Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection
Page 71
“No,” Tuuli said, her voice sharp and cautious in the same breath. “He wants you, and, frankly, I don’t like it one little bit.”
Sade chimed in by saying, “I can ask his ugly ass to leave.”
“You two sure do know how to make something out of nothing,” I said as I tossed the rag down and began to round the bar toward his spot at one of the high tops. He was pretty damn intimidating, but I made sure not to show my fear or feed off Sade’s need for drama.
Vampires, at least the ones here in Relic, could smell fear a mile away. Well, probably way more than a mile, but still. If I even thought of being scared, he’d know. Then again, I had no reason to be frightened other than his size. Vamps enjoyed human blood and wouldn’t touch a mora with a ten-foot-pole due to the elemental blood that flowed through our veins.
Plus, they relished in the idea of warm blood. Mine was far from that.
“You’re right,” he said, his eyes boring into mine as I walked closer to where he sat.
“About what?” I asked, figuring he overheard my sisters talking to me from across the room. Not only could they smell fear, but they could also hear a fucking pin drop from a mile away too.
“I’m not here to be served cold food,” he said with a steely stare. His eyes were a dark brown, almost black, and it made me wonder what color they turned when he was fed.
Then it dawned on me what he said. “Oh great, you can read minds,” I stated. It wasn’t a question.
“Nah, I just felt you calm down with each step you took toward me. No sparkles or mindfucks here,” he said with zero humor in his tone.
“Well, then, what do you want?” I asked, prepared to kick him out if he dared hit on me.
“The Relic.”
3
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Did he really want the bar?
My dad was an amazing man, but his ideas were minimal when he named our little family business. The Relic Pub was the best he could come up with. He thought it was brilliant, and I could only assume it was because the city he chose to raise us in thrived with life. I guess he couldn’t think of a name more suited than the one of the city he loved. In hindsight, it was pretty fitting considering our pub was the most popular hangout for sancti and mortali alike. It didn’t matter that the humans had no clue they were sitting amongst a bunch of freak shows—we were all still getting along, and that was what my father wanted out of the place.
I stopped my laughter and brought my gaze back to the big brute of a vampire. Clearing my throat, I asked, “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. I want The Relic. I’ve been sent here to get it, and I’m not leaving you alone until it’s in my hands.” His expression was stoic, giving nothing away.
“No one is going to own this place but my family, no matter how much they offer,” I said, my face also becoming serious.
“Don’t be dense, little girl,” he snarled. If I thought he was scary before, he was damn straight terrifying when he stood up from his stool and towered over my five-foot-five frame. I could see my reflection in his eyes, feel his breath on my face, and hated the fact that he was trying to intimidate me.
Disgusting.
Poisonous.
Dangerous.
Before he could say another word, I took a deep, fortifying breath and nearly gagged on the vile stench coming from him.
The same smell that came from my stalker the night before.
“You will leave now. You’re no longer welcome here.” My words were seething, anger pouring from every letter. No one would get away with intimidating me on my own turf.
“I told you, I’m not leaving.”
“Veli!” I called for my brother. Even though a vamp this size could totally take us both on, it didn’t hurt to have backup.
That one single name had the mortalis scattering away from our location in the pub. The regulars knew I never called for my brother unless I felt it was absolutely necessary.
“Let’s not make this messy, Kirsi,” the bloodsucker warned.
I gasped at the sound of my name from his lips. He didn’t know me, and I sure as hell didn’t know him. He had no right using my name as if we were friends.
The threat coming from him was real, even though he didn’t come out and say it. With one swift move, I reached up and removed the glasses from my face as if I were removing a protective shield between us.
If he didn’t back the fuck off, every single drop of liquid in his body, every little pore, would solidify into ice. Humans around or not, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull the metaphorical trigger.
“I. Said. Leave.” Instead of tears, my eyes began to produce frost in the corners, a way for me to control my power and only unleash when I felt the absolute necessity to do so. Unfortunately, my powers would only slow a vamp down. Damn bastards were built for cold.
“You heard the lady,” Veli said from behind me, and I felt more than saw my three siblings. The only one missing was Pinja.
Now this motherfucker should’ve been scared. We might be elemental mutts, but together, we were powerful enough to take him down.
Crossing my arms over my chest, I continued to stare him down, allowing my power to swell until it was damn near brimming over. I felt heat bellow from Sade, and a light breeze hit the back of my neck from Tuuli. The fact I could feel their strength meant they were getting more and more pissed by the second.
The next thing I knew, the bastard was reaching for me.
I was ready to freeze his entire arm into a solid block, but Veli moved quicker than I could, breaking my concentration. My brother was fierce as he snatched the wrist of the vampire and yanked it to the side, away from my throat. If he were a normal human, the bones in his wrist would have snapped in half. But vampires were of a sturdy sort, and he merely pulled his hand away from my brother’s grip, hissing like a feral cat.
“Don’t touch me, fucker,” he growled, rearing back and pulling an angry breath between his teeth. I saw my opportunity and concentrated my powers on his feet—more specifically, the soles of his shoes. The moisture in the air coalesced and froze, binding his feet to the floor with ice as thick as oak. When he attempted to lunge at Veli, he was taken by surprise as his shoes resisted his movements and he started falling forward, his balance lost.
I grinned with triumph.
Veli was never one to miss an opening, driving his fist directly into the vampire’s nose. A discernible crunch sounded out as the cartilage snapped and his nose bent sideways, blood the color of night spewing from his nostrils and running down the front of his shirt. He howled in pain, his vampiric endurance not enough to halt the brunt of the damage.
Cringing, I tried to ignore the sight of his blood and the fact that thick drops splattered onto my face. Vampire blood was pure black with a reddish hue along the edges—thick and gooey with coagulation. It was like sludge.
And now it was all over me.
I’d be lucky not to spew my own chunkage all over the place.
“I’m going to—” he tried to bellow out, but Tuuli released a sharp blast of compressed air, knocking the breath directly out of him as it slammed into his chest and stomach. The humans around us began to stir in surprise and confusion, and I was well aware that too much use of our powers would bring unwanted attention.
I had to end this now.
“Tuuli, Sade, don’t—” I was about to whisper to them that we needed to cool it, but before I could finish my sentence, Sade lunged forward, her gloves between her teeth instead of on her hands, and superman-punched the vampire directly in the cheekbone, the air around her fist crackling with heat. The skin around his cheek and eye began to sizzle with a bolt of electricity, and he wailed in agony.
“Curses!” I ran forward, grabbing Sade by the arm and yanking her backward, stopping her from delivering another fiery punch. If she kept this up, the vampire would burst into flames and evaporate into dust right in front of the mortali beginning to gather around to witness the action.
I focused my powers on her hand, letting a light glaze of ice grace her skin. Not enough to actually freeze, but enough to cool her jets. She met my eye and knew instantly what I was trying to tell her.
Relax.
The heat in the air around her dwindled and returned to normal temperatures. I shot a glance at Tuuli, and since she was always the level-headed one, she nodded at me, keeping her eyes from meeting mine directly. She knew it would never end well if she looked me directly in the eye. The three of us were under control.
Veli was a different case.
He was not a hot-tempered man. Rarely did he give a sign of emotion, his existence that of the Void. But when in a fight, he was the closest I had ever seen him to being alive since we came of age—the turning point in all our lives.
He decked the vampire in his burning cheek, inflicting even more damage to the open wound. The vile creature covered it with his hand, trying to protect the injury, but Veli redirected his attention and delivered a straight punch to his diaphragm, the force of the hit enough to shatter the ice holding the vampire in place and send him sprawling backward into the table he had been occupying before. Thankfully, he hadn’t ordered anything, so nothing was broken as he landed flat on the surface of the table.
Veli moved to jump on top of the vampire, but the beast quickly raised his free hand and pleaded, “Enough! That’s enough!”
My brother lacked the emotion to care what the vampire wanted. We all knew it wouldn’t take much for him to snap the motherfucker’s neck and let Sade set fire to his corpse. But Veli still had a brain, and he was well aware of how many mortali were turning their heads to watch the action.
Thankfully, Sade went unnoticed when she melted the ice I’d created on the floor, a tipped-over cup making it look like a spilled drink.
All it took was one more extremely fierce look from Veli for the vampire to give in.
“I’ll leave now,” he said, stating the obvious. As soon as he righted himself, adjusting the lapels of his jacket, he looked over at the four of us and added, “But this isn’t the end. I will be back. That is a promise.” I knew his resignation was a bit too easy, and I could also tell he would keep true to his promise.
He spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, and the fear on the faces of all the mortali and sancti alike sent chills down my spine—yes, the frosty freak could feel the chill of fear just as naturally as anyone else. The human side of me was something I could never escape.
His threat was something that would continue to haunt me until death—whether it was his or mine was still to be determined.
4
“Sorry for all the drama, everyone,” Sade yelled with her hands up in the air, her gloves back in place to protect everyone around her. “Come up to the bar for a round on me.”
She walked away, her hips swaying so all the attention was put on her and her more-than-generous offer. Yeah, the bar could eat the cost of a few drinks if it meant our patrons weren’t too scared to set foot in here again.
“You need to go clean up,” Tuuli whispered in my ear. I was more than thankful for her control. If she didn’t have a handle on her emotions, all hell would break loose in my bar—our bar. The pressure change alone from her powers would cause every piece of glass to shatter if we weren’t careful.
Without another word, I very quickly made my way to the employee bathroom to examine myself in the mirror. My glasses were still in my hand as I stared at my reflection. Frost began to collect on the edges of the mirror, and I knew I had to hurry before I lost all control and turned the whole place into an ice block.
Black ooze, a sorry excuse for vampire blood, was splattered across my face, coming incredibly close to my mouth. The smell of it alone was vomit-inducing.
To test my stomach of steel, I went ahead with cleaning the shit off my face by myself. Asking for help was not a skill I possessed. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned on the faucet, keeping them closed so I’d actually have liquid to work with. I’d have to be quick. Even though my powers were concentrated by sight, my skin was still frigid to the touch. It never took long for lukewarm water to chill once I made contact.
Needless to say, swimming was a bitch.
I used my sense of touch to turn the hot water on. Starting with scalding water was best for me and made it so much easier for the nasty vamp goo to get the hell off my skin.
I practically burnt my fingers as I put them under the stream and splashed my face. It brought back memories of wintertime as a kid, when my toes would be so cold from the New York snow and I’d get in the hot shower to warm up. The uncomfortable, tingling feeling didn’t last nearly as long now, but it was still there.
Being raised in the city of Relic, New York on Lake Ontario, got me used to the cold, especially during winter. I didn’t understand why winter was my favorite season until my coming-of-age, which we all referred to as The Shift in our lives. In all honesty, the word shift didn’t come close to how much that day had altered us, but we’d tried hard not to dwell on it. So, using a basic phrase seemed to be the easiest way to cope.
It took way longer than I’d hoped to get the thick black stuff off my face, and I nearly screwed up as I watched the shit go down the drain, the possibility of it freezing in the bowl of the sink increasing by the second. Without any more hesitation, I put my glasses back on my face. What seemed like a burden to most people was an essential part of me—my protection. I had to have them in place in order to keep control of myself and the power that plagued me.
Several hours later, the pub dying down as we neared closing time, I called a meeting with my siblings, Pinja included. I felt bad that she had to come in on her day off, but she really needed to be in on this and make herself aware of the danger that had been plaguing me for a few weeks now.
For the most part, my family stayed in the shadows of the sancti. We ran our bar and kept out of the way. But on occasion, a threat would bring us into the mix, whether we liked it or not, and our powers were necessary to eliminate said threat. Usually, we chose to steer clear of any issues between one paranormal and another, except for when it involved the mortali population. If humans were involved or at risk of seeing us for who we really were, we felt a primal obligation to dip our toes into the mess.
This time was different. The threat was directed at me. That was something we couldn’t ignore, nor was it something that had ever happened before.
All five of us sat around one of the tables near the main entrance, one patron still drinking at the bar. We still had a half hour until closing time, so kicking the tiny fae man out wouldn’t bode well for our business. Most mortali wouldn’t have even known he was there, sipping on his tiny Grey Goose Vodka like it was going out of style.
“Okay, I know how stupid this sounds, but someone is after me,” I said bluntly, knowing they’d take me seriously if I didn’t beat around the bush.
“Me too,” Sade chimed in.
“Me too,” the others said in unison.
“You mean to tell me someone’s been stalking all of us for the past few weeks and we’re just now talking about it?” I questioned.
Pinja shrugged. “I didn’t want to bother you all about it until I was sure. And I’ve only had issues for the past week… all times when I’m leaving the pub.”
“I’ve only noticed someone after Sade,” Veli said. “But that’s only because she lives here. Otherwise, I would’ve been oblivious too. These bastards are being stealthy, up until today.”
I sighed. I hated that my entire family was plagued with these issues. Why couldn’t we all be normal? Again, I had to remind myself that the n-word wasn’t in our lives… ever… we were never going to be normal.
“Do we know what they’re after? Or who the fuck they are for that matter?” I asked, my hands splayed across the tabletop as I stared all my siblings down, hoping they had answers.
Sade
shrugged. Pinja shook her head. Tuuli just looked down at her fingers knotted together in front of her. And, as always, Veli had a blank expression, the whole conversation boring him—per norm.
“That nasty vampire who approached me tonight said he wanted The Relic, which is the first time any of these bastards voiced what they wanted from me.” I shook my head in dismay. “Initially, I thought he was talking about the bar, which was dumb of me, really, because he clearly looked at me like I was the leading dunce of all idiots.”
“I was there,” Sade said. “He made it sound like it was something he could hold? Am I just dreaming up shit?”
“No, you’re right. He wanted a possession of some kind. But we live in Relic and own a business name Relic. My first assumption was he was off his rocker,” Veli explained, his voice getting louder by the second.
I glanced around just to make sure no one else had walked in and could hear him. We honestly needed to be careful of the little bug in the corner. But fae, especially males, didn’t exactly absorb mortali vocal tones from afar… and considering we were half-human, I figured we were safe. Hopefully.
Just as I was about to tell my brother to quiet down, the door opened and a sancti walked in. I couldn’t quite peg what he was though, which had me jumpy and nervous with the possibility he was here for me.
I swallowed my fear. No Ranta was afraid of a simple sancti looking for a drink. Hell, no Ranta was scared, period. My family was way better than that.
Puffing out my chest like a man exerting his dominance, I got up and rounded the bar to help serve the mystery man.
“Hi there. Just a heads up, we’re closing in about thirty minutes, but what can I help you with in the meantime?” I asked in the sweetest voice I could muster at the moment.
As soon as I spoke, his eyes met mine… blue to blue. His eyes were the same color as mine, the shock of the coincidence causing me to gasp like a teenage fool.
My eyes were such a vibrant blue. I’d never met anyone with the same color in my entire lifetime. Standing in front of me was an exception… an anomaly. Immediately, it made me consider my sanity.