by Erin Embly
“How sweet of you to care, but no.” I grinned. “It’s more dangerous than that. The owner of the club offered me a job in security last night. After seeing all this, I’m inclined to take it.”
Adrian frowned, crossing his arms in a gesture I knew had less to do with him trying to look powerful and more to do with him trying to hide his discomfort.
“I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Miriam piped up cheerfully. “I’ll give you a squishy to wear when you go.”
“Thank you, Miriam,” I said even as I groaned internally, hoping she would make it a small one. “I start tonight.”
9
“Can I talk to you for a sec?” I asked Miriam out on the sidewalk as Adrian chatted with someone who might be his boss. I didn’t know and didn’t really want to know; dealing with two cops at a time was more than enough for me, especially when I had to keep secrets from one of them.
Miriam turned around and came up close to me, looking strangely pleased with herself. “I can’t believe they went for it!”
I twisted my face at her, taken off guard by her peppy mood after everything we’d just seen.
“I didn’t think they’d agree to let me call you just because you lived with a couple fae strippers for a year, but Crane backed me up. It’s good he’s so sweet on you.”
I crossed my arms, eyes moving towards the building we’d just come out of. “How can you be so cheerful after that?”
“Oh, sorry.” Her expression immediately shifted to a somber one. “I didn’t think you’d mind. Fae dust has an unusual effect on me.” Her whole body shivered, and for a moment I thought I saw something ripple under her not-skin. “I’m very absorbent.”
“Great,” I said, “so you’re high.”
Miriam just blinked and shrugged at me. “I suppose. But I’m still capable of doing my job, thank you. What did you want to talk about?”
My tired eyes had drifted behind her, to a man sitting at a bus stop across the street wearing sunglasses and a fluffy scarf when it was a warm, cloudy day. The bodyguard in me was still a compulsive people-watcher, apparently. I frowned, then let out a breath to refocus on Miriam.
“Even if it’s not much, I need to know what you found this morning.” I pointed to my forehead. “If I’m going to see Soma tonight, I don’t want to go in as blind as I was last night.”
“I’m sorry dear, but it will take me more time than we have to uncover anything substantial.” Miriam poked me between the eyes. “It’s like a swamp in there.”
“Isn’t that your natural habitat?” I said, despite myself. I couldn’t resist.
“Don’t be so literal,” she told me, shaking her finger back and forth. “Your memories have been tampered with, but I don’t think it was intentional. Someone did a messy number on you. Vampires are usually much more precise.”
Frowning, I chewed on my tongue. That was certainly not what I’d expected. If Simeon hadn’t messed with my mind intentionally, it made the whole thing more complicated. It was easier to blame him if he’d done it intentionally—to blame myself, for getting involved with him when I should have known he was trying to manipulate me. But if he wasn’t trying . . .
I shook my head, my desire to avoid these feelings lining up with the realization that they were irrelevant here anyway. It didn’t matter why I was missing memories; I just needed to find out which memories I was missing.
Taking a breath, I wished this realization would loosen the new tightness in my chest.
“I’ve got to go, dear. Do you want a ride?” Miriam asked as Adrian waved her over to their car.
“No,” I said quickly, although my bank account would hate me for it. I didn’t want to be in a confined space with those two right now, and I needed to figure out my next move without having to play the game of keeping Adrian in the dark about my extracurricular activities with Miriam and Dirk.
Miriam smiled and turned away from me, then turned back a moment later. “Oh, I almost forgot to give you this.” She handed me a pink squishy like the one she’d put on the back of my neck at our first meeting, but this one was tiny.
“You can make them this small?” I asked, a little pissed that I’d walked around for a day with that huge one under my hair if it wasn’t necessary.
“It’s not ideal,” she said, “but you’ll need it for tonight. If they find it, they’ll just think it’s a wart.”
I grimaced but lifted my hair for her anyway, letting her press the small blob on the back of my neck.
“You’re lucky you don’t have to do any paperwork!” she continued, then leaned in to whisper, “With your background, the boss doesn’t want you on the record until it’s necessary. You’re quite the liability.”
“Great, thanks,” I said. That was just a nice way of saying they didn’t want to pay me, but I didn’t mind. I hated paperwork even more than I needed money, and I didn’t want to get roped into spending any more time than necessary chatting with cops.
Miriam waved at me before bouncing away to get in the car.
I picked a direction and started walking before anyone could spot me and decide to start a conversation. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I looked around and faintly recognized my surroundings.
There was a Metro station right across the street, but after my second sighting of that creepy Noah copy last night, I didn’t want to risk going down there again. It wouldn’t help me to get mind-fucked by rotting, laughing children and skeletons in the walls if I didn’t know how to hurt them.
Things would be so much easier if I could just drive my own damn car, but I’d stopped using it weeks ago when it had become clear just how badly Ray wanted me to submit to Popo. The volcano god had sent a horde of obsidian bunnies to haunt my ride, and I was done poking that particular anthill. The weird rabbits were there to “help” me, Ray had insisted—a “blessing”—and they had certainly been useful a few times. But just like with men, it wasn’t safe to accept any help from a god who was trying to woo me until and unless I had a plan for how to escape his advances.
At this point, I still had no such plan, so avoidance was the thing.
I decided to walk to Dupont, where it might be cheaper to get a ride since there were always cars there dropping people off.
And the walk might help clear my head. I really didn’t like the idea of taking Soma up on his offer without having any memory of our history. I’d already told him flat out that I didn’t remember him, so he knew he held all the cards in our relationship. Maybe I could make that work for me . . . I wouldn’t have to hide anything except my real reason for being there, and he might even be inclined to fill in some of the blanks in my head.
I would just have to hope he didn’t have some grudge against me. If I’d done something to piss him off in my past life, he might be “hiring” me to take a trip six feet under.
A familiar scent caught my attention as my body warmed from my brisk strides.
Coffee and cinnamon.
I stopped in my tracks and looked around. This was the same block where the Sweepers headquarters used to be, before an infernal djinn had burned it to the ground.
The same block where the barista Miriam had reminded me of had acted like she’d known me.
Could she be someone else like Soma who’d been erased from my mind? If so, she might have some useful information about my relationship with him.
Unable to remember exactly where the cafe was, I turned around to get a better bearing on my surroundings. And behind the throng of pedestrians walking past me on the sidewalk, I saw a fluffy scarf and a pair of black sunglasses that looked familiar. The man from the bus stop. Considering that the bus would have taken him in the direction opposite from where I was now walking, I doubted he’d left because it was taking too long.
I let my eyes pass over him quickly, spotting the cafe I was looking for behind him on the other side of the street. If he followed me there, I’d know for sure he was after me.
I walked past him wit
hout sparing him another glance, crossing the street without changing my speed. Then I stepped into a narrow alley next to the cafe in an attempt to separate myself from the crowds of innocent people out enjoying their Saturday. Backing myself behind a corner jutting out from the wall of the alley, I waited and watched.
It didn’t take him long to appear, his dark sunglasses reflecting the glare from above into the shadows nearby. I peeked out to see him standing on the sidewalk in a moment of uncertainty before he stepped forward. Determined to follow me even when he couldn’t hide in a crowd—that had to be a bad sign.
He opened his mouth to lick his lips, and I saw the gleam of long fangs—an even worse sign.
That at least explained the sunglasses. Vampires normally toted around umbrellas if they had to go out during the daytime, but the cloud cover was so dense today that hardly any sun was peeking through. Big storm coming tonight.
I pulled both knives out of my sleeves and readied my stance. If this vamp was planning to kill me, I wouldn’t make it easy.
I listened closely, knowing he had the upper hand even though I was the one out of sight. He was a vampire, so there was a strong chance he was old enough to smell my blood from a distance. I’d have to make the first move.
I let him take a few more steps towards me before stepping out from my hiding place and launching one of my knives at him in a smooth motion. Speed was the key here. I didn’t need to hit him; I just needed to make him react.
He dodged my knife, which bounced off the opposite wall with a sharp ping. Losing his footing, he stumbled to the side. I went straight for him with my other knife in hand, my foot swiping at his knee as he tried to regain his balance. Instead he went crashing to the ground.
I pounced on top of him, knife aimed at his heart, but he was quicker than me. He leapt up, practically defying gravity, and brought his forearm crashing into the inside of my wrist.
I cursed as the bones in my wrist cracked and my knife went flying, a wave of nausea and dizziness fighting hard against the adrenaline running through my veins. I gritted my teeth against the pain and tried to keep my head.
All bets were off now that I knew this was a particularly strong bloodsucker. He might be very old, or he might have just fed, or both—either way, I wouldn’t best him if I didn’t fight dirty.
“Okay!” I yelled, throwing my good hand up in surrender and backing away as I lifted my head to expose my neck. “You want some of this good stuff? You can have it.”
“That’s not what I want,” he said in a gruff voice, although he couldn’t help but lick his lips in the process.
Slowly, deliberately, I brought my arm in front of me while continuing to back away. “What then?” I asked.
He followed me, step for step, eyes narrowing in a predatory confidence. “You’ve seen them,” he said in a near whisper. “You have to die.”
Cradling the wrist he’d broken with my other arm, I took a deep breath and dug my thumb nail into the palm of my hand, willing the adrenaline to win the battle against the pain so I wouldn’t pass out.
I cupped my fingers around the wound to let the blood pool, still slowly backing away as I gauged the new uncertainty in the vampire’s movements. He at least wasn’t pouncing on me yet, a good sign.
The one good thing about fighting vampires was that their instincts became predictable once the blood lust got switched on. Without fresh blood in sight, most vampires were basically just humans with extraordinary abilities. But if you were bleeding in front of them, the human part of their brains tended to take a back seat to the predator.
And all predators were wired to go after the easiest prey.
Once I had a good amount of blood collected in my palm, I flung it to the side and splattered it all over the side of a dumpster. Drips of red shone brightly against the dull green of the rusted container, and the vampire lunged after it without thinking.
Let him try to lick it off, I thought as I bolted in the opposite direction. He wouldn’t, not unless he was a braindead out-of-control botched job, but at least this would give me a tiny head start.
Sprinting to the back of the alley, I focused on the door that should lead into the back of the cafe and prayed it wouldn’t be locked.
The door pulled open easily, my blood smearing all over the chrome handle. A doe-eyed stare wrapped in chef whites met me when I entered, the shocked girl holding a piping bag over a work bench covered in cookies.
“Where’s the walk-in?” I shouted. She pointed tentatively to her right. “Thanks—get out of here,” I said as I ran in the direction she’d shown me.
I pressed my thumb into the wound in my palm again as I made my way through the kitchen, hoping a blood trail would keep the vampire coming after me and away from any of the other tasty morsels in here.
There were only a few people working in the kitchen, but they were all frozen and staring at me rather than running for their lives, which I should have expected. I made a mental note to listen for their screams, hoping they wouldn’t be drowned out by the sound of the industrial-sized mixer ahead of me, which was currently kneading dough and filling the room with loud, rhythmic thwacks.
I made it to the door of the walk-in refrigerator and pulled it open, smearing more blood on the handle. If I could get the vampire in here, maybe I could keep him in for questioning. There was an open padlock on a hook by the door, ready to secure the expensive contents of the fridge overnight.
But when I peered inside, I was met with another doe-eyed stare, this time from a cook with an entire four-tiered wedding cake in his arms. A cage with a big, juicy snack in it for the vampire was not what I wanted right now.
“Fuck,” I muttered, turning my head back as I heard a scream from behind me.
I just barely managed to get out of the fridge and close the door before the vampire rushed at me from across the room.
My body moved without my brain thinking.
I stepped out of the way as he lunged at me and grabbed his arm from the side to redirect him, using his own momentum to guide him down towards the mixer with the bread dough.
I thanked all my stars that the safety guard was open. His head went right in the bowl and got whacked by the dough hook, which quickly worked his blood into the lump of dough.
Eyes wide, I took the opportunity in front of me and wrapped my arms around him, the good one over his torso and the bad one between his legs. Careful not to put any weight on my smashed wrist, I lifted his backside to dunk his head further into the mixer before he could get a grip on anything with his hands.
His screams were muffled by pink dough as the bottom of the hook made quick work of the soft skin underneath his chin. It wasn’t long before whole chunks of his face had been torn off as his skull was crushed by the thick metal hook backed by an impressively powerful motor.
When his body stopped thrashing in my arms, I breathed out and took a shaky step back.
The mixer hadn’t exactly decapitated him . . . but honestly, it looked like it was good enough. Taking the head off was the only way to kill a vampire without burning him to ashes, and there were still some pulpy parts of head attached to the torn-up neck, but . . .
Yeah. Good enough.
I moved to wipe my hands on my pants, a reflexive motion to try to wipe the violent scene in front of me from my mind. But with a bleeding palm and a fucked-up wrist, that wouldn’t end well, so I stopped and folded my arms in front of me instead, one supporting the other.
I heard chattering behind me and turned to see the redheaded barista from before eying me sternly with her hands on her hips.
“Trying to make me a vampire loaf, is it? I doubt that will go over well.” She turned to the doe-eyed cook beside her, who had gone frozen and white as she stared at the mess at my feet. “Go tell everyone we’re closing for the day, Ira. Problem with the gas lines. No need for anyone to call the authorities; I’ve got everything sorted.”
Ira didn’t move, just kept staring at the dou
gh she’d probably planned on baking before I’d gone and dumped a vampire in it.
“Chop chop!” the redhead said with a snap of her fingers, and Ira bolted.
The barista sighed and turned back to me.
“It’s nice to see you again, love,” she said with a smile. “But you could have called.”
10
The kitchen quieted as the redheaded barista stared me down, hands still on her hips. It was the same English woman Miriam had mentioned last night. I only wished I could remember her name.
“Sorry about the . . .” I tried awkwardly to fill the silence, but the mess in the mixer had even me at a loss for words.
“Are you going to clean that up?” the woman asked.
“I . . .” I glanced down at my mangled wrist, which hurt like an absolute bitch now that the adrenaline from the fight had started to wear off. Plus, I was apprehensive about touching a dead vampire without knowing what the phoenix might do. “I can call the cops,” I said, reaching for my phone with my good hand.
“No!” She said it so harshly I froze, eyebrows raised.
“It’s fine, they’re my friends. I’ll tell them you had nothing to do with this.”
“That’s not the issue. Do you think anyone in their right mind would come here for tea and biscuits again if word got out we had a dead body in the kitchen?” She shook her head slowly, bringing her shoulders along with it in an exaggerated motion. “Not a chance.”
“Hmm,” I grunted. She had a point. Although the fact that she’d thought of it so quickly made me suspect she might not be as innocent as she looked.
“Right. Darcy?” I met her eyes, unnerved at the reminder that she had me at a disadvantage. “I really don’t care who this was or why his head is in my bread.” She nodded at the mess beside me, her lips twitching like she was hiding a smile. “Heaven knows I owe you that. I just want him gone.”
“Hmm,” I grunted again. My head spun as the pain traveled up my arm.