Kiss of Vengeance (The Fairchild Chronicles Book 1)

by E. A. Copen

  “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name—”

  Dal lifted Blayne’s chin and placed the cylinder under the softest spot. Blayne flinched. “Do you know what I’ve got pressed against your throat?”

  “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven—”

  “With a word, I can turn it into something much more deadly than a pretty block of silver. I can push it through your skin, through your cartilage, muscle, and bone. I can form it into a spear that goes all the way into your tiny little brain.”

  “Give us this day our daily bread—”

  Dal grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head back, making sure to keep the top of the cylinder flesh against his neck. “A name, Blayne! Just give me the fucking name of the asshole who pulled the trigger!”

  “Jesus Christ,” Bill muttered and wrinkled his nose. A foul, sulfuric stink filled the air. “He’s gone and shit himself.”

  Dal pressed the cylinder in harder.

  “Nessa!” Blayne screamed. “I don’t know the fucking triggerman. But if anyone does, it’s her!”

  “How do you know?” Dal screamed.

  Blayne blew a snot bubble out his nose. “’Cause Nessa’s fucking half the Sullivans. Blokes are prone to pillow talk with whores. And she’s smart. She can put two and two together.”

  “How do you know that much?”

  Blayne closed his eyes and winced. “I used to sometimes...pay to go watch.”

  Behind them, Kink roared with laughter. “Didn’t have the cash to partake? Or is it a set of nads you’re lacking, Blayne?”

  “You know this Nessa Blake?” Dal asked turning his head.

  “Not half as well as I’d like to. She turns tricks over at Elysium.”

  Dal turned back to Blayne. “I guess that makes you useless.”

  Blayne bowed his head and cursed. He didn’t even have it in him to beg anymore. “Pathetic,” Dal said and spat on him before removing the cylinder. He turned his back and walked away. “Come on, Kink, Bill. We need to find Nessa.”

  “Wait,” Blayne called after them. “If you aren’t going to kill me, you have to let me go!”

  “I don’t have to kill you,” Dal said without turning around. “There’s plenty of things in here that’ll do it for me.”

  He extended the cylinder back into his scythe and turned his head. As if on cue, hundreds of disembodied red eyes appeared in the darkness. A chorus of scraping and fluttering wings filled his ears. Dal didn’t know what the creatures were, and had never cared to stay long enough to find out. He only knew they picked their victims’ bones clean.

  As Dal sliced a hole into the air and widened it for them to step through, Blayne found the energy once again to scream.

  Chapter Two

  Elysium wasn't the official name for the two-story, brick French Empire style building on East Broadway. The original building had served as a number of things over the years, ranging from a carriage house to a church. After the Revelation Riots and subsequent fire, it turned into what it was now: a very expensive brothel.

  A decade ago, supernaturals went public in an event that became known as the Revelation. Werewolves, vampires, and fae were forced out and felt the brunt of public ire. It was a mad time. Riots swept the nation. Humans dragged anyone accused of being a werewolf or vampire into the street and cut off their heads. In the days that followed, the government did what it could to enforce order, declaring martial law. That just made the people rebel harder. The fae didn’t come out until it was mostly over, but that didn’t stop them from being targeted. Too many were mistaken for werewolves and vampires. Boston had been a war zone.

  Eventually, the government stepped in with the newly formed muscle that became BSI—the Bureau of Supernatural Investigations. In short, a bunch of nosy, government pricks. For Dal, it just meant an extra person he had to carry bribes to every month. More work.

  Elysium wasn't on the record, of course. Polite, east coast society liked to pretend something like Elysium couldn't operate in such a nice, upscale neighborhood. But the polish and paint on the streets of South Boston concealed a dark and seedy underworld. One bought with blood, and run by the Fairchild family.

  Off-street parking didn't exist, and Dal was wary of leaving his mates parked at the curb while he went in to deal with the girls. A silver Ford Explorer had been on their tail since shortly after they pulled onto the road. When they pulled onto East Broadway, it didn't turn after them. Still, Dal was uneasy, so he told them to drive around the block a few times while he went in with Kink.

  They jogged onto the porch, hands in their coat pockets. Kink stomped the slushy snow off his boots while Dal rang the doorbell. The heavy, wooden door opened. A heavyset lady in netted stockings and a French maid's outfit answered the door. "Oi?" she said, tilting her head to the side.

  "Who is it, girl?" called a voice from inside.

  The French maid turned and answered, "Messieurs O’Shea et O'Connor, Madame." After a moment, she bowed her head, took a step back, and opened the door the rest of the way.

  The inside was grand enough to match Lachlan's house. Polished wood floors, Persian rugs, colonial-style decor, cherry fireplaces, velvet lined sofas, and window seats... Dal stepped in and removed his hat, feeling out of place among the finery.

  Reclining in one of the sofas was a slender woman with sharp features in green army camo pants and a tank top. She barely looked at them, preferring instead to focus on the wooden paddle in her hand. Once they were inside, the woman in the maid outfit came to stand behind the sofa, hands folded, head down.

  "Take your shoes off, boys, and leave them by the door. I don't need wet carpets," said the woman on the couch. Dal and Kink did as they were told. "Mr. O'Connor," she said in the form of a greeting when they were finished. "You boys looking to start trouble with my girls?"

  "No trouble, ma'am," Kink answered. "Not here. If it comes to business, we'll take it outside."

  Those were the rules. Even if things had gotten bloody between the Fairchilds and Sullivans, it was understood that Elysium stayed out of it. It was neutral ground. A safe space. If they could prove Nessa was working for the Sullivans on the side, then she'd broken the rules. Dal and Kink could carry her out into the snow and beat the whore bloody and the madam couldn't do anything about it. That was the way it worked, the way it had always worked.

  “We’re here to see Ms. Blake,” Dal announced.

  The madam sat up and reached for a sweating glass of water on the coffee table in front of her. Her French maid adjusted the pillows behind her. "What did she do this time? She doesn't owe you money. I know that much."

  "You're stalling," Dal said. "Where is she?"

  The madam looked up at him with a hard glare. "Do not rush me. This is my domain, Dallon. No one touches my girls without my say so. Make your business known or leave."

  "My wife and child are dead."

  "I heard. Everyone has heard by now. What's Ms. Blake got to do with it?" She took a drink and handed the glass off to the maid who wiped the lipstick marks away before coming around to place it back on a coaster.

  "Someone's pointing us to her for information," Kink offered. "Suggested she was working more closely with the Sullivans than maybe she ought. Might have been she was a go-between when the Sullivans needed messages passed."

  "I see."

  Her eyes never shifted off of Dal. A lesser man might have been unnerved, but the madam didn't intimidate him. She was a low-blood like him, trying to hold onto the tiny scrap of power she thought she had.

  "And if she is?" the madam continued. "What are you going to do with her?"

  "If it's all the same to you, I'd much rather discuss that with her," Dal answered.

  "We won't get anything on your carpets, ma'am," Kink added.

  "No holes in the wall, either," she said, pointing at Kink.

  He crossed his chest with an X. "Not a one."

  She moved her finger to poi
nt at Dal. "And you, leave that pike here. Only thing I want penetrating my girls are plastic and rubber, you got that?"

  Dal removed the silver cylinder from his coat pocket and placed it on the table in front of her. "May we go up now?"

  She smirked from one side of her mouth. "Dal goes up. Free this time out of respect for your wife."

  "I'm not here to fuck her. I'm here for answers."

  "And how you get 'em behind closed doors is your business. Kink, you'll have to wait here." She leaned back against the cushions and tapped the paddle against her palm. "I'm sure we can find something to occupy your time."

  Kink turned to Dal and nodded. "You need me, boss, you just yell."

  "Go," Dal said and trudged to the stairs.

  The old, wooden staircase creaked and moaned as he climbed up in his socks. At the top, Dal found a hallway. The wall cut away halfway down, replaced with intricately carved railing to create an indoor balcony that overlooked the parlor. By the time Dal reached it, Kink, the madam, and her French maid were gone.

  The doors in the hall had removable silver name plates. When they were occupied, the girls came out and flipped the name plates around to show the blank side. Only one of the first three that Dal passed was flipped around. The muffled sounds coming from that room followed him until they mixed with the undertones of a dreamy, dark, electronic number with haunting female vocals. The further he went, the louder the song became until he reached Ms. Blake's door.

  For a minute, he thought about doing her the professional courtesy of knocking. Dal preferred it when people knocked before coming into his room. But she might take it as a gesture of complacency. He was unarmed, and going to speak with a woman in her own room who possibly had access to weapons. He’d need every advantage.

  Dal grabbed the doorknob, turned it, and jerked the door open. Music floated out of the pinkest, frilliest room he’d ever seen. The canopy over the bed was pink with pink ruffles. Pink lace curtains filtered out the soft glow of the morning sun. A pink dresser stood next to the door with a silver tray on lace doilies, the tray displaying instruments of both pain and pleasure. He didn’t see Nessa anywhere. Maybe she was lying in the bed. He walked up to the canopy and jerked it aside. The bed was empty.

  A sound made Dal turn his head, but he didn’t move in time to keep the silk scarf from tightening around his neck. He stumbled back a step. Hands yanked the fabric backward and him along with it.

  He tugged on the fabric and fought to get room between it and his neck. His priorities had to be straight. First, don’t let it tighten so much that it cut off blood flow and made him pass out. Second, breathe. Only after those two were taken care of could he fight. The scarf moved, but not by much. Behind him, his assailant grunted and twisted the fabric tighter. Unless Dal loosened her grip, he’d black out in a matter of seconds.

  Dal stumbled back further and slammed as hard as he could into the first resistance he felt. The woman behind him let out a grunt. He slammed her into it harder. She cursed, and her grip loosened. Dal pried the fabric loose and scrambled away. He turned around just in time to throw up an arm and keep from getting dinged in the head by a lamp with a pink, frilly shade. It was a mistake. She drove a fist hard into his stomach. He doubled over. A black high-heeled shoe came up and hit him in the nose. Dal flew backward and sailed through the canopy, pulling part of it down with him as he landed on the bed. He pushed the torn fabric away but didn’t get up in time. She jumped through the air and landed on top of him, fists drawn and balled.

  Dal spat in her eyes. She shrieked and punched blindly, only narrowly hitting the bed instead of pounding his face. He found the leverage to shove her off him as she tried to wipe away the spit on her face, but she just pulled him along. The two of them went to the floor and traded blows. Dal’s knuckles were still sore, and he tore them open again, but he never got the upper hand. Where he had only fists, the woman had fingernails like claws. She raked them up and down his arms and managed once to get under his shirt, drawing blood before he got her on her back.

  “Let me go, you murdering son of a bitch,” she screamed and kicked at him. He pinned her arms away from her body.

  Blood mixed with sweat and dripped down his nose to splash on her cheek. “Did you kill them?” Dal screamed back as he fought to hold her. “Was it you?”

  “I haven’t killed anybody today, but give it time. The day is young, and you’re trying my patience.”

  He drove a knee into her groin, and she cried out in pain. “Who killed my wife and daughter, Nessa? Who was it?”

  “How the fuck should I know?”

  Dal let go of one of her arms to punch her in the face. She cursed and rolled her head back and forth, flexing her jaw. After a moment, she smiled and shook with laughter. “Go on. Hit me again. Does it make you feel big to hit women? Did you hit my sister before you murdered her, too? Sick fuck!”

  Dal froze with one fist suspended in the air. He’d done a lot of awful things to a lot of people. But all of them were men and women who deserved it in one way or another. But he didn’t remember anyone that looked like this girl.

  “What sister?” he spat back.

  “Nessa Blake,” the woman answered.

  Dal blinked. He was so sure the woman he’d been fighting was Nessa Blake. Then again, he hadn’t used any first names with the madam downstairs. Such was the nature of the business. But if this wasn’t Nessa, and Nessa was dead, who was this girl?

  “You’ve made a mistake,” Dal said and let her go. He staggered back to his feet and pinched his nose to stop the blood flow. “I didn’t kill your sister. I’ve never met your sister.”

  She glared daggers at him, despite the blood rushing from a cut on her head.

  “Who told you I hurt your sister?”

  “I know who you are. I thought…when I heard the news…it had to be you. I know Nessa took Sullivan clients on the side.” She sat up and scooted away from him. “She was supposed to last night only…we switched places last night.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re identical twins, asshole.” She closed her eyes and turned her head away. For the first time, Dal saw her pointed ears through her hair. An elf. They were elves. “We were identical twins, that is. We’ve always done it since we were kids. Some blokes pay extra for doubles like us, but sometimes the money’s better if she can pretend to be two places at once. If I pretend to be her, she can double book like she did last night. It’s my fault. I never should have left her there alone.” She blinked away tears and shook her head. “I found her in the bushes when I got home. The back of her head…it was just gone.” She wiped a hand across her face, smearing blood.

  His only good lead was dead. God dammit. Someone had beaten him to her and clearly thought she knew enough to die for it. But it wasn’t a dead end. If anyone knew Nessa’s secrets, it would be her twin sister.

  Of course, that was assuming the girl was telling the truth.

  “Show me,” Dal said.

  She squinted up at him. “What?”

  He offered her a hand. “Show me your sister’s body.”

  She sniffled. “Why?”

  He lowered his hand even more insistently. “Because, if someone is cleaning up their mess, I might be next, and I don’t plan on dying without taking the motherfuckers who killed my family with me.”

  Her hand shook as she reached out, but her grip was good and strong when he pulled her up. Dal nodded once and then limped for the door.

  “Cat,” she said behind him.

  He turned. “What?”

  She extended a stiff hand. “My name is Catlin. Cat for short.”

  When he didn’t grip her hand, she lowered it.

  “Let’s go, Cat,” he said and walked away. He didn’t turn back to see if she followed. He could hear her footsteps behind him.

  Chapter Three

  The feds descended on them as soon as they stepped out of the brothel. Sirens blared, and two cruisers all
but ran over some pedestrians to get up on the sidewalk to block his escape. Cat tried to dash back inside, but Dal reached out and grabbed her by the arm. “Oh no you don’t. I go down, so do you.”

  The officers in the car that had pulled up directly in front of them poured out like ants from an anthill and took up defensive positions behind their doors, guns drawn and trained on his head. Only once they were in position did the queen snake show herself.

  She was a heavyset, dark-skinned lady in snug-fitting body armor, bearing the BSI insignia. She wore her hair in tight ringlets and her makeup dark and tasteless. “Dallon O’Connor,” she said, twisting her coral pink lips into a smirk. “Your wife’s barely cold and you’re hitting up the local whore house.”

  He wanted to break her jaw for even daring to speak of Lena. But if he made a move, her dogs would blow holes through both him and the closest thing he had to a lead. Instead, he met her smirk with one of his own. “Everyone grieves in their own way, Agent Rosie Rose.”

  She marched up. He noticed too late that her fists were balled. When she hit him in the jewels, it was like being struck with a mallet. He went blind for a second. His legs gave out. He let Cat go to stumble forward and grab at the injury. When his vision and the ability to breathe came back to him, he gasped for air and blinked tears away. “I see you missed me as much as I missed you.”

  “Mouth off to me again, Dallon, and I’ll do you one worse.” Rosie pulled off her helmet and let it hang loose in her huge hand. Rosie was average looking for a middle-aged black woman. The extra weight she carried gave her a roundish sort of face that Dal might have found charming if she wasn’t scowling at him. “Cut the shit, Dal. I’ve cleaned up enough bodies for one day. Now, I’m leaving Lena Fairchild and the kid go out of respect for the agreement I have with Lachlan, but I can’t turn a blind eye to dead whores in the street.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He rose slowly, still cradling his stomach because he felt sick. Rosie had one hell of a punch.