by Eva Brandt
Join? Join what? Were these people gang members or something? That would explain a lot. Maybe that was why that first man had been able to move and speak despite the damage he’d taken. It probably had something to do with a drug, one potent enough to numb the pain.
I suppressed a frustrated sigh. I had known I should’ve stayed home. If I’d wanted to witness drug lord fights, I would’ve watched Narcos. Or any other show, really, as long as it involved hot men and bad guys getting their asses kicked.
Come to think of it, I had to check my credit card. My Netflix subscription was expiring, and I needed to make sure I had enough money in my account to pay for it. I wouldn’t want to get distracted and end up without my favorite source of entertainment because of it.
Wait, why was I even worrying about my Netflix account now of all times? At the rate I was going, I would expire far sooner than my subscription. I had to figure out a way to get out of my predicament, instead of sitting here and stupidly providing more useless quips than every single James Bond villain put together.
Granted, my situation did provide me with more eye candy than all of last year’s blockbusters put together. In fact, normally, I would have been very happy to give the killer my phone number. The man was just that hot. His dark clothes covered every inch of his body but were also tight enough to frame his muscles in all the right places, and I couldn’t help but appreciate that. Between his sculpted frame and his bright green eyes—a color I had always had a weakness for—he was a walking wet dream, and I wouldn’t have minded getting rid of my V-card with him. And he wasn’t the only good-looking man around. Mr. Generic Obnoxious Villain might have been annoying as fuck, but he still had the tall, dark and handsome thing going on.
No matter what my libido seemed to have decided, the fact remained that I was in huge trouble. On the bright side, my comment had distracted the new arrivals even more than I had originally realized. For unfathomable reasons, the strangers had turned on one another and decided it was a grand idea to start fighting in a language I couldn’t understand. So far, Mr. Generic Obnoxious Villain had not intervened, but his expression didn’t bode well for the continued existence of his companions.
Well, let it not be said that I didn’t know how to take advantage of an opportunity when I saw one. I slowly got up, careful to not draw the eye, hoping to be able to make my escape while these insane people were still arguing. I didn’t know where everyone else had gone, or if security would get involved anytime soon, but I had no intention of waiting around to find out.
It might have even worked. The killer’s green eyes shot toward me, but he just gave me a nod of approval and discreetly ushered me away. Maybe my luck wasn’t as rotten as I had thought, and I would survive this after all.
I should have known better than to jinx myself by having such hopes. No sooner had I gotten up than a hand grabbed my ankle, keeping me from making my escape as I had planned.
I looked down in an automatic attempt to find out the identity of my captor. My brain almost staggered to a halt when my gaze met that of the man I’d just watched getting killed. The stranger smirked at me, and his eyes glowed a surreal red. “Where do you think you’re going, my tasty morsel?”
What the fuck?
Two
The Guardian
Declan
Earlier
Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t hate human cities. Granted, I could have lived without the smell of gasoline, the absurd amount of concrete and the pollution that made the air barely breathable. I far preferred the open grasslands or deep woods I had frequented in my youth. Even so, I thought there was a certain charm to human settlements, a type of controlled chaos that could be just as wild as any forest. Maybe I was just biased because I knew that one of these cities was my soulmate’s home, but I didn’t think I could be blamed for that.
Of course, that didn’t mean I was particularly happy to spend my Friday night in a cold, filthy, smelly alleyway, waiting for a group of informants who hated my guts. Would I even get back to headquarters before dinnertime? Probably not.
I hated it when that happened. I’d have to rely on the special serums provided by my superiors, and that gave me the worst gas possible.
“This sucks,” Malachai said by my side, echoing my sentiments, “and not in a good way. Would it be tacky of me to express my overwhelming hatred for your Banished friends, Declan?”
I didn’t know what I found more amusing, the vampire’s usage of slang, or him deciding to call the individuals we were waiting for my friends. “Are you trying to be funny? They’re not my friends.” They were far more than that, and at the same time, far less.
Malachai waved a hand dismissively. “You’re still on speaking terms. By Alarian standards, it still counts.”
I grimaced, but couldn’t argue with the comment. Most guardians had no such connections with their former families. I was among the few who still had any kind of ties with the Banished, something which could both come in handy and be a huge pain in the ass.
Frustrated with the turn of the conversation, I pulled out my cigarettes and lit one. In the silence that fell over the alleyway, the music that came from the nearby human club seemed to echo even louder. I wished Kai had picked any other spot for a meeting place, but sometimes, my brother could be more frustrating than a team of enforcers put together.
As I smoked, Malachai watched me with crimson eyes that glowed brighter than the tip of the cigarette. “Should you even be doing that?” he asked, just like I had known he would. Vampires were the worst mother hens, and since Malachai lacked a fledgling of his own, he tended to lavish me with advice that was, more often than not, neither wanted nor needed.
Still, I appreciated the sentiment and didn’t get irritated over it. Instead, I just shrugged. “Probably not, but it doesn’t make that much of a difference in the big picture. Gives me something to do, while we wait.” I shot my friend a quick smirk. “You’d do it too if you could.”
Malachai rolled his eyes at me. “As if I have any use for that kind of poison. The stench alone is making my blood curl in my veins.”
“That’s an interesting description.” It was also not far from fact. I well remembered the one time I’d been able to make Malachai smoke, on a dare. The vampire had complained for weeks about his inability to get the taste of the tobacco out of his fangs.
I supposed Malachai did have a point. The cigarette smelled awful, worse than any gas I myself could emit. Maybe chasing away my boredom like this wasn’t worth it.
I took another drag of my cigarette and blew the smoke out in a circle, idly watching it spiral toward the night’s sky. I then tossed it onto the pavement and extinguished it with my boot. “You know, Mal,” I belatedly added, “tacky or not, I can’t blame you for your sentiments. It is taking them forever to get here.”
Despite the non-sequitur, Malachai understood my reference to his earlier comment. He opened his mouth, perhaps planning on providing some kind of quip about how much he distrusted Banished of any kind. He never got the chance.
The familiar feeling of the approach of a werewolf group assaulted my senses. Over the smell of cigarette smoke, garbage and human excrement, I took in the scent of pack, of family, of what I’d once had, but had left behind because of something more important.
By my side, Malachai tensed and stopped breathing. It was an instinctive reaction for vampires when they went into what I affectionately liked to call “ready to rampage mode”. I wasn’t sure about the reasons, as I didn’t do it, and biologically, we weren’t that different. Even so, at one point, I’d begun to find it comforting. I needed the anchor when faced with this blast from the past.
“As punctual as always, little brother,” a voice said from the darkness. “But then, that’s not so surprising. You always were a stickler for the rules.”
“Some rules are in place for a reason, Kai,” I replied steadily. “But I don’t think we’re here to go over old debates. Do you ha
ve it?”
Kai stepped up within view, with Ryder following in his wake. As expected, the beta glowered at me with a fierceness that emphasized how much my mere existence insulted him. I ignored the palpable disdain and gave my brother an expectant look. “Well?” I prodded.
Kai didn’t disappoint. He tossed me a small USB stick, which I caught with ease. “As promised,” he said, “the info we found during our last clash with that scavenger pack.”
I clenched the small device in my fist, knowing full well that our exchange, no matter how uncomfortable, would save hundreds of lives. “Thanks for this, Kai.”
“There’s no need to thank me. I’m not doing this for you. I’m only here because their forces are too great for us to handle in the time we have at our disposal.”
I was well aware of that. Despite the separate paths we were now treading, my brother and I still ultimately wanted the same thing. Nevertheless, other Alphas might have been too proud or resentful of the Pures to resort to their assistance. It didn’t mean anything about my relationship with Kai, but it was better than nothing.
“Regardless, I’m still grateful,” I offered.
My brother clenched his jaw, a spark of yearning shining in his green eyes, so much like my own. I knew Kai wanted to reach for me, to cross the rift that I had created with my actions. But it was not possible, and in the end, we were both far too aware of our respective positions and responsibilities to pursue former attachments.
As such, it came as no surprise when Kai turned on his heel, dismissing my words and gratitude as irrelevant. I supposed that maybe they were, and in the big picture, didn’t make a difference.
Considering our history, I was relieved when my brother started to walk away. The whole exchange had lasted a few minutes, if that, and we hadn’t come to blows. Gods willing, Malachai and I might still make it to dinner.
I should have known better than to think anything in my life would be so easy.
All of a sudden, the scent of brimstone filled my nostrils, and flashes of old nightmares filled my mind, almost freezing me in my tracks. Fortunately, I had a great deal of experience dealing with such tricks. I pushed the shadows of my worst fears to the back of my consciousness, where they belonged, and focused on the reason why said fears had decided to give me a panic attack.
“Scavengers!” I shouted.
Even as I spoke, I shot forward, making my way to the other end of the alley. I wasn’t worried about Malachai. My friend could protect himself, and he knew how to handle this sort of mental attack as well as I did. Kai and Ryder didn’t have our training, and the sudden attack took them off guard.
I reached my brother and shoved him out of the way seconds before a rain of bullets hit the spot where he had been standing. In the process, I also barreled into Ryder, who ended up hitting the wall due to my zeal to save our lives.
Had that happened to a human, the person in question would’ve suffered at least a bad concussion. For Ryder, the blow barely caused him pain. In fact, it came in handy, since it snapped him out of his trance and directed his attention to the real threat, not the one that existed in his head. “You’ll pay for that, scavengers,” I heard him rumble.
Unfortunately, the beta’s determination didn’t help us much. My breath caught as I took in the massive number of figures that had manifested in the alley.
There must have been at least two dozen of them, mostly incubi and vampires. I should have noticed a group this size sooner. How had they sneaked past our guard with such ease? What had brought them here, to begin with? Had they followed Kai to our meeting point, or had they learned about it from another source?
Those were all questions that would have to wait, since, for the moment, I had to deal with the actual threat. Kai must have noticed the same thing I had and deemed it an insurmountable obstacle because he shot me a fond look and said, “It looks like we’ll get to fight side by side one last time, little brother.”
“One last time,” I repeated.
It was, up to a point, a lie. If I had even the slightest say, it would not be our last anything. I refused to die like this, without having accomplished my mission. I had too much to live for, and so did my brother. Also, no matter what I might have made Kai believe, two members of the Guardian Corps never went on a mission of such importance alone. All I had to do was stall until reinforcements arrived.
Still, my agreement helped Kai more than arguing over rules, semantics or details ever would. To iron the point home—and because it never hurt to make opponents underestimate me—I added, “We’ll take as many of them with us as we can.”
One of the scavengers took a step forward and grinned sharply. He didn’t have fangs, but that didn’t make the expression any less threatening. “Will you really?” he asked. “How ambitious. But then, guardians are like that, aren’t they? Such good, little slaves.”
“We’ll give you one chance,” a second scavenger, this time female, added. “Join us, or die.”
It should have been shocking that the scavengers would even suggest that. I suspected they wouldn’t have, if Kai and Ryder had been the only ones here. But guardians like me and Malachai were almost overwhelmingly viewed as betrayers of our kin, and many believed that our past opportunistic behavior would lead us to change sides whenever it was convenient.
It was, at best, an erroneous assumption, and at worst, the most idiotic thing in the history of time. I had no intention of becoming a scavenger since one of the reasons for my existence was removing theirs.
Something dark and furious rose up in my chest, the same fierce hatred that always stirred inside me whenever I faced such a group. I got up and turned toward my opponents. I was not surprised when my brother mimicked me. The rest of our little group joined us, with Malachai taking his position by my side like he always did when we were fighting.
“I’m afraid that as much as I appreciate the offer,” I said, “there is no way I could possibly take it. Because you see, the only thing I enjoy as of late is murdering monsters like you.”
Just like that, the gathering tension in the alley exploded, and the group of scavengers converged upon me and my companions. I had just enough time to pocket the USB stick I’d still managed to hold onto, and then, my world turned into blood, pain, and hatred.
By now, fighting scavengers was second nature to me. Within the blink of an eye, I took in the best angles of attack, the location of my enemies and allies, and the space and objects I had to work with. The scavengers were fast but often tended to not think things through, which was the one advantage I had at my disposal. Despite the fact that they owned ranged weaponry, they made no attempt to use their guns and attacked my small group in hand to hand combat.
In a way, I could understand their reasons. I didn’t pull out my weapons immediately either, and instead, when the first scavenger landed on me, chose the dirtier and more inefficient method. The vampire who was my target succumbed to having his throat slit, but the wound would just delay him, not kill him. It was a problem most of the members of our species suffered from. We hated each other so much that sometimes, inflicting direct damage through our own hands seemed the only way to exorcize that feeling.
I didn’t let my foolish impulses get the better of me for too long. I threw the temporarily dead body onto the small group attempting to gang up on my brother. I then pulled out my pistol and emptied the barrel into the crowd of approaching scavengers. Somewhere behind me, I could hear Malachai doing the same, but I did not turn around to see how my partner was doing. I always trusted Malachai to have my back, and today was no exception.
As it turned out, these particular scavengers had a little more self-preservation than others I had fought in the past. Some of them had decided to stay out of my reach altogether and had chosen an unusual strategy. A rain of silver bullets peppered the alley, hailing from somewhere above us and indiscriminately striking everything in their path.
Malachai and I took cover, using some of the s
cavengers still present in the alley as meat shields. Kai managed to dodge. Ryder was not so lucky and fell to the silver. I couldn’t see where he had been hit, but chances were it had been lethal.
Then again, maybe not, since Kai decided to pull his fallen beta out of the line of fire, behind a nearby dumpster. “The roof!” he shouted. “They’re on the roof!”
I had noticed that too, but I could not blame Kai for pointing out the obvious when a prized member of his pack had been attacked. “Stay here and cover them, Mal,” I told my partner as I reloaded my gun. “I’ll see what I can do about our long-distance friends.”
This side of the building didn’t have a convenient fire escape I could rely on, but the walls were made out of bricks, not concrete, providing me with an anchor I could hold onto with my claws and dagger. I had not come here tonight with the desire to mimic Spider-Man, but whatever. The scavengers did not seem to have expected this approach, and they didn’t get the chance to target me with their guns. I reached the roof without suffering the same fate Ryder had, at which point things really got messy.
There were at least twelve scavengers within my reach, all of whom possessed firearms. My chances of taking all of them out were not very high. Also, the building we were on was the club the music originated from, which meant there were a lot of humans beneath us, humans I was duty-bound to protect.
Bracing myself for what would undoubtedly be a difficult battle, I grabbed the scavenger closest to me, stabbed him in the chest, and then shielded myself from the others using his dead body. It kept me from dying a horrible death through silver poisoning, but it also occupied my hands and lost me one of my weapons. I succeeded to get in a few good shots at the group before one of the scavengers attacked me from behind.
Normally, this wouldn’t have been too big of a problem. In fact, I managed to right myself and retaliate, using my claws now that my dagger was lost to me. Alas, it didn’t help me much, since my biggest foe at that moment was not the scavenger who had challenged me, but gravity.
