by Tessa Bailey
“Hello.” He nodded. “I’m Jonas.”
“Dobby,” said the vampire, hanging his hat on the back of the chair. “They said you could help, but I have to be honest, man, ain’t sure nothing is going to help. I’ve passed this place my whole life and it’s always looked like it’s under construction. Now I’m in here drinking blood.” He choked on a breath. “I guess it beats pigeons.”
“I’m sorry this happened to you,” Jonas said, briskly. “I’ll suggest some next steps and then I’ll answer any questions you might have.”
There was always the urge to commiserate with the freshly Silenced, to share his own confusing experience, but Jonas never allowed himself to do it. They were in a darker, harsher world now and giving them a shoulder to cry on only gave them false expectations of the life. It was hard, lonely and eternal.
His mind drifted back to Ginny in the car and he could feel the imprint of her body pressed to his side, so trusting. God but she made life far less lonely.
Can’t have her.
Jonas shoved an unsteady hand into his coat and took out a leather pouch, placing it on the table and sliding it toward Dobby.
“There are three rules you must obey, if you want to go on living.”
Dobby looked down at his dead chest. “This is living?”
The manager set a rocks glass of blood in front of Jonas and while he thanked the vampire, he made no move to pick it up, even though a sip might have helped him swallow the urge to apologize to Dobby for what he was going through. To tell him while it didn’t get easier, it could become purposeful.
“Rule one: No relationships with humans. Two: No drinking from humans. Three: No killing humans. Break one of them, you risk breaking all three. Break them and the High Order will be alerted to come dole out your punishment.”
Dobby buried his head in his hands.
Jonas closed his eyes briefly, brutally aware of his own hypocrisy, seeing as he had a human waiting for him in the alleyway, not a hundred yards from where he sat. All the more reason to see her safe and remove himself from her perfect orbit. “You need to leave town as soon as possible, I’m afraid. At first, being around your loved ones might seem manageable, but you’ll either grow tired of only having your thirst half-quenched and drink from them. Or you’ll convince yourself you’re doing them a favor by Silencing them, too, the way someone did to you. It’s not a favor. Eternal life might sound appealing, but it’s—”
“Daunting.”
“That’s putting it mildly.” Especially when he couldn’t be with the one he needed beyond measure. “There is a constant sense of backpedaling when you wake up, over and over again, but never age. Never hit milestones or…” Realizing he’d gone off track, Jonas reached across the table and tapped the leather pouch. “There is enough cash here to get you started. I’ve included contact information for several cities in the US and Mexico.”
“Does it have to be a city?” Dobby asked woodenly.
“It’s easier to blend in.” Jonas gestured to the interior of Haven. “In each of those cities, I’ve established a place just like this. You can consult the managers in regards to the local blood sources and ask about job openings. Do not take chances with the sun and do not accelerate if there’s a chance you’ll be seen. And we’re seen everywhere now at all times, so again, don’t take risks.”
Dobby stared hard at the table. “Why not just break the rules and let the High Order end it? Why live in this miserable, endless cycle?”
“I don’t have an answer for that. Certainly many have gone that route.”
He’d considered it himself many times, after the disappearance of his mate, the death of his parents. The only thing that stopped him was the knowledge that no one would remain behind to help the Dobbys of the world. And now? Now Jonas wasn’t sure he could court death knowing Ginny was alive and breathing somewhere. Living in a world where she existed made the darkness bearable and unbearable at the same time.
“How can this be allowed?” Dobby croaked, taking Jonas’s glass of blood and draining it, surprising a low chuckle out of Jonas. “How can the High Order punish us for drinking from humans, unless we Silence them, too?”
A familiar anger made Jonas’s jaw tighten. “To guarantee our continued existence,” he growled. “Silencing a human doesn’t always work, but the urge…it’s always there inside us. Often, a new vampire can’t help themselves and they go about Silencing in a reckless way, leading to dead humans and vampires left to face the punishment. Far more humans are Silenced, however, than vampires extinguished, leading to higher numbers of our kind. Numbers that learn through example to fear the High Order. Their contradictory rules have led to nothing but a fucked up cycle—and I’m sorry…” Jonas pushed back from the table, annoyed at himself for going off book. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“Thank you,” Dobby said, laying a hand on the pouch, visibly uncomfortable showing gratitude. “I’m not sure…what I would have done without you.”
Jonas nodded. “It’s nothing.” He hesitated before standing. “Who was it that Silenced you?”
“I don’t know,” Dobby whispered. “I don’t remember anything after walking home from my shift at the diner.”
In other words, his memories had been wiped.
Tamping down on a second apology—apparently Ginny’s sweet, earnest nature was rubbing off on him—Jonas stood and faced the tavern, waiting for everyone to give him their attention. Most of the faces he recognized, if not from recently, then from the last time he’d been in New York. Some of them seemed to have fared well, others were sullen, their stares empty and trained on nothing. With a heavy gut, he wondered how many locals had been extinguished by the High Order for breaking the rules, their seats now sitting vacant.
“I need to know if anyone has come into contact with someone new in town,” he said, in a clear voice, watching for reactions. “An Elder.”
Murmurings commenced, along with some nervous shifting.
After all, there was no rule against killing each other and no one in Haven was a match for a vampire with the abilities an Elder possessed. Abilities that were earned by living through high stress situations, again and again, year after year. Wars, street battles, deaths of human loved ones, loss of a vampire mate. They each added to the store of energy inside of the being, culminating like a force field ready to be unleashed at a moment’s notice.
In his surveillance of the room, Jonas noticed only one vampire in attendance who didn’t look surprised by his question.
The vampire waited until Jonas made eye contact, then he slowly and meaningfully looked up at the ceiling.
A loud thud overhead had Jonas retreating as quickly as possible to the alley.
Ginny.
Ginny’s skin felt layered with ice without Jonas in the car. Moments ago, she’d been secure and content in his embrace, she now sat shivering in the bottom of a well. Desperate for a distraction, she listened carefully for anything beside her own breathing and the drumming of Tucker’s fingers on the steering wheel.
At least ten minutes had passed when a door opened and closed outside the car, then nothing, save the sound of water dripping, the distant whir of traffic, a plane flying overhead. Tucker turned on the radio and Elias smacked it off, leading to an argument. Mothers were insulted quite offensively.
Jonas had been gone about twenty minutes when a door groaned opened and closed again. She longed to rip off the blindfold and see if Jonas approached—not to mention where he’d been, but she forced her hands to remain at her side.
In the blink of an eye, the energy in the car shifted.
Ginny felt it and sat forward.
“What the hell is going on?” Elias growled.
She ripped off the blindfold, blinking twice into the glare of a streetlamp, before clawing her way toward the door Jonas had exited, pressing her forehead to the cold glass.
There in a moonlit alleyway stood Jonas.
Another vampi
re joined him. At least, that was one way of putting it.
Was she dreaming? She had to be. No way one of the most terrifying beings Ginny had ever seen was floating down from the rooftop of the building. As if he were strapped into an invisible harness. The skin of his throat and hands was bluish white and streaked with veins, though most of him was hidden beneath a wide brimmed hat and raincoat. A gray braid of hair ticked side to side on his back, reminding Ginny of a metronome. He moved at a sedate pace, expression smug.
Jonas remained entirely still and watched him land.
“Ever the unfazed prince,” Tucker muttered. “We should get out there.”
“Wait,” Elias said. “We wait. It could be a move to draw us away from her.”
A shiver passed down Ginny’s spine. “You think that’s the powerful vampire who’s been moving me in my sleep.”
“The question is, why?” Tucker asked. “Just to enforce the rule about vampire-human relationships or is there another reason? Anything is possible.”
Tucker could say that again. There were so many more possibilities in this world she lived in now. She was ducked down in the back of a car, good vampires protecting her from other evil vampires. And why? She had no clue. But the life she’d once known seemed like nothing more than an uninformed prologue.
“Get all the way down, Ginny,” Tucker instructed.
She complied, but slowly crept back up to watch the action, Jonas’s voice reaching her ears through the window, muffled, yet sharp. Royal.
“I’m assuming this isn’t an accidental meeting. What do you want from me?”
The vampire smiled to reveal a row of long, sharp teeth. “Seymour Blithe at your service.” He tilted his head to the right. “Have you enjoyed having the loss of a loved one dangled in front of you like a carrot?”
To say Jonas bristled would be an understatement. His muscles seemed to expand and cast larger shadows, and even through the car window, Ginny could hear the slice of his fangs descending. “You tried to kill Ginny,” he rasped, his voice nothing more than a rippling ribbon of violence.
“I merely pointed the expendable human in the direction of her demise.”
“Why?” Jonas shouted.
“We really need to get out there and help,” Tucker snapped.
Elias made a sound of disagreement. “He’ll have no chance of defeating a being that powerful unless he’s protecting her. We stay.”
“I’m motivation?” Ginny pressed her hands to the glass, aching to fling open the door and scream at Jonas to get back inside. “Fine. Good. I wouldn’t leave anyway, just please go help—”
Before she could finish, Seymour flicked a wrist and sent Jonas catapulting to the opposite end of the alley. Ginny swallowed a scream at the sight of his strong body plowing into a row of trashcans. Before she could take her next breath, he was up, a darker shade of green than usual pinwheeling in his eyes. His jaw was tight enough to break—and it almost did when Seymour slashed a hand through the air and Jonas’s head went snapping back like he’d been punched, making him stumble.
“Do something,” Ginny pleaded.
Elias leaned forward in the passenger seat. “Wait for it.”
Indeed, there appeared to be a change overcoming Jonas. The malice in his eyes alone transformed him, and Ginny recalled what he’d said to her in the office of the funeral home earlier that night. These abilities are usually triggered in a vampire when he or she undergoes something harrowing. More and more every time. And you, love, most definitely fit that description.
In a blur of movement, Jonas whipped off his coat, leaving him in dress pants, suspenders and a dove gray button-down. Déjà vu nipped at her conscious, but she was too focused on praying for Jonas’s survival, that she could only disregard it and whisper a rush of words against the glass, fogging it slightly.
“Please, please, please…”
Time seemed to slow as she locked eyes with Jonas through the glass. The slightest downward flicker of his irises sent Ginny into a duck without hesitation—and Seymour’s body was thrown up against the car. Slam.
“Son of a bitch,” Tucker breathed.
Ginny straightened and watched Jonas pull Seymour off the car, using only an outstretched hand, and launch him up against the side of the building. She almost cheered. Started to, in fact, but Seymour chose that moment to rally, blasting Jonas with wavy ribbons of clear energy, throwing him off his feet and onto his back.
Leaving him vulnerable.
“No,” Ginny breathed.
A ball of crackling air hovered above the older vampire’s palm and he was seconds from hitting Jonas with it. While he was down.
No, she couldn’t let it happen.
If she was the catalyst for his abilities taking hold, then she’d do her job. She’d help him, instead of standing by like a spare part.
Seymour reared back, preparing to blast Jonas.
She’d have to dig deep for this amount of courage. None of her usual heroines would boost her this time—sorry, Elizabeth, Lauren and Grace. This time around, she was going full Bond Girl. With a deep breath, Ginny threw open the car door and stepped out.
“No!” Jonas roared, rolling and lunging to his feet.
Seymour turned with a beastly smile and changed his aim to Ginny instead. “Alas, she makes my task even easier.” Her feet lifted inch by inch off the ground, the floating sensation disconcertingly familiar. “Where shall I perch the little birdie this time? A skyscraper, perhaps?”
Seymour’s bottomless eyes went blank as his neck snapped. He collapsed into a heap on the ground, dropping Ginny back down to the concrete.
Vampires couldn’t die from a broken neck, though, could they?
Her question was answered when Seymour twitched and started to stand, despite the nausea-inducing injuries to his person.
Jonas straddled the man’s chest with what appeared to be a broken chair leg clutched tightly in his hand. A makeshift stake? Jonas was saying something, but she could barely make it out. She started to take a hesitant step forward when an arm wrapped around her waist, yanking her backward until she met the side of the car with Tucker and Elias blocking her view.
“That was one crazy move, sweetheart,” Tucker said over his shoulder. “She has a couple of beers, all of a sudden she’s living life on the edge.”
“I can’t believe a human is growing on me,” Elias muttered from behind his raised collar.
She couldn’t take the time to be flattered. Not when she was too eager to hear the exchange between Jonas and Seymour. Holding on to Tucker’s jacket sleeve, she inserted her face between her own private vampire shield and listened.
“Why did you come for her?” Jonas shouted at the felled vampire. “Tell me.”
“Why else?” The old vampire’s laugh chugged like an engine, but it held a tinge of sadness. “Your father.”
Seymour’s head had been bent at an unnatural angle, but his neck shifted slowly now to the sound of tendons stretching. Tucker and Elias tensed on either side of Ginny, a split second before Seymour sprang up and made a grab for the stake—but it was too late. Jonas arced the weapon down with considerable force and penetrated the right side of Seymour’s chest, resulting in a loud whistling sound—and pop.
Ashes floated where the old vampire had once been.
Jonas dropped to his knees in the floating debris and hung his head. “Goddammit.” A shudder traveled across his shoulder muscles and then he was on his feet, blurring to the spot right in front of her. Tucker and Elias were pushed apart, leaving her crouched sideways like the world’s most obvious eavesdropper. “Ginny,” he said, his voice lethally quiet. “You got. Out. Of the car.”
She straightened and brushed off her skirt, reluctant to witness the accusation and outrage in his gaze. “I was trying to motivate you.”
“You agreed to stay put,” he gritted out, gripping her shoulders.
“I had my fingers crossed,” she whispered, heat stealing up her nec
k. “Please try and remember we’re very close to my birthday.”
He made a choked sound. “Do not make jokes when I’ve just come close to losing you.” Twin sparks launched in his eyes. “You are a threat to my very sanity.”
Indignation poked her in the side like a thorn. “Do you think it was easy sit here and watch you fight for your life?”
“Forgive me if I’m not prepared to be reasonable over you trying to get yourself killed,” Jonas growled, reaching behind her and opening the door, urging her into the backseat while Tucker and Elias reclaimed their spots up front.
Silence cracked in the dark car like a whip.
“Once again, a vampire’s hatred for your sire and his cut-throat policies puts you—and this time, her—in the crossfire,” Elias said finally. “How long are you going to pretend your connection to him is inconsequential?”
Jonas’s jaw popped in response. “There are far more vampires that support me than want me dead over some perceived connection to him that no longer exists.” He paused. “The threat has been handled. That’s what’s important now.” He frowned out the car window. “Clarence told me stories of Elders developing foresight. Seymour must have been one of them. How else would he have known about Ginny before I met her?”
The question lingered in the air, until Tucker smacked Elias in the shoulder. “Are we just going to pretend he doesn’t have dope-ass abilities now, or…” When he got no response from the passenger, he turned in his seat. “You just staked a billion-year-old vampire like you were spreading mayo on a slice of Wonder Bread. You don’t want to chat about it?”
“She was in danger,” Elias said. “His mat—”
“That’s impossible and you know it,” Jonas cut in, securing Ginny’s seatbelt like she was a three-year-old child. “Drive us to the funeral home.”
With a squeal of tires, Tucker accelerated the car and whipped onto the street, turning the stereo on and drumming the steering wheel along with the thumping bass. Jonas found the blindfold on the seat, but before he could tie it over Ginny’s eyes, she closed them and turned her face into his chest instead.
