Reaping Willow

by D. N. Hoxa

  But dead men can’t speak, and the ceiling had no answer.

  I stayed.

  Once I cleared my head a bit, I realized if Cirko was telling the truth about this vampire chick, she needed to be stopped. This was much bigger than me and my issues.

  Plus, if I had something to do, something else to think about, I wouldn’t have time to torture myself thinking about Trappers, Inc. or my dad.

  Not to mention leaving Adrian was…harder to think about than I liked to admit that particular night.

  However, I came to regret that decision the second Adrian came out of his room.

  “You stayed.” What an outstanding observation! Someone, give this man a medal.

  “Trust me, it wasn’t because of you,” I said, and to spite him, I stood up to go to the kitchen for a glass of water. I was hungry, too, but there was nothing in the fridge. I’d checked.

  But Adrian was in my way, and he didn’t move. “It doesn’t have to be because of me.”

  “Good, because it wasn’t.” Just wanted to make it clear.

  He looked at me like he was trying to see into my head, his eyes roaming around my face like they were out for a walk. It almost made me blush.

  “It’s not me you’re angry at, Willow.”

  I laughed an awful sound. “You’re the expert. You should know.”

  But he didn’t get the memo. “It sucks to find out about your father this way, but it wasn’t your fault.”

  This again? How dare he?

  I blinked away the tears and pictured what it would feel like to punch him in the face instead. The image in my head was so satisfying.

  “Just because you know it’s your fault about what happened with your father doesn’t mean I feel the same,” I said. He closed his eyes and lowered his head with a sigh. “No, no, you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just say that and then throw it all on me!”

  “Jesus, I’m on your side here!” he shouted, raising his arms at his side.

  “No, you’re not. I know why you’re here. I know why you’re doing this. You don’t want to have to go back to your life, so you’re stalling. You’re buying time.” I might have been doing the same, but that wasn’t the point. He shouldn’t have brought my father up again. I couldn’t stand it, damn it.

  “Just stop talking,” he said, so angry the ice of his eyes was melting again.

  “You think I’m stupid, that I couldn’t tell? You can’t stand the thought of facing your brothers!” Just like I couldn’t stand the thought of facing the secrets my father had left behind.

  “Stop talking, Willow,” he warned me again, but I couldn’t. God knows I couldn’t. I mean, his brothers and his father were alive. He could go and talk to them, see them, fight for them, but here he was, staying with me! If my father was alive…

  “No!” I shouted. “You can’t hide forever, Adrian. You can’t run from them—they’re your family.” My voice broke. “Don’t you dare tell me it wasn’t my fault because—”

  I stopped speaking. Kind of hard not to do that when someone practically slams their lips against yours.

  My body froze, and my heart stilled for a second. My eyes closed and every cell in my body focused on him. On his soft lips on mine, on his hands framing my face, on his body against mine. What the hell was he doing? He had no right to kiss me. He had no right to feel this good.

  There was a part of me somewhere that knew this was wrong. It wanted me to put my hands on his chest and push him as far away as I could. But my hands seemed to have a mind of their own now because, instead of pushing him away, they wrapped around the back of his neck, and I kissed him back like it was the only thing that mattered in the world.

  Then came the light.

  My eyes squeezed shut because I was afraid I’d go blind. I’d kissed men before, but no kiss had ever let me see inside them. Not like this. It felt like I was being transported into Adrian’s mind, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. His light, so bright and warm, slipped into me much faster than the cold darkness of a man who’d given away his soul would. I could stand in his light forever and have not one complaint.

  But Adrian broke contact and touched his forehead to mine way too soon. “Just stop talking,” he whispered against my mouth, his eyes still closed. I’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my life.

  “I’m about to start again.” I’d speak for as long as I had to, if it made him kiss me again.

  And he did. The feeling grabbed hold of me as soon as our lips touched. Heaven must have been envious of how bright, how warm his light was. As our lips crashed onto one another, I realized why I had never been able to feel Adrian the way I did everybody else, why he confused me, why he was different.

  It was because he was pure. People were always either more good or more bad, never just one or the other. Except Adrian. I thought he didn’t have a soul. I was wrong. He had the purest soul I’d ever felt. He was just completely good. And to be there under his light, to feel the power of his pureness, it was mesmerizing. I never wanted it to end. That’s why I held onto him like he was my lifeline and kissed him like the world might end if I stopped.

  Sadly, all good things have to come to an end.

  The knock on the door shocked us both apart. Suddenly, the overhead lights of the apartment felt dim. My skin was cold because his warmth was gone, and we both breathed heavily as if we’d been running for hours. We just looked at each other because there were no words that could explain what we felt. What I felt. But had he felt the same?

  It was a question for another time because someone knocked on the door again.

  Adrian closed his eyes and straightened his shirt and went to answer, while I hurried to the kitchen to get that glass of water. I really needed it now.

  The door opened, and Cirko walked in with two black bags in hand. He threw them on the floor, and his eyes met mine. I recognized the fear in his even before he spoke.

  “It’s Loretta. She killed another human,” he said.

  It was time to go back to the real world again, where demons roamed free, and it was my job to stop them.

  Chapter Fourteen

  For two days, we planned. Cirko stayed with us. He took the couch and I took the guest room, and even after two days, I still couldn’t believe that I was inside an apartment with a demon and with a…with Adrian.

  Sadly, we didn’t repeat our kissing session. In fact, we didn’t talk about it at all. I was blaming Cirko for it. No way we were going to talk about something like that with him around. But that didn’t mean I stopped thinking about what he had felt like. That light, that warmth, it was everything, even better than an orgasm, if you can believe it. And I wanted to tell him, but it’s not like I could say, hey, Adrian, remember when I said you didn’t have a soul? Well, you do. I saw it when we kissed and it’s the brightest, warmest, most beautiful thing in the whole world. Yeah, no. That wasn’t going to work. So I kept my mouth shut, and so did he.

  I stayed inside because I didn’t want anyone to see my face. I didn’t want anything to stop what we were trying to do: send Loretta-the-vamp right back to hell. We only waited for two days because we had no idea where she stayed when she wasn’t at one of the clubs she liked.

  I’d suggested we go after her during daylight. Find out where she was hiding because vampires didn’t sleep and then just bring her out in sunlight. It would do the trick. She’d turn into a pile of ashes. But to find out where she stayed was impossible, according to Cirko. It was going to take us a long time to find her, and time was what we didn’t have when she kept killing people a couple times a week. So the plan we’d come up with was simple: I got to play the bait, and I also got to kill that bitch dead. Adrian and Cirko were going to take care of her two bodyguards—also vampires— until I finished up.

  Neither of them thought it was a good idea. They didn’t like the fact that I was the bait, but they also agreed that to get another human to do it would be too dangerous. They
were worried that humans who’d sold their souls would try to kill me when they saw my face, so I’d just ordered a masquerade mask online. I chose red because when I analyzed the pictures Cirko had gathered, I noticed that all of Loretta’s victims wore it the night she picked them to kill. Plus, I liked how red looked on me. The mask covered half my face, not to mention that it went perfectly with the red dress I’d also ordered. I was going to need Loretta to pick me in a room full of humans, after all. I aimed to impress.

  “She takes them to the VIP rooms over here,” said Cirko, showing us the picture of the club where Loretta was going to be tonight. He pointed at the second floor of the bar and a set of double doors with a red rope in front of them. “That’s where she does the draining.”

  Ugh. I’d never had the good fortune to kill a vampire demon before, but I felt lucky. This bitch had killed too many people already. It was time someone gave her a taste of her own medicine.

  “Are you sure we can get there through the back?” asked Adrian.

  “Positive,” said Cirko. “There’s a set of service stairs no one but Loretta’s waiters can get through.”

  “Who’ll try to stop us?”

  “Probably one or two guards. Nothing we can’t handle,” said Cirko. He was more excited about this by the second. If someone had told me before that I’d actually meet a demon like him, I’d have laughed in their faces, right before punching them in the nose. “It’s her bodyguards that are going to be a problem.”

  “That’s why you brought these babies here,” I said with a grin. The babies were seven Glocks, two Mossberg shotguns, an automatic rifle, and lots of bullets. I never knew I liked firearms so much until he opened those bags and showed them to me.

  “We’ll shoot them until we can get close enough to stab them in the heart with Willow’s knives,” Adrian said.

  “Right,” Cirko whispered, nodding his head. Then… “I still think it’s a better idea to talk to Trappers, Inc.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We’ve been over this, Cirko.” We had—a thousand times already.

  “They have better resources, are better trained. They can help us.”

  “We don’t know that they will,” I said. “I mean, this Loretta chick has been around for more than two months. The fact that they’ve done nothing about it says a lot about how efficient they are.”

  “I’m sure they’re onto her. They’re probably following her as we speak,” Cirko insisted.

  “Oh, please. I bet if they felt her, they ran the other way. And I’ve been training since I was eleven years old, remember?”

  But Cirko paused for a second. “What do you mean, felt her?”

  “Exactly that. They probably felt her, if they were even looking for demons, and they took off.”

  He looked at Adrian as if he could give a better answer.

  But Adrian had a question of his own. “How do you think Willow found out about you?”

  He shrugged. “She followed me.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, real funny, Cirko.”

  “She felt you that day at the cake shop. She didn’t follow you. You gave her the address,” Adrian said.

  But Cirko still looked like he didn’t get it. Which made me stop laughing.

  “How do you think she finds other demons?” Adrian continued.

  “I don’t…I haven’t thought about it,” Cirko said. “But I’ve heard Trappers have connections everywhere, that they monitor the streets and the clubs and whatever, searching for demons.”

  Was it just me, or… “Cirko, you know that I can feel you, right?”

  “Feel me, how?” He was really good at playing dumb, or he really didn’t know.

  “It feels like being thrown in a bathtub full of ice. It’s not just you—it’s with every demon. How else would I know who is who?”

  “Well…fuck,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “Why? I mean, why can you do that but not the other Trappers?”

  “I’m pretty sure they can do it, too.” Though it’s not exactly something you do—just what you felt.

  “No, no, I would have known. I’ve been keeping tabs on them for a couple years now. They follow their suspects until they get proof before they take action.”

  “They probably just hide it, that’s all.” It’s what made the most sense.

  “Do you…do you feel me right now?” he asked me.

  “Are you kidding me? It’s torture just to sit here next to you.” Not really. After the initial shock, the feeling kind of goes away, and I get used to what’s left of it.

  “Does it help if I stay away?” he asked, his eyes wide with concern.

  I couldn’t help myself. “You know what, it does. If you stand in that corner, I would feel so much better.” I pointed at the other side of the room.

  Adrian looked at me because he knew I was lying. It didn’t matter how close a demon was—if we were in the same room, I was going to feel them.

  But Cirko had no idea, and he actually stood up and went to the farthest corner of the living room.

  “How’s that?”

  “Much better,” I said, trying to stifle a laugh.

  “Cirko, get back here, man. Come on,” Adrian said, and I punched him in the shoulder.

  “No, it’s okay. I can hear you from here,” Cirko said.

  God, it was so funny to see him standing against the wall like that.

  “She’s just playing with you. Whether you’re here or there makes no difference,” said Adrian.

  “Not true! I feel so much better right now.” Because Cirko looked hilarious.

  Adrian shook his head, but he was smiling, too. “You’re relentless. Just let the poor guy sit. Look at him. He looks like he’s been grounded for being a bad boy.”

  I laughed, and Cirko figured out that I was just messing with him.

  “Ha-ha. Real funny,” he mumbled, and slowly came back to the couch. I couldn’t stop laughing.

  “I’m sorry, Cirko. I couldn’t help it.” And I wondered, what else could I make him do before he figured out I was messing around?

  “Well, you better put those acting skills to use tonight because Loretta has just entered the club,” he said, effectively cutting my laugh off. He was looking at the text he’d just received on his phone.

  “Are you sure you can trust whoever it is that’s updating you?” Adrian asked.

  “It’s a friend of Vin’s. Human. He has no clue about anything. I just asked him to watch the entrance from his car and then get out of there once she arrives.”

  The way he said it… “Wait, does Vin know about you?”

  “Of course he does,” Cirko said without hesitation.

  Holy shit! “And?”

  “And, nothing. He doesn’t care,” he said, closing his laptop. We needed to be on our way. The club was on the Upper East Side, and we needed about fifteen minutes to get there.

  “That’s some friend you got there, Cirko,” Adrian said, as impressed as I was. I didn’t know another human who’d be okay with their friend being a demon. That said a lot about Cirko, no matter if I wanted to admit it.

  “He’s the best man I know,” the demon said.

  It shouldn’t have been possible, but I felt bad for him. I understood him.

  And I still couldn’t believe I was helping him.

  “Don’t forget the mask, Willow,” Adrian said when I left for the guest room to get dressed.

  It had been years since I’d worn an actual dress. In high school, my friend Marcy made me wear one every day. I loved her for that, and now, as I put the red satin dress on, I realized just how much I missed her. It was a lonely life without friends. I had to cut her off after high school because I didn’t want to put her in danger, and I couldn’t explain why I never wanted to go out with her, then have to lie about when I went out alone. Guess I should have considered myself lucky to be sharing an apartment with Adrian and Cirko now.

  I tied my hair in a loose bun and even put on my red lipstick, b
ut I didn’t go as far as to wear high heels. My white sneakers were going to have to do. I was aiming to impress, but I was also aiming to kill a vampire. I hid my knives in a makeshift holster I’d made for my thighs. That was why I’d chosen that particular dress: tight at the top and loose at the bottom. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to even run, let alone take my weapons with me.

  Finally, I wore my mask. We were going to a club, and maybe there would be no one in there who made a deal with the devil, but maybe there would. There was no need to take unnecessary risks. And the red color and the mask were bound to get Loretta’s attention. She needed to pick me as her next victim; otherwise this whole thing would blow.

  When I walked out of the guest room, the boys were ready to go. They both wore white button up shirts with the sleeves rolled up to their elbows. I’d never seen Adrian in a button up before, and a good thing, too. I was finding it very difficult not to stare.

  Cirko whistled. “Why didn’t you wear that on our date?”

  I grinned. “I didn’t want to torture you before having to kill you.” I turned to Adrian. “Why aren’t you whistling?”

  He smiled. “I guess I’m not a demon,” he said, and that was it. “Shall we?”

  Wow. I could see my ego falling to the ground in pieces. What an asshole. Not that I was trying to impress him, anyway. Whatever.

  I forced myself to take my mind off it even before we left the apartment. The night had only just begun, and a redheaded vampire was on the loose. I was going to need all of my focus to get this done.

  The Spray Zone Club was pretty famous, as it seemed. If it wasn’t for Cirko, who apparently frequented that particular club all the time, we would have had to wait in line for God knows how long. But he knew the bouncers, and they let us in while the people in the line called us all kinds of names. On any other night, I would have at least flipped them off, but not tonight.

  The inside was much bigger than it had appeared in the pictures Cirko showed us, but the second floor was clearly visible and the double doors to the VIP section were right there. According to the demon, Loretta would be hanging out on the second floor until she found a target, but the moving, colorful lights in the ceiling made it impossible to see if she was there.