She was different from him in so many ways, her mind wired on a separate frequency, and yet it was as if he couldn’t get enough of her. He wanted to know how she ticked and what made her that way. She affected him unlike other women, getting him to think about things in a whole different light. Yes, many things about her were maddening and yet—
The sound of crackling wood echoed through the passageway. Then with a loud rumble, more debris fell from above, filling the tunnel and sending sparks everywhere. He jumped backward, narrowly avoiding being hit by a brick. Darkbloods were near and the house was coming down around them, yet he wasn’t any closer to Roxy.
Nothing is going to stop me from getting to her. Nothing.
No sooner had that thought crossed his mind when something strange began to happen.
The tips of his fingers tingled and the little hairs all over his body stood on end as if there was an electrical storm brewing in the atmosphere or he was standing near a power line. Then, without warning, a surge of energy seemed to pulse outward—the exact opposite sensation of what he experienced when absorbing it from a human.
Bricks he didn’t touch went flying. Boards and rubble scattered.
He staggered backward. What the hell was going on?
Incredulous, he examined his hands as if he’d never seen them before, like they belonged to an alien. But they looked the same. They were large, his left hand slightly calloused at the base of his forefinger from where he held Misery, the right pinkie finger not quite straight from an old injury that hadn’t regenerated correctly. Nothing had changed, and yet a strange energy buzzed just below the surface of his skin.
He flicked his fingers and the rubble around him sounded as if it had been hit by hundreds of pebbles. He merely thought about moving the rocks and they scattered out of the way. Soon, a path had been cleared and he was on the other side. He didn’t have time to figure out why this was happening or what had caused it—he’d do that later. For now, he cared only about getting Roxy and the girl out of this place and away from Darkbloods.
He sprinted through the tunnel, the smoke too thick now, making it difficult to shadow move. By the time he got to the end, that strange electrical sensation was gone.
On the floor of the small room, Roxy was supporting the young woman’s head on her lap. She’d been staring at the ceiling and turned her head when he entered. The tension in her expression melted into a calm, unhurried smile that said she knew he’d come. Seeing her confidence stirred something deep inside and made him feel as though he was capable of anything simply because this woman had never doubted him.
He opened his mouth to speak but she held a finger to her lips.
“A Darkblood,” she whispered. “Up there somewhere. There must be an opening that I don’t know about.”
He pulled out the key discarded by the Darkblood and hoped it wasn’t so badly damaged that it wouldn’t work. Fortunately, it still fit perfectly. He quickly unlocked the shackles from the female’s wrists and ankles and scooped her up.
“Let’s go,” he said, pulling Roxy to her feet, taking care not to touch her silver burns. “I’ll take care of our Darkblood friend when we get outside and then you will feed from me.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A THIN LAYER of ash covered the fresh snow. Ventra’s hands shook with rage as she stooped to grab a handful of the charcoaled remains of her house. The still-warm embers fell from her fingers, leaving an inklike sticky residue on her skin.
Her bone collections—gone. Clothes, electronics, the sweetblood female—gone.
Even the sapphires she’d purchased after becoming the Seattle area sector mistress were somewhere in this rubble. Everything she owned or cared about had been reduced to an insignificant pile of ash. Not since her Time of Change as an orphan on the streets of New Orleans had she felt so empty. Having risen through the ranks of the Alliance, she’d sworn to never, ever be in that situation again. And yet, here she was.
Using a long stick from the rubble, she sifted through the ashes. It had taken her months to collect all those human bones. Maybe some of them hadn’t burned.
When she arrived on the scene at sunset after having spent the day in one of her dens, she was shocked and sickened to find her beautiful mansion almost completely destroyed. She’d assumed the condition of the house’s electrical system had caused the fire, because the knob-and-tube wiring was old with pigtailed wires scattered everywhere behind the plaster walls.
“A death trap,” an electrician had told her shortly after buying the place. “To bring it up to code, the whole place needs to be rewired.”
She couldn’t care less about bringing it up to some arbitrary human standard. All she wanted was for the simple twenty-first-century conveniences to work—lights, hot water, furnace.
When she contacted him later to schedule the work, he refused. He was too scared to come back out, which was entirely her fault. She’d let herself drink from the man without wiping his mind completely. Fear, especially chronic fear, made the blood taste that much better, but it was a habit that sometimes backfired. When she didn’t kill her victims, she prided herself on her ability to make a perfectly sane person go crazy.
Visiting asylums around the turn of the century had been Oskar’s idea. She and her on-again-off-again boyfriend would fine-tune their craft on victims no one would believe anyway, slipping in to feed from the same people night after night. The two youthlings had gotten lots of practice. She should’ve known better than to do that to a human she still needed.
Thank the Dark Maker that Loric Rayne, the Alliance representative, was gone. She mourned how perfect the mansion had looked for his visit.
What would’ve been his opinion of her had this happened while he was here? She shuddered. An electrical fire that could’ve been prevented would have served to demonstrate how lazy and stupid she was. At the very least, he’d have questioned her ability to manage things and make decisions even more than the Alliance already was. As it turned out, she had every expectation that he’d be giving her a favorable report. He seemed to have been impressed with what she’d been doing here and her plans for the future—having that sweetblood girl on hand had been perfect. She tried to look on the bright side that this fire hadn’t happened a few days ago.
And at least the mausoleum, barely visible on the far side of a stand of leafless maple trees, was still standing. That was one of the reasons she’d bought the place. It reminded her of Lafayette Cemetery from her childhood and how far she’d come since then. But now look at her. Right back where she’d started. Homeless with nothing to her name. She kicked at a charred piece of wood and a fountain of tiny sparks shot out. A flame licked up and over the surface as if it had been waiting for her to free it.
Although she doubted the frail human sweetblood had lasted more than a few minutes in the smoke, she sent Alistair over to check, leaving Ventra alone with her frustrations. She grabbed the charred remains of a sofa, sending the thing flying through the air where it landed on the other side of the still-standing, yet teetering chimney. A metal rod from something structural caught her eye. It would make the perfect baseball bat, she thought as she picked it up. She swung it at the chimney over and over, cursing when it didn’t topple.
“Ma’am, I found something.”
She jerked her head up. Alistair was tentatively picking his way through the snow with something in his hand. He moved stiffly, like someone who spent most of his time behind a desk programming computers, not functioning in the real world.
Since the demise of Xtark Software, she had him doing all sorts of tasks to keep him busy. The vampire was too talented for her to lose him to one of the other sectors.
Besides, the hidden phone app that allowed her to listen in on Guardian conversations had been his idea, so she needed him around to manage the data and troubleshoot any issues that arose. Once the program remotely activated the microphone, she’d been able to listen in on all sorts of conversations. In a shor
t time, she’d learned a lot about the Agency’s operations here in the Northwest. Information she couldn’t wait to use.
She’d never have known about the planned raid on the Darkblood holding facility as well as other smaller ones. This new source of intel was going to be the key to fully restoring her reputation with the Alliance.
Alistair stumbled awkwardly over a charred piece of furniture, catching himself just in time. She turned away in disgust and picked up a broken piece of her favorite china, stamped U.S.S.R. on the bottom.
Why were all the smart ones lacking when it came to physical prowess? Everyone, that is, except Oskar. Not only was he physically amazing with his jet-black hair and long, lean body, but he was ruthless and utterly brilliant.
“Look at this,” Alistair said.
“What is it?” she snapped. Thinking about her long-ago life always set her on edge.
“A stuffed animal.”
“You mean a human child’s toy?” She pinched her lips together in disgust.
Procreation. Why would anyone want that? She’d never been interested in being a broodmare. A weak, vulnerable vessel while a life developed inside her. No, thank you. If she wanted youthlings of her own, she preferred to create them from fully grown humans—beautiful changelings that she could control. Teaching an adult how to use and manage their new blood urges was much more preferable than raising one from scratch. She thought about a few of her favorites among those she’d made over the centuries—most of them dead now.
The sweetblood girl would’ve made a fine changeling. That silky copper hair. Those wide, dewy eyes.
Hell, who was she fooling? Ventra hadn’t successfully turned a sweetblood in years. Bringing one to the edge of death and not draining them completely was next to impossible. And even if she was able to stop, the second vampire whose blood was needed for the change process was likely to finish the job. That had happened once or twice.
However, the sister, who was not a sweetblood, was still very much alive. Ventra smiled to herself. Maybe making a changeling would help take her mind off
this mess.
Alistair cleared his throat and turned the toy over in his hands. The thing was soggy and covered with dirt. She couldn’t imagine why he’d bother to come show her. Unless…
“Where did you find it?”
He pointed toward the hill behind him. “Over there near the old cemetery.”
“Kids were poking around here?” Had they broken in and started the fire? A cold lick of fury trickled down her spine. If insignificant human children were responsible for this, she’d track them to their beds, slip into their windows at midnight, and give them a nightmare they’d never forget.
“I don’t think so, ma’am. I didn’t pick up any other human scent.”
No humans? She scanned the darkness. Maybe he was right. Not only was the place too remote, but a few of her men had died in the fire. Unless they were complete morons, they’d have heard if a group of marauding human adolescents had broken into the house and stopped them before the damage could escalate.
She grabbed the toy and sniffed it. It smelled like—
No. It couldn’t be.
She held it to her nose again just to be sure, but the scent was unmistakable. It wreaked of her sweetblood from the crypt. Problem was, Ventra knew for a fact that the girl didn’t have such a thing in her possession.
She stormed through the tall weeds and the stone sculptures that had once graced a manicured yard. The mausoleum stood on the hillside, its heavy cement door cracked open.
“Did you leave it in that condition?” she accused Alistair. She rarely used this entrance and when she did, she was careful to secure the door upon leaving.
“I…I didn’t go in.” He pointed to one of the headstones. “I found the toy lying about fifteen feet away.”
She pushed the door open and stepped inside the tight space. A stone angel stood against the far wall, its hands spread wide, its pious face looking down on her as if she were a child of the heavens.
She cursed.
The cement slab had been shoved aside and a thin line of gray smoke was wafting out of the hole. She peered into the hazy air of the underground crypt. Her coffin was overturned and the girl was gone.
She hadn’t died in the fire after all. Someone had taken her.
The fury in her veins was now ready to explode. Had one of her people done this? It wouldn’t have been the first time a Darkblood had a serious lapse in judgment when it came to a sweetblood.
But burn down my house?
Did her authority not mean anything to them? Were they not afraid of her? She’d tear the guilty parties apart piece by piece until they were screaming for her to stake them. Limb regeneration, which started right away, could be very painful, especially when the bones weren’t quite in alignment.
Could this really be one of her own? Of course, the possibility existed that it was the work of Guardians. First they destroyed Xtark Software but would they go after her home? She’d kept close tabs on them via the listening app but hadn’t heard that they knew about this place. In fact, their superstar tracker, a woman that Ventra had once tried to kidnap, wasn’t even in the country right now.
Footsteps crunched behind her in the snow then Alastair cleared his throat. Her patience was worn down to a sharp little nub. He wore a sweatshirt with a ridiculous green robot character, high-top sneakers with the laces untied, and his longish hair was pulled back in a ponytail because he probably was too lazy to go get it cut. How could anyone ever expect to be taken seriously dressed like that? He was a hundred-year-old vampire and should be well past that immature youthling stage by now. She wanted to tell him to grow the fuck up, dress like he wanted to be treated.
But the guy had talent. And because of that, she needed him. If only that human who’d worked for Xtark were still alive. He was a computer genius, too. It made her uncomfortable to rely too heavily on one individual, which was what she was doing with Alistair. She rubbed the exasperated sting from her eyes then gave him a “what now?” stare.
He stuttered a moment before the words came out clearly. “Franz found…a place a few miles away.”
“And?” She did not have time for the poor communication skills of a guy who’d rather be talking source code and operating systems.
“He…he said a car was parked in the underbrush recently and there are tracks in the snow leading here.”
She looked over his shoulder into the snowy forest. “Where?”
“Back on the main road.”
Without addressing him further, she morphed into shadow, slipped through the forest and soon met up with Franz out on the main road.
“Where is it?”
He adjusted his eye-patch and simply pointed to a spot about twenty feet away. In a flash she was over there, scanning the snowy terrain. Two sets of tracks led toward her house and three sets of tracks came back.
“Guardians were here. I can smell them.” Franz was behind her. A former Agency tracker who had changed his allegiance for reasons she didn’t know or care about, he had a sense of smell that was better than most Darkbloods.
Her enemy had done this. Stolen her sweetblood and destroyed everything.
Her beautiful, gothic home with its stunning Bone Room, Extraction Chamber and old crypt.
How could she not have known about this Guardian operation? Why had they not heard anything?
Snow crunched under her feet as she thought about the Agency personnel with the app on their phones: a capture agent, an admin assistant and the best one of all—the Seattle field team Guardian that Cosette had seduced.
If none of those people were privy to this mission, what did it mean?
She turned her attention to Alistair and his stupid robot T-shirt. “Are you not recording everything from those apps?”
He took a half step backward. “N-no. I mean… Yes. Everything is recorded.”
“Why did we not hear about this?” she demanded.
“I…I…”
Franz interrupted, “Given there was no discussion about this raid, maybe it was someone outside the field. Guardians, yes, but maybe not Seattle-area Guardians. You did almost kill their field team leader. Maybe they brought in a big dog.”
Several Guardians injured, including their local leader. Yes, it made sense that they’d bring in someone else. Tristan Santiago, their region commander, she thought with disdain. It had to be.
After the explosion, he’d be desperate to find out who caused it. By burning down her house was he sending her a message? Was this his way of marking his territory, telling her to beware because he had a bigger dick and wasn’t afraid to use it? A calling card that said I’m-More-Powerful-Than-You? The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that he was the one responsible.
Ventra laughed to herself.
We’ll see about that.
If she could take care of the region commander, no one in the Alliance would ever question her abilities again. Her reputation would be restored tenfold and she’d have a lot of capital with the Alliance that she could use to her advantage.
She stooped to examine a footprint, placing a hand on the indentation as if she could tell who made it and cursing her diminished capacity to smell. How long would it take, if ever, to get it back?
What if… An idea began to take shape in her head.
What if she didn’t feed from humans and instead ate actual food for a while, would her sense of smell get better? Maybe it wouldn’t be as good as a Guardian’s, and certainly not up to a tracker’s standards, but anything had to be better than this. But could she even stomach eating food?
She thought about what this Guardian hotshot had done. Had he walked through her house before he torched the place? Gone through her things defiling her beautiful bone sculptures? Just the thought of an Agency pig stepping foot inside her home and destroying her prized possessions was enough to bring on some serious blood lust. Fangs elongating, she morphed into shadow and headed toward the nearest human establishment.
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