The Order of Chaos
A Leah Wolfe SINS novel
Rhonda Print
Published 2011
ISBN 978-1-59578-876-4
Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2011, Rhonda Print. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Liquid Silver Books
http://LSbooks.com
Email:
[email protected]
Editor
Sharis Mayer
Cover Artist
April Martinez
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.
Blurb
One man possessed her heart. The other possessed her soul.
Both had betrayed her.
Leah Wolfe, a federal agent for SINS, Supernatural Investigations of Non-Human Species, is determined to move on with her life and master her own gifts, including the ability to speak to the souls of the dead. Her ex-fiancé, Joaquín Wildhorse, was unable to accept her gifts and gave himself to another. Ian Nightwalker was more than willing to soothe her broken heart and use her abilities to seek vengeance on his enemies.
With a prominent member of The Marquis, the vampire ruling council, intent on coming to Leah’s hometown, the threat of Chaos touching everyone she loves brings her down a path that leads to Joaquín Wildhorse and Ian Nightwalker once again.
Is Leah willing to risk her heart again to save the small desert town she loves?
Dedication
To my wonderful husband and our three beautiful children for their never-ending support.
Kudos to my editor, Sharis Mayer, and cover artist, April Martinez, for lending me their amazing talent.
And of course, many thanks to my readers!
Prologue
A tingle creeps down your spine; you look around, searching the shadows.
Someone is watching you.
The menacing gaze upon your back raises the hair at the nape of your neck. You turn, eyes frantically scanning the empty street behind you.
Only the still dark of night greets you.
People see what they want to see—know what they are comfortable knowing. Anything that doesn’t fit into their neat little box of idealism they label as unnatural, evil.
Dark things exist amid the shadows.
They are real.
They are watching.
They always have been.
Chapter One
I ducked to avoid the fist aimed at my face then spun to land my own punch in his gut. I heard a grunt that let me know I’d put a decent amount of force into it. I reveled in my satisfaction too long, long enough for him to shift my weight off him.
I rolled a couple of times to attempt to put some distance between us, but he had the advantage now and used it to pin me under him. I was trapped and staring at his groin. He did not look unhappy to be in this position. Damn, did everything turn guys on?
“Pig,” I grunted, despite the strain on my chest.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he replied with a wicked grin.
I twisted and bucked but he kept the full force of his weight across my chest. I couldn’t get my arms around him to hit him in the balls so I jerked my head to the side and bit his thigh hard enough to leave a mark through the denim of his jeans. He snarled and loosened his hold enough for me to roll and jump to my feet.
I felt my mouth curve up at the edges in a smile but kept my focus on the angry man in front of me. I dropped low to avoid the coming blow and swept my leg out to knock my attacker on his ass. I rolled over him, pinning his shoulders with my knees.
“If you wanted to be in this position,” he sneered, “all you had to do was ask.”
I stood and stepped away while he laughed. “Damn, is that all men ever think about?”
He jumped to his feet like he had springs in them and pushed me across the floor and into the wall with enough force to knock the wind out of me. I slid to the floor.
“Fuck!” Training sucks!
Donovan Rourke stood above me with his hand outstretched to help me up. I lifted my hand, grasped his and kicked his feet out from under him. He hit the ground hard.
“That was a cheap shot, Leah,” he gasped.
“Vampires don’t fight fair, Donovan.” I smiled widely. “You would do well to remember that.”
I stepped back as Donovan lifted himself off the floor. I wasn’t giving him the same chance he’d just given me by offering to help him up. I’d end up on my ass and I knew it.
Donovan rose to his full six-feet plus and wiped the sweat from his brow. His dark brown hair stuck to his face while small drops of sweat beamed on his forehead. He loosened the ties on his boxing gloves with his teeth and pulled the first one off. “I’m done, let’s get a drink.”
“No thanks.” I started pulling my own gloves off while walking toward the women’s locker room.
“Leah, you have to eat, right?”
I turned back to him. He was still breathing heavily, making his chest rise and fall and expanding the full breadth of his wide stance. Sweat glistened off his body, threatening to spill into his clear green eyes. “Yeah, I have to eat.” I relented. “Give me fifteen minutes then I’ll meet you in the mess.”
He laughed, a sudden sound in the otherwise quiet room. “You’re the only woman I know who can be showered and dressed in fifteen minutes.” He shook his head, smiling. “You’re one a kind, Leah.”
I dropped my gloves in the bin next to the locker room as I pushed the door open. “So I’ve been told, Donovan.”
Chapter Two
The bullet ripped past my head, grazing my ear before hitting its intended target. I heard the young vampire howl with pain as the silver-tip burrowed itself deep in his shoulder, giving me just enough time to twist out of his grip and drop to the floor before Sam fired two more rounds into his chest.
“Dammit, Sam!” I cursed, pinching my earlobe between my fingers to stop the bleeding. “Aim a little more to the left next time.”
“He’s doesn’t exactly have broad shoulders, Leah,” Sam Anderson, the Director of Supernatural Investigations of Non-Human Species, SINS for short, commented casually as he stood over the still body of the thin vampire lying on the floor. “He’s kind of scrawny.”
SINS is an unknown government agency that specializes in keeping humans safe from the supernatural population. A population thought to only exist in myths and legends. It has only been recently that vampires and shapeshifters have come out of the shadows.
I looked down at the vamp as the first bullet extracted itself from his body and landed on the hard concrete with a chink. He was young, not only as a vamp, but before his transformation. Long greasy hair stuck out at odd angles around his unshaven face. Even through the whiskers and grime I could see he wasn’t much more than twenty years old. The second and then third bullets popped out of his chest then bounced off the floor.
“He’s healing fast for a newbie,” Sam commented.
“Yeah, I know. Let’s finish the job.” I pulled a silver-coated wooden spike out of my boot sheath and jammed it through the center of the young vamp’s heart.
Vampires can heal almost any wound with the proper amount of time. I learned that the hard way—is there any other way to learn? The only sure w
ay to kill them is by driving a stake through their heart then burning their body to ashes. Very Hollywood, I know, but most myths are based on some truth.
Wooden stakes will do the job, but silver-coated ones seem to hold the body a little longer. The silver-coated spike would secure our young vamp long enough for a clean-up crew to transport him to a morgue where he would eventually be cremated.
He was one of the lucky ones. We wanted to question him so that bought him a little time. Until his execution, he would be kept sedated with a mixture of drugs and liquid silver. A very expensive incarceration, but we used it occasionally when we needed further information from a vampire. Not that I haven’t killed vampires on scene when the need arises, I have and will again; a fact I’ve learned to live with, or at least try to.
* * * *
I’m Leah Wolfe, Federal Agent for SINS. I was born with the ability to speak to the souls of the dead. I’m also an Empath, which roughly means I can feel the emotions of people around me, a fact that kept me primarily in solitude until I learned to shield myself against unwanted feelings and emotions.
The Vampire Rights Amendment that recently passed through multiple countries has allowed the supernatural communities to reveal themselves and live publicly among humans. They’re not given the same legal rights as humans, regardless of what the politicians say in front of the cameras. There is no “jury of your peers” when you’re immortal. No second chances. You kill; you die. A policy I personally think should be carried out on humans too, but hey, that’s just me.
“This is the third newbie in two weeks.” Sam interrupted my line of thought. “Who the hell is cranking out new vamps?”
“More importantly,” I added, “why? Have the clean-up crew take him to the station until we can ask him a few questions about his daddy or mommy master as the case may be.”
I’ve also learned that the females can be way more aggressive than the males.
Who knew?
Chapter Three
Stakeouts suck! I sat in the filthy run-down apartment staring across the street at an abandoned building while sweat rolled down my forehead. I swiped at it before it could sting my eyes. Again.
“You think the bastard lied to us?” I asked Allen Ramirez, the cop I’d been assigned to work with until my “official” probationary period was over. I had more experience with supernaturals than Ramirez did and Sam had tried to convince the higher-ups I didn’t need him, but in a classic political cover-your-ass move, they had insisted I complete the program the same as any other agent would. Therefore, I was stuck with Ramirez, for now. It was little consolation that he was even more miserable on this stakeout than I was.
Sam had questioned the newbie vamp, who called himself “Malvin Betrayer”, we’d captured last week and he’d led us to this dump of a building in search of his master, the vampire who turned him. The same vampire that we suspected had turned at least three new vamps in the past month. Creating a new vampire wasn’t exactly against the law; it was kind of a gray area. However, this vamp was using his “babies” to kill humans and that was against the law, even in the vampire world. The Marquis, the governing body of the immortal world, may have turned a blind eye to the occasional loss of a human but ultimately preferred to protect rather than end the life of humans. Being a precious food supply, vampires could not exist without human blood. They may have come out of hiding but they still adhered to their original laws. Rogue vampires were executed. Period.
Ben shrugged. “He knows he’s going to burn so there’s no reason to tell us the truth.” Ben Harris was the newest agent in the department. His young, eager face was surrounded by a mass of shaggy, sandy brown hair. His blue eyes were wide with excitement. Sam had recruited Ben fresh out of college. I thought he was a little too young for the Supernatural Division but he was a smart kid and spent weeks of grueling training to get here. On a side note, I liked the kid. He was like the little brother I never had and when he came to take over stakeout duty, I was reluctant to leave.
“Getting a little more time would be a good enough reason to lie.” I rubbed my hand across my forehead again. “We’ve been watching this place for almost four days and haven’t seen a thing out of place.” I stood and stretched the kinks out of my back.
“We should just burn the bastards out of there and put an end to all this shit.” Ramirez snorted.
“There are innocent people in there,” I snarled.
“Not people,” Ramirez replied. “Vampires. Collateral damage,” he muttered. Ramirez was not a fan of the supernatural world. In his opinion, there were enough freaks running around without adding to it. He didn’t care about anyone or anything supernatural. In other words, he was a complete bastard.
But he was also a good cop, not that I’d ever tell him that. And vampires scared him; not that he would admit it.
“They’re not collateral damage,” I said through gritted teeth, instantly sorry that I’d taken the bait Ramirez dangled in front of me.
He got me and he knew it. Damn.
Ramirez is the right hand man of Captain Charles Wilson and Wilson is my adopted father. I’d call my relationship with Ramirez a ‘love/hate’ kind of thing but love is way too strong a word. Sometimes it’s more of a competition to see who can get under the others’ skin. Deep down under all the sarcasm, we respect each other. He’s a good man.
“What time is your date tonight, Leah?” Ben cut through the tense silence in the room.
I turned my attention to him. “I’m meeting him at The Ridge Restaurant at eight.” I glanced at my watch. “Shit!”
“Its seven fifteen now,” Ben said as he looked at his own watch. “Better fly low.”
“The Ridge?” Ramirez let out a low whistle. “You must be putting out for this guy, that’s a very pricey place.”
I flashed him the look his comment deserved. “You really are an asshole, Ramirez.” I turned back to Ben. “I’ll have my cell with me, call me if anything changes.”
“Go,” he ordered, waving his hands toward the door.
I went.
Chapter Four
It took me twenty minutes to get to the small apartment I had rented when I came back to the city. I’d given up my adobe-style rental when I left for SINS training and hoped to find something similar soon, maybe even the same place, if my realtor could swing it, and if the place had been restored. The few belongings I had left after my house was trashed several months ago were stored in my childhood bedroom until I found my own permanent place. I had a realtor checking into available rentals but it was proving difficult to find a home in the rural area of town I preferred to live in.
I took a shower in record time, not bothering to shave my legs as I had no intention of letting this date go far enough to need smooth legs, threw on a floor-length sundress and swept my hair up into a loose bun. A quick swipe of make-up and I was on my way out the door.
As I drove up the winding mountain road toward the restaurant perched at the top I let my mind wander to the twists and turns my own life had taken. I was abandoned by my mother and left to fend for myself on the streets, only to be shot in the crossfire of a rival gang war. Ironically, that turned out to be one of the best things that had happened in my life.
Charlie, Wilson to everyone that knew him, was the investigating officer when I was shot, and his wife Alli, a nurse, adopted me and gave me the first real home I’d ever known. They had even accepted my abilities and encouraged me to embrace them. I graduated from college with a degree in paranormal psychology and investigations and eventually became a detective within the police department. I took a lot of shit from other cops because Wilson was the captain of the police department by that time, but that only made me more determined to stand on my own achievements. I left the department and became a private detective mostly doing fraud cases for Mutual Fidelity Insurance Company. I was never much of a team player and got tired of the bureaucratic bullshit that protected the rights of the criminals without regard
for the rights of the victims. And, as much as I hated to admit it, my nasty break-up with my former fiancé, Joaquín Wildhorse, Chief Detective of the Reservation Police Department, left me searching for a normal life, one without the curse, or gifts, that caused Joaquín to call me an unholy witch. A decision he later regretted after I threw his engagement ring in his face and drop-kicked him in the balls.
The state keeps me on retainer because of my abilities. It makes it a little easier to track down a killer when the soul of the victim is able to tell me who killed them or at least lead me in the right direction.
After months of downright boring insurance investigations, Wilson asked me in on a case involving a young woman found dead near the Reservation. Suddenly I not only had Joaquín back in my life, but also Ian Nightwalker, a sexy vampire several hundred years old who made me feel whole and content again. Of course that also brought me a vampire serial killer, Elizabeth, intent on making me one of her victims. Unknowingly to me at the time, Ian had bound me to him using a ritual as old as time.
Sex.
My bond with Ian had saved my life but also revealed that he had been using me all along to track Elizabeth, knowing she would be attracted to my powers and attempt to kill me for them.
My brief but passionate affair with Ian ended there. I was devastated that Ian had used me, betrayed me. He hurt me deep in my heart, my soul. He also made me realize that the “normal” life I’d been seeking was going to be whatever I made of it.
What the hell is the definition of “normal” anyway? Each life is individual, shaped by pain and happiness, obstacles and achievements, successes and failures.
I decided to embrace my powers, which now may or may not include abilities I am siphoning off Ian because of the bond forged between us that would forever be a part of me.
I walked away from both Joaquín and Ian and accepted the job offered to me by Sam and would be a full-fledged Federal Agent once my probationary period was over.
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