“What guarantee do I have for my safety?” the man asked.
“It’s not like I got a lot to offer either way.”
He took a step forward and I was finally able to see him. Shit, he was tall as me. Maybe more, with dark eyes and dark hair, paler, tattoos peeking out of his collar, hard to tell in that fucked-up green lighting. Big holes in his ears stoppered up with round black discs. I blinked. “What are you, some kind of metalhead or something?”
“You’re one to talk.”
“I actually play in a band. Are you gonna help me or what?”
“Who are you? Why are you here? You must tell me these things first.”
“Why should I?” I snorted. “You didn’t tell me shit.”
“I’m not the one in chains begging for release now either, am I? I just came here to retrieve an object of value to me. Not rescue vermin.”
“Vermin, huh? And I wasn’t begging.” I sighed and ground my teeth together. “Fine. I’m Xan Marcelles. The Feds brought me here…”
“Feds?”
“Federal agents. You know, like investigators? Only these Feds drugged me and stuffed me into a helicopter and brought me fuck knows where. And you know what? I don’t think they were Feds after all.”
“You’re in Texas. Just outside of Fort Worth.”
“Texas?” I squirmed again. Texas was full of gun-crazy nutbags. “Come on man. Help me get out of here. I’m just a bassist, I swear.”
“That drinks the blood of the living to survive.”
I rolled my eyes. “Lay on the drama. You know what, Mr. No-Name? Never mind. Just go the fuck away.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t going to help you. Stop being an asshole.” He tested the strength of the chains. “They’ve got you trussed up like a Sunday roast, hey?”
His comment reminded me of the question that almost formed in my blood-deprived brain before. “Where are you from, anyway?”
He peered back over his shoulder and started working on the lock. I couldn’t see what with the way I was lying, but a tingle rose around the area that made my hair stand on end. The room wavered for a moment, making my eyes cross. The lock sprang open. The only ones capable of that kind of magic were the old vamps that I knew, well up to that point.
“I should ask what the hell you are.” The chains loosened a little around me and I wiggled around trying to shed them while he worked on the next one. He held his hand over the thing and there was that weird bend of reality, kind of like the universe was being pulled inside out but only around him and no, that dude wasn’t some ordinary human.
“They must be fearful of you.” His gaze met mine.
The chains fell away from me like dead vines. I shrugged then popped my jaw. “What gives you that idea?” His look of worry increased as I shed the chains and tried to stand, which didn’t work out quite like I planned, because I crumpled to the floor. My liberator shook his head as he watched me scramble to get to my feet. Red flashed in my sight and I gritted my teeth, willing to hold on as long as I could. The whole need thing was coming up on me and, with him being the only one around…
I yanked him down to the floor with me, clamped a hand over his mouth and held him down under my weight. He made a noise through his nose and I whispered close to his ear. “Ssshh. Now. We’re in a predicament here, and I’m going to help you do whatever you came here for, but I need to drink now, and I’m really sorry. I can’t think of anything but…”
I clenched my fingers in his hair to hold him tight and sniffed at his throat, nearly drooling. Blood thundered under that inked skin. I bit into his neck.
It was like being slapped in the face with epic and awesome at the same time. A rush of volume, a vortex of intertwined colors, I forced a moan deep into my bite as I pressed my hip into his in an involuntary response.
I choked and gasped over the wound, his blood spilling over my lips. Sparkles danced in the air and I tilted my head to watch, mesmerized. I might have noticed that they were attracted to my new victim, but then again it was like a mad rush. The light dimmed and crackled, snapping like a brown-out, flickering. My hair stood on end again and there was a smell of ozone, like before lightning—
I can’t say it was a roar, or a rush of wind, but he shoved me away and sparks shot out from his hands into my chest, hurling me into the opposite wall. It was like being shot out of a cannon by the biggest electrified mule-kick in the universe. I slammed backfirst into the bricks, cracking them, then slid down the wall like a bag of dominoes and shook my head.
“How dare you attack me, like I’m some sort of…sorry? You apologize? Do you realize I’ve now given away my location, you imbecile?”
I jumped to my feet and backed away from him to the farthest corner. Motes of shiny stuff spun around his hands and his head. I blinked rapidly, not believing what I was seeing. And his blood, holy hell, his blood bubbled and danced in me, charging me with my own amperage, it felt. Not his blood, my blood. I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands. My palms were smeared with blood. Something wet trickled from both my nostrils. More red. I tried to speak but was stunned like an escaped convict in a SWAT attack. Cows must feel that way right before they collapse to the floor to be processed as hamburgers and steaks. A rush of sound flooded my ears and I slapped my hands over them, groaning in pain.
“What the fuck are you man?” I don’t know if I said it, or thought it. Sound was color, color was light—of which there was none left but us.
Chapter 4
Ash
I should have seen it coming. Really. That sympathy Lizzie always had for those in predicaments—the same that had her getting streetwalkers into gainful employment or stray dogs into homes—had left me open to attack by a half-starved beast.
I might as well have planted a great shining beacon over both our heads saying Here we are, come get us. We were both beyond fucked. As I examined the blood painting my fingers from where I’d pressed my hand against the wound on my neck, I calculated we had maybe five minutes to make ourselves scarce before the first House Montu security goons crashed our party.
Vampires. I’d heard whispers of them, mere annotations in journals, with the skin walkers and other fell beasts. I’d never dreamed I’d ever encounter one face to face, or let alone try to reason with it.
Monster or not, Xan didn’t deserve to be dissected by House Montu. No one did. The whole “enemy of my enemy” thing.
I glared at him then wiped the blood on my T-shirt. “I should kill you for that.”
My daimonic powers had thrust him clean across the chamber and he had been thrown bonelessly against the wall. The blast would have killed a human. He merely blinked at me as runnels of blood trickled from his eyes, nose and ears, then shook his head as though to dispel fuzziness. Some part of me couldn’t help but admire the raw beauty of the creature. His maker had definitely picked him for aesthetics as well as brawn.
Xan laughed and I readied another blast as I watched him lurch into a more stable pose. It didn’t take much to put two and two together. House Montu clearly sought to use him in some sort of nefarious magic. They sought to boost their already ferocious martial arts skills with vampiric powers. My blood ran cold at the thought. They wouldn’t, would they? Immortal in both body and soul, able to bend reality to their wills better and better through the years…
I should kill him, but that wasn’t my call to make if I could reason with him. Besides, with our common enemy, he would prove a useful ally. Alliances between our kind and theirs were not unheard of in the past. So long as he didn’t try any stupid stunts like this one, we’d be good. “We don’t have time to shoot the breeze, creature. I don’t like you but I’m not leaving you here to benefit House Montu either. Brand that name into your dead gray matter and avoid them for the rest of your miserable existence. You do not want to cross paths with them. Ever.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Are they like—?”
“They’re like me, on steroids, and if
you try any bullshit with me like you did a moment ago, I’ll up the voltage.”
Xan laughed. “Right on, Mr. No Name.” The way he stretched each limb carefully in turn suggested he was still in considerable pain and I cursed myself for the reflex action.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend… It wouldn’t help if I’d inadvertently damaged him. He’d be absolutely no use when it came to combat, which was a certainty, knowing House Montu. How was I so sure he’d align himself with my cause?
“C’mon, we need to go. You can ask questions later once we get out of this maze.” I gestured at the door and waited to see him limp after me. Poor bastard.
He was a cold taste of death on my heels. My daimonic senses knew him, understood on a molecular and spiritual level that this monster’s souls had passed through the Black Gate but instead of completing the process of judgment, had been sent howling back into the original Kha. What madness lurked beneath the exterior?
Abomination, I wanted to name him and perhaps it would have helped if he wasn’t such a bloke, for lack of better description. Monster or not, he was just some guy who’d had the misfortune of running into the wrong people. His emotions flared around him. Xan was genuinely afraid and angry, not only because of the Inkarna who’d captured him but of my powers. It must have been a new feeling for someone used to being the apex predator.
I kept us moving down the passages which made turns, split into T-junctions or terminated in dead ends. At about the third of these, Xan must have gathered enough of his bravado to speak.
“You got us lost, didn’t you?” His chuckle had a nasty edge to it.
I growled. “Slightly off course.”
He sagged against a wall and rested his forearms on his knees. “You got us totally fucking lost. Some rescuer you are.”
“Shut up!” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. It didn’t help that a residual headache throbbed dully just between my eyes. It had been ages since I’d been so jumped up on my daimonic abilities.
His negative buzz of energy loomed just outside my immediate reach—impossible to ignore. I needed to know whether House Montu had sent a bunch of goons or even one of their own to find us and, in order to do that, I had to concentrate to push my awareness beyond the now.
Dare I trust him while I quested beyond our immediate predicament? By the same measure, for us to continue blundering about these subterranean passages without a clear idea of where we were headed would also be a very bad idea.
I opened my eyes only to lock gazes with the man. He watched me intently, his gray eyes missing nothing. Although his posture suggested relaxation, the faintest tic of his jaw and the way he kept probing at a canine with his tongue told me he was anything but.
“I didn’t come to rescue you, and I’m not going to divert my mission just because I got you out of that coffin. In return for your freedom, you can help me. I’m going to do something,” I said. “Can you keep chips to make sure we don’t get surprised? I need to have my attention elsewhere.”
His brow furrowed. “Planning on doing some more of your hocus-pocus stuff?”
“Ja, I’m going to do some more of my— Fuck it.”
He smirked. “Man, I could use a cigarette.”
“Don’t be daft.” Of all the stupid things to consider. I didn’t want to think about my own pack of fags, tucked nice and far away in the glove compartment of my hired car. His needling me was certainly no help.
We maintained eye contact for a good few heartbeats then I looked away first. I didn’t know what it was exactly. Something about him resonated with me. I caught the ghost of a memory, one of his, of a soft-eyed woman with blond hair attached to an inescapable sense of loss. I didn’t want to think about my own loved ones. I had no way of telling whether they were still alive and I shoved that particular grief as deep as possible lest it distract me from the matters at hand. I probed at the still-weeping wound on my neck then leaned against the wall opposite the creature. He was once human, as was I.
And we had both taken lives—on numerous occasions. What made me better than him? The fact that I still had a beating heart? He might steal blood to stay alive but I stole bodies.
In another lifetime, Lizzie would have found him undeniably attractive; charming even though he affected an unsophisticated façade.
I closed my eyes again and cast out with my senses.
It didn’t take me long to pinpoint movement—living signatures that hustled through the vast building—termites in a mound. I suppose it couldn’t hurt now to knock out the security system. After all, they knew someone was here. How many someones I wasn’t sure. Not all Inkarna were sensitive to the degree that I was, though if it came down to hand-to-hand combat I’d probably be royally fucked.
I breathed deeply and gathered, and tried to not let a specific point create a dimple in the overarching energy of the immediate environment. After that it didn’t take long—three or four deep breaths—before I found the first of the sensors and could trace the data transmissions all the way back to a roomful of servers.
My interference was a case of nudging the electrical fields here, of creating an interruption that sparked and overrode the existing patterns. It was a daimonic equivalent of pushing against a boulder with one’s shoulder, of overcoming the initial inertia. Something snapped out of place and an explosion of energy flared along the pressure points I’d found. My awareness blinked out.
The next I knew I was conscious again, on the ground, with grainy dust from the brickwork pressing into my cheek. The damn creature hovered over me, a cool hand pressed on my shoulder as he shook me.
“Dude, you okay? You just fell over with your eyes rolled back in your head and did this twitching thing.” He mimicked the action.
“Ungh,” I managed then swatted at his hand as I pulled myself into a seated position. “I’m fine.”
He crouched only a meter from me, his brow furrowed as he regarded me. “You got some blood…” Xan indicated under his nose.
Damn. I wiped at the warm trickle below my left nostril and examined the rusty smear. I glared at him. “Don’t get any ideas.”
“After what you just did to me? Nah, but I thought I’d mention that I heard voices. There’s some people down here. Don’t know where exactly, because the sound’s all fucked up. But I didn’t want to just leave you lying on the floor. Since, you know, you’re my best bet of getting the hell out of here.” He gathered his hair, which hung loosely over both shoulders, and pulled it to one side as he stood. “You need a hand up?”
“I’m good.” I suppressed a groan as I got up then paused to listen. My head throbbed as though I’d spent the whole of the previous day drunk out of my skull on cheap beer. The small hairs on my nape prickled, which suggested someone with daimonic power was casting out to find us.
It was definitely time to move again and I tried to recall my observations of the floor plan. My out-of-body stint of moments earlier suggested we were to the north of the complex. If we kept taking left turns we’d work our way to the perimeter—a tricky process with me trying to maintain a grip on two ways of perceiving reality at the same time.
All the while the vampire muttered behind me. I purposefully didn’t listen to his words but eventually I spun around to face him. I was just that little bit taller than him but he didn’t so much as flinch when he came to a halt mere inches from me.
“Will you shut the fuck up with your smart mouth?” I shot back at him.
“I was just saying that for someone looking for something in particular, you sure aren’t very prepared.” His grin was so that I wanted to smash it off his face but instead I kept my fists clenched at my sides and glared at him.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re kind of in a deep mess at the moment.”
“So much for the hotshot wizard.” He snickered. “You gonna get us out of here this year?”
“I would if you didn’t annoy me to the point of wanting to smear you into a pulp
against a wall.”
“Well, then let’s move along, shall we?” He executed a mocking half-bow and gestured for us to continue.
I bit the inside of my cheek and turned my back on him. Did the guy have a death wish? He should be grateful I’d hauled his arse out of that tomb and yet he taunted me with every step. This was some stupid time for a dick-measuring contest, for sure. He should try walking like a bloody magical nuclear reactor and have conversations at the same time while worrying about where the enemy was.
I had worse issues hanging over my head than one annoying vampire dogging my heels.
We rounded the corner straight into a number of black-clad security guards. I don’t know who was more surprised, me and the vampire, or the four men who hastily lifted their guns. I didn’t wait to ask questions.
Excuse me, can you show me where the nearest exit is?
I almost laughed but released a raw burst of directed daimonic power instead. The two goons in the front fell even as I staggered back from the magical recoil. A twinge of pain in my sinuses warned me I was skirting close to a full-scale nosebleed. I was pushing this Kha into far too much sustained daimonic activity. It’d been ages since I’d been forced to tap into my innate powers to such a degree, and the flesh wasn’t quite that willing to comply.
As it turned out, I didn’t get a chance to worry about the other two. Xan shoved past me hard so I had to steady myself against the wall. The force of his attack was impressive. That’s the thing about bringing a gun into close-quarter combat. Often there simply wasn’t time to point and shoot.
Before either of the unfortunate pair had an opportunity to pull the trigger, the vampire had smashed into them, the fury of his assault landing them in a pile of thrashing limbs on the ground. Xan’s fist connected with skulls, the sickening impact thudding again and again, until one man lay quite still, while the other one couldn’t possibly last for long. So fast. Maybe Xan would be able to hold his own against one of House Montu’s finest, after all.
Blood and Fire Page 3