Chapter Seven
Sam walked away from Becky’s apartment, her mind occupied with the broken path ahead of her and the difficulties of the day finally winding down to an end. Had she not been so tired and so preoccupied, she might have noticed how close the sun was to setting. Had her eyes not been on the ground, she might have spotted Lee before he blocked her path.
“Miss Gollet,” he said with a smile she was beginning to recognize as him at his worst.
Sam skidded to a stop, her heart rate soaring as she took in Becky’s murderer, or at least the man she assumed had murdered Becky. Sam worked to calm herself. She knew Lee was able to hear her heart racing around her chest. Hopefully, he would assume it was due to the natural nervousness of the situation. After all, Sam was in his territory as the sun was setting. It was already safe for Lee to come out so long as he remained in the deep shadows of the narrow walkway.
“What do you want, Lee?” she asked, all courtesy gone from her voice; she was in no mood to dance around the age-crazed vampire.
“You still haven’t agreed to do me my favor.”
“And you haven’t told me what the favor is.”
“Touché.”
They stared at each other for a long moment before Sam said, “Well? What’s the favor?”
Lee cleared his throat and glanced around before speaking. “You know Dan Jillian?”
“The mage?” Sam asked after a moment’s thought.
Lee nodded. “He has something we vampires need.”
“You’re really telling me with the number of vampires in the Res, you can’t steal one thing from one mage?”
Lee smiled, fully aware of the insult in her question. “Of course we could, but we do not want the feds aware of our actions or aware of the item we are stealing.”
“A relic?”
Lee nodded.
“And what do you want from me?”
“If you drain him of power, he can’t stop us. We can send in one or two vampires and be out before anyone grows suspicious.”
“You want me to kill him?”
“You don’t have to kill him,” said Lee with a fresh smile, as though he found Sam’s concern humorous. “You just need to take him out of the action.”
“I don’t use my powers.”
“You used them on me.”
Sam began to chew on the inside of her cheek. He was right, dammit.
“Lee, that was the first time I’d used my powers in nearly a year.” Sam pulled her shirt down until her tattoo showed, displaying it to someone else for the first time since she had gotten it. “This helps me maintain control, but just barely. When I took from you, I barely managed to stop. If I try to drain the mage enough to knock him out, chances are I will kill him.”
“That’s your issue, not mine,” replied Lee, no concern apparent in his tone.
“I don’t want to get involved,” Sam said honestly.
“You may not want to, but do you have a choice? I would hate to have to go to Captain Reynolds and tell him about Carl’s technology and how you knew all about it.”
Sam felt her stomach do a little flip of nervousness. While knowing about Carl’s activities was less of a crime than him actually owning computers, Captain Reynolds’ hatred for her had been growing over the last couple years. If he was the officer in charge of the investigation, Sam would spend a month of Sundays in Solitary.
As much as she didn’t want to admit it, Sam wasn’t sure which she feared more, Carl being found out and punished or her own punishment.
Sam stared down at the cracked pavement as she ground her teeth together.
“Fine,” she growled. “I’ll do it.”
“Excellent!” Lee clapped his hands together. “Come meet Heywood.”
Sam felt the bottom of her stomach drop out altogether. Though she had never met the head of the vampires, and in fact didn’t even know what he looked like thanks to his secretiveness, she knew his name and knew to be afraid.
“What? Afraid? I never thought I’d ever live to see the day the Void was afraid,” chuckled Lee. “All the same, you’ll need to meet him.”
Lee took her burned hand and placed it in the crook of his arm as though he was a long-lost gentleman. Sam flinched at the pain, which Lee ignored.
Lee led her around to the other side of the row-housing neighborhood. At the door, he knocked and waited. A pale man—like most vampires—opened the door and ushered them in.
“Don’t vampires have to be invited in?” Sam asked; she didn’t associate with vampires often and genuinely didn’t know much about their magic.
“Only the first time and, apparently, not in the Reservation.”
“Why not in the Reservation?”
“I do not know. A home is a base of power, even for a human. The magic of a vampire cannot invade that base of power without expressed invitation, except inside the Reservation. Heywood suspects it is because those living in the Res do not consider their apartments as their home, as though they are just stopping by on a journey elsewhere.”
Sam thought about his words as they walked up a flight of wooden stairs. It was better to think on the theoretical magic of vampires rather than to take notice of her surroundings. Lee led her up to the second floor. Sam had always assumed the row houses had been divided into separate apartments on each floor, but based on what she saw, she suspected the vampires had turned this house back into one unit. Whether they had the blessing of the feds or not was another topic entirely.
Lee led her into a large room set up as a sitting room. Had Sam not been so unnerved the decorative choices would have made her laugh.
The three windows facing the street were shrouded in long black curtains. Candles that didn’t smell entirely of wax burned in carefully distributed intervals around the room. A fainting couch upholstered in more black fabric sat in one corner with a scantily-clad woman draped across it. Across from the fainting couch sat two dining room chairs, painted in black.
Sam waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, meanwhile wondering where they had gotten their hands on an antique fainting couch within the Res.
As her eyes adjusted, Sam took in the man sitting on one of the painted dining room chairs. He looked to be twenty-six or twenty-seven, though Sam knew not to trust his looks.
Sam hoped he hadn’t noticed the look of surprise that had passed swiftly across her features. Just like the room, his appearance was not what she had expected. He looked like the type of teenager who dressed up in a way they thought vampires might dress. She half expected his fangs to be made of plastic. His dyed-black hair was streaked with raven-purple and styled up into a faux-hawk. His dark eyes were lined with black eyeliner and his nails were painted a matching raven-purple.
He wore skin-tight black leather pants and a dark gray t-shirt that had been systematically torn to reveal his flat, white chest. A black, leather bracer hugged his left wrist.
Slowly, the man turned away from watching the unconscious woman to look at the newcomers. Sam let her gift reach out and caress the man and the woman.
The woman was a mage and not a strong one at that. Sam doubted she had ever done much more than the rudimentary training. Occasionally, two humans would produce a mage child. To the disgust of humans and mystics alike, the child would be taken from their parents and placed in the Reservation’s orphanage. There were numerous weak, half-trained mages living in the Res.
The man was a vampire.
Therefore, it came as no surprise—despite his appearance—to hear Lee introduce him as Heywood.
“And you’re Samantha Gollet?” the vampire asked as he stood up, further revealing his physique.
Sam knew not to be deceived by Heywood’s slender body. Whatever his appearance might be, Sam knew he was perhaps the most powerful inhabitant of the Res. Finally, when she realized she hadn’t responded to his question, she nodded.
“And you’re a Void?”
“Ye-es.”
To her disgust, her voice broke on the one word.
“You’re afraid of me?” Heywood asked.
Sam’s eyes flickered to the unconscious woman, taking in the two puncture marks on her wrist for the first time.
“I’m smart enough to know when to be afraid,” she said, her heart rate settling down as her voice came out stronger.
Heywood threw back his head and laughed, the sounding waking the woman on the fainting sofa. She groaned, adjusted her stiff arm, and lapsed back into a deep slumber.
The vampires in the Res were fed via blood donors through the Red Cross, given the blood that had aged past the point of usefulness for hospitals. The result was that the vampires lived in a continual state of being half-starved. Technically speaking, it was against the law for a vampire to feed on another inmate within the Res, but like many of the laws, this one went unenforced. Clearly, legality didn’t bother Heywood.
Sam wondered how a mage had come into the service of a vampire but chose not to ask.
“How ‘bout a demonstration of your abilities?”
Sam swallowed the lump forming in her throat. “I don’t have the greatest control. I could take more from you than you want me to.”
Heywood smiled, the expression never reaching his make-up smeared eyes. “I’ll take my chances.”
Sam swallowed again before carefully releasing her gift. She closed her eyes to better focus as she felt Heywood’s power reach out to her, as though it wanted her to take it. Sam siphoned off a tiny sip of power. It felt like hot syrup being poured over her body and molding into a sort of armor.
She liked it. She liked to feel strong, invulnerable.
Before she could pull her gift back within the confines of her control, it opened wide and began to drain the vampire. Power and strength, as well as a deep all-consuming thirst, flooded into her. Sam gasped as she stumbled back against the doorframe, unable to sort out the various sensations coursing through her body.
Never since she first realized she was a Void had she taken so much from another mystic. Just as the vampires were not supposed to feed on other mystics, it was considered an unspoken rule that the fae would not use their powers on each other, unless it was something like healing.
Sam tried to drag her power back under her control, but it pushed against her making her tattoo burn. Sam was beginning to panic when she felt something wallop her in the head. Slowly, the world went black.