Scarlet Revenge

by Sheri Lewis Wohl

  Naomi hesitated, figuring she should join the four at the table but wanting more urgently to go outside. When her hand had touched Tory’s earlier, everything inside her shivered. It was almost like touching an exposed electrical wire. The last time she’d felt something like that was with Hannah.

  God, how she hated thinking about Hannah. Every emotion it brought up was extreme, the memories painful. Losing someone like that was never easy. She blamed only herself for what happened. She understood completely why they could no longer be together and, painful as it had been, had let Hannah go without a fight. She never looked back because every time she did, she saw that look on Hannah’s face and it broke her heart all over again.

  To feel the same kind of attraction toward another woman now was not just stupid, it was impossible. Tory was a vampire but that wasn’t the real issue. Regardless of how exciting it felt to be around her, the rush meant nothing because nothing could come of it. She would not put herself in a position of vulnerability. Coward that she was, Naomi never wanted to feel that kind of hurt again.

  She stood in the living room watching Tory through the open door and listening halfheartedly to the conversation at the table. The chatter faded as she riveted her attention on the woman outside. Even from the back, Tory was hot. She was a small woman, not much taller than five feet, with long auburn hair that Naomi could almost feel running through her fingers. Her hips were slim, her waist small. How easy it would be to wrap her arms around that tiny body and pull her close.

  When she noticed Tory’s shoulders begin to shake, Naomi moved. All her resolve to stay neutral went out the window…or the patio door in this case. She was at Tory’s side in a moment. “How can I help you? Tell me what I can do.”

  Tory turned, her expression so shattered that Naomi reacted on pure instinct. She put her arms around Tory and pulled her close. Her head rested against Naomi’s breasts and her tears soaked into her shirt. Naomi wove her fingers through hair just as soft as she’d imagined.

  “I’m sorry,” Tory muttered when her tears subsided.

  “Don’t be.” She continued to run hand over the glossy hair. With every stroke, her heart raced.

  Tory stepped out of her embrace and gave her a wry smile. “I really am sorry. Tears for a troubled homeless woman.”

  “Your friend was killed.”

  Tears welled again. “It isn’t fair. Belle never hurt a soul. Why would anyone, human or otherwise, want to hurt her? What kind of sonofabitch would kill a harmless, troubled woman?”

  “Stupid as it sounds, life is rarely fair.”

  This time Tory laughed. “Stupid as this sounds, I actually learned that by the time I was about five years old. Fair never entered into the equation where my life was concerned.”

  Naomi gave her a crooked smile, grateful for the laughter that seemed to have lifted Tory’s mood away from despair. “Sucks to be you.”

  Without warning, Tory took one of Naomi’s hands and brought it to her lips for a kiss at the center of her palm. The sensation sent the electricity shooting right through her again. Keeping that never, ever resolution wasn’t going to be easy when it came to this woman. Vampire, she reminded herself, vampire.

  “Yes, it does!” She pushed stray hairs off her face and squared her shoulders. “Enough with the pity party. It’s not going to accomplish a damn thing or change anything. Instead of standing out here and watching me cry like a ten-year-old, let’s go see if the others can use our help.”

  Raindrops began once more, falling gently around them. Naomi barely noticed her hair and clothes growing damp. All she could think about was how beautiful Tory looked in the rain. What was happening to her?

  With effort, she found her voice, hoping she sounded calmer than she felt. “Okay, we can do that if you’re sure you’re ready for it.” She hated to leave the intimacy of the patio. She liked being here with Tory and wished they could stay here together just a few minutes longer. What could it really hurt? Except with no good excuse to stay outside besides the fact she just wanted to be alone with Tory, they probably should go in and help. She started for the French doors that separated the patio from the living room.

  “Naomi?”

  She paused with her hand on the doorknob and looked back at Tory, who was a step or so behind her. Their eyes met and again that warm feeling flowed through her body. “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  Chapter Ten

  The call came a little after three with a jarring ring that put everyone even more on edge than they already were. Naomi slowly replaced the handset and turned to look at her guests. Her heart was as heavy as her guilt. Nathan’s warnings rang in her ears. So did his “I told you so.”

  “It’s started.”

  She was pretty sure the look of dismay on the faces turned her direction mirrored the one on her face. At the moment, her faith was wavering, which was almost as bad as the news delivered by the phone call. Over the last few years she’d been confident her faith was solid and unshakeable. Apparently the universe was sending her another wake up, sister call because at the moment she felt anything but solid and unshakeable.

  With less than two hours of daylight remaining, they mutually decided that Riah, Ivy, and Tory would stay at the house while Naomi, Adriana, and Colin headed to the Mall. Nathan was already on his way.

  Tory resisted at first. Not that she wanted to make the trip to the Mall with them. No, she argued to go home. She wasn’t buying their argument that she needed to stay at Naomi’s for her own safety, at least until Riah stepped in and convinced her it was a good idea. Naomi understood all too well the power family could have, and in this case, it was family that made the difference. Naomi was glad Tory agreed to remain for more than one reason.

  Right now, though, they needed to haul ass over to the Mall. She shuddered to think what they might find, or who they might find. Becoming an unofficial ambassador to the preternatural community had evolved slowly yet, at the same time, solidly. Despite her own violent past, she was the trusted confidant of those who lived on the fringe through no fault of their own. People might think they’d asked for what happened to them, and they’d be wrong. No one that she was acquainted with came into their preternatural state by choice. They were either born with it or cursed with it. The only choice afterward? Accept it or die. She had a great deal of respect for those who accepted it and moved forward.

  Through the years, they came to her for advice and even protection. She never said no and did everything in her power to help them. For too long she’d killed vampires, and others, without ever thinking about what had turned them in the first place or why. She’d been filled with blind prejudice that drove her to destroy over and over again without a flicker of conscience. Even after all this time, thinking back on how utterly closed-minded and filled with hate she’d been brought a flush of embarrassment to her cheeks. Not exactly the golden era of her life. More shaming than even that was how forgiving many in the preternatural community were. While she’d been out there blindly wielding her sword in the name of righteousness, and despite all the blood on her hands, they forgave her a mistaken past and accepted her for the woman she was today.

  It wasn’t as easy for her to forgive herself. She tried her best to make amends because not all that she destroyed were bad. Certainly some were evil and never should have walked the earth. It was those whose souls hadn’t been consumed by darkness that she regretted.

  So where had she been tonight when one needed her protection? Thinking about how she’d like to run her hands all over Tory’s naked body, that’s where. She should have been concentrating on the ones who needed her, and instead she was thinking about herself. She’d failed yet again. Maybe she was one of those tragic souls doomed to repeat her mistakes over and over.

  As they turned the corner, the street was bare except for the police cars and emergency vehicles that lined one side of the Mall, their collective lights flashing blue and red. Parking wasn’t difficult a
t this time of day, and it sure wasn’t hard to spot the heart of the problem. Her stomach rolled the closer they came to the yards of yellow police tape stretched from tree to tree.

  “Sorry, folks.” A uniformed officer held up a hand to block them from moving forward. “You need to turn around and go back to your car.”

  “They’re okay, Finn, they’re with me.” Nathan held up the tape so that the three of them could step beneath it. “It’s not pretty,” he said quietly as they walked toward powerful lights set up near a particularly large tree. The lights behind the branches sent eerie shadows stretching across the grass.

  When she was close enough to see, Naomi’s breath caught. She recognized the face despite the gore and matted hair. Stretched out on his back, one arm was thrown wide, the hand dark with dried blood. His other arm was wrenched at an odd angle beneath his body. The heavy odor of blood hung in the air.

  She stared down at the crimson-stained hand and thought of the beauty it had created in life. Of the vase that she’d so recently saved from a crash to her living-room floor. No more would that hand coax a mound of wet clay into a gorgeous work of art. Never again would she look down from the pulpit to see his head bowed and his beautiful hands clasped together in prayer. Darin Reed was dead and her heart hurt. Tears burned at her eyes and she blinked hard to keep them back. Not here. Not now. Time enough later for weeping.

  “I know him,” she whispered, still blinking hard against the tears that didn’t want to be held back. “I just saw him, talked to him.” She could see him in her head as he’d stood in the courtyard, tapping his chest and talking of death. She could see his expressive eyes and how they gazed at her with such truth in them. Just the thought of never seeing them look at her that way again made her want to retch.

  “What is he?” Nathan was just as quiet, his lips close to her ear.

  “A man,” she said, and then quietly so that only Nathan could hear. “A werewolf.”

  “Why did they do it?” Colin asked of no one in particular. His eyes appraising, he studied the scene, his gaze sweeping over the acres of grass and trees that defined the National Mall. The look on his face was neutral, but Naomi had the feeling emotion ran deep nonetheless. He didn’t know Darin, and yet she sensed he was taking this murder as personally as she was.

  Why would the good and proper citizens of this glorious city kill him? Her words were bitter. “Because he was different. No one can tolerate being different, even in this age of enlightenment.” In this time of knowledge and understanding it seemed insane that prejudice still existed, and yet it did. Horribly so as evidenced by the lifeless body of her friend. Being different was still a crime in the minds of far too many people.

  “No,” Nathan snapped. “That’s bullshit. This happened because he was a killer, not because he was different. Stop being so damn blind.” Nathan didn’t even try to be sympathetic.

  Her words were just as snappy as she stepped away from him. Sometimes his refusal to open his mind was beyond infuriating. “I was blind before but my eyes are wide open now. I’m telling you straight up, Nathan. Darin never hurt a living soul. He wasn’t a killer and he didn’t deserve to die like this. Whoever did this is more a murderer than anyone I counsel, bar none.”

  Nathan didn’t give an inch. He stood glaring at her, his hands on his hips, his jacket flaring out in the breeze to reveal the ever-present gun at his waist. “You still have blinders on, sister. Ever since you were reborn, you’ve walked through this city wearing pitch-black shades. That,” he pointed to Darin’s lifeless body, “is an unnatural thing. Maybe he didn’t deserve to be murdered and dumped on the Mall, but at the same time, he shouldn’t have been here at all.”

  How could they be twins and yet be polar opposites in what they believed? “Nathan, that’s a crock and you know it.”

  His dark eyes were hard. “Is it? Don’t kid yourself. This is just the beginning. It’s going to get a lot worse out here before it gets better. It’s going to be open season on preternaturals and you’re foolish if you think different. This guy won’t be the last one we scrape off the ground.”

  “Unfortunately, he’s right, Naomi,” Colin said as he put a hand on her shoulder. She resisted the urge to shrug it off. Who was he to jump over to Nathan’s side of the fence? She’d called him in to help her, not join the good-old-boys club.

  “No, he’s wrong. Darin had just as much right to be here as you or me.” She couldn’t stop trembling, though she wasn’t sure if it was from the anger or the sadness. Why didn’t they see, they were all in this world together…humans and preternaturals? They had to find a way to live in harmony.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Colin said. “Nathan’s right about the fact that it’s just getting started. This murder is only the first. It is going to be open season before the next sunset.”

  “Fucking A,” Nathan said. “Listen to your buddy here. At least he has a clue, which is more than I can say for my own flesh and blood.”

  “Not helping,” Adriana said softly as she took Nathan’s arm and turned him away from his sister. He didn’t seem overly happy at Adriana’s intervention but walked away with her sullenly, without saying anything else.

  “Sometimes…” Naomi’s eyes filled with tears. “He can be such an asshole.” She was glad Nathan wasn’t close enough to see that he’d made her cry. When they were kids, he’d taken perverse pleasure in doing just that. Fortunately, he’d matured a lot and it wasn’t quite the game it used to be. Though she was sure it wasn’t his intent to make her cry now, she still didn’t want to let him see she was even close to tears. She was stronger than that, and all she needed was a minute or so to pull it all back together.

  “Can’t we all?” Colin raised an eyebrow. “And it’s always worse when they’re as close to us as, oh, say, a brother.”

  Her laugh was brittle and uncomfortably close to hysteria. “Yeah, I suppose so, and nobody can push buttons quite like a twin.”

  “Look.” Colin turned her away from the grisly sight of her murdered friend. “Let’s head back to your house and see what we can brainstorm. Even if we can’t stop the shit storm that’s coming this way, maybe we can keep it from hitting with tornado force. Between all of us, we should be able to come up with something helpful.”

  She nodded and began to walk in the direction of their car. “It’s an idea.” Not a bad one either. It wasn’t serving any useful purpose to stand here and trade barbs with Nathan. Let him do his job and she’d do hers, though it would be a whole lot better if they could actually work on the same side. The ground they could cover together would be so much more if only he would give her and her friends a chance. She knew him well enough to know it wasn’t even worth asking.

  Adriana caught up with her and Colin, and the three of them continued in silence. A thousand thoughts were rolling through her head, and so far not a single one seemed to catch. Somewhere in the whirlwind was an answer, she hoped.

  Nathan came running up to her just as Naomi reached for the car-door handle. “Wait,” he said, his hand on her shoulder.

  She shook it off. “What now? More indictments on my congregation? More reasons why we should just hang them all and get it over?”

  “Meme, I’m sorry.” He didn’t sound very sorry.

  She whirled. “Go away, Nat. You and I are never going to agree on this, so don’t even try. This isn’t the time or the place.” She was going to see Darin’s corpse in her head for a long, long time. She didn’t need any more stress.

  “I’m just doing my job the best I know how.” He almost whined, or so it seemed to her, although whining wasn’t exactly something he did, ever.

  “Your job is to serve and protect everyone, not just humans. You don’t get to choose.”

  “I’m trying, Meme, it’s just that it’s so goddam complicated. Even you have to understand that.”

  “No, I don’t. Everything’s complicated, so try harder.” She got in the car and slammed the door, her fa
ce forward as if he wasn’t standing right outside her window.

  Adriana reached up from the backseat to pat her shoulder. “Give him a break, Naomi. He’s not a bad guy.”

  “You don’t even know him,” she shot back.

  Her snap didn’t seem to faze Adriana. “Ah, honey, I grew up with three brothers who lived right next door. I spent so much time with them, it was almost as if they were my own siblings. Bottom line, I know all about guys. Sometimes they’re just plain slow on the uptake, and they’re all a pain in the ass most of the time.”

  “Hey.” Colin cut in as he turned to glare at Adriana. “I resent that.”

  “Nothing personal, sugar,” Adriana told him as she patted his shoulder. “But it is what it is, especially when it comes to brothers.”

  “Humph.” He turned back around to stare out the windshield.

  Adriana gave Naomi a wink and then settled back against the car seat. Feeling better, Naomi put the car into gear and turned it toward home.

  *

  He wasn’t happy. After all his fine work, she failed to show up to see. True, he was pleased with the most current result of his assault on this nation’s fine capital. An uneasy vibe rippled on every street corner, and people moved about, all the while glancing over their shoulders. Exactly what he’d been aiming for.

  Inside Meagan’s Mercedes, he watched as people stopped, gawked, and then went on their way. The police were somber and, if he did say so, twitchy. He liked that. He enjoyed the way it made everyone so nervous they scurried about like frightened puppies. Too bad they didn’t know what they were looking for or running from.

  The dark-tinted windows of the expensive car made it easy for him to study the crowd without being noticed. That and it kept the sun off his skin. Once the sunlight hadn’t bothered him. Of course, that was before he’d been locked away and deprived of the very thing that gave him immortal life. He was well on his way to being his new and improved self, but it was still a fair way off. It was going to take a lot more life-giving blood before he could walk in the sunlight again and not feel it burn into his skin. But he was patient. It was only a matter of time before he became the kind of vampire who could walk in both day and night.