Shadows on the Soul

by Jenna Black

  He hadn’t felt guilty when he’d taken heavily tainted vampires to his bed, no matter how badly he’d hurt them in the process. But he’d always felt somehow unclean afterward. Not guilt for hurting his bed mate, but perhaps some guilt over the fact that he’d enjoyed it.

  Last night, the thought of hurting Jez for his pleasure had never even entered his mind.

  He rubbed both hands over his face, wishing that would clear the muddle of his mind. Not so long ago, his life had seemed orderly and clear, filled with single-minded, shortsighted purpose—to hurt Eli in any way he could find. He’d never let himself look past his quest for revenge, knowing that in all likelihood, he’d be dead when all was said and done. Eventually, it would come down to a fight, and he had no hope of defeating Eli.

  Now, one little slip of a girl had him thinking about the future, had him wondering if he shouldn’t cut his trip short of that final confrontation. And even had him wondering just what his quest to hurt his father would accomplish.

  Grunting in disgust, Gabriel rolled over on his side again and turned off the light, practically snapping the switch off in his irritation.

  So he’d had a good time in bed with his little fledgling. So what? Two hours of pleasure couldn’t undo five hundred years of cruelty and pain. He was what he was, and he’d learned to accept himself that way long ago. When Jez awoke for the night, he would remind her that she’d taken a monster to her bed. No doubt he’d hurt her feelings, and no doubt he’d hurt himself in the process, but it wasn’t fair to either of them to let illusion cloud their vision.

  Grinding his teeth, unhappy with his decision but nonetheless resolved, he closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep.

  DRAKE KNEW HE WAS most likely going to regret this, but he wasn’t willing to let Fletcher win their little mind game. The puppy still trailed behind him, watching but not interfering. Drake could simply kick his ass again and hope he got the message, but he had a feeling violence would only escalate the problem.

  With a gentle touch of glamour, he steered his victim toward a subway entrance, wrinkling his nose as he breathed in the stink of the place. Urine and vomit were the prevailing scents, with lingering traces of sweaty human bodies.

  It was late enough at night that the subways weren’t running anymore, but in this neighborhood everything, even the grates and fences that guarded the subway entrance after hours, was decrepit and broken. Drake had no trouble gaining entrance to the silent, darkened tunnels.

  “God, it stinks down here!” Fletcher complained, pinching his nose and making a horrible face.

  “Then go home,” Drake called over his shoulder.

  No such luck. Fletcher’s footsteps echoed through the tunnels behind him.

  Drake guided his victim to a graffiti-covered wooden bench. The gangbanger sat as commanded, his vacant eyes staring out into the darkness. Even over the reek of the subway tunnels, Drake could smell his victim’s atrocious body odor, blended with the scent of cum and something sweet and smoky. Hash or pot, most likely. Even more faintly under that, there was blood.

  Not a whole lot of it, but enough for a vampire’s sensitive nose to pick up. The scent of blood came from the skinned and bruised knuckles of his right hand, and from a set of scratches that trailed down one arm. The blood and cum scents hadn’t been on him before he’d entered that house.

  Drake tilted the man’s head until it was at just the right angle. Then, with an extra pulse of glamour to make certain his victim’s mind was too fogged to feel any pain or even fear, he sank his fangs into his throat.

  Fletcher moved closer to watch, lips pulled away from his fangs in a grimace of distaste. But something glittered in his eyes, something that wasn’t distaste.

  Guardian or not, Fletcher was a vampire, and the smell of fresh human blood had to excite his senses. Drake would have liked to close his eyes and revel in the sensory overload of the kill, but he didn’t dare, not with Fletcher so close.

  Like a dog guarding a bone, he growled at the Guardian, warning him away as his victim’s heart stumbled in its pace. He drank until he could drink no more. The mortal’s heart had stopped beating within a minute of when Drake first sank his fangs. He wasn’t quite empty of blood, but it was close.

  When Drake raised his head once more, the gangbanger’s lifeless body tumbled to the floor of the platform. Drake licked the last remnants of blood from his lips, still eyeing Fletcher. The Guardian was staring at the body with a look of mingled awe and horror. His fangs were still out, and Drake was sure it wasn’t from any desire to fight.

  “There, but for the grace of God …” Drake murmured softly.

  Fletcher’s head snapped up, and a fire seemed to burn behind his eyes. “Fuck you!” he shouted, his voice echoing eerily against the stone and tile.

  Drake rolled his eyes. If the idiot wanted to pretend he’d never felt the lure of the kill, that was his problem, his delusion.

  “Are you satisfied now?” he asked, hoping that Fletcher wasn’t planning to follow him anymore.

  Without a word, Fletcher knelt by the body, turning it over onto its stomach. Patting down the pockets, he eventually found a wallet and, inside, a driver’s license. He stuck the wallet back into the dead man’s pocket, and tucked the license into his own. Then he stood up and dusted off his hands.

  “Now, I’m satisfied,” he said.

  Fletcher left the platform, climbing back up into the relative cleanliness of the night air, leaving Drake confused and more than a little concerned. Whatever Fletcher was up to, Drake didn’t understand it. And whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly be good.

  GABRIEL HADN’T THOUGHT HE’D succeed in sleeping, but he must have, for when he next opened his eyes, his senses told him the sun had set.

  Jez had snuggled up behind him, spooning him, her body a wall of warmth at his back, her breath tickling the hairs at the back of his neck. He smiled in spite of himself, wondering if she was awake yet. Then her fingers started making light, teasing circles on his chest, and he had his answer.

  His smile broadened, then froze. He raised his hand to hers and flattened it against his chest, shoving aside the last remnants of sleep. He heard Jez breathe in as if about to speak, but then she must have felt it too, the subtle wrongness in the room.

  He opened his eyes, searching the shadows at the far end of the room. The psychic footprint said vampire, about three hundred years old. But there was something decidedly strange about it, something he couldn’t interpret.

  Something he should be paying no attention to! There was an intruder in his apartment, and now that he was fully awake, he sensed another, just outside the door.

  The intruder switched on a lamp, and Gabriel squinted through the sudden onslaught of light. A three-hundred-year-old vamp would be helpless against his glamour, so he reached out even before his eyes cleared enough to see his quarry.

  And his glamour seemed to bounce off some kind of invisible psychic wall. He blinked, and the colorful spots stopped dancing before his eyes.

  In the corner of his bedroom sat a petite, dark-haired vampire with an almost cherubic face. She was smiling at him, and she made no hostile move, but that didn’t ease the flood of adrenaline that surged through his veins.

  “You must be Gabriel,” she said, still smiling sweetly. Her English was perfect, though colored with a hint of a Germanic accent.

  Gabriel sat up slowly, mentally urging Jez to stay down and stay behind him. For once, she obeyed.

  “And you must be Brigitte,” he said. The daughter of La Vieille de la Nord. Another born vampire, like himself. The only other one he’d ever heard of, let alone met. That would explain her unusual psychic footprint, though not why she seemed to turn his glamour so easily. He was still two centuries her senior. His power ought to be greater.

  “Ah, I see Bartolomeo’s man spilled all his secrets.”

  Gabriel snarled at that hated name. Brigitte laughed.

  “Don’t worry,” she sa
id. “He’s no friend of mine. Just a convenient tool.”

  “What do you want?” Gabriel asked, even as he reached out with his glamour again, trying to find a way around her shields.

  Brigitte waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “You may be older than me, but my fledgling is far older than yours, and I know how to draw power from him. If I stayed here long enough, you might be able to penetrate the shield, but I don’t plan to stay that long.”

  Gabriel sensed the other vampire, the one in his living room, moving closer to his bedroom door.

  “What do you want?” he repeated.

  She shrugged, a delicate little motion. “I wanted to meet you,” she said. Then she grinned. “Actually, I had other plans, but I see your bed is already occupied at the moment.”

  The bedroom door opened, and the other vampire—Brigitte’s fledgling, Gabriel assumed—stepped in. Brigitte rose from her chair, moving over to stand by her fledgling, who was staring at the bed with wide, lust-filled eyes.

  Gabriel snarled and used his body to block Jez from view. Under the covers, her hand reached for his.

  I don’t like him, her voice whispered in his mind, and he tasted her fear in the air.

  I don’t either, he responded. He spared only a moment to be startled at how clearly they’d just communicated with each other, then focused his attention. The smell of corruption wafted from Brigitte’s fledgling in sickening waves, though he caught no similar scent from her. Strange. She couldn’t possibly have a fledgling that tainted and not be tainted herself.

  Brigitte touched her tongue to her upper lip. “Of course, I’m sure Henri would be happy to entertain that sweet little morsel of yours if you like what you see.” She cupped her breasts suggestively, but even if Gabriel had had the slightest interest in her, she was too flat-chested to make the gesture terribly alluring.

  “If either of you lays a hand on her, you will both die in more pain than you can possibly imagine.”

  Brigitte giggled. “Big threat from someone whose glamour can’t even get a foothold.” She sobered suddenly. Perhaps the giggling had been just an act. “But honestly, I’m not here to fight.” An impish grin. “Maybe some other time.”

  The grin disappeared as fast as the giggles. “I just wanted to meet the man who made a woman out of Bartolomeo di Cesare.

  “I’m not your enemy,” Brigitte continued. “At least, not at the moment.” She grinned again. “I’m not your friend, either. I’m neutral, like Switzerland. But, should you wish to be, er, ‘friends,’ I could teach you much about what it means to be a born vampire. I could teach you how to use your little fledgling to your best advantage.” Her smile turned into a sinister leer. “Or maybe I could persuade you to trade her in for a more suitable model. You should choose a fledgling to complement your abilities instead of picking a pretty little bed toy.”

  “Get out!” he demanded, but she ignored him.

  “You’re wasting your talents. You could be so much more, with the right tutor. And if you turned out to be an apt pupil, then I could even help you kill your old man.”

  Jezebel’s fingers tightened in his. But, much though he’d love to see Eli dead, he wasn’t about to make this devil’s bargain.

  Brigitte shrugged, perhaps seeing the refusal in his expression even though he didn’t speak. “I’ll give you some time to think it over,” she said. “Assuming your mother and Bartolomeo don’t succeed in capturing you, I’ll call on you again some night.” She flashed him another of those sweet smiles, an expression that now looked absolutely wrong on her face. “It’s been a pleasure.”

  Before he had a chance for a scathing response, she and her tainted fledgling were gone.

  16

  GABRIEL WASN’T USED TO feeling unsure of himself. He was not enjoying the experience.

  He desperately wanted some time to himself, some time to let his chaotic thoughts settle. But he didn’t dare leave Jez alone. While he doubted Bartolomeo or his mother could locate her here in his apartment, Brigitte obviously could. He didn’t know what the little bitch was up to, but she’d made it clear she saw Jez as a rival. And he hadn’t liked the way the fledgling, Henri, had looked at her. Not one bit.

  “Gabriel.” Jez’s voice had a sharp edge to it, one he’d never heard before. He stopped in mid-pace, blinking and turning to her.

  “Yes?”

  Her hand rubbed over her breastbone. A gesture he was becoming familiar with, so her words didn’t surprise him even if her harsh tone did. “You’re giving me heartburn. Can you just, I don’t know, chill out or something?”

  He swallowed a snappish answer and let out a frustrated sigh. “Sorry.” He shook his head, wondering how he’d managed to get himself in such a muddle. “This trip is not working out like I’d planned,” he muttered.

  She let out a nervous little laugh. “Really?”

  He tossed her a sour look. “I don’t know why you’re finding this so terribly funny. You’re in far more danger than I am.”

  She came to stand right in front of him, so close she was almost touching, her head tilted back so she could meet his eyes. “I’m not worried,” she told him. “I have you.” She dropped her gaze almost immediately, and color warmed her cheeks.

  Her words sent a shiver down his spine. No one had ever depended on him before. Now was not a good time to change that. He should never have slept with her, no matter how good it had been, should never have given her that false hope.

  He hardened his heart and said what had to be said. “Don’t forget what I am, Jezebel.” He almost winced at the coldness of his own voice, but it was for her own good.

  She blinked and looked up at him once more, raising her eyebrows. “And what is that?”

  There was a hint of challenge in her gaze, one that raised his hackles immediately. “I’m a Killer. A monster.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You know, we’ve had this conversation before.”

  “And we’ll keep having it until it sinks in!” He wanted to shake her, to rattle her teeth until her common sense snapped back into place.

  With a grunt of disgust, she moved away from him, plopping down heavily onto a love seat that faced the breathtaking view out his living room window. Her lovely face reflected back at him in the glass, but she didn’t meet his gaze, instead staring out at the city.

  “I wasn’t finished talking to you,” he snapped. Jez didn’t even acknowledge that he’d spoken. Something like anger welled up inside him, only it wasn’t that familiar, roiling, uncontrollable mass. Maybe “annoyance” was a better descriptor.

  If one of his mother’s fledglings had treated him like this, Gabriel would have him screaming for mercy by now. He needed to remind her who was boss. But how could he punish a fledgling he wasn’t willing to hurt?

  He reached out across the psychic line that connected them, slipping inside the barriers of her mind, sensing her disgruntled irritation with him and her complete lack of fear.

  “I can feel you in my head, you know,” she said without turning around.

  No, he didn’t know that, but he wasn’t about to admit it. “Can you feel this?” he asked as he reached out with his power and lifted her off the couch and into the air.

  Jez gave a startled little squeak and tried to grab onto the couch. He jerked her quickly up and out of reach, then turned her upside down. Her skirt slid down her legs and she reached up to hold it down.

  He hadn’t released the psychic connection between them, and he casually, almost accidentally, tasted her reaction. As he should have known by now, there was still no fear. A little flare of anger, then the warmth of embarrassment as she tried to keep her skirt covering everything that needed covering.

  He smiled at her smugly as her face turned red from being upside down. She made a little snarling noise that failed to intimidate him, and for a few seconds, he thought he might actually have made his point.

  When the anger left her face and she smiled back at him, he knew he was in
trouble. She let her skirt fall, displaying a tiny pair of red satin panties. His mouth went dry.

  Jez tucked the hem of the skirt into its waistband so it wasn’t covering her face. She licked her lips ostentatiously, then reached up and lightly rubbed her fingers over the triangle of red satin.

  “Can you feel this?” she asked, her smile as smug as his had been.

  Something skittered over the line that connected them, a tickle of pleasure that went straight to his groin. His breath left him in a gasp.

  Was he really feeling her touching herself? Or was he just reacting to the visual? Which was becoming more stimulating by the moment as her fingers rubbed a little harder and her thighs parted.

  Hoping to regain his equilibrium—and his control of the situation—he spun her in the air until she was upright. With the hem of her skirt tucked in the waistband, his view remained unobstructed. He had the vague idea that he’d been meaning to punish her, to show her her place. He briefly considered bending her over his knee, but enticing though the mental image was, it would involve hurting her, and that he wouldn’t do.

  “You know,” she said, “if that would excite you, I’d be willing to give it a try.”

  He was so startled he almost dropped her. She fell a good six inches, yelping in alarm and putting out both hands to try to catch herself. He regained just enough control to lower her gently to the floor.

  “You saw what I was thinking?” he asked, and there was no hiding the shock in his voice. Damn, just how closely connected were they?

  “Yeah,” she said, cautiously. “I had a real clear image in my mind.” She grinned. “Naughty, naughty.”

  Gabriel pinched the bridge of his nose. His cock still pulsed with desire, but he was too intrigued by this revelation to let it go. He’d seen snippets of her memories before, but only when she was in great distress.

  “I can feel things from you,” he said. “But I can’t see things.”