The Assassins of Light

by Britney Jackson

  “We stopped at a gas station,” Rose told her. “Owen needed a bathroom break. Erik wanted pizza. And Kallias wanted to buy beer to take to the hotel.”

  Audrey gave Rose a sleepy smile. “Beer and pizza? Oh, God bless them.”

  Rose laughed. “I’m sorry for waking you. I just wanted to see if you need anything before we go. Do you need to go to the restroom or stretch your legs?”

  Audrey considered the gas station with a grimace. “Do their bathrooms even work? I bet they’re gross. It looks like a place with gross bathrooms.”

  Rose wrinkled her nose. “There isn’t another gas station for miles.”

  Audrey sighed in defeat. She leaned over and opened the back car door, and then, she crawled out of the car, with Rose trailing closely behind. She placed her hands on her lower back and leaned back, stretching, as she wrinkled her nose at the cornfields that surrounded them. “This looks like the kind of gas station you see in horror movies. I feel like I’m going to get eaten by a hillbilly-cannibal.”

  Rose laughed. “Don’t worry,” she said with a playful smile. “I can protect you. I have sharper teeth than your, uh, hillbilly-cannibals.” She flashed her fangs.

  Audrey shivered a little at the sight of those terrifyingly sharp teeth.

  Rose quickly concealed her fangs. “Sorry. Bad joke,” she said sheepishly.

  “No. It’s…” Audrey trailed off, frowning thoughtfully at Rose. “I mean, it’s scary, but at the same time…” A grateful smile pulled at the edges of her lips. “I haven’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Not since I had that dream. I couldn’t. I’ve been so afraid of everything and everyone. But when we were in the car, I slept. I fell asleep on your shoulder. For the first time since I had that dream, I felt safe. I guess, what I’m trying to say is…I’m sorry that I’ve been such a bitch. You’re scary as hell now, but…you’re still the only person I can always count on.”

  Rose smiled. “I would never call you that. Mean and judgmental, maybe.”

  “Ouch,” Audrey complained. “I’d rather you just call me a bitch.”

  Erik stepped out of the gas station, carrying a box of pizza. “Pizza?”

  Audrey looked at him, her eyebrows lifting. “You really know your way to a girl’s heart, don’t you?” she said flirtatiously. Then, with a smile, she stepped forward and opened the box in his hand. She pulled out a slice of greasy pizza.

  Rose wrinkled her nose. “Gas station pizza is the way to a girl’s heart?”

  “Any kind of pizza is the way to my heart,” Audrey corrected. Then, she flashed a flirty smile at Erik and said, “And the way into my pants. Later. Maybe?”

  Erik grinned. “In that case, I’ll buy you as much pizza as you want.”

  Rose looked back and forth between them. “Eww,” she complained.

  —

  After several soft knocks—too soft, actually, almost as if the person were trying not to draw attention to herself—Elise opened the door. “Kara,” she said, smiling, when she saw the tall, leather-clad vampire standing outside her door.

  Kara returned the smile. “Good evening, lovely,” she purred as she slid past Elise, slipping into her room without an invitation. She wandered around the room for a moment before plopping herself in the peach armchair that set near the far wall. She lifted her eyebrows, clearly waiting for Elise to close the door.

  Elise mouthed, “Oh,” as soon as she realized what Kara was waiting for, and quickly closed her door. She sat down on the second bed, her dress sliding up her thighs as she crossed her legs in front of her. “So, what is this about?”

  “I need a favor,” Kara sighed, drumming her fingers over the arm of the chair. When she noticed Elise’s suggestive raised eyebrows, she chuckled, “Not that kind of favor.” Her gaze trailed over the smooth, bare skin of Elise’s thighs. “Even if you are wearing my favorite dress right now.” She flashed a wolfish grin.

  Elise smoothed her hands over the short, red dress, a flirty smile tugging at her lips. “I do look pretty good in it, don’t I?” she giggled. She uncrossed her legs and crossed them again, causing the dress to ride up even further. “When I cross my legs in just the right way, you can almost see the color of my lingerie.”

  Kara raised an eyebrow. “Black,” she said…without even looking.

  Elise giggled again. “Well, if you’re making jokes like this again,” she said, leaning forward curiously, “then, I’m assuming that means…all hope is not lost?”

  Kara’s smile slipped, revealing the worry in her expression. “I don’t know about that,” she sighed, “but what shred of hope I do have—it depends on you.”

  Elise frowned worriedly. “What do you mean? Is something wrong?”

  “Yes,” Kara said honestly. She leaned forward suddenly, her sleek, dark hair falling forward, around her face. Anxiety flashed in her light blue eyes. “Rose is in trouble,” she whispered, almost too quietly for Elise to hear. “Earlier tonight, an Assassin of Light gave me the location of some very important information…”

  Elise nodded. “Did he do this out of his own good heart, or…”

  Kara let out a short, bitter laugh at that. “From what I’ve seen so far, the Assassins of Light don’t have hearts. Anyway, after I finished persuading him, I went to the location he gave me, and I learned some things that…concern me.”

  Elise frowned at the vagueness of that statement. “Things about Rose?”

  “Some of it,” Kara said evasively. “The point is: I need your help. I told Aaron some of what I know—not all of it, but…the part that was important to him, anyway, which is that the Assassins of Light are after Rose. He doesn’t want me to warn her. He wants to use her as bait. So, I promised him that I wouldn’t.”

  Elise nodded in understanding. “You lied,” she assumed.

  “Of course I lied,” Kara said. “I need to get a message to her. Quickly.”

  Elise tucked a stray curl behind her ear. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I just need you to cover for me,” Kara said quietly, her brows creased with worry, “for a few hours. Just enough time for me to send her a warning.”

  “You want me to lie to Aaron?” Elise realized, her blue-gray eyes wide.

  “Please,” Kara breathed. “I can’t let anything happen to her, Elise.”

  Elise straightened, stunned by the soft, pleading sound of Kara’s voice and how unlike Kara it sounded. She nodded. “Okay,” she sighed. “I’ll do it.”

  A relieved smile broke across Kara’s face, and she immediately unfolded herself from the chair, darting forward to kiss Elise on the cheek. “Thank you!”

  Elise fell back on her bed, staring up at the low, pale yellow ceiling of her room, as Kara dashed out the door, out to break the rules, as always. “It’s all right. I just have to lie to a four-thousand-year-old vampire with anger issues. Simple.”

  —

  By the time they checked into their hotel rooms, Rose could almost feel the approaching sunrise—an eerie, instinctual warning crawling beneath her skin.

  “Do you remember that time when we flooded our apartment and had to stay in that cheap motel room for a couple of nights?” Audrey reminded Rose.

  Rose set her bags on the round, wooden table that was wedged in the corner of the hotel room, between the window and the wall, and then, she turned back toward Audrey with a raised eyebrow. “You mean the time you flooded our apartment? I was at the library, tutoring a group of students, when it happened.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Audrey said, waving her hand dismissively. “Let’s not get all technical about it. The point is…we had a blast in that motel room, didn’t we?”

  “You forced me to put on a bathing suit and go swimming,” Rose said.

  “It was fun!” Audrey said. “And remember how we snuck in that kitten?”

  “It was too late at night to take her to a shelter, and the poor thing needed food,” Rose muttered defensively. It was a relief to see Audrey being her usual, ob
noxious, likes-to-embarrass-her-best-friend self, but Rose wasn’t the biggest fan of the being embarrassed part. “That’s the only reason I broke the hotel rules.”

  “We were so rebellious that week,” Audrey said, her golden eyes shining with blissful nostalgia. “That was the week that I convinced you to get a tattoo.”

  Rose laughed, “I needed to study, and you said it would help me focus.”

  “Well, I had to say something nerdy,” Audrey muttered, “if I was ever going to convince you to do something fun.” She sat down on the bed, next to Owen.

  Erik leaned against the dresser. “You have a tattoo?” he asked Rose.

  “It’s on her right shoulder blade,” Owen said. “She keeps it covered.”

  “I’m a modest person,” Rose said defensively. “What’s wrong with that?”

  “It’s boring. That’s what’s wrong with it,” Erik said with a playful grin.

  “Yes! Exactly!” Audrey said, bouncing with delight. “See? He gets it!”

  Rose rolled her eyes at both of them. “People can be as modest or immodest as they want to be. The important thing is that we’re all free to choose.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” Audrey complained, “even your defense is boring!”

  Rose stared blankly at her. “Okay, whose plan was it to put Audrey and Erik in the same room? It’s hard enough to deal with one of them,” she grumbled.

  “I believe it was yours,” Kallias told her with a raised eyebrow. He leaned against the mini-fridge and microwave as he watched them talk. “I mean, you were the one who wanted to come rescue everyone, after all.” He smiled bitterly at her.

  “Oh, stop pretending not to care,” Rose said, rolling her eyes. She tilted her head to the side and flashed a sassy smile at him. “You’re not fooling anyone.”

  Owen glanced around the room. “Are we all staying in this one room?”

  Erik swept his gaze around the small room, scowling at the two full beds, the one, small couch, and the table. “That’d be a little crowded, don’t you think?”

  “Don’t be so prissy,” Rose said dismissively. “It wouldn’t be that bad.”

  “Prissy?” Erik repeated, his voice full of disbelief. “I’m a Viking warrior.”

  Rose just laughed, amused that she’d finally found a way to irk him.

  “I asked for two rooms,” Kallias told them. “This room and the one next to it. We’ll be close, just in case something happens, but we won’t be cramped.”

  “Awesome,” Owen said tiredly, “because I’m up way past my bedtime.”

  “Seriously?” Rose said playfully. “Since when do you go to bed early?”

  Owen frowned at her. “It’s five in the morning, Rose. That’s not early.”

  “Oh, right,” Rose mumbled. “The vampire-thing throws me off a little.”

  “I made sure to get us adjoining rooms,” Kallias said, patting his hand on the door that connected the two hotel rooms, “in case something happens in the middle of the day. We can get to each other without going out into the hallway.”

  Audrey glanced back at the main door. “What’s wrong with the hallway?”

  “Windows,” Erik said. “We can cover the ones in our rooms…to prevent any direct sunlight from hitting us, but we can’t cover the ones out in the hallway.”

  “So, keep the main doors closed during the day,” Kallias warned them.

  “Unless you like the smell of crispy vampire,” Rose added dryly.

  Audrey blinked in shock. “Oh,” she mumbled. “Okay.”

  A sudden knock at the door startled them. They all fell silent and glanced toward the door. There was a brief, heavy pause, and then, four more knocks.

  “I’m starting to hate people who knock,” Audrey whined, “and doors.”

  “It’s a human,” Erik whispered as he noticed the scent of a third human.

  “Do you think it’s one of the Assassins of Light?” Rose asked quietly.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Kallias muttered. He stepped toward the door and placed his hand on the door handle. “Everyone, just…stay back.”

  Kallias hesitantly opened the door.

  They all breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the man at the door. He wore black slacks and a red button-down shirt with the hotel’s logo printed on it. The hotel uniform. The man shook his light brown hair out of his face and smiled.

  “Hello. I hope you’re enjoying your rooms,” the man said to Kallias. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but someone has asked me to deliver a message to you.”

  Every muscle in Kallias’s tall, lean body remained tight, and his shoulders remained stiff. “Who asked you to deliver a message to us?” he asked suspiciously.

  “I’m sorry. No name was left,” the man said. He held out an envelope with a word scrawled sloppily across the front. He peered past Kallias, catching a brief glance of Rose before Kallias stepped to the side, blocking his view again. The man smiled politely at him, even as Kallias pinned him with a murderous glare. “The message is for her,” he explained. “The woman with long, red hair.”

  “You’re not going anywhere near her,” Kallias growled. “Give it to me.”

  Rose approached them, much to Kallias’s dismay. “It’s okay,” Rose told Kallias, as she came to stand beside him. “Just let him give me the message.”

  “He doesn’t work here, Rose,” Kallias said, his eyes narrowing, as he read the man’s mind. “He stole that uniform. He doesn’t even know who hired him.”

  The man frowned, clearly surprised that Kallias knew so much about him. “I never have direct contact with my employer,” he admitted. “I just deliver the messages I’m told to deliver.” He held out an envelope with a word scrawled across the front of it. “This message arrived tonight. Just take it, and I’ll leave.”

  Rose snatched it out of the messenger’s hand before Kallias could stop her. She frowned at the envelope in her hand, her heart pounding in her chest as she read the word written on it. She vaguely noticed the sound of the door slamming and the sound of the locks sliding into place as she stared at that word.

  Sexy

  Daughter of Loki

  “It’s from Kara,” Rose said without even opening it.

  “Kara,” Audrey said under her breath. “Why does that sound familiar?”

  Kallias raised an eyebrow at Rose. “Why would you think it’s from her?”

  Rose held it up, showing them the name that was scrawled across the front of the unsealed envelope. “Because it’s addressed to ‘Sexy,’” she muttered.

  “No offense, Rose,” Audrey said slowly, her eyebrows lifting, “but you’re not really the first person that comes to mind when I hear the word sexy.”

  Rose scowled at her best friend. “Thanks a lot,” she said sarcastically.

  Audrey held up her hands. “I said no offense!” she said defensively.

  “Is there a story behind this nickname?” Owen said, laughing. “Or…”

  Rose lowered the envelope, sighing at the sloppily-written word on the front. “Kara Unnarsdóttir. From the Tomb of Blood. It’s just what she calls me.”

  Owen’s eyes widened in shock. “The Kara Unnarsdóttir?” he sputtered. “As in…the Viking vampire? The second-in-command to Aaron? That Kara?”

  Erik scowled at Owen. “Is there anyone you don’t know about?”

  “She’s in their books, too!” Owen said. “Yeah, she has an entire chapter devoted just to her! They say she’s one of the most dangerous vampires out there!”

  “Yeah,” Kallias said, his eyes narrowed. “That would be the same Kara.”

  “Rose,” Owen said with a worried frown, “Kara Unnarsdóttir is evil.”

  “You don’t know her,” Rose said, shaking her head. “She’s not evil.”

  “That’s questionable,” Kallias muttered under his breath.

  “She’s responsible for hundreds—maybe even thousands—of murders,” Owen tried to explain. “The Assassins of
Light have records of her helping the telepathic vampire Alana all throughout history. They massacred entire villages together. She’s also the one who tracked down the original Assassins of Light. She led Aaron straight to them and helped him murder every last one of them.”

  “Do you understand how telepathy works?” Erik asked harshly, his eyes narrowing at Owen. “She never wanted to kill those people. Alana forced her to.”

  “Alana is a bit of sensitive topic right now,” Kallias told Owen. He offered him a forced, almost-threatening smile. “Let’s try not to bring her up again.”

  Owen swallowed uneasily. “Oh. Um…okay,” he said nervously.

  “Believe it or not, I actually agree that Kara and Aaron shouldn’t have wiped out the first order of Assassins,” Rose said. “I think it only made a bad situation worse. But the past is the past. I don’t judge Kara based on what she did hundreds or thousands of years ago. I judge her based on who she is now.”

  “Who she is now,” Kallias repeated, turning toward her with a mocking smile. “You mean a liar? A thief? A spy? Aaron’s personal assassin? A whore?”

  “Stop!” Rose growled. That terrifying, crimson haze overtook her eyes in an instant, and the paintings rattled against the hotel walls from the volatile force of her power. She turned toward him, squeezing her hands into fists, unintentionally wrinkling the envelope. “You’re allowed to be angry with me, Kallias, for what I let happen between Kara and me. You want to yell at me and call me names? Okay. Maybe I deserve that. But I won’t let you call her names.”

  “I feel like I missed something,” Owen muttered under his breath.

  Audrey scooted back, toward the headboard of the bed, drawing her legs up toward her. “Rose? Your eyes are red. It scares me when you’re like this.”

  Rose looked at her, and her terrifying, red eyes flashed with visible pain.

  Kallias just stared at her, as if he couldn’t believe that a mere insult had brought out this side of her. “You care about her an awful lot,” he muttered.