Silver Vein: Beneath the City Sleeps Book 1

by Shannon French

  They were dropping like flies.

  “Stop it, you uncontrollable fools!” A deep voice yelled from somewhere above me. “Stop this at once!”

  I forced a cough from my lungs, managing to roll over onto my front, my skin raw and open from what felt like thousands of wounds. All I had to do was put distance between me and them. There were only a few stragglers from what I could see through my blurred vision, only some that hadn’t taken enough of my blood to knock them to the floor. They were staggering around on unsteady feet, their legs threatening to give way beneath them. Their faces had begun to chance back, looking more and more human as the seconds passed.

  I didn’t risk a second glance back as I reached forward with one arm and pulled myself forward, a grunt escaping me with the effort it took to shift my deadweight just that tiny bit. This was going to be impossible. All I had to do was get to the bedroom. All I had to do was get to the dagger and open a gate to anywhere that wasn’t here. I didn’t give a fuck if I landed naked and bloodied in the middle of Times Square at this rate, but I wasn’t going to survive long after losing this much blood. Even in my delirious, pained state, I could understand that.

  “So, it’s true,” Bardric announced, appearing as if out of nowhere and digging his hand into my hair. With a growl, he dragged me backwards, and I grappled to hold on to anything nearby, but there was nothing. I struggled against his firm hold, but my body wasn’t cooperating, already shutting down from the trauma it had suffered. My scalp burned where his hand was fisted into my hair and my back screamed from the sting of broken glass against bare skin.

  Despite his strength, Bardric wasn’t looking too good either. His eyes had turned a ghastly shade of milky grey, blood-shot and his previously pale skin was even more sickly than it had been earlier. A discrete smudge of blood lined his thin lips—he had drank from me. Despite his calls to the others to control themselves, he, too, had given into his most primal of urges.

  Each of his movements were clumsy, as if at any minute he would fall backwards and be unable to get up. A girl could only hope, I guess.

  “Poison blood,” he added, setting a leg on either side of my naked, battered body and sitting his entire weight on top of me. It felt like nothing compared to the suffocating weight of all the Silver’s, but it was enough to constrict my chest. “Nice to see you’re just as traitorous as your old dad was.”

  The words didn’t sink in. I didn’t have the mental capacity to listen. My blood pressure was too low, and every noise sounded as if it were coming from ten meters under water. God, and I was cold. Freezing—my hands and my feet were numb, even as I tried to throw punches and kicks towards him, it was like I was moving in slow motion. Like one of those nightmares where you just can’t seem to get your body to do what you’re telling it to. There was a good chance I wasn’t going to wake up from this one.

  “Does any of this matter?” I laughed, spitting out a mouthful of sour blood. NAME waited with bated breath. “Your crew is dead. Or at least they will be, soon. So will you by the looks of things.”

  He risked a glance back to the bodies littering the floor, his nostrils flaring as he absorbed the sight. I watched while his body swayed side to side on top of me, his balance wavering from the poison he’d already ingested. It was now or never.

  With the last bit of strength I could muster, I pushed myself forward and changed our positions so that I was lying on top of him. I bit into one of the already open bite wounds on my wrist and jammed it into his mouth so hard that I could feel his silver gilded fangs bury themselves into whatever untouched skin I still had left. Strangely, I watched him as he willingly drank—instinct telling him not to resist.

  When he began to tense and convulse, I pulled my wrist away from his taut jaw and fell back upon the pile of still bodies, allowing my eyes to close for just a second.

  Chapter Thirty One

  Up. I was getting up. It wasn’t my legs or my arms I was using. Someone else was lifting me. My eyes opened lazily, my eyelids struggling to keep themselves from closing.

  “Beth,” I grumbled. “Where’s Jocelyn?”

  She held a thick cloth over the bottom half of her face as we walked, heading for the exit.

  “I couldn’t find her,” she replied.

  My legs paused, dragging against the ground as I forced her to come to a stop. It was useless. She was stronger than I was, especially right now.

  “What do you mean you couldn’t find her?” My words were slurred, each syllable blurring into the next as though I’d had one too many drinks. “She’s here. She should be here.”

  “I tried to tell you, Quinn. This whole time, I tried to tell you,” Beth explained angrily behind the cloth, her movements still not stalling.

  This time I forced her to stop, pushing out of her grasp. “I need my dagger.”

  “You need a hospital.”

  “Not without Jocelyn and not without my dagger.” Weakly, I escaped Beth’s grip and swaggered off towards the bedroom, where the dagger had been tossed haphazardly on the carpeted ground. I picked it up, taking a second to pull a sweater out of one wardrobe while I was there. It was large enough to cover me right down to my knees. A bonus of being short.

  The slight effort was enough to leave me out of breath and struggling to move, and I collapsed back down on the ground, gasping for air. Beth appeared in the doorway and hooked her arm around me, tugging me back into her side.

  “You think you can find Jocelyn in this state? You’re fucking delusional,” Beth complained, all but dragging me towards the front door.

  “She’s here, somewhere. She has to be,” I replied weakly, wincing as Beth pulled me over the threshold and into the hallway. “Is there anywhere else they would go? Anywhere they would do business?”

  Beth paused, propping me up against the wall and looking at a few of the bite marks patterning my skin. She still had the cloth pressed to her mouth and nose, but I could see the pain in her eyes, the regret. She felt responsible for this, although she’d never admit it. I wanted to tell her she wasn’t, but it wouldn’t matter—not right now, not with me looking like this.

  “You’re not going to give up, are you?” She asked.

  I shook my head, wincing at the sharp discomfort in my neck with the movement.

  “The service basement, Bardric made an agreement with the property manager that we could have private use. I don’t have a key.”

  Her use of the term we in her admission left a bitterness in my mouth. I didn’t have the ability to stomach right now, so I ignored it. “Who has the key?”

  “Bardric, always,” Beth replied.

  “Well, go get it,” I said. “Nothing stopping you now that he’s dead.”

  Beth nodded silently, leaving me standing against the wall as she ran back inside. Seconds later, she came back with a bundle of keys in her hand. “Got them.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Again, the elevator wasn’t an option, since I looked like I’d been in a fight with a bear or two and we didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention. Police had probably already been called to a noise complaint from the neighbour’s and, given I was currently a person of interest, I wasn’t looking to get involved in a mass murder enquiry. That’s if the Silver’s bodies would still be there when the police arrived.

  I did not know what would happen to them now that they were dead. If they were indeed all dead. I hadn’t thought to check. I’d been too busy trying not to be dead myself.

  The basement was lit by just a few wall lights that went on automatically and Beth was forced to pull me along, carrying almost my entire body weight. How I’d stayed conscious for this long, I didn’t know, but I didn’t have much more left in me. We needed to get in and get out as quickly as we could.

  Beth sat me down on the damp floor as she fumbled with the keys in her shaking hands. The first one she tried didn’t work, but the second one slipped into the lock effortlessly. With a quick shift of the handle
, the door opened with ease.

  “You should stay here,” Beth whispered.

  “Nice try, help me up,” I said, reaching my hand out to her. With a groan, she pulled me to my feet and helped me walk inside.

  The inside was brightly lit with UV lamps, unmade beds lined the windowless brick walls, and the smell of urine was unbearable. There was one toilet in the corner, to be shared amongst what had to be eight women. Their eyes searched our faces in fear as they huddled in the far corner of the claustrophobic space, but my gaze only looked for one.

  “Jocelyn?” I breathed, my eyes already welling up as sorrow and relief tightened in a band around my chest.

  The round face with the angelic blonde curls and flushed cheeks I’d seen in the photographs was gone. In its place was a waiflike woman with dark circles and bruises, bite marks ranging from faded scars to freshly scabbed wounds patterned her skin. Yet she nodded, cautiously.

  “I’ve come to take you home,” I replied, fighting to hold myself together. “All of you. If that’s OK?”

  The women, girls—they didn’t stand up straight away. They were cautious, as they should be, especially around Beth—who refused to lift her face to look at them. I didn’t want to imagine why she was so ashamed, not now, not at this moment.

  We led the girls out of the small room and into the service stairway, where we hoped they wouldn’t be disturbed. At least this way, we could get them out of the cages they’d been held in for too long. Beth and I trudged back into the small basement room before we spoke again.

  “Beth, go up to the 24th floor and head to this apartment,” I instructed, leaning against the wall to steady myself. “There’s a man there, Gabriel. He’s here to help.”

  Beth raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Some fucking help he was,” she scoffed.

  “He has rules. It’s complicated.”

  Without a second glance, she left, and I listened to her jogging back up the stairs and out the door, desperate to put distance between herself and the captive girls.

  Taking care not to fall over and injure myself even more, if that was possible, I continued to hold on to the wall as I looked around the room. I picked up a few of the trinkets that occupied the bedside tables—notebooks and diaries, small pieces of jewellery they’d probably brought with them. None of which seemed to matter enough to take as they’d left. I picked up what I could find and removed one of the dirtied pillowcases from a bed nearby, packing the things inside and holding onto them, just in case. Relief warmed my tight chest and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I’d fucking done it. I’d done what I told Thatcher I would. I’d found Jocelyn, and she was alive.

  “How on this earth are you still standing?” A female voice sounded from behind me, ringing like church bells off the walls and forcing me to turn around. I spun too quickly to find where it was coming from, making me dizzy to the point where I lost my footing and had to grab onto the bed to stop myself from falling to the floor.

  Opposite me, sitting on one bed, was a woman with one slender leg crossed over the other. Her crimson dress shimmered beneath the lights, clinging to her thin frame as she toyed with the set of keys from the door. With pursed, painted lips, she considered my appearance for a moment, tossing her ginger hair over her shoulder.

  “Lilith,” I whispered, realising that it was impossible for it to be anyone else.

  “You put on quite the show,” she purred, her voice delicate whilst still demanding attention. “Sacrificing yourself for another. A human girl you’ve never even met. You’re a bit of a martyr. Predictable.” Lilith’s aging face twisted sourly with her words and for the first time, I saw beneath the facade of her beauty and into the demon she was.

  “That’s not how I think of it,” I stated. “Why are you doing this? Taking these girls, every what? Ten years? Aren’t you tired?”

  Lilith laughed light-heartedly, as though we were old friends chatting over cocktails and shook her head, her loose curls dancing fluidly around her shoulders. “I’m looking for something.”

  “Maybe I can help you find it? If you stop killing innocent girls, I’m sure we can come to an agreement, find a solution some other way.”

  Despite the steadiness in my voice, my insides were clenched tight in terror, and from the curious look in Lilith’s green eyes, she knew that.

  “That’s a pretty little thing around your neck, Quintessa,” she added with wide, unblinking eyes and an icy smile before snapping back to reality. “I’m so pleased I’ve met with you in person.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  She paused, rolling her pink tongue over her pearly white teeth in thought. “It’s made a lot of things far clearer for me. I’m certainly glad my note gave you the push you needed to stand up to my son. He can be quite overpowering at times.”

  My face told her everything she needed to know. Her grin widened as mine dissipated—I gulped, the chill in my bones worsening to where my hands began to shake.

  “Samael was always the independent one. He gets that from his father,” Lilith continued, as casually as if she were talking about the weather. “But my Xavier, he’s the baby of the family and you know how it is with half-siblings, always trying to prove themselves. There’s jealousy and what not. Especially when it comes to new toys.”

  I gritted my teeth together, recognising this was the woman who’d had Thatcher killed, who’d taken all those innocent girls and held them here—had them tortured by the Silver’s and God knows what else.

  “Go home, Lilith,” I ordered, growing tired of her mind games and unable to decipher what was bullshit manipulation and what was the truth. Her face dropped into a mock pout as she dabbed away imaginary tears.

  “Just one last thing, before I go?” She asked, joining her hands together in front of her chest as though she were begging, but she didn’t wait for me to answer. “That little toy dagger that Seamus our keeper gave you? It’s nothing but a pretty little antique.”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, confused.

  “You don’t need it to open up the gates, Quintessa. You can do that all on your own, not a spot of blood required,” she smiled excitedly. “And that’s exactly what I’ve been looking for all these years.”

  My eyes drifted down to the dagger I’d put into the pillowcase with all the other belongings I’d found down here in the basement, and I frowned. That wasn’t possible. Not in the slightest. She was lying.

  “I’ll see you soon, Quintessa. Perhaps I’ll not be needing those girls after all.” Lilith’s words faded into the empty room as though they and she had never existed.

  With a weak grasp, I picked up the pillowcase and dragged myself out of the confines of the basement room. Lilith was gone, but she’d left her mark. I didn’t know where I was supposed to go for sure, but by the looks of things, it wouldn’t be far.

  My legs buckled on the first step up towards the service staircase and I felt myself hit the metal capped steps like a ton of bricks. My lungs fought for oxygen as my ribs argued with their efforts. My skin burned from the bites while I felt as though I was freezing. A rush of wind came from just beside the staircase and within a second, Gabriel was rounding the staircase until he was beside me.

  “Let’s go,” he grumbled, his expression unchanging from what I could through bleary eyes.

  “Th…gi?” I tried, but the effort to speak was too much. “Gris?”

  “The girls are fine,” Gabriel replied as he pulled my limp body to his chest. “You did, Quinn. Just rest.”

  “Lilith,” I mumbled into his t-shirt, unable to keep my eyes open.

  “Shh,” he hushed. The velvet feeling of his wings wrapping around me was the last thing I recalled before the earth shifted again.

  Chapter Thirty Two

  Hospital food sucked, but lucky for me, I had a best friend who’d come back from the dead just in time to bring me breakfast. I spread a ridiculous layer of chocolate spread on my first crepe and rolled it up
before dunking it into the whipped cream, topping the mouthful off by popping an entire strawberry into my mouth.

  “I can’t remember the last time I ate,” I stated through the mouthful of food, causing Beth to grimace in disgust.

  She was sitting on the chair by my bed with her booted feet propped up on the mattress. A pair of dark sunglasses were covering her eyes and her long black hair had been tied up into a messy ponytail. Apart from the slightly edgier fashion sense, she didn’t look any different from the old Beth.

  “You’re disgusting and I hate you,” I grunted, flicking through an old magazine and trying to hide a smile.

  “You love me,” I teased, taking another huge bite with a sip of my caramel latte.

  Beth frowned, removing her sunglasses and wincing against the sunlight. She looked pensive, frowning and running her thumb over her bottom lip.

  “What?” I asked, unable to cope with the sudden tension.

  “I’m sorry about Thatcher,” she blurted. “I wanted to… I’ve wanted to tell, I didn’t have anything to do with…”

  “I know,” I interrupted, clearing my throat and wiping the remnants of sticky chocolate from my fingers on a napkin.

  “How? How could you know?” Beth laughed apathetically. “I’m a monster now, Quinn. For all you know, it could’ve been me.”

  I sat myself up a little in the uncomfortable hospital bed, wincing as my bandages caught on the sheet.

  I dropped my gaze before I spoke. “Xavier told me that some turned vampires keep a lot of their personality, a lot of their morals. Some of them don’t. It depends on the person. I could tell by the way you kept warning me to stay out of the whole situation with the Silver’s, to stay away from Xavier, that you were trying to keep me safe.”

  “I was just doing what I was told,” Beth shrugged.

  “That’s bullshit and you know it,” I paused. “Are you planning on moving back in with me? Because I had to downsize the apartment after you went all creature of the night and I only have one bedroom.”