Carter laughed and started scribbling instructions. “So, did you find out any additional information on what happened?”
She cast a quick glance at the door to make sure it was closed tightly. Even though she had been the one to bring up the subject, it still made her nervous talking about Paranormalish at work. And especially after this morning’s announcement.
“I didn’t learn much more than what I knew before.” She rehashed a few of the details with him. “The thing that nags at me, though, is that the boy disappeared on the same night that Krystal went AWOL. I know it sounds far-fetched, but I can’t help wondering if there’s a connection somehow.”
“Krystal?”
Hadn’t she told him her cousin was living with her and what had happened? She could’ve sworn she had. “You know the girl I’ve written about on the blog, the one who went missing for a few days then mysteriously showed up back home with no recollection of her whereabouts while she was gone?”
“That’s Krystal?” He handed her the paper.
“Yep. My cousin. I just couldn’t tell readers that. She’d only been staying with me for about a week when she suddenly didn’t return home one day. I, like, freaked out. I’m surprised you don’t remember. I was a basket case.”
“It’s not like I haven’t had problems of my own,” he said tersely.
Although taken aback by his tone, she decided to just ignore it. “I was worried about her, but I didn’t know if she was being a wild, irresponsible teenager or if something really bad had happened to her.”
“What about her parents?”
Arianna shrugged. “She doesn’t know her father, and her mom has some serious substance-abuse problems. That’s why she came to live with me in the first place. My aunt was going into rehab and Krystal had nowhere to live for a while. I got a call from the State saying she’d be put into a foster home unless I could take her. She’s doing a home study–type high-school program, so she didn’t have to quit school to move over here.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Yeah, but they figured she was a runaway and would turn up at some point. Still makes me mad thinking about it. I searched everywhere, checked her phone records and computer to see where she last was headed, but everything was a dead end. I had just about given up hope when several days later, she turns up as if nothing had happened.” Not exactly. Krystal arrived home, gaunt and exhausted, but at least she was alive. After eating like a horse, she slept for almost a full day.
Carter looked confused. “She doesn’t remember anything?”
“Nope. Even now she doesn’t. It’s like an alien abduction or something, where all this stuff is done to you, then they return you home with no memory of anything ever happening.”
Carter was writing on the scratch paper. In addition to various geometric designs and the number ninety-two—the year he graduated from high school, maybe?—he had written Krystal’s name in block letters, though he spelled it with a C. As he continued to listen, he added rows and rows of stripes to each letter. Who knew he was such a doodler?
“And when I realized that the high-school boy at the Devil’s Backbone disappeared on the same night as Krystal, I couldn’t help but wonder if the two events were connected somehow.”
He stopped writing and let his pen rest on the paper. A large, red ink spot formed under the tip like a spreading bloodstain before he lifted the pen and looked at her. There was something in his expression that she couldn’t quite read. “But there’s a big difference. She came back. He didn’t. If they were connected events, that doesn’t make sense. Either they’d both return home or they’d both stay missing.”
He could go ahead and think the two events weren’t related. It wouldn’t do anything to change her opinion that they were. Two kids roughly the same age didn’t just go missing on the same night. There had to be something more.
“Yeah, but I still can’t shake that feeling. Over the years, I’ve come to trust my instincts and my instincts tell me there’s more to this story than we know. Which leads me back to those pictures.”
“Oh, the pictures. I’d offer to pull up the account from here, but—”
“Yeah, I know. Big Brother is watching.” She tucked the scrap of paper into a pocket and turned to go. “Thanks, Carter. You’re the best.”
THE UNMISTAKABLE ODOR of rotten meat wafted through the crowd and Jackson felt a rush of I-told-you-so. Before they got here, Mitch had protested going to the Pink Salon a second night in a row, but Jackson had needed energy on the sly and this was as good a place as any to get it.
He whipped his head in the direction of the smell and held up his fist, signaling silence.
“Darkblood pair. Eleven o’clock.” The words, barely audible, hissed out of his throat.
On the far side of the dance floor, past the elevated cages with stripper poles, two figures dressed in matching trench coats rounded the corner in unison and stopped in front of a booth where several youthling couples sat with two obviously clueless human males. Clueless, because if they had any idea about the true nature of their party buddies or the goal of the new arrivals, they’d hoof it out of here.
“Looks like the cockroaches have come out of hiding, after all.” Then, slipping into the West Texas accent of his youth, he added, “Let’s go have us some fun.”
Loosening his coat to make his weapons more accessible, he elbowed his way through the long line of scantily clad drunk people waiting to dance on one of the elevated platforms. The crowd parted for him like the Red Sea. Even those who had their backs to him stepped out of his way. A dozen steps later, he hesitated.
He should probably let Mitch do this. Although the guy had spent years teaching at Council headquarters, he hadn’t been in the field much. A club takedown would be a good, real-world experience for him.
He turned to his partner. “Wanna handle this one? I’ll ride shotgun.”
The guy’s baby blues lit up with excitement. “Hell, yeah.”
“Know what to do?”
“I’ll shove a silvie into their—”
“Whoa. Hold on there, Slick. First of all, do you have a second knife?”
Mitch extended his hand, exposing the tip of a barely used, Agency-issue blade strapped to the inside of his wrist under his sleeve. “Got a couple of bullet dispensers though, including—” he patted his pocket “—my baby Beretta and a bad boy I’m dying to use in the field.”
“Nope. No heat, only silvies. Here, take one of mine.” Jackson slipped him a silver alloy stiletto—one of his backup blades, not his good one. No one touched his dragon blade. “And don’t use it inside the club. One wrong slip under a rib and they’ll charcoal in front of all these witnesses.”
Mitch raised an eyebrow. “Can’t you scrub them if that happens? Do a mind wipe?”
“I’m good, but I ain’t that good.”
Even newly energized, Jackson wasn’t able to do the amount of head-fucking it’d take to wipe the memories of all the club goers. It’d take four or five Guardians at least. Maybe down in one of the UV-intense regions, where human blood and energy tended to make vampires more aggressive and their skills more pronounced, but not in Seattle, where almost every human host was vitamin-D deficient. Mitch hadn’t been working in the field all that long and he’d recently spent time in Australia with Dom, so he’d made the assumption that things worked the same here. Not true.
Besides, this wasn’t that kind of operation. Although he had to admit, it would be fun in a Wild West shoot-’em-up sort of way.
“If you do have to fork one, go low in the belly or give ’em a kidney shot from behind. Just don’t nick a heart. We’ll finish them in the alley.”
They quickly worked out a plan.
“Okay, let’s rock,” Jackson said.
Jackson moved deeper into the shadows, trying simply to blend into the darkness, not meld with it. There were too many potential human witnesses around for him to just disappear. But when he stepped backward, he bumped into a young mixed couple making out—a human female wearing a skimpy sequined halter top and thigh-high boots, and a young male vampire in a letterman’s jacket.
Jesus, the kid didn’t look nearly old enough for the Thirst to have started. But then how was he to tell? At over a century old, he thought any born vampire under the age of thirty looked like a child.
Jackson gave the youthling a two-fingered I’m-watching-you gesture followed by a turn-around-and-get-the-hell-out-of-here look. Both the human and vampire complied.
The bass from a speaker pounded so loudly in his ears he wasn’t sure what was the beating of his heart and what was music. He flexed his empty hand. Nothing like a good altercation to sand off the dark, rough edges. Today, he woke up feeling more out of sorts than normal. It had to be the blood of those two women last night. First, the sun-rich blood of the woman in the private salon last night, then Arianna.
Mitch escorted the Darkbloods into the hallway, calmly, quietly.
Niiice. If they could wrap this up quickly, he could go back in and hang out.
The two DBs moved in unison, their black coats swirling around their ankles. Did these losers think a simple pickup awaited them in the alley? That was only for routine reverts, vampires who needed a little reminder about the laws of their kind. Not members of the Darkblood Alliance who didn’t abide by Council law, who thought it went against the laws of nature not to feed from and kill humans.
No, guys like these two got the special treatment.
The kind that involved a slip of a special blade and some ashes.
But just as Mitch and his two new BFFs approached, all hell broke loose out on the dance floor behind them. Shouting erupted above the music and Jackson heard the sound of breaking glass. A few chairs went flying.
A fight, probably in the cage line—people hated waiting their turn to go on display.
The screech of the DJ’s record blasted like squealing tires through the speakers. That was when Mitch glanced away for a split second. It was the only invitation the DBs needed.
Mitch hit the ground, sputtering from an elbow to the chest, and the two charged the exit, heading straight for Jackson. They were fast, probably jacked up on Sweet. Jackson shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to spring.
Yeah, bitches, bring it on.
Light glittered off something in his peripheral view. Damn. The human female. Those complicated things. He flattened himself against the wall and let the DBs pass him.
One glance at his partner coughing on all fours confirmed the guy just had the wind knocked out of him.
“Your silvie,” Mitch managed to say.
What? Darkbloods had his blade? “Goddamn it.”
Jackson ran out after the bastards into the alley behind the club. He wasn’t about to let them get away, otherwise they’d be back to prey on another unsuspecting human some other night. DBs were always on the prowl for people with the extremely rare sweetblood. Although their two human male targets inside the club weren’t sweetbloods—Jackson would’ve been able to smell that—chances were, one or both of them had a fairly uncommon blood type. One that the DBs were after.
Besides, they had his knife. No one messed with his knives.
In just a few strides, he got to the short one first. With a roundhouse kick, Jackson’s boot landed squarely on the side of the guy’s head, snapping his wraparound sunglasses and collapsing him to the ground. A well-placed shove, a little hitch with his blade, and the DB was already charcoaling.
One down, one to go. Jackson retrieved his weapon from the body.
The other one made it almost to the street by the time Jackson caught up with him next to a Dumpster. He jumped onto the guy’s back and clamped him in a choke hold. Was this the one with his knife? He didn’t care if the guy had a Darkblood blade; they were poorly made and fairly ineffective. But a nick from Jackson’s own blade would be an entirely different story.
The fucker spun around, clutching at Jackson’s biceps, but he didn’t succeed in loosening them. Damn, he was strong, though. Much stronger than the other one. Probably from the Sweet. Jackson hitched his arms tighter and the guy choked. As with any vampire who lived on an all-blood diet, the air from his lungs reeked, and Jackson tried to keep his head turned away as much as possible. DBs used the stench as a calling card of sorts. If you were looking for a little action, you knew you could score a hit from the guys who smelled like a Texas meat locker with a faulty refrigeration unit.
Being this close, Jackson would need a serious shower after this was over. The DB continued to struggle, but when that didn’t work, he fell to the pavement with Jackson’s arm still firmly wrapped around his neck.
“Take it down if you can’t handle it on your feet,” Jackson said mockingly through clenched teeth. What a fool.
Thanks to his black belt in Brazilian jujitsu, Jackson preferred the ground and pound, anyway. At the first opportunity, he wrapped his legs viselike around the guy’s torso, locked his ankles in place and squeezed. The loser groaned loudly. Like a boa constrictor taking advantage of every exhale, Jackson’s thighs compressed him farther.
With a flick of his wrist, Jackson positioned the tip of his knife on a precise spot between the guy’s ribs—he could find it with his eyes closed.
Just as he was about to finish the job, he saw the flash of a blade and felt the sharp sting of silver on his forearm.
Was that from his own knife? The one lifted from Mitch?
Energy began to pour out of his system. Pain instantly radiated outward. He had his answer.
His grip on the guy’s throat weakened. With a few more beats of his heart, Jackson knew the effect of the silver would be coursing throughout his body and he wouldn’t be able to hang on. Like hell if he’d let this one get away. It’d only be a matter of time before this blood-dealing loser was back to work on the streets of Seattle, enticing vampires to revert. Ply a susceptible vampire with enough blood and the old cravings of their ancestors—the uncontrollable kind, the blood-sucking, energy-slogging kind—would be too strong to ignore.
With a final surge of adrenaline, Jackson gripped the handle with both hands and angled the point upward.
“Eat this, you son of a bitch.”
And in one mighty, satisfying jerk, the blade found its mark.
Footsteps pounded on the cobblestones just as Jackson rolled away, trying somewhat unsuccessfully to avoid the charcoaling body. A thin layer of ash covered the toes of his Lucchese ostrich-skin boots and he tried to brush it off. He wasn’t picky about a lot of things, but these boots set him back almost a thousand bucks. He’d bought them to impress his parents when he showed up at the ranch wearing them—they were the only kind of boots his father wore—but they hadn’t even noticed. Still, he loved them and didn’t want them covered with Darkblood stink.
“Holy shit, are you okay, man?”
“Good timing,” he growled, ignoring his partner’s outstretched hand as he pushed himself to his feet.
“The little one elbowed me right in the gut. Couldn’t breathe for a minute. Damn, you worked these guys over fast.”
With his back turned, Jackson examined his injury. It was more like a scratch, really. He was weak, yes, but like carb loading before a marathon, all the human energy he’d slogged tonight should prevent the effects of the silver from being too serious. Or at least he hoped it would. The pain had made its way to his shoulder now and he grimaced.
Mitch’s eyes widened. “Are you okay? He got you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, with my blade.”
“I’m sorry, man. I should’ve seen it coming. Should’ve anticipated something like that happening. I heard the noise, saw shit flying, and I must’ve gotten distracted for a split second.”
“Don’t worry about it. Darkbloods on Sweet are unpredictable.”
Mitch pulled out his cell phone.
“Who the hell are you calling?” Jackson asked, though he was pretty damn sure he knew the answer.
“A medico team.”
“No, you’re not. This is nothing.” He couldn’t let the medical staff see him in this weakened state and do any testing. Who knew what the results would show.
Mitch eyed him skeptically. “You don’t look so good. Are you sure?”
“Yep. I’m fine.”
He tried not to reveal just how much pain he was in as he turned toward the nondescript back door of the club. Mitch already thought he was a stud when it came to women and fighting the bad guys. Might as well make it a hat trick, let him think this didn’t hurt like a motherfucker. “Now, come on, let’s get inside and take care of those reverts.”
“Reverts? You mean those guys at the table with the humans?”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “No, Cinderella and her evil stepsisters.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“DO YOU WANT MORE salad?” Arianna asked Krystal as she unplugged the panini maker and grabbed her own plate.
When she got home from work, she’d decided to fix dinner before she tackled her blog post for tomorrow. Now that Krystal was her responsibility, she was trying to set a good example by actually eating meals at a table, rather than in front of her computer or the TV the way she usually did. Besides, she wasn’t looking forward to writing the article in the first place, so she welcomed the distraction.
Tempted by Blood Page 6