by DB Nielsen
Reluctantly pulling her phone out of her jacket pocket, she automatically pressed the number—which appeared not only at the top of her most recent list but was the single most called number on her screen—with trembling fingers. She was going to have a hell of a time explaining this one.
The night had barely begun. It wasn’t even happy hour.
Taking a deep, fortifying though unnecessary breath, she waited for them to answer her call. It rang and rang and rang until she felt a surge of hopefulness that it was going to go to voicemail. But at the last second, finally, someone answered.
“Good evening, Prima Aislinn, how may we assist you?” the cool voice on the other end asked.
Aislinn flinched as if scolded by her drill sergeant and reluctantly stated, “Um, yeah, hi there. I’d like to engage the services of the Cleaner.”
Chapter 2
By the time Aislinn headed into the Nocturne, the nightclub she co-owned with Caleb in the densely populated vampire district of London, the news of her disastrous evening had already spread and been blown all out of proportion. She’d already heard from different sources that she’d fought off a zombie, taken down an assassin posing as a homeless man, and singlehandedly overcome an immortal guerrilla force that had been terrorizing the coven.
She wasn’t impressed.
There was a saying which all vampires knew. It came from an old German poem, “Denn die Todten reiten Schnell”, meaning “For the dead travel fast”. Aislinn murmured it in disgust as she ruthlessly wiped dry the wine glasses, wishing that the tea towel she was tightly holding could be used to strangle someone.
Her fangirl, Mia, was sitting at the bar, gossiping about the latest rumor.
“—kicked his skinny ass, and then you took out the underground Russian vampire mafia boss with a paperclip. I can’t believe I missed it. You slayed it. You’re like so totes awesome. I wish I’d been there. Goals AF!” Mia squealed breathlessly in her high-pitched voice.
Aislinn’s eyes flashed like gunfire—two jet-black, piercing stakes aimed at the vacuous foreign exchange student whose guileless words made her black blood boil. The wineglass broke in her hand. What the Vlad? A paperclip? Who came up with this shit?
“Let’s not shatter all the glassware,” Caleb murmured, plucking the broken wineglass she was holding from her vise-like grip before she severed someone’s artery with it. The burly bartender was trying hard to stifle his laughter at his younger partner’s livid response to the fast-spreading gossip. “I’d prefer not to have to purchase new stock just yet, seeing as we bought extra in case of breakages. Though I think we’ve already gone through most of them tonight.”
Aislinn rolled her eyes at him. She continued to mutter curses under her breath, even too low for a vampire to hear, moving on to wiping down the countertop at a speed that was guaranteed to wear a hole in it.
What Aislinn didn’t need on a night that included a run-in with an insane Nubes and a gossip-fest that would last centuries, was to listen to the dyed-blonde Sanguis wannabe pointlessly chattering away in front of her.
But what she needed and didn’t need didn’t seem to make much difference to the fates.
“So I managed to convince the Tailor to put holes in the same style leather dress, which he was reluctant to do, but as you’re one of his elite clients—” Mia babbled on with Aislinn only paying minuscule attention.
The Nubes she’d been forced to kill was jacked up on something more than just steroids. She’d heard there was a new drug on the streets. It had Julius worried. Maybe he had a right to be worried, especially if the effects were anything like she’d seen tonight. But surely, drugs couldn’t change a vampire that much. After all, they were immune to almost everything.
“—ordered from Milan, but now with all the knock-offs from China, all the girls are wearing it and it’s so unfair—”
Suddenly, Aislinn’s eyebrows snapped together, and she seized on Mia’s chatter with dawning horror. “Wait. What? What did you say? You did what?”
Mia grimaced in annoyance, sipping on her blood cocktail. “Yeah, like I said, I ordered my dress from Milan directly through the Tailor in Mayfair. And then some sweatshop in China or wherever copied it. And it really annoys me too because I spent a fortune—”
Aislinn finally was listening and, suspicious, leaned over the counter to look at the female vampire seated directly opposite her. Fixing her gaze, her eyes ran up and down Mia’s length from her blonde roots to her stiletto shoes. To her shocked dismay, Mia was wearing an exact replica of the black, slinky leather dress with its geometric metallic design around the hem which Aislinn had worn last to Styx, complete with the large gash in the side where she had been staked by a hunter.
Stunned, looking up, Aislinn’s eyes ran around the club, taking in at least half a dozen young girls, fashion victims, wearing the exact same outfit. Horrified, she remembered when they copied the flapper girls of the 1920s, then the Twiggy look during the 1960s, and the popstars of the 1980s with lace gloves, bellybutton-baring miniskirts and cone bras—except that now she was the idol they were copying!
“No Vlading way!” Aislinn said harshly, giving a brittle laugh.
“I know. Right?” Mia, oblivious to the meaning of Aislinn’s words, agreed. “It’s hardly fair.”
Abruptly, Aislinn released a low growl from the back of her throat. Caleb’s strong hand caught her shoulder before Aislinn launched herself across the bar at the empty-headed girl. She glanced back at him and frowned darkly.
“That’s it,” he said. “Let’s go down to the cellar and take inventory.” He ignored the fact that she’d done the books only last night before closing, his gruff voice pitched low enough for her ears only. “Something’s got you mean as a rattlesnake tonight, princess. Let’s try not to kill our paying customers. Downstairs. Now. Go.”
Caleb was right.
She was ill tempered and out of sorts, and had been all day, perhaps all week. And she knew exactly whose fault it was too.
Signaling to their manager in training, Lark—the pretty, elfin-looking Sanguis whose olive skin was complemented by her silver-violet ombre-dyed hair—that she was taking a break, Aislinn preceded Caleb downstairs and into the relative quiet of the storeroom cellar.
It was dimly lit, with only the clinical lighting glowing from within the glass doors of the state-of-the-art, med-lab refrigeration units stacked along the walls illuminating the large space. Caleb crossed to the closest one, filled with rows of hanging blood bags, bottles, and trays of vacutainers, and removed two blood bags from the top rack. Aislinn raised a pale eyebrow but didn’t comment.
She was slightly surprised since Caleb was such a stickler for rules from his military training. It was always supplies before surplus, and there was never any surplus in a nightclub filled with thirsty vampires. On the upside, it meant business was booming for both the Nocturne and the Blood Bank.
Caleb threw one pouch to Aislinn, which she deftly caught, and he removed the vacuum tube cap from his, winking before tossing back the chilled, dark red contents of his first drink.
“Vlad, I needed that,” he said with an appreciative shake of his head. “So, give. What’s up, kiddo?”
Aislinn’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t like being called such childish pet names, particularly at her age since she was rapidly approaching her first millennium. She stared aggressively at Caleb, who smiled his slow, lazy grin.
He liked to torment her like any big brother, but she wasn’t in the mood for his teasing.
“Does something have to be up?” she asked, unwilling to give an inch. “We’re vampires. We’re meant to be mean and moody.”
Caleb grunted noncommittally. He was a Malum of few words, leaving her to do all the talking normally. In fact, he perfectly fitted the vampire stereotype of “mean and moody” while it was absolutely true Aislinn did not. And probably never would.
The silence stretched. It was a surprisingly long minute for an immortal.
She sighed in defeat. Caleb was so much better at this than she was. Interrogations were up his alley while she preferred to fill the silences with words. When Aislinn thought about it like that, she realized that Mia was too much like her for her own liking. And that thought really irritated her.
“Fine. But you know I don’t expect you to share my problems.”
He shrugged, taut muscles rippling under his tight T-shirt. “It’s a habit.”
“A habit?” she asked, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
“I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that we were warned not to ask questions when you first arrived at the coven. Well, maybe I should clarify that Julius was warned and we all followed suit.” Caleb didn’t have to say exactly who warned them. Everyone knew she was the daughter of Kayne, the last of his Twelve Disciples, the father of them all, and it was Kayne who had unceremoniously dumped her on Julius and the London Coven after she’d been turned by him. “We were told not to ask questions. And we were not to harm you or let you get harmed.”
Aislinn raised pale eyebrows in surprise as she waited for her drink to warm to room temperature. She hated the taste and texture of chilled blood. “Well then, you obviously didn’t listen well. I don’t remember you going easy on me in boot camp.”
Now it was his turn to raise his eyebrows. “Oh, believe me, I listened well, all right. A few broken bones that heal in seconds is nothing. Kicking your ass daily wasn’t exactly a joy, but at least you learned fast. You’re the best student I’ve ever had.”
She tensed, waiting for the rest, surprised at where this conversation was going. Surprised that there was a conversation at all.
“Now that you’re all grown up, I have to protect others from you—like that Muppet upstairs that follows you around like a lost puppy.”
Aislinn snorted derisively. “You needn’t have worried. I wasn’t going to harm Mia. Well—much.”
“Who’s talking about your fang-girl Mia? Ha-ha, get it? Fang-girl? Fine. Never mind.” The strapping Malum grimaced and ran his hand over his bald head in a gesture that signaled that she was being a pain in the ass. “I’m talking about your firstborn. Pansy poetry boy. And now that other one who roams around here like a lovesick werepuppy.” He gave a mock shudder.
“Caleb,” she warned, her tone arctic. “Don’t push me.”
“But that’s exactly what I’m going to do, Aislinn,” he said with a grin that was as black as pitch. “I’m going to keep pushing you until you tell me what’s going on because I know something’s been wrong with you since Cooper’s first hunt.”
“Hey, that’s not—” She tried to interrupt him, but he ignored her.
“And you can’t keep putting off your meeting with Julius because he’s just waiting for a reason to tear you apart, limb from scrawny limb, so don’t give him one.” Caleb leaned back against a wooden post and folded his arms across his thick chest. “So, what’s it going to be, kid?”
Aislinn’s eyes were the deepest shade of blue, verging on black. Her hands were clenched into fists as she struggled with the blood rage that threatened to engulf her.
She waited, as if this were a test. The kind of test that Caleb loved. The kind of test she really, really hated. She glanced at Caleb and realized he was as tense as she was. Like she might fail.
It hit her then that he might be right.
And that was the whole problem. She’d never doubted she would reach her goal before. She had never doubted herself.
But now—
She might have already fucked up everything by letting the other two Druids go. What if she had let them slip through her fingers? What if it was her one and only opportunity to gain justice, and she’d blown it?
She looked at Caleb. He had known what was bugging her even before she had known it. How could she have been so blind?
When she spoke, it was in a whisper. “I’ve been going about this all wrong. I’m such an idiot.”
Caleb shook his head. “You’re not an idiot. If you were an idiot, I would have found a way to get rid of you long ago—even with strict orders not to harm you.”
She gave him a filthy look. It made him chuckle.
“You don’t get it. I have bigger things to worry about than Julius.”
“Like?” he prompted.
“Like getting justice for Sorcha.” She paused, feeling like the weight of the world was crushing her. “But I’ve been going about this all wrong.”
Caleb’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Not all wrong, just not using your head. You’ve been too emotional from the get-go. Can’t blame you though. I never had a sister murdered.”
Aislinn sighed. “I remember when you taught me chess while giving me all those lectures on military strategy. I didn’t really understand why you found it so fascinating, until I realized the whole game represented a battle with different types of soldiers, from foot soldiers to personal guards who protected the king.” She gave a small smile, no longer feeling the blood rage seething, but instead wistful and filled with regret. “All that military stuff, that’s just so totally you.”
“Why, thank you.” He raised another blood bag as if toasting a compliment.
She just rolled her eyes. “But it’s weird how in the game, you protect the king when he’s the weakest piece, and yet it’s the queen who’s the most powerful. I’ve never understood that. Maybe I will one day. Maybe never. But I kind of get why you taught me chess now. You don’t win wars with swords or by cowering behind personal guards. You don’t win by just believing you’re going to win. You win by your wits. That’s why the queen is the most powerful piece. Because she’s not only a soldier. She’s a strategist. It’s upon her that the entire game rests.”
Caleb’s lips curved in a thin smile. There was something ruthless in that smile. “Finally, princess. You’re learning.”
Chapter 3
“So, how do you kill a dark mage?” Caleb asked. “What have you learned?” His mind was already connecting the dots, ever the military tactician. Muscles bulged from his beefy biceps as he paced the length of the storeroom, the intricate tattoos snaking and rippling along his bronzed skin as if alive. But even with all his military training and many kills, the slight figure of the youngest progeny of Kayne in front of him, just a slip of a girl, made him feel anxious and protective in equal measure.
Her pale brows furrowed in a thoughtful frown. “I know decapitation works,” Aislinn suggested, unaware of his concern nor that her answer made him realize how much of a death dealer she’d grown up into.
“It might not work again. They might guard against it next time.” Caleb shook his head slowly as he returned to where she was seated on the floor, her back up against one of the refrigeration units. It had the effect of creating a halo upon her platinum-blonde head, making him pause for a moment in wonder.
She should have been an angel, not a vampire. She wasn’t cut out for this life.
But he was a man who lived without the constant need to focus on the past and regrets. He shook himself free from the thought, continuing. “So, let’s assess what we know for sure.”
They’d been going over it for hours. Or, rather, she’d finally confessed all, told Caleb the truth of that night when after turning Cooper, her third offspring and a former hunter associated with the church, they had come up against her nemesis, the killers of her beloved sister, Sorcha.
He knew about the triune of Druids she’d hunted for an eternity. For centuries, almost a millennium, and as long as she had been a vampire, she had searched for these dark mages without much luck. Always one step behind them. It was as if they had disappeared into the Aether.
Well, more like a mist, and she wasn’t being metaphorical in the least.
She hadn’t realized their power until she’d witnessed it herself, and their dark magic seemed unthinkably sinister to her—worse than the shapeshifters who were mostly human but could change into their animal form without the assistance of the moon.
&n
bsp; Thinking about it now, she was probably lucky more than anything else—even though she didn’t believe in luck. If it hadn’t been for the help of a psychic vampire and a deal made with a powerful, purebred demon, she wouldn’t have gained vital information that the Druids were here in London and coming for her. She’d still be stumbling around in the dark, unaware of the threat.
Well, maybe not the dark. That didn’t make sense since she had excellent nocturnal vision. More like stumbling around in the daylight, virtually owl-blind, even though vampires didn’t go out in the daylight. Well, whatever.
The point was, she’d had her fair share of challenges over the centuries and thought herself ready to face them, but nothing had prepared her for the pure evil of dark mages. And now, with one Druid dead but two still in the wind, she needed to take stock and consider her next move.
With an effort, Aislinn pulled her thoughts back to the business at hand as Caleb continued his reasoning. “They drain the life force of living creatures to boost their magical powers—”
“They steal it through pain, blood, and death,” Aislinn corrected.
“All right, they steal it by draining it,” her partner stated coolly. “And this fuels new, more powerful sorcery.”
“Yes, they become more powerful by stealing the life force from living creatures and twisting it into brutal, volatile magic.” They’d been through this already. Aislinn swallowed the last of the ruby liquid and something more bitter, tossing the blood bag she’d been holding aside.
The burly Malum smiled wryly. “But it’s chaotic and sometimes unpredictable magic, right?”
Aislinn nodded. “Maybe because they aren’t bound by the same rules as the other mages. Having no rules creates chaos. Or chaos creates more chaos. Whatever. I don’t know.” She gave an uncertain shrug.
He raised one dark brow at her words. It was true. Chaos created more chaos. But who would allow such things to go unchecked? Surely, the mages had a similar council of elders like the vampires’ Atum Council? Or maybe the dark mages on Earth had gone rogue? Funnily enough, he’d never been interested in those species inhabiting the other realms to check.
