White Nights: A Vampires of Manhattan Novel

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “Why else?” said Axel. “And that’s why we have Schuyler Van Alen arriving in two days. If we have Silver Bloods to deal with, not just Nephilim, then we need her here. If Silver Bloods rise up here …”

  Axel shook his head. He didn’t need to finish the sentence. Sweden was one of the smaller countries governed by the European Conclave, Edon knew; the big Venator forces were concentrated elsewhere. A sudden explosion of Silver Bloods through this new Gate of Hell, constructed while Kingsley – their one-time conquest and current overlord – was busy in New York … That would overpower the local Venators and cause mass panic. All three of the Scandinavian Covens could be wiped out in days, and Lucifer would have a mountainous power base in northern Europe to launch a brand new war against the Blue Bloods and whoever else stood in his way.

  “But one thing, Axel,” Mina said, her powerful jaw set in an obstinate frown. “Why is Finn Chase so important to this? She was poisoned through a Sacred Kiss and defected to Lucifer. She’s corrupted like all the Silver Bloods but she has no power by herself. All she’s done is sell her soul.”

  “This is what we’re picking up,” Axel said, lowering his voice so much that Edon and Mina were forced to draw near. He waited while a blonde young woman jogged by, pushing a baby carriage and trailing a terrier on a long lead. “In Dalarna there’s talk of a White Queen, a new Silver Blood leader. Someone like Finn Chase, who was at the heart of the New York Coven, privy to all its secrets, closer than anyone to its Regent – she seems like a good candidate. I know it’s a flimsy case right now, but I don’t like the fact that she’s here, of all places in the world, and I want her found and neutralized as soon as possible.”

  “So you want us in Dalarna,” Edon said, and Mina nodded. They were both tensing their muscles and flexing their hands, Edon knew; it was a wolf’s natural reaction when he or she prepared for the hunt. Wolves weren’t supposed to languish in half-empty eighteenth-century apartments with views of a pretty park – sorry, square. Wolves like Edon and Mina needed to be out in the field, tracking and pursuing. They might not be able to play the mind games of a Venator, but in a war the Blue Bloods needed the wolves if they wanted victory over Lucifer and his zombie-like ranks of Silver Bloods.

  “Before you go, you need to know something.” Axel looked stern for the first time, his pale blue eyes glinting like steel. “We have obstacles in our way. Lukas, the Regis of our local Coven, does not support this investigation. And because he has a house in Dalarna, you will need to tread very carefully there.”

  “He doesn’t know we’re on the job?” Mina asked, incredulous. It was extremely unorthodox for the Regis to be kept out of the loop by a Venator chief. Edon didn’t like the sound of this at all.

  “Lukas says that the White Queen is a local legend in that area. When I tell you he has a house there, please don’t imagine my little cabin – Lukas’ family have long been the most important in our Coven, and he has something like a palace there –a chateau, maybe you’d call it. Every midsummer in his particular village, a beautiful young woman plays the role of the White Queen. She’s lifted to the top of a giant maypole in the forest.”

  “So he’s saying that all this talk of the Silver Bloods having a White Queen is just confusion?” asked Mina.

  “Yes. He says it’s a muddle of local lore with paranoia, and any operation to track Silver Bloods, or Finn Chase, is a waste of Venator time. Midsummer madness, he likes to call it.” The look on Axel’s face suggested how much he disagreed. Edon understood. It sounded very casual an approach for a Regis faced with rising Nephilim activity in his own back yard.

  “I hope he’s right,” Axel told them. “But my instinct tells me he isn’t, and as Venator chief I can’t sit around waiting for the Silver Bloods to walk out of hell dusting off their hands – and their fangs. At Midsummer we Swedes do go a little crazy, it’s true. If Lucifer is planning some mayhem of his own, this is the time to do it.”

  “Your Regis doesn’t know about this, but the New York Regent must.” Edon needed to work out the chain of command. If he and Mina were going rogue, they didn’t want to end up caged in hell themselves, on the wrong side of the Conclave. “She’s married to Kingsley Martin, and he was the one who sent me here.”

  “Oh, she knows.” Axel stopped again to roll up his long sleeves. The day was getting hot. “It’s the New York Coven bankrolling this operation. It was Kingsley’s idea to send in you wolves. Don’t forget, he’s still on the hunt for Oliver Hazard-Perry, as well as Finn Chase.”

  “He still wants to catch Oliver?” Edon was skeptical. Oliver, it seemed to him, was the least of their problems. Axel didn’t seem particularly interested in Oliver either.

  “The main priority is finding Finn Chase,” he said. “Whether she’s just another Silver Blood or this White Queen we’ve been hearing about from the Nephilim, we need her dead.”

  Dead. At least the brief was clear.

  “You got it, chief,” said Mina, all business as usual. “We have our orders and we won’t let you down. Finn Chase – dead.”

  12 | Safety Dance

  Oliver woke up alone. That he was used to these days. But today –whatever day it was, Saturday? – he was relieved to find himself still alive.

  His head was throbbing, worse than any hangover. He could barely open his eyes because they were so gummy with sleep. Maybe he’d been unconscious rather than asleep. The last thing he remembered was walking through some squalid apartment high in a tower block. Washing his hands, perhaps. He remembered running water and then – nothing.

  Oliver’s fingers crept to his aching head. It wasn’t damp with blood, at least. But the crown of his head pounded as though someone was using it as a drum kit. Someone had hit him. Smashed him on the head while he was washing his hands. And now he was coming to on a lumpy mattress, sun pouring in the windows. Fully dressed apart from his shoes, which lay nearby on the floor. He couldn’t hear anyone walking around in the apartment, and he wasn’t restrained in any way. The door to the room where he was lying was wide open.

  So someone had attacked him and then helped into bed – even taking his shoes off? Oliver tried lifting his head off the mattress and groaned aloud without meaning to. He could feel a lump forming, tender and rounded. Of all the weapons he feared – crescent blades, guns with silver bullets – Oliver appeared to have been hit with something as pedestrian as a piece of wood.

  Gingerly he raised himself up from the sagging mattress and swung his legs free of the tangled sheet that covered him. Whoever had hit him didn’t want to kill him, or tie him up. And whoever it was had clearly left the scene of the crime. Oliver felt his way to the decrepit kitchen, head thudding, nerves jangling. Maybe Stockholm would be the end of the road for him and his desperate quest to find Finn before it was too late. Maybe he didn’t have the energy left, or the street smarts. He’d stood oblivious – in the bathroom, was it? – while someone crept in and smacked him in the head. From now on, Oliver needed to be much more vigilant or just to accept the game was up. These months on the road had taken it out of him, and he was no longer the glossy, fit commander-in-chief of the New York Coven. He was a wreck with a lump on his head, stuck in a depressing apartment in some Stockholm project.

  “Hello!” The front door popped open and a friendly voice, with just a hint of an accent, was calling out to him. Oliver glanced around for a weapon, flicking open a cupboard door, tugging a stuck wooden drawer off its bearings. Nothing. Not a single cup, plate or knife. If necessary, he was going to bare-hand fight his way out of this one. Oliver stood tensed and ready, trying to steady his aching head. He didn’t have the heart, or the energy, to run anymore.

  A short guy with gold-rimmed glasses and messy ginger hair appeared in the kitchen doorway, brandishing plastic grocery bags. He wore baggy long shorts and a messenger bag strapped across his chest.

  “Hello!” he said again. “I am Christian Dahl. I bring you food.”

  Christian dumped th
e bags on a counter and started tipping their contents out.

  “I have brought you some medication as well. For your head.”

  “What happened to me?” Oliver wasn’t ready for pleasantries.

  “I thought you were an intruder. The door was open, and you know, this place is quite rough. So I hit you on the head. Sorry! My bad.”

  All this was delivered in a cheery tone while Christian rustled about with the bags. He pulled out a pack of Aspirin and held it out to Oliver. When Oliver didn’t take it, Christian laid the pack on the counter.

  “I have some juice here,” he said, opening and banging shut a cupboard door, “but I think there are no cups. You must drink straight from the bottle. OK, Oliver?”

  So this wasn’t an issue of mistaken identity. This guy knew who Oliver was. Unfortunately, the name “Christian Dahl” meant nothing to Oliver at all.

  “Who are you?” demanded Oliver. This guy’s breezy attitude was obnoxious. It would take more than a “my bad” to explain away that blow to the head.

  “Didn’t Axel tell you?”

  “Who’s Axel? I don’t know anyone here. All I knew was to come to this place. Where, frankly, I wasn’t expecting to get attacked.”

  “Ah.” Christian put down a plastic-wrapped loaf of bread. “I thought Axel had briefed you. Axel Andersson. He’s the Venator Chief here in Sweden. Actually, he oversees all of Scandinavia – that’s Sweden, Norway and Denmark. Not Finland. Sometimes Americans get confused.”

  “I’m not confused,” Oliver said sharply, though he was – not about Scandinavia. He attended high school at Duchesne, where world geography was a compulsory subject. The dark cloud of realization was descending: this wasn’t a safe place after all. He’d just handed himself over to the Venators.

  “Do you want something to eat?” Christian asked him, as though this was a social visit.

  “No,” Oliver replied, even though his stomach was rumbling with hunger. “I’d like to know what you’re planning to do with me, now you have me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know anything about plans.” Christian looked stumped. “I only know what Axel told me.”

  “He wants you to hold me here, I expect.” If Christian had crescent blades in his back pocket, it was all over, Oliver knew. Even if he managed to run, he’d be lost in an instant in this maze-like project. Central Stockholm was a distant place, and he had almost no money left. This wasn’t a city where he could disappear. It was a trap.

  “I don’t think it’s safe for you to go out, if that’s what you mean.” Christian still seemed confused. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? You need to re-gain your strength.”

  Now Oliver was the confused one.

  “You’re a Venator?” he asked. Christian laughed, and he sounded like a barking seal. It was a startling noise coming from someone so short.

  “I’m Axel’s human Conduit,” he told Oliver. That was good news. It meant he wouldn’t be carrying blades or a gun. Oliver must have looked visibly relieved, because Christian gave him a friendly tap on the arm.

  “Hey, man, don’t worry. I’m really sorry about the head-injury thing. Must have given you a bad impression, yes? You’re safe here. Axel keeps this apartment as a safe house. Even though the building it’s in …”

  He didn’t need to finish his sentence. Oliver had seen enough of the neighborhood to know it wasn’t exactly the Paris of the North.

  “Strange place for a safe house,” he said, one eyebrow arched. He leaned back against the counter, almost relaxed – almost. His head was still thumping like a bass drum. Maybe he should glug down some pills with the OJ after all.

  “I know.” Christian leaned back as well and folded his arms. “It’s only used by Axel and some of the most senior Venators here. Most of the Coven don’t know about it. Today I had to get here using three trains, because I thought someone was following me. Believe me, it’s not easy making quick changes between trains when you’re carrying all this.”

  He gestured with his head at the shopping bags. “But I don’t like bringing my bike out here. Don’t want it to get stolen.”

  “Who’s following you? Silver Bloods?

  “Maybe. Or other Venators.”

  “Really?”

  “Axel can tell you more,” Christian said, “but you should know right away that things are not all sunshine here in sunny Sweden. It is not the usual happy Midsummer festivities. Not this year. Axel and some others don’t trust the – how do you say it? The high-up people in the Coven.”

  “That’s how we would say it.” Oliver nodded, eager to hear more. “The upper echelons of the Coven.”

  “Ah – echelons! Such a good English word. Though it’s a French word in origins, I guess. Old French. Maybe Latin?”

  “Tell me more about the Coven here,” Oliver prompted, trying not to sound as impatient as he felt.

  “I’m sure it’s like the one in New York. Very rich, very exclusive. Old money. That’s what you would call it, I think. They would never come to an area like this, or enter a building like this. Someone would rob them on the way in! This is why I carry my little plank of wood in my bag.”

  Christian shot a rueful look at Oliver’s head.

  “And why doesn’t your … why doesn’t Axel trust them?” Oliver demanded. He needed to work out who to trust himself.

  “You will have to talk about that with the boss,” Christian told him. “But for now, you must rest and eat. Tomorrow I will bring you fresh clothes. And then you will go to Dalarna.”

  “Dalarna?” Oliver wasn’t sure if this was a person or a place, and all Christian did was nod.

  “Tomorrow or the next day,” Christian said. “Your search must wait a day or two, until we have more news, and you are not tired and achy in the head.”

  At least he knew that Oliver was searching for something.

  “Have there been any sightings?” he asked warily, unsure of how much Christian knew. He didn’t want to say the words “Finn Chase” aloud. She felt like a dream, as though she’d never existed in real life.

  Through the kitchen window he could see smoke rising in dark clouds. Christian frowned. Even this high up, Oliver could smell burning rubber. Men were shouting, though he couldn’t make out what they were saying, or even what language they were speaking.

  “I should go now,” Christian said. “There’s unrest here, in this area. Many protests and anger about the government and the police. Sometimes they burn tires, sometimes cars. Last week it was a police car. Stay away from the windows. I’ll see you tomorrow, my friend. I left my number on the back of the receipt, in case you need to call.”

  Oliver didn’t know why staying away from windows was so crucial when he was several floors up. After Christian scuttled out, he peeked through the drawn curtains of the living room. A gang of kids – maybe the one who greeted him – were throwing bottles at a departing Coke truck. Most of the kids were on bikes and wearing bandanas around their mouths, maybe as a disguise, maybe because smoke from the fire on the other side of the building was spreading in the breeze.

  Christian had been friendly, and at least he had some information – not to mention food, and the promise of clean clothes. But still, Oliver had a bad feeling about this place. Why would a Venator chief, of all people, want to take him in, when other Venators had been chasing him around the world? Would an apartment really be a safe house, so far from the city, and so close to what looked like a brewing riot? And why would a human conduit know both so much and so little?

  Airing the Coven’s dirty laundry … Oliver wasn’t sure if he could believe a word Christian said. Leaving his phone number seemed like a kind gesture, but when Oliver rummaged through his bag for his own phone, it was gone. Had Christian taken it?

  He walked down the hallway to the front door to make sure it was locked: he’d had enough surprise visitors for one day. The door wouldn’t budge. The good news: it was obviously locked. But the bad news was however much he messed a
bout with it, the lock remained in clamped position, unresponsive to any attempts to open it.

  Christian had locked him in.

  13 | Under the Bridge

  Ara wasn’t used to spending her days wandering the streets: usually this was her sleeping time, the hours when she huddled in her little Williamsburg pit, shutting the Red Blood world out. She’d never been a day-shift Venator and she didn’t want to start now. But there was only so much sitting around in that apartment on Mariatorget that she could stand. This morning Edon and Mina had been holed up in the kitchen, alternately sniping at each other or gossiping about wolves Ara didn’t know and incidents she didn’t care about. Then they swanned off, brimming with self-importance, to meet the local Venator chief.

  Strange that Edon had never mentioned Mina once in however many months he and Ara had been working together – let alone sleeping together. Now it seemed they were long-lost somethings; Ara wasn’t quite sure what. They seemed to dislike each other, but they also seemed very comfortable with each other. Very intimate.

  Of course. They were former lovers. Ara was an idiot not to have sensed it immediately. Not for the first time, Ara deeply regretted coming to Sweden with Edon. Getting out of New York City for a while wasn’t a bad thing, but she didn’t need to fly all the way here to feel excluded from her past life – her real life – as a Venator. She certainly didn’t need to be an onlooker while Edon and Mina played out whatever sexual psychodrama they had going on.

  Once those two intensely annoying wolves had stomped off down the stairs, Ara had a brief shower in the expansive tiled bathroom. A blast under the hot water, a quick scrub of her cropped hair, a speedy rub-down with a big, soft towel. She never allowed herself to relax or luxuriate, Ara observed, as though she was floating outside her body, seeing everything from a distance. Maybe that was because she didn’t want to go back to the old Minty days, when she was a spoiled princess who only knew the finer things in life. These days she was a Neph fighter, heart and soul, and everything else just seemed frivolous. The old Minty would have been gushing over the lavender soap, the shampoo that smelled like pine forests, the marshmallow towel of Egyptian cotton. Ara didn’t want to become that person again. Just because she was “on vacation” didn’t mean she could let her guard down.