by R. J. Blain
I’d also remember to check for signs of life before making the jump.
When I staked a vampire, I went for the chest, hitting hard enough to pierce the skin. The instant sacred wood contacted undead blood, the vampire froze. The best stakes came from ancient trees, the living wood withstanding hundreds of years beneath the light of the sun.
The tip pierced my chest between my breasts, angled to pierce through my heart should the shadowy form holding it decide to finish me. I managed to suck in a single breath before my heart stopped and my blood froze in my veins.
Violet eyes, gleaming in the darkness, stared into mine. My last breath was still warm on my lips, and the evening cool stung my eyes, but I couldn’t even blink.
The figure leaned closer, descending into my field of vision, his smile exposing the elongated fangs of a vampire preparing to feed. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d smiled the same way before drinking until my victims had nothing left to offer me.
Unable to breathe, every moment pulled me towards my second death. It would take five to ten minutes if he let me suffocate, one or two if he opened my jugular and claimed my blood.
It could go either way. I’d never seen a miscreant as well-groomed as him, and I could guess why he’d been granted eternal life after death. Human women would kill to have a chance with a model-pretty man, and undeath had immortalized my captor’s pretty face. No, pretty wasn’t the right word. While he had a softer jaw, he carried with him a sense of age and strength despite his modern suit.
Miscreants never wore suits.
“This one’s too old,” he announced. “Another.”
I wished I could move my eyes; it’d give me a chance to see how many surrounded me if I had a chance to escape.
Someone handed my captor a new stake, a beauty of polished wood gleaming in the moonlight. He eased the tip from my skin long enough I could suck in a labored breath. My heart managed a single, painful beat before he pressed the sharpened wooden tip into my flesh, once again angled towards my heart.
His expression soured, his satisfied smile fading. “Still too old.”
The sirens below quieted, but it wouldn’t save me—nothing would except mercy I wouldn’t ask for even if I could speak.
“She could be an infant. You can overpower her if we try a sapper.”
“Give it to me,” the violet-eyed beauty demanded, holding out his hand.
I’d never carved a stake from a sapling before; I thought it too slender, too flimsy to be dangerous, but the vampire holding me allowed me a single breath again before stabbing me in the chest with the twig.
My body remained frozen, but air flooded into my lungs and my heart thudded back to life. I shuddered.
I hadn’t known I could be staked but live and breathe, hostage to the wood’s power.
My captor chuckled, and he placed the older, thicker stake on the roof beside me. “That’s better. Excellent. How old was the wood, Ben?”
“A branch from a yearling.”
“I doubt she’s even a year old, then. All right, young lady. As I’d rather not hold a stake to your heart all night long, I have a special present for you. You won’t like it, but it beats being actually staked, doesn’t it?”
I wasn’t so sure, but I couldn’t force my lips to move to tell him to take his stake and shove it up his ass.
Ben proved to be another vampire, closer to what I expected from my brethren but cleaner. He wore denim from head to toe with a black leather hat tipped forward enough to obscure all but his mouth and his pronounced incisors. “Needle, manacles, or cuffs?”
“Let’s use the cuffs. The sapper’s pliable enough to circle her wrist with the leather. If that’s too strong for her, we’ll carry her to the car. I’d rather not draw any extra unwanted attention. It was difficult enough flushing her out.”
They’d flushed me out? My chosen escape route hadn’t been my only option. It’d been one of the more dangerous ones, too. I could’ve stayed put and hidden in the ruins of the Mink Building for the entire night without anyone being the wiser to my presence.
I’d been careful about the vampires I targeted. They preyed on humans. They lived in the shadows. I never touched humans.
Ben stepped out of my field of vision and left me alone with the handsome vampire, who held the slender stake against my chest with a steady hand. While I waited, I memorized every feature from his perfect nose to the gentle curve of his throat.
Unlike me, he looked like he never missed a meal or a session at the gym.
“My name’s Emerick Lowrance, and I don’t know who your master is, but he will pay for your crimes.”
As killing other vampires likely counted as a crime despite them preying on humans, I couldn’t deny someone needed to pay. I’d chosen my prey. I’d stalked them, confirmed their sins against humans, and drank away their lives so I might live. If my tongue ever became my own, I would protest. And when I did, I would add Emerick Lowrance to my shortlist of vampires I hated above all else for assigning guilt to the innocent.
My so-called master wasn’t innocent of much as far as I was concerned, but he hadn’t committed my crimes for me. Once I found the fanged bastard, I’d add to my sins and rid the Earth of him.
Ben approached. “I found a different sapper to try and weaved it into the cuff.”
“You’ll regret it if you fight this,” Emerick warned, and he lifted the stake from my chest.
Running wouldn’t win me anything, not when I gasped to catch my breath and my chest throbbed from the exposure to sun-kissed wood. I doubted I’d be able to roll over the ledge without someone giving me a push.
Emerick grabbed my arm, lifting so Ben could wrap a leather cuff around my wrist, which had a strip of pale wood laced around its edge. Like the stake had done, the cuff weakened me, ensuring either of my captors could overpower me with ease.
Magic. Only magic could turn a polished strip of wood into a restraint. I’d handled stakes from ancient trees without them ripping away my strength and reducing me to the fragility of a human.
No, even a human could defeat me without much effort.
“Other cuff,” Emerick ordered, releasing my arm.
My hand flopped to the roof, and I stared at it, aware I should’ve done something other than stare at the black leather and pale wood.
“With all due respect, perhaps see if she can walk with just one first?” Ben slid a finger beneath the cuff to check my pulse. “Her heart rate is elevated.”
Emerick huffed. “Of course her heart rate is elevated. Even a light staking does that. Are you going to cooperate, lady?”
I tested my tongue, and upon discovering it obeyed me, I licked my lips to wet them so I could speak. “Do I have a choice?”
“No. You don’t.”
“If you’re going to stake me, just get it over with.” I kept still, my body tense as I waited for Emerick to decide my fate. The dangerous hope he might put me to my final rest stirred. Nothing else had worked.
Maybe I could goad the other vampire into doing it.
“Just as humans don’t execute infants for being young and making mistakes, we don’t do such things to our infants, either. All your crimes belong to your master for not teaching you how to behave. Granted, had you hunted humans, your body would already be cold and in preparation for your final grave. But you’ve never drunk from a human, have you?”
Fury granted me the strength needed to sit up, but I doubted I’d be able to stand without help. “Never.”
Emerick narrowed his eyes, reached for me, and pressed his fingers to my throat, checking my pulse. If he wanted to strangle me, he could with ease. “Your master should have taught you better than that already. We are what we are, and we drink human blood. There are plenty of willing donors for all of us. Betray your master now. It will make things easier on you.”
“So you can get to him and kill him first?” I lifted my chin, determined to hold onto my pride until the bitter end. “
I don’t think so.”
Emerick’s brows rose. “You would kill your master?”
My fury bloomed into a boiling rage, spilling from my lips in a low growl.
Ben grabbed my unbound wrist and wrapped the second cuff around it. “I changed my mind. With her hissing mad, let’s not take any chances.”
“You would kill your master?” Emerick repeated, his tone demanding I answer him.
I defied him with my silence, baring my fangs at him.
“Just because you treat your new children well doesn’t mean other masters do. Perhaps she’s been abused. I would want to kill you if you had abused me in my infancy. You hadn’t, of course. But had you, I would react the same. It’s natural to turn against those who have hurt us.” While Ben kept his tone mild, respectful on the surface, something about the vampire’s expression led me to believe he toed a dangerous line and tested Emerick’s authority.
Emerick’s attention snapped from me to Ben. “What proof have you? That she is as you think?”
“A guess, Master. Nothing more. But that sort of anger, strong enough she fights despite being cuffed as she is, says more angers her than a broken nail or having missed breakfast.”
“Is he right, lady?”
“What’s it to you?” I demanded. “You’re not my master.”
“But I will be. It’ll be easier on you if you cooperate. I can make it pleasant, or you can make it difficult. But as your master is incapable of controlling you, you will be taken from him and taught how to be one of us. Proper vampires do not scurry the night streets of New York like vermin. Consider yourself fortunate there are many who like what you’ve done despite your inclination to scurry among the other vermin. You chose your prey well. I’ll give you that much. You chose very well. Your choices saved your life this night. Instead of torturing and killing you to draw your master out, I will steal you from him and make you mine. Either way, he’s drawn out. This way, I’m strengthened with your presence within my brood.”
I considered Emerick, my anger ebbing beneath the pressure of unanswered questions.
Of my questions, one stood out more than the others, relevant to everything I’d done since becoming a vampire. “You call them vermin. The miscreants who lurk on the streets.”
“We call them a lot of things,” Emerick corrected. “Miscreants is a new one, but I like it. No, officially, they’re fugitives. Lawbreakers who have violated the sacred rules of our kind and the rules of humans. They are outcast by all and wanted for their crimes. You haven’t been classified as a fugitive yet. You haven’t violated any of our sacred rules, and while we care nothing for the laws of humans, things will become difficult for you if you’ve broken any. As your master, it will be my responsibility to resolve any such issues and handle your punishments according to vampire laws. Putting a thirsty vampire in general holding wouldn’t end well for the humans.”
His smile intrigued yet chilled me. No matter what I said, I’d reveal my ignorance. The tabloids and news implied vampires lived by a set of rules, and I’d been led to believe they took those rules seriously.
“Do you have nothing to say?”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
In life, my tongue had gotten me into trouble often enough, although I’d learned to rein it in during business hours and leave most of my barbs for the privacy of my apartment, my haven from my father’s world of fame and fortune. Then, I would’ve been eager to place the blame on anyone other than myself, but clawing my way out of a shallow grave had done more than change my body.
Even if I found a way to reverse unlife, I could never return to the woman I’d once been.
Emerick and Ben stared, and the so-called master’s eyes narrowed while his companion’s widened. As they had the first time I’d seen them, Emerick’s violet eyes drew me in and demanded my undivided attention.
“What is your master’s name?” Emerick demanded.
His question cut into me as sharp and unyielding as the stakes he’d used to immobilize me. The cuffs weighed me down, and I strained to remain upright. I lifted my right hand, which shook. The scars of where I’d cut myself rising from my grave marred my palm. Those scars offered hope that immortality was a lie like so much else I’d believed about the preternatural.
“Master,” Ben murmured, and something in his tone drew Emerick’s gaze away from me.
I breathed easier without his focus on me.
“What?”
“She might be one of them.” I glanced through my lashes to discover Ben stared at the thin, pale scars crisscrossing my hand. “She can’t obey your order because she doesn’t know. She wants to kill him because he left her in a shallow grave to die like the others.”
Emerick’s violet eyes dulled, the color bleeding away to black. “Is that true, lady?”
His tone demanded an answer, and unlike with his other questions, I could tell him the truth. Something cold and relentless wrapped around my heart and squeezed the longer I delayed answering. “Yes,” I hissed through clenched teeth.
“Well.” Ben rose to his feet and dusted his jeans off. “This just became complicated.”
The cuffs did more than steal my strength. They ate away at my will, and I struggled to keep my secrets my own, but Emerick wore me down until his words became law. He began with questions I couldn’t answer. I remembered nothing of how I’d become a vampire.
That bothered both men, and I wasn’t sure why.
Then he asked me questions I could answer, but my answers displeased him as much as my ignorance.
I knew nothing about those I’d hunted beyond their crimes. Without his prying, I might’ve forgotten I’d stalked one of my victims for over a week before confirming his guilt and draining him dry. That I’d taken so much blood astounded both vampires.
I wanted to ask questions of my own, but the few times I’d tried, the words stuck in my throat.
When Emerick demanded I stand, I couldn’t without help. Once on my feet, I swayed. Without Ben’s hold on my arm, I would’ve slid back to the rooftop.
Emerick took hold of my chin and lifted my head, forcing me to stare into his eyes, still darker than the night. “A Lowrance vampire is a prideful vampire. I would remember that if I were you. Am I understood?”
“Yes,” my traitorous tongue replied. “I understand.”
“Good. It would be better if you walk to the car under your own steam. You may not be mine yet, but you will be.”
One question he left unasked, and I wondered if he thought I’d volunteer the name given to me at birth but abandoned when I’d become everything I’d been raised to hate. Pride demanded I try to walk, but my feet refused to cooperate. Ben kept me upright, and his strength alone would’ve revealed his preternatural nature had I not spotted his fangs.
They’d shrunken since he’d bound me with the cuffs. Mine never shrank, and I stared at his mouth, stumbling when he continued to pull me along.
“Ask your question,” Emerick ordered.
While embarrassed I’d been caught in the act, curiosity got the better of me. “His teeth shrank.”
Ben halted, and he glanced towards his master, who chuckled. “He’s not agitated, thirsty, or hungry. Strong emotions can elongate them as well. The older you become as a vampire, the faster the transition is. Stress can elongate them as well. Open your mouth.”
Flustered that he wanted to look at my teeth, I hesitated before doing as told. While I showed him my fangs, I hissed at him for treating me like an animal up for sale.
My defiance amused him, and Emerick took hold of my chin, lifting my upper lip with his thumb for a better look at my fangs. “In vampires brought up the traditional way, it’s possible to judge age by the development of your fangs. Adverse conditions can cause problems down the road, although your teeth seem to have emerged relatively unscathed. The length is good.”
Emerick pressed his thumb to my fang. A violet gleam brightened his dark eyes. He pressed the b
all of his thumb to the tip hard enough to draw blood, which splashed onto my tongue, sweet instead of metallic, sharp, and sour like I expected.
I fought the urge to suck on his thumb for another taste. To keep myself from falling to the temptation, I jerked my head to the side. My heart pounded, and I swallowed until the need to latch onto him and drink subsided.
“Decent control, too. I look forward to taking you from your maker. The night is still young. Carry her down the stairs, Ben. She can walk to the car from the ground floor. Her taking a tumble would ruin my plans.”
Ben raised a brow. “You have a plan?”
“I do now,” Emerick replied with a faint smile.
The cuffs reduced me to a semi-conscious mess. Still, I somehow managed to make it to the car, a sleek, four-door luxury vehicle my father would’ve appreciated. Ben guided me to the back seat, helped me in, and slid behind the wheel. Emerick closed my door, circled the vehicle, and joined me in the back. When I didn’t buckle my seatbelt, he did it for me.
The criticism I expected didn’t come. Ben started the car, reversed until he could turn around without risk of dumping the vehicle into a hole, and approached a cordon of police cars blocking people from approaching the Mink Building and surrounding properties.
Ben didn’t have to wait long before they let him through, and when he eased the vehicle through the blockade, one of the cops thumped the roof. Ben stopped and rolled down the window. “Chief,” he greeted.
“Good hunting?” I’d never met a Chief of Police before, but the older man seemed worn and tired to me.
“Indeed.”
“Master Lowrance,” the chief greeted.
“Chief Owens,” Emerick replied.
“So, this is the woman responsible for all the fuss?”
Emerick chuckled. “I’d hardly call it a fuss. She didn’t even put up a fight, which is why she’s cuffed instead of staked. You’re going to need to have more men on the ground to deal with the surge of fugitives, however. I suspect incidents will be on the rise with her off the streets.”
“She’s the one who’s been taking out the fugitives?”