by Bee Murray
The vampiric infection may have supercharged his natural charm and looks, but Vinnie could hold his own. He looked up suddenly, as if he could feel me staring at him, and smiled in my direction. A little wink, subtle and just for me, made me feel stupidly warm and fuzzy inside.
Get a hold of yourself, woman. This is not the time, and definitely not the place. He. Broke. Your. Heart.
My silent scolding was only lukewarm. Vinnie Quake held a piece of my heart for years now, and whatever happened tonight, he’d probably still have it in the end. Damn him.
The screaming and yelling from the melee outside dragged me away from mooning over my bloodthirsty ex, and the hair on the back of my neck prickled up.
Showtime.
The first wave of angry residents came into my line of vision, and they were just as virulent and repulsive in person as they were online. They carried a wide variety of homemade signs attached to wooden sticks that were sharpened like stakes at the end.
Not unexpected.
We had provoked them into a frenzy. Still, the sight of them in-person sent another shiver down my spine.
Vampire Hysteria had hit Seattle. I hope we know what we’re doing.
The press wasted no time filming the interlopers, and I knew this incident would drive national conversation for days to come.
A large man with a dirty beard and stained trucker hat stepped to the front of the line. Before anyone could stop him, he reared back and hurled a brick at the front window of the bookstore.
Someone screamed, I ducked, and the plate-glass window shattered into a thousand pieces that rained down over the beautiful book display and skidded over the hardwood floor.
“Hey, Vinnie! Get fucked, you vamp-loving scum!”
A roar of approval rose from the crowd and they surged forward, the mob mentality ignited. The security forces Carlyn hired and the police protection that had been offered closed ranks. They raised their riot shields to provide some protection for the book club members, but they couldn’t stop every rock, brick, and bottle hurled at the shop.
I glanced frantically at the crowd of book club members and saw Vinnie crouched over the body of the elderly woman he had been talking to. Her unique hat was on the ground, crushed beyond repair by running feet, and his face was a mask of rage.
Another bottle sailed through the broken window and struck another woman in the face. Blood poured down her face as she fell to her knees.
Oh no.
Vinnie and two others whipped their heads around as soon as they smelled her. Three hungry gazes laser-focused on the ruby red drops that dripped down to the hardwood floor.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. SHIT.
The situation was already volatile but now it was threatening to be outside of our control. I sent a quick text to Baldwin and muscled my way through the press to get to Vinnie. I could see how red his eyes were from across the room. This was not good.
His monster was shimmering just beneath the surface. I could tell that it was taking all the self-control he had to rein it in. There were two more people on the floor, their blood pooling beneath them as others struggled to bind their wounds and help them up.
Even a very well-fed, very self-control-oriented vampire would have an issue with this. I lost sight of Vinnie as smoke bombs from the security forces went off to force rioters to back away from the doors.
Rough hands grabbed my ponytail and pulled hard. I let out a thin shriek of surprised pain as hands gripped my forearms and forced me toward the melee. The scent of stale cigarette smoke, b.o., and the sour odor of beer vomit invaded my nostrils as they flung me towards the crowd.
“Here’s Vinnie’s little whore, boys! She’s a traitor to her own kind. She’s hooking up with a vamp-lover! Maybe we should teach her a lesson!”
I looked up and saw that I was being held between two young men with anti-vamp slogans printed on their shirts. They leered at me and licked their lips suggestively as I struggled.
“Let. Me. GO!” I screamed at them and kicked out at whoever I could reach.
A man with a carefully trimmed beard and a “Vamps Should Stay Dead” shirt twirled a baton with a sharpened end between his hands and glared at me with cold, calculating eyes.
Where were the cops? Where was the extra security? This couldn’t be happening.
“I don’t think we will,” he said with a smirk that I hated instantly. “I think we’ll play with you first.”
A bitter sense of dread sank into my stomach and I struggled harder against the hands that held me.
“Help! Help me! Someone, please! Help!” I screamed again. I bit down on the hand that tried to muffle my shouts and then a vengeful slap rocked my head back and I tasted blood on my tongue.
No one was listening. No one could hear me over the noise of the riot all around us. Someone grabbed my wrists and upper body, and someone else grabbed my legs and I was carried out, farther into the crowd. Farther away from Vinnie.
I blinked hard to fight against the tears that filled my eyes and as my vision cleared a face appeared above me. Glaring down at me with an expression of undisguised hatred was —
“Zach?”
Confusion flooded through me.
What have we done?
Before I could say anything else, something hard hit me in the face and red spots danced in my vision, obscuring Zach’s face for just a moment before darkness swept me away.
The pain in my head threatened to split my skull in two. Everything hurt—including my eyelids as I blinked and tried to focus on my surroundings. Muffled voices and a strange ringing pulsed through my brain. My hands and feet were tied, making it almost impossible to push myself up to a sitting position. I flopped around like a fish, each bump sending a jolt of pain through my whole body. If anything, it just made my headache worse. I groaned and rolled onto my side instead, it would have to do for now. A dark stain on the floor beside me looked suspiciously like blood, and I swallowed thickly. This is bad. This is really fucking bad.
“Ah, the vamp-whore is awake.”
I winced as I lifted my head to look toward the cruel voice that taunted me.
I don’t know what I had expected to see, but it certainly wasn’t Zach and Baldwin. They sat on a luxurious leather couch like old friends, a gun and a knife resting causally on the cushions between them. I remembered Zach’s angry face, but my heart sank as I stared at Baldwin and his self-satisfied smirk.
“You? Really? Why are you doing this? Where are we? Where’s Vinnie?” My voice was hoarse from screaming and my mouth was dry, but I tried my damnedest to inject as much authority as I could into my words, which was hard to do while lying on my side on cold concrete with every muscle screaming in agony.
Zach stared off into space and ignored me while he played with the knife in his hand. Baldwin grabbed the gun from between them and stood, the weapon held loosely at his side.
“Tell me, Ms. PR Guru, did you ever think of the human cost when you spun this so-called accident into the pro-vampire movement?” Baldwin asked. “Did you even give the tiniest bit of consideration to the people left behind when you took the side of a murderous vampire? Did you think of them as people, terrified in the final moments of their life, or were they just numbers to you? Eight little problems to be solved. Are there no limits to what you do for your clients?” His tone was conversational, but I caught the pain behind his voice. I had never been so confused in my life.
“You hired me to do a job. I did it. What do you want me to say?”
Instead of an answer, Baldwin reached down and wrenched me into an upright position. I struggled against his grip and he rewarded my efforts by smashing the butt of the gun against my temple.
My vision flared white, and then blackness slipped over me again.
* * *
***
* * *
When I regained consciousness, the room was silent and dark. I was still tied up and lying on the floor. Seattle’s skyline was visible from th
e window, and the coppery tang of blood hung in the air.
I struggled to get myself into a sitting position and my face rolled in something wet and sticky. This smell was overpowering and I gagged before squirming away from it as fast as I could. My body collided with something cold and hard and I screamed when the cold, hard thing groaned weakly.
I was surrounded by blood and I was definitely not alone.
Carefully, I eased myself away from the other person. It took a monumental effort that caused my entire body to scream out in pain, but I shifted myself into a sitting position.
A pool of blood surrounded us on the floor. Tremors rocked my body as I turned my head to look next to me. Staked to the wall was a vampire, mouth open, frozen in mid-roar—two bloody gaps in his otherwise straight teeth were enough for me to know that the mob who took me out for more than just blood, they were taking trophies, too.
Baldwin’s betrayal came rushing back into my mind, and suddenly I knew exactly where I was.
This was Vinnie’s house.
The house I had prepped to blow up at midnight.
Bastards.
9
VINNIE
When Tuesday explained her plan for the evening to me, it seemed straightforward enough. Do a press appearance at a vampire book club, lend my celebrity to the pro-vampire community cause, take some selfies with the press, and see and be seen with Sandrina on a dance floor.
Easy. Well. Everything but the Sandrina part. She’s more annoying than she looks.
Sure, there was some high-powered explosive stuff to deal with, but I didn’t have to touch it—I just had to act horrified when it all went down. Other than that small detail, it was simple.
But when that first brick smashed the bookstore window and the angry protesters became a larger brawl than anyone had planned, my monster rose to the surface.
The smell of blood had flooded the room as they caught innocent humans in the destruction.
My fangs descended immediately, and it took everything in me not to lap up the beautiful, precious blood that poured out of the victims and stained the floor.
A quick glance was all I needed to know that I was not the only one having issues with the amount of blood being spilled. I lived on pig’s blood for five years, but now that I've had a taste of the human vintage…
No. Keep a leash on that monster, Vinnie. You have to.
This was an opportunity to show I was different. To pay penance for my past sins. I refused to lose control again.
I swallowed my own cravings and tried to emulate my new role as model vampire citizen. The other two vampires in the room followed my lead, but I could see they struggled as hard as I did to keep their fangs in check.
It was going as well as could be imagined, until I heard Tuesday scream.
The note of panic in her voice ignited my bloodlust in an instant, and the predator in me snapped to attention. I was no longer in control. The monster craved the hunt, and it was way past time to let the vampire out to play.
I moved to the side of the room with lightning quickness and I scanned the crowd to take an inventory of the situation, not to mention look for any sign of Tuesday.
A group of men carried what looked like a body through the crowd and I felt my senses sharpen as I let go of what little control I had left.
With eyes closed I tried to hone in on the specific scent of Tuesday’s blood, but the environment was too chaotic and the smells were too intermixed for me to get a read on it.
A dark blue hooded sweatshirt on the floor next to the fallen coat rack caught my eye. I snatched it up off the floor and pulled it over my head.
I pushed through the protesters and jumped through the broken window just as the cops and security guards began to beat the crowd back. Safely beyond the front line, I pulled up the sweatshirt’s hood and followed the direction I thought the men had gone in.
If anything happened to Tuesday, there would be no survivors.
* * *
***
* * *
When the crowd thinned and my eyes stopped watering from the tear gas bombs, I reoriented on the scent of the men who had taken Tuesday. It was hard to pick them out amid the chaos, and I couldn’t smell anything but smoke and pepper spray. My ears rang with angry shouts, terrified screams, and the wail of sirens.
“Where did they go,” I muttered.
People ran in the opposite direction while others surged forward with their signs and weapons held high. The ignorant bastards didn’t even know what they were fighting against anymore. I was in the crowd, I wasn’t in the bookstore anymore.
I felt terrible for the shop owner, I’d have to remember to get Baldwin to reimburse them for the damages and maybe have the social media team promote them for a while. Indie bookshops had enough troubles without adding something like this to it.
Baldwin.
Tuesday had said that he was close by. She’d been talking to him on her Bluetooth headset. Baldwin would know what to do.
It was too late to go back to the bookstore, and the damn thing was likely destroyed by now.
“Fuck.”
A hand grabbed my elbow, and I spun around with a snarl.
One of the vamps from the book club meeting stood behind me. He dropped his hold on my elbow and raised his hands defensively. “Hey, I’m not trying to start anything!”
“You should get the hell out of here,” I snapped.
The other vamp shook his head, and I wondered if I’d seen him around town before. Then again, I didn’t mix in the vamp circles. Or with anyone, for that matter.
“I —”
He looked panicked, and I didn’t have time for a tag along. I had to find Tuesday.
“Look, maybe it’s safer if we stick together,” he started.
“I doubt it,” I said without looking at him.
“Do you? I know you think you’re hot shit, Vinnie Quake, but you don’t know what it’s like out there for vamps.”
I met his pale gaze quickly and then looked away in case he noticed my fangs poking out. “Yeah, yeah. Look, I need to find someone—you need to get the hell out of here before something happens.”
“Something has already happened,” the blonde vamp said desperately. He gestured at the bookstore behind us. “They attacked a book club! These people are deranged and they hate us. Do you honestly think they will stop here? You did this! We’ve been meeting here for years without anyone bothering us.”
“It’s not my fucking fault,” I snarled. “I didn’t ask for this.”
“None of us did,” he snapped back. “But this is who we are now, and we have to deal with it. Even someone like you.”
I couldn’t let that slide. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean.”
I had no intention of fighting this guy. I’d never fought another vamp before. While I would admit to a certain curiosity about how it would go down but finding Tuesday was more important.
“I’ll take a rain check on kicking your ass,” I muttered. “Now, get lost.”
“Vinnie!”
I spun at the sound of Baldwin’s familiar voice.
Thank fuck.
Relief flooded through me as my manager pushed through the crowd of people and ran toward us.
“Someone took Tuesday,” I shouted at him.
“I know,” Baldwin replied. “I heard it on the headset. I couldn’t get here fast enough to help.” He glanced at the vampire at my side and his eyebrow rose slightly. “Who’s your friend.”
“No one,” I growled.
“You’re an asshole,” the other vamp snarled.
“Yeah, I know.”
I looked back to my manager. His face was pale and I could hear the pounding of his heart against his ribs. He was scared. And rightfully so. An explosion from behind us made me duck, and Baldwin let out a surprised yelp.
“There goes the bookstore,” the other vamp said in a tired voice. “Are you hap
py now, Quake?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snarled. The faintest scent of jasmine tickled my nose and I inhaled deeply. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I smelled Tuesday’s blood.
“I know where Tuesday is,” Baldwin choked out. He rubbed at his eyes — that goddamned tear gas was everywhere. “But we have to move fast.”
“Why are you still talking,” I roared. “Take me to her!”
Baldwin’s eyes widened slightly, and he glanced at the other vamp quickly before he nodded and ran away through the crowd. I followed him, keeping pace easily. My manager needed to hit the gym more often.
The blonde vampire ran at my side.
“What are you doing?” I growled at him.
“I’m going with you,” he said firmly. “The fact that you’ve hidden this for as long as you have man, it seals the deal. Wherever you’re going is sure as hell gonna be safer than out here.”
“Piss off.”
Even though I wanted nothing more than to drive my fists into his face, I didn’t have time to argue. Besides, he was right.
Baldwin headed straight for a moving truck parked against the curb. It was painted flat black and badly. It looked like someone hired a couple of kids with spray bombs in a back alley to paint it.
Classy.
“When did you upgrade your wheels?” I asked incredulously.
“Are you going to make jokes or get in?” Baldwin snapped.
Baldwin’s reaction took me aback for just a moment. He never raised his voice to me, he never dared. But this wasn’t about Baldwin, it was about Tuesday’s life, and I’d do anything to save her. Even if it meant traveling in a moving truck that looked like it was about to fall apart on its axles if someone slammed a door too hard.
The cab door opened, and a man I didn’t recognize stuck his head out. “Get the fuck in!”
