Sweet Oblivion (Shady Arcade Book 2)

by Sharon Stevenson

  “In here,” Mitch instructed.

  The room was covered in weird black ash that Zack didn’t like the look, or smell, of. His gaze drifted, trying to discover something important, something he could use. There was nothing that stuck out to him as an option for a weapon. He doubted Mitch could be easily hurt. Braining him with a lamp or a vase wasn’t going to be a viable option.

  “What now?” It was probably time to accept the inevitable. He was going to be turned. To become one of the monsters who’d caused his amnesia.

  He turned and saw Mitch spin on his heel. Mark and a woman with red hair had entered the room and closed the big double doors behind them.

  “Audrey,” he whispered. It was so strange to see her in the flesh, to know she was real beyond a shadow of a doubt.

  She smiled at him reassuringly before her gaze fixed on Mitch and her whole demeanour shifted. He already knew she didn’t like him, but seeing the way she looked at him even made Zack shiver. If looks could kill Mitch would be a goner.

  “How nice of you both to come to Zack’s big day.” Mitch sounded amused.

  Zack’s stomach churned. He’d seen how terrifying Mitch could be. He was more than a typical vampire. If that’s what a psychic vampire was, he got the feeling Mitch had a sharper edge than most. Even outnumbered like this, he didn’t seem rattled.

  “Mark, go drain Chloe.” Mitch’s command poured out just before Audrey threw herself at him. They became a blur on the floor as Mark stepped around them, coming towards Zack with a conflicted array of emotions flashing over his face.

  “I don’t want to do this, Zack.”

  Zack moved quickly, backing away, trying to find some other way out of the huge room. There were sofas and tables all over the place, but he couldn’t see another door besides the one they’d entered.

  “Don’t listen to him,” Zack said, knowing first-hand how futile it was to fight Mitch’s commands, but at a loss for what else to do here. “You don’t have to do this.”

  “You’re going to have to stop me.”

  “Fuck,” Zack muttered, gaze drifting around again. There were no obvious weapons lying around. Besides that, he’d have to put Chloe down first and he wasn’t so sure that was a good idea. Vampires were fast. He’d seen how fast they could be. “Please, wake up,” he murmured. Chloe was a necromancer. She could command Mark not to touch her.

  “Do something, Zack. I’m walking as slowly as I can, but I can’t avoid his order. I can’t break it. You have to do something.” The tension in Mark’s tone was enough to panic him.

  He shook his head and tried not to think about the wall he was about to back in to. Shaking Chloe in his arms, he attempted to awaken her. It didn’t work and he was running out of ideas. Running further from Mark, he put her down on a couch. Pinching her skin didn’t work. Mark was getting closer. Desperate measures kicked in and he bit on her earlobe.

  She gasped in a breath and he moved back as she got up.

  “Mark’s been ordered to drain you—” Zack started.

  She looked past him and got up, only slightly shaky on her feet. “Stop. You will not drain me.” She turned to Zack. “What’s going on?”

  “Mitch brought Zack here to turn him,” Mark told her before he became a blur.

  Audrey and Mitch were still fighting on the ground when he got to them.

  “Get off me,” he heard Mitch order.

  Audrey moved back swiftly, glowering at him. “You don’t need more power,” she told him.

  He laughed.

  Zack watched as Mark came up behind Mitch and some sort of metal stake punched right through the laughing vampire. Where the hell had that come from? He glanced around and noticed a curtain pole missing across the room. Mark had moved quickly, and the guy knew how to improvise.

  “Sorry, Mitch,” Mark said. “But we always knew this day was coming.”

  Mitch looked down at the weapon, frowning. He turned and burst into black ash that joined the rest on the ground and educated Zack on what that stuff was. He felt his stomach churning. The stake dropped to the ground and Audrey stepped over the remains to hug Mark.

  “It’s over,” he said, shock in his tone.

  She moved back and took a breath, before coming towards Zack.

  “We have to get you home. It’s not safe for you to be here.”

  “Audrey.” He still couldn’t quite believe it.

  “It’s me,” she told him, pulling him into a hug.

  His head felt strange. He didn’t understand how he could remember her, yet so much else was lost. Forever, apparently, as far as she’d told him.

  “Why do I remember you?”

  She took another breath, which he started to realise was weird. Vampires didn’t need to breathe. She seemed to be clinging to that one very human habit. When she moved back, she glanced at Mark before she held Zack’s gaze. The red eyes didn’t seem so terrifying on her. She didn’t look like a monster with them.

  “It’s because I bit you, I almost drained you so they’d believe me when I told them you were dead. It created a link. I used it to make sure you were okay. To make sure you were safe.”

  “Because if I’m turned it creates super-vampires who could destroy the world?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Because you’re my son, Zack.”

  He blinked. Suddenly Mitch’s confession and Audrey’s slip that he had a brother who wasn’t Zack made a whole lot more sense. “You’re my mother?”

  She nodded. He glanced at Chloe who seemed to mirror his own shock at the revelation.

  “And now we have to get you back to Shady Pines. Mitch might be gone, but that doesn’t make it safe for you to be out here.”

  “She’s right,” Chloe told him.

  He nodded. It had been a weird night and he’d be happy to get home.

  “Are you coming with us?”

  “It’ll be dawn soon,” Mark said.

  Audrey nodded. “We’ll make our way back to Riverton when night falls. You two need to head back as quickly as you can. I’m sure the necromancer’s Council will be relieved when you get home.”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  It took almost two hours to drive back to town, by which time the sun was scorching the sky. Chloe seemed exhausted, and Zack could hardly blame her after everything that had happened. She stifled a yawn as she made the call to let the Council know they were back. He caught bits of the conversation as she turned away for privacy. It wasn’t a long call. She put the phone away and smiled limply at him.

  “They’ve heard from Turner,” she said. “You’ll have a replacement for a couple of days while he gets over jumping into the sea.”

  “A replacement?” It was too much to hope for that it might be her, he knew.

  She nodded. “We need to wait here for him. Shouldn’t be long.”

  “I’m sorry you got hauled into this.” He had to say it while he had the chance. Staying away from her was going to be hard, but he knew it was for the best. She didn’t need the hassle that being around him entailed.

  She was quiet, as if she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t need to accept his apology. He just wanted to make sure she knew he hadn’t dragged her into it on purpose. Sighing, he leaned against the passenger door.

  Chloe leaned in to the back of the car and got something out. He watched as she pulled it from the seat and handed it to him. “Looks like rain.”

  He glanced skyward and found she was right. Grey clouds were expanding to cover the sun.

  “This is yours,” he started to argue, when he caught her sad smile.

  She tapped on the roof of the car. “I don’t need it anymore.”

  ***

  Chloe watched Zack leave with his temporary body guard and she blew out the breath she’d been holding. Bringing Zack back safely had meant nothing. She was still being sent away. They still saw her as a threat. It didn’t make sense to her, but nothing the Council did ever would. She slumped against Kenny�
�s car as the rain came on. Her bruised and weary bones were too tired to protest when the drops of water started to pelt her. The harsh breeze cut through her as she got back into the car and drove to her house to pick up her things.

  ***

  Zack excused himself from his temporary guardian to go to the bathroom and clean up. Thankfully this one didn’t require him to leave the door open so he closed it and turned the lock. His head was fuzzy as he replayed everything that had happened to him while he splashed water on his face. He had a mother now, and an uncle. Two, if you counted the crazy man who’d tried to kill him. He shook his head. It was insane.

  “You wanted answers, you got them,” he muttered to himself as he dumped the umbrella he’d been clinging to into the bathtub.

  The man staring back at him in the mirror had dark shadows under his eyes, and dirty marks that might be bruises on his skin. His jacket was filthy from the graveyard. He was probably going to have to throw it out. The gloves were ruined. They’d been through too much. He sighed as he dropped them in the sink. He’d have to buy a new pair. There was nothing else for it.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. He hauled off the jacket and dumped it in the tub. The deflated, sinking feeling that wouldn’t go away was what was going to kill him from the inside out. He was stuck here, with no memory and nothing to hold on to. Finding his family had only raised more questions than answers, and he was never getting his memory back. There was nothing left that could tell him who he used to be.

  Starting over might not sound so bad if he knew what he was starting over from. Or if he hadn’t screwed up any chance he might have had with the girl he couldn’t stop thinking about. He ran the hot water tap in the sink and looked at the umbrella. The flash of memory he’d gotten when he’d touched it in Kenny’s car bled back to him. He picked it up in his bare hands and the sensation came back, stronger than the first time.

  Watching himself walk into the jeweller’s shop and pick something was a surreal experience. Being handed a ring box, he glanced towards the shop door before he slipped it into an inner pocket of his jacket. The vision melted away and he was left staring at the object that had given him the memory back; Chloe’s umbrella.

  His heart was hammering as he dropped it and picked up his jacket. The feeling of something hidden under the fabric made him frown. He couldn’t remember noticing this before. But he hadn’t been looking for it.

  He found the hidden zip and opened the pocket. The black box fell into his hand, triggering a second memory, or the second part of the first.

  He watched himself walk out of the jeweller’s, rushing to distance himself from the shop as he opened the umbrella against the sudden onslaught of rain. Chloe was standing at the front of the arcade, her face pinched in annoyance. He felt himself smile. She looked incredible in a black mini-dress with a blue jacket. Fishnets and those boots she seemed so fond of. She kissed him quickly, and he tasted the cherry of her lipgloss, right before she took his hand and they started to walk.

  “I’m going to kill him,” she was saying.

  “Kenny, again?”

  “He told the Council I’m not ready to be passed as an adult.”

  “What a dick.”

  “Are you smiling? This isn’t funny, Zack.”

  “I know, it’s not funny.” He tried to keep his face straight. Nerves always seemed to make him do this, but he doubted Chloe would see it that way while she was fuming. If he could kill Kenny for her he would. “I wasn’t smiling. You just look good in that dress.”

  “Okay, well I have to go home and study for this stupid test they’re making me retake, so we’re going to have to put off dinner until tomorrow,” she said, sighing. “Can the surprise wait until then?”

  He supposed it would have to. She’d be in a better mood once she got through the test anyway. She always felt a million times better whenever she proved that idiot guardian of hers wrong.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He kissed her and she relaxed into it this time.

  “I can’t wait. The surprise better be good,” she said, smiling as she dashed away.

  Zack took the ring out of the box and stared at it as he let the memory re-play in his mind. It hadn’t been wish fulfilment to imagine she was his. The flashes of memory he’d picked up when he’d been trying to find out about his family helped confirm that. His heart raced as he pieced together what had to have happened to leave the ring in his jacket pocket this whole time.

  It had to have been the night the vampires had come for him. It was the only thing that made sense. The surprise had turned out to be waking up to her long-term boyfriend’s irreversible amnesia.

  He closed his fist around the box and opened the bathroom door, ignoring the sensations that tried to pulse through him at the touch of the handle. He hauled the door open and stepped into the other room. A sense of urgency filled him as his new body guard looked up from the couch.

  “I need to go out.”

  “You need to get rest,” the guy said, his tone bored.

  Zack took a deep breath. “No. I have to see Chloe, right now. If you don’t come with me, I’ll leave on my own.”

  The guy frowned at him. “Chloe? As in the girl who drove you back into town?”

  He nodded quickly, already moving towards the door.

  “She’s gone.”

  He turned back. He had to be hearing things.

  The guy sat up straighter. “No shit. She’s been reassigned.”

  “Reassigned. What does that mean? We just saw her—”

  He sighed, scraping back his hair. “She’s been moved to another town. She’s not here.”

  “I need to speak to her,” Zack insisted.

  “Too bad.” He shook his head. “She’s not contactable.”

  Frustration welled as he squeezed the box in his hand. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. The first proper glimpse he’d had into his past, the first good thing he’d found out, and he was being told there was nothing he could do about it? He shook his head. There had to be something.

  “I’m not allowed to leave town, right?”

  The guy scowled at him. “I really don’t like that look you got on your face.”

  Zack smiled. “Either I get to speak to Chloe, somehow, or I leave town again right now.”

  Another heavy sigh was this time followed by a gun being pointed at him. “Sit down in that chair. I’m going to tell you something.”

  Zack frowned at him. In the end, he sat down.

  “What?”

  “You’re a problem for the Council, and you’re a problem for this town. There are plenty of necros’ out there who think there’s one simple solution.” He smiled and waved the gun at Zack. “A dead psychic doesn’t attract vampires. A dead psychic is a problem solved.”

  It sank in slowly as Zack sat there, clutching the one clue to his past that he’d been able to find. One thing that might give his nothing of a life some kind of meaning, one woman he could barely believe had been his. Would everyone be better off if he was dead?

  Maybe they would; one less risk to a world with enough threats to worry about.

  Without Chloe, maybe they’d be right. With her, he knew he’d fight to hold on to his life. He had to find her. He had to know if there was still something between them. He had to find a way to reach her. Whatever it took, he’d do it. He got up. This new guy was liable to pull his gun out every time Zack brought it up. As much as it was going to drive him mad, he’d have to be patient. Two days until they sent Turner back. Hope sprang back as he went back to finish cleaning himself up. The middle-aged body guard could be reasoned with, he could help him. He could wait. There was nothing else he could do.

  Acknowledgements

  I want to thank my readers for patiently waiting for this book. It took longer than expected to release it and the third and final book, Beyond Shadows, doesn’t yet have a release date though I’m working hard to have it ready by the end of the year.

 
; Herman Turner’s character was named by Jennifer McIntosh, after her father, and the dedication for this is, “Always in my heart, love and miss you dad.”

  About the Author

  Sharon Stevenson lives in Scotland with her husband. She spends her spare time creating entertaining fantasy worlds full of strange creatures and unconventional characters. The Amazon bestselling Gallows series follows twin demon trackers Shaun and Sarah Gallows through fictional Scottish towns as they come up against various supernatural threats, while their biggest problems are caused by their own personal demons. The Raised series is a magical take on zombies, set in Edinburgh and Las Vegas, and following the after death adventures of twenty-three-year-old Pete and his friends.

  Want to keep up to date with Sharon’s latest releases, receive three exclusive short stories, and find out about subscriber only offers and giveaways?

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  Also by Sharon Stevenson

  The Gallows Novels:

  Blood Bound

  Demon Divided

  Fate Fallen

  Curse Corrupted

  Hell Halved

  Spirit Splintered

  Heaven & Hell

  Reality Ruptured (coming soon)

  Prophecy Passed (coming soon)

  Box Sets:

  The Gallows Novels Books 1-3

  The Gallows Novels Books 4-6

  Short works in the Gallows series:

  Back from the Dark (novella, best read after Fate Fallen)

  Double Dare (newsletter exclusive short story, set before Blood Bound)

  False Front (newsletter exclusive short story, set before Blood Bound)

  Shadows Grove (newsletter exclusive short story, best read after Spirit Splintered)