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This is a work of fiction. Likenesses to any people, living or dead, is purely coincidental. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please do so through your retailer’s “lend” function. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected]
Queen of the Night Time World, Kristen Strassel Copyright 2017
Cover Design by Hang Le, Graphic Design by Daoyi Liu
Queen of the Night Time World
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Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Afterlife (A few weeks later)
Thank you!
Because the Night
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Chapter One
The only light on Las Vegas Boulevard was a fire that didn’t belong to me. Like the entire city mourned Rainey’s disappearance. And they should. She took everything worth living for—sunshine, hope, and those glittery fishnet stockings—with her.
I’d been warned countless times this day would come. Mostly by Rainey herself, as well as the mysterious angel named Gabriel who whisked her away, tucking her into an untouchable place until her next assignment. It didn’t matter what they’d told me, or how many times they said it, I wasn’t prepared. I refused to believe I could actually lose her. I selfishly insisted she needed me as much as I needed her.
“Holly.” The voice of the vampire who’d taken everything else from me—my powers and my father—stopped me dead in my tracks.
Rachel.
She dressed for battle in black leather, with her hair pulled back into a ponytail. Flames flickered on her fully made up face. She wasn’t only surviving the darkness, she was making it her bitch. “I know where she is.”
I fell to my knees, gravel scraping my bare skin. My skimpy dress did me no favors, and neither would Rachel. I wouldn’t beg her for information. I got up, rubbing my skin to dislodge the rocks that had embedded themselves in my skin, not expecting for my fingers to come away bloody.
The embers from the fire glowed red, and for a moment, I pretended they belonged to me. I had no idea how long I’d gone without. Rachel licked her lips at the sight of my blood, and I wasn’t sure how long she’d gone without, either.
“Can I taste it?” she asked, her voice weak, gaze frozen on my bloody fingers.
It wasn’t like Rachel to ask for what she wanted; stealing was more her style. I cradled my hand against my chest. “Will you bring me to her?”
“It’s not that easy.” Typical Rachel, refusing to tell me how to solve a problem. “Gabriel’s put her to work, and it’s a battle she can’t afford to lose.”
“You sound just like her, trying to give me the prophecy in some sort of riddle. Look around you.” I held my bloody hand up to the dark sky. “This is the battle she lost. We need her light.”
“Actually, we need the darkness to be stronger than the light. Then we can all thrive.” Rachel took a step closer to me. She worked alone, as far as I could tell. It was the first time it had been only her and me. We were family, sort of. My father made her a vampire and then tossed her aside when she no longer suited his needs. Even though he didn’t waste a second of his time training her, she shared many of his most lurid desires: chaos, destruction, and most importantly—domination. She managed to put a woman’s touch on it. It was no big surprise she had a hand in his demise.
I wondered if she figured out how to succeed on her own yet or if screwing up ran in the family.
I always said without Rainey in my life, I’d be all dark side, all the time. I was only half-vampire, and it wasn’t enough to defeat Gabriel’s light. Rainey’s goodness completed me. She gave me the desire to wake up every morning to see the sunshine on her face. Now all I had was my half-sister with whom I shared a healthy dose of hatred and a city on the verge of implosion.
“Can I get her back?”
Rachel nodded. “We need to collect all the energy we can. It’s the only way we’ll be strong enough to get into her Realm.”
“Realm?” When Rainey warned me Gabriel would give her a new assignment, I tried to prepare myself that it might not be in Las Vegas. But I never imagined he’d take her some place that I couldn’t get to her. The emptiness was too great for her to be nearby.
I offered my hand to Rachel. There was no good reason to waste the blood, especially in an energy shortage she helped create. I had no interest in seeing if a hungry Rachel could make things worse. And even less if helping her meant I might get Rainey back. No good deed went unnoticed and all that. She licked my skin clean, groaning and sighing like it was the best meal she had in far too long. I wouldn’t let it freak me out.
Her lipstick and my blood smeared her cheek. “The darkness isn’t everywhere,” she said. With the strength I gave her, the sarcasm was back. “But we’re trapped in it.”
I LAY ON THE FLOOR of my dressing room at Sin City Vampire Club. I hadn’t slept; I travelled. I had Rachel to thank for that snapshot into the future. Before she stole my powers from me, I always travelled back in time. It used to seem dangerous, but that was quaint now. As long as I left everything untouched, I could return to the present unscathed.
When my travelling powers returned, they weren’t the same. My most recent trips were to a Hellscape that was the future. But there were no postcards I could send as souvenirs, nothing to rely on but my own fuzzy recollection of the trip. And I almost always travelled alone.
The first few times I visited the future, it scared the shit out of me. That Las Vegas wasn’t one that would be put on any travel website. In the future, there was an energy shortage; vampires had sucked the city dry. But after my latest trip, I was tempted to send Rachel a thank you card. I usually didn’t understand premonitions until it was too late, and that was how I lost Rainey. I didn’t think I needed to fight, because I didn’t believe I’d actually lose her. Rachel gave me the blueprint for how to get her back.
I convinced myself my future travels were much like Rainey’s visions—since they hadn’t happened yet, they we
re simply prophecies. It was fair warning, and I had a chance to change it.
Even be so bold as to hope it wouldn’t happen.
Earlier that night, I’d fully ignited as part of my new show, The Afterlife. It was a partnership with Tristan Trevosier and the remaining members of Soul Divider. The show excited me for many reasons, and the most important one was that I got to call my own shots. No manager, no lawyer, and according to many, no common sense.
Whatever. I’d rather fail on my own terms than have someone set me up to do it and take ten percent of my paycheck.
And if Rainey was really gone, I failed. A guardian angel sent her to me, only to be taken away under one of two conditions—when the threat of darkness had been eradicated or I’d been deemed a lost cause. No big surprise that the latter won.
Darkness was everywhere. And I didn’t want this. Neither did Rainey. Gabriel’s plan didn’t allow for anyone’s opinion but his own. Not cool. If he expected her to serve, it was in his best interest for her to be happy. If she wasn’t, she’d walk. She proved that before, but it never felt permanent. Until now.
Vampires had no boundaries, and I’d been dragged on stage for an encore at the end of the show. My new coworkers didn’t understand that it took time for me to recover from igniting. The flames rose from a place deep inside, and my charred skin needed to heal. My defenses were weakest after I burned. The screams and the emotions of those who got too close still echoed in my head.
Rainey’s purse sat in front of my mirror. I dug inside, terrified, but encouraged that it was still here. She wouldn’t leave it behind if she had a choice. I pulled her phone out. Her screensaver was a picture of us, but our faces were covered by notifications.
Opening night meant there were dozens of messages. She set up her phone to get alerts every time I was mentioned online. Words like lukewarm and unexpected flashed as I scrolled through, looking for some clue of where the hell she was.
Bad reviews usually crushed me, but these I deserved. I’d been distracted. Every second I performed, Rainey got further away. I couldn’t waste any more time. I threw the strap of her purse over my shoulder, grabbed my bag, and headed out of the dressing room.
The hallways of Sin City Vampire Club were dark but for the auxiliary lights. After midnight was the sweet spot for vampires, when they fulfilled their deepest, darkest desires. Angels operated on a completely different schedule, as far as I knew, they kept their secrets tucked under their wing. A quick sweep of the dressing rooms confirmed I was the only performer left in the theater.
“Hey, doll.” Lennon practically gave me a heart attack when she rounded the corner. It wasn’t only that I was staring at my own face; the perfectly made up, pre-fire version of it—she looked exactly the same as she did before the show started. Only my whole world had changed in the span of a performance. No one else’s. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Are you coming to the party?” she asked.
Last time I went to an afterparty for The Afterlife, I’d been escorted out by security. Before Lennon mentioned it, tonight’s invite mysteriously got lost in the mail.
“Is Rainey there?” It was worth a shot.
Lennon squinted in confusion. “She’s not with you?”
“I have her purse, and...” Everything else was a conspiracy theory and a figment of my imagination. Lennon knew I could time travel, but she didn’t understand it. She was the only person who’d have the unbiased information I needed.
“We need to get out of here.” I grabbed her arm without taking the time to explain.
“What’s wrong?” Lennon didn’t try to break free. The click of our heels echoed in the empty hallway as we dashed out of the theater.
“The Mistress is weak, and she’s under attack.” We wouldn’t do her any good if we were destroyed, too.
Chapter Two
“What are you talking about?” Lennon stopped short, not letting go of me. I should’ve been annoyed. She was wasting time. But in the safe bubble of Sin City Vampire Club, everything was still speculation. Rainey could be anywhere. The moment we walked out that door, reality would hit. Rainey was gone.
I let go of Lennon’s arm and leaned against the wall. “Have you time travelled since we were together at the theater?”
“I’ve tried. But all I can do is this.” She appeared at the end of the hall and curved her hands around her mouth to amplify her voice. “I’ve been able to do it for a long time, but the power is getting stronger. I can move faster, but I’m not sure if I’m going forward or backward.”
Interesting. “Did you have to wait for me to catch up to you?”
She shrugged. “It’s hard to tell. It all happens so fast. I’m moving, but nothing else is.” Not bothering with magic again, she walked toward me. “What does this have to do with Rainey or Callie?”
“I...lost my power to travel when Rachel took my fire.” I hadn’t told anyone but Rainey that it was gone. Even though I felt a definite connection to Lennon, I wasn’t sure she felt the same way. If she did, she wasn’t comfortable with it. But I let myself trust her, because I had to. “Once I realized you had some travelling ability, I wanted to work with you, to study how you did it. So I could figure out what I was missing.”
“Did you?”
I nodded. “I always used to go to the past, but ever since we worked together, I’ve gone to the future. I was hoping you did, too, so we could compare notes.”
“I haven’t gone anywhere but the other side of the room.” Lennon was full of untapped potential. Rachel created her, then neglected her. It was a shame. But Rachel learned from the best. It was the same thing Cash, my father, did after he turned her.
“I can go everywhere,” I said. She believed my power because we shared it. “That’s where I first saw you.”
“Holly.” She sighed. Lennon had yet to accept that she was the reincarnation of my mother, and that she hadn’t first met Cash at Embrace, but as her patient at Bethlem Royal Hospital over two hundred years ago.
“Why is it so hard for you to believe you lived before? Think about it. You’re not the same person you were when you were human. That’s not the point. What I’m trying to say is, I had some control over where I went in the past.” I tried to sum it up without scaring the shit out of her. “But in the future, I don’t, because I can’t teleport myself to a specific place. It doesn’t exist yet. I keep going to a wasteland that looks a lot like Las Vegas and I’m not sure how far I’ve gone.”
“Maybe I can help you. I aim for a target,” she said. Which was the same thing I did to get to the past. Her suggestion simplified things, because now I had a target; one with blonde curly hair that smelled like jasmine. “It might not be as easy when it’s not physical.”
“But it is.” I swallowed hard and clutched Rainey’s purse. Her phone dinged with another alert about me. “It’s Rainey.”
Lennon’s red lips parted but she didn’t answer.
“The future is a disaster. Vampires sucked all the energy out of the city. The tourists are gone, nothing works, and it’s dark all the time.” Our shadows were long in the hallway, and we hadn’t seen a soul since leaving the dressing room. I worried how close we were to that reality. “The only thing that stayed constant was Embrace.”
“You went to Embrace on purpose? No, of course not, you said you couldn’t control where you landed.” She shuddered. “I quit my job because it was too dangerous to be there. The vampires were organizing. I was torn whether I should stay and listen, so I could warn the others, or block it out and not risk being labeled a traitor. That’s what I chose.”
She had to know some of it. Lennon worked at Embrace forever, and saw a lot of shady crap. Something serious happened to make her reach her breaking point. I’d seen the results with my own eyes; a breakdown of vampire society as we knew it.
“Are they organizing with Blade?” I asked. He had many goals. Taking out his ex-girlfriend, who happened to be The Mistress of the most powerful vampire clan
in Las Vegas, was the main one. Making evil the new black, he was down with that, too. Blade was starving for respect. Even more than that, he needed to be someone’s everything. I was willing to give him a lot, but none of the things he wanted most.
“No. Rachel is the leader.”
Now it was my turn to be speechless. “But she’s been here with Callie,” I finally managed. Rachel’s boyfriend was in Tristan’s band. My band. For the Embrace contingent to flourish, Callie’s clan would have to be destroyed. Lennon nodded, confirming the conflict of interest.
“What does she want?” I asked. “I just travelled, and she was there. I’m not sure how far in the future it was, but she was willing to help me find Rainey.”
“Rachel’s not evil,” Lennon said, and I wasn’t sure I agreed. “She’s looking for a place she belongs.”
“Aren’t we all?” I was exhausted, igniting and travelling all in one night. These weren’t the type of things I could train for at the gym. It was all mental.
I was half-vampire, half-witch, and in love with two people—one had been sent to me by an angel, and the other aspired to bring Las Vegas to its knees. So looking for a place to belong ran in the family.
Lennon reached for my hand. “Come to the party. It should be pretty chill by this point.”
“I need to find Rainey.” Her phone hadn’t stopped pinging during our conversation. I pulled it out of her purse, scrolling through the notifications, praying that she’d send a message to her own phone. No such luck. The image of the two of us together, laying on the same pillow and laughing in our selfie, was blurry through my unshed tears.
“Do you have any idea where to look?” Lennon asked.
“Not one.” I forced a smile, but the corners of my mouth fought me hard. I didn’t cry. Rainey would hate that. She always thought I was so strong, so brave, and she never realized it was because she was my rock. “When I travelled, Rachel said something about another Realm. But not how far in the future I’d have to go to find it.”
Lennon pulled me into a hug, rocking me back and forth. I had to be careful about touching people and picking up on their energy after I’d ignited, but I needed this. I needed her. Whether or not she was ready to admit that I was right about her reincarnation, she assumed the mom role when I needed it most.
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