by L. K. Below
Somebody cried out in pain. A feminine voice. Heaven whipped her head those last few inches around the corner of the building to view the scene.
Her target stood over Scissors prone form, fists raised. A red mark across Scissors’s chin, from whatever had likely thrown her to the ground. A garbage bag was open, contents strewn, clearing explaining her presence in the alley.
As for the killer, he must have followed her out the back.
The man fisted his hands in the long portion of Scissors’s jagged hair. “Tell me where he is!”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him in weeks.”
Terrence, most likely. Tears streamed down Scissors’s oval face, her skin preternaturally pale. Would she faint? Tell him anything. But Scissors wouldn’t lie.
Heaven stood poised in indecision. Would she let yet another person die? Let alone someone as sweet as Scissors? No. Not this time.
Empty beer bottles littered the ground, pouring from the torn garbage bag. Heaven knew firsthand how dangerous those could be. A plan of action formed in her mind. Crazy. She might not live through it. But no more people would die before her eyes.
Digging her hand into her pocket, she pulled out the prepaid cellphone she’d found. Dialing 9-1-1 took seconds. She laid it on the ground as the man delivered another cry-wrenching blow to Scissors. No time to waste.
Racing into the alley, she bent to fish a single beer bottle. One solid smack against the corner of the Dumpster broke it. The edges sharp. Heaven placed herself between Scissors and the murderer.
“Go,” she said over her shoulder. “Get out of here.”
From the scrape of shoes against the pavement, Scissors obeyed. Thank God.
Heaven squared off against the man. A twisted sneer mangled his face as he pulled out a weapon of his own. A stake made of metal. Heaven swallowed.
Could she buy herself enough time for the police to arrive?
Chapter 8
Frantic pounding sounded from Lori’s door. Devin again? But the voice which called out, although equally familiar, was in no way masculine.
“Lori! Lori, please, are you there?”
Crossing her room in two steps, Lori wrenched open the door. Scissors tumbled in, nearly knocking them both to the ground. Lori gasped at her appearance.
Bleeding lip, swollen chin on one side, eyes puffy from crying and tears wetting too pale skin. “Scissors, what happened?”
The faux-vampire couldn’t support her own weight without lines of agony etched into grooves around her mouth and on her forehead. Steering her over to the bed, Lori forced her to sit. Then she dashed into the bathroom for a paper cup of cold water.
Scissors drank gratefully. Her shoulders still shook as she swallowed. When she held out the cup, Lori refilled it.
Finally, her tears dried enough for her to talk. “What happened?” Lori coaxed, trying to keep her tone sympathetic. Comfort wasn’t exactly in her vocabulary.
“He…he wanted to know where to find Terrence. And h-hit me. I told him I didn’t know, but he just got angrier and angrier.” Scissors broke off on a sob.
Lori briskly rubbed the vamp’s back. “Who?” she asked softly. Her senses warned that she already knew the answer.
“Your new b-boyfriend.”
It rankled for Devin to be called that when she wanted nothing to do with him, but she tried not to let her temper show. “He’s not my boyfriend, trust me. Just some guy who wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Angry? Beating a woman? This wasn’t the patient Devin she knew. But unless he had a twin, it could be no one else. Good thing she’d decided to stay away from him. He was dangerous.
She urged Scissors to stand. “Come on, you can’t stay here.”
With wide eyes, Scissors lurched toward the door. “Underground! I can’t believe I just left… We don’t have another bartender.”
“One of the waitresses will be smart enough to serve people. You need to go to the police, Scissors. You can barely stand. It’ll be fine.” At Scissors’s disbelieving expression, Lori added, “If it makes you feel better, we’ll call the club from the cab. But you need to report this. I’ll come with you.”
Thank goodness, Scissors nodded. Bracing the vamp’s arm over her shoulders, Lori helped her out of the dorm. But a tight feeling stretched her stomach, alerting her to the fact that this was far from over.
* * * *
Heaven woke to the various blips and buzzes of hospital machines. Her entire body throbbed in time. She opened her eyes to stare at the blindingly white room. Why was she in the hospital?
A cast held her arm straight, currently in a sling. Otherwise, she had aches but nothing broken. And even those pains were minor. They didn’t even compare to a good drunken beating from her father. The nurses must have drugged her.
She remembered something. A flash. An alley and a man. A broken bottle and rage written on his face. She tried to sit up, but her skin pulled tight against a puckered wound in her side. Biting her lip, she stifled her agonized cry. After a few seconds spent lying limp, the pain subsided. She tried again, slower this time. Another twinge from her side, but she expected it this time.
More memory returned. Lunging, feinting. Just trying to stay out of reach, abandoning her makeshift weapon. Pain as the murderer pummeled her, stake tearing into her side, but then it wrenched free of his grasp. He had only his fists, but she bled. So much blood. Slick, warm, pungent. But her strength faded fast. He would kill her soon. And then she heard sirens in the distance.
Heaven grimaced as she studied the various tubes and wires attached to her. If she pulled the ones from her chest, the machine would call in nurses. So her IV had to go first. Steeling herself, she pulled the plastic tubes from her skin, immediately pressing down on the small hole.
Shit. What could she do? Even if she spent every last penny from her college fund, she couldn’t pay for this. She didn’t have insurance. The debt would kill every last one of her dreams of getting out of the hellhole she was in. Her only choice was to get the hell out. Think. Had she carried her ID with her? No. She never did when trailing a dangerous suspect. Good.
How to escape without drawing attention? She was good at sneaking around, but there were limits. With no shoes and wearing a hospital gown, her chances of slipping by undetected were slim. But the stand beside her held a spacious drawer. Maybe…
Twisting, she reached with her uninjured hand. The drawer held loose cash, her bus pass, and her jeans, but no shirt. They must have had to cut it away to treat her. Stifling a pang of sadness over the loss of her favorite sweater, she pulled out the jeans and her sneakers and slowly, methodically pulled them on. Difficult with only one working hand. She would make a fashion statement with the hospital gown, but she didn’t have a choice. At least she wouldn’t be too cold when facing the outdoor chill.
She stood and reached for the wires under her gown. Once she pulled off the heart monitor, she would have seconds at best. She stretched her legs, making sure they weren’t stiff. An immobile arm was little inconvenience, but a bad leg? Totally different story.
Taking a deep breath, she tightened her fingers on the wires. If this didn’t work, she would end up strapped into the damn bed. One chance. Now.
The next few moments were a blur. Nurses ran from every corner, screamed for help, but no one checked the room of the comatose patient beside her. Every few seconds, she risked a glance into the hall. When it was mostly clear, people clustered around her room, she stepped out and made a run for it.
Now she just needed to hope her dad didn’t catch her in this vulnerable state.
* * * *
Lori couldn’t keep cowering in her room. It was undignified. It was letting him win. But Devin had pounded on her door nearly every day for two weeks. He tried odd points during the day, often returning two or even three times. She couldn’t take it. She worried for Scissors’s safety.
Hell, she worried for her own. How long could she stay cooped up in here?
She’d apologized and enlisted Keri’s help in bringing food, but Christmas vacation had started three days ago. Lori had run out of food yesterday. At some point, she needed to get out.
What better time than now?
But the thought of leaving while wearing her eyecatching gothic apparel gave her tremors. Instead, she dressed like a run-of-the-mill student in an overlarge university sweatshirt and yoga pants. She pulled out all her earrings and her nose ring. She fashioned her hair in a long ponytail–if she could have, she would have dyed it blond! Anything to look a little more like Keri and a little less like herself.
She exited through Keri’s room, breathing a sigh of relief when she didn’t see Devin. Taking no chances, she chose the back door of the dorm instead of the front. She meandered through campus to take a bus at a stop which wasn’t her usual one, but once she sat down she could think of only one place she wanted to go.
Underground.
Devin might be there. He might be following even now, she countered. Why should she let that stop her? She had her phone. If he neared her, she would call the police without hesitation. Even though she was afraid, her gut twittered with nervousness. All she wanted was a meal, or failing that, a cup of coffee with a friend. Was that too much to ask for?
Her apprehension eased marginally when she stepped off the bus and didn’t see him. More so when she didn’t spot him in Underground’s crowd. She claimed her seat at the bar.
Heaven was working, her cast-coated arm in a sling. Lori gaped. “What happened to you?”
The prep set down a bottle of beer with a sharp clink. Crossing the few feet between them, Heaven snarled, “What happened? What happened to you, Lori?”
Lori blinked. She wasn’t the one with a broken arm.
But Heaven wasn’t finished. “You used to be badass. You used to get the job done. Now your boyfriend leaves you and what? You’re gonna cry?” She slammed her fist on the counter. “Poor Lori Glory feels sorry for herself. If you’re not going to put in a little effort, don’t even pretend to be one of us. Or did you forget you have more important things to do?”
For a second, Lori didn’t understand what Heaven was trying to say. Then it dawned. The kid was talking about the Spenta Michos.
What had Lori been doing these past few weeks? She recoiled from the bar in disgust. The Spenta Michos was missing. In dire need of help. And all this time, she’d been moping after Terrence. Thanks to her own ineptitude, the trail was five weeks colder than it had been upon Terrence’s death.
Five weeks.
As Lori walked away, Heaven yelled after her, “Use your sense, damn it!”
Lori ground to a halt.
Use your sense.
Use your senses.
How much of an idiot could she have been? Her visions might have for the most part deserted her, but she had other abilities. Other, very potent abilities. Closing her eyes, she summoned the auras.
When she opened them again, colored shimmered over her vision. People…happy, proud, self-conscious, nervous, lustful. Any strong emotion a person felt, Lori saw mapped out in color. The kaleidoscope-like sensation made her head ache, but it gave her protection. The biggest part of fear was anticipating it. Now Lori could see malice coming from afar.
Literally.
With her anxiety lightened, she hurried to her dorm room. Her thesis, hunting for the Spenta Michos. These were things she should have been working on. And with that thought, she threw herself into her work.
The time for feeling guilty over Terrence had passed.
Chapter 9
The shrill ring of the phone roused Lori from sleep. What time was it? She groped for the phone. Three in the afternoon. Her sleep-fogged mind didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”
Scissors’s hysterical voice penetrated her lethargy.
“Lori! Please, you have to help me. He’ll kill me. Please, please help!”
Blinking, Lori threw off the covers and reached for her boots. “What’s going on? Scissors, where are you?”
“St. Mary’s Church, by the university. Please, come quickly.”
A church? That couldn’t be right. Who kidnapped someone in a church? Her gut agreed with her. Something was wrong.
But Scissors was in danger.
Lori didn’t have time to lose. Stuffing her feet into boots, she threw on her coat over her pajamas and rushed to the door. She hesitated, staring at the stake sitting on her dresser. She still hadn’t discarded it. If something was amiss, she might need a weapon, and she hadn’t gotten around to buying herself a new knife after losing the last. Before she changed her mind, she grabbed the stake and tucked it into her boot.
She ran to the church, not bothering to board a bus. Shutting her eyes, she opened them to her aura vision. Daylight made the colors doubly confusing when they blended into the background, but she needed all the warning she could get.
Across the street from the church, she paused to get her bearings. She couldn’t just barge in, even if her friend was in danger. She had to have some sort of plan.
Something stirred behind her. As she turned, a sudden pain radiated through her skull, chased closely by unconsciousness.
* * * *
Tha-whump. Tha-whump. Lori’s head throbbed in time to her steady heartbeat. What had happened?
Well, clearly she had been knocked unconscious. But by who? She groaned as she tried to lift her head.
“Awake, are you?”
Devin’s voice. Damn him. But swearing at him wasn’t going to do her much good. She didn’t answer, choosing to analyze the situation instead.
Her arms were pinned behind her, tied with coarse rope to her ankles. Not the sort of thing she would be able to claw through, though maybe she could undo the knot. She was slumped forward, but not gagged or blindfolded. And it was cold. She was outside. A quick glance to the side proved she was beneath a deserted overpass. Which part of the city was she in? The sun still rode low in the sky, so she couldn’t have been out of it for too long.
The situation reminded her too much of the one five weeks ago. Tied to a chair then, she hadn’t proven very resourceful. Terrence had saved her.
But he couldn’t do that this time. She was on her own.
Gritting her teeth against the pain, she lifted her head in search of Scissors. There–on the ground. Gagged, bound, and unconscious.
“Scissors. Is she…”
“She lives.”
Devin crouched in front of her. His gaze glittered with malice–as did his aura, when she bothered to check. Why hadn’t she checked weeks ago? Terrence had warned her about using her powers when meeting strangers.
With his face impassive, Devin added, “For now.”
Lori bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, Lori my dear, that her continued good health is conditional upon how helpful you are.”
She didn’t like the sound of that. The only person allowed to call her by an endearment was Terrence.
Where had that thought come from? Terrence is dead. Get over him.
Or better yet, find a way out of this situation.
Wait a second. If her hands were tied to her ankles, they were close to her boot top. And her stake. She twisted, straining her wrists.
Devin dangled the weapon in front of her. “Looking for this?”
Fuck. Back to picking the knot with her fingers. Though that hadn’t worked out well the last time she’d been in this situation.
Mustering a glare, she spat, “What do you want to know? Where Terrence is?”
“Bingo.”
“My, what a one-track mind you have. Is there any room in there for other thoughts, or is it all used up?”
Devin didn’t rise to the bait. Instead of insulting her back or hitting her, he calmly strode to Scissors’s prone form. And leveled the stake at her back.
“You were saying?”
Stupid knot! She couldn’t find a crack to pry open. Keep him
talking. He’s bluffing.
“Are you really going to toss away your bargaining chip so soon?”
Devin kneeled. His arms flexed as he drew back for the kill.
“He’s dead!”
Devin paused, listening.
“Terrence is dead. I killed him five weeks ago.”
“Impossible.” Devin whispered the word, but he eased away from Scissors.
Lori licked her dried lips. They immediately burned as the cold tried to freeze her saliva. “It’s true,” she croaked.
The confession didn’t weigh lightly on her. One panicked minute, and the truth slipped out. She would rather have thought of any sort of lie. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
Devin’s features tightened in anger. “It can’t be true. He isn’t easy to kill.”
A stake to the chest will do the job for just about anyone.
But Lori didn’t say that. Devin rushed her, holding the tip of the stake to her neck instead of at Scissors. Each beat of her pulse leapt up to meet the cold metal tip. The skin on the neck was delicate. It wouldn’t take that much pressure to rip her throat open. She held very, very still.
“He’s not dead,” Devin bellowed, his eyes wild.
“No,” came another voice. “I’m not.”
Lori knew that voice. One she’d never thought she would hear again. “T-Terrence?”
Somehow, while she’d jabbered on with Devin, day had plunged into twilight. Lori could make out the forms of Devin and Scissors nearby, but nothing past the edge of the overpass.
“You’re still alive?” Maybe she was hallucinating. Maybe she was dead, too.
The voice softened. “I’m sorry, Lori. I meant to tell you. I was just waiting for the right time. I guess I waited too long.”
Devin guffawed. He grinned from ear to ear. “Show yourself, demon, or your pretty bitch will die.”
Terrence responded in kind. “Let Lori and her friend go and then we’ll talk. I might even let you keep both your kidneys.”
The stake pressed against Lori’s jugular. “No deal. Not until you show yourself.”