E.V.I.E.: 13 Slayers, 13 Missions

by Lexi C. Foss

  “Hey you,” he said.

  “Me?” Jasper asked.

  “Yeah, don’t I know you?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Jasper replied.

  The bouncer shrugged, and we got in line. They weren’t checking I.D.s. There was an entry fee. I just hoped I had enough to get into the party. When we reached the bouncer, he studied Jasper’s face.

  “How much?” I asked him, drawing his attention to me.

  “It’s free for you, but it’s fifty pounds for him,” the bouncer said.

  Jasper fished a note from his wallet and handed it to the guy without looking at him. The man leaned forward and spoke softly between us.

  “I’m pretty sure we’ve hooked-up before. If you are still interested, I’ll rotate inside in an hour. She can watch,” he said.

  “Maybe next time,” Jasper replied as he practically shoved me through the door into the large dark and empty warehouse. We followed a line of people across the room to a set of stairs. Instead of going up, we went down into the belly of the building.

  “Didn’t know that you swung both ways,” I commented.

  “I don’t,” he replied. “I don’t know that guy.”

  “He sure seemed to know you.”

  Jasper grunted in response as we waited for our turn to go down the steps.

  “I don’t like this,” I said, taking slow steps so that I didn’t get my heels stuck in the mesh grating of the stairs.

  “Me either. This is a massacre waiting to happen. What weapons do you have other than the taser?”

  “I have a stake.”

  He eyed me in the darkness. “Where?”

  “Wouldn’t you like to know,” I smirked then stepped off the stairs into the largest dancefloor I’d ever seen. Lights flashed around the room as bodies writhed to the pounding bassline of the music. Jasper moved closer to me and leaned next to my ear.

  “What do you call this music?” he asked.

  “It has different names. This style is called grabber,” I shouted back, but my voice sounded more like a whisper against the music. “Stay away from the balloons.”

  People were dancing wildly and sucking the air out of balloons.

  “What’s in them?” he asked.

  “Nitrous Oxide.”

  “Laughing gas?”

  “It’s actually a depressant. It slows your reflexes and allows your body to relax. It’s a different kind of high,” I explained.

  “Makes these people an easy target,” he said.

  It impressed me that he was thinking about the case instead of a plethora of sweaty, half-naked bodies. The men had dressed a lot like Jasper had, except for a few who stepped up their game in the dark gothy area, as Beckett had. The women however had gone all out with neon plastic dresses, rainbow tutus, and other extreme outfits. Mine was actually tame compared to the rest of the room.

  Pushing through the crowd, I made my way to a wall where a stairwell ran up to a balcony area. If we wanted to keep an eye on the crowd, that was where we needed to be, however a hulking brute blocked the way.

  “I just want to go take a look from above,” I shouted to him.

  “No, ma’am. It won’t hold too many people and we will have a disaster on our hands,” he shouted back.

  “Are you with the organizer?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he hired security guards for the premises. We aren’t here to stop the party, just to make sure no one gets hurt,” he said.

  Jasper tugged on my hand, and I looked up to him. He nodded to the side of the room which had a small platform.

  “I just need to be taller than most of them. I can see from over there,” he said.

  I nodded in agreement, and we moved to the platform that rose about two feet off the ground. He climbed up, then gave me a hand to join him. The area was crowded. Jasper placed his hands on my hips, and I felt his fingertips pressing into my sides. Once again, he leaned down to my ear.

  “I know you hate this, but I’m not letting you go in this room. This basement is dangerous. If something goes wrong, I swear, I’ll get us out.”

  I looked to the side so I could speak in his ear. “I’m a trained vampire assassin. I’m sure I can survive this without you.”

  He pressed his lips together in frustration and released me. Immediately, a woman to my right began to jump around spilling her drink as the beat dropped for the current song. She knocked me sideways, and I managed to stay on the platform without assistance. In an instant, my training kicked in and I had full control over my body. When I was in tune like this, it was like the world around me slowed to snail’s pace. Jasper looked disappointed, but he needed to learn that just because I was human didn’t mean that I couldn’t handle myself.

  I scanned the crowd while moving to the music. I wanted to blend in as much as possible. Jasper stuck out like a sore thumb. He’d moved across the platform to the corner while watching over the room.

  My eyes landed on Beckett dancing with a girl. She backed into him, rubbing her ass across his crotch. He looked very pleased and kept one hand on her hip as she moved. He watched me instead of watching her to the point where she noticed and confronted him. He shrugged her off and started walking toward me.

  When he stepped up on the platform, he looked down into my eyes.

  “See something you like, Little Slayer?” he asked.

  I felt his influence tingle against my skin. The enthrallment was subtle, but for a trained slayer, I immediately recognized it. Fortunately for me, I had a few charms to ward off his attempts to seduce me. Specifically, the ankh necklace that I wore around my neck at all times. The ancient hieroglyph represented life. I’d had it blessed by a Coptic priest in Cairo on my last visit there. The Coptics had adapted the ankh to serve as their symbol of the cross. It was a symbol, the same as a crucifix. I had a larger one in my full slayer kit. Instead of the typical crucifix, I carried the ancient artifact endowed with the power of life from the time of the pharaohs. It had once been a part of the collection that my father owned, and when I had asked for it, he gave it to me not knowing what I had intended to use it for. I loved the look on a vamp’s face when my golden ankh repelled them the same as a cross.

  “What are you really doing here, Beckett?” I asked.

  He slipped his hand between my arm and my waist. I allowed him to continue, as long as I was in control, he couldn’t do anything to me. Plus, I had back-up who had moved from his hiding place in the corner. I didn’t know where Jasper had gone, but I knew he wouldn’t go far.

  “Looking for a hook-up. Surely Baron Eden has explained the pressures of the peerage.” He leaned down next to my ear. “I see no bite marks. I suppose he hasn’t claimed you.”

  “I cannot be claimed.”

  He straightened his head back up and looked at me with his dark brown eyes. “Oh, I see now. You’ve been with one of us. You know what it’s like. The intense pleasure a seasoned beast can bring to the bedroom. Or the kitchen. Or other places.” His fingers brushed through the tips of my hair. “I bet ol’ strait-laced Eden doesn’t know that does he? He doesn’t look deep enough.”

  I dipped my hand into my shorts, and he raised his eyebrows, but when I retrieved the small, thin stake from my thigh, his smile faded. Pressing the stake against his hardened crotch, I stared up at him.

  “I’ll do to you what I did to the other one. Trust me, Beckett. You don’t want to be in my bed.”

  He stepped into the stake. “First of all, that would only maim me for a moment, and I think it would be worth it to get into your bed.”

  “It would hurt like a bitch.” I saw the light in his eyes. He liked the danger. I knew that look – that fire – which could replace his good sense with the desire to burn if it could afford him one ounce of feeling and emotion. Vampires craved the ecstasy of living on the edge. Their lives were so long that life in general bored them. As a slayer, I knew that he would seduce me just to feel that fire licking across his skin before I tried to kill
him.

  I stepped away, because I knew no matter what the powers a vampire had, they couldn’t see what he’d seen. He knew me, and he knew my past. Before I could ask him, a commotion behind us caught my attention. A young woman laid on the floor as people scattered from her limp body. I saw the marks in her neck immediately as people began to run toward the stairs to get out of the basement, screaming in panic.

  I wanted to confront Beckett, but he was gone.

  “Sam!” Jasper called out to me from below the platform. He held his hand up for me. “We gotta get out of here.”

  More screams filled the room as someone threw a Molotov at the stage. The DJ ran for his life as the fire engulfed his equipment in flames.

  “Sam!” Jasper’s voice hardened. “We aren’t catching anyone tonight. We can’t catch anyone if we are dead.”

  I ignored him and moved toward the girl on the ground. I wanted to see if I could find anything that might indicate who had bitten her, but the crowd pushed me toward the exit. Jasper’s frantic voice filtered through the screams and the stampeding crowd. I had no choice but to be dragged toward the exit with them.

  I held my stake close to my body so that it didn’t draw the attention of the frightened throng around me.

  “She was dead! Did you see her?” a woman cried out to my right. I realized she wasn’t speaking to me. I spun around in place looking for Jasper, but I couldn’t see him. Among the voices, I thought I heard him calling out to me.

  As I reached the bottom of the packed stairs, someone from above threw another Molotov. I shoved people away as the glass bottle struck the iron railing of the steps shattering to pieces and spreading fire to the people trying to escape. The crowd pushed backward, and I lost my footing.

  As I stumbled to the ground, I saw Jasper pushing through the people while screaming my name. When I hit the ground, I tucked the stake under me and placed my hands on my head. However, the frantic crowd paid no attention to me and several others who had fallen. After the third kick to the head, my eyesight began to dim. Smoke filled the air, and I coughed trying to breathe.

  “Jasper!” I screamed as I suppressed the panic welling up in my body. It was as if I’d forgotten everything about my training. I’d been out of the game for too long, and now I was going to pay the ultimate price.

  A large man stepped on my back, and I felt a snap as pain shattered through my body. I couldn’t scream because of the smoke filling the room. One last kick to the head, and I blacked out.

  5

  The Facts

  JASPER

  My family’s personal physician had just left telling me to make Samarie rest for several days. I didn’t know how long I could keep Samarie in bed, but I would try. After the stampede at the rave, I was barely able to get her and run out before the building collapsed. According to my sources with the local law enforcement, they were still digging through the rubble and it might be days before we knew how many had died.

  The doc was human who knew of our kind. I’d already given Samarie some of my blood with a syringe before he’d arrived. I’d preferred for her to drink it directly, but considering she was knocked out, a syringe was the quickest way to get it into her system. After the healing powers of my blood had repaired what it could, she still had a couple of broken ribs and a severe concussion. I was sure that the way her limp body had hung in my arms that her back had been broken.

  Our blood can do wonderous things, but too much would turn her. I’d never do that. I wouldn’t do it even if she begged me to do it. I’d never willingly give this curse to anyone.

  I watched her sleeping in my bed. I’d always wanted her there, but not like this. She seemed small and frail instead of the strong woman I knew her to be. She’d been distracted at the party, and I’d blamed myself when it was over. And I blamed Beckett. If I found out he was the one behind this, I’d stake him myself. In fact, I hoped I got to him before she did.

  Instead of torturing myself, I decided to take a shower and wash the smoke smell out of my hair. I made quick work of it. I wrapped a robe around my body and was toweling my hair dry when I heard a groan from the bedroom. I dashed into the room to find Sam trying to get out of the bed.

  “No, no, no! You gotta stay,” I said.

  She pushed my hands away. “Move, Jasper. I don’t even want to know what kind of perversion you did to me while I was out.” She grabbed her ribs and grunted.

  “Yeah, see that? You have broken ribs. You were trampled.” I squatted down in front of her. “Sam, I almost lost you. Could you please give me and yourself a break and just lay back down? The doctor said you need to stay in bed.” I didn’t address the perversion comment. There were a lot of things I’d like to do to her. She had no idea of the depth to my perversion, but I’d never do it to an injured and unwilling partner.

  “I can’t stay in bed. I have a mission. If I can get back to my flat, I have medication there that will dull the pain,” she said, but she didn’t try to move again. I knew that she kept her own stash of vampire blood to heal herself. Perhaps she’d forgotten that she’d told me that tidbit of information. I knew a lot about her arsenal of weapons. We’d had a little too much alcohol one night when she’d trusted me enough to spill her slaying secrets.

  She winced with each breath. I’d never had broken ribs, but I had heard they hurt like a bitch.

  “You aren’t going anywhere. Don’t make me tie you to that bed,” I said with a teasing tone. I didn’t want to tell her that I have everything I needed to do it nearby.

  “I’d like to see you try.”

  The challenge sank into my body, and I had to force myself not to prove it to her. “Seriously, I’m pretty sure you were paralyzed when we left the collapsed building.”

  “Collapsed? Paralyzed?”

  I cleared my throat and prepared myself to be berated. “I gave you my blood through a syringe as soon as I got you here to my house. I think it healed a lot of your injuries, but there is only so much it can do before…”

  “It turns me.”

  I nodded. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I hope you know that.”

  “Yeah, I know.” She’d lost the defiant tone. Slowly, she sank back into the bed, and I rose up to cover her with the blankets. “Silk sheets are cliche.”

  I chuckled. “Yes, but I like the way the feel. I can have them changed for you. Or you are welcome to move into one of the other bedrooms. I won’t risk moving you to your flat right now.”

  “It hurts too bad to move.” She paused. “The building collapsed?”

  It took some time, but I sat on the edge of the bed and explained what happened after she blacked out. She listened, but I watched as fatigue set in and she couldn’t fight it any longer.

  “Sleep. When you wake up, I’ll have Bishop fetch us some food. Do you want anything specific?” She shook her head as her eyes closed. I leaned down over her and kissed her on the temple. “I’m here. Whatever you need, I’m here.”

  As she slept, I busied myself with getting as much information about the venue as possible. I also found someone who had a contact number for Beckett. I shot him a text requesting that he call me.

  “Can’t call. Do you have her? Is she alive?”

  “I have no obligation to give you any information. Looked to me like you were distracting her so that you and your minions could make a mess of that rave.”

  “I have no reason to bring a building down on completely viable food sources. I genuinely want to know if she is alright.”

  “Like you care?”

  “I do care. The last thing I want is twelve slayers and their trainers swarming my city because she died by my hand. Is she alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I speak to her?”

  “No.”

  “Fuck you, Eden. You are nobody. Don’t make me remind you of how close you are to being just another pleb.”

  I hardly knew this prick, and he wasn’t winning any points in my book. He thought he
was better than me. I’d let him continue to think it, but if I had anything to say about it, Samarie wouldn’t go near him. I didn’t see any other vamps at the rave. He had to have something to do with the disaster last night. He might not be the one we were looking for originally, but he was on my radar now. Thankfully, he let it go and didn’t message me back.

  My contacts reported back that there were at least fifteen dead in the building collapse. I flipped through the grizzly death photos of each corpse. None of them were the girl who had triggered the event. I sighed and deleted the file from my phone. The last thing I needed was to get caught with a bunch of stolen photos.

  The Eden family had a dark cloud hanging over our name. One of my Uncle’s had been caught enjoying more than the blood of his victims. We, as a family, condemned him to death and executed him according to our laws. The coppers in London were miffed when they couldn’t find him after compiling a very damning case against the necrophiliac. It tarnished our name. We lost status and sank in the ranks of peerage from being one of the wealthiest families to one of the least respected. We still had money; we just didn’t have the titles that would normally match it.

  After that incident, the vampires formed their own investigative entity. We were called the Fellowship of the Crucible. On my chest above where my heart once throbbed with life, a Celtic cross was tattooed. The damn thing hurt like hell to have done, but I wanted to be a part of the guild of vampires dedicated to keeping our kind in check. E.V.I.E. knew of our activities, and that was why I was called upon to help Samarie. Mutual interest.

  Our existence hinged on abiding by the laws and the sleeps. Anyone breaking those laws would receive justice by our hand. I didn’t know the other members of the Fellowship. We could only reveal our true mission to others who wore the cross on their chests. The symbol of a cross repels our kind, but with enough willpower, we can overcome its power. I chose to believe that being a part of something greater gave me enough righteousness that even God would overlook my cursed soul. I didn’t want redemption for my past sins, which were numerous. I wanted our kind to live and thrive. Sometimes that cost was dust.