Steal the Night (Thieves)

by Lexi Blake

  I nodded, wishing I could climb the stairs and join my father, but I was one big walking target and I didn’t want to bring the war to them. Sarah was being incredibly effective. There was so much chaos that no one really noticed they had an audience and if they did they would have to look very closely to see the small, pregnant female who was blocking their exit. I was satisfied Sarah and the rest were as safe as they could possibly be here.

  We were closing in on the opening in the sides of the arena Marcus had pointed out earlier. I breathed a small sigh of relief. We were close.

  Marcus gave me a nod and then broke for the opening that lay roughly a hundred feet ahead. I started to follow but my poor human feet sank into the sand, making running very difficult. My sneakers felt like the ground was sucking at them and I fell behind. Marcus cursed as he came back and hauled me up into his arms.

  He ran the last hundred feet, his long legs eating the distance in a way mine never could. The sand didn’t bother him. He powered through and then we were inside the shelter of the archway. Marcus set me down and I turned to see the battlefield. Daniel was looking for someone, probably Marini. He was covered in blood, but it didn’t seem to be his. The combatants around him gave him a wide berth, some actually running when they realized he was near.

  Devinshea had a deep cut across his face but it was healing even as I watched. He had a long silver knife in his hand and he shoved it into Elof’s back as the vampire tried to flee Daniel. He must have shoved the knife in the proper place because Elof exploded. Vampires sometimes do that. I nearly laughed at the shocked look on Dev’s face as he got coated with vampire guts. I said almost. It was really too horrifying to laugh at.

  Marcus took my hand. “Come, cara.”

  “But it looks like the fight is winding down.” There were a lot fewer people fighting than there were before, replaced with a whole bunch of piles of ash.

  “Yes, it is and this is when the vampires on the other side will get really desperate,” Marcus pointed out. “I need to get you somewhere I can easily defend you.”

  I peered into the darkened space where Marcus wanted to take me. It looked like a gaping hole to nowhere. The light stopped about ten feet in and I could tell from the slope I was on that it went down. Going down a long dark hole held very little appeal.

  Then I saw them. At least three vampires, when they weren’t fighting, were moving their heads around, working in tandem to find something or someone. I shrank back against my protector. They were almost certainly looking for me.

  “Let’s go,” I whispered to Marcus, hoping we could move before they caught sight of us.

  Marcus blended into the shadows as he led the way. As we moved down the slope, I noticed my feet getting wet. I could hear them sloshing in water that was getting deeper. The battle seemed like a different world now as I could only hear muffled sounds coming from the arena. I clung tightly to Marcus’s hand.

  “What is this place?” I asked, my voice sounding tiny in the darkness.

  “It’s the sewer that runs under the arena,” Marcus replied.

  I wished he hadn’t told me that. “Ewww.”

  “It’s abandoned, Zoey. It’s no longer in use but it remains here and it floods sometimes when the rain in the city above is very heavy.”

  “Is it dangerous?”

  “It isn’t deep and we don’t have far to go.” Marcus stopped and his hand briefly left mine. I heard him fumbling with something and a squeak, like a rusty hinge being forced open. Lights above my head flickered on. Then they flickered off.

  “Sorry,” the vampire apologized as the lights went off and on at random times. “It isn’t the most reliable electric system.”

  I nodded and he started to lead the way again. I kind of wished I’d been left in the dark. The flickering of the lights made everything seem unreal, like we were in some stop motion film. Marcus moved and then the lights went out and when they came on again he was in an entirely different place without the sense that he had walked there.

  “Come along,” Marcus urged me. “Two turns and there is a hidden passage that leads to the residence. It will take us directly into the room where Neil is. Louis and I designed it ourselves for just such an occasion.”

  “Yes, we did, and we designed more than one way in and out if you remember,” a dark voice said and as the lights flickered back on, I saw the hulking form of the one man I really didn’t want to see down here. He had a gun in his hand. “It was one of your more brilliant plans, old friend.”

  “Zoey,” I heard Marcus say. “I am so sorry. Run.”

  Then Marini shot his old friend. I felt Marcus fall beside me and went down on my knees to try to help him back up, but Marini stood over us now. He shot into Marcus’s torso another three times, the Italian’s body bucking with each shot.

  “You lose, Marcus.” Louis stared down on the man who had been his friend for almost two thousand years. His hand shot out and grabbed my left wrist, hauling me up. “You always were weak. I only made you a member of my Council because you were wise, but now you have proven that’s not true. How could you back that fledgling over me?”

  Marcus struggled to speak. “That fledgling is right. Our time of dominion over the world is long past. We must change or die.”

  “Well, let me make the choice for you, Marcus.” The final gunshot exploded and echoed through the sewers.

  Marcus’s head fell back and I saw his body only briefly as I was pulled along.

  “I loved you,” the vampire said, his voice filled with rage.

  “No, you didn’t.” I tried to think of any way to get out of his grasp. I held onto the knife in my right hand. He hadn’t noticed it.

  “Don’t you question me, Zoey,” he snarled.

  As the lights flickered off and on, I could see plainly that Louis hadn’t come out of the fight unruffled. His clothes were ruined. They were ripped and bloodied, and I saw the wounds he had that weren’t healing. It was a sure sign that he was low on blood. My body chilled at the thought. Marini took too much when he wasn’t injured. He would almost certainly drain me once he got to a safe place.

  “I gave you everything.” He was continuing his diatribe on where our relationship had gone awry. “I treated you like a queen.”

  “Yes, I especially loved the part where you beat the shit out of me.”

  We turned a corner and I couldn’t see Marcus anymore. He needed blood. Louis had just left him to die down here in the sewers like a rat. I really couldn’t stand the thought of it.

  “You need discipline,” Louis spat. “That was where I went wrong. I won’t indulge you this time, companion. This time our marriage will be on a proper footing. You will serve me. You will submit to me.”

  I pulled back, nearly wrenching my arm in the process. I shouted, hoping, praying anyone would hear me. “Daniel!”

  I got to meet the back of Louis’s hand for my trouble. I barely managed to hold onto the knife as I tumbled into the water. I tasted blood in my mouth.

  The vampire stood over me. “Don’t you ever say his name again, Zoey. You will never speak of him.”

  I was willing to do anything to delay the inevitable. He seemed to want to go through some weird therapy session and all I could think was the longer we talked, the more time Daniel had to figure out something was wrong.

  “What are you planning on doing with me, Louis?” I didn’t bother to get up. The knife was still in my hand but he would surely see it if I brought it out of the water now.

  Marini’s dark eyes gleamed in the low, flickering light. “I plan on keeping you. You’re mine. I won’t let Donovan have you.”

  “He’ll come after me,” I pointed out. “He won’t ever stop looking for me and neither will Devinshea. You’ll have an entire army after you if you take me.”

  That seemed to actually penetrate his brain. “He’ll search for me anyway.”

  “How will he know you didn’t die in the battle?” I asked and immediately sa
w my mistake.

  The vampire’s fangs were long. “Well, darling girl, I assume he will know when you tell him.”

  I doubted promising him I would keep my mouth shut would work. He could hardly believe me.

  Reaching down, Louis placed his palm against my cheek. His eyes were slightly wild. “I might be going down, my Zoey, but I will not go alone.”

  He leaned in to brush his lips to mine and I thrust up with everything I had. I pushed the silver knife up into his chest with as much accuracy as I could muster. I went for the heart and heard Louis groan. He looked down at the silver sticking out of his torso. It had to be very close to his heart. His skin turned pale, ashen.

  He managed to stand, but didn’t try to take the blade out. I think he knew it was inevitable, but he had one last trick up his sleeve. He raised his pistol. I got to my feet as quick as I could and began to back away.

  “As I said, my precious blood,” Marini intoned, “I won’t go alone.”

  I felt the bullets enter my body—two in my chest and one low in my gut. I felt the blood begin to flow even as Louis Marini turned to dust before my eyes. I stumbled and couldn’t quite get my legs to work. I placed my hands over the wound in my gut and tried to stop the bleeding. I didn’t like how low it was, almost to my pelvis. I couldn’t help but think about the babies growing there.

  I stumbled through the water, almost making it back to where Marcus had been left and then my legs gave out completely. Up ahead I could almost see the light from the arena where Daniel and Dev still fought. I hit my knees as a wave of nausea overcame me.

  Vaguely, as though from a great distance, I heard someone calling my name, but it seemed so far away as to be inconsequential. My face hit the water and I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t make myself turn over to get a breath. The world was dark and cold and it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

  I woke up in the grotto, the light warm on my skin, and I seemed nice and whole and unharmed.

  “Hello, Zoey,” Oliver Day said with a big grin on his face. “Nice job.”

  I could only think of one thing to say given my current predicament.

  “Shit.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Is that any kind of language to use around your guardian angel?” Oliver asked with a sarcastic grin.

  I looked up at the angel, who seemed happier than I’d ever seen him, and scowled. “Seriously? I go through all of that, suffer through being Marini’s companion and fighting everything under the sun to reach this grand destiny of uniting the supernatural world and what do I get for it? I’m dead. Let me tell you something, Oliver, as rewards go, that sucks.”

  “I told you she’d be unhappy,” a soft feminine voice said.

  I sat up from the couch I’d been lying on. It was the same couch where Danny, Dev, and I sat and watched movies and fooled around. I wouldn’t be doing that anymore. “Well, look, the gang’s all here,” I said with a bite. Then I realized Felicity could answer a question for me. “Is Dev all right?”

  Felicity smiled. The angel was a stunningly beautiful blonde. Oliver was her masculine counterpart. “He’s fine, though it wasn’t easy. He’s very reckless. I had to work hard to keep him alive.”

  “Daniel is fine, as well,” a third voice said. I looked around and saw another male. The way I understood it, angels worked in threes. Oliver represented judgment and justice, Felicity love and devotion, and this one must be Jude, who had taken Felix’s place. He would represent faith.

  “They won’t be once they find my body,” I muttered, thinking about how it would affect them both. They would have lost me and the babies. I wasn’t sure they could handle that.

  Oliver rolled his blue eyes. He seemed very disappointed I wasn’t excited by the turn of events. I was bringing down his little victory party. “Come on, Zoey. This isn’t time for gloomy predictions. We won. You did it. Don’t you feel an enormous sense of accomplishment?”

  “No.” I stood up and looked at the three of them. They were dressed like suburban yuppies going to a garden party. Everything about them was perfect. “I feel pissed off that I’m dead.”

  “Well, I’m thrilled,” Oliver admitted. “Do you have any idea how many bets you just won me? I’m the man right now. Any assignment I want is mine for the taking. There isn’t an angel on the Heaven plane who isn’t thinking that Oliver Day is hot shit.”

  Felicity shook her blonde head with an amused grin. “I wasn’t thinking that. Were you, Jude?”

  “Not at all,” Jude replied.

  “Well, you should be,” Oliver said, not letting his siblings bring him down. “I just pulled off something spectacular and all I had in my arsenal to work with was one obnoxious girl.”

  I frowned, looking at Felicity. “You would think the man did everything himself. I did take part, you know.”

  “You’ll have to forgive my brother,” she said as Oliver went into a fist pumping dance. “This really was a long shot. No one thought he could pull it off. You were his secret weapon, though he’ll never admit it. He’s actually quite fond of you. He won’t admit that, either.”

  I turned and stared out the window. The balcony door was open and I saw the little bistro table where Albert served Dev and I our coffee when we woke up. We would sit out on the balcony in our robes with Danny and discuss what we needed to do that day. I wouldn’t do that ever again.

  My eyes filled with tears and I thought about the promise I had made Dev that day not so long ago. I needed to find a way to wait for them. “What happens next?”

  Oliver stopped his happy dance and regarded me seriously for the first time. “Well, Daniel begins the new Council. He takes his place on the throne, but he shares power with those around him. It’s going to be a time of change for the whole supernatural world. It’s very exciting.”

  I was sure it would be an exciting time but that wasn’t what I meant. “What happens with me?”

  Oliver’s handsome face became very serious and he caught his siblings’ eyes. They took a moment and I knew they were having some sort of internal discussion, probably an argument over how much to tell the little human. I just stood. There wasn’t an exit sign or something that pointed the way back to my body. I was stuck and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

  They finally came to some sort of consensus.

  “What happens next is up to you, Zoey,” Felicity said.

  I perked up because I hadn’t been expecting that. “What do you mean?”

  Oliver crossed his arms. “Well, we discussed it and we agree with you. It doesn’t seem particularly fair, given your unique nature, that you not be given a choice. Up until this point our whole endeavor has been dependent on the choices you made. You affected everyone around you with your decisions, and it seems wrong somehow to take that away from you at the end. It wasn’t like you wanted that vampire to shoot you a whole bunch of times and end up dying in a cesspool.”

  “It wouldn’t have been my first choice, no.” I didn’t like to think of my ignominious death. Somehow I expected it to be cleaner.

  Jude took over. “It occurs to us that your death would probably bring the other side an enormous amount of satisfaction. There are events coming up in the future that you would probably play an important part in if you survived.”

  I didn’t have a whole bunch of fans on the Hell plane but I also knew that the Heaven plane tended to follow the rules to the letter.

  Felicity read my mind. “We’re merely bending the rules, Zoey.”

  Oliver laughed. “Oh, don’t be so understated, Felicity. We’re breaking the rules here, but they don’t play fair so why should we?”

  “Tweaking is a more accurate term, brother,” Jude argued.

  “Just freaking tell me what you mean.” They would argue semantics forever if I didn’t interrupt.

  “Fine,” Oliver replied. “Let us say we’re taking a page from the other team’s playbook. Even now, Neil has discovered your body and taken it to
Daniel. He’s attempting to revive you. Technically, you’re dead.”

  I nodded. I was here so I got that. “And not technically?”

  Felicity walked around the couch and put her arm around my shoulder. “Vampire blood can do amazing things, Zoey. Who’s to say he can’t bring you back? Who’s to say it wasn’t the vampire blood that brought you back rather than us?”

  “We’re betting no one asks,” Jude said.

  “Besides,” Oliver admitted with a grin. “If it’s not supposed to work then the big boss will stop us. We’ll get a stern lecture and be sent on our way. Despite what you humans think, he’s not big into punishment.”

  My hopes were starting to soar. I was willing to go back into that broken body if it meant being with Danny and Dev again. “Okay, let’s get on with it.”

  Oliver held up a hand. “Not so fast, Zoey. I said you have to make a choice. The Heaven plane is a nice place. It’s safe and you’ll never feel alone or have a moment’s worry again. When you join us, you’ll know everything. All those question you have will be answered. There’s peace and serenity and knowledge here. It isn’t something to be taken lightly.”

  “If you go back,” Felicity began, “you will face more adversity and I can’t promise that it will all go well.”

  “I’m willing to take that chance.” I bit my lip because I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to my next question. That bullet had been awfully close to my pelvis. “Are my babies all right or did I lose them?”

  Jude’s blue eyes were sympathetic. “That’s up to you, Zoey. The vampire blood will work on the fetus that was slightly injured, but there could be implications for the future.”

  “What?” I heard the panic in my voice.

  “I can’t tell you the specifics,” he said. “You either accept the child or you don’t.”

  There was no hesitation in me. “I’ll take him.” I didn’t care if he had struggles. I would be there and so would Danny and Dev. We would help him. We would get through it as a family.

  “He might be a handful,” Felicity said thoughtfully. “That one is a recycled soul. They come with some baggage, but I doubt you’ll mind. He was very insistent on having you as his mother. If you go back, your path will be set and so will your sons’ paths.”