“Don’t worry, Mira. I’ll keep you off YouTube.”
Smiling, I shoved the phone into my pocket and pulled my keys out of my other pocket as we walked around the side of the building to where my car was parked. Opening the trunk, I dug around in my little bag for a fresh shirt. “So did we learn anything of value tonight?”
“That a nightwalker was the one to contact Franklin,” Knox replied.
He was right. A werewolf would never have been able to blur a person’s memory like we saw and it was extremely unlikely that a warlock or witch would be able to find where Bryce kept his daylight sanctuary. However, nightwalkers frequently shared that information when they allowed other nightwalkers to bed down with them during the day in rare moments of trust or when seeking to start a family.
“Whoever it was didn’t know how to properly mask her appearance. She vaguely looked like Katie, but it was very shaky as if the person was struggling to either hold the illusion or was unable to properly mend Franklin’s memories.”
“A fledgling?” Knox asked. He sounded skeptical and I couldn’t blame him.
“Possibly.” I quickly unbuttoned my shirt and looked down to find that the wound had completely healed, but now there was a trail of drying blood running down into the waist of my jeans. Wiping off as much blood as possible, I threw the shirt into my trunk to destroy later and pulled on a dark gray T-shirt.
“It could just be an older nightwalker that never had any proper training,” Knox suggested.
“A fledgling seems unlikely,” I agreed, shutting the trunk of my car. “Bryce didn’t have any fledglings of his own and he should have been old enough to easily defend himself from any of the fledglings within the area.”
“Which is maybe why a fledgling got the Coalition to do the dirty work?”
“Could a fledgling be so stupid? She had to know that we would look into this and track her down.” I turned and leaned against the car for a minute, my arms folded over my chest.
“And maybe that was a part of her plan,” interjected a new voice. I looked up in time to see Bishop step from the shadows beside the wall of the warehouse. “Maybe this fledgling’s goal is to kill you as well as this Bryce person.”
“She’s getting closer if that’s the case,” Knox added, making me scowl at him.
“Don’t make faces at the boy, Mira. He’s right,” Bishop teased. “You’ve been nearly killed three times already tonight and you’ve yet to catch this schemer.”
“I can understand killing Bryce for some reason related to our world and even the attempts on me. It’s all involved with our world. But why kill Katie Hixson? All she wanted to do was to enter our world.”
“Don’t know,” Knox said with a shrug of his shoulders. He stood before me, his hands shoved into his front pockets. “Jealousy? Maybe the fledgling didn’t want Bryce bringing over Katie or maybe she was jealous that he would rather spend time with Katie than with another nightwalker.”
It wasn’t a new story. A fledgling was hurt because a nightwalker fell for a human and wanted to turn him or her. I’d seen it all play out like a Shakespearean tragedy—everyone dead. “We need the answer to those questions.”
“Only one place left to get them.”
“Gregor.” The name escaped me in a low growl. If there was one nightwalker I wouldn’t mind seeing with his head and heart removed, it was Gregor. He was a few centuries old and controlled a clique of nightwalkers that I found more than a little annoying.
For now, I would have to put aside my distaste for him. If Bryce was known to travel with Gregor on occasion, then the nightwalker would be able to give me more information as to who might have had Bryce killed and Katie Hixson drained.
8
Gregor wasn’t at the Dark Room. Adam quickly informed me upon arriving that when Gregor discovered I was looking for him, he left the Dark Room and asked that I meet him at the Docks. I could only guess that the nightwalker didn’t want to be seen being questioned by me. I could understand his hesitance, but that didn’t make me happy about it.
The Docks was a nightclub near the riverfront that catered to the local Goth scene with its dark, smoky decor and nonstop industrial music blaring in the background. It was one of my favorite places to spend an evening. The clientele were content to just let me enjoy the music and the dancing. It was a good place to hide when you were trying to avoid the world around you.
Slipping ahead of the crowd that waited to get into the club, I slapped a fifty on the counter per my usual no-questions policy with the management of the club. They didn’t ask to see my identification and didn’t attempt to put one of those paper strips on my wrist indicating that I was over the age of twenty-one. I didn’t come to this place to drink alcohol.
Gregor sat alone at a table in a dark corner of the nightclub. He wore a dark red, knee-length jacket over a black shirt and black double-breasted vest with large silver buttons. A gold chain for his pocket watch hung from his vest pocket. His whole attire screamed of Victorian aristocracy, making him appear to be horribly out of place in this bar filled with black leather, silver chains, and tattered lace. Regardless of the fact that Gregor had actually survived the Victorian era, he was now part of the Steampunk generation, which was a somewhat distant cousin to the Goth movement that refused to completely fade away. While I doubted he believed in their mentality, the Steampunk generation did fit his taste in clothing.
“Mira, it’s so good to see you again. It’s been ages,” Gregor said, easily rising to his feet as we approached his table.
“Hmm…yes, not since you suggested that a number of nightwalkers go running with the shifters on a full moon. How many fledglings did we lose that night? Six?” I said with a frown as I took a seat opposite him.
A grin spread across his face as he returned to his seat. “Eight.”
“And four lycans were badly injured,” Knox added from where he stood just behind my right shoulder. There were only two chairs at the tiny table, and I was surprised that he had chosen to stand behind me rather than pull over another chair. But then Knox was from the Old World and had been raised by an Old World nightwalker. Standing indicated that he was my assistant rather than my supposed equal sitting beside me.
“But it was fun. I’m sorry you missed out,” Gregor continued, nearly chuckling.
“It seems I missed out on some other fun, too,” I said, preferring to finally switch the subject. There was nothing I could do about Gregor’s twisted sense of humor. He had convinced a group of young nightwalkers to go running with some werewolves on the night of a full moon. There was the inevitable scuffle, and eight nightwalkers got shredded in the process, as Gregor knew would happen. My concern was the four lycans that got hurt. Barrett had not been happy about it, but then we both knew there was nothing we could do about it. We had to give our people some room to make stupid mistakes so long as humans weren’t involved.
“If you’re referring to what happened to Bryce, I had nothing to do with his demise as I’m sure you know. I heard that he was killed during the daylight hours,” Gregor said, sitting back in his chair. The music shifted at the back of the nightclub where the dance floor was located, moving to a heavy thumping beat that vibrated in my chest. I would rather be dancing, surrounded by smiling, sweating humans caught up in the music, than dealing with Gregor and this entire mess.
“For once, I believe you,” I said with a frown. “I need to know who Bryce hung out with. Particularly females. Someone killed him and Katie Hixson.”
For the first time since we walked into the Docks, the smile that filled Gregor’s face slipped away and he honestly looked confused. “I don’t understand. Katie was murdered?”
“Shortly after sunset. It was a nightwalker,” Knox interjected.
“You knew Katie?” I demanded, drawing Gregor’s stunned gaze from Knox to me again.
“Yes, Bryce and the rest of his group brought her in to the Dark Room a few times. She was a lovely young lady. V
ery polite and sweet. Not the usual Goth, living-dead nonsense that you see hanging on our kind as if we were their long-lost messiah.”
“Was there anyone jealous of Bryce and Katie? Anyone who might have wanted them both dead?” Knox inquired.
“Bryce, yes. I can think of one person who would want Bryce dead, but not Katie. Lauren was the one that introduced Katie to Bryce and the rest of his small group. Lauren had known Katie while she was a human and had brought her into the fold as a human. It could have been anyone within the group he hung with. There were three females: Lauren, Bridgette, and Kari. And then Charles traveled with that flock on occasion, but not so much within the past few years.”
I was familiar with Bridgette. She was about fifty years old and had moved into the area with my permission more than twenty years ago. However, the other two I wasn’t overly familiar with. “How old are Lauren and Kari?”
“Kari is nearly thirty, I believe. She moved here with Charles. Lauren is really fresh—five or six years, I think. I’m not sure who her maker is. She’s never mentioned him and I’ve never seen her with anyone but Bryce and the rest of his group.”
“Are any of them a member of Ravana’s family?”
“Kari and Bridgette are, I believe.”
“Where can I find them?” I demanded, drumming my fingernails on the sticky surface of the small circular table that separated us.
“All three ladies are back at the Dark Room. Charles is—”
“Thanks, Gregor.” I pushed to my feet. I had heard enough. I knew who had killed Katie and set the Daylight Coalition on Bryce.
“Mira, you don’t think it was one of those girls?” Gregor demanded, lurching awkwardly to his feet in his surprise. “They’re just fledglings. They couldn’t have…”
“Stay here, Gregor. You don’t want anyone to know you ratted them out,” Knox said, earning a low snarl from the nightwalker. I bit back a smile as I walked out of the nightclub and into the fresh air. It wasn’t much cooler than the uncomfortably warm nightclub.
Knox was as irritated with Gregor as I was. The nightwalker seemed to parade himself around my domain as if he ran it. He made sure that he was acquainted with everyone within the Savannah area and made himself up to be more powerful than he really was. However, those within my domain that were more powerful and stronger (including myself) tended to ignore him since he was just an annoyance. He also proved to be a valuable source of information on the rare occasion, so we all let him be. Regardless of all his pomp, he knew where the line was and he was very careful not to cross it. Dance on it, spit on it, and kick dirt on it—sure. But he didn’t cross it.
“So, you know who the killer is?” Knox said, walking beside me as we headed back to the Dark Room.
“Yes, and you’re going to end her bloody reign for me.”
I looked over at Knox to find him smiling at me, a faint glow touching his eyes. “As you wish.”
9
I paused just off the entrance of the Dark Room, beyond the two empty coat check rooms, and looked over the club. The main floor was lit almost entirely by candles in wall sconces and in hurricane lamps on the tables. The walls were lined with booths that were cloaked in deep shadows that could be easily penetrated by our superior night vision. Thick burgundy curtains made of heavy velvet lined the entrance to each booth, ensuring just a little more privacy for its occupants. The music was a low, hypnotic beat, burrowing its way into the brains of the dancers as they swayed and moved with it.
The Dark Room was an alluring den of seduction and peace in a world that seemed to be passing with greater speed. In here, everything stopped for those few night hours and we were able to stop pretending to be something we were not. Of course, it meant that we had to find a way to live in harmony with each other while within the confines of the bar, but even that was a temporary arrangement as Bryce’s death had proved.
It was nearly midnight and the place was busy. The dance floor in the center of the main room was packed with writhing bodies and the booths were filled with others. It seemed as if they majority of the lycanthrope and nightwalker population had showed up. I hadn’t planned to make this a performance for both races, but then an audience had never deterred me when something important had to be accomplished. And in this case, it might prove to be useful.
Tilting my head back toward my right where Knox was standing behind my shoulder, I asked, “Do you know the group that he spoke of?”
“They’re in the booth at the far corner toward the right,” he replied in a low voice so that no one could hear us over the music that was pumped through the cool air. “Do you seriously know who we’re looking for?”
“Without a doubt. I’m just not completely sure of the why at this point, but I imagine we’ll know before the night is out.”
I descended the stairs down to the main floor and strolled back to the booth that Knox had indicated. Lycans and vampires both skirted me as I passed through the crowded region. Everyone knew of Bryce’s death by now. Everyone would suspect that I was looking for the killer, and no one wanted to fall under my searching gaze.
The booth consisted of two long benches that ran parallel to each other with a low table in the middle. It was easy to figure out which one of the three women that sat in the booth was Lauren. Her short blond hair and petite figure made her a relatively close physical match to not only Katie, but also the image that I picked out of Franklin’s mind. She lifted her blue eyes when I blocked the entrance to the booth, and she didn’t at all look surprised to find me standing there with my fists on my hips.
“So, I guess it’s safe to say that Franklin failed in his task,” she announced, drawing some confused looks from her companions.
“No, he managed to kill Bryce,” I corrected.
Her bright pink lips twisted into a moue before she coolly corrected my wrong assumption. “He was supposed to kill you, too.”
Her companions gasped and started to move as far from her within the booth as possible before encountering me. I had wondered if she had worked alone or if any of her companions had helped, but their utter shock and horror was easily picked out of their respective minds. This plot was Lauren’s alone.
I shrugged my slim shoulders, frowning at her. “He nearly did, but then, I’ve survived worse. Why do it? Your life is forfeit for involving the Daylight Coalition, for attempting to kill Knox and me. Why kill Bryce and Katie? Because I wouldn’t allow her to be reborn?”
“You stupid bitch!” she exploded, all her rage suddenly rising to the surface to mar her beautiful face. “You think that’s all. If it had been simply not allowing her to be reborn, then I would still have Katie. But that wasn’t enough for you. You had to have her memory wiped as well. Bryce took her from me!” Lauren’s fingers curled into shaking fists and she raised tear-glazed eyes to me.
I was beginning to realize exactly how wrong I had been about this entire situation. Katie had not been Bryce’s lover, but Lauren’s. Unfortunately, Lauren was too young to bring a human into our world so she convinced Bryce to secretly handle it outside Justin’s knowledge.
It was common practice to wipe the memory of any human that had been denied access to our world. It was too risky to leave them walking around with knowledge of our world. In a moment of anger at being rejected, they could strike out and talk to many of the wrong people, spreading knowledge of the nightwalker and even lycanthrope world. I had never considered what would happen to someone who hadn’t that intention but truly had a connection with a nightwalker.
“I’d been with Katie since high school. He took all her memories of me. There was no getting her back. She didn’t know me! Didn’t remember us!” she moaned.
It was all gut-wrenchingly clear now. Lauren had killed Katie rather than face what she saw as a horrible eternity without her. Katie might not have recognized Lauren, but her appearance was deceivingly sweet and innocent. Katie wouldn’t have hesitated to open the door. Lauren had gone to the woman’s house
, broke her neck from behind so that she would feel no pain, then drained her completely dry so that no one else could ever have her blood. Afterward, Lauren lovingly arranged her companion on the floor as if she was simply resting. Sleeping Beauty waiting for her lover’s kiss to awaken her.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know the situation, but—” I started, but rage had finally overtaken Lauren’s grief.
“You’re sorry? You ruined our lives!” Putting one high-heeled foot on the table, Lauren pushed off the wall and launched herself at me, her fingers raised toward my face like claws. I tried to sidestep her, but hunger and fatigue had made me slow. Her nails scored four long cuts along my arm and another across my cheek before we crashed through the outer ring of tables. Still struggling, we smashed into the crowd of people on the dance floor. There was a cacophony of cries, curses, and hisses that went up at the collision, but we ignored them all as Lauren worked to regain her feet. Her eyes were locked on me.
Still lying on my back, I swung my leg around into her, knocking her back to the floor. I rose faster than her and slammed my fist into her face, breaking her jaw, before taking a step backward. Lauren howled in pain but still took another blind swipe at me with her long fingernails in hopes of drawing blood again.
Knox stepped in front of me, ready to take over the fight. To my surprise another combatant had jumped into the ring, and I hadn’t even noticed her in the nightclub. But then, that was Amanda’s special gift. She had a special way of fading into the background so that you didn’t immediately notice her there. It made her all the more dangerous.
Amanda had one fist wrapped in Lauren’s hair, pulling her head back so that the long expanse of her neck was exposed. Her right hand held Lauren’s right arm, twisting it behind her body. Hovering inches from Lauren’s throat, Amanda’s fangs were poised to tear it out if I so much as blinked my approval.
“Hold,” I said, brushing off my hands. “This is Knox’s fight.”