Chapter 10
“Nice to you see you’re back,” I said to Sonya, who was sitting behind her desk again. “Two more nights until the weekend.”
Her eyes were a little swollen, and her nose was red. She looked at me with a dull stare. Even sick Sonya wasn’t much of a party. If anything, it annoyed her more when I didn’t act like I wanted to kill her.
“No papers tonight?” I asked when she didn’t hand me a stack of papers like she usually did.
“No, tonight you get to be humane,” she said in an icy voice.
It was nice to know she had some emotions, albeit negative ones. I’d long ago gotten over being upset when people didn’t think I was lovable. You had to be able to do “cute and cuddly” for that. I didn’t do cute and cuddly.
I walked through to Ruben’s office and opened the closed door without knocking.
“You’re late,” he said.
“I’m here,” I countered. “And you don’t have work for me anyway, it seems. I don’t know what you’re upset about.”
Ruben leaned back in his chair and stretched up his arms. His shirt had ketchup stains down the front. “You’re not prioritizing my clients, like I asked,” he said.
I rolled my eyes and sat down on the chair opposite him.
“Don’t get comfortable. You’re hitting the streets in less than a minute.”
“What am I supposed to do if I can’t find him?” I asked.
“You’re going to make sure you do. I’m not giving you any other cases tonight, so you get to take all the time you need to locate your mark. Don’t say I don’t ever do anything for you.”
“I can’t go to my contact,” I said.
Ruben frowned at me. That was my cue to explain.
“He’s having… technical trouble.” It was close enough to the truth. Having your monitors kicked in was pretty technical.
“Well, you’re resourceful. I’m sure you’ll find a way.”
I got up and turned toward the door without saying anything.
“I want this guy before the weekend, Adele,” Ruben said, and there was a warning in his voice.
“I can’t do more than I can do, Ruben. You know better than to make me promise.”
“I’m not making you promise. I’m promising. This one has consequences.”
I walked out, because it sounded too much like a threat. I didn’t respond well to threats – I tended to turn on them and be the one who was threatening. And when I threatened, I didn’t let it hang. I finished the job.
Outside, I looked up and down the road. It was empty, the halogen lamps casting circles of light onto the otherwise dark street. No one was around. It was just common sense not to be out on the street in Westham’s downtown at night.
I tried to decide where I was going to go. I couldn’t go to Joel, for obvious reasons. Aspen was out of the question, because I was supposed to be on duty and she didn’t have a nocturnal cycle like I did. And the sad fact was, that was the sum total of people I knew. Besides my dad, whom I’d already seen and hoped not to see again if I could help it, and Connor, whom I was seeing way too much of.
I sighed.
My life was complicated as hell, even when nothing was happening.
The only thing left was to try to trace the person who had attacked me. She’d had a reason. Maybe it was something we could talk out. And by talking it out, I meant with the business end of my gun staring her in the face. But how was I going to do that? All I knew about her was that she couldn’t be human, and she had it in for me. It wasn’t much to go on.
I got on my bike and drove up to Westham Hill. I’d seen her there last. I doubted she’d been following me, or else I would have seen her in other places. Unless she’d meant to stay away, which was just as possible. But I was pretty sure I’d run into her by accident. She knew who I was and what I did, but she hadn’t meant to go after me. If that was the case, maybe she’d been monitoring the house on Caldwell Street, the same as I had.
So that was where I was going to start. What did I have to lose? Only my life. No biggie.
I scolded myself. I might be running after a dead end.
Someone suddenly popped up in the beam of my headlights, and I pulled both brakes and stepped down hard. My bike squealed, and flipped to the side, and skidded forward. I shrieked, the sound of my panic filling my helmet.
I slid on the asphalt, the rough road tearing and ripping into my leather pants. The sickening sound of the skid filled the night.
When I finally came to a stop, I jumped up and looked around, but saw no sign of whoever that had been. Where had they gone?
My leather pants were torn all the way down the outside of my left leg. Dammit. Leathers weren’t cheap. At least it was better than being ripped raw myself. I was grazed a little, and I could feel the fresh wound running down my leg, but it wouldn’t be deep. Only skin, no flesh. That was partly why I wore leathers – they were thick enough to protect me from a scrape.
I picked up my bike and tried to start it. Luckily it hadn’t flooded, but the paint job was a mess. That hurt me more than my leg would tomorrow. My bike was one of the few things I got sentimental about. I usually distanced myself emotionally to spare myself. But a bike I could trust.
All of this is going to catch up with you.
A voice swirled around me like a warm breeze. It was everywhere around me, and in my head, all at once. I was pretty sure it was hers.
I’m watching you. You can run, princess, but you can’t hide.
It was sickening. I had my knife out, even though there was nothing I could stab. A cackling laughter enveloped me, and it made me feel useless and naïve.
I was furious. Humiliated that I’d fallen, angry that my paint job was messed up, horrified that I could be haunted by someone who was still alive.
“Come out and face me, coward!” I shouted into the night.
My voice broke around the edges of my words like cracked glass. She had to be here somewhere, to mess with my mind like that. Supernatural creatures had all sorts of powers, but they also had ranges. She couldn’t find me if I was too far away, unless she had my blood. And I knew for a fact she didn’t. I had enough vampire in me to know my blood and what it felt like when someone else had some of it.
The laughter danced around me again, mocking me, and then it faded like a lost echo.
Suddenly, she was in front of me. Her hair was ice-white in the moonlight, and this time her face wasn’t hidden in the shadows. She had sharp, cat-like features, and her eyes glowed green in the dark. Not pools of black, like before. I would bet everything I had that she had feline characteristics and powers. She was wearing a leather outfit that was a lot sexier than mine, I had to admit. I wondered if I should do something about my own clothes, but then I told myself I was a killer, not a temptress.
A smile lit up her eyes even more, and I realized she was still toying with my mind, creating jealousy, self-doubt, materialistic values. I’d heard of something like her before. There were creatures out there that could mess with your mind, bring up all sorts of thoughts and emotions, enough to destroy you without their doing much at all.
“You take a while to catch on,” she said in a syrupy voice that I didn’t trust at all.
“I don’t have all night.” Actually, I did. But I wasn’t going to let her last that long.
She was quicker than I’d thought. With a blast of cold air she was right in front of me, our faces so close they almost touched. A sharp pain shot into my cheek, and I saw her nails colored red by my blood. The bitch had scratched me, and she’d done it so fast I hadn’t seen it coming.
I touched my cheek gingerly, and my fingers came away slick with blood. I swore. I was starting to wonder if I was outmatched.
“You swear like a man,” she said.
“You fight like a girl.” It wasn’t my most creative comeback, but I had to say something before I launched at her because she kept putting me
on my ass so fast I couldn’t keep up. I had to win this one. I wasn’t the type that was accustomed to losing.
She let out a feline scream when I jumped on her, and we tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs. I tried to grab a handful of her hair, but it was plaited in a complicated twirl that didn’t give me much of a grip.
“You need to up your beauty skills,” she said, drawing my mind to my own hair. It was in a ponytail, streaming down my back. As she redirected my mind, she grabbed a handful and yanked. Her hand came away with strands of hair streaming between her fingers.
I balled my fist and hit her square in the mouth. It bloomed red the moment my hand left her face, and she spat on the ground. I was being slapped around like a child, and I had to make my mark quick if I wanted this fight to be equal.
“You’re going to regret doing that,” she said, her voice still as charming as ever.
I reached for my knife. The silver had done the trick last time. I held it up, poising the blade to sink it into her chest. But her green eyes suddenly caught mine, and her pupils expanded until there was nothing left of her irises. Only black holes, a void of nothing. It was welcoming, beckoning me into a world of oblivion. Of bliss. I could leave all this behind and escape to a place where my life didn’t exist. Where I didn’t exist.
No, I had to fight it. My thoughts were almost like a fading echo in my mind, but I focused on them. I couldn’t let her steal me away from myself. I blinked and tried to look away, but something held my gaze. Something powerful. Something invisible.
“It’s a pity I’m not allowed to kill you,” she whispered, her voice rolling around in my mind in waves. “It would have been so much fun to watch you bleed out. But my masters have a bone to pick with you. So I only get to play.”
She ran a finger down my other cheek, and it left a trail of fire behind. I wanted to fight back, but my body was numb and I couldn’t move my limbs. All I could feel was the emptiness beckoning to me. All I could see were those bottomless pits and the whites of her eyes… which were now glowing fluorescent green.
Vampire's Shade 1 (Vampire's Shade Collection) Page 10
