Monsters, Book One: The Good, The Bad, The Cursed

by Heather Killough-Walden

  It was a two bedroom one bath, with a balcony, and a bar between the kitchen and living room. Standard. But rather than being gutted for renovations, the older touches from yesteryear were maintained as much as possible.

  Some were from when it had been a cannery, such as the hooks and exposed brickwork in the ceiling of her bedroom and part of her living room. And some were from when the building had been transformed into a hotel in the sixties. Angel loved that. The outside hall where she currently stood, along with the entryway and living room of her apartment really did remind her of The Overlook. Mostly they were reminiscent of the hotel’s smoke-filled “Gold Room,” with its flapper-style touches of soft chandelier lighting, dark detailed carpets, and intricately carved crown moulding.

  She was a film buff, and The Shining was one of her favorites. Movies in general were her escape from a life that had managed to disappoint her in two different realms – that of the natural, and that of the supernatural.

  Well, until today, that was.

  Angel felt a twinge of soreness between her legs. She had a feeling she was going to be sore for quite some time. And that thought would have made her smile except that at the moment, the eerie aspect of the apartment building’s appearance was only adding to her unease.

  The door to her apartment felt like a barrier, a thin veil separating her from something truly unpleasant, as if she was actually standing before a door marked #237.

  Damn, Angel. Enough. You need to focus.

  She took a deep breath and readied her weapon, adjusting her grip. Then she turned the key in the door knob and stepped to the side behind the wall before she gently kicked it open. She waited behind the wall and listened. There was no sound coming from inside the apartment. She crouched down low and leaned over to chance a peek. But the only thing she could see from this angle was the short entryway and a tiny sliver of the carpet and tile from the living room and kitchen. Everything was still quiet.

  Something burned at her nose. She inhaled slowly, and realized it smelled like metal. Iron, specifically.

  Blood.

  Oh no…. She straightened, coming slowly to her feet before she bumped the door the rest of the way open and carefully entered her apartment. Little by little, her eyes widened with more horror and shock. Her stomach twisted into a terrible, sickening knot. The world was going red. It was deeper and more plentiful with every step she took into her home.

  Blood splatters stained the art deco walls and pooled in puddles along the carpet. When she rounded the corner of the entry hall and faced the living room, she at last knew why.

  Hanging from exposed beams in her ceiling were three chains that had been hung to make use of remaining hooks from the building’s cannery days. The ends of those three chains had been wrapped around the three bodies of the Vega clan’s assassins.

  Ares Knight, Seth Hudson, and Mason Daniels.

  She couldn’t tell if they were dead or not, but blood had pooled thick and deep beneath each of their bodies. They were covered with so much of it, she couldn’t tell where exactly their injuries were.

  Angel felt instant nausea well in her stomach and climb her throat. She couldn’t help bending at the waist in response, but with great effort, she expertly quelled her sickened reaction and straightened once more.

  She peered around the apartment, her gun up and ready. The hallway leading from the living room was dark; the lights had been shattered.

  Angel double-checked behind her, then backed up to the wall, her heart racing so fast she was half afraid she’d have a heart attack before facing whatever evil had done this. But she kept her gun trained on the hallway, figuring the killer probably wouldn’t have bothered with the lights if he hadn’t planned on hiding there.

  She was right. The killer stepped out with the absolute calm of an utter psychopath.

  But what she hadn’t expected, not in a million years… was that the killer would be Dmitri Voronin.

  “No….” Her voice was too soft, too filled with disbelief, too close to the dizzy weakness that accompanied absolute shock. She had to be dreaming. This didn’t make any sense. Maybe… maybe she was still in Jake’s arms. She was asleep and imagining all of this.

  Dream or not, she pulled her trigger, thankful beyond measure that she’d taken the trouble of loading the gun with special bullets. They were meant to slow down vampires, but would work to some extent on Apex as well.

  As ever, her aim was spot-on. But also as ever, Dmitri was faster than her. He was even faster than her bullets.

  His tall, beautiful form was standing in front of her one tiny fraction of a second, and gone the next. In the living room wall behind where he’d just been, four bullet-sized holes appeared.

  “It’s a good thing the apartment next to yours is empty, isn’t it little one?”

  Angel spun, thinking fast. He was right – in one direction, there was no one who could accidentally catch friendly fire. But in the other, there was. She instinctively lowered her weapon. Rather than use the gun this time, she shoved it into the holster at her back at the same time that she broke into a hard run for the hall that was now clear.

  In the closet down that hall was a scimitar, one of many weapons she’d learned to use over the years as a warden. It was particularly useful for beheading vampires.

  She’d almost made it to the hall door when the door itself was ripped from its hinges by an invisible force and tossed down the hall toward her. She ducked, dropping to her stomach just in time to keep from catching a face full of wood as the door sailed over her head and slammed into one of the men hanging from the chains in the living room.

  Her nausea was back, and accompanying it was the sound of laughter, low and wicked. As she pushed herself up from the blood-stained carpet, Angel hastily spoke the words to a spell. The first one that came to her mind was a transport.

  But she’d only muttered two words when the now-open closet was molested once more, the unseen force now withdrawing the very same blade she’d been so determined to go after. It emerged from the small room, floating into the hallway blade-down. But as she watched, it began to spin end-over-end, and Angel knew there was no way she could avoid it in the hall.

  She shoved herself off the nearest wall for momentum, pulled her gun from its holster once more, and dropped into a roll in the living room as the scimitar sailed past her. When she was behind it, she raised her gun, took calculated aim, and pulled the trigger several times consecutively.

  The sound of bullets striking metal was followed by the sound of metal embedding itself firmly in something solid. Angel got to her feet, her gaze trained warily on the deeply buried sword sticking out of her stainless steel refrigerator.

  “This brings back memories. But it’s somewhat anticlimactic knowing you will successfully avoid everything I throw at you. And of course I know you will, Angel. I watched you fifteen years ago. And I’ve been watching you ever since.”

  No. Angel swallowed hard. Gods, no. She closed her eyes and tried to quell the frantic beating of her heart. Dmitri’s words were impossible. All this time…. But even worse was that his voice had come this time from directly behind her. No more than a foot away.

  Very slowly, she lowered her weapon and turned around. And there he was. As tall, as beautiful, and as terrifying as ever. Dmitri had once been a king of sorts, long, long ago. And even now, dressed in expensive dark slacks and a long-sleeved gray shirt and black vest, he looked every bit the royalty she knew he’d at one time been.

  His brown hair was thick and looked soft to the touch, cut so that it appeared effortlessly perfect. Strong chin, broad shoulders, narrow waist, impossible grace. And she could smell him now as he drew closer. She remembered that scent. He wore fine, expensive cologne and the indescribable aroma of night. His electric blue eyes were shot through with so much innate power, they were as starkly vibrant as shattered sapphires. They gazed at her with unseemly depth that felt far too much like compassion.

  She wa
sn’t dreaming after all. She couldn’t be. This hurt too much, it was entirely too real.

  “You survived,” she said numbly. Her voice was as soft as it had been on that fateful night. The room around her threatened to go dark. She was overwhelmed by what she was seeing, hearing, smelling – feeling.

  “Shhhh,” he urged gently, his deep voice painfully beautiful. “Easy, now.” She felt fingers of his power snake around her. But they didn’t harm her. Rather, they pushed the darkness away from her, keeping it at bay as if to protect her.

  Angel tried to understand, but she just couldn’t. Nothing made any sense any longer. “The fall into the river,” she said, her words trembling as Dmitri stepped forward and his blue eyes anchored to hers. “The poison.” She shook her head. “You somehow survived.”

  Dmitri Voronin watched her intently, patiently, as she spoke each word.

  “Oh, yes,” he said with a secret, beautiful smile. “And then some.”

  Chapter Forty

  She was ill-equipped to take on this particular Apex – because he wasn’t supposed to exist. Not anymore. And her mind couldn’t wrap itself around that.

  I have to get out, she thought desperately. She remembered the transport spell, and as he closed the distance between them, she opened her mouth to finish it as quickly as possible.

  “Ah, but Angel,” he interrupted her, “if you leave now, he will surely die. You can still save him, you know.” Dmitri nodded to something over her shoulder, and Angel stiffened. As if she had no choice in the matter, she turned her head to look.

  Two of the men hanging from the ceiling had stopped bleeding. But blood continued to drip from the third. Knight was not yet dead.

  Angel reacted before thinking. She spun in place and bolted for the man, wanting nothing more in that moment than to keep him alive. She made it half-way before Dmitri was standing once more before her, and she was slamming head-long into his chest.

  He’d slipped into vampire mode, red-eyed and fanged, and powerful vampire magic flowed from his form so thick it was suffocating. Angel gasped for breath as Dmitri’s hand instantly wrapped around one of her wrists to hold her fast. In that insane and desperate moment, Angel realized that even while blood covered her and everything in her apartment, not a single drop of it had landed anywhere on Dmitri’s tall, beautiful body.

  Dizziness swept over her. He was flooding her with his will, sapping her strength just to show her he could. Somehow, she formed words. “Let me go, damn it!” Time was ticking. Knight was dying.

  Dmitri ignored her, slipping a strong hand at her lower back to pull her hard against his body. His eyes burned red like dragon’s fire. He bared his fangs behind a terrible, beautiful smile. “Nice necklace,” he said softly. “Did Crow give that to you?”

  Angel froze in his arms and gazed helplessly up at him.

  He grinned, his powerful eyes glinting. He didn’t really care about the necklace, and she knew it. He wasn’t threatened by Jake. Nothing made Dmitri feel threatened. He just wanted her to know that he’d noticed it.

  As if to prove how unthreatened he was, he pulled back on his power, allowing her head to clear, and smiled down at her like a demon Cheshire cat.

  “You… spineless, soul-eating, empty void of malicious evil, son of a bitch,” she hissed. “You can’t stop killing people, can you?” Her voice shook, but her fury, her pent-up anger, her absolute rage at all that had happened to her was boiling over, and there was no putting a lid on it now.

  Dmitri’s laugh was infuriating. But there was an edge to it that hadn’t been there before. “If you want me to stop so badly, then stop me, Angel. Give yourself to me now, heart and soul, and I will never kill anyone again.”

  Angel felt his words like a slap to the face. Her eyes widened. Disbelief rang out at the end of every nerve. She was positive she hadn’t heard him right.

  “You heard me right, Angel love. Give in to me now, and I will never take another human life.”

  Angel wanted to believe it was some kind of trick. But Dmitri’s grip on her tightened, his chest un-giving against her. “No tricks, little one. Think about it. Give me what I want and I will return the favor.”

  She heard him, but she still couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t understand. He wasn’t going to kill anymore?

  “It’s simple.” He suddenly released her and stepped back, just like that. She steadied herself without his help this time, her mind spinning.

  Dmitri studied her as he spoke. “For the better part of twenty years, I’ve watched you, yearned for you, craved you.” He laughed in self-admonishment, shaking his head, and turned to pace a few steps. “I planned, manipulated, and killed for you. You fought me every step of the way.” He stopped, landed her with his red eyes. “You still do. And it’s clear you’ll never stop.”

  He waited where he was at a distance, and measured his words carefully. “It should have become clear to me when you pumped me full of your clever poison, but I was too consumed by fire to realize then.” He cocked his head to the side, his smile wry. “Fortunately I had a contingency plan for just such an occasion; an alpha werewolf waiting in the wings. So I’ve had fifteen long years to think it over.”

  He came toward her. “It’s who you are. You’re a fighter by nature. And now I even realize it’s part of what makes me love you.”

  “You aren’t capable of love,” she spat.

  “Maybe not.” He shrugged, his smile broadening. “I am as the Storyteller made me. But I don’t know what else to call this.” The red in his eyes blazed. He was a vessel of hunger, and now the magic was pouring out around him again. He’d either decided to no longer spare her, or he was no longer capable of holding it back.

  It moved before him like a shadow as he overtook her. Once more, she was encased in his power, and this time it was Apex power. Not just any Apex, an ancient vampire turned by an alpha werewolf. It was strong beyond measure, and it barely allowed her to breathe, much less move.

  She shook in his wake as he towered before her, so close that when she breathed in, her chest touched his. “I’ve reached the end, Angel. I’ve killed, died, changed, killed, watched other men put their hands on you….” He gritted his fanged teeth and swallowed hard as if he could barely stomach the thought.

  “I’ve killed just to ease the fury that followed.” He paused and reached up as if to touch the backs of his fingers to her cheek, but she flinched, turning her face away.

  He stopped, the fire in his eyes flaring.

  Angel was certain he would lose it then. She readied herself for the worst. He was going to grab her, sink his teeth into her, drain her to near death, torture her, or maybe just finally kill her once and for all. She was positive he would be unable to contain the powerful emotion moving through him. When faced with this kind of opposition, in this much frustration, Apex tended to give in to their instincts and go nuts. They were composed of all the strongest aspects of two terrifying beasts. And when pushed to their limits, they flew off the handle at even the slightest provocation. It was yet another thing that made them so dangerous.

  But Dmitri stayed his hand with enormous control and instead firmly but gently took her chin in his fingers, forcing her to face him. He fixed his eyes to hers. His voice lowered, becoming intimate. When he spoke, his words moved around her like silk, but burned her like dry ice. “I’ve pinned you to the wall every way I know how, Angel. You always break free. You always slip my grasp. And I can’t go on like this. Nothing in the realms can end this pain but you. So I’m willing to make you a deal.”

  She stared up at him, and his words returned to her. Give in to me now and I will never take another human life. “You’re lying,” she breathed shakily. It was a trick. It had to be.

  “Have I ever lied to you?”

  Angel tried to step back, but his magic wouldn’t let her. It was roped around her limbs as sure as bent rebar. He was giving her space, but not that much. There was only so far he was willing to go.
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  “Answer me, Angel. Have I ever lied to you?”

  No, she thought. You haven’t.

  He hadn’t. Not once. Every single time he had done something horrible to her, he’d freely, if not proudly admitted it. No lying. Just evil. “No.”

  “So now you have a choice.” He spoke through his teeth again, clearly struggling with something inside him that told him to end this here and now and turn her, whether her heart was in it or not. But he wanted more from her than her body, and always had. He wanted her to come to him willingly, to accept him.

  He wanted her to choose him. Over everyone else. Over Michael. Over Gabriel.

  Over Jacob Crow.

  Jake… her inner voice automatically spoke his name, and her lips automatically remembered the hungry, searching feel of his. Her body tingled from head to toe as a beautiful bird, inked into a broad sculpted back, flashed before her eyes. She blinked, trying to focus.

  The fire erupted in Dmitri’s pupils, his power licking at her skin painfully. She hissed an intake of breath against the pain. That focused her plenty.

  “Decide.”

  The word was spoken like a curse, the ultimate ultimatum. And he went on. “Let me in, Angel. Give yourself to me right now… and save your clan, save your annoyingly hands-on mentor….” He lowered his head, his gaze claiming the darkness of his face. “Save your friends.” He released her chin.

  Or let them all die. It was unspoken, but there was no need to give it voice. She comprehended the threat perfectly.

  “You can’t survive without killing.” She said it even as she knew it wasn’t true. As a vampire, it might have been true but for the fact that some vampires could escape that necessity with strong enough magic. But that wasn’t even an issue for him any longer. He was Apex, and half werewolf. Even without the help of magic, he no longer needed to periodically drain a creature to completion to continue his existence. The werewolf half of him negated that. It was ironic in fact, that two of the world’s most vicious and instinctive killers canceled each other out when combined to become a literal Apex predator. The ultimate killing machine – no longer needed to kill. It just usually wanted to.