Vampire's Shade 1 (Vampire's Shade Collection)

  Chapter 16

  The day of the attack came back to me. I’d gone to the store for my mom to buy milk. We’d been arguing about it – I’d wanted to bake sugar cookies. She said it wasn’t necessary, that there were store-bought cookies in the tin and it was getting dark, too late to run out to the store for a sixteen-year-old. Aspen, who was fourteen, was stretching out one leg on the counter and balancing on the other. She wanted to be a dancer. It was never too late to get fit and flexible, she used to say. I was jealous that she was taller than I was. After that night, she’d never be taller than I was again.

  I fought with Mom about my age, telling her that I was practically a grownup. But, cocooned in a shell of innocence, I actually knew nothing.

  The last words I spoke to my mother were that I wanted her to leave me to make my own mistakes, that I didn’t need her to baby me for the rest of my life.

  I’d give anything to take those words back now, to tell her just one more time that I love her, that she made me everything I am.

  Well, no. Everything I used to be.

  The line at the store was too long. Instead of heading back home, I went to the next one, a bit farther away. I’d gotten my milk, but by the time I finally stepped onto the front porch, it was dark. There was no moon that night, and the world was drenched in the inky black of night. Even the stars looked like they were dimmer.

  I climbed the porch steps, noticing that the outside light was off. Mom usually switched it on, and I was irritated that she hadn’t left it on for me. She knew I’d gone out.

  If I’d taken that as a sign of danger, maybe things would have been different. But then again, maybe they wouldn’t have.

  When I pushed against the front door and it swung open into more darkness, the smell in the air caught my attention. Something sour or bitter. Something that didn’t feel right.

  I called out into the house, but no one answered. I walked through the living room and into the dining room.

  The table had been overturned. Chairs lay scattered across the floor, some of them splintered. The vase that had been in the center of the table was shattered and lay in shards on the floor. The water had made a wet patch around the shattered glass and the ruined flowers.

  I reached for the light switch automatically, even though a voice in my head kept screaming that I should turn and run. But I reached out and flipped the switch. The white light was blinding at first. And then it showed me the ugly truth.

  There was blood on the carpet. The metallic smell of it pinched my nose and I gagged, covering my nose and mouth with my hand. The milk I’d been carrying fell to the floor, the container split open and the milk spread across the carpet.

  I followed the trail of the blood, and under the table, I found a body. My mother’s body. Her short blonde hair was fanned out around her head like a halo. Her arm was bent at an impossible angle, and when I took two steps closer I saw what I’d already known. Her face was covered in blood, and her soft hazel eyes were staring vacantly at the chaos around her. Her throat had been ripped open on one side, and was bloody and… chewed.

  I covered my mouth and screamed into my hands. My whole body had started shaking, and I felt like the life was draining out of me.

  A crash in the next room pulled me out of my state of shock, and I whirled around. Aspen and my dad… if whoever had done this was still here, I had to stop them before I lost more people I loved.

  I ran to Aspen’s bedroom, where the crash had come from. I kicked the door open and it bounced back, nearly hitting me in the face, but I shoved it open again.

  Aspen was sprawled on the floor, her body twisted and bent just above the hips in a way that wasn’t natural. Her eyes were closed and for a very long time I feared the worst, but then she whimpered, the tiniest sign of life.

  “Where are they?” I whispered, hoping she’d respond, but she only whimpered again, her head lolling to the side. Her light skin was ash-grey, and there was blood on her clothes. I ripped the fabric aside and saw that the blood wasn’t hers.

  A sound behind me made me spin around. My dad was standing there. He was… showing his fangs. There was blood smeared across his face and chest, and he hissed at me.

  “Dad?” I asked in a small voice, and then I noticed the fireplace poker he was holding. It had blood on it, the tip dripping red. The image of my mom’s body flashed through my mind, and I lost it.

  I was only half-vampire, but in a case of life and death, the animal in me came out just like it would in any purebred vamp. I hissed back at my dad even though I had no fangs to show him. He swung the poker at me and struck me in the neck. It burned, and I could feel blood pouring out of the gash, oozing down my neck and staining my shirt.

  I didn’t waste any time. I jumped on him, ducking underneath the poker he’d lifted to swing again, and tackled him through the open door to the opposite wall of the hallway. The impact winded us both, but I was beyond the point of no return. In my rage I’d seen a white light: my dead mother, and my broken sister. And in front of me was the man who was responsible.

  Anger makes anyone stronger. I was a testimony to that. The police finally pulled me off my dad, whose face had been purple with flowering bruises and bloody where I’d hit him way past unconsciousness with my bare hands.

  My mother was pronounced dead on the scene. My sister was taken to a hospital. I was booked into therapy.

  Years of therapy did nothing. All the therapist ever did was remind me of that awful night, over and over again. And I hated every minute of it, until I turned eighteen and was old enough to tell my foster parents I wasn’t going to therapy anymore. Aspen was in a wheelchair after having been hospitalized for a month, and no amount of therapy would have been able to erase what had happened to her.

  After the night my mother died, I stayed out of the way of vampires. I avoided the dark, slept with a nightlight like a child, and made sure to be in before sunset every evening. One night it rained so hard, I was stranded at the gym on my college campus. Howling winds were ripping through the trees, and no one dared go out. By the time the storm subsided, it had gotten dark and I was terrified.

  I walked the quiet streets home, keeping my ears open, doing my best to suppress the fear of the dark that I’d been kindling for over two years.

  A vampire appeared next to me, a man who had a nasty cut across his face, which reminded me too much of the scar that had formed on my neck. He grinned at me, and his fangs, although they were yellow, brought back a flash of my bloodstained father attacking me.

  I attacked the vampire before he was able to think twice, and I killed him. As I stood there with blood on my hands and my heart pounding in my throat, a voice rang out to me.

  “You have skills,” it said.

  I swung around and backed away, afraid he’d call the police.

  It was a man, not a vamp. Muscles on top of muscles. “You hate vampires,” he said – a statement, not a question. “I know someone I’d like you to meet.” Then he pulled out a card with Ruben’s firm name and number on it.

  “This is an accounting firm,” I said, confused.

  “Just call him. Tell him Carl sent you. He’ll know.”

  He turned and sauntered down the street as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  “Why?” I called after him.

  “You have rage, kid. In this life, we can use that kind of thing.”

  After that, he disappeared.

  Going to work for Ruben was quick and painless. I spent one night out with Carl, and for a week I had nightmares after I’d seen him work. I went back after that and told Ruben I wanted to do it permanently. He told me everything I already knew, that I’d need to train, that it wasn’t going to be easy, that it would border on illegal activities. But I agreed, because it meant I could kill vampires.

  I hadn’t been able to kill my dad. Maybe if the police hadn’t come in time to save him, I would have. But there were a lot of other vamp
ires around, since the law let them roam free, and it wasn’t long before Carl started avoiding me because I was better, because the rookie was outshining him and jealousy didn’t look good on a man with his physique.

  I’d taken the job because somehow it felt like every vampire I killed was one less in the world that could get to Aspen. In a wheelchair she was vulnerable, and I couldn’t run the risk of another monster suddenly going rogue.

  The fact that there never really was a chance of that anymore was something I ignored.

  And after all that, after training for years and killing vampires every night the way other people went in to the office, I’d managed to fail her again.

  I sat on my bike after I’d parked in front of my apartment building and took a deep breath. I closed my eyes and focused on the blood surging through my veins. I could still feel her, a faint pulse next to my own. She was still alive.

  Every time I checked in to find out, I held my breath – hoping for the best but preparing myself for the worst. And every time I found that she was still alive, I felt relief so strong I felt like I might crumble.

  But I still couldn’t pinpoint a location. It was like someone knew that I had my own tracker on her, and they were stopping me from finding her. It was like a metal wall between us, and try as I might, I couldn’t get through it.

  I pushed the bike into my crummy garage and rolled the door shut with a terrible noise. I clicked the lock shut, then made my way into the building.

  Everything in my apartment was as I’d left it before, and I felt safe enough to take my guns off and put them away. I still had my Glock under my pillow, and I kept the knife on me in the thigh sheath just in case.

  I sat down at the booth in the kitchen and stared at the empty seat opposite me. How long had it been – a week? – since Jennifer had sat across from me? It had seemed like such an innocent job then. Distasteful, but innocent. It was difficult to accept that things had gotten so bent out of shape in such a short time.

  I’d lost Joel, the only friend I’d ever had – and I knew it was my fault. They’d taken him either as a warning, or as bait. They might have killed him. I had no way of knowing whether he was still alive the way I could trace signs of life from Aspen.

  Ruben was definitely dead. That was my fault too, because I hadn’t done my job. If only I’d understood how serious the situation was; if only I’d taken him more seriously and done what he’d asked. But his cocky attitude and the arrogance with which he talked about the night world when he knew nothing about it annoyed me, and I had shown that to him through lack of respect.

  Now he was dead, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  And Sonya? It was just dumb luck that she was still alive, and no one knew what would happen to her now. Maybe the vamps would come after her too, in case she knew something. That would be another black mark on my name. Another death to feel guilty about.

  I sighed. I had to figure out how the master vampires operated. Once I knew what they did, what skills they possessed and how they did their business, maybe I could find a crack in their wall – and find Aspen.

  The only person who knew anything about the masters was Connor. I was damn glad I’d missed when I’d shot him. I needed him alive now, to tell me what he knew.

  At the same time I knew that it was ridiculous to even try to go to him. He would never help me. Why would he? After what had happened between us, after the night we’d spent together…

  But I had to find him if I wanted to find Aspen, no matter how horrible it was going to be. And the only person I could rely on for help right now was Jennifer.

  The phone rang seven times. One more time and it would roll over to voice mail. But it didn’t. She answered.

  “I need to see you,” I said into the phone.

  She hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not? Don’t you think you owe me, at least?” I knew that wasn’t the best card to play, but I was running out of options.

  “Look, you’re not the kind of person I should be having contact with right now. If they hear that I’ve spoken to you, after everything…”

  “The master vampires? Have they contacted you?”

  If they’d threatened Jennifer but she was still alive, she had something on them. Maybe it was something I could use.

  “I just need to find—”

  Jennifer cut me off. “Don’t say it. Don’t. I can’t do this.”

  She hung up on me. The line beeped in my ear and I swore, throwing my phone onto the bed. Dammit.

  Two seconds later the phone beeped again. There was a message from Jennifer.

  They’re watching me. I didn’t want to talk on the phone. Meet me at Fiasco at nine.

  It was still a while before dark, but at least now I had something to do once the sun had gone down. Without a job I felt untethered, and I didn’t want to think what sitting at home twiddling my thumbs would be like.

  I showered and got dressed, putting on my leathers again. I wasn’t going out for kills just yet, but I didn’t know what information Jennifer would be able to give me, and if I was going to get Aspen out of wherever she was, I wanted to be ready.

  I loaded my guns. Silver bullets in each of them. I had my Smith & Wesson on me, my SIG at my back and my knife on my thigh. I had an ankle holster where I secured my Glock, and I put the carbine in my bike’s compartment. I didn’t want to be caught off guard, and if I wanted to get Aspen out of there alive – myself, too, for that matter – I had to go in there guns blazing.

  My phone rang.

  “What is it?” I asked. I was in a foul mood, pumped full of adrenaline in anticipation of a hectic night and because I had to wait.

  “Don’t sound so happy to hear from me,” Carl said in his usual sarcastic tone.

  “What do you want, Carl?”

  “I told you, I want in. I want to know where you’re headed later. You can use some backup once in a while.”

  I shook my head, even though Carl couldn’t see it. “I’m not going out to kill. I need to contact some people first, and you’re not coming with me.”

  “Don’t cut me out of this now, Adele. I want revenge for Ruben just as much as you do.”

  I hadn’t thought about that – but I didn’t revenge for Ruben. His death was tragic, and I knew guilt was going to chew away at me for a very, very long time. But I was going to get Aspen.

  I wondered what Ruben and Carl had had going that made Carl feel like he needed revenge.

  “Look, I’m just going to talk to someone. If I find out more, I’ll call you, okay?”

  Carl mumbled something that sounded unhappy, but he agreed.

  I hung up the phone, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. It didn’t matter how badly Carl wanted to get in on this. I wasn’t going to drag him along. Carl was just a human, and even though I hated his guts most of the time, I wasn’t going to involve him in a situation where he could get killed. There was enough blood on my hands already.

  It was finally time to leave. My bike growled into the night as I pulled out. It sounded the way I felt.

  When I stepped onto the deck at Fiasco, where the outside tables were arranged, I noticed Jennifer sitting in the back, looking like she was trying to make herself small and invisible.

  “You’re not really fooling anyone trying to hide like that,” I said. “You’re not invisible.”

  I sat down, and a waiter appeared immediately.

  “Water,” I said. Alcohol was off limits for me. It made me buzz, and I couldn’t go out on a killing spree like that. It would be asking for trouble.

  “What do you want?” Jennifer asked. Her voice was calm, but she kept looking around.

  “Who are you hiding from?” I asked.

  “I can’t be seen with you. I’ve been warned.”

  “By the masters?”

  Jennifer nodded. “They called me yesterday and told me that if I
talk to you, I’m dead.”

  For someone who was walking around with a death sentence hanging over her, she was damn brave to be out here talking to me. Either that, or really stupid.

  The water arrived, and we both kept quiet as the waitress put the cold glass in front of me. When she had walked away, I took a sip. I didn’t say anything until I was sure everyone was out of earshot.

  “What do you have on them?” I asked.

  She frowned.

  “There has to be a reason why you’re still alive. They’ve already killed a handful of people to get what they want.”

  Jennifer’s face blanched. “They have?”

  I nodded. “So?” I prodded.

  Jennifer took a shaky breath and looked down at her hands. She was fiddling with a napkin, tearing it into tiny pieces, making a pile on the table. “It’s not really something I have on them. It’s more like something they need. They can’t kill me as long as they need the funding for their… business. Connor’s account has my name on it, too. I’m allowed to say what happens to the money, so as long as I’m alive, they have access to the money. They can’t kill me. Unless they can find funding somewhere else.”

  I was horrified. Jennifer was letting this nightmare go on.

  “Why don’t you cut them off?” I asked. “You’re just letting this go on and on, and you know it’s wrong.”

  When Jennifer looked up at me, her eyes were brimming with tears. Again. She was really quick to cry.

  “If I do, they’ll kill me. This is the only thing that’s keeping me alive. With what I know… they’ll kill me. It’s the lesser of two evils.”

  Something inside me shut down. I wasn’t going to fall for that one. The lesser of two evils was what I’d chosen, to keep my sister alive no matter what. But if it came down to the greater good, I’d sacrifice myself. The only reason I couldn’t do it now was because I was the only person left who cared about Aspen, the only person who could bring her back.

  “You’re disgusting,” I said, and I meant it. Judging by the look of shame and anger on Jennifer’s face, she knew it, too.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked in a cold voice.

  “I need to find Connor,” I said.

  Jennifer shook her head. “How would I know where he is? Since he disappeared…” She swallowed hard and looked down at her pile of napkin shreds. “He’s dead to me now. He’s cut himself off from everyone. I don’t know where he is.”

  I’d expected her to say that. But I wasn’t going to give up. “Give me an address. Something. Anything, Jennifer. Otherwise, a lot more people will die. I need to stop this.”

  I don’t know if it was something in my expression or in my voice, or because she felt condemned, but she nodded and pulled out a notepad and pen. She scribbled on the pad and slid it across the table.

  It had two addresses on it. The mansion on Caldwell Street in Westham Hills. That belonged to him after all. And the address of his offices – the Palace.

  “If you want to go to the offices,” Jennifer said, “just use my name, and they should let you in. The night guards know me.”

  I bet they did.

  I thanked her and got up, my glass of water hardly touched. At least I hadn’t ordered something that cost money. It was nine thirty when I got back on my bike. I’d only spoken to Jennifer for ten minutes.

  My phone rang just as I was about to pull away.

  “You owe me money,” Carlos said.

  “I know. I’ll bring it to you.”

  “Now. I don’t like waiting. I can’t afford to give my clients credit.” His voice was hard. Maybe this was as tough as his life got.

  “I’ll drop by later tonight,” I said with a sigh. “I have errands to run.”

  “You can’t—”

  I hung up. I didn’t feel like arguing about it. No, I hadn’t paid him, and I was in the wrong. But I’d fix that as soon as I had the chance. Whenever that was. I had more important things to do first.