Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [146]
“The dancers have fan clubs?”
“The headliners do.”
“Nathaniel has a fan club?” I made it a question, because it seemed like it should be.
“Brandon has a fan club, yeah.” He looked at me and laughed. “You didn’t know.”
“I don’t really pay attention to the day-to-day business here.”
He nodded. He was back to looking worried.
I’d never liked Buzz. I didn’t exactly dislike him, but he wasn’t my friend. But, if his version of what was going on with Primo was accurate he was in a bad spot. A spot that I didn’t understand. Jean-Claude was a good business vampire, and this didn’t sound like good business.
“I’ll talk to Jean-Claude, Buzz. I’ll find out what his thinking is about Primo.”
Buzz sighed. “Well, I can’t ask for more.” He grinned, suddenly flashing those fangs again. “In fact, until now I thought you didn’t like me.”
It made me smile. “If you thought I didn’t like you, then why pour your problems in my ear?”
“Who else do I have to go to?”
“Asher is Jean-Claude’s second in command.”
He shook his head. “I work here, problems stay here, all the businesses are run that way.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. It was probably a holdover from the days when each business was run by a different vamp. “So, because I visit all the businesses, I’m what, an ambassador?”
He gave that fang-flashing grin again. “Kind of.”
“I’ll try to find out what’s going on, that’s the best I can do. If Jean-Claude is really setting you up for a power struggle with Primo, I’ll tell you.”
He looked relieved. “I just need to know where I stand, ya know.”
I nodded. “I know.”
A black-shirted man came running through the door at the end of the hallway, accompanied by a sudden blast of music and noise. He was blond and looked like a college student, but he ran down the hallway like he was on springs. Lycanthrope of some kind.
He was talking before he got to us. “We got a problem out there. Primo let a bunch of guys in, they started heckling Byron. You said come get you the next time it got ugly. It’s ugly.”
Buzz was already moving down the hall, not exactly running. I hesitated for a second, then started trotting with them.
Buzz glanced at me. “You coming along?”
I sort of shrugged. “I’d feel funny just walking away.”
“Our job is to tone things down a notch,” he said. “Not make it worse.”
“Are you saying you don’t want me?”
“Hell no,” the blond said. “The Executioner on our side. I’ll take that.”
“Who are you?” I asked, running to keep up with their fast walk.
“Clay,” he said, offering his hand over the front of Buzz’s body.
“Be sociable later,” Buzz said. He hesitated at the door, as if he were gathering himself. There was suddenly a faint hum of energy coming off of Buzz. I’d never felt anything from him before. His gray eyes glowed—if gray could glow. “I am so tired of this shit,” he said, and opened the door.
34
THE MUSIC WAS still playing, a pulsing beat, but the man on stage wasn’t dancing, because he wasn’t the show anymore. The show was a small ocean of college students surrounding a man that towered above them. He was like a pale tower caught in the middle of their jeans and letter jackets. The tallest of them only came to his shoulder, but there were a lot of them, and almost all of them were wearing a jacket that indicated they did some kind of sport. Some of them looked almost as muscle-bound as the club security. Primo had picked a good bunch if he wanted to start trouble, and he so wanted to start trouble.
The other black-shirted security guards didn’t seem to know what to do. Their divided loyalties showed in the fact that they hadn’t waded in to help Primo. They were on the fringe of the gang of college guys, keeping them contained as best they could, but they weren’t pulling them off the big vampire. If I hadn’t known anything about Primo and what had gone on before, I’d have learned something just by watching the other men refuse to help him.
It wasn’t Primo’s size that was the