by Liz Schulte
I didn’t correct her by saying this wasn’t my first. It didn’t really matter. No matter how long I lived, I had no intention of getting used to things like this. I didn’t want to be jaded. Instead, I asked, “Like me?”
“Yeah. You know. A human,” she said, as she started sawing at an elbow joint.
I turned away, but the grinding sound cut right through my brain. I pressed a hand over my mouth and closed my eyes. It was horrible. Phoenix took my arm and led me into the kitchen. “Tonight has been one of the single grossest nights of my life—and that includes the time Holden made me take a bite of a dead man’s liver.”
Phoenix’s shoulder shook with laughter. “But you aren’t one to complain.”
I had to remind myself he was helping me and I shouldn’t kick him in the shin. “Well, you are one of the only people I can complain to. Deal with it.”
“Vent away. I’m getting very good at blocking you out.” He winked at me, still too amused. “What else happened?”
Where to even begin? “First, those thugs came to my business. I can’t express how great that is for a new business. Then, I was thrown up on, after that I was attacked, and now a corpse is being dismantled in my living room. If Izzy wakes up, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
He glanced past me. “Who’s Izzy?”
“My friend. She’s sleeping.”
“Is she the one who vomited?”
My nose wrinkled. “She did. In the cab and in the bathroom. It was so gross. You have no idea. Seriously, it was in my hair. Do you have any clue how—”
“I don’t care,” he said, already moving toward the hallway. “Which room?”
I hurried behind him. “What are you doing? You can’t go in there.”
He ignored me and slipped into the room where she was still sleeping. He studied her a moment, then pressed his fingers against her forehead. “Shhh.” He turned back to me with a normal speaking voice. “There. She will sleep soundly until morning. It’s not a good idea to have a human roommate, though. Does Holden know?”
“She’s not—“ I stopped myself. I didn’t have to explain anything to him or to Holden. I could have any roommate I wanted. “Holden isn’t the boss of me. I can do what I want. But for the record, she’s not my roommate. I don’t have a roommate. She’s just a friend who needed somewhere to stay tonight.” I didn’t know why I was telling him any of this. He already said he didn’t care.
He nodded and his gaze trailed to the side of my head. “How did you get injured?”
My hand flew up, though I knew I was healed. “I’m fine.”
He ran his finger over the spot on my temple. “I can see that. That isn’t what I asked. ”
I was full enough that there wasn’t even a flicker of hunger at his touch, which was a nice change of pace. “One of the men knocked me into the corner of the shelf.”
He mouth twitched down. “Are you or are you not, a vampire?”
I crossed my arms, not appreciating his condescending tone. All in all, I thought I’d done pretty well in the struggle. There were four demon-like (probably not demons) men and I didn’t even wake up Izzy. If anything, he should be telling me how great I did.
“You could lift a car if you wanted to. You can move faster than any of them. Now tell me, with all of that in mind, how did you get injured?”
“A small car,” I mumbled.
“But you get what I’m saying. There’s no reason any of them should have escaped or even have touched you, unless you let them. Did you let them? Did you need them to hurt you so you wouldn’t feel bad about hurting them?”
I pushed back my boiling emotions. I saw his point, but apparently he couldn’t see mine. “You know, waking up one day like this doesn’t actually change years and years of learned behavior. I didn’t become a completely different person. I’m still me. Boring, regular me. And regular people don’t go around being attacked for no reason—or smiting their enemies in a heartbeat. So I’m sorry if I don’t live up to your expectations. I don’t have a killer instinct. I was protecting myself, not attacking. I was hoping for a peaceful resolution when he hit me and knocked me into the shelf. No, I didn’t want to be hurt, but it’s fine. I managed.”
Phoenix opened his mouth to say something that probably would have pissed me off, but his phone lit up and he glanced at it instead of speaking. “I have to go. Don’t tell anyone about what happened.”
“Wait. What about those guys? What if they come back?”
He didn’t look up. “Don’t let them get away again. I don’t care who you were, this is who you are. You can do more than just manage. Stop holding yourself back.” He looked up. “Have you been adequately pepped.”
“You suck at pep talks.” Though I did feel better. “But who is Val—”
He pressed his finger to my lips. “Stop saying her name,” he said. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. No one will come to your store or house again—and if they do, I have every confidence you can handle it.”
I was getting really sick of him disappearing on me. I stared into the spot he’d just been, where now only wisps of smoke remained.
“All finished,” Ethel announced.
I went into the living room, prepared for gore, but everything looked exactly as it had before, except for two large black bags next to the front door.
She handed me a business card. “I’ve never worked with a human before, but any friend of Phoenix is a friend of mine.”
I locked the door behind her, pulled down my lower eyelid, and removed the dry, itchy contacts that hid the redness of my eyes. I had eaten enough today that even if Izzy woke up, she probably wouldn’t notice. Energy still coursed through me, despite how much I had consumed and there was no way I would be able to keep still. Not tonight. Not after everything that had happened. But there was nothing to do. My matchbox-sized house was the cleanest it had probably ever been. I could cook, but then I couldn’t eat any of it. Television required too much sitting and so did reading. What I really wanted to do was talk, but it was the middle of the night and I no longer had anyone to really talk to in my pathetic life. Maybe I should join a gym.
My phone chirped in my pocket. I glanced down, expecting Phoenix, but saw Boone’s name instead. My stomach sank. Could something the two of us have done gotten Valefor’s attention?
“Hello?” my voice cracked.
“Were you sleeping?” Boone asked. He was quiet, but sounded perfectly alive and not at all injured.
I lowered onto the couch, relief washing over me. “Sleep and I haven’t seen eye to eye in a while.”
“Right. I knew that.” The quiet baritone of his voice was comforting in a way I hadn’t known for a while.
I waited for him so say something, but he didn’t say anything at all. I tucked my legs under me and pulled a blanket over my lap. “Are you still there?”
“Yeah, I’m still here. Sorry. I don’t know why I called.”
I smiled to myself, a glimmer of warmth flickering to life in my chest. “Did you need something? Did you have another vision?” I silently hoped he’d say no. Was it really so terrible to want someone to call me for no reason other than just wanting to talk to me? Just because we hadn’t shared our personal lives, didn’t mean we couldn’t start.
“Not exactly. More like a feeling.”
“Oh,” I said, unable to keep the disappointment from my voice.
“I had an overwhelming sense that you were in trouble or upset and it woke me up. I couldn’t go back to sleep without checking on you. Are you okay? Did something happen?”
I basked in the kindness of his concern for just a moment before I shut it down. I had to learn to deal with things on my own. This was my life now and it was too dangerous, whether or not I wanted it to be, for a human like Boone. He didn’t need to know about Valefor or the men or really any of it. “I’m okay,” I said. “Thanks for checking.”
“You know anytime you need to talk, Maggie, I’m always here. I understa
nd, at least to a degree, how lonely all of this must be for you. I want to help. I want to be here for you.”
My throat tightened. Out of everyone I knew, Boone was the only one who had the potential to understand, but even the amount he knew about the Abyss was probably too much. He was psychic, so he lived on the edge of this world, but he didn’t have to be fully in it. Not like me. Plus, if I told him I killed two demons tonight, was that something he could deal with? It would probably freak him out, and, selfishly, I wanted our friendship to stay intact a little while longer, which meant what I said to Phoenix was right. “I’m glad we met,” I whispered.
“Me too.”
I closed my eyes and let my head fall back against the couch, pretending he was beside me and that if I turned my head, opened my eyes, he’d be there, all scruffy and handsome.
“You never sleep? Not at all?” He interrupted my fantasy.
“Not really. Once or twice I’ve fed to the point of passing out, but I can’t just lie down and go to sleep.”
“What do you do all night?”
“Hide from the demons,” I muttered more to myself than to him.
“I thought…don’t you…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence.
Don’t I eat them? Why, yes, I do. But that wasn’t what I was talking about. It wasn’t real demons that could hurt me. It was the ones in my head that did the most harm. Those inescapable thoughts and memories that came when I was alone, that haunted me. And after tonight, I would have two more on my conscience. They opened wounds that would never heal, no matter how much of a vampire I was. I suddenly realized, could feel, that Boone knew my current thoughts… . “Yeah,” I said. “Silly, right?”
“No,” he said. “Human.”
Chapter 5
I checked on Izzy once more before I left for the bakery. Talking to Boone had brightened my mood considerably. But it also brought to mind the fact that I hadn’t done anything to find the woman who was going to be kidnapped. Not that I had a lot to go on, regarding her or the woman in white, but I had to try. What I needed was a place to start, and I decided that was with the kids. At least we knew who they were.
I unlocked the alley door and went inside, flipping on the lights. I got out my notebook and made a list of everything I would bake for the day, starting with several dozen loaves of bread. While I collected ingredients, my mind wandered back to the case.
If the million mystery novels, TV shows, and movies were right, then truly random acts were rare—which meant that these people were connected, at least in the kidnapper’s mind. So if I could figure out what attracted the old woman to the children, maybe I could determine what she would be looking for in the hotel maid. Not that once I had that information, I’d have any idea how to use it.
The woman in white was obviously supernatural. She’d morphed from an old hag to a younger woman—yet continued to wear an archaic dress. Shifters could change their appearance, but those seemed like pretty banal choices unless they had personal meaning to the woman. What if my initial impression was right? Maybe it was some sort of eternal youth thing. So far everyone she had taken, or was going to take, was young. I vaguely remembered something I watched on TV around Halloween a few years ago about a woman, a countess or something, who bathed in the blood of young girls to make herself younger. People did weird things when it came to aging.
However, people who could actually pull stuff like that off had to be few and far between—at least I hoped they were. I glanced at my watch. It was way too late, or early, to call anyone. Holden would probably murder me if I called him or Olivia at this time, which was reasonable. Boone was surely asleep. The bounty hunter I knew, Femi … well, it was hard to say. She worked odd hours, but she also needed sleep. I had a small acquaintance with a vampire, Corbin, but I had no way to reach him. That left me with the one person I didn’t want to call again tonight, but who else did I have to talk to about this stuff?
While the bread was raising, I dialed Phoenix’s number, put the phone on speaker, and began to work on the sweet treats.
“Miss me already?” he asked and I rolled my eyes.
“Are you busy?”
“Why? Have you killed someone else?” His dry tone didn’t take away the sting from his words.
“Never mind. I shouldn’t have called.” I pressed end. Calling him was a mistake. I really needed to branch out and meet more people in the Abyss. He couldn’t be my only reliable contact—especially since he wasn’t all that reliable.
The space in front of the green back door filled with black smoke. I didn’t have to guess who would be there when it faded.
“That was rude,” Phoenix said as the wisps cleared. “What did you need?”
I whisked a little harder. “Nothing. How did you know where I was?”
Taking long, slow steps he moved toward me, craning his head to see the brownie batter for mini peanut butter cup brownie cheesecakes. He stuck out a finger. “May I?”
“No.” I held the bowl away from him.
He shrugged and swiped a peanut butter cup off the counter. “Did Valefor’s people come back?”
I shook my head. “My call didn’t have anything to do with that.” I poured the batter into dishes and popped them into the oven. “I just have a question about the Abyss.”
He raised his eyebrows with a slight smile. “I live to serve you,” he said with a mock bow.
“See. This is why I hung up.” I started roughly chopping the peanut butter cups, leaving some untouched off to the side. “I know this is all a big joke to the rest of you, but I’m struggling.”
His smile slowly faded and he nodded. “Fair enough. What’s your question, Maggie?”
“Is there anything in the Abyss that preserves its youth by taking it from someone else?”
He stole another peanut butter cup. It looked like I wasn’t the only one with a sweet tooth. “Nothing specific comes to mind. That’s sort of what vampires do. They feed on life force to stay alive, which in turn keeps them youthful. I suppose a witch could cast some sort of spell to have the same effect. Also there are demons who increase the aging process for no other reason than to be assholes.”
Out of those options, a witch made the most sense. Plus there was the magical door she used to appear and disappear. That sounded witchy.
“Dare I ask why you need to know this? Or what it has to do with Valefor?”
My eyes flicked up from the cheesecake ingredients. “Possibly nothing.” My tongue touched the corner of my mouth. “I just think there’s one operating in the city right now.”
“And you are staying out of it?”
“Maybe it’s this Valefor person. People started disappearing right at the same time she came looking for me. Seems connected.”
“It isn’t.” His voice was firm and final.
“Aha! So you admit you do know something about it,” I said. Phoenix smiled, shaking his head. “What does she want from me?”
He moved the stool from by the door and sat across from me. “Valefor is a demon, not a person. Saying her name gives her power, so stop saying it.”
“Tell me why she wants me.”
Phoenix tilted his head. “You tell me.”
That was precisely the issue. I didn’t have a clue. “I can’t think of anything I’ve done to draw attention to myself, but who knows? Maybe she has picked up on the people I have…” I still hadn’t thought of a nice way to say what I did to dark souls.
“Devoured? Sucked dry? Sampled like a buffet?”
“Thank you. Very descriptive. That. I have tried to be careful and follow Holden’s rules. I don’t hunt in the same place. I don’t take on groups. I don’t know what else I can do.” The whisk handle snapped in my hand. I tossed it in the trash and got another one.
“It happens. You can’t hide forever. She’s just one demon. She’ll move on or…” He trailed off with an unconcerned shrug.
“You said you would take care of it not even three hou
rs ago, and now it’s not a big deal and this demon is just supposed to let it go? Are you kidding me?” I was trying not to panic, but taking care of a problem and ignoring a problem were two completely different things. She’d sent people to my business and to my home. Hoping she’d just go away on her own didn’t seem like a plan. I was going to get someone killed.
“I really don’t think there’s anything to take care of. Whatever got the bug up her ass will go away once she figures out who you are.” His voice was so calm I wanted to yell at him.
“But I’m nobody. I’m a half-vampire freak. Once she figures that out, she’ll just stop sending people to attack me and hire a sniper. I can be killed. The people around me can be killed. Damn it, Phoenix.”
Phoenix rolled his eyes. “You are Holden’s family. There isn’t a demon alive stupid enough to go after anyone connected to him or Olivia. You’re overreacting.”
I mentally counted to ten. Okay, yes, I was technically related to Holden, but he didn’t like me that much. Olivia was sweet and we were friends, but that didn’t mean either of them would get into a war over me. They had two little kids to worry about. I had to take care of myself. If Phoenix wasn’t going to handle Valefor, I’d have to do it myself.
Phoenix had a smug expression, like he lived in this magical world where he’d actually won this argument. “She most certainly isn’t stealing people’s youth. How do you even know someone’s doing that? I haven’t heard anything about it.”
“Chicago’s a big place.”
He gave me a serious look. “It’s my job to know. I would have heard something.”
As the regional leader of the jinn, Phoenix probably did have a pretty good idea of what was happening in and around the city. I added vanilla to the cheesecake batter. “I don’t actually know anyone’s youth is being taken. It’s just a working theory.”
“Ah.” He crossed his legs, obviously settling in. “Then enlighten me. Perhaps I’ll have some insight.”
He probably would, but I didn’t want him to know about Boone. It was bad enough that Holden knew. The last thing Boone needed in his life was jinn, especially one who would have no qualms about using him to his own advantage. “Two kids were taken from their bedrooms in the middle of the night by an old woman dressed in white. A door appeared, she came out of it and picked up the kids, then went back through. No one has seen them since.”