Dates From Hell (18 page)

LYNSAY SANDS

LYNSAY SANDS
is the national bestselling author of the popular Argeneau vampire series, including
A Quick Bite.
Known for her humorous edge, Lynsay delights fans everywhere with stories of the unexpected.

Visit her official website at
www.lynsaysands.net
.

C
HAOTIC

Kelley Armstrong

For Alexander and Marcus,
who keep my life “chaotic”
but in a good way.

1

“S
o what kind of stories do you cover?” he
asked, bathing my face in champagne fumes. “Bat Boy Goes to College? Elvis Shrine Found on Mars?” He laughed without waiting for me to answer. “God, I can’t believe people actually buy those rags. Obviously, they must, or you wouldn’t have a job.”

My standard line flew to my lips, something about tabloids functioning as a source of entertainment, not news, quirky pieces of fiction that people could read and chuckle over before facing the horrors of the daily paper. I choked it back and forced myself to smile up at him.

“I did a Hell Spawn feature once,” I said, as brightly as I could manage. “That’s
True News
’s version of Bat Boy. I covered his graduation from kindergarten. He was so cute with a little mortarboard perched on his horns…”

I crossed my fingers under my cocktail napkin and prayed for “the look,” the curl of the lip, the widening of the eyes as they frantically searched for an escape. Escape would be
so
easy—a crowded museum gala, everyone in evening wear—come on, Douglas, just excuse yourself to use the bathroom and conveniently forget where you left me…

He threw back his head and laughed. “Hell Spawn’s kindergarten graduation? Now that’s a fun job. You know what the highlight of my workweek is? Nine holes of golf with the other AVPs.”

See, now that was the problem with guys like Douglas—they weren’t evil. Boring, boorish and borderline obnoxious, but not so awful that you could justify abandoning them. So you were stuck hoping they’d be the ones to declare the date a dud, and beg off early.

Dinner had been a mistake. I should have insisted we meet here, at the party, so if things didn’t go well, we’d have only been sentenced to a couple hours of each other’s company. But he invited me to dinner first, and even as I’d been thinking
No!
my mouth had done the right thing, the polite thing, and said, “Sure, dinner would be great.”

I’d spent forty-five minutes at the table by myself, fending off sympathetic “you’ve been stood up” looks from the servers and watching my salad wither on the plate. Then Douglas had arrived…and I’d spent the next hour listening to him complain about the cause of his lateness, some corporate calamity too complex for my layperson’s brain to comprehend. It wasn’t until we were here at the opening of the museum’s new wing that he’d even gotten around to asking what
I
did for a living.

“So what’s the weirdest story you’ve ever covered?” he asked.

I laughed. “Oh, there would be plenty of contenders for that one. Just last week I had this UFO—”

“What about celebrities?” he cut in. “Tabloids cover that, right? Celebrity gossip? What’s the best one of
those
stories you’ve done?”

“Ummm, none.
True News
includes some celebrity stories, but I’m strictly the ‘weird tales’ girl, mainly paranormal, although—”

“Paranormal? Like ghosts?” Again, he didn’t wait for me to answer. “Our frat house was supposed to be haunted. Frederick and I—your brother-in-law and I were frat brothers, but I guess your mother told you that. Anyway, one night…”

My poor mother. Reduced to canvassing my sister’s husband’s college buddies for potential mates for her youngest child. She’d long since gone through every eligible bachelor she knew personally.

“I don’t need you to find me dates, Mom,” I said the last time, as I’d said the hundred times before. “I’m not so bad at it myself.”

“Dates, yes. Relationships, no. I swear, Hope, you go out of your way to find men you wouldn’t want to know for more than a weekend. Yes, I know, you’re only twenty-six, hardly an old maid, and I’m not saying you need to settle down, but you could really use some stability in your life, dear. I know you’ve had a rough go of it…”

What do you expect?
I wanted to say sometimes.
You gave me a demon for a dad.
Of course, that wasn’t fair. Mom didn’t know what my father was. I’d been born nine months after my parents separated, and grown up assuming, like everyone else, that I was my father’s “parting shot” before he’d run off with his nurse.

Only at eighteen had I begun to suspect otherwise, when I’d realized that my feelings of being “different” were more than adolescent alienation.

Douglas finished his haunted frat house story, then asked, “So what kind of education does a tabloid writer need? Obviously you don’t go to journalism school for that.”

“Actually, I did.”

He had the grace to flush. “Oh, uh…but you wouldn’t need to, right? I mean, it’s not real reporting or anything.”

I searched his face for some sign of condescension. None. He was a jerk, but not a malicious one. Damn. Another excuse lost. I had a half-dozen girlfriends who wouldn’t need a justification for ending this date early, who’d just cut and run. So why couldn’t I? I was half-demon, for God’s sake. I could be as nasty as I wanted.

I scanned the room. The gala was being held in the reception hall, which was also—as discreet signs everywhere reminded us—available for weddings, parties and corporate events. A jazz trio played in the corner beside a portable parquet dance floor that was small enough to be a solo stage, as if the organizers acknowledged this wasn’t a dancing crowd, but felt obligated to provide something. Most of the guests were big business, so the main event here was schmoozing, fostering contacts while basking in the feel-good glow of supporting the arts. Large-scale artifact replicas, such as statues and urns, dotted the room, reminding guests where they were and why…although the pieces seemed to be getting more use as coatracks and leaning posts.

“The buffet table looks amazing,” I said. “Is that poached salmon?”

“Wild, I hope, but you can’t be too careful these days. I had dinner with a client last week, and he’d been to a five-star restaurant in New York the week before, and they’d served farm-fed salmon. Do people just not read the papers? You might as well eat puffer fish, which reminds me of the time I was in Tokyo—”

“Hold that thought,” I said. “I’m going to grab something and scoot back.”

I bolted before he could stop me.

As I crossed the floor to the buffet, I was keenly aware of eyes turning my way. A wonderful feeling for a woman…if those eyes are sweeping over her in admiration and envy, not glued to her dress in “what the hell is she wearing?” bemusement.

It was the dress’s fault. It had screamed to me from across the store, a canary yellow beacon in the rack of blacks and olive greens and navy blues. A ray of sunshine in the night. That’s how I’d pictured myself in it, cutting a swath through the darkness in my slinky bright yellow dress. Ray of sunshine? I looked like a banana in heels.

Sadly, it wasn’t my first fashion disaster. The truly sad part was that I had no excuse for my lack of dress sense. My mother routinely showed up on the local society papers as a shining example of the well-bred and well-dressed. My sister had paid her way through law school by modeling. Even my brothers had both made the annual “best dressed bachelor” lists before their marriages disqualified them. It didn’t matter. My whole family could have accompanied me to that store, told me—yet again—that yellow was the worst color anyone with dark hair and a dark complexion could choose, and I’d still have walked out with this dress, blinded by my sun-bright delusions.

At least I hadn’t spilled anything on it. I paused mid-stride, and looked down at myself. Nope, nothing spilled yet, and as long as I stuck to white wine and sauce-free food, I’d be fine.

I picked up a plate and surveyed the table. A roast duck centerpiece surrounded by poached salmon, marinated prawns on ice, chocolate-covered strawberries…I wasn’t hungry, but there’s always room for chocolate-covered strawberries. As I reached for one, my vision clouded.

Oh God. Not now.

I tried to force the vision back, concentrate on the present, the buffet table, the smell of perfume circling the room, the soft jazz notes floating past, focus on that, keep myself grounded in the—

Everything went dark. Images, smells, and sounds flickered past, hard and fast, like physical blows. A forest—the shriek of an owl—the loamy smell of wet earth—the thunder of running paws—a flash of black fur—a snarl—teeth flashing—the sharp taste of—

I ricocheted from my vision so fast I had to grab the edge of the table to steady myself. I swallowed and tasted blood, as if I’d bitten my tongue.

A deep breath, then I opened my eyes. There, in the center of the table, wasn’t a roast duck, but a newly dead one, ripped apart, bloodied feathers scattered over the ice and prawns and poached salmon, steaming entrails spilling out on the white tablecloth.

I wheeled, smacked into a man standing behind me, and knocked the plate from his hands. I dove to grab it, but my charm bracelet snagged on his sleeve, and I nearly yanked him down with me. The plate hit the floor, shards of china flying in every direction.

“Oh, I’m
so
sorry,” I said.

A soft chuckle. “Quite all right. I’m better off without the added cholesterol. My doctor will thank you.”

I fumbled to extricate his sleeve from my bracelet. He reached down, hand brushing mine, and with a deft twist, set us free.

As he did, I got my first glimpse of him, and inwardly groaned. If I had to make a fool of myself, it would be in front of someone like this, who looked as if he’d never made a fool of himself in his life. Tall, dark, and handsome, he was elegance personified, marred only by a slight hawkish cast to his face. Every response to my stammered apologies was witty and charming. Every move as we untangled was fluid and graceful. The kind of guy you expected to speak with a crisp, British accent and order his martinis shaken, not stirred.

As a bevy of serving staff rushed in to clean up, I apologized one last time, and he smiled, his last reassurance as sincere as his first, but his gaze grown distant, as if he’d mentally already moved on and, in five minutes, would forget me altogether…which, under the circumstances, I didn’t mind at all.

As I walked back to Douglas, the working Big Ben replica clock in the middle of the room chimed the hour. Ten o’clock? Already? No, that made sense—with Douglas being almost an hour late for dinner, we hadn’t arrived at the gala until past nine.

I hurried over to him. “There’s a—”

He cut me short with a discreet nod toward my bodice.

“You have a spot,” he whispered.

I looked down to see a dime-sized blob of marinara sauce beside my left breast. Fallout from the buffet table debacle. Naturally. If food flew, I’d catch some, and in the worst possible place.

I thanked him and tried to blot it with my napkin. It grew from a dime to a quarter, and I stretched my purse strap to cover it.

“I was going to say there’s a special behind-the-scenes tour of the new exhibit starting now,” I said. “I’d love to see it, and it would be a great way to meet people, mingle…”…
save me from another two hours of your corporate war stories.

“Speaking of mingling, did you see who’s here?” He directed my attention to a group of middle-aged couples wedged between a bronze urn and a terracotta bull.

“Robert Baird,” he whispered reverently.

He paused, as if waiting for me to drop and touch my forehead to the floor.

“CEO of Baird Enterprises?” he said.

“Oh, well, if you know him, I guess we could—”

“I don’t, but I’m sure you do…not directly maybe, but his wife and your mother both serve on the Ryerson Foundation board, and—”

“You thought I could introduce you.”

“You would? Thanks, Hope. You’re a gem.”

“Sure, right after the tour—”

Too late. He was already heading for the Bairds. I sighed, adjusted my purse strap, and followed.

2

T
hirty minutes later, the tour was over, the
attendees were returning, gushing over the new exhibit…and I was still stuck with Douglas and the Bairds. Now that I’d won him an audience, he wasn’t leaving until they did.

I began to wonder whether he’d notice if I left. Maybe I could slip away, conduct a little self-guided tour…

Douglas put his arm around my waist and leaned into me, as if to take some of the weight off his feet. I bit back a growl of frustration, fixed on my best “gosh, this is all so interesting” smile, and did what I’m sure every other significant other in the group had done an hour ago: turned off and tuned out.

While every other partner’s mind slid to mundanities like juggling the children’s schedules, planning next weekend’s dinner party, or contemplating the report he or she had to write for work, mine went straight to the dark realm of human suffering, evil, and chaos. I can’t help it. The moment I let my mind wander, it turns into a dedicated chaos receiver, picking up every nearby trouble frequency.

Unlike the buffet table vision, these weren’t mental blackouts. More like semi-dozing, that state right before sleep where you’re still conscious, but the dream world starts to encroach on reality. The first thing I saw was a woman sitting at Mrs. Baird’s feet, her knees pulled up under her party dress, her makeup running, her shoulders heaving with silent sobs.

As the apparition vanished, I felt my gaze slide to the left, and I knew somewhere down a hall, I’d find a woman, huddled and sobbing in some quiet place. Maybe someone had called with bad news, or maybe she’d seen her husband’s hand snake onto another woman’s thigh. I never knew the causes, only the outcomes.

“Tonight,” a man’s voice hissed at my ear. “He had to do it tonight, while the offices are empty.”

I didn’t bother looking beside me. Instead I let my subconscious draw my attention across the room to two men near the door. One was shaking his head. The other’s face was taut as he talked quickly.

The voices faded, and others took their place—angry words, accusations, whimpers, sobs, a Babel of voices joined in the common tongue of chaos. Images flashed, superimposed on reality, burning themselves onto my retinas, an unending parade of chaos in every conceivable form, from grief to rage to sorrow to jealousy to hate. I saw, heard, felt, experienced it all. And the worst of it? Even as my brain rebelled, throwing up every proper reaction: horror, sympathy, and anger, my soul drank it in like the finest champagne, reveling in the sweet taste and the bubbles popping against my tongue and the delicious caress of giddy light-headedness.

Every half-demon has a power, inherited from his or her father. Some can create fire, some can change the weather, some can even move objects with their minds.
This
was mine.

For six years, I’d struggled with my growing “power,” this innate radar for chaos, this thirst for it. I’d fought like the most self-aware junkie, knowing my addiction would destroy me, but unable to stop chasing it. Years of dark moods, dark days, and darker thoughts. Then…salvation.

Through my growing network of half-demon contacts, someone had found me, someone who could help. I wouldn’t say I was surprised. For community support, you can’t beat the supernatural world. Most races had formed core groups centuries ago, like the witch Covens, werewolf Packs, sorcerer Cabals…When you live in a world that doesn’t know you exist, and it seems best to keep it that way, community is a must, for everything from training to medical care.

Half-demons are often considered the least “communal” of the races, but I’d argue the opposite. We may not have a core group or hold meetings or police our own, but the half-demon regional communities encompass everyone in that region, which is more than I can say for the others. Because we lack the family support of the hereditary races, half-demons are always on the lookout for others, and once you’re found, a world of support opens up to you. So, when a local half-demon I knew only through a mutual acquaintance called me, I wasn’t surprised. And when she asked me to meet with someone who might be able to help me hone and control my powers, I didn’t say no.

The meeting had been scheduled for lunch, at a sidewalk café, someplace public and private at the same time, which reassured me from the start. I’d arrived to find just one person at the table, a slight, fair-haired man in his thirties, dressed business casual, like everyone else in the restaurant. Handsome, in a delicate way, well-mannered, with an easy smile and warm brown eyes, Tristan Robard had put me at ease from that first handshake. We’d ordered a pitcher of sangria, chatted about local events, and spent the first half of the meal getting a sense of each other. Then, halfway through lunch, he’d looked up from his salad, met my gaze and said,

“Have you ever heard of the interracial council?”

When I hesitated, he laughed. “They really need a better name, don’t they? The Sumerian Council, the Grand Guild, or something like that. That’s the problem with trying to be understated…if you don’t give yourself a fancy name, no one remembers who the heck you are. Get a good name, a clever slogan, a nice logo—” He grinned. “Then people would remember who you are and, more importantly, remember you when they need you.”

“Is that…It’s the delegates council, isn’t it? The heads of the various supernatural races—the American ones, at least…”

“Exactly. Do you know what the council does?”

I made a face. “Sorry, only the vaguest idea, I’m afraid.” I smiled. “Like you said, they need a better marketing plan. They’re supposed to help supernaturals, right? General policing, resolving conflicts between groups…”

“Protect and serve, that’s the council’s motto…or it would be, if they had one. The problem is that, for about twenty years, they’ve been slipping so far under the radar that no one knows they’re there, so no one reports problems. They’re trying to fix that now, and step one is broadening their reach. Recruiting, so to speak.”

“New delegates, you mean?”

He laughed. “No, those positions are filled, and far loftier than you or I can aspire to…for now, at least. What they’re doing instead is creating a network of ‘eyes on the ground,’ supernaturals willing to join the payroll, look for trouble and, eventually, help them solve it.”

My hand clenched around my napkin as I struggled to keep my face neutral. Help look for trouble? Was there anyone better suited for such a task? If I could help—use my power for good—Oh, God, please…

I don’t think I breathed for that next minute, waiting for him to go on.

“In particular, they want people in careers suited to troubleshooting, like law enforcement officers, social workers, or—” He met my gaze and smiled. “Journalists. And the ideal candidate would be someone not only with a suitable job, but from a race that could prove equally useful, werewolves or vampires for their tracking skills or, maybe”—his smile grew to a grin—“a half-demon with a nose for trouble.”

“You mean…” The words jammed in my throat.

“On behalf of the council, Hope, I’d like to offer you a job.”

And so it began. With Tristan as my contact, I’d been working for the council for eighteen months now. I hadn’t been fortunate enough to meet the delegates to thank them personally, but in the meantime, I thanked them with every job I did, putting my all into each task they assigned me, however simple.

Tristan had gotten me the job at
True News.
Not exactly a prestigious position for an up-and-coming journalist, but I knew it would help the council and that was more important than my professional ego. Tabloids
do
stumble on the truth now and then, and it’s usually trouble: a careless vampire, an angry half-demon, a power-hungry sorcerer. As Tristan had taught me, my powers were particularly honed for supernatural trouble. So I used my job at the paper to sniff it out.

I was good at my job. Damn good. So after the first year, the council had expanded my duties to cover bounty hunting. Supernaturals who cause trouble often flee. With the right cues, I could find supernaturals even when they
weren’t
creating chaos. If they came near my part of the country, I could sniff out the guilty party, then call in the cavalry.

For this, the council paid me, and paid me well, but the best part wasn’t the money; it was the guilt-free excuse to quench my thirst for chaos. To help the council, I needed to hone my powers, and to do that, I had to practice. I had a long way to go—I still picked up random visions like that silly one with the duck, who’d probably seen his mother ripped apart by a dog or some such nonsense. But I was improving, and while I was, I had every excuse to indulge in the chaos around me.

So when my mind wandered during the conversation, that’s exactly what I did—practiced. I concentrated on picking out specific audio threads and visual images, pulling them to the forefront and holding them there when they threatened to fade behind stronger signals.

The one I was working on was a very mundane marital spat, a couple trading hissed volleys of “you never listen to me” and “why do you always do this?” The kind of fights every relationship falls into in times of stress…or so my siblings and friends told me—relationships, as my mother pointed out, are not my forte. There’s too much in my life I can’t share, so I concentrate on friends, family, work, and my job with the council, and try to forget what I’m missing. When I hear stuff like this meaningless bickering, ruining what should have been a romantic night together, I’m not convinced that I’m missing anything.

The very banality of the fight made it a perfect practice target. Even at a social function like this, there were a half-dozen stronger sources of chaos happening simultaneously, and my mind kept trying to lead me astray, like a puppy straining on the leash in a new park.

Keeping my focus on the bickering couple was a struggle and—

“You aren’t supposed to be back here, sir,” said a gruff voice in my ear. “This area is off-limits to guests.”

I mentally waved the voice aside like a buzzing mosquito. Back to the couple. The husband was bitching about the wife ordering fish for dinner when she knew he hated the smell of it.

“Which is why I had it when we were out,” she snapped. “So I don’t stink up the kitchen cooking it and—”

“What the—?”

The same gruff voice, now shrill with alarm. My head shot up, pulse accelerating, body tense with anticipation, as if my mental hound had just caught the scent of fresh T-bone steak.

“No! Please—!”

The plea slid into a wordless scream. One syllable, one split second, then the scream was cut short, and I was left hanging there, straining for more—

I whipped my thoughts back and turned to pinpoint the source of the chaos. Another jolt, this one too dark, too strong even for me, like that last gulp of champagne when you’ve already had too much and your stomach lurches in rebellion, the sweetness turning acid-sour.

“Hope?” Douglas’s hand slipped from my waist, and he leaned toward my ear to whisper, “Are you okay?”

“Bathroom,” I managed. “The champagne.”

“Here, let me take you—”

I brushed him off with a smile. Then I made my way across the room, my legs shaking, hoping I wasn’t staggering. By the time I reached the hall, the shock of that mental jolt had been replaced with an oddly calm curiosity.

A few more steps, and I began to wonder whether I’d been picking up a “chaos-memory.” I often sensed strong residual vibes from events long past, like that dead buffet duck. I’m working on learning to distinguish residuals from current sources, but I’m always second-guessing myself.

I arrived at the end of the hall, where it split into two. To the right I could detect traces of the source that had bitch-slapped me. But I also caught another, fresher source of trouble to the left.

My attention naturally swung left. The chaos-puppy again, far more interested in that squirrel gamboling in plain sight than an old rabbit trail. I gave in to the impulse, already ninety percent convinced that whatever I’d felt had been a chaos-memory.