“All right, Dani,” he said with another heavy sigh. “Will do. Just keep yourself out of trouble, okay? And if you get in too deep, call me. I’ve got your back.”
I smiled at his sincere gesture of friendship. This guy, man. I loved him to death.
“I know you do, bro,” I replied. “And I’ve got yours. We’ll talk soon. Stay safe.”
I ended the call, feeling better for having finally spoken with Kent. There are some people in your life that you just can’t leave hanging – and Kent was most definitely one of those people.
Chapter 10
That night, everyone was sitting in the living room getting high. I had to admit, Morgan had a quality supply. My feet felt like they were disconnected from the floor, and I was laughing about every five seconds.
I was surprised, but even Jed had decided to partake, and he was being much more genial than usual. He’d actually looked at me and smiled. Flipping smiled. For him, that was practically the same as a hug.
Dirk was taking drags off a joint and throwing knives at the wall. Probably kind of ill-advised, but I certainly wasn’t going to make any suggestions about proper pot-smoking behavior. Dirk and I hadn’t spoken much since we’d arrived at the warehouse, but at least we’d managed to avoid any more unpleasant episodes like the one back at Bloody Teeth. I counted that as a win.
Morgan was being – well, Morgan, sprawled out on one of the sofas in shorts, with bare feet and no shirt on, big headphones over his ears with reggae music blasting out of them. You could say one thing for the guy, if he was stranded on a deserted island, he would be perfectly capable of entertaining himself. As long as he had plenty of weed.
As for me, I was sufficiently entertained by my ridiculously cute, kind of hot reality TV experience. Nah – the actual TV wasn’t even on. I’m talking about Sonya and Michelle. They were sitting together on one of the other couches, and as they got higher and higher (Michelle was a total lightweight, by the way), they moved closer and closer.
It soon became clear that Sonya was pretty dominant when she was attracted to someone, and she totally took the lead, repeatedly reaching over to tuck the hair behind Michelle’s ears. She kept leaning in to whisper to her, saying things that made Michelle giggle like a schoolgirl. Eventually, she took Michelle’s hand, and even worked up the nerve to bend down and kiss her neck.
Dirk was starting to glance over from his knife-throwing fest, watching the two amorous women with wide eyes. Jed looked at them every now and then with an expression of distaste, similar to a little girl watching a slimy worm crawl over her carefully-crafted tea party table. I was pretty sure the guy was gay. Morgan just kept bopping along to his reggae, completely oblivious.
Michelle moaned softly under Sonya’s lips, and Dirk dropped one of his knives on his foot. The blade went right into his light canvas sneaker. “Damn!” he swore, reaching down to yank it out. Yeah, that was why I’d been thinking pot and knife-tossing probably didn’t mix too well together. Maybe I should’ve given him that heads-up after all.
Sonya took her lips away from Michelle’s neck, then kissed her mouth. They seemed to lose all sense of reality, then – and apparently, also the fact that Sonya had a bedroom of her own. Sonya pushed Michelle gently down to the sofa cushions, her hand on her hip, kissing her more passionately now. Michelle was melting butter underneath her, moaning, whimpering and completely malleable.
I felt that familiar tightness at my center. It was almost overwhelming now. If Risa were here, I would drag her straight into the bedroom – and I wouldn’t let her out until morning.
Morgan finally slipped off his headphones, looking around in a daze. “Whoa,” he said slowly. “The sexual tension in this place is off the fucking charts.”
First, he glanced at Sonya and Michelle, who were thankfully still fully clothed. Their make-out session was getting pretty hardcore, though. Then he looked at me and grinned. “Damn, woman,” he said. “You’re hornier than a nun at Coachella.”
I glared at him. “Thanks for that succinct summary, Captain Obvious.”
He laughed in a good-natured way, then reached into his baggie for another joint. He lit it and held it out to me. I nodded and went to take it from him. I wasn’t one to pass up a well-meant peace offering.
“Missing Risa?” he asked in a kind voice.
“Yeah,” I said with a deep sigh, taking a drag off the joint. I wondered where Risa was; what she was doing. I wished I could be wherever she was. Instead of here. Without her.
“She’ll be back soon,” Morgan assured me, puffing on his own blunt. And I had to admit, I was kind of touched by his attempt to cheer me up. Most guys wouldn’t bother. I knew Jed or Dirk never would have. Jed still didn’t really like me, and Dirk was way too busy dropping knives on his dumbass foot.
“I know,” I replied. “It’s just . . . This is just such a weird situation. I’m trying to be patient, but it’s hard, you know?”
Morgan nodded in understanding. “I totally get that. Just a few days ago, you had a normal human life: a normal job, a normal apartment. Now you’re surrounded by vampires and your life’s in danger. You’re worried about Risa and you have no idea what’s going to happen next. It’s a lot – I get it.”
I just sat there for a long moment, thinking about what he’d said. I mean, hell, when he put it that way – it was a lot. I’d been processing things in bite-sized pieces, a little at a time, and mostly these past two days all I’d thought of was Risa. But in reality, there was so much more to think about. Everything was up in the air, and there was a lot at stake.
Mind you, these thoughts seemed way less scary when I was high. It was probably a good thing that Morgan had brought all this to my attention while I was intoxicated, because if I’d stumbled across it on my own while I was sober, it might have floored me.
“You need something to loosen you up,” Morgan remarked, catching my gaze with his.
“I thought that’s what this was for,” I laughed, holding up my spliff.
“This is even better,” he said, holding my stare in a really weird way. But somehow, I couldn’t look away. It reminded me of that first night at Bloody Teeth, the way Serenity had looked at me. The way her eyes trapped me, making me feel as if I couldn’t move. That time, I’d somehow managed to break the trance, but now – maybe it was the effects of the pot – I had no power over Morgan’s potent gaze.
It was like his eyes were boring holes into mine, and his essence was pouring into me, entering my head like fog. He touched my brain as if he had a video game controller that operated it, making it do things against my will. I saw filters of bright colors pass over the warehouse in front of me: red, blue, green and orange, filling me with the same light, and with an energy that accompanied the light.
I saw halos of color around everyone in the place, a deep blue around Sonya; a bright pink around Michelle; rich green around Morgan; deep red encircling Dirk, and a hazy cloud between dark grey and black around Jed. Those must have been their auras. They pulsed with strong energy, especially Sonya’s and Michelle’s as they kissed.
I suddenly felt very light, completely untethered from the physical world, as if I were flying high above the earth. I couldn’t feel the couch underneath me. There were bright starbursts flashing in front of my eyes, obscuring my vision. They filled me with a strange, fierce fire, from my crown to my soles, leaving a tingling sensation all over my skin.
I was flying at the highest point, looking down at some distant object that was partially hidden by the starbursts, when Risa’s face appeared like a firework, pushing the starbursts away. She zoomed towards me, and I reached for her, flying higher. I was almost close enough to touch her when –
Every physical sensation returned, and I dropped back down to the couch with a jarring crash. It was like when you miss a step and your foot comes down on nothing, leaving a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. I clutched the cushion beneath me, surprised to see that I was still holding my
joint. What was more, the tension in my center had vanished. I felt completely relaxed. Well, except for that sickly feeling in my tummy.
“Feel better?” Morgan asked with a grin. “I told you I give a stellar mindfuck.”
I glared at him with narrowed eyes. “If you ever do that to me again,” I warned him, “I’m going to fucking shoot you.”
He fell back onto the sofa, shaking with laughter. It appeared I’d failed to intimidate him. Ah, well. At least I wasn’t horny anymore. Thank God for small favors, can I get an amen?
Morgan slipped his headphones back on, Dirk was still throwing knives, Jed had turned on an episode of Doctor Who, and Sonya and Michelle were just lying against each other, holding hands and murmuring softly. I was thinking about hitting the hay, when suddenly Dirk snapped to attention. High as I was, I noticed the change in his posture right away.
“Someone’s here,” he announced.
Sonya looked up immediately. She raised her eyes to the ceiling and was quiet for a moment. “They’re in the street,” she said. “I can feel them. They saw through our ward.”
“Who is it?” I asked quickly.
“Jace and Max,” Sonya answered. “They don’t know where the tunnel is – but knowing Max, she’ll blast through the whole damned street just to get in.”
Jed shut off the TV, looking panicky. “What are we going to do?” he asked.
“Only one thing to do,” Sonya replied, untangling her limbs from Michelle’s and rising from the sofa. “We have to go up and see what’s going on. Dirk, you’re with me.”
“I’ll come with you,” Michelle said in an anxious voice.
“No,” Sonya said. “You stay here. I want you and Jed and Morgan to guard Dani, just in case those psychos get down here.”
Michelle didn’t look happy about it – and personally, I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the idea of people guarding me (I was a grown-ass woman, after all, and I knew how to hold my own) -- but she nodded in agreement. Sonya was the second-in-command of Risa’s crew, and she had no right to argue. She knew that perfectly well. So she kept her place on the sofa, though she kinda looked like a little girl whose balloon had just been stolen by Dick Dastardly. You know, the villain from that old cartoon Wacky Races in the big red and blue hat? Try a subscription to Boomerang. It’s sooooo worth it.
Morgan finally noticed that everyone was looking pretty bummed, and he slipped off his headphones. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“We’ve got company,” Sonya answered. “Max and Jace know we’re here.”
“Ain’t that swell,” Morgan said with a tsk-tsk noise. “Max never was all that good at minding her own business. Then there’s the fact that she’s been crushing on Risa for like forever, and now she’s pissed ‘cause she’s got a new girlfriend.”
I looked at Morgan in surprise. Out of all the things he could’ve said about this Max character, I certainly hadn’t been expecting anything like that. She had a crush on Risa – and that’s why she’d turned against her crew? Because of me? Way to serve up a guilt sandwich and chase it with a bitter pill of remorse. The sandwich even had beets on it. You know, like the ones they ate a lot of back in World War II? And I – yeah, yeah, I know you already know. I fucking hate beets.
Sonya gave Morgan a reproachful look, obviously trying to convey the fact that he shouldn’t have spilled those particular beans. But Morgan wasn’t the type to regret anything he said. He just went with the flow, and if someone got angry because of something he said or did, he’d just respond with a shrug or a blank look. He didn’t really see why it mattered all that much. And it’s not that I was angry. Like I said – I felt guilty. As if this particular situation, in this moment (in other words, a hostile Max and Jace waiting aboveground for someone to come up and face them) was all my fault. And maybe it was.
“We’d better get going,” Dirk said pointedly. “We don’t want Max to get testy.”
“Ah, no, we wouldn’t want that,” Sonya returned with a sigh. “You’re right. Let’s go.”
Sonya glanced at me. “Got your gun?”
“Yeah,” I replied, patting the cushion beside me where my gun was lying on safety. I was the same way with my gun as most people were with their phones. I was never unarmed. I could’ve been attending a fundraiser for abandoned puppy dogs – and yep, I would’ve had my gun in my purse.
“Good,” Sonya said. “Just wanted to make sure you’re ready for anything.”
“Always am,” I assured her, trying to smile, though I really didn’t feel much like smiling at the moment. More like painting my nails black, throwing back two doubles of bourbon and going up into the street to face that jealous bitch myself. Who the hell did she think she was? If Risa hadn’t chosen her, it was because she wasn’t interested in her. I’m sure there’d been plenty of time to get to know each other, and obviously Risa didn’t like what she saw.
I was suddenly pissed. Really pissed. And this was better, way better than feeling sorry for myself. This I could work with. I could use this as fuel, maybe to try and help somehow. I had no idea how I could do that – yet. Gimme a minute, though. I was mega high and still recovering from a trippy vampire mindfuck. These weren’t exactly normal circumstances.
Sonya and Dirk exited through the metal door to access the tunnel, and I was left behind with my three vampire guardians. Michelle still looked uneasy, but Morgan was cool as a cucumber. He hadn’t put his headphones on, clearly wanting to listen in for signs of distress from his crew members, but he was just lounging back, his hands behind his head, just like Huck Finn on his frickin’ raft. This guy, man. He was too much.
Jed looked even more concerned than Michelle. His expression was deeply troubled, made even more severe by the thick eyeliner that surrounded his dark eyes. He tapped his heavily ringed fingers on the arms of his chair, seemingly lost in thought. I wondered what he was thinking about. Whatever it was – it was about as optimistic as an outbreak of Ebola while Shadow City Memorial was over capacity.
“What’s up, Jed?” I asked.
He looked over at me, and his face was blank for a moment. I wasn’t sure if he was going to get all huffy with me again. To my surprise, though, he actually seemed willing to talk.
“I’m just worried,” he answered. “When Max gets angry, well . . . bad things happen.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Morgan supplied with a mirthless laugh. “Remember the time Boris pissed her off when he wouldn’t let her throw that Harley Quinn party at the club – and she smashed a dozen liquor bottles behind the bar and set them on fire?”
“I remember,” Jed said bitterly. “I was the one who had to put the damned fire out. I got so many burns, my regeneration could hardly keep up. I didn’t speak to her for a month after that.”
“She’s a Class-A Space Nut, that’s for sure,” Morgan added, shaking his head sadly. “A hell of a fighter, though. Too bad she’s not on our side for this one.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” Jed said. “She has no limits – no line, no morals. She’s a fucking sociopath. Anything Serenity asks of her, she’ll do it. She has no fear, and she’ll step into any fight headfirst, even if all the odds are stacked against her. Which is why she always wins.”
“Well, gee whiz, guy,” I said with a frown. “Aren’t we a Negative Nancy.”
“I’m just being honest,” Jed told me plainly. “We’re in a bad situation here. We’re a ragtag band of six vampires and one human – and it doesn’t look like Risa’s going to be able to find any more allies. We’re up against Serenity and Ronin, two thousand-year-old vampires, along with psycho Max, asshole Jace and Serenity’s entire army. They’ll do anything she bids them, no questions asked. They won’t care that Risa was a coven leader who never caused any problems. They’ll follow Serenity’s orders, and that’s all there is to it.”
Well, hell, when he put it like that – it sure did sound pretty dismal. Now I felt like binging on chocolate ca
ke and watching a horror movie. A movie where such terrible things happened – you know, people’s limbs getting hacked off with chainsaws and hatchets, people getting chained to the floor with a saw right next to them (hint: you’re supposed to saw off your foot, Cary Elwes) – that you forgot the awful stuff going on in your own life.
I took a deep breath. I refused to give in to despondency. I’d already realized that it was absolutely useless, and that I was much better off angry. So I allowed myself to get angry. I let my blood boil. Self-righteous rage pulsed through me like waves of searing electricity.
I wasn’t just going to sit here like a useless lump. I was going to do something.
“Gotta use the bathroom,” I said quietly as I rose from the sofa. Jed and Michelle were too occupied with their own thoughts to pay any attention to me, and I don’t think they even heard me. But Morgan saw me stand, and he saw me pick up my gun. He gave me a knowing look, but he didn’t say a word. He had no intention of stopping me. This guy, man.
I padded silently across the warehouse, tucking my gun into my belt. It was one of Sonya’s, and the modified clip held sixteen rounds. I had a few more clips in special holders that Sonya had given me to attach to my belt. Basically, I was ready to kick some vampire ass.
I stopped at the metal door, glancing back at Jed and Michelle to make sure they hadn’t noticed my absence. But they were still pretty engrossed in their wallowing, knee-deep in self-pity. I rolled my eyes and opened the door without a sound. I really didn’t have the patience for jokers tonight.
Chapter 11
I didn’t know where the tunnel was, but I took out my phone and turned on the flashlight app so I could scout it out. It was a few minutes’ walk, but it was easy to spot. It was a simple, hard-packed earthen pathway, spiraling up towards the street. I walked it at a moderate pace, listening closely for sounds from up ahead. But everything was perfectly silent.
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