Angel of Vengeance Read Online Free Page A

get together for drinks to discuss a picture I wrote. I tell her that I’m at the restaurant, that I don’t like being stood up, and that if this is how Prince deals with writers I’ll just take my script to the next production house down the block because the goddamn town’s full of them. Babs gets all flustered-like and explains that Mr. Prince probably just forgot because of some big shindig he’s throwing up at his house in the Hills tonight. I ask the address and she tells me before she can think the better of it. Then she asks my name again and I hang up because I can’t remember what I told her. Doesn’t matter. I found out what I wanted to know. These days this sort of thing is called social engineering. In my day we just called it bullshitting.
    I scratch the address down in my pad, cradle the phone, and exit Canter’s, leaving the smell of greasy food and my queasiness behind.
    Fancy-schmancy is right. Prince’s house is a sight to behold. From a parking spot thirty yards up the winding street at the top of Beachwood Canyon I smoke and take in the splendor of the vintage 1920s home. Nestled in under an oak tree canopy, the expansive Spanish tile roof rests on the tired shoulders of two-story bone-white stucco walls. I can tell at first glance it’s too good for a Hollywood asshole like Prince. How do I know he’s an asshole? Simple. He works in Hollywood.
    From my vantage point I watch as a stream of waxed and gleaming Lexus, Limos, Benz, and Beamers pull up to the wrought-iron gate that surrounds the compound. Leaning out of their windows, evening-attired guests flash gilded invites at the guard who in turn presses a button, causing the automatic gate to Frankenstein-lurch open. Once in, the guests pull around the circular flagstone drive, which has been movie-lit to show their luxury automobiles off to best advantage. There, red-vested valets open their doors, and the guests spill out, moving like royalty along the ridiculous red carpet that runs like a tongue from the mouth of the house. Looks like I won’t be getting in that-a-way. Sure, I could drive up and parlor trick my way in, but I can’t stand the idea of letting those valets put their grubby paws on my gal. She deserves better. I’ll have to look for a back entrance.
    I make a firefly of my cigarette butt, exit the Roadster, and start along the twist of road back toward the house. When I reach the property, I duck into the California scrub along its perimeter. Set into the side of a steep Hollywood hill, the long rocky slope is slick as ball bearings on black ice beneath my patent leather shoe soles. I have to use the rough metal rungs of the ten-foot high fence just to keep from bobsledding down on my ass.
    A deeper fog sleeps curled in the ravine at the base of the property. Through spaced wrought-iron bars and carefully landscaped foliage, I look back up graded hills to see partygoers mingling atop two large redwood decks that hang off the back of the house and around the illuminated pool and spa below. Jazz music dances in the waterlogged night air. It comes from the gazebo set to one side of the pool. Maybe I have misjudged the host. No one who appreciates jazz enough to hire a band can be all bad. I decide to go in and find out firsthand.
    Times like this it would be nice if the stories about vampires being able to turn themselves into bats or mist were true. It would certainly make getting in and out of places a whole lot easier. It’s all crap though. At least so far as I know. No one gives you an instruction manual when you get turned. But if that sort of thing is possible, I sure as hell don’t know how to go about it.
    On the other hand, it is true that vampires are exceedingly strong, a fact I think is only partially due to enhanced supernatural strength. From my experience, all of a vampire’s senses are greatly heightened, except for one—touch. Dead, bloodless limbs simply cannot experience the same sensitivity to