Reach Out For The Sunrise Ch. 08

A buzzer interrupted them and Xavier was grateful for the break, although not quite as grateful when he saw who it was that had joined them. Palo looked far too chipper for this early in the morning, his broad white smile gleamed in his tanned face.

"Caro mio! How are you this morning?" Palo asked, smiling at Xavier.

"Alright." Xavier answered shortly. It wasn't that he didn't like Palo, he just wasn't a morning person and dealing with bright and chipper first thing always made him irritable. That he called him caro kind of bothered him too. He knew it just meant something like honey or dear, but he was used to it being Aldo's pet name for him. Hearing it from someone else bugged him. He knew that was ridiculous, but he couldn't help it.

Palo was completely unmoved by Xavier's apparent surly attitude. "Good! Marco has you working hard already, eh?"

"I guess." Xav said, wondering what Palo was doing here anyway.

"Palo's going to play assistant today." Marco said, as if reading Xavier's mind.

Xavier wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to that, and no comment seemed required from him anyway. He could have pointed out that Marco hadn't needed an 'assistant' yesterday, but what did he care?

The addition of Palo changed the atmosphere though. Up until then the shoot seemed to be more or less casual. Now both of them turned fussy, queening, playing with back drops and various props. At one point the two of them had a heated exchange in Italian, most of which went over Xavier's head but he knew it was something about Palo's 'helpful suggestions'.

Palo didn't know why Marco didn't have someone here for styling. Why didn't he want something done with Xav's hair? Why didn't he at least have some oil on his skin? Marco growled back that this was his shoot and he wanted minimal styling. Palo argued that Marco trying to get artsy was going to ruin Xavier's chances of getting hired by anyone else.

The argument grew so heated Xavier wondered why Marco didn't just throw Palo out. They carried on for a bit longer and then abruptly went downstairs. Xavier followed tentatively. They were at the computer and after a few minutes the argument started again.

"Ok yes, they are very beautiful," Palo said. "But you reckon the magazine will think so? I figure you're thinking with your cock. How many of these will you put in your show?"

That set Marco off on another tangent but eventually the two men settled down and apparently Palo must have made an impression because the next thing Xavier knew Palo was asking him to go get his hair wet while he dug out a blow dryer.

Marco stormed around impatiently.

"Fine, fine! Don't put any makeup on him though. He doesn't need it!" he hissed at Palo. "And if you cut one curl off his head I'll kill you, do you hear me?"

Xavier ignored Marco and looked dubiously at Palo. "Just give me the blow dryer, I can do it."

He took it from Palo and closed the bathroom door on him. He could hear the two of them variously talking or arguing even over the noise of the blow dryer while he tamed his curls and worked some styling wax into his hair until he had a more edgy style. He did know what he was doing at least.

When he came back out Palo looked delighted and even Marco looked happily surprised. His expression soon faltered though. "I don't know... he looks too young now."

"That's the point!" Palo insisted.

"Ok, look. If you guys are going to start bitching again I'm just gonna take off for a while," Xavier said, exasperated.

Marco mulled that over for a second and with a sigh waved toward the stairs. Once they were back in the studio Palo took out a small bottle of oil that smelled like coconut.

"Only a little of that!" Marco warned. "I don't want him looking like some greased up beach bunny. He don't got the build for it anyway."

Xavier shot him a narrow glare and Marco actually looked apologetic. "You're beautiful, caro mio, but you're no muscle stud."

Now Xavier shrugged; couldn't argue with the truth, he supposed. He let Palo rub a bit of oil over his biceps and the tops of his thighs, only a little bit rubbed down the centre of his chest. Palo stepped back and Xavier had to admit that he knew what he was doing. He used the same kind of techniques onstage. At a bit of glisten or glitter to certain areas and the light picked up on it, added more definition.

Marco started taking pictures again and the day wore on with far more 'wardrobe changes', back drops and props than they had used the day before. Marco was not only a workaholic but a perfectionist. Xavier could only imagine how many rolls he would have gone through had he been using actual film.

As the day swung around toward late afternoon with just a couple of breaks, during which Marco didn't want him to 'eat too much', Xavier's mood was plunging toward fuck it levels. He wanted to be done already. How many goddamn pictures did the man need?

"Alright," Marco said at last. He was looking at Xavier, slouched on a ladder back chair and looking bored. "That's enough for today."

"Thank god!" Xavier muttered under his breath.

Palo laughed. "Not as easy as you thought, huh? More than just stand around an' look pretty, no?"

Xavier gave him a frosty look.

Palo ignored it and asked Xavier out to dinner. Since Xav already knew what slim pickings there were in Marco's refrigerator he agreed. He was fuckin' starving.

PARIS - MIKKAL:

They had spent much of the afternoon roaming from club to bar, zigzagging back and forth across the central zone of Paris since their visit to Bar Gonk. A sleepy looking bartender there had confirmed that someone fitting Rayne's description was briefly at the premises that previous night but had sung one number only then left, alone. After checking out the nearest neighbouring clubs without success, he put Trent in a taxi to the studio and he and Dominic split up thinking to cover more ground that way.

He was now in a specialist fetish club name-checked by several people they had interviewed throughout the day. Now a young woman behind the surgically pristine reception desk took Mikkal Saarinen through to a room that looked more like an office than one of the antechambers of a renowned BDSM playground. It was decorated in a minimalist style with low, broad seated loungers in a deep, wine-red leather that was soft as skin to the touch. There was a cream-coloured, hand-woven rug on the stripped beechwood floor and unframed abstract canvases in reds and blacks hung on two of the cream-painted walls. Concealed lighting in the ceiling gave the room a soft, silvery glow.

She offered him tea and told him politely that M. Szarbo was with a client and would join him shortly. Mikka laid a hand on her arm as she turned to fetch his tea.

"Do you know why I am here?"

"M. Szarbo knows why," she replied, unflustered, with absolute zero urgency. "Your friend is still here. M. Szarbo will take you to him when he is finished with his current client."

Mikka's heart leapt at that. She knew why he was here. Did she mean that Rayne was still alive?

"Can't you take me to him?" Mikka tried not to be terse with her but this lack of co-operation worried him. Patrick had seemed to believe that something very bad had happened and it was not like his lover to panic needlessly.

"The matter is not straightforward," the girl explained, shaking her head so that the waist-length fall of her perfectly straight, blue-black ponytail swung from side to side gracefully. "M. Szarbo will explain when he takes you to see the revenant."

"Tell me this, at least," Mikkal demanded. "Is he dead?"

The girl looked at him rather oddly, he thought. She was tall, but still a good head shorter than him, and she was forced to lift her chin in a defiant manner to look him directly in the eye. In spite of this she maintained a determination to hold his stare.

"M. Saarinen, he... the vampire... he is not technically alive but such is the nature of his kind," she ventured stiffly, at last. "He is not dust, if that is what you wished to know."

Mikka let go of her arm. That was a small consolation but he still did not like the careful way in which she answered his questions. He sensed that there was more to this matter but she was avoiding the need to speak of it. As he was on the verge of asking if she knew what had happened to Rayne Wylde, the door from the corridor opened and a vast, broad-shouldered man with a closely shorn head and the stooping gait sometimes affected by the very tall, ambled into the room.

The girl's expression brightened at once.

"M. Szarbo," she declared, by way of an introduction. The relief was evident in her voice. "This is M. Saarinen, he has come for the revenant." She nodded politely to Mikka. "I will fetch your tea, Monsieur."

Szarbo looked him up and down rapidly and said; "Leave the tea, Carmine. Bring M. Saarinen a large shot of vodka. The Finlandia, I think. He will need it."

Once the young woman had gone, he turned to Mikka with a grim look on his jowly face.

"This is a very bad situation, M. Saarinen," he intoned. "If word of this matter got out it could be detrimental to my business. I wish you to understand that such things do not ordinarily go on here."

"I'm afraid I don't understand, M. Szarbo," Mikka said rather stiffly. "The girl told me that he is not dead. If so then what is the problem? I mean, you and I both know what Rayne Wylde is. If he has not been reduced to so much ash then why can he not simply... regenerate as he has done so often?"

Szarbo shook his head ponderously.

"I was rather hoping that, as his friend, you would be able to answer that question for me," he sighed. "Come, follow me, Mikkal Saarinen. Under any other circumstance it would be an honour and a pleasure to welcome you to la Griffe, but today it is my grim duty. Come, and I will take you to your friend."

He led Mikka out of the waiting room again, where they met the girl, Carmine returning with two shot glasses on a silver tray. Szarbo picked one up and raised it in a silent toast before downing the contents. Mikka deliberated for a moment then mirrored his actions, setting the glass back down on the tray with a little sigh of appreciation. The man then beckoned and led him wordlessly down the corridor to a waiting elevator. In the mirrored car they descended two levels which made the tall Finn frown thoughtfully.

"The club has a sub-basement?" he queried. "How deep does this building go?"

"We reside above a part of the Parisian catacombs, M. Saarinen," Henning Szarbo told him in a low, sonorous tone. "La Griffe has many levels. Your friend is, I suspect, a Daywalker by nature but there is no harm in taking precautions and keeping him from the light. The darkness and the quiet will not interfere with his rest, if rest is truly all he requires."

"And if it isn't?" Mikka was irritated by these roundabout references to Rayne's condition. He wished that Szarbo would just get to fucking point.

"Then perhaps you should consider that he may truly be beyond us," the other man replied gravely.

Those words sent a shiver down Mikka's spine. His solemn host opened one half of a set of double doors at the junction of two corridors and led Mikka to a locked room. He produced a modern swipe card and used it to gain access to the room beyond. As they entered, the lights came up slowly, as if by magic and Mikka caught his breath.

There was a black latex sheath laid out on a long, low table in the middle of the room. The sack was the approximate length and depth of a small, human being. He had never seen a body-bag before but he knew that was what he was looking at. Three plain beech wood chairs had been pushed back against the walls. There was no other furniture in the room. It had the look and feel of a high-end, ultra-modern funeral parlour. At once, Mikka felt sick to his stomach.

"Just exactly how many clients die here, M. Szarbo?" he asked tersely.

His guide responded with a rapid shake of the head. "I have never killed a client, M. Saarinen. This is a storage room, nothing more sinister. We removed all the ancillary items. It did not seem in keeping with our... guest's repose."

"And... that?" Mikka pointed towards the body-bag, unwilling to actually touch it. "Just lying around was it?"

Szarbo's lips curled around a small, humourless smile. It had a lot of very sharp teeth in it.

"My friend, this club caters to many fetishes including those that you would perhaps consider morbid. We have clients who like to be bound and contained, who like to feel the kiss of the grave. So, yes, it was just lying around as you say. Very convenient, since we were able to move his body without distressing any of our regular customers."

He was so unfazed, so matter of fact about the whole business that Mikka wanted to hit him. He was glad that PJ did not have to witness this.

"Show me," he said through gritted teeth. "Let me see him."

Almost gently, the burly proprietor of la Griffe stepped forward and ran his hands over the small, black shrouded form on the table. The bag was not zipped up, Mikka realised as he drew the folds of material apart and stepped aside.

Mikka felt his stomach turn again. He was not a weak-willed man but it took a great deal of effort to make himself come to the table and look down. His heart leapt at the sight of that achingly familiar, heart-shaped face, its normally pallid tone thrown into even sharper contrast by the spill of Rayne's ragged black hair and the ebony-dark second skin of the zip-up bag that still shrouded his lower body.

The vampire's pale eyes were open but they did not see. The dark, dilated pupils were slightly irregular and the whites of his eyes were veined with red. A single, bloody tear had run down his face into his hair, breaking the pallor starkly. His lips were parted; whether around a scream or a sigh, he could not know. The vampire's small, perfect fangs were extended and blood-stained and his lips were also black with dried blood. When Mikka exhaled a slow sigh the blackness shifted like a fine dust, smudging the pale perfection of his face.

"We washed his body before we let him rest," Szarbo said quietly. "Patrice and Simone, two of my girls, both gave their blood but he would not, or could not drink."

"Jesus Christ!" Mikka turned so that the other man would not see the hot tears that he dashed from his eyes on the back of his hand. He was not give to blasphemy but the words rose to his lips unbidden. "God forgive you, Szarbo..." He turned again, hands clenched into impotent fists at his sides, his normally pacific mien subverted by the sight before him. A sight he had never thought to see. "Did you do that to him?"

Had Patrick been here, he thought grimly, Szarbo would be on the floor, bleeding, by now. Mikka closed his eyes and struggled for another long breath, and another.

"He did not fall by my hand, M. Saarinen," Szarbo said neutrally.

"But you know what happened? You know who did this to him?" Mikka growled softly.

"Yes," came the simple, unaffected reply. "He no longer works for la Griffe. Such an action will not be tolerated upon these premises. I dismissed him promptly."

Mikka stared back at him, incoherent with shock.

"You... you let the bastard who did this walk free?" he stammered furiously at last.

"M. Saarinen, I empathise," Szarbo told him coolly. "But Rayne Wylde is not protected by the laws that govern mortals. He is a Revenant. Mortal law does not see his slaying as a murder. Some humans might even call it a blessing."

"You unspeakable..." Mikka drew his fist back to strike but the other man was faster. Szarbo deflected the blow before Mikka could land it. Moments later the tall, furious Finn found himself pressed against one of those cool, cream-coloured walls with both hands twisted up hard behind his back. Henning Szarbo leaned against him until he finally stopped struggling and swearing in his native tongue.

"I did not say that this was my view," Szarbo told him, not even out of breath. "If any other had been the proprietor of la Griffe and this had happened upon his watch, then perhaps the corpse would be truly ashes by now. Or Wylde would be at the city morgue, awaiting the crematorium. He was fortunate."


"F-fortunate!" Mikka turned as the grip on his arms loosened. His blue eyes were blazing and he could barely control his tongue as he forced the word out. "You call this fortunate? You let some sadist rip him apart and... and murder him... and you have the fucking nerve to tell me he was fortunate!"

He pulled free, staring disconsolate at the frail, torn body lying on the table in front of him. Now that the bag was drawn open he could clearly see the long, vicious rents in Rayne's pale chest; tears like giant claws had peeled the flesh back cleanly from his ribs. He wanted to be sick.

Atonally, Szarbo told him; "The scars you see were not inflicted by his would-be killer. They are not what put him into this state. his damage he begged me for."



Mikka Saarinen was glaring at him again with all the animal passion of a creature not quite human. In that moment he would have made a magnificent Were, Henning thought as he cautioned the man; "Do not try to punch me again, M. Saarinen. I was patient with you last time. I understand your distress but if you strike me again, you will get hurt. Please let me try to explain."

Mikka was still bristling but he kept his hands on the table to either side of Rayne's small damaged body, staring from the burly??Norwegian club-owner to the pale, lifeless vampire and back again.

"You ripped him apart like this?" he huffed at last and Henning Szarbo nodded gravely.

"M. Saarinen, your friend came to la Griffe seeking pain. It is what we excel at. We knew what he was and what he was able to withstand by way of punishment. M. Wylde is an excellent healer, when he bothers to feed adequately. Last night was not his first visit to the club."

"Punishment?" Mikka blinked at him. "For what? Why the fuck were you punishing him?"

"That, Monsieur, you must ask of your friend should he ever awaken," Henning replied solemnly. "He was punishing himself, Mikkal Saarinen. We were merely his chosen instruments."

Mikka wilted at that, knowing it for the truth. He had known Rayne Wylde for over twenty years and, vampire and mortal, he had always been bent on self-destruction. As a teenager he used to cut himself and as an adult he used ruinous sexual relationships to keep the wound open. Patrick had seen the hurt in him from the beginning. He understood that Rayne would not let it heal and he tolerated it, for some ungodly reason. Mikka would never understand it though.

What, in the name of all that was sacred, could drive a man or a vampire to seek out a punishment like this? It made no sense.

"He was in pain before he came to us, my friend," said Szarbo, echoing his thoughts. "But that hurt was something that he did not share with us. M. Saarinen, I have to say to you that he disturbed me. There was... I sensed... a hunger in him, a hunger for death and darkness such as I have never felt in any man. He fears the solitude of the grave but he also yearns for it with all his heart."

Mikka shook his head disbelievingly.

"If this punishment did not kill him, then what did?" he wanted to know.

Szarbo looked uncomfortable for the first time since they had been introduced.

"My assistant," he began at last. "A man named Carlsen. He came to me from Berlin, a professional sadist. He had worked in clubs in that city and had excellent references. After I had left off working on the vampire, Carlsen went in to him intending to clear up. Wylde was weak and exhausted but he was alive when I left him, Mikkal. Please believe me when I say this."