but the hundred-acre lot is still abandoned. It would be a good place to hide, with easy access to the surface, and a bus depot right there to take the vamps anywhere in town they wanted to go.

  “Man, I remember ice-skating there when I was a kid!” Greg said.

  “Yeah, me too,” I said. “Now we gotta go underground to put this bad guy on ice.”

  “That was awful,” Greg said.

  “Shut up. Let’s just go kill this guy. I don’t want to leave Abby and William in charge too long.”

  “Why not? You afraid they’ll hate it?”

  “No. I’m way more afraid they won’t.”

  Chapter 14

  AN HOUR LATER me, Greg, and Rabbit were standing outside the back of the Charlotte transit center in the parking lot of what used to be Eastland Mall. “Are you sure about this, Rabbit?” I asked, looking around.

  Rabbit knelt by a manhole cover and grunted as he wedged a big screwdriver under the lip. “I’m not sure about anything except that this thing is heavy as shit. You wanna give me a hand, or just watch my asshole fall out?”

  “As appealing as that sounds, I think I’ll pass,” I said. I nodded to Greg, who bent down, threaded two fingers into the hole in the center of the manhole cover, and pulled it up just enough to slide over. A puff of dry, dusty air escaped, and I caught a whiff of the same dried sewage smell that lingered over Julia’s body. “That smells like almost the same thing, but not quite.”

  “All the abandoned sewers smell the same,” Rabbit said. “They all smell like cow patties and red dirt.”

  “You’re a poet, Rabbit. Wrong, but poetic. There are slight differences in the smell of Morlock City to the rest of the sewers. And the more abandoned places smell drier, less funky.” I gestured toward the hole in the ground. “You first.”

  “Why do I have to go first?” he whined, sitting down on the ground and dangling his feet in the hole.

  “Because if it’s an ambush I don’t want to be the one to spring it,” I said, leaning down and shoving him forward into the hole.

  “You’re an asshole!” Rabbit called out as he fell. “Ow! Shit!” He tossed up a solid stream of profanity when he hit the bottom, so I knew he wasn’t hurt too badly.

  I looked over to Greg. “Well, if it’s an ambush, Rabbit’s in on it.” I drew my Glock and jumped down the hole feet-first. The fall was a little more than I expected, a good twelve or fifteen feet. I bent my knees when I landed and pitched myself forward into a roll, coming up with my gun pointed out in front of me. I did a quick scan around us, and as far I could see and hear, Rabbit was the only other person down there. “Clear!” I yelled up to Greg. “It’s further down than I thought. Use the ladder.”

  “I have to use the ladder, idiot. It’s the only way I can—oof—put the lid back on.” He did just that, sliding the manhole cover back in place and descending the ladder to join us.

  “Okay, Rabbit. Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I got no idea, man.”
/>   “What?” Greg grabbed Rabbit’s elbow and spun him around. “What do you mean you have no idea?”

  “I mean I don’t know, man!” Rabbit tried to yank his arm free, but Greg locked his grip in, making the smaller vampire wince. “Ow! Let go of me!”

  “Not until you tell us what you mean,” I said. “Why don’t you know how to find this asshole?”

  “Did you morons miss the part where I said Alexander hates you because he thinks he should be in charge of everything? Well, he hates anybody he thinks of as your flunky, and that means me. He didn’t think much of me before Lilith’s goons murdered everybody, and he always just assumed he’d run things if anything ever happened to Alexis. Since I’m the one running Morlock City, that’s another strike against me in his book. If he’s the one down here, he’ll hate me for real now.” Rabbit glared at Greg, then me.

  I nodded, and Greg released Rabbit’s arm. “Fine,” I said, “but you’re running point. If he hates me as much as you say, then I’d probably be even more poorly received than you.”

  “Okay, but that brings us back to the original question—which way?” Greg turned around in the tunnel a couple of times, then looked back at me.

  “That way.” I pointed off to my right. “That’s where the mall was, so if he’s under the old mall, that’s where he’ll be. Rabbit, you first. I’ll cover our backs.”

  “Nah, you get in the middle,” Greg said.

  “Why? You want to protect me all of a sudden?”

  “Not a bit, but you’re such a gangly bastard that you can shoot over either of us, so put us in the front and back, and you’re still effective. But if I’m in the middle and something sneaks up behind us, you’re gonna get your head ripped off before I can get around you to save our asses.”