Amnesia Bites (Shady Arcade Book 1)

by Sharon Stevenson

  Zack sighed as he swung back lazily to the left. “Goddamn it! I’m not seeing things.”

  His tone had lost all of its punch. He sighed again, pulling at his hair hopelessly.

  Steve ended the conversation, as always, with the simple but firm statement, “Take your pills.”

  Zack’s chair stopped moving as he took the phone away from his ear. Bridget watched the kid; he merely blinked as Zack turned back around, clasping his gloved hands in front of him, no trace of crazy in his dark brown eyes.

  “Where were we?”

  “He was just leaving,” she said, the warning tone in her voice directed at the brat.

  “I was not,” Dorian protested.

  She frowned at him. If she were in a less preoccupied mood, she might have forced the issue. As it was, her attention was split over Zack’s melt-down and what it could mean.

  Zack took a breath. “Your sister is dead. When did this happen?”

  He swallowed audibly before he talked. “Last week. Friday night. She was supposed to be going to see a film, but she never came home.”

  Bridget watched Zack carefully as he took in that information. If he attempted another call to his imaginary therapist, she was calling time on the whole mess and getting rid of the boy before he could cause any trouble for them.

  “And the police don’t have any leads as to who killed her?”

  He appeared remarkably calm by now. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d imagined taking his imaginary medication.

  The kid shook his head. “I don’t have the money to hire you properly, but I thought if I paid you for the answer, then I could check the guy out myself.”

  Ballsy. Stupid, too, but she had to give him some props for his gutsy attitude.

  Zack shook his head.

  “I can’t tell you who killed her. The guy got away too fast.” He pulled a scrap of paper off of his writing pad and passed it to the kid. “Here. That’s part of his licence plate number. You could give that to the police. Might help.”

  The brat picked it up along with the purse. The disappointment on his face made his features sag.

  “I thought…”

  “I’m not a miracle worker, kid,” Zack said.

  Dorian stared at his gloved hands as he got up. “Okay. Thanks.”

  Bridget opened the door, and the kid left. She closed it again and locked eyes with Zack. “You did it again.”

  His face flushed. “It?”

  She nodded. “Steve.”

  He broke his gaze, dropping it to the table. She drank in the sweet smell of him as long as he was distracted, longing stirring deep within her. Strong emotions, particularly the negative kind, always seemed to make the scent of a human much more tantalising. She hadn’t been this tempted by anyone in a while. Pinching her arm, she tore her focus back and told herself he couldn’t possibly taste anywhere near as good as she imagined.

  “It must have been because of the vision,” he finally said, tonelessly. “The girl fell down dead right at my side. She was so young.”

  “How young?” She’d found it easiest to ground him with questions based around facts.

  “I don’t know. A little bit older than the boy.”

  Time for the reality check. “And you think you could have done something to help her?”

  He shook his head, ruffling his overgrown dark brown hair with one of his leather-gloved hands. “No.”

  “Then stop worrying about it.”

  It should have been the end of things, but if Bridget knew Zack—and she definitely did—this wasn’t the end. Not by a long shot.

  He sighed. “Is lunch here yet?”

  Her smile tightened. ‘Lunch’ always made everything better, didn’t it? She had to fight not to roll her eyes at him as she opened the door. “I’ll check.”

  Chapter Two

  The sandwich bitch made her deliveries between one and two every day, and every day Zack ordered a ham and cheese sub roll with mayo and pepper. That meant every day, Bridget had to stare down her worst nightmare in the perfectly toned flesh.

  She heard the clacking of the woman’s summery clogs on the tiled floor outside before her tartily packaged body appeared in their doorway. Bridget folded her arms. If Zack wasn’t such a quaking mess around women, she’d have snatched the sandwich from her before she could even get the chance to clop into the office and ask about him. She tried to relax. Cassandra probably didn’t present a real danger to him, but Bridget didn’t like to take chances when the stakes were so high. A nuisance at best, she’d rather the woman didn’t get the chance to become anything more than a passing fancy to the man she was being paid to protect.

  Shaking her head, she put on her best coldly condescending smile. “Cassandra. You’re looking… pink today.”

  The woman shrugged, grinning inanely. “Rico got new stock in. He wouldn’t let me leave without taking one in every colour. How’s Zack? Is he in?”

  The dress was more suited to a night clubber. At least Cassandra had the decency to wear it with jeans even if they looked like they’d been painted on.

  Bridget shook her head slowly. “He doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said, face falling for a fraction of a second before it picked back up into full-on beam.

  Bridget picked up her ceramic coffee container. “If you don’t mind, we’re busy today.”

  The woman put the sandwich down on Bridget’s desk. The bag barely contained the full god-awful thing, and it all stank of vinegar and dead pig. Bridget screwed her nose up.

  Cassandra left, knowing better than to ask if Bridget wasn’t going to start ordering her own lunch from her shop. Never in a million years, even if she did eat solid food.

  She picked the monstrosity up and knocked on Zack’s door before she opened it. He had his head cocked to one side and was nodding. Sighing inwardly, she placed the sandwich on his desk and folded her arms. “Are you okay, Zack?”

  He frowned and nodded again. “I know. I love you, too. Speak to you later… Oh, and stop having weird premonitions about me, okay? Bye.” He sighed as he locked eyes with Bridget. “Sorry, she can talk for Britain.”

  “She?”

  What the hell? This was a new one on her. Had his condition worsened? Should she report it to her superiors? Rick was not going to be happy if he was losing his shit on her watch. She folded her arms and braced for his answer.

  “Audrey,” he said as if the name should mean something to her. He pulled his wrapped sandwich over, not noticing her strange stare. “Her phone bill must be huge.”

  “You weren’t on your phone,” she told him, raising an eyebrow.

  He laughed at her.

  “Good one. Ah,” he said, taking his gloves off and flexing his fingers. “Ooh, yeah.” He glanced up. “Do you mind? I’d like to be alone with my sandwich.”

  Sighing, she shrugged and left him to it.

  ***

  The sandwich tasted like pure sunshine wrapped in pleasure-soaked joyousness. He sighed happily after his first swallowed bite. For Zack, food often had no taste. Whenever he could, he took home-made options because that was the only way it had any chance of tasting good for him. Cassandra’s food was always lovingly prepared, and he appreciated every single amazing bite.

  Moaning at the second bite, he heard a crash in the other room and hesitantly put the sandwich down. Getting up, he moved around the desk quickly, very nearly forgetting to protect his hands from the angry doorknob.

  As he yanked his gloves on, he heard Bridget cursing under her breath. He was always surprised at just how spicy certain situations turned her language. She knew a lot of words he’d barely even heard of. She’d told him it was a cop thing the one time he’d been shocked enough to comment on it. Spend your life dealing with the scum of the earth and you end up learning new words to describe their awfulness. He didn’t even want to know what she did usually at work. Though it was clear this largely uneventful bodyguard work w
as taking its toll on her patience.

  “Is everything—”

  He found her crouched on the floor, mopping up a broken mug. No, wait; that was her coffee container. The contents had splashed across the floor, and for a second he thought he was having a flashback to the vision that had shown him the dead girl.

  “What is that?”

  He crouched beside her. The bright spot of red on her hand took away any doubt he might have had about what had been in her cup. He shivered. It couldn’t be real. He was clearly seeing things. He had to be. The vision had affected him more than he’d even realised.

  Blinking, he stood back up and stopped staring at the scarlet liquid he couldn’t explain. “Never mind.”

  “It’s a diet mix,” she said, sighing as she cleaned it up, ditching paper towels and the remnants of her mug in the bin under her desk. “Honey and tomato juice.”

  “Maybe you should just go and get a sandwich,” he suggested, thinking back to the one he’d just abandoned on his desk. He felt himself relax almost instantly. Lunch was a much safer thing to think about. Even if there was a reason for the colour of Bridget’s drink to resemble blood, it was still creepy as hell and reminded him too much of his vision.

  “Maybe,” she said, sounding non-committal.

  “Carbs aren’t so bad,” he muttered, his attention splitting.

  “Yeah, sure. Get back to your sandwich.”

  He headed back into his office, closing the door behind him. The food wasn’t quite the same when he got back to it. It still had that sunshine-y taste, but something less pleasant had tainted it. The desk, he thought, damning the stupid thing to hell. If Bridget’s desk hadn’t been used so sordidly by its previous owner, he’d have asked her to swap with him. Lonely was a bit less annoying than sexually aroused, so he settled for a half depressed sandwich and told himself he’d never leave one of Cassandra’s creations alone with it ever again.

  Chapter Three

  Bridget waited. She was used to waiting, but it still bored the utter shit out of her. She researched vacation options on her laptop, ignoring the fact that she wouldn’t be getting the chance at a holiday anytime soon. Her job was more than full time. It was more than a job, even; it was her life. Zack was her life. She should be just thrilled. Too bad babysitting a mentally unstable man-child was not on her list of reasons for existing.

  It’s just a job. She’d keep repeating that to herself until it was all over.

  As she clacked away at the keyboard, hunger pangs rose, twisting her stomach in their vise. Lunch had been ruined, and now all she could think about was eating. Typical. Not as if she could walk along to the sandwich shop and ask them nicely to cater to her special dietary requirement. She seriously doubted Cassandra would happily hand over two pints of what Bridget was craving.

  She glanced at Zack’s door. He’d go home soon and then she could call her boss. Rick hadn’t gotten back to her yet, and she’d marked her email urgent. Chances were he was out. He never had figured out how to sync his emails with his phone. She tapped her nails off the desk. They were looking ragged lately; no time to get them manicured, and she’d never gotten the hang of doing them herself.

  By the time Zack’s door opened, she was ravenously contemplating going out for an illegally obtained snack before she even bothered to call Rick. Chances were she wouldn’t get the time once the big boss man started ordering her around.

  “’Night, Zack.”

  He nodded and left, head down, movements swift. She got up when she was sure he’d gone, opening the door and sniffing at the air. Larry, the security guard, was still around. He wouldn’t be her first choice; the combination of greasy skin and dandruff tended to put her off, but beggars had a hard time being choosers, and it wouldn’t be the first time she’d considered him. Oh, but a slightly more tempting offer was walking her way, and she smiled at her good fortune, wondering if the girl would even see it coming.

  She wore her usual weirdo punky clothes, today comprising of a tight blue and black tartan vest over a black leather skirt and fishnet tights. Her shoulder bag was adorned with little pewter skulls. How cute.

  “Chloe, how nice to see you.”

  The girl looked up past her long dark fringe and scowled. “Bite me, bitch.”

  “If you insist,” Bridget murmured, smiling at the thought of sinking her teeth into Chloe’s pale throat.

  Her vision blurred as she became overcome with blood-lust until all she could see was the precious vein bulging in the girl’s throat, ready and waiting to release sweet blood into Bridget’s mouth.

  ***

  Chloe’s eyes widened as Bridget took a step towards her. “Shit.”

  She shook her head, snapping out of her reverie.

  “Get back, foul creature,” she commanded, locking her gaze on Bridget and forcing her back into the shop with the power of her will, one that worked through a kind of magic that existed in her blood.

  Chloe was a necromancer, a human with power to control the dead. As a vampire, Bridget proved fair game, and right now she was shuddering uncontrollably as she obeyed Chloe’s commands. She didn’t dare break eye contact until she’d talked Bridget into Zack’s office and locked the door on her.

  “Shit,” she swore again, leaning against the door and knowing she couldn’t just leave a hungry vampire in a locked room. She rushed to the shop door and went back into the lobby, biting at her nails as she surveyed her options. Too late to leave and come back.

  Larry was getting ready to lock up, swinging the keys in his hand as he whistled his way tunelessly around the lobby.

  “Hey, Larry,” she said when he came into view, getting ready to work her charms on him.

  He wasn’t a vampire, but he was a horny teenage boy, and that was the other thing she knew how to order around when she needed to. She managed to force a pretty smile as he stopped jangling the keys and gave her a once over that lingered a little too long on her hemline.

  “Can you help me out with those keys of yours? I left something in Zack’s office.”

  Larry’s gaze moved upwards. She found herself wondering if she was losing her touch; realising she was getting kind of close to thirty now, was that the age when her sex appeal might start to wane?

  Finally, he nodded, flipping through the keys on his chain as she stepped back to let him in.

  “So what did you leave?”

  She froze. Half a dozen dumb answers went flying through her head all at once.

  “My pen,” she said quickly, glad she’d settled on something likely to actually be found in an office. ‘My baby elephant’ or ‘the broken remains of my heart’ might have seemed dubious in comparison. She damned the Discovery Channel for that first thought and decided to ignore the second entirely. “I was in the middle of writing something and if I switch to another pen, the ink might not match.”

  Larry put the key in the lock, glancing at her and, she was sure, her legs again. “Hey, are you doing anything on Friday night?”

  She winced. “Uh, yeah…”

  The door swung inwards, and Bridget flung herself at Larry. Chloe sighed as he shrieked. The tall, blonde vampire pinned him on the floor, straddling him. Her irises had gone completely black. She stared into his eyes until he closed them. He was all hers now.

  Chloe grimaced as Bridget crunched down into Larry’s long neck. Bridget’s uncontrollable hunger had to mean she’d skipped a meal. She tried not to watch as the vampire sucked on her hormonally rife friend. From her angle, it looked like they were making out.

  Shivering, she went to the shop door and kept an eye out. No one else was around. In another few minutes, the lights in the lobby would go off with no one around to trigger the sensors. Larry would have locked the exits now that all the customers had left, so they weren’t in any danger of being disturbed. She stared into the lobby, trying to ignore the creepy sounds Bridget was making extracting Larry’s blood.

  Once the lights went out, she closed the door
and swiftly walked over to the vampire.

  “Stop eating. Get off of him. You’re done.”

  Bridget followed her instructions slowly, hesitating and shaking as she moved off her unconscious meal and stood back. Chloe told her to stay still while she checked Larry was okay. He was breathing, and his pulse was steady. The tent he’d pitched in his pants showed her he wasn’t too short on blood. She straightened up, wiping her fingers on the bottom of her vest. She watched Bridget as the blonde woman’s eyes returned to normal. Her cheeks were flushed now as she glanced at Larry and winced.

  “What happened?”

  “You could have killed someone, that’s what happened.”

  Chloe sounded pissed because she was. She hated vampires. It didn’t matter how civilised they tried to act—one missed meal was all it took to make their instincts take over. They were killers, and they didn’t know how to change that; they could only try to suppress it.

  “It won’t happen again,” Bridget said.

  “If it does, you know what I’ll do.” She bent to help Larry up as he groaned.

  “What the hell just happened?” He dropped his keys as he stumbled to his feet.

  Chloe grabbed them, not caring that she’d likely just flashed her underwear. The poor guy had come this close to being sucked dry by a stupid walking-corpse.

  She frowned at Bridget. “I’m watching you.”

  Bridget folded her arms. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Get your stuff. We’re leaving.”

  The woman’s jaw slackened for a second.

  Chloe frowned at her. “What? It’s not like the sun’s still out.”

  “It’s raining,” Larry said, sounding dazed.

  Chloe nodded, taking Larry’s arm and not letting her eyes drop from Bridget as she moved past them at a quickened pace. She blew out a breath, but her heart was hammering. She’d just let a vampire drink directly from a human. If the necromancer’s Council ever found out, she’d be toast.