by R. J. Blain
“It’s pink. Why is your phone pink? That thing is burning my eyes. It’s ruining your macho vampire image,” I complained.
“Who in their right mind would try to steal a pink phone? It’s distinctive. Makes it easy to find if I drop it, too.” Sullivan sniffed, returning his phone to his pocket. “I’ll be waiting for your call, Analise.”
“Let’s go. I’ll text you with updates on Smith’s location and meet you near the docks. If you get lost, give me a ring.”
“I know the way,” I told them, wondering if I’d ever be able to escape the reminders of who I had once been and the world I had lived in before meeting Rob.
Wearing a coat wasn’t enough to protect me from the winter chill. I suspected Netzach was right, and I didn’t really need the reins; within minutes, I became a frozen statue. The only way they’d get me off his back was with a crowbar. My fingers were locked in a tangle of mane and leather.
Cars had nothing on Netzach, who had one mode of operation: full speed. The chime of bells accompanied every hoofbeat on asphalt, and the unicorn treated cars like I did stray laundry on the floor, jumping over them when they didn’t get out of his way fast enough.
I should have fallen. If I did fall, I’d splatter into a pile of Alexa goo, spread out so far they’d need a shovel to scrape me off the street. I’d make a bigger mess than I would have if I had fallen from the Ivory Tower to the streets below.
I whimpered, and the cold wind bit at my eyes, making them water. My tears froze on my eyelashes and cheeks.
I’d never been anywhere near a horse in my life, but Netzach didn’t care; all that mattered to him was speed. He surged forward so fast my head spun when I made the mistake of glancing at the buildings, which were reduced to light-streaked blurs.
Colby, Sullivan, and Sandalphon were waiting for us when Netzach skidded to a halt. My face collided with the unicorn’s neck, and pain flared from my nose. “Ouch.”
“Curses,” the unicorn hissed, stomping his hoof. “You beat me.”
“Wings are useful things. You okay, Alexa?”
“Are we here? I want to get off,” I whimpered. “How did Colby beat us? Colby doesn’t have wings.”
“We’re here. You can get off if you want to.” Sullivan paused. “Don’t ask about Colby. Just don’t ask.”
“Mommy,” my roommate reported, sounding pleased with itself.
While I wanted to dismount, my fingers were frozen in place along with the rest of me. “Never again. I’ll walk home. I’ll walk home and never get on or in a moving object, living or otherwise, ever again. Never, ever, ever, ever again.”
Netzach snorted. “I only jumped over a few cars, Miss Daegberht. You didn’t fall, not once. What do you have to complain about?”
“If I had fallen, I would have died. Leaping off skyscrapers is safer.” Then again, falling from a skyscraper or from Netzach’s back would result in instant death. The terror of plummeting, however, only lasted the few seconds before impact.
“What’s the problem, then? Get on down, and let’s go find out just what Smith is doing so deep in the fringe.” Sullivan crossed his arms over his chest and glared at me.
“I think, perhaps, she is stuck. Humans are surprisingly delicate creatures, and it is quite cold.” Netzach swung his head around and watched me with a luminescent eye. “The rain with an identity crisis will fall soon, and she lacks fur.”
“Smart ass,” I grumbled, forcing myself to release my death hold on the unicorn’s mane and reins. My chattering teeth betrayed me, but I managed to free my feet of the stirrups, swing my leg over Netzach’s back, and ease my way to the ground.
My shoes touched the asphalt, and I oozed the rest of the way down instead of standing like a dignified person. Muscles I didn’t know I had ached and quivered. To cover my weakness, I stared up at Sullivan and asked, “Find anything out?”
“Smith headed to one of the docked cargo ships about five minutes ago. It looks like they’re getting ready to leave port.”
I sucked in a breath, grabbed hold of the stirrup dangling overhead, and pulled myself to my feet. “The ship’s leaving?”
If Rob was on board and the ship left, I’d never be able to find him.
“Looked like it to me. Them using a ship wasn’t part of the plan,” Sullivan muttered.
Sandalphon snorted his laughter. “We have a plan?”
“Shut up,” the vampire hissed. “I didn’t exactly have a whole lot of time to make a plan, okay?”
“I have a plan.” I eyed Netzach, grimacing at the thought of another ride. If the unicorn could get me on board the ship, I’d deal with it.
“How could you possibly have a plan?” Running his hands through his hair, Sullivan snarled a few words in another language.
“Let’s have fun storming the castle.” I cracked my knuckles. I wondered if the little bullet bomb could sink such a large ship.
I had a feeling I was going to find out.
Getting onto the ship without anyone spotting us was the first of our problems. I didn’t see any sign of Smith, which was probably a good thing, because I wanted nothing more than to take my fancy bullet and kill him and every single person working with him.
Venting my growing anger wouldn’t get me anywhere.
“Any bright ideas on how to storm the floating castle?” Sandalphon asked, and in his tone, I heard his amusement. “The plank looks guarded. They’re not even dressed like pirates. How boring.”
“Why don’t you go scout for us, Sandalphon?” Without waiting for a reply, Netzach bucked and smacked both of his hind hooves into the dragon, sending him arching over the docks in the direction of the cargo ship.
I covered my mouth with my hands, wincing as Sandalphon disappeared from sight. A moment later, a clang echoed across the docks. “What did he ever do to you?”
“He was born.”
“You just notified every single dockworker something’s up.” Sullivan groaned.
My snort was a match for Netzach’s. “You’ve never worked the docks, have you? That sort of sound is normal. No one will think twice about it.”
“Even if he finds something out, how are we going to get on the ship?”
“Fuck getting on the ship. If Rob’s there, I’m planning on sinking the fucking thing, getting him out, and leaving.”
With a slack jaw and wide, dilated eyes, Sullivan spluttered, “Y-you want to sink the ship.”
“Got a problem with that?”
“No problem,” he replied, holding his hands up in surrender. “How do you plan on sinking the ship?”
I pulled the gun with the bullet bomb out of its holster. “Think this packs a big enough punch?”
“I’m going to forget I asked, while regretting I thought it was a good idea to arm you with that thing.”
“I was going to ask Colby if he might put a hole in the hull, actually.”
“Not food. Not food,” Colby whined.
“Hey, you learned a new word, Colby. Nice.”
“Not food.”
“And Colby is uninterested in eating a hole in the hull, so I guess I go back to my first idea, which is using the bullet bomb.”
“Or we could sneak on board, see if Rob’s there, grab him, and leave,” Sullivan suggested.
His phone rang, and he spat curses, hurrying to answer before one of the dockworkers noticed us loitering near the warehouses. “What?”
“Do you regret not being able to fly?” I watched Netzach, who turned one ear back and regarded me with the same disgust I reserved for bugs in my food.
“Who needs to fly when I can run?”
“They beat you.”
“I do not need wings or the gift of flight to reach that ship, little human who can’t even swim.”
“Do you have any idea what is in those waters? There’s a reason I don’t swim, and it’s rotting in the river.” I shuddered, shaking my head. “You couldn’t pay me enough money to dip a toe in there. And anyway, I d
on’t know anyone who can swim.”
“Truly?”
“Netzach, there are corpses in that river, and the only reason anyone goes near the water is to deal with the ships or pull out a body someone wants recovered. Who in their right mind would swim in that? Gross.”
“Swimming pools exist,” the unicorn countered.
“Not in the fringe they don’t.”
“Pity.”
“Think you can get me on that ship?” I asked, wondering if Netzach could, somehow, leap the vast distance and height from the shore to the deck.
The unicorn snorted. “Who do you think I am?”
“Competitive.”
“That’s a what, not a who.”
“Mommy,” my roommate muttered before sighing.
“Well, if you won’t eat through the hull and sink it, I’ll just have to get on board myself,” I retorted.
“Not food. Not food. Not food.”
“It’s not my fault Rob had you eat a security system,” I wailed. “I made him feed you good soup until you felt better. All I want is a hole big enough to sink the ship.”
“Traditionally, you sink the ship after you rescue the damsel-in-distress,” Sullivan said, his phone held to his ear as he rejoined us. “Marlene got herself shot but the wound isn’t too bad. They’ve taken over the townhouse. He had three women in the house, brothel workers from the looks of it.”
“Dead?”
“No, quite alive, and one of them wants to talk to you.”
“Tell her to fuck off,” I snapped.
“Even if she has information on Rob?”
Snatching the phone out of Sullivan’s hand, I held it to my ear, ignoring the burn on my fingertips and face. “Put her on.”
“Alexa?” Monica’s voice wavered. “What’s going on?”
“Did Kenneth arrange for Rob to disappear?”
“That man of yours. The one who took you away.” The way Monica’s tone deepened with her disapproval gave me plenty of reasons to think my suspicions were correct.
“The one who kept me from ending up a smear on the sidewalk beside the Ivory Tower when Smith sabotaged my gear? Yeah. Him.”
“He what?” she shrieked in my ear. I held Sullivan’s phone away, wincing at the throb in my head.
When she waited in expectant silence, I sighed and replied, “You heard me. The fucker tried to kill me on a job, and Lily was after my ass, too. Unfortunately for her, I shot first.”
“Jesus Christ, Alexa.”
“Does he have Rob?”
Monica’s laughter was bitter and hoarse. “You know how Kenneth is, sweetie. He does what he wants, when he wants, how he wants, and he’s wanted you since the day you grew a set of tits. The dae was in the way. Of course he got rid of him. I can’t help that. I wasn’t involved, okay? I just hear things, and he’s been churning through us because he’s convinced the only one who can satisfy him is you.”
“Was in the way?” I’d been cold before, standing at the river’s shore in the evening chill, but Monica’s words iced my blood. “Who did the work for him?”
“Creep of a fire breather. Don’t know his name, but he’s bad news—had a chip on his shoulder, too. Neither one of them liked your Rob fellow, not in the slightest.”
Arthur Hasling. My rage burned far hotter than any dae’s flames, and I let out my breath in a hissed sigh. “Who else is with you?”
“Alli and Sophine.”
While I had no use for Sophine, another one of Smith’s brothel girls, I had nothing against her, either. Monica and Alli had been as close to friends as I got with the other hounds.
It wasn’t their fault Smith had them under his heel, just as he had me. Revenge against them won me nothing, nor would it give me what I needed.
I’d deal with the scum elite myself, once and for all. “Go with Marlene and her crew, Monica. Disappear. Go to some other city. I’m sure you’ll figure something out. That’s the best I can do for you.”
I hung up and offered the phone back to Sullivan despite my desire to slam the thing onto the asphalt and shatter it to bits. “Monica says Smith got rid of him because he was in the way.”
“Getting rid of someone doesn’t necessarily mean they have to be killed,” the vampire replied. “Your cheek is red.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I toggled the safety between off and on, debating whether to unload the round into the ship or wait until Kenneth Smith made an appearance and turn him into a bloody mist.
“If you kill Smith, you’ll lose your chance to bring down his accomplices, including that Dean Lewis fellow,” Analise said from behind me. “He’s right, Alexa. There’s no proof he’s dead.”
“Fuck the dean, fuck Kenneth Smith, and fuck Arthur Hasling, too. Fuck them all.”
“Alexa, there’s no proof he’s dead,” Analise repeated.
“If he is, they all burn,” I swore, thumbing the safety and returning the weapon to its holster. “I’ll light that entire ship on fire and sink it.”
“I love humans. They’re so passionate.” Sullivan slapped his hand against my back hard enough to stagger me. “Don’t put him in a coffin and bury him until we have confirmation he’s actually dead. Don’t underestimate Rob. He’s a lot harder to kill than he looks, and he’s as close to his prime as I’ve ever seen him.”
Sullivan’s words meant nothing to me, but instead of arguing, I focused all of my attention on the massive ship preparing to depart. “Don’t underestimate Kenneth Smith, either. When he gets rid of someone, they stay gone.”
22
Death happened, even to dae.
I waited for Sandalphon to return, although I wasn’t really sure why. Maybe I should have had faith in Kenneth Smith to at least try to uphold his end of his bargain, but I knew better. Smith worked for himself, and Monica had told me enough.
I had become a prize in a match between dae, and Smith had taken the initiative from the start. It had begun with the red drug and had ended with Rob’s kidnapping. If what Monica said was true, Smith wouldn’t stop until he had me—or he died.
Maybe I didn’t have any real power like the dae did, but all I needed was holstered at my side and had a thirty-foot blast radius.
When the dragon returned, he was covered in thick layers of dust, and his sneezes whistled out of him. “That cargo ship is a floating garbage can.”
I shoved my hands into my pockets so I wouldn’t grab Sandalphon and shake answers out of him. “Did you find Rob?”
“No, but that Kenneth Smith fellow is on board making arrangements for the ship to set sail. He’s got some cargo below decks he’s sending up to New York. That’s all I found out. If your beau is on board, they’ve got him hidden away somewhere secure.”
“Did Smith mention him?”
“No. The ship sets sail in an hour, and the fat slob will be on board until right before it leaves port.”
“Were there a lot of secure places on board they could have hidden him?”
“I didn’t check every square inch of the joint. Not enough time. It’s a skeleton crew. Seems they’re going to scuttle the boat in the ocean after delivery.”
When Smith killed someone, he made them disappear forever, and there’d be no better place to hide a body than deep in the ocean. I sighed, staring at the ship. “Monica said Smith got rid of him because he was in the way.”
“Mommy,” Colby whined.
“I think I’m going to help that ship sink a bit before schedule. I want on that boat.”
Analise shook her head. “That’s not a wise idea. We have no proof he’s gone, Alexa.”
“Call Marlene; maybe she’s found proof they have him alive.” Crouching at my side, Sullivan stared out over the river, all his attention focused on the ship Smith was on. “Otherwise, we let Rob’s lady have her way. We sweep the ship, see if we can find anything, and then we scuttle it and send that scum sucker dae to the depths while we’re at it.”
If looks could kill, the vampir
e would have been reduced to a pile of steaming ash. Analise pulled out her phone and dialed, stepping a discreet distance away, watching me the entire time she talked to Marlene.
I didn’t catch much of what she was saying, but I heard enough. The dae was convinced I had snapped. Maybe I had. No, I definitely had; only the slim chance Rob still lived kept me from marching to the gangplank and opening fire.
I wanted to believe he wasn’t dead, that there was at least a little hope until his body was found, but unfortunately for me, I’d been around long enough to understand such hopes led to disappointment.
Death happened, even to dae. We had gambled; because of me and my past, we had lost. All sinking the ship would do was leave a reminder beneath the waves of what I had lost in my effort to rise above my station. In that, at least, I had succeeded.
When the dust settled, I’d still have a job with the police, I’d continue my Bach studies, and I’d vanish into the system, a rare exception to the iron-clad rules of our society.
A tug at my elbow drew me from my thoughts. Sullivan frowned at me, and I had no recollection of him standing. “Alexa?”
“What?”
“Marlene couldn’t find anything either way. She picked up some other stuff, but she wants to show you in person once we’re done here tonight.”
I hated the pity in Sullivan’s tone, but instead of calling him out on it, I shrugged. “Are we going in by the gangplank, or do you have another way to get on board?” Shrugging out of my jacket, I removed my shoulder holster and went to work converting the straps so I could wear it across my hips. I’d save my one special bullet for Kenneth Smith.
“Are you sure you want to do this?”
Everyone stared at me while I checked both my guns, tallying the number of shots I had before I ran out of ammunition. “If you have any doubts, Sully, you haven’t been paying attention.”
“For all we know, he could be the cargo they’re delivering to New York.” Sandalphon fluttered in front of me, dust clouding the air around him. “He could still be in there, alive.”