Venom in the Veins

  Working at the Eaton Estate paid great, but it was also extremely hazardous to your health, since Amelia often used the staff as her own personal wine list, draining every single drop of blood out of anyone unlucky enough to catch her eye. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, she also enjoyed snacking on other parts of them. Fingers, toes, internal organs.

  But Taylor Samson hadn’t known about any of that. He was just a poor engineering student, trying to save enough money from his summer job as a groundskeeper at the swanky estate to return to college in the fall.

  Now he wasn’t going anywhere ever again.

  Taylor had disappeared at the beginning of the summer, three weeks after he’d started working at the estate. His mother, Tricia, had panicked when she couldn’t reach her son, a panic that had ended in sickening heartbreak when his body was found a week later by a couple of hikers who’d gotten lost in the woods and had wandered onto the estate by accident.

  Of course, Amelia was responsible for Taylor’s brutal murder, given the gruesome puncture wounds that marred his mangled body, but she had more than enough money and influence to get the cops to turn a blind eye to what she’d done. The police had barely investigated, much less charged her with anything, and they’d quickly declared that Taylor had gone too far into the woods and had been mauled to death by a bear. Case closed. So Amelia had had her cake—or, rather, Taylor—and literally eaten him too.

  But Taylor’s mother had heard whispers about the assassin the Tin Man, someone who could help when the law utterly failed, as it so often did in Ashland, and she had reached out to Fletcher through his various back channels. Now here I was, all dolled up and ready to get revenge—justice—for Taylor Samson and all the other people Amelia had snacked on just because she preferred to eat organic and enjoyed the thrill of the chase. Just because her family had power and prestige and she knew that she could thumb her nose at everyone and actually get away with being a fucking cannibal, just like her ancestors before her.

  Well, not anymore. She was the one who was going to die tonight.

  I sipped my champagne, wrinkling my nose to keep from sneezing at the fizzy bubbles, and plotted the best way to get close to Amelia. She was still in the middle of her fawning sycophants, and I couldn’t have gotten through them even if I’d barreled into the group like a football linebacker blitzing a quarterback. So I waited, smiling blandly at everyone who caught my eye and walking around the terrace in circles, as though I were searching for someone.

  Five minutes later, Amelia emptied her champagne glass and handed it off to a waiter. Then she turned on her green stilettos and sashayed over to the buffet tables, as though she was going to get something to eat that wasn’t a terrified college kid.

  Time for the Spider to strike.

  I exchanged my own half-empty glass of champagne for a fresh, full one. Then I sidled toward Amelia, sliding past the groups of people that stood between us, calculating how long it would take me to reach her.

  In five…four…three…two…one…

  I accidentally-on-purpose rammed my shoulder into Amelia’s and deliberately sloshed my glass of champagne all over the front of her fancy gown.

  “Whoopsie!” I chirped in a loud, bright voice that said that I wasn’t sorry at all. “I didn’t see you standing there.”

  “You idiot!” Amelia hissed, staring down at the rapidly spreading stains. “You’ve ruined my dress!”

  I frowned, as though I was terribly concerned, and bent forward so that I could get a better look at the damage. Then I straightened back up and airily waved my hand, making my puny diamond solitaire ring glint weakly in the setting sun.

  “Oh, I thought you were actually serious there for a second. But you’re just wearing a knockoff. No real damage done, right?” I chirped in that same bright voice again, as though I didn’t have any sort of brain in my head.

  People gasped and backed up, since most of them were well acquainted with Amelia’s legendary temper. Eyes wide, they looked back and forth between the two of us, wondering how she was going to react to my casual insults.

  Amelia opened her mouth, probably to cuss me out, but I started toying with my necklace, deliberately sliding the small diamond solitaire back and forth on its silver chain to catch her attention, the way you might dangle a toy mouse in front of a cat. Her gaze locked onto my neck, just like I wanted it to, and a slow, knowing smile curved her blood-red lips.

  “You’re absolutely right,” she purred in a soft, silky tone. “There’s no real harm done. I’m sorry I snapped at you. Why don’t you let me get you a drink to make up for it? Something from my private wine cellar?”

  I shrugged and shoved my empty glass at the closest waiter. “Sure. Whatever.”

  Amelia’s smile tightened at my bored, dismissive tone, as though she was grinding her teeth to keep from lunging forward and burying her fangs in my throat in front of her guests. “Follow me.”

  It wasn’t a request, and people fell back even more as Amelia turned on her heels again and swept past them. A couple of vampire guards came up behind me, not so subtly directing me after her. Some of the other partygoers shook their heads and gave me sad, sympathetic looks as I walked by, realizing that they would never see me again—alive, anyway. Amelia might not have been charged with Taylor Samson’s murder, but his death had sparked plenty of ugly rumors about what she really did here.

  The only person who wasn’t leaving here alive tonight was Amelia, but of course I couldn’t tell anyone that. So I plastered a happy, ditzy smile on my face and trailed after the vampire like a bunny walking straight into a hunter’s snare.

  “Wait a second. Did you say private wine cellar? That would be awesome! Although I hope you have something down there that’s better than that cheap champagne the waiters are serving. It’s already lost all of its bubbles.” I pouted as though this was the worst thing in the world.

  One of the guards behind me snorted, as if choking back a laugh. No doubt he thought I didn’t realize what I’d gotten myself into and that I should be worrying about far more dangerous things than flat champagne. But this was the scheme Fletcher and I had rehearsed, and I was following our script to the letter.

  Amelia thought she was in control, but she was the one who was snared in my web. She just didn’t know it yet. But she would soon enough, and then she would die screaming for her arrogance.

  I followed her into the mansion. I glanced around and sighed, as though I was utterly bored, although I was really trying to keep from gawking at the fine furnishings. Gilded silver mirrors, dark mahogany tables, stained-glass lamps. And that was just what I could see in this one foyer.

  The guards shut a pair of glass double doors behind us, muting the sounds of the party outside, and I pushed my awe away and focused on my target again.

  Amelia glanced over her shoulder and crooked her finger at me. “This way.”

  “Sure,” I chirped again, still playing the part of the clueless partygoer.

  She walked through the foyer, opened a door, and headed down a flight of steps, as though she really was taking me to the wine cellar. The soft murmur of the party faded away, replaced by the sharp snap-snap-snap-snap of her stilettos striking the stone. Each stab of her heels banged as loudly as a nail being driven into a coffin—her coffin.

  We reached the bottom of the steps, and Amelia led me to the far end of a long hallway. With its thick stone walls and cool, drafty air, the area had far more in common with a dungeon than a wine cellar. We were deep underground now, and I knew Amelia had brought me down here so that the people upstairs at the party wouldn’t hear my screams.

  She just didn’t realize that no one would hear her screams either.

  Amelia opened a door and stepped into a room with thick black plastic covering the floor from wall to wall, as though this area was being remodeled, despite the tables, chairs, and other furniture still in here. I recognized the setup for what it really was: a murder room.

  Blood w
as a bitch to scrub out of stone, and why go to all that effort when you could line the floor with plastic instead? Plus, I could hear the walls wailing with the panicked cries of all the other people who’d been brought to this room, only to leave it dead, drained of blood, missing body parts, and rolled in plastic, like they were just one more piece of garbage to be disposed of.

  Amelia faced me, her smile growing wider and slowly revealing her gleaming white fangs. “It’s a good thing you’ve already ruined my dress,” she purred again. “I won’t mind getting your blood on it nearly so much now.”

  My eyes widened, and my mouth fell open, as if I was just now understanding what was really going on. “Oh, I’m sorry, but you have the wrong idea. I’m not into having all the blood forcibly removed from my body. So sorry to disappoint. I’ll just be going now. Ta-ta, sugar.”

  I turned to leave, only to find the two guards blocking my path. The vampires grinned at me, but the fangs in their mouths didn’t worry me at all.

  “In case you haven’t realized it by now, you’re not leaving this room alive,” Amelia crowed behind me.

  “Funny,” I drawled. “I was just going to say the same thing about all of you.”

  The two guards headed toward me to restrain me, but I whipped my knife out of my purse, tossed the bag aside, and charged at them. I went low, ducking the first guard’s awkward arm tackle and slicing my knife across his stomach. He screamed and staggered back, his blood spraying all over the black plastic on the floor.

  The second guard stopped short, shocked by what had happened to his buddy, but I was already moving in his direction. I sliced my knife across his gut as well. He joined his screaming pal on the floor, and I whipped back around to take out Amelia.

  But she wasn’t as surprised as her guards, and she had already grabbed something from a nearby table that I hadn’t noticed before.

  A stun gun.

  She pulled the trigger before I could even think about throwing my knife at her, and two probes shot out from the end of the barrel and streaked through the air toward me. I lurched to the side and reached for my Stone magic, trying to harden my skin so that the probes would harmlessly bounce off my body, but I wasn’t fast enough. The two probes stabbed into my chest like needles, and a jolting shock of electricity hit me a second later.

  I gritted my teeth against the hot, searing pain roaring through my body and clutched my knife even tighter, trying to hold on to it and stagger over to Amelia so I could at least stab her to death before I passed out. But the electricity was too great and just kept cascading through me in wave after hot, jolting, shocking wave.

  White spots exploded like fireworks in my field of vision, and every single nerve ending in my body felt like it was on fire. My teeth rattled together like dominos, and blood filled my mouth as I accidentally bit my own tongue. My knife slipped from my fingers and thumped to the black plastic. My knees buckled, and I joined the weapon on the floor a second later, my arms, legs, and chest twitching in time to the agonizing bursts of energy.

  All the while, Amelia kept her finger on the trigger, pumping more electricity into my body. She walked over to me, bent down, and smiled, her fangs flashing in her mouth again. “Is your blood boiling yet, you arrogant little bitch? I hope so. Because I like my dinner warm…”

  Thankfully, I didn’t hear any more of her taunts. The electricity jolted over me again, stronger than before, and I finally blacked out from the hot, searing pain…

  I woke up thrashing around in my bed, still feeling that electricity charging through my body, burning me up from the inside out. Several seconds passed before I realized that I was safe at home. I let out a ragged gasp and flopped back against the pillows, trying to catch my breath as the last remnants of the nightmare slowly faded away.

  Well, at least I hadn’t dreamed about the Dollmaker chasing me through the woods again. That was just about the only good thing I could say about remembering my confrontation with Amelia.

  Moonlight slipped in through the white lace curtains, bathing my bedroom in a soft, silvery glow, and I focused on the hulking shapes of my nightstand, dresser, and other furniture, letting the familiar sights ground me.

  My heart finally slowed, and I thought back to that night. I’d forgotten how vicious Amelia had been, and her hitting me with that stun gun hadn’t been the worst thing she’d done to me. I could easily picture her sending those two muggers after Mosley with orders to bring him to her so she could torture whatever information she wanted out of him before she drank his blood, snacked on his liver, and chewed on his bones, just for fun.

  But Amelia was dead, and her cruelty along with her. So who was targeting Mosley? And why?

  I thought back over everything that had happened tonight, and I kept returning to Amelia Eaton.

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that Fletcher had once again left me a clue from beyond the grave and that if I didn’t figure out exactly what it meant, Stuart Mosley would be the one to pay the ultimate price.

  Chapter Seven

  Given my nightmarish memory, I tossed and turned for a few hours. When I finally did go back to sleep, I woke up much later than usual, and I had to throw on my clothes and hustle to the Pork Pit, my barbecue restaurant in downtown Ashland.

  Despite my hurry, I still parked my car several blocks away from the restaurant, got out, and stepped into the flow of human traffic on the sidewalks. As I headed toward my destination, I glanced around, making sure that no one was watching or following me.

  Mosley might have been the target of last night’s attack, but I had plenty of enemies of my own, including Hugh Tucker, the vampire who was the Circle’s number one enforcer. Fletcher had said that it was always better to be on your toes, and I was taking his advice to heart, especially these days, when I could never be sure who was working for the Circle or when or where they might strike next.

  But no one paid any attention to me, and I made it to the Pork Pit unscathed. I performed my usual checks on the storefront door and windows to make sure no one had carved an elemental rune bomb into them overnight in an attempt to freeze, fry, or otherwise magic me to death when I opened the restaurant this morning.

  But everything was clean, so I unlocked the front door and stepped inside.

  Two familiar figures stood at one of the stoves along the back wall. One was a dwarf with pale skin, black eyes, and glossy black hair shot through with neon-blue streaks. Her hair matched the bright blue work apron patterned with tiny black skulls that covered her blue T-shirt and black jeans. She was humming a soft, cheery tune, and the impressive muscles in her arm bunched and flexed as she stirred a spoon around in a large metal vat on the stovetop.

  A much leaner, middle-aged vampire with bronze skin and gray eyes and hair hovered at the Goth dwarf’s right elbow. A plain blue work apron covered his impeccable gray shirt, tie, and pants, and he was holding a small tablet, as though he’d been recording the cooking session.

  Sophia Deveraux, my head cook, and Silvio Sanchez, my personal assistant, both turned around at the sound of the bell over the front door chiming my arrival.

  “Ah, there you are,” Silvio said. “It’s not like you to be late. I was just getting ready to call and make sure you were okay.”

  Of course he had been. Sometimes I thought the vampire was far more concerned for my safety than he was for his own. Still, I appreciated the fact that he looked out for me, and I gave him and Sophia a sheepish shrug.

  “Sorry. I overslept.”

  I shut and locked the front door behind me, then walked by the blue and pink vinyl booths that lined the windows and headed past the tables and chairs in the middle of the floor. I unzipped my jacket and hung it on a rack in the corner close to the cash register, grabbed a blue work apron, and tied it on over my clothes. When I was properly attired, I stepped around the counter and went over to the stove, where Sophia and Silvio were still standing.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  “S
ophia was showing me how to make Fletcher’s secret barbecue sauce,” Silvio said. “It’s a fascinating process, especially since she didn’t measure anything.”

  He gave her a chiding look, and Sophia snorted in response.

  “Don’t need to measure,” she rasped in her broken voice. “Been making it for years. Could do it in my sleep.”

  “Yes, but cooking is a science,” Silvio protested. “Proper measurements really are the key to any great recipe…”

  He started expounding on the merits of precisely measuring ingredients, as well as correct cooking temperatures, timers, and thermometers, but it was a totally one-sided conversation, since Sophia started humming again as she added a final bit of brown sugar to her brew. I drew in a deep breath, enjoying the rich scents of cumin, black pepper, and other spices that seasoned the air from the simmering sauce.

  “Well, I think it smells fantastic, just like always,” I said.

  Sophia winked at me, then turned off the heat, dipped a wooden spoon into the sauce, and held it out to Silvio. The vampire set his tablet down on the counter, leaned forward, and tasted the sauce.

  “It is good,” he admitted. “And it tastes the same as always. Even though you didn’t measure anything.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” A knowing, triumphant note colored Sophia’s response.

  Silvio’s lips puckered, and he gave her a sour look. Sophia arched her eyebrows, daring him to keep challenging her cooking methods, but he knew when he was beaten, and he respectfully tipped his head to her. Then he untied his apron, hung it on one of the hooks on the wall, grabbed his gray suit jacket from the coat rack, and shrugged back into it.

  Silvio stepped around the counter, sat down on his usual stool, and grabbed his tablet, transforming back into my assistant. “Since you need to open the restaurant in a few minutes, let’s skip the morning briefing and go immediately to recapping your dinner with Stuart Mosley last night.”