Amnesia Bites (Shady Arcade Book 1)

by Sharon Stevenson

  Larry’s head brushed her shoulder, and she snapped out of the thoughts that were starting to freak her out. She took a deep breath. She’d done what she had to do. Bridget had let her hunger get out of control. Nothing less than a controlled feed from a vein would have sated her—animal blood would have only made her crave human more violently—and there was nothing that would have made Chloe risk Zack’s safety like that.

  “Are we going out now?”

  Larry sounded dazed, and he looked wasted. He needed to rest and she knew it.

  Chloe sighed. “No. We’re taking you home because you need to eat something and you need to sleep.”

  As if things weren’t bad enough, she had to walk the guy home to make sure he didn’t decide to go for a sleep in the rain. She doubted worse could happen to him than what already had, but still. He was kind of her responsibility right now.

  Shaking her head, she tugged on his arm, and they started to walk out of Zack’s agency and into the corridor. Bridget was waiting to be let out at the entrance to the arcade, scowling and kicking her pointed-toed-stiletto-clad foot against the bottom of the doors.

  “Come on, Larry. Give me the keys, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Chapter Four

  The over-cast sky made it more pleasant for Bridget to walk home while the sun was still up. The summer nights always proved more awkward, but she’d chosen the apartment building close to the arcade on purpose. If worst came to worst, she was only ever twelve steps away from the place where she worked. Even a newly hatched vamp could manage less than sixty seconds in the sun.

  She threw her bag onto the phone table and locked the door behind her. Her four little darlings gathered around her instantly, mewling and purring against her legs. The grey Persian cats were housebound and addicted to the taste of her blood. They were originally intended to be a source of food for emergencies only, but she’d grown so attached to them, they’d become familiars instead. To a witch, that might mean something different. To her, it meant she could see through their eyes whenever she fed them a drop of her blood. Blood magic was something a witch could use, but it remained primarily connected to vampires.

  “Another boring day, my darlings,” she told them, picking up the king cat who stole most of the others’ food and was hands down her favourite. He was a big round ball of fur in her arms, saving his ferocious hissing for when the other kitties attempted to get in his way. “Home at last, Arthur.”

  She went to the couch and sat down, rubbing Arthur’s belly. She had slipped her phone into her pocket and she took it out now. The three neglected kitties mewled at her feet, the skinniest stretching and putting his paws on her knee.

  “Down, Lancelot,” she warned, right before Arthur hissed and reached out to scratch his brother.

  The three cats at her feet dashed away quickly, and she was left with a pleasantly purring king cat on her lap, settling in and closing his eyes.

  She called Rick, knowing the conversation would be rough.

  He took his time answering, probably bemoaning the fact that this was outside the nine to five part of the job he was obligated to perform.

  “Bridget,” he said, sounding wary. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you. Is everything…okay?”

  “You didn’t get my message?”

  “I couldn’t get into my emails.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, do you really want to have this conversation over the phone?”

  He sighed. “I don’t have time to get into town.”

  “Okay, then. He’s getting worse.”

  “In what way?”

  “The episodes,” she said, speaking in that slow, measured way she knew drove her boss nuts. “You know, those crazy little things he does ever since—”

  “I get it,” he snapped. “This is not good.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “It’s been six months,” Rick said, a clicking noise travelling down the line.

  She pictured him tapping his pen on his ink-blotter. He was still at work, then. Can’t get to his emails—bullshit. Her smile turned into a grimace as she figured out what he was going to say next. It was inevitable, and the reason she’d ignored his last few episodes. That new one cinched it, though; Zack was deteriorating. They had to move fast.

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “You think you’ve got the situation under control?”

  “For now,” she said, wondering what was holding Rick back.

  “Okay, good.”

  “That’s it?”

  If that was all he had to say, she could breathe a heavy sigh of relief, for now.

  “I’ll be in touch.”

  He was going to speak to the higher ups, then.

  The line disconnected, and she put her phone down on the arm of the seat. She got the feeling her metal was about to be tested, and she’d better damn well be prepared.

  She ran her fingers through Arthur’s thick fur. “I’ll be ready.”

  Chapter Five

  Zack relaxed into the bubble-filled hot water. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to find lovingly home-made bath products so that he could properly chill out at the end of those particularly stressful days. Days like today, when he’d seen a girl drop down dead inches away from where he stood.

  Shivering, he took his gloves off and sat them on the soap rack in front of him, next to the tub of Cassandra’s cherry ice-cream. The bath felt amazing enough to take the edge off and make him smile. The ice-cream was to keep the feeling going. He fully expected to be in the bath long enough to wrinkle every sliver of skin from his neck down to his toes. In half an hour, the ice-cream would be melted to perfection.

  This was what he needed right now—a head full of happiness. No single diverted thoughts. He didn’t need to think about that poor kid from the morning or the horrific thing that had happened to his big sister. That sounded like a job for the police.

  He sighed blissfully as he fully submerged himself. The warmth encased him, soothing his worries away. Nothing was going to ruin his happiness. Nothing.

  “Jesus, Zack, this denial shit again?”

  Audrey’s intruding voice invaded his happiness.

  Why did he pick up the goddamned phone?

  He groaned. “Damn it, Audrey, go away.”

  He’d had about enough of her warnings for one day.

  “Look, you can’t ignore me this time, and I know you’re trying to.”

  She was right. “I’m not taking that case, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “You don’t take it. It’s taking you. You never listen, do you?”

  “If I promise to listen, will you stop talking?”

  She laughed. Her laughter had a hiccupy sound to it, which he found highly irritating.

  “That dead girl needs you,” she said, sounding serious. “You’ll figure that out soon enough. Something’s off about this one, though. Something stinks. You have to be careful.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, gazing at the ice-cream. “I need to go.”

  “Promise me you’ll be careful.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Just… don’t trust anyone.”

  He snorted. His paranoid sister telling him to trust no one; that was new. “Okay, whatever. Good night.”

  She stopped bothering him with her insane warnings, and he pulled the soap rack over to start in on his ice-cream. His night of relaxation was back on.

  Chapter Six

  Bridget got to work early as usual, entering with the cleaning crew just before sun-up. The strange hours she kept to appear human had taken some getting used to, but she’d eventually tuned her body to it, like so many of her kind.

  She put her ceramic coffee container down on the warming coaster and switched the device on. Powering up her computer, she wondered when her new orders would come in. Had Rick gone to his superiors yet or was he holding off?

  She tapped her fingers on the desk as she waited for her computer t
o come on. Zack had been her life for so long. She found it hard to imagine that coming to an end. What had things even been like before? She had a problem with long-term memories. As soon as she’d become a vampire, she’d started to live in the moment. As a species, their synapses worked differently. Anything beyond six months was impossible to recall.

  But, it wasn’t important. She had files she could pull out if she really wanted to dig into the past. It was just sort of ironic, considering her current job.

  That skinny, jittery life she currently didn’t know how she was going to move on from made his entrance at nine a.m., throwing her a wan smile as he walked into his office and closed the door. He didn’t remember anything beyond the last six months, either, but for totally different reasons.

  She bit at her lip. An email came into her inbox, and she quickly opened it.

  Rick’s misspelled mess of a message wasn’t quite the mission she’d been expecting, and disbelief rolled through her.

  “What the…” she said, reading through it a second time to be doubly sure.

  He was asking her to start Phase Two of Plan B. She didn’t get it. Surely, Plan A made more sense. Plan B was riskier; it involved telling Zack things he didn’t need to know.

  But if he’d said it, that meant orders. She’d follow along.

  She stared at the message before she hit delete. Plan B, it was.

  Chapter Seven

  Zack considered the situation from all angles as he walked around his desk. The possible locations of the girl’s murder were few and within easy distance to check into. An outdoor car park that large… there were three possibilities, and he could eliminate one of those instantly. He would already have heard about the murder if it had happened in the parking lot at the back of the arcade. Plus, he probably would have picked something up when he walked past it. Incidents that left a vivid psychic imprint like that couldn’t be ignored. If he’d been to where it had happened, he’d have known, regardless of how protected his skin was.

  He clasped his hands together. He’d need to be prepared for it. He’d know the place when he found it, but it came with the problem that he’d know it when he found it. He couldn’t go alone. Considering how frequently he had blackouts after a vision, he couldn’t risk that.

  He stopped walking in a circle and looked up at the closed door. It wasn’t a case he could take to earn money. The kid didn’t have any. Bridget would probably sigh and tell him they couldn’t close the office for the day when he wasn’t going out on a paying job. Then again, she was basically his body guard. Didn’t she kind of have to do what he told her?

  Hesitating, he folded his arms and leant back against his desk. He’d been fuzzy on the dynamics of their relationship ever since they’d been introduced. Awakening from a coma and being told he had to go into witness protection had been a shock. He remembered nothing of what he’d ‘witnessed’, but that didn’t matter, of course. Someone dangerous out there knew he was alive, and that was enough to convince the police to assign him permanent protection. Bridget was day-watch. She alternated between bossing him around and playing obedient secretary. It made her kind of hard to approach.

  He opened the door and closed it behind him once his feet were firmly planted in the front shop. The windows had been painted over, the only light coming through the glass-fronted door.

  Bridget looked up, putting her coffee container down and leaning back in her seat. She eyed him suspiciously as he stood there working his way up to revealing his plans.

  “Are you all right, Zack?” She narrowed her eyes slightly.

  “There’s something I need to do,” he said, trying to sound sure about it.

  She took a noisy breath and pushed her chair back from her desk. “The dead girl?”

  How did she know?

  She always just seemed to know. He nodded.

  “What were you thinking?” she asked in her matter of fact voice, not the more sarcastic tone she sometimes brought out when she was trying to boss him around. She was at least willing to hear him out.

  “I want to find the place,” he said. “Maybe—”

  She held up a hand, reaching over to click her mouse. The printer on the filing cabinet behind her started up seconds later.

  “Got it,” she said. “Looked it up last night.”

  She passed him the piece of paper. He peered down at the address. The college car park in town.

  “I want to go and see if there’s anything…else.”

  He winced at the thought of seeing it again, but it would be the best way to start off. He needed a second vision, one that would tell him who had killed the girl.

  “We can go later,” she said, sitting back down and beginning to clack away at her keyboard. She’d told him she still consulted on homicide cases while she was on ‘baby-sitting duty,’ as she liked to call it, so he supposed he shouldn’t be so surprised that she’d looked into this already. “I’m pulling up her case file.”

  “Oh, that’s… thanks.” He went back into his office and continued walking around the desk.

  ***

  The dead girl was Pauline McAllister, eighteen years old, and her parents had reported her missing a week past on Sunday.

  Bridget tapped her nails on the desk as she surveyed the details. The girl was of age, physically fit, and had just moved out of her parents’ house. She’d seen enough cases like it to be suspicious, but she’d need to play this safe.

  Opening her emails, she started composing one to Rick. Her fingers paused over the keyboard. Was it really the best idea to drag him in so soon? A false alarm would only piss off the higher ups.

  She deleted the message. She’d wait.

  She could practically see Zack wearing down the floorboards in his office; the creaking her enhanced hearing picked up steady and predictable. He was likely pacing in a circle around his desk and would continue to do so until they picked up a client or she told him it was time to check out the car park.

  She picked up her cup and drank the lukewarm blood like it wasn’t decidedly unsatisfying after her fresh-from-the-veins meal the night before. She put the cup down when it was empty, catching sight of Larry on his rounds through the glass-panelled door. He threw her a smile in passing, and she licked her lips without realising it. Hunger washed over her. She was starving.

  Blinking, she calmed herself. It would pass. She’d experienced this before. The handful of times she’d lost control and bitten a human, her eating habits had taken weeks to get back to normal. The animal blood she was supplied by the FBU—the Federal Bureau of the Undead, aka the vampire police force—was going to be unappetising for a while, but she’d get used to it again, eventually. She’d just have to nip home in a few hours and refill her cup before she headed out with Zack later.

  ***

  Chloe sat behind the desk of her photo-shop lab, tapping a pen off a notepad. She sold alternative jewellery, indie rock CDs, and she offered photo-shop services, the most popular of which involved zombifying teenagers. Suffice it to say, her shop had a kind of limited clientele. Kids from the high school would pack the place at lunch-time, but right now, it was quiet and quiet was boring.

  Sighing, she scored through the last line of melodramatic poetry she’d scrawled on the notepad. The only thing she liked about this new one so far was the title: Forgotten. She slapped the pad shut, irritated at her inability to articulate her thoughts properly.

  She knew she should probably check on Zack’s bodyguard. Making sure the vampire didn’t go off the rails was sort of her job. Though she wasn’t specifically assigned to watch over Bridget, she reasoned that working so close to them both, it would be remiss of her not to keep an eye on the undead bitch. After what had happened, she was glad she’d been overstepping her mark a little. Putting the pen down, she picked up her keys and headed reluctantly out.

  Another light had gone out, this time right above her shop entrance. The arcade was pretty run down, but she couldn’t afford to move to
a nicer unit out on the high street, let alone the actual shopping centre along the road. The arcade sat on the outskirts of the main shopping location in town and that kept rents low. One of three security guards opened and shut the place every day and patrolled about while it was open. Larry was the only one who took the job halfway seriously, and he was also the only full-time guard, which was probably just as well.

  She checked out the shop fronts as she shuffled along the corridor. Nothing much had changed since that morning. She yawned as she passed the comic book store, dawdling outside one of the two cheap fashion shops. Amira was working; the young girl had coffee-coloured skin that seemed to radiate with good health and a bright smile she pulled on only when there was some sign of rescue from her mind-numbingly dull part-time job. She lit up as her dark eyes landed on Chloe.

  Chloe smiled, heading into the shop as the slender teenager opened her mouth and started chattering from her position behind the cash desk.

  “Chloe, I’m soooo glad to see you! I’m going to be stuck here all day. I can’t believe it. It’s so depressing.”

  “All day?”

  The girl pulled a face. “Dad went off to meet with another supplier or something. It all sounded very boring, and somehow I got stuck here while Ahmed gets to bugger off down to some fashion show in London.”

  “A fashion show?” She could barely picture Amira’s loutish older brother at something so civilised.

  “He wants to get off with a model. He told Dad he’d check out new suppliers.” She shook her head. “I’m sure Dad knew he was lying.” She leaned over the counter, folding her arms and resting on her forearms. “Anyway, what are you doing out and about?”

  “I was just going to check in with Bridget,” she said, shrugging slightly as she said it. “It’s been a quiet morning.”

  “Any progress with Zack’s condition?” Amira’s question was hesitant but curious.