I gently lowered Archer to the floor and punched another secret code into the keypad. The door rumbled open. A beat later, I entered the windowless, silver-reinforced vault. Occult items lined the walls, a museum of the bizarre. As always the collection of cursed items called out to me, but I blocked the steady stream of eerie whispers.
Luckily, I was beyond temptation at this point. I knew exactly what I was looking for.
I homed in on a chalice made from gold and adorned with a series of strange engravings. A similarly adorned seal covered the top of the cup, offering no hint as to its contents, but something sloshed inside when I picked it up. As my fingers closed around the grail, I could hear Skulick’s gruff voice inside my head, telling me to reconsider what I was about to do. I refused to listen. It wouldn’t exactly be the first time I’d ignored the old man’s advice. All that mattered was saving Archer.
Grail in hand, I stepped out of the vault and knelt beside Archer. I patted her face and called out her name. Archer wouldn’t wake up. Cursing myself, I pressed my thumb against the bullet wound on her shoulder.
Archer screamed. I cradled her against my chest, murmuring soothing nonsense until she calmed down. She weakly blinked at me, her eyes wide and confused.
“Raven? Where—”
A thin line of blood trickled from her mouth.
“Hush now, just drink.”
I tilted the cup toward her lips and poured the dark liquid down her throat. For a torturous moment, nothing happened. And then I felt the change.
Color returned to Archer’s drained features, her grip around my arm growing stronger. Her eyes fluttered open and locked on me. I looked down at her torn shirt and almost grinned. The bullet hole was closing up, healing itself before my eyes.
I clung to her as the magic of the grail repaired her wounds.
Don’t ask me how long it took. All I know is that I felt like a man waking from a dream when Archer shoved me away and sprang to her feet. The notion that her life had ever been in danger would have felt like a surreal nightmare if it hadn’t been for all the blood on her shirt. I stood up and reached out for her, laughing in stupid, exhausted relief. I’d done it. She was back.
Archer took a step toward me.
I did the same.
And then we kissed, our lips finding each other. Her mouth was soft, but it tasted like blood.
I didn’t care. Archer was alive and in my arms.
Then a bolt of pain shot through the mark on my chest. I gasped and took a step back. Archer blinked at me, uncomprehending. “What is it, Mike?”
The question still hung in the air as a sharp spasm wracked her. She cried out with agony and her legs buckled.
As tremors passed through Archer’s body, I watched in frozen, helpless horror.
When she finally looked up at me again, I knew that I would be damned for what I’d done to her tonight.
I should have let her go.
Oh God, I should have let her die.
The woman staring back at me looked like Jane Archer, but her skin was deathly pale and twin fangs dimpled her bottom lip. Lightning fast, her hand gripped my wrist with superhuman strength. A second later, she was on top of me, fangs about to bury themselves into my throat. I barely resisted. I deserved whatever damnation was waiting for me.
But something stopped her. Clarity washed over those animalistic eyes, and she backed away.
I instinctively reached for her.
“STAY AWAY FROM ME!”
With a feral roar, she ran, her gaze wild, her movements jerky and explosive. Before I could react, she darted toward the nearest skylight and hurled herself through the window. Glass shattered, and so did my world. I ran to the broken window and peered into the rainy night. There was no sign of Archer. The darkness had swallowed her whole.
A sound behind me made me whirl.
Skulick’s wheelchair was buzzing toward me. His sharp eyes moved from my face to the empty grail near my feet and the destroyed window, putting the pieces together.
“What have you done?” Skulick said, his voice shaking with accusation.
As I struggled to respond, I knew nothing would ever be the same again. I’d broken my partner’s trust in the worst possible way by using the blood of a vampire to save Archer. I’d unleashed a new monster on the cursed city. And she just happened to be the woman I loved.
NOT THE END
The Shadow Detective story continues in Blood Rain Out Now. Grab Your Copy here!
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1
"What have you done?"
The ominous question hung in the loft like a dark cloud, the accusatory tone in Skulick's voice unmistakable.
"I-I had to save her…” I stammered. "She was dying. I had no choice." My words felt weak and half-hearted, a guilty man lacking the confidence to defend his own actions.
Talk about royally screwing up. A misguided attempt to save the woman I love had doomed her to an undead state. What possessed me to grab the chalice and pour its thick, scarlet liquid down Jane Archer's throat? How could I have been so foolish?
The answer was simple. Desperation is the mother of all bad decisions.
Our headquarters held some of the most powerful magical artifacts known to mankind. Skulick and my father had confiscated many of them when I was still stumbling around in diapers. Even though we'd been working together for more than three years now, my partner was notoriously secretive about these occult relics, feeling the less I knew about them, the safer I'd be. The origins of the golden, rune-engraved chalice had been just one of the vault's many secrets.
Locking up magical artifacts didn't rob them of their black magic. The dark power contained within these accursed items yearned to be free. Yearned to inflict maximum carnage upon the world. The relics spoke to us every time we entered the vault, each one seductive in its own way, an all-too-persuasive choir of evil. I thought I'd trained myself to ignore them, yet I'd fallen under the chalice's unholy spell.
I can heal your woman, the relic had whispered. I can save her...
God, I should've known better than to step into the vault when I was at my most vulnerable. The chalice had taken advantage of my own weakness—but that didn't excuse what I'd done. Understanding that forces beyond my control had manipulated me didn't change the terrible reality of what we now faced. I had unleashed a new monster upon the city, a beast determined to prey on the living.
A shrill cry cut through the night, reverberating eerily.
I swallowed hard as my gaze turned toward the shattered window through which Archer had escaped. Our base was protected by both electronic security measures as well as magical wards, but the protective runes only worked one way. They kept the monsters out but had failed to keep Archer in. The hair on the back of my neck prickled as the screams outside intensified. Archer must've found her first victim.
I had to go after her. Stop her before it was too late and innocents were hurt. Every life she took in her transformed state would weigh on my conscience. More than that, Archer wouldn't have wanted to live like this. I refused to let her pay the price for my foolishness.
Brushing past a still glaring Skulick, Hellseeker out and ready, I tore into the elevator. Reaching the ground floor seemed to take forever. My impatience boiling over, I burst out of the lift as soon as it came to a standstill.
I needed to find Archer before she killed someone.
I prayed I wouldn't be too late.
Cold rain lashed my face as I emerged from the warehouse, wind buffeted my soaking wet coat. I didn't expect the rain to cease any time soon. Even though Skulick and I had successfully prevented the Crimson Circle from unleashing Hell on Earth a year ago, they'd still managed to breach the veil that separated our world from the dimension of darkness. This weakening of the barrier had led a sharp uptick in paranormal activity—and some of the worst weather conditions the city had ever endured. No wonder we'd nicknamed the sprawling metropolis the 'Cursed Cit
y.' If having to contend with ghouls and demons wasn't enough, the sun was usually hidden behind heavy, black storm clouds these days. This lack of sunlight could wear on anyone's mental wellbeing.
And everyone knows that monsters come out to play in the dark.
Ignoring the sting of the icy rain, I pressed onward. I didn't have to go far before I stumbled upon Archer's first victim.
My roaming gaze landed on a homeless man, his eyes wide and glassy with burgeoning madness. Blood oozed from his throat, his ratty, dirt-caked coat soaked red. The downpour had failed to wash away the evidence of the vicious vampire attack.
There was no sign of Archer.
My heart quickened, secretly glad she'd vanished. The idea of having to unload Hellseeker into my love made me sick to my stomach. But what other choice would I have once our paths crossed again? There was no other way to stop a vampire.
I grabbed the terrified man's shoulders. "Where did the woman go?"
I refused to call Archer a vampire to the man's face.
The bleeding fellow stared at me blankly, his mind having checked out long before he ran into a blood starved monster in a rainy alley. Our loft was located in the gritty outskirts of the city, surrounded by derelict alleys, abandoned warehouses, and the tented cities of the lost who dwelled on the fringes of society. There would be no witnesses to point me in the right direction, no patrol cars that might encounter Archer and try to pick her up. On the positive side, this reduced the chances of further collateral damage.
I checked the man's wounds. Despite the large amount of blood, he didn't seem to be in immediate danger. I drew some comfort from the fact that Archer had attacked the man without resorting to lethal force. Hopefully it signaled that still some small part of her true self remained intact.
Maybe I can still save her...
Who was I kidding? Maybe the old Archer was still in charge, but the black blood roaring through her veins would sweep away the last traces of her humanity soon enough. I'd infected her with the curse of the vampire. There was no coming back from that.
Hollywood had gotten many of the details about these mythical monsters wrong over the years. For example, crosses were utterly useless against vampires unless imbued with magical properties. But one of the poplar myths did hit close to the truth. To turn a human, vampires needed to completely drain their victims and feed them their unholy blood. Archer had merely taken a sip from the old man.
Reassured that he wouldn't bleed out on the street, I continued down the dumpster-lined alley. Rain drummed rhythmically against rusting metal containers overflowing with trash, producing a hypnotic beat. It all felt like a bad dream. But there would be no awakening from this nightmare, no reprieve from my guilt.
Incoming sirens suddenly bashed the night. I whirled toward the fast-approaching headlights as they speared the rainy darkness around me. Tires screeched and sent plumes of rainwater my way. With everything else going on, I'd forgotten that the Cursed City's finest believed that I had abducted—and quite possibly murdered—two of their detectives. To be fair, they were right. But one of them had been a serial killer, and Archer...well, I had no excuse for what I'd done to her.
The cops flung the cruiser's doors open, and the uniformed officers emerged, guns up, voices barking. Within seconds, they slammed me against the wet hood of the cruiser. It certainly didn't help that the homeless man's blood covered my shirt and flecked my beard.
Metal bit into my skin as one of the brawny cops snapped a pair of cuffs on me. The boys in blue unceremoniously pushed me into the back of the patrol car. From what seemed like a great distance, I could hear one of the cop's reading me my rights without much enthusiasm. My wrists hurt, but I welcomed the pain.
I deserved what was coming to me. And then some.
I lost all sense of time as we drove through the city, rain pitter-pattering on the roof. Less than an hour later, I found myself at some gritty, noisy precinct, facing down two homicide detectives inside a stuffy interrogation room. I identified myself, informed the officers that I served as a special consultant who helped the police with occult cases, and requested to see Detective Benson, my liaison with the force.
Then I clammed up.
The detectives backed off and left me alone in the tiny interrogation room. The stale air reeked of sour sweat of desperate criminals. I sat slumped forward in the chair, a bloody, tattered, rain-soaked shadow of my former self.
I don't know how much time passed before Detective Benson joined me in my cell of misery. The tall African-American homicide detective couldn't quite hide the shock at seeing me in my current condition. His neatly pressed suit stood in sharp contrast to my ragged, rumpled state. He took a seat in front of me, his eyes searching my face.
Benson was used to dealing with the dark side of humanity. But there were things out there far worse than the most deranged murderers. Much worse. That's when he usually called me. But despite our working relationship, Benson had never totally trusted me. Now whatever goodwill there'd been between us was evaporating fast. He looked at me the way a cop looks at a criminal.
"Where are Detective Archer and Detective Lucas?" he asked.
"They're gone," I whispered.
His eyes widened ever so slightly and he said, "Are you telling me they're dead?"
I could only shrug.
"Damn it, Raven! Talk to me!"
The dam holding my swirling emotions tightly in check broke and the words started to pour out of me. It was confession time. I told him about what happened at Blackwell Penitentiary, about the horrors we had encountered in the abandoned prison and how one of his own detectives revealed himself to be the infamous serial killer Lucifer's Disciple before turning on me and Archer. My voice shook, dropping half an octave, when I came to the part where Archer died.
"You have to understand, I was not thinking straight" I said, choked with emotion. "I did it to save her. There was no other way..."
"What in God's name did you do to her, Raven?"
I remained silent. Benson's eyes popped, his impatience detonating. "Talk to me, goddamnit! What did you do to Detective Archer?"
I damned the woman I love, I thought grimly.
Damned us both to Hell.
2
The punch landed with the force of a sledgehammer, whipping my head back, a long strand of scarlet saliva exploding from my lips.
I stumbled back a few feet, barely able to maintain my balance. Copper filled my mouth, and I spit blood. My tongue flicked across my teeth, making sure they were still all there. The world tilted, and I narrowed my eyes, struggling to regain my bearings.
The massive, blurry creature in front of me snapped back into focus. This was no monster from the deepest pits of Hell though, but merely some beefcake who spent way too much of his leisure time trying to give the Rock a run for his money. Tattoos lined every square inch of the bald meathead's bulging arms. Not exactly the kind of guy you'd want to be fighting in some trash-infested back alley, even if said alley was located behind your favorite dive bar. The bastard outweighed me by at least fifty pounds, and the first couple of punches hadn't been due to luck. He pressed his lips into a mean slash, his eyes shiny with bloodlust.
How had I gotten myself into this latest pickle?
Nearly a month had passed since I faced down Benson back at the precinct. I wish I could say the weeks following Archer's transformation into a vampire had been productive. Instead of making any progress in finding her or discovering a cure for vampirism, I'd embarked on a vicious, self-destructive downward spiral of boozing and feeling sorry for myself, interspersed with random acts of violence.
Normally "acts of violence" were code for chasing after some nightmare creature, but paranormal activity was at an all-time low. My odds of getting into some sort of alcohol-fueled bar scrape were higher nowadays than running into some supernatural beast of prey. Maybe it was my rundown state, or the stench of booze oozing off me, but I was developing a talent for pushing the
wrong buttons in the wrong kinds of a-holes.
Case in point: Thor, Jr., who had zero intention of letting me leave this alley in one piece. He'd been harassing a lovely biker babe all night long until I couldn't take it anymore and stepped in. I'd been looking forward to a mind numbing evening of drinking. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for me, and that's how I found myself sobering up in a freezing cold alley with a tattooed meathead as my dancing partner.
I'd almost welcomed this violent break from my self-pity party. At least until the first punch landed, and I spit up my last couple of drinks.
What a waste, I thought dimly as I retched.
Three more punches connected. A dirty grin lit up the biker's meaty visage. Our one-sided bout was clearly therapeutic for both of us, albeit in different ways. Despite my recent self-destructive tendencies, I was starting to get pissed. Anger outweighing self-pity, I managed to block the next three blows while landing two punches of my own.
That's right, dude. Don't mess with me. I hunt monsters for a living.
The biker stumbled, savagery giving way to surprised disappointment. His bros took a few steps back, finely tuned street instincts sensing that this brawl might play out differently than expected.
Unwilling to accept he might be up against someone who knew how to handle himself even with one too many drinks in their system, biker boy lunged at me.
I expertly snatched one of his meaty arms, using his momentum against him with martial arts grace as I hurtled his bulk over my shoulder. Skulick had taught me every dirty fighting trick in the book and a few that had never been written down. For more than a decade, a morning sparring session with my partner had been part of my daily workout regimen, and it had turned me into a fighter of considerable skill.
Or at least it did when I was sober. In my current drunken state, my reaction time had become a joke. Skulick would've easily knocked me on my ass, despite the wheelchair. But I was still skilled enough to teach this asshole a lesson.
Shadow Detective Supernatural Action Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (Shadow Detective Boxset) Page 24
