White Nights: A Vampires of Manhattan Novel

by Melissa de la Cruz

  On the far side of the bar, by the balustrade overlooking the street, they met up.

  “Looks like we came to the right place,” said Mina. “If we were looking for something weird, that is.”

  The door to the stairway clicked shut, startling them both.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Edon said and they strode to the door; he was bracing himself to find it locked, to find themselves in a rooftop trap. But the door wasn’t locked. When Mina turned the handle, the door pulled towards them, though it was heavy and opened slowly.

  Before it was fully open, they could see why it was heavy. Hanging on the other side of the door was the blond kid they’d been talking with downstairs. His head was slumped and his t-shirt was bright with blood. He’d been impaled through the stomach and left dangling there. Dead, Edon could see at a glance. The weapon sticking him to the door was a crescent blade.

  16 | The Silver Trail

  Ara had lost Finn’s trail – if it really was Finn. The girl she’d seen, beautiful and blonde, had climbed into a silver car and soared away. Ara had managed to hail a cab and follow, all the way across this island, and the next and then the next. So many islands, so much confusion. She didn’t know where the hell she was going.

  They passed high-end designer stores like Chanel and Hermes, chic department stores, restaurants with looping velvet ropes outside. This made some kind of sense to Ara: if the woman she was following was Finn Chase, then she’d head for what she knew – luxury and wealth. Finn Chase wasn’t the kind to be hanging out under a bridge, drinking from a plastic cup. She would seek out some ritzy club in an expensive neighborhood, finding some Swedish version of her Uptown life. Ara had grown out of all that. Some girls never did.

  The traffic snarled on one busy street, and the silver car slipped away like an eel, zipping between other cars while all Ara’s cab driver could manage was a crawl.

  “Hurry – we’re losing the other car!” she shouted, but all he did was gesture at the police cars along the side of the road, and a man in uniform waving traffic into another lane. Drivers behind them were honking. The sidewalk was packed with people, most of them standing around rather than walking. The driver buzzed his window down and leaned out to chat to another driver, standing smoking next to his parked cab.

  “There’s a new nightclub there,” her driver reported. “The Bank. Very popular with – you know, rich people. Just up the street. There’s been a murder in there tonight. Maybe a terrorist attack – nobody knows. Everyone’s had to leave the club. The police are closing the road.”

  The silver car was gone. Ara slammed her hand on the seat with frustration.

  Four slender figures in black stalked by, and the back of Ara’s neck prickled: she knew instinctively that they were Venators. Her fingers twitched, longing for her own blades. She desperately wanted to leap out of the taxi and follow those long black shadows into the club.

  “So, where now?” her driver asked.

  “Mariatorget,” Ara said, her heart heavy. She still wanted to leap out of the car: all her instincts were screaming at her to get back to that club and work alongside the local Venators. But she was no use to them without weapons and without authorization. Something bad was going on here, even if it wasn’t really Finn Chase in the silver car, even if Ara had just been hallucinating that particular sighting. Here in a club on this street, someone was dead, and Venators were piling in to investigate.

  The taxi made a U-turn, like practically every other car in the street, and snaked down one side street after another. At an intersection, waiting at an interminable light, Ara watched a sleek black Audi drive past.

  In the back seat of the Audi sat Jack Force and Schuyler Van Alen.

  Oh my god. Ara rubbed her eyes, but she wasn’t drunk. Not that drunk, anyway. She’d recognize those two anywhere. What were they doing in Stockholm? She thought they’d retired to life on their vineyard after the war, and were lying low until their children were old enough for the Blood Manifest. This was no coincidence. Whatever Edon’s mission involved, it was much, much bigger than Ara had imagined. So big and so bad that Schuyler Van Alen had risen from her retirement.

  As big and bad as Finn Chase? As Oliver Hazard-Perry? As Lucifer himself?

  “Hurry please,” Ara told the driver. She wanted to get back to the apartment as soon as possible and confront Edon. He had to tell her what was going on.

  He had to let her help him.

  With central traffic in chaos, it took what felt like an eternity to get back to the apartment. Ara had Edon’s key, figuring he wouldn’t need it: he was glued to that she-wolf Mina, and anyway, he could always pick the lock with his knife. He’d be sure to know something about what was happening in the city tonight, and she’d coax it out of him. Ara felt the thrill of the chase surge through her, the adrenalin rush of her Venator vocation winding her up, ready for action. Maybe Kingsley had been right: a break was all she needed. Ara was eager to get back to work.

  Someone was waiting for her in the apartment, lights on, dining chairs pushed back – but it wasn’t Edon, and it wasn’t even Mina. Ara recognized the tall figure lolling on a chair at once, her heart sinking. It was Axel, the local Venator chief; she’d seen him with the wolves earlier in the park. He seemed unsurprised to see her. All her belongings – bag, clothes, a toothbrush – piled on top of the table in a random pile.

  “So, Araminta Scott,” he said. “The famous chief-slayer. I hope you’re not planning to pull the same stunt here.”

  It wasn’t a question. Ara didn’t reply.

  “So,” he continued, sighing in a way that suggested this conversation was very boring, “are you going to tell me what, exactly, you’re doing in Stockholm?”

  “Um … I’m,” Ara stuttered. It sounded so stupid to say it out loud. “I’m on vacation.”

  “Forced leave is what I heard.” Axel looked unimpressed.

  “Yes, but, I’m just really here to hang out. Have a change of pace. I’m about to find somewhere else to stay – really!”

  Ara felt like Minty again, being chastised for muddy hockey boots by an old teacher.

  “You certainly are. There’s no way Marrok should have brought you here. It’s a violation of professional ethics.”

  “It’s not his fault, really.” No way was Edon getting into trouble over this. Ara was tired of always being the bad-luck bear in their partnership. “I insisted. He was worried about me. But it was always going to be temporary. I’ll go right now if you want!”

  Ara gestured towards her mess of clothes on the table. The deodorant bottle, she realized, had rolled out of her duffel and was poised on the table’s rim, ready to plop to the floor.

  Axel shook his head.

  “You’re not going anywhere alone, OK? First you have to tell me what’s really been going on tonight. You were identified in the Stureplan neighborhood tonight. What were you doing there?”

  “I was at a bar on Sodermalm, just hanging out,” Ara hurried to explain, her words tumbling over each other. “Then I thought I saw Finn Chase leaving the club and I caught a cab to follow her.”

  “Finn Chase? Really?” Axel wasn’t buying it. Ara wasn’t sure if she was buying it any longer either: earlier this evening just seemed like a dream. “And you followed her to …?”

  “I lost her somewhere around Stureplan,” Ara conceded. “Because of all the streets being blocked. There was an attack in some club.”

  “So you admit you know about the murder?”

  “Well, I mean, the cab driver told me.”

  “Really?” Axel folded his arms.

  “Yes, really,” Ara said, her face prickling. She hated it when her neck flushed – usually because she was annoyed – and the burn crept up into her cheeks. “That’s why we lost the car we were following.”

  “Details of the car?”

  “Silver. No plate that I could see.” Ara couldn’t even look at Axel. This was lame Venator work, even by Noov standards
.

  “So, you may or may not have seen Finn Chase in a car you couldn’t identify, and you say that’s why you were in the very street where a murder took place less than ten minutes after it happened, speeding away in a taxi. Where a mortal’s been killed, and where the police managed to arrive before the Venators could shut the story down. Now the internet is screaming about someone impaled with a crescent blade and it’ll be in every newspaper front page in the world tomorrow.”

  “Nothing to do with me, I swear,” Ara said, shaking her head. Police arriving before Venators was always a mistake – and a nightmare.

  “One of my Venators recognized you from the New York team. Luckily – well, not for you.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” Ara insisted, really angry now. “Why would I turn up here and kill a mortal?”

  “Maybe you thought she was Finn Chase?”

  “I know what Finn Chase looks like, and I can tell the difference between mortal and not. I’m not an idiot, and I wouldn’t kill another young woman by mistake. Anyway, I don’t have my blades with me. Ask Edon.”

  “There’s a lot I need to ask Edon, believe me.” Axel stood up. She’d never seen such a tall Venator. “Grab your stuff. Let’s go. Venator HQ now. Don’t think of putting up a fight, or I’ll be forced to report your presence here in Sweden to Kingsley Martin.”

  One word to Kingsley and Ara knew her vacation would be over. She’d be on permanent leave.

  17 | After Twilight

  It took more than a locked door to keep Oliver stuck in no-man’s-land. He hadn’t been on the run for months just to get caged like a guinea pig in some godforsaken Swedish tower block. That perky little familiar Christian wasn’t his keeper. And the feral kids he’d seen on the way in were more than happy to answer his bellows for help. “I need you to break in and get me out of here”, screamed from his window, was like an offer of ice cream to milquetoast suburban kids. Within ten minutes the door had burst open and the kid in the Real Madrid T-shirt, along with five members of his scruffy gang, were celebrating their forced entry in the apartment’s living room.

  “Smash it up,” Oliver told them. “Break whatever you like. And there’s food in the kitchen if you want it.”

  He was downstairs just in time to see the mattress pushed out the bedroom window and land with an almighty thwack on the ground near the tire fire, followed by uproarious cheering from the kids. He’d made someone happy today, at least. And that little twerp Christian would get into huge trouble. A double score.

  Walking with his head down, hands in pockets, Oliver made it to the local train station without anything worse than some general abuse. He didn’t look rich enough to rob these days, he realized, not sure whether to be glad or bitter. He had just enough money to buy a ticket for the hour-long trip back into central Stockholm, stopping at every small station with an unintelligible name along the way. He stood with his head leaning against a dirty window, rocking with the train, the rhythm of the tracks buzzing through his brain. Gotta find Finn, gotta find Finn, gotta find Finn. He’d start in the city, the place he’d been sent, and see where any leads took him.

  Back in central Stockholm at last, all Oliver knew how to do was roam. Even though it was late, it still felt like twilight still. His entire life was twilight these days, a netherworld between sun and moon, between being alive and being dead – and which of these was preferable, Oliver didn’t know. Sometimes he found himself wishing for the sharp bite of a Silver Blood’s fangs, the draining of his life force.

  These long white nights of the Swedish summer just added to his disorientation, though at least now he was outside, moving around, able to hunt his prey in the open air. Another problem was that in Stockholm there were so many girls with heads of long, glossy blonde hair. Everywhere he looked, on a busy Saturday evening like this, there were many girls who might be Finn, sashaying along in summer dresses, long hair swaying, laughs tinkling in the evening hair. But none of them were Finn. None of them had precisely her elegant loping walk or her effortless good posture or her light way of stepping that had seemed to him, once upon a time, to look as though she was floating across a room. Oliver was still convinced that he’d recognize Finn anywhere, even from a distance, and even if everything about her character had changed – or been deformed and debased – because of the company she kept these days. He’d performed the Sacred Kiss on her hundreds of times, after all. They were bonded for life. Just the thought of it made him heady with longing and a profound sadness about everything that was lost.

  Maybe he should have eaten more of the food Christian left, because Oliver was starting to feel distinctly light-headed. With every step he grew more exhausted, his feet dragging. Eventually it would be dark; eventually he’d need to sleep. and wonders where he’ll sleep that night. The moon, a perfect white, climbed in the sky and Oliver’s eyes flickered, struggling to stay open. On and on he walked, observing drunk and happy groups wandering home from bars, a band of girls with linked arms singing and laughing, tourists pausing to take their final selfies of the night. One cluster of young people were jumping into the water at the end of a cobbled street, shrieking on their way down, splashing about in the silver-dappled harbor. He didn’t have that energy anymore, that zest for life. Oliver just felt old and spent. One way or another, he thought, Sweden was the end of the road for him. If he didn’t find Finn here, and win her back, that was it. He may as well let the Nephilim take him, let the Silver Bloods drain him dry. He sank down, back sliding against a rough stone wall, and sat with his head in his hands. He couldn’t move another step.

  “Hey, are you OK?” It was a young woman’s voice, lilting and soft. Hair brushed his face – long, silky hair – and for a heart-pounding moment Oliver thought the woman leaning over him might be Finn. But when he opened his eyes he saw a different blonde there, shorter than Finn, more white-blonde, pretty rather than beautiful, in denim shorts and a pristine white t-shirt. Her pale blue eyes were wide with concern.

  “OK?” she asked again, and Oliver wondered why he’d ever thought this could have been Finn. The young woman leaning over him had a Swedish accent. Sweden, he was in Sweden.

  The girl’s name was Karin, and she was with the group frolicking in the water. They were calling her name and waving at her to join them. She hadn’t jumped in, she told Oliver, because she was tired and wanted to go home. She needed to save her energy for Midsummer.

  “Big parties,” she said, shimmying down the wall to sit next to him. “What will you do?”

  “I don’t know,” Oliver said. It was true: he didn’t know what to do next. The “safe” place he’d been sent by the wolf didn’t feel safe at all to him. He didn’t appreciate getting locked in by an over-eager Human Conduit. He wasn’t sure where his next message, or meal, or place to stay, would come from.

  “You’re American?” she asked, and Oliver tensed. If Karin was a Nephilim, her black heart wouldn’t take too long to reveal itself. True, he got no vibe from her, but maybe he was losing his instincts. Karin seemed nothing but sweet to him.

  “Yes,” he said, unwilling to venture anything else.

  “I’ve never been,” Karin said, and launched into a long story about her sister being an exchange student in Ohio, and how far it was from the ocean. Her sister had stayed in a house with a big front porch and a swing-seat, just like the ones in the movies. In the summer lightning bugs danced on the lawn. The television was big, the fridge was big, the cars were big. Everyone was friendly.

  “Just like the movies,” Karen said, her smile so winsome Oliver had to smile back. Her view of the U.S. was romantic, maybe, and nothing like the life he’d led in New York, but just hearing about it made him really want to go home. He was so tired of being on the run.

  Karin said she lived nearby with another girl who’d already traveled north for the holiday; her parents had a place on the very edge of Swedish Lapland.

  “At this time of year they go fishing. There’s nothing
else to do up there. It barely gets dark. Not my kind of scene.”

  “Do you stay in the city?” Oliver asked. His empty stomach gnawed at him, and he ached everywhere from sitting on the ground.

  “No!” Karin seemed to think that was ridiculous. “I’m going to Dalarna. You should come. All the best things happen there. The craziest things. It’s pretty pagan, so I hope you’re not one of those American fundamentalists.”

  She fake-punched his arm, and he shook his head. If only she knew.

  “What are you doing out here?” she asked him. “Are you staying at the hostel down there?”

  Karin pointed in a vague direction. Oliver’s eyes felt burned from too much sun; he couldn’t even see straight anymore.

  “No – but maybe. Maybe if you show me where it is …” He trailed off, realizing how walking to the hostel would be a bad idea. A hostel packed with people wouldn’t be safe. Better to find somewhere in the shadows, under a bridge or tucked away in some deserted doorway.

  “Hey,” Karin said, gazing into his eyes. “Do you need somewhere to crash tonight?”

  Despite himself, Oliver laughed. She sounded so earnest and the Americanism seemed strange in her lilting accent.

  “Is that wrong? Did I say it wrong?” She was blushing.

  “No, it was right,” Oliver reassured her. “It’s just, for someone who’s never been to America, you know how to speak it.”

  “Movies,” said Karin, clambering to her feet. She held out a soft, small hand and Oliver took it. “You can sleep in Anna’s room.”

  “I could do with somewhere to crash,” he admitted. “Just for tonight, I promise.”

  It was a risk, Oliver knew, but everything was a risk for him. Staying out in the street. Staying in the apartment the Venators kept. Just being Oliver Hazard-Perry and at large in the world, alternately hunted and hunting, hidden and exposed. Karin was waving goodbye to her friends and already pulling a jangling bunch of keys from a capacious patchwork bag. Maybe she had a blade in there as well, or a gun. Well, if she killed him, she killed him. Oliver had already decided this place was the end of the road.