Cherry Stem

by Sotia Lazu

  What about Dotty? “Did you see the human woman too? Thirties, tall, with short hair?”

  He shrugged. “Saw someone. She was restrained. I don’t know if she’s the one you want. She was sleeping, I believe.” With that he was out of my field of vision, around the corner.

  Alex and I hurried after him. I wanted to ask him where she was and rush to her, but I knew our chances of helping her and the rest of the girls would be much greater once Ádísa was out of the picture. Then another thought occurred to me, and I wanted to smack myself for not having it sooner. “We have to find Constantine and Johnny Boy and warn them,” I said, stopping Benjamin with my hand on his arm.

  His thick eyebrows rose. “Johnny is here too? But he didn’t believe you. Or me.”

  He hadn’t? Then why was he there?

  Oh shit!

  I’d been so stupid, letting myself be fooled by Johnny Boy’s friendly act.

  He’d conveniently appeared at Ádísa’s the same night we had, with a story that would have worked had he not been a council member. Why would he be looking for proof of her guilt by himself, when he could have ordered someone else to do that for him?

  And why hadn’t I thought of all that sooner?

  He’d said he’d looked everywhere upstairs for the girls. If he had, he’d have known Ádísa was still inside the manor. But of course, he’d known that from the get-go. He’d wanted me to go with him and leave Constantine with Alex because he wanted to take me to her. He was leading Constantine into a trap—unless my ex was in on it.

  No. Constantine had been the one to insist I stick with Alex. Whether he’d suspected something or not, he definitely wasn’t in cahoots with Johnny. And I had to warn him before it was too late.

  “Let’s go,” I said and started running toward the stairs, where we’d said we’d meet the other two, barely holding back so Alex could keep up.

  Constantine and Johnny weren’t at the bottom of the staircase, and I was positive we wouldn’t find them in any of the basement rooms. Without thinking, I climbed the stairs and burst into Ádísa’s horrid living room.

  * * * *

  “I suggest you don’t come any closer.” Johnny smiled amiably, as always. He was sitting on the armrest of the chair I’d noticed on our way in. The thing was uglier than ugly, from its winged back to its clawed feet. Ádísa stood behind it, leaning against its back, her sharp nails tapping on the upholstery. Willoughby flanked her other side, his arm folded around Constantine’s chest, the stake in his hand pressing over Constantine’s heart.

  They made for a very evil if totally clichéd tableau. I sort of felt bad for Ádísa. For all she had going, she seemed too desperate to prove her superiority.

  Still, her guys were armed with things, so I froze in my tracks, as did Alex. Benjamin, however, unconcerned with my former lover’s unlife, shoved me aside and lunged for Ádísa with a roar.

  Johnny raised his arm. I heard the thwack of the cord releasing but still didn’t have time to warn Benjamin. An arrow shot out of the mini crossbow in Johnny’s hand, sliced the air, and found Benjamin’s heart. Benjamin turned to dust midleap. One moment he was lifting off the ground, about to close the distance to the woman who’d promised him retribution for his daughter’s murder and had used him as a pawn, and the next he was a thin cloud of dust descending slowly toward the inappropriately colorful carpet.

  Alex’s gasp reached my ears. That was the first time he’d seen someone dusted, since he’d been knocked out when I’d offed the vampire at his mother’s place. I wanted to make sure he was okay but didn’t dare avert my gaze from Willoughby’s hand.

  “Why?” I muttered, unsure of what that why was about. Why did they kill Benjamin? That was kind of easy to figure out. Why were they turning the girls? Why was Johnny teaming with Ádísa? Why…?

  Ádísa replied to the obvious question. “He was dangerous. He had to be put down.” She looked between me and Alex. “You are dangerous too.”

  “We’ve done nothing to you,” I spat out between gritted teeth. She was a council member, and we were nobodies. There was no reason for her to fear either of us. “You were the one who ordered me turned and had him”—I pointed to Benjamin’s remains—“help you overturn the council. And you had Constantine keep an eye on me. Why?”

  “I am not going to explain myself to you or to a human.” She straightened up and went to Constantine.

  “Why take the girls?” I asked, unfazed by her turning her back to me. “Or me? You could have turned anyone. Why set up this scheme?”

  Willoughby apparently hadn’t noticed how bad guys in movies die after presenting their elaborate plans to the white hats. “Those girls are exactly the type rich, powerful men go for,” he said with a grin. My confusion only made his grin grow wider. “Place them in the right spot at the right moment, and they can bring those men to us.”

  “So this was about money?” That was absurd. Ádísa had to be richer than Donald Trump.

  “No,” Ádísa said, her tone scornful. Apparently she wasn’t above explaining herself if that meant pointing out my idiocy. “It is about power. Turn a few men at key positions, kill a few more after they’ve signed their companies over to their latest significant others, and we rule the world.”

  I gaped at her. “You’re planning to take over the world with an army of what? Five gorgeous, undead escorts? Ten?”

  She scoffed. “You’re assuming we limited ourselves to just one city.”

  “Why not turn those men to begin with?”

  “The ones we’re after are hard to get close to, to begin with. They have people around, monitoring their every move. Turning doesn’t happen within seconds. It’s one thing for Bill Gates to disappear for a whole night after an appointment at his office, and another for him to ask not to be disturbed because he’s spending the night with a conquest. And the girls are trained to be conquests. Men in power have to hunt their prey.”

  “Bill Gates is married,” was the only thing that came out of my mouth. My mind couldn’t process what I’d just heard.

  “Why did you break into my mother’s house?” Alex asked from behind me.

  Willoughby smirked. “We needed to know what progress you’d made with the case. I’d followed you there before, and she’d told us when you’d be there alone. We were planning on wiping you after, but she”—he pointed at me—“got in the way.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have messed with me. Why turn me to begin with?” They’d turned me and let me loose. I didn’t even fit the type they were after.

  Willoughby opened his mouth, but Ádísa glared at him and he shut it again.

  “What? No more playing the James Bond villains?” I asked.

  Blank looks all around. They obviously lacked basic pop culture knowledge.

  “You know: answering our questions so we aren’t left wondering after we escape and kill you?” I was acting braver than I felt but wasn’t exactly trembling in my boots either. Ádísa and the others’ displays of power made them seem less scary than the ideas of them I’d had in my head.

  “It isn’t as if we’re risking anything. You’re already as good as dead.” Ádísa arched two perfectly shaped eyebrows. With an order from her, Willoughby dropped his arm, and I let out a sigh of relief. Imminent danger to Constantine was averted.

  Probably.

  Ádísa locked her gaze to my ex’s and said, “I knew I could count on you to bring her here.”

  The ground opened under my feet, and my stomach plummeted. Constantine had betrayed me? I stared at him, certain Ádísa was trying to play me. She had to be lying.

  Constantine was silent. Why wasn’t he denying her words?

  He smiled at her, and I almost took a step toward him before the memory of Benjamin’s perma-death stopped me. I’d have to kill the double-crossing bastard later. Because I would kill him for making me trust him and letting me down.

  Again.

  Ádísa went on. “I knew you had a soft s
pot for her. I saw you watching, listening, waiting for the right moment to turn on me, and I arranged for that moment to be tonight.” She whispered the last part, but all the nonhumans in the room must have heard her loud and clear. A sense of peace washed over me, at odds with the situation we were in. Constantine hadn’t betrayed me. She’d used his feelings for me against me, but that wasn’t his fault.

  I didn’t get to relish my relief.

  Ádísa made a show of pulling a sharpened stake out of a hip holster and dragging it along his cheek. “What is it with the women in your family, Cherry?”

  It took a couple of seconds for me to grasp that she was talking to me. The women in my family? I didn’t have the faintest idea what her words meant.

  “No matter. Your allure worked against you this time. It got you right where I wanted you. It’s such a pity Constantine will share your fate, but maybe I’ll get to keep your new friend.” She meant Alex.

  I growled. “You will leave all of us alone.”

  “Or else?” Her smile was too sweet and innocent to possibly be sincere.

  Constantine spoke up. “How could you think I would betray you? After all we’ve been through? Don’t you know I love only you?”

  I opened my mouth to say I was sorry, I should have known better, when it dawned on me that he was talking to Ádísa. And then he did more than just talk to her. He cupped her face, pulled her to him, and shoved his tongue down her throat.

  Soon, she lowered the stake and plastered her body against his, all but dry humping him.

  It was like I stood on the set of a supernatural soap opera, the leading characters of which changed allegiances and lovers before every commercial break. “Now that’s been cleared up, will you tell me why it had to be me from the start? I mean, I know you needed someone recognizable for the whole council-overturning scheme to work, but why me? I was a minor celebrity at best. Why not go with a big name?” Oh, for the love of God, couldn’t she just answer me and stop sucking face with my ex?

  Nobody paid me any attention except for Johnny Boy, who was leveling his crossbow in my general vicinity. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Alex had moved so he stood slightly behind me. I knew he wasn’t a coward, so I hoped he had some sort of plan in mind.

  “Hey! I’m talking to you, you harpy. And what do you know about my family?” I yelled the question, both in hopes the other vampires would turn their attention solely to me and on the off chance I actually got a reply.

  It worked. Ádísa pulled back from the lip-lock and was clearly about to say something. Only she didn’t get to.

  Constantine, still cupping her face, twisted.

  Her spinal cord snapped, and it did seem as easy as snapping a twig. He kept twisting and pulled upward and tore her head from her neck with a squelching, ripping sound.

  He twisted her head off.

  Despite knowing better, I expected blood to spurt. There was none. In the blink of an eye, Ádísa’s body formed a pile, her stake landing beside it with a dull thud. Constantine was left holding thin air, his palms covered in her dust. His face contorted, lines marring his beautiful features. His eyes filled with tears. The pain he felt seemed physical. I wondered if it really was, if there was some sort of metaphysical bond between maker and childe that hurt when severed. Would I have felt what Constantine did now if Willoughby had really been executed? I didn’t know. They don’t cover “maker extermination” in the handbook. I’d find out firsthand, if Willoughby did us all a favor and died tonight. Or I could ask Constantine later.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to. He appeared devastated, lost. Then our gazes met.

  Suddenly grinning maniacally, he spun and caught Willoughby’s wrist, taking advantage of the other man’s shock to move the stake away from his own chest.

  “You killed her!” Willoughby’s face was a mask of fury, but his eyes held the same devastation I’d seen in Constantine’s for that split second after he’d killed Ádísa.

  Constantine didn’t say a thing. Instead he used both hands to bend Willoughby’s wrist backward and pushed. The stake was shoved into Willoughby’s chest. He took a couple of steps back but didn’t dust. The stake had to have missed his heart. I looked at Johnny just as he was about to shoot me. I saw it in the tensing of his eyes, the tightening of his finger on the crossbow’s trigger. I ducked to the side at the same moment Constantine kicked the armchair into Johnny and rattled his aim.

  An arrow buzzed by, not close enough for either Alex or me to be at risk. Had Constantine not jarred him off balance, I’d have been history. Before relief could settle in, Alex pulled me behind him and brought his gun up. That was why he’d hidden part of his body from view: so the others wouldn’t see him reach for his weapon. Well, there was no reason for him to hide anymore. The fight was on.

  I tuned down my hearing just in time. Alex’s gun went off, and the sound must have been deafening to the other vampires in the room. Johnny looked pained even before Alex started planting bullet after bullet in his chest. Johnny Boy’s inability to take aim again gave me time enough to approach Willoughby and Constantine, who were wrestling on the floor.

  I grabbed Ádísa’s stake from where it lay beside them and crawled toward Johnny. The armchair acted as a shield against stray bullets. Alex was still shooting Johnny when I stood behind the vampire and plunged the stake under his ribs and through his heart.

  Something whizzed past my head. My cheek burned from its passing. He’d almost shot me! “Hey! Watch it.”

  “Are you all right?” Alex was already crossing the room toward me. He held his gun up.

  “Not thanks to you.” I rubbed my cheek and checked my hand. No blood, not that it’d leave a scar even if there were an open wound. Dust clung to my lips and eyelashes.

  He stopped a couple of feet away from me and took me in. “You seem fine from where I’m standing.”

  “I’m lucky you ran out of bullets, I think.” I tilted my head toward the other two vampires and held a hand up for Alex to stay where he was. He nodded, and I moved to help Constantine. I was looking for an opening when Willoughby brought up his knee and crashed it squarely into my ex’s crotch. Constantine folded over with a groan, and Willoughby rolled him off and took flight.

  Constantine was already on his feet before I could decide whether to chase Willoughby or look for the missing women. “Go find the fledglings,” he said. “I’m going after him.”

  Dilemma solved, I kicked at Ádísa’s ashes, watching as my boot scattered them. I had really wanted her to tell me why she hadn’t picked someone better known and what her comment about women of my family had meant, damn it. And I’d wanted to be the one to rip her head off—or something less brutal but equally final.

  Resigned to knowing I couldn’t have everything, I stole a kiss from Alex. “Let’s get the girls and get out of here.”

  * * * *

  I stared down the iron door barring our way to the first room in the basement. Anything could be behind it, but I was ready for anything, so that worked out fine for me. “I’m going in first. We can’t be sure what shape the newly turned vampires will be in. For all we know, Ádísa, Willoughby, and Johnny have been starving them into obedience. If they’re in the room, half-crazed with hunger, you’ll be the perfect snack for them.”

  Alex wisely didn’t put up an argument.

  I put my ear against the door for the third time. I couldn’t hear a heart beating on the other side, but that didn’t mean Dotty wasn’t in there. Even if the door hadn’t been thick enough to conceal the existence of a heartbeat, Alex’s heart pounding would have definitely covered it.

  I tried the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. That wasn’t exactly a surprise. I hadn’t expected the thing to be unlocked anyway. “Hello?” I jumped when two distinct voices returned my greeting.

  “Hold on, we’re here to get you out.” My mind reeled at the possibilities of what would greet me when I entered the room. Would the women be chained up? Tortured? The
mental picture of naked, bleeding bodies lying on the cold floor made me flinch. Oh God. With a curse, I grabbed the knob again and rattled it. Nothing. Alex was out of bullets, so I’d have to break the door down, damn it.

  “Hold on,” I yelled again, swearing to myself that I’d make sure they were properly taken care of from that day onward. I’d make it the point of my unlife to make sure they managed to forget whatever pain had been inflicted on them for the first weeks of their existence as vampires. I took a step back, steeled myself, and shoved at the door with my shoulder, putting all my weight into it. I accomplished jack shit on my first effort, but the second time was the charm. Just as my body made contact with the iron surface, the door gave way, emptying me into the room. I hadn’t busted in; it had been opened. From the inside.

  I landed face-first on a sheepskin rug, right in front of a pair of feet with perfectly painted orange toenails. The legs connected to those feet seemed to go up for miles, and from my position I could see more of their owner than I wanted to. I raised my gaze to the face. It looked familiar.

  “Oh look. They brought us a chick,” the tall girl standing above me in a forest-green silk robe said.

  I’d seen those hazel eyes before, in one of those pictures Alex had shown Sheena’s assistant. Intense eyebrows, short, black hair…Liza. Liza Mills.

  She looked a lot more interested when she took in Alex helping me up. “And who are you?”

  “He is off limits.” I bounced back to my feet, confusion forgotten at the thought of Alex being in danger. “Nobody bites him.”

  “I’d say,” Alex murmured.

  “I wasn’t going to,” Liza said. “Like I’d feed on a human!”

  Huh? Humans are our food source.

  I looked around and saw two more girls watching us. They were dressed the same way Liza was, only in different colors, and looked the exact opposite of the prisoners I’d expected to find. The room wasn’t what I’d pictured, either. It wasn’t big, but it was every girlie girl’s fantasy, with cosmetics and hair products lining all surfaces except for the two sets of bunk beds. I had been prepared for a medieval torture chamber and had found myself in a sorority house.