“Did they ask for me by name?”
“How the hell should I know?” the bartender barked over the din of the crowd. “Just get over there. They probably need help out to their car.”
The dance music from the band cued up just then, and twenty tipsy customers flooded to the dance floor. Alexi skirted the edge of the dance floor until she could see the booth better. Two men in suits and ties—something about them seemed familiar. She couldn’t quite place it, though. A nagging feeling buzzed at the nape of her neck.
“You asked for me?”
The two men jumped so hard they hit their knees on the table, eliciting a grin from her. The smile faded quickly.
“Damn,” she muttered. They weren’t wearing their engraved brass knuckles, but she knew their faces. These were the guys that had attacked her and Savanna that first morning.
***
Alexi froze like a deer in headlights. She glanced at the door, her mind doing the mental math to see how fast she could get home. People were everywhere. If they opened fire, there would be casualties. The Asian’s face was like stone. She couldn’t read him. The other guy seemed cautious, though, not aggressive.
“I don’t know what you’re after, but we can’t do this here,” she said after a moment of silence. “There are too many people.”
The Asian raised an eyebrow. Then, very slowly, he reached into his jacket. Alexi was poised on the balls of her feet, ready to run. The man pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his jacket and pushed it across the table.
The man with brown eyes and a scar above his lips smiled and took the twenty. “Told you.”
Alexi didn’t like being the butt of anyone’s joke, and she wasn’t in a playful mood. “So I take it you’re not here to shoot me? Again?”
The brown-eyed man gave her an apologetic smile. “No. Sorry about that. You have to understand, we—hell, this is going to be hard to explain. Have a seat?”
Her eyes narrowed, glancing from one man to the other. If they were here to make trouble for her, they could have easily waited until her shift was over and jumped her in the parking lot. It would not have been the first time that had happened, sadly.
“Tell you what,” Brown Eyes said. “My friend Sing will go find something to amuse himself with, and it will be just you and me.”
Alexi paused, considering. The last thing she wanted at this particular moment was another fight.
Brown Eyes seemed to take note of her change in demeanor. “Go make yourself annoying, Sing.”
“You sure, Connor?”
Connor waved his hand. “It’ll be fine—right, ah . . . ?”
It took Alexi a moment to realize he was fishing for her name.
“Alexi,” she muttered reluctantly. Sing stood up and gave her a wide berth as he left.
“Please, sit,” Connor said, waving at the booth opposite him. “Let me introduce myself like a civilized human being, okay? Alexi, I’m Agent Connor of the Arcanum.” His eyes narrowed. “I’m guessing that means nothing to you.”
Did they know she had lost her memory? Alexi gave him her best blank stare.
“You don’t trust me, and I can’t blame you. During our last, ah, encounter, we were under the impression you were a newborn vampire. Obviously, we were incorrect, and if we—”
“You’re not,” she interrupted him.
Connor looked at her, puzzled. “Not what?”
“Incorrect. I am a . . . new—you know.” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t say vampire.
“Ah . . .” Connor’s appraising eyes seemed to gather more than what her words had conveyed, and she was uncomfortable with that. “You were immune to our usual tactics. Do you mind sharing why?”
What did he mean? Savanna warned her of some danger during that fight, but Alexi assumed they had a weapon they hadn’t had time to use properly.
“You don’t know, do you? Do you know who made you?”
Alexi shook her head slowly. Did they know? “Who told you I was a newborn?”
His face tightened. “A source.”
“Is that their first name or last? Where did they call from? Did they give you my name? What I looked like?”
With each word, Alexi leaned in closer. Connor squirmed under the scrutiny of her penetrating eyes. He didn’t seem like someone who was used to being on the defensive. Without even realizing it, Alexi was pushing him. Hard. A waitress walked right by the table without stopping and the dancers drifted away from that corner of the room.
“How are you doing that?” he asked, eyes wide.
“Doing what?”
“I know what fear feels like, Alexi. Stop it.”
Alexi hesitated, fully realizing what she was doing. The sense of something passing between them stuttered and then winked out altogether. The palpable aura of fear eased.
“You can’t be a newborn,” he said. There was a hint of awe in his voice.
Alexi shook her head. She was done with this conversation. He’d learned more about her than she had, and it was obvious he wasn’t willing to offer anything up. “I’m not sure what I am, other than protective of my friends. Don’t come after me again.”
“We’re not the enemy, Alexi,” Connor said softly. “Under the right circumstances, we might even be friends.”
Sure. She didn’t buy that for one hot minute. “Am I free to go? Or am I going to have to give you more of what you got last time?”
The warmth on his face vanished. Alexi didn’t even know how much of it was genuine. When he didn’t move, she slid out of the booth and stood. Sing was there in the shadows. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with Connor, she would have known he hadn’t gone far.
“Alexi, wait,” Connor said. He slid a card across the table. “Listen—this is my card. If you ever want to talk, call me.”
“So we can exchange recipes?” She wondered if he knew about the touch screen thing.
Annoyance flickered over Connor’s face. “Look, we came here in good faith—”
“And the next time I shoot you for no reason at all, you can have the damned high ground.”
Connor hesitated, looking down at the table. “Fair enough.” He picked up the card and raised it toward her between two fingers, one eyebrow cocked.
The card wasn’t a contract. She could burn the damn thing if she wanted. She just wanted out of this conversation. Alexi snatched the card and slid it into her back pocket. Without a backward glance, she walked to the other side of the bar where the security tended to congregate. Dancers parted around her, as though they could feel her moving through the crowd, and then closed in her wake.
“Who were those guys?” asked Chuck, one of the other bouncers. “Job offer?”
“Something like that.”
She looked across the room at Connor and Sing, focusing all her senses on them. Even across the crowd, she could hear every word.
“Yeah, not at all what we expected. I think we should bring her in,” Connor said. He paused for a moment, cocking his head to listen to whoever was on the other end.
“God, no—ask her to come in. I don’t think we can bring the manpower to force her anywhere she doesn’t want to go.”
She couldn’t hear the other end of the conversation, but at least she knew now that they weren’t going to attack her again. That was something.
Connor turned his head and caught her eyes as if he knew she was listening. “No, I think we can trust her. We just need her to trust us.”
***
She did need help, but she wasn’t willing to admit it to some random Jack in a suit. Who were these Arcanum guys, anyway? Government?
She was hungry. Sweat beaded up on her temples, and it was almost impossible to focus. The crowd had tripled in the last hour, and the midnight patrons were in full swing. The live band wailed on their instruments mercilessly. Alexi’s head pounded from the onslaught and the hunger.
“Hey, you okay?” Chuck asked her.
“Fine,” she mumbled.
“Well then, heads-up. The guy in the dark jacket—he’s trouble. See if you can head it off.”
She started across the room with a nod. Four times out of five, trouble happened when some drunk jerk couldn’t keep his hands to himself. In the first week she had worked there, there had been five fights. According to Chuck, that was pretty common, but the number had gone down since Alexi had started working there.
The fellow in the dark jacket wasn’t the problem. The problem was the boyfriend of the girl he was dancing with. Alexi had noticed the couple come in—both of them just barely twenty-one, if that. The guy in the jacket was in his thirties and good-looking—he had great moves on the dance floor. The girl didn’t stand a chance.
Alexi watched him for a moment. Something about him rubbed her the wrong way, making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Too graceful, too . . . well lit. The lights in this place were unforgiving to even the best-looking dancers. But the lights looked like they were arranged specifically to highlight his sharp jaw and fashionably spiked blond hair. His skin was so perfect she wondered if he was wearing makeup. If he was, it was undetectable. The whole package was just . . . flawless.
The girl he was dancing with, on the other hand, seemed somehow vacant. Her eyes were glassy, as though she wasn’t mentally present. Drugged? No—her movements were too controlled. She didn’t have the look of someone who was drunk, but neither did she seem like a woman under her own power.
Cue the boyfriend. He’d finally had enough. He took a swig of his drink—liquid courage—and stalked across the room. Alexi moved to intercept him. His eyes widened when she put a hand to his chest.
“Hold on, cowboy,” she said.
“Get out of my way!” he snarled, eyes still fixed on his girlfriend. Jacket Man had stopped showing off his footwork and had traded it in for a more intimate set of dance moves. The woman was draped over him, fingers in his hair and head flung back as Jacket Man practically screwed her right there on the dance floor.
“Listen, I’m security,” Alexi soothed him. “You run over there and make a scene, and I’m going to have to throw you out. Spoiler alert: that means she goes home with that guy.”
His head snapped to her. She had his attention now. “But he’s—”
“Listen, kid, I’m on your side. I’m going to take care of this, and I need you to do exactly what I say, understand?”
He looked to his girl then back to Alexi. His face fell in resignation. “Yeah, yeah—okay.”
Alexi parked herself by the back exit. She didn’t have to wait long. Jacket Man was along shortly, with his pretty new conquest under one arm. Pressure built at the back of Alexi’s head. Her eyes throbbed, and her face felt like it would explode from the inside. She gritted her teeth and pushed back against the pain.
Her ears popped, and the air around Jacket Man shimmered. Shadows moved, lighting shifted, and suddenly the beautiful, flawless face was gone. Pale, almost blue skin hung from an emaciated face in dry, leathery flaps. His eyes were hollow and sunken. And there, between dry, slack lips—yellow pointed fangs.
Oh, god. He’s—
Alexi raised her hands involuntarily to her own face. Which was the illusion? Something told her that his smooth perfection was the facade. This was the truth. But what did that mean for her and the image she saw in the mirror every morning?
Her mind swirled, and she reached out to steady herself on the wall. Only after several moments passed did she remember why she was here. The woman. Damn it. She burst through the door into the parking area. Yellow lights cast long shadows against the concrete. Her eyes adapted to the darkness as though it were noon. Shadows vanished and the parking lot came into sharp contrast.
He had her up against the wall, thirty feet from the door. The girl moaned, and Alexi caught the faint, coppery scent of blood. Her own hunger flared, and her hands shook.
No! Focus. He’s going to kill her.
Alexi broke into a run. A scattering of gravel on the ground gave her away a second before she reached him. She didn’t even see him move—the other vampire backhanded her across the face with so much force she went flying into a red van.
She struggled to stand, shaking off the disorientation from the blow. He was still hunched over the girl, feeding noisily.
Alexi darted forward and grabbed the vampire by the back of his jacket, jerking him back and flinging him over her shoulder. The girl slumped against the wall in a daze, eyes unfocused and cheeks flushed. Two small lines of blood trickled over her collarbone.
So hungry.
Focus!
Alexi ducked as the other vampire came at her and brought her fist under his chin. He struggled to his feet, blood bubbling from his mouth.
“I have permission to feed here,” he mumbled. He’d bitten almost clear through his tongue when she hit him. “You can’t interfere.”
“Wanna bet?”
“You have no authority!”
Her foot caught him full in the gut. He folded, and she crashed her elbow into the back of his head. He made a clumsy attempt to ensnare her, and she danced backward. He feinted to her left. She waited until his arm was completely extended, snatched his wrist, and brought her knee up. The vampire cried out as a sharp crack echoed through the parking lot.
Human, vampire, or werewolf—there was a certain point at which the fight was over. All that was left was cleanup.
He staggered to his feet, his ruined face a bloody mess of flesh and bone. His jaw ground against itself as he tried to speak. When no sound came out, he turned and ran.
“Well, that’s new.” Usually, she was the one doing the running.
The woman against the wall said nothing, still dazed from whatever the vampire had done to her. Alexi approached the woman to wake her up, and the scent of blood burned in her nostrils. Alexi’s hands shook as she touched the girl’s shoulders.
The light of the parking lot flared; the world disappeared. All she could see was the smooth lines of ruby-red blood. She could feel the trembling pulse of her prey and the smell of fear. Alexi’s fangs sunk into the woman’s neck, and she gulped the woman’s essence. Distantly she felt the girl’s body weaken. Alexi shifted to push her up against the wall. Her prey squirmed and moaned as she held her. As each beat of her heart drove life into Alexi, her victim’s strength faded. Finally, the woman went limp. Alexi pulled away, suddenly coming to herself, and looked down at the body in horror.
ELEVEN
“Maybe I should leave,” Victor grumbled for the tenth time since Alexi had left for work. Maybe for the hundredth time in the last six weeks.
Savanna made herself busy in the kitchen cooking dinner. Alexi kept the kind of hours one would expect from a vampire, and for some reason, the rest of them just fell in line with the same schedule—staying up till dawn and then sleeping into the afternoon.
“If I can put up with you, big guy, I’m sure she can, too.” Savanna slid a plate in front of him, piled high with pasta and beef. Mostly beef. For herself, she’d made a chicken and mandarin orange salad with a citrus vinaigrette. Cooking reminded her of the good times she had shared with her father. They would spend hours in the kitchen making breakfast or a surprise dinner. It always upset her mother, and she could never figure . . . No, focus on the good things.
Victor looked down at his plate and sighed. “Savanna, how can you . . .”
He didn’t finish, but she knew what he’d been about to say. How can you stand to be near me after everything I did? He’d voiced the sentiment several times in their first few weeks together. Now he didn’t even need to finish the sentence.
Savanna looked at him over a forkful of baby greens and chicken. “The way I see it, I owe you as much as you owe me. Maybe more.” She picked at the salad. “If I hadn’t done what I did . . . if she hadn’t come after me. You and your pack would still be . . . doing whatever wolfy things you do together.”
Pain flashed across his face, and she regretted her words.
>
“I’m sorry. I just—”
“I know,” he said. “And it’s kind of you. Thank you.”
“My mother lost her mind a long time ago,” Savanna whispered. “It didn’t even occur to her that I wouldn’t kill my—” Her throat seized up, refusing to let her continue. She looked down at her salad. “Anyway. Give Alexi some more time. She’ll come around. I think it would . . . hurt her . . . if you left.”
Victor barked a short laugh and picked up his fork. “Can’t imagine why.”
“Because she’s got no one, and she’s having a hard time handling . . . what she is. This is all normal for us, but it’s very new for her. I was raised to think that what I am is a good thing—something to be proud of, you know? I bet you felt the same way. But her—she’s not black inside, like the other vamps I’ve met. Dead in the heart. How can you have a conscience and be what she is?”
“She’s hungry,” Victor said.
Savanna tilted her head to the side. “How can you tell?”
“She . . . licks her bottom lip a lot. And the way she holds herself, so careful, like she’s afraid to breathe too deep.”
Savanna shook her head. “A hungry vamp is dangerous—conscience or no. I just don’t want to see what’ll happen to her if she’s forced to feed.”
“Do you think she’d—” Victor looked at his plate. “I mean, if there was a way to repay her for everything, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
“I know, big guy. Me, too.”
They finished their meal in silence. Savanna left him to do the dishes while she retreated to her small room. It was hardly more than a closet. Alexi’s room was only slightly bigger, and Victor sacked out on the couch every night. She never thought she would admit it, back when Alexi talked her into letting him stay, but it made her feel better—safer—to have the big wolf out there like a sentinel between her and whatever lay on the other side of the door.
Her mother wasn’t dead. She was almost certain of that. And she would never be truly safe while the other woman was alive. Savanna shivered, trying not to think about it. If only she had some way to know if Illyana would come for her again. The thought kept her up at night. What would she do to Alexi or to Victor? Savanna didn’t have the physical strength those two did. There was really only one way for her to help keep them safe.
With the Dawn (Faith of the Fallen) Page 9