Falling from the Light (The Night Runner Series Book 3)

by Regan Summers

  “All I smell is hot.” I sneezed as I shut the door. “And dust. I don’t think I’m cut out for the desert.”

  “And maybe bacon.” She inhaled deeply, then sank down to rest her head on folded arms. “I don’t think that humans were meant to live in places without water. Maybe you are allergic to low survival odds.”

  “Isn’t everybody allergic to low survival odds? In the end, I mean.” I hefted the box onto my hip and headed for the door. “Let’s grab lunch after this. Hopefully we can find a place that serves chilled drinks and bacon.”

  “Bloody Marys with iced bacon cubes.”

  I took a deep breath and did everything in my power not to think of a cold piece of bacon melting inside of my mouth. Thankfully the door was locked, giving me a moment to get my gag reflex under control. I rang the bell and the ingrained routine of the delivery overcame my nausea. Time to be professional.

  The seconds ticked past. This was one of those really prestigious spas—you could probably get a two-hundred-dollar massage along with your placenta face cream—that didn’t have a real sign, just a small business name placard below the street number. The places in Anchorage this discreet offered happy endings and moved every couple of months.

  The dead bolt clanked and the handle jiggled for a moment before the door opened.

  “Hi there. I’ve got a delivery from Goya.”

  The woman on the other side of the door was several inches shorter than me. She wore a short-sleeved black sweater, red capris, and black ballet flats. A white scarf was tied smartly around her neck. The cuteness was dulled by her bored expression.

  “Where do you want these?”

  “There is fine.” She gestured toward a knobby mahogany desk in the room adjacent to the vestibule. The place was spotless and uncluttered.

  “Sign here, please.” I tore the sheet off the crate and offered it to her. She shook her head, then jerked her chin toward the hallway.

  “Someone down there has to sign?”

  She nodded and crossed her arms. Her hands closed around her elbows. The building was quiet. There was no soothing music piped in so softly you’d think it was floating inside the ambient oxygen molecules. My steps slowed. There was nobody to take shoes and jackets and wrap you in plush robes and oversize slippers. There were no signs of life.

  “I think I forgot your last box in the van,” I said, sidestepping toward the door. As I passed the girl I caught the acrid bite of unchecked body odor. Nobody who dressed like that and worked in a place like this would ignore hygiene. Not if she had any control over her situation. My head started to buzz. The place was wrong.

  I reached for the door, then leaped back when it slammed shut.

  “Fuck.” I tore my phone out of my bag as a chill rose from beneath the floor, skittering up my legs, and wrapping around my middle. I put my back against the door, dialing with one hand while cranking the doorknob with the other. It was so cold that my skin stuck to the metal, and it didn’t turn at all. The hallway the girl had pointed to was dark. The shades were drawn in the front of the house, dimming it, but there was zero sunlight back there.

  The phone rang. Petr would send someone. He could organize on a dime. All he had to do was ping my bodyguard and…

  A door creaked open toward the back of the house, and the feel of vampire increased. There must have been a bunch of them, and while they’d been sleeping when I arrived, they were waking now, extending their power. Reaching for me.

  The line went dead and I didn’t have to look to tell the phone was kaput. I needed another way out and I needed it fast. A figure emerged from that dark hallway, tall and smooth with the eerie glide of a vampire emulating human motion. I backed into the other room as she stepped into view. Her hair was silver, so long it fell to her waist, and parted down the middle.

  I grabbed the chair behind the desk and whipped it at the window. Glass shattered and I dropped the chair and reached through the blinds. If I could get out, I was good. If I could get sunlight in, I was—

  She jerked my head back and stared down at me with owlish black eyes.

  “Stop.” Her voice was soft, but the sound of it reverberated in my mind, cold, slick, and harsh. Inside my bag, my fingers brushed the pepper spray. It clinked against another hard object. Her eyes narrowed. Then she slammed my head into the windowsill. Light exploded in my head. Somewhere behind me a man yelled, echoing her word. Stop.

  Too late. My bones gave out, and darkness closed in.

  Chapter Eleven

  “What about now?” Mickey asked.

  I blinked awake, then rolled onto my side to vomit weakly. I’d been hit by a truck. Or fallen off a bridge. Something terrible had happened but I wasn’t in a hospital or a hotel or the back of an ambulance. My head pounded, and my vision jumped every time I blinked. My hand was cold when I wiped the back of it over my mouth.

  “What’s going on?”

  “So you’re with me now,” Mickey went on. “Do you think that this is okay? I don’t know if this is okay. I feel like it is okay.” She giggled. Maybe she couldn’t hear me. She sounded like she was talking to someone else.

  On shaky arms, I pushed myself up to sit. When I raised my eyebrows in an effort to pull my eyes all the way open, the swollen skin of my forehead puckered and cracked. Blood pattered onto the floor. The cement floor. What had I done to deserve waking up on a cement floor?

  “Mickey?”

  “I thought it would be Thurston,” she said. “I mean, I didn’t know. But I hoped. Incluso cuando se medita, está atento. ¿Entiendes? Me gusta su consideración.”

  “What are you talking about?” I pressed the back of my hand to my head and hissed. One side of my forehead felt like a solid egg wrapped in sticky, exposed nerves. But that wasn’t the worst thing.

  I was in a cage, a large metal cage like you’d keep an animal in outside. Something bigger than a dog. One side was pressed against the wall and hefty sandbags were stacked against the others. A shiny new padlock secured the door. Mickey sat cross-legged about ten feet from me, square in the middle of her own cage, and she didn’t look the least bit upset by it. We were in a large, low-ceilinged room. I squinted around the bare lightbulb that hung from a cord between our enclosures. There were no windows, not that I could see. Wood beams rose from the floor and the walls were unfinished drywall. Standard-issue basement.

  “Mickey, tell me what happened. Please.”

  She grinned. “I think that we can be happy here.”

  “We’re fucking locked up.” I winced at my own volume and leaned the undamaged side of my head against the bars. “Do you have anything with you? Your phone…”

  I remembered holding my phone, dialing and getting cut off. I remembered running, and the vampiress grabbing me. Fear, pain. I should be dead, or drained to a husk. But someone had stopped her.

  “Is anyone else here?” I whispered.

  Mickey walked on her knees to the side of the cage. She grabbed the bars, nodding vehemently. “Oh, yes.”

  She didn’t look hurt, didn’t even look scared. Her hair hung forward over her shoulders. Her eyes were bright.

  “Mickey, how did you get here?”

  “We came together, in a camouflage limousine. It’s so ugly.” She flushed, smiled brightly, and whispered, “But I don’t want to tell him that. Wait until you meet him.”

  A door opened above us, at the top of the stairs beyond her cage. At the sound of footsteps I pulled myself up to a standing position. I wasn’t about to deal with our kidnapper from my knees, even if they were wobbling so badly I could barely stand.

  A woman sashayed down the stairs. Tall, slim, with porcelain skin housed in a silky black shirt. Red lips. Sophie, I registered dimly. The woman from the casino, the one that Malcolm had been so wary of. Malcolm. How much time had passed? Did he already know I was missing?

  Another vampire descended the stairs. He was sandy-haired, and moved with an energetic bounce that brought my nausea back with a
vengeance. Mickey squealed and pressed herself against the door of her cage.

  My head fell forward. I couldn’t help it. Humans didn’t react that way to vampires who had kidnapped them, not unless they were under a strong compulsion. And the easiest way to enthrall a human was with a bite.

  She’d listened to the feeders at Tenth World like she was watching a movie, and she regarded Malcolm with a kind of starry-eyed reverence. They’d either waited for her to follow me in or lured her with a touch of projected influence. Already spellbound by the idea of vampires, by the limited glimpses she’d had, she was ripe for the plucking.

  We were only supposed to be here for a little while. It wasn’t supposed to be dangerous.

  The male reached through the bars and she tilted her face and nuzzled his hand. My eyes began to burn. I could have sent her on ahead, or found her some other place to stay. Fuck, anything but that.

  A third vampire emerged at the bottom of the stairs, moving silently. His presence grated against me, stronger than the others, familiar in a way that made my stomach churn. I’d had him behind me once, the first time we met at the bottom of the stairs in a mostly abandoned house. He sauntered toward me, the others falling in step behind him. I gripped the bar harder.

  He was shorter than I remembered, maybe five foot nine. His black suit and light green shirt did nothing for his complexion. Pale blue eyes and thin yellow hair. He stopped in front of my cage and clasped his hands behind his back.

  “Sydney Kildare. What an absolute pleasure to have you here.” His German accent was faint, but Richard Abel’s smile appeared genuine. His gaze raked down my body and I felt the satisfaction that filled him. Bile rose in my throat.

  “Why are we here?” My voice shook. No surprise since I was shaking all over. My thoughts fragmented as fear wormed through my mind. I didn’t want to be bitten. I didn’t want him to touch me. I wanted out and away, to move, to run, to never stop running.

  But it wouldn’t matter because he’d already caught me.

  Think, I needed to think. They’d had time to chew me up if that’s what they’d wanted, but Abel wasn’t a spontaneous guy. He was a killer, but he also planned. He knew I was immune to influence, though I’d never been tested by a bite. He didn’t know that I could draw on energy, that I could reach out with my senses and latch on, not only to the ambient energy that suckers shed, but to vampires themselves.

  I didn’t pull from him. I didn’t want that energy or anything of his inside of me. Connecting to the other two, I tried to ignore the repellant feel—coldly scratching and hostile as hell—and began to pull. I was concussed, bleeding, and human. I needed all the strength I could get.

  “You should let her go,” I muttered. “She isn’t…she’s not part of anything. She’s not related to Bronson.” My teeth started chattering. Abel clicked his tongue.

  “I should do many things. But I have mouths to feed.” He took a deep, false breath and blew it out. Like someone pretending they smoked. “Besides, Emil has taken a liking to her and while I am no student of human emotions, I would say she returns the affection. It’s such a lovely thing. To see two people—and from such different backgrounds—fall for each other. That first infatuating blossom of love. How intense everything feels, both your lover’s presence and her absence. It is one of the few times in existence when one’s feelings will be stronger than one’s reason. Or so I’ve heard.” His fingers flicked and the lock clattered to the floor.

  I pushed back, one bar at a time, until I hit the back of the cage. The door swung open. Abel stepped away and, for one frozen moment, I thought he was letting me go.

  Then the other vampires approached the door. Dried blood flaked off my forehead and caught in my eyelashes.

  “Malcolm Kelly is infatuated with you,” Abel said, sounding for all the world as though he was interested by this discovery. “Another love story, and one that has stood its share of trials. It takes passion to survive these long years.” He clapped one hand into the other, making me jump. “I have always been passionate about my job. Emil says it’s the German in me. I don’t know, but I know that having a purpose keeps me going. Kelly has survived on luck. But now he has a purpose, too, and the fact that it’s something as small, as insignificant, as a human—well, that presents an interesting set of opportunities.”

  I winced as his volume rose, as the carefully infused humor drained out of his voice. It was replaced by something raw, something vicious. Mickey whimpered. She might be enthralled, but she wasn’t completely gone. Deep down, she still recognized danger.

  Abel rubbed his hands together. They rasped drily.

  “I see that he’s pampered you. I bet he feeds you nothing but honey and fruit. Keeping you succulent.”

  Emil smirked. “Sydney,” he lisped through his fangs. Sophie repeated my name. Textbook vampire intimidation technique. Next, they’d make me look into their freaky, glowing eyes. Maybe they only wanted to scare me.

  Maybe they were succeeding.

  “What I want to know,” Abel said, “is whether Malcolm Kelly will still take your hand when you reach for him after I’ve ruined you.”

  My heart stopped. Abel’s eyes lit and he leaned forward, his mouth partly open.

  “You’re terrified.” He rubbed at his chest with his fingertips, the fabric of his shirt bunching beneath long fingernails. “Is it true, how sensitive you are to us? That’s perfect, truly. It’s going to make it all the sweeter, that he’ll know you can sense his disgust.”

  They were on me in an instant, yanking my arms outward and lifting me off of my feet. I kicked, then screamed when Emil bit into my upper arm. Sophie leaned across my body, tongue out, scenting the blood. Then her head dropped and her fangs tore into my breast. I screamed again, raggedly. My kicks had no effect but inside—inside I was winning. Their collective will reached for my mind, sharp, cold talons seeking to tear and twist. I deflected them, sparks bursting behind my eyes with each new slash they sought to make.

  My mind was my own but I hurt, the pain of the bite and the wretched awareness of my blood being dragged the wrong way through my veins as they fed. I thrashed, even when their fangs started to tear through muscle. Holding still, accepting, wasn’t an option.

  And then they dropped me, both at the same time.

  My knees gave out and I hit the ground. My chin tipped down, sweat and tears dripping off my face. My vision blurred.

  “You’re not done,” Abel snapped, his anger harsh as a slap.

  The male groaned, his hands pressed to the sides of his head. “She’s poisoned,” he rasped. “Poisonous.”

  “We didn’t agree to die for you.” The vampiress spat a red splotch onto the floor.

  I managed to raise my head. Sophie clung to the door, her body shaking violently. Then her back arched and she…faded. The black of her hair melted away, the pigment disappearing as though it was being spontaneously washed out. She shoved her way out of the cell, moving stiffly, one fist pressed against her stomach. Between one step and the next her face changed, the features becoming more blunt. She had…shifted somehow. Like how Malcolm changed his appearance, but more pronounced. Vampires had all kinds of skills, no two of them the same. She’d been the one to scope us, me and Mal, at Tenth World. And she’d been the one to grab me and crack my head against the wall.

  Abel’s expression was blank as he watched her run up the stairs. Emil stopped at Mickey’s cell and lifted the latch. Motherfuck. Her cage hadn’t even been locked.

  “You want her chewed up, you do it,” he growled at Abel. “I need to get the taste of that bitch out of my mouth.” He glared at me as he pushed Mickey ahead of him up the stairs.

  “A good bit of trickery,” Abel ground out. “You do realize that whatever he injected you with will likely kill you? Imprudent, even for Kelly. Sleep well, Sydney Kildare.” The lock clicked shut, and he was gone.

  I waited, expecting another trick, another attack. A minute went by and, when nothing else
happened, I forced my head to turn. A sobbing breath tore out of my throat as I peeled my shirt away. Blood ran down my side and my arm and pooled on the floor.

  With my right hand, I fumbled through the buttons of my work shirt. It was fine, I told myself. The bites weren’t deep enough to kill me. They hadn’t taken enough blood to kill me. Sitting in a cage wouldn’t kill me, either. So there.

  I took a deep, shaky breath. I wasn’t going to die, not right now. Clenching my teeth around a scream, I pulled off my tank top. Using my teeth, I tore it into uneven strips and tied one around my arm. The other didn’t fit around my chest, so I folded it and packed it against my chest, then levered my bra up to hold it in place. Close to passing out, I wormed back into my work shirt and lay down, pressing my cheek to the cold floor.

  The bite hadn’t done anything to me. I hadn’t been overwhelmed by the wills of the vampires. If anything, my blood had affected them worse than their attack had hurt me. I didn’t know why they said I was poisonous, but if they believed it then maybe they’d fucking leave me alone. Which still didn’t get Mickey or me out of here.

  Tears leaked out of my eyes and turned to mud on the dirty floor. Pain was a good thing if it meant I was still me.

  But would I be, when Abel was through with me?

  Chapter Twelve

  An hour later, the door at the top of the stairs opened again. I sat up gingerly. I’d been pulling steadily from the vampires—there were at least a dozen crawling through the house above—though their energy was distant and erratic. While it hadn’t healed me completely, at least my vision was clear again. My arm and chest throbbed, but each time I checked the wounds they looked a little better. If angry, scabbed-up tear marks could be considered “better.”

  I was thirsty as hell and, after the fear had retreated enough, anger replaced it—a hot, steady beat that was as intense as it was futile. The fifty-pound sandbags surrounding the cage were stacked four high, and while I’d been able to push one off the top, all it did was buttress the others. Unless they let me out during daylight, I didn’t have much chance of getting away on my own.