Table of Contents
Front Matter
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About the Author
Tooth and Nail
Lost Falls, Book 3
by Chris Underwood
Copyright © 2019 Chris Underwood
All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, and locales are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental.
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1
It was the kind of storm that no sane person should’ve been out in. The kind of storm you’re better off riding out inside with a cup of hot cocoa in your hands.
Of course, I never claimed to be sane. I’d gone and gotten myself invited to dinner with a vampire, after all.
The whine of my windscreen wipers was a deathly wail against the background of the roaring rain. Above, a fork of lightning streaked across the roiling sky.
I wondered if Jonathan Harker had felt like this much of a schmuck when he was taking his carriage ride to Dracula’s castle.
I leaned forward against the steering wheel, trying to peer through the fogged-up windscreen. Even with my phone murmuring directions at me, nothing looked familiar.
My headlights flashed across a delicate sign perched at the roadside. Looping letters in cursive spelled out a single word. Soul.
I hit the brakes a little too hard, and for a moment the back end of my van wobbled about like a middle-aged man trying out his son’s skateboard. Then the tires found traction, and I pulled off the road toward the restaurant.
It was a small place tucked away in one of the older, richer parts of Lost Falls. A turning bay was set next to a large fountain that seemed rather pointless in all this rain. The satin-black building was trimmed with pastel blues and a hint of gold. Warm light spilled through the windows. It might as well have pulled out a megaphone to scream, “This is a classy establishment!”
I drove past the front entrance, pulled around the side of the building, and found the small parking lot. I brought my dirt-splattered van to a stop at the end of the lot, where I wouldn’t risk scratching anyone’s paint job. I couldn’t afford the deductible on the insurance.
Taking a deep breath, I killed the engine. There was nothing to be worried about. Just another job. I flipped down the sunshade and examined myself in the mirror. I’d dressed up as well as I could. Even combed my beard.
I felt like a farmyard pig stuffed into a shirt and tie.
Lightning flashed across the sky. In the sudden illumination, I caught a glimpse of a pale face at my window, staring in at me.
I jumped high enough that I nearly hit my head on the van’s ceiling. Like I said: I was a little on edge.
The light quickly faded, but not before I got a better look at the figure standing outside. At a second glance, he wasn’t so scary. He was a short, slim man in his early thirties. His carefully styled black hair was just starting to turn silver at the temples. He wore a scarf and a dark overcoat over his suit, and in his hand he held the polished wood handle of an umbrella.
It was his eyes that’d got me. Big, blue, piercing eyes. Probably handsome enough on a nice sunny day, but a little too intense for this kind of weather.
Delayed thunder rumbled overhead. Catching my breath, I rolled down the window. Needles of rain started to pelt me.
“Christ,” I said to the man, “you scared the hell out of me.”
He offered an apologetic smile. At least, I assumed that’s what the expression was. It was too dark to know for sure.
“Mr. Turner?” he asked, raising his voice to be heard over the pounding rain.
“That’s right.”
“We offer a valet service here. Perhaps no one told you.”
“I only just got this thing back from the shop.” I patted the outside of the door with my palm. “If anyone’s going to ding her, it’s going to be me.”
Another smile. I couldn’t read this one either. “Let me escort you inside. My mistress wouldn’t want you getting wet.”
“Yeah,” I muttered under my breath. “No one wants their food getting soggy.”
“I’m sorry?” he said, gesturing that he hadn’t heard me over the rain.
I shook my head and gave him my best people-pleasing smile. “Never mind. Your mistress is…?”
“Carlotta Atwood, of course.”
“Of course. Let me get my things.”
The man took a step closer, opening my door. He held up his umbrella to keep the rain off me.
“I have to ask you to leave any weapons behind,” he said.
I paused, my hand on my bag. “Weapons?”
“Silver,” he said. “Stakes. I’m sure a man in your line of work—”
I held up my hand to cut him off. “I got it. Does this request come from your mistress as well?”
“No. It comes from higher up. Mistress Lockhart is in attendance tonight.”
I feigned surprise. “That so? Well, can’t argue with the queen, huh?” I reached into my bag and pulled out a smaller paper bag.
The man peered at it. “And that is…?”
“What your mistress asked me to prepare for her.” I held it out to him. “You want to inspect it?”
“That won’t be necessary.” His eyes returned to my face. “Come. You must be freezing.”
I stepped out of the van onto the rain-slicked ground. As I turned to lock the door, the man spoke up again.
“Your vehicle will be quite safe.”
“Call me paranoid.” I locked the door, dropped my keys into my pocket, and gestured toward the restaurant. “After you.”
We made our way across the parking lot. The poor guy was short enough that he had to hold his arm fully extended above his head to keep the umbrella high enough for me.
As we walked, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. I could see him better now that we were approaching the warm light pouring out of the restaurant windows. A good-looking guy. But then, they all were. I found my eyes roaming across the scarf that concealed his neck.
He caught me looking and I turned my eyes away.
“You got a name?” I asked.
He paused. “Nolan. Nolan Marsh.”
“Does Atwood treat you well?”
I got the feeling no one had ever asked him that question. He struggled for a second to formulate a response. “I serve my mistress happily.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
We came to the awning that stretched out over the entrance to the restaurant. Beneath its shelter, another male swain dressed in a dark overcoat stood with his hands clasped in front of him, staring out into the darkness. A sign stood nearby, regretfully proclaiming that the restaurant was booked out for a private function. Nolan lowered the umbrella, shook the rain drops off, and dropped
it into a basket full of identical umbrellas next to the doors.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I’m not comfortable with the topic of conversation.” He pulled open the door. “Let me take you to Mistress Atwood.”
I eyed him a second longer, shrugged, and stepped inside.
Nolan was silent as he led me through the quiet entranceway. I stayed a step behind him, my eyes returning again to his collar. This wasn’t the first swain I’d dealt with. But he was just like all the others. Obedient. Respectful. Beautiful. The perfect little slave.
He didn’t need to wear manacles or an iron collar. He was tethered to his mistress by a far stronger chain. Beneath the fabric of his shirt collar, his throat would be dotted with small scars. Marks of his servitude, where he allowed his mistress to feed. And as the vampire drained his blood, he would experience the kind of high that drug addicts only dream of. It was that bite that kept him coming back. Kept him obedient.
The thought of it made my skin crawl.
Nolan turned and offered to take my coat. As I shrugged out of it, I asked, “Do you guys serve the Unaware here?”
“Usually.” He handed my coat to another swain standing at the coat check. “Not tonight.”
“Why not?”
He led me through an open set of doors. “Tonight the brood has gathered.”
From a dozen tables, hungry eyes darted toward me. I froze in the doorway, feeling an awful lot like a mouse who’d wandered into a roomful of cats.
The restaurant’s interior continued the black-and-blue theme it had started on the outside. Long white tablecloths draped from tables that were arranged symmetrically across the patterned carpet. Light blue curtains fringed with gold divided the restaurant into sections. On the black walls, Renaissance-styled portraits hung in frames of gold.
The restaurant was small, but almost every seat was filled. Every table held at least one vampire, and in some cases three or four. They were easy enough to spot. Sure, they weren’t dressed that differently than the privileged bloodswains who had the honor of sitting beside them. They didn’t have fangs or claws or big black capes. But they owned the place. And they knew it.
Oh, and they were all looking at me.
The swains they shared their tables with didn’t seem to notice. The soft clink of silverware on porcelain continued, as did the quiet conversations.
An instant later, the vampires all returned their attention to their own tables. But I saw the way their nostrils flared. I saw the predatory hunger in their eyes. If they’d had tails, they would’ve been twitching back and forth in anticipation.
Nolan continued on a couple of steps before he seemed to notice I wasn’t following. He paused and turned back.
“Mr. Turner? Are you all right?”
I nodded.
He returned to me and lowered his voice. “I was told you’d had experience with vampires.”
I nodded again. “Just usually not so many at once.”
“They won’t hurt you,” he said. “Come.”
Swallowing, I began to follow him again.
I don’t think Nolan really understood. Maybe he couldn’t, considering what he was.
I wasn’t afraid of getting hurt. I mean, sure, that was part of it. Every vampire in this room—from the one in the corner who looked like George Clooney, to the one who resembled a girl about ten years old—was stronger than me, faster than me, more dangerous than me. Without my bag of tricks, without even my truncheon, I wouldn’t stand a chance against even one of them.
But it wasn’t the vampires that made me uneasy. It was the swains sitting next to them. Those humans staring at their masters and mistresses with doe-eyed devotion. With a hunger of their own.
That was what sent shivers down my spine. Death, at least, was an end. To become a swain, though, to lose every part of yourself and become a mewling, desperate slave—and to be happy about it, too—that seemed to me like a special kind of hell.
Sure, the vampires had laws about how and where they could take swains. Taking an unwilling swain was forbidden. In theory, every bloodswain in this room had known what they were getting into before they first felt a vampire’s bite.
But our community didn’t exactly have a strict system of law and order. The vampires, like the rest of us, were essentially self-policing.
I scanned the tables as I followed Nolan toward the back of the restaurant. Despite what Nolan had said earlier, I couldn’t see Sonja Lockhart anywhere. I hoped the swain wasn’t mistaken. I hoped my intel wasn’t wrong.
It’d been me who had angled to have the meeting here. Not because I enjoyed the company of vampires, of course. It was just that Sonja Lockhart was a very difficult woman to get in touch with.
Carlotta Atwood, however, was easy enough to find. She was sitting alone at a table near the back of the room. Like every other vampire, she had no food in front of her. Only the swains needed to eat.
She was a curvaceous woman who looked all of about 18. I was pretty sure the glasses she wore were an affectation—whoever heard of a myopic vampire? They made her look a little like Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo. I had to assume that wasn’t accidental. It made her look a lot less threatening than I knew her to be.
She rose from her seat and gave me a friendly smile as Nolan led me over. The smile was bright, genuine, and almost enough to put me at ease. Almost.
“Mr. Turner,” she said in greeting.
“Ozzy will be just fine, Miss Atwood,” I said.
“Then you must call me Carlotta. How’s the weather out there?”
“I was getting ready to swim before Nolan came to rescue me.”
The swain said nothing as he pulled out a chair for me. I sat down, and Atwood lowered herself gracefully back into her own seat.
“He is a dear, isn’t he?” she said, with a smile for the swain. “Nolan, can you find a menu for Ozzy?”
“It’s okay,” I interrupted before Nolan could speak. “I ate before I came.”
Atwood tilted her head to the side. “A drink, then. Beer?”
“Sure.”
Nolan inclined his head, then backed away and left us alone. Now that I was seated with Atwood, the other vampires in the room seemed to be paying me no attention at all. I guess I was now considered taken. The quiet hubbub of conversation continued.
I didn’t relax an inch.
Atwood leaned back in her seat, touched a finger to the corner of her lip, and gave me an appraising glance.
“You clean up pretty well, don’t you?” she said.
“If the occasion demands.”
“Are you all right? You look a little unsettled.”
I realized I was scanning the nearby tables with suspicious eyes. I forced my attention back to Atwood and put a smile on my face. “Sorry. Not my usual scene.”
“You don’t have to worry, you know.”
“Hmm?”
“No one here will make a play for you. Even if you wanted to join our family, no one in this room would accept you as a swain. You’ve been designated off-limits.”
I frowned. “By who?”
She smiled at me and, without looking, gestured to the corner of the restaurant. I turned in my seat.
A female swain was pulling back a large, pale blue curtain. It revealed a small circular stage set into the corner of the restaurant. Upon the stage was a black grand piano.
And seated in front of the piano was the broodmother herself: Sonja Lockhart.
2
Sonja Lockhart was dressed in a flowing blue gown perfectly color-matched to the rest of the restaurant. She was a tall, handsome woman with a strong nose. Her dark curls were styled up into a loose bun atop her head.
Without looking around the room—without even acknowledging them—she extended long fingers, resting them gently on the piano keys. Then she began to play.
It wasn’t flashy. Her playing was soft, gentle, elegant. No note was wasted. The music reached out, danced slowly across my heart, then dr
ifted on.
She made it look so damn easy.
I became aware that Nolan had returned and placed a tall glass of beer in front of me. I picked it up and took a sip, barely tasting it.
“Good, isn’t she?” Atwood said.
I nodded, not taking my eyes off the stage.
“You play, don’t you?” she asked.
“I used to,” I said. “Been getting back into it recently.”
“It’s important. Music. Art. Beauty. Especially for my kind.”
I glanced at her. The vampire was leaning back in her chair, watching Lockhart with shining eyes. “Why’s that?”
“It’s aspirational,” she said. “It pulls at the heart. Makes us strive to be what we want to be, not who we are.”
An image flashed through my head: the last time I’d met Sonja Lockhart, on a job that’d gone bad. It had started with me and Early trying to track down a missing swain. It ended with me staring at Sonja Lockhart while she tore a man’s head off. In an instant, she’d gone from a high society woman to a ravenous beast. A vicious killer. A monster.
I nodded slowly. “In that case, maybe you guys better have someone playing piano full-time.”
She smiled in agreement. “Maybe.” She turned to me, all business now. “So, the thing we talked about…”
“Right.” I brought out the paper bag and laid it on the table. “Sorry it took so long. Had a hell of a time tracking down some of the ingredients.”
Her eyes lit up as she took the paper bag. Carefully, she reached inside and drew out a small, white clay jar with a crescent moon for a handle. In tiny script, words of power were inscribed around the surface of the jar.
“You’re a miracle-worker, Ozzy. Our new loremaster said it couldn’t be done.”
“Maybe not with a vampire’s sorcery. But there’s plenty of things you folk can do with magic that I can’t.” I glanced down at my handiwork, then back at Atwood. “What do you need it for, anyway? You folk always seem to have someone on hand to give you a little snack.” I gestured toward Nolan.
“Usually,” she agreed. “But not always. Sometimes a girl gets peckish.” She examined the white jar. “We’ve been investigating commercial blood preservation solutions for years. But they never work. Not for our needs. Something always gets lost. Some ineffable quality. The life energy, perhaps. Blood stored like that does nothing to sate the Hunger.”
Tooth and Nail Page 1