Cashing Out

by SM Reine

  “You’re insane,” Dana said.

  Nissa’s consciousness brushed along Dana’s, breathing it in. She glimpsed Melissa and Shannon’s faces in Dana’s memory too. And for one brief, brilliant instant, Nissa felt Dana’s teeth sinking into Maximillian’s throat. “It’s useful being a vampire, isn’t it? It has a lot of utility. So much easier to fight with vampires when you’re equally fast and strong.”

  Nissa stepped along the tank, letting her fingers trail along a line of coral, her nail teasing the glass where a suckerfish’s mouth was latched. She was chased by so many tiny fish that it looked like curtains flapping in a springtime wind.

  “I’m not sticking around because I like this,” Dana said. How was it possible that her angry heat wasn’t setting the aquarium to boil? “I’m not like them!”

  “I agree. We’re not like them. I know who’s been killing Mohinder’s people in the sewers.”

  “You admit that those are Mohinder’s people acting on his orders, then,” Dana said.

  Nissa smiled. “Does it matter if I admit it? Are you going to report me to the police?”

  “No point in trying that now.” Dana was drifting too, following her along the tank, mirroring Nissa with predatory strides. “This is something the law can’t do for me.”

  “You’ve always been above the law. And above them.” Nissa flung her hand toward the rest of the club. The dancing, writhing bodies lost in mindless pleasure in the bubble pool. Hips rocking to the music, shoulders rolling. Councilmen, clubbers, vampires, packmates, anyone and everyone who thought that they mattered in this stupid little surface playground.

  “The gods put me on this Earth to protect people like them,” Dana said. She gripped a chain around her neck. That triadist charm dangled underneath her fist, catching the orange reflection of a tropical fish.

  “None of them are going to matter soon,” Nissa said. “The police won’t either.”

  “Because you’re doing something to Las Vegas’s water,” Dana said. “Is it tonight that you’re going to poison the whole county? Just save your friends and patrons who are inside of Vampire Vegas?”

  “So close but so far.” Nissa stopped before reaching the edge of the enormous aquarium. Dana stopped, too. They were framed on the right by a jagged ridge of rock, where starfish and crabs alike had made their homes.

  Kelp swayed between them. Dana’s pale-blue face, Nissa’s ghostly reflection. The glass pulsed subtly in time with the bass.

  “Be honest,” Nissa said. “Why are you still here?”

  “You’re the last thing on my bucket list,” Dana growled.

  Nissa pressed a palm to her heart. It was pounding. “Tell me how you want to kill me.”

  “Doesn’t matter so long as you end up dead.”

  “You’ve thought about it more than that. I bet you’ve been fantasizing.” Nissa extended her mind’s reach, spreading it over Dana like a web. She pressed the weight of her willpower upon it. “Tell me how you want me to die.”

  She put the full force of her psychic abilities behind those words.

  Tell me.

  Dana’s willpower bucked against hers.

  Nissa pressed both of her palms against the glass, blocking out every bit of sensory input. She tuned out the music. The sound of her own beating heart. The shouting, the laughing. She ignored the warmth of Vampire Vegas and the play of its lights. Nissa stood in a void, and there was nobody there except for Dana. No fish tank between them.

  Just two vampires.

  She was startled by the enormity of Dana’s willpower pressing against hers. Nissa’s psychic abilities were master-level, but whatever was rattling around inside the bone cage of Dana’s skull was impenetrable. Her rage was as much a shield as Mohinder’s emotionlessness. Inside her mind, Dana was a behemoth, a true leviathan of vampiric power.

  She hadn’t even begun to tap into her potential as a master vampire.

  “Gods,” Nissa whispered as she traced her mind around Dana’s form. “We’re both masters.”

  “Never.”

  She sought the cracks in Dana’s strength. “Do you think Penny would take you back like this?”

  With the question, Nissa projected images of Penny at the Gantry warehouse. Penny’s pain, Penny’s tears, the way Penny had been shaking with grief.

  And that broke Dana.

  Nissa’s willpower punched through Dana’s guards. She took hold.

  Dana pressed a hand against the glass of the aquarium to steady herself physically.

  Tell me how you want to kill me, Nissa said.

  Then she saw it.

  All of it.

  She saw Dana pinning her to the floor, felt the wooden stake in her chest.

  Simultaneously, she felt herself chained to a wall, just like the draugr had been. She felt a feathery blade worming its way between the slats of her ribcage to obliterate her heart.

  Nissa felt Dana’s hands close on her head—one on her jaw, one on the back of her skull—and yank. She felt the tendons stretch to their utmost maximum, and the discs tearing, and the shredding of the nerves within.

  A thousand deaths. All at Dana’s hands.

  Nissa’s whole body was trembling, her knees locked together, forehead pressed to the glass as she struggled to remain upright. Her ears were ringing. Even if she hadn’t been hyper-focused on Dana, she wouldn’t have been able to hear what song was playing anymore.

  Come to me, Nissa whispered desperately into Dana’s mind. Let’s make these dreams come true.

  You can die whenever you’re ready, Dana responded, equally silent.

  It took Nissa a moment to realize that she heard screaming.

  It wasn’t that her skull was ringing, or that choirs of angels had come from the sky to bless her reunion with Dana.

  Those screams were coming from the bubble pool.

  Nissa’s internal clock signaled that it hadn’t yet been an hour, so Mohinder’s pump shouldn’t have released the toxins into the supply yet. They weren’t ready for lockdown. A lot of vampires wouldn’t even be inside the facilities yet.

  Yet people were already screaming.

  Nissa peeled herself away from the tank—away from the vision of Dana on the other side—and she faced the bubble pool. The wrong people were suffering inside. Not the humans destined to be kenneled, but other vampires from the Paradisos.

  They were dying in the most painful way that Nissa had ever seen a vampire die.

  Muscles shrinking, drying out.

  Faces shriveling.

  Skin flaking away like parchment.

  This was the exact way that Achlys had died when Nissa injected the Garlic Shot into her spine.

  Someone had gotten to Mohinder’s pump downstairs with Garlic Shots.

  Dana said, “You don’t think I arrived at the party without research, do you? Here’s a pro-tip: When your murder basement’s wards are designed to hold out non-vampires, any vampires will be able to get down there. Also, you guys need to change your passwords. Tormid can still get in the system. Suck on Garlic Shots, assholes.”

  Emotion crashed over Nissa.

  She’d been wide open to attack Dana, and now her walls had been blown away, leaving her vulnerable to the dozens of vampire deaths in the bubble pool.

  Nissa was drying out. Losing every drop of blood that she had ever absorbed, her energy wrung from her skin like an orange in the juicer. She was assailed by apotropaics until every atom within her body had caught fire.

  This was what the vampires in the bubble pool felt.

  Mohinder. Help us, Mohinder. Nissa clawed for her sire. It should have been easy to reach him. She was at the peak of her power, drunk off of sidhe blood that she had shared with him, and their hearts beat in unison.

  His mind was nowhere. He was gone—or at least distracted.

  She whirled, but Dana was no longer on the other side of the tank.

  The huntress had rounded the aquarium.

  Dana’s hands cla
mped on Nissa’s shoulders, and she moved so fast that it left even Nissa breathless. Nissa didn’t have time to react before she was slammed into the aquarium. The glass groaned at Nissa’s back, cracking. Her vision blurred.

  “Gods,” she gasped.

  Dana’s elbow dug into her throat. The hunter was panting on Nissa’s face, and the breath was room temperature, borne from lungs that didn’t flow with blood. She hadn’t fed since Nissa changed her. At least not on humans. “Tell me where the rest of Mohinder’s sewer pumps are! Tormid couldn’t find them, but they’ve gotta be there!”

  Nissa’s fingers curled in Dana’s shirt, even as she struggled to free herself. The glass was cracking faster. It sounded like the ice on a frozen lake breaking in a clear night. “I’m not going to make this easy on you.”

  It wasn’t a hollow threat. Nissa was stretching out her mental powers for other Paradisos—those who weren’t exposed to the pool. Most of them were upstairs in the windowless tower, preparing their new habitats. They were minutes of walking and elevator rides away. Urien and Nunziatina were downstairs. They’d get there first.

  Dana McIntyre is here. Neutralize her.

  G-forces wrenched Nissa away from the tank. She was suddenly slammed into a wall of alcohol bottles. The glass showered around her, and it felt like she was soaring through starlight with Dana, drenched in the sticky-sweet scent of margaritas.

  Nissa slammed into the aquarium a second time. Glass cracked. It was inches thick, but the weight of the water in the tank was too much once its integrity was weakened.

  Dana McIntyre was so fast.

  “Master vampire,” Nissa said breathlessly. “Definitely. Amazing.”

  “Where are the other pumps?” Dana asked again, ever focused, always a machine.

  “There are no other pumps.”

  “Don’t fucking lie to me!” She slammed Nissa into the tank again, harder.

  Water began spraying from one of the cracks. It shot out as fast as bullets, propelling the spray all the way across the floor.

  Urien had been rushing over to help Nissa. The water hit him in the chest. As he flew backward, he shriveled, and his mind raked over Nissa’s. He registered pure pain—the same pain as the vampires in the pool.

  Which was when Nissa realized that the Garlic Shots weren’t just in the pool, but in all of Vampire Vegas’s water supply.

  They were bracketed by deadly sprays of brine. A few inches to either side and they’d both be dead, just like all the vampires in the pool. It might take longer to kill them since they were masters. She was certain it would kill them sooner or later, though.

  What if Mohinder got sprayed?

  “Let me go!” Nissa commanded.

  At the same time, she issued the order mentally. Let me go.

  But Dana had battened down the hatches. She was too hard to penetrate. Nissa felt like she was slashing claws over smooth metal, leaving little more than white lines.

  It was always easier to get into a mind wracked by emotion.

  “Why aren’t you killing me?” Nissa asked, squirming inside Dana’s grip. “If you really came back to make sure I died, all you need to do is push me a little bit to the left. Do it, Dana. Kill me.”

  Dana’s jaw was clenched so tightly Nissa could almost hear her teeth grinding.

  “You still want to redeem me because I’m a victim of the Fremont Slasher,” Nissa said. Her voice wasn’t above a whisper now. Their faces were so close that they could hear each other despite all the screaming. “There’s nothing to redeem. I know who the Slasher is. He’s alive. I love him.”

  Shock hit Dana like a hot poker to the forehead, lancing through their empathic bond. “I know he’s alive. But who—”

  “Mohinder,” Nissa said. “He’s been up front and center this whole time, and you missed him.” She tried not to relish it, tried not to feel so damn smug.

  But how could she do anything but cherish the waves of emotion rolling off of Dana?

  The hunter’s feelings were knotted up, tangling and writhing like squirming little worms. Nissa could feel Dana’s disbelief, annoyance, and white-hot rage the way she felt the aquarium at her back.

  For the first time, Dana had such loud emotions that Nissa could hear her thoughts almost as clearly as a mortal’s.

  It left a chasm in Dana’s mental defenses.

  Nissa reached into Dana, wrapped her fist around her brain, shut off her impulse to fight back.

  Relax, Nissa roared into Dana’s mind.

  The huntress’s eyes went blank.

  It wouldn’t last long.

  Nissa shoved again, and this time, Dana lost footing. The world slowed down as Nissa accelerated to preternatural vampire speed. More jets erupted from the aquarium. Sprayed across Vampire Vegas. Bubbles in the pool popped slowly, shrinking to nothing, leaving dehydrated vampire flesh behind. Liquor dribbled from the broken shelves.

  Humans clawed at each other to try to reach the exits first—even though the exit doors were shut, sealed, locking everyone inside.

  Dana’s eyes rolled into the back of her head.

  Nissa swept Dana off of her feet, carrying her through the club, toward the stairs. She ducked under one jet of water, leaped over a puddle of fluid spilled from the pool. They couldn’t touch any of it. Not even a drop.

  Halfway to the stairs, Dana snapped out of Nissa’s thrall.

  Her mouth formed an oh of surprise, brows lowering in anger.

  And she hurled her sword.

  It flipped end over end, spiraling through the air to strike the aquarium. Dana had great aim. It hit the exact point where Nissa’s body had created a dense array of cracks.

  The aquarium exploded.

  14

  Charmaine wasn’t sure how long she stood there, staring at Mohinder. It could have been hours.

  Then his hand closed around her wrist. He looked at her fist clutching the cell phone—now locked. There was no way for him to see the pictures taken of the body behind his couch. It didn’t matter at that point. Charmaine had been caught in his office. The body was visible from the doorway. She knew the truth about him, and she couldn’t deny it.

  Mohinder released her hand. “They already notified you?”

  She was silent for a moment, thinking fast.

  Who notified me? Of what?

  “I’m impressed,” he went on when she didn’t respond. “I only hung up with them a minute ago. They said it would take a unit ten minutes to get here.” Mohinder must have called the police. He thought they’d passed the information on so that she could do something about…whatever he’d called about. “I assume the EMTs are next?” The body. He’d called to report the body.

  “I’d expect an ambulance to be here before my unit,” Charmaine said. Her phone buzzed in her hand. Her eyes flicked down. It was dispatch—the department was calling to notify her of Mohinder’s problem. She dismissed the call before Mohinder could see it. “Do you want to tell me what happened here?”

  “I found the body like that when I first came into my office tonight,” Mohinder said. “Whoever killed this agent must be mine—a Paradisos vampire. Only someone who works at Vampire Vegas could have wiped my surveillance footage and deposited a body without tripping my security system.”

  Fingers of doubt curled in Charmaine’s belly. Mohinder hadn’t hidden the body because—he claimed—it wasn’t a body he had produced.

  It was very possible.

  She had no evidence to the contrary, she realized. She’d just seen the body and made assumptions.

  Why?

  Because the Hunting Club had told her Mohinder was dangerous?

  “We need to wait in the hallway until the team gets here.” She took a step forward.

  Mohinder stepped in front of her.

  “I saw you here earlier,” he said, gaze sweeping down her dress. Her hair fluttered in a sweep of invisible energy that felt almost like wind, even though they were in a closed room. It exposed her soft thro
at. She reached up to cover it reflexively. “You were with Mr. Morales. I didn’t recognize you.”

  “I couldn’t resist the urge to see Vampire Vegas in person,” she said neutrally, forcing herself to lower her hand. “Good thing I was here for this. Now I’m going to have to ask you to—”

  “Stop.” His silver-clawed hand waved. She felt as though a hand pushed her back. “Vampires can’t smell lies the way that werewolves can, Chief Villanueva. But we can see blood and you can read a person’s mood by changes of speed in the heart rate. Do you know what your heart is doing?”

  Adrenaline had her heart going about a mile a minute. Even so, she felt calm and clear-headed. This wasn’t the first time she’d been cornered by a vampire. Even one as powerful as Mohinder. He couldn’t inflict any wound that she couldn’t heal unless he had silver and she didn’t smell silver on his gauntlet.

  Except…

  Her nostrils flared. She sniffed the air.

  Charmaine did smell a little silver, very faintly. Not as though it was on Mohinder, or even in his office, but like the smell was drifting through a vent in the wall.

  The silver bullets?

  “I won’t ask again, sir,” Charmaine said. “Step aside.”

  His gaze traveled over her again. Mostly over her throat, the inside of her wrist, briefly upon her thigh where the femoral rested. Mohinder couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to obey her or declare open war.

  The screaming kept him from needing to make a decision.

  His head snapped up, and he bolted out the door to look down the stairs. Charmaine observed the chaos through the windows. People were thrashing in the bubble pool, and it looked literally like all Hell had broken loose. She remembered the Breaking, when the City of Dis had spilled onto America with thousands of demons. These shriveled, blackened vampires looked like they came from the infernal realms.

  Charmaine saw an opportunity to escape Mohinder—a gap in the door behind him. She bolted.

  “Hey!” shouted Mohinder. His hand swept at her back as she passed, but he was too slow to grab a coyote shifter, even in her human form.

  Charmaine made it down the hallway.