Bella Flores Urban Fantasy Collection

by R D Martin

  "I don't know. He's old and has enemies, though. Maybe you should try asking one of his allies."

  "Allies?"

  "Actually, that's not a bad idea. If you talked to one of them, they may give you some more information, or at least be willing to point you in the right direction."

  Walking to the rolltop desk, he lifted the cover and pulled out a blank sheet of paper. After a couple of seconds of scribbling, he returned and handed her the sheet on which a list of names had been written. It wasn't a long list, though, only half a dozen names. Apparently, the Finder didn't make many friends.

  "I'd start with the one on the top. She can be a little prickly, but she's been around almost as long as your missing boss."

  "And she'll help find him?"

  "Maybe. The thing about immortals is while everyone around them dies, they keep on living. So making an immortal friend, or at least keeping another immortal from becoming an enemy, is a top priority. It means they don't have to watch their backs forever. She may not be unhappy about his disappearance, but she will take it seriously."

  Bella rose from her seat. It felt strange. She'd come for answers and, surprisingly, had gotten some. They weren't the ones she'd been looking for, but they were answers. But what did she do now? Did she trust the man claiming to be her father's friend? Was he really a friend, or was he playing a role required of an Imperium agent?

  She turned and made her way to the door. How could she be more confused now than when she'd arrived? The Representative's attendant held the door open, though she continued to stare down her nose at Bella with the sour look that seemed permanently tattooed on her features. Bella nodded thanks, and tried to smile, but didn't have the heart to put in it. Locking eyes with the woman for the briefest second, Bella shuddered. She'd imagined the woman to be a prim and proper secretary, all work and no play. But looking into those eyes, she now saw the woman for what she was, a killer through and through.

  Wallace claimed he had done nothing, that the peace treaty prevented him from attacking anyone at the Conclave, but what about his assistant? If the way her hand never shook while holding a gun was any sign, she would be capable of it. The Imperium would probably even have something to help her get by the wards on the room. But what about the box? Would she have been capable of smashing the box like that?

  Bella stepped through the door, trying to fight down the rising tide of questions threatening to drown her. Should she say something? Ask something? Would she get an honest answer if she did?

  Turning around, she stared into the room and let her eyes flick back and forth between Wallace and his attendant before settling on the man. Emotions seemed to war on his face and she couldn't tell if he was more upset at her having come or relieved at her leaving.

  "Bella, I…" He raised his hand as though to grab back the words. The silence stretched a moment longer before he lowered his hand and sighed. "I hope you know you can trust me. Please, come to me if you need any help or advice."

  She nodded once and stood silently as the door swung closed. What could she say to that? Did she trust him? Would she go to him for help? That was almost word for word the same as the offer made by Darius. Did she dare trust Wallace more than a vampire? He was Imperium. The worst a vampire could do was suck her dry and leave her for dead. Who knows what the Imperium could do? Even worse, she knew he was hiding something. But what?

  She needed to think. No. She needed to talk, to wring out the questions in her mind, sift through them until she knew which ones were important. Her lips pursed, and with a deep breath, she turned and strode down the hall. Cat had better be back in her room or there would be hell to pay. And she'd make that furry feline sit and listen too. Now all I have to do is find the room.

  11

  Pinning her familiar down to listen was harder than she'd expected. But, while threats hardly ever worked on the feline, bribes usually did the trick. This time she agreed to keep a few caged mice in the apartment for him to play with, though the smug look on his face was almost enough to make her forget about talking to him at all. But she had a feeling that within a week or two, he would grow bored with having them around. Even though he was a familiar, he was still a cat, and cats enjoy the hunt. Besides, she got the feeling he wanted the mouse cage more because she said no than any other reason. Again, it was a cat thing.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, she told him what she'd learned. Talking it through seemed to help, and the tornado in her mind calmed somewhat, though it didn't help with the jittery energy that seemed to build inside her. When it became too much, she got off the bed and paced in circles. The room wasn't large, but at least she could do that. Cat continued to lie on the bed, front paws tucked beneath his chest, and watched her without saying a thing. In fact, she realized, he hadn't said a thing since she started talking. Wasn't he supposed to be helping her work through this?

  "Well?" Bella said, pausing in her pacing long enough to give her familiar a piercing look.

  "Well what?"

  "Aren't you going to say something?"

  "What do you want me to say? You seem to do a suitable job of talking all by yourself. Why would I interrupt?" Cat tilted his head. Over the years, she'd learned to recognize what most of the looks he could give her meant, and this one said either he was confused or she was an idiot. She went for the former.

  "I came to you for help, not to listen to myself talk."

  "Oh, you want help? Why didn't you say so? I can do that." He untucked his paws and, with a stretch that left his stomach touching the bed while his back arched, gave a wide-mouthed yawn. Shaking himself, he looked up and locked her eyes with his own green ones. "Are you listening? Because I don't really want to repeat myself."

  Bella nodded. Maybe he was getting serious for the first time, laying aside his sarcastic demeanor and acerbic wit. Maybe he would actually try to help instead of insult her. She almost wanted to hold her breath.

  "Stop whining," he said before nodding as if to punctuate his words.

  "What?" She felt as though he'd stuck a needle in her favorite birthday balloon. "How's that supposed to help? Stop whining? I'm not whining."

  "Oh? And what do you call everything you've said since coming back?"

  "I call it trying to work out a plan." She said it with a little more heat than she meant.

  "A plan, you say? A plan generally means you know what your goal is and what you need to do to achieve it. I haven't heard any of that yet. It's mostly been about how the world is unfair and they put everything on your shoulders."

  "That's not f—" She wanted to say fair, but when his head tilted, she cut herself short. Word games with Cat were like playing chess with a grand master, and there was no way she would make it that easy for him. She harumphed and dropped to a seat on the bed, crossing her arms as she did. Her weight caused the mattress to bounce and tossed Cat a few inches into the air. She smiled at that but wiped the expression away. The last thing she wanted was to be petty. "So tell me, O wise one, what plan would you make?"

  "Oh, that's easy. Do nothing, vote tomorrow, go home, and forget this place exists."

  "But I can't just do nothing."

  "Why not?"

  "Why not? Haven't you been listening?"

  "Intently. I have a headache from listening. Answer the question."

  "Because I…" She took a breath. How could she explain it to him? Where to start?

  "Because?"

  "Because… because I can't. That's all. I just can't." Even she could feel how lame the excuse was, but she really just couldn't. Uncovering the truth might not be her job, but who else was there? If she returned home without answers, she wasn't sure she'd be able to look her herself in the mirror. Besides, she shouldn't have to justify herself to Cat, should she?

  "Okay, you can't." Cat sat back on his haunches. Raising one paw, he licked at it before continuing. "Since you can't, then you need to determine what your goal is. What is it you really want?"

  "I k
now what I want."

  "Do you? Because it seems to me you're splitting your focus here."

  "I'm not… I mean… Wait, what?"

  "You're worried about the vote and finding the Moab, and now you're distracted by new information about your father. You need to focus on what's really important and not be sidetracked by useless trivia."

  "But my father—"

  "He's dead."

  "That's, that's not fair." This time she didn't stop herself. Cat's words were like a slap in the face. How dare he say it so callously? Her father might be dead, but she still deserved the truth, didn't she? Bella tried to fan the sparks of outrage, turn them into a roaring inferno so she could yell at her familiar. Instead, all she got was a knot in her stomach.

  "What's not fair? Nothing new will bring him back. Concentrate on what you have to do now and deal with everything else later."

  "But…" She wanted to scream and yell, but more than that, she wanted to cry.

  "I know it hurts." The tone of his voice softened enough for Bella to look over at him. "You do deserve answers, and that time will come. But first, deal with what you need to right now. After we locate the Finder and get out of this place, I'll help you track down the Representative and we'll make him answer questions until the sun goes down."

  Cat stood and walked over to her. Settling himself in her lap, he began purring. The sound was loud enough in the silence it might as well have been the rapid fire of a machine gun, but the vibrations in her lap seemed to travel throughout her entire being, soothing her body and soul wherever they passed.

  Bella laid her hand on his back and began stroking Cat's smooth black fur. Tears threatened to well in her eyes, but she scrubbed them away with the back of her hand.

  "Oh, so now you're helping, huh?" Her voice cracked, and try as she might, it lacked the sarcasm she would normally have wanted. "You could have said so before."

  "I'm a cat," he replied without a break in his purring.

  "And there's nothing more inscrutable?"

  "Not in this world."

  Bella chuckled and held him closer.

  12

  As she wandered through the corridors of the underground complex, list clutched in hand, Bella thought she could finally understand some of its layout. Some parts were constructed in a grid pattern, similar to well-planned city streets up on the surface, which made them easy to navigate. But other areas felt less like a grid and more like a maze, designed to confuse and disorient anyone passing through, and probably served an internal security purpose. An invading army would end up fighting itself as it tried to find its way around. At least that's what she assumed, since she was currently lost in one of these areas.

  Though being lost was an overstatement. More like turned around. Since leaving Cat at their room, she'd stopped no fewer than six vampires to ask for directions. And, though they’d all either looked down their nose at her or given the impression they were about to bite her, she'd made her way to another residence section of the complex. Until this point, she hadn't realized how far her room was situated away from other members of the Conclave and wondered if it had been done on purpose.

  If she hadn't become used to the sight of the different supernatural creatures inhabiting the Circus, the trade crossroads for anything with the magic to reach it, she would have stared in awe at everything she passed in the hall. It wasn't just the number of vampires either, though they were in the majority as they flitted from place to place. In the last five minutes alone, she'd seen a Badalisk, a creature with a huge goat-like head adorned with small horns and glowing red eyes, another Zilant, a pair of sprites that paid no attention to where they were going as they gossiped with each other, much to the annoyance of the people walking around them, and a handful of other creatures.

  With the sheer number of creatures parading about, Bella wondered how the vampires could keep the peace. The Circus had the Great Eye, the moon-sized orb that floated overhead that made violence impossible in that pocket dimension, but there wasn't any such magic around here that she could feel. She didn't have to wonder long, however, when a fight broke out between two beings covered in feathers. Almost as soon as one struck out at the other with a taloned foot, a swarm of vampires arrived, flitting into place between the combatants. With their strength and numbers, it was easy for them to force the fighters away from each other.

  One of the bird-creatures, unwilling to stop the fight, lashed out at a female vampire. Its curved talon sliced through the vampire's face with the ease of a knife cutting through a piece of parchment. Though the strike snapped the woman's head back with a crack of broken bone louder than the various murmurs, squawks, and whispers of beings gathered to watch the fight, the rest of her stayed in place. Other vampires swarmed over the bird, giving it little choice but to either back up or be buried beneath a mass of undead bodies. Even as Bella watched, the wounded woman reached up and moved her head back into place. The long gash that ran from her left temple and across her face to the bottom of her right jaw was already closing. In minutes it would disappear, leaving no trace on her alabaster skin. Her head jerked as bones reset and repaired themselves. But even before she'd completely healed, the woman was back in the fray.

  In moments, the vampire crew hustled both fighters off in different directions, leaving no evidence of their altercation behind except for a few stray feathers. Bella shuddered. As far as supernatural creatures went, vampires were near the top of the food chain, and with good reason. It was nearly impossible to kill a vampire, even a young one, with brute force. They healed too fast for that. And things like stakes to the heart and sunlight had no effect on them either. Well, apart from upsetting them. Who wouldn't be upset to have someone shove a pointed stick in their chest?

  It was possible there were other creatures with better healing powers than vampires, but the only ones Bella knew of for certain were shifters. Damage one of them and the wounds would heal almost as well. The only difference would be, after they shifted back to human, a scar would exist instead of smooth skin. Like vampires, shifters had some immunity to magic as well. It was a one-two combination that made for something nightmarish.

  But, though vampires had tremendous strengths, they had weaknesses as well. Only humans could become vampires. Bella wasn't sure why that was the case, but it was true. And even then, not all humans had the ability to change. Less than one in fifty people bitten would turn, and of those that did, most died a true death within a few days. This kept their numbers low. Their food sources also limited them. Vampires needed a steady supply of blood, any blood, to keep themselves moving. The problem was vampires took on attributes of anything they fed on. Feed on horses too often and a vampire might grow hooves instead of hands. Feed on rats and they could grow a tail. This was the basis of the legends of vampires having the ability to shape-shift.

  With the altercation over and the crowd breaking up, Bella turned to make her way toward the chambers of the first name on her list. She knew she needed to make a left up ahead, but was it a right after that, or another left? She blew a breath in exasperation. She didn't want to stop and ask for directions again.

  She paused, trying to remember, and scratched at the back of her hand. It had tingled, and, trying to concentrate on where she was going, she found the itch distracting. The more she scratched at it, though, the more it seemed to change from an annoying itch to a subtle burning. In moments, the subtle burning changed and became pronounced as the back of her hand turned an angry red and began throbbing.

  Pain flared and shot up her arm as though an electric current tore through her hand. Grasping her wrist, she held tight and hissed, trying to ride out the agony crashing through her like waves at high tide. Falling to her knees, she tried to shout, to beg for help, but the only sound she could make was a squeak that wouldn't attract the attention of a dormouse. Most of the creatures passing by gave her an odd look. One, a skinny thing that looked like a weird relation to a bonobo monkey with bright orange
and yellow fur, even moved to the far side of the corridor to put as much room between them as possible.

  What was going on? Why did her hand, no, her entire arm, feel as though she'd just stuck it into a blast furnace? The burning sensation traveled over her shoulder and down her back, heating her up from the inside out. Bella's eyes watered, and everything became a blurred mess as she fought against the pain. As it spread, even her lungs felt like they were on fire. She tried to breathe, but even the smallest movement shoved spikes of unbearable pain through her chest.

  Collapsing to the floor, huddled against the wall like a wounded animal, she knew she would not live much longer. Unable to think through the pain now suffusing her entire body, she had no choice but to wait for the world to end. She almost wanted it to happen. The sharp spikes of pain focused her mind on every sense in her body, regardless of how she tried to block them out. Every twitch, every movement was a world of agony and confusion.

  It was as though her body forgot how to work. She tasted noise and heard color. Even her sense of smell was off. Her nose screamed it smelled the ocean. She might as well have been standing on a beach, breathing in the salty spray of ocean water as it crashed against the rocks. Even in the midst of pain, she couldn't stop herself from thinking how strange that was. Why would she be smelling seawater? And fish? She could smell fish. Was this her brain dying? Was the afterlife an ocean?

  The more she concentrated on that thought, the less the pain seemed to rip through her. And as though it were a lifeline tossed to a drowning man, she grabbed on and clung for her life. In moments the pain filling her ebbed, just like the tide, and she took her first breath of cool, clean air in what felt like an eternity. The darkness at the edge of her vision faded, shrinking away, though her sight remained blurry from tears. As her lungs pumped more oxygen into her body, the burning faded away as well, retreating until it was only a dull throb on the back of her hand.