by Cecy Robson
Shayna grimaced. “You mean aside from her drinking blood?”
Danny tried to stand. “Yeah. I don’t know if vampires can be mentally ill. From what I’ve researched so far, they’re immune to diseases. But nothing I’ve read mentions anything about being immune to insanity.”
I steadied him with my hand. “Why have you been reading up on vamps? I mean, I know since you’ve learned about us, you’ve been curious, but … I’m not a vampire.”
He sighed, watching me with his dark sad eyes. “Believe it or not, I thought I could help you. You and your sisters have something special.”
“Ah, no, we don’t.” Taran glared his way. “At best we’re atom bombs ready to detonate.” As if to make a point, a puff of blue and white smoke from her fire popped and sizzled above her head.
Danny returned the glasses to his face. “I don’t agree. There’re not a lot of books available here in the U.S. about the supernatural—the real kind, I mean—weres, witches, vamps, those types of beings. But I’ve purchased a few ancient volumes from old libraries in Europe, where most legends stem from actual truths. I haven’t been able to find much about what you are or what you could be. In fact, I’m positive you’re different from any race of humans or preternaturals on earth.”
“Yay for us,” Taran muttered.
Danny offered a sympathetic smile. “One thing I have learned a great deal about are curses and magic in general.” His gaze skipped to each one of us. “I think you’re all in a bind.”
“No shit,” Taran snapped. “I’m surprised we haven’t killed each other.”
Danny held out a hand. “No, that’s not what I mean. I think you’ve been bound—in the magical sense. Sort of like a noose or tie that holds your powers back, and therefore your control.” He focused on me. “Celia, I think you can manage your powers best because your tigress gives you added strength. Picture a pit bull on a leash. You’re going to pull harder against it than another, smaller breed, making it harder to hold you back.”
Shayna inched forward. “Um, Danny, maybe you should watch the dog references. I understand what you’re trying to say, but Taran’s a little touchier.” She motioned to Taran with a jerk of her head. “Know what I mean, little guy?”
Taran narrowed her eyes, proving Shayna’s point.
Danny’s mouth popped open. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to insult you, ladies.”
I barely heard his apologies, my ears homing in on the rumble of motors. Two cars entered the dead-end street leading to the field and to us. The roar of their engines didn’t sound familiar or appropriate for the area. We were in blue-collar territory and these vehicles were definitely not your standard beaters. And instead of slowing down when they entered the narrow street, they sped faster, like cheetahs who’d found a herd of wounded gazelles.
My tigress growled a warning. Taran’s blue eyes blanched to white, her magic sensing another’s approach.
Danny jerked around upon seeing the first car barrel up the small incline. “It’s the vampires. Run!”
Chapter Two
Danny raced across the field. Emme followed. The rest of us remained, confusion and surprise cementing us in place. I’d never seen a vamp. Never smelled one, never heard one. And when Danny told me a few years back that they were real, I didn’t find it too hard to believe. After all, if my sisters and I could exist, why couldn’t other supernaturals exist, too?
That said, I was dumbstruck by their appearance. Taran, Shayna, and I gawked as GQ model types in black suits emerged from two souped-up red Porsches. There were seven, three from one car, four from the other. They removed their sunglasses. A blond who resembled an edgy James Dean grinned my way as the aroma of sex and chocolate overtook my senses. “Well, what do we have here?”
Shayna leaned closer to me. “Um. Why aren’t they sparkling? Shouldn’t they, like, sparkle?”
I don’t think the so-called creatures of the night appreciated the reference. They hissed and stalked toward us. “Grab some wood,” I muttered.
“Already got some,” James Dean said, his eyes never leaving mine.
Okay. Direct eye contact from a male. That was a first. If I weren’t already scared out of my mind, I might have also been skeeved by his comment. As it was, my beast licked her chops, perceiving his leer more as a challenge. I swore in my head, knowing she’d found him more appetizer than threat.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Shayna crouch and lift three broken sticks from the ground. As the sun set behind us, the last trickle of light traced along the lengthening sticks. Shayna transferred the metal from her gold necklace into the pieces of wood, morphing them into long, sharp needles. She clutched two tightly in one hand while twirling the other between the fingers of her opposite hand.
That gave the vamps their first “oh shit” pause. My protruding claws gave them their second. “What are they?” a dark-skinned vamp asked, his nails and his incisors protruding in response.
James Dean smirked. “Don’t know. Don’t care. But this one is mine.”
I didn’t see him move. All I felt were his hands at my throat. His thumb teased my jugular as his light eyes drilled into mine. “You won’t scream. You won’t fight,” he commanded, hardening his voice. “You’re just going to feel real good.” He widened his mouth and drove his fangs toward my neck.
My claws punctured through the crotch of his designer pants and twisted as the point of a fang traced against my skin. A sound somewhere between a garbled choke and squeak tore through his throat. Another vamp yanked me by the hair, trying to wrench me off. I took James Dean with us, squeezing tighter.
“Rob,” James Dean choked, sounding more little girl with a sore throat than vicious bloodsucker. “No.”
The hold on my hair loosened. “Huh?”
I used Rob’s hesitation to drive my free hand through his belly, digging through his torso while my right wrung Jimmy Dean’s sausage—a crude and outrageous tactic perhaps, but considering the prick tried to bite me, I didn’t care about being polite.
Taran screamed. Something smoked. And heat smacked against my face. I would’ve panicked if another vamp hadn’t howled back in agony. Shayna’s grunt followed another deep-throated hiss just as my claws felt the first beat of the vamp’s heart. I thrust my hand up and was rewarded with a stream of warm ash, blinding me.
“She killed Rob!” someone roared.
James Dean wrenched from my loosening grip, wailing. I jerked up and wiped the ash from my face. Another vamp fell against me with two of Shayna’s needles jutting from his sternum. He writhed against me, trying to pull them from his chest.
I did what any other tigress would’ve done in my place—I wrapped my legs around his waist and tried to yank his head from his shoulders.
And, well, didn’t that piss him off.
He hissed, nailing me hard in the ribs with his elbows. I lost my breath with every impact. Panic and pain made me pull harder while my claws hacked into his neck. The last crunch of his vertebrae rang in my ears before a rain of ash streamed over my chest and shoulders. I heaved, spitting out the bits of the vamp coating my tongue.
James Dean staggered back, clinging to his blood-soaked pants as he wrenched open his car door. He retreated, snarling while his furious face took in the scene down in the field.
Blue and white flames encased Taran’s form as she dashed after a vamp with one of Shayna’s needles sticking out of his eye. She wasn’t fast, but at that moment, neither was he. Shayna chased behind another vamp, who was already partially decapitated from the sword she’d transformed from a branch. Three vamps were re-dead. Two soon would be. The one who’d seen enough was hauling ass in his red Porsche. That left one more.
Too bad he was the biggest and baddest of all.
The other vamps had been more lean. This vamp was all muscle and had Emme and Danny cornered against an old oak at the far end of the field.
My legs pumped across the waist-high grass as he lifted Danny and E
mme by their throats. Unlike “Rob,” this guy wasn’t dumb and he wasn’t slow. He sensed my approach and dropped them, dipping his heavy body low as I leapt.
I collided into the ground several feet away. He kicked me in the gut before I could rise, making me flip. I rolled with the momentum and the stomach-lurching nausea burning its way up my throat.
My tigress eyes replaced my own and a snarl shook my chest.
“What the fuck are you?” He prowled forward, hissing with fury.
I caught his foot when he stomped it down toward my skull and rammed my heel between his legs. The agony searing my belly weakened the impact yet the thrust was enough to buy me time. Time to leap—okay, more like stagger—to my feet. He swung his meaty fist. I dropped into a deep crouch and propelled upward, nailing him in the jaw with an elbow.
The thing about learning to fight on the street is that it taught me to endure pain and go for the win whatever the cost. That meant not being afraid to fight dirty. There was no grace or carefully choreographed jabs and sideswipes. It was blow after blow, knowing I couldn’t stop, even if he went down. No mercy. No hesitation. That’s what determined who’d win.
My fists and legs morphed into a flurry of windmills. Except it wasn’t enough, no matter how hard I pummeled or how deep my claws raked his flesh.
The Goliath vamp cuffed me hard in the face, bashing my nose in and sending blood shooting out like a hose. It was the one hit he managed, but that’s all he needed. I couldn’t match him in strength. Not in my human form.
Maybe that’s what my tigress finally needed to bust through the chain that bound her. A little motivation in the form of mind-numbing terror and teeth-rattling pain.
My body smacked onto the littered ground, covered in fur, three times as large, and madder than hell.
I spun, crouching on four legs, and pounced on the befuddled vamp. But just like I wanted to survive, so did he. My claws punctured his face, shredding it like weather-beaten cardboard as his nails pierced through my dense shoulders, trying to force me off. Our fangs snapped, our bodies slammed hard, beating each other with everything that we had.
Taran and Shayna screamed, but not because of my brawl.
“Emme, no! Stop! You have to calm down,” Taran screamed at her.
“Don’t. She’s okay. Ceel’s okay!” Shayna yelled.
The vamp kicked me off him. And that was probably the only thing that saved me.
There was a rattle behind me, followed by the strong sense of impending death. I flattened out on my stomach as the remaining Porsche jetted across the field, mashing the vamp against a row of trees.
His body busted open, splattering bits of brain and bone across bark, dirt, and a cluster of overgrown blackberry bushes. Disturbing? Yes. Gag inducing? Uh-huh. But it was the remainder of his body crawling toward me that just didn’t seem fair. Emme had hit him with a car. In any other Buffy episode, that would have been enough.
The claws of one hand dug into the earth. He only had half a body and that half still advanced like a slow-moving crocodile, writhing in agony, yet determined to kill me. Without eyes to see and a brain to direct it, it catapulted toward me. I jerked from its path just a little too soon.
In an effort to “help,” Shayna converted a twig into a stake. It sucked monkey snot that my sister’s aim wasn’t the greatest. A pathetic roar squeaked from my throat as her stake found my ass. My eyes rolled into my head as stabbing pain rocked my butt cheek.
“Dude. I am, like, so sorry!”
The vamp continued to crawl toward me. Punctured rear and all, I drove my paw into his exposed heart and squished. My vision spun from the feel of the rupturing vessel and the multitude of painful spasms rocking my body. But despite the throbbing, the feel of the warm ash erupting beneath my claws allowed me to take a breath. He was dead. And he could no longer hurt us.
I blinked my blinding tears away as my body changed back to my smaller half, tightening around Shayna’s stake like an angry fist. “Get … it … out.”
I shrieked at Danny’s first attempt. And his second. And his third. If it wasn’t for the overwhelming scent of sex and chocolate returning, I may have slapped him senseless.
A dark boot stepped into my line of vision. Another vampire had arrived.
Chapter Three
Waist-length ebony hair drifted in the small breeze, falling into a perfect cascade across his shoulders as the wind settled. The vamps before him had been GQ in their dress. He was more motorcycle mag in his black T-shirt and jeans. He crouched beside me, his expression curious. “Stake in the ass?” he asked, his voice thick with a French accent. Although I didn’t answer, but rather growled and tried to claw him, he nodded. “I hate it when that happens.”
He yanked it out before I could move. I fought not to roar, beating my fists against the ground.
The vamp examined the stake closely. Like all of Shayna’s makeshift weapons, it failed to keep its form, returning to a small twisted twig in his hand. He sniffed the blood. “Interesting,” he said, before tossing it over his shoulder. “Now tell me, mon ami. Where is Giovanna?”
I scrambled to my feet, grabbing my butt as if it could fall off and doing my damndest to ignore the puncture wounds burning their way across my shoulders. My sisters and Danny hurried to step in front of me. Shayna tossed me her gray sweater while the vamp continued to eye us with interest.
I released my cheek enough to yank on her sweater. Danny and my sisters had seen me naked before. That didn’t mean I was comfortable being unclothed and vulnerable. Especially with another predator so close.
The vamp frowned slightly. “You will not tell me?” He motioned to the closest mound of ash. “Why do you protect her?”
“Who?” Shayna asked.
“You do not know of whom I speak?”
“No.” Shayna glanced around. “None of us know a Giovanna.”
The vamp angled his chin again, more curious than threatening, and sniffed the air.
“What the hell is he doing?” Taran muttered to Danny.
“Smelling the air. Preternaturals can scent lies.”
The vamp smiled. “That is true. Seeing your lack of knowledge, perhaps I ask the wrong beings, no?”
He stalked a few feet away into the section of knee-deep dry grass. It was strange that he gave us his back. He obviously didn’t fear us, either because he was too stupid or because he was too lethal. Knowing our luck, he wasn’t the dumb prick I wanted him to be.
He spread the blades of tall grass aside until he found what he was looking for. He then stood, holding a vamp’s severed head by the tuft of his curly hair. I recognized him as the one Shayna had chased and evidently decapitated. We jumped when the head’s eyes whipped open and he snapped his fangs at the vamp.
Again, this wouldn’t have happened to Buffy.
The biker-clad vamp shook his head as if reprimanding a naughty child. “Ah, Dunbar, you try my patience. Now tell me, where is your lovely Giovanna?”
“Eat my mother’s shit, Quennel. I shall not betray my mistress!”
Quennel nodded. “Perhaps you are correct.” He tossed the head. It rolled in our direction like a ball with chunky skin and stopped at our feet, hissing at us.
My sisters screamed and so did Danny. I gaped at it, not wanting to believe what I saw. The thing was spitting mad, snarling and chomping at the air. Shayna went into complete freakout mode. She grabbed a small branch and bashed the head like a kid hell-bent on cracking open a piñata.
“Harder!” Taran shrieked. “Harder. Oh, Gawd, it’s eating the stick!”
The head clenched the branch between its fangs. Shayna shook the branch, making the head bop and bounce until the tip snapped off and the head spun toward Emme. She jumped behind me, screaming while pieces of wood oozed from the vamp’s split neck.
Quennel appeared beside me, startling us yet again. “What strange creatures you are indeed, little ones. But I fear your tactics won’t suffice. Allow me.”
He jogged down the field and cut left. The head hollered, “No, no, no!” as the remainder of his body rose from another patch of overgrown field and bolted toward the neighborhood.
Quennel raced after it with little effort, grabbed it by the shoulders, and punched through his sternum. The body exploded into a cloud of ash, just like the abandoned head on the ground. Our stares traveled from it back to Quennel, who leisurely returned to our side.
“A vamp over three hundred years old requires both decapitation and destruction of the heart,” he said. “Lesson learned, no?”
We nodded in unison, all of us appearing at a loss for words. I moved forward, still suspicious of our latest visitor. “If you’re not with these vamps, what are you doing here?”
“I tracked Giovanna’s family, when they tracked him.” He sniffed in Danny’s direction. “You are the son of Joseph Matagrano?”
“Uh, yeah. He’s my dad.”
“Did Giovanna take him as her keep?”
“Keep?” Danny asked.
Quennel smiled, showing a little fang. “Someone a master vampire controls—a vampire he creates, or a human he regularly feeds from. Were they lovers?”
Danny’s skin blanched. “I don’t know. My father is a well-known attorney. I think he might have represented Giovanna for something a while back; but he doesn’t date, even though my mother died over a decade ago.”
“He may not have wanted Giovanna, mon ami. But vampires are hard to resist.”
“I can see that,” Taran mumbled. “Well, I’m not blind, Celia,” she snapped upon catching my glare. “Did you see what they looked like?”
“Before or after they tried to eat us?” I hissed.
Quennel chuckled. “Nature has been kind to us. Our scent, our looks, it’s our way of attracting food so it comes to us willingly. Otherwise we are not permitted to take.”
“I wasn’t willing just now,” I added with a growl. “One of these vamps tried to bite me, and he didn’t care whether I’d deny him.”
“Yes, it has been rumored that Giovanna ignores our laws and takes as she pleases.” Quennel’s irises darkened. “But to allow her family to do the same? This is very bad for her.”
