by Jill Cooper
Oh God.
Jessica felt faint. She really didn’t have time to get arrested again. She headed back downtown—hopefully before the cop spotted her. Checking over her shoulder, Jessica didn’t notice Amanda until she plowed into her. “Oof!” Jessica dropped her groceries and grumbled as she bent over to catch a runaway apple.
Amanda helped her. “I got the money. Let’s get out of here.” Her brow furrowed. “What’s the matter, you’re all turned up into knots.”
“There’s a cop running the plates on the car.” Jessica grabbed Amanda’s elbow and nudged her to walk along.
“Oh no! Well, we can walk back to the cabin. It’s long, but we’ll get there in an hour or so, right?”
“Except my shotgun is in the car, with my fingerprints all over it. Once the police catch wind that I’m here…” Jessica swallowed hard. She didn’t want to use the words “warrant” or “most wanted,” but let’s face it, her past was colorful. All for reasons she couldn’t talk about, or explain. So much for Mom’s good little girl.
Amanda raised her eyebrows and went pale. “You left your shotgun in the car?”
“Well I can’t just bring it with me, can I? Excuse me, Sir, would you mind holding my shotgun while I grab some nachos and a six pack of beer?”
Amanda’s nose scrunched up. “I hope you didn’t waste our money on beer. Oh, that was a joke, wasn’t it?” Her lips twisted to the side and looked so naive that Jessica wanted to hit her over the head. They didn’t have time for Innocent Musings by Amanda Blood.
Jessica grabbed her arm. “We’re leaving. We’ll just have to take our chances on the road.”
“Except we’ll have no wheels,” Amanda said even though Jessica figured that all out on her own.
They’d just steal someone else’s car. It was best to keep on the move anyway.
Her gut clenched from nerves, and it only grew worse when a man and two women charged toward them followed by a police officer. “That’s her, officer! That’s the woman who stole our wallets!”
Crap. Jessica’s heart pounded, but their fate wasn’t sealed yet. Amanda could be convincing with her naïve act because for the most part it was sincere.
Amanda’s eyes widened and with her sweeping curls and feminine dress, she was the epitome of innocence. She put a hand on her chest. “Me? I would never. I did no such thing. I needed help, yes and this fine man and his wife let me use their phone. That was all. I would never repay such kindness with thievery!”
She sounded so offended and with flush cheeks, even Jessica believed her. She tried to move past, but the officer held up a hand. It was then Jessica realized it was the sheriff from the store. Could their luck that day get any worse?
“You’re going to have to empty your pockets.”
Amanda gasped. “Well, this dress doesn’t have any pockets.”
“Then,” the sheriff said with a level glare, “your purse.”
Amanda glanced at Jessica, but Jessica didn’t know what she could do about it. “Don’t you need a warrant to search her purse?”
“Not if I have probable cause.” The sheriff glared at them. “You two know each other?”
“Us? No.” Jessica said with an edge of calm. “She ran into me and knocked my groceries from my hand. She seems kind of like a space cadet, if you ask me.” Amanda gasped and gave Jessica a wide-eyed expression, but it was ignored. “I doubt she’s smart enough to do with these people are suggesting. No offense.”
Amanda stammered. “None taken, I suppose.” She pressed her lips together and her cheeks flamed pink. Jessica knew she was going to pay for this later.
“In any regard, hand over your purse and we’ll clear this matter right up.” The sheriff extended his hand.
Amanda hesitated, but there was no way around it and they both knew it. Jessica just held her breath as the sheriff unzipped the purse. She hoped Amanda had time to ditch the wallets already, but when that chubby hand pulled out three wallets, all hope evaporated with them.
Crap. Jessica glanced at her sister and Amanda shrugged and Jessica read her pained expression; there hadn’t been time to ditch them yet.
“That’s them!” The man pointed. “I thought it was weird the way she kept bumping into me. She’s a…a con artist!”
Amanda snorted. “Oh please! I’m no such thing.”
“You’re both going to have to come with me.” The sheriff hit the radio on his shoulder to call in the situation.
Both of them? How could she break Amanda out if she got dragged to the station too? “The both of us? But—.”
“Save it for someone who really is dumb, sweet stuff. Two fire redheads like you here at the same time? Not likely. You can either come quietly or I’ll arrest you too here and now. Your choice.”
Jessica knew when she was beaten. She needed to bide her time. Clearing her throat, she locked her hands together and rocked her hips to the side. “That won’t be necessary. We’ll come.”
The sheriff escorted them to his squad car. In the back Amanda glanced at Jessica. “What are we going to do?” Amanda whispered with fright in her voice.
Jessica hadn’t figured that out yet. If she didn’t before nightfall, things would get a little dicey in town. And the least of their trouble would be a few stolen wallets.
9: Vaughn
Vaughn had missed his home since he set up shop in the Midwest. Although no longer in New York, his heart craved the smell of NYC had and pizza; New York pizza, couldn’t be matched anywhere.
He loved NY for its grit, its expansiveness and for its women. Lord, he loved its women, and how easy it was to trap them, to convince them he meant them no harm. As soon as he hooked them on the elixir, they’d be his; mind, body, and especially their soul.
It was downright intoxicating.
But New York didn’t have the one thing that Vaughn’s heart craved the most.
The Blood Sisters.
Vaughn needed Amanda Blood. His reason? He didn’t want any other demon leader to have her. She could make a clan invincible. Unstoppable. Vaughn wanted to conquer them all.
Mounted on their bikes they raced through the Midwest. Vaughn had set up a desert, foothold where drugs could flow in and out. He’d turned it into a strip club and a supply center. After converting it to his liking, he warded it with magical protection. It was the perfect place for demons to gather and party, away from the city where they would have attracted attention to themselves.
Just because he was hunting the Bloods didn’t mean his business shut down.
No, it seemed business was very good in the desert; almost better than it was in New York, because let’s face it, what else did they have to do with their miserable lives?
Vaughn was a high-level demon, which meant he took the body of a human host. The body was close to a century old now, and Vaughn did what he wished to it. The hardened pecs were covered in a black circular blade tattoo and he added a teardrop of blood down his lean torso for every demon hunter he’d killed. When he captured the Blood girls, he had bigger plans for his back, a design, to commemorate his greatest victory.
It would be a triumph for evil if Jessica could be killed. If he drugged Amanda, made her serve and do his bidding, he would become invincible in ways a demon never had before. He needed to get to her first, because every demon was looking, searching for reasons of their own. Vaughn thought his reason was best.
He didn’t want to destroy the world like the others. He loved the world. Where else could he drink, eat, and fuck to his heart’s content?
Vaughn walked through the casino room and entered the strip club. Dressed in leather pants and a matching leather cape, his chest proudly displayed his tattoos, but his face was badly scarred, and girls recoiled from his disfigurement.
They itched all hours of the night and Vaughn would never forget the one who gave him those battle scars.
Young girls slithered up and down the poles as men cat-called, waving bills in the air. The girls’ bo
dies were chiseled, their breasts perky and plump. Drugged out and barely conscious, their heads were thrown back against the pole. All they knew was how aroused they were; they were doing their master’s bidding.
Vaughn couldn’t ask for more.
He slid his hungry eyes across each of them. He fancied the one with long black hair. It had a slight wave to it and she had a mole right above her lip. Vaughn didn’t know why he liked her so much, he just did. With the pole between her legs, her back arched so far that her fingertips brushed the stage, she was the very image of his desire. Springing up seductively, she grabbed the pole, humped it with her pelvis, and twirled in a circle that was almost elegant.
He jumped onto the stage and went to her, grabbing her roughly by the chain around her neck. She gagged and drew a ragged breath, her head lolling backward. Vaughn could see into her glazed green eyes, misting from too many drugs. Her plump ruby lips parted and a sigh escaped her as she took him in.
What little she could actually see.
Vaughn gathered her up into his arms, his hands pressing against the small of her back. He kissed her with little regard for whether she wanted it, because they always did. His tongue forced its way into her mouth and the stripper who had no name moaned, grabbing his shoulders and kissed him back with a passion that most of his junkies didn’t have.
He needed her.
Vaughn pushed her away and she staggered, falling to her knees. He spoke to a grunt demon that was manning the bar. “See to it she's taken to my room. I have business.” Vaughn didn’t wait for an answer, but walked down the hall and stepped into a secured room.
There a seer knelt on a pillow, a collar and chain around her neck, She stared into a black bowl of orange goo, stirring it with her finger. Once the seer had been beautiful, but her use of blood magic had turned her skin wrinkly long before its time and what hair she had left was white, hanging like hay around her ears. The decay of being with Vaughn had caught up with her.
“Well?” Vaughn’s voice was unnaturally deep.
She glanced up and her hollow gray eyes never blinked. “They are close. I know where they are. I know where they’re headed.”
This was it, the moment he had been waiting for. Vaughn took a deep breath. He already felt triumphant. “Where?”
She smirked. “You won’t be the only one. Others are mounting an attack and an old ‘friend’ too rushes towards them. Duncan Jasper.”
Duncan Jasper. It seemed his day for revenge was coming sooner than he’d thought. If he could get the Blood sisters and Duncan Jasper in one fell swoop, well that would be a fine day indeed.
10: Jessica
Jessica scraped a piece of plaque off her teeth—she didn’t have time to brush that morning—and flicked it off her finger across the room. It didn’t make her feel any better, nothing did when she sat at a metal interrogation table. Why was it always metal anyway?
She tossed back her hair and drummed her fingers against the table, but that didn’t make her feel any better either.
Amanda cast a sideways glance at her. “Your nerves are giving me a stomachache.”
“Everything gives you a stomachache,” Jessica said even though she knew it wasn’t true. A few things gave Amanda headaches.
“How long do you think we’re been here anyway?”
Jessica shrugged and kept her gaze from the locked door in front of them. “Few hours at least. Daylight’s wasting, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Amanda laughed, that scared little laugh she always did when they were kids and Jessica told her a ghost story. “Aren’t you?”
Worried was putting it mildly. More like she was ready to scratch her way out of her skin to get out of here.
“If the dem—if the men, come here,” Amanda’s voice dropped down to a whisper, “we’re like trapped rats and all these officers—”
Would be in harm’s way. Dead. “Lucky for us by then I’ll have a plan.”
“Really?” Amanda’s eyes grew hopeful.
The door’s knob began to twist. Jessica held up a finger when she heard the snap of the lock and they both sat up straighter. The sisters raised their eyebrows at each other, communicating silently with glances and facial tics. Jessica gave a shrug while Amanda wove her fingers together with a coy smile.
Here went nothing. The interrogation followed by their pitch of innocence. Amanda would throw in some doom and pessimism and hopefully, it’d go better than normal. Jessica was planning on telling the truth this time.
Mostly.
Sheriff Woolsey entered the room with a manila folder under his shoulder. “I was doing some light reading on you two. Jessica and Amanda Blood.” He threw the thick folder onto on the table. “I nearly sprained my thumb flicking through all these pages.”
Jessica glanced at the splayed pages. With a wince, she caught sight of her photo from when she was fifteen and angry. Angrier than she was now. At least, today she had some understanding, but back then? She was a system kid with a history of being ‘difficult’ and ‘high risk’.
“Well, I hope we kept you entertained.”
The Sheriff chuckled. “You have a chip on your shoulder, Ms. Blood, and maybe it’s one you earned. Maybe the foster system failed you. Twenty homes in five years is a lot for any kid. Petty crime. Violent outbursts, and that’s just your record before you turned nineteen.”
Amanda’s eyebrows furrowed together tighter than Jessica had ever seen. It took a lot to make her sister angry. When her voice was angry and loud, it reached a pitch that made Jessica’s wince. “That information is supposed to be sealed! She was a minor!”
It was cute when Amanda was protective.
Woolsey turned his attention to her. “You’re the one I don’t understand. By all accounts, you’re the quiet one. The good one. The one that was lined up to be adopted, but you’ve turned to the life of a thief. Stealing cars. And illegal weapons?”
Amanda cringed. Jessica leaned forward, “Those are mine. She doesn’t actually like weapons.”
“Can’t even touch them. I break out in hives,” Amanda said. “And for the record, I’d never allow myself to be adopted.” She sat up straighter and her nostrils flared. “I’m a Blood. Nothing will ever take that away. Nothing.”
He had awakened the spitfire in Amanda, something she had never learned to control. It festered inside of her like a rash. Jessica put her hand on her sister’s knee. “Why don’t we let the good Sheriff tell us what he’s charging us with. Because if he isn’t, then we’re free to go, aren’t we?”
Woolsey’s tongue clicking inside his cheek. “Pick pocketing is still a crime. And that car you stole, Ms. Blood,” his eyes locked with Jessica’s and under her intense glower he looked away. “Well, you could have really hurt that man. Do you want to know, Ms. Blood, how many active warrants you have on your head?”
Jessica always remembered and it made her swallow, hard. Wasn’t something she was proud of but shame—she had that in buckets. “I’m not admitting anything, but even if I were,” Jessica leaned across the table, “you don’t want us in your town any more than we want to be here. So let us go. Pretend you never saw us, or say we beat you up and escaped. I don’t care, but we need out of here. Now.”
Woolsey met her eyes and glanced between the two sisters. “You threatening me, young lady?”
“No,” Jessica said softly.
“You just don’t want the type of danger we bring,” Amanda added. “We’re hard-nosed criminals.”
She said it so sweetly, so innocently, that Jessica did a double take. With Amanda’s wide eyes, woe-is-me expression, she wasn’t helping to sell their story.
Woolsey laughed. “I feel like the both of you are setting me up. Doom and gloom, right? What can two young ladies do in lock up that me and my deputy can’t handle?”
“It’s not about what we can do, Sheriff, trust me.” Jessica leaned across the table and grabbed Woolsey by the collar. “It’s about what they can do
. The ones that are out there and they’ll come for us. Trust me.”
The color drained from his face and even his mustache appeared to be shaking as he peeled her off and pushed her back. “Some scary thing is out there and it’s coming for you, huh?”
Jessica gave a shrug while Amanda nodded. Pretty much, yup. Too bad regular folk rarely believed it.
From the shake of his head, Woolsey was no different. “This little act you two have going might work on some people, but listen here—” The Sheriff was about to launch into a full diatribe when a knock came at the door. Jessica held her breath as a deputy stuck his head inside. “Sheriff, FBI’s arrived for these two.”
Jessica’s heart skipped a well-worn beat. Beneath the table she squeezed her knees. Amanda’s voice cracked. “FBI?”
“Guess the jokes on you this time.” Sheriff Woolsey stood up from the table and his chair squealed across the floor as he pushed it in. “Excuse me girls, while I sign the paperwork and make final arrangements. It seems you’re not going to be our problem after all.” He grinned and left the room with his head held high, his nose-thumbing the air.
Jessica’s skin crawled. As soon as he was gone, Jessica got up and inspected the window of the room. They had to get out of there, now. The anxiety was almost too much to bear.
The bars were set firmly into cinder blocks. Small town quality construction was going to make it impossible for them to break out of here, but still she gave the bar a tug for good measure. Jessica ran a hand through her hair, tugging on it. What the hell was she going to do? They were in a real jam, a pickle.
Damn it, Jessica hated pickles.
Amanda swiveled in her seat. “The FBI can get us out of here, can’t they? It’ll be like safe passage through the wicked forest. This could be good news, Jess.”
Except…Jessica went on tiptoe and gazed outside. The sun was beginning to set behind the evergreen trees in the parking lot. Red streaked the night sky like fresh blood.
Demons were on the move.
“Except we’ll be like sardines in a can and even worse, so will these FBI guys.” Jessica turned and gazed at her sister.
