by J. K. Beck
God help him, he hadn’t wanted to. But what choice did he have? Tell them the truth? Not damn likely.
“It’s not you,” he’d told CeeCee, his voice hoarse, fading, because the beast had no voice. “I can’t—I have to—” He hadn’t been able to finish the sentence. He’d burst out of the house even as the sun slipped below the horizon. Already, his bones were starting to shift, the hunger starting to take over. Soon Serge would be subjugated to the beast, and he couldn’t go through that again. Feed now, and at least he could keep himself at the surface. Ignore the hunger, and he’d lose his reason, his awareness, possibly even his sanity.
He couldn’t explain any of that, though. And so he’d left. Confusing Sara, pissing off the kid, and making himself feel even lower than he already did.
Worst of all, he may have waited too long. It was rougher this time. Faster. His thoughts were rambling, shifting, losing coherency. It didn’t make sense. He’d fed not that long ago—he’d drained Mitre, feasting on the bastard’s life force. Never before had the beast risen so quickly, and he realized with a sudden shock what his problem was. I saved the females. He’d taken a vampire’s form, and then he’d used vampiric powers to save Alexis. To save CeeCee. He’d given the energy back to them, and left himself ripe for the return of the beast. Hurry. I have to hurry.
He stopped short and realized he’d been running, tearing fast through the darkened Malibu streets. Nothing here. Nothing at all. But there was a place in San Pedro. The Z Bar. A dark, seedy place. He’d found his last meal there—the one before Mitre—and there’d been other rogues in the place. He couldn’t be certain, but it was his best lead yet. And even if no one was there now, maybe he could pick up the scent. Track one.
Maybe there would be time.
Please, please, let there be time.
He couldn’t drive—that would take too long. And if he transformed to mist, he’d be using up even more vampiric energy. Possibly all of it. He might come out of the mist as the beast, his own mind lost inside, rampaging blindly through the city, taking and killing until the beast was submerged once more.
Serge would get his mind back then, but the price would be a path of death and destruction.
Either option was a risk, though, and the faster he got to San Pedro, the sooner he could feed. With fear weighing him down, he called upon the change and transformed into sentient mist. As quickly as possible, he shot through the sky, heading south to the small Los Angeles neighborhood. Even as mist, he could feel the beast rising, clawing at him, desperate to break free.
He had to hold on. Had to get there. Had to cling fast and hard to control.
The alley was dark when he shifted back into himself, but he could hear the crowd within the small bar that was so popular with the vampire crowd. He’d come to this place on several occasions, but never once had he entered. He’d become a true shadower, and he wasn’t willing to be seen. Better to wait for his quarry to emerge.
Tonight was no different, and now he breathed deep, pleased to detect the scent of three vampires he knew to be rogue. But there was another scent, too. Humans. He frowned at that oddity, but the mystery was quickly displaced as he caught a hint of yet another scent—this one familiar but distant. Like something from a dream. From his past, perhaps …?
He shifted, but memory eluded him and he pushed the scent from his mind. There was no time, not with the beast rising and his quarry out there. All that mattered was feeding.
He moved east down the sidewalk, frustrated when the scent faded. He tried the other direction, and was pleased to pick up the trail of a single rogue heading off toward the west. Serge smiled. He didn’t have to figure out a way to lure one out of the bar or, worse, how to stage an attack inside the place.
All he had to do was track this one—and track him fast.
Serge was approaching when the rogue turned. He froze, eyes going wide. “Holy fuck, you’re Sergius. Derrick heard you were in town.”
Derrick. That was the scent he’d been unable to place. Derrick was alive. Derrick was here. And Derrick was looking for him.
Deep inside Serge, the daemon twisted, wanting to hunt and to play and to slide back into the old ways. To get lost in the blood. In the wild, freeing pleasure of pure, raw pain.
No, no, no.
He took a step forward, forcing his body to work properly, keeping the daemon and the beast down by will alone. He had to, because he had to know. Had to understand what was going on here.
Derrick is here. These rogues. These deaths. By the gods, this blood is on his hands …
“Who the hell are you?” Serge growled.
The younger vampire stood straighter. “I’m Raoul. I’m one of his—oh, hell, he’s going to want to tell you. Let me take you to him.”
No. He couldn’t. See Derrick and the daemon would surely burst free. He had to stay focused. Had to focus and feed and think.
“Raoul,” Serge repeated, his voice raw with effort. His hands itched as his skin shifted into something cold and reptilian. “Did you kill a woman last week? Did you make her husband watch and then kill him, too?”
Raoul’s proud grin was brighter than the streetlight. “Brilliant, huh? Oh, man, did I get off on that or what? But seriously, come on back to the bar with me, because Derrick’s gonna—”
The words stopped, cut off as firmly as a needle lifting from a record. The eyes went wide, too. And why not? Raoul had surely seen nothing like Serge before. The way his hands were elongating into claws. The way his skin had turned reptilian and his nose was flattening.
He cried out, but it was too late. Serge had reached out and clamped his hand hard on the bastard’s shoulder, his mind focused on draining Raoul dry.
And then it was over. For a moment, Serge just stood there, feeling the beast retreat, his muscles relax, his skin returning to normal. He’d been halfway through the transformation, and there was a joy in coming back to himself that completely overshadowed what he’d done to achieve it.
He’d killed, yes. But he’d done it to survive.
Unlike Derrick, who killed for the pleasure of the blood. For the thrill of seeing it spill from a human. For the taste of pain, so seductive.
Stop it … goddammit, stop it.
He knew he should dispose of the body—how much longer could he evade the PEC? But he had to get away. Had to move. Had to go. The beast was calm now, true, but his daemon had awakened and was sniffing greedily, longing for a past that Serge didn’t want to return to and a man that Serge didn’t want to be. Couldn’t be—not again. Not anymore.
And yet still the hunger plagued him.
Alexis. He pulled her to the forefront of his mind, imagining she was in his arms and he was breathing in her scent. He wanted the feel of her skin against his. The taste of her lips, the softness of her hair. She was a storm of sensuality, and he wanted to get lost in it, certain that if he could lose himself with her, he could lose the daemon as well.
It made no sense, but just having her in his thoughts calmed him. Made it easier to fight. Easier to push the darkness down. It was strength, and right then, that’s what he needed.
But why? It had to be because of what she’d seen in him, the way she’d looked when he’d promised to save the girl. Like he was a goddamn hero. It wasn’t true, of course, but he clung to the image anyway, using it to draw strength as he headed back to the beach. Back to CeeCee. His ward. His responsibility. He’d talk to her now. Explain why he’d needed to go. But when he finally reached Luke and Sara’s house, his keen ears picked up CeeCee’s sweet trill of laughter and the warm tones of Sara’s voice.
He cringed and veered away, something low and dark pushing inside him, telling him he was a fool to think that CeeCee would even want to see him. He’d walked the line between reality and the slide into the abyss that was the daemon for so long; why the hell would she want to step away from the relative normalcy of a life with Sara and Luke for the likes of him? Why, for that matter, was he even
trying?
From the moment the beast had settled inside him, he’d shunned society. But that wasn’t the first time he’d gone off the grid. For what felt like a dozen lifetimes, Serge had avoided the world, sleeping in abandoned basements and closed subway lines, taking care not to be seen, and only hunting when the clawing, writhing pain inside him refused to be ignored and he had no choice but to feed. He’d hoped it would get better. Had fought and battled and tried to quash that part of him down until it was nothing more than a hard knot of pain inside of him. But he’d never managed, and now he had both the daemon and the beast tugging at him.
He cast another glance toward Luke’s house and the young girl inside. No, he had no business going in there. He’d given her a new life, yes, but he damn sure wasn’t the one who could show her how to navigate it. Not with the beast always so close to the surface. Not with the daemon writhing within him, still hungry. Still demanding.
Just give in. Feed. You’ve fought so hard to remain in a vampire’s form, why not just be a vampire?
He was sated with the life force he’d taken, but he still craved blood. Blood. The center. The focal point of all things both human and vampire.
You know you want it. Want to lose yourself in it. Drink its sweetness. Wallow in its power. Take, Sergius.
Take, and be.
Leena groaned and rolled over, then cried out when she hit her head on something hard. She opened her eyes and sat up, her head fuzzy, but no longer feeling like it was about to explode. She blinked and tried to get her bearings. This was her house, and she was on the floor. She’d been curled up in a ball, but she didn’t remember arriving at the house at all.
The last thing she remembered was leaving Alexis and Edgar. Then—
Then what?
Then she was going to go home. She’d planned to work the map spell and see if the vampire that had killed Tori was on the hunt. With luck, the answer would be no because the killer vamp was dead. But she had a feeling that Alexis wasn’t going to be that lucky.
After that, she was going to do some poking around in her books to figure out a way to find the vampire that had given his blood to Alexis. Sergius.
Something about that name made her shiver. There was no reason for it at all, but she wanted to run from it. Wanted to tell Alexis to run. Wanted to take her friend by the shoulders and shake her and tell her to stay far away, because if she got close everything would change, and not in a good way. No, not good at all.
Portents and predictions …
Over the years, Leena had learned to trust her visions, but this wasn’t a vision. It was simply a bad feeling. Not even so much bad as odd. She didn’t understand it, and she wasn’t going to share it with Alexis. Not yet, anyway. Especially when she knew that Alexis wouldn’t listen. No way her friend would back off until she found out what had happened to the girl. And Leena could only hope that this Sergius had saved her as he’d promised, because otherwise Alexis would never forgive herself for failing the kid on the beach.
Wincing, she climbed to her feet. A hundred fingers clenched her head, their nails digging into her tender scalp. The headaches were getting worse, but what really made Leena nervous were the blackouts. She’d actually gotten in a car and gone from Brentwood to West Hollywood, and she didn’t remember a bit of it.
She thought about telling Alexis, but what would be the point? She had enough on her mind without worrying that Leena was going to slide off into pain and suffering and be absolutely no use to the team.
Enough on her mind …
Finding the girl. Finding Sergius. Finding the vamp who’d killed her sister.
All things Leena could help with—all things she would help with, and right now. Come on, girl. Get your ass moving.
Except the headache had started up again. Slow to build, but there, pounding in the background, like some persistent knocking at a door. A visitor who couldn’t be turned away.
She’d long ago stopped hoping that the headaches would disappear. She knew better. Her mother had suffered from them, and so had her grandmother. But it wasn’t the headaches that worried her. These blackouts were new, and they scared her. For years, her mother had beaten her, called her stupid and useless and made Leena feel about an inch tall. But those moments of horror had been interspersed with hugs and kisses and what seemed like genuine adoration.
Leena had been ten when she’d realized that her mother’s vileness always followed a headache, and that her mother never seemed to remember what she’d done afterward. For years, Leena had thought she was lying, hiding behind a false curtain of memory loss. Now, though, she had to wonder if her mother had been telling her the truth.
The possibility turned her blood cold, and she forced the thought from her mind. She could never do that—could never beat her children. Shout horrible things at them. She wasn’t that person, couldn’t ever be that person.
She thought of Alexis, the first close friend she’d had in a life filled with acquaintances. She knew that friends were supposed to share hopes and dreams and fears and all that stuff. Hell, she’d been out for drinks with Alexis and Brianna in New York before the move to LA, and she’d watched the way the actress overshared, giving the other two women blow-by-blow descriptions of her dates with actors, of her encounters with lascivious producers, of her drunken nights at Hollywood parties. Just the thought of revealing herself that much to someone made Leena want to go hide under a bed. But at the same time, some small part of her wanted to share her fears. Wanted the reassurance from Alexis that she was totally okay.
Maybe they could find time to grab a drink, and maybe Leena would get up the nerve. Her mouth curved into an ironic smile, because maybe was as much of a crutch as the cane she’d been using since her first—and last—year hunting vampires. She’d had a stake; he’d had a knife. After that, Leena had done her fighting with herbs and spells, letting other people act as her eyes and ears and legs and arms.
So, yeah. Maybe she’d talk to Alexis. But maybe first she ought to keep her head in the game. This wasn’t about her headaches or her insecurities or any of her stupid shit. This was about finding the vampire that had killed Alexis’s sister. This was about continuing the Dumont legacy in the only way she could.
She touched her fingertips to her temples, but this time it was only out of habit. No sign of the headache lingered. She felt awake. Refreshed. And with renewed determination she went to the black lacquered cabinet that had belonged to her mother and her grandmother before her. She opened the door and pulled out the roll of crushed black velvet. It smelled of lavender and anise and soot, and when she spread it on the table, the odors washed over her like memories.
Mostly, though, it smelled like power. Because this was magic … and with it, she’d find a killer.
Alexis was getting nowhere.
She’d been holed up in the cellar for hours trying to track down a vampire she only knew was named Sergius using that amazing computer equipment that Edgar so raved about. Needless to say, she’d managed to find exactly nothing. Searching in the human world was easy. Searching for a vampire? Not so much.
Now light streamed in through the small window that was actually at ground level. It flashed and snapped as it bounced off the water in the pool, a kind of mystical Morse code, telling Alexis that night had passed. It was a brand-new day, and she’d managed to accomplish nothing.
A new day?
With a start, she realized that she’d worked through the night, and wasn’t tired at all. She reached for her coffee cup, but it had gone cold hours ago. She’d been running on adrenaline, not caffeine.
Not adrenaline. Him. His blood.
It flowed in her, and she sat stiffly at her desk, waiting for a wave of disgust that she was certain would come. But it didn’t. Instead, there was something oddly comforting about knowing that his strength surged through her. It warmed her.
She told herself that made sense. He’d helped her, after all. And he’d promised to help the g
irl.
She told herself that … but it wasn’t true.
No, that curling warmth she felt inside her wasn’t because of trust or gratitude, it was pure, hedonistic pleasure. A decadent sensuality that she couldn’t share with anyone else, certainly not with Leena, who’d taught her everything she knew about vampires. And not with Edgar, who looked at her as a daughter, and whose eyes would surely fill with disappointment if he knew the direction of her dreams.
She hadn’t invited Serge in, but she hadn’t pushed him out, either. She’d awakened with the memory of Sergius’s hands stroking her, of his lips caressing her. A dream, a fantasy, and yet it had lingered.
It lingered still.
She knew it was the blood. His blood, now flowing in her veins. That was the excuse, the reason.
And yet the hard truth was that if she could slice her vein and let that blood flow out of her, she wouldn’t do it.
All she feared now was that she was searching for him for the wrong reasons. Was it truly about finding the girl? Or was his blood playing sweet tricks on her?
No. He was a vampire, plain and simple. If he’d helped the teen, she’d give him a pass. But blood or no blood, if it turned out that he’d harmed the girl, he’d soon feel the pain of one of her stakes through his heart, dreams and fantasies be damned.
Enough. Time to get back to work. For that matter, time to focus on something other than Sergius, and she was damn well going to learn what she could about Homeland Security, and what that particular agency had to do with vampires.
She pushed herself up out of her chair and crossed the room to the coffeemaker. Maybe his blood had kept her awake throughout the night, but now she wanted more conventional indulgences. She filled her cup, then poured in about a gallon of cream to cool it off. She chugged down half the mug on her way back to her desk, then downed the rest as she dialed. The phone was answered by an efficient operator, but when Alexis asked to be put through to the agent handling either the Penny Martinez murder or the discovery of the mummified corpse on Venice Beach, she might as well have heard crickets chirping in response. “I’m sorry, ma’am, I don’t have that information. Is there a particular party to whom I can direct your call?”
