Waiting for Darkness (Blood Martyr)

by Fionn Jameson

  It made me sick just thinking about it.

  Kieran placed a hand over mine, and it felt weird being consoled by someone who lay in a hospital bed. Wasn’t it the other way around?

  “You’ve changed, haven’t you? When you killed Kaleigh, that was the last time you killed a living thing…wasn’t it? I think you’ve lost your taste for killing. Well, damn. I guess it’s true, then.”

  “What’s true?”

  A gentle smile graced his lips. It was the sort of smile I would’ve expected to see on Jamison, not Kieran, and I didn’t like it. It reminded me of Jamison.

  “You’re human. You’re human again, Tanith.”

  I snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m not human. I’ll never be human again. I’ve just gone soft, that’s all. Don’t mistake it for anything else.”

  “Oh?” His eyebrows went up, and I hated even more the questioning look in his eyes. “Is that it, then? Because you’re not out there wreaking havoc in the city, you’re just a big old softie?”

  I shuddered at the term. “Please. I’m soft, not a softie. Don’t call me that. Makes me sound like the Marshmallow Man. And that’s something I will definitely never be, all right?”

  His smile turned downright devilish. “How about the Pillsbury Dough Girl? That better for you, love?”

  “Uh, no.” I matched him smile for smile. “In that case, I don’t think I’d mind being called a softie at all.”

  My cell phone rang, and for some strange reason I found myself oddly reluctant to receive the call. Intuition, it was. It’s the sort of call you get when you know that everything is bad and things could only get worse.

  “Aren’t you going to take the call? Is it another one of your lovers asking for another night with you?” he teased.

  I shook my head. “No, no, nothing of the sort.”

  Walking to the window for a modicum of privacy, I received the call, trying to ignore my intuition. It yelled at me, screeched at me, screamed at me, and try as I might, I couldn’t dispel its voice from my mind.

  “Yeah?”

  “Tanith, it’s Mitch.”

  He was one of the few people I asked to find out where Jamison had run off to. He was a friend, a damn good friend, and without him, I knew I wouldn’t be where I was.

  So many good people in my life...so many people who helped me, at one point or another.

  Would I ever be able to repay them for all they’d done?

  He didn’t sound happy, and my heart lurched, making me feel as though I was about throw up, right there in front of Kieran.

  “You don’t sound pleased. What’s going on?”

  A pause lingered on the other end of the line.

  “Jamison’s in deep shit, Tanith. He’s in very deep shit, and I’m not too sure if he’s going to be able to make it out alive.”

  Well, fuck.

  The sad thing was, I couldn’t even say I was much surprised. Trouble had a way of following me, and consequently, those around me. I was starting to seriously contemplate moving out to Mongolia.

  “What sort of deep shit are we talking about?”

  Again, silence on the line, as if he wasn’t sure how to respond.

  “Mitch? You still there?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, still here,” he said and then cleared his throat, as though biding for time. “Hey, Tanith?”

  “Mitch?” My hand tightened around the phone, and I waited for him. “Are you going to tell me, or are we going to have to play a guessing game?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Uh...the general hospital on Florence and Grand. Why?” A pulse thudded painfully slow in the back of my head, and scenario after scenario played themselves out in my mind. Bad, bad scenarios, at that. “What the fuck is going on, Mitch?”

  “Right. See you outside in about fifteen minutes. I’ll tell you everything then,” he said.

  “Hey, wait a mi—”

  But the dull buzzing of a disconnected call was the only thing ringing in my ears now, and I shoved the cell phone back in my pocket, feeling more than a little sick.

  Sick with worry. Sick with fear.

  “Everything all right?”

  I turned back to Kieran and pasted a grin on a face that felt horribly wooden. “Not really. But it’s not the end of the world.”

  “You sure?”

  I lied. After all, it’s something I did well. “Of course. How can it possibly be the end of the world?”

  And I was sort of right.

  If something did happen to Jamison, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

  The end of my world?

  That’s a different story.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Ugliness is superior to beauty because ugliness lasts.”

  “He’s in a what?”

  It wasn’t that I was hard of hearing. My hearing was far superior to that of a human, but there were some things that just needed to be said and heard twice.

  Like what Mitch had just said and what I just heard.

  He tugged on his earlobe, agitation clear in the way his eyebrows furrowed downward. The streetlight glinted off his black hair, making it look almost blue.

  “I’m serious, Tanith. He’s in a cat house.”

  I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this at all. “Which cat house? Catering to what?”

  “It’s an S and M club.”

  If Jamison had been in front of me at that very moment, I would’ve smacked him silly for doing such a reckless, stupid thing. Then again, if he’d been in front of me, Mitch and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.

  “Has he gone completely insane? Why?” There was no point in asking Mitch; he wasn’t very close with Jamison, but I just had to ask.

  Mitch shrugged, of course. “Damned if I know.”

  “Well, how long has he been there?” I asked, half afraid of what I’d hear. If it was just one day, then that was all right, there wouldn’t be any permanent damage done, but if it was longer than that…no wonder Mitch had said Jamison might not make it out alive.

  “Can’t say for sure. But I’m thinking, maybe three days. How long did you say he was missing?”

  “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  I stared through Mitch's dirty windshield and wanted to cry.

  An S&M house. A place where you can be slapped around and slap around people who are looking for it. But the term “slapping around” was light, considering how bad things were in those places. A pretty boy like Jamison wouldn’t even last an hour before someone ended up carving his heart out. And he’d be too goddamn passive to say the safety word…if he even knew about having one.

  Mitch peered at his watch, squinting in the darkness. “It’s four-thirty, and the sun’s coming up in less than an hour. What’s the plan?”

  It would be a risky move. But I needed to go and bring Jamison out. Alive. And if he wasn’t…there was going to be hell to pay.

  “Let’s go spring him out.”

  * * * *

  The S and M club hardly looked like one. In fact, it looked like a regular mansion, built high in the hills of Centennial, only twenty minutes away from the bustling city center and where Kieran was hopefully still lying down and letting his wounds heal.

  Thick damask curtains covered the windows, and the only sign of it being a cat house was the single bronze rose twined around the door knocker. Huge, and even from just looking at the outside, the mansion could have contained more than thirty bedrooms. I tried to not think about where and what Jamison was doing.

  I had to admit, though, whoever built this place knew more than a thing or two about discretion and subtlety. Only those skilled in the sexual arts would be aware this was a club. That eased my mind, if by just a little bit. The professionals were generally very good, and they knew how to treat a young blood, which Jamison was, definitely. It was the unskilled lunatics that scared the shit out of me. They wouldn’t know when to stop, and only death could stop them, and even then sometimes death wouldn’t….r />
  I shook my head and snuck a glance at Mitch, who sighed and wrapped a burly hand around the knocker and letting it fall several times.

  Every second spent outside seemed like hours. In truth, it was only a minute before the door opened, but to me, it felt like fifty years.

  “May I help you?”

  A woman, shorter than me by a few inches, stood in the doorway. Her short hair, cut in a pageboy style with wispy bangs that flitted over her delicately arched eyebrows, suited her. A light trace of makeup enhanced her features, although she was beautiful enough not to need it. She didn’t look like a notorious owner of a cat house, and for a moment, I thought Mitch must have brought us to the wrong place.

  “You’re Madame Gabriella?” Mitch asked.

  She inclined her head gracefully. “I am.”

  “And the owner of this establishment?”

  The outside light glinted off the silk of her pale rose dressing gown, turning it dark red one moment, and then palest pink the next. “That I am not. Won’t you come in?”

  She ushered us into a flawlessly decorated entryway, complete with nondescript paintings of ladies and landscape. Hard to believe we waited in the threshold of a slap and tickle club.

  “Please. What can I do for you this early morning?”

  Shit. It was almost five, and the sun would be up in no less than twenty minutes. Unless someone had a pair of ultra-dark sunglasses, there was no way I was leaving this place until tonight. Fuck. I’d really been hoping I could’ve gotten this shit done before the sun rose. Guess not.

  Mitch pulled out a picture of Jamison from his coat pocket. The black and white one of him that I loved the most. In it, he smiled widely and radiated so much good charm it made me happy just looking at it.

  But not this time.

  “This is the man we are looking for.”

  A flicker of emotion graced her face before she schooled her features into bland politeness. He’d either been here, or was still here. But whatever it was, she had seen him, and that was all I needed to know.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve not seen that man here,” she said with a courteous smile, but by then, it was already too late.

  Mitch exchanged a glance with me. He’d seen the way her face changed too. He knew she was lying, and he tucked the picture back into his pocket. “I see. Then I see there is not much else we can do.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion, red lips set into an O. “Excuse me?”

  I didn’t even know my hands were around her throat and that I backed her into a wall until the deed was done, until I stared into blue eyes that looked back at me, fear clear in the way her gaze flitted back and forth, unable to focus on me for more than a few seconds.

  “Now, you listen, and listen good. We could do this the hard way or the easy way. Hard way being me letting you go and bringing Jamison to me, and the easy way being me just ripping the head off your shoulders and tearing through every goddamned room in this hellhole before I find him.” I showed her my fangs, and she blanched. “So? What’s it going to be? Easy or hard?”

  She froze, lips trembling like petals blowing in the wind, and I squeezed harder, her bones shifting under my hands. “Well?”

  “Tanith!” Mitch barked.

  “Well, look who’s here. If it isn’t the bitch witch from the West.”

  I last heard that high, feminine voice sixty years ago, and sixty years ago I thought it was going to be the last time I would ever hear it.

  Not bothering to lessen the hold on Madame Gabriella’s neck, I turned around to face the one vampire who turned my undead life into a living hell before I finally did her in. Or so I thought. She was partially responsible for my transformation into a beast, before Jamison came into my life and civilized me again.

  “Hello, Raylene. Nice to know you’re fucking with my life. Again,” I said sweetly, and then gave a quick squeeze that made the madam gurgle. “I could’ve sworn I killed you, but I guess you’re like a goddamn cockroach. They just never know when to die and stay dead, you know?”

  She simpered back at me, completely naked except for a pair of white stilettos with wickedly sharp heels. Even with the six-inch height boost, she was still shorter than me, and I liked that. I liked smiling down at her.

  “Oh, now that’s a bit harsh, don’t you think, Tanith? I’d like to think of my miraculous return to life as a phoenix that’s been consumed in flames, only to emerge from it, a mere fledging…destined to become a great phoenix again.”

  I snorted. “Great phoenix? You’re fucking kidding me, right?” I turned to Mitch. “Go and look for Jamison.”

  Raylene cleared her throat. “I don’t think so. Both of you are going to stay here. Both of you are going to die here.”

  I killed her before. I could do it again. “Mitch, just go.”

  He nodded and disappeared around the corner, leaving me alone with a slowly asphyxiating madam and a naked vampire.

  “So. Is this piece of shit place yours?” To be honest, the mansion was beautiful in all respects, but I enjoyed pushing all her buttons in all the wrong ways. “God, your interior decorator sucks ass, Raylene.”

  By the way her lips thinned into a barely visible line, I figured she was the one to decorate the scarlet tinted walls with gold embossed borders set near the ceilings. If there was anything good I could say about her, it was that she had an eye for color.

  I sighed. God. I just wanted to find Jamison and go home.

  “Look, Raylene. I didn’t come here spoiling for a fight. My friend’s missing, and I was told he was here. In fact, I’d already be out of here if your fucking madam didn’t lie to me.”

  Said madam gasped, and I relaxed my hands a bit. I didn’t want her to die. Not just then, in any case.

  Raylene laughed then. She had a charming laugh, all tinkling bells and wind chimes. I almost forgot the entire reason of coming here, and I thought back to a time when we weren’t always like this. We were, hard as it was to believe, friends. Rather good friends. Until a man had to come between us and screwed us over. Men. They do it all the goddamn time.

  “Are you talking about that pretty boy? The one with the long red hair all the way down his back? Oh, he’s so fun to play with!”

  Unconsciously, my entire body tensed, and the madam managed one tiny squeak before the bones in her neck collapsed under the sudden pressure. I let go, but it was already too late. She slid down the wall, blood trickling from her nose and mouth. I killed her, and I felt bad. Not because it was murder, but because I could’ve used her as a bargaining chip. Her for Jamison.

  Now I didn’t have a bargaining chip, so I was going to have to kill Raylene.

  And this time I was going to make sure she stayed dead.

  Four deaths. In one night. It had to be a record.

  “Oh, did you have to do that?” Raylene stamped her foot, like a girl who lost a doll instead of having an employee die on her. Her having been turned at the age of sixteen only solidified that illusion. “Finding women like her is terribly hard.”

  I wiped my hands on my pants, feeling dirty beyond all redemption.

  “Tell me where Jamison is, and I’ll think about letting you live.”

  Her eyes widened, mouth gaping open. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re in my home, Tanith. Do you really think you can kill me? Don’t you think you ought to be the one groveling on your knees?” She winked, and something horrible rose in me. “By the way, he has such delicious blood! I was hard pressed not to take it all. So addicting. I can see why you would want him back.”

  No. No. No. Not Jamison!

  I didn’t know I had spoken aloud until she laughed, head thrown back in unrestrained mirth.

  “Yes. Yes, yes! Of course, Jamison! You could just imagine how unbelievably lucky I felt when he showed up on my front door! He said he wanted to be stronger…to be stronger than someone else, to be their dominant. I knew he was talking about you. I could smell you all over him. Not to
mention he still had the marks on his neck.”

  Her arms went around her stomach as she bent over double, shrieking with laughter. “I really am the luckiest girl, don’t you agree?”

  “Shut up.” My body grew cold, and my hands clenched tight into fists, nails digging deep into my palm, deep enough that blood started to drip down my hands. I couldn’t remember the last time I wanted to kill someone this badly. But I had enough common sense to know I couldn’t just throw myself at her. I was stronger, but she was far more ruthless and cunning.

  Wiping blood tears from the corners of her large brown eyes, she continued to giggle softly.

  “So much fun I had. Of course, I knew he was a witch. That damned smell of trees. I had Gabriella draw a circle of protection around the bed so he couldn’t do any magic.”

  My knees buckled from the sheer shock, from the utter horror. No magic. No weapons. No way to defend himself.

  She could have killed him, and he couldn’t have done anything about it.

  Images of a dead Jamison, of a blood-covered Jamison, of a Jamison with unblinking eyes, flies flying over his mutilated body, maggots weaving in and out of his disemboweled stomach ran through my mind, and I hit the carpet on my knees, the impact jarring me back into reality.

  “Now, that’s what I like to see. You on your knees. So? Will you beg for your life and the lives of your two friends?” she asked in honeyed tones, inspecting her fingernails.

  Forget common sense.

  Forget sensibility.

  Forget about everything else but the anger.

  Let the anger in.

  Let it consume.

  I struggled back to my feet, vision spinning, the vivid red of the hallway the only thing I could focus on.

  There was no way Raylene was going to get away from me.

  No way in bloody fucking hell.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”