Silver Vein: Beneath the City Sleeps Book 1

by Shannon French

  I ran the cold tap for a few minutes before filling my bottle back up and guzzling down half the contents, leaving my stomach grumbling in retaliation. Only as I turned to make my way back through to my bedroom did I notice the corner of an envelope poking through the letterbox. The ivory paper was barely noticeable behind the metal cage and had I not already been so on edge, I might have missed it. Not tonight, though.

  As if at any moment the letter might jump up at me and attack, I crept towards the door and pulled it out from the confines of the letter box. Once again, it was addressed simply and without a stamp in the corner. My heart threatened to beat so hard it would break my chest, but I walked across to the sofa on shaking legs and tore it open. This time around, it was my name delicately scrawled across the paper, as opposed to Jocelyn’s. Bile rose in my throat, but the bottle of water in my hand had already fallen to the floor and spilled across the cheap wood laminate.

  Four words.

  You’ve got my attention.

  The last thing I felt like doing was talking to anyone about the fucking letter, but what was I supposed to do? Just keep it in my house while I slept soundly in bed for another few hours? No. This needed to be dealt with sooner rather than later.

  It wasn’t difficult to call for an Uber, even at this time of night (thank you, London) and within the hour, I was standing outside of Omen yet again. The sun was threatening to rise above the selection of apartments and industrial buildings and there was still a cool British chill lingering. I found it strange that Omen looked so peaceful, despite it being full to the rafters just hours ago with clubbers.

  My fist tightened around the envelope before I lifted it to knock against the heavy door. It took just minutes for it to creak open a mere couple of inches. My brow furrowed when I realised it was Xavier’s face peering through the crack. Not the moody doorman or Mariella. He didn’t look like his usual well-kempt self, instead he seemed dishevelled and certainly surprised to see me.

  “What are you doing here?” He asked, that posh boy accent of his sounding out of place when combined with the look of displeasure on his face.

  I was just about to pull the letter out of my coat pocket when I heard an almighty thud come from inside. Xavier flinched a little, almost closing the door in retaliation, but he seemed to calm himself at the last minute.

  “Sorry, have you got company?” I laughed, not liking the sour taste of jealousy on the back of my tongue.

  Xavier smiled broadly—too broadly. He was hiding something. “No. Not exactly.”

  My eyes left his face and began studying the plain white t-shirt covering his broad chest, particularly the specks of red near the collar. With that in mind, I glanced at his hand, which was clinging to the edge of the doorway, knuckles shining through the pale skin. The unmistakable staining of dried blood was still visible between his fingers, as though he’d hastily wiped his hands just before answering the door.

  Without thinking, I barged past Xavier and down the corridor. I had been expecting him to put up a fight, but he seemed to roll his eyes and calmly follow my rushed footsteps. Inside, the bar was cast in darkness, the only light coming from a room through the back. Not trusting Xavier and knowing that I could walk into a room full of dead or dying women or something equally terrifying, my breathing grew erratic as I opened the door.

  My eyes couldn’t comprehend what they were seeing, and my face twisted in confusion. The room was clearly an office, but someone had pushed all the contents to one side. All that remained was a chair in the centre and the bloodied man tied to it.

  “I would have preferred it if you had called first,” Xavier whispered, his mouth close to my ear. A shiver rattled through me as he shifted me out of the way and entered the room. He stalked with purpose as he moved towards the man. Xavier used his muscular forearm to wipe a strand of hair out of his face before reaching forward and grabbing a fistful of the man’s hair and hoisting his head back. The male grimaced, almost hissing in discomfort, but that all faded into arrogance when his eyes met with mine.

  “I told you I’d help you find Jocelyn. It seemed appropriate to first track down the waste of space that tried to kill her sister,” Xavier growled, his lips pulling back from his pearly teeth as he gave the man’s hair another tug.

  “Is that him?” I asked in disbelief, daring to step closer.

  Xavier towered over the seated man, but I didn’t. Awestruck, my feet remained cemented to the floor. So much so that when Xavier reached over to pick a pair of pliers up from the desk at his side, I didn’t even flinch.

  The vampire in his grasp struggled, but his efforts were futile. Xavier brought the metal tool up to the man’s mouth and latched them onto one of the dull, silver canines.

  “Open wide,” Xavier sneered, simultaneously tugging the pliers until the tooth broke away from the gum with a splatter of blood and saliva.

  The guttural scream that filled the room had me recoiling, averting my gaze before I could watch Xavier pull the second fang.

  “Fucking hell, Xavier,” I cursed, swallowing the bile burning in the back of my throat.

  “Ask him anything you want, maybe he’ll answer you,” he stated, pushing his head away so hard I thought it might snap off and roll across the floor towards me like some sort of haunted football.

  “A gift,” Xavier grinned, grabbing my wrist and pulling my hand into his. He softly uncurled my tense fingers and placed the two bloodied, silver fangs in my palm.

  Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed Xavier’s arm before he could walk away. He stalled, staring at me with dark eyes before eventually lifting them to investigate mine.

  “How did you find him?” I asked, my voice quivering.

  “He would have come back for you,” Xavier whispered, seeming to shake the words from his lips almost immediately. “Or Jocelyn’s sister. Or some other innocent.”

  Reluctantly, I let go of Xavier and turned my attention to the now grinning man tied to the chair. His face was swollen, and thick crimson dripped from his chapped lips.

  “Who are you?” The man cackled at my question. It was the first thing that came into my head and wasn’t exactly the eloquent first impression I wanted to make. Or was it a second impression? All I knew was I was currently clutching this monster’s silver teeth in my hand.

  “Your demise. Yours and others just like you,” he hissed through bloodied teeth. The weeping holes where his canines had been made my stomach churn. I could hear Xavier’s breath hitch behind me, before he panted as though struggling to control himself. If he felt anything close to what I felt towards this guy, it was no surprise he was furious. I wanted nothing more than to grab him by the balls and scream at him to tell everything he knew. Yet somehow, I kept calm. Which was a revelation, really, given my track record.

  I rummaged around in my pocket for my phone, pulling up the picture of Jocelyn before pushing it towards his face and forcing him to look at it. “Do you know her?”

  “She’s a little chubby for my tastes.” He grinned unashamedly, but it was only brief. Xavier lunged towards him, grabbing him by the throat and lifting him and the chair off the ground with ease. Seconds later, he was thrust against the wall, struggling against Xavier’s grip.

  “I will skin you and watch you heal for the rest of my days if you don’t answer the lady’s questions, do you understand?” Although the man tried to hide his fear, the yellowing whites of his eyes were bulging.

  Yet just as Xavier released his throat, a crash sounded from outside, followed by a rumble of footsteps.

  A male voice called out from the bar area, “anyone found a poor, lost little Silver Tooth roaming the streets? His mother misses him dearly.”

  The muffled tone was terrifying, and I had little desire to find out who the voice belonged to. Xavier evidently didn’t feel the same way—whilst I was searching the room for a good hiding place, he was busy clicking the button on a small intercom by the door.

  “Mariella? We
might need a little hand if you’ve got a moment.” He released the button and tore his hands back through his hair before leaving the room without hesitation.

  “Seems I’m not the only one about to be skinned alive, princess,” the captive man whistled from behind me, and I craned my neck around to look at him in disdain.

  “I’m not a fucking princess, dickhead.”

  Adrenaline had already rushed through my body as I followed Xavier’s footsteps and made my way into the bar. Mariella met my gaze from across the room and shook her head slowly, as if warning me not to take another step. Xavier was standing in front of one man, who had seemingly brought an entire group of strange, silver toothed thugs with him. They huddled around him on the balls of their feet, moving side to side like some of the weirdest ring fighters I’d ever seen.

  “It seems our friend isn’t the only lost lamb you’re keeping from us.” The man shifted as though considering taking a step closer to me, his eyes roaming down over my body as though I were his prey. I shivered, disgust rattling my nerves. Xavier put his commandeering body in front of the guy, forcing him to stop. Which, although I was scared shitless, irritated me a lot more than it should have. If this had been a few weeks ago, before I knew about this whole other world, I’d have shoved him out of the way and took care of this douche on my own. Now, knowing what I know, I remained silent and let Xavier do his whole macho protect the damsel thing.

  “You don’t look at her,” he growled, his voice strained with the threat.

  The man raised an eyebrow and sneered, amused by Xavier’s outburst, but did as he was told and held his hands up in surrender.

  “Got yourself a little human pet, have you, Xavier? That’s not like you,” he added.

  “I don’t plan on killing you today, Bardric,” Xavier sighed as my focus turned back to Mariella, who was currently a few feet away with her arms crossed as though standing her ground. Despite her petite frame, she looked truly terrifying. She resembled an animal ready to pounce at any given moment and I briefly wished I had just a pinch of her confidence in this moment.

  “Then you’ll give us back our guy,” Bardric replied casually. “No qualms.”

  A few of Bardric’s men shifted forward, creating a semicircle and pushing them closer to both me and Mariella. I noted the way she squared her shoulders, her dainty hands pulsing in and out of fists at her side. I had a bad feeling that these guys would not stand down and leave empty handed. Slowly, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my jeans, depositing the two teeth in there so I could deal with them later.

  “Is he worth it?” Xavier asked with a laugh.

  The room grew tense with the prospect of bloodshed, yet Bardric merely shrugged. “I’ve been waiting for an opportunity like this one for quite some time, Xavier.”

  Xavier feigned confusion. “you’re not getting your man back, Bardric. You might as well call it an evening and get the fuck out of my bar.”

  In my distraction, I didn’t even notice who threw the first punch. If it even was a punch. Within a split-second Xavier had Bardric by the throat, his fist so tightly corded around the man’s neck that I thought it genuinely might just pop off.

  Mariella was second to action. There were four more men in the bar, and she focused on grappling with two of them. The others seemed more concerned about Bardric’s welfare to even acknowledge my existence. That was until Bardric’s bulging eyes locked with mine.

  “Oh, shit,” I muttered, instantly turning to run just as the two henchmen sprinted towards me. I was no match for them, not with my injuries from the other day still fresh and making my limbs stiff and uncooperative. Mustering most of the strength I had left, I vaulted over the bar, sending clean glasses and bottles crashing to the floor. There had to be something hidden behind this damn bar that could help keep me alive. Naively, I’d been expecting a shotgun or the like, but no—yet again, unlike the movies, all I found behind the bar was more glasses and weirdly, a plunger. Neither of which was going to cause much damage to the two slender men in pursuit of me.

  “Get Quinn!” Xavier’s holler boomed across the bar, travelling above the sound of bones cracking and the squeaking of shoes on the mopped floor.

  When Mariella called back, “I’m a little busy here, boss!” I realised I was one hundred percent on my own.

  With steady hands, I started grabbing glasses off the shelves and in some anticlimactic slow-motion movement; I burst up from behind the bar and started tossing them at the men. The first one flew past the smaller of the two and shattered on the ground behind him, which caused him to twist his skeletal face into a grotesque grin. I pulled my arm back and tossed the second glass with all my might, hitting the stupid smile off his face.

  It didn’t hold them back for long, though, and I swiftly realised that I was going to have to do better than glassware if I was going to remain alive and kicking.

  To my utter relief, Mariella swooped in seconds later, tackling the shorter guy with the newly bleeding face and sending them both sliding across the bar and into one of the tables. Relief forced me to breathe in a huge lungful of air, but it faded fast.

  “I guess you’re mine,” the other man sneered, lowering his body into a near crouch before speeding towards me. I had no chance of escaping him as his hand tangled in the collar of my jacket and dragged me kicking and screaming across the bar top. My arms hit out at anything I could grab as I thrashed and swung at him, the sweet smell of his aftershave causing a wave of nausea to punch me in the gut.

  “I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” he snarled, running the moist top of nose across my cheek as though sniffing me. “You don’t seem very special.”

  I couldn’t make sense of his words, not as I was busy trying to signal to literally anyone that watched that I needed a hand. Mariella was still tangled up with the other guy, whilst Xavier was close to tearing Bardric apart with his bare hands. The man holding me thrust my head forward against the bar with brute force. Stars edged at the corners of my vision, my skull pounding.

  “No harm in sampling the party favours, eh?” The words didn’t register before he ripped the bandage off my neck and latched his filthy mouth onto the already damaged skin. My brain seemed almost incapable of comprehending what was happening as the sting of those strange silver teeth broke through the old wound. Still, I thrashed like a fish out of water, each movement leaving me feeling as if I would vomit. His hold on me was too strong and before long, he had me completely immobilised.

  Yet in a flash, the loathsome feel of his hands and mouth on my flesh was gone. As though it never existed. Silence rang out across the bar as he toppled backwards and let out a scream so bloodcurdling, I had the sudden urge to clasp my hands to my ears just to make it bearable.

  Xavier’s movements stalled, as did Mariella’s. Bardric stared at me from behind swollen eyes as what was left of his men staggered to their feet. Every set of eyes was studying the man who’d bitten me seconds ago, as he wavered on his feet and howled in anguish.

  His body contorted and strained as though he were on fire, his fists clasped in a boxer’s stance. I didn’t have time to watch the grand finale of whatever the fuck was happening, and despite the weakness in my limbs and the darkening of my peripheral vision, I took the few steps over to one of the bar stools and picked it up in both hands. With an almighty crunch, I swung it at the man and he fell flat against the ground. He was out cold, and with the relief of my defeat, so was I.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Drink,” a deep, velvet voice whispered against my ear. Something still caught me in a net of darkness, the world spinning around me in the same way it did after one too many tequilas.

  The solid mass against my back shifted, drawing me in closer. My lips parted involuntarily as a cool, stone like presence pressed against them. Something, a strange consistency, flowed freely into my mouth, tasting strongly of old copper pennies. It stuck in the back of my throat, as if my entire body was telling me it didn’t
belong. I gagged, but whatever was pressed against my mouth held firm, tightening and releasing rhythmically.

  “This is a bad idea,” a second voice floated by, my brain finding it difficult to put the words into the correct order.

  A groan at my back vibrated against my exhausted muscles. “She’ll heal quicker this way.”

  “Yeah, and that’s not the only thing it’ll do. This is reckless, especially for you.” The reply was sharper this time, blunter.

  The voices fell quiet as the room creeped back into focus. I pushed myself forward, onto all fours, and panted as though oxygen was going out of fashion.

  “Sit, Quinn.” It was Xavier’s voice. His hands gripped my shoulders and forced me to sit back on my heels. His body steadied my wavering form, his huge hands on either side of my waist and refusing to let go. I swiped my mouth with the back of my hand, spotting the smudge of dark crimson it had left on my skin.

  My head shot back to look at Xavier, who was dangerously close to me.

  “What did you give me?” I asked breathlessly, fearing that I already knew the answer. His grip loosened until eventually he separated our bodies entirely, leaving me strangely cold and off-kilter. He was a mess, but from what I could tell, he was uninjured. That alone was a miracle. Mariella’s disapproving stare caught my attention, and she shook her head, turning on her heel and walking away until out of sight.

  “It was just a small amount, enough to help you regain some strength,” he began, standing effortlessly before offering his hand to me. The same red substance stained his wrist, but there was no wound to be seen beneath it. “I need a drink.”

  Despite his lack of injuries, he looked exhausted and as much as I wanted to scream and yell and run far, far away from him and this place—I followed him to the bar.