Tainted Blood (Hell's Belle Book 2)

by Greco, Karen

  The audience jostled against me, and I pressed my body into the wall, trying to make myself as small as possible. Tonight didn't feel right. It was my first job ever without Frankie. When it came to the work, I trusted Frankie to have my back. No offense to Max and Darcy, but I wasn't sure about bringing them into this. Darcy managed communications from home base, and she was hardly ever with us in the field. I was worried about her safety.

  Then there was Max. He was a good cop, no doubt. But he was definitely a cop first. And sometimes we had to do some very illegal things to get the job done. Was he up for that? I wasn't so sure. Add to it the love potion problem. He was clearly crushing on me, and his attentions were almost suffocating. With jealousy clouding his brain, his Berserker roiled just beneath the surface. Given the number of humans in the crowd tonight, if he didn't control it, he was a total liability.

  And Frankie was out there, somewhere, probably in some manic frenzy. But I didn't have a clear handle on him. Our psychic connection was nearly severed. Every once in a while, I felt a strong sense of elation, which told me he fed. This was often followed by panic, which told me that he’d lost control and killed. If Frankie came back from this, and there was a body count, would he be able to survive the guilt? Before he met my dad, Frankie was a monster. And those many, many years of violent kills left a dark mark on his soul.

  Then, like a weak cell phone signal cutting out, my line to Frankie was gone. And that was my time of sheer terror.

  Was he dead? Frankie was a full vampire — centuries old. He had more strength than a Beta-Vamp to stay alive. He just needed to fight. And with each of his kills, I feared he'd lose a bit of the fight that was in him.

  Casper gently oozed into me, pulling me out of my thoughts. For once I was grateful for the ice of ghost that washed over me. My temples pulsed at the invasion, but it was nothing compared to the usual screaming migraine he ignited.

  "Nice landing," I complimented him, and meant it.

  "Been working on it," he said proudly, but he sounded winded.

  Whatever he just did cost him a little bit of his strength. I found out the hard way that the more Casper exerted himself, the more chunks of his ghost form got ripped away from him. Like decomposition causes physical bodies to rot away, certain stressors attack his ethereal form. The Blood Ops Spectral Research Team had no idea if ghosts eventually lose so much of their ethereal selves that they finally disappear, or if they just continue on as ghosts, with chunks ripped out of them. Studying ghosts wasn't easy. The ability to communicate not only with ghosts but also see them in their astral form was quite rare. So far, I was the only Blood Ops member in the history of the organization capable of doing it. Casper and I, we were groundbreakers.

  "Did they find him?" I wanted to give him a minute to get his strength back, but I was anxious. Casper followed Bertrand's goons after our scrying session. But when they got close, Frankie ripped one goon's head off and sent the other one running. By the time they regrouped, Frankie was gone.

  We had an idea on his general location, near the old train tunnels at the base of College Hill. If they found where Frankie was holed up, and he needed me, I was ready to cut this stupid mission short to go out and grab him.

  "No, sorry," Casper wheezed into my brain.

  "Dammit!" I pressed my head against the rough brick behind me, trying keep myself together. "Where'd they look?"

  Casper mentally traced his steps, each location vivid in my mind's eye as he walked through them. From the bar to the base of the Hill, along the dark roads and alleyways in between, and then down into the dank tunnel. He turned up nothing.

  "Something else," Casper said before taking control of my body and forcing my neck to turn towards the bar. I tried really hard not to fight it, knowing that wrenching my neck wouldn't feel so great. But it's damn hard not to fight against your body's possessor.

  There, perched on a stool, was Alfonso. He looked annoyed, which probably had something to do with Eva, who sat right beside him, running her mouth. It looked like she was really going at a solid clip, too. He saw me watching them and gave me a sheepish salute while I just shook my head. It was bad enough that Darcy was in the thick of all this crap, but now Al and Eva? An old, alcoholic witch who couldn't remember spells and a clairvoyant who believed she was defrauding her customers with her psychic abilities.

  "Why are they here?" I snarled.

  "With Frankie down, they thought you could use the extra help."

  "Casper, this isn't extra help. These are extra bodies that I have to watch out for if the shit hits the fan." Which it probably would, considering why we were doing the job in the first place. They had to get out of here.

  "Hey, guys?" I groaned into my chest. "Eva and Al are at the bar. Helping."

  "I love being part of a team!" Matty cooed.

  "Shut up, Matty, or I will rip your goddamn throat out." My frustration had finally boiled over.

  "She didn't mean that," Darcy jumped in.

  "Yes, Darcy, I did."

  "That's the stress talking, Nina. You aren't ripping anyone's throat out."

  Gritting my teeth, I offered a half-hearted grunt of agreement. Darcy was already fragile, and I couldn't risk her getting emotional again. The last thing we needed was a wailing banshee.

  But Eva and Al needed to leave before things turned ugly. The crowd at the concert was young and virile, and most of them looked pretty damn high. This was a dangerous combination.

  "Going off comms and getting onstage. Roger. Over and out," Matty said. He sounded like a kid playing cops with his friends.

  I felt slightly better with Matty off the network. Not only was he a prima donna, but he was also a damn fool and liable to screw the whole thing up. Especially with his number one demon fan drifting around backstage.

  The audience surged forward when the band filed onto the stage. With the dense crowd finally moving away from the wall, I inched my way against it towards Eva and Al at the bar. Theoretically, it should have been easy, but I was also moving against the tide, so it was kind of like walking through mud. The sound of a cymbal crash drew my focus to the stage for a split second, and I saw Elias behind his drum kit, his mop of black curls dancing against his face, his eyes glowing red. Were those contacts? He looked almost rabid.

  Then Matty bounded onto the stage, and the crowd pushed in a wave towards the band, screams of excitement cresting with the movement. In his torn up Sex Pistols t-shirt and skinny black jeans, he looked every inch the rock star. His violet eyes were lined in thick kohl, and when the guitars powered up behind him, they glowed a full-on purple. The preening, insufferable brat that I knew was left in the wings. On stage, he was almost a god. He may be a Beta-Vamp, but he sure knew how to harness a full vampire's irresistible sensuality when he was performing. With one pose, he had the crowd — both genders — completely lusting after him.

  And I was related to that?

  A sharp odor hit my nose, and I wrinkled it in disgust. The air around me turned slightly musky, like a feral animal staking out its territory with a pungent spray. Steam rose from the hundreds of bodies crowded in front of the stage, removing the rawness from the frigid February air that leaked into the drafty club. The air was thick, and the crowd pulsed with the rhythm that Elias was pounding out on his drums. Matty loosed a primal scream. The crowd joined him.

  The audience was now a jumble of intertwined arms and legs. Clothes were getting peeled away as the crowd stomped their feet and gyrated to the music, their bodies glistening with sweat. I searched past the crowd and zeroed in on Max, who was glued to his post at the side of the stage. Unlike the rest of the crowd, who seemed intoxicated by the music, Max was completely unaffected. He looked almost as perplexed as me.

  Casper was getting agitated, building up pressure in my head. It felt like a giant sinus infection.

  "What is your problem, Casper?" I shouted, the noise of the band completely drowning me out.

  "This is so freakin' wr
ong, Nina."

  "What's wrong?"

  "The music."

  "Not your taste?" I snorted.

  "Not it," he wheezed.

  Then it happened. Some unseen forced slammed me to the filthy floor of the club. I was splayed out on my back, in dirty puddles of spilled booze. I writhed around, trying to free my arms and legs from whatever force pinned them down, but it was impossible to break the bonds.

  "I'm down, I'm down!" I yelled into my chest, hoping my coms still worked. My earpiece was knocked out from the force of slamming into the floor, so I had no idea what was going on outside of my field of vision. And that was mostly a mass of stomping boots and discarded plastic cups.

  The downward pressure on my body was massive, like gravity on steroids trying to pull me through the floor. I shrieked when I felt my ribs snap from the compression on my chest.

  "What the fuck is happening?" I yelled to no one in particular.

  "Reverse exorcism," Casper's voice was faint, like he was hiding somewhere deep inside of me.

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  The drums crashed faster and louder, and the crowd stomped their feet to the beat. Then they began chanting, drowning out Matty's soaring voice. Casper retreated further as my body began to shake violently.

  "Holy shit!" I screamed.

  The crowd, now at near hysteria, danced with complete abandon. They turned away from the stage and towards me, and I saw their eyes glowing red. Many were tearing at each other’s clothes; some were just ripping their own clothes off. A beefy-looking guy tossed a petit woman down to her knees beside me. Reaching under her skirt, he ripped away her underwear. Then he tore his belt off, barely dropped his jeans and mounted her from behind. She stared at me, a small, cruel smile spread across her lips, but her eyes were vacant. She reached for me and grabbed my face with both her hands while the man continued to pump against her.

  "Come out and play little ghost," she said. Her pink tongue flicked out at my face, and I tried to squirm away from her and her orgy partner.

  Someone gripped the back of my jacket and pulled me up off the floor. Max, who was halfway to Berserk by then, dragged me towards the door. His muscles were bulging out of his shredded jeans and official Killing Haley tour jacket. But even with his Berserker strength, I was dead weight. And since I was stiff as a board, he was hauling a really heavy cardboard cutout.

  I looked back at the stage. Elias was still pounding away, his clothes soaked through in sweat. Matty was off the stage and using the crowd to surf his way to Darcy, who was still on the sound engineer platform high above the chaos. The sound engineers were unhinged as well, throwing punches at each other. Matty climbed the scaffolding and reached her at the top, just as one of the sound engineers threw the other one off the platform. He roared with delight and turned towards Matty, who calmly gave him a shove. The second sound guy followed the first one to the floor below. Then, grabbing hands, Matty and Darcy bolted down the catwalk to the fire escape.

  Relieved that Darcy was getting out, I refocused on my own predicament. Hands were reaching towards me, pulling at my clothes. Max wrapped his arm around my chest and heaved me again. I winced in pain when he re-cracked my almost healed ribs. But my body was still immobile and I wanted to get out of the club. Cracked ribs were the least of my worries.

  Still, Max was muscle man, and this was taking way too much effort.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?" I shouted to Max over the pounding of the drums and the screams of the people. "You're half way to Berserk right now. Can't you just pull me out of here?"

  He grunted in response. Berserkers weren't much for small talk.

  A chant overtook the chaos of the club. As the voices, one deep and gruff and the other squeaky and high-pitched, cascaded over me, my muscles went from frozen ice to wobbly Jell-O shot, and I slumped into Max.

  The chanting abruptly stopped, and my body began to tighten up again. Then I heard Alfonso yell, "Go go go go. We can't keep this up. Get out now!"

  The chanting picked up again, and once again my muscles released. Al and Eva led the way, like two strange Pied Pipers, walking backwards so their chant could be heard over the loud drumming and the primal screaming of the audience. I leaned against Max. My legs were tingling and barely able to handle my weight. But the mass of bodies pushing against us from behind made the flight to the doors that much easier.

  We tumbled out onto a deserted street. The sudden intake of cold air sliced into my lungs, and I coughed. The streetlight right above us hummed loudly, flickered and then cut out abruptly, leaving us in complete silence and near darkness.

  We all just stared at each other. Eva and Al collapsed against the building, exhausted from the witchy rescue. Max was still in this weird half-strong man, half-human place. The silence was smashed abruptly as the crowd crashed against the door, trying to force their way onto the streets. Max planted his legs and pushed against it with his back, keeping them from barreling straight through.

  "What the hell just happened?" I winced and gingerly rubbed my temples. Casper was still in there, and he was emerging, clearly agitated, from wherever he’d spent the last several minutes.

  Alfonso shook his head, sucking in air between words. "Mass demon possession. Haven't seen something like this since...1978, I guess. Jonestown."

  I stared in shock at Al's shattered face, suddenly seeing the years of hard witchcraft etched into his leathered skin. Al was at Jonestown? No wonder the man was a drinker.

  A massive slam to the door caused a huge boom to echo down the empty street, putting Max’s efforts to the test. "Why weren't all of us possessed?" I said.

  "I remembered a spell. Barely. But I remembered," Alfonso said, standing taller. Eva gave him a little hug.

  "Is that why I couldn't move?"

  "No," Casper's voice was barely above a whisper. "It was because I was possessing you already."

  "Is that what you meant by reverse exorcism?"

  "Yeah. The demons were trying to extract me, so I had to bind you."

  I sighed. He was the reason why I was stiff as a board. "Thanks for that, I guess. But shit. A little warning next time, okay?"

  Casper slipped into the recesses of my head. He clearly needed time to get his strength back. We, on the other hand, weren't so lucky. There was another strike against the door, and Max grunted. The press of the horde was threatening his ability to keep the door closed. There were simply too many of them.

  I glanced around for anything — a length of chain, a two by four — that we could use to hold the door handles to buy us some time to run. But there was nothing.

  A cascade of small rocks from the top of the building caught our attention. Darcy and Matty stepped onto a rusted out fire escape which creaked under their weight. It was a solid 50 or so yards from the door.

  Looked like our fastest way out was up.

  "Darce! Send the drop ladder down!" I shouted up to her, silently hoping that the oxidized beast would work like a proper fire escape. The fire department checked that stuff, right?

  I sprinted under the ladder and then stupidly looked up, getting a face full of chipped paint and rust as it noisily inched its way down in fits and starts. When it got close enough, I did a straight vertical jump, thanking the gods that my vampire blood made me so springy. I grabbed the bottom rung, broken bits of rust pressing into my hands. My extra weight helped tug it down the rest of the way.

  "Eva! Come on!" I yelled, and the older woman tottered over to me. Giving her a boost from behind, I heaved her up a few rungs of the ladder. She cried out in exertion but caught the ladder and laboriously climbed the contraption.

  After giving Al a leg up to the ladder, I jumped on next. I climbed halfway up and then shouted to Max. "We're up! Let's go!"

  Max released the doors and sprinted to the ladder, giving it a running jump. But the bulk of his Berserkered out body kept him from getting the height he needed to grab the bottom rung. Max needed a boost
.

  The horde of newly possessed demons poured out of the doorway, stampeding down the barren street with inhuman screams. Several of them caught sight of us and they lumbered over, with only the sheer number of marauding, scrambling demons slowing their progress.

  Launching off the creaking ladder, I landed gently beside Max.

  "Together, on three," I said.

  He gave me a nod.

  I gripped his solid glutes and gave them a squeeze. I couldn't help myself. They were damn firm. Max made a noise — it could have been a laugh; it was hard to tell with a Berserker. I gave him a three count, and on his jump, I levered him up higher via his perfect behind. He just caught the lowest rung and heaved himself the rest of the way up.

  Having finally pushed through the mass of wildings, the demons who had a lock on us were closing the gap quickly.

  Once Max cleared the bottom rung, I sprang up and caught hold. But I wasn't fast enough. Demons gripped my ankles and yanked hard. I was holding on, but just barely.

  "Nina!" Darcy screamed.

  I shook my right foot lose and landed a hard kick under the demon's chin. He lurched back several feet. But the other dude was stuck fast to my left leg and yanking hard. Max scrambled back down the ladder and reached for me.

  Metal snapped and then a bolt from the top of the ladder popped loose from the brick building. Our combined weight, along with the extra pressure exerted by the pull of the demon stuck to my leg, was too much for the rickety old fire escape to handle.

  "Get off the ladder!" I yelled up to Max. "We're too heavy!"

  Max reversed direction and scrambled back up, the ladder swaying as he alternated his feet up the rungs.

  "How the hell do you kill a demon?" I yelled to no one in particular. I pulled my left arm over the bar so I was hanging by the crook of my elbow. I grabbed my closest weapon — a stake – out of the holster that crossed my chest. I was about to plow the thing into the head of the guy who was pulling on my legs.

  But when I turned my head to take aim at the demon, I gasped. "Zack?"

  A student at Rhode Island School of Design, in his early 20s with hair in impressive dreads that hung to the middle of his back, Zack was a Babe's regular. During finals, he would come in during off-hours, hang out, and play chess with Alfonso. A very talented illustrator, he wanted to work for Marvel Comics when he graduated in May.