Awakened Abyss (Firebird Uncaged Book 2)

by Erin Embly

  “Can you at least help?” she asked, eyes lingering on my wrist.

  I looked down, blinking as I assessed the mangled corpse. “If you get me a towel and tie his legs together, I can carry them with one hand. But . . .” I paused to glance around the pristine space, all gleaming stainless steel and white walls. “Where are we going to put him?”

  “Oh, don’t you worry your murderous pretty little head about that, love.” She scoffed as she started to roll up her sleeves. “I’ve got it under control.”

  I pursed my lips, watching her wrap a long piece of twine around the vampire’s ankles. I wasn’t used to being the useless one in the room when it came to dead bodies, and this woman’s attitude made me want to like her even when I knew it should make me incredibly suspicious. “What’s your name again?” I asked.

  She tied a bow over the double knot she’d made with the twine and stood up to sling a dirty apron over her shoulder. “Minnie Davidson.” She flashed me a cheery smile, which was quickly replaced by a stern frown. “I won’t forgive you if you forget it again.”

  After this, I was sure I wouldn’t.

  The phone rang in my ear as I sat on a stool in Minnie’s kitchen watching her hack the vampire’s body to pieces. She’d already made me a sling for my wrist and a delightful cup of coffee, and I wasn’t sure yet whether I should be terrified of her or beg her to be my friend for life.

  “Hey,” Dirk’s voice came through once he picked up.

  “Hey,” I replied. “You need to take Noah and go stay with my brother for a while. Make sure you pack enough for a week, just in case. Tell the kid to bring all his homework if he wants to impress Carina.”

  “Hang on, what?” The floor creaked and a door shut before Dirk said, “What happened?”

  “Vampire just tried to kill me. Which means they’re after me too now, and my apartment’s not safe.”

  “Frog balls,” Dirk said. “Alright, but I’m going to one of our safehouses if I’m going to risk moving. Don’t know your brother and I don’t trust him.”

  “You have my kid with you, and he’s not going anywhere I haven’t checked out personally.” I paused, gut twisting at the realization that Dirk didn’t have to take orders from me. He still had to work with me, though, and I hoped he knew when to pick his battles. “I’ll vouch for Ray. And I’ll owe you.”

  “Fine,” he said after a long pause, then chuckled. “I never say no to a pretty girl owing me a favor.”

  I breathed out a disgusted sigh of relief. Adrian had warned me long ago about how much Dirk needed to feel like the boss, but lucky for me the misogyny in him was strong. He wouldn’t feel threatened by me unless I somehow grew a dick.

  “Grab my green bag out of the closet,” I said, emboldened. “I’ll need it for tonight. Just texted you Ray’s address and I’ll be there in a bit to fill you in on the details.” I took a breath. “Wait . . . did you say frog balls?”

  “Yeah.” Dirk lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think this kid can hear me through the walls.”

  I laughed compulsively, then went quiet when Minnie looked up at me with her mascara running from sweat and her lips parted as she took heavy breaths. Cutting through bone was hard work.

  Not the time for laughter—noted, I thought. I’d tried to convince her to let me help, but she’d had none of that after getting a closer look at my wrist. Yet another reason I needed to pay Ray a visit.

  “Are you having frog balls without me, Uncle Dirk?” Noah’s voice came through faintly over the line, and I scrunched my brows together in confusion.

  “Nope, just telling Darcy how much you love them,” Dirk said. “Go get all your school stuff together; we’re going on a trip.” He lowered his voice and said to me, “We had peas earlier. Found ’em in your freezer and did ’em up with lots of butter.”

  “Ah, frog balls . . .” I said with a groan. I couldn’t get Noah to eat a vegetable if my life depended on it, but apparently butter and humor were magic ingredients.

  Dirk was quiet for a moment, and I thought I heard a woman’s voice muffled in the background.

  “Is someone else there?” I asked, my good fist clenching. If Dirk had invited a stranger into my home without asking—and with Noah there—I would kill him no matter what the Guardians had to say about it.

  “Nope, just the TV,” Dirk said quickly. “Gotta go, see you soon.” He hung up on me before I could yell at him and left me frowning, which Minnie at least seemed to approve of.

  Shaking my head, I tried to put Noah out of my mind. He’d be with Ray and Carina soon, and I at least trusted them to keep him alive.

  I sent off a quick text to Kat, asking her to cover my shift tonight, and she responded just as quickly that she’d love to. I’d been training her at the bar lately, and she was the only one I trusted not to burn the place down who wasn’t already working tonight.

  With that taken care of, I ran my finger over the dark screen on my phone, tempted to text Adrian about what had just happened. Miriam would already know because of the squishy she’d put on me earlier, but she’d keep it to herself unless I said something.

  It didn’t feel right to keep this from the cops, but Minnie would probably try to hack me to pieces next if I told. And I still needed to ask her if she knew anything about Soma. She was the only link I had left, with Miriam unable to pick through my brain today.

  Soma . . . I frowned, eyes glazing over as I sank deep into my thoughts.

  Going to see a vampire after one had just tried to kill me didn’t sound like a great plan, even without the whole missing memory curveball. But Soma was already planning on seeing me tonight, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to send a goon after me beforehand. If he did want to kill me, he’d have plenty opportunity this evening.

  No, it made more sense that this vamp had been sent by someone who didn’t want me to meet with Soma tonight—otherwise, why risk going after me in the light of day and in a public place?

  I blinked and turned on my phone’s screen, and a local news notification caught my eye.

  Someone was already reporting on the crime scene I’d just come from. Damn. That was quick. But when I looked closer, it was more than just that.

  This reporter had also already made the connection between this morning’s massacre and the other incidents, and they had noticed something I’d failed to: the murderers in every case were supernaturals but not vampires. The first one had been a gorilla shifter, apparently. Yikes. Adrian hadn’t mentioned that.

  I grimaced as I got deeper into the analysis in the piece, which honestly read like it had been paid for by vampires as a PR move. Vampires obviously aren’t the dangerous ones, we’ve been focused on them too long, it’s time to turn our caution elsewhere . . . Hmm.

  It only convinced me further that vampires were behind both the massacres and the missing kids, and I didn’t like the idea that they might be doing it intentionally just to bring about articles like this one.

  Minnie let out a long breath and wiped her forearm across her face, some of the blood mingling with her sweat despite her best efforts. She’d finally gotten the vampire all portioned out on sheet trays, it looked like. “Open the oven for me, love?” she said to me, and I obliged.

  She slid four huge trays onto the four huge racks in the oven, filling it entirely with chopped-up vampire.

  “Will he burn up in there?” I asked, half wondering why I’d never thought of disposing of a body this way.

  “Oh no, not at all—not unless we want to fill this place with smoke and attract the fire department.” Minnie laughed. “No, this’ll dry him out like jerky so I can grind his bones to make my bread.”

  I opened my mouth, then glanced over to the empty plate where I’d been sitting, which had contained a piece of Minnie’s handmade bread just moments ago, toasted and slathered with butter.

  She laughed again, shaking her head at me. “Just kidding. Bones would make terrible bread. But vampire powder looks much less
suspicious than hunks of meat. Once he’s all dried out and pulverized, I can toss him in the bin and forget he was ever here.”

  She was so nonchalant about it that I had to wonder if she’d done this before. In fact, I wasn’t so much wondering as I was certain. There’d been no panicked reaction to the gory dead body, no long moments of indecision—just calm, collected action. This woman had absolutely disposed of dead bodies before, and probably more than once.

  I narrowed my eyes at her and did my best to cross my arms. “Your cooks, the ones who saw . . .” I nodded my head towards the oven. “How can you be sure they’ll keep quiet?”

  Wiping her hands clean, Minnie looked me dead in the eyes. “The same way I’m sure you don’t remember who I am.”

  I opened my mouth to challenge her, but she cut me off with a finger wag before I could say anything.

  “Hold on, love. Let me clean up a bit and then we can sit down upstairs for a chat.” She turned to start scrubbing down the station where she’d been doing all the cutting, and I downed the last of my coffee, wishing I had at least some idea of what to expect.

  Less than half an hour later, we both settled into comfortable cushy chairs in her studio above the cafe, where I’d seen Miriam having tea with Noah’s zombie mother the last time I’d been here.

  I had a fresh cup of coffee and Minnie had made herself a small pot of Earl Grey. I hadn’t had a chance to look around the space before, but now that I could let my eyes wander I found myself in awe of the brightly colored canvasses all around us. Light filtered in through the windows with a more magical quality than it did downstairs, and the air seemed to have a warm golden sheen to it even though it was still early afternoon.

  “We first met in London, last year,” Minnie said after taking a sip of her tea.

  “Where Simeon was killed . . .” I interrupted, and she gave me a brief nod.

  “Precisely,” she said. “You don’t remember it all, I’m sure. I’m sorry, that’s my fault. I can go a bit overboard on people’s minds if I’m not careful. And I had much less control back then than I do now.” She lifted her hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and her fingers lingered on her earring, a gleaming black feather that looked like it might be obsidian.

  “Wait . . . you’re the one responsible for my missing memories?” My head was already spinning with the implications.

  Minnie nodded, taking a long sip of tea.

  “All of them?” I asked. Miriam had told me just minutes ago that she didn’t think it was a vampire who’d screwed with my brain, but I hadn’t even considered believing her until now—that was how sure I’d been that my scrambled mind was Simeon’s fault. If that wasn’t the whole story . . . I shivered, pressing the warm side of the coffee mug against my lips.

  Minnie gave me a shrug. “Probably? I took a lot. But I have no way of knowing if someone else has been digging around in there too.” She made a little circle with her finger as she pointed at my head. “Tell me, what do you remember from that night? When your man was killed. That’s when it happened, so your missing memories should all be linked to that one.”

  “I remember . . .” I stopped myself and looked down at my coffee, not wanting to say it out loud even now.

  Simeon and I had been in his hotel room before it happened, drinking and fooling around. Expensive whiskey and a childish game of stripping and laughter. The pinnacle of my failure—I’d given in to his charm and the nonsensical distractions that came with it, let myself break rules that should never be broken. Even if he hadn’t died that night, I still could never forgive myself for that.

  I cleared my throat. I didn’t trust this woman in front of me one bit, but I needed her help badly. Now was not the time to get precious with the details of my past.

  “I remember that I didn’t see her coming, the blonde woman. And he didn’t smell her. She was wearing a ward to hide her scent, and it worked even on a vampire as old as him. She didn’t have any weapons, so she didn’t look like much of a threat in that first moment, but she used magic . . . His head was rolling on the carpet before either of us could move.”

  I shook my head, trying to recall more details, but it was foggy. Like the image of Soma disappearing from my mind seconds after I’d looked at it last night, the memories around Simeon’s death felt slippery. I didn’t want to linger on them—I had avoided lingering on them all this time, since it had happened—and I’d always thought that was because of his effect on me. The vampire magic invading my brain. But now . . .

  “That’s all,” I said slowly, shocked at the realization. “That’s all I remember.”

  Minnie pressed her lips together and nodded, sympathy in her eyes.

  “Why did you do this to me?” I asked.

  “It was all a bit of a mess,” she said. “Do you remember Evan?”

  I nodded. Evan had been Simeon’s assistant at the time—“assistant” being a polite way of saying “pet human.” All vampires had them, though they didn’t advertise it. The relationships were consensual and somewhat mutually beneficial, although Evan had been a strange case.

  “He and I go way back,” Minnie said. “He recommended me to your senator when you came to town, and I was there to offer my services.”

  I tightened my hands around the coffee mug, trying to process this new information without giving in to the anger welling up inside of me. It was possibly the most frustrating thing I’d ever experienced, to be confronted with this knowledge that had been taken from me. I’d never be able to fully trust what this woman was telling me because it was only a second-hand account—but it was a second-hand account of my own life. It should still belong to me.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “the killer fled as quickly as she came, leaving you and Evan understandably distraught. Evan attacked you, you attacked him back, and then I came after you to protect him. I only wanted to put you out for a minute to stop the fighting, but—like I said—I had much less control back then. I truly am sorry.”

  I went quiet for a moment, not looking at her. This was all a mess. Not just what she was telling me—which did sound like a huge mess—but the fact that I had no way of processing any of this information efficiently.

  I couldn’t trust Minnie. To my knowledge, we’d never met before I’d wandered into her cafe a couple months ago on my way to the Sweepers’ doomed headquarters. No matter how impressive her body-disposal skills or how delicious her coffee, she was a stranger with unknown motives.

  “Why are you even here?” I asked, looking her in the eyes. “In DC. If you were in London then . . .”

  “Oh.” A slight smile graced her lips as she absently fingered one of the pendants hanging from her ears. “I married an American. Swept me off my feet . . . you know how it goes.”

  I pursed my lips at her, deeply rattled by the reminder of how she knew I knew what it felt like to be swept off my feet in love. She had stolen the feeling from me when she’d stolen my memories.

  She coughed, casting her eyes down. “I would have tried to tell you all this sooner . . . but I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear it.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because I can’t fix what’s done. Everything I took, it’s gone. Well, some small bits I remember, but that’s mostly emotions—feelings so strong I couldn’t forget them if I tried.”

  “You remember that night better than I do, though. His death. Because you were there.”

  She nodded, taking a sip of her tea.

  “Was there another vampire there?” If the memories Minnie had taken from me were all tied to that night, as she’d said, that meant either Soma had been there too or someone else had erased him from my mind.

  “No,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I met a vampire last night who knew me well—very well—and I have no memory of him at all. You said all my missing memories would be tied to that night, so . . .”

  Minnie let her eyes drift to the side for a moment, the
n narrowed them back on me. “There weren’t any other vampires there, but you were talking about one right before it happened.”

  I raised my eyebrows, my chest tightening in anticipation.

  “I don’t remember the details,” Minnie continued. “I had no context, really. But I remember it was one of the senator’s rivals. A powerful vampire, back here in the States, and you suspected he meant to have your man killed.”

  I sat up straight, a chill running up my spine, fingers turning white on the handle of my mug. “What was his name?”

  Minnie shook her head slowly, biting her lower lip. “I can’t recall. It was something strange; I’d never heard a name like that before. Started with an S, I think.”

  “Soma?” I prompted.

  “That’s it!” Her eyes brightened, and that infectious smile that couldn’t be real graced her face yet again. She leaned forward. “I take it this means it was all me after all? In your head?”

  Maybe it was, I thought, taking a deep breath and looking down. I didn’t want that to be true, not after I’d spent so much time hating Simeon for toying with my mind.

  Priorities, I reminded myself. Soma. Had he been the one who’d arranged Simeon’s death? He had insisted at the club last night that I shouldn’t blame myself for what had happened. That it was Simeon’s time, and that no one could have saved him.

  The words had seemed friendly in the moment, something nice to say to spare my feelings. But now they took on a sinister meaning. Soma had been confident that no one could have saved Simeon from him.

  I stood up, only managing a curt nod to the woman in front of me before I turned to leave the room. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to see her again, despite how helpful and pleasant she was making herself appear. If she had fucked my head up this badly once, she could do it again, and that made her more of a threat to me than any vampire had ever been.

  “I’ll just see you next time!” she chirped at my back, and bile rose in my throat.

  I swallowed, clenching my teeth against the sensation. Attackers coming at me with weapons and teeth and bloodlust in their eyes—that I could handle. But the charming manipulation, the cozying up to me while withholding information that—