by D. N. Hoxa
“Bullshit,” I spit. He wasn’t fooling me.
Putting his hands in his pockets, he stepped closer to me. It took all my willpower not to step back.
“I don’t know how you’ve managed to pull this off. I don’t know what your little friend here is or how you fooled the Guild, but I assure you, I will not hesitate to turn you in. Better yet—I will be the one to take you to them myself.”
Just like that, it was over. No matter how hard I tried to hold onto the false illusion that he was bluffing, it was useless. He knew. And he was going to ruin everything I’d worked so hard to create if I didn’t do what he said.
Screw it, I thought. Between the vampire and the Guild, I’d choose the former, even if there was a chance that he was the bigger monster of the two.
“I want my brother,” I said, and I sounded almost normal. It was already done. I was already a prisoner to this man. Might as well take advantage of it. “You said you would find him. When you do, I’ll do what you say, but I get my brother. The Guild won’t know about it. He won’t go to jail. I’ll take him.”
“I believe we can work something out,” he said with a solemn nod, his eyes roaming down my face to my dry lips. I licked them, and he raised a brow. Maybe he thought I was trying to seduce him. Fuck you, Mister Vampire. Then, he looked at my neck.
“No, not work something out. I want your word. You will not hand Sonny over to the Guild. You’ll leave him with me.”
“Then you have my word,” he said without hesitation.
“And you won’t tell anyone about me. Anyone at all. Ever.”
“Done,” he said, again, without missing a beat.
I let go of a shaky breath. It was fine. I was agreeing to work for a vampire. No biggie. He was going to help me find Sonny, and I’d do whatever he wanted me to do, give him the curse of my fucking Talent, and then we could disappear. The Guild would never find out. We’d go some place far away, away from any Shade, away from the Guild. We’d be fine. We’d be alive. That’s all that mattered.
“And one more thing: if you bite me again, I’ll cut your head off.”
It was like I’d paid him a fucking compliment, the way he smiled. “I don’t intend to bite you again, little thief. Not unless you ask me to.”
My fingers itched to flip him off. “Then we will be perfectly fine. Who are we up against?” I asked, even though it wouldn’t matter. Whoever I would have to fight for him, I’d do it because of Sonny.
“That shouldn’t concern you,” the vampire said.
“Of course it concerns me. I need to know what I’m going to fight against, so that I can prepare.”
“You won’t have to fight anyone. You’re under my protection,” he said without batting an eye.
I didn’t need his fucking protection. I needed to be away from him, that’s all. But I also didn’t have any other choice.
“I’ll do it.”
The words wanted to stick inside me, but I pushed them out. Kit grabbed my earlobe. Are you out of your fucking mind? I imagined him asking me in his high-pitched voice. Yeah, I was. Completely out of my fucking mind.
The vampire smiled once more, leaning closer to my face, closer…
“Come on out,” he whispered.
I narrowed my brows. “What?”
Something moved behind me. Something moved ahead of me, and to my sides.
I blinked, and four people were standing around us. The elf, the werewolf, and two other guys I hadn’t seen before. I was surrounded by the Bane.
Chapter Eight
Three vampires, a werewolf, and an elf. The word outnumbered didn’t even begin to cut it. I watched them through the corners of my eyes because I couldn’t allow myself to look away from Damian. Out of all of them, he was the most powerful. Out of all of us, his power could kill everyone in the street. So I focused on him.
Kit was unusually silent on my shoulder. He was watching them, too, and he had no idea what to make of the situation yet. I’d agreed to work with a vampire. Not just any vampire—but Damian Reed and his team of murderous lunatics.
But I’d agreed. Would they attack me? Had all that talk of him protecting me been bullshit, or did he mean it?
See, I didn’t need his protection. Not really. As long as I kept him away from me for about ten seconds if he attacked me, I’d be fine. I’d kill them all without breaking a sweat. But ten seconds were a long time for a vampire. He’d only need one to break my neck.
Nobody said anything—they just watched me. I forced my body to relax. They weren’t going to attack me. Damian needed me. And if I pretended not to be afraid, eventually I wouldn’t be. Fake it till you make it, right?
“Where to next?” I asked, my voice echoing in the empty street. Which struck me as odd. This particular part of the Shade was never crowded, but there should have been at least a couple people passing by. Unless they saw, or heard, or smelled Damian, and decided to take another route instead.
“John,” Damian said, never moving his eyes from my face. It made me extremely uncomfortable. He looked at me like I was a snack. A curious little snack he wanted to learn everything about before he gobbled it down in one bite.
One of the vampires on my right stepped forward. The sparkly unicorn all over the front of his navy shirt gave him a boyish look. “The Guild’s witches have tracked the thieves’ magic. Their visions were of hills, bright light, and a tall building—which is the Sunny Hills home for the elderly in the East Village,” the vampire said. He was about an inch taller than me, with dark hair cropped short and eyes so grey, they almost looked colorless. He wasn’t as big as the other, or as muscled, and he almost looked like a teenager, but something told me that he’d win in a fight, even though I hadn’t looked at his essence. Something about the sharpness of his eyes.
“Let’s get going, then,” said Damian and stepped to the side, waving his hand for me to walk.
I braced myself as if I was walking into a hole, and I took my first step. Nothing happened. The vampire fell in step with me, while his team stayed behind us.
Kit held onto my thin leather jacket, his small head turned back, as if he didn’t know that the biggest threat here was walking right by me.
Sunny Hills, home for the elderly. What had the vampire said about the witches’ visions? Bright light, hills, a tall building. Malin had seen bright lights, too.
“What would a bunch of kids want in an elderly home?” the werewolf Emanuel asked behind us.
Exactly. Why would Sonny go to a home for the elderly?
I stopped walking. Hills. That word—it sounded familiar. I’d heard it before. I could almost picture it.
“I don’t think Sunny Hills is what we’re looking for,” I said when it dawned on me. “My friend saw bright lights, too, as well as a crowd, a mirror, and water.”
“It fits the description,” the vampire John said. “There are probably mirrors and water in the home.”
But I shook my head. It was something else, something right within my reach, at the edges of my memories…Three Hills.
Remember Ellis Crone, the bartender at Cavalieros people thought was a satyr? He’d worked in a lot of clubs around Manhattan, and he’d mentioned the club Three Hills a few times. It was a human club where supernaturals hung out semi-regularly when they were looking for a good time away from the Shade.
“Three Hills,” I said with a smile. “It’s a club in the City. It’s bright and crowded and probably has mirrors inside. And if I remember correctly, it’s on the ground floor of a twenty-story building.” I’d seen the sign plenty of times because the club was in my hellbeast area, and I knew exactly where it was.
“A club makes a lot more sense. Sorry, John,” said the werewolf.
“And you know where it is?” Damian asked, his voice almost hushed.
I nodded. “It’s on the Upper West Side, not too far away,” I said, and trying my best to ignore the way he was looking at me, I walked ahead.
“Great.
Let’s follow the stranger chick,” John muttered under his breath, loud enough for me to hear. I ignored him, too.
We rushed out of the Shade. As the wards slid off me, I felt a bit less protected. The Shade didn’t intervene in fights or attacks, but the magic sizzling in the air gave me a sense of protection I didn’t have in the outside world.
I turned to the left, rushing my steps. I imagined Sonny in that club, waiting for me to find him. No better motivator to keep me going. When…
“Where are you going?” the elf called. I stopped and turned to see that they’d all stopped by the side entrance to the Shade. No, not all of them. Only four. The other vampire—the bigger, more muscular one—was gone. I turned my head back, for a second imagining that he was standing right behind me, but there was nobody there.
Before I could answer, screeching tires caught my attention, and the car that sped up from ahead made my heart skip a beat. It was going too fast, and it was coming right for us.
When it reached us, the driver pushed on the brakes hard, and the car stopped in place with a high-pitched noise. Out came the driver—the vampire. Without looking at me, Damian moved around the car, met the other vampire halfway, and continued to the driver’s seat. The werewolf and the elf were already getting in the back.
“Coming?” the elf asked me before she pulled the door closed. I looked around, but the other two vampires were no longer there.
Stunned, I walked to the car and got in the passenger seat. How the hell could they move so fast? No wonder the Guild didn’t like vampires. They were too fast, too silent, too deadly.
Which begged the question: why were they working with Damian Reed?
Better yet, why was a man like Damian Reed working with the Guild?
“Lead the way,” he said, pointing at the small screen on the dashboard. I wasn’t very familiar with cars. I hadn’t bought one even when I could afford it because I liked walking too much. It calmed me. But even I knew that the car was not ordinary. The sleek black color of the exterior was nothing compared to the creme-colored interior, with the shiny wooden dashboard and the soft leather covering every inch of it, complete with a nice citrusy smell.
I put the address of Three Hills in the GPS system and got comfortable in the soft seat. Kit loved car rides, but even though he hated technology, something about this dashboard made him curious. The many blue lights coming from it had him mesmerized.
“Where did you come from?” the elf said from the backseat.
“Knock it off, Moira,” said Damian before I could answer.
“It’s just a question,” Moira said. “I looked at her records. It didn’t mention where she came from—just that she registered with the New York Guild four years ago.”
“I came from a different place, far away from here,” I said, hoping she’d get a hint. I wasn’t there to chat with them or share stories about home. I was there to find my brother, do whatever the vampire wanted me to do for him, and then we’d disappear. Hopefully, by tomorrow I’d never have to see any of them ever again. Which reminded me… “Where are the other vampires? Aren’t they coming with us?”
“They are. John and Zane like to run to places whenever they can,” Damian said. He ignored the windshield, even though the wheel was in his hands, and he looked at me every few seconds. Maybe he thought I would pull out a weapon and attack him or something. Either way, it was unnerving.
When we arrived at our destination, the other vampires—John and Zane—were already there, waiting by the entrance. So they could run faster than cars. Good to know.
Damian parked the car at the side of the street and we got out. The twenty-story building was in front of us, and the entrance to the club was behind it, through the wide alley to the side. John and Zane headed in there first, along with a group of eight humans, laughing and talking with each other, dressed to party. When we turned the corner, we saw the line. At least twenty people were waiting in a line, while two bouncers guarded the double doors that led inside the club. Music blasted through them—and yellow and green lights flashed at their backs every few seconds.
“How are we…” My voiced trailed off when I saw John and Zane next to the bouncers, saying something to them. Then, at the same time, the vampires touched their chests. For a second, I thought they were attacking them, and I almost reached for my daggers. But then the bouncers smiled and looked down at the pieces of paper the vampires had given them. Money—probably a lot of it because the bouncers nodded their heads and stepped aside to let Zane and John in.
“Aren’t you yummy, darling,” a woman said, and I thought she was speaking to me. She was human, and she towered over me because she wore really high heels. Her bright red hair cut close to her chin looked like blood in the dark.
But she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking at Damian.
“Wanna have a good time, love?” She reached out a hand to touch Damian’s shoulder.
She never made it. Something slapped her hand away.
“Move it, bitch,” Moira said from Damian’s other side.
The woman flinched. “Ew, don’t touch me, freak,” she said, and moved away, closer to her friends, looking at Moira, while the elf actually bared her teeth at her and hissed. I stifled a smile. Maybe Moira and Damian were a thing. She looked so young, but she was an elf. They were immortal. For all I knew, she could be hundreds of years old.
Damian smiled, shaking his head at Moira, who was still looking at the human woman even when we made it to the door. The people waiting in line booed us when the bouncers didn’t stop us, but we didn’t pay them any attention.
At least, that’s what I thought, until I heard the growl behind me and turned in time to see Emanuel bare his teeth at them. His growl was that of an animal—a very large wolf. Even though he looked like a man, that sound was horrifying. All the people in line clamped their mouths shut and looked away.
“Go find him,” I whispered to Kit. “Find him and come get me, okay?”
With a squeak, he ran down my body and jumped to the floor, disappearing from my view within seconds.
I followed John and Zane inside the club with Damian by my side. Even now I felt him watch me. It was impossible to ignore it when the weight of his look pressed against my skin like a physical touch. I don’t know why he found me so interesting still. I’d already proven that I wasn’t going to attack him. I was just here to find my brother.
The club was much more crowded than Cavalieros. The only time I’d ever been to human clubs was the night before to search for my brother, but none of them had been like this one. The music was really, really loud, and the lights were far too much. I looked but could barely see anything except silhouettes in the darkness, turning green, yellow, purple, red, every few seconds as the many moving lights fell on them. The heavy smell of alcohol and sweat made my stomach turn.
The room was big, but the club apparently stretched to the second floor as well. Two stairways that led up were on either side of the square room. The second floor was less crowded than the first, and the people there hung by the railing, looking down at us. I searched every face around me, my heart jumping in my chest every time I saw someone who looked a bit like Sonny. I couldn’t see him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there. There were a lot of people in the club, and it was going to take time to search all the crowd.
A hand grabbed mine, and I tried to jerk it away on instinct. It was like trying to pry off a steel cuff. It was Damian—he’d grabbed me by the hand, and it didn’t look like he intended to let me go.
Before I could protest, he went into the crowd of people, pushing his way through and pulling me behind him. A minute later, I held onto his hand myself. We’d get lost in no time if we weren’t touching in the sea of people. And, to be fair, holding his hand was nothing like I imagined. He wasn’t cold at all. He was warm, normal, just like me, and his skin was extremely soft against mine.
A stupid, useless observation, but sometimes the mind wandered.
When he finally stopped and pulled me away from the crowd, I was in desperate need of some fresh air. I had no idea how these people could stand so close to each other without suffocating, but none of them seemed to have any trouble.
We were by the wall now, with the bar to our side, which stood right in between the stairways to the second floor. And it did have a mirror behind it, over the many shelves lined with hundred of bottles of alcohol of all kinds and sizes. This place was easily three times bigger than Cavalieros.
An elbow bit into my back and pushed me forward before I could help myself. I fell right onto Damian’s chest. I looked up to find the asshole smiling, his arms firmly wrapped around my waist, as if he thought I was hugging him. But I wasn’t. I pushed myself off him and locked my feet tightly, in case somebody pushed me again. There wasn’t much space between us in the first place, but I’d take what I could get. Even though his arms might have felt weird around me—the good kind of weird. And even though he’d smelled really good—like sandalwood with a hint of orange blossom.
Just another stupid, useless observation.
“So what now? How do we search this place?” I asked, looking behind me and to the sides, searching every face my eyes could see.
“We are searching the place,” Damian said with a sneaky smile.
“We are?” I asked, just as someone stepped behind him, seemingly coming out of the stupid green wall. Then, yellow light flashed upon us, and I saw Zane’s face. He leaned close to Damian and whispered in his ear, something I couldn’t hear.
So the vampires had already searched the place.
“They’re not here,” Damian said when Zane was done. “At the moment, there are only two supernaturals in the club and we’re watching them. If they move, we’ll know.”
That’s when I realized that Moira and Emanuel weren’t with us, either.
I tried to relax again, tried to be positive, but restlessness settled in my chest. No matter how hard I looked, Sonny wasn’t there. And Kit was nowhere to be seen, either.
“Now what?” I asked the vampire. They’d obviously done this kind of thing a lot of times before.
