Vamped Up

by Kristin Miller

  The amulet warmed against her chest . . .

  Lilith squeezed her hands ever so slightly. “It’s already inside you, Eve,” she whispered, her voice warm like honey. “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along. The mawares in the amulet are drawn to the purity of your spirit. It’s undeniable. When you’re not fighting the pull, they will work even without your know-how. You’ll just be. Breathe in and out slowly for me . . . that’s it.”

  Eve took a deep breath, feeling those last fragments of tension leave her body.

  As the amulet began to tingle with luxurious warmth, something happened. Tiny white streams of light snaked out of the amulet, twisting and turning along one another, reaching through the space between their two bodies. Eve didn’t have to open her eyes to know what was happening; she could sense it. The energy from the amulet was binding together, cascading through the glass, gathering into a ball of white shimmering light inches from her chest.

  “That’s it,” Lilith hissed slowly. “You’re almost there . . . you’ve almost done it . . .”

  With those words, everything flipped on its head. Eve’s skin broke out in chills. Her chest trembled erratically. Her relaxing breaths turned to jagged pants. Her palms twitched. Her eyelids fluttered, struggling to open.

  “No, no, no, don’t—” Lilith began, squeezing her hands harder.

  But it was too late.

  The light collapsed upon itself, extinguishing in a puff of cold air. Even the wall sconces lighting the apartment blacked out. Eve’s eyes shot open as the amulet lifted, then thumped awkwardly against her chest. Her breathing returned to normal as she peered into Lilith’s disappointed eyes.

  “You were so close.” Lilith dropped her hands into her lap. “What happened?”

  Yeah, like she had the answers. “I’ve never done this before. How should I know? One second I felt like I had control over what was happening, and the next, I lost it.”

  “What do you mean, you lost it?” Her eyes narrowed to red, concentrated slits.

  “I don’t know why you’re suddenly asking me the questions like I have the answers.”

  “What did it feel like?”

  Eve rubbed the face of the amulet, her fingers slowing on the tiny onyx. “It felt warm. Like whatever’s inside this thing was heating up, trying to get out.”

  “And then?” Lilith purred.

  “That’s it.” Eve sifted her fingers through her hair. “It felt fragmented or incomplete somehow, like something was missing and I’m rambling and not making any sense now, aren’t I? Listen, bottom line is that it didn’t work and I don’t know if it ever will.” She dropped the amulet and rubbed the goose bumps scattering across her shoulders. Even through her jeans and sweater she was frozen. Right down to the core. The hair at the nape of her neck stood on end. Were they being watched?

  She scanned the windows, leaned back to check the kitchen. Nobody there.

  Lilith sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and worried it back and forth. “Do you remember when I told you that you’ve lived this life before?”

  Eve nodded, not sure she wanted to hear what had Lilith perplexed.

  “During the Crimson Bay Massacre of 1912, right before Ruan drained you the second time, damn him to hell, you tried to summon the mawares in this amulet. I tried to teach you the best I could, giving you every resource you needed to discover the power within you. It didn’t work then either . . . and you said those exact same words. You said something was missing. You said it was fragmented. Do you have any idea what that could mean?”

  She was talking much too fast and Eve’s backside was much too numb. Groaning, shifting to get more comfortable, Eve ran through what Lilith said, her mind picking up bits and pieces, stringing them together. “How do you know what I did and said back then?”

  Lilith leaned closer. “Because you were with me that night. You were in my charge and I was protecting you.”

  “Then what was I doing at the Crimson Bay Massacre? Seems like a war-strewn fort would be the last place you’d stick someone to keep them safe.”

  She sucked in air through her fangs. “I made some oversights, yes, but I took the measures I thought proper at the time. If it’s anything this tired life has taught me, it’s that you can’t look back. Now we must figure out what you speak of. We must discover what is missing.”

  Eve’s heart thumped slowly in her chest. “Maybe it’s me. Maybe you have the wrong person.”

  “Then why can’t you take off that powerful necklace, my dear?”

  She had her there, though she’d rip it off in a heartbeat if she could.

  “You know what I don’t understand?” Eve asked. “If you know how to do this, and you have the energy within you that I’m supposed to channel, why can’t you do this yourself?”

  Lilith’s expression softened. “My sole purpose in this life is to get you to realize yours. Without you, I cannot fulfill my destiny of making sure the elders in my command reach the Ever After.”

  Something struck Eve like a thunderbolt. “Who else knows about this? About my ability to . . .” God, was she really going to admit this aloud? “ . . . bind the death shades and release them to the Ever After?”

  Lilith’s full lips pulled back into a luminous smile. “Let me show you.” She stood as gracefully as if she’d been sitting on the most comfortable throne in the world and glided to the window, her velvet skirt flowing perfectly behind her.

  Bending over, joints achy and muscles tight, Eve pushed herself off the floor, disjointed like she’d been sleeping on a bed of nails. Rubbing her backside, she followed Lilith. By the time she reached the window, Lilith had parted the curtains and was peering down to the street.

  Hidden amongst the shadows of the building across the street were two or three people standing stoic in the night, staring up at them.

  “There,” Lilith said, pointing to a light-post and a newspaper stand. “They know about you, about your destiny and they’re waiting for you to achieve it. Do you see them clearly?”

  Eve squinted through the condensation on the glass. “You mean, those two people down there?” Why were they just standing in the middle of the sidewalk gazing up at her window? Creepy.

  Lilith laughed. “Not two, my naïve child.” She spread her arms from one side of the window to the other, her fingers ghosting over the glass. “All.”

  A draft blew through the room as dozens of people came into view . . . but not people, Eve corrected. They looked much too pale, even for vampires. They almost appeared . . . translucent.

  “Wha—what are they?” Eve fumbled, her breath fogging the frosted window.

  “They’re the white shades of elders, my dear.”

  Eve took a careful step backwards, away from the glass, her blood running like ice water through her veins. “And they’re, ah . . .” Words evaporated off her tongue.

  “Ghosts.” Lilith turned. “They are trapped on this earth, the dark part of their shade having been stolen by evil. They are drawn to you, sweetheart. Drawn to the pieces of maware trapped in the amulet like moths to a brightly burning flame. We can’t let them roam the earth for eternity, Eve; they’ve done enough roaming in this life.” Her voice droned. “You must set them free to the Ever After. They’re waiting for you to release them. Time is wasting and they’re growing very impatient.”

  Shock morphed into panic. Ghosts who knew where she lived and what she could—or couldn’t—do, tracking her down and haunting her? No, this wasn’t happening. “They know where I live? They’re following me? But you said earlier about Ruan . . . Oh, God . . . he’s coming. If the elders’ shades . . . if they found me, then elders who haven’t had their death shades used against them . . . ones who are still whole and in hiding . . . they know where I live, too, don’t they?”

  “Yes, and they’ll come for you, too. The shades ar
e drawn to you, Eve, because they long to be set free. But once you start building the energy around that amulet, elders will come. They want the fragments of maware to be bound so they can become whole again—able to use their full power. They’ll find you.”

  “But Ruan’ll be home any minute. They’ll leave him alone when he shows up, right?” She paused. “Right?”

  Lilith’s smile flickered. Eve’s body warmed in response, slowing the racing of her mind. The sweet smell of cinnamon wafted through the air as Lilith wrapped an arm around Eve’s shoulders and guided her around to face the living room once more. “I wouldn’t worry about any of that right now, my dear. All you need to do is focus on the energy within you and do what must be done. Now are you ready to try again and work out those nasty little kinks? We still have much to do tonight.”

  Eve nodded and walked back to her spot on the hardwood living room floor.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Don’t believe everything you read in modern vampire literature. We’re not undead. We don’t sleep in coffins. And for goodness sake, we don’t glitter in the damn sunlight.”

  Vampire socialite Vicki Hart, overheard telling a newborn vamp fan

  “YOU WANNA RUN that by me again?” Ruan asked as they parked his Tahoe in the financial district and hiked across the Embarcadero.

  “I’m walking through the front door.” Dante adjusted his belt, his gun, his boot knife, and the ammo crisscrossed along his back. “And you’re going to walk in right beside me.”

  “They gonna search us on the way in?” Ruan eyed his belt. “I’m not too keen on going anywhere empty-handed.”

  “No search. Considering the kind of people in the market, they know weapons find their way in anyhow. Seems to keep the clients level-headed if they know the therian beside them is packing too. Mutually assured destruction of sorts.”

  Ruan shoved his shoulder-brushing golden hair beneath a black SF Giants ball cap, then curved and pulled down the bill. “You know, I’ve been skulking around this part of San Francisco a hell of a lot longer than you and haven’t heard anything about an elder black market going on anywhere around here. Don’t you think someone would have busted up this elder-selling party by now?”

  Dante smirked. “Not if the place is organized by therian elite and if you get mouthy you get dead.”

  “You sure seem to know a hell of a lot about it.”

  “More than you know,” Dante huffed, wishing it weren’t the goddamned truth.

  Ruan shot him a pissed-off look that screamed he wanted to be filled in here and now, but here wasn’t the place and now wasn’t the time. They were already being monitored. Therians were twitchy bastards, Ruan had to know by now, and if it’s one thing they craved more than anything, it was control. Whether that control was over vampires or the flow of information, they’d keep their traps shut about the black market and their eyes on anyone who came within a mile radius of the warehouse.

  As they stepped up on the curb, Ruan strode ahead a few paces. Dante caught him by the scruff of his coat. “Wait.”

  Ruan stopped, pulling out the tracking record pocketed from ReVamp. “It says Juan Carlos’s place is at Pier Thirty-Five.” He pointed to the stone building perched atop a giant pier jutting out into the bay. “That’s Pier Three, so it looks like we’ve got a long walk ahead of us. Why’d you have me park way the hell down here?” He scanned the sky for the arching moon, no doubt figuring as Dante had, that they had about six hours of night left.

  “It’s not thirty-five.” Dante corrected. “It’s three-five . . . as in three through five.”

  Ruan checked the gold-plated numbers at the peak of the building in front of them and scanned over the next two. “There’s nothing between Pier Three and Five,” he said, thinking aloud, his gaze coming to rest on the open stretch of dock. Not many people walked around this part of the city at night, and the ones that did hustled to their destinations, their faces covered by scarves or coats. Ruan squinted into the bay, over rolling waves glistening with ribbons of moonlight. “Something’s off here. Look.” He nudged his chin at the cresting waves.

  They crashed against the wood posts of the piers . . . but at different speeds. On the far side of Pier Three and on the opposite end of Pier Five, the waves were silent monsters, building heavily and slowly. Right between the piers, though, the waves were short and choppy with foam heads, like they were breaking against invisible barriers far out at sea.

  Ruan stepped right to the edge of the wooden railing, propped his foot up on the bottom slat, and went elbows-down on the top. Dante did the same, except when he reached the railing, he whispered, “Aprirligaza commando.”

  Ruan’s gaze whipped around and set upon him with a fire that could’ve singed the hairs off his head. His mouth gaped open. His skin paled.

  “What?” Dante jerked back, unsure whether Ruan was going to take a swing or ask him more questions.

  “Those words . . .” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple jumping, then shook his head. “Nothing. I thought that I’d . . . nothing. It’s nothing.”

  “You sure, man?” Dante asked, placing an arm on his shoulder. “You don’t look so good.” Ruan looked borderline-sick, the pallor of his skin changing from white to a light shade of green that nearly matched his aqua eyes.

  “It’s just that earlier when I fell asleep, I thought . . . I think I might have said those same words. What do they mean?”

  What the devil was he talking about? He couldn’t know Valcish, the language of the elders. At least not the powerful ones who cast the spell on this place. The only reason Dante knew them was because he’d worked for Juan Carlos and needed the passage to clock in.

  Maybe what Dante’d overheard was right. Maybe Ruan did somehow write bits and pieces of the ancient scrolls. “It means ‘Open. I command you.’ ”

  At his words, the air shook in front of them, wavering with layered images of a three-story brick warehouse. The air vibrated for seconds . . . minutes . . . an image taking form slowly. When the warehouse finally solidified mere feet in front of them, Ruan clamped his jaw closed and backed away.

  The place was gigantic, with tall wooden pillars supporting a patio cover with thick black swag draping over the top and down to the sidewalk. Flickering red bulbs in gothic iron sconces flanked the front door that was worn and grouted from salty sea spray.

  “Devil’s daughter,” Ruan cursed. “The maware is blind to vamps. How’d therians manage to trick an elder into lending them that one?”

  “Rumor has it a corrupt vampire elder is at the top of this whole gig, working the therians.” Dante waited for the guard to arrive at his post and grant them entrance, lowering his voice just in case. “This maware is the most powerful one on record. Only those who have been to this place on formal invite can call upon it again.”

  “And those words? Where are they from? How do you learn them?”

  “You have a ton of questions for me, Ruan, but it’s obvious you know more about elders and their language than you’re letting on.”

  Puzzled, Ruan crossed his arms, sizing up the building from the blacked-out over-arching windows to the vaulted roof peaking thirty feet above their heads. He surveyed the Embarcadero, watching random groups of city-goers bustle in and out of a trolley two streets down, oblivious to the new, magical addition to the street. “No one can see us,” Ruan realized. “Even on the doorstep.”

  The door creaked open. A seven-foot-tall bear of a therian crowded the massive doorway. “That’s the idea,” Bear growled, his silver eyes slithering from Ruan to Dante. “Good to see you, my man.” He slapped his claw-like hands against Dante’s shoulder. “Been too long.”

  “I’ve been busy.” Dante ignored the look Ruan shot him. “You gonna let us in or what?”

  “If you’re here to see Roxy, I’ll have to let her know you brought someone else to party wi
th you. She’s not too keen on doubles, but you knew that already.” He laughed, two deep chokes bellowing out of his wide mouth. “It was good of you to try to get me in though.”

  Lord below, what he’d done to silence the voices . . .

  When Bear motioned for the transmitter on his belt, Dante put up his hand. “No need for that this time. I’m just here to talk and she doesn’t know I’m coming, so if you could keep it quiet, that’d do just fine. There any open tables on the floor tonight?”

  The burly shifter glanced through the clipboard in his hand, flipping papers back, his silver eyes scanning the list of high-rollers on bidding row. “Sure. Anywhere in Section AB will work.” He opened the massive door, moving against the wall to allow Dante and Ruan to walk through. “You get Roxy to change her mind, you know where to find me,” he called behind them.

  The foyer was lit by flickering taper candles on the walls and a row of dim running lights along the baseboards. It was like they were walking into a regal movie theatre from the turn of the twentieth century.

  Once through the brick and tile entry, Dante pushed aside long velour curtains that ran from ceiling to floor. He turned and watched Ruan scope out the main room. Even though Dante had been to this place countless times and its setup and inner workings bored the living daylight out of him, it brought him a twinge of pleasure to watch Ruan experience it for the first time.

  Instead of a boxy three story warehouse like the place appeared to be from the street, the building was hollowed out in the middle. Stairs on the right spiraled down to the basement; it hovered at water-level and was designated to house merchandise—elders included—and handle the transfer of money. Stairs on the left curved up to the second level, a loft where Juan Carlos lived. But the entire middle of the warehouse was open and spacious like a miniature coliseum, with darkened stadium seats circling the sides.