A Darker Crimson

by Carolyn Jewel

  She turned her head. Six B-Ops commandos moved down the corridor. The saltpeter smell sharpened. The commando in the front slipped and went down. Her head cleared. The rest rushed on, weapons raised until suddenly they were shouting and throwing the guns away as if burned. Korzha dropped straight down from the ceiling. Claudia caught a glimpse of enraged green eyes in a vamp-pale face.

  One of the commandos panicked and took a shot at the vamp with a conventional weapon. At the vamp. What an idiot. One bullet wasn’t going to kill Korzha, so that was a total waste of ammo. Korzha made like a whirling dervish amid B-Ops, scattering them. Claudia didn’t see what happened next. Jaise slammed her against the wooden surface of the door, trapping her between his chest and the wood. He howled in pain. Behind her, along her back, wherever she touched the surface, she felt electric sparks. The air shimmered. Ozone coalesced around her head. A black-clad figure appeared next to her, hunkered down in a crouch. Light glinted off his pale hair. Aslet? The demon Aslet. He held something in his arms. Someone. A child. A girl about ten years old. Claudia’s world came to a stop.

  The demon had her daughter.

  She strained past Jaise, toward the demon, stretching out her arm. Her voice shattered. “Holly!”

  Aslet stood, calm in the chaos exploding around them. With a smug grin, he hugged Holly to him, one hand to the back of the child’s head, keeping her face against his chest. In the light, his eyes caught a flare and for a disturbing moment flames danced in his pale blue irises.

  “Donovan,” Jaise barked. “Open the goddam door, or your daughter dies right now.”

  A commando aimed his weapon. Jaise ducked and loosened his hold on her. Claudia’s hands shook and she couldn’t get a grip on the handle. From the corner of her eye, she saw another commando take aim at Korzha. Out of pure frustration, she slammed her palms against the door. From over her shoulder, she watched the vampire blur. The commando attacking him dropped to the ground, dead or out cold, she didn’t want to know which. And then, the door gave way. It just dissolved, she swore that’s what happened, and she fell.

  Aslet leapt for the door, Holly in his arms. With a roar, Jaise threw himself over her as she went through. The last thing she saw of Crimson City was Tiberiu Korzha making the same leap, and four B-Ops commandos in pursuit. Korzha looked pissed off, she thought; then she didn’t see a damn thing.

  Chapter Eight

  Something or someone pulled at her. Claudia felt her body slowly stretch. Just when she thought she’d break in two, she snapped forward and screamed from the tearing, searing pain. Behind her the air felt thick. A high pitched buzz shattered her ears. She didn’t hear the sound of splintering wood or feel the door breaking under the impacts of their bodies. She felt no scrapes, no blows against her back. She didn’t feel anything at all except the prickling electricity that threatened to tear her apart.

  Thwump.

  Jaise held her tight. He shouted in triumph. Cold surrounded her, ice filled her belly. They hit the ground hard. Her spine slammed against the contents of her backpack. She’d have bruises later. Air came out of her lungs in a whoosh and bright light stabbed her eyes. Jaise threw back his head and yowled. When they landed, he didn’t seem to be caught off guard or disoriented or struggling to breathe like she was. He fell on top of her and caught his weight on his hands.

  Claudia fought for air, trying to get her bearings. The light and the air and…just everything was all wrong. Jaise rolled them away from the door, wrapping his arms around her as if he expected the fires of Hell to descend on them. Her pack ended up skewed sideways, pulling the straps hard into her armpits. With one hand, Claudia fumbled for the fastening of her pack and her weapon. Her heart jackhammered; her legs were still in the doorway and pain shimmered through her from her feet to her head.

  Aslet, holding Holly, appeared to walk right through the wood. He came through the door. To her still woozy eyes, their two bodies seemed to slow, elongate as they emerged from the wood, and then snap back to normal. Four B-Ops commandos came through on their heels. Korzha vaulted into the room and hit the ground rolling. She put her hands against Jaise’s shoulders and pushed. For God’s sake, if there were dogs here, she didn’t want to be trapped underneath anything when they attacked. She pulled her legs toward her torso, and the pain in her body stopped.

  But the horror had just begun. For an eternity burned into her head, the four B-Ops commandos stumbled, mouths open in screams of agony. Aslet looked on, arms folded across Holly’s back, holding the girl tight, a palm cupping her head. The child’s sneaker-clad feet swung free on either side of his body. One of the commandos took a step, then a second. Another clawed at his chest. Claudia heard a wet sort of pop. Each commando vanished in a puff of crimson mist. The last one flickered through the various stages of a werewolf metamorphosis, but in no progressive order and so fast she could hardly see, then he, too, just dissolved. Red mist settled on the stone floor. An iron scent hung in the air: a smell of hemoglobin, tart and musky. None of the deaths took any more than a second or two.

  Korzha didn’t vanish. At the end of his roll, he landed on his feet, facing the door. Surprise was etched on his face, while Jaise’s howl of protest lingered in the air. Like Claudia, the vampire watched what happened to the commandos with revulsion. His mouth drew back in a rictus grin that exposed a pair of razor-sharp upper canines, white as snow. Quicker than she could follow, he dodged a knife that seemed to come from nowhere. Claudia couldn’t see, what with Jaise still looming over her. The air pulsed, pressing in on her eardrums.

  “No!” Jaise shouted. He leapt to his feet. Holly’s head hung limp and with Aslet’s sudden reaction to Jaise’s cry, one arm slipped free and dangled. “Not here!”

  Now, why did his accent sound off? His voice didn’t sound normal anymore. He sounded more British, Continental. It was the kind of accent certain people liked to affect until they realized they sounded like jackasses. Only this was convincing. The accent was a lot like Aslet’s.

  Moonlight spilled through a window set high in the wall. Slivers of reddish-white light made the mist on the ground sparkle. The air didn’t feel right and Claudia couldn’t place that either. It was…paler air, if that made any sense. She heard noises, but couldn’t identify them. Moving. People moving. Not dogs. Dogs would howl, claws would scrape the floor.

  Claudia rolled to her knees, shook the cobwebs out of her head and tried to stand. Her legs were limp celery. Another knife flashed through the air. With a blur of his hand, Korzha caught it. He held the blade between thumb and forefinger. The bluish quality of the light intensified his pallor. Right now, Claudia only wanted one thing, and that was her daughter. She lunged for Aslet and Holly. Jaise put out a hand, but she ducked under his arm and dove for the pale-haired demon who held Holly in his arms.

  Unfortunately, Korzha caught her by the wrist and brought her up short. She whirled toward him, but her efforts to free herself were about as effective as pushing a boulder. A vamp who hadn’t fed recently enough to maintain a healthy color had to be considered dangerous. Bad things happened to humans when vamps got hungry. She snarled, “Let go, fang.”

  Korzha stood still as a statue, unruffled and relaxed, his fingers curled around her wrist. Behind him, Jaise roared with inchoate anger. “Consider what you’re attacking, Officer,” Korzha said over the sound.

  “Let me go,” she growled. She fought him like a cornered cat, but to no avail. Korzha dodged every blow and his grip was relentless. “That thing’s got my daughter!” she cried at last.

  The vampire leaned close. “Officer.” His calm voice cut through her panic. He nodded toward Aslet. “That thing is a demon. If you want your daughter to live, don’t piss him off until we know what’s going on.” He grabbed her by the shoulders. “I will watch out for her.” His gaze held hers. “You have my word of honor, yes?” She jerked on her arm to no avail. The vampire said, “I won’t let go until I know you aren’t going to do something stupid.”
r />   “That’s my daughter.”

  “My word of honor,” Korzha said.

  Claudia pulled in a deep breath and looked at the door they’d come through. It wasn’t broken in the least. Her pulse roared through her, about as controlled as a winter blizzard. They were in a huge room square in shape with a tall ceiling and a wide, short window high in one wall. The stone floor was made of squares of sandy-gold stone, and the walls were of the same material. At her head level on the wall, metal-cage sconces emitted a bluish light. Opposite the door they’d come through, stone steps led upward to another door.

  A stranger stood on the opposite side of the room from her and Jaise. He was tall and bare chested, with chestnut hair held back by a silver clip. He wore pants that laced. The ties flapped unfastened at his crotch, exposing his bare stomach. About an inch below his navel, the band of the form-fitting garment underneath was partially folded under. He stood on a tasseled rug about four-by-six, woven in magenta, ochre and brilliant yellow. In a face of masculine roundness with full cheeks narrowing to a pointed chin, his brown eyes were so pale they looked transparent. A woman crouched at his feet, holding a torn garment to her chest. She watched the new arrivals with desperate, desolate eyes. As a cop, Claudia had seen that look too often not to recognize it for what it was: the hollow look of someone who’d passed beyond the worst and couldn’t imagine why she was still alive. Shock. Complete disassociation. Claudia was pretty sure the woman was human.

  “Surely, Commander,” Korzha said, “it is not necessary to involve women and children.” The knife he’d caught appeared in his hand again. His fingers moved and the blade flashed upward, end over end. As it fell back down, he caught it by the hilt. The corners of his mouth tilted up. “Why not give Officer Donovan back her daughter and send her and the other woman home?”

  “I do what’s best for my people,” Jaise replied. He crossed his arms over his chest.

  Well, there you go, Claudia thought. A good commander stood up for his men. Matthew Jaise might have his personality flaws but she’d never heard anyone deny his ability to lead. “And what’s best for my people is that Claudia Donovan stays here.”

  Korzha squared his shoulders. Despite his expensive suit and drop-dead good looks, he managed to look menacing. One eyebrow arched. “I did not agree to involve humans. The whole point, if you recall, was to avoid human involvement entirely. We had an agreement, Jaise. You assured me you were trustworthy.”

  “You will get what I promised.”

  “You can’t trust him.” The woman’s voice cracked on the last syllable. “You can’t trust any of them. They lie. They always lie.” At first, Claudia thought she meant Korzha. God knows vamps weren’t to be trusted. But after a few moments, she wasn’t so sure.

  The man at the woman’s side said something in a low voice that made her cringe. He reached down and tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling hard. Her torn shirt slipped off her shoulder, and Claudia’s blood went cold when she saw the pattern etched into the woman’s skin. It looked like the one she’d seen on the body back in the construction lot. A bit smaller, maybe, but it had the same internally interlocking pattern. The same mark she and Jaise now had.

  She noticed three more tall men. They stood at the edge of what appeared to be an indoor camp of some days duration. Leather satchels lay on the ground and blankets were spread over rugs as brightly colored as the blankets. The remains of a recent meal were near a neat fire. All three men had startlingly pale eyes that were nearly transparent. They were on their feet now. Alert. Aware.

  Four healthy, hale men living in a condemned building struck Claudia as odd. What were they doing here, besides the obvious occupation of rape? An answer popped into her head: guards. These men were guarding the room. All of them were tall, and all of them were powerfully built. One nodded toward the red mist on the floor.

  “One of them was not human,” he said.

  Claudia’s ribs hurt something fierce, and now that her body was backing down from its state of high alert, she was feeling the pain. Since Korzha had at last let her go, she sidled toward Aslet and Holly. What the hell were these men guarding? She walked to Aslet and with trembling fingers touched her daughter’s cheek. Her skin felt warm, and, thank God, Holly was breathing. Claudia held out her arms, but Aslet tightened his grip. “What happened to her?” she asked. Holly’s head lolled. The girl was out cold. Her breathing was regular, a gentle expansion of the ribs, but was she drugged or hurt? Claudia looked at Jaise. “We’ve got to get her to a hospital.”

  “She’ll come around soon,” the B-Ops commander said.

  “What the hell does that mean? And besides, how do you know?” She stared into Jaise’s eyes. They were the pale grey of mist. She didn’t smell werewolf anymore, but somehow she didn’t think these guys were vamps, although, come to think of it, Korzha’s presence argued for that species identification. Korzha hadn’t gone up in crimson mist like the others. Rogues didn’t always get along. They tended to be maladjusted with a tenuous hold on their sanity. Maybe Korzha had some serious opposition among the other vamps, and he was courting the rogues. That would make an interesting note for the files.

  She stared at Matthew Jaise. “You’re a vamp,” she said slowly.

  Jaise’s mouth twitched and showed white, even teeth. Plenty of vamps filed their fangs. “I am not a vampire,” he said.

  The four guards stood without moving, all in various attitudes of cautious relaxation, the brown-eyed one with his hand still tangled in the human woman’s hair. They didn’t look homeless. None of them. They weren’t human bums at any rate. Not human, she thought. She eyed the woman again. Now her, she’d bet was human. The men, though, weren’t werewolves. They weren’t vamps either, rogue or otherwise.

  “What the hell are you?” she asked. But she already knew. They were like Aslet. Jaise and the rest were like Aslet. Demons. They had to be demons. There were demons in Crimson City.

  “You’re not stupid,” Jaise said, and this time he sounded normal. No accent. “You tell me.”

  “Demons,” Claudia whispered.

  “Oh, my God,” she heard the woman whisper. “Oh, my God. You’re a cop.”

  She looked at the woman. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “He did it,” the woman said in a wondering, desperate voice. “You opened the portal.”

  “Portal?”

  The brown-eyed demon let go of the woman. With a swift motion, he re-tied his pants and now stood hands free. Ready for anything. “Eventually,” the woman said, “the portal kills us. It’ll kill you, too. Don’t listen to anything he says.” The demon at her side reached down and closed his fingers over her shoulder until tears sprang to the woman’s eyes. “You’re going to die just like the rest of us.”

  Jaise walked to Aslet and stroked Holly’s cheek. Claudia’s heart thudded. Her daughter stirred. “Yes,” he said. “Demons.” He lifted his eyes. “She is safe,” he said. “As long as you cooperate, she is safe.”

  “Take me and let her go.”

  “I have you both. What do you Overworlders like to say?” He tipped his head and laughed. “Two birds in the hand?”

  “No,” she whispered. “You can’t do this. You can’t.”

  Jaise bent and retrieved the knife someone had thrown at Korzha. He looked thoughtfully at the door and tapped the flat of the blade against his open palm. “Only Aslet is able to perform the spell that allows you to open the portal. It works only on humans. The woman is right. None of you live very long afterward.” He looked at the white-haired demon. “Aslet is young. His mother was Bak-Faru demon. He is very strong, but unpredictable.” With a sigh, he faced Claudia again, speaking in his refined voice, which she now understood was his natural one. He crossed to her and put a hand on her shoulder. “You will not live long. Three weeks. Perhaps a month.”

  “Don’t touch me,” Claudia said. She glanced again at the woman with the desolate eyes. Was that going to be her in a few days? Her skin flashed
hot all over, then cold and clammy.

  Jaise tilted his head and stroked Claudia’s throat. Her skin crawled. She’d thought about going to bed with him. She’d actually been tempted when he got around to her. Seriously tempted. Probably, she’d eventually have said yes. It was possible. She’d done dumber things. His lip curled. “I will enjoy mating with you, Claudia Donovan. We will do so soon.”

  Louder, he said, “I have need of you both. The human woman and the vampire.” He rested his palm on Claudia’s throat. His thumb slid up the side of her neck, pressing the soft skin there. “Vampire,” he said, without looking away from her. He fit his palm to the curve of her throat. Cold raced through her. She tried to shake off his hand, but didn’t succeed. Her arm throbbed where he’d cut her. Inside her body, the cold continued to spread. “We have much to talk about.”

  “You broke your word,” Korzha replied coolly.

  “You are here,” Jaise said, lifting both hands palms up. “You will meet with the Council as we agreed. In the meantime, you are free to deal with the rogue. As agreed.”

  “Korzha,” Claudia said, “Fleur is going to have your head for this. I’m going to love watching her do it.”

  The vampire smiled at her, but his gorgeous eyes were dead. “So much easier to apologize, yes? I assure you she will accept my apology when she understands the alternative is worse.”

  Jaise stripped off his black shirt and dropped it to the ground. He pulled his cell phone from a pants pocket and threw it on the ground. The casing had melted. He bent over one of the satchels near the guards and pulled out clothes like the others wore. Given his distraction, Claudia decided to risk reaching behind her to unsnap her Glock from her holster. The metal felt warm. She wasn’t sure what she’d do even if she got it out, but the shape and weight felt comforting. Just having it in her hand made her feel better.