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CHEAP PAYDAY LOANS!
ADDICTED TO VAMPIRE VENOM? YOU‘RE NOT JUST ANOTHER JUNKIE. WE CAN HELP.
Mac read the bus number. The five. That route went downtown, which was where he lived, anyway. Not that he could go home. Caravelli would be waiting. What the bloody hell am I going to do?
He checked his watch. Just after eight. His arm felt heavy with spent adrenalin. All over his body, nerves pinged as they reset to a normal resting state.
So are all the vamps after me, or just the Fanged Avenger? Hard to say. Mac had been back in town a few weeks, but had only just started to venture outside his apartment for more than groceries. The places he’d been scouting for gossip didn’t cater to vamps. Still, it was safest to assume the worst.
So what next? He couldn’t think. He was too pumped on fear and outrage, his pounding pulse making all else seem bizarrely slow.
A droopy guy across the aisle was staring blankly at Mac, the wires from his earphones trailing like white brain-spaghetti to the pocket of his hoodie. The girl slumped next to him was chewing gum like a nervous sheep. Peppermint weighted the stuffy air.
Nothing special. Just humans. They had no idea how precious ordinary was. Once upon a time, Mac had been them.
The whole supernatural thing had started in Y2K, just after he’d made detective. The vamps had come into the public eye at the turn of the millennium, creating a ratings bonanza for more than one euphoric talk show mogul. The other supernatural species had followed. The reason for the big reveal: the shrinking, computerized world made it impossible to live in secret any longer. The supernaturals wanted integration. Citizenship. Credit cards. A piece of the economic pie.
Good luck. Humans were quick to give lip service to panspecies rights legislation, but slow to make real changes. Too many humans wanted the spooks and weirdoes gone. Others wanted to exploit them.
Meanwhile, as the humans bickered about what to do, the monsters were building houses, businesses, and communities. In ten years, few of the students riding this bus would remember a time when an ad for Zom-B-Gone perimeter fencing was anything but normal.
But Mac would. And I remember when old friends would say hello, not cross themselves and run the other way.
The vehicle took a corner too fast, forcing him to grab the stained vinyl seat for support. He could see the lights of the downtown now, with the dense sparkle of the Fairview University campus to his right.
The bus stopped, and a woman got on, towing a stroller, a toddler, and an armful of grocery bags. Mac got up and let her have his seat. He stood in the aisle, grabbing the overhead rail as the bus jolted back into motion.
Then Mac heard a footfall on the top of the bus, too soft for the humans to hear. His gaze automatically tracked the sound to a point above the exit door. He heard it again, and then again—the scraping scuff of boots. Annoyance needled him as he realized what was going on. Caravelli hadn’t given up. He was on top of the bus, just waiting for Mac to get off.
Crap. Sure, he could call 911 on his cell to report that a homicidal vamp was bus surfing, but why bother? Even if the cops came pronto, Caravelli would be long gone. Human law enforcement just couldn’t keep up anymore.
Silently cursing, Mac turned to get a better view out the window. They’d reached the city center. As the bus trundled to a stop, half the passengers stood, gathering backpacks and newspapers.
Keeping his head down, Mac left the bus right behind sheep girl. The cold night air bit at his face, heavy with the greasy fog of the burger joint on the corner. Mac hustled, staying with the throng past the big-box bookstore, past the pharmacy, past the stereo shop. He could feel Caravelli looking for him, the weight of his predator’s gaze sliding over Mac’s skin. This is getting old, fast.
Frustration raked through Mac, a whip snap of rebellious temper. Damn it! He spun, searching the street, but could see nothing but humans hurrying about their lives. But he could hear—or was it his imagination?—the vampire’s chuckle.
Temper leeched the color from Mac’s sight. Knuckles cracked as he clenched his fists, aching soul hunger souring to an urge to rend and tear. I’m going to kill him.
No, you’re not. He’s goading you. Making you easier to kill. Making you a monster.
The demon inside him trembled with eagerness. It was a hairbreadth from grabbing his mental steering wheel. Mac drew in his breath. I will not surrender. Not to him. Not to myself. Walk away. But where? His apartment was too obvious. He needed to hide. Where?
Mac had an idea, then wished he hadn’t. But it made sense. Nanette’s strap-’em-and-slap-’em funhouse was open around the clock, a place mostly for weres with liberal views on pain. Caravelli wouldn’t think of looking for him there. It was a good place to lie low for a few hours. Very low. Like under the bed.
Mac dodged traffic across the busy main drag. He slid into the revolving door of the department store, passing through the stench of the perfume section—that should hide his scent—and then into the connecting shopping center. From there, he exited onto a side street.
He couldn’t feel Caravelli’s presence any longer. With luck, he had lost him. In two more blocks, he turned the corner into an alley. The flashing neon from Nanette’s Naughty Kitty Basket caught the metal of the iron gates that stood open at the alley entrance. The alley itself was dark and cramped, paved with the same crumbling cedar bricks laid down when the city was young.
And it was empty. Nanette’s back door—the one Mac wanted—was far down the alleyway. There was another door he had to pass first, and it usually had at least two hellhounds keeping watch. Caravelli kept them on his payroll. Mac approached cautiously.
Tonight there were no guards. Sloppy.
Then again, the door hardly needed security. No one was ever, ever going to break in. There was nothing anyone wanted to do or witness across that threshold.
Hell has no atmosphere and the cafeteria sucks.
Mac’s pulse pounded in his temples, quick and fast. He didn’t like having to pass that doorway in the old brick wall, but he had to and he turned to look at it. It was about nine feet high, the vertical oak planks reinforced with black iron straps. A heavy bolt secured it from the outside. It looked like something out of Tolkien.
Behind it was a land of nightmares. He’d been there. It wasn’t literal hell, but a place called the Castle, a prison for the supernatural. It might as well have been the real pit of fire, because he’d be damned if he ever went back inside.
“Macmillan.”
Mac turned to see Caravelli wheel around the corner of the alley, sword in hand. The neon caught the aureole of his curly fair hair, turning it to a multihued halo. The iron gates framed him, a lattice silhouette around the dark, threatening form.
“Back off, fangster.” Mac kept his voice level, but anger rose on a flood tide. He waited as Caravelli approached with the cautious grace of a matador.
“You deaf as well as dead?” Mac said, the words stumbling. The demon inside struggled for control. It would feel so good to let it loose, so easy, so free.
Mac fell back a few steps, bumping his shoulders against the wall. I can still walk away I don’t have to be the thing I hate.
The vampire was right in front of him now, all aggression. Caravelli’s hand slammed against the bricks, barring Mac’s path. Mac jerked away, but Caravelli leaned in. The vampire’s face, with his strange golden eyes, was inches from Mac’s. “You might have just spared me the trouble of cleaning my sword. There is the Castle door. Go inside and don’t come back.”
Nuh-uh. Mac’s hand slammed into Caravelli’s midriff, sending the vampire sailing across the alley to smack with a slap of leather and flesh into the ancient bricks. The sword fell with a clang, spiraling end over end before it skittered into the wall.
Mac didn’t notice the half dozen hellhounds slouching out of Nanette’s back door.
Chapter 3
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The mountain of dark brown fur, high as a man at its shoulder, swung his head to growl at Constance, lips curling to reveal scythe-sharp teeth. Drool pattered from the werebeast’s jaws to the floor; ruby eyes flared like coals of hellfire. The beast’s—Viktor’s—deepening rumble vibrated in her breastbone, warning thunder.
There was only one thing that would appease the horrifying monster.
His great, glowing eyes fastened on the spit-soaked, raggedy doll in her hand. Gingerly, Constance held up the toddler-sized toy, doing her best to avoid the damper sections. Viktor hunkered down on his front paws and slid the growl into an expressive whine. As a final plea, he gave a tongue-lolling head tilt.
“Ha!” Constance flung the tattered doll into the murk of the damp, stone corridor, vampire strength giving it distance. The stuffed doll sailed through the air, vanishing against the shadowy ceiling before landing with a faint thump in the dust. “Go, boy! Fetch!”
Viktor wheeled and plunged toward the toy. His jaws champed the air with ferocious glee, the banner of his tail thrashing as he gave a puppyish bounce. Constance lifted her long skirts and sprinted after. Her shoes were silent, drowned out by the scrabble of Viktor’s nails on the stone floor of the corridor.
She kept poor, mad Viktor in sight. He might forget what he was chasing and go trotting off to parts unknown, stuck in his beast-form, dangerous, doomed, and dim-witted as a loaf of bread.
They had been chasing the wretched doll for hours, and her feet were starting to hurt. Still, a game of fetch was about Viktor’s only pleasure. She wasn’t going to deny him. Besides, it wasn’t like she could rule her loved ones from the kitchen, the way her mother had. First, she didn’t have a kitchen. Second, vampires were notoriously bad cooks. She had to come up with something besides mealtimes to keep the household together—so she threw the doll.
Giving what we can is what families do. What does it matter if we’re not blood relations?
Mind you, not every family had a senile werebeast on its hands—though she did dimly remember a human uncle who’d come close after one too many pints of ale.
Constance stopped running long enough to push her hair out of her eyes. She watched as Viktor scooped up the doll and shook it with nightmare fury. The sheer savagery in Viktor’s growl scuttled over her skin, raising gooseflesh.
Some creature of the night you are, Constance. Scared of a dog.
She would have been happier by a bright fire, or anyplace with light. It was always dark in the Castle’s windowless, cavernous halls. The maze of hallways and chambers, stairs and archways, audience rooms and lifeless grottos meandered into infinity around her. It was all stone—irregular, gray, damp, and mortared with magic a millennium old.
Torches dotted the corridors, set into black iron brackets in the walls. They wavered, but never went out, throwing smears of smoky light for a scant few feet beyond the flames. It was never enough to really see what was there, hiding in the shadows. The Castle liked its privacy.
Understandable. The Castle was a prison for foul things like her. There was no outside, just the endless, rambling interior. Prisoners roamed free to make alliances, to set up kingdoms and networks of spies, to make war, or to suffer as the slave of another.
Memories made Constance edgy. Her fingers brushed the knife she wore at her belt, the bone and steel hilt worn smooth with time. It was useful for a thousand daily tasks, but she’d fought with it, too. She passionately hated violence, but in the Castle weakness was an invitation to worse than death.
She had been trapped in this world between worlds as soon as she had been Turned—or at least mostly Turned— when she was barely seventeen. She’d been an ordinary servant girl on an Irish farm who had played with the dogs and her brothers and sisters and had gone to work as soon as she was strong enough to carry a pail of milk. So long ago. So much change.
But parts of her hadn’t changed. She still played with dogs. Constance grabbed the leg of the doll, wrestling with it. Viktor whined, hanging on as she made a show of struggling. Finally, he wrenched it free and galloped into the darkness.
“Stop!” she called after him, breaking into a run again. “Get back here, you sorry lump of fur!”
Viktor ignored her, pausing midlope to chase his tail. He understood her well enough, but had lost the ability to return to human form. His brother, Josef, had escaped to the world outside. That desertion was hard to forgive, but still Constance loved them all: Viktor, Josef, and young Sylvius. They are everything I have.
That was true now more than ever since they had followed their master to this deserted corner of the Castle. Atreus of Muria, sorcerer and king, had been exiled. Constance had been his maidservant since she came to the Castle, so now she was in exile, too.
It was a relief. Finally, Constance had time to do more than dodge backstabbing courtiers eager for favor and power. She could dream. To her, exile was another word for peace, a calm that allowed for fantasies of her own home, with a big kitchen table and loved ones gathered around, telling stories, making music, sharing plenty. Happiness.
How she yearned for that home to be real.
Constance whistled around her fingers. Viktor came trotting on paws the size of platters. The toy drooped from his jowls, stuffing leaking like entrails.
“There’s a good lad.” She thumped his shoulder.
He wagged his tail all the way to his haunches, sporting the idiot grin of a happy dog.
Then Constance heard footsteps.
She froze.
Boots. Several pairs. Crossing the corridor up ahead. Viktor gave a low whuff, dropping the doll. She shrank against the wall, just in case the owner of one of those pairs of boots would turn and see her. Oh, bollocks.
Every prison has its jailers. The Castle, dungeon for all creatures possessed of magic, had the guardsmen. Once ordinary men, they had been taken from their homes and forced into service. The Castle gave them strength and immortality but took away the kernel of whatever made them human.
The guardsmen had snatched Constance, just risen from her grave, and put her in this terrible place. If Atreus hadn’t taken her in as his serving girl, they would have broken her as they had so many others, one indignity at a time.
Her gut twisted at the memory, a sick feeling welling into her throat. She threw the doll again, farther this time, to trick Viktor into running safely out of sight of the marching men. For once doing what he was supposed to, the beast bounded after it.
Constance began walking backward, too nervous to take her eyes from the guardsmen for more than a moment. As she retreated, her fingers trailed along the stone wall, whispering over cold, rough stone punctuated by grit-filled seams. The solid feel of it reassured her.
A change in the air currents behind her said she was backing toward another hallway, somewhere she could vanish from sight. Then she would circle around and find out where the guards were going. What could they want in this deserted corner of the Castle? There was no one here but her family.
She spun on her heel, and then sprang back with a hiss. A dozen steps away stood the guardsmen’s officer, his feet planted apart, his hands clasped behind his back.
“Captain Reynard!” Her hand was on the hilt of her knife.
“Constance,” he replied. “Did I startle you? If so, I do apologize.”
His accent spoke of wealth and education—all the advantages she’d never had. She pressed her lips together, saying nothing. Why are you here? she wondered.
“I thought a vampire’s hearing would detect my approach,” he went’on. “You must have been distracted.”
He walked toward her, tall, aristocratic, and darkly handsome. His captain’s uniform—a faded remnant from his human life—was neatly mended, every bit of gold braid shining in its proper place. He might have been whisked out of his old life centuries ago and put in charge of this slice of hell, but he still had the discipline of a British officer.
He paused a few feet away, looking down at her
. Next to him, she felt small as a child, pinned by his pale gray eyes. She swallowed, nervous. Reynard wasn’t as brutal as his men, but he still held the keys to the jail. He might be friendly, but never a friend.
“You shouldn’t wander alone, pretty Constance,” he said. “That little knife of yours just isn’t enough.”
“Viktor’s with me, sir.”
Reynard folded his arms and looked around. “That would be more effective if he was actually visible. He comes to anyone’s call, you know, even mine. He’s too daft to know his own master.”
“That doesn’t worry me, Captain, sir. I have teeth of my own.”
“Like a tiny little tabby cat, and about as fearsome.” His mouth quirked, a hint of a sad smile.
There was no flirtation in it, but still she looked away, flustered by an involuntary twinge of interest. She liked a different kind of man, but the captain was a fine specimen nonetheless. It reminded her that hundreds of years past, she’d been a young woman. Now she was a monster that existed only because the magic of the Castle kept her alive.
Reynard reached out, one fingertip touching the pendant that rested just below her collarbone. The slight pressure made her shiver.
“A skilled piece of work. Bronze, is it?”
“Yes, sir. Sylvius made it from an arrowhead. He said it is a reminder to see the possibilities in what’s around us.” She avoided the captain’s eyes, instead watching the torchlight dance on the gold braid of his coat. “He’s taken to working with his hands.”
“Not a natural warrior, then.”
“He’s just a boy, sir,” she replied, her tone stiff.
Reynard retreated a little under the sting of her words. “How is Atreus? Is his mind still wandering?”
“He is the same.” It was a lie. Her master was failing, but she wouldn’t betray his dignity.
“Poor Constance. I’m sure the burden of his care falls on you.”
“There is little to do, sir, and it is my place to serve him.”
“But what about visitors?”
“No one bothers to come to this part of the Castle.” Except you. Why are you here? Why are your men here?
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