Uprising

Chapter Thirty-Two

The Last Bite Bar and Grill

1.41 a.m.

The party was in full swing, music thumping loudly as Alex walked up to the bar.

‘Is Rudi about?’ she shouted over the noise to one of the barmen.

‘Rudi’s got company right now.’ The barman raised his eyebrows suggestively.

‘They’re upstairs.’ He jerked his thumb at the ceiling. Rudi’s private suite of luxurious rooms occupied the top floor of the building.

‘A woman?’

The barman nodded with a sly chuckle. ‘We get some hot stuff in here, but this one…hoo hoo. And if I know Rudi, there’s a red leather jumpsuit lying on the floor up there as we speak. So I’d leave it a while before disturbing them.’

‘How long ago?’

‘Bout an hour. Hey. I said—’

Alex was through the STAFF ONLY door before the barman could stop her and running up the backstairs. A spiral staircase wound up from the second floor to the opulence of Rudi’s private domain.

Alex emerged onto a landing that was on the gaudy end of opulent — white satin on the walls and an oversized sparkling chandelier. A gilt-framed oil hung near the double doors of the apartment, depicting Rudi dressed as Napoleon Bonaparte; his chin was raised proudly and his hand was slipped inside his jacket as an epic battle raged in the background, complete with cavalry charges and artillery. But Alex wasn’t here to appreciate Rudi’s taste in art. She kicked in the door and stormed inside the huge marble-floored entrance hall. A Tom Jones CD was playing from hidden speakers.

She would never have taken Rudi for a traitor. That made her as furious with herself as she was with him. She drew the Desert Eagle.

Apart from the empty Krug bottle and the two crystal glasses, one with a smear of red lipstick, there was no sign of Rudi and his female companion in the mock Louis XV salon. She booted open one of the doors that radiated off the room, and found herself in a gigantic mirrored bathroom with steps leading down to a sunken Jacuzzi.

She slammed the door shut, tried another and stepped into Rudi’s bedroom.

Rudi was alone on the super-kingsize leopardskin four-poster, dwarfed by the bed’s size. He lay propped up against satin pillows wearing a black bathrobe that had

‘R.B.’ in large gold letters over his heart. He gazed idly at Alex as she strode up to the foot of the bed and pointed the gun at him.

She was almost speechless with hurt. ‘Why?’ she asked simply.

Rudi said nothing.

She clicked off the Desert Eagle’s safety. ‘Answers. Now. I want to know why you betrayed me and who put you up to it.’

Still no reply. No movement.

Alex lowered the gun. ‘Rudi?’

He was staring past her, towards the door, as if in some kind of trance. She walked round the side of the bed. Not a flicker of reaction. Reaching a hand out to him, she shook his shoulder.

‘Rudi?’ she said again.

Only then did she spot the thin red line that ran across his throat and around his neck, oozing a tiny trickle of dark vampire blood.

She nudged him. Rudi’s head toppled slowly off his shoulders, bounced off the satin pillow and landed on the bedside rug with a hollow clunk, like a coconut. It rolled over the rug and came to a halt face-up, his sightless eyes staring up at her.

The decapitation had been executed with a razor-sharp blade, leaving his neck stump as smooth as a mirror. Barely any blood. One clean swing, administered by someone very strong and very expert.

Lillith.

It must have happened just minutes ago. Soon, Rudi’s body would start to decompose at a vastly accelerated rate as death, cheated first time round, finally caught up with him.

The other side of the large bedroom, a cool breeze fluttered the curtains. Alex ran over to the open window and peered out over the ledge at the backstreet below. A long way down, but no problem for a vampire.

The slayer was already far away.