by T. A. White
To my left eye, it gleamed with a soft silver glow. That same glow was infused along the entirety of my own faint aura. This wasn’t the first time it had saved me from a magical attack, though it might be the last. A hairline crack ran through the middle of the stone.
I dropped it back under my shirt with a sigh. Jerry, the owner of Hermes, hadn’t been kidding when he said I’d become the number one target in town once he withdrew his protection. Over the last two months, it had become evident how many spooks had an axe to grind with vampires.
As the youngest vampire in the area, and the only one I knew of without the benefit of a clan’s protection, I was considered an easy mark. Where they wouldn’t dare challenge the vampires who were both stronger than me and possessed the full might of a clan at their back, they seemed to think killing me would settle whatever score they had, while resulting in the least amount of danger to themselves.
I’d like to say they were wrong, but they weren’t. Not entirely. As a baby vamp, I had very little personal power, except for a strange ability to see magic and a frustrating talent for finding trouble in the least likely of places. All things considered, I was significantly weaker than the weakest of spooks and all alone with no one to watch my back or avenge me should I fall. Not a good place to be when you were part of a species both envied and hated.
I sighed and looked up at the camera again. It had caught the entire confrontation on its recording. I’d have to watch it and see if the magic had shown up. Sometimes it didn’t. Magic was tricky. It didn’t always act the way you expected. If it did show up, I’d have to figure out an explanation for why an entire night’s recording was deleted.
But, first things first, I needed to deal with the dratted sign, in a way that meant it wouldn’t come back to cause me problems later.
I groped around under the counter, pulling out a box cutter before heading to the sign. It wasn’t a pair of scissors but would hopefully get the job done.
I rounded the counter and only made it a few steps before the lights flickered, the world around me darkening as if a thundercloud had invaded the postage stamp-sized store.
The dry rustle of old paper surrounded me. I realized with a start it was laughter. “Poor little vampire. Such trials you face. What’s she going to do now, I wonder?”
“Cry.”
“Surrender.”
“Bleed.”
“Die.”
Other voices echoed as they threw out their guesses.
“Perhaps we should put her out of her misery,” another voice suggested.
The theatrics were meant to be ominous, to inspire dread and fear. I remained unmoved, my expression unchanged. It seemed my tormentors had decided to make themselves known. Finally.
It was all very dramatic and might have worked had I not known an expert at this type of intimidation. The sorcerer was many things, showman included. Now there was a guy who could work a room. These punks were amateurs compared to him.
I focused, taking a look at the magic around me. Sure enough, the sign had little red prints all over it. Ones that appeared to be a cross between a small animal’s paw and a hand. That at least was vaguely creepy.
In the aisle, the shadows under the shelves deepened, becoming more dense than they should be under the fluorescent light. A normal would ascribe the shadows to a trick of the light. I knew better. Especially since I caught the impression of eyes and pointed teeth in the depths of some of those shadows.
Goblins.
I suppose it could be worse. Goblins weren’t typically considered dangerous, not unless they were part of a swarm or one of the higher goblins. These weren’t.
Thank all the gods.
I counted only five, three of whom were no bigger than my hand. Annoying but not deadly.
Sometimes it was the small wins that kept me going.
“I suggest you move along,” I told them, my smile widening to show my fangs. “My patience with your antics is fast disappearing.”
“Stupid vampire. We know you’re bluffing. You’re too weak to scare us.”
One goblin grew bold, drifting out from under the shelf and dropping some of its glamour.
The creature was no bigger than a house cat, slinking forward on all fours, its back rounded. Its skin had a dark green bordering on black tint to it.
I expected its form to be grotesque, as many folktales depicted it, but the little goblin wasn’t. It was sleek and streamlined, its face containing some human characteristics as well as something alien—something that made it all the more interesting to look at.
Its eyes were large pools of black, and sticking out of its forehead were tiny protrusions that might have been considered horns had they been a bit longer.
Like me, goblins were denizens of the night, even more susceptible to damage from the sun than a vampire.
There were many types of goblins, some powerful, some not. These looked to be minor goblins, the kind that could irritate and annoy but weren’t really dangerous.
I had to wonder if their presence here was a crime of opportunity or if someone had pointed the little assholes my way. Vampires weren’t really their preferred targets and I hadn’t done anything to draw their ire that I knew of.
“Are you sure about that?” I asked with a bravado I didn’t necessarily feel. “Because I know a couple of harpies who enjoy trying adventurous new foods. I’ve heard goblin blood is considered a delicacy among some circles.”
The goblin reared back as cries of “monster” echoed from the rest.
I leaned forward and gave them a sinister smile. “You leave me alone, and I’ll do the same for you.”
There was a dry rattling hiss as the goblins slunk away, the shadows they’d used for cover fading, until only the one who’d dropped his glamour remained.
“You’re more like your kind than you pretend.” The words were not a compliment.
“You think so?” I asked. “I don’t. Had another vampire been here, they would have killed you all without giving you the nice warning, just because you irritated them.”
I turned toward the sign. “Now me, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect peace in my place of business. I’ve got a lot of patience, but I won’t stand for you lot putting my job in jeopardy.”
I turned back to where the goblin should be, only to realize I was addressing an empty store. I sighed. Figures. At least I’d earned a little peace. That threat should keep them away for the rest of the week. After that, we would see.
I set about returning the store to its normal state of untidy orderliness. The first thing to go was the sign. I unhooked it from its stand and dragged it outside. The thin poster board was about the same height as me. It was awkward more than anything, as I carefully carried it around the side of the building.
Cutting it into small, jagged strips was harder than I’d thought. The box cutter didn’t want to slice through the thick paper, the blade dull and useless. Eventually I tossed it aside after checking to make sure there were no prying eyes or cameras watching. Finding myself alone, I grasped the sign in my hands before ripping it apart piece by piece.
Having a vampire’s strength came in handy sometimes. This was one of those times.
After reducing the sign to about twenty small pieces, I threw it in the dumpster and turned back to the interior of the station. I’d like to see them reassemble that, I thought with an evil smile.
Next, I gathered up the burst soda cans and carried them to the dumpster along with any other un-salvageable items.
I tried to save what I could, tidying the newspapers strewn about and returning the change dispenser to its normal position. A stray case of Diet Coke and a few candy bars probably wouldn’t be missed. Much more than that, and the owners might try to take some of the damaged goods out of my paycheck. I couldn’t afford the loss of income. I just had to hope and pray no one did inventory for a while.
The rest of my shift was uneventful. Only two more customers ventured insi
de—both human—both content to pay and go about their business without even a grunted word of greeting.
After an interminably long time, five a.m. finally rolled around.
My replacement dragged in muttering, “Good morning,” around a wide yawn.
“Tough night?” I asked Josie as another yawn cracked her jaw.
“The best kind,” she said, before making a beeline for the coffee machine.
For a gas station with ninety-nine cent coffee, its flavor wasn’t half bad. At least, that’s what I’d been told. Food and I were on a break at the moment, and beverages like coffee were one of the many things I couldn’t have.
Josie had dark circles under her eyes that said she’d probably been out partying until the early morning. Her hair was a snarled mess, barely restrained in a messy bun at the top of her head.
“Any problems?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Pretty quiet.”
By some miracle, the cameras hadn’t caught anything from my earlier encounter that might reveal the spook world. I looked mildly crazy at one point talking to myself, but that was about it.
“I don’t know how you stand that shift. I would go insane,” Josie said with a shudder.
I shrugged. “It’s not that bad. I get to catch up on my reading at least.”
Josie did a faceplant on the counter. Her words came out garbled, but I thought she said something like, “Books, bleh.”
I revised my earlier opinion regarding the dark circles being a result of partying.
“Studying not going well, I take it.”
A muffled response came along the lines of, “Studying sucks.”
Josie was in college, studying to be a nurse. She worked here for rent and spending money.
She raised her head off the counter, a crease mark on her cheek. “It’s pretty dead in here. I don’t think we’ll pick up again until closer to rush hour. You’re welcome to take off if you’d like.”
I hesitated, glancing outside and calculating how much time I had left until sunrise. It was early September and the sun wouldn’t be up until nearly seven. Plenty of time to bike home and be under the covers of my own bed before the pesky ball of fire in the sky put me out for the day.
As a baby vamp, my tolerance to the sun was a lot less than a vampire a century or so older. It meant I had to be careful, always keeping one eye on my watch. The sun probably wouldn’t kill me, not as long as I was topped up on blood. Death from sun exposure was a myth, one created after a few starved, weakened vampires caught fire after exposure. For vampires at their peak strength, it was a pesky irritant capable of giving you the worst sunburn of your life. For me, it would put me into a coma-like sleep—the kind you didn’t wake up from easily—no matter how much someone shook and slapped you.
Still, I was torn. The extra money would be nice. Summer was killing my wallet. Reduced hours of dark meant limiting my working hours, leaving me to get by on the bare minimum. I was looking forward to winter and increasing my hours and paycheck.
Accurately reading my hesitation, Josie propped her cheek on a hand and gave me a sleepy smile. “Here’s a tip. If you check out at the forty-minute mark, you still get paid for the entire hour.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I’m not supposed to share that because they don’t want people taking advantage. Owen let me do that a few times when I was prepping for finals.”
Somehow that didn’t surprise me. The manager, Owen, had a huge crush on Josie and let her get away with things the rest of us couldn’t.
“Alright, I’ll stay until then,” I agreed.
She slapped the counter and straightened, her face brightening. “Great, now I don’t have to suffer through the next hour by myself.”
The remaining time passed quickly. Josie, it turned out, was pretty funny and made a good work buddy. She kept a running commentary on the customers who stopped to pump gas or come inside.
Before I knew it, I was clocking out and wheeling my bike from the storage room. I took a moment to look it over, not trusting the goblins had left it alone. Surprisingly, they hadn’t touched it; something I was grateful for.
As my only means of transportation, I was serious about the bike’s care and upkeep. Had they messed with it, I might actually have made good on my threat.
Or maybe not.
There was still an hour before I needed to be home. Plenty of time to bike there. The stars were beginning to fade as the sun prepared for its ascent. First light, which typically began half an hour before true sunrise, was still thirty minutes away.
The normal lethargy that plagued me during first light was still absent, but it wouldn’t be long now. It was a reminder of my limits. I could feel the sun in my chest as it lingered just under the horizon. The sensation would steadily grow stronger as sunrise approached.
Home was a second story walk-up on the outskirts of the university district. It was a plain, two story brick building composed of townhome style apartments. Mine was on the second story. I’m not sure if my place had originally been intended to be a one room apartment since the rest of the units were 2 story units, or if someone had gotten greedy for extra rent and turned the second floor into a stand-alone apartment.
When I’d first settled here, the entire complex had been little more than a slum. Since the new owner had taken over, they’d begun renovating the place, bringing everything up to code.
You’d think I’d be happy about that. Unfortunately, the new owner happened to be my sire, Thomas—a vampire I would gladly avoid for the rest of my undead life. Such was not to be, given his propensity for interference.
The cracked, unusable parking lot had been replaced and was now smooth, with sharp white lines delineating parking spots. One of them held the black Escalade my sire had given me as a gift. I still hadn’t touched it or figured out what I was going to do with it. Not that it mattered anymore, since I couldn’t even afford the gas it would take to fill it.
Gifts from vampires, I’d learned, always came with a set of strings attached to them. My sire seemed determined to get his hooks into me by any means possible, and I was just as determined to steer clear of them.
Everything to do with my sire involved hidden agendas and things not always being what they appeared. I couldn’t trust anything he did or said. I didn’t like being used, and I preferred to control my own destiny. It left me in a precarious predicament.
It didn’t help that he wasn’t afraid to use his power as my landlord to fuck with me either, as evidenced by the partially completed set of stairs to my unit.
It was not lost on me that construction on them halted right around the time I refused to use the mansion as my temporary lodging. I liked having my own place. Say what you will about the building’s condition, but I’d turned it into a home. I wasn’t willing to give that up. Not even for the opulent lodgings of the mansion.
Thomas thought by taking away my stairs he could force my hand. Not the case. As with everything in life, I adapted, and I overcame. Granted, it wasn’t easy and was growing increasingly annoying, but until my sire bored of this game, I was stuck finding new and inventive ways to access my own apartment.
I pulled a harness out of my backpack and slid into it. Once done, I shifted my backpack to my front before attaching the hooks in the back of the harness to the bike. I would have loved to leave my bike down here, but a couple of the college kids liked to play pranks. I couldn’t trust it would be here when I got back. That left me in the unenviable position of having to lug it upstairs every night.
I set one hand on the wall and began my climb, taking advantage of the easy handholds formed by the half-built stairs.
“You’re just making things worse. He’ll find another way to get to you until you stop being so stubborn,” a voice said from below.
CHAPTER TWO
I stilled. I knew that voice. Liam.
I shifted my weight, putting most of it on one foot and in my arms as I peered down.
Liam’s impossibly blue eyes stared up at me.
I caught my breath, suddenly feeling like I’d been punched in the chest. He always did that to me. He had the sort of charismatic presence that eclipsed any notion of beauty, the sum of his parts totaling to much more than what each feature would be if taken separately. Not to say he wasn’t handsome. He was. His face possessed the strong lines and rugged features you’d imagine on one of those billionaire CEOs featured in romance books.
But a pretty face wasn’t the only reason he drew women like a moth to the flame. No, it was the power he wore like others wore clothes. It was the confidence in his movements, as if the world only existed to please him. Nothing and no one would ever successfully thwart him, at least not for long.
The sight of him, hearing his voice after several month’s long absence caused an avalanche of conflicting feelings I didn’t want to deal with. Not now or at any point in the future.
He wasn’t quite smiling as we stared at each other. My expression had gone blank.
“So, you’re back.”
He dipped his chin once.
“I won’t keep you,” I said before turning back to the wall and climbing again. “I’m sure you have many important things waiting for your attention.”
There was a small sound behind me, then a powerful force lifted me up, yanking me from the wall. My stomach dropped.
Seconds later, I was set on my feet in the middle of my living room.
I blinked. If I’d ever needed a demonstration of the difference in power between the two of us, the speed, agility, and strength he’d just demonstrated would have brought that point home very nicely.
My lips parted, whether in rebuke or something else, I’ll never know. In the next moment, Liam yanked me to him, his eyes glowing with an otherworldly power, his fangs denting his lower lip.
His mouth descended on mine, forestalling any comment. Passion rose, threatening to swamp my better judgment. Someone’s fang, I don’t know if it was his or mine nicked flesh, and suddenly the rich decadent copper of his blood filled my mouth.