Riding Rifts (Vampire's Elixir Series Book 2)

by Pippa Amberwine

  “Are you saying I’m a control freak?” Katie’s eyes were still angry, sharp, and bright.

  I couldn’t help smiling at her. “No. I’m saying you’re a leader, but sometimes a leader has to delegate, let other people do things for the group if they are better equipped. I know Nindock and how his mind works. Let me take some of the weight off your shoulders.”

  I stared at Katie as she glared at me. Then, she averted her eyes to the ground before finally returning her gaze to me. The anger had diminished, and although I wasn’t certain it had gone entirely, I could see that what I’d said had gotten through.

  “Okay. I understand. It’s hard to let go, Jevyn. I’ve been with these guys for a a long time now, and it’s second nature for me to be in control.”

  “I know. I understand that, and I promise I’m not making a pitch for control of the group. Just to handle Nindock for now.”

  “We’d best get back to him before he finds an excuse not to let us stay.” She flicked her head toward where Nindock was watching us intently from behind his beer glass.

  “Smile on the way back,” I said. “That will confuse him.” I grinned down at her, and she smiled back and looked happy as we walked back.

  “Where were we?” I said, once we had both taken our seats.

  “You two settled your lover’s tiff, have you?” Nindock obviously couldn’t help wanting to rib me about Katie and me.

  “Just talking tactics, Nindock, that’s all. So, what do you think?”

  “About what?”

  “About Katie and her group moving here?”

  “I have a problem with it.”

  “And what’s the problem?”

  “Our deal was that if I supplied blood for you, you would pay cash or barter with goods. Well, I don’t see goods, and I would say from the way you’re dressed, Katie, that you haven’t seen a wad of cash thick enough to buy my blood for a long time.” He looked the part of Katie he could see up and down and then turned his eyes back to me. “So, what’s in it for me now?”

  “Muscle,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “Listen, Katie and her group have been fighting SCAR for a year or more. They know how that organization works and what they do. You have no guards out front, and after what happened to the SCAR team that turned up here, they’re going to come for you sooner or later. Half the people here are missing limbs because of your dodgy rift building. They’re not exactly fit for fighting. Katie and her people would be a perfect security team. They protect you; you protect them. Even deal.”

  I dare not look at Katie, in case she was pissed at me for coming up with the proposition, but I could see it had Nindock’s attention.

  “Look, Nindock, you and I know that most of the dragons who have come from Dracos to here have never had to fight anyone in their lives apart from the odd scuffle in the market. The humans who caused all this mess here are organized, armed, and ruthless. For the sake of some dragon blood and a roof over their heads, Katie and her team can keep you safe and then get the other vampires who don’t have the implant on board and start to build an army to take those people on, and you would be in charge.”

  As soon as I said those words, I knew I had him hooked. His eyes grew distant and wide as he imagined having his own army to protect him.

  Of course, he would have no way to control Katie and the rest once they were established, but letting him live under that illusion for a while wouldn’t hurt.

  I hoped Katie understood, and when I sneaked a quick glance at her, she inclined her head just enough to tell me that she did.

  “You’ve got yourself a deal, Jevyn, and Katie of course.” He held out his hand to shake. “When do you guys want to move in? Next week sometime?”

  “Today,” Katie said. “We’re all here already.”

  Nindock took a long look at Katie and then nodded. “Today it is.”

  We all stood, and the door crashed open, the huge body of big Oscar flying through it at speed.

  “Kam.” All three of us spoke at the same time as Oscar lay groaning on the floor.

  The door almost flew off its hinges a second or two later as Kam barged in. He glanced at Oscar and then marched over to where Katie, Nindock and I were standing. I thought he might be about to lay into me or us, but instead, he walked straight past us, sat at Nindock’s table, and guzzled back the remains of the beer that was left in the glass Nindock had been drinking from. Kam wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, belched loudly, and held up the glass for the barman.

  “More beer,” Kam said in his deep, bass voice.

  The barkeep looked agog at him, then at Nindock, and then at Kam again who was already starting to look impatient at his apparent lack of reaction. He pulled his arm back, ready to launch the glass at the quivering bartender, but Nindock got in first, distracting Kam with words.

  “What are you doing, Kam?”

  Kam kept up his glare at the barman. “Trying to get a beer for a start,” he said and then switched his gaze to Nindock. “Then we need to talk. All four of us.” He nodded at Katie and me too.

  Nindock flicked two fingers up to the barman who was gawking at him then, and the barman nodded quickly, his previous surliness replaced with shaking hands.

  I took my seat at the table opposite Katie while Nindock sat opposite Kam.

  “What have you been doing, Kam?” Nindock asked again once the barman put down the beers without spilling a drop, remarkably.

  “You mean these two haven’t told you?” He pointed a finger at Katie and me, one after the other.

  “They haven’t said a word.” Nindock glanced at us both while Katie sat quietly, and I wondered whether sitting so close to Kam was a sensible idea given his violent tendencies and the distinct whiff of body odor he was giving off.

  “Well, Nindock my old friend,” Kam said, after knocking back half of his glass of beer. “I’ve been knocking a few heads together to try and find out where the missing dragons have been disappearing to.”

  “Really? Why?” Nindock asked, looking as though he was confused about why Kam would take on such a task.

  “Because you said you thought Gregori Industries might have something to do with it.”

  “I did?”

  “You did, right here in this bar when you were talking to whatshisname lying on the floor over there.” Kam nodded to Oscar who had managed to drag himself up into a sitting position against one of the walls. “That’s us even now, huh, buddy?” Kam yelled across the room. Oscar just raised a hand of defeat and went back to holding his ribs.

  “That was just me spitballing, Kam. Speculating, you know?”

  “Yeah, well you can save your spit, because I got some news for you.”

  I leaned forward. If Gregori Industries was hurting dragons, then I was interested, and it put a whole new perspective to the whole question of whether to go back to Dracos or not.

  “Go on,” I said.

  Kam gave me a hard look. “I told you to leave me be, and yet here you are at my home, Jevyn. I told you what would happen if you tried to interfere with me.”

  I held up both hands in surrender. “I know, I know, and if you’d told me what you were doing, I’d have told you what I’m about to tell you now. If dragons are being hurt, then I’m on your side.” I winced as Katie kicked my shin under the table. “What I mean is Katie, her people, and I are on your side.”

  “Glad to hear it. You really wouldn’t want to get in my way. Look at poor old Oscar over there. He might need some medical treatment by the way.”

  “I’ll see to it,” Nindock said. “So, what’s the news?”

  “Huh?” Kam said and drank the rest of his beer down and held up his glass for more. I wasn’t absolutely convinced that allowing a maniacal, bloodthirsty, unfeeling killer to drink a lot of alcohol was a sensible idea, but I most certainly wasn’t going to be the one to try and stop him. Choosing my battles seemed a logical approach.

  “You were going to
tell us what you’d found out,” Nindock said.

  “I think I can guess,” Katie said. “Gregori Industries is experimenting on the kidnapped dragons, right, Kam?”

  Kam slammed his glass down on the table. How it didn’t break the glass or the table I didn’t know, because the impact shook the floor.

  “Ha!” he yelled. “See that’s where you’d be wrong, Katie. When I’d finished with most of the people in that building, I managed to errm . . . persuade one of them to talk. No dragons, no experiments, no nothing at Gregori.”

  “What?” I asked constructively as if I hadn’t heard exactly what Kam had said even though he was only a couple of feet away from me.

  “I said,” he said very loudly, “no dragons at Gregori Industries.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard you, Kam,” I said, wincing and holding a hand over my ear. “What I meant was, how so? They’re the ones with the interest in controlling the vampires. Surely, if they heard about what dragon blood can do, they’d have a motive.”

  “So, you killed all those Gregori Industries people for no reason?” Katie asked, her face pale.

  Kam looked as though he was having to think about his answer for a while.

  “It was fun?”

  I shook my head at his callous disregard for life. “So, where are they, if Gregori Industries hasn’t got them?”

  “I have a theory,” Katie said and then looked concerned when three pairs of eyes fixed on her like laser beams.

  “Do tell,” said Nindock, leaning closer to her while Kam slugged back his beer and rubbed his hands together gleefully.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Katie

  Nindock’s town

  Near Boise, Idaho

  I KNEW I had something valuable to say, but having three large guys, dragons at that, all staring intently at me was really off-putting. I felt like I was about a foot tall, shrinking back into the seat under their combined gazes. Then I remembered that without me, this whole shebang would probably never have happened, and that I had a group of good friends outside, waiting to know if they had a roof over their heads or not.

  “I’ll tell you all in a while. I need to get cleaned up, and my friends are all hanging around outside. We need to get our accommodation sorted out and a guard roster; then, I’ll come back and go over what I know.”

  It occurred to me that Nindock, or the foul-smelling Kam, might have an opinion on that, but Nindock started nodding and agreed with me.

  “I have a couple of things to do, and Kam, you really need to go take a shower,” Nindock said.

  Kam sniffed under his armpits, coughed, and then swigged back what was left of his beer.

  “Yeah, you’re right. I smell like swamp gas. I could do with some food, too.”

  “I’ll get some sent over,” Nindock said. He turned his head to ask Oscar to arrange it, but the big guy was still groaning. “I’ll organize it. I’ll get some sent over to you guys, too. Where are you parked? I assume you drove?”

  “Out front, by the big building out there,” Jevyn said.

  “Use that then. The guards used to use it. There are bunks, a bathroom, and a table and chairs and stuff in there. Make yourselves at home. Meet back here in say an hour?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said and stood, scraping my chair across the floor, and turning away before Jevyn asked me what the hell I was doing.

  I headed toward the door, hearing the scrape of other chairs, and then Jevyn’s footsteps as he tried to catch me up.

  “Katie?” he said, grabbing my arm gently. I pulled away and was told to wait until we got outside.

  Once we got out onto the street, I passed on what Nindock had said about where we were going to be staying for a while. The rest of the group hurried away, arguments about who was going to use the shower first already breaking out. I shook my head in amusement.

  “What’s going on?” Jevyn asked when everyone else was out of earshot.

  I started walking slowly, heading to our bunkhouse. “I wanted to talk to you before I tell you, but I really wanted to get the guys settled in too.”

  “Okay, I get that, but what did you want to talk about?”

  “I wanted to say sorry and tell you how guilty I feel.”

  “About what?”

  “About dragging you into all this. About potentially putting your life in danger, but even worse, endangering your planet and your people.”

  “Okay. Well, I’m here of my own free will, you know. Besides, I have an interest in things going on down here now that I’ve had it confirmed that dragons are being kidnapped.”

  “That’s what worries me.”

  “How so?”

  “Because if Gregori Industries or anyone else finds out about the rips and that they can get to and from Dracos easily, who knows what the result of that little scenario will be. I never thought I would say it, but I’m starting to think your mom might have had the right idea.”

  “Really?” Jevyn looked slightly puzzled for a moment. “About what?”

  “About closing the rifts and avoiding any contact between Earth and Dracos.”

  “It’s not that easy though, Katie.”

  “It isn’t?”

  “No. First off, you need to understand something. None of this is your fault. You have to let go of that guilt. If it wasn’t for the crazy people who inflicted this virus on your planet, none of this would have happened.” He looked down at the ground. “We wouldn’t have happened. Stop feeling guilty about it.”

  “It’s not the only thing I feel guilty about.” It was my turn to drop my gaze to the ground.

  “What else is there?”

  “I feel guilty that we found a solution, even if it isn’t a cure. I’ve been thinking about it since the run-in with John and Suzy. Here we are with ample dragon blood and the sprays that Famil developed, while I don’t know how many thousands of vamps are looking for the same thing. It’s why I agreed with what you said to Nindock about security. I want to start bringing in vamps a few at a time, to start looking for them and bringing them here to safety.”

  “So you can be responsible for them too?”

  “Yes . . . I mean . . . no. I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right. I do feel a responsibility to my little group, but I also understand what you said. I need to let others take stuff on too. I’m going to work on it, okay?”

  Jevyn’s face brightened. “Just as long as you know that you’re not alone in this. I’m staying here for as long as I can, and the rest of your people are all capable too. Rely on them and on me. Now come on, let’s get in there before all the bunks are snatched up and all the hot water’s been used.”

  I felt better for having gotten how I was feeling off my chest and knowing Jevyn wasn’t going to be disappearing anytime soon, but I still had the nagging doubts in the back of my mind that had been plaguing me for a while, since I realized I was starting to have feelings for him. Whether they would ever go away, I had no idea, but I was going to have to put them to the back of my mind, no matter how hard that was.

  The bunkhouse was basic but well equipped. The shower room had four heads, and in a matter of a fifteen minutes, everyone had managed to get showered and had put on clean clothes for the first time in days. I felt fresh and clean and sat on a chair at the long table that was set up, combing tangles out of my hair and eating from the pile of food that Nindock had arranged.

  The bunks themselves were clean and with decent mattresses, so I was looking forward to a comfortable night’s sleep for the first time in a while, too. We organized a two-hour watch in pairs, so the prospect of at least six hours, even if it was broken up, was something I hadn’t had in a while.

  I made a mental note to ask Nindock about the possibility of getting some weapons too. It would be pointless guarding the place if SCAR came a-knocking without something to persuade them to turn tail and run.

  The two hours soon passed, and it lightened my heart when Jevyn and I, both squeaky clean an
d smelling of soap, left the building to peals of laughter and some of the banter I was so used to hearing from my friends filling the air.

  Amazing, really, how a full belly, a soft bed, and a solid roof could make anyone feel better. Including me.

  Five minutes later and back in the saloon, the only things that had changed were that big Oscar had vanished, presumably to get his injuries looked at, and when I sat back down opposite Jevyn again, Kam didn’t smell like the inside of a sewer.

  Nindock offered drinks all around, which I refused, opting instead for just a glass of water. Jevyn had nothing at all. Nindock and Kam were both back on the beer.

  I decided to try and keep things on track, so I piped up first.

  “I just want to start this off with a word to Nindock to say thank you for taking us in. Hopefully, the whole situation will be mutually beneficial. One thing we do need to guard the place is weapons. All my people know what they’re doing around guns. They just haven’t had a lot of chance to practice lately, so do you have a weapons store? If you do—”

  “Already taken care of, Katie. I got some of my guys loading up a bunch of weapons now. By the time you get back, they should all be there.” Nindock sipped his beer.

  I looked at Kam. Whether he would need weapons or not, I had no desire to find out. My guess would be not.

  “Where do you think these missing dragons are?” Jevyn asked. He’d been good while we had been getting the guys sorted out and hadn’t asked.

  This was a big deal for me. Something I’d never talked to anyone about ever in the year or so since it had happened, so I hesitated a few moments to try and calm the nerves I was suddenly feeling.

  “When the virus was first released, nobody knew what was going on. I had a sister, Amy. She disappeared one day. I spent weeks searching for her, and then I got a tipoff that she might be being held in a facility called Chemosys.”

  When I said the name, Kam nearly spat the beer he’d been drinking back into the glass.

  “I know that place,” he said. “When I was scoping out places to attack, I came across it, but I didn’t bother with it because Nindock here said Gregori Industries were the bad guys.”