Vampire's Shade Discounted Box Set

by Vivienne Neas

  “I need your help,” I said. It wasn’t in my nature to ask for help, to grovel, but everyone had their breaking points.

  “What for?” I’d expected an immediate no. His answer sparked a little hope inside of me.

  “I need to find the masters. I need know how to find them. They’re angry, and at some point I’m going to have to face them.”

  “Well, that can’t be chalked up to failure on your part,” he said, his voice cold and hard. “After all, you did shoot me. I was just lucky enough that I was faster than that bullet.”

  “Connor…” What could I say? ‘Sorry’ didn’t exactly cut it. ‘Oh, my bad, I know I shot you but hey we can put it behind us, right?’ Sure.

  “I’d like for you to leave,” he said and walked past me.

  “Connor, please. I… they have Aspen.”

  I hated to admit my weakness. I hated that I was begging for help. But there was nothing I wouldn’t do for my sister. And if I had to give the upper hand to my mark, well, I would do that.

  “At this point, Adele, I don’t really think I want to help you. I’ve done more than enough to try and show you that you’re above all this. That you’re worth more.”

  And all this time I’d thought he’d intentionally been driving me crazy. A sharp pain shot into my chest.

  “I fell for you,” he admitted. “God knows that was the biggest mistake in the world. Who falls for the girl that’s trying to kill you?”

  “Why did you?” I asked because suddenly I was dying to know what anyone could see in me other than a monster. That’s all that I saw in the mirror anymore. I had that horrible scar and eyes that promised nothing but death, and I dressed it all up in leathers and guns that drove the point home. Literally and figuratively.

  “How can someone like you think anything… good… about me?”

  He chuckled without expression on his face. “I don’t even know the answer to that,” he said and his words stung. “You see, there was a time when I believed that I could see the beauty in you, despite all the ugliness you’re trying to bury it with. I wanted to believe that I could change you, that I could show you what it was like to have something to live for again. Something that would stop you looking over your shoulder, back at your father.”

  I suddenly felt like there wasn’t a single bone in my body. I reached out for the wall to steady myself before I lost my balance.

  “How did you know?” I asked, my voice brittle.

  “Your secrets may not be in the news now, Adele, but they were once upon a time. It didn’t take a lot of digging to get the story. Not that I can even begin to imagine what you’re dealing with, but I told myself that what you were doing was justifiable.”

  “And still you think I’m the monster,” I sneered. I was getting closer and closer to crying, and I had to make a plan to make the tears go away, fast. Being mean was the only way I knew how, even if it meant it hurt me more.

  “I don’t think you’re a monster. At least, I didn’t. But it takes a lot for someone to shoot the man she’s just slept with point blank. I’m not so sure anymore.”

  I took a deep breath and it was shaky. It made me sound weak. I looked weak, and I knew it. And I hated it.

  “Please just help me with Aspen,” I said. “Then you can hate me forever.”

  Connor smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “I’m sorry, princess,” he said, and then he disappeared. I was left alone in the empty house. Clyde padded into the room silently, and mewed.

  “Shut up,” I said and left the house.

  My eyes burned and I tore full throttle down the road. Everything around me faded to a blur and the wind whipped around me, yanking at my emotions. I prayed they would blow away with the speed.

  I made it to the ugly side of town in under five minutes and I was sure there were about six cameras with my plates on it now. But I didn’t care. Joel could squash them for me again.

  Joel.

  My stomach contracted and I felt like I was going to throw up. If he was dead… I didn’t even want to think about it. I was becoming more and more aware that I was completely alone. I had no one left. I wasn’t one of those people who knew a million people with a huge social life. But I did have people, and the ones that I had I held dear.

  And one by one they were being ripped away from me. That was why I was in this filthy neighborhood, where the garbage lay in the streets like a twisted insight to the type of people that lived here. The night was quiet, and there wasn’t a light on in any of the windows I passed. Not even the street lights were on despite the fact that it was going on to eleven.

  I parked in front of the rundown building where Carlos lived. At night it was even worse, the whole place seemed to have sunken in on itself. When I stepped into the lobby it really did feel haunted. Everything was dark, the counter where the doorman should have been a black gaping hole. I hurried through it and towards the passage where I would find Carlos’s door.

  When I reached it I stretched out my hand to knock, but I caught myself. The door wasn’t closed completely. It was slightly ajar. Inside was quiet, no music blaring through like the last time I’d been here.

  “Please, no,” I whispered. If Carlos was dead it would be all my fault.

  “Well, we didn’t expect to see you here,” a voice purred around me. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, and I recognized the echoing quality and the soft, seductive tone. I spun around. She laughed and it danced around me like chimes in the wind.

  Creepy chimes in a horror movie.

  “You’re just a surprise every time, aren’t you?” she spoke again. Her words echoed in a whisper after the spoken sentence had fallen quiet, and my skin crawled. I looked up and down the passage, relying on my other senses because I couldn’t see in the dark, but it was difficult to tell where she was. She was very good at making it sound like she was everywhere at once. If I lived through this I really had to write a book on her kind so that the next vampire slayer wouldn’t get beaten up the way I constantly did.

  “What’s wrong, Celia?” I asked, using her name for the first time. “Too scared to come out and face me? Is that why you’re hiding?”

  She laughed again, and it was laced with malice. I knew she wasn’t scared. There was arrogance in the air, and confidence. If there was fear, it was mine. But I needed her to come out and show herself, because as much as I hated to admit it, I couldn’t find her.

  I stepped back into the lobby. The place gave me the creeps. Celia laughed again, and this time it came from one place. The dark area where the counter was. Well, that made sense.

  When I took a step closer, I saw her. Only a dark shape, crouching on the counter, but her eyes glowed green, giving her away. I reached behind my back to pull my gun, but she launched for me and she was quicker than I was. She managed to knock me to the ground even with my attempt to duck. I hit the ground and for a moment I couldn’t breathe. I lifted up my arms and gasped for breath.

  “You shouldn’t challenge me if you’re not ready to face me,” Celia said, and her voice was sweet and sultry.

  “Oh, I’m ready,” I said, pushing myself up. I was more than fed up with this woman. I’d taken out my gun, the S&W and I held it tight, my fingers curling around the butt of it like it was a lifeline. She was quick, but if I could get this one fired at her, she wouldn’t live to laugh about it. I took aim at her, the dark shadow with the gleaming eyes, and pulled the trigger.

  A shot rang and the plaster splintered. A big gash in the wooden wall showed me where the bullet had hit. And she laughed again. Dammit.

  “Don’t bring a sword to a gun fight,” she chanted, and her words danced around me.

  “Isn’t it the other way round?” I asked. I was the one with the gun.

  “Well, yes. But it doesn’t matter, really.”

  She kicked me on the jaw out of nowhere and I saw stars. The gun fell and bounced away, I heard the dull thud in the darkness. As long as she didn�
��t find it, I would be alright. The world tilted and my head hit the floor. I lay on the ground, trying to find my bearings. The carpet was rough and gritty under my cheek. When I tried to get up, my head spun and I felt nauseous. That was going to be a concussion.

  She waited for me to pull myself together and get back up before she struck again. I was ready for her this time, and I got in a blow. I imagined I’d given her a bloody nose, at least, but I wasn’t sure. I unsheathed the knife at my thigh, and held the blade away from me. A shadow moved in the corner of my eye and I slashed without thinking.

  I cut something. She screamed with an unearthly howl and my blade had blood on it. Where I got her, I didn’t know.

  “You have to stop doing that,” she sneered. I knew she was hurting. I could hear it in her voice. There were very few supernatural creatures that could withstand silver. I had a mild reaction to it, like an allergy, but I had it the easiest because I was a half breed with vampire blood. I didn’t have the ability to change into a monster like most were creatures – which included her – so silver wasn’t that big a deal.

  I reached behind my back for my SIG. I wanted to kill the bitch.

  Her next attack was slower, and I knew I’d cut her somewhere it mattered, but she was faster than my gun and she got it out of my hand too. She still put up a damn good fight, and she came in with claws, ready to scratch my eyes out.

  I was just as eager to get to hers. I punched her in the face. She managed to scratch me down the throat but I already had a scar there and it wasn’t going to slow me down. I managed to elbow her in the gut and she doubled over, gasping for breath. I jammed my knee up to hit her in the face but she’d already recovered and straightened out. She knocked me, hard, and I lost my grip on the knife. It clattered into the dark. I still had the Glock on me, but she wasn’t giving me time to draw it. She snatched out her arm faster than I’d ever seen before, and grabbed my hair, yanking it. Hard.

  I pain shot into my head and I bent over backwards, the force pushing me off balance. I fell to the floor. She didn’t let up. She kicked me while I was down, in the ribs, in the stomach, two kicks to the head. I couldn’t think about moving anymore. I curled into a ball, and let it rain on me. There was nothing else to do but hope I survived.

  After what felt like forever it finally stopped. I lay there, curled in a ball, for a long time. I guessed she was gone, but I didn’t know. I was struggling to think. Every bone in my body ached, and I knew from experience I would have more than a couple of bruises. I was sure I was bleeding somewhere, too. I could feel it drain out of me, taking my energy, my strength, along with it.

  I heard footsteps. I didn’t have the energy for more. So I closed my eyes and let the darkness surround me. If it called me home, I would go.

  I woke up in a blue room. The covers over me were heavy, and when I moved to get them off me I groaned. Everything hurt. It felt like I’d been dragged for miles. I couldn’t open my one eye all the way, I figured it would be black then, too. I did a quick inventory. Nothing broken. I could deal with that.

  “You’re up,” someone said at the door, and when I looked Carlos stood there, leaning against the door post with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “What time is it?” I asked. Carlos frowned but looked at his wristwatch.

  “Eight,” he said.

  “Tuesday?” I asked. My worst fear was having lost days. I couldn’t afford that. But Carlos nodded.

  “You took quite a beating,” he said.

  “She was here,” I answered and swallowed. Talking hurt.

  “I tried to tell you not to come. The masters were checking me out.”

  “Am I going to get you in trouble?” I asked. I didn’t know if I had what it took to have more blame shifted onto me.

  “I think it will be okay. I’m pretty sure they think you’re dead. I thought you were dead when I found you.”

  I pushed myself up and groaned.

  “You really shouldn’t be up,” he said. “You can stay at least until you can move.”

  “I can move,” I said and it took everything for me to get myself out of the bed. “I have a training session at nine.”

  “I don’t think that’s wise,” he said.

  “And yet, you’re working for vampires and I’m killing people.” He shut up because it was true. Neither of us was very clever if that was what we’d chosen to do with our lives.

  “I owe you money,” I said.

  Carlos shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. You got assaulted in my building. I think we can wait with that.”

  I nodded and regretted it. My head thumped painfully. I tried to stretch myself out. Everything ached. My ribs were badly bruised, I could feel it when I moved, and there was something wrong with my wrist. I couldn’t move my hand without it hurting.

  “Maybe I’ll take it slow on the hand-to-hand combat today,” I said to Carlos. He just shook his head.

  It took me a full hour to make my way to the Academy. Sensei was waiting for me. When he saw me he pulled up his eyebrows. He walked to me and put his hands on my shoulders, looking at me with a lot of worry on his face. I was pretty sure I looked like hell. I could feel it.

  “Want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

  I lowered myself to the ground, slipping out from underneath his hands, and managed to lie down. He stood over me like a towering sentry. I winced, moving around until I lay down on my back and nothing hurt when I didn’t move.

  “Not really,” I answered.

  “Let me rephrase. Tell me what’s going on.” He sat down next to me, watching, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And then I told him. I told him about my job. I told him about Jennifer and her strange request, and my ridiculous act of kindness where I saved the vampire I should just have killed in the first place. I told him about Ruben, the man who had been so arrogant I couldn’t stand him, and now that he was gone he was the guy I missed. The masters of the city, Celia, Connor.

  Aspen and Joel were lost to me, I was sure of it, and I might have dragged more people into it by going to Carlos, and promising Carl he could have a hand in what was going on. I didn’t even want to think of Sonya.

  When I finished, there was a moment of silence. Sensei just looked at me, and I wondered if he hated me now.

  “You’ve been training to fight supernatural creatures all this time?” he asked. I nodded as well as I could managed, which wasn’t very well at all.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Would you have believed me?”

  He was silent, thinking about it. I expected a no.

  “I would have trained you differently,” he finally said. “I don’t think you should train today though.”

  I chuckled and a sharp pain shot into my chest. I groaned. “I didn’t really come here to train.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  I sighed, a lump rising in my throat out of nowhere. “You’re all I have left.” My voice as thick and my throat felt tight, like I was having an allergic reaction. Yeah, allergic. To emotions. That’s what I was. “Aspen and Joel might as well be dead by now. I don’t even know anymore. I’ve lost Ruben and Zelda, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Sonya and Carlos turn up dead too. I just can’t…” I took a deep breath and blew it out with again. “I just can’t save everyone.”

  I blinked furiously, trying to get the tears that were stinging my eyes to go away.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Sensei’s voice was soft and calm, and when I turned my head to look at him he wasn’t staring at me with dagger eyes or closed off and resigned from me forever. In fact, I couldn’t read any kind of emotion at all.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Why do you do it?”

  “Kill vampires?”

  He nodded.

  “Because I have to make sure she’s safe. My father… I can’t do it all again.”

  Sensei was quiet agai
n. I’d only touched on the topic of my father. There was no way I was going to be able to talk about that in detail without having a full scale meltdown. Not now.

  “You need help,” he finally said.

  “Yeah, thanks for that,” I snapped. I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down. It was hard to be angry and aggressive with so many injuries. “You’re probably right though.”

  He chuckled. “I didn’t mean professionally, although I don’t think you’ve been handling it quite the way you should have… but I meant that you need people that back you up so you can end this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean you have friends that are willing to help you. So let them.”

  I pushed myself up and wiped my good eye with the back of my hand.

  “I can’t let more people sacrifice their lives for me. I’ve lost too many already.”

  “Have you asked them?” he asked. “Maybe they want to do this for you.”

  I shook my head, and Sensei got up and stood in front of me. He looked tall, from where I sat on the floor.

  “I know I would,” he said, and smiled.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Some things are worth fighting for.”

  It was the second time in two days that someone had mentioned my worth. It was a difficult pill to swallow. Since the accident I’d figured myself to be worthless. It was easy to flirt with death when you were disposable.

  “Come on,” Sensei said and held out his hand to help me up.

  “Where are we going?”

  “You need real medication.”

  Chapter 18

  By the time I had painkillers in my system I started to feel like I wasn’t on the brink of death anymore. My eye was still swollen and the lopsided vision annoyed me, but my head didn’t throb so much and the hopeless pool of despair I’d been set on drowning myself in had somehow drained.

  It still hurt to move, something horrible ached in my ribs, almost like they were broken, but I knew out of experience that that was much worse.