Phoenyx in Flames

by Daisy St. James

  “How long has it been since you last fed?” Hutton inquired as he returned to the refrigerator for another bag. When he returned, Judas’ eyes were clearer than before, the fog nearly lifted.

  “I’m not sure,” Judas rasped before lurching forward to take the other bag into his mouth, moaning as the blood surged down his throat.

  There was something so fascinating about watching a vampire feed. The way their skin glowed with the flush of life, or how their eyes sparkled with a renewed purpose and the energy that overtook them, making them appear almost human again. A curse to have it last ever so briefly. As he pulled the empty blood bag from Judas’ lips, now full and plump from feeding, he decided that it was the perfect time to ask him some questions, while he was alert and speaking.

  He discarded the bag in a nearby wastebasket and leaned tentatively back in his armchair. “Better?”

  Judas nodded, trying to get comfortable in the bed, the skin around his wrists smoking lightly with every movement. If it hurt, he didn’t show it.

  “Thank you,” Judas replied.

  Hutton nodded, pursing his lips slightly. “Tell me, is Judas your real name?”

  The vampire blinked slowly, a frown pulling his dark eyebrows together. He shrugged. His mouth opened and closed as he searched for words. “I’m really not sure. I mean, I think it could be. It is tattooed to my chest––forever, and for me, that’s a pretty long time. So, my logic is, if it is my name, I liked it so much that I inked it on my body for all eternity, or––someone was sick enough to put it on me for other reasons. The answer is––I don’t know the answer, but it stings like a bitch every second of the goddamn day.”

  It was an acceptable explanation for the moment, so Hutton nodded and continued. “Do you have any recollection of how you turned up in that alley tonight? When Phoenyx found you, you were––”

  “Writhing in unimaginable pain,” Judas laughed. “Yeah, I don’t remember much. I keep dreaming of a white van. Um––my hearing is pretty keen, so I’m fairly certain we drove over a bridge at some point because I could hear water, but I can’t be one hundred percent sure. I didn’t even know I was a vampire until yesterday, when I ripped that other vamps head off in your living room.”

  “What?” Hutton was perplexed. “Extraordinary. You didn’t know?”

  Judas shook his head. “No clue. When Phoenyx found me in the alley, I thought I was dying, and that she was an angel. She was so beautiful and electric. I thought she was there to collect my soul and ease its passage to the great beyond. Turns out, I’m already fucking dead.”

  Hutton couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. The more Judas, or whoever he truly was, spoke, the less it came together. The only useful thing he pulled from the conversation was that he’d heard water, which meant only one thing––whoever brought him here, brought him here from the West Coast. This was strange because only the rich and wealthy lived on the West Coast of Crystal Haven––even the Sups.

  Could it be him? Hutton thought. Worry marred his expression, and Hutton immediately felt ill, thinking of how he would broach the subject with Jane. If she knew that he had known all along what she was dealing with, he wasn’t sure she would ever forgive him, but how else could he protect her? What else could he do?

  “You know,” Judas muttered, bringing Hutton out of his thoughts.

  He looked at the vampire inquisitively.

  Judas frowned. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve dreamed, but it feels good. And to sleep? Sleep is just incredible. It feels like I’m human again, even though last night solidified that I’m anything but––is this real?”

  Hutton’s eyebrows surged upwards. He was unsure how to answer, knowing as little as he did. Shaking his head, he pressed his lips into a firm line and sighed. “I’m not entirely sure.”

  A look of pain crossed Judas’ face as his chin dropped to his chest. That was when Hutton noticed the smoke. It was suddenly coming off his body in waves. Carefully, he reached out and touched the vampire’s arm. His mouth fell open in shock. He stood, quickly snatching his hand away, as if Judas had burned him.

  “You’re––hot. Burning up.”

  “Am I?” Judas groaned, his head lolling back on his neck weakly as his muscles tightened and relaxed repeatedly. His stomach began to heave. “I think––I think I’m going to be sick.”

  Springing into action, Hutton grabbed the wastebasket and held it nervously beneath Judas’ head. He watched the vampire’s upper torso lurch once, then twice, before a stream of dark red blood came gushing out of his mouth and nose. Hutton’s hand instantly went to the vampire’s forehead, hot and clammy with sweat. Hutton anchored his head, as Judas’ body expelled every last drop of the blood he had ingested.

  The sound of the doorknob turning spurred Hutton to look in that direction, just as Phoenyx and Cortez walked in, completely engrossed in conversation, until Phoenyx’s eyes snapped toward the bed.

  ***

  “What the hell is going on?” Phoenyx barked, striding purposefully toward the bed, watching horrified as Judas vomited copious amounts of blood into her wastebasket

  Hutton shook his head in confusion, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water before he could finally speak. “He was––burning up.”

  Her eyes narrowed, perplexed by his words. “Burning up? As in fevered? The dead guy without a pulse?”

  Cortez moved quickly to the other side of the bed, fearlessly reaching beneath Judas’ jaw and placing two fingers firmly to his artery. Surprise flickered briefly over his face before he too turned to Phoenyx, his mouth slack with shock.

  “He––has a pulse, fresa. It’s faint, but it’s there.”

  Phoenyx blinked hard, her hand clenched into a fist as she watched Judas helplessly vomit everything he had in his system. A pulse. It isn’t possible. Glancing at Hutton, he shook his head, in as much shock at the news as she was.

  She edged closer, her fingers stretching out to graze the skin on Judas’ arm. She suddenly pulled back, as if he’d burned her. He was hot. Unbelievably hot.

  Crouching down beside the bed, she reached for some tissue and wiped carefully at his chin, trying to remove the blood that was already crusting there. He lifted weary eyes to hers and blinked slowly before a slow smile spread across his bloodstained lips, his teeth tinged slightly pink. His cheeks were flushed, and he was––well, he was breathing. She could clearly feel his breath fanning against her skin.

  Searching her face, he swallowed hard, barely able to stop his eyes from rolling back into his head from the intensity of the fever. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he murmured, before passing out.

  Again.

  Phoenyx exhaled, and stood. She turned abruptly on Hutton, throwing her hands up in exasperation. “What the fuck is going on, H?”

  “I don’t know,” he hissed, just as perplexed as she was. He raked a hand through his salt and pepper hair in confusion.

  It was then that Phoenyx took notice of how much Hutton had aged over the years since they first met. He’d had some grey twenty years ago, but he was a handsome middle-aged man, who just so happened to find her in the middle of nowhere and gave her sad little life meaning. He taught her how to use her skills, when she had no idea what to do with them. Things that would have frightened her without his knowledge to guide her, like how physically strong she would become, or how little sleep she needed in order to thrive. Time was passing so quickly.

  “We need to find out what’s going on,” she said faintly, to no one in particular, before meeting Hutton’s worried blue eyes. “How do we do that, H? Where should we start?”

  She watched him as he searched his mind for something––anything to tell her, and coming up blank. Then suddenly, like a lightbulb going off, his eyes brightened, and he shook a finger aimlessly in the air while he began to pace.

  “A blood test,” he said, matter of fact.

  Phoenyx and Cortez exchange
d curious glances before she cocked her head and drew her brows together. “H, he’s still a vampire. Besides, what the hell would a blood test tell us anyway?”

  “Well for one, you’d be able to tell if the blood in his body is living or dead,” Cortez offered, surprising everyone a little with his acute perception.

  Hutton withdrew a pocketknife from his trouser pocket during the exchange. He carefully extracted the blade before making a neat, shallow slice along Judas’ left arm. Judas twitched in his sleep, as if he’d felt something pinch him. Phoenyx watched, amazed, as red blood welled up from the cut to trickle down the side of his forearm. Closing the blade quickly, Hutton straightened his shoulders, seeming quite pleased by his discovery before falling back into puzzlement.

  “Fascinating,” he murmured thoughtfully.

  She stood, transfixed by the blood as it dripped onto her sheets, even as she watched the cut begin to heal right before her eyes. Steam kept curling upward from the silver encircling Judas’ wrists. Every fiber of her body told her that he was alive and breathing, with her own two eyes if was obvious, and yet, he was still reacting to vampire vulnerabilities. She supposed a blood test would be their best chance to figure out what was going on. It might give them at least some of the answers––if not all of them.

  Nodding slowly, she crossed her arms over her chest and pressed a thoughtful thumb to her lips. Turning to Hutton she briskly agreed. “A blood test it is. What do you need me to do?”

  “Not you,” Hutton said, turning to Cortez. “Call your lady friend and ask if she can get in touch with her hospital contact? This needs to be hush, hush and I’d be willing to pay her handsomely. I need blood collection tubes, a tourniquet, cotton balls, bandage or medical adhesive tape, and alcoholic wipes. I’ll also need an 18-gauge needle. Do you think Kassandra can get these things, and do it as secretly as possible?”

  “I’m on it,” Cortez said, already dialing Kassandra.

  Phoenyx let her eyes travel over Judas slowly, taking in the color of his cheeks and the way his chest was slowly rising and falling beneath the now bloodstained sheets. She could only hope a blood test would be able to give them some answers.

  As Hutton and Cortez whispered fervently amongst themselves, Phoenyx laid her hand gently over Judas’ chest, where his heart was, and the corner of her mouth lifted slightly. There it was. Faint, but there––a heartbeat. A goddamn heartbeat!

  She bit her lip, feeling something stirring deep inside her as she noticed the curve of his lower lip for the first time, and the way his dark lashes fanned out over his flushed cheeks. His cheeks were somewhat gaunt from malnourishment, but there was no denying that he was gorgeous. She knew that beneath his closed eyelids were eyes that pierced right through her every time they fell on her. What she had felt when she touched him that first night, the maelstrom of feelings that had been coursing through him, told her that his human life had been so much more than the life he led now as the undead.

  Undead?

  Judas was changing, though she didn’t know why. Still, even at their first meeting in the alley, she had tried to deny the pull she felt to him. She had fought it tooth and nail, until whatever it was between them, the chemical reaction, the sheer magic of it, drew them together. They were surrounded by literal electricity. Her eyes dropped closed at the memory of the thrill that passed through her, how the rush of it made her feel more alive than she had felt in years. It dawned on her then, that perhaps––she was changing too––and it frightened her.

  Jolting back to reality, she turned to Hutton, who had been silently watching her. She bit her lip and looked away before moving into the kitchen and shuffling through the fridge. Maybe this is something I should talk to Hutton about––these odd cravings and strange sensations that have been overcoming me lately. Maybe. And then there was the curiousness of Ian Rutherford’s words earlier at the council meeting.

  There was no denying that she was superhuman, what with the sheer strength of her and the agility of her body. The way she could read people’s minds and make them feel things she mirrored onto them. There was more to her than met the eye, and the thought terrified her––and not many things did.

  Looking back over her shoulder, she could see Hutton staring down in intense thought at her enigma. As a scholar, he always strove to learn everything he could about the mysteries of this world, and beyond. As a midnight warrior, Phoenyx’s main concern was not getting too much blood on her new clothes, and making sure the fangs that haunted the darkness didn’t sink into her neck.

  What a pair we make.

  If Hutton was hiding something from her, as she had initially suspected when she’d spoken to him in the library, she was going to find out what it was. She hoped beyond everything that it didn’t change them, or what they shared. He meant too much to her.

  “I’ve got an errand to run,” Phoenyx snapped, before slamming the fridge door shut and making a beeline for the door, her strides long and purposeful.

  Hutton and Cortez were mere whispers by the time she found herself at the end of the apartment complex hallway. The thin, red carpet stuck oddly to the soles of her boots as she pushed the button to call the elevator to her floor. She couldn’t wipe the image of Ian Rutherford’s smug face from her mind. The arrogant bastard. Always was, and always would be. Arrogant or not, he had the answers that she needed.

  Just then, Mrs. Scott, one of the tenants, poked her head around the door of Apartment 17, her blurry cataract eye watching Phoenyx as she casually waited for her ride.

  “Evening, Mrs. Scott,” Phoenyx murmured without so much as turning her head to look at the old lady.

  “Have you got a date?” Mrs. Scott rasped, an obvious smoker, as well as a busy-body.

  Phoenyx turned her head sharply and smiled, the feeling of it stretching her lips odd and unsatisfying. “Something like that.”

  Mrs. Scott snorted. “You could have at least changed your clothes, worn a dress! Young women these days.”

  “If all goes well,” Phoenyx said lightly as the elevator doors slid open to accommodate her, “I won’t be wearing any clothes.”

  Mrs. Scott’s gasp of indignancy was the last thing she heard as the elevator doors closed and she came that much closer to getting the answers she deserved.

  Phoenyx pulled out her cigarettes, and despite the ‘No Smoking’ sign in the top right corner of the elevator, she proceeded to make quick work of lighting it. Inhaling sharply, she exhaled out from her nostrils, feeling the sting of the smoke as it passed the sensitive membranes there. She played absentmindedly with her mini flamethrower lighter and gazed heavily into the fire.

  Ian Rutherford had better be ready for me, because I am coming for him, ready or not.

  THIRTEEN

  Ian ground his teeth together as his father unleashed the anger that had been building ever since he crashed his stupid council meeting earlier in the evening. So far, John Rutherford had called him every name in the book, cursed back three generations to the vile villains in their history, and even went so far as to tell him he was exactly like his mother. All Ian could do was laugh.

  “Really, Father?” He purred, sipping slowly at his thirty-year-old Macallen, bastardized by the chunk of ice dancing at the bottom of his glass.

  “Look at you,” John sneered, waving a loose hand at his son, “you can’t even drink a bloody Macallen properly. Fucking daft punk. It might as well be a Rum and Coke.”

  Meeting his father’s stone-cold eyes, so like his own, and yet so very different, Ian shot back the contents of his glass, intending to add insult to injury. The amber liquid burned delightfully on its way down, almost warming his frigid heart. He smiled coolly at his father, who was now standing, staring empty-eyed into the blazing hearth.

  “You know,” Ian murmured, “you used more words in that one sentence than you have in an entire year with me. Colorful, Father.”

  John turned angry eyes toward his son. “Do you have any idea what you co
uld have done tonight?”

  “What?” Ian countered. “Telling the girl the truth about who, and what she is? She has a right to know.”

  “That wasn’t about rights and you know it, Ian.”

  Their eyes warred for a moment. The hatred coming from both of them was enough to overtake the fire and set the rest of the building aflame. Ian wouldn’t be the first to break the stare. He would not back down from the dominance his father was trying to exert over him. Not today. Not ever again. He had his big boy knickers on now.

  “You’ve always been jealous of the girl.” John sighed, finally looking away, the disgust apparent on his face.

  A muscle in Ian’s jaw began to tick. His icy blue eyes, cold and cruel. He marched ruefully toward his father, his fists shaking with fury. “Jealous?”

  “Yes,” John muttered wearily, glancing sideways in Ian’s direction. “Even when you were children. She eventually surpassed you, and no matter how hard you tried, she was always faster, stronger––smarter.”

  All those years of his father and Grimshaw whispering in dark corners, conspiring while the other council members sat dumbly, believing every word they were fed about how Phoenyx had been found––a child with superhuman abilities, that somehow landed on their doorstep under Grimshaw’s wing? But Ian was young and frequently ignored, so no one saw him watching and listening. He knew all their secrets––and then some.

  “Well, maybe if you’d spent as much time on me as you had on her, it mightn’t have been that way!” Ian cried, past wounds rising to the surface and splitting the scars in his memory open, leaving them to bleed. “You pushed me aside to groom your super-demon to every specification the council had. You left me alone to console myself in the shadows, while you honed your little monster’s skills with every day that passed. I practically raised myself.”

  It was hard not to show his father that the cards he’d been dealt in life had royally fucked him up. He could bluff with as much skill as he could muster, but the fact of the matter was, Phoenyx had all the Aces. His father and Hutton Grimshaw had made damn sure of that.