The Shopgirl's Prophecy (Beasts of Vegas Book 1)

by Anna Abner

  Fine. Good stuff. But nowhere did any of his biographers go into where Olek was born. Or when. How had he been infected? Was he born infected or had he been bitten by a vampiric squirrel? Or more frightening still, did he have a sire even older and more bloodthirsty than him?

  How much blood did he need to drink? Had he always been a raging sociopath or only after he’d been infected? These were the questions Connor wanted answered, but they weren’t so easy to find.

  Probably the most interesting thing about the Four Sons was when they rose, it opened a Pandora’s box of supernatural tendencies and mutations. Suddenly, there existed witches, shapeshifters, and seers. Over the years, more and more aberrations were born and discovered until paranormal creatures were present in every corner of the world. The Four Sons had thrown the entire natural order of human beings out of whack.

  “Holy shit,” Roz exclaimed. “I found something.”

  Ali jerked awake. “What? Is it bad?”

  Connor tossed his pile of papers on the table and stood over Roz’s shoulder.

  “I poked around in some government records. Before you were born, your dad lived with Katherine Rusenko in Nadvirna, Ukraine, but after you were born, he lived with Irina Kirstak in Ploska, Ukraine. Your name doesn’t pop up until you reach Britain.”

  “Who is Irina Kirstak?” Ali asked. “And what happened to Katya’s missing baby?”

  “Exactly. We need to find out.” Roz clicked onto a search engine and typed Irina’s name. A lot of hits, but only one or two had a chance of being their girl. Roz opened the first one, a genealogy website. “Says I have to offer personal information and pay a monthly fee.” She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  She quietly called her power, bringing with it a tiny, invisible charge in the atmosphere. Click-click, tap-tap-tap. “Okay,” she said, her magic fading. “Irina’s still alive. Her daughter’s deceased. Any guesses what her name was?”

  He didn’t need to guess. He knew. “Katherine.”

  “Bingo.”

  Ali sat very still for several seconds, and then cleared her throat. “I have a grandmother?”

  “Apparently.” Roz made notes on her phone.

  “Where does she live?”

  A few minutes of clicking through sites, and Roz triumphantly announced, “Boulder City, Nevada. Looks like,” she said, raising her eyebrows, “she moved out here to be close to her dead daughter’s in-laws.”

  A huff of interest escaped Connor’s throat. There were answers, he could feel them, and they were close. “So, both sides of your family came out west after fleeing the Ukraine.”

  “Not me or my dad.”

  “Roz,” he said, “get Irina’s address. Let’s go see what she has to say about Ali and her parents.” Connor collected all of the materials from the table, stacked them neatly, and returned them to the file boxes. He patted his pockets. Wallet—check. Truck keys—check. .44 Mag tucked under his waistband—check. Good to go.

  “She hasn’t tried to contact me.” Ali caught his eye and grimaced. “She may not be too welcoming.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He opened the door and gestured for the girls to proceed. “I can be very persuasive.”

  #

  An oasis in the desert, Boulder City seemed to Ali to spring up out of the sand, a zigzag pattern of tract homes broken by sidewalks and white picket fences.

  They cruised past a strip mall and then the local high school. It was a quiet city, for such a large community. Roz turned the Ford into a neighborhood with identical homes, identical landscaping, identical sedans and mini-vans in identical driveways. Somewhere among so much conformity lived an old Ukrainian woman hiding from her past.

  Her grandmother. The idea floored Ali. Her whole life she’d assumed she had none. Her dad claimed to be an only child. His parents were dead. And not once during all their conversations had he mentioned that her mother’s mother was still alive and living it up in rural Nevada. A grandmother who’d never called, written, or e-mailed. Ever.

  How many secrets had her dad kept from her? Because she could have really used a grandmother growing up. Why hadn’t she written? Why hadn’t her father mentioned her? Deep down, under the pain of being ignored, sprouted a grain of hope. Maybe Grandma was like her. Maybe Ali wasn’t alone anymore.

  Roz parked, and they marched up to a perfectly ordinary one-story, single-family home with a gray door and white shutters. At the bell, Ali hesitated. Roz re-checked her notes and then nodded.

  Ali pushed the button once.

  Someone shuffled around behind the door, and then a voice called out, “Go away. I don’t want any.”

  “Irina?” Roz shouted through the closed door. “We’re here to talk about your granddaughter.”

  The lock clicked, and the door opened. Roz spoke again, but the woman cut her off.

  “Who are you?” Her gaze found Ali, and she stared for an absurdly long time, her expression slowly hardening with recognition. “What do you want?”

  Connor stepped forward. “Information.”

  “I have none.” With a last look at Ali, she reached for the doorknob, presumably to slam it in their faces. Not exactly a soft, warm granny from nursery rhymes.

  He placed his hand against the door, and Ali knew an army couldn’t close it. “Your daughter’s not dead, is she?”

  Ali startled, stumbling back a step. Where the hell had that come from? Not dead? She palmed the wall for support. He thought her mother was alive, and he hadn’t mentioned it? A head’s up would’ve been nice.

  Irina narrowed her blue eyes at Connor. “Who are you?”

  “She didn’t die in childbirth, did she?”

  She shrugged. “Yes. And no.”

  Hope flared. Her mother could be alive. She could be the Katya from the journal. She could be anyone, anywhere. But alive.

  Ali closed her eyes, focusing on breathing normally. The constraints sealing her emotions inside slipped a notch. If she weren’t careful, she’d lose control. Too many heavy-duty feelings fought for supremacy within her—grief, fear, rage, and now hope. It was a wonder she didn’t split in four different pieces.

  “Tell us what happened,” Connor prompted.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I haven’t seen her since the day that one was born.”

  Ali opened her eyes and caught Irina staring at her again. “You know who I am?”

  “You have her face.” For the first time, the woman’s voice registered a hint of remorse. It didn’t last long. “But her hair was red, not yellow.” She eyed Connor, and then Roz. “Leave me be. I don’t know anything.” She tried to close the door, but it didn’t budge an inch. “Go!”

  “Two more questions, and then we’ll leave.”

  “Fine,” she said, fuming, “but come inside before someone sees you.”

  They stood awkwardly in the entryway. Irina didn’t offer them a seat or cookies or anything. She watched them, though, very carefully.

  “First question,” she barked.

  “What happened to your daughter?” Connor asked.

  Irina stepped around him and spoke directly to Ali. “Is that what you came to ask me, Anya?” She said it with almost the same tone as Connor once had, like it was a dirty word. “Your mother was a whore.”

  Emotions too numerous to name swamped Ali, and she leaned against the wall, struggling to reign herself in.

  “She was having an affair with a demon the whole time she carried you inside her. And that day in Nadvirna, the bastard came for her. I saw it happen. She ran to him like a cat in heat.” She pointed an accusing finger at Ali’s chest, as if it were all her fault. “He infected her right there in front of us, and before anyone could do anything she whelped you in the grass.” Irina waved her hand in a wide arc. “And then you were gone. She took you away, but she left her husband, her village, me…for life with a monster.”

  “No. That’s not true,” Ali hissed, sl
iding down the wall onto her bottom. Not true. Not true. Her breath came hard and fast. Not true.

  “Katherine and the vampire took Ali with them?” Connor confirmed, sounding aghast.

  Ali name hadn’t popped up in public records until her dad immigrated to Britain, that’s what Roz had said. When Ali was two. Had she lived with a pair of vampires for the first two years of her life?

  Ignoring Connor, Irina loomed over Ali, a crone from a fairy tale. “After Prague, when the American soldiers brought you back to our village, I told your father to drown you, but he was weak. He kept you. And then he took you away in shame. As if he could hide you in the West.”

  Ali tried to hold herself together by hugging her knees tight to her chest, but it wasn’t working. The thing inside her burst its seams. Energy crackled and swelled.

  “You’re talking about your daughter,” Roz whispered, aghast.

  “After what she did, I have no daughter.” Irina rounded on Connor. “Second question.”

  Ali pressed her fingers into her eyes. Pain. She needed lots and lots of pain. She slammed her elbow into the wall. She did it again, harder. And again.

  But it wasn’t working. She couldn’t catch her breath, it kept whistling in and out of her.

  “Is Anya a vampire?” Connor asked.

  “Who knows?” Irina said. “There’s never been anything like her before.”

  The power within expanded by the second, burning Ali from the inside out. “Connor,” she hissed, pleading—no, begging—for help. Her skin tingled, beginning in her fingertips and toes, and then spreading. Her emotions unbuckled, burst, burning like alcohol through her veins.

  Too late.

  Everything around her grew silent and still. Roz spoke first. “Are you seeing this?”

  No, no, no.

  “Cover her, for God’s sake,” Irina exclaimed.

  “She’s…glowing.”

  An afghan fell over Ali’s head and shoulders. She squeezed into a ball and tried to pull it back in, but she couldn’t.

  Not here.

  “Leave now,” Irina shouted. “If anyone sees her, the demons will come.”

  Hate for the old bitch only added fuel to Ali’s fire. Energy built, mixing with grief, fear, and shame. She was going to pop.

  She threw off the afghan and stood. Her arms, face, and every part of her exposed skin glowed pink. The sight terrified her, and with that new rush of emotion, the color deepened. Not in her twenty-two years had she ever lost control this badly. Pain wasn’t going to be enough this time. She needed violence, and she needed it now.

  “I can’t stop it!” Pressure built, doubling exponentially. She was going to burst. She screamed. “Hurt me, Connor! Hurt me!”

  He hesitated.

  Roz stepped around him, grabbed Ali by the shirt, and slugged her in the face.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Connor hated complications, and Alina Rusenko was one, big, messy complication that had burst into his life and exploded all over everything. The second he thought he had her figured out, she staggered him. Not only was she vampire bait, but she had a secret identity, a destiny, and she glowed like the fucking Fourth of July when she got her feelings hurt.

  He couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Ali glowed. He’d never seen anything like it before, never even heard of it happening. If he hadn’t seen it with his own two eyes…

  Hurt me, Connor. What the hell? Was that how she turned it off? Hurting herself? He glanced down at her head in his lap. She was still out cold, despite the fact that he’d carried her from Irina’s house in Boulder City and settled her comfortably in the truck. They were almost at the clinic in Henderson where he’d risen as a vampire, and she still hadn’t woken up. He’d be more worried if he hadn’t just seen her flush neon pink from her head to her feet. Who knew how long she’d be asleep? She’d thrown the rules out the window.

  He picked a strand of yarn lint from her cheek. A souvenir from Irina’s afghan. There was no longer any doubt. Ali was Anya from Nadvirna. She glowed. Her mom had been infected while pregnant with her. And vampires had raised her for two years. Good God. It was a lot to take in. But they’d deal with it. Whatever she needed, he’d help. Because she wasn’t evil or a spy or a double agent. She was a girl in need of protection.

  “Roz?”

  She scowled at the road ahead, just as unsettled as he was by the light show at Irina’s. “Yeah?”

  “You’re going to be nicer to her.” Because Ali was special in a hundred different ways, some he couldn’t grasp yet, and he needed her.

  Roz laughed, an angry sound. “I am?”

  “She means a lot to me.”

  “You don’t even know her. How can you—”

  “Rozlyn.”

  She glanced at him, her eyes bright. “She’s dangerous.”

  “She’s not in control of whatever that was. You, of all people, should be sympathetic.”

  “I’m afraid she’s going to hurt you somehow,” she said, losing steam. “She could be a double agent. You heard Irina. She’s been mixed up with vampires since the day she was born.”

  “She didn’t know,” he reminded her. “She was just as shocked as we were.”

  “It could be an act.”

  “You’re going to be nicer to her,” he pressed, dismissing her suspicions. “Because I care about her.”

  Maybe after all this was over and Olek was dead, he wouldn’t step in front of a train. Maybe he’d find a way to live infected. Maybe even find a way to continue fighting the horde while saving the vampires like him.

  Roz didn’t argue, just focused on the road. The clinic came into view, she pulled the truck to a stop, and Connor got out, careful not to jostle Ali more than necessary.

  Julia and Maria had seemed a little freaked out about his infection. Just wait until they got a look at Ali’s mutation. The doc may close up shop and head home to Germany for good. He jogged across the yard wanting to explain the situation to the doctor before he brought in Ali.

  Pop. The bullet hit Connor in the left shoulder, and he stumbled back a step from the jarring impact. Maria, the doc’s dark-haired assistant, stepped out of the building’s doorway pointing a pistol at him.

  He stood there like a tree, his mind a total wasteland as to how to react. He’d never been shot before. He inspected the damage, surprised by the copious amounts of blood running down his chest and arm.

  Two more shots went wild, and then a much louder bang as Roz fired a handgun into the air.

  “Stop shooting him!” Roz screamed.

  “Get in your truck and get the hell out of here! I’ve had enough of your kind,” Maria screamed back.

  “Put your gun down,” Roz warned. “I’m a better shot than you!”

  Wait, wait, wait. Enough of his kind? Did she mean vampires?

  Connor held up his right hand, palm out. “Have other infecteds been here?”

  Maria waggled her pistol. “That son of a bitch Maksim Volk dropped by, yeah.”

  His heart dropped a beat. The last time he’d seen that smug prick, he’d grinned as Connor bled to death. “What did he do?”

  “He cut the doctor. But he wanted your friend, the blonde one. He had her ID card.” She tightened her grip on her weapon and aimed it square at his chest. “Now get the hell out of here. We don’t help vampires.”

  Maksim Volk was looking for Ali. Olek, the Big Guy, was more than curious about her. Connor’s guts clenched. They had to hide and re-group. Because nothing and no one was going to hurt Ali.

  As if from a fogbank, Roz appeared, her weapon tucked into the waistband of her khakis. She slid under his good arm, and together they shuffled to the truck.

  “Sit in the back,” Roz ordered.

  Ali was in the front, and she needed him. “No.”

  “Don’t screw with me right now.” Her voice bordered on hysterical. She’d had enough with the crazy stuff, that much was obvious. But he wasn’t leaving Ali alone just to make Roz fe
el better.

  “I said no.” He pulled his arm away, though it hurt like hell and warm blood dribbled anew down his chest.

  He knew what she was worried about. His tainted blood. So, he dug a fleece-lined raincoat from the truck bed and zipped it on, shielding the world from his dirty blood, but the movement caused more bleeding. Was there an artery in his shoulder? Because though the wound didn’t spurt, it flowed like a little river. Too much.

  It took him an abnormally long time to get into the truck and lift Ali’s upper body onto his lap. Roz ran around, jumped in, and flipped Maria the middle finger before whipping the Ford back onto the road.

  Immediately, Roz’s cell phone chirped. One-handed, she checked the screen. “No,” she groaned. “Not now.”

  “What is it?” Connor tried to blink away the haze around the edges of his vision, but it didn’t help.

  “Anton found Volk on satellite and video feeds,” Roz said.

  “He was in Vegas?” Connor guessed. It was the only thing that would scare her this badly.

  “Worse,” Roz said. “He was in our hotel room.”

  #

  Waking up was like rising from the bottom of the sea. Consciousness returned slowly, coupled with pain. Ali’s face hurt.

  “Ow.” Her head lay in someone’s lap, her legs curled around a gearshift. She opened her eyes and found Connor staring down at her, his brows drawn together. Very gently, he brushed a strand of hair behind her right ear.

  It all came back in a rush—the story about her mother, her wretched grandmother, doing her best impression of a shooting star. In front of people. Oh, God. She couldn’t think of a time when she’d felt so humiliated. No one knew her secret. No one. Her father made sure, beating the emotion right out of her at a young age and, in a roundabout way, teaching her control. She hadn’t glowed in years.

  Her stomach flip-flopped. Her dad would kill her. Her secret was supposed to be just that. Forever and ever. It’s why he made her wear long sleeves, fluffy scarves, and leggings under her skirts, so even if she slipped up and glowed a little, not much would show. She never slipped up. She was a good, obedient daughter.