Quinn

by D. B. Reynolds

  The door opened and her mother was there, dressed in her usual housecoat and slippers, her dark gray hair cut short and curling around her head. It was a nice cut, and her mam had great hair. It had been red once, just like Eve’s, and still showed copper glints in the right light. But her mother didn’t keep it short because it looked good. She did it because it was easy to care for.

  Brigid Connelly looked at her only surviving child. “You’re late.”

  “A little bit,” Eve admitted. Anything else would become an issue, and she wanted this visit to go as smoothly, and quickly, as possible. “There was traffic.”

  Her mother looked beyond her to where Mac stood at her back. “Who’s that?”

  “Mam, don’t be rude,” she said quietly. “This is William. He’s a friend.”

  “He the bloodsucker you’re fucking?”

  “Mother!” Eve was genuinely shocked at her mother’s language, and her rudeness, too. Was this what they’d come to?

  Brigid only gave a dismissive shrug and turned away, walking down the short hall to what she referred to as the parlor. It was a small sitting room that was only used for visitors. Eve didn’t count as such, but maybe Mac did, despite the lack of welcome.

  Eve crossed the threshold, then turned and said, “Come in, William. You’re welcome.” This might be her mother’s house, but Eve had grown up there and lived there, even after Alan died, until she finally couldn’t take it anymore and had switched to her flat. She’d hoped her welcome was still valid and breathed a sigh of relief when Mac entered the house without a problem.

  “Sorry,” she muttered under her breath, starting down the hall toward the parlor.

  “Don’t worry yourself. Families are complicated things.”

  Eve agreed with him, but she still wasn’t ready for the huge complication waiting for her in her mother’s parlor.

  Chapter Thirteen

  HER MOTHER WAS already seated on the faded settee and had already lit one of the cigarettes that would probably kill her someday. She blew out a stream of smoke. “Tell me, Eve. How do you live with what you’re doing?”

  Eve paused in the archway, waving her hand against the cloud of smoke, thinking maybe she should open a window in the kitchen on the other side of the parlor. “What is it I’m doing, Mam?”

  “Fucking the same bloodsuckers who killed your brother, that’s what.”

  Eve wanted to respond, to use the same argument Quinn had used on her. That not all vampires were the same, that, just like humans, some were killers, some weren’t. Of course, Quinn was a killer, too. He was just more selective in whom he killed, which was mostly other vampires, though Eve was sure he’d killed a human or three in his time. But it didn’t matter, because, when it came to Brigid, the argument would have fallen on deaf ears. The only thing her mother wanted to hear, the only thing she cared about, was that the vampires who’d killed Alan were dead.

  “One of them is dead,” Eve told her. “I killed him.” Her mother wasn’t likely to quibble over the details of who struck the final blow.

  Her mam’s lips tightened into an unhappy line. “And the other?”

  “I know who he is. I’ll get him soon.”

  Brigid grunted wordlessly, took another drag on her cigarette, and looked away. Eve stared at her in sudden realization. Her mother hadn’t looked her in the eye once. Not even when she’d opened the door. It was almost as if she was hiding . . .

  “Mam,” Eve asked in sudden urgency. “How did you know I was dating a vampire?”

  “Is that what you call it? Dating?”

  “Answer the question. How’d you know?”

  Her mother took her time, drawing in another lungful of smoke and blowing it out, picking a piece of tobacco off her lip from the unfiltered cigs she preferred. “Two of the local boys came around. They saw you at the pub.”

  Eve was feeling a little sick. “Local boys. Who were they?”

  “They said he’d probably infect you. That I should call next time you came around. For my own protection.”

  “Eve.” Mac’s voice was taut. “We should go.”

  She nodded, but she already knew it was too late. Some instinct had her backing out of the small parlor, and into the hall where she’d have more room to maneuver. A heavy footstep sounded from the kitchen a moment before Cillian, her brother’s second killer, emerged from his hiding place. But he couldn’t have been there all along, because Mac would have sensed him. Which meant her mother had given him an invitation to use the back door, something she’d never let her own daughter do.

  “Mam,” Eve breathed. “He’s a vampire. He killed Alan.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” her mother snapped. She was saying more, but Eve had stopped listening. She stared at the monster who’d kicked her brother to death, her head filled with conflicting advice, telling her what to do, how to kill him, how to escape.

  “Out of the way, Eve.” Mac’s voice broke through the noise. He gripped her shoulder to pull her out of the way, but Cillian was faster, and so much stronger.

  “You get out of the way,” Cillian growled, baring his fangs at Mac. “Fucking traitor.” He grabbed Eve’s left arm, twisting it behind her back until it hurt. “It’s the pretty human I want. She’ll be a handy bargaining chip for Sorley to use against Quinn. And when that’s done, she’ll have . . . other uses,” he said, almost a caricature of a leering villain as he stared down at her.

  It was Quinn’s name that got her frozen brain functioning again. They wanted to use her against Quinn. Which meant the meeting he’d been called to with Sorley wasn’t a meeting at all. Sorley was going to challenge Quinn, but first he’d hobble him with threats against Eve’s life.

  No. The word resonated in her head with crystal clarity. She didn’t know if Mac had enough power to do anything against Cillian. She didn’t know if Cillian had any power or if he was just a thuggish tool. What she did know was that he wasn’t paying any attention to her. She was just a human female, after all, only good for food and rape. His attention was all on Mac, who was staring at Cillian with death in his eyes and pink sweat rolling down his temples.

  Cillian suddenly tightened his grip on her left arm, maybe in reaction to whatever Mac was doing. But Eve was right-handed. Her heart was tripping with fear, adrenaline singing in her veins. She reached into her jacket pocket and wrapped a hand around her Sig pistol, now loaded with its new 9mm Hydra-Shok ammo. The ammo Joshua Bell had told her would work. Hoping he was right, she sucked in a breath, pulled the gun out of her pocket, pressed it against Cillian’s left chest, and pulled the trigger. All in one motion—five shots, point blank, in rapid succession, saving two bullets, just to be safe.

  She held her breath, still not sure . . . until Cillian dusted right before her eyes.

  Somewhere in the background, she heard her mother scream once, and then nothing, but there was no time to investigate as a second vampire surged forward. She raised her weapon, but he moved faster than she could follow, grabbing her right arm and knocking it aside before she could fire. This was it, she thought, until a slender knife flew over her shoulder and into the vamp’s throat. The vampire roared and blood gushed as he instinctively raised a hand to staunch the flow. Eve pulled her aim back and fired her last two bullets, stepping up until the barrel of her gun was no more than two inches away from his burly chest. The vampire—she didn’t even know his name—gave her a startled look, and then he was gone, adding to the pile of dust in her mother’s hallway.

  Eve stared at the place where the vampires had been, her entire body shaking with the after-effects of an adrenaline rush like she’d never had before. Not even when she’d faced off against her very first vampire. This was her mother’s house. The only place she’d ever called home. A place that was no longer hers.

  “Eve.”

  Mac
voice shook her out of her stupor. She stared at him over her shoulder. “Nice knife throwing,” she said vaguely, hearing the tremulous quality of her own voice.

  He touched her cheek. “We have to get back to Quinn,” he said, meeting her eyes. “He needs to know about this.”

  Eve blinked. “Right.” She looked down at herself. She was covered in blood from the nameless vamp’s gusher, and wearing a fine coating of dust. “I need fresh clothes.”

  “Change in the car, lass. There’s no time.”

  “Right,” she said again. She shook herself, then turned to find her mother leaning against the parlor wall, looking pale, but otherwise uninjured as she stared daggers at Eve.

  “You brought this into my home. You and that vampire you’re fucking.”

  Eve met Brigid’s eyes and turned away. “Let’s go,” she told Mac. She didn’t bother saying good-bye to her mother. Whether or not she’d known the two “local” men were vampires didn’t matter. What mattered was that she’d set Eve up to be . . . what? Kidnapped for her own good? Her mother had trusted strangers instead of her own daughter.

  She walked out, closing the door behind her in more ways than one. The two vampires who’d murdered her brother were dead. She’d fulfilled her promise to Alan, and to herself. She was done with the past. Now, she had to save her future.

  SORLEY BARKED A laugh, staring in disbelief at Quinn’s challenge. “You think to challenge me? You? Raphael and his friends aren’t going to bail you out this time, boy. You’re on your own.”

  Quinn tilted his head curiously. “I’m not aware of Lord Raphael ever bailing me out, as you say.”

  Sorley’s eyes went cold with hatred. “You think you’re so clever,” he growled. “Well, so am I. I know all about Raphael and his scheme to steal what’s mine. Do you know how old I am? How many years I’ve had to hone my power? You’re a puppy compared to me.”

  Quinn smirked. “I’ve been a vampire for 57 years, which is 399 in dog years, so . . . hardly a puppy. But then”—he lifted a taunting gaze at Sorley—“some of us are born to rule. While others require more tutoring.”

  Sorley seemed to swell with his anger, the hatred in his eyes swinging from cold to searing hot in an instant. Throwing aside the ridiculous fur cape, he strode to the edge of the dais, knocking aside his own guards, moving incredibly fast, his speed taking even Quinn by surprise as he launched an attack. Every vampire lord had a talent, and it seemed Sorley’s involved speed.

  Quinn staggered as Sorley’s first strike slammed into him with little warning. The Irish lord didn’t have only speed on his side, he had power. The blow hit him like a crack of lightning, driven by a magic that bit into every inch of exposed skin and sent him skidding back several feet. Quinn snarled and dug in his heels, furious at himself for being caught off guard. But before he could recover, he was bombarded by a series of smaller, but still powerful, blows that pummeled his head and body like a crazed fighter determined to intimidate a weaker opponent with speed before he could so much as raise a fist.

  Quinn was aware of Garrick and the others stepping up to surround him, but he waved them back. This was between him and Sorley. He could draw on his people for power, just as the vampire lord could, but in the end, it came down to the two of them. Sorley had struck the first blow, but Quinn wasn’t weak, and he sure as hell wasn’t intimidated. Drawing on his own power, he raised shields, which should have been in place the moment he’d walked into this damn relic of a house, and began lobbing powerful bombs of his own—small, fire-driven attacks that struck with a deceptive ease that had Sorley laughing in derision. Until the small bombs split open, releasing a lava-like fire that clung to everything it touched, burning skin, hair, clothes. It was hungry and it ate. Sorley’s laugh turned to an outraged bellow as the fire dug into his flesh and refused to let go.

  Furious, fangs bared and jaw clenched against the pain, he spread his legs like tree trunks and threw everything he had at Quinn, trying to break through his shields, to douse the flames along with Quinn’s life.

  Quinn endured, standing strong against Sorley’s attack as his flesh bruised, bones cracked, and tendons tore. Internal organs ruptured under the massive blows, and his chest cavity filled with blood, until he could hardly breathe and his sight began to gray from a lack of oxygen. In a moment, one of his lungs would collapse and he’d be done for. He could no longer endure, he needed to do more, or he would die and his people would die with him—his friends. Garrick. Eve.

  Taking a single step backward, ignoring the look of triumph in Sorley’s eyes, he reached over and grabbed Garrick’s belt knife, rammed the blade deep between his own ribs, and twisted. It hurt like hell, but blood poured out, and the pain disappeared beneath a wave of relief as his lung expanded and his vampire blood began to heal the injuries that had caused the collapse in the first place. With his first full breath, Quinn reached for the deadly magic that was his alone. Letting his power swell, he fed the fire that lived in his soul from an ember to a searing flame, letting it grow until it was eating him alive, hungry for fuel, and demanding to be set free.

  Sorley had switched out his attack, withholding his magic, which used far more power, and substituting a physical assault instead. Furniture, wall hangings, and elaborate works of art flew through the air in a whirlwind of debris as Quinn strode closer, Sorley’s eyes widening in surprise at the speed of his recovery.

  The debris stopped as Sorley changed his tactics yet again, pausing as if to regroup and gather his strength, before Quinn could renew his attack. But it was too late. Stopping two deliberate steps away, Quinn reached deep, and freed the ravenous flames building inside him. Fire spilled from every pore, surrounding him, caressing him like a lover, before stretching out its fingers to feed. Whatever, whomever, it touched, burned. Sorley’s guards, caught up in the maelstrom, screamed, batting at flames that wouldn’t go out, while the fire leapt from chair to cloth to curtain, threatening to take the entire house along with it.

  Quinn was lost in the beauty of his power, the elegance of the flames as they swirled around him in a deadly dance. He was aware of Sorley stumbling backward, staring in horror as the deadly flames swayed closer. Until a new troop of vampire guards arrived with a raw shout of defiance. Rushing in to protect their master, they formed a barrier of flesh and power between Quinn and Sorley, as the vampire lord ran.

  Quinn hated killing vampires like this, fighters who were merely doing their duty. But he had to get to Sorley before the old lord could escape and regroup. If that meant going through these guards, he’d do it. He made an effort to pull back his power, to dampen the flame so it would injure but not destroy, until, one by one, he and his fighters took out or immobilized every vampire who stood in their way.

  Finally racing down a long hall and out through a side door, he threw back his head and howled when he found Sorley gone, along with at least some of his strongest warriors, Lorcan probably among them.

  Quinn’s furious howl sent a whirlwind of power roaring through the neighborhood. Trees bent, branches cracked, and car alarms went off up and down the street as he stormed back into the house, searching for someone who could tell him where the vampire lord had gone. This was Sorley’s territory, his land. He could have a bolt hole anywhere on the damn island, where he could draw power to help him heal and strengthen himself for the next battle.

  Aware of the flames still licking at his soul, Quinn forced himself to take it down a notch, before he burned one of his own people in a fit of frustration. He was still focusing on dousing the fire, when Garrick approached, dragging a burley vampire by one arm. The vamp was badly burned, half his jaw nearly gone, but his eyes gleamed red with the power of a low level vamp, and they were filled with rage as he glared at Quinn.

  “Who’s this?” Quinn asked.

  “Guard Captain,” his cousin provided. “I caught him and these other
s trying to sneak a car out of the garage.” He jerked his head sideways, indicating two other low-level vamps, both of whom had their hands bound behind their backs with heavy-duty cuffs that only worked because the vampires were injured.

  “Captain,” Quinn said slowly. “It seems you’ve been abandoned by your master. Where’d he slither off to, do you think?”

  “Fuck you,” the vamp captain snarled.

  “Wrong answer.” Quinn slammed a fist into the vampire’s chest and ripped out his heart, squeezing it between his fingers with a sizzle of power, before dropping it to the floor and turning to the next vampire. “You’re next. Where’d Sorley go?”

  The vamp was visibly trembling, bloody sweat rolling down the sides of his face from his forehead. “I don’t know, my lord, I swear.”

  Quinn narrowed his eyes in frustration. The vampire was telling the truth, as was the next one, when the question was put to him. A different sort of fire burned in Quinn’s gut as he fought to keep his temper under control. Sorley was not going to walk away from this. If he escaped tonight, he’d hide somewhere in the countryside, rebuilding his base, harboring his strength until he was ready to attack again. He had an advantage over Quinn. He knew Ireland better, knew the small towns, the secret backroads and hideouts. Places he could rest and recuperate, gathering his supporters until he was ready to reclaim his throne. It could be days, weeks, even months. And it was intolerable.

  As long as Sorley lived, even in hiding, Quinn couldn’t seize the territory. It would tear Ireland’s vampires apart if he tried to rip them from Sorley’s living hand. That wasn’t the way he wanted to begin his reign as Lord of Ireland.

  “Fuck!” He kicked a delicate table, shattering its spindly legs and splitting the rest into so much kindling for the flames.