by Carly Hansen
Without warning, four figures emerged from a laneway Fenix hadn’t even realized they’d passed. One of them plowed right into Twain’s side, flipping him in the air.
Twain’s body slammed against a wall. The thud of his head smashing against the bricks was sickening.
He slid down to the ground and lay there, slumped against the wall.
Another man grabbed Fenix from behind and pinned her arms back. Her shoulder blades burned with pain.
She bent her knee and kicked back, bringing a swift heel up between the man’s legs. Her heavy boot made contact with squishy flesh.
Immediately, the man let go of her and squealed like a pig cornered by a knife-wielding butcher.
He dropped to the ground and curled up in a ball, moaning. It didn’t look to Fenix as if he’d be bothering her again tonight.
But he was the last of her concerns.
Her fingers tingled and felt like they were being stabbed by hundreds of pins. She pushed the sensations out of her thoughts. The situation looked desperate, but there was no way she was going to rely on powers she didn’t understand and had no way of controlling.
She could only rely on magic that she knew would do the job, as well as her hard-earned street-fighting skills.
She reached under her jacket and pulled out her knife. With three-to-one odds against her, her go-to weapon was a rattan bo staff. Lightweight and flexible, and just about as tall as she was, it suited the street fighter in her. She envisioned one and quickly flicked her wrist.
In a blaze of light, a trusty staff appeared in her hands.
Just in time, too, because the three companions of the man yelping on the ground surrounded her.
“Get out of my face or you’ll end up like your buddy there,” she said.
She selected the youngest and smallest of the three as the first she’d attack. She stepped almost cat-like to the side, lining up with him and placing herself out of range of the other two.
They kept coming at her as if they hadn’t heard a word.
So much for negotiating.
The man directly in front of her snarled.
Ay, those were definitely vampire fangs that he flashed.
“This is your last warning,” Fenix said. She stretched her hands in front of her and twirled her staff. The rattan stick spun at high speed, creating an optical illusion of a solid disk in motion.
The eyes of the young vampire glazed over. Those first crucial seconds while he was mesmerized gave Fenix the chance to attack.
She maneuvered the staff under her arm and drew it back as she raised her right knee. With a loud shout, she brought down her knee and lunged forward, thrusting the staff into the vampire’s ribs.
He bent over and grabbed hold of the stick.
If a human had taken such a blow, he would have been down for the count. But this vampire was strong. He held the stick in a vice-like grip.
Fenix couldn’t pry the staff out of his hands, so she stepped back and yanked. The vampire jerked forward, falling off balance and slightly releasing his fingers.
That gave Fenix the leverage she needed to force the staff down. It slid through the vampire’s fingers, and Fenix immediately swung it up. The upper cut to his chin tossed his head up and back, and he reeled.
He slammed into one of his companions, giving him a head-butt with the back of his skull. They both went down moaning.
The last of the four jumped over the bodies and came at Fenix.
She wasted no time. Twirling her staff, she charged into him.
The stick came down within less than an inch of his head, but he grabbed it. Angry amber eyes blazed at her as the vampire bared his fangs.
He was even more powerful than the previous one. Fenix struggled to hold on to her staff. They engaged in a brief tug-of-war. Then the vampire scowled and ripped the stick out of Fenix’s hands.
She stumbled forward with the momentum and fell on her knees. The shock to her kneecaps reverberated throughout her body.
The vampire flung the staff across the alley. It hit a wall and broke in two, the pieces clattering to the ground.
Fenix pushed herself up with her hands, trying to get back on her feet. The vampire seized on her vulnerable moment. His boot slammed into her left shoulder, tossing her back. Before the pain could even register, a second boot got Fenix in the solar plexus.
She fell backward, and her head hit the ground with a thud.
If she survived this night, she was sure to feel the pain of that blow.
The vampire hissed and showed his fangs. He swooped down on Fenix, as if coming in for the kill.
She felt the ground around her for something to defend herself with. Her fingers touched a piece of the broken staff. One edge was jagged and sharp.
As the vampire plowed into her, seeming to aim for her neck, Fenix thrust herself up with all the force left in her.
She aimed the pointed edge of the broken staff right for the vampire’s heart. As they smashed into each other, the piece of stick met its mark.
“No,” the vampire screeched. He clutched the stake and tried to pull it out of his heart.
But it was too late.
Fenix watched in amazement as the vampire’s clothes and body sparked, burst into flames, and then turned into dense gray smoke. Within seconds, the smoke was gone, leaving no trace of him.
********
That was Fenix’s first vampire takedown. She didn’t have time to stand in wonder at it. Grabbing the pieces of the staff, she used Alda’s magic to turn them back into her knife.
She had to find the others who took off with the girl.
She ran through the labyrinth of dark alleyways. She’d never been in this part of Tresmort before. The tug in her stomach was her only guide.
The pull was strong as she turned a corner.
Far in the distance, there was movement.
She ran in that direction, even as she felt winded.
Ahead of her, four more men in suits ran down the lane. The one at the front carried the girl’s limp body. Her arms and legs dangled as if she were dead to the world.
They disappeared around another corner.
The man in the purple robe dashed out of another lane a few seconds later. He stopped for a moment and looked about him. Fenix felt anger rising in her as she saw the man disappear around the corner, too.
Suddenly, something swiped her from the side.
Fenix fell to the ground, feeling as if all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. She held her aching ribs and rolled over. A young man in a dark suit raised his foot to bring a heavy boot down on her skull.
Just as she rolled away, a voice cried out.
“Get away from him.”
Twain came bounding on his broomsticks, his face scrunched in a ferocious scowl.
Fenix held up her big knife as she got to her feet. The young man took a quick look at her, then at the fast-approaching Twain, and seemed not to like his chances.
He turned and made off toward the corner where the others had disappeared.
Twain helped Fenix to her feet when he reached her.
“You all right?”
Fenix pulled away from him. “They went that way.” She tried to head off in that direction, but her knees buckled.
Twain grabbed hold of her arms to keep her upright.
“It’s too late,” he said. “They’re too far ahead.”
Fenix struggled with him. “I’ve got to go after them. They’ve got the girl.”
“Fenix, we’ll never catch up with them.”
Micha and Java rounded a corner and found Twain and Fenix wrestling each other.
Somewhere in the distance, car tires screeched.
“Get a hold of yourself, Fenix,” Twain shouted.
Fenix finally wrenched her arms away from him, but she stood where she was, gasping.
“I could have caught up to them,” she said through clenched teeth.
Twain huffed. “Not on those sha
ky legs you’ve got there.”
“What happened?” Micha said.
He opened his eyes wide, as if he was entirely innocent. That just made Fenix’s blood boil with rage as it was his own kind that had carried off the girl.
She glowered at him. “Didn’t you see what happened?”
“No,” Java answered. “We didn’t see anybody.”
Micha shrugged. “I think we must have run around in circles. What happened with you two?”
“We were attacked,” Twain said. “I was knocked out. When I came to, I saw three men limping away in one direction. Fenix was running the other way. I followed Fenix, and then this other dude came out of nowhere and knocked him down.”
Fenix realized that nobody but she knew that it was vampires who had attacked the girl.
She wasn’t about to say anything to bring them up to speed. Especially not Micha. He was acting as if he hadn’t a clue. Was that truly the case or was he just pretending not to know that vampires in the territory he oversaw were now hunting down humans and had fed on at least three victims that night?
Fenix shoved Twain’s shoulder. “You should have let me go after them.”
Twain reached out to shove Fenix back when the sound of blaring sirens and screeching tires caused them both to spin around.
“Cops,” Fenix said. “Let’s get out of here.” She ran toward Micha’s car.
Twain jogged to her side. “Why are you so concerned about this girl, anyway?”
Fenix was so furious she couldn’t even talk. But it was wiser not to say anything.
She didn’t even know what that episode was all about. She hadn’t had a good look at the girl, and she had no clue who she was. Why had she seen her in her mind since they’d pulled out of the transit hub? This strange feeling of something pulling her toward the girl was freaking her out. She didn’t even know why the girl had been taken.
Fenix had even less of a chance to get answers to the more burning questions now. Like where had those vampires taken the girl, and what they were going to do with her?
She felt her blood go cold as her mind raced through the possibilities.
“You haven’t answered me,” Twain said.
Fenix continued, ignoring him.
“Bad things happen to people all the time, especially in a rough part of town like this,” he said. “You know that. You lived on the streets, too. You can’t go around trying to save everybody.”
“Shut up, Twain.”
“Alda’s not going to like this when she hears about it,” Twain thundered in her ears. “You were meddling in human affairs. What if the cops had come along sooner, huh? What would you tell them about your knives?”
Twain could be a real pain. When he latched on to something, he would argue his point until he was out of breath. And this time, he had the upper hand because he was actually right.
She had used the charmed knives Alda had given her for a fight the witch had not authorized, one that put Fenix close to the edge of outlawed activity.
She tried to justify her actions in her mind.
Sure, she’d used the magic to try to rescue a human. But she had used it against vampires. And since the law didn’t even recognize the existence of supernatural beings, there was no law to prohibit the use of magic against them, so she had broken no laws.
But with Micha in earshot, she had no chance to explain that to Twain.
She sank down into the passenger seat of Micha’s car, feeling totally deflated.
She couldn’t get that girl out of her mind. The memory of the girl’s limp arms dangling as she was carried off left Fenix with a hollow feeling of failure.
Chapter 17
Fenix remained silent all the way to Micha’s lab. But Twain wasted no opportunity to taunt her about the wrath of Alda she was to face when they returned to the warehouse. He only shut up when Micha turned around and snarled that enough was enough.
When Micha parked, the four occupants of the SUV made a solemn lot as they walked toward the huge, white building that housed Angelo Labs. It stood at the far end of the industrial park and dwarfed the other buildings around it.
The façade was of white marble and glass. Inside, the entrance hall was a sea of gleaming white marble floors and square marble pillars. In the center of the foyer, a giant fountain gurgled.
The high ceiling was all glass. Beyond it, the moon shone low on the horizon. It had traveled far along its nocturnal journey since they’d left Alda’s warehouse.
With Micha leading the way, they took the path behind the fountain, which was lined with apple trees. Their tiny pink flowers perfumed the air.
The four emerged into a courtyard enclosed by massive glass-brick walls. The path stones carried them through an enormous garden. Besides familiar plants like ferns, palms, and rose bushes, there were strange shrubs with wet pink leaves that hung down like salivating tongues, trees with large, clam-shaped flowers that opened and made a hissing sound, and giant mushrooms that glowed like lightbulbs.
At least, they would have looked strange to someone who hadn’t lived with Alda. Fenix recognized some of the plants from Alda’s much smaller garden.
She watched Micha’s white silk suit as he walked ahead of her, thinking he and Alda had created practically the same environments for themselves. Those two were quite similar, despite their apparent enmity.
“This building has a lot of light for the headquarters of a vampire’s business,” Fenix said when she caught up to Micha. Twain and Java walked behind, out of earshot.
“More than two thirds of the staff are human.”
“So, I take it the vampires have the night shift?”
“Well, the lab is open around the clock. And, yes, like me, most vampires choose to work at night. Out of habit, I guess. However, because of the serum, it isn’t necessary that we do.”
Fenix nodded. She wasn’t quite sure she liked what she was hearing. She preferred vampires to have their traditional weaknesses. With this serum providing immunity to the sun, she had one less weapon at her disposal if she came up against vampires from Micha’s territory.
“How do your human and vampire staff get along?”
“Just fine. The humans, of course, have no idea they’re working alongside vampires. They’re assigned to the projects for human drugs. Only vampires are on the team working on the serum.”
At the end of the garden, they entered a white hall and took the elevator down. It opened to a long corridor, and Micha led the way. He opened the door and let them into what looked like a lounge. Except for a blood-red sofa, all the tables and chairs were white.
“I guess I don’t have to ask what’s your favorite color,” Fenix said.
Micha smiled. “You’d understand if you’d lived almost a century in Eurus’ dark world.”
Twain and Java caught up with them.
“There’s water, juice, and soda,” Micha said. He pointed to a glass wall, behind which stood rows and rows of bottles. “Help yourselves.”
Twain rubbed his hands. “I never say no to liquid refreshment, either.”
“I shouldn’t be too long,” Micha said. “I just have to find Baldwin, my second in command. He’ll pull a team together to run the tests, and I’ll be back as soon as I have the results.”
Micha left them, and Fenix took a bottle of water and headed for the sofa. Some of the tension in her body began to melt away as the cool water coursed over her tongue and down her throat. She became aware of the pain she’d been ignoring. Her head throbbed, and the side where the last vampire got her in the ribs was still raw.
But that pain couldn’t compare with the agony in her mind over the girl. The image of the girl’s limp body in the arms of that vampire tormented Fenix.
She stretched out on the sofa. Her weight sank easily into the soft leather. The smell comforted her. She had a thing for leather. Before she knew it, she was fast asleep. It was only when a hand gently rocked her shoulder that she realized she’d been
dead to the world.
The touch was light, but it set her entire body abuzz. It was a good feeling. Every part of her tingled. Juices flowed all over and put a smile on her face.
She turned her head and peeped at the hand. It was the smooth, soft hand of a man. It couldn’t have belonged to Twain or Java, whose young hands bore the scars of their rough previous lives on the street.
When Fenix sat up, the hand fell away.
Micha stood before her, smiling.
“Seems like it’s way past your bedtime,” he said.
Fenix immediately got to her feet. The effort made her head spin, and she wobbled a bit. But she shrugged and headed to the door. She didn’t want to show any sign of human frailty, especially if everything she’d learned tonight would mean she’d eventually have to fight Micha’s kind, or even Micha himself.
“What did the lab find?” Fenix asked.
He shook his head. “Baldwin just handed me the results. It’s bizarre. We have some of the best equipment here, but it didn’t pick up anything.”
“How come?”
“The technicians said the only thing they could think was that it might be some sort of magic that blocked the recordings from being read.”
Fenix remained silent and pondered this as they went up in the elevator.
“All you have to go on are the pictures and video we recorded of the victims?” she asked. She and Micha had put some distance between themselves and Twain and Java as they walked to the car.
“Hopefully it will be enough to convince the werewolf Assembly that we have a problem.”
“But wouldn’t the lack of conclusive evidence make it easier for pack leaders to object to vampires hunting down werewolves for these killings?”
Micha sighed. “It’s a distinct possibility.”
“It looks like all this is going to do is spark trouble between vampires and werewolves.”
“And likely other shifters as well.”
“How so?”
“The werewolves are sure to point fingers at other shifters in order to redirect the blame from themselves.”
