Brenda's next stop was Sanji's shop. The place was empty when she arrived, other than Sasha behind the counter. The girl looked up just before Brenda stepped through the front door.
"Sanji told me you were one of us now," Sasha said, stepping around the counter to look Brenda over. "Now I can see it myself." She grinned. "And this means I'm not the youngest one in the city anymore! Now someone else has to be on the bottom!"
"Congratulations," Brenda said uncertainly.
"I'm just teasing. I'm just glad there's finally someone a little closer to my age."
Brenda smiled. "Sanji is your Sire?"
"Yup. And my teacher. My mentor. Are you here to see him?"
"Yeah."
"He's in the back. You can go on. I have to watch the front."
Brenda nodded and went into the back to find Sanji seated cross-legged on his mat. He looked up at her as she walked in. "Hi," she said, feeling much more uncertain than she ever remembered feeling before her . . . her death. "I was hoping you would be able to help me."
Sanji smiled as he rose gracefully to his feet. "What is it you need?"
"I still might have a chance to save the little girl. But without access to my old resources from my old job, I don't have any ideas where to look for clues, other than the place where you and Simon found me. Do you remember how to get there?" she asked.
His smile faded, and his eyes turned downward, away from her own. "I do not believe this would be a wise act."
"But I don't know what else to do." If he had another idea, she would be grateful for it.
"Perhaps it would be best to do a reading, to learn if this would be a good course of action," he said.
Brenda nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."
Brenda left the shop uncertain what she should do next. Sanji's reading predicted danger and disappointment, and possibly much worse if she returned to the place where she'd been raped. He would not bring her there. He'd done another reading to seek answers for what she ought to do, and his cards indicated that fear was holding her back, but that she was being drawn toward spirituality. The cards indicated that the answers would come to her through that.
He'd been quite pleased with the results of the reading. "I have not met a person so ready to turn to spirituality since I chose to Embrace Sasha," he'd said. And then he'd offered to take her on as his student, but warned her that he would not be easy on her. But through him, he promised she could learn to be more than a walking corpse.
She felt safe with Sanji, and she believed in his abilities and his wisdom. She was sure she could learn a great deal from him and possibly begin to feel fulfilled again. And yet . . . she would be turning her back on Simon. The Crone was a temptation as well, as was being Simon's student. And Morgan's.
She didn't know what she wanted. She felt as though whatever way she chose, although she would gain something great, she would also be sacrificing something great. And no matter what she chose, someone would be let down.
She hoped whatever she chose, somehow the way to save Grace became instantly apparent. She had to trust Sanji's reading. He'd found her, after all.
Brenda knew she was early when she returned to Liz's club, Heart's Desire, but she had nothing else to do. The place was fairly crowded by then, but after some searching, Brenda was fairly certain that Liz was nowhere to be found. She eventually found herself a place to sit down and wait, hoping that the men there wouldn't take her solitude as an invitation.
After a few minutes, a familiar sounding song came on. It sounded a lot like Personal Jesus, but she was fairly certain the vocalist in this case was Marilyn Manson. She was shaking her head in disbelief when the thing she'd been dreading happened. A man sat down across from her with a look of utter confidence on his devastatingly handsome face.
She stiffened defensively as she eyed her uninvited companion. Slender but not scrawny, a tight black t-shirt that just accentuated his wiry masculinity. His hair was dark brown and just slightly on the longish side. He wore a small, silver hoop earring in his left ear and had just a touch of five o' clock shadow on his cheekbones. His blue eyes were fixed on hers and he wore a self-assured smile. He seemed to ooze both sexuality and predator's taint.
He must have been the contact Liz had mentioned. But why had Liz left Brenda to face him alone?
"How are you doing? I'm Matt," he said in a deep, almost gravelly voice with an English accent.
"I'm waiting for someone," Brenda replied warily.
"Pretty sure that's me you're waitin' for."
"You're Liz's friend?" He looked like someone Brenda would expect to be a friend of Liz's. Brenda herself had never taken interest in the bad boy sort, having arrested dozens of men just like him. They were trouble. She preferred men more like Jesse or Tom. Or Simon.
"Yup."
"I'm Brenda."
He extended his hand, and Brenda gave him hers. The handshake was a firm one, not too tight like some men tended to do, but firm. "Liz tells me you're looking to make a purchase."
"I guess she didn't tell you everything," she said, frowning. Why had Liz led him to assume Brenda had the money to just buy a gun? "Not exactly," she said, feeling humiliated. "I was only recently Embraced, just a few days ago. I've lost everything I owned, and I don't have access to any of my money anymore. So I'm not able to offer you any payment. I'm sorry. I expected Liz to tell you that I was hoping I could perform some kind of service as payment."
"I see," Matt said thoughtfully. "I think I'd be willing to part with some of my merchandise in exchange for your friendship."
"Define friendship."
He smiled. "We talk to each other. You come visit me and we hang out once in a while."
"Oh." Brenda relaxed. She didn't think she was crazy to worry that friendship might have been a euphemism for sex, but now his intentions seemed rather innocent and quite generous. "As new as I am, I could afford a few more friends."
Matt nodded. "If it hasn't happened yet, a lot of people are gong to try to sell you on their Covenants."
"I've gotten a little of that already, but at the moment, I don't think I know what they all are."
"Well, most people are gonna try to recruit you, try to convince you that their Covenant is the best Covenant. You'll have trouble getting unbiased information from anybody. I have my own biases too. Since we're friends, I'll go ahead and tell you what all of 'em are without telling you which one I'm in. Hopefully that'll help you eventually make a decision."
"Thanks."
"Let's see . . . there's the Ordo Dracul. If you ignore the face that they're supposedly founded by Dracula, they have some interesting ideas and abilities. They specialize in overcoming the Curse of our nature. And it is a Curse, make no mistake."
Brenda nodded. This was what Sanji could teach her. "I've heard about them a little."
"Then there's Lancea Sanctum. They're a Christian group; they name themselves after the Lance of Longinus. On the other extreme you have the Circle of the Crone. Pagans, goddess worshippers. All three of these groups have their own style of ritualistic magic. They're all capable of achieving a lot of power. And then you have the Invictus. They'll protect you and give you a safe place to be where you could eventually amass power, among them and over mortal society. But you'll have years of being under the older ones' boot heels in the meantime. Finally, you have the Carthian Movement. We're all about equality—" Matt halted in his speech, lowering his eyes in embarrassment. "Oops. I didn't mean to do that."
Brenda couldn't help but smile.
"Well, I guess my secret's out. Anyway, we Carthians are all about personal freedom, democracy, everyone having an equal voice. The Invictus like to have their hierarchy based on age, and we don't think that age should get you any special privileges. We're more democratic."
"Makes sense," Brenda said. It seemed the Carthian movement and the Invictus were polar opposites. "I don't really see myself joining up with the Invictus."
"That's a relief," he said, grinning.
"And I never much bought into Christianity, although someone named Bethany gave me her card."
"Bethany? She's a hypocrite," he said dismissively.
"I wasn't real impressed. My Sire doesn't like her either."
As she spoke, she saw Liz approach Matt from behind and then slide into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck possessively.
"I was hoping you'd come back upstairs with me," Liz said in a husky tone.
"Again? I was just up there."
"I wasn't finished." Liz stroked his dark hair.
"Well, right now I'm in the middle of something," Matt said with a chuckle. "I'll come back and take care of you later."
Liz sighed and nodded, climbing off of his lap. "All right. Don't be too long," she said as she turned and walked away with a seductive sway to her hips.
"She's insatiable," Matt said in an affectionate tone.
Brenda smiled nervously. She was a bit surprised that Matt had just blown off a plea for sex from the most gorgeous woman she'd ever seen. Just so he could keep talking to her. He'd just endeared himself to her, and she hoped it wasn't terribly obvious.
"So where were we? Can I buy you a beer?"
Brenda eyed him confusedly for a moment. It hadn't even occurred to her to try to eat or drink anything. She'd lost all desire for it. "All right."
Matt rose from his seat and walked to the bar. He was there for a few minutes before returning with two bottles.
Brenda raised her eyebrows when Matt handed her a bottle. It was empty.
"We can pretend, Red," he said quietly, settling back into his seat. "So, tell me about yourself."
"All right. Up until a few days ago, I was a detective with the Denver Police Department. I dealt with missing persons. I was investigating a little girl, Grace Simmons." She paused. There was no reason to tell him anything too personal about her. He surely didn't want to know. But she ought to let him know what potential enemies her friendship would earn him. "It's looking like she's been kidnapped by a Nosferatu."
"That doesn't leave many possibilities."
"No, it doesn't seem to. I must have gotten too close to whoever it was, because a few days ago, mean came to my apartment and beat me into unconsciousness and brought me to the kidnapper. It was too dark for me to see him, and he nearly killed me. I would've died if Simon hadn't come and taken pity on me."
Matt shook his head. "It was more than that. He wouldn't have Embraced you if he hadn't wanted to."
"I was dying. It was the only way to save me. It was an act of compassion."
"I won't deny that it was an act of compassion. This Simon is obviously an admirable guy to have done that for you, but he wouldn't have done it just to keep you from dying. If that was all he wanted to accomplish, he could've kept you alive without Embracing you."
"He could've?"
Matt nodded. "If he'd just fed you some of his blood, you could've used that to heal your injuries just like you can now. You'd be what's called a Ghoul, and you'd have some of our abilities, and you could still go out in the sun. But your will would become completely enslaved. It's not something I'd condone doing."
Brenda stared at him. Simon didn't have to Embrace her. So he'd wanted to, for some reason. Had he seen some potential in her that she wasn't aware of? In that moment, her decision was made. She would join the Circle of the Crone. Simon would be her teacher.
"Has your Sire told you about the Vinculum?"
She shook her head.
"It's what happens when you drink another vampire's blood—"
"Oh, he told me a little about that. He said that drinking a vampire's blood gives the other vampire some power over you."
"That's partly true, to put it lightly. I'll go ahead and tell you. Three times. That's the magic number. Once you've tasted a vampire's blood on three separate nights, it's love. They become the center of your world and you'll be their willing slave."
"I'll keep that in mind. I wasn't planning on drinking anymore vampire blood. Simon warned me about getting addicted."
"Good. And by the way, do you know who all the Nosferatu are?"
"I know of three, but I don't know their names."
"There are just three, and they're all Invictus to the best of my knowledge. The Prince calls himself Rex. His Childe is called Nox, and his advisor goes by Axiom."
"Rex, Nox and Axiom," she repeated in order to commit the names to memory. They all sounded like assumed names. Rex was probably chosen by the Prince because it meant 'king.' Either Rex or Axiom had raped her, since Nox was dead. Rex or Axiom.
"Do you wanna come and look at the merchandise?"
Brenda nodded. "Good idea."
They both rose from their seats. "Do you have a preference?"
"I used to carry a .38."
"All right."
Brenda followed Matt outside to the small parking lot behind the club. He stopped at the trunk of a black Ferrari. He opened the trunk and reached beneath a cover, withdrawing a pistol and handing it to Brenda.
She slipped the gun into her jacket pocket, worrying over the fact that it seemed so obvious that she was hiding a gun. As she studied the pocket she'd put it in, willing it not to be seen, the gun vanished. Hoping she didn't look too startled, she reached into her pocket and caressed the cool metal. Simon could disappear completely, and she could make objects disappear. It was a start.
"Well, you've learned at least one power already," Matt said with a smile.
"That's convenient," she said, returning the smile shyly.
Matt nodded, closing his trunk.
"That's quite an arsenal."
"Yup. It makes me money, and also helps me get rides if the car ever breaks down."
Brenda frowned as she was forced to acknowledge the fact that she was talking to a criminal. She'd known it already, but he'd just driven the point home.
"It's a joke! Relax," he said with a gentle laugh and a smile that ought to make any normal woman swoon.
"I shouldn't keep you from Liz any longer."
He nodded. "Yeah, she's probably getting impatient. Well, give me a call some time," he said, reaching into his pocket and handing her a business card.
It was labeled 'Redmond Recording,' and had the name Matt Redmond beneath it with a phone number, website and email address. "I will," she told him, promising herself that she'd make sure it wasn't for another favor when she did.
"And feel free to drop by my studio if you ever decide to take up an interest in music.
She smirked. "Thanks. But that's not likely. I'm a detective, not a musician."
"Soon enough you're going to realize that you have enough time to do just about anything you want."
"You never can tell how much time you actually have."
"True," he admitted. "Well, I'd better go and service Liz," he said in a tone one might use when referring to a chore like washing dishes. "Seeya soon, Red."
