Shadow's Messenger: An Aileen Travers Novel

by T. A. White

  A claw slid out from one of her fingers and she drew a line of blood down one forearm. I leapt to my feet, knocking my chair over in my haste. I backed away, tripping over that chair.

  “Are you crazy?” I asked. “I said no.”

  My teeth ached to bite. Her blood smelled like dessert and alcohol, nothing like the stuff I normally drank. It would taste so good going down my throat.

  I shook my head to get my thoughts back online. That way lay danger. I was still too uninformed about this life. For all I knew biting someone was a way to become beholden to them. I was keeping my fangs to myself until I knew for sure whether taking blood could get me in trouble. There was also the small matter of never having bitten a live person before. I didn’t want to start now with all these people here.

  “It’s no big deal,” she said, walking towards me.

  I backed away and encountered the wall. I slid along it as she kept advancing.

  “Don’t be such a baby.”

  She darted forward, grabbed my shoulder, bringing her arm up to my mouth. I slapped one hand over my mouth and the other on her arm, holding it away from me.

  “Well that’s a new one,” Clay drawled. “Never thought I’d see Sondra having to chase down a vampire to get her to feed.”

  “Definitely not something you see every day,” Brax said.

  Neither seemed particularly inclined to lend a hand in getting the crazy werewolf off me. I gave up on fending her off and slid down the wall to sit with my knees curled up against my chest, wrapping my arms around them and ducking my head so I was curled into a ball. Not the most dignified position, but it worked in first grade when Billy Lars tried to draw a mustache on my face.

  I clung with all my vampire strength to my knees, even as Sondra tried to pry me up or at least smear blood on my mouth.

  “As amusing as this is, we need to get back to business. Sondra, let her up,” Brax ordered.

  “But-”

  “Now.”

  “Fine, fine,” she grumbled. Her hands left me as she stood and walked away. I listened for several beats as the sound of her footsteps moved across the kitchen. Only when I heard the slight thud as she jumped back onto the counter did I risk lifting my head.

  “Didn’t you hear,” I said, feeling brave now that there was an entire length of the kitchen between us. “No means no.”

  Her eyes flashed amber, and she lifted herself as if preparing to leap.

  “No, Sondra,” Brax warned.

  She settled back down. I smirked at her. Not my most mature moment, but I wasn’t feeling particularly mature after being chased around the kitchen like a child who wouldn’t eat her vegetables.

  “Come and sit down,” Brax ordered.

  I eyed the vacant chair.

  “Think I’m good here.”

  “I didn’t ask if you were good there.” He kicked the chair slightly further out from the table. “Take a seat.”

  I glared. My temper had always been kind of short. I’d worked my whole life to manage it and for the most part succeeded. Ever since I got back from Afghanistan, and especially since my transformation, I’d had a lot more trouble keeping the volcano boiling inside me contained.

  “I’m not one of your pack. I sit where I choose.”

  His eyes bled to blue. I held his stare, not willing to back down. It probably wasn’t the wisest course to antagonize the deadly predator in front of me, but I wasn’t going to let them walk all over me.

  “Oh boy,” Clay muttered, eyeing the table top. All of the wolves dropped their gazes, looking anywhere but at the pissed off alpha.

  I lifted my chin. Go ahead. Let’s see what you’ve got.

  “You’re not very smart,” Brax said, his words taking on a guttural edge.

  “So people keep telling me.”

  The two of us glared at each other while the others avoided looking at us, holding their bodies tense as the aggression poured off Brax.

  He took a deep breath releasing it on a long exhale.

  “Chair. Please.”

  The please surprised me and judging by the expressions of the rest of the group, it wasn’t a sentiment often expressed by the alpha.

  It left me to reconsider my position. It felt safer to keep my distance, even if that safety was only in my head. I had no doubt that if I refused after he said please he would put me in that chair, even if he had to pick me up and tie me to it. He’d win too, being much stronger than me. I also couldn’t do any permanent damage to him given what he knew of my family. Did I really want to lose any more face by being forced into the chair? Predators were more likely to attack the weaker members of the herd. Might as well take the out he’d given me.

  “Since you asked so nicely.”

  No one commented when I stood and walked back to the chair, taking a seat as if the past few minutes hadn’t taken place.

  “Shall we get started?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest and trying to appear relaxed.

  Clay inserted himself into the conversation by speaking first, “Who asked you to deliver a package to Franklin?”

  “Do you guys not use Hermes at all? You know I can’t reveal the name of the person who contracted our services unless you’re the recipient. Your alpha refused to sign in Franklin’s stead so you don’t get to know that information.”

  It was pretty much what I’d told the alpha earlier.

  “What’s in the package?” Declan asked.

  “Again, that’s privileged information.”

  Brax watched me carefully, as if he was considering a particularly interesting puzzle. I gave him calm eyes. It was the look I used to give my Staff Sergeant when he’d caught me doing something I wasn’t technically supposed to.

  “Tell me what you know of Liam’s interest in all of this.”

  Sondra jolted.

  Liam. It took me a moment, but I recalled he was the vampire who’d practically kidnapped me. The one who broke several of my ribs and nearly killed me. He was also the one standing over the body at Lou’s, but I hadn’t known his name to give Brax back then. How did he know about him now?

  “Not sure who you mean,” I said, without taking my eyes off Brax’s.

  He gave me a chiding look. “Lying doesn’t really work with werewolves. We can smell deception.”

  It wasn’t difficult to believe him. Given the stress indicators, pheromones and the like, that a person gave off when telling a lie, it would be easy for his nose to sniff such deceptions out.

  “If that’s the case, why did you put me in that cage?” I asked, outraged when I realized he’d known I was telling the truth about Hermes and the package the entire time. He could have signed for the damn thing, and I would have been able to avoid this entire nightmare.

  He shrugged. “Our noses aren’t foolproof. You could have been a sociopath or someone skilled in keeping your stress signals under control. Vampires have always been particularly good at that.”

  “You all thought I was human.”

  He ignored that.

  “Back to my question. What is Liam’s interest in our matters?”

  “I don’t know. I only met the guy tonight and last night at your bar. It’s not like he told me his every thought in that time.”

  “He was at the bar?” Sondra asked.

  “Yeah. He’s the vampire who was standing over the body.” I couldn’t bring myself to identify the lump of parts I’d seen as Franklin Wade. Having never met the guy while he was alive, it was a lot easier to disassociate the dismembered parts from anything that had once been living.

  “Could this have been an assassination?” Declan asked.

  “We have been having trouble with the vampires straying onto our territory over the last few months,” Clay said.

  “I doubt it,” I chimed in. “Sounded like they had a few people killed over the past few months too. It also wouldn’t explain the wolf that attacked us earlier. More likely, whatever did the killings over the summer is responsible fo
r Franklin and the guy the vampires just lost.”

  My voice trailed off as I noticed I was the subject of four intense stares, each looking at me like I’d grown a second head.

  “And you know this how?” a voice asked from the doorway.

  Victor stepped inside and lurked against the wall. That was the only word I had for it. He used his size and scowling face to try to intimidate me.

  I raised an eyebrow. He’d have to work a lot harder than that. I’d been scowled at by some of the best. Drill Sergeant Richards used to be able to drop an entire platoon with just a shift of expression. Compared to them, this pretty boy was a cake walk.

  “I listened. Oh, and I used deductive reasoning,” I said.

  “What makes you think we’ll just take a vampire’s word for it?” he sneered.

  This guy was really getting on my nerves.

  “I don’t. Honestly, I couldn’t care less if you believed me. You guys are the ones who dragged me here. I didn’t come barging in demanding to be heard.”

  Brax interrupted him before he could say anything else. “Is there some emergency that requires your interruption?”

  By the tone of Brax’s voice, he made it clear there was only one correct answer. I wouldn’t want to be Victor if he’d barged in here for no reason.

  “There’s been some movement on the perimeter,” he said.

  Clay turned and looked at him. “I thought Alex was in charge of security tonight. Why are you the one reporting?”

  Victor’s gaze didn’t stray from me.

  “I volunteered,” Victor said.

  I couldn’t quite figure out the relationship between the three. Clay clearly didn’t like the other man, and it seemed the feeling was mutual. I hadn’t known Brax long but I could tell that he tolerated Victor’s presence out of necessity rather than any liking on his part. It made me wonder, then, why Victor seemed so intent on putting himself in their way. I’d always favored active avoidance when I suspected someone didn’t like me.

  “Volunteered? Or acted without Alex’s knowledge?” Clay asked with a wry twist to his lips.

  Victor ignored the question.

  “Thought so,” Clay said.

  Brax didn’t look any happier. “You’ve reported the news. You can be on your way now. We’ll discuss your circumventing Alex later.”

  The look he cast Victor’s way promised there would be a reckoning whenever later took place.

  They waited until Victor had departed. Brax shared a look with Clay. He was not happy.

  Clay sighed. “I’ll take care of it. I think he’s just about run out of the rope we’ve given him.”

  “See to it.”

  Their attention turned back to me.

  “What makes you think they’ve recently lost someone?” Brax asked.

  Hm. It was a stretch and based loosely on the interactions between Liam and Aiden. Coupled with the smell of death in the condo I’d run into Liam at, it all seemed to add up to one thing.

  “Just some things that were said in front of me at the club. Liam seemed particularly interested in some security video. He thought that the club was the last place the vampire had been seen.”

  Sondra leaned back on her arms as she stared into space. “I wonder if there’s a way we can get in there to get the videos. We could try slipping in during the day.”

  “They employ daylight security and have the place warded to hell and back,” Declan said.

  Should I let them know that I had the solution to all of their problems in my back pocket? It might go a long way to proving I wasn’t the killer. The USB was my first real clue in all this and revealing its presence could cost me potential leverage.

  On the other hand, I had no computer and didn’t know when the werewolves planned to release me. The sorcerer hadn’t put a time limit on finding the creature and his item, but I doubted his patience was infinite.

  “About that,” I said slowly.

  All four sets of eyes zeroed in on me. I fought against the instinctive flinch at once again being the focus of so many predators. I reached into my pocket and withdrew the flash drive. It was becoming clear I couldn’t do this on my own. Maybe I could use their interest to help me with the killer. I’d rather try than sit here for who knew how long.

  “I may have taken the liberty of downloading their feeds onto this flash drive.”

  I took another sip out of the mug. My eyes fluttered closed. It tasted so good.

  I looked up at Declan’s low whistle. Brax looked startled and slightly bemused. No one made a move to grab the USB from me.

  “How did you manage to get that?” Brax asked softly.

  I grinned. “Told you I had to thank you for your well timed entrance at the club. It distracted them long enough for me to download the feeds, which someone had been kind enough to pull up for me before I escaped.”

  “You’re kind of crazy,” Sondra said, grinning wolfishly. “I like it.”

  “I’m so glad. Now I can die happy.”

  Clay reached for the USB and I pulled it back.

  “One condition. I watch too.”

  I needed to see what was on there. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for or if it even mattered to this case, but I wasn’t going to let the chance pass me by.

  “We were counting on it,” Clay said, reaching and slowly taking the USB from me.

  I let him.

  Declan left and returned quickly with a computer. It only took a few moments to pull the first feed up. I’d like to say we found a huge clue that enabled us to immediately deduce who the murderer was. In reality, none of us knew what we were looking for, just that the vampires seemed to think something important had gone down at their club. Hours and hours of staring at a computer screen commenced, threatening to rob me of what little sanity I had left.

  By the end of the first hour, I was thoroughly disgusted at today’s average twenty something. If the amount of drugs, sex and sheer stupidity I saw in those videos was the normal mode of behavior, our society was screwed. There were several fights, a couple make out sessions between both guy/girl couples and girl/girl couples.

  By the third hour, I wanted to wash my brain out with soap. Vampires, I learned, were not shy when it came to feeding and having sex with their victims. Many of them also didn’t care if they had an audience. I felt like we were watching a silent porno and couldn’t help shifting uncomfortably.

  At some point we moved to the living room, where Declan linked the computer with the TV to play the security feeds on. The surroundings were more comfortable than the hard chairs from the kitchen at least.

  My stomach gurgled. I reached for the popcorn Sondra had made, grabbing a handful and popping it into my mouth. I hoped it would curb some of the hunger I was feeling, because the mug of blood had long since congealed. I was afraid asking for another would encourage Sondra to offer up her wrist again, and I didn’t want another awkward chase around the kitchen.

  “This is pointless. We don’t even know what we’re looking for,” Sondra complained. It was the fourth time she’d said something to that effect.

  From where he lounged on the couch with his feet propped up on the coffee table, Brax said, “We may not recognize it now but something we see here might make sense when put in context with something else.”

  Sondra groaned. I felt her pain. There were hours and hours of footage. It covered nearly a week’s span. Even eliminating the daylight hours, that was a lot of time, especially since there were multiple cameras and multiple angles. It could take weeks. I didn’t think I had that kind of time.

  Just then something caught my attention. I tensed but didn’t move, not wanting to give anything away to the others.

  A familiar figure walked across the screen, stopping at several tables before taking a seat at the bar next to a young man. The guy looked like he’d been a nerd at some point but had grown out of it in his later years.

  The quality of the video was decent but not good enoug
h to make out too many details on the guy.

  The woman though. I knew her. I thought. It looked sort of like Angela. But that was ridiculous. What would a witch be doing at a vampire club?

  The two figures on the screen stood and went into the back room. I looked at the bottom right where that camera’s feed should have been. There was nothing. The room still looked empty. I glanced back at the other feed. The two weren’t there either. They weren’t on any of the other camera feeds either. Now, wasn’t that interesting?

  Clay yawned and stretched, nearly knocking me in the face. “I’m so tired I don’t think I can see straight anymore. We’re going to have to take a break, maybe let one of the computer guys look at these and break the feeds into separate screens.”

  Brax unfolded his long limbed body from where he’d been reclining.

  “Tell them to make a few copies. I want several eyes on each in case one of us picks up something the others missed.”

  I stayed where I was in my armchair as the others stood and stretched.

  “Show our guest up to her room,” he told Sondra.

  I grimaced. There were still a couple hours until dawn. I’d hoped they’d leave me to review the disks on my own. I wanted to get a better look at the Angela look alike to see if I was right. That was unlikely to happen if they stashed me in a locked room somewhere.

  “I won’t go to sleep for a few more hours. I could stay and review the video until then,” I said. It didn’t hurt to try.

  Brax was shaking his head before I even finished speaking. “No. I don’t want you reviewing anything without one of us with you in case you get it in your head to hold something back.”

  Too late for that. I’d already discovered a semi clue and not one of them had picked up on it. Vampire one, super sniffer zero.

  “Come on, you,” Sondra said, pausing by me.

  I grumbled under my breath but stood. What was I supposed to do for the next few hours? Their paranoia was costing me valuable time.

  Sondra led me through the house, heading for the second floor instead of the basement as I’d expected. The rooms had a homey, warm feel, decorated for comfort rather than style. Everything had an easy charm. It made you want to take a seat and relax.