by Lauren Dane
And his petal wasn’t the kind of woman who’d keep a man around just to avoid being lonely. No, she’d seek out physical interactions when the need came, but a human male couldn’t hold her or come close to understanding her path.
Most Vampires would reject Rowan for what she did and who she was. But it was beyond clear to Theo that Clive understood her. And because of that, he’d give her what she needed and Theo wouldn’t have to kill anyone over it.
He was sitting there, smiling when unease slithered through his gut.
Standing quickly, he grabbed the nearest phone and summoned his Scion and then dialed Rowan’s number directly, only to receive an out-of-area recording. He resisted crushing the tiny phone into dust, but only barely.
Next on his list was her office, where he received another recording that the office would be closed for the next several days.
He snarled as he spun. Enzo stood there, expectant. “How may I serve you?”
“It’s Rowan. Something is wrong.”
Enzo immediately went into action. He didn’t assure Theo Rowan would be fine. He didn’t attempt to soothe. He simply did his job in the way he knew it was expected.
It wasn’t too very long afterward that Clive showed up, looking like he’d been taking a stroll instead of pulled from daytime rest.
“How may I serve?” Clive echoed the same words Enzo had spoken, and Theo’s to his Scion were the same.
“It’s Rowan.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Rowan had been resting, going inside herself to conserve her power and get herself centered for the battle to come when the car came to a halt.
This time when Cindy opened the trunk, she was pointing a gun at Rowan. It had been a few hours’ driving so it was a fair presumption that the sedative would have worn off.
Of course the safety was on. Rowan sincerely hoped Cindy was a rockstar in bed because she was dumb as a pencil eraser, except an eraser had a purpose.
“I hope you enjoyed those last few hours. Get out and don’t try anything funny or I’ll shoot you.”
Rowan got out and took the place in. The place was decent enough for being out in the middle of nowhere. She breathed in deeply, not nowhere at all. This was in Dust Devil ground.
The magick inside her swirled, recognized like energies. Brigid was a blade deep within, waiting. She would burst from Rowan when the time was right. This was simply certain.
“No you won’t. He’ll kill you if you do. Then again, I’ll kill you after I’m done with him, so maybe you should shoot me.”
Cindy’s eyes widened.
“What? Did you think you could scare me? Bitch, please. You are nothing to me. Even less to him because there’s always another junkie whore who’ll sell herself and her friends out for another fix. Predictable.”
Cindy reached out to grab Rowan, but instead, Rowan reached out and grabbed Cindy. By the hair, which made a satisfying little snatch from the scalp when Rowan yanked her to her knees one-handed while she shoved the gun down the back of her waistband with her free hand.
“Not so fucking big now are you, junkie bitch?” Rowan leaned down into Cindy’s face, breathing in her fear like candy. “Shove me in a trunk. Attack my staff and the guy who’s saved your job by making excuses for you when you’re late? You soulless thundertwat.”
“All true. But I’ll have to ask you to step away from her, Ms. Summerwaite.”
Keeping Cindy exactly where she was, Rowan looked up to the front porch of the house. The voice sent shivers up and down her spine. Crazy was a kind word for what this guy was.
She was, she had to admit, a little freaked by the way this Vampire felt. There was no way she’d go into that house. Nuh uh. She wasn’t alive after all the shit she’d seen because she was stupid or took stupid risks. Still, it wouldn’t do to let this pass. Not at all.
“You must be Phineas Bolger. I’m Rowan Summerwaite, the Hunter and I’m here to serve my warrant on you for the deaths of humans. As for Cindy here? I don’t think I will be stepping away from her, thanks. You see, I’m out here in the sunshine and you’re a Vampire. May as well be raining holy water. Which, come to think of it would be so awesome. Anyhoo, whatcha going to do, come make me?”
“It’s winter. Sun will be down enough in an hour or so. I’ll come for you.” His thrall was intense, dark and sticky, thoroughly creepy. He tried to lure her inside, tried to control that small animal part still deep inside her humanity.
’Course he had no idea Theo had whipped her fight-or-flight reflex into shape by the time she was ten. And yet, there was no denying Phineas was a scary asshole and that she was totally pissed off that he tried to manipulate her.
Rowan stood, straightening, and snapped Cindy’s neck before she could stab Rowan’s thigh with another syringe she’d produced from her pocket. If she wasn’t mistaken the syringe looked as if it had been reused. If that bitch had given her Hep C or something else when she stuck Rowan back at the office, she’d be so pissed. But she couldn’t kill Cindy twice so she bent and carefully felt pockets, never taking her eyes from the shadowed doorway. “Yeah?” Ah, keys. Rowan jingled them. “Come the fuck on then. But come at me like a man instead of a little punk sending his errand boys. Pussy.”
She turned her back and got into the car. Pausing long enough to grab her phone and mark just exactly where this place was before fishtailing off and getting the hell away.
Rowan drove so fast she should have been pulled over multiple times. Clearly the car was not Cindy’s. It had old-school Vamp written all over it. Smoked windows, luxurious and spacious interior—great ride if you weren’t in the trunk. The kind of car you could push past ninety and not feel even a tiny shimmy.
She managed to get reception enough to call David, who informed her the entire world had been looking for her, with Theo heading the search.
She didn’t quite know what to say or how to process that so she didn’t.
“He’s going to come at me. I’d rather it be out here where there aren’t a lot of people. But I want my blade.”
“I’m already on my way.” David’s response was clipped, indicating he was already driving. “We had a GPS ping so I’m close. About twenty minutes away.”
She hung up and called Susan to check in. Susan congratulated her on the liaison appointment, laughed about how upset some were and urged her to “kill the murderous Vampire bastard.”
Rowan got out of the car when David arrived. She took her blade and felt the connection to her toes. Every single cell woke up.
“Go. Let the Scion know where I am.” She toed her shoes off, not feeling the rocks or thorny bits. Only the singing of the earth beneath her. Only the heat of energy as it surged through her.
“Déesse…”
“No. You can’t help and I don’t want to be worried about you. I got this. I promise you that.”
And she headed out, walking along the ley line drawing sinuous around the rocks and strata for miles beneath her. She’d stay right on this path, able to draw huge reserves of power when she needed to. Out here, six-hundred-year-old Vampire or not, they were far better matched then they’d be anywhere else.
There was no need to invoke Her. Brigid shone through, surging through her veins, filling her cells, wrapping around her bones, enhancing her strength and perception.
The sun was setting, the sky pink as the light changed from day to night. She stood tall and waited, feeling his approach on the wind.
And Theo was out there somewhere. Rules be damned, he’d do what he wanted and she couldn’t complain in this situation.
But flying wasn’t like driving with a GPS and as she wagered, Phineas found her first.
His descent was clumsy and she saw immediately just how close to death he was. The drugs had eaten him up and yet he stank of blood and a recent ingestion of the drug that way.
“I never thought I’d see the day when a Vampire as old and powerful as you was so lowered.” She sneered and backed
up, circling as he did. Dying and drug-addled or not, he was a dangerous creature and she’d be dead if he got behind her.
“Blood bags have no place talking to me.”
“Seriously?” She pulled the blade from its sheath and paused to appreciate the deathly beauty of the whisper of steel clearing leather. “Love that sound. Don’t you? Well maybe not since I’m going to end you with it. Anyway, it seems to me that six hundred years ago you all had so much more scary stuff to say. Theo says scary stuff when he brushes his teeth.” She shrugged. “Guess that’s why he’s The First and you’re not.”
He lunged, faster than she’d imagined and she nearly stumbled dodging him.
“Not bad for an old junkie. What’s your deal anyway? Six hundred years of relative silence from you so you decide to go out like Jeffrey Dahmer or something? Worried the history books will forget you?”
“You dare compare me to some human?” He lunged again, with some fancy moves and she managed to get a nice slice across his chest even as the sting of his nails on her neck told her he’d gotten his own shot in.
“Gross. I bet meth skank venom is even worse than your normal stuff. Don’t you people ever wash your hands? And if you don’t want to be compared to a serial killer, don’t act like one. Didn’t your mother ever tell you you’d be judged by your actions?”
He punched her and she spit a mouthful of blood out. She needed to get in closer. The gun would be useless without silver bullets so she’d left it in her pants.
“You ate a Goddess.”
“Um, okay. Is this news? Yeah, I am Brigid’s Vessel and she’s pissed off.” Rowan stepped in, slammed her knee into his junk and when he went to his knees, hit the back of his head with the hilt of her sword before dancing out of reach.
“No matter. I’ll kill you both.”
“Yeah, nice try. Except I’m not a desperate, dope-sick dumbass like your previous victims.”
“They gave themselves to me. Their marrow was sweet and laden with the drug.”
It was impossible not to curl her lip at that. “Gross.”
He laughed and her skin crawled. “You’re all specks of dirt. At least in being the deliverer of the drug, their lives had some meaning. What would they have been otherwise?”
“Oh novel. A Vampire with a god complex.”
“Better than a sheep with a coward Goddess in her belly.”
The heat of Brigid’s full ascendancy burned through Rowan with so much intensity, Rowan nearly dropped her blade. Rowan heard herself speak as her blade sliced out, making a long, ruby line of destruction along Phineas’s belly.
“Vampire, you are an abomination and we will end you.”
Rowan was there, but not there as her normal speed doubled. But she felt it when he broke her left arm and then pulled it from the socket at her shoulder.
“You fucking piece of shit,” she ground out, kicking his stomach and baring her teeth when he howled in pain. “You come here to my city and you think you can kill humans and just dump them like garbage? You think you can do that and not face any punishment?” She paused slicing his right ear off, the display of his pain and the beginnings of his real fear spicing the air.
“I am six hundred years old!” He bellowed this as he charged her, knocking her off her feet and to the ground with a whoosh of air from her lips. Her blade fell from her fingers, which she then used to gouge one of his eyes out with.
“Yeah? Big.” She punched his temple, her fist slippery with blood, her vision graying with his weight on her broken left arm. “Fucking.” She yanked on his hair so hard she ripped a handful out. “Deal.” Finally with enough leverage she cast him off and managed to get to her feet, bending to grab her blade again. That’s when the blinding pain let her know he’d broken a few ribs.
“You didn’t even kill them for a reason!” Somehow this knowledge that he’d just sort of viewed the women he’d murdered as appetizers whose job it was to serve him and his addiction only made her angrier. “You didn’t do it for some whackadoodle serial-killer crazy reason like communicating with the sun god or trying to make sex zombies. You are just an old, shot-out waste of power.”
“What do you know of it?” He looked her up and down, dismissing her.
“I know. I’m just a girl, how can I know what it means to be some batshit-crazy-ass-tweaker-drug-dealer-serial-killer Vampire? Gosh, I’m confused.” She cocked her head and smiled, knowing her mouth was bloody and her arm hung useless at her side. And still, she knew she was just as scary as he.
He blinked his one good eye, first slowly and then he got it and she laughed. “Don’t feel bad, many of you guys totally underestimate me due to my penis-deprived state.” She laughed again. “Well, um, the not having one of my own that is.”
“A human female won’t ever best me.”
Enough was enough. She closed her eyes, gathered her focus and, one-handed, spun and moved in, slicing him open from balls to the top of his head.
“Yeah?” She stepped back as he sizzled and began to implode. “Good thing I’m not human, huh?” She spit on him. “Die, you piece of shit. This is for all the women you killed.”
Turning her back on the smoldering pile, she didn’t bother with her usual blessing. Instead she put her blade back in the sheath and used her good arm to give his corpse three snaps as she managed to stumble away.
Clive landed at the car and looked around. He began to call her name until he caught sight of her limping toward where he stood.
Within moments he had her in his arms as she managed to tell him she’d killed Phineas Bolger and that her arm was broken and her shoulder dislocated.
“Let me put you out. I’ll drive us home and we’ll get it seen to.”
She was just about to assent when Theo shot from the sky to the ground with a sound so feral and scary it woke her up enough to get her adrenaline pumping again.
He spoke in their mother tongue and everything around them stopped, even the light breeze. He moved like death and she couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from him as he glided toward the spot Phineas used to be.
She didn’t know what all he said, but Clive stood there, pale, holding her in his arms while she rested her head against his chest and tried not to pass out.
Theo turned his back and the last bits of Phineas simply burned up and were gone. She knew enough that he’d withheld the words Vampires needed to cross over. Their legend stated that their master could deny that access to final rest.
Theo looked at her, emotion a riot all over his face. He leaned in, kissed her forehead and used his words to put her into a softer, pain-free place. “Take my blood, petal,” he whispered, his lips against her temple. “You’ll heal much faster.”
“I need to deal with the house. His house. There might be people there.”
“Nadir has taken care of that. There is nothing there now. Nothing but ashes.”
And he put his wrist to her mouth and all was warm and quiet and she knew only dreams.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“There you are.”
Rowan opened her eyes to find Thena bending over her bed. When she saw Rowan was fully aware, she bent down and kissed her smack-dab on the mouth. “I go out of town for a minute and you go and nearly get yourself killed. I thought we discussed this.”
“Yeah well, I’ll try. You didn’t have to come back to town, dumbass. This isn’t my first go around with stitches and broken bones. Anyway, how’d you get home so fast?”
“Girl, I swear.” She sat on the edge of the bed. “Where else would I be?”
“Um, on an exotic getaway with your hot professor husband playing Give Me a Better Grade.”
Thena laughed. “We play that one a lot. Plenty of time to play it more. I was already on my way back. I had a scary dream. Three of them as it happens. All about you. You needed me and I wasn’t here.”
Rowan managed to sit up as David materialized to fluff the pillows and help. “I’ll return with something to drink
. The doctor said you’d need rest, fluids and that if you required the pain medication to take it or he’d be very unhappy with you.”
“My arm isn’t broken.” She wriggled her fingers.
“His blood…” Clive strolled in looking effortless and handsome, the arrogant smile on his face sending her pulse racing. “We got your shoulder taken care of first. The doctor put a temporary cast on it and he gave you more blood a few hours later and it healed.”
She knew she blushed, she couldn’t help it and she was too tired to stop it anyway.
“That’s some magickal shit right there. He was worried about you. Theo,” Thena added when Rowan must have looked confused.
“Where is he? How long was I out? What happened to the house? Did anyone tell Jack?”
Clive wished most fervently that Rowan’s friend would just leave so he could pull her into his arms and know she was all right.
“The police are still looking for the killer, but Jack knows.” Thena looked to Clive quickly before looking away. Clive hated that the other man was such an asshole and would cause Rowan pain though she’d gone out of her way on his behalf.
Rowan waited but when they said nothing else, she got the idea. He hated the sadness on her features.
Thena stood. “I need to go home for a while. I’m glad I was here when you woke up. Glad you woke up, period. Damn it. Rowan, girl, how about an easier line of work?”
Rowan snorted a laugh, but also knew Thena would be on her demanding details about Clive after she’d given her a little time to recover. “Yeah, well luckily most of the Vampires I deal with aren’t crazy, drugged-up, six-centuries-old serial killers.”
Clive sat on her bed after Thena had gone and gave in to his need to touch her. She melted against him. “Hi.”