Justin Gustainis - Those Who Fight Monsters Tales of Occult Detectives

“Are you here to kill me?”

Still dizzy — there was a pounding bump on her head from her fall — Dawn tried to answer, but the stench in the room made her gag instead.

Naomi’s voice was muffled behind her mask. “We know who you are now. She just told us.”

She. Gigi.

Roberto added, “You’re one of the hunters who took it all away from her.”

He backed away from Dawn, revealing the movie star right behind him: the vision in the red dress, red gloves, red hair. She was dressed like a younger version of herself, but Dawn could see how her skin was withered, her one visible eye droopy. An appalling mockery of the young movie star.

But she looked human enough…

Lipstick blurred Gigi’s mouth, one side of it limp, like she’d suffered a stroke.

“I saw you Underground,” she slurred. “Eva’s daughter. You killed my master.”

No sense in denying that. “Me and my friend are here to help, Gigi. That’s all.” Dawn’s words … they were just as slurred as the star’s. “All the rest of the vampire Elites in the Underground … we weren’t sure what happened to some of you after you turned human and ran away.”

“The others killed themselves, right in front of me.” Gigi’s voice was ragged. “They couldn’t live after you made us ugly. Mortal .”

The soul stain — it’d made the Elites’ loss of youth worse, hadn’t it?

“You’re the only one left?” Dawn asked.

Gigi’s sideways mouth dipped as she whispered, “I think so.”

Collateral damage, Dawn thought, as there was with all wars.

Bile inched up her throat. All of them were just the smoking aftermath of a war.

“The weight,” Dawn finally said. It was hard to talk because of the smell. “How did you survive the weight in your soul when others didn’t?”

Gigi started, then rested her gloved hand over her chest. It only confirmed to Dawn that the soul stain really was there.

“It stays with an ex-vamp,” Dawn added, “as if you never deserved to be human again anyway. It destroys.”

Her voice choked off, and it wasn’t just because of the charnel house odor.

Roberto adjusted his slipping mask as he walked closer to Gigi. “You can tell her, darling. Tell her what kept you going after you turned human again.”

Dawn had already assumed that the masked people around her were servants. The star was still the queen who held court, just like in the Underground. But with the way the old, grotesque woman glanced at Roberto, Dawn could see that there was an imbalance of power here.

Things weren’t the same as they’d been in Hollywood…

At Gigi’s hesitation, Roberto sighed, as if resigning himself to speak for her. “Naomi and I were so happy to get jobs at the Bahia, because Gigi used to work here. We collected old dresses of hers, even put up a web site…”

The numero uno fans exchanged fond glances.

“And, what do you know,” Roberto went on. “While Gigi was Underground, waiting until she could resurface, she’d kept tabs on all her press — which she still got, even if she’d been dead for a few decades. Servants would print out reports for her and bring them below ground, where she’d read about the continuing devotion of her fans. She was so close to her release date. Did you know that? She’d waited such a long time…” He swallowed. “It’s only natural, when she turned back human, that she tracked us down, using our site information. She knew we would still love her, no matter what misfortunes she’d endured.”

So the undying devotion of fans had kept Gigi alive this long. Maybe the other stars hadn’t connected to that — remembered that in their urgent anguish — as this star had.

Dawn focused on the third man, still silent under his mask. Still wary, as if he expected her to attack him. She didn’t feel her revolver on her, and she was sure they’d taken the other weapons she’d strapped on, too. The knife. The throwing blades she hadn’t used in such a long time.

Roberto turned toward Gigi, who’d lowered her head, as if in shame.

“When she came to us,” he said, “she was a gray, shriveled thing, wearing a ripped evening gown. I found her backstage one day, watching us. At first, we thought she was a street person who’d wandered in, but…”

“But,” Naomi finally said, “Roberto recognized her. And after she told us what she’d been through, it just broke our hearts. She never said it outright, but we knew she’d want us to look at her as if she was just as beautiful as she’d always been. So we took care of her, dressed her in her favorite outfits, fed her, adored her.”

Like their own Gigi doll, Dawn thought. A fan collectible.

“She never wanted to come home with us, though,” Naomi continued. “She likes it at the Bahia, so we made a home in this old storage room. Steve—” she nodded at the third man— “ is another fan who helped with the web site. He’s her guardian now. I’m afraid he overreacted when he found you chasing Gigi.”

Steve didn’t give any sign that he’d heard or was even a part of the conversation. He just kept staring with those dark eyes at Dawn.

“We didn’t intend to make her a legend again,” Roberto said. “Not this way — with her as a ‘ghost.’ But then we realized that this is what Gigi needs — a legend that keeps growing. So we make up stories about seeing her. But sometimes…”

“Sometimes,” Naomi added, “Gigi gets out on her own.”

The old woman kept peering at the ground.

“Just like another Underground,” Dawn said, her voice a rattle. They were keeping Gigi alive because that’s what fans needed. Fans who could never let go.

Across the room, Gigi finally raised her face, meeting Dawn’s gaze. Darkness filled her eyes, and Dawn saw the mortification of a captive.

Are you here to kill me?

The woman’s question took on a whole new meaning, and deep within Dawn, she felt the burden — the sorrow and confusion after everything Gigi loved had been taken away and gnarled into an existence she’d never expected.

Her admirers loved her, and it had kept her going, all right. But these fans loved her too much.

Naomi abandoned the circle to stand next to Gigi, leaving a bigger hole that revealed the source of the room’s stench.

A half-gnawed corpse hanging from a series of pegs driven into the wall, its face chewed, its stringy hair matted with gore, its entrails squiggling out of its bared stomach.

Dawn gagged again. Then the dragon’s blood jerked on her skin, under it, as if it was yelling that she didn’t need anyone to rescue her from this. She didn’t need anything but what she had inside of herself — the power and anger she’d quieted within herself in an effort to keep the blood away from her soul stain. She couldn’t allow the dragon to join with the darkness to resurrect itself within her.

She sucked in breaths, thought of ocean waves. Thought of Costin, who’d always kept her in control.

Breathing.

Breathing.

“One thing we know for sure,” Naomi said, “is that Gigi’s going to stay happy. And we’ll do anything — anything — to make sure she’s always that way.”

The gutted body next to Naomi told Dawn the rest. Gigi, the ex-vampire, still liked her blood, and Dawn might just be her next meal if the fans could find a way to cover up their own hunting. And her fans would always indulge her, just as long as she kept touching them with her stardust.

While Naomi kept petting Gigi, the star watched Dawn, as if she was pleading with her.

Then Gigi spoke. “The only time I’m not watched is when I can escape to the theater, but they always catch me…”