Mortal Sentry (Raina Kirkland Book 2)

by Diana Graves

  Alicia danced with me, pushing the boundaries of heterosexuality until a man came and grabbed her up. She didn’t protest and I stepped aside. Alicia was getting rather physical with her new guy friend, and that was my cue to leave.

  Fire was just starting when I got back to the table. I looked over the sea of club goers. There were a lot of trendy dressed young people; smiling, laughing and talking loudly. Everyone was having fun—except the proprietor of Allegory’s, Mr. Gregory Allegory, himself. He was sitting in his raised booth as usual, surrounded by his best friends and sexy ladies. But, he had a deep frown, which wasn’t usual. His thick red hair and natural tan looked rather striking in the slick green suit he was sporting. A bouncer was leaning over the table and he looked angry.

  I was being rude staring like I was and when Allegory looked my way and our eyes met, I turned my head so fast I nearly spilled my drink on Mato.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “What is it, Raina?” he asked, looking back the way I’d been staring.

  I shrugged my shoulders, because my mind was already elsewhere. Deep in the crowd on the dance floor was a familiar face and it wasn’t Alicia. She had actually dragged Katie out on the dance floor while I was distracted. Katie was stiff and visibly uncomfortable while Alicia danced seductive rings around her. But it wasn’t her face that caught my attention. No, the familiar face I saw was Charley, a vampire I’d met at Bastion Fatal, but he didn’t belong to Alistair. He was an independent vampire. Those sorts of vampires were rare, because Federal Law states that people wanting to become vampires must be accepted into a vampire collective in order for their turn to be legal. Only people who are attacked or accidently infected with vampirism can choose to serve a master or not. He wasn’t what I’d call a friend, though, but I liked him, even though he pissed me off sometimes. Tonight, he was getting a lot of attention as he break-danced like no human ever could. His long thin braids sprayed out with every vampire-fast move, every dip, turn and spin. The beads at the end of each braid were illuminated by the black lights, adding to the wonderment of his skill. It was amazing. When the song was done two things happened at once. Charley spotted me and started walking my way and the bouncer that had been talking to Allegory approached us.

  “Excuse me Miss,” the bouncer said.

  His baby blue eyes were small, sharp and staring down at me with a fierceness I didn’t deserve.

  “Yes,” I said. Mato sat up; looking at the man with the same fierce stare he was giving me. Hey, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

  “Allegory requests your presence,” the bouncer said. He wore no name tag. I guess bouncers were just tough guys, no name needed.

  “Why,” Mato asked for me. I would have argued with him, but we had a mountain of a man staring us down. We could argue about my ability to take care of my damn self later.

  The bouncer looked uncomfortable; he looked back in Allegory’s direction as he said, “It’s of a delicate matter. Not for public ears. Come to with me.”

  That sounded too much like an order, and I just flat didn’t do orders, not from people who hadn’t earned my respect. I crossed my arms under my breasts, under because over wouldn’t have looked natural or bad ass, so I was left cradling my breasts in my arms.

  “What’s wrong?” Charley asked, showing too much fang as he said it.

  His black mesh shirt and cargo pants clung to his rich brown muscular body. His tattooed arms were covered by black leather spiked gauntlets that he was in the midst of reattaching. Those gauntlets wouldn’t have been too comfortable while he was out on the dance floor, not with those big spikes.

  “I must borrow Raina for a very serious and delicate matter, please.” The please was squeezed out of tight lips, and not aimed at me. Who was he asking, Mato, Charley? Neither of them owned me.

  “If I see Allegory for this matter, that’s my choice. So, will you please speak to me, not them?” The bouncer gave me a slight bow. “Let’s see this guy,” I breathed. I stood up and expected the men to follow me, nameless bouncer and all. They did.

  Allegory was sitting in the midst of sexy women and good humor. His shaggy red hair was the color of Halloween pumpkins, and his eyes were like large storm clouds ready to relinquish the rain I loved so dearly. It was rumored that he had dealings with such uncouth characters as Boss Gallon, the master vampire that ran Fang for Hire, Washington’s most lethal monster mafia. Looking into Allegory’s eyes, I knew it was probably true. He looked reckless and ruthless enough to be a dangerous douche bag. He looked up at me, meeting my blood red eyes with his stormy skies and we shared a moment. I was a tough little girl that reverberated vampiric energy, and he was a beautiful human with delicate hands in all the wrong pockets.

  “Come-sit,” he said, shooing away a pouty faced half naked woman.

  “Sit?” I repeated one eyebrow up.

  “And talk with me— you may want to ask your friends to get the fuck gone,” Allegory said with his famous classless candor.

  “They stay—thanks,” I said as I sat. Charley and Mato stood beside me and the bouncer stood beside them.

  Allegory didn’t waste time, I liked that. “Fine, what the fuck do I care, right? It’s actually convenient that you should be here tonight. We have an issue on the second floor; a monster has gotten a bit out of fucking hand and you need to deal with it.”

  “I’m not actually fully licensed yet.” Or trained I added in my head. “And even if I was licensed, killing a non-human without warrant is murder.”

  “Whoa, I don’t want you to off the fucking guy. Just talk to the sicko.” He turned to the bouncer standing beside Mato. “Can you believe this bitch? Like I want a dead fucking vamp in my place of business,” he laughed. The bouncer didn’t laugh. I didn’t think it was funny either.

  “What the hell do you want then?”

  “Ooh, this bitch has balls,” he laughed again, pointing his thumb my way. “I think you may be able to reach this particular monster very well,” he said around a glass of Jack Daniels. “He’s your brother.”

  My head hit the back of my seat. Shit. “Which one,” I groaned.

  “The fucking monster, which one do you fucking think?”

  “Which one, I have two vampire brothers, Michael and Nick!” I almost shouted. I really didn’t think it was Michael. Tristan had him on a short leash. And after what Tristan said last night about Nick’s behavior, I really shouldn’t have had to ask.

  Allegory raised his bushy eyebrows. “Nil,” he said in a flat voice. “He’s up stairs, pass the bouncers and in room three.”

  “Room three,” I repeated. Allegory nodded after taking a large gulp of Jack. “Okay, I’ll go see what I can do.” I said, standing up.

  “Take Danny with you,” he said, and then motioned for the bouncer to head toward the stairs.

  Mato and Charley followed him. They hadn’t said a word while I was talking to Allegory.

  “Oh, Raina,” Allegory called after me in a sing-song voice. I turned and found him kissing a random woman, tongue, lips, teeth; a very showy kiss. He was looking at me the whole time. Creepy. I put my hands on my hips and he pushed the girl away.

  “If you can’t control your brother and get him the fuck out of here quietly, you know what I’ll have to do.”

  His mind was open to me. If Nick caused a scene, he’d have him killed. “A bit of an overreaction, don’t you think?” He said nothing. “Killing my brother might have unforeseen consequences.”

  “Still,” Allegory said, “Still Raina, if he fucks with my business I’ll take my chances on your famous vengeance.”

  “We understand each other perfectly then,” I said before climbing the metal stairs behind Mato, who had paused to wait for me.

  TORTURE

  DANNY LED US into a part of Allegory’s I’d never been before. It seemed like another club altogether; dark and lifeless, cold and cramped. I could smell the fish from the bay, and something else. Blood.
We finally came to a door, but I knew what we’d fine before Danny even pulled out his keys, before he turned to me, but wouldn’t meet my eyes.

  “You may want to prepare yourself for the worst,” Danny suggested as he fumbled with the keys, trying to find the one that would open the door. I was already braced, because I could already see it in my mind. Nick was being tortured!

  “Let’s show our contestants what they’ve won!” Charley laughed when Danny stuck a key in the door knob. I gave him one raised brow. “What? You know…What’s behind door number three!?” he mimicked a game show announcer.

  I ignored Charley. My heart was in my throat and my stomach was falling out the other end. Nervous, hell yes I was. I was about to save my big brother from whomever was doing what I was seeing in my head. If Allegory had any hand in what was happening to Nick he would rue the day he decided to fuck with my family. He so didn’t want to be responsible for pissing me off.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Mato said.

  “The room is soundproofed,” Danny said.

  Danny was looking at me and eventually I realize he was waiting for me to give him the go ahead. I gave him a shallow nod. He had to push hard to get the door open, but the moment it budged just a little the hall filled with a woman’s screams and sick laughter.

  The screaming woman was huddled near the door. She had blue hair and short black bangs. Her eyes were small and lost behind fake eye lashes and thick eye liner. Danny grabbed her by the arm. He practically threw her out of the room and into the hall with us. She squeezed past us and ran down the hall, screaming still. Once she was gone, all that was left was a sick laugh and the sound of skin slapping skin, wet. I wished the woman would come back and scream some more.

  Danny held the door open for us. He was staring at the floor, not looking into the room. Mato tried to go ahead of me, but I stopped him with a hand on the shoulder. He didn’t have to respect that, but he did and I walked ahead into the room. The right side of the room had a sofa, red crushed velvet. A vampire was sitting there with a naked woman draped over his lap. The vampire was in a tux, and he wasn’t Nick. They were smiling, laughing, clapping. I didn’t want to look to my left, I didn’t, but I did.

  I found Nick naked and chained down. A woman vampire was beating him with a mace fast; vampire fast. He was gagged or he would have been screaming. He was kneeling in a pool of his own blood. The chains he wore were heavy, heavy enough to hold a weakened and beaten vampire down.

  “Nick!” I yelled.

  He turned his head slowly toward me as much as the chains would allow, and the woman stopped beating him. Half his face looked fine, half looked whole. The other side was a swollen bloody mess. Parts of him had been skinned; parts of him had been burned. He had bite marks, and deep whip marks and nails sticking out from his skin.

  “Mush!” shouted the vampire on the sofa. A leather strap went flying in the air to add another deep laceration to Nick’s chest. Nick cried out around the gag in his mouth and the woman began beating him again.

  “Stop!” I shouted at the vampire. He had long curly blond hair. He looked a bit familiar, actually, but I couldn’t place his face.

  “And who are you?” asked the vampire. He had dark brown eyes half hidden by his overhanging brow.

  “Raina. Who the hell are you?”

  “Come now, no need to get pissy.”

  “You’re torturing my brother. In my book that’s plenty reason to get all sorts of pissy.”

  The vampire leaned forward, over the naked woman in his lap. She was smiling up at me. I so badly wanted to roundhouse-kick that smile off her face.

  “I haven’t done anything he hasn’t asked me to do to him.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “Your brother came here for a little fun. He wanted to feel pain. I gave that to him.”

  “Well, why the fuck was I called here if everything is on the up and up?” I asked.

  I was getting really hot. I felt like my whole body was boiling over. If I didn’t get out of there soon, I wasn’t one-hundred percent sure little white flames wouldn’t start eating at my clothes. I was just that angry.

  “I’m afraid we scared the little lady you saw scampering away as you came in. She must have reported us to the security.”

  “No shit, you’re fucking sick. This shit is sick. I’m taking my brother with me now,” I said.

  “Take him,” he said.

  The vampire lifted the girl on his lap with one hand and tossed her to the other side of the sofa, as though she were an unwanted toy, so he could stand up. The line of his suit was very formfitting, very flattering. He walked to me. He was taller than me by at least a foot, so he had to bend down to get in my face, but he made it look graceful. Mato stepped up, and a growl came from him. Charley was on my other side, arms crossed. I looked up at the vampire with a hard face.

  “Body guards or no, from here they couldn’t save you if I wanted to snap your neck.”

  “But, you won’t,” I said with certainty, “too many witnesses.” That was my protection for now. The vampire leaned in, closer, brushing his lips against my ear and I let him. I let him feel that I was not afraid of him. Not at that moment anyway. Because, I knew he couldn’t do anything to me, not without being hunted down by a bounty hunter and killed. He didn’t look that suicidal.

  “You aren’t always surrounded by watching eyes. Keep that in mind the next time you want to talk in a disrespectful tone to me,” he said. And, with that he turned to leave, but not without his, “Cat!” The naked woman on the sofa slowly picked herself up. Sliding on a green silk robe, she stood and started coming toward the vampire. The vampire pointed a long finger in Nick’s direction. “Get Marie,” he told Cat. She handed Marie a towel to clean off Nick’s blood. Marie tossed her mace on the floor and the towel along with it once her hands were wiped clean. They walked to the waiting vampire in the doorway.

  I avoided looking at Nick by watching Cat. I was trying to control my anger, and the sight of him only made it worse.

  The vampire put his arms around each girl, kissing them in turn. Even though Marie wiped her hands with a towel, she still had my brother’s blood dripping from her clothes. She hissed at me as the vampire pushed her through the door. Oh no, had I ruined her fun?

  “What’s your name?” I asked after the vampire.

  He turned then. The look on his face said clearly, I hadn’t made a new best friend. “Luke,” he said, and he was gone, disappeared down the hall after Cat and Marie.

  I asked Mato if Nick could borrow his trench coat, because I couldn’t find Nick’s cloths anywhere. Charley unchained him and gently sat him on the sofa. I was pacing the hallway. I didn’t know what face to make when Nick looked at me and I didn’t want to hurt him. What to do? Mato came down the hall with his coat over his arm.

  “How is he?” he asked me.

  “I don’t know,” I shrugged, hugging myself tight.

  Great, now I couldn’t meet Mato’s eyes either. I was way out of my element and I didn’t want him seeing me like that. I didn’t want anyone seeing me like that. It had been Nick’s mind that gave me the glimpse into the room before Danny opened the door. This was the second time I saw into his mind since he became a vampire. Usually vampires were just a blank void to me, but not Nick. Even when he was alive, I was always able to read his emotions loud and clear. I thought that would change after he turned, but it didn’t. I was doing everything I could to keep me out of his head. I didn’t want to feel his pain again. It was too much for me. His longing for pain came from a deep self-hate. His first few days as a vampire were rough, due to how Alistair treated him. He fed him live prey and threw him a party Caligula would be proud of. Nick was part elf and that meant he was sensitive to violence.

  Mato hugged me and kissed the top of my head. His hair fell against my face and I breathed in his scent, his musky outdoors smell.

  “I can’t face him,” I admitted to Mato. He held
me at arm’s length so he could see my face. I averted my eyes. I wanted desperately not to be looked at. I wanted to burrow my face into his neck and hide against him.

  “We need answers. Charley and I can handle Nil,” Mato said. I looked at him then. His eyes were bright, shining and warm in this cold sick place. He was giving me a task so I wouldn’t have to be there. I thanked him with a weak smile. It was the best I could muster up at that moment.

  “I’ll talk with Allegory and collect Alicia and Katie,” I said. Mato hugged me again and then he disappeared into the room.

  Allegory was sitting right where we left him, but the people who were surrounding him earlier were gone and only Luke sat beside him. They looked like they were having a private discussion, an argument really. And Luke was at the receiving end of a reprimand. I stared at him while I climbed down the stairs, still unable to place his face. I didn’t know a whole lot of vampires, so it was a little unnerving that he seemed so damn familiar. He looked up at me with mocking eyes and we watched each other as I made my way to the table. Allegory was still giving Luke harsh words when I approached the table. He looked up at me and smiled.

  “You still here?” he said wearing a happy-go-lucky face.

  “I think you have some explaining to do.”

  “I take it you didn’t like what you saw,” he said.

  I smiled at them, but it was a mean smile. “What’s to like?”

  “Your brother has issues,” Luke said. “That’s not my fault.” He was looking at me, but it felt like that last statement was more for Allegory’s benefit.

  “No,” I began. “But, you could have turned him away. It’s obvious he’s not in his right mind right now.”

  “I was just doing my job. People pay me for a service, and satisfaction is guaranteed.”

  I grabbed a chair, swung it around and sat in it backward, facing the table. I looked over my shoulder and spotted Katie and Alicia dancing. Katie was getting the hang of it. Her body was moving with impressive rhythm.