Sam Chen grimaced. “A Palindrome turns up only about once or twice a century. We had that Irish guy.” He snapped his fingers. “What was his name?”
“Georgie Fitzgerald,” Maddox answered.
“Right. Fitzgerald. Now there was a man who liked to fight.”
“He just didn’t know when he was outnumbered.”
Sam nodded. “He just couldn’t get the concept that sometimes you run away to fight another day. The Telave got him and tore him to shreds. Took weeks to find all the pieces.”
Jesse winced. “Oh, that sounds bad.”
“And then there was the German—Siegfried something,” Maddox said. “That was before your time, Sam, around the turn of the century. He was a lumberjack and liked to take them down with an ax. He lasted about a decade.”
Even though she didn’t want to, Jesse had to ask. “What happened to him?”
Maddox shrugged. “We don’t know. He just up and left one day. Never saw him or heard about him again. Could be it just got to be too much for him. Could be the Telave got him and dismembered him like Georgie.”
Sam slugged down his beer. “Even though we can live a long time, our days are still numbered,” he added. “You just don’t know which day is going to be your last.”
Jesse looked at her empty glass. They sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.
Bad news reappeared, striding out of the men’s room. Stopping at the bar to get a refill, Reyen paused briefly to chat with a few of the bikers before making his way back to the booth.
Jesse glanced at him warily, hoping he hadn’t come back to stir up more trouble. Earlier he’d seemed determined to pick a fight.
“I feel better,” Reyen announced, sliding back into his place. A new sense of calm hovered around him, taking the edge off his disagreeable personality.
“You should piss more often,” Maddox cracked. “It makes you tolerable.”
Reyen grinned. He was missing a few teeth on the bottom, and the gap only added to his mirthless smile. “We should refight the French and Indian War,” he suggested. “This time around I’ll kick your little frog-snacking ass.”
“That’s how they met,” Sam Chen informed her.
“We were on the same side. Remember?” Maddox prodded his friend. “We were fighting the British.”
Reyen’s grin disappeared. “Oh, the redcoats . . . Right,” he said, sipping his brew. “I’d forgotten.”
Jesse fought to suppress her smirk. She suspected this sort of banter went on among the three of them all the time.
If you can’t laugh
, she thought,
you’ll cry
.
She was tired of the tears.
A pang deep in her chest reminded her how alone she really was in this world. The one thing she wanted most of all was acceptance. It might seem a little cockeyed for one of the demon-infected to be hanging out with the slayers. But right now it was the only game in town.
She sure as hell wasn’t interested in joining the Telave side.
Reyen shot her a look. His features were guarded, his eyes intense in their perusal. His gaze was narrowed on her as if she were a hardship he had to force himself to accept. “You find something funny?”
Jesse wiped her smirk away. She had a feeling Reyen was just aching to pick a fight with her. She might as well get it over with. “Aside from the way you look?” she cracked. “No.”
“You ain’t as cute as you think you are, demon-girl.” Draining half his brew, the Indian wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve been thinking, and I’m curious to know just how much of a soul you really have left.”
Maddox immediately stiffened. “Reyen—don’t,” he warned.
Ignoring him, Reyen dipped into the breast pocket of his flak jacket. Jesse saw a small silver cross dangling from a long string of beads. At the same time, a sound of despair and rage echoed through her mind. The demon delivered a blinding mental blow that threatened to shut down her vision.
Her head whipped to the side, and a gasp tore from her lips. Her hands flew up to cover her eyes. “Damn.”
Reyen gave a nasty laugh. “I knew it. That thing’s got control.”
Confused by the demon’s reaction, Jesse lowered her hands. It had given her fits before, but she’d always been able to quell the beast. It was getting harder, though, especially since Maddox so recently had offered the temptation of a taste. “That’s not true,” she protested. “I’ve worn a cross before.”
Maddox looked at the rosary draped across Reyen’s fingers. “It’s not the shape of the cross itself, but the fact it’s fashioned out of consecrated silver. There’s a big difference. Believe me. Any vampire can recognize it, too.”
Jesse’s heart skipped a beat in her chest. Now she understood the uneasy feelings she had around these men. It wasn’t nerves or her imagination after all. The demon inside her sensed the presence of something it recognized as a threat to its survival.
“I can handle it,” she said firmly. “I’m the one in control. I make the decisions.” To prove her point, she reached for the rosary. Her fingers curled into a clawlike shape as her hand neared the sacred thing.
“See,” Reyen goaded. “The demon inside calls the shots.”
His words angered her.
We’ll see about that
.
Gritting her teeth, Jesse forced the digits to straighten. It felt as if she were forcing her hand to penetrate some thick, viscous fluid that was preventing the limb from moving. Though she could feel the demon within thrashing, she forced herself to ignore it.
Her fingers closed around the small ornament. The silver instantly warmed. As the heat penetrated her skin, she felt the demon’s flare of agony.
Pulling in a sudden breath, she forced herself not to fling the rosary away. “I won’t,” she grated. “My will is stronger.”
And just like that, she felt the demon retreat.
The cross pressed against her palm suddenly cooled. She opened her hand. “I told you I control it.” Her voice shook more than a little. “It doesn’t like it, but it has no choice.” For the time being she could take the heat.
“Holy shit,” Sam Chen murmured. “That was fucking awesome.”
She let the rosary slip from her fingers. Though she felt she’d proven her point, it was almost a relief to let it go. “Guess you’ll be wanting this back,” she said. “To, you know, keep the bad demon-girl from spooking your big scared self.”
Maddox claimed the rosary, tucking it away. “I’d appreciate it if you’d quit picking my pockets.”
Lacing his thick fingers together, Reyen cracked his knuckles. “Just practicing, man.”
“A true demon can sense these things,” Sam Chen said. “They’ll go right around you if they know you’re packing that kind of heat, mostly because they don’t want to mess with the hard targets.”
Jesse nodded. “I suppose that makes sense.” She thought back on past times, realizing why some people or places had given her the heebie-jeebies. These were the ones who would be spared as the threat of the Telave spread. Amid the darkness to come, perhaps people would stand a chance. That she could hold a blessed silver object without damage reassured her that she wasn’t entirely lost.
A deep frown darkened Reyen’s features. “There’s no sense in the undead.” He turned his unblinking gaze straight at Jesse. “They’re an abomination.”
Jesse was tired of his insults, all of which had been aimed her way since she’d walked into the bar. “I still have my soul, and I’m the one in control,” she said, making sure she spoke clearly and steadily.
“Actually, I’m inclined to believe her,” Sam Chen added. “Consanguines might look like the person whose body they inhabit, but they seem to retain very few of the individual’s memories or personality.”
Jesse felt her blood go cold. The question she’d repeatedly asked herself had an answer. “What’s a Consanguine?”
Sam Chen cocked a knowing brow. “To understand that, you have to have a grasp of the vampire hierarchy. Needless to say, it’s a complicated one. Highly ritualized and rigidly controlled. You already know it takes more than a few bites to become infected.”
She grimaced. “I try not to think about that part.”
Maddox frowned but said nothing. He was clearly resigned to her genuinely wanting to know what they were up against.
Sam took up where he’d left off. “Leading the collective are the Monarchs, the so-called crowned heads who rule over all vampires. As for their origins, that is kind of murky. The common belief is the Monarchs are an ancient race, those who were cast out of heaven and fell to Earth. Their years span not mere centuries, but millennia. It’s the blood of these foul angels that is supposed to have given birth to the demonic plague.”
Sam’s dark brown gaze collided with hers. “Surrounding the Monarch are the Consanguines
.
These are demons old enough to have gained enough experience to form an identity. They pretty much have the ability to move among the human race virtually undetected.”
Jesse’s breath caught. By now her heart was pounding so fiercely, she couldn’t think. “Which might explain why Amanda and I were so easily taken in by the guys who picked us up. They looked and acted normal.”
“Right.”
“So is there a way to find and kill this Monarch? It seems to me if you want to kill a hive, you go after the queen.”
Reyen snorted in a rude and obvious manner. “Don’t you think we’re trying to do that?” he snapped. “We haven’t exactly been sitting around twiddling our thumbs, waiting for you to come and state the obvious.”
Maddox immediately laid a protective hand on her shoulder. His touch immediately scorched her skin. “Lay off, Reyen. I remember a time when you and I didn’t know what the hell was going on, either. And what about Sam? You think he came into this knowing everything?”
Eyes going narrow, Reyen glowered. “I would’ve thought that demon inside you told you all you needed to know,” he prodded in a nasty tone. “Maddox told us it whispered things in your mind.” Making sure she noticed his move, he fingered the hilt of his knife. “How do we know it isn’t going to whisper ways for you to take us out when we’re not looking?”
Clenching her fists in her lap, she silently reminded herself to maintain control. There was no reason to let Reyen push her into blowing her cool. Stoop to his level and he wouldn’t hesitate to crush her.
“I wouldn’t have been in that cemetery last night if I was on their side.” She made it a point to keep her voice low and even.
A ridge of muscle tightened Reyen’s jaw. His lower lip jutted out, giving him the look of an obstinate mule. His body looked rock hard, every tendon locked into place. He’d already made up his mind, and nothing was going to change it.
“That might have been a ruse,” he accused. “Something to throw us off the scent. It seems a little odd for you to turn up just when the Monarchs are beginning to expand their territories. The only thing standing between them and the humans is us. If we fall, there’s no one to take our place.”
Jesse’s pulse started to pound. Irritation twisted inside her. No matter what she said, he didn’t seem willing to believe her. Talking to the Indian was like butting her head against a concrete wall. It would accomplish nothing, and all she’d get for her trouble was one big headache.
Now was not the time to go into what exactly she might be and whose side she was on. She suspected mere words wouldn’t sway Reyen, anyway. She was going to have to prove herself worthy by standing against the Telave.
The words popped out of her mouth before she could stop them. “So let’s go kill a vampire.”
Chapter 8
L
ooking around, Jesse rubbed her hands together to stave off the chill winding its way around her spine. There hadn’t really been any time to think or plan the coming attack.
I’m actually going to be a part of this
, she thought.
But thinking about killing a vampire and actually doing it were two different things.
Gathering her nerve, she squared her shoulders. She knew Reyen was expecting her to freak out, at the very least. He’d already made several disparaging remarks about her abilities as they departed Big Mike’s. He called her demon-girl and mosquito-ass, plus a whole other slew of put-downs she didn’t care to remember.
Her jaw tightened.
I won’t flake or freeze
, she promised herself. If she wanted to be a part of the team, she had to prove she could hold her own.
The French Quarter transformed at the stroke of midnight, somehow changing from a popular tourist destination into a whole other world populated by things that went bump in the night.
Although such things weren’t that obvious or easy to find by day, Jesse was astonished by the occult-themed businesses that rapidly sprang to life once the night began its descent toward dawn. It was almost as if the old buildings populating the region peeled away the masks they wore by day to reveal an entirely different—and blacker—façade. A store selling common tourist items by day abruptly morphed into a voodoo shop peddling spells and other charms. Another might offer a tarot or palm reading to passersby. But the most astonishing transformation took place in some of the bars.
By day, many catered to regular tourists and locals. Around midnight, some of them changed—and not for the better. Average-looking people were fewer and farther between as a new breed of night crawlers hit the streets. Their looks ranged from men in long medieval-style frock coats to women corseted in tight-fitting bondage-style gear. Some were dressed moderately; others were extreme to the nth degree. Their faces were pale, deathly white. The irises of their eyes were also white. More than a few sported elaborate sets of fangs. They drifted toward the underground clubs like lemmings drawn toward the cliffs, that strange brew of humans who actually believed in—and wanted to become—vampires.
To widen the net, Reyen, Sam Chen, and Maddox had split up. Each man had taken a different tactic for cruising the street. Reyen hated to be on foot, so he’d taken to his motorcycle, riding his massive Harley. He gunned his engine as people tried to cross the street around him, sometimes grazing some of the more extreme-looking Goths.