The door jangled at the front of the store, though neither Trace or I stopped to look up. I vaguely heard the clerk greeting someone as Trace slid his hand down my arms and around my waist.
A strange feeling gripped my insides, centering itself inside of me like a guttural warning that had nothing to do with Trace or the blessings he was bestowing on me with this lips. This had the mark of danger, the Mark of my birthright. My back stiffened and I knew.
Revenant.
26. VAMPIRE STATION
My heart pounded in my chest as the smell of death touched my insides. My eyes followed the Revenant at the front of the store. He was asking the clerk something when his lips suddenly stopped moving mid-sentence as though distracted by something. I watched as his back stiffened into a rail, making him appear a little taller than he actually was, and then he slowly turned his face in my direction.
Dark, rabid eyes pinned me with their bloodlust.
“He can sense you,” said Trace, as if I hadn’t already figured that out.
The Cloak was a thing of the past—a mask I was never meant to wear and it died that night in the clearing right along with the old Jemma. I wasn’t afraid anymore. Not of this. Not of him.
In that moment, this was the only thing that made sense to me. The only thing I was certain of in a world filled with uncertainty, with trickery. My pulse quickened, and I could feel my body hungering for him, for his bloodshed at my hands, and I was powerless to do anything but bend to its will.
I pulled back from Trace, giving him a quick nod so that he understood this one was all mine. Trace hung back, worry etched in his eyes as he folded his arms across his chest and watched me.
Watching me, but not moving.
I crossed the back of the store, every step slow and measured as though they were mapped out for me in some other life, on some other Timeline. And the Revenant followed right along, mimicking my trek as it stalked me like prey. I smiled at the irony of it.
The bell went off again as Gabriel and Dominic stepped inside the store. Gabriel’s eyes instantly narrowed upon spotting the Revenant, though he didn’t come in any further. He barricaded the door and stood back, watching on from the sidelines, eager to see if his lessons had served me well. Dominic smiled as he hopped up on the counter, ready to get a front-row view of the action.
“You can’t sit there,” said the store clerk, though Dominic simply shushed him.
The Rev didn’t seem to notice either one of them as he turned down the center aisle, heading straight for me. He hadn’t broken eye contact with me once since he’d spotted me at the back of the store. It was as though he couldn’t see anyone else in the room. As though I were the only thing in existence, and he had to own me.
And like a lamb to the slaughterhouse, I lured him in with promises of possession.
Of taste.
I knew he would make the first move, and I wanted him to. He was crazed with hunger and he would be careless. His fangs clicked out as a deep growl permeated the air. As soon as he was close enough, his arm sliced out at me like a blade, but it was sloppy and desperate, and I dodged him with ease.
“Hey,” said the clerk at the front of the store. “What do you think you’re doing over there? I don’t know what you people are up to, but I’m calling the cops,” he warned.
“The cops?” Dominic chuckled as though he’d said something funny. “There’s nothing they can do to help you, pet, now kindly sit down and shut up.”
The Rev lunged at me again, both hands this time, but I easily sidestepped him, knocking him in the back of his head with my elbow. I whipped back around and faced him, ready for another round.
“Lovely form, angel.”
My skin tingled with awareness as I kept my focus on the Rev. His eyes were black as a moonless night, swirling with pools of sin and savagery. I could almost feel the carnage he’d caused in his lifetime, hear the calls of the innocent people he slaughtered. There was no hope for him, no repentance or salvation for his soul. It was up to me to reap justice for those who had fallen at his hands. It was up to me to make him pay for what he’d done to them. I felt it…inside—some place deeper than my skin and muscles and bones.
It was in my blood, my entire makeup—inside the blueprint of my being.
He swung out at me again, stumbling forward into air as I easily stepped around him. It was almost as though the room were moving in slow motion for me, waiting patiently for me as I carefully anticipated his next move. It wasn’t normal, but it felt natural and right, like this was the way I was always meant to be.
The Rev shook his head frantically as though trying to regain his composure, to chase away his bloodlust. But it was futile. He couldn’t control it, even as his survival instincts screamed at him to flee.
“I just…need…a taste,” he croaked, madness in his eyes. “One. Small. Taste.”
“Get in line,” chirped Dominic, his voice flat and distant.
Frowning, I tightened my fingers around my stake and then grabbed his neck with my free hand, pulling him into me—giving him what he thought he wanted. What he unknowingly would die for.
My touch seemed to infuse him, to broil him into a frenzy that had him dangling from my hands like a headless chicken. Frantic and desperate, he tried to bite out at me, to have himself just the tiniest of tastes, but it was a fruitless attempt that only made me smile at him victoriously.
“Not today,” I whispered and then plunged the stake through his chest.
He crumbled to the floor like waste.
My pulse immediately slowed down to a gentle, steady thrum. It was as though my body instinctively knew that the threat—the thing that I was destined to destroy over and over again for the rest of my life—was gone
“That was…” I pulled in a sharp intake of air. “Amazing,” I said, completely surprising myself. I didn’t expect to feel this way afterwards—I never had before, but it felt invigorating to finally be in control. To not be afraid. And I kind of wanted to do it again.
I mean, not really, but kind of.
“You’re getting very good at this, angel.” I looked up and met Dominic’s pointed gaze. He was still sitting on the counter as the store clerk stood motionless behind him with the phone frozen mid-air. “I’m starting to wonder if I should be afraid of you.”
“You should,” answered Trace in a rough voice. He was standing in the same place I’d left him, watching me with such intensity that it made my heart lose a beat.
I wished I could read his emotions the way he read my thoughts, but his face gave nothing away.
His gaze peeled away from me as though it pained him not to look at me. “Do one of you two want to take care of that?” he asked Dominic and Gabriel, ticking his chin to the traumatized store clerk.
The poor guy didn’t look a day over twenty and he was completely shell-shocked.
“Already on it,” said Dominic, turning on his butt and then hopping down on the other side of the counter. Roughly, he unlatched the phone receiver from the clerk’s hands and then forced him to meet his eyes.
As he compelled his memories away, I turned my attention back to the Rev.
“I always knew you had it inside you,” said Gabriel as he walked up and joined me. He’d never seen me vanquish a Rev before—at least not out in the real world where it mattered most. There was definitely a smile on his face and while it was small and collected, I could see the pride in it.
“So, what are we supposed to do with the body now?” I bounced a glance between Gabriel and Trace who was still watching me with great fascination. “I’m guessing no one brought any Cinder?”
“We don’t need it.” Trace’s dimples popped as he stalked over to me. “I got this.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re putting him in the trunk.” The thought of it grossed me right the hell out. I had zero interest in gallivanting around town with a freaking dead vampire in the truck.
“No, I’m not putting him in the trunk.
” He made a face at me like he was offended. “I’m a Reaper, Jemma. This is what I do,” he said as he leaned down over the body and touched it.
The air rippled around him as though the wind had suddenly become visible, and then he was gone.
My mouth dropped open. I’d never actually seen him port from this angle. And definitely never this close.
“Don’t forget to take the surveillance video,” said Gabriel to Dominic.
“Does it look like this is my first time,” retorted Dominic at the front of the store. “I already have it,” he said, waving a VHS tape and then tucking it inside his overcoat. “Some credit please, brother.”
Gabriel grumbled something under his breath as my gaze shifted to the store clerk. He was sitting contently in a chair behind the cash register with a book in his hands, fanning the pages with his thumb. He was inhaling the scent as though it were a hot apple pie straight out of the oven.
I burst out laughing and Dominic winked at me.
“Why is he doing that, Dominic?” asked Gabriel, eyeing the store clerk, not amused in the slightest.
I wanted to answer him, but the confusion and irritation in his face only made me laugh harder.
I doubled over, holding my belly.
As if on cue, Trace reappeared in front of us. His brows immediately pulled together as he tried to figure out why I was laughing hysterically. “What’s going on? What’s so funny?”
“I have no idea.” Gabriel looked annoyed as the two of them shared a look. “Apparently, it’s an inside joke.”
Trace’s expression fell at his words, and suddenly, it wasn’t so funny anymore.
27. UP IN THE AIR
We drove into downtown Hawthorne shortly after wiping the convenience store clean of any evidence that we’d been there. It never really made sense to me before, the whole slay team thing, though seeing how smoothly we operated as a group—albeit a dysfunctional one—put a lot of things into perspective for me. Things that hadn’t really made sense to me before suddenly seemed to fit.
Club Haven, a swanky spot on the nicer side of town, was the place the sisters were last followed to by Dominic’s nameless contact. The place looked new and expensive from the outside, proudly boasting there was money behind it, which was exactly the kind of lure the sisters chased after.
Trace hadn’t said anything on the way over here, which pretty much brought us right back to square one. I would try to ease his worries once we got back home, but for now, I had to stay focused on what we came here to do.
We crossed the street and walked up to the gray stone two-story club. The place looked closed, though not surprising being that it was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday.
Lucky for us, the door was open so we let ourselves right in.
Red satin drapes cascaded down from the ceiling like sheets of dripping blood. Everything in the club was black, and whatever wasn’t black was close enough to it that you could hardly tell the difference. My eyes immediately found the sisters at the far end of the room. They were sitting around a table with a dark-haired business man. Possibly the owner. He immediately stood up upon noticing the four of us traipsing through his club.
“We’re closed. You’re going to have to come back during business hours.” He glanced down at the sisters and shook his head. “I apologize, the doors should’ve been locked.”
“We’re not here for the refreshments,” said Dominic.
The sisters stood up in unison upon recognizing Dominic.
The man stared back at us confused, his eyebrows pulled into a point. He turned his head slightly to the right and shouted over his shoulder, “Jarrod! Get out here!”
I stepped forward and made myself known to the sisters. “We need to talk.”
Anita, the oldest one, nodded. “Leave us,” she said to the man, tossing her wavy locks of red hair over her shoulder.
“I beg your pardon? This is my—” His protest immediately flatlined as they silently glared at him.
Apparently, he knew better than to second guess the Sisters of Roderick.
“I’ll just be in my office,” he said as some brawny man popped his head out from the back of house. Presumably Jarrod. The owner stalked over to him and then smacked him on the forehead with his palm as he dragged him back to wherever he’d come from.
Anita gestured to the free chair at their table. I walked up cautiously and sat down.
“What can we do for you?” she asked innocently, knowing full well what this was about.
“You know why I’m here.” My eyes met each of them pointedly before returning to Anita, the apparent leader of the pack. “Whatever spell you were trying to cast backfired in a major way. Sanguinarium is bleeding into our Realm and it’s making everything else around it unstable.”
“Yes, we’re quite aware.”
“We need to figure out a way to clean up this mess and we need to do it together.”
“Do we now?” answered Anita, raising her eyebrows like a dare.
“You can’t just leave it like this.”
“I suppose we can’t. But, it’s going to cost you. A lot.”
“That won’t be a problem.” Dominic stepped forward. “Tell her what she wants to know, and I’ll cut you the check.”
“Fair enough.” She waited for my demand.
Bargaining with demons to save the world from a vampire takeover; I was in way over my head. “Look, I just want to know what you did that night and how to fix it.” I wanted this whole mess to be cleaned up and swept out of existence.
“Your guess is as good as ours,” replied Annabelle. She leaned forward on the table and swiped her blond bangs from her eyes. “The spell was supposed to allow Engel, and only Engel to daywalk. But somebody decided to invoke in the middle of it and screw it all up.”
Oh, nice. “Excuse me for thwarting your evil plan,” I shot back sarcastically.
“You’re not excused, and it wasn’t evil.” Her lips pursed into a line. “It was a job.”
“A job that’s costing us innocent human lives!” I could feel my blood begin to boil at her complete lack of regard for what they’d done or the consequences of it.
“Easy, angel.” Dominic placed a calming hand on my shoulder, which immediately eased me.
“You can’t leave it like this. People are dying.”
“We know,” answered Arianna, her sympathetic brown eyes falling heavy on me. “We don’t want it like this either, but we already tried a Takeback spell and it—””
“Ari.” Anita gave her a warning look and Arianna quickly sank back in her chair.
“A Takeback spell?” I tried not to laugh while saying it. It sounded so…elementary.
“I was seven years old when I created it,” defended Annabelle as her haughty eyes quickly dismissed me.
“Congratulations. I could care less.”
Her gaze boomeranged back, eyes reduced to slits. “Yeah? So, what were you doing at seven besides eating glue?”
Gabriel stepped forward, probably deciding to take the ropes before we starting flinging sand in each other’s eyes. “Was there any success with the spell?” he asked Anita.
She shook her head. “There was too much chaos that night, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact moment the spell went off the rails.”
“I can take you back,” offered Trace, stepping forward from the shadows. “I’m a Reaper.”
Annabelle’s eyes glazed over with lust as she took him in. “Mmm. And a fine one at that.”
A slash of jealousy tore through my stomach. “Keep your eyes in your head. He’s taken.”
“So are you,” she retorted, her hazel eyes purposefully flicking to Dominic who was standing just behind me.
I shot up from my chair, my arm pulled back, ready to slap the smirk off her face, but she promptly flicked her wrist down at me, forcing my butt back down to my seat against my will.
“Try that again and you’ll sooner lose your hand,” she warned me.
“Even if you take us back,” continued Anita, “there’s no guarantee the spell will work. At best, it’s a hit or miss. Reversing magic always is.”
“That’s really reassuring.”
“We can always try pulling the Barrier back up,” suggested Arianna. She was twirling a strand of dark hair around her finger.
Annabelle scoffed at her. “And how do you propose to do that without Engel’s blood, little Miss Fix-It-All? She killed him, remember?”
She chewed her bottom lip.
“Do you have an idea?” I asked her, suspecting that she was too afraid to say it with her older sister breathing down her neck. Unfortunately, I knew that feeling.
“Well,” she began carefully, folding her hands in her lap. “If we could find someone that shares the same bloodline as him, we might be able to do it with their blood.”
“You mean, someone he sired?”
“Exactly.”
“Okay…and how do we do that?”
“Good old-fashioned detective work,” said Anita, making it clear she was done helping us. “Who knows, figure it out. If you do, come find us again and we’ll talk money.”
The three of them stood up to leave, bringing our little meeting to an uneventful end.
As soon as Arianna walked by me, I reached out and grabbed her arm. “Wait.” My voice was so low, I wasn’t entirely sure I said it out loud.
She looked back at me with pity. “There is no magic to break a bloodbond,” said Arianna, even though I hadn’t even asked her my question yet. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“There has to be something you could do. I can’t…” I hesitated and then shook my head. Strangely, I felt nervous saying this in front of Dominic, like he might get offended and be angry with me…as if that remotely mattered in the grand scheme of things. “I’m a Slayer, Arianna. I can’t be bonded to a Revenant for the rest of my life.”
Her face contorted with sympathy before her gaze shifted to Trace. “That won’t work either,” she answered his silent thought.
Iniquitous: A Dark Paranormal Romance (The Marked Book 3) Page 19
