Works in Progress
Blood Vice... um... II?
OK, so I don't have a title yet.
Here's a quick excerpt... unedited, uncensored, in all its rough-draft glory...
Excerpt - Chapter One: Loose Ends
Waiting to kill a man was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
Killing someone wasn’t the problem. It was waiting to kill someone that really dragged down the soul. Not that Maria Ricardi had much of a soul anymore, since becoming a vampire had pretty much gotten her kicked off the St. Anthony’s Festival committee for good.
A wide-faced clock hung on the wall and filled the office with solemn clicks as each second passed, counting down the last moments of a man’s life.
Maria shifted her weight in Frank Cavallo’s oversized executive chair. What the hell was it with men and their dominant office furniture? One would think good ol' Frank would see the inflated machismo irony in his leather throne. Maybe she’d even ask him about it before she killed him. He was the last capo openly vying with her for control of Boston’s criminal underworld. Every other would-be boss was either dead, in jail, or had sworn Maria their allegiance. No small feat, that. The men of Cosa Nostra weren't big on following women, unless it was to look at their asses.
She leaned back and crossed her new Giuseppe Zanotti crystal-heel motorcycle boots on his desk. $1850 at Neiman's, after sales tax. The double-barreled shotgun lay on the cheap particleboard desktop near her, and she could smell the gun oil, the metal, and the plastic shell casings. Outside the office window she could see the night-shrouded buildings. A plane flew up into the Boston sky, its blinking lights rising in a skyward cruise. Her gaze followed it against the dark clouds. For a moment she wanted nothing more to be on that plane, headed… hell, headed anywhere but here. On second thought, she didn’t want to head just anywhere. She wanted to go to Karl Vance, wherever he was. Eastern Europe somewhere.
The nights were so goddamn long without him.
Never mind that. She was here in Frank Cavallo’s crappy little office with its cheap wood paneling and overcompensating chair and she would end this damn war tonight.
Sadly enough for Frank, he’d failed to realize Maria was going to take her father’s place at the head of the Ricardi crime family. And even though she was a vampire, she wasn’t going to let a little thing like being undead ruin her life, or get in the way of what she’d always wanted.
She swiveled from side to side. The chair skreeked. Piece of shit. Cheap leather, too. The wall clock ticked on and on, marking time. Earlier, she’d watched as Xiesha cut down the barrels on the Remington SPR to the forend of the stock and patiently filed off the burrs. As Xiesha had worked, she’d muttered about screwing up the choke and pattern-spread on the side-by-side. None of that made any difference to Maria. It would be close range, anyway. She’d loaded both barrels with double ought buckshot, and the shotgun appeared short and mean in the darkness. The dual triggers, slightly offset, reminded her of her own wolf-like canines.
She ran her tongue over her fangs, almost eagerly, and then frowned. Delgado would’ve approved. The memory of her former vampire Master hammered a cold spike of dread into the center of her chest. Maybe she shouldn’t be so goddamn cavalier about this after all.
Voices. They echoed slightly in the outer office, which was far too large for the few pieces of junk furniture carelessly arranged inside. The voices came from the far end of the building. Steps, unhurried steps. Three men. One set of steps thudded on the linoleum like a fat kid imitating a dinosaur.
“You fucking get a line on her,” Frank Cavallo said. His voice crackled with anger like a downed power line spitting sparks. “Don’t worry about that, I’ve got shooters coming out my ass. Everybody’s a goddamn shooter here. I just need a motherfucking line on her and then all my goddamn shooters can shoot something.”
There was silence for a moment, save for the footfalls. Maria mentally tracked their position as they moved through the outer office. She could picture the dimly lit room with its stained Formica swing-top counters and the brown carpet ripe with the lingering scent of mold. Very faintly she could hear another voice, too distant to make out the words through the wall. Frank was on his cell phone. Who are you calling Frank? Who else wants me dead?
Frank grunted, the sound of a pissed off bull. “Nothing fancy. I want her floating tits up in the harbor.” The three sets of footsteps were very close now. Right outside the door. She waited, still facing away from the door, looking out the third story window at the city lights. Her heart lay silent in her chest.
“She’s cutting us to fucking pieces,” Frank continued. “How hard can it be to get a line on her? She’s not fucking Elvis. Find her.”
The doorknob rattled. The door swung open. On came the light, flooding the small room with harsh fluorescent illumination. The tubes overhead buzzed like flies on a corpse.
Frank didn’t notice her immediately. Maria watched him in the reflection of the window glass. She could smell him, smell the blood in his veins, smell the rank sweat beneath his armpits, smell the salami fumes that wafted out of his mouth with every breath. She could smell his bodyguards too. A drug-store aftershave she’d never liked. More gun oil.
She smiled. Guns she liked.
She planted a boot on the edge of the desk and swung the chair slowly around. It skreeked again but she hardly cared. The look on Frank Cavallo’s face as he spun to face her was beautiful.
“Hiya, Frank.” She smiled without joy or humor, keeping the fangs hidden. For now. “Speak of the devil, huh?”
And AFTER Blood Vice II...? Here's a hint...
They shamble, they stumble, they moan... kinda like shoppers outside Walmart at 4:00 a.m. on Black Friday...