“You know what, that sounds like it could be fun,” I said. “I haven’t been on a girls’ night since college.”
I haven’t been on any kind of night since then, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Great,” Sydney said, and gave me a smile that was so warm I was happy I said yes just because she looked so pleased about it.
“You never go out,” Connor argued with me. He sat on the bed, watching me struggle to decide what to wear. It wasn’t the whole I’ve-got-a-closet-full-of-clothes-and-nothing-to-wear scenario. I only had training clothes and jeans. And from behind two winter coats I saw my leathers peeking out, too.
“It’s not a bad thing. Sydney asked me out on a girls’ night and I haven’t really had any kind of friends.”
“You have Joel and Carl and Phil,” he pointed out.
“And they’re all men, and I met them because we all killed vampires at some point. Let’s be real, Connor.” I turned to him and he looked worried, not mad. I thought he was fighting with me because he was being the protective boyfriend.
“I just don’t want you going out there without anyone to look after you,” he said. I chuckled and sat down next to him on the bed.
“Did you forget who I was when we met? I think I can take care of myself.”
“Did you forget about the fact that we all nearly died at the hands of master vampires? Your fighting and shooting skills are great, babe, but you can’t stop everyone from hurting you. You’re not even taking a gun tonight.”
“Do you want me to take a gun?” I asked. I was being serious, but his eyes stretched wider.
“Jesus, no. That’s not what I meant. I meant—”
I smiled and put my fingers to his lips, stopping him mid-sentence. “We’re just going dancing. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m not out there hunting vampires, and I won’t have anyone on my case because I didn’t do the job I was supposed to. My life has changed, and I can’t hide indoors forever.”
Connor sighed and nodded, looking at his hands.
“You’re right,” he said. I nodded too and stood up again, walking back to my closet. Connor stood up too, and walked to me, kissing me on the cheek.
“I have to get going. I’ll see you later. And let me know if something’s up, okay? I have my phone on me and you know I can be there in the blink of an eye.”
I nodded. Connor was a pure bred vampire. That meant he could dematerialize and materialize at will, wherever he wanted. The term ‘in the nick of time’ became a little more specific when they could practically teleport.
When the door clicked shut behind Connor I waited, straining my ears to listen into the night. There were no sounds, no feel of life. I was alone. I took a deep breath, and pulled out my leathers. I got dressed, sliding into the clothes that felt like a second skin. It had been a while since I’d been this comfortable. I didn’t put on the shoulder holster or the thigh sheath, even though I wanted to. I wanted to be able to protect myself. I shook my head. I was just being paranoid now. Connor’s words had gotten to me.
Sydney and I had agreed to meet downtown. Before I got on my bike I put the Glock loaded with silver shot in the compartment. My other guns were at the academy. I got onto my bike, pulled my helmet on, and tore down the street. The night was alive, and it danced like electricity on my skin. Smells came in through the vents in my helmet, and I breathed it in, smiling.
It had been too long.
Sydney was already standing on the curb when I came down the road. She recognized my bike, when I pulled up in front of her she looked me up and down. I did the same, and felt like an idiot almost right away. She wore black capris with black strappy heels and a shimmering salmon halter-top. Her hair was done up in a way that made it look like she’d gone to a professional, and she wore heavy make-up.
I hadn’t bothered with my hair, it looked the way it always looked, and I’d only put on the smallest amount of make-up. I’d mostly tried to cover my scar, which hadn’t really worked.
“Holy shit,” she said. “You look like a hell’s angel.”
“I didn’t have anything else I could wear,” I said, my voice a little muffled through the helmet. Sydney shook her head.
“No, you look great. I mean… shit. You really do look great. I just didn’t expect it.”
I pulled the helmet off and the smells of the night crashed down on me.
“So, where is this place?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s just a block or two from here. You can park here, and then we can walk up.”
I eyed the parking spaced. If I left my bike here I was going to be without my gun.
“Can’t we drive? You can sit on the back, I’ll just roll us down the street.”
Sydney rolled her eyes and then she shook her head.
“I’m not getting on that thing. You’re teaching me to fight and shoot and all that, but I’m not really a biker.”
I nodded. I wasn’t going to argue, I was being stupid. I should have left the gun at home. That would have been the best thing to do. What was going to happen? I parked in one of the allocated bays for motorcycles and hung the helmet on the handle. If it was gone when we came back I was going to be pissed.
“It’s not far,” she said, and linked her arm through mine. It made me feel awkward. I didn’t usually do this. We started walking down the road, and the buildings crept up on us. I swallowed and tried to act normal, tried to force away the uncomfortable knot that was forming in my stomach. But it wouldn’t go away because I knew these streets. I knew what lurked in them.
This was downtown. I used to drive down here every night for a very long time. I knew that vampires hid everywhere, vampires that didn’t like to fit into society so much. Vampires that I’d been out to kill once.
I took a deep breath and blew it out with a shudder. Cross Ledger Accounting had been a short distance from here. After Ruben’s death they’d closed it down, sucked it into the entertainment world, but I’d still avoided this place.
“Are you okay?” Sydney asked, hearing my shaky breath.
I nodded and forced myself to be calmer. It was going to be alright. I was just being stupid.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I used to work here.”
“Before you started training?” she asked. I nodded.
“My dad worked here too. His business closed now though.”
We turned a corner and started down a side road. The next road was the one where the building was. Where Ruben’s firm used to be. We would probably walk right past it. If I steeled myself I would be okay. I had to be okay. It was just a building. I tried very hard to believe myself.
When we cleared the side road, Sydney tugged on my arm so we could cross the road. I’d frozen. There it was, with the high windows and the glass doors and everything. But there were people milling around outside, and red rope formed a queue area that lead up the steps.
“Where are we going?” I asked when Sydney steered us right toward it.
“To the club,” she said, looking confused. “Come on, they’ll let us in without thinking twice. They all know I’m friends with Vlad.”
I jerked my arm out of Sydney’s grip and took a step away from her.
“I’m not going in there,” I said. I was freaking out. I usually had more control, but if I’d known the club was in Ruben’s building, I wouldn’t have said yes. I should have asked. I should have done my research.
“What’s wrong?” Sydney asked.
I took deep breaths because if I didn’t focus on it I would hyperventilate.
“Didn’t you hear what happened here?” I asked.
Sydney nodded slowly, keeping her eyes glued to me. “But it’s all okay now. It’s safe,” she said. The papers had picked up the back-end of the story. Everyone knew that this was the place where someone had died a gruesome death. But Sydney didn’t seem like it bothered her. No one seemed like it bothered them. And why would it? They weren’t there. They didn’t see him on the floor, his thr
oat ripped out, blood everywhere. They hadn’t been responsible. That had been Carl, and then me.
I wondered suddenly if he ever ventured downtown. And then I pushed it away because it didn’t matter. He annoyed me and I didn’t know anything about his life other than the fact that he showed up in mine every now and then.
And I wasn’t going to worry about other people right now, when the fact was that I wasn’t going to go into that building. There was no way.
“Come on, it’s not so bad. Really. I know the owner, and it’s totally fine. I’ve been here a million times,” she said, taking my hand. It was a little possessive for my taste, it made me want to run. But I couldn’t just keep running from my problems all my life, right? That was what had gotten me in such a terrible mess in the first place.
So I swallowed hard, focused on slowing down my heartrate, and nodded. Sydney flashed a brilliant smile and looped my arm around hers so we were linked up. We walked toward the door.
My vampire senses were driving me crazy. I was hyper-aware of my surroundings. I could feel the life all around me, squeezing like a thick fog, making it almost hard for me to breathe. I heard the murmuring voices of low conversation, shrill shrieks of excitement, and the throbbing bass of the music downstairs that drummed almost as loud through my veins as my own heart. But along with all the vibrant life thrumming around me, there were also traces of death. It hung in the air in black patches, like spots of a beautiful canvas painted in greyscale. I shook my head, trying to get rid of all the imagery. I was being paranoid.
The bouncer at the door nodded at Sydney and let us in without any questions or asking for ID. It made me believe that she came here all the time, that they knew her, and it made me trust her that everything was going to be alright.
We walked into the building, and besides the main layout being the same, everything looked different. So different, in fact, that if I ignored the thoughts that this was my former workplace, I wouldn’t recognize it. It was packed with people and we weaved through them. Bodies pushed up against each other, writhing with each other’s closeness.
“Come, I want to find James,” Sydney called over the sound of the music. She took my hand and pulled me thought he crowd. Three people’s skin brushed against my own before I realized what I was feeling, that my fear outside hadn’t been irrational. I wasn’t just feeling death because of what had happened here. Half of the people in this club were vampires. Maybe even more.
“Sydney,” I called, trying to be heard over the music. “Sydney!” I pulled on her arm, leaning into her. “There are a lot of vampires here.”
“It’s going to be fine. They’re not going to do anything,” she called over her shoulder and kept pulling me. I wasn’t worried about the vampires doing something to me – that would have been ironic. I was at least half-vampire, if not more. Sydney didn’t know that, we knew how to hide our identity and I was one of the few that could walk in the day.
But none of that made me feel any better about being in a closed room with so many vampires. I wondered how many of them saw me and knew what I was. How many of them had sensed me, or a part of me. How many were wondering if I really was one of them.
I was starting to panic. I could feel it rising up in my chest like dough. I still didn’t like vampires enough to run with the crowd, no matter how close I was with Connor. I put my hand on my thigh, covering my phone in my pocket. I could call him if I needed him. He would be here in a flash. It was a little comforting. But just a little.
We reached the end of the room and the crowd suddenly tapered down. Sydney stopped in front of a door and knocked. A moment later it opened and she pulled me inside.
We were in an office that looked big and expensive. It had been one of the bottom offices. I tried to remember where we were in the building. We'd never gone upstairs. Thank god.
A man – the owner, I guessed – sat behind a large mahogany desk. He was on the phone, but when he saw Sydney he lifted his hand in a half-wave, and then he held up a finger, signaling for us to wait. He swiveled his chair a little so he wasn’t facing us directly. It gave me time to study him.
His hair was golden, so close to the actual color I looked twice to make sure it wasn’t just a trick of the dim office lighting. His skin was smooth and pale, without a single blemish, and his eyes were grey, the color of the ocean on a stormy day, or the color of clouds when a blizzard rolls in. I took a deep breath and opened myself up to him, feeling him, and I was dead sure this was a vampire.
I glanced at Sydney. She leaned against the wall, looking calm and relaxed. Either she didn’t know he was a vampire, or she ran with the crowd, which didn’t make sense. Who learned how to kill vampires when they knew them personally?
Right. Hypocrite. I’d been a perfect example of that. Maybe she really was just looking to protect herself, and she knew enough about vampires to know what she was protecting herself from. The owner hung up the phone and turned to us, flashing a smile that spread across his face. It changed his features, and it made his stormy eyes somehow agreeable. And confused the hell out of me, because he had no sharp teeth. Nothing that told me he was a vampire. I frowned and tried again, but there was nothing. He was just… human.
“Sydney,” he said.
“It’s nice to see you again, James,” she said and walked over to the table, taking his hand. He squeezed her hand.
“Are you here for business or pleasure?” he asked.
“Oh, you know I can never come here without it being a bit of both,” she said and smiled. A bit of both? It made me wonder what ‘business’ meant. Or, for that matter, what ‘pleasure’ meant.
“This is Adele,” she said, finally introducing me. “She’s been helping me out.”
Again, so vague. Helping her out? She didn’t introduce me as her instructor or trainer. He nodded a greeting at me before he turned to Sydney again.
“Well, you know where everything is. Shout if you need something.”
It sounded like a dismissal, and apparently it was. Sydney turned and I took my queue from her. We left the office, and as soon as we were back in the main area of the club, the music swallowed us again. Sydney led me into the crowd only a little bit, and she started dancing. I wasn’t much of a dancer, but I moved to the music a little bit. I kept my senses sharp, kept an eye out for trouble. It had been a while since I’d felt like I was being hunted. When I paid attention to Sydney I noticed she was paying attention too, and I was proud of her. She was applying what I’d taught her, and she did a hell of a job at it.
“I see someone I know,” she said, leaning into me so I could hear. “I’ll be right back.”
She turned and melted into the crowd before I could follow. I was left standing alone in the crowd. I moved around a bit, but suddenly I felt vulnerable and exposed. I moved to the side, but the crowds pushed up against all the walls. I didn’t know if it was just me, or if it was real, but suddenly it felt like there were a lot more vampires than before. I tried to breathe, but the smell was everything, hanging in the air.
Vampires just smelled different, and with so many in one place it was like a cloud of perfume. And it was choking.
I saw a service door to my left, some of the kitchen staff came and went through it, and I moved toward it. The front door was all the way on the other side of the room.
The service door swung both ways, and it opened into a narrow passage. I traced the layout of the building in my mind, and almost staggered with the memory. The storage room was the closet Carl and I had hidden Sonya in after we’d found her locked in a cabinet. We’d just discovered Ruben dead, and we’d had to get the cabinet all the way down the stairs and to that closet because it had been the only place with no windows.
A lot of the windows had been closed up now. That meant that the last door was a door that led out into the alley behind the building. I lumbered toward it, the weight of the memories that suddenly flooded toward me nearly crushing me, and stumbled into the night.
The cold air hit my cheeks and I gasped, feeling for the first time since we arrived like I could breathe properly. I leaned against the wall and filled my lungs with gulps of fresh air. When my breathing calmed and I felt more myself again, the low sound of voices drew my attention. A male voice, pleading. And a female voice, sounding angry. I strained to listen but it was very quiet, interrupted now and then by the dim sounds I could still hear from inside. I moved along the wall toward the corner of the building.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and pushed talk, holding it against my ear. Connor’s voice crackled over the speaker loud and clear now that I was outside in the silence. I stopped moving toward the corner.
“Where are you? It sounds quiet,” he said.
“I’m outside, I had to get some air.”
“Are you having fun at least?”
I hesitated only for a second, but it was enough for him to know something was wrong. “What’s wrong, Adele?” he asked. I could hear the worry in his voice. I knew I couldn’t lie to him. He knew me, and he was a vampire, which meant that even if I was a stranger, he would know what I was feeling. Vampires didn’t do mindreading the way they did in novels but knowing what people were feeling was almost just as revealing.
I took a deep breath and blew it out with a shudder.
“It’s in Ruben’s building,” I whispered softly. Like if I didn’t say it too loud maybe I wouldn’t hear myself. But Connor had heard me.
“Baby, I’m so sorry,” he said and his voice was filled with concern. He was the one that woke me up from all my nightmares. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing for the emotions, the thoughts, the memories, to go away. I moved along the wall again, something to distract me.
“It’s not a big deal. As soon as I find Sydney I think I want to get out of here. I just need to talk to her.”
I popped my head around the corner, and froze. Connor spoke into my ear but I couldn’t hear him. Something felt very wrong.
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