I sniffed quietly, taking in Tank’s sent. Whatever his scent, it suddenly brought me back to summer mornings when my dad would mow the yard and my mom would pick tomatoes.
I bared my teeth at his back, suddenly realizing what he was—summer fae.
Though I know Tank could have been an ally, I wasn’t about to make the assumption, especially with my real allies nowhere near me. Too many times since being turned into a vampire had an ally turned into an enemy.
The summer fae sniffed the air and turned suddenly. I froze in my crouched position and stared him straight in the eye. A mischievous smile pulled the corner of Tank’s mouth up into a half smile. He turned slowly, forcefully relaxing the muscles across his shoulders.
“Ashley Hawn?” Tank asked, his voice matching his nickname. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. You have the mask?”
He took a not-so-subtle step toward me.
“Stay back,” I ordered from my failed hiding spot.
“Hemera heard what you were doing and sent me to help.”
I glared up at him. Hemera had known what we were doing from the start. If he really was here to help, where was he when we were being attacked by mermaids, or giant sea monsters, or undead gladiators? My distrust settled into my stomach.
“I said, get back.”
“Ashley, I’m here to help,” Tank replied calmly, taking another little step toward me.
I stood up, keeping the trunk of the car between me and the tank. I assumed I would be in a better position to run from a standing position than a sitting one.
“I’ll let Nicolai decide if you’re here to help. Just keep your distance.”
“Where is ol’ Nikolai?”
I felt my mouth pull up into a smile. He pronounced Nik’s unusual name as though he had never spoken it before, unlike an “ol’ friend” at all.
“Right behind me,” I lied, having no clue where Nik or the others were.
Tank smiled back and I suddenly realized I was running out of time. In a lightning quick motion, Tank lunged at me. I was prepared for the move and fell back onto the next car’s trunk, rolling my feet over my head and sliding off the other side. By the time Tank reached the spot I had been standing at, I had put another car between us.
I didn’t wait for him to move again, but raced down the line of cars, assuming my vampire speed would be enough to keep me safe.
As I ran, I yelled, “Nik! Emma! Thomas! JOSH!”
Even if they were blocks away, they would hear my call. Granted, so would any person on this level of the parking garage, but I wasn’t too worried about that. I glanced over my shoulder, disgusted to see the fae only struggling a little with keeping up to me.
Before I could put another burst of speed into my tired feet, I felt sharp thorns puncture my ankles. I glanced down to see tangles of vines wrapping themselves around my ankles. The vines tightened, taking me to the ground. I banged the side of my head against the pavement, my ears ringing and my eyes watering.
How does he have so much power? I wondered, seeing the iron of the nearest car—an ancient Ford Studebaker—the rust showing through the numerous paint jobs.
The vines began to wind their way up my body. Instead of fighting them, I rolled into a sitting position, grabbed the vines at my ankles, and dragged them toward me, taking Tank with his all-natural rope. He was strong, and fought me, but not strong enough to withstand the power of a seriously pissed off vampire.
I dragged him along the pavement, taking him right off his feet. As I dragged him, I noticed the vines came from his wrists, much like a greener Spiderman. Though he was clearly fighting me with all his might, I quickly had him within reach. I seized his thick arm and pulled him up across my legs, finally pressing his wrist against the rusted iron of the Studebaker.
Tank screamed, sounding a lot less threatening than he looked. The fae vines disappeared, freeing me in an instant. I shifted to my knees as I grabbed the collar of his shirt and hauled his large body against the car’s bumper. He didn’t respond and I suddenly realized his shirt was protecting him. Still holding the collar of his tank-top, I tore the shirt in half in one swift move.
If we hadn’t been trying to kill each other, it might have appeared as though we were enacting a scene from a Regency romance novel.
Tank bellowed with the pain for a second before erupting into action. He shoved me away, hard enough to send me flying into the opposite line of cars. The burned and tattered fae climbed to feet, glanced around, and raced away.
I turned just in time to see Josh careening around the corner. I jumped to my feet, already forgetting the man I had been battling.
Josh stopped well within my personal space, breathing deeply, his eyes briefly taking in the blood drying on my left temple.
I knew from experience that his gasping breath had nothing to do with physical exertion. We vampires don’t run out of breath but we do get excited.
In one swift move Josh grabbed my shoulders and closed the short distance, his chest still heaving with barely suppressed passions. He leaned forward just as I tilted my head up toward him, when suddenly he stopped short.
I forced my eyes open to look at him, wondering why he wasn’t kissing me passionately.
The energy washing off him licked my skin, filling me with excitement. The hands holding my shoulders shook has he worked to control himself. I felt my skin bruise under his touch, a small portion of my brain remembering just how strong Josh was.
Why is he holding back?
I suddenly remember the last time he kissed me as I stared up into his green eyes.
“Kiss me,” I ordered, breaking him from his promise.
The tension released as he dragged me up against his chest and sealed my mouth with his. One of Josh’s hands moved to my waist line, the tips of his fingers finding skin, while his other hand wound into my dirty, travel-messed hair.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, holding him to me as I pried his mouth open and ran my tongue against his. He responded with equal passion, slowly dragging me to the side of the car and leaning me against the back door.
I can only guess how far we would have gone in that moment of ridiculous passion, but before any clothing could be removed, we heard distant footsteps racing up the incline of the parking garage, going at a speed only possibly by a vampire.
We disengaged just in time to straighten our rumpled garments before Thomas appeared, closely followed by Nik and Emma. Emma gave me a little grin as I grabbed Josh’s hand and snaked my fingers into his. I felt my face heat with a blush but ignored it and her.
“What happened to you?” asked Thomas, drawing the other’s attention to the dried blood on my face.
I dabbed at the blood. “Summer fae attacked me. He was after the mask.”
“Did he say why?” asked Nik.
“We didn’t exactly stop to share stories,” I snapped, feeling exasperated with their idiotic questions.
“Are you okay?” asked Emma.
I smiled. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. Would have had a body for you, but Josh scared him off.”
“Good. Let’s go,” Nik ordered. “We’ll worry about this later.”
Josh and I climbed into the back seat, followed by Thomas, leaving Nik and Emma in the front. Nik had barely pulled the car out of the narrow parking spot when his phone buzzed.
Nik carefully extracted his phone from his back pocket and answered it. “What?”
“Nik, I’ve found the last item, the grimoire,” announced Drake. “You’ll be glad to know it’s still in the states.”
“Let me guess, it’s being sent to Timbuktu?” asked Nik.
“No, actually. From what I can tell it was sold to a private collector in Chinatown, San Francisco.”
“Good,” Nik sighed. “We’re gonna take a day to rest, then we’ll fly back. Email me the details and I’ll make a plan later.”
Even Nik sounded tired. I tried to think back to the last time we had enjoyed a real
day’s sleep, in a bed, and safe from predators. I couldn’t recall.
Before Nik could get us out onto the busy streets of Cairo, his phone buzzed again.
“What?” snapped Nik, sounding even more aggressive than he had with Drake.
“Nik?” asked a recognizable voice from the other end of the line. It was Mikhail. “Where are you?”
“Cairo.”
“How many more do you have to find?”
“Just one, sir.”
“Hurry up. We need you guys back. Sedgrave has grown aggressive. He attacked yesterday morning.”
“What?” we all asked, all four vampires listening in on Nik’s private phone call.
“Get that last artifact and high-tail it back here!”
“Yes, sir,” sighed Nik. He hung up the phone and tossed it into Thomas’ lap. “So much for that rest.”
Nik took a sudden turn down the next street and raced for the airport.
It took us a couple hours to make it to the airport, through the various lines, and to our terminal. Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the airplane to be prepared. Just as the sky was turning gray, we boarded the plane and collapsed.
We flew into Frankfurt, Germany, where we sat on the tarmac for a couple hours, waiting for just the right time to take off and therefore land in San Francisco just as the sun was setting. Had I not been so exhausted, I would have been impressed with the level of planning necessary for vampires to travel around the world.
Though we had used the little bathroom in the plane to clean up as best we could, we still looked pretty bedraggled as we made our way through the enormous airport. Like all the other international airports we had visited in the last week, this one had an abundance of natural light during the daytime.
What was with these architects? Didn’t they realize vampires had to travel too?
Chapter Fifteen
I could tell you a lot about San Francisco; the long flight across the Atlantic Ocean to New York, and then the following flight across the United States guaranteed plenty of time to research. For example, did you know during the Great Depression, not a single San Fran bank failed—true story—or that the city’s cable cars are the only National Historical Monument that can move?
Despite the fact I had just spent the week leap-frogging around the world, San Francisco was the first place I really, deeply regretted not getting to explore. After hours upon hours of boredom-induced research I realized it had a vibrant history and culture.
Sadly, there was a job to do.
I glanced over at Josh, a smile pulling on my lips. When this was all over, I’d insist he take me back to the Golden Gate City. The hesitant smile grew until he glanced in my direction and frowned.
I winked at him, casually taking his hand. The gesture brought a glow to his eyes and a grumble from the brooding vampire behind us. We ignored him and climbed into the backseat of the cab. Emma and Thomas squeezed in beside us, leaving the front seat to Nik.
The driver took us to the main entrance of San Fran’s Chinatown. Even in the darkness of night, the street was a wash of bright colors: Chinese lanterns hung in rows across the streets, the buildings were roofed in rich green tiles, and large red banners hung from the awnings, mostly advertising things in Chinese.
We didn’t waste time peering in the dark windows of the shops and restaurants, but quickly followed Nik down the main drag. He navigated us through the labyrinth of hilly streets as though he were a local. I wanted to ask him if he had ever lived in Chinatown but decided now wasn’t the time. Instead, I kept my focus on our surroundings.
The further into the Chinatown we travelled, the less it seemed designed for the tourists. While the buildings continued to display the architecture of China, the general repair of each edifice began to degrade. I started noticing cracked windows in the second and third story apartments. The paint on the buildings grew increasingly chipped and faded, and the business no longer translated their signs for the English-speaking tourists.
Finally Nik stopped at a unique-looking building. Until then, all the structures had been built right upon the edge of the sidewalk, like any big-city neighborhood. I couldn’t see the actual building in this instance. An enormous ornate gate blocked our view. While the gate had clearly once been the “talk of the town” it had fallen into disrepair. Even in the dark I could see three or four layers of peeling paint. Some of the carvings were chipped, as though angry children had thrown stones at the gate over the years.
The gate rose at least twelve feet high, rising way over my head. Standing on the sidewalk, there was no way to even see the building beyond it. The monstrosity hung from stone walls of equal height, adorned with spikes that shot another three or four feet into the air. The combination completely hid the world within.
“Shall we?” Nik asked before squatting down and leaping straight up to the top of the stone wall, grabbing the decorative spikes for balance.
Just like in films, Nik’s movement looked unreal, as though he had been attached to wires or a computer nerd had used his skills to make Nik fly. Either way, I doubted my ability to accomplish the same hurdle. Before I could ask for help, Thomas and Emma followed Nik, looking equally as ridiculous.
“I don’t think I can make that,” I said quietly to Josh.
“Let’s do a running start from across the street.”
We jogged to the other side, squared ourselves with the wall, and charged it. Somewhere in the middle of the headlong dash across the street, my vampiric instincts took over. When I reached the wall I took a mighty leap, nearly making it to the top. Just as I was beginning to slide down the stone structure, a hand darted out and grabbed the cuff of my long sleeve shirt. I blindly flung my other hand upward. Emma caught the free hand, giving my rescuer a chance to shift his grip from my sleeve to my wrist. Between the two of them, they pulled me up the rest of the way.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that Josh had managed to jump the entire distance, proving that his running start was just pandering to my needs. I tried to stifle the grumble rising in my throat. Based on the expressions of my companions, my difficulty to jump twelve feet was unusual, even for a vampire as young as myself.
My comparative weakness was a thorn in my side and a blow to my ego all at once. I tried to ignore it, and hoped the others would too. Thankfully, Nik didn’t say a word before turning and jumping off the other side of the wall into a small but ornate garden. Granted, in San Francisco, even a small yard was a grand luxury.
Beyond the garden lay a large, single-story house. Nearly every building in this hilly city was at least two or three stories tall, if not fifty. The house had the traditional Chinese tiled roof, with a wide awning that covered a flat porch which wrapped around the entire front of the house. Most of the exterior walls of the home were made of glass. Through the glass the home looked to be ornamented in a very traditional Chinese fashion, or at least what I assumed was traditional.
We used the little, delicately-pruned shrubs to sneak toward the porch.
Nik led us to the porch, carefully inspecting each pane of glass in an attempt to find the door; we split up to each do the same. I had just found a little space in a pane that could have been a carved handle when one of the un-searched glasses shattered and four men garbed in warrior gear jumped out onto the porch.
They wore ancient armor made of tiny squares of stone laced together with crude bronze wires. With each movement their armor gave off a mighty clank. The noise alone would have intimidated a less fierce opponent. Granted, I was pretty intimidated by their mere presence.
The nearest warrior lumbered toward me, heaving his heavy armor with each step. He had long, jet-black hair and a thin mustache that grew down until the ends dangled in front of his chest. His weapon of choice looked like a toy pagoda on a stick. A pagoda is a traditional Chinese building, with many layers, each layer having its own awning, making the tall building look more like a layered cake.
The man swung the
pagoda-on-a-stick at me much like a sword. I tried to jump back, but one of the toy-building’s edges caught me on the shoulder proving that despite its appearance, the thing was actually quite sharp. It seemed as though each awning of the pagoda had been sharpened to a lethal level.
Though I couldn’t take my eyes off my enemy, I could hear the clanking of the other three warriors moving toward my friends, and the cries of the vampires as they began to engage the house’s unusual defenses.
I ran out into the little garden, hoping to lure the guy with the sharpened toy away from the others. If I could just keep him distracted long enough, the others might have a chance at destroying his three companions. To my disgust, I quickly discovered that I could barely move at the speed of a normal human. In fact, just the slow jog to the other side of the postage-stamp garden left me winded and shaky.
This is bad. Very bad.
I ducked behind a manicured plant as the soldier brought his weapon down, using the plant much like a shield. His sharp building-on-a-stick lodged itself in the plant, giving me a chance to put a few more feet of distance between us. I was thankful that he wore such ridiculously heavy armor. If he had been at the normal speed of a human, I would have been hosed.
As I tried to catch my breath again from my brief jog, I looked around for some sort of make-shift weapon. I found a rock and hurtled it at the warrior’s head. The stone sailed through the air in a beautiful arc, landing a foot in front of his feet.
“Damn,” I muttered to myself as I searched for another rock. What is wrong with me?
I found a rock just as the man reached me again and brought his weapon down on me. I ducked under his arm, lunging toward him, and thrusting the stone up into his face. It landed square against his nose, breaking it instantly. I felt a hot spurt of blood flow down my hand and wrist.
My thirst, which I had been ignoring for the last twenty-four hours or so, burst forth, unwilling to be contained any longer. Without thinking about how exhausted I felt, I grabbed his arm, pulled him off his feet, and stripped his arm of the thin clothing he wore beneath the stone armor. In another swift motion, I knelt on his chest and sunk my teeth into his wrist.
The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy Page 61