by Nalini Singh
Her wings were so heavy. Her shoulders ached. Pushing the sensations to the back of her mind, she called Vivek and asked him to run a search on the address Piero had given her. “Place belongs to a senior Tower vampire,” he said mere seconds later. “Hiraz Weir.”
Elena frowned; she knew Hiraz. There could be nothing whatsoever suspicious in the unexpected Tower connection, or there could be something extremely suspicious. “Thanks, V.” Phone safely stored, she and her Legion escort turned in the direction of Weir’s residence. It proved to be the dual-level penthouse suite in a hotel that also catered to those who wished to live in serviced apartments.
After circling the modern gray brick building with large windows, Elena came to a landing on the wide balcony outside the top floor of the penthouse. The sliding glass doors were closed. Beyond them was a lounge. A woman sat on a deep blue sofa reading some type of a document.
Elena’s knock made her jump, the printed pages sliding to the floor.
Huge blue eyes stared at her in frozen silence before the woman flushed and scrambled up. Her mid-thigh-length black kimono was printed with a huge tropical bird on one side; it flapped around her legs as she slid open the door. Below the kimono, she wore a thin black slip from what looked like the same collection Elena had been intending to plunder before her world went to hell.
Despite the nightwear, however, the young woman was in full makeup, her eyelashes curled to within an inch of their lives, and her lips outlined plump and red. Door open, she twisted her hands together. “He isn’t home,” she whispered. “I think he’s at the Tower.”
“I’ve come to see you, China.”
The other woman paled impossibly further under the creamy white skin so flawless it could’ve been that of the doll Piero had called her. The impression was solidified by the blunt fringe that framed her face, the rest of her thick hair cut in a short and silky bob with wispy edges that suited the softness of her features.
Her body was as sensually soft, with heavy breasts, and hips that curved. A Rubens painting come to life with a modern haircut and dark green nail polish on her toes. “Am I in trouble?” Her lower lip trembled, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.
Elena couldn’t tell if any of it was real, needed more time to learn China’s reactions. “I only want to ask you some questions about when you lived in the Quarter.”
“I don’t go there anymore. Hiraz doesn’t like it.” She hugged her arms around herself. “He’s so nice to me. I don’t want to lose him.” Another tremor, perhaps an act, perhaps because Hiraz was cruel, or perhaps because she was afraid of losing her new life.
“I’ll talk to Hiraz myself,” Elena reassured her. “Trust me, he won’t be angry at you for helping me.”
China exhaled shakily but nodded. “He’s real proud of working at the Tower.” She waved at the sofa. “Would you like to take a seat?” The words came out a touch hesitant, as if she were parroting words she’d never actually spoken before.
Real, Elena decided at that instant, China’s reactions were real. That of a girl who’d been pulled off a hard life on the streets and into a penthouse dream, but who wasn’t sure quite how to behave in this rarefied environment. “How about we walk to the kitchen and you make me a cup of coffee?”
China’s face glowed from within. “Oh, sure.” Wiping off the remnants of her scared tears, she bustled to the kitchen. “I love coffee.” She blushed and bit down on her lower lip as she cinched the kimono tighter. “Sorry about how I’m dressed. We had a late night.”
“Perils of having a vampire boyfriend.”
“Exactly.” A dimpled smile. “But it’s so fun going out with him at night. No one gives me disgusting looks or tries to grab me or even whistle at me, and I can have fun without worrying.” She shivered, but this time it was accompanied by a delighted little smile. “Hiraz is scary, and that protects me.”
“He is scary,” Elena agreed, though Hiraz was tame in comparison to Dmitri and Venom. Of course, Tower-tame equaled deadly on the streets.
“He’s so sweet to me, though,” China said as she put together not only fresh coffee but a plate of small cakes from a white box on the counter. “He got me these cakes this morning because he knows how much I like them. I almost don’t want to become a vampire because I won’t be able to eat as many cakes.”
“Have you been accepted?” Elena took a cake when China held out the plate.
“Yes, I got the acceptance letter a week ago.” She drew in a deep breath. “I’m so scared of serving the angels,” she confided, “but Hiraz asked Dmitri if he could see me during my time under Contract, and Dmitri said that we could even live together.” The joyous words were whispered. “I only have to live in my angel’s household for a while, until I can discipline what Hiraz calls the blood urge.”
“Have you been assigned an angel?” Most vampires didn’t know till after the transition, but Hiraz would’ve no doubt found out. And if Dmitri had assigned this gentle creature to Andreas, Elena would cut out his heart.
“Miuxu,” China said. “Hiraz said she’s kind?”
Catching the upward intonation, Elena nodded. “I like her a lot.” At this rate, she really would have to start being nice to Dmitri.
“Oh, I’m so happy to hear that.” China dimpled again. “Anyway, after my probation time, I can come home at the end of my shift, like with a regular job. Hiraz says that some vampires take longer than others to get control, so I shouldn’t worry if I don’t have it at once, but I don’t think it will take me so long. I’m not . . . I don’t wanna get away with anything. I just wanna be strong.”
There it was, the fear that haunted this woman who had seen the horrors and ugliness of the world firsthand and yet contained within her an innocence that was a quiet rebellion.
China had steel in her, though many would never see it.
Just like Beth.
Finishing off the cake, Elena took a sip of the coffee China held out. “It’s difficult being human in a world full of immortals and near-immortals.”
“Not for you.” China’s smile was deep and infused with New Yorker pride. “Even before you got wings. In the Quarter, folks used to talk about some of the vamps you hauled back and I’d wonder how you did it. Most of the ones I met before Hiraz could be real mean—and they weren’t even a tiny bit as powerful as he is.” A sniff. “He could squash them with his little finger.”
Hiraz and China were starting to sound cute enough together that it threatened to puncture Elena’s dark mood. “I have a feeling you’ll make a wonderful vampire.” As long as nothing went wrong in the process, she’d probably come out of it as sweet as she’d gone in. “Is it okay if I ask my questions?”
China nodded though her fingers were crushing her coffee cup. “I don’t like to think about that time.” A soft confession. “I got turned out on the streets at fourteen by my stepbrother. Fresh meat, you know.” She shrugged, dipping her head so that her hair slid forward to hide her expression. “It was bad.”
The simplicity of the description only made the horror of it worse. “You should be proud of coming out on the other side with your personality and your gentleness intact.”
China’s eyes were unbearably vulnerable when she raised her head. “When I couldn’t take it anymore, I went inside my head, so I didn’t have to be in my body.”
Elena thought of a ten-year-old girl surrounded by the mutilated pieces of her sisters’ bodies, of a teenager who dreamed of drowning in blood. “Sometimes, it’s the only way to fight.”
“He’s not mean, my Hiraz,” China whispered. “Tough, but not mean.” A hesitation. “He calls me by my real name. The one my mom gave me.”
Wanting to kick herself, Elena said, “I’m sorry, I should have asked.” Of course China was a working name, one likely chosen by the stepbrother—a moniker to advertise her looks. “I’d like to call you
by that name, if you’re happy to share it.”
A trembling smile. “Jenessa. Jeni for short.”
“Nice to meet you, Jeni.”
The other woman laughed softly before taking a big gulp of her coffee and squaring her shoulders. “Okay, ask me.”
When Elena led her back to the incident in question, Jenessa’s eyes widened. “Yes, I remember! Oh, I remember everything!”
Startled, Elena put down her coffee. “Why was it such a memorable night for you?”
“Because that’s when I met him.” Smiles on top of smiles. “I was running and running, and I ran in front of his car and it nearly hit me before he managed to stop. I was so scared I couldn’t run anymore and my heart was pounding and I thought for sure that he was going to smack me around for nearly putting a dent in his car.”
Another gulp of coffee before she continued her rapid-fire story. “But he didn’t. He asked me why I was crying, and when I told him, he put me in his car and we drove back to the apartment to check if Lucy was all right. But only Eric was there when we reached it, and he was unconscious. One of the neighbors said the man who’d beaten up Simon had taken Lucy with him.”
Lucy.
Elena’s blood buzzed. “Can you tell me about Lucy?”
Jenessa nodded. “We met on the street. We even shared a small apartment for a while after she first came to the Quarter. But . . . Lucy liked drugs.” Her fingers clenched around the empty mug. “My stepbrother banned me from taking drugs when my skin started to attract customers with money, and after he was gone, I’d seen how bad it could get, and I stayed clean.”
“But Lucy did drugs? Cocaine?”
Jenessa nodded, her hair a glossy shade of purplish black Holly would appreciate. “There was this one vampire who’d give her coke if she’d do stuff with him and his friend.” She shuddered. “Both creeps. Both into sick stuff. I never went with them—my stepbrother got knifed in a fight when I was nineteen, and I had a few regulars who agreed to pay me twenty-five extra a month so I wouldn’t have to work the streets and risk having my skin torn up.”
A hard swallow. “I didn’t know how to do anything else.”
Jenessa had ducked her head through the entire latter part of her statement, shame thick in the words. Elena wanted to reach across and hug her, but after knowing Aodhan, she made no assumptions about touch. “You survived and your piece of shit stepbrother is dead. Makes you the smarter one I’d say.”
Jenessa raised her head a fraction, looking at Elena through her bangs until she seemed to decide Elena meant it. “You want more coffee?” she asked with a hopeful smile that was a fragile construct.
“Sure.” Elena saw Jenessa pull herself back together again as she poured. “You remember the name of the creeps who gave Lucy coke?”
“Nish and Terry,” Jenessa said with a shudder. “Vamps. They liked to put things inside Lucy’s body and record her being humiliated then put the videos online. It makes me sick that those videos are out there in the world.”
Nishant Kumar and Terence Lee.
Elena’s heartbeat rocketed, a sick feeling in her gut. “Did Nish and Terry pass Lucy on to Simon Blakely?”
40
“Lucy met him at Nish’s.” Sadness in her voice. “He treated her nicer than Nish and Terry.”
Bastard had been playing games, the good-guy rescuer who got off on girls the other two had fundamentally damaged. “You liked him.”
“Yes, he seemed okay. After hanging with us at a local diner a few times, he invited us to visit his apartment. I was careful not to go too much because I didn’t want him starting to think he was my pimp, but his roommate, Eric, always had free coke for Lucy, so she went all the time.”
Jenessa tightened the belt of her robe compulsively. “I didn’t like her doing that, but I thought at least she was safer than she’d been with those sickos Nish and Terry. After a while, she and Simon hooked up and she moved in with him—he liked to have sex when she was high, but it was all normal, nothing weird, and Lucy liked being high, so . . . She let Eric do honey feeds from her sometimes, too, to thank him for the coke.”
“Eric try to get it on with you when you visited her?”
“Eric?” A giggle. “No, he only liked guys. Mostly the big biker types with the beards and the chest hair and the leather.”
That was a piece of information no one else had shared. It fitted in neatly with his wounds: hand cut off for offering Lucy drugs, but genitals left intact because he’d never abused her sexually. “You okay talking about the night Lucy’s father came and got her?”
“Yes.” Jenessa’s hand shook as she topped up her coffee, but she walked into the past despite her fear. “It was cold that night, and I didn’t have enough money to use the heating at my place.” A haunted look beyond the balcony doors. “It’ll be exactly one year in a week.”
A shiver ran over Elena’s skin, a hitch of memory she couldn’t capture.
“So you came over to Simon and Eric’s to hang out, get warm,” she said past her frustration.
A jerky nod. “Even though Simon was a vampire, he usually had food in his apartment, and he didn’t mind if I took it. Once in a while, he even put my favorite cookies in there.”
Drugs for one, Elena realized, food for the other. Simon Blakely and his friend had been a slick operation. Lining up Jenessa for when they were tired of Lucy? Sex with a damaged young woman for Blakely; honey feeds for Acosta.
“When I got there,” Jenessa said, “Eric had just had a honey feed from a boy who passed me on the stairs as I was coming up. Eric was wasted, told me Lucy and Simon were in the bedroom. I didn’t bother them, just made myself microwave ramen then sat on the couch and watched a comedy show on TV.”
“And Eric?”
“He sacked out on his mattress on the floor, kind of half watching, half sleeping like he did a lot after a honey feed. I’d almost finished my noodles when the front door smashed open, and this man came in yelling for Lucy. I thought for sure he’d hurt me, but he grabbed Eric around the throat and said, ‘Where the fuck is my daughter?’”
Jenessa had unconsciously mimicked the intruder’s deep growl.
“What happened next?”
“Eric had a baggie of coke on the coffee table, and I could tell it made the other man furious. His face went all red. The door to the bedroom opened right then and Lucy stumbled out dressed in just her panties and a tank top.”
Jenessa tucked her hair behind her ears. “She was screaming at the man, saying she wished he was dead instead of her mom. I could tell she was high, but he ignored her to smash his fist into Simon’s face.” A wince. “I was frightened Simon would kill him, but Lucy’s dad was fast and he had a weapon—a piece of heavy chain like people use on their biting dogs.”
“Did Eric try to help?”
“He used so much that he couldn’t move quick even on normal days. That night, he was half asleep. Lucy kept trying to jump on her dad, but he ignored her even when she was clinging to his back and clawing at his face. He never hurt her. I guess ’cause he was her dad and he loved her.” A wistfulness to her. “My dad left me with my stepbrother and never, ever came back. But Lucy’s dad came for her.”
“Is that when you ran?”
“I was screaming at Lucy to come with me, but she wouldn’t come—and one of the neighbors began yelling that she’d called the cops. That’s when I ran.” Her lower lip shook. “I never saw Lucy again.”
“Her father never hurt her even when she was attacking him,” Elena reminded the other woman.
Jenessa nodded, sinking her teeth into her lower lip again, her eyes wet. “Lucy had a dad who cared. Why didn’t she just go home when it got awful on the streets? Why did she let Nish and Terry do those things to her?”
“Can you describe Lucy’s father for me?”
“Dark eyes, dar
k hair—not black, brown like dark chocolate.” Lines on her forehead. “Tall and strong.” She held up a hand indicating the man had been several inches taller than Elena.
Jenessa couldn’t, however, pinpoint his race. She’d been in shock and the scene had been chaotic. She thought he might’ve been white and tanned, but he could’ve also been a light-skinned member of multiple other races.
“It’s strange,” Jenessa murmured. “I think of him and he just kind of disappears. Like he was real good at being ordinary.”
Elena’s blood went cold. And she remembered what she hadn’t before: roughly a year ago, she’d run into Archer and he’d had a number of bad gouges on his face. She’d commiserated with him about how vicious vampire claws could be, and he’d said, “I wish it were that simple, Ellie. My baby’s gotten into drugs—but I’ve entered her into a resident rehab program. Maybe I’ll get her back.”
Nausea churned in her gut.
Archer’s daughter had died of an overdose just under nine months ago. A daughter who’d had a dead mother. Archer had been called the phantom for his ability to hide in plain sight. He was also a good enough fighter to have demolished Blakely and Acosta, and smart enough to have remained unseen when he set the fire that took Kumar’s and Lee’s lives.
The broken blade. The mourner.
It all fit.
Elena shook her head, not ready to look at the final line of Cassandra’s warning. She needed more information. She couldn’t zero in on Archer when every piece of evidence they had said he was dead and buried. And when his daughter’s name hadn’t been Lucy. Samaria, that was it. Elena remembered thinking it was a pretty name when Archer mentioned it once.
After she left Jenessa, she updated Ashwini and Janvier then confirmed with Vivek that Hiraz was at the Tower. Landing on one of the balconies below Dmitri’s floor, she tracked the vampire down to an office where he stood arguing with another vamp.
