But Lazarus finally tilted his head to the side, then smiled. "Another time, perhaps."
I sensed a new presence beside me and saw that Felix had come from somewhere and was now looming behind us. I had to give him credit, the big bastard did strike an imposing image, and I couldn't entirely blame Lazarus for losing his nerve at the sight of him.
The vampire took a step back into a darker section of the street and appeared to melt into shadow. I caught the shadow bulging in one area, then sliding along the street until it blended into darkness and was gone.
"Fucking vamps," I muttered under my breath.
"Did he just..." Maisey whispered.
"We need to keep moving," I said. "Come on."
Felix came up beside me in the last leg of our walk to The Wet Flea. He gave my shoulder a punch but said nothing at first.
"I'm not going to thank you, if that's what you're waiting for," I said.
"I'm not waiting for anything. I'm just glad you're back in the game, Riggs. I am wondering what made you decide to partner up with Fang.”
"Common sense," Fang blurted.
"Ever walk through a bush, look down, and realize you've got a few leeches stuck to your body?" I asked. "It was something like that."
Felix looked at the small form of Sylvie in my arms. "What's wrong with her?"
"Just caught a bug," I said.
I looked down at Sylvie, who had her eyes closed and her forehead scrunched up like she was in pain. I felt my grip go a little tighter on her and had to force myself to relax. She was going to be fine.
"You sure that was a good idea, by the way?" Felix asked.
I pulled open the door to The Wet Flea and we all headed inside, making our way toward the private rooms upstairs. As always, the music was loud and there were dozens of howlers crowded around the stage.
"No," I said. "But I don't make deals with vamps."
Felix sighed. "That shit is going to get you killed, Riggs. They aren't all the same, there's-"
"Spare me," I said, anger rising quickly enough that my heart was pounding. I yanked open the door to one of the private rooms and set Sylvie down on the bed as gently as I could. Maisey went to sit beside her and held her hand, but I noticed Maisey wasn't looking too healthy, either. She was pale and sweating and her eyes were going bloodshot. Maybe the immune thing was genetic, but I thought they would've mentioned that.
I tossed the meds from my pockets onto the bed and Maisey wordlessly went about finding the right ones and getting Sylvie sat up so she could swallow them.
Fang, Felix, and Gravy Boat filed into the room and I shut the door.
The private rooms at The Wet Flea were meant for exactly this purpose. Temporary refuge in a place where vamps didn't dare come. There were treaties, even between vamps and werewolves. One of those agreements was that certain places were sacred ground. We didn't go into their crypts and they didn't come into our dens. Simple as that.
Of course there had been a few incidents, but they were rare, and never without harsh consequences for anyone involved. The catch was that we weren't allowed to keep non werewolves here indefinitely. One week was all we got, and that meant I had a week to try to get Sylvie back in good enough health to move. A week to figure out how to get Lazarus off our asses.
One week to figure out why the hell I'd come out of retirement and stuck my neck on the chopping block for two women I'd just met.
Sylvie was sitting up. Her eyes had been bright and clear half an hour ago, but now they were heavy-lidded with dark circles beneath. She looked painfully fragile, like she might break in half if I tried to scoop her up again like I had on the street.
Maisey was at her side, talking in low tones that even my enhanced ears couldn't make out.
It blew my mind how quickly Sylvie's condition had deteriorated. One minute, she'd been completely fine, the next she was on the verge of passing out.
"What's the story with that?" Felix asked quietly after everyone settled around the room.
I realized I'd just been staring at Sylvie like a creep, and I quickly tore my eyes away from her, shaking my head. "No story. She's a job. I'd prefer it if my clients didn't try to off themselves with weak immune systems, though. I can't do much about bacteria."
Felix ran a hand across his shaved head. He stared toward her, then looked at me again.
I hated how he made it feel like he was seeing straight through me. "Fuck off," I groaned.
He chuckled. "Let me guess, they didn't sign a contract or agree to pay you before you started protecting them?"
"Not important. They'll pay when they pay."
"The old Riggs would disagree with that sentiment. Remember the guy I tried to help back in Salem? The howler who got tied up with-"
"I remember."
"You nearly tried to gut me for even suggesting we could let him pay us back when he had the money. You made me help him on my own and called me... what was it? A dumb, softhearted bastard who might as well be sucking off his clients?"
"I don't remember using those exact words," I said. Actually, I did, and the memory made me smile. Felix and I had a good run but thinking back on all that was bittersweet. I'd been different before my sister, Kyla, decided to fuck everything up.
Think about something else.
"How'd you wind up with Fang tagging along?" Felix asked.
Fang heard the question, perking up from where he was lounging in a chair at the corner of the room.
I sighed. "Bad luck."
Felix chuckled. "Well, you've got yourself a small army, now. I think these girls might just make it."
Sylvie looked like she'd fallen asleep, and Maisey came to stand in front of us then. The girl looked almost as bad as her sister did. Her skin was pale, and her hair was plastered to her forehead by a thin sheen of sweat. Her eyes looked hollowed out.
I sniffed, feeling a frown deepen my forehead when I picked up a stronger hint of the vampire scent she'd been wearing ever since she got that vamp blood all over her.
Felix tensed beside me, then shot me a questioning look.
"She got vamp blood all over her back at their apartment," I explained.
He relaxed a little. "I see."
A suspicion was forming deep in my chest, and it was one I didn't dare examine. Not now. Not yet. But I could tell Felix was wondering why the smell would be so strong. Why would-
I stood suddenly, towering over Maisey.
"Um," she said, stopping me before I could leave the room. "She needs something to eat. Liquid, preferably. Something easy to keep down."
My nose twitched again, and the wolf inside me started to growl. "Yeah," I said. "Coming right up." I pulled the door open and pushed it closed behind me. I pressed my back against the wood, taking in several deep breaths.
Fuck.
Shit.
I balled up my fist and slammed it against the wall hard enough to shake some dust loose from the rafters overhead.
I could just walk away. I could leave the girls there and maybe Felix and Fang would take the job over.
Or maybe they'd figure out what Maisey was becoming and it'd be a bloodbath in there.
I ran my hands through my hair, walking down toward the bar. I wondered how I could've been blind enough to miss the signs.
I thought back on my first encounters with the women. The vamp heading toward their apartment. The fact that Maisey had some sort of acquaintanceship with one of them. Hell, the cleaners were after them. The vamps whose sole purpose was to hunt down vamps that were created without the sanction of their precious Coven.
And I'd swallowed all the convenient lies despite the truth staring me in the face.
I'd let myself be blind, and why?
The problem was I knew exactly why. The reason was currently inexplicably sick and lying in the bed upstairs. But Sylvie hadn't smelled like vamp once I cleaned them off. The stench had just stuck to her sister, which I'd figured was because she was a lot bloodier when I found th
em.
I ordered some chicken noodle soup and added an extra-large side order of the garlic bread they made downstairs. I knew it wasn't exactly the first thing a sick person would think of, but the stuff was like hard drugs, and if Sylvie didn't want it, I'd eat it. And some dumb, paranoid part of me thought she might be ignorant of how things worked. That maybe Sylvie would refuse the garlic bread because she’d think it would hurt her if she knew she’d been turned.
I paced around while I waited for the food.
I had options. The most obvious was to bail. I could just leave. Leave the city, for all I cared. I could go up there and kill Maisey myself. She was a bloodsucker, even if she probably hadn't even grown in her fangs yet.
Or...
No.
I wasn't even going to consider it. There wasn't a chance in hell. Not because I had a problem killing vamps, but because this particular vamp was tied to Sylvie. Sylvie would never forgive me if I killed Maisey. I was getting soft, because that never would’ve stopped me in the past. Now, it felt like the only thing that mattered.
13
Sylvie
I had a rapid series of fever dreams. Visions of werewolves, vampires, and dark figures chasing me through alleys filled my nightmares. When I finally woke, I wasn't sure where I was at first.
I sat up in an unfamiliar bed. I ran my fingertips along the thin sheet I'd mostly kicked off and found it was scratchy and rough. I looked down and saw I'd sweated through my shirt, which now clung to me.
Maisey sat up beside me, reaching for my hand. Her touch felt like ice against my skin.
I smiled, but even the simple act of spreading my lips apart felt like it took an immense amount of energy.
"Hey, sleepyhead. How do you feel?"
Maisey put the back of her hand to my forehead, then frowned.
Then it was my turn to frown. My sister was basically a goddess. She always had perfect, glowing skin. Her hair always looked silky and straight out of a shampoo commercial. And her eyes were always bright and energetic.
The last few hours seemed to have taken an impossible toll on her, though.
Now her skin was pale and there were pinkish red circles around her eyes. She looked tired, hungry, and exhausted. Even her cheeks seemed sunken, but that had to have been my imagination. People didn’t deteriorate that quickly, even if they were deathly ill. Of course it hit me, then.
She’d told me to my face at the apartment. She’d let herself be turned into a vampire right before all this started. God. My poor sister was turning into the very thing these werewolves seemed to hate above all else, and we were trapped in a building full of them.
"Are you okay?" I asked, squeezing her hand with both of mine.
"Don't worry about me, silly," she said, smiling. But I caught the way her eyes darted to the werewolves all lurking around the room.
I met her gaze, then tried my best to work out some sister-sister telepathy.
All I got was a nearly imperceptible shake of her head while she held my gaze.
The look seemed to say, "act natural."
I relaxed back into my pillow. That was when I noticed Riggs lurking by the door. We'd also been joined by another huge man, who, given recent events, I assumed was a werewolf. I vaguely remembered hearing somebody else come when Riggs was carrying me, but everything about our brief excursion had gone a little fuzzy for me.
"Hungry?" he asked, approaching my bedside.
He had a brown paper bag in his hand, and something wrapped in foil in the other.
"Yeah, actually."
He pulled up a chair and started opening the bag. He pulled out a styrofoam cup with a lid and unwrapped the foil, which was covering a half-eaten piece of garlic bread about the size of my hand.
"Did somebody gnaw on this?" I asked, holding up the bread between two fingers.
"Uh," Riggs said. "Germs, right." He took the bread from me, then tore off the bitten part and handed me back the remaining chunk. "You took a while to wake up," he said, popping the bitten piece into his mouth and then dusting his hands.
I grinned. "Thank you."
I opened the soup, which was just a touch warmer than room temperature. It tasted amazing, either way. My head was pounding, and I felt dizzy, but as far as symptoms went, it was nothing too unbearable. The biggest problem was how weak I felt. I wasn't sure if I could've gotten up and walked to the bathroom if I needed, but hopefully the soup would energize me. That, and the little scrap of garlic bread Riggs hadn't eaten while I was asleep.
I noticed Riggs was staring a little too close at me until I took a bite of the bread. Garlic. Was it true what they said about garlic and vampires? God. He was wondering if I was one. Did that mean he knew about Maisey? I had to resist the urge to suddenly throw the bread across the room, just in case being close to the smell would weaken my sister. Instead, I decided to devour it in one big bite before Riggs could think to ask Maisey to try it.
Gravy Boat hopped up onto the bed and walked in a circle on my legs, then arched his back, proudly showing me his asshole.
"That cat has already shit and pissed in here three times," Riggs said.
Gravy Boat walked over and head-butted Riggs, who petted him briefly. He seemed to realize what he was doing and yanked his hand back suddenly.
I looked to my side and saw Maisey had already fallen asleep sitting up in her chair. I smiled, then pulled one of my blankets off and set it on her as well as I could from my bed. She must've been struggling to stay awake until she saw me get up.
Guilt washed over me. There I went again, being a burden. Even when my sister was in so much danger, she was always putting my needs first.
The big man and Fang headed out of the room after a few more minutes. I wondered if they were going to go get food. But Riggs didn't seem like he planned to move.
He was just looming there in the corner of the room, arms crossed and looking like some sort of angry god.
I slowly worked on the soup, careful not to give my stomach more than it could handle.
"Why are you really helping us?" I asked.
Riggs studied the floor, then looked up to me. "Because I am a dumbass."
I laughed. I hadn't expected that. "In your truck you made it sound like this was about money."
He looked like he was having an internal debate between clamming up and telling me everything. Finally, with a sigh, he came to my bedside and pulled up a chair. "I'm a werewolf. The people after you are vampires. Vampires have spent literally thousands of years trying to hunt us down to the last wolf and exterminate us. It led to a little bad blood. So if those fuckers want something, it means I want to stop them from getting it."
"And they want us."
Riggs nodded. He picked up the remains of my soup and gave me a questioning look.
"Go ahead," I said with a small smile.
He happily downed it, then rubbed his flat stomach with satisfaction.
"Do werewolves have really fast metabolisms?" I ran my gaze across his lean, muscular body, wondering where he put all the food.
"Something like that," he said, suddenly sounding stiff.
I realized he was looking at Maisey, but there was hatred in his eyes that made my skin go cold.
"What?" I asked.
Riggs shook his head. "It's nothing. How are you feeling, anyway?"
"Like somebody took my world, turned it upside down, and shook it around. I'm still waiting for the part where I wake up and find out this was all just a dream."
"If you dreamed me up, I'd be worried about you."
I opened my mouth to respond but wasn't sure what to say to that. The truth was, if I dreamed Riggs up, I probably wouldn't have changed much on the outside. But I would've given him a less abrasive personality. Maybe I would've sprinkled in an obsession with giving hour-long foot rubs, too.
"Anyway," he said, standing and stretching his legs. "We can only stay here for a week. So make yourself comfortable, but not too comfortable. The
y won't come for you here. Once we're back outside, all bets are off, though."
"Should we be scared?" I asked.
Riggs didn't hesitate. "Yes. The guys after you are cleaners who work for the Coven. They've got pretty much unlimited resources. The rules are they have to let you go free if they don't catch you within a month, but they always catch their prey. It's part of their reputation, and it's not a reputation they take lightly."
"So you've never saved someone from these cleaners?"
"That's enough questions," Riggs said. His tone had changed. It went stiff and cold. He got up and moved back to his corner of the room, crossing his arms again like a statue of a guardsman.
I made a few more passing attempts at conversation, but only got grunts out of him after that point.
I finally gave up and rolled to my side on the bed, facing Maisey. She was asleep with her head rolled back and her mouth hanging open. Soft snores came from her, which made me smile.
But slight movement caught my eye from her teeth. I squinted, looking closer at what I thought must have been an optical illusion. Instead, I realized her canine teeth were slowly extending downward and narrowing to points.
As subtly as I could, I nudged her, which succeeded in getting her to roll her head forward and close her mouth with an indignant snore grunt.
I took a few shaky breaths, not daring to look back toward Riggs and see if he'd noticed. It felt like someone had taken a ball of ice and shoved it into my stomach. Creeping cold was spreading to every inch of my body until all my hairs stood on end.
My sister was turning into a vampire. She wasn't sick. Not with any normal virus, at least. She was turning into a freaking vampire in the middle of a werewolf den full of superhuman creatures who hated vampires with a raging passion.
Best case scenario, Riggs would throw us out once he realized, and now that I was taking a real look at Maisey, I knew it wouldn't be long before he realized. Worst case scenario, he'd gut us on the spot.
Shit.
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