Running in the Dark

by Regan Summers

  Vorster smiled, sliding his fingers along my palm as he released me. I wrapped my right arm around the left, digging my fingers into my elbow in the hope they’d stay there and off of him. I’d never enjoyed the feel of a vampire before Malcolm, had barely been able to tolerate being in the same room as them, but this…his power running over my body, sinking into it, was fucking intimate.

  “I came to this country searching for someone, but I haven’t been able to see him. And then I heard the most fantastical rumor, that he’d taken up with a courier. I thought it was her.” He gestured toward Tilde, who blushed and self-consciously ran her fingers over her neck. “She fits his tastes, my old business partner. He always liked the pretty ones. Not too smart, easily played. Willing to let him get away with anything.”

  I swallowed hard, my mind jumping to accept the idea that was forming. It wasn’t Richard Abel who was after me. Not some rival outfit after Carla’s contracts.

  Tilde rose on her knees, reaching for Vorster. Her skirt was rucked up, exposing an angry rash on the inside of her thigh. My nose wrinkled. Not a rash. Broken skin and capillaries from his feeding. Vorster crossed to her, not so quickly this time but enough to make my brain do a double take.

  “And what do you let Malcolm get away with, Aerin?” His eyes narrowed as his tone hardened. I wanted to throw up, or laugh hysterically, so I didn’t say anything. I glared at the window, making sure I could take my eyes off him, and trying to figure out how to get free. Walking away from one vampire only to fall victim to another. Unacceptable.

  The car slowed. A crowd of teens crossed the street behind us. My eyes followed them as far as they could, picking out the corner of a building, giant sconces lighting up the green exterior. I knew the building. It was used for—

  Vorster raised his hand and snapped his fingers to get my attention. At the same time he ratcheted up his energy output. A regular human wouldn’t have understood her compulsion to stare at him, the way her drew her. I knew what he was doing, and still had to curl my hands tight to keep from crawling to him. My collarbone started itching so badly that I wanted to tear my skin off so I could scratch at the bone. It wasn’t comfortable, his forcing his power on me. It was like frozen metal on bare skin—a cold burn.

  “Are you having trouble focusing, Aerin?” He leaned forward, dumping Tilde onto the floor from where she’d climbed into his lap. “That’s his influence. You probably let him get away with all sorts of things. It’s hard not to. He’s so damn charming. Isn’t he?”

  Oddly, a taste of his will accompanied the question, as if he wanted me to agree with something that clearly aggravated him. I nodded. Not because he forced me to, but because it was true. My stomach clenched. Malcolm was so charming that I was desperate to get to him.

  “Where did he say he was going last night?” Vorster asked, smiling when I flinched. His eyes softened, making him seem more accessible, more appealing. And he felt so familiar. “Or do you not ask anymore? Where he goes, what he does.”

  “That’s a cheap trick,” I muttered, blinking rapidly. It was a ploy, only a ploy. Malcolm went to the capital. That’s where he was when I was attacked. He hadn’t blown me off. Except he had…

  “Perhaps.” He spoke to me even as he looked down his nose at Tilde, examining her before he sniffed dismissively. For some reason, that made me angrier than his grabbing me.

  “Maybe if you didn’t snatch people off the street, they’d like you better.”

  He bared his teeth, and the air grew noticeably colder. “I doubt that.” He laid his hand on Tilde’s head and she swiveled, pressing her cheek into his palm. “You see how she regards me? I stole her from her life and still she adores me. She cannot help herself.” He sounded vaguely disgusted, and I felt about a minute away from vomiting.

  “Why don’t you just send him an invitation?” I shivered. I was tired of the car, and sick of the falsely civil tone of the conversation.

  “It doesn’t work like that.” We bumped along for a moment in silence, the limo crawling through a maze of people. Each jolt and turn felt like someone tapping a sharpened mace against my chest, and the drone of Vorster’s power made me painfully sensitive. It was like getting my entire body tattooed, all at the same time.

  “I have something to trade,” he said. I looked up from where my gaze had rested, on the safety of the dull, gray floor. “Something of much higher value than his treasure. Have you seen it? The Millennium Falcon?”

  I tried to appear as though I was giving his question earnest thought, as if it were normal to ask a person if she’d seen a fictional Star Wars spacecraft…in real life. Jesus, he was crazy. Just pure, bat-shit crazy. His gaze roamed my body again and something stirred in me, something utterly unwelcome.

  “You’re something special too, aren’t you?” Vorster asked. “Or he wouldn’t be keeping you, wouldn’t be trying to keep you hidden.” He licked his lower lip and ran his tongue around the point of one slightly-elongated fang. I swallowed a dry lump. The car braked hard and we all swayed. Vorster’s eyes darkened, and it was a struggle to shift my gaze from his.

  “He doesn’t keep me. Now, what the hell are you going to do with us?” The itching in my chest rose to psychotic levels and I felt my own sanity slipping under the pain and panic. I needed to get out of the car and away from goddamn vampires.

  “It’s a shame you believe that. He keeps all sorts of things that he shouldn’t. Things that don’t belong to him, that he doesn’t deserve. Things you’re going to help me get back.” Outside, someone drummed a beat on the trunk of the car. Hendrik turned, and I shot for the door.

  I had one foot out when he grabbed the back of my jacket and we began moving again. I growled against the pain, Vorster cursed and Tilde went fucking crazy. She sprang onto his back, screaming his name and a flood of demands in broken English. She was jealous, I registered distantly as I twisted, and kicked with my left leg. My boot crunched into something solid. Vorster lost his grip, and momentum pulled me from the moving car.

  It felt just as bad as I’d thought it would. I bounced, rolled, and squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of a car horn bearing down on me. Nobody ran me over and I fetched up hard against the curb. Thank everything that was holy that we’d barely been moving.

  I cracked an eyelid and stared up into a half dozen concerned faces. They chattered at me as I spent five seconds relearning how to breathe. I unwrapped my arms from my middle and pushed up as they pulled.

  “Gracias,” I muttered through clenched teeth, pushing the hands away. “Gracias.”

  The limo picked up speed, moving away. The crowd—the building I’d glimpsed was a concert hall—was too big. Retrieving me would be too public. They’d park somewhere and Hendrik Vorster and fucking Thurston the betrayer would come and find me. They’d probably take their time, thinking I was too banged up to get away.

  I shuffled off, dodging concerned faces and hands that meant to be helpful. My right shoulder was raw, ground up by the road, and I couldn’t identify a single square inch of me that didn’t hurt. But I didn’t like being cornered, not by something bigger and meaner than me.

  I dropped into the metro tunnel and shimmied through the train door as it was closing. My head pounded and my legs trembled. At least the itching had subsided, which was a fucking relief. Because I only felt like that when I was going through vampire-accelerated healing. And I only experienced that when I was with Malcolm.

  If at any point I’d thought Vorster was bluffing about knowing Malcolm, I didn’t anymore. They were close at an integral point in their lives or, more likely, their undeath. Because Vorster felt almost exactly like Malcolm. My body responded to him as though I’d consciously invited him in. And that thought was terrifying.

  Chapter Eleven

  I was freezing, and some god of old had risen and taken a hammer to the whole world. I rolled over, groaning at the effort and the explosion of pain that came with it. The fluorescent lights flickered on at my movemen
t, confirming that I was lying under a pile of towels in my garage bathroom. A spilled bottle of ibuprofen lay near me, and I still held an empty water bottle. The banging stopped, which was a small mercy.

  A torn and bloody pant leg hung out of the sink. I checked my watch to verify what my exhaustion was telling me. It was still night. Swell.

  Bolstered by a string of vile curses and the knowledge that I couldn’t stay in the bathroom forever, I maneuvered myself up. I’d just made it to my feet, standing in a sea of bloody towels, when the banging started again. This time, each sound was accompanied by a sharp inward dent in the door. Not good. I didn’t have a second exit.

  “Occupado,” I rasped through a dry husk of a throat.

  “Sydney, you have one second to open this door or I will break it down.” Soraya. Pissed.

  I shuffled toward the door. As if anyone could do anything in one second. I worked the locks, pausing on the last dead bolt.

  “How do I know it’s safe?”

  “Break. It. Down.”

  I had no doubt she’d be able to do that. It probably wouldn’t take her much longer than a second, either. I flipped the lock and backed up as fast as I could. My right knee wasn’t working quite right, maybe because it was swollen and purple.

  The door swung open and a blast of cold air came with it. Soraya looked me up and down. I was shivering, bruised, wearing panties, socks, and a bra with one broken strap. She clapped a hand over her eyes and squeezed her temples while muttering something, curses or a prayer, maybe both. Orange light trickled from beneath her fingers and illuminated the floor.

  “Invite me in,” she ground out, hands dropping to her hips. She wore black cargo pants and a black tank top. Underdressed for the weather, but much better than I was doing. I pulled a shirt out of the dryer and struggled to get into it, finally leaving my left arm tucked up inside.

  “Where were you last night?” I asked slowly. She twitched, her full lips souring, her eyes narrowing.

  “Everywhere. A few of these gangs…gang leaders…chose last night to act out.” Her nostrils flared and she put her hands behind her as if she’d come to military parade rest.

  “So you dealt with a couple of unruly gangsters instead of tailing me. After he’d ordered you to.” I pulled a pair of pants from the dryer.

  “I make my own decisions,” she said quickly before her voice flattened, “and I always have my mind on his best interests. Regardless of whether Malcolm feels otherwise. That includes preventing Master Bronson from flaying him for failing to manage this city. Now, invite me in.”

  “Or what? You’ll tear the building apart so that the threshold no longer exists?”

  Her eyes widened before flaring so brightly I had to look away. “So that I may tend to you before you make your damage worse, idiot.”

  “Still with those fabulous people skills.”

  I weighed my options, which took no time at all because I didn’t have any. Even if I didn’t invite her in, eventually I needed to leave. The longer I stood around bleeding in the open air, the sooner Vorster and his goons would find me. Blood spore, Malcolm had called it once, like I was some kind of meat mushroom.

  Soraya was his vassal, and she didn’t seem all that fond of me. If Mal wanted me out of his existence, she would gladly throw on her ass-kicking clothes, march over and kick down my door. Which she had just tried to do. My heartbeat sped up, but my body abruptly felt heavy, like no amount of energy would lift my limbs. If he no longer wanted me, hers could very well be the last face I’d see.

  If he no longer wanted me…

  I spoke softly. “Please come in, Soraya.”

  The door slammed and she was instantly beside me. I reflexively shoved her, managing only to push myself backward. She caught me, one hand on either side of my waist and eased me down onto the closed toilet seat. Her lips twisted when she pulled the neck of my shirt away and examined my collarbone and shoulder.

  “How long has it been like this?”

  I glanced at my watch. “Almost twenty-four hours. It was just a fracture at first. The break didn’t slide apart until earlier tonight.” I frowned as I ran my fingers lightly over the bone. It wasn’t separated anymore. Bathing in a limo full of Vorster’s frantic energy might have been worth that.

  Soraya rooted through the shallow closet, pulling out my first-aid supplies. She poured peroxide onto a sheet of gauze and I bit my lip as she dabbed it over the patch of road rash that used to be my right thigh. She was surprisingly gentle, but I still gasped, cursed and pounded my fist on the counter. She probed my knee with her fingertips and I hissed.

  “Why does your ‘help’ feel more like torture?’

  “You need to open up to me.” She touched my cheek, startling me into looking directly at her. The glow was gone from her eyes, but residual swirls passed through her irises.

  “Oh, uh, thanks but…I don’t really swing that way.”

  “He said you can control it. Open up so that you may access my energy. You need help, and it will cost me little to lend it.”

  My body shut down so fast, I was surprised I didn’t pop out of existence. I’d opened to Hendrik Vorster, not exactly against my will, but without wanting it. If lowering my defenses for Malcolm meant any sucker could infiltrate me, it wasn’t something I was going to be practicing.

  “Sorry.” I wrapped gauze around my leg and took the piece of tape Soraya offered. “No can do.” Surprisingly she didn’t argue, just helped me into my pants in a slow, awkward series of tugs that neither of us would be telling anyone about.

  She popped two pills out of a foil sleeve and handed them to me, along with another bottle of water.

  “Is this the proper recommended dosage?” I asked, tossing them back. I used to enjoy pills, and not occasionally, which meant that I now stayed away from anything I couldn’t get over the counter. Jace had given these to me when I complained of a headache, and since her concern had seemed about as genuine as my desire to split my earnings with her, I hadn’t taken them. The writing on the box was in Spanish, so I wasn’t sure of the dose. The vampiress frowned at the pills, then shrugged and stuck the box into my bag.

  “Tell me what happened.” She shoved the mess of medical supplies and clothes into a trash bag, emptied the pockets of my coat and threw out what remained of it. I’d really liked that coat.

  “Oh, the usual. Thugs. Car crash. Slumber party with my coworker. More thugs. Limo. Really clever escape. Nap. You threatening to break the door down while actually breaking the door down.”

  A vein stood out on her forehead, another on her forearm. One on her freaking biceps, which I didn’t even know was possible for a woman. She turned her head toward me, but her eyes were closed.

  “I am sorry I did not get to you before you left Arquero.”

  I jumped off the toilet. Oh my God, she was going to kill me. Patch me up, put my pants on and kill me. She glanced at me before continuing to tidy up. Not so much with the killing then. I raised a hand.

  “I think I’m missing something. How did you even know I was there?”

  “He sent for me, to secure you off of the main floor. I thought you’d come because you merely wanted attention. I…tarried.” She fiddled with the gauze box, opening and closing the lid a few times before setting it aside. “You do not react like most humans. You are calm when you should be scared, still when others would run. And you carry your pain quietly.” She gestured toward me, then lowered her head. “I beg your pardon.”

  Malcolm had sent for her. My heart skipped a beat and my brain fuzzed up, preventing coherent thoughts. He hadn’t ignored me, but neither had he come to get me before I was back on the street. “That’s okay,” I said airily. “You couldn’t have known.”

  She winced, I was pretty sure, before rolling her shoulders back and picking up the trash bag full of my things. “We must go.”

  I followed her out. The sky was just starting to lighten outside. She pointed toward an idling town car ne
ar the entrance of the parking garage. The front door opened and a man got out. A man wearing a fedora pulled low and walking with a slight limp. He was familiar, and not in a good way. I turned to ask Soraya about him, but she was busy setting my hazmat on fire in a metal drum.

  I didn’t even have to drag my feet to make sure she would catch up with me. She had me within three strides, then unceremoniously picked me up. I stared flatly at her, my booted feet dangling and bouncing against her arm. “Seriously?”

  “He will already hate me when he sees you like this,” she said, and I forced down a fluttering smile. “I’d rather not take any more time than necessary returning you to him.” The driver opened the door. I pointed to him, my arm slow to lift.

  “I know that guy. He followed me out of a bar the other night.”

  “Petr,” Soraya said. “He has watched over you on occasion.”

  He tipped his hat and his smile was surprisingly genuine. I smiled back hesitantly, then melted against the soft seat when Soraya set me in the car. She climbed in the other side, and we roared onto the street. The windows were tinted nearly opaque and a solid wall separated us from the driver, muffling the noise considerably. Not a bad way to ride.

  “What’s with you two?” I asked. The vampiress glanced at the wall. I shook my head, shifted to make my shoulder more comfortable. The seats were really, really soft. “Not Petr. You and Malcolm.”

  “He saved me from an endless night of torture and solitude. I’ve pledged loyalty to him until I meet my true death.”

  And…there was no way I could ever compete with that. “Oh.”

  “My husband changed me, on our wedding night. He was a severe, jealous man. Those traits were amplified as the years passed. He locked me up. A small box in the ground.”

  I wasn’t going to say it. I wasn’t going to say it… “Like a coffin?” And there went the last vestiges of whatever mental filter I’d had.