Forever Night: A Hidden Novella

by Colleen Vanderlinden

  “But we think you’d be better for those who cannot be rehabilitated. Ronan currently deals with those, but he’s finding himself more concerned with guarding me of late,” Rayna said.

  “So that night at the riverfront,” Shanti said, remembering the night she and Rayna had fought back several vampires intent on taking the would-be queen out before she came to power. “Stuff like that happens a lot?”

  Ronan grunted. “More than I’d like it to.”

  Rayna rolled her eyes and smiled at Shanti. “Brothers,” she said, and Shanti smiled. “It happens. And I’m very much capable of taking care of myself, but my baby brother would be lost if something happened to me.”

  “I would,” Ronan said unapologetically. “A year ago three vampires took Rayna captive and took her out to the country. They drugged her and dropped her in a field in the middle of nowhere. Right before dawn. We got to her just in the nick of time,” Ronan said, and Shanti shook her head. “As it was, several of us endured burns because we didn’t quite make it inside in time. One of our guards didn’t survive it.”

  “It’s thankless, Shanti,” Rayna said, watching Shanti closely. “I don’t need to tell you this. Everyone who knows of our existence despises us. No one trusts the vampires. And those of us who want a better life are constantly in danger because of those who live like wild animals, who believe they are above laws and basic concepts like good and evil. We stick to our own, and we take care of one another. Maybe someday, things will be different. But even the Angel, as amazing as she is, gives no leeway to vampires. You know this.”

  Shanti nodded. “I do.”

  “We’re not wanted here. Not by other supernaturals, and not by our own kind, either. But I believe we’re necessary. Ronan and I were both turned against our wills. I’m grateful for it now, but we both spent a long time hating the life we were forced to live.”

  “Same here,” Shanti said quietly. “I’m still not entirely okay with it.” She recalled her conversation with Nain earlier that night. The things she couldn’t have because of what she was.

  Shanti looked up at Ronan, then met the vampire queen’s eyes. “When do I start?”

  After her meeting with Rayna and Ronan, Shanti drove around for a while. She told herself she was kind of patrolling. Really, she was just full of restless energy. It hit her, as she drove, that her life was not going to be the same. The comfort she’d known at the loft, the camaraderie she had with her teammates; those were things she wouldn’t have anymore. She’d always have a home at the loft, and she knew it. But she also knew it was time to start making a life away from Molly and the team. Every little bird has to leave the nest eventually.

  Still. She felt guilty. It felt wrong to be leaving the home Molly had made for her, to be leaving the people she’d come to know as family. It felt wrong even though she knew she had Nain’s blessing. He had been right about Molly, too; if Molly had been there, she would have been telling Shanti to do exactly what she’d done that night.

  Shanti rested her elbow on the top of the door. She always drove with her car windows down, even when she wasn’t specifically out on patrol. She wanted to hear any problems. She drove, and thought, and tried to ignore the guilty twist in her gut over the idea that she was abandoning the only family she had.

  Really, it was Molly, she thought to herself. She liked Nain a lot. She saw Brennan as almost a brother to her. But the idea of abandoning Molly, of not being there when she came home from wherever she was… that felt wrong in every way. And she knew that was stupid. She wasn’t actually quitting Molly’s team. Nain’s team. Whoever’s team it was now. She knew it was the right thing. She just needed some time for her heart to catch up with her brain.

  She made her way back to the loft about an hour before dawn, took the elevator up. When she walked in, the loft was silent. She glanced at the patrol schedule. Nain and Brennan were out on patrol. Which mean that Ada, Stone, and Levitt were home, but asleep. She grimaced. Sometimes it sucked being the only one awake all night.

  Shanti took the stairs to her room, showered, and climbed into bed just as dawn started to pull her under.

  When she woke up, she did so with a start, her heart giving a few hard thumps. She sat up and rubbed her hand across her face. She looked up at the ceiling, recalling the dream that had woken her up. It always started the same, a memory of the night she’d been tempted to drink from her little brother, right after she’d been turned. In reality, she’d fought against the bloodlust and run away. In her nightmare, she lost control and drained him. She always woke up at the same point, at the part where she realized what she’d done. It had been almost five years ago. She thought every day about the two people she did drain in those early days, out of control and with no one who knew what was going on, no one to help her, train her. She’d come to Molly as a last resort, knowing Molly had no problem killing vampires, including the one that had sired Shanti herself. She had wanted death, and Molly had given her what she really needed: a home and training.

  It had been a beginning, Shanti realized as she got out of bed. But she would learn even more from Rayna and Ronan. And maybe she’d prevent some deaths along the way. Shanti glanced at her phone after she got dressed. There was a text, and her stomach gave a weird little lurch when she saw it was from Zero.

  “Hey, Shanti. Had a great time the other night. Can we do it again this weekend?”

  She typed out a refusal a few times, deleted it before sending it. She stared at her phone for several long moments, letting what she wanted and what she knew she should do battle in her conscience.

  In the end, she didn’t respond at all. “You are such a wuss,” she muttered to herself. “Just tell the nice sexy man no, already.”

  She headed downstairs, making her way toward the fridge, and she grabbed a bottle of blood and heated it up in the microwave. She listened. The loft was silent, other than Nain’s voice coming from behind his closed office door. She wasn’t on patrol that night, so she figured she’d go over to Rayna’s and get settled. She wanted to talk to the demon in charge first.

  When she heard him stop talking, she took her mug over to his office and knocked.

  “Yeah,” he said, as usual. She stepped in.

  “Hey. Do you have a second?”

  Nain nodded and gestured toward one of the other chairs in his office. She sat and took another sip of blood.

  “So. I went to Rayna’s last night, and I met with her and her bodyguard, Ronan,” she began. Nain nodded again. “I’m going to be moving into their house. I told her I want to split time between her team and yours, and she was fine with it but said she prefers to have her people living there.”

  “Ronan called me earlier, making sure it wouldn’t cause problems between us if you joined them. It won’t, by the way,” he said. Then he continued. “She’s smart. Having you all there means she’ll be strong if her home is ever attacked. They’ll come after her hard at some point, especially if it starts to look like she’s going to succeed,” he said.

  “They said they’re focusing on trying to capture and train newly-turned vampires, to help them fight the bloodlust.”

  “That would be a huge help for us. That’s most of the vampire problems we deal with. That and the assholes who just don’t care who they drain.”

  “Yeah. Well, as far as that second group goes, apparently they’ve been watching me, and they think my specialty might be hunting those who are beyond rehabilitating.” She paused. “Am I the only one who thinks they’re off their rockers about that?”

  “About what?”

  “Me being capable of basically assassinating problem vampires,” she said.

  Nain was watching her. “You do that already. You’ll just be even more of a badass once you’ve gone through some training with other vampires. Once you learn to take full advantage of all of that strength and speed you have.” He shook his head. “Gotta say it, the more you tell me about Rayna, the more respect I have for her. She
doesn’t miss much.”

  “So you think I can do it?”

  “You already are,” he repeated. “And you have a personal reason for going after assholes like that, just like you have a personal stake in finding Molly’s lost girls. You’re relentless when you’re on the hunt. I can’t imagine a more perfect role for you.”

  “So, you’re cool with all of this? I feel guilty,” she said, exasperated.

  He let out a short laugh. “I’m cool with it. Molly will be cool with it. You are going to make this city safer. And you’re still one of us. You have nothing to feel guilty about.”

  Shanti took a deep breath. “Okay. I just feel like I’m abandoning you guys when you need me.”

  “Rayna and I are not on opposite sides. We’re both working for the same thing: keeping supernaturals under control so they don’t hurt people and draw attention to our little freakish community.”

  Shanti nodded. She talked to Nain a while longer, squaring away her patrol responsibilities. He was going to put her on two nights per week while she was getting up to speed with Rayna, and they’d see about adjusting the schedule later if they needed to. She thanked him, then headed back up to her room after grabbing a couple of boxes from the basement. She started putting her clothes in couple of duffel bags, then packed the rest of her belongings, mostly books and photos, into the boxes.

  She took down the huge poster of a field of sunflowers with the sun blazing behind them that Molly had bought for her and rolled it up carefully. She smiled as she remembered the night Molly had brought it home for her. Shanti had been depressed, talking about how much she missed seeing the sun, and the way it made certain plants almost glow like stained glass if the sunlight hit them just right. Molly had come home with the poster, and both she and Brennan, and eventually everyone else on the team, starting sending her photos of pretty sunlit scenes they saw when they were out on patrol. Molly had always taken it a step further, though, sending her the occasional photo of a gorgeous moonlit scene to remind her that there’s beauty in the darkness, too.

  She shook her head, remembering her friend. As she packed, she thought about Molly. Everyone who knew of her knew her as this scary, ruthless badass. As the chick who’d slaughtered all of Nain’s enemies in a single night. As the woman who’d policed the supernaturals of Detroit with an iron grip. And she was all of that. There was only a handful of people who knew the real Molly, who knew how sweet and generous she could be, who knew that she still read comic books and that she hated gory movies even though the things she’d done in real life made the movies look like child’s play. They didn’t know the Molly who took every single death she failed to prevent personally.

  “I will make you proud,” she said aloud, even though she knew Molly wasn’t around to hear her.

  Shanti kept packing, and when she was nearly done, there was a knock at her door. She told whoever it was to come in, and turned to see Levitt standing there.

  “So it’s true? You’re taking off?” he asked her, leaning against the door frame and crossing his arms over his chest. She couldn’t look at him without remembering the way his eyes had glowed as he’d loved her, the way he’d murmured how beautiful she was. She felt a pang, still, every time she remembered the way they’d ended things.

  “I am,” she said softly, watching him. She expected some kind of rebuke, some accusation of betraying Molly. She expected him to give voice to all of those doubts and the guilt she had over the whole thing.

  “Nain told me and Brennan what you’ll be doing for the vampires. You’ll be good at it,” he said.

  “I hope so,” Shanti said quietly.

  They stood in awkward silence for several long moments. He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry I was an asshole,” he said. “I’ve been treating you like shit since you broke up with me.”

  She shrugged. “I hurt you,” she said, putting another book into the nearly-full box on her bed.

  “Still, I should have handled it better.” He paused, looked down at the floor. “Is that why you’re leaving?”

  She smiled. “Do you really think your ornery ass is enough to make me leave Molly’s team?”

  He let out a short laugh. “Okay. Good. You’re not actually leaving, though, right? You’re splitting time, Nain said.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I am. It just feels like I’m leaving, moving in there. I feel guilty, but I think I need to do this.”

  He shook his head. “You shouldn’t feel guilty. She wouldn’t have wanted that, especially since you’re still doing her good work, destroying those that need destroying.”

  “Praise be her name,” she said, and they both laughed. “The book of Molly: asses shall be kicked, and evil will fear the coming of the Angel.”

  “We should have set up that church, seriously. We would have had a packed house.”

  Shanti smiled, remembering the way she and Levitt had worked to keep Molly’s memory alive after she’d disappeared. It was what had drawn them together, their shared desire to see the woman who’d given them both a second chance honored the way she should be. In some neighborhoods, it seemed, even now, that Molly was the only thing people believed in.

  She finished packing, and Levitt and Brennan helped her carry her boxes to her car, put them in the trunk. Levitt gave her a quick hug before going back up into the loft, and Brennan stood by her car with her as she put the last bag in.

  “You can move back here any time. You know that, right?” he said. “You don’t have to stay with her if you don’t want to.”

  She smiled. “I know. I’ll be okay.”

  “I know you will. I’m just saying,” he said. “It seems like it’s a night for squaring things away. I don’t want you to leave like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “Mad at me.”

  Shanti shrugged. “I’m disappointed in you. I know it’s none of my business. And I get it, that she’s been gone a long time and maybe you’re a little pissed at her for being gone. And I get that she might never make it back here and that feels helpless. So I guess I should be rational and try not to be so angry at you.” She paused. “Except that I believe with everything I am that she’s coming back. That this is where the people she loves are, and that nothing in this world or any other is gonna stop her from coming home. If you know her at all, you know that much. And once she gets here, this is going to hurt her. And I can’t just ignore that as if everything is okay.” She shook her head. “She’s been through enough.”

  He took a breath, and she thought he wouldn’t say anything in response. “The truth, Shanti? This isn’t even the worst of it. She’s going to hate me someday, and it won’t even be because of this.”

  Shanti narrowed her eyes. “Care to elaborate on that, Bren?”

  He shook his head. “No. Not today, anyway. Is that everything?”

  She just watched him. “Yes. That’s everything,” she finally said.

  “Okay. Take care, Shanti.” He reached his hand out, and she shook it, still watching him, still wondering what he could have meant. He gave her a small nod and walked to the elevator. Once he was gone, Shanti shook her head and got into her car.

  Supernatural men: absolute pains in the ass, she thought to herself as she drove out of the parking garage and headed toward Rayna’s house. Her new home.

  When Shanti pulled her car into the winding driveway at Rayna’s she had another moment of doubt. She shook it off. This was the choice she’d made.

  She pulled into an empty parking spot near the courtyard and got out. Ronan and another male vampire came out of the house, and she watched them come toward her.

  “Shanti,” Ronan said, extending his hand and Shanti took it, shook it briefly. “This is Sam, another member of our family.” Shanti took his hand.

  “Nice to meet you, Sam,” she said, and he nodded. He was a fairly nondescript man; average height, blue eyes, the pale skin that marked him one of their kind. He looked to be pretty buff, based on the way his shou
lders bunched under his t-shirt. He wore his hair kind of shaggy, messy.

  “Sam is on the rehabilitation team,” Ronan told Shanti as he grabbed two of the boxes out of her trunk. Sam grabbed the other two, and Shanti grabbed the two duffel bags and backpack from her back seat.

  “I am dying to learn more about what you guys do,” she said to Sam, and he grinned.

  “I’ll tell you all about it. Word is that you’re not on the rehab team, though.”

  “That’s what I hear,” Shanti said, nodding.

  She tried to pay attention as Ronan led them through the house, up a set of stairs, and down a long hall.

  “All of the chamber doors are reinforced. There are two keys. You’ll have one, and I will have one. No one else will be able to get into your room, ever. We change the locks after a family member leaves just to make sure.”

  Shanti nodded. It was a vampire thing. Everyone, vampire or not, is vulnerable when they sleep. If you let yourself think about that too much, it’s enough to freak you out, that you’re sound asleep and if someone sneaks up on you, there’s not much you can do about it.

  Vampires have an even harder time with that vulnerability than anyone else. Sleep is the only time they’re vulnerable, and they’re not just sleeping. It’s like death. Molly had told Shanti once that watching her sleep was, in Molly’s own words, “creepy as hell.” Vampires are basically corpses when they sleep. No breathing. No movement. They just lay there, still and cold, until nightfall. Levitt hadn’t been able to sleep next to Shanti when they’d been together, it had unsettled him so much.

  Maybe that should have been a clue that things wouldn’t work out.

  Ronan reached a door at the end of the hallway. “This is your room.” He set the boxes down and dug into his jeans pocket, pulled out two keys. He handed one to Shanti, and he inserted the other in the lock, swung the door open. Then he picked the boxes up and headed inside, and Sam gestured for Shanti to go in, then followed.

  Shanti set her bags on the very comfortable-looking bed and looked around. The room was painted a soothing green. Her favorite color. She glanced at Ronan.