The two men chuckled. Sing, a former US Army Ranger, had ribbed Martin about being a marine since the two met. Connor, on the other hand, was a former US Navy SEAL and considered himself above it all.
“The boss have any orders?” Sing asked.
“Monique’s not in yet, but we’re on standby.” The phone in Connor’s pocket beeped.
“Speak of the devil,” Sing muttered.
Connor shot him a warning look as he hit the speaker button on his phone and held it up so they could both hear.
“You’re on speaker, boss.”
“One of our locals may have eyes on your prize,” Monique said. Her Israeli accent was unusually strong, which meant she wasn’t in the best of moods. “They reported seeing her at a bar called, Draw the Line. You know the place?”
Connor raised an eyebrow at his partner.
“Why are you looking at me?” Sing raised both hands defensively. “Okay, okay—yeah, I know the place. It’s a cowboy bar down in Tacoma. Is she trolling there? Seems an odd place for a newbie to go.”
Sing was right. Newborns always went where the prey was plentiful and weak. That meant the hip clubs and the fetish palaces.
“Our man didn’t say, only that he saw her there. Check with the twins before you go. They may have more.”
“Roger that,” Connor said. “Anything else?”
“Keep your ears open. Something is afoot in the city, but no one is talking. That cannot be good. For now, just recon. No contact. Let’s see what your girl is up to.”
The line went dead. Connor slipped the phone back in his jacket.
“Okay, partner. You ready for this?”
“Can we take a bazooka?”
Sing was only partly kidding.
***
Bella pushed her latest meal away from her. The girl, a shriveled husk of what she once was, fell to the ground with a groan. Bella, who demanded absolute silence when she fed, hissed in the girl’s direction—but Bella couldn’t be bothered to discipline her right now.
The project was still behind. Too much rested on her minions, and they were disappointing her. Worse, there were rumors members of the Arcanum were sniffing around her operations. Their agents were surprisingly resilient and reasonably prepared for any encounter. Any advantage her heritage gave her seemed to be offset by their training and knowledge.
She needed a distraction.
Bella glided across the room and pulled open the doors of her closet. Ten women, all similar in build and coloring to Bella herself—and reasonably attractive, though none equaled her beauty—stood at their assigned places inside the spacious closet. They posed for her as she entered, showing off the gowns they wore from different angles. Behind her, two servants entered the room to remove Bella’s snack so she wouldn’t have to look at the haggard thing.
“That one.” She raised a finger to point at the model wearing a strapless affair in red satin, with a slit that came almost all the way up to her waist. Immediately, the model began to disrobe, while another servant appeared to help Bella into the dress.
Twenty minutes later, she entered her chamber at the Den. The walls vibrated with club music. The room itself was a miniature version of the Parthenon. Columns on either side concealed rooms, cloaked in shadow, wherein the VIPs partook in the club’s unique service. Even now, this close to dawn, she could hear the moans of her patrons. They came to her underlings for the singular pleasure a vampire could provide. Those that came to her did so to pay their respects. Dupree may be her master, but this city was her domain.
“She waits for you, milady,” a servant whispered to her as she entered her private room. She had her room lavishly decorated with thick purple rugs and lush pillows, the way she imagined an emperor might. A large, thronelike chair, upholstered in red velvet and on a dais, stood at one end of the room. Crimson drapes hung from the ceiling behind the chair, adding to the royal appearance.
Bella raised a hand to wave her servant away, but the pleading look on his face gave her pause. He was emaciated, his once-impressive sideburns nothing more than thin wisps clinging to his sunken face.
“Mistress . . . if it pleases you, may I eat soon?”
He risked death by voicing the request, but death waited for him in silence as well. It was more than he deserved—his mistake had cost them more time and had made her look foolish in front of her master.
Bella considered and then gave a graceful shrug. “Send her in, and then you may feed on the leftovers. Don’t fail me again.”
“Yes, mistress. Thank you, mistress. No, mistress.” He bowed several times as he backed away.
Bella idly swung her long, shapely legs over the arm of her throne and listened to the sound of heels clicking against stone as her visitor approached.
The witch was nothing like Bella had expected. She seemed little more than a girl—no more than twenty on the outside, with long red hair and flawless skin. This couldn’t be the most powerful witch in the New World.
“Where is your master, girl?” Bella snapped. “I don’t deal with underlings.”
The woman’s green eyes flared brightly with power. Bella gazed into them to see a soul much older than the human before her.
“You see now, don’t you?” the witch hissed at her. “Pathetic creature.”
Bella snarled. She wasn’t used to being insulted, let alone in her own house. “Watch your tongue, human. Your pet wolf isn’t around to protect you.”
The woman laughed. “You think I depend on his protection? You know nothing of the power I possess. But, like you, I have no patience for underlings. I am here as Dupree requested. What is it you want?”
Bella’s hands curled instinctively into fists. But the woman had invoked Dupree’s name, and this was not a fight she could afford to lose. Bella breathed deeply and forced her hands to relax.
“I need the Arcanum distracted. Something they can’t resist,” Bella said.
“The Arcanum? You risk much. Humans are slow to anger, but strong en masse. Are you sure you want this?”
“We only need a few weeks of unfettered activity. Once we are done, we can deal with the consequences.” And with you. Come, witch. Help me hasten your own destruction.
The witch seemed to consider, and then she nodded. “I will need something from you to bring it about.”
“You need help from me?” Bella smirked. “Dupree assured me you were competent.”
“My competence is not yours to question,” the witch said. “Arrange it for my convenience.”
Bella breathed deeply. “Very well. What do you need?”
“Humans, three or four, with all their blood intact and untouched by . . . vermin.”
She meant vampires, of course. When the time comes, I will kill this one myself.
“That can be arranged,” Bella replied evenly. “Anything else?”
“A space to work and a few hours to prepare.”
“Done. I can have the humans here by dusk tonight, and you may use one of our conference rooms for your rituals.”
The witch nodded, turned, and walked away from her.
“Your name, witch,” Bella murmured coolly at the woman’s back. “So I know how to hunt you down, should you fail me.”
“My name is Illyana. Not that I would expect a minion to understand their place,” Illyana said.
TEN
Alexi didn’t dream. She never dreamed. One moment she was lying in bed as sunrise approached, and the next she was awake, with a sunset of pinks and purples on the horizon. But there was always a sadness when she opened her eyes, a deep, empty melancholy that lingered well into the night.
Her room’s single window was completely blacked out with paint and boarded over. No reason to risk death in her dreamless sleep. The bed offered her no comfort, nor did the smell of food that wafted through the small house they had rented. She was hungry, but the thought of eating food did nothing for her anymore. She couldn’t remember a time that food had satisfied her,
though she knew it must have once.
A large, ornately framed mirror leaned against one wall of the room. It looked like it had been part of a vintage vanity at some point, but Savanna had dug it out of the Dumpster two blocks over.
Alexi eyed her reflection as she dressed for work. There was nothing familiar about the face she saw there, except for the fact that she’d seen it every day for the last six weeks. Pale skin and wavy blonde hair. Blue eyes that seemed a little too bright.
She wondered if there was someone in this city who would recognize her from before. Before she was murdered. Before she became a monster.
Now only the dog tags around her neck connected her to that person.
Boots—the ones with all the buckles—jeans, tank top, button-up shirt. The figure in the mirror was a pleasing one, for whatever that was worth. Even the satisfaction of liking what she saw in the mirror couldn’t cut through the lingering sadness of her dreamless sleep. She ran a brush through her hair, shrugged on her jacket, and paused at the door.
She didn’t want to go out. She didn’t want to see Savanna’s hopeful face or Victor’s haunted eyes. Two people she had almost killed were now playing Three’s Company with her in their little house. Savanna cooked for Victor, and he watched Alexi with his careful, pensive gaze. Wanting something from her. Not in the distasteful, uninvited way she had been eyed countless times by other men—but in the way that made her wish he would ask.
Ask so she could say yes.
Alexi shook her head. As though that would fix anything. As though it would make her more human or heal what was broken in him. At least he was his own person again. Whatever hold Illyana had wielded over him was gone. He stayed because he—like the rest of them—had nowhere else to go. They were together and yet completely alone.
She didn’t want to be alone anymore or cold. She was so damn cold all the time.
Monster.
She’d almost killed them before. What right did she have to want their company now? And Victor—how could she even consider—
A soft knock interrupted her melancholy.
“What?” she snapped, then immediately regretted her impatient tone.
“I just wanted to talk to you before you left for work,” came Savanna’s timid voice.
Alexi rubbed her face. The last person in the world who deserved her ire was Savanna. “Sorry, hon. One sec.” She unbolted the door and let it swing open.
The little witch looked ten times better than when they had first met. A month and a half of regular food and sleep had brought color to her cheeks and filled out what had been a painfully thin figure.
“You okay?” Savanna entered the room and sat on Alexi’s bed. “I hardly see you lately. You’re in here until you leave for work, and then you come back and go to sleep.” She smoothed out the disheveled duvet and straightened Alexi’s pillow. Tidying was a nervous tic for her.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Alexi sighed, closed the door, and then leaned back against it. “I’m just in a weird place right now. This all seems—”
“Still weird?”
Alexi shook her head. “Normal.”
Savanna cocked her head to the side questioningly. “What do you mean?”
“Last month we were about to be sacrificed to summon a demon, and now I’m working at a bar. Is this why I was brought back?”
“I don’t know, but you did do what you promised.”
“How? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve almost killed you or let you die since we met.”
“Twice,” Savanna supplied helpfully, and then smiled up at Alexi. “Lex, for the first time in two years, I’m not being hunted. I actually feel like I might be all right.”
Alexi nodded, looking down at her shoes. “I guess.”
“And Victor—”
Alexi looked up a little too quickly, and Savanna met her with a knowing smile. “You could talk to him, you know,” Savanna said.
“About what?”
Savanna stood up and started gathering discarded clothes from the carpet. “You know . . . just talk.” There was an innate grace to her movements.
Alexi followed that thought, trying to imagine what she would say to him and how he would respond. Every time they were in the same room, it was as though electricity bounced back and forth between them, without even touching. He’d look at her in that way again. She would silently pray that he would just say it. Just say it. And then—
She shook her head and coughed. “You can’t still pick up on my thoughts, can you?”
Savanna straightened from her tidying. “It’s not like mind reading. You have to want me to hear the thought.”
Like this?
Savanna stood silently for a moment, and then she shook her head. “Are you trying?”
Yes. Can you hear me?
Savanna shook her head. “Maybe you have to have . . . you know . . . fed on me recently.” She shrugged. “Seriously, though. You should go talk to Victor.”
“Maybe later. I’m going to be late for work.”
If Alexi was perfectly honest with herself, it wasn’t the connection she felt with Victor that made her avoid him—not just that, anyway. When he turned his dark eyes on her, she felt a powerful attraction and an intense . . . shame. Not for wanting him. But because he had seen what she was—like Savanna, except different.
He had watched her become a monster. Not in the clean, almost natural way he took the shape of a wolf. But something . . . wrong. Something awful.
And every time she looked in his eyes, she saw that. There, hidden away under the intense longing, she saw the truth of what she was.
Their little two-bedroom house hardly deserved the title. Outside the confines of her room, it was hard to avoid the other two occupants. Fortunately for her, Victor was in the shower. She hesitated outside the bathroom door, listening to water splatter down on the shower floor—a relief and a disappointment, all at the same time.
She slid out of the house before she would be faced with any more difficulty. At least at work, she could turn off her brain.
The bar she worked at was fantastic if sawdust floors, loud country music, and cheap beer were your thing. They weren’t really up Alexi’s alley, but it was a paycheck. When she’d come in to apply for a job as a bouncer, the manager had leeringly suggested that she’d make a killing working a pole. The bar didn’t have strippers, but he told her if she’d audition for him in private, he’d put in a word with a guy he knew. He actually used those words. A guy he knew.
She’d had to mentally lean on him a little bit to get him to hire her as a bouncer. Influencing him that way—the way she’d inadvertently pushed the hotel manager—had made her feel a little dirty, but she thought of Savanna while she did it. They needed food and a roof over their heads. Savanna had come to her for protection, and she wasn’t going to let her starve. Besides, had she taken a job serving beer to drunks, she wouldn’t have lasted a week. But this? She was perfect for it.
The sun hadn’t been down long, and customers were just starting to arrive. The bartender was leaning against the bar, texting someone on his phone.
Weird discovery, that one—Alexi couldn’t use anything with a conductive touch screen like tablets, smartphones, and anything that required an electrical current—exactly what she didn’t have. Now, every time she spotted someone using a flip phone, she wondered if they had any bloodsucking tendencies.
After hopping over the bar, Alexi ducked into the back room to punch her time card. She nodded to one of the other bouncers in the break room. There were usually half a dozen of them at any time. Two outside, four inside. Their job wasn’t to curate the clientele—if they could pay, they could get in. Mostly, she and the other bouncers were there to de-escalate things or move them outside. When Alexi gave an order, people listened. Most of the time she didn’t need to push them mentally, either. Something in her eyes or in her voice made sure they knew she meant business.
The band didn’t start till
nine, which she was grateful for. They weren’t very good. The computer spat out its rotation of top hits. Alexi meandered through the bar, scanning the crowd for troublemakers. Like everyone else who worked security, she wore a black shirt with the label across the front. Hers was a little small for comfort. The manager kept promising to order a new one, but she suspected he had no intention to do so.
A hand slid across her backside, and Alexi snatched the offending appendage. She tightened her grip until the owner yelped.
“You want to be a lefty your whole life, kid? Try that again.”
“Shit—let go, lady. I was just having fun.”
She squeezed one more time for emphasis, and his eyes teared up. “It’s only fun for you.”
He babbled an apology as she walked away.
A second longer and she would have broken the guy’s wrist. She was on edge; there was no doubt about it. She was just so damn hungry. It had been six weeks since she had fed on Victor, there in the campground surrounded by ritual circles. His blood had sustained her far longer than she had expected. It helped that she hadn’t needed to use her energy to heal from any bullet or stab wounds—although she suspected that she used some of her stolen life force each time she mentally pushed someone.
For the last week, she had started to feel the telltale signs of hunger. The idea of feeding again was both attractive and repugnant at the same time. Who would she feed on? The idea of asking Savanna or Victor to let her feed on them made her feel sick—and the idea of assaulting a random stranger was even worse.
She would not give in. Even if someone at the bar accidentally nicked a hand on a chipped glass, and she could smell it all the way across the room—her stomach would tighten, adrenaline would start to pump through her, and saliva would fill her mouth . . .
No.
She leaned against the wall, willing herself to pull together.
“Hey, Alexi,” the bartender called to her. “You got a visitor in the back.”
She jerked her head up. She looked to the dark corner of the dance floor where the private booths were. Her eyes dilated, and the gloom turned bright as day. A long, black trench coat hung from the corner of the booth, obscuring her view. Not Vic or Savanna. She would have recognized their scents.
With the Dawn (Faith of the Fallen) Page 8