by Tracy Sharp
“Candace, it’s daylight. They won’t be awake.” Iona placed a hand on her arm.
Fear shot through her chest. Daylight? Daylight would kill her. The boards kept the sunlight from coming through her window. “Why am I awake? I should be sleeping.”
Iona lifted Candace’s wrist and showed her the copper ring on her middle finger. “This is a gift for you. It’s a special ring that allows you to move around in daylight. The sun will not bother you while you wear this.”
Candace studied the ring in awe. “Where did you get it?”
“From a vampire long ago. He told me to keep it safe, and only give it to a guardian warrior who will protect supernaturals and regulars from the true monsters would would do them harm. You are that guardian warrior, Candace. Keep it safe. If this falls into the wrong vampire’s hands, it will be bad. Very bad.”
Candace leaned over and hugged Iona. “I will. I promise. I won’t let you down. Thank you, Iona.”
Iona hugged her back. “I know you won’t. And you’re welcome.”
Candace drew back. “At dusk, we’ll go to Dead End and warn them.”
Ezra gave a single nod. “At dusk.”
27
Ezra
Candace was out of the car before I had even fully stopped it. She was fast now. Preternaturally fast. She was already blasting through the doors before I jumped out of the car myself.
Astrid flew. Her dragonfly wings moving so quickly they were two blurs, and they brought her to the doors in just a few seconds. She slipped through them after Candy launched herself into the bar.
I kind of felt like the odd man out.
When I finally did get to the doors, which were just closing, I had to peer into the dim, apricot light. Vampires have outstanding vision, and they tend to keep the lighting low.
A sense of dread tightened my skin. Something wasn’t right. There were no bouncers at the door. The place smelled like death. Spilled blood and the strong smell of rotten fruit, and below that an ashy smell. The scent left behind by dead vampires.
A shiver moved over me and I grabbed Sally from my holster, and my Super Soaker water pistol from where I’d stowed it inside the inner pocket of my jacket. I’d filled it with Shaman water before we left, courtesy of Iona. The Super Soaker isn’t fancy, but believe or not, it does the job. I’d used it to spray holy water over vampires before, and it’s works great.
I searched for Candace and saw her bent over a figure sprawled out on the floor. She looked stricken. “This is Luke. The donor I fed from.”
Luke was very dead. Someone had torn his head off. It sat on his chest.
“He was just a kid,” Candace said, her voice choked.
“I’m sorry,” I told her.
“Guys.” Astrid called to us from farther in the room. Her eyes were wide and fearful. “There are more. A lot more.”
And there were. Bodies lay strewn everywhere. Each without a head. Every donor in the place was dead.
“It’s a slaughter,” Candace said, looking sick. Her skin was chalky, her lips tinged blue.
“Not just donors.” Astrid gestured to the piles of vampire ash in various areas on the floor.
Candace reached down to caress the police star that was no longer there. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Who would do this?”
The sound of something huge slamming into the doors made us all jump and turn. A muscular figure flew through them and my heart almost stopped. His fangs were bared and his face was a mask of rage. The eyes glowed an unearthly silver as he swooped toward us.
“Bodie, wait!” Candace stepped in front of us, both hands held up to ward him off. “It wasn’t us!”
He seemed to recognize her and dropped down in front of her, still snarling.
“Please, we just got here. We came here to warn you.” She still held her hands up, but now in a calming gesture.
He looked around her and some of the fury went out of his eyes, replaced by pain. He stepped around Candace and knelt down over Luke. “No.”
“I’m so sorry,” Candace said.
Bodie turned on her. “You knew about this?”
“No. I didn’t know about this.” Candace crouched down beside him. “Someone has been feeding donors Shaman water. We know of at least one vampire who was poisoned earlier tonight. We came to warn you. Luke was infected.”
“This is Bodie?” I looked him over, my heart still skipping in my chest. “I don’t think he was adversely affected by Luke’s blood.”
Bodie hurled a hostile look over his shoulder. “Shut it, hunter. Luke was my friend. Now he is gone. Executed. For what? What do you know?”
I opened my mouth to respond but Astrid spoke first.
“Luke’s blood was infected.” Astrid stepped closer. “Candace almost died. If it hadn’t been for a Shaman, she would’ve.”
Bodie turned his head and looked around the room. He stood and walked farther into the bar. I held my breath for his reaction.
A howl of absolute agony and rage ripped through the air, the force of it blowing our hair around our heads.
Candace, Astrid and I all froze, looking at each other. I held up the Super Soaker.
“GET OUT!” Bodie bellowed from deep inside the bar.
None of us argued.
“I thought that went well,” I said, as we pushed through the doors, unwilling to show how close I came to peeing in my pants. Bodie was scary. But that wasn’t the only thing that made me joke at a wildly inappropriate moment. The scene in the Dead End was truly horrible. Candace had said it best: it was a slaughter. I was shaken to my core.
But seeing what waited for us, it looked as if things were about to get a whole lot worse.
Candace
They pushed through the doors of the Dead End, a name which Candace first thought was clever and humorous, but now grimly thought was eerily appropriate. She caught sight of them right away and stopped in her tracks. She felt Ezra come up and stop beside her, and Astrid step up on her other side. It was hard for them not to see who was waiting for them.
A group of at least ten vampires, hanging around Ezra’s car. And they didn’t look friendly. Not at all.
Astrid murmured, “Oh, shit. They did it. I feel it.”
But it didn’t take psychic ability to know that. These vampires oozed malevolence. A large vamp with a shaved head and built like a truck pushed off Ezra’s car and walked toward the steps of the bar, his movements seeming unearthly slow, but in half a second he was standing just below them. It was as if there was a delay between what they saw and how fast he actually moved.
Candace felt the hair at the nape of her neck rise. This vampire looked about thirty but she sensed that he’d been around for many eras. If there had ever been any humanity in him, it was long gone. Or maybe he’d been a mean S.O.B as a man, and was now a mean S.O.B as a vampire. It didn’t really matter. The mean S.O.B was standing only three stairs below them and those creepy black eyes were crawling over her.
“Can we help you?” Candace said, amazed that she could keep the tremble from her voice. She felt her legs want to quiver, but she stiffened them, and cocked her head to the side.
The other vampires, Candace counted five females and six males, a coven of vampires, moved toward them. They didn’t look much friendlier. In a split second they flanked Shaved Head.
Candace realized with rising alarm that they were being surrounded.
“A baby vampire. How adorable,” Shaved Head said, his voice barely above a whisper but sounding about as pleasant as nails in a blender. “Did you come here to feed, baby?”
Candace thought quickly. “Yes, as a matter of fact. Is there another vampire bar I can check out? This one seems to be out of commission at present.”
“Really? That’s too bad.” Shaved Head narrowed his eerie eyes and placed one black combat boot on the step directly between Candace’s feet. “And what about your friends? An imp and a hunter. They come to watch?”
Canda
ce shrugged. “They’re my friends. And I don’t see how it’s any of your business.”
“Oh, crap,” Astrid muttered.
Shaved Head slowly straightened, his black eyes glowed with a savage light. His thin lips were stretched into a smile, revealing a set of huge, nasty looking fangs.
When he spoke, the stench of rotting meat hit Candace in the face and almost knocked her back. “You’re new, baby, so I’m going to give you a free pass, this time. But I am not a vampire you want on your bad side. I’m going to be running this town, now. And the next, and the next, and the next. You getting me?”
Candace forced herself to move forward, jutting her chin out at him. “I’m getting way too good a whiff of your breath, sunshine. You could use a mint.”
Astrid made a shocked, choking sound beside her.
Ezra raised his Super Soaker. “Easy there, big fella. You don’t want to be at the other end of this baby.”
Shaved Head turned his bottomless eyes to Ezra, looked down at the Super Soaker, and threw his blocky head back, laughing.
The other vampires laughed along with him.
Ezra raised a brow. “Something funny?”
Shaved Head’s laughter died down enough for him to ask, “Where did you get that water gun, hunter? Did you steal it from a child?”
Ezra grinned. “Maybe. Cuz I’m meaner than I look.”
Shaved Head did a mock shiver. “Ooooh. I’m scared. Please don’t shoot me with your water gun, big, bad hunter.” He ran a large, clawed hand over his bald scalp. “I just did my hair.”
He turned to his group of vampires. “I’ve never seen a retarded hunter. This is truly interesting.” He turned back to Candace. “Are you babysitting the retarded hunter, baby?”
The other vampires giggled and laughed.
Ezra put his finger on the trigger. “Your look is great. But I think it’s missing a little something.”
“Oh,” Shaved Head said, clearly amused. He spoke as if Ezra was severely mentally challenged. “And what, pray tell, is that, retarded one?”
“A spritz of Shaman Water.” Ezra depressed the trigger.
A look of shocked terror came over Shaved Head just before the spray hit him in the face.
The other vampires shifted into bats and flew away shrieking, leaving their leader to bellow and scream, batting at his sizzling face. Smoke billowed from his head, and he roared in agony and fury.
Candace stared at him, feeling both fascinated and disgusted. “Gross.”
“Yeah.” Ezra said. “His breath really does reek. Maybe the Shaman Water will help with that.”
“I don’t think anything will help with that.” Candace kept her eyes on Shaved Head as she spoke to Astrid. “When does he explode?”
“I thought he would’ve by now. Maybe it takes longer than if they ingest it.” Astrid crossed her arms over her chest, watching as Shaved Head smoked and continued pummeling his burning face. Pieces of his flesh peeled off in blistered, glowing strips, revealing the bone beneath.
Candace leaned forward, shouting into the shrieking vampire’s ruined face. “And my name isn’t baby, skid mark!” She planted a sneaker on his chest and shoved him down the stairs.
He fell onto his ass and continued hitting at his head, his ability to scream burned away.
Astrid stepped forward. “And the word ‘retarded’ is not acceptable in today’s society. Those who use that word are seriously lacking in mental capacity. Don’t you know that? Dick weed.”
All at once Shaved Head flipped a double bird toward them and shifted into a smoking bat, flapped his wings, and flew away so fast that he’d vanished within seconds, leaving only sparks behind.
“Damn it,” Ezra breathed. “He’s not dead.”
“That’s not good.” Astrid wrapped her arms around herself.
“Understatement of the century,” Ezra said.
“Well, at least we know who murdered the vampires and donors at this vampire bar,” Candace said. “But we’re going to need to stop them from doing the same to all the others in the area.”
“That’ll be fun.” Astrid started down the stairs. “Let’s get the hell out of here, before more of his group come back.”
“I’m kind of hoping that was his whole group.” Ezra tipped his head toward the door of the bar. “Should we warn your buddy in there?”
“Not if we want to leave in one piece,” Candace said. “He’s pissed.”
“We’ll come back. Give him a bit of time. He’ll probably figure it out himself, anyway.” Astrid headed toward the Challenger.
“We’re going to need more than just us if we’re going to deal with Shaved Head and his merry crew of psychotics.” Candace started down the stairs, following Astrid. “He’s going to come for us.”
“Not if we get him, first,” Ezra said. “We’ve faced worse than that jerk. He’s just a thug. Granted, an immortal thug with supernatural abilities, but a thug none-the-less.”
“Do you want to call Strummer or should I?” Candace opened the passenger door and climbed into Ezra’s car. She felt cold, and turned on the heat, fiddling with the vents until they pointed toward her face. She wondered if she’d ever really feel warm again.
“Already done,” Astrid said from the back seat. “So, the order of tasks is: deal with a gang of lunatic, sadistic vamps, and then find whoever is infecting donors and poisoning the decent vampires.”
“Wait,” Astrid said from the back seat. “I thought the vampire nut jobs we just met did that.”
Ezra shook his head. “I think they went in and killed all the vampires and donors at Dead End to make a point. He’s setting an example of what will happen if anyone stands in the way of him running this town.” Ezra made his voice raspy and pulled an unbelievably maniacal face. “And the next, and the next, and the next.”
Candace couldn’t help laughing. She started, and then couldn’t seem to stop. It was the nervous, hysterical laughter of the scared shitless. But that was okay. She was on this side of the dirt, and that couldn’t be all bad. Finally, she was able to say, “That about sums it up.”
Ezra started the engine and pulled back onto the road. He turned the radio on. A song about love and helpless desire filled the car.
Astrid leaned forward.
“Oh, I love that song. Turn it up.”
Ezra did, and then saw the large wolf appear in the beam of the headlights. He rolled his eyes, and then glanced at Candace. “Your dog is looking for you.”
Candace marveled again at the wolf’s silvery fur. His amber eyes glinted as he watched Ezra’s Challenger approach. She was glad to see him. “Let him in.”
“He’ll get fur all over my car,” Ezra complained, but Candace knew he felt a grudging respect for the wolf-were. He slowed and then stopped the car.
“You don’t dislike him as much as you let on,” Candace said.
Ezra lifted his fingers from the steering wheel. “Well, I’m not going to take selfies with him or anything, but I’ll admit that he’s not as bad as I thought he might be.”
“You’re a good guy, Ez.” She patted his arm.
Ezra blushed and gave her a shy grin. “Don’t let that get around.”
Astrid stretched over and opened the back passenger door and the wolf easily hopped in, instantly lying down with his head in her lap. She cooed and ran her hands all over his head and back.
Ezra shook his head. “You’ve got these girls snowed, dog.”
Mika grinned in Ezra’s rear view, in the way only a dog can smile.
Candace felt a smile curve her lips. There seemed to be a truce of sorts between Ezra and Mika. She knew Ezra wanted to know the wolf-were’s story. She wanted to know it, too. But that was for later, when things weren’t so crazy. For now, she was just happy to have Mika around.
In that moment she felt a sense of belonging she’d never felt before in her life. She realized, right then, that this was her family. It didn’t matter where she came from. These wer
e her people. So to speak. They were her tribe. Her true family. They were where she belonged.
She’d tried to find belonging and a sense of family with the force, but it wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t like this. She searched herself for regret for quitting the force. There was none. “You were right, Ez. I am still getting the bad guys and protecting the innocent.”
She was going to make the world a little better, even if it killed her.
And as they drove into the night, Candace began planning which charities she’d write checks to. Her father had left her a lot of money. Blood money. But it was all going to good causes. To those in need.
If she hadn’t arranged for him to be cremated, because she was making damned sure he wasn’t ever coming back in any form, he’d roll over in his grave.
“Ready to kick evil ass?” Ezra asked her.
Candace flashed him a smile, and felt the tips of her new fangs on her lower lip as they lengthened at the thought. “Bring it.”
Also by Tracy Sharp
THE LEAH RYAN SERIES
Repo Chick Blues
Finding Chloe
Dirty Business
Red Surf
JACKED UP! (With J.A Konrath)
Happy Hour
Double Shot
Three Chiller Thrillers - The Leah Ryan Box Set (First three Leah Ryan Books)
THE INTRUDERS SERIES
Intruders: The Invasion (Book 1)
Intruders: The Awakening (Book 2 - With Paul Seiple)
HORROR
Soul Trade
Spooked
ROMANCE
Wish to Dare (Dare to Love Kindle World)
Magical Dare (Dare to Love Kindle World)
Shield Me (Hot Seals Kindle World)
ACTION/SPY
Deadly (Codename:Chandler Kindle World)
EROTIC FAIRY TALES (With Ann Voss Peterson and J.A Konrath
Under the name Melinda Duchamp
Fifty Shades of Jezebel and the Beanstalk (Fifty Shades of Jezebel trilogy book 1)