by Sierra Dean
I looked at the girls and could tell they had sensed the change in my attitude. I wasn’t hiding the horror on my face and was thankful they would have no understanding of its deeper meaning.
I had a clear grasp on what the base level of Peyton’s plan was. At first I’d believed he was killing and eating the girls for food alone, because no one would miss a dead prostitute. But if Cleo had just been drained for a meal, her body would have still been there for the cops to find. She wouldn’t have been speaking in tongues.
The signs described by Veda and Misty were those of a baby vamp before the change took effect. Drinking the blood of a vampire often caused hallucinations, violent fits, nausea and a number of other side effects. Then it caused death—one so fast-acting it didn’t resemble a normal human passing. Lastly, it resulted in rebirth.
And with that birth came the hunger.
Peyton or one of his nest had turned Cleo into a vampire and then unleashed her onto the unsuspecting streets, sending her with a newborn’s blind thirst to hunt her own people.
She would not be the only one.
Chapter Twenty-Five
There were a lot of swears and protests when the shiny new BMW rounded the corner and beckoned me to its passenger door. Veda and the other girls were trying to tell the driver he was wasting his time and a skinny-assed girl like me couldn’t satisfy him.
I took offense to the last statement, knowing perfectly well my ass wasn’t bony and some people seemed to enjoy it a great deal.
The girls put an end to their complaints when they got a look at the driver’s face. Mercedes had told us some girls on the street reported the mystery john had been very good looking, so Holden’s face must have set off alarms for them.
“Good luck, Blondie,” Misty said with a sneer, her farewell acting as a eulogy.
I accepted my fate and got in next to Holden, mumbling, “Take me home.”
“We aren’t looking for Peyton?”
“We won’t find him tonight. Take me home.”
“What did they say?”
I turned to face him, trying to find a way to summarize what the girls had told me so he would experience it with the same gravity I had.
“They’re the rats of London,” I said at last, knowing no other way.
His jaw spasmed. “What do you mean?”
I rested my head against the cool glass of the car window. “Peyton isn’t feeding on the disposables. I mean that’s what we thought, right? He would go after the homeless and the girls on the street because they’re easy targets. Food.”
“Yes.”
“But that’s not it. He’s changing them.”
I didn’t think vampires could get paler, but the new ashy pallor on Holden’s face proved me wrong. “He’s turning them?”
“He’s making some of the girls vampires and sending them back into the street.”
“But why? No vampire in their right mind would turn a prostitute. We won’t turn anyone we consider unworthy.”
“Don’t you get it?”
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“He’s creating an army. They’re plague carriers, Typhoid Marys. He will use them to create more or to destroy others.”
“Oh Jesus.” The depravity of Peyton’s plan was setting in.
“He’s going to make Manhattan a vampire city. He wants to come out of the dark.”
“He wants to kill everyone.”
“And he’s starting with the lowest levels. The prostitutes will infect their johns. They’ll infect their wives or girlfriends. It will spread. If we can’t find him soon, we won’t be able to stop it.”
“But Peyton is a known rogue. One vampire alone can’t make this work.”
“He has to be working with someone. And he has to have someone in the daylight too, but I don’t remember him having a daytime servant. Only the really powerful masters can manifest that kind of control.”
“Like Sig has Ingrid.”
“But Sig is also well over a thousand years old.”
“Two,” Holden corrected.
I didn’t have the energy to absorb the magnitude of that information. “And Peyton isn’t even three hundred.”
“He wouldn’t be able to manipulate a human servant in the daytime. He could barely manage a Renfield.”
I hated the phrase Renfield. After Bram Stoker’s eponymous tome vampires had thought the name was too hilarious not to use. Much like Dracula used the poor, weak-minded Renfield, rogue vampires often enthralled someone into doing whatever they wanted over an extended period of time. They called them Renfields.
Daytime servants, on the other hand, maintained an illusion of free will, but always knew the needs and desires of their master. Furthermore, because of the bond it created with their master, the daytime servant could live for many centuries. They lacked the strength and power of a vampire but enjoyed the extended life.
Sig’s daytime servant, Ingrid, was a stunning German girl he’d met sometime in the early thirteen hundreds. She was quiet and dutiful, but I was certain time had shown her things none of us could imagine, especially at Sig’s side. I suspected, at over seven hundred years old herself, Ingrid was not a human of any small strength. I didn’t like to be alone with her. There was too much in her eyes I didn’t want to know.
Holden pulled the BMW up to the curb in front of my apartment. I had begun to shiver as the shock of the evening’s events really sank in. If Peyton was going to try taking over the city, outing vampires everywhere and waging an all-out war on humanity, he wasn’t doing it alone. And whoever was helping him had to be strong, mean and determined.
Of all the people I wanted to discuss this with right now, Sig was at the top of my list. But how could I have a casual chat with the head of the vampire council about my suspicions? Would Sig want to know what a half-breed vampire killer thought?
Holden seemed to be reading my thoughts, because he put a hand on my thigh and said, “Let me go to the council. I’ll request an audience with Sig and see if he has any thoughts about what you’ve discovered.”
I nodded solemnly. It would be better if Holden went. Perhaps it would help him curry favor and find advancement in the ranks of the other vampires if he brought them the information. I couldn’t begrudge him the desire to advance among his own kind. I knew I never would.
I opened my car door, noticing an unfamiliar but pristinely well-kept ’72 Dodge Challenger parked near my building. It was a charcoal gray color I rarely saw on cars, let alone vintage muscle cars.
I was about to ask Holden if he remembered ever seeing it before when I noticed that my living room light was on. I might not remember cars, but I definitely knew I’d turned off all my lights before leaving.
Someone was in my home and it wasn’t someone I’d invited.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Holden.” I leaned back towards the car, but my eyes remained focused on my window, which rested on the same level as the sidewalk. My living room was the only one in the apartment that allowed natural light in, and as such also the only one that let light out.
“I see it.”
“Are we expecting anyone?”
“Keats?”
“Keaty would have called first. He knows better.”
“The wolves?”
I raised my eyes, looking away from the window when it didn’t yield the answers I needed. I hadn’t considered Lucas or Desmond, but now that Holden suggested it, it seemed like the most obvious answer.
My face flushed, and it didn’t escape Holden’s notice.
“That would make sense.”
“Do you want me to come in with you?”
If it was either of my wolves, then having Holden with me would only serve to make things all the more complicated. The uneasiness of earlier this evening was still fresh in my mind, and I doubted the boys would have forgotten it either. I was also more than a little annoyed that they would invite themselves into my home, and I didn’t
want Holden with me when I made that clear to whoever was inside.
“No. It’s got to be one of them, that makes the most sense. You can go.”
“You’re sure?”
“Go and see Sig. We need to know what he thinks we should do and how we should act on it. I need to know if he still wants Peyton alive, given this new information.”
Holden scoffed, and I knew he doubted the Tribunal’s opinion would change regardless of any new details, but being allowed to kill Peyton would go miles to help ease my mind.
“Tell me as soon as you know anything. Please.”
He nodded and I closed the car door at last. In my lit apartment there was a whole other world of problems for me to deal with. I was starting to think I’d never find an end to my troubles.
It wasn’t until I was standing alone on the sidewalk, watching Holden’s car drive away, that I felt the full force of a body slam into me from behind and realized how right I was.
The blow was accompanied by snarling and snapping next to my ear that made my whole body go cold. I remembered being in the club yesterday with a man’s throat in my mouth, only then the animal noises had been coming from my throat instead of next to my head. It was a feral, distinctive sound, that of a hunter with prey only a bite away.
I was being immobilized by someone’s full weight, and they were trying to eat me.
I let out a howl that was less a horror-movie victim’s scream and more the noise of a wounded animal, but was the most natural utterance I could manage in the heat of panic. How could I have been stupid enough to let down my guard for a fraction of a second, knowing Peyton was in the city waiting for a chance to conclude our unfinished business?
“I thought you were so strong,” the mouth near my ear said.
The fact human words were coming out when the previous sounds had been so guttural was enough to snap me out of my internal chastising. As the voice and words sunk in, I put together that the speaker was young and female. Had one of Peyton’s new lackeys found me?
Using her new calmness as an opportunity to rear back, I smacked the back of my skull hard into the front of her face and knocked her off me with the suddenness of the gesture. It never ceased to amaze me how people’s cockiness could lead to their undoing. Getting to my feet as quickly as possible, I spun and crouched in a fighting stance, preparing for her next attack. I was wishing, not for the first time that week, I hadn’t been forced to go without a weapon. As much as I’d have liked to be armed, there wasn’t any place to hide a gun when you were wearing an ensemble that barely hid your lady bits.
Recognition slammed into me with the force of a hammer when I saw the face of the young woman who had attacked me.
She looked almost exactly as she had when I’d sent her running from me in Central Park with her broken heel trailing behind her, only now a stream of blood was coming from her nose where I had broken it, and she no longer seemed afraid of me. The girl Mercedes said was named Brigit knelt close to the sidewalk, primed like a lethal predator waiting for her moment.
She was as pale as she’d been that night, but it wasn’t fear making her that way. Her new pallor was visible beneath the fake bronze of her skin. She was wearing a gauzy white summer dress that looked all wrong in the chill of spring.
Brigit was dead.
I knew from what Mercedes had told me I had saved her that night. She’d left Central Park alive and made it home in one piece.
So how was it she was now a baby vampire, staring at me with the clear objective of killing me when only a couple nights ago I had saved her from the monster she had now become?
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
All of these thoughts flooded my head in a matter of milliseconds. Before I had time to voice any of my questions out loud, Brigit sprung out of her crouch and hurled herself at me a second time.
She no longer had the element of surprise, though. Now she was not a clever stalker but an inexperienced killer launching an attack against a trained and lethal opponent. She would not best me again.
I grabbed a fistful of her hair when she got close enough and used it to yank her body to the ground, where it landed with a hard, fleshy crash. I knelt on her chest, using one hand to hold her head back. With the other I held her chin so she couldn’t try to bite me.
“Who was it, Brigit?”
Some of the fight went out of her, but the voice was still bitter. “You know who it was. He told me. He told me it was your fault. He would have let me live, but he needed to show you.”
“Show me what?”
A shimmer of blood-red tears built in her eyes. Her desperation to see me dead had begun to drain away, but beneath the killing urge was a blind rage I couldn’t ignore. “He said he needed you to know you wouldn’t be able to save us.” She swallowed her rage. I could feel her throat contract under my palm. “Them,” she corrected, removing herself from among their ranks. “Every human you try to save he will turn personally. So you would know.”
I fought back my own tears and violently turned her head to the side in my haste to check the skin. There it was, as sure as I knew it would be. The uneven, broken-toothed bite of a psychopath.
“Oh, Brigit.” There was only sadness in my voice now.
“Secret?”
Brigit and I were not alone on the sidewalk anymore. Without budging from my place on top of her, I looked to find Desmond standing a few feet from us. The scene must have been quite alarming to an outsider. I was still wearing my gold hot pants, hooker shirt and four-inch heels. My eyes were done with a heavy dose of black makeup to complete the effect. I was kneeling on the chest of a cute blonde girl whose face was covered in blood from her tears and busted nose.
I would have liked to tell him it wasn’t what it looked like, but I really didn’t know what he was thinking.
“Please help me,” I pleaded.
“Of course.” Without hesitation or questions he was beside me, waiting for me to tell him what I wanted next. I wondered, had it been Lucas in my apartment rather than Desmond, if he would have been so compliant.
“Is that your car?” I nodded in the direction of the Challenger.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to kill me?” Brigit choked out sobs, making a pretty pathetic new vampire now that the urge for revenge had gone out of her.
“No,” I said. She and Desmond both looked shocked by the response. “I’m going to take you to someone who can help you.” I held Desmond’s gaze this time and hoped he knew enough about the paranormal to understand who I meant.
“The Oracle?” His tone was hushed.
“Yes.”
“But we can’t go to her. It’s against her laws.”
“Please.” I pulled Brigit to her feet, still holding her arms in case she was a better actress than I gave her credit for. “Do you know how to get to her?”
“Of course. It’s just down the block, but I’m telling you we won’t get in.”
My mouth was set in a tight, determined line. I couldn’t explain it to him, especially not in front of Brigit. “Just trust me.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
My apartment on West 52nd was walking distance to the coffee shop, but with a bloodied vampire in tow, driving made things a little less complicated. I was thankful the busiest hour for coffee lovers had passed and the Starbucks was relatively vacant. When Brigit and I vanished in the doorway, Desmond was left alone, but with so few patrons it was unlikely any of them noticed there had been two girls with him. I felt bad leaving him there without any answers, but Brigit’s docile state wouldn’t last long. The hunger would take her before the night was through. We were lucky Peyton had thought to feed her before sending her after me, otherwise she wouldn’t have made it to me. She would have gone after the first available blood source instead and another innocent would have been dead.
Rather than finding ourselves in front of the cash counter at Starbucks, we were standing in the foyer of a majestic house. House wa
sn’t the right word to describe where Calliope lived. Mansion would have been much closer to the truth, but even that didn’t really fit. Her estate transcended the laws of physics binding other homes to a fixed size. It had a limitless number of rooms that could expand and recede to accommodate guests as necessary. Whether it was used to heal those who were injured or safeguard new vampires too unstable to be among the public, Calliope’s home was whatever it needed to be.
The foyer was larger than my entire apartment and probably larger than Lucas’s mammoth bedroom. The floor was covered from end to end in overlapping Persian rugs Calliope had acquired at bargain prices when there’d still been a Persia.
An immense variety of portraits all depicting hauntingly beautiful women hung from the walls. It wasn’t until my fourth or fifth visit that I realized every painting in the room was of Calliope. Done by the most famous artists in the world, she was portrayed in every era and style, from Renaissance to Impressionist to Pop. The crown jewel of the group was a Warhol painting of one of the women Calliope had claimed to be in her many lives.
The room was dimly lit in colorful jeweled splendor by dangling Tiffany lamps casting kaleidoscope shadows over the floor. Color was a mainstay of Calliope’s world. The rugs, lamps, paintings—all a dizzying array of red, blue, green and pink. Scattered along the walls were large, plush leather armchairs that made the ones in Keaty’s office look like they were for children.
Slumped in one of those chairs was a small, pale teenaged boy wearing a Pizza Hut uniform. His eyes were hazy and unfocused, but he was alive. And judging by the smell of him, completely human.
I wasn’t the only one to smell his true nature. Brigit’s eyes widened and darkened to the oily black of a hungry vampire. Her nostrils flared and her fangs were out before I could yell, “Calliope!” It was lucky I was still holding Brigit by the hair, so when she lunged for the boy, she was yanked back to me by the leash of her own body.
