by A. C. James
“Love is the only thing that matters,” I said, putting a hand on Arie’s arm.
Arie put his hand on top of mine.
“Holly, in my world, love can get you killed. It’s better to find someone that you’re sexually compatible with and not let matters of the heart get in the way,” Julian said with a sigh.
Arie coughed. “I haven’t seen your cousin, but then again we’ve had our own issues to deal with.” He gave my hand a quick squeeze and I knew I shouldn’t argue with Julian, even if I didn’t understand or agree with their customs. He was Arie’s friend. And I was glad that Arie didn’t bring up what we’d been dealing with, especially since his friend was acquainted with Katarina.
“Who’s the half-fae? And what’s the other half?” Arie asked.
“A half-fae, half-demon named Daeveena, and she’s going to get him killed if I don’t find him and drag him back to New York before someone figures out what he’s done.”
A dark look crossed Arie’s features. “Well, if I find out anything you’ll be the first to know. Do you still have the same cell number?”
Something in Arie’s expression and curt response made me think he wasn’t telling his friend the whole story, but I didn’t know what he was keeping from him or why. So at the moment I didn’t ask.
“Yeah, same number. I appreciate that.”
A waitress approached our table and turned toward Arie. She flipped her long silver-blue hair over her shoulder. “Sorry it took me so long. We’re a little short-staffed tonight. What can I get for you?”
The way that she greeted Arie wasn’t disrespectful, but there was something in her tone that seemed off. Her look of disdain toward him was unsupported by anything that Arie had done. I found it strange. Her lips were a thin unsmiling line. Then again, maybe she was just stressed because they were short-staffed without Luna tonight.
She must be new.
I’d never seen her at the club. Blue-gray light swirled around her legs and behind her like the train of a dress that rippled as she moved. I figured she had to be some sort of faerie. Most women tripped all over themselves when confronted with Arie’s good looks, but she seemed rather cool and didn’t register the customary warmth that went with waiting tables. I knew the routine from working at the Coffee Grind. You plastered a smile on your face even if was the last thing you felt like doing.
Arie released my hand. “Two pints of Puncture, -B blend.”
“And what about you?” The waitress turned toward Julian, practically purring as she threw him a come-hither look.
Julian didn’t seem to notice and gave her a friendly smile. “I’ll take a Vodka Red Bull.”
She dropped the pen she was holding and it fell next to my stool. When she bent over to get it, she placed one hand on the table, brushing against my arm. When the Sight took over I saw her in sneaking into Tessa’s office upstairs. The waitress was pulling a small object from the pottery depicted with homoerotic artwork that always sat on Tessa’s desk.
It was a small silver key.
She took the key and unlocked a drawer in Tessa’s desk. Then she removed a black canvas bag. When she unzipped the bag it revealed a large stack of money. I couldn’t be sure how much but it looked like a lot of cash. Hurrying out of her office she met with a burly man sitting at the bar. A red ball of light trailed behind his leather trench coat. My jaw tightened.
Just like Luna’s father. He’s a fire faerie!
Images swirled and blurred together. I couldn’t make out any sound to go with the pictures in my vision. He discreetly tucked the canvas bag into his coat when she handed it over and pulled a small bottle out of an inner coat pocket. The bottle contained a clear liquid and was marked with a label that read ‘Synthetic Inducer.’ She took the bottle from him and walked around the bar to the modified refrigerated tap system where we stored Puncture. I couldn’t see what she was doing with her back turned toward me, but when she turned back around the bottle looked empty.
The images dissolved as quickly as they had appeared.
She’d done something to tamper with our blood supply. It had to be some sort of poison. With the bad blood between vampires and the fae that ran the Chicago Crew there was no other logical explanation. The waitress departed still wearing the please-fuck-me expression that she’d directed at Julian.
Neither of them seemed to notice my discomfort.
“We need to see Tessa right away,” I said, giving Arie an imploring look. -It’s important.-
“She’s not here right now but she’ll be here soon,” Arie said. -Can it wait?-
I half-nodded, half-shook my head. I was just about to blurt what I had just seen in my vision when Arie gave me a puzzled look and turned to his friend and started talking.
Fuck! What should I do?
“So how’s business in New York these days?” Arie asked.
Arie seemed to take a genuine interest in his friend, but panic left me momentarily frozen. I couldn’t stop thinking about the waitress. And I wondered if the fae in my vision worked for Luna’s father. I didn’t know what I should do, because I didn’t know if the vision was something that had already happened or if it was going to happen. There was no way of knowing if the waitress had already tampered with the Puncture.
Julian shrugged. “Busy. Complicated. But I’ve managed to keep my clients out of the thick of it. It’s not really competition, but if it were I’d be winning.”
“So what do you do, Julian?” I asked, trying to be polite even though I wanted nothing more than to get up and go confront the waitress. I wasn’t sure how to deal with it, and wished to God that Tessa were there. My mind spun in a million different directions. I looked toward the bar, but I didn’t see our waitress anywhere.
Something bad is going to happen. I need to do something…
“It’s not what he does, but who he represents,” Arie said.
Julian shrugged. “I’m a criminal defense attorney. It pays the bills.”
“Fighting to keep the damned out of jail for all of eternity. Right, Julian?” Arie asked, rhetorically.
I didn’t know how I knew it but I sensed that my vision wasn’t a glimpse of the future, this was the present. My gut instinct told me that whatever the waitress had planned was going to happen soon and if I didn’t do something to stop it things were going to get ugly.
-Arie…?-
Arie looked at me with concern from my telepathic entreaty.
“Like I said—it pays the bills,” Julian said.
The waitress returned with our drink order just when it looked like Arie was about to say something. She slid two pints of Puncture across the table to me and Arie. I desperately wanted water, but I couldn’t think about that now. Her mouth twisted into an ugly smile before she turned to walk away. As she left our table, Arie grabbed the glass and started to bring it to his mouth.
-Stop!- I grabbed Arie’s arm.
Arie looked at me as if I’d lost my mind.
-Please, you can’t.-
“Don’t drink it.” I grabbed the glass from Arie. “There’s something wrong with it.”
He gave me a puzzled look. “Holly, are you okay?”
“No, I’m not.” Both Arie and Julian were looking at me as if I’d grown two heads. “I’m sorry, Julian. I don’t mean to be rude. Arie, I saw something. It’s hard to explain but we need to stop serving Puncture. Now.”
I looked around the crowded bar at the pint glasses filled with the familiar red liquid on various tables. Bile rose in the back of my throat. There weren’t many vampires in the bar when Arie had me cuffed to the pole, but now there were plenty and drinks were beginning to be served throughout the bar as Arie and his friend were reminiscing.
-Please, Arie. The Puncture.-
I wondered if any of them had taken a sip. Maybe it wasn’t too late to stop whateve
r our waitress had planned.
Arie searched my eyes. -What about it? Tell me what you saw?-
I shot him a panicked look. -You can’t let them drink it because it’s been altered. She put something in it. I don’t know what.-
I must have looked terrified. And I could tell from his expression that he understood the gravity of the situation.
“You need to do something now. Please, Arie. You can’t let them drink it because the faerie did something to it. Something bad. I think it’s some sort of poison. Please, you have to hurry.”
Arie got up and started to make his way over to the bar. But it was too late. A vampire ten feet in front of me leaped from his barstool and clutched at his throat. Then all I could hear was screaming as vampires around us rose from their seats, clawing at their skin. It blistered as if it were being burned from the inside out. Arie and the bouncer started yelling and herding the humans toward exits to clear the bar of human clientele.
But all the screams sounded the same.
Julian followed Arie’s lead and started ushering a half-naked brunette onto an elevator. No one knew what was happening. It took me a minute to react as I took in the mass hysteria and chaos. A female vampire at a table behind me started shrieking, her skin blistering and melting onto the barstool. Her skin dripped like plastic and smelled worse than anything imaginable. Bile rose in my throat, threatening to retch forth.
Oh, God.
I didn’t know how to help her, or if I could, but I felt compelled to at least try to do something. I swallowed the bile about to surface, ignoring the horror of the situation and forced myself to take action.
She fell to the ground, moaning as her skin continued to melt like a grilled cheese sandwich. Her eyes rolled in her head and I could tell she was about to black out. Kneeling next to her, I ignored the smell of burning flesh, and wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t know what I was doing. I tried to remember what it felt like when I’d defeated Katarina.
As I closed my eyes to block out the pandemonium, I remembered Rue’s words. Instead of feeling warmth pricking out from my core and through my fingertips, warmth was being drawn in—from her to me. When I opened my eyes I could see the blisters on her skin being absorbed into her body. Her face looked as unblemished and pale as I imagined it did before her face started melting off.
Sharp pain like pins and needles coursed through my body. The poison circulating through my bloodstream burned my veins. I rocked forward bracing my arm against the floor to support my weight and keep me from falling on top of the vampire in my lap. Multicolored spots, followed by gray, twirled in front of my eyes. I felt dizzy and weak. Had I not been kneeling, I felt sure that I would have collapsed onto the cold, hard sheet of marble supporting my knees. The vampire began to stir and opened her eyes just as everything faded to black.
An envelope of unconsciousness descended on me and I fell sideways onto the floor. The last thing I felt was pain as my head hit the marble with a thud.
Chapter 5
Someone was shaking me. Just a little longer. Just let me sleep a little bit longer. My head hurt like hell. It wasn’t the mind-numbing pain I’d felt when I died and became a vampire, but just the same it would be nice if the disco pulsating through my head would melt into the slower-paced trippy rhythms of the previous decade. I didn’t want to move, but I didn’t have a choice because someone was shaking me as if they were trying to rouse the dead. Vaguely, that thought amused the hell out of me.
“Holly… Holly, come on, snap out of it.”
“Mmmm…what? Just lemme sleep.” My words slurred on my tongue, which felt thick, almost as if I’d been drugged. Thirsty.
“Holly, you have to try to open your eyes. But don’t try to sit up…not just yet.”
Arie’s steady voice smashed through the blissful fog of oblivion that was grasping to pull me back under. My head throbbed and I winced. When I opened my eyes fractionally, his pale face and gray eyes loomed over me. I looked down at my arms, expecting my skin to be blistered and boiled, but much to my surprise it remained unmarred. Relief washed over me. I thought the poison that I’d drawn out of the vampire would affect me the same way it had burned those who drank it directly. Splintered sunlight. The thought wouldn’t have made much sense to me if I hadn’t experienced what the poison felt like firsthand.
“I’m okay,” I said, trying to reassure him. “I feel like hell, but I’m okay. Just help me up.”
Arie brushed a curl off my face, fear receding to the background as he realized that I really was okay. “God, Holly. I thought you were dead… like the others.”
Like the others? “What others?”
“Some of them didn’t…” Julian said, trailing off. His face was drawn.
I pushed myself up and Arie took my arm as he guided me to a seated position. Part of me needed to know that everything was okay and confirm it for myself, but then another part of me didn’t want to look. It reminded me of the tragic car accidents on the highway. I couldn’t stop myself from looking for survivors, even though I couldn’t stand to see death.
It hurt when I tried to turn my head, but my pain was quickly forgotten when I saw the bar. Chairs and tables had been overthrown by vampires who had caught on fire, or by those trying to get out of their way. Broken glass sparkled on the marble and spilled blood which mixed with the poisoned Puncture that painted the floor. Everywhere I looked there were vampires slumped over with markings that disfigured their pale skin. The bodies of five vampires who had been burned to death were lined up in front of the bar.
“Oh, God.” I shook my head.
I knew they were dead. There was no way someone could look that charred and survive. I had to look away.
“I don’t understand. Why are they dead? Why are others only… scarred?” Trying to form words and make my brain cooperate with my mouth was painful. “Can someone get me some water?”
The female vampire whose skin had been melting rushed to my aid, grabbing a bottle of San Pellegrino from behind the bar. She unscrewed the cap and knelt to hand it to me. Grateful for its cool crispness, I took a swig.
“Thank you.” I gestured with the water bottle.
She shook her head. “No, I should be the one thanking you. You saved my life. If not for you, I might look like one of them.” She looked toward the crispy remains of the five vampires lined up, wrinkling her nose.
There were no words to describe how bad the place smelled, but I knew I would never forget what burning flesh smelled like. Two bouncers grabbed one of the bodies, each taking an end, and started carting it off as if they were simply moving a piece of awkward furniture. I figured they were probably disposing of it. I put my hand over my mouth. The smell of burnt vampire pulp permeated the air and I felt like I was going to be sick all over again.
“I just don’t understand why they’re dead and the others are not.” I nodded toward the vampires that had been disfigured from drinking the poisoned Puncture but for some reason had survived the attack. Some already looked like they were starting to heal.
“And why didn’t they start frying from the first sip?” Arie asked.
“Obviously, it’s not instantaneous. Christ, you take two aspirin and it takes at least twenty minutes before it even starts to help,” Julian muttered.
Julian shoved his hands in his pockets, looking increasingly uncomfortable.
“I suppose there’s metabolism to account for, and it didn’t seem like they all combusted at the same time. It seemed like some of them melted faster than others, now that I think about it,” I said.
Why am I not dead? And how on earth did I manage to save her?
I desperately wished that Rue were here, because if anyone would be able to explain to me what I’d done, it would be her. Something happened the day that I materialized the dress for the gala. It felt like the burst of light that emerged from me an
d broke the nut had tapped into something else that had been there all along.
I’d just never known it.
I’d only found out that I was a witch when Rue shared my family history with me, but if I was being honest with myself I’d always known there was something different about me. Normal people don’t See things. I’d thought that being a seer was a burden, but tonight it had saved my life. And it had saved someone else’s life. Luckily I’d retained those powers even after I’d turned. And who was I to question it? The only kind of luck I’d ever had was bad luck. I wouldn’t start asking questions now.
“None of them can be more than a hundred,” Victoria said.
Victoria walked over to one of the bodies, crouching by its blackened remains. Her blonde, almost white, pixie hair spiked out in varying directions. My head felt thick; I hadn’t even noticed her leaning against a wall, quietly observing. “They’re newly made vampires. I’m sure of it. This one isn’t even wearing bloodstone.”
“Victoria is right,” Arie said. “If he was old enough to know better, he’d be wearing bloodstone. No doubt the irresponsible fuck who made him didn’t bother to explain it, and he must have been turned recently if he’s not wearing one.”
Julian shifted from one foot to the other. It seemed like he wanted to be anywhere else. Honestly, I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t even want to be there. And this had nothing to do with him or his missing cousin. I looked around, but the waitress whom I knew without a doubt was responsible for the death and destruction wasn’t there. Not that I really expected her to be. I knew she’d be long gone by now if she knew what was good for her.
The elevator chimed, breaking the stillness of the bar, and the doors swung open. Tessa walked through them, her spike heels clicking across the black marble. She stopped short, her mouth pursing together at the scorched scene that unfolded in front of her.
