Sweet Oblivion (Shady Arcade Book 2)
Page 1
Table of Contents
Sweet Oblivion
Sweet Oblivion
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Also by Sharon Stevenson
Sweet Oblivion
(Shady Arcade Book Two)
Sharon Stevenson
Copyright
Sharon Stevenson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Copyright © Sharon Stevenson 2017
All rights reserved. Thank you for buying an authorized edition and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning or distributing any part of it in any form without permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction and includes the creation of fictional towns. Any resemblance to real persons or places is purely coincidental.
Cover Design by Najla Qamber Designs
http://www.najlaqamberdesigns.com
To Mum
For always being there
Sweet Oblivion
Chapter One
“She’s never going to want to see me again,” Larry complained in a whiny tone for the tenth time that morning. It was all he seemed capable of doing anymore.
Chloe rolled her eyes. Babysitting a lovesick vampire was the least of her problems. But it didn’t matter how many times she told him he needed to snap out of it because his existence was at stake right now, he couldn’t think of anything but Amira.
Is this what I’ve been like? She really hoped not. Losing Zack had hit her hard, but they’d been carving out a life together before he’d been left for dead and hit with a vampire induced bout of amnesia. Ten years didn’t usually just get erased overnight.
“She saw you drink blood, Larry,” Chloe told her friend as she checked over her handbook. “It usually takes a girl a week or two to get over that kind of thing.”
He ran a hand through his hair and fell back in his seat dramatically. Despite the irregular showering and unwashed clothes, he looked like something out of a magazine. An aftershave ad featuring a hunky guy with a sullen stare...
Chloe snapped out of it. She had to stop looking at him like that. He was just her friend and she was sort of his guardian, for now at least. He wasn’t a potential rebound, no matter how good he looked these days. Vampirism had agreed with him. That was all. She took a breath and he was standing over her when she looked up again.
Shit, she thought. Did he notice the way I was looking at him?
“What are you—”
“You have to call her for me,” he said, holding out his phone. “Please?”
“What makes you think she wants to talk to me?” Chloe had to ask. The girl had freaked, and that was putting it lightly. “It’s only been a week, Larry. Give her time.”
“I can’t.” He held the phone out until she took it.
She sighed. He held her gaze with his sad eyes until she relented and dialled Amira’s number. The girl let her phone ring out. Chloe smiled wryly. “I’ll try again later. Okay?”
He sighed and sank back into the couch as if he was liquid. “Later. Okay. Later.”
She put the phone down and picked up the book. She’d found nothing to tell her what she was going to face for what she’d done. The necromancer’s Council had remained tight-lipped throughout her statement. She’d been told to take the week to train Larry and that they’d arrange a hearing. Her stomach was in knots. She could still see their blank expressions as she recounted the night she’d almost lost Zack for the second time. Her voice had been cracking and it wasn’t just because of the bruising Kenny’s attack had left on her throat. The Elders had remained unemotional. She’d bitten back tears and tried to keep her face straight as she shook inside, terrified at what was going to happen to her. She’d killed a vampire. It wasn’t something she’d ever thought she’d do. She shouldn’t have needed to. Her abilities to command the dead should have avoided that kind of situation. That was going to be what they told her. Her excuses wouldn’t matter.
She’d had one choice to stop Larry. Kill the vampire who’d commanded him to drink from Zack. She couldn’t have countered Bridget’s will with anything else. By the time she’d commanded Bridget to get Larry to stop, it would have been too late for Zack. With the added threat of Kenny in the room, she’d had no other choice. She couldn’t let Zack die. And that was what was going to put her behind bars, or wherever they actually sent necromancers who killed things.
“Try again?” Larry asked, hope in his mournful eyes.
He was like a kid; a big, blood-thirsty kid who’d be without a guardian soon enough. What was going to happen to him when she went away? She dreaded to think. If he wound up with someone like Kenny as his guardian he’d turn out as badly as Bridget had. She didn’t want that for him. It wasn’t his fault some vampire had shown up and turned him. She sighed and picked her own phone out of her pocket. She’d been waiting for the call from the Council for what felt like forever. It was time to stop waiting around for her death sentence. She called Amira. The girl picked up cautiously after a few rings.
“Chloe?”
“It’s me. How’ve you been?” She felt the air move as Larry darted to her side. He knelt beside her, listening in on her conversation. It should have been weird, but she’d gotten used to his invasions of her personal space in the last week.
“Is that a trick question?” Amira sounded hurt.
“It’s not. I... You saved my life.”
“And you’ve been lying to me for who knows how long.”
Chloe winced. “It’s not... We’re forbidden from telling humans. It’s a law, it’s not—”
“You knew Larry was... One of those things?” She sounded irritable.
Chloe watched Larry’s face drop. “He was turned by a vampire recently. It wasn’t his choice.”
The pause on the line made her stomach twist. She didn’t want to lose Amira as a friend, but she wasn’t sure she was getting any say in the matter.
“I liked him.” Amira sighed. “This is just... I can’t even—” She sighed again.
“He’s not dangerous,” Chloe said.
“Tell that to Zack’s neck,” Amira said.
“Bridget used compulsion on him. She used it o
n you both. She’s gone now.”
“Compulsion? This just gets grosser,” Amira told her. “What about Larry?”
“What about him?” She watched the hope start to return to his eyes.
“Can he use that? Like, on me? Oh my God. How do I know I even really wanted to go out with him? Maybe he just made me say yes. Maybe I never really wanted to kiss him!”
Chloe winced. “He didn’t use it. He doesn’t know how. Amira, I’m sorry I lied to you. I’m sorry you got mixed up in this mess.”
“I don’t know if sorry covers this,” Amira said, pausing after she spoke. “Can you just tell Larry to stop calling me?”
Chloe watched him slope off to his room, the sound of the door closing softly behind him making her sigh. “I’ll tell him.”
Chapter Two
Zack walked, stopping every few steps to try and figure out his best chance to lose his necromancer body guard. The new guy, a middle-aged man named Herman Turner, had replaced Kenny and Bridget, and he seemed determined not to let Zack out of his sight for even a second. He hadn’t let him close his office door. Threats that he’d take the thing off its hinges were laughed off but not by Zack. He groaned and wondered what the hell it was going to take. He had to go back to his old house.
Thoughts of calling Chloe ran through his head. He couldn’t. Not because he wasn’t sure he could trust her. She’d been more honest with him than anyone else. He was just too nervous to talk to her. One stupid little dream about a kiss had rendered him incapable of producing words when he’d tried to call her. Even thinking about texting her was useless. He knew he’d say the wrong thing, if he could even think up something to say.
She would turn him down if he tried to ask her out anyway. His baggage came with carry on. Everyone in town knew that. His mental problems and amnesia were bad enough. The strange psychic abilities that all too often triggered dissociative episodes were the icing on the fruit-cake. He was undateable. He knew that. He shouldn’t even be thinking about her.
He sat down on a bench and stuffed his gloved hands into his pockets. The thought of going back to the flat made him groan. It wasn’t really big enough for two people to live in, especially not when one of them refused to let any of the internal doors be closed at any time. Turner approached as he tried to come up with a reason to meet Chloe that wouldn’t be immediately shut down by the guy who didn’t like to let him out of his sight.
Seeing her again made him nervous, but, if he could get over it, he could ask her to just help him with this one thing. That was all he really needed. Find his house. That way he could find out where his family were taken. Get the answers he needed to tell him who he’d been. There had to be something he could touch that would give him some kind of clue. There had to be something inside the house...
“What are you doing?” Turner made him jump in his seat, his suspicious gaze fixed on Zack’s face.
“I was just thinking,” Zack said. “It helps. With the voices.”
“The voices,” the guy muttered, shaking his head. “Oh, aye.”
Zack grimaced as he got to his feet. He wanted to ask if Turner was getting relief cover soon. He had to have a life to get back to. Please, God, let him have a life to get back to. He couldn’t ask. It felt rude. He sighed inwardly as he followed the guy back to his flat. He was imposing, quite a bit more so than Kenny had been. Tall and broad, with a stern expression plastered to his face more often than not. A few more days and Zack would do anything to get some time with Chloe just to get away from him.
“What do you want for dinner, then?” Turner asked as they approached the flat.
“I... Well...” He wanted to ask for something from Cassandra’s cafe, but he knew the guy meant what did he want from the chippie down the road, the one that used frozen stock. He winced at the thought of it. His taste buds could only take so much soggy misery. “I’ll go to Cassandra’s cafe. I’ll meet you at home.”
The guy squinted at him. “You’ll no...”
“There are necromancers in the arcade. I’ll be fine.” He dashed off in that direction and only checked behind him once he was at the door to the arcade; so far, so good. It was almost closing time but he wasn’t entirely there for Cassandra’s cafe. He rushed to Chloe’s shop and found it dark, the ‘closed’ sign up in the door.
“Damn,” he muttered, heading to the cafe. The sight of the Indian girl in the clothes shop made him pause. She glanced away when he met her eyes. He hesitated to push the door inwards.
“We’re closed,” she called out quickly.
“I just wanted to ask you about Chloe.” He came into the shop.
The girl blinked. “Oh. Well. We’re not really talking to each other right now so—”
“Is she okay?” He hadn’t seen her since she’d visited him at the hospital.
She shrugged, folding her arms. “In what way?”
The girl was fishing for something, that much he could tell. He wished he knew what.
“I haven’t seen her this week.”
“Me either. Her shop’s been closed.”
“It has?” That was a worry. He wondered what it meant.
“Yeah, so anyway, I was just closing so you should...”
“Leave,” he said, moving as she came towards him.
“Look, Chloe’s fine,” Amira told him. “She’s at Larry’s place. Okay?”
He nodded as she ushered him out the shop and closed the door on him. Turner shook his head as he caught up with Zack at Cassandra’s cafe.
Zack pushed the door open while Amira’s words echoed through his thoughts. Chloe was at Larry’s place? The vampire Bridget had used to attack him. He gazed through the cafe window as Amira walked past, her head down and her phone in her hand. Larry was the guy who’d been making out with Amira before everything went balls up. His heart sank further the longer he turned her words over. What would Chloe be doing at Larry’s place anyway? The more he thought about it, the more he wondered if he should have asked what the girl was mad at Chloe for.
Chapter Three
Audrey concentrated on her breathing exercises. It didn’t matter that she was a vampire now. Breathing wasn’t a necessity and she’d been reminded of that a million times over. It didn’t stop her and it never would. She felt her master’s call and blew out an exasperated sigh. His voice filled her head like a million tiny spiders crawling into her brain all at once, becoming a scratching, maddening black mass of irritation.
Concentration broken, she stood and dusted the grass from her knees. The black leather dress her master liked her to wear had been scandalously short before she altered it. Making the dress knee-length by wearing it lower and adding black satin to the chest from her bed-sheets had taken all of ten minutes. She’d turned a strapless, trashy garment into something she could actually be seen dead in. The satin covered her chest, shoulders and neck. She’d used another strip of the material to create a belt that tied in a bow across the leather at her waist. She’d expected the head of the clan to punish her for it. He’d looked her over and told her she could choose her own clothes in future. He’d allowed her to be taken shopping. She’d spent a fortune in his money on things that would cover her from top to toe, hiding her skin from his heated gaze. He’d burned the bags with a click of his fingers when she got back, not bothering to look at anything.
“I hope you like what you did to your dress,” he’d told her, looking her up and down. “If you try anything like that again I won’t allow you to wear clothes at all.”
She’d gotten his point, who wouldn’t? It hadn’t stopped her from turning more of the satin bed sheets into dresses. Every time he sent her something new to wear she altered it or wore something she’d made in its place. He seemed to secretly enjoy her insolence.
“Most of my women do as they’re told,” he’d said.
She’d shrugged. “I’m not your woman.”
He’d begged to differ, taking her in an animalistic way while she forgot to prot
est. He looked like a business man in his mid-thirties, but he was the oldest of the Vampires in this clan. Most Vampires smelled more like death the older they got but he did something to mask his natural scent. To the ordinary person on the street, he was just another rich, arrogant son of a bitch. And Audrey had been drawn to those long before she got stuck working for one.
She walked into the mansion and dropped her shoes in the hallway. He was in his private den, as usual, dressed in a suit and tie, his dark hair slicked back. He was fixing a drink, bloodied of course.
“You called, Randall?”
He didn’t look up as he tossed ice into the short glass. She took a sniff and knew he was mixing cherry liqueur with type AB.
“You’ve been spending too much time out there,” he told her.
“Out where?”
“The gardens. It’s dangerous.”
“I’m not suicidal,” she assured him.
He looked up and his lazy blue eyes fixed on her. “That’s good to know.”
“So, did you have a reason for calling, or...”
“You’ve been hiding something from me.”
She took a seat, knowing she was in for a troubling conversation. If he had other needs his mouth would be occupying her in a completely different way right now. “What exactly do you think I’m keeping from you now?”
“That’s a very good question.” He took a sip of his drink, leaving his full lips red. “Your little garden detours so close to daybreak give you away.”
“So, I miss the sunlight. It’s hardly a secret.”
“You don’t behave like a vampire going sun-crazy.” He sat down next to her suddenly.
She knew she should be afraid, but there was something he really didn’t know.
He gazed at her. “I compel you to tell me what you’re hiding from me.”
“I hide nothing from you, Randall.” She kept her stare fixed, her voice toneless.