Second Chance

by Heather Brewer

  Tearing his gaze away, Joss hurried down the street, staying with the crowd for as long as he could. As he navigated his way down the street, the sun began its initial descent, stretching the shadows more quickly than Joss had realized it would. He picked up the pace, and as darkness draped over the city, Joss found himself jogging, then running, then sprinting. Because Ash had warned him not to be out after dark in Manhattan, and he trusted Ash completely. Besides, he could always check out Obscura tomorrow.

  As the cool of night enveloped him, the front steps of the brownstone came into view and Joss slowed his running until he was just walking again, his heart still hammering in his chest. In the not too far distance, he swore he heard a voice say, “Sounds delicious.”

  He hoped that it had been a human that had spoken those words, but couldn’t be sure. He hoped it wasn’t a vampire that had been eavesdropping on the song of his heart and dreaming about making it its next meal. But he didn’t stick around to find out what was what. He hurried up the steps and into the brownstone, his knees aching from all the walking and running he’d been doing today, and closed the door behind him with a loud thud. As he leaned his back against the wood, his fingers reaching for and flipping the dead bolt, his chest rising and falling in uncertain panic, Joss vowed that he would never again come so close to being outside at night while they were in New York. Especially unarmed. Because Ash was right, vampires were everywhere. And you just never knew if they were watching you.

  He took a deep breath and let it out, the tension slowly leaving him. As he moved through the foyer, he nodded greetings to Ash, who said, “Hey, kid. Find Em?”

  Joss sighed. “Not exactly.”

  Ash nodded, pursing his lips for a moment. It looked very much like he wanted to say something to help Joss out, but in the end, all he said was, “Morgan’s looking for you.”

  “Thanks.” Joss turned and moved down the hall to the library. He’d been hoping for a bit to eat—after all, he hadn’t eaten anything at all since the slice of cake earlier, and his stomach was rumbling its protests—but apparently, satiating his hunger would have to wait. He found Morgan poring over a pile of notes so high that Joss wondered how he could possibly make any sense of it at all.

  “What’s all this, Morgan?”

  Morgan didn’t look up. “Intel gathered by our team members. Most of it, I’m sure, is totally useless. Rumored hangouts of the vampire elders. Overheard bits of conversation. Possible relatives. Theories on where they might be located. But it’s what we’ve got. So . . .”

  Joss shuffled his feet. He didn’t have anything to hand over to Morgan. Hell, he hadn’t even known he was supposed to take copious amounts of notes on his activity and findings. It made him feel stupid. It made him feel small.

  “Anything to report, little brother?”

  Joss shook his head and sighed. “Nothing that lead me to the killer, and there was no sign of Em, but I didn’t make it to Obscura. There might be a lead there, I don’t know. I’ll check it out, though. I did find a few vampires, but the only thing they seemed interested in was having me for lunch.”

  Morgan looked up at him, a small glimmer of concern in his eyes, but he didn’t speak of it. Instead, he nodded slowly and said, “Yeah. They’ll do that. Be careful.”

  Joss lingered there for a minute. He wanted to tell Morgan that he had been careful, and that he had been looking, but he was feeling lost and confused and totally unsure of exactly how he was supposed to track down some serial killer, who may or may not actually be a vampire. But he couldn’t say any of those things. And even if he could, Morgan wasn’t going to fix this for him, wasn’t going to do Joss’s homework for him. It was up to Joss to find the killer and dispatch him as quickly and quietly as possible. And he could do it. He was a Slayer, from a long line of Slayers. He could do anything.

  So why didn’t he feel like he was up to the task?

  Without another word, he headed upstairs to the comfort of his bed. Tomorrow, he was going to find a clue if it killed him.

  8

  A VOICE FROM THE PAST

  Obscura was a small antiques shop, with lots and lots of things that simultaneously made Joss’s skin crawl and thrilled him to no end. There were two-headed animals of the taxidermy variety, human teeth on display, and the creepiest ventriloquist’s dummy that Joss had ever seen. It was a weird, wondrous place, full of curiosities that Joss very much wished he could spend time to truly appreciate. But he was here on a mission.

  A young man, thin, dressed in a black suit, stood behind the counter, and when Joss said hello, he smiled brightly. “Anything I can help you find?”

  “Actually, yes.” Joss reached into his back pocket and withdrew the picture of Em. He held it up and the man’s face dropped, his skin paling so fast that Joss thought he might just pass out. He knew Em. Clearly, he knew her. And he was terrified of her.

  “Do you kn—”

  “No.” He shook his head at Joss, tearing his gaze away from the photograph. “I’ve never seen her before. You should look elsewhere.”

  Joss returned the photo to his pocket. “Look, you obviously know her, so—”

  The man met Joss’s eyes. “Please. Look somewhere else. I don’t want any trouble.”

  Joss furrowed his brow. He’d scared the man. Simply by showing him a brief glimpse of a photograph. Just who the hell was he looking for that she could inspire that kind of fear? “Okay. Elsewhere. And where might elsewhere be, exactly?”

  He hated to scare the man any further, but the fact was, he needed help finding Em, and this guy was one of his only leads.

  The man’s bottom lip shook. A whisper escaped his lips, seemingly against his will. “You might try V Bar.”

  Joss put on a pleasant, grateful smile. “Thank you.”

  As he exited the shop, he heard a distinct sigh of relief from the man behind the counter. It was followed by another sigh from a man on the street.

  Joss looked up to see Ash, scratching his head and looking over a crumpled piece of paper in his hands. “Ash?”

  At first, Ash blinked at him. Then recognition filled his eyes. “Hey, Joss. Any luck?”

  He shrugged casually. “I just got a small lead, so I’m heading over to a café called V Bar to look for Em. What about you?”

  “You’d think that finding some big Russian vampire in Manhattan wouldn’t be such a challenge. But I got nothin’, kid.”

  Joss furrowed his brow. “Isn’t there a huge Russian population here in the city?”

  “Yeah. But none that I know of have fangs. At least, I haven’t gotten close enough to tell.” Ash sighed again and started moving down the sidewalk. “Anyway, I’ll catch you later, I guess.”

  “Later, Ash.”

  He hated to admit it, but knowing that he wasn’t the only one having any trouble gathering intel really made him feel better about his lack of progress.

  After a trek that took him several blocks north, Joss entered V Bar, and thought about what had just happened at Obscura. Maybe he should be more careful about flashing Em’s picture around town. Maybe people would respond better to his questions. Maybe he’d learn more.

  He took a seat at the bar and ordered a black unsweetened ice tea with extra ice. His throat was parched and his feet tired after a long day of recon, so it made him feel relieved that V Bar was somewhere that he could sit down and have a tasty refreshment. The presence of his wooden stake in his back pocket, hidden under his shirt, was an even bigger relief.

  Plucking it from his suitcase before breakfast had lifted an enormous weight from his shoulders. It was pretty amazing how comforting just having his stake with him was. Especially considering that he was, to his knowledge, anyway, the only Slayer in the room.

  V Bar was an interesting little café. It was also bustling for a late afternoon, but it wasn’t so crowded that Joss felt squeezed in or anything. The bartender handed him his tea, took his money, and made change. As Joss dropped three dollars into
the tip jar, he said, “This is a cool place. Who owns it?”

  The bartender smiled, his eyes sparkling. “My father, actually. A man by the name of Enrico Ciotti. Why do you ask? Are you an associate of his?”

  Inside Joss’s mind, he weighed the possible outcomes for any given answer. Settling quickly on what he deemed the wisest choice, he nodded. To which, the bartender shook his head, chuckling. “They get younger all the time, I swear. Shall I pour you the house red then? No need to hide behind a tea. The only human here today is pretty drunk in the corner over there.”

  Understanding spread through Joss’s veins like hot lava, slow and simmering. V Bar was owned by a vampire, bartended by a vampire, and frequented by vampires. The man behind the bar was a blood drinker, though likely a young one to be making such blatant slipups like he was, and he now thought that Joss was a vampire as well. In an action so quick and so utterly smooth, the actor in Joss stepped onto the stage and flashed a bemused smile—even though the boy Joss was trembling in terror at the idea that he was currently surrounded by monsters. “Believe it or not,” he chuckled. “I actually enjoy the taste of tea.”

  Smiling, the bartender folded his arms in front of his chest and leaned against the bar. “I’ve heard stranger things. One vampire I know enjoys jelly doughnuts. Another—a man named Otis—has a distinct weakness for freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.”

  Joss took a sip of his tea. The hint of fresh mint danced on his tongue, but still his mouth tasted bitter at the mention of a familiar name. He had no real idea of how vast the vampire world was, but Otis, even in the human world, was a relatively unusual name, so he took a breath and let the actor in him inquire. “Do you mean Otis Otis?”

  The bartender’s expression brightened. “You know him?”

  Joss did know Otis. As well as any student knew his teacher. As well as anyone knew their friend’s uncle. As well as any Slayer knew a vampire. He sipped his tea again, trying desperately to maintain his calm and casual appearance. “Yeah. I know Otis.”

  “Then you should meet my father. He and Otis go way back.” He gauged Joss for a moment, his smile pursing a bit, as if to say he could read Joss’s hesitance in his eyes. “Unless, of course, you and Otis aren’t exactly friends.”

  Joss shrugged. “I’m afraid we had a bit of a falling out in recent times.”

  Falling out. What a nice way to refer to the fact that Joss had staked Otis’s nephew, Vlad, and then Otis had come after him.

  No matter where Joss went, it seemed his past was eager to find him.

  “A shame. You seem like a nice enough kid.” He shook his head, then widened his eyes in apology. “Sorry. I shouldn’t call you a kid when I don’t know your age.”

  Joss knew a hint when he heard one. But he really had no realistic idea of how old vampires got. Eighty years? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? He had no way of knowing what would be a sensible guess. So he shrugged again and sipped his tea before glancing around the room. To anyone who wasn’t in the know, it would look just like any café. The people—the vampires—they just looked so human. So . . . normal. There was no surprise that vampires could blend in so well. “It’s okay. No offense taken. So V Bar is usually this busy during the afternoon?”

  The bartender refilled Joss’s cup and replaced the lid, sliding the cup across the bar. “Depends. Today, as it happens, there’s a trial pending, so it’s busier than usual. I take it you’re not here for that?”

  “No. I’m just visiting the city for a bit. Heard it was a pretty interesting place.” A vampire to Joss’s left lifted a coffee mug to his lips and sipped at the steamy contents. Joss shuddered inwardly at what those contents likely were.

  The bartender leaned over the bar, dropping his voice to a conspiring tone. “You’re not one of us, are you, kid? You’re not . . . a vampire.”

  It felt as if several hot coals had somehow become lodged in Joss’s throat. He swallowed them and they burned all the way down before landing in a heavy pile at the bottom of his stomach. The actor in him had fled the stage, leaving only a panic-stricken Joss behind. He met the bartender’s gaze and swallowed, his throat still burning. No words came to mind, nor did any escape his lips to explain what he was and what he was doing here. The realization that he might be on the verge of death settled on the edges of his being like rain on a windowpane. But he shook the thought away. Vampires, he had to keep reminding himself, could read minds. He wasn’t even safe inside his own head.

  After a moment that seemed to linger for several minutes, the bartender shook his head slowly. “I won’t tell if you won’t. But you’ll find I’m one of the few who can’t get a good read on whether someone is human or vampire. Odds are the rest of them know all about you, including your thoughts. So why don’t you take your tea and get out of here before you get hurt?”

  The burning in his throat lessened some but didn’t disappear completely. “I think that’s a smart idea.”

  “Me too.” The bartender kept his eyes on Joss as he wiped the bar down with a moist cloth.

  Joss bit the inside of his cheek, pinching the soft pink skin between his molars in thought. He wasn’t about to bring up Em, but he might be able to get some inside information from a man who talked to everyone about all sorts of things, a bartender. He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Before I go . . . do you know anything about a serial killer on the loose? Maybe a vampire . . . ?”

  The bartender groaned and tossed the cloth behind him with a frustrated grunt. Then, inside Joss’s brain, he heard a voice. It was clear as crystal, but not at all coming from the bartender’s mouth. “Great. A Slayer.”

  The sound jolted him. He knew that vampires could hear humans’ thoughts, but he had no idea that it could possibly work the other way around. Doing everything he could to maintain his semi-cool demeanor, Joss raised one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “Let’s just say I’m a concerned citizen and leave it at that.”

  The bartender raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You . . . you heard that?”

  Slowly, and doubting that he should be admitting to it at all, Joss nodded. He tried to act as if it was no big deal, like he’d listened to a thousand vampires’ thoughts in the past week alone. But it was hard to hide his own shock. Why had he been able to hear the bartender’s thoughts, and not Vlad’s or Otis’s? What about this moment was different than those? His heart jumped before settling back into a more normal rhythm.

  Wiping his forehead dry with the back of his hand, the bartender moved down the bar and checked on a few other patrons. He poured one a mug of something hot and gave two more cups of half tea, half blood—the vampire’s version of an Arnold Palmer. When he came back to Joss, he whispered furiously. “Listen. The only reason I’m telling you this is because my father is forming his own hunting party to take care of the issue. That trial today? It’s to make everything nice and legal before my father unleashes his dogs on the city. The whole thing is causing enormous problems for Elysia, risking exposure and endangering our kind. But personally, I think taking action will only expose us further.”

  Joss listened, waiting for whatever it was that the bartender was trying to share with him. He’d already said a mouthful, but something—instincts, maybe—told him that there was more. “Boris happens to be a personal friend of mine. I’ve tried talking to him, tried reasoning with him, even tried bribing him, but he’s blood drunk, and there’s no appealing to his good sense. He’s killing just to kill now, and endangering the lives of good vampires everywhere with his senseless acts. I know that only one option remains—taking him down. But my father will rip him to shreds. If you promise me that you’ll do it quickly, and as painlessly as possible—and to leave V Bar and never return—I’ll tell you where Boris is.”

  Joss nodded slowly, his heart hammering in his ears. This was exactly what he needed, and he couldn’t believe he was getting this information straight from a vampire. He debated whether to share how he’d come across
the information with the other Slayers, but decided that would be a bad idea. What if they stormed V Bar? He would have broken a promise to the friendly bartender and possibly endangered his group. No. That was a crazy thought—probably something put there by the vampire bartender. Still . . . some information was safer locked away in his brain.

  The bartender searched Joss’s eyes, perhaps looking for a modicum of understanding, and then scribbled an address down on a slip of paper. He slid it across the bar. Joss reached for it, but the vampire shook his head curtly, his demeanor shifting abruptly. “Grab it and get out, but act casual and keep your thoughts bland.”

  Laughter poured into the bar as someone entered behind him. It had a warm, friendly air. “I’ll never understand how you can wear that hat in this heat, my friend.”

  “I love this hat.”

  Joss straightened. He knew the second voice. It was Otis. Vlad’s uncle. From Bathory. Every molecule in his body tightened with tension. If Otis saw him here, he was as good as dead.

  The first man spoke again before taking a seat on the stool to Joss’s left. “And the girl who gave it to you?”

  “You know the answer to that, Enrico.” From the sound of it, Otis was standing directly behind Joss. The bartender poured two cups full of a red liquid that sent a wave of queasiness through Joss, then passed them to Enrico, who turned and handed one to Otis. In his peripheral vision, Joss caught a brief glimpse of Otis’s sleeve.

  “Are you ever going to tell her?”

  “I’m fairly certain she knows.”

  “Fairly certain? Otis, you’ve just proven the universal truth that no one—not even someone with telepathy—truly understands women.”

  They both laughed then, and Joss wondered how he was ever going to escape from V Bar unseen.