Fading Darkness (Bloodmarked #1) (7 page)

Fountains illuminated by LED lights sprayed
blue, and pink, and green, and other brightly colored water like rainbow
geysers going off at random. I splashed through an endless puddle and cut her
off, tripping her face first into one of the fountains. She rolled over, her
coal eyes meeting my emerald ones, and I kicked her bone white face, spraying
blood and water across the plaza.

Her leg sliced across the water and swiftly
knocked my feet out from under me. I went down on my sore back, which smarted a
little, and as she sat up, I swung my leg up over me and kicked her in the head,
sending her back down. I rolled in a quick motion to my feet, and as she got to
hers I punched her hard and swiped her feet out from under her. I came down,
knife in hand, plunging it straight into her heart.

Rising up, I noticed the charcoal sky was
turning a light shade of blue. I was so drained. The wet cold was slowly
seeping through my clothes, but all I wanted was to keep hunting. I wanted to
track down every vampire in town and deliver to them the same fate as Scott’s.
I wanted them all to pay for the bloodshed everywhere, for the all the lives
that had ever been stolen. But my body told me otherwise. My bones ached and my
muscles were fatigued, and it was going to be a long frigid walk home without
the full use of my super speed.

Plus, I had one of those stolen lives to
deal with when I returned. I knew I would have to turn myself in. It was my
fault he was dragged into this world. His family at least deserved to know that
he died, and he wasn’t just one of those missing persons on a milk carton. They
deserved to know the real truth, even though that wouldn’t make it any easier.
They could never know exactly how he died though. Humans, as a whole, couldn’t
handle
that
much truth.

†

I hiked it for miles, and when I finally
made it to the apartment I kicked off my shoes, and braced myself for the scene
I left in my bedroom, but something was off. It felt like someone had been
here. I just got that strange sense that my things had been touched as I
stepped lightly through the bathroom. The biggest clue was the fact that I
didn’t smell blood, at all. I inhaled deeply before taking the last step that
would put me in view of the bed. I stepped into the bedroom exhaling the same
breath, but it came out shaky.

A fresh wave of anger consumed me as I took
in the sight of the clean, freshly made, empty bed. It was as if the boy never
existed. I didn’t want him to become another missing person, and now, he was
missing. His family deserved to go to his funeral, to mourn his loss, and now,
they couldn’t. And I knew exactly who would have done this.

He thought he was helping, but he was going
to be hurting once I was through with him. Or maybe he was just a considerate
murderer, cleaning up after himself. He obviously has his secrets and knows
more about me than I think he knows, and whoever did this kept me alive. There were
only two vampires who have done that, and one of them was too stupid and lazy
to go through that much trouble to send me a message, which was exactly what
this was.

The exhaustion threatened to overtake me,
and I went back out to the futon, not wanting to be anywhere near the evil that
took place in the bedroom just hours earlier. I clumsily fell onto the old flat
mattress and succumbed to the sleep, thinking I had one more kill to add to my
list when I woke up.

I awoke to darkness. The days were getting
shorter, and soon I would go back to living my whole life in the dark. I
searched for my phone, knowing I didn’t bother taking it out with me last
night, mostly because I had nowhere to put it. Then, I remembered it was still
in the bedroom.

I placed both palms flat on the mattress and
pushed myself up. It felt like I weighed five times as much as usual. I was
still feeling sluggish, and my muscles ached a little. I walked toward my room
dragging my feet and bumping into a couple of walls on the way.

The moment I stepped foot in my bedroom it
hit me. Everything that happened last night came flooding back into my memory.
The image of a bloody slaying flashed into focus, a gruesome murder that went
unnoticed, unpunished.

I had to deal with this. I was still mad,
but I needed to move on because I couldn’t allow myself to get too involved
with one murder victim. I wouldn’t let myself get sucked into the grief of it.
The vengeance is what I needed to keep functioning, to keep going out every
night and ridding the world of nasty life sucking demons. Grief was a wasted
emotion, a more human emotion that was a follow-up to love lost.

I didn’t have time for those types of
emotion. I had to stick to the more primal motivators like anger and hate,
because those were the ones that made sense in my world. Those were the only tools
worth having; the other stuff would just get in the way and make me weak.

I gathered more strength from my
determination to end this and marched over to the little wooden stool with the
circle seat that served as a nightstand and snatched my phone from it.

I pivoted on my heels and turned back for
the door, passing the neatly made bed with brand new sheets and even one of
those down comforters in a deep blue shade that I would have never bothered
spending money on myself. There was even a light gray throw draped over the
corner of the bed. My only concern now was that my voice would give out in the
middle of all the yelling I was going to be doing when I saw him.

My cell phone beeped with unheard messages. It
turned out that most of them were from Clint who wanted me to work a few extra
shifts this week because he would be spending more time with his daughter who
was out of school a few days for something or another. He was pretty vague with
his reasoning, but I didn’t care either way. I just jotted down the times he
needed me before rushing out the door.

There was another message from Holly, “Hey,
biotch,” I think she avoided calling me that to my face because she thought I
might punch her. “I had an awesome time last night. We should go out more
often. I really needed it. Thanks, Luce.”

I thought about telling her how
not
awesome the night really was, but that would have benefited me more than her.
It might have been therapeutic to get it out and move on, but it would scare
the hell out of her. Nope, definitely not worth it.

I didn’t know where I was going, but I
didn’t stop moving. I was on a mission to find him, even ignoring the hunger
pains and growling noises in my stomach. I picked up my pace to a fast jog
because I still wasn’t feeling up to par and didn’t want to exert myself unless
I had to, or in other words, unless I wound up in a fight. As my breathing
increased, I could see my breath in large clouds of frosted air. It was colder
tonight, and there was talk of snow within the next week.

I rounded the corner of a downtown pub and
felt the queasy sensation instantly. It was worse with my lower energy level,
so bad I nearly double over. I had to brace myself putting my hands on my
knees.

“Hey sunshine, are we not feeling well
tonight?” I heard a rough voice come from above.

I tilted my head up to see him hovering
above me. “What can I say, disgusting vampires make me ill,” I retorted. I felt
too crappy to come up with anything wittier. I stood up, and asked, “What do
you want now, Shane?”

“Aw, do I need a reason to want to see your
beautiful face,” he said, all too sweetly with a big phony smile plastered on
his face.

“Please, save your pathetic attempts at pickup
lines for someone a little more naïve or blond,” I said, knowing his love of
blonds would make him defensive.

The only way to get answers out of him was
to turn the tables on him. He tries to gain control over conversations by
making other people uncomfortable. The only way to get what you need from him
is to take that power from him, in a sort of reverse psychological way.

“I just wanted to let you know our little
underworld is buzzing about your minor rampage last night,” he said, getting to
the point. “Word is, you took out a pretty badass vampire in town, and it has
others slightly more nervous.”

“Yeah, well, the number of them I’ve killed
doesn’t come close to the number of humans they’ve killed. So, by my count,
we’re far from even, which means they should be on edge because I’m just
getting warmed up,” I said.

As much as I knew I should be worried about
the vampires out there who want me dead, I only had one in particular that I
couldn’t get my mind off of. Shane could see the question forming on my face
and waited silently for it. “Tell me what you know about Gavin West.”

“I told you what you needed to know. He’s
trouble, and you should stay far away from him,” he said with uncommon concern,
but it didn’t feel like the concern was directed toward me.

“So I shouldn’t trust him?” I asked only to
see if I could get more information out of him. I already knew the answer.

“As much as you trust me,” he said slyly,
his eyes gleaming in the street light.

“Ha. Ha. But why is he so much stronger and
faster than most vampires?” I asked hopefully. I didn’t know why, but I really
wanted to know the answer to the question that is Gavin West. I knew he was a
vampire, which meant I had to kill him but my curiosity was at an all-time
high.

“He’s ancient. The older we are the stronger
we become.” He told me the bare minimum. I saw it on his face and heard it in
his voice. He was hiding the rest from me, but I expected that. “I didn’t come
to talk about West. I was actually hoping you might help with a few low life
vamps in my neighborhood that are encroaching on my territory, but since you
seem to be under the weather, I’ll take a rain check.”

“Why can’t you take them out yourself?” I
asked annoyed that he wanted to turn me into his little bitch, doing his dirty
work.

“Well, as you know, the vampire community is
very small, and I don’t need the kind of attention you’ve been receiving
lately. I’d rather stay under the radar. I don’t have a death wish like you,”
he pointed out.

“That’s too bad, because I’d be happy to
make that wish come true,” I said around a smile.

“Well, these half-hearted threats are-”

“-whole-hearted, and don’t forget that.”

“-getting old, so I think I’m going to go
find a bitch who actually puts out,” he sounded frustrated.

“Wow, good luck with that. I hope your
proposition mimics the suaveness of that last comment,” I said derisively.

At that, he got really pissy and stalked
off. I didn’t have time to deal with him anyway, not if he wouldn’t give up any
useful information. So Gavin was old. Really, really old. Somehow, I knew that
was only a very miniscule piece of the puzzle, one that I was more interested
in tearing apart then putting together right now. He still needed to pay for
the missing dead boy.

I didn’t have a clue how to track an ancient
vampire, but he had a tendency of showing up when I was fighting vampires,
except of course when he was redecorating my bedroom.

It made me mad all over again knowing he was
in my apartment. He knew where I lived, and I had no idea where to look for
him. Maybe he did know more about me than I did, but that just made him even
more dangerous.

The only thing I needed to know was why he
was so interested in helping me. Maybe if I had more pieces of his puzzle I
would be able to see the bigger picture. I wasn’t much for investigating. I was
more of a kill first and never have to ask questions later kind of girl, but I
was beginning to feel less like a little player in the vampire world and more
like an integral part of it.

I headed off toward the more popular bars in
the area hoping for a fight. That would get his attention. Peeling away from
the shadows, I slowed to a leisurely walking pace and stuck to the street
lights. If there were any vampires in the area, which I was counting on since
this was prime hunting ground, I was going to bait them. Whether they knew me
and wanted me dead or just wanted a midnight snack, I wanted to draw them out.
Gavin would know when I was being attacked. I hoped.

It felt strange to talk about him like I
knew him, but he had that presence about him that was like seeing an old
friend, except I didn’t consider us friends. It felt as if we went way back,
but there was no way I would have forgotten a face like that. Once again, I
bottled the onslaught of unwelcome emotions and turned them into coals to stoke
the fire that ignited last night in my bedroom. Wow, taken out of context that
might have suggested a completely different relationship between us than
enemies.

It didn’t take long before trouble found me.
I took a long and hard beating before he stepped in, even though I knew he was
there, watching the whole time. He was waiting for me to ask for his help to
prove his point that I needed it.

I had been lying on the ground getting
pummeled by the third vampire in a row after I had dismissed the first two with
my spike. This one had caught me off guard, and was currently in the middle of
making a punching bag out of my face. I got in a few weak blows and managed a
quick glance to my right where the tall silent figure stood idly by, watching.

In between punches I growled, “Point taken.”

“Really? Is there something you want to ask
me?” the voice said, coming from the dark figure in the shadows.

“No. Umph,” I said around a fist at my jaw.
“I don’t
want
to, but can I get some help here?” Through swollen eyes I
saw the figure move from the shadows with his arms crossed over his chest,
tilting his head as if he was waiting for more. Damn, he was obnoxious. I
swallowed my pride, and gritted, “…please.”

“Hmmm, that word sounds nice coming from you,
so I guess I will do you yet another favor. But after I kill him, you’re next,”
he said with barely contained anger.

With one swift movement, he hauled the vampire
up off of me, ripping his head from his body, and with one last stunned look on
his face, he burst into flames and was a puff of ash a moment later. I lied
there a few moments more, waiting for the healing to begin. It was a much
slower process lately. Slowly, I propped myself up on my elbows.

He towered over me as I lied there looking
up with slightly blurred vision into his indignant expression. “What the fuck
were you thinking?” he finally roared. “What part of my previous warnings about
dangerous vampire hunting parties did you not comprehend?”

There was a touch of what seemed like
genuine concern underneath all that anger that stirred something deep inside of
me, but I would not let that derail my own anger.

“Well, what part of me wanting vampires
dead, like
really
dead, not the undead version do you not get?” I shot
back, the fire growing hotter. “And where the hell do you get off getting
pissed at me? You’re the one who broke into my apartment and rearranged it!
You’re the one who took Scott away and disposed of him like he never existed!
His family should get to say goodbye to him properly. If I didn’t know any
better, I’d say you were the one who made that mess in the first place,” I
shouted at near breaking point.

He stood there calmly for a moment,
analyzing my little tirade then offered me a hand up. I had about enough help
from him that my humility could suffer. I ached everywhere but managed to stand
upright, my knees buckling slightly under my weight.

He gave me an irritated look before saying,
“But you do know better. Why would I kill someone to get to you, when clearly,
I could get to you directly anytime I want, and why would I then go back and
clean up after myself? It wouldn’t be very prudent of me now would it?” he said
haughtily. “So is that it? That was why you felt the urge to go out and feed
yourself to the wolves? To get to me? I couldn’t get to you in time after the
boy died, and I suspected you would do something stupid like go out alone for a
little vengeance massacre, but tonight, you’re in no shape to be fighting
anyone.”

“Says you, let’s find out,” I tested myself
knowing I was weak, but I was still so pissed off at him.

I threw the hardest hit I could manage, but
it came to an abrupt stop in his palm. I didn’t stop there. My free hand
launched toward his face, and before I noticed what was happening I was pinned
against a cold brick building, both of my curled fists smothered by his bigger
ones on either side of my head.

My breathing instantly became more ragged
and my thoughts more confused. I squirmed to break his hold, but he gripped my
hands tighter and pressed his hard body against mine. His touch had that
duality about it, gentle but firm, and he was standing so close I felt the oddly
warm
breath against my face and smelled his unusually intoxicating
scent. It rivaled some of the best brands of men’s cologne, and I caught myself
before moving in for closer examination.

I felt the heat from his body but just
assumed it had something to do with being ancient. Maybe they got warmer with
age or something. Years of avoiding the truth has made me pretty good at
rationalizing. It seemed as if truth was like fire; getting too close always
burned me.
Talk about heat.