To be honest, though, the collar had been a part of my life since I was a youngling and it kept me grounded in a way I can’t really explain. I let my father think that his determination that I wear it caused me to relent. Sometimes it was worth it to let the King of the Drow think he had “won.”
“Witches don’t come into the Pit often.” Nadia looked thoughtful.
I nodded. “Guess they needed a girls’ night out.”
Nadia looked at me. “Spa day,” we said at the same time and we both laughed.
“We need to get with Lawan and Olivia and pick a day,” Nadia said.
I rolled my shoulders. “I could so use a deep-tissue massage.”
“You and me both.” Nadia nodded her agreement. “And a facial. I would loooove a facial.”
An angry voice from behind me caught my attention.
“Look at them,” one of the two Vampire males said. “Content to do nothing but go along with their pathetic little lives.”
“I’m sick of this shit.” The other Vampire kept his tone low. “We put up with the way these idiotic paranorms treat our kind. No respect.”
It took some effort to not turn around and say, “Want respect? Why don’t you start with doing something with your lives other than sucking blood?”
Then I remembered Vampires have no lives.
Heh.
Instead of making any kind of remark, I tried to watch a Shifter and a Doppler arm wrestle. They were at the same table, cattycorner to Nadia and me, where the first opponents had been competing.
Tried and failed to focus on the competition. I couldn’t concentrate because of the Vampires who were talking on the other side of our table. I wanted to tell them to shut their traps.
But their traps were saying such strange and peculiar things, like “It won’t be long,” “Things will change,” and “He’ll let us know when the time is right.”
When one of them said “Volod,” my pointed ears perked up. They were talking about the city’s Master Vampire. I’d never met Volod—Vampires aren’t exactly my favorite paranorms—but everyone knew about him in the paranorm world.
“Volod will see to everything, Charles,” one of the Vampires said.
I turned just enough to set my empty martini glass on the table and see the two Vamps from the corner of my eye.
“Yeah, we won’t have to worry about putting up with paranorm shit much longer,” the Vampire called Charles replied. He was the young Vampire. “I’ve told you before to call me Chuck.”
I wanted to laugh when he told the other Vampire to call him Chuck. Who ever heard of a Vampire named Chuck? He added, “Not Charles, just Chuck, okay, Dracula?”
Dracula?
The other Vampire stared at Chuck with his cold green eyes. “Drago,” the Vampire said in a voice impossibly colder than his eyes. “Don’t fuck with me, Charles Michael Andrulis.”
“Yeah. Drago.” Chuck shrugged but the act wasn’t as nonchalant as the young Vamp tried to make it. “Whatever you want.”
I took another sip of my martini, doing my best to act like I wasn’t eavesdropping. Considering the pounding music and all of the voices in the crowded nightclub, I shouldn’t have been able to hear them at all. A gift or a curse, sometimes I’m not sure, but my hearing is exceptional.
Trying to go unnoticed when you have blue hair and amethyst skin becomes more of a challenge. Fortunately the two Vampires weren’t paying attention to me.
“So what’s the plan?” Chuck said in a hurry, like he was trying to change the subject.
“Volod will make his plan known to all Vampire kind soon.” Drago started to take a drink of his fake blood cocktail and made a disgusted face before he put the glass down again. “For now all you need to do is be prepared.” His eyes locked with Chuck’s again. “And keep your mouth shut.”
“Like who am I gonna tell?” Chuck muttered, then looked away from Drago. “I don’t even know enough to tell anyone what’s gonna go down.”
“Exactly.” Drago’s fangs glinted in the strobe lighting. “And that’s the way we’ll keep it. For now.”
“Vampires don’t belong in a paranorm nightclub,” came a very hard, very drunk voice. I did turn then, just enough to see a Shifter named Jack who I didn’t know very well, but had always avoided. He was well known as a real jerk.
Jack held a bottle of Bud and wore a more belligerent expression than usual. “Your kind shouldn’t be allowed through those doors.”
Drago raised his head and hissed, his fangs looked sharper, longer than before. The green-eyed Vampire slowly got to his feet. “Leave, Shifter. Or I will make you.”
With a harsh laugh, the Shifter threw the contents of his beer bottle into Drago’s eyes.
The Vampire moved so fast I barely saw it. He grabbed the Shifter by his neck and lifted the male so that his feet were dangling.
A gurgling sound came from the Shifter’s throat a second before he shifted into a snake.
Drago looked disgusted and flung the snake to the floor. The snake immediately rose up back into his human form.
Chuck shot to his feet and slammed his fist into the Shifter’s face.
The Shifter stumbled backward, then morphed into a cougar.
It pounced on Chuck, driving the Vampire to the floor.
The next thing I knew, the cougar was flying across the room.
The cougar landed on a table. It collapsed in a crash, drinks and broken wood flying, and knocking five screaming Pixies and Nymphs off their chairs.
Drago’s green eyes burned with hate as he started to stalk the cougar. Before he’d taken a step, two of Rodán’s Doppler bouncers, Tony and Kyle, grabbed the Vampire by his arms.
“You’re out of the club.” Tony dug his fingers into Drago’s biceps as he began to drag the Vampire toward the door.
Kyle had the Vampire’s other side. “Don’t even think about coming back.”
Drago hissed but didn’t struggle. When they reached the door, the Vampire said loud enough for me to hear over the music. “You have failed to respect our kind, but you will.”
“Whatever.” Kyle shoved the Vampire out the door, and out of sight.
I looked at the other Vampire who was already following Drago. The cougar was licking his paw, never taking his tawny eyes from Chuck.
The second Vamp strode to the doorway where Kyle and Tony had just thrown Drago out.
Chuck paused a second as he looked at the bouncers. “You’ll regret this.”
Tony made a snorting sound. “Don’t bother coming back. It’s a wonder any of your kind are allowed in the Pit.”
The Vampire snarled before brushing by Tony and Kyle, then past Matthew who still manned the front door in Fred’s place.
I wondered why Jack hadn’t been kicked out, as well. He’d started the whole thing.
Nadia and I looked at each other and she tossed her long red hair over her shoulder. “They should have thrown out those Shadow Shifters, too.”
“Maybe almost dying at your hand was lesson enough.” I watched as perhaps seven other Vampires in the room converged and started talking to each other in voices so low I couldn’t hear them. “What’s up with the Vamps? Why aren’t they skulking over their synthetic blood cocktails and chewing on the celery sticks?”
“Maybe they’re tired of celery.” She looked in the direction the Vampires had left. “I’ve always wondered why Vampires sleep in coffins. At least I’ve heard they do.”
I shrugged. “From what I learned since coming here is that they sleep in coffins because they appear dead to their families and friends when they are ‘turned.’ So they’re buried in coffins.”
Natalie looked thoughtful. “Still doesn’t make sense why they sleep in them.”
“Rodán told me it takes nine nights for a turned Vampire to wake.” I looked across the room at a group of Vampires who had gathered together. I lowered my voice. “Once they’re turned, new Vampires have a lot of strength and they dig their wa
y out of their graves.”
“What a way to become a paranorm.” Nadia wrinkled her nose. “Get bitten, contract the vampire infection, buried, then claw your way out of a grave.”
“It’s weird that just because they’re undead they can only come out at night,” I said. “I still don’t understand that.”
Nadia was starting to look bored but then she asked, “How do they know what to do? Regular paranorms grow up in families and we’re taught from the time we’re younglings how to be part of our race.”
“According to Rodán, a full-fledged Vampire is always waiting on the ninth night, when the new Vamp climbs out of his grave,” I said. “Then the experienced Vamp takes the newly turned Vamp—along with his or her coffin—to a Vampire lair where they learn what’s involved in being a Vampire.”
Nadia laughed. “Vampire 101.”
I grinned. “I guess that’s about it.”
“So Vampires sleeping in coffins came about because of being buried in them as turned humans,” she said when she finished laughing.
I had a hard time stopping laughing too before I said, “The coffins are their last possession before they wake as Vampires. So I guess they get a little attached to them.”
Nadia yawned, a pretty little yawn that she covered with her hand. “I think it’s time to go home. I want to watch the rest of The Little Mermaid before I go to bed.” She looked at me. “Last night’s Sprite ordeal cut into my regular programming.”
“What a strange night.” I pushed my chair away from the table and stood. “If it wasn’t for all the Weres in the bar, I would have thought it was a full moon.”
We had to walk past the seven Vamps. One of them raised her head and her blue eyes flashed hatred strong enough to make me almost pause.
Almost. Vampires weren’t worth pausing for. As far as I was concerned, Vampires should never have been invited.
FOUR
“How many?” Olivia made a hex sign with her fingers as I held up a report the moment she walked through the front door. Bells jangled as the door to our PI office slammed shut behind my partner. “Let me guess. Six.”
“Make that seven.” I leaned back in my chair and dropped the report on a teetering pile of other folders on my desk.
Olivia and I had been partners for going on two years now. I brought her into our PI firm about six months after Rodán had set me up in business and I had learned a lot of the tricks of the trade.
Our door sign was Pixie-made, sparkly purple and sapphire, which Olivia hated. She thought that it made us look too girly. I rather like girly.
N Y X C I A R
Olivia DeSantos
PARANORMAL CRIMES
PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS
By appointment only
Nice. I thought so, anyway.
“Ready to get in on the fun we had last night?” I asked her.
A long strand of her hair hung loose from where she had pulled her hair back in a clip. The dark hair fell across her cheek. Half Kenyan and half Puerto Rican, Olivia’s skin was like beautiful brown silk. “Bet your purple ass I want in on ‘the fun.’”
“Amethyst ass.” The response was automatic when she called me purple.
She tugged off her New York Mets sweat jacket and tossed it on a pile of folders on the credenza by her desk. Her desk was as bad as mine, only she preferred neon orange and green sticky notes and I liked hot pink.
When Olivia took off the sweat jacket, it revealed her side-holstered Sig Sauer. “You know how I feel about Sprites. I think they all need to be penned up and the locks soldered shut.”
If I wasn’t so tired from tracking Sprites all night, staying at the Pit for a few hours, and then another extracurricular activity, I would have grinned when I saw her T-shirt.
ONE BY ONE THE PENGUINS ARE STEALING MY SANITY
I pointed to the bright red T-shirt, obviously a new addition to Olivia’s extensive collection. “You should X out penguins and change it to Sprites.”
She leaned over her desk and grabbed a black permanent marker from the cup beside her computer monitor. She popped the cap of the marker. “Good idea.”
Then I did laugh.
My cat jumped onto my desk, startling me. The blue Persian gave a loud yowl and I winced. “Okay, okay, Kali. I’ll be up to give you your Fancy Feast.”
Kali’s tail twitched and I knew my underwear drawer was in trouble. And I’d just bought new panties at Victoria’s Secret yesterday.
I’d gotten a little bit smarter, though. I’d started buying as many as a dozen panties at a time. Took Kali longer to work her way through shredding my new ones.
Kali jumped off my desk and started toward a set of file cabinets. Tail still twitching, the cat looked over her shoulder at me in a way that said, “You. Will. Pay.”
I groaned. Maybe I’d get lucky and a couple of pairs of panties and bras would survive.
As if I’d be so fortunate.
“Statue of Liberty,” Olivia said and I turned to look at her. She grinned as she held the uncapped marker in her hand and shook her head with amusement on her face. “Saw it on CNN. I swear I thought the mayor was going to trip over his tongue and fall into the crowd of reporters when he tried to talk his way through this one.”
I gestured in the direction of my weapons wall. “I think all of those press conferences might be harder to deal with than grabbing a sword or a bow and taking care of the Sprites.”
Fine diamond-headed arrows were in quivers on one wall of our office. Light Elves fashioned the bows from precious Dryad wood and Dark Elves made the diamond arrowheads. Longswords and other Otherworld weapons were braced on my walls, mostly reminders of home. I preferred my dragon-clawed daggers, which were better for close combat.
Olivia patted her handgun. “I’ll take a Sig or a Glock any day over one of those things.”
I nodded. It depends on what form I’m in as to what my weapon of choice is.
As a human I usually have a much softer side than when I’m Drow. I can be tough then, too, but as a human I love being feminine. I enjoy wearing silks and satin, eating at nice restaurants, taking in a play, spending a day out with “the girls,” and cuddling with Adam. But as a human I still have the same need for justice that probably makes me a little tougher than I might otherwise be.
At night, my heritage takes control when I track the bad guys—paranorms—down. Dark Elves are warriors, fighters, and most run the line of gray magic, some even dark magic.
My magic doesn’t run dark or even gray, but on this level I’m more primal, the hunt for the wrongdoers almost a pleasure. It’s a side of me that is sometimes hard to deal with when I face the aftermath in the morning. I never kill for the sake of the kill. I never harm any being for the sake of harming them. Never. I do my job as a Night Tracker and I’m good at what I do.
It’s my strong sense of justice that determines how I act and react by day and by night. It’s my soul that determines who I am.
The bells jangled again as the door swung open and heat flushed through me. Adam. My belly tingled as I met his warm brown eyes and he gave me his cute, almost shy smile.
There was nothing shy about Detective Adam Boyd.
He loved to watch me when I shifted, watching the change in my body, my skin tone, my hair. It still amazed me that once he learned about my other half, he had so easily accepted who and what I am. Not many humans can handle what I become at sunset.
After their initial surprise—and some serious convincing when it came to Olivia—she and Adam each took my differences in stride. More or less.
Now if I could just get Olivia to stop calling me purple and keep her from eating Lay’s barbecue chips around me, our relationship would be nearly perfect. The crunch queen. Drove me nuts.
Adam gave Olivia a nod and a smile before reaching me. At five-two, Olivia was a full foot shorter than Adam, but in a wrestling match it was possible she could take the tall detective down. Never doubt Olivia. She was an explosive
package.
She capped the marker and tossed it on her desk without desecrating her T-shirt. “Don’t pretend you’re here to see me too.” Olivia’s expression was sarcastic but amusement was in her tone. Her red Keds squeaked on the floor as she rounded her desk, then plopped in her leather chair.
He grinned and shoved his hands in his worn brown leather bomber jacket and eased into one of the client chairs in front of my desk. Even though it wasn’t windy, his brown hair was tousled as if I’d just had my hands clenched in the thick, soft strands. Heat made its way through me, warmth that only filled me when I was around Adam.
“How was last night?” As a NYPD detective he had a hard edge to his voice when on the job. But not with me. His tone was low, caring, with a sensuality that was so natural it sent excited shivers through me.
At first I thought Adam was talking about being in my bed after I got home from the Pit in the wee hours of the morning. My cheeks burned as I did my best to keep from looking at Olivia.
Oh. He meant tracking.
Olivia snickered. I ignored her.
I cleared my throat. “It was busy last night.”
“Nice touch to the Statue of Liberty.” He dragged his hand down his stubbled face. “Talk about a mess for the mayor to try to explain in a press conference how the statue ended up with pink toenails and lipstick.”
With an exasperated sigh I added, “Not to mention the torch.”
“Some idiot’s going to start a rumor that the whole thing was done by space aliens.” Olivia put her feet up on her desk. “Trust me.”
“This can’t be just Sprite mischief.” I repeated the thought yet again as I had been doing for days now. I ran my fingers along my collar. “There are way too many Sprites around and they’re wreaking havoc everywhere.”
“It’s getting harder to keep the knowledge of what’s causing all of this from going public.” Adam’s brown eyes became intense like they always did when he was focusing on his job. “At least in the norm world it is.”
“I think everyone is tired of cleaning up Sprite messes.” Olivia pushed the loose strand of hair away from her cheek. “Need to round up every one of the little bastards and then we won’t have to worry about it at all.”
Vampires Not Invited: A Night Tracker Novel Page 3