by Lily Luchesi
“If I swung your way, I’d know exactly what you mean,” Eve said with a laugh before she walked away to serve another customer.
Angelica knew she needed to make a move now, before someone else did. Scooting over a seat, she was now right next to Scarlette, able to smell her peach shampoo over everything else in the club.
“Hi.”
The vamplet started and then looked over and gave Angelica a once-over. “Oh. Hello. I’m Scarlette.”
“Veronica.” Angelica usually used her mother’s name when she was undercover. “It’s not often I meet another vamplet.”
“How’d you know I was a vamplet?” Scarlette asked.
Really? She can’t be that much of an idiot. “You’re drinking vodka. A full vamp couldn’t do that.” Angelica gestured to their drinks.
“Oh. How silly of me,” she giggled. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“No kidding. I couldn’t help overhearing that you want something other than conversation.”
Scarlette raised her eyebrows appreciatively. “You get right to the point, don’t ya?” She downed the shot, leaving a wet sheen of blood and liquor on her lips.
Angelica shrugged. “That I do. Well? Come on. Or are you afraid?”
Scarlette stood up, almost as tall as Angelica was in their heels. “Afraid? Me?”
Angelica leaned in so her breath was on Scarlette’s ear and said, “Maybe you should be.” She felt the girl shiver and placed her hands on the small of her back, turning her around and leading her to one of the playrooms. Most of them were the same, featuring all possible amenities for the inner sadists and masochists, but one was different, made especially for vampires and their particular tastes.
Angelica hoped that Scarlette was indeed on her side, because the girl was gorgeous and Angie suddenly really wanted this to just be a sexy fling, and not an interrogation or execution.
She gave Scarlette a small shove into the room, locking the door behind them.
“Getting rough already? How do you know that’s the way I want it?” the vamplet asked, though the dilated pupils and reddened eyes said that this was most definitely what she wanted.
Angelica shrugged. “If you didn't, I suppose you’d have to acclimate quickly. I submit to no one.” Utter drivel, of course, but Scarlette didn't need to know that. She walked over and pressed against Scarlette, both of them warmed from the blood they’d drunk, and backed her against the cold stone wall.
“Everything you came here for: relief, release, pain, pleasure...I’ll give it all to you in exchange for you bowing down to me,” she whispered. She pressed her lips against Scarlette’s and the vamplet moaned, shivering with desire.
Some vamplet, she thought. How come she can’t control her own emotions? She can’t be that old, or well-versed in this lifestyle.
She took a chunk of hair in her fist and pulled. “I’m going to break you, sweetheart, and you’re going to love every second of it. Someone as responsive as you, it won’t be hard.” She pressed her lips to Scarlette’s throat and felt her fangs elongate. Without preamble, she bit down into her creamy flesh, drinking her blood.
Blood was life, blood was power. And Scarlette’s blood hinted at nothing so spectacular that she felt she had the right to come into Angelica’s territory the way she did. It was a bit disappointing, but made things much easier for Angelica.
She pulled back and left the wound open, leaking blood slightly but nothing that would even stain the floor badly.
Scarlette chuckled, her eyes turning black and red. “You think you can break me...Angelica?”
Angelica’s reflexes saved her life as she was just able to avoid a blade slicing into her throat. She whipped her head back to avoid contact and stepped back at the same moment. She hadn’t sensed any movement from Scarlette. The girl was good.
“What gave me away?” Angelica asked.
“You think I don’t know the infamous Angelica Cross, who started hunting down her own kind?” Scarlette asked. “High time you were knocked off your high horse. You don’t control the paranormal world, Cross. And since you can’t seem to realize that on your own, I guess I’ll have to knock some sense into you.”
“Oh, sweetie, I can’t wait to see you try.” Angelica was an expert on hiding weapons, regardless of how skimpy her outfit was. She pulled two silver blessed switchblades from inside her corset and flipped them open. “I didn’t make it this far, for this long, without knowing how to take little bitches like you apart — literally.”
She stared down the new vamplet, admiring her fighting spirit.
Scarlette leapt forward, grabbing Angelica’s wrist with one hand while she sliced an arc through the air with her blade.
Taking a calculated risk that the blade wasn’t blessed with holy water like hers, Angelica let her palm and wrist be cut so she could grab Scarlette by the shoulders. Her long black nails dug in deep into the girl’s flesh, drawing blood as she used her strength to flip Scarlette over her shoulder. It caused her to drop one of her blades, but she bent and picked it up faster than Scarlette could regain her balance from the throw.
Angelica checked and saw that her wrist and palm were already healing, the only sign she had been injured the smear of dark red blood on her arm.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked Scarlette, wiping the blood on her mini skirt.
“Why not?” Scarlette replied, tossing her fiery hair from her face.
“Because everyone knows it’s smarter to be with me than against me. So tell me why you came here on this fucking suicide mission,” Angelica said.
The vamplet laughed. “Let’s just say not all paranormals are happy with your dictatorship.”
“Oh, you mean the fact that I’m allowing us to go under the radar and saving our asses, or that I’m just not a fan of letting werewolves eat the hearts of children every full moon?” she asked.
“Go to Hell,” Scarlette hissed.
“Oh, we’re both going there. You’ll just be making a head start.”
Why are the hot ones always psycho? Angelica thought as Scarlette launched herself at her. She held her arm out to block her, her blade sinking deep into Scarlette’s upper arm. Angelica twisted and then flicked her wrist, cutting off the meaty part of the upper arm. The piece of flesh flew away and landed in front of the shackles on the wall with a wet plop.
Scarlette screamed in pain, but it didn’t stop her. Angelica was again pleasantly surprised at her resilience. The vamplet’s fangs elongated and penetrated Angelica’s arm.
Angelica whipped her arm, swinging Scarlette’s upper half into the stone wall to shake her off. She didn’t want the girl to get any stronger by drinking vampire blood.
Stepping back, Angelica had no time to get her bearings, because Scarlette was at her again, even as the wound on the side of her head from the impact was still leaking blood, the same color as her hair, down her face.
This time she didn’t try to cut Angelica. Rather, she went for her arm, twisting it behind her back. Angelica felt the bone in her shoulder dislocate, and she was forced to drop one of her knives.
“Fuck!” she cried. She tossed her head back and hit pay dirt: she connected with the sensitive bone in Scarlette’s nose and felt more than heard it shatter.
Scarlette screeched and let Angelica go, her nose spouting like a faucet.
Using her vampire speed, Angelica knocked Scarlette into the wall, kneeing her wrist hard enough to break the bones. Scarlette cried out again and dropped her only weapon on the floor with a clatter.
“You think this ends with me?” she asked, her voice hoarse and clogged from the broken nose. “I’m just the tip of the iceberg, Cross.”
“Haven’t you heard? It’s global warming: all icebergs are being decimated as we speak,” Angelica replied, cutting into Scarlette’s throat, wishing she had a longer blade as a torrent of blood flowed from the cut arteries over her hand and all over her expensive shoes.
The blade finally h
it the wall and she sliced clean across, severing the head. Scarlette’s body dropped to the floor, spasming as it aged just a little. Angelica dropped the head next to the corpse and called Director Dominic to get a ghoul cleanup team to the club.
“And make a note of this: this is what happens to anyone who tries to overthrow me or my company.”
Chapter One
Congress Hotel
Chicago, Illinois
Halloween, 2110
“What do you look like under that mask?”
The man Dakota Harvell had been dancing with all night was smirking at her from beneath his own, much smaller, mask. It was a masked ball Chicago hosted every Halloween to honor the bygone era of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Since the twenty-second century had begun ten years ago, many Chicago landmarks held annual “classic” celebrations.
Dakota hadn’t been back to the city since her girlfriend had visited and that visit had and resulted in her girlfriend’s body being torn almost literally to pieces.
“Why do you want to ruin the mystery?” she asked, her voice deep and reverberating, lower than the old-time orchestra’s bass. She tightened her grip on his hand ever so slightly. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
The man, who had introduced himself as Eric Rodriguez, grinned. “I do love a woman who takes charge.”
She chuckled along with him, twirling along to the old song. “Then you’re in luck tonight.”
During a break in the dancing Dakota asked him what he did for the Illinois government.
He chuckled nervously, tugging on his collar. “Ah, I work with murderers, in a way. Help keep the city safe.”
Dakota winked. “FBI?”
“Close enough,” Eric replied, finishing off his drink. “You know, I might be getting ahead of myself, but is there any chance a lady like yourself would take off with me tonight?”
Dakota smiled; this was what she had been waiting for. “I’d be delighted. Get your car, I’ll meet you out front.”
She watched him leave and then performed a quick change in the ladies’ bathroom: her slim, tanned body becoming short and chunky, her long blonde hair becoming short, dark, and wavy. Her dress hung oddly on her new frame, but she didn’t have time to fix it. She wouldn’t remain in this form for long, just enough to evade the security cameras as she exited the hotel.
As soon as she was out in the brisk autumn air, she dashed into an alley and shifted back into her previous form, taken from a model in Europe some years ago. She left yet another pile of flesh and blood beneath her from the shift, and walked toward Eddie’s ugly beige Hyundai.
As he drove he commented, “Can you believe that we had snow already? In October?”
Dakota laughed. “It’s Chicago, we’re lucky the weather hasn’t been even stranger.”
They headed toward Foster Avenue and stopped right where Norridge and Chicago met. He lived down the street from an elementary school and evidence of children was all around in the houses on the block surrounding his. Snowmen and sleds dotted many lawns, and one house across the street from his was already decked out in their Christmas decorations.
“I hate that: can’t they at least wait until Halloween is over?” Dakota commented as they got out of the car. Her purple heels sank into the snow that had not been properly shoveled. She walked around to his side of the car and leaned against it, gesturing to the house.
“Yeah, and they leave ’em on all night, making my bedroom blink through the curtains,” Eric replied, standing in his driveway. He glanced toward Dakota, opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. His eyes were bulging in shock or fear.
What is he...oh. Dakota looked at her reflection in the car window. Instead of the beautiful visage she had stolen was in place the true image of a skin changer, only seen in a reflection: wet grey skin, covered in slime, no hair, no nose, white, cataract covered eyes, and a gaping hole of a mouth.
Eddie opened his mouth and was about to scream, but Dakota silenced him with a punch to the stomach. But her fist did not stop there: it went through the fabric, past the soft, paunchy belly, and into the wet warmth of his flesh. It moved through muscle, organs, and blood until the fist reached the other side, boring a perfect hole into his guts.
Eyes wide, too shocked to feel pain, Eric just stood there while her fist was going into him, creating a crater that looked like a baseball had gone through his midsection.
Dakota pulled her fist out with a wet sound, dragging his guts with it in her grip. She yanked and they pulled free, sending Eric to the ground in his driveway, blood soaking the pure white snow like art.
She put a piece of intestine in her mouth and began to chew, grinning. “Not quite the penetration you were hoping for, was it?”
* * *
Aegadian Islands, Sicily
November, 2110
The sun was just disappearing below the horizon off of one of Sicily’s beautiful islands when the only couple willing to brave the cold at that time of year walked out onto their veranda to enjoy the beautiful sight that seemed unique to Sicily.
Both were pale, the man a bit more golden than his wife, and a bit older, or so it seemed. His reddish brown curls had a tint of silver at the temples, and his eyes crinkled a bit too much when he laughed, but he didn’t look much older than forty.
His wife looked at least fifteen years younger, beautiful and curvy, with long black hair she had allowed to revert to its natural curly state while in the Mediterranean. She had tattoos and a smile that could hook anyone into her charms.
“How long has it been since you’ve even seen a proper sunset?” he asked her, handing her a warm mug.
She sipped. “Hmm. Well that lovely decision you made was in … two thousand fifteen, so it’s been ninety-five years. And before you ask your next asinine question, yes, I miss them. Are you feeling nostalgic yet after only twenty-three years?”
He chuckled. “No. Being with you all this extra time beats out any sunsets I might have actually lived to see. Don’t forget, I’m pretty sure I was dying that night in the hospice. I’ll trade sunsets for moonrises any day.”
She nodded. “That was the best night of my life.”
He took her hand, warmed just a bit from her drink. “Mine as well. What about Chicago?”
“You’re still on mortal time,” she replied. “Trust me, two decades is not enough time for us to get homesick.”
“Come on, you were away longer with Sean, from twenty-seventeen till you came and got me,” he said. “What was it you were doing again? Undead campaigning?”
This time, she actually laughed, the rarely heard sound rich and enticing. “What campaign? Unless we procreate, we’re all they’ve got.”
Suddenly, her smartphone began to ring, making them both jump. The heavy metal ringtone seemed out of place here in this natural place of wonder, loud and shrill. He never understood the type of music she enjoyed, or why he had to be subjected to it so often, but he dealt with it because he loved her, and if her loud ringtones came with the package, he’d happily accept them.
“It’s Sean. What on Earth does he want?” she asked. She clicked a button and utilized the new speaker version, which projected a hologram of the caller in front of the phone like a movie. Privately, he thought that the new features would suck if the caller happened to be naked or — in one memorable case with Sean — wearing embarrassing, dreidel-printed boxers.
The man was projected now, wearing black jeans and a t-shirt. Despite time moving forward, fashion hadn’t changed much since the early twenty-first century.
“Hey, where are you guys?” he asked, looking around him.
“Sicily,” she replied. “Lovely, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I’d rather be there than here.” He paused, running a hand on the back of his head. He’d aged a bit more than they had in the past few decades, and now looked about forty-five, but still every bit the rock star. “We have a problem.”
They glanced at each
other. “Problem? What kind of problem is there that you can’t handle?” she asked, finishing off her drink. Her lips were stained red from it.
“Skin changer,” he replied. “There have been five murders already, all mortals who work for us. I’ve emailed you the file. I’m calling because there has only ever been one person to successfully capture and execute a skin changer.”
She sighed. “Me. But that’s not my job anymore. Hasn’t been since twenty-seventeen. Conflict of interest, remember?”
Sean huffed. “Yeah, I remember, but this is a desperate situation. Some skin changer is targeting your company, and you just happen to be the only person qualified to catch him or her. Please. You’ve got your people well controlled, believe me. Right now, the Empress can take a break. What the world needs is not a royal ruler but Special Agent Angelica Cross. … And Detective Danny Mancini, I suppose.”
Danny smirked. The two men had met in twenty-seventeen, and they still didn’t like each other very much.
“But you can’t get Angelica Cross: I’ve been Angelica Mancini for nearly a century now,” she pointed out, making Danny chuckle.
He’d been stunned when they had gotten married and she had said she wanted to change her name. She was unapologetically feminist, and her name was part of her legacy. He wasn’t sure if it was temporary insanity brought on by endorphins or she really loved him that much when she made her decision, but he appreciated it more than she knew. He had never wanted her to change her name, knowing her views on those things, so when she did it, it warmed his heart.
Sean heaved another sigh. “Angelica, we are facing a possible assassin, and you’re sitting there being snippy! Do you want me to beg? Is that it? Is your domme side coming out?”
Angelica burst into laughter once more. “I don’t want you to beg, though I bet Danny would find it funny if you did. Look, let me give the file a once over and get back to you.” With that, she clicked her phone off, making his hologram disappear.
“Are you really going to deny him?” Danny asked.
“As if. I’ll get a flight booked. I just wanted to fuck with him a little.” She sighed, standing up and stretching, her pale skin illuminated by the rising moon. “Come on. Looks like we’re back in business.”
