Vertigo Vampire: a Supernatural Thriller (The Specials Book 2)

by Tricia Owens

  My first thought was Peerage, but it was fleeting. Whoever had done this had been enraged. Reluctantly, I leaned in for a closer look.

  “His throat,” I said with some surprise. “It’s not cut.” I raised my eyes to Elliott’s. “He was bitten.”

  The unspoken hung between us. It was Elliott who broke first.

  “A vampire did it.” His voice trembled slightly. “That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?”

  “It looks that way,” I said neutrally. “I didn’t realize they did this much damage, though.”

  A ripple of trepidation rushed across my skin. I looked quickly over my shoulder, afraid I’d see a pale man dressed in scarlet, but the doorway was empty.

  “The Count doesn’t do it like this.” Elliott waved his hand over the body, his expression taut with stress. “He’s not…violent like this. And besides the face—he would have drank his fill of the body, not bitten and left it. He doesn’t kill for fun. It’s to keep him alive.”

  I tilted my head as I inspected the body as well as I could without touching it. “I don’t see any other injuries besides those on the neck and face.” I stared at the claw marks. They seemed ragged to me. The flesh of the cheeks had been torn away, but there was surprisingly little blood. It made me think those injuries had been made after the man was already dead. But why attack a corpse?

  “Who else but your vampire would bite him?” I asked.

  “He’s not my vampire.”

  A strange note clung to Elliott’s protest. I’d heard something similar in his voice the first time he’d introduced me to Count Grigori Ionesceau. Before, I’d chalked it up to fear of the vampire, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  “Something you want to tell me?” I asked without looking at him.

  “Maybe—maybe later.”

  I let him off the hook. “Alright, so this is my first dead body. Who are we supposed to call? Tower?”

  “No, he wouldn’t want to be disturbed for this.” I mentally shook my head in amazement as Elliott continued. “We call Housekeeping. They’ll keep the body in storage until Mr. Tower can study it and determine what to do with it.”

  “And we don’t call the police,” I said clearly, to make sure I was understood.

  Elliott’s smile was wan. “You know how this place is. No law enforcement on the premises. Even for a death.”

  I holstered my guns and leaned against the wall beside me. “I realize you’re here because you feel you owe Morrison and Tower a debt for saving you from jail time, but how much are you willing to let them get away with?” I motioned at the corpse. “This is ugly, Elliott.”

  He stood and paced away, moving to the window where he looked out. The moon and city lights painted his lean body in pale light. His elfin features, saved from femininity by a strong, square jaw, were grim.

  “I know it’s ugly and I don’t know if I can answer your question,” he said as he continued to look out. “When I joined the staff, I had no idea about the types of guests that stayed here, or that the other employees are...difficult. I kept learning more and more, and I told myself if it got too bad I would quit. But I think it may have gotten too bad a while ago. I stayed on because I have nowhere else to go.” He looked back at me, not quite cringing. “That makes me a coward, doesn’t it?”

  “I’m not so sure that’s the word I would use. Desperate, maybe. Look, I’m not condemning you. I’ve seen people killed because of this place and yet I haven’t told the police, either, because I know they’d arrest me. We’re in a difficult position.” I sighed at the understatement. “The thing is, Elliott, we’re not prisoners here. And we’re not slaves. We both agree with Tower and The Architect that the government is corrupt and needs to be exposed, but we can’t turn into monsters in the meantime.” I glanced at the body on the bed. “Or allow monsters to exist.”

  He nodded, his rain-gray eyes wide with hope. “So what do we do? Do we report this to the police, then?”

  Troubled, I looked over the body again. Who was this man? Who had he left behind, if anyone? What dreams had been snuffed out with his death?

  Or was he someone awful and deadly, as this place had a habit of shielding? I doubted an innocent man would book a room here. It seemed to repel all but the unscrupulous.

  “Maybe not this time,” I said slowly, hearing the world ‘hypocrite’ ricocheting within my skull. “This isn’t a normal killing. It’s pretty obvious it’s Sinistera business.” I didn’t like the implications of that, because this place hoarded all sorts of wild and awful people, creatures, and agendas. “The police would only arrest everyone in here. Don’t you think?”

  He nodded again with painful earnestness. “I agree with you, Arrow.”

  Taurus had been right. Elliott shouldn’t have been working Security. He shouldn’t be in the Sinistera at all. He was too young, too trustworthy. Maybe too good, despite having accidentally killed someone years ago.

  Yet why was I any different? I hadn’t hurt anyone, and I wanted to believe in good. I was fighting to reveal the atrocities done to my grandmother and to the other fighters, and I wanted the oligarchs brought to justice.

  But I felt different. I felt hardened and cynical, maybe not completely bitter, but my edges were burnt. And I worried that I might rub off on Elliott.

  I looked to the bed again, even though the scene was unpleasant. An alleged vampire attack. Except I didn’t believe it. Something else had happened in this room.

  “Once Housekeeping takes the body away will we be able to gain access to it again?” I asked.

  “I doubt it. I think they take it down to the basement, and no one but management is allowed down there.”

  “Right. The statuary guard is there.” Why would Tower install an animated statue to guard the basement? It signaled ‘secrets’ to me, and not good ones. That was troubling, because these extra jobs that the Specials did were for Tower and The Architect. If they were hiding things from us, what then?

  I looked around the room and when I didn’t find what I wanted I entered the bathroom. I grabbed a plastic cup that the guest had been using as a toothbrush holder. Back beside the bed, I meddled the cup, rearranging its molecules until it reformed into a small bottle with a wide mouthed cap.

  “Look away,” I told Elliott, “so you can claim you don’t know anything.”

  He started to, and then stopped. He visibly firmed his jaw. “I’m in this with you, Arrow.”

  He had no idea what ‘this’ was, but I didn’t argue with him. Carefully, I used the wide-mouthed bottle to scrape up some of the gummy blood from where it had pooled at the base of the man’s throat. I wiped the excess off on the bedspread and then capped the bottle.

  “I’m not a scientist,” I said as I slipped the bottle into my pocket, “but if we need to, I’ll be able to find someone who is.”

  “But why would we need to?”

  “I have no idea. But better to have some kind of evidence of this man if we’re never going to see his body again.” I hesitated, looking at Elliott and then at the body. “This wasn’t a nice thing to find.”

  “I was really afraid when I saw it,” Elliott admitted. “I know people are afraid of the Count, but he’s in control when he kills. This—this was out of control.”

  This was rage.

  I glanced behind me again, this time not for the Count, but for someone or something worse. I wasn’t very familiar with supernatural beings because the thought of them made me uneasy. The supernatural had been a subject I’d barely passed at school, in part because I hadn’t paid much attention in class out of a misguided attempt to pretend ghoulish creatures and powers didn’t exist. It had been an ignorant and stupid thing to do, but perhaps not unexpected of a lousy student who’d failed to graduate.

  I waved Elliott over. “Let’s stand in the hallway while we call this in. It’s too creepy in here.”

  But no sooner had I said this than three young men dressed in black shirts and pants and wearing butcher
aprons and rubber gloves arrived, pushing a standard housekeeping cart between them. The hanging bin in the middle which normally carried dirty linens had been replaced by a square, lidded box of the same size and shape.

  “How did you know we needed you?” I asked them in surprise.

  “We were here earlier but didn’t have—”

  “Shut it,” growled one of the men—a redhead with a heavy dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose. He glared at the first man who’d spoken.

  I raised my eyebrows, curious about the slip-up. “If you were here earlier, who called you?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” muttered the redhead as he and one of the men stepped past me and entered the room. He stared at the body. “Report this as Code Evergreen,” he said quietly to his partner.

  “Shit,” said the second man. He fumbled with his small walkie talkie before bringing it to his mouth and speaking softly into it. No one replied to his report.

  “Who did that go to?” I asked him.

  The two men exchanged looks. “We’ve got it from here.”

  “Was that Sheridan? Or Mr. Tower?”

  The men ignored me as they studied the walls.

  “There’s no blood spatter,” I told him, assuming that was what they were looking for. “The wounds to the face were done post mortem.”

  “You’re a doctor?” asked the redhead.

  “You know I’m not. But it’s easy enough to tell.”

  The two Housekeeping men shared another look.

  “It’s better if you leave and let us handle this,” said the redhead in a dismissive tone that stiffened my spine. “This is what we do here.”

  “I thought you cleaned rooms?”

  Resentment flashed in his eyes before he smiled it away.

  “We clean up, yes. Now, please, let us do our jobs.”

  “Where are you taking the body?” I asked.

  His expression finally darkened. “What’s it to you?”

  “I run security around here and I want to know how these things are handled.”

  “This isn’t your department, you stupid—”

  I wasn’t about to pull a gun on him, so I reached to the nearby desk and took hold of the wooden chair there. In a second I’d meddled it into a spear, which I stabbed straight at his throat. At the last second I held back, with the point of the wooden blade tickling his bobbing Adam’s apple.

  “What were you about to call me?” I asked softly.

  His bulging eyes jumped from my face to the spear. “How did you do that so fast?”

  “It’s called being good at my job. Now how about you stop jerking me around and give me some answers?”

  “But, I can’t—”

  “Enough,” growled the second Housekeeping worker. “We don’t interfere with Security so return the favor and don’t interfere with Housekeeping. Go to Tower if you’ve got questions, girl.”

  “I think I’ve had about enough of the sexism from you guys,” I muttered.

  The wooden spear in my hand was already changing shape as I thrust it forward, straight at the redhead’s throat. He yelled as the tines of my newly meddled trident scraped either side of his throat before driving hard into the wall behind him, pinning him to it. I just wanted to hold him still for questions, but pressure built within the room, coming from the direction of his partner.

  I dove for the desk again, my fingers skittering across the surface to touch the metal organizing tray sitting atop it. The notepad and pen that had been sitting inside it flew off in different directions as I meddled the tray into a shield. I thrust it up in front me just as the second Housekeeping guy let loose with an energy blast. It struck my shield square in the center, driving me back into the wall, knocking the breath out of me.

  I wouldn’t last long on the defensive against brute force, so I rushed him, using the shield as a battering ram. It was like body slamming the wall. I bounced off of him to stagger backward. With a grin, he came after me, bringing his doubled fists down on my shield. I grunted beneath the force and dropped to one knee. Another blow like that and I’d be crushed.

  I rolled backward across the carpet, putting the bed between the man and me. Then I meddled the shield into a thin chain and lashed out with it like I would a whip. When he thrust out one arm to deflect it, the chain wrapped several times around the limb. I yanked back.

  But the only one pulled off balance was me when he curled his arm with a roar and heaved backward. I was jerked forward and had to release the chain so I didn’t sprawl over the dead body on the bed. As he laughed and his redheaded buddy continued to thrash around, trying to pull the trident from the wall, I pulled out one of my guns.

  At the sight of it pointed at him, his expression hardened. “You’d better think long and hard about pulling the trigger on that, girl.”

  “Done.”

  I shot him.

  The net hit with enough velocity to slam him against the wall behind him. He dropped to his knees with a grunt.

  “Please stop.”

  It was the third Housekeeping guy, the one who’d been standing in the hall beside their cart. The one who’d inadvertently revealed that they’d been here earlier. He had both hands up, palms out. “We’re just trying to do our jobs, miss. Please don’t make it any more difficult for us. We don’t get paid enough.”

  Even though my blood was high and I was annoyed, I acknowledged that he was right. Their job was nothing to write home about, and they were only following orders. The real enemy was whoever had killed this guest.

  “I don’t want to fight you,” I admitted.

  The third man smiled. “We don’t want to fight you, either. You’re damn good at IMT.”

  I wasn’t flattered, but I appreciated the attempt to de-escalate matters.

  “You’re taking the body to the basement?” I asked.

  “Yes. It won’t be cremated. It will be held in storage. Mr. Tower would be the one to grant you access if you want it.”

  “What about Code Evergreen? What’s that and who did he report it to?”

  The man’s smile wavered. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but you are who you are. Code Evergreen indicates a non-human encounter.”

  “You mean supernatural,” I said, thinking of the Count.

  “We use the term non-human to cover more bases. We report it to Mr. Tower.”

  “Alright. Thanks. That’s all I was trying to learn.” With a taut nod, I walked past him and his partners and out of the room.

  Elliott and I left. I tried my hardest not to hear anything that happened behind me in that room, just in case the hacksaws came out. The body was out of my hands, but at least I’d taken a sample of blood to prove it had existed.

  “You okay?” Elliott asked me, his brow crinkled. “I was afraid to jump in. I didn’t want to get in your way.”

  He seemed embarrassed, so I knocked my shoulder against his. “You’re smarter than you look.”

  His smile was boyish.

  “Let’s go up to the conservatory,” I said when we reached the elevators. “The rest of the rounds can wait.”

  His expression brightened. I knew the conservatory was his favorite space in the hotel which was why I’d suggested it. He didn’t appear to sense my ulterior motive as we rode the elevator up to the roof and stepped out.

  I was assailed by the lights of the city, which sparkled like fallen stars all around the hotel. Elliott had told me about Calia electrocuting his pet squirrels, so I didn’t head in the direction of their empty cages. Instead, I let the way down the path that wound through the carnivorous garden (“careful of your fingers, Arrow”) until I reached a glass wall at the edge of the roof. Elliott joined me as we enjoyed the view.

  “Those guys are bruisers,” I said.

  “They deal with some unpleasant things, yeah. I wouldn’t want their job.”

  “Will you tell me about the Count?” I asked mildly. “You seem to know him better than most.”

  I f
elt him looking at me with alarm, but I merely stared down at the view until he gradually relaxed.

  “Who said I know him better than most?”

  “No one. It’s just a feeling I got the first time he appeared. He called you ‘pet.’”

  I didn’t need to see Elliott’s face to know he was blushing madly.

  “It’s more of an insult than anything,” he mumbled.

  I was doubtful. The Count, according to Elliott, had killed people within the Sinistera and had killed hundreds of others outside of it. For such a killer to call Elliott ‘pet’ was significant.

  “Why is he here in the hotel?” I motioned at the city below us. “Such an old vampire could live anywhere. In fact, I’d expect him to travel. He must be bored staying in this creepy old place.”

  “I don’t know. We’ve never talked about his future plans, just his…” Elliott trailed off meekly. “So, um, okay maybe I do know him a little bit. But not a lot, Arrow, I swear.”

  I smiled slightly to myself. “So what got you two talking? He didn’t strike me as the most personable of creatures.”

  Elliott laughed quietly. “He’s definitely not. He thinks humans are bugs. He’s on a different level from us and he lets you know it.”

  “Yet he talked to you.”

  “Yeah. I accidentally walked in on him finishing a meal. You know, drinking someone’s blood.” From the corner of my eye I watched him shiver. “I think he expected me to attack him, because some of the Specials have a standing order to stake him. Sheridan might be one of them, though I’m afraid to ask. Anyway, when I didn’t attack him, he made a remark about me being an ‘enlightened human’. It was probably supposed to be an insult, but I laughed. I was super nervous. For some reason, he liked that I laughed.”

  I turned my head and studied Elliott, trying to determine if he was as innocent as he was acting.

  “We talked a little, mostly about my job, and about how I didn’t get along much with the Head of Security. The guy had had some strong opinions about things.” Elliott grimaced. “I much prefer working with you.”

  Though I had a sneaking suspicion already, I asked, “What happened to that other Head?”