Fatal Sight (Harbingers Of Death Book 2)

by LeAnn Mason

  “So, it’s happened. The rune’s magic wore off? She’s come into her power?”

  The woman’s defeated countenance suggested she’d known as much, so Ember nodded but didn’t give details. She swallowed the dry bread with difficulty. “Can I ask why you bound her?”

  “I had seen what the vampires were capable of, what lengths they would go to get their hands on banshees for one reason or another. I didn’t want her on their radar. I thought… hoped she would have an easier life as a human.”

  “While I understand where your head was at—” Ember had experienced the uprising of vampires Enid was referring to, though she could only imagine the endless horror of being hunted by them. “—Aria’s had a… rough life without parents, a life the complexity of which was exponentially compounded the moment she began finding herself drawn to death while screaming bloody murder without knowing why.”

  Ember wasn’t sure if she should be saying any of these things to her cellmate, but she felt a blaze of respect and sympathy toward her newest teammate. Maternal instincts were prone to rear up in one for whom death only brought on more life. Being unable to shut them down entirely, a bit of word vomit had been known to arise.

  She cut off any defense Enid might have. Now wasn’t the time to get into family therapy. “We need to devise our escape plan. Here’s all you need to know about Aria for right now: She’s leading a mission to find you. I know my team is out there… somewhere. Probably doubling their efforts now that I’ve gone MIA. We need to do all we can to help. So, what can you tell me about these damn bloodsuckers? Anything that will help us get out of this predicament?”

  “Gerard did mention your two ‘friends,’ but I don’t think they have them yet. As for helpful tips… vampires are already dead, so it is extremely hard to kill them permanently as you may know already.” Her voice rose at the end in question, inferring that the long-lived would probably have some knowledge.

  “I do,” Ember said. The only true way of offing the undead was to sever the entombed soul from the body, which only began to detach once the body suffered enough harm to warrant what a normal being would die from. Their vital, and stolen, life-blood having left the animated corpse enough to render them immobile. “We’re going to have to get physical.”

  “Very. And if the soul isn’t reaped at the right moment…”

  Ember finished for Enid. “It will be reabsorbed yet again, and the vampire will continue its unnatural existence once it heals. Yeah, well, we don’t exactly have an extractor on hand, so perma-death probably won’t be happening unless our captain shows up.”

  And that wouldn’t exactly be ideal. They’d wanted to rescue Enid, but it would be worse if they all got themselves stuck with Enid. They’d been so stupid to split up. They knew better, had been trained better.

  “I take it you haven’t had a handy vision about how we escape from here?”

  Enid shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Ember’s frustration began boiling, causing her temperature to rise. Steam curled in wisps along her exposed skin.

  Enid stared at the tendrils, a look of dawning comprehension taking over. She rolled onto her knees, leaning toward Ember’s side of the dilapidated cot, making ancient, rusted springs creak and groan.

  “May I?”

  Ember raised a questioning brow but nodded. Perhaps like Aria and the ring, Enid could stimulate a vision by touch?

  Reaching out a hand, Enid clamped surprisingly strong palms on Ember’s skin. “Fire.” The woman grinned, a sort of blue fire igniting behind her own tired eyes. “Burning the vampire bodies is extremely effective. It is a favorite form of torture amongst their kind. Tell me, am I looking at a firebird?”

  Ember could see the steel that was at the core of the bedraggled banshee and knew exactly where Aria had come by hers. Satisfied with her new team, she confirmed Enid’s suspicion and inferred the plan with a small nod, without breaking eye contact. Her lips tipped up.

  “Gimme a couple of hours. I’ll have it toastier than Hell in here.”

  “What do you mean you split up?” I shrieked at the unsteady hellhound.

  My tone was starting to register within Cole’s inebriated noggin above the steady thumping of the loud music, and he blinked forcefully in an attempt to focus.

  “Why the fuck would you think getting drunk was a good idea right now, anyway?” I turned away from the infuriating man to keep from knocking him on his ass in the middle of the crowded club.

  It was dark except for the stroke-inducing strobe lights pulsing with the beat of remixed hip-hop songs. They blared from monstrous speakers set up near an elevated DJ table in the rear of the building where they’d found Cole wrapped around a small, curvy, mostly naked chick. It had been a spectacle to walk in on as they groped each other in a great show of teeth and tongues.

  With a steadying hand, Seke ushered Cole past me, leading the rest of our procession to a back exit through the hallway where the bathrooms were situated. I took up the rear.

  The moist, night air didn’t do much to shock Cole’s mind into sobriety, but I personally preferred it to the stifling heat and intense noise on the dance floor. A headache was brewing.

  “I need you to think. Did you see Ember or Raven leave?” Seke asked as though he had a well of patience and had only scratched the surface. “Were either of them with anyone? Did anyone seem to be paying special attention to them, or to you?”

  Having paced back toward the group, I spouted off when my eyes met with Cole’s dilated ones. “How could you leave your teammates alone to get your jollies?! I thought they were “your girls.” I used air quotes to punctuate my annoyance. “We’re on a mission, for fuck’s sake, and now Ember’s been taken, and Raven might have too, and we don’t know where!”

  I had to turn away again and found myself facing a tall, pale woman — the woman Cole had been sucking face with.

  Dang, was he so good she followed him? Hellhound’s got game.

  Her hair was styled in golden waves that fell past her shoulders and all the right curves accentuated by her barely-there dress. But it was her eyes that caught all of our attention.

  “Wasn’t getting my jollies,” Cole growled, and I realized he’d been faking his condition. He had been working on the mission. And we’d stormed in there and torn him away from a potential interrogation subject, revealing his intentions right to her face.

  Whoops.

  “Hello there,” she purred in a voice I was sure she thought was impossible to resist. Having experienced Jessica in full siren mode, this undead blood-slut was a piss-poor imitation.

  Noticing that her introduction didn’t seem to have shaken us, she switched tactics, moving away from alluring and toward threatening as she made herself known with a hiss, her fangs exposed.

  The small, smelly alley was quiet in the wake of her display. The sounds of the main street and the club seemed so far away as to resemble a distant party, easily ignored. My group stood at the ready, bodies tall and loose, ready to fight, except…

  A snigger, which resembled more of a snort, left my body. I brought a hand to my mouth in an attempt to stifle it, but I felt another rising up my chest. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Go on. Please. Oh, and do the hiss again. That was classic.”

  I rolled my lips inward, clamping them tight to keep more of, well, anything from escaping. But the effort was enormous, and my own display traveled up my face, first reaching my nostrils and making them flare. My eyes were wide and watering as the mirth fought its containment.

  Another awkward moment ensued, and then each of my team pitched forward, their own laughter breaking free of the constraints they’d placed upon it.

  I noticed that the vampire woman was affronted... and that none of my teammates took their eyes from the woman.

  Never cow to a threat.

  Never be predictable.

  We’d accomplished both lessons at once without meaning to, at least on my part. Ever vigilant, we used this
unease to knock the hissing seductress of the night off her game and prepare for the next move.

  She thought we’d be intimidated? Time to show her how the HDPU handles business.

  With the synchronicity of a well-oiled machine, we moved into action.

  A distressed gasp left the woman’s puffy, red-tinted lips, and her jaw dropped in surprise as her hands rose. Cole must have taken her sight from her. She was operating on one less sense, and we needed to capitalize.

  The hellhound’s shift was too fast to be seen. He’d stopped swaying the moment the woman had revealed her nature, no traces of inebriation lingering in his features, stance, or words. He was now a giant black mass with glowing red eyes as he streaked toward the woman.

  Unfortunately, the vamp planted her weight in preparation for an attack. She was not, however, expecting the teeth that accompanied the linebacker-worthy hit she took, and her screams rent the air, punctuated by Cole’s ferocious growls. Maybe she could feel more than the dude I’d run into at the druid’s house, or maybe it was still reflex, but she certainly seemed to feel the teeth renting her dead flesh.

  Seke called the abundance of shadows toward where our target lay on her back, fighting to release the hellhound’s vise grip on the arm she’d brought up to protect her pretty face.

  Work together. You are always more effective as a team.

  That was a Seke lesson, not one my dad taught, and I spun, realizing that the woman wouldn’t work alone either. I dropped to a crouch just as another vampire joined the fray, jumping from the roof of a nearby building.

  He landed across Seke’s shoulders. The god grunted, sending the shadows scattering. The impact had caused him to lose his hold on the darkness, but it didn’t drive him off his feet. He threw his elbow backward into the assailant’s ribs with little effect.

  Teamwork, Aria! Don’t just watch the gorgeous man fight. Move!

  I lunged in a sort of flying arrow in order to get the height and momentum I needed. In a swift move, I’d snuck the dagger from my boot and extended my knife-arm. With clarity and calm, I watched as my blade sunk hilt-deep into the man’s eye, pushing him bodily away from Seke.

  Vamp number two slammed into the club’s brick exterior where my weight and the extremity of his new injury sank him to the ground, screaming. Maybe they did feel, just more muted than a living body?

  “Not bad,” I commented of his scream.

  A yelp drew my attention back to Cole’s fight in time to see the scrappy female vamp punch him in the side of his dark canine face, eliciting another yip and allowing her the movement to wrench her forearm from between his massive jaws.

  But Gunhilde and Torgny were there before she could flee. The pair moved to stand above the maneuvering she-vamp, the warrior bringing the edge of her wide blade to rest across the base of her neck in warning, Torgny cracking his knuckles and neck threateningly from her side.

  “Hello to you, too,” Gunhilde smirked in retort to the wench’s first words. “Now, we have some questions for you.”

  27

  With their focus so intent on the vamp in their clutches, when the back door to the club slammed open, they all flinched. Raven took in the scene in a second, quickly assessing the situation. Between heartbeats, she flipped into battle mode and then relaxed, seeing that her team had everything in hand.

  She crossed her arms as several pairs of eyes slid her way. Hers dipped to the vamp slumped near her, and she kicked him. “Hush.” She looked up at Aria. “Thought this soprano was your dulcet tones. Came out to investigate when I couldn’t find Cole. And here, I thought I was the one having all the fun tonight.”

  The vampire woman beneath Gunhilde’s sword point hissed, which made the raven shifter raise her brows.

  “Pretty cliché, don’t you think?”

  “That’s what I said,” Aria quipped. “It’s like she learned how to be a vamp from watching too much campy television— I’m so glad to see you,” the banshee blurted, interrupting herself.

  The bird shifter raised a brow at the relieved grin stretching her newest teammate’s face. “Careful there, Silver. Open too wide, and a scream might slip free. I didn’t know you’d gotten so hooked on me. Listen, I’m flattered, but I’m a free bird.”

  Raven kicked the vamp lying at Aria’s feet again. He’d gone quiet… but a little too quiet. His head lolled, and blood oozed from the hilt rammed into his eye socket. “Guess we can’t interrogate that one. Nice going, Silver.”

  Aria caught the sarcasm and opened her mouth to retort, but Seke cut in.

  “Where have you been?” The captain rose smoothly to his feet, dusting off his outfit.

  “Vamp hunting. As instructed.” Raven shrugged.

  Her dark gaze landed on Cole’s and held as he shifted back to human. They remained vibrant red, indicating that he was maintaining his human form only barely. Blood dripped down his chin.

  “Looks like you picked the right club.”

  “Is that a hickey on your neck?” As expected, his question was roughened with the throaty growl of a tensely restrained hellhound.

  “Like I said, I was vamp hunting.” She slid a few fingers over the bruise on her neck everyone was now eying. “Turned out he was just a regular flesh sucker. Human. But a pretty good kisser.” Raven winked. “But enough about me. Where’s Ember?” She pulled a tiny shoe from her back pocket. “I found this on the ground when I was wandering the club, looking for Cole. Did she pull a Cinderella?”

  “Shit.” Aria strode over, followed a little too closely by Seke. Cole took only two strides to cross the space. Torgny and Gunhilde remained where they were, pinning the she-vamp.

  “What?” Raven asked, her smirk floundering as she torqued her neck, snapping her shrewd gaze from supe to supe.

  “My vision was right,” Aria breathed. She and Seke exchanged a look. “Which means these two bloodsuckers...”

  “...were here for Raven and Cole,” the god finished. He nodded.

  “What?” Raven repeated, brows flying up toward her onyx tresses. “The vamps were looking for us?” She emphasized the last word in shock. “Well, if we’d known that, we could’ve just sat and had a few more drinks until they came to us.”

  “I had a vision that somehow they got word of three supes looking for them in the clubs of Miami,” Aria said. “Someone must have overheard you. They got Ember.” The last was squeaked out with a strained tone.

  Raven’s lip curled as her fist hit her palm. “Damn it. I bet Ember was right about that first guy.”

  Cole growled in what could only be presumed as agreement. Words seemed beyond him in his current half-hound state.

  “Where did they take her?” Raven asked, shaking out her arms. “Let’s go get her back.”

  Aria’s silver hair slid over her shoulders as she shook her head. “She’s with my mom... wherever that is.”

  Raven’s head cocked as she pinned one eye on the Norse pair behind her team. “Well, good thing we’ve got one left to ask. And they came to find us. It’s like a gift.” She cracked her knuckles. “One I’ll love ripping open to find out what’s inside.”

  The vamp hissed again.

  “Is that all you can do?” Raven asked seriously, but something else behind her team caught her eye. The ghostly shape of a man was rising, leaving Gunhilde and Torgny visible through his translucent frame. He was snarling angrily at Aria’s back. “Looks like it’s all he can do, too.”

  The three supes turned to see what Raven had indicated.

  “You must reap him quickly,” Gunhilde said through her teeth. The woman below her was beginning to thrash and twist, realizing that her partner must be in a pickle. She couldn’t see the soul detaching, but it was easy enough to infer from the Harbingers speak. “Before his soul resorbs and he revives again.”

  “With pleasure,” Seke said, sounding as dark as the shadows he controlled. In the blink of an eye, he’d shifted into his massive hawk form, a red glow brightening the dark a
lley. He flapped his wings once and shot forward, swallowing the soul in one gulp. The pair vanished as the god escorted the man across the veil.

  “Agh!” With the combination of the distraction and the she-vamp’s panic that the same fate would befall her, she managed to dislodge Gunhilde’s foot from her chest and from under the blade. The sword was almost too large a weapon for the small space the alley gave them, and before the valkyrie could swing it around, the vampire was scurrying down the alley.

  “Don’t let her get away!” Torgny said. He was too large to sneak down the alley after the fleeing vampire. If he shifted, he’d be even more useless.

  This was a job for someone small.

  “Dibs!” Grinning maliciously, Raven shifted into her bird and quickly flapped to pursue. One of the vampire woman’s arms dangled limply, leaving a trail of blood, and she was limping. It was an easy chase. Didn’t mean it wasn’t fun.

  Dive-bombing her head, Raven went for the eyes. Pecking, stabbing, and angling her vicious talons, Raven went about doing the exact thing they’d warned Aria a bird was prone to do.

  The vampire threw her hands over her head, trying to protect her vulnerable spots, which effectively blinded her as much as Raven was attempting to do, and forced her to pause her escape.

  Out of nowhere, a thin body tackled the woman, and they both went to the rough asphalt.

  Raven was surprised; she’d expected Cole to outpace the banshee when it came to jumping into a fight, but a quick glance told her Cole had remained where he was, diligently awaiting their captain’s return like a good sentinel. He was, however, vibrating, his fists balled. Behind him, Gunhilde and Torgny were collecting the soulless body, trying to move it out of sight of the back door, no doubt.