Shadow's Messenger: An Aileen Travers Novel

by T. A. White

  Where the downstairs had an almost masculine feel, the bedroom Sondra led me to had a much more feminine spin to it, filled with lace and flowers. The room was pretty and had that delicate sort of look that made you feel like you might break something if you breathed on it too hard.

  “You can get a bath or shower in there,” Sondra said, pointing to a door. “The windows have silver bars on them, and the door has been reinforced so don’t even think of trying to escape. If we find you outside this room, we will attack. If you’re lucky, you might get away with a missing limb, though I doubt it. Our guys have a tendency to kill first and eat the evidence after.”

  That was a nice visual. I wondered how many times she had given this speech.

  “You sure you don’t want a bite,” she asked, lifting her wrist again.

  I wrinkled my nose. I needed to eat but still wasn’t sure I wanted to risk the consequences a bite might entail. I also didn’t know if I could stop myself once I got started. My hunger had only grown over the last few hours. Being in the same room with all that gloriously alive blood rushing just beneath an easily penetrable surface had been pure temptation.

  “I’ll take a mug of that blood from earlier,” I said.

  She sighed and shook her head. “You have to be the weirdest vamp I’ve ever met. Most would be falling all over themselves to get a sip of a willing werewolf.”

  “Guess I’m just special,” I said.

  “I’ll send someone up with what you need. Meanwhile make sure to get a shower. Werewolf noses are extremely sensitive.”

  I sniffed my clothes discretely. There was no smell that I could discern.

  Left alone, I did as she suggested. It had been two days since I last had a chance to shower. I was looking forward to getting clean.

  The water felt amazing as it washed over my skin. A warm bath or shower at the end of a long day had always been an almost decadent pleasure when I was alive. With my heightened senses, the experience was nearly sinful.

  I resisted the temptation to linger, not wanting to miss the knock in case my meal arrived. A bathrobe hung off a hook next to the shower. It was one of the ones you’d find in really nice hotels, long and comfortable and soft to the touch. I put it on, giving my discarded clothes a look of disgust. The bike pants and warm top would have been perfect for biking around the city if Jerry hadn’t given me Cherry. They’d been slightly less perfect the second day of wear, and I was glad to be out of them.

  I would have to put them on soon, but for now I just enjoyed being clean and wrapped tight in a comfortable robe. Maybe the wolves would do me a favor and wash my clothes during the day.

  A small piece of worry bit at me over Cherry’s fate. I couldn’t remember if the place I parked had a time limit before towing. Jerry would probably have a fit if he found out his baby had been dragged around by her bumper.

  Drying my hair with one of the towels, I walked into the bedroom. Sondra hadn’t been lying about the windows being barred from the outside. I slid open the window and examined them closer. Remembering what she’d said about silver, I wrapped the towel I’d been using around one of the bars, giving it an experimental yank. Even through the cloth, I could feel a slight burn from the metal. It was pointless anyway. The bars didn’t budge, remaining firmly in place.

  No way was I getting out of this. Even if I could somehow escape, I had nowhere to go. There wouldn’t be enough time to make it back to the city on foot. I’d be forced to take shelter out in the open and hope there was something I could use to shield myself from the sun.

  I stepped back and frowned at the windows in dismay. They were covered in a lacy curtain. Even shutting the blinds wouldn’t be enough protection.

  A knock came at the door mere moments before it opened. A young man, one I hadn’t met yet, came in, avoiding my gaze and setting a mug on the antique desk next to the door.

  He nodded at me and turned to go.

  “Wait, I can’t stay here,” I said.

  The door closed before I could get any further.

  “Damn it.”

  It was an effort not pound on the door in frustration. Swiping the mug off the desk, I turned back to the room, sipping on my meal while I thought. The two windows were big, running nearly the length of the wall. Each had a small recessed alcove with cushy pillows on them. The windows were tall, almost reaching the ceiling, but narrow. The problem was the furniture wasn’t nearly big enough to block them. The bathroom was also no good, as it had a small window as well.

  My eyes landed on the closet.

  That might work. I opened the double doors and looked inside. It would be uncomfortable, but if I used the clothes to line the crack on the floor and sides, it should be dark enough in there that I wouldn’t burn to a crisp.

  Were they trying to kill me or did they just not think of my light allergy? Sondra had struck me as someone who at least had a passing familiarity with vampires so it was hard to believe they wouldn’t realize how dangerous this room was to someone in my condition.

  I’d give them an earful tomorrow. Right now, I needed to focus on making my little bed for the day as comfortable and safe as possible.

  The blue and white flower patterned bedspread went onto the closet floor first. I threw all of the pillows in there as well and grabbed a couple of the towels I hadn’t used from the bathroom. My nest ready, I settled back to wait for dawn.

  It’s hard describing the feeling of sunrise to someone. The first time I’d experienced a sunrise after my transformation I thought I was dying all over again. It’s not like someone goes ‘lights out’ and then you’re asleep. No, I could feel dawn coming as that burning ball of fire slowly ascended and the moon gave way. It always felt like someone had a hand around my chest, slowly squeezing, the grip getting tighter and tighter the closer to sunrise it got. Fatigue would sneak in, making thoughts and movement slow, like trying to move through molasses. Eventually, I would lose consciousness.

  I timed it once. Figured out the precise time of sunrise and then stared at a clock until I passed out. Turned out I didn’t even make it to the technical sunrise, falling asleep about fifteen minutes prior to lights on.

  As soon as I felt the first brush of fatigue, I beat a retreat to my closet resting place. I didn’t want to mess something up just because I was too tired to take proper precautions. I tucked the towels against the door and then placed several pillows between myself and the crack. Turning my back to the door, I snuggled down as the sun robbed me of consciousness.

  Chapter Eight

  Waking up without knowing where I was and why I had a crick in my neck was disorienting, made worse when the closet doors were thrown open. Sondra’s puzzled face peered down at me.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  I blinked up at her, my eyes focusing unerringly on the pulse beating at her neck. My fangs came out. Drool pooled in my mouth.

  She sighed and disappeared, returning in moments with a mug full of warm blood.

  “Your hunger wouldn’t be as bad if you just took it from the source,” she informed me waspishly.

  I didn’t reply, chugging the blood as fast as I could. I gasped as I finished, savoring the taste. One day I wouldn’t be at the mercy of my cravings. No way could anybody go through eternity like this. I was like one of those people with low blood sugar. The moment I started getting hungry I needed a top off. I wanted to be like one of those women who could go hours and hours without thinking about food.

  “You know the bed’s perfectly comfortable,” Sondra said, looking disdainfully at the nest I’d made.

  “You know I’m a vampire, right?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  I gave the windows a meaningful look. She looked at them and then back at me. Understanding was absent from her face.

  I sighed. How could she not get it? A vampire’s susceptibility to sunlight was at the core of any vampire movie or book.

  “Sunlight and vampires don�
�t exactly get along.”

  She stared at me blankly for a minute. Then she burst into laughter. The kind that involves your whole body and makes the muscles in your stomach hurt. She wrapped her arms around herself and gasped for breath, only to dissolve into peals of laughter as soon as she caught sight of my face again.

  I glared.

  I stood, belting the robe tightly around me. I’d gone to sleep in it, not wanting to give up its plush comfort.

  Holding my head high, I stepped past the cackling werewolf. If she didn’t stop laughing soon, I was going to plant my fist in her stomach. See if she could laugh around that.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she gasped. “It’s just your face. You looked so serious saying that.”

  Of course I was serious. Who would joke about being barbequed?

  She sobered up when she got a look at my face. “You’re serious. You actually think the sun will burn you.”

  I paused. The way she said that made it seem like my belief was wrong.

  “Unless you’re seriously weakened from blood loss or starvation, you won’t go up in flame from the sun,” she said. “It can give you a pretty extreme sunburn, but only in direct light. Besides making you weak and extremely tired, it poses no real threat to your safety, definitely not enough of one for you to be hiding out in closets. As you get older, you’ll even be able to stay up for part of the day.”

  Impossible. It was in every myth, every story. The captain and Jerry had been clear about my need to stay out of sunlight. I thought back to what they told me. It was true they had never said anything about it killing me. I assumed, based on everything I’d heard in popular culture and the fact that Jerry only gave me night runs, that it was just something I needed to avoid. If I believed Sondra, it was less about my possible fiery death and more about my inability to stay awake during the day.

  “Did your sire not teach you any of this?” Sondra asked.

  Once again I was faced with having to tell someone I had no idea who my sire was. It was beginning to make me feel like I was abandoned in the trash at birth, slightly ashamed and defensive all at the same time.

  “I have no idea who turned me,” I snapped.

  She gaped at me. “How is that possible? Vampires are extremely possessive of their children. You’re too rare as it is. I can’t imagine them turning someone and then tossing them aside.”

  That made me feel so much better. Not only did my sire totally derail my life, but evidently I wasn’t good enough. At least not enough to stick around. A small piece of me felt rejected. A very small piece. So small that I probably would try to kill him if I ever laid eyes on my sire.

  I shrugged like the topic didn’t bother me. “I seem to be getting along okay without him. Thanks for the tip about sunlight though. I was not happy about never getting to see the world during daylight again.”

  “Have you thought about approaching one of the clans?” she ventured.

  “No. I have no intention of getting involved with them.” My voice was cold and steely, signally the topic was closed.

  She nodded, catching the hint.

  She held up an armful of clothes. “Figured you could use some clean clothes. I think these will fit.”

  I took the clothes from her and glanced at the sizes in the jeans and black long sleeve shirt. They should fit.

  “Brax wants you downstairs to go over the next steps.”

  Oh did he? So kind of him to include me in that.

  “Any new information from the videos?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Not really. There are a few odd things, but for the most part, it’s a bust.”

  I wondered if she was telling me the truth or if that was a lie to keep me in the dark.

  Brax and Clay were the only ones waiting for me in the living room. Neither rose as I entered. Brax nodded at the sofa. I took a seat and waited. Both fixed me with intent stares that somehow appeared both threatening and calming at the same time. I stared back, knowing this was a kind of test, giving them a blank expression that said I had all night to play this game.

  Tension grew between the three of us and too late I remembered that meeting a wolf’s eyes could be seen as a sign of aggression. I couldn’t back down now without it being taken as a sign of weakness though. I thought non-confrontational thoughts as I tried to channel soothing peace.

  “The videos turned out to be a dead end,” Brax said. His voice made it clear that my efforts had been ineffective. It sounded like he would like a more physically violent method of communication.

  Inwardly, I smiled. So nice to aggravate my kidnapper.

  “Oh?” I asked.

  He hadn’t picked up on Angela. Though why would he? I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t met her through Miriam. Her presence wasn’t an indicator of guilt. She could have been out for a night on the town or meeting a friend. For all I knew, she was cheating on her boyfriend, Victor, with a vampire. What interested me was how they’d disappeared from the cameras.

  I hesitated to give her name to Brax in case her presence was totally innocent. I didn’t know what they planned to do to whoever was killing people, but I had a feeling it wouldn’t be particularly kind. I’d keep my suspicions to myself until I had more concrete evidence.

  “It doesn’t escape me that you seem to keep popping up in all this,” Brax said. “First Franklin and then the attack on me.”

  “This has been going on for months. I’ve only been involved in two instances. There have been dozens,” I defended myself.

  “Would you be able to name all those you’ve heard disappeared or were killed?” Clay asked.

  I frowned. I knew a good portion as it was part of my job for Hermes, but I couldn’t say I remembered every one. Weeks had gone by before the supernatural community was willing to admit there was serial killer. A lot of the first murders had gone unremarked and unnoticed.

  “Not all,” I said. “But most.”

  “Create a list of names and any dates you can remember,” Brax ordered. “We’ll compare them to those we know.”

  I saw on the coffee table there was a pad and paper waiting. They planned this. I slid the paper to me and clicked the pen. I saw no reason not to give them what they wanted. Comparing my list with theirs might give me a better idea of the bigger picture and allow me to establish a pattern.

  “I think that’s it.” I slid the list to him, keeping my hand on it. There were nine names I was able to remember, some going all the way back to June, when I first started picking up chatter. “Let’s see yours.”

  No way was this information exchange going to be one way.

  Clay held a sheet of paper out to me. I grabbed it and read. Most of the names were the same as mine. I had a few they didn’t. They had one I’d forgotten and at the very bottom was a name I hadn’t known about. It predated the first name on my list.

  Jason Sanders. I wondered who he was and how they knew about him when I didn’t.

  I grabbed another sheet of paper putting the names from both lists in order of deaths or disappearance.

  “Who’s Jason Sanders?” I asked when I’d finished.

  “He was a werewolf. His death was pretty brutal. It looked like he put up a hell of a struggle when he was murdered. The condition of the corpse was a lot worse too. We could barely tell it was him,” Clay said.

  That was interesting. I only caught a glimpse of the scene of Franklin’s death. Besides the massive amount of blood on the ground, it hadn’t looked like there was any sort of struggle to my untrained eyes. The blood had puddled and there had been minimal arterial spray. None of the papers had been disturbed and all of the furniture had been upright.

  “How was Franklin killed?” I asked.

  Brax lifted his head, his eyes training on me like a predator sensing prey.

  “He was torn apart limb by limb.”

  “Any signs of a struggle?”

  His eyes narrowed. “No, there wasn’t.”

  “Interesti
ng.” I pointed to Jason’s name. “Your weakest wolf put up enough of a fight that he was left almost unrecognizable. Where was Franklin in terms of power in the pack?”

  “Five or six, depending on how well he fought in a challenge” Clay said.

  I looked at the rest of the names. A pattern began to emerge. The killer’s first victims had been weak in terms of power and fighting ability. A dryad, kelpie and a werewolf at the bottom of the pack structure. The more recent kills were a lot more dangerous. A werewolf close to the top of the pack, a vampire decades older than me, I assumed he was much more powerful too, and a sorcerer. All heavy hitters.

  “He’s growing in power,” Brax said.

  Yup.

  “The kills are getting cleaner and more efficient,” I said grimly.

  “Shit,” Clay muttered.

  I wondered if the murders were giving him power. None of the gossip I’d heard had mentioned a ritualistic element, but magic was weird. He could be a monster who absorbed souls to power up, for all I knew.

  “Have you fed?” Brax asked.

  I blinked at the swift change in topic.

  “Yes?” It was almost a question.

  “Good. It’ll make things easier not having to stop to get you a meal while we’re out.”

  “And where are we going?” I asked.

  “We have a theory but no evidence so we’re going to examine all of the crime scenes to see if we can pick up anything we might have missed the first time.”

  Ah ha.

  That actually made a lot of sense.

  Brax turned to Clay, “Increase the number of patrols and pull in the wolves not on duty. I don’t want to lose any others if we can help it.”

  Clay nodded as Brax stood.

  Guess that was our cue to leave.

  “Any possibility of grabbing snacks before we go? Maybe chips?” I asked hopefully. The blood had taken care of my blood lust, but now I was craving something salty.

  The two ignored me.

  I took that as a no. Maybe I could get him to stop somewhere for fries.

  The first crime scene was a bust in terms of potential clues. This wasn’t a huge surprise as Jason’s house, the scene of his violent death, had been thoroughly cleaned months ago. The house lay empty, any helpful information picked clean by Brax’s people. All of Jason’s records had been removed and his possessions placed in storage.