"And you're in Las Vegas for what? The film exhibitors' convention?" she said. "I remember hearing about that. Are you really in the movies?"

"Production," he said. "My partner and I have done a couple of projects. You see If Truth Be Told! That's one of ours."

"I've seen it." She hated to admit it, but like most vampires, she loved vampire movies. They were the ultimate guilty pleasure. It was rather delicious to think that a vampire had produced a vampire film. "It was a terrible movie," she added.

"I know. Straight to video. It would have been great if Selim had let us use the original script. But no, he had to protect his a.s.s."

"You know Selim? The Enforcer of Los Angeles? Selim knows there's a rogue Nighthawk in his city?"

Her shock made him laugh. "Girl, you are so cute."

She suspected that by cute, he meant naive. Fine. He could believe that if he wanted to. To pull her hand away from his would have been petulant.

"Selim takes good care of his city," Sterling a.s.sured her. "If it makes you feel any better about me, I'll admit that I did help him thin an overpopulation of strigs a while back. He knows all I want is to be left alone."

Okay, she'd buy Sterling's explanations for now, and check with Selim when she got back home. Sterling still had no business being an undeclared Nighthawk. She was very far from knowing what she should do about it. She wasn't exactly the most action-oriented queen of the night.

"I do research," she said. "That's the real reason I want to go to the Silk Road."

"Going to waltz in and ask to look in the vault?"

"Of course not!" She gave him a hard look. "You know about the vault? You're interested in the old knowledge?"

"I've heard the rumors."

"And what do you think of them?"

"That it all sounds too good to be true. I wonder who started the rumors. And why. We're a secretive culture. It seems very unlikely that someone would store all our secrets in one place, and then a rumor of the storage place would start to circulate in the underground gossip mills. Sounds like a trap to me."

"Me too," she agreed. Too quickly. And she wished she'd bit her tongue before she said anything. Vampires were supposed to be secretive! It was a survival skill she'd yet to learn. "I also wonder why the Council allowed the owner to use the Silk Road theme."

"Why do you think, Hunter?"

"Because the Council doesn't get out much," she suggested. "Besides, an exotic lost city theme certainly suits a Las Vegas hotel.

And most of our kind don't know about the city. Not that most strigoi would be interested, of course. Most of them have no interest in history. Most have no interest in magic other than knowing the spell to turn a companion."

"Enforcers have encouraged this lack of interest, haven't they?"

While his tone was not exactly accusatory, it was heavy on sarcasm. While she chose not to answer this, they reached a corner.

Geoff turned them left and they crossed, cutting easily through the heavy traffic. Char reflected that she probably would have waited at the crosswalk for a green light even though she had no need for such mundanely mortal behavior.

"Maybe you hang with mortals too much," Sterling observed.She didn't answer this comment, either, but she did ask, "You have a destination in mind?" when they reached the other side of the street.

"Yes." They walked another block, then he paused.

Char was aware of his intensity, then of what he was searching for. "Vampires."

"Not very far away. Come on."

When he would have led her on, Char balked. "Why? You aren't looking for a snack, are you?"

He laughed. "You get a mental sniff of that bunch? Carrion."

"Light addicts," she corrected. "It's an illness. We should - "

"Feel sorry for them?"

"Avoid them," she answered. "Honey, I'm not that politically correct."

The grin he flashed at her held a hint of mating fang. "You called me honey."

She jerked her hand from his. "Don't take it personally."

"Of course not," he said. He started off down the street once more. "You coming?" he called back when she hesitated to follow.

She thought about finding Jebel. She thought about her longing to visit the Silk Road. She recalled that Geoff Sterling was an unregistered Nighthawk. She wasn't yet sure what she needed to do about that, but letting him wander alone among the city's population of neon junkies didn't seem like the sort of thing a responsible Enforcer should do.

She caught up with him in a few steps. "What do you want with the junkies?"

He gave her a strange look. "Nothing."

The next block held the blank wall of a huge parking garage. Traffic was thin for the moment, and the only illumination was from streetlights on each corner. The heat of the day still pulsed from concrete and blacktop, but the darkness between the corners was cool and comforting to creatures of their kind. She let Geoff Sterling take her hand again, and that was cool too, and the pulse beneath smooth, dense flesh was slow, slow and steady.

Within a few moments they turned the corner, going from darkness into glaring, garish light. Before them stretched several long blocks of a street that had been turned into a pedestrian mall. The lights of some of the city's older casinos lit up both sides of the mall. A canopy of light and laser arched over the street, stretching for several blocks. Music blared from all around, the lights changing and pulsing with the songs.

"Fremont Street," he said, and she felt his pulse quicken.

"I've heard of it," she answered. "This area is called the Fremont Street Experience. Or neon junkie heaven."

The street was crowded with people, faces turned up to the lightshow. There were a lot of vampires in the crowd. Geoff Sterling walked into the crowd, bringing her with him, moving well up the street before coming to a stop.

He moved with solemn grace, like he was performing some sort of rite. Nervous energy that was close to fear radiated from him.

"Just remember that I saved your a.s.s," he told her. Then he looked up, and took off his sungla.s.ses.

As he took them off, Char realized why he'd been wearing them. The light drew him, fascinated him, the way it did While Geoff turned his face to the moving, pulsing, beautiful lights, Char took a quick, hard look around. Even if she hadn't been able to recognize the distinct energy pattern that said vampire, she would have known which ones they were. Skinny as sticks, it was hard to tell male from female. They took a lot of blood before heading out to watch the lights, so they weren't as pale as normal strigoi. The blood made them high, made them more receptive to the thing that truly turned them on. Their age dragged on them, they wore it like heavy winter clothes, layer upon layer of years.

Sick, she thought. Totally sick. Senile. Vampire Alzheimer's.

She shuddered at the thought that she could ever be like that. Then she grew aware of the man beside her. His body was stiff with tension, his face turned up to the lights.

She shook him. "You're smiling," she told him, pitching her voice to reach him beneath the Jimi Hendrix song rolling over the street.

"Just like the mortals all around you are smiling. You're not like them - the carrion." He'd been right to call the light addicts that.

"Don't do this to yourself. You just like the lights. Geoff. Geoff!" She hit him on the shoulder. When a Nighthawk hits someone, even another Nighthawk, it has an effect.

Geoff jumped, shook himself, and looked away from the overhead lightshow, down at her. "What'd you do that for? I was enjoying - ".

"You requested an a.s.s saving, Mr. Sterling. This service has cheerfully been provided to you."

He laughed. "Free of charge?"

"No. I could use a cup of coffee."

"Coffee." He rubbed his jaw, and carefully put the sungla.s.ses back on. "I don't think I want to be out here without these," he admitted. "I like the lights too much. Come on." He took her hand again as the lightshow faded from the overhead projectors. "I could use a cup of coffee too."

There were shops wedged in between casino entrances, and plenty of carts and kiosks in the street hawking everything a tourist could want. It wasn't long before they found a vendor selling pastries and coffee, both hot and cold.

When they got in line, Char wasn't surprised that there was a vampire waiting in front of them. Within a few moments she became aware of another one behind them. How predictable, she thought. I bet most of this place's business is from us.

"I won't be surprised if the vendor is one of us," Geoff answered her thought.

"Me, either," said the vampire woman behind them.

While Char didn't mind that Geoff Sterling picked up her surface thoughts, Char turned around angrily to face the woman who'd rudely intruded.

"Hi, Val," Geoff greeted the woman before Char could say anything. "You didn't go to the party."

"I went," this Val person answered. She gave Geoff a vaguely annoyed look. "You didn't."

He made a dismissive gesture. "And we're both here now. Charlotte McCairn," he said. "Meet my business partner, Valentine."

Char was stunned, though she didn't know why. He hadn't said he worked with a companion or slaves. Why not go into business with another vampire? This also brought into doubt her a.s.sumption about his being a strig. "You two share a nest?"

Valentine regarded Char out of huge, dark eyes. There was humor in those eyes, and lots and lots of secrets. This vampire friend of Geoff's was very old, Char realized. Small, beautiful, and "Built like a brick s.h.i.thouse," Valentine supplied."I wasn't thinking that," Char answered quickly. It was hard not to notice Valentine's figure in the skimpy little black dress she was wearing.

"Jealous?" Geoff asked.

"Of what?" Char demanded. "I'm not so bad loo - "

"That wasn't what I meant." The way he looked her over was very disconcerting. So disconcerting that her claws and fangs started to come out.

"Not here, children." Valentine's hand landed on Char's shoulder, sending a comforting warmth like nothing she'd ever felt before through Char. "She's blushing, Geoffrey," Valentine said. "Don't tease. Go get us some coffee," she added. She pointed toward a row of benches in the center of the street. "We'll be waiting over there."

Char realized the three of them had moved out of the line when Geoff dutifully returned to waiting. And she dutifully accompanied Valentine through the tourist crowd to the benches. Valentine's attention was drawn to the crowd after they were seated. The mortals pa.s.sing by took no notice of them as they strolled and shopped, waiting for the light and music show overhead to begin again. The vampires intent on their own wait paid them even less attention.

"You're here looking for someone," Char concluded. "Not Geoff."

Valentine sighed. "So I am. Don't know why I'm bothering. You haven't seen Duke around, have you?"

"I don't know what he looks like."

Valentine gave her a sideways look. "You know a Nighthawk when you see one?"

Geoff joined them before Char could answer. He held a tall paper cup in each hand. Char was distracted by the fresh-brewed scent. He handed one of the cups to her.

"Keep it," Valentine said when Geoff turned to her. "Have a seat." She took a cell phone out of her purse as Geoff sat down. She punched numbers, waited, then said, "It's me. What do you mean how'd I get your number? Thought you'd like to know that there may be a situation, and the local boy doesn't seem to be around. You know the new hotel in town? Think there might be some trouble because of it. I'll call you back."

Char strained to hear the voice on the other side of the conversation, but could not make anything out before Valentine turned off the phone and put it away. Valentine glanced at Char and Geoff. "She wants me to call her on a landline."

"Who?" they both asked.

All of Char's psychic warning bells were going off. "What's going on? Who are you?"

Valentine seemed to have forgotten them for the moment. She looked at the pa.s.sing people with wide, frightened eyes. Char could feel the woman's fear of the crowd like a weight on her own chest.

"I don't want to be here," Valentine said. "Too much. Too open."

"Stop it, Val." Geoff spoke loudly and harshly. "Keep it together. If you're involved in something, you can't make excuses."

Valentine took a few deep breaths, then turned a glare on Geoff. "I hate you."

He smiled. "Good. What's up?"

Char recognized Valentine's problem, and was not sure she approved of Sterling's lack of sympathy for his partner's fear of crowds. But from his own gesture of making himself stare into the most intent lights he could find, she supposed his approach to therapy was a brutally direct one.

Valentine drained Geoff's cup of scalding coffee before she answered. "I'm looking for Eddie," she said, and got to her feet. "He'll know what's up."

Geoff got up, and Char stood as well. She was totally confused, but felt she needed to do something, something official and Enforcer-like. But what the h.e.l.l was the crisis?

"What do you want with Eddie?" Geoff asked.

"How can we help?" Char asked Valentine.

"We?"

"You two can look for the Scrolls of Silk," Valentine answered. She turned away, then paused and looked over her shoulder. "But don't read them," she ordered. "They'll make you go blind."

Then she disappeared. Not only did Valentine wrap the few shadows that existed in the brightly lit area around her, she vanished so quickly and completely that Char couldn't feel even the residue of Valentine's pa.s.sing.

She gaped at Geoff. "Who is she?"

"You don't want to know," he answered.

"What are the Scrolls of Silk?"

He held his hand out to her again. "Let's go find out, shall we?"

Chapter 10.