Sin City Vampire Club

by Kristen Strassel

  When I traveled before, I always gone backward, to see something that had already happened. I considered the past a fragile place. One false move and I could rupture the fabric of the future. But it was nothing compared to what hadn’t come to pass. No wonder Rainey’s visions never made any sense. I didn’t envy her if this was what played out in her head on the regular.

  Driving was stupid and dangerous, but nothing was safe. I let out a deep breath when the car started because I worried it had been drained like the rest of the city.

  Shit, that was it. The vampires were feeding from whatever they could get their hands on. It brought the city to ruin.

  It took me no time to get to Embrace—either that or I didn’t remember the drive. The lights of the club glowed brightly and the parking lot was packed, as usual. I didn’t bother trying to find a spot. I cut the engine in the middle of the lot and left the car there.

  Energy rose from the crowd that waited to get into the club like a noxious mist. They were angry, impatient, and most of all, hungry. I needed to slip by the line unnoticed. The bloodsuckers would sense I had what they needed and stop at nothing to take it from me. The doorman grabbed my arm when I pushed past him, but dropped back immediately, holding his smoking hand.

  At least I had my fire in this fucked-up future.

  The stench was the first thing that hit me when I walked into Embrace. Wasted blood smelled like rotting meat left in the sun. Bodies littered the floor. Some had been human at one time, but others had been vampires. The only way to tell the difference was the holes in their chest. The hearts had been ripped out of the vampires.

  There wasn’t enough energy to go around, and there was barely enough oxygen for me. I pulled my hood over my head and zipped my sweatshirt. It would be obvious to the throng of starving vampires that that I was the only one in here not covered in blood.

  Blade had to be in here somewhere. I surveyed the room from behind a pole. Lights pulsed in a dizzying pattern. The donors who’d perished had been replaced, but no one walked the catwalk. It was littered with blood-slicked bodies, some completely drained, and others begging the vampires to take the rest of their blood. To put them out of their misery. The scene played out all over the room. Vampires fucking and feasting on the remains of humanity.

  The office was on the far side of the room. Blade said he was sleeping here; and I hoped that was still true. The sun would rise, no matter what. It was all I could guarantee. I stayed in the shadows, inching along the wall not to startle anyone. My only saving grace was I hadn’t wiped my face clean of the makeup. My dark rimmed eyes looked far more vamp than human.

  The door was locked. A simple knock wouldn’t do the trick. I never kicked a door before, and my technique wasn’t perfect. My heel stuck in the shards, but it was enough to knock the lock out of place.

  Blade snarled at me when I entered. Those red eyes were blind with bloodlust, and he pushed the body off his lap as he rose to challenge me. The bloodied woman wobbled when she stood, and knocked me off my feet as she scrambled to the door. Blade broke my fall, tearing my sweatshirt when he caught me. Fear, frenzy, and fire coursed through my veins. I grabbed his face before he had a chance to connect with my throat.

  My hand sizzled against his wet skin, and we fell to the floor, but Blade wouldn’t give up. I kicked him, trying to make him snap the fuck out of it. “Blade. It’s me. Holly.”

  “What the fuck?” He shook his head and I finally got a good look at him. He probably looked better after I singed his face. Ash mixed with blood, but the rips and tears had already been there, all over his body. The woman who escaped from the office hadn’t come in willingly.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s my question to ask you.” I wrapped my sweatshirt around me, concealing as much skin as I could. Muffling my heartbeat. Blade wasn’t starving, but he wasn’t sated, either. “What did you do to Rainey?”

  “What are you talking about?” He furrowed his brow in confusion. I jumped at the cry outside the door, but Blade was used to other people’s pain. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Bullshit. You’ll rip anyone to shreds to get what you want. Where is she? If you hurt her—”

  “You’ll what?” He called my bluff, mouth open, fangs exposed.

  “I’ll burn you alive.”

  He did his best to make me think that didn’t affect him. But he swallowed hard and took a step back. “I have no idea where she is. The last time I saw her, she was in bed, with you.”

  That didn’t make any sense, but we were in an unprecedented time. Asking too many questions would confuse both of us more. No need to freak out Future Blade with my ignorance.

  Now I knew how I got my fire back—in a battle with Blade. It was no victory. “The city’s fallen to ruin. What the hell happened?”

  Blade stepped closer and I tried not to flinch when he put his arms around me. He relaxed against me, needing to feel something good as much as I did.

  “We failed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “TRISTAN LIED TO YOU.” Blade held me as I cried. “The show didn’t work, and the crowds stopped coming. We sucked the energy from wherever we could get it. People, structures, eventually the sky.”

  I interrupted him with a gasp. We couldn’t fix this. He bowed his head. “I’ve heard the sun hasn’t completely risen in days. I’ll send someone else out before I go see it for myself. I’m not strong enough to recover if it’s a trick.”

  I smoothed his filthy hair away from his face. The cuts had scabbed over. They weren’t healing. “Do you have your fire anymore?”

  “No.”

  But I did, and he’d want it back.

  “When did Rainey disappear?” I asked. The way he explained everything, he seemed to know I came from another time.

  “When the show failed.” He wiped tears from my eyes. His fingers were filthy with still-sticky blood and I didn’t want to think about what else.

  It answered one question. This was the future, and it sucked. But there was no telling if I traveled or if someone had put a spell on me.

  I kissed him, soft and slow. So much emotion flooded my body, and I needed to channel it, because I couldn’t afford to break down. Blade clutched my shoulders, drawing me in closer to him. I thought he’d devour me. He needed this kiss more than he needed anything else. It was the first taste of positive energy he had in far too long.

  We separated with a gasp. Blade’s face brightened through the filth. New, pink skin rimmed the cuts on his face. His eyes weren’t so red anymore. My energy had done him good. I could fix this.

  “I need to find her.” I rose from the rubble of the room, but Blade pulled me back.

  “Stay with me,” he pleaded. “I need you. You’re like looking at the sun, and I miss it. So much.”

  As much as his request broke my heart, I couldn’t stay. “I’ll come back as soon as I find her.”

  He didn’t let go. “She’s in a better place.”

  “You make it sound like she’s dead.” From what I’d seen of the future, it was a definite possibility. I crouched down to give him one more kiss. “I’ll find her, and I’ll bring you there.”

  NOTHING HAPPENED IN Vegas during daylight hours, and that was if daylight came. I headed home, in desperate need of a shower and a false sense of security. I didn’t often wish I was all vampire, but I would’ve welcomed the mandatory sleep.

  Out of all the vampires I knew, I never asked them if they actually slept. Or if their bodies merely became a prison, and they were unable to get away from their thoughts and fears. I’d consider lucidity a welcome distraction if I were forced to listen to the voices in my head. How Rainey did it on a regular basis was beyond me. One night had practically stripped me of my sanity, and it wasn’t over yet.

  Hazy light spread over the valley as I drove home. The sunrise was a good sign. It hadn’t abandoned us, and we had yet to run out of the energy that fueled the earth. It gave me hope.

  My only
other lead on Rainey’s whereabouts was Gabriel. He could’ve claimed her or she could’ve gone to him willingly. No, she wouldn’t have left her books like that, and she wouldn’t have left... me. There was no telling how long she’d actually been gone. Every clock that would’ve told me how far I’d traveled into the future had gone black. In real time, I’d fight tooth and nail to find her.

  The living room looked exactly as I left it. The spell books ruined and strewn over the carpet. Broken crystals and knocked over candles.

  I leaned against the shower stall, letting makeup and the filth Blade left behind run down my chest in rivulets. I wished it were that easy to make the night disappear, but forewarned was forearmed. I could put a stop to this.

  Ha. Rainey watched the future like her own personal soap opera and even she had no way to slam on the brakes.

  Pruny from the shower, I dropped my towel in the carnage that was our living room. It wasn’t the bloodbath I found at Embrace, but those texts were sacred to Rainey. The spells could never be replaced. And if we needed them to prevent the nightmare I just experienced, we were so screwed. I kept thinking in terms of ‘we’ like Rainey was still in the picture.

  I shrieked when I walked into the bedroom. The bed was no longer made, and a lump waited for me under the covers. One that bolted upright at my scream; the most beautiful sight ever with curly blonde hair, wild from deep sleep, and rapidly blinking brown eyes. I jumped on the bed and knocked her over with my embrace.

  “Holly, what’s wrong?” She could barely get the words out between my kisses.

  “Everything. Nothing. I had the most screwed up night.” I slipped under the covers. I needed skin on skin contact. She could be another vision, and I’d been lied to enough for one evening. “I think I time traveled.”

  “That’s amazing.” She turned to her side, licking her lips. I wondered if she could taste Blade on me. The tang of someone else’s stolen blood. “Where did you go?”

  I swallowed hard before telling her. “The future.”

  “Oh.”

  My revelation was no surprise. It disappointed me for two reasons—it was possible I hadn’t traveled but had been put under a spell; and she may have really disappeared. Even for a few hours. There was no way to tell. I went with the worst-case scenario because it would make everything else seem like good news. “What about you? Where were you?”

  Totally normal, like she’d gone shopping. Yeah, right.

  “Gabriel came for me,” she said. “I cast a spell for you, so the photo shoot would go well, for the success for the show, but I must have read the spell wrong. Instead I summoned Gabriel—or he just showed up anyway. He told me I failed my mission.”

  “Did he bring you to the future?” I wondered if she saw the same things I had. The death and desperation.

  “Honestly, I’m not sure where we went. He said he wanted to bring me to places I can do more good. He insisted that no one in Las Vegas wanted my help, and staying would extinguish my light.”

  I could hardly breathe. “The future had no light. The sun wouldn’t rise, because the vampires had sucked the energy out of it.”

  Her eyes widened, she probably felt sick that our stories overlapped, too. “He insisted it was inevitable, that there was too much for me to battle on my own. I begged him to help me. I won’t leave you, Holly. But he insisted he’d been helping me all along.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “I was still in the city, but he showed me what he saw. People desperate for some sort of salvation, coming here as an escape from their sorrows. It was all the same, but it was so different. I insisted that if we could bring the right kind of energy back to the city things would improve.” She clutched her pillow like she was telling me about a nightmare.

  “We need to make The Afterlife work, no matter what,” I said. Blade’s words echoed in my head. When the show failed. No. “I get my fire back in the future.”

  It didn’t seem so important anymore.

  That got a smile out of her, at least. A bright spot in the darkness. “I’ll do whatever it takes. Gabriel said this was my last chance to get things right.”

  I kissed her and our bodies tangled together. We were one. It didn’t matter what Gabriel said. Neither of us were complete if we were apart. Rainey tangled her hand in my wet hair and tugged on it. I moaned against her lips. Heat rose from somewhere forgotten and forbidden between our naked bodies. I wrapped my legs around her and locked her in. Nobody would take her from me.

  Her heart beat furiously and my kisses did nothing to slow it down. She guided my head lower, to her breast, urging me to take her nipple in my mouth. I matched her intensity, sucking and nipping. A snap startled me.

  I raised my head to meet her gaze.

  “It was a spark.” Rainey was breathless. “It hurt a little, but that’s good. It was real fire.”

  “All I’ve been able to do is spark and smoke.” I frowned. “There’s been more than enough emotion tonight to burn the city down. What if it’s never anything more than that?”

  The fire should’ve been beautiful, moving with me, not against me. No one would pay for a smoke show.

  “It will come.” She stroked my hair, guiding my head back to her breast.

  “My vision of the future matched what Gabriel told you.” As much as I needed to be with Rainey, this conversation couldn’t wait. “I never traveled to the future before. I’m afraid that my powers have been warped. I’m not getting them back the way they were before.”

  Rainey scooted up, and I rested my head on her chest. “What about that night that I kissed you and Blade bit you? You ignited.”

  “Because the two of you are the complete opposite. Darkness and light. You bring peace and he thrives off chaos. When the two powers meet, there’s fire.” It was a tease. I knew the fire was between us, but there was no way I could go on stage every night with those two attached to me. Many people would pay good money to see that, but it wasn’t part of my routine. And Callie would have Blade gutted if he came within fifty feet of the theater.

  Rainey bit her lip. “I’m willing to try what you proposed with Blade. Once. Only to see if it works.” She wouldn’t meet my gaze, and I knew she wasn’t convinced. But this was her last chance, and she’d pull out all the stops to stay with me. My heart swelled, because I felt the same way. “It can’t be a forever thing. I’m afraid he’ll make us both like him, and then I really will have failed.”

  MY BODY WARMED AT THE prospect of seeing Blade again, but there were no sparks, not even any smoke. Last night’s travel had faded to a hangover, and chances were, he hadn’t had the same nightmare. But it had changed me forever. I’d never learned from the past, but once I saw the future, I was determined not to repeat it.

  Rainey came with me this time. I hadn’t let her out of my sight all day. I even went to work with her, dozing behind the curtain while listening to the soothing rhythm of her voice. People asked for her visions of the future. None of her advice sounded anything like what I’d witnessed. She gave all of them hope because it was her job.

  “Does it feel hypocritical?” I asked as we drove. “You send every person away thinking that their dreams would come true.”

  “No. That’s really what I Saw for them. I See the same thing for you, Holly.” She flicked her gaze to me and smiled.

  “But you’ve Seen the same vision of the future I traveled to, and it’s awful. There aren’t any babies or new jobs. It’s death and darkness.” I was terrified to go back to Embrace while my scars were so fresh. Like the cuts on Blade’s face, they’d take a long time to heal, if they ever did. Travel confused me, and last night was no exception. I went to the future, and Rainey stayed here. But Embrace was likely still a microcosm of Hell.

  She shook her head. “It was a vision. It hasn’t happened yet. It’s up to you to make it better.”

  “But the vampires had destroyed everything. What if it’s like vampire history, and it can’t be changed? You
can’t See vampires, either. That’s always scared me, especially since I found out I was half vampire. All the times you’ve told me you can’t see my future.... Wait a minute, did you just say you Saw my future?”

  Her face glowed in the silhouette of the streetlight. “I did. Everywhere I’ve gone today, I’ve Seen your face on billboards as I drive by them. Not the old ones, the shots from last night’s photo shoot. You look amazing, by the way. You were wearing my favorite stage outfit. Flames drip from your fingers, and Tristan is standing behind you. But he’s an afterthought. I saw the advertisement half a dozen times before I noticed him. You’ll be the queen of this city. Bigger and better than ever before.”

  It took a couple tries to speak. “That’s exactly what I wore.” I wanted it to be a surprise when the advertisements came out. All the advertisements I saw that day were for strip clubs, pawn shops, and lawyers. It was impossible for her to have seen those shots, much less nail exactly what they looked like. “And the new posters were in my vision. The one I saw was torn. There weren’t any more shows on the Strip. All the lights were dark.”

  She swallowed hard. “I won’t lie, I’m terrified by what happened to both of us last night. But Gabriel wouldn’t have let me come back if he didn’t think I could do some good.”

  “Or he wanted to prove a point.” I wanted Rainey to comfort me, but she kept confirming every fear that had blossomed in the small hours of the night. “That you’d be conscious of every decision you made, trying to steer me in the right direction. But the way I see it, we’re screwed either way. If he’s been keeping you here to keep me from falling into the wrong hands, and stop it from happening, then you’ve succeeded. I won’t need you anymore.”

  “Don’t say that,” she whispered.

  Each thud of my heart hurt more. “And if you fail, then we’re all screwed. He’ll give you an easier assignment. Something he thinks you can handle. Whether we work with Tristan, or go with Blade, we don’t know which one is good or bad. They’re vampires. They lie and twist the truth to make it seductive. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.”