Vampire Master: Vampire Queen Series: Club Atlantis

by Joey W. Hill

  He managed a grimace. “Not always. She’s a lot more stubborn than she seems.”

  Anwyn offered him a tight smile. “Noticed that, have you? Over time, I’ve learned that Ella is like a river.”

  Was it odd that Anwyn had used the same image he’d applied to Don’s pain? But it was a good one. He told his BDSM therapy patients to have a visualization go-to, to help calm them, center them. His was running water, in forests. Creeks, rivers, streams. Not the ocean. Too loud and big. But a creek meandering through a quiet forest, that was different.

  He remembered the creeks he and Newt played in, growing up. Building dams, rival forts for their toy soldiers, built on opposite banks so they could fire rocks at one another with small catapults made of sticks, string and old spoons. To distract him from trauma episodes, he’d rebuild those forts and mock battles in his head.

  Unfortunately, as the pain built in renewed waves, his grip on the image slipped. Then he made the mistake of closing his eyes. The quaking in his belly spread along the fault line of his memories, and widened quick. He heard the high-pitched whining in his ears. No, damn it.

  “How is she like a river?” he demanded. He needed something to pull him away from where his mind wanted to drag him. Explosions, screams…blood. Staring eyes. Eyes that promised him hell because of who he was, what he’d done to those he’d loved, to himself. He’d failed his grandmother utterly. Thank God she’d died before Vietnam, no matter how much he’d grieved for her loss.

  Don’t ever let your head get ahead of God.

  Thankfully, Anwyn seemed to understand what he needed, even if it might be too late. “A river will flow up, under and around anything,” she said. “Alter its shape, size, even location, no matter how large or immovable the shape seems. With all its rain, a big thunderstorm only adds to a river’s strength and determination.”

  “Thunderstorm.” Good metaphor for an explosion. Jesus… “Anwyn.”

  He had his eyes shut again, couldn’t open them. He needed to open them. He sensed her reaching out, the movement of air before she’d make contact.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said sharply. Fuck, he had to move, even though he knew he shouldn’t. His arms tensed, hands bracing to push himself up, and pain detonated everywhere. But if he couldn’t move, he’d fucking—

  “Wolf, reach out to Ella’s mind. Do it now.”

  He was too caught up in his head to question it. He did, and found her, right there. The calm place inside a storm.

  Anwyn lived at Club Atlantis. The glassed-in penthouse on the top of the building, as well as part of the basement area, comprised her private lodgings. An elevator with a security code known only to a few provided access.

  It was to the basement apartment that she’d taken Ella. By the time Gideon had arrived, after handling whatever needed to be managed above, Anwyn had helped her clean up some, checked her over for more severe injuries. Daegan had put Wolf on his stomach on the bed in the same room, tending to him while Anwyn checked on her. Ella was like a zombie doll, though her gaze clung to Wolf the entire time, her mind not capable of anything much.

  Until she started to see those jungle images. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t her who was the soldier…it was Wolf. But why did it seem so clear in her mind?

  Not all of the strange, whirling thoughts seemed like hers. Maybe she had a concussion. But when Gideon guided her to a spacious bathroom with the gateway to bliss—a shower—she didn’t care if she had a brain bleed. She wanted to be clean first. Suddenly she was way too aware of what was crusted on her body, embedded in her torn clothes.

  “I’ve got it from here,” she told Gideon. “Would you go back to Wolf and Anwyn, so I’ll know he has all the help he needs?”

  “Anwyn’s got it,” Gideon told her, his hand at the small of her back, a steadying touch Ella needed more than she wanted to admit. “Best for me to stay nearby in case you need some help. Traumatic events have a way of doing a loop-de-loop and coming back to hit you when the adrenaline wears off.”

  She opened her mouth to assure him she’d be fine and careful, and the thought got caught in a wave of…she couldn’t describe it. She clutched the doorframe of the bathroom as Gideon shifted quickly to grab her. Her mouth opened on a rough snarl that was nothing like her.

  “Don’t touch me.” Not because she didn’t want to be touched…what was going on? It was like the jungle, the gun in her hands, but not her.

  Gideon had steadied her anyway, but with a much lighter touch than she expected he would have used. He spoke with a calm authority that grabbed her attention.

  “Ella, you’re feeling what Wolf is feeling. Give him something else to think about. Nice, normal things. Push past it and focus on the bath. Think Ella-type thoughts. Help him find his way out of that pit. They’re not your thoughts. They’re his.”

  Yes, he was right. She had a way of intuiting what people thought or were feeling, but this was like she was standing inside Wolf’s head, getting hammered by overwhelming feelings of fear, anxiety, rage, the need to act, to move, to kill. He was in pain. Goddess, so much pain.

  “No, you need to stay here.” Gideon blocked her way as she tried to spin and return to her Master. “You don’t need to be beside him to help him, Ella. Your Master needs your help. In his head. In your head.”

  There was a sharpness to Gideon’s tone that somehow reminded her of Anwyn. She could almost feel the Mistress’s gaze on her, demanding she push past her own personal reaction and obey.

  She took a deep breath, slowed things down. Calm. His thoughts, not hers. None of it made sense, but at the moment she’d take it all at face value, respond rather than analyze.

  She’d never been in a jungle like the one she was seeing, feeling. What a terrible place, full of fear, fire and blood. Oppressive heat. She drew herself out of there, into the bathroom, squatting down to put both palms on the cool white and blue tile. Clean, like cold water. Following instinct, she drew her shirt off and then stretched out, putting her upper torso against all those chilly, clean tiles. She was still wearing her bra, but the tile felt so good against her upper abdomen, her arms, that she laid them above her head, elbows bent.

  She toed off her sneakers, let the sides of her feet enjoy the same coolness. This bathroom, with all its tones of blue, white and silver, they were as far from that humid, violent jungle as anything, right?

  That feeling that wasn’t hers was evening out, receding.

  Shirt. What was on your shirt?

  Somehow, she knew he meant the pattern, not the other things she wouldn’t think about. Palm trees. A seagull. It was a Veronica Mars Investigations T-shirt. I wore it for Don.

  She fanned out her fingers on the tile. Master… Am I talking in your head, or are you talking in mine?

  A long pause. Both.

  Take your bath. Wolf closed his mind slowly, like a doorway shutting gently between them, so he wasn’t giving Ella any more of his fucking nightmares. But she’d pulled him out of them, with nothing more than a visual of bathroom tile. It would have made him smile if he wasn’t ready to kill someone. Someone sitting on a stool near him, eyeballing him with a blue-green gaze that could bring men to their knees. Most men.

  He remembered now. “Give her the second mark. Do it.”

  “You had no right to do that,” he said between gritted teeth.

  “I didn’t,” Anwyn said calmly. “It’s not possible for me to second mark someone for you.”

  He showed his fangs. “Don’t be a fucking smartass.”

  “You’d be wise to watch your tone. It would not take much to finish what the bomb started.”

  His gaze snapped toward the shadows, saw nothing. That didn’t mean anything. He should have realized there was another vampire in the room, but his radar was a little scrambled. He was just about done lying down for this shit, but then Anwyn leaned forward, her hands clasped before her, and what was in her expression gave him pause.

  Some regret, along wi
th firm resolve, tension, and a great deal of caring.

  “We had no time. You needed blood, and you’d fight taking anyone’s but hers. I didn’t want you to kill her by accident. She still doesn’t know what you are. If you don’t want her to know, then don’t utilize the second mark. Keep your mind closed to her, now that you have your wits about you.”

  “Well, that horse is kind of out of the barn, isn’t it?”

  Anwyn shrugged. “Ella is very open to the non-mundane. She would accept that it was caused by concussion. One of you temporarily had more access to the parts of the brain that permit telepathy.”

  “That sounds like total horseshit.”

  “More than you being a vampire? One who has second marked her, such that you can now read her thoughts and give her access to yours when you permit it, so that you can speak to one another without opening your mouths?” She cocked her head. “It makes kissing and talking much easier.”

  “Did you catch being a total wiseass from Gideon?” he said. “Respectfully.”

  He tossed that word out to the air, to wherever in the room Daegan was. He wanted him in his field of vision, but realized making demands wasn’t likely to go well. And they were pointless. Even if Wolf was at top strength, Daegan had the strength to dice him up anyway.

  He didn’t think Anwyn was lying to him, but he also thought she’d had her own reasons for having him second mark Ella. He’d address that later, when he wasn’t helpless on this mattress.

  “Wolf.”

  He realized he’d drifted off. “Hell. Sorry. What?”

  “It’s okay.” Pissing match over. Anwyn’s concerned face was in his vision. “Here, drink some of this. You keep licking your lips, and they look dry.”

  Cold water tasted better than anything, other than Ella’s blood. Anwyn had provided him a straw so he didn’t have to lift his head. He drained the glass, rattling the ice at the bottom. Anwyn fished out a piece and ran it over his cracked lips. The intimate act was done with maternal kindness. Hell, he really must look like shit.

  “What do you remember?” she asked. Suddenly he recalled there was a vital reason Daegan was in the room. Intel. Atlantis had been attacked.

  That helped, because it gave him a focus, a way to help, to defend what was important to him. They needed his memory, every detail of what had happened.

  He went back to the alley again in his head. He realized he’d recognized it a second before it happened. Just like in Vietnam, that sudden inhalation, like the bomb sucked in a breath before it detonated, but that pause gave you nothing, because by the time you heard it, it was already too late.

  Like a lot of things about that time, the gunfire, the bombs, they were things he never wanted to experience again, that he actively avoided if he could. Not because the noise alone disturbed him, but because of what came with it. The screams, the blood. The death of friends, comrades.

  Newt.

  All the parts of him scattered. Because yeah, there was time to do one thing, if you were the one who’d accidentally triggered the damn thing. Throw yourself down on it so your last act on earth was a noble sacrifice, not a fuckup.

  Then came the pointlessness, as the best friend who’d watched you die, who’d carried your blood and flesh on his fatigues until the end of the op, pulled it all together and moved onward to kill people he didn’t know, in a country he hated because it wasn’t home.

  Newt should have gotten married, had kids. He deserved to get old. Since the little bastard had loved his fried foods, Wolf liked to think of him indulging that love for decades, then dying of a quick and painless heart attack while sitting on his porch, watching his grandkids.

  Wolf was getting pulled off track, back toward that dark, whining fiery place. So he thought of cool tile. Went back to the bathroom in his head. Though he kept that door between him and Ella closed this time, he could see, hear and feel her and her thoughts, without her being aware of his presence.

  “Give me a moment.” He spoke with stiff lips.

  “Take your time.” Anwyn’s voice, in the distance.

  Ella had removed the rest of her clothes and was in the shower. There was a seat in either corner of it, and she sat on one, being pummeled by the spray. She had her head tipped back, her dark hair sleek over her shoulders, down her back, and over one breast. Her generous bottom flattened against the smooth fiberglass, her fingers pressed against the edge on either side of her thighs as she let the water wash away dirt and blood.

  She was humming, he realized, humming to be sure nothing filled her head about the explosion. She had a variety of techniques for keeping stress at bay, which told him just how much stress she routinely handled.

  Multiple jobs. And she lived…where the hell did she live? In a retrofitted garden shed with two rooms, a bathroom and a bedroom, with a standing clothes rack and small chest of drawers for Ella’s belongings.

  The renovated shed had a window A/C unit and a space heater for winter. Ella loved the place. It was in a friend’s backyard, a garden of trees, shrubs and flowers. There was a small vegetable plot that Ella helped maintain, so she shared the fresh veggies with her friend.

  A scattering of wind catchers throughout the landscaping made music in the middle of the night. Whimsical sculptures created graceful shapes that she imagined came to life in the full moonlight and danced. Especially the big concrete pig with floppy ears and a silly face by the stoop at Ella’s front door. A pot of pansies was next to it right now. Pansy the pig. He’d bet good money that’s what she called the lawn art.

  He’d told her he’d look out for her within the walls of the club, but the club had always been her haven, where she was safest. It was outside those walls where she really needed someone in her corner.

  He could know a lot about her now, with barely any effort. But not everything. A third mark would give him everything, down to her soul.

  He closed that door firmly, and then closed the door to her mind. Well, cracked it. He let the song filter through, to keep the sounds of battle and fire at bay, and finally managed to answer Anwyn’s question.

  “Perry. He was wired with the bomb. And he wasn’t a homeless guy. Before he detonated it, the whole act fell away. He was focused, steady. On mission.”

  “You’re awake again.”

  The deep timbre had him stiffening, and he realized Anwyn was gone. Shit, he’d phased out again. How long ago had she asked her question? Told him to take his time?

  “Anwyn had to return to the upper level, to answer more questions from the police and fire departments.”

  “What is she telling them?” Wolf couldn’t figure out where Daegan was in the room. The Invisible Man thing was getting on his nerves.

  “The part of the truth that works. A man posing as a homeless person blew himself up. She doesn’t know why, though she assumes he was a tragically unstable person with a moral objection to the club’s purpose.”

  “Could that be the truth?”

  “You or Gideon are in the best position to know. You because you were there; Gideon because he knows how vampire hunters attempt to kill their prey. What do you think?”

  His back was feeling better. Snarling pain instead of screeching pain. “I think I want to sit up.”

  “Not stopping you.”

  He assumed that was the male’s way of saying his back had healed enough for that to work. Or that he didn’t give a shit what Wolf did, as long as he answered the question. Either way, Wolf would take it. He levered himself up with a grimace, biting back a groan, and made it to a seated position, though he broke into a sweat doing it and felt lightheaded, more than a little nauseous. “Shit—”

  The plastic bin was shoved under his mouth as a mix of blood and bile came up, and some other stuff he had no idea how to classify. Vampires didn’t throw up much.

  His back caught fire as he heaved, and it took everything he had not to faceplant when he was done. After he managed it, hung steady, he heard a tab being popped. A six oun
ce can of ginger ale was brought into his vision as the bin was taken away.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  A chair was moved, and creaked as Daegan sat down in it. A pair of long legs in dark slacks adjusted, ankles crossed. Wolf looked up carefully, even the movement of his eyeballs hurting.

  Daegan wore a fitted black T-shirt over the slacks, and the definition in his arms showed the elegant musculature of the warrior Wolf remembered from the first and only meeting until now.

  “You still prefer Daegan, right?” he asked. “It’s been awhile, but I remember you don’t like the lord title.”

  “He actually prefers Mr. X. Cancer Guy. Deep Throat. Sometimes Princess Nefertiti, but that’s only when we’re role-playing and he wins the toss to wear the cute outfit with the tutu.”

  Gideon had returned. Daegan shot him an unfathomable look. Pretty much every other word Gideon spoke was a wise crack, so Wolf wasn’t surprised to see that the male had come up with that one by rote, not a desire to be funny. There was still no humor in his gaze, his jaw set.

  “Anwyn?” Daegan asked.

  “She’s okay. I’m keeping my mind in touch with hers. No warning signs yet. She’s majorly pissed off, but I don’t think the full impact has hit her yet.”

  As Gideon turned his gaze to Wolf, Wolf saw the hunter was out front, the Atlantis staff member taking a back seat. “So Perry was a plant from the get-go.”

  “Yeah,” Wolf said.

  “How was it missed?” Daegan asked, his far-too-still gaze on Gideon. Gideon didn’t squirm under it. He didn’t fear this male, not that way. They were brothers-in-arms, something Wolf also recognized. Gideon was sifting through just as much what-the-fuck-happened on this as Daegan.

  “Since Perry’s been around for over a year, this was a long-run mission,” Gideon said. “I’d say there’s a vampire hunter cell that’s been scoping us for a while. Long enough to know how compassionate Anwyn is with those cats, and with the homeless people in the area. Perry infiltrated their community. He didn’t come every night, but randomly every few days, enough to be seen as a regular. And yeah, we’re not stupid. We ran his name.”