Insatiable

“You’re not going to believe this place,” he was telling a friend on the other end of the

phone. “One of the women onstage smokes! Not with her mouth, either, with her—”

“Son,” Lucien said to him.

“Dude.” The boy turned to him. “I’m not your son. And I don’t know where the

bathroom is….” His voice trailed off as he looked into Lucien’s eyes. He swallowed. “I’m

sorry,” he said. “Can I help you, sir?”

“Yes,” Lucien said, holding out his hand. “Give me your car keys.”

The boy, who couldn’t have been more than nineteen—he’d obviously used a fake ID to

enter the club—reached a trembling hand into his coat pocket and withdrew a set of car keys.

He placed them in Lucien’s outstretched palm.

Lucien placed the keys in his coat pocket.

“Take a cab home,” he said to the boy, patting him on the shoulder. “I think you’ve had a

few too many drinks to drive home safely.”

“But…” The boy looked after him as Lucien moved away, toward the deep-red velvet

curtains that closed off the box seats from the standing area on the second-floor mezzanine

overlooking the stage. “I came in from Long Island City.”

“Take the train,” Lucien said with a wink. “You’ll thank me one day.”

He found Dimitri in a dark private box with six or seven business-suited corporate types,

all lounging on couches and sumptuously decorative pillows around a drink-laden table. There

were no women to be seen. They, Lucien knew, would be appearing on the stage below, in

various states of undress, doing things with miscellaneous props that would have surprised

even his father, who was raised by fifteenth-century Turks.

“Lucien!” Dimitri cried upon spying him. “What a surprise! Gentlemen, meet my

brother, Lucien. Lucien, these are some friends of mine from TransCarta.”

Lucien flicked a glance downward at the men beneath him, all of whom were middleaged, running ever-so-slightly to fat due to sitting too long in front of a computer all day, and

all of whom were going to die…

…within the week.

Wait. All of them?

How?

And why? Some kind of corporate plane crash?

But all Lucien could see in the fuzzy snapshot of his mind’s eye was a room…a very

dark room. A basement, maybe.

And blood. Quite a lot of blood.

A car crash in an underground parking garage?

That was the only thing that made sense.

Poor bastards.

What was happening to him? How did he know how all these people were going to die?

And why did he know it?

“How do you do?” Lucien said politely to the soon-to-be-dead men. There was no use

warning them, of course. What was there to warn them of? “I’m sorry to disturb

your…evening out. But I was wondering if I might have a word with my brother alone.”

A look of annoyance passed over Dimitri’s face. Lucien saw it. He was certain he saw it.

But it was gone almost as soon as it appeared.

“Of course,” Dimitri said. “I’ll just be a moment, gentlemen.”

“Take your time,” one of the soon-to-be-dead men said jovially. “Next act’s not for ten

more minutes. You should join us, Lucien. Girl apparently smokes out of her—”

“I’ve seen it,” Lucien said quickly. “In Turkey once. But thank you for the invitation.”

Dimitri rose and ducked through the curtain Lucien was holding open for him. “What is

this?” he asked grouchily, following Lucien down the side of the balcony, toward a sign

marked Exit. “I’m actually here on business, you know. I don’t have time to keep having these

not-so-brotherly reunions of yours.”

A bald man with huge biceps, dressed in a black T-shirt and pants, who’d planted

himself in front of the door marked Exit said, “Emergency exit only. Take the stairs.”

“That won’t be necessary, Marvin,” Lucien said gently.

“No,” Marvin said, looking confused. Then he stepped aside and pushed the door open

for them. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know what I was saying. Have a nice evening.”

“We will,” Lucien said.

They stepped out onto a fire escape over a back alley. The evening air was cool. It was

much quieter outside than it had been inside the club, where pounding rock music had played.

Though Lucien could hear the sound of distant thunder as a storm was brewing over New

Jersey.

The bouncer closed the exit door behind them.

“Well?” Dimitri asked irritably, taking out a cigar and lighting it. “What is it? I thought

we’d pretty much said all we had to say the last time we met.”

“No,” Lucien said. “Not everything. I’ve been thinking about you.”

“Have you?” Dimitri looked suspicious. “What about me?”

“I was wondering what that little”—Lucien made a twirling motion in the air with his

index finger—“was about before, actually.”

Dimitri looked skyward. “I should have known. You think too much, you know. You

always did. With you, it was always about books. And the past. Never the future.”

“Have you ever considered that it’s only by studying the mistakes of the past,” Lucien

said mildly, “that we can even have a future?”

Dimitri rolled his eyes. “Right. What you’re doing now is so noble, molding little human

minds. It’s probably never occurred to you, has it, that our kind is beginning to say you’ve

gotten soft….”

Lucien raised an eyebrow. “Really. Do you think I’ve gotten soft, Dimitri?”

“I didn’t say me, ” he said. “But I was giving you an opportunity to show them how

wrong they are.” He rubbed the back of his neck, as if remembering his hard landing at

Lucien’s hands. “You should be thanking me, actually. I think I did an exemplary job of

illustrating that you’re still at the top of your game.”

“Interesting,” Lucien said. “Since I was attacked earlier this week as well.”

Dimitri looked up, surprised. Lucien couldn’t tell if his surprise was genuine. Dimitri

had always had a flair for the dramatic.

“Here?” he asked. “In the city?”

“Yes,” Lucien said. “And in front of a human.” He wasn’t going to say a word about

Meena. Nothing more than what he’d just said. He knew better than to let on that he had a

special interest in a woman—particularly a human woman—in front of his half brother. “You

wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“For God’s sake, Lucien,” Dimitri said. He flicked some ash off the side of the fire

escape railing. “Of course not. What do you take me for?”

Lucien reached for the dragon symbol that hung around his half brother’s neck.

“Someone who’s tried to kill me in the past so that he could take over the throne himself. I see

you’re still wearing this,” he said, letting the iron image dangle between his fingers, the very

closeness of his hand to Dimitri’s throat an unspoken threat. “So was your son, and that other

boy you were sitting with in your club. Are you telling me that doesn’t mean anything?”

“Of course it means something.” Dimitri spat over the side of the fire escape, into the

alleyway fifty feet below. “We’re related to Dracula, for the love of God! Why wouldn’t I use

that, and the family coat of arms, to promote my image as a businessman? You know I’ve

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