Graves of Wrath

by Lina Gardiner

  “Wait, I hadn’t thought of that,” Regent said. “What caused these shadows to escape from hell? Demons need a release . . . or at least, that’s what is written in our philosophies.”

  Britt slammed his fist into his open hand. “Yes! If we can find out who let them loose, or how they escaped, it might give us a better way to—”

  The doorbell rang. Regent broke away from the group to answer it, then ushered Veronique inside.

  “Does everyone know Captain Veronique LaFontaine?” Jess asked.

  “I don’t,” Sampson said.

  “Veronique, this is my good friend, Sampson Case,” Regent said, introducing him. Sampson beamed at Regent’s description as he stood and shook the captain’s hand. His reaction to Morana hadn’t been even close to warm.

  Jess could have hugged him.

  When it became obvious Veronique didn’t need an introduction to Morana, Jess’s stomach burned. Why had Veronique lied about knowing Morana before, that evening they’d asked her to do a search on the fingerprints they’d found?

  “What’s she doing here,” Veronique asked, looking back and forth between her and Jess. “Mon Dieu, c’est incroyable!”

  It was Morana’s turn to roll her eyes. “There’s a slight resemblance,” she said dryly.

  Regent clicked his tongue and gave her a forget-denying-it-honey look. Morana simply ignored him.

  Come to think of it, how did Morana know where Regent lived? Had he told her? Or had she been following them, too?

  “From the observations we’ve made so far, we believe the entities are moving toward the Arc de Triomphe,” Jess told Veronique

  “But why?” Veronique said in a distraught voice. “Why a place as important as that?”

  “We have no idea. But I think we need to gather all the data we can, from every possible source. Then we should all meet back here again tomorrow night and share what we’ve found,” Jess said, glancing at her watch again. She couldn’t wait to get out and do some intel tonight.

  An hour later, the discussion had finally wound down, and she and Britt were getting ready to hit the streets. But first, she hauled Veronique aside. “I think I have some news about your serial killer,” she said.

  Veronique looked shocked. “What?”

  Jess held up her arm and showed what was left of the pink scars. “One of the shadows did this to me. It slit my arm open, looking much like the bodies in the tunnel. Your serial killer might be a demon. Or demons.”

  Veronique exhaled and squeezed her eyes shut for a second. “I was afraid it might be something like that. The lack of evidence at the scenes, no DNA. . . . It wasn’t adding up.”

  “It’ll be damned hard to prosecute a demon,” Britt added.

  “Then we’d better figure out a way to send them back to hell,” Veronique said, though her voice wasn’t as firm as her words. “It’s something the police department has been trying to figure out for the last two weeks.” Veronique stared directly at Regent, as if she knew his role in this whole thing. “With little result so far, I’m afraid.”

  Jess’s jaw tightened. It seemed everyone knew about his secret committee.

  Regent flicked a knowing glance at Jess, and she nodded in agreement. They often shared moments of realization like this.

  “Tomorrow night at ten o’clock, then,” Jess said.

  “Tomorrow night.” Veronique made her way to the door without a backward glance.

  The second the door closed behind her, Morana said, “Bitch.”

  Jess leaned forward, her hands planted on the table. “You have a problem with Captain LaFontaine?”

  “You might say that,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest in the same way that Jess always did. “She’s been harassing me for two years. I couldn’t believe it when she walked in here. I’m not sure I can work with her.”

  Jess’s attention arrowed in on Morana. Again, she wondered why Veronique hadn’t told the truth, earlier. She’d find out, one way or another.

  “That’s fine, Morana,” Jess said. “You don’t have to continue with us. We appreciate that you considered it, if only for a time.” Bye-bye!

  Morana’s eyes turned black and she glared at Jess. “I intend to do what I said I’d do, whether you like it or not.”

  “Don’t worry,” Regent said, putting himself between them. “We’ll get things worked out.”

  “But not tonight,” Jess said. “Britt and I have things to do.”

  “I have to leave too,” Morana said, ignoring the rest of them. “Until tomorrow night.” She got up and left the apartment, slamming the door behind her.

  “Guess that means she’s going to work with Veronique after all,” Britt said with a wicked grin.

  “Don’t hold her temperament against her,” Regent said, locking his hands in front of him. “She hasn’t had the benefit of a loving family to help her mediate her anger. She’s done pretty well, given that fact.”

  God! Morana has Regent wrapped around her little finger.

  In a way, Jess couldn’t fault her younger brother. She knew he’d wanted to accept Morana as their sister, right from the start.

  Jess looked at her rough-edged fingernails. “Even if she turns out to be our sister, she’s still a vampire. And vampires do whatever they have to do to survive.”

  “But Jess, you’ve proven that statement wrong, over and over again,” her brother said.

  “Oh, Regent, let’s not go there. Besides, Morana is not me.”

  “But you’ve found other vampires who are instinctively able to maintain a partial sense of self. They can control their darker needs without the benefit of . . .” He stopped talking, instantly.

  She knew why.

  Because the truth of matter stunned her instantly—why hadn’t she thought of it before? There were a few vampires who could partially control their own darkness—and they didn’t need constant prayers to maintain it.

  Oh hell! He was right.

  That meant she was darker than any of them, only managing to maintain herself with prayers. Her gut swooped, making her reach out and press her hand against the table for support.

  Regent instantly looked distraught. “No, Jess. Do not take what I said that way!”

  “When Regent was in Rome and I was unable to pray for you, you maintained yourself,” Britt reminded her.

  Barely. She knew it and they knew it. Damnation. She chewed on her upper lip and turned away to hide the sudden moisture behind her eyes. There was every possibility that Morana was a better person-slash-vampire, than she’d ever be.

  Regent walked over and wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug. “Please, Jess, that’s not what I meant.”

  Whether he meant to say it or not, there was a whole helluva lot of truth in it. Somehow, she’d begun to believe the hype about herself, that she was some kind of special vampire. Crap! Deep down, did she actually think she was better than Morana because she could walk in daylight under special conditions? Namely, a lot of extra prayers?

  She took a ragged breath. She didn’t want to upset Regent right now, so she pulled herself together, hiding behind the cool persona that was her trademark. “I’m not upset.” She forced a bright smile and gently extricated herself from his arms before he sensed the truth in her tense muscles.

  “You have an army of people who put their lives on the line for you every night,” Sampson added. “People don’t do that unless their leader is worthy of that kind of loyalty.”

  She nodded, but was still caught up in her own devastation. The reality of being a vampire always on the edge of losing herself, hit home. She couldn’t begin to compare herself to the vampires in Europe, who seemed more civilized than she’d ever imagined.

  She must’ve managed to fool her brother, though, since he’d st
arted to relax.

  “Let’s not get too maudlin, boys. I’m not a girly-girl, I’m a tough vampire, remember.”

  Regent nodded and hope seeped into his expression. He wanted it to be true.

  Hell, so did she. Because right now, she felt like a fractured child whose reality had been changed forever. But at least she’d managed to make everyone believe her.

  She glanced at Britt who’d been fairly silent. Well, not everyone.

  She clapped her hands together. “Let’s get back to the business at hand—all those demons running rampant in Paris,” Jess said. “Britt and I are going to find something to use against them tonight if it kills us.”

  Regent groaned.

  “I haven’t had a chance to check the results of the VNA sample you got from Morana, but it should be ready soon,” Sampson said.

  “I think it’s great Sampson has a lab here. I have the feeling we’re going to need him working at full capacity, especially if things keep going the way they have been,” Britt said.

  “That’s what makes me get out of bed every day,” Sampson said, shoving his glasses back on top of his head. “You coming to check out the new lab with me, Regent?”

  Regent searched Jess’s eyes. Apparently, she hadn’t completely fooled him, after all.

  “You go, Reej, but stay off the side streets. It’s too risky at night.”

  If he had feathers, they’d be ruffling right now. “If it’s risky for me, it’s risky for you, too, Jess.”

  “Yes, but I’m harder to kill.”

  “Need I remind you again, you can be killed?”

  She sought Britt’s help in mollifying her brother. “Once upon a time, I believed I was at risk every night when I was hunting. But now that I have Britt by my side, I think my odds are a lot better than they used to be. Don’t you agree, Regent?”

  “I have to admit that is true,” he said.

  “You know I’ll do everything in my power to keep her safe,” Britt said. “And she’ll do the same for me.”

  Good thing he added the second part.

  MORANA CALLED HER father on the phone right after she left the apartment. It rang and rang, but he didn’t answer. Funny. She’d tried to contact him other times, and he hadn’t been there, either. Where did he go? If he had Watcher meetings at night, he’d certainly kept them a secret from her.

  She adjusted her shirt over her blue jeans and strode purposefully to her destination, an exclusive place called Club Noire, where only vampires gathered, along with the humans who lusted for the bliss they got from being bitten. Some of them were worse than addicts. Not that anyone she knew minded.

  She stepped inside. They kept the place so dark, only vampires could see well. The humans were already out of their element, but in the dark, they were less likely to be terrified at the sight of vampires feeding on those who’d offered themselves.

  Diesel had just finished feeding on a rotund woman in his booth. Her eyes held that haze of climatic enjoyment. He wiped his mouth when he saw her and stood. “Morana, I’m surprised to see you here. You haven’t been around for weeks.”

  “I come here all the time, but lately only after work,” she said. It was still two hours before LaCave opened.

  “Why are you here early tonight, then?” he asked.

  She glanced around the room. “How many vampires are here that we can trust?” she asked.

  He shrugged and looked around the room. “That depends on what kind of trust you need,” he said.

  “I need help tracking the shadows. They’re taking out vampires as well as humans now. I’ve joined a taskforce that is trying to track them. We need vampires willing to notify the group about the shadow’s activities.”

  He shook his head and ran his teeth over his bottom lip. “You might be asking a lot from our kind. But there might be some here who fit the bill.” He touched her shoulder.

  It took strength not to wrench away from him, especially after she’d seen where he’d been biting that human.

  “Are you helping the cops now, too?” he asked.

  “Not really, I’m helping us. Vampires.”

  “But the cops are involved, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, but we won’t have anything to do with them. I’ll be giving the information to Jess Vandermire, and she’ll pass it along.”

  “Damnation,” he said.

  “We will be damned if we don’t at least try to help. The shadows are actually demons, and they’re not discriminating between humans and us. They take whatever they want. As far as I can tell, there’s not much we can do to combat them. Not alone. We’re going to need help to survive this onslaught.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “I know. We can get the vampires to leave their findings at LaCave each evening. That’ll protect their anonymity.”

  Diesel shook his head. “Okay. It’s your funeral.” He jumped onto the table nearest him and shouted. “Turn off the music! There’s something important you all need to hear.”

  Someone shut off the sound and except for those still feeding, all glowing eyes turned on Morana who’d jumped up on the table next to Diesel. She told them what she needed and asked for volunteers. No one agreed right away, but she’d expected that.

  Before she left, though, she had a handful of vampires who’d discreetly agreed to help her. And once word got around about the importance of this job, she was sure she’d have more. It wasn’t only her sister, the famous Captain Vandermire, who could get things done.

  BRITT OFTEN TOOK Jess’s hand in his while they walked down the sidewalk, saying it made them look like human lovers strolling the streets. She liked believing it could someday be true.

  But the discussion tonight had left her feeling sorry for herself. So she wasn’t the amazing vampire who every other vampire in North America wanted to be. She’d been too full of herself, and maybe she’d needed that wake-up call.

  When something rustled to her right, Britt squeezed her hand. He’d heard it too.

  The streetlight illuminated the sidewalk ahead, clearly highlighting two shadows slithering toward an alley. Seconds later, they heard a scream.

  She and Britt broke their handhold and raced toward the screams.

  A street person stood before them. He was in rags and standing beside a cardboard box, not far from a Dumpster. The box probably held all his worldly goods.

  His eyes were frantic and he reached out a hand for help just before a black shadow demon slithered completely into his mouth. The man’s eyes were wide, and filled with terror while the demon crawled inside him.

  “What can we do?” Britt grabbed his cross and held it up, shouting a few prayers at the man.

  But the demon had obviously taken over and was safely holed up inside the human, making it impervious to the cross. It merely laughed at Britt.

  “Holy water?” Jess shouted. It had worked before. She grabbed a bottle off her belt and splashed water at the man housing the beast.

  It merely soaked him. The demon laughed at them. “You can’t harm me now. Not while I’m wearing a skin suit,” the croaking, vile voice taunted them. The man’s tongue extended farther than she’d believed possible, and he licked his chin and his cheeks, while his eyes rolled back in his head. A gurgling sound erupted from the man—or the beast, she wasn’t sure which.

  “Damn it, we could have used you-know-who as backup out here tonight,” she said to Britt.

  “Who? The priest?” the demon said in a horrendous, cutting voice, as if the mere act of speaking was shredding the man on the inside.

  Jess panicked instantly. As feared, the shadows knew about Regent. He was in danger.

  Grabbing her blade, she dove at the street man and held it at his filthy throat. Blood now oozed out of the corners of the man’s mouth.

  “If you ki
ll him, I’ll take another body,” the demon warned. “But first, I’ll make him bite off his own tongue.”

  The demon must’ve let the man’s consciousness surface for a moment, because he screamed and his eyes begged pitifully for help. If this was an example of what Regent had seen happening to the exorcists, she understood his fear. And worse, it seemed that she couldn’t kill the man in order to end the demon. Or could she?

  She backed away and leaned toward Britt. “We can’t fight this thing unless we kill the host. I’m not prepared to do that, unless we have no other option.”

  “What will we do with this guy, then?”

  “It depends on what the demon is going to do in that body. If he’s going to harm someone, we can’t just leave him there,” Jess said.

  “There’s something else we should consider,” Britt said not taking his eyes off the man. “Even as shadows, they have powers they can use against us. What abilities will they have, housed inside a human?”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Jess said, again approaching the homeless man with long stringy hair, wearing dirty clothing and hosting a pair of red demon eyes.

  The demon spat out a string of vile curses until suddenly, its demeanor changed. It smiled at Jess, showing a row of rotten teeth and a tongue that flicked in and out like a lizard’s. “Come closer, vampire. I could make you very happy. You can join me in hell and we can create a new realm of devils.”

  “Gross,” she said, looking back at Britt. “Did this thing just come on to me?”

  Britt grimaced and moved in on the man. The vagabond’s head twisted at an impossible angle, following Britt’s movements. “Angels aren’t invited,” he said in a terrifying rasping voice. “You have no place here, evil one.”

  “I’m the evil one?” Britt mocked. “I think you’d better look in the mirror. What is your name, demon?” he asked.

  The demon’s flicking tongue stopped and his brows drew over his red-glowing eyes. “You will not have my name.”

  “We just want to help you,” Jess lied. “What do you want here? What are you trying to achieve?”

  The demon slavered and drooled, and maybe the street man peed himself, because suddenly the odor coming from him was rank. “I want you to die,” the demon said.