“I like that in a woman.” Kristoff gestured to her weapon. “Wooden bullets?”
“How did you know?” Red frowned. How much research had Kristoff managed to do on her?
“What lady leaves home without them?” Kristoff smiled, but then his expression cooled to a stoic mask. “You don’t need to fear me. You could’ve been claimed by worse.”
“Don’t think that these marks make me yours. This body is all mine, mister.” Red’s hands were steady on the shotgun, but memories of Oklahoma City made her breath catch. She wasn’t going to let a compelling vampire play on her trust again even when they helped you it was for their agenda. She knew the difference between souled and unsouled vampires. Kristoff might have been doing the vampire version of shooting the shit, but she wasn’t fooled into thinking he was like Lucas or Quinn. Kristoff had no shackles on his inner demon. “I’m not scared of you.”
“Your heart’s racing.” Kristoff lifted his hands and tilted his head. “I can hear it.”
Red scowled at him. “You snuck up on me like a creepy vampire.” She had staked how many vampires? LA was shaking her focus. She wanted to know who she was, not more about some historical lady she randomly looked like. A thread of anger grew in her at Juniper St. James, that she had to shovel the fallout from that debutante’s love life.
Kristoff smoothed his hair back as he studied her, his eyes dismissing her weapon to focus on her face. His gaze fell on her with the familiarity of a long relationship, curiosity in his expression. “Who is that girl to you? Julia. She’s English. A Bard, I heard?”
“Why don’t you tell me? You’re my number one suspect. What did she see? Health violation in the kitchen?” Red asked, deflecting the Bard question. That string led to Vic and the dozen hunters she could name as friends.
“Trust me, I don’t kill Bards or leave bodies behind my own club,” Kristoff raised an eyebrow at the foolishness of the idea. “I didn’t live this long by being stupid.”
“Why should I trust you?” Red backed away from him, even if his words sounded true. His logic was solid. There weren’t many hundred-year-old vampires around. The August Harvest, the chaos after the soul spell went viral in 1900, cleaned out a lost generation of young vampires, and many far older. Kristoff had to be smart to have survived it.
“Juniper did.” Kristoff tilted his head as his brow furrowed.
Red narrowed her eyes and cocked the shotgun. “Lucas told me you left her to die.”
Kristoff leaned forward, shaking his head, his irises flashing amber. “That’s a lie. I tried to rescue her from him.”
“What happened, then?” Red challenged him. If she was going to have to take the dramatic walking tour of Juniper St. James’ life, she was going to have some answers. The online sources gave her dates and a list of events in Lucas and Kristoff’s lives, but nothing about the woman they loved.
“She saved me.” His voice sounded like a sad whisper on the wind, too small for his tall frame.
“What?” Red’s mouth gaped open.
“Lucas had beat me to a pulp, and I blacked out. In the most beautiful act of karmic revenge, he got his soul. I wish I had seen that.” Kristoff looked away, as the snark dissolved into surprising amount of pain in his tone for a vampire without a soul. “I never left her. Juniper ordered a friend to drag my unconscious body out before the hunters came. I was willing to die for her that day, when Lucas tried to turn her into a vampire. She wouldn’t let me.”
“He tried to turn her?” Red noticed the shotgun lowering and raised it up again.
“She was his courtesan, but she wanted more.” Kristoff looked down on his clenched fists. “She didn’t want his gilded cage.”
“You think she wanted you?”
“I know she did.” He met her gaze with flashing eyes. “I may not have a soul, but I loved her. I saw him claim a flower and let it die. You may not be her. You may never love me like she did, but I wasn’t going to let him claim you too.”
“Yes, I bet it was all altruism. Not a bit was about getting back at your sire.”
“Oh no, that was in there. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing his face when I claimed you. Then punching it.” Kristoff shrugged. “I’m not a saint, but I won’t lie to you.”
“No, you’ll claim me like a piece of meat, then stalk me in a parking garage. I’ve dealt with unsouled vampires before.” She shook her head, thankful that the hotel had put a sanctuary spell on the parking garage. “I don’t have any illusions about what you would do to me if there wasn’t a protection ward on this hotel.”
Kristoff crossed his arms. “My sire might have a soul, but I doubt his toys fare any better than before.”
“I’m not a toy.” Red sneered. “I’m a person. That might not mean much without a soul, but it does to me, and I’ll fight to stay my own person. That bite was your last.”
“You’ll ask for the next one.” A promise lingered in Kristoff’s grin. “You enjoyed it. Better than those other marks on your neck. Oklahoma, right? You staked a master there.”
“A supreme master, and it was with a wooden spoon.” She grinned back, baring her teeth.
Vampires reacted to the news that she had killed a supreme master of a city in a lot of ways. They didn’t usually smile. Kristoff did. “Why am I not surprised?”
“I can do it again.” Red glowered. He’d had more luck researching her than she had him. She’d found some business intel and a dry entry in the Bard database about being a monster in the boardroom. “I’m not a house pet to put a collar on.”
“No, you’re not a kitten.” Kristoff frowned, his voice harsh with fervor.
Red took another step back at the intensity in his tone. What the hell had kittens done to him? She gritted her teeth. “Get that through that thick handsome skull, and keep your mitts off me.”
“You think I’m handsome.” Kristoff put his hands in his pockets, grinning at her boyishly.
“And now I think you’re arrogant.” Red rolled her eyes. “Who do you think you are?”
Kristoff spun around to hiss.
Red looked over his shoulder
“Fuck.” A vampire built like Hercules, in biker denim with a long blonde ponytail, snarled. He reached in his pocket and whipped out a stake, tossing it with the precision of a ninja with a throwing star. “This was supposed to be a break in.”
Blinding light flashed.
Kristoff caught the stake a foot away from his chest. “And this was supposed to be a private conversation.”
Invisible hands seemed to pull the muscled vampire swiftly back to the mouth of the underground parking garage, gripping the patched shoulders of his denim. His heels dragged on the cement floor as he struggled. “What the burning hell?”
“Sanctuary spell. You broke it.” Red smiled and shrugged, grateful the hotel had done something right.
Kristoff raised the stake, waiting, blue eyes focused on the intruder being forced out by the ward. He threw the stake the length of a football field as the undead biker’s foot hit the sidewalk at the opening of the parking garage.
The stake hit the biker vampire in the chest, and he fell back, transforming into a pile of bones.
“Kristoff Novak. That’s who I am.” Kristoff nodded to Red. “We’ll meet again.” He disappeared in a blurred sprint.
Red sighed and bowed her head before putting away the shotgun and locking up the van. Pulling out her phone, she rubbed her face before sending a text message to the hotel representative, asking for an anti-theft ward for their van. At least she knew the sanctuary spell worked. She went to the elevator, feeling eyes on her until she was inside the darkened hotel suite.
She walked into her room and curled up under the blankets. Vic would kill her for not waking him and telling him that whoever sent the first guys to break into their van had sent more. She didn’t know what to tell him. Why hadn’t she tried to take out Kristoff? Even with the sanctuary spell, she could have tried to lure him outside of the ward.
She had made chit chat with him instead, more interested in Juniper St. James than her own survival.
Kristoff had protected her.
She reminded herself that vampires always defended their claimed humans. Red pressed her hands to her temples, trying to gain control of her rushing thoughts. Counting her breaths like Vic taught her, she tried to focus on the air filling her lungs.
Her heart still raced. She didn’t expect to fall asleep, but soon her breathing evened out, and she sunk into dreams as if falling overboard into a dark winter sea.
The room smelled like infection, closed-in and dark with stagnant air.
A familiar English voice whispered in her ear, pleading with her to live. Names and places escaped her in the dream. She only knew a deep emotional pain that felt worse than the wounds on her body.
Rolled on her belly, she felt the mattress lift and angry voices grow louder before a slam and a thud echoed in the hallway outside the room.
A different door opened.
She looked over her shoulder at the tall masculine figure that stepped over to her, carrying a tin of salve. His face was obscured, but his blue eyes stared down at her with devotion.
The dream disappeared from her memory when she woke in the morning.
Chapter Eleven
October 28th, 2018, Near Midnight, Gianni Construction, San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles County, California, USA
Sitting in the front seat of Quinn’s old convertible, Red leaned forward to squint at the aluminum-sided warehouse. The whispers from the supernatural gossip mill had led them to the Gianni Construction warehouse. A row of parked Harley Davidson bikes stood by the large cargo door in front.
Red spoke to Quinn without looking at him. “It doesn’t look like much. Are you sure there’s a bar in there?”
“The Valley is the one place in LA county where an unlisted minion could hide,” Quinn said.
She looked over at Lucas climbing off his motorcycle, feeling her cheeks warm before telling herself to focus on the job at hand, not the vampire she kissed the night before. Despite the flirty banter he had felt last night, Lucas hadn’t wanted her to come along.
This morning, she had filled in Vic on the details of Kristoff’s late-night visit but skirted over her conversation. She hadn’t been surprised that Vic forced her to recount the story to Quinn and Lucas or by Lucas’ vehemence that she lay low. Mentioning Kristoff in the parking garage had set him off.
Quinn had been the one to surprise her when he said she’d brought them a clue and made the connection between the biker-looking minion and Gianni Construction. He insisted they could use her.
Red looked back to Quinn, “Why?”
“Cora’s iron fist eases up north of Balboa Park.”
Lucas leaned against the passenger side door, helmet under his arm, and said, “No one is willing to drive up Ventura to check.”
“What’s up with this list?” Red asked, remembering the warning from the old hunter at the Pump House.
“It’s like a registry,” Quinn said. “Cora likes to know her subjects.”
“It goes beyond forcing us to all go to her Halloween Ball.” Lucas shook his head. “As if that wasn’t bad enough.”
“She has at least pictures of all of us.” Quinn added, his head high and shoulders straight as he scanned the area. Purpose infused his bearing. His tone grew thoughtful, like a mentor parsing which insights to give. “She even has a registry of fang molds of every LA vampire made in the last twenty years.”
“When you said tight ship, you meant it.” Red said, leaning forward, curiosity piqued by the idea of a hippie vampire acting like the FBI. “How can she make them all fall in line? I know supreme masters have the power of veto over who is turned, but she must have a lot of power to take a census.”
“Just because she has a soul doesn’t mean she is to be fucked with,” Lucas said.
“What about these guys?” Red gestured to the warehouse.
“They aren’t as scary, but keep close to us.”
Quinn nodded. “Keep your eyes open too.”
Lucas narrowed his eyes as he followed her line of sight, high cheekbones sharpening as he steeled his jaw. “We shouldn't have brought her.”
“Hey, still here.” Red scowled at him.
“We’re looking to get information and stay under the radar.” Quinn crossed his arms. “It’s simple reconnaissance.”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you to be cautious.” Lucas shook his head as if saying it to himself. “Adding her into the mix calls attention.”
“What do you mean? Look at this outfit.” Red pulled off the bandage under the studded strap of her cropped black tank top before gesturing to her jean mini skirt, fishnet tights, and leather boots. She had chosen her least attention-getting wig: a simple center part in a wavy black mane. Lucas was lucky she didn’t wear the purple one. Pulling the sunglasses down from the top of her head, she wiggled the frames of her aviators before resting them on her nose. “Someone puts an arm around me, and I look like an undead biker’s old lady. I’ll fit in.”
Lucas glanced at the mark before opening her door. “Let’s go.”
Red stepped out of the car and adjusted the small leather pouch hanging off the side of her belt with her ID, cash, and phone. With a stake taped between her shoulder blades, she was ready to party. “So, whose dame am I?”
Quinn closed the driver’s side door, looking to Lucas. “I am going to be asking the questions. You two are eavesdropping.” He started walking across the gravel parking lot to the warehouse.
“You’re the one who wanted to bring her.” Lucas gritted his teeth.
Quinn ignored him and kept walking.
Red furrowed her brow. She knew Lucas was being protective out of good intentions, but she had been a hunter for over a year. That she remembered. She wasn’t some casual brought in off the street. Fighting monsters was what she did. It wasn’t the first time someone had underestimated her on a hunt.
She looked at Lucas, forcing herself to smile. “You’re my gentleman escort then.”
Lucas put an arm over her shoulders. “I’ve never been a gentleman, Red.”
Walking to the warehouse door, they caught up with Quinn. A panel opened on the door.
Quinn and Lucas flashed fangs.
The door opened.
Instinct pushed Red to step closer to Lucas as she walked into the warehouse. A fleet of vans, pallets of lumber, bricks, and other construction supplies looked normal until they followed the heavy pounding of rock music to a rolling garage door open to reveal a dingy illegal bar decorated with hubcaps and old dusty pictures of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack.
Red knew as she stepped into the room that she was one of the few humans. The bar smelled like spilled beer and tobacco smoke, but there was an underlying scent like curled up serpents that rattled the primitive parts of her brain. Predator.
Red glanced around the room. The room was dimly lit, better than fluorescents for immortal eyes, but she could see the nearly two dozen vampires spread over mismatched tables and chairs.
She could tell the humans immediately. They were the only ones breathing.
A large male ginger vampire, suit jacket thrown over his chair, played cards with a blond human man wearing too much eyeliner, cooing over his shoulder.
In the corner, a petite black vampiress in a silver catsuit with beaded braids in her hair laughed on her cellphone. She held a leash attached to a shirtless white man in jeans sitting at her feet.
Lucas played with Red’s hair idly. His fingers stopped as he looked over, as if realizing his absent-minded gesture, but his tense arm remained on her shoulders. “Let’s get you a drink.”
“Whatever you say, baby,” Red joked as she had with Vic on the countless times they had pretended to be a couple on a job. The joke didn’t land right. She looked down. It felt different when you had kissed the guy.
She wanted him to take her seriously as her own person. S
tupid jokes weren’t going to cut it. Good job, Red, she told herself.
Guiding her to the small bar in the corner, Lucas ordered two bottles of beer before taking her over to a floating shelf on the wall under a blinking Pabst sign. He took a sip, scanning the room. “New faces in the old.”
With this many supernatural ears in the room, they couldn’t say much openly, but she understood his meaning. Their mission was to find the source of the rogue minions. They had more than two rogue minions on their hands. Three unlisted minions were bad enough… dozens were an army. Whoever had attacked her and Kristoff the night before was probably more of the same. Could they all be from the same clan?
A Witch Called Red: A New Adult Urban Fantasy (Red Witch Chronicles 1) Page 13
