Forsaken Fae: The Complete Series, Books 1-3 (Last Vampire World)

by Steffan, R. A.

  Or he might just kill me, he didn’t add, because it seemed rude to talk about dying in present company. Unsurprisingly, the specters didn’t answer, so Len got up and tracked down a bottle of Tylenol PM in the bathroom cabinet that was still a few weeks away from its expiration date. After popping a couple of the pills, he dragged his laptop to the kitchen table and started searching for any online conspiracy theories featuring a blond-haired master race pulling the levers of humanity from behind the scenes.

  * * *

  He woke with a kink in his neck and a line of drool forming a small puddle on the cracked linoleum of his table. An endlessly rotating Escher cube screensaver bounced back and forth on his laptop screen. It was late morning, and apparently no one had considered him worth capturing or killing while he’d slept.

  He straightened in the kitchen chair with a wince and fumbled for his phone. The broken screen was getting worse. Enough of it was still usable to confirm that there were no missed calls, no messages, and no emails from either Vonnie or Guthrie. Out of sheer stubbornness, he sent another round of texts and emails to them because at least it was something positive to do.

  As he was typing out the messages, his stomach reminded him in no uncertain terms that his body occasionally required food for continued functioning. He rose and shuffled over to the kitchen cabinet next to the stove, where he confirmed that the sealed packaging had prevented his Cherry Pop-Tarts from absorbing the neighborhood’s choking miasma of decay. After sticking a couple of them in the toaster, he started a pot of coffee with mechanical movements and tried to brainstorm possible next steps.

  It was more of a brain-sprinkle, really. A brain-drizzle, barely settling the dust of hopelessness and impotence.

  “Seriously, what the hell am I supposed to do now?” he asked the empty house, since even his specters had abandoned him this morning, it seemed.

  Len was the only person who’d shown even the slightest ability to control or influence the Wild Hunt while it was in the human realm, and he’d been abandoned, adrift, with all of his useful contacts either dead, kidnapped, or unreachable. The insidious, niggling idea that Albigard might have already been sacrificed to the jaws of his childhood nightmare tried to force its way to the front of his consciousness. He stomped on it mercilessly.

  The toaster dinged. Len ate the Pop-Tarts without tasting them and burned his tongue on the first cup of coffee. He drank a second cup anyway on general principles. And indeed, as though some sort of magic critical mass of caffeine had been reached, his brain synapses started knocking together properly for what felt like the first time since he’d seen the pimpmobile wrapped around a telephone pole.

  “The club. Gina. Shit,” he said blankly, freezing with the coffee cup halfway to his lips. Blinking free of the sudden reverie, he set the mug on the counter and hurried to the bathroom for a quick piss and to splash water on his face.

  Five minutes later, he was in the back yard, strapping a helmet onto his head and kicking the Triumph into life. Gina van der Linde hadn’t randomly stumbled into ownership of the Brown Fox after Guthrie Leonides let the club go a few months ago. No—she’d worked for him, back in the days when he’d specialized in making obscene amounts of money for the rich and undead, as a demon-bound investment manager with a reputation for discretion.

  Guthrie had transferred ownership of the nightclub to Gina because he trusted her. She wasn’t a hugely hands-on owner, but she’d let slip a couple of things in the months Len had known her that made him think she was aware that her former boss was a night person with dental abnormalities and severe dietary restrictions.

  Maybe it was a long shot, but if Gina was tight enough with Guthrie to know that he was a vampire, she might have other contacts in the paranormal world. Len pointed the motorbike toward the Loop, heading for the renovated high-rise building at the corner of Delmar and Rosedale.

  The place was only a five-mile drive from his house—but as he’d suspected, the unfortunate parking situation was probably going to end up being a limiting factor for the venue. He found an open spot on the street two blocks down, only to realize that he didn’t have any change for the parking meter. Fortunately or unfortunately, parking tickets were pretty low down his list of worries these days, so he left the bike there anyway and jogged toward the building.

  It took a minute to find the entrance leading to the basement venue, which was on the Rosedale side rather than the Delmar side. It wasn’t a big surprise to find it locked up tight at this time of day. He pounded on the door, knowing that if tonight was the grand opening, there would already be people here getting the finishing touches ready for the public.

  He ignored the occasional odd look from people walking by and kept thumping away. Eventually, his persistence was rewarded. The door clicked and swung open, revealing Maurice, one of the bouncers. The man’s bulk nearly filled the doorway.

  He raised nonexistent eyebrows in surprise. “Len? Huh. Didn’t think you were on the schedule today. C’mon in, man. Take a look around the place.”

  “Hey, Maurice,” Len said, trying to muster a smile. From the feel of things, it probably looked more like a death rictus.

  Maurice was in shirtsleeves, rolled up to the elbows to reveal forearms the size of Len’s biceps. It was a bit shocking to see him in anything less than a well-tailored three-piece suit. Sweat beaded his dark skin—evidently he’d been drafted into moving tables and equipment around today, rather than merely standing in the corner looking intimidating.

  Len followed him down the steps leading to the venue, which was, indeed, in a state of controlled chaos. Parking issues aside, he’d been right in thinking this place would be a great location. Old instincts drew him to find the kitchen and poke around inside, but that wasn’t why he was here.

  “This place looks great,” he said. “Hey, I don’t suppose Gina’s around? I really need to talk to her.”

  Maurice shook his head. “Nah. Not yet. I’m sure she’ll make an appearance this evening, though.”

  Len cursed internally, knowing that every hour he wasted might be Albigard’s last. “Okay. Um... who’s in charge today? Is Sally here? Or Kat?”

  “Yeah, Sally’s here. Last I saw her, she was double-checking the liquor inventory. Kat’s not on ‘til tonight, though,” Maurice said.

  “Thanks, I’ll go find her,” Len told him. “Don’t let me keep you from what you were doing.”

  Maurice snorted. “You kidding? This is the first break I’ve had all day.”

  Len left him to it and went looking for the floor manager. He found her scribbling on her ever-present clipboard and hurried over.

  She looked up and frowned at him. “Len? You haven’t been answering emails. I wasn’t sure if you were coming back or not.”

  Len scrubbed at his eyes. “Yeah... sorry about that. There’s been a bit of a situation.”

  One of the nice things about the Brown Fox was that most of the employees were holdovers from the time when Guthrie had been the boss. Sally knew all too well what that particular tone of voice meant. She lowered the clipboard, giving him her full attention.

  “Are we talking a ‘bombs in the basement’ kind of situation, or an ‘every president and prime minister in the world dropping dead’ kind of situation?”

  “Closer to the latter than the former,” he told her. “You heard about the so-called chemical spill that killed a whole neighborhood? Well, that was my neighborhood. It’s related to that, though as far as I know, there’s nothing about it that should affect the club specifically. But I really, really need to speak to Gina. Like, right now.”

  Sally’s worried frown deepened. “She’s not here.”

  Len nodded. “Yeah, Maurice said. Have you got her cell number, though?”

  Her expression lightened. “Oh—of course. Here, let me...”

  She fumbled in her pocket, presumably for her phone, but was interrupted by a commotion coming from the front of the venue. Several people cried out, and th
ough they sounded more surprised than alarmed, Len’s muscles still jerked in hyper-reactive awareness.

  “Er... sorry,” Sally said. “Give me just a second first to find out what’s happening...”

  Len followed her up front, his nerves jangling. A knot of employees—mostly female—had gathered around a table and were cooing over something Len couldn’t see.

  “Hey, people,” Sally called, no-nonsense. “What’s going on, and why aren’t we working?”

  Jenn, one of the wait staff, turned around with a wide grin. “It’s a cat! It must have wandered in, or else it’s been hiding down here somewhere. Oh! Hi, Len!”

  Len caught sight of the large black cat with the white diamond on its chest sitting primly on the table, and his jaw dropped. He quickly snapped it closed.

  “Uh... hi, Jenn,” he managed in a faint voice.

  Sally bustled forward. “We can’t have a cat in here—it’s against code!”

  The cat flattened its ears and hissed at her, bringing her to an abrupt halt a few steps away. The knot of admiring staff backed away from the table, suddenly wary.

  Len blinked a couple of times to make sure he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. When the familiar cat remained familiar, he cleared his throat. “Here, let me take care of it. I’m not supposed to be here anyway.”

  Sally gave him an odd look. “If you’re sure...?”

  “I’m sure,” he said. “You’ve got my phone number on file, right? Could you have Gina call me?”

  “I can do that,” Sally replied. After a slight hesitation she asked, “Should I, uh, put you down on the schedule for this week?”

  Len looked around the place with regret, and shook his head. “Better not. Best of luck with the opening, though. I’ve really missed you guys.”

  Sally’s expression said she saw more than he really wanted her to. “Come back when you can. And... be careful, okay?”

  He nodded, and let his gaze run over the faces he’d worked with for months. “I’ll do my best. Later, guys.”

  Rather than scoop the cat up in his arms, he headed for the stairway leading to ground level. As he’d known it would, the animal hopped down and trotted after him. Halfway up the stairs, he paused and turned. Reality twisted, and the cat-sidhe stood three steps below him.

  “We have a problem,” Len said. “Well, several.”

  The cat-sidhe blinked green eyes at him. “Oh, human... you have no idea. We must leave now, before it’s too late.”

  Len’s pulse picked up. “Too late for what?”

  The sidhe’s mouth twitched into an unhappy frown. “Too late for Albigard of the Unseelie.”

  SEVEN

  “ALBIGARD? WHERE is he?” Len demanded.

  “Someplace very bad,” the cat-sidhe replied, doing nothing to calm Len’s racing heart. “Come. There is no time.”

  The petite Fae opened a portal right inside the stairwell. Len stared at it, briefly wondering when he’d lost the last vestiges of his sense of self-preservation. The answer was ‘some time ago,’ so he walked through it without another word. The disorientation of stepping from a stairway onto a relatively flat surface, combined with the usual swooping sensation of magical travel, caused him to stumble as his feet met unfinished stone.

  He caught his balance and looked around, peripherally aware of the sidhe following him through and closing the portal behind them. Len got a confused impression of a natural underground cavern lit by torches before his attention zeroed in on a figure chained to the far wall.

  Albigard met Len’s gaze with shocked green eyes. Before Len could call out to him like a complete idiot, the cat-sidhe caught his arm—fingernails that were just a little too claw-like digging in through his sleeve. He snapped his mouth shut.

  The sidhe lifted their other hand, fingers forming a complicated pattern in the air as they murmured low words in a language Len didn’t understand. He recognized the stifling sense of a silencing ward falling over the cavern, however, and raised his eyebrows in a silent question.

  “You may speak now,” the cat-sidhe replied.

  “Albigard,” Len called hoarsely, crossing the cave at a run and sliding to a stop in front of the chained Fae—who was still staring at him as though he didn’t believe his own eyes.

  “You... came?” Albigard breathed. “How...?”

  “Ask the housecat,” Len said, hardly able to believe the Fae was alive and seemed relatively unharmed. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  “We must free him quickly and leave before the guards realize we are here,” said the sidhe. “The chains and shackles are made of iron. I cannot break them magically.”

  Len wrenched his attention from the mere fact of Albigard’s presence to the details of his imprisonment. His captors had collared him, and something about that fact raised a slow burn of acid in Len’s stomach. Iron wrist shackles held his arms stretched over his head, connected by short lengths of chain to bolts in the rock wall. It was a stress position—one that had been commonly used by humans as a form of torture over the centuries. The acid in his gut rose higher.

  They’d stripped Albigard of his customary buckskin and linen garments, possibly because the clothes were imbued with magic. He was bare above the waist. Vaguely Celtic-looking tattoos twined across his torso, fully visible except where they dipped beneath the waistband of the loose cotton pants his jailors had dressed him in.

  Heavy chains crisscrossed his body from chest to ankle, the ends fastened by a padlock hanging against his left thigh. Two more padlocks held the wrist shackles closed, and another locked the collar in place.

  “Keys?” Len asked, knowing the question was probably a waste of time.

  Albigard shook his head, confirming Len’s fears. “Where are we?” the Fae asked, his voice a bare rasp.

  “California,” said the cat-sidhe.

  Albigard’s eyes flew to the diminutive Fae, alarm obvious on his face. “What?”

  “That is why it’s imperative that we remove you from this situation at once,” the sidhe said grimly.

  Len shot them a confused look before returning to his examination of the lock holding the chains closed. “Why? What’s in California?” he asked, not sure he really wanted to know the answer.

  “The entrance to Hell,” the cat-sidhe replied in the same dark tone as before.

  “Um... okay?” Len said slowly. He shook his head abruptly, dismissing the other questions he wanted to ask. “On second thought, you know what? Never mind. Not exactly the most pressing issue right now.”

  He lifted the padlock he was examining, ignoring Albigard’s slight flinch at the brush of his fingers against the thin cotton pants he was wearing.

  The cat-sidhe watched nervously. “Can you open it, human?”

  “This thing looks ancient,” Len told them. “So... maybe? I need something flat and narrow, and strong enough that it won’t break when I twist it. Like a screwdriver, or a...”

  The sidhe drew a slender dagger from a sheath at their waist and handed it to Len, hilt first.

  “Or like that. Okay. I also need a piece of wire or something.”

  “You’ve done this before?” Albigard asked warily.

  Len snorted. “I’ve been homeless. I’ve lived on the streets—on two separate occasions, actually. Yes, I’ve picked locks before, though nothing exactly like this one.”

  He looked around, searching for anything that might work to manipulate the tumblers inside the padlock. His gaze fell on the golden clasp, like a brooch, holding the cat-sidhe’s collar closed. He pointed at the jewelry.

  “Let me have that. Not as a gift—I’m just borrowing it,” he added hastily, well aware of the dangers of accepting gifts from Fae. “I think the pin will work for what I need.”

  The sidhe unhooked the pin and handed it over without question. “Very well. You may use this, but I require it back when you are done. The dagger as well.”

  “It’s a deal,” Len said. He knelt in front
of Albigard’s bare feet, trying to ignore the awkward sexual connotations of the position—not to mention the way the Fae’s muscles stiffened in reaction to his proximity.

  “How did you find me here?” Albigard asked, presumably directing the question to the cat-sidhe this time. Len could still hear a faint tremor behind the Fae’s words, though he couldn’t have said whether it was due to the uncomfortable position he’d been chained in for hours, or something deeper.

  The sidhe’s reply was chiding. “What have I told you about Unseelie wards, a leanbh?”

  From this, Len gathered that the cave had been magically warded against detection in the same way as Albigard’s house in Chicago. Evidently, the sidhe could see straight through such Unseelie protections, and Len had never had more reason to be happy for that fact. He focused on the first lock, inserting the dark metal tip of the dagger into the bottom part of the keyhole and putting a bit of clockwise tension on it as he prodded the top of the keyhole with the pin.

  “The Court is intent on a reckless course,” the cat-sidhe continued. “They must not under any circumstances succeed. Once you are freed, it’s vital that you find a hiding place where they cannot easily follow. Do you understand, little one?”

  A full-body shiver wracked Albigard, making Len’s pin slip inside the lock.

  “Yes, I...” The Fae swallowed audibly. “Yes.”

  “What kind of ‘reckless course’ are we talking about here?” Len asked, not looking up from his work. “Or is that another one of those answers I’d be happier not knowing?”

  The cat-sidhe replied in a tone that indicated it probably was. “Unlike the gate between Earth and Dhuinne, the gate between Earth and Hell only opens in one direction. Any may enter, but only demons and those bound to them may leave Hell once they are inside. Nothing else can pass through, and the veil around the demon realm is very thick.”