Blood Wars: Book 4 (The Talisman Series)

by Brenda Pandos

  In frustration, I groaned. How would I tell him about the vamps? About what they were really doing with all those kids?

  I closed my eyes and let my senses go. The real ass-kicking Harry was in there somewhere, and maybe all I had to do was unlock the memories. Inside his mind I found some sort of barrier. Imagining a sledge hammer, I smashed against it until it began to crack.

  Harry moaned, and I opened my eyes. He held his head. “Whoa. What was…?” He blinked at me, stunned.

  I waited, hopeful.

  “Where am I?” He tugged on his rear view mirror. “Who am I?”

  I griped the arm rest, accidentally pushing my fingers into the cushion. Had I erased everything instead?

  “What happened? Where’s Nicky?” His hand snatched mine and he squeezed, then he dropped it, his eyes terrified. “How’d you get in my car?” His voice hinted at that of a Vietnamese accent. “You’re a damn vamp, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, Harry! It’s you!” I threw my arms around his neck and squeezed, careful not to get my lips to close to his jugular.

  He stiffened and pushed me off. “What the hell is going on? Don’t ever do that again!” He pawed at his pockets, then made the sign of the cross.

  “I’m not a bad vampire.” I held up my hands.

  “Like hell you aren’t. Get out!”

  Like magic, the car door flew open and the invisible hand yanked me from the seat. The door slammed shut, narrowly missing my face.

  “Harry, let me explain.”

  Before I could stand, he revved the engine and the tires spun, shooting gravel all over me. I spit out the dirt that landed in my mouth. “Harry!”

  He turned the car around, heading in the opposite direction of the Cruor mansion. I flew after him and pressed my body against the windshield.

  He swerved, and I dug my nails into the metal.

  “Stop that!” he barked.

  “No, you stop! I have to talk to you!”

  “I don’t talk to vamps!”

  “Well, then driving might be a little difficult with me in the way.”

  Several cars passed, blaring on their horns.

  Harry slammed on the brakes, trying to dislodge me, but I held on tight. The guy in the car behind him squealed and swerved, yelling he was calling the cops.

  “I am the cops!” Harry barked out the window before flipping him off.

  Finally, he turned down a long driveway and killed the engine. Cussing under his breath, he pilfered through the glove box. “I could shoot you, you know.”

  I rolled my eyes but hung on in case he had plans to drive again.

  “That won’t do much.”

  “It’ll hurt.”

  My glare found his. “And if you do, payback will be a bitch when you finally get out of the car.”

  We had a stare-down for a moment.

  “Feeling lucky, punk?” I asked.

  He froze, then cracked a smile. I knew a Dirty Harry reference would work. “How did this happen?”

  I slid off the car. “Alora, who else.”

  He worked his jaw. “That woman. I swear.”

  “And…” I didn’t want to share the worst of it yet, but I didn’t have much of a choice. “Nicholas is a full-fledged vamp, too.”

  “What?” A string of obscenities flew from his mouth. “Sorry, I’m just so damn…” He popped off a few more, then hit the steering wheel with his fist. “Son of a bitch!”

  “So, you’ll help me?”

  His glare bore into me. “I don’t even know how I got here, with this face and… where’s Hung?”

  Hung, Harry’s wife in his prior life, could have reincarnated into anyone and live anywhere at this point. Problem was, being human, she wouldn’t remember a thing just like Harry hadn’t.

  “Not sure. After I killed Cain and the rest of the vamps, I woke up in this alter universe with all my old memories. If it makes you feel any better, Nicholas doesn’t look the same either.”

  His eyebrows puckered. “Feel better? Like hell it does. If we’ve been reincarnated, then why are you an effing vamp?”

  I blew out a breath. “It’s a long story, but we have to stop her, and I need your help.”

  He laughed long and hard. “Me. Working with a vamp. That’ll be the day.”

  This quest wasn’t going as expected.

  “Nicholas was half and you worked with him.”

  “Nicky was a decent person.”

  “I am, too.”

  He snorted. “You’re all the same. Heartless, spineless, blood-sucking—”

  “Do you have a choice?”

  He glared at me.

  “You know, as well as I do, that this isn’t going to end pretty. They’re making venom weapons and siring sterile vamps without reducing their power-line. It’s the same game, just a different leader, and they’re gunning for more than just us. She’s set her sights on world domination.”

  “And Nicky’s part of it?”

  I smirked, once again wondering why Nicholas had visited his dad. Was he there to ask for help or on a mission from his mom to tie up loose ends? “I hope not, but… right now, yes. He thinks Alora wants to make everything peaceful. But if she’s doling out talismans like candy, there won’t be any recourse other than the threshold rule, and who knows if they’ll overturn that. It’s evil about to be unleashed, and we have to stop it while we can.”

  Harry pushed his palms against his forehead. “And you were just about to lead me into the hornets’ nest to save a bunch of kids turned vamp, weren’t you?”

  My mouth opened and shut quickly. “No, not really. I wasn’t going to take you there. I just needed… a distraction.”

  “A distraction. Right.” He eyed me with a hard glare. “This goes against everything I believe, you know that.”

  “I know.” I clasped my hands together. “Please.”

  “Well…” he chuckled, “there’s nothing like fried vamp butt to lighten your day, or should I say night—”

  I skipped in the air. “Oh, goodie.”

  “Oh goodie nothing. We have a lot of work to do, and you need to mind those fangs. Got it, girlie?” He pointed at me.

  “Of course. What are we going to do first? Make weapons? Train?”

  “I’m going home to take a shower, that’s what I’m gonna do.” He turned the car over. “Then I’m taking inventory. If what you’re saying is true, then we’re going to need venom. Lots of venom.”

  “Sounds good.” I yanked on the door handle, hoping to catch a ride with him, finding it locked.

  “Oh no, princess. You’re on your own. Fly or run, I don’t care.”

  My shoulders sagged. “You don’t trust me?”

  “Hell, no! I’m not that dumb.”

  He pealed out and drove off. I shook my head. Some partner I picked. At least he wasn’t leaving me hanging with a war on the horizon. Eventually I’d earn his trust, I had to.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Quitting already?” Harry shook his head as he tinkered in his shop drawers for stuff, his hair still damp from his shower.

  I watched through the doorway while sitting in a lounge chair in the backyard.

  “Diss isth no wery conterul,” I tried to say as I held a venom collecting cup to my incisors.

  “It’s not supposed to be comfortable.” He dropped a bag of aluminum cans on the floor, and began pulling them out and smashing them before throwing them into a pot. “Preston used to produce at least twelve ounces an hour, and he wasn’t even a royal.”

  I looked down at the cup. I’d barely collected two. At this rate, I’d be sitting outside of his shop all night.

  “You knew Pres-son?”

  “Yeah, he was a sad pathetic lot. Talk about a broody vampire.”

  “I taut you didn mak friens wiff vamires.”

  “I didn’t say we were friends.” He pointed to the fire blazing in the pizza kiln next to me. “Don’t let that go out!”

  “Ow could I erget,” I mumbl
ed, feeling the heat radiate into me. If I wasn’t careful, it might boil the contents inside the cup.

  “Maybe you need something… stimulating to make your mouth water,” he chuckled darkly and swiped his index finger over his throat.

  “Shut-up!” I yelled.

  “Where is that son of a gun anyway?”

  “Who, Nichowas?”

  “Who do you think I meant, the Pope?”

  I smirked. “I don know.”

  “Trouble in paradise?”

  A sigh escaped my lips. He was starting to make me regret I’d unlocked his memories. At least the old Harry curtailed himself to be polite in my presence. I removed the cup. “We’re just not speaking at the moment. Okay?”

  “Why’s that?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Harry cast me a glare. “I’ve got time.”

  I shook my head. “Chalk it up to a difference of opinion. I don’t know if he plain forgot what happened in the past or if Alora mind-wiped him again. She would have killed him if Preston didn’t stop her.”

  “Preston wasn’t there to stop her in my case.”

  My eyes widened. “Wait. Nicholas said you had a heart attack.”

  “Well, that too. Your heart can’t beat when someone is choking off your oxygen.” He chuckled. “I guess they forgot to share that detail with him.”

  I put the cup to my lips to find something for my gapping mouth to do.

  “So, she’s got the fang gang and who do you got?”

  My glance went to the dirty floor of his shop. “Uh… a few friens,” I hope.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was just me. Phil wouldn’t volunteer until I did the dirty deed, and I couldn’t do that to him.

  “Well, I need some teeth, so… go do some patrolling.”

  I gasped, remembering Sam’s teeth in my locker at school. “What?”

  “Kill some of the fang gang and bring me the teeth.”

  I pressed my fingertips to my forehead, remembering what Harry did with the teeth once Nicholas turned them in. Harry ground them up and put the powder into the metal of his weapons. Only those weapons overcame venom laced armor. Problem was all the vamps were locked in the Cruors’ basement or in close proximity to Alora, and I didn’t particularly want to kill them.

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “You said there was a bunch of vamps locked underground.” He pulled the cup from my fingers. “There ya go. Easy pickin’s.”

  “What?”

  He huffed. “Well, either that or you can do us all a favor and I’ll take you out now. No skin off my nose. You decide.”

  “I’m not volunteering to be murdered.”

  “Fine. Go swimming, or whatever is was you did to get inside.”

  I gulped down my hesitation. “I need a weapon and a protective shirt at least.”

  Harry rolled his eyes before he stormed over to his workbench. I tried to follow, bouncing off the invisible barrier instead.

  “The water will wash off the venom, but here!” He chucked a few pieces of sharpened wood at me.

  “Hey!” I ducked, narrowly escaping the one aimed at my chest. One by one, they clattered to the ground and rolled away. “Watch it!”

  “Like I said, I’m all for the easy way out of this.”

  I dusted myself off and collected the wayward stakes. “Well, I’m not! Hell isn’t an option for me.”

  Harry shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  What did Nicholas see in him? Some mentor he turned out to be.

  “How am I supposed to carry all of these?” Nicholas had used a jacket with stake holders inside.

  “Heck if I know.” He gestured to my torso. “Take off your shirt.”

  I straightened. “What?”

  He smirked. “Don’t get your panties in a wad. You’re not my type. I just need to do the venom thing to it, and it’s better if it’s off you. I won’t look.”

  I pressed my lips together and crossed my arms. “No way.”

  “Fine. Have it your way.” He finished loading up the cans and brought the pot to the fire. Was that it? Did he expect me to go unarmed?

  “Just pour it on me,” I suggested.

  “And waste perfectly good venom you can’t seem to extract?”

  “It’s my venom!”

  “Fine.” He retrieved the cup and emptied it into a spray bottle. After a few squirts, he’d successfully drenched my shirt at heart level.

  I wrinkled my nose. “It stinks.”

  “Smells better than hell, I suppose.” He laughed caustically and went back inside his shop. “Oh, and if you see Nicky, tell him to stop by.”

  I sighed. The fact Harry cared more about Nicholas than me living or dead was disconcerting. “You know if I die, he does.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Better get to it. Don’t have all night, you know.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Clutching as many stakes as I could carry, I flew into the night sky, happily leaving Harry and his cocky attitude behind, secretly wishing Phil was with me.

  ~|~

  On the way to the mansion, I broke into a thrift store on 41st Avenue. Somehow I rationalized why stealing from them was better than from a department store. I was saving the world with donated clothes, right? Luckily, they had a nice selection of trench coats.

  “There.” I twirled in front of the mirror, and held out the sides like a flasher. “I could be a slayer after all. Now to figure out how to keep my clothes on.”

  I morphed into a cat and bounded out of a pile of clothing.

  Crap.

  Shape-shifting into human form, I put my clothes on and tried again. Each time, my clothing didn’t morph with me.

  Double crap!

  Whatever the secret, I didn’t have time to figure it out now. After shoving everything into a plastic bag, I slipped on a newer shirt and headed outside. If I was going to the lair, I couldn’t let the venom wash away or get my coat wet. Maybe I’d get lucky and find teeth on the floor. The thought of killing anyone except in self-defense set my own teeth on edge.

  Flying the long way and arriving from the ocean side, I scanned the empty beach. Up above, except for one lone light in the corner room, the Cruor mansion looked vacant. Was everyone in the basement?

  Diving underwater, I emerged inside the sea cave and pulled out my coat. Memories of making out with Phil came back like a wrecking ball. I could almost taste the lust still enclosed in the small space and my stomach tickled as a result. How we went from nothing to hot and heavy and back again, stumped me. Even still, I regretted it, especially since I’d hurt Nicholas so badly.

  Pushing my feelings aside, I palmed one of my many stakes. Though it was difficult to listen clearly through the wall with the water, there wasn’t any noise coming from the room beyond. I sucked in a crisp breath and pulled on the chain. The stone wall opened. Green Eyes stood on the other side, waiting to greet me.

  “We meet again.”

  I backed up just as he sprung forward. I slashed through the air with the stake, missing him altogether. He latched onto my wrist. Terrified, I shrank into that of a cat, slipping from his fingers. I poised myself to jump in the water, but no matter how much I tried to force myself, my legs refused to budge.

  My choices zipped through my mind. Morph and be naked, or try to escape inside the lair. I swiveled and poised myself to dart between his legs. A wire net fell on top of me. I hissed and clawed, trying to cut the venom-infused metal with my teeth. He wrapped the net over on itself, reinforcing the wires I tried to bite through.

  “Guards!” Green Eyes yelled.

  You don’t have to do this, I begged in my mind. Seriously. Whatever she’s promising you, I’ll double it.

  He acted indifferent, as if he didn’t hear me. What the hell? First I can’t stop people from hearing my thoughts, and now I can’t talk telepathically at all?

  Another goon arrived with a cage and stuffed me inside wrapped in the net. They high-fived one another. “We go
t her!”

  I howled and tried to roll onto my feet. The barbs pierced my skin, paralyzing me.

  Green Eyes carried the cage around the corner past the enclosures. The hungry eyed vampires all watched.

  “I knew you’d return one way or another.” Alora appeared from nowhere with a voice like silk. “Like we couldn’t figure out your escape route.”

  I wanted to claw her eyes out. Do you always have everyone else doing your dirty work for you?

  She blinked at me, as if waiting for my reply. Then she shrugged. “What? Cat got your tongue?”

  I hissed and she laughed, before she sauntered down the hall in her skin tight jeans that accentuated her perfect ass.

  Lust from the two goons permeated the air. I wanted to heave.

  Seriously?

  Somewhat paralyzed, I watched helplessly as they carried me down the maze of hallways. From the corner of my eye, I spotted two bodies lying still on silver tables. Cain and Rachel? I couldn’t be sure.

  Eventually we arrived in the main corridor with all the glass cubes. Nicholas wasn’t anywhere to been seen.

  “Put her in there.” Alora pointed to the room at the end, the place where she’d tortured Phil.

  No! I tried to scream. Nicholas!

  Alora turned with a perched eyebrow. “You’ll see reason soon, Julia. I promise.”

  Reason? Was she kidding me? My chest convulsed as I tried to struggle and free myself, and within seconds, they dumped me on the floor and locked the door. My lips stung as I bit through the wires with my teeth, burning fur and flesh. Eventually I cut myself free.

  Limping to the door, I sniffed the metal. More venom. Shape-shifting into a human, I hovered my hand against it. My nails were shredded and patches of skin were missing on my arm. I didn’t think I could withstand any more pain until I’d eaten and healed myself.

  A frightened fluttering heartbeat stopped me. I whirled around and covered myself with my hands. There was someone else locked in this room—a human.

  “Who’s there?” I asked.

  A girl, dirtied and bruised, dressed in a pink dress stepped out into the light. Scarlett.

  My stomach dropped upon seeing her. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m here to feed you,” she said with disappointment in her frail voice.