by LeAnn Mason
He’d wanted me to leave. I couldn’t expect he wanted to hear from me. “Nope, not doing it. I’m not going to be that chick.” Shaking the weakness from my mind, I pulled up the app for the rideshare company and requested a ride. The vision had given me the address of the druid’s home, so I put that as my destination.
Not ten minutes later, I was pushing out of the vehicle, my eyes fixed on the charming brick home before me.
Liarona Murphy, whose name and address I’d garnered from my ill-fated vision, lived in a very posh neighborhood, and although it was the middle of the day, I was surely being watched. People that had houses like these didn’t need to work a nine-to-five.
The walk was long with extensive gardens lining it on either side. It should have been a charming and bright welcome, but there was a heavy stone in my gut that pushed further up my throat with every step I took toward the grand entrance.
Crossing into the exposed foyer, I didn’t bother creeping. Anyone in here knew exactly where I stood. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I could no longer keep my urge contained. My wail spilled out in a low but solid moan through tightly sealed lips. I kept my eyes peeled, making sure to rove the space for assailants.
The scene was exactly like my vision, and the small bit of hope that the woman in my mind hadn’t been the druid fled as my lament turned into a full-fledged banshee scream.
It was happening right now as I stepped into Liarona’s home. And as I moved forward, the sound abated, and I knew I was too late.
I knew where I’d find her, so I plowed in vain hope through the large living room. Casting about in case she was here, not where I least hoped to find her, I took in the tastefully decorated in creams except for the splashes of vibrant color strategically placed throughout the space: a large, framed painting of undulating and swirling waters above the free-stacked, rock fireplace mantle, the hearth roaring with a lit fire. A large planter sat in the corner, complete with thriving green foliage.
My eyes swung to the unexplored side of the kitchen as I entered. The large granite bartop was clear of clutter and adorned with only a small globe-like fishbowl. A singular dark blue swath of long fins fluttered nervously around the little plants he shared his home with. I didn’t want to pull my eyes from the little flailing fish, didn’t want to confirm both of our fears.
Still impersonating a human car alarm, I allowed my eyes to trail down the edge of the cabinet to the slate-tiled floor and Liarona’s pale, lifeless body staring back at me.
No!
My banshee urge had warned me she was dying right as I made my way to her, but seeing the proof that she was gone, that I couldn’t save her, was devastating. After another few stunned, wailing moments, I finally tapered off. Dragging in several deep, recentering breaths, still standing over the poor woman, I couldn’t help the selfish despair about what her death meant for me. “Why?” I asked the room in exasperation. “Why now? Why me?”
Gods, could nothing go right for me? My hand slipped beneath my waistband to press on the runic tattoo on my hip as I stared at the — literally — dead-end of my only hope at getting it repaired. I was doomed to scream until I could track down another druid… if there were any others. If that hadn’t been the last of her kind like I was.
“Just kill me now and put me out of my misery,” I ranted to the empty room.
An ominous tingle started at the base of my spine, shivering its way to the top of my silver head, and I stiffened, feeling suddenly like something wasn’t right… besides the body. It wasn’t an empty room.
“Well, now, if you’re offering...”
This time, my scream was unrelated to the death before me and entirely related to the killer who’d caused it.
12
My scream — this one caused by fright — didn’t make it out of my mouth before the man had stepped over the dead body and wrapped his hand around my throat. It wasn’t tight enough to stop my breathing, but a strong warning. The screech he’d startled out of me gargled in my throat as my back hit the kitchen wall. His free arm rose to form a bar across my chest, pressing against me with unnatural force. I was completely pinned since my hands — which had reflexively moved to extract his fingers from my throat — were now crushed between my breasts and his outrageous strength.
“Shh, shh, shh,” he cooed, fetid breath inundating my nostrils as he inspected me like I was a butterfly pinned with needles upon a canvas to be dissected by his discerning eye. Stepping closer, the entire length of his solid body pushing against my immobile one, he continued examining me curiously.
I did the same back simply because he was all I could see and because he had just made himself my focus.
You have to be quick. Analyze your opponent the moment you face them. Identify their weaknesses immediately or else it will be too late.
The man before me was tall, long-limbed with broad-shoulders and narrow hips like Seke. But he lacked Seke’s golden glow; the skin pulled tight across his high cheekbones was as pale as mine. His eyes, so dark they were almost black in the dim lighting, were hooded and hard to read under eyebrows I’d swear were plucked. His nostrils flared as he dipped his sharp chin and...
Did he just sniff me?
Thin red lips spread wide as he smiled, and I realized the red wasn’t his natural pallor. The druid’s blood, like a thick smear of lipstick, added to the menacing look. Two sharp canines glinted as he spoke. Pairing the teeth, the iron-tinged scent oozing from his red mouth, and the tepid temperature of his clammy skin, my stomach dropped. Perfect.
“Ah, a supernatural.” the creepy deader murmured, inhaling again. “But… unusual.”
Back atcha, buddy.
He was definitely not human, but not a species I’d ever met… until now. And, based on the jokes the HDPU had made about them, I hadn’t wanted to. I was encountering a vampire for the first time and had wound up screwing the pooch without even a moment passing.
His attention dropped to my gaping mouth, and his brows furrowed. “A supernatural who screams before death...” The man’s expression flashed to horror. “Banshee?”
Vamp is afraid of me? Well, there’s a blatant weakness.
I also knew of another one. While he was recouping from the shock of what I was, as I had done of him about two beats earlier, I brought my knee up and slammed it where it would hurt. It was my signature move after all.
Doesn’t matter the species. All men are the same.
Except the move didn’t faze him in the least. My knee slammed into his groin hard enough to send an ache through the kneecap in question, and yet, the undead guy didn’t even budge.
He grinned, showing off those iconic pearly whites again and letting out a polite little chortle. “Ah, little banshee, you must be new. If only we were able to feel, I’d take you up on your former offer.” His thumb stroked down my jugular vein and up my carotid artery, continuing its unwelcome path across my cheek to brush my lower lip. His eyes followed the trajectory of his digit. “If only,” he repeated wantonly.
Creep alert. Usually, my response to creeps was a dick-kick, so I was on to plan B.
I lifted my feet, my weight dropping me down the wall, slipping right out from his grip. By the time I rolled behind him, I’d drawn a dagger from my boot. I just barely missed stepping on the druid’s splayed legs as I adjusted my stance wider, ready for combat.
The vampire faced me calmly, clasping his hands in front of him. He was wearing a three-piece suit. Frankly, he didn’t wear the style as well as Seke, looking more like a dressed-up doll, and his outfit was a cold, unfeeling black. “My little banshee, do you mean to fight me?” His brows rose. “How provincial.” His head shook in mock disappointment. He stepped closer.
“Keep coming, and you’ll find out, blood-sucker.” I lifted the knife. “You killed that woman.”
The advance toward me ceased but I surmised that it was not out of fear. He merely wanted to chat. “You mean the druid?” He shrugged. “Of course.”
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br /> “Why?” I repeated.
“Why?” He reacted as though I should know, as if I were stupid, which made me bear my teeth and resist a growl that would have made Cole proud. “Are you not a harbinger? It was her time. She had to be disposed of. For the same reason you do.”
“Try it, asshole,” I dared. I was itching to release some tension after all of my failed attempts with the various HD units, and I was pretty pissed that my only clue for binding my powers back up had just been nipped in the bud, literally. “I’ll dispose of you first.”
He let out a long-suffering sigh accompanied by a dramatic eye roll a teenage girl would have been proud of. “If a little knife could stop me, don’t you think a druid might be able to do the same?”
My gaze flicked to the woman’s slipper sticking out at an angle slightly behind me then returned rapidly back to keep my sights on the foe. He may not have been acting aggressively, but he sure was baiting me with his talk. He hadn’t yet stepped out of the ring. I didn’t like the makeshift arena I’d walked into; it was too small, too many obstacles. With his height and limb length, he could reach me just about wherever I scrambled — and that was assuming I didn’t run into a counter or, gods-forbid, a dead druid splayed across the closest exit.
Never trust an appearance of innocence or surrender. Not until your opponent is incapacitated or removed from the situation can you relax. Innocuousness is a valuable disarming tool that many will use on you. It can also be a good tool for you to employ.
But was that true for vamps? The ol’ ball-popper didn’t work. What else didn’t apply to the undead? “What did you do to her?” I asked, teeth clenched.
His expression was incredulous. “My, you really don’t know anything. We heard tell of a banshee we’d missed. And we’d wondered how. But now I am beginning to comprehend, given how little you know about the supernatural world. About druids. And vampires.” He flashed his teeth. Must have a good dentist. “Tell me, how old are you?”
“None of your business.” My temper flared. I didn’t appreciate him calling me ignorant even if I agreed. My parents had taught me some but never as truth. The HDPU had given me more education. None of them had prepared me for this.
Damn it, Seke, all those lessons and sparring practices with the team, and not one directive for handling the actual enemy — a soul trapped on this plane?!
This bastard was loving his “trapped” existence. Were they all like that? Did they wake up like “I’m going to be a blood-sucking dickbag!” the moment they reopened their black eyes into a stolen life?
The vamp closed said black eyes and sniffed the air again. “Twenty-two? No, twenty-three.” The smile that settled on his blood-stained lips was tinged with self-satisfaction… and malice. “So young. Tell me: who were your parents?”
“That’s none of your business either.” I was edging around, trying to find a better angle to get at him or flee. You know, live to fight another day and all that. The vampire was mirroring my moves as if on a stroll through an art museum.
The actual vampire. Fuck.
I still couldn’t get over the fact that I was talking to a living vampire. My mind tripped over the oxymoron. I tried to glimpse puncture wounds in the druid’s neck, but my angle was obscured. Growing up in the streets ensured a stomach of steel — and even just being with the Harbingers of Death a short time, I’d seen my fair share of grizzly and gruesome deaths. I’d even seen a woman lick the blood off a corpse and try to take home a digit of his as a snack... and then, I’d seen that woman, that siren, mauled to death.
Yet, facing this blood-sucker, I was sickened.
My mind had been blown when I’d met the harbingers, but I hadn’t really considered that there were other supernaturals out there besides them, despite what they’d all said about it. I’d been in a rather blissful state of if I can’t see it, it doesn’t exist.
In fact, I was going to go a little crazy if I thought about it too long because, over all these years, how many supernaturals had I been interacting with? How many people had been relating with a supernatural without realizing it when they talked to me? Because that’s what I was, too. A supernatural.
Mind. Fucking. Blown.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” the vampire said with a callous hand wave. He tossed me a triumphant look over his shoulder, having no care about keeping me in his sights. “Whomever they were, we killed them. We killed all of them. Except you. But today, I rectify that.”
This dude obviously never attended The Seker School of Fighting. Dumbass. Even if he could take me as he promised — easily, based on the fate of the druid — cockiness got you nowhere.
It’s easy to let overconfidence lure you into its embrace. But in the end, it will land you flat on your back, dissipating into the night and leaving you with less than you started.
It was a lesson I’d already known because that’s how I got my ass handed to me in the early days of living alone on the streets. My dad had had a similar lesson that I’d ignored until then.
Wait. Vamp asshole said what about my parents?
13
“You… you killed my parents?” I stopped my prowling and nearly dropped the dagger as my fingers slackened. I stared at the vampire in an open-mouthed stupor.
Never let them distract you whether by talk or physical disturbances. Keep your focus.
Seke’s voice interrupted, vehement, angry that I’d let the vamp surprise me. Gripping the dagger as hard as my teeth were gritted, I bent my knees, again in a ready stance. My eyes were narrowed when I repeated myself. “Did. You. Kill. My. Parents?”
“Without knowing who they were, I cannot say if it was me personally,” he stated conversationally, taking my question in earnest and thinking hard about his answer. “But probably. I am one of the few tasked with exterminating those who seek to exterminate us.” He shrugged and grinned at me. “The boss is going to be so pleased with me when I take out the last banshee the same day as the final druid.”
My heart fluttered, though outwardly I remained fierce. The last druid? No, no, no. That can’t have been my last chance to fix the tattoo, my fate. Surely, there were others. Seke said they were hard to pinpoint. Maybe the vamps just hadn’t found them yet? I mean, they’d missed me, hadn’t they? I’d just have to do that first… if I got out of here alive.
Confidence is key.
Fine, fine. Once I got out of here.
“Ah, but where are my manners?” He paused his pacing and turned to me, flourishing his hand in a rolling motion and giving a dramatic bow. “Anthony Pedrotti. At your service. Well,” he winked, “at mine, but still. And you are?” When I didn’t answer that, he added, “Fine, don’t tell me. It will be a fun little challenge to find out. And find out, I will, young one.”
“Why?” I croaked out. The question made me sound like a parrot, but I needed the answer. Why was he hunting me? Why had he killed my parents? Why me?
“You really know nothing.” His sigh was long-suffering, annoyance beginning to seep through his jovial facade. “I detest lectures, so pay attention. This will be short. I am sure you have learned by now how we vampires are formed.” When the vampire flicked a glance my way to confirm I was following so far, I schooled my expression into neutrality, still angling for a way to take him out if an opening presented itself.
“And of course, the only way we can retain our soul and our immortal life is if we continue to avoid being discovered by harbingers. It is fortuitous that generally, we remain under the radar, so to speak, since we are already dead. But there is one harbinger that can find us should our existence be threatened again.” Anthony raised a finger in my direction.
“Me?”
“It is unfair, really. We were humans, given the gift, the opportunity of becoming supernatural. We are strong enough to escape death the first time. We earned the right to a second chance at life — a supernatural life. And yet, you other supernaturals think you are above us, that you have the right to s
teal our very existence from us. We are hunted just for what we are. It is genocide.” The last was spoken with an angry roar, and I took a step back, nearly tripping on the druid. Suddenly, he grinned, and I repressed a shudder. “I suppose you know something about that.” His chuckle sent a tingle of discomfort down my spine, and my expression soured.
“Anyway, if we remove that which threatens us, we can retain our lives. Another thing that I think you know about now, don’t you, little banshee?”
I hardly thought they were ‘lives’, considering he was actually dead. Either this vamp was special, or dying and coming back fucked up your head because his logic was faulty. He didn’t earn his life. He stole it. He slipped out of death’s grasp like a prisoner escaping the cell he belonged in. It was unnatural. Especially when his continued existence was dependent upon him taking life from others.
“So, what, you kill all banshees so you can make more vamps?”
Anthony tossed his head back and laughed so hard that I hoped that he might pass out from the exertion. Then he sobered and turned to me with condescension. “Goodness me, no. If the Harbingers relied on banshees, they’d long be defunct now, would they not?”
He had a point. Somehow, the director foretold the deaths before I did. I wondered fleetingly again who the director was. A god? The God? The Fates with their strings to cut? Did they decide the deaths or simply observe them? No distractions, Aria!
My chin jutted up. “So, why do you need banshees dead if we’re not to stop souls from being reaped?”
He reminded me of the creepy dolls in every horror movie ever made that I’d seen late at night on bad cable channels in various motels. “Because we need to continue to avoid death.”
Feeling stupid, I blinked. “You want to make it so I can’t tell the harbingers about your next death? Jokes on you. I can just kill you now and ta-da.” I spread my hands wide, wiggling my fingers. “One soul, ready for the reaping.”
He rolled his eyes. “As if you could.” He hadn’t told me his weaknesses with all this information — or his strengths, besides evading death. Did they get abilities with their supernatural upgrade?
