Blood Song: Division 7: The Berkano Vampire Collection

by Lindsey R. Loucks

  “In the middle of the street.”

  My stomach lurched. We’d be right out in the open with a bulky ladder and shade surrounding us where anything could be lurking.

  He moved to his right and waved me next to him so I could see the ladder. There it was, all right, a thousand miles away.

  “Is that building barricaded like this one?” I asked. “Will we be able to get in?”

  He gazed down at me. This close to natural light, standing closer to him than I ever had before, his eyes were avocado green with amber swirls near the centers. This color detail wasn’t important, especially right now, but something about them, their nearness, caught me off guard.

  “We’ll get in.” He cleared his throat and peered out again, this time angling his gaze upward, the reddish-brown curls on his forehead grazing his eyelashes.

  “How did you get here from the building across the street?” I asked. “Jump?”

  “There are steps attached to that building from top to bottom that look completely random but aren’t if you know where to put your feet.”

  “Which I obviously don’t,” I reminded him. “So how did you expect me to follow you?”

  He turned and stared at me like I’d just birthed a demon. “I expected you to stay there like I told you to. I was coming right back.”

  “You didn’t tell me anything,” I hissed, leaning closer with my teeth bared. “Maybe you could’ve communicated all this before I crashed through some freak’s window and got collared so my vocal cords can be plucked like harp strings.”

  “I waved at you to stay put.” The muscles in his jaw pulsed while his sharp gaze narrowed. “You were looking right at me. You even nodded, doing something weird with your hands.”

  “No, there was no wave.” I spat the word like a curse. “You checked your wrist like an asshole—”

  “And after that, I motioned for you to stay put.”

  “You need to make sure I understand your instructions before I throw myself off another building.” I leaned into him farther, almost nose to nose, fighting back the angry tremble in my voice. “End of fucking story.”

  He looked at me for several heartbeats, his face unreadable. “If I do that, will you wait here for two minutes?”

  “So you are leaving me here.” I glared daggers at him, digging underneath his skin with as much severity as he was crawling under mine.

  “For two minutes, yes. Then we get the ladder.” He backed away toward the stairs behind him, then turned and glided up them.

  Two minutes. Yeah, right. He’d taken the black bag of supplies with him and was probably divvying out the contents since I was as good as dead anyway. But only seconds later, he came back, a 170-numbered silver collar cuffed to his neck.

  I stared at him in disbelief.

  “Now do you think I’ll find a way to get your collar off?” He strode up to me, his gaze stormy. “You want me to communicate, so believe me when I tell you what I’ll do for you.”

  He’d sentenced himself to death to prove a point. He’d risked his life to save mine. What a reckless, stupid thing to do. Yet, at the same time, it drove his promise home. If he wanted to live, he’d have to find a way out of that collar, and would therefore free me too.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I said.

  His steely gaze dipped to the collar at my neck, and, with a sigh, he nodded toward the door. “When we go out there, will you promise to stop walking like a dinosaur?”

  What? Oh, he had some nerve. Still, I couldn’t deny it. “I will…tame the dinosaur.”

  A flash of humor crinkled his eyes.

  “But only if you start explaining things to me without killing yourself in the process.”

  “Deal,” he said. “Now, let’s go before the sun makes more shadows.”

  Chapter 3

  Hendry led the way out into the baking sun. We moved quickly to the middle of the road, making sure not to linger in the small patches of shade from nearby cars parked along the curb.

  I took the end of the ladder closest to us since that was what we’d planned, and Hendry moved past to pick up the end closest to the building we aimed for. The metal scorched my fingertips and dug the embedded window shards deeper into my skin, but I swallowed back the pain and ignored it the best I could.

  We sped for the front doors, which were made of glass and boarded up from the inside. Garlic bulbs hung from twine on the outside. A patch of shade clung to the ground in front of the door. Hendry didn’t slow, but surely we were looking at the same entrance. Was he going to try to barrel through? If he rammed it enough times with the ladder, he’d still be caught in the shade for however long that took.

  As soon as his toe hit the shadowed line, the door whipped open. Hendry ran his end of the ladder through so fast my feet seemed to leave the ground.

  A low, screeching growl sounded to my right. Vampire.

  My flesh shrank away from the blur of movement out of the corner of my eye. A shout lodged in the back of my throat. The ladder was only halfway through the door, but I refused to let go. Couldn’t let go because my hands had fused with the metal in a deadly grip. I was almost in the shade, right where it could cut the life from me with a fang across my collared throat.

  Another growl. A burst of motion flew toward me.

  Almost to the shade, the last place I wanted to be. I zeroed in on nothing else but the door and kept moving. A dark shape blazed toward me. A sour breath at the side of my neck, and then I was through the door with the rest of the ladder. It slammed shut behind me. On the other side, an unholy wail sounded that licked a tremble up my back.

  I dropped my end of the ladder, every little hair on my body prickling as I whipped around to face the door. That had been too close. It was still close, even through the wooden planks that were boarded over the glass and the line of mechanical locks down its side currently being clicked into place by a woman.

  She turned and sagged against the door, a loose strand of blonde hair fluttering over her heart-shaped mouth as she breathed a shaky exhale. A scratching noise behind her zipped her big blue eyes toward the locks and then to Hendry again. Her skin’s pale creaminess contrasted with the red dress she wore, which flowed down her body like a graceful sweep of an artist’s hand. I didn’t mean to stare, but she was gorgeous. Her dress was, too, though I didn’t understand its purpose since she couldn’t strut it around town.

  “That was—Hendry!” she hissed. “The Silence Collectors got you?”

  “I’ll figure it out, Tessa.” He adjusted his grip on the ladder. “Thanks for seeing me coming.”

  “I-I saw you coming. I didn’t see her.” Her eyes fell on me and narrowed, then dipped to the floor where a groove marred the dark wood under my end of the ladder. She crossed toward me and toed at it with her fancy shoes as if she could rub it smooth again. “Watch the floor next time, would you?”

  “Sorry,” I said, but it came out as a hoarse bark.

  Hendry jerked his head to me. “This is Fin. She’s staying here.”

  “I am?” I asked.

  “She is?” The woman—Tessa’s—lips thinned as she looked me up and down with a disapproving grimace.

  Allison did that, too, and it had always made me feel as though I weren’t just being scrutinized but compared. I didn’t get the point, but it made my non-church tongue burn hotter. Honestly, there was no comparison between this woman and me. I threw my blonde locks into min-buns—my hair wouldn’t do anything else—and this woman looked as though she had a whole team of stylists. The number of curves her dress hugged made me question whether I had hit puberty yet, even though I was eighteen. Hardly a fair comparison, if that was the game she wanted to play.

  Tessa turned back to Hendry and posted her hands on her hips. “She’s been marked by the Silence Collectors, too. Besides, have you looked at her?”

  I hissed as if her words had been a punch to my gut. “Lady, that was the wrong thing to say to me today.”

&
nbsp; Glass shards that stuck in my palms would make a lovely glitter bomb right to her face. I lunged, but Hendry rushed up behind me and looped his arm around my waist to hold me back. His body heat engulfed me, a smothering combination with my own. I fought against him, but he crushed me to him with the fingers of one hand splayed across my stomach.

  “Let me go!” I demanded.

  “Laxare,” he said, his breath a cooling breeze on my neck.

  It felt so good that I sagged against him in the hopes that he would do it again. The strength leaked out of my body along with my sweat, taking my anger with it. A lightness floated up to the top of my head, bubbly, relaxed. He’d just put a spell on me. The…fucker.

  Tessa eyed us, her face blank, and ticked her eyes to Hendry. “You brought me a feral?”

  “Put her in the kitchen or the baths, Tessa,” Hendry said, his tone as hard as his chest pressed to my back. “That’s where she has experience.”

  I blinked my way to my next thought, but it took longer than normal under Hendry’s spell. He was really going to leave me here with Tessa, who looked as if she’d much rather push me back outside without a second thought.

  Something twitched across her face as she must’ve read something on Hendry’s that I couldn’t. She dropped her hands to her sides and strode toward the wooden saloon door straight ahead, her high heels clicking behind her. “I’ll tell the other girls.”

  Other girls. Hopefully they were as charming as she was.

  I stumbled out of Hendry’s grasp to take in my new home. Hardwood floors that I’d already scratched stretched the length of a wide entryway. At the far end, in the left corner, was a spiral iron staircase. Doorways branched off the hallway to other rooms, but only one of them had saloon doors. Several loveseats with big, lace-trimmed pillows propped in the corners sat underneath jeweled mirrors hanging from velvet-draped walls. Lemon-scented candles burned from inside a small chandelier hanging above our heads. I liked lemon but not all at once.

  “What is this place?” I asked, then glanced back at Hendry, who was watching me closely.

  “It used to be a hotel. Now…” He stepped closer, the light from the candles glinting in his brown curls. “It’s a brothel.”

  I lifted an eyebrow, the effects of his spell seeming to fade some. He had to be kidding me. “People actually come here for…for that? Even with vampires outside and the Silence Collectors across the street?”

  “Both humans and witches come here using the system of ladders on the roofs. The place is usually packed before night, so I’m sure they’re on the way. They do it for trade, the customers and the…practitioners. But you’ll be in the kitchens or the baths.” He frowned, as if gauging my reaction. “Nothing else.”

  From a church to a brothel. I supposed I should’ve been offended, probably even horrified. If anything, though, I found it kind of fascinating. Maybe that was just the exhausted, heat-stroked, Hendry-just-put-a-damned-spell-on-me part of me. The rest of me just wanted to go home.

  “And if I decide to expand my horizons outside the kitchen and baths?” I asked. “Your mom always said I didn’t have—”

  “I know what she said. No putting that tongue of yours to work. No…anything.” His jaw tightened. The green and amber in his eyes somehow appeared more defined by candlelight, their clarity cutting me into sweat-drenched ribbons. “You won’t have time for anything other than the kitchen or the baths.”

  “I was kidding. I’m just trying to find the humor in my situation so I don’t lose all hope in the last few days of my life. Besides, Tessa doesn’t seem to think I’m all that easy on the eyes.” I dragged myself to the ladder and hauled my end up, my hands screaming in pain, every muscle in my body yowling right along with them. “Now let’s get this ladder to the roof.”

  He stood there, unmoving, while staring at me strangely. “I can manage it.”

  “I’m the one who didn’t see your invisible wave and knocked the ladder into the street. You’re the one who’s going to die along with me in a couple of days.” I swung my end around toward the staircase, assuming that was the direction I needed to go to the roof, likely digging Hendry’s end into the floor in a gash to match the first. “The least I can do is help, and then it’s question-and-answer time.”

  That was only part of the reason I wanted to go with him, if I was being honest with myself. I was stalling; I didn’t want to be left here with a bunch of strangers. Hendry, however impossible he was, was my last link to home, to Mom and Dad.

  “I also just put a small relaxation spell on you,” Hendry said. “You’re not mad?”

  “I’m always mad.” I shrugged. “I figure you were trying to protect Tessa. Are you always so into saving people’s lives?”

  “Yeah. Actually I am.” He picked his end up, and we started for the staircase with me going up first.

  The spirals were so tight for the bulky ladder that we had to time our steps with each other, but we soon found a rhythm. At the second-floor landing, a few women wandered into the hallway. Their silky hair had been drawn onto their heads in flawless piles, and makeup shadowed their eyes in a sultry tilt. I paused to take in their beauty, not to compare but to admire, then glanced away in case they were poisoned flowers like Tessa. They didn’t say a word to me as I began the upward climb to the third floor.

  But when their sights fell on Hendry a moment later, their lips parted, and they pushed their chests out. I spied it all through the slats in the stairs.

  “Hi, Hendry,” one of them called in a singsong voice.

  They knew him by name. What else did they know about him? Did he partake in any tonguing activities?

  “Ladies,” he said, but I couldn’t see his reaction because he was too far below me.

  It didn’t matter, but it did make me curious.

  The same thing happened on the third floor, but with men. Some milled out in the hallway, just as beautiful as the women, some with a lot less makeup. A few smiled and winked at me, but when Hendry passed by, it was like a welcome-home party for a long-lost brother complete with air-fist bumps. People liked and respected him, which didn’t mesh well with my conclusion that he’d murdered those on his hunting parties.

  Past the third-floor landing, the staircase spiraled up to a rectangular door cut into the ceiling.

  “Let me go up there first. I should’ve gone up first, anyway,” Hendry said from farther down. “Have you got hold of your end?”

  “Yeah.”

  He set his down with a soft clang and started up the rest of the stairs. “Don’t drop it.”

  Don’t fuck up. But I had. Multiple times. He was putting an awful lot of faith in me that I wouldn’t do it again.

  He stepped around the tight turns, careful of the ladder slanted upward at a weird angle, his hand sliding up the railing toward me. Even several steps down, he stood at eye level since he was so tall. The heat had caused sweat to drench his curls, and it dripped off the ends down along the short scruff at his jaw.

  “Can you…?” He pointed to the side.

  “Right.” But I didn’t have a whole lot of options. I pressed myself sideways against the ladder so he could squeeze past in the four inches of space that were left.

  He turned and wedged his body between mine and the railing, but there wasn’t enough room for him to slide through. I backed up as far as I could into the ladder, its sharp edges digging between my shoulder blades. His smell enveloped me as he neared, crisp and salty like I imagined the ocean would be. I breathed it in, memorizing it.

  His hands settled at my waist, pushing on my hips to allow a slice more space. My stomach tightened at his touch. My shirt had ridden up during the climb, enough that his fingers grazed a thin strip of flesh above my waistband. His skin on mine ignited a current to all other points of contact. It had to be an aftereffect of his spell, because I didn’t quite know what to do with this feeling. I breathed in his smell, an intoxicating potion.

  As soon as he slipped by, h
e quickly released me, seemingly oblivious to whatever had just happened. Other than my melting brain, nothing had.

  “Start lifting the ladder as soon as I’m out.” He turned, unlocked the padlock attached to the door, and tugged at the small rope dangling next to it.

  Boiling heat and sunlight blasted down on top of our heads like an upside-down hell entrance. Once he climbed up onto the roof, I dragged the ladder up the steps toward him. He hauled it the rest of the way, and I stepped up the few remaining stairs to the rooftop.

  This was the roof I’d nearly killed myself on, and I’d been so busy doing that I hadn’t noticed the garden bursting along one side. A variety of plump, fresh vegetables grew in rectangular planters, and maybe a few herbs, too, though I couldn’t tell what they were. A minty honey smell wafted from a nearby eucalyptus tree.

  On the next roof over behind this one, a large cluster of men and a few women waited for the ladder to be put back in place. They stood like statues, still and quiet, their expressions patient while they watched Hendry. In the distance, more were coming. None hung their heads in shame that they were headed to the brothel; it was just a place to go for those who wanted companionship. In this silent, fearful world we lived in, I couldn’t blame them.

  Then it hit me—the brothel must not hang people to keep the Berkano away. Otherwise, one wouldn’t have tried to mow me down outside the front door. So how did other witches keep the vampires away? Or did they even know that the hanging ritual was an option? Judging from those on the roof, they knew to be quiet outside and to avoid shadows and the night. I would have to ask Hendry later.

  I rushed to my end of the ladder, grinding noisily against the loose pebbles behind Hendry, and walked with it until he reached the edge. As he knelt to slide it over to the people, a tree branch snapped to my left.

  The large eucalyptus tree grew far enough away that it couldn’t easily be trimmed back without stepping into shadows. Its leafy branches cast deep ones across the edge of the building. I peered closer between the wind-kissed leaves. Another noise like wood scraping against wood sounded, closer this time.