Free Night’s Edge by Barbara Hambly Page B

didn’t make any big deal out of it, no one else would either, so she didn’t say a word or betray the surprise she felt. But she relaxed against Sean, knowing he would interpret that signal correctly as a thank-you.
    Sylvia hung up at last. A black-haired female vampire with beautiful clear skin and dead eyes said, “Sylvia, we all know you’re top dog. Put out the damn cigarette.” The vampire waved her elegant hand at Sylvia imperiously.
    “Abilene, tell me how you and Mustafa are doing,” Sylvia said, blowing out smoke, but then she stubbed out the cigarette.
    A tall human with a full mustache, Mustafa had more muscles than any man needed, in Rue’s opinion. He was very dark complexioned, and a slow thinker. Rue wondered about the dynamics of this team, since the vampire half was a woman. How did that work? Did she do the lifts? Belatedly, Rue realized that in Black Moon’s form of entertainment, lifting was probably irrelevant.
    “We’re doing fine,” Abilene said. “You got any comments, Moose?” That was her pet name for her giant partner, but no one else dared use it.
    “The pale woman,” he said, his voice heavily accented and deep as a foghorn. Moose seemed to be a man of few words.
    “Oh, yeah, the last gig we did, the party for the senator,” Abilene said. “The wife of one of the, ah, legislators…I don’t know how she got there, why her husband brought her, but she turned out to be Fellowship.”
    “Were you hurt?” Sylvia asked.
    “She had a knife,” Abilene said. “Moose was on top of me, so it was an awkward moment. You sure I can’t kill the customers?” Abilene smiled, and it wasn’t a nice smile.
    “No, indeed,” Sylvia said briskly. “Haskell take care of it?”
    For the first time, Rue noticed the sleek man leaning against the wall by the door. She seldom had dealings with Haskell, since the Black Moon people needed more protection than the Blue Moon dancers. Haskell was a vampire, with smooth, short blond hair and glacier-blue eyes. He had the musculature of a gymnast, and the wary, alert attitude of a bodyguard.
    “I held her until her husband and his flunky could get her out of there,” Haskell said quietly.
    “Her name?”
    “Iris Lowry.”
    Sylvia made a note of the name. “Okay, we’ll watch for her. I may have my lawyer write Senator Lowry a letter. Hallie? David?”
    “We’re fine,” David said briskly. Rue looked down at her hands. No reason to relate the incident, even though it had ended with a death…a death that hadn’t even made the papers.
    “Rick? Phil?” The two men glanced at each other before answering.
    “The last group we entertained, at the Happy Horseman—it was an S&M group, and we gave them a good show.”
    They weren’t talking about juggling. Rue tried to keep her face blank. She didn’t want her distaste to show. These people had shown her nothing but courtesy and comradeship.
    “They wanted me to leave Phil there when our time was up,” Rick said. “It was touch-and-go for a few minutes.” The two vampires were always together, but they were very different. Rick was tall and handsome in a bland, brown-on-brown kind of way. Phil was small and slim, delicate. In fact, Rue decided, she might have mistaken him for a fourteen-year-old. Maybe when he died he was that young, she thought, and felt a pang of pity. Then Phil happened to look at Rue, and after meeting his pale, bottomless eyes, she shivered.
    “Oh, no,” said Sylvia, and Phil turned to his employer. “Phil?” Her voice became gentle. “You know we’re not going to let anyone else touch you, unless you want that to happen. But remember, you can’t attacksomeone just because they want you. You’re so gorgeous, people are always going to want you.”
    Sylvia braced herself in the face of that continued, terrifying gaze. “You know the deal, Phil,” Sylvia said more firmly. “You have to leave the customers alone.” After a long, tense pause, Phil nodded,