by J. N. Baker
I rose silently and tiptoed to the door, not wanting to wake Annie, Jade, or the snoring Barbie. With a quick look to make sure everyone was still asleep, I slipped out of the bedroom and crept toward the common area.
I flinched as a gust of wind crashed into the patio door, shaking it so hard that I thought it might shatter. A burst of lightning illuminated the room, disclosing the location of three sleeping bodies. Cody and Josh shared the tiny pull-out sofa, their feet dangling over the edge, while Alec sprawled out across the floor in front of the television. I watched the steady rise and fall of Alec’s chest, the peaceful look on his relaxed face. It utterly amazed me that he and Jade could sleep through this shit.
William and Ryuu still hadn’t returned from wherever the hell they went. Alec had told me William said he had something important to take care of, took Ryuu and left. Part of me was glad. William wouldn’t have been very happy about Josh and Tiffany being here. In fact, I was pretty sure he’d be downright livid when he got back and found them. Maybe he wouldn’t come back—a girl could dream. Still, as I looked out at the raging storm, the smallest bit of worry rose within me. More for Ryuu than William.
I approached the sliding glass door, pressing a palm to it. The cold from outside seemed to seep into my skin, sending a chill throughout my body. I shuddered as the glass shook beneath my hand. Thunderstorms had always terrified me. When I was growing up, still living in Washington, our four dogs would hide under my bed with me during big storms. Somehow, the bed brought us all comfort, shielding our ears from the booming roar of the thunder and keeping us safe.
I thought I sympathized with those dogs then, but as the thunder echoed in my own sensitive ears, I finally understood the depth of their pain. Damn, I missed those mutts—the only good part of my childhood.
Another gust of wind crashed into the glass door and I recoiled as if the storm itself had reached out to strike me. It seemed that not much had changed since my transformation.
The sky lit up once more, black clouds turning to purple as a bolt of lightning struck the lone light pole in the parking lot. Sparks flew through the air, sizzling against the falling rain. And then I saw it—out of the corner of my eye, something moved. A shadow passed between a row of cars and disappeared once more. Hesitantly, I put my face closer to the glass, eyes straining to see through the darkness.
From under a pickup truck, out crawled a shivering and sopping wet dog, its yellow fur flattened from the rain. It cowered in the middle of the parking lot with its tail tucked securely between its legs. I could hear the whimpers over the roar of the storm and a pain shot through my blackened heart.
I looked over my shoulder at the still sleeping men. With a deep breath, I flipped the lock on the door and slid it open as quietly as I could and stepped out into the pouring rain.
Water poured down from the sky as if the damn floodgates had just been opened. Even from the protection of the covered patio, it only took a matter of seconds before I was drenched. I peered through the haze of rainfall, my eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness as I inched my way forward. Something scrambled around the back end of an old pickup truck and I paused, fingers lingering over the cold steel of the patio railing.
A canine cry echoed in the dark and my hands slammed down on the railing. I hoisted myself over the rail and into the parking lot, searching for the poor dog.
“That’s right, warrior,” a voice hissed. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.”
I froze. That voice…I was sure I’d heard it before.
“Show yourself,” I demanded, scanning the dozens of parked cars.
A ghastly sound, like nails on a chalkboard, screeched in my ears. I turned to look behind me only to find a long, deep line carved into the length of one of the cars. I backed into the center of the parking lot, the water reaching well above my ankles. A large black mass scurried over a row of vehicles, setting off car alarms that were only matched by the blaring alarm in my own mind: I shouldn’t have been out there.
“I bet you taste delicious.”
Something slid across the back of my neck and I spun on my heels. There was nothing there. I made a break for the nearest car, smashing my fist through the window. I grabbed the largest piece of glass from the blood-splattered seat and held it up at the ready.
“You are a brave one, aren’t you?” the voice sneered. A long black tail tucked under one of the cars. “But you were not always so brave, were you?”
I clutched the glass in my hand, scanning the parking lot once more. Blood spiraled down my fingers and dripped into the growing pool of water at my feet.
“Yes,” the voice hissed. “I see it now. A dark parking garage.”
I grabbed my head. I could feel it crawling through my brain—through my memories. “No!”
“You were a coward,” it hissed. “You begged your god for death. Not so brave after all, are you, warrior? I bet I could make you beg for death again. Shall we find out?”
Something whipped out from under the nearest car, too fast for me to dodge. It slammed into the back of my legs, knocking me off my feet and onto my back. I scrambled to my hands and knees, the jagged shard of glass still in my grip as I crawled toward the patio, spitting out muddy rainwater. As I moved between vehicles, something moved alongside me.
Every fiber of my being was telling me not to look. I should have listened.
I held my breath and turned my head.
Soulless red eyes peered out from the underbelly of the lifted truck beside me—those same red eyes that had haunted me in my apartment. It was real. With a head like a dragon and an elongated body like a snake, the black beast crept forward on four short but muscular legs, digging its long talons into the asphalt, its leathery bat-like wings dragging across the pavement behind it. The beast’s jagged teeth glistened with saliva, hungry for blood. My blood.
I leapt to my feet and backed into something hard. I whipped around, slicing at the creature with the jagged piece of glass.
Alec grabbed my wrist, stopping my hand mere inches from his face. “Whoa. It’s only me.” I could hardly hear him over the roar of the storm and the blood pumping in my ears.
Panting, I broke away from him, circling the truck. I pointed at the ground, but Alec obviously didn’t understand. He walked toward me. “Zoe, it’s okay.”
“No, it was there!” I shouted, chucking the bloody glass into the water. “It was real!” I ran shaky fingers through my hair, staring at the flooded ground. I knew what I saw. I just wasn’t sure what “it” was.
If only to appease me, Alec bent down, checking under the rows of vehicles. “There’s nothing there,” he finally said, walking to me. He pulled my body into his, tucking me under his arm as he led me back toward the hotel room.
As Alec lifted me over the railing, I glanced back out into the rain. There, hidden behind the curtain of rain was a pair of blood-red eyes peering back at me from the inside of a parked car. I thought I heard laughter.
Once we were back in the warmth and safety of the hotel, Alec went to retrieve a towel from the bathroom.
“I saw something out there,” I whispered as he returned to the common area. I tried to keep my volume down, my eyes darting to Josh and Cody, still asleep on the pull-out. “I thought it was a dog.”
Alec was silent for a moment. Something flashed across his eyes and then it was gone. “It was just the storm messing with you, Zoe,” he said finally. “There was nothing there.”
I looked down at the gash in my hand where I’d gripped the shard of glass too tightly. I watched as the skin slowly fused back together. Two times I’d seen the beast. Two times it had vanished into thin air as if it were never there to begin with. Maybe Alec was right. Or maybe I was losing my mind.
Alec stepped back, his eyes roaming my body. He held up the towel and hesitated as if he wasn’t sure he wanted to cover me just yet.
“Wouldn’t want you to get sick,” he murmured, wrapping the towel around me. His han
ds traveled over the thin material, massaging away the moisture on my skin and clothes and any memory of a nonexistent demon beast haunting my mind.
He tugged the towel free from me and scraped it over his messy hair and down his face. He was just as soaked as I was and it was all my fault. I pulled the towel from his hands and he flashed me a questioning look. Stepping closer to him, I patted the towel over his chest and down his abdomen. As I reached the top button of his pants, I moved the towel back up his body to get the drops of water that were slipping down his neck. His golden eyes grew hot as embers as they watched me slide the towel down each of his muscular arms and my stomach did a little flip.
Without warning, Alec was wrapped around me, his body molding itself to mine. The kiss was uncontrollable, his lips hard against my mouth. He pushed me against the wall, lifting me. Instinctively, my legs wrapped around his hips and I forgot everything else.
And that was my first mistake.
Someone cleared their throat from somewhere in the darkness and I froze. I looked over Alec’s shoulder, mortified to see Josh staring at us, his jaw clenched so tightly, I could hear his teeth grinding. But it wasn’t Josh who had cleared his throat. It was the hulk of a man standing in the doorway of the hotel room, rain dripping from his soaked clothes.
“Get a room,” Jade hissed, slipping out of the bedroom with a blushing Annie in tow. She hit the light, illuminating the small room. Was there anyone not watching our little show?
“Jeez, Fido,” Cody teased, still half asleep on the pullout sofa. “Hope you brought enough to share with the class.”
That answered that question. Well, hell.
“Trent,” Alec said, sounding relieved. “I’m glad you were able to find us.” Alec didn’t seem the slightest bit embarrassed as he released me to embrace the stranger. That shouldn’t have surprised me.
“Still the ladies’ man, I see,” the man said, ruffling Alec’s hair. He was easily five inches taller than Alec, with a deep masculine voice that I felt rumble all the way to my toes. Still, his voice and his size couldn’t distract me from what he’d called Alec. Ladies’ man. Alec had said there were no Chosen before me, but were there other women? Five hundred years was a long time. I bit my tongue and told myself I didn’t want to know.
“Whatever,” Alec retorted, pulling me to his side. “Zoe, this is Trent. He’s a shift, like Cody.”
I half expected the two shifts to start conversing in some sort of native language or secret code. Instead, they nodded to one another casually, as if it wasn’t unusual to run across others of their kind. Maybe it wasn’t. What the hell did I know?
“What’s up?” Trent nodded to me before turning his attention back to Alec. “I was lucky we landed when we did. They grounded all flights right after. Dumb and dumber picked me up from the airport.”
“Dumb and dumber?” Tiffany stumbled out of the bedroom, her blond curls a mess around her still perfectly put-together face.
“Another one?” Trent snorted.
“Nah,” Alec started. “That one doesn’t belong to me.”
“Excuse me?” Tiffany and I said in almost perfect unison.
“What’s going on out there?” Jade quickly changed the subject, flashing her signature eye roll as she hopped up onto her counter perch.
“The storm is getting pretty bad,” Trent stated the obvious, kicking the door closed with a muddy shoe. Before it could completely shut, it flung back at him, smacking him in the back of his shaved head. Trent mumbled something about dumb and dumber along with some colorful obscenities as he stepped out of the way, rubbing the back of his head.
William and Ryuu walked into the room, rainwater pooling at their feet.
“It will not be long now,” William announced, bypassing all pleasantries. “Gather what belongings you have. We must depart immediately.”
“Zoe, I think it’s time for them to go as well. And I don’t mean with us.” Alec glared over his shoulder at Josh and Tiffany.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Josh declared, taking an intrepid step in our direction. “I’m staying right here with Zoe.”
I thought I saw Tiffany snarl. She dug her well-manicured nails into Josh’s arm and yanked him back to her side.
Josh locked eyes with me and I smiled weakly at him. I didn’t want him to leave me. I needed him. I had to protect him. And although I couldn’t care less about Tiffany’s well-being, Josh cared about her and I’d protect her just the same. That’s what friends were for, right? It was all about sacrifice.
“I don’t trust them,” Alec growled. “They could be bloody vampires.”
“Oh, come on, Alec,” I said, utterly exasperated. “I’ve known Josh my whole damn life. You don’t think I’d know if he was a vampire or not?”
“You can never be too careful,” he hissed.
“Check him,” William ordered. “Make sure he is not a vampire and let us be done with it. We do not have time for this.”
Alec was in Josh’s face in a fraction of a second, breathing him in. He gripped my friend’s arm in his hand, Josh’s face twisting as he fought the pain, obviously not wanting to give Alec the satisfaction. Just when I started to worry that Alec might break the bone, he furrowed his brow and grunted, dropping Josh’s arm.
“Well?” William asked.
Alec glowered at Josh. “Nothing. I smell nothing.” He seemed a little too disappointed by that.
Josh held his ground as William approached him. William searched Josh’s eyes for a minute, breathing in deeply before stepping back. “Interesting,” William whispered. “You are right. He is no vampire.”
“Perhaps the woman,” Alec said. He lunged at Tiffany. I snatched his arm out of the air, pulling him away from her before she even realized he was there.
“Enough, Alec. The witch hunt is over,” I snarled. “They’re staying. Cody and I will take full responsibility for the both of them.”
William patted Alec’s shoulder. “Zoe is right,” he started, surprising the hell out of me. Had he ever uttered those words before? “The humans may stay. There is strength in numbers, after all.”
And then suddenly, the world shook. The hotel walls moaned and howled, splitting open as the ground quaked fiercely with the rough tremors.
“What’s happening?!”
The lights flickered twice before darkness fell upon us.
“Earthquake!”
Beneath our feet, the earth shook violently. Doors swung opened and closed and furniture rolled as the building shifted on its unstable foundation. Tiffany cried out as she tripped over the coffee table. I didn’t rush to her aid—I figured that was Josh’s job. Besides, one little bruise on her flawless skin wouldn’t be the end of the world. No pun intended.
“Look out!” Cody shouted as a crack resonated above our heads.
I dodged the first chunk of drywall as the ceiling began to crumble around us, shoving Annie out of the way. She stumbled to her knees and screamed. Clearly, she wasn’t as familiar with her new abilities as the rest of us. We had far more practice, especially the others. Hundreds of years worth of practice to be exact.
Trent rushed over, scooping Annie up in his arms with ease. “We can’t stay here,” he hollered over the roar of the earth. “We have to go!”
There wasn’t time to think as the rear of the hotel building began to cave in.
“Move!” Ryuu stood in the doorframe, shoving everyone out the door one by one.
“Shit, my sword.” Without so much as a second thought, I sprinted back into the crumbling bedroom, ignoring Alec’s frantic calls. I snatched up my sheathed blade where it lay on the floor and scanned the room, trying to find my knives. Suddenly, a hand was around my arm, the grip firm, almost painful.
“Dammit, Zoe, we have to go!” Alec yelled at me, towing me out of the room and toward the front door where Ryuu stood waiting for us, a strained look on his face, sweat dripping down his furrowed brow.
“I can’t hold it much longe
r,” he grunted.
Alec and I darted out the door and into a wall of rain, car alarms and the snapping of asphalt screaming in my ears. As I turned to look for Ryuu, the exterior walls of the building buckled and collapsed into a pile of rubble behind us. A thick layer of soot hung in the air and I struggled to catch my breath.
“Ryuu is still in there!” Annie exclaimed and I felt my blackened heart sink at the sickening realization. He’d been waiting for me. If I hadn’t gone back for my sword…this was my fault. “We have to help him!”
William wrapped an arm around Annie before she could make a break for it. I thought I saw just a hint of a smile on his face as his skin brushed against hers. He pointed a steady finger at the pile as it began to shake.
Chunks of concrete and debris floated into the air and a blood-covered Ryuu stepped from the rubble, blood leaching down his arms and legs. As he made his way toward us, the concrete slabs smashed back into the ground with a loud crash that made Annie shield her ears.
In the time it took Ryuu to get from point A to point B, his wounds had already sealed shut and the rain had washed away any trace of blood. He took his place beside Jade, popping his neck back into place. Tiffany cringed.
“Ouch,” he grumbled.
“Nice trick,” I muttered. “So, what can you do?” I asked, turning to Jade.
Someone cleared their throat behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder. It was Jade—again. My head spun as I looked from one Jade to the other. “Right. Of course. Just what the world needs—more of you.”
Alec chuckled, bending down to meet my ear. “And you were jealous of my ability. Telekinesis and duplication are much more useful skills to possess.”
“I think it’s over,” Cody panted, hands braced on his knees. “I don’t feel anything.”
“It isn’t over,” I said, slinging my shoulder belt over my head so that my sword hung perfectly just below the left side of my ribcage. “We need to get the hell out of here.”