by Bee Murray
Eight.
One for each sin. One for each dead body.
My healing kicked in as soon as the last stake left my body, and my super-charged senses rushed back, powered by the extra boost of her blood in my veins. If I couldn’t admit it before, I could now. I’d been dreaming of this moment for five long years.
I rubbed a hand over my face and sat up. Tuesday wobbled a little on her knees, weakened by the loss of blood. I stood up and pulled Tuesday to her feet. She leaned against me and her eyes closed for just a moment. “My turn,” my voice was husky as I looked down at her, “Let me heal your head wound at least?”
Her eyes snapped open, and she glared up at me.
“I should have left that last stake in for a little longer,” she said. “If you think, for a goddamned second, that I’m going to let you turn me into a vampire, you are utterly brain-damaged.”
“I would never turn you against your will. I just want to. Well… lick you. My saliva can heal you. That’s it. I’m offering nothing but spit... Well… at least until we get out of this.”
“I am not having a spit or swallow debate with you right now,” she grumbled, but she didn’t pull away as I wrapped my arms around her and drew her close. I cherished the feeling of her warmth against my chest. In all the horror that we’d experienced in the last few hours, this was my sanctuary.
I pressed small kisses to the cuts and bumps on her face and head and smiled to see the wounds close. I couldn’t replace the blood she’d lost, but I could make them stop bleeding, and stop hurting. That had to be enough for now.
For the first time since I became a vampire, I was grateful for my extra abilities.
“Can we do anything about — him?”
She was looking at the corpse of the other vampire again. I cradled her face and turned it away from the nightmare pinned to the wall. She was thinking about how it could have been me—I didn’t need to ask her to know that much.
“There’s nothing we can do. Even if we pull out the stakes, it’s been too long. He’s lost too much blood and that last stake—”
Tuesday closed her eyes and nodded. I looked back at the unfortunate vamp and said a silent apology to him. He hadn’t deserved what they’d done to him. I hated that we couldn’t change what had happened. All I could do was vow to see the responsible parties were punished.
Suddenly she gasped and pulled away from me, panic clear in her expression.
“The house, Vinnie—we wired the house to blow. We have to go. We have to go now.”
We ran through the house together, checking the doors and windows on the main floor, but Sergio and Cole had sealed them shut. The window glass was designed to filter out maximum amounts of sunlight and was too thick to break easily.
Detonation cords and explosive devices were wired together at each potential exit. Sergio and Cole had artistic flair when it came to blowing shit up. But I recognized that someone else had put the last touches on the house. Best guess? Baldwin and his band of merry assholes wanted to cover their tracks before they’d abandoned us to the inferno that was about to engulf my house.
Tuesday turned to me, desperation and fear written all over her face. I summoned all the strength my vampire abilities could give me. There was another sound approaching. Shouting and screaming from down the road. The mob from the bookstore discovered my address on the dark web. They came for me, ready to unwittingly play their part in Tuesday’s scheme.
We had to move fast. If the inferno didn’t get us, the mob would finish the job.
No pressure, Quake. No pressure at all.
11
TUESDAY
I’m known for being the calm one in high-pressure situations. I’ve assisted countless celebrities, businesspeople, minor members of European royal families, and even a few criminal players with their own unique set of problems. Through all of that I’ve never lost my cool. Until now.
I was about ten seconds away from losing all semblance of control.
Why? Being locked in a deathtrap of a house with eight dead bodies, my vampire ex, a dead vampire, a pool of blood, and a huge crowd of rioting bigots (that I incited) on their way to burn everything Vinnie had ever touched to the ground was panic-inducing.
I had never felt more empathy for Frankenstein’s monster than I did at that moment.
Vinnie muttered to himself as he paced back and forth in front of the wall. He’d said something about making a door, but that just seemed—stupid. It had sounded stupid. And impossible.
I should help him strategize. That was the entire reason they hired me for this job. But I couldn’t do it. Fear paralyzed me and I just... stood there wringing my hands like some sort of damsel in distress. I spotted my tote bag scattered in the corner and rushed to retrieve it. The dickheads had stolen my iPad and cash but everything else seemed to be fine. I clutched it to my chest as the one piece of comfort in this shittastic situation.
The clock ticked ever closer to our doom, and I couldn’t tell if it was the gas leak, the stench from the bodies, the blood loss, the head wound, or even just the stress from the last 48 hours but dizziness struck me at every turn. I just watched on unsteady legs while Vinnie paced.
There was usually a comfort in knowing how a particular scenario would play out. But in this case, all those details were eating away at me.
Vinnie’s hand snaked around my waist, and I yelped in surprise. Half-grateful for the distraction from my thoughts, and half-terrified with worry that I missed something crucial that could save us.
He moved so silently; it was like being locked in a room with a panther. A very sexy, very rage-filled panther who was ready to kill for you. I actually don’t hate it.
“Do you trust me?” he asked. His voice was soft like velvet. When he looked at me like that, I almost forgot the fact that we were about to be incinerated along with all of his expensive possessions.
I nodded. Seeing as our deaths were imminent, trust was slightly irrelevant. But underneath that, I did actually trust him. Weird how that worked out.
“Good. I am going to need you to do exactly what I say.”
He handed me a small flashlight and led me over to the grand river rock fireplace in the formal dining room. It took up the entire side of the wall and was larger than anything I had ever seen outside a lodge-themed hotel. He carried a length of rope in his hand and my eyebrow rose slightly as I noted the color and texture of it.
“Where… Where did you get shiny purple rope? Who has that on-hand in their house? Is this from a sex dungeon? Is it clean? Oh my God.”
He looked down, shrugged, and shoved it into my hands. “I will neither confirm nor deny any of that other than to tell you I can personally verify it’s load bearing. Hold this.”
With purposeful steps, Vinnie strode to the fireplace and grabbed the decorative poker. With a roar, he reared back and smashed the poker into the glass front of the fireplace. I let out a small scream, more out of surprise than anything, as the glass scattered over the stone floor. Without hesitation, he reached in and ripped out the metal grate. It clattered across the floor as he kicked it away. He turned back to me and grinned.
“It’s like Santa! But in reverse!”
I looked at the glass and the fireplace and sputtered. Surely, he doesn’t mean we are exiting the deathtrap by going up a chimney?
He grabbed the rope out of my hands and knelt before me, measuring the rope around my waist and hips before wrapping me into some sort of harness. His hands moved quickly and I could barely keep up.
Standing quickly, he kissed my forehead gently, swiping his tongue over the cut above my eye and making me squirm. “Stay next to the fireplace,” he said.
I moved into position. Where else was I going to go? I’d lost track of time, I didn’t know how far away we were from death. I didn’t want to die like this. I didn’t —
Before I could protest or say anything at all, he looped the remaining rope around him like a professional rock climber
and crawled into the fireplace and disappeared from sight.
“Vinnie!”
My voice was barely a squeak, and I giggled wildly as a cartoonish puff of soot fell out behind him. I crouched down to peer up into the chimney, but it was pitch black.
I heard muffled profanity as he climbed up the chimney. That vampire superstrength was something else. A scraping noise sounded from somewhere behind me and I whirled around to see what it might be. Help? Firefighters? Anyone?
No. Don’t be stupid. No one’s coming to help you. It’s just the friendly mob outside baying for Vinnie’s blood.
Nothing popped out but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. “Hello?” I called out.
No one answered.
A deafening crash drowned out my voice as a deformed piece of metal hurtled down the chimney and collided with the stone base of the fireplace. I jumped back, crunching the glass under my shoes.
With shaking hands, I pulled it out of the way just as the purple rope in front of me jumped around.
“Tuesday! They are at the driveway. We gotta go, baby. Come stand in the direct center of the fireplace grate and hold your hand on that knot at the top of rope. When you’re ready, pull on the rope twice and I’ll pull you up. The harness will hold you. Just sit back into it and try not to move a lot.”
His voice echoed down the chimney, and I hurried to comply. I ignored my pathological fear of heights in favor of my survivalist fear of dying.
Armed with a plan, I hoped the rope was sturdy enough to hold. Dying in a raging inferno was one thing, but suffocating to death in a chimney or falling to my death was an entirely different kind of nope.
Standing in the grate, my precious tote bag hanging off my shoulder, I took a deep breath and tugged on the rope. There was barely time to register what was happening before the rope jerked and lifted me off the ground. My eyes squeezed shut while I eased through the chimney. The rough sides brushed up against my arms, coating me in a thin layer of soot. I ignored it all and held on to the rope as tightly as I could.
I only opened my eyes when Vinnie’s hand closed over my arm. His silhouette against the velvet dark sky, wreathed in moonlight, took my breath away. With quick fingers, he untied me and steadied me on the solid metal roof and led me over to lean against the chimney.
Even though it was late summer, there was a chill in the night air. The breeze off the water felt icy cold against my skin and made it difficult to focus. I didn’t have my watch but I guessed we only had minutes, if that, before the entire house exploded into a carefully arranged fireball.
People were visible, gathered at the base of the driveway, with more headlights tracking down the private drive. Shouting and cheers were carried by the breeze. The smaller flashes of light bobbed around the fence line. Flashlights. The crowd was trying to breach the gates and make their way toward the house.
I essentially planned this, but it still shocked me how brazen they were. Standing beside me, leaning up against the chimney, Vinnie vibrated with rage as he watched them.
“We have to go,” I whispered as panic gripped me again.
Without a word, Vinnie nodded before offering his hand to steady me as we sat down and slid carefully down the angled roof toward the back porch.
Vinnie released my hand and slid effortlessly to the ground. He landed like a cat from the one-story drop, but something in my head screamed that I wouldn’t survive the fall. My heart beat wildly in my chest as I fought to slow my descent.
Stop it. Stop it. Broken legs or die in a fireball.
Breaking glass and a roar from the crowd spurs me on and I closed my eyes and launched myself off the roof, praying to whatever deity in the sky that may or may not exist that either Vinnie caught me or I died quickly.
Being caught mid-fall off a roof by a strong, sexy man was romantic only in movies. Real-life was painful and awkward. When Vinnie caught me, I let out a grunt of pain so loud, he crushed me against his chest to muffle the sound. As soon as I could breathe again, he picked me up and held me tight, running across the carefully manicured lawn towards the boathouse.
We reached the small stand of trees just beyond the house when the first explosion ripped through the building and set off the chain reaction I’d arranged so carefully.
Vinnie put on more speed, and I clung to his shoulders as we tried to outrun the fireball that lit up the night sky. The heat from the explosion stung my exposed skin as we raced towards the water.
I panicked when Vinnie bypassed the beautifully crafted dock and walked straight into the water, wading through the icy cold bay until he was waist deep.
“Vinnie!” I hissed, hiking myself up higher on his body, “What are you doing? I can’t swim!”
I chanced a brief look behind us and the fire was raging so beautifully that I felt a small surge of pride that my plan actually worked the way I intended it to. Sort of.
Sergio and Cole did outstanding work. I should poach them for the Agency.
“Wait here,” Vinnie whispered, carefully setting me on the floating platform. The breeze blew water up on me and I shivered from the cold. Vinnie disappeared under the surface, popping up a few yards away on the other side of a floating buoy.
I looked around nervously, but none of our visitors seemed to have noticed us. Yet.
The fire burning Vinnie’s luxury mansion was really kicking up, and I knew we only had minutes before this entire property was swarming with first responders.
The sound of gentle splashes drew my attention away from the fireballs and back towards the place I last saw Vinnie. A dark shape moved through the water towards me and I squinted to make it out.
A boat.
An old, rickety, row boat. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Vinnie popped up out of the water and pulled himself onto the platform next to me, tossing me the line for the rowboat with a satisfied smile on his face.
I looked at him for a long minute before looking back at the boat. It barely looked seaworthy, and it reeked of rotting fish.
“Ok Poseidon, you’re richer than God and this is your escape boat?” I groused, wrinkling my nose against the smell when the wind shifted.
Vinnie’s look of satisfaction shifted, and he looked at his rowboat with slightly less enthusiasm. He reminded me of a kid who just lost his puppy, and I immediately felt like a bitch.
“It’s… great. Far quieter than a ski boat!” I half-heartedly proclaimed, nudging the decrepit vessel with my foot. We survived all of that, and now I’m going to drown in Puget Sound.
Vinnie brightened and looked over my shoulder at the blaze that lit up the night sky. The amount of destruction we had managed took my breath away.
It had worked.
It had really worked.
Well, the house had exploded, but everything else had gone entirely to shit.
I turned to Vinnie, ready to figure out the next step of our plan, but he wasn’t interested in speaking. Heat flashed in his eyes before he pulled me against his chest with a growl.
His mouth crashed down on mine, and my eyes drifted closed. This was the Vinnie I remembered. All power and sensuality. But the sharpness of his fangs brought me back to reality. We had just covered up a mass murder with an explosion that had probably taken a few other lives in the process—sure, they might have been people who would have been more than willing to murder the two of us, but that wasn’t the point.
I turned my face away and pushed back against his chest.
“They’ll find us,” I choked out, my heart hammering in my chest. “We have to go.”
Vinnie looked at me like he wanted to argue the point, but the sounds of shouts from the house changed his mind.
Without another word he picked me up and tossed me into the rowboat and then pulled himself in, pushing off with an oar.
“Duck down and hide under the tarp,” He whispered, pointing towards a crumpled up blue tarp in the boat’s stern.
“Uh, no?” I g
agged when the smell from the tarp reached me. “I’m good. I’ll just sit right -”
“Get. Down.” Vinnie ordered, reaching over to yank me down off the bench seat.
“Old Mr. French fishes most nights out here by himself. If they see you, they are going to want to investigate.” He continued, muffling my outrage with his hand.
His logic was sound, although I suddenly had a disturbing thought about how Vinnie had acquired said boat from old Mr. French. Vinnie read the questions in my eyes and glared at me.
“I didn’t kill him. I knocked him out and put him under a tree. He’s fine.”
I glared back and sank my teeth into his fingers, biting down as hard as I could.
“What the fuck?” He let go of me and shook his hand out, nudging me away from him with his foot. “You almost drew blood, Tuesday! Who’s the vampire now?”
I didn’t dignify that with a response. I curled myself into as small of a ball as I could and huddled next to but not under the offensive tarp, my precious tote bag clutched to my chest.
“Start rowing, asshole,” I gritted out, counting to ten in my head to stay calm.
I really, really hate surprises.
Vinnie fumbled around and pulled the oars he had dropped out of the bottom of the boat and inserted them into the oar locks. Before I could say anything, he pulled back, leaning into the stroke with his considerable strength.
The rickety boat moved backwards, and then we listed starboard.
Vinnie looked down at the oars and then back at the water and shrugged.
He pulled back again, and we spun in the water.
“What the...?” He muttered, pulling back harder and harder.
The boat rotated more until we made a full circle.
“Vinnie…” I croaked, the motion and spinning making my stomach lurch.
He kept pulling, his considerable strength rocketing the boat from side to side and around and around.
“Stop!” I scraped my fingernails down the skin of his ankle and sat up slightly. “Your oars,” I struggled to get the words out, “Fix your bloody oars so we go straight or I swear to God, I’m going to break that off on your thick head and stake you myself. Do. You. Understand. Me?”