Monsters, Book One: The Good, The Bad, The Cursed

by Heather Killough-Walden

  But it was what was off that room that Angel loved most. It was an enormous terrace obviously made for entertaining. The terrace was illuminated at night by dozens of tiny, romantic lights and centered by a working fountain.

  But beyond the terrace was the city of San Francisco in all its nighttime glory. Angel had lived long enough in San Francisco to have learned all about this penthouse suite, possibly the most famous and luxurious in the entire world and most certainly in the United States. But never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined she would one day be staying in it.

  She moved to the terrace doors, opened them, and stepped out into the cold night air, despite her towel and wet hair. She gazed out at the city for long, irreplaceable moments, just taking it in. When she felt she’d properly imprinted the image on her mind, she stepped back inside, then swiped her phone on to read the text.

  A blush crept hotter into her cheeks with every word.

  Jake: Tomorrow is too far away. Meet me tonight instead. Transport to the labyrinth at Lands End Lookout. I’ll be waiting for you.

  Angel smiled. I guess he feels the same way I do, she thought whimsically. And then her smile slipped and her stomach felt unpleasantly cold when she remembered that tonight was all there was. Angel may have just found the best thing in the world. And tomorrow, she was going to have to give it away.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Angel went all out putting on an act, figuring there was probably some sort of bug in the room. Or more like seventeen, with how huge the suite was. It was also possible someone not too far away had the unnatural ability to hear everything she said without any listening devices. And it was possible, though rather rude, that there was a camera or two in the penthouse suite. In fact, that was probable. The suite was enormous, after all, and no one would see it as strange to monitor the main, more public rooms.

  So, she took several measures to ensure that nobody came barging into the suite to drag her out and lock her in an interrogation chamber.

  First, Angel fully dressed in warden gear, including a freshly loaded weapon – just in case. Then she entered the largest room of the suite and called Elena to ask her whether she’d be interested in meeting her in the Fairmont restaurant for a drink in twenty minutes. That way, anyone watching would be satisfied that she’d chosen to dress rather than go to sleep because she was headed downstairs, and hopefully they would assume that she’d dressed in warden gear – because frankly that was all she owned or was comfortable in. Besides, she looked good in it.

  Elena was game. In fact, she sounded so excited, Angel hated the fact that she was going to have to call her right back in a few minutes and cancel. She swore to herself that she would make it up to her friend, then repocketed her phone.

  She glanced at her night stand to see what else she might need if she were out all night. The side table was covered with a phone, remote controls, a lamp, and a clock – the standards for a hotel. But it also contained medicines and supplements, probably a dozen different kinds of chocolate – her mind-reading companion earlier must have caught that particular thought – and several bottles of water.

  It occurred to her just then, in that very moment, that after tomorrow she would never need those medications or supplements again.

  Angel went very still. As if instinctively, she felt her gum with her tooth, pressing delicately where she’d lost her very back top tooth recently during a particularly nasty fight. The wound from the extraction of the shattered tooth was completely healed. It had been mended miraculously along with everything else when Cain had saved her. But now she wondered… if she became a vampire, an Apex no less, would the tooth grow back? Would her other teeth grow back? Would they push out the implants she had?

  Hell, would her thyroid grow back?

  The sudden intensity of these questions forced the true depth of her situation to wash over Angel with destabilizing gravity. She swayed on her feet a moment, then sat down hard on the edge of the bed.

  It doesn’t matter, she told herself. Whatever happens, you’ll be okay. Dmitri wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble he’d gone to over the years to see anything damaging happen to her. He wanted her. He was psychopathic and obsessed, but he wanted her all the same. So whatever happened, she would come out whole and, for all intents and purposes, physically sound when the deed was done.

  Contrary to myth, a turned vampire possessed no inherent loyalty or fealty to their maker. Neither did an Apex. So Dmitri would no doubt force her to promise not to run from him once he’d turned her. But that was okay. Because as an Apex… she would be strong. Fantastically so. And if she ran from him, she couldn’t kill him. If Angel was lucky, one day Dmitri would slip up and let his guard down.

  She’d taken a warden’s oath first, after all. As far as she was concerned, that one overrode any promise he forced her to make.

  And she would be free of him at last.

  Angel gazed steadily out the floor-to-ceiling windows, and realized that despite the view, she was frowning. Her eyes actually stung, and there was a pressure building behind them.

  She bit her lip and lowered her head. No. Not now, she told herself. Right now you’re going to go see Jake. And he’s going to make you forget everything.

  With that thought, she took a deep, cleansing breath and rose from the bed. She grabbed a water, took some supplements and her medicine, and drank as much of the water as she could. It was always a good idea for a warden to hydrate when possible. Getting kidnapped or tortured were in a day’s work, and they were both thirsty business.

  When she was finished, she tossed the bottle into the kitchen’s recycling bin and headed to the bathroom – any overhead cameras would think it natural after downing all that liquid.

  Once in the bathroom, where she was certain there was neither a camera nor a listening device, Angel went ahead and took a piss. Then she washed her hands, straightened herself up, and began whispering the words to a transport spell.

  She was beyond grateful that the wards she’d taken the time to detect around the penthouse were all defensive, as in they locked from the inside not the outside. They would keep anyone unwelcome from transporting into the suite, but they wouldn’t keep her from transporting out.

  Angel was a healer by nature, not a warlock. And transportation was warlock magic. It bent time and space, and to do so, it accessed the “darker” aspects of the universe. She personally knew several highly capable warlocks who’d mastered the magic of transporting so thoroughly, they could do it without speaking at all. Some supernatural creatures could do so as well. But for her, it would always involve several ancient words strung together and a good deal of concentration.

  This had always frustrated Angel. In fact, one year early in her career with Vega, she’d grown so irritated by the fact that transporting would never be a simple task for her, she’d gone to the trouble of creating a secondary spell for it.

  The secondary spell was one that allowed her a much faster recall of the portal she’d just exited, as long as it was cast from within the portal as she was traveling it, and as long as she accessed said portal within a day or so.

  She likened it to making sure the elevator stayed on her floor after she’d gotten off so she could get back on quickly again. The magic had come in handy countless times, and now as Angel’s portal opened before her in the large bathroom and she stepped into it as fast as possible, she decided to use it again.

  Like the gun at her back, it was an extra precaution. At the moment, she simply needed to feel safer.

  She cast the secondary spell and watched the swirling colors on the portal’s wall change ever so slightly. When they became predominantly blue, she knew she was nearing her destination.

  The portal opened onto a flat sandy surface at the top of a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Angel stepped out, waited as the portal vanished, then turned slowly in place, her gaze scanning the clifftop’s surroundings.

  Lands End Lookout was on the north
western most tip of San Francisco, between Sea Cliff and Vista del Mar. Lands End itself was a public trail through a preserved park that led hikers to a flattened and well-traveled point overlooking the sea and various famous rocky landmarks such as Lobo Rock, Black Head Rock, and Pyramid Rock. Also on that overlook was a small rock labyrinth meticulously maintained over the years by the artist who’d created it, Eduardo Aguilera.

  But what Angel loved most about it was that off to the right, in the distance, was the San Francisco Bay, and spanning its entrance, the Golden Gate Bridge. Right now, it was lit up like a beacon, stunning and welcoming.

  But she was alone up here. Jake had said he’d be waiting… yet, she didn’t even sense him near.

  “Angel.”

  Angel spun, drawing her weapon. Her heart leapt painfully, its sudden hard hammering making her head ache.

  Jacob Crow stood tall and silent a few short feet away. He hadn’t been there a split second ago. But she hadn’t heard him approach behind her. And more importantly, she hadn’t felt him.

  In fact, she didn’t feel him now. Or rather, she did feel him, but he felt different to her. As if all of the magnetic, sexual influence that was Jacob Crow were being stifled somehow.

  Strangest of all was that Jake wasn’t alone. David Sharpe was with him. The MC brothers stood side by side, both men tall and strong and beautiful. But for a reason she simply couldn’t name, the sight of them there made Angel more afraid than she’d been in a long time.

  And that included her nightmare with Dmitri.

  Jake and David were the same height and build, and both had strong bone structure and rare green eyes, making them seem like natural born brothers. However, David’s hair was dark brown, his skin was fair where Jake’s was tanned, and his eyes were such a light color of green, they nearly appeared white at times, making his gaze uncomfortable to meet.

  Looking at the two of them now, Angel realized she’d been an idiot all along. It was beyond obvious that neither of them were human. And hell, their clan name all but shouted their inhumanity to the world.

  “Angel,” Jake said again softly, his voice sounding strange to her, as if he were speaking from a distance. Or through a filter. “I’m sorry about this.” His head lowered, and his eyes flashed, making Angel feel odd inside.

  “You’re in danger here,” said David, “It sucks to spring this on you so suddenly. I know it isn’t what you had in mind for tonight.” He smiled a little as he spoke, and Jake’s lips curled as well.

  There was something distinctly not right about those smiles.

  “But you need to come with us,” David added, his smile slipping away.

  Jake added firmly, “Right now, Angel.” He stepped forward.

  Oh hell no, Angel thought. And just like that, she spoke the final word in the truncated emergency portal spell she’d cast earlier.

  At once, the portal blasted open behind her. At the same time, Angel spun toward it and dove in head first. Already, she could hear the brothers give chase behind her. Boots pounded out the sandy rock. Jake called out to her.

  But Angel willed the portal door shut with lightning speed, and as she turned around and the world seemed to slide into slow motion, the exit slammed closed in front of her just shy of taking off her leg.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Angel happened to know that tracking someone through a transport spell ranged from difficult to impossible. Very few trackers were capable of pulling it off.

  Unfortunately, Jacob Crow was one of them.

  Angel recalled feeling unsettled by his skills during the Victor Maze job. She remembered wondering if she’d be able to shake him if she ever needed to. As it so happened, now she would probably find out.

  Damn it, she thought as she looked up at the portal walls and watched them change colors yet again. She had no idea where the transport was taking her. The actual tunnels weren’t meant to last this long, but she’d kept the portal in motion on purpose. The gods only knew what kind of effect it was going to have on her. Maybe if she ever had a kid, it would come out with two heads. All she knew for sure was that it took twice as much magic to maintain it as normal.

  But she did it for good reason.

  As Vega’s second-in-command, it was Angel’s job to know as much as possible about each position that made up a warden clan. In learning about trackers, she’d discovered that although following someone through a portal was rare, when it was done, there were various ways to do it.

  One way was by knowing the mark themselves. This method was more like profiling than tracking, and a lot of guess work was involved. So she didn’t really count it.

  Another way was by using very specific magic against the trace elements that remained behind the mark’s actual portal, rather like dusting for fingerprints. Through this method, a location match would sometimes be made. But it was painstaking and time consuming. Angel was pretty sure Jake wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot pole, at least not right now. Not when he was in a hurry.

  But there were more rare and much more powerful ways to hunt someone down once they’d transported away. And they were faster, too. One was to modify a scrying spell to allow the tracker to see what the mark was seeing for a very short period of time – namely when they were stepping out of the portal at their destination. Problem solved.

  Another modification method was to listen inside the portal for the words of the caster’s spell, hence hearing the traveler’s destination.

  But the most difficult method of tracking someone through a portal, hence the most rare and most accurate, was to cast a spell that allowed a tracker to read a mark’s mind while they were in the portal.

  Since spell casting inside a portal at all was supposed to be impossible, if not highly dangerous and hence highly frowned upon, any of these tracking methods were impressive to the point of being scary. But the last one made Angel very, very nervous. She already knew Jake could read her mind. And she already knew he was probably the best tracker in the game.

  If she put two and two together, it wasn’t a stretch to imagine that he could cast up a bit of potent magic allowing him a brief glimpse into her skull that would give her away.

  Which was why she kept the portal going and told it to go wherever the hell it wanted. If she didn’t know where she was going, then he couldn’t know either.

  It was draining her, though. She couldn’t keep it up forever.

  Angel touched her forehead. Again, her fingertips were ice cold on her feverish skin. She was just so confused. What the hell was going on? What had happened to Jake? And Dave?

  What was wrong with them?

  She shivered violently and hugged herself, sending more magic into the portal so she could think. The truth was, she was scared. How ironic was it that not until after they’d made love and she’d bared herself to him completely did she begin to feel afraid of him?

  Ironic or not, that’s what she was.

  She took her hand off her forehead and placed it over her heart. But when she did, she felt the bear claw press delicately into her skin. She’d forgotten she had it on.

  Angel pulled it out from under her shirt and turned it over in her hands. She sure could use a little guidance from White Wolf right about now. But she guessed she’d have to be asleep for that to happen.

  “Ugh,” she muttered, feeling a little dizzy. I have to stop. She needed to spare some magic. She had to bring the transport to a close.

  “Okay,” she sighed, letting the transport slow. “Go ahead and open up.”

  It wasn’t very scientific, she knew, and it would have served her right to be dumped in the middle of the Pacific. But she still refused to take the chance that Jake could get any glimpses from her mind. Instead, she would try her luck and hope for the best.

  She squeezed the pendant tight as if it could give her that luck, and prepared to jump from the portal as it swirled open.

  As it happened, the portal deposited her into a fog-filled forest of sequoias.
Angel frowned; this was a little too close to home for comfort. But she exited anyway, and when the portal closed behind her, she turned a slow circle, scanning her surroundings.

  There was no road. There were no buildings. She looked overhead and saw no wires. Which meant she was either in the middle of a park or preserve, or she’d somehow managed to leave the mortal realm. Since the latter would require more strength than she possessed, she settled on the former.

  Angel pulled her phone from her pocket and checked for a signal. There was none. She could always cast a spell to widen its range, but she’d never been very good with electronic spells. And she’d used so much magic on the portal. “Fuck,” she whispered. She didn’t have any choice. She needed to call Gabe.

  Angel knelt down in the dark brown earth and held her phone between her hands. “Check out the modern witch,” she laughed to herself, imagining Sabrina the Teenage Witch flying on her vacuum cleaner. “Canetis porto tantum quod tantum stella,” she whispered. The phone began to warm pleasantly in her palms. She looked on hopefully as its screen brightened until it was glowing.

  Angel smiled, pressed the button on the bottom of the screen, and reached out for Gabriel with her mind.

  It wasn’t until the phone crackled with a connection and started to ring that Angel realized her hopeless mistake. She’d slipped up. She shouldn’t have cast any kind of spell that involved sending any kind of signal at all.

  As if to prove her dawning realization correct, when the call was answered on the second ring, it wasn’t Gabriel’s voice on the other end of the line.

  It was Jake’s.

  Angel froze, wide-eyed and stunned where she knelt in the forest when his deep, sexy voice chuckled softly. Even across the distance between them, the sound was warm and delicious. Longing blossomed to aching life in Angel’s body, drawing a quaking gasp from between her lips. The laughter faded, and Angel closed her eyes.