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© 2015 Courtney Sloan
https://courtneysloanwrites.wordpress.com
Cover Art by Jennifer Munswami
http://www.jennifermunswami.com
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ISBN 978-1-62007-999-7 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-62007-103-8 (paperback)
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For my pack: my husband and partner-in-crime/writing, J.P Sloan, who leads through example, quiet strength and kindness; and my pup, Connor, who makes me strive to be better than I am.
he neighborhood was too familiar. Getting out of my car, the smell of rotting wood and desperation assaulted me. The feeling of unseen, wary eyes followed me as I pulled my red leather jacket’s collar up to cover the official Department of Energy Conservation badge around my throat. The residents would never call the cops, but they were willing to do whatever it took to protect their own. I knew. I understood. I’d been one of them.
As I stalked past the chewed-on carcass of someone’s pet dog, I was glad I’d gotten Will as far away as possible from this life. Three years made a big difference. No matter what I was now, the alternatives were worth what I’d lost.
My boots clicked and echoed against the tenement’s alleys, sending out waves of agitation ahead of me. Nerves and adrenaline kept my pace quick. A thick blend of music spilled from various apartments nearby. Bright Latin brass collided into a plaintive balalaika, all stampeded over by the low, dull bass hits of hip hop.
What do you think you’re doing out there, cherie? Where’s Lyle? Devon’s irritated voice rang through my brain. Great, he was paying attention to me again. He must be bored. I’d hoped the early evening meeting of the governmental bloodsuckers would keep his mind busy and off me.
I mentally sighed at him, letting him feel my bristling at his intrusion to my job. These tenements are right outside the industrial district and have the highest reports of truancy. Double than any other district. He’s squatting here.
And Lyle?
I clenched my fists and laced my thoughts with annoyance so he could feel it. He really had to stop questioning how I did my job. He’s doing a sweep of the area. Want to know if my coat is warm enough? Devon, let me work.
And in doing the course of doing your job, you’ve followed procedure and made the call for an official team to back up your location, for once?
The disappearances may just be an INS crackdown trickling down. I just want to check this hell hole out first.
His irritation filtered into me, causing me to bite my lip and slow my pace. I knew better. He could feel the lie. I could almost see him drumming his well-manicured fingers on his rose wood table.
Rowan.
Anger at his tone flashed through me and flowed back to him through our bond. Devon, leave off. We both know someone has set up their own pantry of living goodies. These are kids, and everyone here is too scared to report it. I can’t let another night go, and officially the DEC will be too slow.
His silence was answer enough. He knew I was going to go in, and he’d grant me the power to fight when I asked to pull it from him. I’d just pay for my disobedience later.
A blue jay dove ahead of me in the night, doing a double twist and landing on the railing of the steps that descended to the lower apartments. Lyle had found our target. Excitement pulsed through my body as I checked my inventory. Taking out two rune-inscribed zip strips, I laced them through the belt loops on the sides of my Kevlar-lined jeans. My gun and holster sat secure against the base of my back. Slipping out the magazine, I checked what order my ley blocker slugs were in. Losing one of those bullets would cost me two weeks of pay to replace, but if the personal touch didn’t work, firing them was better than the bastard getting away.
Steeling myself, I stalked toward the stairs. The blue jay took off and fluttered before my face, tickling my neck with my hair. His meaning was clear, but I was not about to wait any longer. If the bastard was here, we needed to put him down now.
I swatted at the bird with my hand, confident my partner was faster than I was in this form. “Leave off,” I whispered. “We’re doing this now.”
The bird fluttered again and held its altitude in the air, its sharp talons inches from my nose.
“Lyle, if he’s in there, I’m taking him.” After a quick staring contest, the bird dropped a bit then rose higher, his equivalent of a shrug. With a dip of his right wing, he swung around and took to his perch again above the stairwell. He’d guard my back.
“Any other way out?” I asked.
He twitched his head to the right then the left.
“No need to cop an attitude. I know you do your job.” I didn’t have time to deal with my partner’s ego.
Below, I found room AB, a shitty basement apartment meant to hold four residents max, though most held closer to twelve in pure human tenements. Music blared. Kneeling down, I tipped my head toward the door and pulled on my connection to Devon to enhance my hearing. A slight tingling rushed through me, then my ears turned way up. The tangy zydeco music coming from the apartment was now nearly deafening, but way below it was the subtle shuffling of someone moving around. Nothing that would hold up in court as a probable cause to break into the apartment, but someone was active in there. I’d get probable cause once I had him in custody.
Opening the guard on my left wrist, I stared at the lock, deciding on the best pick to use for a more subtle entrance. A skill I’d learned long before joining the blood theft department of the government. A skill that had fed Will and me during less fruitful times. If I hadn’t agreed to the scionship, Will would have had to learn to break into locks too. Humanity’s big choices nowadays: breaking the law to make ends meet, or, for the lucky few, working for some bloodsucker. Sometimes stealing felt more honest than what I did now.
The lock blurred in my vision; I was too close to it. Shaking my head, I breathed deep and resituated myself at a better angle. Reminiscing about our crappy past wasn’t going to help anyone who may have been in trouble behind this door. If there was even anyone there. Devon would just love to be right.
“Momma!” The pathetic cry was followed by a muffled series of sobs and the shock of flesh striking flesh. A child was in there with him.
Backup could bite me.
Rage sang through me as I pulled hard from Devon, letting his vampiric strength fill my muscles–until Devon cut me off. I stumbled back to my knees from the shock of it.
You’re a female agent in one of the worse neighborhoods in the city. Call for back up.
If I die because you wouldn’t give me enough to take him down, and this asshole walks, good luck finding another scion. With a well-placed sidekick and a new flood of power from Devon–accompanied by his exasperated sigh–I broke the door around the lock, sending the shoddy craftsmanship flying against its hinges.
The stench of the room hit me as I took in the scene. The squatter stood over to the right, cradling a boy of maybe five or six in his arms with his mouth secured around his small throat. Crumpled on the cracked concrete floor were other young bodies, all children under the age of ten. None of them were moving. They were not from the same family; too many different races. He’d collected them. His
own dessert bar. A sneer painted my lips.
I knew what had happened. He had come when the majority of the parents were out working illegal night shifts after curfew. Illegally timed work paid better than a safer day job, but the curfew had been put in place by the government because they knew the nightlife could be a killer. Literally.
I narrowed my eyes at the coward in front of me as he turned. His eyes were glazed over, hopped up on the children’s blood, chock full of more vitae than any adult could provide. I doubt he could have talked much even if he’d wanted to. This was why the innocent blood was off limits.
He pulled his mouth from the boy’s neck and let the small body crash to the ground with a light moan. The boy was alive, but not for much longer. Gore dripped from the vampire’s limp, open lips. He blinked at me as if trying to figure out if I was real.
I spared a moment to check on the boy at his feet and froze. His shirt was so filthy; it took me a second to realize it had been originally a plain white t-shirt. It never would be again. Drawing in on himself, the boy turned his face to me, and breath left me. His face was gaunter than Will’s freckled one, but they could have been brothers. Even his hair was like my brother’s, somewhere between brown and red. And his eyes, his pleading hazel eyes, locked with mine. A cry for protection from a world that had forgotten him. I blinked hard, and the boy became clearer again. Will was safe. I’d sacrificed everything in me to protect him, and he was out of reach from hells like this.
The boy’s tiny hand reached out and away from his neck, both coated with blood, begging for me to make the monster to go away. By God, I’d make the bastard pay. Devon be damned. Panic sliced through me and died into rage.
My desperation and fear followed my bond to Devon. His horror and anger flooded straight back into me. We came together in a single-minded determination to end the monster in front of us.
Take him! Devon growled in my mind.
Power sang into my cells as Devon opened the flood gates of his abilities through our bond. For a moment, I could see both his room and mine. He was in a large office downtown with other government vampires of the DEC around him, then I was back in the hellhole of a grave with the scum of the Earth. Taking a deep breath, I smiled at the dickwad. The bastard paled and took a step back from me.
“You are under arrest… under my authority… from the Department of Energy Conservation,” I screamed, punctuating with a series of kicks, faster than any regular human could produce, until he was far away from the children’s bodies.
When his back hit the far wall, his adrenaline kicked in. His eyes cleared, and fear replaced the vacant high he’d been riding from the innocent blood. “Scion,” he rasped.
I nodded, shifting to a better position to take him down. “Damn skippy, I am.”
His eyes darkened. His intent to take me out and flee might as well had its own billboard. Time for some fun.
He swung around and threw a haymaker at my face. Inches from my jaw, I caught it in my hand, but his jarring force rattled my teeth. “You’re guilty of eight counts… of blood theft… and will be remanded to the Council of Vitae… for punishment.” I used his own wrist to throw him in an arm bar against the table, face first. “Every ounce of which you deserve double, prick.” Teeth fragments and blood were left behind as I pulled him back up and levered him against the near wall, his arm still securely behind his back.
“I have every right to eat.” He sounded like he had a cold with all the blood spilling from his face and mouth, but I caught the gist of his pathetic, sick reasoning.
“Sounds like I might have broken your nose there.” I shoulder-checked him and pressed him against the wall as I reached down and pulled out one of my rune inscribed strips. “Good,” I whispered into his ear while securing the band on his wrist. Once the strip completely encircled his joint, all his strength pushing against me released. He crumpled to the floor, no stronger now than a human. Poor baby.
Glancing at the children around the room, I resisted the urge to kick him again. “Stay,” I told him with a finger in his face. I moved to the last child and searched for a pulse. Sometime during the fight, the boy must have stopped breathing. He was gone. Dammit. I punched the ground next to him, splintering the wood. Squinting at my hand, I watched my split knuckles heal in a matter of seconds. My job had its perks. If only I could have let this kid borrow it for a few minutes. He’d needed it more.
A low gasp escaped my lips as Devon chose that moment to pull back his power, leaving me with enough to take care of the pitiful excuse of a vampire, but dulling the beautiful, acid Technicolor the world had become.
I moved to the crying vampire, pulling him up by the collar of his blood-soaked, pastel polo shirt. He twisted in my grasp, but no longer had the strength to do anything about it. I put my face right in front of what was left of his. “Speaking of rights, jackass, you will hear about the rest of them once you’re booked. Right now, you have jack for rights with me, so just give me a reason to finish this.”
His eyes grew wide, and he nodded his understanding.
“Good.” Patting his head, I pulled him in front of me and shoved him out the door.
yle circled us as I marched the bloody mess through the lobby of the DEC toward intake in the back. I could tell the bird was agitated with me, but I was too tired to care. The power flares and adrenaline had worn both Devon and me. My legs were Jell-O. My head hurt in stereo. I needed to eat so Devon could feed soon.
The red and black emblems of the DEC surrounded us, and the blonde ursine shifter at the desk let out a grunt of surprise but buzzed us in.
“Agent Brady, take him to the back,” she said. “That’s why we have the intake lot.”
“Sorry, Clara, this one deserves a very public walk of shame.”
The vampire hung his head as others turned to stare at us marching by. As the time was close to one in the morning, the office was filled mainly with vampires, a few shifters—thrown in for more menial work, like watching the front door—and scions. Humans were only called in for the day shifts and common, non-preternatural crime. The only humans here now were the ones lined up to donate blood for the extra money, or those whose number had been picked for their “civic duty.”
Passing the long line of vampires waiting in the maze of red tape to receive rations with their governmental blood stamps, my stomach turned to a knot of worry. Their postures turned toward us, some bearing fangs; others’ eyes dilated hugely as they tracked us across the floor. I moved my prisoner further out in front in case someone got antsy and instinct took over rational sense.
Vampires reacted strangely when one of their own was brought in. Many of them didn’t make it to trial. None of my business once they were out of my hands, and most deserved worse.
An intoxicating smell began to tickle my nose as their pheromones, desire, and hunger kicked into overdrive from the blood we tracked through. My muscles relaxed as I fought to hold my breath and let less of the delicious scent in. Vampire pheromones were an evolutionary trick that usually made for easy prey and easier getaways. Ain’t nature grand?
The effects of the pheromones made me trip a step before regaining my balance. I gazed around nervously. There were more faces in there than I had realized. Maybe this wasn’t as good of an idea as it had seemed on the car ride over. But the vampires had to see. They had to do more to control their own.
Sighing, I pushed through the side corridor doors that Lyle figure-eighted around. As I shoved my catch through them, I gave a last glare at my undead colleagues still staring at us with rapt attention.
The vampires, our saviors. They were supposed to keep things like this from happening. They’d had over fifty years since the Reclamation, and we were no better off. They were still monsters playing dress up.
At the turn of the millennium, regular people like me hadn’t had any idea vampires or shifters existed in anything but over-sexed romance novels about eternal teenagers willing to give up everything for the
human that would tame the monster. And, to give vampires credit, they didn’t start the Reclamation, but they finished it. Then everything changed.
It started from money. Money and people fighting over which made up idea of how to rule the world was the right one. After Saudi Arabia called in the debts they’d allowed their “friends” to rack up, it had been a race to the bottom. A race everyone lost. Whole nations had been hocked to the gills. No one could pay, so everyone called in their debts with each other. The result: everyone realized they owed more money than anyone had ever actually owned. Economics of the imaginary dollar.
Panic set in as the price of everything became astronomical. People lost their jobs, which had only made things more expensive. Bread cost more than a car. Crime became the only way to make an honest living.
Then, there was the war. Money always seems to lead to war. A terrorist group secretly bought everything the governments had been selling: jets, guns, bombs, whatever they had lying around. They tweaked them and sent them back, destroying city after city all around the world. No one left had been strong enough to do anything about it. A year of never knowing where the next pink mushroom cloud would land. The only places not hit were the ones sending the terror: the Middle East and Northern Africa. Their jihad, decades in the making, was a sure thing.
But our saviors couldn’t let the well dry up, so the now much-less-outnumbered vampires stepped up and rallied the troops, saving what was left of humanity. And we were theirs.
After returning home, the military flocked their allegiance to their commanding officer, Selvig Romaric. Vampire or not, he had taken over the presidency in a non-citizen-run election and had held on to the “elected” position for fifty years. He’d created the safety curfew and brought back healthcare, food, and security. All humanity had to do was give up most of its civil rights. Preventative medicine had been set up for free to make the population strong again. A mandatory checkup every six months would only cost each person a pint of blood.
Of Scions and Men Page 1